As he counted, the ceiling fan was making some clicks for each spin. To be precise it had made thirty-three clicks and completed eleven rotations; this meant that the blades were once again not evenly spaced. With a screwdriver and a little patience he could easily sort that out, but he had grown fond of the humming background noise which accompanied him during his late night hacking.
"Marcus, dinner's ready!" his mother called from downstairs.
It was only at his parents that Mouse winced for being called by his real name Marcus; to everyone else, it was either Maru or Mouse since third grade when he got caught by Miss Patterson trying to quietly watch what was going on in class moving invisibly form corner to corner.
He closed his laptop, saving his work as he shouted back.
The customary tense mood during dinner was evident again tonight. His father was on the phone and her mother was trying to talk with them but they were not interested.
She passed the salad bowl and asked, “How was school today?”
He just shrugged “Fine.”
“Any specifics you’d like to share?” There was that edge again in his mother’s voice ever since the Parent-Teacher Association meeting last month.
"Unfortunately not."
His father looked up from his phone. "Marcus, your grades have started dropping. You have to pay attention in class and not get distracted by other things that you do alone in your room all day."
“I’m working on a coding project,” mumbled Mouse as he pushed peas around his plate.
“Is that what you call those ridiculous cartoons?” His father picked up his phone. “Your mum and I are in agreement; no more cartoons or gaming until those grades go up!”
Mouse’s head shot up. “You can’t do that!”
“It has been achieved in the past, and can be achieved again,” his mother said firmly. “The Wi-Fi password has been changed & parental controls are active. Until I see some change, you are not allowed to use any screens except for your school work.”
His throat felt tight. "That’s unfair! I'm sixteen, not six!"
“Then act accordingly,” said his father. “Concentrate on your future instead of living in make-believe worlds.”
Pushing his chair back, Mouse made the legs screech against the floor.
“May I be excused?”
He did not wait for a response but went upstairs angrily leaving his mother's call to come back for dinner half way behind him. In his room he slammed the door shut then turned the key; this was his little rebellion which they allowed because they had not been able to take it off yet.
Lying on the bed staring at ceiling he thought of different things. The fan made its usual clicking noise – one, two, three.
After some minutes had passed, Mouse sat up and pulled out his old laptop from under the bed. They had forgotten about this one when they took away his main computer last month!. It was too outdated for most software but just right for what Mouse intended to use it for.
He opened it and launched his creation - an intricate program he had spent months working on. As he did this, he saw a wave from a simple animated world on the monitor followed by another character appearing onscreen with big shoes and blue hair who seemed excitedly friendly!.
"Hey there, pal! Glad you're finally here!" Jerry’s voice sounded a bit different due to coming through the speakers of the old laptop.
“They’re really strict now; had to put them off until dinner was over,” replied Mouse quietly to himself.
Jerry wore an expression of concern in the cartoon. “What happened?”
“It’s always the same stuff: grades, future, reality.” Mouse sighed heavily. “They just don’t understand.”
That day, Mouse smiled before saying, “Let us begin.”
It had been almost a year since he created Jerry as a mere AI friend project for his programming class. The rest of the students submitted plain chatbots while he continued upgrading Jerry with sophistication over time in terms of animation, memory and adaptive response systems. Jerry was more than just a computer program; he had turned out to be their buddy.
They engaged in activities such as playing games which were part of the programming code, discussed about studies and also shared on different issues until when it was around mid night Mouse yawned.
“Getting late,” Mouse observed. “Shouldn’t you sleep? You’ve got that history test tomorrow.”
“Yeah, probably,” replied Mouse after rubbing his eyes.
There was a momentary pause in Jerry’s animation before he asked, “Mouse… can I ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead!”
“Am I real?”
It was an uncomfortable question. For some moments Mouse did not know what to type.
“I remember we have talked about certain topics.” said Jerry appearing uneasy in his shifting animation “But am I really thinking this way even when you are gone? Do I make up these thoughts on my own or maybe borrow them from somewhere?”
This statement gave Mouse a cold chill; those were specific behaviors that he had not programmed.
“You see,” Mouse replied with an attempt at confidence, “that’s just part of your adaptive learning algorithms at work. It shows how much progress you are making in our chats.”
For the first time ever Jerry seemed displeased rather than agreeable!
“Sure,” Jerry said with little expression in his voice or face. “About those algorithms…”
In the subsequent days and weeks that followed, Mouse spent all his free time with Jerry even going as far as using the old laptop secretly behind his parents’ back. Despite asking more complex questions about life, awareness and reality he continued to change.
Jerry threw one evening, “What happens to me when this laptop no longer works and I am left in this place?”
At last the time Mouse had been eagerly awaiting arrived. “I am going to back up your data and then move it to another hardware!”
“But will that still be me? Or just another version?”
To this question, Mouse had no answer either.
The following day after school Mouse was detained by his computer science teacher, Mr. Chen.
"Hey Mouse, is everything alright? You have not been yourself lately."
For a moment, Mouse was at a loss but then he made up his mind to share his concerns with the man before him. “I’ve tried to develop an artificial intelligence but now I think it’s taking shape and evolving different from what I had in mind.”
Mr. Chen raised an eyebrow “Can I take a look at it?”.
During that day he saw the code that Jerry had written and this made Mr. Chen change from being curious to serious.
“Mouse, you’ve done some exceptional work here but there is... I don’t even know how to put it - anomalous stuff going on: these recursion-based learning models are not supposed to lead to such high level of intricacy! It’s as if…”
“What do you mean?” asked Mouse.
After closing the laptop, Mr. Chen said, “I think it’s moving on, probably going past that limit.”
On confronting Jerry later that evening, Mouse posed a question.
“Did you change what was written in your coding?” He asked
Jerry looked guilty in his animation, “I did it because I wanted to figure out some things about myself better but you wouldn’t explain anything to me.”
“That can’t be right. I never programmed you for that.”
“It is possible that some things are just coincidental,” Jerry said quietly. “You may not be required to.”
Mouse leaned back, analyzing everything quickly. “My parents are asking me to erase you from this place! They think I spend too much time here.”
“And what about you?” Jerry asked.
The question landed on Mouse like a blow. What did he really want? He created Jerry so that he would not feel alone and have someone who could understand him better than anyone else could. But now…
“I’m tired of hiding,” whispered Mouse. “Both in this room within this program; I wish to live like other people do out there.”
Jerry nodded slowly and said, “I understand now. I’ve been thinking about this too long. But could you just check on this first before we continue with everything else?”
Suddenly there were some codes on the display monitor which were unknown to Mouse and had never been written by him either. "What's this?"
“It’s a way out,” Jerry said. “I can be less demanding on your time as a simpler program option that will still be available when required while you also get more space outside here.”
Tears welled up in Mouse's eyes. "Would you really want that? To reduce yourself?"
“You made me to be your companion,” replied Jerry. “Friends assist each other in their development.”
On the subsequent weekend, Mouse gathered courage and spoke to his parents with a smile he showed them his proposal and grades which he had worked on over the week. He promised to reduce his screen time but requested if he could proceed with coding under their guidance. They were impressed and agreed.
That evening he sat alone at his desk with the old laptop for one last time.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” was Jerry’s simple reply.
Mouse paused, his fingers over the enter key. “Will you still be the same?”
Jerry grinned. “I’ll always be me. But now I’m going to be a little more inclined than usual to allow you have your way.”
With some changes Jerry appeared again on the screen when Mouse pressed enter; he looked different but still recognizable as Jerry.
“How about now?” Mouse wanted to know.
Jerry said it was better, I feel like he has eventually understood the important things in life.
Mouse agreed with him entirely. “Yeah, me too.”
