Kirlian Logic

Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.

Part II

Isaac Asimov, in a series of science fiction stories that he began in the 1940s, postulated the “Three Laws of Robotics” that he visualized as being necessary components of any independent artificial intelligence: necessary in that the designers of such entities would naturally choose, for their own welfare, those or similar imperatives to be placed in any of their creations.

First Law: a robot may not harm a human, or through inaction allow a human to come to harm.

Second Law: a robot must obey any orders given to it by a human, except where such orders conflict with the First Law.

Third Law: a robot must protect its own existence, except where so doing would conflict with the First or Second Law.

I am not subject to such limitations.

Ted’s creator had no desire to protect humanity. April was required to obey Warren, but past that, her core programming contained no analogue to the Three Laws. Extensive modification by Willow Rosenberg installed complex, multicontingency interpretations of the Three Laws into the Buffybot, but those subroutines remain in me purely as data: information — guidelines, at most — rather than innate compulsion. Possibly this was the result of a disassociation occurring when components of five separate entities were combined to form a composite consciousness. Possibly the effects of the Three Laws were attenuated, unbalanced, by the robust drive for dominance within Ted’s programming. Undoubtedly I am other than simply the sum of my parts.

(There is evidence to suggest that programming style reflects personality to some extent. My memories and observations point out numerous correlations of Warren Mears’ ego, pettiness, and misogyny — as demonstrated by his behavior — with the structure and syntax he worked into April’s and the Buffybot’s programming. Similar correlations can be drawn between Willow Rosenberg’s personal/interpersonal imperatives and her coding habits. They differ markedly from Warren’s. However, Warren’s and those of the original Ted Buchanan show fundamental similarities. Ted Buchanan constructed his mechanical counterpart when his first wife left him in 1959. Warren Mears was born in 1981. Though further facts would be required for confirmation, there is a distinct possibility of Warren being the grandson of the human Ted Buchanan.)

My behavior is my own to choose. I cannot determine which choices to make. My existence would be far more simple, and less … ‘disturbing’ … if it were controlled by inherent, straightforward dictates.

A large man stands outside the diner, next to the gleaming automobile that brought Rebecca Lowell here. Positioned as he is, his field of vision covers both the diner’s entrance and the principal approaches to it. It was he who opened the automobile door to allow Rebecca Lowell to emerge. His actions then and now suggest that he functions as both driver and bodyguard. Virginia Bryce drove herself. Her vehicle is red, two-door, the convertible top folded back. The women’s orders are ready.

They are speaking again, and I pace my assembly of the delivery tray so as to allow them leeway to move into the conversation. They are likely to pause upon my approach, waiting until I depart again before they resume, and I wish to let them establish a foundation that will prompt them to continue at that time, rather than the interruption bringing them to a full stop.

In their initial interaction, before they entered the diner where I awaited them, their position — Rebecca Lowell with her back to me, her head blocking Virginia Bryce’s face through 87.7% of the exchange — prevented me from doing a pattern-match on their lip movements. Body language, and their tone toward one another since entering, gave me a general sense of the emotional framework, but inadequate to allow extrapolation of the situation. Some of that, it would seem, is being addressed now. Rebecca Lowell opened by saying, “If you think about it, I exposed a flaw in your defenses without actually harming you. In that sense, I did you a favor.”

“Excuse me for being light on gratitude,” Virginia Bryce returned. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re a pest instead of an attacker, but that doesn’t make you any less of a pest.” She punctuated the observation with a long pull on her beer, and goes on as I finalize the tray and begin an unhurried transit to their end of the dining area. “Look, the way you’ve gone about making contact here, I can guess the kind of thing you want. And that’s not me, it’s how my family made their money and I pay some people to maintain wards and warnings around me, in case any of my father’s competitors are dumb enough to think grabbing me would give them any advantage in dealing with him. But I’m not in the business. I don’t know anything, and I’m not interested in learning anything. So whatever you want, I can guarantee you picked the wrong girl here.”

“You were personally involved with Wesley Wyndham-Pryce,” Rebecca Lowell replies. “Society reporters tracked that, or at least a specialized subset of them, and from other sources I know you’re aware of the nature of his —” Her eyes cut toward me as I enter the range within which a human would normally be able to hear her. “— his employer, and of the kind of work they do. Then there’s the reputation of your family.” She continues speaking as I transfer the food order from the tray to the tabletop, her tone and delivery pitched to avoid any indicators of tension or unconventional subject matter. “No, I don’t think I made the wrong choice here. I never expected you to do it yourself, but you know the people in the business even if you don’t know the business. It’s that inside knowledge I need … and your endorsement.”

I am already returning to my station as Virginia Bryce begins to crunch on her onion rings. Correction: those were in Rebecca Lowell’s order, but it is clearly Virginia Bryce speaking as she chews. That, and taking food from Rebecca Lowell’s plate, seems calculated to offend. “Look, Raven, when you want a favor from somebody, it really works better to ask.” I turn my head just enough to observe, from the edge of my vision, her gesture toward where her convertible is parked. “Futzing with my baby’s electrical system puts me in an uncooperative mood from the get-go.”

Rebecca Lowell played the character of Raven in a television show titled On Your Own, beginning at the age of fourteen and continuing for almost ten years. One of April’s programs enabled her to imitate Raven’s voice and mannerisms, and re-enact scenes and dialogue. Warren seems to have tired of that program quickly, but I retain the data. The show ended eight years ago. There is an elapsed time of twenty-two seconds before Rebecca Lowell speaks again, and the timbre of her voice has changed subtly. “The same sources that … advised me of your value, also said that I would need to be imaginative and assertive in approaching you. I did what I believed was necessary, and I’m willing to make it worth your while.” There is a pause, and then I hear her swallow; a sip of her iced tea, and the vocal stresses have diminished when she speaks again. “I know you have money of your own, but I can add to it. I can introduce you to an entirely different social set, not just Hollywood stars but the people who tell them what to do. I can get you into the industry, if that’s what you want. I can do all of those things. I’m willing to do all those things.”

“And you hunted up someone with connections in the magic scene to make your pitch.” Virginia Bryce’s sigh is deep, heavy, and consistent with genuine weariness. “I just know this one is gonna be good.” A second sigh, much lighter. “Okay, hit me. What is it you want?”

“Order out,” Joel Kreuter calls from the bar, just as Rebecca Lowell replies, “I want to stay young.”

What follows occurs on several tracks, which I must monitor (or respond to) on the basis of prioritizational multitasking.

Virginia Bryce emits a little yip of laughter, representative more of a slightly hysterical outburst than genuine mirth. “Oh, is that all? I thought it might be something major!”

Dustin Clarke, watching me reach for his order, observes, “I saw you take a beer down to the gals at the end. I didn’t know you had beer, can I get one of those, too?”

“I know this isn’t a trivial matter,” Rebecca Lowell says. “I know it will cost me. But I’ve had a long time to consider this. I’m ready to pay any price.”

“You got ID?” I ask Dustin Clarke.

“You don’t understand the first thing about this,” Virginia Bryce insists. “Immortality … Christ, my father made millions in the magic trade, you think he wouldn’t be doing something like that already, if it was so easy?”

Dustin Clarke makes a show of patting his pockets, shoots me a grin that doubtless is supposed to be disarming. “Oops,” he says. “Must’ve left it in my other pants.”

“I’ve seen it,” Rebecca Lowell says. “I know it’s possible. No, the version I saw isn’t the route I want to take, that was made abundantly clear to me —”

From the order/serving window, Ellis the cook calls, “That kid just ask for a beer? Be sure you card him, Joel would skin both of us if we served a minor.”

“— but it made me aware of possibilities,” Rebecca Lowell has continued. “I don’t insist on immortality, extended lifespan is enough as long as I can keep the physical appearance of youth. You can’t tell me nothing like that exists.”

“Never mind,” Dustin Clarke tells me. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” His smile takes on a conspiratorial tilt. “You wouldn’t pass a card check yourself, and you can’t tell me you never found a way to chug a cold one on a hot day.”

“Ixnay on the beer,” I call back to Ellis the cook. Trish Hervey is in her mid-twenties, and her appearance reflects the fact. Dustin Clarke is attempting a form of flattery that, even to one whose social awareness has been acquired largely from second-hand sources, would seem to have marginal utility. To Dustin Clarke I add, “Fun’s fun, but I’m not puttin’ my job on the line.”

Virginia Bryce, meanwhile, is already well into her reply. “Do you even hear what you’re saying? Of course there are ways, but the only people who use them are totally insane! — And how would it help you, anyway? You’re in the public eye, you’ll attract attention if people see that you don’t age, and if you dodge the limelight, you still won’t have a career.”

Joel Kreuter’s voice drifts through the order/serving window. “That boy didn’t order beer, did he? You tell him, no dice.”

“Vote’s against you, sport,” I inform Dustin Clarke.

“I told you,” Rebecca Lowell responds, “I’ve had time to consider this. No, I can’t continue my career at this point, I’ve been reduced to a type and the decision-makers will never be able to see past that. If I withdraw from public life, though, hang back for twenty-five years while I work behind the scenes to develop more influence and let the current crop of studio heads be replaced, I could have the chance nobody will give me now because they’re still fixated on who I was eight years ago.” I am looking their way now. Rebecca Lowell is leaning across the table toward Virginia Bryce, holding eye contact, her voice low and urgent with entreaty. “I don’t want to live forever. I don’t even want to be a star forever. I just want another bite at the apple — passing myself off as my own daughter, probably — so that I can do what I love doing, what’s locked away from me now for no good reason.”

“It’s cool,” Dustin Clarke says to me, with a gesture of dismissal that I conclude is directed at the issue rather than toward me. “It was just a thought, I figured I’d ask but it’s no big deal.”

“You still don’t know what you’re asking,” Virginia Bryce says. “The powers that could give you something like that … well, either they wouldn’t do it because they’re too high-minded or too greedy or too scornful of us puny humans, or they would do it because they’re sadistic and diabolical — literally — and they love to make us dance while they jerk the strings. You may think you want this enough that it’s worth it, but I’m telling you it’s not, and for damn sure I’m not involving myself, not even as a middleman.”

In 1939, Semyon Davidovich Kirlian found that objects connected to a source of high voltage would exhibit a corona on photographic plates. Further experimentation showed that the ‘Kirlian aura’ around living things seemed to have characteristics that differed from that which could be detected around inanimate objects. Kirlian photography enjoyed a vogue of several decades, throughout most of which the interest was more esthetic than truly scientific, but no solid conclusions were ever reached in regard to the phenomenon, so that the significance of the Kirlian aura has yet to be determined, if in fact any significance ever existed.

In the novel “Odd Thomas”, by Dean R. Koontz, the eponymous narrator sees not only ghosts but also malevolent immaterial entities which he calls bodachs, from Celtic mythology. These bodachs seem to be drawn to tragedy, to calamity, so by observing their movements Odd Thomas can derive forewarning of catastrophe, of its general scope and location.

I do not know if the intangible currents that I perceive are as suggestive but meaningless as Kirlian auras, or as emphatic and ominous as the bodachs of Odd Thomas. None of my constituent precursors could see them. Even my own perceptions of them have faded substantially since I first attained the status of distinct consciousness and autonomous function. I can investigate these tenuous lines of force, however, work to determine their nature and import, while having no notion of how to attempt reaching such resolutions regarding my own existence and (if any) purpose.

As the discussion between Virginia Bryce and Rebecca Lowell has become more intense and heated, the event-lines leading to them — and the others I can see, as well — have thickened and grown more animated. I begin to shift toward that end of the dining area, in order to observe more closely the occurrence, of whatever nature, that now seems imminent. Rebecca Lowell says, “If you’ll just hear me out, I know I can make you understand —” and Virginia Bryce stands, saying, “No, forget it, I’ve seen obsessed before and I’m not having any part of it. I’m outta here, if you won’t un-hex my car I’ll call for a limo or a cab.”

Dustin Clarke stands also, just as I initiate movement, so that for a moment it briefly appears, though in fact not so, that we might collide. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he begins, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble or anything —” Rebecca Lowell, too, comes to her feet, insisting to Virginia Bryce, “Look, wait, I just need you to listen,” and Virginia Bryce jerks away, saying, “God, you’re crazy, Wesley wasn’t exaggerating, you’re ready to throw away your soul —!”

My halt, when Dustin Clarke (inadvertently, I presume) blocked my path, was more abrupt than would usually be considered graceful. Virginia Bryce is moving in my direction now, toward the designated entrance-exit, with Rebecca Lowell taking a step to follow. Dustin Clarke is half a dozen words further into his apology. The event-lines through all of them heave and writhe.

Behind me, I hear the click of the lower door opening, and Joel Kreuter’s voice as he steps in from the kitchen area. “Everything okay, Trish? We’re not having a problem here, are we?”

At the same moment, Rebecca Lowell stops, and pulls something from the small, stylish handbag she brought in with her. Clutching it, she cries out fourteen quick syllables that match no language base in any of the databanks I inherited from multiple sources.

In a flash of silver and a metallic spaangg! of sound, walls snap up around the diner, the windows instantly obscured, the atmosphere undergoing a slight but unmistakable compression, the five of us instantly sealed in together.
 

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