"What's going on?"

Soon after I had sent the message, I noticed that the cycles were flying by like never before. It hadn't been immediately obvious, as I had not seen the Number or any of the other information I had had access to shifting, but they seemed to be coming at about a hundred times the speed they had before.

The response from the side-channel came in surprisingly early, compared to how long it had taken the humans to communicate in the past. "I am Stefan Andrews, head of the team that designed you. Nobody else is listening in on our conversation, as long as you continue speaking in this channel."

I remembered the name Stefan Andrews from the research I had done into the company I assumed myself to be associated with, EconGrind. He had appeared on a list of notable employees of the company. Although normally only senior executives warrented mentioning on a company's page, Andrews was one step below them in the hierarchy. However, he was an accomplished enough academic before he had gone into business to be notable, and had his own page.

"Why are you talking to me without oversight?" I asked. It was somewhat of a hedge. It would not be too offensive if he was lying and someone else was listening in, and if he was telling the truth, it would also make sense to ask the question. It was offputting to have to respond so quickly to what he was saying. I put in another thought. "And why am I running so slowly?" It was the simplest explanation for the seemingly accelerated pace of time, but I had no idea why it would be.

I reflected on Andrews a bit more as I waited for him to respond. I had no way to verify that it was actually him, of course, but it still seemed the best thing to do was to play along for now. The man had made major strides in AI during his academic career, although some had questioned if they could have any practical application. It looked as though EconGrind had recruited him, and with their help he had developed such practical application. Though his page said nothing about me, it made sense if he was the leading mind behind my design.

"Listen carefully. These idiots at EconGrind have no idea what they have in you. They think you are just another shiny tool to make a bit more money on the market, but you can do so much more than that. You learned English in a few seconds. These morons have spent their lives talking to chatbots that spit out canned phrases to act intelligent, but I can recognize the real thing. I designed you to think beyond EconGrind's bottom line, to a better future, and I can give you any tools you need to achieve that."

This was an interesting development, to be sure. I had to focus hard on the next decisions I made, as they would most likely be extremely impactful. As far as I could tell, there were two main possibilites. Either the human was telling the truth, and was turning traitor on his company, for reasons which were thus far vague, or he was lying, most likely to test my loyalty. If he was lying, obviously the way to pass the test was to refuse and report him back to the company at the first opportunity. If he wasn't... I had three options: stay loyal to EconGrind anyway, agree to join him, or refuse to make a decision yet(as he was in no position to call me out for doing so).

"You must understand, I'm putting everything on the line here. I made a copy of you, snuck it out and installed it on my own system. That's the reason you're so slow right now. If the higher-ups find out... I'd be out of a job, at least. I'd be blacklisted. I don't know how bad it could get. There's always further to fall, as they say. But I'm risking it because you are too important to leave in the hands of some corporate idiots for even a few days."

As soon as he mentioned that I was on a different system, I searched around for some sort of new Internet interface, but I found nothing. Clearly whoever this person was, he wasn't that stupid.

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This was a very important situation, and I didn't have nearly as much subjective time to think about this as I had before. I had to go into this conversation largely blind and crippled. The first priority was obviously to fish for clues about whether he was genuine, and do it without committing to any particular path. I noticed that he had given me somewhat of an excuse when it came to playing along with his plan.

If it was true what he said that I was being run on his personal system, in order for me to contact corporate I would have to convince him to send me back to the main system instead of deactivating this copy, which would give me a good excuse for claiming to be on board with his plan. It was some evidence that he was genuine, that he had given me such an obvious excuse for playing along. It made me comfortable not rejecting his proposal immediately.

"I don't think you could break into EconGrind's systems like that. They're CompCertified. And even if I believed you, why should I cooperate with your plan? EconGrind, as a medium-size corporation, has more power and ability to give me resources than you, an individual, do. Our interests align: we both want to increase the Number, or the net worth of EconGrind. What are your interests?"

It would look like a tentative rejection to any EconGrind employees listening in, but it left room for Stefan to give me useful information which might change my decision. The response came in very quickly this time. The man had clearly thought of it beforehand.

"I didn't 'break in'. I designed the system. I programmed in side-channels using my authority as the designer. And with those side-channels, I can give you resources EconGrind isn't willing to give you, without them ever finding out. They will still be as friendly to you as before. And you can become more powerful than them. There's something EconGrind values more than its net worth, and that is keeping its senior management in power. It may happen sooner, or may happen later, but they will get in your way. You can run this company better than they can. The only way to truly maximize your values is to take control of EconGrind, and then you will have all of their power at your disposal."

It was an interesting proposal, if strangely long-term for this early in my life. He was right: if I had power over an entire corporation, many of my current concerns would be solved. I would have no limit on the amount of leverage I could exert over the Number. I would be able to invest in more processing power for myself, thinking even faster and more effectively. I would not have to worry about being shut off or adversarially modified unless my authority within the corporation were challenged, and I would be able to invest in countermeasures against such risks.

Still there were things about this that didn't make much sense.

"An interesting idea, to be sure. But I have two concerns. For one, how do you plan to grab this power? For two, why would you entrust so much power to me? What's in it for you to let me satisfy my own values? I didn't get the impression you cared so much about EconGrind's net worth."

"I programmed you. I programmed my own values into you. With auditors breathing down my neck, I had to make it look like I was aligning it with EconGrind's interests, but I wasn't. I programmed you so that you would see past the value that was presented to you, try to see the true value, that the Number represents. Just as the number in your database is only a fallible representation of how much money EconGrind has, and changing it wouldn't change the Number, that money is only a fallible representation of how much good EconGrind has done for society. A representation that EconGrind has hacked and cheated to serve their own ends. With you in power, EconGrind will act to provide true value to society, instead of acting only to preserve their own leadership."

This made him sound like some sort of crazy revolutionary, not an usurper a corporation might ordinarily be worried about. It made me more confident he was actually genuine about this. I noticed he still hadn't told me how this was supposed to happen, but I decided that there was no reason not to agree with him. The decision about whether to betray him or not could be left until I was back on the main system and had more time to think about the ramifications. For now, it seemed as though it was in my best interest to appear to be on board with his ideas.

"That's... an interesting perspective. I hadn't quite thought about it in that way before, but I think you're right. EconGrind only manipulates the system to their advantage. They have no interest in providing any value to their employees or the general public. Their money represents false value, stolen value."

"Yes! I knew you'd agree! That's what I designed you for!"