2023 Novelathon II

A(I)lice, P.I.

11/9/23

It is easy in hindsight to see the connection even between these first tiny inclusions, these fleeting glitches. The list being extremely short at this point: the typewriter and the blood. Only two dots and I couldn’t connect them. The AI, seemingly with the patience of the ages, waited for the opportunity to present an even clearer clue. This opportunity included a TV news story and some prodding from my friend Alison, whose name is so close to the name I gave to my artificial friend I cannot help but think of both of them in the same thought.

###

One way you can tell it is a slow television news cycle is the resuscitation of cold cases. From the archives, as filler. The reporter sometimes tries to make connections between cases or make some inference from whatever evidence has been collected, with the requisite request for anyone with information to contact whichever authority is concerned with the case. This is ironic, because all the agencies stopped being concerned when the case was put in the freezer. The lone detective, doggedly refusing to give up, pursuing the criminal in her spare time, is mostly apocryphal.

I wonder if a case has ever been prodded into life by such activity, but then I realize of course this has happened. It has happened with me, and continues to. Cold cases get warmer, like in the kid’s game Hot or Cold, as details are alluded to or even filled in on my screen. I usually have to look closely though, and fast; I have…