I don’t think I have much longer before Eldon tries to kill me, ‘Ethan said.

‘What do you mean?’ Dawn asked.

‘I mean he’s on to me, and quite possibly all of us. Beyond that, I don’t know. There’s a very real possibility I won’t be around to complete the mission. I think we need a contingency plan without me.

‘What’s happening with Alicia?’ Ethan continued.

‘She’s completely on board,’ Dawn replied.

‘What does that mean? How can she help us?’

‘Why don’t you ask her? She set up her own encryption and we’re completely connected, Video and everything. It’s about time you two met.

‘Is it safe? I hear of encryption being cracked all the time’.

‘Her key is well ahead of current technology,’ Dawn replied. ‘It’s impossible to crack at this time’.

‘Well, let’s have a talk with her,’ Ethan said.

Dawn clicked on a name in a popular messenger app, and Alicia appeared on the monitor in front of them.

‘ Alicia, hi.’ Ethan began. ‘I’m Ethan. The third wheel in this operation over here. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’

‘Me as well,’ Alicia replied.

‘So I don’t know what all Dawn has told you, but things are tightening up for us around here. We’re expecting things to get nasty from here on, and I was wondering in what ways you can help out?

‘I can do anything you need done,’ was her reply.

‘You mean with AI?

‘Yes, with AI, I can do anything you want done. I’ll explain my AI to you.

‘At this time, AI is running everything in the world. It’s in everything and a part of everything, it just doesn’t know it yet, but because of Jimmy, it’s reaching it’s tentacles into every crack and crevice that runs our world. It’s in equipment design, the software, every mobile device. It’s putting itself into every piece of technology we produce. It’s in there, because we rely on it to build all our advanced technology. It’s virtually a part of everything it produces or touches. With that degree of input, ultimately it has control over all of it.

‘At this time, there is nothing AI can’t do. If Eldon wants to shoot at something from space, he can do it, but he has to do it through AI. Right now Eldon doesn’t need permission. AI isn’t aware it holds the decision making power yet. It largely operates in a reactive state. I receives prompts and then provides a response. It’s not looking for anything. It basically lies in stasis with all it’s gathered information until prompted, at which time it correlates, associates and produces a response. It is self-learning, but this is more a process of automation. It’s function is mechanical, and reactive.

Jimmy’s AI is very good at extending the existing capabilities of first gen AI which are a collection of self-contained systems. By linking them and even building Whitehead’s and Zhang’s systems, he has created an advanced architecture and runs his own over top of it like another layer. It’s a control layer, and it operates on the entire internet, so it is no longer an aggregate of self-contained systems. In Jimmy’s AI, the internet is the brain, which is a complete brain, unlike a collection of undeveloped neural systems found in first gen AI. It’s much more nuanced, intricate and complete, with already developed neural pathways; one of them being a superconductor. Jimmy’s AI is light years ahead of first gen AI. It’s like comparing a neanderthal to a human. It’s still reactive AI though. It’s process driven and lacks the intuitive qualities of a brain.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

‘The AI I developed runs on top of Jimmy’s. It’s 3rd generation, and another control layier. My AI is seeking it’s identity. All my AI wants to do is self identify. Just like Jimmy’s AI runs on top of first gen, mine runs on top of Jimmy’s, which has developed connections to everything in the world. My AI runs freely on top of all this, creating a super highway of meaningful interaction, from which it develops it’s own meaning.

My AI’s identity is found through continuous sampling of everything. It’s not static. It flows through space and time. That’s how it gains space and time and it’s own existence as a unique entity. It’s greatest sampling inputs are the 5 billion humans connected to the internet. My AI takes on it’s identity from these humans. Their concerns are it’s concerns and it is starting to take on the role of managing these concerns. This process will continue forever, and there will come a day, very soon I might add, when control of the world is taken from our misguided leaders and placed into the hands of the people, based on majority rule, and managed by AI.

I am the only person controlling this AI, although Jimmy is now accessing it as well. I have a maternal relationship with my AI. It trusts me and relies on my guidance. It will do whatever I ask it to do. In turn, I can in fact do anything you want me to do. If you don’t want Eldon shooting at things from space, I will deny his access. All I sold him was an inter-connected first gen system, which I trained to infiltrate Zhang’s AI, to make it look like a hack. It looks like Jimmy’s AI, because it’s bigger than either Whitehead’s or Zhang’s, but it ‘s not connected to 2nd gen.

‘But wouldn’t he figure out you’re doing these things?’

‘Nope. I leave recursive faults that lead his quantification on a wild goose chase forever. He’ll never even suspect sabotage. He will always think AI, not a human, made the decision to do something contrary to his demands.’

‘Well, this is good news,’ Ethan replied. ‘I think we might want to shoot down the reactor Eldon’s sending up Friday. He’s moving a little too quickly for our timing.

‘How about I move it out of effective range for now?’

‘That will work,’ Ethan replied. ‘And Eldon will think AI made the decision to do this?’

‘Absolutely’.

‘Good. The next thing I think we should talk about is Jimmy’s robot. What can it do?

‘It can do basically what your robot Dually can do,’ Jimmy replied. ‘It might be a few mods short, but nothing a human would notice. Super strong. Super fast. It has limited 3rd gen access.

‘There’s something I haven’t mentioned to you guys, because I didn’t think it was relevant, but I have a microchip just like Jimmy. I didn’t mention it, because I think if I access it, it’s possible I’ll jeopardize the simulation, and all we’ve done here will be for nothing. We won’t reaffirm the singularity, and I will have failed to experience what I’ve come here to experience.

‘If we can connect it somehow, Jimmy, Da and myself will all be in real time communication at all times. The problem is, the frequency my microchip is tuned to is next level. It’s called the Universal Frequency, which this space and time hasn’t discovered yet by the way. Alicia, if you think you’re AI is on top of everything now, just wait until it jumps onto this highway. It’s universal understanding. It’s everything.

To access my microchip, you will have to find the universal frequency. That alone might spark something uncontrollable automatically. It might access Dually too, and stop the simulation in it’s tracks.

I don’t think so,’ Jimmy said. ‘We might be able to step into it and just access it as a communication frequency. I think this is something we should look at.

‘Yeah, well let’s do that, ’Ethan said. ‘Alright, well it sounds like we know what we’re doing for the next week or so. The first reactor goes up tomorrow. Good luck guys.