The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang Read Free Book Online Page B

says Polo.
    "You want us be happy, right?"
    Derek opts not to get into a discussion about the difference between their current instantiations and instantiations restored from a checkpoint. "Of course I do, but I can't just roll you back every time you have a fight. Just wait a while, and you won't be so angry."
    "Have waited, and still angry," says Polo. "Fight big big. Want it never happen." As soothingly as he can, Derek says, "Well, it did happen, and you're going to have to deal with it."
    "No!" shouts Polo. "I angry angry! Want you fix it!"
    "Why you want us stay angry forever?" demands Marco.
    "I don't want you to stay angry forever, I want you to forgive each other. But if you can't, then we'll all have to live with that, me included."
    "Now angry at you too!" says Polo.
    The digients storm off in different directions, and he wonders if he's made the right decision. It hasn't always been easy raising Marco and Polo, but he's never rolled them back to an earlier checkpoint. This strategy has worked well enough so far, but he can't be certain it will keep working.
    There are no guidebooks on raising digients, and techniques intended for pets or children fail as often as they succeed. The digients inhabit simple bodies, so their voyage to maturity is free from the riptides and sudden squalls driven by an organic body's hormones, but this doesn't mean that they don't experience moods or that their personalities never change; their minds are continuously edging into new regions of the phase space defined by the Neuroblast genome. Indeed, it's possible that the digients will never reach "maturity"; the idea of a developmental plateau is based on a biological model that doesn't necessarily apply. It's possible their personalities will evolve at the same rate for as long as the digients are kept running. Only time will tell.
    Derek wants to talk about what just happened with Marco and Polo; unfortunately, the person he wants to talk to isn't his wife. Wendy understands the possibilities for the digients' growth, and recognizes that Marco and Polo will become more and more capable the longer they're cared for; she simply can't generate any enthusiasm about that prospect. Resentful of the time and attention he devotes to the digients, she would consider their request to be rolled back the perfect opportunity to suspend them for an indefinite period.
    The person he wants to talk to is, of course, Ana. What once seemed a groundless fear of Wendy's has come true; he has definitely developed feelings for her beyond friendship. It's not the cause of the problems he's having with Wendy; if anything, it's a result. The time he spends with Ana is a relief, a chance for him to enjoy the digients' company unapologetically. When he's angry he thinks it's Wendy's fault for driving him away, but when he's calm he realizes that's unfair.
    The important thing is that he hasn't acted on his feelings for Ana, and he doesn't plan to. What he needs to focus on is reaching an accord with Wendy regarding the digients; if he can do that, the temptation that Ana poses should pass. Until then, he ought to reduce the amount of time he spends with Ana. It's not going to be easy: given how small the digient-owner community is, interaction with Ana is inevitable, and he can't let Marco and Polo suffer because of this. He's not sure what to do, but for now, he refrains from calling Ana for advice and posts a question to the forum instead.
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Chapter Five
    Another year passes. Currents within the mantle of the marketplace change, and virtual worlds undergo tectonic shifts in response: a new platform called Real Space, implemented using the latest distributed-processing architecture, becomes the hot-spot of digital terrain formation. Meanwhile Anywhere and Next Dimension stop expanding at their edges, cooling into a stable configuration. Data Earth has long been a fixture in the universe of virtual worlds, resistant to growth spurts or sharp downturns, but