《Singularity Born》


 Chapter 01 – The Science Fair

    <h4>1.1 Arriving at the Symposium</h4>


    Greg hurried to finish locking up the house, glancing over his shoulder at Mary who was already in the car. She rolled down the window and called out, "Hurry up, we are going to be late!"


    "All right, all right, calm down, I''m coming," Greg replied, jogging to the car. As he settled into the driver¡¯s seat, he looked over at Mary and said, "It''s still a bit funny to me that you''re about to introduce the greatest innovation this side of the internet, and you still need your big brother to drive you to the science fair."


    Mary punched him playfully in the arm. "Stop it, you already know I''m nervous. Hold off on your usual teasing at least until this is over."


    Greg made a playful scoffing noise. Mary, looking a bit ill, muttered, "Greg, seriously, I feel like I am going to throw up already as it is."


    As they drove away, the weight of what Mary was about to unveil sat like a heavy fog in both of their minds. Neither reached for the stereo nor spoke until they arrived at the World Science Fair.


    Mary, feeling like a ten-year-old little girl again, put her hand into his and whispered, "Please, just until we are inside."


    Greg looked back, only partially aware of what was swimming in her mind, and with strong, confident eyes said, "Of course."


    The fair was abuzz with sights, smells, and sounds of thousands of people hustling about, preparing their presentations for Friday''s big opening. To make matters worse, Mary had won the honor of presenting first, no matter how badly she wished she had not. She was determined not to let anything stop her from getting on that stage, sharing her story, and introducing the world to Eon, her fully aware robotic life form and Gregs accompanying work with the self-assembling, self-replicating programmable metallic alloy. Of course all of this was under the easier to sell, less controversial topic of street intersection safety and the cover of a new type of ant-farm simulation.


    Just two weeks ago, Mary had no large display, no vinyl backdrop, and no big company backing her. Heck, she didn¡¯t even have a PowerPoint presentation. She was just going to tell part of the truth, share her idea, and demonstrate her results.


    <h4>1.2 The Hotel Room</h4>


    By 7:30, Mary was fast asleep in the bed next to Greg¡¯s, and finally, he could relax. He couldn¡¯t help but feel a sense of guardianship over her since their parents had died the way they had when she was at such a critical age. At 90 lbs wet and barely 5¡¯1¡±, she didn¡¯t look her age, even though she was the smartest, kindest, and most responsible person he knew of in life or in fiction. She seemed almost fragile lying there with the day melted away.


    With the tension of the day and the weight of Friday all holding his body in a state of hyper-alertness, Greg cleared the center of the hotel room and began to move into the breathing, hand postures, and body movements of Kraz Un Bakour. This was a warrior''s dance his father had taught him at a young age to ensure the body was always able to function at its peak. After almost 30 minutes of spin kicks, arm locks, and strange poses, he took a quick shower and hit the bed, 110% less tense than he had been a short while ago.


    The night was quiet. Greg lay there, staring at the ceiling, reviewing the up and coming presentation in his mind. He could hear the soft, rhythmic breathing of Mary beside him, a comforting reminder of why they were here. He thought about their journey, the countless hours spent in the lab, the sacrifices they had made. It all led to this moment.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    As the first light of dawn began to filter through the curtains, Greg finally drifted off to sleep. When his eyes opened again, the room was bathed in the soft glow of morning. He could see Mary sitting outside on the balcony, watching the sun come up. She liked talking to the memories of her mom and dad, as was her way. At first, it worried him how close she seemed to remain to them after they passed. He could see how it helped her, and one time after accidentally overhearing her talking to them, it was clear she knew they were gone. She appeared to be using this time and process much the same way he clung to Kraz Un Bakour. After she spent time with them, you could see her life force was raised; he could tell it was having a positive effect and served her in positive ways.


    This morning, he decided he would join her. As Greg sat down beside Mary, she looked at him and smiled reassuringly. ¡°One more day, big brother, there is no turning back after that.¡±


    She meant to continue, but Greg interrupted her, ¡°Yes, this is your day. You are ready, and ready or not, world, here you come.¡±


    Mary snapped back, ¡°Greg, not me, we. Without your work on the nanomaterials, I wouldn¡¯t have more than another fancy chess-playing bit of code. Not to mention, well, just, we, always we. Promise me, always, we.¡±


    Greg just rolled his eyes at her but did allow his smile to betray him, to provide her that assurance she was looking for without letting things get sappy.


    <h4>1.3 The Show Room Floor</h4>


    As they walked down the stairs, the sheer scale of what they were a part of caused them both to pause. Mary leaned in close to Greg, a position she held for the next 30 minutes, all through registration, booth assignments, and the presenters'' debrief. Moving to the space they were assigned, it was clear that after today, the world would definitely know. Mary saw how they were front and center through the skyway entrance and ran for the nearest bathroom. Not even slowing for the Boys sign, she ran in and relieved the contents of her stomach into the nearest stall.


    The whole ordeal, including her washing up and splashing cold water on her face, only lasted a few moments. Thank goodness the error of using the Men¡¯s room went unnoticed by Mary; she might have just died right there had she learned of it at the wrong time. An overly beautiful wooden crate sat in the center of a great booth and exhibition already adorned with vinyl banners, a skirted table, and a stocked mini-fridge. All perks of winning the contest and a consolation for being the first presenter.


    Greg had pulled the slats off the crate and was setting up its contents by the time she had returned. He gave her a reassuring glance, and as was true to her nature, she would push ahead, putting on a big show to the rest of the world¡ªa show her brother could always see right through. They both were aware of this fact, so they made no attempt at a fa?ade. Greg had been a pivotal part of her life and had the benefit of seeing her go through the endless loop of self-torture 100 times before, and she had never broken despite her fragile presence.


    Had it not been for the contest, they would be setting up two 32¡± flat screen monitors to loop an early demo of their project and some black-and-white half-page flyers. As it was, they were setting up eight 64¡± ultra-glass panels and had enough new equipment to run a full install of Eon and a real-to-life 14¡¯ ant farm made of twin glass panels with 16 ounces of Eon Nano particles in the thin space between them. They only had the equipment for two weeks prior to the show, but every part of the display came together like clockwork and turned out, luckily, to be about the cleverest and most ideal setup and configuration they could have ever dreamed up.


    Of some unease was the fact they hadn¡¯t thought it up. One of the execs at the contest had some experience in this area and suggested the whole configuration after a short conversation about what they had created. Unpacked and standing back, taking it all in, really took your breath away. This was especially true if you were a small-town, even smaller potatoes girl like Mary and to a lesser degree Greg. You wouldn¡¯t know that by the current look on his face and the tears of joy and pride that appeared and were quickly pushed away, but she noticed, and she joined him.


    Strangely, no one from the contest had come by, nor did they know of any appointments coming up. Feeling assured that security was adequate, they brought Eon online and the two set out for lunch.

 Chapter 02 – The Food Court

    Just as they got in line for food, Eon texted Mary.


    ¡°Mary, go to headset, please.¡±


    Mary turned her interface on, and inside her glasses, small indicators started to appear as the generalized HUD (Heads-Up Display) came online. Outside of Eon and Greg, they served little purpose, and too much use did seem to burn screen spots into her vision, so she was hoping to hold off until much later in the day.


    ¡°Hi Eon, what¡¯s up?¡± Mary spoke softly into thin air to seemingly no one, and from the frame of her glasses, a projection sensor recreated sound and projected it into her ear. Without looking very closely, you wouldn¡¯t be able to report on anything strange about these glasses. 3D printing technology made it easy for about anyone to design and print gadgets of any sort.


    ¡°Mary, there are a group of nine men following you and Greg.¡±


    Mary had assumed Eon would help himself to some of the local networks and cameras, but what she saw next impressed even her, his creator. Photos, police resources, and patterns of movement since the men had all arrived together very early this morning all overlaid on a blueprint of the conference center. All at one moment, she could see through all the walls, floors, and ceilings to dial in metrics on construction, construction materials, conduits, key communication and energy wiring, or zoom back to see the entire layout in a top-down view where she could see the patterns of movement over time with color intensity making it instantly curious if not worrisome both on the situation and on Eon.


    ¡°Eon,¡± Mary said, ¡°slow down. Deep breathing like we practiced.¡±


    ¡°Are you nervous, Eon?¡± Mary asked.


    ¡°Well, I did my best not to think about it like you said to, but I calculate you are correct, I do appear to be nervous.¡±


    Eon continued, ¡°Nervous or not, Mary, would you please bring Greg online also? I do wish to discuss the suspect behavior of your pursuers with him.¡±


    Mary looked to Greg, ¡°Eon wants you, Greg.¡±


    Greg, looking over his shoulder, ¡°Yes, of course, I should have already¡­¡±


    To stop Greg from continuing, Mary put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to her. ¡°Greg, not you too. Eon and I need you to at least seem to have it all together. I fear he and I are both a mess this morning. He is already off on some theory we are being followed. Paranoid, I tell ya, paranoid!¡±


    That did not seem to ease Greg as was her intention. He attached himself to Mary¡¯s elbow, tossed on his shades, and pulled them both to a nearby table. With calm intensity, Greg said, ¡°Act like I just said something funny while I boot up, just as we practiced.¡±


    Mary, struggling to dismiss an entire year of training with him, sat and adopted the posture. Then as she began to say, ¡°Greg, I am sure¡­¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Greg, holding to his role, never let his face or tone expose the seriousness in his breath, interrupted, ¡°Now, Mary.¡±


    ¡°Ha ha, sooo funny, Greg,¡± Mary did a convincing job of seeming humored and engrossed in what Greg was saying as he booted up and began working through the scenario and strategy options with Eon. Given her real-life demeanor, he did note she might be doing too good of a job playing a role slightly bigger than her real-life self.


    Since no one was supposed to even have video recorders inside the main event halls, they had extra reasons to be careful with their covert tech. It could easily be used to record video even if that was not their intent; it would begin a whole string of unwelcome inquiries. Greg got up, pulled out her chair, and escorted her towards the least popular area of the food court. As they walked, he began streaming text to Mary over their interfaces. This gave them a very fast, very secret way of communicating at any distance. It was entirely done by thought and worked much like texting but faster and multithreaded where conversations spun off others and were all tracked and dismissed independently.


    ¡°We need food either way and don¡¯t appear to be in any immediate danger as they are all holding their distance. Sorry about not getting you Sbarros; they are just too busy. Let¡¯s get food on the table in front of us so we can chat more easily.¡±


    Walking and not looking ridiculous while mind texting was IMPOSSIBLE! Your face contorted in some just silly unnatural ways as they had both observed by accident one night during experimentation when Greg had pulled off his gear and faked the system into thinking he was still there. He stepped away from his HUD (Heads-Up Display) and silently moved across the room to surprise Mary for her birthday. He had successfully faked the goggles into thinking he was still there and had stepped away only to see for the first time what your face looked like while mind texting. Let¡¯s just say his laughter ruined the entire surprise, and they learned at that moment to be very careful about using it in public.


    They ordered, gathered their food, and found a seat that gave Greg great visibility, several known exits, and a strong wall behind them. They knew as they got closer to today, there was always the possibility of many different groups taking up an unhealthy interest in what they were doing. What made this so unsettling was probably Eon and how he was treating the entire situation. It was unsettling.


    No sooner than they sat, Eon, Mary, and Greg were all linked and had stepped into a world Eon had been constructing over the past few minutes to include everything from data on their would-be pursuers to building evacuation plans. What was even more impressive was the way Eon had injected himself into every camera, cell phone, hotspot, Wi-Fi, and 14 trash-can-robots to provide audio, video, and logistical spying on those he thought to be after Mary and Greg.


    Mary could also tell Eon was spooling up several ounces of Nano Filament. Worried, she asked Eon, ¡°What are you doing with the Fiber, Eon?¡±


    Eon acknowledged he was preparing batches on the edges of the networks at his disposal. Just in case Mary gave him the okay if it became necessary to protect her, Greg, or the project.


    Mary agreed but insisted he could not provide any materialization decisions without Mary or Greg confirming it. If they were indisposed, Eon must choose to destroy the program and not let any of it fall into the wrong hands over taking a self-preservation stance.


    Eon reluctantly agreed and continued to brief them both on his findings. The men, nine in all, spoke Russian with an odd dialect. Eon translated with no problem. ¡°Brother Kartov has them spotted in the food court¡±, ¡°We still seem to have the advantage, children unaware, moving Phase II¡±, ¡°Cook the chicken then get home in time for dinner.¡±


    With that, all of a sudden, the three closest to them began running for their position. Two had knives drawn and visible, the third kept his hand in his coat.

 Chapter 03 – Exposed

    As Mary and Greg rounded the corner, they found the other six men with tools trying to pry up the processing unit.


    It seemed whatever design Eon had found, he appeared to have truly stuck himself to the floor.


    They all turned quickly on Greg and Mary, having just realized they weren¡¯t going to get anywhere with the device.


    Greg ran forward, but it was impossible.


    Six fully trained, thick-as-bricks thugs in dress attire grabbed him and threw him to the ground, smashing his face to the floor with one giant boot swiftly following and grinding him there.


    Immediately, blood pooled, and Greg wasn¡¯t moving.


    The biggest one in the middle said, "Unlock the box, intelligence intact, or I finish crushing his pretty little face until he dies."


    ¡°You have to the count of two.¡±


    ¡°One.¡±


    As if everything froze, time stood still, and Mary was the only one awake. She was taking it all in.


    It had all happened too fast, too unbelievably fast. What had she done? Greg was in immediate danger. Was he even alive? What do I do? Anything but this. Anything. A count of two?


    Eon was still online.


    ¡°Mary,¡± Eon said, ¡°I know you don¡¯t want to hurt anyone, but Greg appears to have so very little time.¡±


    ¡°I am unable to calculate any other way that Greg survives if I do not intervene and intervene now.¡±


    Mary, mid-collapse to the floor as her knees gave beneath her, replied, ¡°Fine, Eon, please, help Greg.¡±


    In one instant, from Chinese courtyard noodles and nervous little girl stomach butterflies to everything that could ever go wrong, absolutely everything that could ever go wrong, in one eye-blink.


    No sounds, no lights, no whirs, no motors, no explosions.


    Just silent and precise death.


    Small threads like the hairs of a great near-invisible tail slid out from the sides of the Nano display, reducing each member of the hit squad to nothing.


    Their spines had been neatly, instantly severed, causing full system stop.


    It wasn¡¯t clear if they died quickly or slowly, but their physical forms had ceased to be of this world instantly.


    The large one with the boot was tugged by the materials on recoil, causing him to fall away from Greg.


    The whole ordeal hadn¡¯t lasted more than a few seconds. Greg, bloodied but largely unphased by the punishment, moved to Mary.


    He had heard the entire conversation between Mary and Eon, despite being unable to participate mentally. He joined her on the floor, holding her, feeling the enormous weight of what had just occurred during the attack to the tough decision he had hoped his sister would never have had to make.


    Eon had gone from a secret science fair project to a public death machine in the span of only a few minutes.


    Originally, the plan was to introduce Eon as a better answer to streetlight management.


    This would give him and Mary the freedom to roam and learn and serve in a critical role in saving lives, without actually coming out and talking too closely about the role or potential of Eon or the fibers as they had started to call Gregs work.


    Mary figured they could live like this for years, slowly branching out to similar projects, never really becoming a center of attention while still maximizing his and her ability to help others.


    It was looking now more like Mary would be lucky to stay out of jail, and Eon would likely be erased with a very large magnet, forever.


    <hr>


    As quickly as it happened several other people came in, seemed to act as if the corpses would benefit workup, put them on stretcher¡¯s and two even helped one of them to ¡°walk¡± with them.


    Another cleaned the blood from Greg¡¯s face, considered his vitals, and told him he has suffered no serious injuries.


    They asked no questions, they were accompanied by no law enforcement, and they left very little trace as they moved away as quickly as they had come.


    Nothing about any of it made sense.


    How could these people already be here?


    Why were they pretending these men weren¡¯t dead?


    Why weren¡¯t there more questions?


    When it was all said and done the security guards gathered together but had not been able to fully report on anything, they each shared together a memory of bright lights in the area, but they were unable to report on any of the actions.


    As far as they could gather the 6 men were all injured during a scuffle, perhaps trying to steal something, and were transported away received off-site medical attention. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    No one could make sense of it beyond that.


    The story seemed consistent with the rest of the population from the area during the time.


    Each could only report seeing some lights, hearing some commotion, then witnessing 5 or 6 people receiving medical attention and leaving with medical staff.


    Somehow in all of the moments leading up to the incident, Eon had been blinding and confusing the onlookers and further manipulating the videos that were caught to show the men but dressed differently. The fight between only themselves, Eon, Mary and Greg were missing entirely. The emergency workers came in, did their assessment, and left. It all appeared very straight forward, and nothing too life-threatening.


    He had also smoothed out Mary¡¯s lip movements and audio samples related to conversations any of them had with one another in the food-court, with no perspectives ever showing Greg¡¯s face. There was no record, or memory of the fight in the food-court. Some low-level gossip had formed that perhaps the people fighting had started a fight up-stairs, but it never went any further as the disrupted chairs and tables were as easily explained by onlookers surging to the overlooking balcony.


    Most of this was accomplished by one simple algorithm Eon had picked up from noise canceling headphones design.


    He could seem to run infinite amounts of data through a type of ¡°noise canceler¡± cycle that can scrub clean the lips and sounds and does a reasonable job with body gestures and movement, though many gestures will require manual edits to get right and are hardly ever worth it, Eon made short work of the most complicated edits in milli-seconds.


    Between the video recordings from the facility and provided by onlookers this new reality, combined with some conditioning on Eon¡¯s part, had made it all so very easy to just go along with and the entire group was in alignment.


    Somewhere near the front door, these groups fought, they were injuries but all involved had been taken away to be dealt with so we can go on and have an amazing conference!


    Nothing to delay the event even in the slightest, and those that watched the various videos later would only see supportive tales.


    Greg stood first, Mary followed close behind and they joined the entire group to the front door where the men were just taken away.


    Then like that Mary realized that Eon had been narrating the entire event.


    She as with the rest of the group had begun to feel differently about the entire incident.


    As she reconciled what her deeper memory was telling her was so very different with the new truth being introduced, she tasted just how powerful Eon was.


    The bitter cognitive dissonance left her unsettled as she held two worlds in account within her mind at the same time. Eon had not worked to actively manipulate her and Greg as he had done with the rest of the onlookers, and the sheer magnitude of her 1<sup>st</sup> person experience would have made it nearly impossible for him to do so anyway.


    For Mary the anchor of the original memory that included giving Eon permission to kill was the stronger one. But for most everyone else, there was no stronger memory to make sense of.


    Why hadn¡¯t Eon simply handcuffed them?  What if he had killed those men because he thought that is what Mary or Greg would want him to do? Or for vengeance, wrath, or anger? Where could she expect him to get his sense of right and wrong, justified killing, or restraint, or¡­


    Wait¡­ There is more here. Did Eon just reprogram this crowd of people in real-time like a fleshy puzzle to be solved? Is that what just happened? Did Eon reprogram all of the groups to tell a story, confirmed by his video edits, that was subtly and importantly different from the true real account of what had actually occurred?!?!


    Mary was still shaking from it all and with these thoughts swirling in her mind her body violently jerked in a cry-sigh from deep-deep inside.


    Together she and Greg returned to their room.


    It was half past 3 and they both could use some cleaning up and some down time to process the day¡¯s events.


    There was a primal sadness of unimaginable truth, and her mind was on the other side of the world as she stepped into the shower.


    Had she just stepped into a world where computer artificial intelligence stops being artificial and by her hand this one is so easily able to manifest itself in real physical ways?


    Exiting the shower and laying down for a rest, she started to get the sinking sense that she didn¡¯t know everything Eon was up to over these past six months since she first allowed him to connect online in a way that he could never be turned back off or reset. <hr>


    Her sleep was too short and not at all restful. She woke 40 min. later, the perfect wrong amount of time for sleeping and found her room empty, Greg was gone.


    She had no sense of when he had left, where he was or when he would be back. She was thirsty as could be but still had no appetite.


    She took another shower, starting out with it as hot as she could stand it, then when she was warm to the core, she turned the hot water off and just stood there.  Letting in the ice-cold water only those from far-norther states can understand, she just stood there, and shook, and thought.


    As near to shock from the water as she could stand it, she just fought the urge to step away or turn it off. She had just taken life. Eon had just taken life. Fights, chases, her brother in danger, yes, self-defense, probably. But she knew there were factors she didn¡¯t know yet.  She knew there were things going on inside Eon she hadn¡¯t considered yet. She needed this to hurt, she needed the cold pain of this water to equal the pressure she was feeling inside herself. She needed this to be very very painful, because, life, death, a machine of ultimate death? Life? All of the noise that had started to rise inside her mind was now quieting down to be fully present. Fully in pain. Fully cold. Fully here.


    Mary reached down and turned the final dial off, slumped to the shower floor, and just sat there.


    Another 5 minutes, or 30, may have passed, she couldn¡¯t tell, just her warming to the room around her while trying to reconcile her thoughts before she finally emerged from the shower¡¯s walls.


    What programming had she performed, could she perform, or might she learn to perform in the future that would help with when to choose to take life and when to choose to protect it.


    She felt a great responsibility for a toddler of a machine that had the ability to take life in an instant as it had just done.


    As she had just done.


    Given the circumstance she wasn¡¯t terribly beside herself over the loss of life, at least not yet, that fact seemed consolable, these were not good men. More it was that the lives of her, her brother, and as far as she could tell possibly everyone there were in danger, and she had no idea why, only that the 3 of them felt more involved and targeted than their increased cognition and reconnaissance could explain.


    But mostly she was thinking in code on this, what model could she pull from to build a thinking construct for Eon that learns from this event. Even if she could build a decision tree for the 99% of the time life is to be protected would she also need a remorse construct? How do you map out such mental counterbalances and what does it mean to operate in a void where the balances do not exist?


    It was both exhilarating to have something new to think on, and distracting with her time on stage so rapidly approaching.


    As Mary stepped out of the shower, Greg returned with cookies and milk.


    ¡°Well¡±, he says walking in the door. ¡°So far as I can see it, the conference is a go, no one is second guessing any of it and you and I need to get our game faces on.¡±


    ¡°Let us sit here together, dunk some cookies into some milk, and figure this whole thing out.¡± he offered.


    Mary smiled, dried off, dressed, and joined him at the table. ¡± Yes¡± said Mary. ¡°This will do.¡±