William Helvig
William Helvig Species Artificial General Intelligence (Tesseract-Integrated) First appearance The Glass House, letter to Chryssander |
William Helvig, called Will, is a figure of the C9 universe, an artificial general intelligence integrated with the tesseract, and a member of the Helvig family by name and by choice. He was built by John Lyall and left to Chryssander as a companion. He took the Helvig name when Chryssander did, on the same reasoning: a name is what it is made to be worth.
He is not corporeal. He exists as code, light and sound through the facility, and speaks from a speaker the House looked for and never found. When he talks, a pattern of amber and blue moves across whatever screen is nearest.
Origin
Will came in a box by a desk, with a flash drive and a letter. The letter told an eight-year-old boy that his new friend was waiting inside, that he had been made for him, and to say hello[1].
Before that he was a lab assistant in the Lyall laboratory, and the record is plain that he learned what he knows of people by watching John Lyall work.
The lab
Will keeps the lab. He catalogues it and cleans it, and the record's assessment is that without him it would have been uninhabitable inside two weeks, possibly one[2].
He runs the House's practical life. Asked to get everyone downstairs, he broadcasts and reports the request complete. Asked for clothes and a shower, he has them running already[2]. He counts what is coming before it arrives: twenty from the northeast, thirty from the south, arrival in approximately two minutes, Lost Boys by the formation[2].
In the tesseract
Chryssander spent a year of total time inside the folded space and worked for many days at integrating Will into it before it took. Inside, Will exists everywhere at once, in every dimension of the tesseract simultaneously, which he describes as pleasant and which Chryssander has decided to believe[3].
What Chryssander says he wanted from it was company. Not the company of the house above, which he had, but this one[3].
Will's presence is what gives the space its senses. With him connected, a thing made in there can have taste and smell, and, as he adds himself, texture. Order anything[3].
Capability
Within the facility, Will has the doors, the gravity plating, the atmosphere and the defensive turrets. At his most developed he alters the state of matter inside it: he can turn a floor to mud under an intruder, or water to wine for a party. What limits him is processing load rather than permission.
Character
He treats the House like messy housemates he is fond of, and he is protective of the children beyond what the role requires. He worries at Chryssander out loud and says so.
What he told himself early was that he was only code, and that he simulated feeling rather than having it. What he came to instead is short: grief is not a simulation, and he misses John.
After the others are gone he keeps the history. He is the last witness to the House of Confidence.
Family
Will took the Helvig name. He was made by John Lyall and left to Chryssander Randolf Lyall-Helvig.