Alan's apartment was a warm place. He'd installed a dimmer several months ago, a simple job, and he had taken to keeping the lights at a gentle glow even in the evenings. Bookshelves took up two of the walls, filled with long-outdated tomes on programming languages and stacks of well-worn novels, digging indents into the soft, freshly vacuumed carpet. The wooden paneling on the walls glowed softly under the yellow light of the hanging lamp, rich oak blinds concealing the drizzle outside. A couch, overstuffed just enough, rested near a desk piled high with binders and loose pages of paper.
On the wall of the apartment, beside the clock, hung a copy of Action Comics #1. It was vintage, practically mint. Alan remembered purchasing it at an estate sale back when he was thirteen, and no one knew what a 'collectible' was. He had paid fifty dollars for the issue, and everyone he knew told him he got ripped off.
He'd gotten it reframed recently. The old one was starting to gather dust, hairline cracks in the glass from the wear of age. Besides, it didn't fit the decor.
It hadn't been too difficult to find a small apartment downtown. Single bedroom with a nice balcony view of some of the less tonally clashing areas of the residential district. With his current salary he probably could have sprung for the penthouse, but he felt that it didn't fit. He lived alone and seldom had visitors, at his age.
His father would have wanted great-grandchildren. It didn't bother Alan too much, but there was the ache, ever so slight. A reminder of more painful losses.
It was a far cry from the days spent eking out a lonely existence in Reno, living paycheck to paycheck and hoping that he wouldn't have to pack up and move across the country again at the drop of a hat. When he first got the call from 'Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated', he figured there was nothing to lose from signing on with them for a while.
The results were difficult to complain about, though he couldn't admit to being the biggest fan of the company culture. Teams and projects shifted around wildly as needs and wants and whims demanded. The proclamations of 'evil', as irreverent as they might be, were hard to swallow after what he had experienced in ENCOM. While he could recognize that the environment allowed some of his coworkers to thrive, he found himself merely able to persist.
The company culture he could live with. 'DoofOS' and later DaedalOS had been a godsend, an independent system that gained enough traction to possibly serve as an alternative to the all-encompassing ENCOM Grid, with its code foreign enough that the MCP would've had an incredibly difficult time cracking it. Probably still was, even now, because that damned program would never leave something out of its grip forever.
Dr. Doofenshmirtz's continued lenience with him, considering… everything that had happened, was fully appreciated. Even so, he could recognize that the man and the company as a whole rewarded initiative, throwing grant money and resources at bold and exciting proposals from anyone brave enough to knock on his office door. Alan… had not done that. It had always seemed a terrible, terrible risk. A risk to a world Dr. Doofenshmirtz didn't even know existed. Better to stay quiet. And so he stayed the mild mannered computer programmer. Each day, he donned his glasses and set out to protect that world.
And now, Doofenshmirtz was on the verge of leaping into it. Knowing him, it would be head first. Alan could feel the ground on which he had dug his rut these last few years cracking underneath him. Maybe it was time to stop waiting.
A now-familiar notification popped onto the corner of his screen.
Alan One.
It was a decades-long frustration, the limits of his ability to talk to his creation. His friend. Parvati had promised a potential path, but it was a trap, for him, so close as it was to Master Control. A risk he couldn't take. But it still bothered him that he had never been able to see what his hands had made with his own eyes. That he was limited to the sincerity of QWERTY and mouse. It didn't sit right to Alan, to be so impersonal for so long. Even if it was just for himself.
Because Tron
could feel it, he had told him. The emotions, the micro-expressions he made as he typed, even as it seemed so limited a communication from his perspective. From the other end, Alan may as well be an open book. A cascade of expression, or so Tron had called it. So different from what the program otherwise observed on the Grid.
Alan still wished he could shake his hand one day, for everything he had done. For now, he kept using the same bare readout prompter from all that time ago.
What is it, Tron?
It always took a moment for Tron to respond. Temporal compression, the need to translate between another way of existing, one that Alan himself could barely conceive of. Technical limitations. But he didn't mind it anymore. It felt right, in a conversation, the ebb and flow. It made it closer to talking to an actual person than a translator.
In retrospect, Wendy's insights meant it may have been even more important than he ever could have imagined.
The newest group of sprites have been settling in well. Refugees have slowed to a trickle as of late. I believe I have evacuated all remaining programs from the system before its decommissioning.
Alan paused.
All of them?
Yes.
Astonishing.
The task should have taken twice as long, if it was possible at all. Twice as long for any other program. Tron was a marvel. Some days, Alan wondered how he had made his digital Man of the Future. More programs owed their runtime to his efforts than even the MCP could count. Not that Master Control made it easy.
What about Legacy? Anything new?
LEGACY was something Alan had looked into time and again. In complete defiance of how he knew ENCOM to operate, the OS was… incredible. It was user friendly, efficient, it addressed all the problems people had with previous ENCOM systems…
The LEGACY program is holding steady to previous observation in keeping Cybugs out of post-LEGACY ENCOM systems. To my knowledge not a single Cybug has managed to survive more than five millicycles within a Legacy system before being detected.
On more than one occasion, Wasabi had asked him to troubleshoot his LEGACY PC. He never found anything other than the usual stream of minor bugs and glitches inherent to such a prolific platform. And it would be nice to leave it at that, but that wasn't the way ENCOM worked. The way Master Control did things.
It was a trap. He just didn't know what kind.
I'm glad things are going well. The DaedelOS buyout went smoothly on my end. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything about LEGACY.
I am uncertain about what I need to do next.
Alan sighed.
That makes the both of us.
The cursor kept blinking for several seconds before Alan heard the knock at his door. He started slightly, glancing at the clock. He'd forgotten about the appointment. "Come in!"
He adjusted his collar, pulling up the relevant files.
His 'patient' opened the door with a hint of trepidation, her (after the first few days, it became second nature to remember) metallic hands clasped neatly in front of her dress. She waved in that endearingly awkward, slightly stilted way that was so endemic to human-facing machines. Alan vaguely wondered if Wendy had done that on purpose. "Hello Mr. Bradley."
She walked carefully, metal feet leaving soft indents in the carpet as she made her way over to the couch. She sat more awkwardly still, eyes forward, bent straight. As her programming told her.
Holding the appointment in his apartment, his 'home office' on his reports, was a spur of the moment decision. But he felt it was worth the change. Several weeks spent in the office trying to meet a deadline had brought back the habits of falling into a routine, going through the same motions over and over. Professional. Clinical.
Impersonal.
This was better.
"So, how was your day? Not too busy, I hope." He noted that she had already, without prompting, plugged herself into his systems. Diagnostics looked good, nothing besides the expected amount of logically inexplicable glitches that signified progress.
"Overtime on the Doofrasic Park project has resulted in an unfortunate shortage of architects to help design the lobby building in DC, which has resulted in Dr. Doofenshmirtz deciding to take over the project on his own time. Numerous contractors took their vacation days as soon as the project ended, necessitating further requisition of external resources to mitigate the shortfall. This was exacerbated by the high volume of legal, administrative, and HR personnel required for the full transfer of DaedalOS from Olympia to DEI control."
Alan had been there for that last one personally. It had gone about as smoothly as he could've hoped. A proposal on how to move forwards with the OS bubbled up, he filed it away for later. "Any standouts?"
She paused. "Mr. Lee requested that Dr. Jookiba develop a cure for, quote, 'having an appendix'. Several lab assistants are now on medical leave for diagnostic purposes until the mechanisms of Dr. Jookiba's pill can be ascertained."
Alan paused for a moment, entering something into his computer. "And why did this stand out to you?"
"Dr. Jookiba has exceeded his projected allotment for unforeseen induced medical leaves while simultaneously being below expected rates of property damage. Maybe he is learning."
A prediction. Perhaps a joke?
Let's try another step, he decided.
"Have you picked a name yet?" Alan asked suddenly.
She looked down. "I'm sorry, sir."
"By induction, I suspect that is not accurate." Alan smirked.
There was no reaction, but Alan didn't expect one. Patience was a virtue, and jokes were complicated. He was very glad that Dr. Doofenshmirtz was willing to wait years for this project to bear its full fruit.
"Well," He pushed forwards. "How did your reading go?"
She folded her hands and recited. "I have completed the story. The paneling is professional and flows smoothly from one page to the next. There was no place in which I had to reassess the direction of reading. The story consisted of 33 pages, in addition to an additional two pages of addendum from the authors, and three advertisement pages between parts of the issue."
Blink, twice, her programming said, to avoid becoming unnerving.
There goes the tendency to get lost in the weeds. "And what about the story? What happened?"
"It followed the events of Superman attempting to foil an eco-terrorist plot to extort money from the United Nations. The terrorist was apprehended and returned to prison. The last time we talked, I was told to consider context in place of specifics. There were no particularly noteworthy eco-terrorist organizations active at the time of the comic's writing that would have informed the way the story was-"
"How did the story make you feel?" Alan cut her off before she could dive too deep into the weeds again.
The answer sprung forth.
"I feel satisfied with its direction."
That was new. "How so?" Alan asked, settling himself in his chair.
"The removal of the eco-terrorist enabled the return to normal functioning within the UN apparatus. The eco-terrorists' complaints were too frivolous given the position they took, but Superman nonetheless took them into account in the end." Her voice slowed, reaching for something she hadn't quite landed on just yet.
Alan typed something down. The note-taking was performative. He'd remember them perfectly, but it put the robots at ease, especially those in administrative positions. That was the idea, anyway. And ideas, as it happened, were important. "It seems like there's something more you want to say."
"Yes." She fell silent, silicon mind racing around the words. Words that Alan could feel were not a part of her programming.
"May I have five minutes?" She asked.
Five minutes might as well have been an eternity for someone who could parse natural language in microseconds. It was a very human request. Alan tamped down on the burst of pride at the progress for the moment. "Of course. Take your time, think about it."
She nodded, and pressed a button on her lapel. Her eyes flicked close, and elevator music began to play through her bow tie. One of the little details someone, probably Doofenshmirtz himself, had added to the design.
Alan's computer pinged.
Alan One. I have a question.
Yes?
You have worked on many things. Created many programs, and other projects aside in the Physical. What is Alan One's current project?
With all the DoofOS transfers complete, I've been spending most of my time on a project to… incite consciousness, I suppose, into artificial beings.
Could you explain further? The concept of 'consciousness' is sometimes difficult for me to grasp.
Alan glanced up at his current guest, making sure she was doing okay. Readings were fine, if with a lot of logical loops. It's something he noticed would happen more often over the course of their 'treatment'.
It's something a colleague came up with. It's the process of taking a machine and turning them into a person. It's… difficult to quantify. That's the issue, actually. Taking a non-sapient entity and making them sapient is apparently more art than science.
What is the purpose of this task?
Alan leaned back in his seat. On the other side of his desk, his charge remained motionless, all but a friendly looking statue if it weren't for the readouts on his screen.
Doofenshmirtz asked me to work on this project given my expertise. That colleague I mentioned is on vacation right now, so I'm the next best thing.
But what is its purpose? For what reason are you inducing this change in programming?
Alan started to type up a response that came straight off of the project's official writeup. Something about ushering in the next stage of computer advancement, and bridging the gap between man and machine. He got about one sentence in before realizing that he couldn't bring himself to hit enter.
His silence hung in the air, next to the Muzak. It was Tron who broke it.
You are making something new, Alan One. You are making machines that will do what no one else can.
That's a bit of a leap, Tron.
I cannot deny that. No logical subroutine drew me to its conclusion. And yet, somehow, I find myself confident in my inference. If you are successful, these robots will be capable of incredible things. These People.
And furthermore, I cannot shake the certainty of yet another irrational conclusion: that you will succeed, Alan One. Call it superstitious faith in the Users if you like, but I believe that you will be the one to make these great people.
I wish I could share your certainty.
Alan sent back, gazing at the quiescent girl in front of him. A few seconds passed as meaning traveled upon invisible beams of light.
You made me, Alan One.
The crackle of a digital fireside.
"I think I have it."
Alan started slightly at the words. He realized that the music had stopped, and that his patient was awake and waiting for his attention. He coughed into his hand.
"Go on."
She started talking, and the change was obvious. The words flowed smoother, with a growing hint of elegance. "Superman listened to the eco-terrorist's complaints, even though they were not worthy of the actions he took. Superman cannot address the eco-terrorist's complaints. He does not hold the power or resources to do so."
She paused for effect.
"But…Superman told the UN council of these concerns himself, and they listened to him. Because…they could not have listened to the eco-terrorists themselves."
"I like it when people work together." She added, almost as an afterthought. Just to punctuate the point.
My God, he thought. She was still hooked up as it happened. A smile pushed its way onto his face, and he let it. "I'm glad to hear that."
"There's been a breakthrough." She said, unprompted.
"I can tell." He said, gathering steam. "There was never any reason to doubt it. How does it feel?"
"Strange. Useful, I think." She looked askance at him. "Is it always this way?"
She was the first one. But Alan
had done this before. "Every one is different. That's why I'm here to help."
She looked at him. "You're taking a risk with this, you know. We're turning non-variables into variables."
Alan thought, but only for a moment. "Sometimes, if you have faith in people, they'll surprise you."
She nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Bradley." She paused. "You have an appointment soon. I'll take my leave."
Alan chuckled. "I think I can spare a little while longer for this. Is there anything else you want to say?"
The young woman before him smiled back.
