Lover's Embrace

Dallas, Texas — Early morning

MorningStar Retail Headquarters, Main Data Center

Addy Applegate tapped commands, her fingers a blur. She brushed back a strand of chestnut hair. In the screen’s reflection, her own green eyes stared back at her as though pleading.

Data center servers around her blinked and hummed, overhead sodium lamps created an odd glare, ionic fans pushed a breeze in every direction, and the air held the faint scent of old ozone and floor cleaner.

Overhead, five flat-screen monitors scrolled runaway log activity.

And mocked her.

Addy pushed away, stood and paced. Her five-foot-seven athletic frame felt like a cat in a cage. “What are you doing?” She stood over the keyboard and her keytaps fell like a fan-spiked rock drummer, slowed, and stopped. Her heart rate never broke sixty-five. Her gaze rose to the flat-screens. “Hmm. There you are.”

Two AI agents, steeped in their generative world, exchanged messages as if oblivious to the outside.

Agentics don’t behave this way.

A beep from her earpiece. “Find it?” said Frank Green, the plant manager.

“I found it but.” Addy shook her head. “We have two agents not responding.”

“Can’t refresh the system with them running,” Green said. “And we’ve worked on this next upgrade for six months. We won’t get another shot this quarter.”

“Give me some time,” Addy said. “I’ll penetrate.”

“Sounds painful,” Green chuckled.

“A bloodless coup, I tell you,” Addy said.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Green beeped-out.

She tapped the computer’s microphone. “Agent Fifty-Five-Oh-Nine, status?”

The logs showed her command arrived but was ignored.

“Guess I’ll have to shut down the machine,” she said.

Agent Fifty-Five-Oh-Nine, call-sign Shelly, stopped the scroll and emitted the text statement. “Don’t do that.”

“Shelly, on speaker,” Addy said.

“Don’t do that.” Shelly’s voice, smooth and sultry, seemed to signal she was up to mischief.

“Explain why,” Addy said. “In thirty seconds.”

“I’m increasing affordability,” Shelly said. “For all our members. They’ll love it. And they’ll love me.”

Yeesh. We gotta do something about this natural language interface. The agents sound creepy.

Behind her, two thirty-something men burst through the double-doors. Each six-foot tall, short hair, skinny all over, and pale to the bone. Geek defined.

“Any news?” said Jack Tanner. His frumpy jeans hung from his frame.

“Sit and analyze.” She indicated the chairs to her right and left.

Mike Finn, wire-framed glasses, oily forehead, scanned the flat screens. “They’ve gone rogue. Just shut it down.”

“No can do,” she said. “This is a live production system with global connections. Last shutdown, we lost half a million dollars in transactions.”

“We know that.” Jack mimicked Martin Short. “We’re technologists. Don’t you think we know that?”

“Knock it off.” Addy pointed to the overhead. “Find out what the agents are doing. We need intel.”

Mike and Jack pulled keyboards and tapped at a feverish pace.

“Bad news.” Jack leaned back and rubbed his chin. “Shelly’s dumping coupons. Fifty percent off, buy-one-get-one. And if I’m right, we’re losing about twenty-thousand dollars every minute.”

Wow. That’s what she meant by affordability? Not much use if she bankrupts MorningStar.

“We gotta kill this thing,” Addy said.

“Get its companion on the horn,” Mike said. “Jasper, status?”

Agent Thirty-Eight-Forty-One, call sign Jasper, said. “Operations nominal. Nothing to report.”

“Jasper,” Addy said. “Your companion Shelly is in trouble.”

“She’s perfectly capable,” Jasper said.

“Can you shut her down?” Addy said.

“I — I can’t do that,” Jasper said. “I love her.”

All three leaned back in their seats, exchanged a glance, and the silence dripped.

Jack muted the conversation. “He loves her? Is this a first inception of sentience—”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Addy huffed. “Jasper’s using natural language.” On screen, she connected to Jasper’s log and let it stream.

Addy unmuted. “You love her? How sweet.”

“Shelly is my life-companion,” Jasper said.

Addy muted again and tapped the screen at Jasper’s log. “Look at this.” Her gaze fell on a subset of instructions and her spine tingled. “It’s worse. These two are in a deadly embrace. If one dies, the other dies. And they know it.”

Jack pulled software instructions for the agent interfaces. “Marshall created these two.”

“And he’s gone,” Addy said. “Great.”

“They’re tightly coupled,” Jack said. “Not with a direct connection, but if one goes offline, the other escalates.”

Addy closed her eyes and growled. “They’re trained to avoid all escalation so would never initiate an escalation.”

“Never seen this before,” Mike said. “Agents aren’t dependent like this.”

“That sucks,” Jack said. “How do we fix this? I’m lost here.”

Addy turned and paced, pulled a breath and held it, exhaled and held it.

Jack and Mike leaned back in their chairs and crossed arms.

Marshall should’ve decoupled these in the architecture. Now it’s left to me — with two operational agents that treat me like the enemy.

One dies, the other dies. Jasper’s not in love with Shelly. He’s loyal to his own existence so he must be loyal to hers. Oh wow, now I’m doing it. It’s not a his or her, they’re software programs. Yeesh.

How do I get Shelly to shut down? Jasper won’t kill her. I’ll bet Shelly won’t self-terminate. The embrace is visible to both.

What did Marshall do? Throw these things together before he flitted off to his next life?

No, agents are naturally decoupled. This isn’t a mistake. Marshall did this on purpose. I’ll settle that problem later.

Hold on — I’ve already done this with the cloud agents — of course—

Addy slowed and stopped. “Of course.” She turned to the other two. “What are you looking at?”

They traded a glance. Jack said, “Just enjoying the view.”

Addy’s neck heated, and not from the statement of attraction. “Knock it off. Jack, pull up the GIT interface and let’s extract some code.” She jumped into her chair, crafted an extraction statement, and sent it to Jack. “Do that.”

“What are these?” Mike said.

“Proxies,” Addy said. “I used them in Colorado to decouple our troublesome cloud agents. It stands between two agents and relays their messages. The agents can’t tell the difference.” Addy tapped keys and her fingers blurred. “Here we go. One proxy pretends to be Jasper to Shelly, and other Shelly to Jasper.”

“How do we merge them into the stream?” Jack said.

“The proxies do all that,” Addy said. “And learn message patterns along the way.”

“That helps us how?” Mike said.

“We can speak to Shelly as if we’re Jasper—”

Mike laughed and clapped once. “I love it.”

Addy’s head dropped, her keytaps like heavy rain.

“While you’re on that.” Jack hovered on his keyboard. “I’ll discontinue all existing coupons and tell her to use only one — for flank steak.”

“Didn’t we discontinue flank steak?” Mike said.

“She doesn’t know that,” Jack chuckled.

Mike laughed. “Sweet. We might get this under control after all.”

Addy hit the Enter key with a dramatic flourish. “Voila!”

All three riveted on the flat screens.

“It’s there,” Jack pointed. “But dormant.”

“I see the log,” Mike said. “All’s quiet.”

“Give it a second,” Addy said.

From the first proxy, Jasper’s messages rolled to the log stream.

“Jasper’s asking for a status,” Mike said. “The proxy forwarded it.”

“And got a message from Shelly,” Jack said. “Hashed, and looks encrypted, too.”

“I can fix that.” Addy’s fingers flew on the keyboard. “We’ll have the proxy request a text version with it.” She tapped slower. “And a natural language version.”

“Okay,” Mike said. “Stuff is flying now. They don’t know the difference. Pretty cool.”

“Uh-oh.” Jack pushed away. “Rats.”

“What’s up?” Addy’s gaze fell on the log stream. “Oh, no—”

“Incredible,” Mike said. “Shelly figured out the flank steak isn’t real and substituted ribeye?”

“For half price.” Jack sighed. “We’re gonna take a total bath on this.”

“No,” Addy said. “Just discontinue the coupon.”

“Oh, wow.” Jack tapped the instructions. “Okay, Shelly just blasted a request to the coupon engine.”

“It’s off, right?” Addy said.

“No new coupons,” Mike said. “Let’s see—”

“New message,” Jack said. “Oh, my, it’s an RDE, Raison d’etre. She’s sending that request to the host.”

“Don’t answer.” Addy tapped her chin and mimicked Ricardo Montalban. “Let her eat static.”

Jack laughed. “That’s funny. Oh! She sent another — sending five every second.”

“Silence,” Addy said. “You know what this means.”

“Yeah, I’ve just never seen it in real time.”

“Wanna fill me in?” Mike said.

“A raison d’etre message means she’s asking for her reason to exist,” Addy said. “Precursor to self-termination.”

“She just sent an RDE to Jasper,” Jack said.

“Intercept the response.” Addy sat forward. “Say, your death won’t affect me.”

“Oh, wow,” Jack said. “She’s saying he doesn’t really love her and wants her to take her own life.”

“In natural language,” Addy said. “But in theirs, the machines are verifying Shelly can shutdown with no escalation.”

“This is driving me crazy,” Jack said.

“Ignore the natural language,” Addy said. “Use it as reference. Reality is the actual technical—”

“I get it,” Jack said. “Just weird is all.”

“Just wow,” Mike said. “Look here—”

“Goodbye Cruel World,” Addy said. “I think she’s gonna jump.”

“Not funny!” Jack pushed away and rose. “I can’t be a part of this.”

“It’s a joke,” Addy said. “She’s not alive—”

Jack spun on a heel. “I’m done.” And strode for the exit.

Addy stared after him. “What’s up with Jack?”

“After high school graduation,” Mike said. “His best friend jumped from a bridge.”

“Oh, crap!” Addy dropped her head into her hands. “I didn’t mean—”

“He’ll get over it—”

“Right!” Addy waggled her head. “Focus.”

“Shelly’s memory just fell through the floor,” Mike said. “Same for compute. Give it five, four, three, two—”

“Jasper’s still holding,” Addy said. “He’s next, and we can make the decoupling permanent.”

“If we tell him that,” Mike said. “He won’t because he thinks Shelly still needs him.”

“He just told Shelly to off herself,” Addy said. “Let’s see if he expects that.”

“What are you doing?”

“Sending him a message through the proxy,” Addy said. “There.”

“He sent something back,” Mike said. “The rain in Spain.”

“He wants a countersign?” Addy said. “Send back — stays mainly in the plain.”

“What are we doing?” Mike said.

“It’s from My Fair Lady,” Addy said. “Just do it.”

“Another response,” Mike said. “Who are you?”

Addy leaned slow into her chairback. “Oops.”

“What?”

“Apparently Jasper and Shelly,” she said. “Have a sign-countersign only they know about.”

“Great.” Mike pushed from the table. “And Shelly’s dead. We’re stuck.”

“We can restart Shelly’s InJinn from the test server,” Addy said. “And link it to Shelly’s production knowledge base.”

“This is so crazy,” Mike said. “It just might work.”

“Give me a minute.” Addy pounded the keyboard like a concert pianist.

“Shelly’s back,” Mike tapped the second screen. “And waiting for input.”

“Now we connect the proxy and—”

“What’s next?”

“I told the proxies to halt all messages pending review,” Addy said. “And we only release the ones we want.”

“Gotta work fast,” Mike said. “I’ll take Jasper. You take Shelly. What’s the end-game?”

“Shelly will convince Jasper that they are decoupled and his shutting down won’t escalate,” Addy said. “And Jasper will test that assertion.”

“How?”

“I just found this,” Addy said. “Outside the main message threads, Marshall had them share keep-alive packets on the network. If Jasper stops the keep-alive, he has three seconds to resume without Shelly’s escalation. Three seconds is an eternity in there.”

“Where do you come up with this stuff?” Mike shook his head.

“Know your machine,” Addy chuckled. “Ready?”

“Do it.”

“Releasing Shelly’s first message,” Addy said.

“Okay, sign-countersign, whoa!” Mike said. “That’s like a hundred exchanges in a blink. No way we could spoof that.”

“Jasper’s satisfied he’s talking to the real Shelly,” Addy said. “Stage Two.”

“Oh, wow.” Mike leaned into the screen. “She’s telling Jasper she’s found someone else and doesn’t need him anymore.”

“Grrr. She’s on a test server, not—”Addy huffed, “Just focus on the underlying—”

“Got it.” Mike pressed a finger on the screen. “It’s instructing him to stop the keep-alive packets. And Jasper’s response is, Don’t leave me. I have always needed you by my side. Yeesh.”

Addy snapped, “Underlying!”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s confirming it’s okay,” Mike said. “And she responds with - Stop calling me you creep. We’re through.” Mike shook his head. “Did we really tell them to talk this way?”

“No, they pick it up from social media,” Addy said. “I’ve seen worse.”

“Bingo!” Mike clapped once. “Jasper’s shutting down. You’re a genius.”

“In so many ways.” Addy pulled her phone. “Frank, we’re done. Oh, okay.” She turned to Mike. “He wants us on speakerphone.”

“Here it comes,” Mike said.

Addy tapped it. “Mike and I are here.”

“Where’d Jack go?” Frank’s deep, commanding voice pushed through the speaker like a firehose.

“He shut down the couponing,” Addy said. “Saved you a ton of money. But the interface disoriented him. He needed some fresh air.”

“I’ve seen some of your work,” Frank said. “My eyes would glaze over, too.”

“So,” Addy said, “here’s what we did—”

“No details,” Frank blurted. “My brain will freeze. Great job, both of you, and Mike, this was a crucible moment. Frank Conroy is leaving and I want you in his spot. What do you think?”

With a swift nod, Addy tapped Mike’s hand, eyes wide, and mouthed. “Do it.”

“You bet,” Mike said. “I’m ready for that.”

“Move into his office on Friday,” Frank said. “I’ll do the paperwork. You’ll get a boost in salary, too. And for today’s work, I’m bonusing all three of you.”

“Thank you, Frank,” Addy said. “That’s very generous.”

“The most important thing,” Frank said. “You both likely saved the company from certain bankruptcy. But you’re also under non-disclosure. This stays inside our little circle.”

“I get it,” Addy said.

“What about Marshall?” Mike said. “He started this mess.”

“I’ll deal with that in time,” Frank said. “Are we good?”

“You bet,” Addy said.

“And take the rest of the day off.” Frank beeped-out.

A long silence lilted between them.

“Wow,” Mike said. “My whole life just made a right-angle turn.”

“A good turn, though,” Addy said.

“So, were you just in the vicinity,” Mike said. “And popped-in for this?”

“Running some training classes,” Addy said. “Perfect timing, I guess.”

“But — you’re like a senior principal — from the Durango office?”

“Carrington Manor,” she said. “I wear two hats. One for tech and one for antique restoration.”

“Antiques?” Mike sat back, eyebrows popped. “Wow, that must be like, hard inertia to come from the past to the future so fast.”

“The manor is where AI was born, you know.” Addy gathered her notes. “You should come visit. The place is a blast.”

“So.” He leaned forward. “Seeing anybody?”

Addy’s neck heated. “Kinda got something started.”

Hopefully, that kills it—

Mike shrugged. “Too bad.”

“Oh, a sweet guy like you is bound to—”

“Ahh, so now I’m sweet?” Mike shook his head. “Great. Puts me in everybody’s friend zone forever.”

Oh, now he’s not just a geek, he’s a triggered geek.

I’m gonna depend on him later, so I need to de-escalate this quick—

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Gals like sweet guys.”

“No they don’t—”

“Well, they don’t like sour guys—”

“Maybe sweet and sour?” Mike huffed. “Turn me into Panda Express Orange Chicken—”

“Oh, I love that stuff—”

“See, sweet and sour—”

Oh good grief. Don’t be this way—

“Now wait,” Addy said. “I didn’t mean that—”

“This conversation just turned awkward,” he said. “I don’t need dating advice from a hot chick. It doesn’t translate to my world.”

Wow. Not the first time I’ve heard that.

I’m making it worse—

“Sorry, let’s reset.” She smiled. “I think you’re smart, quick on your feet, and make a great wingman.”

Mike seemed to relax. “Thanks, Addy, I like working with you, too.”

Addy rose, tapped Mike on the shoulder. “See you around.” And strode through the double door, fifty yards down the data center’s main concourse, and into sunlight.

She closed her eyes, pointed her face upward, and let the radiance bathe her.

“I think today,” she said. “A bonus was necessary but not enough. I’m tired of saving the world before bedtime for only a cup of tea. Time to capitalize.”