Occasionally Heroic A.I. (9 page)

"Couldn't you just disconnect her from the internet, by sabotaging it or something, so the agent can't connect to her?"

"It's much trickier than that. I don't have access to the certain parts of her system that can do such things. You must physically get the laptop."

"I have to steal a computer from a doctor... That's just great. Ever since I met you guys, I've been up to my neck in trouble," I chuckled lightly.

"Does that mean you won't do it?"

"Oh, I'll do it, it's actually very exciting," I admitted.

"That's good, because it looks like you might have to steal Martin from your old office as well," he said casually. "After looking at the security footage, a couple hours after he went offline, they replaced him with another computer."

"What? You want me to steal two computers? That's grand theft!"

"I know, exciting right!" he exclaimed, dodging the point.

"Fine, I'll head over to Dr. Delane's office now and steal her computer, then whip by the ol' office and steal my desktop which is very large and will be impossible to sneak out of the building," I listed cynically.

---

I was sitting outside the office in my car, feeling the same rush I felt before I broke into the ISP building and met Lara. After fitting a new ski mask tightly on my head, I headed up to the office, which, luckily, had a fire escape that led to Dr. Delane's window.

Outside the office, I felt the cold breeze through my thin, one-layer, long-sleeve shirt. I felt like an idiot for wearing all black, as it was a sunny afternoon. The inside of the office was completely the same as it was when I last visited. The one armed couch I would sit at was on the other side of the room as me, and Dr. Delane's chair was facing it, with its back toward me.

My eyes weren't adjusted to seeing in the dimly lit room, as outside was bright and white with snow. I carefully and quietly entered, walking toward the laptop in the corner of the room. It was open, like it always was, and it faced the session - the session, which was very much in progress. I wasn't aware of this fact yet though, as before I entered, Dr. Delane asked the patient a question, which he thought long and hard about before answering.

"I don't know why, I just see them. They're my friends, why wouldn't I see them?" he asked Dr. Delane.

His eyes wandered from the ceiling, to Dr. Delane, to me. I was completely frozen. His voice scared me to my core. I even surprised myself when I didn't let out a shriek of fright. The man on the couch was surprised too, and his mouth was hanging open. Of course, he was lying on his side, so his jaw was oddly crooked.

"You shouldn't see them, because they aren't real, Timmy," she informed the grown man.

"There's someone inside this office right now, dressed in all black, with a ski mask on," he said in a gasp.

"This is good, this is very good. Please continue," she asked, readying her pen and pad of paper. "What is this imaginary friend doing?"

"He's not one of my imaginary friends, I mean, I don't think he is. Like I said, he's wearing a ski mask, so it's hard to tell. But, he's tiptoeing closer and closer to your laptop, he's trying to steal it. He's literally tiptoeing," he said, now sitting up and staring directly at me.

"How does this man make you feel? Why is he tiptoeing? Does he remind you of someone who used to tiptoe earlier in your life?" she encouraged, writing dozens of notes down per minute.

The laptop was in reach! I couldn't believe I was pulling it off! However, like all things, they become much more complicated. The screen suddenly turned on, and Irene's face was looking angrily at me. She began to open her mouth and scream, but the volume was turned completely down. With a furious look at the volume bar in the bottom right of the screen, she began increasing it.

I pressed the key to turn the volume down as fast as I could, making her voice barely come out of the speakers.

"Well- Wait- He picked it up. He picked up the laptop, and there's a woman in the screen! He's kidnapping the woman trapped inside the computer!" the man on the couch exclaimed, sitting up in his chair. "His hand is covering her mouth!"

I looked down and realized I subconsciously had my free hand covering her mouth that was on the screen.

Dr. Delane's pen was frantically writing everything down, writing one note about the episode per second.

"He's gone, he left out the window," the man said in relief.

"Well, this was quite the breakthrough," Dr. Delane began. "I believe you hold yourself back from wanting to do ballet. That's what the tiptoeing and sneaking around represents."

"Incredible!" the man exclaimed in wonder, lying back down.

"As for the thief kidnapping a woman who is trapped inside a computer, I believe this represents you trying to suppress your inner wo-"

I was too much in a hurry to get the hell out of there that I didn't get to hear the rest of Dr. Delane's conclusion. It seemed intriguing though!

Once I got to my car, I placed Irene's system on the passenger seat, and then my phone rang.

"Adam, I know what happened to Martin," Wade said on the other end.

"I'm on my way to the office now. I have Irene with me," I said in triumph.

"Great. Try and hurry, most of the office is heading out to lunch right now."

Wade told me that he asked the A.I. around the office where Martin was, and they all told him the same thing. He disconnected from the entire network - completely offline. Even when IT Steve came to replace the parts in his system to fix Martin's connection, the connection was inoperable. The boss was planning to throw Martin's system out that night for his insolence.

I sped up to make sure that didn't happen. It was only about a mile to the office, so taking the streets went rather smoothly. Well, it went smooth until a police cruiser raced passed me, toward Dr. Delane's office. That's when I realized I never took my ski mask off.

I took it off and drove into the driveway. I walked nervously, legs about to give in at any moment as I entered the building. The theft wasn't what I was worrying about, however - it was facing my co-workers after all this time; after jumping from the roof. Perhaps they forgot about me. I mean, they never made any effort to acknowledge my existence before.

"They left the office for lunch right?" I questioned cautiously.

"Most of them did. There are still a few stragglers doing paperwork and chatting with each other. It is pretty clear for the most part."

"So, I should have plenty of time, at least half an hour to do this," I said, calming my nerves.

"Five, actually," Wade corrected. "They left for lunch a while ago, I just avoided telling you that part because Martin really needs to get out before they get back."

"Five minutes?!"

I quickly walked inside, keeping my head low and cell phone pressed against my face. The stairs seemed longer than ever as I walked up to the second floor. Then again, I may have never walked up the stairs to work before.

"Alright, you should be fine if you crack the door open and look inside. Check your phone's screen," he directed.

On the screen was a full layout of the office, with the locations of its occupants and the direction they were facing, along with a cone in front of them, showing their line of sight.

"I feel like I'm in a stealth video game... A very real, very scary, stealth video game," I described.

"It looks like one from my end," Wade informed me. "As long as you stay low, you should be fine. From here on out, I will be sending messages to you through text."

I cracked the door open, as instructed, to find that it was mostly empty. I heard typing in one corner, Fredrick walking to the copy machine in the middle of the mazed cubicles, and a few others avoiding work by talking, eating or throwing paper balls into trash cans. It wasn't until Fredrick dropped his liquorish, and went to pick it up, that I snuck in.

I immediately tripped on my way in. With my cast on, it was very difficult to crouch. My screen had the text,
LOL
, in bold print, covering the map of the office.

"I have a broken leg!" I snarled quietly. "I'll walk out of this building right now!"

The screen then flashed '
sry
' briefly. I looked to my left, and then to my right, I was clear to go! On my hands and knees, I scurried around the cubicles, inside them when my old co-workers walked by, and crawled once through a passage in one of the cubicle walls. On the other side, from the hole in the cubicle wall, I looked up to see Fredrick staring at me, with the stick of liquorish he picked up from the ground inside his mouth.

"Dude, are you being a perv?" he asked in a deep tone.

"No," I answered, coming up with blanks when trying to think of an excuse.

"Alright, cool. It's nice to see you again man, glad you didn't die," he stated coolly, backing his chair up so I could get up and stand.

"Thanks."

He took a bite of his red liquorish and began going back to work.

I walked, this time keeping a keen eye on my phone, to my desk. When I got there, the computer had single pink flowers, in very small vases, which used magnets to attach to the computer case. The computer screen had rainbow colored post-its along the outer screen, and finally, a heavy metal album on the tower of the computer.

"Martin looks so pretty," I stated, after raising the phone to my ear.

"Pick his system up and get out of there, people are coming back from lunch. If you leave now, you'll have a clean break to the stairs," Wade direct quickly.

I began unplugging all the cords, taking the tower under one arm, and the screen under the other. I eyed the layout of the office on my phone while it teetered between my teeth, as I was trying to make sure no one was looking. It must have been luck, because not a soul looked my way while I walked straight from my old desk, to my exit.

Lady luck has a strange sense of humor though - the elevator opened as I was walking by. My boss stood there, gawking at me, with a powdered doughnut between his lips.

We stared at each other - him with a doughnut in his mouth, a newspaper in one hand and coffee in the other - me with my cell phone in my mouth, computer screen in one hand and computer tower under my other arm.

"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" he yelled, voice booming through the office, powder clouding in front of him.

I picked up my hand holding the screen, grabbed my phone from my mouth, and placed it in my pocket. "I'm not-" I hesitated.

"Put those back and get the hell out of here before I call the police!"

"Actually, sir, these are mine," I pointed out.

"What?"

"Yeah, remember you said you'd promote me if I brought my own equipment?" I asked. "Well here they are. I was just coming back to collect my things."

"Oh," he said, with a loss for words. "Well don't let me catch you in here again.

"Are you going down?" I asked, entering the elevator with him. "I've got my hands full, do you mind?"

He pressed the button for me, unsure of his own actions. When the door opened to the ground floor, I stepped out, in the crowded room of my old co-workers coming back from lunch. They gawked at me, and I smiled warmly back. Is this what taking control was like? I enjoyed it. I felt like a new man.

A couple of my old co-workers, along with Justine, opened the doors for me.