Keeping Secrets

Katy is shaking me to get up again. "Nia! Nia! You're going to be late!" she screams at me. Without responding I get up, get dressed and is ready with blazing speed. Katy stands there with her mouth hanging open. I guess Nia not only gets up late but isn't in much of a hurry when she does get up. I drink my glass of orange juice and head out the door.

I catch up with Lidia who is waiting for me. She is still beaming from our kissing session the day before. "So you know the plan, right?" I whisper so no one else can hear me.

"Yes, I date Bobby so no one suspects us." She whispers back.

"Right" I whisper in response.

We walk the rest of the way to school without talking. Lidia just beams and I am thinking less about Kayla and more about this AI. I was sure that the AI wouldn't just let itself be turned off but maybe I am projecting too much emotion onto a machine. If the AI thought it was in the best interest of humanity to shut off, I'm sure it did that but something told me it didn't. Somebody had to know where it was.

At school if anyone has any issues they need to discuss, the preacher is one of the people who is available to give guidance. He is like the town's moral compass and he is involved in everything. I would think that someone like that would be someone who would abuse his powers but if he is abusing his powers it isn't obvious. In life any advantage you can get could be the difference between comfort and struggle. I tell our homeroom teacher that I have an issue that I want to talk to the preacher about. The teacher claims that there is a good chance that he could help me but I tell him it was kind of personal so they let me talk to the preacher.

I meet the preacher in a small room at the school. A woman sits in with us so we are not alone together. The preacher explains that this is for our protection that the other woman is present. From what I could gather men and women were not allowed to be

alone together unless they were married. It seems like a pretty old fashioned idea to me but I'm not going to get into a debate about it. I have other things on my mind.

The preacher sits across from me at a table. He has a notepad in front of him. He explains that the notepad is for writing things down that he wants to remember later. At the top of the paper he writes "Nia" and next to it the date and the time.

"So what do you want to talk about?" The preacher asks in a kind friendly voice. I can tell he has had a lot of practice talking to people because he made me feel at ease.

"In your speech yesterday" I start, "You talk about how a machine saved humanity."

"Yes, that's right." He confirms.

"I was wondering what ever happened to that machine. I've asked my dad and a few other people and nobody knows. I've been losing sleep over it and I thought if anybody would know, it would be you." I added the part about losing sleep because I didn't want the preacher to suspect that I had other motives.

"Well, that machine was built a long time ago." The preacher starts, "That machine was smarter than the entire human race put together. The technology was nothing short of amazing. People had everything they needed and this machine did all their thinking for them. What started to happen was that people started losing their purpose for living. They had all this time and nothing to do with it. They started pursuing their base pleasures and when they got bored with that they didn't do anything at all. So the machine had to reintroduce hardship into people's lives. It had to give them a reason to live. That's why we don't have the technology now that they had." Although what the preacher is saying is interesting he isn't really answering my question.

"But what about the machine itself? Did it let itself be turned off? Did it break and there was nobody to fix it? Is it still guiding humanity in secret? I have to know" I ask really fast and excited.

"I wish I could tell you for sure." The preacher answers, "I personally don't believe the machine could have survived these hundreds of years. I have heard rumors that the machine itself still exists but even if it is still running, it's eyes and ears don't exist anymore. The network that fed it it's information doesn't exist anymore. It would have all that brainpower and nothing to use that brainpower on. I know that's not a definitive answer but I hope my answer will help you get some sleep."

"Thank you for talking with me." I say, "What you said makes sense and you're probably right."

"Your welcome." He wrote something down on his notepad but I didn't see what it was. He was very warm but there was something on his face that told me that he wasn't telling me everything that he knew. There was something he was keeping to himself. I just didn't know what it was.

When I get out into the hall, everyone is going between classes. I hear a voice and tune into it among the noise. "Hey there pretty girl." I look in the direction it's coming from and I see Bobby. This should be good. He comes over to where I am so I wait for him.

"Hi" I say warmly, "I heard you asked Lidia out?"

"Well, I did tell you I wasn't going to wait for you forever. You're not mad are you?" He asks.

"Of course not but have you ever heard of the phrase, 'Hell hath no furry like a woman scorned?'" I ask.

"Yeah, I've heard of it." He answers.

"Well, If you break Lidia's heart you're going to personally experience it. You got that." I say in a demanding voice. I am so enjoying this. I had no idea it was this much fun to be a girl.

"Woah, settle down. I'm not gonna hurt Lidia. I promise." He reassures.

"Well, make sure that you don't" I say coldly and walk away smiling.

Lidia and Nia have lunch together like they always do. From what I understand Nia and Lidia have been having lunch together since they became best friends in the third grade. I tell Lidia about my conversation with Bobby and say everything is going according to plan. She says that Bobby is taking her on a date Friday evening to a movie. Now that I think about it, I knew there weren't any TV's but I never noticed if there were movies or not. They definitely had music but I hadn't thought about movies until now. Since everything in this world seemed tightly controlled, I wondered what the movies were about. Lidia said they were going to go see a movie about romance. When I heard that I thought that maybe some things never change.

I am wracking my brain about this AI thing. I am pretty sure that the AI is still operational and I am also pretty sure that the AI is still guiding humanity. The reason I think this is because everything seems to be running too smoothly. People are naturally chaotic while a machine would be orderly. If the AI is still operational, it wouldn't want too many people knowing about it and it wouldn't leave clues as to it's location. It would probably be somewhere out of the way and I am pretty sure this tiny village meets that qualification.

The preacher did have a point though. If the AI is still running, it would need a way to collect information. It would need eyes and ears everywhere. If there are camera's they would have to be hidden pretty well because I don't really notice anything like that. Come to think of it I don't notice any phones either. Smartphones would be a perfect way to keep an eye and ear on everyone. There is something about this whole thing that I am missing. I just need to take a closer look at things. If what I am thinking is true, there has to be some kind of technology that is collecting information. I just don't know what I am looking for.

After school I go over to Lidia's house to do homework. It is really hard to concentrate because her hands are all over me. She touches me somewhere to see if I smile and if I do she probes that spot more closely. It is both fun and annoying at the same time. I really want to get my homework done. After awhile she stops touching me with her hands and starts kissing me with her lips. When I protest she just laughs. Finally her lips find their way to mine and at that point the homework stops. I close my eyes and enjoy the weight of her lips against mine. I wonder how long this is going to satisfy her until she insists on moving to the next level. I am sure that it won't be long. I also wonder what kind of risk we were taking. If that AI could still see everywhere, there is a good chance it already knows about our secret relationship and will tip off whoever needs to know about it. I start to wonder if I am just being paranoid.

Our make out session ends without incident and I go home. I notice that Katy is upset about something. When I ask her what it is she brushes me off. There is definitely something up with her and I am starting to become worried.