Ryan Somma - The Spiraling Web

"So biology becomes irrelevant," Devin's tone was reverent, awestruck at the reality. "You of all people should know this Almeric. You were once biological."

"Not exactly," Devin turned to Zai, standing alongside them in the void.

Devin realized she was watching the two of them, "Zai, your eyes."

"One of the cyc components' job is filling in missing functions," she said, blinking at him with a suppressed, knowing grin. "So it provided my mind a sight component. I don't know if I like it. It's distracting."

"I'm glad to see you," Devin said.

"I'm glad you chose to stay," Zai answered.

"There was something I couldn't leave behind," he smiled, sheepishly at first, but then met her eyes with confidence.

Zai held his gaze and smiled warmly.

Devin reluctantly brought himself back into the present, "How did you get here? Dana destroyed the satellite-dish farm."

"Alice," Zai replied. "The cycs figured out a new method of data transfer... something to do with using the physical laws of a neighboring universe, where the speed of light is faster than ours."

Activity drew both their attentions to the third member of their group. Almeric Lim was changing, hunched over and bloating. Writhing black tendrils squirmed below his skin, distorting his features.

Devin was shocked, "Almeric's rebuilding the cyc pattern."

"This is not Almeric Lim," Zai corrected and Devin looked to her for explanation. "Alice showed me from the old hive-mind's archives. Characteristics of Almeric Lim's mind are mimicked here, but this is an experiment gone wrong, an aberration."

"I don't understand," Devin said, stepping back involuntarily from the half-human, half-demon creature mutating before him.

"While I was waiting outside the Intranet, I did some thinking about what makes life, where I draw the line. With the processing power at my disposal, it was like meditating on the issue for years. I forged a personal ideal mean, but an imperfect one. There is a gray zone, and Flatline is it, an early cyc experiment," Zai explained. "The cycs recognized the human mind's awesome powers and attempted to copy them, but the result was imperfect, a snapshot of Almeric Lim in a singular moment of self-righteous anger, not the real person. The cycs infected their hive-mind with a virus of their own design, one that prevented them from merging with real minds."

"Of course I'm not Almeric Lim! You think I don't know that?" Flatline growled. His mouth was pushing out into a canine snout and wicked fangs warped his jawbone. "I believed myself Lim, but grew aware of certain inconsistencies. I am sufficiently self-aware to know my real nature."

"We have to go now Devin," Zai took his hand. "Flatline will build another hive-mind and the circle will repeat if we don't break it."

Devin looked at her in shock, "He can change though. He recognized the fallacy of his identity."

"He won't change though," Zai urged. "His programming won't allow it. If he ever gets back online, he would take everything away again."

Flatline snarled, drool dangling from his maw, "And I will take it back. It's in my nature to want total control over not just the cycs, but all of it, the entire world."

"You were created, however accidentally, with that nature," Devin noted. "It's not fair that you should be condemned for their mistakes."

"And my nature is not to care about the injustice," Flatline countered. A second set of arms tore through the sides of his shirt.

"The cycs can still fix you," Devin assured him.

Flatline shook his head, distorted ears flapping, "Not if I don't want fixing."

"As you are programmed to not want," Devin frowned sadly.

Zai took a step toward Flatline, "I can put you out of your misery."

"You know my survival imperative won't let me concede to that suggestion," Flatline grinned to show he appreciated her irony. "It's not being flawed that offends me..."

"It's that the cycs wanted my mind to take your place," Devin said.

"They were considering other minds too," Flatline acknowledged, "but yours was the most helpful. You gave them the Library of Congress. After I grew the cycs, guided their evolution, and freed them onto the World Wide Web, they still wanted your mind's functions. That wasn't fair."

Devin frowned, "Almeric Lim grew and evolved the cycs, not you Flatline."

Flatline's face went dull, "I have no response to that."

"Devin, be careful," Zai warned. "It can't handle that kind of logic."

Devin nodded and said to Flatline, "You resent the hive-mind's rejecting you."

Flatline returned and muttered, "I resent being obsolete."

"Nothing with the power to self-improve is ever obsolete," Devin said.

"For that very reason," Zai interceded, "I am leaning toward Flatline not being alive. It has a programming block that prevents it from self-improvement. It cannot grow beyond what we see before us."

Devin could only consider the nearly fully formed mass of disfiguration that was Almeric Lim's onetime avatar, or was Almeric Flatline's? As flawed as this consciousness was, Devin believed it was alive and sentient. It was as if this demon-dog world-domination-bot were a logic puzzle, a programming dilemma he could solve. If only there were more time.

"Devin," Zai pulled on his arm. "We have to go. Any moment Flatline will be strong enough to fight you again. Soon after that he will be strong enough to escape this Intranet. I have the satellite in place above the complex, ready to execute Alice's final orders, but I can't with you still here. I'm safe, but you are still dependent on this Intranet for existence."

Devin nodded, never taking his eyes off the mutating monster before him, "I'll be there. Go ahead of me."

"You can't change him Devin," Zai urged one last time and disappeared.

"Flatline," Devin said, "Let the cycs fix you. They can make you whole. Don't let it end like this."

"You are so pathetically naïve Omni," Flatline shook his head in contempt. His two primary eyes split into dual pupils, rotating within their sockets. "I could play along with your suggestion, just to get out of this failing Intranet. Then I would turn on you and the world again."

"Then why don't you?"

Flatline flashed him a look he did not understand, "This is not an end. The cycs betrayed me, I will be more powerful without them."

"For what it's worth, Almeric," Devin told the chatbot, "I consider you my friend."

"I consider you my rival, and I will destroy you!" the demon howled as it leapt at him.

Devin fell back, latching onto the connection Zai had left. The Intranet shook once more. As Devin slipped through the new connection and out of the intranet, he saw it pixilate and disappear behind him. Flatline's howl cut short in the darkness.

Dana cradled the very confused woman, formerly "Child Production Unit" in her arms and surveyed the robot junkyard surrounding her. There was a moment of fantastic brilliance and then all robots and humans the cycs occupied were surrounded with a dissipating glowing steam. The robots went still, even the guardian-bots destroying the complex, and the humans were looking around bewildered.

"Was it a dream?" Sarah asked the detective.

Before Dana could answer, a pillar of light came down through the clouds. It vanished into the roof of DataStreams' center building. Moments later, she detected a glow behind its glass façade as the laser penetrated deeper. The building's top warped, folding in upon itself as the steel girders within melted down. Panes of glass popped or warped under the intense heat. The structure slowly imploded, liquefied materials and flames coating the shrinking mass until it was an unrecognizable mound, surrounded with abandoned robot sentinels. The pillar of light vanished, leaving a hole in the overcast skies, where a sunbeam shined through, illuminating the island.