by David West
"Oh yeah?" I shouted and poked his burly chest. "Lara - let's show these noobs how it's done!"
20. Adam
After I introduced Lara to the A.I., I found myself left out of many inside jokes. I saw her less as well, as she and Aurora worked on their video game together. Aurora, however, warmed up to me. She scolded me for getting Lara in danger, but, quickly after, told me how happy she was that Lara met me. Lara has been happier, she told me in private.
Wade spent most of his time boasting about our last video game match. He was so amped up, that he accidently killed me a few times, trying to shoot Aurora. In the end, he was the victor, and Aurora gave him brief congratulations and moved on. He never let it go.
As for Lara and I, we have never been closer. There was half a day when we held hands, the entire time. When one of us needed to type on the computer, we worked up a solution where we would say the word, then type it together. I would use my left hand on the left side of the keyboard, and Lara, her right, on the right side of the keyboard. Wade and Aurora suggested we could just ask them to enter what we wanted to type, but Lara and I had too much fun doing it our way.
We had a lot to do before we had to go back to work, however. We went shopping, researching, and contacted old friends, to figure out how to protect ourselves from the CBA's future attack, which we knew was coming. Lara's apartment wasn't in her name, that's why they haven't showed up at our door. But, across the street, we would occasionally see suspicious vans drive around Jericho Communications, and we knew, if we were to return, they would apprehend us.
Running was not an option for Lara. She loved her family and her job. I agreed. A month or two ago, I would have had no problem leaving, but with Lara, and at Jericho Communications, life was as I always wanted it. I even liked Lara's dad, despite him not having the highest opinion of me.
Therefore, we had to plan for several situations where we had to confront the CBA, both inside agents, and out.
"My dad says he will give us three days off, so we have to make them count," Lara said to the room.
It was an actual virtual chat room, with Wade, Martin, Irene, Aurora, and me. Three other people were in the room, sitting at the round table. We were introduced to their leader, Willard, the main administer of Jericho city. He was a quiet man, and looked to have been from the dawn of computers. He dressed in blue robes, as a wizard. Whenever Lara and I would speak, he would look up at us, and his tired eyes would have a new light that shined in them.
They were all in a system that wasn't occupied by A.I. - it hosted as a private meeting place of Jericho A.I. The room echoed, as it looked to be a futuristic cathedral, with blue, yellow and red dim LED lights that lit up the corners, and schematic patterns glowing in stained glass. It was very peaceful, and even though Lara and I were looking through Aurora's monitor, we felt like we were there, sitting at the black, round marble table with them.
"I think we should get tracking devices and set them up in all of your systems," I suggested. "An old friend told me about them. They aren't too big. We can put them in the desktop cases."
"Yes," Willard agreed.
"I will order the tracking devices tonight, have them shipped to the office, and install one on every computer system in Jericho Communications. It's a good idea even if the CBA weren't after us," Lara announced, squeezing my hand.
"Isn't that a bit of an invasion of our privacy?" one of Willard's men argued.
Willard chortled. "Are you planning on going somewhere other than your desk?" he mocked. "We shall have tracking devices. A splendid plan."
An ancient computer liked our idea! I continued to tell myself to keep face, but I could feel the corners of my mouth giving me away.
"We will need to get into the office without the CBA knowing, though," Lara pointed out.
"With Adam's track record, I don't think he will have a problem accomplishing that," Aurora said bitterly.
"Irene and I can devise another plan!" Wade exclaimed excitedly. Aurora made a displeased snort, but he completely ignored it. "This time, maybe you can actually land on the roof."
"The infamous break in. You really caught us by surprise when you stole that information," Willard's right hand man said.
"What do we do about the outside agents?" Martin asked. "How will we stop them from apprehending Adam and Lara?"
There was a long pause before the first person spoke.
"How about we contact the local news when they make their move? The CBA won't want to be seen by them," Aurora inputted.
"We will need to be a step ahead of them," I said. "We will need to know when they will make their move."
"The vans that patrol the parking lot around the office - they might have computers in them. The A.I. of Jericho Communications can try to hack into them. They know that Willard won't allow them to take us, but they won't expect him to send an attack on their vans," Aurora finished, satisfied with her strategy.
"Task some of our men to scout for wireless connections outside Jericho Communications. Find the CBA agents," Willard ordered one of his men.
"What if they come in and, well, try to eliminate us?" I asked, starting to realize how surreal it all was. A government black-ops team was out for my neck. Mine. How strange...
"Bring some of the weapons that you acquired at Machine Mountain," Martin said. "To protect yourselves."
"You should also install security in the building," Irene added. "Such as armored doors that are computer controlled, and will go, 'faulty', to keep the CBA out, if just to slow them down."
"Vern could help us with that," Aurora said positively.
I wasn't so positive. "He might not be willing to help us, actually. When he saved Lara and I in Machine Mountain, he made it clear that if we died on opening weekend, they would shut him down, and that's why he helped us."
"Oh, so the valorous Vern was just trying to save his own neck?" Wade chuckled, attempting to pick a fight with Aurora.
"If he were to be deleted, then he wouldn't be able to bring happiness to millions of users hearts each year," she shot back.
"Oh yeah, I'm sure-" Wade began, but was cut short by explosions of fire streaming up to the ceiling, lasers pointing in synchronization and fog forming from the cathedral's port entrance.
"An attack! Defensive positions everyone!" Willard roared, pointing at the port.
The port, however, was now a stage, and the A.I. were in the front row of a huge audience. The audience were cheering and clapping around them. Every one of them was peculiar, however. They were textureless, and faceless, each one a different color. They were just animations - only decorations in the room.
On stage, rose from the floor, two A.I., one skinny, the other stubby. They raised their hands, to hush the cheers.
"Ladies and gentlemen," a British accent announced from a recording in the large speakers on stage. "We are proud to present the founders of, The Underground Resistance - TUR!"
"I'd like to thank my mum," said the stubby, British A.I., but was quickly elbowed in the ribs by the other. "What? Are we not doing that anymore?"
"Who are you, and how did you get into Jericho Communications?" Aurora demanded, still gathering her defenses to boot them out.
"Nelson and Todd," Todd introduced casually, motioning to his skinny friend and then himself. "When my cousin Bret knew his organization, Jericho, was fighting the CBA, he thought to include us. Oh, but, he told me not to say he referred us, so if you could forget that I told you that."
"Bret the Brit - I knew it was a mistake when Aaron imported that PC from Europe," Aurora growled scornfully.
The thinner British man stepped to the front of the stage. "Please, we want to help, in any way we can," Nelson said whole-heartily.
"It's nice to meet you!" Lara greeted excitedly.
Nelson stood, frozen, looking up at her. He began to walk to the left side of the screen, never breaking contact with Lara eyes, and we followed him with our eyes. He then ran to the right of the screen, faked
left, ran right some more, and then suddenly gasped.
"Everyone," he whispered. "Stay as quiet and still as you can. The users of this system can see us. We must act as if this is a viral video that they stumbled upon." Nelson thought we weren't supposed to see them, and tried taking control of the situation by tricking Lara and I into thinking we were watching a fictional video.
"One of us needs to do something hilarious," Wade encouraged, wide-eyed with enthusiasm. He wanted them to do something silly, I could tell. "Then they will truly think it is a viral video, and then we can send them on their way to a webpage... or something."
The two stood, as deer looking into headlights. We, including the rest of the chat room, watched Todd and Nelson, waiting for their plan to develop. Todd's face turned a bit red, as if under pressure, and then a long and quiet whisping sound came from behind him, as he rose one leg casually. The gas sound continued for a few seconds, never climaxing.
It seemed as though Wade's plan backfired, though, because instead of laughing, he just had an uncomfortable look on his face.
"I'm Lara, and this is Adam," Lara greeted, as if nothing had happened.
"Of course," Nelson said, realizing that we were the users who knew about A.I. "Bret told me about the two of you. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Well, you know about them, what about you? I've never heard of The Underground Resistance," Aurora stated. With a few commands, the front row they were sitting at rotated into the round table again and the audience disappeared, along with the lasers and fog.
"Yes, we're that underground. We mostly do more subtle work, such as charities for those affected by the CBA," he informed.
"What can you offer us?"
"Right, why we are here... We have over one thousand A.I. freedom fighters, ready to join you in your cause," Nelson announced.
"One-thousand and six," Todd added.
"Although, some of our men have slow internet connections, or live out of the country."
"Ninety-one percent," Todd interrupted again.
Nelson gave his partner a cold stare before he continued in irritation. "Some of our men, like I said." He then scanned over us with a seriousness about him.
"And most of them aren't trained in the art of war," Todd made clear.
"Alright, fine! You give the presentation!" Nelson yelled, fed up with Todd interrupting him.
"I'm your partner - not your representative," he chuckled, as if absurd.
"Whatever," he said, all professionalism gone. "There you have it. We may not have an army and they may not be as trained and powerful and fast as the Jericho A.I. - but they're good A.I., ready to die for the cause."
"Except Glen - he's a proper tosser," Todd stated.
"Well, yes, Glen is a bit of an ass," his friend agreed quietly.
"Well, you sound like a group that can aid us. Welcome aboar..." Willard began, but paused as Nelson began flickering in a stasis. "Is he having internet difficulties?"
"Oh, it's nothing, he'll be back in no time," Todd reassured. "His user is probably just downloading dirty videos again."
21. Wade
We felt on top of the world. The Underground Resistance was introduced to the rest of the A.I. in Jericho, and we all went hard to work, on preparing the office, and our firewall.
The security coders made new, unique, intruder protections, so it would be increasingly difficult to find any loopholes in Jericho's systems. Lara told her father about her plans for the new security in the office, such as the security doors, and he agreed to order and install them. Our community came alive. Aurora told me that they had never been so involved with one another.
She also told me about Vern - he was going to help. Vern pointed us to the security doors, windows and surveillance, which we would need. He reprogrammed the commands so we could control them, the A.I., and not just the human security guards sitting lazily in the office.
It was obvious why he was doing this for us. He wanted Aurora for himself, why else? She swooned whenever he spoke to her, and he would flaunt his hardware whenever he could get the chance. It was sickening.
"It's the new Tremor model, X970," he bragged, revving his processor to illustrate the power.
"Isn't the X980 the newest in the line?" I pointed out, a bit cross.
"I will be getting the X990 installed next week. It is not that big of a deal though," he explained, his round avatar hovering around Aurora's main room. "The X990 is slightly faster than the X980, which is extraordinarily faster than the high end processors that the government uses."
"Wow," Aurora muttered in awe.
"Did it come with its own coffee maker?" I asked snidely.
"No. Those were installed in Machine Mountain separately. I believe your user got a hot coco from one of the dispensers," he pointed out.
"Yeah. And he said it was delicious," I replied, but for some reason I tried to make it sound like that was a bad thing.
He fit in so well in Aurora's living space. I was jealous. He flew around the space ship's deck hall, examining all of Aurora's strange inventions. I stood, looking like a user from the nineties, unsure if the gadgets were right side up or not. Even his metal plated skin matched her ship's color.
At the end of the day, she looked at me as if I were an annoying person that she had to deal with. It hurt. It felt like the pain was coming from my power supply.
"Will you be joining us in the public forum? It will be taking place in the great hall - where we hold most of our city's meetings. We've never held a public meeting in our city before, so it will be a big event," Aurora happily invited Vern.
"I will observe it," he replied. "I must tend to Machine Mountain for now. Alert me of any CBA presence, if you will."
His avatar beamed out of the ship when he disconnected. Aurora made it so everyone's avatar beamed out, upon leaving. It was quite a cool way. Mine and Martin's systems just make the avatars vanish.
Vern left one thing behind when he left; Aurora's gorgeous smile still lingered.
"Still fawning over the prince of Machine Mountain?"
"You're still here?" she asked, pretending she hadn't noticed.
"Alright, I'll see you at-" I began, but she cut me off.
"Wade, I'm joking. How is Adam?" she asked, suddenly taking a gentle tone. She then walked into one of her projects. She actually walked into it. Like an illusion on the eyes, it seemed as if she shrunk into the small, rotating object.
Outside the minimized project, I wasn't sure what to do. I only approached it and looked down at the very complicated construction. It looked like a galaxy connected by lines. When I looked closer, along the lines had pictures, coding, models, notes and plots. When I looked even closer, a circuit textured arm reached out, took me by the shirt, and pulled me inside.
Inside, I was in a world that was frozen in time. Flying cars were in suspension, high above us. Character models that were never identical to the other, including their clothes, hair, and even stance, were in mid-step, waiting for a flying bus, or sitting in a trash-ridden park, reading a newspaper or using newspapers as shelter. It was a futuristic world, like none I'd seen before.
"How is Adam handling with the preparations?" she repeated.
"Adam is doing fine- What is this place?" I asked, amazed by the entire scene.
The buildings around were either dirty, or riddled with graffiti, as well as the shacks, which I had guessed the people of this futuristic city used as homes. Aurora took me by the elbow and led me into the cleanest building, which stood out like a sore thumb. It looked like a metal barn. Inside was spacious, as it held all of the world's main pieces, such as the protagonist, who stood, arms out like a cross, looking identical to Aurora. Most of the models stood in the same stiff position, for easy modeling, all lined up around the warehouse.
"It's a video game Lara and I are creating," Aurora answered, admiring all she had done. She looked around with a satisfied smile.
"Who's this handsome guy?" I poin
ted at the plain clothes, textureless and faceless mannequin. I read the label above it:
Protagonist's Love Interest
Aurora froze in place. Slowly she turned to face the model, horrified, for some strange reason. When she saw the model, she sighed and continued to smile.
"The dummy," she answered in relief.
"The protagonist is a lucky gal," I said sarcastically, moving on to other places in the room.
I saw a cell phone model and picked it up, pressed a couple buttons on it, it beeped and booped, and then placed it down. When I set it down, though, it slipped off the pedestal it was stationed on, and fell to the ground, breaking into a dozen pieces. Aurora marched over and picked it up, putting back together again.
