by Simon Archer
“That feels great, girls, but you really don’t have to—” Just then, Vila took hold of the arch of my foot and squeezed. The relaxation flowed over my body like a warm bathtub full of water.
“Oh, wow,” I muttered.
Andi did the same thing to my hands, and I noticed, beneath the relaxing nature of it, that my hand was sore. I hadn’t even realized it, but it made sense. They’d seen a lot of action in the past few days. I felt my eyes closing against my will as each muscle in my body released all of the tension it was holding. I began drifting in and out of consciousness as the rhythm of their hands lulled me to sleep. Just as I felt myself about to fade into the darkness of a deep, dreamless sleep, a question popped in my mind that I needed to be answered right away for some reason. I snapped my eyes open and turned my head towards the girls.
“I have a wish I’d like you to show me,” I said.
They both jumped and squealed a little. They’d had their eyes closed and hadn’t seen my eyes open.
“It can wait until after your nap,” Vila said, almost in a whisper. Her voice was soothing, and I almost agreed with her, but not quite.
“It really can’t,” I replied. “I’ll still lay here, not moving, just relaxing. I just need to see if this particular wish would be a blessing or a curse, as it seems I am usually surprised at the outcome.” The girls looked at each other, and Andi shrugged.
“What do you want to see?” she asked in just as soft a voice as Vila had used.
“What would happen if I wished to have the ability to communicate directly with electronic devices? It would be like me taking my consciousness into the machine or network. Does that make sense?” I looked from Andi to Vila.
“It makes sense,” Vila answered. “It’s a very interesting wish being that we haven’t been released since technology like yours was created.”
“Does that mean you can’t show me?” I hadn’t considered that fact.
“We can show you,” Andi assured me. “Just relax and close your eyes.”
I followed her instructions, and I felt the girls’ hands on my shoulders, and then a slight squeeze. I began to feel like I was falling through a pitch-black tunnel. I was gaining speed and could feel my hair being blown back as I fell. The sensation was exhilarating. Then I was standing in my office. The sudden change was startling, and I almost lost my balance and fell. When I regained my balance, I took a look around, thinking perhaps the girls had tried and failed at my request. When my eyes reached my computer desk, however, I knew they hadn’t.
I was looking at myself. I was sitting at my computers, wires trailing off my temples that hooked into one of the towers under the desk. I saw myself as I would look if I was able to go into a computer with my consciousness. I looked at the computer screens in front of me. As if in a dream, I couldn’t actually see the code on the screens, but I could feel what it was doing, what it was accomplishing. I had created the most advanced form of artificial intelligence the world had ever seen by being able to fuse myself with the technology. My heart started racing as my excitement built. I lifted my foot to take a step towards myself, but when my foot reached the floor again, I was walking onto a stage, this time as myself instead of watching myself.
Again, the shift was startling, but I had developed the ability to get the hang of going with the flow when previewing wishes. I walked across the stage and looked out at the crowd. There were thousands of people in the audience, cheering and clapping. At the microphone at center stage, I stopped and faced them. That’s when I caught a glimpse of several items set up behind me. I looked back and saw all manner of machines sitting in front of display boards and screens highlighting their uses.
The first showed an elderly woman wearing a belt that, when she walked, sent out tiny wires in formations and positions that kept the woman balanced and confident. I knew in my mind that the woman’s mobility had previously been limited and had previously only been achievable by the use of arm-support crutches and canes. In the video, however, the belt was reading the electrical impulses from her nervous system and sending out wires to specific locations on the ground surrounding her feet to compensate for the lack of correct signals. The woman looked so incredibly happy as a little boy, presumably her grandson, ran and jumped into her arms, and she was able to maintain her balance and hug him tight.
By the time I turned back to the crowd, I had tears flowing down my face. I had made that woman’s freedom possible with my new tech ability. Instead of saying anything into the microphone, I turned and held both arms out to my side, directing the audience’s attention to the display. The crowd roared. I turned back the microphone and opened my mouth to say something, and suddenly, I was in a private jet, holding a phone to my ear.
I couldn’t make out exactly what the person on the other end of the line was saying, but again, I felt what they were talking about. I had developed an intelligence program that was being used by the world for surgical purposes. The image of the machine it was associated with flashed through my mind. It was a multi-armed unit used for surgeries on humans and animals in need. Doctors would connect with the machine via wristbands that sent wireless signals to the program, which operated the arms. The program allowed for micro-precision in the surgical procedure with the added benefit of human intuition and education. It solved the problem of human error during surgery but kept intact the humane connection and intuition needed for such procedures. I had basically created the perfect surgeon. The voice on the other end of the phone was informing me that the eighth ‘surgically impossible’ brain tumor removal had just been successfully completed.
I filled my lungs with air and held it in as joy flooded over me. When I exhaled, I smiled. I hung up the phone and turned to look out the airplane window.
When I looked where the window should’ve been, I was suddenly in my house. I was in my gaming room, but it had been changed. It was now another computer workstation. I was watching myself again, connected to wires, working within a network. I heard a light buzz to my right and looked over. On the wall was a clock, and the hands on it were spinning around and around, marking the hours flying by.
I looked back at myself, unmoving, hooked to the computer, then back at the clock. Twenty-four hours passed, then thirty-six. I was still sitting there. Forty-eight hours sped by, then seventy-two.
I felt a shiver begin to creep up my spine as I stood watching that version of myself. I could see my weight decrease, and my skin started to pale. I glanced at the clock, then back, and saw an IV had been hooked to my arm. I knew it was because I hadn’t had food or water for days.
Then I blinked, and a skinny, ghost-version of me was standing up out of the chair finally, and Lottie was helping me. She was sick with worry, and tears were on her cheeks. She walked me out of the room, distraught with concern for my health. I opened my mouth to tell her it would be okay and that I wasn’t going to let that happen, but no sound came out, and I found myself sitting at a long conference table, alone, facing a panel of important-looking men and women dressed in business suits.
I was back to looking through my own eyes at a gentleman speaking into a desk microphone at me. As with the other scenarios, I couldn’t hear the definition of his words but knew what message he was conveying. The grouping of people across from me was a regulatory committee, and they were concerned with my level of access to networks that spanned the world. They felt that my unusually high level of obsession with working inside the network was creating the possibility for dangerous mistakes.
What they were trying to politely convey was that they felt I had too much power over the world’s intelligence systems. They were thanking me for the incredible work I’d done in bringing artificial intelligence to its magnificently developed level, but they were also prohibiting me from entering the networks again. They claimed my mental capacities were compromised due to failing health from long periods of time spent working inside systems.
Rage coursed through me. I had done so m
uch good with my developments. How could they ban me? What’s more, is they were presuming they could actually stop me. I was on the brink of so many more huge developments that would further science and technology that there was no way I was going to stop working.
That is when the first malicious thought entered my mind. I saw a vision of shutting down the artificial intelligence systems those pompous-ass, short-sighted, suits relied on for their everyday comforts. The machines and devices I had gifted them through my hard work and intelligence would no longer work for them. Then they would see what they were ridding the world of by trying to stop me. I stood up and slammed my hands on the table in front of me, and the scenery changed once again.
I was in the corner of a hospital room. On the bed in the room was a frail, ashen, skeletal-looking version of me. Wires were still attached to my head and led to a CPU tucked away by the wall. Multiple IVs were in my arms and legs. Various robotic-looking machines were stirring about the room, tending to gently moving my limbs to attempt to keep atrophy from destroying what little muscle was left on my body.
“He’s gone,” I heard a soft voice whisper on the other side of the room.
I whipped my head to my left and saw Jack and Lottie standing in the doorway to the room. Jack put his arm around Lottie’s shoulders as she turned to leave. She projected sadness and resentment from her expression in a magnitude I’d never imagined. Jack looked back over his shoulder at my pathetic form lying in bed. He was full of anger aimed at me, as well as concern for Lottie.
When he turned his head back around, he refocused his attention to comforting Lottie as they walked away, and the door closed behind them.
I couldn’t accept what I was seeing. There was no way I’d end up like that. The only thing left to care for the shell on the bed were the machines it had created. Cold, metal, unfeeling things were what I was going to die surrounded by. The disbelief in my mind was so prominent that it was like seeing a bad movie that was so unreal in premise you desperately wanted out of the theater and to get your money back.
I rubbed my hands over my eyes, thinking that perhaps there was some positive part of the horror I was watching and that I was just missing it somehow. When I took my hands off my face, I was lying on the couch, looking up at Andi and Vila. I had returned to reality. As I sat myself up slightly, I looked at both of them. Sadness coursed through my veins.
“Is that really what would happen? There’s no way it could turn out different?” I asked them quietly. They shifted to sitting on the edge of the couch beside me and looked solemn.
“Unfortunately, no, there is no other scenario,” Vila answered gently.
“But I did so much good.” I held onto the disbelief. “So many people were being helped. How did I lose sight of that?”
“You didn’t lose sight of that at all,” Andi replied. “You let it completely take you over. You became obsessed with it.”
“The more you helped people, the stronger that need became,” Vila took over the explaination. “You became terrified that you would die before solving the world’s problems, even though the world never expected you to solve them.”
My mind sat in emptiness for a moment. I had never heard of being too helpful before, much less considered that it could lead to such dire consequences. Images of what I’d just witnessed floated through my mind.
“The idea of humans and machines working as one has always intrigued me,” I told them. “I never stopped to consider that they, so vastly different at the core, were meant to be completely separate.” The words barely escaped my lips when a clear picture of the rogue code in the AI program I’d been working on flashed through my mind. I sat up with such a quickness that both girls leaned back, startled.
“What’s wrong?” Vila asked as she leaned forward again and put her hand on my arm. I glanced down at her hand, then looked up at her face.
“Absolutely nothing is wrong! I just figured out why my program isn’t working!” I nearly yelled. I threw the comforter off of myself and stood up.
“But you--” All I had to do was look at Andi to stop her protest about me needing more rest.
“I’ll be fine, I promise! This shouldn’t take nearly as long as I’ve spent already,” I told both of them. They exchanged a curious look with each other, and they both stood up.
“We’d like to help, in that case,” Andi stated plainly.
“If you let us, however, it will mean that you would have to take some time off after you finish whatever it is you are about to do,” Vila added.
“Why? What do you want to do to help?” I wasn’t sure whether I should be worried or excited.
“We’ll grant you sleepless sleep,” Andi started. “Simply put, we will lend your mind and body the benefits of being fully rested. The catch is that you actually would have to catch up on sleep afterward.”
“For example,” Vila jumped in. “If you end up programming for another twelve hours, you will have to sleep for those twelve hours, in addition to the sleep you already need.” The two of them looked up at me with helpful eyes, and a warm wave of gratitude welled up inside me.
“That would be amazing. Thank you so much! And, yes, I promise I will sleep it off after, no arguments!” I was bursting with eagerness to get back to my computers by then.
“We’ll hold you to that,” Andi replied. The two of them smiled at me, and Vila raised her arm and snapped her fingers.
I felt an energy surge start at my feet and wind its way up my body. I half expected to see myself glowing when I looked down, but everything looked normal. When the energy made it to my head, it was as if a thick fog had been blown out by a coastal wind. My mind was sharp again. My eyes didn’t feel swollen as they had before. I felt better everywhere.
“This is amazing!” I yelled out. Over-excitement had taken over at that point. I picked both Vila and Andi up and hugged them tightly to me while I spun in circles. Their laughter rang in my ears. When I put the two of them down, they continued giggling while I bolted over to my computer desk. Less than ten seconds later, I had the world drowned out with my headset, and I was deep inside my program that I didn’t hear the girls tidy up the office and leave to go back home.
It seemed like a matter of minutes before I pulled my headset off again. I jumped up from my desk and turned around to say something to Andi and Vila, but they weren’t there. I couldn’t wait to tell them what I’d figured out, but I needed to get the information to Jack too. I ran to my office door and swung it open.
“Jack!” I yelled as I rushed out and turned to head to his office. “Jack!” I was half the distance I needed to go when he opened his office door and stuck his head out.
“Bennett?” He seemed confused or scared. I didn’t have time to worry about which.
“Jack!” I said again as I reached him. “I’ve got it!”
“Got what?” he asked worriedly.
“The program! The program works!” I grabbed him by the shoulders and made sure he was looking me directly in the eyes. “The program is corrected. It works!” His expression made an agonizingly slow transition from worried to shocked.
“You’re certain?” he asked, trying to keep himself from getting too excited for some reason. He was a cautious man by nature, so I should’ve expected it from him.
“Yes! Come with me!” I let go of him and turned back toward my office. The two of us nearly sprinted to my computer station. I ran the test I’d been using to show the program’s efficiency for him. Up until then, Jack had only seen the program fail the test at the exact same operation each time. While he watched that time, however, the test wrapped up, and beautifully expected results showed.
“You’re kidding me,” he whispered, astonished. “Run it again!” I ran it again, and again the program performed perfectly.
“It was a conceptual miscalculation, not a technical one, to over-simplify,” I told him. He stared at the screen.
“It’s showing an additional two-hundred-thousan
d lines of code here,” he said curiously, pointing to the monitor.
“Yes, it does,” I confirmed for him. “We were trying to get the AI system to assimilate the client information, analyze it, format it, and re-write the new, custom game. We needed to take some of the responsibility, the creative responsibility, off the AI’s plate. It was failing because it wasn’t sure the new game it was creating would satisfy the user.”
“And the new code?” Jack didn’t sound like he was grasping what I was getting at.
“The new code is an entirely new program that is now linked to the AI but operates separately. The AI collects, analyzes, and formats the information and then passes it on. The new program, a relatively simple game-writing program, takes the information and plugs it into certain parameters to do the actual creation.”
Jack tipped his head this way and that, and then looked at me. “Have you tested the end result?” I could hear excitement start creeping into his voice finally.
“I haven’t played a newly-created game yet. I figured you’d want to do that with me.” I smirked up at him.
“Hell yeah, I would!” he shouted.
“There’s one more thing.” I purposely downgraded the excitement in my voice to make Jack think something may be off. “Instead of a solidified end product, or basically an entirely new game that needs an entire data set to make changes to an existing game, the adjacent program can be fed new… informational tweaks… let’s call them. It can adjust the end product as needed to customize it even further instead of having to rewrite the entire thing.” I sat back in my chair and reveled at the mix of emotions that morphed across Jack’s face. When he comprehended that I was messing with him a bit, he punched me in the arm.
“Dammit, Anders! I worry enough for the both of us! Don’t do that!” he laughed as I held my arm. He was significantly older than me, but the man wasn’t weak by any means.
“Ha! Okay, okay! Just don’t hit me again, you ogre!” I joked. I typed a few commands onto my keyboard and stood up. “Ready to do this? I used the information you volunteered for program testing.”
