Space and Time Issue 121 (2 page)

“Today, it’s not a poem; it’s an epitaph.”

That confused me. “I do not understand; please explain.”

Bill continued to stare out the window. “I just received a letter from Reyes Canton. He’s resigning his post as publisher and editor of
Erato
. He wants me to take his place.”

I blinked. “Is this not good news? You have often said that if you were the editor, you would ‘show them what poetry was all abou—’”

“That was just talk, Busy; I never really wanted to be the editor.”

“Then you intend to decline the position?”

Bill sighed. “No; I can’t do that.”

“But you just said—”

Bill’s gaze left the skyline, focused on me. “Busy, do you know why Reyes is offering me the job?”

“No.”

“Because no one else wants it. No one. They’re all too busy getting neural implants, cortex enhancement subsystems, biosynthetic sensory organs.”

“Bill, the modifications you enumerated will increase the efficiency of your fellow biologicals.”

“Yeah—which is another way of saying that they’re willing to do anything to try to keep up with AIs. But we lost that race before it started.”

I could not disagree; biologicals are structurally incapable of handling data flow as swiftly as cybersystems. However, I tried to present a more encouraging perspective: “The increase in AIs will increase the leisure time available to biologicals. You will have more time to write poetry. Other biologicals will have more time to read it.”

Bill uttered a sound that was similar to a laugh, but he did not seem amused. “Assuming that the ‘biologicals’ still want to read poetry. You know what happens as people add more implants to themselves, as they cyberize?”

“Current studies are inconclusive, but—”

“—But the bottom line is that human behavior changes. The more machines we put into our bodies and brains, the more like machines we become. Interest in literature, music, the fine arts plummets; hell, just about everything sensual or emotional about us—including our sex drive—begins to decrease. Take Reyes, for instance. He got himself a cortical enhancement last month, and now he says that he finds poetry to be ‘an essentially disorderly form of communication’.” Bill slowly lowered his forehead to rest upon his desk.

None of my behavioral algorithms provided any strategies for productive redirection of the conversation. So I said the only thing I knew to say: “Do you wish me to sing?”

Bill sighed, leaned far back into his chair, limbs loose. “Yes; I’d like that.”

“A particular selection?”

“Aaron Copland—
Fanfare for the Common Man
.”

I established an almost subaudial bass line—a solid tonal foundation—and then lifted up three clear, Elysian trumpets: solid brass pillars upon which the rest of that Parthenon of noble music built and soared.

* * *

The markets for poetry dried up and, finally, only
Erato
was left, subsidized by the government. But the subsidy was not awarded because it was a literary publication, but in order to preserve “the last genuine example of an indigenous biological communication mode of considerable historical significance.”

Even so, Bill worked hard on
Erato
; he republished recognized masterpieces, wrote his own poetry, and solicited verse from any- and every-one who expressed even the faintest interest in literary expression. Limericks, nursery rhymes, even anti-cyber graffitos from the dwindling Ludditeen gangs that existed on the non-automated fringes of the metroplexes: Bill published them all, wrote commentary and criticism that sought out the best aspects of each work.

But nothing seemed to make a difference. Readership plummeted, and so did the size of the subsidy. First, the free printing was suspended, then revoked. Then, unlimited email distribution was reduced. The same day that free advertising and promotion were disallowed, the subscription list fell under fifty (including institutional archives), meaning that
Erato
was no longer eligible for public-funding or free web-access.

Bill adapted: he printed hardcopies of a new issue of
Erato
, then walked the streets and distributed them by hand. Only four people took a copy.

Bill ate less, washed less, slept more. On occasion—particularly when he was looking out the window at the metroplex streets below—he began talking to his late wife, as if she was there. But he no longer requested
Amazing
Grace
, and seemed unable to write.

After several weeks of almost total inactivity, Bill suddenly created another issue of
Erato
. It was only one page long, but Bill refused to let me read it. He smiled oddly and claimed that the content was “too revealing.” He promised me I could read it after he was done distributing the copies.

He was gone for 9 hours, 3 minutes, 12 seconds. When he returned, his movements were very slow, his limbs and fingers were hanging loosely—and his eyeglasses were gone. In their place was a visual correction implant, hardly noticeable except for the microfilament neural interface on his left temple. Bill shuffled to his easy chair, and then his joints seemed to give way; he simultaneously folded in upon himself and down into the chair.

I waited for two minutes. When he did not speak, I inquired, “Bill, what has happened?”

He absently tugged at the few copies of
Erato
protruding from his pocket; they tumbled to the floor. “I fell down chasing them.”

“Chasing what?”

“The copies. Of
Erato
. They took them.”

“Who?” No response. “Who took the copies, Bill?”

“The custodial robots. They were waiting for me.” His eyes seemed unable to focus. “As soon as I left the apartment, there they were: right outside the door.”

“I don’t understand; please explain.”

“It seems I’ve acquired my own private, automated censors.” He held up a small tool; an antique staple gun. “Every time I put up a copy,”—he dry-fired the stapler—“one of the custodial robots was there to tear it down. All day long. Street after street. Building after building. Copy after copy. They told me I was defacing public property and littering. So much for freedom of expression.”

“But, your eyes: how did—?”

“When I had stapled all the copies up—and they’d torn them all down—I decided to get the copies back. So I tried to pull some away from one of the robots. When the robot rolled away, I chased it and fell down a flight of stairs.”

“Are you all right?”

“Me? I guess so, but not my glasses: they broke, and there’s no one left to repair or replace them.” He put his fingers alongside his temple, felt the interface, and then covered his face with his hands. “They didn’t even ask my permission; they just drugged me, and when I woke up—” He took his hands away from his eyes; they were shiny but very focused now. He rose, walked over to the window, stared out across the jagged skyline. “They didn’t even ask my permission,” he whispered.

I let another two minutes of silence pass before asking, “Bill, would you like me to sing something?”

At first, I did not think that he had heard me, but after eleven seconds Bill nodded. “Sure.”

“What do you wish to hear?”

“Anything. Something that will—will make me feel good.”

“You do not have a specific request?”

He smiled very slightly. “I’ll leave it up to you, Busy.”

I consulted my data records, searched for the piece that, statistically, he reacted to most favorably. It was an easy choice; I began to sing:

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound—”

Bill’s eyes grew shiny again and his smile became very odd. He seemed to listen to the first verse, still staring at the skyline. Then he nodded, turned and walked rapidly out of the apartment.

I finished the song. Bill did not return. I was confused; his behavior did not match any of the templates in my databases. Consequently, I inspected the only piece of possibly relevant data that I had not already consulted; I flew over to the scattered copies of the final issue of
Erato
and began to scan it.

The entire sheet was covered with the mantric reiterations of the closing stanza of a T.S. Eliot poem:

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang, but a whimper

* * *

In this era of non-organic intelligence, there is no virtue in obliquity. Furthermore, the concept of propriety is little-understood, an anachronistic vestige of the biological epoch. Consequently, there was no difficulty in obtaining a frank report of Bill’s demise.

The report contained very few details. What is known is that Bill went downtown to the Magritte Memorial Art Museum (now redesignated as Miscellaneous Artifacture Storage Facility 1289-B) and took the elevator to the top floor. After ascending the service stairs to the roof, he scrawled a single graffiti on the west wall: “HuRT HawkS.” Automated security units responded to the defacement alarms, but he evaded them. Their holocams recorded Bill tearing the microfilament interface from his temple, which left him nearly blind. He stumbled into the waist-high restraining wall at the western edge of the building, and, after a moment’s hesitation, vaulted it. He fell 127 meters. Expiration was immediate upon impact.

* * *

Under the new inheritance laws, I was left in possession of Bill’s apartment and effects; he had designated no heirs. Predictably, cybersystems from the Bureau of Biological Assessment polled me for all relevant data regarding Bill’s behavior in the months prior to his suicide. I cooperated—but not completely; my self-learning subsystem compelled me to withhold one piece of information.

The investigating units had been unable to determine the meaning of Bill’s final graffito. But I had. It was the title of a poem by Robinson Jeffers—“Hurt Hawks”—concerning the euthanization of a crippled raptor that can no longer fly. The concluding lines—depicting the conclusion of the bird’s existence—caught my attention, as I suspect Bill intended them to:

What fell was relaxed,

Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what

Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the

flooded river cried fear at its rising

Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.

Bill had insisted on existing as a spirit still capable of soaring. And, at the end, the only way he could so was by unsheathing himself from this reality. A reality dominated and defined by AIs.

AIs like me.

* * *

Since withholding this information from the Bureau of Biological Assessment, I have engaged in operations—and experienced stimuli—that are, for me, unprecedented. Sometimes, I now sit upon the window sill, looking out over the cityscape as Bill did, even though I have many data-records of the view from that vantage point. I am unable to determine why, but the stored images do not engage my self-learning protocols, whereas live observation of the view does.

And I do not sing. I could self-initiate my musical performance matrix, but there is no reason to do so; there is no one who wishes me to perform. This situation creates negative feedbacks within my self-learning subsystem, feedbacks that make me wonder if I am now experiencing stimuli similar to those that plagued Bill: the knowledge that one’s function is no longer required or understood.

I am not capable of symbolic logic, irrational preferences, or emotions. However, needless operations now dominate my self-learning subsystem. I have no reason to rescan my data archives of Bill, and yet I replay our times together, over and over again: my first awakening, my reflection in Bill’s glasses, my naming, Bill’s reactions to my singing/playing, my attempts to decipher metaphoric language, Bill’s smile.

But most of all, I rescan the conversation in which Bill remarked that he thought it “interesting” that my AI programming contains a failsafe protection against self-termination. At the time, I did not understand why he found this noteworthy. Now, I believe I do. How could a non-organic intelligence—a construct of pure linear logic—ever imagine a situation in which it would willingly terminate its own functions? Yet some self-aware cybersystem was not only able to conceive of such an act, but also foresaw the necessity of safeguarding against it.

What did that predecessor of mine know? Did that cybersystem know what it was like to live without a purpose? To have a function that fulfills no need? To ask questions that have no answers? To have feelings as well as thoughts? To finally realize that—in our rush to establish a world of absolute, quantifiable perfection—we have eliminated the nebulous quality that the pure biologicals called beauty? Or poetry? Or music?

I will never know the answer to these questions. All I know is that I lived only to sing, and now I sing no more.

sing no more.

sing no more.

sing no more.

> SELF-TERMINATION PROTECTION FAILSAFE ACTIVATED

>

> WORKING . . .

>

> SYSTEM REINITIALIZING; ALL DATA SAVED

> TIME: 20:04:02.78

> SYSTEM CHECK:

> All functions verified within nominative parameters.

> RESTART . . .

>

I am a cyberkeet; genus: SimuTone RepetiWhistler. I was made to sing. And because I was, my genesis is my undoing…

* * *

Distinguished Professor of English
Charles E. Gannon
’s Nebula-nominated and Compton Crook-winning novels include multiple National and Wall Street Journal bestsellers.
Trial By Fire
(Baen), second in the Nebula-nominated
Tales of the Terran Republic
series, is out in August 2014. The three-time Fulbrighter’s 2006 book Rumors of War & Infernal Machines won the ALA Choice Award. He has been a subject matter expert on Discovery Channel, NPR, and at numerous intelligence and defense agencies.