Good News and Bad News
In a large mansion on the edge of a forest, a somewhat elderly woman is cleaning her house. As she climbs a flight of stairs to reach the top shelf of a bookcase, she falls forward down the kitchen stairs. Groaning in pain, she slowly crawls toward the other side of the room, where the telephone sits on an antique side table.
In the center of a large city, a young couple walks down the street hand in hand.
It is John Lefdorp along with his wife, Nicole Lefdorp; they are on their way to the doctor's office.
John briefly squeezes Nicole's hand and asks, "Do you think we'll get the results right away, too?"
"I don't know; I hope so." Nicole replies.
A little further on, the two walk into a tall, mirrored building, and after half an hour, they cheerfully step out.
Nicole is recovering from cancer and must return every so often for check-ups.
"I'm glad it's all going well," says Nicole with a tone of relief in her voice.
"Me too! I can’t imagine how I’d feel if it came back." Responds John.
Nicole pulls her hand free from John's, and she responds irritably: "Why do you say that?"
John immediately apologizes for his clunkiness: "I’m so sorry! I didn't mean to upset you."
"It's okay, John." I'm so scared, too, at times." The whole healing process understandably caused Nicole a lot of stress, and their marriage has been sorely tested in recent years.
When they are finally home, Nicole takes a bath, and John sits downstairs in front of the window, peering out and thinking about the time when their marriage was still alive and well. He always brought chocolates or flowers, and Nicole couldn't wait for John to take her in his arms to make love like a couple of animals. Through the house, a deep sigh rings out from John's throat, one of despair and one of relief.
The backyard gate suddenly swings open, and footsteps can be heard on the pebble-strewn garden path. John takes a sip of his cup of coffee and looks into the backyard. There, to his delight, he sees their teenage daughter, Lizzy, approaching, who’s home from school.
The relationship between Lizzy and her mother also had to endure a great deal, but Lizzy found it especially difficult to watch her father take the mental beating of a woman who looked nothing like her sweet, caring mother before. Understandable, yes, but still, Lizzy found it hard to accept that her mother, despite her illness, could sometimes come off as mean and rage against the people who were there for her day and night.
Moments later, the back door opens, and Lizzy steps inside the house: "Hi, Dad!"
"Hi, Liz! How was school?"
"Good!" responds Lizzy gruffly. "Where's Mom?"
"She’s taking a bath. We just came from the doctor's office."
Lizzy, due to her busy teenage life, had for a moment completely forgotten that her mother had to go to the doctor for a check-up. She responds a little aloofly: "Oh, yeah. So?"
John continues: "Everything’s okay."
"Oh, thank goodness!" replies Lizzy.
John is happy to finally be able to exchange more than three words with his daughter again: "Would you like something to..."
But Lizzy quickly cuts him off as she flies out of the room: "I'm upstairs, Dad!"
Upstairs, Nicole is still quietly enjoying the bathtub. Lizzy briefly pokes her head through the bathroom doorway and says, "Hi, mom! I heard everything is fine. I'm going to study, okay?"
Nicole removes a damp washcloth from her eyes and looks briefly toward the opening of the door. "That's good, dear. How was school today?"
But the door to Lizzy's room closes before she can even hear her mom’s question.
It Just Ain’t Happening
A few minutes later, a voice comes from the bathroom doorway: "Shall I join you?"
Nicole smiles briefly and says, "Oh, John. Lizzy hasn't been talking to me at all for the last few weeks."
"It's the age, Nicole. She's probably just going through some phases. Should I make it cozy downstairs: candlelight, wine?"
Nicole replies contentedly, "Oh, nice baby, go ahead; I'll be right out."
John walks downstairs, prepares wine in the orangery, and makes some toast.
He puts on a CD and presses the repeat button. Slowly, Bach's Cello Suites swell through the speakers, creating a pleasant, safe, romantic environment. John looks around the orangery to see if he forgot anything, but he’s content with the view—perfect! Maybe I’ll even get lucky tonight.
Nicole climbs out of the bath, and as she comes down, she hears the warm sounds of Bach and feels an overpowering harmony take possession of her, while John pours her a glass of wine. When Nicole's phone rings, she wants to push the caller away without looking, but she sees that it is her mother and answers the call: "Hi, mom! How are you?"
"Hello, Nicole. Don't be alarmed, but I'm in the hospital. I fell, and I broke my hip."
"Jesus, Mom! How awful; what hospital are you in?"
After the phone call, she looks at John, who has tried so hard to make it cozy—we so need this now.
But Nicole has no other option but to go: "Ma is in the hospital; she broke her hip. I'm going over there now."
"Jesus! How did that happen?" asks John.
Nicole bends forward, stands on her toes, and throws her hands up. "She tried to dust the top shelf of the bookcase, and that's when it went wrong."
John shouts, "That damn ladder she uses! I told her ten times to buy a new one!"
"I know, John, but you know, ma! She never throws anything away."
John hands Nicole the car keys and stays with Lizzy because she has school tomorrow.
Nicole grabs her coat and quickly puts some clothes in a suitcase. "Okay, honey! You tell Liz, then. What a day, huh?" Nicole gets in the car and waves at John, who waves back as Nicole drives down the exit ramp. Lizzy heard the front door slam shut and the car pull away, and she ran downstairs with a curious look on her face. John just takes a bite of a cracker and answers with a mouthful, "Your grandmother broke her hip this afternoon."
"Oh, how terrible for grandma! Is she alright?"
"She's in the hospital, but she'll be fine, Liz. Mom is going there now."
John sits down on the couch in the living room, and Lizzy joins her father. "What's that music?" she curiously asks.
"That's Bach, dear," replies John, who is very bitter now that he cannot be intimate with his wife tonight. He finishes his glass of wine in one sitting and prepares himself for an evening alone with his daughter.
The whole evening flies by. John and Lizzy eat toast and play classical music all evening. Lizzy is fascinated by the complexity and splendor of all the symphonies that tickle her eardrums. She also can't believe that her father let her drink wine for the first time. If only she had such a good relationship with her mother—if only dad had such a good relationship with Mom. Lizzy suddenly thinks She still can't fathom that her mother went off on the slightest things at her father—he could do nothing right in her eyes; okay, she was sick, very sick, but still. Lizzy may never fully understand.
Bedtime
John notices that it's very late and that it’s way past Lizzy’s bedtime. He calls Nicole to see if she made it to the hospital safely. John grabs the phone, but he’s so drunk that he can't read the display. Lizzy laughs at her father and looks up her mother's number on John's phone.
She presses the green call icon in the display, hands the phone to John, sits down next to him on the couch, and puts her arm around him. John looks aside for a moment and points at his phone, saying, "It's ringing."
To which Lizzy chuckles and mockingly responds, "Gee, Dad, really? It's a miracle!"
"Shh!" John hisses at her as he finally gets Nicole on the line, "Hi, honey, it's me. How's mom doing?"
Nicole is already in bed at her mother's house, and happy John calls, "Hey! Well, she's doing relatively well. She does have surgery tomorrow; they'll put an artificial hip in right away, and that was necessary anyway, so yeah, she's doing okay, thankfully."
"Wish her strength from me tomorrow."
"Will do, dear," promises Nicole. "Have you eaten yet?"
"No, just toasts and half a bottle of wine."
"And Lizzy?"
Lizzy has only had some toast and a few glasses of wine, but John wisely keeps quiet about that and replies, "Lizzy had a pizza, honey."
Lizzy looks up with great admiration as her father lies for her, and she hugs John's arm.
Nicole says that she will be home the day after tomorrow, and the two end the phone conversation.
"Sleep well, John."
"You too, Nicole! Good night, honey."
John hangs up and tells Lizzy that her mother will be home the day after tomorrow.
A sarcastic "Oh, great!" comes out of Lizzy's mouth.
John is irritated and grabs Lizzy's shoulders with both hands. "What do you have against your mother?"
"She interferes with everything! She’s so bossy!"
"She's your mother, and she loves you."
"Yeah! yeah! I know! Can we stop talking about it now?"
Lizzy walks grumpily out of the room and goes upstairs to brush her teeth. A couple of minutes later, she comes downstairs, wearing John's bathrobe.
John looks at her, smiles, and says she looks so much like her mother right now.
Lizzy tries to show her anger, yet unexpectedly shoots into laughter at this comment: "Are you deliberately trying to make me angry?"
John is unaware of any harm, although his grin suggests otherwise.
In the middle of the night, a thunderstorm starts, and not much later, Lizzy enters John's room. "I'm scared; can I sleep in your bed?"
John rolls from the middle of the mattress to the side and waves with his arm, "Of course you can."
"You don’t think I'm lame? Lizzy asks uncertainly.
"Of course not! Lightning is extremely dangerous, and your mother is also afraid of thunder, remember?"
"Really?" exclaims Lizzy. "Oh, yes, I completely forgot about that."
John lies on his side, his head leaning on his forearm. "You two have more in common than you think; be nice to your mother, because you only have one."
"Okay, Dad, I promise."
The Storm After the Song
John turns off the light, and the two try to continue to sleep as the storm intensifies. Not much later, lightning strikes somewhere very close by. Lizzy is shivering, and she huddles close to her father. It is a sweltering night, and John wakes up to his daughter giving off a lot of heat. "Liz, go lie down a little further away, will you?" exclaims John irritably to his daughter. He grabs her and pushes her away to the other side of the bed.
Sorry, dad, but it thunders so hard!"
John feels guilty for pushing her away, and they both sit upright in bed together. Her head leans against his bare belly. John starts reminiscing, "Remember what I used to sing when you couldn't sleep, back in the day?"
"No," replied Lizzy, "what then?"
John begins to hum the tune—their tune—and he gently strokes his fingers through Lizzy's hair. Now she recognizes the song, and she hums along softly, and she completely relaxes.
John and Lizzy relied on each other for a long time while Nicole was in the middle of her healing process. Lizzy cooked and did the housework, and John ran errands and, of course, worked every day. They had become a close-knit team and understood each other's pain and inabilities all too well.
It’s not long after John stops humming that Lizzy looks up to see if her father has fallen asleep. At the same moment, John looks down to see if his daughter is already asleep. Out of nowhere, they helplessly drown in each other's eyes. Their lips turn into tape, and their bodies turn into super magnets. And as the storm rages outside, John and Lizzy blow off steam inside and release all their frustrations that have built up over the past few years.
Early in the morning, last night seems like a century ago; like this has always been the way they were; like they both had never known any better. John looks beside him, kisses Lizzy, who’s still asleep, on her temple, and gets out of bed. He brushes his teeth in the bathroom and goes downstairs, where he makes coffee and stares outside for a moment. He grabs his phone, calls Lizzy's school, and reports her sick.
This seems best to him after she drank yesterday and after all those other things that happened last night. As John enjoys his coffee, his cell phone rings a few times, but since it’s muted, he doesn't notice anything at all. John thinks about last night. The images of Lizzy and himself were intertwined. These images continuously haunt his mind. John continues to drink his coffee and sits quietly in his boxer shorts on the couch in the living room.
Then Lizzy's voice fills the room: "Hey, mister lover man! Did you sleep well?"
John looks up. Lizzy is walking barefoot. Her hair is wrapped in a white towel, and all she has on is John's blue bathrobe, which falls open as the knot of the waistband conveniently comes undone. John swallows as his eyes scan Lizzy’s naked body. Almost stuttering, John says, "I just called school and told them you are staying home sick today."
Lizzy is pleasantly surprised, and a big smile appears on her face. "Hm, so you’re saying that we will be home alone all day long?"
John makes another weak and highly unconvincing attempt to be a good father: "Liz, are you alright? Don't you regret anything from last night?"
Lizzy finds it so sweet that John is acting like a concerned father. She squints her eyes and replies questioningly, "Regret?"
Lizzy then purses her lips and slowly walks towards John. After just a few steps, John's robe lands on the floor, and seconds later, Lizzy silently sits down on top of him, and last night starts all over again.
The Wake Up
After fifteen minutes, a voice filled with panic suddenly echoes loudly through the house: "What on earth is the meaning of this?" Nicole came home unexpectedly.
As John was staring outside, drinking his coffee, Nicole tried to call him several times to tell him she was coming to pick something up. John looks aside, and to his horror, he sees Nicole standing with her arms questioningly held high. "No!" screams John.
Lizzy doesn't know how to respond either: "Mom, I..."
"Shut up! Bunch of perverts!" yells Nicole. Her whole world collapses in seconds. She sags through her legs and bursts into tears. After everything she had to endure over the last couple of years, is she now supposed to work through this? This travesty!
John throws Lizzy off of him and rushes to his wife, "Nicole, calm down!" putting his hands on her shoulders.
But Nicole is furious, and besides herself: "Get off me, bastard!" she yells as she waves her fists through the air uncontrollably. She then completely accidentally hits John in the face; it immediately becomes black before John's eyes, and in a fit of sheer madness, he grabs Nicole by her neck.
Holding her with one hand, he clenches his fist and punches her in the face, counting aloud the times he hits her, "One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven! Twelve!"
Lizzy gets up and screams as she jumps on John's back, "Stop, Daddy! You're going to kill her!"
The panicked sound of his daughter's voice wakes John up from his haze, and he immediately releases Nicole, who then falls over like a sack of salt and lies still on the ground. Nicole was hit so hard by John that she died on the spot.
Lizzy sees her mother lying still on the floor and cries out, "We need to call an ambulance!" She runs to the kitchen table and grabs her phone. Lizzy dials the emergency number. She lets out a high-pitched cry that is followed by a very distressing gurgling sound. John is standing right behind her. He presses Lizzy hard against the kitchen table. Lizzy experiences throbbing pain throughout her body. At the front, the tip of a kitchen knife protrudes from Lizzy's chest. She looks questioningly over her shoulder at John as she wraps her left arm around his neck, not understanding what had just happened. "Dad?"
John remains silent, and with tightly clenched jaws, he stares emotionlessly at her. Lizzy's eyes continue to search him as she bleeds out and slowly collapses when her heart beats for the very last time. John pulls the kitchen knife out of Lizzy's body and drops it on the floor. He silently steps over his daughter's dead body and walks past his wife's body toward the hall.
There, he grabs Nicole's cigarettes from her coat pocket and wants to light one, but through all the blood, the lighter slips right out of his hands. As he bends down to pick up the lighter, he again stares emotionlessly ahead at the dead bodies that lie in the living room. Then John becomes light-headed and staggers to his feet. Very distantly, he hears someone calling his name.
"John."
"John?"
"John!"
What’s Up, Doc?
John wakes up on a bed in the doctor's office with two suction cups on his head. Nicole is sitting at the foot of the bed, nervously checking to see if all is well with her husband. The doctor removes the suction cups from John's head and taps him on the shoulder. "John, are you awake?"
John still responds somewhat absently, "Where am I?"
For a moment, the doctor looks at Nicole with a reassuring look: "This is a normal reaction, Mrs. Lefdorp; don't worry."
Then the doctor engages with John again: "John, do you remember anything?"
John's eyes look blurry. "Yes, I remember walking in here with my wife."
"Good. Good," the doctor replies. "Can you remember anything after that?"
John thinks deeply and closes his eyes for a moment. "Um, I dreamed that Nicole, my wife, had cancer. Very vaguely, doctor."
"Fine, John," says the doctor, immediately reassuring him, "your wife doesn't have cancer. You're here to get permission to have children. Remember that?"
"Yes, of course, doctor! What else would I come here for?"
John gets up, sits down next to Nicole, and looks at his wife questioningly: "What are you laughing at?"
Nicole tries to control her nervous laughter: "Oh, John, you were floundering like a baby and you were making all these weird noises."
"Did you record it?" asks John.
Nicole has her phone ready and is showing John the footage.
In the context of overpopulation and pre-crime, having children requires permission from a so-called AI neurocomputer that fishes out the answer via the client from an artificial parallel universe it creates inside the client’s brain.
The doctor takes the two into his office, where he explains the procedure to them again: "The suction cups on your head, Mr. Lefdorp, kept you in an artificial sleep and scanned your brain. The results of this scan will be interpreted by artificial intelligence and, for reasons of privacy, sent in encrypted form to our staff in the laboratory, who will only see your name and the corresponding result; this result can be negative or positive and is irrevocable. When I have the results, I will notify you immediately. Do you both have any questions?"
John and Nicole reply cheerfully in chorus. "No, doctor!" and they walk out of the doctor's office in good spirits and hand in hand.
Nicole has had a positive result before, and she is very happy that John has finally taken the step to get tested as well. As they make their way home, Nicole can’t hide her excitement. "I hope your test is positive too, then we can finally start having children."
John smiles at his wife and is as excited as she is. "I can't wait, honey. Have you thought of a name yet?"
Yes, I have," says Nicole. She has already thought of several names but comes up with two: "Well, if it's a boy, John junior, and if it's a girl, Elizabeth, after my grandmother."
John looks a little demure: "Elizabeth? That sounds so serious, don't you think?"
Nicole improvises at lightning speed and suggests, "Well, Lizzy then."
John raises his eyes to the sky as he thinks out loud, "Hm, Lizzy..."
The Test, the Pass, and the Cleaning Man
In the laboratory, the list of test results for all of today's clients is printed out. The outcome of John Lefdorp's test is also there. An obvious negative result can be read after John's name. Next to John at the bottom of the list is also the name of Karel De Vries; his result, however, is positive. At the moment when two laboratory workers have almost finished the list and are about to take over the last two results from the AI neurocomputer, the door of the laboratory is loudly pushed open, and a cleaner walks in with his cleaning cart, whistling like he hasn’t got a care in the world.
One lab technician is livid and yells at the cleaner that he is not allowed in this section. The cleaner explains that he is his colleague's brother-in-law.
The lab technician yells at his colleague, "Hey, Henry! Is this your brother-in-law?"
Henry walks out of the AI neurocomputer workroom and confirms the claim. He yells at the cleaner, "Damn it, Bill! I told you not to come in here, didn't I?" The lab technician apologizes to his colleague and points to the cleaner, saying, "Sorry, Frank! This is my brother-in-law, Bill. It's his first day of work."
Then Henry asks his brother-in-law how he actually got in in the first place. Bill replies that Henry lost his entry pass, and he only wanted to bring it so Henry wouldn't get in trouble. Henry starts blushing and knows he is in the wrong. He walked in with Frank without scanning his pass in the process (a mortal sin). Henry thanks his brother-in-law and asks not to talk to anyone about this. Bill gestures with a smile as if to zip up his lips and throw away the key.
When the two lab technicians return to work, Henry asks his colleague Frank to forget the incident. Frank answers, "Of course, that's what we're colleagues for; forget about it."
The two get back to work, but of course, in all the consternation, things are doomed to go wrong. Under time pressure and unable to concentrate at all on the last two results, they make the biggest mistake they could possibly make.
Henry lists the last two answers: "John Lefdorp."
Frank confirms, "John Lefdorp!" and taps the name into his computer.
Henry then fucks up as he lists the result: "Positive!"
Frank confirms, "John Lefdorp: positive!"
"Correct!" exclaims Henry.
Frank taps John Lefdorp's result into the computer: John Lefdorp: positive.
The next customer is Karel De Vries.
Frank confirms, "Karel De Vries!"
Henry gives the result: "Negative!"
Frank confirms, "Karel De Vries: Negative!"
"Correct!" exclaims Henry.
Frank taps Karel De Vries' result into the computer: Karel De Vries: negative.
The workday is finally over for the two men, and the damage is done. The lab technicians breathe a sigh of relief, stow their gear, change clothes, and head home, unaware of any wrongdoing.
Epilogue
A couple of days later, John would be killed in a traffic accident. The AI neuro-computer, in cooperation with other AI systems and without human consent or interference, intervened and took John's life simply by turning two traffic lights green: one for John the pedestrian and one for an oncoming truck. Initially, there was a huge outcry in society about a computer killing a human being on its own, but when it was revealed that the AI neurocomputer corrected a human error and thus prevented three future crimes, the outcry soon subsided.
This is how AI eventually took over from humanity. The Case: John Lefdorp became the reason for abolishing the legal requirement to have two humans present at artificially computerized processes. A turning point in the history of autonomous AI systems.
There is another group that opposes this and suggests that it was not necessarily necessary to kill John, but AI believes that there is no point in letting people like John live because they would be capable of much more than just the facts known so far, and the tricky thing for humanity is that only AI can judge this.
The government does not intervene either because testing is now a deterrent. Now that people know you can get the death penalty for a negative test result, far fewer people are inclined to get tested, which in turn is good "to combat overpopulation."