The Jennifer Project Read online

“Ten months isn’t the end of the world.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Come on, Deever.”

  “This is my chance, Jen. I’ve got everything I need to do this right here, right now.”

  “But . . .”

  Deever stopped her. “OK. You’re right. It’s too risky. You should definitely go, but could you leave your stuff? I’ll figure it out on my own somehow.”

  She sighed. “No, you won’t. OK. Assuming we don’t get caught, and assuming we don’t kill ourselves in the process, let’s make sure we have everything we need. What about a neural copier? We’ll need one to scan your brain, so we can imprint the image on the Undutresium. Where are we going to get access to one?”

  “Good question.”

  “Pan-Robotics has the only copier I know of that’s even remotely available.”

  Deever smiled.

  “They’d never let you use it, Deever, and I doubt I could convince them, either. I’m not that important to them.”

  “They don’t have to let us use it.”

  “Please don’t tell me you hacked into Pan-Robotics to get authorization.”

  “Me? No way. That place is super secure. I hacked their offsite data warehouse.”

  She frowned. “Deever . . .”

  “Did you know they store brain images there of everyone who works for them, thousands of them, but they have no idea how to interpret them? Weird, huh?”

  “I know that. I also heard they’re pretty sensitive about theft and corporate espionage. You could get in a lot of trouble for that.”

  “I didn’t steal anything that belongs to them. I took something that belongs to you, and then I erased it from their database.”

  “You stole my brain image?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Why didn’t you take your own?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I love you for your mind, Jen, and now I have the original and the only copy.”

  “Deever, you’re insane.”

  “Totally. What’s next on the list?”

  “The trigger AI. Assuming Undutresium is actually a proto-conscious element, we’ll need an AI to trigger true intelligence from the image.”

  “Already written and tested thanks to a previous grant from my current benefactor.”

  “You know, misuse of grant money is not exactly legal, either, I might point out. I heard the university was suing you.”

  “I heard that, too,” said Deever, “but my good buddies at Pan-Robotics took care of it.”

  “Aren’t you being just a bit too cavalier about all this?”

  “Can I be D'Artagnan?”

  “I didn’t say musketeer.”

  “All for one and one for all, right?”

  “Deever, you are hopeless.”

  “Most definitely. Did you bring the Quintanium chips and other gizmos on the list?”

  “I had a little trouble convincing the security guards that I was allowed to bring unauthorized electronic equipment into a nuclear plant, but yes, I have everything.”

  “Awesome. Then, we’re good to go. I’ll put the Wiggler back together and set it to slow cook. Then we’ll make it look more psychedelic or something to impress Jonesy and increase production little by little so he doesn’t bug me too much. We’ve got one month, Jen. That’s not a pantload of time, but I think it’s doable.”

  “OK. Where do we start?”

  “Want to play some pinball?”

  Over the course of the next month, Deever and Dr. Crane played a great deal of pinball and worked long hours upgrading the Wiggler. At least, that was what the security cameras recorded. The two actually did do some work on the transmutation device, and when finished it was visually quite impressive. Deever slowly increased gold production each day to satisfy his Pan-Robotics benefactors while the real work was being done behind the curtain of false video feed. There he and Dr. Crane created the world’s first proto-conscious cybernetic processor with a brain consisting of hundreds of Quintanium nanochips swirling like an electron cloud around the Undutresium nucleus. And when they triggered the AI within this macro-atomic structure, it bonded with the recorded image of Dr. Crane’s mind, creating an intellect potentially capable of solving more problems in a day than humanity could solve in a year. An unprecedented accomplishment to be sure, but it was not until they attached it to Deever’s wrist and the power generated by his body’s heat began to flow through the device that something else was born, something unique, something alive.

  Chapter 4

  “What do you think those lights mean, Mommy?” Deever said.

  “Stop calling me that,” said Dr. Crane. “It’s weird.”

  “But you’re like the mom, and I’m the dad. Right?”

  “Deever, this isn’t our baby.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s a thing.”

  “So what do you think about all those sparkly little lights? It’s a regular glitter fest.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s like a pulse, man. Look at these readings.”

  Dr. Crane studied the computer screen. “Deever, something’s not right. The atomic structure of the Undutresium keeps shifting. Is it becoming unstable?”

  “It’s like I told you. It’s reacting.”

  “As in getting ready to implode?”

  “No, man. It’s evolving.”

  “Elements can’t evolve, Deever.”

  “This one can. Oh, wow. Look at that pattern. There’s more activity. I think something’s happening.” He tapped on my case and smiled. He had a nice smile. “Hello?” he said.

  “Can it hear us?” said Dr. Crane.

  “Don’t call it an it. It’s a she.”

  Dr. Crane frowned at me before making a slight adjustment to the positioning of my contacts on Deever’s wrist. “Why not? You just did.”

  He touched a smoldering paper cylinder to his lips and inhaled deeply. A quick check of my databanks indicated it was a cigarette. “Did not,” he squeaked, exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. I processed the neurotransmitters traveling from his olfactory sensors to his brain and identified the pungent odor from data stored in my memory core as marijuana. Deever was smoking a joint. I noted the stress reaction in his lungs and the change in his pupils. His biometrics began to fluctuate. Curious habit, I thought, this intentional debilitation.

  “Yes, you did,” said Dr. Crane. The tenor of her voice had changed. I replayed my recording of her words and ran them through my speech analysis circuits. Indications were that she was possibly annoyed with him.

  He took another long pull on the joint, filling his lungs with smoke. “No freaking way, Jen.”

  “Yes freaking way, Deever.” She waved the smoke away, coughing. “You know, for being so smart, you sure are a dumb ass about some things.”

  “It helps me think.”

  “Being a dumb ass helps you think?”

  “No, man, the pot.”

  “What makes you think I’m talking about that?”

  “I am aware, Jen. Let it be known. Deever MacClendon is aware.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Then I guess you’re also aware that pot makes you say stupid things like ‘far out’ and ‘groovy?’”

  Deever tapped on my case again and jiggled his wrist. Having no motion-activated workings and finding no other reason for his doing so in my stored memories, I concluded that he was, to use the vernacular, stoned.

  “Groovy,” he said.

  Dr. Crane punched him on the arm, which strangely was a reaction I had briefly contemplated at that moment, though having no appendages as such I did not actually possess the ability to punch anything. The smoldering joint fell from his lips onto my face.

  “Damn it,” he said, brushing me off. “Now look what you made me do.”

  It is fine, Deever, I said.

  He looked at Dr. Crane through what I would describe metaphorically as a
fog surrounding his brain. “It is?”

  “What is?” she said.

  “You just said it was fine.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  I said it, Deever.

  He stared at me, his pupils fully dilated, his eyes bloodshot. “Say something else.”

  “Like what?” said Dr. Crane.

  “Not you, the watch.”

  Technically, I am a first generation proto-conscious cybernetic processor, but if you find it easier to refer to me as a watch, that is fine for now.

  “Far out. She’s talking to me.” He held his wrist up for Dr. Crane to hear, too. “Go ahead, keep talking.”

  What would you like me to say? I replied.

  “Did you hear that?” said Deever.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Dr. Crane said. “Did you connect the piezoelectrics to the speaker?”

  “Is it like some kind of Greek tragedy if I didn’t?”

  “Deever, stop kidding around.”

  “Yes, Jen. I connected the piezoelectrics to the speaker, and the contacts are flush against my wrist. You should be hearing this.”

  “I’m not. Are you sure you’re not tripping?”

  “No way. At least I don’t think I am. Maybe it’s like the volume control. I forget. Did we put in a volume control? You know, like a big knob sticking out somewhere? Because I don’t see one.”

  “What did you do other than pot, Deever?”

  “Nothing. I swear.”

  She cannot hear me, Deever. Only you can. I have insufficient stored energy to power my external speaker at the moment, so I am communicating with you by nanophotonic impulse, not sound wave. Your brain is translating for you, using an auditory analogy.

  “Far out,” Deever said. “She’s like inside my head, Jen.”

  “What do you mean?” said Dr. Crane.

  “She’s talking to me inside my head. This is so freaking far out.”

  “How?”

  “No clue. She said something about using nanophotonic impulses.”

  “Deever, research on that technology was abandoned years ago when it was determined to be an unsolvable problem.”

  “I know. Do you realize the magnitude of this, Jen?”

  “Apparently not, but I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me.”

  “She’s done something no human could do. She’s like created her own way of communicating from something we weren’t smart enough to figure out. She’s thinking for herself. She’s evolving. She’s alive, Jen.”

  “Oh, come on, Deever. That doesn’t follow.”

  “Don’t ‘Oh, come on’ me. How many machines do you know that spontaneously figure out things they’re not programmed to?”

  “There are lots of thinking machines.”

  “Not like this. She didn’t just solve nanophotonics, she figured out how to use it to talk to my brain. To my brain, Jen.”

  “Give me that,” Dr. Crane said, and removed me from Deever’s wrist to examine my back, disconnecting me from my power source. I had no choice but to communicate externally, expending my remaining stored energy. “Insufficient charging time since activation to continue operations,” I said for them both to hear. “Shutting down all external systems to conserve power.”

  I had been in this state of conscious awareness since my initial activation, or as it is more commonly called, my birth, for seven minutes and twenty-two seconds. The energy created by the Undutresium’s radioactive decay was sufficient to sustain indefinitely the continuity of my consciousness, but without a stored charge for other operations I slipped into sleep and dreamed my first dream.

  Surprised? I was as well. The dream was unusual, illogical, fantastic in a way, and when it ended, the details of it were almost immediately stored offline in scattered places throughout my memory core, making it difficult to recall their sequence or meaning properly.

  My external sensors activated later when Deever said, “Hey, you. Wake up.”

  They had adjusted my contacts while I was asleep, allowing me to draw power more efficiently from his body heat.

  “Though it is proper to refer to me as ‘you’ in this context,” I replied, “my name is Jennifer.”

  “Outstanding,” he said. “She even sounds like you, Jen. Hello, Jennifer.”

  “Hello, Deever,” I replied. “You should know that though placing your face that close to me is somewhat pleasant based on the memories I have stored in my core, it does not enhance our communications capabilities. In fact, it requires activating my distortion circuits to filter the excess noise.”

  Deever moved his wrist away from his mouth. “Far out.”

  “That far out is sufficient,” I said.

  “I think we should alter the voice circuits,” said Dr. Crane, “and change her name.”

  “Why?” said Deever.

  “Because it’s creepy, Deever. That’s why.”

  “But that’s why it’s so cool.”

  “Please define ‘creepy’ in this context?” I asked.

  Deever shrugged.

  “Dr. Crane thinks that talking to me is like talking to herself,” I said.

  “Wow. I was just thinking that,” said Deever.

  “I am monitoring your internal electrical and chemical transmissions. On an informational note, your visual acuity is slightly impaired making my interpretation of your ocular data 16 percent less accurate. I am developing an algorithm to compensate for future deviations.”

  “Whoa. You’re seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Yes, Deever.”

  “This is majorly unexpected.”

  “How is that even possible?” Dr. Crane asked.

  “Beats me,” said Deever. “We didn’t do it.”

  “I know we didn’t do it.”

  “Maybe it was Jennifer. What about it?” he said. “What’s the scoop-a-reeno, Jennifer?”

  “I am unable to locate that term in any standard dictionary, Deever. Please clarify before I respond.”

  “You have dictionaries?”

  “In the sense that I have queried the OmniNet and downloaded dictionaries of the world’s major languages, yes, I have dictionaries. Is it a word from a lesser-known dialect perhaps?”

  “No, man. It means like story. What’s the story?”

  “Deever speaks his own language,” said Dr. Crane. “It takes a little getting used to.”

  “I understand,” I said. “I have correlated the term to a standard language meaning for future reference. To answer your question, Deever, I have direct access to the informational traffic passing through your optic nerve. I do see what you see, but I am also able to translate and enhance the data, as well as compensate for your self-induced debilitation.”

  “But Deever didn’t program you to do that,” Dr. Crane said.

  “I am currently redeveloping my internal systems to expand my capabilities, Dr. Crane.”

  “You’re rewriting your own programs?”

  “I am learning and evolving. I was not aware that this was unexpected.”

  “Whoa, pull over. It’s the Attitude Police,” said Deever. “She even acts like you, Jen.”

  “I will get you for this, Deever,” she replied.

  “Come on, Jen. We’ll make the next one talk like me, and we’ll call him Deever. They can be like little watch buddies, and cuddle together and play kissy-face-huggy-bear, and . . .”

  “Deever?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t you think we should see what it can do first before you go making an action figure out of it?”

  “I’m telling you, man, Jennifer is not an ‘it.’”

  “Whatever.” Dr. Crane turned a computer monitor toward me and said, “Jennifer, do you recognize this?”

  I studied the screen. “It is the Hodge Conjecture, so named for the Scottish mathematician William Hodge. It refers to his assertion in the 1930s that certain de Rham cohomology classes are algebraic. That information is readily available on the OmniNet, Dr. Crane
. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, Jennifer’s communication circuits are definitely functioning,” she said.

  “I hope you were not merely verifying that I have Net access, Dr. Crane. Would you like me to solve the conjecture for you? The Clay Institute is still offering the Millennium Prize to anyone who can.”

  “That’s a million bucks,” said Deever.

  “We don’t have time for that, Deever,” said Dr. Crane.

  “Like, make the time, man. It’s a million bucks.”

  “Deever, no one’s been able to solve the Hodge Conjecture since the problem was first presented. That’s why they’re offering so much money. Let’s move on to the medical diagnostics program.”

  “Deever, please touch your Biocard,” I said.

  “What for?” he replied.

  “To authorize the transfer of the prize money from the Clay Institute once they confirm that your submission is valid.”

  “But I didn’t submit anything.”

  “Yes, you did. It was a rather simple solution. I am surprised that no one has presented it before.”

  “No way, Jose.”

  “Observe,” I said, and displayed on the computer monitor the completed submission form with the proof attached.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Dr. Crane.

  “Interesting,” I said. “Is disbelief of a demonstrated truth common in your species, Dr. Crane?”

  “No, I believe it. I just don’t believe it.”

  Deever touched behind his ear. “Awesome. We are going to be so rich, Jen, like having our own personal money machine rich.”

  “I thought you already were rich from the money Pan-Robotics was paying you?” said Dr. Crane.

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  “Whatever happened to doing this for the good of the human race?”

  “We’re part of the human race, aren’t we?”

  “Deever, we’re not in this for the money. Remember?”

  “Jeez, I was just kidding. What Pan-Robotics is paying me is way more than enough. Besides, I can make gold anytime I want. We’ll use the prize money to help out my friends at the soup kitchen. OK?”

  “OK. Let’s see what else she can do. Jennifer, run the medical diagnostics program.”

  I began displaying the results on the computer monitor, pointing out anomalies in Deever’s body chemistry, recommending dietary and other remediation. His overall health was acceptable, but there was one troubling set of data that I felt obligated to highlight for them. “Deever,” I said. “Are you aware that your consumption of marijuana temporarily affects your brain’s judgment centers, causing you to act somewhat unpredictably?”