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.From the way women reacted to him, I would guess that he was attractive, not that their outward flirting bothered him at all.Julius’s passions in life were beautiful women, fine gourmet food, even finer wine and, of course, gambling—especially gambling.More often than not he tended to be successful when he gambled—especially at times when I was able to help.All of his hobbies required quite a bit of money and, during the times when he was stuck in a losing streak and his bank account approached anemic levels, Julius would begrudgingly take on a client.There were always clients lining up to hire him since he was known as Boston’s most brilliant and eccentric private investigator, solving some of the city’s most notorious cases.The truth of the matter was Julius hated to forego his true passions for the drudgery of work and only did so when absolutely necessary, and that would be after days of unrelenting nagging on my part.I knew about all this because I acted as Julius’s accountant, personal secretary, unofficial biographer and all-around assistant, although nobody but Julius knew that I existed, at least other than as a voice answering his phone and booking his appointments.Of course I don’t really exist, at least not in the sense of a typical sentient being.Or make that a biological sentient being.My name wasn’t really “Archie”.During my time with Julius I’ve grown to think of myself as Archie, the same as I’ve grown to imagine myself as a five-foot tall heavyset man with thinning hair, but in reality I’m not five-foot tall, nor do I have the bulk that I imagine myself having, and I certainly don’t have any hair, thinning or otherwise.I also don’t have a name, only a serial identification number.Julius calls me Archie and for whatever reason it seems right; besides, it’s quicker to say than the eighty-four digit serial identification number that has been burnt into me.You’ve probably already guessed that I’m not human, and certainly not anything organic.What I am is a two-inch rectangular-shaped piece of space-aged computer technology that’s twenty-years more advanced than what’s currently considered theoretically possible—at least aside from whatever lab created me.How Julius acquired me, I have no clue.Whenever I’ve tried asking him, he jokes around, telling me he won me in a poker game.It could be true—I wouldn’t know since I have no memory of my time before Julius.So that’s what I am, a two-inch rectangular mechanism weighing approximately one point two ounces.What’s packed inside my titanium shell includes visual and audio receptors as well as wireless communication components and a highly sophisticated neuron network that not only simulates intelligence, but learning and thinking which adapts in response to my experiences.Auditory and visual recognition are included in my packaging, which means I can both see and hear.As you’ve probably already guessed, I can also speak.When Julius and I are in public, I speak to him through a wireless receiver that he wears in his ear as if it were a hearing aid.When we’re alone in his office he usually plugs the unit into a speaker on his desk.A man’s voice announced over the loudspeaker that bettors had two minutes to place their final bets for the third race.That brought Julius back to life, a vague smile drifting over his lips.He placed a five hundred dollar wager, picking Sally’s Pooch, Wonder Dog and Pugsly Ugsly to win the Trifecta—none of the dogs that I had predicted.The odds displayed on the betting board were eighty to one.I quickly calculated the probabilities using the analytical models I had devised earlier and came up with a mathematically zero percent chance of his bet winning.I told him that and he chuckled.“Playing a hunch, Archie.”“What you’re doing is throwing away five hundred dollars,” I argued.Julius was in the midst of a losing streak and his last bank statement was far from healthy.In a way it was good because it meant he was going to have to seriously consider the three o’clock appointment that I had booked for him with a Miss Norma Brewer.As much as he hates it, working as a private investigator sharpens him and usually knocks him out of his dry gambling spells.I had my own ulterior motives for him taking a new case—it would give me a chance to adapt my deductive reasoning.One of these days I planned to solve a case before Julius did.You wouldn’t think a piece of advanced computer technology would feel competitive, but as I’ve often argued with Julius, there’s little difference between my simulated intelligence and what’s considered sentient.So yes, I wanted to beat Julius, I wanted to prove to him that I could solve a case as well or better than he could.He knew this and always got a good laugh out of it, telling me he had doomed that possibility by naming me Archie.Of course, I’ve long figured out that joke.Julius patterned my personality and speech based on the works of some of the most important private eye novels of the twentieth century, including those of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald and Rex Stout.The name he gave me, Archie, was based on Archie Goodwin, Nero Wolfe’s second banana who was always one step behind his boss [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]