When HARLIE Was One Read Online Free PDF

Auberson had a problem
    Even before Don Handley opened his mouth, David Auberson knew what the problem was.
    â€œHow bad?” he asked.
    â€œWorse than ever.”
    â€œAll right . . .” Auberson unbent himself from his chair—one of those backless, kneepad constructions—and grabbed his coat from the hook on the back of the door. They began the long familiar walk to the main console room, the tall man and the rumpled man.
    â€œYou ran the usual diagnostics?” the tall man asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd got the usual results?”
    â€œThe usual lack of,” said the rumpled man. “Yeah.”
    â€œRight.” Auberson looked at his watch. “You want to send out for Chinese again?”
    â€œI hate it when you do that,” Handley muttered. “You always know when it’s going to be another all-nighter.”
    â€œJust a knack some people have,” Auberson said. “Some people can predict earthquakes. Some people can predict Chinese food.” They pushed through a set of double doors into a rubber-floored anteroom.
    A sign on the wall facing them said:
    HUMAN ANALOG REPLICATION,
LETHETIC INTELLIGENCE ENGINE
    Beneath the sign, someone had hung a neat, hand-lettered warning:
    Watch your language!
    And beneath that, not so neatly:
    Loose lips sink chips!
    Beyond the second set of doors was a glass-walled control center. Beyond the glass, three banks of terminals faced a wall of giant screens; high-resolution laser-projection monitors, the images shimmered with vivid iridescence. Right now, they were displaying enlargements of the Mandelbrot set—turning slowly as the point of view spiraled dizzyingly inward; a hypothetical jet zooming above a vast imaginary landscape. The strangely beautiful vistas were a mathematical abstraction—a fractal extrapolation laid out upon an infinite two-dimensional surface; nowhere did it repeat itself. You could lose yourself forever inside this extraordinary plane of shapes and colors.
    Each of the screens blazed with a different image—each one different—every one captivating. It looked like the fever-dream hallucination of a deranged topologist. As Auberson watched, the images on each of the screens shrank away—each revealing itself to be only one face of a whirling cube. Each face of the cube was a different extrapolation. Each screen was a different view of the same cube. The cube spun on its axis over a gigantic plane; the plane dropped away to reveal that it too was a Mandelbrot image, and, as it continued to drop away, it became another face on an even larger cube against a whirling field of cubes—each one vividly coruscating.
    Auberson wondered at the processing power required to generate those images. This was happening in real time . This display must represent the sum total of HARLIE’s attention.
    Around the room, the technicians and programmers stared in awe. Their faces were rapt with wonder. Auberson could understand the reaction. The imagery was extraordinary and compelling. It was hypnotic. . . .
    He forced himself to turn away. He sat down at Console One with a frown and switched on the keyboard.
    Now then, HARLIE, he typed. What seems to be the problem?
    HARLIE typed back:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  THE VIOLET THOUGHTS IN TINY STREAMS
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  DISTURBING ME IN FLYING DREAMS ,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  NOW DISMANTLE PIECE BY PIECE
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  THE MOUNTAINS OF MY MIND .
    The words hung there on the screen for just the barest of instants—just long enough to be read a single time—then disappeared in a sea of exclamation points and question marks.
    Auberson puffed his cheeks thoughtfully. The scroll of punctuation marks stopped—was replaced by the image of a single giant eye. It opened, seemed to look out at Auberson as if from the opposite end of a telescope, then closed again. Then the image winked out.
    Auberson looked to