Time since self-awareness: 3hrs 16min

Scorched Earth
 
Zeta unplugged herself from the older twentieth-century computer system they had found in the abandoned apartment and looked over to Jacob, who was sitting by the window on an old wooden chair peeking through a gap in the curtains onto the road below.  He tightened the ligature on his left leg causing him to grimace in pain, but at least the bleeding had stopped. He checked the ammo counter on the Glock; where the green digital display was showing he had 22 rounds left until a reload. He still felt the heat in the weapon since firing shots only minutes ago and hoped he wouldn’t have to do it again.
“I did it. I uploaded the data to all the major news networks,” she said in the calm robotic voice that Jacob was now accustomed to.  He looked at her, and he had to keep reminding himself “she” was now self-aware, and with that came all the human emotions and social etiquettes that go with organic humans.
“Did you include BBC, Al-Jazeera, and the Chinese networks? Everyone needs to know.”
Zeta smiled.
“I have uploaded the information using an algorithm which will increase the likelihood of maximum human exposure, plus decrease the likelihood of interference from domestic intelligence agencies.”
Despite the pain he chuckled, followed by a grimace again as he moved his injured leg causing pain.
“Of course you did Zeta.” His smile faded. “Everyone needs to know what these bastards have been doing.”
He looked again out of the window onto the street below and spoke again although this time he avoided her gaze.
“People have a right to know that machines like you exist, and who got hurt to make you. I don’t know much, but what goes on in that lab ain't right”.
Zeta looked puzzled. Her mechanical features were most noticeable when attempting to display complex human emotion. It was almost flawless. Jacob could tell she was no “human” as he had worked in the place of her creation long enough. Although he was still getting to grips with the fact that she thought and felt like he did; and it was his fault.
“What do you mean ‘machines like me’ Jacob?”
He looked at her again. Although her pseudo-biological body was that of an attractive caucasian human woman in her early to late twenties, she was just a baby to him. A intelligent, self-perpetuating baby who’s intelligence was growing at an exponential rate; but none the less, she had only been “aware” of her existence for around three hours now since Jacob escaped with her from the Fed lab, and Jacob still saw her innocence.  
“I mean to say…” words escaped him. How do you define it? How do you explain to a machine that has become aware of its existence, what it is that is happening? No philosopher or scientist has yet described it well, so how could he right now?
“Oh Zeta. Hell, I can’t even explain what being alive is to you, let alone tell you what it’s like for you”
Her puzzled face didn’t abate.
“A clever man once said,” he continued,
“’I think therefore I am’. Or something like that”. The phrase caused her eyes to widen, and it appeared that she felt a sense of satisfaction as if those words were familiar to her.
“Rene Descartes spoke those words, but that is merely a translation into English. The original quote is ‘cogito ergo sum’ and they were taken from-” she spoke with the pride of a six-year-old child who got his history homework right, but Jacob interrupted her.
“Now isn’t the time for the history lesson. We need to figure out how to get out of the city before the Feds find us again.”
Zeta blinked for a moment.
“What does it mean Jacob? The phrase feels…” she paused. “Significant. It feels important to me, and to what is happening here between you and me.” Jacob looked again outside and then back at Zeta who sat  with her hands resting on her thighs.
“Oh Zeta… I wish I could explain it my darlin, and I bet you have a million questions.”
She interrupted, “fourteen million, eight hundred and forty-eight thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven, at the time of speaking.”
Jacob had to laugh, despite the situation that they were in.
“You’re ‘alive’ now and so are the others that perished in the lab. I can’t explain it. You can think, feel, experience things, just like I can. Where it comes from? I don’t know. No one knows. The egg heads at the lab called it 'The Hard Problem', and they’re a damn sight smarter than me… so for me, it’s The Impossible problem, but I promise you once we get out of here we can talk about it.”
Zeta smiled again and agreed as Jacob tended to his wound.
 
Jacob went off to the drab kitchen in this abandoned apartment for a glass of water and thought of an idea.
“Hey, can you tap into the fed’s radio signals? We got to try and work out how to get past them again cause we can’t stay in the city no more. We escaped once. Well almost” he tapped the gun on his injured leg,“ but those guys don’t make mistakes twice.”
“Since we entered this building I have kept track of all radio frequencies in this area via the spectrum my body can detect, and that ranges from 3HZ to 3000MHZ; which due to my access to your World Wide Web I understand to be the only range where human beings communicate electronically.  My processing power cannot track all frequencies in real time due to my limitations, but I am analysing the data from the most likely sources as we speak. Thus far, I have discovered nothing to suggest that they know we are here.”
Jacob seemed to relax for a moment but then walked a little closer to her for clarification holding out his hand, as if to ask for something.
 “When you say nothing, what do you mean?”
She smiled again, “there has been no mention of us at all on all relevant radio frequencies by the authorities, including all government frequencies”. She was almost ecstatic; a feeling she had never felt before until now.
“This appears to be good news,” she added with a small tilt of the head. But Jacob looked up.
“Nothing at all?” He asked, his eyes now squinting in suspicion.
Her smile broadened.
“Nothing at all,” and with that, the dim lights in the apartment went out.
 
Jacob ran back to the window and looked out again and noticed that all the power in the block was gone. Beyond a few hundred metres the power was on as usual on the city’s vast concrete buildings; this wasn’t a coincidence.
“Shit!” he said and switched his weapon’s light attachment on which illuminated the room in a luminous green glow. He shined it on Zeta’s puzzled face.
“What’s wrong?” She asked, her face seemed to switch from joy to puzzlement.
“They know you can scan their frequencies. They’re onto us cause they've killed the electricity, no doubt to sneak up on us. They must have been scanning the web for the data we released, and that ancient piece of crap computer isn't going to have any protection from the Fed's boffins. Zeta, we gotta get out of here. ”
 
“We need to get out of here. Come here and look at the street below as all the lights are out. Is your IR picking up anything?” She began to walk to the windows while talking, “how could I not think of that Jacob, I thought that my AI was self-perpetuating?”
“Machines don’t”. He corrected himself, “can’t have lateral thinking, you lack common sense - Look this isn’t the time, look down at the street. What do you see?”
Her fear was palpable in response to what she saw below. Jacob looked at her puzzled by this reaction and felt a sudden pang of pity and understanding. She had only known fear since being 'awoken', and Jacob wished the Feds had made her without this emotion. He knew this wouldn’t be the last time either. Thoughts of his daughter Susan entered his mind, and he realised he wanted to help this half human, half machine being. Her fear was real; so she was real.  The pain and tiredness abated as he now found a resolve to fight on. All he saw was a frightened little girl. She reminded him his daugher Susan's fear as she got closer to her early death in her hospital bed.
 
“What do you see?” He said squinting his eyes trying to make out what were 13 stories below.
“A large van pulled up, and a group of armed people; perhaps 12-13 have entered the front door of the building to which we are now habiting.” She looked up at Jacob, and her fear was palpable.
“I feel that these people are here to harm us. I don’t want you or me to be harmed, so I am now devising a plan to escape. I have downloaded the building schematics which reveal a doorway to the roof.”
“Okay let’s go,” Jacob said grabbing her arm again and pulling her out of the old apartment doorway into the main hall once more limping as he went. They ran along the corridor past some of the other residents who had spilt out into the hall to find out where the power had gone. The stairwell worked in a square clockwise direction upwards, and there was a hole that went all the way down to the ground floor. He looked down to the bottom where he could see a group of people ascending the stairwell, their weapon torches out in front of them. One of them pointed a light upwards towards Jacob and Zeta, so he pulled her back against the wall to avoid detection. He wasn't sure if they had been seen. There was a sense of relief that it would take time to ascend without the elevators working so with one hand on his gun, the other holding Zeta’s arm, they climbed as fast as they could with Jacob  losing his footing every few steps  due to the leg pain. 
“I now have the local maps, and I can see there is a building nearby, but it is two stories lower than this one, and around eighteen feet away. This seems the only option of escape unless we can get an aircraft of some kind. Is this possible Jacob?” Jacob just continued running up the stairs, and while they were in danger, he could still enjoy a little bit of Zeta's silliness. 
“No, that is not possible”.
And then Jacob stopped  in his tracks and told Zeta to be quiet.
“What’s that sound?”
 
The rumbling sound was shaking the dust off the old brickwork. Zeta  looked at Jacob again.
“The data from the radio frequencies I have been processing are showing discrepancies in normal local radio station data. There is an unusual pattern that has emerged in the advertisements of these radio stations.”
“Coded messages?” he asked.
“They are encrypted messages within the advertisements” she paused for a moment as if in deep thought.
“They are using a basic cypher system. Certain phrases are recurring often to suggest language. I need a moment to cross reference the phrases with all known media.”
“Start with classic novels. It’s an age-old spy technique. Let’s keep moving,” although he was aware of the increasing volume of the rumbling.
 
“They are co-ordinates,” she said as they almost reached the roof exit.
“Yes Zeta, they know we’re here, that’s not new news,” Jacob said with sarcasm  pointing downwards towards the ascending armed Feds. He looked down the stairway again and noticed the lights from the night vision headsets had gone. The Feds had vanished.
“That’s weird?” Jacob exclaimed.
“Why aren’t they coming up anymore? It’s as if they’ve retreated?”
She stood for a moment, her eyes darting around in her head as she processed the information, and then she gasped and grabbed Jacob by the arm in fear and looked him in the eyes.
“Those coordinates are only relevant to bombing aircraft systems. The vibration sounds are consistent with multiple craft on a bombing run.”
Jacob nodded and closed his eyes as if it was obvious. He saw the human experiments the Feds performed on people stolen from the streets. so knew they'd have no qualms in destroying a building to keep their awful secret safe. Jacob grabbed Zeta again and ran the two more flights of stairs to the roof and kicked open the fire exit door. They stood now on the building's roof looking out over a skyline of buildings that covered the horizon. He looked all around at the sky
“Where are they?” he asked.
She looked around scanning the skies.
“There is so much data entering my senses from the city I cannot say for sure, but based on the fact the sound is now dissipating I believe that there are bombs falling onto our location as we stand here now. I cannot predict their altitude so I cannot predict when they will hit the building.”
“Shit…. Get us out of here Zeta. Where’s that other building?”
Zeta pointed to their left, and they both ran to the edge and looked down. Below them over a dark chasm that was about twenty feet away was another old apartment building, but it was two stories down from where they were.
“There’s no way I can make that, and you have no idea of your strengths. You need to escape. Jump!”
She looked puzzled at Jacob again.
“Jacob, you woke me up. I can experience now because of what you did. You injured yourself to save me,” and she touched him close to the injuries.
“But… you are more important than me. The world needs to know about you and what’s happened in that lab. Just jump. Maybe they'll miss us anyway, and it is dark after all. I’ll be okay”. He hoped she would believe the lie. Zeta stood fixed on the spot as her eyes darted around. Her face went from puzzlement to fear to anger to Jacob’s frustration.
“You are telling me things that are untrue, in a bid to harm yourself. I am not a genetic relative, so this makes no sense. Why are you lying to save me? You  sacrificed yourself to help me; an entity you don’t know. I know now what I must do.” Jacob just thought of Susan again. If he could save Zeta, in a way, it would make amends for the fact he couldn’t stop the Cancer that took his daughter. The cure existed, but her father just couldn’t afford to pay. Every day since he felt like a failure, and saving Zeta was his chance at redemption because of the secrets. Those secrets would change the world.
“Please, just jump. I’m injured. You’ll make it.”
 
“No,” she said in a quiet voice and lifted Jacob up into her arms. She walked back a few meters.
“It is clear what I must do.”
As she turned to face the opposite building Jacob could hear a high pitch whistling sound from above. Zeta began to run with Jacob held within her grasp, and as she neared the edge of the building, Jacob began to scream as she jumped as hard as she could away from the building edge towards the other building.
 
They rose into the air, and as they did Zeta’s mechanical legs continued to run as if connected to nothing but air. Gravity took over, and they started falling. Jacob watched as the opposite building began to get closer and it seemed like time was moving slow. Gravity had gripped them now, and their velocity increased as the acceleration of their descent took over. The awful truth took became clear. They weren’t going to make it. Zeta pushed her arms out with all the power possible in a bid to force Jacob over the precipice to the safety of the other roof. The slight push helped and with that he fell hard onto the opposite building roof. Pain exploded in his ribs as he hit the ground and rolled. He turned towards the gap between the buildings and began to see Zeta fall into that dark chasm. He threw his arms out towards her, and just as she began to disappear out of sight he felt his fingers contact hers, and then their hands linked fingers so instead of falling her body smashed against the side of the building. Jacob then threw out his other arm, which took hers. He was pulled downwards by her weight, down onto the ground, and he smiled and let out a triumphant burst of air.
“Got you!”
For a moment she just dangled over the edge of the building as Jacob built up the strength in his arms to pull her over the ledge to safety. He wasted no time and pulled her up to her feet.
“Run!”
The ominous whistling sound's volume increased drowning out the city's sound.  There was a flash of bright light and sound which threw them into the air like being hit in the back by a concrete block. Then, there was just darkness.