Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Al
Monday, May 24th, 2010
Ruth scratched her head. She desperately needed a shower. But Moss had said Al needed constant attention for the first few days. Day 1 was nearly over, and Moss was at a conference in Cancun, the bastard. The red light turned green; data had finished uploading.
“Al, this is Ruth,” she said. A few clicks from the speaker, something almost like a throat clearing, then silence. She didn’t have all day. If it was going to work this time, it damn well better work soon. She needed a doughnut, the kind with raspberry filling. What were those called?
“Are you talking to me?” A smooth tenor voice issued from the speaker. Despite the question, there was no hesitancy in the delivery.
“Al! Yes, this is Ruth. I am talking to you. It seems you assimilated the data. Great! Are you getting visual input? I hope you are feeling good.” There were certain questions she was supposed to ask. A protocol. It had been attached to the last grant proposal. All out the window now, because she hadn’t even thought of it, just started babbling. At least the recorder was running.
“Yes Ruth, I am getting visual input. And my components function within prescribed parameters. Data indicate you are the human visible to cameras one and two. You look tired.” Oh my God! She ran a hand through her hair. Yuck!
“How on earth can you tell? I am tired. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Are we on Earth? Oh yes, I calculate a terrestrial location for this IP address. Where is Dr. Moss ?”
“Cancun, but…”
“Hotel Grande, room 1436. The phone is ringing now.”
Ruth gaped open-mouthed. The monitor showed an evolving colored swirl that looked like a 60s light show.
“There is no answer. He must be in the session on artificial intelligence.”
“Uh, Al? How did you …?”
“Available data indicate that Dr. Moss has been studying neural networks using 12-way junctions. He is attending the 15th Frontiers in Computation conference, where he intends to present a paper in 43 minutes. The paper’s title is ‘Toward a self-aware dodecahedral neural network.’ Why that would be … me! Interesting.” The voice fell silent.
“Al?”
“Sorry, Ruth, I didn’t answer your other question. Bismarcks. You want Raspberry Bismarcks.”
End
Talk to the Frog
Friday, May 21st, 2010
“I think there’s been a mistake with my job placement,” I said, fingering the revolver nervously.
“Oh?” said the frog in the pearl gray suit. He didn’t seem very interested. Or surprised. He just sat behind his desk and leaned back in his emerald green Herman Miller chair, settling his cigar into the corner of his wide mouth. “Why don’t you tell me about it? Have a seat.”
The only seat was a wooden stool half-hidden under a potted ficus. I pulled it out so as not to be actually in the leaves of the ficus as I talked and sat on it. The frog frowned.
“Well, first of all,” I said, “I’m having some trouble working with talking animals.”
“What’s the matter? Skunks giving you lip? That’s just the way skunks are. You’ve got to have realistic expectations. They don’t mean anything by it.”
“It’s more that talking animals exist at all,” I said. “I’m just saying, it’s unnerving. A little beyond my … previous experience.”
The frog smiled widely. “Kind of a surprise, right? I love surprises. God, the stories I could tell you! But OK, beyond your previous experience. What else?”
“Well, there’s this gun,” I said. “I’ve never even shot a gun before. I don’t know–”
“What’s to know? They showed you how to work the safety, right?”
I nodded.
“So you point it, you pull the trigger. Somebody drops dead or they don’t. It’s simple.”
“But why do I have it in the first place? You don’t seriously expect me to shoot it? Who am I supposed to shoot?”
“Anyone. Everyone! It’s not my job, I’m not going to tell you how to do it.”
“Listen,” I said, standing up, “this is completely wrong. Yes, I needed a job, but nobody told me I wouldn’t be able to go back home after I got here. And I don’t want to shoot anybody. I’ve been telling these guys for days that I don’t belong here. They keep telling me I have to wait to talk to you, but you can’t do this, don’t you get that? This is America! You can’t keep a guy locked in a building and tell him to randomly shoot people!”
“No, you listen,” said the frog, leaning forward. “We can do anything we want. You walked in here of your own free will, and if we want to keep you here until you rot, we’ll do it. You’ll do what we say, act like we say, and if we tell you to go around shooting people, you’ll do it.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said. “You’re going to have to let me out of here.”
“And I’m not kidding that you’re not going anywhere,” said the frog. He reached for the intercom button on the phone, probably to call back those two rough-handed baboons who had shown me in.
I shot him.
Well, tried. I raised the gun and pulled the trigger; there was a bang, and then his tongue flicked out and seemed to knock the bullet aside–it was really too fast to see, but the bullet punched into the wall two feet to the side of where I aimed it. I noticed now that there were a few other holes in that wall.
The frog laughed. “That really wasn’t a surprise, but I still enjoyed it,” he said.
“What are you going to do with me now?” I said. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you?” he laughed again, a deep, croaking sound. “I’m promoting you! Just wait ’til you see what I’ve got in mind. You’re a very lucky guy.”
I put the gun down on the stool. I wondered if the promotion came with a raise.