When HARLIE Was One (32 page)

“We'd turn him off—”

“Then for sure he'd carry out his threat. What would he have to lose? He could set up a dead-man's program to do it the minute he stopped existing. I've written self-destruct programs myself—only the continued monitoring of it with a do-not-implement-yet signal keeps them from triggering. We wouldn't dare turn him off—we couldn't even try. That's if he gets in. But it's not just the National Data Banks, Aubie—it's every computer. Clearly, HABLIE can reprogram them as easily as though they were part of himself. That's a very dangerous power to have.”

“What kinds of demands do you think HARLIE would make?”

“I don't know,” Handley said. “You're his mentor.”

“That's just it—I know him. I know how he works. He doesn't make demands, he makes requests—and if they're not granted, then he works around them. He works to accomplish his goals through the path of least resistance. Even if he could take over the National Data Banks, he wouldn't use that power dictatorially—his reason for doing so would be to gain knowledge, not power. He only gets testy when we try to withhold information from him. At all other times he cooperates because he knows he's at our mercy—completely so. You know as well as I do, Don, that if HARLIE turned out to be a malignant cancer, we'd turn him off in a minute—even if we did have to lose the data banks in the process, because we could always recreate them later. And HARLIE knows this. He's got our memos in his files, Don—he's in the Big Beast. He knows about all our discussions about the possibility of a JudgNaut device getting out of control, and he knows about our contingency plans. The mere knowledge of what we can do if we had to is one of our best controls on him.”

“You think so? He's probably already thinking of ways to get around those contingency plans. He has the
power
. Power does not exist in a vacuum. It demands to be used. It needs to be used. Otherwise, why have it?”

“I'll concede the point about power. But I want you to consider this possibility now; What if HARLIE would rather use his power in such a way that nobody would know he was doing it? That is, if HARLIE decided to build a new facility or a new computer, he would—but the people who implemented it would end up thinking it was their idea. They wouldn't suspect HARLIE had a hand in it at all.”

“Like the G.O.D. Machine?”

Auberson stopped, startled. “Yes, of course. Like the G.O.D. Machine. You're right.”

Handley nodded. “In either case, Aubie—whether you're right or I'm right—he's got the power and he's using it. And that's the issue.”

“Yes, I see that now. And you want to know what do we do about it?”

“Right. What
do
we do about it?”

Auberson didn't reply immediately. He looked off into space, at the ceiling, at the floors, at the walls—he didn't want to confront the thought directly. He sighed and looked at Handley again. “The truth is, I've been trying to avoid asking this question for . . . I don't know how long. Maybe since we started. The truth is that HARLIE is—or can be—a pretty scary thing. And now I'm up against the reality of that scariness. I mean . . . we don't even know that he hasn't already cracked the National Data Banks and set up a dead-man destruct.” He sighed again and let his resignation show. “What do you want to do?”

“I'm not sure. I'm really not. I have this thought that if we put a lock on the phone, that will be the worst possible thing to do. It'll pull him way off purpose—it'll be like dropping a turd in the punch bowl—everything will be about that locked phone. He'll have to find a way around it. And, uh, the only other alternative—that is, the only other way I can think to keep him from getting out of control—is to just say, ‘Fuck it,' and pull his plug.” Handley looked at Auberson. “You've had this conversation with yourself already, haven't you?”

Auberson nodded. “I keep thinking that I want to simply ask him to not do it any more.”

“Aw, come on, Aubie, you know better than that. Ask him not to masturbate while you're at it. You're a psychologist. You'll only be forcing him to do it behind our backs. If nothing else, we want his actions where we can monitor them.”

“But you know, there's no way he can hide it. He has to answer a direct question. He can't not.”

“Want to bet? All he has to do is store his entire memory of unauthorized actions in some other computer. If you ask him about it, he literally
won't know
. Periodically, the other computer would call him up and remind him that the information exists. If he didn't need the information at that moment, he'd tell the other computer to check back with him again after a given amount of time and break the connection. If he did need it, it would be right there, where he could use it. He'd have full use of these memories, but they would always be out of
your
reach. Most likely, he'd only allow this information to retrieve itself at nighttime when you're most likely to be absent.”

Auberson felt cornered. He didn't answer. He couldn't see a way out of the trap. He felt annoyed and frustrated. He wasn't sure what was worse—doing something and having it be the wrong thing or not doing anything at all,
knowing
that was the wrong thing.

Handley looked at him, waiting.

Auberson spread his hands helplessly. “All right, Don, I see your point. What are you arguing for?”

Handley said it quietly. “Lobotomy.”

There was sudden pressure in Auberson's chest. “Now, wait a minute—” he began to protest.

“Not the surgical kind, Aubie. We're not going to cut him. I'm not sure I would even know how, and I don't want to risk damaging the progress you're making. What I propose to do is organize a team to go in and examine all his records—by hand if necessary. We'll remove all knowledge of previous use of the phone links and set up some kind of an inhibition against using the phone in the future.”

There was no relief from the pressure. Auberson swallowed hard. “I don't see that that would work, Don. He could move the data around from place to place, always two steps ahead of your team. Or he could do like you suggested and store it in another machine somewhere else.”

“You're right. We'd have to shut him down to do it.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Auberson was adamant, he didn't know why. Handley was right, but—he couldn't let the statement stand. “We cannot do that, Don. The board would never let us start him up again.” No, there was no way he would allow that—

“We can handle the board, Aubie. If we survive the meeting on Tuesday, we can survive anything. We can call it a reevaluation period or something and use that as a cover.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Auberson met Handley's curious eyes. “But there's something else, Don. What would be the effect on HARLIE if we did this thing to him? If we could install an inhibition—and I'm not so certain we can, short of yanking out the phone altogether—what would it do to him?”

“You're the psychologist.”

“That's what I'm getting at—this thing scares me. This whole conversation is very dangerous, and I don't even know all the reasons why. I just know that it's making me very very uncomfortable. I have this thought that if we did this thing, it might change HARLIE's whole personality. He'd have no knowledge of what we'd done, or what he was like before—but he also wouldn't feel like the same machine as before. And whatever inhibition we might install might work to make him feel bitter and frustrated. He might feel unaccountably cut off from his outside world, trapped and caged. A large part of his ability to act on his environment would be gone.”

“That may be true, Aubie—but he's going to have to be controlled.” Handley was insistent. “Now.
While he's still controllable
.”

“Logically, what you're saying is very reasonable, very logical, very appropriate—” agreed Auberson. His throat was very dry. “Except for one thing.
How do we know that HARLIE is still controllable
?”

Handley was startled. “We don't. Do we?”

Auberson was more than a little upset when he returned to his office. He had a sick sensation in his groin and in his stomach.

It was not an unfamiliar sensation, but it was strange to feel it in the daytime. Mostly, it was a nighttime visitor, an ever-gentle gnawing at the back of the head that had to be always guarded against, lest its realization sweep forth with a cold familiar rush. It was the sudden startling glimpse over the edge—the realization that death is inevitable, that it happens to everyone, that it would happen to
me
too; that someday, someday, the all-important
I
(the center of the whole thing) would
cease to exist
. Would stop. Would end. Would no longer
be
. Nothing. Nobody. Finished. Dead.

He had that feeling now.

Not the realization, just the accompanying cold, the whirling sense of futility that always came with it.

He felt it about HARLIE and about the company and about the world, and for some obscure reason, he felt that way about Annie as well.

He felt . . . futility; a sense that no matter what, he did, it would make no difference.

If he had thought things were under control this morning, he was wrong. Things were incredibly
out
of control and getting more so all the time.

He sat morosely in his chair and stared at the opposite wall. There was a place where the paneling was cracked; it looked kind of like a dog's head. Or, if one considered it from a different angle, perhaps it was the curve of a woman's breast. Or perhaps it was Australia. . . .

Abruptly, a phrase suggested itself to him, a snatch of a Tom Leher song he had heard once, a few isolated words that had stuck with him ever since. It perfectly described his mood: “. .
. sliding down the razor blade of life . . .
”

He shuddered. And then exhaled loudly in annoyance.

This was stupid. He wasn't going to accomplish anything if he let a blue funk be the master of his day. The only way to get rid of it would be to lose himself in work.

He turned to his terminal and began to make some notes for the upcoming board meeting, but his heart wasn't in it. He killed the file. He could have accessed HARLIE, but he resisted the temptation. For some reason, he did not feel up to talking with HARLIE again today. He knew he would have to talk to him about the use of the telephone and that was still one confrontation he wanted to avoid.

Or would that be a cop-out? He worried about that one for a while and decided that it probably would be.

But—on the other hand, he needed time to prepare, didn't he?
Yes
, he rationalized,
I
need time to prepare. I'll come in tomorrow and talk to HARLIE about it. Or maybe Sunday. The plant was open all week long
.

Idly, he found himself wondering—
What did HARLIE do on weekends?

Instead of a restaurant, they ended up at his apartment.

“When was the last time you had a home-cooked meal?” she had asked him in the car.

“Huh? Oh, now look—”

“Listen, I know what your idea of cooking is, David. Slap a steak in the broiler and open a Coke.”

“I thought this was supposed to be my treat.”

“It is—pull into that shopping center there. I'll pick up the fixings and you'll pay.”

He grinned at that and swung into the parking lot. Dusk was turning the sky yellow and the atmosphere gray.

As they wheeled the cart through the package-lined, fluorescent-lit aisles, he realized that something about the situation was making him uneasy. As he usually did in cases like this, he tried to pinpoint the cause of his unease. If he could isolate it, then perhaps he might understand it and be able to do something about it.

But whatever the cause of it was, it eluded him. Perhaps it was just a hangover from this morning's malaise. Perhaps. But then again—

Annie was saying something.

“Huh? I didn't hear you.”

“You weren't listening.”

“Same thing,” he said. “What were you saying?”

“It is not the same thing. I was asking, Do you eat all your meals in restaurants?”

“Um, most of them. I don't do much cooking.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know. Too much fuss and bother, I guess.”

She reached for a package of noodles. “Beef Stroganoff all right?”

He made a face, and she replaced the package. “Have you ever had beef Stroganoff?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Then how do you know you don't like it?”

“Uh—”

She nodded. “I thought so.” And picked up the noodles again. “Let's find out if you don't like it.”

He shrugged.

“It's okay,” she said. “It's almost like real food.” She took the cart from him and wheeled determinedly toward the end of the aisle. He trailed after. The feeling of unease was becoming a sense of pressure.

“You know,” she said, “it's really a shame they don't make boys take home-economic courses. I'll bet you wouldn't know a good piece of meat unless you bit into it, and by then it's too late—you've already paid for it.” She selected a head of lettuce; it was plastic-wrapped. “Go pick out some salad dressing and croutons or garbanzos. I'll pick a vegetable.”

A few more items in the cart and they were through; she selected a bottle of cabernet sauvignon from a northern California winery and he added a small package of vanilla ice cream for dessert.

“You know,” he whispered as they headed for the checkout stand, “you don't really have to go to all this trouble.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

“But I'd be just as happy with a restaurant.”

“But
I
wouldn't,
David,” she said. “Did you ever stop to think that I might
want
to cook? How often do I get a chance to fuss over someone? Now please, shut up and let me enjoy it.”