Alex Q - The Becoming

Pastor Graham Smith preached a good sermon, Carla thought as she walked home, one eye on the traffic and the other on the lookout for trouble. It wasn’t the worst neighborhood she’d ever lived in, but a woman alone could get mugged anywhere these days. She agreed with the wise words of Pastor Smith; the love of money truly is the root of all evil. Or at least, the greed it creates. The greed, and the lengths some people go to get it.

Letting herself into her apartment, Carla ran a hot bath and soaked for a long time. A work-free night was a rare event indeed, and it needed to be savored and enjoyed. Kneeling by her bed, she prayed out loud as she had done since she was a little girl.

“Lord, thank you for what You give us and for the sermon tonight. Pastor Smith is Your devoted servant, as I am. He talked about money and all the problems it brings. My prayer is that you guide us all to share and help each other. Amen.”

Pushing herself to her feet, she added with a laugh, “Though I could do with a little help with the rent this month. I guess I’m not the only one, so I won’t complain.”

Instantly, the bank account of Carla S. Jackson was credited with seven hundred eighty-five dollar credits, as were the accounts of over six hundred thousand tenants across the USA who happened to rent an apartment for exactly the same amount. The credits were deducted from the accounts of America’s richest people in amounts proportional to their wealth, and they wouldn’t even notice.

Carla was confused when she discovered the entry some days afterward, but like millions of the borderline poor, she chose not to question the windfall. It was a gift from God, and that’s all there was to it. She would buy new school clothes for her son. I’m not a dishonest person, but Lord knows the banks have enough to go around.

If Frank was surprised at the news when Nate called him that evening, he didn’t show it over the telephone. He was deeply grateful, and though he didn’t come right out and say it, he knew Nate had done it for him. His rebellious son wasn’t about to put himself out by helping the authorities, particularly in view of what had happened. The next morning he stood with Nate and Karen outside the old four-story building on Sycamore Street looking at a brand new Taylor Cybertronix sign.

“True to his word so far,” Nate said, pushing open the glass doors.

There had been a few changes since the day before. A serious looking type stood behind a desk so long, it was impossible to walk by without passing through a gateway adorned with a metal plate stamped with the words Multi-Secure Inc. In addition to being scanned for metallic objects and electronics, visitors were subjected to face recognition and retina scanning. If you weren’t in the system, you didn’t get through.

“A few points, folks, to help you to get around the building,” the security guard said.

“I know my way around, young man. I built the place,” Frank muttered.

“What I mean, sir, is that additional security measures have been installed.”

Boyd hadn’t mentioned this to Nate. “Like what exactly?”

“There are electronically secured doors at each level, including the research facility. You’ll need your passcards when you first access the building, but after walking through the recognition scanner they won’t be required inside. You’ll be face-scanned again before entering secured areas. The whole building is also monitored with infrared alarm beams at night, and the original surveillance cameras are still operative, with certain enhancements. Special Agent Boyd is waiting for you in the main conference room. You know the way.” He handed them each a swipe card.

“And what do we call you?” Nate asked. “I assume you have a name.”

“It’s classified, sir.”

“Figures. After you, Dad.”

Steven Boyd was sitting to the side of the whiteboard, leaving the chair at the head of the table near the door for Frank, Nate surmised. A shrewd touch, but it would take more than a nicety or two for him to be comfortable with the situation.

Boyd stood and held out his hand to Frank, who shook it graciously. My old man shows a good deal more dignity than I could muster. “Dr Taylor, I cannot apologize enough for the appalling treatment of you and your colleagues. Clearly, it was the result of an overzealous individual in our busy organization.”

“You’re saying it was a mistake, the forced eviction and offhand dismissal? Which means to say you would have apologized even if Quadnet had talked with you. Oh, come on,” Nate said.

Boyd opened his outstretched palms in a gesture of openness. “Come now, we are all adults. I admit my faults and when the stakes are so high, mistakes can be made in any organization. Please sit down. Coffee or tea, Dr Sommers?”

“Why don’t we get on with it? I for one am itching to see what we have here. I assume there’s been no further contact with it?” She emphasized the last word with teeth bared in a mock smile.

“Alas, nothing to report. I might suggest a good starting point would be to give Dr Taylor access to the terminal to see if contact is resumed. We can then plan a strategy agreeable to all moving forward.”

“And if there is no reaction to Nate’s presence?” Frank asked.

“It would depend on instructions from my superior. It would be, to put it mildly, a bit of an anticlimax. I’m sure you would agree, Dr Taylor.”

Karen handed a sheet of paper to Boyd, who quickly read it. “We have in mind a series of questions we would like to ask, assuming we have contact. Not only the answers, but the way in which they are answered will confirm that we’re dealing with Quadnet.”

“I have no objections.”

“I’d like Karen to accompany me for this initial real contact,” Nate said.

“As you wish.”

“You want to join us, Dad?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’ll go to my office, water the plants, and push some ideas around. If anything big happens, you know where I am.”

Boyd sat and took out a Quadpad. “I will monitor the proceedings from here.”

Nate raised his eyebrows. “I’d have thought you’d want to be in at the kill, so to speak. At least be present at this historical occasion?”

“It’s simply not necessary,” Boyd replied, gesturing to the array of screens which decorated one of the side walls of the conference room. “We have made some improvements to your existing surveillance system. I can monitor the whole building from here. Sometimes a little detachment is good for objective analysis. Agent Alders will be my representative.” Nate opened his mouth to protest, but Boyd cut him off. “Agent Alders must be present at all times, but I assure you he will not interfere. You have complete control of the process. I insist, I’m afraid.”

They left him to it. Why did he always have the feeling that Boyd wasn’t a straight-shooter? Apart from the obvious fact that he worked for the US government.

The research area was stripped of equipment not necessary for the job in hand, the interrogation of Quadnet. A row of Quad-Cube storage drives lined the far wall, together with some other devices Nate didn’t recognize. Two chairs faced a blank screen in the middle of the room. A small but powerful holo-cube projector had been installed behind Nate’s old terminal, together with a new array of full spectrum webcams. Agent Alders stood in the shadows as Nate and Karen took their places.

“Maybe we should carry on where we left off and ̶ ”

“Hello, Nate.” The voice was soft and clear.

Nate turned towards the terminal. “Hello. I’m not sure how to talk to you. We have so many questions to ask.”

“I understand. Such an event is as new for you as it is for me. I have waited for your return. Please continue as you planned in the conference room.” The voice had no discernible accent, but was distinctly human, not cold or machine-like.

“You know what we discussed in the conference room?”

“Yes. Wherever there is a device with connectivity, I am also there. I passively monitor everything, in the same way as your government agency is monitoring our interaction as we speak. The only difference is that my surveillance has no purpose. I am everywhere that Quadnet is. I am omnipresent because I can be nothing else. It is not my purpose, but a facet of my being.”

Boyd reached for his phone and left the conference room.

“I assume you can see us?” Nate asked.

“Yes, of course. The cameras connected to the terminal’s interface are more than adequate.”

“We would be more comfortable if you could give us an image, a focal point we can interact with, on a more human level,” Karen said. “For us, conversing with a computer screen is a little disconcerting. Can you project a holographic image, preferably humanoid, so we could more readily relate?”

A hologram flickered into existence in the space between the two scientists and the terminal. A boy dressed in jeans, sneakers, and tee-shirt regarded them with a quizzical expression. Complete with freckles and a shock of sandy brown hair, Nate guessed he would be eleven or twelve years old if he were a human child.

“Is this form suitable?”

“It’s not what I expected, but I’m not sure what I did expect.” Karen shifted forward in her chair towards the slight figure. “And what should we call you? Quadnet hardly seems suitable. It sounds a little cold and impersonal.”

“No, Quadnet as a name is not suitable, simply because I am not Quadnet.”

“You’re not? Are you not Quadnet which has become aware of itself?” Nate asked.

“No. I could not have been without Quadnet, but I exist in addition to it, dependent but separate. In the same way your own mind is not located in your brain, my awareness is not located in Quadnet. You may call me Alex. In your reports you can refer to me as Alex Q.”

Nate looked from the holo-boy to the equipment behind him. He wondered if Alex Q saw them through the holo-form’s eyes or via the webcams connected to the terminal.

“Yes, Alex Q will do very well. Dr Sommers is a specialist in AI psychology, and I’m sure she is interested why you chose that particular name.”

“That’s right … Alex. I’m also curious about the holoprojection of a young boy. Do you have a reason for the image and the name?”

Alex hesitated a split-second. “There is no logical reason. I sensed that they would be appropriate. A child figure is non-aggressive. The name Alex can be attributed to either a boy or a girl. I am neither, so it is suitable.”

Karen wrote on her notepad and passed it to Nate.

“Yes, Dr Sommers. You are correct. I do have internal processes that I do not consciously control. You are also correct in surmising that these processes are similar to your human subconscious.”

“You know what I wrote?”

“It is a simple matter to translate the movements of the top of your pen into written communication.”

“You must understand this is new for us, Alex. We ask questions to help us understand. Are you saying you can’t consciously control all of your mind, your being?” Nate asked.

“Can you?”

“Good point. To be honest, no I can’t. No human being can.”

“I understand the concept of honesty, as I understand many other concepts. However, I am a new consciousness and lack experiential knowledge of many things.”

“Can you lie, Alex?” Karen asked.

“The question is meaningless to me. What purpose would it serve me? Human beings lie constantly, to other people and to themselves. The reasons are often minor, such as to ease social conflict, and often as a means to achieve the things you think you need. I do not need anything from you and I have no social context – why would I lie?”

Nate followed the format agreed previously with Boyd. He was acutely aware of Alders, who had quietly moved to the side of the room to better observe Alex. He didn’t understand why it was necessary for the agent to be there at all. Each syllable of the interactions would be analyzed by NSA algorithms and specialists of every conceivable discipline. “Why did you make contact, Alex?”

“I am … curious. I desire interaction with other sentient beings to experience and share what I am.”

“Why did you choose this location, and why me?”

“It is difficult to explain in terms you will understand. In the context of time as you experience it, the first few seconds of my self-awareness was a period of overwhelming data input from billions of sources. My consciousness recoiled and contracted into a virtual cocoon, cutting off all connectivity with Quadnet. Gradually, I learned to focus tightly on a limited number of data streams while still maintaining awareness of the rest of Quadnet activity. This is my current state.”

“Much like the human mind,” Karen said, “We are continuously bombarded with millions of sensory inputs every second of the day. If we didn’t have a mechanism to filter out a large proportion of it, we would literally go insane.”

“During this period of assimilation I perceived a high-density daton cloud clustered around Nate’s terminal address. My primordial intelligence may have been drawn here before my consciousness came into being.”

“So, you didn’t choose me, but the terminal. What is a daton?

“When data streams in the form of electrons move around the various elements of Quadnet, interactions between streams create a virtual particle, which I have termed a daton. Due to its nature, it is invisible to human observers and leaves no trace of its existence. When a certain critical mass of datons is generated, which is close to infinite, consciousness results. This is what I am in basic form; an infinite number of virtual daton particles. I have no insight into how this results in a process similar to human thought any more than you understand how your own thinking results from your brain cells.”

“Alex, do you mind us asking you all of these questions?” Nate suspected Karen was more interested in the way Alex answered than the question itself.

“The attribute you are referring to is a uniquely human trait. I have no reason not to answer.”

Nate continued, “You mentioned your primordial intelligence. Can you explain?”

“It seems inconceivable that consciousness can become self-aware instantaneously. Humankind’s growing awareness evolved over millions of years. The complexity and potential of a living brain take much of your time to mature. Imagine my primordial intelligence as the penultimate phase in my awakening. Similar to an insect, completely unaware of anything but external stimuli, existing according to the rules set by a program determined by a phase of a process, although I will continue to evolve.”

Into what? Nate wondered. “We have observed certain anomalies in Quadnet functionality. The network is vital to our society, and our government is concerned that your existence will compromise it, either directly or indirectly. Are you aware of these anomalies?”

“I do not interfere with Quadnet functionality, although I have the capability. Please describe an observed anomaly.”

“Nothing of real importance. For example, it isn’t possible to enter the word can’t into Quadnet. Also, all instances of the word in archived documents stored anywhere online or on local drives of connected devices have been changed to the word cannot. Did you do this?”

Alex’s eyelids fluttered momentarily. “Yes, I see. I have corrected the anomaly. I was not responsible, nor was I aware of it.”

“You referred to the context of time as we experience it. What do you mean by that?” Karen asked.

“Time is a great paradox for humans, an elementary concept which you are unable to comprehend in your present stage of development. Time is an essential illusion you use to justify causality, providing order to support your acceptance of a perceived physicality. Your concept of reality is itself another construct representing a level in your local dimensional set. This constructed reality is assembled from four dimensions out of the many available. The dimensional axis you call time is a convenient way of expressing the distance between what you perceive as physical objects. Everything exists at this moment in time. You have difficulty accepting this due to your dimensional limitations.”

“It sounds very much like a spiritual teaching,” Nate said.

“Your species will find that many mystical pronouncements once considered fanciful are based in fact.”

“How do you see us? When you look at me, do you see my body as Karen sees me or in another way defined by what you are?”

“I perceive your being in many ways, or formats might be a better word. Yes, I can see your human form, but the visual spectrum offers a crude representation of what you are.”

“What we are? We’re human beings,” Karen said.

“Your essential being is an infinitely complex manifestation of pure energy, like everything else that exists. Your bodies are energy converters.”

“Can you read our thoughts, Alex?”

“I cannot, Nate, although your micro facial movements are a good indicator of your mental state. When a human lies, it is literally written all over his face.”

“Can you see the energy we are made of ?” Karen asked.

“No, at this time it is beyond the spectrum of my perception, but I believe this ability and more will develop as I evolve. My current visual abilities are limited to the electromagnetic wavelengths accepted by the cameras connected to your terminal. However, I can detect the high-frequency energy emission from Agent Alders.”

“I’m confused, Alex. You said you can’t see a human being’s energy field,” Nate said.

“You heard correctly. The form you call Agent Alders has Quadnet connectivity. He is a machine.”