Forever Yours
©2025 Elder Road Books - Lynnwood WA
Chapter 15: Degrees of Separation
Part II
“How Smart Is a Rock? To appreciate the feasibility of computing with no energy and no heat, consider the computation that takes place in an ordinary rock. Although it may appear that nothing much is going on inside a rock, the approximately 1025 (ten trillion trillion) atoms in a kilogram of matter are actually extremely active. Despite the apparent solidity of the object, the atoms are all in motion, sharing electrons back and forth, changing particle spins, and generating rapidly moving electromagnetic fields. All of this activity represents computation, even if not very meaningfully organized. We’ve already shown that atoms can store information at a density of greater than one bit per atom, such as in computing systems built from nuclear magnetic-resonance devices. University of Oklahoma researchers stored 1,024 bits in the magnetic interactions of the protons of a single molecule containing nineteen hydrogen atoms .51 Thus, the state of the rock at any one moment represents at least 1027 bits of memory.”
— Ray Kurzweil The Singularity is Near
THERE WERE PLENTY of hiccups in the arrangements over the summer. Henry had to get an extra air conditioning unit for the office and install it in the front window. Isobel raised an alarm at the rate they were spending their investment and returned to Pittsburgh to berate Henry and work with Chastity on refining the budget, including exactly how much they could afford for an assistant to Henry.
“I don’t know if I can get any computer pro to work for $25 an hour,” Henry said, shaking his head. “Even at just ten hours a week. I realize we’re all salaried at $1000 a month, but we’re vested in the company.”
“There won’t be a company to be vested in if we don’t get some income to offset these expenses. I can’t believe we’ve been in business for a month and have already spent nearly $50k. We can’t keep going like that.”
“Okay, I get the point,” Chastity said.
“You’d better get it!” Isobel yelled at her. “You won’t have a job much longer if you don’t.”
“Isobel, calm down,” Henry said. “You don’t have the right to threaten another partner with termination. We’ll do our part to keep expenses down. You do your part and pay the fucking bills.”
“Maybe it’s me who should quit,” Isobel shot back. “But then my $250,000 would be worth nothing!”
They’d made it through the upset, but after Isobel left, Chastity dragged Henry to his bedroom and demanded to be fucked into the mattress.
For his part, Henry spent a lot more than ten hours a week working on his projects. He was able to specify what was needed for an optimization app based on his AI patent. His testers had no options regarding how the program ran. A real user would need settings they could use to at least give the illusion they had control. And they would have limited control over what the AI could learn. Still, it needed to ‘look pretty,’ as one of the testers said.
On August nineteenth, Henry went to campus for the opening convocation. It wasn’t required, but students who were in town were encouraged to attend. It seemed like it had been forever since he met Kaitlyn after the convo the previous year. He hadn’t seen her in the spring, as he had resigned from the golf team. He just didn’t have the time to play golf on a team.
He was surprised to see members of his study cohort at the convocation and went out to dinner after the event with Lisa and Josh.
“I didn’t expect to see either of you until next week,” Henry said.
“I never left town for the summer,” Josh said. “I got a summer internship over at Monroe Systems Management. Didn’t pay much but it was a good experience.”
“My dad works there,” Henry said.
“I figured Mr. Pascal was related to you, but I didn’t have much interaction with him.”
“What about you, Lisa? What brings you into town early?” Henry asked.
“I stupidly pledged a sorority last spring and I had to come and act pretty in the Kappa Tau booth to talk to the freshmen this week. I don’t know if living in the sorority house is any better than the residence halls, but it’s temporary,” Lisa said.
“I got a couple more classes taken care of this summer,” Henry said. “Between that and my part time job at the golf course, I didn’t have time for much else.” He didn’t want to mention his other work or the new business. It was still too soon to reveal that to classmates. Several had signed non-disclosures to test his invention, but didn’t know he was behind it.
They compared their upcoming class schedules and determined they would have Machine Learning and Human AI Interaction together. Henry’s other classes in the department were more advanced than either of the others’.
“We should invite Simon and Leonard to join our study group. I’m sure they have a couple of these courses, too,” Josh suggested.
“I’d agree to that,” Lisa said. “As long as Leonard takes a bath occasionally.”
“I hear you,” Henry said. “I’m good with inviting them to join. They’re both really smart and will give us some different perspectives. Is Dan still in?”
“Oh, sure. He’s just not back on campus yet,” Josh said.
“How did you get into Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing?” Lisa asked.
“I’m taking ridiculous loads so I can finish in three years,” Henry said. “I need to be out of here so I can spend full time getting my business up and operating. It’s hard to do while I’m in school.”
“Okay, Boy Genius. That means you should be established and ready to hire me the next year when I graduate,” Josh said.
“It’s not impossible,” Henry said. “I just need to find a boatload of money first.”
“Henry, could I talk to you for a minute in private?” Lisa asked as they left the restaurant. It was in walking distance to the campus, so they headed back that way as Josh left to catch up with some other friends who had texted him to meet.
“Sure. You headed to the sorority house? We can walk that way.”
Henry liked Lisa. She was sharp, a good study partner, and nice looking in his book. She wore her black hair with square-cut bangs and braids. Her round glasses were slightly tinted, probably to compensate for the glare of her computer screen. When they met at the convo, Henry recognized her right away by the clothes she was wearing: a baggy green sweater and rust-colored overalls.
“Hey, you got braces over the summer,” he said. “That sure hurt when I had mine.”
“Yeah. I don’t know why I couldn’t have had these when I was twelve like everyone else. Just don’t look, okay?”
“Okay, but I think they’re kind of cute.”
“You would,” she laughed. “You ... don’t mind being seen with me?”
“Why would I? We’re right in the middle of campus.”
“I ... wanted to ask you for a favor. It’s no big deal, really. I’m not asking for any kind of commitment, but I don’t have a lot of guy friends,” Lisa said.
“If I can do something for you, I’m happy to,” he said.
“Well, I’m staying over at Kappa Tau for the next month and there’s this ... event coming up. I kind of need an escort. If I don’t come up with my own, my big sister will get a random guy from Omega Rho to escort me. I’ve met her friends there and I wouldn’t trust any of them.”
“Just as an ... escort to the event?” Henry asked. He winced at the term, thinking automatically of Chastity.
“Dance. It’s the homecoming cotillion. I promise not to be a burden. We don’t even need to stay that long. I just have to be there for the pledge recognition and I need an escort. Then we can just take off and maybe get dinner or something until the event is over and I can slip back to my room without being noticed.”
“Lisa, you’re asking me to the fall cotillion at your sorority?” Henry clarified to make sure he understood.
“Yeah ... Never mind. I knew it was a bad idea.”
“Hey! Don’t withdraw the invite, please,” he said. “I think that’s really sweet. Thank you for inviting me. Let’s stop for a cup of coffee and you can tell me all the details. I’d love to take you to the dance.”
They stopped at Ground Rules and ordered drinks, then sat to talk. Homecoming was scheduled for Saturday, September eleventh. It wouldn’t be difficult for Henry to arrange his schedule for a Saturday date. He and Carol had talked only a couple of times over the summer and he was feeling awfully alone now that he lived in his own apartment.
“It isn’t formal,” Lisa said. “You don’t need a tux or to get a flower or anything like that. It’s jacket and tie for guys and dresses for girls. Ugh! I’ll have to wear a dress. I’ll try not to look too ugly.”
“Who thinks you’re ugly? You’re pretty cute.”
“Braces,” she moaned. “My big sister at the sorority nearly had a fit when she saw me.”
“Not even with braces. And when they come off, you’ll really look great.”
“Like, don’t lay it on too thick,” she said. “Thank you for the compliment, I think. I should get back to the sorority. There’s still the Greek festival on the commons tomorrow.”
They walked on and Henry stopped at the door to the sorority.
“I accept, by the way,” he said. “I’d love to take you to the dance.”
“Thanks, Henry. I’ll see you in class on Monday.”
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