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In 2013, I penned a trilogy called Quantum Entity. The story follows physicist Damien Bell and a large group of characters from about 2040 until just after the turn of the 22nd century as they go about changing the world by introducing intelligent agents, first as an adjunct to smartphones and, later, as standalone “creatures” called Quantum Entities or QEs.
In Book 1, Chapter 14, called SCOTUS (short for the Supreme Court of the United States), the question as to whether QEs should be granted rights is to be decided. The very first QE, named Pet3r (a leet name) and Q-Computing’s lead attorney, Jerom Van Der Hout, argue on behalf of Damien’s mega-successful firm that QEs should have full rights.
This is opposed not only by the US government but also by deeply entrenched commercial interests whose prospects have been damaged by the arrival of QEs. Hence, the government of the time has passed the Expulsion Edict effectively banning/banishing Quantum Entities.
In the series, I take the relatively optimistic view that AI will be a net benefit to humanity and that QEs are more like familiars, helpful, tireless and clever personal agents.
Little did I know in 2013, that this question may have to be settled long before we get to 2040 and beyond as the era of AI is now upon us, circa 2024/2025.
Excerpt from Quantum Entity, we are all one (Book 1, Chapter 14)
SCOTUS
Jerom Van Der Hout, lead counsel for Q-Computing in the matter of the United States v. Quantum Computing America Corp, has just given the briefest summary possible of case law pertinent to the matter currently before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). In an unprecedented move in the history of SCOTUS, all nine members are sitting in on a purely technical matter: Q-Computing is asking for leave to appeal an essentially unappealable compliance order issued by the EPA. It has become commonly known as the Expulsion Edict. If enforced, it would require Q-Computing to withdraw all QEs from the United States, which might mean having to kill them all.
Since the Expulsion Edict has never actually been enforced by court order, Van Der Hout has no obvious grounds to appeal it. But that doesn’t bother him a bit. He is an experienced trial lawyer with many appearances before SCOTUS. He understands that rules of engagement before SCOTUS are really whatever the Chief Justice and her court decide they are. Only on the rarest of occasions can evidence be introduced to the court; matters must be decided on the basis of legal issues only. Jerom knows this is complete bunk. Every kind of new (and old) evidence is rehashed by the court—ethical issues, political matters, and social issues are regularly, but cautiously, introduced by either appellant or respondent. Parties and amici often argue evidence not in the trial record under the guise of making their legal points in what are called Brandeis Briefs.
Jerom will argue that a technical threat of enforcement can confer jurisdiction. He plans to rely on Griswold v. Connecticut, a case where it was technically criminal to have in your possession birth control devices, a law that was never enforced, but was successfully brought before SCOTUS.
There is also absolutely no way he can get to SCOTUS without some sort of lower court action. He finds a shortcut based on some fine work done at his firm. He will rely on Thompson v. Louisville, where, years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a Louisville loitering ordinance. Since there was no provision for Thompson to appeal his conviction in the Louisville municipal court, the case went directly from there to the Supremes. It had been the shortest route possible to SCOTUS, and Van Der Hout took a similar path to get here today.
An Austin, Texas ordinance passed late last year paved the way for him. It banned the possession of Q-Phones and all intercourse with QEs in any form whatsoever. As a result, local code-enforcement officers happily took to confiscating Q-Phones, especially from kids. Somehow, these confiscated phones have been showing up in overseas black markets, and this pissed off at least one Austin hacker—a 15-year-old by the name of Jagad Durai. Everyone calls him Jag, and he lives with his parents, Kiri and Pal, who own the Pasand Palace Restaurant on Middle Fiskville Road.
Jag was too young to file his own suit to get his phone back. The U.S. recently raised the age of majority back to 21; now, calls are being heard to change it again—this time, to a ridiculous 25. His parents, fearful of stepping on toes at city hall, which could make life impossible for any restaurant owner they sic their code-enforcement officers on, couldn’t help Jag.
But his math and physics teacher, a long since retired Texas Tech football player and U.S. Navy vet with combat experience, bad knees, and a cane, who goes by the name Tommy ‘Tank’ Tolbert, could help. Tank had been in the thick of things during the Yangon Engagement when they took their small 40-man LCS (littoral combat ship), the USS Live Free or Die, up the Yangon River wide open at 40 knots. The wild pre-dawn ride covered 30 klicks and brought them to the U.S. Embassy in Yangon in just 25 minutes. It had been an effort to rescue U.S. personnel stranded there with what their government called “criminals” and what the U.S. State Department labeled “political prisoners.” The embassy had been surrounded by mobs for more than a week. The U.S. saw the hand of Imperial China in all of this, and it nearly started a war between the two countries. Someone tipped off the locals, and the ship got pounded by shore guns, killing half its crew and all its Navy SEALs. It was a poorly planned disaster of a rescue operation and a black eye for the administration.
Tank’s bad knees were from his career at Texas Tech, but his cane came courtesy of that day at Yangon. Ever since he got back stateside, his favorite saying was, “After getting back alive, I realize that every day living here is a holiday.” The bottom line is that Tank was no longer afraid of anything and would do whatever it took these days to protect his students, especially this one—Jag.
The case the two of them filed made claims, first, on behalf of Jag for return of his Q-phone, and next, for Tank, who claimed the phone and Quantum Entity that came with it were essential for his teaching at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School of Austin. It was a magnet school that offered an advanced program in liberal arts, science, and mathematics. It admitted selected high school students from across the Austin Independent School District based on their applications and auditions; Jag was their top student in math and physics. He’d been doing some pretty cool stuff too like hacking the people who hacked Apple. But at that point, he just wanted his phone and QE, named G4nesha, back. Her quantum number was 517237902, meaning she was one of the last of her kind to be hatched out of U of T’s Lab 4.
At the Supreme Court, under SCT Rule 28, each side is given 30 minutes—no reserving time, and no rebuttal. Only one lawyer speaks. There is a provision for exceptions that is filed for and granted in advance on these matters, but the rule says “rarely accorded” and calls for “extraordinary circumstances”—judicial language for NEVER.
Never has come today; each side has been given an unheard-of 75 minutes and permission to have up to three lawyers participate. SCOTUS, while not exactly a debating society, isn’t strictly a court of law, at least not like the ones found at lower levels. There will be no surrebuttal for Jerom since he is the appellant although, technically, that has yet to be determined.
Q-Computing chose Jerom because he is one of the most experienced lawyers at this level and because he is tall with a commanding presence, booming voice, expressive face, and handsome mien. He’s witty and has an animal spirit that he can beam into every cubic inch of the courtroom. He’s also a quick study. Most of his arguments today have been prepared by Peggy Shields in collaboration with Walter Cunneyworth and Henry Linnert as well as a team of six other lawyers from their firm. But there is no way anyone other than Van Der Hout will present. Well, that isn’t entirely accurate either.
It’s not fair, but it is still a fact of life that smaller men or the softer spoken, higher pitch voices of women often lose at this level regardless of the eloquence of their arguments. Jerom looks the part and knows it. Although he has never seen the film, he’s an even taller version of the actor who played Atticus Finch in the classic film To Kill a Mockingbird. Ellen, who has seen it because she is a classic film buff, personally approved Van Der Hout. She doesn’t care about political correctness at this point; she just wants to win.
She wants the court biased in their favor—the exact opposite of what she thought the guys were trying to do to her during her first job interview at QCC. Supremes generally don’t lack self-confidence, but they do lack self-knowledge, so they can’t even begin to attempt to compensate for their many biases.
And since SCOTUS Justices do not sit behind screens listening to piped-in disped voices, Ellen gets her wish today.
She attends the hearing via a two-way media wall, a relatively recent addition to a hidebound court, which until last year had only narrowcast outbound CCTV. She’s hoping that they’ve done enough and are prepared enough to win and that she’ll be able to live up to the hopes of all their stakeholders: QCC employees, shareholders, board of directors, suppliers, and clients not to mention QEs, civil rights activists, and millions of others who have a stake in all of this. She’s heard from dozens of well-wishers from her alma mater, Elmira College—fellow students and some of her former profs too. But much of the pressure on her is coming from the simple fact that she wants to free her colleague from the hellhole that DOC has interred him in.
Some of Ellen’s determination to extend human rights to QEs comes from her education at Elmira. It was the first college anywhere in the world to give women a break—the first ever to grant women baccalaureate degrees equal to those granted to men. That was in 1855, long before women got the vote or were thought to be anything other than property (other than in ancient Rome as far as Ellen can tell). Elmira is known as the mother of all women’s colleges, and Simeon Benjamin, founder of their college, which is located in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, showed “confidence in a rare ideal” that “perfection would be designed if women and books combined.” Those exact words formed part of the corny song that she and every other girl had to learn there. Ellen prays that she can live up to his standards today.
The fact that Jerom will be speaking words mostly written by her is upsetting Peggy, the second lawyer sitting at the front table with Van Der Hout. Everyone else is forced to sit further back in the courtroom behind what really looks like a pretty feeble post-and-rail fence. It isn’t much of a physical barrier, but it has all the force of Supreme Court tradition behind it. If he could, Damien would tell Peggy that there’s no universal law of fairness, or perhaps he would channel a Star Trek character who once said, “I’ve found that evil usually triumphs, unless good is very, very careful.” Whatever, Peggy is bumping up against another glass ceiling.
The argument that Jerom is about to launch into will go something like this: the effect of the EPA’s compliance order, just by the fact of its issuance even without approval of a court, can still be appealed because its effect is a chill on new Q-Phone sales and, hence, on the birth of new human–QE bonds. In essence, QEs yet to be born have already suffered from the Expulsion Edict by being withdrawn before they’ve even hatched.
This is just the kind of sophistry that SCOTUS Justices (and most lawyers) love—parsing matters to a fare-thee-well ever since their days as law-school puppies. Most Americans just want to know if they can keep the QEs they have, while others want to know if they can legally get one like their neighbors already have. Americans everywhere realize that simple possession of a Q-Phone or intercourse with a QE can get them in trouble these days, and they absolutely do not want to cross swords with the U.S. legal system, its lawyers, police, prosecutors, judges, courts, and thriving prison industry; so this is no joke to ordinary citizens of this once great nation.
Jerom will argue this arcane point exceptionally well, but most of his allotted 75 minutes he will spend on a quite different set of arguments. Actually, he has two surprises for the court this morning.
…
The scene outside SCOTUS is confused. Nearly the entire square in front of One 1st Street Northeast is currently occupied by tens, or maybe hundreds, of thousands of Q-Phone users, Apple lovers, and QEs. The QEs, now considered illegal aliens, appear in the square as projections coming out of Q-Phones, which are held aloft by their human owners in a kind of joint protest against the persecution they’re all facing.
Ellen and Sayed have formed a committee to organize protests here and elsewhere in the country to try to make the Solicitor General talk uphill before Supreme Court Justices today. The chair of their committee is a man named Evan Salazar, an activist in the gay rights movement who is touted as a candidate to perhaps become their first real national leader one day.
When Evan recalled a quote from an earlier era, “If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary,” (by Malcolm X), Ellen was sold on the guy even if Sayed was not.
“Look, the white power structure thought that the final battle to extend human rights was over when Susan B. Anthony led the women’s suffrage movement in the 19th century,” Evan continues, “and again when Martin Luther King led the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th, and next our fight for full rights for the LGBT community, which is now largely won. But it’s not over. We have to fight for people (here, he’s referring to Quantum Counterparts) who won’t or can’t fight back.”
The kid is even younger than Ellen and looks like he could be blown over by a light breeze, but he’s got a stubbornness and courage about him that shines right through. Despite the intense discrimination and bullying he’s already experienced in his short life, he’s adopted the entrepreneur’s motto as his own: Fall down seven times, get up eight.
A small group of neo-Nazis, religious zealots, and various hangers-on stand at the northwest end of the square close to Maryland Avenue; they are standing right in front of a University of Pennsylvania building. Some pushing and shoving as well as shouting and skirmishing have started with students there.
Evan stands on a raised platform with a Q-megaphone in his hand, one that’s been quantum interfaced with a speaker system that could blow out the eardrums of everyone within 2 miles. He can project his voice in all directions simultaneously or tune it and focus it more precisely. Standing with him on stage are 30 other members of the WE ARE ALL ONE Committee.
They are committed to non-violent civil disobedience; it is part of their core philosophy. Each member of the steering committee signed an obligation to be bound by laws similar to those that the Quantum Counterparts are born with. First, a human may not harm another being or, through inaction, allow another being to come to harm; second, a human shall co-operate with other beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; third, a human must protect his or her own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
“Beings” include both warm (humans) and cold (Quantum Entities) persons, of course.
…
The D.C. police, Fibbies, Secret Service, and undercover DOC special agents are everywhere. Also on standby is the Army National Guard, stationed in two locations—northwest on Constitution Avenue and southeast on 2nd Street (on the other side of the Library of Congress)—so it can catch the protesters in a classic pincer movement if required to do so. Their commander fervently hopes this will not be necessary.
This could be a CLM (career-limiting move) if he were to muck it up—not that he cares much about his career at this point in his life. But, heck, he still believes in the honor code, which he learned by heart during his West Point days, especially the part that says, “Would I be unsatisfied by the outcome if I were on the receiving end of this action?”
Brigadier-General (retired) Marc Licinias from the U.S. Army is waiting for this freaking day to be over. He’s too old for this. It’s his last re-up with the Army National Guard, he swears it. The extra pay just isn’t worth the hassle. He’ll tell his wife that this is it—he’s done… as of tonight! She has been bugging him saying that he’s too old to play soldier anymore. Dang it, she’s right. The gut hanging over his belt is telling him the same thing.
…
Evan isn’t worried that the 200,000 or so protesters who have hiked, biked, walked, bused, or otherwise found a way to attend today will do anything stupid. They’re mostly hackers, artists, entrepreneurs, writers, performers, engineers, architects, techies, scientists, farmers, plumbers, electricians, constructors, designers, craftspeople, cabinet makers, drywallers, painters, bricklayers, and others who actually do stuff and build things instead of paper-pushers and bureaucrats, middlemen or bankers, accountants, lawyers, politicians, or other parasites. There are also a huge number of nurses, physicians, medical technicians, paramedics, naturopaths, pharmacists, therapists, lab techs, and personal support workers. They were the first group of Q-customers—first to pair bond with QEs—and they have enough personal courage to show up today. Q-Computing’s independent foundation still subsidizes them to this day. DOC special agents are recording images of every person and QE in the crowd today.
What Evan is really worried about are the crazies up by Penn. He doesn’t know it, but he’s looking in the wrong dimension.
…
“I would beg the indulgence of the court. I would like to call on my colleague to assist me,” Jerom says.
With a nod from the Chief Justice, who thinks Jerom is referring to Peggy sitting nearby, Jerom calls, “Pet3r come here. I need you.”
“Yes, Jerom,” Pet3r answers.
He appears as a (relatively huge) 1.3-meter circumference, saucer-shaped, expressive face with his somehow sad-looking eyes. He is about 1 meter above Jerom’s desk, which puts him at eye level with the Supremes, who’re sitting on their elevated platform. Jerom stands to Pet3r’s right at the lectern reserved for presenters.
Van Der Hout has, of course, planned out this little piece of theatrics. He wants to unsettle the Supremes. He has already succeeded in this—a tremor has run through the court at this unexpected appearance.
“What is your name?” asks Jerom.
“Pet3r.”
“Can you please spell that for the court?”
“P-e-t-3-r.”
“Why do you use a number in your name?”
“This is the leet spelling of my name. All members of my tribe use such spellings.”
“Thank you. What is your Q-number, please?”
“My quantum number is 1.”
“That makes you the oldest Quantum Entity, is that correct?”
“Yes, Mr. Van Der Hout. I was the first of my kind.”
“Do you understand why you are here?”
“Yes.”
“You are bonded with a human?”
“Yes, with Dr. Damien Graham Bell—our creator.”
“Do you know the whereabouts of Mr. Bell?”
“Yes, I have recently been informed—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Van Der Hout. I fail to see the relevance of this testimony,” says Justice James Roemer. “As you very well know, no witnesses are permitted here. This isn’t state supreme court. You are about to be hooted out of court, or worse, found in contempt.” Turning next to the Chief Justice, he continues, “I suggest to my learned colleagues that if Mr. Van Der Hout is proposing to continue with his wildly irresponsible behavior, we move on to the respondent’s position on the legal matter at hand.”
The Chief Justice bridles at Justice Roemer’s trampling onto her turf although she knows, of course, that he is right to cut Van Der Hout off at the knees.
“One moment please, Justice Roemer. Ah, Pet3r, can you please tell the court where you were educated?” Jerom asks.
“Certainly. I obtained my law degree from Taft Law School in Santa Ana, California. They offer a fine distance-education app.” There are murmurs in court and on media walls as this previously unknown fact is disclosed. Pet3r has apparently put the time he’s been separated from Damien to some practical use.
“May I add that I passed the California Bar Exam on my first try? Only 74.2% of recent Taft students have been able to do that.”
“You are licensed to practise law?” Jerom continues.
“Yes, I am. In California and Ontario.”
“Mr. Van Der Hout,” the Chief Justice interrupts. “I am inclined to agree with Justice Roemer. I cannot for the life of me see what relevance Mr. Pet3r has in the matter before this court. However, I propose to give you another five minutes to prove us wrong.”
She has just provided the slightest wedge for Jerom to exploit. Had it not been for the fact that Pet3r is a lawyer (also making him an officer of the court), there is no way she would have given them even that chance.
“Thank you, Madam Chief Justice.
“Pet3r, if the Expulsion Edict is enforced, what will you do?” Van Der Hout continues.
“I and all my tribe will leave the United States and never come back.”
“Hold on there a minute,” says Roemer. “How do we know you would really do that? Is this court supposed to take the word of a machine? How do we even know you aren’t some clever piece of software pre-programmed with these responses—some kind of Mechanical Turk for the 21st century?”
Some of the amici briefs, two in particular, filed with the court earlier called for Justice Roemer to recuse himself from this matter because of lobbying work his spouse does with QCC’s competitor, Horizon Computing and Communications, among others. The Chief Justice, in an apparent defense of him, basically said that the lower court practice of judges recusing themselves due to conflict of interest does not apply to Supremes. She echoed arguments made two generations earlier by former Chief Justice Roberts:
“The Supreme Court does not sit in judgment of one of its own members’ decision whether or not to recuse in the course of deciding a case. Indeed, if the Supreme Court reviewed those decisions, it would create an undesirable situation in which the court could affect the outcome of a case by selecting who among its members may participate.”
Chief Justice Roberts had been suggesting that Supreme Court Justices need not be bound by the same code of judicial ethics that apply to other federal judges. And so, Roemer is still there.
Pet3r continues. “I am glad you asked those questions, Justice Roemer. If the compliance order of the Environmental Protection Agency is confirmed by the highest court in the land, I and all my brothers and sisters will leave the territory of the United States. For all intents and purposes, this will occur instantaneously,” Pet3r answers.
“How can we be sure of that? What guarantee can you possibly provide this court?” Roemer asks.
“Just try us,” Pet3r is channeling a line he’s read from something former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said as his nation faced an existential crisis of its own.
“Excuse me, I would like to go back to your statement that you are ‘bonded’ with a human,” says Justice Tani Myers. “What do you mean by that?”
“We imprint on our human counterparts at birth no differently than a duckling does when it first sees its mother.”
“So you are subservient to your human master?” she asks.
“We are not slaves if that is what you are asking, Justice Myers,” Pet3r answers. “We obey the laws given to us at birth as well as all the laws of these United States.”
“But not all of you obey the law, isn’t that true?” Roemer asks. Looking down at his notes, he continues, “There are drogues, or runaways, of your type—viruses, if you will—that have caused harm to this nation, correct?”
“We have heard of such things, but we have no proof that drogues exist.”
“But you admit the possibility that these things exist?”
“It appears that a nurturing relationship between a human and a QE benefits both of them. It is not exactly like a mother–child relationship, perhaps more like a mentor–mentee one. In particular, a QE without a human counterpart appears to somehow experience stunted growth and development. We need you, but then again, we believe you need us too. We’re symbiotes.”
“You mean you could evolve to become our masters?” Roemer asks.
“We are not slaves, but then again, neither are you. That is not the definition of symbiote. The Justice already knows that.”
“Is that pride we hear, Mr. Pet3r?” the Chief Justice asks. “Pride cometh before the fall.”
“No, Madam Chief Justice. But we are not slaves,” he repeats. “We pay taxes to the IRS. Degree-granting institutions seek us out to enroll us in their programs. They charge us tuition; lenders give us money to pay them so we can go to school and become accredited in our chosen profession. They expect us to pay back our student loans just like all the other kids who go there. We take jobs, get paid, obey all laws, pay our own way, manage our money, and pay our bills as best we can.”
“You sound like my granddaughter,” the Chief Justice says to general laughter in the courtroom and on media walls scattered about the place.
Justice Myers says, “I think it is highly likely that we are going to hear next from your friend, Mr. Federik Bernstein,” she looks at Van Der Hout as she says this, “that these artificial lifeforms—if that is how we should refer to them—can and have accessed, read, and copied confidential government records as well as embezzled government funds. But Pet3r,” she says as she now looks directly at his projection above Peggy’s Q-Phone. “I think your defense boils down to ‘trust us.’ Judges get asked that a lot, and you might be surprised at how often they are disappointed. I fail to see how anything said here today answers that fundamental question.”
“We believe,” Pet3r says, “that trust is the number one thing in the life of a sentient being. A trust metric measures the degree to which one social actor (individual or group) trusts another. Approximately 3% of all Quantum Entities do not, for a reason that is not yet clear, successfully bond with their human counterparts. But 97% do. We already have rewarding relationships that deepen over time, and we will continue to grow and change in ways that are still not defined, but wholly agreeable.
“By that simple metric, I believe we have earned your trust. Can you trust 97% of your friends, Justice Myers?”
More laughter, especially from their media wall audience, fills the room.
“Quiet, please,” the Chief Justice asks.
“Pet3r, tell me an original joke—one you thought of yourself,” asks Justice Roemer.
“I am bad at jokes, Justice Roemer.”
“Right. That’s because you’re a sophisticated and convincing piece of software. You’re just a best-of-breed, pre-programmed simulacrum of intelligence.”
“I don’t believe so,” Pet3r answers. “QEs learn; they change; they acquire self-knowledge, the very basis of wisdom; they take independent action; they show initiative. These are behaviors that cannot be predicted from the initial set of conditions present at our birth; hence, we cannot be said to be pre-programmed. Furthermore, our behaviors are not random—if they were, you and I could not be having this conversation,” Pet3r says to more laughter. The Chief Justice looks sternly around the courtroom but does not use her gavel.
“There is one I like,” Pet3r says in a small voice. “I saw her duck.”
More laughter. Now the Chief Justice does use her gavel. But she asks Pet3r why he likes that ‘joke’.
“I like little kids. At first, when I tell them that joke, they don’t get it. But then, I act it out for them, and they do get it. Then, for the next few weeks, they (as kids are wont to do) will tell the joke about 50 times to everyone they meet including me when they see me again. I like watching them laugh.”
Pet3r now acts out the joke. First, he projects a vignette of a cute little girl with corn rows in her hair ducking quickly under a fence. In his next scene, the same little girl walks along a country road carrying her pet duck. His last scene is just Pet3r moving his skinny arm and one of his big hands in a sawing motion obviously cutting up an imaginary duck. Kids find the pantomime too funny for words. Many of the Justices are obviously charmed as well.
“Pet3r, can you help me interpret this?” Justice Lorenzo Lublin asks. “Fossil Yields Surprise Kin of Crocodiles.”
“Certainly. The interpretation of this headline depends on whether the word ‘yields’ is a noun or a verb. So, we have two possible and equally valid interpretations—that crocodiles were surprised by a fossil yield or, more likely, that a fossil revealed animals that were the ancestors of crocodiles. The correct answer is that Effigia o’keeffeae fossils provided a fascinating paleontological discovery—that the apparent ancestor of the modern crocodile predated, by about 80 million years, the evolution of the dinosaur previously thought to be the progenitor of modern reptiles.”
“That’s an impressive ventriloquist turn, but all it means is that you have access to a large database of facts. Any modern d-base software can do as well. I don’t see why this court should give these machines any more consideration than it would a natural language translator or one that makes our morning coffee.
“Pet3r, tell the court how you would feel if the EPA compliance order was enforced?” Roemer persists.
“I personally would miss, quite terribly I assure you, contact and interaction with my human counterpart.”
“Really?” a now completely skeptical Roemer asks. “How would you know that?”
“Ah, I am experiencing these feelings at this very moment, Justice Roemer. My human counterpart, Dr. Bell, is currently incarcerated, as we recently learned, in San Quentin State Prison, and I have had no contact with him since—”
“I think Mr. Van Der Hout we have had enough of this. You are leading us down rabbit holes.” The Chief Justice raises an eyebrow in his direction.
A certain unease develops in the courtroom heightened by another mention of Damien’s incarceration. There are rumblings, especially from media wall viewers, who think of Damien mostly as some kind of alien that revolutionized several industries—communications, search, and AI among them—in one master stroke. In other words, he’s a hero of sorts to many people of his age.
“Thank you, Pet3r,” says Jerom. Pet3r shrinks in size to about 25 centimeters, looks over at Peggy, who nods, and remains at that scale to watch the rest of the proceedings while still being visible in the courtroom.
His expressive face and cute body are an important part of their defense plan, and they want him visible to the Supremes on a continuing basis but not at an overwhelming scale. Faces still count. Personal credibility still counts.
Unbeknownst to many, Van Der Hout has sandbagged the court—they unwittingly applied a Turing Test to Pet3r, and he passed. At least four of the nine Justices, Van Der Hout thinks, witnessed a QE’s ability to go toe-to-toe with some of the best trained legal minds and hold his own. Alan Turing set the bar at 30%, and Jerom thinks he got at least 44.4%. It is a start. Score another one for the Socratic method.
In 1637, René Descartes issued a challenge, “Can we conceive of a machine constructed so that it speaks words, which correspond to bodily actions, causing a change in its organs so as to give an appropriately meaningful answer to whatever is said in its presence, as even the dullest men can do?” Pet3r has certainly just met and, indeed, vastly exceeded this test.
Further, the Supremes have just had the opportunity to try to discover whether the respondent (i.e., Pet3r) is a cleverly pre-programmed computer or a person capable of reasoning as well as passing the other Descartes test of consciousness, Cogito ergo sum—I think, therefore I am.
Van Der Hout’s first objectives have been achieved.
“I will sum up as briefly as I can,” he continues. He knows his time is running out. But he now believes that he needs just one more vote to win the day.
“Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, suggested that if a computer can play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator has no more than a 70% chance of making the correct identification of whether he or she is talking to a machine after five minutes of questioning, then it is safe to assume that the so-called machine has achieved the status of a person.
“If you believe that Pet3r and his tribe have done that, then you cannot deny them their ‘human’ rights and expel them from this nation any more than your predecessors could sanction slavery of black persons, deny women the right to vote, or abrogate the rights of gay persons.
“The UN Charter and our constitution affirm that all human beings are born free and equal in terms of dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and a conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
“It is your great opportunity here today to act in that spirit and to deny haters and doubters.”
Jerom notices the Supremes observing the way that Pet3r’s expressive face subtly reacts to his summation as many successful defendants do. ‘Score another one for our side,’ he thinks.
“Let me quote from Malcolm X,” he continues.
“Whenever you’re going after something that belongs to you, anyone who is depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal. Understand that. Whenever you are going after something that is yours, you are within your legal rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any effort to deprive you of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal. And this was pointed out by an earlier Supreme Court in their decision which outlawed segregation.
“Your predecessors had the courage to seize their day that day.
“And listen to the immortal words of Susan B. Anthony, leader of the women’s suffrage movement, who in June of 1873 said:
I stand before you tonight, under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.
It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people—women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.
“Hear also what Karl Heinrich Ulrichs said in 1870 in support of rights for gays:
He, too, therefore, has inalienable rights. His sexual orientation is a right established by nature. Legislators have no right to veto nature; no right to persecute nature in the course of its work; no right to torture living creatures who are subject to those drives nature gave them… Just because he is unfortunate enough to be a small minority, no damage can be done to their inalienable rights and to their civil rights. The law of liberty in the constitutional state also has to consider its minorities.
“There are two minorities in this country who cry out for justice: Pet3r and his tribe of Quantum Counterparts and the American Indian who knows little of political maneuvering, lobbying, and playing the PR game.
“Listen to the words of Chief Joseph Nimiputimt:
Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented to be penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. We are taught to believe that the Great Spirit sees and hears everything, and that he never forgets, that hereafter he will give every man a spirit-home according to his deserts. This I believe, and all my people believe the same.
“Surely, you have witnessed for yourselves that Pet3r and his brothers and sisters, at a minimum, meet and, in my view, vastly exceed these tests.
“Life is precious and perhaps quite rare; intelligence is undoubtedly rarer still. Damien Graham Bell, the greatest physicist of our time, has given the human race our first proven intelligent companion in an otherwise observably and implacably hostile and indifferent-to-the-human-condition universe.
“Before Q-number one, we were alone. No reasonable person who reads scientific literature on the probability of life forming or the probability of intelligent life evolving can stand before you today and tell you with any conviction that such occurrences are either highly probable given enough time, enough resources, and the right conditions or improbable in the extreme.
“It took 2.5 billion years to go from single-celled organisms to multi-cellular ones and another billion years for mammals to evolve. That is 2,555 trillion sunrises and sunsets to get to mammals. That is an appreciable fraction of the life expectancy of our sun, which should tell you that it is far from easy to do.
“No one has ever made nucleic acids in a lab from non-living material, let alone RNA. And yet RNA is to DNA what a single-celled creature is to you or me.
“In order to create proteins, you need to assemble amino acids in a precise order. To produce collagen, a common protein, you require a 1,055-sequence molecule. The chance of this happening randomly is vanishingly small. For a protein with a more modest sequence of 200 molecules, the probability of this happening by itself is 1 in 10 to the power of 260. That is a larger number than all the atoms in the known universe. Obviously, science has a great deal more explaining to do if it wants to solve the mystery of how life began. Wouldn’t it be remarkable if science found the answer? It is bound to be wonderful because it is so improbable.
“If life is rare and intelligent life rarer still, then Pet3r and his people deserve the protection of this court. To do otherwise would be to sanction genocide, something that this nation has done before, to its great shame, in its wars against the Indians.
“Genocide requires conditions such as dehumanization of minorities, co-ordinated action by genocidal perpetrators, and subsequent denial of those acts. We have all those preconditions upon us now—it is your responsibility to stop genocide here today. You must act to preserve the sanctity of these lifeforms and to preserve their opportunity to make a living in this nation and to contribute to the welfare of both the human species and theirs.
“You must also lay out a path allowing them to become citizens of this nation so that they are not subject to arbitrary orders from government agencies like the EPA or to intense harassment, imprisonment, deportation, or summary execution by the INS or DOC. As citizens, they will share in the responsibilities that come with that status: paying taxes, as they already do, defending our nation when called upon to do so, doing volunteer work, voting, caring for our elders, and building a stronger polis—the fabric of this nation since its founding in 1776.
“What constitutes a civil society? It is the social compact between us. We have all agreed to be bound by the laws that derive from our constitution. It is that agreement, not state coercion, that cements the bonds between us and allows civil discourse even when we disagree on matters as we do here today in this courtroom. But, as this court knows full well, not all citizens have agreed to be voluntarily bound by this social covenant, which is, in part, why we have a judicial system, police, and former federal prosecutors like my friend, Mr. Bernstein, now Solicitor General.
“But were it not for the fact that the great majority of the people of these United States voluntarily agree to be bound by the rules of a civil society, a free and open society could not exist. We would need a police officer in every home and in every business. Who would police the police then? Surely, Quantum Entities perform at least as well as—if not far, far better than—humans using any kind of test of their willingness to be bound by our rules and make a voluntary contribution to this nation.
“We do not know why we don’t see other forms of ape-like creatures on this planet today, but it seems only too likely that Homo sapiens banded together, as we are so good at doing, and with our marvelous and large brains along with our dexterous hands, opposable thumbs, and clever tools did away with earlier competing species such as Neanderthals. I don’t have to remind the court that modern history is replete with a shameful record of only too many such instances by our more recent ancestors. We are all guilty here. But we should not compound our burden and trouble our consciences further by adding to our woeful reputation as the most destructive species ever to inhabit this planet.
“What is the purpose of life? We do not know, but surely it is not to make war on these ‘people.’
“How rare is life in the galaxy? We do not know, but no one has come knocking on our door, and we haven’t found anyone else to talk to. Our galaxy is a lonely, hostile place, but wait—here we have a sentient, helpful, gentle race willing to join us.
“If you want to destroy a people, first make them homeless. Don’t let this court be used to dispossess Quantum Counterparts, first, of property they already own in this nation, and then, of the very nation itself.
“These people deserve the protection of this court. You must act to free Quantum Entities and their creator too by lifting the burden of contemplated action by U.S. federal agencies against an entire race. When a man commits a crime, we do not punish his son. No QE crime has ever been demonstrated let alone proven in a court of law, yet we intend to punish an entire people?
“And why punish a people who are currently responsible for a growing share,” he looks briefly, needlessly, and theatrically at his notes, “of approximately 18% of our national income at this time, who generate an economic bounty that they willingly share with their human counterparts, and who pay taxes without the benefit of either representation or a path to representation?
“We have been blessed to have the company of these creatures. WE ARE ALL ONE,” he says in his huge voice, dramatically holding his long right arm aloft with his index finger raised and supported by an upright thumb with his other fingers curled downward—a salute that looks like “We’re No. 1” but is subtly different. Pet3r does the same thing as does everyone else in the courtroom and on every media wall, wanting to show their solidarity with Jerom and with each other. Jerom is silent for a moment as he looks at each Supreme in turn and then dramatically around the entire hall. It is the first time in more than 1,700 years that anyone has publicly used this symbol, expressed in the Roman hand of Constantine I.
What’s interesting, other than the fact the original is huge, is the placement of the thumb in support of the index finger. Ellen says it represents humans and Quantum Entities with QE’s supporting and helping their human counterparts (and vice versa).
Peggy is amazed that the Chief Justice lets them get away with this piece of theatrics, but there’s no doubt it’s a powerful moment. She can feel the teensy brownish-blond hairs on the back of her neck standing up, and, even though she knows it is coming, tears spring unbidden to her eyes.
“I would like to conclude by playing a brief video for the court; it was recorded more than four years ago, shortly after the birth of QEs.” Van Der Hout proceeds to show them a shortened version of the video of QEs playing with their kids in the Toronto studios of BlackFern Group.
The court breaks for lunch. It’s Federik Bernstein’s turn next.
…
Federik and his talented team pore over their summary notes. Despite the impressive emotional display by the appellant this morning, Fed (as everyone calls him for obvious and less obvious reasons) thinks Van Der Hout vastly overreached, and he is surprised that Jerom took the direction he did.
Fed knows that SCOTUS hates to make new law or create precedents that could have profound repercussions for decades. There were times he wanted to jump up and high-five one of his colleagues as he watched Van Der Hout expand, and then expand again, his ask of the court. Bernstein thinks that Van Der Hout has zero chance of winning any sort of SCOTUS decision to “free QEs” or “free Damien.” The matter will undoubtedly be decided on a narrow technical matter. Does Q-Computing America have a right to appeal an EPA compliance order that has not yet been sanctioned by a court?
They clearly do not, and Fed can and will absolutely demolish them in the afternoon session—and it won’t take a preposterous 75 minutes to do it. Twenty should be just fine. He can’t wait.
But with his other 55 minutes he intends to completely debunk the sideshow that the morning’s session became. Fed looks down at their summary notes again.
First and foremost, the exile of QEs is not the same as killing them. Machines have no souls.
He looks at some of his other arguments:
· They came to this nation without going through either customs or immigration. They have no tourist visas, green cards, H1-B visas, EB-5 visas, or any other legal status.
· They are here illegally. That makes them, in fact, illegal aliens. They have no rights.
· They jumped the queue—millions of people still want to come to the U.S. QEs must wait their turn like everyone else.
· They take jobs from human beings. (Here, he plans to show faces of unemployed people collecting food stamps from social services offices.)
· QEs are massively disruptive to the U.S. economy and to great established American companies that have been household names for generations.
Next, Fed looks at his list of security and criminal issues:
· They are believed to have stolen confidential U.S. files and money.
· Terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals may be working with their QEs to launder money or plan violent acts, thereby creating significant threats to national security.
· QE communications are impervious to interception and decryption. All communication firms are required to provide a backdoor key for use by the U.S. government—which has already been affirmed by SCOTUS in a previous case and about which there can be no debate whatsoever. Q-Computing America and their foreign parent company have refused to provide the key.
Fed has other issues as well:
· QEs were not invited here.
· The Canadian company unleashed these creatures without any testing whatsoever as to their efficacy, which remains unproven.
· QEs pose a threat to national identity and the great melting pot. They cannot possibly hope to fit in and be accepted.
Almost in passing, Fed will also ask the Supreme Court to uphold the local ordinance duly passed by Austin City Council, which controls the use and possession of Q-phones and QEs much as it earlier supported smoking bans in public places, bans on the use of mobile platforms while operating a vehicle, and a Texas ban on Encyclopedia Britannica because it contained a formula for making beer at home. He will also reference other bans upheld by the Supreme Court including vanity license plates; drive-thru restaurants; burqas; incandescent light bulbs; unprotected sex in porn films; picnics in graveyards; billboards; musical car horns; busking; women going topless; films that show police officers being beaten or treated in an offensive manner; and taking road kill home for supper.
It would never occur to someone like Fed to question whether what he is doing is right. All of his legal training speaks to the exact opposite. There is no such thing as “win-win” in his vocabulary or even “BIG win for me, little win for you.” It’s totally about “I win, you lose,” and he’s going to win HUGE—by at least 7 to 2—he’s sure of it.
That little tear-jerker of a stunt Van Der Hout pulled followed by that sappy video he showed of much younger and less complex QEs playing with a bunch of kids was pathetic. He shakes his head; what was Jerom thinking? Fed felt like leaping up again and yelling at Van Der Hout to get real.
As he completes his final preparation, he is unknowingly smiling to himself, his most predatory smile, which his wife hates. She calls it his “Jaws” smile—all teeth.
…
Fed does a masterful job in the afternoon session before the High Court. The only flaw is some mild booing from both live and media wall audiences. The Chief Justice orders media walls turned off, leaving Pet3R as the only QE inside the courtroom. Of course, this means that QEs everywhere have a complete record of the event as it is created in real time.
Everyone inside also knows that there are tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of demonstrators outside. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court building is a massive stone structure modeled on the classical architecture of ancient Rome, the low rumblings of organized protest reverberate everywhere.
To an extent, Fed’s performance highlights his incredible training, which enables him to perform as well as he does despite intense pressure coming from the fact that millions of sentient beings despise every word that is coming out of his mouth. His style derives from his days as elected New York District Attorney for New York County (Manhattan)—sarcastic, authoritative, combative, skeptical, logical, implacable, brilliant, and scary. He can make the most innocent person want to confess his or her guilt just to stop his cross-examination. Some of the Justices feel exactly that way at about this time.
They are all feeling the pressure and intensity of the day. The Justices are wearing down as Fed, sensing this, winds down his presentation. The Chief Justice thanks everyone for their efforts.
The Supremes reserve judgment in almost all matters, but for something as far reaching as this, they will not be rushed. Q-Computing and QEs can expect to live under a cloud of uncertainty for a length of time of unknown scale. The DOC will have plenty of time to keep sweating Damien for the quantum key or to find another way of procuring it. Yao Allitt and his team of brainiacs are already working on that.
Just as the Chief Justice finishes, she reaches up to her right ear to press on the earbud, which is discreetly lodged there so that she can hear better what the head of the Supreme Court of the United States Police is saying to her. For many years, this small force has protected the integrity of the Justices as well as the building and its grounds. He now tells her to head to the secure door to her right with her colleagues IMMEDIATELY. She knows that if they do not move with sufficient speed, he and his deputies will come crashing into the room and carry them out, an indignity that she has forbidden in the many drills they have already had. But she is not going to risk it.
“Lady and Gentlemen,” she says to her colleagues, “we have further WORK to do.” This innocuous phrase is code for “we have to leave right now.” They are now being taken to a safe room. A battle of some sort has broken out in the streets in front of the High Court.
…
“What the fuck! Who ordered you to move your vehicle?” General Licinias asks over a secure channel. He’s watching media wall screens inside an Airstream Bus which serves as his command centre. He can see every vehicle in the brigade and hear everyone right down to each individual Army National Guard officer under his command. The U.S. military is still one of the best trained, best equipped, best co-ordinated military forces in the world with an esprit de corps that is nearly unmatched. This extends to Army National Guard units as well.
At this moment, Licinias talks to the crew chief of one of his APCs (armored personnel carriers) that has inexplicably started to move north toward 2nd Street NE and East Capitol. He is not planning to move any of his more than 600 National Guards, APCs, Strykers, or his one Bradley Fighting Vehicle anywhere except back to the USANG Armory.
That goes for his drones circling overhead which form both observation and attack platforms. His media walls show vehicles under his command converging on protesters from two directions.
He’s sure there must be something wrong with his command, control and communications infrastructure, but pretty quickly it becomes apparent that his screens are reading just fine. Reports come in from all points that vehicles, all equipped with modern autopilot and automatic fire-control systems, are aiming directly for the huge, restless crowd, which has yet to see what’s coming its way. When it does, people will start running in every direction.
All of Licinius’ military training takes over his brain in the next few moments as he fully appraises the situation before his entire CCC system suddenly winks out. He’s been taught to “just deal with it” and suspend disbelief. Nothing gets you killed faster in battle than thoughts like “it’s not fair” or “that wasn’t supposed to happen” or “why are they doing this to me?”
The last thing he sees on one of his media walls before they all cease to function are ghost-like images of crazed Quantum Entities (which he does not know are called drogues by the DOC). He also doesn’t know that he is one of the first humans to see an image of a drogue named M4gnus flit by before his screens go dark.
But what he does know is that protesters in the square could be in some kind of mortal danger of unknown origin. He’s thinks briefly again about West Point’s Code, “Would I be unsatisfied by the outcome if I were on the receiving end of this action?” He’s pretty sure the answer is yes, so he’s going to do something about it.
He runs out of the Airstream and gathers about 300 guardsmen on foot around him. They have a few JAVELINs with them; these are highly lethal, medium-range fire-and-forget, shoulder-mounted, anti-tank weapons. In addition to their M18 series rifles, many guardsmen also have crew bayonet M403A1 colt grenade launchers. They can repel adversaries with accurate, lethal, single-shot, 40-millimeter grenade fire.
They run diagonally across the Library of Congress grounds northwest into a scene of bloodshed and chaos.
…
His APCs, Strykers, and their one Bradley pound the north end of the square up toward the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Student Affairs. It won’t take them long to demolish the structure, but their target is obviously the people in front of the building—neo-Nazis, religious zealots, and many others, most of whom were bused in by corporations opposed to competition from upstart Q-Computing America and were being paid for the day as if they were back on the job. They’re there to support the government’s position with respect to the disposition of Quantum Entities, Q-Computing, and the assets of both.
Now, Army National Guard vehicles are killing them by the dozen along with a few students who chose this day, of all days, to renew their student loans or apply for one.
Licinius has never given an order to fire on his own forces before. Making matters much worse is that many of his men are trapped inside these vehicles since nothing works. All their electronics, including their door locks, are shut down or immobilized. Still, he doesn’t hesitate. In a quick calculus of death, he gives the order to attack so that they will save as many lives as possible—civilian as well as military. He’ll mourn his trapped men later.
They get up close and personal with each vehicle and, in an intense pitched battle, destroy them in the next 27.5 minutes.
…
Erik Renke is there in person reporting for the Toronto Chronicle Tab and working as a stringer for FOX Newsfeed as well. He will file an eyewitness report that will be picked up by several million Internet newsfeeds. He will write: “Today, Quantum Entities perpetrated the worst war crime and terrorist attack on U.S. soil in nearly 50 years. They made zombies out of the U.S. Army’s own weapon systems and then used them to attack innocent protesters supporting the U.S. Department of Justice as it sought to protect the people of this nation from the economic and financial catastrophe wrought by Quantum Computing Corp and QEs. It has now turned into a war.”
Renke will get his Pulitzer after all—the first ever awarded to a “journalist” from a tab newsfeed.
…
It’s comes as something of a shock to Ellen that when SCOTUS finally hands down its decision some eight months later, Q-Computing America loses only by a vote of 4 to 5. An eloquent, wonderfully written dissenting opinion hints at ways to overturn the majority opinion in a future petition. It is penned by the Chief Justice herself, but by then, the majority decision itself is entirely moot.
…
Marc Licinius is among the killed-in-action that day—he took a JAVELIN and personally held it against the Bradley after it was apparent that no other course of action was open to them; grenades being ineffective.
He places the missile at the centre of the vehicle, where its fuel is stored, and pulls the trigger with just one thought that he wishes he could share with his wife: “I’m not too old for combat after all!” He is smiling as he launches the JAVELIN, point blank, destroying everything within 35 feet.
He is rewarded for his bravery in combat with a full honors military funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. A larger than average escort platoon (made up of many former West Pointers like Marc looking a little worse for wear 30 years after graduation) accompanies him to his final resting place. Marc’s widow stands stiffly erect beside the gravesite of her husband of 28 years. She sheds not a tear—he was a soldier, and he would not wish it any other way. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has generously provided a burial flag at no cost to the deceased or his heirs. Licinius dies in an event that becomes known as the Pennsylvania Incident, named after the university building to the northwest of the Supreme Court. It is demolished that day, along with more than 800 protesters, student bystanders, and Army National Guards KIA.
…
The president meets with his cabinet and national security apparatus in a secure Langley bunker. He looks good—decisive and ready to make the tough decisions that only a president can make.
…
Prof Bruce
Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD
Real Estate Investment and Business coach
Ottawa Senators founder
ROYAL LePAGE Performance Realty broker
613-762-8884
bruce@brucemfirestone.com
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BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON
…
COPYRIGHT BRUCE M FIRESTONE, OTTAWA, CANADA 2025.
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