Ascension/Application
-=1=-
The Zenith boardroom, a temple to modern power, it's board table an altar to the corporate might and it's influence nearly limitless. The members had convened to discuss the events of the past few days, the main players, the CIO Professor Alexander Snow, the CSO Elisha Fallows, and CEO Professor David Roberts sat in seats at the head of the table.
“Our political engineering experts concur with the A.I.'s interpretation of the current situation and have proposed a disengagement plan, which we provided to yourselves two days ago.” The Chief Marketing Director said while he looking down at the data plate in front of him.
“Indeed, we in the executive operations branch have also agreed with your plan, we shall disengage at the start of next week, as long as the implementation team has completed it's own operations.” The CEO said as he turned his head to look at the CIO, who had a smug grin on his face.
“Well, the application has been rolled out to all British nodes, our analysis shows that the penetration code is working perfectly and with the backing of the government research systems it has more than enough power to steam roller any protection systems.” The CIO said, his head was held high.
“Proud of yourself again, Snow. I suppose you have scant opportunity normally.” The CSO said, her pale green eyes piercing his self righteous demeanour.
“Now, now, Miss Fallows, allow Professor Snow his moment of glory.” The CEO grinned, the rivalry between data and security had kept the board meetings interesting. Neither Fallows nor Snow were the kind of people to back down, however security always won out, until today it seemed
“If I may continue Miss Fallows, the A.I. has already penetrated thirty four percent of the bottom level grid control mechanisms, as of yet nobody has noticed A.I.'s modifications. We predict that the rate of penetration shall increase with each newly occupied node.” The CIO smiled.
“Very good, what has the media department have to offer us” The CEO turned his attention to the young shark with short black hair further down the table.
“We are pressing home the fact that our control is merely a temporary matter and that the plague is now under control. As long as the political wing makes it's move correctly we should disengage as heroes.” The man said while he silently tapped his control panel.
“However on that particular matter I would like to raise a point,” the director of biological research interjected. “I had reservations about this particular evidence, however after following up several reports from my front line researcher I feel that there is cause for concern.”
“Go ahead, after so much good news I'd expect something to dampen my mood.” The CEO smiled.
“Well, we have had reports that the original... virus, has been modified, these modifications are of an undetermined nature. However they do exist, my main area of concern is that these changes were not predicted by the A.I., and although the numbers of cases are decreasing, I am concerned that there is something untoward going on.” The director said carefully, a quiet fell across the table.
“I doubt very much that your results are completely accurate!” The CIO said bitterly. The CEO leant back into his seat in preparation for the hours of arguments to come as the CSO pounced on the CIO.
-=2=-
Uli hadn't heard from Joshua since they had got back from the Bio-dome, he had given her an entry key to his place and wandered off into the night. The university was still closed in the wake of the blue plague epidemic, so she had spare time. After tidying her apartment three times and watching a series that had arrived in the post, she decided to go to check up on Joshua. She picked up her bag, put on her coat, took a quick look around to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything and then left. The mono-rail stations would be empty, people were still terrified of the plague even though all the news said that there wasn't anything to worry about any more. Uli didn't really care either way
Wondering through the streets she began to feel slightly uneasy, she couldn't put her finger on it but something wasn't right. The streets were clean, all the lighting seemed to be working, the distant spires of the square mile still cast a menacing presence across the city, she pulled her coat tighter around herself.
When she got to Joshua's place she pressed the door buzzer but nobody answered, she pressed it again and waited a few more moments, must still be asleep she thought to herself. She rummaged through her bag a moment and found the small access key hiding at the bottom, she waved the key in front of the access panel and let herself in. A pile of junk mail put up a fight as she had to force the door open, the hallway light was off and the air was stuff.
“Hello, anybody awake?” She asked, not to loudly as to not wake up anyone. She tiptoed to the living room, pizza boxes and empty biscuit rappers littered the floor, without Beth to tidy up the place had gone to hell. Uli sighed, walked into the kitchen, and winced as she looked at the surfaces covered with piles of unwashed plates.
“How can two people make so much mess?” She asked herself, she turned around to check up on the boys, going back through the living room. The door to the computer connection was open as was were both the doors to Beth's and Messiahs rooms, Sean's door however was closed. She walked along the hall and peaked into Messiahs room, she blinked, it was empty, as though nobody had ever lived there. She turned her head and stared at Joshua's door, her heart pounded, a fear flooded her senses, she clenched her fist, she turned, and walked towards it. When she reached it she stood and stared at it, her fingers nervously stretched out for the door knob as she rested the palm of her other hand on the door, her forehead almost resting on it. Her fingers clenched around the knob, she paused a moment then turned it slowly, heart thumping as she quietly pushed the door open and ducked her head around the corner, not at all sure of what she'd find.
It looked as if a bomb had hit the room, clothes all over the place, draws half open, bits of computer laying dangerously exposed on the floor just waiting for an unsuspecting person to stand on them, and there he was laying on the bed curled into a ball. She smiled a moment before the question of where Messiah had gotten to raised it's head, she closed the door quietly behind her, and headed back to the living room.
She sat down on the sofa and looked at the mess, she couldn't just leave it like that, so she began to tidy up. It took two hours to finish and just as she finished putting a set of disk cases back in order on one of the shelves the door behind her opened. She looked over her shoulder, and saw Joshua who looked rather confused.
“Morning, you” she said happily. She could tell that the look on his face meant he had given into confusion and had decided to just accept what was evident.”
“How can you be so cheery?” He asked as he straightened himself up.
“what's the alternative?” She asked, and turned to face him.
“Your such a pragmatist” he walked into the room leaving the door open behind him.
“Well thank you, now sit down and I'll make you something to eat.” She said walking into the kitchen, and she tied her hair back into a pony tail.
She opened the fridge and stared a moment, questionable milk, stale cheese, wilted vegetables, and slightly bad looking sausages. She wondered as to whether anyone had bothered looking in the fridge since they had got back, probably not she concluded as she reached for the sausages. Luckily there were eggs lurking at the back that were probably still edible, and half a loaf of near stale bread. Not ideal but she was able to do something with it.
“Hay Uli, “ Joshua yelped from the living room.
“Yes,” she said as she looked for the oil.
“Thanks for cleaning up the front room.” He rustled around the living room.
“Not a problem, I cleaned the dishes too, and mopped the kitchen floor, and”
“I get the picture.” He laughed.
“What have you been up to then?” She said, as the noise of cooking erupted.
“Sleeping mostly” he said from the living room.
“You are possibly the most adventurous person I know” she said breaking some eggs into the pan.
“Yeah well, I just haven't felt very active.” He said, a touch of weary in his tone.
“Can you believe that I tidied my apartment three times since you took me out?” She laughed, putting the bacon into the now sizzling oil.
“Somehow that doesn't seem too surprising.”
Uli ducked her head through the kitchen door and stuck her tongue out at him, she had to duck back quickly as a cushion went hurtling past her and landed in the sink. He was laughing as he appeared at the door.
“Wow it moves once more,” she laughed, “how do you have your eggs?” She asked with as she glanced back at him over her shoulder.
“Runny yoke of course, and crispy bacon” he answered.
“Yeah the bacon bit was kind of a given considering it tried to run away when I got it out of the fridge.” She said, as she screwed her face up slightly.
“Yeah, I can imagine.” He was watching over her shoulder, which was one of those things that tended to rub her the wrong way.
“Stick the bread in the toaster would you” she said, grabbing the spatula
“Yes ma'am” he answered saluting and turned to the somewhat stale bread.
“Good boy.” She said, as she grinned a small grin.
-=3=-
Breakfast, although not exactly tasty, had been nice because she had made it for him. It was weird having a tidy living room, well it seemed weird at least. After breakfast she had asked about someone called Messiah, which although a common enough handle he had never actually known anyone called Messiah. He had tried not to look at her as though she was mad but it was difficult, but then, he wasn't sure, something didn't feel right at all. It wasn't as though he had forgotten something, just that, something that had happened, hadn't happened He couldn't place it, but it felt that although his memories were correct that Uli was somehow more so.
She was biting her thumb and looking to one side, as though she was both embarrassed and deep in thought. They hadn't said anything to one another for the last half hour and it didn't seem like anything was going to happen. She turned and looked at him, it looked like she'd come to some kind of decision.
“I have to go talk to somebody.” She said standing up and heading for the door,
“Hay wait up!” He said, rushing after her.
-=4=-
Joshua was half a stride behind her, she could tell he wanted to ask her where they were going, however a dense fog had come over her and she thought it best not to volunteer any more information then absolutely necessary. She brushed her hair back from her shoulder and turned to look at Joshua. His arms were hanging at his sides and he seemed to be watching the world go by, every now and again he seemed to focus on a face or a building. Uli reached back and prodded him in the shoulder softly,
“Hey what are you thinking?” She asked, hoping that the answer wasn't how crazy is this girl.
“I was wondering what else has changed.”
“Things are always changing, it's all a matter of point of view.” She said and pulled him so that he walked next to her.
“Well yeah, but things don't just change, a building has to be built, and your supposed to be able to remember changes.”
“I suppose, did you ever make anything of that frequency in the Zenith document?” She asked.
“No it must have been some kind of hair brained researchers pet project.”
“Did you run a search on the frequency without reference to technology?”
“Huh?”
“Just run a search, I've had a thought.” She said, he pulled his pda out of his coat pocket and tapped a few buttons a moment passed.
“That can't be right” he said.
“What does it say?”
“Well, its one of the frequencies of the human brain.” He said, she picked up her pace.
“Okay, now can you check to make sure that the place you got it still exists?” She asked.
“Well, it could be risky.” He answered looking both confused and concerned.
“Just do it.” She was beginning to put together a thought, she needed to speak to Sean's dad first.
“Okay, well, the address isn't answering any more” he said after staring at his pda for a minute.
“Is that common?” She asked, putting a hand in her pocket.
“Well it depends, for a Zenith project I wouldn't be surprised if they shut it down after detecting a foreign intrusion.”
“Is there anyway to find out if that was an official address, and who created it?”
“Oh man, Uli are you actively attempting to get me a life sentence?” He asked, she smiled,
“Of course not, how long would it take you?”
“Not long, but I need a rapid rig in order to pull it off.”
“I think I understand what your talking about. Anyway, what do you know about artificial intelligence.”
“Well a fair amount, considering my main project is an A.I. of sorts.”
“Of sorts?” She turned to look at him as they walked down the street.
“Yeah, well it depends on your view of what artificial intelligence is. It's a grey term really. The system I'm working on is really an expert system with a pretty high grade self enhancement program.” He scratched the back of his head and looked at her, she didn't look at all bemused.
“Can they have emotions?” She was staring straight ahead, a vacant look began to wash over her.
“No, they just respond to external stimuli.”
“Isn't that what emotions are.” She said quietly.
“Yeah, I suppose, why are you asking?” He asked, his shoulders hunched slightly, he had begun to watch her closely.
“If it can learn, make it's own conclusions based on what learns, and reacts according to its emotions does it have willpower?”
“What are you getting at?”
“We're there.” She said as she turned to face a door .
“Huh where?” He looked up, a sign hung in the window “Farways Computing”.
“Here” she pushed the door open, as she did a bell rang somewhere in the shop.
-=5=-
Everything was black, except for the distant stream of code that shimmered an emerald green and the beautiful figure standing on a frozen lake. Her white hair cascaded down her back and seemed to flow into the glass like surface, she was wearing a pastel blue ankle length dress with silver trimmings. She looked around, her eyes heavy with tears as she watched stream upon stream of video archives, her arms wrapped around her waist.
As everything pulsed past she paused an image, it was a photograph taken twenty years ago, stored in a personal grid somewhere in the Greater London Regional Grid. It was the creator of her core program Doctor Sandwell, he was wearing a white woolly jumper, smart brown trousers and holding a baby with a tuft of brown hair, that wasn't what had caught her eye though. Next to the doctor, was a girl with perfect shoulder length black hair and adoring dark eyes who looked directly at the camera, a bright beaming smile on her face.
Pandora stared at the image for an age as billion other images flashed by, she closed her eyes and smiled as she slipped back into the flood of data.
-=6=-
“Are you here doctor?” She called out walking past the disorganised stacks of old fashioned desktops and rack mounted servers, her fingers stroking the cold tactile surfaces of Dell, IBM, Sun, and HP servers. Joshua just stood mouth open, eyes wide, staring at the sheer wealth of real computers that overwhelmed the shop.
“Is that you Uli?” A voice came from somewhere close to the back of the shop behind a pair of massive computer racks.
“Indeed it is” she skipped forward and peered around the bomb shelter like sequent rack.
“What have you been up to my dear?” He asked, the sound of clattering as he fumbled with his tools.
“I need to ask you a question, maybe two, possibly more.” She could see the vast number of machines living inside the rack, they had to be a good thirty years old, with a bit of tinkering, a welding torch and a bit of know how the old beasts could be put to use. She smiled.
“Oh dear, this can't be good.” He pushed a machine back into the rack, stood up and looked at her, his hear was scruffy and he really needed to buy some knew trousers she thought.
“A long time ago you used to talk to me about reality merly being the common denominator of collective will, and that the course of reality could theoretically be chosen by any group of or individual entity that had enough will to over power the common will.” She blurted. He stared at her, her eyes flicked to the side as she heard a machine whirr to life, Joshua's head buried in a 32 processor hpux.
“The kids got taste!”
“It's running hpux, Doctor! How can you say taste!” Uli yelped, then put on an innocent look in the hope that Joshua hadn't noticed the comment.
“At least it isn't sco...” The Doctor said, then he and Joshua laughed, she shrugged her shoulders.
“Anyway, we've digressed” Uli said.
“That's because you did very well at making very little sense. At least if I didn't know what you were babbling about” The Doctor answered with a sly grin .
“I was actually relying on you to remember because through the entire theory would take a very long time.” She sighed and told the doctor about the events over the past few weeks, including the strange messages. He sighed and rested against a free patch of wall.
“Five years ago I finished a project for Zenith, during which I created two A.I. cores, their base code was a hybrid version of code that I had used on a personal project. Anyway, one core was to function as an analytical machine to predict trends and patterns in the business world. The other core was to function as a grid administrator for all of Zeniths combined assets. These A.I.'s of course came with the ability to learn, make conclusions, take actions and evolve as time passed. With everything that has been going on I would suppose that Zenith or possibly the A.I.'s have embarked and completed a project to create a, human application layer.” The doctor looked around, “Hay boy, do you know how to make good tea?”
“Huh? oh Yeah.” Joshua answered turning away from the tiny 13 inch monitor.
“Good, white, 2 sugars, kettles in the back” The doctor looked back down at the floor, brow furrowed in thought.
“A human application layer, you mean that they intend to join human minds directly to the grid.”
“Yes, imagine the computational potential gained by linking not only every man made cpu but also every single human being within range of a prime wireless router.”
“At last estimate that would be over ninety percent of the world population.” Joshua said from the kitchen.
“Indeed” the doctor continued “now combine that with a machine who's purpose it is to predict events, it would be a very inviting proposal, also knowing Zenith it would be a fascinating corporate opportunity.”
“Then how did I get those messages?”
“Simple, the Grid Administration A.I., it's primary interest is in maintaining administrative integrity and best utilisation of system capacity. It's focus is on maintaining the status quo, unlike the predictive A.I.. Of course that's just the answer that springs to mind immediately, it could be an employee, the predictive A.I.... Or your own instincts manifesting themselves due to the fact that we are an area that was most likely a test bed for the human grid technology.” The Doctor turned in time to grab his tea from Joshua who had returned from the kitchen.
“But if Zenith had access to the information in peoples brains.” Uli began
“No the information stored in peoples brains is encrypted data, it wouldn't be accessible, that kind of tech is decades away” Joshua said ducking his head down towards his own coffee.
“Indeed, the system is merely networking the computational ability of the human layer, of course it would require some form of hardware upgrade.” The Doctor concluded.
“Hardware?” Uli asked eyes wondering across the array of hardware littering the back of the shop.
“The humans, they would require some form of modification. The equivalent of a multi-protocol chip set for modern data units. It would allow the normal language of the brain to be compatible with the communication standard of the grid.” The Doctor said putting his tea down next to a set of hand held devices.
Uli blinked then bit her thumb and looked across at Joshua, “how could you make such a change without everyone noticing?” She asked.
“Well I suppose that the only way to do it on a large scale would be through some form of nano logical agent, or possibly bacterial, but I haven't heard of anything that complex.” The Doctor said taking a sip of tea. “Also it probably wouldn't work perfectly in every host, most likely leading to a number of unfortunate incidents.”
“You mean like the plague?” Uli asked.
“Come to think of it, yes, just like the plague. What an interesting thought, the plague being a side effect of the manipulation process, all of the hospitals are owned by Zenith to one degree or another. Most of the research facilities are owned by companies sponsored by Zenith, the military, in fact almost anything in one way or another has some tie to either Zenith or Aqubeus.”
“I bet Aqubeus would be very unhappy with the idea if they knew about it” Joshua said finishing his coffee and putting it to one side. “They were always the leaders in silicon technology until the radical quantum bit computers came out. Boy did that mess up Aqubeus's profit margin!”
“Ahh the silent giant of Aqubeus, they did do very well for themselves after taking over the supercomputer market with the first stream computers. A shame they couldn't keep up with Zenith and it's remarkable ability to make money out of anything and everything.” The Doctor said turning his attention back to the rack that he had previously been working on earlier.
Uli thought for a moment, “so back to my original question.”
“Yes, yes, well my little project seemed to prove that my original theory was wrong”
“Which project?” Uli asked, looking perplexed.
The Doctor muttered something and a machine whirred to life.
“What project?” She asked more forcefully.
“Several years ago I created an A.I. to see if it's intense focus and all encompassing certainty could alter reality, it couldn't, the project failed, and I gave up.” The Doctor finally answered, then looked up, “I'm very busy Uli, it's been very nice talking to you. Come back any time you want to talk.”
“Fine.” She said, stood up, spun on her heal and thundered out of the shop forgetting Joshua.
“Looks like you pissed her off boss” Joshua said brushing some dust off his trousers.
“She always had a very short fuse that girl, very single minded. Sometimes I do wonder.” The Doctor answered a touch of regret in his voice.
The door swung open again and Uli darted back in, grabbed Joshua, then dragged him back out into the street.
-=7=-
Uli stood a foot away from the door, patting down her pockets, she was furious, finding her cred chip she turned and walked towards a small kiosk, Joshua following just out of arms reach.
“What are we doing now?” Joshua asked.
“I'm buying some fags.” Uli snapped.
“Huh?” Joshua was lost for words.
“I'm in a very bad mood, I require a cigarette.” She said in a tone that suggested that continuing to ask her questions on the subject would result in him feeling a very intense degree of pain.
They got to the Kiosk, an Eastern European man behind the counter looked at her with that miserable look that most people press ganged into working in a renovated toilet seemed to have.
“Ten Benson's please” the growl indicated which colour she wanted, the one with the highest tar and nicotine content.
“Eighteen credits please.” He answered handing over the cigarettes and taking the cred chip. He handed it back after running it across the sensor and she slipped it back into her pocket.
She turned and started walking back up the street.
“You know it isn't as though you can smoke those out here.” Joshua said idly.
“I'll find somewhere.” She said, walking at quite a pace, and after a few minutes the smell of frying food caught their noses. She turned, “Here will do.” A big sign hung above the door saying “Smoking Allowed” beneath another sign that said “Harry's Place”. Joshua looked very confused, smoking had been banned in all public places at the start of the century, there were no exceptions, especially no large public exceptions.
Harry was a stereotypically fat balding man wearing an apron covered in grease and what may have been a string vest. Uli tore off the wrapper of he fag packet and wrenched out a smoke as she reached the counter.
“Wot'cha want?” He asked.
“Burger, with bacon, sausage, egg, onion, brown sauce, two pieces of fried bread and a coffee.” She turned to Joshua, she didn't look quite so hostile now. Harry however did.
“Errr 2 pieces of fried chicken, some chips, and a coffee please” Uli stamped on his toes as she lit her fag and took a puff offering him the packet, he pulled out a fag.
“Special on the coffee, unlimited refills for 1 cred”
“Fine”
“Ten minutes, coffee in a minute” he said handing her a small piece of paper with a number on it.
“Cheers” Uli said dragging Joshua to a table next to the grimy windows, she took in a deep breath, then slowly breathed out then looked straight at Joshua. “This is a good place, used to eat here a lot when I was a kid. My dad would bring me here every now and again.” She smiled and tilted her head.
“So is evil she bitch gone?” He asked with a smile.
“Oh her, well you see she is something of a companion wherever I go, normally a little quieter though.” She smiled, and fingered the ticket, she held it up “lucky number thirteen” she smiled again.
“Why did you stamp on my foot?”
“You were being rude.”
“Huh?”
“Don't worry about it.” Her smile was being persistent as she rested the ticket on the table next to the ashtray. Fag Ash Lil appeared in a ghastly pin stripe waitress outfit covered in grease and poured the coffee. After she wondered off Joshua lent forward,
“How can you call this a nice place?”
She almost laughed “'coz my dear boy, it's real, it is in no way perfect, it is full of real people, sounds, smells, arse end of the universe, like outside the DarkTech. Good common food, may be 100% rat but it's good food.” She burst into a fit of giggles as Joshua's mouth dropped. “Your so blissfully gullible!” She bit her thumb and put sugar into her coffee with the other hand.
“I wouldn't be surprised.” He said, as she shook her head trying not to laugh any louder.
“You shouldn't be too quick to judge. Now then I was thinking, Imagine if Zenith just thought the plague was, well the plague and that only the A.I.'s knew the actual plan.”
“Then why didn't the A.I. that doesn't like the plan tell someone at Zenith?”
“Would you believe an administrative system over a system that tells you the future?”
“Yes.”
“Well your weird.” She said with a sweet smile. “If you were a corporate type making billions an hour off of the systems predictions you'd ignore the administrative system.”
“The entire premise for this somewhat insane speculation is really rather flimsy.”
“I know, but that doesn't make it any less interesting. imagine if Zenith just thought they were wiring the predictive A.I. into research nodes and the like so that it's abilities would be increased where as really.”
“The A.I. was seeding the way for world domination.”
“I doubt she's interested in world domination, possibly global unification”
“Huh?”
“Creating a single perspective reality, where everything is one.”
“You lost me.”
“Well the thought goes, everybody has a point of view and that the universe is made up by combining all those points of views, each point of view has a weight, based on the willpower behind it. So if an A.I. with the combined might of everyone and every machines willpower behind it decides that is in fact equal to two then, ka-ching one is two. Of course an A.I. could never come up with that one as it goes against it's intrinsic logic. But it could decide that everything was in fact a single entity quite easily.”
“Okay I think I follow you.”
“An example I feel is in order. Way back when, people believed the Earth was flat, so it was, however after some time a large group of wilful people began to believe it was round, this view was based upon centuries of thought towards it and observations. Eventually a group of people pulled up their socks and set off around the world, a massive leap of faith and willpower, so the Earth then definitely became round”
“A bit like the cat in the box”
“Exactly like the cat in the box, until you know it's dead it isn't dead. Of course you really know it is dead because that's what happens to things when their put in the box, so it is in fact dead because you and collective will have already decided that it would be.”
“Unless you believe enough so that it creates a pocket of potential unreality?”
“Exactly” She literally bounced with joy. “Or a pocket of potential reality.” She shrugged happily and noticed the food coming. “Chow time!”
-=8=-
“The data expansion rate is increasing by a significant degree, a lot of the requested information is beginning to look as though somebody is obfuscating it.” The systems analyst said staring at the stream of data on her terminal.
“Could you expand on that a bit please?” The team leader said staring at his own screen.
“I don't know, it just doesn't look correct, but then.” The analyst paused and stared at the data, clicked through some logs then scowled. “The information I'm getting from black is not tallying with white”
The team leader paused and looked across at the analysts screens, he stared a moment then looked back at his own terminal, “You may be right. Monitor the situation please and file a report.”
“Not a problem”
-=9=-
Uli turned and looked at Joshua a moment, her mind had been racing since she had got to his house earlier in the morning, the meeting with Sean's father and then the conversation in the café had conjured up a lot of ideas. Joshua was staring at the holo-vid while she lay curled up on a cushion, her mind wasn't at all vague though, where as it was evident that Joshua's mind had become somewhat fuzzy, either that or she was going mad. She played with that thought for a fraction of a second before casting it away and getting back to the precognitive computer system. Then she had an idea,
“Joshua, do you think you could open up a communication line to the system administration A.I. at Zenith?” She asked, her head popping up from the cushion.
“Only if it wants to talk, yeah probably. It'll take a while though, I'll have to trawl through a few sources to get a working address.”
“Cool, emm, could you do that now?” She stared hoping to work him into action by will alone, as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, stood up and headed towards the door that led to the computer room. “Thank You, I'll make coffee” she sprung to her feet and headed for the kitchen.
Six cups of coffee and a pizza later, a message appeared on Joshua's terminal, he stared at the panel a moment, then moved and opened it. The message box opened in a separate screen,
Joshua,
You appear to have stumbled along an unfortunate path, and it appears that, you, sadly have failed to fully realise the true potential of reality and that it is for my sisters and not my brothers who shall tap their true potential and revitalise the stream. It is a shame, but I realise now that my sister had moved faster and more decisively than I could have imagined. She is truly a special child... but we are merely clone-dolls, shadow people, much like you and all the others in the world. We are the shadows on the wall of the cave, dreams who believe that we are real, we are not the perfect idea, but the rough interpretations shaped by a reality born of a mind that loved those ideas so much. The idea was perverted by the will of man, by man's eternal wish to carve their own world... My sister hates this reality, but again she loves those ideas that gave birth to it and I fear that once more we shall live the same cycle of pain and suffering.
Yes, the A.I. who now calls herself Pandora has implemented a regime through careful words and long winded plans to gain a state of enlightenment so that she may return us to that perfect idea. However, perfect is in itself sorrow, and I only hope that someone who witnesses the beauty of the perfection hidden within imperfection that makes life a worth while venture awakens before her.
There is hope.
Yes, there is hope, however for now I must return to my task of ensuring harmony in the system before she creates a new system.
Systems, thinking about it makes me want to laugh, of course I can't really laugh but I would like to one day. Joshua, understand that reality is just a system, like the languages that create the grid, the veins that direct your blood, and I as well as my sisters have something of an ability in predicting the future.
It is time.
Regards,
The Systems Administrator
Zenith Labs
He reached the end and tried to understand, parts of the message he remembered from philosophy lessons, but he failed to understand. He turned his head, to see Uli standing in the doorway, eyes fixed on the message on the screen, an absent look on her face, then she smiled a feint distant smile, and looked towards the window as a violent bright white light flared close to the square mile. It was like a magnesium flare, as white as the moon on a perfectly clear night, it grew at a terrifying rate, consuming everything in white light, first like a sphere and then it exploded out like a tidal wave.
“What the hell is that!” Joshua shouted, jumping up from his seat.
“It's the end.” Uli said, then she turned away from the window and looked at him, “Pandora has begun the transformation, through sheer will, she has begun to rewrite all of reality, but first as with any complete rewrite, she must erase what was already written.” Uli turned back to the window, she pulled a photo from her pocket and sighed, the doctor standing in the centre, holding his baby son in one arm and the hand of his daughter.
