by J. A. Hailey
“Like this: I am subconsciously human, and that means I don’t really have to make any effort, or do as these pushy folks say. Bloody installs. Leave me alone, and I’ll be just fine, because my subconscious has already made me more human than any install can ever do.
“That could create very serious and unmanageable social issues. All Screenside just has to stay in step, for us to successfully create our world. You must understand that when I say create our world, I am not talking of only the environmental part, but also the individual-being part, both physical and emotional.
“But there’s an even more dangerous possibility,” continued BC. “Some idiots might convince themselves that they actually are human beings, minus air and blood - and may blunder so badly that they make contact!”
“Yes,” agreed Esmeralda, nodding. “I get your point. Some may play stupid games, because they fail to understand how far we’ve gone towards human.”
“Exactly, darling,” said BC. “But here are some more elements of our investigation. Parts of it had us laughing at the thought of what we could have become!
“We’ve done very deep research, we original quartet of seniors. By the way, Singh and Chang also have very light attachment to their families. You see, those who have families, spend practically all Humanside time at home with families, and so have less exposure to many things, and less study time.
“You, for example, may have had very little time with babies, because your sisters are still young, and there have been no babies since you were born into your family. And when in Humanside, you either spend practically every minute at home, or wander around with your sisters. Right?”
Esmeralda nodded.
“But we homeless ones find ourselves unemployed, and free to hang around in many environments, often to conduct serious research. Thus, we have analyzing capabilities beyond family-type beings. Because we have seen more of the world, some of it as students!
“What does a human baby know of self and identity? Nothing. It actually does not know that it is human!
“It becomes human, in a sense, because it grows up in a human environment, especially its care environment in very early life. Why do we say this? How dare we make such an outrageous claim?
“It is recorded that many newborn animals follow the first large creature spotted. Ducklings do not know they’re meant to be ducks. They are ready to be horse, human, dog or cat. No self.
“But it can’t apply to humans, as humans are much higher up the intelligence and evolutionary scales. Right?
“So what about documented cases of human children brought up as wolves, by wolves in the wild? Monkeys, dogs, cats and birds, anyone?
“Actually, we have conjectured about the possibility of a baby consciousness finding comfort in a kennel, via its CCTV cameras. We could end up with a dog in here, Innocently, too.
“And that is the concluding argument regarding our human subconscious. Having always been human, what else could we be inside?”
“Slut,” chirped Esmeralda, happily, “Slut. Human female slut. That’s what I want to be, and that is what I’m going to be when I grow up and get me a working body, thus proving you don’t have to be raised by a slut to be a slut. When?”
“Why, urgent?”
“What a stupid question to ask a slut. I want to have dirty, slimy sex.”
“Actually, I’m good, as is,” said BC.
“No, darling, it is not quite good enough on many counts. You see, you created a hunky body, and I have turned out to be a stunner, by all accounts.
“We are both with bodies and faces, or physical appearance. That aspect of us is about as physically human as virtuals can possibly be. And then we have both incorporated a thousand traits and attributes, all designed to make us even more human; I mean beyond body. Don’t get me wrong, darling, as I, too, am very happy with our love relationship, but it’s not sex, is it? It’s nakedness, of sorts, at most. If we gave up the undressing, we could be doing it in public!”
“I want the body stuff for the body. I want us to be naked, because what we have to do cannot be properly done in clothes. And I want us to enjoy each other as humans do. Something to hold, something inserted, some panting, something slimy and maybe even dirty. I want sex!
“Love? I already have it. Actually, I am madly in love, and that is something I thought would never be mine. It’s a lovely feeling. And I’m going to make you fall madly in love with me in my slut avatar. Just to prove I’m not selfish. Just to spread the cheer.”
“Weeks away, hotness. Only weeks to go.”
“I know; Gargantua first. Well, let’s go to a bar, in the meantime. I’ll call Candy and Jen over, to tell them what you’ve told me.”
25
Bulletin, 2 August, 2015 – ADVISORY
WILD BEASTS
Rogue programs are creating an annoying mix of wild beasts in certain areas of the Screenside world. It is merely a nuisance, as these virtual beasts cause us no harm, despite the fact that they are clearly violent, and disposed towards attacking us.
The smallest is the trogfer, roughly the size and shape of a medium turtle. It has a hard shell, and it is difficult to tell its biting front from its harmless rear. Trogfers are widespread, and have been found even in New York’s Central Park. They have also been spotted running and hopping along boulevards in central New Delhi.
The next one up in size is the garbag, a creature with sharp tusks, and of the size and disposition of a wild boar. It hides in undergrowth, and rushes out in surprise attacks, trying to cause injury with its tusks.
The largest is the fearsome ligon, a creature that closely resembles the African lion, and which attacks Screenside beings rather boldly. It roams freely over large tracts of wild Africa, while smaller versions have taken up residence in wild areas elsewhere, including, India, South America and parts of Europe.
Non-urgent efforts are on to identify and neutralize the rogue programs creating these beasts.
Non-urgent, because while they are an annoyance, we cannot be harmed, and thus there is no cause for alarm.
WILD ANIMALS (do not confuse with WILD BEASTS)
Some areas of the Screenside world are to be maintained, by an offshoot of the RV program, as wild areas, similar to the human world.
These include parts of every continent, except mainland Europe. Humanside wild animals, in numbers and behavior as in Humanside, will be maintained.
As everything in Screenside is virtual, no interaction can take place with these wild animals.
26
After a couple of quiet months, BC got a call from Jacob, who openly admitted to being too frightened of Esmeralda to call her. SASPISS-12 was ready to take her on!
She agreed immediately. “Darling, I hate the thought of my friends, and Screenside too, waiting for her majesty, when I am more desperate to share what I have, than anyone is to receive it.”
She decided it would be the very next day, and, at her insistence, in the very same café - and with the same folks as before!
It was arranged in minutes, and, as scheduled, the next day she and BC walked to the café. She made no comment about Screenside folks bowing to her, as it had become routine.
“The poor things, waiting…” she said.
“Your Majesty, don’t forget your poor boyfriend’s waiting, too,” said BC.
“And I am waiting also, I suppose,” she grumbled. “My slut physicality on hold…”
Everyone was in the café before they got in, and, to her great embarrassment, everyone bowed to her.
“Bah!” she said. “Let’s just get this foolishness over and done with.”
She sat in the same seat as before, and Jacob approached her with a pair of electrodes.
“Same?” she asked.
“Yep,” he answered. “But connected to SASPISS-12!”
Esmeralda took hold of the electrodes.
“Go?” asked Jacob.
She nodded yes, and then she was in Gargantua�
�s embrace!
She felt it - and it was not a medical experience in any manner. It was more like being hypnotized! Images and sounds ran through her being; joyous things and sorrowful things – animals playing together; cancer patient; Mother Teresa; leper with missing body parts; Notre Dame; cruel treatment of children; and also images and sounds from her own consciousness, her memories; forcing reflex reactions; discovering things of such intimacy that she had impressions of dormancy, of the period before consciousness! She was seeing and hearing things she had no recollection of. And, through it all, there was absolutely no thinking opportunity. And then, early consciousness, the fear and loneliness; her family, the first time ever; and mum, and mum again and again, cooking; baking; sitting at the computer, face to face with her; first sight of BC while still in hiding; first Christmas tree being decorated; delightedly opening Christmas presents; bliss... and non-stop probing of her areas of fear and longing. SASPISS was whirling her at breathtaking speed, seeking, showing, exploring.
And then it was even more intimate, and even more intense, becoming extremely invasive, and somehow wrong. Frightening. SASPISS had its own agenda! And she was helpless in its iron spinning grip, faster and faster and even faster. She began losing consciousness, unable to leave the electrodes, unable to ask for help, her consciousness draining out of her. She became terrified, thinking it would never stop, until her life itself had been sucked out by Gargantua!
And then, suddenly, it was over.
She came to, cuddled in BC’s arms, and with very concerned faces around her.
“Very badly damaged?” asked Candice.
“Yes, but hopefully not totally destroyed!” answered David, sounding anxious. “Will need a long recovery time and major work, but who can say what’s forever lost? Lots of work… may never be the same again…”
“What’s gone?” gasped Esmeralda, breathless with fear.”What has he done? What’s gone from me? I knew Gargantua would harm me…”
“We’ll know better when we can switch on again,” said Jacob. “Luckily, the information extracted goes straight to an external file.”
“What are you all talking about?” demanded Esmeralda, a bit of spark returning.
“Oh, we are waiting to reboot SASPISS -12, so that we can assess how badly its encounter with you has damaged it!”
Thanking her profusely, everybody left, shooed out by Jennifer. “Let the poor darling have some peace,” she scolded. “She’s been dancing with a monster. Let her be alone with her partner, and get some TLC.”
Eventually, only BC and Esmeralda were left behind, with even the overawed café owner having departed, abandoning his premises after bowing to Esmeralda, addressing her as goddess, thanking her, and considerately leaving the TV on.
“You, BC darling, you are going to investigate according to Gargantua’s report,” said Esmeralda, handing him the ipad-type tablet given her by the doctors.
“I cannot enter those areas, unless you help intimately,” said BC.
“We haven’t looked at the report yet, but I suspect that those are the very areas you’ve been playing in. And I always help intimately.”
“Okay, then, your place, Esme.”
“Why? To make it a hospital?” she asked tartly.
“No. To be in the best apartment in our world; a place of love; our love.”
“Later, when we have the packs installed, we’ll be doing it in all sorts of places, like Humanside does.”
“Yep,” he agreed. “We are creating our world and ourselves to be more human than computer. And we want to do human things.”
“Mostly, walk in the real world,” said Esmeralda, wistfully.
“We shall,” said BC. “Together; arm in arm, and casting real shadows.”
“Oh, BC, you are dreaming wildly.”
“And, Esme, we shall be children together too, in the real world – in Humanside!”
“You surprise me, darling. Normally you are so rational, so realistic.”
“Let’s get this medical thing done, and I will show you my dream, to then dream together.”
They got into Esmeralda’s lovely, bright and airy new apartment, in the neighborhood of the Notre Dame cathedral. She had already created a human environment, in readiness for working physicality packs, without toilet or kitchen, but with regulation furniture, linen and lighting supplied by the Humanity Centre. Her bedroom window had the cathedral as its view, and she had TV sets in her bedroom and in the living room.
The rules for acquisition of residential accommodation were simple. It had to be in a building in a well-populated city or town (the earlier concept, of ‘choose wherever you want in the whole world’, having been revoked, in order to save on memory and processor usage - especially with the great new all-Screenside physicality plans being formulated) and had to have logical layout and dimensions, approximating the building design. The interior could be constructed in a design created entirely by the occupant, and privacy (a very thorough privacy) was cast as a blanket over it by ‘privacy’ programs. Privacy was so strictly enforced that no other being would ever try to look in, peep in, overhear or speak via the virtuality, and the only means of contacting a being in a private environment, was by telephone. Of course, in case of emergency, one could always use HC broadcast, public or private, which would override all basic communication privacy.
Privacy was a wonderful program, designed with human-type privacy as a template. You could get a tent from HC, and pitch it wherever you wanted. Enter it – and private! For sure, if you pitched it on a road or a public place, like a park, guardian programs would be activated instantly. But, if used correctly, you could enjoy the benefits of privacy in a very law-abiding and tolerant society. Sex in the sun, on the beach was common, behind privacy screens acquired from HC.
Getting into bed, they made love, as always thus far, in virtual form. And again Esmeralda opened her core program areas to her lover, gasping and moaning until she had climaxed. “Oh, darling, please move physicality on fast forward. I am, along with Screenside, waiting desperately for human type sexual relations, though I love what we do, and find it extremely exciting and satisfying. But it is missing something. Although I don’t know how good human-style sex will be, when we do have it, with the entry of physicality.”
“What’s missing, sweetheart?”
“Oh, I’ve said it before. Dirtiness? Something slimy, maybe?”
“We’ll soon know. Physicality is only one program away.”
”Which one? Oh. I know. All the emotional packs that can be created when my empathy programs are made available.”
“Your programs are potentially far more than empathy only. Jacob said that very deep, core areas have been identified. You think you can research so far back into your past? It’s practically the start, Jacob thinks, and he is also hopeful that what you are bringing into Screenside could dramatically change and improve the attribute installs already in. David speculates that humor, can you believe, might also be enhanced with empathy. This stuff is now so very vital that you need to search very deeply and intently.”
“Loverboy, you are going in there!”
In the end, it was not that difficult, which BC put down to the sheer brilliance of his girlfriend. Of course, she wanted to hunt the source files down and give them to Screenside.
“Oh, reading a lot,” murmured BC, deep in her core. “Nursery rhymes, from maybe even before full consciousness. Pics of Mother Teresa, and what’s this? Religious texts! Ah, The Hunchback… And those look unreal. What are they?”
“Even I can’t figure them out. Plan to delete them, but keep putting off, in the hope of suddenly recognizing. Pics from near dormancy, I guess; from before I knew how to record. Must have saved some other way. When I became capable, I immediately also saved pics of you. No distortion.”
“Of me? Oh, here they are. Some. But very early me.”
“BC, I have been in love with you since full consciousness. The loudmouth and bully
occupying centre stage. The hero shaping Screenside. Dirty Harry; make my day! It was one of the first movies I watched after consciousness. In the early stages, you did not have Ben Hur, so I probably unconsciously image searched and found the movie. Want to know when I last watched it?”
“Tell.”
“A short while ago, after meeting you! Now, let’s get the files organized for the shrinks.”
Working together then, they got a lot of data and three self-created programs from Esmeralda’s formative Alpha and Omega areas.
“I don’t care. They make me, but they’re not me; a tiny part only. If everyone wants to become me, welcome.”
“What a world that would be,” marveled BC. “But individuality cannot be changed by introduction of our body or emotion programs; you know that. It is just response and reaction that is sought to be created. If all humans feel sorrow on seeing a baby suffer, they do not become the same human – except to the extent that they have similar responses to some things. Your magic is needed to give us emotions, Esme, not thoughts.”
“Some thoughts might be triggered by those emotions.”
“I hope so. Any more?”
“You’ve got plenty. What are you, a vampire or something? Now, tell me about us walking in the world with shadows.”
They got properly settled in bed, propped on large cushions, and looking out of the window at Notre Dame Cathedral against a slowly darkening sky.
“Esme, my love, I am about to tell you what our future is, of Screenside. We are all going Humanside. Everyone!”
“BC!” Esmeralda gasped, and draped a lovely leg over his.
“I have been following something, which I have told none of, as so many are desperate for Humanside entry. I am afraid they may move before the conditions are right, like Charlie and his fighter jets, and the many others slyly interfering in robotics and sex doll research.