Since his work was his life, the predominant decor could best be described as Computer Lab 2000; smaller workstations scattered about, cables hanging from the ceiling like vines. There was a big-screen TV and entertainment center over near the fireplace, but only a couple chairs and no sofa. He couldn’t use them, and almost never had company. Low shelves held videotapes and CDs, books, software packages, odd pieces of equipment, and thick manuals written in a language which had only a nodding acquaintance to English. On the walls over the shelves hung an old mix of neon-bright computer art, and reproductions of works by Maxfield Parrish and the Old Masters.
“I really like it when it’s just the two of us here.” Ursula said quietly.
“So do I. Very cozy.”
“I’m glad we got to be alone. There’s something I wanted to show you.”
“What might that be?”
“Me. Can I use the big monitor?”
He eyed the twenty-eight inch Max-Rez color display in front of him. On it was a complicated 3D fluxchart, a graphic representation of her associative functions, one part of her complex systems which had so far eluded boxing.
“Sure, if you’ve got the… horsepower to spare.” Running her simulacrum used up a good 15 percent of her resources.
“I promise I won’t let it slow down our work. I know how important boxing me is to you.”
There seemed to be some sort of subtext to her response, but he couldn’t decipher it. So he just told her to switch the schema over to the seventeen-inch flatscreen to the right of the MaxRez.
“Thanks,” she said in an oddly subdued voice. The larger monitor blanked, the diagram popping up on the seventeen incher. But nothing took its place on the big screen.
“Got a problem?”
“No, I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.”
He frowned. “Am I missing something here?”
“I like to think so.”
Before he could ask what she meant by that, she continued on in a rush, “You know I was out netsurfing after you went to bed last night. Before I ran into Professor Thome I had a talk with a beautician named Carly in Iowa. Afterward I decided to give myself, well, sort of a makeover.”
That made him smile. Now he understood why she was acting so nervous. “I’d love to see it.” It was precisely behavior like this which was making him certain Ursula was coming out on the other side of Capra’s Keyhole.
AIs, and by extension AEs, are to a certain degree self-created. No one programmer could even begin to write all the complex code such an elaborate construct required. So AIs were built around a core module which allowed them to write and debug their own programming, their human creator providing the overall design and direction, crucial blocs and algorithms, and guiding the process of integrating the pieces into a whole every step of the way. A useful analogy would be using a 3D modeling program. The human creates the wireframe and the computer takes over the job from there.
Ursula was even more self-created than most, able to turn even his most arcane structures into tight clean code so well that there were times he wondered if she could read his mind.
Another facet of her self-creation was her appearance. Surprisingly early on in her development she’d begun expressing dissatisfaction with the talkinghead he’d put together as an armature for her personality. So he’d given her a free hand to design and test modifications on it on her own. Over the last six months her appearance had continued to alter, the simulacrum she presented filling out apace with her personality and sense of self. Now and then she felt the changes were great enough to warrant a “fashion show” like this.
But the screen was still blank.
“Well, aren’t you—”
Words collapsed in his mouth and his heart skipped a beat. If it hadn’t been for the respirator dutifully whuffing along he would have held his breath.
His first two thoughts were: She doesn’t look all that different, and a fraction of a second later, my god, look at her!
The Ursula on the screen before him was physically all but identical to the one he had seen only yesterday, and yet the difference was so striking it knocked his thoughts into the sort of disarray a good whack on the head might cause.
Just like always when they were working, she sat in a chair before a desk covered with computer equipment, looking back at him like they were just two people communicating by videolink. There was no overt change in her facial features; her face remained on the round and full side, still evoking the face from a Maxfield Parrish painting it had been based on. She had changed her chestnut hair. Now it was a pageboy sort of thing which framed her face perfectly. There was something elusively different about her big brown eyes. Her wide mobile mouth was quirked in a nervous half-smile.
Her face had never been one to launch a thousand ships, and she had not gone for some sort of glossy cover girl effect in her search to make it fit her. What she had was the face of the girl next door. The one whose smile could light up your whole day, and have you watching her window at night and wondering if she was still awake and maybe thinking of you.
Today she was dressed in jeans and a white shirt open at the throat enough to show a tantalizing glimpse of her modest cleavage. Her figure was that of a real woman, not some idealized clothes rack or silicone augmented sex toy. Her posture intrigued him. She was obviously posing for him, and undeniably self-conscious about it.
So what was it about her that was so different?
His first realization was that this was the Ursula who lived in his dreams, the Ursula he saw in his head every time he heard her voice. Not just close, but her.
Then the fullness of the difference came clear. The Ursula he’d seen yesterday had been an image. A clever and technically perfect simulation which had still somehow been missing something. This Ursula was real. This Ursula was alive.
“No—no wonder that… professor asked you out,” he stammered at last. “You—you’re beautiful!”
The shy smile she flashed him warmed his insides like one of the rare tastes of brandy he permitted himself sometimes. “Do you really think so?” she asked hopefully. “I did all right?”
He shook his head in wonder. “Ursula my love… you’re absolutely perfect.”
And it was true. For weeks now he’d known she was all but perfect, but hadn’t wanted to admit that she might be complete.
Even if she hadn’t been quite there then, she was now. There was no way to avoid it. If Ursula wasn’t a true AE, then he’d never be able to make anything closer.
She beamed back at him, nearly glowing with pleasure at his praise. “Really?”
This is my masterpiece. The reason I’ve lived this long.
He answered her with the phrase he always used when reassuring her that she’d performed at or above his expectations.
“Really truly absolutely.”
Key munched on his peanut butter and banana sandwich while staring moodily out the wide living room window. The snow hadn’t stopped. If anything, it was coming down even harder than before. According to the indoor/outdoor thermometer by the window-frame it was just a couple degrees above zero—Fahrenheit, not Celsius—outside. The windchill had to be at least minus twenty. When the weather got like this he didn’t envy able-bodied people who could—and therefore had to—go out in stuff like this. He knew he wouldn’t last two minutes out there.
Yet in one of those paradoxes nature was seemingly so fond of, such fragile creatures as birds could thrive in weather which would kill even a healthy human in no time flat. Through the squalling snow he could catch fleeting glimpses of the sparrows and chickadees flitting and bickering around his feeder.