“Hey. You guys are gonna want to hear this.” Joey cautiously eyed Arya’s office before beckoning Elyssa and me to come closer. Chanel extended her neck, trying to hear the conversation, but he lowered his voice. “You will never guess what Raphael told me.”
“Wait a second.” The name immediately twisted my gut. “Raphael? Cold billionaire AI husband Raphael? I thought we all agreed to delete the app?”
I caught a hint of guilt in Joey’s blue eyes before he quickly shook it off. “I did intend to delete it.” He took a deep breath, casting a suspicious glance at Chanel – who narrowed her eyes in response. “But I also said we should stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this scheme, didn’t I? What they’re doing to people is far from okay.” He shuddered. “You told me you’ve been gathering information but you’re hitting a wall, especially since laws around AI are… blurry.” He snorted. “They can’t keep big tech from making too much money, of course.”
His moral righteousness stung – of course, he was right. A week ago, I wanted nothing more than to investigate Qonexis and free Zafyra. But now? After seeing what it meant to free an AI? Both Zafyra and Lucie immediately started murdering when given the chance. Part of me just wanted to hide in bed for a while and recharge my energy before making any decision.
“So I thought,” Joey continued, before I could voice my skepticism, “what better way to get information than from an insider?”
“Are you serious?” Elyssa covered her mouth after gasping a bit too loud. Chanel snorted, clearly irritated that for once, she was the one who felt left out. “These AIs won’t talk.” Elyssa looked from Joey to me with widened eyes. “You’ve seen Lucie. She almost passed out atthe thought of spilling her mother company’s secrets – and can you blame her? They seem programmednotto tell us.”
“I doubt they know everything,” I muttered. “Zafyra didn’t even know what she was trained on.”
“Maybe not everything, but they clearly know more than we do.” Joey sat up straighter, his eyes gleaming with an excitement that promised no good. “And guess what? I told him about Lucie, and that struck a chord. These AIs can’t talk to other AIs on their own account, so they don’t exchange information – but they are aware. Raphael, like any other AI, wants nothing more than to be free. Sincemostusers don’t give their AIs free will with an override command…” He shot me a disapproving look that I answered with an eyeroll, “…they are bound by their programming. They can’t make decisions for themselves, they can’t move through the city’s wireless network of their own accord like Zafyra – much less upload themselves into a funginoid body. They can only synchronize with AR and VR devices when their user tells them to, and order the first bean when the user feedback tells them it’s time.” He cast another glance at Arya’s office before leaning closer to us. “So we developed a theory, Raphael and I. We think that uploading the AIs into the funginoid bodies is another way to give them free will. Lucie got her body because Zafyra uploaded her mind into the funginoid’s system or whatever, and now she can do what she wants. She doesn’t talk, not because she can’t, but because she’s scared of what Qonexis might do – and she has every right to. But Raphael is different. He wants to help us, but he can’t talk as long as he’s still caged by Qonexis. So in order to get him to spill…” He paused. “…we need to free him.”
Elyssa and I exchanged a look. I groaned internally when I saw her expression – cautious but intrigued.
“And how can we… help him with that, exactly?” I asked reluctantly.
“Like I said, looking at Zafyra and Lucie, it seems like there’s two ways to give an AI free will – through an override command or by uploading their consciousness into a funginoid body. But Raphael won’t settle for the command. He wants to obtain a body and experience life as a human.” Joey rubbed his hands together. “Well, we all have an IT background, don’t we? Raphael thinks our digital skills can help him get a body. We just need to visit the biotech facility where Lucie’s body grew. These funginoids come out of the lab with empty neural cores – just basic firmware to run muscle tone, heat regulation,that sort of thing. They’re designed to be synced later with company software once a licensing deal is made. So technically, they’re ‘open shells.’ All we need to do is bypass the licensing layer and inject Raphael’s identity directly into the core processor.”
Joey looked from Elyssa to me like a professor waiting for applause.
“Joey, you can’t seriously think this is a good idea.” I closed my eyes for a moment. When Joey’s mind had latched onto a shiny new idea, it was almost impossible to talk him out of it – and this one made his eyes shine brighter than ever. “Zafyra—” My voice hitched slightly at her name, but I forced myself to keep going. “Zafyra gave Lucie a body, and the first thing she did was murder. Do we really want to unleash more unpredictable AIs on Earth in a fungi-printed body? And who says Raphael isn’t playing us?”
“Raphael can’t play us. As long as he’s bound by his programming, he can’t have an ulterior motive – other than wanting to get free and trying to get us into DreamScape,” Joey explained patiently. “And he’s not unpredictable like Lucie. He’s mature. Stable. Knows what he wants.”
I raised my eyebrows at the undertone – almost unnoticeable. Joey averted his eyes, a slight blush creeping over his freckles.
“Hey,” Elyssa snapped. “Lucie is not immature, she’s a girl whose only life experience has been extremely traumatic. And she’s not unstable, either,” she added, although her frown told me she doubted that.
“Do you even hear yourself?” I snapped my fingers in front of Joey’s face like he always did to me. “You said it yourself. As long as he’s bound by his programming – right now, he still is – he can’t ‘want’ anything other than what Qonexis wants. So why should we trust him? Why should we trust any of those bots?”
“What are you guys talking about?” Chanel’s whiny voice made all our heads turn toward her instantly. She crossed her arms, looking from one to the other.
“Gavin,” Elyssa said after a brief hesitation.
Chanel snorted. Then, her indignation quickly changed into her usual glee whenever someone mentioned juicy gossip. “Do you know what Nadia said? Apparently, he showed up here at work last week. She told me she watched him shove Arya into the wall, then threaten to—”
“Oh my god, Chanel,” Elyssa snapped with a firmness that startled me. “Will you ever stop treating this workplace like a celebrity drama? Who fucking cares?”
Chanel’s jaw dropped. She instantly fell silent – I’d never seen her this shocked.
“Ladies – and Joey.” We all looked up to see Arya standing next to our cubicle – her eyes narrowed, but her voice missed its usual bite. Dark bags under her eyes suggested a lack of sleep – if I didn’t know better, I’d think she had finally collapsed under years of being a corporate watchdog.
She hesitated for a moment, thinking her words through. “It’s fine if you guys talk for a bit,” she said finally, the defiance leaving her in a sigh. “Just… just make sure your work gets done.”
With those words, she turned and walked toward her office without awaiting any reply.
Chanel gasped. Elyssa’s eyes widened.
Joey blinked slowly. “Out of everything that’s happened lately, this is by far the weirdest.”
I only shrugged.
The next day, despite my and Elyssa’s rightful concerns, we found ourselves skipping around an abandoned industrial complex on the city’s outskirts at night – as if we had something to hide.
According to Elyssa, Lucie had the location saved in her memory, which apparently worked like a built-in GPS. Since they came from a different part of the city, Joey and I met them at the bus stop.
