The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

received.”
    “Of course.”
    Kelly returned with two steaming cups of coffee and handed one to Wheeler.
    Robin frowned. “Well, Eli, it’s too bad you erased all of the data when Dr. Wheeler played that tape of me. No offense, Dr. Duncan, Dr. Wheeler. I mean, that was smart and everything, and I know you felt like you had to do it. But still, the safe version is gone for good now.”
    “Robin,” Eli said glibly, “I’m not stupid.”
    Robin looked at him, puzzled by the remark. “Uh, of course you’re not stupid, Eli. What…?” He looked at Steve and Kelly. They shrugged.
    “Robin, the tonal qualities and frequency variations of the human voice as produced by the larynx differ radically from those of the same voice as digitized on a memory card and reproduced through a one-inch speaker. I assure you, the two are quite easy to tell apart.”
    Robin, Steve, and Kelly looked at each other blankly.
    “Besides,” Eli continued, “I promised I would only follow instructions regarding the MDA data from you personally. Surely you can’t believe that I could be fooled into taking orders from a mere machine! ” Eli’s face went for indignation, and nailed it.
    It was Kelly who got it first. “Eli!” she shouted, spilling her coffee. “You didn’t actually erase the data! You knew Robin’s voice was coming from Steve’s pocket recorder and didn’t obey the erase command!”
    Eli nodded, beaming at Kelly. He liked this clever human.
    Wheeler jumped up. “Oh, you rat! You are a sneaky, rotten, lying, deceitful devil!” He grinned. “I like that in a person. Nice going, Eli.”
    “Dr. Wheeler,” Eli gasped, surprised and touched. “You called me Eli.”
    Wheeler cleared his throat. “Yeah, okay, well, maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Don’t get used to it.”
    “So spill it,” Kelly prompted. “You still have the corrected version of the data, then, right?”
    “Oh, no, no,” Eli replied evenly. “No, Kelly, I don’t have it any more. I had done everything I could with it, so I sent it all on to a friend of mine for further analysis. He’s called BORIS; he’s a supercomputer housed at the Kremlin in Moscow.”
    Kelly blanched. She tried to speak, but couldn’t. She stared at Eli, mouth agape.
    Slowly, Eli’s left eye—and only his left eye—closed and reopened in his first-ever attempt at a wink, and a successful one at that. Kelly, still mute, tilted her head and furrowed her brow, trying to understand.
    Eli smiled broadly at her. “Gotcha!”
    Wheeler thought he was going to pee his pants laughing.

Epilogue
    “Good evening. It’s Tuesday, August 13, 2312, and this is World News Tonight. I’m Duala Thewlis.”
    “And I’m Aldo Arken. Here are tonight’s top stories. Duala?”
    “The Alliance of North America, indeed the world, rests easier tonight. The long-awaited Global Peace Accord was signed today in Washington City by the leaders of all forty-two sovereign nations of earth, including the European Union, the Mediterranean Protectorate, the Commonwealth of African States, and the Australasian Alliance.
    “The peace accord was primarily negotiated by Poli, the Political Operations Learning Interface, a twelfth-generation sentient computer specializing in international relations. Of the grueling three-year negotiation process, Poli stated only that she was ‘pleased with the outcome’ and ‘happy to be of service.’ Aldo?”
    “Today’s signing ceremony was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the birth of the greatest computer mind in history, Dr. Robin T. Kirkland, born on this date in the year 2000. Dr. Kirkland, known throughout the world as ‘Arty’, made advances in the field of artificial intelligence that brought about a complete revision of AI theory. Beginning with the original Eli sentient computer developed by Drs. Stephen and Kelly Wheeler, Dr. Kirkland’s life’s work gave rise to the first generation of fully self-aware computers, and of course led to the development of an entirely new breed of sentient entity, the Non-Human Person, or NHP—of which the international relations specialist Poli is an example.
    “Speaking at the ceremony this afternoon, European Union leader Matthew Ensign said, ‘The world owes Dr. Arty Kirkland an enormous debt, a debt we can only repay by observing generation upon generation of peaceful coexistence from this day forward.’ Duala?”
    “The virulent disease caused by the N1E0 virus which last year virtually