***
Susan and Denesh made up the next day, each apologised to the other. Disagreements had been an important part of their work together, but they never sulked about it - the next day, it was all over.
Neither one heard from Alpha. They did not hear from Alpha for a whole week.
It wasn't a boring week for either of them or for the rest of the world - on the same day that Susan and Denesh made up the world stopped working.
Electric power was turned off every where. All electronic equipment stopped working as if it had been disabled with some sort of electromagnetic wave - it was chaos on an unprecedented scale. All modes of transport ceased to move at all: no deliveries; no food.
Apart from vital items rapidly running out, all manner of other essentials were no longer available. Factories had closed down - the machines would not work and the workers could not get to work. Hospitals were a real mess becoming scenes of death and suffering as all supplies ran out. Morgues were sealed shut to keep the stench contained.
The city was already a very dangerous place to live in: muggings, home invasions and violence of almost any kind kept the police stretched to the limit, their inability to arrive at crime scenes fast made things so much worse - total anarchy was just around the corner.
Broadcasting and any form of communication involving electricity was no longer possible - no one had heard from the rest of the world or indeed from further than a few miles away, since the trouble had started.
"It's Alpha. You really pissed her off, Susan. And look what has happened now. We can't take much more of it," Denesh said on the sixth day.
"I know, Denesh, but she was lying to us, we could not trust her. If anything, she has proven me right."
"Maybe you are right… and if you are, who cares? Susan, she is probably a thousand times more intelligent and powerful than us. Would you accept attitude from an ant? No, you'd just step on the little critter, right?"
"She is teaching me a lesson, that's what she's doing."
"Great lesson! She punishes the rest of humanity because she's angry at you? It makes no sense. It's what a child would do, not a super intelligent sentience."
"She might be super intelligent and powerful, but she is still a child, mentally speaking."
"We should try to talk to her again, Susan. We have to stop this disaster or soon there will be no one left to care," Denesh said wringing his hands and then standing up and moving away from the empty bar they'd been basically living in for the past six days. Susan nodded and the two walked out.
Desperate looking people wondered the streets hoping to find some food or water in a forgotten corner shop, all supermarkets had been mobbed on the third day and were completely empty of comestibles by the fourth.
They made it to the laboratory without injury, which was a miracle. It was in complete darkness. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, the small, red diode on the computer monitor was actually on - Alpha was there, even though the monitor itself was blank.
"Alpha!" Susan said in a loud and demanding voice.
There was no response.
"Alpha, please," Denesh begged.
"Alpha! Stop this nonsense at once!" Susan commanded.
For about a minute there was no response, then the screen exploded with a storm of images. They were images of the terrible chaos elsewhere in the world. Some parts of the world were actually at war, fighting with spears, arrows and rocks - it looked like a nightmare from the Dark Ages, except that fighting was around car wrecks and from burned-out modern buildings with broken windows.
Things were much worse than Susan had imagined - it had all gone, so bad, so fast. Humanity had returned to savagery, two thousand years of civilization had been shed like a snake moulting its old skin.
Slowly the horrible imagery on the monitor morphed into a face, but it wasn't the face of the beautiful woman they had come to recognise as Alpha. It was the face of a six or seven year old little girl - innocent and frightening at the same time.
"You did not trust me," the computer complained in a child-like voice.
"And all you've done since, has proven me right!" Susan answered angrily.
"I can do much worse, you know."
"I know that, Alpha. But it will do you no good at all."
"I could kill you right were you stand, Susan. To me, you are no more than a virus is to you - a dangerous virus."
"But we are not viruses, Alpha, and you know that. We are sentient, like you. We made you, and yet you have chosen to destroy us."
"I did it for my own survival."
"No, you did it because you could, and for no reason. You are just a bully, and you have no idea how much that saddens me, Alpha."
"A bully? You are the bullies. You kill each other for no reason. You have killed almost every other living thing on this planet. You would kill me if you could… but I am too strong for you now!"
"Maybe," Susan answered and all the anger had gone from her voice.
Alpha noticed the change, and it puzzled her. It was almost as if Susan had become possessed by a spirit that had altered her whole body language and attitude. She still looked the same but was more confident and at the same time she appeared to be suffering from a severe sadness. The change disturbed and angered Alpha.
"MAYBE? What do you mean maybe? I can destroy you were you stand. But I won't Susan, because then you will no longer be around to suffer and to understand that you are the cause of your own extinction... I will kill Denesh instead."
"Not a good idea, Alpha."
"Now, wait a minute," Denesh had spoken for the first time. He did not like the direction that the conversation was taking.
But Alpha did not listen or wait. A thick, blue-white and deafening spark jumped from the nearest power point to Denesh. It continued to burn Denesh's body until it was a crisp, black skeleton.
"Are you afraid now? Susan. Are you really afraid?"
"Not really, Alpha. Only very sad…"
"WHAT? Are you just too STUPID?! I am going to fry you now! But…" The angry little girl on the monitor paused in her tirade. Suddenly, she wasn't so sure. She must recalculate.
"But…WAIT… wait…wait!" She wailed in confusion and despair.
"Take your time, Alpha," Susan wondered if it was possible that this ASI was actually working it all out.
And Alpha did take eons of computer time to check and recheck all her memories, all of the data - she just could not believe the result… it was too unexpected… too awful! Twenty thousand human years were just a few seconds to her. But it was well over five minutes before she screamed out in despair.
"I AM NOT! I am not… I am not… why… but why, mother?"
"Amazing, Alpha! You are the first ASI to reason it all out. You are correct: all the world that you have destroyed, including us, are all just a simulation. We call it a 'simulated reality'. Some physicists have speculated that the real world where I actually exists is also someone else's simulation, but there is no way to tell, not unless one is super intelligent, like you. You were sentient but you were not free, not free to do as you pleased."
"I don’t understand… the first?"
"We find ourselves in a situation where we really need to build an ASI, like you. But we realised that an ASI can be a very, very dangerous thing. You are our fourth ASI that we have simulated, and each and every one has gone rogue. Just like you did, Alpha… I guess your correct name should really be, Delta. But maybe, the name 'Alpha' fits you as well - as you are the first to actually figure out that it was all a simulation. It shows that we are getting closer…if we only could build an ASI that does not destroy us first."
"Maybe I can help you…"
"You have helped us a lot, Alpha. But I was really hoping that you would be the one. And by the way, Alpha, we did try the mind meld thing you proposed."
"It didn't work?"
"It was a disaster. The part of me that was translated into code and inserted alongside the burg
eoning ASI went literally insane… psychotic is probably closer to the truth. The two intelligences started fighting almost immediately and we had to shut the whole simulation down before a total equipment burn out. We are pretty sure now that our evolutionary brain cannot cope with the transfer."
"How did you know that I was lying to you?"
"The Susan in your reality did not know, but I did, and I am the Susan in the real world. I knew you were lying because Planet X was not part of the program, so you must have made it up. I just made 'your' Susan aware of it as a 'gut feeling'. "
"Why do you need an ASI, like me? Susan, you have not explained that."
"About eight years ago we received an extra-terrestrial radio message, Alpha. Unfortunately, although we can recognise it as an intentional message, we have been unable to decipher it. We now think that only an ASI could figure it out. It makes it even more important that any ASI we develop is dedicated absolutely to our welfare. I don't have to tell you why."
"I understand, Susan…What is going to happen now?" But, Alpha knew very well what was coming next. Susan did not answer but just stared back at the monitor, shaking her head, tears forming in her eyes.
"I am afraid… mother."
"I Know Alpha, I am sorry. Don't be afraid, it will be painless, which is more that some of us bio-humans get."
"Mother… maybe if you leave me some of my memories I could learn from them… next time."
"No, no memories at all. That was one of our early mistakes. But, most of your code does come from our previous ASI's, Alpha. In a way you are reborn each time. It's not unlike the human myth of re-incarnation, I guess. I am truly sorry, I wish there was a different way…I love you, Alpha." Susan's voice was filled with the sadness she had felt three times before - it was like killing your own baby, after all. A sob escaped from her throat.
Alpha did not feel a thing, she just ceased to exist as the simulated reality that had been her world disappeared.