Your posts are inspiring. Many thanks for them and to all who are reading along.
No Man is an Island (John Donne)
While the two lovers, the adorable Bandit, and a majority of Manhattan were asleep that night, Sui Generis was walking the streets. He had been invited to spend the evening with Claudia, who was having everyone over for dinner. After his talk with Eileen that day, he became more sensitized to interactions between his human supervisors. As Pete and Jane, Steve and Jack, Claudia and Eileen dined with him, he took in the various nuances of what he witnessed between the couples and among the friends. There was a lot of information to take in. He took note of the tenderness between the lovers, and the ubiquitous teasing among the friends. The couple he seemed to understand the least was Pete and Jane, because they seemed so different from one another in personality. So when the friends were getting ready to leave, he asked if might stay with Pete that night. He had hoped to ask him some questions, but Pete had had a long day and parked the android in front of the television after making up the couch for him.
"You should be able to figure this out easily," Pete said humorously, handing the remote control to the guest.
"Because I am superior in technological workings?" Sui asked.
"Because you're a machine," Pete answered and meant it to be funny. He then tried to backtrack when the android stared at him. "You know, because …..you…yeah, are really smart."
It was the first time anyone had called Sui that and while it did fit his definition, the android could not understand why it bothered him. He took the remote, thanked Pete and sat down on the couch, pointing the device at the television.
"You ok?" Pete asked.
"Yes, everything is fine," Sui said, taking note of his internal processors. "I'll go into sleep mode in one hour and sixteen minutes."
It was too long for Pete to wait, so he said good night and went into his bedroom. Sui kept changing the channels until the movie station came on and he saw a very familiar name. He accessed the library inside his program, and cross referenced it with his personal data file. Unfortunately, accessing the internal collection meant the story line of the movie was spoiled. Yet, as he sat there and watched the events unfold before him in cinematic form, something happened – something very hard for him to comprehend. He thought about the connections playing out in his head. He could not easily grasp what was happening as his logistical sequence program laid out before him the only conclusion he could come to. It was a disturbing conclusion.
Sui spent the next couple of hours going over and over the details, and felt something he finally realized as one of the worst feelings humans experienced according to his database – a sense of shame. Even though the tripod ships on the screen looked nothing like him, he wondered if they were they simply the same as he was on the inside? Sui felt a terrible kinship to the machines of destruction. Would he be capable of that with a few strokes of the keyboard? Had his creators put in safeguards? Could someone hack his programs? All these questions swirled in the troubled entity and although he could come up with the statistical analysis, he could not be certain. He came to the only conclusion he could - If he were capable of hurting his friends, then perhaps he needed to cease to be.
He knew that help in deciding this would go unsupported by the people he spent so much time with. He concluded that they would not do anything deemed harmful. Only Helena would understand. He would have to explain it to her. So in the early hours of the morning, he slipped out of Pete's apartment and walked the streets of Manhattan.
He knocked gently on the back door of the townhouse, but he soon realized it was too early for anyone to be up – except Bandit. The canine ran to the door and Sui became afraid he would wake the residents up. So he placed his hand on the keypad and figured out that the machine would only open to a familiar hand print. He looked at the keypad, his eyes focused on the last print with his visual acuity. Then he reprogrammed his own settings and changed his fingerprints to replicate what his visual lens saw.
Was he becoming more advanced – or just devious?
The puppy recognized the android and jumped up on his leg to greet him. Sui petted the appreciative dog, and sat down on the floor with him where the pup eventually went back to sleep. Sui gently picked him up and placed the dog back on his bed. He had pushed past his own power down time and needed to rest. Aside from the mandatory programs that ran while he was in sleep mode, Sui kept his logistics problem solving program online.
When he woke, the answer was waiting for him. So was Leena who was surprised to see the android sitting at the counter in the kitchen.
"Coffee?" she asked when he came to life, his systems rebooted and charged.
"Yes, please," he answered.
Leena went to pour the coffee when the morning intern from the hospital arrived to walk Bandit. Sui watched as the puppy ran to her and waited patiently as she secured his leash.
"Hi, I'm Meg Zhang," she said to Sui, putting her hand out.
Sui smiled and took her hand. "It is easier if I no longer associate with my name," he told her. She gave him a blank stare and then looked at Leena for confirmation that this guy was ok.
"Coffee hasn't kicked in," Leena laughed nervously. The intern took Bandit and left.
"What did that mean?" Leena asked, wondering if this was android humor. She was surprised that the facial expression she saw was one of sadness. "Let me get Helena," she said, thinking something was going on internally with his wiring.
"I will wait in the library for her," Sui said as Leena made her way upstairs.
Myka didn't speak of her dream the next morning, even though it stayed with her in a perplexing fashion. She was afraid Helena would take it the wrong way and regret having shared her true feelings the night before. She lay there, looking over at Helena, drinking in the beauty that the woman possessed, inside and out. How did she get so lucky to have Helena fall in love with her?
There was a light tapping on the door that then became urgent when an immediate response was not offered. Then, Leena was in the room.
"Helena, you better come downstairs. Maybe it's nothing, but Sui is acting weird. Does he need an upgrade or something?" Leena asked, waving at Helena to come.
"What is it?" Helena asked, and Myka was pleased to hear no sternness in Helena's voice.
"Look, his aura is …missing," Leena said, still standing in the doorway, but looking over her shoulder.
"Missing?" Myka said at the same time Helena asked, "Aura?"
Leena looked at Helena with a blank stare. "Yes, I thought you programmed it. He has an aura. Well, he didn't that night when I first met him, but the next time I saw him, he did. I thought it was battery indicator thing maybe," Leena said. She realized she was attributing a very human characteristic to him and thought it was a result of user interface design.
"I gave him no such thing," Helena said, grabbing her robe and tying it around her waist tightly. Myka grabbed her sweat pants and t-shirt and threw a PINK hoodie over it and caught up with Helena on the stairs. As they arrived at the bottom step, the front door opened and in came Claudia, Eileen, and Pete, followed by a very concerned Mrs. Frederic.
There was a simultaneous back and forth about who called who and why. "You called me and told me to come here," Pete said to Irene. "No, I didn't. I was on the phone with Claudia," Irene explained. "Impossible," Claudia said in her limited Spanish. "I was ….," and then she looked at Eileen, whose eyes were wide as saucers. "Asleep. I was asleep," Claudia said, her voice squeaking. "Sound asleep," Claudia reiterated with an exaggerated yawn.
"Very smooth," Pete said to her.
"Could someone please explain to me what this is all about?" Helena asked, her arms crossed, eyes peering out from her furrowed brow. It was too early in the morning for all this noise.
"I can explain," Sui said, walking out of the library. Helena's head immediately jerked indicating he should 'get to it'. "I used my voice synthesizer to imitate each of your vocal prints and called each of you as one of the others in the group."
"Really?" Pete asked. "Well, if you going into the alarm business could you use Penelope Cruz's voice next time? No offense," he said, turning to Irene.
"I don't have time for this," Helena said, turning to go back upstairs.
"We do not have much time, Helena," Sui said and his tone caught everyone's attention. "I will explain everything to you and Ms. Bering in here."
Eileen's head immediately shot up. "Did he just call her….?" she whispered to Irene. Irene watched as Myka followed Helena into the library. "I believe he did," Irene answered.
Do we get breakfast with this prank?" Pete asked, standing outside in the entryway with the others.
"I'll make some," Leena said and headed to the kitchen.
"I can make the tea," Eileen said, always careful to sound like she wanted to help out and not take over.
Claudia paced the entryway and Mrs. Frederic sat in one of the wing chairs. "Something is wrong," the techie said, getting a sense of what was going on in the other room. "I need my laptop." Claudia opened her backpack, grabbed the laptop, and went into the living room to set it up. Irene followed her in.
"Mr. Generis, if this is purely a demonstration of your advancing techniques, I would rather have heard about it at work," Helena said.
"Please let me explain," Sui said, sitting on the couch. Myka gently nudged Helena to sit so they could hear what the android had to say. Maybe something was wrong. "First, I called Pete so that he could be surrounded by his friends who should assure him this is not his fault," Sui began. "I called Eileen to be here for Claudia because she will need support when she fails. And I called Mrs. Frederic – for all of you," he said cryptically.
"And the gathering serves what purpose?" Helena asked, running out of tolerance for someone else running the show.
"I have had the pleasure of observing and interacting with those people outside. I have carefully watched you and Ms. Bering. That has been perhaps my fondest memory. I have learned a great deal, as you asked me to. I was beginning to understand the inherent limits to my being and, in spite of that, still concluded that I was indeed fortunate," Sui said.
"The point, Mr. Generis," Helena said, because she thought he should have known to wait until she had her tea.
"I received some new information last night that changed everything. I saw a documentary on what machines are capable of doing. Based on that information and several hours of algorithmic calculations, I have come to the conclusion that the only thing I can do is terminate myself," Sui said, his eyes cast down as if he couldn't look at Helena.
"What?" Helena asked, trying to get up from the couch, but Myka's hand on her shoulder stopped her. She didn't want Helena to block her view as she joined in with – "You can't do that!" the lawyer shouted.
"What is this about? What documentary? Who the bloody hell was with you?" Helena asked in succession.
"Helena, I was with our friends. I learned a great deal from them. I did not completely understand Mr. Lattimer's connection with Detective Tierney, so I asked to stay with him, to ask him questions," the android explained. "He was tired and so he suggested I watch television. I watched a film called "War of the Worlds," Sui said, looking at both women.
"I am familiar with the story," Helena said slowly.
"Sui, that was a story from the imagination of …," Myka explained.
"...HG Wells," Sui interjected. "There is a striking resemblance between your brilliance and that of Charles' sister. I have concluded, based on the variables available to me, that it was Charles' sibling who provided the research and ideas for his novels. He was simply not bright enough to concoct those stories."
"That was fiction! You are real!" Helena said, the scientist in her pushing to the foreground. "And you're right about Charles."
"Helena, I am just a machine. I may look different on the outside, but inside, I am alphanumeric codes and hardware."
"Like you, our interiors are made up of components; cells, neurons, and chemical charges. Take any of us apart, and we don't look like very much. Ah, but it is what we do with what we have that counts, Mr. Generis," Helena shared.
"Sui, your self-awareness is changing the connection between humans and androids. You're the first to do that successfully," Myka assured him.
The android look at Helena and startled her with how sad the look in his eyes seemed. "I am all of that. Yet, there exists the possibility that I will evolve into something you had not intended. I gained access to this house by altering my fingerprints to resemble those of Leena," Sui confessed.
"How did you do that? Is he supposed to do that?" Myka asked Helena.
"He's learning," Helena said, and her calm tone helped Myka.
"There is no end point to learning, Helena. And if you are not here to guide my learning, I could be a very different instrument. In the end, I am just a machine," Sui said, staring Helena in the eyes.
"And I am just a human, but a very smart one, Mr. Generis. I designed you so that your capacity for learning is seemingly endless, yet your ability to use that knowledge in any way less than productive, is quite limited," Helena explained.
"I didn't know that," Sui said, sitting back and regretting he had not consulted Helena earlier.
Myka smiled and felt relieved that this was yet another example of Helena being a few steps ahead.
It was oddly strange to see what appeared to be self-doubt in the android. Myka watched as Helena reached across the cushion to take his hand. The touch translated into kindness and safety and the overloaded android responded by putting his other hand on top of Helena's. He understood this tactile response to be the very definition of tenderness and that it was a feeling that came from someone who cared. He was content to know that his Architect cared so much.
"I cannot seem to make a conclusion with any certitude on what my purpose is," Sui admitted.
"Welcome to the human condition," Helena said and then decided to take one more minute to impart her wisdom. "We are here to discover our talents and gifts, Mr. Generis, and then use them to make this world of ours a better place."
Myka sat alongside Helena, listening to her insights. Had Helena just provided the answer to Myka's dilemma of whether to teach or not?
"And Mrs. Frederic has decided your talents are best used as my assistant, so shall we get to it?" Helena asked, wanting to get ready for work. Myka looked at Helena as they stood up.
"You're a very wise woman," Myka said, not explaining to Helena yet how she had helped her.
"Am I?" Helena responded, moving closer to Myka and smiling.
"I'll explain later," Myka whispered.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Wells," Sui said, going back to the more formal name. "There is just one more problem."
"Oh, to think I almost made it out of the room," Helena sighed. "Yes? What is it now?"
"Holy frakking C3PO, he's decoded his programs!" Claudia said, typing furiously on the laptop.
"What does that mean?" Irene asked as she watched.
"He's in charge of his programs. He can alter them. Oh my God," Claudia said, sitting back momentarily and covering her mouth. She turned to look at Irene.
"He's programmed himself to self-destruct in eight minutes."