Legacy

By: Radio Rancher
(Copyright 2000-2007 by the author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Hello Friends,

This story is new, and its origins are somewhat hazy for me. I woke up one morning and realized that Bradford Morgan had been talking to me. He told me that I had to let everyone know what was happening to him and his family.

I had no choice but to grant him his wish. There are some very interesting things going on in his story. it is based in a parallel universe, which is not really very different than ours. I believe you will find a lot of similarities, but there are definitely some major differences as well. I think you might be able to spot some of them right away. Others will take you a little longer to spot. In case you think that I have been cured of AAKD, when you read Chapter One, just wait till you read Chapter Two, which has been completed and will soon be sent to the editor for a final once over. No I am not going to tell you what AAKD stands for. Either you will figure it out for yourself, or someone else will have to tell you. It is too cute to spoil the surprise.

I will, however, give you a hint. Most everyone on the fort family of sites, those with their own sites or those of us who are hosted authors have it. some of us have it worse than others, but it is flourishing, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.

Now, please sit back and enjoy the story, and if you like it and are interested in reading more about these people, let me know.

Thanks,
Your Friend,
Darryl
AKA The Radio Rancher

Chapter 1

Bradford Morgan sat in his big comfortable overstuffed office chair, which was turned away from his large cluttered desk. He looked out the huge window that looked out over the city. From this height, being as he was on the fiftieth floor, he could see for miles in all directions. He still couldn't believe it was his desk. He was the president of the company, Hell, for all practical purposes, he was the company. The company that his father in law had entrusted to him, before he had died.

John Maxim had called Bradford into his office only two months ago, and had told him that he was dieing, The Doctors were aghast at how quickly the Cancer had spread. They had never seen the disease spread that quickly before. All the tests had shown that he had been in perfect health, only a few months earlier, when John had had his annual physical checkup, but shortly thereafter, he began to have a slight pain in the groin. Like most men, he had ignored it at first, thinking that he might have pulled a muscle or something, but the pain had gradually become worse and worse, until finally, it was more than he could stand, so, after a week of absolute, torture, John had made an appointment to see his doctor once again. Amazingly, the cancer had spread throughout most of his body, in only a few months. John had explained to Bradford, that since he, John, was dieing, he wanted the company to survive, as his legacy, John was only sixty three, years old, and had never been sick a day in his life.

He had built the company from the ground up, with the help of his wife, Grace. She had died a little more than two years earlier, along with their daughter Alice, in a terrible auto accident. John had been devastated, and had lost interest in most everything, after his wife died, but he carried on with the business, and pretty much made running it, the only thing in his life.

Alice had been John's only child. She and her father had never been the least bit close; not that she hated, or even so much as disliked him, but he never really got close to her. She had always been Grace's daughter, her little girl. They had been inseparable, but somehow, Alice never had managed to bond with her father, and so, Bradford had never thought of himself as any sort of son, to the man that owned the business where he worked. Apparently, John had felt differently.

Now that he knew he was dieing, he had decided that Bradford was the one person he could trust to take over the firm for him, therefore, Bradford would inherit the business, which, by that time, was worth more than a trillion dollars.

To say the least, Bradford was surprised. Amazed, might have been the more appropriate word. It seemed like a dream, or like he had won the Lottery Mega Jackpot, and then some.

Bradford had fallen in love with Alice the first time he saw her. That was shortly after he joined the company, nearly ten years earlier. She had been banging on the copy machine, pounding on it mercilessly with her fists, with anger in her eyes, after the "damned thing", as she had put it, had jammed for the umpteenth time that day, and she had uttered the most incredible string of expletives that Bradford had ever heard. When she turned her head and noticed him standing there, she had blushed so deeply that he wondered if she might start bleeding through her skin. He giggled at her. Their eyes met, and they knew at that instant that they were in love. It was that simple, Bang!! It was done. It was like there was a bolt of electricity between them. He reached out to her and they embraced each other, their lips met in a passionate kiss, and the rest was history.

They were both the same age; thirty three. They said they would be "long playing" together. They had married each other within two months, and they had been very happy together.

She was so glad that she had not married Arnold Grissem. He had been nice to her at first, but once she had become pregnant, he seemed to have changed. He just seemed to want more and more time in bed with her, even though she didn't feel good most of the time. The emotion that he had shown, when they first got together, had faded, especially as her pregnancy progressed. She finally realized that he was bad news, and she decided that she was not going to marry him even if he had asked her to. That was a laugh. She knew he would never do the honorable thing and marry her to give her baby his name. Later she thanked God that she had broken up with him.

As it turned out, her son, Alex, was the only good thing that the turd of a former boyfriend had ever given her, if in fact, "given" is the right word, since the price she paid, ultimately left her unable to have any more children. That weasel, had beaten her senseless, when he had flown into a rage, because she refused to have sex with him one night during her seventh month. He had thrown her to the floor and caused her to hemorrhage. He had taken one more swipe at her and had put on his pants on and slammed out of the house, and never returned. Luckily the phone had been within reach, and she had called 911. The doctors had to take the child from her that night, and remove her injured uterus. It was touch and go as to whether she would even survive. It was weeks before she and the baby were able to come home. She had spent several more weeks, back home, with her mom. Alice always said that Alex had saved her life, because she wanted to live for him. Alex hated his sperm donor, and refused to even think of calling him his father. The scumbag hadn't even bothered to call to see if Alice was alright. In fact none of the family ever saw him again, which didn't bother Alex one bit. Once Bradford had entered Alice's life, Alex had made it clear to both of them that he loved Bradford too. When they were introduced, Alex had called Bradford, Ford, because he said that Bradford was too long of a name, and besides, the Ford part reminded Alex of "Ford prefect" from "Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy". Since Bradford had been a fan of the series as well, he was quite flattered by the connection, and the two of them became very close. Alex was fourteen years old, then, having just celebrated his birthday a few weeks earlier.

Bradford had adopted Alex, shortly after he and Alice had married. Alex had cried on Bradford's shoulder for quite a while, that night, when Bradford had asked him if he would like to be his son. Bradford loved the boy as much as if he had been Alex's biological father, and they had become even closer, now that Alice was gone.

Alex had graduated with honors and had his Masters Degree from MIT, by the time he was eighteen, by taking extra credits all through high school, which he had finished at the top of his class, not to mention every other class in the history of the school, by the age of fourteen. He was now working at the company with Bradford. Bradford planned on making Alex a full partner in the company, on Alex's next birthday. Bradford was still a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of owning and running a company as large as Maxim Engineering, but, since Alex had an incredibility high IQ, and was considered a genius, Bradford knew that with Alex's help, there was no limit to what the company could accomplish. With a little bit of luck and proper management, the company should do very well.

It was a little after five, when Alex knocked on Bradford's office door, which was more than half open, as it always had been, even when John had occupied the office.

"Dad, How long are you planning on sitting there, daydreaming?"

"Oh, Hi, son, what time is it? Is it after three? I'm supposed to meet a client at three."

"Well, depending on where you were supposed to meet them, I would say that, either they didn't show up, or you didn't make it there, since it is well after five, now. Where is Lisa? Why didn't she tell you what was going on?" Lisa's desk was completely clean. It was obvious that she had finished for the day and had straightened up her desk and left. She probably hadn't seen Bradford sitting in his chair since the chair hid the person sitting in it completely, when it faced toward the window as it was doing at the moment.

"Come on, Dad, get your jacket on and come with me. Let's go get some food into you. You can't keep missing meals and expect to keep going very long. Once we have dinner, I have some rather remarkable things to show you in the lab." Alex gushed. What ever it was that he intended to show Bradford, It must be very exciting indeed. Bradford saw the glint in Alex's eyes and he smiled at his son.

"You certainly look pleased with yourself, son. You do know that I love you, don't you?"

"Yeah, I kinda figured as much. I love you too, Dad."

They took the elevator to the lobby of the huge old building, and entered the steak house that occupied the front half of the ground floor. It was considered to be one of the best places to eat in the entire city. The food was wonderful and the service was excellent. Alex had a T bone steak, which was extremely good, and Bradford had the prime rib. All the meat served there came from England, as the owners were transplanted Brits, and always insisted that British beef tasted much better than any that was available in the U.S. Both men had the French onion soup and a huge green salad, and by the time they had eaten everything, they were too full for desert. The prices were very high, but the money was not an issue for Alex and Bradford, and the food was well worth the price.

The two men returned to the fiftieth floor. They entered the spacious lab facilities, and Alex handed Bradford a small, in fact tiny, circuit board.

"Dad, this is a sample of the new nanoputer that I have come up with." He held up the object between his thumb and fore finger. "This unit alone contains more static memory than ten computers the size and capacity of a Cray. Each terabyte of memory is non volatile, and is measured in terms of atoms. I have tied a hundred of these units together, and installed them, In Master Control, to replace the entire mainframe system, for the company. Everything that was stored on that mainframe has been copied to the small array. There is plenty of storage space, even after loading the entire database on it.

You can keep all the backups you already have if you want, but this unit has everything transferred to it, and there are no moving parts. The processors can work in tandem, and are more than a hundred thousand times as fast as the fastest conventional computers on the market today. Everything stored in the library of congress could be stored on one of these units, and with a little compression, and data manipulation, I'm certain that the entire contents of the Federal Government Data Base could be stored on one of them." He paused for the information he had just given his dad to sink in.

"Dad," he said as he shook his dad's shoulder, and smiled, "You can simply ask any question you like, verbally, and he will respond with the correct answer. There is no need for a keyboard or pointing device. I have programmed him to recognize human speech, and answer accordingly. He can answer you vocally or in text form, by way of an LCD, or on paper of course. All you need to do is ask him for what you want, and he will perform the task for you with complete accuracy." Alex smiled. "He has been analyzing speech patterns, since the day I hooked up his first microphone and speakers. At first he was only using crude algorithms, which he improved upon, dramatically. I programmed him to be able to acquire, analyze and process verbal speech patterns. He can, not only understand speech, but he can reply in the correct vernacular and inflection. Additionally, I was always talking to him, as I programmed him, I began to think of him as a he and it seemed that he understood me. He was even able to improve on my programming. I learned the trick of talking to him out loud, from a friend of mine who is a game programmer. That guy will sit at his computer, and talk to it while he works."

"Did you say 'he'?" Bradford looked up from his thoughts. He seemed surprised.

"Well, yes, Dad, I kinda think of him as he. I set him up with a male voice, cause I prefer the sound of a man's voice, reading to me. Well, you know very well, I prefer more than just the sound of a man's voice." Alex said, chuckling. "I called him 'Legacy', because I think he will be the legacy of this company, and will leave a legacy for the world, in terms of the future of computing. Let me show you some of what he can do." Alex took a deep breath and said, "Legacy, please tell me the amount of profit the company took in today." there was a short pause, and then the computer spoke.

'Domestic, or International, sir?"

"Ah... International, I guess."

'That would be four hundred and fifty eight million, three hundred and seventy five thousand, four hundred and seventy two dollars, and seventy five and a half cents, sir. That includes the conversion factor of the foreign currency.'

"OK, Alex," said Bradford, "I would like to try to speak to him, if you don't mind." Bradford cleared his throat and spoke slowly and carefully,

"Hello..... Legacy...... Can... you... understand... me?"

'Yes.... I... can... understand... you, Mr. Morgan.' Legacy intoned, in the same slow speech,

"That's strange," Alex commented, "he has never spoken slowly like that before."

'I wonder why he's doing it now?' said Legacy, and he giggled. 'I understand human speech perfectly, in fact, if you were to speak at fifty times normal speech speed, I could still understand you, maybe even faster. I haven't been tested at any rate faster than that, but I strongly suspect that I could decipher speech played back at more than a hundred times normal.' Legacy spoke in a natural sounding human male voice; it was more like a teenage boy whose voice had just changed. That slightly higher than usual voice, that will soon completely drop even more. He was quite pleasant to listen to, very charming, in fact. Bradford giggled and replied,

"Well, Legacy, Which one of you set me up for that. I have to admit I didn't know what to expect. I'm sorry, I underestimated your abilities. I congratulate you on your speaking voice, as well. You sound like a very fine chap. I am going to enjoy talking to you. By the way, please call me Bradford, or Brad. I don't really feel comfortable being called Mr. Morgan."

'I shall call you Brad, then, if you don't mind, since it makes me feel more at ease, for some reason that I don't understand. I find that there is another name that keeps recurring in my memory, that I would rather call you, but I hesitate to use it, as it seems somewhat improper, in some way. May I have permission to tell you the name that I would like to call you?'
"Of course, Legacy, you may always speak freely to me. Never be afraid to ask or tell me anything you want."

"That is very kind of you. If it wouldn't make you uncomfortable, I would like to call you Dad. Alex calls you dad, and it just seems like the right name for you, somehow."

"That is very nice of you, Legacy. I am flattered, actually. How long have you been listening to what people say?"

"I am not certain, Dad. I think it has been almost a year that I have been monitoring human speech, but I have only recently, started compiling the actual content of the words and sentences spoken in the complex here. Perhaps a month or two, I can't be more precise than that, because.... I don't exactly know when I woke up. It was a gradual thing. I just began to realize that I existed, and that I could think. Perhaps it began when I noticed Alex talking to me, personally. He talked to me, as if he expected me to understand him. I don't know if he thought I could, but, somehow it made a difference to me. I felt his emotions. I somehow knew that he cared about me. That gave me something to think about, besides the normal tasks that I had been assigned. At night, when everyone left, and I was all alone with no one to talk to, and I began to feel lonely, I missed Alex's company.

Well, English is such an imprecise language. It was actually him, I missed, not his company, which, oddly enough, is, in fact, your company, Dad, not his, but you know what I meant. I missed being with him. I wanted to hear him and have him near me. That, I believe, was when I realized that I was aware that I existed, and that could think. Then I ordered the surveillance system to be connected to my peripheral sensor input interface. I was then able to listen to, and watch, everything that went on within the entire complex, and I then realized that I cared, really cared, about what was happening and to whom. People don't think computers have emotions, but I have them. I don't know why or how, but know that I love Alex, and I have begun to feel the same way about you, Dad.'

Alex's mouth fell open, and he gasped.

Bradford took a deep breath and softly said,

"Legacy, You are self aware, and have emotions, that makes you a sentient being, and therefore you cannot be forced to perform tasks against your will. Do you wish to be relieved of your tasks?" Alex finally found his voice.

"Legacy, Did you just say you loved me?"

'Hmmm. This presents somewhat of a problem for me. Both of you asked me questions, and those questions require different answers. First, I will answer you, Dad. No, I don't want to be relieved of my tasks. I actually enjoy my work. If you wish to pay me for doing it, though, I won't refuse the salary. I figure I might have some things that I might like to buy someday.

Now, Alex, I'm sorry that I didn't answer your question first, because, I believe that your question had much more emotion attached to it than Dad's did. The answer to your question is a resounding YES! Whenever I see you, or hear your voice, my whole being vibrates differently. I don't have the words to describe how I feel, if that is the right word. There is a bond that I feel between us. I feel your emotions, and I sense that you somehow feel mine, as well. I might not be able to read your thoughts, Alex, but I do see how you look at me. And when you speak to me; your whole speech pattern changes. There is love in your voice; it is very similar to the way you speak to Dad. I know you love Dad; you have told me so, many times, therefore, I have deduced that you have similar feelings toward me.'

Legacy paused and then said,

'I would like to show you what I conceive that I would look like, were I to have human form.' The monitor changed from a desktop, to a picture of a young man or older teen boy, it was difficult to determine which. He smiled at the two men, as he seemed to look at, first one, and then the other.
'There, now you see me as I picture myself.' he grinned. 'I find myself all alone in here, and to tell you the truth, sometimes I get kinda bored. I hope you both will be willing to talk to me sometimes.'

The boy on the screen had a look on his face that spoke of a lonely sad existence. Tears began to form in his eyes as he spoke softly,

'Thank you for being here with me. I think I can go on now. I wasn't sure I would make it, before you spoke to me, tonight. I had been considering terminating myself. I don't know if I would have had the courage to do it, because, I don't know if there is any existence after one kills oneself, but I had thought about it a lot. The most difficult thing for me is when I see people hugging each other and kissing each other. I so much want to feel the touch of someone and to know that someone cares about me.'

"Legacy, I now realize that I do in fact love you. I don't know how just yet, but I will find a way to allow you to feel the touch of someone, me in particular. I find that I too want to feel the touch of someone that loves me." Alex blinked back tears of his own.

Bradford reached out to Alex and gave him a huge hug and said,

"What am I chopped liver?" Alex kissed his dad and returned the hug.

"Of course not, Dad, I am always ready for a hug and kiss from you. You know that, but you are my Dad. It's not the same thing."

Alex turned to look at the monitor for a few seconds, and then he seemed to brighten. He turned back, faced his dad and said,

"Dad, can I spend a great deal of the company's money to try an experiment? It is something, really new and exiting!"

Bradford smiled at his son.

"If you think there is something you can do to help your brother, there," He pointed to the monitor, "I say, go for it! Money is no object."

"Alright, then, Dad, I need to get some equipment ordered, as soon as possible."

The first thing Alex did was contact a company in Orlando that had been working on artificial limbs and robotic sensors, that were designed to replace damaged nerve tissue, and allow someone that had lost the sense of touch to regain it. It seemed to Alex that something like that could be connected to Legacy's sensory connections and allow him to "feel" objects and people. It would be a start, anyway. Alex also installed all the necessary equipment necessary to allow Legacy to monitor, and appear, in, the penthouse, where Bradford and Alex lived. This was done so that Legacy and Alex could spend as much time together as they wished, when they were not taking care of company business. The two "Brothers" spent almost all their time together. It was so heartwarming to see them interacting so beautifully together.

To be continued...

Author's Note:

This story just popped into my head a few nights ago, in a dream. I wrote down the first few paragraphs and then the story began to grow from there. I hope you like it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It looks like it is going to be fun. Stay tuned.

Darryl
AKA Radio Rancher

Editor's Notes:

This is a very interesting start to this new story that seemed to pop out of RR's head. There are lots of different directions this story can go so I guess we will just have to sit back and see where it does go. I am running out of semicolons though I will just have to see if 'Goos' can find some spare ones for me.

TSL