The Actuality: A completely gripping and fast moving literary thriller by Paul Braddon
Author:Paul Braddon [Braddon, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloodhound Books - crime, thrillers & mysteries
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00
Chapter Eighteen
âThe way they exhibit David is a disgrace,â Maplin says, puffing himself up. âZoo animals get better treatment. They think heâs unaware because he doesnât say or do much, and therefore must be a bit limited, but heâs just hiding it in here.â He taps the side of his head, jogging his glasses and making his eyes behind the lenses wobble. âHe knew who you were, didnât he â so I say, maybe not so dumb after all.â
âWhy is he kept in a museum?â
âThatâs Realhuman Corp. for you. Years ago, before it all went pear-shaped, they were the leaders in the field. They think that by exhibiting him, leaving the States and touring him about, they can get people to trust their technology again.â
âDidnât the Americans change their laws too?â
âThey did, but it didnât stop stuff ticking along in the background. Big business always gets its way.â This note of scepticism reminds her of Daniels and puts her a little more at ease. Maybe she is getting used to this silly, ridiculous man. Anyway, there is no shutting him up.
âAndroids,â he continues, âwhere there is an element of genuine consciousness, should be granted rights. Our code of ethics needs serious updating. Not getting that sorted is why things ended up the way they did.â
âHe asked me to help him,â she says, recalling Davidâs eyes lock on hers, the flicker of his thick lashes as he slowly blinked.
âEmotional intelligence as clear as day, and they say that you and they feel nothing!â He shakes his head in disbelief. âBut however good David is, Evie, you, youâre something else. The âreal dealâ as people used to call it. Youâre extraordinary, amazing. Beyond even what the likes of Realhuman envisaged could be possible.â He blushes again, more and more like a schoolboy with a crush.
She finds herself colouring, too. âWhy am I so amazing?â It is one thing she has never felt about herself, and however foolish it is, she canât help but enjoy the attention.
âThat youâre so alive⦠and I donât mean walking about and so forth, that was easy for them, but what has happened since you left the factory. Whatâs going on inside.â
âAnd what is going on inside?â
âAh, the million-dollar question.â Maplin leans forward, bringing his face uncomfortably close. âDespite all the hoo-ha, the science behind you back then was not particularly ground-breaking. Iâve read everything there is on what they used â primarily a version of synthetic neuron replication, and that had been around for decades. It wasnât about processor size or chip buffers or sequence strings either â all that might have been cutting-edge forty years ago but has since been superseded numerous times. No, the physical stuff, the hardware on its own, is not it. It is something else they did or rather⦠happened. Something in your liveware. Something that generated self-awareness, gave you what we call âlifeââ¦â His hand absent-mindedly reaches towards her head, to touch where all this amazing âstuffâ is going on, but she flinches away and it returns to his side.
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