Why Not Murder

69. Fantasy

69. Fantasy

"That's that," Harriet said to Maya as they looked at the empty screen. Winnie was still sleeping. Harriet continued, "The Mrs, with my help, is putting the important extracts of these recordings together and is planning to release them anonymously to damn Whittaker Purcell. She has told me that she wants all threats removed from her life."

Maya replied, "I wonder where that will lead given the extremes she has gone to in order to appease her rage."

"Sometimes I doubt her sanity, though of course I would never let her know that," Harriet said. Winnie stirred and rolled onto her side.

Harriet continued, "She's keeping a diary of her nightmares and dreams. She's still waking up frightened but not to the point where she is screaming and we have to rush and wake her so that she can calm down. She keeps a notepad and pencil beside her bed and when she wakes up she jots down everything she can about the nightmare and then writes it out more clearly the following day. Every day she makes entries to this diary. It's not on the computer as she says it's too private, though she does share some of the nightmares with me. She writes the entries in this journal." Harriet opened the drawer in the bedside table and Maya saw a journal locked shut. Harriet closed the drawer and said, "She re-covered it with a floral painting of her design. She doesn't realize the lock is faulty and that the diary can be opened quite easily without a key, even when it has been locked."

"You haven't read any of it, have you?" Maya asked.

Harriet replied, "I've read all of it. She started it a few weeks ago." Winnie breathed peacefully and rolled onto her other side.

Maya said, "I wouldn't let her know that. She's locking it for a reason."

Harriet asked, "It's very interesting because there is progression in her nightmares, like they are evolving. The Mrs isn't emailing Cook on her dream analysis website anymore but I've told Cook about them. Cook says that even though the nightmares change in detail, there is still something very sinister about them. Cook said the Mrs is lying to herself."

Maya interrupted, "I would rather wait to hear about this from Winnie when she's awake. She's walking now and with practice will regain her stamina. It's a miracle."

Harriet added, "Cook didn't think it would ever happen because of her self-deception."

Maya said, "Likewise I would rather hear about what Cook thinks from Cook herself."

"Here," Harriet said working the computer, "I can show you this. She wants us all to read it. It's another story about AI." Harriet called Winnie's short story onto the screen and said, "Hilda, me and Cook have read it."

Maya began reading, "The environment on Earth was becoming hostile to humans. Politicians talked endlessly about the situation, setting all kinds of goals to be reached in order to reduce the planet's toxicity and become favourable for humans once again. Human population was depleting quickly, every generation approximately a billion humans less. Infertility was a major problem. Little did the humans realize that while they were killing off the insects with all the pesticides that eventually infiltrated everywhere on the planet, that they were also killing off themselves.

"Profit ruled. It was the axiom that governed all action and credence, down through the entire human social hierarchy, across all political parties and all human thought. No one questioned the rule of Profit any more than they would question the existence of Death.

"Most humans did not work and were given the financial means so that they would not have to. Artificial Intelligence did all the work and did everything exponentially better than humans could. AI designed and built new AI models. AI learned better than any humans. In fact humans did not have to learn anything at all as a computer program was installed in their brains at birth that would tell them everything they needed to know, doling out the information over the human's childhood when appropriate.