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.Around its head and shoulders, a nimbus flared, red, blue, yellow, and green.Page 24ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html"Hello, everyone," the figure said."And welcome, Doctor and MisterGonzales.I am a localized manifestation of Aleph -- a simulacrum for yourconvenience and mine."Gonzales noticed that next to him, Diana was smiling, while all around himthere was silence, as all in the room and on the screen were intently watchingthe screen.The IC's viewing window had closed, but the simulacrum's portion remained-- in it, the creature of light sat watching.Showalter, Horn, Diana, Lizzie,Charley, and Gonzales sat around the table.Showalter said, "This is Chow's meeting, and I won't say much in it.However, I should remind you of certain realities.This project does not havehigh priority in the overall context of SenTrax's responsibilities to HaloCity; thus, while we support this experiment's humanitarian goals, we are notprepared to delay other projects."Horn said, "We cannot divert a significant amount of people to promulgationand we are not or do not want to encourage any behaviors which might adverselyimpact other SenTrax outcomes."Lizzie laughed, and Gonzales, poker-faced, looked at her and thought, yeah,this guy's laughable all right.Gonzales recognized the performative chatterof the bureaucratic ape, a mixture of scrambled syntax and pretentiousbuzzwords -- language meant to manipulate or mindfuck, not enlighten or amuse.Horn, frowning at Lizzie, said, "If the operation becomes problematized,threatening to seriously impact other more essentialized Halo priorities, thenwe require immediate resolution through proper SenTrax procedures."Showalter said, "If you screw up, we shut you down." She nodded to Horn, andthey both stood and left.Lizzie said, "You notice they held off on the heavy stuff until the collectivehad cleared the screen."Charley asked, "Do you want to call them on it? They're in violation of thegroup's compact.""No," she said."I expected all that." She looked at Diana and Gonzales andsaid, "Doctor Chow, your show.""Thank you," Chow said.His voice was oddly high-pitched for such a big man;Gonzales had been expecting something on the order of a basso profundo.Chow said, "In the late twentieth century, the idea emerged of a person'sidentity as something transferrable.People spoke, in the idiom of the time,of 'downloading' a person." On the screen, where the IC had been, appeared acartoon drawing of a nude woman, her expression stunned, the top of her skullcovered with a metal cap.From the cap a thick metal cable led to a largeblack cabinet faced with arrays of blinking lights."Absurd," Chow said, and the woman disappeared."To see why, let us ask, whatis a person? Is it a pure spirit, fluid in a jar that one can decant into theproper container? Hardly.It is a dynamic field made of thousands of disparateelements, held in a loose sack of skin that perambulates the universe atlarge.And of course it is perceptions, histories, possibilities, actions, andthe states and affects pertaining to all these."I can be found in the motion of my hand." He spread his fingers like amagician about to materialize a coin or colored scarf, and on the screen, thehand and its motion were doubled."And in my own perceptions of the hand --for instance, from within, through proprioceptors.And of course I see I."Chow turned and held his hand in front of his face.He dropped his hand in achopping motion, and the screen cleared."And I am that which thinks about,talks about, and remembers the hand and has the special relation of ownershipto it.I am also the will to use that hand." He held the hand in front of hisface, made a clenched fist."So, to download even a portion of I would be todownload all these things and their entire somatic context."Also, of course, I am that which has my experiences, stored as motorpossibilities, recalled as memory, dream, manifest as characteristic ways ofPage 25ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlbeing and knowing.To download I would require duplicating this fluid chaos."Downloading the I thus becomes a most daunting task, perhaps beyond evenAleph's capabilities.However, when cyborged to an existing I, even one asdamaged as Jerry Chapman, Aleph can create a virtual person, one who functionsas a human being, not a disembodied intelligence, one who is capable of allthe somatic possibilities he had when healthy.The physical Jerry Chapman is ashattered thing, but the Jerry Chapman latent in this hulk can live."Looking at Diana, Chow said, "We want you to share Jerry's world.He mustinvest there, must experience other people and the bonds of affection thatengage us in this world.Otherwise he will languish quickly; his neural mapswill decay, and he will die."Gonzales easily followed that line of reasoning: monkey man had to have othermonkey men or women around or else go crazynot an absolute rule, perhaps, butgood in most circumstances.Diana said, "Assuming that he becomes at home in this world, what then?For how long can this simulated reality sustain him?"The Aleph-figure spoke for the first time.It said, "I have only conjecturalanswers to these questions but would prefer not to entertain them right now.First we must rescue him from the degenerative state he lives in and thecertain death it entails.""I understand that," Diana said."That's why I am here, to help in any fashionI can.It's just that I have questions."Lizzie said, "And you'll get whatever answers Aleph wants to give.Get used toit; we all do.""Of course you do," the creature of light said."And how about you, MisterGonzales? Do you have questions?""Not really.I'm an observer, little more.""A difficult position to maintain," the Aleph-figure said."Epistemologically, of course, an untenable position."Lizzie laughed.She said, "It is indeed.Look, how about I take you two out todinner tonight, Mister Gonzales, Doctor Heywood?""Call me Diana," she said."You bet," Lizzie said."And I'm Lizzie, you're.?" She looked atGonzales."Mikhail," he said."But call me Gonzales -- my friends do.""Good," Lizzie said."We've got work to do, so let's cut the shit.This thing,I'm still not a believer about it, but I know it's got to happen quickly ornot at all.Tomorrow Charley does his preliminary examination ofDiana, then we move."9.Virtual CafGonzales and Diana sat in Halo's Central Plaza with Lizzie.Colored lights --red, blue, and green -- clustered in the branches of thick-leaved maples thatringed the square.The smoke of vendors' grills filled the air with the smellsof grilled meat and fish.In the middle distance, elevators in pools of yellowlight climbed Spoke 6.Some people strolled across the Plaza;others sat in small groups; their voices made a soft background murmur
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