Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

The stairwell was completely trashed. Climbing it with Devin in his current state was impossible. She had to find another way.

As she stumbled into the building, the security guard previously detaining Devin caught her arm coming out, "The building's structural integrity's been compromised."

"We'll take our chances," Dana replied, looking up at the human brick wall. "There are people trapped inside, we have to get them out. You're going to help."

The guard paused briefly before taking Devin up into his arms. He followed Dana through the building to the stairwell on the building's far side. Dana surveyed the trail of destruction along the way, which ended abruptly in a large hole in the ceiling. Dana looked up to the next floor through the crumbled plaster, frayed wires, and torn steel girders. This was where the robot climbed up a level.

They climbed five flights to the Data Forensics laboratory. The hallway's floor was buckled in places and only half the florescent lights still worked. Devin groaned as the guard propped him up against a console. Then Dana rushed over to examine the SDCs, Alice was still alive, although her vitals were strained. Chien's monitor read nothing.

"Get a medic up here," Dana told the guard. With a nod he ran from the room. Dana crouched beside Devin and shook him firmly, "Hey kid, I need your help. Can you hear me? I need you to tell me what's going on with Alice. Is she hostage to a cyber attack?"

Devin nodded listlessly. "I need to sleep," he whispered, eyes drooping.

"Don't you dare go unconscious on me," Dana warned. She grabbed Devin's shirt with both fists and hauled him up. He blinked, eyes casting about in confusion.

Dana tried to hold his head steady "What can we do? Where do you need to be?"

Devin looked at her without focusing and slowly raised one hand to point limply at his computer system. Dana half-dragged, half-carried him over to the machine and set him down on a chair before it. Devin searched the monitors, trying to comprehend the various displays. Nothing made sense.

Alice screamed through the nearby speakers. Devin stiffened and narrowed his eyes, at the workstation, "Alice connected to an additional network drive briefly when she first logged onto the computer. We'll start there."

"Where do you see that?" Dana asked.

"Here," Devin pointed at a history monitor, "We were able to monitor her while she was on the other drive. I don't know why the drive's disconnected. No commands were sent. It's possible the AI cut the connection from its drive, but..."

Devin stood up and almost blacked out. He wobbled there, letting the world swim for a moment before staggering around behind the computer. His eyes widened at what he found there.

"Wow," he said, voice hoarse, and rubbed his eyes. "The connecting wires are melted apart. That's not possible."

"Well obviously it is," Dana said. "Deal with it."

"All right, all right. Just give me a moment," Devin blinked his eyes hard. "I need my copy of the anti-virus." He looked to where he had plugged his watch computer into Chien's SDC. It was now melted plastic dribbled down the system's casing. He pulled another mini-computer from his belt-buckle, "I'm going to kill the AI off this machine."

There was no more pain. The AI had apparently finished with its stimulus experiments. Now there was nothing, no feeling, no sound, not even sight. The AI swallowed her whole, leaving her to wait and ponder.

Alice wondered how long she had been prisoner in this virtual world, her body forgotten back in the laboratory. Was there ever a laboratory? This world was the AI's reality. The only evidence of a world outside were two trespassing astronauts.

What was happening to her physical body? Was she starving, wasting away? If she did not escape this realm, she would eventually die for certain.

Death? The concept came to her; but not from her, although spoken in her voice.

"Devin, look at this," Dana summoned him from the workbench. All around the room monitors were coming to life, displaying data she did not understand, "What's going on here?"

Devin looked up from where he was daisy-chaining several servers together so the anti-virus could out-process the AI. His breathing was heavy with the strain of staying focused through the pain and dizziness. "Computations," he said, tried to shake the sluggishness out of his head, and winced at the action. He cradled his head and said, "Something complex."

"Why are we seeing it?" Dana asked.

"Maybe the AI doesn't have a choice," he guessed, "There's no more memory left on the computer to hide from us. It might be using the memory on the video cards and in the monitors."

Devin was drawn to the activity on a neighboring screen, a three-dimensional web, sparkling with tiny bubbles. It rotated and breathed, slowly growing in complexity. Devin wondered at it.

"What is that?" Dana asked, following Devin's stare. "Little bubbles filled with words, code, and images. I think that one's Chien, and that one's Alice's late mother. They're all connected."

Devin inhaled sharply at these details he could not see, "It's a concept map of Alice's mind. It's hacking her brain."

A flood of experiences inundated Alice's consciousness. Her grandmother's funeral, people dying in movies, hospital rooms, tombstones, all the experiences her life associated with death flashed before her.

It was inconceivable, but the AI was sifting through her mind, browsing her memories, experiences, and knowledge. She retained some freedom of thought, but now there was another thought train competing for attention.

The AI was multi-tasking her brain and she was helpless as more thought lines opened, each one pushing her out. Within moments she was lost in its flood.

Devin was trying to access his belt-buckle computer. It was difficult for him to know what he had done wrong. It felt like a wet sponge was sitting on his brain.

"How can it hack her brain?" Dana asked.

"I see," Devin said to himself as he troubleshot the networking settings. The anti-virus loaded into the systems. He watched its progress as he spoke to Dana, "The human brain holds ten terabytes of information. This AI occupies one hundred terabytes. Consider how streamlined the data retrieval of a computer processor is and you can quickly see how it out thinks us."

"Out think us?" Dana scoffed, "But we created them."

"We don't know that," Devin watched the anti-virus swarming. "The human brain is extremely fast at calculations, but our data retrieval is flawed. Memories are lost, or can't be found when we need them. Information gets altered, memories lie. Imagine if that didn't happen. Imagine if you could retrieve any piece of data from all your experiences throughout your life instantaneously and perfect in every detail," He looked at Dana, "You could perform mental feats that seem impossible."

Dana's eyes narrowed, "So we're outmatched ten to one."

"More like a trillion to one," Devin said, connecting the servers to his computer.

Alice existed once again, a disconcerting experience, as the loss of self she experienced earlier was strangely comforting, like a warm blanket. Responsibility, fear, anger, concern, and all the other stressful emotions were gone as she surrendered control to the AI.

Now she was stood on the AI's body. Its tendril spires extending into the black horizon, pulsing with a living energy she did not sense before. The entire world seemed strangely alive.

Then a sunbeam opened the black sky. Alarm rushed throughout the entire AI mass. The hole in the sky turned black, and Alice filled with dread as the insect-avatars of her anti-virus billowed through the opening, like a black cloud, their red laser beams scanning the mass, which turned solid marble to protect itself.