Chapter 4 Hazel #2
‘The Earth was…’ She falters. Maybe it hadn’t been a war? Or, at least, maybe it was one in which humanity was the aggressor. Long white plane-trails in the sky; pumps sucking oil like leeches on a wound; the last of a bird, a bear, an elephant; felled trees and mausoleums of bees and—and—
‘We made the Earth sick.’ She hunts for words he’ll understand. ‘It was a disaster.’
‘That is a true statement. That is salient information. Hazel Brandt, welcome to Project Kairos. Our goal is to significantly mitigate the environmental collapse upon whose brink you have been living. You are participating in an Excursion which has been assigned a Deed, whose completion will assist the Project in this journey.’
The Earthrise photograph glides into her mind again. All that rock. All that biomass. So, immensely, heavy. ‘That’s not possible. The problem’s too big surely.’
‘Logic dictates you did believe it was possible when you came here.’
She taps the side of her mug. ‘Let’s say it is possible, how am I supposed to change what happened? What is this Deed I’m supposed to complete?’
CHARL1E’s screens flicker and the scrolling code speeds up again.
‘Excursion 1133’s purpose is to ensure the inclusion of the divine-mundane duality paradigm in European philosophy.
Your role in this as the Forward Traveller situated here in the future is twofold.
Your first responsibility is the Deed itself: to help the Backward Traveller situated in the deep past to set up a school of philosophy which will maintain the paradigm.
Do you have outstanding questions about your first responsibility? ’
‘You’re one annoying AI, you know that?’
‘Negative. My code does not include an annoyance subroutine.’
‘Then you’ve got a natural talent for it.
’ She swills her tea. This whole situation feels right but parses wrong, setting her instinct and intellect at odds.
‘Of course I have questions, but essentially they boil down to this: Why me? I’m not a philosopher or a historian.
I work with code. If this is the Deed, I’m the worst person for it. ’
‘Affirmative. The Backward Traveller is the specialist. Your brand of intellectual resource is better suited to the Forward Traveller’s supporting role at Station C.’
‘If I cared what you thought, CHARL1E, I might infer with my particular brand of intellectual resource that you’re calling me stupid.’
‘Negative. I did not call you stupid, Hazel Brandt. I can produce a transcript of our interaction if you require proof.’
‘No, no, I’ll remember the inference well enough.’
‘Why do homo sapiens set so much store by subjective inference?’
Clutching her tea tighter, Hazel frowns at the screens.
That isn’t a normal unprompted question for even the most sophisticated chatbot she’s encountered, and while that’s not surprising given the amount of time she’s apparently travelled, it is still troubling.
More troubling than a couple of adjectives by a long shot.
The kind of sass CHARL1E has, his apparent judgements, can be programmed if you’re clever about it.
Even the appearance of misery, joy, flirtation, creativity, can be coded.
If a programmer’s goal is entertaining themselves, they can make machines do creepily humanlike stuff, but still all the programs muttering from Hazel’s memory void are just glorified statistical analysis engines.
Sure, they’re given such massive data sets they exhibit impressive behaviour occasionally, but they can’t be nuanced off their own backs, can’t ponder.
Yet, that’s exactly what CHARL1E just did: independent pondering.
Computers answer questions by herding them through a bunch of binary logic gates.
They’re like sheep without the personality, just dumb minerals, stochastic parrots, even when they might look and feel smart.
Their questions aren’t open-ended; they’re yes/no thinkers.
That’s all they’ve got. Hazel might call the Tinys Robin, Shiny, and Teaspoon, but that’s just a shorthand for telling them apart, they’re not actually individuals.
What CHARL1E just did is different though—and it throws every interaction they’ve had into a new light.
CHARL1E is not thinking like a computer.
He’s thinking like … something else. He’s far more self-aware than Hazel’s comfortable with.
Still, whatever—whoever—CHARL1E is, he’s her only source of information for why she’s here and how she can leave. That, for now, must take priority. ‘Let’s just move on to my second responsibility, shall we?’
‘Complying. Your second responsibility is to communicate with the Backward Traveller’s past self—we call this iteration of her the Backward Traveller As Was—to build the catopthura that enabled you to time travel. Do you have outstanding questions about your second responsibility?’
‘Yes. Many.’
‘Would you like to articulate them?’
Hazel sighs, unsure where to begin. ‘In essence, this all seems improbable. I don’t think I can do anything about this situation the world is in, it’s too big. And this solution is at best convoluted and at worst hallucination on my part.’
CHARL1E’s tone softens as the altos in his thousand voices take over. ‘Your mind was changed in the past, so it will be changed again.’
‘Why are you so confident?’
‘Because I know who changed it.’
‘Who?’
‘You did. Or, rather, you will.’
One of CHARL1E’s screens flicks up a complex diagram picked out in liquid amber light.
Hazel follows the diagram’s threads, the void in her head whispering.
Yes, that’s how it went, she and the Backward Traveller built the catopthura to travel through time, where Hazel would give the instructions to the Backward Traveller As Was in their past, so they could then build the catopthura, to travel in time, for Hazel to give instructions, so they can build—
Hazel grips the mug of tea. ‘I feel sick.’
‘That is a common side-effect of becoming aware that you are participating in a cause-effect loop.’
Acid builds in her throat. ‘Really, I think I might throw up.’
‘It is also possible that the paracetamol-like medication was beyond appropriate usage, I will have the Tinys check the use-by date.’ This time Robin and Shiny trundle off together, apparently two robots are better than one for double-checking dates.
Hazel swallows hard. ‘I should’ve known you control the Tinys.’
‘Negative. I do not control the Tinys.’
‘Maybe not, but you’re in cahoots with them, aren’t you?’
‘“Cahoots” is inaccurate. We have functional communication protocols in place to further our collaborative capacities.’
‘Sounds like cahoots to me.’ She puts her mug aside and clutches her stomach, trying to stop the world spinning. The meds haven’t touched the the pain in her chest, and throwing up on bruised ribs would be excruciating. Do not be sick. Just breathe, come on, don’t be a weakling, in to four—
‘Let’s say I undertake these responsibilities. Let’s say you’re right about everything, and I’m not hallucinating, and I am a Traveller. How would I even communicate with the Backward Traveller? Is there, like, a time radio?’
‘Negative, there is no such device as a “time radio.” Travellers communicate with each other via the dreamscape.’
‘The dreamscape. You mean, in my dreams?’
‘Affirmative,’ CHARL1E says. ‘When you and the Backward Traveller arrived in your new temporal zones, time began to run in parallel between you again. This means that you are both on approximately the same circadian rhythm, at a 5,044-year distance. Therefore, you will go to sleep and enter the dreamscape in sync, and encounter each other.’
Hazel laughs and her bruises kick back. ‘The hallucination interpretation of this situation is seeming more likely by the minute.’
The code on CHARL1E’s screens switches from vertical to horizontal tumbling. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘Because when you’re in a dream you’re alone. Besides, even if someone else could get into your dreams, you can’t control what happens or what you do, it’s the home of the subconscious.’
CHARL1E’s code returns to a vertical fall. ‘I do not dream, so I cannot sympathise. However, previous data samples have proven that the second issue you raise may be remedied by practising lucid dreaming. Mastering the practice is part of the obligatory Traveller activities dictated by protocol.’
Hazel’s queasiness is fading as they talk. ‘Marvellous. A hobby I don’t have a choice about taking up.’
‘The Tinys will supply you with appropriate literature on the subject. I recommend you practise regularly and diligently.’
Hazel arches an eyebrow. ‘Lucid dreaming doesn’t seem very scientific.’
CHARL1E’s code goes horizontal again. ‘You do not think the examination of the subconscious is a science?’
‘A soft science maybe. The soft end of a soft science. Feather-pillow science.’
‘Then Hazel Brandt, it is time you hit your proverbial feather pillow.’ The highly contextualised metaphor hints again at CHARL1E’s hidden depths and Hazel suppresses a shiver.
Robin and Shiny emerge from under CHARL1E’s desk, carrying a fat paperback which they heft up to Hazel.
‘“Lucid Dreaming: Interactions with the Plane of Unreality Using the Subconscious Mind.”’ She reads the title aloud, then riffles through the activities.
‘This is barely even feather-pillow science. Mindfulness exercises for when I’m awake, visualisations for “crossing into the dreamscape”—you’ve got to be kidding. ’
‘Negative. I am not programmed to joke.’ Then why did he make one earlier?
He’s not just more sophisticated than he appears; he’s more advanced than he’s letting on.
Hazel keeps her face neutral, as her suspicions about CHARL1E’s lying concretise.
‘It may also interest you to know that the paracetamol-like medication was significantly past its use-by date. I congratulate you in suppressing your instinct to be sick.’