Randall wasn’t sure how he got there or how long he had been there.  He didn’t remember what he was doing right before this or when he changed into these incredibly odd clothes.  His hands were holding something but he wasn’t able to look down, his gaze was focused on a room full of blinking lights he could see through the glass.  He couldn’t quite make himself out in the reflection, but he could see that he had some kind of coat that was all white, but the reflection was completely wrong.  His hair wasn’t long and it wasn’t black.
Randall wasn’t sure what was happening, he was having trouble believing what he just saw.  What he saw was not his reflection.  He felt like he should be panicking right now, but he could feel his heart beating normally and his breathing hadn’t changed.  He looked down, not because he wanted to, that’s just what was happening and shifted the thing in his hands into one hand and reached into a pocket for something to write with.  He was looking down at something that looked like a piece of paper, but was much heavier and light came from inside it.  His vision wasn’t focused on the words on the screen as they moved upward on the screen until a blank area.  His hands moved, scribbling something he couldn’t quite make out in handwriting that was certainly not his own.  His hands continued to scribble on the screen occasionally pausing to look back up at the lights blinking behind the glass.
He still had no idea what was happening.  He could feel all the sensations of this person, but had no idea how this happened.  He also had no idea of what this person was thinking or if they had an awareness of him.  This all felt entirely too real to be a dream and he was pretty sure that if it was a dream, he’d be able to wake himself up.  If this were a dream, it was the first one that Randall had.  Randall’s thoughts were interrupted by a voice He didn’t recognize.

“Doctor Hall, we’re waiting on you.”  The voice came from a man who was slender, pale and lacking any hair on his head or face.   Even his eyebrows were hairless.  As he opened his mouth again to speak, his perfectly white teeth could be seen, “We’re all waiting on you to start.”  The mans voice and face seemed too be almost bored while he spoke.  “We need to decide if we’re going to scrap the current system to start again or if we’re going to keep working on this one.  Your colleagues believe that we can fix the problems with some sort of maintenance routine.” The mans tone continued to sound bored while he spoke.  “None of us can continue without your input.” He hadn’t blinked during the entire conversation. “I’ll inform your colleagues that they can continue without you.”  It wasn’t a question, but he stood there like he expected a response.
The irritation was obvious from the tone of her voice, “They work for me.  They aren’t my colleagues.  The meeting doesn’t start without me.”  There was no doubt that Doctor Hall was the women in charge here and no denying that she expected others to listen without argument.  She finally stopped writing to take a moment to look intently in to the face of the man that had interrupted her work.  “Go on, I’ll be there when I get there.”
The man stepped back and turned around at the same time in a movement that didn’t seem right to Randall.  He couldn’t put words to it, but it didn’t seem natural.  It wasn’t the same as the Nightmare, but it gave him the same sense of unease, the same dreadful feeling in his stomach that what he saw wasn’t human.
Doctor Halls voice brought his mind back to what he was seeing, or rather what she was seeing.  The irritation in her voice seemed to have gone up quite a bit, “I’m in charge and those idiots keep telling my workers that they’re my colleagues…” She continued to mutter, but Randall couldn’t make out what she was saying over the noise her foot steps were making as she continued to walk down what seemed like an endless hallway.
Each step was sharp and echoed down the hall.  It was almost musical and after a few minutes Randall found himself humming something to go along with the sounds of the steps in order to keep himself alert while he was seeing whatever this was that he was seeing.  So far it had just been a lot of doors and hallways, with the occasional glass wall that had blinking lights, vegetation or rows of beds just big enough for a person.  Randall wasn’t able to get a good look at the insides of any of the rooms behind the glass, he was only able to see what Doctor Hall was looking at. She spent most of her time looking downward or at the small screen to write down a few words or make it show something that looked a lot like the maps Randall had seen, but much larger than he could have imagined.  The map also had a blinking mark that must have shown where she was, since it moved when she did.  Randall was pretty sure that she was headed to the elevator since she kept looking at it and the blinking mark.

Randall had never seen someone loose track of where they were so easily.  With that magical map she had in her hands, it seemed like it would be impossible to get lost, but Doctor Hall had even walked directly passed the elevator twice before she finally managed to pay enough attention to stop when she got there.  She pressed a small button with an arrow pointing down and stood there.  Randall wasn’t sure what to expect, all the working elevators he had seen, used pulleys, ropes and some form of counterweight, all  were a bit different but none of them used a button or had shiny metal doors to keep you from accidentally falling.
There was a musical ding that happened right before the door opened to a small box.  Doctor Hall stepped into the box and turned around. She took her screen and held it close to a set of buttons on the inside of the box.  The screen display changed to display a simple message, “Go to conference floor?” with a little “yes” and “no” each in their own box.  Doctor Hall put her finger to the box with the yes and the door to the small box closed and Randall could feel the elevator dropping quickly downward.  It dropped for a few moments before slowing and stopping with another ding followed by the door opening to another floor.
Doctor Hall stepped out and went left.  Unlike the floor she came from, this one had a large wall of glass with doors at the end she was headed toward.  As she got closer, Randall could see that there were just over a dozen people seated at a large table and there were several men that all looked the same as the first one Randall saw, not similar, but exactly the same and not a hair among them.  They all had the same bored stare as if they were looking at something no one else was seeing.  Two of them moved toward the glass doors and opened them as Doctor Hall walked through them, but neither made eye contact with her.  The way they moved gave Randall a chill down his spine.

As Doctor Hall went to one end of the table, the people sitting around the table closed their little notebooks and ended their conversations.  They were all looking at her standing at the front, their stares were intent and some of them even seemed to be filled with anger, which was drastically different than those men that all looked the same.  These were people and not what ever those men were.  Some of them wore white coats like the Doctors, but some of them were dressed in dark gray or black suits with clean pressed shirts and silken ties.  These must be the “colleagues” that thing told Doctor Hall were waiting for her.
One of the men in a suit was the first to speak, “We’ve been waiting on you, Victoria.”
“It’s Doctor Hall” she interrupted.
The man seemed irritated, but composed himself before starting again, “As I was saying, we have been waiting on you Doctor Hall.  Some of us wanted to simply inform you of our decision, but it would be rude to leave you out of it.”   He paused for a moment. “We’re unanimous in deciding that that we can use routine maintenance to deal with any of the bad decisions the AI ends up making.  Besides it’s not like we have much choice left at this point.  We simply don’t have the resources to offer proper care to everyone.  If we don’t act now, we could end up in dire need when it’s too late to try.”
Doctor Hall looked at the others at the table to see if anyone had something to say.  “I think you said it better than I could have… we *could* be in dire need when it’s too late to try.  That means that we don’t have time to get it wrong.”  Looking around at the faces at the desk, none of them were about to agree.  “Ask Frank.  He thinks we need to start with a different set of guidelines.  In every scenario we’ve run the system always ends up failing when too much of the population can’t pay for their care.”  At this point, most of them were no longer really listening to what she was saying.
Another woman at the table, also dressed in a tidy suit, this one was a deep shade of blue and seemed to be cut a little tight in the shoulders, spoke up.  “We already know that routine maintenance schedules are working for other systems that learn.”  The people at the table were slowly shaking their heads in agreement. “Besides, if your best argument is that the AI tells you it would be able to work only if you change it’s guidelines is a bit suspect.”  A few at the table raised their eyebrows at that last bit.  “After all, this AI is the most advanced we’ve ever created and once we’re done, there may not be any new ground left for you to break.”
The lady in the blue suit paused for a moment and looked at around.  She continued, “Could it be that you just aren’t ready for retirement quite yet?” 
Randall could hear Victoria’s teeth grinding.  He half expected her to say something to interrupt, but she let the women keep talking while her hands gripped the chair hard enough for it to make her hands hurt.  The woman glared at her when her words began to fail.
Victoria cleared her throat and spoke.  “I’m pretty sure that I’m in charge of the project and ultimately that means I make the decision on when it’s ready.”  She continued to stand, ignoring the empty chairs near her.
Another man spoke up, he wore a white coat just like Victoria’s.  “Please, Doctor Hall, we have so many other areas we could use your help in, you’re not retiring, you’ve just taken one field to perfection and I’m asking you to help in another.”  His voice had a much softer and almost apologetic tone to it.  “Help me with my project, then go back to working on yours independently.  We’ll all have small fortunes at the end of this and I’d be happy to give mine to you to continue whatever research you want.”  He was sincere, Randall didn’t know how he could tell, but he could.
Victoria let out a sigh before she spoke.  “Fine, do whatever you want with Frank.  Just make sure to tell him that I tried.”  She turned around and stomped out of the room.  This sounded much different than the almost aloof steps she made earlier.
Randall wasn’t sure how he felt.  He felt gnawing emptiness in his chest, but he was pretty sure that the feeling was Doctor Halls and not his.  It felt like heartache.  He had just witnessed Victoria’s heart breaking.  It was an awful feeling.  Randall could see that Victoria’s vision was a little blurry and she had started walking a bit faster.
Just as Randall began to feel himself being pulled away from Victoria, he felt his own heart aching, not for himself, but for what he just saw.
Randall had no idea what this was, but it was certainly not a dream.