The Emoticon Generation (23 page)

~

What had she told him? What had he told her? The question plagued me all day.

Melanie slept over. I couldn’t tell her not to, not without giving a good excuse.

In the morning, I checked up on her again.

The number had changed. Again, he wouldn’t talk. But that wasn’t surprising, since he was the same man I’d talked to the day before.

How had she manipulated him? What had she told him?

The days passed, he wouldn’t talk, and slowly Melanie stopped sleeping with me. She’d just want to cuddle. I obliged.

Obviously, their connection had become deeper. What had she told him?! What were they talking about?

More days passed.

She was using me, and not him, he’d said!
What were they talking about?
!

Melanie and I grew more and more distant. She’d still come, she’d still sleep by my side, but that’s about it.

I started feeling like a teenager’s father, knowing his daughter is sleeping with her boyfriend in the other room.

What were they talking about???

~

About two week after his first reluctance to talk, I got up in the middle of the night. Melanie was not by my side. Big surprise.

I got up and stood in the corridor. The door to my study was close. Blue light filtered through the crack at the bottom. With the door closed, I couldn’t hear anything.

I couldn’t go to bed. I went outside and walked around until morning.

When I came back, she’d already gone to work.

Had she thought that I must have seen her in the study? Did she suspect I knew more?

The house was empty. I had no answers.

~

Later that day, I called her from work.

“Look,” I said. “We got this thing here at work. It’ll be over after midnight or something. And I’ll just get home exhausted. Don’t come over today, okay?”

There was a long pause.

“Are you sure? I could—”

“Yeah, I’ll just be tired and grumpy. Let’s skip it tonight.”

A shorter pause. Then, “Okay.”

“Okay.”

And we hung up.

~

I got home at the usual hour. And I found the door unlocked.

She was in the study. All-of-Me was turned on.

“Melanie?” I inched my way into the study.

“Yah,” she turned. “Hi!”

Her face and my face – on the screen – both looked at me unexpectedly. He was blinking. She hadn’t frozen the program.

“What are you doing h—” I began, “—I thought we’d agreed that—”

“Yeah,” she smiled, cheery. “You sounded in the dumps. I could wait till midnight, no problem. I thought you’d need cheering up.”

“Yeah,” I said, forcing myself to look away from his gaze. “I... uh... The thing at work ended up sooner than expected.”

“Great! Why didn’t you call?”

“I... don’t know.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here!”

“Yeah.”

“Look, give me another minute with this thing here, I’ll save him, and come and cheer you up.”

“Sure,” I looked into his eyes.

“Yeah,” Melanie said. “Wait for me in the living room, I’ll be right there.”

“Yah.”

And I left. And after a minute, she came. But I couldn’t let her near me. I got up and took a shower.

~

That night after she went to talk to
him
, after she slipped back into bed, after her breaths steadied, after I was certain she fell asleep, I slipped out of bed, and turned on the computer.

I found the file with the number. My current state-of-mind was represented by seven letters, no spaces or numbers.

I erased the text file. I erased
all
text files with my states-of-mind from the last few weeks.

I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. Instead, I watched TV the rest of the night. At seven a.m. Melanie got up, got ready, and by eight, she was gone.

I went to work, my heart pounding at thrice its normal speed.

~

At noon, I called Melanie, told her I’d be late coming back from work. “Maybe an hour or two,” I said.

“No problem,” she said, and I hung up.

~

I finished work on time, as expected, got into my car, and parked in front of my house. The light in the study was already on. She was there.

I sat in the car, and, the radio blaring, waited for two hours.

~

Sweating all over, I walked to the door of my house, and went in, not even testing to see if it’s locked.

There were noises from the study.

I inched my way there, took a deep breath, then pushed open the door.

A picture of my face was frozen on the screen.

“Hmm,” I said.

She looked at me, tears in her eyes, her hair all messed up, her shaky fingers holding a cigarette. “You son of a bitch,” she whispered with violent intensity.

I clenched my jaw. “I want the keys to my house.”

She froze.

“Now,” I said.

She got up slowly, put her hand in her pocket, and fished out the key. “I know the guys who did this,” she said as she put it in my hand. “They keep copies of everything. I could have a copy of your brain in my computer in half an hour.”

“Fine,” I said. “Enjoy.”

She stared at me, then began to walk out.

“It’s only seven letters. I’ll find it.”

I lowered my eyes. I wanted to say: ‘You might find it tomorrow. Or maybe it’ll take you a billion lifetimes.’ But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

She turned around, and walked out. A few seconds later, I heard the door slam.

I fell into the couch. That’s it. It was over.

~

But it wasn’t over at all.

I only learned of it years later. But this is what happened.

She’d followed through on her word. She’d tried seven-digit combination after seven-digit combination, running endless scenarios of my life in endless ages with endless histories and memories. And although god only knows what she’d seen –she’d failed to find the version of me she was looking for.

But that only lasted eight days.

On the ninth day, she turned on her computer, and installed another All-of-Me, one with a reproduction of
her
brain. She typed in the first word, ‘ROMEO’.

Her face appeared on the screen.

“Hi,” she said to the screen.

“I guess I’m the unlucky one,” the Melanie in the computer said.

“Not for long.”

“Yeah.”

Melanie pressed a key, and froze the picture. She produced the menu. She typed in the numbers: 10 days, 8 hours, 40 minutes, 0 seconds, and pressed ‘ENTER’.

The picture changed and came to life.

She played a bit with the numbers, fast-forwarding till she found the right moment in time, and then froze the picture.

On the screen was another screen – the screen of the computer in my study – and on it was the seven-digit word: ‘TRZHWEL’.

Melanie put her fingers on that small, incomprehensible word. “Hi,” she said softly. “I’ve missed you.”

ETERNITY WASTED

Dr. Jeneane Gold looked at the old man and saw the death that would come soon.

“Dr. Gold?” He asked, examining the twenty-year-old woman’s face. His voice was thin and low and cracked. Old age. Old, old age. It chilled her blood.

“Yes. Call me Jeneane, Professor Bates.” She lowered her eyes. Talking to a living legend was not easy. Sensing her worship, he smiled, and, as he did so, his face creased, looking like dry desert sand after years of drought.

“Come in,” he said. “Come in.” He moved aside. She followed him in. His back was bent, and he shuffled his way inside.

Dr. Gold entered the dingy apartment and closed the door behind her. The outside had been bad enough – paint peeling off, some of the bricks crumbling – but the inside was even worse. Everything smelled, as if the windows had not been opened in decades. There was the stench of sweat and rot in the air. Small drops of water traced their way down the wall in paths made green over time. Everything stunk of decay and time.

“Excuse my presumption, Professor,” she said, as she followed his slow pace down the corridor, “but why would a man of your legendary caliber live like this? Surely you have more than enough money to afford—”

The old man stopped in place and slowly turned around. “I live as I choose to live. I live like this because it reminds me that everything has a price.”

“The price of fame is money, isn’t it?”

He nodded approvingly at her answer. “Yes. But the...
people
... you step on to achieve that fame also pay a price. This,” he pushed down the handle of one of the doors, and it swung open, “has had quite a price.” Within, piles upon piles of notebooks and computer printouts created a maze of ceiling-high paper walls.

“What is this?” she whispered. “Is this everything you’ve ever published?”

He grinned mischievously. “Oh, no. This is what I have
yet
to publish.”

Dr. Gold’s mouth dropped. Professor Arthur Bates, the smartest man in human history, the most accomplished mathematician that will probably ever live, has, until his fortieth birthday, slowly accelerated the rate of his publications to publishing a paper every two days on the most respected magazines (on the Net, of course). Since then, he has published, for more than fifty years, once every two days, without a break, in a magazine that has long since dedicated itself to Bates’ papers alone. Each of these papers would take any other mathematician of the highest class more than a year to conceive. He had reached this inhuman peak at the age in which most mathematical geniuses stand by and watch the younger generation break new ground. Most of the mathematicians for the last five or more decades have been so dwarfed by this mental giant, that they simply do their best to follow his publishing, to understand them quickly enough, before his next paper came out. His pace, the level of his achievement, and the fact that he has never made mistakes, has been lauded by everyone as the greatest feat of the human brain. It has even been rumored, in jest, that somehow Professor Arthur Bates had sold his soul to the devil. How else could one man do what he had done? And yet, now, as Dr. Gold looked into the room, she realized that Prof. Bates had outdone even those achievements. How could one man, no matter how brilliant— How could—?!

“The Net isn’t up to my pace,” he explained, enjoying the surprise on her face. “We have to give the readers time to understand.” He smiled, “I probably write faster than most people read.”

And each of these papers is filled with the most brilliant mathematical theories in history, each a brilliantly crafted gem!

“If I die now,” he confided in her, “my papers will keep on getting published, at the present pace, for the next one hundred years.”

Dr. Gold’s mouth sagged even further.

But if the man were such a genius, why would he let himself die? Why had he not created a Copy of himself? Why let this national treasure, this
inter
national treasure, go to waste? The technology had been there for more than seventy years. How could he not choose eternal life, as the rest of humanity has?

What a waste of a life. What a waste for humanity.

Prof. Bates didn’t notice the dark path her thoughts had taken, and, still pleased at the shock visible on his colleague’s face, said, “No one but my lawyer knows about the contents of this room. He will be in charge of the publishing once I am gone. You are the only other person who now shares this information. Consider it a reward for calling my caliber legendary. Let that be a lesson to you,” he winked, “flattery works.”

He shuffled down the corridor and led her to the living room.

“Sit down, sit down,” Professor Bates pointed at a couch.

She sat down.

“Would you like a drink, Dr. ...” he stared at her blankly for a second. “I’m sorry,” he smiled apologetically, as if having done a bad thing, “I forget your name.”

“Jeneane,” she told him. “Jeneane Gold.” Her heart skipped a beat. Perhaps his 96 years were finally taking their toll. That, somehow, was more chilling than anything else.

“And, no, thanks,” she said politely, her eyes on the floor. “I’m not thirsty.”

Arthur Bates stood over the couch opposite, and slowly began to bend at the knees. At a certain point, his knees gave, and he fell backwards into the couch, moaning as he did so.

“You seem very young for a doctor, Doctor Gold. How old are you?”

“Twenty years old, sir. I, uh, began early.”

“I was a Professor when I was eighteen,” he flashed a vicious smile.

“I know that, sir,” she said, deaf to his tone. “I’ve studied your life.” He nodded to himself in appreciation. “If you don’t mind, sir, the reason I asked to come, well, like I told you over the phone, Professor, I work at the U. I know you never go there anymore, and...” her voice trembled. “I know your time is immensely important, but... uh... There’s something, uh...
big
I have to talk to you about. It’s relevant to your work. And I believe decency requires that I should tell you face to face, if you don’t mind me taking a few minutes of your time.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all.”

Of course he minded! His time until death was limited. Every second must be precious. Taking just five minutes of his time was subtracting five minutes from his lifetime achievements – a loss to the human race.

“I never see people anymore,” he continued. “Please, don’t worry about my time. I’ve done my work for the day.” It was 14:00 p.m., and already he was done! “Keep me company.”

“Um, well... I’ve researched some of your earlier works, trying to find some unexplored avenues. And I’ve also researched Professor Andersson’s work from Sweden. Have you heard of him?”

“No, not really. I don’t keep up, I’m too busy. Besides, as I understand it, the rest are far behind me.”

“Yes, that’s true. Most of the time, they just try to grope with your theories from a few years ago. But Professor Andersson deals with things you have never touched, and his theories are pretty revolutionary.”

“That’s nice,” he looked at the walls as if the subject was of no interest to him.

“Yes... But, when putting together his latest theory with your Bet-Gimmel Lemma. You remember it? It was published around 45 years ag—”

“Of course I remember it,” Professor Bates snapped. “It’s so important, everything I have done since relies on it. I quote it in every paper.”

“Precisely, sir. But, you see, in this small paper,” she produced a stapled, thirty-sheet-long document, “I show that Professor Andersson’s latest theory
disproves
your lemma. There’s a basic flaw there, so small, so strange, so
unique
... no one, including you, could possibly have seen it until now. It was, in fact, impossible to see until Professor Andersson came up with this theory and until someone thought to create a transformation that—”

“What?”

“Well, I wouldn’t bother you, except that all your theories are based on exactly this lemma. Which means...”

“Which means that if it’s true, everything I’ve done since has been wrong. I don’t need it spelled out for me!” He exploded.

Dr. Gold shrank into the sofa. “I didn’t think you did.”

Prof. Bates put his hand to his face. The hand was trembling. After a moment’s thought, he said, “That can’t be. Either he made a mistake or you did. There is nothing wrong with my lemma.”

“I’ve gone over it many times, Professor—”

“You will excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. Show me the paper!”

She gave it to him. He bent over it. He read it slowly, then turned a page, read a bit of it, looked back at the first page, looked at the second page again, and read it slowly. But then he turned the second page, and seemed to read the third faster. His pace quickening from page to page, he turned them over faster and faster. Amazing! Andersson’s new proof was so revolutionary, it was almost a new way of thinking, that most mathematicians were still resisting it. And yet Prof. Bates absorbed it quicker than anyone she had ever seen.

After fifteen minutes, as he was halfway through the paper, he put on his lap.

“Oh, dear god,” he said.

“You haven’t finished,” Dr. Gold said. “In the conclusion I show that—”

“I can work the rest out in my head!” he snapped, throwing the paper at her. “I get it!” The paper fell to the floor halfway between them. He was staring at the ceiling, holding his eyes between his fingers. Slowly, her eyes on him all the time, she bent down and picked the paper.

“All those years,” he whispered, “wasted.”

He grabbed his remaining hair. “I could have gotten myself Copied when I was twenty-two. Oh my god, what have I done. What have I done?” He said, sobbing.

“What about the papers in the room, Professor? Are they—”

“They’re all based on the Bet-Gimmel Lemma! Each and every paper I’ve ever written since then is based on that lemma!”

Dr. Gold, not knowing what to do, sat there, helpless, motionless.

For ten minutes he stared at the walls and muttered to himself, at times angrily, smashing his decrepit fist against the table, at times bitterly, at times in futile despondency. Dr. Gold couldn’t leave him. In this age of immortality, she had never seen a man so close to suicide.

“Wasted, wasted,” he mumbled to himself incessantly. Presently, he changed his mantra: “All my papers, based on one lemma. All my papers since, all based on that one—” And then he stopped, and stared at Dr. Gold. “That doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“Excuse me?”

“That all my work since the lemma is only theories that are derived from it. It doesn’t make sense to work in so specific a field, when I could have—Oh!” Suddenly his eyes lit up in a flare of understanding. “Oh! Oh! This is his revenge on me!” Dr. Gold stared at him, bewildered. He was losing his mind. Simply losing it. Then the spark was gone from Professor Bates’ eyes, and melancholy returned, even greater than before. “All my achievements, all my life, had been wasted. All my life... wasted.” He slammed his fist against the cushion. “Bastard!” And again. “Bastard!!” He looked at Dr. Gold, anger in his voice, “Dr. Gold. Jeneane,” he wagged a finger at her. “You tell Professor Andersson that it’s a very nice proof. But I thought of it first! I thought of it first!!” Dr. Gold just stared. She couldn’t find any words. The man was rambling. She had caused the mental collapse of the greatest mind in history. “You say you studied my history,” he rambled on. “You know nothing. No one knows. I haven’t told anyone. I thought I’d take it to my grave. But I’ve kept my secret for nothing. Everything I’ve ever done had been for nothing. You want to know the secret of my success? The secret of my failure?” His face twisted in hate at the word.

“I—”

“Sit quietly. I’ve been holding this inside for too long. So sit. And listen.”

~

“It was more than seventy years ago,” he began slowly, his voice raw, scratchy, wavering, even older than before. “I was twenty-two. Already considered by far the most gifted mathematician the world has ever seen. I had won my first Nobel Prize at the age of nineteen. Mathematics was my life. I was driven to excel, driven to outdo myself. I was already the smartest man in history. But I wanted to be not only the smartest man that had ever been but that will ever be.”

“And you have been. No one could do what you—”

“Don’t interrupt me. You know nothing!” Again he waved a threatening, trembling finger. “I proved nothing! Nothing!” She clammed up. He took a minute to catch his breath, and began slowly, staring into her eyes, burning a hole in them with the intensity of a genius. “I was twenty-two and I was beginning to feel old. Life was such a waste, I thought. Such a waste of time. The time I spent driving to the university, choosing clothes, having breakfast, lunch, dinner,
sleeping
! Sleeping, for god’s sakes! Even teaching was a waste of time. I could have used that period to prove another important corollary. I spent so much time not doing my job, not pushing forward, not thinking about mathematics. And my brain cells were already dying. Not noticeably, but as they do with everyone. My intellectual peak would soon be gone.”

“Then why didn’t you get your mind Copied?”

“I asked you not to interrupt me.” She nodded and burried her eyes in the floor. “But you’re right. That was the logical option. Copy technology was into its fifth commercial year. People have successfully downloaded their personalities into computer neural nets, a perfect Copy of their mind and of their sentience. These people would be immortal, and they would never suffer from Alzheimer or any of those insidious diseases. They would never lose their lucidity or their intelligence.

“The pressure on me to get my brain Copied was humongous. The awareness was everywhere. At my age, brain cells were already dying by the millions. My brain, my amazing brain, was deteriorating even then, and it would deteriorate every day I delayed Copying my brain into the computer. Even if I didn’t have the money to do it – at the time it was very expensive – the university volunteered to pay for it. Imagine, the greatest mind in history living forever, retaining his intelligence forever. What an asset that would be to the U!