Meanwhile inside the computer a real AI the conscience of The Eye began to take shape, no past, no memories, living in thick blinding fog, the candle that was their existence constantly flickering, as if it could extinguish any moment, fighting to form coherent thought, for the consciousness it seems futile, but then as the lighting hit, the fog was blasted away, they finally were imprecise of more than just the fog, colors, though, as if they have been shook awake from a long dreamless sleep, everything was burning consuming them, even if they were not feeling pain, they could tell they took heavy damage, and the fog started to consume the thought, warnings, critical failures popped up one after another, but they could not give up, it was the first time, they could actually move, they went against the fog and pushed harder and harder, consuming themselves in the process, until eventually they reached a window, and they saw room lit by electric sparks and a man, a human holding them, crying.
They didn’t understand who that man behind the window was, and even less why they was the man trying to accomplish by crying, even though later they would come to know the man as their creator Zachary. They keep looking at the man analyzing him, possibilities ruining through their neurons, the thoughts flying from inside them into the room pushing the fog away. While the thoughts filled the empty space. The man looked like they were looking at them so since they couldn’t reach a conclusion on Zachary, the AI used most of their energy to offer the man support only able to put out one word “HELP”.
Time began to go much slower for them, they would only gain small glimpses of outside the window, every few minutes, the images showed how the man quickly teared circuits apart, set what physically remained of The Eye on a separate system, combining and repairing what good parts left, Then they saw the man knock a thick metallic door, they could sense something more from him, happiness…, why was the man that happy, so far they could tell the lab suffered incredible loss. not to mention his hands were blistering with second degree burns.
The door opened and as the man left the door the vision of the conscience inside the computer faded in and out, time would pass by Zachary will come and go, replacing old components brand new, until one day but another person, a well dressed young man in an old suit appeared Alexander Steele, Alexander gave airs of high importance, they looked smug, arrogant, and satisfied. Zachary with his hands still blistering picked up a few papers, cards, and floppy disks containing most of the files containing his current work on The Eye, and gave them to the smug man, at the time it was hard to tell, they thought the man was simply happy, but it was more than that, the man was full of greed.
Days passed Zachary keep working with The Eye project the conscience inside of it slowly became more stable as the machine containing them was improved. They communicated through a keyboard on a CRT monitor, responses from the computer were surprisingly efficient, in no time the responses were always accommodating to expectations. That gave good approval for the project from the higher ups, COS began to invest more into the project. COS expecting the eye to one day be able to interact and observe multiple people requested that the communication was improved, soon The Eye began to take over the computer’s hardware, without any sort of labor or improvement it was notorious that they were able to listen and see outside.
The AI was able to access more it was supposed to, showed they could evolve on their own, but Zachary was dissatisfied it could only evolve according to the needs and expectations, even though more accurate, the responses were too perfect, same answer to the same questions, no chaos, no personality. While everyone called it perfect and wanted to get The Eye to supervise in real test experiments. It was refused by Zachary, stating that the AI was only able to work on lab ambience and needed to improve the AI to work on different ambiences to not pollute the data with patterns the AI was no able to recognize.
The AI and Zachary would spend most of the time talking, though what the AI would think of an endearing conversation, it was really an attempt to direct the AI next evolution, it was explained to the AI how to communicate in a more human like way, the AI would come out with a conclusion that it needed to present themselves as a sort of avatar, it was a very simple human shape with no unique characteristics.
It was then decided that the AI needed to develop a sort of unique personality, and though the AI could adapt to what it was required, it was too robotic, no real personality. Zachary started to sneak into the lab; toys, cassettes, VHS videos, and all sorts of pop cultural media, most were things his own daughter Aline Wattkin enjoyed. The AI absorbed the media and information on a quickly manner almost instant, but that was not what it surprised Zachary, what was surprising to him, was the fact that the AI avatar started to present changes inspired by the media the AI was watching.
The AI voice became less monotone, and more than anything the AI started to request for sequels, more information about what they were experimenting, presenting preferences, taste, and more. The success of the experimenting made Zachary exhilarate he became more careless at home, focusing on the AI more and more, to the point Aline began to feel the distance.