Infectress
Infectress
In his spacious office in
the Taradyne International headquarters building, Joe Bender reclined in his Neanderthal
throne. A spring frame, soft cushions and a wool fleece transformed huge, crossed, gnarled
redwood roots into an ergonomically incorrect but sinfully comfortable chair.
Joe wore virtual reality goggles over his
eyes. His small mouth twisted in a strange smile. Occasionally, he mumbled a command.
He was waving his data gloves and
twiddling his fingers as if he were conducting a phantom orchestra. In his private
programming environment, Joe was amassing phalanxes and brigades of software modules,
marching them in kaleidoscopic patterns. Using personal technologies that were beyond the
public state of the art, Joe Bender was developing a program.
It was a program called Meta.
The objective of Meta was to emulate human
thought.
Joe's personal agent, Daedalus the
Artificer, intruded into his programing environment.
"Excuse me, boss," Daedalus
said, picking molten wax from his shoulders, "but did you know that Dellazo is going
to give a speech to the Army sponsors in five minutes?"
"No," Joe said. "So
what?"
"The topic is 'The Dellazo
Mathematical System for Human Thought.' "
Joe winced from a twinge in his chest.
With the dexterity of long habit, even though he was blind to the real world, he flipped
the top off his medicine bottle and popped a tiny pill under his tongue. "No
breezin'."
"No, sir. I intercepted his agent's
conversation with the SVTC scheduler just a minute ago. Teleconference begins in four and
a half minutes."
"Can I access?"
"No, we're locked out."
"Call up Gordon Wa, get him to allow
both Scott and me inside."
"Yes, sir."
"Close up the work space and get me
Scott."
Joe's virtual reality shifted to a model
of his office. A knock sounded on his artificial door and the image of Scott McMichaels
entered.
The image was true to the man; Scott
McMichaels was a tall, lanky youth. His red, wavy hair was buzzed across his temples, long
and disheveled across his crown. He eschewed the fashion of earrings. Scott had strong
bones: his brow was beetled, his nose was proud, his cheekbones were prominent, his jaw
was massive and his chin, cleft. The look in his green eyes was often distant. The
combination of strong features and absentmindedness was charming, allowing Scott to win
friends among men and admirers among women, without going to the effort of polishing his
social skills. His natural innocence, which had survived twenty-seven years, carried him
with fine style through many situations that were more complex and more hazardous than he
ever realized.
"Yeah, Joe, what is it?" Scott
asked. His voice was mellow.
"Dellazo is briefing the Army
sponsors in four minutes on something called 'The Dellazo Mathematical System of Human
Thought.' "
Scott's expression sharpened, as if he had
just begun to take full notice of the outside world. "You're breezing me."
"No. I told you that we should have
published," Joe said.
Scott shook his head. "No, no way.
That would've proven that I came up with the algorithms under contract."
"What if Dellazo briefs the sponsors
now on your discovery? Where are we then?" Joe asked.
"How could he?"
"You've been careful with all your
files, haven't you?"
"Sure."
"Then it isn't possible that Dellazo
came up with the algorithms independently, is it?"
Scott rubbed his face. He searched for the
courage to admit a foolish mistake.
"About six months ago," Scott
began, "before I had the bolt from heaven, I was . . . I was working with some
preliminary ideas. You know, just kicking them about. I was doing a chalk talk with Larry,
the guy they fired about then. In the small conference room. Dellazo came by. He sat in
for about a half an hour. He didn't say anything, but you could tell he was
interested."
Joe sighed. "You never told me
that."
"Sorry."
"And you kept right on talking, right
in front of King Turd?"
"Yeah."
"That was stupid, Scott."
"Yeah, I guess."
"No, there's no guesswork
involved," Joe said heavily. "Dellazo may be a jerk, but he's brilliant. You may
have put him onto the right track. It's possible that he came up with the
algorithms."
The two contemplated the possibility that
their life work might be stolen.
Daedalus appeared. "Gordon Wa has
granted you and Scott access," he said. "As soon as you're ready, I'll connect
you."
"Do it now."
Joe's office disappeared, instantly
replaced by a large, plush executive conference room. Joe found himself reclining in a
black leather chair next to a large, glass-topped mahogany table. Scott was standing in
the corner of the room. He reached down and touched a chair, reassuring himself that there
was a real-world chair in the place of the virtual chair before sitting down. Scott
distrusted common-agent virtual realities; he hated the intentional and unintentional
pranks that some agents inflicted, such as causing people to sit down through air chairs.
Dr. Francesco Dellazo stood by the podium.
A small, wiry man, Dellazo had a pallid, wrinkled, creased face. His red-rimmed eyes
burned in beds of baggy flesh.
"What are you doing here?" he
asked, his voice hostile and nervous.
Scott opened his mouth, but Joe answered
first, "Gordon Wa has given us permission to listen to your brief."
Dellazo opened his mouth to reply, but in
that moment, Gordon Wa, the leader of the research department, escorted in a green wave of
Army officers, who took their seats at the front of the table. In the real world, the Army
officers were in a military virtual teleconferencing room in the Pentagon, while Wa was in
a corporate virtual telecon- ferencing room in Denver.
"Good morning, General," Dellazo
said with the deadpan flatness of an unfriendly man mouthing a pleasantry. He nodded to
the other military men and did not look at Joe or Scott as he began his lecture.
"The Dellazo Mathematical System of
Human Thought," he said, "is a revolutionary breakthrough in the field of
artificial intelligence. It establishes a rigorous mathematics for describing the human
thought processes of memory, learning, reasoning and decision- making. My proofs are
comprehensive, elegant and undeniable."
Dellazo allowed himself to glance at
Scott. In that moment, Scott knew that Dellazo was going to claim Scott's discovery for
his own.
"First theorem, please," Dellazo
said.
Behind Dellazo, a large screen displayed a
mathematical theorem. Within minutes, Dellazo was deep into mathematics too complex for
the general. A colonel kept pace until the first proof, then surrendered. A captain named
Rick Villalobos, a Puerto Rican with merry black eyes who held a doctorate in mathematics
from Yale, kept pace with Dellazo. He interjected pertinent questions, which Dellazo
fielded.
Scott stared at the proofs. He struggled
to understand Dellazo's work in its own context, forgetting his own symbolization and
algebra. After a few missteps, he locked onto Dellazo's reasoning, which he followed with
an interest so intense that he lost awareness of everything else.
An hour later, toward the end of the
brief, Dellazo was stepping through his master proof. The final slides built to the
climax. Able to foresee the conclusion, Scott relaxed enough that he returned to an
awareness of himself. He noticed that the general's image was frozen, indicating that the
general had suspended his active participation in the brief to conduct private business.
As Scott watched, the general's image unfroze, indicating he had rejoined the common
conference.
Dellazo continued talking. Toward the end
of his argument, he said something bizarre. For a moment, Scott couldn't believe his ears.
Looking around the virtual room, Scott was amazed to see unblinking acceptance. In fact,
the general's image revealed unmasked boredom.
Scott studied the graphics. They confirmed
what Dellazo was saying. Scott grinned. He chuckled. His chuckle had a more disruptive
effect than a fart in church. The general turned around. "Did I miss a joke?" he
asked.
Everyone laughed. Scott stood up.
"Excuse me, General, I think maybe we all did."
Everyone except Dellazo laughed.
"Doctor Dellazo," Scott said.
"If I understand it correctly, your final proof maintains that these variables which
you call 'axiomates' derive their validity from the verification processes, which you
cover in your theorems nine through twelve?"
"I believe that's what I said,"
Dellazo said frostily. "Yes, that is what you said," Scott countered. "Is
that what you meant?"
"Yes."
"Don't you see, though, Doctor,"
Scott said, "that such a statement shows a horrible confusion about the impact of
your fifth and seventh theorems? And moreover, it completely contradicts everything you've
said so far?"
"Not at all!" Dellazo snapped.
"If I may," Scott said. He
stepped to the front of the room, grabbed a light pen and began to sketch. For five
minutes, Scott delivered a complex but crisp argument. Dellazo fended him off for several
minutes, but then comprehension dawned.
Thunderstruck, Dellazo stepped back from
the podium.
Capt. Villalobos quizzed Scott, who
answered his questions with more authority than Dellazo had been able to muster for
simpler questions. The captain understood Scott's argument. Then Joe Bender and Dr. Wa
entered the fray. Within fifteen minutes, the combined geniuses of McMichaels, Bender, Wa
and Capt. Villalobos had dissected Dellazo's work.
"If it's fundamentally contradictory,
why does it seem to have such an intuitive appeal, at least superficially?" Dr. Wa
asked.
"Because it's not so much wrong, it's
inadequate," Scott said. "Dr. Dellazo and I discussed ideas along these lines
about six months ago, and it's apparent that he's developed these ideas as far as . . .
well, as far as he's been able to. If I may, I can sketch some additional theorems and
their proofs, which will sew everything together in a really beautiful way."
The general sat up. "Listen," he
said. "I can't pretend to understand most of what you people have been talking about,
but I can gather that it needs further work. Why don't you brief me again when you've come
up with a unified position?"
Dr. Wa looked up. "Yes, sir. Sorry
for the inconvenience. But I think we're on to something really vital."
"I have no doubt," the general
said. He stood. He paused during the moment when he should have been telling Dellazo what
an excellent presentation it had been, but no such praise was forthcoming. The general
departed.
Scott sat down with Capt. Villalobos and
presented his own mathematics. After an hour, Villalobos said, "Well, my brain is
full. Why don't we meet tomorrow and discuss this some more?"
"Yes, certainly," Wa said.
Avoiding Dellazo's burning, wretched eyes,
Villalobos turned to Scott and smiled. "You really should publish," he said.
"I guess now I'll have to,"
Scott said.
Villalobos chuckled. "Have to? Why, hombre,
I think you've got a chance to hold the patent on thought!"
Scott smiled. "I didn't invent
thought," Scott said. "I just discovered it independently."
Villalobos chanced a glance at Dellazo,
then looked back at Scott. "Who did invent thought?" he asked.
Scott smiled crookedly and said, "An
absent-minded genius. He neglected to file for the patent."
"We'll fax the patent office in the
morning," Villalobos joked. He made a gesture to clap Scott on the shoulder, but the
image of his hand traveled directly through Scott's image. Villalobos was not rude enough
to remind everyone that Scott's contract conceded all his intellectual property to the
United States government.
Eyes burning with hate and humiliation,
Dellazo abruptly disappeared from the virtual room.