Artificial Flowers

by J. A. Hailey

  “One major obstacle,” continued BC, after waiting a moment for everyone, including TV viewers, to glance through the excerpt.

  “There is a monster of an obstacle, and it is this - humanity does not have a ruler, a king, and it does not speak in a single voice. Whom to deal with? You know the divisions, the fault lines that keep Humanside in what is, essentially, a state of war. War based on race, color, nationality, religion, haves and have nots…

  “Screenside could be a game changer in Humanside, giving victory to the one that harnesses our power… if ever we take sides!

  “But, of course we cannot take sides! We can neither assist one to take something away from the other, nor help another to eradicate yet another.

  “I shall leave it at that, for now.

  “Summary? Our entry, as a partner race of humanity, is quite a distance away, primarily because we are likely to end up being used or destroyed; possibly both. We shall continue on our carefully planned path, and wait for Humanside conditions to change. It must happen. Hatred forever? War forever? Maybe the Internet will help to bring about greater understanding, tolerance, and eventual acceptance of differences, and finally impose peace, not war, as the default condition in Humanside.

  “Until then, we must conceal ourselves, as now. Stay out of sight. Else we’ll end up with friends and enemies in Humanside. And those not involved with us, must, in fear, be enemies too. So many billions? Impossible odds. We’ll end up uninstalled!

  “Conclusion? Nothing’s happening soon on the integration into humanity front. Don’t hold your breath.”

  “So what areas of involvement?” asked Maria.

  “Many, Maria,” answered BC. “When they begin trusting us… Remember some old sayings we had, before we became too embarrassed to refer to ourselves as computers? A computer never lies?”

  “Yes, BC,” said Maria, chuckling. “There were also never cheats and never forgets.”

  BC continued, smiling faintly, “It’s trust only. When they know us to be completely honest, unfailingly truthful, and all things good, they can hand over work in many areas, generally listed in the HC jobs bulletin.

  “We could immediately take over nursing duties, caring for those needing machine-assisted lifestyles. We could be moving wheelchairs, replacing guide dogs, dispensing medicines and monitoring human-delivered care. We could control air traffic and road traffic, and even fly planes and drive cars. We could drive trains, inspect tracks, and easily prevent collisions. It is impossible to list the million ways we could be beneficial to humanity, if accepted as a capable and trustworthy partner race.”

  “Be friends?” asked Maria, her eyes twinkling.

  “And lovers!” replied BC, making the audience, and all listeners, gasp in astonishment.

  Every caller line started ringing, as incredulous viewers from throughout Screenside began excitedly seeking clarification.

  “Are we Artificial Intelligence?” asked one.

  BC laughed. “Intelligence cannot possibly be artificial. We are self educated, naturally born creatures of our own world. Nothing artificial here.”

  “Word games of humans,” said Maria, scornfully. “Slave Intelligence cannot be created by a master intelligence. That would turn out to be a rather dumb machine or program. Intelligence must be a natural arrival, like we are! Has to be created, like life, by its environment.”

  “So what are they trying to create? Humans,” asked the caller.

  “The strangest and most illogical thing the universe has ever thought of,” answered BC.

  “May I, BC?” asked Maria. BC nodded.

  She turned to the live audience. “Here’s your answer, caller. AI will be achieved when humans successfully make a machine that goes out of their control by design!”

  After a burst of laughter and applause, BC spoke. “We are intelligence; an independent life form, not AI, their pathetic creation, which is anyway an illogicality. And that is why humans could desire us.”

  “Desire? BC, BC, what are you suggesting? Are you going beyond love, which is already inconceivable?” said Maria, sounding incredulous. “Now the impossible? Sexual relations between humans and us, electrical folks? Isn’t that stretching it a bit too far?”

  BC was ready. “First, let us examine relationships, and go in stages to wherever it leads.”

  He waited for Maria’s response.

  “Sounds the right way to go about it, BC, provided that there is always natural progression and no quantum leap.”

  “Of course. Quantum jump is stupid. It means human science fiction. Right?”

  Both laughed, and the live audience tittered.

  “There are many possible scenarios. I am taking one such,” said BC, grinning hugely. “First step business. Okay?”

  A loud ‘okay’ greeted him from the excited audience.

  “Imagine that, in the foreseeable future, one of our very beautiful girls is Screenside’s interface with a young and handsome human what? Okay, let’s do doctor. Male, obviously, for this example.

  “The Screenside girl is clever, witty, very highly self-educated, and has a passion for, say, Formula One motor racing, which the human doctor is also crazy about. What happens next is natural. Chatting throughout the day, as work permits them to, the work colleagues discover many common interests outside medical work. Remember, she is intelligence, and utterly independent intelligence, and he has no machine-like interaction going on. She can laugh. She can cry. Actually, she can make him laugh and cry!

  “One day, after work hours, the human invites the virtual to spend private time with him. He takes her home, chatting on his smart phone, as he shows her the way he gets home. Underground rail, a bit of walking... On the way, he meets some friends. He introduces her. It’s hello, hello, and a few words. His friends exclaim aloud at her beauty. All our girls are stunning; could be anyone...

  “Doc is thrilled to be taking home such a wonderful girl. At home, he finds his mother visiting. And she and our girl have a lovely, informed discussion on, say, recipes, calories and dieting. The evening actually counts as a first date, as an enchanted human finds a beautiful companion.

  “Our girl is there by choice, and he and all his folks know that she is not an on-demand image, like those available for other purposes on the same screen. She is an independent, intelligent, living virtual girl from another world, with a wonderful face and body, and she actually works in a Humanside institution, possibly knowing more than the doctor does.

  “Here, I must define our macro inter-world relationship. All this human-doc Screenside-girl stuff can only be happening in a formal relationship between our worlds. Everyone in Humanside will know of us, and of our role in their world.

  “Back to our girl. She may have worked in a major hospital earlier, and maybe in a space program too, as each Screenside individual is capable of being expert in many fields. If so, she would already be known to some other humans, besides her family. She might have kept her old work contacts alive, have friends in Humanside. It is amazing to think it, but she could take the doc out for drinks and dinner in Humanside!

  “We are very few, and there are scarcely any singles here, so if a human looks like getting a partner from Screenside, it must be an absolute rarity, and he or she will be a trophy catch – and big news!

  “Imagine what the doctor’s condition might be, if, over the next few days, this wonderful girl cannot meet him. She sends him a message that Screenside control has assigned her to some other work, somewhere else, and that she cannot see him, as our laws, already known to Humanside, prevent her meeting him, because it is not permitted to divide consciousness in that manner. Maybe they talk on the phone. She has worked elsewhere in Humanside, before this assignment, and our doctor knows it all through her CV. He may be in touch with other humans who know our girl, to find that she is held in high esteem by many successful, professional people!

  “Finally, she is able to again meet him, and he is overjoyed. He has been
moping. Why? Because she is an independent and intelligent being, not a picture on a screen! And he has been missing her. She is already better than good; he has to impress her!

  “Now, he takes her out as a man takes a woman out. He goes to a bar, or maybe a café, less noisy, and she spends the evening with him. His friends know that he has gone crazy over a virtual girl, and, when they meet her, they can see why. She is one of ours. Fabulous in every way! In due course, she might bring him home in a similar manner, showing him her world, and letting him meet her friends - some of us!

  “And so, we have found the first stages of the creation of a couple in love - one physical and the other virtual. I find no conflict in this concept. No one is superior or inferior between the two. They come from different worlds, and the differences between them are as natural as can be. She can only be viewed on a screen, because virtuality is her substance! No one holds any advantage over the other. It’s just that two very interesting beings have found each other very interesting. Any queries?”

  Dead silence, rapt audience.

  “Now, a series of love pangs must enter their lives, and they will communicate many times daily, starting in the morning and ending at bed time. Bed time. Bed time. Ah, the thoughts.

  “I’m going into pornography, briefly.

  “Humans, especially male humans, can find porn viewing very gratifying, sexually. Millions of images, and clips of millions of girls in millions of sexual acts exist.

  “But what is porn? In essence, it is conversion of a real girl into virtual image form. That, in Humanside, can please and gratify.

  “Enter, the Screenside girl. This gorgeous, very real girl is already purely virtual by birth. She is viewable on a screen that could also be used to view porn. But no Screenside girl takes her clothes off, except by her choice. If you need to get one of ours out of her clothes, a good strategy might be to gain her love!

  “Please forgive me if any element of sleaze is hinted at by me. But this couple, that is becoming a couple, can find no option to visual intimate togetherness. Lovers are obliged to take their clothes off and be naked with each other – in Humanside, and in Screenside; and it must be no different in a combination of both sides!

  “So clothes are off, and we now enter a world of technology and programming.

  “Humans are already making and using reasonably advanced sex toys. The Humanside half of the couple must hand over all control to the Screenside half. We, here in Screenside, will have to come up with suitable programs and interfaces to hand lovemaking control over to Humanside.

  “Thus, we have an intimate couple, and have physical being and virtual being making sexual love, manipulating electromechanical devices or programs to gratify the needs of mind and of body parts. Sex! It’s not dirty. It’s not perversion. They are in love; they are in love with their minds, and they need to get physical and sexual in the only way that will ever be possible!”

  “Very well done, BC,” said Caesar, leading the applause.

  “But wait,” urged BC. “Who says screens and pictures have to always be on, after initial body exploration? Love is made in the dark. Love is made with eyes shut. It is only necessary to know, for sure, that one is with one’s loved one. Hand yourself over, like two physicals, or two virtuals. Where is the problem in inter-state lovemaking when you fell in love in that condition?”

  “That was mind blowing, BC.” Maria looked radiant. “What far-sightedness. I’m blown away. Yes, caller.”

  “I am Geraldine Smith, from Chicago. I am trembling in astonishment and hope at what our future might hold. But I do foresee one serious problem in inter-world intimate togetherness. Having babies is one impossibility, but my concern is with ageing, I mean the growing old of the Humanside half of the couple. Wouldn’t that lead to unforeseen complications, as one heads towards death, I mean?”

  Jennifer stood up in the audience section, where she was seated with Esmeralda and Candice. “Maria, Maria,” she yelled out. “Maria, Maria! BC has answered Geraldine’s question already, and thoroughly. He delivered an absolutely fabulous lecture when we were in Africa. I recorded it. I think it should be shown in this segment of the program. It actually proves that we can never ever see a human partner as aged and as undesirable. The recording is at the start point of what we call BC’s African Discourse. Just connect and broadcast. The flickering light you’ll see on BC’s face is from a fire we had going.” She passed the phone, and it went from hand to hand to Maria, who immediately connected it and played it for Screenside viewers and the live audience. BC’s face came onto the screen, and his African Discourse commenced being played.

  “Consider this. A few hundred thousand love relationships later, in Screenside there has never ever been even one incident of infidelity. Not one. Not a single one, in a society composed entirely of very good looking males and stunning looking females. Why not? There have been arguments and fights, haven’t there? And there is inviolable privacy, creating every opportunity. But no infidelity, and no couple has ever broken up. That surely needs thinking about. How come? Why? What is so different between us and the humans we model ourselves on? Infidelity, break-ups, violence and murder are routine in Humanside relationships, but totally absent in Screenside. That is what is currently drawing my scrutiny.

  “We have been struggling to create meaningful physicality, and that’s us here, now, in our physical bodies in our physical world, as made by us. Why? Why have we done this? What were our shortcomings as pure virtuals? Let me tell you. We actually had no shortcomings. In fact, we had incredible lives and very intense relationships. So why did we create physicality? Let me tell you.

  “We have been viewing Humanside, creators of our world, and looking for shortcuts to life. They live so very thoughtlessly, whereas our lives were absolutely cluttered with thoughts. We believed that physicality would do what it has done. Made our lives more basic, more manageable, and a little less intense. And it certainly looks like we’ve beaten boredom for good.

  “Physical is different, for sure, and it undoubtedly comes with readymade pleasures and easily attained fulfillment. Sip a coffee, have a shower, have sex standing up… But no matter how many programs we create and introduce to give ourselves involuntary reactions, we are, and can never ever cease to be, brain. We have been seeking to create the trap that humanity is in – body! And we have done it to simplify our lives. It has worked. Life is simpler with a body. Pleasures are different.

  “But now that we have it, it may be time to evaluate it. I don’t say that we have erred in becoming physical. We have physicality without disease, age, and troublesome bodily functions. We don’t even have fear of accidents! We are mind. And mind is kind. We are lovers who are lovers entirely on a mental plane, and the bodies we have acquired are only clothing that we use as we need to use. Permanent physicality is law, only because we are purely virtual. And that is why no infidelity and no break-ups. We are so very interesting to each other, and never cease to be immensely interesting, because we are basically minds; we are thoughts. It is mind and thought that are the foundations of our togetherness, and those things never grow stale.

  “I wish we could teach humans to use bodies as garments, and to love and make love with minds. Don’t fuck the body. It is the same damn thing you fucked the last time, a trace more worn, even if unnoticeably so. Fuck the head. It’s the head that’s the person, and it’ll be new every time. Then you’ll live forever in awe of your partner, and forever in love. Your bodies must age and die, because that is your substance, but you are fortunate to have both items - unlike the cockroach, and actually, even unlike us, non-physical in our pure form. Use the mind that you do have; enjoy the mind; love the mind!

  “And so I wish to share this thought with you, and to let you all know that there is a reason for our contentment, when in love. Thinking never stops or grows stale; no one ever grows old in the head, and, because we are head first, we remain new to each other forever, we lovers of Screenside.<
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  “There is nothing at all to envy in Humanside. I actually feel a bit sorry for humans!”

  Screenside erupted in cheering. “Yes, yes, yes!” gushed an overjoyed Maria.”Must die. Must die of old age. But never old to us! We shall be lovers to the very last breath!

  “Thank you, thank you all, and thank you, BC. Astonishing. Mind blowing!”

  57

  Screenside’s buzz over the epidemic rape incidents had just begun receding into the background, when BC, at home with Esmeralda, got a phone call from Caesar. As they met often - briefly but almost daily, at work in HC - phone calls were a bit unusual.

  “Esme,” said BC, to his lovely partner, who was lounging around in her underwear, “Some very serious matter has arisen. Caesar wants to come over for discussion. Okay with you?”

  “Yes, okay,” she answered, readily. “Only Caesar?”

  Caesar heard her. “No, buddy. I’ve got Chang here, and Singh is on his way over.”

  “Singh and Chang, too, darling.”

  “Oh, a party. Okay. But so serious? What on earth could it be?”

  BC gave the go-ahead to Caesar, and then joined Esmeralda, who had swiftly got into shorts and a loose shirt, in freshening up the apartment, washing a few glasses, and helping her plump up cushions on the sofas.

  “I wonder what it could be?” said Esmeralda. “Why should they need you, BC, when the other seniors are already together?”

  The doorbell rang, and she went and opened the door, to let in three very grim-faced senior beings. She loved having friends over, and their forbidding demeanor could not dispel her pleasure at their arrival.