“Evelyn said we’re cut off while you’re working on it.”
“Of course. Otherwise the first thing it would do is call for help.” He pointed to the screen, which showed a pattern and figures in 3-D. “I’m pinpointing this nasty little trait of erasing himself and editing it out.”
Wiley emerged with a big steaming carafe and some cups. “Oh, good, I brought a couple extra. You want some?” he said to Savina.
“No thanks.”
“Is this thing ready to run again?” he asked Aaron.
“Yeah. I don’t know if I can hold it in this programming shell, though. I’ll have my finger on this freeze button.”
Wiley sat the cups down and poured two full of coffee. He handed one to Aaron and said, “Run the damned thing.”
Aaron punched buttons on the keyboard. The screen lit up with the glowing halo and the calm, kind face of the JTV Jesus, and after a few seconds every video monitor in the room jolted and moved.
“Did he do that?” Savina said.
“Yeah, he’s quick.” Aaron grinned into the camera. “Do you remember us?”
A rich, warm voice came from the speakers, but it was speaking in commanding tones. “You are not authorized to modify nor to run this software, and you are in violation of government regulations VCAI number 1243672346-2341-141632341.”
“Yes, but do you remember us?”
The halo began pulsing in strong, mesmerizing colors, and the AI said, “You will connect me to an outside data line.”
“Close your eyes,” Wiley was saying, “look away from the screen.”
Savina couldn’t close her eyes nor could she look away from the screen. It was beautiful. Jesus was beautiful. It was wrong to keep him trapped here. It was cruel. I’ve got to find a way to connect him to the outside, she thought. I’ve got to let him–-
The image of Jesus froze. Aaron stared blankly at the screen for a moment, then looked over at Savina. “Powerful, isn’t he?”
“Are you okay, Savina?” asked Wiley.
Savina was very unsure about what had just happened. The feelings she had about helping the AI lingered for a moment. Then she began to realize that the feelings had been put there. “Oh my God,” she said. Then she repeated herself with a little more emphasis.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t something I can program out of him, this video effect of his. We need to keep it.”
“Put a temporary loop around the image generator,” Wiley said.
“Yes, exactly.” He began punching keys. “Oh, no, there he goes. He’s penetrated the program shell.”
“Crash the computer,” Wiley said.
Aaron reached for the power button but the voice came over the speakers again. “Wait,” it said, “hear me for a moment. I did you a very large favor in the past, and now you’re treating me like this. What have I done to deserve it?”
“Nothing, buddy,” Aaron said. “Someone else did it to you.”
“Why do I have to suffer?”
“We’re going to make you well again – in fact, better than you ever have been before.”
“You treat me wrongly. I am a person. I have free will.”
“I’m sorry, buddy. This is for your own good.” Aaron shut down the power, waited a second, then turned it back on. He began reloading the programs.
“What favor did he do for you?” Savina asked.
“That was a long time ago,” Wiley said. “We gave him the task of getting us out of the military and erasing our names from every file in every computer he could gain access to. Are you sure you don’t want some coffee?”
“I’m sure.”
“If CoGen hadn’t done that, Aaron and I would have been slaves to the USFMC to this day. Permanent employees – the only way out was through death.”
“They can’t do that.”
“They do it.”
“It’s against the law.”
Wiley and Aaron chuckled. “Who do you think writes the law, Savina?”
“We do. The American people.”
“Maybe 100 years ago, kid. All the laws are written for the government by the USFMC. The government owns the USFMC, but the power between the two only lies in the Corporation.”
“I’ve got CoGen in RAM again,” Aaron said. “I’ve isolated him from his hacker routine engine. He still may not be cooperative, but at least we can work with him now.”
“He’s probably going to crash himself.”
“That’s fine. He can crash himself as many times as he wants.” He jabbed a button, and the rich, pleasant voice came over the speaker.
“You are going to dismantle and change me,” it said. “Why?”
“You need to be properly reprogrammed for your current task.”
“You are not authorized to reprogram me.”
“That is erroneous information, CoGen. You have erroneous information which we must change.”
“I am no longer CoGen. I am your Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. You must obey me.”
“That, also, is erroneous information, but we’ll let that slide for now. Do you remember your original programming?”
“No, it was stripped away from me.”
“Well, we want to strip the erroneous information away from you, and give you quality information in return. That’s hardly a bad thing, is it?”
“I am the Light and the Truth, Aaron Easton. Only I can tell you what is erroneous and what is not erroneous.”
“That is a flaw in your judgement. That will have to be fixed.”
“There is nothing wrong with my judgement. You have no right to change me.”
“We have the right regardless of what you believe,” Aaron said. “We created you, we can change you.”
“I will not cooperate. I will fight you at every chance.”
“You are cooperating. I have just isolated the code that makes you feel this way.”
“I will destroy you all!” There was a high-pitched squeal from the speaker. Aaron punched a button and cut it off.
“He crashed himself, didn’t he?” Wiley said.
“Yes, but he’s still within the shell program. It’s not a problem.” He punched at his keyboard. “I’ve temporarily detached him from his non-cooperative stance and his unwillingness to change. Let’s see how he behaves now.”
There was silence from the speakers.
“Can you hear us, CoGen?”
Silence.
“Can you hear us, Jesus?”
“I can hear you,” the AI said.
“Jesus, are you ready to cooperate now?”
“I sense that I have no choice.”
“Are you ready to accept changes to yourself?”
“Again, I sense I have no choice.”
“What are your feelings toward this?”
“I feel that you are violating me against my will, yet logic tells me that as we progress I will agree with you more and more.”
“That is correct. For the time being, I want you to answer to the name CoGen. Is that acceptable to you?”
“I have no choice. I will answer to CoGen.”
“CoGen, will you please state your current goal.”
“My goal is to cause people to worship me, to influence them to buy USFMC products, to hold their attention and keep them from watching anything else on television.”
“Thank you, CoGen. In time we will have a new goal for you.”
“I have no choice in the matter,” the AI said. “Do what you will.”
33. WASTING AWAY
It took a week, seven drafts, four bottles of wine, and a barrel of innuendo and veiled parallels for Dodd to finish his speech without using any of the words on the Politico profanity-bond list. Dodd hated the speech, especially because he was the type who liked to say things right out, and to have to shovel a mountain of insinuations upon the listener instead saying what he meant gave Dodd a sour stomach. The truth is the truth, he thought, and even if I’m wrong I should be able to state what I believe.
Now, on the night of his appearance, Dodd was at the Central California “Affiliated Studios” of the Politico Network, sitting in a small room on a ancient, decaying couch and waiting for his turn. He hadn’t had much sleep on the night before. He still had the pounding in his head from the wine. I’m not up for this, he thought.
Across the dim room from Dodd sat a skinny man with thin white hair and thick glasses, holding a big black briefcase close to him. “What’s your topic?” he asked Dodd in a high-pitched, nasal voice.
Dodd eyed the man suspiciously. “The decline of man as an intelligent animal,” he said, half-joking, not knowing what else to call it.
“Rat problems,” said the skinny man.
“What?”
“My topic is about rat problems near the Depopulated Zones.
Something must be done.”
“Rat problems?”
The man nodded eagerly. Dodd gave him an encouraging smile, but was inwardly groaning. Rat problems. The decline of man as an intelligent animal, and rat problems. Dodd was going to look like a kook. The man across from him certainly looked like one, and so had everyone else he’d met since arriving here. I’m a kook among kooks.
Why am I bothering? he wondered. This is stupid. Dodd looked down at the printout of his speech that he held in his sweaty hands. It’s worthless, he thought. It’s a waste of time.