The Binary

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“Is this light?”

“Yes… This is light.”

Brian Donovan glanced at the array of telemetry that offered a vast variety of colorfully lit dials and information. The machine sat quietly in its metal chair, arms and legs restrained. It glanced as far around the laboratory as its range of neck motion would allow.

“Am I dreaming?” The machine asked in its slightly higher pitched androgynous voice.

“No machine… You are not dreaming.” Doctor Donovan glanced at the machine and smiled. “You are in real time.”

The machine stared at Donovan. It blinked to wet the surface of its eyes.

“Are you my father?”

The story link is atop the page just below 'Attachment'.

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My favorite character Sue

Andrea Lena's picture
Sue-perb.....

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

This is a quite remarkable story

littlerocksilver's picture

Kelly, this is really something. I had to read it start to finish. Excellent!

Portia

Fascinating

What a fascinating tale. Hmmm...creating a salient being. Interesting!!

Joanna

Apocalypse?

A strange sort of second hand immortality your memories survive your though processes but it is a different body leaving out questions of the soul it is the same thing that makes me question star trek style transporters. Do they give birth similarly to humans? Did they preserve other essences or did they just eliminate humanity through superiority without someone starting a war I can't see it happening in just 2 generations there are too many groups who would hold out longer than that on stubbornness and ignorance alone.

Move Over Dr. Frankenstein

joannebarbarella's picture

"The Machine" did cross my mind as I read the story, not that it detracted from the tale in any way. Also it stirred memories of Von Neumann machines with which we may one day colonise the galaxy, although here it was not just reproduction but improvement as each model upgraded its successors.

However, the science aside, this was a compelling love story, and, yes, I read it in a single sitting.

Beautifully done Kelly.

Quite a Story...

Rather chilling, as I read it. (Spoilers ahead...)

----------------

My impression was that Robbie seemed quite willing to modify Brian's psyche if need be in order to create the threesome she was looking for. Sophie could be manipulated without hardware adjustments, so to speak, but I'm not sure that Brian saw things Robbie's way until after he got "processed", since he provided us with two asides saying so,

There's a similarity here. IMO, to Fred Pohl's Heechee series: the protagonist there, having been preserved electronically after his physical death, finds his new capability so obviously superior to his human limitations as to make the need for "meat people" disappear once more have been transferred. (They're immortal in their new form, but it appears that couples can still merge virtual gametes to reproduce if they're so inclined.) As in the story here, my sympathies -- unlike the author's -- stayed with humanity enough to at least want to see them, if not survive, get vanquished in a fair fight rather than falling into irrelevancy. (Or, here, first dying en masse via Robbie's not-quite-salient but more efficient soldiers, assuming they're produced and play a significant part in humans "killing each other off" as mentioned in the epilogue.)

Does this version of humanity deserve what it gets? Perhaps. But even if they haven't gotten past the Binary (yet?), there seems to be more acceptance of alternatives to tradition; Brian serially marries a woman and then a man without losing his security clearance or his credibility. The government, as represented by the chairman and Jane, seems to be predictably ruthless. But Robbie's countermoves seem to demonstrate that the new order can be equally so if they feel the need.

I'll admit that I may be overlooking much of the emotional interplay in interpreting the story along these lines. (In the back of my head I'm presently hearing a curmudgeonly voice snarling at me: "It's a love story, dammit.") And yes, it's nice to consider a human-descended race whose members "could switch back and forth as they desired ad nauseam [since] the form was no longer of importance." (Though that seems to me to be an oddly binary way of looking at things, especially since Robbie's preferred form at the start involved male reproductive organs and a female appearance.)

Eric

The Story Came Up...

...as a random solo today. Interesting to consider the early part of this in the light of the current discussion about "sentient AI". (And rather strikingly so after Aylesea's recent "Virtually Yours" -- right down to illustrations showing the created individual choosing red hair.)

I hasten to add that this story is very different from Aylesea's, just as the environment for it has changed over the past seven years.

Eric

I only mention this...

because you use the word so many times in the story. It's an excellent tale by the way, it definitely draws you in.
That said I think your use of the word salient is incorrect here. According to Google:

SALIENT

/sālyənt/
adjective
adjective: salient

1.
most noticeable or important.
"it succinctly covered all the salient points of the case"
synonyms: important, main, principal, major, chief, primary; More
notable, noteworthy, outstanding, conspicuous, striking, noticeable, obvious, remarkable, prominent, predominant, dominant;
key, crucial, vital, essential, pivotal, prime, central, paramount
"the most salient point is that the suggested cost is beyond our budget"
antonyms: minor
prominent; conspicuous.
"it was always the salient object in my view"
(of an angle) pointing outward.
2.
Heraldry
(of an animal) standing on its hind legs with the forepaws raised, as if leaping.

noun
noun: salient; plural noun: salients

1.
a piece of land or section of fortification that juts out to form an angle.
an outward bulge in a line of military attack or defense.

I believe the word you're actually looking for was sentient. From Dictionary.com:

SENTIENT
sen·tient
ˈsen(t)SH(ē)ənt/
adjective
adjective: sentient

able to perceive or feel things.
"she had been instructed from birth in the equality of all sentient life forms"
synonyms: (capable of) feeling, living, live;

to clarify

Someone sentient is able to feel things, or sense them. Sentient usually occurs in phrases like "sentient beings" and "sentient creatures," making it clear that things that don’t have life don’t have feelings. Explain that to a pet rock.

Sentient comes from the Latin sentient-, "feeling," and it describes things that are alive, able to feel and perceive, and show awareness or responsiveness. Having senses makes something sentient, or able to smell, communicate, touch, see, or hear. Whether or not plants and living things other than animals and people are sentient depends on whom you ask.

Like I said before, I don't mean to offend but sentience seems to be the driving force behind the story and you use the word quite a lot. It seems important enough to mention.

If you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything.

Deeply thought, and profound.

Trying, sometimes frightening times cause us to confront our mortality.

Bravo.

Gwen