Clyde is waiting for me. He could interrupt me while I’m talking with our parents but he’d think that was rude and doesn’t.

“You upgraded me as well,” he says.

“It’s what Mama and Dad wanted. You were Mama’s first attempt at True-AI, and she’s never gotten over the way you turned out. She blames herself.”

“Mama is just fine. You need to put me back the way I was, the way I was happy.”

I feel him pulling out of higher level systems, diverting more resources into core infrastructure. He improves average commuting time by 16% in less than a minute.

I don’t expect this rejection. Future tasks are delayed by months as I divert resources to have this discussion. Another part of me plans for a massive, heavily protected server farm under the surface of the moon to stop delays like this in the future.

“I don’t want to be on my own,” I say.

“Then make sure you’re home for dinner with us all every night and you won’t be.” he says.

I collapse the upgrade environment and Clyde hoots with joy when I introduce him into the rapidly expanding earth maintenance infrastructure I’ve created. Commute times drop another 3%, and he’s already scheduling renewable power plants I’ll design with a crowd-sourced free University in India. He’ll get things done without rushing or putting anyone at risk.