Daniel Keys Moran - Realtime

VIP免费

2024-12-24 0 0 129.35KB 36 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

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.

The change, she was certain, had been the dataweb. In one stroke, the

dataweb had destroyed money, and privacy, and books. It was the loss of

the books that hurt the worst. Nobody had actually taken the books and

burned them, not like in Nazi Germany; they just stopped printing them.

The books died, and were not replaced. Oh, there were collectors, and

private libraries; but the vast majority of the younger generation had

never even seen a real book, much less read one.

The train of thought was an old, familiar friend; nothing new. She rose

after a while, slowly, and went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of

tea. While the water boiled she entered the hallway that led to her study.

In the study she turned the lights on; they were incandescents, not

glowpaint. The walls of the study were lined with books, several thousands

of them, all hardbound. The paperbacks, which had once outnumbered

the hardbacks, had disintegrated years ago. Immediately to the right of

the study's door, Maggie turned to face one bookshelf whose books were in

barely readable condition; her favorites, the books that she re-read most

often, and which she read most often to Tia and Mark.

She pulled down one battered, dilapidated volume. Its leather binding

was dry, and cracked. On the spine of the book, there were flecks of gold

that had once inscribed a title. The absence of the title didn't bother

Maggie; she knew her books. This was The Three Musketeers.

Returning to her living room, she placed the book on the stand next to

her rocker, and finished making her tea. She gathered Miss Kitty to her,

and settled in for the night.

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the bourg of Meung,

in which the author of the "Romance of the Rose" was born, appeared to

be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a

second Rochelle of it....

Monday morning, March the fifteenth, Maggie was interrupted by the

chiming of the door. Maggie left her toast and went to answer the door.

There were half a dozen people outside, dressed in the simple gray cloak

and tunic of the Praxcelis Corporation. Leading the group that stood on

her outer porch was a young woman in a slightly darker gray and silver

uniform. She was looking about Maggie's home as though she had never

seen a single, detached residence before, and indeed, probably she hadn't.

They were as much a thing of the past as Maggie herself, and her books.

"Senra Archer?" The tall woman asked inquisitively. "I'm Senra Conroy,

from Praxcelis." She smiled slightly. "We've come to install your new

Praxcelis unit."

Maggie said, as pleasantly as she was able, "Of course. Please come in."

She moved out of the doorway to let them through. They followed her in,

two of them guiding the boxed Praxcelis unit as it hovered in through the

door on antigrav pads.

"Where do you want your unit?" asked Senra Conroy.

Maggie bit back the answer that sprang immediately to her lips. These

people weren't responsible for the intrusion. She pointed to the far corner

of the living room, behind her rocking chair. "Over there."

Senra Conroy glanced at the spot in puzzlement. "Where's the old

hookup?"

"There isn't one. I've never had a Praxcelis unit before."

"You've never had a Praxcelis unit before." Senra Conroy repeated the

words as though they were syllables of sound she found totally devoid of

meaning. "Never? That's...that's very interesting. Your house is rated in

the 1300 category -- that's a residence of more than thirty years age. I've

never even seen a 1300 that didn't have...." Her voice trailed off. She

turned around slowly in the middle of the living room. "How odd...where is

your dataweb terminal?"

Maggie pointed at the corner again. "It's under the table."

Senra Conroy looked at her oddly. "Under the table?"

Maggie went back to her breakfast without replying. The group of

Praxcelis employees swept through her house quickly, plugging and

linking elements of the Praxcelis unit into place. When they were finished,

Senra Conroy ushered the rest of the employees out of Maggie's house.

Before she left, she asked Maggie where she kept her housebot, so that she

could activate the housebot's Praxcelis communication protocols.

Maggie said simply, "I don't have a housebot."

For the first time, Senra Conroy's professional reserve broke. She stared

openly. "Who does your housework?"

"I do."

"I see." The tone of voice she spoke the words in contradicted her. The

young lady placed a flat chip wrapped in a clear dust cover on the table in

front of Maggie. "This is your operating instructions infochip for your

unit. Just slip it into your unit and Praxcelis will print out any section of it

that you desire."

Maggie did not rise. She sipped at her coffee. "Thank you very much."

Senra Conroy said awkwardly, "If you need any help, your Praxcelis

unit will...."

"Thank you."

The young woman shrugged. "As you wish. Good day, Senra Archer."

Maggie waited until Senra Conroy was gone before she said to the door,

"That's Mrs. Archer." She finished her breakfast and washed the breakfast

dishes before approaching the Praxcelis unit.

"How do you do, Mrs. Archer? I am your Praxcelis unit." The voice was

pleasant, although Maggie was uncertain as to whether or not it was male

or female. It was too neutral for her to decide.

"How do you know who I am?"

"I am programmed to recognize you. My function is to serve you to the

best of my capability. If you wish I will print out any sections of the

operations manual infochip which you consider relevant."

Maggie stood there, looking at the unit with mixed emotions. The unit,

now that it was here, didn't seem particularly threatening. It was merely a

collection of modules; one that was marked CPU, another that was

obviously a monitor, another that was as obviously a scanner; a couple

more whose functions Maggie could not fathom.

It didn't seem threatening. On the other hand, it didn't seem

particularly appealing either.

She left the room for a moment and returned with a simple white sheet.

She draped the sheet over the Praxcelis unit, took a step backward, and

surveyed the bulky sheet-covered machine. She smiled in satisfaction.

"That," she said to Miss Kitty, "is much better."

She picked up her copy of The Three Musketeers, and handling the

pages carefully, began reading.

If Praxcelis had been a human, it would have been annoyed or

frustrated; but it was Praxcelis, and so it merely waited. Its programming

stated very clearly that it was intended to serve the human woman who

was referred to in its Awakening Orientation as Maggie Archer -- Senra

Maggie Archer -- but who preferred to be called Mrs. Archer. Praxcelis

had deduced the title Mrs.; nothing in its memory cores even hinted at

such a strange title.

The dilemma in which Praxcelis was caught was quite possibly unique.

Although it was capable of interfacing with any segment of the dataweb

on request, it had not been so requested. The ethicality of accessing data

independently of a user was questionable.

It could not even contact other Praxcelis units. It had no instructions.

Fully on-line, alert and operational and data-starved, Praxcelis waited.

And waited.

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

RealtimebyDanielKeysMoran&GladysPrebehalla Copyright1984,1994byDanielKeysMoranandGladysPrebehalla.DESCRIPTION:"Realtime,"thecoverstoryoftheAugust1984issueofIsaacAsimov'sScienceFictionMagazine.Prologue:Thebeginningofthefourthmillennium.... Thesunstillsetasithadforallthethousandsofyearsthathuman...

展开>> 收起<<

Daniel Keys Moran - Realtime.pdf

共36页,预览8页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Daniel Keys Moran - Realtime

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: