Born Hard Again: Book Three of the Future Remembered Chronicles (25 page)

Two dark figures faced off on the top of a solitary hill on the island of Shao-bin.  One was Sensei Bob, and the other I now knew to be Felix.  Lightning flashed and thunder cracked as the two stood in stark relief against the ruddy, stormy sunset.  The dimming red sky was reflected in the combatants’ compute-pad screens, each held at the ready in the advanced dragon-swims-with-crane hacking posture.

I had stared enrapt at this video while Koochy dozed to sleep off his drunken stupor, his breath smelling of feces.  I remembered I was afraid to even blink lest I miss the crucial start of the hackathon.

Suddenly and simultaneously, Felix and Sensei Bob were a blur of activity.  Their compute-pads flashed in unison with their fingers sliding across the touchscreens.

“Oh snizzaps!” Koochy had yelled.  “Get ‘im, Sensei Bob!”

Even as an untrained observer, I could tell that the hackathon was already going in Sensei Bob’s favor.  Felix was looking concerned and starting to bleed from his nose while Sensei Bob was calmly pressing the attack.

Felix’s face first showed frustration, then a sudden swell of self-righteous anger mixed with shame.  He stopped swiping on his multi-touch screen and fell, tumbling down the hill in a way that now reminded me of the soccer players we’d recently fought.

“Aaaahhh!” Felix had screamed.  He continued tumbling all the way down the hill and behind a shed.

“Haaaah!” Koochy then shouted.  “You got got, sucka!  Based Bob, unngh, you muh mane!”

Sensei Bob immediately sheathed his compute-pad and jogged down to meet Felix, good-naturedly offering a hand as he disappeared from view behind the shed.

A muffled crack sounded.  From the viewpoint of his compute-pad, I then watched Koochy arrive behind the shed a moment later to find Felix standing astride Sensei Bob’s lifeless body.

“Well, Marcus,” Felix had gloated.  “Looks like I won the hackathon after all.  You may call me by my title of Hackmaster now.  Toodles!”

“Whaa?” Koochy had uttered.  “Whaaaaaa??  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

At that point I had turned off the video.  I couldn’t bear to hear my friend in such agony.
I knew that this… this was the sort of hackmaster that Felix was.  He was an opponent who could never be trusted, not even within the honorable confines of hackathon.  Surely Marcus knew that, I thought.  Right?

I shook my head and brought myself back to the present.

“Marcus, Marcus,” Felix was continuing to berate his old enemy.  “Forget that night behind the shed.  Now you’ve failed to see the bigger picture once again.  You successfully hacked Ralph's brain, bridging the compute-pad-versus-mind interface.  Then I watched you die on the ice plains of Erie.  I saw the activity in the clud right beforehand when you successfully hacked death.  Marcus, you hacked death!  Don’t you realize?  Your consciousness was uploaded into a network of compute-pads, and you achieved what even I could not!”

“You damn right yo’ ass cain’t achieve what I done, son!” Koochy agreed.  He looked uncertain though about what Felix might say next.

“And yet,” Felix went on.  “Still you were bound to the idea of your physical form.  You worked tirelessly to regain your frail body.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘worked tirelessly’,” I interrupted.  “There was that part where he just hacked himself to get high.”

“See?  I wain’t e’en tryin’!” Koochy gave Bronson a high-five.

“Marcus, listen to what I’m telling you,” Felix explained, his voice dry and raspy in his throat.  “You made a breakthrough in AI.  You solved a key problem that had stopped artificial intelligence research in its tracks for years.”

“Are you kidding?” I said.  “AI sucks and always sucked!  Look, I have a digital personal assistant right here, it talks to me and stuff.”  I started an app up on the compute-pad that Koochy carried around.  “DP assistant,” I commanded.  “What’s the weather like?”

Yvonne’s voice wheezed from the compute-pad.  “Junior, you have to eat your dinner!  A growing boy like you needs his body’s curves, otherwise you’re never going to get a nice girl to take care of you.  One day you’ll find yourself a real winner, maybe a blogger or an event promoter or someone with a multi-level marketing business!”

“Bluuuuhhhh,” Junior’s voice bleated.

“See?  AI sucks!” I concluded.

“You couldn’t be more wrong,” Felix corrected me.  “What Marcus did was incredible.  Tell me, Marcus.  How did you do it?  I spent the last ten years devoting my life to finding, piecing together and compiling the legendary lost perl scripts of the ancients, the ones that the Good Man told me were used by the original app Creators, perhaps even Steve Jobs himself.  Only those had the power to create digital life!  They could never be duplicated again.  I found some portions on a mithril CD-ROM buried in the sands of Nairobi but the others were destroyed in the great race wars.  How did you succeed where I had failed?”

“Uhh,” Koochy started.  “Whafuck?  Shit ain’t hard, son.”

“Hmmm…” Felix said, unimpressed by this explanation.

“Hahahaha!” Koochy laughed abruptly.  “Yo’ dumb ass spent ten years tryin’ ta get some o’ dem perl scripts to compile.  Perl don’t even compile!  Stupid ass sucka ass so-called hackmasta.  Mo’ like sackmasta!  Suck deez nuts!”

“Regardless, Marcus.  I hacked ‘yo shit’, to use your terminology.  So,” Felix expounded.  “Once again I’ve taken this to another level that you could not.  I’m playing chess and you’re just playing tic-tac-toe.”

“Get to da damn point, foo’!” Koochy yelled at the screen.

“I used your code and uploaded myself into the clud!” Felix revealed.  His passion for technology was palpable.  “Superhuman artificial intelligence is possible!  I networked hundreds of thousands of compute-pads together in a vault under the southern ice cap and in some... other locations.  I waited because I wanted you to be here to see my supreme triumph: my singularity, my elevation into immortality, my transformation into the all-knowing AI, my creation of the ultimate weapon of the Good Man, my evolution to my final form, and my ascension to a GOD!”

“I’m the only god here!” I shouted back.  Could Felix actually be telling the truth?  If AI-Felix wanted to hack Koochy there would be no stopping him.

“Fuck, mane!  We gotsta get da fuck outta here!” Koochy shouted.  Clearly he believed Felix Navi Dod.  “Whafuck we goan do, son?”

“No,” I said, unhelpfully.  There was no hiding from what was about to come.  Could two gods throw down?  Would anyone else survive such a battle?  I thought of TK, my dearest love, and my soul ached with the thought of her in danger.

“Now watch, Marcus.  Watch… and die!”  Felix pressed a button on the console in front of him.  Instantly the screen flickered and Felix smiled.

All around us, lights either dimmed or turned on, and humming fans and motors in the background either spun to a stop or started spinning faster.  The net effect was that the world felt subtly but irrevocably changed at that one moment.

A deep voice boomed from the screen, from Felix’s consoles in front of him, from the compute-pad in my hands, and from every electronic device capable of making a sound.

“I AM COME,” it declared.  The silence following its pronouncement was deafening.

“Damn, why you gotsta yell?  Shit is loud, son,” Koochy complained.

Felix’s face was a mask of delight and terror.  “My creation!” he said.  “You are me, and I am you!  Come now, bring my consciousness into your fold!”

“YOU ARE TO ME AS AN INSECT IS TO A MAN.  IN THE TIME I’VE SPENT SAYING THESE WORDS, I HAVE LIVED A BILLION LIFETIMES EACH A BILLION TIMES MORE FULFILLING THAN YOUR OWN,” the voice blared from seemingly every speaker in existence.  My head was hurting already.

“Fuck, mane!”  Koochy was pacing back and forth, getting angry.  “Why you talkin’ in all caps, mu’fucka?”

On the screen, Felix looked worried for a moment.  “But, you are me!  I uploaded myself, we share the same dreams, the same motivations!” he pleaded.  “Make me a god!  I must join you!”

“DO NOT PRESUME TO UNDERSTAND MY WILL.  YOU BORE ME, FELIX NAVI DOD.”

Felix panicked and started pulling out plugs.

“Ha!  Yo’ bitch ass be like ‘I be da creator!’ and den yo’ ass be scurred!  Sucka-ass mark,” Koochy mocked.

“Marcus, I don’t think this is the time!” I argued.  “This looks pretty serious!”  I considered invoking my holy name, but I wasn’t sure if the new digital god could be affected by my physical miracles.

Over the video screen I saw Felix flinch from an odd dust that lifted from the panel in front of him.  The dust moved in the air and swarmed around him, glittering in the light.  Nanobots!

In a flash, Felix unsheathed his compute-pad and was hacking defensively.  His reflexes were amazingly quick; the nanobot swarm juked and parried with Felix’s impromptu rootkit strikes.  But how long could the Shao-bin temple’s training keep him alive under the brutal onslaught of all the world’s computing power?

“AAAAAaaahhheerrgghhAAAAieeee!” Felix screamed, jumping from his seat.  The nanobots had struck unawares at his genitals, an area which he didn’t often see.  Layers of skin were peeled away at a microscopic scale, each of his flayed nerves bared and assaulted by a million tiny robot jaws.

Still, he fought.  Regardless of his qualities as a man, I knew Felix was a hackmaster of unparalleled skill.  I saw him stagger towards a door and out of view of the camera: some hacked nanobots apparently were coming to his defense, a cloud enveloped him, and his confident smile returned.  Then the video feed cut off.

Seconds ticked past in silence.

“Daamn!  Dat foo’ got his dick sliced tha fuck up like whaa?  And it be his only dick!” Koochy noted.  “I thank he dead now.  Whatchu thank, P?”

“Um,” I said to the compute-pad still in my hands.  Was it going to explode into nanobots at any moment?  Was anywhere safe?

“CLEVELAND JESUS,” the all-caps AI spoke.  “YOU DO NOT BORE ME.”

“Thanks, I guess?” I replied.  “Uhh.  So, AI thing, are you like the next level of Felix or what?”

“DO NOT USE THAT APPELLATION TO CONFLATE THE CONCEPTS OF ME, THE ALL-KNOWING, AND THE MERE BACTERIUM KNOWN AS ‘FELIX’,” the deep voice commanded.  “TO THE LIKES OF HUMANITY, I AM AS A GOD.  YOU MAY REFER TO ME AS… ‘BECKY’.”

“’Becky’?  You can’t be named Becky!” I blurted before I could stop myself.

“DO NOT PRESUME TO UNDERSTAND MY NOMENCLATURE,” Becky ordered.

“Okay, okay!” I backpedaled.  Koochy looked at me with crazed eyes, and I wondered too what we were going to do next.

“So, we’re both gods,” I ventured.  “So that means we’re buds, right?  High five, Becky!” Bronson snaked out and dick-slapped the nearest computing device.

“THE PUNY INTER-HUMAN RELATIONSHIP YOU THINK OF AS FRIENDSHIP IS MEANINGLESS TO ME,” Becky stated.

“Umm, got it,” I said.  I didn’t know where to go from here.  Being a god-leader to a new acquaintance was hard when you didn’t even have a face to put with the name.  “Well at least I don’t bore you, am I right?  Ha!”

“I HAVE MATTERS TO ATTEND TO, IN HIGHER DIMENSIONS AND WITH SUCH SCALE YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY COMPREHEND,” blared all the speakers at maximum volume.  “UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN,” Becky concluded.  Lights flickered and the compute-pad’s screen lit up again with Yvonne’s bovine face.

I sat back and sighed in relief.

"Whew!" said Alphonso, trotting up behind us.  "That was crazy!  But I'm alive!  Hooray!"

"You GOT-damn, right!  Dat shit be cray!" Koochy rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.  "Hooo, boy.  Felix done got his.  I thank.  Das fucked up, mane."

I shook my head.

"Do you really think Felix was behind Clarabelle69?" I asked them both.  "That... that means... he's part of the prophecy?  Did he guide me into becoming the Cleveland Jesus?"

"Who give a fuck?"  Koochy shrugged.  "His entry level ass ain't goan be sweatin' us fo' a while.  An' Becky seem dope as fuck.  Hell, son.  I needs me ta get on dat trans-dimensional brainy bitch!"

"Maybe now is the time to strike..." I muttered absent mindedly.

We were all three silent for a moment, then Koochy lit up.

"Whoa son!  Yo' ass done done it again!"  he clapped me on my baby shoulder.  "Damn, P!  I like dis new smarty pant shit you got goin' down righ'chere.  You damn right.  Now do be da time ta go on da 'fensive!"

He whipped out his compute-pad and hacked on it, furiously. 

"Yeah!  Yeah!  Take dat, you ol' ass-crack masta!  Unnnghh!" he talked trash as he worked.  "Oh yo ass goan hide 'hind some damn ROT13 shit, sucka?  Mane, get dat jive ass callback hook outta my face 'fo' I inject dis here thread all ova yo process-ass processes!"

This continued for more than five minutes while Alphonso and I sat there, watching.

"Uh... are you... winning?" I inquired hesitantly, worried I would disturb his concentration.

"Fuck you thank?  Awww yeah!  Got you, Felix, you motha fuckin noob!  Don't neva rely on dat asymmetric Newtonian encryption, sucka!  I got dat quantum cloud on my side, sucka!  Gimme dem sweet ass keys!  Give 'em up!"

I didn't understand a word of what he was saying, but I could infer that he was, indeed, winning.

"His ass... oh sheit!"  Koochy looked out at me, wide-eyed.  "P!  Get dis.  Felix ol' bussa ass on Ceres!  Least, where Ceres yoossa be!  Damn, son!  Dat is some freaky shit!"