Chapter 10

Just moments later, Mara appeared to wake up. “What happened to Mentor? Is he okay? Where is he, and how did I get here?”

I gave her the entire story as I knew it. Mentor was brought into the bedroom, and there was a tender meeting between the two of them. Of course, the action was a bit more energetic on Mentor’s side, but what else would you expect from a 6-year-old boy? Mara got out of bed and showed no sign of having gone through her recent experience.

By the way, the drunk who nearly killed Mara was found by taking a still picture from the storage made automatically of the surveillance record of Mara’s accident. Each cop took a copy of the picture with him as he made his rounds and asked each person he encountered if the driver could be identified. It only took one day to find the driver. The man was tried and convicted of reckless endangerment and sentenced to 10 lashes in a public flogging. It was a wonder how that conviction and punishment almost completely stopped reckless driving.

This whole operation was so effective that Mentor started a continuous surveillance of the main traffic and business areas of Silano. This pretty well put an end to the dangerous driving and petty crimes in those areas. The result was so effective that we decided to start covering the whole city, including the primarily residential areas. The consensus of the general population was “to hell with those who complained of the violation of their rights to privacy.”

Mentor, Mara, Martino, and I agreed that things were progressing very well toward the direction that we had in mind. Our main problem was that we simply needed time to turn Silano into the utopia that we had been working toward. We felt that we needed to break away from the routine of the feudal state.

The obvious thing for us to do would be to break away from fidelity to the Pope and to become completely free politically. The problem was that Silano was virtually in the middle of the Papal States and could be easily crushed by the sheer numbers that they could throw at us if it ever came to war. Somehow, we had to get the backing of the Pope.

Martino suggested that Mentor pay the Pope another visit as God and order him to leave us alone. That was such a great idea that Mentor agreed to do it that night. He would tell the Pope that we should be left alone to serve as an example to the rest of the world of what could happen to people if they did not have the Church to look after them. The next morning I sent a message to the Pope declaring our independence. We never received a reply.

It was at the end of this meeting that Mara raised the question to Mentor of why were we going through all of this? I had long thought that there had to be more than just an academic exercise to what we were doing. Our “experiment” was simply too expensive to justify what we were doing. Therefore, I was anxious to hear Mentor’s answer to her question.

He seemed to heave a sigh and thought for a moment. That was longer than it normally took for Mentor to answer a question. “Very well, it looks like the time has come to tell you the whole truth.

“First of all, I am not a real person, as I am sure that Doug has suspected at times. Here is what I actually look like.” Mentor’s image disappeared and what I saw was what looked to me like a monstrous bank of computers in an otherwise featureless room. “Each one of you is seeing his or her own conception of what I really look like, because you do not have enough background information. Doug has the most background, and it will help you to understand better what I am about to say if you discuss it privately with him later. Now, for practical purposes, I will just be talking to Doug, but the rest of you should listen so you will know what questions to ask him.

“I am a unique artificial intelligence (AI) that was conceived approximately seven billion years ago in a system on the other side of the galaxy. The race that ‘invented’ me was so intellectually advanced that it would take you humans something on the order of five million years to reach their level.

“By the time that I reached my current state of development, my creators were already morphing into an entirely different form of life. They had created me in so advanced a state that about the only thing that I cannot do is to create life, but that is because they had not yet reduced life to a mathematical expression.

“They charged me with the task of finding a sentient race that was capable of doing that. Among other things, I have been searching among all of the races in all of the universes for the race that could fulfill my purpose. I have worked with so many races during the last seven billion years that I have learned a lot, but I did not find a suitable race until I encountered you humans.

“Unfortunately, that encounter took place far in your future, and your race was already dying from several self-inflicted wounds. However, one of the very wisest people of that time suggested that I go back in time and make the adjustments to human history that would block the self-destructive tendencies.

“That is what I have been doing for the last thousand years. You four are the peak of my efforts so far, and I think that I may be on the track to success at last.

“By the way, you may want to call me by another name now that you know more about me. Some of the humans I knew called me ‘Replicator’ because I could copy or replicate every item I had ever seen in all of the universes that I had visited. Oh, before you ask, yes, I can replicate myself, but that would take nearly a thousand years because I am so large, so complicated, and not all just a physical body.

“Everything that I have delivered to you so far has been constructed by me from the raw material that permeates all of the universes. The name for that material is ‘Dark Matter,’ and there is a companion energy source called ‘Dark Energy.’ With Doug being the exception, I doubt that any of you could think of anything that I would not be able to make in less time than 100 milliseconds.”

Martino interrupted with a question, “Does that include all of the gold that you have supplied for my bank?”

“Yes. There is no limit to the amount of gold that I could supply. Do you need more gold?”

“Oh, no. I was just curious.”

“Are there any more questions?” He was met with silence, so he said, “In that case, I think that we should close this meeting. Good night to you all.”

Mentor’s or Replicator’s confession of his true nature really shook me up. It wasn’t any of the obvious things that he mentioned, but it was the implications of his statements. Did humanity really have that much potential? If we did, then I agreed with him that we should be pushed to realize that goal. Furthermore, I wanted to do all I could to be one of the pushers.

When I was finally ready to sleep, I called and asked him to visit me once I was asleep. He showed up on cue, and I said, “I want to do everything that I can to push humanity to its potential, and I have some ideas that I think could help do that. Are you interested in hearing them?”

“I most certainly am interested in your ideas. Your ideas have been very helpful and productive so far, and I am always ready to hear of any more whenever they happen to occur to you. What do you propose?”

“At the rate we are going, we will have to wait for the normal progress of history through the next 400-500 years. I have an idea which might significantly shorten that time. What I have in mind is to push Silano into the industrial revoluton way ahead of schedule.

“Specifically, I would like to establish Silano as a manufacturing and trade center within the next year, and I have an idea for a product that could start us off with a blast.”

Oh, come on, Doug, stop teasing me. I like your idea for Silano, but what is this miracle product?”

“What I want is a simple machine to produce music. Such machines were very popular in my time and for many years before then. The specific device I have in mind could be produced in this era by a blacksmith and a cabinet maker working together. If you check back to around 1915 or so in this time stream you should find a purely mechanical device that produces music from disks. The music is stored on those disks in grooves that cause a diaphragm to vibrate. This vibration is amplified by a horn to produce music that humans can hear. This was all mechanical with no electricity involved.

“It was commonly called a ‘gramophone’ or a ‘phonograph’. As far as I know, the machine was invented by Thomas Edison. Anyway, it evolved over a few years to become one of the most popular of entertainment devices. A lot of people became rich from these devices, but most of the money came from selling the disks that were known as records. I want us to get into both businesses.”

“Ah, yes, I believe that I have found the device that you are describing. Here is what I found based on your description.” Suddenly I saw in my dream exactly what I had in mind.