And there was HELP.
Famed Las Vegas medium Rowena today announced that she’d made contact with the soul of Margaret (Peggy) Fennell, the person whose soulwave was first recorded. Ms. Fennell is reportedly together now with her husband, Kevin Fennell, who died in 1992.
The Ku Klux Klan of Atlanta, Georgia, issued a press release today stating that the evidence for the existence of the so-called “soulwave” in blacks was clearly faked. They pointed out that of the three initial recordings of soulwaves departing the body, the one purportedly of a Negro Ugandan child was highly suspect, given that the child’s family had returned to Africa, could not be reached for comment, and, according to reliable reports, had received ten thousand dollars in hush money directly from Hobson Monitoring-a foreign company, they hastened to add-for their collusion in this fraud.
A bill was introduced today in the Florida legislature to ban the use of the electric chair in executions, citing concerns over whether the amount of electricity used might damage the departing soulwave.
The radical animal-rights group Companions in the Ark, based in Melbourne, Australia, today announced its latest inductee into its Hall of Shame: Dr. Peter G. Hobson, of Ontario, Canada, for claiming that animals are soulless creatures meant for human exploitation.
In a press release issued this morning, the American Atheist Society decried the religious interest engendered by the discovery of the Hobson phenomenon. “Science has long known that the brain is an electrochemical machine,” said society director Daniel Smithson. “This discovery simply reaffirms that. To extrapolate from it to the existence of heaven or hell, or of a divine creator, is irrational wishful thinking.”
CHAPTER 21
Using the online HELP function, the three sims had discovered how to get out into the vast interconnected universe of computers across the globe.
The net.
The network.
Not just the VR sig and static books. Everything.
America Online. BIX. CompuServe. Delphi. EuroNet. FidoNet. GEnie. Helix. Internet … a whole alphabet of online systems, all interconnected through the Universal Gateway Protocol.
They had access to it all now. Sarkar’s computers were vast — AI research required that. A little more activity, or a little less, here or there would never be noticed.
They’d never be able to read all the text — it multiplied orders of magnitude more quickly than they could process it.
But the net contained more than just text. There were pictures, too. Millions of GIFs of people with their pets, people on the beach, favorite cars, movie stars both dressed and nude, cartoons, clip art, weather maps, NASA images.
And multimedia files with full-motion video and sound.
And interactive games that they could play anonymously against human and computer opponents around the globe.
And bulletin boards and E-mail systems.
And newspapers and magazines and specialized databases.
And on and on and on.
The sims indulged themselves for days, reveling in all the input.
And one sim, in particular, became very intrigued by what he was discovering. It was soon apparent that one could get almost anything on the net. Stocks were traded. Almost any kind of merchandise could be bought in the electronic malls — just charge it and have it delivered anywhere in the world. Stamp collectors arranged to swap rare issues. People sought answers to all kinds of questions. Sometimes even love affairs blossomed through electronic mail.
One could get almost anything on the net.
Almost anything.
This sim thought about what had made him sad, about what would make him happy, and about what had made him different, why he would consider this, when the flesh-and-blood Peter had not.
The sim weighed the consequences.
And then he dismissed the idea. Madness. A terrible thing to do. He should be ashamed for even contemplating the notion.
And yet…
Exactly what were the consequences?
In a very real sense, he’d be making the world a better place. And not just this ephemeral world of data and simulations. The real world. The world of flesh. And blood.
Did he really want to do this? he wondered.
Yes, he decided. Yes, he did.
The sim waited a day, just to be sure. And when that day had passed, and he still felt the same way, he resolved to wait yet another day.
And still he felt the same, felt that this was not only what he wanted, but, in some very real simulated sense, that this was what was right.
He watched the commerce on the net for a time, refining his knowledge of the customs and procedures — of netiquette.
And then he made his move.
Adopting a handle, as he’d seen many others do, he put this notice on a public bulletin board devoted to the sale of unusual services:
Date: 10 Nov 2011, 03:42 EST
From: Avenger
To: all
Subject: elimination
I’m having a problem with a particular individual in Toronto, and would like the problem eliminated. Suggestions?
He got some stupid public replies, as one always did on the net. Silly puns ("You’d like the problem laminated, you say? Holy sheet!") and complete irrelevan-cies ("I was in Toronto in 1995. What a clean city!"). But he also got a private reply, visible to him alone. It was exactly what he’d been hoping for.
Date: 10 Nov 2011, 23:57 EST
From: Helper
To: Avenger [private]
Subject: re: elimination
Might be able to help you out. Can we meet?
The sim responded at once. He hadn’t felt this much excitement since … well, since never. It was almost as good as adrenaline.
Date: 11 Nov 2011, 00:05 EST
From: Avenger
To: Helper [private]
Subject: re: elimination
Prefer not to meet. Looking for total elimination. Do we understand each other?
Date: 11 Nov 2011, 09:17 EST
From: Helper
To: Avenger [private]
Subject: re: elimination
Understand. Fee: CDN$100K, in advance via EFT to account 892-3358-392-1, First Bank of Switzerland (EFT: EuroswisslOO).
Date: 11 Nov 2011, 09:44 EST
From: Avenger
To: Helper [private]
Subject: re: elimination
Funds transfer will be arranged.
However, I want something a bit special; tell me if it will cost more.
Here are the details…
The money involved wasn’t exactly pocket change, but the sim knew all the proper codes for accessing Hobson Monitoring’s corporate accounts. And, after all, it was, in a way, his company, and his money.
Yes, indeed, thought the sim. One could get almost anything on the net.
CHAPTER 22
Cathy had gone again to see her therapist. Peter realized that he envied her: she had someone to talk to, someone who would listen. If only—
And then it hit him.
Of course.
The perfect answer.
It wouldn’t compromise the experiment — not really.
Sitting in the office in his home, Peter called into the computers at Mirror Image. When prompted to log on, he typed his account name, fobson. When he’d gotten his first computer account, back at U of T, he’d been assigned his first initial and last name as his login — phobson. But a classmate had pointed out that he could save a keystroke by changing the “ph” to an “f,” and Peter had adopted that as his standard login ever since.