4 Lawrence - Flash Back: Thar She Blows (1/2)

I had felt rather sick, that afternoon—fourteen years ago. It was while we were snorkeling.

[Son . . . ] I started, Dad had always called me by name. [I want you to know how proud of you, I am. Imp gives you very high marks.]

Then it hit me. First, we were underwater, and you can't talk, even if you didn't have a snorkel stuck in your mouth. Second, Dad sounded as if he talked to Imp also, at which impossibility I spewed my snorkel out into the water and tried to inhale a lung full of seawater. Dad thrust me to the surface and slapped my back until the spasm of coughing desisted. I opened my mouth to protest.

[Don't talk Lawrence vocally,] Dad said, his mouth moving imperceptibly. [Just tell Imp that you want to talk to me, then talk inside as if you were talking to Imp, I'll hear you.]

I left my jaw dangling loosely in the breeze and didn't say a word, although a strangled croak did emerge. My eyes must have shown my thoughts because Dad continued, [I know it's a shock, it was to me when your Grandfather first told me.]

Now Imp has always been with me, ever since I could remember. He was a real companion—in spite of what Mom said. He helped me when I needed it. The other kids in the area would never play hide and go seek with me. It was almost as if I could see through bushes and walls.

I'll never forget the class bully's look of disbelief that day when he went over my shoulder. Imp helped me with that one—he seemed to take control of my muscles (You know—knowing how to do something, and being able to do it under pressure, are two different things?) The next thing I knew, Todd was on the ground, the wind knocked out of him. Shawna, the prettiest girl in school, (She was missing her two front teeth) was looking at me in adoration for having come to her rescue. Come to think of it; they are expecting their first child any day now.

Mom thought that Imp was just your standard imaginary childhood friend. She would joke about it to Dad. Mom called us 'Calvin and Hobbes,' after an old comic book collection that she had restored. (For the price of that restoration, I could have downloaded the entire Imperial library, into my deskcom.) However, Mom insisted that you could not get the true flavor of a book unless you could hold it in your hands. Now that I think back, Dad never laughed with her when she teased me about Imp. I recall him saying, ”Don't tell anyone about Imp, they won't understand, they'll laugh at you,” and I hadn't, not since I understood what it was to be different.

[Dad?] I said, using my inside voice.

[Yes?]

[How do you know about Imp?] I said, my voice quavering slightly.

[Well . . . ] Dad said, in a matter-of-fact tone. [You have a Comlink, via a string-communicator, to a master computer, buried in granite under the mountains close to home. You have a small biological computer—quite powerful in its own right, inside your head—that has inputs and outputs to your speech, sight, hearing, and voice centers. Theoretically, you should be able to maintain communication with Imp anywhere in the universe, as string communication appears to be non-directional and instantaneous, at least from a human standpoint. Yours is unique, as you have the largest implant so far, with a neural network linked to virtually the entire surface of your brain. Imp is just our nickname for 'Implant.' Although it was his unique sense of humor—if a supercomputer can be said to have a sense of humor, that originally got him that name.]

[His idea of real thigh thumping humor would be to put itching powder into your spacesuit just before you went on twelve-hour guard duty. He takes things literally—so watch it!] I heard the faint echo of laughter in the background as if a wind chime was singing in a light breeze. [In reality, he's a highly modified, Model SI-mp3d with vastly increased memory and connections to nearly all infonets anywhere in the universe.]

I stared deep into dad's eyes, my eyes filled with disbelief and wonder. The SImp models were scarce, only one other was still in use, and it was operating at a minimum level as a museum exhibit. SImp's were Self Integrating, massively parallel computers, using neural network architecture similar to the human brain and capable of self-programming. All the other systems had gone 'crazy' and had finally shut down in the computer equivalent of catatonic withdrawal. The last of them to be built was the 'D' series.

[My father was the first,] Dad said, [For him, it was just an information retrieval system. It gave him a slight advantage over the competition. Your grandfather got his implant as a young man of 80 and never really understood what it could do. I had mine installed when I was in my forties. It took till I was fifty-five before I could talk directly to Imp.]