Purposeful Chaos

She yawned. The scant sunlight peaking over the city’s skyline was not proving an adequate substitution for the thermos of black coffee she had forgotten at home. She’d once tried to impress an ex by telling her that’s the only way she’d drink it, and while not true at the time, it was a habit that had stuck with her ever since, sheerly on principle. As usual for this time of year, heavy storm clouds blanketed the skies in oppressive shades of gray. While she had once enjoyed these gloomy days, the novelty had long since worn off.

She continued on, feeling as if only this expanse of sidewalk existed, clouds looming overhead while the surrounding buildings impassively looked on. She’d been heavily considering that her time in the city might just be up. With the deadline looming and no promise of a breakthrough in sight, she wasn’t sure there was really much here for her anymore. There’s no way the contract would be renewed, so she’d take the failure on the chin and move back in with her sister in Reno. It wouldn’t be that bad. She was no stranger to reinvention and with no ties in the city, embarrassing as it was, it would be a clean break. It’s all about reframing, she thought, think of it as an opportunity.

The first few raindrops spattered on the sidewalk as she patiently waited to catch an opening in the revolving doors leading into her building. Behind her, police sirens began to blare at a startling octave. To her left, a fire hydrant burst, sending water spraying onto the already wet sidewalk and a few passersby. She heard the fire alarms in her building screech to life as warning lights strobed. It wouldn’t be long before employees from each floor cascaded out and made their way across the street. Red and blue lights became more pronounced as patrol cars pulled up to the nearest corner. Officers swarmed a man she had not given a second thought to 30 seconds prior. Chaos had erupted and her mind was now utterly blank.  

“Annie, head across the street. The fire alarm’s gone off and there’s no way you’re getting in now,” the building’s security guard barked.

She nodded absentmindedly, still trying to make sense of the trifecta of chaotic events that had occurred in near synchronicity. With her day waiting to begin in her office upstairs, she dreaded how long it would now take to get there. People began to pour out of the building in droves. So much so, that she was swept up in the traffic heading for the other side of the road. She turned to look back at the nondescript man being arrested, now splayed out on the concrete, and was almost immediately clipped by someone headed back in the direction of the building. She turned and caught the smallest of glimpses of the woman’s face. The slightest hint of recognition rose in the back of her mind, but she hadn’t seen enough to produce a fully formed thought. The woman whirled around, grabbing onto her arm, and fell in step beside her.

“Pull up your hood,” the woman urged, her nose only inches from Annie’s ear. “Listen to me, as this world’s fate depends on it.”

Bewildered, she complied, as the pace of the group picked up around them, hands rising uselessly over heads to block the steady rain.

“You’re going to have finished the last component of the algorithm this time next week.” 

Annie’s brow furrowed in disbelief. Who was this woman?

“This breakthrough would come as a great shock not only to you and to your team, but to your competitors as well. They currently have an operative placed who’s been watching your progress to this point.”

Operative? Annie thought. This was the private sector. Sure, they liked to maintain some semblance of secrecy but nothing was classified for goodness’ sake.

And while she might not have been able to pinpoint it if you’d asked, the woman’s voice grated on Annie’s nerves, sounding both familiar and foreign. The group finally reached the opposite sidewalk and the woman turned Annie to face her.

With thin lips sitting below a small nose and wide eyes framed by thick lashes and sparse brows, the woman asked quietly, “What’s your name?”

“Annie,” Annie whispered back.

“And what’s my name?” the woman asked slowly, daring Annie to respond.

“Annie?” Annie asked, forcing the name out again.

A fleeting smile spread over the woman’s lips and was gone. “Yes, it is, but I go by AJ.”

Annie’s heart beat wildly in her chest and sweat prickled across her brow. Was she really seeing her own face staring back at her? Annie’s eyes roamed over her counterpart, catching on the nearly imperceptible scar extending from her left temple halfway across the cheekbone, mirroring her own. Ice lanced through her chest as she met AJ’s eyes, the jagged shards of a memory slicing through her mind. With a softening expression, AJ gently took both of Annie’s hands in her own. 

“Yes, there are some fates we cannot escape, even through time and space,” she said delicately. “I know this is beyond your wildest imagination and I can’t explain everything. There’s just not enough time.”

Her grip tightened. “Annie, I just need you to know that no matter what, you have to upload everything to a thumb drive and give it directly to Baker. Do you hear me? No matter what. I know it’s hard to believe, impossible even.” Her expression took on a ferocity that Annie thought must’ve reflected the look she felt crossing her own face when she was brutally determined to reach a goal, a countenance she had only ever been told about.

AJ continued, “But if those calculations get into the wrong hands, there will be global destruction on an unprecedented level. I’m talking billions, billions of people are going to die.”

Annie glanced around. No one seemed to be paying the pair any attention, to her surprise. None of this was making any sense and --

“Annie, I have to go. I’m begging you. Just take this one simple precaution to ensure the future of this world.” She tried to pull her hands away, but this time Annie was the one holding tighter.

“Wait, are you trying to imply that you’re from some other…world? How can you be so sure this one decision will potentially have such catastrophic consequences?”

“I can’t share too much. All I can say is humanity in my universe is far more advanced than in yours.” A non-answer if Annie had ever heard one.

“Well, why today? Why this moment?”

“I have to go, but to put it simply, chaos.” AJ grinned, feline. Now, Annie was sure she’d never worn such an expression on her own face.

“Chaos is woven into the very fabric of every universe, and mine has found a way to manipulate that to our advantage. You know what they say, bad things come in threes.” She pulled her hands away.

Annie glanced across the street and saw the man ducking into the back of one of the police cars. Hands flew up to point at flames dancing across a third floor window. When she turned back, AJ was gone.

                            ---------------------------------

           Later that night, Annie sat at her desk in a cubicle nestled amongst ten others. It had taken hours for the fire department to show up and clear the building. Not soon after, rumors began to circulate, with the most plausible being microwaved leftovers had caused the entire debacle. She’d thought about calling it for the day, but her ego had spurred her on. Was she really days away from the greatest achievement of her life, possibly of humankind? Though, the thought still did little to keep her distracted mind from wandering. Her encounter with AJ earlier in the day was beginning to take on a dreamlike quality, or maybe nightmare was more apt, given the memory it had drudged up.

A dark road glittering beneath streetlights. Thousands of possibilities for the future opening up before their eyes. Laughter and loud conversation. She could tell she wasn’t feeling quite right, but she was young and carefree. Why worry when there was so much life to live and infinite ways to do it? Then a bump, a booming crash. The night seemed to swallow up all those possibilities. She screamed his name to no response. Squeezing her legs from beneath the steering wheel she ran, cutting through alleys and behind buildings. She cried, dazed, still not feeling quite right and now worse. She mustered up the courage to go back. His seat sat empty. He wasn’t there anymore but the cops were. She was lucky to have made it out with only cuts and bruises, they said. She’d have to go to court and pay restitution to the city, but it could’ve been worse.

“Was there anyone else with you?”

“No, sir.”

She shrugged out of the memory. No matter how much time she put between her and that night, it was so easy to become that scared twenty-something again. She’d heard from a friend of a friend days later that Daniel wasn’t doing so well. He’d somehow made it to a hospital a town over and was saying he’d crashed his car.

You guys were close, right? Maybe you should go see him. I heard it’s not looking good.

She’d known she was his only family. He hadn’t had anyone else in a long time. But all those years ago she’d made her choice. There were just some things she couldn’t face.

She ran her hands through her hair, pulling at the roots, anchoring herself back to the present. Chaos, chaos, chaos, echoed through her mind, the word oddly comforting. She stared at her desktop, the task ahead of her no longer seeming so daunting.

                           -------------------------------

The following week approached quickly, leaving Annie no time to ponder the mysterious events of the one prior. She was singularly focused on completing what she now realized was her life’s work. Leaning over the sink, she examined her face in the bathroom mirror. Her reflection perfectly matched the features she had seen in AJ. She shook her head, giving her curls some volume and patting the thumb drive in her pocket. No matter whether last week had been some kind of hallucination or not, she’d decided somewhere between then and now to heed AJ’s urgent advice. Not to mention, everything had seemed to fall into place. She had made headway in her work like never before, and while she couldn’t claim perfection, she just had a feeling she’d left it where it was meant to be.

Rounding the corner, she walked into Baker’s office. His was the only one given the privilege of a door and she quietly closed it behind her.

“Right on time as always, Annie!” he chirped good-naturedly. “What was so important it couldn’t wait until the team meeting this afternoon?”

She placed the thumb drive on the table explaining, “I wanted to run through this with you. I think I’ve finally figured it out and wanted to make sure everything looks correct before I bring it in front of the others.”

He glanced towards his computer and began typing, pausing before letting out a long sigh. “I would love to, but I’ve just received an urgent meeting request from Abel, so looks like I need to head up there now. Would you feel okay leaving it? I should have time before this afternoon to take a cursory look at least.”

Ever the one to accommodate, Annie replied, “No problem. I’ll catch up with you this afternoon, but if you could keep it between us for now, I’d appreciate it.”

“I won't say a word to the team,” he smiled, “but I do like to give credit where it’s due, especially where upper management is concerned.”

She waved off the comment, heading back to her desk while breathing a sigh of relief. Mission accomplished. No matter what Baker did at this point, she’d followed through for AJ. She smiled, feeling that in a few short hours her life would be forever changed.

But Annie didn’t see Baker for the rest of the day. In an unprecedented move, the team meeting was canceled and when she went to find him before leaving, his office was dark. She flicked on the lights to find his desk suspiciously clear. No more knick-knacks lining the edges. No trace of pictures defiantly tacked to the back wall and the ever-growing mountain of paperwork had disappeared. Unnerved, she headed to the elevator, down to the lobby, and out the revolving door. She pulled out her phone, thinking she might try to reach out to see if things were okay. Distractedly, she clicked into her email and watched as a new one populated.

Ms. Annie Atlas,

This email serves as notice of your termination from MalTech. While we appreciate your efforts up to this point, we are unable to overlook your egregious breach of contract that was brought to our attention earlier today. You will no longer have access to the fifth floor and we ask for you cooperation in this matter. You will find more information regarding next steps attached.

Sincerely,

Abel Cartwright, CEO

                                   -------------------------

She’d tried everything short of storming the building in the last week to gain some clarity on the situation. Breach of contract? This couldn’t be legal. If it was legal, it certainly wasn’t ethical. Security had denied her access to the building multiple times, though at least they had the sense to act ashamed. Almost more importantly, Baker still had the thumb drive! She wasn’t able to access any of her work accounts anymore, and none of her calls to Baker, let alone her other coworkers, seemed to be going through.

The sun shone in front of her, just grazing the tops of buildings and peeking out from behind sugar spun clouds. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a day like this. Her shadow dragged along behind her, looking almost as forlorn as she felt. Up ahead, she saw a crowd had formed in front of a local antique shop. As she came up to the back of the mass, she realized just how eerily silent it was. Goose bumps raced down her arms. There, on a few outdated television sets, the local news played. Her eyes raced across the closed captioning as she read,

…this comes via a statement earlier today informing the public that a record amount of data has been breached across both government strongholds and the private sector. The breach so severe that Americans have been urged to immediately check all online accounts for any suspicious activity. We are being told this issue is not just confined to the States…

Murmuring broke out among the crowd, then shouts in the distance. Annie pulled out her phone.

17 minutes ago – Americans search for an explanation as millions of bank accounts show zero balance.

 5 minutes ago – Mayhem erupting on the East Coast as the public demands an explanation.

Nothing else would load. She tried to refresh. Then got nothing at all. She dialed her sister’s number, but the call wouldn’t go through. No service. Up ahead, the crowd had moved to a bank and began pounding on the doors. On her right, an elderly woman collapsed and the few who bent to help her were swiftly overwhelmed by those ready to join the mob now pushing through broken glass into the bank. Annie whirled around to tires screeching and a deafening boom as two cars collided.

And there she was. AJ approached her, seemingly borne from the surrounding pandemonium.

“AJ, what’s going on?” Annie asked, frantically looking for a safer place to talk. AJ pulled her close and walked them into the shadowed doorway of an abandoned storefront.

“The end of the world,” she stated, matter-of-factly.

Annie stared. “But I thought that had been prevented. I did what you said, I swear!”

“Annie, don’t worry. It won’t be fast. In fact, it will take hundreds of years for humanity here to really come to an end, but to be frank, this is the beginning of it and your days, in particular, are numbered.”

Annie’s heart was beating so horrifically hard she wouldn’t have been surprised if today was actually her last.

“I’m here only to provide the mandatory debrief. This universe was a part of an experiment to determine the ways in which humanity could destroy itself. The artificial intelligence you were working on proved to be most effective to this end.”

“But why?!” Annie shouted as the noise in the street reached new heights.

“To better ensure the prosperity of our own future, in which you have played a vital role.”

Annie reached back to slap her.

“Now Annie,” AJ murmured as she deftly caught her outstretched arm, “There is always a benefit somewhere, even if you can't find it in your own world. You know as well as anyone there are some realities you just can’t escape.” AJ’s eyes lingered on the faint scar that sat below Annie’s.

“How could you?” Annie forced out.

“Perhaps humanity’s greatest strength is its ability to feel compassion for others, and its greatest weakness its inability to truly feel another’s suffering and, so, intervention rarely occurs. Annie, I sympathize for what will be lost in this world, I really do, but that doesn’t change the fact that its demise doesn’t adversely affect me.”

She released Annie’s arm and strode back into the sunlit street. “I like to think it’s all about reframing. Think of this as an opportunity, if not for you, for me and my people.”

And with that she was gone, leaving Annie looking out upon the brink of calamity.