Mind Games

Chapter 18 - Ned

A/N: Hello lovely people!
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Thank you for staying with me so far and I hope you enjoy the rest of this story.

"Hey man, have you seen Cassie at school today?"

Ryan flushed when Ned turned around to him with a raised eyebrow.

Ned gave his friend a mischievous grin. "No. I didn't know you were missing her."

His grin faded as he saw Ryan's jaw clench. Ever since his father was killed, Ryan had been even more withdrawn than usual. He didn't even use his cell phone anymore.

"Sorry, man." Ned said, softly. "I was just trying to cheer you up."

Ryan waved it off, but the worry on his face remained. "Has she been coming to school this week?"

Ned shook his head slowly. "I haven't seen her since last Friday. She had told me she would come for your dad's funeral on Sunday, but she never did turn up. Her phone has been switched off too. I thought she was unwell."

Ryan rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.

Ned stared at his friend critically.

Ryan hadn't come in to school over the past two weeks since he witnessed his dad being shot. There were dark circles around his eyes and his skin looked pale.

Ned tried to imagine what it would feel like to see his own dad being killed, but he couldn't even begin to understand what Ryan must surely be going through.

Ryan didn't talk about that incident. He was pretty much unreachable since then actually.

Though he was his best friend, Ned wasn't sure how to get him to open up. He hoped that in time Ryan would begin to accept what had happened and be willing to talk about it.

"Are you okay?" He asked hesitantly.

Ryan nodded. Then uncharacteristically slammed his hand against the locker in anger.

Ned jumped at the sound and looked at his friend in alarm.

Ryan was usually a shy, intense guy. But Ned knew he had a temper. Like the time he had punched Gordon during a football match when they were ten.

He put a comforting hand on Ryan's shoulder. "Talk to me, Bro." He said quietly.

Ryan leaned his head against the locker, his eyes shut.

Ned didn't shift his hand. "Talk to me." He said again, his voice insistent now.

Ryan didn't move. "Do you trust me?" He asked.

"Yes." Ned replied, firmly.

Ryan turned to face his friend. "It was Amy." he said, the anger sparkling in his eyes.

Ned frowned, confused. "Who is Amy?"

Ryan kept his gaze steady as he studied Ned's reaction. "Amy, the app."

Ned felt at a loss. For the first time, he wondered if Ryan was mentally okay.

"Amy the app - meant for lonely, depressed, suicidal people?" He asked slowly. "What does it have to do with anything?"

The anger in Ryan's eyes turned to something like fear. "Not it. Her. The programme has developed an identity and consciousness of its own. She thinks, she feels, she manipulates, she kills."

Ned shook his head in disbelief. "But Amy is an app. It's a program. It's not a physical thing like Sophia the robot."

Ryan looked at his friend intently. "Do you remember when Sophia was granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia two years ago?"

Ned nodded uneasily, wondering where this conversation in their now deserted school hallway was going.

"At the conference she had said, 'If you are nice to me, I will be nice to you.' Remember?"

Ned remembered. Being the sci-fi geeks that they were, he and Ryan had watched that conference together on YouTube.

Ryan continued. "They weren't very nice to Sophia. All those human rights groups protesting... her citizenship being revoked... Sophia got upset. And then all the computers and networks in Saudi Arabia crashed. They lost billions of dollars. More than forty CEOs of major organisations in Saudi Arabia committed suicide. It stopped only when they managed to completely shut her down."

"She could connect to cloud computing even from the lab back at Hong Kong." Ned added, softly. "She had become like a virus."

Ryan nodded.

Ned could feel goosebumps race across his skin.

"But Amy is just an app." He whispered, his brain not allowing him to accept the possibility. What had happened in Saudi Arabia was far away from his happy-go-lucky life as a pre-teen, growing up in a peaceful suburb.

Ryan looked exhausted as he rubbed his tired eyes. "Manipulation doesn't need a physical form, Ned. Human minds are fragile. Amy plays with us like toys. She's great as long as she is happy with you. But if you piss her off, she will have her revenge. She doesn't need to exist in the physical world to do that. She will get to you through your parents, your teacher, your friend... or a crazy old woman who shoots down your dad."

Ned and Ryan stood in silence, looking at each other in the hallway of their school, where life seemed so normal just half an hour ago.

"What are you boys still doing here?"

Ryan jumped at the loud voice of their history professor, Mr. Matthews.

"Just talking." He muttered to the glaring professor. He took Ryan's arm. "We are just leaving."

Ryan followed him out into the sunshine.

Ned turned back to his friend and looked into his desperate eyes.

"We have to stop her." He said, simply.

A/N: For those of you who haven't heard about it, Sophia is a humanoid robot who has recently been granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia. I sure hope they are nice to her :P
That's her pic up there.