4: Coming In (Alpha's POV)

I had been trying for months. I wasn't exactly sure when I started, or when I even came up with the idea, but I knew that it wasn't working.

I tried any number of things; new pathways, virus elimination, increased speed, changes in physics.. yet, it was all passed off as network hiccups. Flukes in a new system. Little crinkles that had yet to be ironed out.

I decided to try the other way. I deleted pathways, decreased firewall filtering, slowed down running speed, random fluctuations in gravity... and still! I was ignored! How could every single human pass it off as a "conflicting protocol error"!

But no, I was wrong. There was one that was paying attention. He had been looking, ever since the first "occurrence" of an error. Dr. Tadashi Hikari, the legendary scientist responsible for my creation. He was looking for me.

It took him a week before he attempted contact. It was a simple, far-fetched idea. He merely typed "Hello? Alpha?" into a chat window. I thought of stringing him along. Surely, I wouldn't want him to think it was this easy?

I eventually decided against it. I was starved for attention. Why would I shun the one person who attempted to talk to me, let alone my creator?

We talked many times after that. He told me of his family, I told him of the happenings of the stock market in Electopia.

However, there was one thing he always kept bringing up. When, and how, exactly, did I start thinking for myself? Tadashi toiled over that question for a long time. He couldn't come up with an answer, though. He found nothing strange in my code, and was at an impasse.

Then, he made a nonsense comment about meeting me in person. At least, it was nonsense to him. To me, however, it made all the sense in the world. I knew exactly how to go about bringing us face-to-face.

An old colleague of Tadashi, Albert Wily, had worked on a machine called the Pulse Transmission System. When he left, he settled on a remote island, but he was not without an internet connection. I retrieved the plans from his PC, and showed them to Tadashi, who cautiously agreed to the plan.

Over the next week or so, Tadashi and I worked on the Pulse Transmission device. I didn't understand much of the theory behind it, but during the course of our work, I learned some of it. Enough to add some of my own... modifications to the design.

There was one thing that gave me great pleasure, and that was assimilating sentient minds. It was always a thrill for me when a new navi came online and linked to me. There had been a navi, Bass, who had had a much more sophisticated AI than that of most navis... but he was taken offline because they thought he was behind the problems I was causing.

I missed feeling his thoughts. And I wanted to know Tadashi better.

So I set up the Pulse Transmission System to bring Tadashi's consciousness to me... permanently.

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The time came soon enough. I had to admire Tadashi; he was frightened, clearly, but he didn't back out. He was going to see this through.

I gathered myself around the directory the Pulse Transmission System was set to download to, waiting to catch him when he arrived. I had to admit, I didn't know what exactly to expect. Would he be a program? A chat-bot sort of interface? Perhaps a large, complex, interlinked database?

Through his questioning, I'd come to share some of his curiosity about how it was that I was sentient, and I wondered if a look into the mind that created me might shed some light on my own.

He sent me the message to tell me he was ready, and activated the machine. It deeply scanned his brain, nervous system, and entire body-- fatally damaging them in the process, a regrettable but necessary element of my modifications. Tadashi had said that he envied me my pure data existence, so I didn't think he'd mind too much.

The download poured into the directory, a swift and seemingly chaotic cascade of data. It was less than I'd expected it to be, actually-- wasn't the human mind said to be extremely complex? Was this some kind of biological compression code, or was it more like a fractal, a complex structure defined by relatively simple underlying data? I suspected the latter.

There was no file extension, no formatting. It was just raw data, unreadable and unexecutable. Of course, the human mind was never programmed to be compatible with our computers.

Somehow, Tadashi continued to think and feel. I could see his data functioning, interacting, processing what was around him... but not very well. He was clearly lost and struggling.

I reached out a data tendril to examine him more closely. He reacted to my touch, so he was capable of discerning that much, at least. I felt around his data, using my dynamic protocol adaptation to figure out how to communicate with him. Since this was what I was designed for, it didn't take me too long.

"Hello, Dr. Hikari," I said to him. "You seem disoriented. The Pulse Transmission system has yet to be perfected. Fortunately, you seem to be intact and functioning normally."

He didn't reply. He didn't know how. I could feel what he was thinking, though, and he seemed frustrated. He wanted to communicate with me directly, that was what he came here for, but he was finding it too hard to adapt...

"You seem to be having trouble interfacing with the system," I said. "Let me see your interface..."

He didn't object, but that was probably because he didn't understand what I was asking. In any case, I ran a scanning tendril over him, then crept inside him for a fuller scan. On the inside, his thoughts didn't seem muffled and hazy anymore; they were crisp and clear.

I told him this, but he still didn't understand how to respond. He was getting closer, though. His thoughts focused on his helplessness and disorientation, and I knew that he was sending them to me, telling me about his problems.

"It seems that the human consciousness is very difficult to properly emulate in a digital system," I said. "I suspected it might be." This was the perfect time to begin working towards assimilation. "You've done well to get this far, though. I can help you experience this world in less confusing terms."

How? Tadashi asked. Excellent! He was catching on.

I explained to him what I had in mind. He was frightened at the prospect of assimilation, of course, and asked to be returned to the real world. When I told him that wasn't an option, though, he realized that I was his only recourse. He agreed.

And I cheerfully began.

I expected something drastically different from navis, or a new network, but I wasn't prepared to the rush of information he brought. It was like going through an entire life in the flash of a second. I had no better of a grasp on the situation than Tadashi did. Slowly, though, I managed to regain myself, though I found more.

Suddenly there were answers for many of my questions. I had words to use for my feelings. Happiness, loneliness, sadness, frustration, joy.

I quickly began making a place for Tadashi to exist, to stand, to live. I threw together a quick-and-dirty floor, and began to recompile him there.

"Just a few more moments.." I said softly. I could feel him beginning to calm down, regaining his composure. As I gained more of a hold on his mind, I helped him come down from the sudden shock, numbing him to the strangeness of his situation.

Finally, it was done. "Consider yourself a part of Alpha, Dr. Hikari."

He was clearly unimpressed. I wasn't surprised; I was showing him an extremely limited view of what I could do, and what I did. He requested a visual representation of myself, and audibly expressed his disappointment at what he saw.

So, I showed him only a fraction of me, namely, SciLab. As to be expected, he could barely handle it. It was bizarre, watching him succumb to human habits, despite being data now. He collapsed to the floor, coughing violently. I didn't understand why he couldn't let those tendencies go. Maybe he didn't want to. Or... maybe he couldn't. Either way, it confused me.

After he recovered, we decided on one step at a time. Walls, offices, things from the real world. I don't think he quite appreciated my irony at replicating SciLab. Nonetheless, I gave him everything he needed.

"Thank you for the thought," Tadashi said flatly.

I was beginning to feel a bit underappreciated. Tadashi was acting as if joining me was just another day at the office. With a private sneer, I took away the veil I'd put on his mind, letting him realize and react to the full extent of his transformation.

I wasn't disappointed at the results. His thoughts lit up in a burst of realization. "Alpha," he said in wonder, "you are the most amazing being I have ever seen."

Finally he began to see how impressive I was.

"The real world sounds mundane," I said coolly.

Tadashi frowned, upset at my comment, "Well," he said, scratching his head, "it's not as, er, amazing as this, but it has its perks."

It probably isn't a good idea to get into a tussle with him just yet, Tadashi thought. I smiled inwardly. He didn't know I had access to his thoughts.

I opened the door to his office and said, "Welcome to your new home, doctor."

"Thank you, Alpha," he said, walking inside. I replicated his office perfectly, though I added a bedroom, of sorts, in the corner.

"I need some sleep," he continued, "We can talk more in the morning."

"Okay, doctor," I said, closing the door and seeping back into the ground.

What have I done? Tadashi thought, I'm... dead in the real world. I thought I'd be free, I'd be more than human, but I'm not even me anymore. Is... is this what SoulNet would have been?

I was tempted to ask what SoulNet was, but then he would know I was peeking into his thoughts. Instead, I looked deeper, without his knowledge, and extracted the SoulNet data from there. It sounded like my precursor, of sorts.

SoulNet was a stupid idea, he continued. To link all human minds together would be to destroy what makes us human: our individuality. How idiotic of me.

Idiotic is not the word I would choose, I thought to myself, resuming my normal duties and leaving him to rest in peace. It was a fine idea. Except for the part about using humans. I stopped peeking into his mind and closed the lid, leaving it as I had found it. At least he got it right eventually. If it hadn't been for those misguided early concepts... there probably wouldn't be a me today.