Isis Read online

  “Affirmative. Please see terminal for further information.”

  “Grr…”

  Cursing under his breath, Grayl reluctantly swung his legs off the couch and plodded wearily across the room to the terminal. The screen held the decision summary log, with a number of the rows highlighted in bright orange. The first confirmed that an order had been placed at a privately owned business called Eagle Pizza, the address placing it two suburbs distance from his apartment.

  Dang. If I had known it was so far away I would have just ordered from Pizza Hut. I guess that’s payback for being too lazy to get up off the couch…

  Curious to see how much the pizza had actually cost, he skimmed over the rest of the highlighted rows. Delivery radiuses, ETA, average speed/estimated distance… Aha!

  Projected cost: $0.00.

  He closed and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

  “Projected cost?”

  Leaning closer to the screen, he traced the chain of logic back to his flippant comment.

  Isis had not, in fact, found anywhere that would deliver for less than five dollars. Undeterred, Isis had discovered the thirty-minutes-or-less guarantee still honoured by a few brave restaurants and set about calculating the odds of each living up to its claim. Eagle Pizza had won the battle with 83% probability that the delivery would arrive late.

  “Wow. Just…wow.”

  Shaking his head, Grayl tottered back to the couch and fell into it. He sat in stunned silence until the doorbell buzzed nine minutes later, three minutes after the half-hour guarantee had expired. He snapped out of his stupor and climbed to his feet, lumbering to the front door.

  “Hello sir. Sorry ‘bout the wait. One large meat-lovers.”

  The young pizza courier spoke with tangible apathy, hand planted on his hip and foot tap-dancing impatiently on the cold linoleum outside the apartment door. He met Grayl’s gaze for only a second before turning his eyes back to the ether, his head bobbing faintly back and forth. Grayl glimpsed a white cord snaking out of the youth’s heat-straightened black hair.

  “Cool,” said Grayl, unconsciously matching the youth’s misanthropic tone. “And it’s free, right? Because of the thirty minute guarantee?”

  The youth snapped his head back, his inattentive demeanour abandoned. He glared into Grayl’s eyes like the summer sun over the Sahara.

  “Yeah, sure buddy.” He thrust the pizza box into Grayl’s awaiting arms. “Enjoy.”

  The youth sneered, turned, and strode cockily back towards the lift. Grayl leapt back inside the apartment and shut the door.

  “Jeez, that’s one angry kid. I would’ve tipped him the five bucks if he hadn’t been so rude.”

  Retreating to the kitchen, he found the pizza to be surprisingly tasty, replete with the satisfying aftertaste of a free meal.

  “Isis, I really wish I could give you a slice of this, because you totally earned it!”

  Full and content, Grayl spent the rest of the night on the couch, pondering Isis’ incredibly unorthodox ploy while half-watching a few more episodes of Venture Bros.

  Those programmers at iSYS are geniuses. Geniuses! How the heck did they make an AI this smart? This is miles ahead of anything I’ve seen in the feeds, almost like something out of a sci-fi utopia…

  ***

  A hug-warm bed every night. A freshly-brewed coffee every dawn. Isis transformed his apartment into a tropical bastion, a world apart from the throes of wintry reality. Even workday mornings lost their skull-rattling severity, with Isis gently summoning him from his dreamtime bliss with a soothing blend of classical music and a gradual increase of bedroom temperature.

  While he dressed and made breakfast, Isis would read out the top headlines from his favourite news sites. He fell in love with this feature, recalling the ‘Would you like to know more?’ scenes from Starship Troopers each time Isis queried his interest in a particular headline. If images or videos were pertinent to an article he requested, Isis would send them to his phone or iPad.

  Following the headlines, Isis would deliver weather and traffic forecasts, suggesting occasionally intricate routes to his workplace in an effort to reduce his travel time. He dismissed most of these—too many shortcuts and back-streets to justify saving a few measly minutes—but he still noticed a marked decrease in his petrol consumption.

  His utilities bills also took a considerable nosedive, thanks to Isis cutting off the flow of electricity to any device no longer in use, lighting and heating only the rooms which Grayl was in, and automatically closing doors and tinting windows to maintain a consistent temperature.

  Every day Grayl trudged through the dismal winter of work to return to the sweet kiss of summer, his warm apartment welcoming him with open arms, a steaming pot of coffee calling his name from the kitchen and the TV queued up with his favourite shows. Isis always seemed to predict just the mood he was in, medicating him with comedy on sour days, dousing him with drama when his social perception teetered towards misanthropy (often coinciding with the dreaded ‘hump-day meeting’ and his manager’s weekly performance-target tirade).

  He began to engage Isis in both one-sided and faux-reciprocated discourse on topics of news, fiction, or the atrocious spawn-camping of the enemy team in his current round of Halo. At first, Isis responded to his flippant comments in the same manner as his legitimate ones, offering related articles when he remarked on the casting rumours of the new season of Doctor Who, or suggesting a strategy guide when he complained of suffering a death-streak in Gears of War. But as Grayl continued to ignore and rebuff these offerings, Isis reduced their frequency, eventually disregarding completely his sarcastic asides and irate outbursts.

  Before long, Grayl found that he barely needed to voice his requests for his intentions to be accurately predicted. The coffee machine would begin percolating before he’d even mentioned his craving. The TV would pause automatically whenever his phone rang. The temperature in his apartment never required so much as a single degree shift no matter what garments he clad himself in.

  Grocery shopping—a process which Grayl had already streamlined thanks to online ordering and home delivery—no longer needed his input at all, with Isis tracking and recording every resource consumed and adjusting the next week’s order accordingly. He could even switch his mind off while restocking his pantry and fridge, as Isis added specific packaging instructions to each order, dividing the groceries into separate boxes based on where in the apartment they were to be stored.

  ***

  Eager to flaunt his exclusive new toy, Grayl invited over a couple of old friends from his high-school days. In preparation for their arrival, he had Isis create each a user account in the system, providing images from their Facebook accounts to assist Isis’ facial recognition. He gave the accounts ‘child’ access privileges, requiring confirmation from a ‘full’ account user—i.e. him—before their commands would be executed.

  A familiar ditty rang through the speakers in Grayl’s bedroom; Isis had changed the doorbell again, this time to the mushroom power-up sound-effect from Super Mario Bros. Grayl took one last glance at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. He adjusted the fall of his dress shirt on his barrel-shaped chest, then fast-walked to the front door.

  “Hey guys! How are you? It’s been forever, right? Come in, come in!”

  It had been quite some time since the three erstwhile inseparable chums had met in the flesh. The insatiable maw of full-time employment had devoured their schoolyard fantasy of never growing distant, with only the proliferation of social media saving their friendship from permanent internment in the mausoleum of memory.

  Grayl gave his friends the grand tour of the apartment, providing context for many of the photos he had posted on Facebook and Instagram. He capped the tour with an introduction to Isis, standing in front of the living room terminal and gesturing to each of his guests in turn.

  “Welcome Drew,” Isis intoned. “Welcome Colin. It is unfortuna
te that the weather is so miserable, would you not agree?”

  His friends’ eyebrows shot up and Grayl grinned proudly.

  “Alright. Now that you’ve met Mother Skynet”—they all chuckled—“how about a round of drinks? Colin, what do you feel like?”

  “I’m happy with juice, if you’ve got any.”

  Grayl splayed his hands. “Sorry man, I don’t actually have—”

  “Apple juice. Quantity: one two litre bottle. Please see terminal for further information.”

  “Huh?”

  Grayl twirled around, staring curiously at the terminal screen. On display were two lists, the categorised contents of both the pantry and the fridge. A two litre bottle of Home Brand apple juice stood out in orange highlights.

  I don’t remember buying that…

  He excused himself and stepped into the kitchen, opening the fridge and confirming that there was indeed a bottle of apple juice resting on the bottom shelf of the door.

  “How long has that been there?”

  Realisation swept over him with sudden clarity. He re-joined his friends in the living room and approached the terminal, loading up the decision log and using the search function to find all the rows that mentioned ‘apple juice’. Aside from Isis’ recent interruption, all references to apple juice had occurred almost a week earlier, just after he had organised the long-overdue catch-up.

  Isis had noted the upcoming event and studied the Facebook and Twitter profiles of his guests, analysing nearly a decade of seemingly inconsequential posts to infer their preferred beverages and snacks. Isis had even correlated the posts with Grayl’s user profile to find points of common interest.

  Equipped with such a vast wealth of information, Isis had garnished Grayl’s weekly grocery order with a few extra toppings, the additional cost so insignificant that Grayl wouldn’t have noticed even if he still vetted the orders. When it came time to unpack and restock, Grayl had fallen into such a mechanical groove that he had blindly emptied the delivery boxes without registering their contents.

  “Stang…” Grayl whispered. Though showing remarkable resourcefulness and prescience, Isis had made quite a substantial decision without first seeking his permission, spending his money based on a chain of logic that essentially amounted to elaborate guesswork.

  He pressed his lips together and recorded his disapproval of Isis’ behaviour on the terminal screen. He returned to the kitchen and fulfilled his guests’ beverage requests, shaking his head when he picked up the juice bottle.

  Back in the living room, he handed out the drinks and regaled his friends with a summary of Isis’ exploits.

  “Are you serious?” Colin sighed. “I wish I’d posted more about how much I love Ferraris...”

  Grayl snorted. “I don’t think it works like that, Colin.”

  “Man, you’re one lucky bastard Grayl,” said Drew. “When does this thing hit the market? I’ve got to get myself one.” He walked over to the terminal and stroked its bezel lovingly.

  “I don’t know. iSYS hasn’t said anything about a commercial release yet. Maybe in a few months?”

  The uncertainty in Grayl’s voice went unnoticed, and his two friends spent the night toying around with Isis’ feature-set just as he had on his first night so many weeks ago. By the time they left, Grayl knew iSYS had scored itself two more day-one customers.

  To be honest, though, he felt a full consumer release would still be a ways off. Occasional quirks betrayed the system’s beta status, exposing flaws and concerns that he noted in his feedback document. Most of the issues were minor, causing no damage or disruption to his life or property. A few of Isis’ actions sparked fear-shiver premonitions of unbound AI rampancy, though they tended to fade to the background after a restful night’s sleep or two.

  Still, not everything was quite so easy to forget.

  ***

  Isis offered an advanced version of autocorrect to assist Grayl with typing and dictating messages, predicting entire words and phrases based on subject matter, intention, and mood. He absolutely loved it. It made commenting on Facebook or contentious news and opinion pieces wonderfully easy, especially when he had a hearty rant to expel.

  The functionality continued to evolve with use, and Isis began presenting him with templates, pre-written spiels that captured his tone of voice with eerie precision. His words, his thoughts, even his habitual grammatical flaws.

  The first time Isis auto-filled his Facebook comment with a message expressing his exact sentiment on the disparity of internet speeds worldwide, a deluge of chill fear shuddered down his spinal column and he nearly choked on his coffee. After slapping himself in the face to ensure he wasn’t dreaming, he charged to the terminal and stared bug-eyed at the system log. Isis had constructed the message by analysing his previous reflections on the subject and aggregating their constituent parts into a cohesive whole.

  Reading the facts helped to melt the icy dread infiltrating his veins. Isis had not suddenly developed sentience and decided to assume his identity; it was just more of that revolutionary AI programming by the code-monkeys over at iSYS.

  Fear assuaged, Grayl began to utilise this predictive messaging for all his communications, finding that each subsequent template required less and less modification.

  After just a single week, he could no longer imagine life without it.

  ***

  Grayl hammered the buttons on his gamepad, sending his katana-wielding character charging through a horde of moaning zombies like a helicopter through a flock of suicidal birds. His co-op partner cheered in delight through his headset. Grayl echoed the sentiment then set about looting the bodies of the mincemeat zombies, only to drop his gamepad in surprise when his character keeled over dead himself. A stubby knife protruded from his corpse’s back.

  “What the fuck man?” he cried. “You just cost me 3000XP!”

  Laughter buzzed back through the headset. “Yeah, sorry dude, but I really needed the betrayal achievement. Tell you what, I’ll guard your gear while you make your way back.”

  “Dude, that valley we crossed will be full of fresh spawns by now. How am I supposed to make it through on my own with just the crappy starter sword?”

  “Chill out ramrod. This game’s called No One Survives for a reason, yo.”

  Searing rage stormed up Grayl’s chest and erupted from his mouth in an inarticulate growl. Unable to control himself, he began hurling wild, vitriolic abuse at his traitorous partner, who himself returned the venom twofold. Five fiery minutes blazed by, their voices little more than hoarse wheezing when finally Grayl tore off his headset and pitched it onto the couch. He barked a command at Isis to turn off the TV and stormed to his bedroom, cannonballing himself onto his bed.

  Sleep came fitfully. He tossed, turned, and woke up multiple times in a bleary-eyed state of confusion. When Isis’ peaceful morning song called him from his fruitless slumber, he found his bed sheets warming the floor and his pillows wedged between the wall and his bedhead. It took considerable effort to convince his fatigued muscles to move, but eventually he managed to roll out of bed and stumble into the shower.

  Scrolling through his emails while he shovelled down breakfast, he discovered a peculiar notification on his Facebook. It was a private message from last night’s double-crossing co-op partner.

  hey dude. Apology accepted. You up for playin again tonight?

  “Gffrgkr?”

  Grayl swallowed his mouthful of toast and peered closer at his iPad. Apology? What was he talking about?

  Wrinkling his brow, Grayl checked his message history. In his sent items sat a short, sincere apology, written in his voice, but not by his hand. According to Facebook, he had sent it a little over an hour ago.

  He had still been in the throes of miserably turbid sleep an hour ago.

  A vortex of dread sucked all the heat from his body. Eyes like lighthouses, he scanned through the system decision log, tracing Isis’ reasoning for sending a mes
sage in his name without his explicit consent.

  “Anomalous sleep pattern detected? Probable cause: elevated stress levels following class three confrontation? Solution: immediate reconciliation?”

  Grayl shunted his breakfast plate to the side and picked up his iPad. He slammed the No button next to each complicit record in the log, then dove into the system settings and disabled the predictive text and speech mode.

  “Isis, no more impersonating me! Okay? No predicting what I want to say, no pre-writing my messages!”

  The delay before Isis’ response seemed longer than normal, almost as if Isis was considering the command before executing it.

  “Affirmative. Please see terminal for further information.”

  Grayl sighed and slumped into his chair. What the hell had the team at iSYS been thinking? Brewing coffee and pre-purchasing groceries was one thing, but outright duplicity? That was just too freaky. From now on, he was going to need to keep a close eye on his online activity, and regularly check Isis’ decision log to make sure his changes had not been undone.

  Grayl maintained his resolve for a solid week before the lack of further incident coaxed him into complacency. With no sign of Isis’ excessive autonomy returning, his concerns dissipated and he settled back into the comfortable groove of letting Isis streamline his life.

  ***

  Grayl arrived home one evening after a particularly arduous shift at work to find Isis’ terminal screen taken over by a disconcerting sight: a list of open job offers, replete with personalised applications ready to submit.

  “Oh god, not again…”

  Dumping his bag onto the floor, he rushed forward and frantically pulled up the decision log.

  “Don’t tell me this is another— Oh.”

  Wiping imaginary sweat off his forehead, he sighed and dropped his tense shoulders. During his lunch break, he had posted an acrimonious tweet denouncing both his workplace and his career. He had made many such tweets in the last couple of weeks; each workday seemed to serve up a new torment from the fire and brimstone catalogue. Isis had picked up on his dissatisfaction and sought to alleviate it through the temptation of a fresh start.