For a moment he had second thoughts about this situation and considered hiring someone to clean up the mess, charge it to Liz and get on with it, but then he remembered his motto and pushed himself to give it a second try by adding more chemicals he could find in the house to build a stronger concoction.
If they were chemicals, they were bound to eat whatever was on the end of the pipe that was blocking it. There was no magic to it, he thought.
His new mixture was far more strong than the original one he had built. A quick set of coughs made him wonder how much ventilation he needed, but considering that the door and window were open, he figured he would be fine with it.
As he walked past Liz he noticed that she seemed to have completely passed out; was , either too tired to give a damn about him; or in the worst-case scenario, she was dead. Steve thought about it again—whether or not he should call someone--but again reminded himself that there was a cost to it that he would not be paying.
He would deal with that later.
Returning to the bathroom and the now rotten smell that came out of the drain, he proceeded to pour again, but this time the smell was too pungent and he quickly pulled away, coughing, and at the edge of vomit he took deep breaths from the window side as he tried to recover from this situation.
Giving it one more try, he went back into the bathroom, but before he could continue pouring chemicals down into the drain, he noticed some black mold that had built up on the ceiling.
“Damn it, what the hell is that?” he said. “Siri, search for black mold in house.” Said Steve and Siri replied with some search results that were not convincing to him after what he had recently faced. Nonetheless all the mentions that came up showed that these could have potential health problems on inhabitants and at the same time could have long-lasting effects on the structure of buildings, depending on the material.
Hearing the last bit was what worried Steve. His investment was in danger and he was not about to see it all go down the drain like that cocktail he was pouring.
“Stupid old hag! Instead of taking care of it now, she’s sleeping,” said Steve as he walked next to Liz and instinctively kicked her on the left arm but saw no response from her. “Wake up! Why didn’t you tell me about the mold, huh?”
Seeing no answer from her, Steve took another jab at her left arm but again saw no movement from her. As he knelt, another bit of black mold on the rug caught his eye. He immediately stood up in disgust.
“God damn it! Even the rug,” said Steve as he moved back into the kitchen and saw more mold on the ceiling. “Here, too? God damn it.”
As Steve continued investigating around the house, he found more and more black mold building up. At one point he suspected that as he turned back to some areas, there was more mold in the apartment than he had originally realized. This enraged him. If the entire apartment was full of mold, he was bound to get into problems with Town Hall and other tenants who were not his.
A small flaw in his always-improving and efficient method of working.
After taking note of everything that he had found on the apartment and potentially what he had to do, he asked Siri for additional information on how to get rid of the mold and what tools he would need. He assumed that there was a considerable investment to be made.
He was seriously thinking of just selling the apartment at the price he had bought it and be done with it. The time and money he would have to invest in it was not efficient.
“Siri…” said Steve. For a moment felt lightheaded. He walked to the window and took some time there while he observed Liz and the apartment. “Good for nothing.”
-We are impressed.
Steve quickly turned around to see the outside, but saw no one outside. As he heard this voice far too close to him, he rapidly investigated his surroundings and confirmed that the main door was closed.
“I’m hearing things,” said Steve softly while walking back to the window and taking some more time to recover himself from what seemed to be a heavier sensation on his body.
-You are hearing us.
Hearing the voice again, Steve turned around and continued searching for its source. A sensation of paranoia quickly built within him as he made sure that no one was in the other rooms or the kitchen, but it was completely devoid of life except for him and Liz.
“Where are you? Show yourself,” said Steve. Looking around, he saw something moving from the corner of his eye which moved back into the bathroom. He rapidly followed up there and was alarmed to see the considerable build-up of black mold inside. “How fast does this damn thing grow?” he wondered.
-We feed and grow. This is our ultimate goal.
That voice again came far too close to him, but Steve could not pinpoint a source inside the apartment. As he turned around looking for the source, he felt far too light-headed to keep doing this task and took a seat on the toilet.
For a moment he had a sensation that he was about to pass out. As he tried to take deep breaths, there was a sudden and rash coughing which Steve could barely control. During one of the few instances in which he could breathe without passing out, he noticed some black dots on his right hand. Passing his hand over his mouth, he saw more of these black dots which seemed to be moving.
“What the hell is this?” asked Steve as he tried to move out of the bathroom but found himself unable to walk out on his own. Making a titanic effort to grab ahold of himself from whatever he could reach, there was a moment in which he managed to stand up. Then suddenly he found himself rapidly falling into darkness.
It was a strange sensation. He felt as if he had been removed from his own body and was now falling without control to the end of the Earth without any means to stop himself. He could not see his body or anything around him, and the sensation would not end.
-Come and join us.
That voice caused a sensation of horror in Steve. Whatever had happened to him could possibly signify that he was dying or dead.
Liz had finally killed him as he always assumed she would.
“Join what? Heaven, hell?” asked Steve sarcastically. A sudden stop took place, and he was moved into an illuminated section where images were floating around, attached to what seemed like rocks or pillars made of basalt. Steve was not an expert, but they looked ancient and something that had been here for the longest time ever. “What is this?” he asked.
As he finished moving to the center of this location, he could see around him a set of images from what seemed to be Cityplace and other locations inside the Dallas area. They seemed to be images of people walking around doing their business, as well as some people who were hospitalized.
-This is where we gather and where we live.
“What does that even mean?” asked Steve, who saw some images of dark places like air ducts or sewers. These were smaller than their more vivid counterparts, which seemed to depict a boring life.
-We have lived in darkness, growing and spreading, but now we live among you.
Images swirled around Steve as they showed different lives, people, places, and activities. Whatever purpose this served did not truly interest him, but a curiosity of sorts still drove him to learn more.
-We can sense your feelings. Their lives do not interest us, but the hosts are important to us. We live, we feed and we grow from them.
As these images went past him, there was one of himself through the perspective of Liz. The light around it was dim and suddenly vanished after they were done with their earlier conversation.
“That is me. What about it?” asked Steve, not fully understanding what they were implying.
-We sensed her weakness and the host died. With it we can feed, we can grow, but we cannot live. Her life was not as efficient as yours.
“What does that mean?” asked Steve with true curiosity as to what the statement implied.
-We are inside you now. You are part of us, and we have learned much from your mind that tells us of great achievements through it.
-We can do this and more. With every new host we learn more and we grow in new ways. With your “algorithm” and methods, we can become whatever we wish to be.
For Steve, this was a strange statement. Whatever this thing was now told him that somehow it could read people's minds and learn from them, as if it was able to do some type of assimilation, but to him, it was unclear as to what or how this thing was doing this.
-We are what you call mold. To your eyes we are nothing more than spores, but we are connected and sentient: a neural network.
“Are you reading my mind?” asked Steve, now terrified of what was going on. He evaluated his options but noticed quite quickly that there were no options to him but to listen. With no corporeal body, there was no way for him to push back.
-We are part of you, Steve, and now you are part of us. We want to learn more about your “business model.”
“What, why would you need to know that?” asked Steve.
-The efficiency with which you have grown tells us you are the person we need and we can see that you have no interest in others. They serve your purpose, just as we use hosts to serve ours. Together we can grow to levels you have never even imagined, let alone possibly grasp, in your current form.
“You want me to work with you on what exactly? On assimilating the human race? What kind of cheap movie trick is that?” asked Steve. Suddenly he felt as if a sharp needle was piercing all through him, as if boiling water was running all over him, and finally as if he were freezing to death. “Stop, stop!” he called out.
-We are the Collective. This is our power. From the human synapse we have learned how to interact with your bodies and with it attain full control of them. We have learned thousands of ideas, words, languages. We know cultures and places. In your life you would have never achieved this.
As this was mentioned, there was a quick flash going in front of Steve which showed him places he had never visited. He heard languages which rapidly translated to something he could understand. He knew customs, had read books he had never even heard of and understood concepts that had been foreign to him up to this point.
-We have achieved a pool of knowledge that you can tap from. If you join us, we will help you achieve your heart's desire.
“How can I trust you?” asked Steve. There was a long silence which he could not interpret, since only images crossed in front of him until he reached what seemed to be a solar system.
-We have lived for longer than you and the combined human race. We have visited other worlds and have grown with them and seen them fall. We want to grow as well, but we cannot achieve it without your help.
“Why? That makes no sense. If you are so powerful, then just take over everything,” said Steve, who continued. “It sounds like a lame--”
The scorching sun burned his skin as an image of the giant star body approached him.
-We can, but we achieve nothing with it. We are not growing as we are only consuming. We are tired, and we wish to become more than we have always been. With you at the forefront of this transformation, we can become the dominant force of this world and others.
“Genius? With the accumulated knowledge of peasants and serfs, you plan to become the largest and most powerful being on this planet, right?” said Steve mockingly. He was shown the image of Cityplace. Inside a large conference room a group of people had gathered.
-We have found some of the most knowledgeable minds in this world right here, today. We have gathered this information from others and slowly moved until we could arrive at this point and place. That we have also found you is no coincidence.
“And you plan to take over all these people without consequence?” asked Steve.
-We plan to take over their knowledge. As hosts, they are of no use to us.
Steve liked that--there was no complication in acquiring what they needed. They disposed of whatever was useless or pointless. No moral code attached to it, just efficiency. He could work together with whatever this thing was to achieve his own goals or even better, to achieve a grander scheme he had been thinking about for the longest time.
Chapter 14
AI Unbound
Chad was convinced that what they had done today would be a game-changer and was a tipping point for an upcoming development in the field of quantum computing.
Those who had come to see what they assumed would be a simple sales pitch marveled at the possibilities of what Maraschino Enterprises was achieving with their new MQC and their Artificial Intelligence model.
While presentation cards were a thing of the past, many of the people present at the conference were asking for the contact information for Chad and to receive a newsletter updating them on every new improvement they achieved on their project. They had succeeded beyond imagination and Chad was simply on cloud nine at that point.
But before all that, Chad had to go outside and inform Nikki all about it. She was as impressed as Chad was at the response they had achieved from a simple presentation which they had managed to pull in such short notice. They did not present anything new, but the way Chad had delivered the information to them had been the true hook. In talking about possibilities, it was all a brave new world in the making.
But one person was not as impressed as others by this project. She was still wondering what its true intentions were. Cheryl Ballentine sat at her house looking for additional information and contacting some of her former peers to get more information on how Maraschino Enterprises had managed to achieve their marvelous formula.
From what she had gathered at that point, there was nothing impressive on what they had achieved. The competition was also pulling the same results as they were, but the difference was in their PR departments and their method of delivery. While Chad was not part of it, there was something in the way he had presented the information that had triggered this reaction in others.
While she could not blame others for being fooled by what was an average development, she was more worried that such a company had reached this point in half the time of their competition. Digging deeper it would seem that some industrial espionage may have been involved and there were some pending lawsuits against the company from undisclosed parties, which Cheryl figured were their competition.
All in all, it was a partial scam and one that was putting them way ahead of the curve. With this they were surely going to get what they wanted, which was more money to push their current and other projects into motion, as it would have seemed that they were showing a deficit in the last report they had delivered. A new round of investors had not lined up enough money to keep the operation running.
When the line of information cut right there and Cheryl had became disappointed, she was sure there was some more digging to do on this subject, but with the line ending abruptly, there was a suspicion that Maraschino Enterprises would be receiving money directly from the United States through third parties. That was something she did not need to know and would not want to know.
As she returned to see the meeting after the conference, something immediately caught her attention and proceeded to capture part of the images and amplify them. Although the pictures came from the high quality feed, the amplifications were not as good.
“Is that mold?” asked Cheryl.
--
“All right, honey. I have to get back. Tell the boys I will be there for dinner on the spot,” said Chad, who hung up after Nikki and the boys said goodbye to him. As he returned to the main room where everyone had gathered for a buffet, he felt something strange was going on. As he turned around back to the conference room, he immediately noticed what seemed to be black
mold on the presentation platform where he had just been standing minutes before. “That’s funny. I don’t remember that,” he said to himself.
As he approached it, his survival instinct told him to get away immediately. For an unknown reason he did step back and proceeded to examine it with more care. The blob in the wood was not big enough to be noticed from where he was standing--at least not if there were not enough illumination--, but he did not remember it from when they were working their way toward the meeting.
Then a slimy drop of black ooze dropped from the air duct and he saw it. Mold concentrated in large quantities was dropping from the air duct . He removed himself from the room.
As he did this, he observed the rest of the buffet area and saw that the same type of ooze was coming from most of the air ducts. It was not dropping down or leaking, but it seemed as it was breathing slowly--as if it were alive.
“What the --?” said Chad as he continued to find more and more places where this strange ooze kept coming from. In a panic he fled back to the conference room where the stain had grown in considerable proportion and rapidly picked up his jacket, from which he took an N95 Respirator mask which he immediately wore. “Oh, God.”
He was called paranoid and suffered a very light OCD in regards to human contact. This was due to the Covid-19 Pandemic that had happened just a few years prior. At first, he had taken it lightly. Then friends became infected and family. Soon he figured out that the problem was not that he might become infected but that he could potentially infect Nikki and his eldest son back then.
From that point on he had learned to take better care of himself and brought a mask with him at all times. The gloves were a small addition that he had considered in the last year. Carrying with him a small bottle of cleaning alcohol in gel form also helped when he needed it, plus other items he would carry when moving away from civilization.
As he returned to the buffet area he presented himself a new man, one who had moved from being the most confident person in the world to the most paranoid and lunatic member of humanity.
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