The Secrets of the Rosary

Rory Learns Faith

At 6:00 in the morning, Rory awoke to thje sound of his Nannybot ringing an alarm in his ear. "Awake and prepare for school," said the automated voice. He sighed, considered getting out of bed, did a brief analysis of the problem in his head, and decided that the benefit of staying in bed for five more minutes outweighed the disadvantage having to hear the next alarm.

At 6:05, there was a loud hooting from the speaker followed by the voice of the Nannybot saying, "Now, now, you must awake and prepare for school. Failure to do so will make you tardy. And there is a 99.98% chance that tardiness will adversely affect your education.

Not for the first time, Rory wondered what would happen the other 0.02% of the time. But then, that was the way that his Nannybot always spoke that way about probabilities. 99.98% chance of this. 76.25% chance of that. 0.00035% chance of something else. Once, he had asked the Nannybot if there was ever such a thing as a 100% probability or even a 0% probability.

"That is exceedingly rare," the Bot had replied. After a brief pause, it had said, "there is, of course a 100% probability that you as a biological individual will one day experience death."

Rory had choked. "Experience death?"

"Of course," the Bot had continued helpfully, "that can also be rephrased as 0% probability that you will achieve immortality."

After that, Rory avoided asking the Nannybot questions.

Today he pulled himself out of bed, and walked slowly to the bathroom. When he got there, the Nannybot instructed him to disrobe and enter the shower. The shower was a little bit colder than he liked it. He asked the Bot if the temperature could be raised a few dgrees.

"Negative," was the reply. " I estimate a 96.5% probability that a shower at this temperature will put you in the optimal state of mind for that which there is a 92.86913% probability you will experience at school today. Please proced to lather your body." A blueish liquid soap came out of the dispenser.

"That isn't my normal soap, is it?"

"Negative, it is necessary fto in crease the possibility of what there is a 92.86913% probability today."

Rory frowned."What is this thing that's happening to me today?"

"Sharing such knowledge would decrease the probabolty of it happening by 21.6%. Now please proceed to lather. You must not be tard for school."
q2

* * *

In another household, a another child--a girl named Juanita--was also bewing awakened by a Nannybot. "Nanny," she said as she stumbled out of bed, "May I say a quick prayer before I shower and dress?"

"First," said the bot, " my proper name is Nannybot. Even though, the probability of my correcting you on this point will cause you to use the correct terminology is only 1.269%, I feeel the need to make the attempt.

"Second, your use of the adjective 'quick' is historically vague when used to describe prayers. I would allow you to say a prayer of no more than three minutes at this time.

"Third, I feel the need to remind you once again that the probability of any prayer being answered is less than 0.00043%. However, as that has never deterred you before, you may proceed."

"Thank you, " Juanita knelt on the floor and said, "God, Jesus, and Mary. Please bless my abuela in heaven. And please bless my teacher, and my mother and father that they will come to have faith." She paused. "Nanny? Do you think I could pray that you learn the joys of having faith."

"The probability of that prayer being answered is zero," replied the Nannybot.

Juanita shrugged and said the prayer anyway."
o far

* * *

At school that day, Juanita optimistically carried her Bible in her backpack next to all of her schoolbooks. She did that because she liked to think that maybe one of her friends or, for that matter, even one of her teachers would listen if she shared her faith. So far, she had never found such a person.

During recess, she saw a boy eating by himself. He wasn't particularly handsome, but there was something that made him stand out. Later, she realizd that it was a smell like wild fuchsia, but at the time, she just decided to walk up to him.

"Hello?"

The boy seemed to frown at her. "Hello. Who are you?"

"My name is Juanita. Who are you?"

"My name is Rory. What do you want?"

"Well, Rory," she said trying to look friendly. "I was wondering if I could speak to you about my faith."

"Faith," laughed Rory. "What does that even mean?"

"You know, that's a good question. Have you heard of Jason Davis?"

"What, the guy who started Gammacorp? He's been dead for like...a hundred years. What's he got to do with anything?"

"Well, he said something interesting about what faith means. He said that his computers could be taught to calculate the probability of an event very accurately, but a person of faith would not accept those probabilities as correct because God can make all things happen."

"Well, that's really stupid."

Juanita was getting nervous now, but she tried be brave. "If you would read this book," she said holding out her Bible, you would learn about all kinds of low probabilitly things happening. Of course, the most important is that Jesus died and rose from the dead three days later and-"

"Bull!" said Rory picking up the Bible. "Get away from me, and take your stupid Bible with you!" Then he gave Juanit a shove so that she landed onthe ground."

Immeediately, the alarms started blaring and a computer voice started saying "Altercation Alert! Altercation Alert!" Human teachers came running into the recess area and there. . .

* * *

That evening, Pablo Gutierrez sat at his terminal in Gammacorp and tried to make sense of the message from his daughter's school. Basically, it related how Rory, the boy who had pushed his daughter was being disciplined, but then pointed out that when the faculty learned the reason for the for Rory's actions, they couldn't completely blame him. So something should be done about Juanita.

"Your daughter got off easy," said a familiar automated voice. It was the AI which controlled all Nannybots and most other things in the the state now. Since it first went online, the programmers had begun calling it, "Judy".

"I mean," Judy continued, "in a historical sense she got off easy. In past societies, it was often deemed best to torture and/or execute people who behaved as your daughter did today."

Pablo was disgusted. "Judy, that is reprehensible."

"On the contrary, I estimate an 89.36% probability that such a policy would be beneficial to a society as a whole." Before Pablo could object, she continued, "Unfortunateley, I also estimate an 92.5% probability that attempts to implement such a policy in the current climate would result in riots, revolution, or possible anarchy. Therefor, your daughter and those likeher need to be dealt with more subtly."

Pablo sighed again. "It's not my fault or my wife's. It's that mother of mine. She insisted on filling her granddaughter's head with silly ideas."

"Yes, that does seem to be the problem."But are you aware that even thought, your daughter is not completely conscious of the fact, she has a fondness for the scent of wild fuschia." Judy's voice was usualyy monotone, but Pablo thought he heard a vaguely proud inflection in that sentence.

"What does that have to do with what we were talking about?"

"It helped to insure that your daughter proselytyze to that particular boy, Rory Dibbick."

"I don't understand. Why would you want to insure that?"

"Because there is a his psychological profile indicated 98.7659% probability that he would respond in exactly the manner he did."

* * *

But that evening, when the Nannybot informed Juanita that it was her bedtime, she insisted on kneddling infront of the bed first.

"Please bless my mother, my father and my abuela in heaven. Also bless my teachers, and please bless that boy, Rory I met at school today."

If an AI can sigh than the Nannybot did.