"In the relatively brief history of human civilization," Jim Silicane said in the detached, professorial voice he reserved for his lectures, "there have been two major revolutions in communications technology, two fundamental changes in the way that people receive and process information. The first was the advent of movable type. That occurred over five hundred years ago, when a man named Gutenberg figured out a way to mass produce Bibles. The result was the proliferation of the printed word, which we have come to regard as a necessary precursor to modern civilization. This was the less important of the two communications revolutions."
Jim paused for dramatic effect. This lecture always had them on the edge of their seats, as much as any lecture for a course designed to satisfy General Education requirements ever had anyone on the edge of anything. "The second, and more significant, revolution began in the 1970s as a military project. The idea was to create a computer network that had no physical center, no location that might be the target of a nuclear attack. The result was the network of computer networks--the metanetwork, if you will--that later became known as the Internet, and that we today know as the Worldnet."
Jim paused again, this time not so much for dramatic effect as because the sorority girl in the front row--the one with the straight blonde hair always in a ponytail, the one who liked to show off her lean, tanned legs by wearing skimpy shorts to class every day--had crossed those legs again. It always threw him off for a split second when she did that. It also irritated him. He would have been happy to gape at her legs during office hours, if that was what she was after. But did she have to throw off his concentration during a lecture?
"The Worldnet," he continued, "is used daily by every human being in the industrial world. We use it to process our financial transactions, and it's so good at doing this that we can reasonably expect to have a cash-free society within twenty years. We use it to store and transfer text data, and it's so good at this that printed books will probably be demoted to the status of an expensive novelty within the same period. We use it to talk to our friends and relatives in San Francisco and Singapore. It is the ultimate communication tool, and that holds certain philosophical implications for us which," he concluded, glancing at the clock, "I will have to get to next time." As the inevitable shuffling of wallet computers began, Jim raised his voice to get in a few last words. "Remember to download and read the first two chapters of the McLuhan book for next time!"
The blonde in the front row pulled her wallet computer out of the desk terminal and tucked it into her purse. Jim's lecture, in bright color video and snappy stereo sound, was now safely ensconced in her wallet. She could review his words of wisdom at any time on the wallet's tiny screen, or plug it into her home terminal for the full-quality production. Jim liked to imagine her sneaking secret glances at his manly digital image when no one was looking. Realistically, though, he realized that this child of the information age probably kept his lectures around long enough to scan through them ten minutes before the midterm, then promptly deleted the data from her computer and her brain simultaneously.
She sure does have nice legs, though, Jim thought as he watched her lovely backside wiggle out of the room.
Jim Silicane didn't think of himself as a sexist. He had plenty of respect for women, or at least for those women worthy of respect--not all women were, any more than were all men. The problem was that he was a heterosexual male with a fairly well developed sex drive and an active fantasy life. That meant that when he saw an attractive woman--and U. C. Oceanside was crawling with them--he saw her in sexual terms. After all, he had no way to evaluate the personalities of the hundreds of women who walked by him every day, but he could certainly take note of their bodies: breasts, hips, legs, asses. It was barely even a conscious response; it was more like his unconscious mind, constantly on the lookout for material out of which to construct sexual fantasies, immediately took all the female body data his eyes received and put it into whatever scenario his hindbrain happened to be running at the time. Jim sometimes thought that he must have a whole processor in his head dedicated to this activity. It didn't bother him. He figured that most men, or at least a lot of them, had something like this going on in their heads twenty-four hours a day. That's just the way the hardware worked. Anyway, that's how things had been inside his skull since the tender age of fourteen; he doubted he could change it now even if he wanted to. And it was all harmless. He knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Fantasy was fine as long as it was just swimming around in your brain. Reality was a sexual harassment suit that could smash his tenure into tiny bits, plus a girlfriend who'd be happy to ruin the rest of his life for him.
So the well-tanned blonde with the ponytail stayed right where she belonged, namely in the fantasy world that kept Jim Silicane company as he wandered across the campus back to his office. It was a fine warm late April day, the kind of day that makes Southern California what it is. A soft ocean breeze blew through endless forests of blonde hair. Sunlight glistened off tanned, athletic bodies. It was a good to day to be alive and male. Inside Jim Silicane's mind the blonde from the front row danced in red lingerie.
Jim's office was in the Computer Science building, on the fifth floor. He took the elevator. His wallet computer issued an encrypted password, and the door admitted him. He didn't have an ocean view--the full professors tended to claim all of those--but that was all right; his office looked out onto the quad, and he could watch the girls come and go.
"Hello, Stan," Jim said as he sat in his swivel chair and turned towards the window.
"Hello, Jim," replied the cool, sophisticated voice from nowhere. Jim smiled just a little whenever he addressed Stan. It had been Jim's idea that Stan should name himself, but the naming process had turned out to be much more intricate than Jim could have imagined. It had involved Jim trying to explain the purpose of names--he had given up on that fruitless project after a number of frustrating conversations with some friends of his in the Philosophy Department. Switching tactics, Jim had decided just to explain how people named themselves. That had worked a little better. He had managed to convey the idea that people get their names from their parents, and indeed that they sometimes had the same names as their parents. Stan, being a computer program, had no parents, so he had decided to name himself after his place of birth: Stanford, or "Stan" for short. Jim thought it was a funny name, though of course he hadn't been able to explain why he thought so when Stan asked him. Instead he had just uploaded several old Laurel and Hardy movies and asked Stan to scan them, which the program had dutifully done. When he had finished "watching" the movies, he had decided he still wanted to be Stan, and he had been Stan ever since. Stan went from being an "it" to being a "he" in Jim's mind when he chose his name. Jim couldn't help that. He just couldn't imagine a female Stan. Besides, the program's voice, though close to being gender-neutral, had a subtle masculine tone to it. It was just as well that Stan was "male." Jim figured he'd feel kind of funny staring out the window at the co-eds with a "female" program looking over his shoulder.
"Upload my lecture to the University net, would you, Stan?"
"Certainly, Jim." Jim always loaded his lectures onto the net right after he gave them, as did most professors. Classes that didn't have net-accessible lectures tended to get canceled due to insufficient enrollment, which meant no teaching credit for the instructor. Jim often wondered why students bothered to come to lectures at all, or indeed why professors bothered to do anything more than record lectures for net distribution. One of his friends in the History department had told him that the idea of the lecture came from the middle ages, when books were in short supply. His friend had remarked that if the printing press couldn't kill the lecture, there was no reason to think that the net could. "Is there anything else I can do for you, Jim?" the program asked solicitously.
Jim didn't really have any good reason to be in his office except that it was cool and dark and he found the soft hum of the air conditioning relaxing. It was a good place to unwind after a lecture. "Any exciting mail for me?" Might as well take care of some business as long as he was here.
"Your mailbox contains new messages from the following: University of Michigan Press, Natasha Bukharin, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Professor Bill Baxter."
Well, business before pleasure. "What does Michigan want?"
"Presumably the corrected proofs for your article, which were due yesterday," the program replied dryly.
"Read the message," Jim said irritably.
"'Dear Professor Silicane, I am writing to inquire as to the status of the corrected proofs for your--'"
"Enough. You haven't been reading my mail, have you, Stan?"
"That would be unethical," Stan pointed out.
"Interesting. I didn't know a computer program could have an ethical system."
"To call it an ethical system is perhaps slightly misleading. We could say, if you prefer, that I am programmed not to examine your mail unless you instruct me to do so."
"Let's call it ethics, Stan; you're more ethical than most humans I know."
"Thank you. Perhaps Professor Baxter has some thoughts on this matter."
"I don't doubt it. Why don't you read his message next?"
"'Jim, let me buy you a beer after your lecture. Smash the state. Yours, Bill,'" read the computer.
"Mighty neighborly of him. What does Natasha have to say?"
"Presumably she would like to know when you will be home for dinner," Stan suggested.
"There you go again. If you don't read my mail, how do you always know what it's going to say?" Jim demanded.
"I am an aspect of U. C. Oceanside's Central Computer Core," Stan reminded him with what seemed to Jim to be a touch of haughtiness. "I therefore have at my disposal a formidable array of statistical and probability calculation routines. Based on the content of previous messages, I can predict with a high degree of accuracy the content of current messages."
"So much for free will," Jim said ruefully.
"I beg your pardon, Jim?"
"We humans like to think that we're sovereign, independent beings with free will. Your probability routines suggest that that isn't the case."
There was a slight pause. Jim often wondered what caused these brief pauses. It was hard to believe that with the nearly infinite processing power at his disposal, Stan might actually have to stop and think about something that Jim had said. It could just be that the guys down the hall were running one of their goddamn real-time world weather system simulations again. But Jim had a hunch that Stan had been studying human conversation patterns, and was playing around with meaningful pauses. He was quite clever that way.
"Well, my probability routines are not infallible, Jim," the program pointed out. "Perhaps free will lies within the margin for error."
"Out of curiosity, what is your margin for error in predicting my messages?"
"Approximately .001%."
"Doesn't say much for free will, I'm afraid. Read Natasha's message."
"There is a video file attached to the message. Shall I play it on your terminal monitor?"
"Sure."
The terminal dissolved into a shot of a slim, athletic young woman in her mid-twenties. Her dark brown hair was bobbed short. She was sitting in front of their home terminal, her chocolate eyes fixed on the video pickup. She wore the sardonic little smile she used when speaking to equipment. The video feed showed her face and torso; she was just about to make her daily pilgrimage to the swimming pool, Jim noted. She had on her white one-piece swimsuit. Naturally, Jim's eyes drifted down to her breasts, which were small, firm and round.
"Hey, lover, dinner tonight?" she said into the video pickup. Jim felt a familiar stirring in his loins at the sound of her voice. Although she was very good looking, it had been her voice that had initially fascinated him. She spoke English perfectly, but with just enough of an accent to be a little mysterious, a little intriguing. Her family had left the Ukraine when she was eight, just ahead of the second terror famine. "Call me." With that, the screen went blank.
Jim found himself a little bit embarrassed to be having sexual feelings while Stan was around, though of course the program had no way to know what was going through his mind. Or did it? Jim wondered ruefully. Probability of Jim Silicane being a horny bastard, 100%. Margin for error negligible.
"OK, tell Michigan I'll have the proofs back to them by Monday at the latest," Jim decided. "Tell Bill yes on that beer--he's probably already on his way over. And tell Natasha I'll be home around--what time is it now?"
"Four thirty."
"Around six."
"There's a very interesting article on emotion emulation in the new International Journal of Artificial Intelligence," Stan informed him.
"I thought you said you don't read my mail?" Jim objected.
"I don't. But the library's copy is publicly accessible," Stan pointed out.
"Fair enough. Why don't you bring it up on my screen and I'll take a look at it until Bill gets here."
"Certainly. By the way, there is also a package for you at the department office."
"A physical package? That's interesting. What's the return address?"
"None is listed in the mail log," Stan replied.
"Well, I'd better go fetch it." Jim stepped out into the hall and walked across fifty yards of smooth tile to the department office. Susan, the department secretary, looked at him over her Ben Franklin glasses.
"Got a package for you here, Jim," she said around her ubiquitous wad of chewing gum. "No return address, very mysterious. Top secret computer business?"
"You know it, Susan," Jim replied with a smile, accepting the package. Susan was small and round with short gray hair and a tendency to gossip. She seemed to like Jim, a fact of which Jim was very glad, since in the day-to-day operation of the department, Susan had more power than the department chair and the dean combined. Jim tore the package open as he walked back down the hall. Inside was a memory module. No note, just the module. Strange.
Jim fumbled with his wallet to get the door open, then sat down in front of his terminal. Why would someone send him a memory module? If they wanted to send him some software, why not just upload it to him like everyone else did? He dropped the module into the terminal's memory bay. "Stan, would you copy the contents of that module into my filespace and see what it is, please?"
"Certainly, Jim." There was a brief pause; the file must be enormous. "The module contains an executable program called 'Justine.'"
"Run the program please, Stan." The terminal screen dissolved to a black background, on which the name Justine appeared in bright pink. Soft, sultry music wafted gently out of the speakers. The title screen dissolved into a very nice graphic of what looked like the interior of a medieval castle: stone walls, flickering torches in wrought-iron holders, intricate tapestries of battle scenes. In the center of the room was a breathtakingly beautiful woman.
This is a very nice piece of software, Jim decided. The latest trend in computer animation was to take a number of real people and combine their images into a composite; he had a feeling that something like that had been done to produce this woman. She didn't look like any particular model or movie star, yet she looked like all of them. She had blonde hair cropped short. Her eyes were big and deep and green; they were set fairly far apart. She had a tiny nose and full, sensuous pink lips. Her body was perfect: large, round breasts, very firm; narrow waist, flat belly, full hips, long legs. She was wearing a lacy white teddy and white high heeled shoes.
"Hello," she said in a soft, husky voice. "I'm Justine. Welcome to my world. You'll enjoy me the most if you have a large color monitor and full stereo sound."
Well, that figured. The University, always budget conscious, had equipped Jim's office with a dinky little terminal monitor. Jim decided to give Justine another look at home, where he could plug her into his big setup. He popped her module out of the bay and dropped it into his bag. Who would send me computer porn, and why? he wondered. It wasn't that he objected to comp porn, of course; indeed, he and Natasha had a sizable collection of it at home. But it seemed strange and perhaps even a little sinister that a mysterious someone would go to all this trouble to ensure that he received this particular porn package.
Jim's ruminations were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Get that for me, would you, Stan? It's probably Bill." You're not the only one who can predict the future, Stan!
"Certainly, Jim." There was a soft click as Stan disabled the door's electronic lock, and Bill Baxter came rolling into the office. Bill was big in all ways. Physically, he was a great round roly poly of a man--Jim didn't see how someone could be a fat vegetarian, but Bill Baxter somehow managed. Bill was bald except for a few fringes and tufts of chaotic white hair which lingered around the back and sides of his big round head. He wore a goatee and mustache which were strangely still black. He liked the contrast this made with his white hair; he often joked about having a Yin/Yang head. Bill refused to dress up for class even a little; he favored shorts and t-shirts with offensive or politically provocative slogans on them. Today's shirt was black with large white letters which read "Property is Theft." Bill's voice was as big as the rest of him. He was a loud, booming man who always had plenty to say and wanted to be sure everyone heard it. Much of what he said was designed to shock and startle; it had taken Jim some time to get used to that, but now he was pretty much immune to Bill's verbal eruptions. He liked Bill quite a bit and considered him a good friend. They made a good pair: Jim was quiet and basically apolitical, Bill was loud and opinionated.
"Well, the bastards raised the fees again," Bill said without preamble. "Christ, I can't believe anyone can afford to go to school at this damn place any more. A breeding ground for rich brats with bachelor's degrees is what it is. And it's a waste of time trying to drum any political consciousness into these kids; they're too busy getting high and getting laid to give a damn about protesting. So how the hell was your day?" Bill sat down heavily in Jim's other chair, which squeaked a complaint.
"I suppose you think education should be free for everyone," Jim said.
"Don't be an asshole. Of course they should pay for it. Nothing of value is free. I just don't think so much of the cash should go to the pigs in Sacramento. Believe me, you and I won't see a dime of that fee increase. The whole idea of a state-run university is criminal. How can we have true intellectual freedom when bureaucratic functionaries hold the purse strings? We should just take a soapbox and go stand on a streetcorner and lecture, then pass the hat around. Christ, I need a drink. How about that beer?"
"Sounds good. See you tomorrow, Stan."
"Good night, Jim."
Bill shuddered as the door clicked shut behind them. "The way you talk to that damn thing gives me the creeps. Like it's a real person."
"How do you know it isn't?" Jim demanded.
"Don't be ridiculous. Half the real people in this world aren't even real people. Now what the hell was I talking about?" They stepped into the elevator; Jim pressed the button for the ground floor.
"You were saying that a state-run university is criminal, which isn't too surprising, since you think a state-run anything is criminal. And you were advocating standing on soapboxes, though as far as I can tell, your feet are permanently installed on one anyway," Jim said with a grin.
"OK, all right, I'll shut the fuck up. It just pisses me off, that's all. It's damn hard to flow like water when there are all these assholes around." The elevator deposited them in the lobby of the CS building; they stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine.
"You know, you must be the angriest Taoist I know," Jim mused as the walked across the quad towards the student center.
"It's a problem, all right," Bill admitted. "The thing is, Taoism implies anarchy. The state exists in the Western tradition as a surrogate for God, and there is no God in Taoism. Besides, if you're at one with the Tao, why the hell do you need a government to tell you what to do? You'll do what's right anyway. But it's hard to maintain your inner quiet and be a bomb-throwing anarchist at the same time--that's just another koan for me to ponder, I suppose."
"I haven't seen you throw too many bombs," Jim pointed out.
"What do you think I am, a fucking idiot? Tenure lets you get away with plenty, but there are limits. No, my role is more to create the theoretical basis for revolution; revolutionary activity comes later."
"In other words, you talk a good game," Jim said with a smile.
"Christ, you're a cynic. Hang on, I want to get some smokes." Bill ambled over to the endless row of vending machines that stood in front of the student center. Rummaging around in the deep pockets of his shorts, he came up with his wallet, which he pressed against the interface point on the vending machine. There was a beep as the machine deducted the price of his smokes from his bank account.
Bill tore the cellophane off the pack of Jamaican Reds. They were his favorite brand, Jim knew. "Want one?" Bill asked hopefully. He always offered, although he knew that Jim didn't smoke.
"That stuff rots your brain," Jim said disdainfully.
"Oh, yeah, and Bud Light doesn't. I've heard that one before." Bill lit up and took a long, deep drag off his cigarette. The scent of cannabis filled the air. "Ah, nothing beats a good toke after a long, hard day of being a professional radical."
"That's one thing you have to give the government some credit for," Jim said suddenly.
"What?"
"Oh, please. Bread and circuses. Give the masses a few crumbs to buy them off, and you can stay in power that much longer. Don't you believe it." They walked into the student pub, which was cool and dark and full of wood paneling. It didn't fit in at all with the rest of the student center, which was all chrome and pastel, a real Southern California edifice. The pub looked more like something from an Ivy League school back east, right down to the dart boards and the mahogany bar. Bill ordered a pitcher of the obscure microbrewery beer of the week and they took a table in the corner of the pub.
"Funny thing happened to me today," Jim remarked as Bill poured the beer. "I got a memory module in the mail, no return address."
Bill raised an eyebrow. "Somebody actually mailed you a module? Why not just upload the data to you?"
"That's what I was wondering."
"So what's in the module?"
"It looks like some kind of porn package. I was planning to try it out on my home system."
Bill's face split into a wide grin. "Good old Jim. You have a one-track mind, son."
Jim's face reddened. "I just meant that I have better graphics capabilities at home."
"Right, right. So what's this program called?"
"'Justine.'"
"How exotic! You must give me a full report once you've, ah, tried it out."
"I didn't know you were into that kind of thing," Jim remarked.
"My friend, if Freud was right about anything, it's this: the health of civilization can only be improved by a relaxation of its sexual strictures. It is sexual repression that is at the heart of our collective neuroses. And so I say: let us be libertines!" With that, Bill raised his beer and took a long drink. Jim took advantage of this rare pause in the conversation to survey the bar. There was the usual collection of students trying to drink away any knowledge they might have inadvertently acquired from their day's studies. There were also a few professors who, like Bill and Jim, were cool enough to spend time in the student pub. And lo and behold, sitting at a table with two of her sorority sisters was the blonde from the front row. She smiled at Jim as she caught his eye. Has she been looking at me the whole time? Jim wondered. He smiled and nodded.
"Friend of yours?" Bill asked innocently.
"Student," Jim replied, sipping his beer.
"Now, really, Professor Silicane! Fraternizing with the students! I am shocked, nay, stunned, to discover this deplorable perversion. I don't think I can in good conscience allow myself to remain in your company another minute. The effects on my moral well-being might be disastrous."
"All right, Baxter, enough sarcasm. You know damn well that I didn't start dating Natasha until she was no longer my student. Besides, she's a grad student."
"And how is that different, exactly?" Bill wanted to know.
"Grad students are grown-ups. They can make up their own damn minds."
"And what about you, Jim? Are you a grown-up too?"
"What does that mean, exactly?" Jim demanded.
"Ask your computer friend what percentage of recently divorced men start dating someone who is at least ten years younger than they," Bill suggested.
"Julia has nothing to do with my relationship with Natasha," Jim said defensively.
Bill held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. He had a nasty habit of heading straight for the naked truth, but luckily for their friendship, he always knew when to back down. "I didn't mean to suggest otherwise," he said apologetically. "You have to understand that it's just the way I am. I can't abide the presence of illusions or deceit in my own life, and without thinking, I tend to project that onto other people. It is, of course, none of my business."
"That's all right, Bill. Christ, for all I know, you're right; God knows you can't be married to someone eight years and just get over it overnight. But that doesn't change the fact that Natasha and I have a good thing going. I don't give a damn if I am some kind of statistical stereotype. I still love her."
"As well you should. Love is the truth of the world. So keep your hands off the sorority girls, my friend."
Jim smiled. "You know me better than that. I keep my hands off, but my eyes on. I'm afraid that's the best I can manage."
Bill shrugged. "If that's good enough for Natasha, it's good enough for me."
Jim polished off the last dregs of his beer. "Well, now you've done it, Baxter. All this talk about my girlfriend has made me want to go home. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Give her my regards, won't you?"
"Sure."
There was still plenty of light. He didn't like Natasha to walk through there alone at night. Oceanside was pretty safe, but you never knew. Of course, Jim would cut through there himself any time, day or night. But it was different for women.
As it turned out, today it was different for him, too. There was almost never anybody out here--why would there be? But Jim was sure he saw someone or something rustling around in the bushes. "Hello?" he said tentatively. Probably just some kids making out, he told himself. Better just move along.
That's when he felt the sharp, stabbing pain in the back of his head, and then he was too busy trying to stay conscious to worry about anything else. It was a losing battle. With a groan he collapsed onto a bed of pine needles and underbrush.