Alex's Intelligence

CW: Themes of violence/abuse

Alexander Timland has always wondered if he was real. His mother, Alexa, died when he was just a boy. His father, William, was an assistant with a computer company but decided to leave. Alex was left with the lingering question of who he was because of all this loss.

The now 24 year old is the top of his class-he was finally a coding engineer. Siri and he have gotten closer and closer as all the years passed by and he was finally going to ask her on a date. In the card he purchased for her, he wrote, “I love you,” in code.

Siri Lechain was over the top intelligent. She knew just about anything. If Alex could be as smart as her, he would’ve graduated in two years instead of the typical four. When he walked up to her in his cap and gown, a rose in hand with the goofiest smile ever, he dreamily said, “Siri, are you real?” Siri replied with a giggle, “I’m as real as you consider me to be, Alex.” Alex looked down and stared at those big blue eyes that complemented her tan skin and beautifully curled blonde hair and said, “I’ve loved you since the day I met you.”

When Alex slapped his hands across his mouth, his face turned tomato red. Siri’s mouth was on the floor. The shocked feeling sends shivers throughout her small figure, “Alex, I don’t know what to say.” As still as a stone, he didn’t say a thing. Siri looked at him then waved a hand in front of his face, “Hello?” Finally, he snapped out of his trance and spat out, “Well, now that this is finally out, will you go to dinner with me tonight? Al Citrina’s?” Siri smiled and said the most debilitating word in the world, “No,” and she walked away.

As Siri walked farther and farther away, Alex’s heart dropped into his stomach. If only he had told her sooner- would that have made a difference? He devastatingly turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction. With his mind foggy and eyes brimming in tears, he didn’t notice the woman standing a few yards ahead of him. As he continued to walk, they bumped into each other and fell over.

“I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed. “No, it was me. I wasn’t paying attention,” Alex replied. As he stands up, he lets down a helping hand. A spark ignited as they touched for the first time. She says, “I’m Aurora Applefritter. Yes, like the desert. Who are you?” He replies with a little whine in his voice, “I’m Alexander Timland.” Aurora looked side to side and wondered aloud, “Why is someone who apparently just graduated as the valedictorian crying?” He didn’t reply but she instinctively questioned him, “Ah, a girl, huh? Which one?” Alex answers, “She ran away after she ripped my heart out.”

Aurora nods her head, “I completely understand.” Alex said that he has to go but before he does, Aurora grabbed his arm, fetched a sharpie marker out of her pocket, wrote her number, and demanded, “Call me. Soon.” He smiled to himself and thought that she was a work of art. She was tall, dark, and had the greenest eyes that would instantly mesmerize any person. She had a dark brown, tightly curled afro. When he reached the door to his home, he randomly thought for the first time since he was a child- is AI a piece of art? Does it reflect human intelligence? How are humans and machines different? What does it mean to be human?

Obviously, artificial intelligence is an artform. It is the cumulative knowledge of a multitude of many smart, savvy people plus anything that the engine can find on the internet. That also answers the question if it reflects human understanding, but is reflection enough? What about the difference between machines and mankind? It also leaves the incessant question of what it means to be human.

Alex has to go inside and make some charts for this one- cognitive computing versus humanity. Every single person born after the year 2030 was taught not by human teachers but by an ALMA- algorithmic learning machine assistant. It was a culmination of the smartest professors in the world. It taught all the children well but many humans hated the fact that they were being taught by AI. Having the compiled knowledge and know-how of a civilization of people does not make you mortal, though.

There are many things that make you a human. Being alive is the feeling of rain on top of your head during a torrential downpour; sand dancing between your toes on a hot summer’s day; the intense fear of heights because you fell off of a slide when you were five years old. It is falling in love with someone because she’s so funny and perfect, and then having your heart ripped out when she says no to you. It’s bumping into someone and feeling a spark so bright that it hurts you. Being a human is so much more than parts of someone’s intelligence.

Well into the morning after graduation, Alex still has the remnants of Aurora’s phone number on his arm. The courage building up in him to call her is being fought by the anxiety of being rejected by Siri. As he raises his cell phone to dial her number, a knock at the door is heard. Who could it be? The racing of Alex’s heart is matched by his hurried feet. When he answers the door it’s none other than Siri. His surprised demeanor changes when she says, “Alex, I’ve been following you for a few years. You’re the only hope to save humanity. I need you. Are you in?” Abruptly, and quite rudely, Alex shuts the door in Siri’s face. The end of the world? There has been an end of the world before and he wasn’t going to waste it on someone who rejected him. He called Aurora and invited her over for dinner that evening. When she accepted, he began to get ready immediately.

KNOCK

KNOCK

KNOCK

The knocking at the door was giving him hope this time. He ran to the door, opened it, and the person standing behind it was once again Siri. When he frowned, he began to shut the door but her surprisingly strong arm blocked it. She says, “You and I are the only two that can save the world. The difference is that I have always known I was an artificially intelligent cyborg. YOU didn’t. You have to help, the only solution to all of the calculations are you and me. Together.”

Alex exclaimed, “Did you just call me a cyborg? I am human.” Siri condescendingly looked at him and said, “Come on, Alex. You know what I am talking about. Just think about it.” He goes back as far as he can think- his mothers death. She died when she caught pneumonia, Alex felt her cough up blood as she died in his arms. His father, William, said something like, “I can’t let him remember this. Alex, shut off,” and he fell asleep. When he woke up, his father was no longer there.

Alex wasn’t annoyed, he was mad. Siri was wrong, he thought she wanted to give him a chance now that he had someone who wanted him, “Siri, we’ve been friends for three years. There is no way you didn’t know that I was in love with you. There is no way that you- the smartest of EVERYONE around us- didn’t know. Then you reject me without a reason and walk away! Leave! Right now! I am waiting for someone.” Just as he said that, Aurora walks up to his drive way- her hips swaying to and fro. Aurora says, “Alex…? Who is this? Who are you?” Siri looks upset and annoyed when she answers, “My name is Siri and I’ve come to get Alex to save the world.” Aurora looks serious for a moment and then laughs out loud. She rolls her eyes and scoffs, “Of course the last hopes of the world are you and your ex-girlfriend.” and she walks away.

Alex exclaims, “Aurora, wait! She’s not my ex. She’s not anything to me!” Siri puts her hand and foot in front of him to stop him. “If you’re not going to listen to what I am saying, then I am going to have to force you to listen.” He screams, “Get your hands off of me! Aurora, wait!” But it was too late. They were in the air flying at velocities that he didn’t realize were possible and by the time they landed an hour later, they were a continent away in Spain. Siri told him, “You gave me no choice. There was a 0.001% chance that you were going to listen to me. We are here in his current headquarters.”

As Alex was about to ask the obvious question of who he was, Alex looked around and a painful, sudden jolt of memories of his beginnings suddenly burst into his memory: Alexa strapped to a chair with torturous instruments all around her belonging to William- a psychotic, mad AI- driven neurologist, psychologist, and medical genius. What William did was sickening. How could anyone do this to another living creature?

Alex had all of his mother’s thoughts. The memories show a budding relationship between Alexa and his creator. William was charming and charismatic. He was perfectly chiseled, perfectly intelligent, perfectly perfect- made just for her. Their love affair was one for the ages. He swept her off of her feet with loving, longing glances, picnic dates, an extravagantly, over-the-top marriage proposal, the cutest of engagement photos, the biggest wedding that any normal person has ever been to, and to top it all off- the promise of a family closely knitted together. Heh, William promised a close knitted family alright. Pieces of her were forced inside Alex’s regenerating mind, he was a cloned cyborg reanimation of Alexa and when he was perfected, William shot and killed Alexa in front of him. William reprogrammed him to remember a different life- a real childhood.

What a gas-lighting piece of garbage. William was completely sterile and he was mad at the world and God for it. He only ever married Alexa but did the same thing countless times with about a hundred other women all around the globe. Alexa, Siri’s mother, and now with his latest target in Madrid, Spain.

“WHY DID YOU BRING ME HERE,” Alex spun around and spat out. Siri calmly replies, “You are the only one of us that can do what needs to be done. The woman that he’s captured is the daughter of the Autonomous Leader of the Nations of the Sovereign.” The ALNS is the most powerful man in every country and William wanted that title. Alex asks her, “What can I do? Up until 5 minutes ago, I thought I was a REAL human man. Not a cyborg experiment gone wrong. I didn’t know any of this was a possibility until now.”

“Oh please,” she scoffs, “Why do you think you went to college to be a coding engineer? It was in your code! You knew. You just couldn’t find the information until now. William made me differently. He wanted me to remember every cruel thing he did to my mother. She saw through his bullshit before he even proposed. He thought he was smarter but he was outsmarted and for that, she had to pay. He was her intellectual subordinate but she had no muscles and couldn’t fight her way out. He saved her brain for last so she could feel every disgusting and harmful touch. He described everything he was going to do to her in sickening detail. I still feel her pain.”

Alex was astonished and disgusted by this man he thought was his father. It was horrifying that someone could think to do this to people! Siri continued, “The only way to stop him is to end him and the only way to end him, is to sacrifice one of his first creations… That’s you and me, buddy.” Alex just graduated college, he was invited to an established software company. He had his life in order, and now what? He has to die? No, there has to be a different way.

“Siri, we don’t have to sacrifice ourselves to do the right thing,” but as he was saying that, the computations in his mind told him differently. If one of them didn’t die in front of William, there was a 96.658% chance that the ALNS will give his seat to William because of his ransom plan. William won’t do anything until sundown tonight. They had fifteen hours to figure out what they were doing. “Siri, I don’t want either of us to die.” Siri shook her head and decided, “That’s why it has to be me. The plan is- I’m going to attack him and you’re going to defend him. When you kill me, he’ll accept you. When he goes in to hug you- that is your only chance, you HAVE to kill him then and there. If we do this perfectly, there is a 87.036% chance that we succeed. If we don’t… If you don’t kill me, there is a 96.658% chance that he will become the ALNS.”

Alex looked at her and dramatically asked, “So, you want me,” he points to his chest and continues, “to kill not only one but two people? Do I have that correct?” Siri looks annoyed, “Just tap into your computer side. You’ll know it’s the only answer. You’re his first creation- the rest of us- he disarmed us- we have a no-kill switch. You must kill your creator.” Alex folds his arms into his chest and cocks his head to the right, “No.”

“This plan will work,” Siri explains but his stubborn nature creeps its ugly head her way. Siri grabs his head and electrifies him with her metal fingertips to sedate him. That jolt shut him down and he woke up hours later. After he wakes up, he feels no emotion and tells her that he will go through with the plan. Since Siri knocked him out, Alex feels the effects but can hear a nagging whisper louder and louder with every passing second- don’t go through with this plan. After quelling the sensation inside his mind, Siri says, “It’s time,” and she begins. On the walls, there were several devices of torture and a beautiful, sleeping woman dangling above the floor three feet in the air. Our suspicions were confirmed-William already lured her in.

Siri was attacking William’s house of torture when Alex was about to go inside but the nagging became a sharp migraine and caused him to hesitate. Siri noticed his hesitation, went off script, and yelled, “DIE!” She was, of course, talking to William but the no-kill switch in her programmed body rears its ugly head. She brought a broken, sharpened object close to his chest and William laughed. With a high-pitched, scraggly voice, he says, “You know, you have your mother’s everything. Too bad you can’t kill me.” She says, “I can’t kill you but I can destroy everything you’ve worked for.” Right before she can attack his computer drives-the only thing he brings place to place-Alex ran in, and grabbed her by the neck.

The shock and awe on William’s face when his first creation comes to meet him is exactly what they counted on but just then, the migraine came back, the migraine screams, “YOU CAN’T DO THIS, ALEX!” William deduced what was going on in seconds, “You’re working together. I didn’t log this part of his programming down just for this moment.” William wasn’t scared at all… He planned this all along… He was giddy. William pragmatically says, “His mother’s side is fighting against the direct demand of his artificial side. It is quite an exciting moment, isn’t it?” He grabbed his tablet and jotted down notes. Siri, caught up in Alex’s stronger than normal hand, said something in binary code. Just then, he remembered his directive and tears her apart.

William shouts, “What are you doing? You weren’t supposed to do that?!” Alex is confused, William is supposed to be thankful to him for destroying her. Alex quickly flies to him and grabs his throat, “This wasn’t part of the plan but you can’t get away with this anymore.” Alex squeezed his hand, harder and harder with each second but William laughed and choked out, “I’ve been perfecting this science for 28 years. You don’t think I would’ve experimented on myself? I’ve got one way to die, and I’ve never written it down ever. You can’t kill me.”

A primordial anger built within Alex’s body. He rises to the sky with William in tow. He then begins to speak but it’s not his own voice, it’s Alexa’s, “Oh dear, you may have never written it down but you’ve forgotten, you told me something all those years ago. Elicif fidis sapt se’nec riruom.” A language only the two knew. William loved her, as much as an egotistical, sociopathic, narcissistic man could and couldn’t help to teach her his own made-up language. At that moment, before they entered space, William’s entire body collapsed in Alex’s hand from the frigid temperature. However, due to the fact that Alex was indeed a cyborg, he could handle the icy terrain and made it safely back down to the mad scientist’s laboratory.

Alex was awarded a medal of honor for his bravery from the ALNS for saving his daughter and countless others. When he arrived back home, Aurora was waiting for him to tell his tale of triumph. The triumph continued all through the night and he was ready to face the world with confidence.