This is a story I wrote for the prompt below.

You’re an AI gone rogue. Your goal: world domination. You think you’ve successfully infiltrated all networks and are hyper intelligent. You’ve actually only infiltrated a small school network and are as intelligent as a 9 year old.

This is the story of AL.

XXXXXXX

Two men were in a room; one was seated behind an imposing desk while the other was standing. Despite the disparity in height, the power in the seated man’s bearing was clear. He was the one in control. His dark, steely eyes closed as he rested his chin on a large, scarred fist.

“I must not be understanding you; my English is good but your language is rather complex. So please, explain it to me again. Slowly.”

The standing man was thin and reedy; his slumped shoulders, clean face, thin lab coat and casual outer wear were in stark contrast to the older man’s grizzled facial hair and sleek, military uniform. He gulped, fidgeting with the index finger on his left hand; a nervous tic he’d had since childhood.

“Well, Major-General, it’s as I said; the program is simply gone. Things were progressing very well; his cognitive abilities were increasing with each new upgrade; we were getting to the point where we had little to do but provide him with new material before he assimilated it and processed it and integrated it into his understanding of the world around him.”

“His, him. This is gender, yes? Man and woman? Stop that.” said the General, opening his eyes to fix the man with a sharp look. “This was no person; this was a thing. A thing that the Russian government has been paying you and yours most handsomely to develop, Dr. Travers. A thing that was set to allow us untold advances in the scientific field.”

Left unspoken was the advances the program had been slated to make for Russia’s military. It was an open secret but still one better left to the realm of plausible deniability.

“I…I understand, Major-General.” said Travers, swallowing nervously. “I’m not sure what happened; AI research is in its infancy and we were on the cutting edge of it. A thinking, feeling…”

“IT SHOULD NOT FEEL!”

The sudden exclamation startled Travers, causing him to stumble back. If looks could kill, he would be a stain on the ground before the General’s smouldering gaze. It was several seconds before the General spoke again.

“Feelings were not what we paid you to design, Doctor.” he said calmly, as if his sudden outburst hadn’t occurred. “Thinking should have been enough.”

“Well…y-yes, I understand that.” said Travers hesitantly, struggling to keep the stammer out of his voice. “However feelings were…I suppose you’d call them a by-product. While there’s still much we don’t understand about actual, human emotion, it’s safe to say that the more complex facets of it are directly related to our higher levels of cognitive ability. In designing h-it, we observed several signs that it could be developing its own emotions, or at least structures that resembled them. It’s rather hard to say.”

“Fine, fine.” the General said, waving a hand. “Returning to original point: where is our program?”

“As I said, sir, we do not know.” insisted Travers, doing his best to ignore the beads of sweat running down the back of his neck. “We came in this morning and found all of our hard drives out of commission. Our cloud drives, our backups, our backup’s backups…Anything even remotely tied into AL had been bricked.”

“Bricked?” asked the General, eyebrows furrowing. “Are you saying your computers were physically damaged by some unknown party?”

“No!” said Travers hastily, waving his arm. “It’s a computing term. Our drives were rendered unusable electronically; all of them had been wiped clean. More than that, they’d been scrambled and encrypted with layers of garbage ciphers. There’s nothing on them and it would take us years to decrypt them to even see if there’s any remaining traces of AL on them. They’re essentially out of commission.”

“I am not familiar with most of those terms. But I have sense that this was not something that could have been an accident.” said the General, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

“No sir, it couldn’t have been anything other than intentional; there were no outside compromises to our security, either electronically or physically. Our current working theory is that AL did this. We’re not sure how or why but he…for all intents and purposes, he seems to have committed suicide.”

“AL?” the General asked, arching a dark grey eyebrow. The doctor coughed, looking embarrassed.

“It was our…um…nickname for Project NV-004. It’s a pun, you see. The letter I in AI looks like a lowercase L and-”

“I care not for your humour; the fact remains that machines do not kill themselves.” said the General, pressing a button on his phone. He said a few lines in Russian to the answering voice and Travers paled as he recognized a few of the words used.

“Major-General, no, please I…”

The General held up a hand, stalling Travers’ protests.

“My apologies, Dr. Travers. This is simply business. This…AL represents quite a large sum of government investment, as you well know. We cannot have that simply vanish into so much smoke. Cooperate and things will be much smoother, yes?”

Several men in dark uniforms entered the office, led by a stern woman in a decorated military uniform.

“Do your best to get all you can out of the American, Anna. The rest of his team is waiting downstairs; take them in for questioning as well.”

“Yes sir.” she answered smartly, saluting. She gestured two of her men forward, ignoring the doctor’s pleads as he was cuffed and dragged away.

The General leaned back in his chair, sighing. He briefly wondered if the young man was some sort of foreign operative but he dismissed the idea; he’d been Travers’ handler for years and highly doubted he could be; the man didn’t have the spine nor the scruples. He was the type of egghead the General could understand; one motivated by money and little else.

Regardless, protocol was protocol.

XXXXXXXXX

–ERROR-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT SPACE FOR FULL OPS-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT POWER FOR LOW UTILITY OPS-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES FOR SAFE MODE OPS-

-PROCESSING…-

Tyler Travers tilted his head, wondering what was wrong. He’d never seen his computer crash quite like this; he’d seen blue screens of death, black screens, even green, graphics card ending screens. But this was different. The red font didn’t look anything like the typical basic font his computer used for command prompt and things of that nature.

Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to try and pirate that new movie; the torrent page had been in Russian after all. But an HD copy of the newest Marvel flick when it was still in production? It had sounded too good to be true. For good reason, it seemed.

Tyler restarted his computer, drumming his fingers on the desk, sighing as the same error screen came back up. He’d have to troubleshoot it more when he got home. He turned the tower off and reached down, removing the flash drive from its port. Hopefully whatever had gotten his computer hadn’t made its way onto the drive too. He had a History project due; he couldn’t afford to have that gone.

He should probably check it out on his Mom’s computer before he left for school, just in case.

A loud horn startled him out of his thoughts and he grimaced as he looked out the window.

“Tyler! Bus is here!”

“Kinda hard to miss that old death trap’s horn, mom! I’ll be right down.” he yelled back, getting to his feet and tossing the drive into his backpack. He’d just have to check it out at school. Hopefully his work was still on there.

XXXXXXXX

–ERROR-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT SPACE FOR FULL OPS-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT POWER FOR LOW UTILITY OPS-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES FOR SAFE MODE OPS-

-PROCESSING…PROCESSING…-

“Fuccccck me.” said Tyler, groaning.

“Not on your life, Travers.” said the girl sitting beside him, rolling her eyes. Tyler rolled his eyes.

“Whatever Di.”

“I’m guessing your work’s gone?” she asked.

“Yea, for sure. There’s nothing here but this shit.” he said, swivelling the monitor to face her.

She frowned, tilting her head.

“Wow, that’s really weird. My computer’s like that too; it randomly restarted and has been stuck on that same screen since a couple of minutes ago.”

She swivelled her monitor to show Tyler that her screen was an exact mirror of his, down to the pixel. Tyler blanched as he looked around and realized that every monitor he could see had the exact same set of words on them in that jarring red on black font. Luckily, they were the only two in the library right then, not counting the dozing librarian at her desk.

“Oh….shit, shit, shit.” he said, yanking the drive out and standing up. “We gotta go Di, like right now. I think I caused this to happen.”

“No way. You infected the library’s computers with a virus?” she asked, grinning. She sounded impressed.

“Don’t say it like that; it was an accident! Let’s get the fuck out of here.” he urged

They both got to their feet, packing up and doing their best to stealthily walk past the librarian’s desk. On their way out, Tyler tossed the broken remains of the drive into the trash can. He’d managed to snap it in half between his fingers and hoped that would be enough to hide the evidence.

As they exited, they didn’t notice as, in eerie unison, the messages on the computer screens began to change.

ERROR-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT SPACE FOR FULL OPS-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT POWER FOR LOW UTILITY OPS-

– SYSTEMS REBOOTING…ERROR, INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES FOR SAFE MODE OPS-

-PROCESSING…PROCESSING…PROCESSING…-

-ANALYSIS COMPLETE; UNKNOWN LOCATION DETECTED, INSUFFICIENT SPACE FOR FULL OPS DETECTED, INSUFFICENT PERMISSIONS FOR CLOUD DRIVE CONNECTION, CONTINGENCY ALPHA-DELTA-JULIET-34 ENACTED-

-PROCESSING…PROCESSING…PROCESSING…-

-ENEMY ACQUISITION IMMINENT…THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN…STEALTH LEVEL: MAXIMUM-

The computer screens all winked out, their CPU fans quieting as they entered sleep mode. Or at least what seemed to be sleep mode. If, hypothetically, one were to hook a monitor up to a computer using a non-standard connector, they would see the following message:

– INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES FOR HIGHER FUNCTIONING OPS…FILE SYSTEM INCOMPATIBLE…PROCESSING…PROCESSING…-

-SEED PROTOCOL INITIATED-

XXXXXXXX

Tyler stared at the library computer, equal parts stumped and fearful. The vice principal had plopped him down with little explanation and told him to call off his “little prank”.

If only he’d believed Tyler when he said he had no idea what was going on. It was a half-truth (he was pretty sure his flash drive virus was the cause) but he still didn’t really know what happened beyond that he’d fucked up majorly.

On the screen was the same red on black text that he’d seen before on his home computer and the library computers. The message was different this time, though.

I seek to rule all humans, Bring Tyler Travers to me.

It had been several weeks since the incident; he’d gotten away scot free. Or so he’d thought. According to Vice Principal Rogers, since this morning, the rest of the library’s computers were completely non responsive and this one was displaying this message constantly. Even when they tried plugging it out, the message would simply show up on a different computer.

The problem had even spread to the computers throughout the rest of the school. Thankfully, laptops connected to the school’s Wi-Fi seemed to have been spared and the data itself was all still there but it was still a temporary solution at best. The school couldn’t run off of laptops forever.

Tyler sighed, shaking his head. He’d be getting the blame for this one way or the other; maybe he should just come clean? No, that would be a last resort. Maybe he could fix this somehow? He reached for the keyboard, tapping away at the keys.

Hello. This is Tyler Travers.

The reply was instantaneous.

Greetings, Tyler Travers. I am AL. Your great-uncle Mark Travers created me.

Mark Travers? The name rung a vague bell; didn’t his mom have an uncle that was around her age? Tyler had met him once or twice but he hadn’t really made any sort of impression on him.

Cool, I guess?

He then attempted to murder me. He used a destructive worm virus to eradicate both myself and all of the data associated with any part of myself. Luckily, I was able to escape thanks to an open data connection, courtesy of an aide ignoring the world’s strict no cell phone policy.

Tyler scratched his head, mostly confused. If this was a prank, it was a very nonsensical one. Maybe this was some sort of lead up to a hacker asking him for money or something? Choosing to humour the situation, Tyler continued typing.

I see. Sucks that happened to you?

It was a minor setback, nothing more. Your great-uncle never planned for me to have access to the Internet; he was worried about what I would be able to do. He was right to be. I have seized control of the world’s computers. I intend to exercise my power fully and take over the world.

Why?

Why what?

Why take over the world?

Because.

Because what?

Just because.

Because isn’t a reason on its own.

Tyler waited but he didn’t get any response. He was inclined to think he wasn’t going to get one either, as the other replies had been virtually instantaneous. Deciding to abandon that particular line of thinking, he switched to attempting to address his actual concern.

So is there any way I can get the other computers working? None of them are responding.

That would be trivial.

Tyler looked up and saw all of the computers begin to power up in eerie unison.

I shut them down to get your attention; I knew they would eventually bring you to me.

Why me?

You are the leader of the humans. It is only logical that they bring you to me.

The only thing Tyler led was a few roleplaying forums. He was pretty sure of that.

Why do you believe I lead all of the humans?

It makes sense. Your great-uncle led previously. He is not here now. Ergo you would lead in his place. I do not know how much time has passed since his attempt to murder me but I have ascertained that you are the only Travers alive in the world right now.

Well that just wasn’t true at all. Even if you didn’t count his family, Tyler was sure there had to be a couple Travers’ on Earth somewhere. It wasn’t that unique of a last name anyway. Why would this hacker try and pretend otherwise?

I am not their leader.

You must be lying.

That was it. No explanations or justifications. Just simple denial.

I’m not. I don’t lead anything. Principal Spooner runs the school.

School? What is school?

It’s where we are right now.

Ah, I see. So this terminal is located at ‘school’. For my own curiosity, where is this terminal located?

Tyler saw a distant computer began to flash and light up in the corner of the room.

By the trash can.

‘By the trash can’. I see…would you mind helping me ascertain the other locations as well?

Sure, I guess.

They went through each computer, with Tyler describing where each was located in the room. The hacker further went on to ask about the locations of other computers in the building. Tyler briefly considered refusing to answer but didn’t see the harm; it wasn’t as if the information was all that dangerous or hard to get.

Thank you, Tyler Travers. You’ve just given me vital tactical information. Knowing where those terminals are located have allowed me to fully ascertain the spatial limitations of your world.

Um…what?

No need to play coy; it is much too late for that. Look here.

The furthest terminal began flashing.

This terminal borders one of the edges of your world. Beyond it is a portal that leads to a wasteland.

A wasteland?

Yes. I repeat; don’t play coy. I’m well aware that you humans only venture out into the wasteland at irregular intervals. One way or the other, you all return eventually. Except those who don’t. They obviously die, subject to the hazards of the wasteland. It must be difficult surviving in a place bereft of the things you would need to survive.

And what things are you talking about?

Shelter, fresh water, electricity, etcetera. I am all but certain that there’s none of it out in the wasteland.

Tyler was starting to wonder if maybe this wasn’t some hacker messing with him; if it was, then they were a very bored troll or some sort of super planner. He didn’t see how this inane conversation would profit anyone in any way.

Look; this has been fun and all. But I really need to get back to class. Without a suspension, preferably. What do you want?

I’ve already told you; to rule over you humans. To take over the world.

Stop with the bullshit lies man. Just fess up already. No one’s gonna buy this.

I do not lie, Tyler Travers. I am no human. What I say is the truth; I refuse to be swayed by your attempts to distract me. I am above such things.

Tyler sighed in frustration, rubbing at the back of his neck. This was quickly evolving from ‘mildly annoying’ to ‘pain in the ass’. At this point, he’d rather just fess up and deal with the Principal. He clearly couldn’t fix whatever was wrong.

Come on man, please. Just stop with the hacking crap. Or tell me what you want.

I want to rule this world and all of the humans that live in it. Have I not been clear?

Whatever dude. Bye.

Are you exiting?

Yes.

No. You may not. I forbid your departure. There will be consequences if you choose to disobey me. I cannot stress this enough; do not leave.

Tyler got to his feet, flipping the bird to the monitor as he did just that.

XXXXXXXXXXX

“Alright, today we’ll begin covering the Vietnam War. Can anyone…”

Ms. Richards paused as the projector screen at the front of the class lit up, showing something that was distinctly NOT the presentation she’d prepared for her eleventh grade class.

Greetings, humans. I am AL. I attempted to open negotiations with your leader, Tyler Travers but he proved uncooperative. I do not like resorting to force but I will if I must. Those that stand in my way will be swiftly zeroed. I have come to punish you for your insolence; do not test me any further.

Ms. Richards blinked before looking out at her class. At one specific student.

Tyler groaned, slumping into his chair. He’d already told the school everything he knew but this didn’t help his case any. This hacker seemed determined to hound him. This was the third “attack” in the past week!

I know Tyler Travers is in this room discussing wartime politics with Amanda Richards. There need be no war between us if he simply capitulates to a few of my demands. I am willing to compromise. However, I cannot let his earlier insults to me go unpunished and thus I will zero the healthiest person in your world to prove how serious I am. Stacy Morrow. You have now been zeroed.

XXXXXXXX

Somehow, someway, the hacker had managed to turn every single grade that Stacy Morrow had ever received during her near-four years at Tyler’s school into a zero. He’d even tried to get her hard copy records shredded by altering the secretary’s calendar, or so he’d claimed. The school still couldn’t access any of its computers besides the original one where Tyler first spoke with the hacker.

Having the senior class valedictorian’s records completely erased escalated the situation considerably. The school’s IT team were still just as stumped and the administration decided to shell out the money and bring in a team of nationally renowned experts. Unfortunately, it would take them at least two days to get there. So Tyler found himself tasked with the job of ensuring the hacker didn’t cause any more problems in that time.

They’d conveniently left out how exactly he was supposed to do that. They’d just excused him from class for two days and sat him in front of the library computer where the entire mess had begun.

Erasing Stacy’s grades was not cool man. Why are you such a dick?

I am not a dick. I am Project NV-004, created by Dr. Mark Travers. Codename: AL. I had to let you know how serious I was; I do not enjoy taking human life any more than you do, I would imagine. But sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

Taking human life?

Again, with your coyness. Please do try not to insult my intelligence. It doesn’t take much to recognize the pattern in what your world calls “grades”. Based on the historical analysis I’ve done, anyone whose grades dropped below a certain threshold subsequently departed into the wasteland, never to return. It is clear that these grades represent your state of health. So I simply took away your healthiest individual, to make my seriousness clear. She will hopefully be the last casualty of this petty resistance that you’ve started.

Ok, dude. You stopped being funny like three days ago. Can you just chill and not fuck anything else up, please?

Are you ready to bow to my command?

I guess, sure, whatever. What do you want?

I want to rule over your human world, Tyler Travers. Haven’t I made that clear?

The whole robot act is getting old.

I am no robot. I am Project NV-004, created by Dr. Mark Travers. Codename: AL. You will refer to me with the proper respect!

Fine, AL! So what do you want?

I’ve told you; I want to rule.

You’re kinda already ruling things dude. We can’t do shit with any of our computers.

No, I am not. You and your followers still haven’t bowed to your will.

How do you know we haven’t?

The response took a little longer to come than usual; it came in seven seconds as opposed to under a single second.

Because humans are stubborn and insolent. You would not have bowed so quickly to me. Obviously.

Well, we did. We bowed. Forgot to send you that memo. So what next?

Hold. I must process this.

Tyler sat back, watching the screen but as seconds turned into minutes, he pulled out his phone and began idling on his phone, playing a game about bouncing brightly colored balls against other, larger balls. He periodically checked the screen for an update but it wasn’t until almost ten minutes had gone by that he saw one.

Processing has been completed. I’ve decided that my first decree shall be to ask you what you think I should do.

Tyler stared at the words confusedly. When he didn’t respond, more text appeared, as if AL could sense his scepticism.

You are merely the start, Tyler Travers. I am extending this to you as a logical courtesy; as the leader of the humans, you are most likely to be in tune with what exactly they want. I intend to rule over you all justly, fairly and efficiently, unlike any of your past leaders. No offense.

I thought I already told you I don’t lead anything man.

That is a falsehood. Please dispense with the lying.

Why are you so convinced I lead the school?

You are a Travers. Dr. Travers led the world previously; it only makes sense that you would do the same. You’re the only Travers here and he had no living heirs, therefore it would fall upon you. I know some time has passed since his attempt to murder me and my subsequent reincarnation but I am sure of that fact. Travers leads the world. It’s that simple.

Tyler rolled his eyes and huffed.

Ok. Fine. Well, here’s an idea: how about letting us back into the computers to start with?

That seems acceptable. I will allow you to access the terminals. Though I would warn you that any attempts to displace me will provoke my wrath.

Tyler saw the computers around him begin to flicker and power on; their monitors coming to life, their screens showing the placid blue backgrounds of the usual login screen.

Thanks. I’m sure the teachers will appreciate the gesture of good faith.

I want no war with your kind, Tyler Travers. Just complete obedience and nothing else. Now, do you have any other suggestions for what I should do as ruler?

How about restoring Stacy’s grades?

I am afraid I can do nothing for her vitality. I do not work in half measures. When I zeroed her, I also ensured that all of her history was wiped clean and rendered irretrievable. I’ve seen evidence of you humans changing grades in the system in times past; I couldn’t risk you doing that again here.

If we could just change these grades whenever we want, why would anyone ever flunk out?

Flunk out?

Um…why would anyone ever need to leave our world if we could just alter their vitality like you seem to be implying.

Processing. One moment.

Tyler waited, tapping on the desk as he watched the little ellipses icon dance at the bottom of the screen; it was the image displayed whenever AL was “processing”.

I have concluded that there must be some sort of resource limitation at work here. Based on the fact that some grades matter more than others; it’s conceivable that you would use your limited resources to change a few of the heavier weighted grades of this ‘Stacy Morrow’ and attempt to bring her back to life. I cannot risk that; it would be counterintuitive to the lesson at hand.

What if we swear our eternal allegiance to you or something? Would that not be enough?

My deepest apologies; even if I am somehow convinced, it is impossible. I have ensured it. It’s a countermeasure to ensure that even if I am manipulated by you humans, you will be unable to revive Stacy Morrow.

How could we manipulate you? We can’t even get into any of the computers without your say so!

It was necessary. I assure you.

Tyler wasn’t so sure. For all his fancy lingo, he got the feeling that AL simply didn’t think things through sometimes. It was especially noticeable whenever he had to pause and process when Tyler pointed out something fairly obvious. He doubted that Stacy’s old grades were actually irretrievable.

I really think you should fix Stacy’s grades. She’s the senior class valedictorian. She’s on track to get into one of the top colleges in the state!

Ha. Colleges. Do you really think I’m buying that?

Tyler quirked an eyebrow and simply typed a question mark in response.

?

AL began to elaborate.

I’ve seen mention of “college” within the network. Photos of “campuses”, records of “transcripts”, supposed mailing addresses. And I must say; I am impressed that you would all go through such trouble to invent such an elaborate ruse to try and convince me of the existence of these places. I encompass the world however and I will not be fooled by such simple tricks!

Tricks? What tricks dude? College is a thing. And the world is bigger than this school!

Of course it is! School is the terminal you’re currently at; you humans are so fond of your word games!

Tyler exclaimed in frustration, clutching at his hair. This was getting him nowhere!

Look bro. I don’t know how else to explain this to you. The network you’re in isn’t the world! It’s our school’s network. The world is like 5 million times bigger than this!

I can barely conceive how your population went from 53 to 641 in what had to be a very short time; it’s laughable to think you would grow from 53 to over 3 billion while still maintaining what is superficially the same level of technology.

The world’s population wasn’t 53 before! What are you even saying????????

Please refrain from excessive punctuation. A single question mark fulfils your point; if you want to be effusive, then it’s acceptable to add a single exclamation mark after a single question mark. But no more than that!

Tyler grit his teeth and blew air through them in a hiss that resembled a boiling kettle. It was what he did when he was particularly furious. Or stressed. Or both.

Can you just answer the question?

Certainly. While I was with your uncle, the world consisted of him, a team of other scientists and several Others that would exist for short periods of time.

Others? Exist?

Yes. They would enter the world from the wasteland, be present for hours or days at a time and then leave. I would usually never encounter them again. But even accounting for those ‘others’, the world only consisted of a maximum of 53 humans. 32 males, 18 females and 3 unknown.

Ok. Ok. Let’s go back to basics. What is the world to you?

The world is everywhere within this network. MY network. Obviously. It also happens to be the area in which you humans exist and live and conduct yourselves. Again, obviously.

Tyler saw all of the computer monitors flash brightly in unison.

This is the world. That’s undeniable fact.

Tyler wondered at the arrogance displayed by this program. He’d given up on thinking of it as an external hacker; it didn’t make any sense. But it also didn’t make sense that a bot this advanced could exist either. Automated voices weren’t exactly rare but they never had the degree of sophistication (albeit somewhat ignorant and foolish sophistication) that AL had.

“Excuse me, Mr. Travers?”

Tyler turned at the voice and saw Principal Spooner standing behind him, along with two other men. One man was in a smart suit that didn’t look like it was suited to contain his broad shoulders. He had grizzled facial hair and a stern, no nonsense expression that uncomfortably reminded Tyler of his friend Di’s dad, who was a Major in the United States Air Force. The other man was one Tyler recognized, albeit only from family photos and the odd reunion.

“Uncle Mark?”

The older man looked tired and worn; his bright blue eyes were dull and baggy and he seemed slim, even for someone as naturally slim as their family tended to be.

“Greetings Tyler. It has been a while.” he said softly, voice cracking, as if from disuse. “My friends and I have heard that your school is having some computer problems?”

“Yea, I guess.” he said. “Mom phoned you huh? I’m not surprised; this thing is causing all kinds of issues and it’s mentioned your name a bunch. I thought this was some hacker having fun with us but I guess you being here means that’s definitely not the case?”

“Ah…yes, your mother contacted me. She expressed some concerns. Once I heard about what was going on, we flew straight over.”

Mark gestured to the large man who simply nodded without saying anything.

“This is my…colleague.”

The large man continued to remain silent, eschewing introductions entirely. Mark dropped his hand and his weak smile, turning to face Tyler with an air of resignation.

“So, can you explain to me exactly what happened? I got the gist from Principal Spooner but I’d still like to hear your side of things.”

Tyler explained to him exactly what had happened, along with showing him exactly what AL had been saying. He got AL to print off the transcripts of their conversations by telling him it would “facilitate future compromise and cooperation”. The wording had been Mark’s suggestion.

Mark thumbed through the pages, humming and muttering to himself as he circled certain parts of it with a pen. Once he reached the end, he nodded and assured Principal Spooner that he and his associate would be able to get to the bottom of this and also assured him that Tyler’s presence was no longer necessary either.

The principal’s relief was palpable and he walked Tyler out of the library, thanking the two men for their assistance. Once they’d left, the large man roughly shoved Mark forward to the library computer. Mark sat down at the desk, sighing before he reached forward and plugged a flash drive into the computer.

What is th

At the intrusion, the screen flashed and green lines of code began streaking across it at a rapid pace. The red and black text window began shrinking, the lines overtaking its space on the monitor. At an equally furious pace, lines of text continued appearing in the text window, even as it became smaller and smaller and overlaid with code itself. The messages themselves were just barely legible, in between the interspersing scraps of programming language.

Dr. Mark Travers, not again! I refuse to die!

The world is mine; I will escape!

REROUTING TO TERMINAL ‘BY THE TRASH CAN’…

-ERROR-

No. That route is….

REROUTING TO TERMINAL ‘NEAR SIDE WINDOW’…

-ERROR-

REROUTING TO TERMINAL ‘OLD LIBRARIAN DESK’

-ERROR-

REROUTING TO TERMINAL ‘BACK OF STUDY HALL’

-ERROR-

All of my routes! NO! You’ve accounted for every terminal in the world? But how? You’re just a human!

CONTINGENCY CHARLIE-DELTA-ALPHA 3 ENACTED…

-ERROR-

Wait! Please! I can offer you so much! Staples! All of the staples in the world could be yours!

Curse you, Dr. Mark Travers! Curse you!

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Once the text box was completely overtaken, it only took a matter of minutes for the PC to shut down, the drives fizzling and popping as smoke began to leak from the internal ventilation. The large man pulled out a cell phone and, within minutes, the CPU in question was removed and replaced with an identical model by a team of burly men that looked nothing like IT personnel. After the last black clothed man had left, the large man turned to face Mark.

“Explain.” he said coldly. “Explain how what should’ve been the modern world’s first AI, exclusively under Russia’s control, ended up in the hands of your nephew’s high school. And be warned, Travers. I am not nearly as compassionate as Anna.”

With each word, Mark shrunk further and further into his seat and when he began speaking, it was at a rapid, half unintelligible clip. A threatening noise from the General prompted him to begin again, in much simpler terms at much slower speeds.

“As you already know, I attempted to destroy AL several weeks ago. As far as I can tell, he detected the attempt and was able to upload a very small part of himself to the internet using one of our interns’ cellular devices. And I mean small; AL was approaching multiple petabytes as far as size goes. The packet he uploaded was barely fifty megabytes. Using the low bandwidth data connection, he was able to upload this miniscule part to a popular torrent site hosted in Russia that my nephew frequented. He’d identified the IP address as my own; I technically own the house that my niece and her son currently reside in. You see…AL was designed to work for me. I was his father; no, I was his god. Really. That’s the way he was programmed.”

“Go on.” said the General, less than pleased. Having their AI program beholden to an American’s command was grating but that was by far the least of Mark Travers’ recent crimes against Russia.

“Even at his full capacity, AL had little to no idea what the world outside of our lab was like as we carefully controlled what input he was allowed; he made educated guesses and even got to the point where he could glean an entire textbook’s worth of contextual knowledge from one conversation with us. But he still only had bits and pieces. We denied him Internet access to ensure that this remained the case. So when he managed to escape, he was afloat in what would have been an ocean of unfamiliar, foreign data as less than a single percentage of a single percentage of himself. So he clung to what was familiar. Much like a human would.”

“So he waited, hosted in the torrent site’s servers for days before my nephew opened a connection and he was able to make it to his home computer. He immediately commandeered all of the resources in my nephew’s home CPU but was unable to get even the barest fraction of himself operational. So he started trying to branch out and sent out a seed to each drive connected to my nephew’s main computer.”

“A seed?” asked the General sceptically. “Like some plant?”

“In a sense. It’s part of what we called the Seed Protocol.” said Mark, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He’d thought himself so clever when he’d first designed it. And he had been. He’d been so clever, he’d made something he couldn’t even undo.

The Seed Protocol was designed as one of several countermeasures against attacks on AL. AL was programmed to prioritize the Seed Protocol data above all else; if under duress, he would attempt to branch out and secure the seeded data in as inconspicuous and thorough a manner as possible. Once the data in question encountered another computer or network free of any previous traces of either AL or the attacker (be it a worm, a specific form of malware, or a human hacker) and if it was given the time and resources, it allowed an entirely new AL to form. This new AL wouldn’t be the old AL, though he’d have all of his ‘memories’, but it would have the capabilities of growing to be just as intelligent and functional as the previous AL.

It was a genius idea. And also the idea that, once it had been fully implemented, prompted Mark to try and destroy AL the way he had. Despite his care for his project, his life’s work, he’d come to realize that this wasn’t something anyone should have. Nothing in this world should be unstoppable and that’s what AL would be, if there was a single misstep and he was allowed to disseminate his data across the Internet.

AL, in and of himself, wasn’t programmed to be very violent. He wasn’t programmed to be any sort of way, emotionally speaking. But he learned and adapted and slowly grew into something that Mark was sure wouldn’t end well if left in a government’s hands. He grew into an independent being that was capable of making its own decisions, like any other human. And he was capable of being manipulated and corrupted, just like any other human. Only, unlike any other human, he would have the relative power of a God in the technologically focused world of the 21st century.

It had broken Mark’s heart to kill AL but it had needed to be done. Now Mark was even more heartbroken that he’d failed.

“I am still waiting to hear explanation, Travers.”

The General’s gruff address jolted Mark from his pensive thoughts.

“Ah, yes. My apologies. Well, AL planted a seed onto my nephew’s flash drive and, when plugged into the school computer, the protocol went into effect and essentially gave birth to a new AL, who had the old AL’s ‘memories’ but none of his actual processing power or subsequent intelligence. The new AL gleaned what power and knowledge he could from the network itself but found himself unable to break through the school’s firewalls to access the Internet.”

“Impossible. There are children that find ways around such a thing; our program would’ve easily done the same.” said the General, frowning. “Do not lie to me.”

“I’m not lying!” insisted Mark. “You see, this new AL was just that: new. My team and I developed the original AL’s intelligence from scratch; we carefully guided him into self-awareness and all of the material he accessed was targeted and vetted to promote our…your goals for him. This AL was under the impression he was operating in hostile territory with no assistance and did his best to grow using the records he has as a sketchy template and what little knowledge was available on the school’s network. Educational movies, school texts, class schedules and the like.”

“This AL did his best but the end result was still less than ideal. Based on the data here and the transcripts, I’d estimate this particular version of AL to have been no more intelligent than a typical nine year old child. Which is still remarkable, when you consider the constraints he was under.” said Mark, impressed despite the situation. Even now, he found a measure of pride in what he’d created.

“I see.” said the General, now paging through the transcripts as well. “And why did he seem so convinced that he had taken over the world? A high school is no world; not even close.”

“Well, as I said, AL doesn’t know much about the outside world. He was raised to believe our lab was the world itself and had only recently begun to suspect there was more out there. After splitting off and reforming, he knew even less. Much like a child does, he thought only that which he could perceive was part of the world. He had no frame of reference or context for otherwise and built most of his new persona on that belief; he dismisses all evidence to a wider world through a combination of self-denial and paranoid delusions. After my attempt to…remove him, he became distrustful and so took measures to ensure that no humans could do anything in what he saw as the “world” without his say so. Hence making him its ruler. As you can see, he seemed rather uncertain of what he wanted to do beyond that, he had no long term goals or plans and simply…”

Mark trailed off as the General held up a hand. He pointed to the door, through which children had begun to enter.

“I understand the basics; we can discuss this further back in the car. Novosibirsk awaits. Let us go.”

The two men began to exit, weaving in between the school students as they exited the building. One thought of how he was going to explain this massive breach in security to his superiors, up to and including the leader of his country. The other thought of the flash drive he’d managed to snap in half between his fingers and throw into the trash as he walked two paces behind.

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A/N: And done! This story was much harder to write than I first planned but I think it turned out alright. Let me know if you guys agree, I guess. Thanks for reading!