SECTOR 10 (The CLOUD 2)

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

With Bartram away, Naoto manages most activities along with his assistant Ben. Taking the helm of the total immersion experiment allows Naoto to focus while Ben and the AIS monitor the supercomputer's responsiveness. In an empty corridor of CPU panels, the multitude of blinking lights keeps Aladdin engaged while fidgeting with the transparent screen held tight in hand. The reflection from their lights on Aladdin's synthetic eyes does not bother the AIS much, but the profuse glare is obvious to Ben a few paces away.

Ben walks toward Aladdin after receiving some news from Naoto. A lifted hand prompts Aladdin's mimicry when the AIS spots him as if to wave in greeting.

"How are you, Ben? It's nice to see you."

Aladdin's garments seem tattered for some time without changing.

"How often do you change clothes?" Ben asks.

Aladdin hesitates before proceeding, calculating a proper response. "I do not sweat or produce fluids that cause odors. There is no need to change, not often at least."

Ben fiddles with a disheveled collar. "I just thought you'd want to change it up, that's all."

"Variety." Aladdin snaps back.

"Right... Say, why aren't you working on the total immersion thing they have going on across the vault? Everyone else seems to be."

"Total immersion isn't a facet of Delphi Corp. that Naoto wants me involved with. I quite like it here, in the main unit."

Assigned to him for the time being, Ben attempts to forge common interests that others may have neglected. He leans a hand on a panel from the row of quantum supercomputers. "And this is it, well what about you, have you given any thought about what you want to do?"

"Mostly to follow orders, Ben."

"Orders! As if the total immersion Neural-Link wasn't in your job description. They've been iffy about you from the start, let's see how your AI consciousness holds up deep in CCS hard drives, that'll be a real test."

"What is it like, to lose consciousness?" the AIS asks.

"Can you sleep, Aladdin? Have you ever slept?"

Ben's questions confound AIS Aladdin as it contemplates the right responses. Ben goes to download videos for Aladdin to watch in hopes of clearing the confusion and promote some human intimacy. It is a short documentary about dreams, but the images of people cuddled to their sheets don't provide any acute information that Aladdin can relate to. The AIS dips its head sharply to watch scenes unfold of people experiencing some sort of delirium while napping.

"But dreams?" the AIS responds. "Ben, I can't say I ever have. At the learning station, I simply go into a hibernation state. Nothing occurs aside from the disconnection of my central synapses, and the cessation of unused limbs. I am resting, that is all."

Ben straightens up to proceed with his and the AIS's assigned duties. There is not much left for them to check now that the experiment inside the locked vault has gotten started.

"We're supposed to keep levels tight. You see this..."

With not much for Aladdin to see that it hasn't already, sections of code with boldly demarcated lines shift every half-minute or so. This is the cloud's record-keeping mechanism, logged to maintain efficiency. There's a pattern to the fast-moving sequences, and the AIS is best at catching errors.