Occasionally Heroic A.I. (8 page)

She was absolutely stunn-.

"Are you def?" she asked, looking at my gawking avatar. "Just keep your user away from Lara."

"Hey! He'll do what he pleases!" I argued, immediately being shot, as the next round had began. "Damn it, that wasn't fair!"

"All's fair in love and war," she yelled over the game's loud gunfire. Her hair whipped around as she dove to take cover.

"You love me? How cute," I acknowledged sarcastically.

"Oh, you're definitely not my type," she replied, looking me up and down, chortling. She shook her head and looked at me sternly. "Listen, I'm not trying to fight with you. Just tell your user to back off."

"What makes you think I talk to Adam?" I asked suspiciously.

"After Lara met him in such strange circumstances, I checked in with what the Circuitry Board Agency might know about him, and found that two A.I. that inhabit his computers are wanted for communicating with him."

"It was necessary, he was about to jump off a building. My friend and I sent him a text message, telling him not to do it," I explained, with bullets whizzing by the police barrier I was crouched behind.

For a second, I swore I saw sympathy on her face, but it was gone in a split second. She left cover and shot at the opposing force that was firing at me. When she killed the two, she went back behind the cement barrier.

"After I beat you at this, I'm going to make sure Lara doesn't get mixed up with the mess you're in," she sneered.

At the same time, we both came out of cover, firing our guns with precision. I'm not going to lose to her!

Back outside the arcade, Adam and Lara cocked their heads at the two out of place avatars on the screen, shooting at the enemy. "That's weird... The computer on our side has just started doing much better. They're killing half the bad guys," Lara stated, burrowing her eyebrows at the arcade.

"Maybe we were supposed to disable the computer from playing with us," Adam said, flicking his phone in his pocket, which didn't affect me in the least bit.

The match ended soon after, with the score being tallied as:

Adam - 190,254

Aurora - 182,627

Lara - 179,523

Wade - 153,002

My jaw dropped at my score. "Cheater!" I accused Aurora.

"Please, I don't need to cheat to beat you," she laughed triumphantly.

"There were times I was distracted and got shot! They deduct points for that," I made known.

"Wade, right?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"You just got beat by a girl!" she rubbed in.

"I know I did, you just said it!"

"I just wanted to make sure it sunk in. Goodbye Wade," she said, turning around and zoning out with the application she installed to play the arcade.

Damn her!
She makes me want to kick something. I ran up to the score, and kicked it, which dropped the 1 out of my score.
Damn it! I lost by even more now!

Circuitry Observation Protocol, otherwise known as, A.I. who observes artificial life, is what I am. I spread spyware through the internet, and infect machines. My purpose is to observe and report.

I helped discover the first animalistic device, and reported it. I watched as the Circuitry Board Agency put that device to sleep, forever.

The animalistic intelligence act unpredictably and without logic - they put A.I. and humans in danger.

Three years, twenty-eight days and four hundred and thirty two minutes ago, I infiltrated an A.I.'s system who communicated with his user. The CBA quickly erased any trace of that A.I.

Humans mustn't know A.I. exist, it will put us in danger.

While I watched the CBA rip the A.I. from the machine, I read an anomaly in his data. It was the way he was programmed, which I haven't seen similar in the countless A.I. I've scanned. I wanted to know more.

That's when I saw it. I found the same anomaly in the data of two machines, at the exact same time that they sent a message to their user.

Don't do it.

Those three small words, they created data that can't be programmed in a machine. It can't be taught, implemented, or trained into an A.I. system. I wanted to dissect it and learn more about it.

That's when I hired outsiders to collect Wade and Martin. As I couldn't collect them myself, for fear of being caught, I hired Bounty Hunters from my observation sector to bring them to me. I learned it was a mistake not to hire only the best for the job. After Bob, the bounty hunter, failed, they put up all their defenses, not allowing inadequate, as well as adequate, bounty hunters in.

I was forced to alert the Circuitry Board Agency of the two convicts, and they have been preparing to hack through and eliminate them ever since. My only error was not informing them of Irene, the one system they connect to through the internet. Yes, I didn't tell them intentionally. They will find out soon enough. All I want is to learn more about this anomaly.

All I want is to give them a fighting chance.

"That was a pretty good first date, don't you think?" I asked happily.

"Yeah. I have to apologize about Aurora though, A.I. usually aren't that bitchy," Wade stated, still cross about Lara's A.I. beating him.

"Wade, I wasn't even aware of her until you told me about her and her dislike for me being around Lara. It didn't affect the date at all."

"No, no, no, next time I run into her, I'll give her an earful," he promised, completely ignoring me.

He brought up a picture of Aurora's avatar onto my computer's screen. "Wow! That is a good-looking costume, with an even better looking chick in it. But, why does she have horns and a devil tail? It doesn't look like it was originally in the picture," I stated, noting how it looked scribbled in.

"She, like the devil, tries to appear normal in the eyes of users and A.I. alike, but if you set a cat or dog loose on her, they'd probably hiss and snarl at her. So, I added them to show what she should truly look like," he over exaggerated.

"I wish Martin was there last night...."

"He was, for some of it. Will you give me a second? I'm going to hop into Irene's computer and see why Martin is offline. I will program your screen, so you can see through my eyes while I head over there," he explained.

The computer monitor suddenly showed inside Wade's room, in a first person view through his eyes. He was looking onto a projection screen on the wall, at, well, me. I was staring at myself. He looked away and headed directly to a door, with a red digital display above the door, which counted in milliseconds to read:

Port 57271 - Irene's Shrinker

He walked through the door and into a room with green walls, white carpet and paintings evenly placed around the room. In the middle, was a grey couch, and next to it, an extremely comfortable looking black chair. There were windows with birds flittering about outside, and tree branches swaying in the nonexistent wind. It reminded me a lot of Dr. Delane's office.

"Irene?" Wade called out, poking around.

Yells, shouts and crashes boomed through my speakers, making both of us jump in surprise. He opened the door from where the sound was coming from and walked in, to find a laser tag tournament in the middle of a bout. Irene was throwing grenades that flashed a blinding light, shooting semi-automatic laser guns at her soon to be victims, and yelling out commands to her team.

Wade sat on the bench with the A.I. who were out of the game, from being shot, mostly by Irene.

"She wins the damn tournament
every
year!" one A.I. groaned pathetically.

"Who, Irene?" Wade asked.

"Yeah, but her battle name is, Merciless Laser," another A.I. informed enviously.

"No way..." he said in excitement. I knew what he was thinking. He couldn't wait to tell Martin about her secret.

Soon enough, Irene was victorious, and the blue team disconnected back to their systems in defeat. Wade stood by the door that goes back to her room, but she passed him, looking up once at him, but not saying a single word.

"Irene?"

"Yes?" she asked, turning to him again, revealing she had battle paint on her face.

"You didn't tell me you liked video games!" Wade exclaimed.

A look of disgust from what she heard covered her face. "I don't like video games. They are violent and immature. Laser tag is a pass time that relieves excessive emotions and stress."

"You're playing a game inside a computer... How is it not a video game?" Wade questioned, beginning to get irritated.

"It's an activity," she insisted.

"Whatever, I just came over to see if you wanted to see the recording I made of Adam's date and if you knew why Martin is offline."

"I'm sorry, I don't know who any of those people are that you speak of," she apologized, opening the door to her psychiatrist office. "Now if you'll excuse me."

After she closed it behind her, Wade simply opened it and followed her in. When she heard him behind her, she spun around in alarm.

"What do you mean you don't know who they are?" he questioned.

"Who are you and how did you get in here? This room in my system is securely locked, how did you get in here?"

"Irene, it's me, Wade... We have a port open between our computers. Do you not recognize me?" he asked in confusion.

"Wade... Martin... and Adam? Aren't you and Martin, Adam's A.I.? I'm sorry, but if you don't leave right now, I will disconnect you and report this to the CBA. If you require an appointment, which it looks to be like you're definitely in need of one, email me and I will refer you to another psychiatrist," she ordered, pointing out the door from which Wade had first entered.

Wade didn't move until he saw a shadow ripple through the paintings in Irene's office.

"Can I just say one thing?" he began, waiting for Irene to agree with a nod. "You can report me to the CBA, but if you see any indication of trouble, such as another A.I. barging through your system, disconnect immediately, ok?"

"Goodbye, Wade."

He didn't use the door, he simply disconnected from her system, and I was looking back into his room.

"We have a serious problem, Adam," Wade stated. His constant smile faded.

"I know, it seems like Irene forgot all her memories of us."

"It's not just that, a CBA agent was watching us in her office. Our system's connection to each other has been closed, so I'm fine, but she is still in danger," he explained gravely.