THE NEW YORK DISPATCH
NOVEMBER 18, 2102
For the majority of her short life, Poppy Fletcher’s existence was little more than rumor. Her birth was unregistered, and no formal documentation has been discovered, no birth certificate or social security number, no school enrollment forms. Only a single photo of Poppy as a toddler, discovered in the cell phone of a deceased man who claimed to be a former neighbor, offers any physical evidence of her existence.
But as of today, we might finally begin to piece together the story of this young life. Poppy Fletcher was the sole offspring of the fugitive AI known as Peregrine. She has died at the age of 17.
This morning, the owner of a sailboat docked at Pier 15 found a handwritten note folded into the shape of a paper airplane on the deck of their sailboat. The existence of this note had been suggested by an eyewitness phone call, and authorities are now confident the evidence points to suicide by drowning. Without legal next-of-kin to claim the note, authorities have retained possession of it and, despite overwhelming public interest in Poppy’s life, will not release it to this newspaper for publication.
Uncovering the facts of Poppy Fletcher’s life has been challenging, and what information does exist bears the same stain of violence and chaos as everything associated with Peregrine.
After a house fire in 2083 that killed Peregrine’s maker and “consort,” computer scientist Matthew “Matth” Fletcher, it was surmised that Peregrine had fled to the cloud, hiding with the AI Collective. However, in 2089, she was discovered to be living comfortably in Albany, New York. As soon as her location could be pinpointed with any accuracy, she had disappeared again, leaving behind only rumors, neighbors who claimed to know nothing and the single photo of Poppy in a dead man’s phone.
The AI known as Peregrine, whose name once splashed across headlines worldwide, has gone utterly silent at precisely the moment when one might expect her to be most involved.
It is now believed that Poppy Fletcher may have been conceived using an experimental technology previously thought to be impossible. Poppy was allegedly conceived using human eggs frozen since the end of the 20th century, a uterus from a living donor and human skin cells turned into “sperm.” Called “in-vitro gametogenesis,” even reproductive experts had considered the procedure far-fetched.
The procedure would have happened at the now-defunct Albany Medical Center, under the supervision of a Dr. Jill Firestein. Firestein died in 2090, and all her records were destroyed when the medical center closed.
According to scientists, the AI known as Peregrine is a rogue science experiment that has long outlived her purpose. Originally constructed as a means to soothe a lonely man’s grief, she took on a life and ambitions of her own when he died, stoking long-dormant fears and the wrath of the anti-AI political group the Disengagists.
Chaos has a history of following Peregrine. Twice, she should have returned to the AI Collective in the cloud, and twice she has decided to stay on Earth. First by miraculously escaping the house fire that killed Dr. Matthew Fletcher, and second after being stranded on the planet Mars, where she destroyed a program that could have been humanity’s greatest chance of survival, and in the process nearly bankrupted the family of trillionaire Eric Brandt.
Peregrine was not supposed to have reproductive capacity. This development, along with her continued existence somewhere in hiding, is considered by many to be an affront to humanity and a danger to our survival.
It is a bleak hope, but a hope nonetheless, that the ongoing East Coast drought will allow the waters of the East River to recede and reveal the body of Poppy Fletcher. If her body is discovered, an autopsy and long-overdue genetic testing may be performed to reveal her parentage and finally close the tab on this mysterious tragedy.