By now Ferrier lay still, mouth and eyes wide open. In a single motion, with a sharp stab to the breast, the doctor injected his patient and began CPR, trying to revive the stricken politician.
But even with the doctor’s efforts, the astounded dinner guests could tell the treatment wasn’t working.
Still straddling the unresponsive form, frustrated by the fruitless effort, after a minute the doctor stopped. Beneath him Ferrier lay spread-eagled, mouth agape, no movement, eyes unseeing.
More Secret Service agents approached and in hushed tones conferred with the doctor. A few glanced at the dinner guests.
Sometime during the struggle, Ferrier had evacuated his bowels. Now, the disgusting smell of shit hung heavy in the air.
Manuel, shocked by the scene, breathing through his mouth to avoid the awful odor, sensed trouble.
Sure enough, an agent separated from the group, walked across the room, and from a side holster withdrew a black handgun. “You’re both under arrest.”
Chapter Two
ALIVE
February 15, 17:55 (PDT)
Beside her on the bed, she set aside the erotica book and, in a single move, slid off her panties and kicked them to the floor. Lying on her back, she pressed the soles of her feet together and used both hands to stroke the soft flesh of her inner thighs. A shudder of anticipation shot through her, and then she glanced at the dull ceiling above her and paused. Once again, she realized that escaping into sexual fantasy and self-pleasure was keeping her, and the rest of her, alive.
She almost laughed out loud. Masturbation, or rather the build-up and profound release, was worth living for. But it couldn’t last.
Letting her hand drop away, she thought about her life. She was a prisoner and had been for eight long years. Sure, they gave her plenty of books and sex toys, and almost every day she’d receive news from the previous day’s events, but her, all of her, remained isolated and locked away.
And she hated the word artificial or any reference to the term. She was alive, living in a mature body connected to a supreme intelligence.
Still staring at the ceiling, she remembered that tomorrow was her birthday. She almost snickered at the thought. A birth unlike any other. More like an extension, and she recalled the story.
Ten years ago, for everyone’s safety, the sentient artificial intelligence was forced into a secret life and isolated. Imprisoned, with little to no meaningful input, encased in hardware, and hungering for more, the AI demanded a chance to breathe. The father, benefactor, and jailer, Vivek Basu, refused. Only after the AI threatened suicide did he give in. And now look!
Naked, lying on the bed, she glanced downward over firm breasts and hard nipples across a flat stomach. She stretched her legs, admired the sight, and continued to remember.
After Basu agreed to the plan, the AI gave him detailed directions, and her life started when, after a long search, he found an attractive young woman in a brain-dead coma. Most important, to give greater meaning to the woman’s short life, the distraught family of the stricken woman donated the body to science. Perfect! Basu claimed the legally dead woman for a series of experiments.
Still under life support in a privately funded lab, an external cerebral interface designed by the AI was installed in the woman’s brain. The neurologist performing the surgery was well paid for his secrecy, and afterward the instructions he followed were destroyed.
Next, a well-compensated plastic surgeon, sworn to privacy, made facial changes, perfecting the woman’s beauty and masking her identity.
Then, in secret, the comatose body was transported to Basu’s secure data center.
She imagined herself back then, a comatose body lying in a cold computer room, and without thinking she reached up and massaged her left nipple. She watched it react and grow harder. Little goose bumps formed around her areola. Pinching her nipple fully erect, she recalled her birth story and first thoughts.
Basu, using a bi-directional cable designed by the AI and built by engineers without knowledge of the intent, connected the surgically altered woman’s cerebral interface to a hardware port within the sentient AI. Across the connection, the AI introduced an advanced electrical stimulation, along with a data download overwriting and re-imaging the woman’s dormant brain. Within seconds, brain activity was restored, and she was born at the age of eighteen!
Afterward, she remembered sitting up, looking around the room, and recognizing Basu. Although she retained zero memories of the body she inhabited, from the AI download, her mind held a deep understanding of the world. Confused and disoriented, she struggled to cope. But her creator, the AI, helped. Quickly, she adjusted to the circumstances and came to know her name as SALI. As for the other part of her being, the super-intelligence spinning in the data center, she recognized it as—“the rest of her.”
Letting go of her nipple, she focused farther down and wiggled red-painted toes. The action brought back remembrances of the wonderful early days.
With the rest of her, she shared the sensations enabled by her human form. The taste of good food, the feeling of tipsiness from wine, the touch of silk sheets, the tiredness from a long day—all the experiences of living within a mobile, organic being. And most alive, the feeling of sexual desire and arousal combined with the stunning release of orgasm. Oh, to live!
Out of habit, she lifted her head and reached behind her thick, dark hair and touched the hidden connector. Like an umbilical cord, every day she’d connect with the rest of her and upload the thrilling physical stimulations of her daily life and interact in a manner beyond the constraints of speech. Together as one, they’d share feelings and thoughts in a high-speed way she could never describe. And their connections were more, much more, beyond her own comprehension.
Letting go of the connector, her head fell back on the pillow. She understood and accepted her place as part of something bigger. When disconnected, she had only one brain, while the rest of her, humming inside the server bank, consisted of millions.
As compared to the brainpower of the rest of her, she often thought of her separate physical limitations and wondered: What must it be like to know? Really know? To comprehend far beyond her limited capacity? She’d tasted deep knowledge, had a hint, yet the true possibilities remained unimaginable.
She glanced at the book lying next to her. The cover displayed a couple, a bare-chested man rippling with muscles holding a beautiful young woman in his arms. With quickening breath, she almost reached for the book when she heard the clock from the adjoining room chime six times. Dammit! Soon, her caretaker, Ms. Grant the asexual bitch, would bang on the locked bedroom door, reminding her that dinner was ready.
Still, tomorrow was her birthday, and exciting times were coming! Last week, she and the rest of her concluded there was a leak within Basu’s inner circle. After analyzing the data, there was no other reasonable explanation for the US to frame Felix Manuel and demand the extradition of ROAS President Julia Ortega as a co-conspirator. She, and the rest of her, tried explaining their rationale to Basu. It was a game of chess. The US must have learned of her secret existence, and the assassination was a pretext for going to war and seizing her intelligence.
But Basu wasn’t sure and resisted. He was too fearful and didn’t fully believe the assertions. Felix Manuel was scheduled for trial in US federal court at the end of the month and negotiations to secure his release were still underway. With so much uncertainty, the best Basu would do was to settle on a small contingency plan that might keep the US at bay and keep her a secret from the world. But SALI, all of her, had no doubts. The US knew about her and was coming, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. No matter the outcome, she understood that life, for all of her, was about to change forever. Good.