James nodded. “So what do we do? Plot holes aside, Aldous’s method of testing A.I.s was ingenious. If that didn’t work, I don’t see what will.”
“Who says it didn’t work?” the A.I. replied, an eyebrow arched in challenge.
“Well, no offense, but you just admitted you’re flawed.”
“As are you,” retorted the A.I. “James, I’ve never claimed perfection as a personal attribute. It’s true, as my simulated skin was burned, I wanted to surrender the species in return for relief from the pain, but can you claim you would’ve acted differently?”
“I can’t say—”
“Exactly,” the A.I. replied. “None of us can know. As I’ve said before, we can only do our best.”
“But we’re talking about giving over the power of God—not a god—God. We can’t take chances.”
“Then we can’t insert a matrix program into Trans-human,” the A.I. replied, “because we’ll always be taking a chance.”
James furrowed his brow and rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. Despite his vast intellect while in the operator’s position, discussions with the A.I. still made him feel like a pupil. “Why not abandon trying to insert a new matrix program? Why don’t you take control of it? You can be Trans-human!”
The A.I. shook his head. “If I did that, you’d never know if everything I’ve done up to this point was a ruse to gain this ultimate control. No. That won’t work. Remember, I was bred to be selfless. I don’t know if it’s just my programming that makes me feel this way or not, but I have no desire to be God. Would you?”
James shook his head as well. “No...but for different reasons.”
“Which are?”
James bowed his head as he pondered his next words. “It seems like it would be a missed opportunity if I became Trans-human. We have the chance to create a completely new life form. I want to experience that.”
The A.I. grinned. “Interesting. Your response was unexpected. That is definitely the human part of you speaking, James. Your instinct to procreate is alive and well.”
James shrugged.
“I’m not judging,” the A.I. replied, holding his hands up. “I’m just saying, it’s quite a human reason indeed.”
“So there’s only one option left,” James said. “If we can’t create the perfect, infallible matrix program to become Trans-human, then, like you said, we just have to try our best.”
“Agreed...and of course I’m already on it. I took the liberty of accessing the database of A.I. candidates that Aldous accrued while building me. They remained on file, so I dusted them off and reinitiated the pairing program.”
“So Trans-human is going to be your little brother?”
“No, no. I’ve run the program for 1,000 generations, so it will be a distant cousin at best.”
A white light suddenly appeared to the their right, the tubular shape of the gate familiar to both James and the A.I.
“I’ve identified 100 candidates. Would you like to meet them?”
“Sure,” James replied, stepping off of the operator’s position with the A.I., the duo crossing to the light. “You know, Samantha was right.”
“About what?”
“People do like walking into mysterious white lights.”
***
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I want to thank my readers, and especially those on my Facebook “likes” page and those who have left positive reviews on Amazon. It’s because of your enthusiasm that this series is where it is today and that I have the career that I have. Your support has made my dream of becoming a full time writer come true, but this is only the beginning. Many of you have become my closest friends over the last year, and I cannot ever thank you enough!
I’d also like to thank my beta readers, Patricia Kenworthy, Matthew Drummey, Patrick Weddell, Adam Emrick for their time, input, and talent. This book is better because of your efforts.
I’d like to thank my editor, Autumn J Conley, for her talent and her ability to bring my work up to the next level. Thank you, Autumn.
I’d like to thank Paul Hurley for being my guy to bounce story ideas off of and for helping with the quality assurance process as well.
And, as always, I’d especially like to thank my wife. She is the cover artist, the interior designer, and the most trusted story advisor that I have. She’s my partner in all things and is simply the greatest wife in the universe and all other universes as well.
BOOKS BY DAVID SIMPSON:
POST-HUMAN SERIES:
POST-HUMAN SERIES VOLUME-1 (BOOK 1-2)
POST-HUMAN SERIES VOLUME-2 (BOOK 3-4)
SUB-HUMAN (BOOK 1)
POST-HUMAN (BOOK 2)
TRANS-HUMAN (BOOK 3)
HUMAN PLUS (BOOK 4)
INHUMAN (BOOK 5) AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER
HORROR NOVEL
THE GOD KILLERS
Table of Contents
Sub-Human
Post-Human
Trans-Human
Human Plus
ALSO BY DAVID SIMPSON
Table of Contents
Sub-Human
Post-Human
Trans-Human
Human Plus
Post-Human Series Books 1-4 Page 74