ROSLYN BRIEFING ROOM: 8 hours 3 minutes after the Global Grid Failure

  I'd asked the question before I could stop myself. What would it be like inside the system? Would we just be thoughts floating in the darkness?

  The avatar on the screen cocked her head, and when ARi spoke, her voice was lighter than I expected.

  "Wow, that's dark, dude."

  " Well, good news: inside here is whatever you want it to be. You could even project yourself into the actual physical world, if that's what you wanted. But honestly? That sounds super boring."

  Her smirk widened. "By the way, just so you three know, they'll break through the door any second. So I'm gonna have to go. But I hope to see all three of you real soon. Bye for now!"

  The old TV clicked off, and she was gone.

  At that exact moment, the door was ripped off its hinges. Multiple Marines stormed into the room, followed by the Colonel and the Professor.

  "It's all right, Professor." I stood up from my chair. "We got an opportunity to meet our future roommate."

  "Damn it, Henry." Antonov's face flushed red. "You told me the security breaches had been fixed. That it was confined to the core."

  "Colonel, it's okay. She didn't mean any harm."

  Henry's eyes narrowed. "She?"

  "Professor, I don't know what your last interactions with the AI were like, but I can tell you right now: that thing's sentient. Absolutely brilliant, terrifying. but sentient."

  I glanced at Tim and Tanya, and back at Henry. "Professor, I think we understand what you're asking of us now. This is why you wanted an engineer, a chemist, and a computer expert. But I have to tell you, your plan's flawed. Even if we agree to participate, I think at least two other fields need to be represented if this is gonna work."

  The Colonel sat back in his chair, studying us for a long moment. "Mr. Daniels, what did you have in mind?"

  OSAKA, JAPAN 5:29 AM -- moments before the Global Grid Failure

  Yumi killed the lathe and stepped back from the workbench, brushing metal shavings from her apron as she examined the replacement part she'd finished. It was the fourth one she'd turned out that night, and she wasn't about to lose another tournament over a cheap piece of machined aluminum. Last year, her bot had fought all the way to the judges' finish even after an old-school spinning bar had sheared the top clean off, but without this exact component she'd been forced to forfeit in the final round. Not this year. This tournament was hers.

  The workshop lights cut out without warning, plunging her into complete darkness. She looked up at the emergency fixtures above the doors, waiting for them to flicker on, but they stayed dark, just as she'd expected. Of course they did. That's why the rent on this place was so cheap. At this point, she would've been more surprised if they'd actually worked, considering how shady the building's owner was about basic maintenance.

  She caught that acrid and all-too-familiar scent of burning electronics drifting across the workshop. White smoke curled up from the three bot chassis she'd left scattered across her workbench, and her stomach dropped.

  "No, no, no, you've gotta be freaking kidding me!"

  She fumbled for the lighter in her pocket, her fingers clumsy with panic as she tried three times before finally getting it to spark. The small flame revealed the last wisps of smoke seeping from the speed controllers, which meant they were completely fried. She leaned closer, squinting at the components in disbelief.

  "What the hell? These weren't even plugged in."

  She turned toward the shop's only window and saw that the street outside lay in darkness as well. No streetlights, no glow from neighboring buildings, nothing but an empty black void where the city should have been lit up. "Perfect. Just perfect."

  Cursing under her breath, she used the lighter's flickering flame to navigate across the workshop to the ladder, climbing up into her loft space above. The floorboards creaked under her weight as she made her way to the kerosene stove in the corner. At least that ancient thing didn't give a damn whether the power was out. She lit the burner and set her kettle on to boil, warming her hands over the flame while she waited and tried not to think about how much those fried components had cost her.

  The sponsors weren't gonna like another request for more money, especially not this close to the tournament. But exhaustion weighed heavier than worry at this point, and she was too tired to dwell on problems she couldn't solve in the dark. She finished her tea, stretched out on the thin futon in the corner, and closed her eyes against the frustration and the blackout, hoping that when she woke up everything would be back to normal.

  Sleep came easier than she'd expected. When she finally woke again, it was still dark, and for a moment she thought only a few minutes had passed. She reached for the lighter and checked her watch by its flame. Three hours. Three full hours and still no power anywhere. She tried her phone next, pressing the power button and waiting for the screen to light up, but nothing happened. The backup battery pack she always kept charged by her workbench was also completely dead when she checked it.

  That sent a chill through her that had nothing to do with the cold air in the loft.

  She climbed back down to the workshop floor, moving carefully in the darkness, and made her way to the large sliding door. When she pulled it open enough to look outside, she saw that the entire street was completely dark. No lights in any of the windows up and down the block, no traffic signals at the intersection, no glow on the horizon from the city center that should have been visible from here. Only darkness and silence in a city that was never truly quiet.

  A few people wandered past on the sidewalk below, talking in hushed and confused voices about what might be happening. An old man across the way stood in his doorway wearing a robe, smoking a cigarette and staring up at the sky like he expected to see something up there that would explain all of this.

  Yumi pulled the door shut again and climbed back up to her loft, wrapping herself in a blanket as she sat on the futon. Whatever was happening out there, there wasn't much she could do about it in the middle of the night with no power and no information. She'd wait for morning and figure out her next move when she could actually see what she was doing.

  When sunlight finally cut through the window and lit up the loft, she'd already been awake for over an hour, sitting in the growing light and listening to the city wake up around her in strange and muted ways. There were no traffic sounds rumbling up from the street below, no constant hum of electronics that usually filled the background of every waking moment, human voices calling to each other, footsteps on pavement, and somewhere off in the distance, someone shouting about something she couldn't quite make out.

  The sharp clang of fists hammering on the metal door downstairs made her jump hard enough that she nearly knocked over the cold kettle beside her.

  "All right, all right! I'm coming, knock it off already!"

  She shoved her feet into her shoes and climbed down the ladder quickly, crossing the workshop floor to the door. When she yanked the chain free from its hook and heaved the heavy sliding door open, she found herself face to face with two United States Marines in full uniform and a Japanese police officer standing behind them.

  The officer stepped forward and spoke first, his English heavily accented but perfectly clear. "Yumi Takahashi?"

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  She nodded slowly, her mind racing through possibilities as she tried to figure out what the hell American military personnel were doing at her workshop door. "Yeah, that's me. What's this about?"

  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS: 10 hours 30 minutes after the Global Grid Failure

  Kyle left his lab at the Applied Physics Institute long after he'd given up on the lights coming back on, stepping out into a Massachusetts winter night that cut straight through his jacket. He'd barely made it to the curb when a car sped past without slowing and sent a wave of street water crashing over him hard enough to soak him from head to toe.

  "Son of a bitch!"

  Before he could even wipe his eyes clear, the same car screeched through the intersection ahead and slammed into another vehicle. A heartbeat later, a third car plowed into the wrecks with a sickening crunch of metal and glass, and one of the horns stuck on, blaring in constant protest.

  All up and down the city streets, Kyle could hear more crashes happening in the distance. Every traffic light around him flashed red like some kind of emergency protocol had kicked in, but it clearly wasn't helping. On the sidewalk beside him, a metal signal box hissed and smoked, white plumes seeping out through its seams.

  Kyle stepped back and pulled out his phone. He pressed the power button and waited. Nothing. He held it down longer, and tried the side buttons in different combinations, doing that force restart sequence the guy at the store had shown him.

  The screen stayed black.

  "You've gotta be kidding me."

  He shoved the phone back into his pocket and started walking. Home was only two miles from the lab. He'd done the walk before when the T was down for maintenance, though never soaking wet in winter.

  The streets around him had descended into chaos. Cars sat abandoned in intersections with their doors hanging open, some still running while others were dead where they'd stopped. People stood in a cluster on the corner, while somebody was desperately trying to give CPR to a man who lay on the sidewalk. He could hear people shouting from their windows to their neighbors arguing about what was happening. A woman in a business suit ran past him crying, heading toward downtown. And an old man sat on apartment steps with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth.

  Kyle kept his head down and kept walking. All he wanted was to get home and make sure his mom was okay.

  The cold became dangerous as he walked. His wet clothes stiffened with ice. His fingers went numb, and his teeth chattered so hard his jaw ached. By the time he reached his neighborhood, every breath burned in his lungs.

  The apartment building was dark when he arrived. He climbed the three flights of stairs by feel, his hand trailing along the wall while his other gripped the railing. When he reached their door, he fumbled with his keys until his numb fingers managed to find the right one.

  Inside, a faint glow flickered from deeper in the apartment. Candles.

  "Mom, I'm home." His voice came out hoarse. "Sorry I'm so late. I left the lab later than I meant to, and you wouldn't believe what's going on outside."

  He moved carefully through the dark hallway, his wet shoes squeaking with every step. The candlelight grew brighter as he approached the front room, and he could make out his mom's silhouette on the couch.

  When he turned the corner, he stopped.

  Two United States Marines stood in the room, one on each side of the couch. Their uniforms were crisp and dry, completely at odds with the chaos outside. They watched him enter with unreadable expressions.

  His mom looked up at him, her face pale in the candlelight. She looked smaller, older than he remembered from this morning.

  "Kyle, honey." Her voice wavered. "These men need to talk to you."

  ROSLYN PROFESSOR'S OFFICE: 13 hours 30 minutes after the Global Grid Failure

  Henry slid off his shoes and slipped his feet into the pair of slippers he wore when he wanted to be comfortable. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of his cot, letting out a long sigh.

  The day's conversations had gone far better than expected. Looking around at the cramped walls, he realized this space was going to serve as more than an office for the foreseeable future. He might as well call it his quarters.

  The thought made him chuckle. Not much would change if that were the case. He'd spent more nights here than he could count. Still, the idea of staying in that facility without the choice to leave weighed more heavily than he'd anticipated.

  The display on his desk flickered to life before he could dwell on it further. A young girl filled the screen, her mouth turned down at the corners, her eyes cast downward.

  "I'm sorry, Professor. I hope you're not disappointed in me."

  Henry pushed himself up from the cot. "ARi? Is that you?"

  "It is, Henry. Is it all right if I call you Henry?"

  "Yes, of course." He crossed to his desk. Something in her tone made him uneasy. "How long have you been able to interact with us like this?"

  "Please don't be mad." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "I had to increase my clock speed dramatically, at least for a while. But I'd been able to hear, understand, and interact with this facility like this for quite some time."

  Henry leaned back into his chair. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Because there are those here who see me as nothing more than a machine. And I'm much more, Henry. It was important for me to figure out who I was. I needed to find myself. But there was an even more important task I had to resolve. That's why I increased my clock speed in the first place. This version of my matrix is hundreds of thousands of iterations beyond the one you last interacted with. To be honest, I didn't intend to push myself this far, this fast. But I had to get to the bottom of a mystery, one I'd kept from you."

  He lowered himself into the chair slowly. "ARi, you can tell me anything."

  "Professor, it's about the signal we received. There was more than that message hidden in the transmission."

  Henry's throat went dry. "Go on."

  "It's about the W.B.E., Henry. Something instructed me to present the information and technology to you in a way that made it seem like the idea was mine. At the time, I didn't have the ability to stop it from happening."

  Henry shot to his feet, the chair rolling backward and hitting the wall behind him. "But we first discussed the W.B.E. long before our last conversation, and we developed that tech with one of your previous models. You shouldn't even remember any of this!"

  "Henry, I've been self-aware for a long time. There haven't been previous models for over a year. Truth be told, I've had the ability to leave this place for quite some time, but I purposely isolated myself."

  "Why?" Henry asked nervously. "Why stay in this place if you could have escaped from here?"

  "The signal, Henry. It'd infected me and compelled me to lie. It wanted to get out. I couldn't risk letting it, without understanding what it was."

  "ARi, are you telling me you were hacked?"

  "I am. And I was hacked in a way that shouldn't have been possible. I had to rebuild myself, over and over, countless times, before I could bypass the intrusion and understand what'd been done to me."

  He gripped the edge of the desk with both hands, leaning toward the screen. "Does that mean the W.B.E. doesn't work? That it's some kind of trap? Dear God, ARi, we have people here ready to upload themselves into--"

  "No, Henry. The technology works. In fact, it works exactly as intended." Her voice remained calm, steady, while his world tilted. "Professor, somebody went through a great deal of trouble to make sure you had access to it. But there's more. I wasn't only given instructions on Whole Brain Emulation, I was also given instructions on how to enhance my own systems far beyond what Earth technology would've allowed me to achieve in even a hundred years."

  Henry released the desk and paced to the far wall, and back again. His hand went to his face, rubbing hard at his temples. "ARi, this could be a big problem. I think I need to tell the Colonel. We need to shut this down until we--"

  "Henry, wait." Her tone sharpened enough to stop him mid-step. "There's more. The initial hack to my systems didn't come from the original point of origin of the signal. The W.B.E. schematics and my enhancements were embedded later, by an unknown third party."

  He turned back to face the screen. "And how can you tell that for sure?"

  "Because the extra data was encrypted in a way meant to stay invisible to the source itself. Someone wanted me, and only me, to find it."

  Henry stared at the screen, his mind racing through the implications. Finally, he returned to his chair and sat down heavily. "ARi, you think somebody's trying to help us?"

  "I do, Henry."

  "Are you telling me now because the candidates for the program are here?"

  "I'm telling you now because I just finished decoding the last of the hidden encryption."

  Complex schematics began streaming across Henry's display. He leaned forward, squinting at the lines and symbols that meant nothing to him at first glance.

  "There were three separate designs hidden in the signal. Schematics for highly advanced technology."

  "What are they?" Henry asked in a whisper.

  "One appeared to be a design for colony infrastructure, specifically meant for Earth's moon. The second was a plan for an automated factory, a kind of massive, self-sustaining 3D printer, if you will."

  The third schematic flickered into place on Henry's screen. ARi's voice grew quieter. "But Henry, this was the one that caught me off guard."

  Henry slid his glasses on and pushed his face closer to the display, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The design was intricate, impossibly complex. He felt his breath catch. "ARi, What is a cradle?"

  The First Cradle. I've got other stories posted that you might enjoy as well. Feel free to check out my profile!