Imp for the Perverse

Uzbek stood and stretched, cracked his knuckles and snaked his fingers under his Fold to rub his eyes. Unbidden, he saw in his mind the force of his fingers acting on semi-compressible spheres, and how they may deform under such pressure, rolling against the thin bone plate of the eye socket as he probed them with his fingertips, modeled in his mind as spheres applied by displacement, and how the peak points of tension within the eyeball membrane-

With a thought, it was gone, leaving behind the odd, empty cold-air feeling of a mind asking the server for information.

"Geez. Geez." He hissed aloud, finally feeling like he was back in his body. He had been working, totally zoned in, for hours. It felt like he'd been dreaming and had finally awoken to find himself more tired than when his dream began. A tough workday, made worse after taking time off for Down Day, but a fulfilling day. Uzbek enjoyed his work and had no reason to complain about a bit of sore eyes after staring into the Fold. So his fingers slipped out, he sat back down and he was back in.

The inside of his blindfold, a nano-thin virtual reality display, put him inside the homeroom of his virtual work environment. The environment was based on a mind-palace of rooms, all displayed as mostly empty, but supplemented by direct feeds from his Cranial Implant, his Imp. His eyeballs, looking at the display, saw little except for low fidelity visual cues; doorways of standard size and color that represented access to different components of his working life, work surfaces that were all slightly different shades and shapes that represented different software packages. The Imp supplied the rest, pumping symbolic perceptions directly into his cortex and extracting information the same way. He looked at a door with his real eyes, the Fold tracked his pupils, told his server, the server talked back through his Imp, and he knew that the door lead to the "kitchen" where he could socialize, request food and temporarily disconnect from work, all without leaving his real desk cubicle. When he looked at his main desk, the one in this virtual world, his eyes saw a green blocky silhouette, but he perceived what the Imp told him; his work. Not a 'hologram' of his work superimposed over the virtual desk, or some visual trickery of his work in the room around his desk, but just his work, as real as if it was sitting before him, as a symbol of being his work, proposed to his mind as presently as the topic in a conversation, or the knowledge that he was in his apartment when he was in his apartment. This virtual world was made as real as any other by the signals sent directly into his brain on the silver-yttrium alloy monofilaments that connected his Imp to the circuitry of his brain. It was a grand magic trick, first pioneered by the Executive himself, and refined in the thousand years since.

Today, his work was the 3D frequency response of an artificial knee, projected out to fifty years of life for a 95 percentile weight male, accounting for design variation in biological geometry in a variety of ambulation styles. When he looked at the desk, with the help of his Imp, he was thinking about the hundreds of ways someone could walk on the knee, jump on it, material degradation curves, muscle binding, fastener options- he hooked a thumb under the Fold and pulled it off. It had been several hours since he first rubbed his eyes, but he hardly knew it, until his Imp gently impressed the time onto him.

It was Uzbek-17:00, time to head home. His own day cycle was engineered along with everyone else's day cycle, to ensure that there were no inefficient surges in activity or inactivity. Throughout the 'day', as much as there was a day with personal day cycles, there was always someone leaving work, someone starting work, someone in the middle of their day. Some cycles were different lengths, so that the schedule of open businesses always shifted relative to their customers and ensured there was somewhere to shop and someone with the time to shop, and that anyone who needed to buy something had somewhere to go to buy it. He briefly considered dinner, and his Imp presented him with restaurants that were open now, with preference for places where he could pick up food to bring home to his wife. When they'd married, he and Kasha had been adjusted to have the same day cycle. The Executive coordinated all of this.

In that shared day cycle, it was clear to the Imp what it meant to remove the Fold, so the Imp shut off his work-server interface, at least in part. Now, when he rubbed his eyes again, he just felt the response from the nerves in his face. The computationally expensive and neurologically taxing work functions ceased unless called up, but the normal operations, some so subtle that he did not realize his life almost relied on them, persisted subconsciously. There was no biomechanical simulation for him to visualize this time, and those monofilaments to the device in his skull remained quiet.

When he looked at the other engineer that worked in this cubicle, Peters, his Imp quietly let him know it was Peters-10:45. His partner had arrived for work an hour and forty five minutes ago. And, based on alpha and beta wave patterns, Peters' Imp knew he was deep in thought, and communicated to Uzbek's Imp that any messages sent to Peters would be de-prioritized until they could be presented unobtrusively. No bother, he didn't have anything to say to Peters.

But, suddenly he had a message from Peters. He knew what it said as instantly as he could interpret a picture held in front of his face. It was not read as words, it was a nearly pure symbolic communication from one Imp to another.

Was he done work?

Yes he was.

Peters immediately took off his Fold.

"Have you been having trouble with your Imp too?" He asked audibly.

Uzbek caught himself before he replied through the Imp. Peters preferred that old channel of speech. It made Uzbek nervous to make so much noise when there wasn’t an emergency or emotional stakes, such as expressing love to his wife, but he consciously rejected his instinct to use the electronics.

"Uh. No."

"Man, mine's been killing me. I wish we didn't have to use these stupid things."

"Uh. They're good." Uzbek said.

"Don't kid yourself." Peters said. In the pause for breath between sentences, Uzbek asked his Imp what 'kid yourself' meant and was given the corresponding neurological symbol to understand it perfectly. This on-the-fly translation between the coarse wordplay of spoken thoughts into actual ideas was common when speaking to Peters, as he was one of very few people in Uzbek's life who often used the audible communication channel. He also liked to consume audible media, and had picked up odd symbols from it.

"These things are the worst parts of a leash and a crutch."

Crutch? He learned several megabytes of medical theory accidentally as he tried to remember that word. Ah, that's what that meant. He'd just never seen one in person.

"They use 'em to control us, you know? They even control our time! And I bet they have a lot more control than they let us know."

"No." It was all Uzbek could say, and it was something he often said to Peters.

"See? You can hardly put two words together in your mouth, no offense. They've turned your Imp into a gag too."

"No. I can... I can talk better with Imp than speaking." Uzbek said, turning red with embarrassment. He hadn't realized how much he leaned on- how much he used the Imp communication as a crutch.

"Yeah, I bet." Peters said with a waving away gesture, another part of low-fidelity spoken communication. Peter continued, "They use these things to implant ideas into our minds, you know."

"Yes." Uzbek said, nodding.

Peters paused. He hadn't expected agreement.

Uzbek continued, "I cannot work if the Imp does not put it into my mind." He tapped the spots on his scalp where the Imp implants rested under his hair, "I ask for eigenvalues for my ideas, and the Imp gives them to me. I look at you. And I know what time it is for you."

Peters waved this away too, "That's all easy crap; you ask it for all of that. I mean, what if it puts ideas in your mind without asking? What if it told you to be happy, even when you're not happy? What if it told you to do something you didn't want to do? What if it told you that it hadn’t told you anything? Would you even know if you were a puppet on silver-yttrium strings?"

"If it told me to be happy, I would be happy."

Peters balked at this, "What? That's insane! You can't be happy just because the machine told you to! What if your wife died, and the box just said 'Too bad, Uzbek, be happy and get back to work'? How can you say that you'd be happy?"

Uzbek and the Imp were thinking at the same time now. Uzbek thought it was odd that Peter’s said ‘your wife’ when his Imp should have told him to say ‘Kasha’. And the Imp, through a series of transform functions and neural net analysis, had determined the symbolic subject of conversation and prompted Uzbek with philosophy packets that would inform him of both sides of this topic. He and Peters were far from the first to discuss the costs and benefits of Imps. But Uzbek felt there was something else at play, that Peters was priming up for some other topic, so he ignored the packets and and instead asked the Imp what this could be. It performed a descending abstraction analysis of Peters' Imp activity and determined it was a violation of privacy to disclose its findings to Uzbek. That's what he expected, but it did confirm that this was no casual conversation. If this was just office chatter, the Imp would have told him 'Peters is seeking the cultural norm regarding Imp usage' or 'Peters is unsure how to access specific Imp functions'. This took just long enough to Peters to lean forward after his question.

"I don’t know what I would do if that happened." Uzbek said, then forwarded a prompt from his Imp to his lips, "But why are you concerned?"

Peters looked around, using his eyes to scan the office around them instead of tapping into the environmental cameras, and scratched absently where his Imps were implanted.

"I think mine is glitched out." He said at last, "Yours ever... put stuff in your head? I mean, of course. But stuff you didn't ask for? Dark thoughts?"

"No...” Uzbek said instinctively. But that was not true.

Peters was better at perceiving than Uzbek was at hiding, “Come on. What is it?” And Uzbek caught an unexpected begging tone in his voice.

Without really understanding why, but probably because he was compelled by empathy and naïve to the risks of vulnerability, Uzbek shared a story that had haunted him, that Peters’ concerns had dredged up from the lake of thought he had drowned it in.

“Well... one time Kasha and I had an argument, and one of us threatened to leave. I don't remember-" he rejected the Imp's prompt to fill in that memory gap, "-I don't remember which one of us. One of us was going to walk out. And, I don't think I asked, but then it told me what would happen. It was a budget. I saw that the new budget had a high confidence prediction that it would include counseling. Suicide counseling." Uzbek trailed off. It was strange to have his own memory be so clear, almost as clear as the Imp's memory. Again, he rejected the Imp's prompt to help him remember anything else more clearly.

"Damn..." Peters said, "did it-"

Uzbek continued, "And that was odd. It disturbed me. But it did something else, that I definitely did not ask for. It suggested that we have sex."

Peters stared at him, like Uzbek had put a finger on his brain.

"It was a good suggestion." Uzbek said, "but it did not feel like a suggestion. It did not feel like a person had suggested a course of action, it felt like I now knew something. Except I did not ask it for this information, so in this way it felt like an unprompted suggestion.” Uzbek felt the weight on his face shift as his expression soured, “It is hard to say this feeling with words. Imps do not make many suggestions; that's what our human brains are supposed to do. It was not a suggestion, it actually gave me a report. A model, on the hormonal and emotional outcomes from having sex in that kind of situation." He shrugged, "and the outcomes looked good. It also told me it had shared this report with Kasha, except for one part."

He felt it best to pause, so Peters could understand what this meant.

"The part it did not share with her was much longer than the rest, so my Imp delivered it last." He paused again, but because he realized that when he was speaking these things, it was much harder to ignore the emotional response the words caused in him. "It was a report on the hormonal and emotional consequences of spousal rape. Statistical outcomes, key performance characteristics, key noise parameters... modes of implementation. You have read reports; it was in the standard template. It was a straightforward report that described a small set of possible outcomes."

Silence.

"Did you..." Peters started.

"I was upset, and in an agitated state. So, even though I knew the reports, I was not able to take their information. And the last part... did not help. So I turned off my Imp and left the situation."

"And Kasha?"

Uzbek asked his Imp for a gesture for his feelings and shrugged in the way it described. It was easy to shrug now, with all of those heavy words out of his head.

"We worked it out another way and spoke to each other a lot. I am done talking about this. Sorry."

"No need for an apology. You see, that's exactly what I'm talking about! Not exactly, I guess, but I am having, well, it's doing the same thing to me."

Now Uzbek was the confused by his coworker’s unexpected alignment, "How?"

Peters looked around again, and dropped his voice, "it's putting stuff in my head. About women."

Uzbek was not sure how to respond. On instinct, his Imp found out that Peters was not married.

He continued, "I mean, it's not even reports, like what you got. You always ask yours for reports, so that's what it gives you. That's why you get the big bucks." He laughed mirthlessly, "I just ask it for pictures, you know? Graphs, diagrams, transforms, renders, that kind of stuff for work. And... I must have glitched it up. It's doing that still. But for women. All the time. It used to be just be when I saw someone, you know? I see Jessecia when I come in to work, I think, in my human brain, I think 'that's a nice dress' and immediately, the Imp shows me what she looks like, but without the dress. And I think 'woah, that's not what I asked for!' And it goes away. It used to. I don't want to be looking at that stuff at work, you know? So I kept it at home and yeah, I went back to it later, I admit, real scummy or whatever.” Uzbek had a strong feeling that the pretense of dialog was evaporating. Peters was on rails to say what he had been keeping to himself for a long time.

"But it kept happening. I go to the store and see a girl, and think 'man, she's got a nice-' and before I can even finish the thought, the thing is showing me whatever I'm thinking of. Just, boom, right there in my mind. Don't get me wrong, I like what I see, but it makes it hard to talk to her, you know? How do you ask her out when you just see that? And it kept going. Eventually it even happened with memories!" At this point, Peters was talking in a fast low whisper, almost hard to hear, "memories, you know? I'd be here, trying to work, and I'd remember that video I watched last night, just remembering it, not even really thinking about it until suddenly it's all I can think about! Now I'm here at work, just seeing that... well, it was porn, you know? I try to turn off the Imp, but I can still see it. And it's not in the Fold, so I can't just close my eyes, it's still there. Oh man. And, a part of me, down here, has no problem with this, you know? But up here," he points at his temple, "I'm freaked out; I don't need this stuff coming up at work!

"So I tried to turn all that stuff off. You know, I set limits on the Imp, I scrubbed my history, I tried some meditation or whatever. It worked for about a week, then it started coming back. Think about a cute girl at the bar? Boom, all I see is her rack. Think about seeing the doctor about it? Too bad my doctor's a woman; instead of scheduling an appointment, I just get to see her ass. Bored at work? Here's some porn." Now Peters' voice was rising with frustration again, "damn! Even just now, just even talking about it! I just- I'm sorry, but when you mentioned Kasha… Dammit!" He slapped a hand against his scalp, "It's all the time! It just never stops! I keep turning it off, and it just keeps turning me on!"

Uzbek instinctively reached to his Imp for support. How was he supposed to handle this? Pat him on the shoulder? Scold him for looking at porn at work? Assure him this was normal? It wasn't normal, was it? The Imp tried to answer, but his confusion made any search he submitted into noise for the Imp. Without strong symbolic thoughts, the Imp did not have a high-confidence reading on his intentions, and could not respond.

Peters stood up and tossed his Fold on the desk, "Sorry, You know, I just had to tell someone. I'm going to see a doc, I gotta get this thing taken out. I'm done, it's ruining my life."

"You can't work without it." Uzbek said, rising from his seat as well.

"Well I can't work with it! Not when it keeps showing me half the office like that!"

At this point Peters realized he was catching attention. He tried to dismiss it with a wave, and posting on his Imp that he was just worked up over 'something', using the generic symbol for 'indistinct conflict too personal and/or complex to describe to a multitude and unfamiliar audience.' Most of the onlookers got the post, and put their Folds back on, or left the environmental cams.

Now Uzbek was following Peters out of the cubical farm, "I don't think you should have it removed; it must be fixable."

"I checked, no way. The darn thing won't help me with this at all; it's working against me you know? I need it out, right now. I'm done. Best case, I get a new one that works, worst case I just... I don't know, I guess I just use a keyboard or tablet or something."

"But you won't even know what time it is."

"I can use a clock."

"Or summon elevators." Uzbek said, as he subconsciously summoned the elevator.

Peters summoned it as well, except he was pressing the emergency button, "They have these as safety back-ups; I'll just use the buttons."

"How will you calculate things for work?" Uzbek asked.

Peters turned to him as they got in the elevator, "Look, I know. How can I take a dump without the chip in my head? I don't know! But I certainly know I can't live with it, so I gotta- dammit! There it goes again!" He clutched at his scalp, "Fuck off!"

For a second, Uzbek thought Peters was lashing out at him, but his coworker was reaching out and waving away like there was someone else in the elevator with them.

"There wasn't even anything there that time!" Peters said, talking to Uzbek again, "See? I can't keep dealing with this!"

"Would you like me to find a doctor?"

"Thanks. I just- every time I tried to think of- whatever." Peters said, still holding his head, as if feeling for a power button on the Imp implants.

Uzbek took this as confirmation and found an doctor that was at 3:30, just a few minutes from their office. He was about to send the directions to Peters, but realized it would be best to just guide the man there himself. He started his Imp on scheduling an appointment. It started including Peters’ symptoms, but Uzbek pulled those out. This was too intimate a matter for him to handle on Peters’ behalf.

As they walked, Peters calmed down, "Sorry about that. It's just been happening for a while. I tried dealing with it, fixing it, you have no idea how long I spent just searching for known glitches, hacks, software fixes, whatever to make it stop. Sometimes it’s not so bad. But even when I'm trying to concentrate, one second it's work, and the next second it's porn or whatever. It's enough to give me a headache."

"I'm sure a factory reset will fix it."

Peters sighed, "Maybe. But I'm not taking any chances, I'm done with this. I want it out right now, I want to get back to normal, you know? To be able to talk to women like I use to. Geez, even saying that it gives me more crap to look at! Stop it!"

As they arrived, an automatic check saw the acute signs of stress picked up by Peters’ Imp and connected him with his appointment. But he rejected its prompt to log in through his mind, instead going to straight to the nurse’s desk. Uzbek knew instantly there was going to be trouble as he saw the nurse. An attractive young woman, frustrated that she should have to handle a patient check-in the slow, old fashion way.

"Sir, please use the kiosk, it will scan your-"

Peters cringed away as she spoke, "I'm sorry, but can I talk to the doctor? Or another nurse? I'm sorry, but-" he stopped himself.

"The doctor is at an appointment, please use the kiosk to sign in and we will be with you-"

Peters was alternating between squeezing his eyes shut to block out the image of her, and opening them so the image of real life could override the image in his brain, "Please, I need to see someone else, right now, I'm having a serious problem with my Imp, it's freaking me out. I think I need a male doctor, please, right now."

She scowled at him, "what did you say?"

Uzbek cut in, "He's having a serious issue with his Imp, it's-" messing with his ability to communicate with certain people, he finished in Imp. By looking at her, his system used facial recognition and the context of his location to determine who he was speaking to and directed his message to the nurse automatically.

She shot back, he is looking at me like a pervert, he is being a creep.

Uzbek sent a report describing the situation. In symbolic thought, it was easy to be dispassionate, to clinically present the issue that Peters could not express without obscenity on vocal channels.

She scowled again and tried several times to Imp Peters, who was now staring fixedly at the surface of the desk, but he wasn't accepting any Imp messages.

"Your Imp is showing no abnormal readings; there is nothing wrong with it." She said. This also offended Uzbek; could she not see his distress?

"Yes there is!" He insisted, "didn't you read Uzbek's report? He sent one, right? It is- it's forcing stuff into my head!"

Her scowl seemed permanent, but she pulled a small tablet from under the desk, activated a program and held it up to Peters. The screen showed a glyph in the corner that older Imps could use to directly interface with the tablet, and the edges of the device carried even more archaic interfaces, including a card reader. One of them was a featureless glass square, and Peters pressed his thumb against this as soon as he accepted the device to authorize medical diagnostic access to his Imp. Instantly, the tablet's screen was scrolling with packet data as his Imp engaged in 5 Ghz conversation with his server and surrounding devices.

The nurse pursed her lips as her own Imp sent the report directly to her, and she realized that there was too much traffic going through the distressed man's mind for her to quickly determine if he was healthy.

Peters didn't wait for a diagnosis, "I need this thing taken out right now! It's ruining my life."

"We can't do that without a board review." She said, trying to send him the process over Imp, which he again dismissed, "Extracting an Imp requires-"

"I know! I know! And I am in acute distress over what it's doing to me! Here, can you deal with this?!"

Uzbek realized what Peters was going to do, he was going to send the poor woman a sample of his distracting visions. In a panicked gesture, slapped Peters on the shoulder to interupt him, “Do not do that! Ma’am, he is very distressed.”

At the speed of thought, Uzbek could not stop Peters’ transmission, but perhaps it was for the better. He could not imagine what the nurse had ‘seen’, but it turned her face white, and she nearly jumped to her feet.

“Sir! You can’t-!” She started, then mutely pointed into the office, “Go to room 12. Now.”

Peters did not seem to see the hatred on her face, just happy to get what he needed. And he had no perception of the quick flurry of Imp messages she exchanged with Uzbek.

This man is sick! She shot over.

Yes, his Imp is severely compromised. He replied.

No! He is sick. She used an emphatic notation to describe Peters, as a person exclusive of any other feature. There isn’t a single fault with his Imp, she added.

Uzbek could only respond with confusion. Hadn’t she seen what it was putting into Peters’ mind? Surely she could not see that and imagine that Peters had conceived it himself.

"Thank you!" Peters said, as he sat in the patient's chair, "I will be so glad to get rid of this thing! I can barely think with it constantly buzzing with this- this- shit all the time." They say for a few seconds in silence before Peters asked, “When is the damn doctor going to get here? I need this thing out!”

"Doctor Pastruma will be here in a minute,” Uzbek said, reading off the notes that were being attached to the appointment he had set up for Peters, “but he won't have time to review your Imp packet history and diagnostics. It will take about an hour to review it to see what exactly is going on, after he has spoken with you."

"Thanks" He said, "Uzbek, I'm sorry to rope you into this, You can head out if you need to. Kasha's probably worried that you're not home yet."

"Don't worry about it; I'll be here to make sure you can take care of this. I already let her know I will be home late."

Peters was calming down now that he was finally going to get the help he needed, and that the nurse was no longer around to trigger his condition, "You know, this is so embarrassing. Thanks for sticking with me."

"Of course." Uzbek said.

There was a moment of quiet as Peters’ agitation slowly ebbed away, and Uzbek had a moment to think about what was happening. Being a biomechanical engineer, he was more familiar with the Imp than most laymen, and being specifically a prosthetics engineer, he had access to much more tools and information about the device than even most people in his field. What would it take to actually get Peters' device removed? As soon as he asked, he knew. He saw the robotic device, a system of arms and micro-actuators that would delicately remove every one of the tens of thousands of silver-yttrium monofilaments planted throughout the man's brain. Some reached as deep as the Medulla Oblongata to tap into sensory signals, and dozens more tapped into the amygdala to facilitate memory implantation and recovery. Uzbek himself had an especially high density of these connections, which enabled him to download whole reports, rather than the more average amount of connections that Peters used to get single images at a time. Extracting these connections was a delicate and crucial procedure that could take days to plan. Depending on how old Peters was when he had them implanted, it could also take several rounds of surgery to remove all of them. Then recovery, learning to live in this world without the Imp interface. But there was no such recovery. It was considered a severe disability, to be unable to interact with systems for the rest of ones’ life after Imp removal. Most systems did not have elevator buttons. Perhaps Peters would be forced to leave the Fifth Star, start a new life in a less developed world that did not expect Imp interfacing…

Doctor Pastruma arrived.

"Hello there, Peters." He said, offering a handshake. The man had impeccable bedside manners to start with vocal channels, and he already knew that Peters was averse to Imp messaging, "I’m Doctor Pastruma. I understand that you are having an issue with your cranial implant?"

"Yes! It terrible! Did you read the report on it? I could barely talk to your nurse! Even now, I can't- I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, you know. How long will it take? Can we get the extraction done today? Tomorrow?"

Pastruma gave an uneasy smile, "Well. Before we talk about that, I've got good news and bad news. Normally, I would send you the report, and you would have all the many pieces of information you need to fully understand it right there at your mental fingertips, and we could avoid any kind of misunderstanding. But, in light of your condition, I can tell you audibly, even though it can lead to... miscommunication. Are you sure you don't want the Imp report? That is to say, not to your imp?"

"Absolutely not. Tell it to me straight."

"Well… I checked your packet traffic. Very preliminary, I'm sure you know there's a lot of data going up and down from your brain. But I took a quick look. And, frankly, I did not see anything unusual. Just normal traffic. Biometrics, metadata, little bits and pieces, like the packet that told you what the tablet was for that you authorized to record said packets. I must ask, did you realize it was your Imp that suggested you use your thumbprint to authorize the scan?"

At this moment, Uzbek realized something was not going well. Peters' eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"What?! It can do that?!"

"No need to be distressed, Peters. Your device understood that you were unlikely to use it for the authorization. So it identified the thumbprint as a fallback and sent you a standard Imp suggestive symbol to prompt you unobtrusively to interact with standard-"

"This thing can 'unobtrusively' control my mind!? What the hell? No wonder its dumping all this porn on my brain!"

"Not at all! It just told you which of the authorization methods was compatible with your preferences and abilities. And, since you are seeking aid, you reflexively complied-"

"That's what's happening! I got that suggestive symbol! Somehow, my Imp sent me a suggestive symbol by mistake, unconsciously causing me to constantly download this crap into my brain!"

"No, Peters, that is not how the suggestive symbol works."

"Yes! You just said it yourself! It suggesting this shit to me and forcing me to reflexively comply! That's what happened to you, Uzbek, when you had that fight with Kasha! It gave you a suggestive symbol to rape her!"

Uzbek threw up his hands, "No! That's not what I said, it was just a report." He glanced at the doctor that heard the accusation, but Pastruma was trying to calm down Peters with no success. All of his Imp messages were rejected, and he was untrained to override Peters in the audible channel. Uzbek was dizzy with confusion as Peters began shouting.

"That's what it wanted you to think! You said it! The rape fantasies, you said it, didn't you? You have them too? The porn, the rape, the murder this fucking thing dumps into my mind all day! These things-" he scrapped his fingers along his scalp over the implant, "they can tell us whatever they want! They can give us memories, they can give us suggestions! But what if it causes a loop?! Huh? What about that? What if this dammed thing 'suggested' I look at porn? It knows what I'm thinking! It knows what this thing wants! It knows it can make me ‘reflexively comply’! It gave me this subconscious suggestion and how could I stop it? I didn't even know I was being suggested! I want porn, it suggests porn. I want rape? It suggests that too! Anything I want it tells me to take. How perfect!"

"Peters, please call down, I'm sending you a report so you can truly understand what is happening, but you won't know the report until you accept it." Pastruma said.

"Like hell! I'm not taking any more shit from this thing! It's already ruined enough of my life, it's already fucked me up!" Peters was bleeding now as his fingers dug into his scalp. For a second, lucidity shown in Peters' eyes, "You called the nurse, didn't you? She's on her way right now with a shot to shut me down!"

Uzbek started, looking at the shock on Pastruma's face. Before either could react, Peters threw himself at the door, slamming it just as the nurse tried to come inside. With one hand he held the door shut, his other hand scrapping and clawing at his head, now streaming with blood.

"What's wrong doctor?!" He screamed, "your little mind control chip can't tell me to calm down? Why don't you suggest it?! Why don't you send me a 'normal' 'standard' packet to 'suggest' I calm down?! Why don't you stop sending me all of this fucked up shit?! Why doesn't it stop showing up in my brain!? It's ruining my life! I need to take it out! Right now!"

Uzbek saw it on his Imp as it happened. He already had the surgical simulation program loaded, it was just a small change to the procedure, and he saw it happen in his mind as Peters finally got what he wanted. A fingernail pierced deep enough into his own flesh, and caught the edge of the implant, peeling the biosafe glue off of his skull like a refrigerator magnet. Uzbek saw in his mind how the monofilaments were torn out of their places, still firing, now slicing through millions of neurons as they were yanked out all at once with no surgical consideration. Synapses were broken, axons severed, whole circuits displaced and flooded with hemorrhage blood. As residual signals flew down Peters' arm, it kept moving even after his brain stopped telling it to, almost finishing the extraction automatically, until the Imp was left flapping against his head as Peters' body spasmed madly on the floor, blood gushing over the invisibly thin silver-yttrium monofilaments.

The nurse screamed and dropped a sedative skin-patch as blood ran under the door and Peters' head knocked erratically against it, the doctor grabbed Uzbek and held him back as he instinctively tried to help Peters. But both men knew it was too late. Peters had removed from himself something to intimate to be removed.

----

It took minutes of exhausting Imp messaging with police officers to explain the scene; they did not understand anything until Uzbek shared the simulation of the pseudo-surgery the man had done on himself. There was even mention of composing reports for the Executive. As always, the Executive’s mention was somber, clinical, and probably not actually going to happen. But it was the closest Uzbek, or anyone he knew, can come to a real Executive contact. Peters' body jerked and twisted until one of the medical staff was able to apply a sedative to his flailing arm. The chemical reduced his spasms to dull shakes as a dozen doctors were called, regardless of their times, to determine if there was any way to fix him. The only solution, it seemed, would have been half a dozen Imps to replace the neurons he had destroyed, but long before he could be set up in a surgical machine, the hemorrhaging had destroyed his brain.

One hour later, what would have been days if they couldn’t have given immutable and accurate reports from their own Imp records, Uzbek and Pastruma were the only ones left at the scene, with just Peters' bloodstains and the tablet containing his final packet history to indicate what had happened.

Uzbek was rerunning the surgical simulation over and over, compulsively fleshing it out with details, trying to meditate through work instead of thinking about his coworker's fate. A cursory check of the knowledge ocean showed a gap here; his simulation, supplemented by a live enactment, was one of very few documented cases of non-surgical Imp removal. Perversely, he found some satisfaction that this gory detail would add to the ocean. In fact, it may be the most valuable data he would ever add. Meanwhile, Pastruma was scrolling through the tablet, glancing at glyphs on the screen so his own Imp could tell him the full contents of the packet directly. He went through several hundred in a few minutes, until he had finally seen enough. He used his doctor's credentials to gain deeper access to more intimate information from Peters' implant, and analyzed that too.

Finally, when it was Uzbek-19:30, Pastruma spoke aloud, forgoing the Imp, perhaps in unconscious respect for the dead.

“Such a confusing case, to be sure.” He said, “I cannot find any way to explain why he was so distraught.”

Uzbek glanced at Pastruma. He had been working without a Fold. Without the display to supplement the Imp’s messages, it was slower work and demanded more imagination, so he was slow to re-focus on reality. When he did, he realized how exhausted he was. How much he wanted to abandoned this bad day and go home.

Pastruma had plenty of energy, this being his morning. So he continued, “Neither Peters nor his Imp were malfunctioning. He had no signs of scizophrenia, nor hallucinations, nor delusions. And his Imp had no observable glitches nor malfunctions.”

“But he was clearly distressed.” Uzbek said, trying to be dismissive so he could leave.

“That is what confuses me. There is one part of a possible explanation, but it does not make any sense. My theory is that Peters was so unused to intrusive thoughts that he both could not accept their reality, but could also not believe that they were fleeting fantasies.” He continued, “It seems that his own mind was split in two. One side that had to accept the intrusive thought on its face, and was able to do so because, of course, how could it tell a dream apart from the Imp? And the other side could not accept the thoughts at all because, of course, how could the Imp present something so obscene? Did you see any of the visions that he had?”

Uzbek shook his head.

“In truth, they were none too terrible. Most no worse than old smut stories, from when most were written by hand. But he just couldn’t accept that they came from his mind. I believe that idea, that they were his own, never even crossed his mind. So, he was stuck thinking that they must come from his Imp and also that he could not accept them from his Imp.”

Uzbek spoke, almost unwillingly curious, “I do not understand. How could he be so aggravated if… if it all came from his mind?”

“Perhaps, at a time, you wonder, 'what if I jumped off this high place?’ This is perfectly natural. In a deterministic computer, this is called ‘speculative execution’, and it allows the mind a short sprint to see if the finish line is worth crossing. Then the mind realizes that jumping off the ledge will kill it and none of its goals will be fulfilled, and it returns to present and walks you away from the edge. Have you ever had such a thought? Is that what Peters referred to, with your wife?” He received an instinctive acknowledgement from Uzbek’s Imp and continued, “Our partners bring out strange and powerful thoughts some times. Just wait until you have children. All the mothers of history have been horrified to catch themselves wondering what would happen if they drowned their babies, and fathers wonder what would happen if they left their families behind. And in many of them this causes great distress. But in those old times, the thoughts could only come from the mind, so these victims had to confront the true source of their evil daydream. Either they thought themselves evil for having it, and sometimes used this to justify their evil, to bolster an evil and guiltless identity. Or they saw it as a weakness, a personal failing that they needed to overcome. After all, a good mother would never imagine drowning her baby.”

Doctor Pastruma continued before Uzbek could repeat his question or leave, “But Peters, perhaps as uniquely as one can be among a trillion people, did not know this had happened to him. Perhaps he truly did have a porn addition before, and I know that problem has exploded to pandemic proportions among young men with Imps, and perhaps that fueled his condition. But regardless, at some point, he began to suffer from such intrusive thoughts. Crucially, however, he assigned them to the Imp. Because he had this other agent with access to his mind, he was never forced to realize that he was the source, and therefore never had a way to plug that source.

“That is why he deteriorated so violently. He lost himself, fighting a demon that was not his enemy.”

They both looked at the crimson residue that fight had left behind. With a thought to his Imp, the doctor summoned a cleaner to remove that residue.

Much Ajar for Nothing

Morning spread though the Vert, designation Clairetown (294-A-800820), starting at 7:00 ± minutes(rand(0,15)). In Clairetown, this occurred on a 24 hour cycle, a quaint holdover that was excused by the Executive (Justification Code: Old Blood).

Gradually, the superstructure migrated from night behavior to day behavior, one module state at a time. Starting in the east and creeping west, lighting brightened up to average 30k lumen, then transitioned to 7000K light temperature. Life support systems raised air temperature and acceptable noise levels. Street scrubbers scurried back to their charging pads as deliverers took the air, carefully avoiding drop-lines that hung from the ceiling, two thousand feet above. And humans went through their own boot-up sequences, with varying degrees of success.

Trojeus was not one of them. Increasing levels of light and sound stimulation did not rouse him until, falling back to extreme measures, he was startled awake by small pulse from his neural implant, his Imp.

“What the hell?!” He spat as he sat bolt-upright. And along the same micro-filaments that sent the wake-up call, he got the next packet, “7:41?!”

Trojeus rolled out of bed and dressed in a flurry, fed information about his day through his Imp, even if his attention was dominated by the fear of being late to work again. It did not matter if he consciously encoded this information, but it was his preference to almost hear it. As easily as he could remember his multiplication tables, he could also know the traffic on the way to work, the exact same traffic the Vert saw on every other working day, and the same traffic that always took 22 minutes to traverse, with a standard deviation of 3 minutes. Damn, he would never make that. His Imp was already informing him of more expedient options, until he finally interfaced with it directly, as he grabbed a breakfast roll.

“Equite, can I get to work before 8?” Trojeus thought to it.

“There is a slim chance you will be able to. But do not be so stressed, you are unlikely to-“ Equite the Imp started.

“I’m trying to make good with the boss! I can’t be late again!” he shot back.

“Then your best chance is to leave immediately. Would you like me to summon a private deliverer? [This] is the cost estimate. Also, do not forget-“

“Yeah, call it, bring it now. And also add more breakfast rolls to my next delivery day.”

“Of course. I have ordered the flavor you like. Now, do not forget-“ it started.

“Has Katsuta checked my desk yet? Is he going to?” He asked as he almost put his jacket on backwards.

“I cannot disclose that. Do not-“

“Has any motion been detected at or near my workstation? Has the motion sensor in the haptic screwdriver connected to my account been tripped? No, wait, tell me the maximum accel reading it’s experienced since midnight, and tell me if this corresponds to nearby footsteps.” He asked. Because he was not a Young Person, it was odd to ‘talk’ to the implant with a roll hanging out of his mouth. He wasn’t vocalizing anything, but interfacing with the implant still required just enough vocal stimulation to make his lips twitch.

“Are you trying to indirectly spy on your supervisor through unconventional means?” it asked.

“No.” He lied through his skull. It was hard to lie to a machine plugged directly into his brain, but the implants had supposed imposed limits. Total Heavy Industries was probably lying about how much they nerfed their devices. In addition to the Imp, the super-corp that made his apartment building, the Vert itself and the planet it was installed in, everything in sight except the roll, but at least the god-company had the decency to pretend it did not listen to his ‘real’ thoughts.

After all, who in their right mind would put something in their head that they couldn’t lie to?

Equite seemed to think about this, and finally replied, “No signals have risen above ambient noise levels since midnight, except for one instance. [This] instance corresponds to the activation of the HVAC system upstairs from your workstation, and is normal. Do not forget to grab-“

“Good, he hasn’t been through yet. How far away is my ride? Also, start playing some kind of relaxing music I’ll like.”

Before the implant could respond, he saw the slick vehicle outside, and practically leapt into it. Finally, for a few minutes, he had a chance to relax. Equite played its generated music directly into his audio-cortex, and was smart enough to realize that he was trying to calm down from a stressful state.

So, in addition to modulating its music to suit the situation, it stopped trying to remind him about what he had forgotten.

11 minutes later, he stepped out of the ride, strode up to the Electronic Rework warehouse’s side entrance and did not grab his badge. Trojeus froze. He tried again, and again failed to grab his badge. He checked his coat pocket, his pants pocket, his lanyard and his coat again, all while the side entrance looked upon him.

“Equite!” he thought, “Where’s my damn badge?”

“You forgot it beside your bed.”

“Get a deliverer to bring it here!”

“Your employee badge is secure material. Deliverers cannot transport it.”

As Trojeus cursed himself, he gave the entrance an awkward wave, and stepped away to debate with his implant, “Then get a secure one to grab it. And why didn’t you remind me?!”

“Secure-transport-rated deliverers are not available for… about an hour. I tried when to remind you upon waking. I did not want to interrupt your music.”

“That is some BS and you know it!” He said with enough emotion that he almost actually said it. Finally, he tried to think rationally again, “What’s the fastest way to get it?”

“To return home and retrieve it by hand.”

Now he did actually speak aloud, “What kind of stone-age cave-man crap is that?! Do you expect me to drive the car myself too?”

“Please calm down. This is not a serious situation.” Equite shot back, really pouring on the contempt.

“You can be a real ass sometimes.” He said.

“I am not in your ass.” It replied.

He threw his hands up in frustration, and span back to the door. There, at the top of the jam, was the camera, centimeter-wave radar and microphone, hidden behind the tamper-proofing enclosure. The Electronic Rework warehouse was not secure enough to justify the cost, expressed as network bandwidth, to include millimeter-wave radar, X-ray or Jeegtronic detection.

“Hey, it’s me, let me in.” He said aloud. A microphone, either one embedded in the door or incidental to the environment caught his words, correlated them to his voice signature, then consulted a secure database that connected this signature with his Imp’s address. The door traced these addresses and established a private channel with him, so that they did not have to talk on public audio channels.

“No.” it said.

“You know me! I’m here every workday!” he sent back, “Equite can vouch for me.”

The door thought. Then responded, “Equite is an assistant of [this] security patch update. [Vouching behavior] is only valid for assistants of [this different] security patch update, published three days ago.”

“Dammit, Equite, get updated!” he said. The difference between interfacing with the door and with Equite was so stark, it felt like he was suddenly talking to himself.

“Updating will take… about half an hour and will disable-“

“Do it anyway.” He thought, “Door, you gotta be able to-… Door? You there?” He had the uncanny feeling that nothing was listening. And he was right. Too late, he thought about Equite again, and got back a ghostly memory, something about all non-essential neural channels being closed while the security patch was applied.

“Dammit.” He thought again.

“Well,” He said aloud, “Door, I was saying, you see me all the time, you have to let me in.”

The door paused before responding. It had received an offline packet from Equite, but still tried to contact Trojeus on more secure channels before falling back to audio. It paused further as symbolic packets had to be translated through its 6B language model to be rendered as speech.

“I cannot confirm identity with only one factor. Present second factor.”

“Uh, I kind of forgot my badge.” Any other day, he would have blamed Equite, but it felt wrong pinning something on the Imp while it was offline.

“Present second factor.” The door repeated.

“Biometrics, here’s my thumb.” He held his thumb up. The door was not equipped to read it, and ignored this gesture.

“I have confirmed biometrics through face recognition as the first factor. Present second factor.”

“Well, what do you want to know? That’s the other one, right?”

The door seemed to think about this. While it was thinking, Fleits arrived and walked right through the door. His badge was scanned through NFC and did not need to be presented. He passed through so fast that Trojeus didn’t notice him until he was gone inside.

“Hey! Fleits didn’t even show you his face! Where was his second factor?” Trojeus whined.

“Gait signature, behavioral patterning and partial facial recognition yielded high confident biometric verification of that employee’s identity. Present second factor.”

“Then ask me a damn question!” He said, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Loading.” The door said.

Pathetic, he thought, it’s such a dumb old box that it has to load. And dumber still that it would say so aloud!

Finally, the door continued, “Insufficient data for meaningful question. Unable to construct identity-authentication query.”

“I’m Trojeus!” He yelled, “I come here every single day! You gotta recognize me! I’m always late, I’m the guy that always makes jokes about ‘Haptics being Tactics’, and I always go out to the sandwich place for lunch.”

“I recognize you; first factor confirmed. Response analyzed; all information is publicly accessible, insufficient for second factor. Present second factor.”

Trojeus was so angry, he had to wrestle his coat off to stop from sweating through it.

“Dammit, what other factor do you want?!”

“Present either: Authenticating information or authenticating non-fungible object.”

As Trojeus threw his hands up again. He was going in circles at this point. But now, he saw Smiths approaching, even later than he usually was.

“Smiths! Hey, you get held up to?” He said.

“Yep, almost forgot my badge!” Smiths said, running a nervous hand over his bald scalp, “What a pain that is, you know?”

“Boy, you have no idea.” Torjeus said, sliding in right behind Smiths.

By the time the bald guy turned to ask what in the world he was doing, they were nearly though-

Smack!

The door closed itself between them so abruptly, Smiths was bounced inside and Trojeus caught a painful knock on the kneecap as the door cut him off.

“What the hell was that for?!” He barked as he clutched his leg.

“You have not presented second factor. Entry is not permitted.” The door said.

“Damn box!” He cursed. But, finally, he hobbled away. There was another door, a dumber one, he'd just barge in through there and deal with a human security feature instead.

It was locked.

“This- dammit, this door is never locked!” He growled, yanking on it in vain. He stormed away, heard a click, and turned in time to see Fleits close it behind him.

“Fleits!” He called, “Can you open that for me?”

“Oh yeah, let- Oh, it’s locked already.” Fleits replied, yanking on the handle.

“Just badge in, and I’ll trail you. Forgot my badge today.”

“Ooh, that sucks. Huh.” He pulled his badge out and tapped it against the scanner, even though it should have picked up from his pocket. He paused as he got a message through his own Imp, “Uh… it’s saying you have to step back.”

“What?!”

“I don’t know man, it doesn’t want you this close… It says you’re trying to gain unauthorized access.”

“Damn box!” Trojeus swore, “Well, just leave it open. I’ll stand over here, and just-“, He stopped as he saw Fleits shaking his head, “It’s telling you not to do that, isn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“Well screw it! It’s just a door, just ignore it!”

Fleits crossed his arms nervously, glancing between Trojeus and the door, “I don’t know man, it doesn’t like that idea.”

“It’s a damn door.”

“It’s part of security.”

“Yeah, I know. Tell you what, just take me straight to the security office, and I’ll sort this out with them. But first, let’s get me inside.”

That calmed Fleits nerves, and he finally returned to the door. Trojeus took a few steps away. Fleits yanked on the handle again, and again it failed to open.

“Don’t tell me…” Trojeus started.

“It heard the plan.” Fleits confirmed.

“Screw this, just take care of your stuff, I’m taking this up with the big door again. I’m going to give that box a piece of my mind!”

As soon as he said it, the lock clicked again. Fleits cracked the door open, Trojeus span on his heel, Fleits slipped inside, Trojeus leapt for the opening, and Fleits slammed it shut just before he could get his hand on the door.

“Traitor!” he shouted through the door.

“Sorry man, the door told me it was a security violation!” Fleits called back.

“You plotted with it! You planned this!”

“I can’t hear you!” He replied, and Trojeus could hear his voice fading into the depths of the building.

“Bastard! You damn glitchy box!” He slammed a fist into the door for emphasis, then went back to the original door, the smart one, the one he could reason with. Or at least talk to.

“What the hell was that?” He demanded.

The door did not respond.

“What would it take to let me inside?”

“Present second factor.”

“I know that! I mean, what if I cut your network access? Killed your power? Pried you open?”

“If destructive methods of intrusion are detected, this system will summon more security agents with greater agency to defend this system.”

“Human security agents?”

“No.”

“Then call a human security agent!”

The door thought about this. Or maybe it was summoning a human, or perhaps even a robot to deal with him.

Finally it responded, “No. You have demonstrated a pattern of manipulating human agents. Would you like me to summon… a secure, non-human agent?”

“No! That will be just as metal-headed as you!”

He regretted saying it as soon as he said it, but either this door was less sensitive than Equite, or better at de-issuing human abuses.

Trojeus paced in front of the door now. All the obvious avenues were exhausted, and somehow he was losing. But he’d be damned if a simple door forced him to go back home for this! In fact, even if Equite came back online now, he wouldn’t think of using it. This was a battle of man and machine now.

He saw Plethaux approaching. The other man spotted him too late, and Trojeus called out before Plethaux could turn away.

“Pleth! Hey, Pleth! You gotta help me, this thing isn’t letting me inside.”

“Troj, Fleits told me about this, just go home and get your badge.”

Trojeus was half leading, half hauling him out of the door’s sight, “Listen, as long as this works, it won’t be an issue. I need you to smuggle me inside.”

“… I don’t know man, that seems pretty-“

“Don’t worry about it. The door already thinks I’m manipulative or something, if it catches on, and that’s a big ‘if’, then it will just assume I tricked you and that you did nothing wrong.”

Plethaux looked around, concerned, or maybe looking for someone to get him out of here, but he was alone with Trojeus. The only thing that could have seen them was the door, but Torjeus had made sure they were behind a storage crate waiting for the freight door to open.

“Don’t talk to it!” Trojeus snapped, as he saw Plethaux’s lips start moving, “Come on, who do you trust, me or some dumb box?”

“Well, you’ve been kind of-“

“I’m a human, dammit! You gotta trust a human, right?”

“Well…”

“Here,” Trojeus held up his coat, “I’ll grab you, and drape this over myself, so the box will think we’re just one big dude. Trust me, these things are smart, but they can be even dumber than smart.”

Before Plethaux could protest, Trojeus did just that, hunching and hugging, with his jacket over him. Plethaux tried vainly to push him off, but Trojeus just hissed, “Move it, it won’t suspect a thing!”

Defeated, and a bit terminally curious, Plethaux lead them back to the door. Just in time, Trojeus remembered to adjust his gate, hopefully enough to keep the machine from recognizing him. As they approached, the door spoke, oddly choosing the audio channel to begin with, “Present second factor.”

Torjeus was about to give up the gambit right there, until he realized it was talking to Plethaux.

“Uh, what? I- here’s my face.” Plethaux said.

“Facial recognition confirmed. Gait recognition delta-Tau exceeds normalcy margins, biometrics rejected.”

“No, I’m walking normally. Same as I always walk.” Plethaux said.

“You are walking normally.” It said, because a 6B language model was very poor at disagreeing. But that was only the language model; the adversary engine was not fooled, “Gate recognition delta-Tau exceeds normalcy margins, biometrics rejected.” The door repeated.

“What’s that supposed to mean? This is how I always walk!” Now it sounded like Plethaux was getting as frustrated as Trojeus.

“Gait recognition rejected because you have… four legs. Standard leg number is… two. Standard deviation of… one.”

Trying to keep the coat from sliding off, Trojeus carefully executed his next maneuver. He locked his grip around Plethaux’s shoulders, shifted his weight, and slowly lifted his legs. It was a painful, awkward position, and he felt the man’s muscles straining to carry them both, but at this point they were too far gone to back out for fear or weakness.

“What about now? You must have just been seeing things. I only have two legs.” Plethaux said, his voice straining to stay normal.

The door thought, its thoughts seeming far slower than before as both men tried to stay their ground.

“Explain this anomalous behavior. Suspicion index is non-zero.”

“It was a trick of the light. Come on, I need to get back to the office.” Plethaux groaned and braced himself against the wall.

“You appear stressed. An unknown agent acting as Trojeus was trying to gain access to the building. Further verification is required to ensure you are not under duress. Stand by.” It finally said.

“I’m not under duress!” Plethaux shot back, “I just need- I just need to get into the office, or I’ll be late for a meeting.”

There was no wait this time, “You do not have an immediate meeting. Suspicion-“

“It’s with my mistress!”

This gave the door pause. Trojeus too. Was this why Plethaux kept leaving the office before lunch?

“Disclose the mistress’ identity to confirm.”

“That’s private information.”

“The mistress’ identity is private information.” The door paused, long enough for the men to realized the jig really was up this time, “Mrs. Information is not expected to meet with Supervisor Katsuta today.”

He was so shocked, he had nothing to say before the door spoke again, “Semantic and Abstract Ascension analysis has determined you are trying to carry an unknown person onto the premises. Entry denied.”

Finally, Plethaux hit his limit. He pulled Trojeus’ arms off his shoulders, “Nope! I’m out!” he cried, and scurried off to get in through another door.

“Dammit!” Trojeus hissed as he landed on his tailbone, rolling on the cement in front of the door, “Dude! We almost-“ But Plethaux was already gone.

“What is your problem!?” He shouted at the door, lacking anyone else.

“You.” It said.

He got to his feet, “At least you know who I am now. Box bastard.”

The door stared down at him, image-solving his skeleton as he slowly pushed himself up and stood, shoulders slouched, arms hanging, to stare up at it. Emotion recognition modules and behavior prediction gave aligned outputs; the unknown human was continuing to behave as expected. It was defeated. The box’s adversary engine was well optimized to recognize this state, as it was the desired state for every subject that interacted with the security system. All permitted persons were best kept in a ‘passive’ and ‘incurious’ state, so that they trusted the system and had no interest in tricking it. And unpermitted persons were best kept ‘defeated’, unwilling to even challenge the system’s control. If the machine had modules for mirror-neuron emulation, for empathy, it may understand how distraught Trojeus was as his last great trick was defeated. And defeated by both the machine’s unyielding demands and a man’s weak will. His efforts alone had failed, his efforts to find weakness had failed, and even bringing in another person, one he tried to trust, had ended with humiliation. But the box didn’t need to understand the emotional state of its adversaries, only know if such a state would lead to attempted subversion, or if they were put in their place. In the next cycle, it checked that predicted and observed emotional states were still aligned.

They were not. They had diverged. The machine was looking at an unexpected response from the unknown person. The response was an expression of surprise and realization. The door corrected its projected behaviors from the human, then adjusted its responding behaviors, and began running epochs of adjustment so that the human behavior and its own behavior would converge on an outcome that would preserve the security of the premises. But this took time, and the human was still acting, and changing its emotive state, so the door had to respond to each development.

Finally, the unknown person left the door. Object recognition tracked his bounding box projected onto its understanding of the environment. If it had a more expensive abstraction ascent module, it would have adjusted its models to account for the fact that the human did not leave in the direction it had arrived from. But, with the hardware and software it had access to, the door determined he was not approaching a known vulnerability, such as the other door, so it did not make note of this, nor pass this message up to the server that coordinated the Electronics Rework warehouse security detail.

After he was gone, the door finally arrived at a branching graph of behaviors that was very likely to converge on preserved security. It was a simple network of actions and reactions: if the human claiming to be Trojeus did not present a second factor, it would summon secure resources to extract him from the facility. It had already sent a message to Trojeus’ employee account, notifying him of attempted identity theft, and it would update him again when the threat was removed.

Some time later, motion was detected. An unknown object came into the field of view. Strictly speaking, it was not unknown; there was a 21.9% chance it was a ground deliverer, a 19.4% chance it was a cardboard box, a 14.2% chance it was a small animal, and the rest of the keyed list of object classification probabilities. But, with these probabilities being so low, and with no clear peak probability, the door was as close to confused as it could be. Then the object, with the halting, rocking motion of a broken robot, rotated itself and faced the door. The door sent a series of communications to the box over near-field radios, as it did not see any universal fiducials or QR codes to communicate its network address, yet the box did not respond. The door attempted to contact the box on near-field audio channels, but this action was blocked by its own security overseer module, as it would risk broadcasting secure information over a public channel.

“Identify yourself.” It finally said, falling back to speech channels.

For some time, the two regarded each other, apparently in a stalemate, with the door considering the box, and the box sitting in front of the door. With its limited abstraction ascent module, the door tried to solve out this odd circumstance. This box was likely a deliverer, based on its shape and motion. And it was likely damaged, which may be why it moved and looked so odd. So, the door down-selected two descriptions of what was happening; this deliverer was here to be repaired, or had arrived in error, after the damage it sustained caused malfunction. In either case, there was no security-

The door opened as someone left the building, and Trojeus leapt out from under the box so fast that they nearly toppled over to get out of his way. For the milliseconds between recognizing Trojeus and his entry beyond the portal, the door was blocked by this other person, and the door could not safely slam him out again.

“Gotcha! Take that you damn machine! Can’t even tell what a box is? This is one small step for-“

“Torjeus? What the hell are you doing?! You were supposed to be at your desk half an hour ago!”

Torjeus looked up into the red, sweaty face of Supervisor Katsuta.

“I-“

“Intruder detected!” The box blared, repeating the signal across audio and radio channels, “There is an unidentified human inside the facility!”

With a glance and a thought, Supervisor Katsuta shut the box up, though Torjeus suspected that, at this point, even his boss’ override wouldn’t convince the box he was supposed to be here. And maybe he shouldn’t be, given how the big man was glaring at him.

“And what the hell did you do to Plethaux? The man was ranting about you turning him into some kind of- some kind of- some kind of sock puppet! And this!” He kicked the box out of the doorway, “Are you some kid crawling into work? You got some dolls? You going to show up with a unicycle tomorrow?! What do you have to say for yourself?!”

Trojeus felt like his stomach was still in the box. Now would be a great time for the door to slam in his face.

“I- uh, I- I forgot… I forgot my badge at home…” He managed.

“And you figured it waws better to pen-test our security system than go back home and get it?”

“Yeah! I just figured-“

“That’s not your job! Your job is to be at that desk at 8:00, fixing whatever I tell you to fix! Not to break our expensive security systems like some kind of cybersecurity cowboy! Now you better run home, get your damn badge, and just hope it’s still attached to a current employee when you get back here!” Katsuta practically shoved Torjeus back out of the door, leaving the employee glancing between him and the sensor cluster, now staring passively, smugly down at him.

“But if I leave now…” He glanced up at that damn box one more time, “I’ll miss my appointment with Private Information.”

Slowly, Katsuta’s deadly glare shifted from him to the sensor cluster over the door jam, “What the hell do you not understand about ‘Private Information’?!” He shot daggers at Trojeus, “Get the hell out of here. And no one hears a word about this, you understand?”

“So, I’m not fired?”

“Get back here in 20 minutes or you might be!” Katsuta spat, and slammed the door.

Through the barrier, Trojeus still heard the man berating the machine, “If this happens one more time I’m gonna sell you for scrap!”