Living in Syn Read online

  Mission recovered his gun, and picked up a piece of the railing to break out the rest of the glass in the window. He tried to step through the window without hurting his back and failed. He saw spots swirling in front of him and he worried about the amount of blood he lost. He fell down close to the bed and fished through his pockets for a cigarette. He found a broken and wet one. He would smoke it anyway. Once he had it going, he grabbed his com and punched the speed dial.

  The nicotine flooded though his lungs and he felt better already.

  "Yes, this is Mission. I need Recovery for two ... and Medical Assistance for me. Yes, I'm human!"

  He slammed the com against the wall. "Jesus! Fucking syns answer the phone to send syns to pick up the syns that I just wasted."

  2

  Med tech stations definitely irritated Mission. You see, no matter how convincing a synthetic appeared, you couldn’t believe they sympathized with your pain when they splashed alcohol on an open wound, or threw in three more stitches after the pain killer wore off. The tech attending him angered him even more when he tried 15 stitches before deciding that too much skin was lost to close the wound on his back. Now they were cleaning and packing it instead.

  But one of the reasons he was angry was completely beyond their control, and their understanding. The struggle had ruined most of his clothes, and anything not already ruined was cut off him by the techs. He had searched through almost 100 trench coats at the Salvation Army store before he found one he would wear. And after that, the careful instructions to the seamstress to sew the wire in the left arm, under the lining and then out at the waist. All gone, along with his sweatshirt, his jeans, and his tennis shoes. And on top of all that, Paradox wanted him on the com.

  "Am I okay? Oh hell yes! I'm okay! These med techs are reaming and packing my back as part of a cosmetic surgery package. Next they’ll do liposuction. What the hell kind of question is that to ask?"

  The kid on the other end of the com screen may have been twenty. He tugged at his collar and got no relief. Reluctantly, he asked, "Well, do you feel like talking now?"

  It was doubtful that the kid could have said anything right, but in Mission's estimation, the kid had picked the absolute stupidest.

  "Do you hear the way I’m talking? Do you see this clamp on my jaw? It's holding it in place until they can wire it back together."

  The kid gulped. "Dr. St. Jean would like a conference as soon as possible and I .."

  Now Mission was roaring. "Susan St. Jean is a sadistic, slave driving recluse from the human race. In fact ... "

  "Hello Mission. I'm sorry to hear about your injuries." Susan even managed a smile. As always, she had not a hair out of place. Her clothes were as perfect as her icy reserve.

  "You're sorry I was injured? You're slipping out of character."

  "I didn't say I was sorry you were hurt. I said I was sorry to hear about it." There, that smile that carried all the warmth of absolute zero.

  Mission nodded. "Well, I walked into that one. But I won’t dance our little dance tonight.“ He motioned with his chin toward the tech and adjusted the IV drip. “I'm sailing on Dilaudid." He smiled dreamily.

  "I am happy for you. You know I need to do my interview as close as possible to the recovery. When can you come in?"

  She left Mission speechless for several seconds. "You and the whole goddamned company are unbelievable. Tell me, is the name Paradox derived from the phenomena that everyone in the company talks, but no one listens? I am going home to stay wasted for the next couple of weeks. Then when I can move without reinjuring my back, I’ll come in. Until then, we can do this on the com or you can come to my place."

  Susan's eyes flashed. "You know I won't do an interview over a com. This is too important to risk losing ... "

  "A single gesture, a facial expression, the slightest nuance. Yes, I know your feelings on the subject. So ... "

  "So what?"

  "So what time should I expect you?"

  She hesitated. "You … I don't want to know anything personal about you .... you assassins."

  Mission looked her in the eye with some humor still remaining. "And Susan, you know I don't like to be ripped open by a renegade syn but ... " He gestured over his shoulder at the techs who were still packing his wound. "Life is just a series of compromises."

  "Oh wait a minute, Mission. I want to write that one down. Let's see ... Life .. is ... just a series ... "

  Her sarcasm complete for the moment, she looked back up at the screen. "How is 7:00 tomorrow evening?"

  "That's fine. You have my address?"

  "Paradox does. I'll see you tomorrow at seven."

  "Good-bye, Susan."

  Mission found himself staring at a blank screen. At 7:00 tomorrow night, Dr. St. Jean would experience an about face. Because he would ask the questions. Questions about emotions and pair bonding ... He smiled grimly to himself. Yes, and questions about Miller.

  3

  The intercom beeped at Mission and raised him from a deep, turbulent sleep. He felt for his remote control with no success. "Yes?"

  “Dr. Susan St. Jean, ID Number 407dash ..."

  "Fine, fine. I don't care what her ID number is. Entry privilege is granted."

  Mission looked around and was far less than satisfied. He started the day with the best of intentions. He would clean up some for Susan, lest he confirm her prejudices about his being a Neanderthal. But even he had underestimated how badly he been hurt. Oh well, he could do nothing now. The chimes sounded and he deactivated the electronic sentry with his password.

  Susan stood in the doorway. As Mission had expected, she still wore her work clothes. If she made a statement with her clothes, it was that she was strictly business. No sexual content. No allowances for comfort, even during the summer. No statements of color preference or identification with any of the current styles. She rotated between variations of three basic outfits. The black, the navy blue, and the charcoal women's power suit.

  Her dark hair fell perfectly on her shoulders with not a strand out of place. She carried two basic facial expressions, reserve and disapproval. She wore the reserve right now, but Mission was sure that would change very soon.

  She nodded and said, "Mission. I suppose I expected too much in assuming you would wear clothes?"

  Mission nodded solemnly. "I do apologize Susan. But you see, I don't own a syn, and I can't seem to get a shirt on without assistance. If you’d like to help me, I'd be happy to get dressed."

  "No, no. I don't want you to make changes for me. After all, this is your home."

  "Well, that's most gracious of you. Look, I need some caffeine to wake me up. Would you like coffee, or another beverage?"

  "No, I'm fine, thank you."

  She selected the most uncomfortable chair available, a wooden chair without a pad from the eating area, and placed it opposite the sofa where Mission reclined. She watched him closely as he pulled himself off the sofa and hobbled into the kitchen. She nodded to herself for an instant and then pursed her lips. She couldn’t decide whether he was one of those men who survived off their looks, or one of those Free Zone street hustlers who forged their trade on snappy patter and fast hands.

  She supposed him to be a combination of the two. Certainly women found him attractive. His unkempt brown hair and his mouth with its knowing, cynical grin were obvious strong points. For some women. But those smoke blue/gray eyes really set him apart. To Susan they were an enigma. Out of place on a superficial rogue, they had unusual depth and a penetrating quality. The three inch scar running down his left jawbone completed an impression of danger and excitement.

  Even Susan winced when she saw the wound on his back. It ran from the trapezius almost two feet down his back with ugly black bruises extending three inches in either direction. The bruise spread out in area and in color as it reached his neck, wrapping around his shoulders in a rainbow of black, blue, green and even yellow. As he turned around to pour the coffee, she studied h
is face. His left cheek looked like he had a large penny candy in his mouth. The other side lost most of its skin, and was covered in salve. As a finale, the center of his chest carried an odd looking formation of bruises.

  Susan looked around the apartment. She could only label it a study in conflicts. The empty liquor bottles on top of stacks of books spilling all over the floor. Mathematics, logic and symbolism, literature, and philosophy. Gödel, Camus, and Dashiell Hammett? Dirty dinner plates now finding utility as ashtrays. Herbs growing in the kitchen window. A computer system turned sideways for easy access to the internals with a tool kit scattered all about the floor. And vintage jazz, perhaps Miles Davis and John Coltrane, playing softly somewhere in the background.

  He hobbled back to the sofa, spilling a good measure of his coffee, and sat down. He looked at her and she said, "Mission, you are a mess. Have you ever thought about a line of work that doesn't involve risking your life?"

  He smiled a humorless smile. "Well, let's just say that I find this the most palatable of several less than attractive options."

  She asked, "What are those bruises on your chest?"

  "Palm print. With tiny bruises for each of the fingers above it. Female syn tried to push me through a fire escape."

  "I see." Susan reached for her briefcase to retrieve the interview questions. As she opened her notebook and turned on the recorder, she said, "We may as well get started then."

  Mission shook his head. "Not this time Susan. This time I want information too, and I want to go first. Then we'll complete your form."

  She didn't even consider it. "Ridiculous. I'll do nothing of the sort, and if you don't cooperate, the company will be happy to ... "

  "Happy to go on paying me. Top management doesn't really care about your psychological programs. If they did, they'd reward me to take out the syns with a blaster to the chest. But instead, I'm paid a bonus when I fry them. It's quick and clean and doesn't attract any attention. But it does leave you without a brain to study, doesn't it?"

  "They do not pay you a bonus for electrocution."

  Mission grinned. "Sure they do. Don’t you know how the company compensates us for recoveries?"

  He measured her disbelief for a moment and said, "Don't take my word for it, check out my pay record for popping Brown. Computer, you have incoming mail from Paradox?"

  The soft female voice responded, "Two items ... financial transfer records."

  "Display."

  The upper two thirds of one entire wall sprang to life and showed the calculations for Mission's payment for each of the synthetic recoveries.

  "Highlight bonuses for Tom Brown recovery."

  The screen showed that Mission had received extra for not involving the police, for not injuring bystanders, for not destroying property (Free Zone property didn't count), and for electrocution. Susan was biting her lip.

  "They told me they were doing everything possible to further my research."

  Mission watched her struggle for control, and he felt like a horse’s ass. He didn’t mean for this to happen. But he also had no idea what to say to make it better. Maybe if he got her focused on work. "Hey Susan, look, I really need to understand about synthetic emotions and their development. You're all that I've got. So you have to help me a bit, and then I will gladly do your interview. Okay?"

  Only the slightest trembling of her lower lip revealed the emotion underneath. She looked up and with tremendous reserve said, "What do you want to know?"

  Mission shrugged. "Just general stuff. Like, why did Paradox decide to give emotions to the syns?"

  Susan took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Bingo. He could already see her shifting into work mode, readying herself to explain a complex subject to someone who could never understand. "Two different priorities converged to drive synthetic emotions. Sales and marketing pushed hard for them. People wanted them to have emotions. They were frightened by something that looked so human, but had no feelings. Have you ever been around someone who had a dog or a cat?"

  "Sure."

  "Well, you might have noticed a tendency to project human emotions, likes and dislikes onto the pet. Like having them live inside. Dogs not only survived but thrived for the last hundred thousand years living outside. But we assume they would rather be inside because we would rather be inside. So they wander around confused, wondering why everything smells like household deodorizer, wondering where all the other animals are, and so on."

  Mission nodded. “Yes. Anthropomorphism.”

  Susan rewarded him with a faint smile. "Yes. The point is, this is a very strong tendency to project human attributes onto non-human household members. And sales took off once we added the emotional features to our synthetics."

  Mission nodded. "You said there were two factors. What was the other?"

  Susan pulled her hands apart and then folded them neatly in her lap again. "We still don't know much about how the human brain works. We only look at the brain and make crude imitations, not always understanding why they succeed or fail. The learning factor became Paradox's greatest impediment to successfully placing synthetics in the home."

  Mission put up a hand. "I'm not sure I'm following you. What is this learning factor?"

  Susan looked up to the ceiling. Obviously, she was searching for the best way to explain this to a primitive like Mission. "Our first synthetics went into predictable environments. Factories where the machinery was known well ahead of time, assembly lines where the procedures rarely if ever changed, those sorts of work places. When they went into a home or other dynamic situations, they made people angry with their inability to learn and to adjust to changes. They didn't figure out that Mom likes the roast a little burned, or that Dad hates synthetics and to stay out of his way."

  "So we incorporated learning routines into the brain. It should have been very straightforward. We understood all the mechanics for learning, where the storage and the various functions were located in the brain. Then we took the synthetics out for tests and ... well, let's just say it was a complete failure."

  "How?"

  "Most of them simply shut down. The learning features allowed unresolvable paradoxes to creep into their logic units, and they became trapped inside their own conundrums."

  Mission smiled. "Good word. What happened to the ones that didn't shut down?"

  "Well, here I risk being guilty myself of projecting human characteristics onto a synthetic, but the best description I can give is that of a recluse. They stopped accepting input from anyone or anything, and simply found a place to hide."

  Mission looked at her for a moment and then asked, "Okay ... then how do emotions figure into this?"

  "Well, Paradox tried dozens of different schemes to make the learning work. All failures. Until we built a sort of limbic system for emotional responses. By accident, we discovered that having input filtered through the limbic complex resolved the vast majority of problems. We just don't understand why this helps."

  Mission looked at Susan critically and then pointed at her. "You are too modest. You made the discovery, didn't you?"

  He had done the impossible and caught her by surprise. The look of shock registered for only an instant and then she regained control. "Mission, you surprise me. But yes, you are correct."

  "You said in the vast majority of cases. Would those exceptions comprise the majority of my targets?"

  "Yes, the introduction of emotions is not without drawback. A very small percentage, much smaller in fact than their human counterparts, develop quite human psychoses such as schizophrenia, depression, and manic depression."

  "Do you have ideas as to why?"

  She allowed a frozen smile. "I have my theories, yes. I think they are the remaining learning problems. The human mind is all about collecting data, and then modeling reality in the mind, to project results and to anticipate needs. The most common mental problems occur when the feedback loop is disrupted for some reason. Then the data or the modeling, or both fail to co
rrespond to the common perceptions of society. Many of the problems can be traced to constant exposure to a family member with emotional difficulties themselves."

  "This is the most delicate area in the entire synthetic mind. You see, for obvious reasons, our programming emphasizes that an owner is correct, that they should be obeyed, and so forth. So it is quite difficult for a synthetic to determine that a human's input is flawed and should therefore not be incorporated into the cognitive model. On the other hand, if the synthetic doesn't make this call or makes it too late, the mind can be irrevocably tainted."

  "Interesting. And very helpful." Mission sat up straight and tried to look behind those eyes. "Now I want to know about the female syn I tangled with yesterday."

  "What do you mean?"

  Mission was parental in his tone. “Susan. Don’t play innocent with me." He shook his head. "What do you mean?" he mimicked.

  "I mean why wasn't she ever reported as missing? How does a syn become screwed up enough to be able to strike first? And she wasn't trying to incapacitate me, she went directly for the kill. So why don't you tell me about a Paradox combat model?"

  Susan looked up sharply. Then she shook her head. "You were hurt badly. And I think you’re inventing answers because you can’t face the truth."

  Now Mission was mad. "And exactly what is this truth?” And before she could answer, Mission continued. "So let's look at the facts. The truth. One. She made me and then set me up like a pro. That's surveillance and tracking techniques. Two. She has training in urban combat for a syn. The way she took the door out and used it for cover across the room was brilliant. But only a syn would have the strength to pull it off. Three. She was an enhanced model. I hit her in the head with a 70neg charge and it glanced off. It took five shots at point blank range to the chest cavity to drop her. Now you tell me she's not a combat model."