by Beth Revis
“Could you state your role in the Turing test? Speak up, please; the microphone is here.”
“My name is Rory Rivers. I’m a junior at State.”
“Your role in the Turing test held today?” Dr. Philip prompts.
“I was Subject Blue.”
“And could you tell us a little bit about your experience?”
Rory shifts in his chair. “Do we have to do that with . . . that here?”
Dr. Philip makes a note in his clipboard. “Does it disturb you?”
“Shit yes. It looks effing human.”
The doctor makes another notation. “Good. That is, of course, the goal.”
Rory swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“I need your account please. For the record.”
Rory nods and rips his gaze away from the thing slouched in the corner of the room. “I was Subject Blue, like I said.” He bends closer to the microphone in the center of the table. “I was told to give really short answers to all the questions and to use a computer to help me with answers if I needed one. I was told—you told me—that I should be really focused on the questions.”
Dr. Philip nods. “And you were quite good at that role. Thank you.”
The door opens. A tall, thin man enters. He’s wearing a lab coat just like Dr. Philip, and a broad grin slices across his face. “A success, don’t you think?”
Dr. Philip nods and turns off the microphone. He checks his clipboard. “The subject displayed a wide range of reactions. Curiosity, reasoning, philosophy, logic. Even paranoia and fear.”
The tall man’s grin turns into a smirk. “And even romantic interest there at the beginning, I think.”
“Who are you?” Rory demands. He’s unnerved by everything that’s happened today. He signed up for the Turing test because it was an extra $200 credited to his university account, but he hated the mind games being played.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude!” the tall man says jovially. “I’m Dr. Andrew Deckard.” His eyes light up. “Andy. Subject Red.”
Rory stands and shakes Andy’s hand.
“And I see you’ve met Elektra Shepherd,” Andy adds, nodding toward the thing in the corner.
Rory glances back at it. It’s beautiful—for a robot. Long, graceful-looking legs, slender arms, wavy dark hair. The eyes stare openly—a vivid, clear shade of hazel—but there’s no light in them. If Dr. Philip were to go back to the android and flip the switch on the back of her neck, though, Rory had little doubt that the thing would come alive and speak as animatedly as it had during the Turing test.
“She’s our pride and joy,” Andy says. “Model #ES42. Our first sentient android. We’ve been working on her a long time, and she’s pretty much perfect.”
“What will happen when you turn her back on?” Rory asks. He stares at the android with a sort of horror-filled fascination.
“She’ll pick up immediately. She’s designed to assess the situation before sentience is fully booted up, then her artificial intelligence creates an artifice for her. She’ll believe her situation is real and valid.”
“What Dr. Deckard means,” Dr. Philip says, stepping into the conversation when he sees Rory’s confused face, “is that we’ve constructed her intelligence in much the same way dreams operate. When you dream, you believe the scene you’re in is perfectly reasonable. Perhaps you dream that you’re in a classroom—if you were aware of the dream and questioned, you’d realize you have no memory of how or why you got in the classroom. ES42’s reasoning works the same way. If Andy had probed her for details on how she got in the room and got set up for the test, her artificial intelligence would supply her with some answers—give her just enough information to make her believe that it was perfectly logical for her to be where she is now. But if pressed, she couldn’t tell you what the outside of this room looks like because, frankly, she’s never been outside.”
“We’re displaying her at the International Research on Android and A.I. Studies Seminar at the end of the month,” Andy says, pride ringing in his voice. “When we turn her on there, she’ll process the situation quickly and create a reason in her A.I. for being there. She’ll probably think she was an assistant to Dr. Philip on a project or something similar. And she’ll just blend into the scene.”
Dr. Philip laughs. “I suspect that many of the other scientists won’t even figure out she’s a sentient android until we reveal at the end of the seminar!”
Rory, however, can’t take his mind off her clear, ringing voice, the way she asked about souls. Andy had said that life meant something different to everyone, and it was only now, in seeing the hollow shell of Elektra Shepherd—of Model #ES42—that Rory realized just how true those words were.
EXCLUSIVE AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Q: How did you become interested in science fiction?
Beth: I think I was always interested in sci fi, I just didn’t know it. My husband likes very techy, hard science fiction stories, the kind of books that are eight hundred pages long and half of that is details about the spaceship engine. That I never liked. But I’ve always loved light sci fi on television and in the movies. I grew up with Star Wars—Princess Leia is one of the reasons I have long hair to this day—and grew to love Firefly, Doctor Who, and many more. So the love was there, but when I started writing my first sci fi, Across the Universe, I was totally intimidated. I didn’t think I could do it—I thought sci fi novels had to be like my husband’s favorite books. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that sci fi can be whatever you want it to be, and I’ve loved seeing the boom in YA science fiction we’re experiencing today.
Q: Do you purposefully put symbols into your books?
Beth: Just as America has a separation of church and state, I think all books have a separation of book and author. I’m sure that there are perfectly valid symbols within the text that are there, but that I did not consciously put into the novel. But there is one symbol that I very specifically added: bees. What the bees symbolize is something I’ll leave to you English majors out there.
Q: What’s your favorite bit about The Body Electric?
Beth: The last line.
Q: What was your journey to publication like?
Beth: I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn’t give up. Then I wrote one more book.
Across the Universe changed my life. A lot of people ask me, “Will you ever publish one of your ten trunk novels?” The answer is: probably not. I’m too busy writing new stories. Better ones, I hope.
Q: What’s a typical writing day for you like?
Beth: Every day is different. Some days are writing days, some days are thinking days. Sometimes I have to forget about writing at all and focus on the business side of this life. But that’s one of the things I love the most about writing full-time—you never know what you’re going to do next. I purposefully don’t have a schedule. Schedules stifle me. And I don’t write the same way with every book. I like the adventure of writing; I like not knowing how it’ll all work out.
When I’m drafting, one of the things that I tend to do is light a scented candle. I really like candles, and I have a Pavlovian response to burning candles and getting to work. I also quite like coffee and/or cheese, but who doesn’t?
Q: What’s your favorite part of being a writer?
A: Being able to work from my couch, sans pants.
THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BODY ELECTRIC
I have been trying to write a story that took place in Malta for nearly a decade. Although a popular vacation spot for Europeans, Malta is almost completely unknown in America. I first heard of it in college, when a student leader in my education program organized a trip there. Part research, part vacation, I had very little idea of what to expect from Malta.
What I found was beauty: b
eautiful country, beautiful food, beautiful people, inside and out. The trip put us with locals as we learned about their educational system, and it put us in history as we explored archaeological sites, and, for me at least, it was the first moment when I realized how vast and amazing the world really is.
The best details about Malta in my book are true: the Gardjola Tower in Sanglea, Comino Island (and the lagoon—but there’s no amusement park or casino!), the catacombs, the luzzi, and, of course, the pastizzi. While Gozo and Malta do exist, there is no bridge between them, and no city floating on the water.
I continued to travel as much as I could after visiting Malta. As a teacher, I lead groups of students on summer trips in Europe, and that was how I discovered Venice (the real one, in Italy). I had known about the waterways used as streets, the glassblowing, and the beautiful architecture, but actually being there was awe-inspiring. And while it’s true that the city is in constant danger of collapse and likely won’t survive the upcoming centuries, I didn’t want to imagine a world where there was no echo of Venice.
Travel changes us.
But despite loving the country of Malta and the city of Venice, I wasn’t able to write either into any of my stories. I gathered tidbits of research, magpie-like, for a day in the distant future when I may be able to bring up this island nation and floating city, but it wasn’t until I was trying to come up with something to write after finishing my first science fiction trilogy, Across the Universe, that the idea struck me.
Across the Universe takes place entirely on a generation spaceship, and, aside from a brief introduction, is not on Earth at all. But obviously, something had to have been happening on Earth. Something that would stem from the world that made the Financial Resource Exchange (FRX) and phydus.
That’s when I decided to write The Body Electric, to show what was happening on Earth while Amy and Elder were in space.
The book had to stand alone, though, and it had to include an entirely new plot and new characters. Ella came easily to me. Ever since seeing the movie Total Recall as a wee little Beth (far too young to understand the triple boobs properly), I’ve been fascinated by the idea of memory manipulation. We are, at least in part, who we remember ourselves to be. Take away our memories, and you take away our selves.
I had a lot of fun paying homage to the author of Total Recall in this book. Philip K. Dick is one of the most influential science fiction writers ever, and I slipped in as many Easter egg allusions to his work as I could. Ella Shepherd is named after my favorite Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and her father is named for Philip himself. The sign above the Reverie Mental Spa with its neon bouncing sheep is another allusion to the title.
I tried to slip in some references to a few other books and movies I loved—far too many to count. Ella’s father is buried under a holly tree, a subtle reference to the tree used to make Harry Potter’s wand. The image of Jack holding out the piece of paper in Representative Belles’s mind was supposed to be reminiscent of Princess Leia giving her plea for help to R2-D2.
Another one of my favorite books of all time is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and I dearly adore Tilda Swinton’s performance of the White Witch. All the best bits of Ms. White are owed to Tilda’s characterization of the witch.
Jack was a far more difficult character for me to write. I knew what I wanted him to be like, I knew his past and what he hoped for, but his voice eluded me. I have Doctor Who to thank for Jack’s personality—specifically the “Are you my mummy?” episode called “The Empty Child.” This is the very first episode with Captain Jack Harkness—full of sass, flippantly awesome, but heroically noble in the end. Although I’d seen the episode many times before, something about watching it while I was trying to nail down my character’s voice clicked, and Ella’s love interest flowed onto the page. Jack is named in honor of the Captain, and Ella’s mother is named for the girl he dances with in the episode, Rose.
I also love history, and try to hide at least some historical allusions into my stories. The biggest one in The Body Electric is probably Julie, Jack’s strong-arm. Her name is Julie d’Aubigny, and, as she mentions in the novel, she’s from France, near the Seine River. I based her character on the real Julie d’Aubigny in history—a total badass lady who wielded a sword, sang opera, and had epic sex stories, including breaking into a convent to steal a lady lover from some nuns. You should totally read up on her.
Hebb’s Disease, which Ella’s mother suffers from, is not a real disease—thankfully. But it was named for a real scientist, Donald Hebb, whose research became known as Hebbian Learning. Essentially, Hebb looked at learning on a cellular level. My fictional Hebb’s Disease broke apart that learning, sending cells further and further away from the synapses and communication they needed to be efficient.
And, finally, I would be remiss without pointing out the title of this book, The Body Electric, is directly derived from Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Sing the Body Electric.” The poem I used as an epigraph is actually a different Whitman poem, but I wanted his words to frame this story because Ella and Jack’s tale is about life—living life on one’s own terms, free and vibrant—and so much of Whitman’s poetry reflects exactly that.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE UNIFIED COUNTRIES
The Secessionary War—the largest, most devastating war in history—is long behind us now, ever since the Great Maltese Treaty. But how did it start? To learn the answer to that, we have to go nearly three centuries back in time, to the formation of the first foundling world governmental policy, the Financial Resource Exchange.
The Financial Resource Exchange
The FRX was developed in a time of global economic crisis. As fuel prices skyrocketed, the American and European stock markets crashed, defaulting on debt in Asia that led to a further economic spiraling. The nations of the world had no choice but to work together—not only among themselves, but also among interested businesses. By joining with the private sector, the FRX pooled together the resources of the world in a fiscal system rooted in both capitalism and socialism.
One of the first places the FRX looked to expand resources was to the heavens. The Moon had already been used for vacationers as a playground for the rich, but now it expanded into more focused scientific laboratories, eventually developing into the Lunar Colonies at Serenitatis and Tranquilitatis.
Most well known of the FRX’s developments is the launch of the first inter-planetary spaceship, the Godspeed. This ship’s tragic history is still unknown—just a few short years before it was due to arrive, the Godspeed quit communicating with Earth and disappeared from our tracking systems. The entire ship, as well as the crew and cryogenically frozen members of society, is lost to the stars.
But in the wake of this mysterious tragedy, there was a bright spot for the FRX and the nations that had invested so much time, money, and hope into it. Before disappearing, Godspeed’s probe provided us with information on the natural resources on the planet Centauri-Earth. Using that information, the FRX was able to send faster ships to the planet, and return soil samples back to the flourishing labs in the Lunar Colonies. This joint effort, between the brave explorers on the new planet and the steadfast scientists on the Moon, provided Earth with one of its greatest discoveries: solar glass.
Solar Glass
We’re still experimenting with solar glass, but this resource has proven to be remarkable. Early studies suggest a near-limitless source of clean, efficient fuel for all our needs.
Sadly, however, much like the twentieth-century discoveries of nuclear energy, the development of solar glass into a fuel source has not occurred without mishap. Because the raw materials for the glass must be made on Centauri-Earth, it is very scarce and in high demand, a cause of conflict.
To see solar glass in action, though, one has only to go to the beautiful city of New Venice, the capital of the world!
The Development of the Unified Countries
After the discovery
of solar glass, the FRX reconvened in Berlin, Germany, for a three-month summit during which time the nations were supposed to be devising a plan on how best to distribute the solar glass among the countries allied in the FRX and countries not a part of the original governing agreement.
The result was not a restructuring of the FRX or any mere alliance, but instead, the formation of a functioning global government. The Unified Countries became the first major global governing body. All countries originally in the FRX joined the UC, and several countries originally not a part of the FRX joined as well, although they had to contribute financially to earn access to solar glass.
The UC operates as a republic. Each nation holds an election for a Representative Administrator, one person to represent the entire country to the UC. From among all the Representative Administrators, one Prime Administrator is elected as a leader who can direct orders of business, veto unfair laws, and act as a moral beacon to the Treatise of Unity developed during the Berlin Summit.
The early days of the UC were not without conflict. Following the assassination of the first Prime Administrator, the second Prime Administrator took a hard stance on policies. The nations which joined the UC but were not originally part of the FRX, known as Secondary States, protested their unequal treatment, citing that they were given less access to scientific developments, solar glass, and financial recourse than the Primary States.