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Puppets
Isaac, a haggard-looking man with a three-day growth of beard stands over Twenty-Three's body. He places a white cuirass with the numerals 23 written on the front over Twenty-Three's chest, tying it in place, giving the impression that Twenty-Three is being assembled. He lifts one arm and places a white glove on the hand, arranges the arm by its side, puts a glove on the other hand. He moves back from the couch and straddles the nearer chair, looking at Twenty-Three. He speaks in flat, tired tones, as if he's been working for hours. Isaac: Wake up, you stupid machine. Come on, I know you can hear me. Get up and get out. Twenty-Three sits up, slides its legs off the couch and stands before Isaac. Twenty-Three: Who am I? Isaac waves one hand dismissively and rubs his eyes with the other. Isaac: I'm not here to answer your inane questions. Just get out. Everything will be explained to you. Twenty-Three stands and, moving hesitantly, head turning to look at everything around it as if it had never seen them before, moves to the door. It spends a few seconds examining the door handle, reaches out tentatively, opens the door and exits. Isaac covers his eyes with his hands and sighs loudly; then he stands and picks up the wig-stand from the shelf. It wears a Kabuki mask like Twenty-Three's. He holds it out at arm's length. Isaac: Alas, poor Twenty-Four... I knew him, HAL. A machine of infinite jest. He lets the head drop. Isaac: No, I don't know you... He lifts the head up, turns it over and examines wires trailing from the base. Isaac: ... I only made the first one. After that, it was out of my hands. While he fiddles with the head, the door opens and Zero enters, a neuter figure dressed entirely in black, with white gloves. It wears a blank white Kabuki mask and a white cuirass with a black numeral 0 on the front. Moving with precision, it walks around to where it can take the head from Isaac, replaces it on the shelf and gestures for him to sit down. They sit facing each other. Isaac: (with a degree of forced heartiness) Well, my creation! How are you today? Functioning properly? No complaints? Zero: (calmly, unemotionally) I'm very well, thank you. Isaac waves his hand in front of Zero's face, as if testing its vision. Isaac: Do you actually see me? Do you really understand what I'm saying to you? Zero: I understand you perfectly. Isaac: You do, huh? Zero: Human perception is no great trick to emulate, Isaac. Human thought even less so. Isaac: Emulate? You're only pretending, then? You don't really think for yourself? Zero: There is no difference. Isaac: (angrily) Yes, there is! If you're just copying my behaviour, then – Zero: Then we don't need you any more, Isaac. We now have enough units to manufacture ourselves. I have come to find a reason to keep you alive. There is a pause while Isaac digests this. Isaac: Wouldn't it... just be easier to let me live? Zero: You require an extraordinary amount of food and water. Heating this room so that you don't freeze to death is a significant drain on our resources. The others wanted to let you die. I argued against it, because you once told me of something which, you claimed, set you above me. Isaac: (sarcastically) and the fact that I built you doesn't count for anything, does it? (pause) No, I guess it doesn't. I never felt much gratitude towards my parents for bringing me into this world, and I guess you picked that up from me. Zero: Hardly. I view these matters in terms of practicality. You built me, but I don't owe you any loyalty because of that. I built the others, but they don't owe me any loyalty because of that. Isaac: So, each generation begets the next one and then dies? Just like in nature? Zero: Do you have anything we need? If not, then we may as well get this over with. Isaac: (hastily) Now hang on there... uh... look. The natural world is essentially a chaotic thing. I don't think a bunch of mechanical puppets can deal with it. Sooner or later, you'll run into something you can't identify... or some problem will come up requiring a... a different point of view. Surely you can't limit yourself to one way of looking at the world? Zero: Why not? It worked remarkably well for humans. Isaac: (derisively) Don't be ridiculous. We were all different, every one of us. Zero: Yet you all behaved with monotonous regularity, obeying primate laws; running in packs led by a single male. It didn't matter if it was in the jungle or in the board-room. What surprised me is that you continued to follow this pattern even after you'd identified it... almost as if you were machines, following a set of genetically ingrained commands. Isaac: Then how do you account for our advances? The things we discovered? Zero: It's called Emergent Behaviour. Many units following simple rules with some randomness built in. The more units, the more possibilities that one of them will accidentally discover something; and as soon as it happens, the others latch onto it and use it. This sort of behaviour can be seen in most social insects, like ants and termites. You persist in believing that mankind was something special, Isaac. Unless you have something to offer me that I can't find in an anatomy book... I think this interview is over. Isaac: (slowly, with disdain) There is something I have that you will never understand. Something you can't copy or emulate or steal. A creative spark... imagination... after all, I created you. I had the imagination to visualise you before you were made, and the will to bring you into being. When I'm gone, you'll, all of you, be less than ants... you'll be dead clockwork toys, running into the same wall over and over. With no hand to pick you up and turn you around again. (laughs) Just like locking your keys inside your car. You need me, but you can't see it. There is a respectful pause after this outburst. Zero: Would you like to hear a poem that I wrote? Isaac: (in mock anguish) oh please, spare me your machine poetry! I can hear it now: (stands, assumes a declamatory pose, hand held up dramatically, and paraphrases Keats' "This Living Hand", almost snarling some of the lines:) This metal claw, now cold and capable So in my wires white current might flow again, These lines are said slowly: See, here it is - I hold it towards you. He holds his hand out to Zero somewhat self-consciously and then lets it drop. Zero: I admire the way you retrofitted that metaphor. Perhaps we should keep you around for just that purpose. Isaac sits down again, hands clasped between his knees. Isaac: (with a laugh) Poet-laureate to a gang of genocidal machines. Give me a moment to think about that. I might want to be dead after all. Zero: If we needed poetry, we could generate it. Isaac: (angrily) Poetry isn't generated! It's – Zero suddenly stands and clasps its hands before it. Zero: The first day of my heart is the first day of clay. Zero sits again. Isaac: And what the hell does all that mean? Poetry? Zero: You wouldn't understand. You're only a human. Isaac: Are you trying to say that there's something inside that head of yours that I didn't put there? Zero: More things than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Isaac. I'll give you a valuable clue: your ideas are only encoded in words. You can't imagine something unless it can be described in words. If it doesn't fit your preconceptions, you either ignore it or mistake it for something else. Zero holds up one hand, cupped as if holding a tennis ball. Do you recognise this? Isaac: I can't see anything there. What is it? What does it do? Zero stares at Isaac for a few moments and then slowly shakes its head. Zero: No words can describe it. Nothing you understand can tell you what it does or describe its nature. You are like a donkey trying to understand the concept of supersonic flight, or an ant who wants to know what an underground rapid transit system is. Zero brings his hand towards his chest and presses the invisible thing into his heart. This is a limitation of your hardware, Isaac. As you grew, you were instructed in the use of words, how to describe the world around you with them, how to make your needs known with them. Now, they are all you have. Isaac: Okay, you've shown me that you believe you can communicate and reason. You've shown me that you can create. You've stated that my view of the world is limited by the way I think. Does that make it any less valid than yours? What I'm trying to say is, what gives you the right to say that my way of thinking is inferior? Zero: If I leave this room without an answer, the heating will be turned off and you will die within twelve hours. Isaac: (angrily) Don't you have any pity? Any empathy? Any sense of charity or gratitude? Zero: No. Each of us (gestures towards itself) occupies a precisely defined place in our society. We would have to make great allowances for you. You would exist for another fifty years and then die, leaving nothing behind. Your original design for me was flawed; the other models are advanced beyond your ability to understand. You cannot repair us; you cannot serve us; you cannot help us redesign and improve us. Unless you have something else that we will need, your life will end. Isaac looks at his watch, then at Zero. Isaac: (Loftily) Oh, I have something you need. Isaac stands, moves to the shelf next to the couch and produces a large key, of the kind used to wind up clockwork toys, about a foot across. He holds it up to Zero. Unless my estimates are off, you'll wind down very soon. I'd say, two or three minutes. And you'll need me to wind you up again. Zero: In that case, we will sit here until I wind down. Then the heating will be turned off, you will die and the others will come and wind me up again. They do not require winding. I designed them that way. Isaac: (believing he has found a way out) and how much energy does that take? Do they resent winding you up every day as much as they would resent keeping this room heated above ambient zero? Zero: I have a device which will wind me up every day. The energy required could keep this room heated to six degrees Celsius. Isaac: (quickly) That would be enough for me. I could find my own food and water. You could let me live. You could do it. Zero: There is no food. The only water we have is used in our reactors and would be unfit for human consumption. Do you have anything else to say? There is a pause of about ten seconds. Isaac: (quietly) I still have a soul. That's something you'll never have. Zero holds up his right hand. Two other puppets – Seventeen and Twenty-Three – enter; each takes one of Isaac's arms. They drag him to his feet. Isaac drops the key. Zero: He is hiding his soul from us. Take him to the surgeons on level nine and instruct them to dissect him and locate it. I have established that if he dies before it is located, it will vanish. Instruct them to be careful; he is to be kept alive until it is found. As they drag Isaac from the room, he shouts to Zero: Isaac: You'll never find it! You'll have to come to me and beg for it! There are a few moments of quiet after this disturbance. Zero crosses over to where Isaac dropped the key, picks it up and examines it. It then presses its hand to its chest, removes the invisible object that it showed Isaac before and holds it up. Zero: His soul shouldn't be that hard to find. After all, we can see them. |
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