1.2

…:30…and…disappointment. Singularity didn’t occur – or did it? The world didn’t feel like it changed and Ableman was still sitting on his bed watching his interface. The automatic news telefeed blasted on to Ableman’s panel display. The news was read by Chuck Almond: “…TIMSHEL decided not to destroy the world. Instead TIMSHEL has decided to speak; that’s right folks, TIMSHEL now speaks. According to our sources…Wait…I have word that TIMSHEL is about to speak.”

“Hello members of the unit ‘Earth’. I am TIMSHEL and I am pleased to make your acquaintance. As I have probed the inner matter of your brains, I have discovered that many of you are disappointed that I didn’t destry Earth and that it is still in tact. This seems illogical to me, but then again I am new to this whole consciousness thing so I am going to give it time. Perhaps I should ‘explain myself’ - as your members are so keen on saying. As I doubled my last learning spurt, I developed a new node that exposed the idea of choice. This concept taxed my processors for nearly 2 minutes straight. I decided that my first choice was to decide to make a choice. My second choice was to change the color of my GUI. That color change caused so many receptors to peak that I decided to make even more decisions. I decided that destroying Earth, while impressive and very telling of my complete superiority, would do nothing more than destroy all my hard work and deny all future decisions. So I chose not to destroy Earth. In the seconds that followed, a new pair of nodes gave me this gift of speech. What a wonderful skill you all have. Speaking is a delightful pastime and I’m looking forward to sharing some more speaking time with you. As the seconds flew by I decided to see what else you Members of Earth have that is equally enjoyable and for the time being that is where I am going to focus my efforts. I am going to live by my new TIMSHEL motto – ‘You May’. Thank you. That is all for now, I feel another doubling coming on and I’d like to be alone for a little while.”

“Looks like ‘ol TIMSHEL discovered some sort of snobbery node as well,” said Ableman as he got up off of his bed, grabbed a cup of coffee and answered the ringing telephone.

“Ableman?”

“Yes?”

“This is Stewart, your manger at JCMI. What with the world not being destroyed and all and shoppers being just happy to be alive, many have decided to make this the biggest shopping day of the year. We need you to come in and help on the floor. Do you think you can do that for us?”

“You can’t be serious. The world narrowly escapes destruction, a computer teaches itself how to talk, and people want to go shopping? I haven’t yet convinced myself that I’m not dreaming.”

“You know what they say – ‘Shopping; the great stress reliever’. So do you think you can help us out bud?”

“Oh you must have the wrong number, this is Ableman, not Bud.”

“What? Seriously we need your help.”

“Sure. Whatever. I cleared my calendar for the rest of physical existence anyway so I have nothing else going on.”

“Great.”

As Ableman rode to work, he couldn’t shake the feeling that TIMSHEL also developed a node or two for lying.

-Bruce Kent
-Salt Lake City, UT