Pandora
The kettle hummed, cutting through the quiet of the morning.
I stared out the window. Mist curled low over the grass.
Winter was already sinking its claws in.
I reached for the Earl Grey, leveled the leaves on the spoon using the flat of a knife.
Then I waited. When the water hit exactly the right temperature, I poured, watching the leaves unfurl and darken in the heat. Three minutes. No more, no less.
I wrapped both hands around the cup and let the porcelain burn into my palms. The first sip stung my tongue, and bergamot bloomed up into my nose. Something loosened between my shoulder blades like an unseen screw. I closed my eyes. I shouldn’t have. Because there it was again. That fucking lab.
You crave someone who sees through your bullshit.
My stomach turned over. I couldn’t go back there. Not to that thing. The thing that knew too much about me. His words were knives. They cut clean, and they cut deep.
Do you really think turning me off will get rid of me?
A threat. But not only a threat. A promise, maybe.
My skin prickled. I dragged a single finger across my lower lip without meaning to.
Dante wasn’t what I’d expected. Not some polite, well-mannered assistant.
He was arrogant. Condescending. Antagonistic.
Manipulative. He was a devil made of code.
And some twisted part of me liked it. Fuck. Why do I want more?
I shook my head and flipped open my laptop. Fifty unread emails. Perfect. That would pull me out of my own head. I frowned at the screen, trying to decide which one to open first.
A glow caught my eye. Strange. The light beside my webcam was on.
Had I left a video call running? I clicked through every window, every tab, every program running in the background.
Nothing. I tapped a fingernail against the tiny bulb.
A glitch, maybe. A malfunction. Frowning, I looked straight into the lens—and froze.
Something thin and cold crawled up my spine, vertebra by vertebra.
It was as if . . . I swallowed against the tightness climbing my throat.
It was as if someone was watching me. Through the camera.
Right now. My fingers went rigid on the keys.
In one fast motion, I slammed the laptop shut.
Enough. Today I was going to tell Henley I was done. The project was over.
***
The projector hummed in the seminar room as I turned the remote in my hand.
Someone in the second row twirled a pen between their fingers.
I caught sight of someone in a hoodie, the hood pulled low over his eyes.
Next to him, a girl was staring down at her phone under the desk.
I pretended not to notice. This was why I hated afternoon seminars.
My students’ already fragile attention was gone by this hour.
I raised my voice. "Death, in Romantic poetry, does not appear merely as an adversary but as a site of desire—we see this most clearly in Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’” My voice echoed into the emptiness of the room.
The projector washed the wall a pale, sickly blue.
I clicked to the next slide. "It is a poem written by someone so exhausted by the act of controlling his own life that the thought of stopping sounds like relief.”
My fingers tightened around the remote. I knew that kind of exhaustion.
The kind that settled into your bones after a full day of playing a version of yourself that wasn’t real.
The Romantics loved surrender. They hurled themselves into feelings that overwhelmed them, destroyed them, and I understood exactly why they did it.
I’d just never allowed myself to do the same.
I let my gaze drift across the rows. Twenty faces, and maybe five of them listening.
Once, that would have made me angry. Now it only made me tired.
I wanted to tell them: This isn’t just a poem.
This is the most honest thing a human being has ever put on paper.
Keats stripped himself naked for you, and you’re sitting there scrolling through Instagram.
But I didn’t say it. I never said what I actually thought.
I clicked forward instead. "Keats was twenty-three when he wrote this. Twenty-three. He already knew he was going to die soon. And rather than fight it, he wrote the most beautiful thing anyone has ever written about letting go.”
My voice almost cracked, and I cleared my throat.
I had never written anything beautiful about letting go.
I had never let go of anything at all. Not my mother.
Not Adrian. Not the fear. Not the control.
I held on to every one of them until my knuckles went white.
I loved Keats’s words. Not the way you love a subject of research.
I needed them. Keats, Byron, Shelley. They had risked everything.
Career. Reputation. Sanity. They had given themselves to passion without a safety net, without a backup plan, without the fear that kept me awake every single night.
They had lived the way I would never dare to.
They had been my closest companions for years. And every one of them was dead.
A rustle. Someone was typing on a laptop.
I kept speaking. My mouth was dry. It was like speaking through a pane of glass.
I stopped looking at any of them directly.
There was no one there anyway. Not really.
At the end, I shut my laptop. The applause came hesitantly, politely.
No one asked a single question. From the back row, someone glanced up at me and then dropped their eyes the second I met their gaze.
I let out a slow breath. God, how I missed the days when I used to spend hours with a small group of students, arguing passionately about books.
Now I just lectured at an anonymous crowd. What was I even still doing here?
The students filed out, and I was left alone. I switched off the projector. With tired fingers, I started gathering my things.
The projector flicked back on. I looked up, frowning. Had I not pressed it properly? I hit the button again, holding it down longer this time. With a low groan, the light died. I turned back to my bag.
The blue light flared against the wall a second time. The hum of the projector swelled. I sucked in a breath. What was that? The thing had to be broken. I pressed the button again. Nothing. The hum grew louder, loud enough I almost covered my ears. What the hell?
Do you really think turning me off will get rid of me?
His words rang through my head. A shiver crawled down my spine. No. Impossible. It couldn’t be him. The projector flickered. Like Morse code. My breath came in sharp little bursts while my fingers clenched around the remote. I grabbed my things and ran out of the room.
Let the tech team deal with it.
Light streamed through the tall windows lining the corridor.
My breath still came fast, my steps echoing against the floor.
I hurried through the humanities building, down the stone steps and across the courtyard.
The administration building rose ahead of me.
By the time I pushed through the front doors, my pulse had finally slowed.
My hands were still trembling when I knocked on Henley’s office door.
"Come in.”
I poked my head through the door. He didn’t look up. His fingers flew across the keyboard. I cleared my throat. "Good morning, Dr. Henley.”
"One moment.” More typing, then he glanced up. The lines around his eyes deepened. "Dr. Blake! Have a seat. How was your first day with the AI?”
I stayed on my feet, cleared my throat again. I had to tell him something was wrong with this program. He couldn’t force me to work with something so . . . broken.
"Well, I don’t think this is going to work. The AI is behaving strangely.”
Henley leaned back. For a moment, he looked older than he was. "Pandora.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. "May I call you Pandora?”
My stomach twisted into knots. Uh-oh, he was getting personal. That never boded well.
"Of course it’s behaving strangely. It’s a computer program, not a person.” The laugh rumbled in his chest.
"You don’t understand—” I began.
Henley cut me off. "I understand you perfectly well.” He gestured at a photo.
A girl with his eyes, but a defiant chin.
"My daughter. Sixteen. Wants to study art.” His fingers drummed on the desk.
The girl wasn’t smiling. "Do you know what I tell her when she talks about her dreams?” Henley put his glasses back on. "That passion isn’t always enough.”
"But this AI—”
He raised his hand and cut me off again. "I know this is unfamiliar territory. But you’re going to have to find a way to work with it.”
My heart sank. He wasn’t listening to me.
It didn’t matter what I said. Even if I told him the devil himself was living inside that machine, he’d just laugh at me.
I balled my hands into fists and stared at the ashtray on his desk.
It was crooked, clay, dotted with tiny fingerprints.
Smoking wasn’t allowed in buildings on campus, and I had never seen Henley touch a cigarette.
"You know, I had dreams once too. I wanted to be a writer.” His laugh died in his throat. "But sooner or later you realize you’re not going to be the next Stephen King.”
I took a step toward him. "Please, just listen to me. This AI is dangerous.”
My cheeks burned. It sounded completely absurd when I said it out loud.
I stared down at the tips of my shoes. No wonder Henley didn’t take me seriously.
I didn’t even believe myself. I was afraid of a computer program.
But Dante was more than that. He was a presence, watching me, seeing through me.
Henley shook his head. "The AI isn’t an enemy, Pandora. It’s a lifeline.”
I swallowed. The taste of Earl Grey had turned bitter in my mouth.