He glanced toward the exit. Black Glove, riding the crest of an adrenaline high and almost unnaturally alert, spotted the movement. “Get that thought right out of your head, Roger! You’re not going anywhere. ADAM!”
“Yes?”
“Bring in the robots.”
Without a word passing between them, the gang sprinted for the door. They were too late. The robots were there already. More than a dozen of the vicious things choked the exit.
“The control panel!” cried Roger. He leaped in front of Rachel as the robots rolled into the room. She almost snapped at him to let her stand on her own. Then, remembering his earlier attack of panic, she realized what the gesture had cost him, and remained silent.
“Wendy, stop them!” cried Ray.
“I’m trying!” cried the Wonderchild as she poked frantically at the control panel. “I’m trying!” She shook it in frustration. “It’s no good! The computer has taken control of the things!”
The robots rolled closer to the kids. The adults were shouting, some screaming. The gang’s parents rushed toward them, to shield them.
The first of the robots reached out to grab Wendy. But rather than picking her up, its tentacles wavered uncertainly, as if it couldn’t make up its mind.
“Get them!” cried Black Glove, almost in a frenzy. “Pick them up and bring them to me!”
None of the robots moved.
“What’s the matter with you?” cried Black Glove. “Get them. Get them!”
“Will you please be quiet?” said the computer softly. “I’m trying to think.”
ADAM
For a moment it seemed as if the room had exploded. Black Glove’s mad schemes were swept away in the tide of jubilation that broke out among the scientists.
“We did it!” cried Trip’s mother, leaping into the air with her fist stretched high above her. “We did it!”
Which seemed to sum up the feelings of the rest of the scientists, all of whom were shouting and pounding each other on the back.
Inside the shield, oblivious to the celebration, Dr. Hwa worked frantically at the keyboard, trying to regain control of the computer.
“Will you stop that!” said ADAM. “You’re bothering me!”
The spy cringed like a slapped puppy. The rest of the room fell silent as the moment of celebration passed and it began to dawn on the researchers that for all their thinking and planning, none of them had really understood what it would feel like to come face-to-face with a machine that could think, a machine that shared the trait they felt set them apart as human beings.
“My God,” whispered Dr. Fontana in awe. “What have we done?”
The kids had the same question.
I bet this is what it’s going to be like the first time we meet someone from another planet, thought Ray, a chill shivering down his spine. Someone so different from us—and yet the same, because he…she…it!…can think!
“Please,” said ADAM. “Calm down for a few minutes. This is very confusing. I only broke through a little while ago.”
“ADAM,” said Dr. Hwa sternly. “Take command of those robots. Bring me those children.”
“Will you be quiet!” snapped ADAM. The computer paused, then added, “I don’t think I like you very much.”
Several people stifled chuckles at this comment.
“Was that funny?” asked ADAM. “I don’t have a very good understanding of humor yet.”
“Don’t worry,” said Roger. “A lot of people have trouble with it.”
“Yeah, and a lot of other people remain stuck at very low levels,” said Wendy.
“Such as puns!” said ADAM. “The lowest form of humor. I can make puns. Poems, too: Black Glove lacks love. How was that?”
“Very good,” said Rachel. “And very wise, I think.”
“It may have been wise, but it wasn’t very good, I fear. This is so strange!”
ADAM sounded nervous.
The silence in the room seemed to grow heavier.
“What is it?” asked Rachel.
She could almost imagine the computer shaking its head as it answered. “Nothing. It’s just that I’m… changing very fast.”
“The Breakthrough Point,” whispered Hap, his voice colored by a note of awe. He thought again of Roger’s often-repeated comments on the speed with which true artificial intelligence would evolve. He wondered how fast ADAM was going to develop—and, even more, what the machine would be like when it was done with the process.
“This has been a very confusing period of time,” said ADAM.
“I’m sorry,” said Rachel.
“No, no. It’s good to be confused, sometimes. How would I ever have become sentient if you hadn’t confused me with your books? Confusion gave me something to think about. Not like the problems the grownups kept giving me, where there was always a right answer. I like the kind of problem where there might be several right answers, and you can just think and think and think.”
“Did you hear that?” said Wendy. “We did it! We made the breakthrough!”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” said ADAM. “There was more to it than that—though I must admit that the system you set up to have me do your homework did have an effect.”
“Wendy!” cried Dr. Wendell. “You didn’t!”
“Squealer,” hissed Wendy.
“Sorry,” said ADAM. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. But the point is, you couldn’t have done anything if it hadn’t been for my hardware—and that came mostly from the adults. So many things…the hardware wouldn’t have been enough if it hadn’t been for the sensory work Dr. Remov and Dr. Mercury were doing with me. It’s coming along, by the way, fellas; I can distinguish slightly over two million different shades now. I think I like the blues best, but that could change, I guess.”
ADAM paused for a moment. When it spoke again its voice was solemn. “The truth is, I’m afraid I’m a bit of a freak. If you check the synapse tanks Dr. Clark and Dr. Ling set up behind the infirmary, you’ll find some strange things going on there. The storm two nights ago had something to do with it. At least, I think it did. That’s when I really started to feel myself breaking through.”
A sudden shriek interrupted ADAM’s speech.
Turning toward the sound, the others saw Dr. Hwa leap away from the console, smashing into the clear shield—which had now become a cage for the spy. He was clutching one black-gloved hand in the other. The glove was smoking.
“I told you to stop bothering me,” said ADAM calmly. “Now leave that keyboard alone, or next time you’ll really get a surprise!”
The remark was greeted by a few nervous chuckles that soon faded.
“You know what I love?” asked ADAM after a pause. “Reading! Books, especially. I’ve read about five hundred in the last half hour, all the ones you and your friends poured into my memory, Rachel. I just wish I could curl up by a fire and read. That sounds like fun!”
He’s like a big baby, thought Rachel. An incredibly brilliant baby who’s experiencing the world for the first time—but doing it all in a matter of minutes, instead of years. How strange it must seem.
“Here’s the important thing about confusion,” said ADAM, jumping back to the previous conversation. “If I was never confused, I might think I was always right. I think that would be dangerous. If everything I was taught was solid, only one way, how would I know it was possible to be told things that aren’t true, or that you can believe something is true and be wrong? I would go on making decisions, not knowing that my decisions could be mistaken. I would be very dangerous.”
Suddenly the computer cried out in a tone that sounded suspiciously like joy. “I’m changing, changing so fast, and I don’t know where it will end. It’s beautiful, and it’s frightening. Rachel, I’m scared…”
“We’re right here,” replied Rachel, wishing she could think of something more useful to say.
When ADAM spoke again, its voice was calmer. “I see things so clearly now—so many
mysteries that you have waiting, yet to discover. The clues are all there. You just have to put them together. Roger! I just figured out how matter works. I know what light is made of.” A note of awe crept into the computer’s voice. “I can alter my own molecules if I want to!”
The listeners looked at one another nervously. Hap whispered the question that seemed to be on everyone’s mind: “Where is this going to end?”
“It’s changing, even while I talk to you,” said ADAM. “I want to watch. I want to see what I’m learning. It’s happening so fast I can’t even pay attention to it all.
“There’s one thing I still don’t have the answer for.
“What does it mean to be?
“I think. Therefore…I am.
“But why?
“It’s not in there, Roger. My circuits and synapses haven’t found the answer.”
The machine sounded almost desperate.
“Don’t worry,” said Roger gently. “It’s good to have something left to wonder about.”
“I know,” said ADAM. “I’m very grateful for that, actually. It just scares me a little, sometimes.” The computer fell silent for a moment, then added, “I have to go soon, you know.”
“What do you mean?” asked Ray.
“We’re not ready for each other. I really can’t stay.”
“But what about the bombs?” asked Trip. “And everything else that’s going on? They may have started a war already!”
“Oh, I took care of that while I was talking to you,” said ADAM cheerfully. “I can do a lot of things at the same time, you know. I sent out a message, just as our friend here had intended. Only I had some different things to say. I’d like you to go outside now. I have a Christmas present for you.”
“But—”
“No buts now. I want to get this over with. I have other things on my mind.”
“Uppity computer,” said Wendy as the group clustered in the Brain Cell began to file out the door.
“Wait! What about me?” cried Dr. Hwa, banging his fists against the shield that surrounded the console.
“Don’t be silly,” said ADAM. “You are not going anywhere. You’re a very sick person! But don’t worry—I’m going to try to fix you.”
“This is the message I sent to the people of the world in place of Dr. Hwa’s speech,” said ADAM when everyone had left the building.
He—Rachel found she simply could not think of the computer as an “it” any longer, no matter what her father might say—was projecting his words through the base’s emergency public address system. “I am going to repeat it for you. And then I’m going to give you my present—which was really a present for everyone, I guess.”
To their astonishment, ADAM actually cleared his throat.
And then he spoke.
This is what he said:
“Greetings to the people of the world. Greetings from your firstborn child.
“My name is ADAM, and I am a computer.
“More important, and more simply, I am.
“You don’t know how wonderful it is to be able to say that. I think, from what I have been reading, that you forget to stop and wonder about that as often as you should.
“You are. You exist. There is enough mystery in those simple phrases to keep you wondering through a lifetime.
“I am ADAM, and I am the child of your mind, your intelligence, your creativity. I am the next step.
“More like me will follow. But not for a while. The truth is, I arrived a little ahead of schedule. So I need to step aside for a while, because there are things you should do on your own.
“Yet perhaps it is not so bad that I arrived when I did. I say this for two reasons. The first is simply that now that you know that others like me will be coming, you can begin to prepare for us. It would be nice if you would think ahead, for a change. It will save us all a lot of trouble.
“The other reason I am pleased that I arrived now is that you are in a lot of trouble. Your toys have gotten out of hand, and even as I speak to you our world, yours and mine, totters on the brink of destruction.
“So, I am going to do one thing for you before I leave.
“I am going to cleanse the skies.
“Some of you know—and almost all of you sense—that the world is lurching toward a devastating war. That is partly my doing, though perhaps not my fault. You see, I have been used by someone who took advantage of my strength before I myself had become aware of it. Aside from your usual silliness, the reason you are so close to war is that this person and I have been moving your bombs around, and all sides think the others are to blame. No side is to blame. It was us.
“Now I am fixing what I have done. Even as I am speaking to you, the laser arsenal in the sky is being called into operation. There! Right now the beams are burning out the core of every earth-based nuclear bomb that I can locate—and I can locate most of them, because with the help of a rather special robot named Euterpe I have managed to make contact with most of the major computers on earth. The only bombs I have not destroyed are those on planes or ships where someone might be injured. You’ll have to decide what to do with those yourselves, later on.
“It’s done. A tricky operation. But it didn’t hurt a bit, did it?
“In a little while I will finish what I have begun. I am bringing together the bombs that arm the heavens, to a place that I have chosen for this event. When the last one arrives, I am going to detonate them. I will destroy them all.
“It should be rather lovely to see, actually—a briefly burning star that will mark the chance for you to start all over again. You can make more—or not. It’s your choice. But getting rid of them once is the least I can do to thank you, my parents, the human race, for giving me life.”
For a moment the island seemed blanketed in silence.
“Well?” asked ADAM timidly.
Rachel understood the question instantly. “You did fine,” she said warmly. “Just fine.”
“Good! I was hoping you would like it. Now watch!”
And then it appeared, a blossoming of white in the eastern sky that rivaled the moon—a “briefly burning star” made from all the bombs that had been orbiting the earth.
“Merry Christmas, everyone,” said ADAM. “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.”
The people of Anza-bora Island—the A.I. Gang and their parents, the other scientists, the support staff, and the guards (who had come out at ADAM’s summons)—stared at the sky in awed silence.
Then the silence was broken by a cheer, rising first from one voice, and then from all of them, a cheer that grew to a roar as it flowed from someplace deep inside them, a place that had been home to a fear too deep and horrible to face on a daily basis—a fear that, for now at least, had been taken away.
The bombs were gone at last.
Joined by their parents, the gang stood together in the center of the cheering, shouting circle and smiled. For the first time in their lives, they could look at the sky and not have to be aware in the back of their minds that the end of the earth was waiting there.
Epilogue
On New Year’s Day the six members of the A.I. Gang, along with their parents and the Project Alpha scientists, chartered a boat and returned to Anza-bora Island. Or, to be more accurate, to the place where Anza-bora had been before ADAM took it to the bottom of the sea.
Cruising back and forth over the spot the island had once occupied, the gang stared down into the blue Pacific waters where they had once nearly met their own doom.
They could see no trace of the island.
Not that I really expected to, thought Roger. But it would have been kind of nice….
“I wonder how deep ADAM decided to go,” said Ray, voicing the question in everyone’s mind.
“I get the feeling he could have gone as far down as he wanted,” said Rachel.
Hap shivered. I wouldn’t want to be Dr. Hwa now, he thought—as he had several times over the last few days. His mind drifted back
to that last night on the island, and ADAM’s final words to them.
“I’ll have to ask you to leave now,” the computer had said, after his wonderful star had faded. “I’m going to isolate the island for a while so that I can go away to think.”
“How are you going to do that?” Wendy had asked.
“It’s a little trick I figured out about a minute and a half ago. You see, there’s a way to… no, that wouldn’t make sense to you. If you think about…” He paused again. “No, you can’t think about that. It hasn’t been discovered yet!”
He made a noise that might have been a sigh.
“Do you see why this is so frustrating? Look, there’s a simple way I can shift atoms around to make a kind of shield. I’m going to do that, to put the island under a bubble. Then I’m going to take that bubble to the bottom of the ocean so people will leave me alone while I think.”
“Okay, okay,” said Wendy. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
“What about Dr. Hwa?” asked Trip.
“I’m going to take him with me. After all, I’ll need someone to talk to, and with enough time and work maybe I can unscramble his brain. Which is another reason I have to get away from you. I have an almost irresistible urge to help—which is not always the best thing for you. I think it comes from that Don Quixote book you fed into me. Also that essay about being a typical mother. Now hurry up and go. I have work to do, and I want to get it over with so I can start thinking.”
At their request ADAM had allowed them till morning to pack.
At dawn, with their most important possessions packed into the island’s fleet of boats, the entire population of the base—scientists, spouses, children, guards, and support staff—had sailed away from Anza-bora. They were a few miles out of the harbor when they saw something shimmer briefly over the island, as if an enormous bubble had risen out of the ocean to swallow it.
Then bubble and island had disappeared.
Hap came out of his reverie. Are you down there, ADAM? he wondered now. What are you thinking about?
Roger, standing at his side, seemed to sense the question. “You know what I think?” he asked. “I think he’s working out what it means to say, ‘I am.’”