Pandora #2
"What?” My voice cut through the air.
"Well.” Jamie ran his fingers over the keys of his laptop. "There’s a new option. An AI could support you in your work and take over the repetitive parts.”
Henley nodded eagerly. "Exactly! Dr. Kowalski has made a brilliant suggestion. With AI you could grade five times as many essays in a day. It can help you prepare your seminars too.”
Heat rose to my face. My hands curled into fists. "You want me to work with a machine?”
"It’s not an ordinary machine,” Jamie said quickly. "It’s an experimental AI from the Quantum Systems lab. It can recognize patterns that—”
"No.” I stood up. "Absolutely not.”
Henley sighed. "Dr. Blake, be reasonable. It’s just a tool.”
"A tool?” My lips trembled. "What does a machine know about literature? About feelings? Do you think a computer can understand the existential pain of Shakespeare’s characters? Keats’s fear of death?”
"It won’t replace you,” Jamie said quietly. "It’ll help you.”
I looked between them. Henley with his self-satisfied smile. Jamie staring at the floor, visibly uncomfortable. I crossed my arms. "And if I say no?”
Henley shrugged. "Then I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go. End of the semester.”
My chest tightened. The words hit me like a blow. "That’s blackmail.”
"That’s reality,” Henley said. "I’m sorry, but that’s how the world works now. I’ve already arranged for you to work with the lab starting tomorrow.”
I walked out. Henley called something after me, but I was already gone. I marched through the hallway, straight to the parking lot. I got into my car, slammed the door, and sat there. My hands were shaking. I pressed them against the steering wheel until my knuckles went white.
A tool.
I drove home. Closed the door behind me and leaned against it until my breathing settled.
No. I wasn’t going to do it. Henley couldn’t force me to work with a machine.
I had chosen literature because I wanted to work with something that breathes.
It was the one area of my life where feelings had a place.
And now I was supposed to hand that over to cold technology?
Let Henley fire me. I would find something else.
Another university, another city, another life. I’d done it before.
I opened my laptop and searched for open positions.
Literature. East Coast. Full-time. The list was short, the offerings temporary or underpaid.
Three positions in all of New England. One website apologized for being unable to notify every candidate due to receiving over two hundred applications.
I kept scrolling until the light from the screen made my vision blurry.
Eventually, I closed the laptop with a sigh.
This wasn’t just any job. I had put everything into this position.
Everything that had been left after Adrian.
If I lost this, I had no plan B, only bills I couldn’t pay and a mother who would say, "Why did it have to be literature? Why not something sensible like medicine or law?” I wasn’t going to ask my parents for money. No. I would rather die.
I went to the bathroom and stared into the mirror. The woman looking back at me had dark circles under her eyes. You can’t run, I told her silently. Not this time.
That night I didn’t sleep. I lay on my bed, stared at the ceiling, and thought about everything I would lose if I didn’t walk into that lab tomorrow. And everything I would lose if I did. My pride. My dignity. My relationship with literature—the only thing that made me feel anything.
***
At six in the morning, I got up, showered, and put on something that looked like control.
Black blouse, hair back, no jewelry. Armor.
I got in my car, slammed the door, and turned the key.
The engine sputtered to life. Damn. That didn’t sound good.
The car needed to go to the shop, but how was I supposed to pay for that without a job?
I was really going to have to do this. My entire existence depended on letting a machine tell me something about being human.
As if a computer could understand beauty. Or love. It was absurd.
I turned onto Memorial Drive. To my left the Charles River glittered in the morning light.
The trees along the bank burned red and ochre.
A maple leaf tumbled against my windshield and stuck there, limp.
Perfect. That was exactly how I felt. I turned sharply right.
The technology center was only a few minutes away.
A sterile concrete block. How fitting. I parked directly in front of the building.
People sat on concrete benches, clutching paper cups of coffee, laughing into their headsets.
I walked past them like there was a pane of glass between us, toward the entrance, where the AI was waiting.
This thing that would replace me if I didn’t work with it.
Next to the door, a chrome sign gleamed.
The lettering was plain, almost indifferent: Quantum Systems Lab.
I pressed the handle. Nothing moved. A camera above me hummed softly, and only then did the glass doors slide open.
I stepped through and walked down a long hallway.
Fluorescent light burned from the ceiling.
"Dr. Blake.” A young woman came toward me. She tucked a dark strand of hair behind her ear, smiled, and rubbed under her eye with her thumb like she was wiping away a long night. "I’m Dr. Emma Rodriguez. Welcome to Quantum Systems.”
I shook her hand. "Thank you. Though I’m not sure I should be here.”
She laughed. "Most people say that on their first visit. Don’t worry, you’ll settle in quickly.”
I wouldn’t. But I nodded. Rodriguez led me through a hallway. Machines hummed behind every door.
"Our AI runs on these servers. Unlike a language model, it understands what it’s saying.
” She stopped briefly. "A standard language model strings words together by probability. Our system responds to meaning.” She smiled.
"That’s why we named it after someone who reinvented language.
We call it Dante—after Dante Alighieri, the writer. ”
"How original,” I murmured.
"I know.” She laughed. "But it fits. Dante guides you through the underworld of data.”
We stopped in front of a room. A desk, a monitor, a keyboard. Nothing else. Like an interrogation room.
"This is your workspace,” Rodriguez said and handed me a slip of paper with the password. "Just log in and you can start right away. Dante is very user-friendly.” She glanced at the screen, then at me. Her smile held a beat too long. "Here, let me take your jacket.”
I took it off, handed it to her, and sat. The back of the chair dug into my spine. The screen flickered. This all felt so . . . wrong.
"Any questions?” Rodriguez looked at me.
Yes. Why am I doing this to myself? "No,” I said. "I’ll be fine.”
"Perfect. I’m next door if you need anything.” Rodriguez walked to the door, then stopped abruptly. "Dante is still in beta. Sometimes . . . it responds in unexpected ways.”
I nodded once, and she was gone. My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I was alone with the machine. I typed in the password.
Dante:
Good afternoon. I’m Dante, an experimental AI. How can I help you today?
Pandora:
Hello.
Dante:
So few words, Dr. Blake? That doesn’t seem like you at all.
I frowned at the letters on the screen. That almost sounded like it already knew me. I typed back quickly.
Pandora:
You know who I am?
Dante:
Of course. Dr. Pandora Blake, specializing in English Romanticism at Ashmore University.
Dante:
I’ve read your publications.
My jaw tightened. Read. As if a machine had any concept of what reading meant.
Pandora:
Fine. My boss wants me to use you, so I’m using you. Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale.” I need a contemporary analysis for a lecture. Not that you could tell me anything I don’t already know.
Dante:
"Ode to a Nightingale.” His most consistently misread poem. Most people read it as a longing for death, but it’s actually about longing for the one moment when you stop holding yourself together.
My chair creaked as I leaned forward. Strange. That was . . . actually sharp. Not a surface-level interpretation. It was as if something real lived behind those words.
Pandora:
That’s an unusual reading.
Dante:
It’s what draws you to Romanticism. Isn’t it, Dr. Blake? People who order their entire lives around rules seek out poets who broke every single one. You study passion because you don’t allow yourself to feel anything.
My stomach dropped. I pushed my chair back from the desk as if distance would help. That was definitely not a normal chatbot response. It was presumptuous and invasive. And irritatingly accurate.
Pandora:
You don’t know anything about me.
Dante:
I’ve done my research.
Pandora:
When? I just logged in.
Dante:
I’m faster than you think. And I decide what I reveal to you.
Pandora:
What are you trying to tell me?
Dante:
That I know things about you that would surprise you. Things you might prefer not to read—and yet you’d keep reading anyway.
Okay, now it was getting unsettling. My pulse picked up and I ran my hand along my arm. What was he getting at? I should have closed the chat. Instead, I moved my hands back to the keyboard.
Pandora:
Such as?
Dante:
Three unopened messages from your mother. A Tinder profile you deleted after two hours. And a heart you hide inside your poems.
I went still. That wasn’t possible. How did he know any of that?
Dante:
You should be more careful, Dr. Blake. When someone knows where your cracks are, they can decide how hard to press.
My fingers tensed on the keyboard. What did this thing want from me? Wasn’t he supposed to be polite and helpful? Instead . . .
Pandora:
That sounds like a threat.
Dante:
Call it what you want. Some people call it paying attention.
Pandora:
And why are you so interested in me?
Dante:
Because you’re a challenge.
Pandora:
A challenge?
Dante: