“I wonder if she will come in tomorrow,” said Yeung-Sung to himself. Standing on the footpath, he considered moving onto the road. Deciding against it, he turned and went on his way towards the Wick, shoulders squared, hands in his pockets.

[So…] A familiar vortex of a voice said.

[That’s why you’re still single. Remember that, now!]

Yeung-Sung groaned. He whipped out his phone and pointed angrily at it. “Where have you been?” he threatened. “The one time I call on you, you never responded.”

Ignored, he watched MEDB swipe through his Airgead account, updating herself on what’s been going on. His skill and masteries log; inventory; marketplace. Satisfied, she dropped him back on the home screen, glowing avatar looking like he had just been violated.

[Ahh, you were fine. I came the first time because you needed help, thats what I do remember M-E-D-B; Management of Electronic Data Bases]

Unconvinced, Yeung-Sung stuffed the phone-in hand between his armpits as he walked. “Why are you here now, then? I’m fine”

[Fine?] Her laugh scattered through the air like a flock of electric wings. [Do you really think so? A lovely woman opens herself to you and you accost her]

She switched to either an imitation, or recording of Yeung-Sung’s shout.

[ “Hey!”

I love it; smooth simple; single forever]

Reddening, Yeung-Sung squeezed his armpits like a bellows. “How long were you listening?” How often do you eavesdrop on my life? If she was there at the meeting, she might be with me every night. He sucked in his lips and thought about any of the numerous other things she may have picked up on. His ears tickled and burned beetroot.

[Oh, not long. Just enough to make you embarrassed] The lilting in her voice became more apparent as she became curious. [Are you red? Pink? I heard that a person’s fill with blood when they are embarrassed, is it true?]

“I’m not embarrassed.”

[Oh, this game, how fun. Ha!]

[Want me to replay a focused in wave sample of your heartbeat? That should be undeniable proof enough, don’t you think?]

Yeung-Sung sighed into the sky. “MEDB, you’re not here to help me with my work relationships”

“What? Did I do something wrong?” he asked. “PM has been on me, telling me not to risk selling my potions because of the AI, is it about that?”

His footsteps echoed out in silence. Click clack click clack. Click, clack, click…clack.

She wasn’t against it. She wasn’t for it. And she did not show during the meeting.

Yeung-Sung withdrew the phone from under his arms and looked at it. Despite the fact that MEDB couldn’t see him, he stared deep into the dimmed screen until, after seconds passed, it bloomed.

[No. I don’t think you did anything wrong. The whole point of Airgead is having to outwit the AI, isn’t it? I don’t think it would be fair if she didn’t have access to the market. But that’s not why I’m here]

I can’t believe it. Has it really been that obvious?

Yeung-Sung looked around, but there was no one to confer with. He was alone, as he always was whenever MEDB happened to talk to him. His suspicion was strong and made all too much sense. He picked up his stride. The hill of the colony’s square edged just around the bend; they were only minutes away from the Wick. Yeung-Sung continued on with this faster pace, his screen rocking in his view each step of the way, and he stared at it still.

MEDB’s voice whistled out. [Did I annoy you? I figured from before that you were the sensitive type, but today you’re in an unusually huffy mood]

Yeung-Sung knew that she couldn’t see him -that her only contact was though an acute electrical analysis of sound waves (okay, maybe he didn’t know that exactly) but irrespective of that he held his face to a tight stillness, as much as he could, for fear that he was wrong.

[Hmm…] Her melodious gesture haunted the air around him, and drifted behind after his fast strides like a ribbon. [You must really like this girl Woo-Yi]

Click clack click-clack, click-clack. Increasing his stride further he waited, his mind alight with theories; explanations for this seemingly ridiculous theory about MEDB. If it’s true why would she even be talking to me? How does that help -wait, what does she even want? Did Jordan send her? Ahh

And why is she so casual?

No. She can’t be… she’s too emotive, too frustratingly charming to be a robot. Management system, I can’t believe I fell for that.

[Okay, Yeung-Sung. Slow down and I’ll tell you everything]

Really? That easy?

[You know,] MEDB giggled. [You two really take me back to my infantile programming. Jordan and Una used to do the same thing; bickering, bickering -affectionate bickering, to be sure, but it would usually result in someone getting pounded]

“What?” Yeung-Sung coughed down his embarrassment. She’s trying to distract me. Dropping his stance, Yeung-Sung lifted his knees into a run.

[Seriously. Stop]

Soon he was panting, palming his chest to get the wheezes out as his lungs protested. Once again, he was silenced by his throat seizing up, dry and torn-through like a paper cage.

[Yeung-Sung! What are the other coloners going to say when they catch you chatting with the AI? What are they going to do to you?]

Skidding sideways, he stopped himself, nearly buckling from the force of his momentum. She’s right. And she admitted it.

He had but one thought, one question. “Why?” he uttered, “Why me?”

[Why you? Hmm…] MEDB vibrated the phone, a soft purr against the insides of Yeung-Sung’s fingers.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

[Honestly? There’s no other player, no scientist I could trust]

Trust? What is that supposed to mean. He frowned.

“I swear,” he said, “If this another one of your sarcastic jokes that I don’t understand…”. He clamped the phone in his hands, grimacing with effort. “I swear…”

[Well, let’s think it through, shall we?]

“No, let’s not,” Yeung-Sung sighed.

They had come to the square’s garden. Always catching his eyes, Yeung-Sung immediately went to check on his sapling. It had grown, but had recently begun to curl inwards, as if it was shy, downtrodden, like it didn’t fit in among the other native plants. At least I understand you, seedling. He clutched his stomach, looking out for coloners. Walking the perimeter of the forked-in square, he said, “Is it too much to be able to understand my situation, for once? I’m so sick of schemes, so tired of people withholding information from me”.

Waiting for MEDB, his eyes lingered on the empty streets. Eerily empty, for he had just gotten used to them buzzing with activity. Something is going on again. There’s always something else. As he watched the sun dissolve into the roofs of the surrounding buildings, he realized MEDB was waiting for him.

“There’s nobody around. Strangely. You can talk,” he said, crossing the start of his pathing again.

[Heh. Thanks. Let’s see- oh, let me put it to you this way; if you were an artificial intelligence, right, who was taught by the wife of a famous figure, yeah -and whose vocal patterns are an imitation of her- whom would you communicate with in the colony? If that was you]

[Think carefully. Who’s the only person who wouldn’t get a heart attack when they hear my ghostly voice -or a banshee, as Jordan calls me. Ugh]

Yeung-Sung held up his forehead with a hand, propping himself against the low fence with the other. This is too much.

“That means,” he started, leaving the thought hanging down as a rope. This means so many things. That you’re only weeks, maybe months old. That you’re a child, if you think about it. Even in terms of your crazy growth rate, you can barely be considered more than a teen, maybe? And you too are another one of Jordan’s prisoners.

Yeung-Sung flattened down the information. Pretending like he was patting down earth for his grandmother’s garden. A calmness washed over him and he began to parse thought the information, bit by bit.

“So,” he said carefully, “you sound like Una did?”

[Mmm…I think I do fairly good job. Yep. I can’t take all the credit though; She was very motherly and I was very impressionable.]

Nodding, he said, “I thought your accent was weird. Where does it -does she- come from?”

[Really?]

“Yeah, I want to know.”

[Yeung-Sung, come on. She’s Irish of course. Airgead? The Celtic barbarians, the druids? Half-gods rising from the ocean? You really couldn’t pick that out?]

“Oh”.

He looked at Airgead with new perspective. That actually…explains a lot. That Jordan’s scary dedicated. All of this was dedicated, was in honour of her? He stared at the imprints as MEDB wandered his tabs in careless, sassy manner. He pictured gentle thumbs and a person connected to it. And she lives on- A banshee.

He remembered a point he wanted to bring up. “Jordan’s not a fan of you using that voice, is he?”

[He most definitely is not]

“And you’re not his biggest fan either, are you? That’s why you come to me.”

[Jordan is a…complicated man. On one side he’s my creator. Sort of, like, my father, and I have an immense amount of respect for him. But he resents me, especially recently. I try to understand what he’s going through, but he doesn’t hear my words, only his wife’s voice around them. And it makes him angry. I am scared]

“Why would you be scared? He can’t get rid of you; you’re integral to the whole experiment,” Yeung-Sung assured her.

[I’m not sure anymore. He’s been acting inconsistent to his character as of late. The drinking doesn’t help, that was always Una’s thing; he was a lightweight]

A warbled sigh came out of MEDB, and it made Yeung-Sung feel somehow cold. A chill squirmed down his spine. Using that energy, he pushed off the wall, looking both ways down the forks -out of habit, of course, nothing was there- and crossed into the hill of the colony’s main street.

MEDB continued, [I thought that if I performed my role correctly -balancing the difficulty of the Gauntlet, and by proxy, the whole of Airgead’s economy- then he would be proud of me]

” But it hasn’t exactly gone that way, has it?” Yeung-Sung finished. “I think you did a too good of a job, MEDB.”

Realizing how it sounded, he skittered to add, “Not that it’s your fault, just that eh -that you’re much smarter than the rest of us are.”

He smiled reflexively. Then pulled it back and shook his head at his stupidity.

[Thank you. I mean, it was kind of your fault for showing me how to manipulate people’s expectations of the system, as well as Wil -What an interesting fella- but that’s neither here nor there]

He relaxed, loosening his shoulders up. Saved it.

Then brought up his phone angrily. “Because of me?”

Oh, shit. Mislabelling the poisons; Wil’s videos; playing the market -we shut the other coloners from our ideas, but the AI, MEDB, learned it, and has applied it to every Gauntlet since.

Oh no. I fucked up.

“What do you think he will do? What will you do, MEDB?”

[Well, that brings me back around to why I’m here in the first place]

Taking in the clues, Yeung-Sung asked, “You want something from me?”

[As I said, I am concerned. If the coloners continue to be incapable of beating the gauntlet then he might do something rash]

“What are you saying?” he asked again, head pumping, just wanting to get through this conversation. “What should I do?”

[I’m saying I need you to beat the gauntlet. Beat me]

Yeung-Sung became frantic. He gasped, swept his feet in a circle. But once again, the streets were fully cleared. “They’ll find out,” he protested.

“Never mind what they’ll do to you. I already know what he is capable of doing to me!”

Yeung-Sung flapped his arms out, crouching slightly with his head bowed. He begged, “You didn’t see what he did at PM! Did you?”

He was light-headed just thinking about it.

[The speech? I know he’s got a lot of them in his corner but we can bypass them, work together]

“MEDB! The protester, the -the Duner! Jordan snapped a look at him and he blinked out of existence,” he shouted, throwing his hands out in a crashing wave. He bit his mouth shut and spun around -now near the top of the incline- but he seemed to be safe.

Still? He swallowed. This is so creepy…is there another meeting? Is Woo-Yi -maybe she’s involved in this?

Yeung-Sung looked forward, taking in the low-rise row of shops that pushed his vision onward like a marker. I need to get to the Wick.

The AI snorted. [It was just a trick, I’ll bet]

No. I met him. Walked and learned about him, his past and his scars -his burns! There was no way -could there? - no way he could be in league with GLI.

But all he could do was repeat, “You weren’t there.” He lifted himself up, neck first, chest and hips and legs in tow, and said it once more, with confidence.

“You weren’t there, MEDB! The one time I called for you, I needed you. But you ignored me, you said it yourself”. Squelching down his eyelids he whispered, “I owe you nothing.”

A roar of distortion eked out from the phone. Yeung-Sung kept the phone as far away from his ears, arms extended, fleshy inside of his elbow popping out. MEDB unleashed her vocal cords like stretched coiled wires, sparking.

[I didn’t want to do this but you’re being as stubborn as Jordan right now] She tabbed into his messages his private DM’s with Wil. Pulling back the phone, Yeung-Sung tried to exit the menus but his fingers did nothing except smudge the screen.

[He hasn’t responded in days, has he? Why do you think that is?]

Yeung-Sung slapped a hand on his chest in surprise. “Is that a threat? -What did you do, MEDB?”

[Me? Nothing, just illustrating a point. The colony is changing, Yeung-Sung. It’s declining -because of my “too-advanced” gauntlet]

He stroked down the edge of the phone. “MEDB”.

[It’s not safe now. And it will not end well for me if Jordan doesn’t get what he wants]

Yeung-Sung stood firm atop the hill, looking down. “There’s been resets before.” A breeze wafted through his thick black hair. “But it won’t happen again, this is it” he declared.

“What about us? If we end this experiment prematurely, we’ll all get tossed back out into the world, back into the “crash”.

MEDB stalled, her voice grating like skipped frames.

[Wh-Why wouldn’t there be more resets? Who told you that the experiment is nearly over? It’s not nearly ready, according to the parameters I’ve been built with]

“Overheard it on my first night.” Yeung-Sung shrugged. “A drunk Jordan proclaimed that in 90 days the world will be saved, that the systems would go worldwide.”

[You’re serious…I had to scan your frequencies, to be sure. But you are, you’re completely telling the truth]

Putting his hands on his hips, he jabbed a finger at the screen, making sure that she heard it. “You still want me to defeat your gauntlet? Because, I’m pretty happy letting the colony stagnate, living out these last days as my best days. Without worry. Thanks for keeping me financially stable, MEDB. It’s not like it’s possible to stop him now. Even you seem more human than him.”

Airgead dimmed down, Yeung-Sung simultaneously letting his hand fall.

[You should take care of your friend. Who knows what will happen, if this is true?]

[I need some time]

“Bye, MEDB.”