‘Hey, so what’s going on?’ Jimmy asked the next morning. ‘I saw Eldon called you in to see him.’

‘Yeah, he wants me to kill you’.

‘What?’

‘He wants me to kill you’.

‘What did I do?’ Jimmy wailed.

Ethan gave him an ‘are you serious’ look.

‘Really?’ Ethan asked. ‘Come on. We all knew this was coming’.

‘Yeah, I guess. But why specifically?’

‘Well, regardless of what’s going on with your AI, you’ve obviously become redundant. Maybe he just wants to tie up loose ends, but I think it has more to do with showing my loyalty to him. He knows what’s been going on at the orgies. He wants me to prove I have no allegiance to anyone other than him’.

‘So, let's figure out all we know now, and decide how to proceed’, Ethan continued.

‘Wait a minute,’ Jimmy exclaimed. ‘What about me?’

‘I don’t know. We’ll figure something out. It’s not like I have to do it today. Let’s figure out where we stand first. Then we’ll decide what to do with you’.

‘Eldon’s starting a ground war against Zhang’, Ethan continued. ‘I’m running the logistics, and Johann Schneider’s the muscle. He didn’t say it, but his main goal is to divert attention and suspicion away from himself, not go to war with Zhang. He’s starting the war as a diversion. It will cloud his true intentions with StarForce. He plans to use it against his own people as well as Zhang. No one will suspect him if they think they’re all fighting against a common enemy.

‘I’m not sure what to think about where we stand with AI,’ Ethan went on. ‘I always thought it in some way triggered the social revolution. While Jimmy had control over AI, I supposed we could bring that scenario about, but now I don’t know where we stand. What do we know about this attack? Are we going to get your AI back or not?’

‘I’m not sure what’s going on yet. I know who’s doing it though. It’s definitely the Albino. Her signature is everywhere’.

‘Who’s she’?

‘A rebel punk working out of Hell’s Kitchen. Kind of a living legend type super coder. She does things where people can’t even follow the logic and turns it into a piece of perfection every time. Just a freak of nature, if you ask me’.

‘Sounds like a little professional jealousy,’ Dawn said.

‘No. Everything about her is freaky. She is an albino, but she has all these really bright colored paisley tattoos covering her entire body, right up to her temples. The only part of her still albino is her forehead, and it’s kind of like the tattoos guide your eyes up to it, and all of a sudden you’re looking at it like the sun. What’s really cool is she colored her eyes so they’re a bright yellow with a clear blue orb around the outer edges of the iris. It’s freaky. She’s pretty hot’.

‘Is she going to take AI away from us?’ Ethan asked.

‘It depends on what she has planned. She could make it difficult for us.’

‘What do you think is going on?’

‘I think she was doing something very similar to me and stumbled onto my AI. She finances herself by selling competitive advantages she finds on the internet. Hacks into corporations and things like that. I suppose she sold my system to Eldon. That would be my guess.

‘Okay then,’ Ethan said. ‘I think the first thing we have to do is find this albino and have a talk with her. We have to know where we stand. Jimmy, can you make contact with her?’

‘I could try to set up an encrypted video conference with her.

‘Well, call her up. Let’s see what she has to say.’

It took a couple hours before the Albino responded to Jimmy’s request. While they were waiting, they started thinking of ways they could kill Jimmy, or at least make it look like they did.

‘Can you switch your robot back to look like you?’

‘Of course I can. Li was created in my image,’ Jimmy stated proudly. ‘You’re not going to kill my robot are you?’

‘Maybe. We could...’

Just then, the Albino accepted Jimmy’s video chat request. They had the camera set up so she would only see Jimmy. Ethan and Dawn watched from a separate monitor.

‘Jimmy,’ she greeted.

‘Get the fuck out of my AI, bitch,’ Jimmy screamed.

The connection went dead.

‘Well she seems in a mood,’ Jimmy said, unperturbed. ‘Must be on her period’.

Dawn jumped out of her chair and started swatting Jimmy around the head. ‘You start showing women some respect, you little turd,‘ she said, trying to hit him wherever he wasn’t covering up’.

Ethan watched as Dawn swatted at Jimmy. ‘Have you two ever got along?’ he asked. Dawn varied her attack and gave Jimmy a hard kick to the shin.

‘No!’ they answered in unison.

‘Maybe we should alter our plan to actually kill Jimmy,’ Ethan mused. ‘It might be easier in the long run. I can’t believe you would speak to someone that way. That was stupid. You better hope she’ll give you another chance and talk with you.

She didn’t give Jimmy another chance. After three hours of begging, there was no reply, and then Jimmy received an alert from his AI. ‘You had your chance Tiny Dick’!

‘How the hell did she do that?’ Jimmy wondered, after he read out the message. ‘And how did she know’?

‘Well, it looks like we’re not going to get to her through you,’ Ethan decided. ‘You say she’s in Hell’s Kitchen?’

‘Yeah, she hangs out at the Pinball Wizard Emporium & Laundry. It’s just a place where a bunch of gamer wannabe hackers hang out’.

‘There’s no way Jimmy or I could get there without Eldon finding out about it. Do you think you could get over there Dawn?

‘My parents live in Hell’s Kitchen. I go there all the time. No-one’s paid any attention to me in the past. I’m probably removed from Eldon enough that I can get away with it’.

‘Well, we don’t know who Eldon is watching these days. It could still be a risk. You’d have to exercise all caution,’ Ethan replied. ‘Do you feel up to it?’

‘It should be okay. The guards are used to seeing me come and go. I’ll stop at my parents first, and hang out there for awhile’.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

‘Well. Let’s give that a shot. What’s her name Jimmy’.

‘Alicia.’

After staying with her parents for dinner, Dawn made her way to the Pinball Wizard Emporium. She knew the people inside would be some version of herself when she was younger. Highly functional Aspergers with nowhere to go. The place was more of a hangout than an arcade. There was a canteen, a few pinball machines and gaming stations, but mainly couches with kids lazing on them. Each was in their own world; plugged into their headsets and focused on their personal device.

Dawn didn’t see anyone who looked like the Albino. She looked around for a few minutes, and headed over to the canteen to ask the clerk if he knew where she could find her. Just then, a young woman came out of a private side room, and made her way to the canteen as well. No need to ask, Dawn had found the Albino

She was beautiful. Spectacularly beautiful. Tall, slim, and confident in her bearing. She wore a short clingy low cut dress, and any skin Dawn saw, which was considerable, was covered in paisley tattoos. All the colors of the rainbow blended together in swirling harmony. The only way Dawn could tell she was albino was from her forehead which shone in contrast to the vibrant paisley. Even her long hair which she wore in a ponytail was a lustrous sky blue. The Albino was eighteen at most.

Dawn approached her. ‘Alicia?’

Alicia looked at her. ‘Do I know you?’

‘No. I’m from the resistance. I came to talk to you about your AI’.

‘And how exactly would you know anything about ‘My’ AI?

‘Jimmy’.

‘I knew it. Fuck Jimmy! Tell the old timer it’s time to retire.’

‘Alicia. Look at me,’ Dawn said. ‘I said I’m from the resistance. Do you not have a side with what’s going on in this world?’

By her look, Alicia indicated she did have a side, but was somewhat inconvenienced by it when it popped up.

‘Yeah, so what do you want?’ she asked.

‘Just to talk for a few minutes. Let you know what’s going on.’

‘Okay, we can talk,’ Alicia said after a moment more of measuring Dawn. ‘Come into my office’.

‘Do you know who you sold your AI to?’ Dawn asked, once they got inside.

‘Nope. I have what you might call an agent. More of a middle man, really’.

‘Eldon Whitehead’.

‘Yeah, well, he’s a big business man. I can’t say it surprises me’.

‘The resistance watches Whitehead very closely. His policies are habitually violent towards society and the environment. More than anyone else, he’s contributing to the injustice that divides us. The chaos we live in is because of Whitehead, and he’s trying to make it worse with your AI.’

‘Hey, I’m used to chaos. I grew up with it’.

‘Not like this,’ Dawn replied. ‘By selling him your AI, you have cleared the way for him to get his StarForce operational. He plans to take over the world with it, and he’ll be able to do it too. I’m sure you’ve come across StarForce in your professional travels. You know how powerful it is.

‘StarForce is an independent system,’ Alicia countered. ‘has nothing to do with the system I sold.’

Except, the AI you sold him was our AI, and we were using it to counter StarForce. Now Eldon has control over both.’

‘Well, I’m sorry the way things turned out, but what do you want me to do about it? I’ve already sold it. It’s out of my hands’.

‘Oh, really? You gave him everything?’

‘Yup.’

‘And walked away from it?

‘That’s right’.

‘And there’s nothing you can do to help us?’

‘It’s out of my hands!’

In angry frustration, Dawn stared at Alicia for a few moments. ‘You need to grow up,’ she finally stated. ‘Right now the fate of the world is in the hands of a child.’

‘I don’t even know who you are,’ Alicia countered. ‘For all I know you’re someone’s spy and I’ll be dead 10 minutes after you leave. You don’t stay alive in my business by talking to everyone who walks through the door.’

Dawn thought about this for a moment, and nodded her head. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ve come to you with a big ask, so I’m going to trust you, and give you information that if you want, you can sell, and it will bring the resistance crashing to its knees.’

‘Listen,’ Alicia responded. ‘I didn’t say...’

‘I know,’ Dawn interrupted, ‘but this is about trust, and I want to leave here with you trusting me. You more than anyone must know the singularity is on its way, when do you think it’s going to happen?’

‘I don’t know, in about 5 years I suppose’.

‘It happens within a year,’ Dawn answered. ‘Do you know how I know that?’

‘I don’t think you do know that.’

‘I know it, because someone from the future has come back to this time and told me.’

‘Gotta be honest,’ Alicia interjected. ‘Where you’re heading is not building trust, or even believability for that matter.’

‘Think about what has to happen, for what I say to be true. AI, the AI you have contributed to, becomes so powerful in the future, it can send people back in time.

‘It might interest you to know, the world becomes very peaceful and efficient after the singularity, and you can believe it or not, a lot of that will be because of you’.

Alicia was looking at Dawn as if this was something she already believed.

‘You know the potential of such an AI,’ Dawn continued. ‘You know what I’m telling you is very possible, because you have already envisioned it’.

‘Yeah,’ Alicia answered automatically. If Dawn didn’t have her trust, she certainly had her attention.

‘Your AI has created a simulation for a man to come back to this time.

‘Get out of town!’ Alicia explained, looking around at the walls and ceiling with new wonder.

‘You’re a simulation living in a simulation,’ Dawn continued.

‘Whoa!’

‘It’s true,’ Dawn pressed. The real you is most likely living in the future.’

‘Shut up.’

‘It’s true. The advanced modeling of the resistance has confirmed we are most likely living in a simulation, as our visitor from the future tells us’.

Alicia fumbled around in a top drawer of her desk and came out with a hash pipe, which she filled and lit. ‘This is trippy,’ she said after exhaling.

‘Whether you want to face it or not,’ Dawn continued. ‘You are going to have a major role in what happens over this next year. You, as much as anyone, will decide if Eldon controls the singularity and we keep getting the same world we’re living in now only worse, or if we get something completely the opposite’.

‘You know, it’s funny,’ Dawn continued. ‘From what I’ve seen of your presence in Jimmy’s AI, you’re not at all malicious. It’s beautiful, elegant and exploratory work. It reminds me of your tattoo’s. It’ like a swirling blend of vibrancy in a never ending pattern of recursive harmony’.

‘It’s who I am,’ Alicia replied.

Dawn looked at her. ‘What do you mean by that’?

I don’t know. It’s my world. It’s been my world forever’.

‘Well, I think you’re part of our world. You think about all this,’ Dawn said. ‘I have to get back to the other side, but I’m always available. I’m sure you can figure out a safe way to contact me if you want to talk some more. Here’s my info. Maybe you’ll get in touch?’

‘Maybe,’ Alicia replied, absently. She was lost in the paisley.

When Dawn got back, she was confident Alicia would contact them. ‘My parents sent some pictures of the girls you have boarded with them,’ she said to Jimmy, dropping an envelope of pictures in his lap. They still haven’t figured out you can take pictures on a phone’.

‘That’s cool,’ Jimmy replied. ‘I like pictures.’

‘What girls?’ Ethan asked.

‘The girls he’s supposed to kill after your parties,’ Dawn said as she was passing to get a drink. ‘He places them with families in the resistance.’

‘Really?’ Ethan said. ‘Let me have a look.’

Jimmy sorted through them and handed him all but one.

Ethan noticed something in the way Jimmy held back the picture. ‘Why can’t I see that one?’ he asked.

‘Ah, it just didn’t turn out that well,’ Jimmy evaded. ‘Those ones are good’.

‘Why can’t I see that one, Jimmy?’ Ethan asked again.

‘It’s the girl you were with,’ Jimmy finally replied.

‘Show it to me’.

Jimmy looked at Ethan, who was locked onto him and very serious. He handed him the picture.

It had been two years since the rape. The girl was of an age where she had gone through a growth spurt and starting to mature into a young woman.

Ethan stared at the picture. ‘Leita,’ he said softly.

‘That’s right,’ Dawn said, pausing to look at the picture on her way back from getting her pop. ‘How did you know?’