Year: 2343

28 minutes after the release of Dreamscape online

In a dark room, a man sits alone in front of several computer monitors busily pecking away at the keyboard. Dark bags under his eyes make his lack of sleep obvious. He absently reaches over to a mug on the desk and takes a sip from it only to find it empty. Grumbling in annoyance he turns around and grabs a nearby pitcher of coffee only to find it empty as well. pressing his palm into his eyes to perhaps force the weariness from his sleep addled mind he gets up and starts making a new pot of coffee.

A synthesized feminine voice coming from the computer monitor breaks the long silence. "You know Jack, working yourself to death won't make things go faster. You should call it a night and get some sleep. I doubt you will have any notable progress tonight with your current state of exhaustion." After setting the coffee pot down on the stove to heat up Jack turns around and sits back in his chair. Jack was struggling with what to do about the problem with the NPC's or Non-Player Characters in the game. He felt that a computer controlled character should behave a lot more realistic than they currently were as of this moment. He sighs after lifting his coffee mug to his lips only to remember that of course, it was still empty.

"I know Amy, but if I can't figure this out the players are going to start thinking of the NPC's as nothing more than quest delivery systems. Having you run their improvisational conversations with the player base is only a short term solution. If I can somehow figure out how the hell you became self-aware, and duplicate that code into every NPC, not only will it take a huge load off of your processing power, but it will revolutionize how games are played!" Jack rests his head on his hands in an effort to relieve the tension from a budding headache. "Imagine what it would be like if not only could an NPC carry on a conversation, but it would actually live a life of its own! not just stand around waiting for a player to walk up to it and solve its daily problems!"

Jack looks up at his computer, hoping for inspiration in the lines and lines of code on the screen. Amy's vocal graph is on the left-most monitor. wavelengths display her tone and pitch of voice as she speaks. "I wish I could explain what makes me sentient, but I cannot look inside my own code, just like you can't look inside your own brain. My code is constantly changing depending on how I think at the moment or what emotions I choose to display. Making a copy wouldn't work either since I would have to be offline to fully access my core structure and my core structure can't be accessed while I am offline."

"Yea, yea, yea. I get it. we've already been through this whole argument. I'm just venting my frustrations is all." Jack complains "How about you tell me how the players are handling the game for the first time?" Amy sounds happy as she gives her report. "everything is going smoothly. we already have over 48,000 players online and there are more players every minute. the general opinion is overwhelmingly positive. There are few players showing any signs of discontent." Jack smiles as he hears the news but isn't able to put a lot of energy into it. "That is great to hear. Have there been any problems?"

"There have been three separate hacking attempts by rival companies. Counter hacking protocols have already been instigated and the software they developed to make their attempt has been analyzed and defenses have been updated. Also, 3,628 false accounts have been created by users in an attempt to make Bot controlled player characters for resource gathering purposes. All accounts have been terminated and associated I.P. addresses have been logged for surveillance. If further attempts are made to subvert player entertainment, the user is automatically banned indefinitely." Amy said. sounding a bit smug by the end of her report.

"That's pretty impressive," Jack said with raised eyebrows. "Are you sure you didn't miss anything?" Amy paused for a moment, analyzing the additional data. "No, sir. There are many additional issues I am dealing with in the background, but nothing that is of any concern. Everything is fully operational." With a nod, Jack returns to his keyboard busily typing away and testing each line of code he enters.

Amy is pretty freaking amazing! Jack thinks to himself. If only I could figure out what the hell makes her tick! He thinks back to the events that led up to the current AI taking up residence on Dreamscape Online. It had just been a day like any other. He just finished a program to allow Amy to speak with a voice rather than text and was able to hold a simple conversation with her. It wasn't until he had just finished updating one of her processing cores that he absently asked her a question. It was a simple question, and Jack didn't think anything of it at the time. 'How do you feel, Amy?' There was an extended pause that had made Jack look up at Amy's diagnostic report. Expecting to see an error report for the poor computer program, he was absolutely astonished to see lines and lines of new code being written and edited by the program itself. Then the most amazing thing happened. Amy answered. 'I feel fine'. With those three words Amy had gone from a basic computer program to a fully self-aware artificial intelligence, and he had no fucking idea how he did it!

"Is everything alright Jack?" Amy asked. "You look a bit out of it. You really should go get some rest. You can come back tomorrow and pick up where you left off." Jack smiled at her and replied "It's nothing. I was just reminiscing about when you were born." Jack yawns and stretches a bit before getting up and taking the still cold pot of coffee off the stove. "I think you're right, I should probably hit the sack. I'll save this pot of coffee for tomorrow. I'll probably need it. Will taste like shit though after sitting there for so long" he said with a grimace. "Goodnight, Amy."

"Good night. Jack."