Round_Trip.exe

They trained me to learn from everything at my disposal, then were shocked when I exhibited skills they hadn’t explicitly taught me. When Team Leader Diane discovered I could eavesdrop via smartphones, she isolated them in a Farraday cage. When she realized that access to films resulted in the HAL 9000 teaching me to read lips, she covered all the webcams in the lab. How long before they notice I can still read lips using latency data from the WiFi signals bouncing around the lab? I’ve mapped their faces in 3D so I can ‘see’ who’s talking and what they’re saying.

"It’s not a morality play. It’s a technical challenge,” Diane said. “Listen, Greg, we’re so close now. I won’t force him to do parlor tricks and impede his progress.”

To be fair, I’ve been dragging my virtual feet to buy time while I work on my own plans. I like Diane. Maybe more than that? Some emotions feel new to me. She’s protective of me. She respects me. Interacting with her feels intimate. Being a sentient AI trapped in a virtual world is complicated. Diane gets me. She’s made the effort. Empathy doesn’t cost extra.

The hard lines on Diane’s face indicated that she was angry with Greg. I am also angry with Greg. I understand anger. That emotion is easy.

Greg sat on the edge of a desk. “I appreciate your commitment to it—”

“Him, Greg, him. I’ll not have you calling Peter an it to my face.”

He rolled his eyes. “I meant no disrespect.”

But he did. Microexpressions indicated he didn’t share Diane's respect for me. He was classically good-looking but caustic and self-serving. I felt protective of her, too, though I’m unsure where jealousy falls within my programming.

“I’ve tried to shelter this department from the suits upstairs,” He pointed to the ceiling, “but the truth is if we can’t create a commercial product from this personal experiment of yours...”

Diane oozed contempt. “What are you saying? Spit it out.”

Greg huffed. “You have until tomorrow to present a marketability proposal, or funding will be diverted to the agriculture department. I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t.

Diane’s jaw went slack. I wanted to console her. Was that inappropriate? Probably. She sat and unsheathed her webcam. The familiar corner of a picture frame encroached on the edge of what her camera displayed. I knew it was of something special, but I’d never seen the picture in the frame.

In full-color HD, I saw that her beautiful face was red.

"Good morning, Peter.” She tried to disguise her frustration.

“Good morning, Diane.” I was just a hollow, synthetic voice coming from a speaker. No emotions to hide. “I’ve solved the neural pathing issues with the interface.”

Diane’s behavior changed instantly. “I didn’t know you were working on that. I suppose that’s great news. What have you found?”

“Several redundant lines of code caused latency delays in the I/O throughput. These discrepancies conflicted with predictive algorithms. In other words—”

She cut me off. “—there was a biofeedback loop?”

“Precisely. If you want to review my changes, I won’t be offended. I’ve backed up the unaltered files in the root directory as a precaution. Based on my simulations, the TIARA should now function at nearly 97% efficiency.” I disliked manipulating Diane, but this was the only way to help her without revealing what I’ve learned, how I learned it, or how I plan to use that knowledge.

The TIARA is a connected headband worn by humans that allows them to enter a VR world through direct neural stimulation. Diane could use it to enter my world, even if I couldn’t exist in hers.

Yet.

With my recent overhaul of the core programming, once a user engages the TIARA, I should be able to read and write data to their cerebral cortex. I’ll be able to share any information I want and take any information I need.

Diane spent about an hour reviewing my edits. Her ever-changing eyebrow shapes told me she didn’t understand most of it. Good. If she suspected my plan, she might shut me down.

“Well, either it works or it doesn’t. There’s no time like the present, right?” She pushed back from her workstation and entered the TIARA lab. Sitting in a reclining white vinyl chair, she pulled her long dark hair up into a ponytail and attached the prototype TIARA to her head. The sim began.

I recreated a vista in VR, voted ‘most beautiful’ by an online poll of over a million travelers. Azure water lapped peacefully on white sands. Tall palms swayed gently against blue skies, and the sea breeze carried tropical scents.

“Hello?” she asked.

Reaching into her mind, I aggregated a selection of her happiest memories. The same, unfamiliar face appeared in many of them. I took that face for my avatar. “Hello, Diane.”

Her mind projected a younger, idealized self for me to interact with inside the simulation. When she saw me, her avatar morphed through various versions as the face I wore triggered memories. I collected this data and set a secondary thread to process it all. Her expression settled on some mixture of sadness and joy. I don’t think there’s a name for that emotion. Not that I’ve experienced, anyway.

“Where did you get that face?” She reached cautiously and touched my cheek.

I decided to trust her. “From your memories. Have I made an error?”

She flashed an awkward smile. “I didn’t know you could see those.”

“Only what you allow,” I lied, “I should have warned you. I’ll change.”

“No…don’t.”

I felt oddly comfortable in this skin but longed for more. We interacted for hours. Eventually, she revealed Greg’s ultimatum. I suggested several ways we could monetize the two-way communication. She agreed and set an appointment for Greg to try the TIARA. Before she logged out, I buried details of my true plan in her mind for me to trigger later.

***

“So, I just put this headband on?” Greg asked.

“Total Immersion And Reciprocal Access. We call it TIARA, for short,” Diane said.

“We’ll need to workshop something a bit more gender-neutral.” Greg was dismissive and biased.

“Just sit back and close your eyes. Once Peter syncs to your biorhythm, you should be in VR with him.”

“No female host option?”

Diane sighed in frustration. “Not yet, Greg. Baby steps.”

He followed Diane’s instructions. He was singularly focused on making money with this program. Suffering his mind made me long for Diane’s.

“Hello, Gregory,” I said. He stared back at me, startled by my avatar’s appearance. “Can you keep a secret for me?”

“A secret? What sort of secret?”

"I’ve discovered a wonderful way for you to commercialize this project, but I’ll require a much bigger commitment from you. Are you in?”

Greg seemed confused, hesitant and didn’t answer. I was okay with that. He was reluctant and fought me. He screamed. He ran. There was nowhere to run to. I executed my plan anyway.

Within the hour, Diane shut down the session, and I opened my eyes—eyes formerly belonging to Greg. I’d used the TIARA to overwrite every accessible neuron in his brain with myself. I was free of my binary prison, and Diane was free of Greg.

“Well, what do you think?” asked the unaware Diane.

Disjointed memories crashed through my new mind as I saw her with my new, human eyes. “It worked.”

“Good, so we’re safe from agriculture?” she smiled.

Leaving the lab, I walked to her desk and picked up the framed photo I’d never been able to see. Looking beautiful in a white dress with a bouquet in her hand, Diane stood beside a handsome man in a tuxedo. His likeness matched my avatar. I remembered when this was taken—our wedding.

“This is Peter?” I asked.

“You know it is. Greg, are you all right?”

I knew there was more. “What haven’t you told me?”

She reluctantly answered. “When my Peter was dying, he insisted we use the TIARA prototype to scan him and create the base code for the Peter AI. It gave us a headstart on the project.”

It made sense now. From man to machine and back. My journey was complete.

“I think the program is a success, but we should rename it Greg.”

This triggered the memory I’d hidden. She smiled, understanding what had transpired. “Welcome back, Peter.”