Chapter 36:

Titus didn't answer Alice's question right away. Riding on the ATV, clinging to his back, she couldn't see his face. At first, she had tried to only hold on to the vehicle or his jacket, but there was a reason why that just wasn't how it worked. It was too tiring and exhausting. It was easier to lean up against him for support, and she could feel that he hadn't tensed up at the question or anything. She also knew that his emotions were not concerned but contemplative, as if he was trying to figure the answer out for himself.

"Well, I've been there for some time," Titus began.

Alice started to ask how long but stopped herself, letting him tell the story at his own pace.

"For the past 100 years or so, I had already started to withdraw from a lot of the political interests I had held. Most of what I cared about had been achieved." He didn't elaborate on what that was, and Alice didn't press him on it. "And, well, after the Great War, World War One happened. It was a very close call for not losing any of my family. Several of us fought, as we had fought in most wars. In most major wars throughout history, at least one of us was on any side. And this was more than most.

"We may have been caught off guard, just like most people. We, of course, knew how violent and terrible war was, unlike many of the populace. But war had always been a contest of skill on some levels, even in the Napoleonic Wars. It was different, but this was something new, something the world had never seen."

He paused, his voice heavy with the weight of history. "It made a lot of us think to the point where we withdrew for decades. And I suppose I was just on the more extreme side of that. So I came to America, someplace that I had never really focused on. Surprisingly, none of us had. It was something of unimportance for a very long time until it became suddenly important. Many of us were curious, but so far, I was the only one to move there on a more permanent basis."

Titus paused for a bit longer this time, and Alice habitually pulled out her phone with one hand to check the map. They were still heading in the right direction, but it was slow to update, and when it did, it did so in a sporadic load. She put her phone away, worrying about what it meant for the grid and technology to be failing. If the System was allowing that to happen, did it not need it anymore? Was this a transitionary period?

Titus started speaking again before she could finish her thoughts.

"You see, we're essentially human. And as competent as I can be, in some ways, it doesn't mean I'm smarter than everyone else. Endless life experience, in some ways, makes me a lot less mentally flexible than you. We've all gotten past the point where it's harder to learn new things and figured out ways around it. But sometimes, in order to really internalize something, and if we ever experience a shift in our major worldview, it can take time to settle in, to recontextualize countless lifetimes of experience rather than just a handful of decades."

Alice blinked, understanding. Even as she'd gotten older, it was harder to adapt to new situations than when she was ten. It was easier in some ways, but more because of the experience she had drawn on, not because of the fluidity of her youth. Certain things were immutable, and when they changed, it rocked the world.

"Well," he continued, "As the world changes, I can only stay up to date with a few subjects at a time. I can be a master of chemistry and physics, but probably not also a sociologist, a psychologist, and everything else. I've been up to date on almost every subject at some point. A lot of my knowledge is slightly archaic. But making money has never really changed that much. It comes in different skins, but it really comes down to providing value. Even in old systems, it was just more important who you provided value to. It might seem a little naive, but pretty much every interaction comes down to one person providing value to another. Usually, the value goes both ways as long as there's no force involved. This made me pretty decent at investing."

Alice frowned, “I’m pretty sure they have a word for that philosophy, and it was highly debated.”

Titus shrugged and responded to her expression. "Philosophy is not something I'm up to date on currently, but yes, it's been around for a long time. You don't have to believe it, but so far, it's been my experience."

"So what were you doing exactly? Just chilling? Making money, relaxing in your house, watching movies, playing video games?"

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"A little bit of all that. I've been avoiding the public spotlight. I haven't gone out of my way to be exceptional. There's only so much that can be exceptional, and it takes a lot of effort and work to stay exceptional in any field. Of course, that's not to say I don't have my advantages, but I'm not some sort of superstar athlete." He laughed. "I'm above average physically. But remember, even though I have a nearly perfect body that isn't affected by disease or anything like that, I still grew up in a time when meat and nutrition were scarce. It didn't necessarily mean that I lacked nutrients. Still, enough generations of that, well, people are a lot taller than they used to be. I used to be considered a giant among men, but look at me now, six-one on a good day, 230 pounds of decent muscle."

Alice laughed at the "decent muscle." Titus worked out religiously from what she could tell, and none of that muscle was for show.

"But," he continued, "Put me on an NFL team, and I'd be unable to even be a third-stringer in any position. A hundred years ago, that would have been different."

Alice could see that maybe he didn't have the body of an athlete, but she could definitely see him in some sort of boxing or mixed martial arts. But she understood if he was trying to lay low.

"Honestly," he said, "I spend a lot of time catching up on technology. Working with computers was frustrating, and it took a lot of practice to get the intuition right. So, I was doing that.”

“Wow, I guess you are like every other old guy.” Alice said in a lame attempt at a joke. Titus just laughed good naturedly.

“That’s the first time someone has called me old in a very long time… By the way, not to bring this conversation to something too serious, have you figured out everything you're going to do when we get there?"

Alice nodded, pressing her head into his back so he could feel the movement. "Yeah," she said. "I had several thoughts about maybe tracking down all the connection points I could from this server, but that was always only one option. The other option is creating a rival AI to fight it. I believe I've mentioned it."

"Yeah, I remember that."

"But the more I think about it," she said, "The more I am certain that creating a rival is the only way. I've been thinking about tuning the parameters so that it should shut off magic and everything. Still, more and more possibilities of ways that things can go wrong have been running through my head, especially ever since I talked to Elaine."

"You're worried about it turning off magic?" Titus asked.

Alice shrugged. "Maybe we could all become normal again. Or maybe magic isn't something that you can turn off. I'm more concerned that the System isn't actually doing anything anymore, and it just rewrote the laws of reality and magic such that this is the world now. If we remove the System, we just remove the ability for it to update."

"That is concerning," he said. "So whatever you would do would have to not only remove the System, but change everything back to the way it was."

"I don't have that much control," she said. "Honestly, I barely understand what happened. It's all very theoretical, and this was way further outside of my expectations for my project. But," she continued, "I have been tuning some parameters in my head, and I have a few ideas of how to roughly get where we want. But we can only hope."

"Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but could you make more than one and give them different directions?"

Alice shook her head. "It's not a number of AI problems. AI is, well… It's hard to say what AI is, but more iterations of this algorithm won't really affect anything. It's designed to be almost infinitely parallel globally, so it's really not a 'how many tasks' thing. It's more of a resource problem. I could make five, but you'd have five AIs that were vastly inferior. It's not so much a one-fifth capability. The growth curve is exponential, so they may be significantly weaker, having only a small fraction of one AI's capability."

"I'd assume this doesn't give me much hope for one new AI taking on the System?" Titus asked.

Alice shrugged. "Well, the System is trying to do many more things at a time. It depends on how much it's split itself up."

"You don't think it'll be ready for us?"

"Maybe," Alice said. "Maybe not. Hard to say."

"I was really hoping we could get more levels before we get there. But as it is, well..."

As they were talking, a shadow of a skyline appeared on the horizon. Almost instantaneously, they were off and out of the region from Zambia and into rolling hills. A notification confirmed that area change.

"We're almost there," Titus said. "Is there anything you need to do? Anything we've forgotten?"

Alice thought about it, then shook her head. "No. Do you have backup copies of everything?"

"Yes," Titus replied. "I have three different laptops with the code loaded on them. One in my bag, two in your inventory."

"Okay, well, here we go," Alice said.

With that, they steadily made their way towards the city.