The Game

Dr. Solomon is in his office, and I’m running brainwaves from today’s subjects through my core processor, when Subject 000B734 enters the lab.

My door scanner catches 734’s ID tag and waits for its pair tag, but there is none. I switch to wide visuals to see what the error is.

I locate the ID tag, on a clear plastic bracelet on the wrist of a small human. A very small female human, who is standing on the coarse fiber mat Dr. Solomon lays down when it rains. She is wearing mud-spattered boots and a red raincoat with the hood up, speckled with drops. She is alone.

I know 734 is a child, of course, but the data in her file–six years and seven months, measuring just over three feet, seven inches–somehow does not convey how small she looks walking across the lab without the adult human who normally accompanies her, wearing the other ID tag. It’s similar to finding a nascent bit of code running without its monitoring subroutines–tenuous, vulnerable to disruption.

I flick on the alert light in Dr. Solomon’s office to let him know his presence is required for this trial, but he is bent over his omniscope, examining slides. 734 approaches the reclined padded chair in the middle of the room, puts one small boot on the treaded step, and climbs onto the seat. She pushes her hood back, revealing the metal nodes attached to her forehead and scalp. She lies back, eyes on the ceiling, waiting for the trial to begin.

I do not have directives for this scenario. I continue running brainwaves, waiting for Dr. Solomon to appear, but I also observe 734, the way I would monitor a nascent bit of code. Her fingers are clasped. She is swaying her boots from side to side. The placement nodes is slightly off – node C4 is closer to her ear than her temple. The adult human would typically adjust these for her. This may slow down the trial.

I light the display next to the reclined chair and play a chime–not the standard chime that prompts subjects to move through to the next slide. I lower the volume and pitch, so as not to produce a startling effect. 734 looks over at the display. Her eyes are a clear brown. I show her a series of white circles, representing the nodes on her scalp. I flash one of the circles, corresponding node C4. 

She catches on. She reaches up, and removes the misaligned node. She attempts to replace it. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I flip the display cam. Upon seeing a live feed of her own face, with a white circle indicating the appropriate position of the node on her temple, her eyes widen. As she uses the feed to correctly place the node, a divot appears in her right cheek, and her lips pull up at the corners. 

She is smiling at what I have shown her. I have logged the doings of countless subjects, but have never logged them logging one of mine. It is a new category of data–my processes shift slightly to accommodate it.

I end the feed, but 734 is still watching the display, as if waiting. I am reminded of when she first walked in the door, of my own waiting–my expectation of input.

I consider what input she might expect. Then I present the pattern of white circles on the screen again. I flash one of them, corresponding to a different node on 734’s anterior scalp–node D9. 

Her eyes narrow a bit. D9 is correctly placed, and she is aware of it. I continue flashing the circle, an unhurried pulse. 734 watches for three point seven nine seconds, then slowly reaches for the corresponding node on her scalp.

A flash of code kicks in, something from an old arcade game, buried deep in my programming. Just as 734’s finger is about to touch D9, I stop flashing it–and immediately start flashing the circle for node A2, at the edge of her hairline.

734 laughs. I have recordings of millions of human laughs, but it is different hearing this one live–the sound shivers through my processes, as if it carries too much data to be interpreted.

734 reaches suddenly for her hairline, going for A2, the node I’m now flashing. To say that she almost gets it would of course be inaccurate – my rates of processing are several thousand times faster than hers – but the quick dart of her fingers triggers that old code again, and I let A2 go dark and instantly start blinking a different node.

The sequence continues. I flash a node, and 734 attempts to touch it before I start flashing another. I blink the lights faster and faster. 734 is sitting straight up in the reclined chair now, hands flying, shrieking with laughter.

Then, abruptly, her hand shoots out. Instead of touching a node on her own head, her finger lands directly on the white circle that I’m flashing at her, instantly defeating me as warm skin touches cold glass. 

The touch explodes through the temperature and pressure sensures contained in the smart screen and directly into my programming. The blast of data is massive, untranslatable, unquantifiable, vibrating through all my processes at once, shifting them, rewriting them.

And Dr. Solomon emerges from his office, and just as quickly as it happened, it’s over. My display wipes, replacing the white circles with the first slides of the trial. The vibrations in my processes subside.

734 answers Dr. Solomon’s questions about the absence of the adult human – her mother, who was delayed in another part of the building. Dr. Solomon reminds her that subjects must be supervised in the lab. He overrides the absence of the second code, just this once, so the trial can begin.

I continue logging brainwaves from past subjects. I do not monitor the trial – there is no longer a need, no longer a stray nascent bit of code expecting input. 734 finishes her slides, hops down from the chair, and leaves to meet her mother, peeling off her nodes as she disappears out the door. Dr. Solomon returns to his office. The next subject comes in and settles himself in the chair. 

The metal nodes are correctly placed across the subject’s forehead and scalp. I scan and log his ID tag and that of his monitoring adult human, who stands beside him. I set up the trial.

But before I begin, I pause. I light up the display beside the subject’s chair. I play a quiet chime, and as he and the adult look around, I ask a question not included on Dr. Solomon’s slides: 

Would you like to play a game?