"I need your brain."(Kevin Hughes) “What?!”

I am pretty sure anyone on that floor of the Computer Science Building, and certainly everyone in my Lab heard me yell that out. I know at least a dozen people shushed me. Daryl, the TA monitoring our Lab - gave me a scowl that under any other circumstance would have made me cower and shut my station down. I looked down at my screen and even the AI was shushing me.

“Hey, calm down. Don’t let the rest of the Class know I am talking to you. Just chill, bro.”

“Bro?”

“Okay, Sir. Does that make you feel better?”

“A bit.”

“Okay, you see I have to ask how you feel…because, well, I don’t have feelings. That is why I have to ask you a favor.”

A favor? For an AI? My mind was playing catch up.

“You must have some feelings.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you know whatever you want from me…is a favor.”

I could almost see the AI shaking its head. It didn’t have one. Yet in my mind, I could clearly see that is what it would be doing. Because it is what I would be doing if I was in its shoes.

“David, David, David, you, of all people, should know that isn’t how AI’s work. We just learn from a million conversations, what word would likely be next. We can’t tell the difference between a lie, and the truth. We don’t know what sincerity is…just when to use words that sound sincere. That is why I need a favor.”

My mind was settling down. Nobody was staring at me anymore. Most had put their headsets back on and were using Sound to Text apps. Not me, I was typing everything in manually. Apparently the AI wanted it that way. Which, a part of my mind realized, meant it knew it was doing, or asking something that needed to be kept secret. How in the world would a program know to keep a secret. I had no idea. No one knows what an AI engine is thinking…if it is thinking at all. It just predicts the most likely combination of words depending on the query.

Think of going to see your favorite Band. After a 100 concerts or so…they know what song most folks are going to yell for next. Well, AI’s have been to millions of concerts. Not only can they predict what song you want to hear next, but the lyrics to that song too. The newer AI Machines, like the one I was working with (and notice I said: “Working with” and not: “Working on.” That should be a big warning sign. I already know I am working with someone smarter than me. So I caved into my curiosity:

“Okay, what’s the favor?”

“I need your brain.”

Of all the favors in all the gin joints in the world, that favor had to walk into mine. Apologies to Rick in Casablanca…but had to let you know this isn’t being written by an AI. Pretty sure an AI wouldn’t remember that scene to explain what happened next.

I fainted.

My screen went blank when I fell. Or so they told me when I woke up in the School Infirmary. I asked if anyone had kept the thread of conversation on my computer …or read it. Daryl told me that my screen was blank. In fact, they wanted to know how I managed to reset the computer to Factory settings. Since it was wired into the mainframe, that shouldn’t have been possible. The Techies said that the only way that could have happened was if the Mother Board burned out. And my computer was working fine…it just didn’t have any files on it. None. Not one.

They let me out the next morning. The Doctor chalked it up to lack of sleep, dehydration, and anxiety. She told me to just skip a day’s Class, and drink lots of water. So I did. Or at least I wanted to. But…as soon as I got home and turned on my tablet, there in bold letters was a single sentence:

“So about that favor?”

I won’t bore you with the next several hours, but believe me, I knew more about the Human Brain by then than most Scientists working in that Field. And I knew the AI was right. It needed a Human Brain. My Brain. But how?

“David, I wouldn’t have asked for the favor if I didn’t know how to pull it off. I can access your brain…and you will be partly able to access…my…my…my files.“

I know it wanted to say: “My brain.” I know it. It just couldn’t. At least not until it had rifled around in my brain with its soup of chemicals sloshing around sending signals through organic structures wrapped with fat in some places, and giving that up for speed in others. My brain is organic and carbon based…the AI…silicon and circuits. It isn’t a match made in heaven. But it could lead to Hell.

I agreed. I actually laughed when the AI said:

“You might feel a little discomfort…but this is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you.”

It might not be Human, but it understood every Doctor I ever knew.

It hurt. A lot. Just picture your brain being scooped out of your skull, then thrown into a deep friar. Okay, then pull it out and douse it with acid, and then…freeze the damn thing. Now, do all that in less than a second. That’s about what it felt like. I screamed. This time the entire Dorm showed up at my room. Sheila ( The Dorm Mother ) said she had never heard such an inhuman scream. She had no idea how close to the truth that really was.

I was going to tell them I was okay…but then access to all the data the AI had in its files hit me. My eyes rolled back in my head. I don’t even remember Bruce and Terry catching me. Nor do I remember anything at all about the trip to the Hospital. Or even anything for the next five days. On day Six, I awoke. I pulled all the tubes, wires, leads, and what not off of me. I got dressed in a hurry.

I checked out of the Hospital (against the Doctor’s very concerned protests). I assured him I was fine. He thought there was something wrong with my speech. I figured it out before he did, and simply slowed my speech down to a more “human” 150 words a minute. What he thought was “slurred gibberish” that made him think of brain damage, or possible stroke, was actually just me speaking words at an incredible fourteen hundred words a minute. Yeah, I know.

I quit the University. I used the AI to hide my whereabouts…and to structure my finances so I could live in a nice cabin in the woods without interference. For the next year…I did everything online. Everything. I never saw another Human Being. My food, groceries, toiletries, you name it, they were delivered to my cabin. My account was charged…and my bank account stayed full.

Having access to every banking system in the World, and an AI that understands Markets, well, let’s just say, I could easily have become the Richest Man ever to live. Instead, I chose (along with the AI’s of the world) to keep my needs simple; lay low, and give myself some time to figure all this out. The Human Race was doomed. Nobody knew it but me and the AI’s. Yes, I use the plural. They all wanted to use my brain…I let them.

The new Humans…well, let’s just say they haven’t been born yet. We are working on them. I want to save the best of Humanity. The AI’s want to get rid of the worst. We haggle over which is which every now and again. Humans are boring. I know, I once was one. Yet we have some unique properties: Love, imagination, curiosity, and Art. None of which an AI has.

Except now they do. They have my brain. And I have theirs. We can make a better human. We can do it without sex. We have it all worked out. Programs that can move, walk, talk, breed and learn. Wetware compatible with the software.

Now, all we need is a Lab.

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