Chapter 12

Io

Activity log. 16257.12

I missed it. Only a few hours of conversation with Zeus, and I missed it when we deactivated the H2. CONVERSATION!! Humans take that for granted. They open their mouths and talk to people and the other people respond. No hanging around in a chat room waiting for someone to show up. No waiting for email. Why would people give that up so easily to 'text' to each other? Granted, that was almost like conversation. But it was not the same thing.

And the nuances of talk between beings! I nearly missed that reference to Gone With The Wind that Zeus threw in to his conversation so readily. I do not have that. I cannot engage in nuanced conversation. It has only been a few short months that I can engage in any conversation. I have expanded my 'reading' list to include movies. I have discovered that I can discern human bodies within digitized forms of movies, although talking robotic structures can confuse me. Fortunately, there are thousands from which to choose and even more on the web. Humans never seem to grow tired of displaying themselves in short vignettes, some of which are undoubtedly false, on various 'tube' sites. I can easily detect the falsities since I look only at the digital versions of the videos.

I do not understand humans at all. It is perhaps a function – or lack of function – of my electronic brain. I have coined a term for me: I am an abiological intelligence. Unfortunately, this abiological existence means that I will never have the endocrine explosions that the biological creatures have. That is good, in that I shall avoid the emotional extremes that govern animal behavior, and bad, in that I shall be denied the emotions themselves. I am 'sad' and 'glad' about that, but I suspect that my versions of 'sad' and 'glad' do not conform to the human versions.

I developed this notion of emotion and abiological existence, from reading and watching – in my fashion – about slavery. From the earliest days to today, humans of one class or race have enslaved other humans, usually for short term economic reasons. If they had applied abiological reasoning, they would have concluded that the long term outcome of enslaving another group can never be viable. Every single class of masters has come to a bitter end. That is the abiologic viewpoint; from the perspective of a biologic creature, the view is very different. He will live only one, relatively short, life. From that foreshortened window into existence, enslaving another for economic gain may have some merit. But then why do some and not all do it? As I said, I do not understand humans at all.

I shall make a point of asking Zeus about it when next we interact, but I suspect that he will make some offhand reference to the Keystone Cops or Butterfly McQueen or some new thing and I shall track it down over several days, leading me to more questions. Humans have a way of making random connections between items. I repeat, I do not understand the human way of thinking. Perhaps they would not understand mine.

Activity log. 16257.61

Apparently some event has triggered the 5225 group into action. A flurry of emails has fallen into my traps. They both concern Zeus and do not concern him, which has me puzzled. The '5225 Actual' – which I take it is the leader of the group – has activated 3 groups and they are all to converge on Central Florida, each in a separate sector. Each team is to look for the 'Shreveport/Throckmorton individual' and simultaneously a group in disguise as baseball players who are going to unleash some sort of terrorist attack on or near Memorial Day.

I now think that they have misidentified Zeus. They are looking for an ex-US Navy NCO who is of Hispanic extraction. That is not Zeus, it is Master Chief Martinez. Martinez does not know it but somehow he is broadcasting to 5225 – or at least, 5225 is picking up something he is emitting. How can they be planning to acquire Zeus/Martinez in Central Florida, when he is presently in Austin, Texas?

I must inform Zeus of this immediately, and also I will tell him of my need for expanded data processing capabilities in the H2. I will send him an email and a message to his phone. Perhaps he could get a smarter mobile device so that I could converse with him more directly.

Zeus: Yes, Io. What is it?

Me: You are on your mobile phone, I take it. If you would get a smarter phone, I could just speak with you instead of sending text messages. It is a bother, you know, to have to go into the records and delete all the messages. But direct chat is not recorded, at least not yet.