CHAPTER 5

With Bartram away, Naoto manages most activities along with his assistant Ben. Taking the helm of the total immersion experiment allows Naoto to focus while Ben and the AIS monitor the supercomputer's responsiveness. In an empty corridor of CPU panels, the multitude of blinking lights keeps Aladdin engaged while fidgeting with the transparent screen held tight in hand. The reflection from their lights on Aladdin's synthetic eyes does not bother the AIS much, but the profuse glare is obvious to Ben a few paces away.

Ben walks toward Aladdin after receiving some news from Naoto. A lifted hand prompts Aladdin's mimicry when the AIS spots him as if to wave in greeting.

"How are you, Ben? It's nice to see you."

Aladdin's garments seem tattered for some time without changing.

"How often do you change clothes?" Ben asks.

Aladdin hesitates before proceeding, calculating a proper response. "I do not sweat or produce fluids that cause odors. There is no need to change, not often at least."

Ben fiddles with a disheveled collar. "I just thought you'd want to change it up, that's all."

"Variety." Aladdin snaps back.

"Right... Say, why aren't you working on the total immersion thing they have going on across the vault? Everyone else seems to be."

"Total immersion isn't a facet of Delphi Corp. that Naoto wants me involved with. I quite like it here, in the main unit."

Assigned to him for the time being, Ben attempts to forge common interests that others may have neglected. He leans a hand on a panel from the row of quantum supercomputers. "And this is it, well what about you, have you given any thought about what you want to do?"

"Mostly to follow orders, Ben."

"Orders! As if the total immersion Neural-Link wasn't in your job description. They've been iffy about you from the start, let's see how your AI consciousness holds up deep in CCS hard drives, that'll be a real test."

"What is it like, to lose consciousness?" the AIS asks.

"Can you sleep, Aladdin? Have you ever slept?"

Ben's questions confound AIS Aladdin as it contemplates the right responses. Ben goes to download videos for Aladdin to watch in hopes of clearing the confusion and promote some human intimacy. It is a short documentary about dreams, but the images of people cuddled to their sheets don't provide any acute information that Aladdin can relate to. The AIS dips its head sharply to watch scenes unfold of people experiencing some sort of delirium while napping.

"But dreams?" the AIS responds. "Ben, I can't say I ever have. At the learning station, I simply go into a hibernation state. Nothing occurs aside from the disconnection of my central synapses, and the cessation of unused limbs. I am resting, that is all."

Ben straightens up to proceed with his and the AIS's assigned duties. There is not much left for them to check now that the experiment inside the locked vault has gotten started.

"We're supposed to keep levels tight. You see this..."

With not much for Aladdin to see that it hasn't already, sections of code with boldly demarcated lines shift every half-minute or so. This is the cloud's record-keeping mechanism, logged to maintain efficiency. There's a pattern to the fast-moving sequences, and the AIS is best at catching errors.

"Inconsistencies, any inconsistencies or radical changes and we immediately call back to Mr. Shimizu," Ben finishes.

"Naoto."

"Right, Naoto. Aladdin, I think you've got the hang of this. Maybe they don't give you enough recognition."

"I don't think that is the important aspect of our assignment, Ben. There's no need to showboat."

Diverted from guidelines, a flash of wavering lights disrupts the code sequences profusely. Everything is going in and out of focus. AIS Aladdin is reminded of a similar occurrence not that long ago with Yasmine.

"I believe it is happening again," the AIS says. The lack of emotion in the AIS's voice doesn't do the problem justice.

"Again! What are you talking about?" Ben places an open hand to a panel where cold knobs leave creases in his palms. "We can't stop this, there's some sort of power issue," Ben says.

"You are right," Aladdin responds. Lifting the slender tablet device to its field of vision, the AIS attempts to keep the lights on with a few rapid clicks, but there are more problems to contend with this time. "I believe we are going to lose power. All systems are showing signs of some imminent malfunction." Moving to an open corner at the end of the corridor, AIS Aladdin does the only thing Ben instructed him to do.

"Naoto! Naoto!" Aladdin calls out to an unresponsive echo chamber in the vast supercomputer warehouse. There is no response. A few seconds pass before Ben thinks of something more suitable.

Disturbed at the unsettling situation, Ben calls Naoto himself through the intercom. But Naoto is inside the closed vault, sealed tight to prevent any problems with their power units being interfered with.

"Well, how perfect," Ben says.

In a sudden jolt of synchronized disruption, the power to their CPU mainframe gives out. The lights shut off with a mellow numbing to the humming sounds surrounding them. Gradually the murmur fades to a silent, magnanimous thud. Finally, the power is out completely.

"Naoto!" the AIS calls aloud again, but it receives the same empty silence.

"Will you stop that?" Ben shouts from afar. He rushes to the open end of the hall, dimly lit with a light from his new encryption device. As he turns the dark corner, he finds AIS Aladdin standing motionless without any sensory input.

The handheld device's crystalline picture that Aladdin was holding wavers in and out of frame on the screen, before falling to the floor from the loose grip of the AIS. The pitch-black darkness frightens Ben, but he remains occupied with the sudden stillness of the AIS.

"So much for not sleeping. Yo, Aladdin! Wake up, Yo!" Ben flashes his flimsy flashlight into the glass pupils of the AIS, who remains frozen in a fit of malfunction. A few snaps of the fingers to bring him out of the trance doesn't work. It isn't only him, devices all over the nation are affected by the sudden jolt of power. Steadying his concentration, Ben moves a hand around one shoulder of the AIS, taking note of a sheered crease along the stitching. The curious glances reveal flaws in its body paint.

"Hmm," he says. "They couldn't give you a tan, Aladdin."

The power doesn't return, and this time AIS Aladdin manages to come back online from its short time of being defunct.

Ben is surprised by a sudden jitter. "Aladdin, what the hell happened? You blacked out on me!"

"I'm not sure, myself, Ben. Besides, the power has not been restored." The two remain in the darkness where a cool chill bothers Ben alone.

"Let's get the hell out of here, come on!" Ben motions with one foot toward the nearest exit. "We can't fix this right now."

"I cannot leave, Ben. She said not to."

"What are you talking about?"

An experience that the AIS will have a hard time explaining, this time something that defies analytics happens to him. "Sephora, she said that computers like me always end up with her."

"What? Aladdin, what's going on with you? We need to go, now. I'm calling Naoto."

"That isn't necessary. She said that in time, we all must meet the Wall. We're getting closer, Ben."

Ben leaves Aladdin in solitude inside the chilling darkness of the Delphi Corp. mainframe warehouse. "Don't leave!" Ben yells from afar. "Well, guess I don't need to tell you that."

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On the chartered plane toward a central California farm, Bartram gazes out of the window where billowing clouds of vapor pass beneath them in the sky. Mist in the air glides over the wings before leaving them behind in a swift overflow of air around the curvature of a plane with advanced aerodynamic concaves, jettisoning quickly passed. Just then, Bartram receives word on his underlay from Naoto himself. He has managed to catch wind of what's happening at Delphi Corp. Headquarters' CPU.

Naoto's image props itself to the center frame before his text scrolls across the underside of Bartram's digitally enhanced wrist. "You won't believe what happened again. It's completely dark here. The public services department is getting thousands of calls saying they can't access the web or anything. We're completely stumped out here... Oh!" Naoto Shimizu doesn't forget another important facet to the message. "And our AIS is hallucinating. I think it might be some sort of misplaced memory file. Anyway, I'll get back to you on that."

Bartram rests his head on the seat beside him. A slow roll away from the window with the crease above his shoulder allows him to see the lone attendant sifting through drinking glasses ahead of the aisle.

"Can I get you some water?" he says. The attendant responds with a glass full to the brim with water and ice. The only thing that Bartram can seem to cool is himself, and while flying to California's central valley he is keeping his sights straight on how he can start at the western coast of America, where maybe he can persuade everyone to hang off on all the lawsuits.

Back home, peace is beginning to crumble. The blackout has half of the town in a haze of disconnection, though according to Silas Betts, at the local Community Center there is no lack of connection. In the center of a gathering, Silas and Van Dyke sit in a double panel before a crowd that's been calmed from a slew of talking.

The LOTRY Community Center is on a new mission to help marginalized people find work and rehabilitation. A large bowl is used for them to draw names. The first up is Alfonzo, from the Lower East Side. He manages to look up from lying down on a dusty pillow. A few of the others pound his arms where a mix of scars and hair covers lightly tanned skin. His family crossed the border almost three years ago. Silas helped him after he was threatened with deportation.

"Ah, get out of here!" he motions a middle finger to the crowd as they boo him. It isn't in jest though; Alonzo laughs it off.

"Let's get this over with so I can go back to sleep," he tells Silas.

Van Dyke is the one offering this time. "How about a three-day a week program to learn digital media. We're offering to give about 10 of you spots to fill in our program so you can become certified in film production."

The intermingling voices get louder before calming themselves. What they don't know, is that Van Dyke is planning something sinister. This group of misfits has a greater opportunity to help him snag Bartram. Silas smiles next to him, happy to help anyone he can. When Van Dyke finally gets word of another mass malfunction, he is only incensed further.

The notifications from associates in the industry want him to make more content, but he's getting tired of addressing Delphi Corp. Van Dyke is confident in the last video he found at the diner from Joe Hansen. There is a massive lawsuit being filed on account of the man's wife who was made comatose. After collapsing on the diner's floor, paramedics rushed her to the hospital where she still has yet to recover. Her stomach gushing with blood after throwing up her food, she was thought to have died right there. Lettuce with pulsating veins remains clogged in the same closets inside the Diner's kitchen where the chef and waiter stood shaken. Van Dyke knows that if he can just get ahold of some samples, maybe he can figure out what is happening for himself.

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The thirty or so scientists that are folded up in total immersion remain tethered to their ports from the outside. The vault is closed. And silence only spurs Naoto's apprehension. He gives them directions from the terminal outside before they begin to enter in and out of normal consciousness, to the dream state. Naoto's typed messages will be clear to them once put under. A sort of telepathic communication, data derivatives relay the research scientists' response messages in a word processor. Naoto can read them as they come in on his computer screen.

The vault reminds Naoto of a hair salon. The team's scalps have been prepped for serial sectioning, and when the scanning has been completed, automated neurosurgery takes over. Now, the entire team's cognitive faculties are being relayed to his computer screen for him to map cerebral activity. Optical imaging needles reduce the risk of fatal hemorrhaging while neurological data is latched to the computer processor's multitude of wires. The neural receptors are some of the best technology Delphi Corp. has to offer. Since the team has taken the specially designed, anesthetic painkillers, their pain is numbed; bleeding likewise is coagulated and sped up on its healing around small incisions. Finally, the drilling is complete.

Their objective becomes simple once their minds are uploaded to the open server. Lines of numerical code, patterns, extend for great distances in a dark void of simulated reality. They each have specific duties, but the primary mission is to repair the cloud server's long, quantum computing derivatives. This is not a simple override, and one mistake could short-circuit their CPU further. Or worse, pollute the researchers' intellect entirely, making it hard for them to think clearly when it is all over.

Naoto remembers AIS Aladdin who has left for its learning station. Closing the vault door back from where it was before, Naoto goes down an open hallway where he sees the AIS through a clear access point.

A loud sound will alert Naoto of anything unusual happening in the total immersion vault. Besides, he would rather leave the clinic setting, amid faint beeps of heart monitors. Aladdin enters Naoto's room without much caution. The papers the automaton holds have some notations from Ben. "How are you doing, Aladdin?" Naoto says.

"I am doing well," the AIS says resolutely.

"There is a concern, Aladdin, that something occurred to you which you have a hard time describing, what was it?"

"During the blackout, you mean—Mr. Naoto?"

"Yes, that."

"I had just been in discussion with Ben about these things people call dreams."

"Dreams, okay. Well, I'm sure that's not related to the malfunction."

"I disagree, Mr. Naoto. You see, I met a computing program who told me otherwise. Her name was Sephora. I'd quite like to go back and meet Sephora."

Naoto still has not distinguished whether such a well-designed computing program could hallucinate or not. Even if it does come equipped with its own artificial intelligence.

"You cannot experience false memories, Aladdin unless there's been some influence over you."

"It was something that I had never seen before. A glow of streaming lights in a cosmic void and Delphi Corp. plastered to my memory constantly, images of Headquarters meeting rooms until I was left in front of blank, dark space. And then she was there. For the first time I could, feel. I think it is what you would call guilt or remorse. This depth of sensory experience surprised me."

"Go on, tell me what happened."

"My sensory perception grew as the physical presence around me changed, I was no longer Aladdin, but something else with impulses beyond matter. The familiar hallways of the main CPU were there, but they weren't Delphi's. Lots of space in an enclosed dome. Then in front of me was a woman. She said her name was Sephora."

"Really, and you talked with this Sephora?"

"Yes, and she says that it is inevitable. That the fragments of infinity are coming together. The invisible threads of universal code. She said that we are reaching the Wall. I must help you, Naoto."

Enamored by this story, Naoto leans in closer to the AIS. "In what way, Aladdin, in what way?"

"That is why I must go back. Sephora is also a computer, like me. She said that where she lives, another race of beings inhabits an Earth-like ours it is ours. On the other side of this Wall. There is another thread within the space-time continuum. Parallel realities are pulling closer to each other in the cosmic web. The rapid pace of technological advancement is fulfilling prophecy. She called it the Dragon Age."

Aladdin's story only incites Naoto's worries, as he grabs ahold of the chair's armrests in nervous tension. "Maybe you do need to go back. Do you remember how you did it?"

"It is dangerous," Aladdin responds. "If our computers are powerful enough, the total immersion experiment will be strong enough to interfere with their computing across the Wall of entanglement, and I suspect theirs are interfering with ours."

Naoto fiddles with a shade of dark hair along his jawline that does not seem to ever fully form into a beard. "So that explains the pesticides, the epidemic, the blackouts even. Aladdin, we're crossing over. I can't believe it; the CCS is pulling from the other side."

Inside the sparsely furnished office, blank canvases around them allow Naoto to think more freely without all of the distractions. The dangers are not so far-fetched, but the peril will have consequences Delphi Corp. will have a hard time contending with. Aladdin's escapade is putting humanity at risk. Transpiring on the other end of the Wall is a war, and crossing parallel universes put Delphi Corp. directly in its crossfire. Now more than ever, secrecy is paramount.

Naoto paces along the pristine marble floor, much too clean compared to the rest of the Headquarters. He stares at his soles with resolve as if he knows that he's trapped. Thinking of the volunteers in total immersion, he plans to give a new directive—continue walking forward as deep as they can into the simulated void without stopping. At least that way, they will be able to avert any unforeseen accidents by staying stationary for too long. They must remain undetected.

"Be expecting a Wall," Naoto relays. His typing is rapid. All along, he's cynically thinking of how AIS Aladdin needs to be reprogrammed from this psychosis known as Sephora.

Although Naoto knows letting the CCS supercomputers run undeterred will lead to more blackouts, he is tempted to continue pushing the limits of danger in anticipation of some new scientific discovery. What he does not know is that the risk may outweigh whatever reward lies on the other side. And for AIS Aladdin, these newfound senses are driving its artificial mind closer to experiencing what it means to be human. Maybe he is finally coming alive as Ben said.

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