In Storage

            Leo paced the floor of his grandfather’s small house. He looked out the window and saw, yet again, the barrage of unending lightning. Why couldn’t his parents have taken him with them on their interplanetary cruise? He let out a long sigh and flopped down onto the couch. Instead of seeing new and exotic places, he was stuck on the small planet of Zoltan, far away from all of his friends, and indeed, most of civilization. Zoltan was very sparsely populated, mostly because of the near constant lightning storms that covered the planet.

            Leo pulled out his soccer ball and started to play keepie-uppie. He was on his school’s soccer team, and he was a fair player. He managed to keep the ball up for a few minutes before he lost control and it rolled away. Luckily, his grandfather’s house didn’t have too many breakable things. The ball rolled and bounced harmlessly toward the hall.

            Leo started after it and saw his grandfather coming toward him, concern on his face. “You all right, Leo?” he asked with furrowed brows.

            “Yeah,” Leo answered quickly, a little shame-faced. “I just let my ball get away from me.” Before his grandfather could say anything, Leo followed his ball. He knew he shouldn’t have been playing keepie-uppie in the house, but he was so bored.

            At the end of the hall, there were some stairs that went down to the basement. He’d never been down there before. Leo ran after his ball, and was amazed to find himself surrounded by tons of boxes at the bottom of the stairs. They were stacked nearly to the ceiling. His ball was still rolling down a small aisle in between the towers of boxes. Finally, after running what felt like an entire soccer field, he reached his ball which had stopped at a closed door. He looked behind him at the towers of boxes and was again amazed to see how far he had come. That’s weird he thought. I didn’t realize Grandpa’s basement was a tunnel.

            He also hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten in the race after his ball. He looked at the door where the tunnel ended, and could barely make out the small sign on it that said STORAGE.

            Curious now, Leo turned the knob, which opened easily. Automatic lights came on and he saw that he was indeed in a small storage room. “Why does Grandfather have such a long tunnel that only leads to a storage room?” he asked out loud.

            A thick layer of dust covered everything around him. He looked around at all the objects that had been carefully mounted on the walls. At first glance, it all just looked like junk and old computer parts. But now he saw that everything was carefully labelled. This stuff was old. Underneath each item was a small screen that displayed a name and a date. All the dates that Leo saw seemed to be around the year 2235.

            “Wow,” Leo breathed excitedly. It was now the year 2301. He moved closer to inspect an interesting piece of tech that looked like it came off of an old hovercar. Then a purple light flashed from the corner of his eye. He turned and saw a small hand-held device that hadn’t been labelled with a name, but bore the year 2230. “Wow,” Leo said again, awe in his voice. He reached out to pick up the item, and saw that it fit in his hand like it was made for him.

            The item started to shift, and then there was a bright green button that appeared on the surface. Without waiting to think about any possible consequences, Leo pushed it.

            A small holographic image appeared in front of Leo, hovering in the air. It was a boy, around Leo’s age, whose face was covered in panic. “You have to help me!” it said desperately. “I’m trapped here!”

            Leo studied the image. He was impressed at how well it had held up after all these years. Everyone knew that holographic images degraded over time. This one was seventy years old, and it looked like it had been made yesterday.

            “What is this thing?” Leo wondered, intrigued. To his immense shock, the image answered his question.

            Some of the panic on the boy’s face seemed to dissipate a little as he said, “I’m a personal assistant, Model #A214. My name is Kenneth.”

            Now Leo began to understand. He had heard of the holographic personal assistants. They were really popular a long time ago. With a jolt, he remembered why they were no longer around anymore. He hurriedly put the device back on the shelf and turned to leave.

            “Wait!” Kenneth said, urgently now. “Come back, please!”

            Leo picked up his ball and hurried out the door and into the tunnel. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it, his heart pounding. A holographic personal assistant? Now he remembered the story that had become a legend. He ran back down the long tunnel, and had just gotten to the stairs when he nearly crashed into his grandfather.

            “Grandfather!” he shouted, relieved. “You know you have a holographic personal assistant in your storage room?”

            Grandfather’s already concerned face turned into real worry at this news. “Did you talk to Kenneth?” he asked, a little too quickly.

            “Only for a minute,” Leo said, struggling to regain his breath. “I put the device back as soon as I knew what it was.”

            Grandfather looked back the way Leo had come. “He’s the reason that I live alone on this awful planet,” he said bitterly. “He was the leader of the holographs that waged war on humanity.”

            Leo felt his eyes widen. “That kid was the leader of the revolt? Why wasn’t he destroyed with the others?”

            “Because he’s a model A214,” Grandfather said resignedly. “Those models were directly connected to their users with a special brain chip. The only way they could ever be disconnected was if the host dies.”

            Leo had never heard this part of the legend. “Who was Kenneth’s host?” he asked, tentatively.

            Grandfather held his breath for a moment, and then let it out with a soft, “Me.” He turned and walked up the stairs, with Leo following close behind him.

            Now Leo understood why his grandfather lived on Zoltan, alone. He made Leo swear to keep his secret. If the government ever found out that there was a surviving holographic personal assistant from the AI revolt, they would kill Leo’s grandfather without a thought. They could never again risk AI taking over humanity.

            When his parents came back from their cruise a week later, Leo was almost reluctant to leave. He hugged his grandfather tightly and stepped back into the world that had been eradicated of artificially intelligent machines and programs.