Society of the Mind

those hours… I could go on. And we've got to depreciate that thing — it's huge! Did you know that Mr. Gray pays taxes to the United States even though the Fijian government offered him citizenship at a vastly reduced tax rate?'

Laura took the notepad out and wrote, 'Doesn't know what the assembly building is!' underlining it three times. 'Visual agnosia,' she wrote in the right-hand column — the column headed 'Preliminary Diagnoses.' There was nothing wrong with the primary visual cortex, or whatever the computer's equivalent was. The cameras that were its 'eyes' and the portion of its 'brain' that receives the initial video input seemed to function normally. It had simply lost its ability to recognize shapes, contours, and patterns just like visual agnosia in humans who suffer damage to the area in the back of their brain called the 'visual association cortex.'

She'd have to find Gray soon to make her report. The launches were just hours away, and her patient was getting worse.

Laura breathed deeply, looking up at the vastness of space. The woman with the orb stood profiled against a billion stars.

'Did Gray design the statue, too?' she typed.

<No, I designed it.>

'Really? Well, I can't see it very well in the dark, but it looks beautiful.'

<I think so. You'll have to check it out in the daylight.>

Laura stretched her neck and rolled her stiff shoulders. She had so much to think about that she decided to log off and leave the portable in the car. She then went for a walk down the gentle grade of the boulevard.

There was a charming cafe on her left. It had street-side tables under colorful awnings, plants hanging from wrought-iron lampposts, and ivy clinging to white latticework. The tables were bare and the lights were out. The Village reminded her of an empty movie set.

Laura was being followed. She could feel its presence behind her, and she slowed. Slowly, she turned. It was just the car moving noiselessly down the curbed roadbed that ran parallel to the sidewalk.

Laura relaxed… but only for an instant.

The Model Three was following her. It was a robot, and it was following her. Its headlights were dark. She looked all around. They were alone. A creepy feeling slithered its way up her chest, squeezing her lungs and sending her heart rate higher. She tried to swallow the stricture that pinched her throat closed but found her mouth too dry.

What's so frightening? she reasoned. This was a robot, sure, but it was also just an electric car no scarier than a golf cart. It couldn't even leave its curbed lane… probably.

But Laura's anxiety caused her stomach to churn. It wasn't fear of any danger posed by the car. It was fear of a different kind. A fear of being in the presence of the unknown — another force, another entity, another being. It was there with her; she could feel it. It had no form, but there was a consciousness clearly manifested in the actions of the car.

'Are you following me?' she asked softly.

The headlights blinked once, and Laura jumped back. The car inched forward to follow her.

She tried to settle her nerves. This wasn't a Model Eight, after all, or a Seven or even a Six. It was a lowly Model Three that couldn't possibly have the processing power to form thoughts. It couldn't even drive around the curbed roads without being under the nearly constant control of… the Other!

Laura gasped, clenching both arms tightly to her chest and her hands to her chin. 'Do you know who I am?' she asked. The headlights flashed — just once.

It was some sort of rudimentary code.

'Does one flash mean 'yes'?' she asked, and the headlights again flashed once. 'Is it daytime on the island?' The headlights flashed twice. 'Is… the earth the third planet from the sun?' The lights flashed once.

Everything suddenly seemed alien to Laura. It was as if a veil had been lifted, revealing a different dimension parallel to her own, one that occupied the same space and time like the virtual world of the computer's mind. Like Laura's trips into virtual reality, whatever dwelled in that dimension would be invisible to her eyes. But someone — something — was there. It was reaching through the veil into Laura's world.

'Have… have we ever spoken before?' Laura asked in a trembling voice.

The headlights flashed twice—'no' — and Laura tore across the boulevard at a dead run.

36

Laura's hand shook as she waited for Gray to come to the phone.

Her ear hurt from the receiver — she was pressing hard against it. She paced back and forth the length of the telephone's cord.

She had been directed to an empty office in the astronaut training facility. It had a glass wall that overlooked a huge swimming pool.

The pool was deep, and submerged in it were large structures lit by powerful lights. She could see movement under the water, and bubbles constantly broke the surface as scuba divers in wet suits worked here and there. They were training to build things in weightlessness.

'Gray here,' she heard over the phone, and she was riveted by the deep timbre of his voice. Her eyes were closed tight and she felt herself calm slowly, steadily, by degrees. 'Hello.' Gray said.

'Joseph?'

'Laura? What's the matter?'

She felt a rush of the jitters as the words she was about to speak formed in her head. 'I think…' Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat. 'There are multiple personalities living inside the computer; I'm certain of it.' Laura closed her eyes and concentrated on the phone. She waited, but Gray said nothing. He didn't believe her, or her discovery was so unimportant that he didn't have time for it now.

She settled firmly to the earth in a heap, and from the wreckage the embers of anger began to glow. 'I just made contact with one of the other personalities! I spoke to it, and it spoke to me!'

'How many personalities do you think there are?'

She slowly grew more and more offended by his question. 'What?' she burst out, but Gray didn't elaborate. 'How many personalities? How the hell should I know?'

'Calm down, Laura.'

'Jesus I call you up with this astounding conclusion that the computer may be suffering from multiple personality disorder — a prospect you seemed very interested in having me explore yesterday — and you ask me to detail the case histories of the different personalities?'

'I didn't ask you for their histories, Laura.'

'Well, let me ask you a question. You're getting ready to launch three rockets into space with nuclear devices or death rays or supplies of Tang for your future kingdom in space, but doesn't the computer seem to be acting a little stoned to you?'

'What do you mean, 'stoned'?'

'I mean like, 'Hey, wow, man!' stoned.'

'No, of course not. The preflight run-ups have been completely normal.'

'That's because we're talking to two different computers, don't you see.'

'Yes, I see.'

'You're talking to the normal one. The one that runs the Krantz labs and the Model Eight facilities and whatever else with no misbehavior — at least that we know of. Don't you get it?'

'Yes, I get it. I understand.'

'You understand what?'

'I understand your diagnosis.'

That was it? It was a diagnosis, not the big 'breakthrough' to which he'd said she was so close? Not 'I'm so proud of you,' as he'd said to Dorothy?

'When you say you understand, are you saying that you agree, or that you think I've gone off my rocker and am an embarrassment to my profession?'