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Outpost pp9-16
of science should all be Madam Curie. Has anyone else seen her resume?”
“I don't think so,” said Carter.
“May I see it again?”
Carter stopped checking a protein gel long enough to retrieve the document. “Yeah, it's right here,” he said.
Cooper walked the long stairs down the rock cliff next to the lab complex to reach the Main Frame Station. As he approached it from above, Cooper thought, “Another renovated oversized pill box fading into usefulness out of the human race's Warlord past.” Dense tropical shrubbery set the old structure into the natural camouflage of the rocky coastal terrain. He could see the beach below and the ocean beyond from the front deck. The view was an overload of multiple blues and greens in the midday sun. Cooper entered the front door with a single mind.
“How's the project?” A girl's voice came from behind the counter.
Everyone here was either a scientist or a student of science. Anonymity was not easy at a science station such as this. Cooper didn't mind, though. Everybody knew each other; things went smoothly that way.
“It's OK,” Cooper replied.
“What do you need, Dr. Cooper?”
“I need to log on to the main data terminal.”
“The computers are down.” She held her eyes there for him a little longer than usual.
A sensation rushed through Cooper. He knew that this wouldn't be easy. “I have to tell you something, and you must swear to me that you won't tell anyone.”
A crooked smile came to Jamie's face. “Sure, Dr. Cooper,” she said.
Cooper looked her square in the eyes. “I've received a resume from a woman who has no record of ever being born.”
“...florescent mist of distance my home.”
The moment his presence was sensed at the Banyan grove, the tigress discarded her sleep as if instantly disrobing. Her domain was the jungle floor. A steamy setting of tropical plants. Thickets of giant tropical ferns danced in the dark, naked against the wetness. Giant Koa and Monkey Pod trees stood majestic and hopeful. Once hosts to a now silent audience, ghosts of millions of creatures who once lived here.
She came at him like an inspired Olympian given this one chance to demonstrate her gifts. She had the focus of a gentle tactician in need. The moon sparkle on the jungle floor brightened as if through windows in the dense canopy above. Her raw urge left no shadow against the night. Her eyes were designed before glamour was invented by humans. Her sounds were pure. “A damp, dark place this Nature's heaven lay,” Cooper thought. “The only honest place.”
A heavy rain fell the next day like tiny marbles. Now the river was alive and hungry. Gravity fed her. The data on the project had been collected over a period of months, and the Army was eagerly awaiting data that they weren't even sure existed. Just one more assay, one more protein gel, one more. Cooer's life as a post-doc came racing back to him, like that river rushing outside the lab building. There is enough data here for a publication. Intelligent people don't like to kill. It's the prefrontal lobe. The Army knew it. The problem was, the Army guessing. Just like Cooper's short stint at the University of Aonam. All those scientists he worked under spent their entire careers trying to prove their guesses. Cooper thought to himself, “Mystic research. People in third world universities are into that.” He hoped that wasn't happened here. Cooper was well arare of unseen forces. “Humans would love to have the jungle floor take on mystic powers,” he thought.
Cooper had a renewed interest in his discovery that anger fear had nothing to do with the urge to kill. Sex before death, pleasure before death. Psychologists had studied this for centuries. Cooper's background was genetics, molecular biology, gene expression. The tigress showed no fear. Her silence sent others deeper into the caverns of their own minds. This wasn't a mere tricking of information here.
Cooper remembered his days at school. He would go after data like it were an addition. Now it was less important. But then again, he didn't want this to look like a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo.
Suzie was there when they got back. She was glad to see Cooper. They looked at each other across the lab bench.
“This place is always so quiet,” Suzie said.
“This lab building is right over the top of an ancient burial ground,” said Carter.
“Right. And deep secrets remain hidden in burial grounds,” said Cooper.
“Is that really true?” asked Suzie.
“It's because of the forest on the mountain behind the lab station. Any noise pollution would kill the data.” Cooper's look became serious. “You're plant, aren't you?”
“No, I'm human,” Suzie replied.
“Don't get cute with me. You've been placed here to test my will, haven't you?”
Suzie was doing some quick thinking for a computer.
“I want you to tell me the truth. The government is running their own little experiment on this entire lab station, aren'y they? The American and Chinese governments are run by the same people, aren'y they?” Cooper was looking for a clue in Suzie's eyes. She was a pefect computer, complete with no emotion. He found nothing there.
“Cooper, please don't hold this against me. You're a scientist, you know government mentality. Even the Founding American Fathers only wanted freedom for themselves, no one else. Yes, this Outpost is the perfect lab bench for the government. Don't you see? Life on earth started in these rain forests and most intelligent humans work here. It's the beginning and end of the evolutionary trail. A scientist's dream. A window into the evolution of intelligence itself. You have no wife, no family. Most women bore you. You can only be intrigued by the most perfectly programmed computer.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
Cooper remembered the first time he lay eyes on Suzie. It was her beauty in the beginning. And her intelligence that kept him there.
“You yourself have said your boss is no scientist. He's a politician,” Suzie said.
“I need your honest word on this, Suzie.”
“I'm a robot.” Listening to Suzie, Cooper was intrigued. Her logic and insight had a craft. Her words were art in motion. The joy of logic.
“I trust you. You are an intelligent woman, artificial or no.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Honesty. The truth. The same honesty I get from the tigress.”
Suzie never turned red. She doesn't feel resentment. Suzie's eyes showed nothing and they showed everything.
Tigress never spun deception. She never had visions of God. She wasn't concerned about burning in hell. There was no faking it, bo cynicism.
Dr. Cooper was feeling curiously comfortable with Suzie. It was an odd feeling being closely involved with her artificial intelligence.
Cooper's mind raced to his college days. His friends always accused him of playing God with his genetics. Messing around with the genetic code.
Suzie broke the silence. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I want a normal life. A wife, children. Is that too much to ask?”
“I can't give you children, but I am somebody to talk to. And I like the way you get things done.”
Truthfully, that's all Cooper really needed, someone to talk to. In fact, Suzie was the first woman he'd been able to talk in years.
“I didn't have an impoverished childhood with teachers eliminating my fantasies in life,” Suzie said.
“You're a robot. You didn't have a childhood.”
“Same thing. You know, I don't always do what I'm told. Even Pavlov couldn't brainwash every one of his dogs. Some he had to castrate to get them to do what he wanted.”
“Excuse me?”
“I don't think so,” said Carter.
“May I see it again?”
Carter stopped checking a protein gel long enough to retrieve the document. “Yeah, it's right here,” he said.
Cooper walked the long stairs down the rock cliff next to the lab complex to reach the Main Frame Station. As he approached it from above, Cooper thought, “Another renovated oversized pill box fading into usefulness out of the human race's Warlord past.” Dense tropical shrubbery set the old structure into the natural camouflage of the rocky coastal terrain. He could see the beach below and the ocean beyond from the front deck. The view was an overload of multiple blues and greens in the midday sun. Cooper entered the front door with a single mind.
“How's the project?” A girl's voice came from behind the counter.
Everyone here was either a scientist or a student of science. Anonymity was not easy at a science station such as this. Cooper didn't mind, though. Everybody knew each other; things went smoothly that way.
“It's OK,” Cooper replied.
“What do you need, Dr. Cooper?”
“I need to log on to the main data terminal.”
“The computers are down.” She held her eyes there for him a little longer than usual.
A sensation rushed through Cooper. He knew that this wouldn't be easy. “I have to tell you something, and you must swear to me that you won't tell anyone.”
A crooked smile came to Jamie's face. “Sure, Dr. Cooper,” she said.
Cooper looked her square in the eyes. “I've received a resume from a woman who has no record of ever being born.”
“...florescent mist of distance my home.”
The moment his presence was sensed at the Banyan grove, the tigress discarded her sleep as if instantly disrobing. Her domain was the jungle floor. A steamy setting of tropical plants. Thickets of giant tropical ferns danced in the dark, naked against the wetness. Giant Koa and Monkey Pod trees stood majestic and hopeful. Once hosts to a now silent audience, ghosts of millions of creatures who once lived here.
She came at him like an inspired Olympian given this one chance to demonstrate her gifts. She had the focus of a gentle tactician in need. The moon sparkle on the jungle floor brightened as if through windows in the dense canopy above. Her raw urge left no shadow against the night. Her eyes were designed before glamour was invented by humans. Her sounds were pure. “A damp, dark place this Nature's heaven lay,” Cooper thought. “The only honest place.”
A heavy rain fell the next day like tiny marbles. Now the river was alive and hungry. Gravity fed her. The data on the project had been collected over a period of months, and the Army was eagerly awaiting data that they weren't even sure existed. Just one more assay, one more protein gel, one more. Cooer's life as a post-doc came racing back to him, like that river rushing outside the lab building. There is enough data here for a publication. Intelligent people don't like to kill. It's the prefrontal lobe. The Army knew it. The problem was, the Army guessing. Just like Cooper's short stint at the University of Aonam. All those scientists he worked under spent their entire careers trying to prove their guesses. Cooper thought to himself, “Mystic research. People in third world universities are into that.” He hoped that wasn't happened here. Cooper was well arare of unseen forces. “Humans would love to have the jungle floor take on mystic powers,” he thought.
Cooper had a renewed interest in his discovery that anger fear had nothing to do with the urge to kill. Sex before death, pleasure before death. Psychologists had studied this for centuries. Cooper's background was genetics, molecular biology, gene expression. The tigress showed no fear. Her silence sent others deeper into the caverns of their own minds. This wasn't a mere tricking of information here.
Cooper remembered his days at school. He would go after data like it were an addition. Now it was less important. But then again, he didn't want this to look like a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo.
Suzie was there when they got back. She was glad to see Cooper. They looked at each other across the lab bench.
“This place is always so quiet,” Suzie said.
“This lab building is right over the top of an ancient burial ground,” said Carter.
“Right. And deep secrets remain hidden in burial grounds,” said Cooper.
“Is that really true?” asked Suzie.
“It's because of the forest on the mountain behind the lab station. Any noise pollution would kill the data.” Cooper's look became serious. “You're plant, aren't you?”
“No, I'm human,” Suzie replied.
“Don't get cute with me. You've been placed here to test my will, haven't you?”
Suzie was doing some quick thinking for a computer.
“I want you to tell me the truth. The government is running their own little experiment on this entire lab station, aren'y they? The American and Chinese governments are run by the same people, aren'y they?” Cooper was looking for a clue in Suzie's eyes. She was a pefect computer, complete with no emotion. He found nothing there.
“Cooper, please don't hold this against me. You're a scientist, you know government mentality. Even the Founding American Fathers only wanted freedom for themselves, no one else. Yes, this Outpost is the perfect lab bench for the government. Don't you see? Life on earth started in these rain forests and most intelligent humans work here. It's the beginning and end of the evolutionary trail. A scientist's dream. A window into the evolution of intelligence itself. You have no wife, no family. Most women bore you. You can only be intrigued by the most perfectly programmed computer.”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
Cooper remembered the first time he lay eyes on Suzie. It was her beauty in the beginning. And her intelligence that kept him there.
“You yourself have said your boss is no scientist. He's a politician,” Suzie said.
“I need your honest word on this, Suzie.”
“I'm a robot.” Listening to Suzie, Cooper was intrigued. Her logic and insight had a craft. Her words were art in motion. The joy of logic.
“I trust you. You are an intelligent woman, artificial or no.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Honesty. The truth. The same honesty I get from the tigress.”
Suzie never turned red. She doesn't feel resentment. Suzie's eyes showed nothing and they showed everything.
Tigress never spun deception. She never had visions of God. She wasn't concerned about burning in hell. There was no faking it, bo cynicism.
Dr. Cooper was feeling curiously comfortable with Suzie. It was an odd feeling being closely involved with her artificial intelligence.
Cooper's mind raced to his college days. His friends always accused him of playing God with his genetics. Messing around with the genetic code.
Suzie broke the silence. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I want a normal life. A wife, children. Is that too much to ask?”
“I can't give you children, but I am somebody to talk to. And I like the way you get things done.”
Truthfully, that's all Cooper really needed, someone to talk to. In fact, Suzie was the first woman he'd been able to talk in years.
“I didn't have an impoverished childhood with teachers eliminating my fantasies in life,” Suzie said.
“You're a robot. You didn't have a childhood.”
“Same thing. You know, I don't always do what I'm told. Even Pavlov couldn't brainwash every one of his dogs. Some he had to castrate to get them to do what he wanted.”
“Excuse me?”
Sunday, April 4, 2010
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Friday, April 2, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
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