Lonmore DeGrasse set down the telephone and exhaled slowly. He looked up at himself in the mirror, then down at his toothbrush, dripping foam. He turned and whipped the toothbrush into the bathtub, clenched his fists, and screamed.
“YES!”
“Honey?” said a worried voice from the bedroom. His wife, Carlene, sat primly tucked under their duvet, reading her daily devotionals. An open bible sat next to her, and Michael Buble crooned softly from their Bose wave music system.
“What’s got you so excited, Lonnie?”
He burst into the bedroom.
“Guess who that was,” he said, pacing back and forth on the soft carpet.
“Well I don’t know, Muffins, why don’t you tell me?”
“Okay, Leenie, I asked you not to call me Muffins. But that was Doctor Kyle Gurjpreet Van Wong.”
He looked at her, eyebrows perched in his hairline, slowly nodding. His tongue darted across his thin lips. She set a bookmark into her book and rubbed her eye.
“I’m sorry, what’s the name?”
“He’s the head of the Sequoia National Computing Center,” said Lonmore. “He’s been nominated for the nobel prize in physics and he wants me to come see it for the Chronicle.”
“That’s great, Lonnie! I’m so proud of you!” said Carlene. “Come to bed, baby.”
He stripped off his clothes and dove beneath the covers.
“Bright and early tomorrow,” he said. “Goodnight!” He clicked off the light.
“Oh,” said Carlene, pulling her nightgown back on.
The next day, Lonmore booked an uber into San Francisco. The car pulled up, and a small man jumped out.
“Hey, Lonmore?” said the driver.
“Uh, yep, that’s me,”
“My name’s Carl. I’ll take your bag.”
He smoothly opened the passenger door, then slid the bag into the trunk and hopped back into the driver’s seat.
“We going to… Sequoia Computer Center?”
“Yup.”
“All right.” Carl guided the car out of the driveway and up the foggy street.
“So, where you from, Lonmore?”
“Round here,” mumbled Lonmore. He subtly opened the Uber App and tapped “no talking preferred.”
Ding!
“Haha, oop, I’ve got a notification,” said Carl. “What can I say, I’m a popular guy.” he reached out a finger and tapped the screen. “Oh, okay,” he said quietly. He squinted through the windshield.
Lonmore shifted in his seat.
Soon enough, they arrived at an insect-like steel and glass building at the edge of San Francisco.
“Here’s good,” said Lonmore. “Thanks.” He unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the car. “Pop the trunk,” he said over his shoulder, but Carl was already out of his seat.
“Don’t worry, I got it,” said Carl. “I’ll bring it in for you.”
Lonmore opened his mouth to protest, but Carl was already striding toward the glass doors, and a girthy man in a blue suit was coming out to greet him.
“Mr. DeGrasse, welcome!” said the man, stretching out a hand. Carl shook it.
“That’s me,” said Lonmore, jogging toward them.
“I’m Carl,” said Carl. “This is Lonmore.”
“Thanks, Carl,” said Lonmore. “I can take it from here.”
“No worries!” said Carl. He shouldered the bag.
“You must be Doctor…”
“Yes, I’m Kyle Gurjpreet Van Wong, I head up the simulation department here.”
“Of course,” said Lonmore. The three walked into the wide foyer. “Uh, Carl, why don’t you go ahead and get out of here?”
“Nonsense,” said Dr. Van Wong. “Your associate can come with us.”
“It’s not a security issue?” protested Lonmore. “This guy is just my driver. Really, he should go.”
Carl looked dejected.
“I insist,” said the doctor. “I like the cut of his jib.”
They walked intoto a dim lab. In the center sat an unremarkable computer terminal, with monitor, keyboard and mouse.
“The System we’ve developed, we call, ‘the Answering Machine,’” said Dr. Van Wong, his voice booming in the expansive empty room.
“Is it an AI?” asked Lonmore, hastily pulling out his voice recorder.
“No,” said the doctor. “It does leverage machine learning libraries for a few functions — natural language processing, semantic search — but AI is not the innovation here.” he leaned an elbow on the monitor.
“So what is it?” asked Lonmore. Carl set the bag on the floor and listened intently.
“It’s a robust simulation engine and indexing algorithm. The most powerful, of each, ever created.”
“So why is it called ‘the answering machine?” asked Lonmore.
“Because it can answer any question. Understand me: any question. It is universally NP-complete for our reality.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lonmore.
“Me neither,” said Carl.
“Quiet,” snapped Lonmore.
“You may ask it a question,” said the doctor. “But please think carefully. Leveraging the Sequoia National supercomputer for the processing, it costs twenty-six million dollars per query. And please don’t bother with ‘is there a God’ or anything too obvious, we’ve already asked those.”
The doctor clicked the mouse. A flashing microphone appeared.
“I can only — ” started Lonmore, but the Doctor quickly held a finger to his lips, and pointed to the screen.
“I… uh… is… do… what…” stuttered Lonmore. He was at a loss.
“Has Kanye West ever smoked crystal meth?” blurted Carl. Lonmore wheeled, glaring.
“Calculating,” said a synthetic woman’s voice.”
“Interesting question,” said the doctor. “The system will take several minutes to return the answer.”
“I’m so sorry, doctor, he shouldn’t have — ”
“You had nothing!” said Carl.
“Nonsense,” said the doctor. “Carl’s question will work for demonstration purposes as well as any. In the meantime, I can explain how the system works, if you’d like?”
“Yes, please,” said Lonmore, holding out his recorder.
“For each query, the system begins by simulating the entire universe, from the very first atoms to the present day, the present hour,” explained the doctor. “Then, it compares the simulation to historical data scraped from our reality, from the internet and scientific data, such as precisely time-synced microwave radiation data or carbon dating data. If the simulation lines up with our reality, the system then indexes each moment in four dimensions, the fourth being — ”
“Time,” interrupted Carl.
“Yes, time,” continued the doctor. “To respond to the query, the indexing algorithm locates the relevant time and position, and analyses the output. If the query refers to the future, the system will extrapolate. In tests, we’ve found it to be accurate beyond any meaningful measure of accuracy. Put another way, we don’t have enough ‘nines’ to express the probability as a percentage. The system is functionally one hundred percent accurate at predicting the future, and at answering questions. Yes, humble indexing, not artificial intelligence, is the key to knowledge.”
Doctor Kyle Gurjpreet Van Wong smiled. The speech was clearly rehearsed, and he seemed glad to be through it.
“Why not just simulate our universe one time, then when you’re sure you have it right, just work off that model?” asked Lonmore.
“Good question,” said the doctor. “The reason we must re-simulate each time is that — ”
“Is it because,” interrupted Carl, “each moment in time changes the past in tiny, imperceptible ways, like ripples in a pool?”
“Bingo,” said the doctor.
“Answer located,” said the female voice. The three men looked at the screen expectantly.
“What was the question?” asked Lonmore.
“Kanye West did not smoke or otherwise consume methamphetamine at any time between his birth, June 8th, 1977 at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, room 406E, at 11:03:29:79.4, and the time of analysis,” answered the machine.
“Huh, interesting!” said Carl. But the machine continued speaking.
“However, Kanye West will ingest 0.963 grams of methamphetamine in a crystallized form by smoking through a glass pipe in Malibu, California on April sixth, 2033 at 22:41:49:51.3.”
“That’s in the future!” exclaimed Carl. “2033!”
“Yes, it’s very interesting,” said Lonmore. “But it doesn’t really show us anything, and I can’t use it as an example in my article…”
Dr. Van Wong sighed. “Fine, you may ask another question,” he said. “But please be careful. As I said, each question costs the Center 26 million dollars.”
“Okay,” said Lonmore. “Okay, I got it.”
The doctor clicked the mouse and the machine listened again. Dr. Van Wong gave Lonmore the thumbs up.
“Hey computer,” said Lonmore, “When is the human race’s last day of existence?”
There was a pause.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” said a male voice from the computer.
Lonmore stared at the doctor.
“Oh, sorry — that happens sometimes,” said the doctor. “It’s because we used the Google Assistant API to do the voice recognition. I just have to hit OK.”
He clicked OK.
“Calculating,” said the computer, in the female voice.
“I can’t believe he’s going to do crystal meth in 2033,” said Carl. “What was it? April 6?”
“Do you mind?” said Lonmore.
“If he knew, would he still do it?” asked Carl.
“We aren’t sure about that,” said the doctor. “We don’t have funding for the testing — especially now, having done that extra query today,”
“Sorry,” said Lonmore.
“But what I can tell you is that if he doesn’t find out about the prediction, it is a mathematical fact that it will happen, with near perfect certainty.”
“Answer located,” said the voice. “While the query is ill-defined and poorly worded, the system has located the final most distant calendar day upon which the human race has a greater-than-zero probability of sexually reproducing, after which point the remaining human population totaling three individuals will be biologically non-viable, or functionally extinct,” said the computer.
“That’s dark,” said Carl. Lonmore gulped.
“This date is April seventh, 2033.”
The screen went dark. The three men looked at each other, dumbfounded.
“That’s the day after — ”
“Shut up, Carl,” snapped Lonmore. “Doctor, could we ask another question?”
“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’m afraid we don’t have the budget for any more queries today,” said the doctor.
“But we have to know!” protested Lonmore. “What happens between Kanye smoking meth and the end of the human race? Three people left!?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I look forward to your article. Right this way, please.”
“Please!” begged Carl.
“There’s really nothing I can do,” said the doctor calmly. They were at the front doors now, in the wide foyer.
“Good day,” said the doctor, holding open the glass door.
In the car, Carl and Lonmore stared at each other.
“We have to find Kanye, and tell him,” said Carl.
Lonmore clenched his jaw, then slowly nodded.
“Let me call my wife.”
