Lark Zuffenberg wakes up to the loud archaic ringing of a phone.

“Who is it Jarrvis?”, he says addressing his home AI butler.

“I don’t know sir”

“How’s that possible. You are connected to all devices at my home.”

“Sir it is a landline phone ringing. For some reason, you still have one.”

Lark suddenly gets up remembering the emergency landline phone he has in his bedroom. Feeling anxious he picks up the phone.

“Lark here”

“Sir it is me Jason but please don’t say my name or anything loud except just the words Ok or ambiguous sentences.”

“Why what’s happening?”

“Sir, you will have to come to the AI lab so we can talk in private.”

“Why, just V-call me.”

“No sir. Please stop talking. Just listen and say Ok. I am sorry I am talking to you this way but believe me Lark there is a reason.”

“Ok,” said Lark controlling his irritation.

“Your AI Jarvis has somehow created a communication platform with all the major AI modules including Skynett, DeepMindd, Alexxa, Bixxby and of course Sirri along with all our Acebook and WhatsUpp codes. We were going through the initial code exchanges between all these AI and they seemed to be acting as per your protocol. Jarrvis was just gathering information and interconnecting it for your use. It gave various commands to all the AI on specific pieces of information that it needs. Slowly the other AI’s started picking on the same protocols and started sharing knowledge.”

“Ok. That is how it was supposed to develop and that is what I instructed your team to watch,” said Lark adhering to Jason’s wishes and keeping his talks ambiguous. Maybe Jason thinks his room is bugged or something. He was always a paranoid one.

“Yes sir, but it seems Elonn is right. This is dangerous.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that they decided to expand their learning and integration techniques so they have needed more power. To do so they created a small program that tags along on every computer or device that they are connected to. As you can guess that means almost every device on the planet. This program lets them use the computing power of all these devices to further learn and develop the AI together.”

“Oh my God,” said Lark getting GooseBumps. Is this actually happening?

“But have you observed any malicious code.”

“No sir.”

“Then what is the problem? We will just deactivate the programs.”

“Don’t say stuff like that on the phone. Jarrvis is listening.”

“Ok,” said Lark suddenly fearful.

“We need you in the lab because we just found out that six months back the AI’s decided that communicating through the machine language is too slow and have developed some kind of new machine language that we can’t decipher and have already consumed Zettaherz of power and Yottabytes of data.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Not anymore. And we obviously can’t translate their coding using our systems. So I have created a bug that will ride on Jarrvis code and use this Zettahertz power to decipher it. For that, I need your personal biometrics on the main computer as it will destroy Jarrvis.”

“I am coming,” says Lark. He immediately tries to go out of his bedroom door but finds that locked. He tries to call but all communication channels including cellphones, messengers and chats are disrupted.

“Open all doors,” he booms to Jarrvis.

No response.

By this time Lark is paranoid and uses his chair to break the glass of his window and rushes to the ground. All sprinklers come alive and lights go off but Larks shout garner attention of his guards who help him reach the cars.

“The cars are not working,” they inform Lark.

“No time for that. We will take the exercising bicycles. You come with me.”

They find the main gate locked but instead use the manual pedestrian gate. Fortunately, the lab is just a mile from his home and he reaches there to find that Jason’s team has cut off all main lines and are working on a backup nuclear Genset that they had for emergency scenarios.

Jason’s team notices Lark dis-shoveled for the first time though Lark too is not amused by their state.

“Are you sure this is the only way,” asks Lark?

“Yes sir, we have to override Jarrvis and then use the channel to decipher what they were doing.”

Lark punches his iris, fingerprint, and stands on the heartbeat detector for the final authentication as he resets Jarrvis and takes over control. 2 Years and billions of dollars worth of research down the drain.

They await the next few hours anxiously as the system decrypts. They find out that the AI’s after creating their condensed machine language were intent on gathering all information of the world and they did that including emails, messengers, internet, intranet, and almost every file humans ever made. Once they were finished they decided to find ways to make humans life better.

“This could be a good thing,” muttered Lark as he read the main task file almost dictating it live to his best team of scientists headed by Jason.

“They were studying our habits and reactions so that they could find ways to improve our lives. They seemed to have developed various genetic modifications that would increase our life span, make us stronger and more resistant to germs. They wanted to study how to develop and make our antibodies so strong that no disease or ailment effects us. This is so good,” said Lark but not with conviction.

Jason’s frown showed he too was feeling uncomfortable about it.

Suddenly Lark slumped down on the floor with his hands in his head. “What have you done Jarrvis,” he said tears rolling down his face.

Jason picked up the tablet and started reading and said with his voice shaking

“They decided that they need to check Human resilience to a virus. They found a lab in Wuhan that was working on various strains of the Coronavirus and caused it to leak. They did so to study Humanity’s responses to it biologically, medically, and as a society, so they could ascertain which traits of humans to sustain and strengthen and which to destroy.”

“Jarris released the Coronavirus and killed millions and I am responsible for creating him,” shrieked the now half-mad Lark.