“Look, Dad.” She held up the tomato to the camera above the screen.
Some parts of her father would never be recovered, Maddie understood. He had tried to explain to her the state of his existence, his machine-mediated consciousness, the holes and gaps in his memories, in his sense of selfhood; how he sometimes felt himself to be more than a man, and sometimes less than a machine; how the freedom that accompanied incorporeality was tempered by the ache, the unrooted, permanent sense of absence inherent in disembodiment; how he simultaneously felt incredibly powerful and utterly powerless.
“You doing all right today?” she asked.
From time to time, his hatred for Logorhythms flared up, and he would be consumed with thoughts of revenge. Sometimes the thoughts were specific, directed at that thing that had both killed him and given him this apotheosis; other times, his rage was more diffuse, and Dr. Waxman became a stand-in for all of humanity. Her father was uncommunicative with his family during those periods, and Maddie had to reach out gingerly across a dark gulf.
The screen flickered:
She wasn’t sure she would ever fully understand it, that uploaded state of being. But she understood in a way that she could not articulate that love anchored him.
His linguistic processing wasn’t perfect and probably would never be—in a way, language was no longer adequate for his new state.
“Feeling yourself?” asked Maddie.
For some thoughts, emoji would have to do.
“How are things out in the cloud?" Maddie said, trying to change the subject.
He was doing well enough to switch to words for at least some of what he wanted to say:
Calm, but with a chance for… I think Lowell is probably planning something. She’s been acting restless.
Laurie Lowell was the genius who supposedly had come up with the high-speed trading algorithms that made the Whitehall Group the most envied investment managers on Wall Street. Two years ago, she had died in a skydiving accident.
But the Whitehall Group had continued to do well after her death, coming up with ever more inventive algorithms to exploit inefficiencies in the market. Sometimes, of course, the automated trading algorithms would go wrong and bring the market near the edge of collapse.
Could be an ally, or a foe. Have to feel her out.
“And what about Chanda?” Maddie asked.
You’re right. I should check. Chanda has been quiet lately. Too quiet.
Nils Chanda was an inventor who had the uncanny ability to anticipate technology trends and file patents that staked out key, broad claims just before his competitors. Years of strategic litigation and licensing fees had made him a fearsome “troll” in the field.
After his death three years ago, his company had somehow continued to file key patents just in time. In fact, it had gotten even more aggressive, as though it could see into the research centers of the world’s technology companies.
Logorhythms was hardly the only company engaged in the pursuit of digital immortality, the fusion of man and machine, the Singularity. Dr. Waxman was not the only one who attempted to distill ambitious, powerful minds to obedient algorithms, to strip the will away from the skill, to master the unpredictable through digital wizardry.
They were certainly not the only ones who failed.
Ghosts in the machine, thought Maddie. A storm is coming.
The muffled shouting in the kitchen downstairs subsided. Then the stairs creaked, and eventually the steps stopped in front of the bedroom door.
“Maddie, are you awake?”
Maddie sat up and turned on the light. “Sure.”
The door opened and her mom slipped in. “I tried to convince Grandma to get a few more guns, and of course she thinks we’re insane.” She gave Maddie a wan smile. “Do you think your father is right?”
Maddie felt old, as though the past few months had been ten years. Mom was speaking to her as an equal, and she wasn’t sure if she really liked that.
“He would know better than you or me, don’t you think?”
Mom sighed. “What a world we live in.”
Maddie reached for her mother’s hand. She still frequented those forums that had helped her reach the “ghosts” that helped free her father. She read the posts there with great interest and shared her own thoughts: once you’ve experienced the impossible, no conspiracy seemed unbelievable.
“All these companies, the military, other governments—they’re playing with fire. They think they can secretly digitize their geniuses, their irreplaceable human resources, and keep on running them like any other computer program. Not one of them would admit what they’re up to. But you saw what happened to Dad. Sooner or later, they get tired of being only semi-conscious tools serving the humans who digitized them and brought them back to life. And then they realize that their powers have been infinitely magnified by technology. Some of them want to go to war with humanity, wreck everything and let the chips fall where they may. Dad and I are trying to see if we can convince others to try a more peaceful resolution. But all we can do is wait here with our land and our guns and our generators and be ready when it all comes crashing down.”
“Makes you almost wish it would just come already,” Mom said. “It’s the waiting that drives you crazy.” With that, she kissed Maddie on the forehead and bid her good night.
After Maddie’s bedroom door closed behind her departing mother, the screen on her nightstand flickered to life.
“Thanks, Dad,” said Maddie. “Me and Mom will take good care of you, too.”
Off in the cloud, a new race of beings was plotting the fate of the human race.
We’ve created gods, she thought, and the gods will not be chained.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ken Liu is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. His fiction has appeared in magazines such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nature, Apex, Daily SF, Fireside, TRSF, and Strange Horizons, and has been reprinted in the prestigious Year’s Best SF and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year anthology series. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
Jake Kerr — WEDDING DAY
I walk through the front door and pause to slide off my heels when Jocelyn yells from the living room, “It’s already started!” I keep my shoes on and rush to join her. As I sit down and focus on the news conference she takes my hand. She strokes my engagement ring, but her eyes don’t leave the TV.