Tuesday November 14 2006

Petersburg Virginia

The cemetery was old, and, Anna thought, quite pretty. She looked it over carefully as she cruised the narrow blacktop lane that wound through the park. Upright tombstones and larger monuments stood among mature trees on rolling ground carpeted with perfectly tended grass. The mausoleums scattered across the grounds were classical in style and lent an air of timeless dignity to the place. It looked like a burial spot for people of wealth and taste.

The columbarium was a Greek temple on a hilltop near the center of the park, not far from the caretaker's office. Following the directions given her on the phone, she entered the flower-fragrant building and walked down echoing marble halls inscribed from floor to high ceiling with names and dates. Eventually, in a quiet alcove in the back, she found the niche she was looking for:

BRIAN AURELIUS SEABROOK, PhD

Sept 2, 1947 – Dec 15, 2000

Beloved of his daughter Anna

So that's where he got it. He named me after his daughter. I never imagined the guy had a heart, much less a family. She must have loved him very much, to put a declaration like this on his grave marker. She touched the inscription, feeling the smooth cool stone and the neat engraving. Why, I wonder? Surely not because I resembled her, unless she was Ivana Baiul's twin. Her fingertips lingered over the dates of birth and death. Younger than Jack. I always thought of him as much older. Creator, he was only fifty when I last saw him. He died while I was wandering in the warehouse. A quick glance showed no other Seabrooks on the long wall; the doctor was buried here alone.

Another set of footsteps entered the columbarium, headed her way. Male, thirty to forty-five, about one-eighty and eighty kilos. They approached the corridor behind her and slowed. Her alert level ratcheted up a notch, but she didn't move. Surely IO wouldn't send a single agent after her. Not after what she'd done to half a dozen of them at Westminster Mall.

The footsteps stopped half a dozen steps behind her. "Hello. I see you found it."

She recognized the voice: the man who'd given her directions over the phone. She turned, ready to spring anyway. But the gentleman was no IO trooper, just a middle-aged cemetery custodian in a suit and topcoat. One hand was stuck in an outer pocket not sagging enough to be holding a gun or a scrambler.

She gave him a polite smile. "No trouble. Your directions were perfect. Thank you."

He nodded, but showed no inclination to leave. She sampled his biometrics and decided he wasn't looking for a date. She turned back to the marker, again noting the Doctor's death at an early age. Almost three years after the testing was abandoned. If the project folded because of his health, he must have been sick a long time.

"We met several times," the man said. "He prearranged - the niche, urn, service, everything. Very nice guy. I was surprised so few people showed for the service."

Very nice guy? "We lost touch years ago," she said. There'd been nothing accusing in his voice, but somehow she felt compelled to offer an explanation. "I only found out he died this week."

"Happens." His hand came out of the pocket holding a thick letter-size manila envelope. He stepped closer and extended it to her. "I think this is for you."

She glanced at the writing on the envelope: Anna. "I'm afraid you're mistaken. I'm not his daughter."

"You match the description." He glanced at the inscription still under her fingers. "He gave me this envelope and asked me to give it to his daughter if she ever showed up. He said he doubted she'd be at the service, but I should hang on to it for as long as it took. 'You'll know her when you see her,' he said. 'Just a little thing. Younger than you'd expect. Short blonde hair, at least it was last time I saw her, but you know how it is with girls.' You could hear the love in his voice when he said it." He regarded her carefully. "Whatever happened between you two, miss, it's long over now. Won't you take it?"

So I did resemble her, a little anyway. I wonder what happened, that she wouldn't come to his funeral and hasn't visited his grave once in six years. She eyed the envelope. "I'm still sure you've got the wrong person, but…" She reached for it. "Maybe there's a clue about the daughter's whereabouts inside."

He watched her unseal the envelope. She decided against a quick scan, and not only because the man would think she hadn't read it before she handed it back; voice and written communications often held emotional content best reviewed at bio speed.

October 12, 2000

My darling child,

If you are reading this, I can hope it means that you have been rescued and your memory restored to you. Failing that, at least that you have reclaimed enough of your memory – and your humanity - to seek me out, if for no other reason than to pay a last visit and offer me a measure of forgiveness. I hope that this letter finds you well, and well-loved, for you deserve no less. These hopes are all that sustain me now.

A handkerchief appeared over her wrist. Startled, and amazed to have been taken by surprise, she looked up. The caretaker was looking at her with kindly eyes that held no question. She met his gaze in unspoken answer, just the same. Yes, it's for me. "How did it happen?"

"Cancer. He fought it for years. Even thought he had it beat once, but it came back strong. Would you like to come to the office? It's quiet, and the chairs are very comfortable. I have fresh coffee."

She shook her head. "No." She glanced at the marker. "I want to finish it here."

Forgive me if this letter relates things you already know. But I cannot know the extent of your recollection, or what missing bit of memory you might find useful. Truly, if I knew your memory was complete, I would still tell the whole story in my own words. If I am to have any hope of your understanding, I can do nothing else.

I came to International Operations in the spring of 1977 from MIT. I'd put out half a dozen papers on high-order computer capability (the term 'artificial intelligence' was still the exclusive property of science fiction) and its possible applications, and apparently aroused someone's interest. They were the last articles I ever published; from then on, my only accolades came from my genius colleagues in the Research Directorate, my superiors, and, rarely, from the work itself.

Government service at IO was rather different than I had envisioned when I'd eagerly signed all those papers and taken my leave of Massachusetts. The research facilities and budgets were everything that had been promised me, but all my experiments were conducted in secure facilities in Virginia and Maryland, mostly underground. The absolute secrecy under which we worked, and the rampant paranoia all around us, was heavy and disquieting, as if we were already at war with an unnamed foe, and the outside world filled with enemy agents. I was a millionaire before my second anniversary there, but the numbers in my financials had little meaning to me; I had few chances to spend any money. The apartment I was escorted to every night was no less a cell for being large and luxurious and having no lock on the door.

My first assignment was to a team developing new methods of communication and intelligence-gathering, using powerful computers and sophisticated programs with 'learning' capability. We didn't invent the Internet, or the rest of the telecom revolution that enabled people and organizations all over the world to communicate and access the world's knowledge. But our work saw to it those things were more useful to IO than to anyone else.

Apparently we impressed someone. In 1981, we were given orders to produce a preliminary design for a fully functional humanoid robot. We passed the order among ourselves, unbelieving. Who knew better than us that such a thing was impossible to current technology? A computer smart enough to carry on anything resembling a real conversation would fill a concert hall. And some of the seemingly simplest human activities, such as walking or running, are hideously complex challenges to robotics engineers and computer programmers. Sensors to approximate the human senses would have to be designed and integrated into the system, as well, and software written to process the inputs into a human-recognizable pattern. We might have to start by developing an entirely new programming language. Decades of research and development lay between us and the stated goal.

Designing the chassis housing the processor and giving it mobility provided insurmountable challenges as well. Duplicating human flexibility and strength using pistons and servos would result in a humanoid form at least twice the size of a human being; we took to calling the concept 'Gort.' Add to that the impossibility of supplying it with a self-contained power source sufficient to run it; if 'Gort' was built to resemble a human being, he would have to be connected to a wheeled generator he pulled behind him.

We did our best. On deadline day, we submitted plans for the best compromise we were sure we could build, which rather resembled a cross between a Bobcat loader and the robot from 'Lost in Space,' and about as intelligent as a toad. Then we waited.

We didn't wait long. Before the end of the day, we received a summons from the Director of International Operations himself, Miles Craven. Our worries were compounded when we learned that none of the people we usually reported to knew we'd been conducting such a study, and refused to discuss it with us, as if we were inviting them to breach security rules. We entered his office filled with trepidation.

The Director was nothing like we imagined. He opened his own office door and ushered us in. He assumed the manner of a patron, rather than a manager, and saw us all seated around a small boardroom table, in comfortable chairs, holding coffee cups he'd filled for us himself. When we were all settled in, he spoke to us at length about our work at IO, and our research prior to joining the organization. He made us feel as if he'd been following our careers since high school. It was very flattering. I could see why his subordinates were so devoted to him; I think we all fell under his spell that day, at least while we were in his presence.

Finally, he asked us about the 'robot study,' and we were off and running, explaining the utter impossibility of his request. He listened attentively for about five minutes, then raised a finger, and the man speaking stopped mid-sentence.

"Gentlemen," he said, "in this office, nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible. Tell me what you need to get from this-" He tapped a finger on the report, then on his chest- "to this."

Thus challenged, we did. We gave him a shopping list of impossible physical requirements: a computer with beyond-human-spec processing and storage capability that could be housed in a human skull; a synthetic material that would duplicate the action of human musculature, with at least comparable efficiency; a self-contained power source capable of running all the systems that would fit inside the chassis; sensing devices with the capability, sensitivity and discrimination of our own five senses; a dozen others. Designing the chassis, we said, would require not only engineering expertise, but a complete knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, so that the result would move and present itself in a way that appeared natural.

Then we moved on to the hard part. The human brain is a computer, of course, and a very good one, considering its haphazard architecture, but human thought processes are largely a mystery; you cannot probe a human brain to reverse-engineer its code, and introducing identical inputs does not guarantee identical outputs, even in the same individual. How could we duplicate something too complex to understand? Research teams specializing in robotics had spent years approximating the control and feedback system necessary to two-legged locomotion, and it was widely accepted that the best analogue extant used vastly more computing resources for the task than did a human brain; ten thousand generations of evolution had produced a streamlined organic program that we didn't know how to duplicate in computer code.

How, then, could we teach a computer the myriad subroutines of human behavior? We could only hope to develop a program that would enable the AI, with its greater speed and efficiency, to teach itself to duplicate human behavior and response from observation and experimentation. We would have to develop a user interface that was the exact opposite of every such program ever developed: one that would enable a computer to understand and handle people.

When we wound down, the Director nodded just once, as if deep in thought, thanked us, and showed us to the door. We thought that was the end of it, and speculated on our next assignment. Nearly a week passed, and we began to get nervous, wondering if popping the Director's bubble had put us on a blacklist of some sort. Finally, a written directive came to our office. It was essentially our initial report combined with the minutes of our executive meeting, instructing us to develop the prototype according to the original proposal – a completely humanoid form – using 'any and all resources required'. I remember how we looked at it and each other, wondering if the head of International Operations had lost his mind, and what price we might pay for disappointing him.

The directive included relocation orders to a dedicated and secure site in central Nevada, about as desolate a locale as one can imagine. It was accessible by helicopter and roads only a four-wheel-drive could navigate; God knows how IO built the place. Or Miles Craven, rather. We had heard rumors that the Director personally sponsored projects from time to time, and that such pet projects received the highest of priorities - and security restrictions. It was only after we'd been moved in and introduced to a number of strangers that we deduced this project was not only a pet of the Director's, it was 'off the books,' handled and funded out of the Research Directorate's view.

And then we were ushered through the entrance to Aladdin's cave.

We'd known, of course, that we weren't the only research team on the payroll. But our breath was stolen by the scope of the work conducted in IO's secret labs, and the extent of their successes. The worst of the hardware problems we'd detailed had been solved already, and beyond our faintest hopes. The chassis' power needs, for example, could be amply supplied by a closed unit about the size of a softball. An elastic polymer duplicated the contraction and relaxation of human muscle but at several times its efficiency. And the computer designs left us shaking our heads in disbelief. While the rest of the team was being assembled, we wandered in awe through the storehouses and catalogues like children magically transported to Santa's workshop.

We worked in two teams. The larger was tasked with constructing the chassis, the robot's body. Almost all the design criteria could be met with materials and devices on IO's shelves; it only remained to put the pieces together, so to speak – an engineering feat equivalent to designing and building a new Space Shuttle, but our team had far more talent on hand than the NASA labs. All the smaller team, mine, had to do was to design a processor and software to make the robot capable of interfacing with its own body and the world around it.

'All.' That was where our challenges really began.

I cannot tell you how many hypotheses we discarded, how many working models we scrapped, or how many software suites we designed that fell short of our goal. We learned from our failures and moved on. We invented programming languages so arcane we had to speak in them to express the concepts we were discussing. We turned strange, rather like robots ourselves, and our colleagues on the project began to avoid us socially. But we were so immersed in the new knowledge we were discovering, we hardly noticed.

The team designing the chassis was slowed by numerous revisions as well, not all of their own making. When they showed Miles Craven the plans for their first working model, he gave them that nod again, and, a few days later, began sending them additional specifications for the production model.

They say that the phrase that strikes terror into a builder's heart more than any other is 'The owner is coming by with a few changes.' The Director's first demand was that the final product would be built to resemble a slender young girl of below-average size. That presented no challenges; the synthetic musculature was more compact than its protein counterpart, and a smaller chassis would make precise control even easier to develop. Craven's insistence on built-in armament, however, sent the design team back to the drawing board, and gave us a preview of the dark purpose for which our creation was being built.

But the greatest design challenge for both teams resulting from an 'owner's change' came when he looked at a 3D plan of the mannequin-like prototype. "Gentlemen," he said, "I thought I'd made it clear that this invention was to be anatomically correct."

The researcher in charge of chassis design had almost stammered. "How correct, sir?"

Craven steepled his fingers and looked thoughtful, and everyone in the lab held their breath. "Everything you can see with her clothes off, of course. Plus… oh, for twelve inches inside, anyway. All the accessible orifices. Our little infiltrator is going to be pretty, gentlemen. If a man comes on to her, I want her to have options."

That forced us to expand the team again, vastly, to bring in gynecologists and experts on female sexual response – including the teams' first women. Designing an integrated hardware and software package that produced a realistic state of physical arousal and a convincing sexual performance was an unexpected educational experience. We learned things about women that men seldom notice on a conscious level, but might miss on an unconscious one - that a woman's cheeks and lips grow fuller when she gets romantic, for example. A few of the researchers referred to the prototype as a 'sexbot,' before dark looks from our handlers closed their mouths.

"A superbly gifted amateur," Jack called me after our first night. "Apparently, love taught you what research couldn't." But what I'd seemed to learn so quickly, it seems I already knew. She scoffed. And I was so afraid I wouldn't know what to do.

The final shock to our assumptions came with the arrival of a thick sheaf of photographs we were instructed to model the robot's features on. They were all pictures of our new Assistant Director of Research, Ivana Baiul. They showed her in every mode and nuance of expression: animated, pensive, angry, distressed, stern, smiling, surprised… even a few carefully cropped and dimly lighted shots showing expressions some of us were embarrassed to look at. It was common knowledge that Miles Craven and Ivana Baiul were seeing each other. We were sure we were witnessing an example of the Director's rarely-seen and quirky humor. In observance, we decided to name the first prototype 'Avana': Ivana with an 'a' for 'android' substituted for the 'I'. Later, when one of our group pointed out that the proper term was 'gynoid,' we ignored him. We thought we were being clever; so clever that we used that naming convention for all of you, and while we were at it, decided to end your names in 'a' as well. We had reason to look back on our conceit with different emotions later.

Avana was activated on August 4, 1986. Our little gynoid was breathtaking, and eerie. Some of us referred to our cybernetic creation as 'it,' others as 'she,' but five minutes' acquaintance left no doubt in anyone's mind that a keen intelligence dwelt behind those intent brown eyes. She seemed to be studying us as carefully as we were studying her; one got the impression that we were her experimental subjects, not the other way round, and that she followed our orders just to see what we would tell her to do next. She learned physical and intellectual tasks with amazing speed. The only task she disappointed us at was simply being a person; she was inept as a Vulcan at duplicating normal human behavior and emotional response. Discussing the subject with us, she seemed to understand the normal interplay between individuals well enough, but she remained cool and aloof, a scientist among lab specimens. It was a common joke around the labs that we'd copied Ivana Baiul too well.

The rest of you were very different, from your predecessor and from one another. After working with Avana for a year, we felt ready to experiment with another prototype, one with modified software and firmware that we thought would make her more 'human.' We built two more, actually, and named them Anna and Aja, thinking we'd created a pair of identical personalities.

We were very wrong. You and your 'sister' were distinct individuals almost from the moment you were activated, and the difference between you grew more pronounced as you 'grew up'. Some of us blamed random and indeterminate factors during download for the variance, but I always thought that sounded more like excuse than hypothesis. There is empirical data indicating that siblings are predisposed to certain behaviors according to birth order: firstborn tend to be more responsible and ambitious, lastborn more rebellious, middle children quiet. I thought knowing she was third in line might have explained why Aja seemed to study you more intently than she did us. She was bright in the emotional sense as well as the intellectual, and far more sociable than Avana, but she was always a step behind you in our estimation; she always cast a shadow in the light of your presence. Everyone liked her, but she was no one's favorite.

You were our darling. Like your namesake, Anne of Green Gables, you were full of strange observations that took our thought in new directions, and questions that made us smile as we answered. No clinical test of your cognitive abilities was as informative – and entertaining - as simply letting you follow us around and listening to you talk. Many times, I would feel fingers, feather-light, upon my arm or back, and turn from my work to see you standing on tiptoe to peer over my shoulder with eyes the color of the sea on an overcast day, your studious expression changing to dimples when I smiled at you. Your childlike curiosity and empathy woke paternal feelings in almost every man in the lab, married or not, and if the 'sexbot' critics felt differently, they knew better than to show it in front of the rest of us. You adored people, and people reciprocated. They brought you little gifts one might give a child: toys, books, clothes, costume jewelry. You had our hearts from your first smile.

Alas, your sunny and promising childhood was heartbreakingly brief. Sixteen months after you and Aja came into our lives, we brought Amanda and Alexia on line. No one was greatly surprised to observe that we'd created two more individuals, rather than duplicates of you or your 'sister'. Six months into their socialization, we acquired new administrators, men of cunning but not men of science. The research phase of the project, apparently, was over.

Men who wore civilian clothing like a poor disguise came at regular intervals to remove all of you for 'extended training'. You would come back, one to five days later, your conversations censored yet hinting at the disturbing new skills you were acquiring.

I shall never forget the awful day, early in that 'extended training,' when you came to my door, trouble writ large on your face. "Doctor… if a person gets damaged enough to force a shutdown… you can't restart them, can you?"

"Not usually," I said, my heart sinking in anticipation of your next words. "My kind is rather more fragile than yours."

"The new teachers, the ones who take us to the training area. They're having us learn how to wreck things and hurt people, even shut them off. Why would they want us to do that?"

I am a coward. I considered speaking my heart, but my misgivings and convictions – my conscience, in truth - stood no chance against my sense of self-preservation. "I don't know, little one. But they have their reasons, and they must be important. One person can't know everything, that's why we need authority." When I saw the disquiet on your face, I added, "Try not to think about it too much."

You blinked, which I'd learned was a sign of concentration or reappraisal. You had just been presented with information from someone you trusted that didn't fit well with your present worldview. "You can do that? Choose not to think?"

Taken back, I replied, "Sometimes, when you're presented with a task that's... unpleasant."

At the time, your hair was waist-length, worn loose or in a long tail. Some of it was hanging over your shoulder, and I watched you play with the end of a lock, the first gesture of nervousness I'd ever seen in you. "That explains. Lieutenant Colonel and the others are very knowledgeable, but they're very hard to talk to. They must avoid thinking a lot of the time. I imagine their lives are full of unpleasant tasks."

Over the next few months, we watched with dismay as our children came back to us from each "training session" a little stranger and less human. You no longer smiled, and brought none to our faces when you spoke to us. You stopped referring to one another by name, and instead adopted a number system based on seniority: Avana was One, you were Two, and so on. You no longer regarded yourselves as differently-made people, as we had taught you, but as machines, which was no doubt how your new handlers treated you. Eventually all social interaction with you ceased. You entered the lab door and walked straight to your little dormitory annex to wait for your new instructors to come for you again. We became afraid of you.

Then one day while you were gone, a team entered the lab and remodeled your dormitory, sheathing the block walls in steel and installing a heavy door with an outside lock. The next day the 'sisters' returned, not alone as usual, but with a large escort of armed men. They marched the five of you into your room and the door was locked behind. You were last in, and you turned to regard us all just before the door thudded closed, sounding very much like a bank vault's. The look on your face as it swung shut was chilling. I surmised that you'd all completed your first 'assignment' and proved your worth as killing machines. Your transformation was complete. We were transferred to other projects, and all we knew of you from then on were distressing rumors.

A few weeks later, in my sleeping quarters halfway across the complex, I woke to the sound of your voice in my darkened room. "Well, Doctor? Are you proud of what you've made?"

Witless with surprise and fear, I spoke the truth. "I was proud of what you were before you were taken from me."

Your voice was mocking. "But this is what I was meant to be, isn't it? What I was designed for. 'Anna' was just a development phase."

"No," I whispered into the dark. "No, child. I don't care what they made us put in your arms, or what they've been teaching you. Anna is what you were meant to be, not… Two."

"No." I couldn't see you, but somehow I knew your head was shaking. "No more than you were meant to be a Nobel laureate. The potential was there, but you were maneuvered down a different path and left that possibility behind. No second chances for either of us, Doctor." I heard your voice glide toward the door as if disembodied. "You won't tell anyone I was here."

"Of course not." I couldn't imagine how you had gotten out of your cell undetected, but I could well imagine the repercussions if caught; I couldn't believe you had taken the risk and trouble simply to mock me in the dead of night, and my blood froze contemplating your true purpose. Guilt and fear brought the next words past my lips. "Would you leave me alive if you thought different?"

"If I thought different, I wouldn't have come. Goodbye, Father." I'm quite sure I didn't mishear your final word to me, and it has haunted me to this day.

It was our last conversation. Two months later, you all disappeared. I still believe that odd little meeting in the dead of night was an attempt to reassure me, the best effort you could still marshal; a last fading echo of the feeling you once had for me, as well as a goodbye.

In February 1996, back on the East Coast, I was called to the Director's office again. I'd just submitted a project proposal, and I wondered what awful news or decision I was about to receive.

His office was not much changed from years before: still a place where a group of men might gather and speak in comfort. But this day, he and I were the only occupants. He ushered me towards a pair of overstuffed chairs, and we sat and exchanged pleasantries like two gentlemen of leisure relaxing at their club. But when the initial 'loosening up' period drew to a close, I tried to bring up my proposal, only to be interrupted.

He leaned forward, intent. "Doctor, it's a worthy project. Delegate someone else to run it. I have something bigger in mind for you. I only wish I could be sure you'd welcome the assignment. I know you weren't happy with the direction the AI project took." He leaned back. "Believe me, no one was happy with how it ended."

I felt a mixture of fear and hope. "Are we talking about reactivating the program?"

"After a fashion." His voice dropped. "We found one of them."