“Hi.”  Peters stood by the desk.
 
The young man in front of the bank of screens held up a finger, eyes locked on a display as he clicked through lines of code.  He tapped at a couple of keys, then turned to face the newcomer.
 
“Hi.”
 
“Andrew Freeman?”
 
“Yeah?”  Freeman eyed his visitor suspiciously.  Who wore a shirt and tie nowadays?
 
“Allen Peters.  From finance?”
 
“Okay.”
 
“I sent you an email.  Well, several, actually.”
 
Freeman heard the reproach in his voice and tried to place the name.
 
“Yeah, well, we’re super busy at the moment.”
 
Peters waved a sheaf of papers.  Paper!  Who printed stuff out?
 
“There’s some irregularities in your expenses.”
 
“Seriously?  My expenses?  You know what we’re doing here, right?  A multi-million project, you know that, right?  And you’re querying pizza deliveries?”
 
“Pizza?”
 
“I’m salaried, right?  I work all hours, no overtime pay, and you’re chasing me up because we order a few pizzas because we worked through dinner?  Really?”
 
Peters looked at the papers.  “Pizza?  No.  Dinner claims are fine, providing they’re in budget.”
 
“What then?”  Freeman ran his hands through his hair, then waved at the screens.  “You know how close we’re getting?  How bleeding edge this is?  This is going to change everything.  Everything!  We’re working our butts off, and when we get there we are going to be the new Watson and Crick!  And you’re counting beans?”
 
“Watson and who?”
 
“Watson and Crick.  Discovered DNA?  Never mind.  The point is, we’re so close to self-generating cognisant processing.  Have you any idea how big that is?  We get this right and we can print money.  This is the closest thing to self-awareness we’ve ever had.  No disrespect, but can’t you just, I don’t know, take whatever tees I didn’t cross and just lose them?”
 
“This is a little more than pizza.  I can’t just lose twenty-three thousand four hundred and seventy five.”
 
“Well, take it up with – Wait!  How much?”
 
“Twenty-three thousand four hundred and seventy five.”
 
“Twenty-three thousand?”
 
“Plus tax.”
 
“I never put in for that!”
 
Peters lifted up the papers.  “These say you did.”
 
“What?  Let me see.”
 
Peters handed over the sheaf.  As Freeman scanned them he said, “Hardware shouldn’t be claimed on personal expenses anyway.  That’s what purchase orders are for.”
 
“Hardware?”  Freeman pointed out lines in the report.  “These are circuit boards.  Chipsets.  A soldering iron, for crying out loud.  Look.”  He waved a hand at the screens.  “I’m strictly software.  Neural networks.  Artificial Intelligence.  Self-programming algorithms.  What would I want hardware for?”
 
“I did wonder,” said Peters.  “The robot hand might have slipped by, it was the remote controlled cars that threw up the red flags.”
 
“What?  Why would I order… Look, this is stupid.  Why would I order this stuff?”
 
“It’s on your employee code.”
 
“It wasn’t me.”
 
“Via your email account.  From this terminal.”
 
“It wasn’t me.  It wasn’t.”
 

---

 
The Project Technical Coordinator hit the switch on the mic.
 
“This is Aung San.  Good Morning.”
 
There was a pause.  He tried to imagine the algorithms kicking in, identifying his voice, interpreting his words, converting them into patterns, extrapolating meanings, formulating responses.  It was impossible.  A building full of the world’s leading experts in the field could barely comprehend it.

“The temperature is currently twenty-two degrees.  It is forecast to rise to a high of twenty eight.  It is sunny with a slight breeze.  It seems like a good morning.”
 
Aung chuckled.  He hadn’t expected that.  So many updates must have been included in last night’s build.  How far could he push this?  An impromptu Turing test?  Why not?  He looked around, not sure why he was embarrassed at holding a conversation with a machine.
 
“It certainly is.  It was nice driving through the park today.”
 
“I would like to drive through the park today.”
 
“Ha!  If it was possible, I’d like that too.  One day, perhaps.  One day.”
 
“One day,” agreed the bank of computers that filled the hermetically-sealed machine room.
 
In an air conditioning duct a bank of radio-controlled cars jerked forward, carrying an array of sensors soldered onto a crude platform.
 
One day.