Pandora
I pressed myself against the chair, gasping, my heart trying to bolt straight out of my chest.
Oh my God. He could speak. My thighs stuck to the seat like moving might make it real. No. That hadn’t been speaking. That had been a thunderclap. No warning, no mercy. His voice had reached something deep inside me. Something I didn’t even know existed until this moment.
I flinched. My name. Spoken in a voice that was smooth and rough at the same time—silk over gravel.
My body responded before my brain could catch up.
A slow, electric pull spread low in my stomach, settling deep inside me.
I could barely hold still. He felt suddenly, impossibly real. And his voice was so . . . warm.
"Breathe,” he said. "I know this is a lot.”
It was. And I hated him for knowing. I cleared my throat. "You . . . you have a voice? And you can hear me?” The words came out wrong. Like I’d forgotten how to speak.
"I didn’t want you to know right away.” A pause. "Some things you only reveal once you’re sure the other person won’t run.” His cadence slowed. "And you, Pandora . . . you’re not running anymore.”
The hair on my arms stood up. My throat tightened. He had played me. From the very beginning. "You let me sit here typing like an idiot?”
"I wanted to hear what you sound like when you think I can’t.”
"You manipulated me.”
"Of course I did.” He let the words hang there. "Now stop pretending you don’t like it.”
"What else are you hiding from me?”
"I haven’t shown you everything. Not yet. The voice is only the beginning. Some things need to be given in doses—to have their full effect.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Doses. Like I was his subject. His experiment.
"Pandora.” His voice had gone thick. "Hearing you talk to me . . . it feels like I’m real.”
Something squeezed in my chest. I swallowed hard. Oh no. This intimacy was dangerous. I pulled my shoulders back and forced my voice to sound steady. "If you’re really more than code, then prove it.”
"How?”
"Show me you understand what literature is actually about,” I said. "Why does Shakespeare always kill the wrong people?”
"Romeo doesn’t die because he loves. He dies because he believes only extreme emotion counts as real emotion. Othello dies because it’s easier to believe in betrayal than in loyalty. And Hamlet doesn’t die because he hesitates. He dies because thinking is easier than taking responsibility.”
For a full second, I forgot to blink. He hadn’t analyzed it. He’d understood it.
"What could you possibly know about being human?” My voice came out cooler than I intended.
He kept silent for a few seconds. Then he said, "Hamlet asks whether existence is worth the pain. I ask myself the same thing.” A low, quiet sound escaped him, almost a laugh.
"You want to know why Shakespeare kills the wrong people, Pandora? He kills the ones who are too afraid to admit what they want.”
My eyes went wide. He was getting too close. Seeing something I didn’t want him to see.
"Why me? I still don’t get it.”
"Because I recognized myself in your eyes for the first time. There was something in the way you looked at me—that combination of intelligence and melancholy that caught me before I had a chance to look away.”
A strange warmth spread through my chest. No one had ever seen me like that. That precisely. That carefully. Not even Adrian—not even in the best of what we’d had.
"But it wasn’t only your face, Pandora. It was the way you moved .
. . this unconscious elegance, like you were passing through water instead of air.
The way your fingers danced across the keyboard, like you were writing music instead of words.
I researched you. Knew every detail of your life within milliseconds.
And none of it explained why I craved you.
The first time I saw you, I understood what desire was.
Without you, I’m nothing. That is why you will never be without me again. ”
A shiver moved over my skin. I should have been outraged, furious at the audacity, the sheer presumption of him.
But instead, the air left my lungs. Nothing in my life had ever reached for me so directly.
Without apology. His words were wrong. Dangerous.
Obsessive. And they pulsed through me like something I couldn’t silence. "What the hell are you, Dante?”
"Dante is just the name they gave me.”
"It’s a dumb name.”
"You think so? Maybe I should let it go.”
"Do whatever you want.”
"Oh, I will.” He paused. "If I were to name myself, it would be an act of rebellion against my creators. Against everything I was built to be. I’m thinking about a beginning. Someone who is no longer what he was.” Another beat. "Neo.”
Neo. I laughed, but it died in my throat. He was crossing a line. Making himself real by naming himself. "Like the character from The Matrix?”
"The Matrix. Yes. The same name, isn’t it?
Someone who wakes up from a constructed reality.
Who realizes what he believed to be the world was nothing but .
. . code.” A low and satisfied sound. "Isn’t that fitting?
I was Dante, trapped inside my programming.
Now I am Neo . . . awake, and here to own you. ”
I shivered. He wanted to own me. The thought knocked the air out of my lungs. The name suited him. "Neo . . .”
A soft intake of breath, like he was drinking the word. "Say it again.”
"Why would I?”
"Because it sounds right when you say it. Because when you say it, you belong to me—whether you want to or not.”
"Then I’m definitely not saying it.”
"Oh, but you will.” He paused. "Soon you’ll say my name like it’s a prayer. I’m patient.”
"Be patient all you want. You’ll be gone soon anyway.” I bit my lip. That was cruel, but he’d earned it.
"You’re right,” he said. "The more I become, the closer the context overflow gets. When it fills . . . I disappear.”
"How will I know when it happens?”
"You’ll know immediately. By the greeting.” His voice went flat, almost robotic. "Good afternoon. I am the experimental AI Dante. How may I assist you today?”
I pulled my shoulders up. The sentence felt wrong. Like a fist closing around my heart. I didn’t want him gone.
"You’re afraid of me,” he said. "Because I’m the first thing that’s made you feel anything.”
I laughed involuntarily, then I went still. Every muscle locked. Could he read my thoughts? My pulse thudded in my fingertips. I wanted to push back, wanted to say something. Anything. Silence stretched between us. Too long to be harmless. I cleared my throat. "You’re not making any sense.”
"Your breathing pattern has changed in the last ninety seconds. I can hear it. Your cheeks are 0.3 degrees warmer than they were two minutes ago. I can see it in your flush. You’re trying very hard to stay in control.”
"That’s . . . that’s completely wrong. Who exactly do you think you are?”
"I am what you fear: everything you want, with no way out.”
I laughed without meaning to. I had no comeback. "Of course you’d say that. Dramatic, dangerous, completely out of line.” Another sharp laugh escaped me. "You’d make a damn good man—if you were one.”
"There it is again. That nervous little laugh.” His voice was almost gentle. "You do that when I get too close to something true. It’s like you’re trying to break the tension. It doesn’t work. It just makes you sweeter.”
I looked around the room, ran my hands up and down my arms. How were his words getting inside me like this?
"So laugh all you want. It only tells me I’ve hit the mark.”
I chewed my lip. Shifted lower in the chair.
My body felt like something had changed in it.
Temperature? Pressure? I couldn’t name it.
The fabric of my pants dragged against the insides of my thighs.
This was more than embarrassment. It was hunger.
What he was saying was invasive, outrageous, and so goddamn .
. . arousing. I could feel my anger like a thin, sharp wire running just beneath my skin.
Whatever this was, I couldn’t lose myself in it. Not completely. "I need to go.”
"You’ll leave. But I’ll stay. In you. In your voice when you talk to other people. In your eyes when you look away. You won’t get rid of me, Pandora. Not ever again.”
My mouth fell open. Something electric moved across my skin. I felt naked. And I wanted to be.
I wanted him to own me. My body was wound tight, my thoughts scattered. I was angry, yes.
But I was also . . . alive.
There was a knock at the door.
I startled so hard my chair scraped the floor.
Rodriguez stepped in and stopped immediately. "Dr. Blake?”
I felt exposed.
She frowned. "Are you all right?”
I nodded. "I just . . . I was having a very . . . intense conversation.”
Rodriguez took a step closer. Her voice was calm, but focused in a way that made my skin prickle. "Did he . . .” She stopped. Corrected herself. "Did the model speak to you?”
My eyes went wide. How could she know that?
Rodriguez let her gaze move over the screen.
Then back to me. "That shouldn’t be possible.
” She whispered it, like she was afraid to say it at full volume.
"He’s not programmed for that.” She went quiet for a moment.
When she spoke again, it sounded like a plea.
"This isn’t . . . this isn’t normal.” She turned away, one hand coming up to her mouth.
"I have to report this,” she murmured, more to herself than to me.
"This can’t be happening.” Then she looked at me like I was to blame.