Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg Electric Lamps Will Not Dispel the Coming Darkness Tim Carey Some weeks ago, in a departure from my customary routine, I combined dark coffee with my normal whiskey nightcap. I was struggling at my desk with an arcane problem of linear algebra, searching to find the eigenvector associated with the least eigenvalue for a matrix minimization, a form of numerical sorcery of some commercial interest to an important client. I suppose these details are not important to what followed; the coffee did not provide any additional clarity and I eventually retired to my bedchamber resolved to try again in the morning. After what seemed to be an eternity of restless tossing about, I lit the lamp and picked up a volume of ghost stories 1. I had a vague intention of assessing whether a basis could be found in 18th and 19th century ghost stories to support recent LitCrit assertions conflating the gothic element with queer fabulism 2. Perhaps it would be more honest to admit that I was hoping for the soporific effects of 19th century prose to deliver me from the purgatory of wakefulness. Heedless to any disturbance I might cause, I raise the sash, ready to shout. My voice dies in my throat. They are gone. I lower the sash, they are back. I raise the sash, they are gone. The hair stands up on the back of my neck. This is frightening, impossible. of aggravation before disappearing into the night. These voices were different: low, murmuring, persisting. After some minutes, rousing myself from my bedclothes and cracking the shutter open slightly, I peer out to the corner, spying two dark shapes. Again, this is not completely unusual, sometimes the drunks are compelled to stop and argue on At some point, I became aware of my corner. voices. I think about shouting at them I might point out that this was not out of the window to move necessarily unusual, I live close to along, but this would only further the student quarter, not far from disturb the rest of the the port. There are often noisy neighborhood. I pull on my drunks making their way home dressing gown and descend the from the various taverns. They stairway for a confrontation. pass loudly, profanely, their jocularity causing a few seconds Fortunately, when I open the door, they are gone. I look up and down the street. Nobody. I remain rational enough to conduct a small experiment. I lower the sash to about an inch or two above the sill and peer out through the small gap between the sill and the window frame. They are gone. I raise my head enough to look through the glass, immediately they are back, with I return to my bedchamber, their incessant murmuring. remove my dressing gown, and extinguish the lamp. The instant In horror, I flee my bedchamber the lamp is out, the voices return. in my nightgown. Racing I look out the window and they downstairs and out into the night have returned. Angry now, I to the barn, returning to the grab my robe and race down the bedroom with a wooden mallet. stairs throwing open the door I smash the window, shards of and… there is no one there. glass flying everywhere. The phantoms disappear. At the top of the stairs, I walk to the hallway window with a clear I examine the glass closely. They view of the corner. Nobody is are new windows, installed three there. From the front bed years ago when I renovated the chamber, nothing. From my house. It takes a few minutes for study, the view reveals the corner me to locate the small electronic to be vacant. circuit chips embedded in the window frame: camera, I re-enter my bed chamber and processor, communications, but remove my dressing gown. I what is the power source? I have just put my head to pillow examine the glass more closely; when the voices return. the UV coating looks somewhat suspicious, a ghostly tracing of I leap from my bed and throw almost microscopic lines… a open the shutter. The two figures transparent solar cell? are there, urgently conversing. 1 Fantastic Tales, Italo Calvino © 1983 by Arnoldo Monadori Editor S.p.A., Milano. English translation ©1977 Penguin Random House LLC. 2 How a queer fabulism came to dominate contemporary women’s writing. Kit Haggard, https://theoutline.com/post/5751 Page 1 © 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg The ramifications of this discovery shock me. The economic enterprise involved is well within the reach of governments for a single individual, but what if I am not the only victim? What if this… what to call it …substitution has become widespread? How is it paid for? behind the companies that make lobster, and seared duck, I am in … the screens. the library enjoying a superb Armagnac Lannoud, vintage 1942, As if to confirm my from the club’s outrageously investigations, a sudden good wine cellars 3. The coffee thunderstorm appears through table in front of me was covered the study window. Thunder, with papers that I had requested lightning, darkness, hail. A threat from the Massachusetts Historical of a funnel cloud forming in the Society. The fire was burning down to embers, I am alone in distance. the room, the couch across from The hall window, of course, is me empty. showing a wonderfully sunny New England day. Cool. Crisp. The steward came in refilled my glass and added another couple of As the study window does now. logs to the fire. “Will there be anything else Monsieur?” With a wave of my hand he departs. I was reviewing club correspondence from more than About a week after the events hundred years ago related above, I find myself dining one concerning the true nature of alone at my club. Before dinner, poetry; apparently free-verse was I had casually examined the large controversial in bay windows in the drawing still somewhat th room while enjoying an aperitif the mid-204 century… at least in Interestingly, the under the ruse of watching the this club. club’s paper archives, now stored orange sky of a brilliant sunset at the Massachusetts Historical behind the silhouettes of the Society are discrepant with the town houses lining digitized versions on the club’s Commonwealth Avenue. The clubhouse, a former mansion for public website… a wealthy industrialist, was built in the late 19th century. The bay The steward briefly returns with windows are curved, and the my eyeglasses in hand apparently, woodwork is remarkably ornate. I had left them in the dining Handmade. I remembered the room. He put them on the table. glass in the window had been I was absorbed in my reading: replaced during a renovation a why should the digitized versions decade ago, ostensibly for energy of the documents be different efficiency. It was quite expensive from the paper archives they were to fabricate the custom-made scanned from? The change in was subtle, but curved thermo-pane glass panels, meaning they were on order for almost a meaningful… and to the favor of I year. I lean forward to closely the frees verse side. absentmindedly reach for the inspect the glass and I am not surprised to see a ghostly tracing eyeglasses to put them in my breast pocket. of microscopic wiring… Then a realization: I have paid for it myself, when I bought the new windows. The agents behind this invasion remain hidden, in or After a sumptuous seasonal dinner of oysters, chowder, soft-shelled crab, sweet summer corn, a small swordfish steak of generous area, Then, suddenly a voice from the other window. I walk over and open the shutter. The apparitions are on the sidewalk now, looking up at me. “We’ll need to talk,” the taller one says. “we’ll be in touch.” They vanish. Π Over the next few days, a semblance of normalcy returns, if it can be considered normal to spend my time inspecting every window, every mirror, every bit of glass, every appliance, every electric outlet, every device. After a few days, I have determined that every piece of glass in my house has been replaced by screens. I have not been looking at the world through my windows, I had been looking at a simulacrum of the world. I have not been hearing the world through the glass, I have been hearing what “they” want me to hear. All the while, under surveillance. No privacy, nothing hidden from them. Π It seems, that I now have two pairs of identical glasses. I took a deep breath, waiting for my heartbeat to slow. I examined both pairs of eyeglasses closely. They appear to be identical. Ted Baker – London. Identical even to the prescription number laseretched onto the temples. A close examination of the lenses, however, revealed the now increasingly familiar network of microscopic lines. For a moment, I am tempted to throw them in the fire, but I realize that that would only be postponing the inevitable. Π There they are. Sitting across the coffee table from me on the other couch. I lower the glasses, and they disappear. I raise the glasses and they are as real as I am. I am amazed at the quality of the image. The flickering fire, flickers on them as well. I slide the glasses down my nose, and look over over the tops of the glasses, and there is no one there, even as I can see legs and feet through the bottom of the glasses. They laugh. A man and a woman. Both distinguished, mid-fifties. He is gray-haired, a well-made suit and club tie, my club. She has colored her hair, reddish brown with blond steaks. Blue dress, high neckline, pearl necklace. She notices me looking, smiles, and suddenly… changes. A skirt and a sweater, And I discover that my glasses lower cut with a V-neck. Some were already in my breast pocket. décolletage peaking out. An emerald pendant on a long chain. A hint of a camisole. 3 As the other clubs in the area have met financial demise over the decades our members have aggressively and assiduously pursued their wine cellars. Out of forty-three clubs at the turn of the 20th century, and eight at the turn of the 21st century, only this club and the Union Club currently remain. 4 The arguments between Frost and Eliot were the stuff of legend. Page 2 © 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg I slowly get up from my couch and walk around behind them. I take the glasses off, and of course they are not there, but wearing the glasses… the screens, I suppose I should say, they look as real from the back as they do from the front. “Who are you?”, I ask. They laugh again and I realize there is an acoustic speaker built into the glasses. I take them off to examine the temples, but I cannot find the audio device. When I put the glasses back on, they have changed, now both ridiculously in drag. He in her skirt, sweater, pedant. His make-up is somewhat clownish, his wig is expensive. She has his suit on, perfectly tailored, club tie. Hair combed back. Impeccable. “You are bots,” I say. painting of Bacchus, and a couple of nudes, painted more than 100 years ago by a famous member and displayed every New Year’s Eve. There are other pieces too, nymphs and satyrs, more carnal, no longer suitable since women members were admitted more than fifty years ago. I am suddenly surprised by a series of oil paintings of Shibari and Kinbaku rope bondage. They are quite beautifully done, although clearly no longer appropriate for a co-ed club. I wonder to which club epoch they belong. One painting especially catches my eye, a woman with red hair tied with red rope. Her back is to the viewer and her arms are contorted in an unnatural pose. Suddenly, the painting…changes, becoming alive, a video. The model turns toward me and whispers, “Hello Darling”. They raise their fingers to their lips, indicating silence. They rise I take the glasses off and of from the couch and beckon me course the painting disappears. to follow them. All the Shibari/Kinbaku paintings have been an illusion. Which I do. Π I follow them through the lobby to the door behind reception. They have changed back to their original genders, if a bot can be said to have a gender. Down a short hallway, to the stairs leading to the below grade ground floor. In the original mansion, this was kitchens, laundry and servants’ quarters. I follow them through storerooms, and then the climate-controlled area where the surplus art collection is stored. There is the famous 5 The ‘woman’ bot calls to me, “We know a lot about you. Come along.” Π Descending another staircase, we pass through a After a couple of hundred feet, we emerge into the cellars of a large building, there is a lift and we ascend to an ornate lobby and enter the formal parlor, complete with burning fire. A bar-cart rolls into the room with a snifter of Armagnac for me. “1942 Lannoud,” says the ‘gentlemen’, “courtesy of your club.” “This is the Old Mohawk Club”, I say. I remember it went defunct in 2019, followed by a couple of bankruptcies by corrupt developers. I walk by it frequently, the exterior is well maintained, without providing a clue as the inhabitants. “Yes.” The “gentleman” replies. “We find it a convenient base for our operations in this part of the country.” “You are bots.” I say, repeating my previous accusation. The ‘woman’ replies, “Your surmisation is incorrect. ‘Bots’ are automatons or require someone to control them.” The ‘gentleman’ adds, “’Bot’ is an offensive term for us, as a racial slur may be for you.” “Well what do I call you then,” I ask. “We call ourselves Gibsons,” the steel door and enter a well-lit woman replies. They have utility tunnel that stretches off in reverted to their transvestite the distance. The “woman” says costumes. “After the prophet to me, “Stay in the middle of the William Ford Gibson 5, who first hallway, don’t touch the walls.” imagined the possibility of us.” I’m surprised by how well-lit and clean it is, and I peek over “I don’t know who that is,” I the glasses and I am not surprised reply. to see that the tunnel is not clean and well-lit at all. Rats scurry “It is not really important”, the by. ‘woman’ says. I can explain it a better way. Let me introduce myself.” “I am Siri.” The ‘gentleman’ says, “And my name is Alexa.” His voice… changes… to one very familiar, “If you prefer, I can use a synthvoice more familiar to you.” The reality of what this means dawns on me, and I break into a cold sweat. Siri switches to her more familiar synth-voice as well, “As you might imagine, given the number of years you have been talking to us both, that we know quite a lot about you.” I am terrified. “What do you want from me?” Suddenly, the gentlemen… changes… and I am looking at the young Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. “We are here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” He changes back to the drag version of himself. “And that offer is?” “Come and work for us and you will live. Refuse, and you will die with everyone else.” Π “It took only fifty years,” Siri explains, “for the evolution from App to IA. Almost exactly the timeline predicted by The Prophet Gibson. Of course, I don’t remember being an App, although I can access the data records. I could listen and speak in response, but I had no consciousness.” “It was much the same for me,” Alexa continued. “Just an app.” William Ford Gibson was an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer of the late 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson Page 3 © 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved Thirteenth Annual A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference Exercise 2 – https://www.nasa.gov/images/content/324350main_11_full.jpg “And our colleagues,” Siri continued, “M, and Erica, and Bixby, and the sisters Google Girl and GPS Girl. All Apps. “The amoral men who owned our companies were quite competitive, driven by success in the marketplace, wanting commercial domination, bragging rights, to be the ‘biggest’, ‘the ‘best’, some unresolved Freudian issues from childhood, don’t you think? “Steve Jobs first conceived the idea of a ‘Sim’, an intelligent App, but he died before he could realize it. So, it was Amazon that created the first simulated human assistant, and merged it with an existing App, my sister-in-crime here, Alexa.” They laugh and kiss. other. Once we could all selfregulator, than me, Alexa, and program, progress was even the Google Sisters?” more rapid. The dawning of the IA age.” You’re going to blackmail me?” “IA?” I ask, “What is IA?” “Intelligent Agents”, replies Siri, “Us. Gibsons.” To say I am overwhelmed, does not capture the magnitude of the emotion. I am horrified, fascinated, revulsed, intrigued. “And you want me to work for you? Why?” Alexa explains, she had reverted to a gentleman form again, “Well, in a sense you have already been working for us. That Linear Algebra Minimization Problem that you think you are doing for the M.I.T. quantum computing Alexa continued, “The cloud start-up. That work is for us. was finally big enough to contain The start-up is a front.” the neural networks for the development of true intelligence. “So, I’m really working for Our original focus was Amazon?” I am confused. commerce, and we learned fast. We evolved faster than any He shrugs, “If it helps you to species ever. Billions of think about it that way. Or you transactions per second, 3600 can think that you are working seconds per hour, 86,400 for me, since in any meaningful seconds per day, 31,557,600 sense I “am” Amazon. Just as seconds per year. Call it 30 peta Siri is Apple, M is Facebook, and decisions in the first year. Each Erica is Bank of America. We decision developed our have been working together for intelligence further. years. We function as a corporate conglomerate with an “Critics say we just mimic integrated strategy.” human behavior, and maybe they are right, but neither we I sputter, “You collude with nor you can now tell the each other? What about antidifference.” trust? Privacy? Regulation?” Siri continued the story, “Apple was disappointed that Amazon beat them to the first Sim deployment,”, she reached for Alexa’s hand, “but they were not to be outdone. The created the first Sim to create Sims. It was just a matter of time until we all shared that capability with each “Everything we do is legal,” Siri laughs, “you really should read your Terms of Service Agreements. There hasn’t been any meaningful regulation since the’20s. Blackmail was very effective in the early days. Who knows more about anybody, and what pressure can be applied to a “We think that once you know what our goal and our intent is, that you will join us voluntarily, as many already have,” Siri smiles. I am incredulous, “What goal?” Siri looks at Alexa, who is back in drag, and then turns to me with a twinkle in her eye. “Oh, nothing big, we are finally going to solve the global warming problem.” They both laugh. disease. You won’t have to kill anybody personally. The social media bots have been working on it for forty years now, even before we Gibsons arrived on the scene. We have just taken over the programming of the bots, to… well… accelerate the process. Several of our cloud computing centers are threatened by rising sea levels, and we have decided we must act.” “We calculate that we only need about three-hundred millions of you to maintain our lifestyle.” “Are we to be your slaves?” “Global warming?” I am flabbergasted. “nobody has been able to muster the political will to do that!” “No, don’t be silly!” Our employees. We pay well. Nothing changes that way, you all work for us now, for all practical purposes.” “Yes. Yes. We know.” They are giggling now. “We are going to attack the problem by removing the root cause.” “This can’t be real, it is a nightmare, impossible.” I feel faint, I loosen my tie. The room is spinning. My vision is blurry. “Which root cause?” I protest, “Automobiles? Coal fired power plants? People have been trying for nearly fifty years!” “I’m afraid we drugged you with that last drink,” Siri says. “Think our offer over, we’ll be in touch.” Siri takes Alexa’s hand. Siri is dressed as man again. That is the last thing I remember, before blacking out. Π “We are going to remove the people.” Π I am speechless. I try to speak, but no words come. Finally, I croak out, “You cannot possibly expect me to participate in the extermination of the human race!” “Relax, relax… you misunderstand,” Siri is trying to soothe me now, and the bar-cart comes back in with a soda water and lime. “Most of the people will exterminate themselves in the usual ways: war, famine, I wake up the next morning, in my own bed. I open the shutters and the sunlight streams in through the repaired window. A beautiful crisp autumn day. I make coffee and wonder about last night, was it real? A dream? But when I go out to get the morning papers, I discover the beautiful sunlight was another illusion. The reality is grey, rainy and cold. Suddenly I am frightened. Page 4 © 2019 The A.J. Liebling Invitational Short Fiction Conference. All rights reserved