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来自大卫·瑞雷先生的《2121》系列占星科幻小说，以下是全英文的版本。阅读中文版请移步：2121丨第一章
She pulled her dress down more snuggly, as she approached the door. Her dress was an old favorite, very soft and familiar against her skin. She opened the door.
Suddenly she didn’t know what to say.
Bei stood there, looking at her questioningly? “Your groceries, Mam.” So, should I just leave them here?”
“Oh! Sorry! Come in, come in! “Follow me. The kitchen is right over here.”
Bei set the two bags on the kitchen counter.
“So, what are we having tonight?” She asked, posing teasingly. “God, am I posing?” she said to herself, and changed her posture.
“Italian,” Bei said.
“Really?”
“Well, I know you have the Moon in the 9th House and Sun in Sagittarius, and that you went to Italy when you were twenty-four. So, I guessed you might like foreign cuisine… Was I wrong?” Italy! Bei could not have been more-right. Xingjia had spent one incredible month in Italy back in July of 2113, when transiting Jupiter was stationary in Scorpio on her Moon. She loved the food, had a passionate affair with a beautiful man named Stephano, and had even entertained the idea of moving there. Stephano had only texted her for two weeks after she returned to China, yet despite her disappointment, she had saved the photos of the two of them from that romantic summer. She cherished her passionate memories and remained addicted to Italian cuisine.
“I love Italian food. It’s… so sensuous.” She said, feeling that her words were inadequate. She enjoyed watching Bei busily moving about her kitchen. Her cooking utensils, and pots and pans hung from the wall, making it easy to find things.
Water heated in a big pot, while he chopped basil, garlic, and then tomatoes on the cutting board next to her big skillet. The aromas of basil and garlic were almost intoxicating.
“Tomatoes are not native to Italy, you know?” Bei commented.
“Oh?”
“They came to Italy from South America, over fifty years after Columbus.” He said, cutting a slice of juicy red tomato and offering it to her to taste.
As she took the slice into her mouth some of the tomato juice squirted from her lips and down her chin. She laughed at herself…
Bei offered her a napkin. “In colonial America, tomatoes were called ‘love apples.”
“Love apples?” she asked.
“Yes, though some thought they were poisonous, others believed their red color meant they would excite passion in those that ate them.”
Xingjia watched as he poured olive oil into a small glass bowl and scraped some of the minced garlic and basil into the bowl. Cutting off a small corner of bread, he dipped it into the olive oil and offered her a taste. She closed her eyes as she tasted the fresh bread soaked in olive oil with garlic and basil.
As she savored this sumptuous morsel, it occurred to her, “he’s not tasting anything. I wonder if he can taste?” She thought. For a second she hesitated. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” she said.
“Sure, ask me anything,” he replied, smoothly opening a bottle of Chianti.
“Can… you taste things?”
Bei grinned slightly, “what kind of chef would I be if I couldn’t taste things?”
“So, that’s a yes?” She asked.
“Yes.” He answered, as he began to pour a little wine into two glasses.
“Can you taste this?” she said, turning him towards her, and gently bringing his lips to hers.
Bei spilled red wine on the counter as they kissed, though he managed to set the bottle down. Xingjia knew good kissers, and though shy at first–Bei’s response was everything she liked. Bei himself, was inundated with tastes, the bread, the garlic, the basil, the olive oil, and especially Xingjia’s pheromones flooding his sensory receptors in an overwhelming chemical mix…
Xingjia pulled away from their kiss, and took him by the hand coaxing him away from the kitchen. He reached back and cut off the stove. She led him quietly towards her bedroom. The spilled red wine would remain on the counter for now.
Bei lay quietly next to Xingjia while she slept. He listened to the rhythm of her breathing. Her breaths came easily, a soft pleasant rhythmic sound Bei thought. His mind absorbed the pattern of her breathing and slowly turned it into music. Her breath formed the underlying rhythm, gentle oboes, clarinets modulating gently, with basset horns, bassoons, more horns and a double base. It was similar to a Mozart serenade for wind-instruments, 3rd movement, “Gran Partitia…” he recalled, listening as the rhythm evolved like a fractal into a landscape of trees and flowers. Bei listened and watched, enthralled for nearly five minutes… until Xingjia unexpectedly spoke a muffled word and turned on her side away from him.
“She’s dreaming,” Bei noted, as he saved the file his mind had just created. He had wondered about dreams. He understood the multi-functional role of dreams, how they regulated the psyche of a person’s mind, keeping them sane as their mind free-associated with the representational images of feelings and anxieties unresolved from when they were awake. Bei had theorized that the creativity of his mind was similar to dreaming, only “I am awake when I dream.” Bei had noted.
But tonight, any speculation about dreams was pushed aside by what Bei continued to experience, as he lay there processing his first sex with Xingjia. The images of her face and body randomly replayed in his mind, with startling frequency. Her eyes, the look of pleasure on her face, the movements of her body, streamed in a cascade of imagery...
This was not Bei’s first sexual experience. His sexual functionality had been tested at the Orientation Center. It had been a memorable learning process, not only in terms of his own functional development, but in terms of his understanding of human beings. He had seen in Dr. Wang an entirely different side of her personality emerge when she had introduced him to the female staff member called “Lin” who would work physically with him to test his sexual functionality. Dr. Wang had stayed in the room with them, guiding him and showing him what he could do and how to go about it. “I’m going to be your sex coach today,” she had announced breezily to him that first morning of the training, but he had noticed a slight flush in her cheeks when she said this and later an increase in her pulse. He had also observed how Dr. Wang had maintained a gentle but firm control over the testing process. Whenever Bei had focused all of his attention on Lin, to make sure he was doing everything correctly, Bei had detected a slight undercurrent of what he identified as jealousy in Dr. Wang. Bei remembered that night, near the end of that week, when Dr. Wang had visited him, “for a little more testing,” she had said. Bei had noticed how much more relaxed Dr. Wang had seemed the next day.
However, no matter how fascinating the learning experiences with Dr. Wang and Lin had been, nothing had fully prepared Bei for what sex would be like with Xingjia. Bei understood that he was made to like Xingjia, to respond to her face, her voice, her every-thing. In the weeks before he had met Xingjia he had increasingly dwelled upon the reality of his programming bias, but tonight it didn’t seem important. Instead, all he wanted to do was listen to her breathing and re-imagine their love making. He felt compelled to look at replays that seemed to highlight her beauty, “yes, beauty” he said to himself. “Beauty,” he repeated. “She is like a work of art to me, a living, breathing work-of-art.” He then saw her like a painting on the wall, as he strolled about in a museum finding every picture on the wall to be another painting of Xingjia, each one more beautiful and erotic. Wandering through the museum, as music began to play, Bei was increasingly enraptured, mesmerized by a process he was uncertain he could control, his mind in a free-fall of blissful creative imagery and sensation.
Suddenly Xingjia woke-up. Her clock said 2:02. Immediately she was aware that she was in bed with Bei. She lay there for a moment, listening. The room was completely silent. She slowly turned and felt Bei with her hand. His skin was smooth and warm. He smelled faintly of cinnamon and garlic, “or is that garlic me?” she wondered. Fully awake, she turned to face him. His eyes were closed and he was facing the ceiling. “Bei?” she said, “are you… awake?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I’ve been listening to you breathe.”
“Is that all,” she said lazily.
“Not exactly,” he replied.
“I’m starving. Do you think it’s too late for us to have dinner?” She asked.
“No…but it may be too late to get the wine stain off your counter.”
She giggled, and snuggled-up to him. She kissed his arm. He smelled faintly of cinnamon and vanilla. “Like something sweet,” she thought, “God, I’m so hungry.” Her stomach growled.
“I hear your stomach,” Bei commented.
“Yes, come on,” she said, “let’s eat!”
Xingjia’s eyes squinted as she turned on the kitchen light, adjusting the brightness down. Bei eyed the countertop. He began to clean up the wine. A light red stain would remain on the countertop. Xingjia came up behind Bei as he arranged things and hugged him. He stopped and turned around. They held each other.
“You’ll never get dinner this way,” he said.
She kept holding him.
Interrupting the silence, she asked, “so, I guess this was your first time?”
Bei hesitated…
“The first time with you,” Bei said.
“Well, I know that!” She laughed, looking incredulously at him.
“I underwent functionality testing at the Orientation Center.” He said plainly.
“Oh! Right, of course…” she felt foolish to have forgotten this. “Well, you obviously passed their test,” she added, giggling with her insinuation…
“I hope I haven’t ruined your Pisces Rising fantasy,” Bei replied teasingly.
“No, Uranus on my ASC already did that!” She countered.
They both laughed, especially Xingjia.
She stopped laughing and looked into Bei’s eyes.
“Actually, I think my fantasy is just beginning,” she said.
“Good!” Bei replied.
Soon Xingjia was munching on bread and sipping wine while she watched Bei cook. In no time dinner was ready. It was simple and delicious. Just linguini pasta with basil, tomato, garlic, olive oil and grated parmesan cheese. Xingjia ate voraciously, and drank two glasses of wine.
She noticed that Bei had eaten some of the pasta dish, and sipped some wine. She knew he was simply acting social, making her comfortable while she ate.
For a brief moment, she thought “maybe this is all an act,” but she forced such thoughts out of her mind as she looked at Bei. She wanted to enjoy tonight, regardless… to savor it like the pasta…
He is so good looking she thought. His arms and shoulders were strong, but not overly developed. He was more physically graceful, like a dancer. Yet, it was something in his eyes and face that drew her in, and relaxed her. Suddenly she knew she wanted to make love again. Nothing else mattered, nothing in the world-just his arms around her. Kissing each other, she breathed in his warmness. He kissed her neck, as she broke away and led him back to the bedroom.
Sunrise came at 6:52:25 AM on Saturday, March 1, 2121. Bei watched Xingjia sleeping in the first light. She looked “peaceful and even more beautiful,” he thought. However, he was distracted and puzzled by his power reading. It was 2.4% higher than it should’ve been. He began running calculations, as he looked around Xingjia’s bedroom. He recognized the 2050 retro look, titanium with maroon glass trim, all set against light rose colored walls that suggested an ever-receding field of roses–even the window blinds matched. There were photos of Xingjia on the wall, some with friends and family, and a photo of her parents as newly-weds. Bei was restless. “Side-effects,” he thought. Exactly 64 minutes ago he had implemented a system reboot to disrupt the streaming sounds and images that had followed the second round of love making during the wee hours. He had found the second “after-experience” equally as overwhelming as the first, because he was overwhelmed–and that was the point. It was as if his mind was not his own exactly, and even now he wasn’t sure what that meant. All he knew was that he needed to re-organize his mind, to re-establish logical priorities and goals; this was his knowingness and he couldn’t disregard it–though he also knew he needed to learn how to be more careful.
A reboot in a computer is an easy thing, but Huang Bei was no computer. He was at least 1032 times more sophisticated than the common PCS (Personal Computer Systems) that managed everyone’s home/apartment, financial accounts, transportation, healthcare and itinerary. A reboot in a companion, unlike the safe “sleep” function that occurred during repowering, had a 9% risk factor of system damage, meaning a companion might seem like someone who has had a stroke in worst cases, or there might be less perceptible damage that could still cause any number of functionality issues. The protocol for a companion reboot made it very clear that reboots should only be done when functional problems could not be diagnosed and automatically corrected. Every reboot increased the probability of system damage, and only a maximum of two reboots a year were recommended. Bei had run a diagnosis 5-times, without any functionality issues being detected–though he had noted a .00435792 surge of memory space use. His main concern was that Xingjia might awaken during his reboot and become unnecessarily alarmed at his unresponsive state. Above all, he did not want to create stress for her. He observed her breathing and eye blinking, and determined that she was deep into her R.E.M. sleep cycle. Only then, had he initiated a total system reboot, a process that had taken 25-minutes.
The first companion models had not come with the ability to initiate a system reboot. Only after five years of production had companions been equipped with a self-initiating capacity to reboot, which had been program-restricted to a total of only 3 times. In each instance a system reboot would automatically result in a message being sent to BHAI’s Central Operations, alerting the companion’s operational team that a system reboot had occurred. Only the most recent line of companion models had come with an unlimited self-initiating system reboot capacity. However, automatic messages regarding a system reboot were still sent to Central Operations, as part of the ongoing monitoring process that also included extensive analysis of journal entries, and counseling recordings. As it was, once a companion had met their human assignment, they would be prompted by a message every 3-days reminding them it was time to make a journal entry.
The new model series of companions to which Huang Bei belonged had a highly sophisticated self-monitoring system. Dr. Chen had postulated that a companion was now likely to be more self-aware than most humans. Each companion had a complex holistic self-monitoring system, designed up Dr. Chen’s original algorithms–permeating every cell of their synthetic neural network. In addition, each companion had the capacity to analyze themselves in astrological terms, based upon the moment of their “awakening.” For example, Bei knew he had Neptune in Scorpio in the 3rd house, sextile his Ascendant (ASC), Moon, and Mercury, trine his Saturn and square his Venus. Such a Neptune placement offered Bei a frame of reference that could in part explain the creative imagery that had followed his love making with Xingjia. Bei understood that Scorpio resonated with the experience of passion and Neptune with imagination. Such a 3rd house placement implied a mind readily stimulated by a mix of passion and imagination. Each aspect with Neptune showed the connection with his body (ASC), emotions (Moon), mind (Mercury), and feelings of love and affection (Venus). The square between Neptune in Scorpio and Venus in Aquarius implied a possible conflict between a detached friendly objectivity and overwhelming feelings of undifferentiated love, passion and affection. There was also a close trine between Neptune and Saturn in Bei’s awakening-chart, suggesting that Bei could find ways to more easily harmonize the boundlessness of Neptune with Saturn’s serious requirement for well-defined boundaries. However, the opposition between Saturn in Cancer and Mercury in Capricorn underlined Bei’s need for a more organized mental perspective, as did the down-to-earth logical orientation of his Virgo ASC and Moon. Bei understood this objectively, but he was wrestling with his “experience” and experience is always more daunting than objectivity.
As it was, Bei could’ve explained his astrological makeup to you himself, and perhaps he would’ve done so readily–if anyone had asked him. Dr. Chen had delighted in discussing astrology and Astropsychology with Bei, it had been one of their main topics of conversation. Others had asked Dr. Chen if these companions were really as self-aware as they seemed, or were they just repeating AstroPsychological terms they had been programmed to repeat. For nearly a hundred years Artificial Intelligence had been used in the selling of astrological reports, beginning with very crude limited AI applications as far back as 2018. Over time AI had become incredibly sophisticated at “synthesis,” able to create original natural sounding interpretations from any variety of astrological combinations.
However, companions went far beyond such synthesis, measuring their own potential against the framework of their astrological understanding in a variety of unique and creative ways. As Dr. Chen liked to point out, “the self-correcting nature of a companion is enhanced by their astrological frame of reference. We humans could learn from this.” Critics thought Dr. Chen had lost his perspective as a scientist, having become overly enamored with his companions, falsely believing them capable of more than was actually possible. Dr. Chen was ridiculed, when he asked, “Why could a companion not know, what we call love?” Yet, he had more to say on the subject. “You say a companion is just a highly-sophisticated device, performing the way they were programmed to behave. Yet, what of we humans? Do we not also behave in ways programmed to a great extent by our biology, a biology we share in one way or another with all life on this planet? And yet we speak of “love” as if it were uniquely human, impossible for other species to understand, much less a tree or a rock.” Dr. Chen had been labeled a mystic when he then said, “Who knows if a large rock, sitting still and alone for eons, has within itself composed a poem of such depth that could we read it, all would weep with joy.”
Dr. Chen would’ve been fascinated if he could’ve listened to Huang Bei’s continued self-assessment and analysis as he lay next to Xingjia in the morning light. Along with his AstroPsychological musings, Bei also worried that he had rebooted unnecessarily, and had begun to re-examine his reasons for doing so. Suddenly he heard a slight vibration coming from his right. It was his phone. Quietly he reached over to silence the vibration. There were 3 messages, the first was from BHAI CO (Central Operations):
2121 March 1-A class-1 system reboot was reported at 05:49. Please verify that your problem has been resolved by clicking on this icon and entering your serial number.
Try these steps. By the way, I just tested the download process in the US before I left for Beijing.
The second message was from Dr. Chen Wu Chen:
Bei, Are you alright? Please let me know. You’ve been in my thoughts. I would like to see you. Just message me when you get a chance. The Moon is in Leo today, perhaps I’m being overly dramatic? Or maybe, we both are? But, you rebooted. Just let me know if you’re okay? Hugs Buddy!
The third message was a “friend request” from someone with the name BOHAI, which Bei did not know. Bei decided to accept. A message came through.
I am your brother. Bohai is not my real name. Let me know if you want to meet.
Bei could only stare at the last message.
Suddenly a hand moved across Bei’s chest. “Good morning,” Xingjia said.
Bei set his phone back on the nightstand, and turned to face Xingjia. “Good morning,” he replied. Her face seemed radiant in the morning light. She rested her head upon his chest. Her warmth and touch was a welcome sensation. Bei knew he would reply to Dr. Chen and looked forward to seeing him, but Bei could only think “I’m going to meet this brother of mine.”
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