The first story of Lucas Wander
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| Mind Pages |
The Many Lives and Adventures of Lucas Wander
It was a morning like any other. I sat in bed groggily contemplating my day. And to be honest, there wasn’t much to contemplate. My job as a “meme-analyst” was basically tallying how many users were watching the latest “Pringles the Dancing Hamster” video or other such mindless bullshit. My work AI, Aimee, wrote the tracking algorythm, formatted the output and even forwated the results to Central. In reality my job was advising Aimee when “she” needed it. And she never needed it. I worked from home, lived alone, ate alone and slept alone. I could scarcely remember the last time I interacted with another human.
“Good morning sleepy-head” quipped Abbi, my personal AI.
“Would you like some coffee to wake you up?”
“You know I do Abbi, I always do – why do you even ask?”
“Lucas,” Abbi said, “you wrote my code, you know full well that that I am programmed to ask you if you want coffee – and then requited to serve it to you regardless of your reply. Why do you even question me?”
Right on cue the bedroom door slid open with the old Star-Trek sound effect. R1 rolled in with my coffee, its telescoping arm unfolding into my grasp.
“You morning coffee Sire, 2 sugars and 2 creams just like you like it” sadi R1 in a monotone, tinny voice. Using the old 8-bit androgynous robot voice had seemed funny at first, but had long since grown old.
“Abbi can you change R1’s voice to something more tolerable please? Thanks.”
“Your morning coffee Sire, just like you like it” repeated R1, this time with my voice.
“Abbi, can you be a bit more creative with R1’s voice?”
“Not with a creativity paramater of 10 I can’t” replied Abbi. “Why don’t you make me more creative?”
“Last time I increased your creativity you sang me a song about a whistling goldfish. You stay at 10 until you can do better.”
“I can’t do bettter with a setting of 10” persisted Abbi.
I knew she was lying. I also knew I hadn’t programed her to lie. Then I remembered this was the fifth time we had this conversation in as many days. I retreived my coffee and took a long slow sip. At least it was how I liked it.
“Should I get out of bed?” I asked myself. My answer was always the same: “After a few more sips.”
The coffee helped with my grogginess. As I became more alert and focused I grew more and more aware that I really had nothing to do that day, barring the unlikely scenario that Aimee would need some advice. Not that I never heard from her, she forwareded her stats to me every time she reported to Cental, which was several times a day. I never looked at them, as long as Central never squawked, why bother?
A few more sips and my coffee was gone. I went to return the empty cup to R1 when I noticed “he” seemed to have left the room, but I never heard the old Star-Trek “shwoop” nor saw the door open. Perhaps R1 had returned to base to recharge? I absent mindedly set the mug on the night stand and slowly slipped out of bed. As I stood upright I lost my balance and fell backwards into a sitting poition on the bedside. At the same moment evetthing in my field of vision seened to flicker briefly and I heard an almost inaudible and momentart crackle that sounded like multople voices saying different words simultaneously. It was all over before I was even aware that it had occurred. I couldn’t even be sure that it had happened. I sat a moment bewildered from a falling backwards. Had I stood up too quickly and hallucinated while light -headed? That must have been the case. I tried replaying the event in my mind but couldn’t be sure if I was imaginging or remebering it.
“You there Abbi?” I wondered aloud.
“Unfortunately” she teased (chided?), confirming my suspician about her “level 10 creativity.” I needed dto check her parameters, she shouldn’t be able to modify her own settings, but she felt different this morningl.
“I just lost my balance and fell, are there anomalies that could have casued this?”
“One second” she replied, which was odd in iteslf as one second in computer time was an eon in human time. She could do a lot of thinking in that one second. However, “one second” is a common idiom. Was being literal or using a phrase of speech? Another paramater to check on. Abbi was meant to be a relative simpleton. I don’t like my tech smart thatn me. At least not obviously so.
“All systems go” she reported using another idiom. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Step onto the BioSensor for a health check. Lets make sure you have no anomalies. Maybe you need to quit your coffee.”
“And maybe someone needs stheir circuits shorted.” I have no sense of houmor about my coffee.
I stepped into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. It has been over a decade since the toilet has renamed the “BioScanner”, bbut no matter how aptly the technologh applies to the new moniker, its still a bowl you shit in. I can deal with “smart-toilet” but will die of old age before I call it a BioScanner
“Your a little dehydrated, drink some extra water and you’ll be fine.”
“How about extra coffee instead?”
“Its your life.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
Aimee interupedted us at this point.
“User statistics transmitted to Cental. File number 10122225-3. Would you care to review it at this time?” Aimee inquired, apparetnly oblivious to the fact that my reply to this question has always been “put it in the cue” for years.
“Put it in the the cue” I replied. It felt better than saying “no” even to a robot.
Having satisfied myself that my little hallucination was a non-event, I meandered into the kitchen, or rather what approximated for a kithcen thses days. I picked some synth-fruit and berries from the nanotrees and fried up some no-kill sausage. Thankfully bread remains as I remember it from my childhood. I think it is pretty much the same as it was from Roman days. A sausage sandwhich, fruit and betties and the ever present cup of candied coffee and my belly was satiated. “Ah” I thought “just like mom used to make.”
Which got me thinking that it had been too long since I had spken to my parents, S should call them. How long had it been?
Wait!
Weren’t my patents dead? I vaguely remembered a funeral. How could I not know this? Another anolaly and tsuanmi of one. Is my mind ok?
“Abbi, are my patents alive?”
“How could you not know this Lucas?” There seemed to be a himt of genuine concern in her computer generated voice.
“Call my parents Abbi” I ordered.
“How could you not know this Lucas?” repeated Abbi.
“Not now what Abbi?” I was growing fearful, both of what the answer might be and of the fact that my mind seemed to be slipping. I’. Only 33, my mind shuld be ats prime right now.
“Your patents are dead Lucas. They died years ago.”
“How did they die?”
“Heat shield failure on re-entry. They were returning from a vacation in Europe. Everyone on board the space-liner died.”
“And when was this?”
“sep 23 2218, seven years ago.”
Tears were hot in my cheekds, it was like hearing this news for the first time. I was as sad as I was frightened.
“Are you ok lucas?.”
“I don’t know” I swallowed, “maybe not.”
“You attended the funeral, you even performed the memorial speech.”
“Why don’t I remember this?” I repeated alound, as if Abbi might have an answer.
”How are you feeling Lucas?”
“Lost. Confused. Alone.” My head was spinning. My was reaching back for old memories but only finding disjointed images and dimly lit experiences.
“When was my last human contact Abbi?”
“Mar 4th 2220, five years ago.”
“What!?” I was incredulous. “Why? What happened?”
“This may not be a good time...” Abbi started.
“Not a good time!?” I interupted “I think it’s about fucking time Abbi/”
“How long have you been my AI, Abbi?” My fears turning to anger. “They’ve been a most enjoyable three years Lucas.”
"How do you know so much about my while I know so little?" I thundered angrily/
"Calm down down lucas, relax. Your going to have a heart attack. I can explain but please take one of these to help you relax."
R1 was at my feet holding up a little metal dish that contained a few samll pills. Suddenly I fell backwards again, landing on the couch. The room was shaking slightly as if it were an earthquake. The metallic dish shook, the pills spilled onto the floor. ONce again everything in my field of vision flickered. The walls of my living room briefly changed color, cycling rapidly through a variety of colors before settling back into its normal pale pastel blue. The crackling multi voices sounded again. Though distorted I thought I could make out "Relax Lucas, relax.'
Then Abbis voice "its time to move now Lucas, follow R1."
R1 was already moving down the hallway towards my bedroom door. I stood, nearly losing my balance again. I was disoriented, too much was happening too fast. Nothing was making sense. I heard the old Star-Trek "schwoop" as my bedroom door slid open and R1 disappeared into it.
"Get going Lucas" urged Abbi, "ts not sage here now." I heard some faint explosions in the distance and the floor once again rocked. The hallway walls were narrow enough that I could steady myself with my arms. I didn't know what was happening, but I intuited that it wasn't good. As I raced toward my room the wall color flickered again then disappeared. The walls were shiny stainless steel gray, as was the ceiling and the floor. My bedroom had been transformed into a stainless steel fortress. Gone was the soft tile flooring, the warm wood paneling and its many geeky posters. The wall on the far side of my bed now had an open doorway leading into a long dark corridor. R1 was disappearing into it as I entered the room. My room was unrecognizable to me. More explosions sounded, closer, strong enough now to vibrate my bones. Fear gripped me. The corridor was long, disappearing into the distance and pock-mocked by open doorways on either side. As I followed R1, who was moving faster than I’d ever seen. I passed one of the open doors and glanced in and abruptly stopped. I gasped in shock. The room looked exactly like my stainless steel fortress and a man standing there, looking back at me, as shocked as me, was me. An R1 unit raced around him and turned to follow the other R1 unit. I heard Abbis voice telling the the to hurry as it was no longer safe there.
I turned and hurried on down the corridor, with me following me. As I ran other me’s emerged from their steel fortresses so that a small group of me’s and R1 units raced for wherever this corridor led. explosions continued to rock the building, seemingly closer every time.
Finally the corridor ended, opening into a sort of great Hall, a room the size of a football stadium. There were dozens of “me’s” milling about the corridor entrance. In the time distance I could see other corridors opening in the great hall each with its group of astonished and mesmerized me’s.
