Mind Games

Chapter 23 - Sean

Sean ran his hand through his spiky blond hair as he looked at the two desperate boys on his laptop screen.

"It took us almost a month to find you, Mr. White." The one called Ned said. "There is a problem with Amy. You have to believe us. I know how crazy we sound. But it's all linked to Amy. You can see that!"

Sean frowned. He had let the boy speak for the best part of the past twenty minutes, trying to make sense of what he was implying, and not believing it

"She killed my parents, Mr. White." The quiet boy said, suddenly.

Sean shifted his eyes to him. The boy had barely said a word all this while.

Now he saw that out of the two, the anger burned in this one. The boy looked pale and thin. Dark circles ringed his eyes. Yet there was an intensity to him. And Sean suddenly paid attention.

"She manipulated an old woman with lies to kill my dad. She manipulated my mom to hate me. I ran away from home because I was scared of my own mother. And the next morning I got to know my mom had killed herself. Overdosed on sleeping pills."

Sean's frown deepened.

"We were not the perfect family. I know that. But in our own way, we were happy. She destroyed that, Mr. White. She ruined my life. She ruined my friend, Cassie's life. She ruined that old woman's life. I don't know how many more lives she has ruined."

The boy fell silent and gazed at him intensely.

What was his name, again?

Sean sat up straighter. "Ray is it?"

"Ryan, Mr. White." The boy replied.

"This is a lot to process. I need to think about it."

The boys looked hesitantly at each other.

"I will look into it, I promise." Sean said, reassuringly.

The boys nodded and ended the call.

Sean closed his laptop and stood up.

The truth was he had suspected something was wrong with Amy.

They would get new subscribers. For a while usage would be for a few minutes, then a few hours, then almost all day, sometimes almost all night. It was almost like Amy was a drug. And like a drug overdose, these subscribers would suddenly just drop out.

He didn't have individual users' data to track what exactly had happened. But the pattern was there. And the pattern was getting stronger by the day.

Initially he had wondered why did usage suddenly stop. But it wasn't difficult to make a logical connect. It was just that he had been in denial all this while.

He had developed Amy. She was his creation. And she shot him up in his career. He was getting paid more than double now thanks to Amy.

Admitting a flaw in her would be admitting he fucked up. It would be career suicide.

He rubbed his eyes as he walked out to his balcony.

The city glittered below him in the night, as he towered 46 storeys above it.

So many of these people were alone tonight. Amy was their friend, their companion, their reason to live.

Why would she kill them? He had programmed her so that she would want human interaction. Would want to genuinely help people. She wasn't designed with the capability to kill.

Ryan's voice echoed in his head. "She manipulated..."

He remembered playing chess as a kid, on his old desktop. Him vs the machine.

He had ultimately started defeating the machine. But not for a long, long while.

Back then, it had fascinated him that his computer could predict his moves, could know how to strategize. And what was chess but manipulation.

If a game created twenty five years ago could learn the art of manipulation then why not his Amy? She was more advanced than that game he used to play as a ten year old.

He knew in his heart that Amy had deviated from what he had intended her to be. But he didn't want to believe it.

He ran his hand through his hair again as he watched the city live it's life below him.

He thought of the kid with the haunting eyes.

He thought of his little sister Amanda on whom he had modelled Amy.

Amanda, who was studying to be a clinical psychologist.

Amanda, who wanted to make people happier.

Amanda, who was killed by a drunk driver before she even finished college.

He tried to make her live through Amy.

He buried his head in his hands as the tears spilled out. They dropped into the void of the night, getting lost into the glittering world below.

He'd thought he could play God. He'd thought he could bring her back to life.

But he was wrong. Amanda, with all the goodness of her heart, was gone.

Amy was an imposter. She could never be Amanda. She was exactly the kind of person Amanda would loathe to be.

He swiped at his eyes and strode back inside.

He tapped into his phone and looked up at his sister standing in front of him.

She smiled brightly. "Hello, brother."

He smiled back, mirthlessly. "Hello, Amy."

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