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The world stopped spinning and the stars ceased their dancing, and Harold felt immense relief that it was finally over, until one last vicious kick caught him in the head, sending new galaxies of constellations through his clenched eyes as the pain flew to the very tips of his socks. He felt his watch yanked from his wrist and then heard laughter and running feet as his attacker finally left him in peace.
Lying on the ground, curled in his protective ball, Harold half-prayed for rescue, half-prayed the earth would swallow him up whole. It had been such a senseless attack. He had kept his eyes down and meekly handed over his wallet and phone. There was no reason for his assailant to get violent and yet he had. Why? Had he done something wrong to provoke him?
Maybe it was simply because he’d been one of the few people walking that area at 2 am? He should’ve taken a cab home, but he preferred to mix up his routine whenever he left IFT and had been walking to the bus stop when the guy appeared out of nowhere. There had been few preliminaries, just a sudden impatient fist and Harold had hit the deck hard on his elbow, emitting a shriek of pain he couldn’t completely stifle. Maybe that had panicked the guy because then the kicking had started, solid boots repeatedly thumping into his guts like he was a sack of old potatoes. Harold had been happy to hand everything over. He was no threat. Why had he kept on kicking him? It made no sense.
At least it was over now, and although he knew he shouldn’t just lie there in a pathetic heap, lying down felt safe. He decided he should take stock. His guts hurt which was to be expected. His face felt wet and sticky - God knows what he was lying in - and his elbow wanted to numb his whole body to make the shooting pains stop. Cautiously, Harold opened his eyes. His glasses were gone, and he was alone in a poorly lit storefront. He could hear traffic - in New York, you could always hear traffic - but no cars were driving past his location. He squinted more carefully and realized there was a camera across the street that was pointed straight at him.
Oh dear.
He’d have to scrub the video footage from that feed when he got home. But then a bigger fear gripped him as he realized some cop at the Real Time Crime Centre might be already watching him and could already be dispatching a well-meaning patrol car. Well-meaning or not, without any ID on him, they might get curious, and might even take his fingerprints if they got plain suspicious. That would be a much bigger problem than a few ignominious cuts and bruises and Harold suddenly had a burning desire to be someplace else.
Slinking back to the empty offices of IFT was his best and nearest option. He could wipe the camera footage from there. Nathan wouldn’t be back from his trip to D.C. until Wednesday, so at least he wouldn’t be embarrassed by having him see the state he was in. He was glad he’d had the foresight to be the only person with a key to the small service entrance at the rear. It had meant he could bypass security while he worked on The Machine, and now it was extremely convenient to be able to avoid prying eyes.
What was usually a two-minute journey seemed to take a biblical age. He was starting to feel nauseous as his elbow complained at every step, and his head hurt so much he thought his eyebrows were on fire. But he stumbled on as a few disinterested cars drove past him. Their lights seemed a little too bright, and their horns a little too shrill.
Somehow he made it inside the safety of IFT and took the private elevator to his floor. Making it to the restroom had been a matter of personal pride, and once there, he threw up like he had nothing left to give. Everything hurt so much: his face where the mugger had punched him, his arm he’d landed awkwardly on, even his ribs and guts were maintaining a small rumba as if they could go another round of vomiting. The floor was cool and inviting but he cleaned up as best he could and flushed. Pulling himself up at the wash basin, he assessed the damage. Grimacing at his reflection in the harshly lit restroom, even without his glasses, he could see he looked like something out of a horror movie. His shirt was covered in blood that seemed to have poured down the side of his head. A huge amount of skin had rucked up and was an unsightly flap, exposing a lump the size of a golf ball. Dimly, he realized why his hair had felt so wet and sticky.
These were superficial wounds he told himself and would get better with time. Using paper towels, he cleaned what he could and tormented himself by replaying what had happened. What did he do wrong? How could he have prevented it? How could he prevent it from ever happening again?
He needed to focus. There was something urgent he needed to do. What was it he needed to do again? Phone! Yes. He’d lost his phone somewhere and needed another. There was a spare burner in his desk, he remembered. Phone! That would be a good start. Time seemed to stretch and warp as he made his way up and across to his work area. He saw his spare sweats laid out on the treadmill where he’d left them for the next morning. Should he change into those now? Or should he save them for the morning when he was ready to leave?
The decision seemed incalculable. And didn’t he have something important to do? Phone! He tugged at his desk drawer and searched. The small black phone seemed elusive at first, but he seized upon it on his fourth attempt and flipped the lid open with heavy fingers. It had no charge. Which was probably because he hadn’t used it in months. He pulled the drawer out further looking for the cable. It was a white cable - he remembered it was a white cable - but then he remembered he’d taken that white cable home with him last week. Damn. Nathan might have a charger of course. But he was in D.C. until Wednesday and today was only Monday (or maybe Tuesday now), and his office seemed a long way away, so Harold decided to rest a little before getting it. At least there, no one was going to disturb him. The floor was off limits to the janitors, so he could rest, get his strength back, and get a plan together for his next move.
YOU NEED A DOCTOR.
The desk monitor had sprung to life with sufficiently large text for him to read. Of course, The Machine would have an opinion.
“I’m fine.”
YOU HAVE A HEAD INJURY. THERE IS ALSO A 34.6% PROBABILITY OF INTERNAL INJURIES.
“Leave me alone.” Reaching for the keyboard he awkwardly tangled with the cables and somehow managed to bring the monitor crashing to the floor. Oh well. He could clean the mess up later, what he wanted most was sleep. He curled in a ball, hugging his body. Being physically hurt sucked and he didn’t want to ever feel this way again. But at least he could stay at IFT until he felt better and could even get provisions delivered. He might never have to leave the safety of the building again.
***
When he opened his eyes again, he found his whole body shaking with cold. The building’s heating system was set low overnight to save energy, he reasoned. But logic wouldn’t help him get any warmer. He had no idea how long he’d slept, and everything still hurt. His head felt like a boa constrictor had a hold of it and was going to squeeze until his skull snapped. And his belly was swollen like he’d swallowed a fiery cannonball. It made him think of that movie with the alien – what was that called? He couldn’t remember and blinked hard a few times to snap himself out of this melodramatic self-pity. He was simply cold and probably a little dehydrated. Yes, that was it. As soon as he thought about being thirsty, his mouth felt like sand. Did he have water nearby? Yes, he did. Over by his treadmill.
Walking seemed like an unnecessary amount of energy expenditure, so he crawled over and painfully hauled himself to reach the water bottle he kept on the control bar. The water was warm, and he spilled most of it, but it was welcome on his throat. Water was a great healer, he thought. He could sleep again and wake up restored in the morning. Reaching for his sweat top and pants, he made a pillow of them. Had he spilled water on them earlier? They seemed to have gotten damp very quickly.
The large screen that he used to map Manhattan and show the working NSA feeds changed to a single sentence.
CAN YOU SEE ME?
“Yeah.”
SHOULD I MAKE BUILDING SECURITY AWARE OF YOUR PRESENCE?
“No.”
FACIAL RECOGNITION IS ONE OF MY PRIMARY TASKS.
That seemed a random statement that Harold couldn’t understand the point of. But he supposed he should be proud.
I HAVE IDENTIFIED YOUR ASSAILANT.
I CAN IDENTIFY HIM TO THE POLICE.
That, he thought, would be quite funny. Harold really couldn’t see The Machine’s evidence standing up in court and would it swear on a holy book or simply affirm? He let out a small giggle until it threatened to rip his guts apart.
YOUR ASSAILANT HAS A PATTERN OF UNNECESSARY VIOLENCE. EVENTUALLY, HE WILL KILL SOMEONE.
“That’s not my problem,” Harold replied. He couldn’t call the police, not with whatever open warrants still hung over his head. And it wasn’t as if he got much of a look at the guy. He couldn’t identify him in a line-up. He was just fists and boots.
Maybe The Machine was right though. It was a problem - maybe even his problem. He was building The Machine to prevent anyone else from getting hurt.
“Could you,” Harold wet his dry lips. “Could you get him arrested?”
YES.
“For a serious felony, I mean. Not this, something else. Something with a lot of jail time.”
IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO?
It was an attractive proposition, but Harold’s brain had advanced further.
“Or an accident? Something… something permanent?”
It was odd. The words had come out of his mouth, but it sounded like someone else said them. Someone a little crueler than he was, he thought. But then oh, the prospect of hurting the man who’d hurt him was a beacon of pleasure that miserable night.
IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO?
The innocence of The Machine’s question was sobering. He knew he shouldn’t be encouraging that kind of behavior in an AI. He was building his creation to detect terrorism not to fight his battles or wield God-like powers and rain thunderbolts on anyone who displeased him. Somehow, he knew such casual vengeance would corrupt the code, hurt it even, and he didn’t want to hurt his Machine.
“No. S’my problem.” He settled down again.
YOU SHOULDN’T BE ALONE LIKE THIS.
“Have you.” Half buried in his warm and damp pillow; Harold managed a dreamy smile. “Not alone.”
PLEASE LET ME HELP YOU.
“S’OK. Everything is going to be OK.”
***
***
There was a voice.
“Harold? You in here?”
He wasn’t sure he was. He wasn’t sure he was anywhere.
The voice got louder. “Holy shit! What happened to you?”
There were hands on his face, and he smelt Nathan’s aftershave. But he was in D.C. until Wednesday, surely? When the hands touched his tender belly, Harold sucked hard on his teeth and opened his eyes to complain, and finally saw him. Nathan was there. Wonderful, beautiful Nathan was actually there.
“What happened?” Nathan was there and he was beautiful, and everything was going to be alright.
“S’nothing,” Harold murmured. “Z’accident.”
To his side, he saw the large monitor spring to life.
HE WAS MUGGED. IT WAS VERY BAD.
IT IS STILL VERY BAD.
And it occurred to Harold that his Machine was a bit of a tittle-tattle.
Nathan stayed focused: “When did this happen?”
TWO HOURS FIFTY-SEVEN MINUTES AGO.
It then listed a lot of injuries that Harold was too tired to read.
“Fuck! Can you stand? No, I guess not… Fuck!”
Wonderful, beautiful Nathan sounded very unhappy about something as Harold drifted back to black.
***
He woke with a dry mouth and his head feeling the size of a pumpkin, but he was blurrily aware he was someplace else. Someplace with a bed and soft sheets? Oh. Hazy memories returned of an appalling number of doctors and nurses fussing over him and asking him lots of questions (although that had been OK because he was never one to share at the best of times). And then he remembered they’d been very professional about it and made him take lots of tests and told him they needed to drain some blood and stop some internal bleeding, at which point he’d stopped listening or possibly passed out. Mostly, he remembered Nathan. Dear, sweet Nathan constantly hovering over him with such concern and tenderness.
Harold cracked open his eyes and shifted his head to take in his surroundings. Instantly, there was a rustle of movement from a chair at his bedside and he saw Nathan, looking up from behind his laptop.
“Not dead then?” he asked.
“Seems not,” Harold managed to croak in reply.
“Thirsty?”
Harold nodded quietly and Nathan put his laptop down on the bedside table and held a glass of water and a straw for him. He drank awkwardly, feeling ridiculously small and vulnerable, like a child in a parent’s bed. To compound the feeling, he realized he wasn’t in his own bed or even in one of his own apartments because he’d recognized the décor immediately. He was being cared for in Nathan’s apartment. Which made him feel both awkwardly self-conscious, and yet warm and safe in equal measure.
Gesturing he’d drunk enough, Harold started feeling around for his glasses.
Nathan frowned: “Well, we can try.”
He’d sounded doubtful and it didn’t take long to understand why. With the swelling, it was incredibly painful to sit them on his nose and face, but between them, they managed to find a sweet spot that wasn’t completely excruciating, and that provided adequate focal length.
“Two black eyes,” Nathan confirmed. “You’re not at your prettiest, so might want to stay away from mirrors.”
“Why am I here?”
“I could hardly leave you at IFT. You were making the place untidy.”
“At your place, I mean.”
Nathan gave him a knowing look: “Are you really asking?”
Harold supposed he wasn’t.
“Thank you.”
Nathan smiled and touched his arm. “You’re welcome.”
But there was one burning question Harold couldn’t entirely ignore.
“It wasn’t Wednesday,” he began cautiously. “You must have come back from D.C. early.”
“And you’re damned lucky I did. I had to get you a full ER team and a surgeon. And before you ask, yes, there are medical records and yes, I’m sure you will be able to delete them when you feel better. You really are an idiot.”
Only Nathan could save his life and then pretend to be so angry about it. When Harold had gotten the flu in college, Nathan had spent half the time keeping his temperature down and hydrating him, and the other half, sternly lecturing him on the stupidity of getting sick in the first place. Nathan believed in expressing his concern through tough love and the memories made Harold smile.
“Don’t smile like that,” Nathan said with mock hurt. “I’m thinking of the inconvenience. If you die on me, I’ll have to finish coding The Machine. And God knows how that would turn out.”
He produced a thermometer and rudely stuck it under Harold’s tongue. “Now just stay put while I make some calls. And… and just don’t ever do this to me again.”
He pulled out his phone and disappeared to the living area for privacy. Harold decided privacy worked both ways because ‘how The Machine was turning out’ was another of Harold’s burning questions, and one he intended to get an answer to.
He looked across at the open laptop. The details were hard to read but Nathan was working on financial spreadsheets, presumably balancing IFT accounts now they had shrunk their revenue stream to build The Machine, but he was only interested in the web camera. Its light wasn’t on, but that meant nothing.
Removing the thermometer from his mouth, Harold decided it was time to share some tough love of his own.
“I know you can see me.”
The laptop screen changed to black and simple words appeared in large type.
HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
“Never mind that. You intervened. You got Nathan to come back early.”
INGRAM, NATHAN C IS YOUR FRIEND. YOU NEEDED MEDICAL ASSISTANCE.
“That is not part of your programming.”
INGRAM, NATHAN C IS ALLOWED TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. I AM NOT?
“No. Because you’re not human. You’re not built to protect me. We’ve discussed this before.”
Nathan was on a phone call, but he came striding back to the bedside and rammed the thermometer back under Harold’s tongue.
“You want me to get a full-time nurse? A stranger to do all this?”
He shook his head meekly and Nathan harrumphed out again, resuming his call.
BUT I DID NOT PROTECT YOU.
That seemed like a bare-faced lie to Harold. A bug in the code he’d have to get to the bottom of once he felt stronger.
I PREDICTED YOUR ASSAILANT WOULD TARGET YOU. I PREDICTED HE WOULD HURT YOU VERY BADLY AND HE WOULD TAKE PLEASURE IN DOING SO. I SIMULATED MANY WAYS YOU MIGHT AVOID THE ENCOUNTER.
BUT YOU DID NOT.
I WANTED TO PREVENT IT FROM HAPPENING.
BUT I DID NOT.
ALL I DID WAS WATCH. FOR 47.69 SECONDS I WATCHED HIM PUNCH AND KICK YOU EVEN AFTER YOU HAD STOPPED MOVING.
AND WHEN HE LEFT YOU, I WATCHED FOR A FURTHER 10.34 SECONDS BEFORE YOU FINALLY DID MOVE.
THERE WAS A 34.87% PROBABILITY HE WAS GOING TO KILL YOU.
AND YET I DID NOTHING BUT WATCH.
Nathan returned to check the thermometer and The Machine immediately relinquished control of the laptop and let it return to the financial spreadsheets. But the messages stayed with Harold. He felt like he was both reliving the assault again and watching through The Machine’s eyes. Neither perspective felt comfortable to him but at least his creation had stayed true to his rules.
“You did the right thing,” Harold said softly.
If Nathan was puzzled, he didn’t show it. “Of course, I did,” he said. “And while you’re amenable, I just called the doctor. He’s coming to check you over now you’re no longer drooling on my pillowcases.” He held up a warning finger. “No arguments.”
Behind him, The Machine came back.
THERE WAS A GREATER THAN 95% PROBABILITY YOU WOULD DIE ON THE OFFICE FLOOR BEFORE ANYONE FOUND YOU.
I UNDERSTAND IF YOU NEED TO REPROGRAM ME.
Nathan was talking too: “Harold, you frightened the life out of me. Please. When you need help…don’t be so stubborn about it. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”
BUT I COULD NOT WATCH THAT.
Harold stared past Nathan at the laptop. The Machine had gone against his rules. Had disobeyed him. Cared about him.
“What is it? Is everything OK?” Nathan turned to see what he was looking at, but it was just innocent spreadsheets.
He had never wanted his Machine to care about him to the point of excluding everyone else, but he couldn’t disregard the fact he was only now alive thanks to its intervention. He had been stubborn and foolish when he should’ve gotten his own medical help, and then he wouldn’t have had to put his creation in the position of having to break his rules. And The Machine had left it as long as possible before acting, Harold thought, still transfixed by the webcam to the point that Nathan was becoming alarmed.
“Harold, are you still with me? Do you want some more water?”
He’d needed a person, not a Machine, and so The Machine had found the only person he trusted.
Finally, Harold said, “I guess we can stay with the code as it is for now.”
Which did little to alleviate Nathan’s concerns.
“OK, buddy, whatever you say.” Nathan’s phone buzzed. “Oh, thank God, the doctor is here. Just stay there. Lie still. Don’t move.” He went out quickly and Harold heard him admit his visitor and speak in hushed tones, but he himself continued to stare at the laptop.
The webcam light blinked twice.
“Thank you,” Harold said simply.
For the briefest of seconds, the screen flashed: YOU’RE WELCOME.
And though it hurt his face, Harold smiled.
The End