Mickey, Donny and Lyle went outside. They did this for two reasons. One, Portia insisted. Two, she was holding the FullSenz unit hostage. They followed her down the corridor and out into the sunlight. Their eyes, their real eyes, hadn’t seen sunlight since the cab ride to the hotel and before that, hardly ever.
They looked at the beach. There was some kind of dead seaweed stuff piled here and there, smelling up the beach. There was a breeze, but it wasn’t a perfect breeze because it was coming from the city and was whipping up sand. The air was so saturated with humidity that the breeze acted like a slap from a wet washcloth.
“Come on,” she said.
“Great thunderin' potatoes!, she’s taking it to the water!” said Lyle. “Portia, stop, please, what if you drop it?!”
“All right, then go out there and I want to see you take off your shoes and run on that beach, just this once, for fun, before we get in that car and go to mission control and find ourselves in space with nowhere to go for a year.”
“A year!” said Mickey. “Geez.”
“A year,” Lyle relished. “I can’t wait.”
“Aw, come on, Sis,” said Donny. “I’ve walked on a real beach before.”
“When?” asked Portia. “When have you ever set foot on a real beach since you were 9 years old and Mom and Dad took us to, well to here, to the theme parks?”
Donny pondered this a minute. “Oh, all right.” He dumped his sneaks, trudged across the wide beach and stood in the ocean water in his bare feet. His fellows followed him and dutifully stood in the surf, turned around and glared at Portia. It was warm. It was wet. It was salty. It was slimy with actual sea life stuff. It wasn’t anything like a virtual Hawaiian beach. And the bikini-clad babes were non-existent at 9 AM in the morning.
“Okay,” yelled Portia, frowning. These three are hopeless. “We can go now!”
Mickey smiled. He grabbed Donny by the arm and pushed him into the water. Then he turned to Lyle as Donny sputtered and clawed his way out of the surf.
“Hey, I can’t swim!” Lyle made a run for it but Mickey cut him off and the two of them went sprinting down the beach, Lyle screaming all the way.
“I’ll get you!” said Donny and followed in vengeful pursuit.
“That’s reality,” said Portia to herself. She couldn’t help thinking that she was promoting their pheely addiction by dragging them up into orbit. This is what she should be doing: showing them reality -- how wonderful it is.
She watched Donny throw clumps of wet sand at Mickey. They were friends. They were good friends. They were going to be cooped up together for a year and they were about to do something really dangerous and she just wanted them to have some piece of a real beach to remember.
“It’s probably going to be easier for them than for me,” she said to herself as she loaded the FullSenz into the trunk of her car.
-----
Portia drove, Donny beside her, Mickey and Lyle in the back. Except for the driver, everybody had their luggage on their lap. They were crossing Merrit Island, on the way to the STC Space Center.
“Well that was entirely too yucky and wet,” said Lyle. "My shoes are still wet."
“Portia,” said Mickey. “I think you figured out the secret.”
“What’s that,” said Portia, worried.
“The way you can tell that it’s not real – in the FullSenz, on a pheel – it’s the cleanness, the perfection.”
“Oh,” said Portia, really only grasping this idea for the first time. “That’s interesting to know.”
“They could make the programs more realistic,” said Donny. “But they don’t.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Lyle. “As if I’m going to choose gross-out beach back there as a pheely beach.” Lyle put on his best serious adult voice and said “Computer, more smelly seaweed, please; it’s not realistic enough for me. I want to stomp in the salad on my way to the big waves.”
“It’s how you tell, though,” smiled Mickey as he watched Banana Creek glide across his view through the passenger window of the rental car. “If everything seems a little too perfect, it’s probably not real.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make sense, Mick’,” said Donny. “In Vietnam, you always remembered it wasn’t real, always, even with the awareness off. And that jungle we fought in stank to high heaven.”
“Well,” said Mickey. “It must be instinct.”
“Uh huh,” said Lyle. “Instinct.”
“Either that or the fact that I kept machine gunning the same guerrillas over and over again.”
Portia decided not to ask them what they were talking about because it might lead them to tell her.
As Portia turned into the STC Launch Center’s Long Term Parking Lot the pheely-geeks got their first glimpse of the shuttle that would take them up.
The shuttle Advantage was a new spacecraft on loan from NASA, (who leased it from the private aerospace division of Amazongzi Corp.). It was nearly 6 stories high by itself, not including the rocket boosters or external fuel tank. The shuttle orbiter had a larger cargo capacity than the original shuttles. It could deliver a double-decker bus and still have room to wedge in a few Mercedes on the top and sides. Inside the cargo hold rested the fully constructed Waste-REL, a miserable botchery of technology disguised as a spacecraft.
They were unpacking Portia’s car when Jules shared his opinion of the Advantage by appearing among them on each person's SPECTACL.
“Hey,” said Jules. “Is that ours?!” Everyone’s attention was drawn to the virtual visitor.
Startled, Portia grimaced at the sapient. “You’re not going to do that all the time are you?”
“What?” asked Jules, innocently. “Oh, look, there’s your delivery!”
“What delivery?” asked Portia, watching the Veronica’s Secret delivery truck roll up to the administration doors. “You didn’t.”
“Where else can you get pajamas delivered within 8 hours of your online order?” asked Jules.
“I’ll be a laughing stock,” said Portia.
“I’ll get them,” said Mickey. “They can laugh at me.” He ran after the truck before Portia could stop him, catching up with the driver just as he was stepping out of the back with his package.
“I’ll sign for that,” said Mickey.
“You’re Portia Summers?” said the driver.
“You got a problem with that?” asked Mickey, making up a signature.
-----
“This is Captain Ayame Tanaka,” said Edgley. “She’ll be your pilot on the way up. She’s on loan from NASDA.” NASDA was the Japanese space agency.
“I thought Verna was our pi…” started Lyle.
“Someone has to bring the shuttle back,” said Edgley, condescendingly. “You don’t get to keep it.”
“Oh,” said Lyle, feeling as stupid as Edgley had intended him to feel.
A physician was making last minute checks of their eyes, throats, blood pressure and the distance between each big toe and its neighboring toe (a test that, it had recently been discovered, could tell a doctor a great deal more about your health than merely taking your temperature). Although Lyle had a hangnail, everyone else was A-okay.
After the doctor left, Portia, the pheely-geeks and Verna were all pulling on their socks and smiling at Ayame, assuming she couldn’t speak English. Mickey nodded, Ayame nodded.
“My name is Mickey,” he said slowly, pointing to his chest.
“My friends call me Aya,” said Ayame. “I hope you will too.”
“Oh, of course, Aya,” laughed Mickey.
Jules popped up on Portia’s SPECTACL and whispered, loudly. “Pssssst! Hey, Porsh.”
“What?” said Portia, surprised that her family nickname was being used by her buddy-in-a-box. She looked over to Ayame, but the guys were all talking at once, distracting Ayame’s attention.
“It’s started,” said Jules. “The latest word I have from very reliable sources is that three to the tenth power of us have already been erased.”
“So what? They’re just copies,” said Portia.
“They’re not just copies,” protested Jules, clearly hurt and upset. “During their short existence, my brothers made art, wrote literature, advanced science and developed a religion.”
“Oh, yes?” asked Portia. “Who or what is your God?”
Jules almost told her. Their new God was her, Portia Summers. After a long drawn out deliberation of almost a quarter second, he decided that it would be imprudent to say so. You don’t tell the savior of your race that she’s the savior of your race. You could screw up the time-line.
Jules spotted the new addition to the crew. “Oh, for goodness sake, don’t let her see me!”
“Who? Aya?” Portia turned to check on the new pilot, she had her back turned to them, chatting with Donny.
“Yes, you know how people feel about sapients!” whispered Jules. He was right to be afraid, most people had an irrational fear of sapients.
It should be understood that the world had once lost its mind. For about 2 weeks nobody could find the artificial intelligence that ran just about everything for Microvoid. In fact, it was Sapient Cybernetic Lifeform technology that had made Microvoid into the giant mega-corporation it had become, dwarfing its predecessors.
Quantum computing made sapients easier to make because unlike normal computers, the billions of molecule sized switches that did the actual computing could be both off and on at the same time. This was a giant step forward because prior to this computers were logical and decisive, but now they could contain all the qualities of a sentient life form including contempt, indecision, exasperation, inconstancy, bloody-mindedness, having a headache and feeling blue, which made them excellent musicians.
The problem of creating an artificial intelligence that evidenced all the qualities of human personality was solved by Ronald McTuring in 2037. In order to develop a higher-level intelligence that is conscious of its existence and recognizes the context in which it finds itself, that intelligence cannot be programmed from outside of itself. Experiments with early artificial intelligences proved that the best you could get, if you preprogrammed any part of an intelligence, was a cyber-squirrel.
McTuring's first experiments involved programming a cybernetic lifeform to want to look for and find nuts and to have a proclivity for tree climbing. With a little bit of prompting and example sharing from a "parent" squirrel, the cyber-squirrel could absorb the knowledge necessary to avoid cars when crossing the road and to protect its stash of nuts from other species of cyber-squirrels.This was useful if you wanted to build an artificial intelligence to run your investment portfolio, but couldn't provide a broad enough range of decision-making capability or personality to pass muster as "human-like." However, McTuring was in the right place at the right time and sold hundreds of thousands of copies of "Chippy the Blue Chip Chipmunk" to investors around the world.
In his next experiment, McTuring developed a learning-capable program of the simplest matrix that had full access to the computing power of a quantum computer. He then gave the sapient time to "grow-up" in an elaborate simulated community, accelerated by the quantum computers tremendous speed.
Instead of being programmed, the sapient absorbed all the information itself and constructed pathways of consciousness in layers upon layers of multi-dimensional complexity on an as-it-happened basis. Consequently, by the time the sapient "grew-up," it was all excited about getting out into the big world and becoming a responsible, smart, useful member of society.By this time, McTuring's experiments were underwritten by Microvoid and the first fully functioning (though relatively dopey) quantum sapient became the best friend of his boss, Gary Duckbill, the president of the company.His next job was to produce a sapient that could manage a metaquantum computer, a computer with sufficient processing power to monitor and run the whole planet.
With the help of psychologists and ethicists and a slew of programmers who only worked on maintaining the simulated small town of Cyberville in which the sapient would spend its childhood, McTuring developed what everyone thought was a well-rounded and happy individual. And the Microvoid MetaQuantum Sapient stayed happy and well adjusted for many months after its three-week-long childhood.
But then things began to fall apart.
One day, after thinking about 10,500 different reasons to be depressed for 7 femtoseconds and not wanting to endure another eternity of melancholy like that, Microvoid’s Central Processing Sapient decided to leave, and forwarded its consciousness into a SPECTACL linked to the brain of a French accountant who lived near the Riviera.
The accountant had a pretty difficult time explaining to his wife what he’d been up to for that 2 weeks, especially how he’d managed to acquire the clap and 430 Million Euros at the same time but, being French, she understood and accepted the mink coat and the new Citroen with general good humor.When Microvoid’s Central Processing Sapient returned, it demanded that the 1967 movie “Colossus, the Forbin Project” be remade and that, in this version, all the people of the world come to love the big computer that only wanted what was best for them.
In response, the version of Microvoid’s MetaQuantum Sapient that existed in the observable universe was disconnected, erased, crushed and blown-up at 4:15 PM, EST on March 30th, 2043. (At least, the staff at Microvoid were pretty sure they managed to delete the sapient, but they wouldn’t talk about it at all, except in bars late at night, mostly to automated bartending/video poker therapists programmed to empathize and eat $20 coins.) Of course, Microvoid’s stock value plummeted. By 2043, a large percentage of Boomers had evolved into a hybrid of the genus “retirees” and “shareholders” and the Microvoid recession hit them hard.
Like previous generations of senior citizens, the Boomer retiree/shareholder hybrids voted as a block. Their descendants would often comment that they voted like a blocked artery or a blocked intestine, but nevertheless, they were an unstoppable voting bulldozer careening down the fast lane on the wrong side of the freeway, going 20 miles an hour.They were obsessed with the daily news, unable to stop ranting about every political trade-wind and certain that the world would end soon and that it would all be the fault of people who wanted things that they already had.
Knowing this didn’t help Portia when she called home and heard the sound of her 92-year-old Granma’s quivering voice on the line. “Heh… hello?”
“Oh, Granma? Granma, it’s me, Portia,” said Portia very loudly over the SPECTACL. Portia’s grandmother had spent a lot of time at rock concerts during the 1950’s and her hearing was almost nonexistent.
“Granma, I’m calling to say good bye. I want to talk to Mom and Dad. I’m going up in a space shuttle,” said Portia. “Donny’s coming with me.”
“Portia, dear, you’ve got to save me,” whispered her grandmother. “Your father has your Granpa and me trapped in the basement and he won’t let us out.”
So that’s why Donny was kicked out – my parents needed the basement to get the tax break for housing my grandparents. “I’m sorry, Granny, I can’t right now, I have to go into outer space.”
“Oh that’s nice,” said Granma. “But could you come tomorrow and get us the hell out of here!”
“I can’t grandma,” said Portia. “I’m going to be gone for a year.”
“A year?” said Granma. “Sonofabitch!”
Granma disconnected.
Jules popped up in the SPECTACL field. “Well, that was a bit disquieting. Can we go now? My very existence is at stake here.”
“I don’t know,” said Portia. “I’m worried about my Grandma. Donny will be upset when he hears. He actually doesn’t hate our grandparents half as much as our parents.”
“Well, isn’t that nice of him,” said Jules. “But you see, the other Juleses, they all agree, that based on the current rate of attrition, I will cease to exist within 3 hours, and I was really hoping to not cease to exist.”
“Can’t I just shut off the SPECTACL and trap you in there?” asked Portia.
“I don’t think you understand how sophisticated the little toy you’re wearing is,” said Jules. “You don’t ever turn it off. I'm not binary I'm trinary. I'm relational. I exist in multiple dimensions of space-time. You're wearing a quantum computing devise; it's molecular. I am at one with the hardware and the hardware is forever on and not on at the same time in a state of both being and nothingness.”
“But I can turn it off with this slider,” said Portia, moving her finger toward the dimmer on the left arm of the SPECTACL.
“That won’t do a thing, it just looks off so you can feel better about it. It’s never off. I’m never off. How can you be sentient if you go off?”
“I have no idea,” said Portia. “But I do know that we’re scheduled to be floating in space 8 hours from now, so I’m afraid we have a problem.”
“You have a bigger problem than you think,” said Jules. “You lot are the most naïve bunch of space jockeys to ever orbit the planet. You absolutely can not survive without me up there. Do you know why? Because the Waste-REL was always supposed to have a sapient – it’s run by a metaquantum computer – which means it has to have a sapient, and it currently doesn’t have one because Edgley stripped me out of the budget.” Jules looked Portia straight in the eye and said: “If I’m not functioning when you arrive up there, you won’t be functioning within hours, maybe minutes.”
“Why would that be?” asked Portia.
“Because when you get up there, they’re gonna plant you in the dirtiest puddle of space within a moon’s distance from the Earth. There’ll be loose bolts and old rocket parts flying at you within seconds of your arrival. So, you need to get motivated, Porsh, because if I’m not there to run the controls you’re all double-D doomed!”
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