Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure Page 5

  He popped the last of the strawberry into his mouth and reached for another. “Many creatures are conscious—that is, they are aware of their surroundings . . . or at least, they are aware if they have the sensory apparatus to perceive items, events, stimuli in those surroundings. This does not mean that they, um, think.”

  Alice clapped her hands together.

  Coburn raised an eyebrow. “Lyssa, have you something to add?”

  Alice looked up and her grin broadened. “Yes, I do, Arton. An example of a creature being aware and yet not thinking—”

  “My last boyfriend,” hissed Hiroko.

  When the laughter died down, Alice said, “No, no, Hiroko, not a boyfriend, but perhaps a creature of the same caliber. You see, back in my dim dark past on one of my field trips I came across a rex wasp. I’d heard about these critters, but never had actually seen one in the wild before. So I watched it and waited; I wanted to repeat a classical rex wasp experiment, to see if what I’d read was true.

  “This little wasp first digs a hole, a burrow, where it will lay its eggs. Then it goes out and stuns a caterpillar and brings it to the hole. It lays the caterpillar at the mouth of the hole and goes inside to check out the burrow. Seeing that all is safe, it comes back out, moves the caterpillar in, and lays its eggs. A perfect example of nature being right in all its glory.

  “It was near sunset when I spotted the wasp, and it had just finished digging the hole. The next morning, though, out it fared, returning within an hour with a stunned caterpillar. When it lay the caterpillar at the entrance of its burrow and went inside, then I had my chance—I moved the caterpillar a few inches away. The wasp came back out, looked for the caterpillar, ultimately found it, dragged it back to the entrance, set it down, and went in to check out the hole. Of course, I moved the caterpillar again. The wasp came back out, ran around till it located the victim, took it back to the hole, set it down, and went into the burrow to check it out. It would have done this all day . . . but I finally gave up. You see, although the rex wasp was conscious of its surroundings, it did not seem to think, or at the very least it did not learn.”

  “Just like my boyfriend,” said Hiroko.

  Caine took hold of Hiroko’s arm. “Watch it, Ky, or I’ll drag you to my burrow.”

  “Will you check it out, Kane? Make sure it’s safe?”

  Caine nodded.

  “Then I’m gonna move off a bit.”

  After the laughter died again, Coburn said, “An apt example, Lyssa. It’s a case of hardwired programming. Though conscious of the fact that the caterpillar had disappeared, the rex wasp did not extrapolate. Its mental tools were too limited.

  “But higher-order thinking requires a higher degree of consciousness, a sentience given to devising strategy and tactics to deal with eventualities at hand, or with those yet to come, a consciousness which extends into the realm of ‘what would happen if?’ This in turn leads to very high order thinking: postulating theories, running experiments, designing and manufacturing machines, writing music, performing art, writing books, and so on . . . all of art, science, and craft—abstract levels of thought which only humans—and Avery—are capable of. Here we are talking about levels of cognition which are orders of magnitude greater than merely being conscious. Oh, don’t take me wrong, consciousness is necessary for being intelligent, but consciousness alone is not sufficient.”

  Meredith steepled her long, brown fingers. “It seems to me, Arton, the missing ingredient is indeed sentience, the reasoning mind.”

  Hiroko grinned, her dark eyes twinkling. “You must be right, Rith, ’cause every time I’ve lost my mind I’ve done pretty stupid things.” When the chuckles died down, she looked at Coburn and frowned in puzzlement. “But wait, Arton, tell me this: just what is the mind?”

  Coburn scratched his head and glanced at Rendell. “Look, Tim, you are in a much better position to answer Ky’s question. After all, intelligence, cognition, reasoning, the mind, without them, Avery would not be.”

  Timothy turned up his hands. “You know, I understand this from the computer point of view, but to fully explain it, we really should have Doctor Stein here.”

  Again Caine groaned. “We’ve already rejected that plan, Tim.”

  Meredith handed Rendell a strawberry. “Although we don’t have the training, Timothy, I am certain you can explain it to our satisfaction; just keep it simple, and Doctor Stein can continue with his”—theatrically she placed the back of a limp hand against her forehead and heaved a sigh in mock ennui—”with his vastly important work.”

  “Rith is right,” said Coburn, a twinkle in his eye. “There is no need to fetch Henry.”

  All gazes locked on Timothy. Resignedly he exhaled and slugged back his champagne. Then wiping his mouth with the heel of his hand, he said, “Look, when it comes to the mind, I have my definition, Doctor Greyson has his definition, Doctor Stein has his, and so does everyone else on this project. They are congruent in many places; disjoint in others. But there is this: Doctor Stein and I both agree that mind is what the brain does . . . although Stein looks at it in terms of neurons, while I look at it in terms of a computer.”

  Timothy tapped his temple. “Up here in our biological wetware, there’s a base operating system that shuttles back and forth among these various sensory and memory maps, turning the attention spotlight on whatever clusters of neurons fired in response to external or internal stimuli. Then it breaks down the information into components, integrating the components into meaningful concepts, and then acts upon those concepts. This shuttle program represents consciousness, and in a more complex, high-order brain it represents intelligence and, to a degree, mind. And once that was recognized, it was a simple—ha! simple?—matter of providing the analog in an AI.

  “And so, Miss Kikiro, er, Hiroko, mind is the outcome of what the brain does, and complex thinking, a complex mind, is the natural result of a complex brain.”

  Meredith held up a negating and, palm out. “I find this argument difficult to swallow. You say that consciousness, intelligence, and in fact the mind itself is but an intrinsic program running in our biological wetware, in our brains. But what that really means—what you are really saying—is that our minds, and perhaps even our souls, are nothing but artifacts of biological functions.”

  Again Timothy shrugged. “More or less. But here, I think I’m out of my depth. Questions of the spirit, of the soul, are best answered by John, er, that is, by Doctor Greyson. He’s our philosopher, and I defer to him when it comes to metaphysical matters.”

  The fête lasted another hour or so, and when it finally disbanded, all were on a first-name basis—to the relief of Alice in her own case, for she didn’t much care for the title of Doctor in informal situations, though it did come in handy in academic circles . . . or when she needed to put someone in his place: “It’s Doctor Maxon, if you please.” In any event, with everyone filled with a warm glow, at last Timothy had mentioned that tomorrow would come early for each and every one, and so the group reluctantly dispersed, and all of Alice’s guests were now gone, except for Eric, who had lingered behind presumably to help with the cleanup, what little of it there was.

  And now they stood side by side behind the wet bar, Eric washing dishes and glassware and flatware, Alice drying and putting away. The silence between them was deafening. At last Alice took up a butter knife and held it low and threatening, like a back-street mugger with a switch-blade. “You were saying . . . ?”

  Eric took one look and burst out laughing, Alice’s giggles joining in. “Ah, god,” he managed at last, “never argue with a woman wielding a blade.”

  “Well?”

  He took a deep breath and then exhaled. “Just this, Alice. You were right all along. I was a muleheaded pig, if there is such a thing. Sure, you could have made a living for both of us, while I got established as a writer. And I could have gone with you, traipsing about the world as you hunted golden unicorns or whatever, for I can write anywher
e; but you, well, you must go wherever biology calls.

  “Look, Alice, when you stepped out of my door that day four years past, it was as if you had gone from my life forever, and I thought my heart would die, and it was only stupid stubborn pride that kept me from coming after.”

  Alice’s eyes were filled with tears, and she said, “God, Eric, it was only pride that kept me going.”

  He reached for her and she for him, and he pulled her against his chest, his heart hammering, hers pounding, and hungrily he kissed her, devoured her, she answering in kind. Then he swept her up in his arms and carried her into the next room, to the green-satin-coverletted bed.

  6

  Calibrations

  (Coburn Facility)

  Dot. Bigger dot. Line. Vertical line. Horizontal line. Longer line. Tee. Square. Rectangle. Upright rectangle. Equilateral triangle. Right triangle. Left triangle. . . .

  “Left triangle, Miss Maxon?”

  Alice grinned. “Yes, Avery. I always call it a left triangle when it faces that way.”

  “I see.” Avery resumed projecting simple geometric shapes into the VR helmet—arc, circle, ellipse, ellipsoid, sphere, cube—the images coming faster and faster as intervals and durations shortened and shortened and shortened again. Soon they were nothing but a blur.

  “Wait, Avery,” protested Alice, “I can’t tell what’s what.”

  “Oh, but you can, Miss Maxon, or at least your neurons can, though at the moment your shuttle program isn’t keeping up.”

  Alice’s mouth dropped open. “My shuttle program?”

  “That’s what Doctor Rendell calls it.”

  “Ah then, you mean my mind.” Now Alice grinned. “And you are perfectly correct, Avery: my mind certainly cannot keep up with what you are doing.”

  “We are nearly finished with this phase, Miss Maxon.”

  Alice concentrated on trying to pick out individual shapes from the flicker . . . failing for the most part, though now and then she seemed to get a glimpse of a familiar shape.

  She was suited up in one of the VR rigs—had been for the last hour or so . . . since seven in the morning, in fact, when Avery had begun charting her neural maps. Likewise, suited up in adjacent rigs were Eric, Meredith, Caine, Hiroko, and Arthur. Six rigs, six people, each of them undergoing the same scrutiny by Avery.

  The day had begun at five a.m., when a soft chiming of the netcom had awakened Alice. A voice she did not recognize informed her that breakfast would be served in the fifth-floor cafeteria at six. Alice roused Eric with a kiss—Perhaps a mistake? I think not!—and they almost didn’t make it to breakfast in time.

  In the cafeteria they found the other members of the alpha team grumbling about not getting enough sleep, though neither Alice nor Eric complained—which brought a quiet smile to Meredith’s face as she noted their demeanor.

  “Breakfast!” exclaimed Caine. “You call this breakfast? Gruel and pap, I call it.”

  Hiroko lifted a spoonful of what they had been served and tipped it over to let it dribble back into the bowl. “Ugh. Caine’s right.” Trying her best to look winsome, she gazed up at the server. “How about some pancakes instead?”

  “Sorry, miss,” he replied. “Special diet. Doctor’s orders, you know.”

  “Doctor Stein?” asked Meredith.

  At the man’s nod, Caine groaned. “I should have known. Lord, I should have known. I suppose the rack and the boot and the iron maiden come next, eh?”

  The server shook his head and whispered, “Oh no, Doctor Easley, I think instead it’s whips and chains and red hot irons.” Laughing, he spun on his heel and headed for the kitchen.

  Grinning, Meredith pointed her spoon at his retreating form. “A truly evil man, that one.” Then with some dismay, she turned her attention to the breakfast before her.

  Arthur Coburn eyed his own bowl and sighed. “Sorry, folks, but we’ll be on stuff like this for the next three days. Can’t have you overloading the waste systems in my expensive VR rigs, you know . . . pooping your pants, so to speak.”

  Caine’s jaw fell open. “Pooping? Why in the world would anyone want to do that, especially in one of your suits?”

  Coburn shook his head. “You never know, Kane. Look, we’ll all be in a virtual reality. And if we need to, er, ah, go in there . . . well, who’s to say that we won’t also go out here? Besides, we might have the pee scared out of us.”

  Meredith shook her head. “Say, just how long are we going to be in there anyway? I mean if it’s long enough to need to relieve ourselves . . .”

  Arthur held up a restraining hand. “We’re supposed to be in for about half a day, Rith, or so I’ve been told, though the subjective time inside might be several days in all.”

  Alice cocked an eyebrow. “Several days? How is that possible?”

  Coburn turned up his palms. “They say that Avery can, in effect, speed up the clock when nothing much is happening. Like when we sleep, or when we travel and nothing is going on, or when one of us stands an uneventful watch . . . or some such. Too, I understand that in the virtual reality, we are naturally speeded up since virtual motion goes much faster than real motion—sort of like movement and thought run at the same speed.”

  Hiroko peered into her bowl and slowly stirred her “porridge.” “Yes, but Arton, what if we, um, do pee or something?”

  Coburn made a small negating gesture. “Fear not, Ky, the suits are rigged to handle waste—that part modeled after the gear of the second lunar wave, though modified. Our diets are similar to those of the lunar crews, too.”

  Twisting his face into a grimace of loathing, Caine peered into his bowl, then relaxed and sighed. “Oh well, anything for science.” He picked up his bowl. Rolling his eyes heavenward, “To the moon,” he called, then drank his breakfast—which, much to his surprise, was quite delicious.

  Coburn escorted them up to the sixth floor, where the rigs were located—six in all. The room itself had been equipped to serve as mission control: spaced a short distance back from the rigs were consoles and holovids and various monitoring stations, and at one end of the chamber behind a glass wall there was even a raised viewing gallery with holovids of its own. Doctor Adkins greeted them, and Doctor Stein and a medical contingent stood by.

  The men and women of the alpha team were separated, and female medtechs took charge of the women, while males took charge of the men. As they were led away from one another, Alice called out, “Never mind the square needle! It’s the corkscrew one that smarts!” Caine grinned and gave her a thumbs-up and Eric blew her a kiss, while Arthur shook his head and cackled.

  Alice, Hiroko, and Meredith were taken to the women’s dressing room, where they doffed their clothes. Then with the help of the female medtechs, each was inserted—inserted is how Alice thought of it—inserted into the rig suits: Hiroko first, Meredith next, Alice last. Alice felt totally exposed, vulnerable, and slightly abused as the medtechs fitted the waste disposal gear between her legs and adjusted it to conform. She was more at ease as they checked the various built-in monitors—monitors for breathing and heart rate, skin conductivity, caloric rate, carbon dioxide production, and so forth. She noted with mild trepidation that intravenous tubes and needles were positioned near her arms. When she remarked on it, one of the medtechs explained that “. . . You know, Doctor Maxon, how sometimes, for example, a person will sweat when he dreams? Well, it’s not much different in virtual reality—there will be times when physical exertion or emotions in there will cause your real body out here to perspire or to otherwise use up your store of liquids. Among all the things he monitors, Avery keeps track of thirst as well as your electrolytic levels, and when necessary, replenishes your body with what it needs. But we’re not going to hook you up to the fluid system today. That’ll come on day three.”

  The medtech then took up what appeared to be a clear mask, like one of those transparent Halloween facades that covers the face. “Avery is going to neurally map the areas of your body w
hich respond to heat, cold, pressure, and so on. He’ll do most of it via the suit, but this mask lets him map your face. Today is the only day you will have to wear it.”

  “How about taste and odor?” asked Alice.

  “We’ll do those tomorrow,” responded the medtech.

  As more sensors were tested—’round her chest, at her wrists, ankles, knees, elbows, neck, elsewhere—Alice found herself idly wondering if Avery would map her sexual responses, too, and if so, would she and Eric have to wear these outfits to bed?

  At last the suits were zipped up and, along with Hiroko and Meredith, Alice was led out to be strapped into the rigs—Perhaps ‘plugged in’ is a more accurate term, she thought. When they emerged from the dressing room, Alice saw that Eric, Caine, and Arthur were already at the gimbaled recliners.

  As she passed Eric, he squeaked in a high falsetto, “You were right about the corkscrew, but the double-pronged helix was worse.”

  Alice could not stop giggling as she was strapped into the witch’s cradle. Various bundles of optical fiber were jacked into the recliner, and a tech at a large console gazed at the board, then wrapped thumb and forefinger into an okay sign. Water tubes from the waste-disposal flushing system were connected to the suit as well. Finally, the neural VR helmet was slipped onto her head and adjusted to fit. When it first went on, Alice had a momentary surge of claustrophobia, which swiftly passed . . .

  . . . and then a smiling boy stood on the green grass of a sun-dappled forest glade and said in Avery’s voice, “Good morning, Doctor Maxon.”

  “My god, Avery, is it really you?” Alice looked about in astonishment. She was in a mossy woodland, seemingly real, though Alice knew it was but the holo projection of a virtual reality. Yet it was a virtual reality unlike any she had ever seen . . . certainly the ones in Milwaukee now seemed crude in comparison, though at the time of the tournament, they were real enough. But this . . . this was magnificent! Shaggy trees of ancient age stretched out huge arms to interlace with the limbs of other forest giants. Bright birds flitted through the boughs, while elsewhere others sang. A crystal rill burbled across the clearing, laughing down the slope on its way to join other rills and rivulets on their journey to the mother sea. The grass of the glen was emerald green, and tiny blue and yellow flowerettes nodded on slender stems down within the sward as a gentle breeze wafted among the trees and over the glen.