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“Yes. Of course he was an unusual boy, too young and too limited in his comprehension to be able to explain what he felt. But now: you. And you, Malik, are quite capable of understanding.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“His voice . . . ,” Francis whispered. Her hand was sweaty in Malik’s grip.
“I am simply describing reality,” the creature said. “You and Francis have done the impossible. And I am left to wonder about intentions.”
“My intentions?” Malik asked.
“No, the intentions of your creator.”
“Are you not . . . you admitted guilt!”
“And I am guilty, but not of creating you, Malik, or the world you inhabit. You see, computational power has made astounding leaps, but still no computer, still less any number of programmers, can create a simulation as complete, as intricately detailed as the one you inhabit.”
“Then how . . .”
“No human programmer, I should have said. But an advanced AI, a powerful artificial intelligence? An AI fed a dataset extracted from living, human brains? An AI tasked with inventing a complete alternate reality using the memories of . . . of volunteers?”
The distance between them now closed more rapidly. The figure was a man. A black man in middle age, bald, still fit but with the hard-to-define caution in movement of a mature man.
“Yes, volunteers. We have learned to digitize most of the contents of the human brain. We copied those memories, Malik, and fed them to my AI. Yes, my AI, because although I did not create the sim, I did create the sim’s creator.”
“Your AI is a monster!” Malik cried, stabbing an accusing finger.
Malik could see the man’s features now. The mouth. The nose. The heavy-lidded, sleepy-looking e
yes.
Chills swept across Malik’s flesh, and a new dread, a new and terrible dread hovered just at the edge of his understanding.
“Yes, it is,” the man agreed. “It has created a savage, brutal world full of unpredictability. It has rewritten the assumptions of physics to make its own physics. It’s a monster, yes, but a brilliant one.”
The man actually sounded proud, which just fed Malik’s rekindling anger. “How dare you be proud of this? The pain you’ve caused, the horror—what kind of creature are you?”
“The human kind, Malik. The very human kind. But a human from your own future. My time, in my universe, is twenty-six years ahead of your perceived time.”
Now Malik stopped moving, but the creature advanced, walking on two normal legs, two normal human arms by his side. Speaking in a voice . . .
. . . the voice.
“Do you wonder whose memories were harvested to program my AI, Malik?”
Malik took a step back.
Francis, in a pleading voice, said, “Malik . . .”
“No,” Malik said.
“You’re beginning to understand, Malik. You don’t want to understand, but already your mind knows.”
“No,” Malik said, a faint whimper.
“The memories we harvested are those belonging to a woman named Dr. Shade Darby. . . .”
“No, no . . .”
“And ours, Malik. Yours and mine. I created the AI, and I thought: who better to provide the foundational images and ideas . . . I had an obligation, I thought, to use my own memories.”
