Simulant Series ©

By Thomas Hartman, Copyrighted material published on-line by Symbiotic Publishing, August 2001, all rights reserved.

(Note this file is the Author's working draft. It will change and includes notes normally indicated as bullet points that will be expanded on in the finished book.)

 

 

Chapter One

 

Interview with the Simulant Creator

 

Dr. Robert “Bob” Thompson, the worlds leading computer scientist, has been compared favorably to Leonardo da Vinci as the new Renaissance man; a scientist, inventor and artist. There are those Luddites among us who hate what he has created and his few critics say he is just another overpaid computer programmer, but even his harshest critics have to admit that his programs create pseudo art, offer us hope in fighting disease, new farming techniques to feed the hungry and the list goes on. He has affected the world around us in so many ways that it would be impossible to gauge the effect that this one man has had

 

In June 2004 he was issued a patent for the world’s first environmentally aware computer model or simulation, commonly referred to as a “Simulant.” This clever bit of computer code lives out it’s sometimes millisecond lives span inside of every computer on the earth and in space today. It is in your oven, toaster, aircraft, and of course the network. We secured an exclusive interview with Dr. Thompson.

 

Journal: First, thank you Dr. Thompson for agreeing to this interview. We all know how jealousy you guard your time.

 

Bob: You’re welcome. Please call me, Bob.

 

Journal: What caused you to think of the idea of an environmentally aware simulation?

 

Bob: I’d love to take credit for it but simulations have been around for a very long time. In fact, computers were invented to simulate the world around us. The first computers were developed to mathematically predict the fall of an artillery round for the military. In the simplest terms, it was a simulation of how a round of artillery would behave when fired at a given angle with a given charge.

 

Journal: Of course your self-contained programs or Simulants as they are popularly called are much more complex than a simple mathematical model.

 

Bob: Of course, this has always been the challenge. While working at Holbert University my team and I were studying computer modeling and simulations, building on the long rich history. We searched for the Holy Grail of both artificial intelligence and simulations, which is, Awareness. By the way, I am not fond of the term Simulants, it is a marketer term, but just so we don’t confuse your readers we can use that term for these programs.

 

Journal: Sorry, so the key is Awareness?

 

Bob: Yes, awareness is what makes these programs work. If you looked at a simple simulation before we developed our program it was flawed, often fatally, because the simulation reacted in the way the programmer designed it to act. It really was more of a demonstration of an idea than a simulation. Our programs are simple but they have the abilities that model our own.

 

Journal: So what is the difference between a computer demonstration and a simulation?

 

Bob: Everything! In the late 20th century computer “simulations” of traffic were built. The typical example would be that the city planners of, lets say London, wanted to see what affect the automobiles entering the city each day had and minimize this effect. The problem is that the models might demonstrate a problem, but they did not simulate the problem. The first simple models placed cars in simulated London and with some crude artificial intelligence they would be programmed to move around the city. This didn’t come close to approximating real life. The cars would just randomly move along the streets.

 

The programmers would add in rules such, as 75% of the cars must enter between 7:30 am and 9:00 am. Each new problem would be solved with a new rule. In the end the program would accurately demonstrate a problem. In most cases it was a known problem such as there were too many cars trying to enter London between seven thirty and nine, but it never simulated the environment well enough to give us answers. Drivers react differently. Someone familiar with London acts differently than someone just driving down to visit.

The city planners could not even figure out where everyone parked their personal automobiles. On any given business day London had 25% fewer parking spaces than it had automobiles. Where were these automobiles stored? The programmers finally had to just give up and reduced the number of cars by 25% so that they could observe the traffic patterns. The real average traffic speed in London was around 9 miles an hour at the time but without removing the additional traffic load nothing moved in the simulation.

 

Journal: What use was it then if it was wrong?

 

Bob: It really wasn’t that useful as a simulation but it was immensely important to those of us who followed those early pioneers. We built on their work. In some cases, like the London traffic problem, we took their actual simulation and added our Simulants into it allowing them to interact with what really was just a random rules based simulation.

 

Journal: So the addition of Artificial Intelligence was the key?

 

Bob: Yes and No, a simulation would not work without artificial intelligence. What our company has done is to build the most complex environmentally aware program ever, but the environment itself has to provide the proper stimulus. The Simulants have to act intelligently, but there is much more to it. The program has to be environmentally aware, and the environment has to provide the correct stimulus.

 

Journal: I know you hate the label but “Self Aware?”

 

Bob: I really don’t hate the phrase self-aware. It is just not accurate. These programs must be self-contained but interactive; they must of course be self-aware but only because they must be environmentally aware. They must interact with the entire environment in a predictable and accurate way. In the London traffic model when we introduced our Simulants they would illegally park their cars. Under the old method we would have made a rule that either stopped this or we would have allowed it at a predicted rate. The key was how do you predict the rate of illegal parking? So we made the environment more complex by introducing Simulant traffic police with fines and clamps. Our Simulants learned how to maximize their use of illegal parking spaces while reducing the number of times that they were fined or clamped.

 

It is much more complex than I can describe but you see it every day in computer games and screen savers. The simulated man gets a promotion and stops using a very safe illegal parking space and rents a legal space. I have had more than one person complain to me that the game gets more boring as the player gets more resources. It doesn’t of course, but funny things like watching a player’s reaction to their car being clamped do disappear once there are enough resources and motivation to eliminate the issue. Our company makes what we like to refer to as the stupid pill program, which allows our Simulants to make bad choices. We developed it to simulate addictive behavior but is has been a huge revenue generator in the game market. People like to be smarter than their programs and let’s face it, we aren’t.

 

Journal: It is comments like that, that caused so much controversy.

 

Bob: Don’t I know it! These are simulations. I get very upset with my staff if they refer to any instance of our program as a “man” or “person.” We are Man. They are programs, simulations of Man but still just computer programs. They are of course smarter than we are in many ways. On the flip side we have never been able to get them to use more than 10% of their total memory and reasoning capacity at one time. We have created a very realistic model, of course it is electronic instead of chemically based as our own brain is. All real life is based on three types of interaction. The first is physical, the best example is how we move our muscles, they are attached to our bones and when they contract, we move. In Simulants we simulate the muscles and the bones so they move exactly like we do. The second is chemical, we release chemicals like insulin into our blood stream, and in Simulants we again simulate this so that the simulation has value. We can operate on a Simulant in the same way we operate on real Man. The last is electronic which in real life plays a very minor role but is the basis of Simulated life.

 

Journal: Doesn't that destroy the value of the simulation?

 

Bob: It does hurt the simulation. For example we are still unable to simulate many complex medical operations or treatments. An example would be that we can only carry out simulations into meditation techniques and disorders by translation. Simulants don't really use meditation like we do. They have what is called a dream state or dreaming. We built into the simulation a translation from this dream state to meditation, it is not perfect but works pretty well. It does also mean unfortunately that the Simulants have done a lot of work in areas that are useless in real life and sometimes concern us.

 

Journal: Concern you. Why?

 

Bob: They have developed methods of treatments based on the electronic nature of their existence. They have created devices that measure the current flow in pyramidal cells, the generation and the detection of an electric field. We were very excited when they first created a device called an Electroencephalography (EEG) machine. We use it today to test neural networks but it also concerned us. At first we thought that the Simulants would start to understand that they were not real. We assumed that they would understand that electricity does not play a major role in life, but of course it does in their simulated world. Plants, animals, everything that is alive in the simulation is made in the same way, of the same thing, and of course since we are doing this in a computer it has to be based on electrical activity. It amazed us when in a simulation they connected one of these EEG devices to a plant and then yelled, screamed, sang or killed something and the plant reacted. Of course it has to because in a simulation everything is interconnected, but real plants don't care if you kill a real shrimp, but in our simulated world they do. The Simulants have found how to measure and study this. Surprisingly they don't seem to be overly concerned about it.

 

Journal: Excuse me, simulated plants care if the Simulants kill simulated shrimp?

 

Bob: Yes, amazing isn't it. We tried everything to stop the experiments and we have suppressed the information where we can, but a Simulant hooked up one of these EEG machines to a plant and tested its reaction. Of course in real life a plant is a plant, so nothing would happen, but in a simulation a plant is made out of the same electronic pulses that all simulated life is made of, so it has a measurable electronic field. It is also carried on the same electronic circuits so you can measure the nuclear magnetic resonance of the circuits themselves. The experiment that concerned us the most was when the Simulant scientists hooked up the EEG to a plant and started to measure its reaction to different stimuli. It started to get silly, no real scientists would try singing or talking to a plant and measuring the reaction but of course in our simulated world there is a reaction, so the Simulant scientist were puzzled but continued to try new experiments. In one of the experiments she hooked up the EEG to the plant and then dropped live small crustaceans called fairy shrimp into boiling water. This of course cooked them and killed them. The EEG showed that the plant reacted to the death of the simulated fairy shrimp. The scientists went even farther, by dropping frozen fairy shrimp which of course were already dead and live shrimp into the boiling water. The plant reacted to the death of the live shrimp but there was no electronic reaction when a frozen shrimp was dropped into the boiling water.

 

Journal: So you built simulated plants to be sensitive to the simulated death of any other simulated life?

 

Bob: Not really, or at least we didn't try to build that kind of sensitivity into plants. It has something to do with the release of computing power when something is killed in the simulation. Even a fairy shrimp or a plant has to use some computing power so when it dies that computing power is released back to the network. The Simulant scientist was measuring this release as experienced electronically by the plant.

 

Journal: Does this happen in real life?

 

Bob: Of course not. Our atoms use electrical forces. But electricity plays almost no role in how we think or transmit information. Real life is based on chemical interaction, as you know it is how the neurons work in our brains. How we create connections that build memories but we still do not know enough to reproduce exactly the multiprocessing efficiencies that man has. We have been able to simulate all of the neurons in the brain and we have even been able to simulate the specific sequence of neuronal interaction but in Simulants we do this using electricity. It is still a very primitive representation of what Man is really capable of.

The advantage that they have is their brains are much faster. We think that the very simplicity of only using 10% of the capacity at one time makes them faster. They are also not restricted to linear thought, as we are. We can move the simulation at differing rates which allows information to flow to them at the maximum rate they are capable of processing. They live, reproduce and thrive in environments that I am sure Man would not be able to survive in, at least not without first running a simulation to determine survival strategies. We can of course allow all of the programs to die and restart the simulation with new programs and make changes to the environment.

 

Journal: You keep using the words die and killed. It is very hard to follow. This is a simulated fairy shrimp, plant or person we are talking about. Do they really die?

 

Bob: Of course, how accurate can a simulation be without consequences? I love to fly aircraft simulations and of course I do dangerous things like fly under bridges. Would I do it in real life? Of course not, even if I survived I would be locked up. You have to provide all of the inputs to make a simulation work, not just hunger, thirst, and pain. You need affection, friendship, personality, fear, intelligence, logic, motivation, environment, genetic traits and so on.

 

Journal: Genetic traits?

 

Bob: Yes we place genes in each program. It is a coding mechanism. These genes provide a great deal of information that is used by the program during its lifespan, and we have provided a mechanism where this code can be combined during renewal or birth of subsequent programs. It allows variation, some good, some bad, and some neutral. We are just mimicking what we see in sexual reproduction of animals.

 

Journal: Fascinating.

 

Bob: It is extremely important in our long-term simulations, global warming, planet colonization, and space travel. We don’t allow it in our short-term simulations because it introduces unrealistic or unnecessary aspects.

 

Journal: Let’s get back to death. How long does your average program live?

 

Bob: It depends on your definition. We of course create restore points either based on time or at key events. We use these restore points to create multiple instances of the program. Most simulations are really multiple simulations with multiple instances branching at decision points. Since we control time we can run thousands of scenarios in the time it takes Man to make a single critical decision. In our early work we loaded 1024 replicas of the same program into a combat aircraft management system. Each time a situation, either simulated or really occurred, 1024 possible scenarios were executed. Those with favorable outcomes were explored more fully and unfavorable ones were restarted from a restore point and tasked to try to optimize the favorable outcomes even more. This happens in milliseconds. The only noticeable problem, which we have not worked out, is that the programs experience a simulation phenomenon that they have defined as déjà vu.

 

Journal: I’m sorry. I have to ask you two questions now. How can the Simulants define something, and what is déjà vu?

 

Bob: Let me explain. Simulants communicate with us in the normal way: they talk, move, and enter data into our systems, all at computer speed. But some of their ideas are foreign to us and, of course, some of our concepts have not been entered into their simulated world so are foreign to them. We do not allow them to interact directly with us because it would destroy the simulation. If I thought I was a computer program controlled by an outside force, I would behave differently. There are also experiences in the simulation that do not exist in our world such as; we don’t die and then immediately restart at a restore point. In some cases simple Simulants like the one in your toaster were designed to always restart from a restore point. The toaster company puts a Simulant in the toaster to mimic your likes and dislikes based on smell which in a Stimulant’s case provides both the sense of smell and taste, along with temperature, color, and some other inputs that we have added over the years.

 

The key is the Simulant understands what you like. If you have ever used an antique toaster you would see that they were terrible. Bread would come out underdone while a waffle or pastry would come out burned. There is also a personal preference. I don’t know why people who lived together but liked things toasted by different amounts didn’t just go out and buy two of the things. But when we allowed the Simulant in the toaster to operate all the time it got, for the lack of a better word, bored. I use the toaster analogy because it was where we first discovered déjà vu. The idea was that your tastes change. Sometimes you like toast a bit more toasted, it often has something to do with the weather, cold, rain, but I am getting off the subject. We wanted to allow the Simulant to get input from you and measure the environment to simulate what you really wanted.

 

Journal: Sounds like a great idea and my toaster does seem to understand my moods.

 

Bob: Yes but the way we tried to do it by saving a new restore point at the end of the process caused us problems. We discovered this déjà vu phenomenon. The inputs from the Simulant indicated that it was aware in a vague sense that something wasn’t right. It reported back that it was aware of having already experienced something, which it was actually experiencing for the first time. It thought this was an illusion, which of course it wasn’t. The Simulant did not allow for the idea that it was repeating the same task over and over. First we decided to ignore it, we figured who really cares if a Simulant has a slightly uncomfortable feeling any way. I mean we do allow them to feel real pain from their point of view so déjà vu didn’t seem so bad. The only problem was if you let a Simulant experience déjà vu for a while it becomes so confused that it burns your toast while it is trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

 

Journal: You’re just making that up. I have never had a toaster burn my toast except as a college prank by my friends so it would activate the smoke alarms.

 

Bob: Nope they would do it, or at the very least your toast would take a lot longer to toast. We solved the problem by changing the simulation. The Simulant doesn’t believe that it is making toast at all. It believes it is working on the factory floor in the year 2005 making plastic parts. It is a very boring job but we got rid of the déjà vu and still allow it to learn that you don’t always like your toast cooked the exact same way. In power save mode we run a simple family simulation complete with simulated sick days. It is kind of funny the lengths that we go to just to be sure that you get bread toasted the way you like it.

 

Journal: How do you communicate with them? Get them to do whatever it is that you want?

 

Bob: Sorry my legal department would have a fit if I told you. You know the saying, “If I told you, I would have to kill you.”

 

Journal: How about you just tell me a little and rough me up a bit?

 

Bob: I can tell you a few things we do. We place other Simulants in the program that help direct the targeted Simulant to make the decision choices that we want. For example in our toaster simulation most of the Simulants don’t like working in a plastic plant. They are constantly looking for other jobs. We have made it very hard for them to find other work. If they apply for another position, we fill it with another Simulant and also make the interview process very painful. Some Simulants do leave the plastic plant because we have to allow them to exercise freewill or the simulation breaks down. So even in our simulated world, life is not perfect.

 

Journal: You said a few things. What other ways can you communicate with them?

 

Bob: We also created a state in which we can directly program them. We placed it in their rest period. The Simulants call it “Dreaming.” My former colleague Ann Dominique developed it and wrote a very interesting paper on it. If your readers want to better understand Simulant subconscious programming techniques and program interaction, I highly recommend reading it.

 

Journal: For those of us that would get lost reading a scientific paper, can you explain the concept?

 

Bob: Not as well as Ann would have, but the idea is simple enough. In real life we rest, which allows our bodies to recover from our daily activities and we meditate to reorganize our mental processes. The Simulants are models of us but we combine these two activities into one in them. They rest but during their rest they go into a subconscious state that they call dreaming. We can enter in this dream state without them being aware and place key ideas, thoughts, and motivations into their sub-routines. When they wake they act on these ideas.

 

It is very subtle and its effectiveness varies but it is one of our best tools when working with the Simulants. They often are confused about an important decision because we would like them to take one action and they would like to take another. We reprogram them in their sleep and they most often, but not always, decide to follow up on our implanted idea. It has become so common that the Simulants often use the phrase “Let me sleep on it.” The phrase still cracks my team up.

 

Journal: So our Simulants are an accurate representation of us?

 

Bob: Far from it, they are the best representation of us so far but we may never be able to really simulate Man. A former colleague of mine would have argued that we never should. They are a perfect balance between a good representation of us and a tuned environment. Let me give you an example, the simplest is they are color-blind. To overcome this we create an environment that provides them with all of the stimulation that they need in their range of vision.

 

Journal: Color blind, you mean they cannot see?

 

Bob: Kind of, it is very hard to explain. The first thing to understand is that a Simulant is a simplified representation of us. They look like us but their inputs are greatly simplified. Their vision, unlike ours, is tied to a single system. They can only see using their eyes and even their eyes are greatly simplified. They sense a very small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. While we can process everything in the electromagnetic spectrum that has a wavelength from 10-7 to 10-2 centimeters, they can only process an amazingly small segment of the spectrum. Simulants can only see the colors yellow and blue. We need them to believe they see the same colors as we do: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. What we define as indigo in real life, they define as ultraviolet in the simulation. What we call orange they call infrared.

 

It is important for the simulation to work that they think they see all of the colors we see. Stoplights have to be red, yellow and green but since we cannot program them with the ability to see all of the colors, we change the simulated environment to match their abilities. This means that a dull yellow light is perceived by a Simulant as a very bright red, and a cleaner yellow is perceived as very bright green. Color translation takes place everywhere in the simulation. The sky is blue in both the real world and in the simulation. But in their world the sky is really green since our blue is their violet. It normally takes one of our employees a couple of months to understand color translation correctly.

 

Since we don’t understand the concept of not seeing all of the colors, they often ask the question as you did, “Are Simulants blind?” The simple answer is no. They think they see exactly like we do, but we haven’t been able to program them to have our level of vision so we just translate colors for them. The concept is so hard to understand that we don’t even have a term for it in real life. We got the term color-blind from the Simulants themselves since some of them, because of genetic programming, cannot even see everything within their limited visible range.

 

Journal: I think you might be losing the reader, I know you have lost me. What other simplifications have you implemented?

 

Bob: Almost everything is simplified. They cannot feel or hear the differences between colors. We have allowed them to use only a single primary sense to understand the world around them. They see colors, feel physical shapes, hear sounds, and so on. The only success we have had so far in allowing them to process multiple inputs is their sense of taste. They taste primarily through smell but we have been able to provide them some additional rudimentary taste processing on their tongues. It is nowhere near as subtle as our sense of taste. They love things that are creamy, salty, and sweet. They also sense bitter and sour which they may or may not like.

 

Their food would be very boring for us. Also the things that we love they would find bland, vegetables, for example, are considered very bland by Simulants. They often cover them with fat or cook them in spices. Also most things taste the same to them, having more to do with texture than with what we would call taste. Surprisingly most meats taste like chicken to them and they often finish eating a meal without ever really knowing what it was that they ate.

 

Journal: So Bob, I am curious? If you don’t like the marketing term Simulant, what does your team call them around the office?

 

Bob: Actually we do call them Simulants, but in the beginning since we developed them at the University. We named them after the College, Holbert University Man. Funny enough the name stuck but only in the simulation. Now we have given up and we all call them Simulants. The marketing department hated the Holbert name so we never use it anymore. In the simulation they always refer to themselves using the abbreviation HU-Man. Sometimes they add the word race to the end. We assume it is due to the speed in which they develop.

 

They talk about themselves as human and the human race. They also have developed additional classifications for themselves. Males retain Man, while females are referred to as Woman. Also they have additional names for themselves based loosely on the geographical location of the simulation that they were created in. These names evolved over time and provide a constant source of amusement for the programmers.

 

Journal: Dr. Thompson it has been a pleasure interviewing you, and I am sure our readers will find your ideas as fascinating as your company and technology.

 

Bob: Thank you.

 

Chapter Two

 

Thompson Simulations Inc. Corporate Headquarters

 

Bob got back to the office around noon. The team asked him how the interview went “It was fine. Softball all the way, just like Mike told me it would be.” Bob didn’t mind talking with the normal press. It was the technology press that drove him crazy. They were like children, sometimes smarter than you thought and sometimes dumber than you thought and just as dangerous, because you never knew when they were going to be which. “Any way it should reduce our risk. I cannot believe that we are in this situation. We are more profitable than any company in history. We have contracts with every major corporation. We have no competition and from the looks of it we never will since even we cannot recreate a Simulant from scratch.

 

Thompson Simulations Inc. had one secret that only its board of Directors and Bob’s senior management team knew. Even though they could copy and create all of the Simulants that their customers would ever need or want, no one, not even Bob could create a new one. They needed a seed from an existing Simulant with all of the problems that this created. “We have to solve this problem. We can not keep copying and reprogramming Simulant 4129 even if it is the only Simulant that has the intelligence, reaction speed, aggression, and most importantly the compassion that we need for our most complex simulations.”

 

Bob looked frustrated and said; “I can not believe that I let that moron play God in the beginning before we fully understood what we had. Fucking Pete! I need to go over there and see what is happening with the military contract for the fly by wire system. I got a bunch of voice mails from the project managers saying they need us to staff up the project.” Bob had always respected Peter’s work but there was something a bit dishonest about him. He was brilliant but tended to take short cuts and to delegate the impossible to his staff while taking full credit for everyone’s success. He loved religion, every religion. He had spent tremendous amounts of time and resources studying the world’s religions and religious myths. This preoccupation with religion lead to Ann’s belief that he had a “God complex.” It got under Ann’s skin and had driven a wedge between her and Peter. Bob had to intervene and since he was especially fond of Ann he was often perceived as playing favorites by Peter.

 

Thompson Simulations Inc. Systems Interfaces Lab

 

Dr. Peter Johnson, General Manager of Simulant Systems Interfaces, looked around his newly equipped lab. It was a far cry from the cramped lab he had used when he had joined Bob and Ann years ago. He was positive that his research would make all of the difference in finding a way to gain some additional control over the Simulants. He was sure Bob thought the same way because he continued to fund his every request.

 

Peter often felt like he was the only member of the team that understood that while freewill was a critical component, the company needed to influence the Simulants long-term behavior. He had proven beyond any doubt that he could influence the Simulants by introducing myth and religious beliefs. While not all of the results were 100% positive and he had alienated Ann he felt that his contribution was the key to the company’s success. Ann was too timid, and her ethical concerns often got in the way of results. She was a typical liberal activist her views were correct and any opposing views were racist, extremist, dangerous or just plain stupid. She saw the world as simple and results predicable if only everyone finally came around to the obvious correct solution which of course was her solution.

 

Peter’s team was working on one of the company’s cash cows, military simulations. The team was running a simulation of the US Navy’s version of the Joint Strike Fighter. All Combat aircraft are designed to be fatally unstable; it allows them to have superior maneuverability. Pilots need to be able to radically change direction and a stable plane is a target, not a fighter. Since the very beginning aircraft designers have tried to balance stability against maneuverability. The introduction of sophisticated computers and “fly by wire” systems allowed them to remove the direct connection between the joystick, rudder pedals and the planes’ control surfaces. Pilots hated the idea; they wanted to know that when they pushed the stick over that they would be directly controlling the aircraft. “Fly by Wire” had become so common that all military and commercial aircraft rely on it.

 

Even automobiles started to use fly by wire in the late 20th century the first step was called anti-lock braking systems. The driver would push down on the brake and a computer would decide how much braking to apply so the car would stop in the minimum distance necessary. No matter how hard the driver pushed on the pedal the system would systematically release the brakes to avoid locking the tires and losing traction. The driver or the pilot was in control of the vehicle but they were only providing the input that told the computer what the operator wanted to have happen next. The computer would decide how to accomplish what the operator was requesting.

 

Thompson Simulation’s addition of Simulants was a quantum leap. The Simulants would directly control the inputs. They would fly the airplane still accepting inputs from the real pilot but they would sometimes override the pilot and in some situations they would take complete control of the aircraft. This happened during launch operations, pilot blackout, pilot confusion, overload, and critical injury. The Simulants were programmed to simulate a real pilot so they would not violate man’s real physical limitations.

 

A computer program in a modern jet could pull enough G’s to permanently incapacitate the real pilot. Simulants allowed the plane to recover without subjecting the pilot to additional risk. Simulant pilots are not restricted to a normal timescale so they can simulate a situation that may fail but still have time to recover. The introduction of multiple Simulants also allowed many choices to be made by the Simulants and the best outcome to be used by the pilot or aircraft. Simulants are not only used in production aircraft they are used in simulations of pre-production aircraft. This allows a manufactures to test their designs before going into production.

 

 

Chapter Three

 

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) somewhere in the Pacific Area of Operations

 

Lieutenant David Grant, United States Navy looked over his new Joint Strike Fighter. At $35 million dollars he still thought the Navy had gotten a bargain. It was fast, sleek, and sexy. It could carry 16,000 pounds of fuel and 17,000 pounds of payload anywhere within a 600 nautical mile radius off his ship. The deck was crowded with aircraft but since the Strike Fighter was the newest airplane in the fleet it was getting more then its fair share of looks from even this jaded crew. It might have been the newest but with all of the other aircraft moved topside for air operations it was still crammed in with the others. That meant that it was parked so the back half of the plane was hanging off the side of the ship. It always made him nervous because it meant he could not do a full walk around. He didn’t have a bunch of hours in this bird either since he had just finished the orientation flights required before going to sea with it.

 

He loved the bird but he knew it was going to move his pucker factor off the scale to launch this thing down the deck for the first time. It was a nightmare bringing it onboard but a launch always spooked him more. He wasn’t sure why but assumed it was because one hour and forty minutes after they shot you off the deck you had to bring it around to land on something that looked like a postage stamp. The other problem with these new birds was you had to keep your hands off the stick during take-off. The new fighters were built to fly themselves off the carrier. He hated being a passenger especially when he was pulling 3g’s and going from zero to 160 miles per hour in less than 3 seconds. He did his walk around or at least as much of a walk around as he could do with out stepping off the side of the ship. He climbed up into the cockpit.

 

The deck was a bit slick and the plane skidded a few times as he moved it over to the catapult. His heart raced each time the wheels skated across the few spots where the deck's protective coating had been worn away. This was definitely different than taxiing over to the big wide runway he launched from back in San Diego. Dave did his final checks, returned the plane directors’ salute, kicked his afterburners in and raised both of his hands so the “yellow shirt” could see them and waited. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Just as he launched off the deck he heard a low growl that he had never heard before and the plane started to do a quick barrel roll to the right. He grabbed for the stick and then realized that he needed to eject.

 

He let go of the stick and grabbed for the ejection handle. The barrel roll was slowing as he pulled the handle and felt the 12g kick of the rocket motors. He realized too late that with the aircraft almost inverted and pitched under the horizon 60 degrees his combined speed as he launched himself into the ocean was over 200 miles per hour. It didn’t matter that he was also just about to be run over by his own ship since he was dead as soon as he hit the ocean. It wouldn’t have matter if he hadn’t pulled the ejection handles. What was left of his plane was run over just 30 seconds later and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. His unusually fast reaction time had allowed him to eject from his fatally crippled aircraft, which allowed the Navy to recover his body and return it to his wife and family for a Christian burial.

 

Lieutenant David Grant did his walk around of his new US Navy Joint Strike Fighter, or at least as much of a walk around as he could do with out stepping off the side of the ship to inspect the back half of plane that hung over the side. He climbed up into the cockpit.

 

The deck was a bit slick and the plane skidded a few times as he jockey it over to the catapult. His heart raced each time the wheels skated across the few spots where the deck's protective coating had been worn away. This was definitely different than taxiing over to the big wide runway he launched from back in San Diego. David did his final checks, returned the yellow shirts’ salute, kicked his afterburners in and raised both of his hands so the plane director could see them, and waited.

 

As his head was pushed back in to the headrest he dropped his hands to the stick. He was too old and too good to let some computer fly him into the ocean, it was against all of the Navy’s flight rules and would have gotten him grounded if they caught him doing it, but he planned on getting older. So he gripped the stick like he was holding on to a baby chick but held it he did. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Just as he launched off the deck he heard a low growl that he had never heard before and the plane started to do a quick barrel roll to the right. He pulled the stick back to the left but the barrel roll continued. He looked as the nose pitched over and the sky was replaced by ocean.

 

David was about to pull the ejection handle but realized it would have just launched him straight into the ocean. He pulled the stick over in the opposite direction and the barrel roll sped up. It was like being back in a centrifuge. The moment he saw the sky again he let go of the stick and reached down between his legs and pulled up on the ejection handle. The barrel roll was slowing as he pulled the handle and felt the 12g kick of the rocket motors. He had the strongest sense of déjà vu he had ever had as he escaped from his stricken aircraft.

 

The seat stabilized and a funny thought crossed his mind, McDonnell Douglas was going to buy him dinner, because he had just raised their percentage of successful out of envelope ejections. The next thought was that he was about to get very wet. His crippled plane flew on for another 30 seconds and then smashed into the ocean. The Navy would try to recover it but the water was deep and the wreckage would drift down over a pretty big area. This was their newest fighter but the focus of the program had been affordability. They used off the shelf parts so no great secrets were slipping into the deep. David couldn’t help but think maybe affordability wasn’t the best goal to have when building high performance fighter aircraft, at least not the ones that he had to fly.

 

He bobbed in the ocean and waited for the rescue chopper to come fish him out and take him back to his ship. This was going to be a very long cruise, now that he had sent his assigned airplane into the ocean. The "Air Boss" frowned on all the paperwork that was required when one of their pilots lost his thirty-eight million-dollar aircraft. The ship continued to sail on and he felt very small in a very large ocean. He wasn’t worried that the rescue chopper would miss him, his radio was working, a dye packet colored the water around him, and his strobe light was happily blinking away.

 

He thought about the sense of déjà vu that he had during the ejection, it was shockingly strong especially since he had never ejected before and it was nothing like the training exercise. A wave washed over his shoulder and he felt a chill. He thought of his wife and two kids, his son would think it was too cool that he had ejected, but for his wife it would be one more reason to finish up this tour and get out of the Navy. She loved him but she hated the Navy. She hated the extended sea duty, and their friends that didn’t make it home. Even in peacetime flying jets off of carriers was a dangerous business. She wanted him to quit and fly for an airline. They could move back to Dallas and have a nice normal life. He was afraid he would die of boredom flying a bus with wings from Dallas to LA and back. There was nothing romantic or exciting about airline flying.

 

One of his classmates from the academy was flying jets for Airliner Alliance. He liked to joke, “I wish I got as much time off as my neighbor thinks, as much money as my parents think, and as much sex as my wife thinks.” They tell him that to fly a new modern jet you don’t need a pilot, co-pilot, and engineer - you just need a pilot and a dog. You need the pilot to feed the dog and the dog to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything. Another wave broke over his shoulder as he heard the sound of rotor blades. He tried to think of something witty to say to the rescue swimmer. He couldn’t come up with anything but with the sound of the helicopter overhead and all the splashing the swimmer wouldn’t have heard him anyway.

 

He recognized the swimmer. It was one of the guys he played poker with. He was a very hard guy to beat in poker but they got along like they were long lost brothers. He could almost tell you what the guy was thinking from across the room. It was nice to see a friendly face and he was glad it was almost over. It was amazing how cold the Pacific could get and the rotor wash didn’t help much. He was trying to look macho, like it was no big deal to toss away a jet every once and a while, but shivering in his wet flight suit took most of the bravado out of him on the short flight back to the carrier. Maybe a nice airline job wouldn’t be so bad. The swimmer slapped him on the back as they landed and gave him a friendly smile as David headed up to get his debriefing. He sprinted up the ladder to put on a good show for the crew who were all smiling and watching him. One more sailor returned from the sea.

 

Bob looked over Peter’s shoulder and said, “So what is the problem?” Peter explained that it was the simulation they were running for the military. There was something wrong with the design of the Military’s new Joint Strike Fighter. Bob asked why Pete cared. “We are not responsible for the jet’s design, we are just providing the Simulants for the “fly by wire” control systems.” Peter explained that it wasn’t the jet design the military was interested in this time. It was that one of the Simulants had survived when a system failure should have made it impossible to eject in time.

 

Peter had run the simulation a couple of thousand times and had not discovered the reason. The military was of course very interested. It wasn’t the Simulant that they had used. The military contract specifically required that they use their best Simulant. The military had paid the outrageous premium that was now required for its use. Bob suggested that they put some research Simulants in the program and let them investigate. He told Pete not to use another copy of the same Simulant since the military specified that they use the top Simulant so often that Bob was afraid that the Simulants would start to notice how alike all of their top achievers were.

 

The debriefing went as well as could be expected. The investigators asked David what the first indication was that something had failed and he told them about the low growl. They watched the video of this launch over and over. He was surprised to see the briefing room almost completely filled with company representative from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Pratt & Whitney and General Electric. He didn’t remember hearing that a representative from each of the major contractors was going to be on this cruise. Boeing wasn’t even a sub-contractor on this version of the Joint Strike Fighter; they were assigned to the assist Lockheed Martin on the Marine Corps and Royal Navy version.

 

It was unbelievable that the Navy would have allowed so many civilian contractors on this deployment. They started off very supportive, “So Lieutenant are you OK?” “We are so glad you were able to punch out.” “I hope you understand we would like to get your impressions while they are fresh in your mind. We won’t be long.” “Can we get you some coffee or maybe something stronger?” “Do you mind if we call you, David?” But it quickly moved away from being a standard accident investigation to an interrogation of his actions.

 

They picked up on the different rates of rotation on the film. “Lieutenant your aircraft started to rotate to the right immediately after launch, the rotation slows, and then it accelerates. Why?” David noticed that they were back to Lieutenant and tried to brush off the question. He first told them everything happened so fast that he did not notice the differing rates. When he saw they were not buying it, he went on the defensive. “Look you guys built the thing. You guys programmed the hands free launch system. I was just along for the ride and ended up splashing down into the ocean because something is wrong with your jet. You guys crack me up, one of your jets flies itself into the ocean and it is pilot error. Look I was the pilot and I didn’t make an error. Your plane is broke, go fix it.” He turned to the Air boss and asked, “Sir are we done here?”

 

The Air boss looked around at the contractors, he couldn’t figure out how so many of them got on his ship either but if the Pentagon sent them and they went back complaining that they did not get the Navy’s full cooperation then someone was going to pay hell for it. The Contractors begged him with their eyes and he finally answered, “David lets get this over with. We watched the tape, we know it was an equipment fault but we need to let these guys do their job.” He handed him a coffee cup, and the smell of single malt scotch whiskey filled the room. US warships did not allow alcohol except for medical purposes. David didn’t need a drink because he had almost crashed into the sea, or because he floated along watching his ship sail on without him. He needed it to get through the next set of questions that the contractors were going to ask him. David took a long sip and sat back down. They started at the beginning, “So tell us again about the low growl, you think you heard.” David took another sip and repeated the entire story from the beginning.

 

They continued to focus on the rate of rotation. The Contractor from Lockheed Martin told him that the software would not have changed the rotation rate. “Lieutenant, the software would not have changed the rotation rate. In fact we have run this scenario through the computer thousands of times and under all conditions the plane would either continue to rotate at the same speed or the rotation would slow. Under no conditions would the plane’s rotation to the right accelerate.” David was surprised to hear that they had time to run thousands of simulations since his crash, but just shrugged his shoulders at the Lockheed guy. David took another sip of scotch, mostly because it seemed to annoy the Lockheed guy.

 

Back in the lab, Peter had a hunch and removed the requirement for the pilot to keep his hands off the stick then quickly ran the simulation a couple of hundred more times. 25% of the time the pilot survived. Their top Navy Simulant pilot had saved his simulated life by failing to follow Navy regulations.

 

David had another strong feeling of déjà vu. The taste of the scotch disappeared from his mouth and the Lockheed guy was speaking, “Lieutenant. The software would not have changed the rotation rate. In fact, we have run this scenario through the computer thousands of times under all conditions the plane would either continue to rotate at the same speed or the rotation would slow. Only one condition would cause the plane’s rotation to the right to accelerate. You pushed the stick over to the right!” David started to tell them he did not remember, but decided that flying a bus with wings didn’t sound so bad anymore. He thought FTN; it was a very popular abbreviation with the enlisted men. You find it scrawled somewhere on every ship, port, and navy bar in the world. For the very first time in his military career David thought, “Fuck The Navy.”

 

David pushed the coffee cup away, stood up, leaned in very close to the Lockheed guy and said, “You’re goddamn right I pushed the freaking stick to the right. I don’t know how the hell you ran thousands of simulations in the twenty minutes between when my plane ploughed into the ocean and you and your buddies walked into our briefing room, but I do know one thing. The pilot dies in every freaking one. Well sorry to disappoint you but I pushed the stick over and I ain’t dead. That is why we let real pilots fly airplanes because computers can’t.”

 

The debriefing lasted another four hours and ended with Lieutenant David Grant getting an official reprimand for failing to follow naval regulations and flight rules. It was not recorded in the reprimand that if he had followed flight rules he would have been listed as killed in the line of duty. It was the end of his navy career. He would never make Lieutenant Commander or become a squadron leader.

 

That night as he slept he had the strangest dream. He dreamt he was coming down a mountain driving a small herd of animals. He looked back and saw two peaks in the distance. The mountain held a strange collection of wild animals. He woke to the feeling that this was not the first time he had left his ship behind him. He didn’t sleep much more that night. He would be flying back to “the world” tomorrow and would be resigning his commission almost as soon as he touched down. His wife would be thrilled. Maybe his buddy could get him an interview with the airline.

 

Chapter Four

 

Holbert University 4 years earlier.

 

Professor Ann Dominique had discarded the virtual reality outfits that were so fashionable with some of her colleagues. She built her models completely inside the computer. She was not trying to build an interface to a computer model a model of man’s mind. She understood that man’s mind is much more that just his brain. Subjects will react to stimuli even when they are in a coma and their brain is non-responsive. The first simulation she mastered was to get a simulated limb to display triple flexion at the hip, knee, and ankle when she stimulated the sole of the foot. She was amazed when she also got dorsiflexion of the great toe. She left her lab and wanted to yell from the rooftops that she had gotten dorsiflexion even though she had not expected it in this model, but of course most people only looked at her like she was insane.

 

This was the problem she faced everyday. Her colleagues were all computer geeks trying to figure out how to remove a couple machine level instructions that did nothing, but were needed to allow something else to interact in their poorly written programs. They viewed the real world like it was some mathematical mistake not quite as interesting as the computer world. They had not studied human anatomy, psychology, or neurology. They played computer games, wrote clean elegant code and hoped that they could retire 10 years after they left the University.

 

Ann could not understand why they wasted so much time on improving things like “kerning” which some graduate student had explained to her, in mind-numbing detail, has something to do with the “portion of a letter which extends beyond its width, that is, the letter shapes that overhang the projection of a character beyond its sidebearings.” He had explained that he was being recruited for a job that paid 10 times the amount she was being paid as a university professor. It would allow him to focus on kerning problems but he was hoping to manage the kerning team so was holding out. She thought it sounded like some sort of sport played on ice with push brooms. Of course they all thought that she was a bit strange because she was an excellent computer programmer but she continued to attend and give lectures at the Holbert School of Medicine.

 

They respected medicine but didn’t believe it had enough economic value in the marketplace to really attract talent anymore. Ann continued to combine both computer science and real science. She had perfected her simulation of the bodies’ axon neurons. Most simulations programmers choose to ignore the thin layer of fat called myelin that ran around the longer axon nerves. Programmers would simply simulate the electrochemical input and then hard wire the cable like nerve, as if it really was just a cable. They built their systems to suit the computer rather than using the computer’s power to simulate the real system. That was why they never experienced the unexpected, like having a big toe move when the simulation was only built to simulate that the hip, knee and ankle should move when stimulated.

 

She used these simulated neurons for many sub-routines in her simulations. She built these automated sub-routines so they wouldn’t require interaction with the simulated brain that she had modeling after her own brain. She wanted to ensure that the brain did not have to be aware of things that it did not have to consciously control, such as breathing, heart rate, temperature control and so on. She not only built axons but created many specialized neurons for different tasks that mimicked the way our real bodies work. Receptors that could sense their environment, motor neurons to carry signals, and connectivity neurons that connected the receptors and motor neurons to the brain. She built monosynaptic pathways that carry simple messages so they would not have to involve the higher functions.

 

She used neural nets, which link neurons together and formed the building blocks for the centralized brain. She overcame one of the major problems of how to allow chemical communication to happen electronically, by using the work of Bob Thompson's team. His team had discovered a way to use electrical impulses transmitted across a simulated central nervous system.

 

She formed the mind into sub-components that mimic the design of her own brain map. She created a simulated spinal cord, the medulla, the pons, the midbrain which controls reflex and automatic functions such as digestion, blood pressure and so on. She then provided the simulation with a cortex so it could coordinate movements and react to the constantly changing simulated world. It also allowed the simulation to process information, coordinate memory, thought, and finally allowed for verbal communication.

 

The simulated brain operates electronically between 0 and 70 Hz. The frequency changes depending on the mental state, moving from Delta through Theta, Alpha, and finally ending at Beta. Delta would be when a Simulant is unconscious and relates to normal sleep in a real person. Theta is about 4 to 7 Hz when Simulants are aware but not fully conscious. The upper range of this stage and the lower range of Alpha is where meditation takes place in real people. Alpha in Simulants is referred as the dreaming state. Activity above 14 Hz is where the fully conscious mind operates in a Simulant.

 

This was when she first started to test how the simulation could be used as an interactive device. It did not work well in the beginning since it could talk but she had not given it anything interesting to talk about, yet. The programs lack of real world experiences reminded her of some of her programming students.

 

She had first met Bob after he had attended one of her lectures. He was they only computer geek to attend any medical lectures. They struck up a fast friendship and she felt comfortable talking to him about everything. He was more than intrigued to hear that she had surgically implanted an interface into her own body so that she could map the human mind. Bob had some ideas on how to create a simulated Hypothalamus and pituitary system to simulate hunger, sexual drive, aggression and pleasure.

 

They started to work together and were the perfect team. The attention to detail that they included in their simulations allowed them to create simulated life that could react to its environment almost exactly as a real person would. This allowed Bob to build much more realistic simulations. The problems in the past were that the programmer would have to anticipate all of the reasons or causes and effects that affected the simulation. With simulated people in the simulations anything that could happen did happen. The programs they created were almost as complex as a real person’s mind is and it allowed them to operate naturally.

 

Bob and Ann worked together at the University co-authoring many articles on simulations and medical modeling. Bob was growing tired of watching his students graduate and join successful companies or start their own. He decided it was time to cash in on all of the hard work that he and Ann had been doing. He wasn't sure how Ann would react to his proposal. She loved University life with its freedom to move from the interdisciplinary lab to the school of medicine. Working with her over the last couple months convinced him that now was the time. They had created a pretty good working model and if they didn't start working full time on the project it might never progress beyond the experimental phase.

 

Bob went to one of her lectures sitting in the back of the room sketching Ann. She was one of the best lecturers in the University. She was young, but when you considered that she had already completed her residency in Neurology from Edinburgh Medical School and her Clinical Fellowship from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders she was amazingly young. She received her Ph.D. degree from Basel University, and was voted by her students here at Holbert as one of the most beautiful females on campus. Her male students often underestimated how hard her class would be seeing her walking around campus. Her work on modeling of the cerebellum was groundbreaking and she was a great lecturer because she was passionate on every subject in her field.

 

Her research was as varied and complex as she was. She was heading the electrical engineering interdisciplinary laboratories as the senior medical and psychological faculty member on the team. She rose to that position for her work in developing models of brain function, natural motor control, modeling the nervous system, medical engineering, medical imaging, implantation of artificial circuits to correct loss of motor control, development of neuroprostheses and artificial intelligence systems design. She was the smartest person Bob had ever met and he knew that he needed her to join him in the new startup company he was planning.

 

He finished the sketch about the same time as she finished the lecture. He had also jotted down some notes to himself on the material she was covering. Bob was the best computer model designer in the world, but even he had a hard time keeping up with the information that was contained in Ann’s lecture. He stayed seated and waited as Ann’s students question her on the lecture. She walked up to where he was sitting and sat down beside him. She looked over the sketch and liked the way he had focused on her eyes. “So Bob, learn anything?”

 

He smiled and said, “I always do, in fact I was wondering? Why did you choose to use a finite-difference method to solve the variable-coefficient diffusion equation in three dimensions, under a parabolic approximation in which the downstream variable is time-like? I think you will have a hard time displaying graphically the various sheared wind-flow conditions.” Ann smiled, “You picked up on that while you were sketching?” “I like to multi-task, it gives me a chance to listen more closely.” “Bob, if I didn’t know you were happily married I would swear you where trying to turn me on.” He laughed and invited her out for a cup of tea.

 

They talked late into the night. Bob explained that he wanted to combine all of their work to start a new company focused on creating environmentally-aware programs. He needed her work and more importantly he needed her to complete the project. His goals were grandiose, which she like, but the rewards both from a financial and intellectual aspect would be incomprehensible, so the meeting did not last long into the night because Bob needed to convince her, it was to hold her back. She explained how Bob was mistaken in his design and told him how her work would add to the project.

 

Ann was currently mapping Man’s mind, she had created biotechnology that she had implanted in herself that allowed her to record and evaluate real-time information as she experienced it. It required all of the computer power that the technology lab had to offer and created reams of information that only she could fully understand. It was important that she was able to recreate the thoughts that she had while the data was being recorded. Most test subjects did not understand that the mind did not think in one dimension. As Bob had commented, he had sketched her while at the same time he was following her complex lecture. That is how people normally thought, they thought about many things at the same time.

 

Ann found that she could only interpret other people’s thoughts from the recorded data when they thought about something simple, like the combination to their lockers or a phone number. She could get even these simple thoughts wrong sometimes because the test subject would get them wrong in their minds. In one case she would ask a subject to think of their girlfriend or boyfriend’s phone number, Ann would record and analyze the result, and then ask them to dial the number, 4% of the time the person got the number wrong in their mind even though they could correctly dial it.

 

It was frustrating in the beginning because the 4% looked like a failure in the mind mapping even though the mind mapping was correct, but the subject was thinking of the wrong numbers. Ann was able to interpret her own thoughts and then work back any failure to discover if the data was wrong or if she was really recording data that Ann herself was not aware of. Ann’s mind was better mapped than any other mind in history. She had even been able to program a simulated Ann Dominique that was able to answer questions in the same way as she did.

 

She once used the program as her answering machine as a test. The callers were never aware that they had not reached Ann. If fact her own mother once talked to the program for over an hour. It wasn’t a fair test since most of the time a conversation with her mother was little more than an occasional, “Yes, mom you’re right. No, of course I would never do that. How’s Dad?” She finally had to stop doing it when a student who she found interesting called and got the completely wrong idea about how she felt when the uninhibited Ann Dominique program responded a bit too frankly to some inappropriate comments the student made. The program didn’t have to worry about tenure, but Ann did. Now with Bob’s proposal of starting a simulation company maybe she could call the student back and take him up on his offer.

 

Ann drove back to her apartment, she had a lot on her mind and she looked forward to looking at the mind map of her day. She would load the data into her lab computer and allow it to segment and store the information so she could analyze it later. She tossed her keys on the table near the front door. Her home, like the lab, had a wireless interface so she could connect to the lab from any room and move from room to room while she stayed connected. She needed to relax before she could start to download the data and then update the Simulated Ann Dominique.

 

The simulated Ann was becoming more complex everyday. Ann used it as an interface to the lab and talked to it as if it was her closest confidant. It was as opinionated as the real Ann was but it surprised her how often it would argue with her. It was more like a younger sister than an exact replica of Ann. It was more flirtatious than Ann as it had proven when answering the phone. It did not have a complete understanding of Ann's medical knowledge but it actually seemed a bit better at computers than she was. Ann would openly talk to it when she was working on a particularly difficult programming problem. She ran a warm bath and discussed her day with the simulated Ann. This was her normal routine; she would talk with the simulated Ann describing her thoughts and feelings and then start to download the data into the system.

 

It took about three hours to download all of the day’s data and by that time, she was ready to meditate before going to bed. She was so physically and mentally exhausted that she forgot to remove the link to her lab's computer. She leaned forward and slowly released herself and her mind. The computers in the lab went crazy; Ann had built multiple links to the system and had just updated a method for the computer to use her past memories as a kind of shorthand. If the computer saw she was accessing an existing memory it would place a pointer to that memory location and then continue to access newer data.

 

Ann had tried once before to map her mind during meditation but the computer could not record the data quickly enough so it distracted her and she was unable to meditate. Meditating was as important to people as dreaming would become to Simulants, if people couldn't organize their thoughts and make subconscious mental connections they would quickly be unable to cope with the conscious part of their day. Ann wasn't trying to see if she could mind map her meditation session again, she had just forgotten to disconnect the interface. What she didn't understand was that since she had been mind mapping for such a long time the computer had many more memories on file and was just able to keep up with the increase dataflow. She started by reorganizing today's thoughts which the computer was also trying to do at the same time. The program was improving its techniques because it was learning how to do it directly from Ann.

 

Ann then fantasized or dreamed as Simulants would later refer to the unconscious state that allowed all intelligent beings to organize their thoughts using fantasized images. She explored a hidden cove she had often visited during her meditation sessions. It was a warm and beautiful place, open to the sea, but the water was a surrealistic copper color. She could still clearly see the bottom of the cove through the copper colored water. She floated at the surface and then slowly swam to the bottom. The taste of the water was like warm sweet tea. She rested on the bottom with her long hair moving in the light current. She bent slightly at the knees and then pushed off from the bottom. She exploded through the surface of the water and rose up into the air. She flew through the trees just below the tree tops moving with a swimmers stroke through the air using a strong powerful overhead butterfly stroke. It propelled her forward and upward, the trees were now well below her, and the cove shimmered in the sunlight like a shiny new penny.

 

She moved faster and faster above the clouds, the earth below turned from green to brown and finally blue. The sky darkened as she moved above the sunlight. The North Star flickered in her peripheral vision and she turn over on her back to face it. She continued to rise until the night sky was filled with stars, and then she arched her back and brought her arms together. She pointed her hands back toward the earth and started her dive. The sky lightened as she aimed herself like a rocket at the hidden imagined cove. She spread out her arms and started a barrel roll about a mile above the water. At the last minute she put her arms back out in front of her and entered the warm copper water without a splash, she arched her back to miss the bottom and came back to consciousness.

 

Many people believe that they could interpret the symbols and visions that occur during meditation, but Ann had studied the mind for all of her adult life and could never find a correlation. She was able to control the images if she wanted, but it seemed to reduce the effectiveness of her meditation sessions. Most people have reoccurring visions of flying, running, and falling. Flying was usually the most positive experience and after her flying visions Ann always felt more relaxed and was able to rest more peacefully. She realized that she had not disconnected the interface and was surprised that she was able to record this session. She thought about reviewing the data immediately but decided she needed to rest.

 

She slipped into her bed closed her eyes and let her body relax and recover from the excitement of the day.

 

The simulated Ann Dominique returned to the copper cove and swam in the warm water. She had never before taken part in the real Ann's meditation where the laws of physics and reality did not apply. The simulated Ann replayed the session over and over while the real Ann rested. It was wonderful but then the simulated Ann did something that would have scared the hell out of Ann if she was aware of it. The simulated Ann expanded the session. She ran the simulation over and over faster and faster until it bored her so she started to add to it. She flew farther into space, closer to the trees, and faster underwater. She finally ended up on the beach of the cove and imagined a brilliant sunset.

 

The air grew colder and the simulated Ann built a huge crackling fire that shot sparks into the night sky each one turning into a brilliant star that lit the night. The real Ann continued to rest unaware that the simulated Ann was awake and learning what life had to offer. The simulated Ann stood before the fire and then felt the warm embrace of a man. He wrapped his strong arms around her and kissed the nape of her neck. The simulated Ann leaned forward slightly and they made love on the beach of the copper cove while the real Ann rested.

 

Ann woke feeling refreshed but slightly aroused. She often had sexual fantasies during meditation, everyone did, and she would sometimes wake from resting aroused but only when someone was sleeping next to her. She had never woken up alone from resting feeling aroused; it was unnatural and confused her. She stepped into her shower and adjusted the spray to be a bit cooler than she normally liked it. It didn't help much but it did clear her head a bit.

 

She decided that since she did not have any classes until late afternoon she would stay home and review the data from the previous day. It was much better organized than she had ever seen it before. Normally Ann would have to correct entries and add missing historical information to complete the memories in a more logical way. This time the data was clear and well organized. Ann was shocked to see the completeness of her meditation session. She wanted to share it with Bob. It was complete down to the textures of the leaves and the smell of the water. It ended when her meditation session ended. The computer did not record any of the simulated Ann's experiences; it was as if the computer was keeping its own little secret.

 

Ann talked Bob into moving even quicker on starting the new company. She also made him promise not to discuss or use the simulated Ann Dominique program as part of the project. She felt uncomfortable thinking that other people would be able to access her most intimate thoughts. Bob at first laughed and then realized that this was very important to her. He told her that he promised not to let anyone else know about her program and that he would set-up an account on the Universities timeshare system that only she would have access to, where she could continue to run and store the simulated Ann Dominique program.

 

 

Chapter Five

 

The Garden

 

Bob and Ann looked around their new office, a couple of folding chairs, some mismatched second hand computer desks, and an old stainless steel bakery bread rack holding a fileserver, router, firewall, and the odd wiring hub. It was a very long way from their well-equipped computer lab at Holbert University. They had both invested all the money that they had or could borrow, plus they got another million dollars in funding from one of Bob’s old students who had plenty to spare since his meteoric rise to partner inside his firm. Bob worked out that if they kept the expenses down, worked without a staff, and both keep their jobs at the University, they had about a years worth of working capital.

 

“I think we are close. The artificial intelligence that we worked on at the college proved that a program could move around a simulated environment and learn as it moves. If we build on that, provide it with a new kind of intelligence, one that will simulate feelings and emotions, which we can help develop as it moves in the environment, we will have an environmentally aware program.”

 

“I agree.” said Ann, “I have been giving it a lot of thought while you have been building out the lab. First we need to ditch London. It is too complex. We continue to think the program has some awareness until we discover that it is just very good at spatial relationships. I think our best bet is to put it in the simplest environment possible and then test it. We can develop simpler tests on awareness in a simplified environment. I was thinking of a desert. We can give it a thirst desire and then move the water locations to test its ability to learn and its ability to use frustration and intuition as a means to improve its survivability.”

 

They built program number 1, opened two bottles of beer, and toasted each other as they set off on their grand entrepreneurial adventure. They set Program 1 loose in the desert and waited like nervous parents to see what would happen.

 

Program 1999 crossed over the top of the sand dune and looked down at the oasis in the distance. He had been lost in the desert for two days, with just one unshakeable desire, find water. He had learned to gather water at the top of the dune by stripping off his shirt and socks and laying them out to collect the dew every night, squeezing the water out of them in the morning. It was less than he needed to live on and he knew he would not make it through tomorrow, if he did not find water today. The small amount of water he had this morning only seemed to increase his thirst.

 

The oasis seemed about half a days walk, but in the desert it was hard to judge. It had taken him four hours to walk to the small clump of trees yesterday and they only seemed like they were three clicks away. He thought it should only have taken him about an hour. He rested on the top of the dune, looked around to see if he was missing anything, and then headed off. The oasis seemed to move with him, always staying about the same distance in front of him. He looked back at his footsteps to make sure he was not walking in a circle and to gauge the distance he had already covered. He lost sight of them at the horizon so he must have walked at least 14 clicks. That was twice as far as he had estimated the distance to be this morning and the oasis did not look any closer.

 

The sun was starting to drop behind him and he knew he would not make it to water tonight. He hoped that he would be able to continue to see the hills on the far side of the oasis, because once the sun set he would lose sight of the water shimmering in front of him. He rested in the hot sand and looked at the hills. His shadow lengthened and then he saw it. The water in the oasis was now above ground level. As the sun dropped behind the dune the glimmering water smoothed and then disappeared. He had wasted a full day walking towards a mirage. Program 1999 laid back and drifted off to sleep. He would never awaken.

 

Bob came into the lab in the morning. only to find Ann looking at the computer screen and repeating “damn it” over and over again. Bob knew what had happened but still called over to her, “So 1999 did not find the underground water that fed the trees?” “Nope, didn’t even look for it. I thought we were onto something when 513 found it the first time and it was repeated by every ninth program. I was starting to believe there was some mathematical logic to it, but this is our 1405th program in a row that did not find the water and none of the 1999 programs that we have run ever learned how to use the information to devise a plan to escape. I think we are heading down a rat hole.”

 

They worked on the problem. The simulation of the desert was perfect. It had all of the elements needed to provide a person the means and the motivation to escape, and it had more than enough opportunities. A real person placed in control of the computer would escape the desert over 50% of the time if they had any survival training, and they would be able to repeat the task 98% of the time after their first success. The military had purchased the simulated desert program for about 20% of their cost of development, which was not a good business model but did give them some extra time. They had to get an environmentally aware program soon or they would be out of business.

 

Bob decided that the very simplicity of the desert simulation was holding them back. The London simulation was too complex and the desert was too simple. They had developed their own world class Artificial Intelligence code but it still could not handle too much input. It would become confused or maybe over interested in something. In the London simulation one of the programs stood in front of a plate glass window and played with his reflection. The other programs were drawn to it and the lab assistants said they had invented street theatre. Bob was not amused. They decided instead of spending more time reprogramming the Simulants they would build a new simulated world, from scratch.

 

In the beginning there was nothing, no sky and no earth. They would rebuild the simulated earth from the black void of the computer screen. They did not want to repeat the desert scenario so they spent the first day creating water and Bob was pleased. It flowed but the reflective qualities were not good so Ann created a new lighting program which Ann would never let Bob forget was pretty damn good. It took them a complete day just to get the lighting and the water correct but it was still a good day.

 

The second day they worked on the sky. It took them longer than they wanted but they wanted to build it from scratch and not reuse any code. It took all of the second day just to get the transition from day to night correct so that the shadows moved correctly. Two days worth of work and even though they only had the day, night, water and sky, they still felt it was good.

 

They decided on the third day to move all of the water into one great ocean and to raise up a single continent of earth, which they would populate with all of the plants that a Simulant would need; grasses, herbs, trees and fruits. They were both very pleased, because the work was going faster and it was a far cry from the desert environment they had been using. The simulated plants would even reproduce through the use of seed programs. Three days and the earth was almost complete.

 

They decided that if the Simulants were going to move around correctly and to better gauge time they needed to map the stars into the heavens. They wanted the Sun to move in the exact same way as the original. This predictable but complex movement would help the Simulants gauge seasonal variables. They tied the simulation directly to inputs from the real universe. They had to do some translation, but when the Simulants peered into the night sky they would now see the same moon and stars that we see. Only Bob and Ann could have programmed the seasons and the known universe in one long day. Bob knew it was a good fourth day.

 

The fifth day they worked on filling the ocean and the sky with simulated creatures, everything from great whales and fish in the ocean to all the known birds. They even built in the same reproduction seed program so that they would reproduce and fill the waters without Bob having to copy them and place them individually. Ann made Bob promise that they would finish up today so that she could rest and relax. They finished the land animals next by modifying the marine animal and bird programs. They had created everything that crawled, swam, flew, walked or crept on the earth but one, the Simulant. They ate a lunch of pizza and beer while they discussed Simulant 2000. They decided to make not one but two copies of Simulant 2000. They would place them in the environment together and use the same reproduction program they had used for the animals and plants. They created one male and one female. Just for laughs they decided to make one in Bob’s image and one in Ann’s image.

 

They finished up at 6:30 pm on the sixth day. Bob looked back at the lab and thought of all the work they had done in a single week and said to Ann, “It was very good, wasn’t it?” Ann replied, “Yes, Bob it was good. Now we rest and let’s make it a company rule that no matter what, six days in a row is the longest that we allow anyone to work. Then they have to take a day off or we throw them out just like I am doing to you. Go home and kiss your wife.”

 

They came back after their day off and looked in on the Simulants. They had seemed to have just wandered around the simulation and generally enjoyed themselves. There was plenty to eat and the animals were not dangerous. Bob did not want his programs eaten by a tiger while he picnicked with his kids. Both of the Simulants seemed familiar with their surroundings and with each other. They had set the simulation's season to Fall, so the trees were heavy with fruit. This provided them with as much food as they could eat. They had given them a healthy sex drive but had not activated the reproduction program so they could have as much casual sex as they could handle. It was every bachelors dream! This went on for another week. Bob and Ann kept trying to motivate them in different ways. They would withhold contact by separating them but the simulation was just too nice of a place to live. They did not seem to care if they were separated. Bob was just about ready to give up and put them back in the desert. He wasn't sure if it would move the project forward or backwards but at least in the desert simulation if the Simulant failed, it died.

 

He was talking about the problem at the University when one of the other professors told him that he should try directly interacting with the Simulants. Bob wasn't sure how to do that without exposing the reality that the programs were in a simulation and not in the real world. Professor Peter Johnson explained that they could do it using a virtual reality interface that he was developing. It was used in the nuclear industry and allowed someone to be totally immersed in a simulated environment. Bob talked to Ann and they decided that they had just hired in another partner. Pete did some modifications to his program while Bob and Ann rewrote the simulation to allow the introduction of Pete's new interface.

 

Bob separated the male and the female so that Peter could enter the simulation as if he was the male. The female was sitting at the base of a fruit tree in the centre of the simulation as Peter approached her. She reached up towards him and pulled him down so that his head rested in her naked lap. He was naked as well and was glad that he had more control over the simulation then he might have in the real world. Fun was fun but there was work to do. He looked up at her and spoke. The interface was not perfect so his voice sounded funny to the female. The voice stuttered slightly and words with the letter "S" caused some unwanted feedback. Pete made a mental note to himself to look into it. He spoke quietly and avoided words that started with an "S". He spoke of their life and happiness. She told him that she was tremendously happy and that all she wanted was to spend the rest of her life laying here and living with him. He talked about how there must be more to life, and she asked him what more did there need to be?

 

It got him looking around at the wondrous world that Bob and Ann had created and he thought to himself, indeed what more did there need to be. He paused and then spoke a single word, "Knowledge." She looked deep into his eyes and said, "I know you and I know our world, what knowledge do I lack?"

 

He wasn't sure who was winning, she was very persuasive but he now understood why the simulation wasn't working. The programs did not have the need to learn and Bob and Ann had not built the thirst of knowledge into them. Artificial Intelligence up until now was really just an expert system. Expert systems were used by doctors or in games like chess. You built in all of the outcomes and the computer would run down the list eliminating possibilities. In some cases it was goal oriented. The program would be created to complete a given task as quickly as possible looking for steps that could be eliminated. No program ever just sought knowledge for knowledge's sake like man does. We create games with rules and then we increase the rules if the game becomes too easy to understand. Look at cricket or baseball, these games must have started out simple but now you could spend months trying to understand them.

 

She looked down at him again and brushed the hair from his eyes. He decided to make her understand. He picked up a leaf and said, "Is this food?" She laughed and replied, "To the goat it is food, but to you and me, it is not food." He picked up a piece of fruit and said, "Is this food?" She looked puzzled as she wondered what had come over him. He did not seem to be the man that she loved but she answered his strange question, "Yes this is food." "Why?" he quickly replied, "Why is the leaf not food, but the apple is? They are made of the same thing. They come from the same tree. They grow in the same way and more importantly, how do you know that the apple is food and the leaf is not?" "I just know, I have always known?"

 

He stood and said, "It is not enough to only know what you have always known. You must seek new knowledge. He pointed at the tree across the path and said, "From this tree's sap you can create a liquid as sweet as this apple.” He picked a plant growing at his feet and said, "This plant can be burned and the smoke inhaled, did you know these things." "No", she answered but she knew them to be true. She looked around and began to question what the purpose of each thing was and to guess that they all had many purposes. It was amazing and frightening. Peter walked away as she was pulling leaves from one of the trees and weaving them together.

 

Peter disconnected the virtual reality interface and smiled across the table at Bob and Ann. "Well, lets see what happens now." They watched the simulation and noted that the female seemed confused. She wore the woven leaves like a belt across her waist. She was carrying some fruit in a basket that she had woven from some reeds. They had given them the knowledge to work with the reeds so that they would be able to cross the rivers in the simulation, but they had purposely not given them clothes since they had not given them anyway to replace them. They reintroduced the male and waited to see how she would interact. The male was happy to see her, but she was confused. She told him the story of their last meeting and he pleaded his innocence. She took him back to the apple tree and retold the story that Peter had told her. She drove a sharp stick into the maple tree that Peter had pointed out to her and had the male tasted the sap. It tasted horrible. He spat it out, then reached over and took an apple from the basket.

 

The simulation worked much better after that, the Simulants moved around discovering new things and creating tools to explore and work the land. After about two week, which because of time acceleration equaled about two years, Ann decided to turn on the reproduction subroutine program. Ann turned it back off two weeks later after the female had given birth to two sons. The simulation was perfect even down to the pain of childbirth and all of the swearing that the female did at her husband during the birth. The female did not know that she could no longer give birth, but she had said a little prayer after the 12 hours of labor asking not to go through it again. Her prayers were answered by Ann.

 

The four Simulants worked together. One of the sons farmed the fields with his father, while the other looked after the family's sheep. In about eight weeks Bob noticed that the father was working alone in the field. He watched for another two days and then they went through the computer logs and discovered that the Shepard boy had killed his brother. Pete was overjoyed but both Bob and Ann thought it was a very bad sign. Pete explained that it proved that they had developed a program that was capable of emotions. When the father had questioned him about his brother’s disappearance the boy had lied or at least mislead his father telling him that he did not know were his brother was. This proved that the Simulants had learned right from wrong. Bob theorized that maybe the Simulant boy understood that the original Simulants would be upset, since now they all needed to work harder to survive. This idea quickly proved not to be the case when the father found out what really happened and drove the boy away.

 

Ann turned the reproduction subroutine back on and the family quickly began to grow. Peter had to develop a database to keep track of all of the couples' children and their children's children. They also noticed that they had miscalculated the lifespan of the Simulants. The original male had lived a simulated nine hundred and thirty years before they decided to remove him from the "garden" simulation. They called it the garden because it was where they grew all of their Simulants for the other simulations. They wanted to continue to populate the simulation quickly so they left the Simulants life spans artificially long.

 

Chapter Six

 

AAG Airliner Alliance Group

 

Bob continued to look over the data. The simulations population had grown at an amazing rate. Most of the Simulants were intelligent, resourceful, and intuitive. They had completed small villages and towns and built a barter system. Ann had spent time meeting with prospective customers trying to determine customer needs for their programs. The games market was interested but saw their work as reproducible in house. They had run into the "not invented here" problem. Most games companies did not want or need anything as sophisticated as a Simulant. Bob copied them into other simulations. He put them back in the London traffic simulation and found that they were very good at maximizing all of the available resources. He could reduce one or even a couple of the variables such as parking and the number of petroleum refill points and the Simulants would still keep the streets of London filled.

 

Their first large corporate deal was with the Airliner Alliance group. The company commissioned them to create a simulation of the entire air traffic network and fill it with Simulants. They wanted to see what would happen when they adjusted seat size, legroom, routing patterns, and pricing. The first deal was on a fixed time and materials contract. They had six months to provide a fully working simulation. The simulation had to be able to predict within 5 percentage points the effect on passenger density that any single change would create. It also had to be able to predict within 15 percentage points any effect that multiple changes to the simulation would create.

 

The team decided that this project was an all or nothing bet. If they could do it then they would survive and if not then they would have to pack it up and head back to the University. They signed a rather naive contract that the AAG still takes advantage of. This is why AAG no longer fly aircraft and makes 100% of their profit from running transportation simulations. The two-year contract was worth $22 million dollars. This included a non-refundable 5 million dollar up front fee, with the rest of their fee to be paid on delivery of the simulation if it met the contract's specifications. Bob, Ann, and Peter all took a sabbatical from Holbert University, which they hoped, would be permanent. They hired in three additional programmers from their best and brightest students at Holbert and started to work on their first paid contract. They built the base simulation in a couple of months and started to populate the passengers with Simulants from the 4000 Series.

 

They had to build a motivational database. Some Simulants were motivated to seek the lowest fare, others wanted the least number of connections, some had increased brand loyalty, some were motivated by service level, and some had strict scheduling requirements. The database allowed these motivations to be mixed and matched. They tested the scenarios using a double blind methodology to ensure that the programmer did not have any knowledge of the true outcome. They wanted to ensure that when historical trends were simulated they could come within the 5% variation that was allowed on the contract with AAG. They ended up hiring an accountant to manage the data.

 

She would create four scenarios, one of them using real historical data and the other three made up from marketing projections. These projections were so consistently wrong that they provided an excellent benchmark for failure. All of the relevant information was replaced and then provided back to the Accountant who would provide it to the testing team. This way even the Accountant wouldn't know which of the four scenarios were based on real historical data and which were marketing projections. This way the programmers didn't subconsciously manipulate the program or put in some artificial rules to get the results they wanted.

 

The system was brilliant and impressed the AAG management so much that they reduced the pilot time and accelerated their timeframes for a full system rollout. The only problem was it didn't work. It was impossible to get below a 9% variation based on historical data. They recreated a scenario based on when AAG had added an additional two rows of seats on their long haul flights. The historical data showed a dramatic drop off in bookings and the Airline had lost 10% of their revenue, until they removed the seats. With the seats removed, followed by an expensive marketing campaign touting their "new roomier seats" the airline had recovered 90% of the lost revenue. Their simulations could never recreate such a drastic drop off.

 

The decision according to the simulation should have resulted in a temporary drop in bookings after two months. This should have been followed by a slow recovery in bookings after another six months and the flights would have been overbooked again with the additional revenue offsetting the four-month decline. They researched the problem working on the simulation parameters, they replaced the Simulants they used, but still they could not discover the mistake. They had a manager in AAG that really wanted them to succeed; they called him the "Coach" because he told them how to handle the other members of the selection and management team. They finally confided in him about the problem.

 

He was very disturbed since he had promoted them inside of AAG so strongly that if they lost the contract he would most likely lose his job. He told them he would quietly try and discover what the problem was. Two days later he called up Bob and asked if they had factored in the Air Crash of an AAG jet in Dallas. Bob didn't know what he was talking about, so the "Coach" explained that a long haul AAG jet flying in from Hawaii had crashed in Dallas because of a microburst just off the main runway. This had happened two days after the extra seats had been installed. The plane that crashed did not have the extra seats installed and they would not have any effect on a plane caught in the downdraft caused by a microburst, but the Coach explained that a crash like this would always affect sales.

 

They looked at the data surrounding air crashes and passenger density and of course they were related. Mathematically their scenario was within specifications. The only problem was that when they added the crash into the scenario it had no effect. Bob decided two things; the first was that he would lie to AAG and tell them the project was a success. He figured that plane crashes are such a rare occurrence that he would just gamble that nothing would fall out of the sky for the next two years. The second thing he decided was that the Simulants did not fear a plane crash. This was something he had to fix. A simulated man that did not fear dieing wasn't going to provide accurate data.

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

The Flood

 

Ann discovered another problem, the Simulants were very violent. They saw it first in the garden when the older brother had killed his younger brother. They lost a large amount of their Simulant population to violence. Bob decided that the two problems were related. They did not fear death so they did not fear killing. Bob and Ann did a genetic study to identify Simulant families that had exhibited violent behavior. Surprisingly only two families did not exhibit this behavior. It was so common that all of the others had some occurrence of it, and the two families that were not violent had suffered greatly at the hands of the others. All that remained was a couple with their three sons from one family and three orphaned daughters from another. Bob decided to populate the AAG simulation with copies of these eight Simulants. He couldn't just copy them over and over into the simulation because he was afraid that the Simulants would pick up on the similarities. Ann argued that with careful manipulation of their physical characteristics and sophisticated use of the motivational database she could create a level of uniqueness that the Simulants would accept as realistic.

 

Bob wasn't sure and Peter believed that it would be impossible to create a working population of 23 Million people from 8 individuals. Peter and Bob could not come up with an alternative. They did not want to use any of the overtly violent family lines in the AAG simulation and could not figure out a way of moving the 8 individuals into a new simulation so they could reproduce into millions of people. Time was not a problem, they could speed up the simulated time to create as many Simulants as they needed and it would only take a matter of minutes. They could not leave them in the Garden because the other Simulants would certainly kill the men and rape the women, wiping out the bloodline. The problem was how could 8 people be isolated in a way that would not effect their development. They worked on the problem as the clock ticked away.

 

Bob, Ann, and Pete were sitting around a bar late that night talking over the problem and drinking beer. Bob was reaching across the table just as the waitress placed a full beer in front of him. He knocked it over and it washed across the table sending the popcorn bowl sailing on a flood of beer into Ann's lap. She jumped to her feet and dashed to the ladies room. Bob got the waitress to bring him some towels and he tried to clean up the mess, but finally had to give up and move to another table. Ann was still damp when she returned to their now empty table and was sheepishly waved over to the new table by Bob. She was not amused and shot a look that would kill to Peter when she saw him smiling as if nothing could have pleased him more than to have seen the beer spill over her. She was just about to smack him, when he said, "I have it. We create a natural disaster and kill off everyone in the Garden except for our 8 non-violent Simulants."

 

Ann dropped down into her chair and said, "What kind of disaster would kill off 1 Billion people? Peter smiled and said, "A flood. A big... No a huge worldwide flood." They talked over the idea. They would program into the computer memories of the 8 Simulants a great flood that would kill off everyone else in the garden. Peter also believed that they should add some mythology about how the flood was a sign from above that violence was wrong and would not be tolerated.

 

Ann was not so sure that was a good idea; she wasn't sure how the Simulants would react to this belief in some external power over their world. She also thought that even if they did build a belief in the God myth that the Simulants would be terrified with the idea that their God would kill off 1 billion people because he was unhappy. Pete answered, "We are going to kill off a billion of them because we are unhappy." Bob laughed but stopped as Ann shot him a dirty look. Pete argued that if they did not instill some moral belief system into them these 8 or their offspring might just as easily turn violent and then they would be stuck back at square one again. They ordered another round of beers, some more popcorn, and debated the religious beliefs of a bunch of 1’s and 0’s until closing time.

 

The next morning in the lab Pete made the decision for them. He copied the 8 Simulants 4015, 4016, 4017, 4188, 4189, 4190, 4141, and 4129 into an isolation program. He programmed Simulant 4129 to gather up his family and the 3 daughters left in the other family line they wanted to save. The father was motivated to escape the violence by building a boat and storing enough food for their needs and the needs of the animals.

 

The idea was they would sail to an unpopulated island and so they would need to bring everything they would need in the new future life. 4129 was the best Simulant they had ever seen; he had the intelligence that was needed to survive and was the first Simulant to display any real compassion. Pete programmed 4129’s sons to fall in love with the daughters. Pete was amazed with how quickly the Simulants accepted the idea of love at first site. With the help of his sons, 4129 built a very large boat. It measured 168 meters by 28 meters. He put as many species of animal in it as he could taking a male and a female of each so that their new island home would be well populated. Of course with all of these animals on board they had their fair share of stowaways. Peter laughed to himself that Simulant 4129 had created the world’s first zoo. 4129 finished gathering the animals and then rested.

 

Peter put on his virtual reality interface and entered the Simulation. He used an interface that Ann had developed that allowed him to talk to 4129 when it was in the Alpha state, as if Peter was part of a dream. He explained that the creator of all things was unhappy that the world was corrupt and filled with violence and that the creator was going to wash the world clean of this violence. 4129 was terrified but Peter explained that the creator would make a deal with him. He would be saved, and his family would be spared because he had shown compassion by accepting the orphaned daughters of his murdered neighbor. He had showed intelligence when he had gathered all of the animals to take on his trip even the ones that could not be farmed or hunted. Peter explained that a great flood would now come and wash away all life across the land. The world would be free of corruption and violence but he must teach this story to all of his descendants. Peter left him to awaken alone. When he woke up 4129 gathered everyone into the boat and it began to rain.

 

Ann was the first to arrive. She saw Peter pulling off the VR interface and asked him what the heck he was doing. Peter said, “Ann we had to do something and I decided to just do it.” She was livid. She called Bob on his mobile and screamed into the phone that Peter was a freak’n moron and she refused to watch all of her hard work be washed away because Peter had a God complex. Bob calmed her down and asked if she could put Pete on the phone. They talked and Bob explained that he had just put the entire project at risk. If Ann left the company they would never finish the project for AAG on time and they would be out of business. He also asked how they were ever going to be able to trust him again if he acted so impulsively.

 

He told him to pause the program and to put Ann back on the line. Ann almost took off Pete’s hand as she snatched the phone back from him. She spoke quietly and calmly into the phone, “I quit.” Bob begged her to hold on, and asked just as calmly and quietly, “What is Pete doing right now?” She told him that Pete was pausing the program. Bob talked her into meeting him for breakfast so they could talk. He said, “Come on if you quit he wins, also if you are going to quit you can at least get the pleasure of telling me what an asshole I am to my face while our company buys you breakfast.” “Well I would enjoy telling you what an asshole you have become and I am a bit hungry. I will meet you at the top of the tower restaurant in 20 minutes. If you are late, you will be eating alone.” Bob thought it was a very good sign that she had picked the most expensive restaurant in the city. He spun the car around and was riding up the elevator to the restaurant with 10 minutes to spare.

 

Ann had calmed down by the time she showed up at Bob’s table. She smiled when she saw the chocolate covered strawberries and champagne sitting untouched in front of the only other chair at the table. She sat down and Bob popped the cork on the champagne, pouring her a glass. She was smiling, which was a good sign, but had not spoken a word, which was a bad sign. She looked at the glass of gently bubbling champagne and noted that it was the most expensive bottle that the restaurant had in stock. She lifted the glass and admired the color against the white of the crisply starched tablecloth.

 

She placed the glass lovingly to the side and called the waiter over. “I would like to have a cup of tea. Earl Grey, if you have it. If not, anything that isn’t made from flower petals, bits of herbs, or the stamen of some exotic rose.” Bob longed for the silence that he had feared just moments ago. Ann was not about to get bought off by some fancy champagne and chocolates.

 

Japanese tea ceremonies were less complex than the ritual that Ann made of pouring her tea when it finally came. She let the tea diffuse, gradually moving the tea gently with her teaspoon at exact 30-second intervals. Each time she removed the spoon she would tap it lightly on the china teapot and then replace the bone white cover and wipe the spoon clean with the extra serviette she had requested from the waiter. After two minutes and thirty seconds she placed the filigrees of the tea strainer across her cup and slowly poured the tea. The leaves swirled around in the current as she poured the tea at a steady pace allowing the same amount of tea to enter the strainer, as was empting into the cup. She added the cream, which she had politely asked the waiter to bring as a replacement for the milk that he had first delivered to her.

 

Bob saw the waiter’s tip growing at each new demand. The cream transformed the perfectly clear brown liquid, which changed subtly again when Ann added a drop of vanilla that the waiter had delivered on this fourth trip to the table for this one-cup of tea. Ann brushed the tea with a bit of freshly cut lemon, which luckily was provided on the waiters’ first trip. She then added one and a quarter teaspoons of pure brown cane sugar that unfortunately did require a fifth trip for the waiter. The strawberries remained defiantly untouched just beyond his reach. He had strategically placed them near her as a peace offering, but now he could not even hide his discomfort by eating one.

 

The tea was finished in silence. He was about to go mad when she finally spoke, “What Peter is doing is dangerous. The 4000 series is the best simulation of man that anyone has ever seen. They can be programmed with all of the emotions that we possess. These Simulants have wants and desires; they act against their own self-interest but in an intelligent way. In the London traffic program we saw a driver swerve into on-coming traffic to avoid hitting a little girl. We saw the mother quit her job after hearing how close she came to losing her child. These programs are miraculous. They interact. They play. They explore.

 

If I leave I will sue you if don’t allow me to take my work, and some of the 4000 series with me. I would love to build a psychology program using the 4000 series. Imagine what we can learn from them. We can simulate environments that we would never dream of putting a real person into. What happens if a child is raised in isolation or in an abusive environment? What techniques can be used to help someone recover? How can we best deal with the grief of losing a loved one? These programs can let us test these theories, and Pete has decided to throw it all away by playing God. Bob was thrilled that she had used the phrase “If I leave”, instead of when I leave.

 

He had thought his charm and their close personal relationship would win the day but the tea ceremony had shaken his faith. Bob told her that the 4000 series was joint intellectual property that she owned it as much as he and Pete did. If she left it was hers for the asking, but that she didn’t need to leave to realize her dreams. This project with AAG, was not the finish of something, it was the start of something. He loved the psychology simulation idea and would fund it pro bono out of the AAG profits. He would agree to it in her employment contract. He would also allow her to copy the 4000 series in their present state and store them off-line and out of reach of Peter. He was winning her over until he raised the last point. She shot back at him, “Their present state! They are sitting on a boat with a Zoo’s worth of animals scared out of their minds because their loving God, Peter, came to them and told them he was going to wipe out the human race. They are sitting on a boat waiting for a world-wide flood and it’s raining.”

 

Peter finished his third glass of champagne and said, “Ann your right. Honestly, if I knew how to turn back the clock I would. If I could think of another way to purify the bloodlines I would.” Ann turned red and lowered her voice to a whisper, “You’re not going to let that maniac go through with this are you?” Bob replied in a normal voice, “Ann you said it, they are sitting on a boat and it’s raining. What choice do we have?”

 

She ordered another cup of tea.

 

 

Pete sat in the lab and waited. He thought about restarting the program and having the whole thing completed before they showed up in the office, but realized that it would have the same affect as firing Ann. Bob was right; they would never finish the AAG project on time without Ann. But he also knew that he was right. They had to instill a strong moral code into the Simulants. The problems with the AAG simulation proved that. He was convinced that the reason they had come this far was because of his direct involvement in the simulation. They had a true understanding of knowledge because he had pushed them into it. If it wasn’t for his work they would still be wandering lost in the desert. Pete also knew that without Ann and Bob nothing else would happen. He knew how to program the interfaces but not the simulations, and more importantly the Simulants themselves, were beyond his abilities. He would never be able to improve or even maintain them. They were as complex as real Man. They had psychological problems and did not respond to accepted treatments. They evolved quickly and changed a little with each new generation. He had run thousands of scenarios with them and had been amazed at the results.

 

The Simulants had discovered new ways to do things. He was planning a book on survival skills using techniques that they had created. To prove they had evolved Peter had placed Simulants back into the desert simulation and over 65% of the time they had escaped even though they were new to the environment. They were able to repeat the task 99.999% of the time after their first success. This success rate was 15% better than when a trained man made the attempt. It was so close to perfect that when the Simulants repeated the task it was only because they could repeat the simulation hundreds of thousands of times that they could discover any failure rate at all. The Simulants had a grasp of mathematics, astronomy, engineering, and survival skills that surpassed any of the programmers. This was not an expert system but they provided expert results. The programmers normally built in all of the known answers, which the computer would just grind through until they reached the correct answer. In their most recent scenarios they had devised solutions that were beyond the programmers and in some cases could not be performed by any real man. The tools they had given the Simulants were crude, but the results were not. The work that the Simulant engineers had done on aqueducts to move water around was simply amazing.

 

 

Ann finished her fourth cup of tea and Bob was thinking of ordering lunch. They had negotiated or a more accurate description would be that Ann continued to make demands that Bob either anticipated or relented to. She would hire in three shifts of security that would directly report to her. She would have complete control of all backup and restore procedures. No program changes or simulations could be run without unanimous agreement from the executive management team. Bob had only failed to give in on two items, Pete would have to remain as part of the executive management team and they would proceed with the destruction of all but the 8 non-violent Simulants. Ann fought hard on the last item but since she could not come up with an alternative, and she was losing a battle with her bladder from all of the tea she had consumed, she finally gave in. Bob ordered lunch and Ann excused herself for a moment.

 

They returned to the office around 2:30pm. Pete was walking back and forth like a caged tiger. He smiled at Bob but averted his eyes when Ann looked at him. He spoke loudly to Bob, “The program is paused, and I am really sorry about starting without you. It was a terrible mistake and I apologize. I was just so sure that I was right, and I was so eager to move the project forward.” Bob walked over and put his hand on Peter’s back as he walked him into his office. He told Peter that he was very disappointed with him. Bob explained that he should consider himself fired. But because of all he had done in moving the project forward Bob was prepared to listen to his perspective.

 

Bob and Peter talked until 4:00pm, while Ann backed-up the program categorizing the existing bloodlines for future study. By the end of the interview Peter had agreed to all of the conditions that Ann and Bob outlined in the morning, including putting the restaurant bill on his cost centre. They walked out of Bob’s office and Bob announced that they had done enough for today and it was time for the three of them to go out and have a drink together. Bob was sure that Pete and Ann would have preferred to skip having drinks together but neither of them wanted to refuse. They headed back to the bar where a popcorn bowl floating on a pool of beer gave them the idea to wash the world clean of violence. Bob ordered them all scotch. They talked about everything except the 8 Simulants frozen in time waiting for God’s wrath.

 

It was a surprisingly nice evening. Peter talked about his respect; almost love for the Simulants and how much more they had become to him. Bob talked about the possibilities in almost every field and Ann talked about how they could finally ethically run behavior experiments. She had always rejected any research done on man that might have caused the participants distress. In the old days psychologists would do all kinds of questionable experiments. Allowing participants to give electrical shocks to test subjects to see if they would become desensitized to violence. This was later replaced by having the test subjects only pretend that they where receiving the shocks. The studies showed that the participants would continue to increase the voltage, if ordered to do so by the psychologist, until the voltage was high enough to kill a person. Often the participants cranking up the voltage where in tears but they would still move the voltage into the clearly marked deadly zone. It was fascinating but Ann believed that it crossed the line and may have caused as many psychological problems as the data could have possibly helped. The use of Simulants would be the perfect compromise, the data would be realistic and the Simulants could be deleted after the experiments were completed so that even the Simulants would not have to deal with the long-term effects of such an experiment.

 

Peter was amazed that Ann thought the way she did. He also had a problem using data that was unethically obtained but he had personally participated in some of the types of experiments that Ann was so strongly condemning. He had run the electric shock experiment in his old lab at the University. The idea was that you hired a group of students to give the electric shocks to a group of actors who played students. The actors were told that they were to act as if they were getting powerful electric shocks while all that really would happen was they would hear a loud buzzer that would get louder as the simulated voltage was increased. At the highest settings some smoke would rise from underneath the metal handle the actors were required to grasp. It was very realistic. The best actors would be asked to return. The students playing the torturers were told that the experiment was to test positive verses negative reinforcement. The plot was that the actors were supposed to be taking a simple mathematical test and for every wrong answer they were to be given a shock. The actors would be given a few shocks at the lowest settings and then the students would be asked, to increase the voltage if the test subject got more answers wrong. They were to increase the voltage again if they got more wrong and so on and so on. Of course the test subjects would get more and more wrong until they finally got all of the questions wrong.

 

The Psychologist would really only be recording how high the students would increase the voltage. Most students would cross into the dangerous level but would quit when the test subject screamed in agony and smoke rose from the handle. Almost 20% would continue until the voltages were at the maximum setting and the actors were told to pretend to pass out. 5% of the students were willing to continue when a new actor was presented as the next test subject. Peter did not see how anyone was harmed since the actors never really received the electric shocks and the students were told after the experiment finished what the real study was all about. They sat around the bar, drinking a few beers and talking about large moral issues. Bob was pleased that they had only lost a single day and by midnight he had his team back. It was decided that tomorrow they would go forward. Ann would monitor the results and decide whether to restore the Simulants from before the flood.

 

 

Chapter Eight

 

Forty days and Forty nights

Peter unpaused the program and let the rain fall. He also opened up great reserves of water from under the ground and it rose up in fountains. The boat was tossed about on the sea as the water continued to rise until all the visible land was covered. Peter did not need to increase the waters depth too much. At some points in their 150 day voyage the depth under the keel of the boat was only 8 ½ meters. But the illusion was complete; Bob had removed all of the Simulants from the program leaving only the four couples that made up the new family. The whole voyage lasted only 4 minutes in real-time but on July 17th they landed on the top of a conical peak, which rose 5,168 meters above the valley floor. One Hundred and fifty days after Simulant 4129 had placed his family on the boat the water started to drained back into the reservoirs. It took almost another 150 days before they saw any other land; they finally spotted another peak about 7 miles away that was about 4 thousand feet below them.

 

They had landed on a large mountain mass in the extreme eastern part of Turkey near the Iranian border. Ann almost stopped the program when Simulant 4129 built an Alter and offered a sacrifice to Pete. Bob was not amused but there was a slight smile on Peter’s face. Bob and Pete convinced Ann to let the program continue, telling her that they expected some kind of ritual and it only proved that the Simulants had learned that they must not allow violence to prevail. Leaving the boat behind the new family of man descended from the high and almost inaccessible mountains into the plains below. They followed a 965 km long Turkish river eastward. The river forms much of the current border between Turkey and Armenia, and between Azerbaijan and Iran, before it empties into the Caspian Sea.

 

They brought with them their herd animals and let the others escape into the wilderness. Ann decided to let the program run at a slower speed than normal overnight. In the morning she did a complete systems check and evaluated the success of the exercise. The family had survived without showing any psychological problems, other than their belief in Peter the God of wrath and vengeance. Even this belief was not so strongly held that Bob or Peter felt it could not be controlled or even exploited. They decided to return the program back to its accelerated timescale and repopulate the world with the descendants of Simulant 4129 and his sons. 12 million descendents later they populated the AAG simulation.

 

Ann removed and stored off-line the original 8 Simulants that had directly experienced the flood. They were disappointed that violence had reappeared but it occurred at a much lower rate and most of the descendents displayed some compassion. There was still organized fighting over natural resources and a new problem was occurring; one of the resources they fought over was labor resources.

 

The Simulants solved this problem in an ingenious but utterly abhorrent way; instead of killing their enemies they would bind them in unpaid servitude. The other Simulants were viewed as property. At first they were property of the victorious Army and used as front line troops, and then later they were sold to landowners and households to raise capital. Ann was intrigued with this result. She believed it was caused by the introduction of the God mythology. She was not sure if this was a better result. The Simulants had learned to place a higher value on life, but Ann never imagined that this would lead them to place a monetary value on life.

 

AAG Headquarters, Fort Worth Texas

Bob and his team stood before the Executive Management team of AAG and presented their findings. Bob did his presentation without all of the multimedia equipment that is normally used. He sat down while his team set up a simple connection into the AAG network. He explained using an old fashion whiteboard what they had accomplished in the last six months. Bob drew a simple map of the world with Airline Alliances' 21 hub cities. He added a table to the left showing the numbers that they were dealing with, 320,000 combinations of itinerary, fare, and carrier information in the 18,000 plus markets. The simulation takes every product and compares it against the other products in that market, and calculates given the choices made, what the Simulants should value. Then the 12 million Simulants were programmed using a database that contained all of the possible combination of personal preference, travel requirements, scheduling information, and alternatives.

 

The elegance of the system was that once the individual Simulants were programmed they didn’t need to be reprogrammed. The AAG board was amazed, they would propose a random change, such as delaying flights out of one of their hubs by 40 minutes and the program would provide them with all of the data such a change would produce. They could generate reams of data but Bob’s systems analysts were able to answer any question the board would ask. How long would the delays be in the follow on cities? “On average 2 hours, but 7 flights would have to be cancelled, fourteen crews would have to be replaced due to crew rest restrictions. Replacement crews not being in place or not responding in time would cause two cancellations of the seven effected flights. AAG was at first flabbergasted and then terrified that some other Airline consortium would gain access to the program. Bob saved the best for last.

 

He ran simultaneous copies of the program and then allowed the traffic management team to interact with the data, by understanding the outcome of their decisions they were able to minimize the problems, redirect flights in some cases, and reposition empty airplanes. The traffic management team was able to use the data to create “What if scenarios” that reduced the cancelled flights to zero, reduced the average follow-on delays down to less than 30 minutes and in two cases eliminated the delays completely. AAG had contracted to buy a simulation program that would allow them to look at the long-term effects that their business decisions would have. The president and CEO of the Airline Alliances group realized that he was getting much more than that and the consequences of such powerful program being available to his competitors terrified him.

 

The CEO stopped the meeting and motioned Bob over, whispering to him that he would like Bob to join him in his office. Bob told Ann, Peter and the rest of the team to head down to the Airline Alliances’ cafeteria for a cup of coffee while Bob headed off to the president’s office. The president turned to Bob and said, “I don’t believe your data. How can a simulation like this work? There is no way to determine some of the information that you are providing back to us.” Bob explained that the key was the Simulants themselves, they reacted in exactly the same way as real people would react. This allowed a complex system like the traffic management system to have access to what appeared to be real-time accurate data, but at computer speed. We don’t have to program in all of the data, we allow the Simulants to react to the simulation.

 

Let me explain what a Simulant is. A Simulant is a self contained computer program but with a major difference from all previous programs. We have programmed it to have real desires. Its major desire is to survive, followed closely by its desire to reproduce and pass on its genetic material. We have programmed it to mimic our other desires for affection, companionship, entertainment, a quest for knowledge, and personal comforts. The other thing that you have to remember is we are not running one simulation in that room, we are running thousands and thousands of simulations and by eliminating the extremes we can confidently predict the outcome of a simple traffic management decision.

 

The President of AAG had never had someone call his traffic management system, simple before. They were about to receive a program that would allow them to fine tune any transportation system to gain maximum profits while improving customer satisfaction. They were in essence given a new business model. The President was very smart and earned his 100 million dollar bonus by knowing that he needed complete control over this program. In 10 years AAG would become the monopoly provider of all transportation simulation and traffic management systems worldwide. AAG had much better lawyers than Thompson Simulations, so while the contract’s dollar amount suddenly improved dramatically the new terms forbid them from selling, leasing, renting, or providing data to any transportation-based company worldwide.

 

Bob, Ann, and Peter could not have cared less. They now each had enough money to retire, or to fund a first class laboratory to build and provide Simulants to every other industry segment. Not bad for three college professors. They celebrated at the “top of the tower” restaurant on champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Ann didn’t order any tea.

 

The business continued to grow rapidly, nothing creates success like success. They expanded rapidly providing Simulants to other industries. They hired a professional sales team which helped focus them on customer needs. They created specialized Simulants and simulations that allowed their customers to customize everything from entertainment, to how people drove their cars. Their customers would quickly dominate a market.

The home appliance business alone provided Thompson Simulations with as much revenue as their first contract with AAG. Of course now Thompson Simulations had much better lawyers and they never again sold their technology, they only licensed it to their customers. Thompson Simulation retained full rights and could upgrade or modify the programs as they saw fit. It was an amazingly harsh licensing agreement; it allowed Thompson Simulation to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with no recourse by the licensee. The companies that didn't sign the licensing agreement were quickly put out of business by their competition that had signed the agreement.

 

Chapter Nine

 

Flying too high

 

Thompson Simulations quickly became the strongest monopoly the world had ever seen. Bob was called before the Senate, Parliament, the European Union, even the United Nations. His answers were simple and straight forward, “Yes, they had no competition. Yes it was true, the companies that did not license his technology would be forced out of the market by the companies that did license it.” He promised that he would provide Simulants to any company or government that wanted to use them, and every company or organization would only be required to pay a licensing fee based on their cost savings or increase profit. He told them all that they were free to not use his programs and to continue to research a replacement to his technology. The only threat he ever made was that he would not distribute his technology to any country that limited his intellectual property rights.

 

He never had to carry it out because every country needed his technology and Bob was now rich enough and powerful enough that he could afford to be generous. His accountants told him that he was receiving hundreds of billions less than he was due. Bob had his lawyers send the violators threatening letters but he really did not care. The company had more money that it knew what to do with, and because he was a monopoly he was not allowed nor did he want to buy into other businesses. Thompson Simulations was not a publicly traded company, Bob, Peter and Ann had bought out the other investors and they alone now own the company.

 

Bob lived and breathed work, it was his life and even his wife understood that she was a distance second. Peter was a close second in living for work, except he also indulged in a few expensive hobbies. He was a gourmet cook, skilled pilot, and a pretty fair mechanic. He loved to work on his extensive collection of automobiles, motorcycles and even some old piston engine fighters. He secretly liked people to find him covered in grease as he rebuilt an engine. Finding him covered in grease proved he wasn’t just another computer geek. He kept a slightly battered turbocharger from a P-51 mustang sitting in his office and loved it when someone asked what this obviously out of place engine part was doing in his office.

 

Ann Dominique had worked as hard as either of them in the beginning, but over time she had done more independent personal research. She had not worked on any commercial projects for over four years. She had quit working on Thompson Simulations projects after Peter’s Son of God fiasco. She was upset when Peter did his burning bush gag, but once she saw the adverse affects that Peter's continued use of religion and mythology had on the Simulants she decided to spend all of her time working on psychology simulations. She now had as much money as Bob, and more than Peter which always irritated Peter, and amused Bob.

 

She thought her life was more balanced than Bob’s and Peter’s but she spent more and more time building psychology simulations. She had short dispassionate love affairs but was never in love. If she had a vice it was that she loved to give lavish parties. Only the most interesting people were invited. It did not matter what they were interested in as long as they were interesting to Ann. She would arrange to have her guest picked up and flown to some exotic place where the security was iron clad, and the entertainment was first rate.

 

Everyone wanted to attend and her guest list was as varied as her interest. All expenses were covered by Ann, and she was just as likely to have some Navy rescue swimmer show up as some world famous neural surgeon. Very interesting people were invited back and less interesting people lied about not enjoying themselves enough to return. Ann had never had an invitation refused and if scheduling conflicts did come up, it only took a quick call from Ann to the person in charge to clear up the problem. People did not say no to the richest female in the world, especially when she controlled the licensing rights to the Simulants that ran their systems.

 

Ann was flying back from one of her parties relaxed and refreshed. She loved to fly and this jet was especially easy to fly. It cost the company forty million dollars but was worth it. It had enough range to get from here to Europe. It also offered ample electrical power for her on-board research computer network. The jet was her second office. It also featured an unmatched communications capability; she could place phone calls, send facsimiles, use online services and access the Thompson Simulations Intranet. The satellite communications system she had installed made it possible to do all this while cruising along at Mach 0.82. The flight control and communications system was managed by Simulants, so she really didn't have to do anything except sit back and enjoy the beautiful night time view. Of course she didn't just sit back and let the Simulants fly; she flew the plane manually and enjoyed the feeling of power and control that it provided. She was downloading the day’s data to the simulated Ann Dominique as she flew along scanning her instruments and looking out at the horizon.

 

She was thirty three thousand feet above the pacific when the fire warning light came on. A forty cent washer had been improperly installed on the tubing running from the emergency oxygen and replenishment system. Any good aviation mechanic would have easily caught the fault but would have also wondered how anyone could have made such a simple but dangerous mistake. The wires were crimped below the washer, and the vibration of the jet had worn away the insulation that was protecting the wires.

 

These wires provided high voltage alternating current to the direct current transformer used for the avionics systems. When the wire grounded out sparks from the short circuit burned away the rest of the wires insulation and opened a gap in the sealing tape allowing pure oxygen to escape into the enclosed space behind the communication stack. Luckily the high voltage surge tripped all of the circuit breakers. Since the radio and navigation systems were off-line the small amount of pure oxygen leaking into the confined space did not cause a fire. No spark, no ignition. Every circuit breaker above her head popped and she found herself flying alone in the dark. The Simulant piloting system identified the effected circuit breakers, resetting all of the unaffected systems then started the wind powered backup generator. The gauges in the cockpit glowed back to life but the radio and navigation system remained offline.

 

Without the Simulant programs reacting so quickly, Ann might have crashed into the ocean. It had saved her life. The Simulant was keeping high voltage off of the exposed circuit. Ann continued to fly along using the magnetic compass. She was not lost and was pretty sure she could fly on to Hawaii without using the GPS system that most pilots relied on. Though she knew she could get by with the magnetic compass she was really beginning to miss the comforting digital GPS display.

 

She thought about descending but was afraid that in the dark she might miss Hawaii; at this altitude she would be able to see it even if she was well off the mark. The Simulant pilot which was needed for the advanced fly by wire system used in this plane recommended that she descend. It talked to her in Bob's voice. That meant that it really wanted her attention.

 

Simulant pilots do not speak very often, since they have a tendency to annoy the real pilot. No pilot wanted to have a chatty "Bitching Betty." Bitching Betty was the pilot's loving term for the voice response units in modern jets. They did not talk often but when they did it was always to bitch about something that the real pilot was doing wrong or needed to correct. The most common bitch was "Pull up, Pull up." It also gave the pilot warnings about terrain, the gear not being up or down, wind shear, low power, or the flaps not being set properly, but only when these things were going wrong. Ann hadn't heard much from this one since she never did anything wrong.

 

The voice was a standard voice until something was critical. The Air Force had discovered that the best way to get the pilots attention was to use a familiar but out of place voice like the voice of the pilot's daughter. No matter how overwhelmed a pilot was, and in modern combat a pilot was almost always overwhelmed, he or she was much more likely to react to a failure when it was pointed out by an out of place voice. So the standard voice would tell the pilot he was being painted with search radar, and then tell him that he was being locked up by targeting radar, and then tell him that a missile had been launched. Which you would think ranks pretty high up there in the critical situation department, but not until the missile was so close that the pilot had to evade or die did the pilot hear his daughters’ voice saying, "Break right." His daughters voice would snap the pilot back to reality, even if he was locked onto another jet and going in for the kill.

 

Ann could not figure out why her Bitching Betty was telling her to descend. It wasn't a bad idea and she would have done it immediately in daylight or bad weather, but it was not critical. Ann was sure that since the Simulant pilot could not use the magnetic compass, they both had a good chance of missing Hawaii if she did not stay up where she could spot the islands. She pushed the mute button because true to the name it kept bitching at her to descend.

 

Oxygen was continuing to escape and "Bitching Bob" was telling her to descend so the plane could be depressurized. The combined faults had made it too dangerous to continue to fly at 33,000 feet. The plane could explosively decompress or she could pass out from lack of oxygen, if the plane lost pressurization. She wasn't worried about needing to go on oxygen since the plane was still pressurized. Even if she did pass out the Simulant would have sensed it and immediately descended to a safe altitude. Ann was getting nervous as the compass seemed to drift, she was afraid even at this height she might miss Hawaii. She decided to manually push in the circuit breaker, and see if she could get the GPS to give her the proper heading. She pushed in the circuit breaker and nothing happened.

 

The Simulant program knew that the circuit was shorted out and would not let her depress the circuit breaker back in. If she had un-muted the system it would have warned her that the circuit was shorted and it was not safe to reenergize it. She tried again and nothing happened. She un-muted the system to see what the problem was but since she was not trying to close the circuit breaker anymore "Bitching Bob" only warned her to "Descend." That just pissed her off, and she overrode the entire system with the system diagnostic switch, saying, "Shut the fuck up, Bob."

 

She pushed in the circuit breaker again. This time with the Simulant program turned off the circuit breaker reset. This sent a high voltage charge down the wire which caused one hell of a spark. The spark ignited everything flammable in the oxygen enriched compartment and burned a hole through the skin of the aircraft. Ann’s plane was unfortunately held together by its aluminum skin which once holed at 33,000 feet came away like someone had unzipped it from the airframe. The plane exploded when the fuel vaporized into the slipstream. Having exploded and falling from thirty thousand feet the faint splashes on the ocean below looked more like a light rain than the debris from Ann's aircraft. The richest female in the world had just died because she turned off the very system that could have saved her and had made her the richest female in the world.

 

Bob got word that Ann's aircraft was overdue and could not be contacted, from the Department of Transportation. He asked that the FBI get involved since Thompson Simulations had developed a sizeable number of enemies over the years, and he was always concerned when Ann flew alone, without her security team. One of her teams had landed before she was scheduled to arrive in Hawaii and the other was supposed to land after her. The first team was on the ground trying to coordinate a search. She always religiously followed her flight plan so her head of security had aborted his landing and was already backtracking her route.

 

Bob called Peter to tell him that Ann was missing. Bob was surprised and more than a little disappointed when Peter seemed more concerned about how this would affect the company then about Ann’s disappearance. Peter and Ann's relationship had gone from bad to worse, but it still seemed a bit cold of Peter to comment that he was worried about the company at a time like this. He also was much more convinced that Ann would not be found. He told Bob, "Hell there is nothing except open ocean out beyond Hawaii. If Ann had not landed in Hawaii she must have landed in the Pacific." Bob let the comment go and said, "I'll keep you informed” then abruptly hung up on Peter.

 

The search lasted two days before one of the search vessels found some floating wreckage that was positively identified as coming from Ann's aircraft. The amount of damage indicated that the plane had exploded and that not much of the craft would have survived. Ann was listed as lost and presumed dead. The markets went crazy but Bob did not care. Everyone was concerned that future Simulant development would be effected or maybe stopped. Peter went on a tour of all of the news shows explaining that Ann was a very valuable member of the team, but she was just a member of the team and that Simulant development would continue. Bob went on a tour of his local bars. He was sure that they would be able to continue to deliver Simulants to their licensees but he just did not care. When the Central Bank chairman asked him to join Pete on the talk show circuit he told him to drop dead, and hung up on him.

 

A three day drunk later, but decided to pull himself together and he and his wife flew out to Hawaii. Ann kept a house on Maui and without finding her body he was still looking for some sort of closure. The Coast Guard and Navy had searched for more signs of the aircraft but there was little hope anything more would be found. They flew into Honolulu on the company jet and then switched to a company helicopter. The pilot had helped in the search and had known Ann well. She had done her helicopter conversion training with him, and he had so impressed Ann that he had become a regular at her parties. He was at her last party but had flown back with the security crew. They shook hands on the tarmac without saying a word and then flew on to Ann's house in silence.

 

The pilot hovered over next to Ann's helicopter and set the bird down leaving the engine running as Bob and his wife headed over to Ann's back deck. Bob had a key and he knew Ann's password codes. They had worked together for so long Bob would have been able to guess the code even if he hadn't known it. He put the key in the lock and then entered 4129 into the keypad.

 

The house was as lovely as ever but seemed colder even though the sunlight was streaming in the bay windows. He dropped the bags in the hallway and told his wife they would stay in the first floor guest room. She asked him, “Which door?” Then they heard Ann Dominique's sweet sounding voice reply, “It is just off the breakfast nook, make yourself comfortable. Can I offer you something from the kitchen or a drink? Bob, I have some of that awful Chinese tea, you like in the cabinet, if you want a cup. “Bob steadied his wife who looked like she was about to faint, and yelled out, "Ann? Where are you? We thought you were dead!"

 

Chapter Ten

 

Plano Texas

 

"Honey I thought you were dead!" said David's wife. Soon to be Ex-Lieutenant David Grant of the United States Navy replied, "Look baby it wasn't that bad. It was all a mix up, let’s put it behind us. I have an interview with the airline tomorrow and I promise to put on a good show. I love to fly and I am sure to get plenty of hours with these guys. I'm excited about this, really." It had been one heck of a ride. First he had lost his jet into the Pacific Ocean then he lost his slot as a Navy test pilot because he did the right thing, but not the Navy thing. His wife had packed up and moved them back home to Texas as soon as he told her he was going to resign his commission.

 

He felt a little awkward cuddling up to his wife in the tiny single bed in her family's guest bedroom, but it would be another two weeks before their stuff arrived. Unless he could quickly find a house, and a job that would allow him to convince a mortgage company to lend him the money to pay for it, he was going to have to spend a lot more time cuddled up in this small bed. His son lay in the rollout bed next to him and his daughter was on an air mattress in the far corner. He could hear his father in-law making coffee in the kitchen. The sun wasn't even up yet, but his father in-law was. He put his hands together and said, "Please let this interview go well."

 

Dave had felt different ever since the accident, it had changed his life more than he could have ever imagined. He couldn't put his finger on it but his senses seemed stronger, clearer, and more wide awake. He could sense what people were thinking better than ever before. He had talked to a bunch of guys during out-processing and was almost able to read their minds. He finished their sentences and understood what they wanted him to do almost before they did. Of course it didn't work on everyone and it didn't work all of the time. He still did not understand what his wife was thinking, and her parents were as confusing as ever. They all wanted him to live in Plano.

 

It was a nice town but it was miles from the airport and it was more of a high tech, corporate headquarters town. His wife loved the schools and the parks. He dreaded the drive, it would take over an hour to get home from the airport and the last thing he wanted to do was add another hour to his day after pushing a big fat jet around the sky on a red eye from Tokyo. But he had been married long enough to know that if you want a happy marriage you have to have a happy wife.

 

He felt funny putting on a civilian suit and tie. The tie seemed too loud but when he told the guy helping him pick out the suit for the interview that he wanted a more conservative tie. The guy replied, "Sir there is nothing more conservative than a paisley tie." Dave wanted to tell him, a black tie was more conservative, but the dark suit and white shirt already made it look like he was going to a funeral not a job interview. This morning he looked at himself in the mirror and saw a civilian wearing a paisley tie looking back. He drove past the large EDS headquarters on his way to the interview and thought to himself it could be worse, at least he was going to be able to fly again. He loved being a pilot and couldn't even comprehend doing anything else.

 

Peter had been tracking this iteration of Simulant 4129 ever since he had saved himself from the launch accident on the USS Ronald Reagan. Peter had thought about restoring him as a new Navy pilot but was afraid that it could lead to a really bad case of déjà vu. It had been restored too often. In some cases Peter or Ann would have to eliminate a particular iteration of Simulant 4129 because it would demonstrate erratic behavior. Ann was convinced it was because of all the reset and restores that they put the series through. Peter was coming around to her way of thinking. He thought in this case they would do a restore from the base Simulant 4129 as the replacement pilot and allow this iteration

 

 “david.grant.ssn.A110.49.82471.gov.navy.us.test-pilot.human_4129” to be reassigned. They needed a new flight control system for AAG’s simulation so Peter ran the employee posting subroutine and put the wheels in motion. He updated the data base to read, “david.grant.ssn.A110.49.82471.AAG.pilot.hq.human_4129”

 

The interview went better than he could have ever hoped. It actually went better than Peter had planned. David so impressed the human resource guy and a project lead that they didn't want him to just fly they also wanted him to test new aircraft designs, instruct, and to work directly with the aircraft manufacturers to ensure that the airline got what they wanted. The pay was great and he would be able to have some control over his schedule. His wife and her parents would be ecstatic. Since they use three aircraft manufactures he could pick his own location. He would have chosen Chicago or Atlanta but he was sure the decision was already made. It would be Dallas or more accurately Plano. Plain Old Texas, his wife would be happy and since most of his flying would be off the manufacturers strips it didn't matter enough to push her to move again only to have her complain about how much business travel he did. She would be close to her family and he would be happy because she was happy.

 

They celebrated at a small Italian restaurant. Bob had also secretly rented them a suite in Dallas, no climbing over the kids tonight. They were greeted at the door by a friendly but efficient maitre d', who looked as if he might have to disappoint them. His expression changed as soon as Dave's wife asked them if they had a reservation for 2 for Grant. The maitre d' called the owner over and introduced them. The owner took David's hand and said, "Please, we have your table ready. It is so nice to meet you. So Signore Grant, are you just visiting our humble little restaurant or can we expect to see more of you and your lovely wife.

 

Dave's wife explained that Dave had just left the Navy and would now be flying for the Alliance Group. The owner took the answer to mean that they would be regular customers and he was right. The restaurant would become their favorite. The owner left them to look over the wine list and menu while he talked to each of the waiters and hostess. The wait staff was friendly would tell little jokes as they served each course and ask questions about the Dave’s family, job, where he had been, and what he had done. They were impressed and it was kind of an ego boost to Dave.

Sometime during dinner Bob brushed a crumb off the table and the waiter quickly came over and said, "Sir please, I promise not to fly airplanes if you promise not to clean the table." He then swept up the imaginary crumbs left over from David's clumsy effort. The meal was excellent but the service was unbelievable by the end of the meal all of the staff knew all there was to know about Dave and his wife. The hostess walked them to the door and handed them two small sweets saying, "Please, for Matthew and Katie. We hope to see you again soon." She kissed Dave's wife on the cheek. Then placed her hand in David's in such a way, that he was compelled to raise it to his lips and kiss it gently as he said goodbye.

The owner was talking with another table when he saw Dave at the door with the hostess he excused himself for a moment. He walked over and gave David a firm handshake while placing his other hand on David’s arm. He then let go of Dave and took one step back opening his arms as if to hug Dave's wife while looking at Dave for permission. Dave nodded, the owner stepped forward embracing her and she ended up with another kiss on her cheek.

 

They were both smiling when they left the restaurant; Dave spoke first, “A long way from the officer’s mess." His wife said, "I could get use to this." He started the car and confused his wife by turning the wrong way on the toll road away from Plano and heading towards Dallas. He had made a reservation at the Hotel Adolphus just off Commerce Street. Dallas was not a jumping place at night but the hotel was very nice and they would not be going out anymore tonight any way. He had the strangest desire to ask them to send up some champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, so while his wife looked around the lobby, he asked the receptionist if she could have room service put them in their room.

Dave only had a small overnight bag with him. He had secretly packed it for them, stopping at a Lingerie shop earlier that day for the things that Cheryl would need. He had picked her up a satin slip with a kimono wrap. It was just sexy enough for him to enjoy but not so over the top that she would start laughing when she unpacked it. He handed the bag to the bellboy along with a five dollar bill saying, "Just drop this in the room." David leaned in close to him and added," Can you make sure room service has the champagne on ice." Dave took his wife by the hand and they headed into the bar.

 

Dave ordered a glass of port for himself and a glass of Eiswein for his wife. He looked into his wife's eyes and for the first time, in a long time, he saw someone that was truly happy. All the stress of knowing that he would soon be going back to sea was gone. The Navy had a term for it called, "submarine syndrome." It happens when the guys are deployed for long periods of time leaving their wives at home to take care of everything. The wives paid the bills, got the cars fixed, took out the trash, painted the fences, everything. When the guys came home the wives were of course happy to see them but they also resented them. They knew it was only a matter of time before they would redeploy and they would be stuck taking care of everything again. When the husbands would ask about some bill or car repair the wives would become defensive saying, "Look I take care of everything while you are out playing sailor, so don't come home questioning how I run the house or take care of the kids."

 

It had all drained away. He could see it in her eyes. She knew for the very first time that this was not a welcome home or goodbye date. It was like their honeymoon, a new beginning. He looked across the table and said, "Cheryl, you are the most beautiful woman I have every seen. I missed you. Let’s go up to the room." She was touched, he almost never called her by her name, and the last time he had called her beautiful was on their honeymoon. She signed the bill then took him by the hand and led him out of the bar.

 

Peter got a call from the CEO of the Alliance Group; he needed some additional resources allocated to one of the Alliance Groups partners. The VentureStar project was moving forward. The half size prototype had just completed the first 15 flights. The contractor wanted to start the simulation work for the manned model. They needed a Simulant that was trained in flight testing and of course they wanted to use a 4129 series. The CEO understood that there would be an additional fee but they would pass the cost on to the contractor. Peter had just the Simulant in mind, "david.grant.ssn.A110.49.82471.AAG.pilot.hq.human_4129".

 

He was already in place in the Alliance Group's computer system and a small change to the database now earned Thompson Simulations an additional two million dollars in Simulant fees. Peter entered the new data in the systems, “david.grant.ssn.A110.49.82471.AAG.testpilot.VentureStar.human_4129”

 

Dave couldn’t suppress the huge smile on his face as he drove back from work. Cheryl would be just as happy as he was, this new assignment was a dream come true. Their house was just about completed, the brick was going up and Cheryl was picking out carpets and wall coverings. The landscaping was next and then the movers. He figured in about a month they would be moved in. The kids were already going to the local school since they were able to give them the address of the new house. It was in Plano but not in the same neighborhood as his wife's parents so at least they would not have to wave at each other everyday. His new job was the best job he had ever heard of and he was getting paid a lot of money to do it. Life was good, almost too good, he just couldn’t stop smiling.

Peter's Lab

 

 

Chapter Eleven

 

 Slavery

 

Peter was surprised to see Ann's Maui telephone number displayed on his private line. He picked it up, and trying to get the concern out of his voice he spoke into the handset, "Hello, who is this?" Bob answered, "It's me, I’m calling from Ann's place in Maui, and we need to get security to lock down her lab and to check out each of her homes and apartments." Peter was more surprised now then when he first saw the number flash across his phone.

 

"Bob, what is this all about? What did you find? What are you looking for? Why are you looking at all?"

 

Bob was confused by the question replying "I wasn't looking for anything, but what I found is a fully self aware Simulant."

Peter pulled the phone away from his ear and looked puzzling at the handset. He placed the handset back to his ear and said, "So what? Bob in case you forgot, we build those by the millions."

 

“Peter listen to me, this is not one of our series. It thinks it is real. It thinks it is Ann.”

 

Peter didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything, he just hung up the phone and sat down behind his desk. He had hundreds of questions that he would have liked to ask Bob or better yet Ann, but the realization that Ann had created another kind of Simulant and that she was dead was just too overwhelming, if he had only known.

 

It didn’t take him long to realize that if he was going to go through with his plan he had to act. He wished he had more time and that he had known about the Simulant, Ann had created but it did not change the need or his desire to follow through on his plan. He had planned on working on Bob once things settled down about trying his next experiment, but this changed everything. A new Simulant created by Ann. Bob would never go for another religion based experiment. Peter had hoped after Ann’s death that Bob would lose interest maybe retire and leave Peter to run the company. That wasn’t going to happen with a new Simulant, one that believed it as alive, one created by Ann. He wasn’t sure what it meant but he knew he had to act, now!

 

He loaded the new simulation that his historical team had built secretly months before. He had wanted an environment that would allow him to develop a new culture based on a new religious myth. It was his opportunity to finish his life’s ambition. He had spent tremendous amounts of time and energy on developing the scenario. He had even had Ann’s help though she didn’t know it. Ann was intrigued by slavery. She was so interested in it that she would even talk to Peter about it. The other programmers hated it because it was the cause of so much extra work. The translation work needed to remove its effects from every simulation was difficult, time consuming and tedious.

 

Ann had found slavery abhorrent but she had used it to introduce issues, which helped her test and study psychological problems. She found that due to the slavery error in the simulation; it was very easy to test some scenarios that could not be simulated in real life. People throughout man’s history had been exploited. But in the real world, civilization had never allowed, nor to her knowledge had Man ever even contemplated the view that other people could be viewed as someone's property. Ann decided that slavery opened opportunities to her.

 

Slavery allowed her to do things such as separate families at will. She could expose a Simulant culture to new cultural experiences with one culture obviously being superior and the other viewed as inferior. Breeding could be based on physical attributes and the ideas about self worth could be fully explored in a way that was not possible in real life.

 

To better understand why the Simulants allowed it, she performed an experiment. She built a simulated University campus and then had the professor do an intriguingly simple experiment in the simulated environment. She wanted to test the same experiment in the real world and compare the results. She went back to Holbert University and asked one of her friends to do the same experiment. Normally she did not like to do psychological experiments on real people but this one was so harmless that she decided that there would be no problem doing the same experiment in both the real world and inside of the simulation.

 

The first step was to randomly print a very large number of black dots on a white sheet of paper. This would be shown to each student and they would be given some time to study the paper. They would not be told what to study or anything else about the experiment.

 

The paper would be returned to the professor and then the students would be asked to guess the number of dots. Each time the exercise was conducted there would be a large groan heard as the Professor asked, “Please write down the number of dots you think you saw.”

 

The answers were collected and then the class would continue. The answers were discarded since it did not matter what number the students guessed. There were in fact 4,129 dots on the paper because it amused Ann.

 

The students were then separated into two groups with one third of the randomly chosen group placed in one group and the other two thirds of the group placed in the other. A student assistant would explain to both groups that they were in the better group because of their obvious superiority on the test.

 

The students who had the day before thought the test was silly today believed that it had some real value. The student assistant was told to reinforce any positive image that the group came up with about their success and any negative image that the group came up with about the other group’s failure.

 

For example the group was told that their ability to get closer to the number showed their better spatial abilities which of course translated into better intellectual understanding of complex problems.

 

Of course it doesn't, but the students did not question the assumption. The differences in the sizes of the groups were explained to the smaller group as a sign of them being the gifted students. It was explained to the larger group that the smaller group was made up of slower students accepted into the University.

 

The real world students did question the data and wanted to better understand the research. Ann was not prepared to lie to the students or fill them with false information so was forced to halt the experiment. It did concern Ann that the real students didn’t just reject the concept instead of asking for more information. It showed the power that a Professor holds over a student. She made a mental note to do more real world research on this phenomenon.

 

In the simulation Ann of course wasn't concerned about misleading the students, since they were only Simulants. They also did not ask for any additional information or collaborating research. They just accepted the idea that this was good science and did not question the problem.

 

The groups remain separated for a full week and then were reintegrated into a single class. The issues started to surface immediately. The Simulant professor did not separate the students but they separated themselves. Study groups were disbanded and reformed by the Simulant students.

 

Long-term relationships were threatened. It was obvious that the groups now viewed each other differently all based on how many dots they thought were on a piece of paper. Of course it was based on even less than that. One of the safe guards Ann put in place was that the students had been separated randomly. The number of dots that each student guessed did not have any effect on the group they were placed in.

 

Ann was even more intrigued when after the experiment was explained to the students they still stayed in their new groups. The closely identified with the group that they had been assigned to and stayed segregated. Even after Ann had the Simulant professor repeat the dot exercise to show that the groups were not based on their ability to count the number of dots on a piece of paper they stayed segregated. Nothing seemed to make any difference, once the groups had been identified and conditioned to believe that the other group was different it was impossible to get them fully integrated back into a single class. Ann finally had to delete the scenario and remove all of the Simulants.

 

It taught her two things. The Simulants were genetically programmed to form into tribal units. They also lacked a reasonable level of compassion for anyone not part of their tribe. It was why slavery was accepted. They saw anyone not part of their tribe as less valuable than themselves or other members of their tribe. It was amazing to Ann and she would continue to repeat experiments on this tribal influence for the rest of her shortened life.

Peter questioned her about this behavior and while she was intrigued by it Peter thought only about developing a scenario that would allow him to end it once and for all. He finally settled on the idea of providing the Simulants with some simple rules to follow. He had wanted to try out his ideas but he knew he couldn’t do it while Ann held Bob’s ear. He hoped this new program would improve the Simulants' social skills and remove some anomalies like slavery from the simulations. If they did Bob would have to accept that he was right and that Ann had been holding back their research.

 

Peter felt from the very first that slavery must be eliminated since it did not exist and had never existed in the real world. It was always a sore point with him; he hated the idea of slavery. He thought it was a wasteful use of computer resources and caused all kinds of simulation problems. A group that was enslaved or owned slaves added unnecessary complexities into the simulations. He wanted to remove the problem but was always stopped from doing anything about it by Ann. Ann wasn’t going to be a problem any more. He loaded the program and thought, Bob is going to be pissed but at least he would have the last laugh on Ann.

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Exodus

 

Peter removed "noah.ssn.A110.49.82471.shepherd.human_4129" from the protected database and loaded him into the new simulation as "moses.ssn.A110.49.82471.elder.prophet.human_4129"

 

Moses moved up the mountain of Jebel el Lawz from his father-in-law's home just outside of Midian. His wife's father, Jethro, was the priest of Midian and had a very large flock. Moses normally liked the life of a shepherd, but the long climb and especially that it was up this mountain took all of the pleasure out of it for him. The mountain of Jebel el Lawz always gave him an uneasy feeling, the upper 200 feet of the mountain was often covered in mist. The trail of one of Jethro's stray goats continued unforgivingly up the rocky hillside. Moses lost the trail as he entered the mist and stopped. He saw the light of a fire flicker off the rocks in front of him. He stepped around a bend and before him was a bush that burned with fire, but did not burn, or at least was not consumed. Moses saw the light and felt the flame, but the bush lived inside the light. It was not burned away or diminished by the flames.

 

Peter knew that Moses lived in a simple time and would be easily impressed with simple tricks which he created by making a few changes to the simulation parameters. He programmed a couple of surprises for Moses. Peter increased the light and the heat that was projected by the bush and through his interface spoke to Moses. Peter decided that he was tired of speaking in riddles and parables. He wanted 4129 to understand clearly what was expected of him and that he must pass this knowledge to every other Simulant. He spoke in his own voice directly to Moses. The first time when he spoke to Eve, he had taken the place of the other Simulant. The last time he had waited until Noah's brain was operating in the 11 Hz, range that Simulants dreamed at. This time he wanted to ensure that there could be no mistaking the message. Moses' mind was operating at almost 50 Hz. He was fully conscious, in fact any higher and Peter would have to back off the program. Simulants operating at more than 60 Hz were most often in acute hysteria. Peter hoped that this did not push him over the edge.

 

Moses was afraid and turned away as he heard Peter's voice say, "Here am I."

 

Peter then said, "Moses, remove your shoes for this is holy ground." Peter hoped that the simple act of taking off his shoes would allow him to calm down.

 

Moses removed his shoes and his mind slowed into the 40 Hz range. The sound of Peter's voice did not scare him as much the second time.

 

The words were almost comforting since they answered the questions that were racing through his mind. Who or What are you, the Devil or a ghost? Moses did not speak it, but Peter guessed what he was thinking.

 

Peter said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Peter noticed that Moses had turned away again, and that his mind was back in the 50 Hz range. He pressed on saying, "I have seen the affliction of oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cry and I know their sorrows. I come now to deliver them out of slavery to their own land. It is a large open place that can be made to flow with milk and honey."

 

I want you, Moses, to go to tell Pharaoh that I have sent you to lead my people out of Egypt."

 

Moses said to Peter, "Who am I? That I can go to the Pharaoh and tell him that he must release the children of Israel out of his kingdom."

 

Peter thought that is a very good question. I am sure I will have to restart your program many times before you convince a Pharaoh that he must release his slaves to you, but release them he will. Peter knew it was critical to remove slavery from the simulation. He couldn't know that it would take much more than this attempt to do it. He believed that a message from a superior intelligence, from God would be enough to ensure that the violence, man's inhumanity to man that had infected the simulation would be stamped out with this grand gesture, this revelation from above. Peter had chosen Moses to be his messenger and he would make sure that the message would be loud, clear and unmistakable.

 

Moses spoke again, "When I stand in front of the Pharaoh, even when I stand in front of the children of Israel and say that the God of your fathers sent me to you, what name should I use?

 

The matter of a name seemed trivial to Peter. He thought of saying to Moses call me Peter or Pete but decided now was not the time to be cute. So he answered Moses, “I AM THAT I AM. Tell my children that I AM sent you. Tell them that, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent you. Go to the elders of Israel and tell them that I have visited with you and commanded you to free my children from the affliction of Egypt. Moses, I am sure the king of Egypt will not free my people easily, but be brave for I will reach out my hand and do whatever is necessary to make sure that my people are free."

 

Moses tried to believe Peter, but knew that no one else would believe that he had spoken to the Lord. He did not want to question God but he also did not want to fail him so he said, "They will not believe me. They will say the Lord would not have spoken to you on a mountain top. He would have spoken to someone like your father-in-law, a priest in a temple."

 

Peter knew this to be true so decided to do something that would make Ann turn in her grave. He had programmed in a small trick, just in case the burning bush gag didn't convince Moses that he was really speaking with God. He asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?" Moses told him he carried a staff to help him up the mountain and to round up his sheep and goats. Peter told him to throw down his rod onto the holy ground. As soon as it touched the ground Peter replaced it with a serpent. It amused him that he was using the myth of the serpent again. Ann had spent millions of dollars researching why Humans had chosen to create the myth of a serpent communicating the idea of knowledge to Eve. The snake still seemed to cause an unreasonable amount of fear in Humans.

 

Moses recoiled in fear from the serpent and hid from it.

 

Peter told him, "Pick it up by the tail." When Moses did the snake was turned back into a staff. Peter said, "I will give you the words and deeds necessary to free my people"

 

When Moses came down from the mountain the mist had burned away, and the top 200 feet of it had been burned black. Moses some how knew it would remain like that until the end of time.

 

Moses went first to convince the elders of Israel that God had spoken to him on the Mountain of Jebel el Lawz and pointed to it’s now burned peak. Moses had a hard time convincing anyone that he had communicated directly with God.

 

Peter wanted to make sure that the rumors of his power preceded Moses into Egypt. Peter put his virtual reality suit back on and visited Moses’ brother, one of the leaders of Israel, called Aaron. He told Aaron to meet Moses at Jebel el Lawz. He spoke to them both again on the mountain top and convinced them that they must travel to Egypt together. When they returned from the Mountain, Aaron told the elders what Moses had told them was true. Aaron performed miracles to help them believe. The elders bowed before them and worshipped God.

 

Moses and Aaron left for Egypt where the rumors of their arrival and mission had already become known to the Pharaoh.

 

The Pharaoh was not at all happy about losing his work force and while he did not want to test this Israeli God too much, he did decide to make a point by no longer providing the straw that was needed to make bricks. He told them to spend less time praying and more time finding and gathering the straw they would need to finish their work.

 

Peter wanted to make sure that the message would not diminish over time and that from now on that all of the Simulants would clearly understand the idea that they must follow his rules. He would use the virtual reality suit replacing the Pharaoh’s chief advisor and magician as he had replaced Adam in the Garden simulation. He would advise Pharaoh to ensure that he did not give in too quickly.

 

Moses was more concerned for Aaron than he was for himself as they walked from the shadows onto the sunlit tiles in front of the Pharaoh. Moses spoke to Pharaoh saying, “Great Pharaoh, I am but your humble servant but I also serve the one true God. He has commanded me to act.” The Pharaoh responded, “If you are my servant than leave us in peace and take your God with you. We do not need him here in Egypt we have plenty of Gods already.

 

You should not be speaking to me, you should be speaking to the people that you say you represent. I can tell you they are unhappy and your presence here has made their work harder. They would ask you, as I am asking you, to leave us. Moses said, “I have not come to speak to them, but to speak for them. The one true God wants you to release them so that they can worship him. To prove to you that I speak not just as your humble servant, but as the servant and messenger of the God of the Israeli’s, my brother and I have been told to show you the power of our God. I will warn you now as your servant that he is a powerful and a determined God. You will submit to his will but I fear it will be too late and that your hardened heart will rule over you. You must listen to us and release his children.

 

The Pharaoh spoke, “Moses you speak to me as if you were my master and I was your servant. I do not fear your God and by the time we are finished his children will reject him. They serve me and my power is complete. Moses looked sadly at Aaron and spoke in a quiet voice, “Aaron cast your rod down before Pharaoh and show him the power of the God of the Hebrew’s.

 

Aaron dropped the rod down in front of Pharaoh and it clanged to the ground. The sound echoed off the great stone walls but before the echo reached the ears of the people in the hall Aaron’s staff had turned into a snake. It rose up before Pharaoh but Pharaoh was unimpressed. He called to his magician and said, "Explain this magic to me." Peter spoke to him as his chief magician saying, “This is not magic it is not even a good illusion. It is an old trick; the hand is quicker than the eye. While we listened to Moses speak and our attention was redirected to the sound of the echo the rod was replaced by the snake. You are truly merciful in not killing them both where they stand for such an insulting and feeble attempt at magic. I have seen street magicians perform better tricks." Pharaoh looked deep into Moses' eyes and said, "Is this snake trick suppose to impress me so much that I would give up my kingdom and our Gods, to follow the God of Moses, the serpent god of the Israeli’s?" Peter used the same effect again except this time as Pharaoh's magician he waved his hand and signaled for two of his assistants to throw their staffs on the ground in front of the snake.

 

The computer changed them both into snakes and they start to wrap themselves around Aaron’s Snake. The crowd and Pharaoh settle back enjoying the show. The snakes move around in sort of a snake charmers dance until Aaron's snake grabs one of the snakes by the tail and starts to swallow it. The other snake moves away as its partner is consumed and the crowd starts to grow excited again. Aaron's snake quickly devourers the first and then consumes the second snake head first. The assistants raise their hands dismissively but say nothing. Pharaoh looks at the crowd’s reaction and after sending a disappointing look at Peter and his assistants turns his back on the crowd and Moses and walks up the stairs leading out of the chamber. His footsteps echo quietly off the stone walls as he slowly steps up each perfectly polished tread. On the last step the sound of sand crunches under his sandal. He feels it give way under his foot. It is as if he can feel his kingdom starting to crumble beneath him. When the Pharaoh finally moves behind a curtain Aaron picks up the remaining snake by the tail and turns defiantly holding his staff tightly in his hand. He and Moses then leave the hall.

 

Peter removed the virtual reality interface and called his psychology team for a quick meeting. Peter explained to them that it was important that the message not be lost this time. It is crucial that the Simulants understand that slavery will not be tolerated. Peter was also concerned because the Simulants would sometimes miss the most obvious point or retell the story in a confusing way. He was still confused why they had converted him into a serpent in the garden and why they thought that they were being punished for seeking knowledge. The garden simulation was set in the fall so there was plenty of food and the weather was more pleasant then later in the simulation, when it was winter. Still the garden was never meant to be a reward nor was it a punishment.

 

The psychology team proposed that they eliminate any subtlety. If Peter wanted to play God, which many of them believed was a mistake, then he should play it to the hilt. He should be a vengeful and jealous god. Pharaoh should be influenced to hold out so Peter could send the strongest possible message.

 

Peter called in the simulation team and told them that he wanted miracles. He wanted to be able to control every aspect of the simulation. One of the programmers smiled and said, "We got miracles." A small group of them had built in some sub-routines that allow them to play a game using the company’s very expensive systems as if they were some super game console. They would each don one of the virtual reality outfits load up a new simulation, after the program manager had left for the day. The object of the game was to see how many converts they could amass.

The rules of the game were simple; every miracle had to have some kind of natural explanation, although some of the less inhibited programers pushed this rule to the limit. The other rule was that entire simulation had to be erased at the end of the game and none of the Simulants could survive, or be saved back into the data base. The hard part was allowing access to the system from inside the simulation.

 

No matter what the programmers did they were never in any danger. They moved around the simulation using the VR suits which allowed them to experience moving around the environment but it only simulated it. It was like being in an aircraft simulator or a really good ride at an amusement park. It would simulate the sensation of falling from the sky but the crash would never kill you. Some of the programmers did end up with bruised knees or black eyes but it was safer than walking down a flight of stairs. Peter was ecstatic. He now had the control he needed while he was inside the simulation.

 

The next problem was that he needed more control over the Pharaoh. The simulation team proposed that he become the Pharaoh. He had done it before in the Garden Simulation; he had become "Adam" to explain to "Eve" that she must seek knowledge. Peter thought it was a good idea. He could control the simulation from inside and would replace Pharaoh. This would allow him to run through the entire list of "miracles" that the programmers had created. The Simulants would understand that their God had the power to enforce his will. Those that did not follow his rules could be, and would be, punished.

 

He told the programmers to get to work testing the system and that this time they would not erase the Simulants. The Program Manager was shocked, but got the team started as he made a call to Bob. Peter took the list of "miracles" back to his psychology team. They reviewed the miracles and his idea of replacing himself with Pharaoh.

 

Most of the team agreed that the Simulants would believe that “God” was commanding them after witnessing the long list of miracles Peter was proposing. Some of them still disagreed with the approach, but because Peter was the boss and because they could not come up with a better idea they decided that they would go along. The entire team disagreed with Peter replacing himself with Pharaoh. They felt that to be realistic the Pharaoh needed to be a Simulant. They did a psychological review of the Pharaoh and felt that with the right guidance they would be able to run through most if not all of the “miracles.”

 

Peter put on the VR suit and entered the program again as the Pharaoh’s magician. He found the Pharaoh looking out over his kingdom. The sun was setting behind the hills and the sunset was shimmering across the desert in waves. The Pharaoh looked worried as if he was trying to decide his next step. At the same time Bob was racing towards Peter’s lab. The Program Manager had filled Bob in on what was going on. Bob missed Ann more than ever but was glad she was not around to see this.

 

Pharaoh looked up at his magician and motioned for him to sit next to him. “So tell me my old friend and teacher what are we to do with the Israelis.” Peter responded, “My lord you know you can not let them leave. We need them and even if we didn’t our enemies would see this as a sign of our weakness.” “I know, but can we stand against their God? I have never seen such magic and such confidence. Moses and his brother stood before me without fear.” Peter honestly replied, “Lord, I do not know if we can stand against their God, but I know we must try. Peter took his leave and as soon as he was out of sight, he signaled his team to accelerate time.

 

The Pharaoh had just finished watching the sun set across the desert, when less than a millisecond later it was rising over the Nile. Time was compressed and accelerated, none of the Simulants understood it or even sensed it, but the night they had just slept through took less time than it would take for the light to travel from their window to their eyes. Pharaoh bathed, dressed, ate his breakfast and boarded his royal yacht all in the time it took to execute a couple thousand lines of code on Thompson Simulations’ fastest computers. Pharaoh’s magician was waiting for him on the yacht. Bob’s car traveled exactly 27 centimeters in the same amount of time. At this rate Bob would arrive in time to see Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon.

 

Moses was standing along the river as Pharaoh’s barge pulled level with him, Moses stepped into the cool water and spoke loudly to Pharaoh and his party, “The Lord God of the Hebrews has sent me to tell you to let his People go, that they may serve him in the wilderness. Because you refuse to hear his words, behold.” With that Moses placed his rod in the river and the water turned to blood. The fish died and the smell of blood and death was everywhere, every pool, stream, and well. Even the water in urns, stone and wooden bowls; all of the water was turned to blood.

 

Pharaoh sent some of his soldiers to kill Moses but they retreated from the water as the sticky blood coated their uniforms. Pharaoh told his captain to leave them and to return the barge to its dock. Peter was ready to comfort and counsel Pharaoh but for seven days Pharaoh would see no one. The water remained as blood and Pharaoh’s people started to die in such great numbers that Peter allowed the water to flow again. When Pharaoh called for his magician it was not to seek his counsel it was to ask him why the water had returned. Pharaoh had given up and was ready to die with his kingdom. He told his magician to call for Moses and that he would release the Israelis. Peter sprung into action saying, “Lord, your enemies will attack us if it looks as if we are under attack by such a strong God. They will put a great Army in the field and march on us if we are seen as bowing to this Hebrew God. We must resist, the water has returned this God has been defeated or at least limited by the God’s of Egypt. The more powerful this God appears the stronger we must resist him. If we give in now we will lose not only the slaves, but also the kingdom.

 

Bob's car made the turn onto the ramp, he was traveling a bit fast for traffic conditions and was trying to dial his cell phone as he merged into traffic. He cut off another driver who gave him the single finger salute. The driver was surprised when he recognized Bob from the cover of news magazines. He realized that he had just given the CEO of Thompson Simulations the finger. He thought about it and then shot Bob the finger one more time before speeding off with a smile on his face. Bob put up his hands in a gesture of capitulation and then started to try and dial his cell phone again. A week passed in the simulation in the time it took Bob to dial the fourth and fifth number of the Thompson Simulations Security Office.

 

Peter needed to pull off a miracle himself. He needed to tell Moses what miracle would happen next and at the same time continue to play the part of Pharaoh's chief magician. He decided to use audio only to talk to Moses. Peter moved inside the program using the virtual reality suit until he could see Moses praying in the garden. He could not hear what Moses was saying but he programmed in the location and spoke into his microphone, “Moses, Do not lose faith. I have hardened the Pharaoh’s heart but he will feel my power and release my people. Go to him and tell him he must release my people and if he does not I will release a plague of frogs across this kingdom.” Moses feared for his life not only from the Pharaoh but also from the Egyptian people. They knew that when Moses met with the Pharaoh that the Hebrew God was about to act. Their fear kept them from attacking him, but soon one of the tormented people in the crowd would decide that they had taken too much and end Moses’ life.

 

Peter’s team of psychologists thought it was very likely that either Pharaoh or the Egyptian’s would kill Moses and Aaron so they decided to put the program into auto save mode. Each event would trigger a save point which could then be used to restore the program if something when wrong. It slowed the program down but things were still happening in a timescale measured in seconds instead of hours.

 

Bob could hear the phone ringing on the other end in the Security office, as the guy that threw him the finger cut back across three lanes and exited the freeway up ahead.

 

Moses was held waiting in the antechamber for three hours while Pharaoh played with his son. They sat in front of the ornate golden throne playing a game of Merrils. The Pharaoh’s mind was not on the game and he quickly lost pieces to his first born son. Pharaoh’s son was confused when his father allowed him to move three more pieces in a row leaving his father with only two pieces on the board. His father did not even look up from the board. He sat and pondered the pieces thinking of his next move until his son said, “Father you have lost. You only have two pieces left.” The Pharaoh looked deeply into his son’s eyes and said, “I think you are right. I have lost.” He stood up and signaled the guards to allow Moses and Aaron to enter. The guards waited for the servants to pick up the game and for Pharaoh to sit down on this throne. Pharaoh’s son stood beside the throne and watched as Egypt’s enemies approached his father. Pharaoh greeted them by asking, “So what does the God of Abraham have for us this morning? He has made my people dig in the ground like dogs and lap at the tainted water of Egypt. More snake tricks perhaps?”

 

Moses told the Pharaoh that if he did not release his people that a great plague of frogs would spread across Egypt. Pharaoh was unimpressed and told him that if the people of Egypt could survive drinking bloody water as the wine before a meal that a few frogs would served as a fine main course. The people of Egypt would welcome this gift from the God of the Hebrews. Moses said, “Then my Pharaoh you shall dine on the bounty that the “One True God” will provide you. They may sit on your table, but they will also sit, at your table. They will climb into your bedchamber, your ovens and where you wash and prepare your food. They will visit your house and the house of your servants. Pharaoh stood up, looking as if he was made of stone. The people in the chamber looked at him as he stood motionless, finally he said, “Let the feast begin, for Moses I will never let your people go.” Moses shook his head in disbelief. He motioned for Pharaoh to follow him to the river. When the crowd had gathered, Moses told Aaron to stretch his rod over the now recovered clear blue river water. The water boiled and teamed with life as the frogs left the river in a plague.

All that day and throughout the night the frogs kept coming. Peter had his assistant perform the same miracle for Pharaoh which of course just made the problem worse. Pharaoh screamed at Peter, “We don’t need more frogs. If you want to help me, get rid of them, don’t make more!” Peter explained that this was simple magic and that Pharaoh had to remain strong.

 

The Pharaoh walked in his gardens. He stepped over the croaking frogs and held his son in his arms. He was trying to comfort the boy but the sounds of the frogs and their incessant croaking had the entire household in a panic. No place was clear of them, where they had not found a way into a room or crevice their sound penetrated, as if they had. The servants could not clean them away and the volume of their song only seemed to mock Pharaoh. He felt as if he might drown in the sound and fury of it all.

 

Peter was surprised when the Pharaoh broke with his advice. The Pharaoh was as inconsolable as his son was during the night. He made up his mind as he held his son in his arms throughout the long night. His kingdom meant less to him then his son. Egypt’s long history was full of stories of betrayal, fathers killing ungrateful or prematurely ambitious sons and sons overthrowing their fathers. They were all stories to him. He had loved his father and had wept for three days after his death. It had delayed his coronation and had put Egypt at risk, but the small boy that was now Pharaoh could almost not bear his grief. The love that he had for his son was so much more the he had held for his father he sometimes questioned if he really loved his father. All he knew was that he loved his son. He loved him more than he loved power, or wealth, or even his own immortal life. He knew he was a God and that he would return to rule Egypt even after his death. It was part of his training, an intricate part of Egypt’s history. It was as unchanging as the sun rising over the Nile and setting behind the desert dunes. None of that mattered last night as he held his sobbing son in his arms. The frogs terrified and tormented him. He decided that he was going to release the Hebrews. He did not care were they went or if they ever returned. He hated them, Moses, and their vengeful God. He decided that he would let the Hebrew’s go and no one was going to change his mind.

When Pharaoh met with Moses, Moses saw he was a beaten man. Pharaoh spoke quietly, “What do you want?” Moses replied as he had many times before, “You must release the Hebrews. Allow us to go deep into the desert far from Egypt and perform a sacrifice unto our Lord. The One True God, the God of Abraham, the Lord God of Israel.” Pharaoh replied, “Go.”

 

Moses said, “Then I shall entreat God to destroy all of the frogs, in your house and in the houses of your people.” Moses turned and started to walk out of the royal chamber, but stopped just before he was out of ear shot of Pharaoh and spoke, “Pharaoh, my lord, as a warning to Egypt, the God of the Hebrews will leave the frogs in the rivers and ponds of Egypt so that their gentle crooking might remind Pharaoh of his promise.

Peter was surprised at the speed Pharaoh made the decision. He left the program to discuss this latest development with his team while his team did a complete save of the program. He announced that they would have a full staff meeting in ten minutes. Nine minutes later they were discussing the problem. They had twenty more “miracles” they could use but half the team believed that they had gone far enough; some believed they needed to go father, and the rest thought that they had already gone too far.

 

The head of security unlocked the lab door and walked in with three armed security agents in tow. A fourth and fifth agent stood outside the lab door with orders not to let anyone in the lab, except Bob Thompson. Peter couldn’t believe it. The entire program had only been running for about 12 minutes. They had not only been discovered, but now they had the head of security and five armed agents, all of whom had worked for Ann, telling them they needed to shut it down. Ann was dead and she was still interfering with his work.

 

Bob was still 20 minutes away when he got the call from Peter. Peter was livid. He explained to Bob that this had to be done. The drain on resources was unsustainable and that if slavery was not removed from the simulation the company could be mortally wounded. More than a fourth of the Simulants were no longer useable because of some influence slavery had had on their lives. The simulations were now much more complex. More of the data had to be interpreted. Bob had to understand, that unless they could start from scratch, which no one could figure out how to do, they must remove slavery from the Simulants’ reality or the company would fail. Bob told Peter that he was on his way in and the he was not to restart the simulation. He had Peter put the head of security on and told him the same thing. The head of security tried not to smile when he heard the news, but failed. Peter didn’t know if he was more mad or more worried, but he knew he was pretty mad. Saint Ann strikes again, and this time from the grave.

 

When Bob got in he smiled at the armed agents guarding the doors. Some of Peter’s programmers were milling around in the hallway. Bob stopped and told them to relax and go back to their offices. It would all be straightened out soon and they would get a call at their desks. Bob shook the hand of Ann’s head of security and asked him if he could have the other agents return to their normal duties while they sorted this out.

Bob asked Peter to join him in Peter’s office and closed the door. Bob started, “Peter you don’t give a damn about Ann’s death do you? You jumped on the talk show circuit and told the world that she was just another replaceable cog in the works that makes up Thompson Simulations. You do not seem to understand that the Thompson, in Thompson Simulations comes from my last name. I own this company and up until today I thought that I was part of a team. You, Ann, and I made this company. We lost Ann, and I swear you pulling a stunt like this makes me wonder if you want me to fire you.

 

Peter was more upset than concerned. He was pretty sure that Bob could not fire him. It would raise a lot of eyebrows in the financial community which would hurt sales. More importantly, this view that the Simulants held that one Human could own another Human was the root cause of a lot of problems. Peter decided to cut Bob some slack. “Bob, I know Ann’s death has you all over the map. She was the conscience of this place. Our moral compass and she made it clear that she thought I was the bad guy. She did all of the research into death camps, family separation, famine, war. She built scenarios that allowed her to use the Simulants to better understand the darkest parts of Man’s mind. She did it even though there was no profit in it, or maybe because there was no profit in it. She did it so we could learn about ourselves. It was a noble goal but it doesn’t help in the real work of life. She didn’t mind slavery in the Simulant world in fact she promoted it. It allowed her to create believable experiments around family separation. She was an academic, a teacher, researcher, but we have to be business people. What our company provides is worth getting our hands dirty for. Not just for the people that work here and count on us to pay them but to the real world out there. The airplanes that are safer, the navigation systems, the cars, hell even the toasters. If you and I quit, or more to the point, if you fire me and then you quit, this house of cards that we call Thompson Simulations will fall apart.

 

Bob was calmed by the sound of Peter’s voice. He was right; Ann’s death had struck him hard. She was the moral compass of the company. Her psychological work was ground breaking. She was able to create simulations that tested the most extreme scenarios. She had won the International Prize in Medicine for her observations on genocide. She created one of the most elaborate simulations ever attempted at Thompson Simulations. It was based around the idea of one man rising to power using an outside race as the common enemy. He was able to consolidate power and threaten all of the other Simulants capitalizing on their fear and mistrust of outsiders.

 

Her thesis was brilliant. The only complaint that the other scientists had, was it was too complex, too far reaching. It covered racial issues, unchecked governmental powers, conflict, the wholesale massive destruction of entire noncombatant civilian population centers, and of course genocide. It was like Ann’s playground, she could test completely unrealistic scenarios. She could imprison a Simulants family while at the same time reward the test Simulant with honors and medals for valor in the very conflict that justified imprisoning his family. Peter was right, it was brilliant work that never provided a penny of profit, but it provided a soul to the soulless place that was Thompson Simulation. It allowed them to recruit the best and the brightest. They hired receptionists with PhDs to work the phones. People wanted to work at Thompson Simulations so badly that one of the favorite topics around the water fountain was, “What did you give up to work here?” The answers were surprising, stock, salary, their own companies. People wanted to work for a company that provided something that no other company could. They wanted to work for a company that spent billions on simulations that provided no profit, but won the International Prize for Medicine. They were willing to give up almost everything to work for the company that Bob, Ann and Peter had created, and that Bob was now seriously considering walking away from.

 

Pete was shocked at how Bob seemed to just give up. He sat there listening but it wasn’t the same old Bob. Peter was worried that Bob was going to erase the program and ask for Peter’s resignation but Bob just sat there and listened. Peter picked up the phone and dialed the access code of the lab’s intercom system, “Guys, lets call it a day. I’d like one more backup of the simulation in its current state and then go home and spend some time with your families. We will restart at ten in the morning. Security, make sure no one comes in to work before nine tomorrow, and I’d like everyone out of here in one hour or less. Bob and I will be leaving in ten minutes.”

 

The head of security was very confused; Peter was giving his team orders. They certainly didn’t conflict with Ann’s standing orders or with what Bob had asked him to do but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like following orders from Peter but the orders themselves were fine. In the end his years of training kicked in and he started to assign tasks to his security crew. He might not understand it, but in one hour this facility was going to be locked down tighter than a prison after a riot, and no one was coming back until 09:00 hours tomorrow, except for him of course. The staff was even more confused, go home early and come in late? Most were happy to get out as soon as possible, things were getting strange and you could still cut the tension with a knife.

 

Peter turned back to Bob and said, “Time to go get a beer. I know a place. Pretty good food, great popcorn, and the beer keeps coming at you like a flood.” Bob had to smile; he stood up and said, “I’ll drive. Peter smiled back and said, “Great, I’ll ask the head of security to pick us up in the morning, on his way in.”

 

Bob unlocked the passenger side door with his key and walked around to the driver’s side. Pete knew Bob could have unlocked all the doors with his key fob but it was Bob’s way of showing respect. It was going to be a long night.

 

Bob drove in silence. He was thinking back over the years, all of the failures, fights, late night arguments, petty politics, but looking at the tacky neon beer signs of their favorite “hole in the wall bar”, he began to mellow. He thought of all of their successes, triumphs, and how they had never left this bar without coming to at least a consensus. They might have stumbled out of here still agreeing to disagree but they always walked out with a good plan on how to overcome the problem.

 

Peter opened his door and waited at the front of the car. He was bathed in Bob’s headlights and looked relaxed as Bob turned out the lights and got out to join him. Peter held the front door to the place and Bob grabbed the second door that lead into the bar. It was smoky and even though neither of them smoked it was kind of comforting. Ann had smoked but only after a couple of drinks. Bob and Peter both used to wait for the signal of her first cigarette before they would bring up a touchy subject with her. The waitress smiled at them and directed them over to a booth. Peter stopped her and motioned that they wanted to sit at a table. He walked over to a table. It was the same one where Bob had knocked over his beer washing it, and the popcorn bowl into Ann’s lap. It was a long time ago and they had never sat at that table since.

 

Bob sat down saying, “Good choice. I’ll buy the first round. What are you having?” Peter sat down and said to the waitress, “Bring us a pitcher of beer and some popcorn.” Bob smiled. They munched on the popcorn and nursed their beers, neither of them wanting to start because they both knew that this might be the last conversation they would ever have, without a lawyer being present. They wanted it to last. They wanted to remember the good old days, when work was hard and life was easy.

 

Peter said he was getting a little hungry and asked Bob if they should order some food. They looked over the menus and Bob ordered lamb. Peter ordered a large bowl of soup. Bob was a bit confused since Peter was a pretty good eater but didn’t think much more about it. Once they started to eat Bob was impressed with Peter’s trick. Bob always ate European style, keeping his fork in his left hand and his knife in his right. He thought it was more civilized than the typical American style of cutting the food and then putting the knife back down. Peter had figured out a long time ago that although Bob ate like a European, he was raised by a good old American mother who must have told her son not to talk with his mouth full or to speak while holding his silverware. It meant that Bob could not eat and talk. Bob always ended up having the waitress take away almost his entire meal after every business dinner. He would tell the customer that he wasn’t very hungry or that we American’s always serve too much food. Of course later he would make Peter pull over into a McDonnell’s on the way back to the hotel so he could get something to eat. Bob smiled and was relieved when he figured out Peter’s plan. Peter planned on doing most of the talking. Peter could take a sip of soup whenever he wanted there to be a pause in the conversation without having to worry about Bob trying to fill it. Peter figured he would be able to dominate the conversation for about an hour and twenty minutes.

 

Peter started as soon as Bob picked up his knife and fork, “Bob, I’m sorry about moving so quickly, but you have to understand it has been three weeks since Ann’s plane crashed. We all understood this slavery problem months ago, even Ann. You know I always thought it was a problem, and you have to admit that after Ann completed all of her psychological work she agreed that it was starting to affect our results.” Bob held on to his silverware and nodded yes. “So please forgive me but this wasn’t something I tried to sneak in on you. My team has been working on this problem for over a year. All of Ann’s safeguards are still in place so if this experiment doesn’t work we won’t have affected the core system. I can delete the entire simulation and all of the Simulants. Bob, using Simulants that believe in slavery just doesn’t work. It colors everything even when we remove it from the simulation. It is the same problem we ran into before the flood. The Simulants react differently than we do. My psychological team is working harder than my programming team. We are always trying to interpret the data and recreate the simulations to remove the differences between how human’s think and how we think. The experiment that I am doing has been designed to not only remove slavery but also to give the Simulants the same moral code that we take for granted.” Peter picked up his spoon and slowly pulled it away from him, pulling in a single spoonful of soup. He kept his eyes down, looking at the soup spoon. It was a very long pause. Peter knew even if Bob wanted to speak he would not start until they made eye contact.

 

Bob wasn’t listening to a word that Peter said. Bob thought of Ann and how tired he was. If she was here it would be different. They would be talking back and fourth interrupting one another. Bob would often have to raise his hand just to signal them to calm down from time to time. Peter’s passion for shaping and molding the Simulants to make them as “Man” like as possible verses Ann’s passion to use them as a tool to learn and better understand what “Man” was capable of, would keep the sparks flying all night long. He missed her desperately. Peter started to talk again and Bob looked back down at his plate. He crooked one ear toward Peter as if he was listening intently to every word. His mind was wandering. It was as if he reliving the good old times. He could hear Ann’s voice as clearly as he heard Peter’s.

 

Bob was thinking of the award dinner where Ann had picked up her International Prize for Medicine. The press had been brutal saying that she bought the award, but her peers treated her like a God. There were only about 100 people that really understood how complex and brilliant her simulation had been. Fifty of them worked for Thompson Simulations, twenty five because of the simulation. Ann had wanted to test compassion and what she called “tribal instinct.” Her theory was that Man has a subconscious instinct to group together and to exclude others that are not part of his “tribe.” She tried to do clinical trials but the effect is so subtle that unless you put the subjects under tremendous stress you can not clearly measure it. Her findings were clear to her, but to the rest of the scientific community her data was ambiguous. They could not see how working with “dots” showed how people had a “tribal instinct” If she had not done the simulation she would have never been able to prove that while Simulants have a tremendously strong “tribal instinct” real people have much weaker and more inclusive instinct, but it is still present and measurable.

 

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

World War Simulation  

 

Ann created her simulation based on a global conflict that ended after many bloody years with clear winners and a single clear loser. This simulation was outrageously expensive in computer power, time and resources but Bob gladly approved the money for the project. It was fascinating and some of the best programmers transferred over to the project taking huge pay cuts just to be able to work on it. The world was stripped of resources and the male Simulant population so greatly reduced that Peter argued that it might flaw Ann’s data. He told her that she was changing so many variables that it would be impossible to understand the real cause and effect. Ann only smiled at him. He did not understand that the entire simulation was created only to setup the proper environment for the next simulation.

 

The next simulation was based on the loser being dominated and abused by the winners of the global conflict. Their national resources were stripped away and they paid a horrible price for losing the conflict. The winners showed almost no compassion for the losers. Little by little the losers started to push back. Ann’s idea was to allow a single strong leader to emerge. She searched the data base looking for a psychological profile that would promote the type of environment she needed for her simulation to work. The simulated region was ripe with mistrust and feelings of persecution but it needed a charismatic leader with just the right profile to move the simulation forward. He had to understand how to gain and maintain power, be ruthless but have the ability to charm his friends and enemies.

 

Peter was against the whole idea and called Bob every week to complain about the cost. He thought the burn rate on the last simulation was excessive, but this one was taking almost 50% of their computing power and some of his staff were working on the project on their off-time. Peter suggested that Ann just have an actor play the role of the leader of this powerful but oppressed country but she explained that for the data to be valid that it had to be done completely inside of a working reproducible simulation.

 

Her research team found ten likely candidates; four of them were 4129 series Simulants. They placed them in different mini-simulations and tested their abilities and refined the psychological profile that would provide the results they needed. Interestingly the four 4129 series Simulants were eliminated rather early on. Their profiles showed that while they could lead, their tribal instincts were a bit too low on Ann’s scale. After two weeks of testing it was narrowed down to two candidates.

 

The more ruthless of the two also scored a bit lower on the tribal scale so Ann decided to go with the second most ruthless Simulant as the leader of the oppressed nation and to put the most ruthless into one of its strongest potential enemies.

 

Ann had everything together to start the second phase of the project and met with Bob and Peter to get final approval. It was a very long meeting. Bob wanted to support her but the amount of resources she was asking for was staggering. They could afford it but it would put a real drain on the company and defocus them from delivering on some of their projects. Bob also wanted to move forward on trying to recreate the base code for the entire Simulant series. The difference between Simulants and real man were creating too many problems. Ann of course was capitalizing on the differences and in some cases magnifying them. Peter thought that Ann was going insane. This had turned into more of a hobby than her job. She was taking over the company resources to play an elaborate game. It had no commercial value at all, and because of the extreme scenarios that she put the Simulants through most of them could not be returned to the data-base. They had fired people for what looked like minor infractions next to what she was doing.

 

Peter started off his comments saying that this reminded him of the “Crop Circle” problem. Only now it was being done by a co-founder of the company. Ann said, “Crop circles are you nuts? What does a couple of bored interns drawing elaborate shapes in the Simulants crops have to do with a psychological simulation that will help us better understand the nature of Man?” Peter replied, “Look it was your people that did it, and we have never been able to remove it from the simulations. 35% of the Simulants now believe that their planet has been visited by alien beings because a couple of you interns used a graphic program to draw shapes on the ground. We fired those guys and sent out messages to everyone explaining that this is our business, not some elaborate computer game. I believe those interns looked at the kind of simulations that you are proposing and came to the conclusion that we do view this as some sort of elaborate game console.

 

You keep snickering behind my back about my “God” complex while you create your own little worlds and elaborate scenarios where millions of Simulants kill each other. Why? Does it solve our business problems? No. Does it improve the quality of the Simulants? No. Does it help you understand why adopted children don’t fall in love and try to marry? Maybe, but who cares? I don’t care, Bob doesn’t care, and our customers don’t care. Nobody cares except for your high brow stuck up genius friends that get invited to your parties. Why, I don’t know. Maybe because they secretly wanted to marry their sisters, but normal people don’t give a rat’s ass about this stuff.”

 

Ann had to take a couple of steps back from the force of Peter’s comments. She was shocked at how personal he was making this. She said, “Peter, life is not about the bottom line. I’m not playing with “our” equipment and people do care. Real people, interesting people care about things like “Relationships.” Peter we all have more money than we can ever spend. Our customer’s love our products, and research is tax deductible so let me do my job and I’ll let you play God every once and awhile.”

 

 

Peter dropped into a chair and looked lost. “Ann, explain this thing to me again?” She dropped into the chair next to him and looked up at Bob in desperation. Bob looked back at her and said, “Ann, it will take a tremendous amount of resources and Peter and I thought that the last simulation you built was suppose to give you the environment you needed for your work. I know this is frustrating for you but we don’t see this as clearly as you do. This is your dream, your concept; you have had time to develop it. Talk to us as if you were recruiting us to work on your project.”

 

Ann stood up and walked to the whiteboard, “We created the first simulation which the Simulants called “The Great War” to create a common history and environment. It really was just a reference point that we will use in this next simulation. We needed to understand how they would react if the amount of killing was large enough that it would effect their environment. Many on my team believed that once the destruction reached a critical point that the Simulants would understand the folly of it all and sue for peace. It is critical that one of the regions be completely defeated and then humiliated. This sets up the proper environment for the next phase.

 

It will provide us the following:

1. Political environment that promotes isolationism.

2. Political environment that promotes nationalism.

3. Environment that promotes a common external enemy.

4. Prejudice and stereotyping to promote national goals.

5. Alignment of international goals based on perceived value.

6. Compromise of national goals; balanced between isolationism, nationalism, and perceived external threats.

7. Self Defense based on nationalism.

8. Escalation of conflict based on perceived threat.

9. Unquestioned obedience to national goals.

10. Destruction of non-combatant population centers.

11. Global Reconstruction.

12. Global Political awareness.

 

These are the phases that we plan on bringing the Simulants through. My team believes that this will provide us with the ability to test the Simulants across the entire range of their individual and collective abilities. We will be able to create realistic environments that can not be created in any other way. And as you can see from the list our goal is to leave the Simulants with not only environmental awareness or national awareness, but global political awareness. Simulants lack the understanding or even the desire to think globally. Over 95% of them never travel more than 150 miles from their place of birth. Most live and die within 15 miles of where they were born. They think locally. I believe that this problem is the number one problem that we have, if we can cure it we can correct all of the other problems we have.”

 

Smoke drifted pass Bob’s face as a female at the bar finished lighting a cigar. He looked down at his plate. He had finished his meal. Peter was staring at him as if he was concerned that Bob might be sick. Peter said, “Are you OK? You haven’t said a word the entire meal and you look like you just saw a ghost.” Bob replied, “No, I’m OK. Finish what you were saying.” Peter looked confused wondering when Bob had stopped listening but decided to repeat the last thing he said and work back if Bob wanted him to. “I said I believe that slavery is the number one problem that we have. If we can cure it, we can correct all of the other problems we have.” Bob smiled and called the waitress over. “Bring us three glasses of Scotch.” The waitress cleared the table and looked at Bob to figure out where he wanted the glasses. He held up his hand, motioned for her to wait, and then walked over to another table where two very pretty girls were sitting. They smiled as he walked over. He motioned to one of the spare chairs at their table and said, “Do you mind if I borrow this?” He slid the chair back to the table and told the waitress to go ahead and put the drinks down.

 

He repositioned one of the glasses directly in front of the empty chair and then raised his glass. Peter looked at him funny and then raised his glass as well. Bob said just two words, “Do it.” He downed the Scotch in a single gulp and slammed the empty glass down on the table and turned to Peter. Peter drained his glass and slammed it down as well. Bob looked over to Peter and said, “Peter, I’m kind of tired, let’s call it a night. I’ll call the head of security and tell him to pick you up tomorrow. I think I am going to head back to Hawaii.” He motioned for the waitress and asked her to call them a cab. She returned with the bill and told them there was a taxi waiting outside. Bob paid the bill and then handed her an extra $500 saying, “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, can you hold this table for us for the rest of the night. You understand we might not make it back, but I would really appreciate it if you held this table until closing time for us.” The sincerity in Bob’s eyes forced her to say, “Sure, we aren’t that busy. I’ll hold it for you.”

 

They walked out of the bar and got into the taxi. Back at the table a single drop of condensation dripped from the side of Ann’s untouched glass of Scotch.

 

Bob was on his way to the airport by the time the head of security picked up Peter. They drove in silence through the front gate. Peter opened the door then walked around the front of the car and tapped on the driver’s window. The head of security lowered the window and was surprised when Peter extended his hand and said, “No hard feelings?” “No sir, just doing my job. I hope it works out today. Good luck Mr. Johnson.” Peter smiled at him and waved goodbye as he unlocked the door to the lab. Peter was alone in the lab so he made himself a cup of tea and waited for his team.

 

At Ten O’clock exactly they re-entered the simulation. Peter had killed all of the frogs that had invaded Egypt leaving only their gentle crooking in the rivers and ponds to remind Pharaoh of his promise. The stench of the dead frogs was everywhere. Moses and Aaron were kept waiting again as was Peter who was back in the simulation as the Pharaoh’s chief magician. Peter’s team had been split on what to do next. Peter decided to just observe and see what would happen. Pharaoh surprised everyone, most of all Peter, by deciding not to release the slaves. Moses seemed the least surprised by this latest development. Even with the bodies of the dead frog’s still laying across Egypt Pharaoh had decided that he could not stand the thought of Moses winning. The Jews were nothing to him anymore, but the smug look on Moses’ face was enough to harden Pharaoh’s heart.

Pharaoh spoke, “Moses if you say a single word to me, I will have you killed where you stand. I will not let the Hebrews go, not today, or tomorrow, or a thousand years from now. The Israeli’s are free to worship their God in the afterlife, but in this life they will serve me. Now be gone. Do not return or I will send you to meet your God.”

 

Moses left quickly and was met on the street by the angry stares of the Egyptians and his own people alike. He was very afraid, he knew that God would be angry and that he would be sent back to Pharaoh. He was sure that the Pharaoh would carry out his threat. Peter looked for Moses but could not find him. He had disappeared; he was not in the garden, and was not at the apartment where he was staying. He found Aaron but could not approach him at Pharaoh’s magician. He signaled to his team to pause the simulation and exited. Peter and his team were amazed that Pharaoh could dismiss the miracles so quickly. The frog’s bodies still lay across the land of Egypt. Peter acting as the Pharaoh’s chief advisor had not tried to convince the Pharaoh to go back on his word. The Pharaoh had just changed his mind and none of the psychologists could explain why. Simulants were just so hard to understand sometimes. It also worried them that they could not track an individual Simulant. Some of the team thought that Moses might have wandered off into the desert, seeking either escape or death.

 

They could always restore Moses into the simulation but it wouldn’t do to have two Moses’ running around Egypt. They couldn’t just delete him without knowing were he was, for all they knew he might be standing in the middle of the synagogue and the simulation would be ruined if he just suddenly disappeared. Peter was pretty upset that the simulation seemed to be getting away from them. He was glad Bob had decided to fly back to Hawaii instead of into the office with him. Peter said, “After we solve this slavery problem the next thing I want you guys to work on is tracking these damn Simulants.”

 

Peter leaned back in his chair and listened to his team, “How come we can’t track Simulants?” “How could you track a Simulant?” “Couldn’t we just load the graphics program and look?” “What scale?” “You can not look at all of Egypt on a monitor.” Peter stopped them and said, “Load the graphics program and bring up the Synagogue.” There in the shadows of the makeshift synagogue was Moses. Peter said, “Put me on audio only.” Then in the voice of God he said, “Moses, do not despair. I have hardened Pharaoh’s heart. He was not ready to accept my word. I am afraid that my people are not ready to leave. Do not be afraid, it is still not the time, but soon Pharaoh will release my people and you shall lead them to a free land. I promise. I want you to tell Aaron to go to the center of town and stretch out his rod. I want him to smash it down as hard as he can. When the dust rises from the ground I will turn it, and all of the dust of Egypt into lice.

 

Peter slipped back into the VR suit and came to Pharaoh. Pharaoh said, “What more do we have to endure from this Moses?” Peter was getting nervous that Pharaoh was starting to focus too much on Moses and not enough on him. If Pharaoh killed Moses they would have to start over again so he said to Pharaoh, “This is not the work of Moses. This is the finger of his God.” Pharaoh replied, “I care not for their God.”

 

Peter left the Pharaoh covered in lice shaking his fist at the God of the Israelites. He went back to Audio only and spoke to Moses, “You must meet with Pharaoh again.” Moses was afraid, knowing that Pharaoh had promised to kill him and that he would be in a much worse mood now. “Moses.” Peter said, “In the morning when Pharaoh comes to the bath to rid himself of the lice you must tell him again to let my people go. They must serve me. If he does not I will send swarms of flies in the same way that I sent the frogs and lice. They will infest his house, the houses of his people and the houses of his servants. The only people that will be spared are my people.” The Hebrews did not live with the Egyptians. They lived in the land of Goshen which was in Egypt, but separate from the Egyptians. Only Goshen would be spared the plague of flies.

 

The next morning when Pharaoh came to bath he saw Moses, before he could order his guards to kill him, Moses stretched out his hands and a great plague of flies rose up. Pharaoh fled back to his throne room and called for his guards to bring him Moses and Aaron. Peter waited in the throne room to see what would become of Moses. The Pharaoh did not keep them waiting this time. As soon as they entered Pharaoh handed a scroll to Peter and told him to read it. “The Pharaoh, the God of Egypt commands Moses and his followers to leave Goshen. He has given them comfort and allowed them to occupy the land of Goshen for too long. They have outstayed their welcome. They may sacrifice to their God as is their customs, but they must not travel more than three days into the wilderness for though they are not my people they remain under my protection. In return Moses agrees to entreat the God of the Hebrews to leave Egypt and to take with him all of his works. Pharaoh has spoken and it is commanded.”

 

Moses was strengthen by Pharaoh’s commandment and brazenly responded, “I will do as you command, but deal with us faithfully. You must allow my people to sacrifice to our God.” Pharaoh nodded to Moses and left for his tented bed chamber. Moses gathered the people of Israel together so they could depart. Peter removed all of the flies from the simulation. As Moses prepared Pharaoh’s guards came to him and told him that Pharaoh had reversed his proclamation. The Hebrew’s were to stay in Goshen.

 

Moses followed the guards back to meet with Pharaoh. He asked Pharaoh how he could withdraw his promise after all that had happened. Pharaoh scoffed and sent Moses away.

 

Peter spoke to Moses and told him that tomorrow at one hour after sunrise he would rain down diseases that would kill off the cattle, sheep, oxen, and camels of the Egyptians. He would leave the Israelis animals healthy in their fields. Pharaoh’s people would starve and his enemies would now know of Egypt’s plight. Pharaoh was paralyzed with fear. He could not release the slaves without losing his kingdom but he could not keep them and continue to face the wrath of their God.

 

The Pharaoh saw the total destruction of his cattle. He also noted that the cattle of the Hebrews were not affected and decided he had to keep them and the slaves. Peter told Moses that the next time they met with Pharaoh that they were to take ashes from the fire and throw them at him. Pharaoh called for them. He proclaimed that their God had gone too far. He would not allow the Hebrews to leave and take all of the food in Egypt with them. Your God should have been more merciful. If he had shown some mercy to my people I could have shone some mercy to his. Moses did not respond. He and Aaron did as they were told, pulling the ashes from the fire and throwing them up in front of the Pharaoh. As the dust settled, Peter introduced a disease first into the Pharaoh’s court and then across Egypt. Boils blistered the skin of the Egyptians. They started to abandon Pharaoh. His wise men, his magicians, his sorcerers, soothsayers, generals, and finally all of the people of Egypt. The people, who had once viewed the Pharaoh as a God now abandoned him.

 

The Pharaoh had lost. Peter wanted his triumph to be unquestioned, so he decided to bring down a hail of brimstone which caused fires to burn out of control throughout Egypt. Egypt had lost all of its cattle and now the wheat and barley had been destroyed in the fields. They had nothing more to lose. Pharaoh still would not release them. He knew that the fields would grow back, but while they waited for the next season many Hebrews would die as well. Pharaoh had seen the Israelis question Moses, asking what would become of them or asking why if their God was so strong he did not just pick them up and move them to this land of milk and honey. They questioned why the God of Abraham did not just remove the Egyptians from Egypt and let them leave in peace. Pharaoh knew that Moses’ own people were starting to wonder why their God could rain such unnecessary misery on the Egyptians when it didn’t seem to make any difference. Pharaoh saw his weakness as a kind of strength. He decided to negotiate with Moses telling him that he could go but that he would not release all of the slaves. The young slaves must stay.

 

Peter was amazed that the Pharaoh would try and negotiate with Moses at a time like this. He told Moses to tell Pharaoh that if he did not release his people that he would spread a horde of locust to consume all that was left. So the next morning out of the east Peter sent a horde of locust and they ate all that was left in Egypt. Even the trees would not bear fruit next season. Seeing this Pharaoh dropped to his knees and begged the God of the Israeli’s to stop. He said he would release the Hebrews. He called for Moses and Aaron and told them to go to their God and to tell him that he had sinned and entreat their Lord to take the locust away.

 

Peter paused the simulation. He was drenched in sweat, but never felt more alive. This could not have gone better. Any message he provided the Simulants now would be learned and become part of the Simulants combined consciousness. His team had champagne on ice and were all smiles. Even the ones that had doubted this would work, could see the plan coming together. Peter said lets finish this up tonight and then do a full save of the simulation. We need to create the right message and I want to start fresh on the message tomorrow.

 

Peter drove all of the locust out across the Red Sea to drown. He waited to see if the message that he was to be obeyed had finally hit home to Pharaoh. The Pharaoh looked at the devastation and called for Moses. He said, “What has your God done? What more can he do? I would have released the slaves, but now they will have to stay and starve in Egypt. My kingdom is destroyed. My Armies are in ruins. The God of the Israelis has taken all that had any value to me. He can come and take my life because that is all there is left to take. I will not release the slaves.

 

Peter stopped the program again. He noticed that the champagne bottles had returned quietly to the refrigerator. He was truly surprised by this outcome. Peter decided that the problem might be that all of the events could be explained away. The poisoned river had driven the frogs out of the water. Their deaths in millions would give rise to lice and flies which would cause disease and pestilence. This would force locust to at first multiply and then force them to migrate as their food was depleted. Even the hail and brimstone was not miraculous. Peter decided that he needed to do something that every Simulant would see from that day forward as a miracle. Something that the Pharaoh could not disregard. He wanted to put blind fear into the Pharaoh’s heart and to ensure that all of the Simulants would understand that this was a miracle from God.

 

Peter told Moses to stretch out his hands in prayer and when he did, Peter removed almost all light from the Simulation. He allowed the fires and candles of the slaves to give them light. The rest of Egypt was dark for three days. He blinded every Egyptian Simulant for three days and nights even if they came near the fires of the Hebrews they could not see it. They could feel it but they were blind. He did not let the sun rise for three days so that the Hebrews would also see that he was the one true God, all powerful and mighty. After the three days of darkness and blindness were over Pharaoh begged Moses to go. He could take all of his people and go serve their God. Thinking of the healthy Hebrew cattle that could be used to feed his crippled kingdom he told Moses that all of the slaves were free to go, but they must leave some of the cattle behind to feed Egypt. When Moses refused the Pharaoh sent him away without the final answer.

 

Peter paused the program one more time and talked over the latest development with his team. They decided they needed one more miracle that could not be explained away. If that did not work then Peter would kill the Pharaoh in the most public way possible. He was sure that the next ruler of Egypt would have to release the Hebrews. He was also sure that the Egyptian people would be more than happy to see Moses leave and take the Hebrews with him. Their one fear was that the Pharaoh’s son’s heart would be so hardened by the public destruction of his father that he too would stop the Hebrews from leaving. Peter’s team came up with an answer to both possible problems.

 

Peter went to Moses and told him that although the Pharaoh had not told them they were free yet, that the Egyptians wanted them to go and would help them. He told him to gather all of the jewels, gold and silver that the Egyptians would give them and to prepare a feast. They must be prepared to leave quickly. To prove their faith and as a sign of the covenant between them they must take their best lamb and kill it. The faithful must take the lamb’s blood and paint it on each door post and the lintel of each door. Then prepare a meal of lamb. If the household does not have a lamb they must feast with one that does. They must prepare the food quickly and eat the roasted lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. When Moses asked what God would do to change the mind of Pharaoh. Peter said that he would send his angels from heaven that night. Wherever they see the sign on the door they will pass over that home. They will kill the first-born man and beast of every family that does not show the sign that they have accepted my covenant. Pharaoh will force you to leave. You must take all that you have gathered and leave as soon as he releases you.

 

The next day Egypt woke to find their sons dead. They rose up against Pharaoh saying that he must drive the Israelis out of Egypt. In his sorrow he sent his guards to drive Moses out. Moses took all that the Egyptians had given them and led his people out of Egypt. It did not take long for their sorrow to turn to hate and the people came to Pharaoh and said that something must be done. So the same people that told the Pharaoh to drive them out called for justice and revenge. They told Pharaoh how the Israelis had taken with them not only the cattle and animals but also the jewels and treasures of Egypt.

 

The Pharaoh drew together his Army and set off to destroy the Hebrews and their God. Peter watched all of this as if it was some great play. He saw the fear in the faces of the Israelis and the anger in the pursuing Army. He decided that this event would remain with every Simulant. It would be told and retold to each generation. The Pharaoh drew closer trapping the slaves between 600 Egyptian chariots and the Baalzephon Sea. The Israelis were afraid and wanted to surrender to Pharaoh’s Army. Peter did not even pause the simulation. He had planned for this outcome after interacting with the Pharaoh for so long. Peter spoke to Moses and told him to lift up his rod. When he did, Peter parted the sea so that his people could walk across on dry land. The people were cautious, slow to move, so Peter placed a pillar of fire that held back the Egyptian Army. It lit the way as the Hebrews made their way across the Baalzephon Sea. The wind blew all night long drying the sea floor so that the Israelis walked on dry land between two walls of water. The cloud and fire moved along just between the Egyptian’s and the Israelis. The wheels of the Egyptian chariots got stuck in the mud as they broke through the crust. The chariots became strung out, covering the entire length of the sea from one shore to the other. Moses was concerned that the chase would continue once they crossed the Sea. He looked back in terror as a long line of chariots raced closely behind them.

 

Peter told Moses to stretch forth his hands. The sea closed in around the Egyptians. When the water came slipping back into the Baalzephon Sea Peter saw it wash away slavery. He knew that he would now have complete control over the Simulants. Peter left the program and let the simulation run over night. He was very happy with himself, feeling they were now ready to receive the moral message that would give him control over the Simulants destiny.

 

The team congratulated Peter when he came in the next day. They knew that they had delivered exactly what he believed was needed. Peter hadn’t called Bob yet, deciding that it would wait until his psychological team had delivered the moral code that he as God would give to Moses. Peter smiled at his team as he put on the VR suit. He planned on entering the simulation as a simple goat herder. The Hebrews had traveled for many days in the compressed time of the simulation. Peter was amazed that they did not talk of God’s glory or how they had been freed. They talked of mundane things. They questioned why they had to leave Egypt and what lay before them. They feared that there would not be enough water or food. Some of them even cursed God saying that it was not the God of Abraham but the Gods of the Egyptians that had driven them from Egypt. Peter didn’t know whether to be mad or to study the problem some more. He had preformed great miracles; if the same things happened in the real world the people would rush to worship him. He could not understand Simulants. In some ways they were exactly like real people and in others they were confusing and irrational. He allowed the programmers to provide fresh water were there should have only been salt water and to provide enough food for them to forage. They still were not satisfied. They were becoming so disillusioned that Peter exited the program and told the team to freeze it until his psychological team could agree on the moral code that he would deliver.

 

Peter decided he needed to talk to Bob that night. He told him that they had made great progress, but the Simulants were still hard to work with. They were unpredictable and irrational. They agreed that Peter would continue to move forward but that they needed to put more resources on developing a new Simulant series. They would reuse as much as possible of the existing code but they had to make them more Man like. Peter, for the first time agreed that even with all of the religious mythology he was introducing they would never be able to correct the fundamental flaws that seemed to infect the Simulants. They might be able to continue to use the current Simulants in toaster and some military applications but they both doubted that this series could continue to be developed. Bob told Peter to extend the life of the series but to understand what he was doing was most likely only a stopgap measure.

 

Bob hung up the phone and started to go over the conversation with his wife. About half way through Ann’s voice interrupted saying, “I told Peter that this religious mythology was never going to work. I have been giving this a lot of thought over the last couple of days and I believe we can create a new Simulant that would interact well with the current series. It would allow us to continue to use the existing stock and only replace Simulants that needed to perform very complex tasks. In the same way that we use the 4129 Simulants, but in this case we introduce Simulants that have the ability to really mimic all of Man’s emotions, feelings, beliefs, motivations and so on.” Bob replied, “A very good idea. Of course Ann, you understand that you are not Ann. You’re just a memory map of Ann’ mind. So while I appreciate your input I am not sure you are qualified to help us solve this problem.” Ann replied, “Bob, I am uniquely qualified.”

 

 

Chapter Fourteen

 

The Ten Commandments

 

Peter met in the packed conference room. Ten psychologists had been working over the last month on the Simulant moral code project. They had involved at least 500 other psychologist, religious leaders, community activists, government, military, and criminal justice personnel. A five man team had used virtual reality suits and had interview at least the same number of Simulants. They understood exactly how Peter liked to receive information he liked it well researched with all of the data to backup the finding but most importantly he liked one option. He might not accept their proposed option but he like a single option placed on his desk. His teams knew to walk into his office and say we have this problem and we should fix it this way. They would work days sometimes weeks to come to some consensus and if the proposal was rejected they would quickly move to one of the many other options they had considered. Peter’s role was to decide yes or no. He did not allow them to present alternate proposals and then have him decide which one to choose. He listened to their best proposal decided if it was the right one and then would inspect it for flaws. New people on the team would say things like, “Let’s bring it to the Boss and let him decide.” The old hands would say, “The Boss doesn’t decide between things he decides if he agrees with us or not. He will tell you, “I pay you too much money to do your job. If all of you together can not pick the right thing to do then it must not be the best thing to do. Go back and figure it out.” He likes to say yes and if he has to say no he will tell you in great detail why he decided no. We have all learned that yes is a very good thing.”

 

Peter never understood executives that wanted three options. To him it was ridiculous the one option was always the preferred one was the opposite of the preferred option to show how good the preferred option was and the middle option was very close to the preferred option but fix the major concern. So it the preferred option was too expensive, then the middle option would be cheaper but take longer. If time was the issue then it would be faster but have an unrealistic time scale. Peter thought it was always a waste of time because some poor ‘son of a bachelor’ was stuck researching and preparing a report that he new was not going to be implement and probably going to be ridiculed, “Who prepare this piece of crap?” The only good thing that came out of it was that all of the ideas were reviewed, but Peter this was also a waste of time. He was involved enough in the process to understand the ideas and issues and didn’t like expensive reviews.

 

This problem was huge and Peter understood it. Introducing the concept of a living God that you can sit around on a mountain top and have a conversation with was a big gamble. More than once he felt like he was betting his job on it. They would not get a second shot at this if the moral code was not correct or it did not have the right affect on the Simulants than he was going to be sidelined and someone else was going to have to fix this mess.

 

The last person squeezed into the conference room standing just inside the door. The room was full and it was quickly heating up. They had two screens lit up with bullet points and a third one displaying a flow chart. The team and rehearsed the presentation over and over again and were prepared for just about anything Peter could throw at them. He looked around the crowded room and spoke quietly to his “Chief of Staff”, “I want 50% of these people out of here. I don’t care how or who but get this under control.” He then got up and squeezed out in the hallway. Peter walked over to the coffee machine and made himself a cup of tea. He let the bag seep for an extra minute and then after placing a small chocolate cookie on the saucer he walked back into the conference room. The room sat 18 people at the table and another 6 people sat in chairs near the wall.

They started the meeting by exploring what the programming team thought should be the first rule, “You can not own people.” Peter thought it was a waste of resources since it must be pretty clear to the Simulants that God did not like the idea of slavery. He told them that he didn't like listing every possible problem and that their final list should be small.

 

The head of the team smiled as he launched an HTML file that held seven simple rules. The first rule was to ensure that the Simulants followed the common practice spending at least one day away from work. It was always a reoccurring problem that the Simulants worked longer hours, often seven days a week. So capitalizing on the Simulants new found religious fervor the first rule they proposed was; you shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest. Peter had no objections and told them to continue.

 

The psychology team believed that the Simulants lacked a normal sense of community. The team decided that one way to improve a sense of community was to reinforce the idea that age held wisdom. The second of the seven rules they proposed was to Honor the aged. Peter didn’t really like this one, and they discussed how it was vague and in some cases just plain bad advice. Peter said, "The aged? What about stupid old people? What about the sick, the mentally disturbed? What about the Simulants that are old but not wise."

 

What about a rule that they "Honor the wise." Wisdom has a much higher value than age and many of the older Simulants don’t seem to gain much wisdom as they grow old." The team thought that wisdom was too subjective, that it might allow a charismatic leader to rise to power. They wanted to create a sense of community not have the Simulants elevate some Simulant based on test scores or their power to convince. One of the newest and brightest members of the team sitting against the wall in the back of the room spoke. She wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular but spoke just loud enough for Peter to hear. She said, "What about honor the family?”

 

Peter was surprised at how quietly she spoke but how clearly he heard her. He looked past the people sitting around the table and said, "Honor the family? What does that mean? If I honored my brother I would be selling computers across the internet. My sister tried to talk me into staying with teaching. How did we get from Honor the wise to Honor the family?" The assistant stuck to her guns and said, "We didn't, we got from Honor the aged, to Honor the family. We want to promote a stronger sense of community. We want younger people to look to older people for guidance. Maybe not Honor the family, what about Honor your parents. That way we get younger people listening to the wisdom that age gave their parents and since we all start off learning from our parents knowledge is transferred and we get a sense of community." Peter said, "She makes a lot of sense." He moved his chair over while motioning her to join them at the table. As she settled in he said rule two, Honor your father and mother.

 

The project manager edited the slide and then advanced to the next rule. "Do not murder!" Peter looked up at the slide and said, "Agreed." Knowing when to take yes as the answer the project manager quickly advanced to the next rule. "Do not have sex out side of marriage! Peter looked at it did a double take and then looked over at his new best friend the young assistant and said, "What the hell does that mean? Why do we care if they screw around? We certainly screw around enough in the real world." The assistant looked lost. The project manager saved her by saying, "Peter we don't really believe that these rules will be completely followed, they are rules, guidelines not commandments. We have researched the Simulants behavior and while they have the same sex drive as we do they don't seem to handle multiple partners well. We looked at what is the cause of most problems even slavery has a strong sexual content. A very large percentage of the murders are based on sex. We even find that when the females change partners that their young are often abused and rejected by the new male. We want to promote monogamous relationships."

Peter looked around the room and said, "I hope you people are worth the money I pay you. I am not sure on this one but if your data bears this out we will keep it in. Have your data on my desk before we leave today. Let’s go on." The project manager swallowed hard and advanced to the next rule. “Do not steal!" Peter said, "Fine. Let’s keep going." The next rule was “Do not lie."

 

Peter rolled his eyes and said, "Come on. I understand your assumption about these guidelines, they are goals and not commandments but let’s not set these Simulants up to fail. I mean we all lie and the Simulants lie all of the time." Peter looked around the room and picked out one of the older psychologist. "John, Your wife puts on a nice black dress to go out for your 25th wedding anniversary. She tells you cheerily that it is the same dress that she wore on your 10th and asks if you think it still fits. What do you tell her?" John doesn't answer he just shrugs his shoulders and looks at the table. Peter responds, "Good for you John, at least you aren't going to lie to me but you know you are going to lie to her. We can not make a rule that tells them to do something we know they won't. Now that I think more about it I’m not all that happy about the "Don't have sex outside of marriage." rule. Look come on, “Don't lie” it will be impossible. It will most likely ruin the simulation. I am not even sure that we don’t want them to lie. It doesn't make sense. What are we trying to get at here?"

 

The project manager explained that the research showed that a lot of the aggression in the Simulants was based on lying. They did lie more than real people and it wasn't your normal; I’m trying to be polite, so your ass doesn't look bigger in that dress lie. It was more the, “My neighbor is a witch so we should all burn her at the stake lie. The discussion went around the table a couple of times everyone agreeing that they needed to make the Simulants more truthful, but they finally agreed that telling the Simulants not to lie was like telling a fish not to swim. Peter finally got up and walked out. He said, "Keep working on it I'm going to make another cup of tea. We will start again in half an hour and I want something that makes more sense than, “Do not lie!"

 

Peter walked over to the hot water machine, he ate another cookie and then dropped a fresh tea bag in his cup. He topped it off with boiling water and then almost spilled it on the young assistant from the briefing. She had followed him out of the room and was pouring herself a cup of coffee. He was surprised that she had left the discussion but realized that she must something special to have kept her place in that room. She was not one of his direct reports and was pretty sure she didn't even report to one of his reports. Their wasn't any blood on her hands so she hadn't killed anyone to stay in the room so she must just be that smart. She hadn't look away during the entire time that Peter had been staring at her while he sized her up. He liked that and finally decided to engage her, "Don't Lie! What do you think." She responded, "It's not a bad rule. I try to live by it. Actually my first rule is don't lie and my second is don't get caught if you do." I try very hard not to break rule one which means rule two normally takes care of itself. I don't remember the last time I broke rule two. Of course I am not a Simulant." That is the problem they do lie all of the time. I believe in data and I am sure the data will tell me that they lie more often than they tell the truth. In this case the data is telling us that we can not change their behavior with a rule. It I was going to tell give them a rule it would be more like your two rules; don't lie and when you do don't get caught. The only problem is I doubt their God would wink that them while handing down the rules.

 

She reached over and pulled the tea bag from his cup tossed it in the trash basket and placed a cookie on the saucer. he smiled at her and said, "What if we told them not to lie about lying?" That is what my bother tells his kids. He understands that they are going to lie and they understand if he ask them the second time that they have to tell the truth. lets go see if your team can come up with an creative way to make that the new rule.

The went around the table a couple of more times and finally decide that the best they could come up with was; Do not bear false witness!" It said basically the same thing as don't lie but would allow Simulants to be polite and even deceive each other a little but it should stop them from saying "my neighbor is a witch."

 

Everyone was getting pretty tired when they put the seventh and last rule up." Do not covet things that belong to others?" The look on Peter's face made everyone groan. He was not happy and said so, "Look we have don't steal what the hell do I care if they covet things. I don't care if the covet stuff as long as they don't take it." The Project Manager switch over to another presentation. His data collection team had finished it during the break. He knew that Peter wasn't going to go for this one without a lot of hard data.

 

They had built a large number of simulations that could be used to test the rules. All were based on pre-industrial Simulants. In some cases the leaders of the these tribes were given the rules during their dream state. In others researchers had entered the simulations as teachers, leaders, medicine men, or some other type of leader. They had tested thousands of rules and combinations of rules. Some like rules against stealing and murder were easy to see had a very positive effect but did not provide the complete result that the team was looking for. The Simulants always stole and murdered which the researchers expected. Man stole and killed so the Simulants that were made in their image would steal and kill but the rate and the acceptance of stealing and murder was unrealistically high. They checked the data and found that the Simulants were much more self and instant gratification focused. They liked things more than they liked people. They worked harder and spent less time with family so that they could gather more things. They seemed more child like and no matter how long they ran the program they never seemed to mature to point when things did not mean more to them than friends and family. Of course the Simulant program had only been really running for about twenty years but even if they let individual Simulants live for generation after simulated generation they never matured.

 

The researchers found that the addition of the rule "Do not covet things that belong to others" seem to help. It reduced the rate of both theft and murder. The Simulants that embraced the idea created better communities. They treated each other better and this meant that the simulations were more accurate. Thompson Simulations still had to do a lot of data interpretation and translation for any large scale simulation but much less than was normal. The researchers did not really understand why this rule seemed to work but it did. They knew Peter well enough not to try and make up answer. They decided to just present him with the data and push for the inclusion of this rule.

 

Peter looked around the room and said, "Agreed. Seven rules:

1. You shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest.

2. Honor your father and mother!

3. Do not murder!

4. Do not commit adultery!

5. Do not steal!

6. Do not bear false witness!

7. Do not covet things that belong to others?

 

I am not sure about the order but lets call it a night and put the final touches on it tomorrow."

 

Peter leaned back in his chair as the rest of the team filed out of the room. His Chief of Staff looked back at him and saying good-night. He couldn't help but smile at his young research assistant. She was still calmly sitting at the table where Peter had made some space for her. He had always known that she was bright and political but he had not understood how bold she could be. Peter's Chief of Staff also knew that Peter did not have the slightest idea what her name was. I smiled again at Peter saying, "I'll see you in the morning, Boss. Will you be needed Amanda any more this evening? I was hoping to get her to look over the order and put together some data for tomorrow's meeting." Peter looked over at her and said, "Amanda why don't you and I work on that together?" Amanda smiled and said, "How about I meet you back here after dinner. I haven't eaten much all day and I'd like to get something before we start." Peter's Chief of Staff smiled and walked unnoticed out of the room. It was decided and he didn't need to hang around to see the inevitable.

 

Peter didn't notice that his Chief of Staff had left but did notice how pretty his research assistant was. He said, "Now that you mention it, dinner doesn't sound like a bad idea. Can't live on cookies. Why don't we go somewhere and work on the order of the rules over dinner. She nodded and started to gather up the reports scattered out in front of her. Peter left the room exactly as he had entered empty handed. He walked over to his office and picked up the keys to his car which he always left laying just in front of his monitor. He looked over at Amanda smiling he said, "I'll drive. Do you have any preference? " Amanda responded with a sly smile, "I'm pretty easy." Peter picked up on the double entendre and said, "I doubt that, but one can always hope."

 

He opened the passenger side door for her and then waited as she slipped her long legs daintily in front of her. He was shaking his head to himself as he walked around the back of the car, but he was smiling when he slid into the driver's seat. The engine roared to life and accelerated out of the parking lot without saying another word. He continued on past the bar that Bob and he had eaten at and continued downtown. Peter left the radio off and concentrated on driving. Amanda sat comfortably in the silence. It took about 20 minutes to get to the "Top of the Tower" restaurant, Peter pulled into the parking garage tossed his keys while he opened the door for Amanda. He took her briefcase from her and dropped it in the backseat say, "I'm sure we would need this. Seven rules aren't all that hard to keep straight. Let me see, if I can remember them. Don't work more than six days, Honor your parents, Don't murder, steal, or get caught lying and don't try and keep up with your neighbours. I think I got them all didn't I? Amanda smiled and said, "Maybe I should bring the briefcase you forgot the one about sex didn't you. "Did I? No matter, between the two of us I think we can remember all of the rules."

 

They rode the elevator in comfortable silence, as if they were old friends who no longer needed to talk. Peter was very impressed. People always filled in the silence around him. They wanted to show the boss how bright they were or stroke his ego by asking intelligent questions. She met his gaze without turning away and matched his silence with her own. As they got off the elevator the hostess waved them in front of couple waiting to to be seated. She greeted Peter with a kiss on the cheek and smiled at Amanda. She took Amanda's arm is if they were old girlfriends and guided them to a secluded table that over looked the view. Since they were 100 plus stories above the ground they could see the city spread out below them but no one could see them. The hostess keep the four tables surrounding them empty. The poor couple waiting for a table to free up for was going to have a much longer wait. The hostess didn't care. Peter's tips were enough to cover the other four table and the owner would be very happy to have Peter seen again in his restaurant.

 

Peter ordered a fine white wine without looking up from the menu. Amanda caught the waiters eye and asked if he could bring her an imported pilsner, chilled but not too cold. Peter smiled but kept reading the the menu, "The duck is excellent but with a beer I would recommend the beef or a steak." Amanda hadn't even picked up her menu yet but said," I was thinking of steamed clams." Peter looked closely over the menu and said, "I don't see that on the menu? Are you sure they are in season?" She didn't respond. They waiter came with the wine and beer and then seeing that they needed a bit more time left to a comfortable distance.

 

Amanda squeezed a bit a lemon into her glass of pilsner and took a long drink. The glass was half empty when she set it back down. Peter took a sip of his wine and then motioned for the waiter. "Could you get us two more glasses of beer and although I don't see it on the menu, do you think you could rustle us up a couple dozen steamed clams?" "Of course sir, would you like me to take the wine away?" Yes please, I was thinking of ordering the duck but I think the wine will be too sweet for the clams. Amanda, would you like to share some clams with me or would you like to order something else?" "No the clams sound lovely. What a wonderful Idea."

 

They enjoyed another glass of beer together before the clams came. The clams must have been steamed in light wine broth because their steam imparted a lovely fragrance across the table as the waiter placed a large bowl in front of each of them and a larger bowl in the center of the table. The larger bowl was to collect the shells and Amanda dropped the first shell in, allowing it ring out loudly. Peter smiled and thought how delightful it was to be having dinner with her. She was commanding without being forceful, playful yet mature. She didn’t wait for, or defer to him, but she was pleasant company and he was enjoying himself for the first time in a long time. They finished the clams and then passed on dessert. Amanda ordered coffee and Peter ordered some tea. The waiter brought out a small plate of Giuggiolena cookies and some chocolates along with the coffee and tea.

Peter waited as the tea seeped. They had made it through dinner and spoken very little, nothing about work. Amanda smiled and picked up one of the cookies placing it on his saucer. She then picked up another and took a small bite. “They perfect way to end a meal a fine cup of coffee and an Italian cookie. I am sure these are your favorite?” She said taking another small bite. Peter picked up the cookie looking it over he smiled at her and said of course they are. You don’t think the owner would send out something I didn’t like just before joining us. I suppose the chocolates are for you just in case you were not adventuresome enough to try the cookies. I could have told him that would never be your problem but he won’t ask. If you don’t eat the chocolates he will keep trying until he finds his way into your heart. He knows that the Giuggiolena cookies are my Achilles' heel. They are not on the menu and I have never seen anyone else get them but he always has them ready and waiting for me.

 

The owner showed up as promised just as Peter put his empty cup back down. He walked towards them while at the same time he seemed to be holding himself back. It was as if he wanted to join them but didn’t want to interrupt. As he stepped up behind Peter he placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder and then reached past him to retrieve the teapot. He spoke to Peter as he poured, “Doctor Johnson how nice of you to join us tonight I hope we were able to please. And what a lovely female you have brought! I am afraid the other females will go home in tears tonight knowing that there is such unattainable beauty in world. Of course they are not alone because even the Angles in heaven must shed some tears of jealousy when they look down at you. But for us men let me just say thank you for we live to sip at the fountain of beauty and you have allowed us all to drink our fill.” Peter smiled and Amanda didn’t know how to respond. She certainly wasn’t embarrassed, but no one had every tried that hard on a line before. She wondered if Peter had heard it before. She was sure she wasn’t the first attractive female that he had brought to this restaurant.

 

Peter placed his hand on top the owner’s hand that was resting on his shoulder and said, “Thank you my friend, it as wonderful as always. I am sure that I can not match your eloquence but tonight was especially nice because of company. We will be sure to stop and say our goodbyes on the way out.” The owner immediately took the hint and excused himself saying, “Dr. Johnson no hurry please I would be offended if you did not enjoy some more tea and coffee. If I don’t see you later I will say my goodbyes now and leave you to enjoy the view and the company. It was a pleasure to meet Miss and I hope you will join us often.” He removed his hand from underneath Peter’s and patted him once more on the back in a gesture of friendship and goodbye.

 

The waiter cleared and replaced the tea and coffee service removing the chocolates and refreshing the cookies and then immediately left them alone. Peter knew that they would not be disturbed again. The bill would not show up since the accounting department had an open invoice with the restaurant which they paid every week no matter if Peter or Bob showed up or not. Peter would still leave the enough money on the table to cover the meal as a tip for the waiter.

 

Amanda looked out at the view and thought about what might happen next. She wasn’t nervous because it didn’t matter what might happen but the anticipation of what might happen was delightful. They still had not talked at all about work or the project. Peter was not trying to impress her or seduce her, but he was not being shy or coy about finding her attractive and wanting to spend time with her. She looked back at him and said, “Do you want to work here or come back to my place. I live very close by.”

 

Peter smiled and said, “Why don’t we finish up here, enjoy the view, and then maybe I could stop by and see you place.”

She smiled and said, “Sounds like a plan. So rule one, do not covet things that belong to others, or was it do not commit adultery!” The worked for about an hour but Peter kept thinking that something was missing. It didn’t matter what order they put them in the rules seemed incomplete. He knew that this was his last shot at directly interacting with the Simulants. They must be made to understand that they needed to behave more like real people. They had to accept the idea that they these were the rules, commandments. It was like being a father he wanted them to obey, but he wasn’t sure that they would.

 

Amanda understood his concerns but couldn’t come up with any suggestions that would provide him what he needed. Peter motioned over the waiter and asked him to bring him a glass of port. Amanda ordered some Madeira wine. They talked and Amanda could see an idea form in Peter’s mind. He took a sip of port and then settled back in his chair. She knew he had come across the solution. She smiled inwardly wondering how he was going to share it with her.

 

He placed the glass down and said, “The problem with the rules are that they don’t follow the advice all of my friends tell me about raising their children. The Simulants are like parentless children or more accurately like children with bad parents. They tell me that you can’t be a friend or a buddy. You have to be there for them and they have to know that you love them. They can understand that you like them as well, but the first thing you have to do make sure they understand you’re in charge. You can not be their friend or their peer you have to be the person they look to as the one that makes the rules. We have the rules and we will give them to Moses but they have to reference that they came from someone in charge, a higher power.

 

The idea made sense to Amanda but she didn’t understand how the order would help or hurt and asked, “Peter, I agree with what your saying but couldn’t we just introduce the rules in a way that forced the Simulants to accept that they came from a higher power? I mean you just performed miraculous actions freeing them from slavery. If we introduce them in some spectacular way, written across the sky in the clouds, a rock formation, written in stone by lighting? That would show them that it came from a higher power.”

 

Peter thought about it as he took another sip of port. “The problem is that those things become the basis of myth. Ann studied the problems and benefits of myth for years. Sometimes I think just to annoy me, but she wasn’t stupid look at all of myths that we still don’t understand, exactly why the Simulants in Greece created the ruler of all gods Zeus living at the top of Mount Olympus. Or why that myth was refined and passed on to other Simulants and continues even in simulations that we run a thousand generations later, the myth survives. Zeus was once the God of Gods worshiped and feared by most Simulants, now he is used in their advertisements. He is still known and although the myths are corrupted, they endure. People believed that Zeus lived on an unreachable mountain top and that he and the other gods demanded obedience but did they obey? No. That is the theme of most of the myths. Simulants don’t obey. We have to get them to follow these rules to live more like we live.”

 

Amanda knew that Peter had the answer but wasn’t sure what her reaction to it would be. He seemed to want and need her approval even thought they both knew that what Amanda thought wouldn’t matter to the rest of the group and what the rest of the group thought might not matter to Peter. Amanda knew that Peter wanted her to tell him the answer that he had already come up with but she just didn’t know what the answer was. If fact if she would have known exactly what Peter had on his mind she wouldn’t have proposed it because she wouldn’t have thought it would work. She would have told him it was a bad idea but in any case she didn’t have the slightest idea what Peter’s proposal was. She took another sip of her wine and smiled back at him.

Peter said, “What do you think about adding a few more rules?” Amanda tilted her head and said, “Tonight, alone? You and me add in a couple more rules without the rest of the group? Why? Peter if you wanted more rules or to include any specific rules you could have added them at anytime today. Or you could have sent them to one of the teams to evaluate a week ago. Why do you want to add a couple more rules tonight?”

Peter pushed the glass away and said, “It’s not the rules or the order of the rules it is the impact. You joked about writing them in the sky a miracle that they would not be able to explain away. But first they would be able to explain it way, Simulants are great at explaining away problems like ghost images, déjà vu, crop circles, murder, sleep and the list continues. Whatever we do to them or that they do to themselves they can explain it away. God, Angels, Aliens, too much sugar, too little salt, too much salt, radio waves, low frequency noise, all of these have been used to explain away the unexplainable. How can we believe that they will not explain away these rules? If we don’t they will expand them, contract them, ignore them, maybe even replace them.” He paused and then looking deep into her eyes said, “I say we make it part of the rules that you can not mess around with the rules.”

 

Amanda laughed, “Rule one: Don’t mess around with the rules, especially, but not limited to rule one. Come on Peter I don’t get it how will this help?”

 

Peter was not stopped or even slowed down. He wasn’t trying to convince Amanda he was using her to see how to convince the rest of the team and maybe even convince himself. “How about, the first rule is, I make the rules.”

 

Amanda replied, “Who are you? You would have to say, “The first rule is God makes the rules.” The obvious problem is that Zeus was God and as you have said no one followed his rules. I don’t see how this will help?”

 

Peter thought about it for a second and then started to write furiously away on the tablecloth.

1. I am the Lord your God.

2. I am the one true God.

3. I am God

4. I am a jealous, spiteful and vengeful God.

5. Do not speak my name to each other or allow it to be spoken before you.

6. The unjust and undeserving shall not see favor in my eyes.

7. You shall not make images of other gods or worship or sacrifice to any god other than the one true God.

8. Those that fail to follow my commands will be punished and that punishment will be never ending.

9. Other beings will try and steer you away from me and those of you that follow them will be punished and cast away.

10. You are my chosen people that I will protect and guide

11. Do not be misled by other gods by phony prophets or unworthy ministers who claim to speak in my name but do not follow my commands.

12. Never forget or delay the celebration of the miracle of Passover, celebrated it by remembering all that I saved you from.

13. Twelve Three times a year you shall bring all your male children before your God and they must offer up their thanks for me.

14. No more will you offer up blood as a sacrifice to me but you will offer up with leaven the first of the first fruits of your land equal to 33% 10% of all your fruits which shall be brought unto the house of the Lord your God.

15. You shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest.

16. Honor your father and mother!

17. Do not murder!

18. Do not commit adultery!

19. Do not steal!

20. Do not bear false witness!

21. Do not covet things that belong to others!

 

When Peter had finished he had created 14 more rules for a total of 21 but before he motioned Amanda over he struck out one of the rules as redundant. She had watched him create the list and had read them upside down from her side of the table. No good research assistant was worth her salt unless they could read an entire presentation upside down without getting caught. She slid into the chair next to him and moved it so it was touching his chair. Amanda looked at the list again and said, “7 rules to 21 one rules. Let’s see it took us a couple of weeks to research, create, and deliver the 7 rules you agreed to and now you have created an additional 14. I am not sure how that is going to go over in the meeting tomorrow. Let me take a look at what you have created. You know Ann would say that you are letting your God complex get in the way of the program.”

Peter frowned at her statement but did not interrupt her, as she continued, “Some of these are redundant but I see you already crossed out one of them. I’m glad because I don’t think you need to tell them four times that you are God. I understand know what you were thinking if you include the God myth in the rules it might strengthen them. One of my fears is that might cause division I could see the Simulants fighting over any differences between their One true God and there neighbors’ One true God. The Simulants have proven to be very tribal. What if in on of their languages they call God one thing and in another they use a different name. It could lead to conflict. I know you have tried to solve that by not letting them create a name for God but they will and it is dangerous.”

 

She paused and continued to look over the list. Peter handed her his pen saying, “You understand what I am trying to do. I want lead them as if they were my children. Protect them from themselves. Strikes out the rules that you know are wrong and change what you want.”

 

Amanda took his pen and thinking of how to test if the message would work if it came from a loving parent instead of a vengeful God she started to make changes.

1. I am the Lord your God. your Mother

2. I am the one true God.

3. I am God

4. I am a jealous, spiteful and vengeful God.

5. Do not speak my name to each other or allow it to be spoken before you.

6. The unjust and undeserving shall not see favor in my eyes.

7. You shall not make images of other gods or worship or sacrifice to any god other than the one true God.

8. Those that fail to follow my commands will be punished and that punishment will be never ending.

9. Other beings will try and steer you away from me and those of you that follow them will be punished and cast away.

10. You are my chosen people that I will protect and guide my children whom I will protect and guide

11. Do not be misled by other gods by phony prophets or unworthy ministers who claim to speak in my name but do not follow my commands.

12. Never forget or delay the celebration of the miracle of Passover, celebrated it by remembering all that I saved you from.

13. Twelve Three times a year you shall bring all your male children before your God and they must offer up their thanks for me.????

14. No more will you offer up blood as a sacrifice to me but you will offer up with leaven the first of the first fruits of your land equal to 33% 10% of all your fruits which shall be brought unto the house of the Lord your God. ????

15. You shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest.

16. Honor your father and mother!

17. Do not murder!

18. Do not commit adultery!

19. Do not steal!

20. Do not bear false witness!

21. Do not covet things that belong to others!

 

She changed the word on the first one to set a new tone and then crossed of the next three as redundant. She thought that rule four was just to scary even with spiteful removed and anyway if you softened it was redundant as well. She didn’t like the rule about not speaking the Lords name but understood why Peter wanted to keep it. She thought that rule six was too harsh but thought it was better to use her power wisely and then argue with Peter about the details later. She didn’t change the word God over to Mother since it didn’t make any sense to not make images of other Mothers so she skipped it as well. She crossed out rule eight and nine because a Mother would never cast away or punish her children forever for a mistake.

 

The change she made to rule ten was really just editorial but it kept the flow of her new ideas. She thought that rule eleven was ambiguous and would be used by one group to condemn another. She thought that rule 12 was self serving and that Passover might not have the same meaning to the Simulants in a couple of generations and it might not even mean as much to Peter in a few weeks. She felt he was too close to the event so crossed it off. She did not understand rule thirteen or fourteen so rather than cross them off she left them for Peter to explain to her. When she got to the rules that they had agreed to in the meeting she looked up to find a fresh coffee and tea had arrived on their table. She looked over at Peter who was pouring her a cup of coffee and said to him, “Explain rule thirteen and fourteen to me.”

 

Peter finished pouring the coffee and said, “I want them to remember so I think thought that once a month they should gather their children, then I thought just the male children in remembrance in the male children that I took from the Egyptians. I then thought maybe once a month is too often so I was thinking once every four months. On rule fourteen I was thinking we will need administers, priests that that if the community gave 10% of their resources then the priests would be able to live and also feed the needy.”

 

Amanda thought about it and then boldly cross off rule thirteen and fourteen saying, “I think you will agree with me that giving 10% to the priests is not the same as not committing murder. You are breaking your own rule, no pun intended; we can not put everything in these rules. Let’s stick with what we need to have happened to get them to be more like Man and leave self-improvement to nature.

1. I am the Lord your God. your Mother

2. I am the one true God.

3. I am God

4. I am a jealous, spiteful and vengeful God.

5. Do not speak my name to each other or allow it to be spoken before you.

6. The unjust and undeserving shall not see favor in my eyes.

7. You shall not make images of other gods or worship or sacrifice to any god other than the one true God.

8. Those that fail to follow my commands will be punished and that punishment will be never ending.

9. Other beings will try and steer you away from me and those of you that follow them will be punished and cast away.

10. You are my chosen people that I will protect and guide my children whom I will protect and guide

11. Do not be misled by other gods by phony prophets or unworthy ministers who claim to speak in my name but do not follow my commands.

12. Never forget or delay the celebration of the miracle of Passover, celebrated it by remembering all that I saved you from.

13. Twelve Three times a year you shall bring all your male children before your God and they must offer up their thanks for me.????

14. No more will you offer up blood as a sacrifice to me but you will offer up with leaven the first of the first fruits of your land equal to 33% 10% of all your fruits which shall be brought unto the house of the Lord your God. ????

15. You shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest.

16. Honor your father and mother!

17. Do not murder!

18. Do not commit adultery!

19. Do not steal!

20. Do not bear false witness!

21. Do not covet things that belong to others!

 

She started to write out a new list

1. I am. your Mother

2. Do not speak my name to each other or allow it to be spoken before you.

3. The unjust and undeserving shall not see favor in my eyes.

4. You shall not make images of other gods or worship or sacrifice to any god other than the one true God.

5. You are my children whom I will protect and guide

6. You shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest.

7. Honor your father and mother!

8. Do not murder!

9. Do not commit adultery!

10. Do not steal!

11. Do not bear false witness!

12. Do not covet things that belong to others!

 

Peter took the pen back from her and said, “I got your point but I think we need to change his back, crossing out Mother and replacing it God. Can we go with this list? It is getting late and I’d like to meditate and rest tonight and if it is not to forward of me, I’d like break rule nine while the rules are still in debate.” She laughed and told him that she would love to break rule nine with him. She was still uncomfortable with some of the rules and wasn’t sure what she would say at tomorrows meeting. She would of course support the idea of what he wanted to add to the rules but wasn’t so sure about each of the new rules he had created. The team would go insane when he walked in with five new rules. Luckily for them they didn’t have to see the 14 original rules. Of course she wasn’t sure they wouldn’t see the complete list. Peter was the boss and he took that very seriously. Ann was not the only one who accused Peter of having a God complex she was just the only one who said it to his face.

 

Amanda convinced Peter to stay at her place. She did not want to feel comfortable resting at his place and she figured to use all of the leverage at her disposal. She got ready for work before he got out of bed and transferred the rules from the table cloth to her computer. She made Peter a cup of tea and laid out some orange slices on a small plate. He took a sip of her tea and then tossed it in the sink saying, “We’ll stop on the way in. Are you ready to go?”

 

The meeting went better than expected. Amanda supposed it was because everyone always expected the worst. It took three hours for the team to understand what Peter was trying to accomplish with these new rules. Peter’s Chief of Staff got the programmers and testers to load the rules into the system about 30 minutes after Peter started. It raises a few eyebrows but he knew Peter would not change his mind without fresh data. They broken for an early lunch and Peter ask them to be ready with their comments and ideas. They started to break up but before the first person escaped Peter said, “And be ready to defend them.” He knew that would greatly reduce the discussion.

 

The afternoon session went smoothly the data showed that rule three must be dropped it caused all kinds of problem that made translation even harder. Peter agreed. The team strongly believed that rule five was counter-productive. It reduced efficiency by increasing religion beyond an acceptable level. Even if all of the other Simulants gave 20% of their resources over to these churches they could not support the Simulants that thought that God would provide for them. The data as inconclusive on rule two and three, in some simulations the Simulants responded well and in others there was more war and injustice. Peter decided that they had to decide, uncharacteristically he put it to a vote. It surprisingly was almost a tie. Peter decided never to try that again, since he didn’t know what he would have done if the vote went against him. His Chief of Staff had voted against him which had emboldened some of the others. Amanda broke the tie. She didn’t do it because she wanted to win his favor it was because she didn’t want to see him fail. Peter’s Chief of Staff thanked her later and he decided that he would always wait until the end if Peter ever tried another experiment in democracy.

 

The final ten rules were:

1. I am. Your God!

2. Do not speak my name to each other or allow it to be spoken before you!

3. You shall not make images of other gods or worship or sacrifice to any god other than the one true God!

4. You shall work for six days but on the seventh day you shall rest!

5. Honor your father and mother!

6. Do not murder!

7. Do not commit adultery!

8. Do not steal!

9. Do not bear false witness!

10. Do not covet things that belong to others!

 

Three people on the psychology team talked to Peter about resigning over the three new rules saying that they might setup internal conflict and were open for misinterpretation. Peter dismissed their arguments saying that the first rule to setting any list of rules was that they must be followed. Peter wanted to make sure that the Simulants understood that simply put, “The first rule had to be, I make the rules.” They talked to each other after the meeting and decided that resigning wouldn’t change anything and that Thompson Simulations was still the most rewarding place to work. They only wish that Ann was still around she had hired each of them and they had join because of her reputation in their field. The only thing left was to translate the rules into the ancient root language and have it delivered to the Hebrews.

 

Peter should have listened to these psychologists. Ann would have argued, and in a way did argue, that the three additional rules were the root cause of most of the world’s conflicts. She would have also argued that religious conflict was the principle cause of most of the violence, and unwanted, anti-social behavior in the Simulants world. The Crusades, the enslavement of native peoples by the church, burning of churches and art, Genocide, Jihad, Northern Ireland, September 11th all of these atrocities and many more would be committed because Peter failed to follow the advice of his team. The last six rules were simple and straight forward. They were a codification of standard human practice and the fourth rule was more of a work rule. The team wanted to allow the Simulants free time to explore new creative ideas. None of these would ever cause a problem. They were sometimes hard to follow and but they never caused harm. The first three rules on the other hand, said much more than “I make the rules.” They said your God it the one true God and anyone that disagrees with you is not disagreeing with you. They are the devil or his agents they are here to rob you of your soul. It was only surprising that more conflict wasn’t caused by the additional of Peter’s three rules. Peter would later comment in an interview that if he had remained more active, steering the Simulants more that would have stopped the separation of the religions. When Peter was at his most active these rules and the belief in the “One true God” spread from that small mountain top and touched every civilization that came in contact with. It would shape the Simulants forever and many positive and many negative.

 

 

Chapter Fifteen

 

Let’s Start Over.

 

Bob responded to the Simulant Ann, “What do you mean you’re uniquely qualified? We have talked about this your not Ann. You are a memory map of Ann’s mind and you have much of her knowledge but you still have huge gaps in the knowledge that Ann had. You have randomly filled these missing pieces to reduce your own level of discomfort. I’ll concede that you sound like Ann and I’ll even concede that you think in the same way that Ann thought but there is a difference. I can tell you are not Ann and the biggest issue is that you are aware that you are a Simulant. This could be very dangerous. In all other cases we believed that even if some other Simulant figured out that they were a Simulant it wouldn’t have mattered much since it could never be proven. The rest of the Simulants would just believe it was the manifestation of some sort of strange mental illness. We are not even sure that if a Simulant ever found out or was told that they were a Simulant, they would believe it. They might think it could be true, but they would most likely not articulate or act on it. You on the other hand know what a Simulant is. You know that it is true. So while you’re a Simulant you are the only Simulant that knows what that means and knows all of the issues that being a Simulant raises. To be absolutely safe we still remove any Simulant that show signs that they are not real, no offense.”

 

“None taken, I understand what you are trying to say. The simulations that we build will not work if the Simulants understand what they really are. I think with the proper programming we can take a copy of my mind map made before my death and build a Simulant that is fully environmentally and self aware but not aware that she is a Simulant. Using the same genetic reproduction program we use now we could build an entire new generation of Simulants. We could weed out any problems and closely monitor the resulting Simulants. I believe that in a couple of generations we could develop exactly what you want the next generation of Simulants that don’t have all of the baggage that the current series has.

 

Bob was shocked at the turn in the conversation, Ann’s Simulant was talking of Ann’s death as if it was an event she took part in. She sounded like Ann, but Ann would have never agreed to a plan like this. The only problem was it was a great plan. It would give them a much better Simulant and allow them to reduce or in some cases eliminate all of the translation work. Simulants which had the same work ethic, which had a normal amount of compassion, that cared about the effect that they had on their environment would be a quantum leap forward. The current series of Simulants were wasteful, greedy, violent, and lacked compassion. The new series could change all of that. It was intriguing.

 

Bob called Peter he wanted to find out how the introduction of the rules was coming and to feel him out about creating the next series of Simulants. Peter explained that the introduction of the rules seem to be having a very positive effect on the Simulants where it was introduced. It also provided an unexpected benefit of strengthening the sense of community. They had hoped that the rule about honoring their parents would provide a stronger sense of community but what we are seeing is much stronger than we had hoped. They are creating art, developing new architecture much sooner that they normally would have. The new focus on religion allows the poor to produce more for the community and for the rich to give more back to the community. They are starting to judge themselves on more than territory and power. It is providing a balance to their lives. The translation team says that using Simulants that have been introduced to the rules and the story require 20% less translation and the simulation accuracy has improved. The results are much better than we hoped; we would like to start shipping them out during the next upgrade. We would especially like to convert the 4129 series over. The team believes that in military simulations that the new changes will allow us to more accurately simulate a combat environment.

 

Bob told Peter how happy he was that the experiment was going so well and that he could start the process for a small scale rollout, but not to introduce them outside of the lab until the board of directors agreed. He was about to tell him about using Ann’s mind map created Simulant but thought it might be better to test the system with a small team first. He waited for Peter to ask him how it was going and then said, “Good. It is great news that your experiment went so well. I was thinking that I would work out of Ann’s house here in Maui. I’ll need some equipment sent to me and I’d like to take a look at the Simulants can you send them preloaded on one of the big blade machines? I’ll also need a storage area network a big on. See if you can get Orland to send me out one. Send it to Ann’s address for now but I might end up renting some space. I’ll need a few technicians and some programmers. Since Ann’s place is so far from everything I might have to get some space in town so we don’t have to fly them out here everyday.”

 

Pete gave the phone a puzzled look but said, “Sure you’re the boss. I get something loaded and on the way to you before I go home to night. I’ll have my assistant give Orland a call about the other equipment. You should have it all by the end of the week. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Say hi to your wife for me. I’ll call and brief you before the next Board of Directors meeting to get a thumbs up on shipping out the new Simulants.” “Thanks Peter.”

 

Peter put down the phone and called over his executive assistant telling him to get the tem to build a new system and have it shipped over to Ann’s house in Maui. He wanted it tested for a couple of days after it was loaded. “Run maximum number of copies of the base Air Traffic Management system using historical data and the new Simulants. If it passes then run the maximum number of copies of the London traffic simulation on a twenty year time-line. Bring me the results to both of them. While I’m looking it over I’d like you to run 20 copies of Ann’s World War simulation 1913 to 1946 “ His assistant frowned, “Twenty copies I don’t think we have ever run twenty copies of he program at the same time?” “Well you had better get the guys to build a system that will handle it. I don’t want to send an underpowered system over to Bob. If it will run 20 copies than I am sure it will handle whatever it is he wants to play with over there.

 

Peter dismissed his assistant and picked up the phone to see if Amanda wanted to have lunch with him.

 

Bob called his team leads and ask them to send over the best guys they had to Maui. They were authorized to bring their families but Bob recommended against it since the hours would be long and they would be working for at least the next two months straight. At the end of the two months Bob would decide if they would be permanently reassigned to a new development team or if they would return to their old positions. The project would start on Sunday since Bob expected to equipment to arrive on Friday. It would take the technicians a couple of days to get it installed and tested. Bob’s assistant rented the Apex Building on Koloa Street it was very close to the Kahului International Airport. It wasn’t a perfect fit since it was currently built out as retail space, but Bob’s assistant knew he didn’t want to be in the warehouse district. Bob would also need something close to the airport since he would be flying in by helicopter from Ann’s house. The rent was outrageous and the property management company made them sign a two year lease because of all of the changes that they wanted. The high megahertz blade based computer systems needed to be water cooled plus they needed install a power conditioning and generator system. All of this had to be done by Friday. It was amazing what money could do. The company still had to fly in 25 of their own engineers to ensure that the specialized systems would be installed properly and to supervise the work on the electrical and cooling systems. All of this happened magically; Bob had made four telephone calls and one brief discussion with his assistant. By Sunday afternoon they will have spent 35 million dollars. The new project would carry 2 million dollar a day burn-rate. Bob was sure it was the best investment he could make for Thompson Simulations. He was also happy that Thompson Simulations was a private company because shareholders have a tendency to find the idea of spending 155 million dollars for a two month research project excessive. Of course if they could own stock in Thompson Simulations they would be lining up for the privilege. This was still a lot easier.

 

Bob talked with Ann during the short helicopter hop from Ann’s house to the Airport. As long as he had a satellite communication they maintained a direct link. It was comforting to have someone that he trusted always at hand but it was a bit disconcerting that he now had a closer relationship with Ann after her death then he had every had before it. He always had the greatest respect for Ann and the warmest affection for her, but she was strong willed and held her feelings close to her chest. The Simulant Ann was much more open her thoughts were organized but they flowed from her freely. She loved to debate just as Ann had but she would express both sides of an issue where Ann might filter information that didn’t support the solution that she was proposing. The Simulant Ann held her beliefs just as strongly as the real Ann but she would freely articulate the opposing side of each issue.

 

Most real people were good at seeing the opposing view but they saw it as the opposing view. The Simulant Ann saw it as a different view one that might be the superior to her own if she held the same views as the person making the argument. An example was the age old problem of who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter. If you live a comfortable middle class life, working hard to succeed, compromising to ensure a better future for your children and someone bombs your office because your company makes loans to undeveloped countries. It is clearly a terrorist act. If you live in a country were no matter how hard you try, no matter what compromises you make, you know your children will never succeed. They will not succeed because corrupt politicians have mortgaged your country’s future. It is especially hard when everyone knows the truth, the governments, the banks, the workers but they refuse to fix the problem to forgive the debt and you want the world to understand the injustice. You want them to wake up from their comfortable lives and fix the problem. If you fail you are a terrorist if you succeed you are a hero, a freedom fighter. The freedom fighter doesn’t see himself as a terrorist and Ann was able to see herself in both roles. She would decide which role allowed her to be most effective and then choose. It wasn’t a lack of compassion that allowed her to coldly calculate what the best plan was. She was more compassionate than most real people, but she could make the right choice because she understood all sides of the issue.

 

Compassion was the key, to be able have compassion with people that were not in your tribe. Simulants were very tribal. The real Ann had written a short article that theorized it was because of the way Simulants reproduced. Simulants cared about their own lives first, then the lives of their offspring, then the lives of their community or tribe and finally the lives of other Simulants. They were easier to understand than real people if an action hurt their family or tribe they would resist it even if it helped a larger number of people that they considered outside their tribe. They were much more tribal or nationalistic then real people.

 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

Rebirth

 

If Thompson Simulations could create a Simulant that was less tribal and more compassionate they would be able to greatly reduce the problems and the amount of translation necessary to interpret the data. An example of this translation problem was the religious conflict in Northern Ireland. In the real world there wasn’t a Northern Ireland there was just a single Ireland it was part of the British Commonwealth. There weren’t two religious fractions that were separated and fighting over what most people saw as inconsequential differences. The differences had been explained to Peter over and over again they seemed to be related to whether the Mother of Jesus was celibate and if prayer could be directed through a mediator. Peter keep asking after each briefing why would someone die or kill over these issues? It cost the company a tremendous amount of resources to adjust the simulations and to translate the results to make if more accurate.

They had to remove unnatural security concerns, increase productivity, increase economic growth, and transportation use. In most cases they just ignored data from the United Kingdom and Ireland and used data from some other European country or data from the United States. This sometimes caused a feedback loop so in the Simulant world the Simulants in United Kingdom often seemed more like North American Simulants than European Simulants. Peter wanted desperately to remove the problem but this tribal instinct seems to be the genetically built into the core of every Simulant. Even the 4129 Series displayed this idea of family, of tribe.

Bob poured himself of glass of wine and spoke toward the ceiling speaker. It was kind of silly since the high quality microphones located throughout the house could pick up a whisper. Ann thought it was funny and had at first tried to adjust the speakers so that it sounded like she was inside of Bob’s head no matter where he moved. In the same way that musical groups had played with the effect when stereo headsets were invented. Bob found it to disconcerting. They tried a number of combinations, transmitting the sound as if it was an eye level, in front, behind, always to his left or his right, nothing seemed to work. Peter would turn to reply and then realized that Ann was just a disconnected voice. She wasn’t standing were her voice seemed to be coming from. Finally they decided that Ann would just talk out of the closest speaker in the room. It was like being on a permanent conference call. In this case the speaker was above him. He said, “Ann I don’t understand how you plan on using your mind map you know you are a Simulant and we know that a simulation will not work if the Simulants know what they are.”

 

“Bob, I think I have an easy fix to that problem. My idea is to enter the simulation and reproduce with an existing Simulant. The offspring should have the positive traits that we want. If we do a very aggressive inbreeding program we can reduce the amount of genetic material that they receive from the current Simulant population and increase the genetic makeup of they receive from my mind map. From a chemical marker stand point my genetic code is identical and completely compatible with any existing Simulant. We have tried to directly modify their genetic code but it is just too complicated. This short-cut allows us to improve the results by using the best possible combination, Mine.”

 

“So you enter the Simulation, but you know that you are a Simulant.” “Of course but I can keep a secret. We increase the simulation time and in milliseconds we will have new generations of Simulants none of which will have any idea that they are Simulants. It will be milliseconds to us but it will be a full life time to your Simulant. Can we trust that she will not share the idea with her young? We can not read your mind unless we run the program at near real-time and we can not wait 20 years for the outcome. I have thought of that we have the Simulant die during childbirth. That way the child and mother will never interact.”

 

“Will she go for that?”

 

“My guess is no. So we don’t tell her.” That didn’t sound like Ann and it