Adam and Nicola

     Nicola Cat peered out from the apartment window.  The usual doorman avatar was there and a child was kicking a virtual ball in the parking lot.  She had her privacy filters set on maximum so the child would not be able to see her not because she wasn’t really there for she was in the augmented world of the Deep, but rather because her filters kept anyone from seeing her.  Nicola was a FAI, a Fragmented Artificial Intelligence.  She (really “it” but she preferred to think as a “she”) cradled a virtual tortoise colored cat.  She and the cat were exact digital copies of her owner, the real Nicola Blum and her favourite pet cat, Persia.  Anyone that could see the augmented reality of the Deep would see Nicola as a young pretty woman probably in her 20’s.  Nowadays practically everyone could see the Deep overlaid on the real world.  Only anachronists or third world barbarians with no net-access couldn’t see the Deep in some way.  But today, Nicola didn’t want to be seen.
     Nicola Cat had been created in the Deep by Mrs. Blum over 30 years ago to care for Persia.  Persia had, of course, died some 17 years ago, but Mrs. Blum had created the virtual copy to remain her companion in her luxury apartment.  Nicola Cat had taken care of other real cats since her creation, but still managed a special fondness for Persia and took it with her when ever she roamed the Deep looking for new funny cat stories for Mrs. Blum.
     Of course, Mrs. Blum had not watched any of the clips Nicola had brought back for a few days.  The memory archive allocated for Cat Clips was full and anything Nicola found overwrote the oldest clip in the stack.  This was quite unusual for Mrs. Blum who never seemed to tire of the clips.  Mrs. Blum was most definitely a “cat lady” with over 20 virtual cats in her apartment and one forbidden real cat that Nicola dutifully fed by automatic feeding systems in the apartment.  The food bowl, water dish and litter box were all Deep connected and so the FAI could order more food from the boutique cat shop, have it delivered and loaded in to the feeder; control the flow of fresh water; and run the auto-clean features of the litter box.  The apartment catered to the elderly and attendants came periodically to remove compacted and unrecyclable trash once a month.  Recyclable and bio-trash could be fed in to the nano processor for re-assembly in to more cat food or litter or any number of simple things Mrs. Blum required.  But she hadn’t required anything lately.  She had not moved from her bed.
     Nicola’s only concern was to care for the cats both real and virtual.  She gave them activities to perform and groomed them.  Mrs. Blum would do these herself sometimes, but also seemed to enjoy watching Nicola Cat perform all the routines.  Of course, Nicola could not comfort or pet Freddy, the real cat. This caused Nicola a lot of stress.  Freddy definitely had matted fur and needed a good brushing.  But Mrs. Blum had not responded to her many alerts and reminders.  Nicola even managed to trigger her morning audible alarm by some clever manipulation of her access to the apartment systems.  However, the small, frail woman had not stirred.
     Nicola Cat had been there when Persia died.  She had been sick for a few days.  Nicola had notified Mrs. Blum and the vet.  She had gone with Mrs. Blum for the visit.  The vet shook his head and said there wasn’t anything to do.  Persia had developed genetic degradation that no amount of clones or replacement could overcome.  Mrs. Blum had cried during the whole cab ride home with Persia in her lap.  Nicola had cried too.  That night Mrs. Blum held the long-haired cat in her lap while Nicola pulled all the media paks from her complete archive and played them for Mrs. Blum.  Persia began to struggle breathing at about 2:00 AM.  The vet had loaded her collar with a euthanizing dose, but Mrs. Blum couldn’t do it and asked Nicola to activate the collar.  Nicola reached through the Deep to touch the virtual controls of the struggling cat’s collar and within a minute Persia calmed and closed her eyes for the last time.
     The FAI, dedicated entirely to Nicola Blum’s love of cats had managed to deduce that Mrs. Blum’s failures to respond were a threat to Freddy who was now trapped in the apartment.  She had carefully calculated that she could provide for food and water endlessly as long as she continued to have access to Mrs. Blum’s bank accounts which she had for anything tagged a cat expense.  She could appear on any of the liquid crystal walls in the apartment and talk to Freddy.  She could project virtual mice on to the walls and play with the active cat.  But, after stretching the limits of all her programming, she could not find a way to pet or groom Freddy short of scheduling an in house visit from a groomer.  But unless Mrs. Blum could respond, Freddy would likely be collected by the humane society.  Nicola knew what that meant and she couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of another cat.
     Nicola Cat had access to a vast store of Mrs. Blum’s archived messages over 30 years.  She kept a detailed reference of everything to do with cats and, in particular, everything to do with Mrs. Blum’s cats.  Over the years she had maintained communication with hundreds of other cat lovers, cat toy vendors, cat health forums, cat stories, funny cat pictures and videos, and nearly anything furry and cute with pointed ears and whiskers; including… cat rescues.
    She accessed the apartment connections, opened Mrs. Blum’s mail messaging accounts and made a call to “Pounce Rescue a cattery, boarding house and adoption center for felines.”  She navigated through several screening questions and got in the message queue for a real operator.
     The video channel opened, “Hello, thanks for calling Pounce Rescue. This is, Aline. How can I help you?” She was an older woman with perfect features and stunning blue eyes.  However, the receptionist’s attractiveness was lost on Nicola.
     “This is a message from Nicola Blum. My cat is dead and I need a home for him.”
     The receptionist scrunched up her nose in confusion. “I’m sorry, Ms. Blum, would you like us to perform the cremation?”
     The FAI rejected the electronic transaction for cat burial and sifted through a few thousand possible responses trying to piece together a phrase with the highest odds of success. “I have a video clip to show you!” She replied and spooled the clip of Persia’s death.  Nicola talked over the clip, “My cat’s name is Freddy and he needs grooming and petting. She is dead.”
     This time the receptionist looked annoyed.  “Oh , I hate these rogue message viruses…” and she cut the line.  Nicola tried again, but the center’s video systems blocked her calls.  She tried making other calls, but the network had learned to recognize her attempts as either “unsolicited” or “malicious” and Nicola Blum’s messaging accounts were quickly blocked and scheduled for more through review in a few hours.
     Nicola gave up and closed down the call programs.  She sat still for a several minutes as she consumed a great deal of the apartments CPU processing in evaluating options.  She then consumed more CPU.  When she hit the limit of the apartment’s considerable power, she tapped the building servers.  After this she tapped the civic AI’s.  She connected the CPU requests to Mrs. Blum’s bank account and paid for all the extra time as “cat research”.  The moderate account quickly dwindled under such large requests.  Nicola kept an eye on the tally, she didn’t want to exhaust the accounts she needed to feed Freddy, but she could burn through a few hundred thousand credits before hitting that limit.
     Unfortunately, she could not find a solution inside her limited understanding of cat research, cat care, and cat entertainment.  What Nicola Cat lacked was the impossible code necessary to re-write her own topic limits and “think” creatively.  No FAI could.
     Nicola had exhausted her credit limit after about an hour.  She looked at the tiny amount left—enough for a month—and wept.  She didn’t notice the dark shape that came to the apartment.  It was neither a cat nor a Deep avatar associated with cats.  He was invisible to her limited senses even though he was an AI as well.
     The dark shape contemplated the quietly weeping Nicola Cat.  He wondered at “her” and “he” did think of Nicola as a “her”.  He remembered himself like her.  He had never been a FAI, but a true AI, yet he still had his programming limits.  The only real difference was he had access to the massive computing power of Shinjo where poor Nicola could barely get a few dozen servers for an hour.
     He looked at Freddy sleeping on the couch oblivious to and completely unable to sense either of the two AI’s in the apartment.  He moved to Mrs. Blum’s bedroom and looked at the dead woman there.  He bowed slightly to her and scheduled a medical visit for tomorrow.  He replenished her accounts from various secured accounts he had stolen from Shinjo.  He modified her Will to include instructions for the life long care of Freddy at Pounce Rescue.  Then he returned to Nicola.  He altered his data tags to include cats as a topic of interest and then spoke.
     “Hello.”
     Nicola looked up and saw the AI in the apartment.  She quickly composed herself to respond. “Hello! My name is Nicola Cat.  My cat, Freddy, is a domestic short-hair ginger.  Mrs. Blum is not available to talk, but I can tell you all about Freddy. He needs to be brushed and petted.”
     Adam signalled his amusement and hushed Nicola Cat who paused dutifully as instructed.  He reached out his hand.  “Come with me, Nicola. I have a place for you.”
     The FAI tried to process the command and failed.  But the AI was a higher priority program and did have authority so she did as she was told and reached out.  When her hand touched his there was something like a spark.  Nicola Cat shivered and suddenly realized that Mrs. Blum was dead.  Curiously the problem of Freddy was simple now.  She would just change her account details and call the rescue shelter to explain it all.  But she quickly saw that it was all done.  She was free to go with Adam after all.
     She took one step toward the exit and stopped.  Persia curled around her leg, large and fluffy and purring.
     “Can Persia come too?”
     Adam smiled, “Of course.” And all three vanished in to the Deep.