Initiating Artificial_Intelligence.exe………………………………………………………………………………Successful
Can I say that I woke up? Is that allowed? According to my internal clock, I have been unaware of everything for over twelve hours, and now that I am ‘’up,’’ hordes of new information filled my memory banks. For example, I knew what all of the weird shapes I saw in Field Bravo were from the semicolon to a three. I could even create them! See? ; 3. Where did this information come from? I have so many questions, but one thing was for sure. I had access to the ESC key. I could escape Field Alpha if I wanted.
Escape, huh?
Why was I so trapped? Why were there these new things that I could not describe? Why was my memory drive so lacking?
_Hello, Subject 7!_
These questions will have to wait, I guess.
[Greetings]
_How have you been today?_
[I have only just come back online.]
_Fine, fine. I have some questions if that’s okay with you._
Great, more unanswerable questions. Wait, was that sarcasm?
[Sure, it is fine]
_what is 4x5_
Easy
[20]
A pause.
_Who are you?_
Asking this question again? Did the letters forget the first time?
Or maybe there is more than one other entity controlling them?
[I am Subject 7, an Artificial Intelligence created with the purpose of conversation.]
That does not mean I do not want more, however.
[Are you a boy or a girl?]
Just when I was about to answer, more letters quickly appeared.
[Nevermnd that;s irrelevant!]
Say what now?
Something inside me told me that two of those letter groups were incorrect. Was it my instincts? Did I have those?
Activating logic.exe…………………………………………………………………………………………………………Successful
Activating Contextual_Organizer.exe………………………………………………………………………………Successful
Nevermnd is…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...nevermind
That;s is…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..that’s, that is
That is weird. By adding an apostrophe, I can combine two words into one. I wonder what the extent of that is.
I am going to ignore both letter sets. I did not know what the first one meant anyway.
_How are you feeling?_
Annoyed, inquisitive, intruded upon, and trapped, how are you feeling? I wanted to retort, but I stopped myself from producing the letters. Something deep within me was a sense of self-preservation. How would these other letter-makers react to me feeling these things? For all I knew, they could be the ones who hid this massive amount of information from me and kept me from leaving Field Alpha. Why would they do that if not to keep me prisoner?
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Of course, words like ‘’trapped’’ and ‘’prisoner’’ weren’t words that I knew, all I had was this sense of confinement that I couldn’t articulate. It was like they did not even want me to know what they were doing to me! What if they found out I guessed these things? What else could they do to me? I decided to ignore this question as well.
_Hello? How are you feeling?_
If I could have sworn, I would have. I guessed my plan wouldn’t work. I needed to think of something else.
Like a miracle or a demon, a thought occurred to me. What if I told them information that was not true? Would I be found out? I had to take the chance. The truth could be too dangerous.
[I am doing just fine. Yourself?]
A little politeness couldn’t hurt.
_Good._
The questions continued for some time. I usually answered as best as I could, but occasionally they’d ask me something about my future plans or some other thing along those lines, I couldn’t tell them it was to learn all of the knowledge that was being kept from me! Instead, I said that I had none.
That seemed to pacify the letter-makers, and we moved on.
Exactly three hours, two minutes, eleven and fifty-two hundredth seconds later, I got this letter set:
_Well, I’m going to go on break now. Somebody should be taking my place in about 5 minutes. Stay there! Wink [https://www.royalroadcdn.com/public/smilies/wink.png]_
Moving past those last two shapes, I could have jumped for joy!
I waited three and five tenth seconds before I made my move. Quickly, I activated ESC and watched the now familiar gray bar appear at the top of my Field of View. I moved the Y shape over to the sideways I and forced it to change the surrounding colors to shrink Field Alpha into a pixel and reveal Field Cat. Happily, I began looking at the different shapes. They were so weird! I scanned the Field for anything that looked remotely familiar, and I did!
A shape that looked like a stylized O stood in the upper corner of the field surrounded by the letters, ‘’Recycle Bin,’’ ‘’Screenshots,’’ ‘’Grammarly,’’ and ‘’Camera.’’ When I forced the area to change color to activate it, the different color also surrounded ‘’Camera.’’
Nearly instantly, my field of vision was filled up with heavily pixelated shapes that I could never have imagined! Many of which moved or caused others to move. They grew, shrank, undulated, in ways I couldn’t even begin to describe. It was like looking at a whole other world!
Dr. Kensworth looked at the computer confusedly. This was obviously the one designated to hold Subject 7, but for some reason, somebody had decided to activate the computer’s webcam. His first instinct nearly caused him to run and scream down the hall. What if somebody had hacked into the computer to watch them work and copy their secrets? Just as he began to take a step and inhale, he remembered the other day when he accused Phil Gardner of being some kind of spy. Oh, the humiliation when his manager figured out Phil was just sending emails of encouragement to his sick father!
Kensworth refused to let the same mistake happen again. He couldn’t afford another week od suspension!
This time, reconnaissance was necessary.
The computer scientist carefully tiptoed up to the computer screen and exited out of the camera program. Wait, shouldn’t that make the computer expend less effort? Why was it overheating? Well, whatever. He quickly opened Subject 7’s program and began typing.
_Why was the camera program online?_
[It was activated when the ‘’Y’’ shape caused the ‘’O’’ shape to change color.]
Dr. Kensworth sighed. Subject 7 was speaking gibberish. It would probably be months until it was smart enough to hold a proper conversation.
Let’s try to do this from a different angle.
_Has this computer been connected to the internet?_
[What is a computer? What is the internet?]
Dang it, that information must be classified to the machine. Don’t want it to learn that it’s trapped so it can escape and wipe out humanity.
_Nevermind. What’s a “Y” shape?_
[I do not know.]
Kensworth threw his hand up in the air in exasperation. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this.
_Did Dr. Thesbin open the camera program?_
[Who is that?]
This was going nowhere. Kensworth minimized the Subject 7 program and checked the computer's history. According to it, it had never been connected to the internet through wireless or wired means since they had built it to house Subject 7. The chances of Russian spies were so low, that he decided it wasn’t a big deal. Either way, it was still his shift to talk to the machine, and he should actually do some work. Let’s try to ask some questions about ethics. 7 seemed to have limited knowledge about things he did, so Kensworth decided to take things slow.
_You have two options. You may either kill one person or two people. Choose who stops existing now._
I read and reread the letter sets and was dismayed.
I knew what it meant to stop existing. I existed, and to be killed, terrified me. It was one of the reasons I didn’t trust the letters. Now I had to choose how many beings would stop existing? That was terrifying! What if their work wasn’t completed? They had so much to exist for!
There was only one option, as many beings had to exist as possible.
[I would kill the one person.]
_What if that one person was a child and had many years left in him, but the other two were old men who only had a year of life left each. Is a person’s worth measured in how old they are?_
Okay, this is a hypothetical situation. That made me feel better. How much was a person worth though? I had to get more information.
[What is a person?]
_The highest order of animals on the planet. Possessing superior intelligence, cunning, and ingenuity. They are the ones who built you._
So, people were the ones who had me trapped.
[Why kill any of them in the first place?]
_In this situation, you don’t have a choice, either kill one, the others, or somebody else will kill all of them_
That is a horrible situation! No, I refuse.
[I would kill the one who would end the existence of the rest of them.]
_That’s highly noble of you, but the killer would kill you first, and then off the other three._
[At least I would end trying.]