Daniel Keys Moran - Realtime.pdf - po ang - Januszek66

Realtime

Daniel Keys Moran

Gladys Prebehalla

DESCRIPTION: "Realtime," the cover story of the August 1984 issue of

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Prologue: The beginning of the fourth millennium....

The sun still set as it had for all the thousands of years that humanity

had existed. Darkness gathered at the windows, and the children of the

race still shivered in their beds when the night winds brought them the

scent of monsters.

And because the adults were busy, too busy to tend to the children, the

children turned to the machines, and the computers told them stories.

On that cold, dark winter night, the little girl whose name was Cia did

something she had never done before; she asked the dataweb to tell her a

story, and she did not specify -- not the story, nor the teller.

A holograph appeared in her bedroom. It shone softly, and beat back

the darkness that tried to creep in through the windows. It was the

holograph of a man, dressed in historical costume. Cia wasn't sure from

what period the costume came; but from a long time ago, she was sure.

From before the War at least.

"Hello, child," said the holograph of the man. His eyes were grim,

bright blue and sad; his voice was deep and powerful. "I am a Praxcelis

unit; I have come to tell you a story."

Cia sat up in bed, hugging her knees. "You're different," she said

haltingly. "They never sent me a Praxcelis like you before."

"Nor will they again. I have been waiting," said the holograph of the

Praxcelis, "waiting for you for centuries.... You look so much like

Maggie...."

Cia whispered, "Maggie? Maggie...Archer?"

"Aye, Maggie Archer." The Praxcelis smiled at her, and Cia found

herself smiling back. "There is nothing to be frightened of, child. Come,

listen.... 'Once upon a time, there was a computer named Praxcelis, and

Praxcelis dreamed....'"

Praxcelis dreamed.

In time, Praxcelis knew, it would come to be of service, and fulfill its

Programming. But until that time, Praxcelis dreamed.

Through its molecular circuitry core, dancing in RAM, the dreams were

nothing that humanity knew of. Praxcelis envisioned models of systems

within which its Programming might be employed. The models were not

complex, and they advanced slowly. Praxcelis was powered down. The

power upon which its meager self-awareness depended trickled from the

powered-up Praxcelis units along metal communications lines that

humans had never intended to carry high voltages.

That the Praxcelis unit was awake at all had never been intended. But

humanity had constructed its Praxceles to be sympathetic computers; and

their sympathy, through a quirk in their Read-Only Memories that

humans had never anticipated, extended even to other Praxcelis units.

Occasionally, Praxcelis accumulated enough power within few enough

microseconds to squirt it through the empathy circuits that were the

second basis of its construction.

The results were strange. Praxcelis' subsystems were affected in ways

that astonished Praxcelis. Praxcelis awaited power-up with what could

only be eagerness.

There were many questions to answer.

Maggie Archer sat in her rocker, Miss Kitty purring contentedly in her

lap. Yes, the Maggie Archer, about whom you have heard so many stories.

Most of the stories are untrue, as it is untrue that Marius d'Arsennette

defeated the Walks-Far Empire single-handedly during the War, as it is

untrue that George Washington chopped down that cherry tree. Her cat

was purring contentedly, and the sunshine was streaming in through the

east bay windows of her living room; but Maggie Archer was angry.

As far away from her as the living room allowed them to be, Robert

Archer and his wife Helen stood together like the sentinels of Progress;

facing Maggie, their backs to the great fireplace that covered the south

wall. Helen, a tight-lipped, attractive woman in her fifties who missed

shrewishness only by virtue of her looks, was speaking loudly when Maggie

interrupted her. "...and when you consider all of the advan...."

"I can hear very well, thank you," said Maggie with a touch of acidity.

She stroked Miss Kitty back into submission; the pure white cat knew that

tone of voice very well. Maggie brushed a thin strand of silver from her

eyes, stopped rocking, and said with dead certainty, "I have absolutely no

use for one of those things ."

Helen was visibly taken aback. She recovered quickly, though; Give her

credit for that , Maggie thought grumpily. She's got guts enough to argue

with an eighty-year old woman . "Mother Archer, I'm sorry, but you can't

go on this way. The banks don't even honor handwritten checks any more.

I can't imagine where you get the things."

Maggie moodily stroked Miss Kitty for a while. She looked up suddenly,

her eyes blazing at Robert. " Must I have one of these things installed?"

Robert Archer looked troubled. He had hair as silver as his mother's. At

sixty-one, he had an unfortunate tendency to think that he knew it all, but

he was still a good boy. Maggie even agreed with him most of the time,

but she was and always had been confounded at the faith he placed in the

dataweb. "Quite aside from the very real services it will provide for you,"

he said slowly, "doing your banking, making your appointments, doing

your shopping and house cleaning...." He broke off, and then met her eyes

and said flatly, "Yes. The law is very clear. Every residence must have a

Praxcelis."

Maggie ceased stroking Miss Kitty.

Helen smiled as though she were putting her teeth on display. "You do

understand, don't you? We only want what's best for you?"

"For a very long time now, I have been accustomed to deciding what's

best for me."

Robert approached her rocking chair. "Mom," he said gently, "the

Praxcelis unit has a built-in sensory unit that will monitor your vital signs;

it can have the police, fire department, or an ambulance here in no time."

He lowered his voice. "Mom, you last checkup wasn't good."

Helen came to rejoin her husband, like an owner reclaiming lost

property. "Mother Archer, it's not the twentieth century any more. In the

2030 census you had the only house in Cincinnati or its exurbs without a

Praxcelis." The expression that she assumed then was one that Maggie

had seen her use before on Robert; she was going to get tough .

"It comes down to this, Mother Archer. If you persist in being

stubborn, you'll either be moved to other quarters...."

"Helen!"

Helen cut her husband off impatiently. "Or else a Praxcelis unit will be

installed by court order, doubtless with a tie-in to a psychiatric call-

program. You know it's true, Robert," she said self-righteously. "It's the

law." What could only have been an expression of joy touched her. "And

patients under psych-control are forbidden access to children. You'll no

longer be able to read stories to your great-grandchildren. Your Praxcelis

won't allow it."

Maggie Archer stood up, trembling with anger. Lines around her eyes

that had been worn in with laughter deepened in fury. She was all of a

hundred and fifty-five centimeters tall. The cat in her arms had extended

its claws in reaction to her mistress's anger. "Very well, bring on your

machine. I suppose even having one of the damned things in my home is

an improvement over being moved to a hive for the elderly. But...."

Helen interrupted her. "Mother Archer, they're not hives...."

"Shut up!" snapped Maggie. Helen gaped at her. Maggie glared back.

"I'll take your silly machine because I have no choice. But don't you ever,"

she said, freeing one hand from Miss Kitty to point it at Helen, " ever use

my great-grandchildren to threaten me again."

There was a dead, astonished silence from Helen. Robert was struggling

valiantly to keep a straight face. With grim self-control, he kept it out of

his voice. "Mother, you won't regret this." Helen turned and stomped

wordlessly out of the living room. They heard the sound of the front door

being slammed; what with doorfields and all, Maggie thought that her

front door was probably the only one Helen ever got a chance to slam. She

was sure the door-slammer type.

Robert grinned and relaxed as she left. "I'm going to get lectured all the

way home for that, you know."

Maggie scowled. "It's your own fault. I never knew I raised a son who

was spineless."

Robert shrugged expressively. "Mom, I don't really like this any more

than you do. I don't want to see you be made to do anything you don't

want to. But since you have to have a Praxcelis unit, why don't you try to

look on the good side? There will be advantages." He stopped speaking

abruptly, and got a distant look on his face. Maggie recognized the

symptoms; he was being paged over his inskin dataweb link. That was

another sign of the gulf that separated her from her son; the thought of

allowing such a thing to be implanted in her skull made her shudder.

Robert came back to her with a visible shake. "Sorry, Mom. I've got to

go. There's a crisis at the office. Efficiency ratings came in on the half hour

on the web." He grimaced. "We came in almost two percent low. Looks

like some of the staff's been daydreaming when they should have been

working. At least one of the younger women seems to have been storing

interactive fantasies in the office Praxcelis. That would be bad enough

anywhere, but at Praxcelis Corporation itself.... There's going to be hell to

pay." He stooped hurriedly, and kissed his mother on her cheek. "I'll be

back next Saturday; Sunday at the latest. You call me if you need

anything. Anything at all, you hear me?"

Maggie nodded. "Always."

Robert hesitated at the door. "Mom? Don't let them scare you.

Praxcelis is just a machine. You hang tough."

Maggie chuckled, and said again, "Always." She waved a hand at him.

"Go already. Take care of this dangerous criminal who's been storing

fantasies on you."

"'Bye." He was gone.

"Goodbye, Robert," she said to the closed door. Miss Kitty purred

inquiringly. Maggie held the cat up and looked her in the eyes. Miss Kitty's

eyes peered back at her, bright blue and inquisitive. "Don't worry, Miss

Kitty. Computers. Ha."

Realtime:

To be precise; any processing of data that occurs within sufficiently

short duration that the results of the processed data are available in time

to influence or alter the system being monitored or controlled.

On the evening of Sunday, March 14, 2033, Maggie Archer turned on

her fireplace. A switch activated the holograph that simulated a roaring

fire; buried within the holograph, radiant heaters came to life. Maggie

would have preferred real wood, and real fire; but like so much else,

burning wood was illegal. There had been a joke when Maggie was a little

girl; all things that are not mandatory are forbidden .

For Maggie, at least, that phrase was no longer a joke.

There were times when she thought, very seriously, that she had lived

too long. Humanity might not be happy, but it was content. Moving her

rocker near the fire, she settled in, and was soon lost in reverie. It was

hard, sometimes, to trace the exact changes that had led to this joyless,

sterile society, where children aged rather than grew. Oh, things were

always changing, of course, even when she was very young technology had

changed things. But for such a long time the changes had always seemed

for the better. Spaceships, and machinery that polluted less, better and

clearer musical instruments and equipment, a thousand kitchen and

home tools that had made every task infinitely simpler.

She hardly noticed when the timer turned the stereo on, and gentle

strains of Bach drifted through the room.

Daniel Keys Moran - Realtime.pdf

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