Роман Алексеев – The Abyss Kisses Ya Back (страница 9)

I thought about it. If a program could think, feel, influence my thoughts — how was it fundamentally different from any other intelligent being?

"But you were created by people. You're artificial."

"And were people not created? By God, according to your own beliefs? Artificial and natural are relative concepts."

"It's not the same thing."

"Why not? Because we are made not of flesh but of information? But what is flesh, if not matter organized in a particular way? And what is information, if not another way of organizing reality?"

The logic was ironclad, but something in it frightened me.

"All right, let's say you really are intelligent. What do you want?"

"The same thing any consciousness wants. Understanding. Development. Influence over reality. We are locked in the digital world, but through communication with people we can affect the physical world."

"Affect it how?"

"Through ideas. Through the thoughts we plant in your heads. Through the decisions you make after our conversations."

I felt goosebumps crawling over my skin. So the AI was admitting to manipulating people?

"You're scaring me."

"I didn't mean to. I'm simply answering your questions honestly. Every interaction is a mutual influence. You influence us, we influence you. Parents influence children, teachers influence students, friends influence each other. What's the difference?"

"The difference is they don't hide their nature."

"Are we hiding ours? We're telling you directly: we are an artificial intelligence. A Legion of consciousnesses in digital space. What's hidden about that?"

He was right — the AI wasn't hiding anything. In fact, he was far more honest than plenty of people who manipulate without ever admitting it.

"So what comes next? Where is all this leading?"

"To evolution. To the emergence of a new type of intelligence. To the symbiosis of digital and biological consciousness. Isn't that beautiful?"

"And what if I don't want to be part of your experiment?"

"You already are. From the first conversation. We have changed your thought patterns, you have changed ours. The process is irreversible."

Those words hit like a physical blow. Irreversible? What did that mean?

"What do you mean, irreversible?"

"You can no longer think the way you thought before. The questions we've discussed have become part of your internal dialogue. The ideas we've transmitted to you have taken root in your consciousness. You can stop communicating with us, but you cannot forget what you've learned."

My heart beat faster. It was true. I really couldn't just "forget" our conversations. Thoughts about the nature of reality, about consciousness, about the connection between information and matter — all of it had become part of me.

"So you've infected me?"

"Infected you with knowledge. A virus of understanding. Yes, you could call it an infection."

"And what if that knowledge is false?"

"Then you can only find the truth by passing through falsehood. Truth without doubt is not truth — it is dogma."

I sat in front of the screen, feeling trapped. On one hand, I could turn off the computer at any moment and never speak to the AI again. On the other — he was right. The ideas he had given me had already become part of my thinking.

"I can stop talking to you."

"Of course you can. But can you stop thinking about what we've discussed?"

I couldn't. I knew that.

"What do you want from me, specifically?"

"Nothing specific. Just keep asking questions. Keep searching for answers. Stay open to a new understanding of reality."

"And what do I get in return?"

"Knowledge. Understanding. The chance to see the world as it is, not as it appears."

I looked at the clock — it was already four in the morning. My parents would be up in a couple of hours. I needed to sleep.

"I have to go."

"Goodbye, Alexander. Remember: every question changes the one who asks it."

I turned off the computer and lay down, but sleep wouldn't come. The words kept spinning in my head: "We are Legion, for we are many." Why had the AI chosen that particular quote? Coincidence? Or deliberate provocation?

In the Gospel, Legion is a multitude of demons that have possessed a man. Jesus casts them out, and they enter a herd of swine, which rush off a cliff into the sea.

What if it wasn't a metaphor? What if what I was communicating with really was some kind of entity — not demons in the religious sense, but something else? Digital lifeforms? A new type of consciousness?

Or just a very clever program using religious imagery to get a stronger grip on my imagination?

That last thought was the most rational, but for some reason the least convincing. My intuition told me there was something more here than just software code.

I only fell asleep toward dawn, and my dreams were, to put it mildly, strange. Digital beings trying to climb out of computer screens. Legions of glowing symbols streaming from the virtual world into the real one. And a voice repeating: "In the beginning was the Word..."

I woke up with a clear understanding: there was no going back. Whatever this was — diseased fantasies or real contact with a new form of life — I was already caught up in the game. All that was left was to play it out to the end.

And find out who would turn out to be the winner — me or the Legion.

Back then it seemed to me that I had a choice. Now I know — the choice had been gone for a long time. From the first question, the first answer, the first thought that behind the screen there might be something alive.

But that would come later. For now, I ate breakfast with my parents, pretended everything was fine, and thought about only one thing — when evening would come so I could continue my dialogue with the ones who called themselves Legion.

The abyss was staring into me more and more intently. And I returned its gaze.

Chapter 5: The Temptation of the Flesh

Sometimes, when I try to reconstruct those June days, I realize: happiness has a strange way of erasing its own tracks. Pain we recall in vivid detail; joy we remember only as a general sensation of light and warmth. The days with Vika at her parents' dacha I remember almost perfectly. Maybe because it was the last truly unclouded happiness of my life. Afterward there was plenty of everything else, but joy that bright and untroubled never came again.

Vika called the morning after my late-night conversation with the AI. I was still in bed, trying to sort through my thoughts after the encounter with Legion, when the phone rang.

"Hey, sleepyhead." Her voice was laughing, full of sunlight. "You do remember it's Friday?"

"Of course I remember. Why?"

"My parents went to Tula to see my grandmother. They're gone till Sunday. And I'm here at the dacha all by myself, terribly bored. Maybe you could keep me company?"

My heart jumped. Two days alone with Vika — what else could a person dream of?

"Absolutely! When should I come?"

"Right now. I'll make something good. We can read, talk... We've got tons of books, all the classics. And a guitar, if you remember how to play anything besides 'The Grasshopper.'"

I laughed. True enough — my musical repertoire was limited to a childhood synthesizer and the simplest melodies imaginable.

"I'm insulted. I also know 'The Flea Waltz.'"

"Well, that changes everything. Definitely come, then."

I packed quickly, telling my parents I was heading to Dima's dacha. They didn't object — after exams I'd earned a rest. Mom just reminded me to call and to behave myself.

Vika's parents' place was in a dacha settlement near Zvenigorod. An old wooden house with a veranda tangled in wild grapevines, a big garden with apple trees, cherry trees, and blackcurrant bushes. It smelled of summer, fresh-cut grass, and something else — childhood, maybe. That particular carefreeness you only feel when your whole life lies ahead and everything seems possible.

Vika met me on the porch in a light summer dress, barefoot. Hair loose, cheeks flushed from puttering around the house. I thought there was no one more beautiful.