DEEP PLAY, Part I: OUT OF BOUNDS by Jeylan Part 3 See part 0 for header information. Skyler talked robotics all through the antipasto, eagerly outlining the key problems of artificial intelligence -- how to design a sufficiently complex machine so that it might become self-aware. "I'm convinced that the trick of self-representation is what underlies consciousness," Skyler was saying. "To be truly conscious, you have to be aware of being conscious. Consciousness is an inherently self-referential process." Mulder could buy that argument, and was familiar with several different variations on the theory, but nevertheless he held on for a while to his preconceptions about clumsy, insectoid robots programmed through data entry keyboards. He didn't actually begin to make the leap until Skyler started to talk more explicitly about things like environment interface, and organism- environment systems theory. That was when the skin at the back of Mulder's neck started prickling. "Spaciotemporal patterns of electrical activity and the slavish duplication of neuronal networks will not in isolation achieve the desired result -- even if it were theoretically possible to replicate at that level of complexity, which I personally question. This isn't just about programming patterns of amplitude and oscillatory EEG's, and in fact we are working with considerations that go *way* beyond the limbic system. Self- referential processes between areas of the brain -- hippocampus, neocortex -- that's only the jumping off point, Fox -- map everything down to the last fold and the last neuron, and you still won't have it. The consciousness, the *mind* will still elude you--" "Of course," Mulder agreed, "the old phrenological models are outdated. If the experience of consciousness is fundamentally supra-cognitive -- not hard-wired -- then it would not be isolable to any measurable, identifiable mechanical system. "Exactly!" "It seems more likely to me," Mulder said, "that we experience consciousness as a result of the interaction between--" "Yes, yes! *Between!* Between mind and itself, between mind and body, and between mind and environment. 'Between' is the operative concept. One brain in complete isolation cannot be conscious, any more than it's possible to breathe in a vacuum. One hand can't clap. If we want this thing we're building to have a *mind* and be self-aware, we have to somehow get it out of the vacuum, out of the lab, into the world--" "Whoa, whoa, slow down." Mulder's sense of unease was escalating. "In plain English, you're working on *what* now?" Skyler hesitated, grinned and shrugged. The fast flow of eager words had skidded to a stop. "I'm making a man," he said almost apologetically. And wiggled his brows. He was blushing. "Uh-huh. OK. Will he have blond hair and a tan?" "Well, actually I think that's still being arguing in committee." Mulder's eyebrows rose further, and he reached for his glass. Empty. He shook his head slightly, quickly, and flagged a passing waiter. "Carafe of house red?" He turned back towards Skyler. "This is big, huh? Significant allocation of resources?" "Substantial." "Why?" Skyler shrugged. It was a long, slow, elegant shrug. "That's the 64 thousand dollar question, Fox," he said. His eyes looking into Mulder's eyes were very steady. Mulder nodded, now hotly curious about the disk in his pocket. "Classified," he murmured, and Skyler inclined his head in affirmation. "Exactly how Human will this thing look?" Mulder asked. "Thing? Maybe it'll be a person, Fox. You never know. We're not done with it yet, but this is gonna make Kismet and Cog look like the dark ages." He sighed, and ran his fingers through his shaggy hair. "Not very Human, probably. I don't think we're that good yet. My personal suspicion is that it's going to look like a mannequin, or a giant, self-mobile marionette." There was something disquieting in his eyes when he said it, as if Skyler himself didn't like the idea much. "But I'm not in that department." "Uh-huh. So what department are you in?" Skyler chuckled and looked embarrassed. His eyes shifted away, and then back to Mulder's eyes again. "Spiritual advisor. I'm the damn thing's Sunday school teacher, if you can believe it. Or its shaman." "OK, now I'm scared." "Hey, enough about me. I want to hear what's up with you." Mulder blinked, and while the waiter cleared away their cocktail glasses and antipasto plates, set fresh wine glasses on the table and filled them with wine, he just stared with his mouth open. "What's up with me?" he echoed. Skyler was watching him expectantly. Mulder threw back his head and laughed. "Just work, nothing interesting. Cheers." He lifted his glass, and waited, clinking the rim against Skyler's. Skyler smiled a lopsided smile, and all at once Mulder felt more at ease than he could remember feeling with anyone in years. Happy. Almost happy. He grinned at Skyler, half-aware of letting his eyes linger over his friend's face, admiring the elegant angles and planes of it, the tousled hair, the relaxed tilt of Skyler's shoulders and the way his shirt was unbuttoned at the throat to expose the strength and vulnerability of his neck. His Adam's apple moved. He was watching Mulder look at him, and his eyes got deeper. Mulder smiled, shook his head again quickly as if to clear it, and began to talk about the X-files. It was a rare luxury to talk like this with an old friend. No fear of ridicule. Skyler listened to everything, all of it, laughed in the right places, and didn't ask the predictable questions. Several times he blinked. Several times he said, "Are you serious?" but he hung on every word, and with a growing sense of urgency and enthusiasm Mulder found that he couldn't wait to tell Skyler one more story, and another, just to see what Skyler's reaction would be. He didn't know in advance what Skyler would say, he actually had to wait and listen to find out, and not being sure turned Mulder on in ways he wasn't quite prepared for. It had been a long time since he'd had a really good talk with someone whose responses could surprise him. Dinner conversation fluctuated wildly, from cybernetics to shape- shifting, alien abduction to shamanic initiation to government cover-ups, hallucinations, drug trips, directed dreaming, artificial intelligence, hypnotism as access and hypnotism as misdirection, self-referential systems and self-fulfilling expectations. The power of the mind to reinforce or to undermine the illusion of status quo. And through it all, underlying every shift in topic, the delicious push and tug of intimate interaction with another mind. And the more they talked, the more Mulder found his eyes locking deeply with his friend's eyes, the more he almost forgot to eat and the wine that filled and refilled his glass slid welcome and easy down his throat. The dinner plates had been cleared away, they were nearing the bottom of their second carafe of wine, and Mulder's face felt hot. Yes, hot. He put a hand to his cheek and then forgot it there, forgot to say anything for a moment, and just grinned, goofily. The conversation had hit a lull. "You know, I think I missed you," he blurted. Skyler studied him curiously, slid his gaze up and down Mulder's skin, over his face, his torso. Back to his eyes. A wan smile fleeted into sadness, and he sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Me too. Tell me the truth, Fox, are you happy? Or is the FBI just one more obsession for you, one more place for Fox Mulder to lose himself?" "Lose myself?" Mulder leaned back, startled. "Come on, Skyler, what are you talking about, *lose myself?*" "Cut the crap. This is me, remember? I know how your mind works. I know you've been looking for ways to lose yourself in some grand overwhelming something-or-other ever since we were kids. You like life to be bigger than you. It's OK, really. OK? I understand about you and your obsessions. I've got my own." Skyler looked down into his wine glass. "I've got my own," he repeated softly. "Happy?" Mulder said. "Hell, I -- I try not to think about it. Are *you* happy?" "Why wouldn't I be," Skyler answered in a toneless, flat voice. "Exciting work, decent pay, the opportunity to travel. Enough time off that I get to remember what it feels like to be a civilian every now and then." He glanced around the room. "What's not to be happy about?" Mulder studied him, chewing on his lip. "You're lonely," he said. Skyler didn't respond, didn't have to. It hadn't been a question. He remembered this about Skyler, this ever-present ache of loneliness that they both shared, and had once or twice confessed to each other in the smallest hours of short, hot, surprisingly un-lonely nights. Mulder nodded. Some kind of quiet acceptance and recognition passed between their eyes. "Am I lonely? I don't usually remember, if I am. It's just times like this, talking with you--" "I know what you mean--" A devious sparkle came back into Skyler's eye. "There are some muscles you just can't flex alone," he said. "Uu-huu! Flexing muscles, now, are we?" Mulder smirked. "When did we get to flexing muscles, and which muscles are we flexing, if you don't mind my asking?" "OK, forget the muscle flexing. And let's not talk any more shop, either. Enough about the government. Who gives a fuck about the fucking government, anyway? I want to hear about *you.*" "Me?" Mulder shrugged. "There's nothing to tell." Then a wrinkle of worry tightened between his eyes. "Do I *sound* like I give a fuck about the fucking government?" Skyler chuckled. "Ah ... no. Not really, no." "Good, because..." "Really, I mean it," Skyler said. "Tell me who you're in love with, or who you're fucking, or how you feel when you're alone. Tell me anything, your dreams, anything. Not just your work or your obsessions or your brilliant, fascinating ideas, I really--" He reached out across the table and slid his hand over Mulder's wrist, caressing and gripping. "Tell me about *you.* I want to hear about *you.*" Mulder stared at Skyler's hand on his hand. It was hot, callused, and the thumb slid up and down the soft inside of his wrist. A strong, sensual hand, asking something he didn't know if he was brave enough to answer. He swallowed, and fought the urge to break away -- run. Hide. How was it that the mood between them had shifted so suddenly, so far? He made himself sit very, very still. How long since anyone asked him a question like this? How long since anyone *knew* him well enough to ask? Or cared enough? "Me?" He smiled a lopsided smile. "Cracked, crazed, half-mad, fools rush in. You know. Same old same old." He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it wasn't a joke. It was his whole fucking life always off-center and threatening to rush out of control. Stray off-course. He resisted Skyler's eyes. Since he wasn't planning to make even more of a fool of himself by finding an excuse to leave the table (or by hiding under it), he hid by breaking the continuity of focus ... just on the off-chance that he might otherwise start to slip and maybe fall, into eyes that might hypnotize him... But Skyler let the silence grow so long that finally Mulder couldn't stand it anymore, and had to look up. He felt off- balance -- tipping forward -- like he might be blushing -- "Same old same old?" Skyler's eyes disbelieved him. "Look at these people." He indicated the other diners with his head without quite breaking eye contact. "Do they look like they're rushing in anywhere?" A nervous laugh choked off in Mulder's throat. Stopped. No laughter; not a laughing matter. Depth of eyes, and falling into eyes, and wondering what the fuck Skyler was getting at. He glanced around the room, and shrugged. "Fox, don't you get it? These guys used to be like us. Twenty years ago, if we'd all been at the same party, no one could have told us apart. No one could have predicted. All these guys dreamed big and expected great things from life too. They just forgot." Skyler's thumb was still caressing Mulder's wrist, and it felt kind of good. Mostly weird, but kind of good. Mulder pretended not to notice, and took some time to size up their fellow diners. White-collar, on their way to middle age. Lots of gay guys looking tough in designer muscles bought and paid for at the gym, and designer denim and leather bought and paid for at trendy shops. Work boots and cowboy boots worn for show, not for use. "Well, uh..." he said, hesitating and hoping for inspiration. None came. He took back his hand, trying to act casual about it. "You never know," he murmured, looking back at his plate. "But I *do* know. The only place most of these guys *rush in* is to the Castro on Friday nights. And to work, and home from work, and to take the cat to the vet, and make sure the dry-cleaning is picked up on time. At the top of their list of worries is getting laid, running neck and neck with the problem of how to be more beautiful, more desirable, build up their pecs and not get wrinkles. Money's a close third. For most of them it's been years since anything really new happened, and the stuff you and I put our hearts and souls into -- doesn't even register. Not anymore." "You're being too harsh," Mulder said. Skyler shrugged. "Am I?" The hand that had been trying to hold Mulder's hand cradled a wineglass instead. "I have occasionally been known to sleep with these men, remember? I know what they're like." The tone of bitterness winding through his words had worn itself down into simple resignation. "The saddest thing is that these guys here are way more interesting than middle America. If you're looking for community, this is where it's at, man, this is as good as it gets." He lifted his glass in a silent, ironic toast to the room. Then he looked back at Mulder. "Well, *almost* as good..." With part of his attention Mulder registered the compliment, and wondered dimly how serious Skyler was this time. When did teasing slip over into flirting, slip over into... But the greater part of his awareness was not really on Skyler at all. He looked out across the room, and felt his perception slip. Saw people the way he sometimes saw them -- not as faces but as possibilities, lives to dip into, inner worlds to imagine -- all of them coming together into a wonderfully messed up harmony and discord. No two perceptions of the scene would ever agree, he knew that, any more than two eye-witness accounts were ever the same at an accident, and yet somehow all these diverse minds had come together tonight, managed to consent a little, compromise, and settle on this one single outward appearance, this atmosphere, this indescribable something that might be suggested in a photograph but never wholly captured. The something that was part of what made him know he wasn't in Washington. The atmosphere, the environment of the room, influenced the consciousnesses in a feedback loop which in turn shaped and created the atmosphere. Skyler was right, it was self-referential; it had to do with betweenness. "Consciousness comes from the Latin 'con', 'together' and 'scire', 'to know'," Mulder said quietly. "Consciousness is the condition of knowing together." And at the same time Skyler added something that sounded like, "Present company excepted, of course, which is to say not counting glorious madmen, brilliant fools, and acts of god." "What?" they both said at once, and both laughed. "Go ahead." -- "No, you." "I was just pondering the concept that there are muscles you can't flex alone," Mulder said, and his eyes were smiling, even if his lips were not. Skyler looked a little pink, a little on, almost flustered. But the next words out of his mouth betrayed him. "What about your partner?" "Scully?" Mulder asked blankly. "What about her?" Scully seemed especially dim, theoretical, and far away right now. His eyes were lingering on Skyler's face, fascinated despite himself, and it occurred to him in a vague, indirect sort of way that Skyler was attractive. "No sparks?" "Sparks? Huh? Scully? Uh..." His eyes had come to rest on Skyler's lips. It had been nice to kiss Skyler. Was nice to kiss Skyler. Might be nice to kiss Skyler again. He could picture Skyler closing his eyes, yielding to a kiss, yielding to *him,* to *his* kiss, his hands -- and before that image could take on too much life of its own, Mulder tore his eyes away. //Scully,// he thought resolutely, and cleared his throat. "Scully," he said. //Scully believes there is a rule for everything, and I don't. And that's a problem.// "Scully is ... great, you know. She's pretty. I mean, I guess she's pretty." "*Pretty?*" Skyler was looking at him funny. Mulder shrugged. //She's predictable.// "I trust her." "So here's this pretty, presumably intelligent, trustworthy woman -- is she loyal too, by the way? -- and she's got *you* for a partner--" Mulder snorted. "--And you face danger side by side. And...?" "And?" "No one's ever made a move?" "I never said *that,* exactly." Mulder winced as the memory hit him, visceral and unforgiving, of an ill-omened night in an anonymous hotel room, himself tripping over his own words trying to apologize for something, he couldn't remember what. It was always something. But this time whatever it was he'd said had to his horror caused Scully's disciplined, premeditated veneer to crack open just as he'd always known it would one day, and all her good intentions split at the seams so that the formless, wordless turmoil inside spilled out and he'd been faced with Scully the way he never wanted to see her again -- Scully derailing herself, discomposing the careful prose of her life, ravishing, fiery, transformed and therefore not herself at all, climbing into his lap and wrapping herself around him, offering to forgive him with a kiss. He'd turned her down more rudely than he meant, just because he needed so desperately to be sure she got it. And she'd gotten it. It never happened again. (Continued in part 4)