Forever Yours
65
Special Delivery
“THERE ARE THINGS I think I would never say,” Henry said. “Forever Yours cannot be a true representation of me unless it also understands what I might think, but wouldn’t say. If I wouldn’t say it, Forever Yours shouldn’t say it.”
He’d been thinking about this a lot in the past month, since the family’s lawyer appointments to update their wills. Having read his previous will, he realized how simplistic and, in some ways unrealistic, it was. Designating a dollar amount was never a good idea for any purpose. He didn’t actually have many dollars.
He was coding in his FY engine as much as he was dictating to it. In fact, all Forever Yours could do with his dictation was store it on its wall and learn from it. That learning was in association with other words stored there, not in concepts, ideas, and opinions.
Henry realized his life rules had to be programmed into the AI. The AI could not be depended upon to deduce his life rules. He was compiling a list that would help users capture less-concrete data for their Forever Yours singularity. He referred to them as filters. People filtered their thoughts before they spoke them. Forever Yours should filter them in the same way.
But it couldn’t be filtered according to his personal taste alone. Not every instance of Forever Yours was based on him. He needed the filters to be genuine for the singularity embodied. The real person needed to come through. People lied about their personality all the time. Perhaps there was a way to let the system know that the user was lying. And that lying was part of the character of the user.
It was more complex than he’d imagined when he first conceived the program.
“So, we’re not supposed to use dollar amounts?” Chastity asked as they all worked on their wills. “I don’t get it.”
“How many dollars do you have in the bank and hidden under your mattress or in your purse?” Lisa asked.
“Like, fifteen million?” Chastity said.
“Really? Get out your bank statements,” Lisa demanded.
“Well, some of it is in mutual funds and stocks and bonds. Then there’s all the shares of Open Cloak that are owned by the partnership,” Chastity said.
“That’s the problem with specifying amounts of money. Sure, you can make small donations and give a thousand dollars to your favorite charity, but when you start dividing up $15 million, you don’t have that much money. Whatever else you have must be converted into money. And we don’t know if Open Cloak stock will be worth fifteen dollars a share when we die, or fifty, or five. So, we don’t actually know how much money we have, except for what is in the bank,” Henry said.
“Shit. This is hard. What about the house?” she asked.
“We each own a share of the house based on what we put into the purchase. But no matter how much money we put in when we bought it, now it’s worth what it can be sold for. Less a sales commission. So, we talk about willing our interest in the house, not the money in it,” Lisa said. “My grandfather went over all this when he explained the trust he set up for the children. He put $150 million into it in order to buy 10 million shares of stock. Now the trust isn’t for $150 million. It’s for 10 million shares.”
“Our poor babies will have a nightmare,” Chastity said.
“Hopefully, it is one that will wait until they are better able to understand it, which means when they are older than we are now,” Henry said. “I find myself fading into melancholy when I think of losing either of you. This whole will thing sucks.”
“I suck!” Lisa said happily. “It’s one of the few things I can still do. Let’s go to bed!”
It was not on point for the task of will-making, but Cassie was asleep. That made it a good idea.
“We recorded thirty-one orders for the American Intelligent Machines sidewalk paver in the first quarter of 2031, far exceeding our initial projections,” Darla reported to the executives. “Non-refundable deposits of $50,000 per order have been received for AIM revenue of $1.55 million. That’s not really operating capital. Every dollar of that is designated for setting up the machinery at the manufacturer to fabricate the equipment.”
“Should we have bought into the manufacturer?” Chastity asked. “It sounds like a lot of money.”
“It’s a drop in the bucket. The Argos investment funds will be providing another $22 million, just to get the production set up. The total number of orders we have at the moment will amount to only about twenty percent of the setup cost. Then we also have to acquire materials and labor for the equipment.”
“Are we charging enough for them?” Luke asked.
“So far, yes. There is no doubt the price will need to go up soon. As an introductory offer, it’s good,” Darla said.
“Are there enough potential customers to make it profitable?” Henry asked.
“The total number of orders so far come from just seven customers,” Darla said. “After witnessing the test demonstrations we’ve done, two of the cities have ordered twenty between them. We are in discussion with over fifty municipalities with the likelihood of closing on forty or more. Each of those sales will likely average five to ten machines. City infrastructure is deteriorating at an unheard-of pace. Just replacing sidewalks will be big. Then we’ll be ready to release the big mama paver. It won’t sell as many units, but State governments are already beginning to make inquiries.”
“That’s all good news,” Luke said. “You’ve really put together a great team.”
“That’s not all the news,” Darla said.
“Please go on,” Luke said.
“We have the first order for a holographic receptionist,” she said. “Granted, it is from one of our board members, but inquiries are coming in on a regular basis.”
“I fail to see how a mechanical receptionist is going to sell,” Izzy said. “Don’t companies want actual people to interact with other people?”
“You’d think so,” Darla said, “but the Alice Project represents a visualization of what AI can be that isn’t too scary. Humanoid robots, or robots that pretend to be dogs, or even robotic lovers, are scary. A hologram is somehow less so. Her blue color is actually a help. We have prototypes that will operate in a glass cylinder about six inches in diameter. It could become an embodiment of the search engine that functions like popular assistants on the big websites. But these work on behalf of the user, not the company. People will be saying, ‘Hey, Alice, who is favored to win the World Series this year?’ And a pretty face in the cylinder will give them the stats and the odds, all while smiling at them.”
“Henry, we’re actually developing that?” Izzy asked.
“Yes. It’s still in R&D, but Rick really lit a fire under that group. It’s tripled in size in the past three months. And people are digging into it with everything they’ve got. He brought in some top tier talent. It’s even possible we could hook it to Forever Yours and project the holographic image of the client in the same kind of tube,” Henry said. “Not sure if the users would get along as well with the blue image of Daddy’s talking head as those for Alice, but maybe they’ll be happier with the ghostly image of Dad instead of a photographic image.”
“Do we have sales of any normal things?” Izzy asked.
“Yes. All our products are showing a consistent climb in sales since we took over direct distribution instead of distributing through a third party. It was only a matter of time, but our margins are significantly higher.”
The meeting continued through the remainder of the first quarter report that showed the company well on the way to its first billion-dollar sales year.
Henry and Chastity both noticed Isobel’s focus and attention to details in the meeting. It had been six weeks since her mother passed and something about the event seemed to have sharpened Isobel and had possibly even begun to help her mental health.
They knew she loved her mother, but felt the woman had contributed to Izzy’s problems rather than helped. They wondered if her father was filling the gap.
“I’m not going back,” Felipe said.
Izzy’s brother called her near the end of April and asked her to have lunch with him at the university. He’d done well his first year, starting on the football team as a freshman. The death of their mother had hit him as hard as Isobel.
“To school?” Izzy asked, alarmed.
“Home,” Felipe answered. “I entered the transfer portal and was recruited by UCLA. I’m moving as soon as classes are out in two weeks. I can’t believe that man…”
“I know. I agree and I don’t blame you. It would mean a lot to Luke if you waited until his graduation party. He really thinks of you as his brother,” Izzy said.
“Yeah. I like him a lot. You got lucky. The party is on the tenth. I can stay until then.”
“You can stay with us.”
“Thanks.”
Isandro, their father, had not only started dating a woman not much older than Isobel just a month after her mother died, but she’d moved in with him the previous week.
“He didn’t even let the body cool,” Isobel said, pushing her salad around on her plate.
“Face it, Iz. Where she went it’s never going to cool,” Felipe said.
“Felipe! She was our mother!”
“And I loved her as much as you!” he said. “That doesn’t mean she was a good person. It doesn’t mean she didn’t screw us up in our heads. And if you think that old man is owed some kind of respect for the way he treated her, you’re crazier than I know you are.”
“Hey! Just cool it. It’s Izzy. You know I feel the same way you do. They were terrible people to us. He tried to marry me off to a guy in Argentina I’d never met. At least Mom got me out of there. That’s what was so weird.”
“What was?” Felipe asked.
“Just when I was at the point of hating them both and thinking I’d elope with Luke and never see them again, she’d do something and I’d have to stay. I’d have to, because she was as much a victim of him as I was of her. The only good thing about her dying was that she finally left him.”
“What a fucked-up family.”
“I pity that girl he trapped. She’s not even thirty,” Izzy said.
“Don’t go there, Isobel. Don’t start feeling sorry for her. I warned her. I told her what he was really like. You know what she said? She said we could have a lot of fun when she was my step-mommy. She plans to drain everything she can from the old man and discard him.”
“God! That’s cold.” Isobel pushed the rest of her food away. Nothing tasted pleasant to her lately. She’d lost another ten pounds since her mother died. “Do you need anything? Money? A car?”
“Mom left me a bank account. I don’t think Dad knew she had it. It’s got a few thousand in it. Wheels would be nice. We can bet there won’t be anything coming to us from the old man’s estate when he kicks it. I’ll make it pretty well when I go pro. And it’s a good offer that UCLA made. I’ll focus on getting some NIL deals. Maybe Open Cloak could use the name and image of a college halfback. I won’t suffer out there.”
“I’ll have Luke’s father get you something sporty. Or maybe you want my convertible? No. I’ll get you a new one. I’ll put a few thousand in the glove box for you.”
“I wouldn’t have made it as a kid without you, Iz.”
“Just make it as an adult. Success is the best revenge.”
“Like you.”
“Like me.”
The idea of Isobel’s brother going to the West Coast was depressing to her. The only one left in the city would be her father, and she had no intention of going back there again, either. He was disgusting. Izzy thought he’d been seeing Belle since long before her mother died.
She went with Felipe in the middle of the day the next week and they both removed all their personal belongings and anything they could find of their mother’s. There wasn’t much. All Lupe’s clothes had been removed by Belle. Her precious jewelry was gone with just a few pieces of costume jewelry Lupe seldom wore left. They looked for and took the few photo albums and on a last-minute inspiration, Izzy took her mother’s laptop computer. Maybe she could convince Henry to open it for her.
Paul and Marla Riordan, Luke’s parents, didn’t know about the rift in the family and thought it was a kindness to invite Isandro to the graduation party. They were surprised at the young buxom blonde that accompanied him. He was constantly on the lookout for his kids, intending to accuse them of burglarizing his house. They kept avoiding him.
Ryan and Paul managed to get Isandro aside. Luke had talked to his father to tell him the situation with his kids and ‘the floozy,’ as they all called Belle. Paul took Ryan with him to ask Isandro to leave.
“I’m sorry, Isandro,” Paul said. “You and your fiancée will need to leave. I didn’t know your kids were estranged from you when we sent out the invitations.”
“My fiancée?” Isandro asked as he shrugged Paul’s hand off his shoulder. “I wouldn’t marry her! She’s white!”
“Well, at least take her with you out of the party,” Ryan said. “She’s making the kids uncomfortable.”
“Belle!” Isandro yelled at the woman. “Get your ass over here. We’re leaving!”
“Coming!” Belle responded, rushing to his side as though the command had been a secret love language. At least Isandro hadn’t made any more of a scene.
Henry, Chastity, and Lisa closed in around Felipe, Luke, and Isobel as soon as they saw Ryan and Paul headed toward Isandro. Germaine and Grace were in the house with the babies.
“Are you okay?” Henry said. “We’re here for you.”
Isandro’s voice echoed across the patio.
“It’s over,” Isobel said. “Felipe, he’s gone.”
“If it didn’t mean I’d lose my scholarship, I’d make sure he was gone,” Felipe said. He heaved a sigh and hugged his sister.
“Let us take care of that,” Luke said, looking to Henry. “We’ll keep watch.”
“Nothing illegal, though,” Isobel said.
“Of course not,” Henry assured her.
A scream from the house interrupted them. Since that was where the children were, all six ran for the door, followed by Luke’s and Henry’s parents. They found Belle standing over Isandro, lying at the foot of the stairs. Above, Germaine stood. Grace held a baby in each arm.
“What happened?” Paul shouted. Sylvia knelt over Isandro who moaned and struggled to sit up.
“That whore kicked me down the stairs!” Isandro said. “I’ll kill you.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Germaine said softly.
“Miss Isobel,” Grace said, “that man came into the room and tried to take the baby. Germaine stopped him.”
“You were told to leave my home,” Paul growled at Isandro. “If you are still here by the time I connect to 9-1-1, you’ll be arrested for attempted kidnapping.”
Isandro managed to get to his feet with Belle’s help. He leaned on her as he limped to the door.
“Hell with all of you,” he grumbled. Then they were gone.
Isobel, Lisa, and Chastity rushed up the stairs to hold their babies and to thank Germaine.
Felipe looked out the window in time to see Isandro drag his key down the side of the new black Corvette parked in front of the house.
“That petty son of a bitch!” Felipe yelled as he headed toward the door. Luke and Henry managed to restrain him before he got outside.
“Don’t do anything,” Henry advised. “You’ve got a good life ahead of you. Don’t let him destroy it.”
“A scratch can be fixed,” Luke said. “We’ll take care of it.”
“He tried to ruin everything either of us ever got,” Felipe sobbed. “He’s such a fucking loser.”
“Just remember that, brother,” Luke said. “He’s a loser. You’re a success. He doesn’t matter any longer.”
The next day, Jackie arrived to ‘help’ with the baby and the house during the final stages of Lisa’s pregnancy. Two weeks later, Lisa went into labor.
“It seems like I was just here,” Lisa said when they got to the birth center.
“I think you were,” the midwife said. “Let’s check things out and make sure everything is progressing normally. Are you going to deliver in two hours again?”
“I’m sorry to say, I don’t think so,” Lisa said. “This boy is bigger than Cassie and seems to be entrenched. Besides, I think if I delivered in that amount of time again, Isobel would never speak to me again. I owe her at least a couple of hard hours.”
“Likely to get them with a boy,” Sylvia said. Since it was Sunday afternoon, she was able to come as soon as Henry called her. “Henry, you know, was a very big baby. Ten pounds and change. I thought I’d never walk again!”
“Oh, Lisa was a petite little thing,” Jackie said, continuing the conversation between the mothers as Lisa had a contraction.
“The ultrasound looks like a big baby, but not impossible,” the midwife said. “I have a couple of others in the building. Just let your aide know if things look like they’re progressing more rapidly than we expect.”
She left and the mothers kept Henry and Chastity company while they supported Lisa. It was a regular family birth.
It wasn’t rapid, though. Lisa spent a mostly sleepless night, awakening every ten to fifteen minutes to grip Henry’s and/or Chastity’s hand. The midwife had been in again about ten the night before to check and then go to bed. She’d had two difficult births Sunday evening with scarcely time to breathe between them. She didn’t expect Lisa to progress that far overnight.
At seven o’clock Monday morning, though, Lisa was laboring in earnest. Jackie and Sylvia had gone home the night before, so it was just Henry and Chastity with Lisa. The midwife managed to dress and get to the room just in time. Chastity was seated on a stool between Lisa’s legs as the head crowned. The midwife looked over her shoulder.
“I’ll get out of your way,” Chastity panted.
“Oh, no. You’re doing fine. I’ll be here to help you if you need it, but I have confidence in you.”
“Oh?” Chastity squeaked. She looked between her lover’s legs at the sight she so enjoyed seeing under normal circumstances, but the whole area was distorted as Lisa pushed the baby into Chastity’s hands. “He’s… he’s here!”
The midwife made sure Chastity had him securely and that he was breathing properly. Chastity laid the little boy on Lisa’s chest and she was already leaking colostrum. He started sucking greedily.
“You know your big sister is still going to want some of that,” Lisa sighed. “Don’t be too greedy.”
“He’s got a… um… thingy already,” Chastity said.
“That’s going to be a challenge in a house full of women,” Henry laughed. “I hope you can adapt.”
“One more push and then we can cut the cord,” the midwife said.
Lisa expelled the afterbirth and the baby seemed content to look around at his parents.
“Okay,” the midwife said as the aide moved in to clean things up. “Let’s get the statistics. Twenty and one-half inches. Eight pounds six ounces. Blue eyes. Black hair. Definitely male. Name?”
“William Henry Benoit Pascal,” Henry said, smiling at his wives. They grinned back at him.
Henry took his son to the washing station and tested the water, then carefully bathed the sticky vernix from his skin, careful to be sure the water was warm but not too hot. His son looked up at him and suddenly began to fountain piss.
“I thought he was too young to do that!” Henry laughed, cleaning him up. He wrapped the baby in blankets and returned him to his mother. She, too, had been cleaned up and was relaxing in bed before the family all arrived.
“Even from this age, those things have a mind of their own,” the midwife laughed.
Lisa looked at her husband.
“One word for you, o darling husband of mine,” she said.
“Yes, love?” he asked.
“Condoms.”
“Right.”
Chastity burst out laughing, causing little William to look toward her.
“At least she didn’t say abstinence,” Chastity choked out.
At that time, Sylvia and Jackie arrived, excited to see their new grandson.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
