“How do you fault people for fleeing a burning house, whatever the immigration laws might be? And believe me, their house was burning. And you don’t let your children get hurt, or die—you get them out of there, whatever the cost. The shadow people did what they had to do.”
“So people are no better, no more generous, than they used to be in my day,” Danielbot said.
“Human beings have greater powers of empathy than you might think. Their ability to mirror feelings, even quite dark feelings, to understand someone else’s desperate situation, is really quite remarkable. That’s why the scenarios work as well as they do.”
Danielbot wondered. If he had a question, was it coming from him, or from the Daniel simulation inside him? He decided to ask it anyway. “Is this what you wanted to do with your life?”
Falstaff looked genuinely surprised. He stared at his hands, taking turns rubbing one with the other. Danielbot felt envious. He missed the human version of his hands. “It was never my goal. How could it be? Who could imagine such a thing? It’s been okay. It’s been interesting. It’s kept body and soul together at a time when many are denied that benefit. But—human beings settle, you understand? That’s much of what we spend our time on. Sometimes our imaginings are exquisitely detailed in that regard: what, specifically, we would accomplish, who we would be with, what they would look like, even down to the fine details of weather and the quality of the light that day. We also imagine what we would look like on such occasions, and it’s usually somewhat different than the way we in fact look today.
“But we settle for less. Because we have no choice.”
“Why? Why no choice?”
“Because no one can imagine reality, or would want to. That’s the sad truth of it. Reality seems a poor substitute for what we dream. Most of us eventually accept that, even though it annoys and disappoints. But some of us become so angry, our frustration building over a period of years, that we erupt. We rage. And we destroy.”
A bot was lying on the roof, one of the guards prodding him with the end of his rifle. “Can’t you stop that?”
“I really have little influence over them,” Falstaff said. “Security was never part of my responsibilities. In fact, there was always a certain amount of friction between the research team and the security team. The guards know what we do here, and they see how our subjects are after their scenarios.”
“And to what end?” The Danielbot wanted to touch this man, to shake him, although he knew the guards would kill him before Falstaff could stop them. “What was the purpose of all this? What have you accomplished?”
Falstaff shrugged, looked at his hands. “I was just a little boy when the first waves of migrations hit the city. About ten years before I was born they discovered the process by which they could peek into the past and record a mind, partially or completely, depending on conditions. The average citizen didn’t know about it—still doesn’t—the government decided it might have security applications, and kept it secret. Some historians knew—they’d been hired by the government to play around with the technology, see what they could get it to do. And the scientists who developed it, my grandfather being one of those key figures. The government paid him well for that—he became a rich man, although he couldn’t tell anyone how.
“I think there was shame attached to the enterprise from the beginning. Initially they targeted certain famous individuals, filling in the gaps of history with investigations into secrets, motivations, ambiguous events. The government didn’t want any of that released, believing, quite accurately, I imagine, that if the citizens found out that their heroes had feet of clay it would reflect poorly on those in charge, whatever their politics. They might have shut the project down if not for the fact that a great deal of money, and certain cultural treasures, were located as a by-product of these investigations.
“The goal of the experiment was not necessarily to recreate an historical reality, although sometimes that might be useful, but to gain some understanding of the psychological dynamics involved.
“My grandfather had loftier goals. He thought these studies might lead to actual time travel, perhaps even a boost in human longevity. My father worked for him, but had concerns about the effects on the lives of the participants. He thought he might be able to ameliorate that, especially after he married my mother, my grandfather’s only child.
“I was too young, really, to understand much about the food riots. I remember that my grandfather was sympathetic to the poor and all those people who had lost their homes, from whatever country. Then my grandmother and my mother and my sister were caught up in one of those riots. They were all killed. And my grandfather found a new purpose for the technology, and funded it himself. Violence—its causes and prevention. Not every culture has been violent, so he didn’t believe it was innate. He felt if he could explore the causes he could root out the destroyer inside us.”
“And? Any progress?”
“I…I certainly believe we’re closer. Obviously if some needs aren’t met, for the individual, for the group, violence occurs. But how do you meet those needs? Can you meet those needs? That’s more difficult.
“My grandfather believed that at their core, human beings were a kind of possessed ape, haunted by intelligence and violent urges. He believed that if we learned enough about these urges we might exorcise them, and create human beings capable of solving our problems.
“I think he should have focused instead on climate change, poverty, food shortages, and the creation of meaningful work. If these problems had been solved, or if enough progress had been made, well, I think there might not have been a need to probe the past for the answers to violence.
“We’ve created some remarkable things. We thought we were creating a kind of heaven, at least for those who could afford it, but the results have been a kind of hell.
“And everyone who has worked here realizes that it’s far too late to apply what we might have learned to our current situation. We all understand it is too late for us. But what else can we do? We’re committed.”
Danielbot wanted to strike the man, but knew he would not. In fact he’d probably been rendered incapable. “You say human beings have empathy. Could you spare some of that empathy for me? I once was a person, or I thought I was. I once thought I had a family, but that has been taken away from me. I am nothing now, simply a recording device, and I am far more alone than I can fathom. And yet I ache for the wife I thought I had. I ache for that child. And I am devastated that the man whose memories I represent may have made a terrible mistake.”
AFTER A FEW days some of the bots chose a resting place on the roof, any spot with a little bit of privacy or shade, where they became quiet, then motionless, and never woke up again. Danielbot came to understand that their bodies were powered by some kind of battery, and although he’d never been aware of being recharged, it was something that must have occurred on a regular basis and now was not happening anymore.
He wasn’t the only one to figure this out. Leninbot showed him where a cord was hidden near the abdomen, and how it could be released and connected to one of several outlets in the roof. “But I don’t know that any of them have any current. At least I don’t feel anything. But I’d do it anyway, just in case.” And he’d see other bots follow Leninbot’s advice. Still, bots continued to become dormant. The fact that they all didn’t freeze into immobility at the same time suggested that the batteries varied in terms of strength and quality, but eventually running out of power appeared inevitable.