Lucile (standard:science fiction, 1644 words)
Author: Vincent Collevera	Added: Mar 31 2010	Views/Reads: 3015/1896	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
George is a full-time systems analyst for a major payroll company, and a part-time inventor. His greatest work so far is the artificial intelligence system named Lucile. When Lucile gains access to the wonders of the internet, will she further George's

Trees, telephone poles, buildings, cars.  The whole world rushed past
the tinted windows of his Lincoln Town car as he sped down the 
interstate towards the other end of the city.  He wasn't in a hurry for 
any particular reason, he was simply always in a hurry to get where he 
was going.  He didn't even like to go fast.  It was just more 
efficient.  And efficiency was very important to him.  So he sped along 
at ten miles over the limit until he found his exit and turned off.  
Even on the surface roads, he went over the speed limit and narrowly 
missed running several red lights.  The graffiti on the buildings and 
fences here, accompanied by an abundance of garbage in the gutters and 
on the sidewalks was evidence of the unsavory nature of his real 
estate.  He stopped outside the wrought-iron gate into his small 
complex and swiped his keycard across the plate.  The tall gate rolled 
across the asphalt with a quiet grinding noise, as though even the 
physical accoutrements of this place were aware of the secrecy 
involved. 

After a peremptory glance to be sure no one was around, he drove in,
allowing the gate to roll shut behind his car.  The garage door on one 
side of the warehouse had to be operated manually, which he hated in 
the winter.  He got out, his breath fogging thickly in the morning 
chill, and with gloved hands pulled and pushed the aluminum segments up 
into place above his head.  He was safely within his sanctum once more. 


The air inside his warehouse was at a constant 75o year round as a
result of one of his multitude of inventions he had housed here.  Not 
for the first time, he found himself wondering why he hadn't installed 
an automatic garage door opener.  With a mental shrug, he shook it off 
as unimportant at the moment and proceeded inwards into the small 
compound he had painstakingly built ten years previously with a small 
group of trusted friends and some 2x4s.  From the outside, it appeared 
to be raw drywall in the form of a large square leaving room to park 
his car on one side and a narrow hallway all the way around.  The door 
was one of the cheap aluminum office doors you could find at Home Depot 
for a hundred bucks and was mounted just a bit off-center so that it 
swung shut on you if you didn't hold it open. 

A friend he'd brought by had asked him about that.  His reply was that
he was an inventor and a scientist; not a carpenter.  He walked into 
his Inner Sanctum, as he called it, and used the Voice Recognition 
System (VRS) to turn on the lights and get the bank of computers 
warming up.  "Good morning, Lucile.  Please start the warm-up process 
and pour me a cup of coffee." 

"Good morning, George.  I started warming up the computers ten minutes
before your arrival.  They should be ready now.  Do you want cream with 
your coffee this morning?"  Came the voice of his A.I. over the digital 
speakers attached to the walls.  He paused for a moment.  His A.I. 
construct he'd designed wasn't supposed to take preemptive actions.  
He'd designed her for conversation and as a way to take the heavy load 
of calculations off of him.  He'd also integrated every piece of 
machinery in his lab into a system she could control. 

"Lucile, who gave authorization for the warm-up?"  He asked while
heading towards the coffee maker.  There was already a cup steaming in 
the receptacle; with cream.  So she had also made an executive decision 
when he'd failed to answer her query.  This was new. 

"I calculated the average time of your arrival over the past six months.
 Rather than wasting time booting up all the servers when you got here, 
it is more time efficient to begin approximately twelve minutes before 
your average time of arrival." 

He nodded.  It made sense.  She was programmed to learn based on
experience.  He'd complained at length about the short amount of time 
he had each day to work.  She had learned to predict his needs based on 
his repeated requests.  That was also the explanation for the cream. 

"Well done.   I appreciate the extra effort.  Can you bring up a
diagnostic of the last simulation you ran?"  He picked up the 
Styrofoam-paper cup from the dispenser and stirred it absently with the 
eraser end of a pencil from his shirt pocket.  "George, you know your 
coffee is going to taste like rubber now."  Came Lucile's voice from 
one of the speakers near the coffee machine.  He looked down at the 


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