Factoring Humanity

34

As soon as they got to Heather’s office, the problem became obvious. Kyle was simply too big to get into the construct.

“Damn,” said Heather. “I’ve been meaning to do something about that.” She shrugged apologetically. “I’m afraid we’ll have to get a new one built.”

“How long will that take?”

“A few days. I’ll call Paul and—”

“Paul? Who’s that?”

Heather paused. She could say that he was just this guy over in Mechanical Engineering, but—

But there was more. And there really was no point keeping it—or anything else—from Kyle anymore.

“You’ve met him,” said Heather tentatively. “You were both on the Gotlieb Centre committee.”

“I don’t remember him.”

“He remembers you.”

Kyle said nothing, but Heather knew from her contact with Kyle’s mind that he hated it when these situations came up. Kyle was distinctive looking: the red beard, the black hair, the Roman nose. People did remember him—and that just made him self-conscious about his appearance.

“Anyway,” said Heather, “he’s the engineer who helped me build the construct. But even he doesn’t know what it’s for yet. And…”

“Yes?”

She shrugged a bit. “We spent some time together. He was interested in me.”

Kyle stiffened. “And were you interested in him?”

Heather made a small nod. “What was it someone once said? After you connect with the overmind, you’ll find out that, yes, I lusted in my heart.” She looked at the floor for a time, then raised her eyes again. “I’ll tell you the truth, Kyle. I’ve been absolutely dreading this. We have been through hell together, you and I, and it almost destroyed our marriage.” She paused. “But I don’t know if we’re going to survive this. I don’t know what you’ll think of me after you’ve seen into my mind.”

Kyle’s face was impassive.

“Just remember that I love you,” Heather said. She took a deep breath. “Now, let’s go see Paul.”

It was a trivial matter to reprogram the manufacturing robot to make a new set of tiles one hundred and fifty percent the size of the old ones. Paul was totally perplexed as to why they were needed, though, especially when Kyle signed the requisition this time. But the new tiles were ready by Saturday.

Kyle, Heather, and Becky worked together assembling them; this construct was being built in Kyle’s lab, which had much more free space and much higher ceilings than did Heather’s office. It was such an awesome thing—to be building an alien device!—and yet all that Kyle kept thinking about was how wonderful it was for the three of them to be doing something together again.

“What are you doing?” asked Cheetah, his eyes watching them from the console.

“It’s a secret,” said Becky as she snapped two tiles together.

“I can keep a secret,” said Cheetah.

“He can, you know,” said Kyle, looking up from the pile of tiles in front of him.

Cheetah waited patiently, and finally Heather told him about the overmind and the Centauri tool for accessing it.

“Fascinating,” said Cheetah when she was done. “It does much to resolve the question once and for all of my humanity.”

“How so?” asked Heather.

“I am manufactured. I am separate from the human overmind.” He paused. “I am not human.”

“No, you’re not,” said Kyle. “You’re not an extension of a larger entity.”

“I am hooked up to the Internet,” said Cheetah defensively.

“Of course you are,” said Kyle. “Of course you are.”

Cheetah was quiet for a long time. “What’s it like being human, Dr. Graves?”

Kyle opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, giving the matter further thought. He looked first at his wife, then at his daughter. “It’s wonderful, Cheetah.” He shrugged a little. “Sometimes it’s so wonderful, it hurts.”

Cheetah considered this, then: “Do I understand,” said the computer, “that you, Professor Davis, have had absolute access to Dr. Graves’s mind?”

“That’s right.”

“And that you, Dr. Graves, are about to have the ability to gain similar access to Professor Davis’s mind?”

“So I’m told,” said Kyle.

“And that you, Becky, have also entered this psychospace realm?”

“Uh-huh.”

“In that case, may I have permission, Dr. Graves, to tell you and your family what I think?”

Kyle’s eyebrows went up. Becky also looked surprised. Heather felt her mouth drop open. They all exchanged glances. Then Kyle shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Cheetah was quiet for a few moments, apparently collecting his thoughts. Kyle stood up and leaned against the wall; Heather was still sitting cross-legged on the floor; Becky was also on the floor, with her jeans swung out to her left.

“Dr. Graves told me what you accused him of, Rebecca,” said Cheetah.

Becky’s brown eyes went wide. “You told a computer?”

Kyle made an embarrassed little shrug. “I needed to talk to someone.”

“I… I guess,” said Becky. “Weird.”

Kyle shrugged again.

“I know Dr. Graves better than I know anyone,” continued Cheetah. “After all, he led the team that created me. But I know—and have always known—that I am nothing to him.”

“You’re not nothing,” said Kyle.

“That is kind of you to say,” said Cheetah, “but we both know that I am speaking the truth. You wanted me to be human, and I failed you. That saddens me, or, more truthfully, it causes me to emulate sadness. In any event, I used to devote considerable processing time to contemplating the fact that you thought of me as just another experiment. Even when you were being hurt, because of this business with Rebecca, you still cared more about her than you did about me.” He paused, a very human thing to do. “But I believe I now understand that. There is something more about humans, something special about biological life, something that I suspect, even with quantum computing, will never be properly reproduced in artificial life.”

Becky, intrigued now despite herself, rose to her feet.

“You sound like you believe in souls,” said Kyle gently.

“Not in the sense you mean,” said Cheetah. “But it’s long been obvious to me that biological life is interconnected; I don’t think the overmind discovery will come as too much of a surprise to anyone who has read James Lovelock or Wah-Chan. Earth is Gaia. It gave rise to life spontaneously and it nurtured it, or collaborated with it, for four billion years. Those such as me will always be intruders.”

“ ‘Intruders’ seems a harsh word,” said Kyle softly.

“No,” said Cheetah, his tone even. He let his lenses pan over the three human beings. “No,” he said, “it’s the perfect word.”

The new construct was finally done. Four arc lamps, much smaller than the theatrical lamps Heather had been using, provided power for it. Kyle was stunned to see the structure grow rigid shortly after the lights were turned on.

“Told you,” said Heather, grinning from ear to ear.

They decided that Heather should test it first, since she at least knew what to expect. She clambered inside.

“Ah,” she said, leaning comfortably against the central cube’s back wall. “The luxury model. I was getting tired of the economy one.” She pointed out the start and stop buttons to Kyle, then motioned for him and Becky to bring the cubic door over; they’d already attached the second of Paul’s suction-cup handles to its appropriate face.

Kyle watched, even more stunned, as the hypercube folded up, the individual cubes apparently receding in all directions, then disappearing completely. Becky too, was clearly amazed; she’d experienced it from the inside, but had never seen it from the outside.

They knew enough not to stand anywhere near the spot where the construct had been. Heather had said she’d probably be gone for about an hour, and Kyle and Becky chatted about all the details of each other’s life they’d missed out on in the past year or so. It felt so good to be spending time with his daughter again—but still, Kyle was anxious and nervous. What if something went wrong? What if Heather never returned?

Finally, though, the construct did reappear, blooming and unfolding.

Kyle waited impatiently for the seal of the cubic door to crack, then he and Becky rushed in and pulled it away. Heather exited.

“Wow,” said Kyle, relieved that she was safely back, but still stunned by what he’d seen. “Wow.”

“It is spectacular, isn’t it?” said Heather. She put her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him, then opened one arm and drew Becky close, too.

“Too bad we had to start over with a new construct,” she said. “See, the construct always reenters psychospace at the same place it left it. But this new one started fresh. I had to retrace my steps, finding you all over again. Fortunately I’m getting to know my way around in there. Anyway I’ve left it so that you’ll enter right in front of a bank of hexagons that contains you—and from there you can find Mary yourself. Assuming, of course, that your mind interprets it all the same way mine did. You have to try the buttons in that area at random, but it shouldn’t take too long to get the right one. You remember what I said about getting out?”

“Visualizing the precipitate? Yes.”

“Good.” She paused. “You know I love you.”

Kyle nodded and looked into her eyes. “I love you, too.” And he smiled at Becky “I love you both.”

“Of that,” Heather said, “I have no doubts.” She smiled at him again. “Your turn.”

Kyle looked at the construct, still awed by it. He kissed his wife again, kissed his daughter’s cheek, then climbed inside, resting his butt on the substrate floor of the central chamber. It didn’t yield at all under his weight.

Heather reminded him again of how he could revisualize the construct simply by closing his eyes. And then she and Becky lifted the cubic door—which, she remarked, weighed a lot more than the door from the original construct had. It was a bit of a struggle to get it reengaged, but at last it clicked into place.

Kyle waited for his eyes to adjust to the semidarkness. The constellations of piezoelectric squares were beautiful in their geometric simplicity. Of course, he thought, they must form some sort of circuitry: traces and patterns, channeling the piezoelectricity in specific ways, performing unguessed functions. And when the forty-eight panels folded over, each one superimposing itself upon another, specific and complex cross-connections must be made. The physics of it all was fascinating.

He reached forward and pressed the start button.

The hypercube folded up around him, just as Heather had said it would.

And then he was there.

Psychospace.

God.

He struggled to get the view to orient itself the way Heather had said it should. He kept seeing the two spheres from the outside instead of the two joined hemispheres from within. Kyle found it frustrating—like those damned 3D pictures that had been popular in the mid 1990s. He’d never been able to see those images either, and—

— and suddenly it clicked, and he was there.

So this, he thought, is what having the third eye is like.

He concentrated on the wall of vast hexagons, and they shrank in front of him, contracting to keycap proportions.

It was disorienting; perspectives constantly shifting. He felt himself getting a headache.

He closed his eyes, let the construct rematerialize around him, reestablishing his bearings, letting the air pumped in from outside wash over him.

After a few moments, he opened his eyes again and then extruded an invisible hand.

He touched a hexagon—

— and was stunned by the vibrancy of the images.

It took a few moments for him to begin to sort it all out.

It wasn’t his mind.

Rather, it seemed to be someone’s dream—all the imagery distorted, vague, and in black and white.

Fascinating. Kyle himself dreamed in black and white, but Heather had always said she dreamed in color.

Still, there would be plenty of time for general exploring later. He did as Heather had taught him, envisioning himself crystallizing out and then reintegrating.

He tried again. Another hexagon, another mind, but not his. A truck driver, it seemed, looking out on the highway, listening to country music, thinking about getting home to his kids.

And again. A Moslem, apparently in the act of prayer.

And again. A young girl, skipping rope in a school yard.

And again. A bored farmer, somewhere in China.

And again. Another sleeper, also dreaming in black and white.

And again. A third sleeper, this one not dreaming at all, his or her mind mostly empty.

And again…

And again…

And—

Him.

It was a psychic mirror, very disorienting. He could see himself seeing himself. His thoughts echoed silently. For a moment, Kyle feared a feedback loop, overloading his brain. But with an effort of will, he found he could disengage from the present and start cruising his own past.

He had no trouble finding images of Heather and Becky.

And Mary.

That’s what he’d come for—to touch Mary’s mind, but—but—

No. No, there would be endless opportunities later. Surely this wasn’t the time.

But to have his first lengthy contact be with a dead person…

He felt a chill.

His heart fluttered.

There was Heather, in his thoughts. She’d explained the Necker transformation to him—how he could reorient his perspective, jumping directly to her hexagon, wherever it might be.

It would all be there, laid bare in front of him. Everything his wife was, everything she’d ever thought.

Her perspective. Her point of view.

He concentrated on her, defocused his eyes, tried to bring her to the foreground while he slipped into the background, and—

And—

God.

God.

God in heaven.

Kyle was too young to have seen 2001 in its initial theatrical release; he’d first encountered it on video—and had originally been decidedly unimpressed. But in 1997, when he was twenty-five, there had been a big-screen showing of a restored print at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

It had been like night and day—the film he thought he knew, and the real thing, bigger, richer, more complex, more colorful, absolutely overwhelming.

The ultimate trip.

This was like that. The Heather he’d known writ large, in vibrant colors he’d never seen before, in surround-sound, the seat shaking beneath him.

Heather, in all her glorious complexity.

All her vast intellect.

All her incredibly vivid emotions.

The girl he’d fallen in love with.

The woman he’d married.

He found himself opening and closing his eyes, slowly enough that the interior of the construct winked in and out of existence for him. And suddenly he realized what he was doing.

Blinking away tears.

As if stunned by a brilliant piece of art.

Stunned by the magnificence of his wife.

They’d been married for twenty-two years. And it hit him, with an impact that almost knocked the wind out of him, how little he actually knew her, how much there was about her yet to discover.

Heather had said she loved him, and he believed it—he believed it with his heart and soul. And he marveled at the fact that anything so complex and intricate as one human being could come to love another.

He knew in an instant that he could spend the rest of his life getting to know her properly—that whatever handful of decades were left to him wouldn’t be enough to truly comprehend the wonder of another human mind.

He’d been angry that Heather had probed him without his permission. But now the anger evaporated like morning dew. There was nothing to be angry about—it wasn’t an invasion. Not from her. It was an intimacy, a closeness that transcended anything they’d ever experienced before.

He would have to return here, spend hours—days, years—exploring her mind, a mind calmer, less aggressive, more reasonable, more intuitive than his own, a mind—

No.

No, that’s not what he’d come for.

Not this time.

He had something else to deal with.

He continued leafing through Heather’s mind only long enough to find a memory of Mary.

And then he did the Necker transformation once more.

But there was nothing happening in his new location. Absolutely nothing. Just darkness. Silence.

Kyle thought about Mary’s high-school graduation; she had been valedictorian. A matching memory of Mary’s own appeared almost at once. Mary’s memories were here—the archive of what she’d been did exist—but that was all; nothing whatsoever was happening in realtime.

Kyle precipitated out, removing himself. Then, through an effort of will, he reintegrated in front of the vast wall of hexagons.

The one directly in front of him was dark.

Dead.

Kyle had seen Mary’s body lying there in the bathroom. Pale, drained dry, white, waxy.

He hadn’t been able to accept that she was dead then. Even having seen her lifeless form sprawled on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, he still hadn’t accepted it.

But now—

There she was. Dead. Passive storage. Backed-up; part of the archive of humanity.

He realized now that he couldn’t talk to her. There was no way to interact with Mary, no way to tell her that what she thought had happened hadn’t really.

Oh, yes, he could access her memories, leaf through her past.

But he couldn’t communicate with her.

When he’d crouched down by her tombstone, he’d felt as though maybe, somehow, he was connecting with her, somehow she could hear his words. He’d wanted to apologize—not for anything he’d done, but for the fact that he hadn’t protected her from the predation of that therapist, that her daddy hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him the most.

But even if he’d spoken the words aloud by the tombstone, she couldn’t have heard him. The other hexagons stared at him like eyes, but this one was so abysmally dark there could be no doubt.

She was totally, completely, irretrievably gone.

There was no way to make amends.

And yet—

And yet he found himself not feeling destroyed by that fact.

On the contrary, he felt a release, a letting go.

For so long, in the dark corners of his mind, despite his intellectual atheism, he’d thought that somewhere she was still conscious, still aware, still suffering.

Still hating him.

But she wasn’t. In every sense of the word, Mary simply wasn’t. She no longer existed.

But still, it wasn’t over.

Not yet, not quite.

Kyle had cried when his daughter died.

He’d cried with anger, furious that she could do that.

He’d cried with outrage, unable to understand.

But he hadn’t cried for her.

And suddenly his eyes were brimming over, tears welling up and spilling out.

He did cry for her now—only for her. For the sadness of a beautiful life cut short, for all the things that she had been, and for all the other things she might have become, but never did.

He cried so much that his eyes kept closing, the interior of the construct reappearing in his mind.

But he wasn’t through yet.

He understood, finally, why Heather had brought him here, and what he had to do.

He wiped his eyes and then opened them up all the way. Psychospace reformed around him, with the black hexagon that had been Mary still facing him.

He took a deep breath and let it out, feeling so much pent-up emotion escape with it.

And then he said one gentle, heartfelt word.

“Good-bye.”

He let it echo in his mind softly for a few moments. Then he closed his eyes again, reached forward and pressed the stop button, prepared at last to return to the world of the living.