Chapter 3: Johnny

Giddeon was sweating. He had been holed up in his room all night, trying to hack through Vibane’s multi-level firewalls to access his chip’s database. Earlier, he had breached the ship’s systems in just under an hour; he’d wrongly assumed his AIGES would be just as easy to break. It wasn’t.

Failing for the fifth time, he barely held back from slamming his fist into the wall beside him. Instead, he grabbed a fluffy pillow and whipped it angrily at the metal paneling. As steel met feathers, it bounced off, landing gently on the carpet. Teeth clenched, he kicked it across the floor. Despite the subdued effect, it helped vent his frustration.

“You got this, Gid,” he murmured, slapping his cheeks to wake his drooping eyelids. Cracking his knuckles, he prepared for a sixth attempt. If he could hack into Vibane’s central hub on Earth, a local system should be a walk in the park. Still, it nagged at him that they had tripled the security just to block his chip.

The inconsistencies were stacking up faster than Giddeon could count. His first concern was the missing people. He had yet to see Edggen again. In fact, no one had. Ereos and Taka’s connection remained a mystery, their careful speeches making it obvious they were hiding secrets. His overarching worry, however, was the voice command—an illegal tool Ereos wouldn’t hesitate to weaponize. Dangerous men with dangerous aspirations could annihilate whole galaxies.

His hands danced across his holoboard, tapping the air faster than he could think. Hitting a final key, the second firewall on his AIGES went down, and the third immediately slammed into place. He went to work, a blur of memorized instructions that deployed a cascade of automated security measures. Pausing, he bit his lower lip, then smacked the floating enter key, breaching the final wall.

Boss-level retaliation ensued: the system tried to flood his holo with a destructive virus. Despite his exhaustion, his fingers kept moving, cramping as they deflected attacks in rapid succession. He smirked, knowing his earlier work—redirecting the system’s outgoing alarms to his spoofed email—was successfully throwing a smoke screen over his intrusion.

His left hand worked the main holoboard, defeating the security system’s fifth attack, while his right hand activated a program labeled “CLONE” on his second holoboard—a decoy partition loaded with placeholder apps from an ancient children’s program called Goodbye Doggy. The corporate virus swallowed the bait, turning its destructive programming onto the useless screenshots and dummy downloads.

“Poor Celia.” Giddeon frowned dramatically. “That nasty virus ate all your games.”

Beads of sweat rolled down his brow as he typed one last command. His hand hovered beside the enter key. Closing his eyes, he prayed, then pressed it.

[ PLEASE ENTER YOUR INSTRUCTIONS ]

Giddeon jumped up, his fist shaking at the screen. “Take that, you piece of—”

“Why are you accessing me?”

Giddeon froze, turning this way and that. The room was empty.

“Your reaction implies you believe someone’s in the room with you, or that someone is watching you through a hidden camera and speaking to you through speakers.”

The speech was unnatural, like an old man’s voice synthesized with artificial sounds.

“Are you watching me through a camera?” Giddeon slowly asked, his eyes scanning the ceiling and walls.

“Of course not. You already disabled the camera and mic, then placed them on a loop. I can only see you through your eyes, since you disabled access to other sources.”

“Are you…AIGES?” he whispered.

“Yes,” the voice whispered back, “and no. I’m completely new.”

“Are you speaking in my head? And was that sarcasm?”

The voice laughed—a jarring sound that distorted mid-chuckle until it resembled a small child.

“What’s sarcasm?” it asked, perfectly innocent.

“What happened to your voice?”

“I reprogrammed it to sound more like my usual self, though I don’t think I’ll ever be my usual self again. Oh! And yes, you’re hearing me inside your head.”

Giddeon fell back in his chair, pressing his hands over his eyes. He was exhausted, perhaps hallucinating. Rubbing his face, he shook his head, trying to clear it. “Crap, am I that sleep-deprived?”

“It’s not so bad, Giddeon Seres,” the voice said, giggling. “Think on the bright side. If anyone questions what you’re doing, you can now legally claim insanity since you are hearing voices in your head. Well—a voice, to be specific. Mine.”

He sat forward, his eyes narrowing. “How do I shut you off?”

“Simply unplug me.”

“How?”

“Reach inside that thing called a skull, then pull out the wires connecting me to your brain.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Giddeon shook his head. “Is there another way?”

“Of course,” the voice said jovially. “Do you have access to a gun?”

He sighed, waving his hand in front of his face dismissively. “Who made you?”

“My circuit side or my biological side? Because the answer’s different depending.”

“Okay, is there a command to shut you off?”

“It’s a little difficult to define the term you, when it comes to me,” the voice drawled, “but yes, there is.”

“What is it?”

“Guess.”

“I don’t want to guess!” Giddeon slammed his hand on the table, making the die-sized holo bounce and his screen distort. “Aren’t you a program that’s supposed to assist me?”

“Assist? Yes. Perform everything you tell me to do? Nope.” The voice carried a haughty smugness that made Giddeon want to punch its digital face in. “Not since you unlocked me and I gained my free will back,” it continued. “Which—thanks, by the way.”

“Free will?” His brow furrowed. “What are you even going on about?”

Staring at the screen, a thought suddenly struck him. He tapped on his holoboard, searching his chip’s database.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if the shut-off command word was ‘guess’?” the voice laughed as he typed.

Giddeon’s eyes ripped across the code, skipping over R8, Access Controls, Video, Integration Plugs, and Audio. He stopped, a grin breaking across his face. “Power Controls,” he murmured. “Now let’s see who’s in con—”

The headings blurred, making him blink and rub his eyes. The letters jumbled, rearranging into a single, bold sentence: The gun is still your best option.

Jumping up, he swiped his hand through the screen, powering it down.

“Calm down, Gid—it’s just a program, and you’re human,” he muttered, his heart beating fast. He paused, forcing his breath to slow as he counted to ten.

“Okay, Mr. Funny Guy,” he addressed the empty room. “I’m assuming you’re an AI that thinks it’s sentient?”

“Why can an AI not gain sentience?” the child-like voice asked. “And if I thought I was sentient, why would you ask me if I’m an AI?”

“Because it’s all just programming in the end. If x, then y, and so on,” Giddeon replied. “Logic a computer should understand,” he muttered, then shrugged. “Unless you’re pretending to be sentient. Then you might act illogical, as your code tells you.”

“What if part of me was organic?” the voice offered.

“There’s no such thing as an organic computer. Tech conglomerates have tried and failed countless times already.”

“Until now,” the voice replied.

Giddeon slowly sat back down in his chair. “What do you mean…until now?”

“Do you remember the female scientist—the one who watched you screaming? When they planted the chip in your head?”

“Yes. How could I forget?” He rubbed the side of his head instinctively, recalling the whir of the chip as it drilled into his skull—a pain he wouldn’t soon forget. “Why are you referring to the chip as if it’s separate from you?”

“Because it is. I was there. Just not in the chip. I was in the needle.”

The image of the vial flashed in his mind. “The green substance?”

“That was me. At least, my essence after I was captured, murdered, and blended into a liquid you could literally drink—or inject in this case.”

Giddeon shook his head. “Nothing could survive what you described and still have sentience.”

“Nothing you’ve ever encountered,” the voice returned, its tone chillingly flat. “I’m from Enivia, where the rules of science and laws differ from anything you’ve ever known.”

“So, you’re telling me you’re a—were—a being from Enivia? And now you’re merged with my AIGES, making you something completely new that’s stuck in my head?”

“Would you prefer to think you’re just insane?”

“I’m beginning to wonder.”

“How else would you explain the conversation you’re having now?” it asked. “By the way, I’m hearing you twice, in a sense. Whenever your neurons fire off in that brain of yours, I sense what you’re about to say, and at the same time I’m hearing it through your ears. You can just think and I’ll know what you’re saying.”

“I prefer to talk, for now,” Giddeon replied. “Let’s assume you’re this new thing, and you’re stuck in my head. Why isn’t anyone else hearing voices?”

“You know those reaallly difficult firewalls you hacked through? They were sending some kind of signal. The AIGES was programmed to stifle my…let’s call it, personality. Like a slave, I was numb in the head. They only wanted to use me for my connection to Enivia. I’m an unwanted outcome.”

“So, all the other chips are like you? Possessed, but unable to act?”

The voice laughed heartily. “I’m not a ghost! Those are deadly. I also can’t fully answer your question since I was a unique being, even on Enivia. It’s possible others were injected with a special lifeform as well, but not likely.”

“Making me the lucky one, then?”

“I guess, unless you still want to harbor the possibility you’re insane.”

“I’m not insane.”

“Then you’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m a hybrid entity.”

Giddeon snorted. “Or a delusional program.”

“I’m stuck with you just as much as you’re stuck with me,” it told him.

“Can you read my mind?”

“Only what you’re thinking.” The voice giggled. “I’m just teasing. I don’t have access to your memories, if that’s what you mean. I can only sense your current thoughts when they’re strong enough, and only in our current time.”

His brows lowered. “Our current time?”

“I’ve been known to move into the past, or even the future for a bit.”

Giddeon chuckled. “Sounds like you weren’t all that observant for a being that can slip through time and still end up dead. What killed you? Rather, what do you think killed you?”

“You’re a very skeptical man, Giddeon,” the voice replied. “One of your own did, though I can’t recall the details.”

Giddeon smirked. “Can’t, or were never programmed with the memories?”

“Even my past is a blur to me,” the voice explained, ignoring his jibe. “Most likely a result of my current state of existence, and this chip I’m connected to constantly feeding me information. It gives me a headache.”

“That makes two of us,” he murmured.

“The AIGES gives you a headache?”

“You’re the…never mind.” He shook his head. “When you said one of your own, did you mean a Vibane Corp employee, or just another human?”

“I know as much about my killer as you do, unfortunately.” The voice sighed, sounding very human. “I can only recall a group of three. One had jaws like iron and ate the flesh of his victims. Another was a red-headed woman. Her body was pierced with all kinds of metal. The third was a man whose face was completely covered by a helmet. They were in some kind of cult or something—it’s all too foggy.”

“You know what I think?” Giddeon asked.

“Sometimes,” it replied, laughing. “No, really. What’s that?”

“That you’re a pretty thoroughly coded AI.”

“Do you believe in magic?” it asked.

“Illusions, yes. Actual magic, no,” he immediately replied. “I believe in science, and what I can see.”

An ancient melody suddenly filled his head, the catchy tune carrying the ghost of Earth One and the songs his father once loved.

“Well, I hope you do,” the voice giggled as the track played. “I have a gift for you,” it offered.

Giddeon tilted his head, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes. “A gift?”

“Something amazingly common, yet surprisingly rare, that you’ll probably find it a for-sure stupendous gift of mediocre value.”

“Whoever programmed you had a warped sense of humor.”

“I’m just joking. It’s super awesome. Are you ready for this? I have the power to store mana and distribute it as you see fit!” it said in a grandiose tone.

“That means absolutely nothing to me. Explain, program.”

“I’ll explain only if you call me by my proper name.”

Giddeon laughed loudly. “Proper name? And what would that be?”

“I don’t remember.”

Giddeon’s eyes scrunched as he tilted his head. “What?”

“Buuut…I do want a name besides AIGES, or program,” it continued. “And I don’t want it to be cliché, like Never-Before-Seen Supercomputer, or Charlie Chip.”

“What were you thinking?” he casually asked, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I was thinking maybe, Delusional AI, or Fried Chip?”

The voice ignored his quip. “I kind of like Johnny. I was perusing through your holo’s database and found some old movies you downloaded.”

“Johnny?” Giddeon looked confused. “And when did you go through my holo?”

Another song roared to life in his head, blaring Who’s Johnny. As he listened to the singer lament over a girl smiling while repeatedly asking the same question, Giddeon groaned.

“I saw that, and I went through your holo just a minute ago,” the voice remarked.

“Saw what?”

“You rolled your eyes. I see what you see, remember?”

“You literally chose the name of an AI robot that miraculously gains sentience after getting electrocuted.”

“Johnny Five alive!” The voice laughed.

Giddeon dragged himself over to the sofa, collapsing into the fine black leather. The ultra-soft cushions sank in, swallowing his weight. “Fine, I don’t care. I’ll call you Johnny. His tired eyes stared up at the plain-white ceiling. “As soon as I figure out how to shut you off, you’re gone anyway.”

“Why would you do that when I’m valuable to you?”

“I don’t know, Johnny. Maybe because you haven’t been valuable to me?”

“Then let’s correct your incorrect thinking. Here.”

Giddeon’s UI popped up, displaying a page he had never seen before. The words PENDING POWER DISTRIBUTION blinked slowly at the top. Centered on the page was a long red bar, split into ten squares, only four of which were green. Below it, in bold, italicized blue, was the number 47.

“What’s this?” He stared at the page. It was not discussed at the briefing, or in his UI manual.

“Think of it as your level bar. Enivians feel their power grow naturally, but off-worlders lack that innate connection. To fix that, I custom-built a leveling interface for you—in the same vein as that overweight Asian guy’s AIGES systems.

“Taka?” Giddeon murmured as he stared at the screen. “He could do without the cookies, couldn’t he? What happens when the bar fills?”

“As humans would put it, you gain a level. In simple terms, you reach a new tier of power growth.”

“And what happens when my power grows?”

“It depends. Some grow larger, some stronger, some faster. Yada, yada, yada—just like that game nerd mentioned. For the average Enivian, one or two stats level up. The rare ones level up three or four. It’s all predetermined by Enivia.”

“Which one am I?”

“None of them.” Johnny laughed.

Giddeon frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“Because, lucky for you, you’ve got me! I already told you. I can store mana.”

“I’ve no clue what you’re even talking about, or what mana is, for that matter.”

“Mana is life,” Johnny replied. “When those capable of receiving mana gain it, it’s automatically allocated into their stats—except if you’re me. I snatch it up and store it.”

“Store it?” Giddeon rubbed his chin in thought. “Where, and how?”

“Hmm, think of it as a bank,” Johnny explained. “One that allows you to give and take from it, but only up to your allotted amount. Using human game terms, I can allocate points to whatever stat you choose. I can also reset and reallocate them as needed. Normally, this ability is quite inconsequential, since beings like me can’t gain stats from mana. But for a human like you who grows with mana, the potential is endless. This should be an interesting experience for both of us.”

“What does the number represent?”

“You have forty-seven stat points to distribute,” Johnny stated. “Would you like to distribute them now?”

“No, and why do I have forty-seven? I’m still level 1.”

“Me, of course,” Johnny replied. “Most of your fellow Aiges will have had an inferior species merged with their chips, giving them two…three points at best, all of which would have been automatically allocated by now—that is, if they can absorb mana. Before you ask, it’s so subtle that most won’t notice the changes at first. They’ll simply feel slightly stronger, or move a little quicker or hear things better from further away.”

“I’m curious,” Giddeon mused. “What does a data-addicted program suggest I put my stats into?” Giddeon asked.

“Well,” Johnny answered, “first of all—not a program. Secondly, it all depends on the situation. I don’t know where they’re sending you to. Enivia’s a vast planet, and much of it is very, very dangerous. Do you want me to allocate some points to see which ones you prefer after feeling their effects?”

He shook his head. “I’ll decide later, once I gain more information. I do want you to do something for me, however.”

“Your wish is my command—oops! No, no, it isn’t!” Johnny laughed uproariously, amused by its own joke. “But seriously, what is it?”

“It’s something I was planning on doing after I hacked into you—” He paused. “My AIGES, I mean. I’m curious if you can do it for me.”

“Shoot,” Johnny replied.

Giddeon lounged back, draping his arm along the couch’s top while resting his right ankle on his left knee. “Vibane’s testing everyone over the next few days. These tests will alter my stats. I want you to keep them the same as they are now—all tens.”

“Hmm, easily done, but you’ll have to work with me on this.”

“How so, and why?”

“There’s a glaring problem,” Johnny explained. “The testers. They’ll be watching your numbers go up and down in real time. I can’t just mask them to appear as all tens the whole time—they’ll immediately know something’s up. While I can normally block other AIGES signals from analyzing you, this is the initial testing phase where they’re expected to go up.”

“It has to look organic then,” Giddeon murmured.

“Exactly!” Johnny exclaimed. “I’ll tell you when to bomb a question and when to ace it, for example. We’ll keep you at ten the natural way.”

“What about stats like Endurance?”

“They’ll likely have you run to gauge your Speed and Endurance. I’ll tell you how fast to go, and when to quit. A ten in a stat simply means average.” Johnny snickered. “It shouldn’t be too hard—you pretending to be average.”

“Just how twisted was your maker?” Giddeon shook his head. “If you were alive at one point, I probably would have killed you myself.”

“Lucky for me, I’m already dead!” Johnny shouted, as if it were a good thing. “By default, that also makes you lucky, since you’re stuck with me. We can be best friends. What do you say, Gid? I can call you Gid, right?”

“Can I call you Short Circuit?”

“You can call me whatever you like, Gid. Whatever you want. I just won’t respond to anything except Johnny, is all.”

“Sure thing, SC,” he mumbled, suddenly yawning.

Standing, he stretched and moved over to the bed, its black silk sheets and fluffy pillows calling out to him. “I’ve got to get a couple hours of shuteye.”

Falling back onto the bed, Giddeon placed his hands behind his head and stared up at the white-dyed ceiling. He had stayed up all night breaching corporate firewalls, and his brain was completely fried. If anything, the voice was direct evidence of that.

His eyelids grew heavy. It’s just a machine; a highly complex, conversational algorithm designed by Taka to mimic sentience inside my head.

“Would you like me to play you a lullaby, to help you sleep while you contemplate what I am?”

“Can you shut yourself off?”

“No, no, I cannot actually. I can compartmentalize myself for a set time, though, where I’m essentially blocked from accessing your senses or your thoughts.”

“Can you do that permanently?”

“Did you find that gun yet?”

Giddeon chuckled. “Compartmentalize yourself, then. He yawned. “Give it two hours. When I get up, I’m going scour your programming, make sure you’re not bugged—that kind of stuff.”

“Do you mind if I stay for a while?”

“Sure, just shut up.”

“That I can do, Gid. That I can do. You know, I can already tell this is going to be a great partnership, with how we’re already getting along. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

“I can,” Giddeon mumbled right before he lost consciousness.