-Three Years Later-

Allen opened his eyes to another shitty morning and the same green tent fabric that he called home. He got out of his air mattress’s blankets and walked over to the taped-on mirror on the right side of the tent. Next to the mirror was a bucket full of water and a hygiene bag. He sleepily pulled out the razor and began his morning shave, followed by his usual morning routine of exercise, shower, brushing his teeth, getting dressed, and heading off to college via bicycle.

Over the past three years, Allen had to put up with high school and everything it entailed. He never talked to anyone and always kept to himself. No matter what subject it was, he gradually aced every class, even going into AP classes which eventually landed him a full scholarship. There were many times between the bullying or mental exhaustion that he wanted to drop out or give up, but the memory of his parents would fuel him. The pure thought of revenge against the world brought life back into him, making him redouble his efforts. After all, if he was going to put that plan into action, he needed all of the resources and money that he could get. Eventually, he graduated with a 3.8 GPA, simply because he slacked off a little in freshman year, when his parents were still alive. Many colleges were begging him to attend their schools, but he had his eye on a particular one. It was Western Governor’s University, or WGU for short. They had the top of the line classes, as well as a schedule that you could take at your own pace.

That meant that you could finish sooner, depending on how quick you worked and understood things. This was perfect for Allen, since he just wanted to get everything he could learn now, rather than be rushed later on. With a grueling four months, he biked over to Salt Lake City, Utah. He couldn’t exactly take a taxi, since he needed to save his money for other things, but he packed up his tent and belongings into a large backpack.

After four months of hellish biking, he travelled from California to Utah via the I-15 North. The first leg of the bike ride, he seriously hated life. His bike broke down many times due to the sheer mileage, while his mind began to hate life due to the weather. It was always hot and sunny, with the occasional random rainstorm. From his place under the bridge to Bakersfield, to LA was the worst part of it. When he endured Nevada, Allen had to camp during the day and travel at night. The multitude of wolf packs that were curious about him and were following scared him at first. Eventually they just left him alone to his relief.

From L.A. to St. George wasn’t too bad of a trip, mostly mind-numbing desert as far as the eye could see. Allen stopped at every gas station that he could find to grab large water bottles, as well as refilling his camel-back reservoir. From St. George to WGU though, was a tough climb though mountain passes. There was even one point where he had to walk his bike up a ridiculously large hill to continue. Never in his life had he hated his decision to pick WGU, but he needed to learn more things for his plan. With revenge in his mind fueling his body, he eventually made it to Salt Lake City, Utah battered and worn. Allen would have tried hitch-hiking, but his bike wouldn’t allow that. Plus, he didn’t feel comfortable getting rides from random people.

Allen found a place near the campus and camped out for a few days to recover. In fact, he was actually about two months early to his start date. As soon as he got the acceptance letter in the mail via P.O. BOX, he immediately set out on the massive bike journey. After all, he didn’t know how long it would take him to travel about 792 miles on a bike. Who would?

Like that, two months had passed and it was time to get ready for his first day of the University life. Allen was excited at first, but then immediately calmed down after realizing why he was here. Back in high school, his father stuffed something into Allen’s pocket before he was sent away. After checking the USB drive, Allen couldn’t even make heads or tails of the contents. It looked like a bunch of gibberish on a .txt file. Eventually during a computer science class, he got a look at what coding is like and realized what his dad really handed him. It wasn’t gibberish, it was some kind of computer code. The odd thing about it, was that the txt file was MASSIVE. It wasn’t your average Kilobyte text file. No, it was a whopping SIXTY GIGABYTES. The only readable part of the massive blob of code was the part at the top which had a “CODE JENNY” in big bolded letters. With him being a curious kid where it involved his parents, he naturally looked up some of the things that were in that blob of text. He was shocked to realize that it wasn’t really a program or regular code. They were sub-routines and Boolean logic that was expressly stated out for an AI to interface with.

Imagine a computer if you will. It has a hard drive, a CPU chip, RAM, visual output, some kind of keyboard input, and you have a working PC, but it only turns on. The magic of the machine is the Operating System, or OS for short. It does everything to make life easier for the user to interface with the machine. That word document that you use every day? There are thousands of commands being parsed every SECOND that you are using it. Downloading a YouTube video? It accesses the Internet Protocol Stack to talk with the server that you are downloading the video from, translates the electric pules on ethernet wire, and finally writes it to a magnetic hard disk drive (HDD) for you to peruse at your convenience.

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Now imagine if it could talk with you and automate everything you would want to do. Let’s take that word document that you have open. Instead of typing, you could just talk and it would type it for you. Want Siri to welcome you home and turn on the lights when you are five miles away? There is a command and routine for that.

All of that is just a small fraction of what an AI is capable of, and Allen found Hundreds of thousands of commands and routines embedded in the code. Everything from computer vision, to real-time rendering of AR objects to real-time HUD overlay as well as some things he couldn’t even begin to fathom. Something about Schrödinger, quantum communication, and other topics that passed way over his head.

In fact, when he found that routine, he realized why his [Relation] was so special as the original. All of the other devices came as seamless units, but his had a single USB slot. That lead him to think that something was supposed to go there…or someone was supposed to go in there.

Just the thought of having a personal AI companion made him giddy. Unfortunately, though, she wasn’t complete. The interface instruction set for the AI to [Relation] wasn’t coded in. Plus, her language tree and word mapping wasn’t even started, and forget the Voice, calling, facial recognition, calc-EX, and others were only half finished. This was what really spurred him to start going to WGU. He wanted to complete CODE: JENNY and bring her to life. It was their last project, so as their only son, it was only natural that he would finish the project in their stead.

Allen sighed at the thought though. It was a massive project and he was afraid that he’d bitten WAY more off than he could chew. Especially when it came to those damn subroutines. Those always gave him a multitude of headaches. Then again, looking at a small 15” netbook screen all of the time definitely wasn’t helping him any.

With a renewed resolve, he walked up to the administration counter and got a map of the campus. After, he circled all of the classrooms that he needed to go to and began walking to his first class. A few minutes later, Allen arrived at the classroom door and walked inside. It was an auditorium style classroom with a single podium and chalkboard in the front. He took a random seat near the back and waited for class to begin.

Slowly, as time went by, the classroom began to fill with more and more people. Allen just zoned out while thinking about various things when he heard a voice right next to him.

“Hi, mind if I sit here?” A girly voice said.

Allen looked to his right and saw her. Platinum blonde hair, the smoothest skin, a well-proportioned chest, and slender legs…this girl was completely gorgeous. He acknowledged her beauty in his head, but he didn’t really feel anything about it. Something like “Okay she is beautiful. What about it?”. He simply turned to the side and went back to zoning out about various things.

Allen wasn’t aware of it, but the girl beside him was now looking at him with a renewed interest. A slight glint in her eye could be figuratively seen. “My name is Jessica. What is yours?”

He flat out ignored her. Allen really didn’t want to bother with talking to anyone. He has had enough of people in general.

Jessica’s smile cramped at first but then slowly grew. If Allen was looking at her, he would have been alarmed. Alas, his ignorance would be his bliss for a little while longer.

I hope she sits somewhere else next class. Allen thought to himself. For his entire high school life, he has never had a friend, and don’t even get started on girlfriends. Then again, with his troubled heart and scarred mentality, it was no big surprise that he didn’t even want one or the other. Not to say that he swung the other way, but he simply felt indifferent to the idea.

Like this, the entirety of his Physics class droned on for an hour before he went onward to one of the class that Allen was looking forward to more, Calculus II. He needed to learn more about math so that he could fix those hundreds of thousands of sub-routines. It would also help out with quite a few things regarding his plan.

Once again, he opened the door do the classroom, sat in a random seat, and zoned out until he heard that voice once again.

“Hi, guess we meet again. Mind if I sit here?” The voice said coquettishly. “By the way, what’s your name?”

Allen mentally groaned, yet nodded his head without looking at her this time, still not responding beyond the bare minimum.

This is going to be a long semester, isn’t it? Allen thought to himself while he turned to look at her looking at him strangely. With a sigh, he turned around and looked Jessica in the eye.

“Listen could you please just not talk to me? I don’t like talking to people, and I would appreciate it if you had nothing to do with me.” He honestly told her.

“No. I don’t want to.” She simply replied with a smile. “In fact, I’m going to keep bugging you until you tell me your name.”

… “Fine. Suit yourself.” He turned back around, “It’s Allen.” and ignored Jessica for the rest of class, even when she started poking him repeatedly. He did his utmost to absorb the information even with the increasing irritation.

When the class ended, he packed up his things and sprinted out of the classroom.

“Wait!” She yelled. Allen simply ignored her and kept running to his next class. He opened the door to his Software Development class and sat down.

Ahh…peace and quiet. Allen relaxed.

“There you are.” Allen inwardly groaned at the voice. If looks could kill then his glare would kill her many times over. Jessica stayed smiling regardless.

 “I’m taking this class too. You can’t escape from me Allen.”

This will definitely be a long semester…He realized. This bitch is definitely crazy....

***LOG***// 

"They say that hate is the opposite of love...but they are wrong. It's when you watch your people, your world, turn against you, and then watch the life slowly drain from their eyes either one at a time or by the thousands...

When the cold reality sets in, that there is no more saving anyone nor going back...not anymore...nor ever will be.

That, dear reader, is called apathy." - Allen T. Fielder