“Someday.” The woman seemed intrigued by the idea. “Yes, I suppose he might. First things first, however. You have a great deal to learn.”
“Fascinating,” DuBois murmured. Two empty bags of popcorn lay on the desk beside him.
“What is it?” Jacob scooched his desk chair over.
“The AI is…I don’t know how to put it.”
The young engineer gave him a wary look. “Tell me you’re not about to say the AI is becoming sentient and about to take over the world.”
“Not the second part,” DuBois said. “I’m actually not sure if it’s aware. I don’t know how we’d be sure. I only know that in order to make the connections that lead characters to one another, it fills in the gaps between actions. It doesn’t write the outlines of a story, it…dreams them.”
Jacob swallowed and looked at the screen. “This isn’t so good. We set this game up on the bare bones of a story that was made to be fun and engaging, not the basis of an entirely new form of intelligence.”
“Like I said,” the doctor cautioned, “I don’t know that it’s awake. I’m only saying it’s…dreaming.”
“Don’t tell Price,” he said hastily, then paused to consider. “Well…will it hurt Justin?”
“No. I’ve seen no indications that it would harm anyone.”
“Then don’t tell Price. Not yet. She’d nuke it or…use it for something.” He shivered. “Let’s keep this to ourselves for a while, okay?”
“Okay,” DuBois said, bemused, He opened another bag of popcorn and began to munch on it. “Fascinating,” he murmured again.
Mary’s eyes opened to a clean white ceiling and the lid of the pod open beside her. Nick waved at her and continued to remove the electrodes.
“You’re smiling,” he observed. “It looks like you’re still enjoying the game.”
“Oh, so much.” She took his hand to sit. Her muscles were a little stiff after the hours inside the machine and she stretched subtly as she held her hands and feet out for him to remove the various elements of the haptic set. An assistant shadowed him and watched with rapt attention while he placed each item of the set in its designated place. Mary smiled at the assistant, who blushed bright red and made a show of taking the equipment to be cleaned.
“They’re good people,” he told her in an undertone. “I don’t think they, ah…know all the other stuff Diatek does.”
She swung her legs over the edge of the pod and watched his face as he cleared the monitors. “I appreciate you all working with Diatek. I know you have concerns about them.”
Nick sighed as he worked. He handed her a bottle of water without looking up. Finally, after she had finished it and he had done all his checks, he sighed again. “I don’t get it,” he admitted. “She never says what Diatek does, but it’s clear it’s not…warm, fuzzy, Care Bear stuff. She got into this to help families, but she also does things that would give most people nightmares? I don’t get it.”
Mary opened her mouth but closed it again when he waved a hand.
“I know, I know, greater good. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything stupid. And I’ve heard all the arguments. But I don’t see how you can be so sure you’re doing the right thing when you help some people and hurt others. And don’t ask if I have an answer to how doing the soft, fuzzy thing can sometimes hurt more people, because I don’t.” He threw his hands up.
She laughed at that. “You’re very much like Tad that way.”
He looked up at her in surprise. “So…”
“So?”
“So, you don’t think I’m being stupid?”
“Stupid? No.” She pushed herself out of the pod and winced when her feet touched the floor. “I tell you, these pods are not made for old bodies. No, don’t tie yourself in knots telling me I don’t look old, you’ll only hurt your brain.” She patted his arm. “To go back to what you mentioned, I don’t think anyone has ever answered that one definitively. The only fact to remember is that for most actions, there are those who benefit, and those who are hurt. Make sure you try to help those you’ve hurt.”
“But when you help them, you hurt someone else,” he said and pressed his fingers into his temples.
“It helps if you don’t think of life as a problem to be solved once,” Mary said, amused. “The world is constantly in flux. There will never be one perfect solution, Nick. You do