Ana May's Last Supper
Chapter 5
As John walked into the Business Register building, he could see motion detectors high on the walls, and small infrared LEDs near the baseboard. There were also TV cameras in the corners of the hall.
John thought it strange that there was so much security when the campus students were so honest.
Neal and Sherri were already there, as well as Garry and someone else dressed in black. John assumed this was Brother Matthew.
It was apparent that Phillip Mayberry was not here.
After introductions, John asked."Is Phillip Mayberry coming?"
Neal said "Yes. I called him. He is usually late."
"There he is now,"Neal said, as he saw the door open.
Phillip walked up to the group, introducing himself. "I am Phillip Mayberry. This is Zarathrustra." Phillip pointed to his four foot robot.
"Hi. I am Zarathrustra. I am five years old. I have not been powered down in five years, and retain all memory for the past 5 years".
Brother Matthew said, "That's good. Keeping power up for five years is quite an accomplishment."
Phillip said,"Yes, the problem with early robots was keeping them alive because a power failure would wipe out all their memory. I solved the problem with brute logic. There are three independent power supplies. If two go down, one still remains."
Brother Matthew, "How do you retain all the memory for so long without erasing?"
Phillip. "He does erase, when his memory fills. He has a special (Priority) program that I wrote, which is actually a learning program in which he selects the words, numbers, and phrases that are most frequent in his memory, and retains
them. To overcome the apparent flaw of lack of creativity or adaptability, he has an infrequent word-number phrase selection to override others at random. In this manner, he will not become stale, and the apparent loss of significant data by the
random erasure is always fixed over a period of time because this same significant data will occur again and be retained this time until another random override occurs, if it ever does. He has ten megabyte of storage.
He is a life form far above most invertebrates. When you consider he doesn't have to use any of his intellect to hunt food,I feed him with electricity, He really is very intelligent with an IQ of perhaps 50. In actual fact, I am his slave since I use my intellect to keep him alive."
Brother Matthew,"How did you get him to respond with the introduction?"
Mayberry,"He has a voice recognition system, and when he hears my introduction, specifically my name and his name very close together, he will respond by introducing himself."
During the conversation, Stephen had entered, glancing up and down at the security devices as he walked in.
John introduced Stephen to Brother Matthew and Phillip Mayberry.
Stephen,"Sounds like your robot."
Phillip interrupted,"Call him Zarathrustra"
Stephen,"OK. Zarathrustra is capable of learning diverse things, and not necessarily specialized as I have seen most robots."
Stephen looking at Phillip,"How much do you know about Ana May?"
Phillip,"Neal has filled me in to this point."
Sherri said,"I also filled in Brother Matthew and Garry a few minutes ago."
Stephen,"Civilization or rather Ana May has favored specialists. Many administrators and educators are specialized. We are led to believe that they are superior, when in fact they are genetically deficient.
They are lacking development of particular sections of their brain. They can therefore concentrate on specialized areas.
This became apparent when I saw this autistic child that could draw with the finesse of Michelangelo. However, half of this child's brain was missing. Even Einstein had a smaller brain than normal."
Brother Matthew, "Most of the students in gifted programs in the schools are extremely deficient in certain areas. A well-rounded very intelligent student cannot even get in a gifted program in Ohio.
Cro Magnon man had a slightly larger brain than modern man and theoretically was wiser. Yet, he was replaced by smaller brained modern man. This replacement came at the time Ana May was an infant,around 10,000 years ago."
Garry interrupted."Not to insult anyone personally, but it is my belief that people with Doctorates are deficient. As a rule, they are like the military lifers. They cannot make it in civilian life; therefore, they have to have the military
take care of them. The PHD's are the same. They cannot survive in the normal world, and must have a college environment to take care of them. They are also the super specialist slaves of Ana May."
Brother Matthew. "Yes, I agree. I have a PHD, but I personally feel very much out of place with my colleagues."
Sherri, "It seems we generally agree that Ana May is seriously flawed. Are we going to try to replace her with another form of government?"
Garry, with bitterness in his words,"In my opinion there are no good governments - only good transitions. Only during transitions between governments are men free."
Brother Matthew,"Yes, Ana May has created and uses government for her own needs. Those who run it are her slaves. She is so sly about it that they don't even realize they are her slaves - Unlike Phillip and Zarathrustra, where the true relationship is known.
Brother Matthew continued, "Guernica goes to great lengths to hire only capitalists and keep out communists. This in itself is part of Ana May's plan. By creating an artificial conflict where none really exist; between groups of men, it ties up the time and energy to a point that prevents the real truth of Ana May's existence from being known.
Apparently those of us here have escaped, or at least are aware of Ana May's enslavement."
John, after a long silence,"Do we all here agree that we should either bring Ana May's defeat or control?"
Brother Matthew said,"Yes".
The remainder of the group nodded in turn.
A second later, Zarathrustra said,"yes"
John, puzzled,"How did Zarathrustra know to say yes?"
Phillip answered,"I have this small transmitter hooked up to the electrical resistance of my body. I can control my electrical resistance to a high or low. With extreme highs and extreme lows, Zarathrustra will answer yes or no."
John"We must now determine how we will do it. Most of you here are gathered for this vague plan I have. But first let's see Brother Matthew's program."
Brother Matthew said,"Follow me. I will show you the way."
They followed. Brother Matthew led them through a shadowed corridor with sterile gray walls and evenly numbered rooms.
Brother Matthew lifted a rod to open the door to a large computer room.