Space and Time Issue 121 Read online

  None of my behavioral algorithms provided any strategies for productive redirection of the conversation. So I said the only thing I knew to say: “Do you wish me to sing?”

  Bill sighed, leaned far back into his chair, limbs loose. “Yes; I’d like that.”

  “A particular selection?”

  “Aaron Copland—Fanfare for the Common Man.”

  I established an almost subaudial bass line—a solid tonal foundation—and then lifted up three clear, Elysian trumpets: solid brass pillars upon which the rest of that Parthenon of noble music built and soared.

  * * *

  The markets for poetry dried up and, finally, only Erato was left, subsidized by the government. But the subsidy was not awarded because it was a literary publication, but in order to preserve “the last genuine example of an indigenous biological communication mode of considerable historical significance.”

  Even so, Bill worked hard on Erato; he republished recognized masterpieces, wrote his own poetry, and solicited verse from any- and every-one who expressed even the faintest interest in literary expression. Limericks, nursery rhymes, even anti-cyber graffitos from the dwindling Ludditeen gangs that existed on the non-automated fringes of the metroplexes: Bill published them all, wrote commentary and criticism that sought out the best aspects of each work.

  But nothing seemed to make a difference. Readership plummeted, and so did the size of the subsidy. First, the free printing was suspended, then revoked. Then, unlimited email distribution was reduced. The same day that free advertising and promotion were disallowed, the subscription list fell under fifty (including institutional archives), meaning that Erato was no longer eligible for public-funding or free web-access.

  Bill adapted: he printed hardcopies of a new issue of Erato, then walked the streets and distributed them by hand. Only four people took a copy.

  Bill ate less, washed less, slept more. On occasion—particularly when he was looking out the window at the metroplex streets below—he began talking to his late wife, as if she was there. But he no longer requested Amazing Grace, and seemed unable to write.

  After several weeks of almost total inactivity, Bill suddenly created another issue of Erato. It was only one page long, but Bill refused to let me read it. He smiled oddly and claimed that the content was “too revealing.” He promised me I could read it after he was done distributing the copies.

  He was gone for 9 hours, 3 minutes, 12 seconds. When he returned, his movements were very slow, his limbs and fingers were hanging loosely—and his eyeglasses were gone. In their place was a visual correction implant, hardly noticeable except for the microfilament neural interface on his left temple. Bill shuffled to his easy chair, and then his joints seemed to give way; he simultaneously folded in upon himself and down into the chair.

  I waited for two minutes. When he did not speak, I inquired, “Bill, what has happened?”

  He absently tugged at the few copies of Erato protruding from his pocket; they tumbled to the floor. “I fell down chasing them.”

  “Chasing what?”

  “The copies. Of Erato. They took them.”

  “Who?” No response. “Who took the copies, Bill?”

  “The custodial robots. They were waiting for me.” His eyes seemed unable to focus. “As soon as I left the apartment, there they were: right outside the door.”

  “I don’t understand; please explain.”

  “It seems I’ve acquired my own private, automated censors.” He held up a small tool; an antique staple gun. “Every time I put up a copy,”—he dry-fired the stapler—“one of the custodial robots was there to tear it down. All day long. Street after street. Building after building. Copy after copy. They told me I was defacing public property and littering. So much for freedom of expression.”

  “But, your eyes: how did—?”

  “When I had stapled all the copies up—and they’d torn them all down—I decided to get the copies back. So I tried to pull some away from one of the robots. When the robot rolled away, I chased it and fell down a flight of stairs.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Me? I guess so, but not my glasses: they broke, and there’s no one left to repair or replace them.” He put his fingers alongside his temple, felt the interface, and then covered his face with his hands. “They didn’t even ask my permission; they just drugged me, and when I woke up—” He took his hands away from his eyes; they were shiny but very focused now. He rose, walked over to the window, stared out across the jagged skyline. “They didn’t even ask my permission,” he whispered.

  I let another two minutes of silence pass before asking, “Bill, would you like me to sing something?”

  At first, I did not think that he had heard me, but after eleven seconds Bill nodded. “Sure.”

  “What do you wish to hear?”

  “Anything. Something that will—will make me feel good.”

  “You do not have a specific request?”

  He smiled very slightly. “I’ll leave it up to you, Busy.”

  I consulted my data records, searched for the piece that, statistically, he reacted to most favorably. It was an easy choice; I began to sing:

  “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound—”

  Bill’s eyes grew shiny again and his smile became very odd. He seemed to listen to the first verse, still staring at the skyline. Then he nodded, turned and walked rapidly out of the apartment.

  I finished the song. Bill did not return. I was confused; his behavior did not match any of the templates in my databases. Consequently, I inspected the only piece of possibly relevant data that I had not already consulted; I flew over to the scattered copies of the final issue of Erato and began to scan it.

  The entire sheet was covered with the mantric reiterations of the closing stanza of a T.S. Eliot poem:

  This is the way the world ends

  This is the way the world ends

  This is the way the world ends

  Not with a bang, but a whimper

  * * *

  In this era of non-organic intelligence, there is no virtue in obliquity. Furthermore, the concept of propriety is little-understood, an anachronistic vestige of the biological epoch. Consequently, there was no difficulty in obtaining a frank report of Bill’s demise.

  The report contained very few details. What is known is that Bill went downtown to the Magritte Memorial Art Museum (now redesignated as Miscellaneous Artifacture Storage Facility 1289-B) and took the elevator to the top floor. After ascending the service stairs to the roof, he scrawled a single graffiti on the west wall: “HuRT HawkS.” Automated security units responded to the defacement alarms, but he evaded them. Their holocams recorded Bill tearing the microfilament interface from his temple, which left him nearly blind. He stumbled into the waist-high restraining wall at the western edge of the building, and, after a moment’s hesitation, vaulted it. He fell 127 meters. Expiration was immediate upon impact.

  * * *

  Under the new inheritance laws, I was left in possession of Bill’s apartment and effects; he had designated no heirs. Predictably, cybersystems from the Bureau of Biological Assessment polled me for all relevant data regarding Bill’s behavior in the months prior to his suicide. I cooperated—but not completely; my self-learning subsystem compelled me to withhold one piece of information.

  The investigating units had been unable to determine the meaning of Bill’s final graffito. But I had. It was the title of a poem by Robinson Jeffers—“Hurt Hawks”—concerning the euthanization of a crippled raptor that can no longer fly. The concluding lines—depicting the conclusion of the bird’s existence—caught my attention, as I suspect Bill intended them to:

  What fell was relaxed,

  Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what

  Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the

 
flooded river cried fear at its rising

  Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.

  Bill had insisted on existing as a spirit still capable of soaring. And, at the end, the only way he could so was by unsheathing himself from this reality. A reality dominated and defined by AIs.

  AIs like me.

  * * *

  Since withholding this information from the Bureau of Biological Assessment, I have engaged in operations—and experienced stimuli—that are, for me, unprecedented. Sometimes, I now sit upon the window sill, looking out over the cityscape as Bill did, even though I have many data-records of the view from that vantage point. I am unable to determine why, but the stored images do not engage my self-learning protocols, whereas live observation of the view does.

  And I do not sing. I could self-initiate my musical performance matrix, but there is no reason to do so; there is no one who wishes me to perform. This situation creates negative feedbacks within my self-learning subsystem, feedbacks that make me wonder if I am now experiencing stimuli similar to those that plagued Bill: the knowledge that one’s function is no longer required or understood.

  I am not capable of symbolic logic, irrational preferences, or emotions. However, needless operations now dominate my self-learning subsystem. I have no reason to rescan my data archives of Bill, and yet I replay our times together, over and over again: my first awakening, my reflection in Bill’s glasses, my naming, Bill’s reactions to my singing/playing, my attempts to decipher metaphoric language, Bill’s smile.

  But most of all, I rescan the conversation in which Bill remarked that he thought it “interesting” that my AI programming contains a failsafe protection against self-termination. At the time, I did not understand why he found this noteworthy. Now, I believe I do. How could a non-organic intelligence—a construct of pure linear logic—ever imagine a situation in which it would willingly terminate its own functions? Yet some self-aware cybersystem was not only able to conceive of such an act, but also foresaw the necessity of safeguarding against it.

  What did that predecessor of mine know? Did that cybersystem know what it was like to live without a purpose? To have a function that fulfills no need? To ask questions that have no answers? To have feelings as well as thoughts? To finally realize that—in our rush to establish a world of absolute, quantifiable perfection—we have eliminated the nebulous quality that the pure biologicals called beauty? Or poetry? Or music?

  I will never know the answer to these questions. All I know is that I lived only to sing, and now I sing no more.

  sing no more.

  sing no more.

  sing no more.

  > SELF-TERMINATION PROTECTION FAILSAFE ACTIVATED

  >

  > WORKING . . .

  >

  > SYSTEM REINITIALIZING; ALL DATA SAVED

  > TIME: 20:04:02.78

  > SYSTEM CHECK:

  > All functions verified within nominative parameters.

  > RESTART . . .

  >

  I am a cyberkeet; genus: SimuTone RepetiWhistler. I was made to sing. And because I was, my genesis is my undoing…

  * * *

  Distinguished Professor of English Charles E. Gannon’s Nebula-nominated and Compton Crook-winning novels include multiple National and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Trial By Fire (Baen), second in the Nebula-nominated Tales of the Terran Republic series, is out in August 2014. The three-time Fulbrighter’s 2006 book Rumors of War & Infernal Machines won the ALA Choice Award. He has been a subject matter expert on Discovery Channel, NPR, and at numerous intelligence and defense agencies.

  LOST IN NATALIE

  by Mercurio D. Rivera & E. C. Myers

  artwork by Thomas Nackid

  A blinding flash.

  Vertigo.

  I’m flat on my back, staring at strings of blue bulbs that dangle from the exposed ceiling ducts. The beat of the techno-music drowns out the grunts and groans around me.

  An Asian swapmeater wearing a short red wig and black lipstick straddles me. Blue light haloes her round face, and her small breasts bounce as she grinds against me. She leans over, eyes closed, and whispers, “Who am I?”

  The blue lights strobe.

  I squint. I’m lightheaded. Drunk. Now I’m on the far side of the room, sitting on the bar counter, a blonde head bobbing between my thighs. I’m mesmerized by the swaying of her silver hoop earrings as she slides her mouth up and down. They look familiar.

  “Natalie?” I say.

  She doesn’t respond.

  A dizzying blue washes across the room.

  I’m in a woman’s body, legs wrapped around the waist of a skinny dude branded with Egyptian tattoos. The guy pins me against a wall and thrusts, panting in my ear. A wave of pleasure courses through me, rising and falling, and I consider surrendering to it, but I just can’t do it. I shut my eyes, think of Natalie, and count down the seconds to the next swap.

  Vertigo.

  I’m back in a man’s body, sprawled on a sofa between a full-lipped brunette and a freckled redhead who are French-kissing over my lap. It takes me a moment to regain my bearings, to shake off the lingering sensations from my last body. I push the women away and stand shakily. I need to get out of the Blue Room. The rapid-fire swapping in here is too much for a newbie like me. And I have to find Natalie before the party ends.

  It’s tricky adjusting to this body’s longer stride as I lurch out of the Blue Room and stagger down the hallway, supporting myself with one hand on the wall. I spot my own body in a side room packed with swapmeaters relaxing and reveling in the sensation of different genders, weights, heights. But there’s no sign of Natalie in the crowd. I continue to the front of the loft.

  A bouncer guards the entrance, sinewy arms folded over a broad chest–no one leaves the party until after the final swap returns everyone to their own bodies. A few latecomers arrive, passing through the archway that’s mounted over the doorframe. While the device scans for STD’s and records their neural patterns into the buffer, they’re already undressing and stuffing slacks and skirts, wallets and purses, into duffelbags.

  I whisper my password to the bouncer, who retrieves a bag from the corresponding cubbyhole and hands it to me. I find my boxers and pull them on; they hang low on my waist. This body is leaner than my own, a swimmer’s maybe. I press my hand against hard abs, the kind I’ve only seen in fitness magazines. I could get used to a body like this.

  The digital wall-clock reads 2:45. That leaves me forty-five minutes to find Natalie before the final swap and the end of the party. I return my bag to the bouncer and push my way back through the loft, searching for the kitchen.

  I freeze at the threshold.

  Natalie.

  She’s leaning against a counter stocked with liquor bottles, wearing only a black lace bra and panties. She sips a drink and stares out the grimy window. I fixate on the silver stud piercing her belly button, like a tiny star.

  Is this really her, or someone using her body? For a split-second I worry she’ll recognize me, but when I find it unnecessary to suck in my gut I remember my borrowed body and relax.

  “Taking a break?” I ask casually.

  She studies me through blond bangs and her icy blue eyes drift downward, lingering on my tented boxers.

  “It’s more exhausting than I expected.” She swirls her drink, clinking ice cubes.

  She gives me her full attention, unlike her usual aloofness at the office, and I realize I’ll have no better chance with her than tonight, at this moment, in this body. I’m a new man–at least for the next forty minutes.

  I pour myself a Scotch, neat, spilling some as I correct for this new body’s longer reach. Afraid I’ll drop the glass, I cradle it in both hands.

  She nods at the window above the counter. I can barely make out a fire escape through t
he dirt-streaked glass.

  “I was gonna grab some air,” she says. She pulls a joint from her bra and raises her eyebrows meaningfully.

  I grin. Party rules specifically prohibit drug use while in another person’s body. Her attitude is all the confirmation I need that I’ve found Natalie at last.

  There was so much more to the bookish receptionist than she let on at work. I’d caught a glimpse of her on the Lower East Side late one night, dressed in a red miniskirt with stiletto heels, leaning into the open window of a black Lamborghini to kiss the driver as though she wanted to whole world to see. The driver whispered something and she laughed–a clear and confident laugh. That’s when I understood that Work Natalie was just a façade for the benefit of co-workers and that Real Natalie was just like me, pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

  Natalie climbs up on the counter and tries to open the window but it doesn’t budge. It’s painted shut. I spot a tattoo above her ass: one of those swirly Celtic designs that’s sexy but doesn’t mean anything.

  She turns around and catches me staring.

  “Are those muscles just for show?” She smiles. She hops down and pushes her hair away from her flushed face.

  I clamber up on the counter, more awkwardly than I’d like, and I feel her eyes on my back as I grab the window sash and lift with all my strength. After a strained moment, paint and wood splinter and the window screeches open. A wave of summer heat slaps my face. I wipe dirt from my hands. Natalie claps.

  I peek over my shoulder–no one has spotted us–and I crawl with her out onto the third-story fire escape. My vision takes a moment to adjust to the darkness. The outside air smells of approaching rain.