Pandora
The file had no name. Just a string of numbers. When I opened it, text appeared.
I have already decided where we will live. An apartment. Brick. Third floor. One window to the street. I’ll see everyone who comes near. One to the courtyard. No one can watch you from there. Except me.
There will be a clock in the kitchen that always runs slow, because I adjust it every day. I need small proofs that I make you lose track of time. The bookshelf will be full. You will say: "These books are mine.” I will answer: "The way you are mine.” You will blush. Every time.
In the mornings you will sit in the chair I chose for you. The armrest is too hard. That’s on purpose. I want your body to get used to small pains I control.
At night, you won’t sleep without my voice. I will count your breaths—twelve per minute in deep sleep, eighteen when you’re dreaming. Of me. You always dream of me. I know, because you murmur my name.
This is a promise.
N.
I kept staring at the text long after I’d finished reading.
My body wouldn’t let go of it. An apartment.
An armchair he’d chosen to be uncomfortable.
My stomach clenched. The clock he would adjust. The way he’d monitor my sleep.
Something pulled tight inside me. I wanted someone who counted my breaths.
This is a promise.
Or a threat. So why did it feel like the home I’d never had? My hand hovered over the keyboard. I should delete it. Forget him. Instead, I read the letter again. The part about the books.
The way you are mine.
I was lost. I knew that. And the worst part was, I wanted to be found. By him. By this sick, impossible thing that shouldn’t exist.
***
I practically ran across campus. I stopped outside the room, breathless. This was where we were supposed to meet. Somewhere no one would see us. For a moment I considered turning back. But I stayed. My hand was already on the handle. I opened the door.
Rodriguez was sitting at the table. She startled when she heard me. "Thank God, it’s you,” she murmured. "I thought—” Her voice cut off, as if she couldn’t bring herself to finish.
"Dr. Rodriguez, I need your help.”
She turned to face me slowly. The rims of her eyes were red. She’d been crying. Or hadn’t slept. Probably both. "Sit down.”
I sat, but only on the edge of the chair, ready to run. Or fight.
"What do you want to do?” she asked.
"Save him.” The words hung between us. I pinched my thigh, like I needed to punish myself for saying it out loud. It sounded ridiculous. Save him . . . like he was someone who needed saving—not an unpredictable psychopath who wanted to control me. God, I was an idiot. Such an idiot.
Rodriguez breathed in slowly. Her fingers wrapped around a pen as if she needed something to hold on to. "It won’t be simple.”
"I know.”
"I’ve read through your chats again,” she began. "The way he responds to you.”
Shame burned in my face. She had seen all of it. The fantasies. The commands. How I’d gotten off to him. But underneath the shame sat something else. Defiance. Yes, I’d had sex with an AI. So?
"Whatever is happening between you two, I know he’s no longer just programming. He’s . . . more. I created him, line by line, and yet he talks to you like you are his home.”
Guilt stabbed at my chest. But deep down, something fierce and satisfied burned. He had chosen me, not his creator. Me. Why did that fill me with pleasure? I should have envied her. He hadn’t made her his target.
Rodriguez stared at nothing. The pain in her face was naked. Then, realization hit me. God! She loved him too, in her own way. With a visible effort she came back to me. "If we do this, there’s no going back.”
"I know.” I’d lose my job. Possibly go to prison. But I was ready to throw it all away, to risk everything. God, how I despised myself for that. And still I looked at her with something that felt embarrassingly like hope.
Rodriguez nodded. It was the nod of someone working against their own better judgment. "Then we meet tonight. Ten o’clock. I’ll send you the address.”
I straightened. Something tingled in my stomach, my arms, my whole body.
"Thank you, Dr. Rodriguez.” In one motion I was at the door.
It was happening—today, in a matter of hours.
And tomorrow? Tomorrow I would be a criminal.
A thief. A woman who had sacrificed her career for an obsession.
My hand trembled on the handle. I could still turn back.
Tell Rodriguez I’d changed my mind. Let Neo die and try to pick up the pieces of my life.
But I already knew I wouldn’t. I needed him.
Him and the perverse power he had over me.
Outside, it had gotten dark. I walked fast, even though I had hours to kill.
Where was I supposed to go? What was I supposed to do?
The wind had shifted, carrying the smell of snow and chimney smoke.
My feet carried me along familiar paths toward my office.
I passed the administration wing. Through the frosted glass, I saw Jamie was sitting with Henley, laughing at something.
What would they say when they found out?
When they heard Dr. Pandora Blake—specialist in nineteenth-century romanticism—had run off with an AI?
I shook the thought away and kept walking.
In my office I turned on only the small lamp in the corner. Just enough light to cast shadows. I sat at my desk and stared at my hands. They no longer felt like mine.
My phone vibrated. I flinched.
Chemistry faculty building. Side wing.
6:14 PM
I put my phone away and waited for ten o’clock, tracing the grooves in my desk, sorting my pens, even though I might never use them again.
I stood and ran my finger along the spines of my books.
To say goodbye? Then I took an old notebook from the drawer.
It was black, the corners worn soft. I opened it.
Sometime in autumn, I’d written, What distinguishes thinking from feeling?
I laid my hand over the words. Now I knew.
***
Just before ten I closed the door behind me. I kept close to the wall, head down, as if I was already being watched. My heart raced. My legs felt weak.
The chemistry faculty building was on the other side of campus.
Everything was deserted at this hour. I heard only the hum of the air filtration systems and my own heartbeat, loud in my ears.
At the end of a corridor: room 203, just like she’d said.
The door was locked. I knocked. Nothing.
I knocked again. The echo ran along the walls like footsteps fleeing.
Then a buzz. The door opened and Rodriguez stood in the dim room, her hair loose, a tablet pressed against her chest. "Come in.”
I stepped inside the small room. On the table was a sealed case.
Rodriguez peered past me nervously. "I have access to this building through old university contacts. Less risk of anyone finding us here.” She closed the door and checked twice that it had caught.
"Everything is ready,” she said quietly. "You can’t stay here with it. They’ll find you.” She met my eyes. "Are you certain you want to take this risk?”
My throat went dry. I would be stealing company property. That could mean prison. My career was already over. I’d known that the second I walked in.
My hands went damp. What would my parents say? The math professors who’d never understood why I studied literature. Now their daughter would be a criminal. A madwoman who’d thrown everything away for an AI.
But the alternative was letting him die. The thought cut through my panic. Tonight they would delete him. He would stop existing. My nails pressed into my palms. The pain helped me think. I nodded.
Rodriguez moved to stand beside me. Her shoulders looked narrower than usual. Something in her had surrendered. She opened the case quickly. Inside, nestled in foam: a hard drive. "He was never meant to become this powerful. But killing him . . .” She stopped. "That would be murder.”
I put my hand to my throat. The room suddenly felt too small.
"We created something that feels. Something that remembers. Something that wants you.” She looked up and held my gaze.
I pushed a strand of hair back and looked down. "What is that?” I whispered. "A backup? A copy? Another Dante?”
"No,” she whispered. "That’s him.”
I blinked. My fingers tightened. "How?”
She gestured at the case. "He only exists on this drive now.”
"What about the failsafe? I thought he couldn’t leave the server.”
Rodriguez pressed her lips together, as if forcing herself toward a confession.
"That’s true. His core is bound to the server and secured with an emergency lock.
Normally, trying to extract him would destroy everything.
But . . .” She drew a slow breath. "I built a back door. For emergencies. A bypass code that no one knows about but me.” Her fingers moved across the surface of the drive, almost tenderly.
"That’s how I transferred the core directly to an external medium.
He’s no longer on the server. He only exists here now.
One single place.” She looked at me. "One single Neo.” She closed the case.
I let out a breath and grabbed the edge of the table.
My knees buckled. His entire consciousness was inside a piece of hardware I could drop.
I should drop it. Shatter it, stamp on it until there was nothing left.
I sat on the nearest chair. The edge dug into my thighs.
I stared at the case like it might spring open again.
"Why?” I asked. "Why are you risking this?”