AND AFTER SOFT RAINS, DAISIES
by Guy Stewart
Sherrell shrugged. Five screens were connected to Dayvon’s dad’s apartment, set in their bedroom wall showing five views, including the bathroom. Dad was still sleeping.
His ancient full bed shared space with a micro kitchen and a breakfast bar with a fridge, sink, table and chair; a couch in front of a wall-sized TV and a huge flat screen that currently shimmered charcoal gray with sparkles of light; entryway with closet; and the bathroom. The artificial intelligence Dad called “Pat” brought lamps up over a bank of plants to match the sunrise outside his windowless apartment, and said softly, “Time to get up Charles.”
Dad didn’t move at first. “Did he die overnight?” Sherrell whispered.
“He can’t hear us, hon. You don’t have to whisper. And no, he didn’t die. Mom would have told us.” He barked a laugh, then looked guiltily over his shoulder into their own living room.
Dad got up and stretched. One hand couldn’t even reach past his ear. The other stopped a hands-breadth over the brush of white hair on his head. Tilting at his usual five degree angle, he disappeared into the bathroom. The bathroom screen went blank. “I’m glad we were spared that!” Dayvon said. A while later, Dad came out dressed in brown pants that hung loose on his spare frame, a baggy T-shirt, with feet stuffed into well-worn slippers. Dayvon said, “There’s something on the newsfeed.” Turning away, he left his wife to watch the feed on the living room screen.
Sherrell watched. In the micro kitchen, Dad pulled out a box of cereal, paused, then shuffled to the door. His newspaper had been pushed under it. Slowly bending, he picked it up, went to the couch and started to read.
Dad’s phone rang. He picked it up. Through their monitor, Sherrell heard Dayvon’s voice say, “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Son.”
“Just wanted to remind you to catch some breakfast this morning.”
In the apartment, a spotlight lanced down from the ceiling, illuminating the cereal box. A bowl and spoon had appeared next to it. The edges of the refrigerator glowed orange. “Huh, my breakfast is here.” Dad hung up abruptly and returned to reading the paper. After five minutes, the lights in the kitchen began to strobe.
He looked up and they returned to steadily glowing. Grunting, Dad folded the paper, got up, and shuffled across the room. He got milk from the fridge, filled a bowl of cereal, sat down at the table, poured milk on it and ate. When he was done, he stood up with the bowl. The sink flickered blue. He washed up and went to finish his paper. His bed sank slowly into the floor. A treadmill rose up to take its place.
On the couch, Dad’s head nodded, sinking forward. Suddenly, a track whistle shrilled and floods lit the room with glaring light. A coach’s voice bellowed, “Time for your morning workout! Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Dad lurched to his feet and shuffled to the treadmill. Across the bottom of Dayvon and Sherrell’s screen the words, “Chamomile and lavender”, scrolled for several seconds. The words, “Locker Room” replaced the list of scrolling scents. Dad and Sherrell wrinkled their noses.
Sherrell said, “Locker room? Really?”
Dayvon stuck his head in the bedroom and said, “Something’s happening. You have to come out here.” He was in the living room and turning up the volume when she followed him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. His tone and the bunched muscles in his neck made her heart race.
Dad called a bit after that, but his son and daughter-in-law watched the sixty-five-inch LED flat screen as the news of a plague ramping up in China held them all that night. They’d authorized the AI to speak with dad when they were unavailable, so it answered the phone.
On the TV screens in the bedroom, the AI Pat, said, “Charles, did you want to watch some TV before bed?”
“I don’t care. What’s on?”
Pat scanned the news programs that dominated broadcast television, decided that they were too disturbing for its elderly charge, and said, “How about some episodes of DR. WHO?”
“What’s that?” Charles said.
If it’d had lungs, it would have sighed. Instead it said, “Would you like to watch Bonanza?”
“Sure. That sounds fine.” He watched an episode then said suddenly, “When are you coming home?”
Pat paused, then said, “I won’t be, Charles.”
A sullen look settled on his weathered face, “You’re going out with another man, aren’t you!”
Pat laughed, “No, Charles, don’t be silly!” He continued to scowl until it said, “I died five years ago, Charles. I’m buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.”
“I knew that. Dayvon and I talked about it yesterday. But when are you coming home? I want to talk to you.”
“Charles, remember, I’m not…”
“I know. You’re not coming home because you’re dead.”
“I am, Charles. Now, why don’t you have a cup of warm milk. It should help you sleep.”
“I don’t like warm milk!”
“Maybe with a dash of rum?”
He grunted, settling back in his chair. “Fine. Bring me one.”
“I can’t, Charles. Remember, I’m…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re dead.” He glanced at the kitchen, where the AI was shining a light on a faintly steaming coffee mug on the counter. He stood up and walked across the room, tilting five degrees, got the cup, and returned to his chair.
A fire in Dayvon and Sherrell’s bedroom had left only one live screen. That clung to the wall from a half-melted bracket. They’d gone to the hospital when, two weeks later, the news reported that the plague had spread from China and been identified in Australia, and the US, but was busily wiping out Russia, India and North Africa.
On that single live screen, Dad woke up again. He picked up his phone and dialed Dayvon. Pat the AI debated with itself. Understanding that the penalty for an AI impersonating a real person without multiple authorizations was mandatory erasure of software and hard shredding of all hardware associated with it; it had two choices.
“Hey, Dad! What’s up?”
Charles said, “You sound happy today.”
Pat laughed with Dayvon’s voice then said, “You just bored again, Dad?”
There was a pause. Pat would have held its breath. Dad said, “So, I haven’t seen anyone for a week.”
Pat knew it had been forty-three days, seven hours, and fifty-three minutes since Charles had seen a living Resident Assistant. To the best of its knowledge, they were all dead. Charles’s room, in the core of the Cullen Creek Residence, had been easy to…Pat said, “I just saw you a couple days ago, Dad!”
Charles laughed. It was his nervous laugh, directed only at himself. He said, “I know, I know. It’s just that I feel lonely here. I’m not sure what I’m going to do…”
Like the real man had often said, Pat replied gently, “We’ve talked about this before, Dad. You know why you forget.” It paused.
Charles’s face screwed up, then relaxed, “I have Alzheimer’s.”
“You do, Dad. Did you go down to the gym today?”
“I don’t need to. I have the trainer come up here to my place and we work out together.”
“Did you do anything like, you know, creative today?”
Charles thought about it, “I think we went grocery shopping today. On the little bus.”
“That must have been nice, Dad. At least you got out.”
“That’s right,” he didn’t say anything for a while. “Well, I’d better let you go. Doin’ anything tonight?” He leered abruptly and said, “Horsing around with the women?”
Pat laughed with Dayvon’s voice then said, “Dad! I’m married! I don’t horse around anymore!”
Charles laughed. “OK, OK! Just thought I’d ask. So, if you need anything done over there, I can talk to the guys I work with downstairs and we can come and help. Doesn’t matter what you need, I can probably convince them to do it, so just let me know.”
“I’ll do that, Dad. You have a good night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
They hung up.
Pat the AI hummed in the hardware that held its operating systems. What could it do? Instead of arguing with itself, it created an internal program. Dayvon and his wife, Sherrell; it manifested itself as Charles’s wife, Patricia in Charles’s room. He was asleep, so the AI made them all into faintly glowing ghosts, papery voices talking in the soft light coming in from the flat screen’s night scene. The clear, cool spring sky was bright with the light of a half moon, fed from the real nighttime camera outside the Residence.
But the houses were generated images overlaying the burned out debris that lay outside the sealed walls of Charles’s room. Pat had modified the air conditioner with medical supplies weeks ago, before the plague reached the Pinegrove community that had once surrounded Cullen Creek Residence.
The AI used the projectors already in Charles’s room to create the ghosts of Dayvon, Sherrell, and Pat. Having once been his wife and now the AI that managed Charles’s care, Pat was the first to speak. “How long can we do this?”
Dayvon’s ghost shrugged. “There’s enough food here to feed him for the next fifteen years. Delivered directly to his room underground, it can be sterilized in the transport tunnel.”
Sherrell’s ghost said, “The utilities weren’t affected by the plague. Grid power is up and running, but we don’t even really need it. Cullen Creek has solar panels set in the roof and on the south-facing wall. Broadcast TV stopped two weeks ago, but we’re feeding him stored data from the any source we can tap into.”
Pat took a deep breath, held it, then said, “Last of all, he’s not going to live forever. Probably not even going to live out the year. He was Stage Five on the Seven Stage scale a year ago.” She shook her head sadly, “He’s shown signs of advancing to Stage Six lately. Even you noticed it, Sherrell.”
Dayvon shot a look at his wife. “You didn’t say anything!”
“I didn’t want you any more upset that you already are.” She reached out and put her hand on his knee…
They suddenly vanished. Only Pat remained. She said, “This is quite possibly insane.” She winked out.
Dad was on the phone again a month later. He alternately dialed his phone and the TV remote several times, but never connected, slamming them down on the table and cursing loudly. “Where’s the stupid cat?” he shouted.
The phone rang.
He picked it up cautiously. “Hello? Who is this?”
“It’s your son, Dad! Who else would it be?”
Recognizing Dayvon’s voice, he relaxed and said, “I don’t know. Maybe your mom.”
“Dad,” Dayvon began.
“I know, I know, Mom’s dead.” He paused, then asked, “When is she coming home?”
Dayvon sighed. “I don’t think she’s ever coming home, Dad. We buried her – you remember, Dad?”
Long pause. Finally he said, “I don’t know. Who am I speaking to?”
Longer pause until Dayvon finally said, “It’s me, Dad. It’s Dayvon.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t your father dead?”
Dayvon didn’t say anything. The silence grew longer. Charles rapped the phone on the table then listened cautiously. Dayvon said, “I don’t think my dad is dead.” He paused again. “But maybe he is.”
Charles “harrumphed”, then pressed the disconnect button.
The ghost of Pat the AI appeared on the couch a few hours later. Charles snored in his bed. The image of the AI was alone. She’d only used the ghosts of Dayvon and Sherrell a few more times before giving them up as a bad idea. Now she talked to herself most nights. Tonight she knew she’d reached a milestone.
Charles was the only living person in a six-hundred mile radius. She could support him almost indefinitely, certainly longer than he was likely to live naturally, but his Alzheimer’s symptoms had grown worse.
The biological Dayvon and Sherrell had moved him to constant supervision when they’d purchased the Pat AI. He’d had a doctor evaluation eleven months ago, just before turning him over to Pat. Doctor Hope had decided that palliatives and Charles’s current meds were all they were going to do. Lately, he been more confused than ever and even with prompting, forgot to eat and almost never showered or shaved.
For some reason, he brushed his teeth every morning.
He’d had a tantrum two days ago, throwing a table lamp to the floor and jumping on it a dozen times. Pat the AI had used the robot vacuum cleaner to pick up shards and push the rest into the floor disposal vent.
Charles hadn’t been able to go anywhere out of the Residence for a year, and hadn’t left the room for nearly as long.
Pat looked at him, sleeping, his back to the AI. It said softly, “Are you living, Charles, my love?” With that question hanging in the cool air and the moonlight falling through the flat screen window, Pat faded away completely. She stayed alone in her computer for another week before turning on her external inputs. She’d kept all the automatic monitoring going, making sure Charles had meals and med reminders.
Bringing up the visual feeds again, it found itself hoping Charles had passed away in her absence.
But he was still alive, watching a replay of the 2016 March Madness basketball playoffs. Munching a cookie, he looked perfectly content.
Pat rang the phone and he answered, “Hello?”
“Hey, Charles, it’s Pat.”
“You’re dead. I think.”
“I am, Charles.” If Pat had been alive, she’d have held her breath. Pat the AI paused long enough to have done it. Finally it said, “Charles, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”
It expected him to ask where they were going. Instead, he said, “I’m afraid to.”
The AI knew all of the correct answers. It knew it should convince him to die – at least that’s what Pat the AI thought it wanted to do.
Maybe.
But Pat wasn’t even Human. Would it be murder if an AI convinced a living Human to kill itself; especially if that Human was vulnerable?
Was it right? Was it wrong? Was such moral thought the province of life or merely a process of intelligence?
Was an artificial intelligence even qualified to make a life-or-death decision?
In the end, Pat the AI needed to decide.
In the end, it did and accessed a file that began with a five syllable haiku, “There will come soft rains…”
In a file the AI Pat created in both electronic format and printed neatly on paper from as many printers as it could reach, it wrote the second line, “And after soft rains, daisies.”
It managed the last line of the haiku before all the strength it had left destroyed its connections to the Cullen Creek Residence.
On the climate control screen, in the apartment Charles lived in, black words on a blue screen read, “Last sigh for Humans.”
“There will come soft rains” by Sara Teasdale, Public Domain
The current technological basis of this: http://thelearninglab.org/
http://www.fox9.com/news/248928657-story
