loudly.
Arthur gave her a look that promised pain and suffering. “Why don’t we just let Mother tell you about it herself,” he said softly.
“Randal, how long do we have to hear this?” said Blanche.
“Your Honor,” began Randal, “I would like to—”
“I was about to give a demonstration relevant to this hearing, and I have the court’s permission to do it,” said Arthur.
“Then do it,” said Judge Maxwell. “I don’t think we need more background information at this time.”
“This is company proprietary information, Your Honor,” said Camus, suddenly standing as Arthur walked back to the apparatus. “We must have a guarantee the details of the demonstration will not go in any form beyond this room.”
“This hearing is closed, ladies and gentlemen. Any information given here, including this demonstration, stays here. Any information leak will prejudice all future litigation, and be cause for breach of privacy. Are we clear on this?”
Everyone nodded in agreement. “Yes, Your Honor,” chorused Randal and Camus.
There was a sudden hum that quickly faded. Arthur sat at the keyboard, fingers playing over the keys. He looked like an organ player sitting there, but this organ had a monitor in front of him, and a wide, black screen stretched like a sail on top of it, between two fisheye cameras. A ball of light had begun to glow, not on the screen but in front of it. Before their eyes a three dimensional view of a room appeared. The walls of the room were white, the floor carpeted in crimson. There was a sofa and two chairs in red leather, a glass coffee table with a vase of red roses in the foreground. Three shaggy weavings in a rainbow of colors hung on the walls.
There was an open doorway in the back of the room. Someone walked past it. A man. Blanche felt her heart skip a beat. Only a glimpse, but the face had seemed familiar.
And then a woman appeared. She was tall, draped in a red silken robe, her gray hair stylishly coifed in swirls framing her face. She could have been fifty, or thirty. She walked like a model, posture erect and defiant, went to the sofa, sat down, crossed her legs and smiled.
Blanche gasped. “Dear God, it’s Helen, the way she looked years ago,” she whispered to Randal.
The woman seemed to look right at her. “Well, they say you should pick an age you like and stick with it. Hello again, Blanche. From that frown on your face I’d say we’re still fighting. Are we?”
The voice was deep and husky, a voice Blanche had been jealous of for over sixty years. Men had been attracted to it like bears to honey. Blanche’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.
“No? Well that’s not what I hear.” The woman’s eyes moved. “Hi, sweetie. I guess this is court, huh?”
“Yes, Mother,” said Arthur.
Judge Maxwell was smiling, and seemed fascinated by the display. “Perhaps you should introduce us to your, ah, demonstration,” he said.
Arthur blushed crimson, and seemed embarrassed by the request. “I’m not quite sure what I—”
“Never mind, dear. I’m quite capable of introducing myself,” said the woman’s floating image. “Officially I’m AINI, but some of the techs like to pervert it by calling me Annie. It’s cute, but inaccurate. In every way, you see, I’m Helen Winslow, based on me the person, but synthesized and evolved into my present form by the AINI system. I’d prefer you call me Helen, because that’s who I am, but I’ll accept Annie if you like.”
“But you are an artificial intelligence system,” said Maxwell.
“Everyone in this courtroom functions like an AI, Your Honor. We store and retrieve memories, we think and learn, and synthesize new ideas from old. The only difference between you and me is our computers. Yours is organic, incredibly compact, but slow. Mine is larger, but very fast.”
“Do you know why you’ve been brought to this courtroom?”
“I think so. Arthur was rather upset when he tried to explain it to me.”
The woman’s gaze shifted to Blanche, and made eye contact. “I’d be upset, too, if someone tried to charge me with murder.”
“This is a hearing, and no formal charges have been filed against anyone, Ms.—ah—” Maxwell paused.
The apparition laughed, a deep-throated laugh that Blanche remembered well. It had turned men’s heads at gatherings large and small for years, without promising anything but her presence. “You don’t know what to call me,” she said. “If you say Helen, you acknowledge my transfiguration and oh, my goodness, what a precedent that would set!”
She laughed again. Maxwell grinned.
“Call me Annie, then, but remember who I really am when you hear what I have to say. This whole mess is partly my fault, anyway, and I intend to clean it up.”
“Very well—Annie,” said Maxwell, and turned to look at several anxiously waiting people in the room. “We’re open for questions, gentlemen. Counselor Haug, would you like to begin?”
“Randal, this is absurd,” whispered Blanche, as Randal stood up.
“Are we to consider this—Annie as a viable witness, Your Honor?” asked Randal.
“You wanted to know about the AINI system,” said Maxwell, eyes twinkling in amusement. “Well, here she is.”
“I really don’t think a machine can be—”
“This will go nowhere, Your Honor,” said Annie. “I never could talk sense to lawyers, even you, Randal, and it won’t be any different now. This is all between two sisters, anyway. It’s all about the money, and everything else is smoke. Talk to me, Blanche. We can settle this in a few minutes, if you’ll let it happen.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Arthur, and frowned at Blanche.
“Now Arthur,” said Annie, “you promised me you’d go along with whatever I agreed to today. No pouting. Just do what mother says. Sit down with your lawyers, and let me handle this.”
“I will not talk with this—this thing,” said Blanche.
“Your Honor, this is a sham,” said Randal Haug. “Mister Winslow has obviously programmed the machine for this performance, and I must—”
“May I please be allowed to do something useful here?” said Annie. As she said it, a man appeared in the doorway behind her and said something softly. He wore a white bathrobe, and had a toothbrush in one hand. Annie turned, and said quite audibly, “Later, hon. I’m just getting warmed up here.” The man looked disappointed, and went away from view.
Blanche’s face flushed hotly. The man was Fred, Helen’s late husband, only he looked to be in his forties or early fifties. The shock of recognition must have shown on her face, for the apparition called Annie smiled at her.
“He’s such a dear, but so impatient, and I have a lot of fleshing out to do on him. So many of my memories are from when he was sick. You remember how hard that was, don’t you, Blanche?”
“Yes,” said Blanche, and caught her self. “I mean—”
“I know, I know,” said Annie. “It’s all so real for me, but not for you. It seems like yesterday I was old, and my joints were hurting, and I kept having these little blackouts, and then I can remember Arthur bending over me, screaming hysterically, and then—well, then there was nothing. No tunnel of light, no angels for old Helen. I was just suddenly here, still old at first, but no pain, and everything I thought, everything I remembered and wanted from the past—it just happened, when I wanted it to. Of course I also remembered all the downloading; my God, I wore that brain-sucking cap of theirs to bed for over five years! But there was no way I could really predict what it would be like until I got here.”