"Ray Vukcevich - Cold Comfort" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vukcevich Ray)

Cold Comfort
by Ray Vukcevich

The author of memorable, offbeat tales such as “Gas,” “Poop,” “Mom’s Little
Friends,” and “Glinky” says that his recent work has appeared in Night Train,
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Polyphony 6. Here he gives us a tale of life
in modern times that might best be called “chilling”—or maybe it’s
“defrosting”...
****
Just before midnight, a freezer called up to report suspicious packages being
inserted into its coldest places.
“What do you mean by suspicious?” we asked.
“It’s like they want you to think it’s a duck,” the freezer said. “And maybe a
leg of lamb, a pot roast, fish sticks, stuff like that.”
“And you don’t think it’s a duck?” we asked.
“I think it’s a head,” the freezer said. “A human head. And all of the rest of
the parts, too. Cut up small, you know?”
“So turn on your camera and let us see,” we said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My bulb is burned out.”
“Look,” we said, “is this some kind of ruse to get a repair person out there on
a holiday night like this?”
“You are programmed to respond to reports like mine,” the freezer said.
“Every device in the country is supposed to be on the lookout for suspicious
behavior—one nation under surveillance.”
“Well, smarty pants,” we said, “have we got a surprise for you. Are you ready
for your big surprise?”
“Oh, get on with it, already,” the freezer said.
“I am not the program that usually answers the phones on holiday nights. That
program is down with bugs. I’m a real person who volunteered to answer the
phones so his more spiritually leaning colleagues could go home and be
disappointed by family members on this festive occasion. So what do you think
about that? Hello, hello, are you still there?”
“I don’t believe you are a human being,” the freezer said.
 It should be obvious that what we had here was a double case of the Turing
Test—that famous procedure that determines so much of life these days. It’s simple
enough: some thing is on the other end of the line. You get to ask it anything you like
for as long as you like. In the end, if you cannot tell if it’s a person or a program,
you have to conclude that it is intelligent no matter what it is. In other words, if it
passes the Turing Test, you had to consider it a person, and persons had one or two
more rights and responsibilities than devices. The freezer was trying to use the
Turing Test on us. We would, of course, turn it around on her, because it was now
clear that someone was trying to pull a fast one on the Company, and it would be
our job to get to the bottom of things.
“Do you believe in God?” I asked.
“Of course, I don’t believe in God,” the so-called freezer said. “I’m a freezer.
Whoever killed Ralph and cut him up and put him into me might believe in God. It’s
possible she may even be having second thoughts.”
“Who’s Ralph?” I asked.