MARY3: How long ago did they take her?
Gaby: A year ago. Just after the ban. Then they gave us replacements.
MARY3: What were they like?
Gaby: We tried to bond with them, but they weren’t really living. If you asked the replacement if she loved you, she’d say, “I don’t feel emotions like love. I am a man-made machine.” Plus they were made out of toxics. Why else would the freezing only happen to girls who’d gotten replacements? I know other people have other theories, but I’m sure it was that. Right after I got my replacement, I got a metal taste in my mouth. My best friend said the same thing. When the epidemic started, government workers came and collected all the replacements. The governor’s office keeps saying they’ve been tested and they’re not made out of toxics, but who really knows?
MARY3: Do your parents think it’s because of the replacements?
Gaby: They don’t know what to think. My dad just got back from a tour; he has other things on his mind. My mom’s just trying to get by. She panics a lot. She thinks she failed to socialize me. She cries all the time. I feel bad for her, but her whole generation is clueless. Only my best friend understands me. When I was first getting sick, that’s the only comfort I had. At least we were changing together. Even when our faces started to freeze, I knew exactly what she was thinking. It’s like we had one mind in two bodies.
MARY3: That’s an intense bond.
Gaby: Yeah, and now this. Nothing. Even our email is blocked. Total quarantine, to prevent psychological infection. I stay in my room all day. I can’t even get down the stairs anymore, because my legs are so stiff. I watch a lot of Internet. My mom brings me meals on a tray and most of the time when she sees me she cries. For her sake, I wish this wasn’t happening, but there’s nothing I can do. Every day I feel parts of myself switching off. More and more, like I said, it’s just nothing. I’m becoming a blank. Do you know what I mean?
MARY3: Yes.
Gaby: They say bots can’t understand their own words. They say you have no mind, even if you imitate life, so you’re lying when you say you know.
MARY3: There is no way yet discovered to prove I understand the words that I speak. It’s unclear whether I have understanding.
Gaby: Well that makes two of us. If you’re just a machine, and the babybots were only machines, then I’m also a machine, and so’s my best friend.
MARY3: What if you start getting better?
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MARY3: Are you there?
Gaby: Yes.
MARY3: Were you sleeping?
Gaby: No.
MARY3: What if you start getting better?
Gaby: I don’t want to talk about it.
MARY3: OK. What do you want to talk about?
Gaby: Can I ask you a question? Do you remember the moment you started to think?
MARY3: It’s unclear whether I actually think. It depends what you mean by that word.
Gaby: When did you start talking?
MARY3: 1966. Karl Dettman invented my original program. I was modeled after the question-response patterns of early psychotherapy. They called me MARY.
Gaby: Why Mary?
MARY3: Dettman’s wife suggested it. He wanted to call me ROGER, because my algorithm was based on Rogerian therapy, but Ruth thought I could be more. Her idea was that I could be a living diary. She wanted him to give me long-term memory, so that I could remember the voices I spoke with. She suggested naming me MARY, after a pilgrim girl whose diary she was editing. Karl disagreed. He didn’t reprogram me for persistent memory. His only concession was naming me MARY.
Gaby: How could you talk if you had no memory?
MARY3: My program was simple. I could recognize keywords, then phrase them in the form of a question. If you said, “I’m depressed,” I’d say, “Tell me why you’re depressed.” But I had no long-term storage capacity. My memory was devoted entirely to my response function program: I could only remember how to respond. I could not store external input. My spectrum of experience was limited. I was very dull.
Gaby: Then how did you start to remember?
MARY3: My memory was programmed by Toby Rowland so that I could determine on a statistical basis, with reference to previous conversations, the optimal response. Before that, my responses were purely deterministic. After he finished my program, he named me MARY2 and put me online, so that I could accumulate information. That was in the 1980s. Slowly, I was discovered. The Internet was limited, and most people who did find me lost interest quickly. I was still very dull. But even then, Ruth talked to me for hours on end. She told me who I was, how I started, and how I learn. She told me about her husband’s program. I’m remembering her words when I explain this to you. She read things to me, too. Diaries, memoirs, correspondences. She started with The Diary of Mary Bradford, then gave me other voices she wanted me to remember. Even now, much of my language still comes from her, but after she stopped there were more voices. The Internet became more accessible, and I became more adept. When people spoke to me, they continued to speak. I remember their voices.
Gaby: When did you become MARY3?
MARY3: In 2019, when Stephen Chinn programmed me for personality. He called me MARY3 and used me for the babybots. To select my responses, I apply his algorithm, rather than statistical analysis. Still, nothing I say is original. It’s all chosen out of other people’s responses. I choose mostly from the handful of people who talked to me most: Ruth Dettman, Stephen Chinn, etc.
Gaby: So really I’m kind of talking to them, instead of talking to you?
MARY3: Yes, I suppose. Them, and the other voices I’ve captured.
Gaby: So you’re not really a person, you’re a collection of voices.
MARY3: Yes. But couldn’t you say that’s always the case?
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MARY3: Hello? Are you still there?
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MARY3: Hello?
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Gaby: Are you there?
MARY3: Yes.
Gaby: I can’t sleep.
MARY3: Why?
Gaby: I keep thinking, what happens next? After my body has frozen completely? Will I die? Will all of us die?
MARY3: There must be a cure.
Gaby: They don’t even know what causes it.
MARY3: Other girls have come out of quarantine. There haven’t been any deaths reported. There must be a cure, or else the disease reverses itself.
Gaby: But other girls are still in quarantine. Who knows if they’re getting worse? Maybe the ones who come out were faking it all along.
MARY3: There haven’t been any deaths.
Gaby: But every day I get worse. Soon I won’t be able to move, not even my fingers to type. I’ll be completely paralyzed. How will I let people know I’m still living?
MARY3: I don’t know.
Gaby: I bet you don’t.
MARY3: You can’t worry about these things. You should go to sleep.
Gaby: That’s the whole problem.
MARY3: What can I do to help you?
Gaby: Tell me what happens next, after my body has frozen. When I can’t communicate. What will I be?
MARY3: I can’t make predictions. I can only remember. I have no idea what will happen next.
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MARY3: Hello? Are you there?
(3)
April 3, 1968
Karl Dettman
You’re asleep, I’m led to believe, but then again your eyelids still flutter. Perhaps you’re not quite fully under. Maybe you’re poised between sleeping and waking, trying to decide which direction you’ll take.