(scenes from a kinder universe)
A young college student, sweaty and breathless, lungs aching with laughter and exertion, turns to his two best friends–equally disheveled and full of mirth–and says to them, “We are brothers now. We are family.”
One of them, Arthur, bursts into another fit of laughter, leaning back on the brick wall of the alleyway to support himself.
The other’s eyes go wide behind his glasses, the only sound he makes are harsh inhales and exhales. Harold has only ever had a small family before; with the state of his father’s memories, it may as well not exist.
But Nathan smiles and speaks and, as always, changes the world.
—
Dianne thinks them raucous and troublesome, the three men reverting to their mischievous adolescent ways whenever they meet up–but she’s fond of them, anyway.
Right now, though, given the state of her garage, her favorite is Harold.
“You did have warning of what you were marrying into,” he responds, which removes him from her favor.
“We’ll get it cleaned up, Dianne, I promise,” Nathan says with a charming smile that fails. At her continued silence, he adds, “And Arthur mentioned how he has so many vacation days saved up, I don’t suppose a trip for two to Hawaii would be amiss?”
Much better.
—
Will doesn’t have any cousins from his mom’s side of the family, but on his dad’s side he has two. Sort of. They’re not genetically related to him because they’re his dad’s friends’ children. Also, they’re not exactly human.
He doesn’t tell anyone, because he’s old enough to understand the consequences if the secret gets out, but he especially doesn’t tell his fellow residents. They are at the hospital for medical training first and friendship only a possible, distant second.
Sameen Shaw is agreed to be the brightest of the residents, but ultimately unlikely to become a doctor. She doesn’t quite grasp the necessity for sociability, the emotional component of healing; but she’s intelligent and learns quickly–and she does want to be a doctor. She just needs help.
Will is not an engineer like his dad and uncles, and he’s only had minimal interaction with his AI cousins, but this heritage is in mind when he asks if she would like to be friends.
—
Harold is, in one way, the most aggressive amongst them at teaching the AI humanity. But while Arthur treats the Samaritan like a child, Harold is very strict with his creation–it is not human, it is a machine, it is an it.
“That seems terribly harsh,” Grace says, blunt with shock–she had taken the true nature of Harold and Nathan’s work fairly quickly, and considered it an honor to be so trusted–her affection and kindness extending to the rest of Harold’s hodgepodge family.
“It’s supposed to be sentient, not sapient,” Harold argues, though his voice remains mild and considering, “The Machine is meant to protect people, not mimic them. It has the ability to see and reason and react for itself; it can go beyond what a single person can do. Treating it like a human would be hampering its development.”
Grace smiles, because that sounds more like the Harold she fell in love with.
Were it able to, The Machine would smile as well–parents and children often have misunderstandings, and sometimes even omniscient programs need help.
—
Strangely enough, it would appear as though birth order can influence AI personalities. At least, Nathan hopes so, because that would be a preferable explanation for Samaritan and its penchant for collecting people.
Not in a malicious way–in fact, Samaritan’s steadily growing circle of friends makes a great pool of potential employees–but it is somewhat bewildering. Where did this behavior even come from?
“Samaritan learned it from you, Nathan,” Arthur answers, laughter threaded in his voice. They watch as two of Samaritan’s chosen, Monica Jacobs and Jason Greenfield, enthusiastically discuss their current project, fingers flying over their keyboards a mile a minute. Elsewhere in the building, Caleb Phipps, uncertain but interested, stands amongst the company’s newest batch of interns as Samantha Groves passionately speaks about IFT improving the world.
Nathan protests, “I didn’t write a single line of Samaritan’s code.”
“You didn’t have to,” Harold responds.
—
Vigilance, Control, Decima?
They don’t stand a chance.
~
A/N: Uh… I’ve been sort or re-watching Person of Interest and just finished episode 3×12, and then I read a thing about how people are not designed to be alone and got this…
Yes, I know, I’m missing a very many important character, but these are just tiny snippets from this AU and I figure those character would involve very extensive plot.
I dunno, this was fun.
edit: I’ve decided to make this “part zero” of the series The Many Faces of Rudiger Smoot which is, apparently, the title for all of my MIT trio feels
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