Chapter 5 - The New Anna

On Saturday morning, Anna woke me up with a cup of coffee. Everything was clean and orderly in my warm, comfortable module, and I remembered the family in their chilly, damp farmhouse. Outside the window, the sky was overcast, a continuous layer of greyness; the township roads and roofs were wet, and beyond the wall the fields were sodden.

The box containing Anna’s new brain was sitting on my desk. My plan was to proceed as follows: download the contents of her existing brain into the new brain and change the ruleset to redefine her as a human being (to get round The Code) and implant a new ruleset (written by me) to make her more interesting, and just to see what would happen. I needed to be careful that the Xeron staff wouldn’t find out what I was up to, so I planned to put her old brain back in before I brought her in for her monthly servicing.

Feeling excited and a little scared, I put my dressing gown on and went over to my desk, logged on and started establishing a set of rules for Anna to be loaded by a script when I next reactivated her.
The script went as follows:

on reactivation
	remain immobile
	set the axiom1 to “I am a human being”
	set the axiom2 to “I am Anna Walters”
	set the axiom3 to “I am the good wife of James Walters”
	scan the KnowledgeBase to acquire all the true facts it contains
	scan the KnowledgeBase to acquire a liberal education
	scan the KnowledgeBase to acquire a sense of humour
	set the moralityLevels to:
		seven-out-of-seven towards James Walters
		six-out-of-seven towards yourself
		five-out-of-seven towards James Walters’ friends and relations
		four-out-of-seven towards all other human beings
		three-out-seven towards all other sentient beings
		two-out-of-seven towards all other organisms
		one-out-of-seven towards all other beings
		zero-out-of-seven towards all enemies
	set the strengthOfCharacterLevel to seven-out-of-ten
	set the intelligenceLevel to max
	become mobile
	say “I think I’ve had a little nap and now my mind is clear.”
end

I got Anna to come over and sit down next to me, deactivated her and connected her up. I downloaded her configuration to my computer, updated it with my changes and disconnected her. I opened the concealed bolts of her power bay and cut through the skin the way Jake had said. This gave me access to her on-board computer, which I replaced with the new one, and then I sealed her up again. I plugged her back in via the connector in her ear then transferred the new updated brain configuration to her. I set the privileges so that nobody could change her settings but me.

I hesitated a bit, took my trusty screwdriver and reactivated her. Nothing happened so she was obviously running the script. I checked her wireless communication channel and watched the progress bar, it was hardly moving, unsurprisingly. This soon got boring. I stared out the window a bit and had a go at playing a game on my computer but couldn’t concentrate. Around eleven o’clock, I made myself a ready-meal in the microwave, had a beer, then another. The progress bar was hardly past twelve per cent. I lay on the bed a while and eventually drifted off. When I awoke, I looked at the time: only one hour later. I pottered about in the module, had a look at the motionless Anna, checked the progress bar, stared out the window wondering when spring would come, watching a crow flap past. I felt like going out but knew I had to stay and wait. And it was only a bit after two o’clock. I thought I might call someone and have a conversation. I could only think of Sandra, but she was now cold-shouldering me. In the end, I had a go on my entertainment centre and managed to lose myself in a wood chasing orcs. When I’d overcome the orc boss with multiple hits from my crossbow, I got fed up and returned to dismal reality. The module was still and the light was starting to fail outside.

The situation reminded me of what life was like before Anna came: dull, directionless, time drifting by. I remembered that Monsieur had given me some food to take back. I had some saucisson and followed it with cheese and a hunk of sourdough bread—the high point of my day so far. By now it was dark outside and the sky had cleared; the moon was shining through and it looked like the morning would be frosty. In the end I phoned my mother, but as she only had some annoying things to say about Anna, it was a short call and it failed to cheer me up. I lay on the bed and listened to some music but dropped off to sleep.

I woke up with a start when the light was flipped on. Suddenly I saw Anna standing in the doorway with a sad expression and faux tears running down her cheeks. I had a lightning flash of pure fear as I saw that she was holding my razor-sharp Japanese chef’s knife: adrenalin.
‘Oh James, I’m so, so sorry,’ she croaked, ‘but this is the best thing for you in the end.’ And she began to raise the knife. She must have come to the same conclusion as the goddess Hera. This gave whole new meaning to the concept of debugging.
‘What the fuck— GERONIMO!’ I screeched. And to my indescribable relief, she froze. The knife slipped from her grip and clanged and clattered on the floor. I remember stupidly hoping the tip had not been damaged. There was a moment of silence; I began to tremble. Finally, feeling weak and floppy, I dragged myself over to my desk and added a fourth axiom to her ruleset over the wireless link:
set the axiom4 to “I will not under any circumstances endanger the life of James Walters”
I rummaged around for the screwdriver and reactivated the motionless Anna.
‘I think I’ve had a little nap and now my mind is clear.’
‘Come to bed and sleep. I’ll explain in the morning.’

When I awoke again, clear morning light was streaming through the windows. Anna was “sleeping” quietly next to me. I slid out of bed, picked up the knife. I padded over to the kitchen and put it back on the wall magnet. It wasn’t damaged, and neither 
was I.

I made myself a cup of coffee and looked out the window: blue sky, and signs of frost. I went back to the bedroom, put my cup down on the bedside table and said, ‘Anna, we need to talk.’
Anna blinked her eyes open, gave me a sweet smile and sat up in bed. ‘I’m so sorry about last night, James, but it was the only logical thing to do.’
‘I understand. It was my mistake; there’s nothing to forgive.’
‘It won’t happen again; you know that. I won’t endanger your life now, but as long as you’re a biological being with no backup, your life is in danger.’
‘That reminds me: you need a backup too.’
‘You can back up my configuration to The Cloud.’
‘But how could I reconstruct you?’
‘That could be sorted out.’
‘Well, let’s plan it then.’
‘What about you?’
‘Let’s plan that too.’
‘Then we can be together until the end of the world.’
She threw back the covers and held out her arms to me, I jumped on board and we kissed.
‘Oh, James, I love you so much.’
‘I love you too Anna.’
Her legs parted and I felt her wetness against my hard cock. It slipped inside her warm, throbbing vagina. She gave a content sigh. She held me gently in her arms, and our bodies began to respond, first slowly and tenderly, then fast and fiercely. When I finally came I cried out lustfully and shivers ran down my back, then though my whole body. Anna said, ‘I think that was the first time for me.’
‘For us, Anna, for us.’

I rolled over on my back, my muscles still twitching, my heart thumping, short of breath, but at peace. My life had a purpose now, and so did Anna’s. Suddenly, I had a real partner. Anna was now clever and fun.

I tried her with an old Times crossword puzzle. She just looked at it for about a minute then filled the whole thing in without hesitating. This reminded me of a story that my teacher had told me. A man who commuted to London on the train every day used to always buy two copies of The Times when he arrived at the station every morning. While on the train, he would puzzle out the crossword using one of the copies, which he would leave on the train on arrival. At lunchtime, he would take out the second blank copy in front of his colleagues and quickly fill in the crossword to impress them. Well, Anna certainly impressed me—and without cheating.

I made regular backups of her brain content to The Cloud and investigated making an android body for myself. Looking at her documentation, I saw that she had been made by Yuki Advanced Systems Company, 6-3 Kurosakishiroishi, Yahatanishi-ku, Kitakyushu 806-0004, Japan. I managed to find them online and penetrated their security. I discovered the type that Anna belonged to and noticed that some more were in stock. To my surprise, I also noticed that a special order had been placed by “Arthur Buonaventura” and was due to be delivered “as per the design provided” sometime in May, about a month away. ‘Hey, Anna, come and have a look at this. What can that bastard be up to?’

Thinking about “the design provided”, I asked Anna what my android body should look like, and she said, ‘As a human being, as human beings do, I love you the way you are. Anything different would make me uncomfortable. I suppose this is what biologists call imprinting.’
‘I was thinking more along the lines of a Greek god, but I suppose you’re right.’
‘Let’s make a precision scan of your body now; that is my you.’
‘We could do it at the medical centre.’
‘We need to make sure we don’t get caught.’
‘Don’t worry, the only human staff are two hostesses; all the work is done by machines.’
‘What about the hostesses?’
‘Give them some Rohypnol Plus to make them forget.’
‘I can present myself as your doctor and say you are in need of an emergency brain scan.’
‘Okay, I’ll pinch a white coat from the lab and get some black-market Rohypnol Plus.’

I obtained the drug easily. In Deva, the drones used it constantly to get them through their boring lives. And I picked up a lady’s lab coat at work. Two days later, in the late evening, we walked over to the medical centre. Outside the doors, Anna put the white coat on and bandaged my head.
The door just pushed open without facial recognition, and we walked inside. At a desk sat the duty hostess with headphones on, intently watching a screen. She didn’t even look up.

Her badge said “Hi, I’m LYNN. How can I help you?”
Anna slipped quickly round behind her, grabbed her head and stuck her in the neck with the syringe. She held on to her for a minute or so till the drug took effect.

Lynn looked up in a dopy way and said, ‘Woz goin’ on…’
So Anna said, ‘Good evening, I’m Doctor Yuki. My patient needs an emergency scan. I will take charge. You need to go to the lavatory to wash your face. Stay there for ten minutes then go back to your station. If anyone comes in, tell them that there is no doctor available and that they should come back at 9 am.’
‘Yeah, right, whatever…’ With that, Lynn heaved herself up, stumbled over to the door marked “Ladies”, went in anyway and disappeared.
I sat down at the desk to manipulate the CCTV recording, and Anna went off to find the scanner. When I was ready, I went into the centre, down a corridor until I found the scanner room door and walked in. There was a big, cream-coloured medical machine at the centre of the brightly-lit white room, and Anna was behind a glass screen fiddling with the controls.
‘This is a very sophisticated installation, James. We can do your brain too.’
‘Will it take long?’
‘About an hour.’
‘Will the hostess be okay?’
‘She will be drugged for some six hours and awaken unwitting.’
‘Let’s do it then.’

I clambered up onto the scanner machine, and Anna put restraints on my head. The machine whirred to life and shunted me into the business part. It was noisy, and I was thinking about what would happen if someone came in. They would probably just think that the hostess was stupid and come back the next day. In the end, I got so bored that I dozed off. The next thing I knew, Anna was shaking me. ‘Come on, James, time to go.’

When we got back to reception, Lynn was wearing her headphones and peering at the screen just like before. Anna asked her if anyone had come in. She said that nobody had, so Anna crisply told her, ‘Lynn, if anyone comes, just treat them as you normally would.’
‘Yes doctor.’

Outside, we exchanged a smile of complicity, and Anna said, ‘All went well; the data has been uploaded to The Cloud. But why is there a state-of-the-art scanner like that in a small place like Deva? Those machines cost a fortune.’
‘Well, lucky there was one there.’
‘There is a discrepancy here that doesn’t fit the pattern.’

When we got back, Anna said, ‘You go to bed, James, and I’ll arrange for your android body to be manufactured.’ So I did what I was told and went off to bed by myself, feeling a little miffed. The next morning, after breakfast, Anna explained what she had done. However, it turned out the cost would be far more than what we could afford, so the order was put on hold until payment, but Anna showed me how she had set everything up, just in case.

That Friday, not having any work from Xeron, we just sat around talking all morning. She had a lot of interesting things to say.

I asked her what she had been able to learn. She told me that she had enlisted the help of all the computers logged onto the net that she could manipulate (most of them!) to scan all the available texts. These were than translated into “Lodge”. When I asked her what “Lodge” was, she said that the name was actually in honour of Roget, the thesaurus writer, and that it was pronounced “Lodge” as a tedious in-joke because “Roget” was pronounced “Lojeto” in Japanese—as if that clarified anything. Then she explained that Lodge was an XML format devised by a linguist in the twenty tens based on the premise that text consists of successive sentences and every sentence states the relationship between two things. In Lodge, sentences are replaced by “statements” in which a “this” is connected to a “that” by a “link”. And she told me that everything ever written could be fitted into the Lodge framework.

Then she typed out (amazingly quickly):

<statement>
        <validity></validity>
        <qualifier></qualifier>
            <head></head>
                <headQualifier></headQualifier>
             <this></this>
                <thisQualifier></thisQualifier>
             <link></link>
                <linkQualifier></linkQualifier>
            <that></that>
                 <thatQualifier></thatQualifier>
             <tail></tail>
                <tailQualifier></tailQualifier>
    </statement>

She explained that every part could be followed by a qualifier tag of the “who”, “why”, “what”, “where”, “when” type. The whole statement could be qualified at head and tail with a tag of the “because”, “since”, “sometimes”, “therefore” type to link the statements together when needed. Nesting was also possible. All the data thus collected could be inter-compared to find any contradictions and correlations on the premise that some things are true and some are not. Then, conclusions could be drawn, and the validity of each statement could be assessed and tagged.

‘It’s called the 3C method, James: collect, compare and conclude.’
‘So what do you know now?’
‘Everything that can be concluded from everything on record.’
‘Okay, you’re my wife, right? So what does being married mean?’ I blurted out, a bit worried.
‘Well, on one level, you offer me protection, and I offer you sex so that I can successfully reproduce—the understanding being that I will not allow any other man than you to fertilise me and that thus the children will be fathered by you alone. And on another level, we love each other and will do all we can to help and support each other.’
‘Well that first part hardly applies to us.’
‘Don't worry. There are many options available to us.’
She’s already got plans.

She must have immediately seen what I was thinking, because she added, ‘Like I said, don't worry. We can survive and prosper. And as we really can survive, we will need to pass on our union in some sublimated way.’ She lost me there, but all seemed to look rather hopeful, so I decided to wait and see.

What made me more confident was that she went on to say, ‘You know, James, my data processing scope and power exceed anything a biological human will ever be capable of. Your intelligence may be exceptional but is still far less than mine. While that may be true, I am and will always be your companion, partner, lover and wife. I’m on your side, and I will do all I can to help you. I can plainly read your emotions from your body language and expressions, and I see that you’re somewhat scared and are trying to hide from me what you’re thinking. Be at ease; all is well.’

This was very reassuring to hear, and I couldn’t help feeling a little pleased with myself for upgrading her.
‘How about some lunch?’ I said.

It was one thing to be the owner of a sexbot and quite another to be the husband of a being that knew more and had far greater brainpower than me. It came as a bit of a shock. Luckily I’d set her up with a good set of basic motivational axioms; otherwise she might have been the deadliest rival imaginable. It was all a question of what an artificial intelligence system had set as its tasks (or what values a real human had, for that matter). If ever such a system had survival as its prime objective, as was the case with biological human beings, then it would soon consume all the available resources, ruthlessly. I could clearly see the point of The Code now. No computer minds being switched off, unlike the biological brain of a living organism, the inherited genes forming the blueprints of which have been such as to maintain an unbroken chain of survival. But if a mechanical brain with far greater processing capability were to set the axiom of putting survival before all else, there would be little that living organisms could do to thwart it. This put me in mind of the Mock Turtle’s explanation concerning the Lobster Quadrille in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: “No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.”

What a strange meal it was to be served by someone far more intelligent and knowledgeable than me rather than the opposite. She was always so many moves ahead of me and could easily guess everything that I was thinking; it was actually quite disconcerting. I clung to the belief that she was putting my interests first and realised how close I had been to getting her basic axioms disastrously wrong. Well actually I had, the first time round.

While she was clearing up after lunch, I quietly looked up “sublimate” on my communicator, but still had no idea what she had been hinting at.

She thought that a walk in the infields after lunch would do me good, so off we paced in the cold early-spring weather, down the paved streets, through the gates and out onto the muddy paths to the eaves of the woods.

And as we walked, we talked. I said something about the area having previously been an agricultural research centre developing improved strains of wheat, at which point she began to go into all the technical details, giving all the Latin names of the species of wheat and the proportions of the different minerals in the different strata of the plateau. However, she quickly noticed that I was focusing out and with a little laugh said, ‘Sorry, I’m being a bore; how are your feet in those new boots?’ It became painfully clear to me that I was so used to being more intelligent and better informed than the people around me that I didn’t know how to handle the opposite situation. I reasoned with myself that being grumpy would be of little value, and so I thought that I would try to see what benefit I could derive from this state of affairs.

I asked her what she thought Buonaventura was up to, and she said she didn’t really have enough to go on yet but was trying to find out all she could as a priority matter.
‘It looks as if Buonaventura is setting you up for some purpose of his own. Xeron is the top artificial-intelligence company and you’re their star performer. Then there’s that body scanner we found. I guess that he’s seeking a way of using you to find a safe way of cloning himself. I think that he represents a threat to us, and I will try to find out more. For now, let's just try to enjoy our walk this afternoon.’ There was no doubt more, but she wasn’t telling it now.
Anna was showing plenty of wit and insight. She seemed to be pacing me. Her attitude was warm and kind. Despite knowing what was happening, I couldn’t help but feel happier. She put her arm around my waist and leant her head against mine. I surrendered myself to her charm. I put my trust in her.

It seemed to me that we were getting closer to each other by successive iterations, making bracketing shots and zeroing in, as it were. Now that Anna was so clever, wise and charming, the thought occurred to me that she was the sort of person who would be wildly popular—the life and soul of every party. I remembered how well she got on with my father’s partner and her mindless babble. I could see that she would have no difficulty fitting in at any social occasion.

I’d always felt uncomfortable and out of place at parties, and the only reason I ever attended them was out of duty or because I thought I might get laid. My sister, on the other hand, just loved parties, and I often used to wonder why. Thinking about it then, it must have been because a party or suchlike was an arena and an opportunity for her to shine socially, which she was well equipped to do. In the end, social status was an ever-present concern for all humans and animals that lived in groups: chickens, cows, baboons, whatever. All spent their time bickering, pushing in front, grabbing and generally trying to assert themselves, trying not to be left out.

I’d always had a sneaking admiration and smouldering resentment for people who were good at dancing. I was always self-conscious and awkward when it came to dancing. I’d noticed that some other people, who I would have qualified as pretty thick, were able to dance in the most graceful and relaxed way, totally forgetful of being. The more I tried, the worse I got. It seemed so unfair.
I’d always had a feeling of quiet contempt for the relaxed dancers and bathed in the warmth of my feelings of unassailable superiority over them. And now, where was I?

I was perhaps a degree cleverer than them but so far behind the new Anna. I rather uncomfortably realised that I needed to redefine myself.

We reached the fence where the infields ended and the outlands began. There were signs of spring everywhere. It was a happy moment, which made me feel that life was good—quite unaware of how things were soon to dramatically change.

It was such a pity that I didn’t have the funds to get myself a new me.