Twenty-Nine Cozy Bears

26

His men had caught glimpses of NATili and he had brought her out for the President, but other than these brief moments of exposure, she had remained his. Until now the program had been secreted away in an encrypted area of his computer drive. There it was invisible, the encryption changing the files into what looked like nothing more than blank space with random bits and bytes. NATili was his. But now -- now he was making room for Sara to share the experience.

Sara leaned forward, her focus only for the laptop screen, not sure what to expect. She glanced over at him a couple of times as text rolled up the screen -- creating reports about the elements installed, what was available for updates and so forth.

His first thought, now seeing NATili through someone else's eyes, was there wasn't much to her yet. She had a command pad, and a sprite. A sprite was an image most of the time which represented the user at the controls. They were the lowest form of personage in the computer world. But even if her person-hood had been developed to 3D-4K tru-color with authentic porno jiggle and husky sigh, all bound to the board, mounted inside the Original Packaging, NATili was far more to him than merely a persona.

NATAili had a triangle wedge of blonde hair and wore a geometric blue dress which flared out at the bottom to form the vaguely menacing shape of a pendulum blade. Thirty-Two bit colorization and pixel shapes created something that resembled a pixie or perhaps a flying rat with a wand.

He was the dragon with the virgin in her cage.

When NATAili first came on-line she seemed more hesitant than normal, but that could have been his personal feelings which were much stronger than he estimated they would become. He realized in a rush of insight that NATili wasn't just another project, but something that grew out of him. A mind child. She stepped like a dancer out of her command area and on to the desktop. There she assumed her 'waiting' posture, and'¦ waited.

"Is this a game of some sort?" Sara asked, her voice with breathy whispers of excitement around the .

"Game? Not as such, but a game could be rendered from it, if we dumb her down."

"Well," Sara asked, "what then? What is it?"

"An artificial intelligence which can check itself, verify new information and prioritize her actions."

"An AI? You mean like the Chat-AI's?"

"No, she is more than those, although she wasn't much more, only a few weeks ago."

"What makes her so different?"

The man thought about that, looking for the words, "I suppose in most ways she is, but she has the ability to divine Expectation, and she has the glimmer of Volition."

"And that is better?"

"Not sure yet. I hope so. But things are rarely fair, so just because it was difficult to get these rudimentary functions working, it doesn't mean they will be worth the price of admission."

Sara studied the sprite going through its 'waiting' posture loop. Such activity was given to amuse the user and demonstrate that 'something is happening.' That the program is working. That the computer wasn't frozen.

"It is easier to demonstrate," he said, and then turned on the microphone. "NATAili? We are in a public library in Iran. Find our location and search for services and supplies available which could be useful to us."

"Useful to the mission?" NATAili's voice, a young woman's voice, responded.

"Yes, useful to the mission."

NATAili's sprite spun, and text displayed the words, "Please Wait, Searching..." at the top of the screen.

She did not take long. Her sprite stopped spinning, and text began writing on the screen the words she spoke '" "Right now, we are in a University campus at one of the school's more prominent libraries which is well regarded for researchers in Religious, Anthropology and Sociological studies. There is a WiFi connection which I have connected to, as well as three other networks running inside the building. There is also a light system, and an emergency light system. A sound system, and an alarm system to protect the building from intruders during off hours."

"Good. Do you have access to all of these now?" the man asked NATAili.

"Yes."

"How many people are in the building right now?" he asked.

"Two."

On the sound system, at a low volume, play 'Baby Has An Atom Bomb,' by Fluke."

In seconds the opening notes of the intro began to play on the library speakers.

"Wait," Sara asked, as she sat back, her eyes wide, "did she just hack the library service systems? That easy?"