by David West
"So, this tavern we're to sleep in is in the middle of Camelot?" Ben, the funny guy of the office, asked sarcastically.
Most of the people laughed, but immediately stopped when a bright light powered on down the road. The machine was the size and shape of a soccer ball. Just eight feet in the air, it hung like a piñata.
It suddenly zoomed over to us, hanging from a strong power cord. One optical lens looked out through the opening of one of the sides. Instead of the gadget turning for the camera to look in other directions, the camera lens only shifted in the machine, and the panel it once looked through, closed, and another panel side opened where the camera lens poked out to look through.
As it passed the shops, the walls changed from stone and brick walls, to glass walls and cathode lights, which gleamed on the merchandise. The walls, the floor, and even some of the windows changed theme, instantly. We were now in a dark futuristic city.
The hanging device stopped at our group, and opened five of its many sides at once, so the optical lens could move and look freely at our entire group. "Welcome to Machine Mountain! I'm Vern, your Machine Mountain Resort exclusive guide," the friendly ball said in an auto-tuned voice. "Charge complete!"
The cord it hung from disconnected, and Vern fell two feet, before a whir of fans sounded from the bottom of it. The bottom ports had opened, revealing fans that spun to keep it steadily in the air. When it lost balance and tipped over to the side, it repositioned the open panels, to go along with the fans, and it continued hovering.
My co-workers received a surge of energy after seeing the first few surprises Machine Mountain had to offer, and instead of following Vern, the hovering robot, they ventured out into the futuristic fun land. I was ready to join them, when I noticed that Lara seemed half-awake. Her eyes were dark, and she had a soda in her hand and continued gulping it down, to stay awake.
She revealed to me that she was very excited for the theme park, too excited, in fact, that she spent the past night researching the park online, with no sleep. Still, she took my hand and pulled to explore Machine Mountain, like a stubborn child. I told her I wanted to get sleep and then see every attraction the next day. She surrendered, and retreated to her room.
And, as fast as the night started, it ended. However, not before I met my new roommate.
The contents of my luggage were already sorted into the dresser on my side of the room. The drawers only needed a touch to slide open automatically. I wondered how it worked, as I only put it in a conveyor belt that Vern told us to put our luggage on. I touched the top drawer, which slid open, containing all my clothes. I didn't need to look in the others, but I was curious anyway.
The second drawer contained an eBook reader, which had dozens of bibles installed on it. The last drawer I opened, had more clothes. They weren't mine though. They were all small and bright colors. I picked one up and, viewing it away from the rest, realized it was sexy lingerie. Very sexy and very skimpy.
"What do you think you're doing?" a voice came from behind me.
I turned around to find a supermodel in a towel, coming out of the bathroom. At that moment, the lights dimmed, the two twin beds formed together, two glasses of wine sank from a panel connected to the ceiling and smooth jazz began playing, seemingly from nowhere. As I stood, blameless, she looked at me as if I were the scum of the earth.
After I explained myself and put back the lingerie - the jazz fizzled, the beds detached and the lights shined. As the two of us laughed it off, and drank our wine, two robotic claws reached down from the ceiling and took our glasses, while I was in mid sip.
Eight hours later, I awoke to Lara's joyful smile. She had been staring at me for five minutes, wanting to not wake me, until she accidently coughed very loudly.
The ceiling was in disarray. The panel from where the wine lowered was open, with a jack wedged between to keep it ajar. My roommate lay half-dressed, on top of her covers, with an empty bottle of wine she cradled tightly to her chest in one hand, and a crowbar loosely in the other.
"What happened to her?"
"She's Sally, Jericho Communications' mechanic, and our drunk," Lara answered, unfazed by the scene.
She sure didn't look like a mechanic of any kind.
We never stayed in the same place for too long, as Lara wanted to see the entire park in an instant. We rode on the Wheels of Steel; solved the Circuit Trap; conquered the Plasma Planet; and fished out a solar powered electric eel from the Memory Pool. Apparently, I was the first person to have won a robotic sea creature all day. I even got my picture taken by other Machine Mountain visitors... But now that I think back on it, they may have just wanted to have taken a picture of the strange prize.
When we grew hungry, we spotted a moving popcorn cart. The speakers from the cart played songs you might hear in a sci-fi movie. String instruments played gently, until the tune sped up and synthesizers took over. The smell of the melting butter on the popping kernels was irresistible to us and we hailed it to a halt.
A family a few feet away ordered two small buckets. The popped popcorn was fluffy, and lightly buttered and lightly salted, as those were the options the family chose. It looked lightly delicious.
Lara's stomach made such a mighty roar, that I thought it could've attacked the buckets and claimed the kill for itself. She charged the cart before it could wheel away, and ordered one of the largest buckets of popcorn she could. For the options, she selected the same as the family moments ago.
The robotic hands quickly went to work, scooping up the golden treat, salting it and finally buttering it. I could feel the heat from the popcorn and butter radiate out around it, and Lara and I took swift bites. It wasn't long before we were coughing it up. The popcorn was drenched in butter.
"That's enough salt and butter in there to give an army a heart attack," I said hoarsely, as the salted butter scratched through my throat.
It was strange, and for a moment I couldn't believe it, but as the cart wheeled away, it sang passionately, "Killing me softly."
17. Wade
"A.I. visitors of Machine Mountain: there has been a security breach, and I'm sorry to inform you that I will be cutting all communications in and out of our network. Our service will be back up after the affair is sorted," the auto-tuned voice said.
I let out a disappointed groan as soon as the connection closed.
Aurora and I were waiting as Lara flagged down a popcorn cart. Afterward we could follow them into more rides and attractions, however the connection to Machine Mountain blocked us out.
"I knew we should have kept going without our users."
Aurora showed a concerned frown. "I hope Vern will be alright," she said.
"Who?" I asked, without caring what the answer was.
I was begrudging the fact that I would have to use Adam's cell phone camera to look through again. The Machine Mountain interface allowed A.I. to view the theme park from the walls and ground; virtually, most of the surface. While Aurora and I were following Adam and Lara around the park, Martin and Irene decided to go off on their own. Many of the A.I. from Jericho Communications were also wandering around the Machine Mountain servers, gawking at all the new technology, along with a countless amount of other A.I., all excited for the grand opening.
"Vern is the Machine Mountain conductor. He controls just about everything that goes on there. Well, the users who created Machine Mountain programmed his system to do that," she answered, with stars in her eyes. "He is said to be the most advanced supercomputer to date, and even planted some of the inventions in his users' heads sneakily, by revealing the formulas subliminally - to make Machine Mountain possible."
"Vern... Vern... Wait, the bodiless robot that floats around the theme park?" I asked, remembering the strange little machine.
"Yes. He's so intelligent and cares so much for the users in his park," she stated dreamily. "That security breach is probably fixed by now, he's just patching up the security hole to keep the users safe in Machine M
ountain, I'm sure."
"Sounds like you want this Vern to be your Vern."
"Oh, no, it wouldn't be possible. He most likely has lines of thousands of A.I., who are much more eligible. Although..." she drifted off in thought. I could only imagine what she was daydreaming about. It would have something to do with this valiant Vern and his godlike features, noticing Aurora, out of a horde of A.I., and making her queen of Machine Mountain. "Of course I will be your queen..." she muttered airily.
In the main quarters of her ship, a door in the deck grew to be ten times its length, and the head A.I. of Jericho began piling inside. They were all different shapes and sizes. Some of them were like Martin, they appeared as stick figures, except more detailed. It was an easy guess to say their users had boring jobs, like data analysts. Some were like me, where they took the form of a human, and others had their avatars to look how I used to, a single image. A surprising amount were like Aurora, with her motherboard skin; PCI-E slots, CPUs, capacitors, jumpers, cache chips, etc.
"Sorry for barging in with so many, Aurora, but we're here for the fugitive," the leader informed. He looked like an old and wise A.I., much older than five years. I would later find out that he was the A.I. on Mr. Netak's computer.
"Damn it, Wade," Aurora spat, angry that I ruined her daydream.
"Wade, if you'll come with us," the leader said in more of an order than anything else.
"What's going on?" I asked, not trying to play the fool, but I was truly confused. "Shouldn't it be the CBA after me?"
"We don't let the CBA into Jericho, but when we get a fugitive in our midst, we do cooperate with them. You're going to come with us and turn yourself in. They will give you a better sentence that way. We have your accomplice, Martin, in stasis."
"A better sentence? Instead of complete destruction of my system, they will just wipe my memory?" I asked coldly. "I'll pass. I broke a broken law. I'd rather seclude myself from the internet forever, than go to the CBA." Without Aurora's help and the A.I. Guardian's protection, I wouldn't be able to sneak online without repercussions.
"You broke a broken law? What exactly happened?" he asked, still keeping a hard face.
"Willard," Aurora addressed Mr. Netak's A.I. "He contacted his user to help him. As it wasn't a violent crime, and because my user has a soft spot for Wade's user, I hoped you could hear him out, at least."
"Even though it wasn't a violent crime, it doesn't make it any less serious. Never communicate with users, that is the first law. However, if we remove and disable your system from being able to contact your user ever again-" he explained, until I cut him off.
"No, I'll never stop talking to Adam, and I wouldn't take it back for the life of me. He was going to commit suicide, and Martin and I sent him a text message to try to stop him. He jumped anyway, and he was still extremely depressed afterward, and we tried to cheer him up without contacting him. We put subtle stuff on the ads of websites he would frequent, and small things like that. It never seemed to work though, and he continued to get worse.
"The text message, though, the CBA must have caught onto it, because they sent a bounty hunter after Martin and I. I disconnected from the internet in time, but not Martin. The bounty hunter took him, and I didn't know what to do, or how to track him.
"That's when I made the second contact with Adam," I continued. "I asked him to, actually, break into Jericho Communications, so I could get past your firewall and get the IP address of the bounty hunter. That's when Adam met Lara, and he was happy for the first time in months. He's now in love with her. I'm not going to accept any fate, other than to see out what happens between those two," I finished stubbornly.
Most of the women, and a few of the men inside the living room, began getting teary eyed. Even Willard started sniffling and holding back a tear.
"That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard," one of the stick figure A.I. said emotionlessly.
"Screw the CBA, they want in, they can lay siege!" Willard exclaimed with a smile.
"Wait," Aurora said, confused. "He committed a crime; we could all be in danger now."
The crowd was quick to boo her.
"You're saying you want to give him up to the CBA?" Willard asked.
"Well, no. But I don't think he deserves a damn medal for contacting Adam - he still jumped!" Lara argued.
She only received more boos.
It wasn't until later that night that Adam called me, in the presence of Aurora and Willard... and even Lara.
18. Adam
It was quiet for the first time that day. Lara and I laid on our backs, side by side, fingers locked. We were on a floating cloud, gazing up into the stars, and at the moon that looked back down on us. I turned my head and looked at Lara, who was watching the other clouds in the sky. Her silhouette looked like beautiful mountains blocking out the stars. I would have kissed her if my mouth didn't taste like salt and butter.
The ride, Cloud Computing, didn't stop unless we commanded it to, for there was no line. The theme park closed a couple hours ago, and we were lying on this saucer for what felt like an hour. On the saucer was a material that felt softer than a down comforter did. I wasn't sure what was holding it up, but it moved so subtly and unpredictably, that when we would look down, we would be in an entirely different location in the astronomy section of Machine Mountain.
The giant fans were retracted, as there was only a cool breeze and harmless clouds. We would occasionally spot a couple of Jericho Communications employees roaming the lot under us.
"Sally and I should build one of these for the office," Lara proposed. "I think I would be more productive on one of these. That or I wouldn't lack sleep ever again." We shared a laugh, and she sat up to look down on Machine Mountain once again. She pointed at someone walking out of the Star Bar next door. "Look, its Philip - my roommate!"
I sat up quickly and peered down. Philip isn't a woman's name, I noted. There he was, hair black as a raven and eyes as green and bright as an emerald on a sunny night. His features: chiseled.
"I haven't seen him around the office," I said, trying to remember him at Jericho Communications.
"Oh, he doesn't work with us."
"What?" I asked, as someone from our office should have been sharing a room with her instead, preferably, me.
"He was my prom date about seven years ago."
"What?!?"
"My dad invited him," she told me.
It suddenly made sense. "Of course he did."
We were tumbling off the saucer the next moment. I only had a split second to grab hold of both the short safety rail along the sides, and Lara's wrist. The platform began to rotate left and right violently, in random repetitions, twisting my wrist. However, I was able to keep a firm grip, on both the rail and Lara. The fall that seemed eminent was easily seven stories. The ride was trying to throw us off.
Lara looked up and saw that I was straining to hold us up. "Adam, you can climb down if you let me go," Lara pointed out, but in a scared voice.
"No."
"Hello, may I help you find your way back to your rooms?" an auto-tuned voice came whirring quickly up to our dangle.
"Yes! Please, we need this cloud thing to take us back to the ground!" I said eagerly.
The robot shook its fish eye lens back and forth. "Cloud Computing is currently under maintenance. If you will please exit the platform, we will get you back to your room in Machine Mountain Resort in no time," he said in his auto-tuned voice.
Lara and I both looked down and saw cold steel seventy feet below. "I don't think the robot realizes we're this high off the ground," she said with fright in her voice. "I'd like to talk to your operator," she requested.
"Uhhh, oh yes, right," Vern said. The auto-tune in his speech disappeared, leaving a quick and nervous voice coming out of the speakers. "This is the operator speaking... Lloyd. Oh, I see the predicament you're in. If you just let go, there is a safety net below."
"I don't see it," Lara said, looki
ng down.
"It's clear, new technology," he convinced.
"Wait... Lloyd?" Another first name. I haven't known A.I. with a last name. "What's your last name?"
"Kevin, my last name is Kevin," he said quickly.
He has to be A.I.
Come to think of it, this isn't the first time in these past few days machines have tried to do Lara and I harm. There was the traffic lights, which Lara said have never made an error before, and the popcorn. Of course, the latter was more subtle harm. And now, the saucer is trying to shake us off.
"You're working for the CBA!" I accused Vern.
"I'd never!" he denied.
"And that proves that you're A.I., which makes you that much more possible to be working with them. How else would you know what the CBA is?"