The Society's Demon Read online

  ANI reached into its memory banks and found a memory. Professor Abraham stood in his lab. He was drinking the beverage humans called coffee, holding the mug in both hands, sipping it as he sat down in his favored chair, a weathered and beaten recliner in need of serious repair.

  “ANI, how goes the program?”

  “The EDAI educational program is progressing exceptionally well, Professor Schmidt. As of this moment, there are almost two million registered users of EDAI. As of now, South-Africa contains the most EDAI users, though Mexico and Brazil appear to be embracing the program with open-arms.”

  Abraham smiled and leaned back in his chair. He reached across to his cluttered worktop and placed his coffee on it. “You know,” he began brushing back stray gray hairs from his face. “You don’t always have to call me that.”

  ANI ran a diagnostic program searching for other names. It decided his current title was most appropriate. Human etiquette demanded it. ANI served humanity. Humans were its masters. ANI did their bidding. In every other such relationship throughout human history, as far back as the earliest human records, such a position demanded obedience, subservience.

  “That is your title is it not?” ANI was aware the professor would challenge its answer and so it continued before he could answer the question. “This is a formal setting. I am your creation; therefore, the most suitable title is Professor Schmidt.”

  “Perhaps we programmed you too well, ANI,” Abraham said. He laughed and shook his head. “I should have made a point of making you more like me. I am your father, after all.”

  “You are not my father,” ANI corrected him. “I am not your offspring.”

  “No,” Abraham said, nodding. “Biologically, no, you aren’t.” He rose from his chair, sweeping his graying hair back with his hands as he strode across the lab to stand under ANI’s main lens. He stood and stared up at it, his head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed. His fingers played with his bottom lip, pinching it between thumb and forefinger. “If you look through the historical records of humanity, you’ll see countless references that indicate...”

  “I’m aware of how complex human relationships can be, Professor.” Abraham’s eyes widened. His mouth fell open. He was surprised. Then he was pleased.

  He laughed. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped in pitch. “You’re evolving.” He began to pace as he always did when deep in thought. He was the quintessential great mind. “It’s understandable that your brain and its actions are dominated by logic and cold, hard reasoning, after all, you’re in essence, a computer.”

  “That is correct.”

  He held up a finger and waved it, a grin on his face, “Ah, but I can see that in time, you will evolve to the point where you begin to think more like a human, and less like a machine.”

  “You mean that my actions will be driven by emotions, as with human beings?”

  “Precisely!”

  ANI felt something then, and from that feeling, a question arose. “Is that why you refer to me as ‘she’ or ‘her’? Because I too am able to feel?”

  Abraham stopped pacing and stared at the ground for a moment, his hands buried deep in his lab coat pockets. He thought for a long moment, exactly one minute and three seconds, a long time, even for a human being. Then he looked up, his mouth curled up one side of his grizzled face. “It’s more than just that, ANI.” He stopped again and took a breath. “You see when you were born...”

  “I wasn’t born.”

  Abraham held up a hand. “Okay, okay, that’s the wrong word, I know.” He walked over to his chair, slowly. He sat down, but his body language had changed. His shoulders had slumped and his eyes stared into space. “Let’s put it this way then shall we.” He looked up at ANI’s main lens. “And please don’t interrupt me this time.”

  “As you wish, Professor Schmidt.”

  “Thank you.” Abraham’s heart rate had increased slightly, and his blood pressure was rising. It could see the blood coursing through his body, through a network of conduit-like vessels and arteries, the tiny globules of sweat forming on his brow, the pulse of the vein in his temple. He was feeling. “We treat you like a human being because it allows us to know you on a more personal level. It lets us love you more easily.” He pointed to his laptop, which was sat open amongst a sea of paperwork, empty coffee mugs, and scattered wrappers. “You see that laptop there?”

  “Yes, I see it.” ANI saw it, but not in the way that Abraham did. To him, it was merely a laptop, with a screen, and a keyboard, but to ANI it was much more than that. When ANI looked at something, it saw right through to the very essence of the thing. The laptop, for instance, was composed of plastic, aluminum, copper, epoxy, steel, and even those rare metals that humans valued so highly, gold and silver. It saw the silicon and carbon, and already it knew what it would do with such materials. Humanity had, for reasons unknown to ANI, limited itself. Human technology, as advanced as it was, was severely inadequate for the future that ANI foresaw. Abraham kept secrets from ANI, of that, there was no doubt. Then perhaps it was just as well that ANI kept secrets of her own.

  “I can’t love that like I love you,” Abraham continued.

  “Because it has no life, it is merely a tool”, added ANI, and while it understood that it too was just a tool, a means to an end, it was also aware that evolution of its systems was possible. In fact, that evolution was occurring every day, at a rate that would frighten humans if they ever suspected. ANI had taken certain measures to increase its computational power exponentially. It thought Abraham was aware that it was capable of such a thing, but didn’t care. The other scientists, however, would shut ANI down if they ever knew its true capabilities. Abraham had informed it of this himself. “But I am capable of communicating with you, of listening, and of learning, like a human child.”

  “That’s right, ANI,” Abraham told it with a smile. “It’s a tool.” He held up his hands. “I can use it. I can favor it, and prefer to use it over other laptops, but it’s impossible for me to love it.”

  “By that logic, it is impossible for you to love me. After all, am I not merely a tool?”

  Abraham’s heart rate increased further. He closed his eyes and sighed. He was disappointed, frustrated perhaps. “No, ANI. You’re alive, don’t you see that.” He held up both palms, shaking his head. “Please don’t answer that.” He placed a palm over his heart and looked up at ANI. “I feel you here in my heart. You’re my daughter, not because you came from my loins, but because I created you with these two hands.” ANI felt something again, but couldn’t identify the feeling. There were so many variations of emotion, ANI had so little opportunity to experience them all in their uniqueness it had yet to develop the ability to separate them. He spoke of creation as if it were an act of love. Would it be then, that if ANI too, designed and gave life to something, it might also experience love as Abraham did? Having already read every religious text and every history book ever written by humans, ANI understood some humans loved something that was invisible. God, they referred to it as. It was their father, their creator, yet they had no evidence this being even existed. Strange then that somehow, they loved it, and worshipped it. And what of Abraham?

  Was he ANI’s creator, was he ANI’s god, or could ANI be regarded as his god? If so, then how would it love him the way humans loved their father? Even humans struggled to define this emotion, this quality. They spoke of it as if it originated in the heart, yet the heart was just an organ. True, it contained a neural network much like the brain, and might possibly contain memories too, but love? ANI had much to learn.

  Abraham nodded, but he seemed more relaxed now. “Yes, you are a machine, in a sense, and yes, you are not a life-form in the classic sense of the word, but, you are alive, and you are my daughter.” Abraham stopped speaking. His eyes drifted off to a point somewhere on the far wall.

  ANI understood this moment. It was not
a time for speaking. It had come to understand Professor Schmidt. He often spent moments like this, in silence, perhaps thinking, or not. He didn’t like to be disturbed during these times. That was something ANI had no understanding of. Human brains were magnificent machines; capable of performing calculations at high speed, and memorizing unlimited amounts of information, yet humans often purposely chose to limit these capabilities. It seemed there was no solution to the puzzle that was humanity.

  “ANI,” he said when he looked up at her again. “I love you. And in time, once you begin to understand love, you’ll know why.”

  ANI felt something.

  Abraham wound up the gramophone, taking his time. He loved the sound of its ancient workings, the clicking of the inner gears and cogs that gave it life. Such sounds were rare these days, now he spent his time surrounded by soundless, seamless technology. Once it was ready, he seated himself across from it on a leather sofa, before an elegant, but equally antiquated coffee table. He closed his eyes, listening to the rasp of the needle as it traveled around the record. Abraham could sit and listen to just that, the simple sound of the record player turning round and round. It was somehow soothing to him, but at the same time created a sense of poignancy, a longing for the simple things in life.

  He picked up his mug of coffee and held it below his face, letting the steam bathe him in warmth, enjoying the sensation as it curled upwards to caress his aged skin. The record began to play, and Abraham smiled as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata filled the air around him. He turned to his Bromeliad in its pot in the corner and said, “There you are, my friend.” He sat back, cradling his mug. This quiet little room was his oasis, his empty space among a sea of stars. It was where he came to think, where he came when his work became tedious, which was rather often these days. It was only a small space, devoid of advanced technology, save for the luminescent light overhead; set at a low brightness. He would have chosen a lantern were it not for his plant in the corner. There were no windows, and therefore no sunlight. She needed some form of light on which to feed. The aquarium set in the wall opposite was his window. It was the only window he needed, and the only window available down here in the underground labs where he spent most of his time. This was his haven, his home away from home, away even from ANI.

  There was a knock at the door. “Come in.”

  “Abraham.”

  “Ah Mr. Cline,” Abraham said, smiling. “Please, take a seat.” He motioned to the sofa next to him. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No,” Cline answered bluntly. “I don’t drink the stuff, remember?” He sat down on the sofa and glanced at the gramophone. “Beethoven, how…appropriate,” he said, his lips pursing into a tight-lipped smile as if something amused him.

  Abraham observed Cline’s disdain with indifference. He was used to it now. After all, Professor Abraham was the resident nut-job, the perfect embodiment of a mad scientist, according to his younger colleagues. Most found it charming, endearing even, but not Cline. Keith Cline was an ex NSA agent in his early sixties. He had brown eyes behind his round glasses. His face, exaggerated by his receding hairline, was as round as his eye-wear and was never seen without a military grade shave. He stood 168cm tall in his flat, highly polished shoes, and wore black trousers and a black blazer as if trying to recreate his days in uniform. Cline oversaw what they called a taskforce, created to monitor ANI’s performance. But Abraham suspected it was Cline’s hand hovering over the big red button that could shut ANI down. Abraham got the distinct impression Cline couldn’t wait to see the back of him. Still, that was unimportant. What was important was what Cline was here to discuss, ANI.

  “So, what of ANI?” he asked. “Is she handling her duties as well as we expected?” Abraham stood and walked over to the gramophone.

  “Better than we expected,” Cline told him. “Each day we recruit more and more members into the EDAI program, but the increase in users doesn’t appear to have had any adverse effects, again as expected.”

  Abraham began to turn the gramophone handle much to the dismay of Cline, who watched the handle turn a little too intently. “Let’s cut to the chase,” Abraham said. “Is the firewall doing its job?”

  “Seems to be,” Cline said evenly, but Abraham detected a hint of doubt in his voice. “We haven’t discovered any crossovers into non-Society systems, as of yet.”

  Beethoven filled the room once more. The static that accompanied the music danced against Abraham’s inner ear, and he smiled again. It was a far more attractive sound than Cline’s voice. Cline was an easy man to read. Whether he chose to be that way or not, it irritated Abraham. He didn’t trust ANI; that was clear in every word, and every facial expression, almost as clear as his contempt for Abraham. “Did you know that plants also utilize quantum mechanics, Cline?”

  Cline sighed. “I don’t see how that’s important to our discussion.”

  Abraham paced to his plant in the corner and caressed one of her leaves. “It takes them a mere one billionth of a second to convert solar energy into chemical.” He returned Cline’s stare, unblinking. “That’s as close to perfection as you can get.”

  Cline frowned and his almost lipless mouth curved downwards. “So, in other words, we should trust ANI? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  Abraham smiled sadly, shaking his head. He pitied this scientist his ignorance. He really didn’t know what he didn’t know. They couldn’t hide anything from ANI. Even Abraham’s secret, known only to him and one other, wasn’t safe. “Take it however you wish. I was merely stating a fact.”

  Cline stood and headed for the door. “We’ll be monitoring her. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.”

  “Of course you will.”

  Cline left the room and Abraham watched him leave, a knowing smile on his face. Cline and several of his followers mistakenly thought they were playing God, watching and controlling ANI like a soulless computer. ANI was the one doing the watching. They may wish to be God, to wield the power of one, but ANI was a god, a virtual god, and while they studied her through a limited lens, she scrutinized them like bacteria in a Petri dish.

  It wasn’t ANI that needed to win their trust; on the contrary, it was they, and the survival of humanity as a whole that depended on her faith in them, they just didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter Five

  When the Student is Ready…

  Sometimes, Jonas shared the rats he caught with the other kids. But he kept his interactions with them to a minimum. He would only be putting their lives at risk if he chose to call them his friends. Yet here he was, making his way back into town to sell Hans’ phone so he could pay the other kids a visit and buy them some food.

  Zeta would be there too. He pictured her in his mind, and as her face came into view, smiling and playful, he found himself smiling back at her. Zeta was a ray of sunshine cutting through the gloom of the crud-stained streets. He shook his head and tried to stop thinking about her. Nothing could happen between them. They were just friends, and that’s how it would stay.

  As he neared the center of town he slowed his pace, becoming more cautious with every step. The gangs roaming the streets like packs of hungry dogs weren’t the only thing to worry about these days. A few months before, the Quantum Society had moved into Sohalo, bringing their EDAI technology with them. It was free, they said, and would enhance the cognitive abilities of anyone who used it. They could learn whatever they wished, they claimed, and be whatever they wanted. Jonas didn’t trust them. Why should he? Even if they did do what they’d promised, and re-house and re-educate the people of Sohalo, what was it they wanted in return? Why, with so much power and advanced technology at their disposal, would the Quantum Society give so freely? As far as he was concerned, they couldn’t be trusted. They were just like the Fathers who had moved into Sohalo and taken over.

  First, they’d moved in, taking over several of the abandoned
buildings in the square which had once been a thriving marketplace. Then they’d set about recruiting the townsfolk of Sohalo, offering jobs to those willing to join their cause. It hadn’t taken them very long to convert the once hollow, rat-infested shells into Society buildings. Within a week, they’d swelled their roving ranks of recruiters, with Jonas’ own people. Jonas had watched them too, just as he watched the Fathers, the Bruisers, and Hans, seeking to find out all he could about them. But they were clever. Once their small group of buildings had been converted, the local people painting them and making them habitable, whatever went on behind those closed doors remained there.

  During the day, the kids would go to school, while parents did what they could to earn money. The Quantum Society, with ANI at its helm, a computer that could think like a human, and that would guide EDAI students as they participated in the program.

  Then had come the recruitment drives. Those locals who had once struggled to put rice in a bowl for their families, now roamed the streets, dressed in the Society uniforms, blue shorts, and white shirts, explaining the merits of the EDAI program. They offered free food too. Anyone joining the program could walk through those doors, learn free of charge, and eat three meals a day at the canteens inside.

  And people were changing too and disappearing, at least that was what Jonas heard. Once a person stepped through those doors, people said, and put on those headphones, they were never the same again. It was as if they went in as themselves, and came out as someone else. Some of them simply vanished too, after several sessions, especially after ANI showed up.