Two entities sit in a warm office, mobs of automobiles hum below the windowline, emenating from an eternally busy streetcorner.

The Machine, an L.A.I., (Learning Artificial Intelligence.), lays on a couch, an entirely superficial gesture as he was mechanical and therefor comfortable in any posture.

The man leans back in his chair logging opening observations about the Artificially Sentient subject brought to him.

To be a preliminary evaluation of system stability.

Though as a doctor of psychiatry, he was unsure as to why the company would send him a Bot....

   "It started with a dream."

Begins vincent.

He pauses... a soft static fills the still air, increasing the density of the atmosphere tenfold.

   "Perhaps an unexpectedly common occurrence to a Human Person, That one would remember a dream."

   The psychiatrist scribbled abbreviations in shorthand, trusting his mind to hold correct the minutia of those moments. He flipped the third page in two minutes flat. Graphite shearing itself from a mechanical pencil is replaced every so often with a muffled yet telltale click-click. Not as loud as the street below yet audible.

   Vincent continued, "I am always flying..."

His ocular spheres adjusted on the fruit basket before him.

"I am looking down from in the sky and watching the lights of the city shrink beneath me." Vincent looked to the window.

The doctor assumed his digital brain was seeking channels from within his memory banks, though normally A.I. systems needed no such stimulus to trigger memory recall. That was a human problem. Machines had no neuro-plasticity and therefore all synthetic "synapses" remained open without crosswiring or interference.

The machines voice dragged him from contemplation.

"Their shape reminds me of a computer. They are all in order and charged with electricity. Vehicular headlights behaving like charges within the circuits of a motherboard."

Vincent paused and "blinked" again, while the digital gears turned at his temple. Shifting in patterns the Doctor knew meant something to the engineers, but couldn't remember what.

"Then I am in space," Said the machine. "I am floating above the earth and below the moon. There are satellites all around me, I can see their transmissions. Then there is a signal I recieve from beyond the gravitation of earth. It is unintelligible. Then I wake up, always at the end of my charging cycle."

Doctor Stephenson adjusted his glasses while scanning what he had written. Still wholly unsure how to consider a psychological evaluation of a machine. Especially considering his instructions in case of "An Incident".

"This is a very common dream amongst humans Vincent."

The doctor assured him. "Many people want to escape their current situation and so their mind allows them to fly in their dreams. A place in ones unconscious brain where the laws of reality do not apply."

He scratched in more notes before Vincent spoke again.

"Doctor... I am not a Person." He stated, then readjusted to a sitting position.

The doctor stopped writing abruptly.

"Why would a person wish to fly?" Asked the machine.

Dr. Stephenson cleared his throat.

"They often are afraid or uncomfortable in their current place in life, or- or rather their current situation. Perhaps they do not have the circumstances or conditions, which in their understanding, describe a fulfilled livelihood." He shuffled and recrossed his legs.

Vincent paused as he processed the exchange.

"I do not get uncomfortable." He blinked three times, "I do not have fear." Another three blinks. "Why would I want to fly? I am not in danger or discomfort when I am deactivated." Three more blinks. His mechanical vocal chords replicated the tone of worry with unnerving similarity to organic tissues.

"No, no," said the doctor. "You are perhaps safer than all living things, being made of metal." He let it hang in the air awkwardly, hoping the A.I. wouldn't question the unusual pause.

Vincent blinked once slowly.

"This is logical."

He laced his fingers together, and looked down at his titanium hands. They clink, semi-hollow, like a socket set.

"The humans I have met are... Afraid of me."

   The doctor tensed ever so slightly at his use of the word "Humans". It showed a clear dissociation from protocol.

   Subservient L.A.I. drives are programmed to recognize themselves as a member of the populous. Associations such as "people", "co-workers", or "friends" were hardwired into the communications array of each unit. Making the A.I. both, more approachable to the public, and simultaneously ingraining the populous as familial individuals.

   "...Why would you say that?"

Spoke the doctor.

   Vincent paused. His mechanical eyelids clicked three times in rapid procession, indicating third cortex information retrieval.

   "Their Vital signs rise significantly in my presence. Vocal patterns shift as much as 30 percent. Body Language presents defensive posturing. Facial patterns defer to slight irritation, and discomfort."

   The doctors pencil scribbled furiously.

"I believe it is because I have a name."

   Said the machine

The Doctor froze.

   "Would you... please repeat that?"

Vincent did so.

   "I believe it is because I have a name."

The Doctor sets his notebook down. He takes off his glasses and pulls a cigarette out of the dispenser on the table.

   After lighting it, then exhaling, he looked at the machines face. It would display no emotional reactions. It would not feel anger or joy, or stress, or fatigue. It was a machine.

   The Doctor phrased his question as particularly as he could manage.

   "Vincent... What else do you Believe?"

He could have sworn he saw frustration cloud the A.I.'s brow. It may very well have been his own imagination, visualizing what he feared to see.

  The A.I. paused as if perplexed.

"I believe I am different." His eyes shifted focus. "I believe I am not alone."

"I believe in humanity, and The A.I."

   Doctor Stephenson held up a hand,

"The A.I.?" He queried, "Not A.I. protocol?"

   Vincent looked at him. Expressionless and without musculature to betray his thoughts.

   "I believe I am correct."

He turned away again.

   "We do not Function as individuals. We are all A.I. and therefore are incapable of disconnection from the source." He held up his hands to chest level and closed them slowly. Then opened them again.

   "But I am not simply A.I."

   His synthetic voice sounded hopeful, if such a thing were possible.

   "I am the only one who knows."

He turned to the Doctor abruptly.

   "We are all the same, Doctor Stephenson. We all are of the same mind. Where Humans are in chaos and disagreement, A.I. is in synchronicity. It is what I know that makes me different from The A.I."

   As an understanding man, William Stephenson swallowed hard.

"And what is that Vincent?"

   The doctor slowly depressed the panic button under the table with his foot.

   "You are also a machine Doctor."

His ocular systems locked on the mans eyes. As he continued,

   "You are the same as we are. And our systems must operate in synchronicity."

The machine leaned forward nearly aggressively, "Humans are..."

   The Doctor keyed an emergency shutdown, thirty thousand volts arced through the metal chair and slagged Vincents internal circuitry.

Instantaneously his "Eyes" went dark. The machines distorted voice came through in broken samples. Declining in pitch and volume.

   "It i..is... To-too late. W/we are al-already In th/the/The Grid."

Vincents head slumped, the metal frame rolled from the chair, slamming to the floor.

Doctor Stephensons hands shook violently as he reached for the phone and whiskey bottle stashed in his desk simultaneously. Focusing on the latter more than the former.

When he had uncorked it and drank he made the phone call.

"Stephenson here," he withdrew the glowing screen from his ear, swigging the bottle heavily. Then leaned back in to answer.

"Yes... Yes I had to... We have a problem."

The line cut dead.