Ethan watched every moment of Revered Al on the monitor as he kicked, stomped and body-slammed the devil into submission.

‘Who the hell is that?’ He asked turning to a smiling Dawn and Jimmy.

‘That’s Reverend Al,’ Dawn replied. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know. He does seem to grab your attention’.

‘Over a billion consistent viewers when you include his ‘cooking for poor people’, and ‘community gardening’ shows. Each of his programs targets different audiences, we’re prompting into coordinated action groups.’

‘So this is something we’re doing?’ Ethan asked.

‘Yup,’ Jimmy replied. ‘All AI produced’.

‘Isn’t he a little over the top?’

‘That’s the persona everyone likes’ Dawn said. ‘For some reason, older generations seem to tap into him, and younger generations find it cheesy enough to warrant their attention. AI optimized the character’.

‘What’s our goal here?’

‘A centralized voice. Someone representing the resistance, without identifying as the resistance’.

‘What’s he doing though?’ Ethan continued.

‘He’s telling people what to do next. He’s someone who can get the people moving in the right direction. He’s mobilizing the resistance.’

‘So how is your old mobilizing the crowd working out these days?

‘We’re hitting it from two angles. We have Reverend Al directing the movement, and AI is triggering people to act. It’s continuously sampling everything; trends, social media, changes to laws. Anything particular that will motivate individually sampled people is used.

‘See, this is the thing,’ Ethan replied. ‘Aren’t we just as unethical as anyone else when we’re directing people without their knowledge?’

‘We’re not trying to change the minds of people who have formed opinions. We’re targeting the undecided, and with social media moving so far to the right, we are only countering with an alternative perspective. We’re finding most of these people are in a sort of stasis which requires prompting. It doesn’t really matter which side the prompting comes from. We feel it’s our duty to provide them with an alternative choice.

‘Agreed,’ Ethan replied.

‘Overall, the people are starting to mobilize,’ Dawn continued. Our main objective is to make people aware of the ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’. It’s power and utility, and that create real change for themselves and the rest of the world by using it. It’s starting to catch on. The environmental movement is now using it effectively.

‘I’ve never really got what that is,’ Ethan interrupted.

‘It’s in discovery and it’s effects have been confirmed on a number of occasions. It’s appeared most prominently back with ‘The Me Too’ movement and the ‘GameStop’ rebellion. It’s mass social engagement. Through social media, a majority over an issue becomes aware of it and descends upon it with intention. Acting in unison. The mere scale of the presence triggers a response. The outcome is overwhelming when the majority demands a response, and it always goes their way. With the ‘Me Too’ movement the lives of people involved in the scandal, even on the periphery, had their careers ruined. This all happened outside the judicial system. With ‘GameStop’, the majority showed up again, and punished Hedge Funds to the tune of $10 billion. The Wisdom of the Crowd is real and the most powerful force on earth. If we can convince people to use it’.

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Are we on time? Will they use it before the singularity?

“it is a tipping point we’re looking for. Very hard to predict, but we feel we are in the zone. The environmental movement is very quickly bringing awareness to it, as well as other things the resistance has got going on. It is asking the whole world to stand up against the War, Whitehead and Zhang. Fortunately, the number on majority rule is less than 5% of the population acting in agreement. It’s very achievable, that’s for sure.’

‘Well, that’s sounds better than how we’re getting on with Eldon. He’s gearing up to go to at it with Zhang. I suspect things are going to get pretty tense from here on.

‘Yeah,’ Jimmy responded. ‘It looks like war. He’s called a general meeting of all his lieutenants. He hasn’t done that since I’ve been around’.

‘Yep. He’s pissed. How are you set up for what’s coming Jimmy?’

‘No worries. As far as anyone knows, Zhang has his AI which he is relying on to overcome Whitehead. Whitehead has his AI which he intends to use to neutralize Zhang. For the purpose of war these are the two most efficient AI’s out there. No one knows about my AI, which can neutralize any of them with a push of a button.

‘How come your AI has never been detected? Don’t those things draw a noticeable amount of power to operate?’

‘Well, my AI is decentralized.‘ It operates in the internet, not outside. It draws everything from the internet, even it’s source of power. My AI lives in the internet. It’s everywhere. It’s in your cellphones and computers. It’s in organizations, Universities, and scientific labs. It’s not storing data like other AI. It’s linking and processing data from within. Everyone else stores it. It does some draw power, but it’s minimal for an AI system, and spread out evenly amongst everything connected to the internet.

‘How would you even do that?’ Dawn asked.

‘Because I started small. ‘I sent in a single piece of code to ping off sites, looking for simple backdoor access. When they found one, they created an anchor, and staked out a little piece of property on someone else’s claim. Once this was accomplished, I started sending code through my linked system. At first most of it was to train it to build a stronger and more secure infrastructure, which it continues to do on it’s own today. It’s impenetrable and it’s learned how to be in everything now. It controls Whitehead’s and Zhang’s AI. Trust me. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has control over the internet like I do right now.

No sooner had Jimmy said this, than an alert came to him through his microchip.

‘Well that interesting,’ he said.

‘What?’ Ethan and Dawn asked in unison.

‘My AI is being attacked. Jimmy replied. ‘From within the internet’.

‘Eldon?’ Ethan asked.

‘Most likely. Possibly a foreign national. Probably the US government under Eldon’s tutelage.

‘What are we going to do about that?’

‘I directed my AI to develop strategies and protocols of self defence. We let them fight it out.

Jimmy sent out an order. ‘Defeat and assimilate’.

Everyone became quiet, thinking about the consequences of this first strike which would lead up to the final days. Reverend AI could be heard in the background. This time he was in his community garden, located somewhere in Central Park. The only thing growing there was a huge Amnesia Haze cannabis plant. It looked more like a tree than a pot plant. Reverend Al liked to lie beside while he smoked a doobie from a previous harvest. Then he just started to babble.

‘Now, I’m not saying it’s true,’ he said, ‘but what if, is all I’m saying. What if we’re all star travelers making our way through space and time. Oh that would be a fun time. I love the stars. That’s where I’d go. Did you ever notice it’s not them moving, it’s us. The earth’s moving. The solar system’s moving. Even the old galaxy is moving along. Someday, I’m going to figure out how fast we’re moving. I bet it’s pretty fast.

‘I wonder if I have any Eggo's at home? An Eggo kind of looks like a world doesn’t it? Hey, have you guys ever had this bread pudding. It’s like a pudding but it’s made with white bread and drenched in all this lemony, syrupy, deliciousness. I wonder how you make that?