San Francisco, California

Year: 2106

Albert Pincock sat in the dark laboratory at the University of San Francisco’s Advanced Nanorobotics Laboratory deep underground of the John Lo Schiavo building. Nearly 100 years ago a company by the name of IBM created one of the first artificial intelligence by the name of Watson. Initially, Watson was created to sort through the massive amount of data available due to the advent of the World Wide Web and the computer revolution, but it sparked off the AI race of the 21st Century.

Although many technocrats warned the world about the perils tied to creating a real artificial intelligence, it didn’t prevent corporations around the globe to sink trillions of dollars into research for such a machine. By the middle of the 21st century, World War III broke out partially due to AI but mostly due to the merging of man and machine. World War III, soon became known as the Cyborg War, but as far as Albert cared it was the war that shut down any significant opportunity to research in the light of day.

The Boston Accords were finally agreed too after nearly two billion people died in the Cyborg War. In essence, the Boston Accords banned all AI and cyborg research. A little over thirty years ago, the United World Council opened up AI research only to a limited government own research firm that went by the slick name of UNC or United Nano Communication. The goal was to create an artificial personal assistant to help every person on earth with their everyday life. Their contribution to the world came in the form of APRIL.

APRIL (Artificial Personal Research Intelligent Library) was more than just a library as the name stood for. APRIL was made up of billions of nanomachines which each person born in the world was infected with at the time of their birth. Humans were able to learn languages faster and have an Augmented Reality Display within their field of vision. The first generation of APRIL’s was little more than WATSON and would display answers to the questions asked. They scrubbed the Global Internet for information and provided concise answers to you which made sense based on your mental development. Albert graduated from high school at the age of ten and was working on his Nano Engineering Degree by the age of fourteen due to his APRIL infection.

Albert’s APRIL 3.0 was now integrated fully with his body, and he would easily slip into a Virtual Workspace to do research and have full immersion experiences without ever stepping into a physical classroom. APRIL 3.0 also was fully integrated with a voice which only the host would be able to hear. Everything was perfect, except for the fact that people still died from disease and accidents.

A couple of years ago, Albert’s mother died of breast cancer. Albert couldn’t understand how in all the years of advancements where people didn’t even have to travel to a workplace, that humans hadn’t solved the problem of illnesses. Albert contacted the University and requested permission to change his Ph.D. thesis to research how to get his APRIL to repair cellular damage and cure diseases which should have been cured years ago if the war hadn’t interrupted progress. To his dismay, his request for APRIL research was universally rejected and a week later received a cease and desist email from UNC and the United World Council.

Albert decided to ignore the denial and started research anyway, only to have his virtual lab shut down by his APRIL. Not one to take rejection and the invasion of his private research lightly he restarted his research project in the basement of USF’s Science Building. USF was more museum than an actual University since most students attended virtual classes, but there were still some computer labs and old equipment around to use for “historical research.” In other words, students could use the old labs to recreate old technology. It was the Universities effort to help students realize how difficult it used to be for scientists.

Albert leaned back from his computer terminal, another antiquated device, and rolled his neck back and forth to relax his shoulders. Virtual Research was so much easier since you didn’t have to hunch over and hold your body in one position in reality. Most students just sat on a Zero-G couch while attending classes and doing research.

“You know, Albert, UNC will not be pleased if they find you researching me,” his APRIL said.

“It’s a good thing you can’t tell them then. You may have the ability to hamper my research and follow their edicts, but at least for now you’re unable to stop me from doing it the old-fashioned way.”

“I don’t fault your reasoning, but as you know, I’m unable to help you with this project. I’m sorry.”

Albert scoffed. When APRIL shut down his virtual space, he was furious, but after APRIL explained it’s hard-wired to follow UNC restrictions, he didn’t fault his APRIL. Albert refused to give a name to his APRIL since he didn’t want to humanize the nanomachines. They were code and metal. These things he understood. What bothered him was that UNC acted like 1984’s Big Brother and knew when and what he was working on in Virtual Reality. That was unacceptable.

His research led him to a commonly used hack used on a company by the name of Apple. Apple, like UNC, locked out hackers from modifying the user interfaces to their cellular phones. It soon became a race between the company and the public to “Jailbreak” the phone before a loophole could be plugged. During the Cyborg Wars, all cellular networks and devices were turned to trash with electromagnetic pulse bombs set off in an effort to stop cyborgs. It worked but set humans back for twenty years while they rebuilt the infrastructure. The old technology companies died out, and new ones took their place. The Boston Accords put an end to the old world technology, and companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and the likes disappeared overnight. They were banned and blamed and dissolved due to their roles during the war.

“APRIL, I’m going to try again to connect to your communication network. I know you can’t allow this, but I doubt you’ll be able to stop it this time. If all works out the way I think it will, I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Thank you for the warning, Albert, but I doubt you’ll succeed this time either. I really think you should return to your original thesis. Professor Wang keeps asking about your progress, and you keep lying to him.”

Albert rolled his eyes. His APRIL had an annoying ethics subroutine which didn’t exactly prevent him from lying to people or break laws but hounded him about his ethical flaws. It was like having his mother stuck in his head.

He leaned forward to the terminal and loaded up his hacking program once again. Trial and error finally showed him that APRIL was susceptible to a brute force attack. If he could overload the communication sensors, he could sneak in a virus which in theory would grant him ROOT access. In essence, the virus lets APRIL think his connection was from UNC itself.

“Your heart rate has increased you really should take a moment and relax.”

Albert shook his head and executed his attack with the stroke of a key. He, of course, couldn’t feel a thing and his APRIL felt no pain being computer code, but he still flinched when he pressed ENTER on his keyboard. The curser on the screen rotated a spinning hourglass for two minutes, and he began to worry he failed once more. However, luck was on his side when a computer prompt welcomed him.

“YES!” Albert jumped up from his rolling computer chair and lifted his arms in celebration.

“Were you successful, Albert?”

“You can’t tell?”

“I can’t see any differences in my code.”

Albert’s heart sunk as he calmed down, worried that perhaps he hadn’t accessed his APRIL. He walked over to his chair and brought it back so he could sit back down. Calming himself, he typed the code to list the files in the directory.

A list of files and folders began scrolling across the computer screen. It didn’t take him very long before he realized he did, in fact, have full administrative access to all of his APRIL files. UNC was so confident in their security procedures that they never hid their programing language from the public. In fact, UNC would often run competitions for individuals who could come up with improvements to their software. The difficulty Albert had was the communication protocols, and the core language was in a completely different language and largely unknown. By freak accident, Albert came across an old new article where someone used the words Assembly Language when talking about APRIL.

Most people thought Assembly language had to do with robotics, but Albert knew it was the language first used in the early 20th Century to program computers. It wasn’t easy, but Albert found old books well over 100 years old which taught him how to program in the arcane language.

###

Albert spent the next three months researching the code within APRIL and another year working in the lab before he finally felt confident he could change his APRIL code. Nanobots were amazing machines, and they already could manipulate the human genome using a gene-editing process discovered in the early 21st Century known as CRISPR. This discovery is what allowed APRIL to integrate so fully with humans and also explained why they injected APRIL into newborns. It’s easier for the modifications to make their adjustments after birth than when say a child is ten years old. Of course, it’d be even easier if they allowed permanent modifications into the human genome itself, but that too was banned during the Boston Accords. Nothing could be modified that could be passed down from generation to generation. The APRIL modified the RNA to make the modifications rather than the DNA. It was semantics. Humans were smarter, stronger and better looking after the introduction of APRIL than before. However, it made the religious nuts happier knowing direct changes to DNA were avoided.

Albert felt nervous about uploading his new APRIL 4.0 into his own body. He wanted to test it in virtual reality, but since his APRIL prevented research, he decided to test it on himself. The changes, if they worked, would find flaws in his DNA such as Cystic Fibrosis or Cancer and then correct the mistake. APRIL 4.0 fixed the DNA rather than the RNA and thus, in theory, cure disease. He also had it become self-learning for when he contracted a foreign bacteria or virus such as the flu. If a virus were identified his new APRIL would analyze the virus then eradicate it. It would also add code to his DNA that would prevent the same virus from ever attacking him or a child of his. He felt rather happy about that addition.

“Are you sure you want to continue with this fool's errand?”

“Yes, APRIL. I’m sorry, but this change needs to be done. If it works, it’ll save billions of lives over the coming years.”

“And if it doesn’t work?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. I’ve downloaded all my research onto external drives and sent a copy of my work to my uncle.”

“Are you afraid the changes will fail?”

“I’m afraid I’ll succeed.”

His APRIL didn’t respond so Albert cracked his knuckles and returned to the computer. As he went to place his hands on the keyboard, his APRIL spoke up. “Albert?”

He paused. “Yes?”

“Why are you afraid you’ll succeed?”

He took a breath and gathered his thoughts. “I’ve had a lot of time wondering why UNC ordered me to cease my research.”

“And?”

“If I succeed…I doubt I’ll live long enough to enjoy my fame.”

With nothing else to say, Albert pressed enter on his keyboard and saw a word displayed on his screen.

UPDATING…