Artificial(ish) Intelligence

Chapter 117

"Paige?" said Will. "Is that you?"

"Who's Paige?" said the program. It made another blowing noise.

"It is!" said Will, standing. "I knew you sounded familiar. It's me, Will."

"Who's Will?" said the program.

"Don't you remember? No, of course you don't. It's like Libbi. She didn't remember at first, either." He stalked back and forth. "You're a human being, Paige. I just have to find something to jog your memory."

"I have the capacity for sixty-eight billion libraries of Alexandria."

"Bit of a weird metric, but OK," said Will. "Do you remember me at all? My face?"

"I'm not sure," she said.

"I'm a great gamer, so maybe that rings a bell? Do you remember playing anything with me? Nazi verse Alien? Epochs of Civilisation? Murder in the First Degree? Or, oh oh, the other name for it, Kill all the Babies."

The AI made another sound. A cackle? A snicker? No, she was laughing, and it was Paige's laughter. He'd heard it enough times, often as the recipient. "That's a good one," said the AI, which was considerably less A and more H. Still, I think it'd make the most sense to call her Paige_AI.

"Of course you think so, you came up with it," said Will.

"What else did I come up with?" said Paige_AI. She was still orchestrating the movements of Josef's henchmen, who were heading down to the basement level.

"Umm," said Will, "lots of stuff." But he couldn't think of any. "You've put me on the spot. It's like when someone asks what you like about them. Sure, in this case that'd be easy since you're funny and caring and smart -- though not quite as strategic-minded as me."

"Ehh!" said Paige_AI. "You're such a gooba."

"You remember?" he said, hunched over the screen.

"I don't know," she said. "There are bits of memories, like little vids or shots of a screen filled with your face."

Will smiled. "That's because I'm so important to you."

She made a noise like a shiver. "They're all pretty horrifying, really," she added, with a laugh.

It was good to have her back.

She may have appeared to be "back", according to Will's arcane terminology, but she was still carrying out the mission given to her by Josef, as his henchmen bore down on Libbi.