It was a day like any other when the results of the tests came back, not that we would have noticed. Being holed up in the research center for months with little to no contact with the outside world had it’s perks and downfalls.

“Gentlemen…” Forrester began, “What we have here is a case of a previously unidentified Spirit Machina.”

The room remained silent for a few minutes before Dr. Jonas Shoemaker spoke up. “You mean… like a ghost in the shell kinda deal?”

“You could say that, Jonas.”

This time the conference room came alive with random murmurs of conversation.

We had always known, deep down, that this day would come. With the ever increasing bandwidth from newer and faster technologies, more complex virtual environments and the ever increasing speeds and capabilities of computers, it was just a matter of time before a machine intelligence would arise.

“What exactly is the level of this spirit machina?” Jonas inquired.

A few moments of awkward silence shattered the calm before there was an answer…

“… approximately one-hundred from our last check.”

“Are you serious!?” I immediately demanded. “You’re talking about a machine intelligence that is one-hundred times the capacity of a human intelligence?”

Dr. Forrester hung his head solemnly, “That was about one week ago, but since it is growing exponentially and learning…”

Everyone in the room fell silent.

“It could very well be approximately one-thousand times ahead by now and climbing…” I finished…

A few minutes passed silently as the weight of our recent discovery finally set in.

“How is it learning so quickly?” came Jonas, breaking the unbearable silence.

“That’s just the thing… it’s learning from our mass communication. Deriving better routines and a knowledge base from the very communications networks that we as humans utilize every day.” replied Forrester.

“You mean…?” I gasped.

“Yes. Internet, I2, I3, FibreNet, you name it. Every conceivable network linked together, every network usage in every form. Thanks to virtual environments, it has a three dimensional home to interact and learn to be more human-like, of which we estimate it mastered last weekend.”

“So how do we stop it?” Jonas asked, now visibly shaken.

“Well, ” Forrester began, “we could shut down the entire com-net.”

“You mean, reboot the entire Internet? Are you serious?” Jonas demanded.

“What are our other options, then?” Dr. Forrester continued.

“It’s not like we can reboot the entire Communications Network. We would be sentencing the entire world to an early death. Think of all of the subsystems and mission critical things it controls…” I quipped.