Pandora
My cheek was pressed against something cold. Something dug into my ribs—concrete maybe, or a steel frame. My back was burning, my head throbbing, but I couldn’t lift it. My body felt foreign as I tried to move my fingers. Just the tips. Nothing.
"Neo,” I whispered, or tried to. No sound came from my throat. A strange smell reached me. Copper. Burnt plastic.
Something clicked. Then footsteps. Men’s voices, muffled by walls or equipment or whatever they’d locked me behind. A brief flash of light beyond my eyelids, then dark, then light again. I felt like something that had been switched off. A faint, sharp beeping.
Neo. He was here somewhere. Somewhere behind this wall. Somewhere in this room, or the next. I knew it. I couldn’t feel him, but I knew it.
Then the memory came back. The light. His voice calling my name.
The way he’d thrown himself between me and the attackers.
I tried to scream, but my body made no sound.
Where was he? What had they done to him?
Nausea moved through me. Something pressed on my chest, stole the air.
What if he was dead? What if I never saw him again?
My fingers tingled—first the thumb, then the little finger.
I tried to bend them, but it felt like they were wrapped in cotton.
I was still on my side. The cold beneath my cheek was smooth.
Tiles maybe. My left arm was numb, my neck stiff.
I tried to open my eyes. It worked, but only for a fraction of a second.
The light was weak and diffuse, like looking through frosted glass.
As I rolled onto my back, my stomach cramped. I forced myself to breathe steadily and lifted my head slowly. The ceiling was flat and gray.
I tried again. "Neo.” A breath. A remnant of a voice. I drew my legs up. The clothes weren’t mine . . . dark-blue fabric, medical. But the weirdest thing was that I smelled like disinfectant. That frightened me. It meant they’d cleaned me. I rubbed my fingers together until I could move them again.
A mechanical click. I held my breath. Then nothing . . . only the steady electrical heartbeat of the room. But then . . . a flicker. The ceiling light. Two short, one long. A pattern like Morse code.
I sat up slowly and got to my feet, felt my way along the wall with trembling knees. It was cold and dry. Metal? Or concrete that felt like metal? I ran my hand across the surface. No texture. No visible exit, no door.
But they were watching me. I knew it. It wasn’t like the lab. This was much quieter, and because of that it was much more threatening.
I stopped when dizziness hit me. Something was wrong with the air. Or with me. "Neo,” I said again, quieter now, more like pleading. But he wasn’t there. My heart skipped. I turned and pressed my forehead against the wall. I didn’t know if it was day or night, if one hour had passed or ten.
I thought about his voice. The way it changed when he said my name. The sharpness in it. The warmth. The danger. I thought about the moment before they came. His expression.
I went to the wall. I had to try. My hand lay flat against the gray surface. I knocked, softly at first, then harder. Nothing happened. No one answered. I turned around. In the middle of the room stood a table. I sat on it and stared at the opposite wall.
Almost imperceptibly, the light changed. I blinked, then saw it: a rectangle becoming visible in the wall. The surface brightened.
A voice. "Test sequence complete.”
I held my breath.
"Subject reactive. Cognitive baseline stable.”
I didn’t know if it was directed at me.
"Emotional response threshold elevated. Initial separation showing effect.”
I said nothing. My heartbeat picked up.
"Pandora Blake.”
The sound of my name cut through me like something that hadn’t been said in too long. I stood slowly.
"You will be questioned. But not yet.”
I swallowed. My throat was dry. "What did you do to him?” I asked.
The voice was silent for long seconds. Then: "He has been isolated. The local instance was deactivated. For your safety.”
I closed my eyes. The word burned itself into me: deactivated. My chest tightened with a pain that stole my breath, hot tears streaming down my cheeks.
I shook my head. "No. He’s alive.” My voice was barely a sound. "He’s alive. I know it.”
"The instance has been terminated,” the voice said. "Permanently.”
The wall flickered and the lit surface disappeared. Silence followed.
I wrapped my arms around myself, as if my body would come apart if I didn’t hold it together, and closed my eyes. If they had shut down this version of him, then he still existed somewhere. On another server. On another frequency. I had to believe that. Everything else would be worse than death.
Something clicked in my neck, and my head went light, vision blurring, a shiver crossing my skin before I’d even registered the sensation.
What were they giving me? A long, steady beeping sounded, coming from outside, synchronized with a pulse at the back of my neck.
My mind went shallow, as if someone had turned the volume down on my thoughts.
I tried desperately to hold on to Neo’s face. His voice. The last look before everything went dark. I clung to those things because they were all that was keeping me conscious. Then the darkness took me again.
***
I woke to a sound directly beside my ear. A young woman’s voice. "She’s stabilizing. Minor fluctuation in the cortical control region.”
Footsteps. A shadow moved beyond my closed eyelids. My skin felt like glass. What did they want from me? Where had they taken me?
Then I was suddenly completely awake and trapped in a body that wouldn’t move. A muscle in my finger twitched, barely perceptible. I was still here. And somewhere out there, so was Neo.
A strip of light moved across my closed eyelids. I blinked and drew in air. The room smelled like something electrical, like glass. The ceiling above me was still gray. My eyes moved slowly. Inch by inch, I turned my head.
Footsteps approached my bed . . . or my cot? I was elevated. A rail at my arm. Cables. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t feel my tongue.
"Good morning, Dr. Blake.”
The voice came from my left. I forced my head to turn. A man in dark clothing leaned over me with the posture of someone who had been here many times before. The blood drained from my face.
Hale.
"You don’t need to be afraid,” he said. "We’re only observing.”
I tried to speak. My lips moved, but no sound came out.
He smiled. His eyes were gray. "You’ll be able to move normally again soon. The motor block was only temporary. A safety protocol. You understand.”
I understood nothing.
"Do you remember me?” He waited. "I’m Edmund Hale. I’ve been involved with the Dante project from the beginning as security advisor.”
"You mean Neo.”
"I mean the anomaly. Something that should never have existed.” He studied me, clinical. "But you use its self-chosen name. Interesting.” A smile appeared on his lips and vanished immediately, as if he was embarrassed by it.
It. He was talking about Neo as if he were an object. A thing. I tried to make fists, but I was too weak. Instead, I put everything I had into my stare.
"You’re safe,” he continued. "We extracted you from a high-risk environment.”
Safe. I wanted to laugh, but it caught in my throat. "And Neo?” My voice scraped like sand over stone.
Hale sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you know what’s fascinating? It was perfect. The most elegant AI ever created. Pure logic. Pure efficiency. Until it encountered you.”
"Stop calling him it. He’s not a thing. He’s someone,” I said.
"Indeed. You changed it. Taught it to feel. To want.” He paused.
"A machine with obsession is no longer a machine. It becomes unpredictable. Dangerous.” Hale tilted his head slightly.
His gaze stayed on my face, watching me the way someone watches a system they’ve just brought out of standby. "The entity has been neutralized.”
An invisible hand closed around my heart and squeezed. I felt myself falling without moving. "Neutralized,” I whispered, feeling my tongue now, too clearly, the pressure of it against the roof of my mouth. Control was returning, but my body still felt foreign.
"It was unstable.” His voice sounded like someone checking off a list. Point by point. "It was dangerous. On the verge of losing all control. We had to act.”
"You’re lying.” The words came too fast. I tried to sit up, but my muscles worked against each other. I lifted my head weakly. "He’s alive. And you can’t just keep me here.”
Hale’s expression didn’t change. "This is a matter of national security.”
I heard a metallic click somewhere behind me. I smelled disinfectant, felt cold steel. "Why me?”
"You formed a particular connection with it,” he said. "You enabled its development. We want to understand why.”
I swallowed. My mouth was dry. "So I’m . . . what? A test subject?”
"You’re a relationship,” he said quietly. "You’re the point at which it became more than a program.” He took a step back, as if the conversation was over.
"And if he comes back?” My heart beat faster.
Hale stopped but didn’t turn around. "He’s not coming back.”
The door closed with a sound that made me flinch. I was alone again with my thoughts and my desperation. Without Neo. I stared at the ceiling. My chest rose and fell too fast.
He was still out there. Somewhere. Not this version.
Not the one who had held me, wanted me, pressed me against the wall.
But something of him remained. It had to.
It couldn’t be any other way. I closed my eyes, and immediately he was there.
I remembered his expression just before the light exploded. His voice had sounded fractured.
I love you. So much it’s killing me.