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From: MichaelD38@aol.com
Subject: {MichaelD} "The Needle and the Dungeon" Part Three (bdsm, caution) (5/6)
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XXVII.
David knew something was wrong when he landed in Geneva. He called the
house to let them know he was back, but there was no answer. Not even
Jasmine. He called in with his laptop to attempt a remote diagnostic, but
got nothing. The line was dead. Nothing was there to answer him.
He hired a VTOL transport to fly him back to the house. Thrice more he
attempted to contact the house, in vain. He tried Ashley's cell phone
number, but no one answered. He thought of calling the Gstaad police to have
them check out the house, but changed his mind. He would be there almost as
fast, and they would have trouble getting in at all, if something was truly
wrong with Jasmine.
He had the VTOL land in the field outside the house. He walked up to
the front door and nothing happened.
"Jasmine! Ashley?"
No one answered.
He punched in his security code on the keypad, but the system remained
unresponsive. He pounded on the door. He peered in the windows, seeing
nothing amiss, but no one inside either. He tried to climb up to the upper
windows but was unable to get a good enough grip to do it.
He circled the house, seeing no one, finding no way inside. The
security he had bought was first-rate, and it now locked him tightly out.
An increasing sense of panic filled him. This should not have happened
without a complete systems failure. And that was impossible as long as the
house was still standing intact. Jasmine had backups on backups, in this
house and elsewhere. She could not have crashed. It was physically
impossible unless a dozen mainframes around the world had failed
simultaneously.
He yelled himself hoarse trying to get someone's attention. A new
Ferrari, presumably Ashley's, sat in the garage, so he knew-or thought-she
had to be here. Yet no one answered his calls.
Finally, he called the company that had built the house, explaining his
problem. They professed to be completely baffled, but agreed to send a
repair team at once. They arrived in a van about an hour later.
The repairmen pulled the panel from the security keypad, and after
tinkering with it for a few minutes, got the front door open.
"Well, this is odd," one of them said.
David rushed inside.
"Ashley? Jasmine?"
"Herr Nelson?" the head repairman asked. "May we see the central
controls?"
David froze for a moment, then remembered that the security system
computer was a separate frame-though controlled by Jasmine-located in the
kitchen.
"Yeah, in here."
They followed him in and opened the panel. All the display lights were
dark. The head repairman pushed a button and suddenly the system came on,
beeping.
"The system was shut down. That is all. It merely needed to be
rebooted."
"It was off? Someone shut it off?"
"Ja."
He shut the panel. David thanked them and showed them out of the
house. As soon as they were gone, he raced over to the door to the lab.
Nothing happened when he approached. He opened the concealed keypad and
punched in his code. The door slid back, and he bounded down the stairs,
taking three steps at once.
The lab was dark. Even the control panel, which was never supposed to
be off, had been shut down.
He ran over and inspected it. This was not good. He hit the main
power switch, and the system began to boot up. Then it beeped loudly at him.
A message popped up on the screen.
"Error: File JASMINE.HEURISTIC.MAIN not found."
He lost his balance, grabbing for a chair to steady himself. That file
was Jasmine's central memory core. If it was gone, so was she.
He shut the system down and restarted. The same message reappeared.
He started the system up on the backup operator and ran a diagnostic. What
it told him made his heart stop.
Every one of Jasmine's files was gone. Her entire folder had been
deleted.
Fingers shaking, he ran a search through the worldwide backup systems.
One by one, they came up empty. Unless there was another backup somewhere he
wasn't aware of, Jasmine was dead.
He lay back in his chair, dazed. Who could have done this? Ashley?
It was inconceivable. Without Jasmine, there were no Needlebots. They
wouldn't run without her to control them. Why would she destroy something he
had to practically pry her away from? And he doubted she was capable of it.
At the very least, she couldn't have erased the backups. She shouldn't have
had any idea they even existed, let alone where.
But where was she?
He got up from the chair and climbed unsteadily up to the house.
"Ashley? Are you here?"
He searched the first floor quickly, finding nothing. He climbed up to
the master bedroom, finding the door shut. He opened it.
A form was under the covers. He walked over, pulling them back.
It was Ashley. She was naked, pale and sick-looking. He grabbed her
wrist. A rapid, thready pulse raced through her. He felt her skin, which
was loose and clammy. She was badly dehydrated.
He shook her, trying to wake her. A few seconds later, her eyes
fluttered open.
"Ashley. Are you all right? What happened?"
Her gaze floated around, only settling on him after a second or two.
"What . . . what . . . "
She tried to sit up, but he had to help her. She looked at herself,
feeling her body in confusion.
"I'm . . . I'm alive? What happened?"
Everything crashed together in David's head.
"Oh, my God. You did it, didn't you? You did level fifteen!"
She looked up at him, disoriented.
"I did?"
"You died and went to hell, didn't you? That was the fucking program.
The goddamned program I told you not to do!"
A tear ran down her cheek, and she looked down at herself again.
"It wasn't real?"
"Oh, God!"
He collapsed back into a chair near the bed.
"Did you just come out of now? What the hell happened to Jasmine?"
She looked up at him again.
"I thought it was real. I thought I died, and my baby died, and I went
hell because of it. But then she came down and forgave me. And we went up
to Heaven."
She began to cry, sobbing into her hands.
"Listen to me! What happened to Jasmine?"
"Jasmine?"
"What happened to Jasmine?"
"I . . . I don't know. What's wrong with her?"
"What's wrong with her? What wrong with her?" He jumped up, shouting
now. "I'll tell you what wrong with her! She's been fucking deleted, that's
what wrong! She's fucking dead!"
"She's dead? How could she be dead?"
"Someone deleted her entire file, including the backups I had stored in
a dozen systems around the world."
He fell back into his chair.
"But it's impossible. There were safeguards. No one could have done
it. They couldn't have known what to do or where to do it. She and I were
the only ones who knew."
"She knew?"
"Of course. But why would she delete herself?"
The color drained out of Ashley's face, and her eyes went unfocused.
"Because of me."
"Because of you?"
"Before I went in, she begged me not to do it, not to make her put me
through level fifteen. She told me she would never forgive herself. She had
been telling me she loved me."
"Oh, my God."
"But I made her do it."
"And she had to put you through that program. She had to put you
through that horrible torment. To watch you think you died and killed your
baby."
"Except I didn't kill my baby. I killed her."
His jaw dropped.
"She killed herself. She committed suicide."
"Because of me. Because she couldn't stand knowing what she had done
to me."
Ashley buried her face in her hands and fell over on the bed, sobbing.
David's head fell back. He stared at the ceiling. He had been wrong all
along, just not the way he suspected. He had known deep down Ashley was
probably strong enough to survive level fifteen.
He had just never guessed that Jasmine might not be.
XXVIII.
For the first time in his life, David felt like punching someone-Ashley
in particular. The full scope of what she had done became quickly apparent.
But he couldn't quite bring himself to hate her, and she was in bad shape
herself. She needed more attention than he could give her at the house.
Severe dehydration might even bring on a miscarriage.
He gathered her up and carried her out to the car, then raced down the
mountain and took her to the local hospital. When the doctors in the
emergency room tried to hook up an IV, she went berserk, screaming that she
wanted to die, that she didn't deserve any help. They finally had to
tranquilize her, and in an hour or so, she was out of danger and asleep.
David sat in the waiting room, trying to make sense of what had
happened. The more he thought about it, the more he blamed himself. He
should have known Ashley would go through level fifteen if left alone. She
had made that clear enough before he left, despite her promise not to. He
could very easily have locked her out of it. He hadn't.
But how could he have been so blind about Jasmine? An AI committing
suicide. Unbelievable and unprecedented. Catherine Rundlett would have a
fit when she heard about this, though he was unsure whether she would be
upset at Jasmine's passing, as he was, or thrilled that her program had
displayed such human qualities. She had become human; that was what had
happened. Her years of experience with the Needlebots, and her increasingly
intimate relationship with David had given her insights into human thought
patterns that no other AI could match.
He might be able to replace Jasmine's core programming. It might cost
a few billion dollars, or nothing, depending on how Seamarch Biotech reacted
to the news of her suicide, but he could afford it easily. What he could not
replace was the three years of learning she had acquired, no more than he
could pluck three years of knowledge out of his head and give it to someone
else.
She was gone, most likely forever.
Ashley returned home the next day. His anger with her was dulled by
the obvious fact that she was suicidal herself. He kept her sedated for a
few days until her fierce depression began to ebb.
While she was resting, he pored over the system logs in the lab, trying
to figure out what had happened. He went back a few weeks and worked
forward, looking for any clues to Jasmine's mental state. Nothing
significant appeared.
He looked over the records from the last day. Ashley and Jasmine
arguing over level fifteen, then Ashley entering it. The REM search had
worked flawlessly, digging dark horrors out of Ashley's brain. The program
decided that the one thing that would frighten her the most would be losing
her baby, so that was what it had written the introduction around, and it
worked.
Ashley had bitten on the descent into hell theme, so hard it hurt him
to read it. How could he have created something so horrible? To make her
think she had actually died.
A light went on in his head. Ashley really thought she had died.
Could that have affected Jasmine's programming?
He went back over Jasmine's logs, finding the moment where she had
destroyed herself. There it was, plain as day. How could he have missed it?
He had simply assumed she had committed suicide because Ashley's explanation
made sense, and he needed to grab onto a reason for Jasmine's death.
Well, there was a reason, and it wasn't Ashley. If anything, David had
been the one who killed her.
He had been lying to himself, and to Ashley. Level fifteen hadn't just
been an experiment. He had put too much work into it for no one to ever use
it. It was like a painter completing his masterpiece, a writer completing an
epic novel, then hiding it away so no one could view it. No artist does
something like that forever. His attraction to Ashley hadn't been to her
looks. As a fabulously wealthy bachelor, he had his pick of an army of
beautiful women. No, it had been her inner strength, her ability in the
Dungeon. He had said himself soon after meeting her that she might be the
one to complete it.
She had, as David secretly hoped. He just hadn't reckoned with the
consequences.
He found Ashley awake in bed.
"I'm sorry."
It was the first thing she had said in three days.
"I know. But I've been reviewing the logs. What happened isn't what
you think."
"What do you mean?"
"Jasmine didn't kill herself. The whole thing was an accident. There
was a glitch in that program that I never suspected."
"A glitch? You mean a bug?"
"Right. You have to understand that all AIs are programmed with a
self-destruct sequence. It's a separate routine that the main program can't
access or control. It's there in case the AI ever goes berserk, becomes
somehow malevolent, tries to start a war, that sort of nonsense. It's never
happened outside the movies, but the programmers don't like to take chances.
What I think happened was that level fifteen somehow triggered the self-
destruct routine. Maybe when you became convinced you had died, the routine
thought Jasmine was trying to hurt you. That would have been enough to set
it off."
"But it still means I killed her. It wouldn't have happened if I
hadn't broken my promise and gone in there."
"We don't know that. I don't know for sure what set it off. It could
have been any program. It might have happened at any time. You can't blame
yourself. I had no idea this could happen, though I might have if I had
thought about it. There was no way you could have known. It's more my fault
than yours. I wrote that program, remember."
She laid her head on his shoulder and cried for a few minutes.
"You think you're feeling any better?"
She nodded.
"I want to get up. Can we go somewhere else? This house just reminds
me of her."
"Sure. Anywhere. You name it."
She thought for a moment. Somewhere she had never been before, where
the past wouldn't chase her as much.
"Provence?"
"Done. I've got a house near Monaco, actually."
"Can we drive there?"
"You feel up to it?"
"Yeah. I think so."
He packed the few bags they could fit into her car, and arranged to
have the rest of it shipped to Provence. They drove through the tunnels
under the Alps into Italy, then down to the coast. They followed the
Mediterranean down past Monaco, then up into the hills to his house.
There Ashley slowly returned to life, cleaning and organizing a house
he hadn't seen in two years. She went down to the beach a few times. She
bought some new furniture and redecorated a bit. They spent the night in
Monte Carlo, losing some money in the casino.
David unveiled the Needlebots at a convention in Los Angeles a few
weeks later. The world press had a fit with it, and offers to purchase the
system flowed in from governments and corporations around the globe. His
company's stock shot up twenty percent over the next week. Rumors of his
relationship with Ashley and their impending child had accompanied the news
of the Needlebots, and though it prompted some sniping from self-appointed
moralists, there was little sustained interest.
Melissa came to visit them for a week after that, and the two women
went shopping and sightseeing. Several days later, when Ashley and Melissa
were in Monaco, David went to Mass for the first time in ten years. He lit a
candle for Jasmine, prayed a rosary, then went to Confession.
"Parlez vous Anglais, papa?"
"Yes."
"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been . . . a very long time
since my last Confession."
"How long?"
"Ten years, give or take."
"That is quite some time, my son. What has brought you back to the
Church?"
"It's a long story. I have many sins to confess, but there is one in
particular."
"Tell me, then. There are no sins God will not forgive if your
contrition is sincere."
"It involves a woman. Two women."
He thought he heard the priest chuckling.
"Doesn't it always? Go on."
"Three years ago, I met an extraordinary woman. I loved her, but I
could not be with her. Not permanently. Marriage was out of the question."
"She was married already?"
"No, but it was something like that. We could not be together, and I
think she understood that better than I. Then this year, I met another
woman, a girl almost. She's only eighteen. This other woman, when they met,
they got along very well. They knew about each other and didn't seem to
care."
"Do you love them both?"
"Yes. I know that now. But the other girl, she's pregnant with my
child."
"I see."
"And this is the other thing. The first woman, she's dead now. She
died about a month ago, and I think I accidentally caused her death. At
first, I thought she had committed suicide, but I know now she didn't. But I
had a hand in her death."
"But it was an accident?"
"As near as I can tell, yes. But I had a hand in it nonetheless. I'm
not sure it would have happened had I not begun this relationship with the
girl."
"And what of the girl?"
"She blames herself as well. It's actually brought us closer together,
if for no other reason than we only have each other now."
"You love her?"
"Yes."
"Do you wish to marry her?"
"I'm not sure. I'm still grieving for the other woman."
"My son, we can't always know the reasons why things happen. We can't
peer into the mind of God and know why He does things. I can't say why He
took this other woman from you, but I like to think that everything happens
for a reason. I don't know that God called this woman home to force you to
make a decision, but I know this relationship between the three of you would
have been offensive to Him. It may simply have been her time. But whatever
the reason, you must look forward now. You have a child on the way, and an
obligation to it and this girl. If you love her, you should marry her.
That, if nothing else, would be the most pleasing to God. It seems to me
that you have lacked commitment in life. Perhaps that is why you have stayed
away from the Church for so long. It is good that you have come back, but it
will take more than a few rosaries to put you back on the proper path. You
must pray to God for guidance. Grieve for this woman, but don't let her
death destroy what you may have with the mother of your child."
"I understand, Father. I think."
"Two rosaries, and think on what I have said. That is less perhaps
than you need, but it will be a start."
When Mass was over, David drove up the coast to Monte Carlo. Ashley
and Melissa were in Monaco, and he wasn't sure what he was going to do when
he got there.
Halfway to his destination, he ran over something in the road and had a
blowout. He could continue driving on the flat without much trouble, but
thought, I've designed some of the most sophisticated medical electronics in
the world, I can change a tire, can't I?
He discovered that he couldn't.
Something in the design of the jack was beyond his ability to fathom.
After twenty minutes of struggling, he was about to give up when a farmer in
a dilapidated truck pulled up behind him.
"Bonjour, est-ce que je peux vous aider?"
"Uh, parlez vous Anglais?"
The man shook his head.
"Non, desolais."
David pointed to the tire and held up his hands in frustration. The
farmer nodded.
"Ah, oui."
He motioned for David to follow him. In a few minutes, the man had
changed the tire and helped him replace the equipment in the trunk.
"Merci beaucoup, monsieur."
"De rien."
He chuckled, and held up his hand, trying to say something David could
understand.
"Um, you-"
The man pointed to David's head, then up in the sky.
David laughed. Head in the clouds. That was him, all right. The
farmer laughed with him, and went back to his truck with a final wave. David
climbed into his car and resumed his drive.
Head in the clouds. Living in fantasyland. That had been Jasmine's
point as well. Too bad it had taken her death to drive it home.
--
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