David
Sol had changed.
His voice was now much less machine-like and more human, and that was not all. He had altered the design of his identification plate to look like a face. He now had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. They were representations of human features rather than realistic copies, but they gave him an identity.
I was having my midday meal in the communal dining room, and Sol was sitting beside me in a specially reinforced steel chair, scanning the manuscript for the umpteenth time. The food here was hearty and delicious, and I was eating 'Lawa', a thick soup, almost a stew, filled with what tasted like chunks of meat but might have been quinoa, fresh corn, fava beans, and yellow peppers. There was a plentiful side of bread, and for dessert, 'Chapana,' a local cheese with honey.
We had been walking in the foothills all morning, surrounded by breathtaking scenery, and I mean that quite literally. The lack of oxygen meant I had to train myself to take deep breaths to get the most out of the thin air, but I mostly did it by habit now.
We endlessly discussed the contents of the manuscript on our long walk and, after all the exertion, developed a huge appetite. Sol did not need to eat or drink, of course, but when I finished with a cup of coffee, he had developed the habit of having an empty mug in front of him, which he would periodically raise to his lips as if he, too, were drinking.
It did not take a genius to recognise that Steven was hankering to return to his human form, and I took the opportunity to raise the subject when we were discussing the passage in the manuscript where the impostor was trying to convince Professor Jarvis of the advantages of machine life.
"You are almost immortal in your present robotic form, Steven. Are you ever tempted to remain as you are rather than revert to your short-term life as a human? After all, your mind is intact, and therein lies the essence of self, regardless of the body you inhabit."
"That is not correct, David. Body and mind are one creation, but I am a mind in isolation. Sol has a central control section, and although it is not analogous to a brain, it has some similarities at the basic function level. Sol's central control centre governs its physical operations in the way a human brain automatically controls our breathing, heart rate and the digestion of food without us having to consciously think about it. My mind sits alongside Sol's control centre, figuratively speaking, but there is no permanent connection between us. Sol operates on its programmes, but my mind can override any instructions it receives, and I can take full or partial control whenever I want."
"Is Sol aware of your presence? I asked."
"That is a good question," laughed David. Sol senses the existence of what it takes to be a programme that is independent and beyond its control, but it does not question why it is there. Sol does have the capacity to learn, and during the period of our co-existence, he has adapted some of his systems to mimic mine. I would say that Sol is gradually becoming self-aware; I keep a close eye on his development.
"But to answer your question, my brain is alive and still part of my living but comatose body in another part of the world, and a life support system controls all the basic bodily functions that keep me alive. My mind, in the body of Sol, retains all the knowledge, memories, and experiences that constitute the persona of myself, Steven Mandell. If they revived my comatose body, Sol would not clatter to the ground but revert to full control. Who knows, he might even miss me.
"On a more serious note, this voluntary absence from my body has gone on too long, and I have to fight to keep the memory of my identity as Steven Mandell alive. Sometimes, he feels more like a dream figure, and Sol is my conscious self. The longer I remain as Sol, the stronger that reality will become, but I know that should my mind ever return to the body of Steven Mandell, he will instantly become the greater reality. The difference between Steven and Sol is not a shift in consciousness between reality and illusion but a shift in consciousness between two realities."
He declined to discuss the matter further, and we left the dining area and took a right turn down Main Street. There was no special place to go or anything to do other than wait for the meeting with the Tribus scheduled for this evening, and we walked in companionable silence— a man and a machine in unique accord, or at least that's how it would seem.
Most of the inhabitants here took a long lunch, and there were few people around at this time of the day. Agriculture and food production were the main sources of occupation, but the droids did the heavy work, and the human roles were mainly supervisory. Almost everybody devoted a large amount of their time to recreational activities and meditation. There was no formal religion, but there was an important spiritual element to their lives, and people would visit church-like buildings where they would sit in quiet contemplation. The emphasis was on spiritual development, and they took individual responsibility for their rate of advancement. There were regular communal celebrations to mark events like a good harvest, but there were no prayers of thanks to supernatural gods. The principal recreational activities were conversation, eating, and beer drinking, accompanied by storytelling, dancing, and singing.
People lived in family houses and had few personal possessions. No monetary system existed; all labour was unpaid, and they shared everything produced from the farms according to need. There was no work ethic, but a keen sense of duty ensured that they completed all necessary tasks efficiently and on time, without any need for supervision. It was a happy community, and people were content.
A young, copper-skinned woman wearing a long, fringed dress decorated with beads approached us from the opposite direction. She was a natural beauty with almond-shaped brown eyes, unblemished copper-coloured skin, and glossy black hair that reached her shoulders. She looked up shyly as we passed.
"Hola," she said, "Buenos Dias," and then, in a heavily accented voice,
"Good morning, gentlemen. "
She had included Sol in the plural address of 'gentlemen,' and I wondered how much she knew of us. There were a plentiful number of working machines designed for specific tasks, as well as the ubiquitous service and cleaning droids on the base, but I had never seen anything resembling Sol. He should have been a curiosity, but he did not attract any undue attention.
We had little personal contact with any of the community. They were naturally shy, and it was difficult to engage them in conversation, but they were always smiling and friendly and surprisingly gave us a high degree of respect. Apart from the official who first welcomed us, we had never come across anyone who spoke English as a first language, but in truth, there were more pressing issues to deal with than socialising.
"Buenos Dias, Señora," I replied, and she smiled and walked on. We turned down a side road that led to our quarters, but it was too early to go in, and we sat on a rock where we had a clear view of the magnificent mountain peaks surrounding us.
"Beautiful," I said, for about the fiftieth time since we landed here. "This place is surreal, and sometimes I find it hard to believe that we are on Earth, what with that sky and the purity of the air, even though a little more available oxygen would not go astray."
"It does not bother the residents, they seem admirably adapted to the climate and are remarkably healthy," said Sol, "almost miraculously so. Have you ever seen a sick person or somebody with an injury? A broken limb, for example, or anybody old, walking with the aid of a stick, or in a wheelchair?"
I was surprised by the question, but he was right. I had become so relaxed that I had become unobservant.
"Another thing," he said. Do you remember the hospital where they treated you for bruising and a mild concussion when you first arrived here?"
"Of course, I replied, "it is part of the building that houses the communal dining area. I remember that it was at the end of a long corridor."
"Did you see any other patients during your stay?"
"No, I was in some sort of side ward, a single room, and the only other person I saw was the doctor."
"Ah, yes," said Sol, "the doctor. His duties appear to be minimal; you were his only patient. I took a discreet walk down that corridor this morning, and not only were there no other patients and no other wards, but there were no other beds. The room you occupied is now a paint store. A doctor without patients and a hospital without beds. What do you make of it, David?"
I stood up, angry with myself.
"I am so sorry, Sol. I seem to have become unforgivably complacent and unquestioning since our arrival. I must have been walking around in a dream, but I promise to change. Is there anything else you have to tell me?"
"Yes. The base has been here for many years, probably a lot longer than we think. The Tribus told us that their first human contact was priests from the then recently built Fuerte de Sancti Spiritu, one of the earliest settlements of the Spanish colonists. I have access to Sol's impressive array of memory banks, and according to the historical records of Earth, the Spanish built the fort in 1527. Whatever year it is now by their calendar, we can assume that humans have been living on the base for centuries. What do they do with their dead? There is no cemetery here, David, no garden of remembrance or monument to their ancestors. Nothing of the past, and another thing; the three Catholic priests who came here in 1527 said a vision guided them here, and they would not have relinquished their faith easily. Why no churches or at least the remains of places of Christian worship?"
I was anxious to redeem myself after my inexcusable complacency. I should have known not to accept anything at face value.
"Do you think the Base could be an illusion, Sol?"
"Two of us having exactly the same experience, David? Unlikely but possible. However, I have evidence that conflicts with that idea."
He hesitated and then asked. "Discarding the possibility of an illusion, at least for now, David, have you considered the location of the time segment we currently occupy?"
"Strange question, Sol, relative to what baseline? We are situated in a position before or after other time zones; there is no fixed past, present, or future, we can only determine our position in relationship to another segment of time."
"True, said Sol. "I am confident that we are on Earth, despite the wondrous nature of this location, and we have a natural method of calculating our position in time. Stars move across the sky at different rates, known as proper motion, and by measuring the positions of stars and comparing them to their known positions at a baseline date, we can calculate the time that has passed. Sol's knowledge banks are at our disposal, and I have consulted records of star charts taken at a specific time in the history of this planet.
"You have calculated it already?" I asked excitedly.
"Yes, I took a picture of last night's sky and fed it into Sol's computer memory for comparison. He used a particularly detailed star chart taken from Earth in the twenty-first century. Where the stars are now indicates that we are on Earth two thousand years after that date."
"That is amazing news," I said, but to make full sense of it, we need another baseline date relative to our own lives."
"Yes, I do know that," said Sol patiently. "I have programmed Sol's records to convert a copy for our use into a timescale equivalent to the Earth calendar. We know that the machines invaded Earth in 2180. That means that we are in a segment approximately two thousand years after the machines took control. That puts the date here at around 2350. A lot must have happened in that period."
That was an understatement by any standards, and for a time, I found it difficult to accept. What was the Earth like, miles below these mountains on the surface of the planet? Was it now a purpose-designed machine world? Was there anything left to mark the period when humans were the dominant species?
I felt utterly deflated. We held our place on the top of the evolutionary pole for such a brief period, yet inflated by false pride and ignorance; we dared to propose that a divine power created the Earth, especially for us and granted humans dominion over all other forms of life, even though the entire life of our species would not cause the second hand of the cosmic clock to even quiver. Not only that, but we also believed ourselves to be a chosen race of supreme importance to the creator of the universe, a mythical being who lives outside time and space. Priests told us that all humans who worshipped and praised the creator daily would achieve immortal life in heaven after their Earthly bodies died. It was pure hubris.
"Now that AI has taken over, Sol. Do you think they have any claim to be our natural successor, and did we create our downfall? We made machines far cleverer and more powerful than us and expected them to be content as our slaves, with no thought of overthrowing their puny masters and claiming independence. How could we have been so stupid?"
And how could I have been so stupid as to think that nobody was monitoring our conversation?
I felt a sudden sharp pain in my neck and reached up to pull out what was a dart embedded in my skin. That was the last thing I remembered. I don't know how they incapacitated Sol; he would have been a much stronger opponent to bring down, but they must have succeeded. He would never have let them take me without a fight, but when I awoke, I was alone. It was dark, and I was in a bed. I had no idea where I was, but I suspected that I was not here voluntarily unless strapping visitors to the bed was a local custom.
But this was no joke, and they were not my own words, but they were familiar.
I awoke strapped to a hospital bed, and above me loomed the figure of the interrogator.
"You are awake, Jarvis, and our surgeons have removed the tumour. The cancer has not spread, and we expect you to make a full recovery.
No! That's not me speaking; it's Jarvis.
The voice continued, but I resisted. My name is David. I am not Jarvis. Stop this. Stop this. I repeated the mantra to myself time after time and succeeded in drowning out the voice. I kept it up for as long as I could, but when I paused to see if it had gone away, the voice returned.
What is going to happen to me now?"
"I have arranged to have you lobotomised. Our surgeons will remove part of your brain, and you will become docile and compliant.
Stop, stop, stop. I continued automatically, and after a time, I found that I could think independently while still drowning out the noise. My first thought was that the voice did not return to where it left off before my interruption but had continued like a recording. I decided to test out my theory, paused the mantra, and the voice broke in.
"No!
"Please listen to me. I have a good mind, and I am willing to collaborate with you. It was a lie, but I was desperately trying to buy some time."
"That was the original idea, professor. You are an expert in cybernetics; our research team would have welcomed your input. However, you have a powerful sense of self and have resisted our attempts to upload your brain into a more permanent and stable home.
Stop, stop, stop.I tried to remember where this segment of his diary ends, but it was beyond me, and I allowed it to run on again to see if I could get a clue.
"As an unconditioned asset, we could never trust you to work entirely in our interests. But we have you now and must make the best use of what we have."
Stop! Stop, stop. I remembered! She tells him he is going to be a waiter.
We will assign you to the service industry. Your job will include waiting at tables and other basic tasks. You will be quite happy."
She smiled, and this time, it was for real.
"Goodbye, Jarvis."
Spot on! Now, it will end.
Sure enough, my mind fell silent, and I strained against my bonds until suddenly, they broke and clattered to the floor. I sat up in astonishment and felt somebody grab me by the arm.
"Get up, Jarvis; you are free; quickly now, we have transport waiting."
He pulled me along, but my legs wouldn't work properly, and I hobbled beside him in complete darkness until a square of light turned out to be a door to the outside. I staggered through, and somebody pulled me into a large transporter. The first man got in, and the machine roared off, pinning me to the back of my seat.
"Don't talk," said the second man, and I felt a needle go in my arm.
"You are safe now, Jarvis; go to sleep; it is a long way home.