Forever Yours
©2025 Elder Road Books - Lynnwood WA
Chapter 62: Surprise!
LABOR DAY weekend, Henry invited Luke, Isobel, and Baby Paul to the new house for a holiday cookout. Isobel had just started the last two classes for her degree. She’d skipped the spring semester while she was pregnant. She was eager now to get her degree. Luke, on the other hand, was in the final year of his combined BA/MBA.
Henry looked at his friend and noticed Luke had a rapidly receding hairline. His father had a full head of hair, but Henry seemed to remember genetics didn’t work that way when it came to hair. They went to the patio and Henry started the new grill for the first time.
“Have you ever noticed things like this grill are only bright and shiny when they’re brand new?” Luke asked. He seemed in a pensive mood. “Once you use it the first time, the new starts to wear off. You won’t notice it much the first time—especially if you clean it good after you use it. Make sure all the grease is off it and anything that got charred is scrubbed clean. But the damage is done. It will never be new again—never quite as bright and shiny.”
Henry waited to see if there was a point to the story. When Luke didn’t go on, but stood staring at the meat cooking on the grate, Henry ventured into the conversation.
“Sounds like you have something on your mind other than my new grill,” he suggested.
“I’ve just started seeing atrophy all around me,” Luke sighed. “Think about the office, for example. Two years and two months ago we had the third floor built out to our specification and moved into a brand new space with a brand new company. Then we took over the second floor, and then the first floor. Of course, the first and second floors weren’t brand new. We replaced the former tenants and re-arranged things to suit ourselves.”
“Nothing stays brand new,” Henry said. “It’s the way of life.”
“But look at you! Tomorrow, we’ll have another brand new shiny office next door to the old one. You’ll move all the development over there into space that is just as new as ours was two years ago. But in the original office? We’ll get the carpets cleaned. Retouch the paint and patch a few holes. Then we’ll fill it and go on with the business. It just won’t be new anymore.”
“It sounds like you’re really talking about the business and not the office,” Henry said.
“Hmm. The office as a symbol of the business. I guess. Your new projects are over a year old, too. Your original products are all being worked on and advanced by other people. Aren’t you feeling like you need something new?” Luke asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got a new baby,” Henry laughed.
“Mmmhmm. Like me. But my baby is six months old tomorrow. He’s no longer brand new. And yours is a month old. Every diaper you change, every burp you pat out, every lullaby you sing, it’s a little less new.”
“Are you okay, Luke? Problems?”
“Oh, I suppose they are nothing new, either,” he chuckled. “I knew when I married that it would be a little difficult. We never expected the company to take off so fast or so soon. In a way, I’m glad it did, because it shielded us from some of the other problems. I love Izzy. I’ve loved her since we were in junior high. I loved the manic Izzy and the depressed Izzy. I loved all the other Izzys I met along the way. Sometimes, it’s just a little hard coping with the company and the baby and her all at once.”
“You guys should take a vacation this winter—just the two of you. Go someplace warm where she can put on a bikini and tantalize you on the beach,” Henry said.
“Uh ... Child,” Luke said flatly.
“We’ll keep Paul,” Henry said immediately. “You don’t even need to keep Grace on for the week. She can have a vacation, too. We haven’t spent nearly as much time with him as we wanted to. Having our own child kind of put a dent in that plan, but we’re still his godparents and we’d love to have him for a while.”
“I hope you can sell your wives on that, because I’m going to sell Isobel. You’re right. It’s just what we need,” Luke said.
Henry took the meat off the grill and they joined the women and babies for dinner.
Every box, piece of furniture, and bit of equipment had a tag on it, indicating what office or space in the new building it was to move to. The moving team had worked on the holiday—for double pay—to move everything from Building A to Building B that was supposed to be moved. Darrel supervised the move, making sure nothing moved that wasn’t supposed to.
Germaine took Henry and Chastity to work, then returned to take Cassie from Lisa so Lisa could make an appearance in her new office. She’d be on limited hours, but had decided she needed to save some of her parental time for use later. She might need time to take Cassie to a doctor or just to play with her daughter.
Henry’s office in the old space was bare. He hadn’t been into the office more than a couple of times in the past month, so seeing the office empty and dust in the corners was a little disconcerting. All the development area was cleaned out with the exception of Darrel’s IT group, which would be working from the old office to maintain the network.
In the lobby, a smiling young woman greeted them from the hologram.
“Good morning, Mr. Pascal and Ms. Pappa. I hope you had a good holiday,” the hologram said.
“Yes, thank you,” Henry responded, approaching the screen and examining the new look to the virtual receptionist. “What is your name?”
“My name is Emma. I am the fifth generation of Open Cloak virtual receptionists, commonly referred to as the Alice Project. How may I help you, Mr. Pascal?”
The tones were relaxed and casual, but Henry thought the phrasing of the answer was a little mechanical. He needed to talk to Simon about personality development for the holograms.
“Have you been informed about the number of new people coming in today?” Henry asked.
“Yes, sir. Audrey has the name tags and will register each person as he or she comes in. She’ll make sure each new hire then waits for their escort. Badges will be issued at orientation,” Emma said.
“Good. Thank you. And as this is your first day in our lobby, welcome to Open Cloak Design,” Henry said.
“First day? Oh! So it is!”
The hologram looked surprised.
“Nice work on Emma, Simon,” Henry said. “Deena showed some signs of a personality and Emma is ... interesting if a little mechanical. She sounded surprised this morning.”
“It will be a miracle if she doesn’t sound surprised at everything anyone says,” Simon laughed. “Why didn’t they teach us anything about computer personalities in school? The hardest part has been finding where little things can be added that don’t mess up big things. We’re getting closer.”
“You know, both Pythia Speaks and the Forever Yours singularities are developing the appearance of personalities. I wonder if some of the learning experience there is adaptable to Alice,” Henry said.
“I get it with Forever Yours, because it has the entire life and personality of the model to work from. The Alice learning model is far more limited. We record the same stuff for each version. I’m surprised Pythia Speaks is learning a personality,” Simon said.
“I’m guessing it has to do with the number of queries she gets each day. She was based on a small language model, but she adds content to her wall based on the queries she receives and even the answers she gives,” Henry said. “How does the new recording studio look?”
“It will be fun. We’ve been recording in less than optimum conditions. Now when we have an Alice model come in to record, we have eight cameras and a fully neutral background and lighting. It would be cool if we had full body, but head and shoulders is all the receptionist needs.”
“Keep up the good work.”
“Oh, that reminds me. This woman named Virginia Amundson from Niagara Falls contacted us. Slightly southern accent. I guess she called Chastity and Chastity hooked her up with me. She said you suggested she call when she lost her job?”
“Oh! I didn’t expect her to remember where she’d put Chastity’s card. We met her at the front desk at our hotel. She has a kind of clueless bubbly demeanor and I thought she might be a possible for your library of models. Make up your own mind. It was just a thought,” Henry laughed.
“I’ve learned that your random thoughts are often laced with genius, Henry. I’ll talk to her.”
Henry wasn’t sure the clueless desk clerk from Niagara Falls would be laced with genius, but he left Simon to figure that out. He was sure, however, that he wanted to do more work on Forever Yours, and that it would involve branching the source code. He didn’t want to experiment with the commercial product.
He found he was talking aloud much more when he had his daughter in his arms. It just seemed natural to tell her about everything he thought of. And that was carrying over into his work space, as well. He kept a recorder running when he was in his office and talked out loud as he recorded his thoughts and ideas.
The video in Forever Yours worked just fine as long as it was simply selecting clips to play, but the generative AI was slow at creating an image on the fly that appeared to be talking. With typical generative AI, the video was created and recorded, then played back at speed. Forever Yours did not allow for lag time to create the video. It needed to play immediately, like a conversation.