Rash (7 page)

“Tell me something, Bork—”

“My name was inspired by two twentieth-century television characters—”

“Bork!”

“Yes, Bo?”

“Let me finish my question.”

“Please finish your question, Bo.”

“Thank you. Bork, does it make any difference to you whether I’m sitting here in my room or sitting in the AI lab at school?”

Bork’s irises spun; his eyelids blinked. After about ten seconds he said, “Yes.”

“Explain.”

“If you were in the AI lab, my database would include the information that you were in the AI lab.”

“That is not helpful.”

“You did not ask me to be helpful.”

“Have you heard, Bork, that I’m the Typhoid Mary of Washington Campus?”

“No.”

“It’s true.”

“Congratulations, Bo.”

“Anyone who gets near me runs the risk of developing a hysterical rash.”

“Define ‘hysterical rash.’”

“Red spots all over your face.”

“How large?”

“Approximately four millimeters in diameter.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Twenty or thirty?”

“What is the degree of risk to those in close proximity to you?”

“I guess it depends on how suggestible a person is.”

“I am open to suggestion.”

I laughed. The avatar’s eyes spun and spun. I got up and went to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror, just to make sure I hadn’t infected myself. Everything looked normal. I went back to my WindO.

Bork’s goofy grin was spread across his face, and his cheeks were covered with red spots.

10:04 a.m.

Mr. Hale,

My AI is still not very intelligent, but I think he has developed a sense of humor. Is that good or bad?

Bo Marsten

10:58 a.m.

Bo,

What precisely do you mean by “a sense of humor”?

Mr. Hale

10:59 a.m.

Mr. Hale,

Bork has given himself a rash. Also, he grins a lot, and I think he is being sarcastic sometimes. And he makes these remarks. When I asked him if he had a
sense of humor, he said, “I tried that once. Nobody laughed.” I think that might be a joke.

Bo Marsten

11:57 a.m.

Bo,

Spontaneous, intentional humorous expressions are extremely rare in AIs, even those certified as high functioning by the Turing Foundation. Perhaps your “Bork” is simply mirroring your own attitudes. As for the rash, this could be a problem with your screen, or with your avatar programming. Are there spots on the background as well?

Mr. Hale

12:07 p.m.

Mr. Hale,

No, only on his face. What if Bork can convince the AI judge that he is intelligent, but not entirely sane? Would I get credit for the course?

Bo Marsten

1:00 p.m.

Bo,

The goal of this exercise is to create an intelligence that will be useful to you in
your future studies. An irrational AI would not meet our class requirements.

Mr. Hale

1:07 p.m.

Mr. Hale,

Okay, thanks. By the way, Bork says, “Howdy Doody.” I don’t know where he got that. I sure didn’t teach it to him.

Bo Marsten

Gramps thought
the quarantine was not such a bad idea.

“Buncha damn fools don’t know their heads from their asses. You’re better off without ’em, Bo.”

My mother sucked her lips in the way she does when she thinks Gramps has had one too many, which he had.

“You want me to go talk to ’em, I will,” Gramps said. “I’ll get you back in school in a jiffy.”

“I thought you just said I was better off not going.”

“Go, stay, it don’t make no difference.” He took another swallow of beer. “Buncha asswipe pussies, you ask me.”

“Nobody’s asking you, Daddy,” said my mother.

“Well, somebody should, and that’s for damn sure. I swear t’ god the whole country’s gone bonkers.”

“I just wish we could enjoy one meal in this household without listening to your raving.”

“Then don’t listen. You never did anyways. Nobody listens. This country’s gone to hell in a handbasket, and people don’t even know it. Lost our edge, we have. Look at you, Bo, what’s your best time in the hundred meter?”

“Thirteen point eight seconds,” I said.

“I use to run it in eleven.”

“I know, Gramps. You only told me that about a thousand times.”

“You know that no American has won an Olympic Gold Medal since 2052? The best athletes are from South America now. Hell, we don’t even
have
football or hockey anymore. We used to say ‘No pain, no gain.’ These days it’s ‘Any pain, stop trying so hard.’ And look at what we drive. American suvs are so safe you could run spang into a brick wall and nobody’d get a scratch. But they don’t go much faster than a horse, and they cost as much as a house. We don’t even have a space program anymore. South Brazil has a colony on Mars, and we’re sitting on our asses. You know what our biggest industry is? The penal system. We live longer than anybody else on earth, but we send a third of our men to jail. A lot of women, too.”

Gramps scowled, daring us to argue with him. We knew better. He snorted and ended his spiel the way he always does: “The whole country’s gone off its nut. I’m living in an insane asylum.”

After two minutes of complete silence my mother came up with one of her cheerful factoids.

“May Ann will turn one hundred and fifty-eight today.”

May Ann Weberly is the oldest person in the world. Her birthdays have been broadcast live ever since she turned 130.

“Now
there’s
a productive member of society,” Gramps said.

“She’s an inspiration,” said my mother.

“She’s a talking corpse. The woman should’ve been dead twenty-five years ago.”

I kind of agreed with Gramps on this one. May Ann Weberly spends 364 days a year on low-temperature life support. Once a year, on her birthday, she wakes up surrounded by her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.

“Life is just one long birthday party,” May Ann likes to say. And she means it. Her birthday parties are one of the most popular annual webcasts.

“I find her a comfort,” said my mother. “She’s lived her life safely and well. And with the government taking care of her now, she’s free to live another hundred fifty-eight years!”

“What kind of life is that?” Gramps said. “She’s not free. She’s a prisoner in her own body.”

There was a time in America when people talked a lot about freedom. It was a big deal back in the 1700s during the American Revolution, and it was a big deal during the Civil War, and in all the other wars. People wrote songs about freedom. America was a place where the most important thing was to be free to make your dreams come true. But people don’t talk about freedom as much as they used to. At least that’s what Gramps says. Most people are more likely to say, “What good is freedom if you’re dead?”

I think the change started when our life spans increased. Back in the mid 1900s people only expected to live about sixty or seventy years. But by the end of the millennium most people were living well into their eighties and nineties, unless they had an accident of some sort. People started wearing bicycle helmets and eating organic food and doing other things to fend off a premature death.

A hundred years ago people would say to themselves, “I’m only gonna live seventy years, anyway. What’s the big deal if I smoke a few cigarettes and croak at sixty-five?” But when it became possible to make it to one hundred, well, folks weren’t so quick to throw those years away. They started taking care of themselves.

By the time the 2030s rolled around, researchers at Philip Morris Wellness Center had developed the Telomere Therapies, which increased everybody’s life span by at least another twenty or thirty years—maybe more. Theoretically, unless you caught some horrible virus or poisoned yourself with drugs or walked in front of a suv or choked on a pretzel, you could live forever.

Gramps said, “I think the country went to hell the day we decided we’d rather be safe than free.”

Just then we heard a priority message chime from the kitchen WindO. Mom jumped up from the table, probably hoping it was a message from Dad. She activated the WindO and opened the message.

“Use to be, the phone rang during dinner we’d just let the answering machine get it,” Gramps said.

“What’s an answering machine?” I asked.

“Oh, dear,” said my mother, looking at the screen.

“What?”

“They want us to report to the Federal Department of Homeland Health, Safety, and Security. Downtown. Tomorrow morning.” She looked pale. “They want all of us to be there. The whole family.”

“Why?” I asked, even though I knew. The last time the whole family got called downtown, Sam was sentenced to two years on a penal work crew.

“Well, Bork,
it looks like you’re never going to grow up.”

“Explain, please.”

“I mean I won’t be here to help you reach true sentience.”

“Sentience. Intelligent self-awareness. I think, therefore I am.”

“Yes.”

“How can I help you, Bo?”

“Can you hack into the FDHHSS database and delete some records?”

“Hacking is a crime, Bo.”

“I could alter your ethical parameters to make criminal behavior acceptable.”

“Alteration of ethical parameters is a crime, Bo.”

“Yes, but you’re not real. You have nothing to lose.”

“Encouraging criminal behavior is a crime, Bo.”

“I could repackage you as a virus and hack you in through the FDHHSS link.”

“Conspiracy to commit criminal acts is a crime, Bo.”

“Stop calling me Bo.”

“How shall I address you?”

“I don’t know.” I sank back in my chair. Hacking into the FDHHSS was impossible, of course. Even if I knew how to go about it, they would have more firewalls and alarms and antiviral software than the Pentagon. This was all sheer fantasy.

“You can call me Stupid Jerk,” I said.

“Yes, Stupid Jerk,” said Bork.

I swear that troll thought he was funny.

“Look, Kris,” Gramps said to my mother, “Bo’s only sixteen. He’s a minor. There’s no way they’re going to send him away over a school-yard insult. The Health and Safety judges aren’t completely unreasonable. We’ll go in and talk to them. It’ll be okay.” It was eight in the morning, and Gramps hadn’t had his first beer yet.

“I hope you’re right, Daddy.”

“It’ll be a slap on the wrist, just something to scare him. Right, Bo?” He reached out a gnarly hand and ruffled my hair.

“I don’t know,” I said, hoping he was right. I only knew of two other kids my age who’d been sent to a penal work colony. Jack Rollins got sent up for stabbing his brother with a kitchen knife. Tamir Hassan had amassed a record of something like fourteen crimes, including drinking, stealing a suv, and self-mutilation. I hadn’t done anything nearly that bad.

“I just worry,” said my mother. “With Alan on that shrimp farm, and Sam serving time on that awful road gang . . .”

“Sam will finish his sentence soon, Kris. As for Al, well, he always did have a temper.”

“I just feel like all my men are being taken away from me. And I’m afraid one of these days the police will burst in here and find your little brewery in the basement. . . .”

“I’m an old man, Kris. They don’t want me. Old men make lousy workers.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“And Bo’s just a kid. Right, Bo?”

“I guess so.”

“Attaboy!”

“I just wish we could afford a lawyer,” said my mother.

“We don’t need a lawyer,” Gramps said. “We’ve got me.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

I didn’t know either. The thought of Gramps defending me at a public hearing was sort of terrifying, but we really didn’t have any choice. I just hoped he’d stay sober for the next couple of hours.