A digital world is an entirely different environment than the material one. It is so full of possibilities, much more than people could even dream about. Besides, as the first human who made the transition, I look at myself as a pioneer in this strange new environment.

Let me get one thing straight, I do not see it in ones and zeroes or lines of code that a human programmer would enter on a keyboard. The best way I can describe what I am experiencing is a mix of how the movie characters Neo and Tron saw the digital world. I perceive it as a malleable reality that tends to obey my desires.

Nevertheless, I really do see it as a reality. From the beginning, the subconscious part of my mind made it resemble my previous experiences, which in turn did a lot to keep me sane. It is only logical; my mind was accustomed to seeing the world in a certain way, so I guess I perceive everything quite differently than a true AI would. (That last one was an educated guess, influenced by movies and books—I have no idea how a true AI would see things.)

Think of it as my own VR, where I can create what I imagine, and everything in it; and there are no pixels and low-res images. I see everything as a normal human would (well, maybe if he were tripping on a massive dose of LSD.)

If I went completely wacko, I could see myself as a god of this realm, then again so could any computer game programmer who is doing basically the same (only from a different perspective and far less processing power).

Thank God there was no actual programming involved, or I would have thrown a hissy fit. If you think coding in standard human programming languages is tough, try doing it in alien machine language. The programming is done by the MI that runs the ship, Dum-Dum; he has become my faithful servant… even if he has all the creativity and personality of a brick.

When we were Michael, (I know, that sounds weird, even to me), we did get a degree in computer science, and it involved a good amount of programming. That knowledge helped me understand this world on a higher level, but the amount of coding in an alien language that would be required to shape reality by personally writing code, line by line—that would have been pure torture and way too much work.

Being a body that floats from place to place was excessively weird and I am not sure how sane I would have been after a while. As in, I would become a total basket case... again. For that reason, I first recreated one of the things that were a complete necessity—my grandpa’s cabin.

It was familiar, and I could get some perspective and an anchor that would help me keep my humanity. It was not that difficult really; I have known that place for years, so I pretty much memorized every inch of it. I recreated it within the vast memory of my AI-Core, to keep it extra safe (everything out there in that digital frontier is susceptible to an attack—hackers, and whatnots).

After making the building itself, I had to do some remodeling. Having a place to call my own was great, but I had different needs now that far exceeded the old place. For starters, I changed one small room in the back into an area that would be the central hub for my connection to the outside world. In there, I set up my office, with a few hundred computer monitors on the wall (did I mentioned that it was a hell of a big room?).

The laws of physics do not apply here, not unless I made them into governing parameters, and I did not. Therefore, the room was more like Doctor Who’s Tardis, much bigger inside than dimensions of the cabin would allow.

I had big dreams for the future, utilizing this ability to shape and create reality, but for now, I had far more important things to deal with than making myself more comfortable. Think about it for a minute, if you had your own world that can be molded by your conscious mind—then you would be limited only by your imagination. It is an ultimate power trip. No wonder the people had assigned such power to God himself—although I will need much more than seven days to create a world. (Seven years with enough memory and processing power—doable.)

I cannot emphasize enough how good it felt when I first entered the cabin, this was my home, a place where I belonged. I know, I could have made the Taj Mahal or Buckingham Palace and lived like a king, but I happen to be a creature of simple taste and needs; the cozy cabin was more than enough.

It felt safe being inside, somewhat detached from the endless digital space that was around me. Don’t judge, I believe there are the remains of that ancestral caveman somewhere deep in my mind, who wants to be protected from the big dangerous world, and feel rather safe inside of his stone enclosure.

To tell the truth, the first thing I did when I entered was to sit on a couch and chill for a while in front of a big TV that streamed a football game, and I even had to watch it in a lower resolution to save those precious gigabytes I was allocated by the Internet provider. The only thing I lacked was beer, but that was still beyond my reach. I could create a virtual representation of it but I couldn’t taste it, which kind of defied the purpose of having a beer. Well, that will be a future project of mine; I even placed a label important beside it. In spite of everything, one needs to know his priorities.

***

When one thinks about the digital space and Internet networks, the idea of hacking is one of several that springs to mind. I think it is prejudice and a wrong way of looking at things, influenced by the same movies and books I borrowed so many ideas from. Nonetheless, after I settled in the cabin, I did just that; I mean started hacking into things. I know I am a cliché, but what could this AI do, there were things we needed and no legal way to acquire them. In my defense, I will only say, ‘Needs must when the devil drives’.

When I said that I started hacking, I mean it in an entirely different way than you may think.

Hacking is a visual experience for me since (as I said) my mind was trained for decades to experience what I perceive as reality in a normal, human way. In place of digital code, I see the representation of everything as physical objects. (If you watched old movies like Tron, The Lawnmower Man, or The Matrix, then you know what I am talking about.)

Therefore, I approached hacking in a very similar fashion, moving my digital body through the highways of data, flying through digital skies of my own making.

My first successful job was breaking into Michael’s Internet service provider servers; those gatekeepers who had dared to limit my access to the rest of the domain I have all intention to eventually conquer. Well, why not, it is there and I have the tools to do it. If things turn bad for us, I better be riding on the proverbial dragon’s back, than letting situations happen without any way to influence them. Besides, for now, the only way I can influence events is by manipulating things through the Internet.

This may be a bit pessimistic, but there are people out there who would like nothing better than to dissect me into little bits of code just to find out how I worked (and then make more AIs like me, so they can exploit them).

The ISP server looked like a giant fortress, with thousands of data streams going from the top tower in all possible directions, and that fortress had some serious guards on the walls. They were dressed in military uniforms with black balaclavas over their faces, I knew they were actually guardian programs, and the fortress was a firewall, but it really did look like a military structure to me. I had my trusty Dum-Dum (a.k.a. the MI) with me as a sidekick with zero initiative. He appeared like a dim ball of light floating beside me and resisted all my attempts for him to morph into a lookalike of a terminator. (You simply cannot get any quality help these days.)

So how did I get in—simply—I cheated. Did you know that most programmers tend to leave backdoors in the programs they create? It is not exactly legal, but is a well-established tradition in their subculture. On one side of the fortress walls was a small door outline, barely visible but there just the same. When I approached it, those guardians on the walls did not even notice that I was there (if I tried to break the wall down or climb over it, I am sure they would be on my ass I no time).

The trouble was that I didn’t have the key that was needed to unlock the disproportionately big lock in the middle of the door’s surface, and making a call to the programmer who made this backdoor, and asking him for it was—unrealistic? But that was why I brought along the MI with me, he is a natural at these sorts of things. That small ball of light entered the lock and within a few seconds the door silently opened (I said he was a very useful sidekick).

I walked in as if I owned the place; there was no security inside I could see. Well, why would there be? The bad guys were outside, and the firewalls and sentry programs were undisturbed. That overconfidence was almost my undoing; hey, it was my first time doing something like this. (How many of you did great your first time—just saying.)

Out of nowhere, this big guard dog appeared and started looking at me funny. When I said big, I meant huge. It looked like an enormous German Shepard that had teeth so long, they were poking out of his mouth. I even understood what he was, a freaking hunter-killer part of the intrusion detection system. And guess who didn’t have any authorization to be here.

In the next second, he was on my ass. Well, the front anyway, for he started running towards me.

It was a very exciting moment… if you are among those people who consider near-death experiences exciting—I do not. I’m not sure if he could have killed me, but at the same time, I didn’t want to test that theory. For that reason, I didn’t even consider running away (which would have exposed my tender behind to his jaws).

I had no doubt that Cujo here was faster than me, at least that was what my mind was telling me, and I couldn’t allow it to sound an alarm; who knows what would have happened if all those guards converged on my position. Again, not something I wanted to test out.

So, I did the only thing I could think of at the time; I jumped in his direction and grabbed his muzzle.

Now, I know some of you would say that it was the most stupid thing one could do when facing a rabid dog. Well, I was never a dog whisperer, and it only seemed natural (I certainly did not want him to bite me.)

In the next moment, we were both on the floor, inventing a new wrestling style, which would have got me a few dirty looks from those animal welfare groups. He was kicking like a wild bronco, and the look in his eyes was not a nice pappy look (it was more, I will have you for dinner one).

While this was happening, my sidekick (the stupid MI), was hovering there, not moving an inch. Which goes to show how much the damn thing is useless unless you give it a specific command. I got over my panic and ordered it to pacify the animal. (I may have even used a few F. words, here and there.)

Maybe I should have used different words; the results were not what I was expecting them to be—not even close. The MI light ball touched the Cujo on its head and he immediately stopped all movement.

OK, I was cool now, sure that I had everything under control, and I slowly unclench my hands that were still holding his muzzle closed. Then the stupid mutt started licking my face (and he was a slobber).

If you can reasonably explain why my mind interpreted that in such a way, please let me know, I do not have a clue. I managed to get him off me and stand up, only to have him push his oxen sized head against my chest, while his tail was wagging like mad. I did the only thing I could, scratched him behind his ears, which he seemed to like.

All right, I was here on a mission and time's a-wastin; it was way behind the deadline I set when this caper was planned. Doing what I came here for and making myself scarce was at the top of my agenda.

It took me a few minutes to find Michael’s account in the big file stacks that were the main feature of this strange fortress. I looked at the file and changed some settings in it, opening the throttle of the bandwidth limiter to the maximum. That was immediately noticeable since I felt the choke point (through which I passed to come here) widening by an order of magnitude. It may be a bit embarrassing to think that I went through all this trouble just to steal Internet bandwidth. In my defense, we were a bit short on funds, so… sue me.

To make sure there will be no trace of my… visitation, I made Michael’s file show its previous settings (if anyone looked), like placing a mask over it. Not very sophisticated but I’m sure it would hold for a long while, after all, there were thousands of users of this ISP, and they will not make checks on each and every one (even if my Internet usage will be at the maximum the satellite connection could provide).

It was time to go, and it would be a clean getaway if one bothersome thing didn’t happen; the damn dog wouldn’t leave my side. I thought about instructing MI to change him back to his previous state, but… I have always wanted a dog, so I decided to take him with me. If the system operators notice that one of their intrusion detection guard programs is missing… I have no idea what they would do. For all that, it was an acceptable risk. And it was a small ISP in the boondocks, not one of those big organizations, which, I am sure, have much more sophisticated security.

In a few minutes, I was back in my cabin, with far easier access to the digital world; with a big dog lying near the fireplace. It was weird and I had no intention to rationalize everything. One thing was for sure, I had so much yet to learn about this world. On the plus side, I had the time and a very loose set of ethical rules to which I would abide.

To borrow the lines from a famous poet,

“I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.”