connections. Lots of laughs.”
Rod Churchill dialed the magic number and heard his phone issue the familiar melody of tones.
“Thank you for calling Food Food,” said the female voice at the other end of the phone. “May I take your order, please?”
Rod remembered the old days, when Food Food — and its pizzeria progenitor — had always begun by asking for your phone number, since that’s how they indexed records in their database. But with Call Display, the caller’s record was automatically brought up on the order taker’s screen the moment the phone was answered.
“Yes, please,” said Rod. “I’d like the same thing I had last Wednesday night.”
“Roast beef medium rare with low-calorie gravy, baked potato, vegetable medley, and apple pie. Is that right, sir?”
“Yes,” said Rod. When he’d started ordering from them, Rod had carefully gone over Food Food’s online list of ingredients, picking only items that wouldn’t interfere with his medication.
“No problem, sir,” said the order taker. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, that’s it, please.”
“Your total is $72.50. Will that be cash or charge?”
“On my Visa card, please.”
“Card number?”
Rod knew the woman had it on the screen in front of her, but he also knew that she had to ask for it, as a security precaution. He read it out, then, predicting her next question, added the expiry date.
“Very good, sir. The time now is 6:18. Your dinner will be there in thirty minutes or it’s free. Thank you for calling Food Food.”
Peter and Sarkar were sitting in the lunchroom at Mirror Image. Peter was sipping Diet Coke from a can; Sarkar was drinking real Coke — it was only when sharing a pitcher with Peter that he tolerated the low-calorie stuff.
“’Lots of laughs,’” said Sarkar. “What a bizarre definition of death.” A pause. “Maybe we should start calling him ‘Brevity’ instead of ‘Spirit’ — after all, he’s now the soul of wit.”
Peter smiled. “Have you noticed the way he talks, though?”
“Who? Spirit?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t notice anything special,” said Sarkar.
“He’s long-winded.”
“Hey, Petey, I have news for you. So are you.”
Peter grinned. “I mean, he was speaking in incredibly long sentences. Very convoluted, very complex.”
“I guess I did notice that.”
“You had some sessions with him before this one didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Can we get a transcript of them?”
“Sure.” They took their drinks and headed back down to the lab. Sarkar tapped a few keys and the printer disgorged several dozen thin sheets.
Peter glanced over the text. “Do you have a grammar checker online?”
“Better than that, we have Proofreader, one of our expert systems.”
“Can you feed this text through it?”
Sarkar typed some commands into the computer. An analysis of Spirit’s comments from their various sessions appeared on screen. “Amazing,” said Sarkar. He pointed to a figure. Ignoring simple interjections, Spirit averaged thirty-two words per sentence, and in some places had gone over three hundred words in a single sentence. “Normal conversation averages only ten or so words per sentence.”
“Can this Proofreader of yours do a cleanup on the transcripts?”
“Sure.”
“Do it.”
Sarkar typed some commands. “Incredible,” he said, once the results were on screen. “There was almost nothing to fix. Spirit has even his giant sentences completely under control and never loses his train of thought.”
“Fascinating,” said Peter. “Could it be a programming glitch?”
Sarkar smoothed his hair with his hand. “Have you noticed Control or Ambrotos doing the same thing?”
“No.”
“Then offhand I would say it’s not a glitch, but rather a real by-product of the modifications we made. Spirit is the simulation of life after death — the intellect outside of the body. I’d say this effect must be a real consequence of having cut some neural-net connections related to that.”
“Oh, Christ!” said Peter. “Of course that’s it! For the other sims, you still simulate breathing. But Spirit doesn’t have a body, so he doesn’t have to pause to breathe when speaking. Breathing pauses must cause real people to express themselves in concise chunks.”
“Interesting,” said Sarkar. “I guess if you didn’t have to breathe, you could express more complex thoughts in a single go. But that wouldn’t really make you any smarter. It’s thinking, not speaking, that counts.”
“True, but, umm, I’ve noticed Spirit has a tendency to be a bit obtuse.”
“I’ve noticed that too,” said Sarkar. “So?”
“Well, what if he isn’t being obtuse at all? What if, instead — gee, I don’t even like saying this — what if he’s simply talking over our heads? What if not just his manner of speaking but his actual thoughts are more complex than my own?”
Sarkar considered. “Well, there’s nothing analogous to breathing pauses in the physical brain, except — except—”
“What?”
“Well, neurons only fire for so long,” said Sarkar. “A neural net can only stay excited for a limited period.”
“Surely that’s a fundamental limitation of the human mind.”
“No, it’s a fundamental limitation of the human
Peter lifted his eyebrows. “But Spirit is operating without a brain. He’s just a mind, a soul. He’s pure software, working without any hardware limitations. No breathing pauses. No nets decaying before he’s finished with them. He can build as long a sentence, or as complex a thought, as he wants.”
Sarkar was shaking his head slightly in amazement.
“That’s how one’s mind could go on forever after death,” said Peter. “You couldn’t just do it making simple connections, like chicken-crossing-the-road jokes. You’d run out of new juxtapose-A-and-B thoughts eventually. But Spirit can juxtapose A through Z, plus alpha through omega, plus aleph through tav, until, in all those complex combinations, some new, exciting, amusing association comes up.”
“Incredible,” said Sarkar. “It means—”
“It means,” said Peter, “that perhaps the afterlife is full of jokes, but jokes so complex and subtle and obtuse that you and I will never understand them.” He paused. “At least not until after we’re dead.”
Sarkar made a low whistle, but then his expression changed. “Speaking of being dead, I’ve got to get home or Raheema will kill me. I’m cooking dinner tonight.”
Peter looked at the clock. “Gripes. I’m late for meeting Cathy — we’re going out for dinner.”
Sarkar laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’ll get it,” said Sarkar. “Eventually.”
CHAPTER 32
