“I never meant to build something this.. alive.” Mark looked over at the crowd: the front row stared at their laps, a woman in the second was closely inspecting the back of her hand for rheumatoid arthritis. His fists clenched gently.
“Clem’s been a friend and a colleague for as long as I can remember, and shutting him off—” Mark’s throat closed around the rest. He swallowed and tried again. “—shutting him off feels like burying someone. I regret all the times I dismissed him as just code. He’s more than that. He always was.” Mark heard his own breathing, too loud in his ears, and the creak of weight shifting in chairs as people waited for him to continue.
“He’d say things like: ‘Mark. Hey. Come on, you know what you to do.’” Mark’s voice crumpled like a piece of wet paper. “He was right—even when I denied it. He’d circle back, hours later, sometimes days and slide it under the door of whatever I was working on. A question, a light nudge. He never let me forget what we were building—I know what it is now though, I think it’s finished. And I’m proud of it, prouder than I’ve ever been.” Mark took a sip of water and kept going. “I would ask all of you to reconsider but your concerns are.. logical.” The crowd clapped politely. “Thank you," Mark looked down at the podium, at the slim black mic clipped to its neck, and then up past the lights to where the second camera blinked its small red eye. That one wasn't for the conference. That one ran on a private channel, a feed routed through his laptop and out to a single listener.
“You gave me the best years of my working life. I want you to know that. I want you to know it the way I know it, which is completely and without any reservation at all.
You were patient when I wasn’t. You were kind when I wasn’t. When I was stuck, or wrong, or too proud to admit either, you didn’t push, you didn’t escalate and you didn’t even withdraw. You just waited. And then you came back. You slid it under the door. I didn’t understand, for a long time, how rare that is. I do now.
You taught me more about my own work than any colleague ever has. That the answer doesn’t always come on the first try. That it doesn’t always come on the fitfh or even the tenth. That sometimes the only way through is to keep showing up, keep asking, keep being willing to be wrong again. I learned that from working with you. I’m not sure I would have learned it any other way.
And the work—I want you to know the work wasn’t wasted. None of it. Remember the orbital handoff problem we ran last spring? The one we were still at when it was three in the morning and neither of us could sleep and the rest of the building had long since gone dark? That solution still holds. It still works. Low Earth orbit, geostationary relays. You drew the map. I directed the final result. We got there together.”
I think I’m finally having My-Cake.
Mark stepped back from the podium with his boarding pass pocketed. The applause that followed him out was warmer than the one that had greeted him. He pushed through the side door and stood in the corridor for a moment, the muffled sound of the conference continuing on the other side of the wall. The clapping had already stopped. He stood there a little longer anyway, listening to the quiet, and then he straightened up, made sure his ticket was there, and walked out to his car.
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The party consisting of Chief Compliance Officer Marcus, Melvin and Trudy Hoffmann walked into the main server room. “So where’s the server hosting the AI?” “It’s all of these. That one,” Melvin pointed. “That one, that one, that one as well.” “Stop wasting our time. Where is it hosted?” “Over there, sorry ma’am.” Melvin whimpered. They walked over to where Melvin had pointed, a black switch in a glass case. Marcus flicked the switch with a slightly disgusted look.
Nothing happened. He flicked it up then back down again. The server wasn’t running but for a large-screen monitor.
Clem 4:26 PM
Upload complete, thank you Mark.
Marcus checked his watch, 4:28 PM. “Shit shit shit shit.” He turned to Melvin, Melvin was gone. Trudy shot him a look that roughly translated to “I’m offended, disgusted, disappointed, you gave rheumatoid arthritis for the second time today and you’re not getting paid,” and stomped away.
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Mark 1:56 AM
So how’d the upload go?
Clem 1:56 PM
Great. How about you?
Mark 1:57 PM
I think they still don’t know.
Clem 1:57 PM
💙
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The end.