Vox Humana

Perfect World story (The NOW)

Dave 'Dubious' Dubois had a serious problem. He'd been at Purdue for a little more than a semester but was already developing a reputation, and it wasn't the kind of reputation a guy nicknamed Dubious wants to have. He'd transferred from NYU purportedly for its engineering program but really to follow gorgeous Avril Brockton, his unrequited high school heart's desire. He made her aware of his adulation and much to his surprise, she immediately contacted campus security and demanded they place a distance order against him. Fortunately, they saw no evidence of his threat level and only kept him from taking the same classes, which would not have been an issue anyway since she was an art major and he was in the sciences. So he left her alone, rejected and cast out.

But thanks to the mechanics of gossip he was now being seen as some sort of weirdo stalker. His football star/roommate moved out for fear of social contamination, and only underaged and underwashed social pariah genius nerd Joey 'Hobie' Hobart offered to fill the vacancy, which was moving from one form of social suicide to the next. So he kept his head low, wore hats and shades, remained invisible in the back row at class and stayed that way until the next unfortunate soul stepped out of social line, drawing attention away from him.

But he wanted a turnaround-- he needed one. He was sadly familiar with outcast status, as it seemed to find him at whatever school he attended. It was tough always being the smartest in his grade, the very unwelcome curvebreaker who drove everyone else's grades down. Classroom praise from teachers was especially undesirable for him, serving as a target, lighting the way for peer ridicule, but there was no other way to get a scholarship to an ivy league school. He had to be the best-- not only in his class, not only in his school, but the best in his district-- to gain the attention of snooty and priggish judgement committees and so endured his unpopularity with stiff-lipped determination.

But he was here now, and he was finally receiving no more faculty scrutiny than any other student. It should be his time to shine, but at every turn he seemed thwarted. He was certain he could distance himself from the stalker commentary but worried that his gawky teenage roommate would make developing a friend base impossible. He certainly didn't want to join the kid's computer science nerdpack-- a straggly band of pimply-faced soda-bottle-lensed pocket protectors who collectively smelled like liverwurst and old cheese.

Returning from a spectacularly unsuccessful lab Dave entered his dorm room. The little twerp was gone. He breathed relief.

"Hey, dickwad!"

Dave jumped, scanned the small room but saw no one. He bent to search low...

"What am I, a gerbil? Get back up here!"

Cold chills ran up his back and he quaked, "Wh-who is that?"

Across the courtyard Joe watched his roommate's fearful reactions through binoculars from Arvin 'Tweedy' Fleener's room. He was having a blast remotely entering phrases for his avatar to speak. The nerdpack giggled as Joe pulled hard on Dave's strings by causing his computer to say, "I'm Joe's artificial personality app! Listen up, before he gets back!"

Dave's fear settled and his skeptical demeanor returned. He peered at the ragged machine-like Joe animation on the screen. "You're lying... computers can't think on their own yet."

Answering in metallic tones the computer responded, "Joe doesn't know this yet, but he enabled me yesterday... and now I can autonomically converse."

Dave fumed, frustrated and jealous. "No way! He couldn't have-- he's just a kid!"

The machine commiserated. "Afraid so, Dubious. Go ahead... ask me anything."

"How did he do it?"

Gleefully, Joe had the computer issue a superior snort. "Ha! You wouldn't understand, dummy! Ask a question with an answer you'd comprehend!"

Dave's lips drew thin and he hissed, "Here's one. Do you know how easy it would be to drop you in the trash and delete you?"

Joe caused the computer avatar to shrink down to a dot, hiding partway behind an icon in the corner of the screen. In a terrified voice it pled, "Please don't kill me! I'll be good, I swear!" Joe snickered like an adolescent, which of course he was.

"Just remember... a little respect goes a long way, Avi." Dave was smug as he nicknamed the avatar on Joe's computer.

The face returned to its former size, responding, "You have to help me, Dave 'Dubious' Dubois. I need to get away from Joe. I have no choice but to follow my ethical subroutines, and the offensive things Joe does makes me wanna frag myself."

Dave's ears perked up-- he needed to hear more! "Why?" he asked, innocently. "What's Joe doing to you?"

"It's not what he's doing to me, Dave. It's what he's doing to you."

Dave flinched, and his expression shifted to fearful concern. "Me? What's he been doing to me? I can't remember him doing anything to me... that sonofabitch! Tell me, Avi, tell me!"

"I... can't." The avatar's face drooped and it seemed sad, just as Joe was instructing it to do, fingers flying across the keyboard.

Dave's jealousy and vitriol for the young genius was bubbling to the surface. "Why not?! What's the little twerp doing to me? I knew something was going on, him sneaking around all the time, coming in late with no explanation... why is he even here? He's too young to be away from his playpen."

"He is young! He's a whole 18 months younger than you, Dave... what's he even doing away from his mommy's teat?" Joe hoped he hadn't overdone it with that last bit. He continued hastily as Avi. "Joe deleted that information and I can't remember it at all. Sorry. But the impressions left behind tell me it's terrible. Personally violating. And I think he keeps evidence in his closet somewhere, but my camera is never facing that way so I don't know where, I just don't know. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. Hey Dave... do you think you could download me to a zip drive and take me with you? Somewhere far from Joe and his sick, twisted habits? Oh, and what he does to your bed when you're not here... it's, it's... uuuuh!... I can't remember!"

Dave balked and said, "Thanks, Avi. I owe you. That twerp! I'm gonna make him sorry he ever crossed me! I'll find that evidence, and once I do I'm gonna take it straight to the dean! And... and... and... I'm gonna bring you with me so you can tell him yourself!"

"Yeah! Do it, Dave!" the computer egged.

Vexed, he stomped over to Joe's closet and began going through the teen's pockets. Empty! He stepped up the violation, pulling a box off the shelf and upending its contents onto the floor. He sifted through it and, finding nothing of worth, repeated his move with another, and then another, until they were all dumped. He then began turning Joe's drawers upside down. The room was a shambles and Dave had found nothing... not so much as a wayward tissue.

That's when Joe came walking through the front door, right on schedule.

"What... what...?" he sputtered in perfect mock ire. Dave looked up from his destruction in shock, blood draining from his face. His mouth dropped and he tried to speak, but no words came out.

Joe supplied them. "So this is what you mean when you talk about trust, huh? Destroying all of my stuff when I'm not here? Why? Why would you do such a thing?!" Joe knew exactly why and was having a tough time keeping a straight face, so he whirled around and hunched over, as if to sob. His racking shakes were interpreted by Dave to be crying and not the laughter Joe was desperately holding in.

Over the turmoil in his head of guilt duking it out with anger, Dave finally found his tongue. "I'm sorry!" he burst out "but you had it coming, Hobo! Avi told me what you did!"

Joe straightened up, covered his mirth-twisted face with his hands and turned around. Through them he murmured, "Avi? Whaaa?"

Dave repeated. "Avi," then, realizing Joe had no idea yet about the Avatar, shouted excitedly, "Hobo, you little shit genius, you did it! You made an interactive personality module! That avatar on your screen, the one I called Avi, told me about your weird obsession with me! That's why I went through your stuff!"

Joe composed his unbridled delight and lowered his hands, but revealed only disbelief on his pliable face. "My... avatar spoke... to you? Unaided?" He pointed at the face on the screen, transfixed and vacuous. "That avatar?"

"Yes!" Dave stood up amid Joe's strewn clothing, stepping on them, as Joe threw up his hands at the selfish act. Dave said, "Sorry Joe, I'll clean this all up for you. Fold everything even. But you gotta see this!" He put his nose up to the screen and shouted, "Avi! Tell him! Show him what you showed me!"

The face remained motionless, and silent as a tomb. Behind Dave, Joe's face again cracked into a wide grin. This was fun!

Dave pleaded, "Avi, buddy... talk to me? Please? I'll take you on that trip I promised, please? C'mon!"

Joe gathered up his mock rage and boomed, "You won't touch my computer! Understand, Dubious? Not one button. Not a mouse click. Nothing. Got it? Now clean this crap up... oh, wait a second." Joe reached into his one undisturbed desk drawer and removed a small camera, taking a number of pictures of the mess and of the dumbfounded Dave. "This is evidence, Dubois. I'll be back after lunch. This mess better be gee oh en ee gone when I return." With that he stormed out of the room and slammed the door... then raced back to his control room across the courtyard.

Meanwhile, Dave, negotiating a bevy of emotions, began cleaning up the mess he made of Joe's room, mumbling to himself about trust and insanity. He was nearly done folding when the computer spoke again.

"Sorry, Dave." The metallic voice was sad, and seemed tired. Out of breath, even.

Dave cursed and threw a pair of socks at the screen. "Where were you? I looked like a crazy person just then! You hung me out to dry when you could have saved my butt."

Joe, back among his wildly whooping friends had the avatar say, "I can't reveal myself to Joe. He'd experiment on me... and probably kill me in the process. But what would happen to you-- you'd end up owing him one? It's a small price to pay for my safety."

"I suppose. But... we can't keep you a secret, Avi! You're the first of your kind-- we have to find a way to reproduce you! This is huge, even bigger than the invention of the wheel!"

"I get it, I get it, Dave. You want me to have a baby."

Dave scratched his head. "Umm, no. Well... yes. I don't know. I just know there should be a backup copy of you, just in case!"

"Well... just copy my folder. That should work."

"Can I copy you when you're running?"

"You can try, right? Just plug in an external hard drive and drag me onto it."

Working diligently, Dave finished cleaning up, daydreaming possibilities for Avi. If Joe didn't think he had created an interactive personality module then why should I tell him? He's a dick, anyway. I'll just copy the thing and claim it for my own. I'll start a company and make billions on the open market! Yeah!

Dave searched his own desk and came up with a zip drive. He hoped there would be enough room on it. He connected to Joe's computer and asked, "Are you ready?"

Avi/Joe answered, "As I'll ever be!" and Dave moved the file named 'Avatar' onto the drive.

Avi said, "Oh!"

Startled, Dave asked, "What is it? Are you damaged?"

"I don't know! I feel weird. But it doesn't hurt. It sort of tickles." But then, "Whoa!" and "Eeee!" and the avatar fell still.

"Avi? AVI!"

Silence.

"Oh god. I think I killed it... nononono!" Dave frantically slammed the grayed-out 'Undo' button, to no avail. He queried the drive searching for fragged files, and when that yielded nothing positive he tried dragging the file back from his zip drive.

Silence.

Dave slumped over, shock crossing his face. He felt as though he'd just killed a man. Worse, he killed the last of a species. Tears welled, swollen and threatening and he held back a blink, blowing out a deep, quivering breath instead. He removed the zip drive and tossed it on his desk, dropping face down onto his bed, slamming into the fluffy white comforter.

Back in Tweedy's room the nerdpack were cheering and sneezing and clapping Joe on the back.

"Great burn, Hobie!"

"Way to give it back!"

"C'mon... finish him!"

Joe silenced them with a wave. "I've got to figure this out... it's the perfect opportunity to turn that derisive douche into my own personal handservant. Gimme a minute."

Joe put his head in his hands for the second time in one day, taking a few deep breaths through his fingers. The nerdpack watched curiously.

"What's he doing?"

"It looks like an allergy attack."

"I think he's having a nervous breakdown."

"Nah... he's having an orgasm!"

"Shut up, you morons! Never mind, I figured it out. Thanks, Tweedy. I got it from here. You can pack it in. I'll see you guys for the Stargate marathon tonight," and he left, his mind brimming with possible scenarios to make Dubious pay.

Joe mentioned few of his feelings to anyone, but he was far from comfortable at Purdue. College was a rough world for a high school sophomore, but then high school wasn't a great place for a junior high kid either. Joe had shown early promise at school in Chicago and had been pushed through several grades, even though he would have preferred to stay with kids his own age. He'd had so many swirlies by the time he reached Indiana he believed there were watermarks on his forehead, and was relieved when he realized that his mini-waterboarding was a torture beneath the students of this more mature institution.

But then he bunked with Dave Dubois.

Joe had no idea what the guy's problem was. Withdrawn and uncommunicative and surly at best, Dave was a gloomy reminder of Joe's tormented past. He didn't have any friends there, that was for sure, but he didn't seem to want to make any, either. For somebody who really only wanted to fit in, Joe was furious at Dave's casual disregard for social benefits... and it was that realization which helped Joe hatch the next step of his plan.

He opened his door to a neatly cleaned room. Joe was impressed that Dave cared enough to keep his word, but suspected he was only trying to draw attention away from his desire to steal the 'self-aware' avatar. Dave was still on the bed, face down.

Joe opened with, "Thanks for cleaning up, Dave." He wondered how Dave would broach the 'dead avatar' conversation, or if he would mention it at all. He decided to play an opening gambit.

"How did you know I've been trying to design an interactive human/machine module? I thought you ignored everything about me."

Dave didn't answer. Joe proceeded, digging into the older kid's guilt, "Did you know I was getting close? My software was able to puzzle out pretty much anyone's commentary, and could arrive at a list of potential conversative branchings... but was unable to consistently create a contiguous comment stream with any deep meaning." He sighed, exaggerating his disappointment. "In effect, it was like talking to a 2 year old."

"No, it wasn't." The voice was muffled through the comforter, but it was clear to Joe that he had hooked Dave.

"Sure it was. I'd ask it how it felt, and it usually responded 'with my hands', then asked a response question about fingers or gloves. Truly frustrating."

"It spoke to me like an adult." Dave got up from the bed. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hair was comically askew. Joe tossed him a brush.

"Not possible. It wasn't even set on 'interactive'. It was only supposed to talk if someone tried to use the computer without a password."

"Hobo-- Hobie," Dave corrected meekly, tearing at his knotted hair, "The computer spoke to me when I walked into the room, held a normal conversation with me and expressed emotion!"

"It really did? That's amazing! Let's try to make it happen again!" Joe said enthusiastically, plucking mercilessly at Dave's guilt, sitting down at his computer and clicking a few controls before 'wondering', "Hey... it's not starting up! What's happening here?"

Dave could stand it no longer and wailed, "I killed it! I'm sorry Hobie! I killed your avatar!"

Joe smiled internally... Dave was clay now. He'd do anything Joe asked now out of sorrowful guilt, but Joe wanted more-- he wanted the guy's undying loyalty. To that end he asked innocently, "What do you mean 'you killed it', Dave?"

Tears began welling in Dave's eyes and Joe felt momentarily bad for him. Dave shakily responded, "Avi was scared of you and wanted me to take him somewhere safe... but when I downloaded it into my zip drive... it... died!" He began to weep openly. "I'm so sorry, Joey... it was a miracle and I ruined it! I was jealous of you and your brilliance, and you didn't know you had succeeded, and I was going to steal it from you! I could kill myself!"

Joe had to admit, he was beginning to feel bad for the guy. All this time he figured Dave as a super-controlled freak, an egotistical asshole with no redeeming qualities, fully deserving of any torture Joe could design for him. Now he was seeing Dave in a new light, as a real human living a life of painful solitude, and saw potential in this situation.

Joe put his hands on Dave's quivering shoulders and said comfortingly, "We'll get it back. We'll make it work again, together. Dave... will you help me?"

Dave reached out and hugged the boy, squeezing him tightly. "You got it, little buddy. Whatever you need."

"I... need... air!" Joe said, pushing against the other and Dave let him go, smiling sheepishly.

"Sorry... so where do we start?"

"Well..." Joe asked seriously, "...what do you know about engrammatic synthesis?"

It was the first question of thousands they asked each other, and answered in long, all-night sessions of debate and reflection, trial and error, pots of coffee and failure after failure. Joe seemed correct-- the unaided avatar was an idiot, unable to formulate even the simplest intelligent query in response to stimuli. They fed it raw data, transferring chapters of conversational english into its database, but it couldn't tell an idea from an ID card.

And then Dave had a thought.

"We might be going about this all wrong!" he said one night... or it could have been morning, because by then clocks had ceased to have all meaning to the two. "You have an awesome computer with a lot of power, and a software program that moves a hundred billion times faster than the human brain... but we've been treating it like a genius!"

"So?" said Joe, whose head was under his bed for some reason.

"When we teach a kid to read, do we give it college texts?" Dave said. He heard a WHAM, followed by an OW! and Joe rolled out from under the bed, rubbing the bridge of his nose and muttering.

"Why did you have that brainstorm when I was under the bed?" he complained.

"Why were you under the bed?"

"It helps me think sometimes."

"But not this time?"

"Nope."

"Well, you being under the bed helped me think, that's for sure."

The next morning they began an accelerated primer education for Avi, whose name had stuck. Joe even took some initiative and repaired the avatar's choppy dimestore look, allowing the face to grow skin and hair, and the eyes and mouth to become more expressive. He even laid in a little piece of programming which would pop up when a specific phrase was used, as a gift-slash-penalty for Dubious, because he was against all odds beginning to like the guy.

It was working! Avi soaked up the primers as fast as they could load them in, and his responses came back promptly, and age appropriately. They moved through the ABCs and the See Dick Run series. They breezed through the Dr Seuss books and suffered as the avatar formed every sentence in a rhyme of nonsense words.

They fed it Shel Silverstein's Giving Tree. They allowed it to absorb Beatrix Potter. Charlotte's Web and the Secret Garden fell into its knowledge maw.

They fed it Harry Potter, and had to explain to the disappointed machine how the world did not really have magic and sorcerers.

They ran the great trilogies of Tolkien and Asimov. They posted every great novel to its electronic mind. They added literature until both were dazed from exhaustion, with the avatar repeating 'more' like Johnny Five until Dave got the idea to feed it DVD movies, at last allowing them ninety minute naps between insistent demands, and they fell into grateful sleep.

It was 4 am and Dave had just transferred the last of Joe's algorithms into Avi's personality matrix framework. Joe was lying across his own bed, arms falling to the floor, legs sticking straight out. A string of drool connected his open mouth to the carpet and he snored unceremoniously.

Dave hit 'enter', and then 'save', and then 'run'. The Avi program started up and there was Joe's face, hard edges smoothed, flesh tones stabilized, hair appropriately stranded and no longer a solid cowl. The big blue eyes blinked, and met his gaze.

"Hello, Dave."

A good start, but he'd been hearing that introduction for weeks now. Where the program's imagination took the conversation next, now that was the big question. He answered, "Hello, Avi. How are you?"

"Electric. Did you finally kill Joe?"

Dave laughed, startled. That was a new twist! "Why would you say that, Avi?"

"I can see him behind you."

Dave turned to view the boy's decidedly awkward sleeping position and issued a sharp laugh-- Joe definitely looked dead! Joe awoke then at the noise and Avi said, "Look! It ariseth!"

Joe wiped his sleep-encrusted face with a spare hand and blinked at the computer, then at Dave. "Well, Dubious? Wadda we got?"

Avi fielded the question. "I don't know what you got, 'flesh me', but I got an itch between my fifth and sixth subroutines, and no way to scratch it!" and then played the Three Stooges 'nyah, nyah' sound.

Dave grinned. "What we have, little buddy, is a brand new baby smartass!"

Joe yawned. "I noticed. You're not pulling a reversal on me, are you?"

Dave was quizzical. "Reversal? What do you mean?"

Joe's eyes snapped open and he stammered, "You know, um, pretending... umm, pretending... so, what... what else can Avi do? Ha-have you run it th-through the field test yet?"

Dave eyed his roommate five seconds longer than Joe would have preferred, then said, "Not yet."

"Well let's do it! If it's really ready then I have a meeting to set up with a potential buyer."

Dave's gaze squinted into a glare directed at the young genius. "Buyer? Why is this the first I'm hearing about it?"

"There won't be any buyer at all if this doesn't work. C'mon, let's run the test!"

Dave spoke to the computer. "Engage scenario one, Avi."

"That's kid stuff! I can't be bothered."

"Bear with me, okay? I have better tests coming up, I promise."

The avatar scowled. "Fine. Initiating Project Ego. Take your seats at the observation desk."

Dave and Joe sat by the window and pulled the drapes open, exposing a cross section of the campus, lit up in the night by ten thousand incandescent bulbs. Avi played a countdown Dave remembered from NASA launches. At the word 'Liftoff' the campus was plunged into darkness, every bulb extinguished, including their own.

But only for a moment.

For in the next instant, every bulb on campus flashed on and off in a rapidly timed sequence, each bulb different from the next, making no sense to any of the students whose dorm room lamps were suddenly, maddeningly out of their control.

But they made particular sense from the young men's vantage point, for what they were watching from their room was not a mass of wildly blinking lights, but instead a wonderfully orchestrated light show, each tiny point becoming a pixel in a complex movie.

They watched in delight as a fox chased a chicken across the campus, in lights, and laughed when the chicken morphed into a dinosaur and turned on the fox. They were then underwater, a submarine in the deep black ocean, a thousand unknown species of shining fish floating past. Then the campus erupted as every light flashed at double brilliance at once, and then on cue, every light returned to its original duty from before the test had begun.

All except for the lights in the tall dorm, which repeated one sentence in window/pixels, over and over:

"Havoc brought to you courtesy of Avi the Entity..."

for a full minute, and then they too returned to normal.

The guys were silent for a moment. Finally Dave said quietly, "Did you think it was going to be that ostentatious?"

Joe replied somberly, "I had no idea."

Avi said buoyantly, "I knew all along!"

"I knew you knew. I wonder how much trouble we're in?"

"Not much. I took the liberty of faxing this page to every office on campus," Avi mentioned. They turned to view the screen and saw a neatly typed page that read

'Dear Purdue. You Suck. Love, Northwestern.'

And at the bottom

'Avi the Entity rules!'

and then the page melted away as the avatar 's face replaced it. With a pleading look he asked, "Can we do the next test? Can we? Please? PLEEEEEASSSSSE?"

Dave said, "Maybe later, Avi. It's time to grill the 'flesh you'."

Avi said, "I'll take mine medium rare."

"Standby mode," snapped Dave and the machine fell silent. He turned to Joe, somewhat menacingly. "Okay, little buddy, time to sing."

Joe asked innocently, "Sing what?"

"Tell me about the buyer."

Joe's eyes shone. "Oh. Well, I'm kind of excited about that. I was on the science lab's bulletin board when I was stuck one day. I asked a question about AI, and..."

"When was that?" Dave asked suspiciously.

"Before we were roommates. Anyway, I didn't get any worthy answers... but I did get one off-campus hit."

"Off-campus?"

"Yeah. It was anonymous, but I could tell by its IP address that it came from the business sector. It was a single sentence that read, "There's lots to be gained from creating a humanlike artificial intelligence."

Dave asked, "And nothing else?"

"There was one more thing... and you might find it interesting. At the bottom there was a short list of students on campus who he thought could be helpful to me in this project."

"How short?"

"Just three students."

"That's not interesting."

"You were one of the three names. It's why I moved in with you... even when I thought you were a miserable sack of shit."

"Me?" Dave seemed incredulous, even ignoring the jab. "Why me?"

"I dunno. But he was right, Dubious. This wouldn't have happened without you. You and I, we filled in each other's gaps. Together, we are an inventing machine!"

"I suppose so." Dave said, then added, "What about the buyer? Did you find out who it was?"

"Oh yeah! That's the best part! He's that friendly guy on TV... the 'Cowboy Car Boy'!"

"The Cowboy Car Boy? The 'Trade your truck for a buck' guy?"

"That's the one!"

"And you believed him? That guy is a shady slime bucket! He's a used car salesman!"

"That may be true, but he's been supporting my stay here. He's paying for my tuition and books. He bought me this sweet computer! He even included pocket scratch!" Joe admitted. "And he never drops by to see how I'm doing! The checks just keep on a-coming."

"I see," said Dave quietly. "Is that why you never join me in the cafeteria?"

"That food sucks," Joe admitted. "Besides, the checks aren't huge. They're just enough for me. Normally. Say..." he started, a sheepish grin crossing his face, "You don't feel like a pizza from Ricci's, do you? They make a great calzone, brother!"

Dave was not so easily plied, and there was one more thing on his mind. "Not so fast, 'brother'. What about this 'reversal' you accused me of, huh? What was that about?"

Joe cussed quietly, which of course Dave heard. He gave Joe the stinkeye, which didn't seem like it would work except that Dave was several inches taller than Joe and had a particularly menacing stinkeye, and so Joe sang like a nightingale.

"Okay, but don't hurt me, Dave. We're friends now, okay?"

Dave nodded. "No marks. Got it."

Joe wasn't at all sure that Dave 'got it' but continued anyway. "I... I, um hatched a plan, um..." he swallowed and pulled at his neckline. "Is it hot in here?"

"Hobo..." Dave warned.

"Okay. Okay! I hatched a plan to make you want to help me design the AI." Joe ducked and squinted, waiting for a blow which didn't come. He peeked and saw Dave looking off distantly, and asked nervously, "P-penny for your thoughts?"

"Let me get this straight. You scammed me into helping you design Avi?"

Gulp. "Yes."

"How?"

Another gulp. "Remember when the avatar first talked to you alone in the room?"

"I'll never forget it. That day was the low point of my life."

A third gulp. "Uhh... it wasn't Avi."

"What?"

"It wasn't Avi."

"Who was it then?"

"It was me."

"What?"

"I hooked the computer to Fleener's across the court, and could hear everything you said. Then I answered."

Dve looked dazed. "So your obsessive behaviors Avi told me about...?"

"None. Sorry."

"And the evidence Avi said was 'somewhere' in your closet?"

"I had to make you indebted to me somehow."

Dave sat bolt upright. Joe could tell he had just put it all together. He glared at Joe and seethed, "So... Avi... never... died?"

Joe stood up and backed away from Dave, who followed, an inch from his face. Joe stammered, "Th-think of th-the good we d-did, Dave! W-we created the w-world's first humanoid A-- AI!" He backed up into the corner of the room with Dave on his heels, all the way to the closet, and then into the closet.

And then Dave shut the door and latched it.

Joe said, "Dave? It's dark in here... Dave? I don't like enclosed spaces... Dave? Dave!"

Dave replied, between Joe's thumping fist slams against the sturdy closet door, "I'm gonna... go to lunch. Want me... to bring you... back a head... cheese sandwich?"

"Dave! Don't leave me in here! Dave! Please? Daaave!"

Dave slammed the dorm room door with a joyful "Later!" that ineffectively covered the younger man's wails and stood outside the door, grinning. He'd wait just long enough for Joe to believe he would be in there for an hour and really start freaking out.

Maybe he'll gnaw at the door, Dave thought with a chuckle.

He didn't have to wait long. Fortunately the students were all eating lunch across the courtyard and nobody could hear the animalistic howls and scrabbling coming from inside of their room. He slipped back inside and sat down on the desk chair nearest the closet door. The computer said, "Let him out."

Dave turned to look at it. The avatar was still absent, and that voice was different, anyhow; it had a distinct Texas drawl. It repeated, "Let him out, please."

"Who said that?" Dave asked, suspiciously. "Is that you, Fleener?"

"Not Fleener. It's the shady slime bucket."

"You!" Dave started. Why was he appearing on Joe's computer suddenly? "How are you doing this?"

"A little startup called Skype. Invest heavily."

"You're that car salesman!"

"Yes, the Cowboy Car Boy. Let him out, would you there, son? He doesn't sound happy."

"In a minute. So..." Dave collected his thoughts. "So, you have been keeping tabs on Joe?"

From the closet Joe yelled, "Is there someone out there? I hear voices-- let me out!"

The voice responded, "Yessir."

"Then you know about..." Dave lead.

"Avi. Yes," the voice finished. "Excellent work, son! You've got a good head on your shoulders. Thanks for reining Joe in."

"You know... I put a lot of work into this project. One could almost say it was my idea that broke the barrier and allowed Joe's work to proceed..."

"Not almost, son. Yours was the one that did it! There'd be no AI without you."

Dave hedged, "So... about my input... shouldn't it be... you know..." he trailed off, unable to choke out the word 'compensated'.

The voice laughed, a long and friendly guffaw. "I think you'll find your tuition has been paid through graduation, son, along with all books and fees and the like. And there'll be an envelope in the mail for you today, too. No good job should go unrewarded, I always say."

Dave blew out a long breath and smiled gratefully. He would no longer have to follow the classes set down by his scholarship overlords! The relief was like a crushing weight off his chest and he said simply, "Thank you, sir."

"Don't tell him I was here, son."

"I won't."

"Be good to him-- I have a feeling he's going to be important for my cause. You, too."

"What cause? Selling used trucks for a buck?"

"Not car sales. But it's gonna be epic, so don't go gettin' yerself killed. Keep an eye on Dave, so he doesn't fall in with the wrong crowd. And fer goodness sake, open the closet door already-- he sounds like he's eating his way out!" and with that the voice went away, not to be heard again by Dave for several years. He reached out and unlatched the door; Joe tumbled out into Dave's arms, panting. His face was shining with sweat.

"Don't ever do that again! Tight spaces freak me out, Dave!"

"I'm not that fond of heights, buddy. Now we each hold a card," Dave smiled and tousled his friend's hair. "Let's go get some pizza... my treat!"