Felicity 1.0
by Larry L. Richardson
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
conclusion
Nothing came from Nagasaki that day. Still nothing the following morning. Stan and the four Mannix roboticists were working on the Felicity head and face. Margo was watching over their shoulders, and I could hear their excited voices as they handled Stan’s dynamic skin. I stayed on the other side of the shop pretending to work at a computer, hoping no one would quiz me on the progress I wasn’t making.
The wait was playing havoc on my nerves, so just before noon I got up and went outside to a small area of trees and grass and benches. I was surprised to see SueAnn Moriarty was already there. “How’s things going with your team?” I muttered.
“Not so good,” she replied. “We have a bot together. It walks and talks, but it has the personality of a brick. How’s your team doing?”
“We’re just about there,” I lied.
She studied my face for several seconds then said, “Yeah, well, you don’t look like you’re just about there.” When I didn’t answer, she reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a pack of American Biker cigarettes. She tapped the bottom of the pack. Two coffin nails popped up. She pulled one out for herself and offered me the other.
“Uh, no thanks,” I said. “I’m trying to quit.”
“Why?” she answered. “Why give up one of the few things that makes life bearable?” She put one of the fags between her lips and lit it. She drew in a lung full, blew it out, then said, “Remember when we would share one after—”
“Yeah, I remember,” I interrupted. She pushed the pack in my direction, a cancer stick still protruding from the wrapper. American Biker was the strongest cigarette one could buy. A tobacco/cannabis blend that was barely legal in most places. I took the coffin nail, lit it with her lighter, and drew in a deep drag. In mere seconds the effect took hold.
“We’re calling our bot Quent,” she said. “The team’s not very happy with it. They’re grumbling, saying I haven’t contributed much to the project.”
I didn’t have much of an answer, so I looked away and said nothing.
“I need something from you,” she said. She put a hand on my arm to get my full attention. “The noetic OS you wrote in grad school... are you using that for your Felicity bot?”
“No,” I said, “I started with it, but now I’m going with something else.”
“Great!” she answered, “’Cuz I need it. I need to give my team something to stop their grumbling. Your OS would give them the new approach they obviously need.”
“No, I can’t do that,” I said. “Nagasaki made it clear the teams have to work independently.”
“I’ve thought of that,” she replied. “I’ll tell the team that I’m giving them an OS that I helped write as a group project at Stanford.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “the program won’t help them. I wrote it as a basic noetic OS, just a proof of concept program. It’s not up to what’s needed by an actual noetic android system.”
She drew in another drag. She let the smoke drift from her nose then said, “Even better,” she said. “They’ll take it and work out the bugs, and I’ll get credit for contributing more.” When I didn’t say anything, she stepped closer and put a finger on a button of my shirt, a few inches below my neck. As she slipped her finger inside my shirt, her long nail touching my skin, she said, “Give me the program, Max. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Maybe it was the cannabis affecting my judgment, but I told her I’d give her what she wanted. Or maybe it was her. She was like a bad habit, an addiction you thought you had kicked. You think you are over it, but you’re not over it, over her, and maybe you never will be.
* * *
Back at the shop there was a man waiting for me. He introduced himself as Faia Aoki. “I’m from Fukuoka,” he said, “from the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. I bring you this.” He held a small box, about twenty centimeters square and about the same in depth. He set the box on a work table and removed the lid. “This is the F104 subcompact photonic quantum processor which Mr. Nagasaki ordered.” He carefully lifted the device from its foam packing. “My instructions are to remain here and assist you in any way you need regarding the operation of the F104.”
I felt my heart jump. Nagasaki had come through for me. For a few moments, I stood there as if frozen, staring at the device. The F104 was a modern miracle, incredibly powerful, unbelievably fast.
I worked well into the evening for several days, Mr. Aoki advising the team on interfacing the F104 with the android’s servos, actuators, and most importantly, Stan’s skin. We had just a few days left to complete the work. The language file was uploaded. Files containing cultural information were installed. Felicity was nearing completion.
With the umbilical attached to the back of Felicity’s head, we brought her to life. She stood, perfectly balanced. Margo initiated conversations with her, simple ones at first. Felicity responded perfectly. However, her affect was robotic and flat. Through the umbilical connection, I made adjustments. None of my adjustments helped.
Without convincing emotive responses, android personality can be compared to a glass of root beer left on a kitchen table on a warm summer day. After an hour or so, when the fizz is gone, the flavor is still there, but without the fizz the root beer is unsatisfying. It’s not good. Felicity without the fizz of convincing emotion was as flat as stale root beer.
The team had worked for weeks, day and night. Stan and the others had done remarkable work assembling Felicity. Margo was indispensable as well. Now it was up to me to finish my part of the project.
I stared at the computer monitor, at the display of adjustable parameters. I was mentally exhausted. My mind went blank. I was out of ideas. I had failed Mannix, failed Mr. Nagasaki, failed the team.
I felt completely numb as my head slowly dropped until it rested on the work table.
Margo came over to me and began to massage my neck and shoulders. “In grad school,” she said in a soothing voice, “I had a professor named Faheem. I loved his classes. He would explain the similarities between human psychology and that of androids, and how android thinking has to imitate human thinking in order for androids to assimilate into human society and culture.”
At that moment all I cared about was the warm touch of her hands on my neck and shoulders, and the softness of her voice. What she was saying didn’t matter much. But she continued. “Professor Faheem loved to theorize about computer programming, too. I remember when he explained how behavior algorithms would have to produce more than just an android’s response to a situation. Algorithms would have to create an emotional mood.”
I’d never sat in one of Professor Faheem’s classes, but I wished I had. He and I apparently thought alike in some ways. “Professor Faheem pointed out,” Margo said, “algorithms that are designed to produce emotional moods need to be nondeterministic so that an android’s behavior isn’t completely predictable. Humans are this way. You can never be really certain how someone will respond to you.”
I lifted my head off the table and spun my chair to face Margo. She was smiling, her eyes wide and bright. “A quantum computer could work a number of algorithm pathways simultaneously,” I said. “If data were funnelled through a type of chaos gate, or gates, that would create the unpredictability you’re suggesting.”
“Is this do-able?” she asked. “The project deadline is tomorrow morning.”
I set to work. Stan and the others decided to leave the shop so that they wouldn’t be distracting to me. Mr. Aoki offered to stay in case I needed his input. Margo stayed, massaging my back from time to time, keeping a supply of hot coffee on hand. Sometime in the afternoon, she left the shop and came back a couple of hours later. “Remember those chocolate covered roasted coffee beans we used to find on campus at Stanford? Well, I found some at a shop here in Brookdale,” she said. I popped a couple into my mouth, hoping for a mental lift.
I worked through the night. Mr. Aoki left at midnight. Margo slept on the cot we kept there. Around seven in the morning, Stan and the others came back into the shop. Felicity was still attached to the umbilical. We were ready to upload her new programming.
About eight-thirty, Margo said she needed to go home but would come back as soon as possible. Ninety minutes later she came into the shop. “Max,” she said, “it’s time to stop. Mr. Nagasaki will be coming to inspect our work. Why don’t you go to the company gym and take a hot shower?” She had brought me from home a change of clothes and a bag with toiletries. When I hesitated to leave the shop, she added, “Really, you need to clean up.”
It was Agatha and Gayle who noticed something we had overlooked. We had been so focused on getting Felicity funcitoning that we gave no thought to the fact that she was completely naked and bald. No one thought about appropriate clothes and hair. “It’s too late to do something about hair,” Agatha said, “but maybe I can find something that she could wear for the time being.” With that, she and Gayle made a bee line for the door.
At eleven, Felicity was disconnected from the umbilical and dressed in baggy light gray coveralls borrowed from housekeeping. Nagasaki and others from the top management came into the shop. They gathered around Felicity. They engaged her in conversation. She was bright and perky, and slightly flirtatious, which was Margo’s idea. She laughed at their jokes, and they laughed, too.
At the luncheon, the Quasimodo team congratulated us for our success. The upper management people made short speeches about the future of noetic androids in human society. Everyone seemed upbeat except SueAnn Moriarty.
* * *
When we were nearly finished with the sushi, sashimi, and onigiri, SueAnn came to our table. “Max,” she began, “I want on your team. If I’m stuck with the servbot division, I’ll quit.”
“You know I don’t have the say in who is assigned to the Felicity project,” I replied.
“You know you can have anyone you want on your team,” she said. “Tell Nagasaki you want me on your team.”
“In what capacity?” I asked.
“I can be your android psychologist,” she said.
“I have one of those,” I replied. “A very good one.”
I knew SueAnn well enough to tell when she was becoming irritated. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her voice became tense. “Margo,” she said. “Mousy Margo. You and I have a history, Max. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Are you telling me you choose mousy Margo over me?” I didn’t have to say anything. Sometimes no answer is an answer.
SueAnn clenched her mouth shut, her face reddened. She spun around and began to walk away but stopped after two steps. She turned again to face me. “Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you,” she said in an angry voice. “Remember my mentioning a certain boy in my undergrad class? Mark Cassidy? I did some research on him. I thought Margo might be his sister. Turns out I was wrong about that. Turns out that she’s not his sister. Turns out she’s him.”
My response wasn’t what she had looked for. “You’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know,” I said in a calm voice. “There was a boy named Mark Cassidy. But he doesn’t exist anymore.”
Her anger turned to furor, but she said nothing. She turned and left the room.
As we watched SueAnn exit through a side door, Stan was the first to speak. “Yikes,” he said just loud enough for the rest of us to hear.
Felicity turned toward Stan, then toward the rest of the team. “Yikes,” she repeated.
“Okay, then,” I announced to the team. “Lunch is over. We still have plenty to do.”
“Max,” Margo said, “we’ve all done enough for today. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”
“Yeah,” said Stan, “I need some time off, too. Berry and Gil share an apartment in the Dominoes complex. They asked me to come over and have a look. I think it’s time for me to find a place of my own.”
“Agatha and Gayle and I think Felicity needs some clothes, other than borrowed coveralls that don’t fit. We thought we might do some shopping this afternoon,” Margo said.
“Could I go, too?” Felicity asked. “I’d love to have some new clothes. And hair. Can we find me some hair?”
Copyright © 2022 by Larry L. Richardson
