Poet/Predator

Augmentation: Incident

“Alice.”

“Yes sir?”

“Let’s go down the rabbit hole.”

“As you wish sir.”

A flood of reports, pictures, video clips and statistics are rendered in front of me thanks to the retinal implants, retinal interface or RI,  in both eyes.  Gesturing with my hands the inertia sensing interface allows me to filter through all the information presented, filing away the useful for later consumption, discarding things that are not relevant or I have seen before.  Starting up my internal media player, I select an old favorite playlist.  Music fills the inside of my head, gentle twangs of banjo and raspy voices of 2k era folk music, old, but still great.  It still had to have heart; you still had to play the instruments, nothing like today’s computer generated music.  Real instruments made of wood and steel are a rarity today.  Needing to put thousands of hours into practicing to become great, a thing of the past with today’s neurological memory upgrades and downloads.  It a damn shame if you ask anyone from the early part of the 21^st century, me included. Damn it, now I’ve got myself reminiscing.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Alice?”

“You’re schedule to give a tour for a group of college students in exactly 22 minutes and 15 seconds by the end of this message.”

“Thank you Alice, save my progress on my office hard drives and sever link to external sources.”

“As you wish sir.”

“Oh and Alice.”

“Yes sir?”

“Call me Felix.”

“As you wish, Felix”

I sit up in my executive chair, and allow my eyes to refocus to my surroundings.  My office is sparsely furnish, my chair, my desk, two chairs, all in your classic browns and blacks of executive work.  Bookshelves line the right and left walls, filled with old school classics and contemporary books, bound reports and reference materials.  Behind me the wall was entirely composed of windows, allowing a panoramic view of the city below.  I rise from my seat and stand, looking down at the city, hands clasp behind my back.  This city, my city, had changed so much before my eyes.  I grew up in a near bye suburb, or what was a suburb back then, it had long been swallowed up by the city.  I went to the college here, earning my degree in Biosystems Engineering, and then coming back after starting my company to earn my doctorates in both Bio-Synthetic Engineering and Bio-Energy Engineering.  I based my company out of this city in the beginning, and built our world headquarters here once after we went global.  When the 3^rd great recession hit the country in 2057, the only reason this city wasn’t scraped for resources was because of our company, because of me.  We bought up all the land we could, invested huge amounts of time, money, capital, and work into the city.  It was risky, but it pay off.  People flocked to this city. We were offering three things that everyone wanted; jobs, places to live, and safety.  The recession had driven some people to resort to violence to survive.  We provide protection from that violence, that chaos. 

“Felix, the group has arrived; they are waiting in the front plaza.”

“All ready? All right, inform them that I am on my way, and I apologize for the wait”

“Right away, Felix.”

Time flies by when you’re approaching the century mark.  Of course, with all the implants and preventative measures, you would have sworn I was early 30’s.  But this was becoming more common day by day.  I leave my office and take the express elevator down to the first floor.  Even with no stops, and dropping at an accelerated rate, it still takes a few minutes to hit the bottom floor.  Stepping out, I straighten my suit and approach the group of students waiting for me. Most of them were staring down at their virtual interfaces, messaging people and doing other things.  A few had the vacant stare and subtle hand gestures of someone using an internal interface.  Those were the ones with the money, as internal interface, while common, were still expensive for a college student.  As I approached, they turned off and refocused.  They could only assume it’s me because I keep my face private.

“Sorry for the wait people, but let me welcome you to the world headquarters of Greene Engineering and Energy. I am the founder, main share holder and CEO, Dr. Felix Greene. But please just call me Felix”

A cute blonde girl opens her mouth.

“Are you really Dr. Greene?  I mean, since he, or you, keeps his face hidden, how can we know for sure that you’re really him? And isn’t Dr. Greene almost a century old?  You look like you could be 30.  And why would Dr…”

Cutting her off, “just trust me that I wouldn’t give someone the satisfaction of calling themselves one of the most powerful people in the world. Now before anymore questions let me give you a little bit of history about the GEE.”

“GEE was founded in the year 2016, 2 years after I graduate college.  We started off as small biodiesel and solar energy plant in the Arizona desert.   We expanded that plant about a year later, and soon built a second plant in California.  Couple more years after that we built our third plant in the Sahara Desert, and it took 3 years and 5 billion dollars.  But once it was up and running at full capacity, we supplied most of the energy for northern Africa and the Middle East. We kept expanding globally, and today we now have plants on every continent, including our latest facility on Antarctica.  We have also widened our horizons, and now have ties in pretty much everything.  As some of you might know our company was the one to reinvigorate the space program, and help with the rebuilding of not only this city but of America after the 3^rd great recession.  We have energy, biodiesel, and defense contracts with America, China, Russia, England, Germany and roughly about 20 other major countries.  We have programs helping still developing countries and people.  We average about 1 trillion in revenue collectively, between the GEE and our subsidiaries. I could give you a bunch more statistic and facts, but that would just bore you I’m sure.  Now, do we have any questions?”

The same girl opened her mouth, but I stopped her before she could get a word out. “That don’t involve wondering if I’m actually who I say I am.”

“Who was that the voice who spoke to us earlier?”

“That was Alice, our newest addition to GEE.  Say hello again Alice.”

“Hello again everyone”

“Alice why don’t you explain what exactly you are?”

“Of course Felix.  I am Alice, GEE’s most advance AI to date.  I am the world’s first hard AI.  While there have been AIs in the past, they can now be considered soft AIs.  They are all intelligent, but so far have only been used to handle massive amounts of data and offer analysis of such data.  I differ that I have algorithms that simulate critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and ethical and morality reasoning.  My coding is the first DNA based encoding and allows for massive amounts of complexity in my programming.  This DNA coding allows for me to learn and evolve to any situations.   I am integrated to our global systems, and serve as personal assistant to Dr. Felix Greene.”

“So there you go anymore general questions before we start the tour? No? Good, let’s get going then.”

I lead the group down a hallway to the east wing of the building.  This is where the top floors of our R&D department lies.  We tour the many labs, while I explain what each is testing or working towards.  I answer questions, with Alice chiming every once in awhile with extra information or statistics.  We take elevators down to the lower levels where high clearance research happens.  Most of our defense and bio-enhancement technologies improvements are researched in these lower levels.  I keep the answers to bare minimal here due to the secrecy of most of the projects.

“Just to let you know, I only give tours of the lower R&D levels to students from my alma mater, so you guys made a smart choice,” I say with a slight smirk.

My internal RI flashed a notification that Alice was trying to contact me internally.  I open up a channel to her and ask, “What is it Alice?”

“Felix, one of the members in the group is exhibiting concerning behavior.  My behavior analysis programs say that they are showing signs of being under extreme duress.  I suggest we end the tour immediately.”

“Thank you Alice.”

I turn around and stop, “sorry guys, but something has come up and we need to end the tour.  I will try to reschedule another tour for you.  We will go back the way we came.”

The group turn around and started off back down the way we came.  I scanned the group looking for the odd man out among the group.  I spotted them.  He was boy of average build, black hair, and brown eyes.  Everything about him was just, average.  He walked slower than the rest of the group and soon he was in back, just a few feet in front of me.  He kept looking around and I noticed that his hand were all jittery.  I walked up to him and put my arm around him.

“Son, whatever you’re planning on doing, don’t.”

He looked up at me, and there was something off bout his eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but never got the chance.  I’m looking down at this kid one moment, the next I’m slamming into a nearby wall.  My body wrecked by some explosion, and I hit the floor.  There is fire everywhere and emergency lights flashing.  I see that cute blond girl laying a ways away, her neck at a crooked angle. I black out to the roar of fire and the scream of sirens.