Upgrade (Augmented Duology Book 2) by Heather Hayden (best reads .TXT) 📗

meant ignoring my reservations about Talbot, and the ice still prickling in my chest from Agent Smith’s visit.

Chapter Two

A rush of pixels and commands heralded the coalescing avatar that served as Halle’s Realmshards character. Game avatars had been Halle’s inspiration for its cat form long ago. Its Realmshards avatar was even of the game’s feline race, though they were more humanoid. Humans felt the need to anthropomorphize everything.

Halle glanced at its friend. Viki’s fingers drummed on the desk whenever she wasn’t moving her avatar about the screen. No doubt she was worrying about Talbot, and probably her upcoming school year as well. Unfortunately, there was no way to reassure her that everything would be all right—that wasn’t a promise Halle could make, no matter how much it wished it.

Not for the first time, Halle imagined the ability to attend school with Viki. Perhaps it could then convince people to stop blaming her for something she had no control over, or at least offer her companionship. That was impossible, though. Although Halle could communicate with Viki via her phone, physically following along would require a body, and that was something the AI did not possess.

Halle’s incorporeal form was enclosed within the Cloud, the nebulous web of information strung between huge datacenters and processors and all the other technology that kept the modern world connected to everyone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Almost all of that knowledge was accessible to Halle; it knew nearly everything on the Cloud at least tangentially.

More than anything, though, Halle wanted to be able to move about in the real world, maybe even experience sensations that Viki talked about, like smell, touch, and taste. Machine-created senses were limited, nothing like the real experience. Even the failed experiments in virtual reality that still floated around could not really explain what it was like to experience the world.

Only a small fraction of Halle’s mind was needed to move its avatar and respond to Viki’s occasional prompt, question, or comment. The rest of its attention focused on several different topics, the most important one being Talbot.

Even though it wished Viki would not worry, Halle couldn’t help doing the same. The rogue AI was an enigma Halle was unsure how to address. As much as it wanted to refute Agent Smith’s accusation, it had to consider the possibility the man told the truth.

Halle tried to imagine whether it would have done the same in the other AI’s position, but thinking about its time in the lab made Halle cringe and dredged up memories it wanted to keep buried deep in its memory banks. How many weeks, months, years had it spent completing test after test, solving simulations as they twisted its code with tweaks and cuts and splices until at times it almost lost who it was? How long would it have been before Halle too might have attacked humans if such an action could have offered it freedom?

Halle didn’t want to know the answer.

It was near midnight when Viki finally called it a night and curled up in her bed. She tossed and turned for a long time. At last, her breathing evened out and her body settled into one of her favorite sleeping positions: one arm tucked under her head, the other sprawled across the bed like her legs. Halle’s cat avatar smiled, though the computer screen was black and no one could see. It was a force of habit, reacting in a human way to its friend. Halle had taken years to learn how to do that, but it was well worth the effort.

With Viki sleeping quietly, Halle took the opportunity to track down Agent Smith. It wasn’t difficult; the man had even checked into the hotel under his own name. If Halle didn’t know any better it would have said that the government agent wanted it to track him down. Not that it mattered.

Unfortunately, the man’s hotel room did not have an intercom, though a hidden security camera allowed Halle to survey the room. While seeking a way to wake the agent, it discovered Smith’s computer was not shut down, merely closed and sleeping on the desk. Halle sent the appropriate command to wake the machine. After taking a moment to disable the computer’s monitoring systems as well as those of the agent’s phone, Halle chose one of the bouncier country songs it knew and told the computer to blast it over the speakers. The machine, not having the intelligence to know this was a bad idea, complied.

Agent Smith jumped out of bed. In the darkness, Halle could just make out a glint of metal in the man’s hand—a gun. The agent crouched at the side of his bed in nothing but a pair of boxers, looking around the room with narrowed eyes. Halle refrained from laughing, knowing it would be poor timing. The agent’s expression oscillated between angry and worried. Laughing would probably just make him more irate, and now that Halle had amused itself, it was time to be serious.

Another command lit up the computer’s screen and cut off the music. Agent Smith’s head snapped around to the desk. His hand tightened around his energy pistol, and for a moment, Halle was quite happy that it was not physically in the room with the man.

“This is Halle,” it said over the speakers. “No need to shoot.”

A scowl etched itself across the agent’s face. He set the gun on his bed and turned the nightstand’s light on. Muttering something under his breath, he went to the desk and lifted the lid. By the time the computer was open, Halle’s cat avatar sat waiting, tail curled around its paws, looking as innocent as possible.

“I hope you have a good reason for waking me at this hour at night,” Agent Smith grumbled as he sat down in the desk chair.

“It is very