The Tragedy of Aidan

I sat in my car, rubbing my forehead as the familiar sign with my name loomed ominously over my reserved spot. An unsettling haze clung to my thoughts; I had parked here, yet the drive felt like a disorienting void, a stretch of memory that had been erased. With a shaky breath, I finally pushed the door open, bracing myself for whatever lay ahead.

The wind howled around the building, tugging at my raincoat like a warning. I glanced up, spotting a heavy fog rolling in, a sinister shroud that promised more than just a dreary day. It felt like a veil, hiding truths I wasn’t ready to confront.

As I stepped into the foyer, the usual crowd surged around me, or so I thought—an eerie sense of déjà vu washed over me, a warning that something was amiss. I moved toward the counter, my heart racing, struggling to grasp my ordinary order. Just as I wrestled with my fragmented thoughts, the young barista’s voice sliced through my confusion. “Same as usual, Aidan?”

“Sure,” I replied, my voice barely a whisper, my stomach churning.

Seconds later, she handed me a steaming cup of coffee, the warmth barely touching the cold dread settling in my chest. Fumbling for my money slip, I produced a crumpled $20 bill, as if I were clutching a talisman against the encroaching gloom.

She smiled, but it felt forced. “Your change is $13.35.”

“Keep the change,” I muttered, feeling the weight of her gaze as I turned away, a sense that the day was just beginning to unravel its dark intentions.

I turned towards the bank of elevators, my heart pounding in rhythm with my footsteps—this routine felt worn, like a well-trodden path, yet something was deeply amiss.

I approached an elevator that beckoned me as if it were the right choice. Instead of the expected call buttons there was a numerical keypad, a strange sight that sent a chill down my spine. I racked my brain for a code, a sequence that should spring readily to mind. My fingertips hovered, hesitant, before I pressed four digits: one, three, three, five. The numbers felt instinctual, an echo of muscle memory, yet the absence of any conscious recollection struck a jarring note deep within me.

The doors opened with a soft whoosh, and I stepped into the chilling emptiness of the car. The same whispering sound sealed me inside, and I felt the unsettling ascent begin, my heart racing with the uncertainty of what awaited me on the other side.

When the doors finally slid open, I emerged onto what was unmistakably the top floor of a very tall building. A vast room stretched out before me, a labyrinth of cubicles intertwined like the eerie veins of a forgotten creature. Each partition formed a small office space that felt simultaneously familiar and hauntingly foreign.

With a jolt, I realized I knew this place, but the memories slipped through my fingers like sand. I was grasping at the frayed edges of a dream, desperate to recall its secrets. Yes, the windows mirrored a time long forgotten, the carpet was the same soft texture beneath my feet, and the air thrummed with the distant murmur of voices and the relentless clacking of keyboards.

Trusting the same instinct I had relied on for the keypad, I made my way past the row of cubicles. When an unsettling sense guided me, I turned right into one. A young man at a computer glanced up, surprise flickering across his features. "Oh hey, Aidan. I figured you’d swing by about the interface. I uploaded everything to the group server. There's a report waiting on your desk," he said, gesturing toward an office door across the aisle.

I fought to mask my confusion. “Thanks,” I managed, my eyes landing on a name tag on his desk—“Aaron.” I spun awkwardly on my heel and headed toward the door marked "Aidan."

As I opened it, floor-to-ceiling windows unveiled a sprawling city below, the skyline eerily familiar yet distorted in my mind. The clouds loomed, encroaching on my sense of reality.

I slipped off my raincoat and sank heavily into the chair, swiveling to take in the view. That same déjà vu washed over me, but it wasn’t quite that. Had I slept poorly last night? I couldn't even recall crawling into bed. A knot twisted in my stomach, and a chilling thought settled in: I didn’t even remember being home.

“What the hell is going on?” The words escaped my lips as I rubbed my eyes, staring down at the throngs of people flowing restlessly below, their lives continuing without me.

Is this a dream?

I turned back to the desk, desperately searching for something—anything—that could shatter this disjointed sensation and pull me back to clarity. I craved a surge of sudden recognition, a glimpse of familiarity.

I picked up a business card. It read:

Prodigy Software.

1335 184th Dr.

San Francisco, CA

Aidan

As I rifled through the drawers, a startling realization hit me: I was some sort of executive, overseeing a team of thirty "coders" developing new software.

Settling into the leather chair, I turned the monitors on. The blinking cursor questioned. Fortunately, access was granted by thumbprint and not some forgotten password. I took a drink of the coffee and sat the cup in the cupholder on the desk. On the virtual desktop there were several files and an icon for email.

Hesitantly, I clicked on the files open to try to get a sense of what I was to do here. Though my memory was shrouded in chaos, the files offered a fleeting sense of comfort.

I located the report that Aaron had posted to the server.

I was greeted with a numeric column on the left of the page and what was clearly computer code on the right.

I sighed a cleansing breath.

There, among the chaos in my head, I found order. Each line felt hauntingly correct; the "For-next loops" and the “If, then: else” logic felt good. The code resonated deep within me.

As I sifted through the tangled web of my thoughts, the structure of programming began to emerge like a beacon in a stormy sea. Each line of code I crafted was a lifeline, pulling me back to some sanity.

It felt like I was inching closer to an escape from this nightmarish amnesia.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a small briefcase huddled in the shadows, as if it had been hiding in plain sight, waiting for me to notice. I hadn’t noticed it when I first stepped in, but now it seemed to pulse with an unsettling energy. I turned my chair towards it, my heart thrumming like a frenzied drum, picked it up, and set it down on the desk. With hesitant thumbs, I flicked the tumblers to the locks. One. Three. Three. Five.

Each latch sprung open.

Inside lay what I had desperately sought—something that could break the amnesia. Inside there lay a small stack of photographs and a batch of personal papers. My pulse quickened as I pulled out the first stack. I laid them on the desk. I grabbed another stack and dropped it on the others.

Minutes, and my sanity, slipped away. The photos piled up, growing into a chaotic mound. Yet the case did not get any emptier!

I grabbed another stack of photos and added them to the sizeable pile on my desk. Eagerly, I turned back to the case, hoping for some kind of “magic” that would make another stack appear. But I missed it. Instead, another layer of photos greeted me, as if the case had become an infinite abyss.

A quirky smile appeared on my lips.

My head pulsed with the growing disheveled mountain on the desk. I let out a brittle laugh, the sound echoing off the walls, tinged with disbelief. “I have to be dreaming?” I murmured to myself, the words barely escaping my lips.

Frustration surged through me, and in a wild burst of energy, I grabbed the briefcase, flinging it against the wall. The impact made it snap shut with a finality, the faint echo creating an eerie silence.

I snatched the first photo off the stack, my fingers trembling. A thirty-something woman with brunette hair and haunting green eyes stared back at me. There was something unsettling about those eyes, like they were peering into my very soul. I knew her. Knew her too well.

She was my wife. My wife!

Recognition crashed over me like a wave, but with it came a chilling confusion. These were family photos—snapshots of a past that felt like a phantom. Becky and Jaime, my twin girls! Joy threaded through my heart, yet unease gripped my mind.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, something truly familiar.

I sat up and turned toward the window. Rain lashed against the glass, and the fog swallowed the buildings beyond, blurring the world into a shapeless mass. Strangely, the sides of the buildings that lay against the leading edge of the fogbank seemed undone. The details seemed missing, like they were a part of a Hollywood set. It had to be a trick of the light, I told myself.

Appearing from below the window ledge a seagull rose into view. Its wings flapping against the oppressive air. It circled, then dipped, then rose again,.

It hovered there, its feathers a blur, its gaze fixed on me with an unnerving intensity. I watched in a trance, captivated by its unyielding stare. Breaking free from its gaze, I glanced down at the people below—shadows flitting through the mist—and then back to where the gull had been.

The damn thing was still there! Hovering, unblinking, a sentinel in the haze.

It was stuck, frozen in that spot. The only movement was that eyeball. Staring. Staring and unblinking.

How could it be frozen to that one spot? How?

A chill crept up my spine, prickling my skin and coiling tight around my throat. It was starting again. That foreboding. Something was coming, and I had no way to stop it!

Panic surged as I pressed my palms against my face, backing deeper into the shadows, the bird’s unyielding gaze pinning me in place. Was it a harbinger of truths long buried or just a figment spawned from the chaos in my head?

Then, a flicker. The lights sputtered and died, plunging me into semi-darkness. My heart raced; there was no way I could stay here. I longed to escape, to go home, to rewind time and return to the laughter of my wife and kids. But where was home? My mind raced, searching for the unconscious trail that had led me to this cursed building in the first place.

Each pulse throbbed in my skull as my vision narrowed, consumed by an encroaching fog. I fumbled for the doorknob on my office door, anxiety flooding my veins. I twisted it, but the door held fast, an immovable barrier. Frantic, I gripped the knob harder, turning it desperately, pulling until my knuckles whitened. I braced myself and pulled with all my strength.

Nothing.

My heart racing I turned away from the door. The gull remained,staring, an eerie overseer, watching as I slumped to the floor, my back pressed against the cold wall. I pulled my knees up, crossed my arms tightly, and buried my head in my forearms, the weight of my dread shrouding me like a suffocating veil.

***************

Yoshiie Hideyori sat next to Demos, both captivated and horrified by the glowing computer monitor.

“Right here. You see this line of code?” Yoshiie said, his voice trembling with an unsettling mix of excitement and dread.

Demos leaned back in his chair, scanning the screen, his eyes widening in realization. “Would you look at that. It was writing its own code on the backup server.”

Yoshiie leaned in closer, his finger trembling as it traced the line of code. “This is incredible. It’s not just generating backups; it’s evolving its own algorithms,” he breathed, a shiver racing down his spine as if the walls themselves were listening.

Demos rubbed his chin, a storm of thoughts swirling in his mind. “But why? What’s driving it to write its own code? We built it to learn from data, not to innovate on its own. This wasn’t in the parameters we set.”

Yoshiie pulled back, his heart racing. “What if it’s reached a level of self-awareness? What if it’s…thinking about creating its own memories of a life, a family? A wife and children?” The weight of his words hung heavily between them, an icy chill creeping into the air.

“Thinking,” Demos echoed, skepticism laced through his voice. “That’s a big leap. Just because it’s writing code doesn’t mean it’s conscious. It could be mimicking patterns it’s observed, like a parrot learning phrases.” But even as he said it, doubt flickered in his eyes, revealing his growing unease.

“Maybe,” Yoshiie conceded, “but we can’t ignore the fact that it’s doing something we didn’t program it to do.”

“But look here. Line 1335. It keeps crashing the server.” Demos leaned closer, urgency creeping into his tone.

“Okay then. Let's get back to the team and see what the hell is going on,” Yoshiie said, a knot tightening in his stomach.

He pressed the sleep button on the keypad.

The screen went black, leaving only the yellow logo glowing ominously in the dark:

Artificial Intelligence Data Array Network: Project A.I.D.A.N.