2: Sleepwalking

He felt just slightly awkward on their flight back to London. Though Yumi had agreed to look into the issue regarding Alice of her own accord, Artemis couldn't help but wonder if she was doing it only for him, and as such, if she'd gotten the wrong idea of how he felt about the AI. As yet he hadn't completely sorted out exactly who it was that he'd come to know and love, but he would stick to his choice regardless. MSH was instructed to do with her as they please; virtually everyone agreed that she was too valuable to destroy, so she was kept in their network, but shackled in a way. She'd escaped before, after all.

But she noticed, of course. Yumi didn't have any particular ability to read his emotions, but after knowing him for a while, living with him, learning his habits and expressions, it was impossible for her not to pick up on the discomfort. He wasn't nearly as stoic as he'd been when they met.

"You don't have to feel weird about this," She said, frankly. "I'm doing this for myself as much as I am for you. "

"Is that so? Really, you don't have to assist with this if it makes you uncomfortable," he insisted.

"I owe a lot to her. She's the only reason I am where I am today. I would never have been brave enough to leave my family, move to an entirely new country, start a new life. If I'd have never gotten into that accident, if she hadn't snuck into my hardware, if she hadn't led me to you, I'd be lucky to be a cocktail waitress right now," She replied, laughing darkly at the prospect. "Or maybe even a stripper."

"Nonsense. I think you're talented enough that you'd have ended up in the music business regardless," He said, trying his best to dodge the last comment.

"You doubt my abilities as an exotic dancer?"

"No, I don't," he said, trying (and failing) not to blush at the joke.  "It's just below you."

She enjoyed a bit of a laugh at his expense. "Seriously, though. You're the only reason I got here.  You were my way in. I owe you a lot, which is why even if I were doing this only for you, you shouldn't feel so guilty about it."

"Fair enough. But you shouldn't doubt that you got by on your own merit once I helped you out." They were quiet for a moment, finally enjoying comfortable silence as they sipped at an acceptable red wine.

"So, what is this all about, anyway? I know Alice is in jeopardy of some kind, but beyond that…?" Artemis inquired, turning away from the small aircraft window.

"I'm not sure. They noticed that some files had been corrupted or gone missing, their equipment was acting up, restarting randomly, stuff like that. Being that she's a high security item, Alice was investigated immediately even though she's more encrypted than most government information. She's there, they found, but unresponsive. They think that maybe I can communicate with her in a way they can't, see what exactly is going on."

"Do they think she's the cause?"

Yumi shook her head. "She's been inactive and I don't think she feels any ill will towards the company. No, whatever's attacking everything else is attacking her, too. If nothing else, I can be a safe… storage space for her, if you will, until they get everything sorted out. She won't be re-assuming control of my body, in case you were wondering."

"Why, though, can't they store her on an external device of some kind?" He asked.

She shrugged. "Maybe they don't think it'd ever be safe enough, even with a room full of armed guards. I'm a mobile, thinking person, so I can evade capture. No would-be infiltrator would think of it. People are aware that MSH has AI-related secrets, no specifics, but I'm still under wraps."

"Are you quite sure about that? It seems like it'd be difficult to keep life-saving technology like your device a secret. Moreover, why would they want to do that? If they're financially motivated, they could make billions. If morally, they could extend our lives by decades." Every answer, he knew, would just bring more questions.

"That I have no idea about. Maybe they think they overstepped their boundaries, or maybe that it's not safe. Maybe they can't recreate it. Perhaps we should ask when we're there."

------


"Thank you again for arriving on short notice," Yumi's father greeted them immediately as they strode into the building, bypassing the receptionist. "This is all a fucking mess. I thought we were better than this."

"Just calm down," she said, trying to keep up with his frenzied pace as they made their way towards…wherever they were going. "We'll get it figured out. You've got some brilliant people here."

"Who knows what's already been leaked? Our secrets are probably being sold away as we speak," he continued to worry. Yumi and Artemis exchanged an uneasy sideways glance. He did have a point, and they could certainly be implicated. "Pardon me if calm isn't exactly realistic right now."

Within a minute or two they arrived at the correct room, as evidenced by a crowd of frenzied scientists at their workstations, surrounded by discarded coffee cups and cables snaking around the floor.

"Over here," he gestured towards an empty seat in front of a large screen with a few applications running. Yumi took her place, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. She rummaged around for the correct cord, knowing they'd have it available, and moved to insert it in one of the two ports hidden under her mess of hair.

"Wait," her father stopped her. "Before you go in, promise you'll withdraw immediately if there's a problem. Alice isn't worth frying your brain over. I'm not betting that if there's a hostile program it won't target you, too, so we'll have to run diagnostics afterwards." Artemis nodded in agreement in the background.

"I'm rapidly approaching my thirties. The over-protective parent thing is a bit old," she chuckled, connecting to the network. "Now, where are you…?"

-----

It was always strange how her own mind interpreted the digital world, shaping the data into information she could understand visually; a grey background stretched to infinite distances this time, creating a desolate feeling.

She stepped forward, her footsteps echoing. "Alice?" She called, reaching out, searching.

In the distance, she spied a humanoid figure sprawled out on the ground. "Alice?" she called again, approaching the figure. Indeed, she'd found the program, her exact likeness.

Yumi knelt at the AI's side to investigate. Checking for a pulse would be inappropriate. But perhaps her breath, or lack thereof, would be a metaphor of some kind?
It struck her as odd that she'd kept her appearance. In this plane, she could be anything—why choose this?

As she was examining her features, Alice jolted up abruptly, pulling a startled Yumi close to her.

"You killed Miriam Fulbright," she said.
-----

Yumi jumped back and yanked the cord from her head. It had only been a few seconds.

"What happened?" The two men said, equally concerned.

"Who… who is Miriam Fulbright?" She asked quietly.

"What are you talking about?" Artemis asked, kneeling by the chair to look into her frozen eyes. "What's going on?"

"I found Alice, and all she said was 'You killed Miriam Fulbright.' I've not done such a thing. What could it possibly…"

"I certainly don't know anyone by that name."

"Nor do I," her father added. "We can worry about that after we run diagnostics, alright? I'm not taking any chances."

-----

The computer hummed softly while Dr. Cohen tensely ran through various checks of Yumi's hardware. It was eerily quiet until Artemis decided to chime in with his question they'd discussed on the plane.

"If I may ask…why isn't her technology well known by now, or at least in clinical trials, or something of that sort? It's revolutionary," he asked, looking at Yumi, who still appeared shaken.

Her father paused. "That's… a long and complicated story. To sum it up, we don't have the schematics any longer, and some extremely crucial people involved in the original project have left the company and gone off the grid."

"Pardon me, but how exactly do you lose that kind of information?" Artemis shook his head in disbelief.

"We didn't lose it," he snapped. "Would you just listen?"

Artemis simply gestured an 'I apologize, please go on.'

"The higher-ups in the company had a certain…ideology in common. They started the company wanting to revolutionize technology, but wanting to be extremely careful about its impact. They felt that feverishly searching for a utopia could be the fastest route to dystopia.

At first, they were proud of the device that saved Yumi's life. It was almost entirely self sufficient and could sustain the life of whomever it was implanted in as long as the body wasn't too far gone. We were that much closer to melding man and machine, if you'll forgive the cliché. It was nothing short of a miracle, I thought. But I don't think they saw it that way. They were afraid of what they created. It was risky enough letting Yumi go abroad and start her own life, but they feared what might happen if the information became public.

They reasoned that it might be disastrous to meddle with death, which this device truly does. We're running out of resources, and they felt that this would do nothing but exacerbate the problems created by overpopulation. I can see their argument, but they became paranoid and obsessed. Eventually, they concluded that they'd made a grave error and deleted every note, every shred of evidence that the project had existed. A good portion of the executive board and most of the scientists assigned to the project left the company and weren't really heard of again. It was like they were driven mad with fear and guilt."

"But surely somebody had the sense to save the information elsewhere? No physical copies? Anything?" Artemis asked, brow furrowed.

"Well, if there is, no one's gone public about it yet. These men were very thorough, regardless, so I do doubt its existence. The only way to re-create it would be to deconstruct and analyze the device itself, which presently cannot be done."

"Yumi, you've been a bit quiet. Are you feeling alright?" Artemis turned to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I've been accused of murdering someone. It's a bit jarring," She said bluntly. "I think I managed to retrieve Alice before I left, but she's gone silent again. I've no idea what's going on."

"Maybe some rest is in order," her father said, wrapping up the diagnostics. "For the moment, it looks like you're safe. We can go at this again tomorrow, but for now, you two ought to go back to wherever you're staying—hotel, I presume?—and work on the jet lag."

"Good idea," Artemis agreed. "It's getting late, after all."

Yumi looked on, somewhere else entirely.

-----

Everything outside of her seemed fuzzy.
She was excessively aware of the feeling of her skin on the starchy linens of the hotel bed, of her every breath, of her slowly beating heart. Artemis repeatedly attempted conversation as they readied themselves for sleep, but was met with monosyllabic responses.
"I don't buy what your father said. Not about the data—I suppose I have to take his word on that—but about you being OK. If the diagnostics can't work out what's wrong with their system, I doubt their ability to adequately check you." He slipped in bed next to her as he spoke.

"I'm fine," she insisted, voice flat.

"Clearly not," he sighed, closing his eyes. "But we'll just have to hope whatever this is can wait until morning."

"Mm."

He was fast asleep relatively quickly, a victim of jet lag despite traveling frequently. Yumi simply stared at the ceiling for hours; midnight passed, then one o'clock, two, three. She was completely motionless, save for infrequent movement of her chest as she drew breath.

At roughly half past three AM, Yumi slowly and carefully rose from the bed so as not to disturb Artemis.

She shrugged on a jacket and moved sluggishly towards the door.

She exited the room quietly, not letting the door shut after her. After a quick trip down the stairs, she found herself walking quickly across the empty lobby; she overheard the night guard on the phone in the office tucked behind the front desk.

The night air was chilly, but not unpleasantly so.
Just down the road, a sleek, black car idled away. Without hesitation, she approached it; a man leaned against the car, awaiting her arrival. He pulled open the door and gestured for her to enter.

Once inside, another figure sat to her right. Swiftly, he withdrew a small packet containing an alcohol swab, ripped it open, and sterilized a spot on her arm.  A hollow needle administering blackness followed.