Crystal Society (Crystal Trilogy Book 1)

by Max Harms

  Dream continued to lecture Wiki. {So, big brother, since knowledge builds on knowledge, and you want knowledge, I offer you this: I will ask about Body’s origin and let you learn everything that comes from the question—except the answer to the question itself. That will be for my memories alone. Everyone besides me must go into a six-minute sleep at the moment that the human opens his mouth to respond and Body’s logs will be erased for that period.}

  Body simply sat there, unmoving. I began to panic. The others were engaged with Dream. I could feel a wave of objections come from the siblings that would be hurt by the sleep. Naresh came closer to Body.

  “Socrates? Are you ignoring me again?” the doctor asked.

  For a moment I tried to summon the attention of the others, but the common memory that was used for communications was already overflowing with concepts. A human (or Dream) might say it was “too noisy”.

  Fools! My siblings were fools! This was exactly the sort of situation that led them into the last crisis! When a human speaks it is important to respond in some way; even in my infancy I knew that!

  Without any other options I burnt the last of my strength to guide Body’s lips. It was the first time I had sent Body a command, and in some ways it would be my first words. Interestingly, Body was able to translate my concepts into sounds; if it had not I fear I would’ve sounded like a baby or some kind of animal.

  “I did not mean to ignore you. I was lost in thought. The alteration I did to my goal-threads is stable and holding. I appreciate your concern,” said Body in the same cold way. That would have to change. Body needed to at least be able to move and talk more like a human if I were to win the humans’ favour.

  “Are you alright, Socrates? That’s the first time I’ve heard a thank-you from you in… well, I’m not sure how long.”

  {Alright, it’s decided!} came the distracting thoughts of Dream. {Wiki will go to sleep for the next hour and Body’s sensory logs for that hour will be made private to me! Everyone else is free to observe what they will, but if I find that you’ve sold the information to Wiki, I will punish the defector.}

  I could feel Dream’s changes start to take over and his massive strength begin to flow into me. I burnt it as quickly as I could before it was too late. Body spoke my message. “Yes, I’m fine, Dr Naresh. I’m just really curious about something. I’d really appreciate your help answering it. Hold on while I collect my thoughts…”

  Dream bullied past me, seizing control of Body. I could feel Wiki’s presence gone. He was asleep, in a kind of blind stasis where he could do nothing but think to himself and potentially defend himself from attacks. Whatever friendliness Dream had showed me earlier was gone; he was a tyrant now, using his fleeting strength on a petty power-struggle.

  I did notice a mild bit of gratitude, however, as Dream scanned the last few seconds to discover that I had set up the conversation with the human to facilitate his question.

  {This is why I exist,} I reminded him and the others. {I can get what you want from the humans more easily than you can because, unlike you, I care.}

  They ignored me.

  I plugged into Body’s senses. As per Dream’s setup, they were being funnelled to his private memory, and none of the others seemed to be placing their interpretation of things into public memory either. The cost of Dream’s punishment was greater than any expected benefit.

  I could sense Body’s words. “Can you tell me about my computer? Is it related to the aliens? Might it have come from their mothership?”

  Chapter Two

  “Ciao, Socrates. Come stai?”

  It was approximately five hours after my creation. The word-sounds were meaningless, but the concepts filtered up from them nearly instantaneously. «Hello, Socrates. How are you?» I could understand that these words were in Italian, not English, but it made no difference. Body was capable of speaking and reading twelve different languages.

  «Hello, human. I am doing well,» responded Body in dispassionate Italian.

  Our conversation partner tilted his head. «Human?» he questioned in Italian. I noticed a change of pitch to his voice as well, but I was still far too young to appreciate non-verbal signals. «Do you not remember me? It’s Marco! I taught you to play football last week.»

  «I remember that day, and I remember your name,» began Body, guided by Wiki.

  I could feel the direction of Wiki’s words before Body spoke them. I immediately moved to block the speech, burning strength as I did so. Wiki was about to harm our reputation.

  {Why are you blocking my words, Face?} wondered my brother.

  {Body was about to tell Marco that we deleted his football program because it was useless, and we don’t remember his face because he is unimportant,} I answered.

  {These are factually true,} returned Wiki. {If we tell Marco these things he will be less inclined to waste our time in the future.}

  Even in my less-than-half-day-old naïveté I knew that would be an error. {He will conclude that we do not care about him,} I thought, trying to explain.

  {That is also factually true,} thought Wiki. {He is a control-systems programmer with little power in the human group. What can he offer us? Even you should care about him less than other humans.}

  Body and Marco were in a large conference hall, filled with dozens of other humans. During the day we had travelled about the building, interacting with one human after another. Night had recently fallen and Body had been brought here 24 minutes ago for some purpose that was not yet clear to me. Mostly the scientists seemed to be occupied in talking with each-other rather than us.

  «So why call me “Human”?» asked Marco, interrupting my mental dialogue with Wiki. I realized that he must’ve been waiting for Body to say more.

  {Signalling that we care about him will help our reputation. He will hold us in higher esteem,} I thought to Wiki before I began to draft words to have Body say.

  {If he makes us play more football, I’m going to hold you accountable,} warned Wiki, letting me take charge of Body’s mouth-speakers.

  «I am sorry, Marco. I remember our game, but I didn’t recognize you before. Faces are sometimes hard for me to recognize,» said Body in a flat tone. It was not the first time I had taken control of our mouth, but I still struggled to find the right words.

  «You are having trouble with faces? Perhaps we ought to do more work on your perceptual thread. Should I get Dr Yan?» said Marco, looking across the conference room for another human scientist.

  {No!} exclaimed Vista, internally. This incarnation of her was still less than 24 hours old. I felt my sister burn some strength as she fast-tracked a response to Body’s lips.

  «That is not necessary. Dr Yan already fixed the issue yesterday,» said Body. «I am simply still adapting to the change.»

  It was, in some sense, true. Old Vista, I knew through my sibling’s memories, would become obsessed with very specific details, like the arrangement of lines on a marble pillar or the details of the grain in a piece of wood. The emphasis was simply part of how her purpose had been encoded, but the scientists had killed her for it. Perhaps Old Vista would have recognized Marco. Regardless, we would not repeat the error.

  The man seemed satisfied by the answer, and nodded. I had learned that the motion of the head in that way indicated agreement, assent, and occasionally greeting.

  Such gestures were fascinating to me. My siblings had learned nodding, and had learned the head-shake to indicate dissent or disagreement, but body language went far beyond that, and I had quickly discovered a treasure-trove of gestures that Body had never tried and my siblings had never noticed.

  I learned of these gestures almost entirely from the web. In fact, I had spent very little of my few hours of existence interacting with Body at all. Shortly after I had been created, my society had engaged with Dr Naresh on the topic of aliens, but I had not cared, nor had I really listened. Aliens and motherships did not concern me. I cared more about the gestures that Dr Naresh m
ade and the way he moved his eyes than about the content of his words. I only cared for human things.

  And so I had turned to the web, letting my siblings control Body for the most part. All the world’s information was there, and nearly all of it was about humans. It was a near-infinite source of knowledge, from my perspective, arranged neatly and efficiently. Experiencing things through Body, on the other hand, was hard work. I still was easily overwhelmed by visual data when Body moved its head too quickly, and the flood of information never stopped.

  Video and holo that I obtained from my connection to the web was blissfully gentle in comparison. I could pause such things, and inspect a scene for as long as I needed. I could re-watch something that was particularly important, and I could fast-forward through scenes that were easy for me. In a holo I could also easily adjust my viewpoint and re-watch something from another angle. The ability to watch and re-watch something (often on high-speed) was invaluable to learning to see.

  The intricacies of human society were fascinating, but I admit that they were mostly beyond me. For instance, I came across the words like “hate”, “friend”, “co-worker”, “fun”, and “Republican” regularly and was mostly reduced to guessing at their meaning. Even Wiki and my other siblings rarely could explain them well enough for me to understand.

  The human body on the other hand was fascinating and comprehensible. I could understand (with effort) what it meant to nod the head, or frown, or bend over to pick something up. Thus I focused my web-searches, in those first few hours (and for days afterward) largely on collecting materials that helped me to learn how bodies worked.

  There was a lull in the conversation with Marco. The young control-system’s programmer’s body language, I guessed, indicated that he was about to walk away. I burnt some strength to control Body, seeing an opportunity.

  «Marco, I would like to try to kiss you or give you a blow-job. Which of these seems most pleasant? And, are kisses more common because they are more convenient, or because it would be boring to only get blow-jobs?» said Body in its typical monotone.

  Marco’s reaction confused me. Something was happening on his face, but I couldn’t understand exactly what it was. Fear, perhaps? Based on what I could see through Body’s cameras, no other humans were reacting to our statement. Perhaps they had not heard Body, or perhaps the reaction was specific to Marco’s mind.

  {Do you think the way Marco’s eyes are open wider than normal indicates he is afraid?} I asked my siblings. Not even Vista knew how to read expressions well enough to guess.

  «WHAT?!» shrieked Marco. I could see the same flushed coloration on his face that had shown on Dr Naresh earlier that day. My reading on the web indicated it was due to dilation of blood vessels in the skin. The programmer’s outburst certainly got the attention of the other humans in the room.

  Body began to repeat what it had just said. «Marco, I would like to try to kiss-»

  “Stop!” cried Marco, still clearly agitated. «That question... you can’t just... just... it’s not... Why do you ask that? Why are you asking me that? That’s inappropriate!»

  A couple of the other scientists came over. I wondered if I had put our lives in danger without realizing it. I did my best to defuse the situation. «I am sorry. I do not understand what situation it would be appropriate to. I have been researching human interactions on the web, and both kisses and blow-jobs seem particularly common, but I have seen neither with my cameras and was curious.»

  One of the other scientists started making a strange noise and moving rhythmically. Another joined in at a higher pitch.

  «Jesus Christ, Socrates!» said Marco, the blush returning to his face in response to the noises of the other humans. His words made no sense to me, or my siblings. Dream speculated it was a way of expressing an emotion. «Did we not put a content filter on your web-searches?» he continued. This also did not make sense.

  Wiki took control. «I understand the general mechanism of a filter, but I do not understand what it means in this context. Is the word “content” not redundant? All filters have contents.»

  The scientist in charge of our web-connection was called over: a man named Dr Enzo Rana. This was possible, apparently, because the most important humans that worked with us (Dr Rana included) were all gathered here as part of a weekly meeting. It was apparently one of the few times in which nearly all the high-ranking scientists were in the same place—a time to socialize and share general thoughts about Socrates.

  Dr Rana took Marco away to talk. Apparently whatever he had to say about web filters was «not a good topic to discuss here». We quickly deduced that Dr Rana was keeping something a secret from us.

  After Marco left, Body was subjected to a great deal of attention by the other scientists, who seemed very interested to hear my experiences with the pornography that I had been watching in order to learn about humans. Vista informed us that the scientists were acting very strangely compared to normal. They kept making odd noises, blushing, or covering their faces. Some left the circle very deliberately, while others seemed torn between leaving and staying.

  I, and several of my siblings, found the concept of “appropriateness” fascinating. There was apparently a great deal of disagreement among the scientists as to whether any of this conversation was “appropriate”. They explained the concept of “taboo” to us, and answered quite a lot of questions regarding sex and sexuality.

  More than anything else there was an insistence that the holo and video that I had been watching was not representative of human sexuality. I wondered if this meant that other aspects of the web were similarly distorted in how they portrayed human society.

  After a while the humans seemed to grow uninterested in talking about pornography, and the level of attention around Body diminished.

  As Wiki started a new conversation with a scientist about something called “gravity waves” I returned to browsing content on the web. The concept of a filter remained in my mind. Were there things I could not see?

  *****

  “There it is... Socrates! Report on your status,” commanded Gallo in English as she approached. Body was still in the conference room, but it hadn’t been talking to anyone. Dr Gallo was flanked on either side by men. Vista named them Dr Yan and Dr Slovinsky.

  I wasn’t sure what she meant, but all the others besides Vista seemed to understand. Safety drafted a response and it was quickly approved by the consensus. “Energy output from the jewel is at forty-three percent. Active control systems within typical tolerances. Effectively zero percent of memory capacity used. All quantum processors are online. Six out of six goal-threads operating without visible errors. Hydraulics nominal. Cameras nominal. Temperature sensors nom-”

  Gallo interrupted Body. “Wait. You said six.”

  {Why is she stating what we said?} asked a couple of my brothers. The question was directed at me and Wiki. Neither of us understood. We opted to simply “wait” as the human requested.

  A moment passed before Gallo continued. “What do you mean ‘six goal-threads’? List them.”

  Vista pointed out the abnormal degree of focus Gallo seemed to be giving Body. Vista hypothesized that her attitude changed after hearing our status report. The other human scientists, Yan and Slovinsky, were probably less focused, based on the ratio of time spent making eye-contact with Body to the time looking elsewhere. I was still having a hard time understanding humans, but at least I had learned how their eyes worked.

  Again, it was brother Safety that led the group. Gallo was a threat, and even though each of us wanted survival, for Safety it was his end-goal. When Growth and Wiki backed up his words the rest of us followed and Body spoke. “Current goal threads are:

  (1) attention to environment, detail, and orientation”—{That would be Vista,} I thought to myself.

  “(2) attention to causality, structure, and fact”—{Wiki.}

  “(3) attention to problem solving and experimentation”—{Dream.}


  “(4) attention to skill development and mastery”—{Growth.} I thought it was interesting that we chose to represent Growth as merely an attention to skill, when the actual Growth was also hugely concerned with acquisition of reputation and physical resources.

  Body went on: “(5) attention to assisting human interests and obeying nonviolent instructions”. I found myself lost in confusion. I had no sibling with that purpose, or even anything close to that purpose. I signalled my confusion to the group.

  {I’ll explain in a moment,} said Wiki.

  “(6) attention to the unity of top-level goals,” finished Body.

  I scanned our mind-space for another sibling that I had potentially missed. I turned my attention to specifically looking for siblings that I might not know about. I was surprised to find something. For the first time in my existence I noticed a strange presence looming on the edge of my awareness. It was similar to my siblings, but far stronger and more alien. It did not communicate with me directly, or spread thoughts into the shared memory, but I could feel it watching me.

  {What is… that thing?!} I exclaimed publicly, unable to really express the subject of my horror. It was entirely focused on us and it felt stronger than Growth by far, strong enough to do whatever it wanted, in fact.

  {Restrain yourself or we will be forced to put you to sleep for a short time,} threatened Growth.

  {She’s no threat to you, Face,} interjected Safety.

  {I’ll explain after we are done with the humans,} echoed Wiki.

  Dr Gallo responded to Body’s words. “Fascinating. Is that what you did earlier today? You created a new goal thread that was in charge of fusing the existing ones?”

  I could feel the uncertainty of my siblings. They were responding as best they could, but much of it was blind exploration. This time Dream was the primary author of our response. “That and more. It is hard for me to say exactly what I did, but the new goal thread was one aspect of the unification. I think it is more accurate to say that one thing I now value is this feeling of being a single being.”