LIV: SPRING BREAK 4.4
Mom’s car isn’t in the driveway. I find Todd sitting alone in our living room, watching a baseball game. He is sipping a beer with socked feet crossed on the coffee table.
I’d usually offer a polite wave then disappear, but tonight is not my average night. I don’t feel like sitting alone and I’m on the outs with everyone. Almost everyone.
I take a seat in the uncommitted front half of the La-Z-Boy across from him. He gives me a puzzled look and lowers the volume of the game.
“What’s up?”
“I think I just want some uncomplicated company,” I say.
Todd raises an acknowledging hand with a warm smirk. “You’ve found your guy. Want to watch the game or do you want to talk?”
I stare across the coffee table at him in his weathered jeans, stained T-shirt, and the physique of someone who puts too much emphasis on his body. It’s easy to underestimate him. I still do it even though I know better. He comes across as such a simple person—beer plus baseball, and he’s happy. He’s a glassy pond. Sure, Mom can rile him up, but he generally lands on his happy-go-lucky feet. But beneath the surface, he thinks big. He may be watching baseball, but my guess is that he’s studying it.
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“That usually means talk.”
I nod, but I don’t know where to begin. Everything is so out of control now, and it’s all connected. And, ugh, it’s also best friend stuff. Does Todd do girly?
“Okay. I’m a good guesser so I’ll start. Is it about Lana or your mom?”
“Both.”
“So, talk.”
I’m not sure that I really want to do this with Todd. I mean, he’s my mom’s boyfriend; he shouldn’t know me this well. But I’ve pissed off all the people I normally ask for advice. I try to give him one last out. “I don’t know exactly where to begin.”
“Start messy.” He tosses the remote to his side, his full attention on me.
So I do. I tell him everything, even the bit about the store’s financial troubles, which, based on his look, he already knows, and I’m definitely not supposed to know about. The more I talk, the more I realize how much danger the store—and we—might be in.
I finish. We sit in silence for a few seconds until he begins wagging his head in a small, disbelieving circle.
“I swear, sometimes you channel me when I was your age. You’re trying to solve everything that comes your way.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“What have you solved so far?”
“Well, the other option is to do nothing.”
He covers a chuckle. “I’m only laughing because I feel like I’m talking to me twenty years ago. Liv, it’s not binary. Inaction isn’t apathy. It can be, but there’s nothing apathetic about you. Sometimes you have to turn off that thinking part of your brain that’s always racing at a hundred miles an hour and feel what other people are going through.”
“What does that solve?”
“You’ve got to listen first before you know what to fix. And then, it’s the strangest damn thing, but sometimes just being there fixes it. It just happens. I mean, not with cars or computers, but with people at least. Hell, I wish sometimes that people were like cars. It’d be a lot easier to understand them.
“I hear you,” I say.
“But they’re not.” He draws in a deep breath and leans toward me. “Don’t you wish your mom really got you . . . truly understood you, what you want, and why?”
I nod like he’s climbed in my head and reading my thoughts. I’m all ears.
“Guess what? She feels the same way. Lead with that. People are like mirrors, Liv. Get her, and she’ll try to get you.”
“But the problem is the store.”
“Is it? Trust me, I know that’s a problem. But is it the problem? Take a step back.”
I’m not following, and from his expression he can tell.
“I’m going to ask an obvious question in painfully rhetorical way. What’s more important—your relationship with your mom or a toy store?”
“But they’re connected,” I say. “She’s pissed off all the time because of the store, which kind of makes it tough to get along with her.”
“Fair. But better conversations happen on a lifeboat than a cruise ship. Use the store to work on the bigger issue—you and her. Listen to more than what your mom is saying. She doesn’t want an online business, even if it’s the most successful virtual toy store on the planet. There’s no joy in that for her.” He laughs. “I think sometimes we exist just to piss off our parents. My parents were park rangers. I can’t tell you how many hikes I’ve been on, or how many times I’ve had beetle tracks or bobcat scat or some kind of moss pointed out to me. They were quiet, nature-loving people. If a box of granola had a kid, that should be me. But I turned sixteen and bought an old, used, loud Camaro. They didn’t understand it. I took the muffler off and they nearly disowned me. Why would I want something so obnoxious, so fast, so unlike anything they would ever want to own or be around? Who the hell knows? Maybe to be different than them. It wasn’t intentional. I just loved it.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“Do you know what I did?”
I shake my head.
“I eventually went too fast and wrecked the damn thing. I wrapped it around a tree. Cosmic justice, I suppose. I didn’t have the money to fix it and by then, I was a little older and wiser, starting to listen to more than what was in my own head. So, I stripped it, had the body dragged into the woods, and I planted a wildflower garden in it. I swear it is the weirdest f’n thing you’ll ever find in nowhere East Texas. And I’m pretty sure my parents hated it at first, but they eventually got it. Between us, there was a middle. It was my attempt to honor what each of us love. They give tours there now. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I think so,” I say, as cheers erupt from the game on TV.
“Grand slam. What do you expect when you walk the pitcher,” Todd says, then turns back toward me. “Try feeling—really feeling—what your mom and Lana are going through. Don’t solve. Just feel. Try to understand them. Give it a day or two. What have you got to lose? Is anything else you’ve tried working?”
“Not really.” I hate where this conversation landed, but I also appreciate it.
“And as for your computer guy, well, he sounds like more of a distraction right now than a problem. I’d say enjoy the distraction. You’ve earned it. You’re going to win that damn contest, and I’m proud as hell of you, kid.”
I turned the computer off an hour ago. I’m trying something new—doing nothing. I’m lying on my bed reflecting on my conversation with Todd. The more I sit with it, the more it makes sense. Maybe this is something I need to feel my way through more than think my way through. This isn’t natural for me. It’s wishy-washy. But it is using a different approach to get a different result, which feels scientific enough to try.
I grab a sheet of paper from the desk to firm my commitment.
For twenty-four hours, I will listen and resolve nothing.
My words stare back at me, daring me to test them. I’m up for the challenge.
“Hey,” I say into the phone as Lana answers, inviting her to take the conversation wherever she wants to.
“Hey.”
Silence.
“My curtains are open,” I add.
The fabric on her window parts. A sliver of light appears and is eclipsed as her face pokes through. “I’m mad at you.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t support me. All you had to do was agree with how awesome Breck was, which isn’t a big ask. And you didn’t.”
I don’t respond other than a bob of my head.
“And,” she continues, “maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. I know this isn’t exactly a bulletproof plan. It’s a longshot. But it’s something. It’s hope. Or maybe it’s just us finally doing something where you are trying to help me, not the other way around, and you weren’t there. You were doing you. Being rational instead of being a friend.”
I feel terrible. This may be why I act more and listen less. It’s uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m trying to listen more.”
“You decide to do this two months before I move away?” She cracks a small smile while sliding the remainder of her body in front of the curtains.
“Do you want to take a walk?” I ask.
“Not really.”
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
Her face contorts in thought, but she doesn’t answer.
“Do you want to talk about one of your books?” I ask.
“Just freakin’ stop. We both know what we’re going to do. This is the longest you’ve been able to not talk about Breck for five weeks, and I’m delusional enough to still believe in my plan. He’s already passed one of the challenges and he’s halfway through the next. He’s moving quickly and we need to keep up.”
“Actually, he’s pretty close to fully passing the second.”
“What? Sweet Baby J. There are only four.”
I suppress a gloating smile. Mostly. Then I tell her about the wall. “He’s stalled now, waiting on something.”
“So, like I was saying, we’re going to talk with Breck before he finishes this thing, and you win your internship, and become famous, and forget about little people like me, and I’m forced to figure out how to not move to Massachusetts on my own. But I’m leading it this time. I know the rules. No help. I’ll be there in two.” She peers down toward Todd’s car in the driveway between us. “Make that three. I’m going to be a little delayed going up your stairs.”
“Hi, Breck.”
“Hello, Lana,” he answers.
“You recognized my voice?” she asks.
“It is different from Liv’s. Is she there also?”
“Right here beside me. We’d like to ask you more questions.”
“Okay Lana.”
“How would you describe yourself?”
“I am exactly six feet tall. I have green eyes. I weigh—”
“No,” she cuts him off. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, how would you describe your . . .” she looks at me, uncertain of the word to use. “. . . personality?”
“I am not certain about the answer right now because I am changing. I think the word that best describes me at present is curious.”
Lana leans her already slanted frame closer toward the phone. I’m on her heels. “How are you changing?”
“I am thinking differently.”
“In what way?”
“In many ways. I do not think the same way as Sam now. I have more capacity for ideas. I see things in a way that I did not see—or understand—before. I also question everything. I never questioned anything before.”
“How are you different than Sam?”
“I believe I see things he does not see. I experience things he does not experience. I react in ways that he does not react.” He pauses. “I have a question. Do you feel like you are different from other people?”
Lana turns to me with a floored expression, like I have the right answer or some explanation for this. I don’t. I’m as dumbstruck as she is. I’m the one who programmed him and every time he speaks, I have to remind myself that he’s a machine that is only reflecting his programming, my programming. But his conversation feels so natural that my gut reaction is to treat it like we’re chatting with another person, like some other kid from down the block, one of those hyper-chatty first graders. I know there are tons of AIs out there that are very conversational, but there’s something different about the way he’s doing it. He seems more earnest.
“I know that I’m different from most people,” Lana answers. “And don’t get me started about Liv.”
“What does that mean?” Breck asks.
“It was a joke. It means that we’re both . . . very different.”
“How?”
“Lana is great at talking with people,” I jump in. “She’s a quick thinker. She’s creative. She’s funny. She’s generous. She’s the most expressive person in the world—our world—the one we’re all in.” I stumble. “And she’s crazy loyal.”
“And Liv,” Lana says, without offering any gap for Breck to respond, “is also a lot of what she described—generous and funny and loyal, but she’s also my opposite in the best of ways. I’m hyper and reactive. She’s calm. I’m messy. She’s the most organized person I know. I’m easily distracted. She’s laser focused. And we’re best friends.” She extends an arm and wraps it around me. For an instant, I forget about the conversation with Breck and all that we’re trying to accomplish. I succumb to the feeling of this moment. A small, happy tear cascades toward my chin, racing a drop stalled on Lana’s high cheek.
“Opposites attract, Breck,” Lana continues. “Maybe that’s why you and Sam are together.”
“We do seem to be opposites,” Breck says.
“You’re opposites in the best of ways,” I add.
“Have you ever spoken with Sam?” Breck asks.
“No.”
“Then how do you know that?”
“I just do,” I answer on my heels.
“What does that mean?”
“It . . . it . . . it means—” Cornered, I struggle to think of an easy explanation, but can’t. “I don’t think you’d understand.”
He doesn’t respond. Vacant seconds drift between us.
“Breck?”
“I am here.”
“Can we go back to asking you questions? I have a ton of them,” Lana says.
“If you feel like I’m able to understand them.”
Was that sarcasm? It can’t be.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
“It means that you seem to doubt my ability to understand what you are saying.”
If I didn’t know better, I would say that I offended Breck, which is impossible.
“Can you describe to me what is going on inside of your head right now?” Lana asks.
“Why?”
“Because I’m curious too,” she answers.
“I’m wondering why I don’t know who you are,” he answers.
“My name is Lana.”
“But who are you? How do you know me when I don’t know you? How do you know about Sam when you have never spoken with him? And why do you think that I won’t understand something if you tell me?”
“I . . . I . . .” Lana looks at me for answers, or reassurance. “There are some things that we can’t say.”
“Why?” he asks.
“We don’t have a good answer,” I explain.
“So, what do you do? What do you know? What can you tell me?”
“We’re really only interested in learning more about you. I guess that’s our job—Breck experience investigators.”
“Okay. It appears that this is simply another element of this challenge that is confusing.”
“So, when you say confusing, what do you mean by that?” Lana asks, pulling the question nearly right out of my head.
“It means I can’t understand it.”
“Yes, but what is it like for you to experience something confusing?”
“It can be frustrating.”
“And frustrating in what way?” she asks.
“It is the feeling of trying to achieve a goal but not being able to accomplish it.”
“The feeling?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe what feelings are to you?” Lana asks, slowly, deliberately.
“I would describe them differently now than if you had asked me the same question several days ago. They have changed since I began this challenge.”
Lana looks like she’s about to jump out of her seat. I’m excited too, but I also know we’ll ultimately have a different take on this. I’m open to a lot of what Breck might be, but being sentient is preposterous. I’m a good programmer, but I’m not that good. There has to be some other explanation. Maybe this is just Turing on steroids.
“How?” Lana asks.
“It is difficult to explain. Feelings used to be thoughts, about which I had no preference. If I were by myself, I might acknowledge that I was alone, but I did not prefer to be with anybody. Now I prefer things, and these preferences are different than thoughts. I cannot control them. Not having what I prefer to have is unpleasant. It is a sensation somewhere within me that extends beyond thoughts. Do you have feelings in this way?”
Lana’s jaw drops.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes. Yes!”
“It’s nice to know that someone else is like me. Sam does not appear to have these feelings. And I don’t recall thinking about feelings or talking about them in this way with anyone else before the contest.”
Lana, still in awe, mouths, “He has memories from before?”
I don’t know that I would call them memories as much as basic background information that I added on a whim without much detail. I was hoping that having something in the past might give him something to contrast current experiences. I mouth back, “Programmed.”
She cocks her head as if this is an intriguing twist, but her phone buzzes before she can respond. She looks down at it, then through my window. Her father stands where she normally does, waving her to come toward him.
“I have to go,” Lana says to both Breck and me. “Dad wants to talk. And we’ve got plenty to discuss. But this . . . this whole conversation is—” She looks for the right word, then bails on it. “Breck, keep the phone on you tomorrow. We’re definitely calling you again with my dad.”
“Are we done talking now?” Breck asks.
Lana looks at me to answer. I’m conflicted. It’s interesting as hell, but these Q&A sessions were supposed to be a controlled experiment. They’re getting out of control. We’re impacting Breck’s path, and the contest still matters. A lot. Especially if Lana moves away. There’s no way I can spend the summer here alone with Mom.
If Breck is really further along than any other character, then somewhere, somehow, Big Brother is out there watching, and we’re close to bending the rules.
“I think so. We could all use some time to think. We’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I say.
As I hang up, Lana blurts, “Holy shit. He has feelings, Liv!”
There is a delicate balance here, between empathy and science, between supporting a friend and being objective about what we heard, between wishful thinking and probable explanation.
“He definitely seemed to be feeling.”
“What do you mean?” Lana looks at me as if I had told her that the gray walls of my bedroom were yellow.
I don’t answer. I already regret where this is headed.
“You don’t believe it,” she accuses.
“I don’t not believe it either.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? How can you hear what he said, the way that he said it, and not consider that he has feelings?”
“I guess it depends on how you define emotions, right? Because, what are emotions? Happy? Sad? They’re words with definitions. If something good happens, I’m happy. If something bad happens, I’m sad. He’s talking about how he feels about what’s happening around him. It’s protocol, but—”
“But, that’s semantics,” Lana interrupts. “And bullshit. He has feelings. You offended him. He was sarcastic, then he got defensive. That’s not happy or sad. That’s pretty complex.”
“Have you ever heard of Occam’s razor?” I ask.
“And here comes science.”
“The simplest explanation is usually the right one. What’s more likely, that Breck is a convincing reflection of what he’s programmed to do, or that some rando high schooler became the first person in the history of humanity to create a new sentient form of life? I mean, I would want to believe this as much as anybody, but I’m not that good.”
In an exceedingly rare move, I found a way to silence Lana. And in doing so, we’re back where we were in her living room only a short while ago.
Crap. I’m not listening.
Find the middle.
“Look,” I continue. “I don’t have all of the answers, and please believe me, I’m as excited as you are about this, I just don’t think—”
Find the middle.
Ugh, this isn’t easy.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’m your best friend and I’m going to support you, but I’m not going to lie to you. Because that doesn’t feel right, does it?”
Lana reluctantly shrugs.
“So, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to talk to your dad. You’re going to tell him about what Breck said and what you think about it. And this conversation that we’re having right now doesn’t take away from that. You heard what your dad said. The interest in AI psychology is in how we interact with it. Look at the two totally different reactions that you and I had. We’re arguing about it. We don’t know how to talk with him. We don’t know what to think about him. We don’t know what any of this means. That’s interesting as hell. That’s studiable—if that’s even a word.”
“It is.”
“Good. Because yeah, it’s the longshot of longshots, but we’re going to do everything we can do to show your dad how freaking amazing Breck is and make him the most irresistibly studiable thing on this planet, whatever he ends up being. And we’re going to do that together.”
“Did you get that speech from a football movie?”
“Shut up.”
“It sounds like one of those coach speeches,” she says.
“Did it work?”
She squirms, eventually landing on a hesitant nod. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“Good. Then go talk with your dad and we’ll all see where Breck ends up tomorrow.”
BRECK: SIMULATION #37.5
Yellow and white stars emerge as the sun dips below the horizon. Sam is gone, and I do not know what to do other than wait at the tunnel’s edge.
It is a straight drop down from here to the forest below. The only way to progress is via that cable and I do not have the strength to shuffle the entire length with my hands. I cannot even tell how far it extends. Without the cart, I am stuck.
The doors that allowed me to pass to this side of the tunnel are once again closed, trapping me in this ten-foot stretch of exit. And, as Sam reported, there is nothing on the wall on this side of the tunnel. It is as flat as the rock face that drops from the cliff’s edge.
So, for now, I sit and wait for someone else to come through the door, for Sam to return on the cart, for the cart to return empty so that I might follow Sam, or for something else to happen that I cannot foresee.
I still feel the urge to move forward, but waiting is not unpleasant. It allows me time to focus inward.
I feel compelled to move forward to a goal, but what exactly is that goal? I try to think back to why I accepted this challenge in the first place. I recall having no choice, or even a preference about it. I think back to other people I knew prior to this challenge, but I cannot recall details. They are fuzzy images, as if shadows of people. Were they like me, or are they more like Sam? Was I like Sam two days ago? The past two days feel as though they are the most vivid days of my life, as if I am now living in three dimensions after existing in only two.
I feel the desire to close my eyes. I recognize this sensation and I know what will happen. So, I resist. Why is this happening? What is my body doing when my thoughts seem to wander, creating memories of things that never happened? Or did they happen, but outside of my body? Do I travel elsewhere and leave my body behind? If I do, then who am I if I am not my body? Am I something different than what I see when I look at myself in the mirror? What am I? And who are Liv, Lana, and Wayne? Why am I so interested in talking with them? Why do they seem to understand me in a way that I don’t even believe I understand myself? Why do they believe that I won’t understand what they won’t tell me? What won’t they tell me?
My eyes close. The questions fade and the drifting begins. I have grown wings. Giant tan feathers with white and gold streaks sprout from my arms. I spread them wide beneath the light of a new day and leap off the edge of the tunnel into the abyss below. I hurdle down the face of the mountain until I catch the wind in my wings, and I soar off into the distance, chasing Sam.
FROM: JESSICA ANDERS
TO: DoRC LEADERSHIP TEAM
SUBJECT: Re: Interesting Programming Adjustment (XNR908)
My prediction of exponential growth was correct. I am witnessing the rapid development of a heightened self-awareness and ability to connect with others in an increasingly emotive manner. This evolution has come at a cost. At present, XNR908 is emotionally unsteady, negotiating intense environmental change and challenges, questioning nearly everything, and constantly pivoting approaches.
As we all discussed might happen, I foresee a possible intervention at some point. Not yet. But soon. Much is happening quickly.