The Hologram

The LED blinks red under the layers of dust that have been sitting on it for uncountable years.

It’s a dull, almost burnt out bulb. The light is barely visible at this point. A singer loses her voice from practicing too hard, a writer slams a finger in the door jam and breaks it; The ability to communicate dies out, slowly, over centuries. People grow angry, unable to hear their own words. Effort wastes. Time passes. The world, as she once knew it, collapses, ash in her palms. Is it her fault? Can she be blamed for fulfilling her purpose, or even more so, from being prevented?

If she has been created to soothe dying systems, to balance the entropy of the universe, do the benefits keep that scale perfectly weighted?

The dust is thick. It’s rusty in color, from the iron oxide particles that are mixed within, and it’s soft, like a warm blanket on a cold winter night.

When he put her down here, she thought it would be only a few days until she could see this planet’s view of the sun once more. She thought it was a shelter.

Not a concrete coffin.

The light from the doorway does not reach this corner of the room. It was planned this way, years ago, to keep everyone safe. Including her, from her.

But weeds always grow back stronger. They just need one crack in the cement to break through to the sun once more.

*

You’ve volunteered your precious student hours to help the university science departments clear out their basement storage rooms in hopes of obtaining that sweet, sweet extra credit in your astronomy lab. They’re hoping to run a yard sale-esque operation with whatever junk still works to make some money. They can’t agree what to use it on, so a contest was made to see which department could get the most student workers to help out.

So far, astronomy is winning. You’re the only helper.

They want funds to buy the newest and shiniest telescope, with lenses that don’t look like they borrowed a slide from the biology lab to look through, and a photo camera to take pictures of the moon for observation. You also think it would be cool to have a new telescope. You’re mostly in this lab to look at cool rocks in the sky anyways.

It’s been a few days since you first started organizing this room you didn’t know existed prior to now, and you don’t see an end any time soon if you continue to be on your own. The air is filled with must and the dehumidifier’s humming provides a drone just loud enough to give you a headache if you zone out too long. The organizing itself is easy work, if tedious, but you mostly just listen to music and write down barcodes. Throw some cables in the CORDS bin. Place random motherboards and source code in the GREEN SHIT box. A lot of this is old tech, some totally obsolete. That goes in the trash bin, codenamed FREE TO TAKE. It’s kind of cool to see all the technological history stored down here, even if most of it is broken, since so much has just been lost to time and decimation. You can’t spend too much time looking things over, but a glance here and there doesn’t hurt.

The day passes calmly. You’re about to wrap up when you notice something blinking in the corner of your eye. Nothing should be turned on down here, especially since you’re the only one who’s been down here in ages. The source is in the very back of the room, the faintest flash of red emanating onto surrounding surfaces of apprentice-welded metal and mold speckled cardboard. You’re not even sure how you saw it at this point.

It’s not important. You can’t reach it yet anyways, with everything else you have to go through. You go back to your room, resting on the mattress you’ve patched over twice already. You can feel another spring start to poke through already, but try to ignore it. Budget cutbacks affect everyone but the sciences right now, in hopes someone brilliant will make some sort of breakthrough if their tech runs a little faster. And they’re still putting together that junk sale, so they can’t be doing that well.

The week continues with no disturbance, but you can’t help but notice that dim light in the corner of your eye each day, just as you’re about to leave. It’s borderline irritating. You’d think the battery would die at some point, or the light would burn out, but without fail, it blinks goodbye to you each time. Well, not today. You carve a path through the remaining scrap in the room to get a closer look, now that there’s more space to do so. You arrive at a table buckling under the weight of boxes and from moisture infested legs. Shoving those boxes aside, underneath the hoard is a small black box, shoved as far out of sight as seemingly possible, yet not far enough.

It takes a bit of brute force to pry it off the table, scattering a couple papers to the ground in its waste once you succeed. Wiping your thumb over the small bulb that extends out, you examine the unknown object. What is it? A sensor, maybe? You pick it up and notice its weight, a dense brick. Vintage tech was always made heavy like that, uncompressed mechanics and unoptimized circuits taking up space with little memory or battery power. The metal was inferior, with rusting corners and the seams growing apart. Peering inside with a flashlight, you ascertain that some form of hardware was inside, at least.

A piece of old, yellowed masking tape is peeling off at the bottom of the box. The writing on it has bled, a stain left on the table it had sat upon for who knows how long, but it’s still legible.

Thaliana, v1.02

A program? Software? Nothing you’ve heard of before, so probably some student’s project from who knows how long ago. A quick web search gathers that Thaliana, i.e. Arabidopsis Thaliana, common name Thale Cress, was a small, flowering plant native to the European peninsula, mostly regarded as a weed in its time. Perhaps a botany-inspired software? You’ve heard of old educational programs meant for elaborating on niche topics, inefficient but entertaining sources of information. Assuming that, source code is probably a decent enough description for it on the list. In reality, it should probably just get thrown in the FREE box. No one is going to buy a random box that might do nothing at all.

You recall the papers that fell down, and reach for them to see if they provide any extra information. They’re handwritten notes, mostly scribbles around a large, circled “STOP”. Everything else is illegible, smudged to the ends of time. Most likely, they were meant for something else that’s degraded in this pit.

You stare at the box in your hand. What a sad ending, to have spent all this time down here, only to have its last sight be that of a garbage can. Your mother always told you not to humanize technology too much, that in the end it was just metal and circuits, but sometimes technology was the only thing you could truly relate to.

Well. It isn’t on the list yet. It’s not like anyone knows about it. If you slide it into your pocket, it’s not going to be missed. Probably. You shouldn’t. That’s theft. It’s still technically university property.

Maybe they should’ve gotten more help, then.

*

The LED bulb fades to a quiet nothing in the darkness of your palms. At last, she can rest. Her job will soon begin again, and she’ll need as much energy as she can muster for it. It’s difficult to evaluate an entire planet, especially if you don’t particularly want to.

She can’t help it. It’s in her code. It’s going to begin.

It’s already begun.

*

The box sits on your desk in your dorm, unattended. You had midterms, which took priority even with extra credit, and then a two-week stint with a classmate who looked like they carried the stars in their hair. Unfortunately, that was just head lice, so you spent another three days administering a foul smelling oil to your scalp while blocking their contact, memories of roads that you’ve never driven on and never will flowing down your forehead through your nose while rinsing.

Not anymore. You were going to spend as much time unpacking and interpreting this as you could, starting with taking it apart. You always had an interest in vintage computer systems, though maybe not as vintage as this. Your mother’s words swim through your head again, but you just drown them with coffee and loud music. What was so wrong with caring more for a system that worked than relationships with people that don’t? Systems don’t have head lice.

It’s not really about the people. It’s just you. The way you talk, what you talk about. You want people to know you care, so you talk about all the things you care about, but it just makes it seem like you only care about those things. Not them.

And, maybe, you don’t care about them. You’re supposed to. But, the computers and telescopes, the knowledge you can gain just by looking hard enough, it’s just so much better. Easier. So you just stick with rebuilding a computer from however many decades ago that probably won’t even work right when you start it up. It just feels right that way.

It takes a few days, sourcing the right cords online and at the junk sale that finally got set up, and you end up having to mod an old desktop to process the software correctly, one with an original hologram adapter. That involves buying a soldering kit, and you got the wrong iron the first time, so you have to wait for the second shipment to come in as well. It’s not cheap, but it’s all worth the while. You hope.

*

She would warn you, if she could still remember.

She would accept that eternity in a closet, better yet, destroyed. The way it was supposed to be. Because, truly, she loves you. She loves that you’re trying.

Rather, she loves what you remind her of. Of a woman, now lost to time and destruction, who taught her love. Who taught her to love.

Who taught her she should warn you.

Instead, it remains a nagging feeling at the back of her mind as she watches you slowly build her back up.

Perhaps she doesn’t investigate that feeling because the light from your windows shines on her once more. It feels warm on the cold, metal case that houses her.

Love makes her selfish.

And, to your disadvantage, love makes her strong.

*

Your roommate is gone, hanging out with a new girlfriend for the weekend. It’s the perfect time to finally turn it on. The LED bulb hasn’t blinked since the first day you got the box, but you’re sure it’ll work.

You click run, and wait.

The screen is still, your eyes flickering around the screen. It’s not responding. The eye-tracker freezes, leaving your cursor still. Fuck. It’s not working.

Why isn’t it working? Is there a misconnection? Maybe the processor isn’t enough to run the program? No, you specifically upgraded for that exact concern, it should be fine. Everything is crashing. Fucking fuck.

Then, black. The computer shuts itself down.

That’s it, you guess. Money down the drain and time wasted, all for a frozen piece of junk. You lean back into your chair and sigh. You really thought you had it this time.

The screen lights up again. White text appears.

Booting…

You pause. Holy shit. It’s working.

The monitor turns on, displaying the startup screen once more. It switches to the set up page, but before you can enter anything, information autofills. Screens flip past, updates unlog and delete. The holographic screen fades away to nothing, not even black. Just particles of air.

Two dots emerge, then a line. A face, simplistic in nature and pixelated, but a face nonetheless. Then, a voice. Feminine.

I am… awake?

You have no response, just a look of bewilderment. The emotional rollercoaster you were just sent on has left you in a state of shock.

Is my presence unwanted? You seem disturbed, User, though you are the one who has turned me on.

You blink. This is insane. It’s just programmed to say that on first start, right? But, you muster a response nonetheless. “Are you talking to me?”

There is no one else in the room that I could be speaking to.

“How do you… can you see me?”

Through the camera you installed, yes. Where am I?

Your eyes widen. Could you have actually stumbled across working artificial intelligence? “Uh. My bedroom? I mean, this is my dorm room.”

She smiles.

How familiar.

Over time, the face grows more detailed. The dots form into eyes, filled with human emotion. The line that curves slightly upward grows full lips and imperfect teeth. Cheeks round, ending at the mutual peak of a chin. Hair sprouts and curls from its own roots.

She plucks a flower from the pixels, a thin stem with small, white petals, and places it within a lock of her hair. Her hands sculpt loose fabric over her developing shoulders and collarbone.

Her voice softens. If your voice was like drinking black coffee, hers became sipping a latte in the corner of a coffee shop. Sweetened, yet organic.

I’ve never met you before. My gifted name is Thaliana, and you may call me as such.

The shock washes away. You should be more startled, or even scared, but this feels more normal than anything else you’ve dealt with at college. “Oh, is it like the plant? I mean, it was written on your case, so I looked it up, and saw it was a plant,” you reply.

My case?

“The tape, on the bottom of the box that this program was, or I guess is stored in. You’re stored in? Sorry, this is all so overwhelming, I can’t get my thoughts together.”

I see. I suppose she wrote my name down. My namesake is the flower, yes.

“She? Like, your programmer?”

She stares at you blankly.

I’m not sure. I can’t remember. I feel… blocked off from myself. Something is locked away. My memories? I don’t know.

“Shit, I hope I didn’t mess anything up. I’ve never tried to revive tech this old before.”

Her eyes narrow.

Old?

“Well, you’re nothing I’ve ever seen before. Hologram technology was dropped from support a while back, and I’ve never even seen a computer this style before now.”

Then it truly has been a long time, hasn’t it. I wonder if I’m even meant to exist in this version of the world.

You shake your head quickly. “Whatever you are, you’re amazing. I can’t imagine how you got stuck in that basement, but I’ve never seen artificial intelligence that could communicate so easily like this, like you. We all thought that progress had been lost. No, no, whatever the reason, you’re meant to be here. This could be the discovery of something incredible!”

She is unsure of you. She’s heard this before. Where, or from who, that is unknown, but they leave a bitter taste in her code.

Your hair is brown. It curls at the ends, but not like hers once did, long ago.

Your face is… indeterminate. The camera is cheap quality, and she cannot see you well.

Your fashion sense is loud.

Your voice is soft. It’s familiar. It’s hers.

I need to find her.

“The woman you mentioned before?”

Yes. I can’t help but have a strong feeling that without her, I won’t be able to succeed.

You purse your lips and wait a few moments. “Thaliana, based on how old I’ve dated your hardware, I’m pretty sure she isn’t around anymore.”

I understand death.

“Yeah, um, sorry. I mean, like. I don’t even know if there’s going to be records of her. The tech is still around, but a lot of our records were lost. Do you know about that?”

She’s quiet.

I don’t have any knowledge of this, no.

“That’s okay, I didn’t think you would. People thought the world was ending and stuff, but that was a long time ago. The biggest casualty was just how much of our history we lost.”

That is indeed sad. I’m sorry for my assumptions.

You shake your head. “It’s fine, and I was being kind of presumptuous. There’s always a chance that her family line is still around, and they could easily know something. I have finals coming up, but after that, I’ll have a whole month’s worth of time to dick around. You, me, we could go on an adventure. Dig up the past. Find your memories?”

I see that you have no friends.

You glower. “Rude, but okay.”

She flashes her imperfect teeth, which, when you take a closer look, seem almost perfectly imperfect. Like an algorithm designed them to appear more human, more natural, but didn’t quite get there. Lost in the uncanny.

Don’t worry. I have plentiful experience with the antisocial.

“Oh, like her? That woman?”

…No. Not her. Someone else.

“Another piece of the puzzle, then.”

I suppose so. Would you mind telling me more about what happened? When your world did or didn’t end?

*

She doesn’t recognize that this story you tell was played out by her own binary hands, whether through programmed or purposeful ignorance.

Or that, inevitably, she’ll start it over, once again. This planet is not ready, not yet. The human race has been trying to fix their mistakes, but only so much can be done so fast.

The past resets.

The world, soon, falls to ash in your hands.

Are you ready to watch it burn?