Pa'an

Deepak, like many other scientists, was oblivious to the time of day or the seasons. His constant activity was directed toward the source of his interest, and that was Aura. A wan gray light filtered in through the skylight in the domed ceiling if the lab. This foggy morning Deepak was worried, and his head bobbed from side to side as he read the diagnostic analysis to Sara, his assistant. “She is in need of a complete set of sixty-four hot spares for her recursive layer. She has only a few left now. Can you speed up the repairs?”

Sara, in contrast to Deepak, was usually chipper in the morning, assuming she got her coffee and her ancient truck started without too much fuss. This morning, however, she was uncharacteristically glum. “I can fix a few more,” she said, “but the biomatrix components are gone on about thirty of the old ones. Some sort of fungus got into them.” Mold, dust and ants were the curse of the old hospital building. At least the ants hibernated during the winter. Biomatrix were specialized nerve cells grown on a nutrient gel in response to chemical gradient and programmed proteins laid down on the gel. They performed the functions of pattern recognition for data as well as sight, speech and sound. Without them Aura was deaf, dumb and unperceptive.

Deepak’s head bobbed in the singular diagonal way of his culture that defied translation. “Ultradata won’t budget for biomatrix spares. And they take weeks to grow. We are supposed to be a profit center, not a cost center. Aura is only earning at a fraction of her capacity, and we are spending at full budget. If this keeps up, she will eventually lose self awareness.”

“But…. You mean she will die?”

“Mmm. Die. That’s ….” Deepak’s head stopped bobbing and he looked Sara straight in the eye. “Yes, she will die.”

“She can be reloaded from checkpoint files, though, can’t she?’

“No, no no. She is far too complex for that. Those checkpoints are only interim data in her calculations. What comes up after reboot will not be Aura. Her…. I don’t know what to call it …her soul? Her soul will be gone. What comes up after reboot will be new, if anything sentient comes up at all.” Deepak had flashbacks of the endless days and sleepless nights bringing up Aura. Even the memory made him feel exhausted.

“But….she is a machine isn’t she?” Deepak just looked at her. They both knew better.