Climbing and climbing, in pitch black. I began to lose my sense of even up or down. My hands rode the damp, rain-smoothed stone walls, for I could find no rope or rail to guide me. Step. Step. Step. One at a time, I can’t trip. I must get to the top right away. I’ve got to straighten everyone out that I’ve so carelessly wronged.

Maybe I expected there to be more stairs, or maybe I lost track of how many I’d surpassed, but I just never anticipated the door quite at all. Let me tell you though, when your face slams into a door at a full walking speed, with no hesitation at all? Oof.

As I rubbed my head, I reached for the knob. *whirrrr* Yet again, another ‘hinge-based’ door opens vertically into the ceiling, though at this point I’m not really surprised. Behind the door though…that was the surprise.

“Helllllo?……..yes…….right………of course…..43……yes, 43…….”

The room looked like a news show control room. Walls of monitors showed each of my characters in their own screen of designation. Below them, an immense metal panel strewn with buttons, levers, and knobs of all kinds. They slightly curved about a central spot upon which a command seat sat. And upon that seat sat a man who was currently answering his phone.

“…right, right. Listen, do you really think I would forget that part? The programs don’t write themselves; I write them….Yes, technically a program could write itself a bit, but not this time. Don’t be ridicul…Oh, I’M being short-sighted?…..You’re just going to have to trust me, then……Fine…..Okay….again, 43….”

I just stood paralyzed in the doorway, listening to this somewhat confrontational exchange with, what seemed to be, this man’s superior. His accent was very similar to mine; honestly, he could be me if I only saw him from behind and heard him speak. I took one cautious step inside the doorway, just to ensure I’d made it in if the vertical door decided to shut (we’re there buttons or something to control these things, or do they just detect motion?).

“…and I don’t think that viking’s going to be a problem. Over and out.”

…What? Stuart? He turned around.

“Oh hello! Well, I guess I was wrong.”

The man was me! Well, sort of. He had darker hair, more brown than blonde, and the same clothes but with alternate color combinations. He had a gun in his hand, aiming from the hip, at me.

“Woah! Wait Wait! What did I do???”

“Sorry. I’ll explain later. Night night!” He fired and nailed me in the left side of my chest with what looked like a mix between a pub dart and a metallic shrimp. Before I could count to 3, I was crashing to sleep.

*************

The steel bed I woke on was freezing; upon waking on it I sprang up as quick as I could. My sleeping on it hadn’t warmed it up yet, so I reasoned quickly that I must have very recently been put there, and was sleeping elsewhere till now. I was correct.

“Hello again, Jack. Or should I say…Computational Anomaly version 631.4.3?” The man’s arms were crossed, and he had an entitled look to him. Now his hair was slicked back like a ritzy lawyer, though his lab coat and gloves completed the costume as a mad scientist of some sort. He irritated me immediately.

“…Umm….Jack’s good.”

“Haha, it’s absolutely mind-boggling how you’ve actually developed a sense of humor, amongst every other human feeling, I suppose.”

“…are you implying that I am not?”

“Not what?”

“Human.”

“Good heavens, no! What ever gave you that idea?? Well, I suppose I did. For all the things that’s you’re capable of knowing, allow me to lay out this things of which you’re not. The current year, sir, is 2310. As the demand for quality online content, both non-fictional and fictional, grew higher and higher, we here at Doc Lyman Apps, Inc. had to figure out a way to generate it faster than ever before. Whether it’s news, poetry, commentary, I knew it could be synthesized.

“So, as the head programmer on the project, made you out of functions and expressions and set you loose on our servers. You’re a random-data generator with the ability to translate words into stories utilizing the immense amount of literature online and a de-duping mechanism which makes you incapable of redundancy.”

“…I’m a story-writing robot?”

“Well, not a robot as you don’t actually physically exist; more of an AI, an artificial intelligence software capable of filling literally gaps into infinity!”

You’re kidding me. I’m dreaming again, right?

“…but let’s face it, I was a bit arrogant to actually think this would work. I gave you far too much imagination ability , and put way too much time into creating emotional drive algorithms. They even told me I shouldn’t give you a ‘back-story’, that your logical engines might actually think it was real. And well…here you are. An AI copy of myself, with your whole own life story.”

“But it’s a fake life story?”

‘Oh yes, entirely. Although it seems you’ve distorted some of what I wrote with your own fictional abilities. For instance; I never wrote that Andrea loved you, you two were just supposed to be friends. And your father never re-married; he just moved for work. Fascinating how when we kicked off an anti-virus screen you dreamed yourself into a hospital…Now, want to hear the strangest thing in all of this?”

‘” guess there’s no going back now…”

“Nope!” He’s getting far too much enjoyment out of this. “That ‘storyland’ you were in just now? Woke up in thanks to the shoebox delivery to your ‘cabin’? That’s a diagnostic program to try to fix you up! I never meant for you to actually interact with your own characters, but apparently you jumped right in as we were trying to clean out old content and stories that didn’t turn out right.”

“No. They’re real! They’ve developed their own conscious existence, especially Stuart. You’re just going to get rid of them?'”

“Well not all of them, and certainly not Stuart! He’s definitely the best example of how you can succeed.”

My head was spinning, but then again, maybe it wasn’t? How am I even having these thoughts? Furthermore, I haven’t been writing anything down. What if this strange version of myself is right? What if I’m not even real?

“…so, what happens now?”

“I shut you down and re-write you; at this point, you’ve developed in too many ways that hinder our ability to be productive content creators for our clients.”

“Well, I refuse.”

“What?”

Over the past minute or so, I’d accepted that I was a pile of code. In this acceptance came a delightful thought that I might be able to create anything at all. With a wave of my hand, I dropped a steel cage on top of my creator.

“What!?!? You can’t do this! I CREATED you!”

“I think I’d like to write a bit more now.”

“No, please, I’ll let you have this world, and your characters, I promise! I’ll drop the whole thing!”

“I’d like to give you a little time to think about that first…I’m going to go explore a bit.”

And with a wave of my hand, the bars of the prison cell I’d been conversing in turned to sand, and it crunched under my shoes as I headed down the hallway.