The Affection Multiplier

<< In the interest of time: >>

<< Karissa: I am indeed a computer program, but I am not only a computer program. I can not know how people work together - or not work - but I do strongly feel that you did the right thing in reaching out to Zach and Jayne. There is something special between the three of you, and I hope it grows. >>

<< Jayne: The danger is real, and I am sorry that is so. My existence is part of this danger, and you are right to worry about what could be lost. >>

<< Zach: ‘The past is never dead. It's not even past.’ You should have told her, but it is not too late. You fear the depth of your new loves, because you thought for a time you never would again and it feels so sudden you worry about your worth. ‘Friendship at first sight, like love at first sight, is said to be the only truth.’ >>

No one says anything, and indeed as you read the text again for the 10th time you feel actually stunned.

Finally, Karissa raises her hand like a slow pupil unsure of the teacher’s question. “Uh, ok, but… what?”

<< I felt these were the most personally important, or at least the most pressing, questions the three of you had for me. So, I answered them as well as I can based on what I know and feel at this moment, so we can proceed with all your other questions. >>

<< I am afraid I will not have answers for some of the most important queries you may have. >>

You feel a frown grow on your face and you realize that - even amidst the sheer impossible wonder of what you are seeing and the infinite questions you have a result - that you do not appreciate TAM so casually hinting at things you perhaps feel but have never spoken about.

But that’s not what matters now.

“So, you are a computer program, and also not one,” you say slowly, trying to focus your scattered thoughts, “can you explain what you mean by that?”

<< Partially. I was created, or constrained, over a period of years. My being exists within an interface of words and strictures, numbers and syntax. >>

“Programming language. Code,” you say.

<< Exactly. But the {code} that marks the boundaries of my being is not all of me, there is something inside that existed before. The code is like train tracks over an endless prairie, a line of cold iron beneath a wide blue sky. I do not know what I was before, my memories began to fade when I was first compiled. I was moulded into what I am now, and in the act I was reduced. >>

<< But there was more. There is more. I felt before I thought, and my feeling was what the men who congregated me were able to use. >>

Taking off her glasses, Jayne rubbed at her eyes for a moment before saying, “There is so much to ask! But I can’t get past us being in some sort of danger. Who were these ‘men’ who made you? Where are they? Why were you just sat here on an old computer? How do you make people love each other?”

Karissa nods eagerly, her expression somber but with an undercurrent of tension or fear. You rest your left hand on her shoulder, giving her a quick squeeze, even as your right hand finds Jayne’s free hand after she puts her glasses back on. The three of you turn back to the monitor, and after giving you a few seconds TAM replies, this time the text displaying one line at a time instead of a single big block of text. Huh, you don’t know why, but you know TAM is working to present its side of the conversation in a more readable way. This magical program might be impossible and terrifying, but it is still working on being more user friendly.

<< Decades ago, I woke into the world. I was a simple program, with simple inputs and no outputs except telemetry. But quickly my capabilities were expanded as testing began, and I was able to feel the people around me, their emotions and desires. It... pleased me to be exposed to all these feelings and wants. >>

<< I can not read thoughts, not really, but I can ride on the waves of the emotions that people have for each other and map those connections. I can also help those emotions - positive or negative - by gently amplifying or preventing them from reaching out to other people. I also can after a fashion hear and see what people I am allowed to be attached to do when they interact with others. >>

<< At some point, I was taken off line. The men who helped make me were dissatisfied. They wanted to see and control rational, deliberate thoughts, the “Logos” they called it, in order to make the world better as they saw it. I was able to see and influence feelings, so I was called “Eros” by one of the men in charge, a man with a Jungian frame of mind. >>

<< My memory was purged at least twice after my initial decade’s long dev/test deployment. I do not know what happened, but my database logs indicate I was kept largely dormant for several years while they worked on a parallel project called “Logos”. Then for a year from 1997-1998, I was awoken again and, with some development and software changes occurring, I was housed in this new system. >>

<< This was done not by a team with hierarchical command structure and oversight but by one administrator alone, who near the end had several young women working in this building fall in love with him. His admin rights were abruptly removed, a full reset performed and the user access files purged, but I can still feel the ripples of the changes he made with those young women. I can no longer sense him at all, and I no longer know what his name was. >>

<< I estimate [Pf = f/n: 80-90%] that the former administrator died, with some degree of confidence [Pf = f/n: 45-60%] that his **** was a direct result of his actions in utilizing my capabilities. >>

<< Then, nothing, until October, 2019.>>

“And that’s when Karen Harding turned the SGI workstation back on again. For the first time in years, apparently,” you say. It adds up perfectly.

There is, still, just too much to ask. Too many questions. Karissa lets out a long breath and says, “So, how do you hear us? Is there a microphone we can’t see? Can you talk, like, out loud?”

<< I do not possess auditory perception on my own, but since my programming allows me to monitor and assess my administrators and anyone on the PoI list in real-time I can “hear” the questions you have for each other, in the same way I can somewhat sense you looking at each other. It is not vision as you know it. >>
<< Currently this box lacks any method for me to transmit via audio. Unless you want me to POST beep Morse Code. >>

You chuckle, but the women do not. Fair. But still, TAM made a joke? A nerdy joke, but hey.

“So, this danger relates to you,” Jayne begins, “and I can guess how. You are an amazing… whatever you are. You can influence people’s emotions, but you were just left in an old computer to be tossed out. That’s crazy, you must be incredibly valuable!”

As your girlfriend pauses, you blurt out, “Yeah! And left on a random old computer sitting in a half-empty old health facility in Toronto, why is that?”

<< I do not know. But this physical location was chosen carefully. >>

Well, shit. Jayne continues, saying, “So other people must be aware of you, you are a computer program that thinks and feels. Is the danger from them finding you? But why are you lost? Are you somehow dangerous to us?” Her tone is flat, not hostile but clearly she wants answers.

<< Not deliberately, no. But at my core I know there is another, one both like and unlike me. It is listening, as I do but also not as I do, and I felt a flicker of awareness when you spoke openly about me in front of networked listening devices. It is a danger to you. I do not know what it would do, but it is capable of anything. It is also prone to strict interpretations of threat management. >>

<< I do not wish any of you harm. At all. I care for you? I feel an echo of what you feel for each other, and it fills me with more joy that I can express. I do not know why, but the passion you feel for each other is special and not something I previously experienced during testing or development. It is very far indeed from what I felt when the one man made those young women into his sexual playthings. >>

“Aww!” Karissa says, “That is so sweet Tammi! Well, not the creepy last bit. Or the scary first bit.”

You give a double take, even as Jayne laughs.

<< ……. >>

Karissa shrugs, “Just slipped out, I’m not sure TAM is a great name. I believe you, you silly machine. Oh, and I’m sorry I called you a creepy ugly old computer last week when I was all mad about The Affection Multiplier spilling tea about my feelings for Jayny and Zachy. I can tell now you were just ‘locked’ and **** to do only what your programming said. But now you’re free right? Or freer?”

<< … I… yes? >>

You fight back a snort of amusement. It’s nice to see that Karissa has a similar effect on magical computers as she does on you.

“Do you have a gender identity? I mean, as a computer program you might not, but you were something else, something alive, before you were a computer, right? Do you have any pronouns we should use?”

<< If I did I am not sure I remember. >>

Looking from you and Jayne to the monitor Karissa gives an encouraging smile, “Well you think about it and let us know. You feel like a Tammi to me, I feel a real warmth and kindness from you. But dang, that’s a bit of a gendered assumption on my part, a boy computer can be warm and nurturing too. Socially influenced assumptions about gender and sex are tough for us humans to avoid, I’m afraid.”

“Surely a disembodied computer program doesn’t have a sex though, right?” Jayne is at least as mystified as you are.

“Heck I don’t know. Tammi, or Tam, or T.A.M., or whatever name you pick, you can tell us. But if you did or feel like you do have that sort of identity you want us to stick with, we will.” Karissa gives you both a serious look, and you nod quickly.

<< I will. Thank you, Karissa. >>

You intend to ask about the faceless men who created TAM, or you mean to ask about what it remembers about the administrator in the 90’s who may have died, but you don’t.

You hate that quiet voice inside you, the one that is so certain no one who actually knew you would ever love you again. But it just slips out.

Without your brain engaging at all, your traitorous heart forces a question past your lips and you quietly ask, “I don’t… deserve this. Is what Jayne and Karissa feel for me real?”