"What?" Josh asked suddenly. "Oh my god Josh, you have to see how James plays. He upgraded my rank up to Veteran IX, which means I'm a rank higher than you. James would replace Felix that left, so we will be complete again, isn't that great?" Andy spokes with enthusiasm.
Josh eyed James with antipathy and shook his head slowly. "Yeah, no. James cannot join our team. I would not agree to this. I'm sorry Andy, but you have to choose someone else." It was now that Andy knew something was amiss.
"Huh, but why? Is it because he's your half-brother or what?" Andy asked curiously. "No, it's not that. It just—look I don't want to explain myself. I don't want James in our team, that's all. Please, let's choose someone else." Josh said in conclusion.
But Andy didn't back down. He stood up from his chair and stared straight at Josh. "Tell me, Josh, is there anything that James did that I should know about?" Andy asked as he looked at James, who was lost to the contents of his smartphone.
Josh hesitated for a moment and didn't say anything. "Come on Josh, say something. If you James had offended you before, tell me." Andy said slowly. "He did not do anything okay!" Josh said irritatedly. "Alright, then it's settled. James joins our team. Any other objections?"
Josh boiled with anger and stomped away from their table, leaving only Andy and James. Meanwhile, James was staring at the screen throughout the conversation between Josh and Andy. After Josh walked away, Andy sat on his seat and looked at James with a wide grin.
"I don't know why Josh doesn't like you, but it doesn't matter, you are part of the team. Oh, I want to tell you that our team have a unique prefix we add to our name to identify ourselves. It is "Unk" and a pilcrow sign. We also have unique skins…" Andy continued babbling while James was staring at his screen.
"Starting…"
James held his breath in anticipation as he tapped on the run button. The screen then displayed a console with a blinking "loading" text. This went on for more than three minutes. If this program failed, it would not worry him that much, except that it would hurt him a lot. He spent more than three months building this AI all day and all night.
The blinking loading text disappeared, and a digital face appeared, albeit in a neutral state. James was very thrilled. "Yes!" James spoke out loud. Andy, who thought it was because of his speech smiled. "Yeah man, I'm happy too! You know what, hand me your phone, let me personally set up the game the way I did mine." Andy said, and moved closer to James and whispered "That is my secret method of winning, I don't share this normally with my friends, but because it's you, I'll say it to you".
'Huh?' James was not sure of what he was talking about, but he nodded and pretended as if he heard what he said. "Don't worry Andy, it's not necessary, I'll set it up myself", James said. Andy shrugged and launched his game and played on, leaving James alone.
James was greatly relieved that Andy wasn't disturbing him anymore, so he plugged in his earpiece to assist him to focus. "Hi AI" James spoke into the earpiece microphone.
The AI delayed for a few seconds, before making a smiling expression. "Hi, James Smith," the AI said with a natural tone. James could not describe how thrilled he was at the moment.
Heaven knew the time and effort it took him to achieve this result. Even with his snappy brain, he still struggled to write an entire AI database from scratch. But James did not stop from there. He wanted to make sure this AI can do basic tasks. "What's the time?" James asked expectantly.
The AI delayed for a few seconds, before raising her eyebrow. "The time is two thirty-five", the AI replied. James grinned widely again and continued. "Lower my screen brightness to forty per cent," James said. His screen then dimmed slightly. James was very happy and contented by this. "I knew this would work!.
Furthermore, James repeated other basic tasks, which the AI did without hassle. As soon as James was done, he commended himself for a job well done. "Thank you," he said to himself, but the AI replied, "You are very much welcome James Smith."
That action startled James. "Huh? That was unexpected. I didn't program you to say that" James said with a raised eyebrow. "Sorry, I can't reply to this statement" the AI replied, but James did not hear what it said. James squinted his eye and pondered. This AI just said something I didn't program it to do. He quickly opened a new window that displayed all the AI codes, and he was surprised.
Before James ran the code, he monitored the number of project files in his folder. But right now, the number of folders that contained new codes had doubled. There were new lines of code that he didn't recognize. "What is this, and how was this possible?" James was astounded. He never expected his code to write itself. For a moment, James thought his PC was hacked by someone, but he dismissed that thought. His laptop is virtually unhackable, and that he was sure of.
He quickly launched his browser and googled for this strange phenomenon, but the engine returns zero searches. No one has experienced this before, which was very bizarre. He looked back at the codes again and pondered deeply. "Why did this happen?"
"Alright James, my mom is calling me. So I'll see you on Saturday alright?" Andy said as he got up from his seat and looked at James expectantly. James nodded and said "Sure." Andy smiled and waved at James. "Alright bye."
James looked up from his smartphone and stared at Andy until he disappeared from his vision, before turning to focus on his screen. "I think I have to use my laptop to check this thing."