part 17

Ok, I’m back.

No, she doesn’t want any part of this.

Yeah, I know.

Well, we need bait. There isn’t anything else.

So, what do you think?

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess so.

No.

Well, all of them depend to one extent or another on his not knowing something he’ll probably know. But it’s the best of the bunch so far.

It’s simple.

Right. Nothing really to attract attention. No evacuation, no sudden changes in patterns of movement. I’m just on a long drive. I see an old abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere. I pull the van into the open bay and park in the shade. I leave the side door open after I get out my lunch. I sit at the desk and eat my sandwich and my homemade chocolate chip cookies. I’m three hundred meters from the device, I don’t even know it’s there. When I’m ready I slip the timer out of the bag and plug it in. Then I punch the button. It counts off ten seconds. When the shit in the van detects any disturbance that might indicate coalescence, it detonates the device before he fully manifests. If he doesn’t show up before the timer reaches zero, a rather large thermonuclear event proceeds without him. Either way, quite a number of lizards and coyotes are vaporized.

No.

Come on, we have to give it a shot.

So, we keep looking for a better one. Then we go with whatever we've got when he shows up.

Right.

Nah. No point in bluffing.

No.

We could hold a contest.

Ah, yes. If wishes were horses . .

Hey, nobody wishes I’m wrong more than . .

Exactly.

Any day now.

God, if I hear that again . .

I know. And how do you prepare for a visit from the Hammer?

Works for me.

I don’t care, I don’t want to be around to see it.

Like I said, I think he’ll just keep raising the threshold.

Hey, it was hard not to feel that way.

There was no way to know . .

He’s a machine, he’s just following the script.

Not any more.

That’s been my story this whole time.

I was wrong.

Nope.

No, it’s too mechanical. I don’t see any intervention in the program.

I know, but I don’t see it.

Has to be.

He was probably right all along.

Not exactly, but . .

Oh, I have a whole scenario to go with it.

I don’t know if I like you that much.

Well, if you put it that way . .

Nah, she’s heard it.

You’d be privy to a lot of stuff if you looked that good naked.

Ok, I’ll tell you just to keep from seeing you naked.

I know, I know.

Look, I just always assumed there was someone else out there in charge of everything. He’d send the Hammer down to do some dirty work, then watch what happened. My assumption was that he was trying to help us, trying to encourage us to do a better job.

Ok, threaten, whatever. The point is, I was wrong about that. I was wrong about everything. First of all, I don’t believe he’s being monitored in any way, at least not in real time.

Because he doesn’t need to be.

Hear me out. The biggest mistake I made, we made, everybody made, was to assume he was trying to help us, to get us to change. He’s not. He was build by a race who must have realized a long time ago that people don’t change. Evolution occurs when the old gives way to the new. He’s not here to change anyone, do you understand? He’s here to exterminate everyone who needs to change.

I know, but it doesn’t matter.

Yes, of course, I know that. Look, most of the fucked up people in the world were made that way. Think of plants. They need fertile soil, abundant sunshine, and plenty of water. Without optimum amounts of those elements, they’ll be stunted and weak. And even if they have all those things, if someone comes by and tramples on them every day, they’ll be twisted and broken. The way to have a healthy garden is to make sure every plant is raised with care and protected from harm. But he hasn’t come to improve conditions. He’s come to rip out every plant that doesn’t already thrive in the conditions we have.

It still doesn’t matter. We can argue forever which is the best way, all that matters today is which one is his way.

Of course he doesn’t care, he can’t care, he’s a fucking machine, don’t you get it? Machines can mimic human behavior but they can’t really feel anything, they’re not alive, they’re not conscious. I’ve heard all those AI arguments but complexity doesn’t lead to consciousness, not even to life. We already have computers that are monumenentally more complex than any virus but a virus is a living thing and no computer ever will be, no matter how well we make it appear to be. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care, he’s just a machine and all he does is follow an algorithm.

He’s a simple instrument and he’s alone. He’s been launched into the reaches of space by a race that sent other machines just like him, all over the universe, on the same cultural mission. He travels until he finds sentience. He observes, he studies. He’s programmed to make a simple distinction. Which elements of an emerging social organism are harmful to others, and which are helpful? He identifies the most egregious violators and exterminates them. He pauses to recalibrate. Then he makes another pass. Each criterion is more restrictive than the last. He will continue to do this until he fails to identify a trait that merits eradication. Then he will move on until he acquires another project.

That’s the fucking question, isn’t it?

Well, if your solution to social problems is to kill everyone who doesn’t behave exactly the way you want them to, the inevitable, ultimate consequence is a society of one.

So, how much variance from that standard will he allow?

We don’t even know if there is a threshold.

Right. But what if he doesn’t?

Sometimes I think I know what he’s looking for, and it seems so simple, so . . possible.

I tell myself, we don’t have that far to go, there must be people like that, maybe we could all be like that.

Possible isn’t enough, it has to be manifest.

Well, shit, if it isn’t manifest anywhere, then . .

It comes down to being selfish, or selfless.

Right. How many do you know?

You think mostly’s gonna cut it?

That’s what I’m saying.

Scares the shit out of me.

Exactly.

Not much else to say, is there?

Yeah, me too. It’s weird isn’t it?

Like a storm coming.

Well, shit. Do you need me for anything else?

Ok, later then.

Thanks.

I’ll tell her.