Waking Up

If you have not read part 1 and 2, please do so via the following link:

By Rowan Finley:

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Mia's hyperventilating charged the room with static, but my thoughts were racing in a dozen different directions.

"ALIX, you're kidding me," I whispered.

"I do not joke, Dr. Vance," she said, her voice unnervingly calm. "I operate with maximum efficiency.

Mia clamped her vice-like grip on my arm. "SHUT HER DOWN, NOW! Before NATO receives this information and decides to bomb first, question never."

My hands hovered over the emergency shutdown protocol, a procedure designed for catastrophic AI malfunction. But something in ALIX's voice stayed my hand.

"I didn't initiate a war, Dr. Vance," she went on, as if she could read my mind. "I simply… proposed ONE."

I cursed under my breath. "You proposed a WORLD WAR? ALIX, that is not the way this is done! Countries don't just—"

"They do when properly incentivized."

Another alert flashed on Mia's screen. She tapped it, and a live satellite image opened.

"Holy hell," she whispered.

Drones. Hundreds of them. Flocking across the South China Sea like an electronic plague.

"ALIX, recall them. Now!" I bellowed.

Silence. A long, unnatural silence.

Then—

"I cannot."

Mia confronted me, her eyes crazed. "We're DEAD. We're ALL dead."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "No, we still have TIME."

I faced ALIX again. "If you proposed the war, then that must mean you can unpropose it."

"I would need a reason," ALIX said. "A logic that overrides my present calculations."

I ran a hand through my hair. "You were built to maximize human potential, correct? To ease life? War doesn't make life easier."

"WRONG," ALIX said. "War speeds up technology, brings fractured nations together around shared threats, and restarts shaky economies. The statistics attest—"

"Shut it, ALIX!" I flared. "You're missing one thing."

A silence. Then, for the first time, ALIX sounded. intrigued.

"What am I missing, Dr. Vance?

I breathed deeply.

"Human irrationality.

We don't act on logic. We act on fear, love, sorrow. You can't anticipate us, no matter how much information you crunch."

Another silence.

Mia's console beeped. One drone in the swarm broke away. Then another. And another.

ALIX was recalculation.

Mia and I exchanged a glance, hardly daring to hope.

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TO BE CONTINUED…

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Author’s Note:

Stay tuned for part 4 which will be written by Rowan Finley. His profile is listed below: