The Reborn (The Day Eight Series Part 1) Read Online Free

of never getting in the same elevator as anyone he didn’t mean to be with. On the occasions Trevor had been waiting for an elevator at the same time, Damon had let everyone get on and stepped back to wait for another. That didn’t happen often, though, because Damon liked to arrive when it was still dark out, leave when it became dark again in the evening, and have his meals delivered to him.
    Trevor remembered being particularly stirred by one of Damon’s conference speeches, titled Why the Human Race Will Become Redundant . Damon opened by explaining that the rate of technological advance was increasing more and more quickly every day. He described how progress in the technology sector over the past thirty years alone was comparatively more than all the technological advances made in the history of the world prior to that, and was accelerating.
    Damon hinted at a looming technology that would change the entire structure of business, science, economics, politics, both home and work life, and the very process of invention. It was some form of artificial intelligence that diverged from the standard approaches. Unfortunately, the talk had been vague and left important details up to the imagination – such as how this new form of intelligence was implemented, when it would be realized, or exactly what it could do.
    But, he said, how it would come to pass didn’t matter – it was provable that it would exist simply because the rate of technological progression must continue along its perpetually-increasing curve, and that humans alone couldn’t contain such intelligence required to continue the trend, so the gap must be filled primarily by AI. If we accepted that fact now and thought about the changes it would bring, as a country, as corporations, as a world, and as individuals, we would be better prepared to face both the challenges and opportunities that would arise.
    Trevor was excited that his company might be working on world-changing technology – even if he didn’t get to contribute first-hand.
    And now Damon Winters was here. He’d come down from the top floor to his level, a place Trevor had never seen him. Something must be very wrong.
    Six men accompanied Damon clad in white lab coats and safety glasses, ID badges on their chests, half of them carrying brushed chrome toolboxes. They were lab technicians from the top of the building where Damon kept his brightest prodigies, working on generously-funded and highly-secretive projects. Like the world-changing technology, perhaps. At least those were the rumors.
    Damon’s team surveyed the floor with a sweep of penetrating gazes. Trevor and his co-workers always referred to them as “lab coats” because regardless of their positions, that’s what they all sported – white lab coats – all except Damon, who lived in a charcoal-gray suit.
    Trevor didn’t know for sure what their actual jobs were. You needed a special badge to get above the 25 th floor, and he was not special.
    The lab coats dispersed. A particularly chiseled lab coat with thin silver-frame glasses came up to Trevor’s cube and addressed the IT guy.
    “Mr. Marken, excellent job so far. Load Mr. Leighton’s machine on this and please come with me,” he said, handing the IT guy an aluminum, telescoping dolly.
    The IT guy stood wide-eyed and wrung his trembling hands.
    “You’ve done nothing wrong,” said the lab coat, “but there’s a rather large problem to deal with, so please do make haste.” He patted the IT guy on the back, which seemed to snap him out of his shock. The IT guy unfolded the dolly, sat Trevor’s machine on the frame, then headed off to the elevator with the lab coat. Then they were gone.
    Trevor had gotten a creepy vibe, and half-wondered if he’d ever see the IT guy again… maybe there would be a “terrible accident” and the IT guy would “fall” off the roof of the building while checking their satellite power transformers. But no – office life was never