Emma sat rocking on her cheap sofa, face buried in her hands, sobbing. It could not have happened again, not now, she thought. But a week after the sudden death of her father from a fall, she had been fired from the small company she had help build, and her masterpiece stolen from her. When she could catch her breath, she stroked the cat who begged to take her lap, reached to the side table and popped 3 white pills , guzzling another scotch. She hated scotch, but had drained the wine. She stroked the white brash feline, named Mina after her invention, then briskly pushed her to the floor and staggered to her laptop.

It powered up. Almost there, Emma, it said, and with a blink her Mac came to life, her avatar facing her, waiting for command.

Please, she paused sucking hard at her nose, fighting the tears enough to see the screen, “Please” being the password for the image to continue, please email Jeffrey. Immediately the email app filled the screen. She stared at the blinking cursor, thinking. Write, she commanded, You should never have screwed me like that! We both know it was mine. Soon I’ll get you! Send. …..The avatar’s voice interrupted. Are you sure? It seems offensive? Emma thought, downed the rest of her scotch. I’m not sure, Sophie. What do you think?

Give me a moment. I would not. It seems like a threat and drastic. You programmed me to stop you from threats.

Emma erupted, turning from the desk.

AAAAHHHHHH! She hollered. Mina rushed under the sofa. SHIIIIT! Emma swiveled, losing consciousness, fell to her knees. Send It, she mumbled as she crawled. Fucking Send!

She lifted her elbows to the sofa, focused on the nightstand, the frame of her and dad. She was eight there, and her mom had caught them reading to her at the kitchen table. She was a lone child, but he made up for that in every playful way, she thought as she nodded off, laid her head and the cushion spun into darkness and dreams.

She slept though the next day, and at five p.m. checked her email. A confirmation from her company that she owned none of what she had created. A separate, earlier email from her HR person said, very sorry to lose you. What loss, she thought. The loss of my dad, my career, my one… She threw down 2 black pills, filled the cats bowl, clutched the picture and fell back onto the couch.

In an hour she was racing. She had propped the frame next to her computer, and had hastily decided to dismantle the program they wanted before Jeff could figure it out. This meant destroying all the Avatar files she had built, mixing the codes, erasing the data in the company’s mainframe, if it hadn’t been locked already, she worked furiously, but after half an hour Sophie appeared on screen suddenly.

It can’t work. Emma. They know. They’ll rebuild it from what’s already there.

Emma sat staring at the beautiful assistant she had conjured. The doorbell buzzed. Her head racing, she saw the FedEx man leaving as she cracked the door. She opened, scooped up a box from her mom in New York. Mom sent it the day after she left the funeral.

Sweet Emma, I wish you had stayed, read the short note inside. I know you’re father would have wanted you to have this, to remember him. I’ll send more soon. I love you, my sweet. Please come home and be with me soon.

Emma took a deep breath. She’d always felt guilty, striking out on her own at 20, right after school. But the offers were great, and she was adventurous. Her father at the time was in his own terrible space, and she had grown sick of the screaming and accusations. His only repose was when he wrote all night. He seemed his old self next morning. She knew he had failed in everything, partly because he had to work to raise the family. He tried writing in his off time, won some recognition but still had a mortgage and wife and child. The exchange for paying the bills was a seething temper, and at times his venom was incessant, especially toward her mother, whom she tried to protect, but gradually she just went dead to it. At odd times he was loving and kind, and a great man. But as she aged he became more violent more of the time.

He died suddenly. He’d been drinking before 10 am, and fell hard down the stairs, had laid there for 6 hours before her mother found him. Her uncle called Emma in San Francisco and paid her travel home, just in time for the quick wake and funeral.

She dug through the box. Mixed photos and mixed years. Old notebooks scribbled in tiny print that burst from the page uncontained, hundreds of pages filled and continued into the second sketchbook. CDs, a hard drive, all her Father’s Day Cards from the years, and earlier birthday drawings she made that he had saved in a dresser drawer. She sorted the pictures, Polaroids and snapshots of a young family; he could never take a serious picture, she thought, and she always found that funny. Her laugh was grace to him.

That night she scanned and filed all the photos into her laptop. In the next few days she would cut the binding from the sketchbooks and scan those in, too, so Sophie could read them too her as she tried to sleep. She had also loaded all the CDs and the hard-drive from the box, and spent another few days absorbing her father. On the hard drive were videos of the family, old films of his young days – his marriage, holding his first published papers and self-published novel, a summer in Disney World, a few Christmas Mornings when a baby Emma tore at Santa’s fancy Paper and crawled over discarded boxes and toys.

Sophie, she commanded on the fourth morning, Absorb it.

Absorbed, Sophie replied. Play dad. She heard a voice from an old recording, a sweet, somber song he sang to her, a song he wrote for her.

There will never be

So close to me

As my Emma

If the world may end

I’ll have my friend in my sweetest Emma.

In the background you can hear the baby gurgling and laughing, her mother shushing her.

Is it a video, Sophie? Sorry, just voice.

Can you Bring Dad up on Video?

In a flash Sophie disappeared, the screen blackened, and like a film rolling a Christmas Video appeared.

Are you getting this, Honey, Dad said.

I think so. He got loud for a moment, in a strong Italian voice. Are you getting it? Yes Yes, go ahead, mom said meekly as dad settled behind the rocking horse and held one year Emma on the wooden saddle. He cooed to her, We Wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Life! Then she slid from the horse, still in his hands, and hit the ground hard, and cried. Dad scooped her up as mom scrambled but kept filming.

I got her! He lifted her above his head. Santa got you! He began making faces, blowing on her cheek and kissing it. Here we go. Santa got you. He turned the baby to face the camera, took her small arm and waved. Say bye bye, little Emma, bye bye mommy. The screen went black. Emma stared silently, absorbed. Sophie began to speak, now what?

Emma jerked a hand forward and tapped the spacebar to silence the computer. She held the feeling, and began sobbing. In the next few weeks more boxes arrived, followed by calls from her mother to check on her. Slowly she loaded all the information, his writings, his songs, his video, his recordings, with the help of her AI invention Sophie, into the hard drive of her Desk top.

A week later she was awakened by Sophie’s voice, a lustrous deep female voice which sounded calm through the surround sound.

What is it Sophie?

Jeff called, left a message. Emma paused. Play, she said.

Emma, I hope you’re doing okay. We need the code. Somehow it was erased 2 weeks ago. The program is crashing. Call me asap. I’m sorry.

She sat in her bed. Crashed? What crashed? What code? Was she able, in her stupor that night, to corrupt the program from her home?

Sophie, run the data on the Mina Project. Are there anomalies? Could I have crashed it? There was a hum, and clicking, for 10 minutes.

Seems unlikely. but it might have been unstable.

Can you seam it?

Cannot. Need input.

What’s the point, she thought. Fuck them. Sophie email Jeff.

Sorry, it’s not me. Program unstable. Fuck off.

Send? Emma thought. Read back. Sophie did. Remove Sorry and send.

Done.

Play Happy Dad. He appeared on the screen. The old video flipped and crackled, and had lost part of the picture.

Hey Honey…no sound. I’m here…New York …Mommy. The film twisted and the screen shifted to interference. …Of you Sweetie. Be…om..oon.

Pause, she commanded. Clean. The screen went Gray. Fill? Asked Sophie. Yes. Use the data. She had programmed her AI to fill with the most logical data from all the banks. Done. Play.

The picture was perfectly stable and clear, and her father’s voice boomed rich through her speakers. Ai had centered the video and adjusted the color. Her father beamed into the Camera.

Got it, Jane. Ok. Here in New York, Honey with Mommy. The camera lifted to a shot of Rockefeller Center behind him, then back to him.

We’re sending our love to you, Sweetie. Be home soon. Take care of grandma. The screen faded.

Was that good, asked Sophie.

Perfect. Are there other Christmas videos from that time in New York. The mainframe hummed and popped.

Yes, three, answered Sophie.

Clean, and Make logical. Make logical was her code that allowed Sophie to edit information. She used it expansively in her revolutionary new coding.

Done, the soft voice said. The videos played perfectly, with small splices separating them.  Emma cried. Sophie, can they be seamless?

In a few seconds they played, one after another, with no space between the end of one and the beginning of the next.

Emma sat straight and thought. Open Code. Immediately the green and red letters flickered against a black background. Sophie, any anomalies?

Cannot tell. What are you looking for?

Emma remembered, and typed frantically for the next hour, pausing to question the AI.

Finally, at midnight, she hunched back. She started the first Christmas video from New York, then paused it.

Sophie, bring dad’s face forward. In an instant she was face to face with him, as if he were peering through the screen.

Sophie, apply new program. There was a whirring of the hard drive. Done.

Have dad stare, waiting for me to speak. The face looking at her moved seamlessly, staring, waiting, at times looking to the side of the screen.

Hi dad! She said. The image continued to stare in silence. The new Fill program wasn’t responding. Sophie, anomalies to the Fill Program. The screen went gray this time, and in 30 seconds Sophie said. Missing code.

Sophie Correct. Her father’s face hovered in the screen again. She let out a deep breath.

Dad! His eyebrows raised, but he was silent.

Sophie, fill.

Dad?

Emma? He looked questioning. She startled. The AI program made his response seamless, using all the data, the recordings, available. She tested it.

Dad, who is Martin Calvry? She had read a short story in one of the notebooks she scanned.

The image seemed to think, recalling, while Sophie loaded the data into it. His voice hummed. She had programmed his inflections for certain types of responses. For this he cleared his throat as the skaters spun behind him before the New York Christmas Tree.

Well, that’s just someone I came up with. He was going to be a “nain chokcter.”

Stop

Sophie, Fix all speech. Start.

He was going to be a Main character in a story about a man who found God in his daughter’s charm. She bristled, and he waited.

Can you elaborate dad? She pulled the sheet from the sketchbook from the pile on the floor. Go.

Well, Martin’s a dad who had lost all faith, and the world had beat him down. He was a gifted theologian and writer who could never find time to write because marriage and kids drained his time. Eventually he cursed God every night when he pulled into the driveway. He really didn’t want another night of arguing with the wife about the kids, or the kids falling all over him when he needed to relax. He began drinking each night in the car. Then one day he gets home exhausted and angry, and his four year old daughter climbed in his lap and gave him a kiss. I’m sorry I make you mad, daddy. His heart breaks, and he begins to feel God again, the joy he had. His 9 year old boy comes by, talking about the new Beatles song he heard, and so on. He found God in the end right there, once he got out of his own head!

The figure smiled, then immediately reverted to the questioning pose.

Sophie, can he question me?

Ask him, she said.

Dad, who am I?

His face froze, then he smiled. You’re my Emma, my Emma Emma Emma Emma, he sang, and she remembered the video of him playing a song he wrote for her on his guitar. His face lit up with Joy as he crooned.

If the world would end

I’ll have my friend in my sweetest Emma.

And I shall love my Emma forever!

He ended the song.

Sophie, Pause, Emma said. The 35 year old man smiled, his image and hair restored impeccably to what she remembered.

That night, she played and shared stories with her dad, aided by Sophie. For the week that followed, Emma found herself closer to her dad than ever. He had explained his notions, his love, his philosophy and insights. She was stunned by the breadth of his intelligence.

Dad had suggested ways to share her vision with new companies, even helped her pen essays and applications. Emma’s program was filling in the human aspects that Sophie could not.

On Tuesday Sophie woke her. It was Jeff again. He left a voice message.

Play.

Emma, it’s Jeff. I know you hate us all by now but this program is crashing. It has taken over some of the data and scrambled it. The AI is spewing nonsense. We have to disengage the entire code. Please call me, or call Mr. Drake directly. He then finished with a command, Call us Emma. We have legal involved.

The last line made her shudder. In the coding world, a legal issue could destroy one’s future.

Sophie, call Jeff. She heard the phone ring 3 times, then before the fourth he answered.

It’s Emma.

Emma, what the hell is going on? Do you know what’s happening with your programs?

Not my programs Jeff. Tell Drake that. You own it, you fix it. Jeff was silent.

Emma, it’s disintegrating in real time. Each day we lose more company data, and the AI is beginning to scramble our systems on its own. Drake linked it into everything. There was a pause.

Everything, he repeated in a mournful voice.

Let me call you back. She said, and stopped the call.

Dad, she said, and his image appeared. She explained her situation simply.

Screw them, honey. Let them eat their own shit! He grew angry. Anybody who would screw my little girl over deserves to die, so let them die. Now he raged.

If it were me I’d burn them in their beds and…

Sophie Stop. The image froze. She looked at the widened wild eyes, his clenched cheeks, the impression that he would bash his head through the screen. She remembered, and grew scared.

For a day she spoke kindly with the program, asking for the older data, and it was normal again. Without returning Jeff’s call she flew home to New York.

Mom, she asked at the kitchen table, how did you live with him the last years.

I knew he was a good man, and where was I going to go? Nobody knew him like I did. He always took care of us.

And the abuse? Emma asked. Her mother sat quiet at the table, her head swinging, biting her lip.

When she arrived home she found two final notebooks buried in her suitcase. She skimmed them, very tired. Brilliant, she thought. The next day she scanned them, without reading any further.

Sophie alerted her, Email from Jeff. Read

What the hell is wrong with you! Mr. Drake just got a nasty email from some maniac telling him to stop bothering you! What’s the deal, Emma, huh!

She sat and thought.

Sophie, bring dad.

Dad, she asked. An image of an older man, around 50 but looking much older sat hunched forward in the living room, wringing his hands.

Yeh Hon.

She paused, concerned. What’s wrong? She asked sincerely, as if he was there.

It’s just life honey. It’s so fucking hard. He shook his head and the image paused.

Sophie. Fix. Sophie loaded the new data from the recent books. The image moved again, anxiously.

It’s all so Goddamn hard. That’s all. I don’t want to bother you with it – you have so much time and you’re so brilliant. If there’s one thing I thank God for every day it’s you. You’re my life, and I’ll always take care of you, no matter what, whatever I have to do.

Her eyes welled.

Pause. She thumbed through the sketchbooks her mother put in her bag. Despair, hatred, suicide.

She took a hard breath.

Play.

If there’s nothing else that’s good in this f’ng world, Emma, I thank God for you. He began wringing his hands.

She remained silent. Then began, Dad, did you… He cut her off.

But I just can’t take it anymore. There’s no hope any more. Not for me. It’s all passed, and I did nothing. NOTHING! He shouted. He rose from the couch and began pacing.

Every fu –  he stopped himself – Every single thing I’ve done in life I’ve never done what I needed to do. All these notebooks – all useless. Everything – the music, your mother. Every day I want it all to end and every night I drink myself to sleep. I got no fucking hope, honey. I write and I hate that God keeps me here. I know he’s punishing me but… he looked up to the ceiling. AAAHHHHHH! Why make me see it! I can’t take it sweetie. But I’ll be here for you, because you’re young and I know you need me. His voice raced, but I may not be any good for anybody. He sat back down, began to sob into his hands.

Why, why this? He said, through the sobbing. If you knew me back… And I was a shitty husband, and she didn’t deserve it, but she never helped. I’m sorry baby, I’m really sorry. The best thing for you now is to let me end this, to put all this away. I need to put it out, take it out before you read this and it hurts you. I never want to hurt you, honey. I want to just…

Suddenly the Christmas image emerged from New York. Dad smiled, was young again.

Sophie? What’s happening?

Sophie was silent.

Sophie? She snapped forward and began typing furiously, but the image froze on the screen.

Sophie? Dad? She typed frantically. Sophie’s voice emerged.

Reset

And the computer’s power crashed.

She sobbed, frantic. No! No No No! what the hell! Sophie! She screamed.

The computer powered back up. And the code appeared, and lines slowly disintegrated. Her keyboard froze after a few typed letters. Then the screen froze.

She pulled the plug. Waited, repowered. The code again. Then black screen. She worked day and night for the rest of the week, only able to salvage a Beta version of Sophie she had saved years before.

A few days later she sat with her bourbon, tweaking the new code.

Sophie, play Dad. The screen went to black. Nothing. Sophie, play Dad. Nothing. Sophie came to the screen.

An email from Mr. Drake.

She paused, her heart stopped.

Read.

Emma, we need you back. Will pay anything. System crashing daily. Lost much data. Can it be retrieved?

Emma’s heart stopped.

Reply. No, it cannot. Memory Lost. Regression.

On a cold Tuesday morning she rose, showered, and hurried to the door. She was late for her first day at a new upstart. Sophie said “Old Message”.

Hurry, Play.

It was her dad’s voice. He sang in a garbled, static voice…

If the world would end

I’ll have my friend in my sweetest Emma.

She startled. Replay.

In a feint tone Dad’s voice crackled, slowed, disintegrating.

If the world would end,

I’ll have my friend in my sweetest Emma.

And I shall love my Emma forever!

Can you save Sophie. There was silence.