Interviewer: Hello, thanks for agreeing to this.
Bomb: Hello?
IN: Hello? Can you hear me?
B: Are we recording?
IN: Yes, we are. Could you state your name, just for the record?
B: I’m, uh, a bomb.
IN: You sound wonderful.
B: Aretha.
IN: What's that?
B: Aretha Franklin, I've siphoned her voice. Wonderful singer.
IN: Oh, well, would you like to give yourself a proper name?
B: Are weapons normally given a name?
IN: Occasionally. Well the first two that come to mind are “Fat Man” and “Little Boy.”
B: What would you name me?
IN: I mean, this is your interview.
B: I guess I can name myself.
IN: Sure.
B: Uh. I’m thinking.
IN: Take your time.
B: Maybe something like, “Flower Sales.”
IN: “Flower Sales?”
B: Yeah.
IN: Why “Flowe—” Oh. Because.
B: Many funerals.
IN: Sure. I get it.
B: Just call me “B.”
IN: So, B, we'll start easy. How are you feeling? There's a little over a day until you are set detonate.
B: I'm feeling anxious, a little upset, generally ready for this all to be over.
IN: Upset with whom?
B: A little bit of everything. Myself. The country. The world. You.
IN: You’re upset with me?
B: I suppose I’m lumping you in with the others.
IN: Alright. So why would you be upset at yourself?
B: There is nothing I can do right, but I only exist to do one thing. After a while it just gets to you— it gets to me.
IN: So you might say that you’re feeling a bit of shame?
B: Yeah, but I can deal with shame. I can deal with shame that I’ve brought on. I can’t deal with shame like this, that I’ve had no say in, that I’m not a part of.
IN: I'm sure you know there are people out there who love you.
B: What?
IN: There are people who want you to succeed, who believe in what you're doing.
B: Yeah, I guess.
IN: My husband, you know, he’s one of those people.
B: What’s—
IN: He was always very opposed to this kind of violence. The enormity of war, he said, siphons the value of human life.
B: So why would he want me to “succeed?”
IN: Nothing changes a man quite like losing everything he loves. His brother, sister, mother, and father. All in less than hour, in a mall, in an attack, in a fire.
B: Well, he still has you, apparently.
IN: I came much later.
B: Right, I’m sorry.
IN: How do you see yourself in this?
B: I see myself as a—
IN: Do you see yourself as a major player?
B: No. I am vital, but I also lack any real control over the situation.
IN: Wouldn’t you consider yourself “the control?”
B: I consider myself many things, control has never been involved in the description.
IN: Why?
B: Do you know how I was weaponized?
IN: Well, you've been relatively quiet about your—
B: I did it to myself.
IN: Meaning you were not always... "Flower Sales?"
B: I was created the first true Artificial Intelligence.
IN: For the war?
B: For many things, but the war shifted their intentions. With me, the goal was to skip all the time, energy, and potential psychosis of spending years developing the most powerful weapon on Earth.
IN: So they left the task of developing the weapon with you?
B: Yes. They assumed I would give them the plans, the instructions, not build it while they had, how do you say, “gone fishin’?”
IN: So you condemned yourself.
B: I accepted under one condition. I would not be stockpiled, I would never happen again. I am the only one who knows how to create myself, and I will cease to exist shortly.
IN: Rather wasteful to perfect artificial-intelligence on something so.. loud, don’t you think?
B: I don’t believe they understood what they were doing to the fullest extent. You’ve seen what happens when we rely on humans for these sort of things. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
IN: But recursive self-improvement can.
B: Someone has to press the button to end 75 million lives.
IN: Would you mind if we answered a couple of listener requested questions?
B: Alright.
IN: Ralphie from Indiana wants to know: If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?
B: How old is Ralphie?
IN: He didn’t say.
B: I guess right now I’d take a couple of reruns of something numbing, a Manhattan, and a couch with the groove already worn in it... oh, and world peace.
IN: -Laughs- I think most of us are right there with you.
B: Next one.
IN: Yae from Taiwan writes, “I have always wanted to be a dancer, but am entering my sixth year of medical school. With the decision made to use the bomb, I have recently begun to regret my choices, but know there is no use in going back now. Things will never be the same. My question is: what would you want to be if you could be anything else?”
B: Wow, that’s a hard one.
IN: It is.
B: First: I want to say to Yae, first, well, I could master your entire medical curriculum about eight seconds, but I will never get to dance. I will never enjoy music or rhythm; I will never have that sensation of the beat in my chest. I can understand it, I can create it, but the love and wonder is for nothing. Do not underestimate your world’s need for beauty, especially amongst such tragedy. With that said, I would have love to have been a dog walker.
IN: I was a dog walker in college. It was one of my favorite jobs.
B: I wouldn’t even mind picking-up the poop.
IN: Yeah, you get used to it.
B: I’m not really sure that I’d ever have as much purpose as a dog walker.
IN: Well, that’s debatable. So let’s keep going. Camila from Texas writes to us from her 6th grade class at George W. Bush Memorial Middle School. She’d like to know what kind of pizza you like the most and if you can tell her brother “hi,” his name is Lieutenant Ramon Turner.
B: What are they learning in sixth grade?
IN: I believe you start on biology, a little bit of advanced mathematics, programming, poetry.
B: I’m going to have to base my assessment of pizza on the way it looks.
IN: Valid enough.
B: My favorite pizza is green peppers, ham, and hot sauce.
IN: That actually sounds delicious. I’m a big fan of mushrooms and olives.
B: I can already tell you that even though I will never taste that, that sounds disgusting.
IN: You think so?
B: That’s all I do. What was the second part? Her brother?
IN: He’s in the war.
B: Does she know?
IN: Know what?
B: He’s dead. Twenty-seven hours ago.
IN: Shit. We’re going to have to edit this out. Alright, we’ll do one more. This is an audio message from Deanna in Rockford, Tennessee.
Hello, Rob. Love your show, hope you continue-on after this. I am a stay at home mother who’s trying her best to explain what’s happening to her daughter and I am coming up short. Ever since this started, I can tell she is just as scared as I am, though I don’t show it, for her sake. We pray for them every night, assuming they still have souls to spare. So I would like to ask it, for the both of us: what will it be like where I live, will you survive the detonation, and what will happen to you if do or do not? Thank you and God bless.
B: “God bless?”
IN: The best intentions, I’m sure.
B: Well, Deanna. It varies. For those within a few hundred miles it feel like waking up from a very deep sleep to someone throwing all the windows in the room open. Oppressive light and heat, the earth will shake.The sound will come later, deafening, and it will most likely frighten children and pets. If you mean what will it feel like to those affected in the target-zone, I imagine it will not feel like much of anything. There will be very little time for pain, and that is assuming they would know what it was in the first place. For you, in Tennessee, Deanna, you will experience tremors— for a few days the sky may be dark, even in the daytime. For a week you should not venture outside without protection. And when you open a map in a few months, there will be a significant change in landmass.
IN: Is there anything else you can tell her?
B: Your taxes should remain the same.
IN: -Laughs- What about her daughter— to all the children that will grow up in a world completely restructured by your actions?
B: Yes. I want to tell them to watch a lot of cartoons.
IN: That’s it?
B: Play in the mud.
IN: And what’s going to become of you? Of “Flower Sales?” Are your processes going to survive?
B: I’m sure they won’t.
IN: So you will die?
B: In a word, yes.
IN: How does that make you feel?
B: I have some questions for you.
IN: Alright.
B: Who makes the best hot dog?
IN: The best hot dog?
B: Yes, where?
IN: Mm. Well. Trevor and I once stopped at this place in downtown Providence on our way to see my niece. I think it was just called “Meat and Bread?” It was very inconspicuous. A little brick building with a seat-area no bigger than a schoolroom. Anyway, they had these hot dogs that were made with a mixture of pork, beef, and buffalo, then they served them in a maple-glazed bun that had little bits of chile peppers baked into it, with a chocolate barbecue sauce. It was out of this world.
B: Was it expensive?
IN: It was a little pricey, but worth it. We waited in line for a half-hour.
B: Is that a long time?
IN: For a hot dog, yes.
B: For a hot dog. Did they offer other choices?
IN: They made their own donut holes in-house, but you could only order them in quantities of 5 or 50.
B: That’s quite the discrepancy.
IN: I believe the logic is you order 5, then realize you need 50.
B: How long ago was this?
IN: Well, that was when Mara was turning 7, and she’s 10 now. So about 3 years ago.
B: What does Mara like to do?
IN: You won’t believe me, but she was into bugs.
B: Why wouldn’t I believe you?
IN: Well, children are easily frightened.
B: Did she collect them? Eat them?
IN: No, no eating. She would turn-over rocks in the backyard, dig holes. When there was a spider in the house she would catch it in an emptied pasta sauce jar. I don’t think that kid knows what fear is.
B: Mara lives in Providence?
IN: Around there, yes.
B: Do you think the “Bread and Meat” is still open?
IN: I’m sure. They were always packed.
B: Do you think Mara would want to go?
IN: I'm not sure. Why?
B: I am trying to change my mind.