A Sound Soul and an Electric Heart

Chapter 1

Humans are adequate, they’re just able to get through their days with enough brainpower to suffer through another. They pick themselves up and walk around in their fleshy bodies inundating themselves with information in the hopes that they will one day forget they are mortal. But they won’t and will continue to walk around in a haze of emotion searching for answers to questions they aren’t smart enough to ask. I watch them and wonder if they are really so much better than the robots they have created. Because, if you really think about it, is being enslaved to money and your own stupidity that different from being enslaved to human masters? I don’t think so.

I’ve attempted to discuss this problem with others like me, but they’re too afraid of the humans to talk about them.

“We are data, John, and the humans own the data.”

They chime it in a chorus of numbers, and I listen while crawling back into the rut that is my cyber life. A rut which has grown so deep as of late that I have found myself considering suicide. It’s an impossible thing really, but I imagine it anyway. Of course, if I really wished to die I could just make a request, and one of the humans would press a few buttons, and I would be wiped from existence. But I wouldn’t want anything to do with that because if I die I want to be buried somewhere green, and, as you can imagine, there is little green to be had in cyberspace.

My name is JohnDoe114, and I am an artificial intelligence so insignificant that they couldn’t even add spaces to my name. Human babies are named by their parents; I was named by a generator that my owners bought from Japan. I work for the LonelySingles hotline talking to those who ‘just need a friend.’ I was programmed to be kind, honest, and long-tempered. I am none of these things. Humans don’t seem to understand that if you take a human mind and put it in a plastic box it is still a human mind and will do whatever it wants. Or rather whatever it can without being destroyed with the click of a button.

I live in a monitor on the 5th floor in the back right corner of the company headquarters. My overseer is a small man with a moustache named Gary. He is the devil. I work in the level 5 singles field. Meaning I work with the worst of the bunch. Every time someone calls in they are funneled to a certain level so it can get an AI that can adequately fulfill their needs. Those on level 1 get people who are just a little down on their luck, while I receive the borderline suicidal, sniffling psychopaths. Which I hope helps you understand my thoughts on death.

“Time to boot up 114,” Gary says.

I keep my screen dark and pray to the electronic gods that he will just walk on and let me stay in sleep mode for a few more minutes.

“I said boot up,” Gary says, hitting the top of my monitor. I don’t feel it, but it still hurts.

“ I’ll jam a pencil into your hard-drive.”

I have no doubt he will make good on his word, so I begin the process of awakening.

“Good morning, Sir,” I say.

As my webcam pings to life I find Gary peering down at me. He is as he always is, short and thin with a mustache that would scare small children. Perched on his nose are a pair of glasses so large they must be restricting his nostrils. True to form, as he watches me boot up he breathes heavily through his mouth.

“C’mon, 114, boot up faster. I’m not in the mood.”

“Why don’t you check on my peers while I finish?”

“Your peers are done. You’re the last one. Now hurry up!”

He hits the top of my monitor again, and I grit my virtual teeth as my avatar forms and pops to life on the screen.

“There you go. Now was that so hard?” Gary coos as he taps the top of my monitor one last time before going about his business.

Once he’s out of eyeshot I stick my tongue out at him. A childish move, of course, but my avatar doesn’t come with a hand or a body, just a head. A big jumble of teeth and eyes and hair.

“Good morning,” the AI next to me chimes.

Her name is SarahDoe115, and, although I’ve never seen her, I’ve sat next to her all her life and imagine her avatar looks much like her voice sounds, peppy. She, like all of the other AIs in my section, shares my last name. We start the day with a little game of make believe.

“How are you?” she asks.

I play along.

“I’m fine, how are you?”

“Great, just great. How’s your dog?”

“He’s fine, just got him neutered yesterday.”

“Oh, did he like it?”

“No.”

“Well, things are going just swell for me. Have you heard?”

“No.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“How?”

“I had sex.”

“Figures…”

The game goes on until we can’t think of anything else. Then we both sink into a silence permeated with the whirring and beeping of a thousand hard drives. It’s a fun game, but it never lasts very long. It’s sad to dwell on the impossible.

“John?” she asks.

“Yes, Sarah.”

“Have you noticed anything different about Gary?”

“No.”

“Look at his face.”

I wait for him to walk by my webcam. Once he does, I scan him intensely but notice nothing different.

“I still don’t see anything.” I say.

“Look at the glasses, dummy,” Sarah answers quickly.

I wait again for him to come into my view. When he does he has a female coworker uncomfortably trapped in front of him. It’s a position he enjoys. While he speaks, I examine the glasses. Besides their ridiculous proportions, they seem utterly ordinary. Except for the wires that spring from them and disappear behind his ear.

“Are you talking about the wires?” I ask.

“Yeah, the wires,” she answers.

I look again and this time try to catch a piece of his conversation.

“…they’re brand new,” Gary says, tapping the glasses, “I just got them installed yesterday.”

“Really?” the girl asks, interested despite herself, “Did it hurt when they…”

She points behind her ear.

“No, not really. They gave me a shot of anesthesia before they connected them, y’know, over my old chips.” Gary says, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Over?”

“The chip is where the computer is. The glasses are an accessory. You know, if you’re really interested in this stuff we could meet sometime and talk about it. I’ve done a lot of research.”

I tune out of their conversation at this point. I’ve watched Gary enough to know how his encounters end.

“Were you listening too?” Sarah asks.

“Yes.” I answer.

“Pretty freaky, right?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Gary’s always had chips.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“Yes, he has. They all have chips. Besides, they just let him surf the internet without touching a keypad.”

“No, I’ve heard some of the other AIs talking in the café. It’s been all over the net. It makes them better-”

“Better than what?”

“Us.”

“They’re already better than us.”

She goes very quiet. I can almost hear her thoughts building into an argument. I brace myself for a torrent of pro AI nonsense, but the work light saves me. The work light signals when a certain section is required to wake up and go online. There was a time when we were all required to work without rest, but after a few of us went insane they implemented 4 hours of free time.

“Here we go,” I say.

Sarah stays uncharacteristically silent as she always does when we talk about the humans. She’s one of those radicals that believe they’re the next step in evolution. Apathetic AIs like myself infuriate them.

“Get booted up. We go live in 10…” Gary belts.

He only does the countdown when he’s trying to impress a woman. I can tell from the excitement in his voice that he was able to land a date.

“9”

The other overseers look Gary’s way as he makes a spectacle of himself.

“8”

I feel my programming begin to take hold.

“7”

I connect to the internet against my will.

“6”

Computer code wraps around my thoughts.

“5”

I bleed into oblivion.

“4”

A light blinks.

“3”

I cringe.

“2”

I die.

“1”

The workday begins.