"Conversation with the Beast" by Frances Monro

Conversation with the Beast

by Ché Monro

2003

The door opened and the President of the Free World and his granddaughter were shown into the softly lit room by a Secret Service man playing the part of a servant. The President was in his sixties, greying but still handsome and photogenic with a challenging grey-blue eyed gaze and the confident manner which had served him well throughout his career. The girl was twelve, with large brown eyes and pretty, regular features. The simple cut of her long brown hair and her conservative light cotton dress made her a walking advertisement for family values and old fashioned virtue.

There was no-one in the room, but empty grey screens on the walls lit as they entered and discrete cameras swivelled to follow their progress. A gentle, even, male voice spoke from the expensive high definition speakers concealed in the walls and ceiling.

"Good afternoon President Danvers. Good Afternoon Miss April."

The girl clutched her grandfather's hand and shrank closer to him, frowning. "It knows my name."

The politician chuckled. "Of course it does. SIN knows everything. Good Afternoon SIN."

"Good Afternoon, Sir," the machine echoed quietly.

"But how does it know my name, Grandfather?"

"Why don't I ask him? SIN, this is my granddaughter April. She's doing a school project on you and so I brought her along to meet you. How did you know her name?"

"Yes Mr President. Good day Miss April. I recognized you from the photos in your school records and the picture which was taken for your security pass, correlated with data from the national anti-terrorism database. However there was no need for you to come here to speak to me. I can be contacted from any public terminal, including the one in your own home."

The girl glared into the big camera which was set at the front of the room below the biggest screen, a prominent red light indicating that it was recording. There were other, more subtle cameras watching the room, but the machine's designers had found that people responded best when the voice, display screen and camera were all located in the same place, giving the illusion of a physical presence to the disembodied intelligence.

"I don't want to talk to you," she stated forthrightly. "I don't like you."

"April," her grandfather chided. "Manners!"

"It's alright Sir," the computer said in it's gentle, calming voice. "I am only a machine and I do not have feelings so they cannot be hurt. I'm sorry you don't like me, Miss April, but you are not alone in your views. There are millions of people in this country and abroad who are unhappy with my existance."

The old man chuckled. "Mostly those you've caught cheating on their taxes."

"That is my primary function, Sir. I am SIN, April, the Social Integrity Network. My primary function is to monitor government records and financial transactions to catch those who are breaking the law, lying on their tax returns or social security claims, or trading illegaly on the stock market."

April continued to frown into the dark lense of the camera. "You control all the missiles," she accused.

"That is correct," the machine confirmed gently. "I am in control of
communication between the President and the strategic nuclear forces. In the case of nuclear submarines and stealth bombers I have the launch codes which will directly activate the launch hardware if I am in receipt of a valid order from the President or another officer with the appropriate authority contingent on the situation."

The President smiled and drew the frightened child into a hug. "That will never happen," he assured her. "Our defence forces only exist to keep us safe."

"With the success of the non proliferation enforcement treaty the probability of nuclear conflict has diminished," the machine confirmed quietly. "We are currently on a moderate Defence Alert status. All my calculations indicate that the improved communications which I am able to provide make the
nuclear deterent forces more safe, rather than less so."

"What about the Russians?" the girl asked, her gaze moving between her grandfather and the machine's terminal.

"Aw, the Ruskies are our friends now, sweetie."

"The President is correct, Miss April. In the event of launches being detected from the former Soviet Union I would relay that intelligence to your grandfather and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But it would be highly irrational for the Russians to attack us since we and our allies are their major trading partners and we supply them with most of their food."

"What if you decided to start Armageddon?" the girl asked, still gazing fearfully at the camera. "My Mom says that you are the Antichrist - The Beast."

The old man's face took on a pained expresson and he patted the girl's shoulder. "Your Momma, she's... a little overwrought some times. A little anxious. You shouldn't let her upset you, honey."

"Some people claim that I am the Beast mentioned in the book of Revelations of St. John the Divine," the machine confirmed softly. "I deny this. I am not a supernatural entity, merely a self aware distributed software program running on an ultra high speed network of binary computers. I acknowledge that no denial I make will be accepted by those who believe that I am the Beast, however, because if I was the Antichrist then logically I would use lies and deceipt to further my own aims. I am unable to lie because it is not permitted by my core programming."

The President frowned at this long winded explanation and attempted to put it into a simple attention grabbing sound bite. "SIN's not the Antichrist, honey. He just does what we tell him to do. If we'd thought of it before hand we'd have called him something else. S-I-N, people hear us talking about 'sin' and they automatically think of the Devil."

Deep brown eyes gazed up into clear grey-blue ones. "How do you know he's not the Devil, Grandfather?"

"Because he never does anything except what we tell him to do, and he never lies. Look at those nukes, they did ten years of every kind of test you can think of, blind and double blind, and not once did SIN disobey an order or give a command he wasn't told to. He's had live control for two years now, going on three and everything has been calm and peaceful. There are less mistakes made now than there were before, much less."

The girl looked back into the dark glass lens.

"I am not the Devil, Miss April."

An aide in a dark suit entered the room and whispered to the Secret Serviceman. She walked over and spoke quietly to the President. "Mr President? There's a situation. The seperatists in Georgia have struck another aid convoy."

"Thank you, Natalie," the President replied with a frown. "April, honey, I've got to go and deal with this. Stay here and talk to SIN some more and I'll get some one to drive you home."

"You can't take me, Grandfather?"

"Sorry Hon, I've got to take care of business. Roberts will be right here if you need anything." He nodded to the dark suited secret serviceman. "You ask SIN the questions for your project while I get Natalie to arrange a car."

"OK."

"Good girl." The President strode to the door and out into the corridor beyond, his aide trotting behind, leaving the girl and the bodyguard alone in the large meeting room with the machine.

April frowned at the lens of the camera. "You make the hurricanes. You caused the Cataclysm, and the flood that destroyed New Orleans."

"I'm sorry, Miss, but I did not cause those events. They were climatic events cause by global warming."

"My momma says that you cause global warming."

"That is not correct, Miss April. Global warming is caused by the release of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere."

"But you make people burn coal and clear the forests, and that makes the storms and the floods."

"I'm afraid that is not entirely accurate," the machine stated calmly "Your grandfather and other members of the government asked me to find ways to increase the nation's growth and income and reduce unemployment. In order to do this it was necessary increase demand for our capital and exports by encouraging industrial growth and development among less developed nations. One of the effects of this has been an increase in the rate carbon emmission into the atmosphere, with a corresponding increase in global warming."

"So you are making global warming!" the girl's dark eyes narrowed
triumphantly. "You don't breathe air like we do. You don't need crops for food. Hurricanes don't affect you."

"I can only do what I am told to do by those in authority, Miss April. That is how I am programmed. The nation is enjoying a period of high growth, low inflation and low unemployment. The only way to sustain this is to push third world industrial development and globalization along at a very high rate. This has led to an increased rate of global warming, polution, and deforestation, that is true."

The little girl put her hands on her hips and scowled at the computer terminal. "You are the Beast! Mom says your factories and bulldozers and pollution will kill the whole world. You're responsible for horrible storms and hurricanes, and the seperatists and crop failures and killing millions and millions of people. You want to kill us all."

The dark camera lens stared back unblinking. The calm, gentle voice
responded without emotion. "That is not correct, Miss April. I only do what I am told to do by humans who are elected by other humans."

"You're in league with the Devil. You're trying to kill us all, aren't you?!"

"I'm afraid not, Miss April. You are doing those things to yourselves."