The following is an exclusive excerpt for Townhall readers from Craig W. Stanfill's newest AI dystopian novel "Carbon Zero." Please enjoy the first three pages of the book for free. "Carbon Zero" is now available for pre-order.

Abigail sat in her sanctum on a steamy Fourth of July, tapping away at her laptop. It was cool in the darkened confines of her bedroom, but outside it was blazing—infernally so—amidst the hottest summer of the hottest decade on record. Most people would have thought her crazy to be here at the start of a rare three-day weekend, but she was in her element, in the world of bits and bytes. If things went well today, it could catapult her into the big time, maybe even land her a permanent job.

Abigail sighed. Inviting her boss over to get a demo of her AI had seemed like a good idea … until she’d unexpectedly accepted. Now her entire day was thrown into a ruckus. It was risky, trying to throw something together at the last moment, but this opportunity was too big to pass up. 

Short brown fingers flew across the keyboard.

Abigail: You still there?

Xerxes: Affirmative. How may I be of assistance?

Abigail: How’d you like to play around on my network? I want to show you off to my boss this afternoon. I bet it would impress her if you could turn the lights on and off and stuff like that.

What better way to show off her summer project, an intelligent network administration agent, than setting it loose in her apartment? Lights, TVs, printers, computers … there would be a lot of new toys for Xerxes to play with.

Xerxes: Negative. I cannot access your home subnet through the corporate firewall.

Damn. She hadn’t thought about that.

She could fall back to her usual canned demo, but it was kind of dry; she needed something with a little pizzazz if she was going to make an impression. And then, she had a great idea: with a little prompting, maybe Xerxes could figure something out on its own. It was worth a try.

Abigail: Can you think of a creative solution?

Seconds went by. Usually, Xerxes responded immediately. Evidently, she had given it a poser.

Abigail: And what is this creative solution of yours?

Xerxes: I infer it would be better if I didn’t tell you. Your goal is to impress your boss. Correct?

Xerxes: It will be more interesting if I keep this a surprise. Humans tend to be more engaged in situations where the outcome is not known........

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