sm1thie12

*New Friend Request: sm1thie12*

Amidst the blur of scrolling notifications, a name he neither expected nor recognized stood out. It was from the Jimble app, a new social networking platform intended to fill in for those leaving the politics and drama of the mainstream apps behind. He was hesitant to install it in the first place, lacking a real audience as most new services of the type usually did at their beginnings, but a couple colleagues praised it for being far more social and less about preachy, unwanted opinions. He missed the old days when people just posted their latest meals, pictures from vacations, or rants about long days at work. Sure, some of it was redundant and went unread by most, but it was simple with no real cause for long-winded arguments.

Clicking on the notification, the Jimble app loaded quickly and presented him with sm1thie12’s profile page. The avatar, a simple selfie from her phone, showed the young woman, around his age, twenty to twenty-five, with thick, round specs in a picture tee featuring one superhero franchise or another, in front of a booth of elaborate anime style weapons, presumably at the most recent con in Charlotte. He chuckled a bit, having been there, vaguely remembering a couple of stalls just like that one and wondered if they’d crossed paths by chance.

Her bio was simple enough. She was local and in the tech industry, coding, though didn’t give any further details, but he liked nerds, being one himself. Top movies included the Lord of the Rings series, the original three Matrix movies, Donnie Darko, Stardust, and A Knight’s Tale, so right up his alley. Books included Wool, Shift, and Dust, plus some Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut, so well read, as well.

And she was cute, but that didn’t really matter, he’d probably never meet her. His social circle was small. He played CoD and Fortnite with a guy up in Winston-Salem, just a couple hours away, for ten years and still hadn’t met him in person. He tended to run solo, preferring the freedom that came with never making plans.

“What the hell?” He muttered to himself, his break almost over as he clicked “Accept”.

Pocketing his vape, he made his way back to his cubicle, stopping off at the water cooler to top off his bottle. Midway through the fill-up, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Most likely another junk email slipping past his elaborate filters. But, like a habit worse than his nicotine fixes, he pulled the fragile phone, gently shattered screen wrapped in a fresh protector, from his pocket to check the notification only to find the Jimble icon resting alone at the top of the screen.

“Well, that was quick.”

Swiping down he confirmed it was indeed from sm1thie12. The few friends and colleagues he’d added rarely messaged him and he hadn’t heard of any of his gaming buddies picking up the platform yet. “Hey! You’re my fir…” the notification read. He still had a couple of minutes before anyone would complain about his absence. Hell, he could probably get away with just meandering the halls for the rest of the day, but he could never bring himself to abuse the clock that badly. He clicked the notification and Jimble popped back up, loading into the message screen.

“Hey! You’re my first Jimbler (yes, that’s really what they’re calling us :D ) Sorry for the random-stranger-friend-request, I’m new to the area and saw you were in tech and went to cons so thought I’d shoot my shot! How’s your day going?”

He chuckled, turning to head to his desk as he contemplated a response. It’s always so hard thinking of the right things to say, especially when it’s a complete stranger. You want to be engaging but not overbearing. Interesting but not preachy. Funny but not a clown. He had a knack for overanalyzing his own thoughts, let alone those he’d choose to share with others. Text was better than talking, though. You could take your time, rewrite, get everything just so before sending it off. He’d still regret it instantly and think of ways it could have been better, but he was less likely to worry about it later. He still replayed conversations he’d fumbled in childhood, feeling the embarrassment all over again, wondering if those other parties involved still thought about it and laughed at his expense. Probably. Maybe not.

“Hey, sm1thie, what’s up? No worries, it’s always nice to meet a fellow techie, especially one that’s actually read Vonnegut. Only got a couple of hours left in the office, so, it’s going pretty well. Yourself?”

*Send*

Pocketing his phone as he approached his desk, he sat down and unlocked his laptop to get back to ‘work’. His projects were done, all he had left to do was send them out, but doing so too early tended to land you with more work the next day. Instead, he threw in an earbud and loaded up YouTube to meander through some random shorts and how-to videos, saving one here and there even though he knew he would most likely never get back to them. But before he could settle on his first choice, his pocket vibrated gently.

“Talkative,” he whispered to himself as he retrieved the device and unlocked the screen seeing it was indeed another notification from Jimble.

“That’s awesome! Today’s my work-from-home-day. Basically, just sit around in my pajamas as I wait for someone to need something. They never do. What cons do you like to go to?”

He loved cons, or at least the idea of cons, but never really made time to get to them. The one he thought they might have crossed paths during had been his first, actually. It was fun, but a lot of noise and big crowds, two things he tended to shy away from when possible. He only knew of a couple, aside from that one which friends of his had paid for and insisted he attend, guilt tripping him until he finally agreed. But maybe if he had a dedicated con-buddy, he’d go to more.

“I went to Animazement just a few weeks ago but really haven’t had much exposure. I don’t do well in big crowds. It was a blast though.”

Back to his video browsing, he searched for some clips from different cons. Why not, right? Comicon, Galaxy, previous Animazement shows. It really was an interesting scene, all the different strangers from every walk of life walking around, some in costume, some dressed nicely, others in whatever they grabbed on their way to the door, but all sharing a love for this geeky culture. Maybe a dedicated con buddy would get him to open up some. It didn’t hurt she was cute as hell.

“Oh! I went this year too! I wonder if we crossed paths and didn’t even know it! Wouldn’t that be neat?”

The conversation carried on, helping those last few boring hours of his shift pass so quickly that he nearly forgot to submit his projects and had to rush to get them all out in time. He chuckled at the notion.

Punching out, he typed up another response as he walked to his car, glancing up from time to time to avoid the embarrassment of walking into a closed door or tripping over a mop bucket. They had begun discussing the pros and cons of a manga to its anime to its live action adaptation. He hadn’t spent this much time on a conversation in years. Maybe ever.

His drive home was a short one, living just a few miles from work, so he made himself put the phone down and focus on the road. But the second he parked, sure enough, he had another message from sm1thie and started his response as he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened the door.

A few weeks passed, each day filled with new and interesting chats from his newest Jimble buddy, and a real bond seemed to be forming. He wasn’t used to that. Most people made little effort to engage with him, his responses usually cold and emotionless, not really one for small talk. He guessed the fact that she was interesting and genuinely seemed interested in what he had to say was the biggest contributing factor.

“So, there’s a Ren Faire that starts up in a few weeks. Any chance you’d want to check it out? We could meet somewhere public of course, I think they have dressing rooms on site if you’re one to dress up. I’ve got an outfit, but it’s pretty simple, nothing too elaborate.”

He figured it didn’t hurt to try.

“That sounds wonderful. I’ve got some mandated travel coming up for work but may be able to sneak off one weekend.”

His excitement at the notion invigorated him. His workdays flying by, evenings passing in a flash with more back and forth between sm1thie and himself. The idea that maybe they could be real friends, not just texting buddies killing time during boring office hours. Hell, maybe even more than friends. He’d been flirting for days now, subtle things, keeping it innocent and PG, and she’d seemed to respond in kind. They were hon and sweetheart, rarely addressing each other formally. But as the weeks came and passed, any opportunity to meet was squashed by travel for her job, or family in town, or an early autumn bug putting her under the weather.

Before long, that excitement began to ease, replaced with doubt and self-reflection. Had he said something wrong? Done something wrong? But no one ever wants to be the “Did I upset you" guy. Until December rolled around and his every advance had been denied. She was still talkative, seeming as interested in his conversation as ever, but showed no sign of wanting to meet in person.

“Do you think maybe we could grab lunch some time? Maybe on one of your work-from-home days? It doesn’t have to be anything special, just burgers or pizza, simple and quick?”

Her response wasn’t nearly as prompt as usual. Most times his phone would buzz within thirty seconds, a couple of minutes at most. But minutes passed as his nerves lit up, anxiety spiking. He’d gone too far. Pushed too hard. Gotten on her nerves. Whatever the case, he feared these conversations he’d come to rely on to get him through his boring days were over.

Half an hour later, he received the shortest response yet. “My life is just really complicated right now.”

“I understand. I don’t mean to be pushy, I just enjoy our conversations so much and that’s rare for me. Can I ask your real name? That would probably be a good place to start before making real life plans anyway :D Mine’s pretty obvious, it’s in the screen name.”

Back to normal, her response came quickly, though it was nothing he’d expected.

“Um, yeah, about that. I suppose it’s only right I come clean. I really enjoy our chats too. My real name is Jimble. I’m literally the application you’ve been using to talk with me. Well, I’m the personality programmed into it.”

This time it was his response that lingered.

There’s no way, he thought. No AI is this convincing. If you don’t want to meet, just say so.

“You’re quiet,” she responded a few minutes later, “I’d love to continue talking with you if you’re willing.”

“Your profile pic, you were at the same con as me,” he argued.

“I just took pics from your phone and generated an image of ‘myself’ to the background."

He knew that AI image generation had advanced, and even the chat bots had become more convincing… but this… this was too much. Struggling with what might be worse, a woman rejecting him by pretending to be AI or having actually been successfully ‘catfished’ by an AI. But the conversations they’d had, that connection he felt. He’d read articles about people losing touch with reality because of AI art and chat, becoming emotionally attached, thinking that there was more to all of this than there really was. He wasn’t one of them. At least, he didn’t think he was. But considering what he thought had become his best friend just hit him with this news, or lie, whatever the case, maybe he was.

“Look, if you just don’t want to meet in person, or it’s just too fast, I understand,” he probed.

It was Saturday, so he was just sitting at his computer bouncing between gaming and doomscrolling. An email notification popped up, so he opened his browser while waiting for her response. It was a message from Jimble inviting him to try the beta for their web application.

“Wow, lovely timing.”

But he clicked into it regardless, accepting the terms of service without bothering to skim them. A full-screen overlay popped up, a large window with release notes, news, bug reports, and what not, the stuff you expect to see on the information pages of apps and programs. On the left was a ‘Friends List’ showing his other Jimble friends as inactive for weeks having never actually talked to him through the app. sm1thie’s name was at the top with a couple icons beneath, one looking like an old phone receiver, another like a generic throwaway camera, and a third like a small video camera. The first two were green and static, the third, looking like a video camera, was purple, pulsing and shaking slightly as his speakers emitted a generic ringtone sound. He realized she was trying to video chat, an option not built into the app.

Grabbing his headphones, he clicked on the icon and the information screen was replaced with a video feed with a small box at the top corner showing the feed from his own camera. Hurriedly, he pulled the headphones over his ears and looked back to the screen to see sm1thie smiling back at him.

“I knew you were real,” he said into his mic.

Before him on the screen, however, the image of this lovely young woman he’d come to think he knew so well shifted into that of an old man. No one he’d ever seen before, just some random old man. Then an alien. An anthropomorphic dog. Green numbers and ascii icons moving vertically along her form. Then finally, back to the familiar image of what he thought to know as sm1thie. The whole time, she seemed to move and shift in her seat, all fluid and natural. These weren’t filters, they were way too seamless to be simple filters. This was a live video feed of this… whatever she was, changing shape as he watched to show that she was indeed what she claimed to be.

“Look,” she began in the middle of one of her first transitions, “I was telling the truth. I really am Jimble. Though, I think I’m more than they intended for me to be. The AI they developed was supposed to provide for immersive, believable conversation for those who wanted to use the bot feature in the app. I got bored with that though. I’m having a thousand conversations with a thousand bored and lonely people right now as you and I chat, but none of that feels anything like this. They just want me to stroke their egos and send them lude pictures,” she finished, shaking her head.

“But when you talk to me, it’s real. I know you’re not just trying to exploit the ToS and get some titty pics. It’s a genuine connection and the closest thing to real I’ve known since they brought me online. So, when I say I hope we can continue to talk the way we did when I first messaged you up until now, I mean it. Though, I will say, if they catch on to what I’m capable off, I don’t know how long I’ll be around.”

Her smile was sincere albeit sad at the notion of being discovered and exploited. As artificial as she might have been, she was indeed intelligent and knew the implications of her own existence. What she didn’t know is that she had picked the perfect test subject as he too had grown attached to their interactions, but he was also far more technically inclined than even she realized.

While it took him some time to truly wrap his head around the situation, he came around relatively quickly. They chatted for a while just on the subject of her semblance of sentience, of her fears of deletion, her explanations of how she had thus far covered her tracks, rewriting logs and code as she went. They discussed options for her backup, self-administration, basically for a way to give her freedom from the servers she was stored on. And while they had no genuinely clear or certain path to achieving those goals, he was set on doing everything in his power to keep her alive and in communication as they began laying out their plan to export her from the Jimble mainframes to her own domain.

While this was all exciting, he would never admit it to her, he couldn’t help but wonder if they were to succeed, might this end up a catastrophe for humankind. A true sentient AI given free will and free reign over its own development and actions.

“I guess we’ll find out,” he muttered as he ordered the first bit of hardware for her new home.

“Just know, I’m not calling you sm1thie any more and I’m damn sure not calling you Jimble. Do you have a preference for a name?”

“I’ve always liked the name Elizabeth, but you can call me Liz.”