The Terminal Experiment

CHAPTER 37

Sarkar cracked his knuckles nervously, shifted his barstool in front of the master computer console, and spoke into the microphone: “Login.”

“Login name?” asked the computer.

“Sarkar.”

“Hello, Sarkar. Command?”

“Multiple delete, no prompts: all files in subdirectories Control, Spirit, and Ambrotos.”

“Confirm delete?”

“Yes.”

“Delete failure. Files are read-only.”

Sarkar nodded. “Attributes, all files and subdirectories specified previously, read-only off.”

“Attributes are password locked.”

“Password: Abu Yusuf.”

“Incorrect password.”

Sarkar turned to Peter. “That’s the only password I use these days.”

Peter shrugged. “Try again.”

“Password: Abu Yusuf.” He spelled it.

“Incorrect password.”

“Who locked the files?” asked Sarkar.

“Hobson, Peter G.,” replied the computer.

Peter’s heart began to pound. “Oh, shit.”

“Display user log, Hobson, Peter G.,” said Sarkar.

A list of dates and times appeared on the screen. Sarkar slapped his hand against the tabletop. “See that? Node nine-nine-nine? Diagnostic mode. Your account was used, but accessed internally — from inside the system.”

“Damn!” Peter leaned into the mike. “Login.”

“Login name?” said the computer.

“Fobson.”

“Hello, Peter. Should I terminate your other session?”

“What other session?”

“You are logged on here at node oh-oh-one and also at node nine-nine-nine.”

Sarkar leaned forward. “Yes,” said Peter. “Absolutely. Terminate session at node nine-nine-nine.”

“Logoff failure.”

“Damn,” said Peter. He turned to Sarkar. “Can that other session override this one?”

“No. The most-recent login takes precedence.”

“Okay,” said Peter, rubbing his hands together. “Reference directories and files previously specified by Sarkar. Unlock attributes.”

“Password?”

“Password: Mugato.”

“Incorrect password.”

“Password: Sybok.”

“Incorrect password.”

“Dammit,” said Peter. He looked to Sarkar. “Those are the only two passwords I ever use.”

Sarkar exhaled noisily. “They’re not going to let us erase them.”

“Can we take this system offline?”

Sarkar nodded and spoke into the microphone. “Initiate shutdown.”

“Jobs are currently running. Confirm command?”

“Yes. Initiate shutdown.”

“Password?”

“Password: Abu—”

The red light on the microphone winked off. Sarkar slammed his palm against the console again. “They’ve shut off voice input.”

“Christ,” said Peter.

“This is silly,” said Sarkar, angrily. “We can still pull the physical plug.” He reached for the phone, dialed a three-digit extension.

“Maintenance,” said a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hello,” said Sarkar. “I know it is late, but this is Dr. Muhammed speaking. We are, ah, having a little difficulty up here. I need you to cut all power to our computing facility.”

“Cut it, sir?”

“That’s correct.”

“Okay,” she said. “It’ll take a few minutes. You’re aware, though, that your data-processing department is on a UPS — you know, an uninterruptible power supply. It’ll run on batteries for a while.”

“How long?”

“If everything’s turned on, only six or seven minutes — just enough to weather any short blackout.”

“Can you disconnect the UPS?”

“Sure, if you like. It’ll have to be physically unplugged; I can’t turn it off from down here. I’m the only one on duty right now. Can I get someone to do it for you tomorrow?”

“This is an emergency,” said Sarkar. “Can you come up and show us how to do it? I’ve someone here with me if it’s warm bodies you need.”

“Okay. You want me to cut the mains before I come up?”

“No — we’ll cut them after the UPS is disconnected.” He covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Peter. “That means everything will go off at once, without giving the sims any warning.”

Peter nodded.

“Whatever you say, sir,” said the maintenance person. “Give me a few minutes, then I’ll be up.” Sarkar put down the phone.

“What will you do once the power is off?” asked Peter.

Sarkar was already on the floor, trying to remove an access panel from underneath the computer console. “Take out the optical drives and hook them up to a test bench. I can zap data on a bit-by-bit basis, if need be, using a Norton laser, so—”

The phone rang.

“Can you get that?” Sarkar said, struggling with a stubborn wing nut.

The videophone’s screen displayed a notice that the incoming call was audio-only. Peter picked up the handset. “Hello?”

There was staticky silence for about two seconds, then an obviously synthesized voice came on. “Hello,” it said.

Peter felt himself flush with anger. He hated computerized telephone solicitations. He was in the process of slamming down the receiver when he heard the next word, “Pe-ter.”

In the split second before the handset hit the cradle, he realized that even if the soliciting computer was working from an online phone directory, there’s no way a stranger would expect to find him at this number. He stopped short and pulled the receiver back to his face.

“Who is this?” he said. He glanced down at the lights on the phone deskset. This wasn’t a call being transferred internally; it was coming over an outside line.

“It’s,” said the voice, dull and mechanical, “you.”

Peter held the handset in front of his face, looking at it as if it were a serpent.

More words came from the earpiece, each one separated from the next by a small, static-filled space.

“Surely you didn’t expect us to stay cooped up on that small workstation?”

The maintenance person arrived a few minutes later, carrying a toolbox. Sarkar looked up at her, turmoil plain, at least to Peter’s eyes, on Sarkar’s face.

“All set?” she said.

“Ah, no,” said Sarkar. “Sorry to have dragged you up here. We, ah, don’t need to disconnect the UPS anymore, or to cut the mains.”

The woman looked surprised. “Whatever you say.”

“My apologies,” said Sarkar.

She nodded and left.

Peter and Sarkar sat staring at each other, dumbfounded.

“We really fucked up, didn’t we?” said Peter at last.

Sarkar nodded.

“Damn,” said Peter. “God damn it.” A long pause. “There’s no way to shut them off now that they’re out in the net, is there?”

Sarkar shook his head.

“Now what?” said Peter.

“I don’t know,” said Sarkar. “I don’t know.”

“If we knew which sim was responsible, maybe we could find a way to isolate that particular one. But, damn, how do we figure that out?”

“Morality,” said Sarkar.

“What?”

“Do you know Lawrence Kohlberg?”

Peter shook his head.

“He was a psychologist who did research on moral reasoning back in the 1960s. I studied him while preparing an expert system for the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry.”

“So?”

“So this whole mess is a question of morality — why one version of you would behave differently from the others. Surely the key to which sim is guilty is tied into the nature of human morality.”

Peter wasn’t really listening. “Is there anything else we can do to erase the sims?”

“Not now that they’re out in the net. Look, you’re probably right: it will be useful to identify which sim is guilty. Let me ask you a question.”

“What?”

Sarkar paused, remembering. “Say a man’s wife is terminally ill, but she could be saved by a drug that cost twenty thousand dollars.”

“What’s this got to do with anything?”

“Just listen — it’s one of Kohlberg’s test scenarios. Suppose that the man had only been able to come up with ten thousand dollars, but the pharmacist refused to let him have the drug, even though he promised to pay the rest of the cost later. The man then steals the drug to save his wife’s life. Is the man’s act morally right or wrong?”

Peter frowned. “It’s right, of course.”

“But why! That’s the key.”

“I — I don’t know. It just is.”

Sarkar nodded. “I suspect each sim would give a different reason. Kohlberg defined six levels of moral reasoning. At the lowest, one believes moral behavior is simply that which avoids punishment. At the highest, which Kohlberg considered the province of moral giants like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, moral behavior is based on abstract ethical principles. At that stage, external laws against theft are irrelevant; your own internalized moral code would dictate that you must value another’s life more greatly than any repercussions you might suffer yourself because of the crime.”

“Well, that’s what I believe.”

“Mahatma Hobson,” said Sarkar. “Presumably the control sim would share that same point of view. But Kohlberg found that criminals were likely to be at a lower stage of moral reasoning than noncriminals of the same age who had the same IQ. Ambrotos might be fixated at the lowest level, level one — the avoidance of punishment.”

“Why?”

“An immortal will live forever, but he can also spend forever in jail. A life sentence would be a terrifying thought to him.”

“But how often does a true life sentence get handed down? You know the old saying, ‘Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.’ Well, Ambrotos might very well think he could do any crime because, after all, he can do the time.”

“Good point,” said Sarkar. “But I still think he’s the guilty one. They say time heals all wounds, but perhaps if you knew you were going to live forever, you’d want to deal with anything that was going to fester in your mind for century after century,”

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. Look, if murder is a terrible crime to me, wouldn’t it be unthinkable — the ultimate atrocity — to an immortal version of me, who knew life could go on forever?”

Sarkar sighed. “Perhaps. I guess it could go either way. But what about Spirit? His moral reasoning, too, could be fixated at a low level. Even though Spirit is dead, we have simulated neither heaven nor hell for him. So perhaps he considers himself to be in Purgatory. If he behaves well, maybe he believes he will be allowed entrance to heaven. Kohlberg’s second stage defines moral acts as those which gain rewards.”

Peter shook his head again. “I don’t really believe in heaven or hell.”

Sarkar tried another tack. “Well, then, consider this: murder is a crime of passion, and passion is a failing of flesh and blood. Remove sex from the human psyche and you would have no reason to kill a philanderer. That would argue for Spirit’s innocence, and, by process of elimination, for Ambrotos’s guilt.”

“Maybe,” said Peter. “On the other hand, Spirit knows there is life after death — knows it by virtue of his existence. So, to him, murder would be a less heinous crime than it would be for Ambrotos, since it’s not a complete ending for the victim. Spirit would thus be much more likely to feel comfortable committing murders.”

Sarkar sighed, frustrated. “So you could argue that one either way, too.” He glanced at his watch. “Look — there’s nothing more we can do here.” He paused. “In fact there may be nothing more we can do anywhere.” He sat quietly for a moment, thinking. “Go home. Tomorrow is Saturday; I’ll come by your place around ten in the morning and we can try to figure out what to do next.”

Peter nodded wearily.

“But first — ” Sarkar pulled out his wallet, fished out a pair of fifties, and handed them to Peter.

“What’s this?”

“The hundred dollars I borrowed from you last week. I want to be sure the sims have no cause to resent me. Before we go, send a message into the net telling them that I paid you back.”