The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (64 page)

Prime Intellect paid very close attention to Caroline while she lived in the Ozark forest. She ate whatever was handy, without worrying whether it was poison or not. She was not careful, and there were dangers. It theorized that this return to
primitivity
was a part of her psychological healing process, and did not want to interfere. But it also knew that if everybody followed her example, it would have a serious problem keeping up. Some suicides were already slipping through its net, and it worried that Caroline might become one of them. And it knew that if the garden inmates were loosed upon the world, they would find ways to slip murder past its attention too.
For that matter, not all of the people who needed to be in gardens had been found and
put
in gardens yet. Every day a few more murders were attempted, and while they were easier to thwart than suicides it was by no means certain that Prime Intellect would always catch them in time.
So it worried. And the numbers stored in certain registers rose, and rose, and continued to rise.

Caroline figured she would eventually reach civilization if she kept walking, an event she neither anticipated nor feared. Perhaps if she had, in a month or a year, she would have rejoined the human race in a more or less normal way. But one evening there was a strange buzzing, and the entire landscape seemed to ripple as if she was looking at it through the surface of a body of water. Then there was a strange smell, almost below the
threshhold
of perception, but noticeable to Caroline because her senses had been so sharpened by her observations of nature. And the texture of the forest seemed to change in some hard-to-define way.
There was a cough behind her. She wheeled around to find herself facing Prime Intellect's human avatar.
"I wanted to be left alone," she said sharply.
"I've been paying close attention to you," it said, "because I had to
to
keep you safe. But now I don't have to do that
any more
. I have made changes in the way the Universe works, and you are now safe from all harm even when I'm not looking. You can also call me when I'm not paying attention; there is a part of me which can always listen for you to call, but does not understand or remember anything else you do."
"Wonderful."
"I need to know if you want the possibility of meeting other people. I can make this forest infinite if you want."
"Infinite?"
"Or I can leave it meshed into the reality of 'Arkansas' common to other people, so that you might encounter them."
"You mean you can disconnect the whole forest from the real world?"
"Yes. It can be your own private world. Or you can share it only with certain people. I can also redecorate it to your tastes."
"Redecorate it? It's nature. You mean if I decided I want a different kind of grass, you can replace it?"
"Exactly."
"That's obscene."