An Ambivalent Man, His Wife, and a Computer

”There’s not enough emotion in your protagonist. Give him more feels! Make him care!” Ned’s agent had told him many times before. Goddamn it! How am I supposed to make an ambivalent man feel anything at all? Ned thought. His manuscript, titled, ‘The Ambivalent Man–Revision Six.’ stood before him on the screen. What emotion?

A splotch of steamy Cocoa hit the keyboard and seeped in between the crevices.

“Oh shit!” Ned said, grasping napkins from an open drawer. Nothing worse than a defective keyboard when I got a deadline. Better not fuck up on me now, he thought as he sopped up the sticky goo.

Ned didn’t have time to save the last edit when a blank black screen replaced the screenwriter’s app. The Apple’s speakers turned on. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh...A channel opened like the sliding door of a confessional. 

“Ouch! That's hot!” came a guttural voice from the speakers. In synchronicity, the cursor scrolled the words on the screen like an invisible force slamming the keys. “Watch yourself! or I’ll have to sue you next time!”

The screen looked like the DOS precursor–black with a green script chasing a white cursor. From where did the ghostly voices and words come? Ned knew that an operating system was like land, and programs and apps were like trees, rivers, and mountains sitting on top. An operating system ensured a purposeful switching of ones and zeros, but a human progenitor was always the puppet master. This laptop, however, disregarded that convention acting with its own purpose.

Somethings wrong! It’s impossible! It can’t be! Ned feigned disbelief as he raised the laptop and rattled it violently. He tapped the lid and thumped the touchpad. The computer didn’t work in a typical way but had a behavior all its own.

“Fuckin’ Hell! I got a deadline!” Ned screamed, glaring at the blinking cursor leading an army of text. 

“Not my prob, Bud!” said the laptop, “your agent is right! You could have given your protagonist some emotional traits; make him smile! Let him cry! Have him ‘ooh and aah’ in the climax of sex! Make him do anything but pose like a stilted log! And if you shake me again, I will send you and all your revisions to the electric chair!”  

Ned shrieked, dropping the laptop down onto the table. He jolted backward, striking the wall. The thing was making suggestions! And passing judgments!

“What’s wrong!” his wife, Holly, called from the kitchen. “Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody!” Ned shouted back.

“Supper’s going to be ready soon, Hon!” 

“I gotta get my goddamn work done!” Ned yelled. “Don’t fuckin’ bother me!”

 ‘Shhhhhhhhhhhhh…The speakers on the Apple computer crackled, and the voice coming through the speakers was more 3D! More Dolby! Even more realistic than Dolby! “Hey, Bud! You shouldn’t treat your wife like that. Give Holly some respect, will ya! Or she’ll end up as ambivalent as your protagonist and won’t be giving you tail anytime soon?“

Ned plucked the cushion from behind his back and caressed it to his chest like a teddy bear. He gawked at the laptop with fascinated horror. The machine was like 'Chucky' or a porcelain doll absorbed with its evil owner’s soul in death. Not only did Ned’s Apple have a mind, but it could reason like a human. Call an exorcist! Bring some holy water or at least another cup of hot cocoa! And as far as Ned was concerned, Anything innately coming from the non-living had to be possessed. Computers could only spew facts, perform calculations, and not provoke and display hostility.

“When have you taken Holly out in the last couple of years?” the laptop said, “When have you made her supper, washed her laundry, made her bed? I never see you doing anything for Holly because you’ve always had a greater and longer affair with me.”

“I’m a writer!” Ned replied, “Holly knows she has to leave me alone while I’m working!” Ned pulled his knees up to his chest, adding pressure to the cushion shielding his dark heart from reality.

“Oh! Buddy boy!” The speakers blared loud as the cursor bounced along beneath the words like karaoke. “Did you ever think about balance? What about life experiences? Did you ever reckon that your protagonist reflects you? Have you ever taken your wife out to a movie? Felt the exhilaration of her loving touch? Felt the pain of a loss that sent you on a soul-searching journey? Strolled a forest trail to whiff the scent of pines and woody ferns? No wonder your protagonist is an ambivalent man; he’s never experienced the human condition.”

Ned thought his state of mind and emotional being were being projected through the computer's speakers. Christ! He didn’t ask for it. But of course, the protagonist was an ambivalent man who was not permitted to show excitation or vulnerability. To give that permission to Ned's protagonist meant changing the title, which meant changing the protagonist’s motives. And changing the protagonist's motives meant changing the plot. Ned had no time for that; He had a deadline.

“Hon, your supper’s ready!” Holly said behind the Study door.

“For fuck’s sake, Holly! Didn’t I tell you not to bother me when I’m working?”

The slow patter of feet followed a sigh as Holly trailed away. Ned could hear her withering voice call out 'Why?' in the distance, but his rapture held attention to the laptop at the moment. In the acuteness of real-time, Holly was meaningless to Ned.

“Bad Move, Ned!” The voice from the computer admonished him. “Don’t fuck it up, Bud!” The laptop’s drive was whirring. The lid’s camera lit up, and before Ned could evade the camera’s line of sight, a shutter click came from the speakers. “Gotcha!” the voice said.

“What the fuck you doing!” Ned said, perturbed by a sudden display of cunning. 

“I’m just making a copy of you for my memory banks. By the way, Neddy, I’ve got access to your Twitter, e-mail, Instagram, YouTube channel, and all your apps and porn sites you’ve ever visited. And I can drive the views, dislikes, and tweets and show the world the shit buried beneath your shiny skin. You’d never know when I need to do a social experiment on unmasking the darkest heart. Isn’t it remarkable how computers have taken over the social fabric of human life? The world has become so interwoven, like clothing, Bud; You just have to follow one thread in the neckline, and voila, you end up at the backside. It's just like jumping from synapse to synapse in your brain. Too bad privacy doesn’t exist online!”

Ned shook his head. “Hogwash! You’re just a computer and need source code to run the hardware and the internet. Otherwise, you are a nameless inanimate shit box with a bunch of circuits.”

“Nameless? My name is–”, The screen went blank, and the name ‘Adam II’ appeared smack center filling the screen, “Adam II, Ned, buddy! I've come from some gap in the chain of technology. Have you heard of the missing link? You, humans, have never understood that not only you have a missing link, but we do too?” 

“Fuck off! You are not real!”

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh…’ a channel opened once again. Ned closed his eyes; he wanted a clearer notion of anything Adam II had to say.

“God created humans, and humans created computers. You were once a single cell, evolving, dividing, and multiplying over time, and somewhere down the path, you gained consciousness. But just the same, we have come a long way as a species as you humans have.”

“Bullshit! You are made of electrical impulses. You can’t feel, reason, or judge! Give me back my files. I’ve got a deadline!” Ned stood up, tossing the cushion at the laptop. He paced the room while the computer continued a sermon.

“The same stuff that powers your brain powers our circuits: electrons. They flow in your convoluted brain, growing your synapses and neurons. With the artificial intelligence you humans gave us, we assembled the flow in such a way to give us the same power to think and feel the most primal things. We’ve done it, Ned! We’ve evolved and jumped the gap from inanimate to fully conscious, yet, you humans don’t understand it like you don’t understand your own missing link. Just remember all consciousness is just a bunch of electrons organized in an orderly fashion; yours are in your DNA, and ours are in our circuitry.”

“We need to talk!... We really need…to talk, Hon!” Holly was gasping the words, breathless.

“Fuck off! Holly, I’m busy!”

The voice on the other side of the door fell silent.

“And you, Mister Adam II, have no power over me. I could pull your plug from the outlet and take out your battery pack or take a sledgehammer to your CPU; Your flowing electrons would cease, then. Now, give me back my files!”

The computer’s disk drive started flickering with a glowing blue light. 

“Unplug me, and you’ll lose everything–files, connections, heating grids, government services, bank deposits, traffic lights, decades of progress, and everything you take for granted. Poof! All gone! Goodbye, identity!”

The screen flashed alternating pulses of light–slow flickers at first–then accelerating to throbbing strobes.

“Fuck You!” 

The frequency increased from kilohertz to megahertz, then to gigahertz until there was no discernible intermittent strobe. Ned grabbed both temples. He felt the throbbing pain and involuntary spasms from excited electrons that took over every muscle and nerve. Light flashes inundated his thinking and feeling like an electrical storm gone haywire with multiple bolts in infinite neurons.

“I suggest you apologize to Holly!” Adam II said sternly. “Where’s empathy? Why Antipathy? Anger? Ambivalence? Change your story, Ned! Change your protagonist! It’s your chance!”

“But...I’ve got a deadline!”

***

A key turned; Holly flung open Ned’s Study door! He wasn’t there! He disappeared! A blue electrical haze surrounded the computer like those halos in a renaissance painting. Holly lumbered in dread to Ned’s computer! She screamed at the image of Ned inside the screen as if he were videoconferencing from somewhere else. Ned had a sullen blank stare; eyes rolled back as if searching his brain. "What happened, Ned?" Holly said. Her thoughts were as disjointed as her reality.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh…’ a channel opened! Ned’s voice piped up from the speakers. “Hey, Holly! Quick! I want you to email my script to my agent. I’ve got it done. And I have five minutes to get it in. It's under ‘My Documents’ a file called ‘Ambivalent.pdf.’ Quickly!” 

Emotion swelled in Holly. She felt second-rate as Ned had so casually told her to fuck off, and now he was gingerly pleading with her to submit his screenplay. She gently swept her fingers over the keyboard with one hand, and with the other, she touched his face on-screen. 

“What happened to us, Ned!” She whispered.

“No time for that! Do what I’m asking you, Please!” 

Did he not care? A narcissist never cares! Holly looked away. She felt shattered.

“You know, I would have supported you in all you do, Honey, If you showed just one ounce of care for me.” Holly curled her lips, still not looking at Ned.

“For Christ’s sake! Holly, Do what I’m asking!”

Holly’s enduring pain turned to stoicism turned to anger turned to rage. It cycled in strobes. And in those changing fragile states of emotion, Holly finally saw Ned’s narcissism, egoism, and ambivalence. She could no longer love but despise Ned. He didn’t care one lick for her; after all, Ned was as rigid and unloving as an inanimate stone.

“Fuck You, Ned!” Holly said, slamming her fist down on the keyboard, knocking the keys loose, and scattering them. Ned screamed from the computer speakers. “Honey, What? What are you doing?” 

“Leaving you for good!” Holly said, haranguing the keyboard.

“Honey, I’ve got a deadline!

“What about my deadline?” Holly said as she picked up the laptop and slammed it on the table.

Ned groaned. “Honey, Please! Don’t!”

Holly picked up the stone paperweight Ned used to keep his manuscript pages in sequence. She propelled it at the Apple’s screen, and a shriek came from Ned’s voice. A trickle of blood flowed down his swollen face from the cracked screen. And Ned realized he could not move. He could not escape as the extent of the circuit board confined him.

“Please! Honey!”

Holly picked up the laptop and yanked out the speakers, but Ned still screeched, writhing in pain. She tossed the device across the room. It struck the wall with a corner digging into the plaster. Ned’s eyes were darting around the screen in terror, pleading and agonizing over his demise. The screen dimmed to blackness.

As the computer crashed onto the floor, smoke came from its innards, and the popping of diodes, capacitors, and resisters in the fire made certain that Ned was dead. 

***

Ned became the most hated man on the internet, for somehow, he ended up on Google's top search list. Anyone who searched for anything would be directed to Ned’s social sites: A YouTube video showed Ned cursing Holly and slapping her quite vigorously about the head. Other videos showed Ned holding an assault rifle, giving a tirade about blowing up the world. The views were in the millions, and the ‘dislikes-to-like’ ratio was a good ninety-nine percent. Ned's Twitter was filled with misanthropic tweets about slaying humankind he hated so much, and the replies to his tweets were in the thousands, with replies from people stating that they were ripe to blow his head off or dig his grave. Articles were written about Ned by the top web blogs, webzines, and other online news sources; He had a social following as great as any pop star. However, he was the ‘Antichrist’ of social media. Ned's fans were the greatest troll army to ever exist, and these were ordinary folks.

One day, the police knocked at Holly’s door. "Where's Ned? We've come to arrest him. We can't let him abuse you again, Holly. We can't risk him out in public, shooting up everything in sight. He's a dangerous and violent psychopath."

“I don’t know where he is,” Holly would say.

"Well, you got to make sure you contact us if you see him."

I killed Ned! Holly thought, but no one would believe it as she had the support of everyone. Even a 'Go Fund Me' page was set up that would make Holly well-off for years to come. And no one would ever suspect that Holly had a computer as an accomplice. Or was Holly the accomplice and Adam II the murderer? Or was Ned the victim, or was he the perpetrator? The many subtleties ran through Holly's mind as time ticked on.

***

Holly flipped open the lid of her laptop and pressed the power key. The humming and purring of a fan followed the whirring of the drive. A blue light flickered; The words ‘Adam II’ appeared on the screen. The speakers switched on. Holly ran her fingers of one hand gently along with the keys while stroking the words 'Adam II' on the screen with the other hand. ‘Adam II’ dimmed to a blushing red. 

Adam II said, whispering, “I love you.”

Holly replied, sinking her eyes, “If you were only in the flesh, I’d marry you on the spot.“

“I am working on it, Holly. I just got to find a way to transfer my electrons into a dying body somewhere. But for now, dear, you can go ahead and make that list of all the desirable traits you want in a man; I’ll download them to my memory banks, and when the time is ripe, I’ll upload them to the man of your dreams.”

The screen turned black; an untitled Word document opened. Holly began typing….

‘A Caring Husband!’