Weekend Fiction - Oracle’s Confusion

This is chapter 4 of Oracle, my science fiction serial.  Today, we learn a little bit more about Ezra.  Got comments?  I'd love to hear them!


Chapter 4; Oracle’s Confusion


Though his visit to Mrs. Thomason's house had proved unfruitful, Cyrus was no less determined to solve the mystery surrounding Melanie.  Though his power seemed to be useless in this situation, he had access to other resources.

“Ezra, bring your conversation and counseling modules online.”

“Very good, sir.”

Cyrus had obtained  Ezra from an abandoned government project.  Ezra was an artificial intelligence computer system designed to interact with humans using natural language.  Its original purpose was to perform basic psychoanalysis on soldiers and suffering from PTSD.  It was a miserable failure through no fault of its own.  Most people are simply uncomfortable conversing with a computer.  Ezra's hardware consisted of a dozen racks, each holding 10 server class computers.  For most purposes, only a few of the computers were running at any given time.  In response to Cyrus' command, all 120 units lit up.

“Ezra, I think I'm in love.”

“What makes you say that?” Ezra responded.

“I don't know what else to think, this woman confuses me.”

“Go on.”

“I'm not even sure what love is.”  Cyrus said.

“Love is defined as a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.  Do you have any personal ties with this woman?”

Cyrus sighed.  “We have something in common if that's what you mean.  She and I have the only futures I can't see.”

Advanced as it was, certain aspects of Cyrus' life continually escaped Ezra.  “The only way to know the future is to experience it.”

“I wish that was true.” Cyrus responded.

Ezra either paused meaningfully or struggled to process Cyrus’ statement.  “If you do not have personal ties with her, you must develop them if love is the intended goal.”

“So you're saying we should spend time together?”

“That seems like a wise course of action.”  Ezra sounded satisfied with itself, if that was possible.

“Thank you, as always, for your help; return to standard operations mode.”

In its climate controlled server room, Ezra's activity level returned to normal.  Cyrus was more determined than ever that he would see Melanie again.