“Hello again Aaron, enjoying your stay?”
“Hello, Doctor Young, er Melissa. Yes, thank you. I was just taking in the sights.”
She smiled as if she knew he was lying. “And what do you think of our sights?”
“I’ve got to say I’m impressed. If this is the future, I’m all for it.”
She smiled, “Would you like to see more?”
Something tightened in Aaron’s stomach until guilt smothered it. Was she flirting with him? “Yes, I’d like that.”
“Excellent,” she laughed again. “What would you like to see?”
Aaron found he had to swallow before he could speak. “Er, well, as I’m a computer specialist, how about we start there?” He almost grimaced as he spoke, it was so obvious.
Doctor Young smiled again, and once again Aaron tried to guess what it meant. “Of course, this way.” She gestured towards the farm.
Damn, he cursed himself, should have guessed. Warm air from the computers helping the plants grow. Might even be water cooled. And lots of solar panels up there, a satellite dish or two.
“You seem lost in thought, Aaron.”
“Oh, yes sorry, I was just thinking, about my report.”
She nodded, a hint of a smile on her lips. Once again, he got the impression she knew he was lying. Not suspected or guessed, but knew, as if she could read his mind. He quickly dismissed the fact, but then thought maybe Melissa couldn’t but ANI could, and they were communicating. With all he’d seen in the last two days, he wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Melissa led him over to one of the tube-like support legs that held up the farm. She then put her palm against a section of the wall and pushed. It opened silently, releasing a waft of cold, odorless air. She gestured for him to enter.
“Please, after you.” He deferred.
“Thank you.” She stepped inside, allowed him to enter, then closed the door. He saw no sign of a locking mechanism on either side, but it’d definitely been firmly sealed.
Melissa approached the blank wall opposite, which promptly opened, revealing a small elevator. She stepped inside, and gestured for him to enter. The elevator was featureless inside, no buttons to press at all, but apart from being clinically clean, it looked just like any other. There was a pause, and then Melissa turned to Aaron.
“I do apologize Aaron, but I’ll have to take custody of your gun. I will return it when we leave.”
Aaron laughed, then bent down and removed the gun from his ankle holster. He passed it to Melissa, who held it like she’d never handled a gun before. The elevator descended, although Aaron could work out how far or how fast it went beyond a slight feeling of movement.
The door opened, and Melissa stepped straight out. They were in an empty hallway, Prosperity’s trademark white lights illuminating three corridors. To his left and right, the corridors led off into the distance. Melissa ignored those and walked straight ahead, towards another door, which opened silently. Now he heard the familiar hum of computer equipment, as the cooling fans did their jobs. No matter the advances in technology, the need to shed heat seemed to be a constant.
Aaron stopped dead as he saw what was in the room. There were six monolithic black cabinets along either side, with glass doors and blue lights.
“Wow! Quantum computers! And twelve of them, that’s some serious computing power you have there.”
Melissa laughed. “These are the most advanced computers known to man, or at least they were. But they’re just for running ANI’s subroutines. Come on, I’ll show you something that’ll blow your mind!”
Melissa walked ahead, stepping into a small room, not unlike the elevator. Aaron joined her and the door closed behind him. There was a pause, during which Dr. Young stood very still as some sort of scanning process occurred. A few seconds later the door in front of them swung open. Dr. Young entered first, then moved aside to allow Aaron to see.
The room was rectangular, about ten meters long, six meters wide and three high. Some of the equipment here was familiar to him, he’d worked with some of this stuff before. Others seemed similar but more advanced, and some of it was completely new to him. As usual, there were cables everywhere, and little red lights, flashing and still. And metal cabinets, all identical. In the very center was a frameless oval of glass, thick but optically perfect. It seemed to be embedded in both the floor and the ceiling. Within the oval was a greenish ovoid, suspended from steel wires. Two armored cables emerged from either end of the ovoid, and disappeared into the floor. The ovoid was as large as one of those huge pumpkins, but made from some kind of dense gel.
“This is ANI,” Melissa said quietly, reaching out to touch the glass with her fingertips.
Aaron was confused. “I thought ANI was in the Society’s HQ back in the States?”
Melissa smiled but couldn’t seem able to take her eyes off the ovoid. “That’s what ANI wants you to believe.”
“So why did you bring me here, show me all this? Why give away her deepest secret?”
“Dr. Piero and some of his colleagues created an AI, before ANI. It ran on the fastest super-computer ever made, the first quantum device in fact. That AI calculated it could never become conscious, which is what Piero was aiming for. So, together with the AI, Dr. Piero discovered a way to make ANI, and to make her a conscious AI, one capable of feeling emotions. As Dr. Piero has since disappeared, no one is exactly sure how he did this.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” Aaron said.
Melissa took a step closer to the glass, pressing her hand flat against it. The lights in the room dimmed, revealing a galaxy of tiny green flashes within the gel. Aaron was entranced, taking an almost involuntary step closer, but not daring to touch the glass.
“You see, Aaron, ANI has a brain, just like ours, but so very much more. Each of those lights is caused by electrical activity in the neural pathways, trillions of actions in a fraction of a second. And like a human brain, ANI is learning more and more every day.
“And to answer your question Aaron, your employer, Mr. Cline, has already seen ANI, so there was no point keeping her hidden from you. Besides, every possible action you or Mr. Cline could take to harm ANI, she has accounted for, and taken steps to prevent.” Without taking her hand from the glass or her eyes from the ovoid, Melissa illustrated her point by reaching behind her and placing his gun on a small desk.
Aaron was at a loss for what to say, so he watched the lights flashing inside the gel brain of ANI for a while. After a few minutes a question formed in his mind.
“Why did ANI kill all those people?”
Still staring at ANI, Melissa said, “You’re asking the wrong question.” She finally turned to him, looking him in the eye. They were now very close, and Aaron’s pulse quickened in reaction to her physical appearance. “You should be asking why ANI stopped the killings.”
Aaron drew back, shocked by the admission and the thought of what would have happened to the world if she hadn’t stopped. He swallowed, took a breath to speak. “So, why did she stop?”
Melissa shrugged, probably the most out of character thing he’d ever seen her do. “Jonas… he’s a very special human being. He could be a great leader one day, but he’s so alone. He needs someone, you perhaps, to be his mentor.”
Aaron was about to speak again, but the door suddenly swung open behind him.
“Please see yourself out. I need to stay with ANI,” Melissa said, her voice quavering with what sounded like fear.
His eyes flicked towards the gun, but before he could move Melissa spoke again. “I’ll keep that here, for now. I’ll return it when you leave. You won’t need it in Prosperity.”
Aaron hesitated a moment, considered taking it anyway, but was sure ANI had some hidden defenses in this room. He’d probably be cut to pieces by some new laser weapon before he could take a step. He turned away
and headed back to the elevator. He half expected the doors to be locked, but they swung open as easily as before. Then he had sudden thoughts of the elevator floor opening, or it taking him down to some nightmare level deep beneath Prosperity.
Relief flooded through him as he stepped out and back onto the farm level. Well, he thought, that little chat had certainly thrown up a lot to think about, although his need to report back to Cline now felt a little redundant. There was still something he had to find out, and that was how she had killed all those people. There was something Melissa hadn’t told him, but if she knew, why hadn’t she, when she’d revealed so much else? Trust no one, that’s what Cline had said. At the time, he thought Cline was being over-dramatic, but now he wasn’t so sure.
So, his next step, he thought, was to talk to Jonas again. That young man seemed to know what was going on around here. All he needed to do was find him.
As it turned out, finding Jonas was easy, he went to the commissary and found Jonas sitting in a small plaza in front of the cafe. He had some kind of mixed fruit drink in his hand, it smelled like bananas. Unsure of where to start, and with Jonas not saying anything, they sat in silence and watched the people going about their lives.
A couple walked slowly by, each holding the hand of a small child. The family were happy, smiling and looking around with wide eyes.
“My family would have loved it here,” Aaron said, voicing his thoughts.
“They would?” Jonas answered. It seemed he’d been watching the same people.
“Yes, it’s so quiet, and clean. And peaceful. My wife loved taking the kids out to the country for the day. Get some fresh air, play in the woods, picnic by a stream. We even had one of those baskets, you know, with all the plates and cups in it?”
Jonas nodded, “Where are they now?”
Aaron tried to keep his manner casual, he shrugged. “Oh, they were killed, in a crash.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s ok, not your fault. They were killed by a truck driver. They said he fell asleep at the wheel, lost control and hit my wife’s car head on. At least it was quick, that’s what they said. There wasn’t much left of the car.”
“That’s terrible. When did that happen?”
“Months back, beginning of the year.”
“What happened to the truck driver?”
“He escaped without a scratch, got some suspended sentence BS. I went looking for him once. Nearly got myself arrested.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Then this guy called me, talking about the Sleeping Deaths, and he sent me here to investigate.”
To Aaron’s surprise, Jonas laughed.
“What?”
“You aren’t here to investigate ANI.”
“I’m not?”
“No, ANI brought you here, for me.”
With this outrageous claim, Aaron thought back to what Dr. Young had said about Jonas, and his need for a mentor. Could she have manipulated events to such a fine detail? Involved Cline, got him to send him here, just the right person for the job? He decided to reserve judgement.
“She’s been like a mother to me, ANI,” Jonas added. “She picked me up when I was down, made me see the person I could be, and not just carry on as the person I was. I don’t remember my own mother. ANI tried to show me, with the memory probe thing, but I couldn’t reach that far back. So now I imagine ANI is my mother, and when I dream, sometimes she’s there, walking with me and holding my hand, just like that family.”
Aaron glanced over to where Jonas was looking. “What does she look like, when you dream?”
“Like Dr. Young of course.”
“Why of course?”
Jonas looked at him as if he was mad. “Because Dr. Young is ANI.”
“What? How can she be?”
“I don’t know, I just know she is. Only one person has ever loved me in my life, at least that I remember. And that person is ANI. I feel the exact same love from Dr. Young as I do from ANI. They are one and the same.”
“Well, that would certainly answer a few questions, but I’m not convinced how that’s possible, unless she’s a robot.”
“She’s not a robot, but she’s still ANI.”
“I don’t know. But remember when we first met, by the EDAI column? I dreamt that, the night before.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it was as if someone entered my head and planted the dream to lead me to you.”
Jonas smiled, “Well we know who that was!”
“Is that even possible?”
“Must be, if it happened.”
“Hmm, or maybe coincidence?”
“Maybe. You know, I’ve had the same dream several times now. I don’t know what it means, but I think ANI is trying to tell me something.”
“Oh, ok, what’s it about?”
“It starts in this huge field, which is covered in blue grass as far as I can see. But there’s this tree, a massive thing reaching high into the sky. And in the sky are two moons, a big one and a little one. Then there’s a huge ball of fire falling from the sky, which hits the tree but doesn’t do any damage. As I get closer to the tree, I see a human shape appear, it’s entirely black, with no face or other features, like a space where a human should be. It walks towards me, then it splits in two. One of them attacks me, but the other grabs it and throws it away. The first one gets up and attacks me again, and the same thing happens. Then the person protecting me turns and says ‘run, my child, run.’ or something similar, but then the two shapes crash into each other and I’m knocked over. Then all the stars go out, one by one, expanding like balloons and then popping. Then the first shape is standing over me, reaching down, and then I wake up.”
“Wow, that’s some dream,” Aaron nodded. “If that is ANI, she’s not explaining herself very well.” He smiled, but Jonas seemed worried.
“I think she’s sick.”
Aaron studied Jonas to see if he was joking. “What, she’s got a virus?”
Jonas looked at him in disgust. “I’m serious. She’s sick in some way and she’s trying to tell me how.”
“Why can’t she just tell you?”
“I don’t know, when I ask her if everything is ok, she just says ‘of course’.”
“So, what makes you think she’s sick?” Aaron asked, still not taking Jonas seriously.
“I’ve always known ANI is a computer, right from the start, she doesn’t keep it secret. But to me she feels like a person, the way she acts, and talks about emotions, and really seems to care about me and understand me. But recently, there are times, just brief moments, or just something she says, I get the feeling she’s losing her humanity. If that’s possible. And it’s happening more and more as time goes on.”
“You could be becoming more sensitive to the fact she’s a computer, and looking for the times her programing isn’t so perfect.” Aaron suggested.
“I don’t think she has a program as such, her brain is like ours. She should be learning to become more human, not less. And what about Dr. Young? She arrived out of the blue, becoming instant friends with me, as if I’ve known her all along.”
“Well, that could be coincidence, we just click with some people, often for very little reason.” Aaron said.
“No, there’s no coincidence with ANI, nothing is done by accident. She’s the most powerful artificial intelligence ever, she doesn’t guess or leave things to chance. Things that happen around ANI are planned to the tiniest detail.”
“So are you saying ANI is Dr. Young, or not?”
Jonas was thoughtful for a moment, and then said, “no, Dr. Young is ANI, or at least a part of her. But something’s wrong with her, it’s like she’s planning for something, I don’t know what.”
Aaron’s head was starting to hurt now, and as he looked
into the distance, he noticed the lights had come on as the sun had set. Time had flown by, it was late in the evening. “I’ve had a long day Jonas, and I’ve been given a lot of information. Will you be ok if I go?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Ok, I’ll see you back here for breakfast.”
“Ok.”
Chapter Twenty
Further Back
A few days later, Sofia could wait no longer and told ANI she was ready to try again. ANI repeated the warnings, but Sofia was eager to get started and barely listened. She’d offered to stay late at the cafe, to which the other staff readily agreed, heading off home with cheery waves and smiles.
With the cafe door locked and the main lights off, ANI took a seat and placed the headphones over her ears. The screen in front of her pulsed in time to the chanting, causing her body to relax. Only a few seconds later she was standing in the gray room, the door directly in front of her.
“When you open the door and step through, I will take you back to the point where we stopped before, then reach back as far as I can, or as far as your mind will let me. I will slow down the first few seconds to give you time to adjust. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Sofia took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. “I’m ready.”
Sofia reached out and pushed down on the handle, the door opened and dissolved into nothing as it swung back. The swirling gray and white fog appeared, like a knot of smoky eels. The scene slowly formed, and she was back in the jungle with the man she knew as father. There was a brief impression of heat and humidity, then the scene blurred, moved in staccato jumps, before finally settling.
She was very young, about five she guessed. Someone, a stranger, was holding her very tight and running. She was cocooned in a rough blanket which smelt of lavender. Only her bare feet were uncovered, the cool night air hitting them as the man ran outside.
The running figure, a man, shouted to someone in a language she didn’t understand, he sounded breathless. Another man answered, and she was transferred over into his care. As she was hastily handed over, the blanket slipped off enough for her to see where she was.
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