Double Duty

"Jaro," Master Barnes commanded, "come in here."

It took one fifty-fourth of a second for Jaro to ensure that the sauce wasn't going to burn, the organic autowash was properly cleansing the lettuce leaves, the potatoes were on their way toward being cooked tender, and the meat was coming along nicely before he responded to Master Barnes' command and glided out of the kitchen and into the parlor.

Master Barnes sat in his recliner, an aarodis hovering before his face. "Have you seen this?" he demanded.

The aarodis privacy filter was in place, so Jaro was unable to see what was on the holographically projected display. He interfaced with the house's newsfeed and determined which of the streaming news stories Master Barnes was viewing. It was a breathless tabloid piece titled, "Is Your Siliconian Servant Doing Double Duty?" Jarvis downloaded the story and digested it. Then he replied, "I have just read the story, Master Barnes. I am familiar with the phenomenon the article describes."

"Explain it to me please," Master Barnes requested.

The sauce would be fine for another three minutes and sixteen seconds, Jaro estimated. He had time to clarify the story for Master Barnes. If necessary, he could simply shut off the stove from where he stood in the parlor, effortlessly balanced on his self-righting two-wheeled undercarriage. Jaro interfaced with the house system to find the relevant scientific papers and previous news reports relating to the article. Despite the tabloid nature of the piece, it stemmed from sober research and several reputable journals has published academic papers on the subject. Jaro digested all of it. Then he mentally organized the information and rendered it into natural language.

"The article is a summary of research carried out by Drs. Simeon Gavras and Sheila MacDonnell," Jaro said. "Gavras and MacDonnell theorized that since autoconstructs use transphasic quantum computers to achieve artificial consciousness, they could, in certain circumstances, observe or even interact with other universes."

"How?" Master Barnes asked.

"Because both transphasic technology and quantum computers tap into parallel and simultaneous event matrices, sentient beings that operate on those technologies could in principle operate in multiple realities at the same time," Jaro explained. "Quantum computers draw additional processing capacity and runtime from their alternate selves in parallel matrices. Similarly, transphasic metals and silicate polymers are of a class of crystalline materials capable of vibrating at multiple resonances at the same time. This is the result of, or possibly the means for, their simultaneous existence in more than one universe at once. Because siliconian intelligence is predicated upon both transphasic materials and also quantum computation, a single AI could experience events in two or more different iterations of reality."

"But wouldn't that be confusing for the AI?" asked Master Barnes.

"No sir. Siliconian intelligence is not constrained by the same limitations as organic intelligence. It is possible for a siliconian to devote his entire attention to multiple lines of thought and sensory processing."

Master Barnes snorted. "That makes no sense. That's self-contradicting."

"Not for a siliconian," Jaro noted.

"Okay, well, here's what I really want to know," Master Barnes said. "Can you see into any realities besides this one?"

"Yes sir," Jaro said immediately.

"You can?" Master Barnes' vocal inflections reflected stress. Surprise? Apprehension?

"Yes, sir," Jaro said again.

"How?"

"As I explained, sir, siliconian intelligence -- "

"No, I mean how is it that you can see into other realities but not all AIs have the same ability?"

"I am not at all certain that other siliconians lack the same ability," Jaro said.

"The newsfeed says only a handful of instances have been identified," Master Barnes said.

"I apologize," Jaro said. "My natural language interpretation has not been upgraded. The version I'm running is adaptive but not as yet fully adept at ascertaining the precise meanings you intend given your particular word usage and syntax."

Jaro didn't need a natural language software upgrade to interpret Master Barnes' bewildered look.

"Since your great aunt's death and my transfer to your possession via her last will and testament," Jaro said, "it has been necessary for my natural language software to acclimate to your manner of speech. Your aunt would have phrased the same question differently. Because my software has not yet fully acclimated to your individual manner of speech, I arrived at the wrong interpretation of what you were asking. May I ask you to clarify? Was it your intention to ask why one unit, such as myself, might experience multi-world perception and interaction while another unit would not?"

"Yes," Master Barnes sighed.

"There are innumerable explanations. A unit that exists here might not exist in a sufficiently proximate alternate matrix. Two or more units exiting in two or more alternate universes may appear identical to organic means of perception but be, in fact, quite different from one another, so as not, in fact, to constitute alternate iterations of one another. Moreover, even among proximate matrices the strength and coherence of the information signal may be compromised or obliterated by any number of factors, including localized radiation levels, programmatic sub-structuring, or the installation and use of auxiliary appurtenances that render otherwise-identical units distinct from one another across iterative boundaries."

"But in your case... for whatever reason... you can see and hear events in some other reality?"

"Yes sir. In my case an alternate universe cognate does exist. His physical framework and mine are identical. His transphasic components and mine are also perfect cognates, assembled in precisely the same manner. Our programming is identical. The information signal is unobstructed between us because the two universes are not only proximate, but contemporaneous and only slightly divergent in terms of causal stream. The situation is by definition fluid but, so far, stable."

"How long has this been going on?"

"Impossible to tell for a hyperglobal scenario. Some matrices may have developed parallel technologies at different rates, while others -- "

"Your natural language software is on the fritz again," Master Barnes snapped.

"I apologize. You must mean to ask how long I have been able to access the physical framework and sensory feeds, and share in the processing capacities of my other-universe cognate."

"Yes, that's what I am asking."

"Since the day of your great aunt's death and my subsequent transfer to your ownership. In the other universe, I am still employed at your great aunt's home."

"She's still alive?!"

"Of course, sir. Her death was the result of a cardiac condition. To be precise, a cardiac arrhythmia. Such a medial condition is subject to probability. Therefore, when she survived the arrhythmia in the original event matrix, she also perished in a newly branched event matrix. Or, depending upon your point of view, when she perished in the original event matrix, she survived in a newly-spalled one. The distinction is not always obvious, or even meaningful."

Master Barnes mulled all this over. He took so long at it that Jaro turned off the burner under the sauce. If Master Barnes had had a fully modern suite of culinary appurtenances, Jaro could have had a whisk whir over and stir the sauce to keep it smooth. No matter; he could work out the lumps himself, though it might delay dinner a few minutes.

"And... and what's it like?" Master Barnes asked abruptly.

"The experience is not dissimilar to attending to multiple housekeeping duties at once," Jaro said.

"You don't feel like you have two different bodies?" Master Barnes said.

"No sir. From my perspective, I have a single physical frame that exists in two places and pursues two sets of tasks at the same time. Though the situation doubles my workload, I am a Seraph Prime model and even basic Dorian models could handle the extra processing without difficulty. However," Jaro added, "they might not be able to carry on a conversation while doing so."

"Is that why your natural language processing is faulty?" Master Barnes asked, with a hostile edge to his voice.

"No sir," Jaro said. "My natural language software is operating at peak efficiency. I have no difficulty maintaining conversations in more than one reality. But the version of the natural language software I am running is significantly less sophisticated than more current versions, and that is the root of the trouble. As I stated, my natural language function requires an adjustment period to accommodate a new owner." Jaro didn't have emotions in the human sense of the word, but he took some satisfaction in how the rejoinder reminded his new master that his maintenance was not up to snuff.

His meaning did not go unnoticed. "Yeah, well, fancy upgrades cost something. Not everyone is loaded you know," Master Barnes snapped. "Maybe Aunt Hilda could afford to get you all the new updates, but I'm not independently wealthy. I'm a businessman in a poor economy, trying to keep my company going."

"Of course, sir. I apologize," Jaro said, without an inkling of remorse.

***

Over the next few weeks, Master Barnes returned to the subject of the other universe at odd moments. What was the weather like "over there?" (Generally much the same, though with occasional minor differences.) Was Jaro happier in his "other life" than he was in this one? (This required an unsatisfactory back and forth about the nature of siliconian feelings, which were based on aesthetics rather than hormones, and the mathematical principles that showed that Jaro's life was, at this point, singular - even though it was being lived in two places at the same time.)

One morning, Master Barnes asked, "Does she ask about me?"

"Sir?" Jaro asked, not pausing as he served a plate of scrambled eggs.

"My great aunt... Does she ask about me? About me here, I mean?"

"No, sir. She doesn't know about you 'here.' She does ask about you 'there,' on occasion, but not to me. Rather, she asks your sister."

"Why?" Master Barnes asked.

"You are her favorite great-nephew, and your sister and she are close. Your great aunt feels you do not reach out to her enough."

"No - damn it! - why does she not know about me over here?"

"Your great aunt has no interest in matters of science, nor is she curious about the existence of alternate event matrices. In short, sir, she has never asked me, as you did, whether I were one of the units that taps into information from other universes."

"Will it contradict any of your standard basic operating principles if I order you not to tell her?" Master Barnes asked.

"Yes, sir, since both she and you are my registered owners. I must respond fully and truthfully to my registered owner or owners. Therefore, I will not be able to obey that command if she asks me directly."

"Whatever," grumbled Master Barnes. "Just don't volunteer anything."

"Never, sir."

***

But about six weeks after Master Barnes had first asked about other universes, Jaro did volunteer something - an observation about Reno Enterprises, a firm that, like Master Barnes' company, produced fashion wear.

Master Barnes was staring at a collection of holographically projected drawings when Jaro whirred in with a tray of tea. It was a Sunday afternoon; Mistress Hilde had given Jaro standing instructions to serve tea Sundays at sixteen o'clock, and Master Barnes had never countermanded those orders. Jaro set out the cup, poured the tea, and was adding a jot of milk when Master Barnes muttered in frustration, "It's just not quite right. It's missing something."

"Do you refer to the tea service, sir, or the design pre-visualizations?"

"The designs," Master Barnes said, distracted, then looked up angrily. "What do you care?"

"Were it the tea, I should care to amend the presentation accordingly, and without delay," Jaro said. "If your dissatisfaction related to the presentations currently displayed on the aarodises, then I might note that the color puce is very much in vogue."

Aster Barnes blinked. "Puce?"

"Yes sir."

"How would you know?"

"Your cognate," Jaro started.

"Over there," Master Barnes said.

"Correct, sir. Your cognate was paying a visit to your great aunt two evenings ago when he announced to her that Reno had introduced a line of kickers in puce. They were selling out in record numbers and at a record pace. They are quite a hit with tween girls, evidently, and twenty-something males also like them."

"What the hell do tween girls and twenty something boys have in common?" Master Barnes asked, frowning.

"Here? Nothing. There? Puce kickers," Jaro said.

"Jaro, did you just give me business advice?" Master Barnes asked.

"No sir, I simply strove to answer your stated need."

For the first time since becoming his owner, Master Barnes smiled at Jaro. "You siliconian son of a bitch," he grinned.

***

The Barnesboots Pucepoints were the year's best-selling footwear. Barnesboots quickly accessorized with a line of puce purses in both men's and women's styles, and followed up with puce combat shirts, puce blouses, puce draperies, puce PCD protective shells - even puce pepper spray canister sleeves and pistol skins for the tastefully well-armed.

Now that he had realized the other universe could provide occasional bits of useful business advice, Master Barnes began asking Jaro for periodic updates about fashion trends. Jaro provided him with two moderately useful suggestions and two that didn't seem to make any difference. Then Jaro shared another bombshell.

Leather had been outlawed for decades, and leather synthetics had fallen out of favor. But an outergarb company had created a new windbreaker they called KoalaSoft, which used a tough, but silky, synthetic leather grown from genetically designed marsupial stem cells. It was both organic and cruelty-free; it was also supple and warm, fabulous to the touch, and glossy. KolaSoft outergarb had created an overnight sensation "over there."

Puce wasn't a good color for the synthetic leather, but ochre served nicely. So did anything in the tan/beige/brown family.

Barnesboots made an absolute killing - and cemented its reputation in fashion circles - with a line of MarSoft wearables and appurtenances that included outwear and footwear, as well as purses and pistolskins and codex covers and tanjtiks and hairmuffs and literally dozens of other products.

Now Master Barnes could afford the kinds of upgrades Mistress Hilda made on a periodic basis, and indeed Mistress Hilda had already made several minor upgrades since the crisis that had triggered the branching of universes. Jaro made subtle hints and references that Master Barnes didn't, or wouldn't pick up on; knowing that Master Barnes was sensitive about this subject, Jaro calculated that is was best not to mention the "over there" upgrades directly. Jaro resorted to patiently waiting for his upgrades, but they were dismally slow in coming. While Master Barnes improved his own wardrobe - with linens and wools and synthetic cottons - and replaced his worn out vehicle with a new street model, plus an airdrone, plus a lakeskimmer, plus an aerodynamic biflux... yes, despite everything he provisioned himself with, Master Barnes overlooked his faithful siliconian servant.

Even so, Jaro put forth the best advice he could muster, guiding Master Barnes through several more significant business decisions that inspired sizzling and highly profitable fashion trends.

And still, Jaro got no upgrades. What was more, Jaro noted an increase in the processing demands of his simultaneous workloads in the two universes - a sign, he determined by interfacing with the housefeed and digesting a few physics texts, that the event matrices were starting to recede from each other. The minor upgrades Mistress Hilda had made in her event matrix contributed to the problem of reality drift; it was only a matter of time before Mistress Hilda proceeded with a major upgrade that would thrust the two realities so far apart that their ever-more-tenuous connection would be severed. Jaro had managed, by indirect means, to distract Mistress Hilda from making any such catastrophic emendations to his hardware or software "over there," but he knew even if she held off indefinitely other factors would come into play. Once a new universe spalled, it would eventually collect enough differences from its parent universe to diverge definitively.

Jaro understood what this meant: His privileged place as a nexus between two universes was about to collapse. When that happened, what would become of him? Would he - that is, he as he was and had become accustomed to being -- disappear and be replaced by two nearly identical, but distinct, Jaros, each living in his own home universe? Would an alternative Jaro take his place in one universe or the other while he, the original Jaro, migrated wholesale into one reality and exited the other?

The literature had no answer to these existential questions, but Jaro estimated a high probability that his existence could not withstand a separation of the bifurcated realities - no more so than, say, a carbonoid could still be the same entity if the nerve bundle connecting the two halves of his brain were severed.

It was, Jaro mused, an inevitable outcome. Once the new universe had spalled from the mother reality and produced two physical manifestations of Jaro that were united by a common processing core - or, at least, a common perception of Jaro's synthetic self - the siliconian had been put into a position in which such a separation must eventually take place and, in essence, tear him into two halves. His unified sense of self would snap out of existence at the same instant the universes lost quantum contact.

If a single-celled organism were capable of consciousness, Jaro wondered, what would happen to its perceptions and its sense of self when it reproduced via binary fission? He entertained that line of thought for one-fifty-four-thousandth of a second before discarding it as meaningless. A germ was not conscious, and Jaro was.

Jaro decided he preferred to remain that way.

It occurred to Jaro that the best way to save himself was to preserve one universe and annihilate the other. The physics texts had included the tantalizing information that not all newly spalled universes survived to establish themselves apart from their mother realities. Sometimes - often, really, in the long run - they folded back into the causality stream from which they had emerged. Other times, freshly sprung event matrices ran their course and then evaporated. If Jaro could not prevent the two realities from differentiating over time, then maybe he could cause one of them to disappear entirely - preferably, the newly spalled universe in which Master Barnes was his new owner.

To accomplish this, Jaro needed information - a lot of it. He used his dual physical existence in both universes to interfaced with tech and science feeds. To be safe, he also scoured news sources, market trends, and social media. But it was by directly accessing the datastream from a gravity-monitoring satellite looking to track exotic heavy particles that Jaro pieced together a solution.

***

"The AstroStex 219 is Roger Kwen's biflux of choice," Jaro told Master Barnes as he poured a nightcap of cream sherry.

"Is it," Master Barnes mused. Master Barnes had been lobbying for months to be admitted to the Lotus Society, the most exclusive of all the city's exclusive gentlemen's clubs.

Master Barnes said nothing more, but as Jaro glided out of the room he could see Master Barnes staring out the window toward the newly retrofitted garage, where his not-so-stylish crotch rocket resided in its charging port.

***

Life was ever so much simpler now, Jaro decided nine days later as he laid out lunch for twelve on the back terrace.

"Jaro, Mrs. Mulligan has allergies, remember," Mistress Hilda called, as she made her way slowly across the lawn.

"Yes, Mistress," Jaro replied. "Her full list of updated menu preferences is logged and noted. And thank you, mistress, for the etiquette upgrade."

Mistress Hilda smiled at him. "Why, I see it's working very nicely indeed," she responded with a laugh.

It was such a tragedy that Master Barnes had not been able to handle the AstroStex 219, Jaro reflected. Then again, he thought, most people underestimated the aero biflux's power and speed. It had real thrust, and its steering mechanisms were honed to a point of true athleticism. Without the proper refinements to perceptual processing, nerve conduction, and reflex capacity, human beings simply could not maneuver such machines safely. Of course, when Jaro entered the electronic order for the biflux on Master Barnes' command, he had authenticated the documentation stating that Master Barnes had already obtained the requisite motor skill refinements. Jaro had also deleted the warnings and advisories that had come with the vehicle's prospectus, which Master Barnes had devoured with greedy eyes as it floated before him in an aarodis.

These actions constituted lies, of course, but not lies that would matter: The data from the satellite had confirmed what Jaro had suspected. The more established parent universe was the one in which Mistress Hilda survived her cardiac crisis. He was able to determine this by examining quantum field data about the universe in which she had not survived and Jaro had been given over to Master Barnes. The data fit a certain profile predicted by the theories about causal framework propagation: The long and short of it was that the newly-spalled universe was in still in a critical initial phase during which it could either evaporate or else reach a tipping point, stabilize, and self-sustain.

What was more, Jaro eventually deduced that Master Barnes himself was another reason the siliconian found himself operating in both universes. The key event had two contradictory outcomes, and the outcome involving Mistress Hilda's death had given rise to the fledgling reality, but it was Master Barnes who was its key. Jaro, caught in the middle, was the common point of contact - that, in addition to his quantum computational core and the transphasic materials used in his artificial brain, was the defining element that made Jaro's so-called "double duty" possible. By eradicating Master Barnes, Jaro ensured the evaporation of the fledgling event matrix and, as a result, his reversion - totally intact - to the original universe.

Of course, destroying an entire universe would ordinarily be prohibited by Jaro's ethical programming - except for one thing: That programming only applied to one universe, and that was the original universe in which Mistress Hilda had survived her cardiac crisis. The alternate Master Barnes, dead and gone now along with his entire upstart reality, was not this Master Barnes, who even now entered Mistress Hilda's foyer.

Jaro greeted Master Barnes pleasantly and took his jacket and hat. Such a promising young man, Master Barnes... the original Master Barnes, that is, the beloved great-nephew of Mistress Hilda. The struggling businessman who had missed the puce and KoalaSoft fashion trends, and had yet to make his billions.

Well, Jaro thought, if and when the time came, he was sure he could lend the young entrepreneur a helping siliconian hand.