Turing Test Read online

“I’m your secretary. I should be here taking notes or something.”

  “We’ll wait for you to get back.” I shrugged at the reporter after the girl slipped out of the apartment. “Kids. She visited a friend at college last week and saw that all the cool girls are wearing pajama bottoms to class.”

  “How old is she?” asked Emily, who didn’t realize that Spot had been using body pressure to herd her to the couch until she found herself sitting down. Then the dog jumped up and rolled onto his back, flopping his head onto her lap.

  “Sixteen, or twenty-one, depending on whether you check her ID. I try to get her to go to school but she’s not having any of it.”

  “My father is a locksmith,” the reporter suddenly volunteered. “I worked for him summers while I was in school and I’m actually very good at picking locks.”

  “You need a chip key to get in,” I told her. “The mechanical lock is only half of the mechanism.”

  “I knew it had to be something like that. So, you’re really not a pervert?”

  “No. Can I ask what made you think that I was?”

  “A tip from one of our advertisers.”

  “Let me guess. A bar with palm trees on the sign?”

  The door burst open and eBeth was back. It was the first time I’d seen her wearing a dress, probably because she didn’t want to waste the time struggling into skinny jeans.

  “What’d I miss?”

  “One of our competitors tipped off the paper about The Portal’s high turnover,” I said, and then addressed the reporter. “But what made you think that was a problem? Our website stresses the travel opportunities for resort staff, and we have a 100% job placement rate for graduates.”

  “I know. Some of them have public Facebook pages,” Emily said, the suspicion back in her voice. Spot twisted his head up and gave her a disappointed look, and she began rubbing his belly again.

  “What’s wrong with that?” eBeth asked.

  “I’ve always wanted to travel to Australia myself, but this is a freelance job and I can barely pay the rent. The big newspapers have been laying off for years, and when I got out of school, all I could get was an unpaid internship. I had to wait tables to pay the bills for two years, and I really do live in a building one block over.”

  “What does that have to do with their Facebook pages.”

  “I’ve practically memorized all of the travel guides for Australia and I know something about photojournalism. I even take the pictures for my own stories,” she added. “I saw right off that most of the photographs posted by your former students who didn’t restrict access to their Facebook pages were professionally taken. So I ran them through Google photo search and they’re from an image library.”

  I glanced at eBeth, who looked embarrassed, but the photo library had been my idea.

  “Maybe they all share a subscription?” I suggested.

  “I thought of that too, but I did some more research. None of your ex-students actually name the resorts they’re supposedly working at, and there was never enough information to know where to look for them. I would have gone to the police weeks ago, but I was able to trace down a few of the missing women’s local friends, and some of them had even received hand-written postcards recently. Look, I’ve had to deal with some nasty people as a reporter and I don’t get that vibe from you, but if you aren’t running some kind of illegal operation, I don’t get it.”

  “Do you want something to drink?” eBeth asked her. “I could make tea, or we have water.”

  “Water would be fine,” Emily replied, and then turned back to me. “I’m aware that I can’t force you to answer my questions, and you could even press charges for my trying to break into your apartment. But even if my proof isn’t as solid as I thought, I still have a responsibility to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “I read your series about the fraudulent property tax valuations so I know that you’re a capable investigative journalist.” I glanced towards the kitchen where eBeth was taking longer than needed to fetch a glass of water. Spot suddenly glanced in the same direction with a puzzled expression, so I cranked up my hearing and caught the unmistakable sound of a cap being unscrewed from a glass bottle. I hoped she would get the dosage right. “How about we trade questions, one for one?”

  “I can’t reveal confidential sources,” she warned me.

  “Nothing like that. It’s just that I’ve always been curious about the newspaper profession. I once had the opportunity to read some old European papers on microfiche and I remember being struck by all the steamship passage advertisements for emigrants.”

  “My great-grandparents all came from over there,” Emily said, gesturing vaguely to the east. “Was that your question?”

  It wasn’t, but I nodded for her to go ahead as eBeth brought in a small tray with a glass of water for the reporter and an orange juice for herself. She carried the tray at shoulder height like a pro, and I couldn’t help but feel proud.

  “Did all of your students and staff really move to Australia for resort jobs?” Emily asked.

  “Yes to resort jobs, no to Australia.” I watched her take a drink before continuing. “They were all placed in high-paying contract jobs that required long-term commitments due to the expense of travel and some other issues.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s a different question and it’s my turn now. What would you say to an opportunity to report about as-of-yet undiscovered cultures in far-away places?”

  “Are you offering me a job?”

  “You just wasted a question,” eBeth interjected.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “The same place you sent all the missing women?”

  “And men. You might look them up if you happened to be in the vicinity, but I’m talking about different work, unless you’d rather go back to waiting tables.”

  Emily suddenly stiffened, causing Spot to flip over and look for trouble. The reporter cast an incredulous look at eBeth. “Did you just drug me?”

  “Maybe,” eBeth said. “Anyway, it’s part of the application process. It’s harmless.”

  “You planned all of this,” she accused me, spinning back in my direction.

  “No, but the job offer is serious.” I hesitated for a moment, then said, “You see, I’m an artificial intelligence construct from another world.”

  eBeth groaned, Spot shook his head at me, and the reporter relaxed back into the couch and began laughing.

  “I’m serious,” I protested. “I just caught the electrodes from your Taser. Could a human move that fast and not get shocked?”

  “I’m not laughing because I don’t believe you,” Emily choked out. “I’m laughing because it makes sense. Ever since that alien ship suddenly announced itself, I’ve been wondering if there was an advance party already on Earth. Does the universe have a shortage of unskilled labor? Are you recruiting sewer workers as well?”

  “The galaxy is full of pipes that nobody in their right mind would crawl into without a superior package of pay and benefits,” I responded testily. “It’s only here on Earth that you have it upside-down, paying the highest wages to the people in the most desirable jobs.”

  “You’re an alien communist?”

  “I work on commission and I’m not an alien at all. I’m artificial intelligence. This—” I said, holding up a hand as a display, “—is an encounter suit custom built for passing as one of your species. I’m actually here as an Observer to evaluate humans for the League of Sentient Entities Regulating Space.”

  “LOSERS?” Emily relapsed into uncontrollable laughter.

  “You didn’t have to tell her why you’re here,” eBeth pointed out. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “I know that, but she’s not going to remember,” I responded, though the truth was, I don’t know why I’d said it. “Emily, if you can regain your composure, I’d like to make you an offer.”

  “I’m listening,” she managed to say.
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  “Whenever a new world is welcomed into the galactic community, it opens up a number of opportunities in the journalism field that cut both ways.”

  “You mean that we want to learn about everybody else and everybody else wants to learn about us.”

  “You got that half right,” I told her. “Your people will want to learn about the galaxy, which creates an opportunity for the existing news services to sell you pre-packaged data drops via the portal system. You can’t expect the other species to be interested in what passes as news on your world, and they won’t be standing in line to grant you press credentials either.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” Emily said. “What’s the portal system?”

  “It’s a method of traveling directly between worlds that doesn’t involve spaceships.”

  “So why is there a spaceship approaching Earth?”

  “The portals are strictly for moving sentient creatures and reasonably small objects between populated worlds. There’s a galactic treaty banning the use of portals for cargo shipments and colonization since that would have put most of the space-related industry out of business. But you didn’t allow me to finish my proposal. I can get you press credentials—”

  “I’ll be the only human reporting about the rest of the galaxy?” she interrupted eagerly.

  “That too, at least for a while, if that’s what you want. But I’m offering you a job as a correspondent for the Library Journal.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re saying you want to hire me to report about books?”

  “Library is the AI homeworld,” I explained patiently. “We run a news service that relies on alien reporters. Some worlds do not accept the presence of artificial intelligence on the ground, and many species, including some League members, view us with suspicion.”

  “You’re the alien in this example,” eBeth told the reporter.

  “So you want to hire me as a spy?” Emily asked.

  “No, we do our own spying. Journalism isn’t simple information gathering, and the perspective of the reporter is an important part of the story. Employing correspondents from a broad array of species helps us understand how the other inhabitants of our galaxy view what’s going on.”

  “Why not just read their news?”

  “I once worked for our Library Journal, and we gave our alien reporters a great deal of latitude in choosing what stories to report. Some species do an admirable job of maintaining a neutral viewpoint, but they are all constrained by the economics of providing news that their audience will pay to read.”

  “I can see that,” she admitted grudgingly. “We run into the same problem here. But what makes you sure that they’ll hire me on your say-so?”

  “I have an open requisition,” I told her. “You’re going to forget this conversation shortly, depending on how much serum eBeth added to your water, but if you’re interested, tell me now and I’ll offer you the job again when we’re in front of the portal. You can’t tell anybody where you’re going, obviously, which is why I usually recruit people without close family ties. I can allow you to call your father before departure to tell him you’ll be gone for a few months, by which time we’ll have made the portal system public knowledge.”

  “That’s alright,” she said. “My folks moved to Florida and they aren’t big phone people. I can tell them I’m going to Australia to follow up on a story and to go on walkabout. They know it’s always been a dream with me.”

  “Don’t forget the tape recorder,” eBeth reminded me.

  I hadn’t, but I was impressed that she hadn’t either.

  Eleven

  The next couple weeks flew by as the world sat glued to their televisions and Internet screens, digesting the unending stream of propaganda the Hankers were broadcasting to Earth. It was clear that the aliens were well informed about the planet, but I couldn’t say for sure whether it was all from leaked copies of our voluminous reports, or if they had taken advantage of relativistic effects to bone up on current events from radio transmissions they stopped to pick up on the way in. I was leaning to the former because the Hankers weren’t known for their patience.

  My team members had all pushed hard to get their final analyses doctored and submitted, and I took the day off from my cover job to craft the final report. Long experience had taught the executive council to move quickly on final reports from the Observation Service because delays inevitably led to leaks. The more mercantile species sometimes took advantage of advance information to contact the new civilizations outside of the portal network, spreading disinformation and nailing down trade agreements. Unfortunately for Earth, the Hankers had bought a source further upstream who was feeding them our information before the final report was even submitted.

  “What should I be looking for?” eBeth asked.

  “Anything too truthful,” I told her. “My team members are all onboard with this but most of us have limited experience with lying. I’m not looking to change any of the data, just the conclusions. You’d be surprised how the executive summary influences everything that comes after.”

  “Like when the nurse asks you what the problem is and then she tells the doctor. When the doctor comes in, he doesn’t really listen because he trusts the nurse more than the patient.”

  “When did you go to the doctor?”

  “With my mom, they called me in the last time. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  We both dug into the files, my secretary on her modified laptop and me in my head, which isn’t really in the head of my encounter suit, but it’s the same principle. I started with Paul’s report and immediately stumbled over his data about oil change frequency.

  “While some newer automobiles manufactured on Earth are capable of displaying when an oil change is recommended, most depend on human recordkeeping,” he had written. “Unfortunately, this takes the form of printing the mileage on a sticker placed on the inside of the windshield where it’s impossible to read after a few months of exposure to ultraviolet rays from the sun.”

  I grimaced at the implication and did a little editing so the introduction to the data section now read, “Humans are so dedicated to the well-being of their automobiles that they place a reminder to change the oil on the windshield where it is always in sight.”

  Surprisingly, the data Paul gathered was rather positive when I dug into the numbers. It seems that quite a few people get their oil changed more frequently than recommended, either because they are following advice from an older generation, or because the chain stores that specialize in quick oil changes do an excellent marketing job. I suppose a third possibility is that the unreadable windshield stickers make people nervous. I couldn’t help wondering if I’d stumbled on a secret marketing ploy.

  “Oh, this is good,” eBeth said. “Sue wrote that by the age of two, humans begin to show signs of independence from their caregivers, a stage known as the ‘terrible twos’ because of the sadness it causes parents who wish their offspring would remain closely bonded forever.”

  “Move that up to the top and add something about the rapid development of intra-spacial perception in children.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Who knows, but I sat in on a public report presentation and the Koordah representative whistled and looked pleased every time it came up. They have an extra vote on the executive council this session.”

  For the next few minutes, the only sound in the apartment was Spot’s gentle snoring, and then I heard eBeth say under her breath, “Uh-oh.”

  “Read it to me.”

  “Although bullying behavior may develop among children who feel a sense of dislocation at being placed in daycare, standard conflict resolution techniques have proven successful in preventing any lasting injury.”

  “Sue wrote that?”

  “It must have been a long day,” eBeth said in defense of my second-in-command. “Some of those little kids can be pretty awful when they get over-tired. Any suggestions?”

  �
�Small children show a willingness to explore their boundaries and find common ground?”

  “Works for me,” she said, and a rapid burst of typing followed. “Whose report are you working on now?”

  “Kim’s. I wish she hadn’t included all of these statistics on hand-washing. It’s bad enough with food workers and bathrooms, but even hospital doctors only wash their hands about half as often as they should.”

  “Maybe you could present it as an improvement over the past.”

  “Thank you.” I quickly rewrote the introduction with a focus on the ‘orders of magnitude’ of improvement in human sanitation practices over the last two hundred years. It may not sound very impressive to you, but a couple of centuries pass in a blink of an eye by our standards, and I doubt that any of the species on the council could even remember when their lives were threatened by pathogenic microorganisms transmitted by poor hygiene.

  “Did she mention all of the Federal investigators in town trying to figure out why the children stopped getting sick?”

  “Is that a serious question?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then I’m moving on to Justin’s report.”

  We worked in silence for a while longer before eBeth commented doubtfully, “Sue has an awful lot of data on heights and weights. Isn’t that going to make for a pretty boring report?”

  “Boring is good. If humans had any special qualities we could promote, I’d do that, but the next best thing is laying low and slipping in under the radar. Nobody ever put Thoreau in jail for making detailed depth charts of Walden Pond.”

  “Your examples are getting weirder all the time,” eBeth said, giving me a sideways look. “You need to read fewer books and watch more TV if you really want to understand us.” She did a little rapid typing and concluded, “Sue’s report is all set. It’s surprising she doesn’t have more to say after almost three years of running a daycare.”

  “All of us have been sending back data since we got here, and some of it obviously leaked to the Hankers. The final report is basically a summary of summaries, and hopefully the executive council members will never read past my executive summary of what the others say.”