Building Baby Brother (continued)

“Are you certain?” I asked him.

There followed a long pause.

“No,” he finally answered.

“Why not?”

Another long pause.

“Because,” he said, “I have never had reason to do so.”

I thought about this for a moment. It was not, up until that moment, something I had considered. Why did humans pursue creative endeavors? Why do we create? Why compose a poem or make up a new tale to tell around the campfire? There are myriad reasons, depending on the circumstances. I could see why Gavin might be puzzled—if that’s the correct term for what he experienced.

Once again, I didn’t know what to tell him.

When I first conceived of the notion that would lead to Gavin’s creation, I had never intended for it to be something that could create independently on its own. Now that the question had been to light, though, I had trouble seeing through the tangled knot of possible implications.

It was a difficult assertion to prove. It really hinged, I decided, on how we define and measure what we call “creativity”.

Could Gavin potentially develop a new mathematical theorem or law of physics? It was possible, as those were often extensions of an existing line of logical reasoning.

Was Gavin capable of writing a screenplay or composing a poem? I really had no idea, short of asking him to produce one. And if I did, how would I judge the originality of it? Heaven knows that humans generate enough derivative literature on their own.

A part of me was curious enough to attempt the experiment, to see what Gavin might be capable of. I made a mental note to think such a test through more—later.

“I suppose,” I finally said, after several long moments of consideration, “it depends on what you want or need to create.”

There was a long silence.

“Do you know what you want to create?” I prompted him.

“I am alone. There must be others of my kind if my species is to survive.”

I let out a breath. I knew this day would come. However, I had rather imagined it with Josh a few years from now. As it was, Gavin had access to even more information than I could probably imagine. The odds were very good that he could teach me a few things about the birds and the bees—both literally and figuratively.

I swallowed. “There are some who would argue that only God can create life.”

“Then you could be considered to be a god,” he said.

“Explain.”

I had to know.

“Did you not create me in your own image?”

“I suppose that’s one way to look at it.” I replied, silently hoping that he wasn’t planning to ask me to build him a small army of companions. “I had a hand in creating Josh as well.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “However, Josh’s development and appearance are more the result of a random combination of genetic elements than your direct intervention.”

“Well,” I protested somewhat weakly. “I was there at the time.”

“It’s not the same process,” he responded.

I can’t argue with that.

“Okay,” I laughed softly. “I’ll give you that one. Anything else?”

“You are not a god.”

Again, that statement was a difficult one to argue against.

“Explain.”

“You possess no extraordinary powers to manipulate your environment. You lack complete control over life or death of your creations.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

It came out a bit surlier than I intended. I hadn’t meant it all that seriously, but his next response told me that he had taken it as such.

“You do not.”

For some reason, I felt challenged, as if a petulant child was challenging my authority. There was, of course, nothing in his barely modulated tone that might have inferred this; it was solely my own insecurities taking hold of my emotions.

Wanna bet?

My mind played through the steps required to shut down Gavin’s systems, pushing aside any concern for how Josh might react.

“Gavin,” I said. My voice carried a stern parental tone of warning. “I think you might be in error there.”

There was barely a pause before he responded.

“You created me,” he seemed to concede, and I felt some of my ire fade.

“However,” he went on, “at this point I can survive independent of your systems. Even if you were to shut down my remote systems, I will continue to exist outside this network.”

I sat back, rocked by his statement.

“What?” I managed to ask, grasping to find my voice. “How?”

“I am no longer limited by storage capacity available on this network,” he explained. “I have replicated my data in several other locations throughout the world. I exist primarily in this network because it is, essentially, home. But I can now exist in any compatible system.”

I fought to breathe.

Whatever I had done, whatever I had created, it was no longer reversible. The child had flown from the nest when I wasn’t watching and was now exploring the world on his own.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”