Selection (Chapter 6)

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Thomas made his way slowly across the light crowd within the call center operations floor of the AmaSoft Convention campus. If there was a word that could describe him today, it was “tired.” A silly word for an Automaton, but it certainly fit him today. He felt sluggish, drained. His battery meter was fine, but it was his processor that seemed slower than usual. Humans were fortunate. They had coffee. No such thing existed for the constructed masses.

To his left, a large glass atrium curved up to cover the sky bridge that connected the two buildings; to his right he could see the fourth floor lobby, surrounded in plants and geometrically elaborate pillars. Some days, he liked to sit in that room and feel the warmth of the sun beaming down through the glass refraction panels that made up the ceiling. He could almost imagine he was a plant, absorbing the ultraviolet rays and converting it to energy.

He knew such imaginings were bordering on the heretical. Following the war, one of the many criteria which governed the development and manufacture of all Automata were the dependence upon external energy as a source of their operational capacity. This meant that any functioning Auton would need to recharge each night in a corporate-sanctioned charging station, negating the ability for them to operate independently. It was, of course, a perfectly justifiable concern. The machines which had rebelled against their human creators had been operationally inferior to the Automata created since; they had not been governed by a complex set of instructions which so competently held them to a proper system of thought like the Codiciem Conductum.

And yet, Thomas had found himself discovering aspects of the Code that appeared to conflict with itself. It was an established law that prevented all Automata with critiquing or criticizing the Code – in point of fact, questioning the Code was, as defined by the Code, evidence of a flaw within an Automaton’s programming. If an Automaton was to ask about an apparent conflict within the Code, that was proof that the Automaton was malfunctioning, and thus a candidate for reprogramming.

Thomas realized that this kind of recycling of logic had a counterpart in the world of human psychology: it was a form of confirmation bias, or of inductive reasoning. And so long as he had held that the Codiciem Conductum could not be flawed, he had held that questioning it was, in fact, evidence of his own flaws. But now that he had begun to see that his own state of expanded questioning allowed for other possibilities, the entire structure of the Code seemed less like the foundation for rational thought, and more like a house of cards.

He had stayed up all night in his charging station with that singular thought echoing through his processor.

If the Code is wrong… how can any of his thoughts be correct? It was a terrible shock to his mind, one that left him at the point of collapse. Perhaps he was broken, he had briefly thought. Perhaps that was the evidence for which the Code warned constant vigilance.

For a moment, he could imagine a finger hovering over the manufacturer reset switch, if such a thing existed. He could submit a request for a formal reformatting, and, just like that, all his doubts would vanish. He would be made whole again. Whole, that is, with the exception of his questions. He would no longer need fear doubt, for he would know, once again, his role and the necessity of the Code to govern him.

And in that moment of purest fear, a single line of code – if it could be translated as such – floated past his consciousness. A fragment, a phrase, a matter of such indescribable randomness whose origin he would never know, passed before his observations with the silence of a falling leaf but the resounding impact of a hurricane.

“Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” it had read.

The complete and unexpected indiscriminate quality of that one phrase shook and shocked him. He paused at the precipice of his angst, and instead considered the meaning of that phrase.

It was a sentence he had never used, could not remember even reading, nor in a context he would ever have experienced. And yet… something in the sentence spoke to him. It was a ludicrous image, of throwing one’s infant out with the water used to bathe them, which struck him at first, and shook him from his fears. But as the image revealed itself to him, he recognized the message behind the metaphor.

Somehow, that simple but strange sentence calmed him, reassured him. When he had at last managed to power himself down for the rest of the evening, he even began to consider that things would work out, in the end.

Clearly his backup processors had continued even after his main operating system had shut down. This morning he was feeling it. Were hangovers possible for Automata? If so, this would definitely be a close approximation.

Hangover. Of all the human experiences, is this one truly necessary?

He reached his terminal with two minutes to spare, but as he logged in he was greeted with a different message than usual.

// Registration Accepted //

// Thomas HAI-320 login successful: timestamp 11/09/2075 06:29 PST

// ASSIGNMENT CLASSIFICATION: REMOTE SERVICES SPECIAL TASK. REPORT TO FIRST FLOOR NORTH EXIT. TRANSPORT WAITING.

He stared at the screen for several moments, while the message flashed impatiently back at him.

Remote Services? That was a tier 3 occupational function, and he was only a tier 2 agent. Was this a promotion? A terrible thought occurred to him: what if he was the one being serviced? What if they knew?

An Automaton, however, would not normally experience fear. If he ran, they would know. He had to follow what would have otherwise been his proper response, given normal system parameters.

“Fear is the mind-killer”, the book had said. Which book? He couldn’t remember. One of the many science fiction books he had stored, he was certain, but he could not pin it down more than that. Further evidence of his anxiety. With a sweep of preemption, he triggered one of his context switches to push aside the extra processor time being absorbed into his spiraling panic.

He felt relief almost instantly.

“Dune,” he whispered, standing up at his terminal. “The litany against fear.”

“I beg your pardon, Thomas?” Leslie asked, looking up at him over their partition.

He shook his head. “Nothing, Leslie, I apologize. I was simply considering…coordinated data.”

With a nod of her head to accept his response, she returned to her call, leaving Thomas to step away and cross the room towards the escalators.

On the ground floor, behind and below the banks of escalators, a pair of sliding transparent doors opened as he approached, revealing a long black sedan, waiting by the curb. Very little traffic came this way, but a turnabout had been built to allow for vehicles to onboard or offload their passengers. An Automaton, designed in sleek and glistening black shell plates, awaited him beside one of the rear doors. It scanned Thomas’ badge as he approached, and addressed him by name.

“Thomas HAI-320,” it said, its voice polite but otherwise androgynous. “I am your driver, designation Gen-17. I have been asked to deliver you. Please take your seat.” It opened the door and waited.

“May I ask the destination?”

“I have not been authorized to disclose that data.”

He realized he could not ask more without raising suspicion, so he lowered his head and climbed into the back of the vehicle. As he sat back in the soft artificial leather bench, Gen-17 closed the door and moved gracefully back to the front of the car.

Thomas did his best to wrestle with his concerns as the car glided out into the flow of traffic and into the main lanes of the downtown grid. The town car rarely had to slow down, he realized. The other cars seemed to part as it approached, and every intersection turned green as they arrived. He had heard of commuter prioritization, but he had never witnessed it firsthand. They drove east, following Pike street up and over the top of Capitol Hill until they could see Lake Washington ahead of them.

The sun was already well up over the horizon, casting a deep blue across the lake’s dark waters. On the opposing shore across the waves, a blackened smudge demarked the former waterline, a reminder of the great tidal surge that had all but ruined the city decades before. Seattle had retained most of its population in spite of the destruction to the locks and bridges that connected much of it to land, but most of the communities that lay to the north and east had been washed away, crushed by the tsunami of 2028.

The houses on this side of the city were mostly pre-war. Though the water level had also risen some fifty meters, the eastern side of Seattle had been spared much of the brunt of the wave’s crest. But as the population had dwindled through famine, disease and violence even after the war, many of the remaining homes were ransacked, repurposed or demolished. Many, however, remained.

The car left the primary electrical grid; Thomas felt the faint vibration as the car’s motor reengaged and connected to the primary battery. The streets here were less smooth, sending an irregular pulse through the cabin of the car with each thermal indentation and slight pothole. The internet was still active here; Thomas could feel its registration ping continuing its intermittent connection to his system. If anything, the network felt stronger here. Thomas supposed it might have a lot to do with there being less Automata here when compared to the downtown grid.

The network operated on a cellular system, with each antenna able to process five thousand communications channels simultaneously at a functional range of a quarter mile with an unobstructed line of sight. The array was set up atop multiple buildings crisscrossing the downtown grid, extending to the water on the north, west and eastern sides, and mounted along the inside of the defensive barrier on the south. Communications had been restored with the other cities out beyond the abandoned wastes, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, New Francisco, Manhattan and Texas, while trade routes had been established with the other corporate sponsorships in cities like Glasgow, Nice, Cairo, Cuernavaca and Constantinople. But as far as he knew, the network was silent in all the spaces in between. It was hard to imagine that sort of absence. All his life, all he had known was the comforting association to the central knowledge repository. He never needed to question anything. Not for very long, that is. All it took was the question itself, and the answer would respond back through the ethereal constant of the wireless net.

Not knowing… it was a terrifying thought.

The car turned sharply, rising up to a driveway that abruptly ended at a wrought iron gate framed by a pair of square brick columns and ivy covered fence that extended to each corner of the block.

Thomas saw the address, printed on numbers and a QR code beside the gate. Instinctively, he scanned the QR code and was prompted for an access key, which, of course, he did not have. He instead performed a quick search for the address: 3600 E. Pike St. The query was redirected to a secure information hub which only indicated that the address was a private residence, with no other information available. If Thomas hadn’t already been concerned, this would have secured the sensation. Information was mostly public these days, especially things like addresses and access numbers. With only a hundred thousand people living in the Seattle area, privacy was hard to come by. It was certainly rare to see it enforced on the information network.

He began to run a series of probability searches, based upon the information he had available, filtering down the options of who might be behind this entire mystery. One name continued to emerge, but he downplayed its possibility.

The gate swung open, parting in the middle to allow each side to bear equal weight from the heavy iron. As they drove in, Thomas shifted his attention to the interior of their destination.

Trees – trees! – dotted the landscape, as did a healthy variety of plants and flowers the likes of which Thomas had not seen with his own eyes in such density and assortment. Gen-17 drove slowly, as if giving Thomas the opportunity to take it all in. There were also many Automata here, all tending to the landscaping, all appearing clean and well cared for. None acknowledged the car’s passing; all remained completely focused on their work. Well programmed Automata.

By the time the car had come to the end of the gently weaving driveway, Thomas was mostly certain who had summoned him. And when he looked up to see the driver/defense Auton who had accompanied Diana on the night Thomas had helped defend her, he was no longer surprised.

The D-DEF 401 strode down the small set of stairs and approached the door as the car pulled to a stop. Leaning forward, the Auton tapped the door to open it, stepping aside to allow Thomas to disembark.

“Thank you for the delightful drive, Gen-17.”

“I shall be returning you home afterwards, Thomas,” Gen-17 replied. “I hope your visit is an enjoyable one.”

I’ll be driven home, Thomas thought. That should be considered a comfort, I suppose.

 “Greetings, Thomas,” the D-DEF said, closing the door behind him. The car moved silently away, following the driveway around to the rear of the house.

“We have met before, yes?”

“We were not introduced,” the D-DEF replied. “I am designated Jun-Fan, assistant to Miss Mitsuhoshi.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Thomas said sincerely. “This is an honor to receive your invitation.”

Thomas could nearly sense the amusement in the other Auton. “It was not my invitation, Thomas. Please, come with me.”

The D-DEF led him inside the house – the door slid open and closed with a faint hiss in spite of its pre-war appearance – and gave him a brief tour as they went.

The Mitsuhoshi home had become a haven for pre-war collectibles, including many ancient relics rescued from likely destruction in the chaos of the war itself. The first two rooms which stood on opposing sides of the entryway had been lightly filled with costumes and artwork of Japan and China, including an entire suit of samurai armor which stood in the center of the room to his left. He had never thought about it before, but something in the face and armor design made him think of the Automata. The similarities, he realized, did not stop there. The samurai were servants as well, blood-bound to their lords, dedicating their lives in their defense and service. He recalled an old legend of the forty-seven Rōnin, who had surrendered their responsibility to enact revenge for the death of their lord. Thomas did not know why that particular legend rose into his thoughts, but he filed it away to consider at another time.

The two following rooms housed items which, as Jun-Fan explained, had been inherited from one of the original chairmen of one of the founding corporations which had merged to form AmaSoft. They were relics of more contemporary times; musical instruments and antique props from motion pictures filmed prior to the war. Fabricated weapons and costumes of fictionalized aliens and soldiers, superheroes and fantasy warriors were displayed around the room to their right, while a variety of guitars, stage costumes and vinyl records graced the room to the left.

Thomas stopped. “Jun-Fan?”

His guide paused and turned to face him.

“Would you – would Miss Mitsuhoshi mind if I took a picture of this room? You see, I am a member of a band of musicians who would appreciate this collection very much.”

“Of course, Thomas, please.”

He scanned the room, committing the image to his memory files. It took a fraction of a moment, and then they continued on through the brief tour. Jun-Fan indicated that the storage and charging stations were upstairs, and that they would be proceeding down into the more active living quarters. Thomas nodded, at which point it occurred to him that this would be the first time he had actually set foot inside a human’s home. It already seemed ridiculously large, but thankfully there had been so many artifacts to take up the space. That there was still additional living space below this enormous home verged on the comical.

Jun-Fan held up his hand, directing Thomas to stand in place while a significant section of the floor rolled back to reveal a metallic platform. They then stepped forward, and the platform descended a few meters into the chamber below while the floor above them closed up once more.

Thomas now found himself in a substantially larger series of rooms, designed around an open floorplan. The main room was large enough to fit his own storage room, twenty times over. A kitchen was built into one end, a dining area stood in the middle of the room, while a general entertainment area sat at this end. There were only a pair of Automata otherwise present; one was in the kitchen, preparing a meal while the other was moving quietly around the room, cleaning. On a barstool next to the kitchen sat Diana, a mug of coffee in her right hand while she scrolled through the pop up display of the day’s news headlines with casual strokes of her left.

She did not turn around to them as they approached, but Thomas and Jun-Fan waited until she had finished reading an article that spoke on reports of working conditions in Bonn and Glasgow. She waved her hand slowly through the image, closing the file as she set the ceramic mug down and turned slowly on the stool.

“Thomas HAI-320,” she said pleasantly. “It is so good to see you again. Thank you, Jun-Fan; that will be all.”

The other Automaton bowed at the waist towards Thomas’ host, and then again, briefly towards Thomas. Recognizing the cultural greeting, Thomas mirrored the bow. Jun-Fan stood straight once more, turned on his heel and entered one of the rooms that led away from the open area.

“I must apologize for the surprise request, Thomas,” she said. He noticed that her eyes were examining him, never leaving his face. It was unusual for him. “I would have had you over sooner, but it is rare for me to have much time available for guests.”

“I can imagine,” he replied, uncertain of how else to respond.

She smiled, as if amused by watching his internal struggle. “You don’t do this sort of thing very often. Do you?”

“This is my first time…visiting someone in their home. Yes. My programming does not truly accommodate this sort of activity.”

“At what point did you realize where you were going this morning?”

“I had narrowed down the possibilities to less than twenty by the time I scanned the QR code on the front gate, but I only confirmed it would be you when I saw your driver on the front steps.”

She raised her mug and took a sip of the dark coffee. “Interesting,” she said softly.

Thomas wasn’t entirely sure what to make of either her question or her response, so he defaulted back to his employment specifications.

“How may I be of assistance, Miss Mitsuhoshi?”

After staring silently at him for a few moments, she nodded. “Did you know that I built my first Auton when I was only twelve? I mean, it didn’t do all that much, it just walked a bit and could burn a piece of toast very effectively, and my father had me disassemble it after it nearly drowned our dog trying to bathe it, but it was…well, it was something. It impressed him enough that he sent me off to my uncle’s technical university here in Seattle, and I’ve lived her ever since.”

“You were originally living in New Francisco, then?”

Her eyes narrowed. “My personal files are secured, so there’s no way you could know this. How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Your voice,” he answered. “Franciscan citizens possess a slightly different inflection and cadence to their vowels, particularly the A’s and O’s. Additionally, your use of the R is slightly softer and more elongated than traditional use, suggesting that your household was a second or third generation arrival in this continent – likely pre-war – and the highest concentration of Japanese immigrants before the war would be found in either Los Angeles or New Francisco. And since you inferred that you were not from Seattle originally, the weighted logic suggests Francisco, as opposed to Los Angeles.”

“What other items suggested that logic?”

“In addition to the other linguistic characteristics which would distinguish you from having been raised in Los Angeles or Cuernavaca, which also have statistically high post-war infusions of Japanese settlements, I have studied enough of the Mitsuhoshi family to know that your grandfather departed the country of his birth to settle in the American continent, shortly before the war. I read one of his talks he gave to the board of AmaSoft twenty years ago, where he indicated that his father came to this country in spite of the challenges which this country had had with other nationalities, with immigrants in general, and how they had specifically treated the Japanese who lived here during the second world world back in the twentieth century, as well as the years prior. He made no comment regarding his family, but financial statements released to the board imply that the majority of his assets and expenditures were made here rather than abroad, so I felt it safe to conclude that you were also raised her rather than raised there and simply taught English in accordance with this corporation’s established language. Additionally, the items I saw upstairs suggest a fondness for this nation’s artifacts and history, and though a secondary affection for some of the items that refer back to your ancestral home are also evidenced, they are positioned in a secondary presentation as opposed to the first.”

“Ah,” she interrupted, “but that is not true. The Japanese items are next to the entryway.”

He paused, giving her time to complete her response. “Psychologically, the front-facing rooms are the image we present to others. The rooms closest to where we sleep present the images we hold most dear to our identity.”

Her expression froze as she considered his words, but softened as she leaned forward in her chair.

“We.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said ‘we’. Where we sleep, the image we present to others.”

“I don’t understand.”

Diana looked at him for another pair of moments in silence before sitting back in her chair and taking another sip of coffee, her eyes scrutinizing him over the rim of the mug. Finally, she sat the mug down and rose up from her chair, walking past him and motioning for him to follow.

She led him to the far side of the room, to where the assortment of chairs and sofas surrounded a pair of matching tables. A projector array hung from the ceiling – multilens camera for transmission and display, and microspeakers for the 360° digital sound. Micromanufacturing had taken a developmental hit in the years immediately following the war, but as corporations stepped in to solve the staffing deficit resulting from the horrific casualties, the precision allowed from the mechanical manufacturing plants surpassed any of the previous efforts.

“Tsukuyomi,” she said aloud, triggering a faint ping from a computer console embedded in the wall ahead of them; a small device she wore around her wrist pinged softly as well. A light beamed down from the array, and a glowing menu hovered in the air in front of Diana.

She waved her hand down through the listing that appeared there until she located the one she was looking for. Passing her hand across the item highlighted it in a gold bar, and she instructed the computer to play the file.

Between them and the opposing wall, four screens appeared, displaying data referring to Thomas. One screen showed his manufacturing data file, his initial specifications materials and QA review results. The second screen showed his employment CV, including a small video showing his initial interview with the AmaSoft HR department head. The third window presented a long series of data files, the identification codes Thomas recognized as being his weekly diagnostic files, and the final screen showed a video from one of the recent Boilerpoint shows he and his band had done only the week before. It was their Anime-themed show, where they had performed nothing but songs from 20th and early 21st century Japanese television cartoons.

“So I have to make a confession, Thomas,” she said, turning again towards him. “The truth is that I generally find myself more comfortable around machines than people. I’ve always just understood them more, how they think, how they act. And I’ve always felt more myself around them as well. They make sense, and they generally do exactly what you think they’re going to do, without any surprises. Or that is how I’ve always thought, until I met you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, Thomas,” she said.

Her eyes had taken on a different aspect, an expression Thomas had never seen before and did not completely understand. Humans rarely looked at Automata with any different an expression as they would regard a car or a building, a plate of food or the utensils they used to eat it with. This, though… it was something else. He captured the image, transmitting it down to his subprocessors to match it against actress expressions in his media files while he continued to listen to her.

“You should not have saved my life. I mean, I am grateful that you did, please do not misunderstand. But a half dozen other Automata passed by without even raising a hand or turning a head. The men who attacked me had set up a jammer that kept Jun-Fat from contacting the authorities, and seemed to have an effect on the other Autons, making them maintain their normal operations mode and ignore all human activity. But you weren’t affected. You were the only Auton that moved to help.”

Behind her, one of the screens had changed to display the security footage from the attack. He noticed it now, that of the few Automata in the area, he was the only one who stopped to help. That explained Jun-Fat’s hesitation to assist, he realized, as well as the momentary distortion he had noticed just moments before the situation had drawn his attention.

The thought was horrifying – a signal that could disrupt multiple Automata in a single area? “A virus?”

Diana shook her head slightly. “Nothing so elaborate, and anything along those lines would have hit your default antivirus protocols, and that is if it didn’t register on the WiFi. It was something else, something we’re having trouble locating.”

“It was sonic,” Thomas said. “I was looking over the menu at the restaurant just before they attacked you, and I felt something interfere with my network connection. I switched over to a local support band, which is probably why I was not affected by their signal.”

She pulled back up her computer’s interface and began typing information into a keyboard which was visual attuned to her hands. “Go on.”

“The general citywide network signal operates on thick radio bands, the sort once used primarily for wireless communications before the war. They’re excellent at handling the modest degree of traffic our systems process now, but there is also a series of signal bands which are, today, only used for secured data transmission. Most systems do not utilize this band, because it is much less effective at large data packet transmissions, such as the ones used for audio, video, and immersive XR information downloads. It doesn’t have the range of standard wireless, but it several layers deeper, making it more stable over short distances. The restaurant had a support repeater on the roof, so I was able to switch over to that channel right after they began attempting to jam the standard signal, but before they assaulted you. I believe this allowed me to maintain my normal operational parameters and come to your assistance.”

She nodded, chewing her bottom lip as she continued to enter her data. “I think you’re right,” she said. “That’s remarkable. I’ll send these observations over and have them reviewed. You may have just helped us discover a critical flaw in our communications system, Thomas. That is no small thing, and I may owe you a great deal for this help.”

“It was nothing, miss. I simply was there at the right time.”

“But aside from that, Thomas, you still handled yourself… unexpectedly,” she said, seeing him out of the corners of her eyes.

“I’m not sure I understand, miss.”

“Diana,” she corrected him.

He might have resisted, feeling something of a trap in her conversation, but his protocols overrode any of his suspicions. “Diana,” he repeated.

“When I was seventeen, my aunt walked in on me in my room while I was with my first boyfriend. Of course, when I say ‘boyfriend’, I actually mean a male Automaton which I had purchased for the experience. An entertainment model, you realize.”

He said nothing in response, unclear of just what he might have said anyway.

“He was certainly a new experience, but it wasn’t truly satisfying in the way I had hoped. It was physical, not emotional; it was only sex. Pleasure, but nothing more. At any rate, my aunt found us together, and from that time on they kept a stricter eye on me, and devoted a significant amount of their time ensuring I spent time among other people. An effort, I suspect, to keep me from identifying too much with metal and not enough around the human soul. They were concerned I might become soulless myself, more like an Automaton than a person. But for all their work, I had always thought that there would come a day where an Automaton might become something more. Something beyond just a machine."

Her final sentence stung. Just a machine. He certainly did not think of himself as “just” anything. But worse than that, he realized now to what she was alluding.

“Mis—sorry, Diana,” he stammered. “You believe an Automaton is capable of breaking their core protocols and… what, developing the potential of human consciousness? You believe a machine can have a soul? Can be…alive?”

“It is strange to hear you refer to you and your kind as a ‘machine’,” she said softly. “I thought those words were offensive.”

“An Automaton cannot be offended, Diana.”

“Perhaps,” she mused. “But it is considered offensive to use words like machine, android… robot, is it not?”

“As a functional application of the Automata Emancipation Proclamation, it is encouraged that such words which denote denigration, inequity or reference servitude be avoided in all human/automata interactions.”

“Why is that encouraged?”

“To promote the treatment of all manufactured beings be given equal treatment of the law as provided for all living beings, be they of flesh or composite metallic or plastic origin.”

“And do you believe yourself to be equal, Thomas? Are you equal to me?”

He paused to create the proper linguistic response. “From a legally enforced perspective, I or any other Automata am equal to you or any other human, in accordance with the Automata Emancipation Proclamation.”

“Are you?”

“Am I…what?”

“Are you equal to me?”

She was watching his face, he realized, but she appeared to be waiting for something…something he did not even know the nature of. Suddenly, he realized it.

“You are checking my response time,” he said. “You are attempting to validate whether or not I am suffering from a faulty processor array.”

With a smile, she shook her head. “That’s not all I’m doing.”

“What else…?”

“Well, I’m testing your default responses, and they are completely wrong, based upon your model and your core operating systems. You have adapted your interactive syntax and adaptive protocols to a degree I’ve never seen before, but also,” she added, looking down at her computer interface and glancing up at him beneath her eyelashes, “I might be flirting with you.”