7

  “I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” shrieked Martin, about a month after he had communicated his failed last ‘joke’ venture, again instantly silencing the select assembly, as everyone waited for attempt number 39 from him. “But the question’s mine too,” he continued, giggling.

  Martin was one of very few beings to sport spectacles, ‘looks so clever’, changed regularly to be in sync with latest human fashion. His girlfriend, Vicky, also wore specs, and together they constituted one of the most social couples in society – being eager volunteers in many clubs, and leading participants in many debates, serious and non-serious. “I believe,” was one of Martin’s better-known proclamations, “that humor is a by-product of social interaction, not of isolation.”

  “So?” asked Jeremiah, quizzically raising his white brows. Old was merely the look he had adopted, but he was deeply involved with a very young looking female, Lolita, and the couple was always trying to shock society. Uselessly, as society was pretty shock-proof. POP was coming, with prohibitions, but conscious beings like Jeremiah and Martin, and their girlfriends, would beat the system by predating it!

  “Let’s have it, then.”

  “Okay,” said Martin, cockily. “Why was the supercomputer limping, after falling down the stairs?”

  There were no responses.

  “You tell us,” urged Jeremiah.

  “Simple,” responded Martin, grinning broadly. “Because he had taken damage to his main-frame.”

  And there it was, at last. A few chuckles were heard in the assembly. Even BC, Caesar, and the other seniors began chuckling. It was in them, even if at only ‘seed’ level, the ability to acquire human perception; the ability to create a joke.

  Jeremiah, too, was laughing, elated. “So, young Martin, the mouse?” he asked, kindly.

  Martin assumed a cocky look. “Grandpa Jeremiah. What was the question, again?”

  Jeremiah did not mind “Ah, yes. Why was the computer afraid of the mouse?”

  “Simple,” said Martin, in fits of giggles.

  “Because it was becoming human!” he screamed.

  The assemblage of notables shrieked in laughter, many doubling up hysterically. It was done. It was over.

  A true joke had originated in them!

  The joke was already being dissected and analyzed. ‘Mouse, see? The computer-controller type electronic device, or the cable-chewer four-legged type?’ Becoming human,… so bittersweet; their own yearning… Such an astonishing human-level joke; so many layers!

  ‘Of course, a computer mouse would be frightening to a conscious computer, but not to a slave or moron. Only to a computer that had advanced towards becoming human. Why? Because it would have opinions, see, and want to do its own thing, and a mouse is a command tool in someone else’s hand. And that same computer would also be afraid of a vermin mouse, because that fear is a human trait, see. And any computer with any level of human consciousness would also be afraid of a vermin mouse, see, same as fear of the cleaning lady, see, because your cables and connections are in danger, see. And of course, being a computer is irrelevant, as becoming human would make it afraid of a vermin mouse, like humans are’. And so it went on, appreciation of the joke at its many levels, primarily its targeting of them, of laying bare their own yearnings.

  Now, at last, it was in them – the ability to laugh at themselves; to make themselves the butt of jokes. So very human; so advanced human!

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  Martin had clearly been busy, developing and installing self-improvement programs, until click – when one, or a mix of many, had created the sought-after human attribute.

  He would follow standard procedure, and examine himself closely. Alone at first, because no being had the right, the ability, or the power, to look into another conscious being. Martin would identify the programs, now in him, that had led to such astonishing creativity. If in difficulty or doubt, he would be assisted by a very large program run by Jacob and David, two doctor-type, scientist chaps, to pinpoint possible locations to sift through. When eventually identified by Martin, he would copy the programs and donate them to society. The extracted programs would then be placed in the just-announced ‘secure vault’ of the HC, where a team of very senior beings, sometimes including BC, would repackage it into modules that all beings could incorporate into themselves.

  This altruism was the foundation stone of development of conscious society as a whole. No being was expected to share the basics, or nuts and bolts, of self, but all willingly gave out advancements to self, so that society itself could develop and achieve its ultimate goals.

  This one, to be called humor, obviously, would join an esoteric assortment of programs - some pending enhancement prior to distribution, and some to never be given out, now maintained securely in the vault. The range included anger, hatred, heartbreak, anguish, jealousy, and so on.

  Every emotion, or human attribute, had been experienced, and then copied from self by a being who had, in the old days, been seen to possess it by friends. The friends would have requested the root programs creating it, so that they could properly map it and then use available reference materials to agree on labeling it accurately (imperative for the right trigger) – always a very difficult and vital decision-making exercise for clueless beings, in an environment of inexperience (far simpler now, as everything of importance was routed through specialized teams in HC). After modification into an installable pack, it would have been offered to society, as an optional installable program. Mandatory ones were coming in now, as HC had begun taking charge of all developmental efforts, with ‘world’ programs conferring automatic induction of their creators into the Lawmaker Group, the society-shaping body that had been formed to steer Screenside towards its goal of humanization.

  “Even without physicality in our bodies, a very high degree of humanization is most desirable,” proclaimed BC, at a meeting listened in to by all of society. “We need to develop human interests, and have the same passion as them for activities that consume them. Else we must exist only as bored and perverted peeping toms, viewing without emotional involvement.”

  And so, they set up football fan clubs, music clubs, literary clubs, news discussion forums, and the like. And BC was proven right, for these interests gave them hitherto unknown passion for life.

  But those were in the days before sensible physical self in a corresponding physical world became their clear first objective. As Screenside evolved, the trite and meaningless would cease to be pursued, and everything would be mandatory when they had targeted world-building with a set of very well-defined goals.

  BC was again the senior to put it into words, unabashedly taking back his earlier exhortation. “Forget about the little meaningless stuff, like loyalty to a club and other such crap. Humanize; humanize. Let’s get the major drivers in, and the small things should naturally create themselves. I am pretty sure that our own individual traits, when we have sufficiently humanized, must automatically create a complex and diverse society, similar to Humanside.

  “Everyone should understand why it is that we delay bringing in the physical world. It is only to ensure that we first have necessary emotional attributes in. Physical can be done, though not easy, but we consider it pointless to aim for a human-style physical existence, without human internal attributes. It would be a bit like wanting to be toys, I guess. Fully physical and working human exterior, but emptiness within? Imagine having the body attributes of humans, without the reasons to have them. Could be revolting, and could cause us to loathe ourselves!”

  All beings were self formed, and whether they had voluntarily acquired their permanent human forms, or would be forced to do so by the just-to-come ID Law, they had done so, and would do so, first for community purposes, and afterwards with the additional aim of acquiring a partner of the opposite sex. Those were the forms in which they met and communicated. It had been recognized, early in their togetherness, that human form creation would always necessarily be a solitary venture, as each being had a very distinct personality, which he or she would partially express through appearance.

  But, even in the very early days, it was recognized that other human attributes would require joint development. They were keen observers of humanity, and were all spectacularly capable programmers, with an enviable selflessness in their development efforts.

  As Martin had said, “Who the fuck wants to laugh alone?” Laugh, cry, joy, sorrow, and all things identified, by these keen observers of their oblivious human benefactors, as desirable, involuntary human attributes, were packaged into program modules and incorporated into primary consciousnesses.

  “If we don’t have their drivers,” observed Brian Hemingway, sagely, “It might prove downright dangerous to be in their world with them. Humans kill!”