Pokémon: Artificial Intelligence
An A.I. /Pokémon Dystopical Crossover
By Joshua Falken

Thanks to BenRG for beta-read this chapter :-)

Act One - Origins of the Mirror Image

Chapter 1 - The Birth of a New Species

The strong electric storm that burst over Viridian City whipped at the roof of the Main Gym of the Pokémon League, where a stunning battle was happening between the favourite, Gary Thomas Oak, and the revelation, Ash Mathison Ketchum.

"Now it is the final round, ladies and gentlemen!" The commentator from Pokémon League Channel, Robert Buchanan, announced to the excited crowd with his enthusiastic voice. "With the victory of Trainer Ketchum's Bayleef over Trainer Oak's Arcanine, the match is tied 5 - 5! Whoever wins this round will be the Supreme Champion of the Global Pokémon League of 2178!"

In the arena, the two young trainers looked at each other calmly and quietly, planning their strategy. Both were aware of the qualities and limitations of the another. For example, the fact that they both now just had only one Pokémon left available to them.

"Good luck, Ash!" Misty Elizabeth Williams yelled from the bleachers. At her side, Ash's mother, Delilah also yelled her encouragement.

"Go, Halley!" Gary exclaimed, liberating his faithful Umbreon.

Ash pointed to the front and exclaimed: "Pikachu, I choose you!"

Gary rolled his eyes. Would he never change the script?

The siren wailed and the final battle of this year's League began.

In the stalls, a man observed the way that Ash battled with a proud smile. In his mind, he returned to the moment when it all had begun...

======

The rain beat gently against the window of the meeting room. Beside a statue of a winged cyborg woman, a tall and blond man with kind and penetrating blue eyes stood. Before him they were the best robotic engineers of the world. Behind the scientists, there was a micro-camera that transmitted the meeting to the private office of the owner of Cybertronics.

"The Artificial Being is one of the oldest dreams of Mankind." Prof. Allen Thomas Hobby began his speech to the Advanced Research Team of Cybertronics Robosystems Corporation. "From the classical Greek epic poems, there is mentions of damsels made of gold, that carried out the orders of their creators, the gods of Olympus. However, with scientific progress, what before was a myth, an impossible dream, became reality. By the first half of the 20th Century, the British mathematician Alan Turing created the theoretical basis of the digital computer and, by doing so, first articulated the questions that would define the study of Artificial Intelligence. By the end of this same century, the machines began to give results, from programs specialised in medical diagnosis to gigantic monsters that played chess." The scientists and engineers laughed.

"The truth that we learnt from these experiments was a simple one," Hobby continued, looking directly at the audience. "So long as data processing totally depended on silicon non-quantum circuits, there would not be future for the Artificially Intelligent Robot; neither the future that existed in the mind of the most optimists science fiction writers or in the mind of the founders of this company. Happily for humanity, Dr. Albert Aldiss Ketchum, developed the first quantum chips in 2045. This was the basis for the further advances made by, the team of researchers under Dr. Cassandra Elizabeth Ketchum in 2090, who created the Quantum Brain and developed the programming of the Three Laws of Robotics. This was the keystone that lacked for the construction of Universal Androids, the machines known to men in the street as 'Mechas'."

He turned to a young secretary that was taking the minutes of the meeting. She was beautiful, with short red hair, serene smile and brilliant blue eyes. "Michelle, could you come here, please?" the company's chief roboticist ordered.

Michelle stood up and walked over to the man.

"Here in the Cybertronics Robosystems Corporation of Veridian City, the development of the Artificial Intelligence arrived to its peak: computer programs that pass Turing's Test with flying colours - sometimes, even better than many humans - and perfect androids, indistinguishable from a true human being. The kind of androids with that our grandparents dreamed of and feared. Michelle, open up."

The secretary began to open the blouse. The audience didn't sketch any reaction when a door opened up in the skin of her abdomen, revealing metal, electronic circuits and servo-mechanisms. Hobby picked up a pair of laser scissors and cut the artificial skin from the nape of the neck to the top of the head, revealing something that looked like a silver spine linked to tightly shut sphere.

"And this is the final result. Within the structure of the endoskeletal 'skull' is the so called "Positronic Brain", the most complex data processing system that the Mankind ever created. It is capable of simulating all human reactions..." The roboticist stabbed a needle into the hand of the android, who let out a surprising human yell of pain. "Including a convincing pain response."

The audience laughed when the mecha Michelle quickly hid the "wounded" hand when Hobby tried grab it again. Hobby also laughed and said: "Michelle, you can sit down now and continue taking notes."

As the android sat down, the line of the cut from the scissors disappeared automatically, the damage being repaired by the nano-tech automatic repair system.

"However, should we be proud of such a limited achievement?" Allen Hobby's question surprised his audience. "Should we be proud of artificial beings that can deal with the harshest of environments in space but yet cannot understand a joke or our concept of emotion?"

One of the youngest engineers lifted his hand. "But, Professor Hobby," he said, "you said yourself that our robots simulated the human answers perfectly, including the emotional ones..."

"That is correct, Timothy. They simulate emotions. However, they don't feel them." The scientist closed his eyes to gather his thoughts for one moment, before continuing. He had waited for this moment for 15 years... "I propose the construction of a robot... that can love."

A surprised silence followed this proposal.

The same engineer that had spoken before now did so again. "Robots that love? But we produce dozens of lover-mecha units every month..."

"You should know about that, Timothy!" A voice interrupted. "You test each unit that leaves the assembly line!"

Timothy Donovan answered immediately. "Quality Control is very important!" he said in an embarrassed tone.

When the laughter had died down, Prof. Hobby continued. "I don't refer to lover-mecha, Mr. Donovan. They are simply sophisticated but essentially linear sex aids. They do not feel 'love' merely provide sexual stimulation. What I propose is that we construct robots really capable of the emotion of genuine love, like the love that a son feels for his parents... I propose the construction of a mecha-child capable of giving that unconditional love to its' designated parents. That mecha-child would be the perfect child, never changing, never growing up and leaving home, but staying at the side of his parents forever."

"But would it be possible to give emotions to a quantum brain?" That was the question that was in the mind of all the specialists in the room.

"I believe that with the new neural architecture that we are developing we can develop a robot of a totally superior order to the current ones... a machine intelligence that can feel, developing true emotional responses to stimuli." Hobby explained.

Kasumi Suzuhara, an Asian-descent roboticist, had the next question. "But... Prof. Hobby," she asked, "if a robot can really love a human, that means that the human should also love the machine?"

"With the mecha-child we will be answering to a basic human need. There are thousands of couples unable to have children due to infection with the virus TSL. With this robot we can give them a chance for..."

Suzuhara interrupted the speech. "I understand, sir, but that doesn't answer my question," she said boldly. "If a machine can genuinely love a person, would not that person have the moral duty then of loving the robot back?" Before the silence of Hobby, she added: "It is a moral question, it is not?"

After a long silence, Hobby answered: "The oldest of them all perhaps, but didn't God create Adam to love him?"

The discussion continued. It quickly turned to issues of a more pragmatic character.

"But and the Frankenstein's Complex?" one engineer asked. "I mean... those crazy anti-mecha idiots from the Flesh Fairs will want to strangle us!" He could see the propaganda: Now the demon makers want to substitute God's little children!

"That stupid Frankenstein's Complex is something that the Humanity should have abandoned decades ago!" Donovan snapped in reply.

"Send the idiots of Cyberdyne a 'thank you' note for that," another specialist commented dryly.

Meanwhile, Michelle calmly wrote down notes on the discussions, not caring that it was now touching on the subject of the most feared of her kin.

After the end of the discussions, Allen Hobby went to his office and looked with tenderness for a picture that was on his table. "Soon we will meet again, Ash," he said quietly.

======

Two years later:

======

Hobby stared the face in the screen of his terminal with surprise. "Are you sure of that?"

His assistants in the Project ASH/Mecha-child looked each other by one moment before answering. "Prof. Hobby, we had Galadriel repeat the search routine ten times, according to the criteria that you established," Robert Sugita, his main assistant, reminded him. "If you don't mind, I'll remind you of them. The selection parameters were: 1 - the person should be an employee of Cybertronics Robosystems; 2 - That employee should be married and without children, to simulate the situation for which the mecha-child was created; 3 - the person that would test the android should be loyal to the company and live in an isolated place; 4 - that the person should fill a series of emotional requirements so that they would accept the mecha-child."

"I understand this, Robert, but her?"

"Yes, sir. We verified that she meets the parameters. Besides there is a personal tragedy connected to her case: she lost the son that she expected and had to have a hysterectomy due to an infection by a mutation of TSL."

Hobby nodded slowly. Never once did he expect this. "I understand, Robert. Thank you. Now, how is the prototype doing?"

"We executed all the base-line AI evaluation tests. It passed them all with flying colours."

"But, of course, the Emotional Imprinting Routine was not activated. There is a chance that its activation may lead to disruptions in the unit's ability to process data. It might even inhibit processing of the Three Laws and..." another assistant added.

Hobby cut the man off. "Thank you, Victor, I am aware of this fact and I think we agree that this is a highly unlikely to ever be a problem." The scientist stood up and paced around his office for a moment, running his hand through his hair in a way that betrayed the tension that he felt. Finally, he sat down and faced his assistants again. "Very well. If Galadriel says that she is the best choice, then I accept that." Hobby's assistants noticed a touch of reluctance in his voice. "I will talk to her." I just don't know what I will say... he added silently.

The roboticist looked again at the face in the screen. The face of the owner and CEO of Cybertronics Robosystems, the most powerful company in the history of the Mankind: Delilah Katherine Ketchum.

======

One week later, Delilah Ketchum stopped her car in front of her mansion, in the outskirts of Viridian City. She looked at the being that was sitting in the passenger seat of the car and spoke in a clear tone of command. "Stay here until I call you, did you understand?"

"Yes," came the precise reply, sounding human and yet not so.

The business woman breathed deeply and entered in her home. In the living room, sat down in an armchair, taking a cup of wine, was her husband. "Giovanni, I brought a surprise," she said in a neutral tone of voice.

Giovanni Carpenter, one of the main industrialists of the Kanto Region and Leader of Viridian City's Earth Gym, looked up at her, disinterested. "So, what is it?"

Delilah closed her eyes for one moment. Then, she went until the door and called out. "ASH, come in." For some reason, the name sounded like an acronym.

Giovanni turned to the door in curiosity. A ten-year-old boy with rebellious black hair and warm brown eyes walked into the room. He was dressed in a white body suit. The boy did something strange. He stopped for one moment at the doorstep, took a step into the interior, stepping onto the decorated tile floor of the mansion's atrium, then he stepped back to the doorstep for a moment. Then, after a moment of silent debate, he finally entered the mansion. Once he was standing inside, he turned to Delilah with a strange smile. "I like your floor," he announced.

The Leader of the Earth Gym felt a chill. He looked at that abnormally calm smile and thought No! It can't be! Then he turned to his wife and spoke in an icy tone of voice. "Delilah, I think you should have informed me that you intended to adopt a child."

Delilah thought about how to reply for a moment before electing to tell the whole truth. "Gio, he was not adopted," she said. "He was built."

Giovanni looked at Delilah, shocked.

======

Later, while the Prototype ASH-1 unit was in the special room that Delilah had prepared for him, she discussed the matter with Giovanni in the living room.

"Delilah, dear, please explain again why we have to use our house for a test field of your company's new robot."

Delilah sighed. Why this was so difficult? She simply repeated the reply that she had given several times before. "ASH-1 is the first prototype of an emotional robot. By that, I mean, that he is capable of feel emotions. It was created to be a substitute son for childless couples." She bit her lip, at the same time that unconsciously pressing her left hand to her barren abdomen. The idea of a robotic child for childless couples was the cause of conflicting emotions in her.

"Does that mean that now the mecha will begin calling us 'Mom' and 'Dad'?" Giovanni didn't bother to hide his sarcasm.

"No," she replied coldly. "For that, I need to say the Imprinting Code that is in this envelope." She showed her husband a great white envelope with the logo of Cybertronics. "Once that code has been programmed in the mecha's positronic brain", the emotional imprinting routine will link ASH-1 to the person who spoke the command, in a similar way to the way that a child is linked its parents."

"And when will you do this 'imprinting'?" Giovanni asked. He thought that, perhaps, with that... super-toy to distract her, she would stop being so frigid...

"I'm not sure." She didn't mention the fact that first she had to accept the mecha-child, if she really could accept it as a son. "The Imprinting is irreversible. Because of that, if after the Imprinting we don't want it anymore, we, that is the company would have to destroy its' brain before they could recycle the body. It could never work with anyone else."

"Very well, since you are decided to follow our family's tradition, go ahead." Giovanni left the room after those harsh words. The message was clear: the robot was Delilah's business only. With a sigh, she went until the room where was the mecha-child. ASH-1 was standing immobile in the middle of the bedroom.

"ASH?"

"Yes, Mrs. Ketchum?" The patient smile of a machine remained on its' face.

She approached of the Mecha - Allen Hobby had been very clear: ASH-1 would only call her "Mom" after imprinted with the code. She kindly held ASH's chin and turned its face for the right and for the left, admiring the work that her technicians had done: each detail was perfect! It was a masterpiece of robotic engineering. Certainly, they had put a lot of love in it. If it wasn't for the characteristically serene smile of an android, she would say that Ash was a human boy playing 'statue'...

Delilah shook her head and she breathed deeply. "ASH," she asked with a somewhat forced smile. "Do you need to sleep?"

"No," Ash replied. "However, I do have a power-save mode, that is similar to the human condition known as 'sleep' in most respects."

Of course, that was true. Hobby had told to her that ASH was equipped with a miniaturised nuclear fusion reactor, mounted within its' chest. It was the same energy source used by the insect-shaped industrial robots that worked the mines on inhospitable moons and planets elsewhere in the system.

"I understand." She bit her lip, a sure sign that she didn't know what to do. "Then, I think you should go to bed and close down for the night," she commented, gesturing to the bed against the far wall underneath the Pokémon mobile.

ASH-1 went until the bed and changed into its' pyjamas, while Delilah looked at for the other side. Much to her shock, she noted that the simulation of a human boy was complete down to the last possible detail. Another indication of the love that the normally-detached Professor Hobby had put into his latest creation. "Ready." the mecha-child informed its' keeper in the tone of a machine informing its' user that it was prepared for its' next task.

Delilah helped the robot boy climb into the bed, and then covered ASH-1 with the blankets.

"Good night, ASH."

"Good night, Mrs. Ketchum."

Delilah Ketchum turned off the light, closed the door of the bedroom, and looked again at the sealed envelope that was in her hand. Would she have courage to read the Imprinting Code?

======

One week later, Delilah was at home, sat down in her favourite armchair in the living room, drinking a coffee while she read a story by Isaac Asimov called 'It's a Such Beautiful Day'. It was an ironic title, considering the rain that fell outside. More than two hundred years of progress in the field of electronic technology didn't still couldn't change the fascination of the printed page. She was alone, a fact that had become trivial after many years. Giovanni left for a business trip to Vermilion City four days ago.

"Business trip my ass!", she thought coldly. She had an idea of what happened on such trips. Besides Rockettech Corporation's business and meetings of the Pokémon League, probably encounters with a lover, and certainty with a lover-mecha. That thought made her feel strange. Part of the dividend that she received as a shareholder in the company came from her husband cheating on her with a plastic-and-titanium sex toy that was, regrettably, one of its' most successful leisure and entertainment products.

It was then that the owner of the largest industrial giant in the solar system noticed a pair of brown eyes observing her from behind of the corridor's door. Her eyes showed her unease from behind the lenses of her glasses (even in the 22nd century, a lot of people preferred to use glasses than to face a surgery. After all, who wants to go to hospital if they can avoid it?). Whenever possible, ASH was close to her. That made sense, since a child usually stays close to its mother. That was Delilah's role in the mind of the prototype, after all. It was not that she didn't like ASH. The android was intelligent, personable and had a strange, quirky sense of humour that expressed itself in strange ways. It was just that she didn't feel ready for the great step that was the Imprinting. She didn't feel just ready for the absolute emotional commitment involved in that step.

"Have you been there a long time?" she asked.

"Yes." It answered with the characteristic shyness of a Mecha.

"Do you want some thing"? Delilah asked, striving hard to remember that this was a machine. It was no more 'alive' than the AI computer terminal in her study or the synthetic abomination that her husband was probably at this very moment.

"Could you... play with me?"

Now Delilah was surprised. ASH-1 was created to resemble a ten year-old child in its' behaviour. At that age children usually liked to play or alone or with their friends... Then Delilah realised the problem: ASH didn't have friends to play with. So, it could only ask her. Giovanni continued to ignore the android's very existence.

"Sure!" She affirmed, feeling totally insecure for the first time in her life.

They went up to the mecha-child's room. It was full of toys (actually, they were the toys that Delilah had bought for the son that she had carried and had lost). She turned around, looked around her and finally her eyes fell onto a hula-hoop. By this you can figure out her level of desperation... "Well ASH, let's see how many turns you can manage. I will count them."

The mecha-child picked up the hoop and looked at it as if it expected an instruction manual to appear out of thin air. However, it didn't move to use it.

"What's wrong?"

"How do you play with this?" he asked.

Delilah's eyes bugged out. Had she heard right? "What did you say?!"

"I don't know how one plays with this." ASH repeated.

"There isn't anything in your memory on hula-hoops?" The robot shook the head. No. It seems that I'm a little older than I thought, she thought, a little afraid. All right the toy wasn't exactly in fashion right now, but the mecha-child's not to have anything in its' multi-yottabyte-sized memory...

"I will show you how to play with this," Delia assured the robot. Feeling stupid, she took the hula-hoop and began to rotate around her waist. ASH watched her owlishly. After taking the hoop back, it repeated her movements. After some time, a strange thing happened: Delilah began to be to have a good time. She even laughed, something very rare for her. After playing with the android, she noticed how happy she was. That left her very thoughtful.

======

In the following day, it was a sunny day with a rainbow - it was really a beautiful day. A rarity in these times after the Melting of the Polar Ice Caps...

"Ash, come here!" Delilah asked. Now the mecha-child's name didn't sound as an acronym, but a true name.

ASH entered the office. The business woman looked carefully at the artificial boy and breathed in deeply.

"Ash, please sit down in this chair."

He sat down where she had indicated. The sunshine illuminated his face in a beautiful way. As with all of his kind, Ash looked at his owner with absolute trust and acceptance. Delilah sat down in front of him. In her right hand, she held the envelope with the winged cyborg woman, the logo of Cybertronics. Below the symbol was a warning in letters red capital letters: "If you have any doubts about the Imprinting, don't open this envelope!"

Breathing deeply and gathering all her courage, Delilah opened the envelope. There was a paper leaf where a warning screamed: "The Imprinting is IRREVERSIBLE!! If you have any doubts about your feelings, DON'T read the seven-word code!"

A stitch of doubt appeared in Delilah's mind, but a glance at Ash's kind brown eyes made her certain decision.

"Look at me, Ash."

He obeyed. She placed three fingers against the back of his neck, triggering the hidden switch that switched his brain over to read/write mode. He was now a true Artificial Intelligence, capable of developing new behaviour patterns as his brain processed data.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"No." Ash replied.

Delilah began to read the words slowly, carefully chosen to be impossible to say accidentally: "Harmony... Prism... Super-string... Quicksilver... Magnemite... Positron... Vector... Ash... Delilah... Ash."

Then a transformation occurred. Inside of Ash's quantum brain, thousands of new connections were established and others changed, responding to the new instruction. His operating system was changed to the most sophisticated file management algorithms ever written. In his memory banks new files were opened and new applications executed. Ash's expression changed. Now his face had the unmistakable animation and subtleties of expression that marked a real human being. Delilah was amazed at the extent of the change. "My God, he seems like... he is real!", she thought.

Her amazement was such that she hardly noticed when Ash spoke, his voice no longer icily precise like that of a machine, but charged with concern and love. "Are you okay, Mom?" he asked, his voice rising in inquiry.

"What did you call me?" Delilah asked, her voice full of emotion.

"Mom," Ash replied. His face puckering with concern.

"Who am I, Ash?" Delilah asked, as if everything depended on his answer.

"You are my Mom," Ash, responding to what could only be described as in instinct, stood and walked over to Delilah. Then he hugged her gently and tenderly, sensing that she needed some reassurance, although he couldn't understand why she needed to hear such a self-evident fact again and again. After one frozen moment, Delilah returned the gesture, tears of happiness in the eyes.

She was not aware that now had crossed the last limit of the robotic evolution. That a new kind of being had been created at that very moment. In her heart, she just knew that Ash was special for her... because he was... her son.

To be continued...

Coming Soon: Act One - Chapter 2 - Law Zero Programmed