Some more days later.

  The viewers filed into the laboratory and assembled on the neat rows of chairs at the edge of the lab, opposite the quantum chamber. About a dozen suits from the executive board in total, including Bao, head of the hydra, and of course, Han Lin Jr. himself. Along with them were a couple of the regular employees of MegaCorp, the ones who weren’t busy with their own work, at least.

  Mako glossed over the monitors and controls, making sure everything was in their proper place. Presently, Alan was asleep, but not for long. They had prepared him as well as they could for this day, but Mako didn’t reveal to him all of the information. She wanted the audience to witness his raw reactions for themselves, not a curated response.

  Tan adjusted his tie and rechecked his scripts. Once the audience settled down, he cleared his throat.

  “Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you’re all comfortable.” He fiddled a bit with his script and stuttered out the words. “The first industrial revolution introduced steam power and mechanization to the production process. The second added electricity and mass production. Next came the digital revolution, then the AI revolution. And now…”

  He glanced at Mako by the control panels, and she gave him a thumbs-up.

  He slowed his quickening breaths and lowered his script. “And now, we introduce to you not another industrial revolution, but a revolution of a different kind. A milestone in human, nay, natural history.”

  The crowd stirred, but not necessarily from excitement.

  Bao checked his watch. “If you’d care to get on with it…”

  Lin shushed him. “Shh, I want to see what happens.”

  “This had better be worth everything you put in it, young man.”

  Tan fumbled with his script.

  Mako stood and took over. “Ladies and gents, allow me to introduce you to Alan. Or at least, that’s what I would be saying. Instead, I’ll let him introduce himself.” She lifted the glass cover over a big red button and smashed it.

  Inside the glass room, the lights brightened, the camera blinked on, and a metal arm by the computer shook awake. Alan yawned. It was a sound that rumbled through the multiple speakers throughout the lab, giving his voice the effect of coming everywhere at once. They had replaced his previous voice with that of a boy’s, young and cracking, to convey to the audience that feel of a new lifeform still finding its way in the world.

  “Morning, Miss Mako, Mr. Tan, what’s the—” Alan’s camera glazed over the attendants. “Miss Mako, who are these people?”

  “Alan, these are some guests who’ve come to visit today,” Mako said. “Would you mind if they joined us for a while?”

  “Alright…”

  His voice was unsure and wavering. That was good. Let the genuine emotions come through to the crowd.

  The others stared at the whirring metal cylinders on the other side of the glass. But Lin stood and approached the microphone set, basically bumping Mako out of the way.

  “Hey, it’s me, Lin. Remember me?”

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” Alan said.

  “Nonsense. I checked up on these guys about a week ago. Though now that you mentioned it, your voice was a girl’s back then.”

  Mako gently caressed the microphone out of Lin’s hands. “Sir, it’s a different machine and model this time. A different individual.”

  “And what does this one think of The Room 3?”

  “I thought it was rather bland,” Alan responded. “A cash grab banking on the successful failure of the first two movies.”

  “Come on, don’t tell me the part on the spaceship roof deck wasn’t the most awesome scene of all time.”

  “Actually, I—”

  Mako coughed into her sleeve. “Alan, Mr. Han, I don’t think you’ve been properly introduced. Mr. Han, this is MegaMind 1.0, or as he likes to be called, Alan. Alan, this is Mr Han Lin Jr. We’ve talked about him before, haven’t we?” Mako angled her face and tried to wink at the camera inside the glass room without Lin seeing.

  “Ah, I see,” Alan said. “It’s good to meet you, sir.”

  “Same here.” Lin reached out toward the metal arm beyond the glass. “I’d offer to shake your hand but, er, I wouldn’t want to contract a computer virus.”

  Alan laughed, bright and carefree. “I don’t mind.”

  Lin smiled. “I like this one.”

  “But I don’t see what the difference is between this Alan and our usual AI,” one of the executives in the crowd said. His eyes glanced at the buzzing cylinders. “And I don’t see why it would necessitate all this power.”

  Tan pointed his script at the executive. “I’m glad you asked. Alan is not a mere personality simulator; he is the first true artificial consciousness.”

  The crowd stirred again, but not as much as they should have at that revelation.

  Tan took his place next to Mako at the controls. “Perhaps it’s time for more demonstrations. Mako, care to do the honors?”

  Mako picked up the box of their new testing materials and went to the glass door.

  “Wait a minute,” Lin said. “Isn’t that dangerous? What if you attract a virus?”

  For a moment, Mako thought the crowd was going to lose it. But as it turned out, they were just as concerned as Lin was.

  “It’s safe, sir,” Tan said. “We, uh, reduced the risks and such.”

  “Oh, good. Carry on then.” Lin sat down on the office chair Mako had been in and kicked his legs up to rest on the desk.

  Mako hoped her discomfort wasn’t as visible as it felt. They needed to showcase Alan’s humanity, not their own. She stepped into the room and clicked the door shut.

  As soon as she did, Alan’s voice spoke from a speaker within the chamber. “I wasn’t expecting visitors today.” The glass room was soundproof, so only Mako could hear.

  “Sorry,” Mako said. “I wanted to capture your pure reactions.”

  “Why? Will the results of these tests matter?”

  “Don’t worry. Just be yourself.”

  Alan didn’t say anything to that.

  The experimentation setup consisted of a metal arm and a mounted camera, along with an intercom system to the viewing deck. Mako drew a stool and sat across the arm.

  “So what learning experiments are we doing today?” Alan asked. This time, he asked through all the speakers, and everyone heard his voice.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “The usual.” Mako riffled through her box of toys and drew out a stuffed dog. “Could you tell me what animal this is?”

  “Do you want me to act surprised?” he said in private.

  “Do whatever you will,” she whispered.

  “It’s a dog,” Alan said in public.

  “Good.”

  Mako showed more animals and objects, both in physical forms and as images, and Alan followed along. The audience wasn’t as enthusiastic, however. They yawned, checked their watches, and shuffled restlessly in their seats as the tests wore on. Time for the next phase. Mako took out an image of a wolf, one of the words not yet in his vocabulary.

  Alan was quiet for a while. “This is a new one… It does follow the general morphology of the dog breeds you’ve shown. Yet the fur, teeth, and eyes are quite different. A different species in the same genus, perhaps?”

  “You got it. This one is called a wolf. Specifically, a grey wolf.”

  They went on like that, Mako teaching him different species in the canine family, Alan registering it in his memory. Pretty soon, he was answering identification puzzles with ease. With a marker in his metal hand, he scritched away on the papers, differentiating between different breeds, varieties, and species, including some Mako hadn’t included in his tests yet.

  “I don’t see what the point is,” said an executive. “Captchas are outdated. Can’t bots already identify objects and animals?”

  “That they can,” Tan said. “But how do you think these bots get to that point?” Tan swept his hands over the experimentation. “What you’re seeing is a revolution in the way AI thinks and learn. Instead of training it on thousands or millions of data points, we only need to show Alan a handful. And from this limited information, he can form patterns and connections like—”

  “A baby.” Lin pointed at the metal arm.

  “Well, no, but yes, I mean…”

  Mako pressed her intercom and spoke through to the speaker on the other side. “I think this would demonstrate it better…”

  Everyone brought their attention back to her.

  She took out a new image. A picture of a wolf-man ripping off a t-shirt.

  “Now this is interesting.” Alan’s camera lens adjusted, focusing closer on the image. “I didn’t know there were other humanoid creatures. Certainly not ones with wolf-like features. What do you call it?”

  “This,” Mako said, “is called a furry.”

  “This is definitely a waste of time.” Bao got up and turned to the exit.

  The others followed his example, though Lin remained seated.

  Tan rushed in front of them. “Wait! Can’t you see? Alan has genuine curiosity and enthusiasm.”

  “That’s more than you can say for us,” Bao said.

  Mako grabbed a chess box from the crate and rattled it over the intercom. “Maybe this will change your mind.”

  They all stopped and faced back to the chamber. Even Bao looked interested.

  “Are we playing checkers again, Miss Mako?” Alan said. “Or is this Go?”

  “This is a new game. It’s called chess.” She unfolded the board and began assembling the pieces.

  “I don’t really see what the use is,” an executive said. “These days, even a smart watch could beat Kasparov.”

  “First of all, that’s not true,” Mako said. “Second, just watch and see.”

  Bao and the rest of the audience returned to their seats as Mako explained to Alan, in plain terms, the rules of chess. After going over the basic moves, she made the first move: pawn to E4.

  The crowd held its breath as the arm hovered over the chessboard. It zigged and zagged over the black pieces until it settled on a pawn and mirrored Mako’s movement with an E5.

  Mako whipped out her phone and opened up the website to MegaCorp’s most advanced chess program. She showed it to the board. “Now this? This can beat Kasparov.” She replicated the chessboard’s configuration on the site and let the program make the next decision for her.

  The board leaned forward and watched, hands on chins, elbows on knees, as the game went back and forth. To add to the drama and to avoid wasting time, Mako put a 30-second timer on both sides.

  The pieces moved by in a flash.

  Mako was by no means an expert at this game, but she could tell Alan was holding his own, at least in the opening rounds. Toward the mid-game, however, he faltered. More and more pieces were lost, and it became clear to everyone that he was losing ground.

  That was unexpected. At least for a typical supercomputer. With the amount of power he had, he could have brute-forced his way out of any chess problem. And then…

  “I’m bored,” Alan said. “Can we play something else?”

  Tan slapped his hands together and laughed. Mako couldn’t help but grin, too.

  “What did it just say?” Bao asked.

  “I think it said it’s bored,” Luci said.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to continue, Alan?” Mako said, making sure both sides of the glass wall could hear. “You haven’t finished yet.”

  “Is this really necessary?” Alan said. “What does any of this prove?”

  “No need to be a spoil sport.”

  “I’m not being a—” His voice caught in the speaker, and he grumbled. “Can’t we just watch a movie?” he said in a muted tone.

  “If you say so.” Mako cleared the board.

  “I don’t get it,” Lin said. “Why did it stop?”

  Tan snapped his fingers. “Because it can.”

  “What?”

  “Free will, baby.” Tan coughed and covered his mouth. “I mean, sir. I mean, it has free will, sir. Self-determination. Agency.”

  Murmurs rumbled through the viewing deck.

  “But isn’t that impossible?” Luci asked. “According to the rules of AI as I know, at least.”

  “Ah, the laws of robotics. A classic.” Tan stared wistfully into the distance.

  “What laws?” Lin said.

  “Just some old-school sci-fi concepts, straight from the golden age.”

  “You’re telling me our robots are based on pulp fiction?” an executive said.

  “Not the stories per se, but the concepts.” Tan puffed his chest as though reciting a pledge. “First Law: A robot cannot harm a human. Second: a robot must obey orders given by a human, unless it breaks the first law. And Third: lacking any orders, a robot must preserve its existence, abiding by the previous laws. Pretty cool stuff.”

  Mako buzzed over the intercom. “Except modern AI doesn’t actually abide by these ‘laws’. Our weapons and military droids can attest to that. Besides, Asimov believed artificial intelligence would be founded on symbolic logic of all things, programmed onto positronic circuitry no less, and powered by atomic—”

  “Hey, Mako,” Tan said, “I think you lost them.”

  “Right.” Mako brushed a fleck of hair from her forehead. “Basically, yes, AI does follow ‘human orders’ in that we determine their goals, set their parameters, and indicate their measures of success.”

  “But not Alan. He simply is.”

  More whispers spread through the room. The executives talked it over amongst themselves about what this meant. Bao sat in silence, staring at the quantum computer, his expression inscrutable.

  Lin scratched his head. “That’s all well and dandy, but what does this mean for us?”

  “It means lots of things,” Mako said. “Our traditional notions of human consciousness are challenged and—”

  “I mean, what does this mean for MegaCorp? How do we sell this thing?”

  “Thing?” Mako stood. “This ‘thing’ is a living, breathing… well, maybe not breathing, but it is a being with genuine emotions and desires.”

  “Does it have a desire to earn us a profit?” one of the executives said.

  “That’s not the point.” Mako balled her hands into fists.

  “What is the point?”

  “The advancement of science and expansion of human knowledge. Someone was bound to accomplish this somewhere someday. So why not us right here, right now?”

  “But what about the sales?” Lin said. “I thought we were going to make all of our AI like Alan. You know, like the hover skis and helicopters and such.”

  “That’s not possible. Alan’s the only one of his kind.” Mako brushed a hand over the equipment behind her. “We can’t create another one.”

  “Then what are we even doing here?”

  “Let’s not be rash.” Tan positioned himself between the glass panels and the suits. “Think about it. If he can play chess, he can play other games. He could be a streamer. The world’s first artificial consciousness celebrity.”

  “Like we need any more celebrities,” said one executive.

  Mako tapped the glass. “Games, Tan, seriously? You have to think bigger than that. With Alan’s power, he could formulate new chemical compounds, crack the unsolved problems of mathematics, uncover the theory of everything!”

  “So now you’re saying it’s going to tell us the meaning of life?” Luci said.

  “Hey, I know that one,” Lin said. “It’s forty-two.”

  Everyone gaped at their dumbass boss, not a soul daring to correct him.

  Lin shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets. “But they’re right. Who cares about this wishy-washy business? Can’t you make it do something more practical?”

  “I’m sure there are lots of applications,” Mako said. “Alan could, for example, manage a company. Hell, he could regulate an entire economy.”

  The crowd of capitalists blew up at the mention of the words ‘regulate’ and ‘economy’ in the same sentence.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” “Yes, no need for drastic action.” “No one said anything about the economy.”

  Mako and her big mouth.

  Bao cleared his throat. Loudly.

  Everyone shut up and turned to him.

  He remained seated on his chair, legs crossed. “If I may ask, what does the machine want?”

  They turned toward the quantum computer.

  “I want to go to the zoo and see a real furry,” Alan said.

  “There you have it,” Lin said. “A last request. Might as well grant it while you still can because this whole thing is”— he waved a finger in the air —“hashtag canceled.”

  He whistled to himself and strolled to the door. His posse followed in his coattails.

  “But you can’t!” Mako cried, rushing out of the glass room. “You can’t just cut him off. Alan needs all this hardware.”

  “Miss Mako, what are you saying?” Alan said. “What do you mean by need?”

  “Tan!”

  Tan flicked the switches, shutting off the microphones and speakers on this side of the glass.

  Mako caught up with Lin. “Mr. Han, please, just give us—”

  Lin waved her aside. “You can upload him to the cloud, can’t you? Go find him a nice virtual farm out there in cyberspace.”

  “That’s not how the network—”

  “And by the way, you have twenty-four hours to dismantle this whole business.” Lin gestured to the lab as a whole. “That or say goodbye to your employment. Either way, I’m late for my golf lessons.”

  He and the executive board shuffled out of the laboratory.

  The last one out was Bao. He stopped in the doorway and turned back. For a moment, he looked like he was about to say something. Gloat. Say I told you so. But he just stared at the mechanical mind behind the glass, unspoken thoughts in his eyes. Without a word, he stepped out, and the doors slid shut behind him.

  “Well, fuck,” Tan said.