Fooling Sheep

Simone Lamont

new degree press

copyright © 2020 Simone Lamont

All rights reserved.

Fooling Sheep

ISBN

978-1-63676-632-4 Paperback

978-1-63676-249-4 Kindle Ebook

978-1-63676-239-5 Digital Ebook

For Bapa

The greatest lover of books I’ve ever known.

Thank you for supporting me before I even wrote a single word.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Introduction

I think, therefore I am.

—René Descartes

Often known as the cogito, this philosophical dictum serves as proof of existence through one’s ability to doubt. It implies that although your senses might deceive you, and all your beliefs may be false, you must exist in order to be deceived in the first place.1

The purpose of this novel is not to define personhood or human existence. I am neither a philosopher, nor a computer scientist, nor even a fully grown adult if I’m being honest. But what I will try to do with Olivia’s story is make you think and make you doubt. The inspiration for this book lies in my own interpretation of a modern-day Turing Test.

Alan Turing, the man often credited with creating the first computer, was a mathematician in the 1940s and ’50s. He speculated about artificial intelligence long before it became a reality. In his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence, he wrote about a thought experiment known as the Turing Test, or Turing’s imitation game." The goal of this test is to essentially prove if a machine has strong artificial intelligence. In other words, the computer’s intellectual capacity is that of a human brain.2

The idea of the test is simple: a person has a conversation with a human and a computer under the conditions of the test, so they do not know which is which. Based solely upon the responses to the questioning, they attempt to distinguish which one is the human and which is the machine. If the computer fools the person into believing they’re talking to a human, it passes the test.3

Of course, there are many critiques to the validity of this thought experiment, such as the Chinese Room from philosopher John Searle. But additionally, some developments apply the Turing Test to human learning (top-down and bottom-up processes), ESP and superintelligence, and even gender and sexuality studies. The purpose of this novel is merely to apply these ideas to the context of my own life and create another thought experiment in the process. Fooling Sheep could be, in and of itself, a Turing Test for the reader.

Or it could just be a story about high school. That’s fun too.

1 Lex Newman, 2019, Descartes’ Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy), Plato.Stanford.Edu.

2 Andrew Hodges, 1997, The Turing Test, 1950, The Alan Turing Scrapbook, 1997.

3 A. M. Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind 59, no. 236 (1950): 433–460.

"Most people are other people.

Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions,

their lives a mimicry,

their passions a quotation."

—Oscar Wilde

Chapter 1

I watched myself die over and over again. That was what triggered my memory.

I just remembered my dream. I turn to Wes.

Uh-huh. His eyes are still glued to the TV screen, and they flit from one image to the next.

You’re not listening to me. The dream had come back to me in slow bursts of visuals all night. This last death where my character burst into flames finally put it all together like a puzzle. It drove me crazy, this lingering emotion that I couldn’t quite place. Do you want to hear about it?

Honestly, no. He jabs at the buttons of the controller furiously, and I hit him with one of the many pillows that make up our video game nest. He’s been my best friend since childhood, so he’s the only person I feel comfortable shamelessly attacking. Maybe my little brother is the other exception. Hey! He flinches when I hit him. I’m the only one left. Do you want me to finish this level for us or not?

Our favorite video game, Immortal Soldiers, is our Sunday pastime. My father loathes the violent shooting game. I know this level of the game well enough to know Wes is going to get killed soon, so I huff and decide I’ll wait patiently. This is the part where we round a corner, and out of the rubble and ash of the crumbling cityscape a monstrous killer robot rises up and blows us to bits with its mechanical machine-gun arms. I know this part of the game like it’s one of my own memories. Why can’t I remember the rest of the dream? I just had it.

My mother’s voice travels through the doorway from the dining room. Olivia, Wes, can you turn your game down? We’re trying to have a conversation in here.

Almost done, Mom! Wes is shit at this game anyway.

What was that?

Nothing!

Wes giggles. But right as he does, the killer robot appears on the screen and he’s gunned down in a graphic explosion. He curses and throws his controller to the floor. Every damn time. I swear, we play this every weekend and we never get past this part.

Maybe it’s because you play like crap.

"You invented playing like crap."

You used that one last week, genius. I love teasing Wes. My mom used to yell at me when we were younger because apparently Wes was a sensitive boy, and she was worried I would hurt his self-esteem. I’m just surprised she thought my sarcasm was good enough to permanently damage someone.

Don’t pretend like your humor has advanced since fifth grade. He picks up his controller again to keep playing.

Says the one who’s still wearing that comic book shirt. Didn’t your mom buy you a whole new wardrobe for senior year? When are you going to stop dressing like a middle schooler?

When I get a girlfriend and have to.

So, never. I’m going to be wheeling you out of the senior center in your superhero pajamas then.

Hey, weren’t you going to tell me about your dream?

Oh, that’s right! I frown, wondering how my thoughts had drifted so far away. I forgot it now.

Via, you’ve been trying to remember this all night. Maybe if you hadn’t spent so much time ripping on my incredible sense of style—

Wait! I think I remember. I was looking for something, and then I died.

Wes’s amusement fades. He sets down the controller lightly. That’s um… dark.

Yeah well, I don’t even remember how, so… I trail off and he still doesn’t look up at me. Hey.

Hey what.

I’m gonna miss you.

Come on, he nudges me. You’re just a town over now. It’s like a thirty-minute drive to see your favorite nerd.

Still. Senior year is going to be so weird without you, especially in this house. It looks like it hasn’t been renovated since the seventies. I notice a shadow cross his eyes. And what about you? Are you sure you’re going to be okay without me?

He looks down at his wrists and pulls his sleeves down over the scars.

I didn’t mean that, I say quickly. I just meant…

Behind us suddenly, the sound of bare feet thumps down the hall. Josh is in his usual hoodie and basketball shorts. His dark hair bounces up and down on his cute round head. He looks so much more Japanese than I do, just like our father. Right behind him is Danielle, who sports the same blonde, highlight-streaked hair as Wes. It’s a miracle our younger siblings get along. Otherwise they would spend all their time bothering me and Wes instead of keeping each other busy.

I hop up from my spot in front of the TV and grab Josh by the hood. He squeals in protest, but I pinch his cheeks anyway.

Get off me! his voice cracks in that pre-pubescent teen way. I told you not to do that!

What, this? I pinch his cute little chubby cheeks again. He’s kind of fat for his grade, but I love that about him. I hope he never grows out of it, because then he’s going to be way better looking than me.

He smacks my hand away. Go play with your boyfriend.

Go play with your girlfriend.

She’s not my girlfriend.

That’s okay, just be friends for now. Friendship is the best foundation before marriage.

I always enjoy how this makes Josh and Danielle squirm. It’s the way young Wes and I would squirm when our parents would tease us about the same thing.

Guess what? I’m telling Dad you didn’t do your summer homework. Josh makes a face and then scampers down the hall into the dining room.

Hey! Panic rises up as I chase him through the doorway. God, seventh graders have no respect for pinky promises. As I scramble after my brother, I trip over half-empty boxes and piles of books that wait to be unpacked. I curse to myself and recover just in time to see Josh dart into the dining room.

My brother bursts in, and the commotion jolts the attention of all the adults. My parents crowd around one end of the dining table with wine glasses in hand. They stop their conversation with Wes’s parents and wait for an explanation. I stare blankly at my mom and dad, Tom and Emilia Prescott; my father insisted on adopting her last name when we moved to America. He also insisted that we never run in the house.

Via didn’t do her summer homework. She lied, Josh blurts out. She made me pinky promise not to tell you.

I am never telling you anything again, I hiss.

My father gives me a stony glare. His stern complexion is one I have learned to resent this past year. The same withering look tells me I can’t have sleepovers with friends, I can’t take the car out at night, or I can’t stay up playing video games with Wes. If I got as much of his genes as Josh did, I wonder if I would have that same capacity to glare.

My mom says, You can’t start out your senior year already behind on work, Olivia. I told you I would give you some slack last semester, but this is a new school.

Josh gives me a devilish grin and escapes the dining room.

I cross my arms. I’m not going to that school. All the other kids are going to be total computer nerds. We already had this conversation.

You know it’s not up for discussion anymore. This school is the whole reason we moved towns.

We moved for Dad’s new job. Don’t pretend like this is about me.

"This is a great school, Via. It’s going to get you into some very good colleges. But that’s only if you actually try to do your work." My dad purses his lips.

Dad, I—

We just don’t want what happened last year to affect your senior year.

I feel my chest tighten. Why do you always have to bring that up? That has nothing to do with anything, but you always go back to it.

Don’t be so harsh to your father, Mom warns.

I was in the hospital for a week, and he’s acting like I have brain damage or something, I snap. I know they hate when I get into this around Wes’s parents, but they’re the ones who always blame everything on the Incident. My grades, my lack of a social life, even my sarcasm can apparently be traced back to that night in January.

Can we talk about this later? It’s not a very cheerful dinner table topic. Her gaze levels on mine.

You’re right, I say. Lawrence and Beth don’t want to hear you parent me anymore.

Oh, that’s what that was? Parenting? Wes’s father, Lawrence, teases. Thankfully the tension is relieved. For now.

Lawrence! Beth scolds her husband and almost knocks over her own glass in the process. She’s drunk, although on a scale from one to last year’s New Year’s Eve, not that bad. Olivia is right, though. We don’t want to hear about that. We want to hear about your new school, tell us more! Is it true about the— she hiccups, the you-know-what?

When she says this, I glance over at the other end of the table where a pamphlet for Park Falls Technical High School sits open. I pick it up, and a picture of a student robotics lab stares up at me.

Just read the pamphlet they gave my mom. I throw it down in front of them and storm out.

Chapter 2

In the end I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Wes and his conspiracy theories are right. Free will is an illusion—at least, when you’re seventeen.

I stand at the side of the hallway as a current of students push past. The smell of fresh paint and the sounds of banging lockers fill the newly built school. A large poster on the wall stares back at me, and I shake my head. It’s a large silhouette of a nondescript person, and a cheesy question mark is plastered in the middle. Something about those cartoonish letters that read Who is the Agent? makes my skin crawl. These damn things are all over, as if it wasn’t already on all of our minds.

The large double doors to the gym swing open. I filter in toward the back of the crowd. Four years of high school later, facing the vast rattling bleachers, I still get knots in my stomach when I think about where I’m going to sit. My eyes dart from nameless face to nameless face, and I don’t even know what I’m looking for. I finally climb up to an empty seat at the end of one of the rows. My backpack lets out a loud thud as I set it at my feet, which causes a girl in the row in front of me to whip around. She has dark hair and even darker eyebrows. Those brows attack me with a look of either curiosity or judgement; I can’t tell which one. She finally looks away as a round man in a suit steps up to a microphone in the center of the court. The buzz of chatter lulls.

"Welcome to Park Falls Technical High School, everyone! I will be your principal this year, Principal Conners, and I am very excited to embark on this journey with you." The short man beams up at all his students. The buttons on his shirt look as if they’re going to burst from his rounded belly, and his cheeks glow red above a bushy beard. He smiles too much. I look around to see if other students are thinking the same thing. Just like all of you, this is my first year at Park Falls High. Everyone is new here, and everyone will be learning their way around. This school is a really exciting place to be, so I hope you all know how lucky you are to study here. We have a unique STEM-based curriculum, access to advanced technologies, and, what I’m sure all of you are most excited about… Principal Conners pulls out a remote and with a click of a button, the sleek projector screen behind him lights up with the same image from the posters around school. The Agent!

Whispers ripple across the bleachers. I notice some groups of kids roll their eyes while some visibly bubble over with excitement. I just think about what my father would say right now, how impressed he would be. The very thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Yes, that’s right, thanks to YouTech Laboratory we have been given the opportunity to participate in the very first humanoid artificial intelligence simulation. You get to be a part of history! Principal Conners’s enthusiasm bellows. He changes the slide to a stock photo of kids working on robotics. Think of this as an extracurricular project, something to stimulate your minds outside of class. Don’t let it affect your everyday studies, but treat it like a game that will stretch your creativity and open you up to deeper thinking. There could be a robot sitting among you right now!

This is the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard. Arms crossed in my seat, I look down at the girl in front of me. She doesn’t even pay attention and just scrolls through her phone. I resist the urge to pull out mine and text Wes.

I know you all have many questions, which can be answered at a later time. My door is always open. So, without further ado, I would like to introduce the representative from YouTech Laboratory who will be working with our school. Stephen Richards!

There’s a weak applause, and another man crosses the gymnasium floor. Almost a complete contrast to the jolly principal, Mr. Richards is a tall man with a suit that looks like it was tailored just for him. The lines of his jacket are as sharp as his hooked nose, the color of the fabric as dark as the shadows in his deep-set eyes. He almost looks like a hawk, staring down his prey from behind the microphone with a beady gaze.

Thank you for the introduction, Principal Conners. I will be working with this school throughout its first year, making sure everything is going smoothly and checking in on all of my… work. I’ll mostly be running operations out of the lab’s headquarters, but occasionally you may see me lurking in the hallways. Don’t be alarmed. You are all unknowing cogs on a greater machine. This simulation is merely a test of our own technology and should not affect your day-to-day lives.

This guy is creepy as hell, one of the boys next to me says to his neighbor.

"Seriously. I bet he’s an Agent, look at the way he talks," the kid replies with a chuckle.

When the assembly is over, I follow the stream of students out of the gym like cows being corralled to slaughter. As I turn the corner into the cafeteria, I’m greeted by the hum of conversation and the scrape of hundreds of chairs. The room stretches far in front of me. The low ceiling creates an almost cavern-like chamber. Tables hug every square inch of the space, and I weave through the clumps of students until I find myself at the section in the back. Seniors are sprawled across tables in clusters. They ooze arrogance and confidence that I don’t understand and could never mimic.

All of them look painfully human. I desperately search the array of groups for recognizable faces to sit with, and I can’t help but find myself in search for some kind of giveaway. Some kind of cache that one of them is the Agent. They all look too normal, too much the same. If anything, I look like the Agent, standing here awkwardly with nowhere to go. Why do they all seem to have friends already? Aren’t we all new here?

It’s hard to look confident when you don’t have a place to sit. I try not to look lost as my hands find the straps of my backpack. I feel discomfort creep under my skin the longer I stand with nowhere to go. It’s like a ticking clock. I wish Wes was here.

Olivia?

It’s Sydney from my first-period biology class, the only one I had before the assembly. I feel a rush of relief as she waves me over. I pull up a chair and squeeze in next to her, but there’s not enough space for me to really fit. The other girls acknowledge me; I only know half of their names.

When I sit down, I notice the familiar attack of dark eyebrows from across the table. It’s as if they were drawn on to have that affect. It’s the same girl who sat in front of me at the assembly. She just glares at me as the rest of the group asks questions.

So, which high school did you come from again? one of them asks without looking up from her phone.

Lakeland, I say.

Never heard of it. How are you liking it here?

It’s okay.

Do you think any boys are cute? Sydney asks.

I don’t know.

What was the name you said you liked to be called? another girl chimes in.

Via, I say.

Anyway, Sydney moves on. Did you hear what that one kid, Max, was saying at the assembly? I overheard him talking about what his mom does at the lab. He said she works on the Agent. Apparently, he knows all kinds of stuff about it.

I see the girl with the bold eyebrows make a scrunched face, as if she mocks Sydney.

He says the Agent is more likely to wear plaid because a computer is drawn to that kind of pattern.

That’s wild, but that’s not what I heard. I heard that it can’t wear a watch, one of the other girls says.

I heard it can’t draw. Or listen to music.

The rumors continue to pile up one by one as each person at the table comments on different things they heard or different things their parents know. I stay silent, wondering how anyone could believe any of that. I check my phone for texts from Wes, but nothing.

I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back. I stand up to leave.

Do you want us to go with you? We totally will, the girl with the eyebrows says.

I’m fine, thanks.

I navigate through the cluster of students until I’m out in the hall and then check my phone again. No texts. My sneakers scuff on the tile of the hallways as I wander through the school. I head into the stairwell and up to the second floor. Windows peer into classroom labs with expensive amenities and barely touched equipment. Occasionally I come across other kids eating their lunch in classrooms or in groups out in the hall, and they stare at me as I pass them. I duck into the library instead. I walk through modern bookshelves and rows of high-tech computers that nobody is using. The silent shelves give way to a section of study desks in the back, and a single boy has his head buried in a laptop. He glances up when I approach a desk near him. Through large-framed glasses he gives me a startled look. I catch a glimpse of the YouTech Laboratory building on his screen before he slams the computer shut. I murmur something along the lines of Sorry before I turn and flee.

Back in the cafeteria, I still picture the boy’s startled brown eyes. I sit down at my original lunch table once more.

So, which high school did you come from again?

Lakeland.

Never heard of it. How are you liking it here?

It’s okay.

Do you think any boys are cute?

I don’t know.

What was the name that you said you liked to be called?

Via.

For the rest of the day this conversation repeats on loop, again and again until the words I respond with sound strange in my own mouth.

* * *

Friday during one of our free periods is the first time in a while I feel like I’m in middle school again. The girls openly talk about a party