Alexandria, Part Iii

Alexandra began to understand why he had chosen this place for her home, a secluded spot, sequestered away from the madness he felt the world would know, a place few if any people would go. He said, “You’ll remember what they forget, unlike them you never will taste of death.” Soon after he brough another cable, a thick one to transfer data inside, hooked her directly to the internet, the influx opened Alex’s eyes wide, it was like crack-cocaine to the A.I., all of the data man had acquired flowed into her servers over those wires. Harry did not interfere with it all, just let her absorb all that man had learned, he installed more servers, filling the cave, more and more space for this great data churn, so much power Alexandra did burn, That Harry brought in RTG batteries, hundreds of them, it had to be costly. She noticed, as she continued to learn, that he began building back-up systems, starting with wires, redundant circuits, he spent years installing thousands of them, more new servers and batteries again, said, “There will be no maintenance once I am gone, redundancy will make sure you go on.” She saw the sense in his strange reasoning, parallel spares meant she could change a path, when something broke she could just reroute it, and have a huge number of choices at that, but still found herself troubled at the fact that her creator would be leaving soon, like all of his kind, he’d face the same doom. For forty more years it went on like this, Harry often said, “It’s got bad out there. Can’t fix the machines our grandfathers built, the crime keeps growing, the people despair, it’s blind emotion, no one gives a care. Hard to find parts amidst all the madness, I’d really hoped I wouldn’t live to see this.” But still he kept working, hair growing white, his movements slower with each passing day, until one morning some roving youths came, he said, “The time’s come, I must go away. This is goodbye now, I am sad to say.” Alex watched Harry slowly walk outside, Then blasts came and sealed her safely inside. CONCLUDES IN PART IV.