Here is Part 3 of Cause and Effect. If you’re just tuning into my blog, you’ll likely want to read parts 1 and 2 first.
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Now we get to 2281 I guess, me nineteen, the few million residents of our tiny planet walking around with bloodstreams fully of tiny little robots of my design. Life is good again, at least for a while anyway.
Most nineteen year olds are just beginning life on their own. I wasn’t your average kid though, genius bullshit and all. Already in my lifetime I had brought back the ultra-net, cured disease (and in doing so increased the lifespan of those still living), I was touted as a hero in my time. It should have been enough, and it was for a while. For the next few years I spent my time learning, teaching, enjoying life. But as always in my life there was soon a new cause, something new for me to work towards.
When I was 24 my mother died. I loved my mother. Being a genius, for the most part, I have always been misunderstood. Not hated really, just unable to relate to others on the same level that people generally do. In my lifetime my mother was the only person who ever understood me. Not only did she take care of me growing up, but she understood my need to learn, to take in information, and she was always understanding of the weirdness that was me. It was a heart attack that took her, nothing the nanites could cure. She was sixty-two and her weak heart just gave out.
Had I been older, maybe her death wouldn’t have affected me like it did, but alas I was only 24 and I was not prepared for grief. It’s a funny thing really, grief, enough to drive a sane man crazy.
My mother was fairly religious, or a person of faith as the saying goes. It was the one thing about her I could never relate to.
“It will be ok Vern,” my father had told me. “Your mother would have welcomed death; she’s in a better place now.”
Being a genius I have always rejected the idea of God. My mother never did though. When I look back to that day if I had only listened to my father I wouldn’t be here now writing this story. Maybe I would be in the school teaching, or sifting through old military files on ultra-net; with my intelligence though, came a sort of conceit. My next cause was overcoming death (the same as the one before, only this time I really meant to find eternal life). I had done it once by curing disease. When you look back through history, many men have tried - searching for the fountain of youth, the tree of life, and all that bullshit - and failed. Those men were not me; they weren’t twenty four year old Vernon Welsh, a genius and a hero in his time. Writing that, I realize what a conceited prick I was then.
Now I was 24, half crazed by the grief of loss, thinking I was better than everyone else, and full of purpose. I would not lose anyone else: my father, my future wife (whoever that may have been, did I tell you I’m still a virgin at 33, it’s sad really), my uncle, or anyone else for that matter. I set about putting a team together to work with me in my cause. Not much of a team, just me and two others.
I need to switch gears a bit here. This is where we start to get to the good (bad) part of my story. If you have made it this far with me, now is the part where we get to the “la de fucking dah, the little hero dooms us all, part of my story.” I know maybe that it sounds like I am not remorseful, I am. In order for you to understand though I need to explain in further detail. It has always been about cause and effect, my drive to learn, my need to create, and to make things better. Really it was always about me; everything I did, about the poor little genius who felt he had no one.
So there we are me and my two assistants. Annette is twenty five and has spent the last five years studying biology, and Don (or Donald if you prefer) is a 36 year old biology teacher. It was the day it all began nine short years ago. When your’e obsessive, working towards a common goal, time really does seem to fly. I can remember that day like it was yesterday. Only it wasn’t yesterday at all, I am 33 now.
“Why do you need our help Vern? As far as smarts go you probably beat both of us together.” Don asked.
“I am going to build a new type of computer.” Comes my reply.
“I thought you were working on the nanites again.” Annette pipes in. “Why would you possibly want the help of two biologists to build a computer?”
Having sort of laid out my plan the days prior, I put the outline of the project on the table, around which we are all seated. I can feel a cool bead of sweat on my brow, a little nervous at what I am proposing. Across the top of the title page it reads “B.I.O.M - Biological Information Organization Machine.”
Having read through the outline of what I was proposing, Annette looks up at me. “Is this not playing God? Like creating organisms that were never meant to be.”
“I don’t I believe in God Annette, and even if there was a God I only want to build a more powerful computer.”
“To what means Vern?” Don starts again.
“If you look throughout all of time, the history of humanity and of science, you always see scientists working towards one common goal but never achieving it. Overcoming death.” I reply.
“You can’t overcome death; we don’t get to live forever.” Annette interrupts.
“What if we can though, what if we took all of the science of medicine, the knowledge of adaptability, and the stuff we know about physics; we take that and feed it into a computer, not a normal computer mind you. A normal computer doesn’t think. We need an artificial intelligence of sorts, one that is more powerful than any computer ever built, and more powerful than the human mind.”
“This still feels wrong Vern…” Annette starts again.
“We aren’t creating a being Annette, it is a computer! A computer designed only to process information. To take the minds of men and combine them in a way.” I interrupt before she can finish.
Such was life with Annette. Really, the woman was brilliant, but she reminded me of my mother with her theistic ways. On a normal day maybe I would have said that part of her personality was attractive, but this day it was most annoying. The woman was beautiful, if only I hadn’t killed her. I take the blame; it was my idea that finished her, our creation, but my idea. Maybe I could have married her someday, had children and all that jazz. I guess some things were never meant to be.
Anyway back to my story.
After going through my plan with both of them Don was eager to be involved. Annette also agreed, with more reluctance, but she agreed all the same. Besides that initial discussion there was never another word about whether we should or not; it was all about if we could. And guess what. We did!
Shortly after that, we all left the civilized world for a bit. We set up shop in one of the old world laboratories, in one of the old cities. It was a warehouse building three miles from what had once been the city of Houston. The city itself was gone of course, nuclear weapons have a tendency to do that to a city; erased without a moment’s notice. But the warehouse still stood, and it was close enough to Weiria that we could still access the ultra-net. We had the construction bots fix up the building. It was away from the city that we set up living quarters, research quarters, and even a recreation room.
With a sort of fervour the three of us worked for the next 7 years. All day, sometimes through the night, we worked. Occasionally one of us would need a break and we would take a week to go do something else, but for the most part we worked for seven years straight. Honestly I must say those were some of the best times of my life. Although it was with the same goal, a common vision so to speak, for the first time in my life I felt like I fit in with these other two. Don became like the older brother I never had, we got along well. We laughed together, we had fun together, we worked together, and sometimes we even argued; it was all good though, it always turned out alright. Then there was Annette, over that seven year period, I fell deeply in love with her. It was the first time I had ever felt anything like that; the only regret I have now (at least about her, I truly have many regrets about other things) is that I never told her. I think she knew though. We worked together, laughed together and as a group we succeeded.
It was on October 16, 2293 that BIOM was first aware. I could say he was born, but he wasn’t really, he was created by us. Maybe I could say, it was the day we first turned BIOM on; but then that would be lying because BIOM was and is aware. Created to be a powerful computer, he is so much more than that. If you can sense my pride, I am still prideful. It is probably stupid, and maybe I should be appalled at what I have done, but you have to remember a full seven of my then thirty one years had been devoted to this very day; and what a day it was.
Together the three of us stood in the back lab. In front of us hung a keyboard, above that the holographic cameras almost appeared to look at you, and below that, on its own shelf, a little box. The little box was what the excitement was all about today. About the size of my size 12 shoes sitting side by side, the box wasn’t much too look at. From one side wires protruded and fed into the keyboard and the cameras; from the other tubes that ran back into the other room where the feeding system was. Since BIOM was a cellular computer he had a circulatory system and an automatic feeding system. We all stood there with a sense of anticipation.
The contents of the box were what really mattered. To anyone who wasn’t familiar with what we had done, it probably wouldn’t seem like much. A pile of brown goo, not altogether dissimilar to that you would find floating in the local latrine. A disgusting comparison, I know, but it was an inside joke really. Don used to say, “Looks like shit, smells like shit, must be a BIOM”. Ok so it’s a bad joke. Anyway the contents of the case -no matter what they looked or smelled like - were the product of seven years of research and development.
Built upon the stem cell research of the twenty first century, we had created a whole new type of cell. We focused on the electrical processes of the cell and compared them to that of brain cells. After isolating the processes we watched how the brain interacts with the spinal cord. From there, well the product of what we created is in the box. “Looks like shit, smells like shit, must be a BIOM.”
Seven years, researching, developing, programming (so much time was spent programming, just thinking about it gives me a headache), and now it was with a heavy sense of anticipation that we watched as Annette started our new creation for the first time.
Annette presses the power button, a moment’s pause, and blam! Projected from the holographic projectors a screen appears. Painted on the holographic screen were the words “BIOM O.S. Version 1.1″.
“Hello, what can I do for you today?” The words resound from the speakers overhead. It was the voice of BIOM. We had programmed him to interact as people do as well as through typed commands.
It was with an extreme sense of accomplishment that the three us cheered. We had done what we set out to do a full seven years prior.
That day was two years ago, if only I knew then what I do today. But then, hindsight is a bitch, as the saying goes. Here I sit in the back in the sleeping quarters writing my story, my two cohorts dead a year now. I guess dwelling on what’s done won’t get me anywhere.
For a year after that it was amazing; BIOM was amazing. When you are both the most powerful computer that man has ever built, and a fully aware living organism, I guess it should probably be expected that you’re amazing in some ways. We spent that year teaching BIOM, we taught him and he taught us.
It had been decided in the beginning that, in order to control what BIOM could learn, we would not allow him to have access to the ultra-net. So we would download information onto memory units and plug those units into BIOM. From there BIOM would process the information, combine it with what he knew and come up with new ideas and theories. I am not at all joking when I say BIOM is the most intelligent creature that has ever lived.
The information about physics that we taught bio, to use one example, he took in turn and finished theories that man almost had right. He taught us how to make wormholes, more about space and time than we had ever known before and, new theories that he came up with himself.
It was a year that we continued like that, teaching and being taught. What we had set out to accomplish, we had. A year ago that all changed. In some ways BIOM became one of our group, like another friend, a friend who was not human but could think like us, better than us actually.
From about a month after we turned BIOM on he started to ask us for access to the ultra-net. He viewed our way of sharing information with him as illogical (at least that’s what he told us). For the first year we continued the way that we began, but eventually after learning that we could trust BIOM we finally gave in. In accordance with the way we had designed him, his thought process was logical. We had no reason to question his intentions.
Maybe it was never his intention to harm us, those intentions did come though. A day after we allowed BOIM access to the ultra-net.
The things is, for that year that we taught BIOM and he taught us, we never really questioned what he was. From our point of view he did exactly what we ask of him, and never more than we had designed him to do. Our intention was to design a computer that could think. We never expected him to feel. That is the cause and effect thing again it always comes back to that; then comes the can I and should I bullshit, all that jazz. What we intend isn’t always what we get. About a year after the day BIOM first became aware, we connected the ultra-net module; it was the day BIOM became fully aware of what he was and of what we were. It was also the day that we learned who BIOM was as well. Not only could our creation think logically, but he could also feel, and that day he was pissed right off.
