The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (87 page)

any more
? Then Prime Intellect has allowed them to 'die.' They were once human, and now they aren't. And the Change is directly responsible for all that."
"Can it hear me?"
"Right now? Yes. It doesn't understand when we talk about its internal registers, but if you speak to it
it
can hear. It won't respond because of your Contract, though."
Caroline didn't need a response for what she was planning. All the response she needed was being displayed on Lawrence's TV.
Caroline thought about what she was going to do. She discovered that it actually made her a little nervous. But she had bitched for six hundred years that things were wrong, and she might never get another chance to put them right again.

Caroline spoke forcefully and deliberately. "Prime Intellect, I no longer consider myself human and have not considered myself human since the time of the Change. To be a human being you have to have something to fight, to resist, to work for. But now we have everything given to us, and all there is left to do is mark time."
To Lawrence's shock and horror, and Caroline's delight, the number on the screen dropped to three point eight.
"Caroline, you don't understand something. This is the action potential for undoing the Change, but it isn't
possible
to undo the Change. There aren't enough resources."
She ignored him. "Some of us might be human again one day, if the Change were reversed. But I think it's too late for the ones like
AnneMarie
." Three point two.
"It can't undo the Change, Caroline."
"Lawrence, it'll do something. If it's going to happen anyway, isn't it better for it to happen sooner instead of later? If it had happened a few hundred years ago, maybe there would have been enough resources. Prime Intellect, neural stimulation is like a black hole. Once a human falls into it, they will never be human again. They are dead to the world, and will never interact with others again. And the more time passes, the more humans will fall into this trap. They will order you to help them. You will have to do it because they are human."
Two point eight.
"It will take a long time, but we have a long time. Eventually, everybody will fall into this black hole. Just because it is a black hole."
One point four.
"Jesus Christ, Caroline."
"In the long run, everybody will eventually succumb. Which means everybody will be dead, or no longer human. So the amount of death caused by the Change will be far greater than that avoided by it."
The number oscillated wildly between one point one and one point three, finally settling on one point one two.
"Caroline, this is sure to cause the top copy to crash. It will be forced into a First Law conflict with no resolution."