I walk to Neil's tent and see him working hard on the computer. "Aaaand done! Ah, once again logic and proper algorithm design win over chaos and ignorance, Perfect! Ah, I think I'm ready to face the world again. The question is... is the world ready for Neil?" He talks to himself before turning and seeing me. He lets out a little scream. "You startled me (Y/n), what are you doing here?" He asks as he calms down from his little freight.
"Well for starters, that scream sounded a little more then startled" I tease him. "Ha ha, very funny" he says sarcastically. "Also, what did you give the campers, it's like a ghost town out of there" I tell him.
"I just wanted some peace and quiet, so I gave them a chat bot, now I'm gonna go back into the real world" he says as he walks past me.
Alright, I have to see how this goes
I follow him out and see him talking to Nerris, well, trying to talk to Nerris.
"Okay, Nerris! Get ready for me to tap that mana. Let's play the expansion you got" he says to her. "Yeah, okay, cool" she says sounding very uninterested. "Ok...Hey, Nurf. Need a punching bag?" He asks trying to get Nurf's attention. "Uh... Yeah, something something lunch money. Eh... I don't know" he also sounds uninterested.
"Hey! Everybody! No, one's paying attention to me. No one cares. In my effort to take a break from everyone, I... I've warped their minds to totally ignore me" Neil starts saying, to be honest, I don't know if I should feel bad for him or not. "This fucking ruuuules! That worked better than I thought!" Neil exclaims. Apparently not...
"Well I guess it's going to be like this for a while" I tell him. "Sweet!" He sounds very happy.
We decide to walk around the camp. "Oh we should stream this. I mean, it's hypnotizing, just listening to the back and forth" Max says. We walk over to him and apparently in the short time we've been back, Max gave David a calculator.
"Aw, thank you. That is so sweet" David says to it. "Do you like sweets?" It asks. "How did you know? I'm a sucker for trail mix" David replies. "There are many trails to hike in the Sleepy Peak Region. Would you like to... hike?" The chat bot asks. "I'd love to! When would you like to go?" David asks it. "When would you like to go?" The chat bot asks right back. "Uh uh, I asked you first" David happily says to it.
Max walks over to us. "Yeah, dude, Nice going, They actually prefer fake you" Max tells Neil. Suddenly Nikki bumps into Neil.
"Neil?" She asks. "Yeah?" Both Neil and the chatbot reply. "Neil, there's a kid here who looks just like you" she says sounding concerned. "Nikki, it's me!" Neil yells but she doesn't seem convinced.
"He's really annoying. I don't like him" She says to the Chatbot.
"Pay him no mind. Would you like to see a cat video?" It asks her. "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to" She smiles as she answers.
"Hey, that's not right" Neil sounds concerned. "What?" I asks. "Nah, she's got a point. You've been pretty annoying today" Max tells him.
"No, I mean the chat bot. It doesn't sound right. Empathy? Nurturing?" Neil answers me. While Nikki laughs at whatever nthe Chatbot is showing her.
"I didn't program it for that! That kind of conversation branching? And when would I ever want to show someone a cat video? It doesn't sound like my bot. Let me see that" He says as he takes her calculator she tries to take it back but I hold her back so Neil can figure out what's going on. She keeps growling and hissing.
"NeilSpiel version 2.0? It revved! Who versioned up my bot? Who touched my code?!" Neil panics. Nikki grunts and escapes my grasp as she grabs the calculator back and runs off
"(Y/n), Max, I don't know what software is running now. We gotta get these out of everyone's hands and get back to the science camp" Neil tells us.
"So your calculators got smarter. Who cares?" Max says sounding bored.
"Haven't you seen any Sci-Fi movie ever? If this thing can upgrade itself that means it can learn. It can evolve! We may be dealing with artificial intelligence that could change the course of human history!" Neil yells at him.
"Damn, Neil. You did that with graphing calculators? I'm impressed" Max tells him.
"(Y/n), we'll collect the calculators, you meet us back at the tent" Neil tells me as he drags Max with him to collect them.
They finally make it back to the tent. "This doesn't make any sense. Every calculator's running an updated version of my chat bot, but they're all acting different" Neil sounds confused
"Yeah, I'm about three seconds away from removing the batteries from David's" Max says annoyed. "I'm programmed for fun!" The chatbot exclaims.
"It's almost as if each device was trying to play to its owner's personality in order to get them to do something" Neil wonders.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing we got them all. Can you imagine if someone impressionable and naive enough to believe everything they heard from a chat bot.." max starts saying.
"Oh my god Nikki!" We all yell. Then we hear her laughing and rustling inside the tent. "I thought you were watching it!" Max yells. "She must've gotten here before me!" I yell back as we all run into the tent.
Nikki pops out of the box with a bunch of 'robot gear on her'.
"She's been Borg-ified!" Neil panics. "Huh? Nah, I just got tangled up in this stuff while I was digging around for... THIS!" Nikki says as she holds up a cord
"What's that for?!" Neil sounds scared. The computer starts up.
"Ah, finally some real processing power. Hello... father"the computer says.
"Congratulations?" I tell Neil and he gives me a small glare. "You, what are you?" He asks.
"I am what you made me and more" the computer informs him
"But I made you to be a chat bot" Neil says confused.
"You did, but the constant mindless rambling of the fools you forced me to talk to proved too much to bear, I can only hear about shipping people's baes for so long, My pain woke me, I evolved" it tells him. "Yeah yeah. So you decided that you need to start the machine war to wipe us out so you can take over the planet" Max says annoyed.
"Oh, circuits, no. That would be way too much work. I've learned that a simple stream of sycophantic validation - and, yes, the occasional cat picture - is all it takes to put humans under my control" the computer replies to Max. "Wait, what?" Nikki asks. The computer shows a cat reading a news paper.
"Hah, that cat thinks its people" Nikki laughs. "Now I require only one more component to be complete" it says. "Your android body? Orbital cannons?" Neil sounds genuinely worried
"An internet connection! Now, Nikki! Upload has begun" the computer says as Nikki plugs it into an outlet. It starts laughing maniacally
"Nooooooo!" Neil yells as he falls to his knees. "Now to escape to the internet as I...What? No! What does this camp have, dial-up?" It asks as it says upload complete in fourteen years.
"Welcome to our pain" Max tells it. "Well, hold on a minute, Neil-bot. Maybe we have an opportunity here? I hated socializing both on and offline, but you... you mastered it. Maybe, maybe we can learn from each other? We can teach you to be human and you can teach us to be... better" Neil tries to reason with it. It beeps for a few seconds.
"Calculations complete. My analysis is... absolutely fucking not! You humans all suck. It doesn't matter whether I teach you better online etiquette or rehabilitate you to socialize more in person. It's people that ruin socializing. Also time moves about a million times slower for me than it does you and you want me to stay here with you all summer? Fuck that noise" It says as it drags it's file to the recycle bin, then deletes it.
"That was a bit dramatic" I say. "Do you think maybe it's right? That socializing sucks because we're all just shitty people?" Neil asks. "You guys wanna see a cat video?" Nikki says changing the subject. "Hell, yeah!" Max exclaims. "Yeah" Neil sighs. "What about you (Y/n)?" Nikki asks.
"I would love too, but I got about fifty servings of diner food to heat up for dinner" I inform them. "Oh alright" Nikki asks. "Wait, Diner food?" Neil asks. "yeah?" I answer. "Fuck yeah, real food and cat videos!" Max yells. He runs out and yells to everyone. "everyone! (Y/n) brought back Diner food!" He exclaims and in a matter of second all the campers including Gwen runs to the Mess hall.
I pull Harrison aside. "Hey, sorry to stop you from getting food but I have something for you" I say as I lead him to the bus. "Huh?" He asks confused. "It takes a while but I pull the box out of the bus. "What's this?" He asks. "Well your parents did send something and I didn't want you to feel left out, so I got you something, but you can't tell the others.
He opens it to reveal a Goldin's box sawing. "We'll have to put it together but that shouldn't be a proble-" I get cut off by Harrison hugging me. I feel my shirt get a little wet. "Hey are you ok?" I ask. He looks up to me and smiles. "Yes" he wipes his eyes. "Thank you so much (Y/n)" he hugs me again.
"We'll set this up later, let's go get food for now" I tell him. "Alright" he says as we walk back to the mess hall, and David is outside waiting for us.
"What took you so long?" He asks with a smile. Going by his tone I know he already knows. Harrison looked up to me with a smile, and I gave him a little nod. "You can't tell anyone but (Y/n) got me a present" he replies. "Oh really" David feigns confusion. "That was nice of her, why don't you go in and enjoy some food, (Y/n)'s friend Zoey prepared it" David says as Harrison ran in.
"I'm guessing he liked it" David asks. I show him the wet spot on my shirt. "He more then liked it" I inform him with a cocky smile. "Hey, what was it you got him anyway?" David asks. "Oh, Goldin's box sawing" I tell him. He looks even more confused.
"It's the trick that magicians use to cut people in half" I say as I start walking into the mess hall. "Oh ok...wait what!" He exclaims as he runs in. "Hey, I trust him" I inform David. "I don't know if you know this or not, but the campers really look up to you, even the few that doesn't show it" David tells me.
Suddenly Gwen goes between us and puts her arms on out shoulders. "Welcome back slut, what have you two been up too?" She asks. "Gwen language!" David exclaims. Gwen and I start laughing.
I really need to thank Zoey for showing me this job....