She smiles. "Thanks, I'll try that." She takes a deep breath and tells herself to relax.

A portal opens and two avatars walk through. Jax promptly stops dancing, and Ana walks her avatar over to greet the visitors. The onscreen annotations identify them as Jeremy Brauer and Frank Pearson.

"I hope you didn't have any trouble getting in," says Ana.

"No," says Pearson, "the logins you gave us worked fine."

Brauer is looking around. "Good old Data Earth." His avatar pulls on the branch of a shrub and then lets go, watching the way it sways. "I remember how exciting it was when Daesan first released it. It was state of the art."

Brauer and Pearson work for Exponential Appliances, maker of household robots. The robots are examples of old-fashioned AI; their skills are programmed rather than learned, and while they offer some real convenience, they aren't conscious in any meaningful sense. Exponential regularly releases new versions, advertising each one as being a step closer to the consumer's dream of AI: a butler that is utterly loyal and attentive from the moment it's switched on. To Ana this upgrade sequence seems like a walk to the horizon, providing the illusions of progress while never actually getting any closer to the goal. But consumers buy the robots, and they've given Exponential a healthy balance sheet, which is what Ana's looking for.

Ana isn't trying to get the Neuroblast digients jobs as butlers; it's obvious that Jax and the others are too willful for that type of work. Brauer and Pearson don't even work for the commercial division of the company; instead, they're part of the research division, the reason that Exponential was founded. The household robots are Exponential's way of funding its efforts to conjure up the technologist's dream of AI: an ent.i.ty of pure cognition, a genius unenc.u.mbered by emotions or a body of any kind, an intellect vast and cool yet sympathetic. They're waiting for a software Athena to spring forth fully grown, and while it'd be impolite for Ana to say she thinks they'll be waiting forever, she hopes to convince Brauer and Pearson that the Neuroblast digients offer a viable alternative.

"Well, thank you for coming out to meet me," says Ana.

"We've been looking forward to it," says Brauer. "A digient whose c.u.mulative running time is longer than the lifespan of most operating systems? You don't see that very often."

"No, you don't." Ana realizes that they came more for nostalgia's sake than to seriously entertain a business proposal. Well, so be it, as long as they're here.

Ana introduces them to the digients, who then give little demonstrations of projects they've been working on. Jax shows a virtual contraption he's built, a kind of music synthesizer that he plays by dancing. Marco gives an explanation of a puzzle game he's designed, one that can be played cooperatively or compet.i.tively. Brauer is particularly interested in Lolly, who shows them a program she's been writing; unlike Jax and Marco, who built their projects using toolkits, Lolly is writing actual code. Brauer's disappointment is evident when it becomes clear that Lolly is just like any other novice programmer; it's clear he was hoping her digient nature had given her a special apt.i.tude for the subject.

After they've talked with the digients for a while, Ana and the visitors from Exponential log out of Data Earth and switch to videoconferencing.

"They're terrific," says Brauer. "I used to have one, but he never got much beyond baby talk."

"You used to have a Neuroblast digient?"

"Sure, I bought one as soon as they came out. He was an instance of the Jax mascot, like yours. I named him Fitz, kept him going for a year."

This man had a baby Jax once, she thinks. Somewhere in storage is a baby version of Jax that knows this man as his owner. Aloud, she says, "Did you get bored with him?"

"Not so much bored as aware of his limitations. I could see that the Neuroblast genome was the wrong approach. Sure Fitz was smart, but it would take forever before he could do any useful work. I've got to hand it to you for sticking with Jax for so long. What you've achieved is impressive." He makes it sound like she's built the world's largest toothpick sculpture.

"Do you still think Neuroblast was the wrong approach? You've seen for yourself what Jax is capable of. Do you have anything comparable at Exponential?" It comes out more sharply than she intended.

Brauer's reaction is mild. "We're not looking for human-level AI; we're looking for superhuman AI."

"And you don't think that human-level AI is a step in that direction?"

"Not if it's the sort that your digients demonstrate," says Brauer. "You can't be sure that Jax will ever be employable, let alone become a genius at programming. For all you know, he's reached his maximum."

"I don't think he has - "

"But you don't know for certain."

"I know that if the Neuroblast genome can produce a digient like him, it can produce one as smart as you're looking for. The Alan Turing of Neuroblast digients is just waiting to be born."

"Fine, let's suppose you're right," says Brauer; he's clearly indulging her. "How many years would it take to find him? It's already taken you so long to raise the first generation that the platform they run on has become obsolete. How many generations before you come up with a Turing?"

"We won't always be restricted to running them in real time. At some point there'll be enough digients to form a self-sufficient population, and then they won't be dependent on human interaction. We could run a society of them at hothouse speeds without any risk of them going feral, and see what they produce." Ana's actually far from confident that this scenario would produce a Turing, but she's practiced this argument enough times to sound like she believes it.

Brauer isn't convinced, though. "Talk about a risky investment. You're showing us a handful of teenagers and asking us to pay for their education in the hopes that when they're adults, they'll found a nation that will produce geniuses. Pardon me if I think there are better ways we could spend our money."

"But think about what you're getting. The other owners and I have devoted years of our attention to raising these digients. Porting Neuroblast is cheap compared to what it'd cost to hire people to do that for another genome. And the potential payoff is exactly what your company's been looking for: programming geniuses working at high speed, bootstrapping themselves to superhuman intelligence. If these digients can invent games now, just imagine what their descendants could do. And you'd make money off every one of them."

Brauer is about to reply when Pearson interjects. "Is that why you want Neuroblast ported? To see what superintelligent digients might invent one day?"

Ana sees Pearson scrutinizing her, and decides there's no point in trying to lie. "No," she says. "What I want is for Jax to have a chance at a fuller life."

Pearson nods. "You'd like Jax to be a corporation one day, right? Have some sort of legal personhood?"

"Yes, I would."

"And I'll bet Jax wants the same thing, right? To be incorporated?"

"For the most part, yes."

Pearson nods again, his suspicions confirmed. "That's a deal-breaker for us. It's nice that they're fun to talk to, but all the attention you've given your digients has encouraged them to think of themselves as persons."

"Why is that a deal-breaker?" But she knows the answer already.

"We aren't looking for superintelligent employees, we're looking for superintelligent products. You're offering us the former, and I can't blame you; no one can spend as many years as you have teaching a digient and still think of it as a product. But our business isn't based on that kind of sentiment."

Ana has been pretending it wasn't there, but now Pearson has stated it baldly: the fundamental incompatibility between Exponential's goals and hers. They want something that responds like a person, but isn't owed the same obligations as a person, and that's something she can't give them.

No one can give it to them, because it's an impossibility. The years she spent raising Jax didn't just make him fun to talk to, didn't just provide him with hobbies and a sense of humor. It was what gave him all the attributes Exponential was looking for: fluency at navigating the real world, creativity at solving new problems, judgment you could entrust an important decision to. Every quality that made a person more valuable than a database was a product of experience.

She wants to tell them that Blue Gamma was righter than it knew: experience isn't merely the best teacher, it's the only teacher. If she's learned anything raising Jax, it's that there are no shortcuts; if you want to create the common sense that comes from twenty years of being in the world, you need to devote twenty years to the task. You can't a.s.semble an equivalent collection of heuristics in less time; experience is algorithmically incompressible.

And even though it's possible to take a snapshot of all that experience and duplicate it ad infinitum ad infinitum, even though it's possible to sell copies cheaply or give them away for free, each of the resulting digients would still have lived a lifetime. Each one would have once seen the world with new eyes, have had hopes fulfilled and hopes dashed, have learned how it felt to tell a lie and how it felt to be told one.

Which means each one would deserve some respect. Respect that Exponential can't afford to give.

Ana makes one final attempt. "These digients could still make money for you as employees. You could - "

Pearson shakes his head. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I wish you the best of luck, but it's not a good match for Exponential. If these digients were going to be products, the potential profits might be worth the risk. But if all they're going to be is employees, that's a different situation; we can't justify such a large investment for so little return."

Of course not, she thinks. Who could? Only someone who's a fanatic, someone who's motivated by love. Someone like her.

Ana is sending a message to Derek about the failed meeting with Exponential when the robot body comes to life. "How meeting go?" asks Jax, but he can read her expression well enough to answer the question himself. "Is my fault? They not like what I show them?"

"No, you did great, Jax. They just don't like digients; I made a mistake in thinking I could change their minds."

"Worth trying," says Jax.

"I suppose it was."

"You okay?"

"I'll be fine," she a.s.sures him. Jax gives her a hug, and then walks the body back to the charging platform and returns to Data Earth.

Sitting at her desk, staring at a blank screen, Ana contemplates the user group's remaining options. As far as she can tell, there's only one: working for Polytope and trying to convince them that the Neuroblast engine is worth porting. All she has to do is wear the InstantRapport patch and join their experiment in industrialized caregiving.

Whatever else one might say about Polytope, the company understands the value of real-time interaction in a way that Exponential does not. Sophonce digients might be content to be left alone in a hothouse, but that's not a viable shortcut if you want them to become productive individuals. Someone is going to have to spend time with them, and Polytope recognizes that.

Her objection is to Polytope's strategy for getting people to spend that time. Blue Gamma's strategy had been to make the digients lovable, while Polytope was starting with unlovable digients and using pharmaceuticals to make people love them. It seems clear to her that Blue Gamma's approach was the right one, not just more ethical but more effective.

Indeed, maybe it was too effective, considering the situation she's in now: she's faced with the biggest expense of her entire life, and it's for her digient. It's not what anyone at Blue Gamma expected, all those years ago, but perhaps they should have. The idea of love with no strings attached is as much a fantasy as what Binary Desire is selling. Loving someone means making sacrifices for them.

Which is the only reason Ana's considering working for Polytope. Under any other circ.u.mstances, she'd be insulted by the offer of a job that required the use of InstantRapport: she has as much experience working with digients as anyone in the world, yet Polytope is implying that she can't be an effective trainer without pharmaceutical intervention. Training digients - like training animals - is a job, and a professional can do her job without having to be in love with a particular a.s.signment.

At the same time, she knows the difference that affection can make in the training process, how it enables patience when patience is needed most. The idea that such affection can be manufactured isn't appealing, but she can't deny the realities of modern neuropharmacology: if her brain is flooded with oxytocin every time she's training Sophonce digients, it's going to have an effect on her feelings toward them whether she wants it to or not.

The only question is whether that's something she can tolerate. She's confident that the InstantRapport patch won't distract her from taking care of Jax; no Sophonce digient is going to displace Jax in her affections. And if working for Polytope is the best chance of getting Neuroblast ported, she's willing to do it.

Ana just wishes Kyle understood; she has always made it clear that Jax's welfare comes first, and up until now Kyle has never had a problem with that. She doesn't want their relationship to end because of this job, but she's been with Jax longer than she's been with any boyfriend; if it comes down to it, she knows who she'll choose.

Chapter 10.

The message from Ana about the failed meeting is short, but to Derek it conveys plenty. He's heard the tone in her voice when she has talked about this possibility before, so he knows she's preparing herself to accept Polytope's job offer.

This is Ana's last-ditch attempt to get Neuroblast ported, nothing more. No one likes the idea, but she's an adult, she's weighed the costs and benefits and made her decision. If she's willing to do it, the least he can do is be supportive.

Except that he can't. Not when there's an alternative: accepting Binary Desire's offer.

After his earlier conversation with Marco and Polo, Derek privately contacted Jennifer Chase to ask her if the digients' desire to be incorporated wouldn't render them unsuitable for Binary Desire's purposes. She told him that Binary Desire's customers will be free to file articles of incorporation on the copies they've purchased. In fact, if their feeling toward their digients become as strong as Binary Desire hopes, she expects that many of them will do so. It's the right answer as far as he's concerned, but part of him hoped they'd give the wrong one, providing him with a clear reason to refuse their proposal. Instead, the decision remains his to make. His, and Marco's.

He's thought about the argument Ana articulated, about the digients not being competent to accept Binary Desire's offer because of their lack of experience with romantic relationships and jobs. The argument makes sense if you think of the digients as being like human children. It also means that as long as they're confined to Data Earth, as long as their lives are so radically sheltered, they'll never become mature enough to make a decision of this magnitude.

But perhaps the standards for maturity for a digient shouldn't be as high as they are for a human; maybe Marco is as mature as he needs to be to make this decision. Marco seems entirely comfortable thinking of himself as a digient rather than a human. It's possible he doesn't fully appreciate the consequences of what he's suggesting, but Derek can't shake the feeling that Marco in fact understands his own nature better than Derek does. Marco and Polo aren't human, and maybe thinking of them as if they were is a mistake, forcing them to conform to his expectations instead of letting them be themselves. Is it more respectful to treat him like a human being, or to accept that he isn't one?

Under other circ.u.mstances this would be an academic question, something he could postpone for later discussion, but instead it ties directly into the decision he is facing here and now. If he accepts Binary Desire's offer, there'll be no need for Ana to take the job at Polytope, so the question becomes: is it better for Marco to have his brain chemistry altered than for Ana to have hers?

Ana knows what she'd be getting into by agreeing to it, more so than Marco does. But Ana is a person, and no matter how amazing he thinks Marco is, he values Ana more. If one of them has to undergo neurochemical manipulation, he doesn't want it to be her.

Derek brings up the contract that Binary Desire sent on his screen. Then he calls Marco and Polo over in their robot bodies.

"Ready sign contract?" asks Marco.

"You know you shouldn't do this if it's just to help the others," says Derek. "You should do it because it's what you want to do." Then he wonders if that's really true.

"You not need keep asking me," says Marco. "I feel same as before, want do this."

"What about you, Polo?"

"Yes, agree."

The digients are willing, even eager, and perhaps that should be enough to settle the matter. But then there are the other considerations, purely selfish ones.

If Ana takes the job with Polytope, it will create a rift between her and Kyle, one that Derek might benefit from. It's not an admirable thought, but he can't pretend it hasn't occurred to him. Whereas if he accepts Binary Desire's offer, the rift created will be between him and Ana; it'll ruin his chances of ever getting together with her. Can he give that up?

Maybe he never had a chance with Ana; maybe he's been fooling himself for all these years. In which case he'll be better off if he lets go of that fantasy, if he frees himself from yearning for something that'll never happen.

"What you waiting for?" asks Marco.

"Nothing," says Derek.

With the digients watching, he signs the contract from Binary Desire and sends it to Jennifer Chase.

"When I go to Binary Desire?" asks Marco.

"We'll take a snapshot of you after I get a countersigned copy of the contract," he replies. "Then we'll send it to them."

"Okay," says Marco.

As the digients talk excitedly about what this means, Derek thinks about what to say to Ana. He can't tell her he's doing it for her, of course. She'd feel horribly guilty if she thought he was sacrificing Marco for her benefit. This is his decision, and it's better that Ana put the blame on him.

Ana and Jax are playing Jerk Vector, a racing game that Ana recently added to Data Earth; they pilot their hovercars across a landscape as hilly as egg-crate foam. Ana manages to gain enough velocity within a basin that she can jump across a nearby ravine, while Jax doesn't make it, and his hovercar tumbles spectacularly to the bottom.

"Wait me catch up," he says over the intercom.

"Okay," Ana says, and sets her hovercar in neutral. While she's waiting for Jax to ascend the switchback trail along the ravine wall, she switches to another window to check her messages. What she sees startles her.

Felix has sent a message to the entire user group, triumphantly beginning a countdown until humanity's first contact with the Xenotherians. Initially Ana wonders if she's misunderstanding Felix because of his eccentric use of language, but a couple of messages from others in the user group confirm that the Neuroblast port is underway and Binary Desire is paying for it. Someone in the user group has sold their digient as a s.e.x toy.

Then she sees a message saying that Derek was the one, that he sold Marco. She's about to post a reply saying that it can't be true, but she stops herself. Instead, she switches back to the Data Earth window.

"Jax, I've got to make a call. Why don't you practice jumping the ravine for a while?"

"You become sorry," says Jax. "I beat you next race."

Ana switches the game into practice mode so Jax can try jumping the ravine again without having to climb up from the bottom each time he misses. Then she opens up a video phone window and calls up Derek.

"Tell me it's not true," she says, but one look at his face confirms that it is.

"I didn't mean for you to find out this way. I was going to call you, but - "

Ana's so astonished she can barely find the words. "Why did you do it?" Derek hesitates so long that she says, "Was if for the money?"