Generations

by Francis Rosenfeld

  "Purple. Soul. Sarah."

  "No, I'm still me. You just live there."

  "Purple. Hurt. Sarah. Sister."

  Sarah paused, she really didn't know how to continue in a way that didn't hurt the immortals' feelings.

  "Sarah. Purple. Memories. Sarah. Sister." they insisted.

  Sarah remembered her vague feelings of recognition, her unexplained deja-vus, her instinctive reactions to things that should have been unfamiliar. She started wondering if they were right, if the only reason she maintained her individuality was grounded in quantity rather than essence, and she got really scared of losing her soul again, a flashback of a hundred and ninety years ago, she was terrified that she would be engulfed by this massive collective intelligence with no trace of individuality left.

  "No. Eat. Sarah. Sister. Love. Sarah." the ocean appeased her fears. "Sarah. Is. Purple. Is. Sarah. Sister."

  The conversation had reached a turning point where it reverted from Sarah teaching the ocean the meaning of life to the ocean reassuring Sarah that there was one to speak of.

  "Parent. DNA. Parent. Not. Sarah."

  They were right, in an absolute logic kind of way, after all she was a combination of her parents' genes and maybe inherited some of their traits, her mother's quirkiness, her father's patience, but she wasn't them, she was Sarah with the angel hair, a unique eternal soul.

  "What. Is." whispered the ocean, as if the conversation just started.

  "Give it up, cat-brains, you can't explain what you don't know," laughed sister Joseph.

  "Joseph. Explain." said the ocean.

  "No way you are dragging me into this, I have better things to do with my afternoon than to worry about my immortal soul; it's safe and sound, unlike other people's." sister Joseph clamored. She turned her mind to Sarah. "Aren't you late for Vespers? Almost two hundred years and no progress with self-discipline, some people are beyond help," she continued.

  "You see now why they are driving me insane?" asked Seth, anxiously. "By the end of the conversation you reach the conclusion that you don't exist. I like existing and was pretty sure of it until recently. I'd like to keep it that way."

  "Sarah. Late. Vespers. Go." the immortals dutifully nudged.

  "Oh, how sweet, they keep your schedule for you!" sister Joseph mocked. "Too bad they can't perform your tasks and teach your pupils! Ah, wait, they do!" she continued.

  Sarah's apprehension returned; fortunately for her the monotonous rhythm of the evening prayer soothed her mind and chased away the worries. It brought her back to that place of certainty that was beyond logical argument or created capacity, no matter how vast, to that center of existence that was infinite, eternal and all knowing. That's where Sarah found the misplaced meaning of the word "be" and with great relief put it back in its correct location in her mind. "Seth is right," she thought. "I love them, but they can drive humans insane."

  "Focus!" Seth chastised her. Sarah brought back all her attention to the evening prayer.

  ***

  "What do you think they are doing?" Lily whispered.

  "I don't know," Jimmy answered. The kids were perked up against one of the open windows of sister Roberta's lab with only their eyes and tiny noses peeking above the rough sill. They looked like they were enacting a comic strip image.

  The sisters were sitting on the floor in four neat rows with their backs at them, focused on an ongoing experiment. There was no sound or thought in the room other than the words the kids had just uttered and sister Joseph shuffled to signal her displeasure at the disturbance.

  It was strange and unsettling for the children, who from the second they could understand communication were exposed to every word and thought in their community, to experience this silence. Way back in older times, for older people, that would have been pure bliss but for them it was as distressing as suddenly losing one of their senses. They did however abide by sister Joseph's unexpressed reproach and kept their mouths and their minds still.

  In front of the sisters, above what looked like a sheet of glass, floated a holographic box. Seth stretched out her hands inside the virtual model and gently touched the back of the container. Periwinkle liquid-like foam spread quickly on her hands and wrists, in a strange motion that looked like a time lapse film of moss covering a rock.

  "Oh, this is soo creepy!" Jimmy couldn't help himself.

  Sister Roberta turned towards him with a stare that reminded the little trouble-maker he had just gotten back his lab privileges.

  For a few minutes it looked like Seth was wearing shear and shimmery water gloves and then the foam flowed to the tips of her fingers, relaxing back into the ever moving boundary. The surface became agitated, like that of a pot of water coming to a boil, quickly shifting patterns as it saved the new information.

  The stillness in the room relaxed and the sisters started shuffling around. Lily and Jimmy took the opportunity to sneak in.

  "What is that?" Jimmy couldn't help himself.

  "It's an intelligent polymer", Sarah whispered quickly. "It memorizes the shape and chemical composition of the model and can record a sequence of movements to create a library of components which can later be combined into larger motion patterns. We are trying to make an organic robot that the immortals can use remotely as a 'body'.

  "Why?" Jimmy asked.

  "So that they can move around and explore the islands. They were so amazed by sister Novis's walking and so sad they couldn't experience it that we decided to give them legs,"

  Sarah smiled.

  "Is it going to look like Mother Superior?" Jimmy asked the obvious question.

  Seth looked back at them with a mixture of outrage and alarm.

  "I don't think so, Jimmy, this is just a rough prototype test. It would make more sense for it to look like sister Novis, but I don't think she'd be ok with that," the redhead continued.

  "Would you want a copy of you droning around like a zombie stuffed with purple goo?" sister Novis asked, irritated. "You can have my graceful gait, if you want, but that's it!"

  "I don't think the immortals get the concept of individuality and personal space. Actually I don't think they understand why humans consider their bodies individual property and don't appreciate sharing them with the collective," Sarah answered tentatively.

  "So who is going to volunteer?" Jimmy asked.

  Sarah shrugged.

  "How about Solomon?" Jimmy said. "He's not going to be offended if we make a plastic cat just like him."

  "I don't know about that. Just because he can't give his consent it doesn't mean that we should do something to him that we ourselves wouldn't like."

  "You know, just when I think you couldn't be battier you go right ahead and amaze me with a whole other level of barmy!" sister Joseph exploded. "The privacy and ownership rights of cats! That takes the cake! Should I ask for permission before I trespass his marked territory? He looks at me kind of strange lately!" she continued her diatribe.

  "However, we're not copying him. I like having just one Solomon." Sarah defended her argument, unfazed.

  "There is not one blessed day I don't wake up regretting my decision to come here with this barnyard bonanza instead of dying peacefully of old age like God intended in a place far from people and twenty light years away from all of you!" sister Joseph frothed, aggravated.

  "She loves it, doesn't she?" whispered Jimmy very softly.

  "Every blooming second of it!" Sarah giggled quietly. "What would she do without an audience?" the redhead asked rhetorically.

  "Enjoy life!" sister Joseph barked and turned her back to them.

  "So, how are we going to make the robot?" Jimmy returned to the subject.

  "How about you kids help me custom make a human form?" she asked Jimmy whose eyes sparkled at the prospect. He took off running and yelling with excitement as he passed Lily like a full speed freight train "We're going to design a human being! We're going to design a human being!"

  "Well, not e
xactly," Sarah protested, trying to clarify the concept.

  "There's what comes of your teaching philosophy!" sister Joseph yelled again. "We're all going to hell and it's going to be your fault! Design a human being, Lord have mercy!" she continued, more and more outraged.

  "A human form, not a human being," Sarah clarified.

  "If the purple goo tells it to fry and eat the lot of us whom should we blame?" sister Joseph pressed on.

  Sarah wanted to point out the faulty logic of this argument since there would be nobody left to file the complaint and 99% of their bodies' composition was completely unsuitable for the indigenes diet, but she took the high road and kept quiet.

  ***

  The kids were bubbling over with excitement. Each of them had composed a list of attributes they very much would have liked the robot to have. Sadly the combination of the aforementioned attributes was physically impossible to build, so they each got to contribute one item that would work with the construct as a whole.

  "I want it to have brown skin like me," Lily said.

  "And blue eyes," said Jimmy.

  "And copper hair, with springy curls" said Jenna.

  "Why not blond?" asked Lily.

  "I like copper better," Jenna said with a superior attitude.

  "And it should be tiny and delicate," said Keko, slanting her long oblique eyes with delight, like a Siamese cat.

  "And it should be good at sports," said Tommy, "I want to play catch with it."

  "And play the piano," counteracted Jesse.

  "No, the guitar!" said Jimmy.

  "It can do both," Sarah intervened to make peace.

  "And know how to swim," said Jimmy.

  "Jimmy, you wouldn't dream of taking another ride on the currents by any chance?" Sarah inquired, worried.

  "No, sister," Jimmy answered with the voice and demeanor of a little angel. Sarah shook her head in anguish.

  "And it can have sister Novis's walk if Purple likes it," Tommy conceded.

  "And it should like cats," Lily concluded.

  "I'm sure it will like cats. Cat. Sister. Remember?" Sarah laughed.

  "It is going to look like you picked the parts blindfolded. Are you sure you don't want it to be a fifty foot Cyclops with four arms that plays the harpsichord?" Seth joked through the interlink. Jimmy considered the Cyclops idea for a second, then dismissed it.

  "No, it would scare the girls," he condescended.

  "Speak for yourself, crybaby!" Lily jumped. She was the oldest among her friends and had maintained her unspoken leadership role since birth, she wasn't going to concede it to Jimmy just because he was male! Which brought fourth the very obvious question of gender. All eyes were pinned on Sarah, waiting for a decision.

  "Well, since either gender choice would upset half of you, how about we create a third gender, just for the robot?" she offered.

  "So the robot would be an 'it'?" asked Lily.

  "Practically it is an 'it'. Technically it will be a 'they'. We can call it an 'um'," Sarah said.

  "I, you, he, she, it, um, we,..." Seth recited through the interlink. "Would multiple 'ums' still be a they?" she asked.

  "Technically a singular 'um' is a 'they'," Sarah countered.

  "I see they rubbed up on you, this conversation is almost as maddening as talking to Purple directly," Seth mumbled.

  ***

  After prolonged design sessions where the features and attributes of the robot were painstakingly crafted until the children were happy with the results, 'um' was born, a delicately androgynous creature with slanted blue eyes and fiery hair shining even brighter against its chocolate skin, standing barely five foot two, graceful as a butterfly and swift as the wind.

  "We need a name!" the kids jumped, crowding around the doll-like figure to touch and observe it. "The skin is so realistic, it looks alive," Lily said, amazed.

  "The ocean likes to have sisters, how about we call 'um' Sister?" Jimmy said.

  "It would be kind of confusing because all of us are sisters, we will never know who you called," Sarah said.

  "How about something shorter, like Sys," Jenna said.

  "Sys. Sister. Love. Sys." Jesse recited. "It'll do," he approved.

  "Sys it is," Sarah sealed the deal.

  Sys stood still with its aqua blue eyes gazing vaguely in the distance and a sweet smile on its lips, completely oblivious to the fact that it was going to love cats, play the piano and the guitar, be good at sports and enjoy swimming. Despite the hodge-podge of characteristics um belonged in the noisy group almost as if it were the same age and had just joined them for class.

  "I'll have to remember all the time it's an 'um'," Sarah thought, gazing at the tiny figure that looked so much like a child it gave her goose bumps. "If I didn't know it weren't human, I'd offer it ice cream."

  "If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, when you're looking for trouble you're sure to find it. I don't like this 'um' business one bit. Too arrogant." sister Joseph voiced her opinion and for the first time Sarah considered that maybe the grouch had a point.

  Chapter Seven

  Of Life Ethics

  With the creation of um came obvious practical matters: where was Sys going to spend its time, what was to be its schedule, who was to be its custodian, would it need some level of autonomous function for the times when the immortals were otherwise engaged? It seemed unfair to make a being, albeit an artificial one, only to have it remitted to storage when it didn't serve a purpose.

  The sisters took some time every day after Matins for a couple of weeks to figure out the ethical issues as well as the logistical ones.

  "If it weren't for Sarah, we wouldn't have this problem," sister Joseph started the discussion, unconvinced.

  "Why is it a problem?" asked sister Mary Francis. "Let's not forget who we owe our extensive like span to, I don't think this endeavor is so much of an imposition. What was on your schedule, sister, that wouldn't allow you to waste time on this topic?" she asked rhetorically.

  "It just isn't right to design a human being," sister Joseph noted.

  "It is not a human being," Sarah interjected.

  "Even worse! What is it then? Does it have rights? Feelings? Should we be responsible for teaching it right from wrong? Mathematics? First aid?" she let her misgivings flow.

  "We can't make something in our image and let it run loose across the land as if it weren't our responsibility!"

  "We share this responsibility with the immortals; for all practical purposes they will be um's conscience, I don't think we should interfere too much anyway," Seth debated.

  "What makes you think the immortals even like us? After all we didn't ask them when we settled here, maybe they think they were better off before we came. We are gigantic, ignorant and apparently too slow for their standards," continued sister Joseph.

  "If a giant race of gaseous beings decided to settle Earth and live in the upper atmosphere because the conditions on the ground weren't favorable for them would you have a problem sharing the planet?" Seth asked a theoretical question.

  "Non-toxic gaseous beings?" asked sister Novis.

  "Obviously," answered Seth, annoyed.

  "I would worry about the rate of oxygen consumption," the sister continued analyzing her hypothetical situation.

  "Let's just assume that the oxygen levels wouldn't be affected. What on earth are we debating here? We're two hundred years too late for this conversation. We are here, they are here, we get along, what's with the made-up territorial claims?" Seth asked, peeved.

  "Just saying, none of you ever think things through, bind the spectrometer to the table and ask questions later!" sister Joseph mumbled, gawking at Roberta who shuffled, furious.

  "Sometimes, sister, you cross even the limits we set out just for you! Nobody else in this community is this ungrateful and rude, you should be ashamed of yourself!" Roberta blurted. Sister Joseph relented.

  "Let's go over the obvious questions. Where is Sys going t
o live; since it is your brainchild, Sarah, do you want to take um in?" Seth turned to the redhead, who nodded her head in acknowledgement.

  "What should we add to its core code? I think we would be wasting our time with information libraries, the immortals have way more knowledge and capacity than we could generate anyway," sister Mary Francis asked.

  "Not at all, sister," Sarah interjected. "What is Sys going to do when it is not on remote? I don't want um to be an object, it feels so wrong!"

  "This is why I beat my gums, but nobody listens to me!" sister Joseph observed. "We have a responsibility to this thing/creature now, I don't even know what it is, what is it, Sarah, since you were so creative as to bring it into being?"

  "You can think of um as a robot," Sarah said.

  "A self-aware robot?" sister Joseph asked.

  "That's what we are trying to determine. If um can learn by itself there is no question that we should consider it artificial life and respect its rights," said Sarah.