The Actuality by Paul Braddon

Author:Paul Braddon [Braddon, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913207175
Publisher: Sandstone Press Ltd
Published: 2020-11-12T22:00:00+00:00

18

‘The way they exhibit David is a disgrace,’ Maplin says, puffing himself up. ‘Zoo animals get better treatment. They think he’s unaware because he doesn’t say or do much, and therefore must be a bit limited, but he’s just hiding it in here.’ He taps the side of his head, jogging his glasses and making his eyes behind the lenses wobble. ‘He knew who you were, didn’t he – so I say, maybe not so dumb after all.’

‘Why is he kept in a museum?’

‘That’s 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.’

‘Didn’t the Americans change their laws too?’

‘They did, but it didn’t stop stuff ticking along in the background. Big business always gets its way.’ 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.

‘Androids,’ he continues, ‘where 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.’

‘He asked me to help him,’ she says, recalling David’s eyes lock on hers, the flicker of his thick lashes as he slowly blinked.

‘Emotional intelligence as clear as day, and they say that you and they feel nothing!’ He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘But however good David is, Evie, you, you’re something else. The “real deal” as people used to call it. You’re extraordinary, amazing. Beyond even what the likes of Realhuman envisaged could be possible.’ He blushes again, more and more like a schoolboy with a crush.

She finds herself colouring, too. ‘Why am I so amazing?’ It is one thing she has never felt about herself, and however foolish it is, she’s can’t help but enjoy the attention.

‘That you’re so alive . . . and I don’t mean walking about and so forth, that was easy for them, but what has happened since you left the factory. What’s going on inside.’

‘And what is going on inside?’

‘Ah, the million-dollar question.’ Maplin leans forward, bringing his face uncomfortably close. ‘Despite all the hoo-ha, the science behind you back then was not particularly ground-breaking. I’ve read everything there is on what they used – primarily a version of synthetic neuron replication, and that had been around for decades. It wasn’t about processor size or chip buffers or sequence strings either – 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 ‘life’ . . .’ His hand absentmindedly reaches towards her head, to touch where all this amazing ‘stuff’ is going on, but she flinches away and it returns to his side.

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