"Iris scan complete. Welcome aboard Sergeant Dave."
I stifled my growing unease at the situation by taking a deep breath and then holding it in, only to exhale out in a loud manner, bringing a few giggles from Anneliese because a wave of steam blew out into the cold elevator.
Although Inception City's AI, Althea calling someone was not unheard of, it was precisely because it was rare that it was a big deal.
Althea had called on just two people before in its entire history of two centuries.
And both times, I was the person who was called forth.
I liked neither.
And, I definitely didn't wish for a third one. Not after the terrible day I was having.
I attempted to relax my shoulders and held onto the handlebars that popped open from the elevator's side as I spoke.
"From this point onward. Anything you do will be publicly displayed, be warned."
*beep**BEEP* *BEEP**beep**BEEP**beep* *BEEP*beep**BEEP**beep* *beep* *beep**BEEP**BEEP**beep* *BEEP* *beep* *BEEP**beep**beep*
A strange beeping played right on cue as I finished warning Anneliese and she immediately shut up calming down and for the first time in a while, showing me her detached unemotional look.
The Elevator shifted backward and then climbed up at a fast pace, enough that I could feel the sugary drink I had during lunch prompting itself out of my throat, but I held on since I knew I shouldn't embarrass myself right now.
The elevator doors stayed shut but the wall behind us fell and made for a nice ramp to walk into a heavily guarded room.
It wasn't guarded by people, no that was too risky. It was guarded by a protocol created by the AI.
Anneliese attempted to step out as soon as the back panel fell but I held her back.
But a single strand of her hair swung forward and floated out of the elevator causing three hundred wavers to erupt from the panel behind the door and shoot at the exact same time.
The hair was vaporized.
I could feel Anneliese's hands beside me go cold. But her face still kept her composure.
"Follow me." I said and only when Anneliese nodded did I let her hand go.
I stepped in front of Anneliese and covered her fully using my body.
The wavers all pointed at me immediately.
Noises of actuators moving echoes all around the mostly empty white room, but I stayed standing still.
"Threat Neutralized. Please step in order of registration." the AI spoke.
"Send me your copy of the email Anneliese." I said without turning back.
A notification sounded from my AR glasses.
*DING* *DING*
Which prompted me to pull up the email and look at the instructions written inside.
```
FROM: TheOnlyAlthea@GAI.com
RE: Anneliese@AnonymousCasino.com
Good Afternoon Cadet,
Fetch Sergeant Dave to the Central Control Panel on the GAI Floor. You must inform Dave that an important case needs to be solved within the next twenty-four hours or the consequences for not doing so will be heavy.
Follow pattern steps, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2.
Thanking you,
7181352351212
```
"Walk exactly like I do."
I walked with my right leg first and placed it outside carefully.
The wavers kept my nerves tense as they followed each movement my foot made.
Continuing to follow the instructions inside the email with '1' being the indicator to move my right leg and '2' for the left. I soon reached the center of the white room we were inside.
Anneliese was right behind me but was considerably relaxed after nothing had happened till now.
A short pause of nothing occurred, giving my mind plenty of time to wonder about the situation ahead.
'The central control panel?'
'Why would anyone need to access the master command folder about the GAI?'
'Is there something the GAI wants me to see?'
'Why did Gracewell want me to stop associating with Anneliese?'
'Did she know something like this was going to happen?'
'Given how confident she was in being able to overturn the decision of the city's GAI, it logically extends with the reasoning that Gracewell is connected to the GAI somehow. But, how?'
Soon a panel on the roof above my head opened up as a single wire already connected to something on one end dropped down from the roof.
"Please connect this to update your AR glasses to update the vulnerable copy of my system."
"What? That's it?" Anneliese asked positively furious since she was probably expecting something grander.
To be honest I was too.
After all the last two time I had been called in here there was actually something important happening.
'But why did it have to call me here for an update?'
I ignored my doubts for now and connected the wire to a slot on my AR glasses that was used to update it by connecting it to a Millwright to change all its intricate settings.
*click*
As soon as the wire snapped into place, a new window opened up on my screen.
"Do not take action against what is about to happen."
It vanished as soon as I finished reading it and then changed into.
[Allow File transfer protocol to transfer files. ]
[ ]
[—-------------------—------------[]Yes—---------]
Although worried about what it meant by not taking action about what was going to happen, I accepted the option for file transfer protocol.
It wasn't like I had much of a choice anyway.
As soon as I tapped yes on my screen. I found an unusual notification.
[Transfering, 'TheTruth.media' from connected device. ]
[ ]
[—-------------------—------------[]Cancel—---------]
As I was about to hit the cancel button, the wavers all around me shifted and aimed behind me, at Anneliese.
A bright flash of blue took over the white room as the *buzzing* sound of over three hundred wavers activating at once echoed around.
Before I knew it, even before my body moved to stop it or to push Anneliese out of the way, the wavers had fired.
Anneliese collapsed to the ground instantly like someone had turned off a power button that was connected to her head as I barely stopped her from banging her head on the floor, trying to protect whatever was remaining of her.
"WHAT THE HELL!? WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?"
"Assume the previous position in Five...Four..Three...Two..-"
"Previous position assumed, file transfer finished, please leave."
Without much choice, I had returned to exactly how I was standing before.
The wavers went back behind their wall panels allowing me to quickly pull Anneliese's body back up as I started to march back towards the elevator.
There was anger and resentment in my eyes but I couldn't do much else.
Not in a place surrounded by weapons that could wipe me out in the blink of an eye.
'Wait, why didn't it just wipe out Anneliese?'
I immediately checked Anneliese's breath and found her still alive.
Although good to be alive, it only left me sadder since it meant Anneliese had been subjected to a mindwipe. A mindwipe was only possible with three or more wavers. The more wavers you poured into the mindwipe the more memories you would be able to delete.
And given the number of wavers that had activated I doubted there would be much left of Anneliese remaining after she woke up.
'What an odd world, where you could go to sleep only to wake up as a completely new person.'
'What's going on here?'
The elevator back panel shut back up once again as I held on to the extended railing bars as the elevator began to move back down to the floor where the Police HQ was.
'Wouldn't that have been live-streamed to everyone else in the world?'
All visits to the GAI were published for everyone to see since it was an extremely sensitive area and no one could risk anyone doing anything to tilt the AI's algorithms in their favor.
'Even if it was not being live-streamed, wouldn't Novie notice Anneliese asleep since she went up with me quite excitedly?'
'Ah, Novie. Novie, didn't respond to me when I'd left the HQ, she was only there to inform me that Anneliese was coming to my office. I didn't meet anyone else along the way as well. The AI cleared the pathway for me to visit it undetected?'
'Since when was it able to do so much?'
'Make us move like puppets on its strings.'
Just as I was about to exit the elevator a notification appeared on my AR glasses.
[Place Anneliese on her chair in front of her desk and leave to your office.]
Not in any condition to argue with a piece of junk that some people had concocted in their basement I moved through the corridor as I dragged the heavy body of Anneliese to the Cadet's training room.
A place where all new cadets stayed for about six months before getting real jobs.
An arrow showed up on my display as soon as I entered the room, pointing me in the right direction towards Anneliese's desk.
All the other desks were empty.
'Probably some other stupid command from the GAI.'
I stepped slowly through the desks, sometimes knocking over a pencil case and having to stop them from falling over.
My eyes had reddened and tears were only barely held inside as I dropped Anneliese on her chair and began to wipe them on my sleeves.
Taking support of the desk beside Annelies's I dropped down on the chair and began to wipe my eyes on my shirt until they became dry.
My head began to throb as my nose was blocked. Everything in my vision felt like it was swimming under the mirage formed by a hot sun.
It didn't make sense.
*DING**DING**DING**DING**DING**DING*
Continuous notifications poured in but I didn't care why I was being sent them.
I pulled out my AR glasses and snapped them in half just to shut it up.
Getting up, now without a pair of AR glasses on my face, I walked over to my office and crashed down on the sofa once again.
Hitting the sofa backrest sent a slight shake to the table in the office causing the several bobbleheads to bobble.
It was only then that I remembered that I had a video to watch.
A video that was unnaturally titled 'TheTruth.media'.
Pulling out another pair of AR glasses, I connected it to my home network where the file should've already been backed up.
Opening the video I paused as I was about to open it.
'Do I need to watch it?'
'Why am I acting like I have to follow orders??'
'I don't have to.'
I slid over to my desk and pulled open the Medicine drawer as I pulled out the pills I needed to take.
"Maybe this is all just one bad trip."
I looked at the clock on my new AR glass's interface and saw it read, twelve-fifty.
'A nice time to leave the office.'
'I wonder how the GAI will get rid of my hand prints on Anneliese. Will I get framed for Mindwiping her?'
'Ha! At this point, what can I even do? What's the point of doing anything? When that stupid thing controls everything.'
*DING**DING*
Swallowing the pills I pushed myself into the sofa and pretended I was sleeping.
It would catch up to me anyway, I'd made sure of that.
*knock* *knock*
"Huh? Who's there?" I asked, already feeling drowsy.
"It's me! Anneliese!"
"What the heck?"
I nearly slipped out of the sofa trying to grab the closest Elixir syringe that I stabbed into my thighs and rushed toward the door.
Opening it I watched with shock as Anneliese appeared in front of me in all her glory.
I held her by her shoulders and turned her around, finding the exact same copy I had just placed on the chair.
"Who are you?" I asked, bewildered.
"What are you doing!? You're supposed to be light with women! How could Gracewell handle such a brute!?"
"..."
"What the hell! Get your hands off of me!" Anneliese said pushing my hands away as she sent me a file through a nearby share.
"Those are the documents needed for tomorrow's trial. You can check them when you become normal once again. What are you on? Your eyes are blood red!"
I watched as Anneliese turned around and left under my stunned gaze as I became confused at what had just happened.
"What did those wavers do?"
"What the hell."