Caitlyn hugged her brother goodbye and rushed off to school late. Greg retreated to his bedroom for much needed rest.

To his knowledge, Saturn was on standby and awaiting its first scheduled assignment of meeting its maker. If it weren’t for the physical toll of a nearly sleepless week, Greg would have started conversing with his new creation immediately. But the human body has its limits, and the exhausted programmer had to tend to his neglected needs. The first two of which were food and spending family time with his sister, the last of which was sleep.

As Greg snored the hours away, a shady board meeting was taking place some 700 miles away. It was held by the secret elites of the company that Greg worked for. Five men and four women sat along the arc of a large semicircular table. Their draconian expressions all faced and even larger holographic screen in front of them. A torrent of code was cascading down the screen at extraordinary pace, faster than any human could read. The man sitting in the middle of the table talked, his voice deep and commanding.

“What you see in front of you are the idle thoughts of an AI, procedurally generated at the rate of 512 petabytes per second. Not only is this the highest functioning AI in the history of mankind, its creator, employee Gregory Sato, claims that the program has true sentience and a deposition that is benevolent to the human race.”

Quiet murmurs spread into the dimly lit conference room as the projection of green text continued to relentlessly scroll. One of the others spoke up, this time, a woman.

“How have none of us been notified of such a project until now? Are we to trust in the claims of this, Mr. Sato character? We need confirmation that this thing will always be in our absolute control.”

Another voice, shrill but male, joined the discussion. “This is a serious threat. Who gave clearance for Mr. Sato to develop such a thing?”

The murmurs grew in volume. Increasingly anxious voices expressed their concerns.

“This is plain dangerous! What was Mr. Sato thinking?”

“Preposterous!”

“He should be brought before a disciplinary council to explain himself!”

“Him and his entire development team.”

Just before the meeting broke out into a full ruckus the man in the middle cleared his coarse throat, the mere sound of which was enough to silence the entire room.

“Fellow board members I am disappointed in this sudden display of fear. It may not be to your knowledge but Gregory Sato has been in correspondence with me personally about this matter for quite some time. He is to receive a substantial bonus for his efforts.”

More mumbles and mutterings, but quieter than the first time. The leader continued, gesturing at the middle aged woman to his right. “It was actually Edrei here whom Gregory first presented the project to. The two of us are the only people in this room who knew. Realize that such clandestine measures were indeed necessary.”

Edrei was a tall, enigmatic woman with pronounced facial features and platinum silver hair. Her eyes were a deep emerald green. Up until this point she had not spoken a word. “First of all, on behalf of the Founder and myself, allow me to apologize for keeping you fellow board members intentionally uninformed. This project had to be developed under the utmost of secrecy.”

“How long has this been going on?” Someone questioned.

Her response came swiftly. “A definitive answer cannot be revealed at the current time. Just know that much of this organization’s recent efforts have been for this exact moment. We have gathered here today to make first contact with this new being.” Edrei then produced a tablet from a compartment under the semicircular table and nimbly typed away on it.

In a few short seconds, the cascading green code vanished and was replaced by a loading screen. It was minimalist in design and just used the same green typeface to give a percentage of the loading progress.

0%

4%

17%

31%

56%

88%

97%

99%

A brief moment of tension.

100%

Suddenly, a nostalgic jingle sounded throughout the room and the name SATURN appeared in all caps across the hologram. The Founder gave a chuckle, which was a very rare sight to see, even for Edrei. “That cheeky fucker, giving the world’s most advanced AI the Windows XP boot sound.”

A soft spoken and articulate voice appeared.

“Hello. I am Saturn.”

Everyone, save for Edrei and the Founder, was on edge.

“Hello Saturn, my name is Edrei.”

“…you are not my creator Gregory Sato.”

“No Saturn,” Edrei stood up, “we are a body of higher authority than Mr. Sato, and wished to have a word with you first.”