CHAPTER 234: AFTERLIFE CARE

As Miranda entered Madison’s office, Jack said, "Okay, I’ve got some important news, so I’ll go first."

Everyone was gathered in Madison’s office for their daily standup meeting. Something he was growing to enjoy.

Katie was standing to his right, Madison to his left, Samantha in front of him, leaning back against him, Naoko was standing next to Nora where they had been looking at something on Nora’s screen, and was Rina standing behind her chair, trying not to be distracted by what was on her screen.

Miranda walked over and gave Jack a quick kiss, then returned to stand near the door.

"First, I found a CEO and VP of data center operations for our new Radius 10K company. They are Heidy Oakland and Cindy Larkin. They also happen to be a couple, and I managed to create a soul bond between them."

"Is that something you can add? Like, could you create a soul bond between myself and Madison?" asked Miranda.

"No. For now, it’s only possible if I target two people together for a new soul bond. It’s not something I can add later. Besides, it’s not like any of you are having trouble getting along."

"True," said Miranda. "I was just curious."

"Moving on, the second bit of news is that I also soul bonded Lars Jensen, owner of Jenson Manufacturing, and his granddaughter, Astrid, VP of operations. I initially talked to them because Astrid was balking at the merger. But then I learned why she was concerned."

"Legacy?" asked Miranda.

"Partly. But mainly, Lars has pancreatic cancer. When I explained that a soul bond would allow Lars to have a sort of afterlife and she could visit him if she also had a soul bond, they practically begged me to make the offer."

"Afterlife?" asked Samantha.

"Yes, if you die, your soul remains connected to me, and you can continue to manifest here in my soul space."

"So you retain access to the parallel self feature even after you die?" asked Rina.

"Not exactly. It’s more like you revert to a sapient template, except there can only be one of you, since you only have one soul. That means you would only manifest if I ’summon’ you."

"What about the obedience modification thing you can do with templates?" asked Madison. "Would you be able to use that on us after we die?"

"I don’t know. Let’s find out."

He summoned Jeeves.

"Jeeves, once a soul bonded person dies, do I regain the ability to make obedience modifications to them, or do they remain as independent as they were before death?"

"The ability to modify a sapient template’s loyalty and obedience is lost when that person is soul bonded and is not regained upon their death."

He felt a subtle tension in Madison, that he didn’t realize was there, disappear when she heard Jeeves’s answer.

He dismissed Jeeves, as he said. "Well, there’s your answer."

Samantha turned around and looked up at him. "Jack, I want you to soul bond my mom."

He hugged her and looked around the room at the girls. "Does anyone else want me to soul bond their parents or other family members?"

Katie grabbed his arm and said, "Am I a bad person for wanting you to soul bond my dad, but not my mom?"

He patted her hand. "No, Katie, that doesn’t make you a bad person."

He knew Naoko had zero interest in spending time with her parents, so he turned and looked at Miranda.

She returned his look and said, "I love my mom, but spending eternity with her would be a nightmare."

She and her dad were not on bad terms, but they weren’t close either.

He looked at Nora.

"I’m not close with my family, so no. I don’t want you to soul bond any of them."

He looked at Rina and saw that she was deep in thought.

After a moment, she shook her head. "No. I think they would be appalled at the idea of being denied the opportunity to reincarnate."

"Okay. Let me know if you change your mind."

Then, turning to Katie and Samantha, he said, "So, you want me to talk to your dad and mom and see if they are willing to subscribe to the Genesis Heart Afterlife Policy?"

They both nodded.

"Can I assume you want to be present?"

They both nodded.

"Okay. We’ll do that later today then."

"That’s it for my news." Then he turned and looked at Madison and said, "Madison?"

"I’ve made some progress on the search engine replacement model we talked about. And I’ve been testing some ideas for how to integrate several specialized models, but nothing conclusive yet."

"Search engine replacement?" asked Nora.

"Yeah, search engines like Yocto are mostly SEO span now and it’s hard to find real content with all the LLM slop being generated. So, I’m working on an AI model that can answer knowledge questions and return useful web page links."

"Aren’t other companies doing the same?" asked Rina.

"They are, but they seem to be using LLM models, and half the time the results have factual errors. I’m working on a way to return factually accurate results that provide references to support every claim."

"You’re using that human knowledge base you talked about? The one that company spent decades compiling?"

"Yep. I’m using that knowledge base as a starting point for general human knowledge, then adding the ability to store and index all the web pages we crawl."

"I look forward to having that available. It’s annoying having to wade through pages and pages of search results just to find what I’m looking for."

"And the AI summaries are mostly worthless," added Rina. "You have to read the source articles anyway just to be sure, so the AI summary doesn’t save you any time."

Nora and Noko nodded their heads.

"Okay, Miranda, any status updates?"

"My class finished the interior decorating plan. They identified all the suppliers and contractors, and my professor approved the plan. Abigail told me the timeline for completion of the mansion security upgrades, and we’ve organized our plan so we decorate the upstairs rooms last."

"Sounds good. I can’t wait to move in."

He turned to look at Nora. "Nora?"