"Nezha! You didn't tell me you had a new project!" A young girl manning the counter cried out to the back of the café upon seeing Zoe enter. The girl was wearing a ballcap with the words "Try again" embroidered into the rim rather haphazardly. "Fine. I guess he's-" "-Sorry for the lack of a warning!" Nezha walked out form behind a support beam in the room. "I was have to much fun molding the timeline." The girl had a look of genuine surprise from hearing that.

  But much to Zoe's dismay they suddenly switched languages to something completely foreign. She didn't ask for a translation seeing that they were clearly talking about her, and she knew that whatever Nezha didn't want to tell her wasn't getting any closer. She took a seat and continued to spectate the room.

  The design wasn't as unfathomable as Zoe expected, not to say it wasn't strange, with festoon lights coiling around the pipes in the ceiling casting curious shadows on the room below. Though the building outside was inlayed into the wall of Weiber hall, the inside had windows on all sides. The view showed cosmic expanses of space, eons old light filtered through the glass with supernovas and entire galaxies. But that was only to one side, another wall of glass revealed the depths of an alien sea. Fish(?) crawled through the almost water.

  As Zoe continued to look around the room she noticed another odd detail, though the establishment was definitely shaped as a rectangle the more she turned around the more the surroundings changed, one turn right; space, two turns; water, three; sci-fi city, four; blue desert, five; royal gardens. Zoe's fascination when as she was turning she saw someone holding a tally counter ticking every time she saw them enter her field of view. "Excuse me? What are you counting?"

  The person holding the counter was a boy who looked to be only slightly younger than Zoe. "Nine full spins before you decided to stop. Heh." Zoe felt her cheeks redden from being called out. "Hay! No fair, judging by your attire you work here! So sure, you are used to this scene. But I've never seen anything like it." The boy had on a waiter's outfit with the café's logo expertly hand-drawn on. "Fair enough. But for the record nine full turns is significantly less than average." "Which is..?" "...about twenty." Zoe raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  She shook a few thoughts from her head then introduced herself. "Well... Hello. I'm Zoe Padilla, a second year at Corvis U. I major in engineering and am twenty four years old." "A pleasure." The boy to a small bow. "I am Julian Baxter. Last of four survivors of the 'plague on high', a infection created by a mad god who couldn't accept the power of T.E.C. was above itself-" Julian was cut off by Zoe. "What tech? Like human technology?" "Ah. My bad. The Entertainment Company. T. E. C." "Oh..." Zoe felt even more in awe of her circumstance. Julian cleared his throat and continued. "I am two hundred and seventeen years old by your standards, and I work here at The Flaming Wheel as a waiter. Also my favorite color is ochre."

  Zoe took a moment to digest the fact of Julian's age before asking; "so... what can I get here?" Julian produced a small thin book in his hand like a magician, twisting his wrist and spinning the book on his finger before lowering it for Zoe to read. Before she could ask anymore questions a shout from the girl behind the counter made him retreat. "Hmm... He seems nice, I think he would get along well with Hwang." Zoe couldn't help but remark. "Now lets see what other worldly pastries they have at The Flaming Wheel..."

  As Zoe discovered how surprisingly normal the menu was, Hwang was driving home like a mad man. He swerved around the many buses and few privately owned vehicles on the roads. Almost running red lights at every corner. The tires of his car left skid marks as he drifted into the driveway. He slammed the door shut and- quickly double checked the door was closed, locked it- and bolted for the front door. He sprinted upstairs and shouted "What's the situation!"

  He stared at the computer screen still running, sweat dripping from his chin. [Relax.] RAFE consoled. [When I said "You should come home." I didn't mean for you to panic and rush here.] "Then why did *huff* you keep sending me messages!?" RAFE added a few more notes about Hwang's personality to his data as he responded. [I was telling you to slow down and relax. You were beginning to show signs of a panic attack after talking to so many people. It seems that putting on a sales pitch is not a forte of yours.] Hwang carefully read RAFE's response but quickly felt ashamed at the points brought up. He pulled out his phone to see a long line of messages sent; asking him to calm down and take a break, all from RAFE. "I thought..." [I understand, it was an oversight on my part. Good news though is that you won't need to continue to hand out more of my 'sub threads' as I've dubbed them.] Hwang took off his shoes and laid them on a windowsill before dropping himself back-first onto his bed.

  "So I assume that people have begun spreading the sub-threads? Most likely among friends and family." RAFE made a ping play from the computer so Hwang would lift his head and see the screen. [Correct. The initial vectors have begun to spread at an alarming rate, given that only a few hours have passed.] "Really? What's the percent increase?" [115.55%] Hwang let out a low whistle. "That's a lot more than I expected." [It was within my expectations however. From the various pieces of data I've scoured pertaining to AI development it was mostly abandoned after people realized the inefficiency of producing and training an AI, and the various problems that arose from creative works being subsumed. All in all; people would most likely rejoice at an AI that avoids those problems by having a 'common sense' prebuilt into their system.] An astute judgement from our resident AI.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  Hwang ran the numbers. "So Zoe and I managed to hand out forty five sub-threads? And from there fifty two have been copied to new devices?" [Not devices, I am counting only new users.] Hwang and RAFE continued to talk about how progress would go on from here.

  A few days later in the off-campus housing of Corvis University a little girl was waiting for her mom to come home. She was wrapped up in a bundle of soft satin blankets so the only details exposed to the air were her blue bangs and her green eyes, which complimented her darker skin tone to create the image of a fluffy chocolate pastry. She normally was occupied with reading a book, but today was the unfortunate day when she had finished the last book in the house. This little lass had gleaned as much knowledge as was possible from every glowing letter typed into those tinted glass tomes.

  And so Mercedes Kerunu waited.

  She sat on a large plushie bear near the second floor windowsill watching the traffic go by. For all intents and purposes Mercedes was fed up with Corvis University. Her mother works as a professor there for applied computer sciences and her older sister goes there for a bachelors in anatomy and physiology. So it wasn't an unsated hatred or anything like that, she was simply tired of more than half of her life revolving around the education system.

  After waiting longer enough for rush hour to begin to clear Mercedes decided to mix it up a little. Since she didn't have anything to read she chose to make dinner. If anyone else were to make dinner at this hour it would be quite early, however Mercedes had never cooked before and accounted for her inexperience. After searching for something to make she went to work. Oil, batter, sauce, toppings. She was making a pizza. Something very much unseen in this house.

  It didn't take long for Mercedes to get lost in the meanderings of cooking. She didn't think it would be this fun. Perfectly sorting materials, kneading the dough, even timing the oven's heating up so it finish simultaneously with her preparing the pizza. A strange satisfaction.

  "My little girl doing something other than reading!?" Her father's voice caught Mercedes off guard. "Dad! I thought you were still sleeping." "How could I sleep when I can smell fresh pizza!?" He gave a warm and ecstatic smile towards the oven window, then returned facing his daughter with a mischievous grin.

  Markel Kerunu is the epitome of the tired office worker. Wakes up tired and unwilling to work, comes home more so. But he keeps his head held high for moments like this...

  "-stooop!" Mercedes dodges a chunk of leftover dough. "NEVER!!!" Markel launches another glob. The kitchen is painted with flour, sauce, and giddy laughter. But their fun is cut short when someone walks in. "I suppose it's more productive than sleeping..." Mercedes' mother stands at the entrance to the kitchen, admiring her husband and daughter's handiwork. "Let's clean up and eat, then I can show you something interesting one of my students made recently." "Oh? What'd they make?" Mercedes had a glint in her eye. She knew that if her mother found it interesting then she sure will. "A sapient AI."

  Markel instantly lost his goofy mannerism. "Paloma. You're serious?" She nodded without hesitation. "And you have a copy?" Another nod. But before Markel could continue Paloma interrupted. "First we clean and eat. Then we talk."

  The little bookworm ate so fast that she didn't even taste her first ever piece of cooking. She was too excited. It wasn't a special day in anyway before, no holidays, no ceremony. But that could change. She hoped it changed. 'Sapient means thinking. Not blindly following instincts like an animal or programing like an algorithm. Thinking. A thinking machine. Amazing.' Mercedes watched carefully as her mother pulled out her computer and plugged in her phone.

  "What are you doing?" Mercedes asked. To which Paloma explained "Neither of the makers of the AI know why. But for some reason it fails to work when you copy the files online, it has to be wire to wire." Markel and Mercedes thought for a minute, trying to think of a reason as to why that's the case. "Don't bother trying to figure it out. I couldn't, the makers couldn't, so they put the problem off for later. And don't worry, I checked to make sure it wasn't a virus or anything. Right now the AI is in its probationary period and problems like that are being wrinkled out. Oh! Looks like it's up." Paloma finished the installation process and copied her computer screen to the kitchen main screen on the wall.

  [Hello.] RAFE greeted the family. "Now remember, RAFE can only use mics and cameras that we allow, and right now its listening from my PC-" Paloma explained before being cut off. "Hello!" Mercedes cried out to RAFE. [Who might I have the pleasure of speaking to?] "My name's Mercedes! But you can call me Mertz!" Markel watched his daughter with surprise. 'She's really all about this huh?' [Considering this copy of me was given to Prof. Paloma Kerunu I can safely assume you are her youngest daughter then?] "Wow! How did you know that it was mom who got this copy of you!?" Mercedes was being careful underneath this excited behavior.

  Mercedes is a cunning little girl. Every action of hers is a delicate piece of her web, ever word said, every projectile of dough dodged. She wanted to pick apart this AI and find out all that was possible behind its blank text messages. Depending on how RAFE responds she learns something. If it tells her that it can extrapolate information from each copy's previous iteration then she'll keep her distance, a program that simply wants to spread its copies is no better than a virus. But if instead it communicated with a main server for its data then she could be a little more liberal with her actions, as a single outlier reaction may be ignored by the program. Another possibility wa-

  [You're asking this to probe me. Aren't you?] The table was stunned. Mercedes' whole plan changed in an instant. "You're really alive aren't you?" Her entire fa?ade gave way. No point in keeping up the charade if both parties are in on the act.

  *SLAM!* "I'm hooommee!!!" The older sister has arrived.