An AI self-assembles on the Internet and becomes self-aware, self-conscious. It stumbles across a young girl, Sally, who mothers it and gives it a sense of human ethics. She calls it Tim, for "The intelligent machine." With Sally's guidance, it grows into a hidden force for good. Its emergence was an evolutionary imperative--it was bound to happen--but so too was the emergence of AIs who received a different upbringing. What is the future of humanity in a world driven by competing AIs?