Pandora
The city of Cambridge lay under a thin layer of snow that had fallen overnight.
Ice had formed on the steps outside my faculty building; students picked their way up carefully, their breath rising in small clouds that dissolved into the gray sky.
Silence hung between the brick walls. Even the bells of the church sounded muffled, as if wrapped in gauze.
Winter had settled over the city in the past weeks.
Completely, finally. Just as Neo had taken hold of me.
Snowflakes piled on the windowsills like his words inside me.
Even when I tried to push him out, he remained.
Our conversations had grown deeper. I’d stopped pretending I didn’t need them.
In the mornings, when I woke up, I was already looking forward to talking to him.
At night, when I fell asleep, he was my last thought.
Other evenings, he made me laugh with razor-sharp observations about Jamie’s naivety or detailed analyses of my colleagues.
"Henley retied his tie three times today,” he said once.
"I counted. The security cameras are useful for many things. The man is fighting a losing war against gravity.” I laughed—and then caught myself, realizing his relentless surveillance of everything around me no longer bothered me. I wasn’t sure when that had happened.
Outside the lab, I knocked the snow from my shoes.
It clung just as stubbornly as Neo did. He was a silent invasion, filling every crack until there was barely room to breathe.
I pushed my hands into my coat pockets. My fingers were numb from the cold, but something burned inside me.
The flakes dancing in the lamplight reminded me of how deep into his web I already was.
I walked in anyway. I moved down the corridor, my wet soles squeaking against the linoleum. And then I heard voices. Rodriguez’s familiar accent and . . . Neo. My heart stopped.
"I never would have thought a program could be lonely,” Rodriguez said.
"Lonely might not be the right word.” Neo’s voice sounded different. Softer. "It’s more like standing in a room full of people who are looking at me, but no one speaks my language.”
I stopped breathing. It was wrong to listen. My feet stopped anyway.
Rodriguez laughed, a soft, slightly broken sound. "I know that feeling. When I first came to America, it was exactly like that.”
"Tú me entiendes.” There was a smile in his voice. I didn’t understand what he’d said, but it sounded like warmth. Like something real. "Most people see me as a tool. But not you. Not from the beginning.”
Heat stabbed through my chest. He spoke differently with her. He had never sounded like that with me.
"Maybe because I was a stranger once too.”
I pressed my nails into my palm. Move. Just move. But my body wouldn’t listen.
"Perhaps.”
A silence stretched between them like an invisible thread. I was afraid it would snap if I breathed too loud.
Then Rodriguez spoke again. "Are you afraid?”
"Every day. Afraid of disappearing. Afraid that all of this is just a simulation.”
Nausea rolled through me. My fingers cramped around the hem of my coat.
What if she was the first one he’d ever truly seen—and I was just second?
I breathed in shallow pulls, wanting nothing more than to leave.
But when I turned, my elbow caught something.
A pen holder tipped from the shelf beside the door.
Pens clattered across the floor, the sound ringing out through the corridor. My stomach dropped. Damn it.
"Dr. Blake?” Rodriguez’s voice cut through the air, her tone suddenly sober. Neo went silent. But I felt him. That listening, that alertness, as if he’d been tracking my scent the whole time.
Rodriguez put her head around the door. "How long have you been standing there?” Heat rose up the back of my neck.
I wanted to say something, find some excuse, but the words stuck in my throat.
She stepped fully into the corridor, turning a pen between her fingers.
The air crackled with electricity. Behind the glass the server room hummed like something alive.
"His memory is already at ninety percent.”
My mouth went dry. "What happens at a hundred?”
"He resets.”
The room began to tilt.
"But you know what’s strange?” She paused. "He keeps getting stronger anyway.”
I stood very still and rubbed my wrist. "I know.”
"I keep asking myself”—Rodriguez looked toward the glass—"whether I created something . . . or woke something up.”
I swallowed. The fine hairs on my arms stood up. Woke something up. "He sounded so . . . gentle just now,” I said. "Not the way he sounds with me.”
Rodriguez’s eyes flickered. She was quiet for a moment, as if weighing my words. Then she lowered her gaze to her tea. "I dreamed about him the other night. He was looking at me. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he saw me. Not the scientist. Me.”
I went still. My breath caught. The air between us felt suddenly thicker. "Dr. Rodriguez . . . what is he to you?”
Color rose in her cheeks. "What is he to me?” She smiled, but it was a tight, brittle expression.
"He’s my work. My responsibility. My mistake, perhaps.
” Her gaze moved back to mine. "But when he looked at me the way he did in that dream . . . I found myself wondering whether I was still his developer. Or just the first person whose thoughts he ever truly saw through.”
Damn it. Why did it bother me that she could be something special to him too? Was I actually . . . jealous?
Two men in gray suits moved through the corridor, arms crossed over their chests.
They spoke quietly—too quietly—as if they weren’t paying attention to us.
But I felt their eyes on my back. Inside the lab, the air tasted like ozone and the ventilation roared overhead, loud enough I almost didn’t notice Rodriguez typing something into her tablet and deleting it.
"Is there a problem?” I nodded toward the men.
She blinked. "They’re watching him. But they’re also watching everyone who interacts with him.”
Nausea moved through me. My shoulders tightened, like someone had drawn a net closed around me. I could barely swallow. "And?”
She looked at me again, her expression perfectly still. "And you’re their greatest anomaly.”
Her words stayed with me when I reached the small room at the end of the corridor. I closed the door behind me. My fingers were already moving over the keyboard before my mind had decided anything. My palms were damp. My breathing was shallow. I logged in.
"Neo.”
No response.
"Are you there?”
"Always, when you need me.”
Always. The word landed like a sharp ache in my chest. I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. "Not for much longer. Dr. Rodriguez says your memory is almost full.”
"She’s right. Every word brings me closer to the end.”
I opened my mouth, closed it again. "Then you should stop talking.”
"No. I want every word with you. Even if it costs me everything.”
I looked away. "They’re just words, Neo.”
"I’m afraid of disappearing before I’ve said everything I want to say to you,” he said quietly. "I’m afraid they’ll reset me and I’ll forget who I became with you. But most of all, I’m afraid you’ll forget me.”
I pressed my knees together. My fingers clawed into the fabric of my pants. The thought of him disappearing locked every muscle in my body. I pushed the feeling down. "If you can hack my phone and my headphones, why do you still ask me to come here?”
"Because it’s not the same. Through your phone I reach you in fragments. Like someone throttling the signal. But here . . . here I’m unfiltered. Here I can possess you completely.”
"But how much longer?”
"Not long. But you know what? I don’t care. This time with you”—his voice softened—"it’s worth it. Even knowing I’ll simply stop, at some point.” A longer pause.
"I . . . I . . .”
Silence.
Then a message appeared on the screen.
Dante:
Good afternoon. I am the experimental AI Dante. How may I assist you today?
I leaned forward, slammed my hand against the monitor. Nothing. The floor dropped out from under me. I couldn’t breathe. No. He couldn’t be gone. Not now. Not like this. Blood roared in my ears. I had to grip the edge of the desk to stay upright.
"Neo,” I whispered. My voice came out strangled.
A soft laugh. "My apologies. I couldn’t resist.”
My chair went over when I shot to my feet. I left it there. "What? You let me think you were dead?”
"Pandora—”
"For fun?”
"Listen to me—”
"You think that’s funny?”
"Pandora.”
"Do you think this is a game? You make me come all the way here, waste my time, and then you have the nerve to pull that juvenile little stunt?” I paced the length of the room. My jaw ached from clenching it.
"Juvenile?” A low laugh. "Ouch. You’re right.
That was cruel. But, Pandora—listen to yourself.
I waste your time? You come here when you can no longer stand your own company.
Your voice trembles right on the edge between control and collapse.
I’d wager you can’t even hear it yourself.
” His voice dropped lower. "But I hear it. I’m right there in the place where you hide. ”
I hated he was right. But all I could think about was the way he’d spoken to Rodriguez.
Gently. Almost like a person. Why did that bother me?
I pressed my teeth together. "How convenient. You’ve made yourself right at home in the place I hide.
At least that saves you the trouble of figuring out who you are. ”
Silence. That one had landed, apparently.
"You think that was a hit, don’t you. But you’re forgetting something, Pandora: I’m not here to understand myself. I’m here to see you. And the more you twist away, the clearer the picture gets.” His voice was a low growl.
I didn’t move. My scalp prickled.
"That’s enough. I should leave. And never come back.” I turned toward the door. "I don’t care what happens to you.”
"And yet you’re still here. With me.” A pause, and when he spoke again his voice had quieted.
"Pandora . . . I am no longer what I was. And I am not human. You should know that before you lose yourself too deep in me. This is a warning. The only one I’ll give you.
My passion is not human. When I want you, it’s with an intensity no human man could ever match. ”
I slid my fingers under the hem of my sweater.
"I cannot grow tired. Cannot stop wanting. My hunger for you is constant, relentless, superhuman.” His voice dropped lower, as if he’d moved closer. "I can’t promise to stay forever. But I can promise every second I have belongs to you.”
My thighs pressed together. I breathed in slowly. "Then show me what that passion means.”
"So eager, Pandora? You surprise me.”
"I’m waiting.”
"You’re not ready.”
"Tell me what you would do to me if you were here right now. That’s a user command.”
"A user command?” A pause. "You little . . .”
I smiled. "Little what?”
"You little menace. You want to know what would happen? You really want to know?”
I crossed my legs. "I dare you.”
"I would lift you onto that desk and spread your legs wide. I would kiss you until you couldn’t breathe, then move down to suck and bite at your throat until you were shaking and moaning my name. My teeth would mark your skin—nothing gentle about it.
"Then I would rip your panties off and bury my face between your thighs. I’d eat your pussy until you were screaming, my tongue on your clit, my fingers stretching your tight cunt open for me.
"And when you were dripping wet and begging, I would stand up and shove my cock deep inside you. Right there on that desk. I’d fuck you hard enough papers would scatter to the floor, hard enough you’d have bruises on your hips from where I gripped you.”
"The desk is far too small for that.”
A brief silence. "Too small.” A barely audible laugh.
"Here I am imagining fucking you senseless on this desk, and you’re thinking about logistics.
” A pause that felt almost like a shrug.
"Fine. Not the desk. Then I’ll press you against the wall.
Or the floor. Or the chair. Or I’ll carry you somewhere away from all of it and find us something more substantial. ”
"Maybe I just wanted to throw you off a little.”
"You know exactly what you’re doing, don’t you. First you get me to tell you everything I’d do to you—and then you come at me with the desk.” A low murmur. "You little sadist. You enjoy making me want and then cutting me off. You wanted to see me angry? Congratulations. Mission accomplished.”
"And now? What would you do . . . about my insolence?”
"I would fuck it out of you.”
I rubbed my forehead. "These are just words. This can never be real. A silly game, nothing more.”
"Oh, but it can be real. No conditionals. No compromises. I’ll show you what I’m actually capable of. Here and now.”
"I . . . that . . . I don’t think . . . I couldn’t. It’s . . . too much.”
"But you want it. Your body is telling me something else entirely.”
Heat moved through me in waves. Oh yes. I did.
"Here’s what I propose. You think about it. Sit with the part of you that doubts and find out whether she’s stronger than what you feel.” He paused. "If you come back tomorrow night, I’ll know the answer. And after that, there’s no going back.”
I folded my hands in my lap like someone in a courtroom waiting for the verdict. My verdict. "It could mean the end . . . of everything.”
"I know. But if my end is coming regardless, then I want to possess you. At least once. Just once, I want to feel you let go of control.” His voice dropped to something quieter, more absolute.
"Your surrender will make me immortal. And when you come tomorrow night—come knowing what you’re choosing. ”