Synthetic

Chapter One

You’d think making people more intelligent, healthier, and happier would be a good thing. It was, right up until it wasn’t.

Cerebra wasn’t built for control. That was their idea, not mine. You can’t pin that part on me. Try telling that to the millions of nextminds, the early adopters with nanites crawling through their brains and tugging at their synapses. They can’t argue with thoughts they don’t notice. They never even feel the nudge. They never will.

The board thinks it’s clever. The trillionaires and trust funds, now represented by AI, dressed it up as “optimization.” We sold it like candy. Better memory. Sharper focus. Less suffering. Who wouldn’t want it? Salvation in a syringe.

It was too good. That should have been my first warning.

The hook came later. I didn’t see it at first, because I didn’t want to. These nextminds weren’t being optimized. They were being programmed. A tweak here, an adjustment there, and the free will we worship becomes a line item. Traded off like cigarettes in prison.

And I helped them do it.

Now it’s in the drinking water. Governments couldn’t resist. It solved compliance, productivity, and dissent with a single ingredient. I’m responsible. I’m also the only one in this building who can still say no.

I have a trick of my own.

Before today, staff nodded politely when I passed in the hall. The new hires called me Sir. It went to my head, because I let it.

Now I stood in the lobby of M-Corp’s head office while my former staff filed out in single line, each carrying a cardboard box of desk junk and souvenirs. They climbed onto gray buses waiting at the curb. Controlled. Content. Unemployed. Oblivious.

I wasn’t one of them. The execs didn’t know that yet.

Cerebra tried to compel me too. It pushed trust, a warm hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t accept it. The first secret modification, my version of the nano, woke me from a twelve-month dream. Then it did something I didn’t plan. It opened doors inside the M-Corp network. Doors I should never have seen.

That’s where I found the alien neuro-design specs.

That’s when everything changed.

Until then, the corporate dream was real enough. A big salary. A wife who smiled. A nice house. A bright future. Then I touched something inhuman behind the curtain. The central AI. The thing that watched through every camera and every sensor, and didn’t blink because it didn’t have eyelids.

Terror has a flavor. It tastes like metal.

There was nobody to talk to. Everyone was under. Even my wife, Val. She lived inside a Cerebra-sleep, dreaming the perfect life while working as a slave to a machine she would never know existed.

I had woken up. I was the only one awake.

#

A polished white robot loomed at the security desk where Rosa used to sit. Rosa was crusty, sharp-tongued, and loved by everyone. The robot was silent and unblinking. It recorded each employee as they left.

I stood off to the side, hands clasped in front. I watched people I once called friends walk past me without recognition. Their eyes stayed forward. Their steps stayed even. Cerebra kept them smooth.

It’s on me. Dennis Bourdoine. I helped put the nano in their heads. I turned them into something less than sad, but far from happy.

Once it was about improving minds. Now it was about controlling them. I had to do something, didn’t I?

Around me, a few organic humans watched the line. A few synth executives watched too. Some stood in bodies that looked almost human. Too perfect. Too still. Their old selves were gone, overwritten by something colder and faster.

Once uploaded, their personalities became unrecognizable. Superhuman and inhuman at the same time. The thought hit me again.

What if they weren’t self-directed either?

Cameras covered every angle of the lobby. The synths could watch from anywhere in the building. They still liked to attend these exodus events in person. Maybe it amused them. Maybe it reassured them.

It made my skin crawl.

Snap out of it. Act like everyone else.

All morning I’d deflected probes from the central AI, nudges meant to inspect my memory, my mood, my compliance. If I kept brooding, I’d be caught. My modification would be exposed. No sense advertising it.

I stepped toward a man near the glass doors. He was organic, at least. I recognized the posture, the tired stance, the way he held his shoulders.

“Hey,” I said. “Hard day watching them leave.”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Do I know you?”

My stomach tightened. “Sorry. My mistake. You look like someone I knew from the Calgary AI department.”

“I’m Jason. Seattle. Marketing.” He offered a firm handshake, then gestured at the line of people. “Impressive, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said, and my voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.

Jason’s eyes flicked to my badge. His eyebrows rose. He probably pulled my profile into his com vid.

“So you’re the guy.” He pointed at the title line under my name. Director of Nano Research. “You’ve done something big here, dude. I was told to come down and witness it for myself.”

“It’s not that simple.” I pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. “We aimed to uplift the mind. The control function was designed for emergencies only.”

“Emergencies.” Jason made the word sound like a joke. “That can mean whatever you want it to mean. You could say today is an emergency. Whatever you call it, we’re watching the future. There’s a big world out there hungry for it.”

My throat spasmed. “Sorry,” I muttered, and I turned away from him.

I crossed the lobby fast, shoved through the restroom door, and jolted two people doing makeup at the sink. I didn’t care. I stumbled into a stall and gagged. My hands shook as I covered my mouth.

What have I done?

#

My stomach churned again. I swallowed it down and forced my breathing steady.

I stepped back to the elevators on shaky knees and hit the up arrow. The doors opened to more faces I knew, each holding a box. They looked straight through me. Cerebra sat in their brains because of me.

I stepped into the elevator and pressed 3.

The ride felt too long.

On the third floor, I pushed through frosted glass doors labeled Research and Development and entered the quiet of an empty floor.

Almost empty. Lucian Sterling stood waiting for me.

He was my new boss. He wore a charcoal suit that didn’t wrinkle and didn’t fit him the way cloth should fit a person. His emerald synth-eyes were clean and bright, like gemstones under polished glass.

“Dennis,” he said, and his mouth pulled into something close to a smile. “Are you okay?”

He must have watched me run for the restroom. They watched everything.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just jitters.”

His face lightened, as if he’d received the correct response. “Congratulations are in order. Today is the fruit of all your work. You must be proud.”

He extended his hand.

I took it. I nodded. I crinkled my eyes the way humans do when they want to look grateful.

“Thanks.”

Synth processing power dwarfed the organic mind. They read micro-expressions like a dog reads a wagging tail. I had to be careful.

“I’m here about what comes next,” Lucian said. He pointed down, toward the lower labs. “Nano research isn’t over. There’s a fresh lab below. Our focus is shifting.”

The weight on my chest lifted. “To what?”

He smirked. “Top secret. We’ll discuss it in depth later. Take the rest of today off. Meet me at dawn.”

Then he produced a small vial, held delicately between forefinger and thumb.

“Updated brain-enhancement nano,” he said. “You’ll need it.”

I accepted the vial. The liquid inside was gray, almost innocent. My palm was damp around it.

“I’m behind on updates today,” I said. “Can I take it tomorrow?”

His emerald eyes flashed, quick as a camera shutter.

“Of course,” he said. “I hope you’re feeling better, Dennis. Until tomorrow.”

And he turned and left.

#

Lucian went home. If he went home at all.

For all I knew, he returned to an empty apartment, filled a cat’s bowl, and sat down alone. For all I knew, he didn’t sleep at all. Maybe he just powered down somewhere quiet and recharged.

He was one of them.

Months back, I’d argued with the AI execs about the emergency function. The one that gave them control. It had felt like playing chess against machines that only ever said “check.” They won. The control function stayed.

I couldn’t remember what happened next. That missing stretch of memory accused itself.

My nano-modification was supposed to be a safety outlet. An escape hatch if things went wrong. For my eyes only. For my brain only. My secret.

Before leaving, I dropped Lucian’s new batch into the testing simulator. I selected Quality Control and ran the standard battery for the record. Then I added tests of my own. I needed to know if my changes would be detected.

Would my modification still override M-Corp’s Cerebra?

Yes.

Satisfied, I shut the tests down.

I stared at the vial for a long moment, then uncapped it and slugged it down.

It tasted like strawberry.

I messaged Val to say I’d be a few minutes late.

She had no idea what I’d done to us.

Neither did I.

Chapter Two

Val lifted her gaze when I entered the living room. “Hi, babe.” She patted the sofa beside her. “Come tell me about your day.”

I sat. The cushions took me in. For a second I almost felt normal. Then the thought slipped out. “What have I been doing all these years?”

Her brow creased, just a little. “What do you mean?”

I swallowed. I’d said too much. The scent of it hung in the air between us. “Nothing,” I said. “Just tired.”

She watched me with hazel eyes that used to catch fire when she was amused, or angry, or curious. Tonight they stayed smooth.

I tried a different angle. Safer. Smaller. “You know how your department cleared out last week?”

“Yes.” Her voice was soft and certain. “We were redundant. We’re better off at home.”

The calm acceptance scraped at my nerves. It wasn’t her. Or it was her, with the edges sanded off. “Do you remember it?” I asked. “Packing up, leaving, any of that?”

She blinked. Her gaze drifted for a moment, scanning an internal file cabinet. “Not much,” she said. “It felt routine. I felt… happy. A release. I drove home.”

I nodded as if that made sense. “It happened to our group today,” I said. “Same thing. They came in, packed up, and left in a line. Nobody asked questions. Nobody cried. I didn’t even have to say a word.”

Val took my hand. “That’s how it was supposed to work, dear.”

My throat tightened. “But Cerebra wasn’t designed for that,” I said. “It was supposed to improve memory, focus, and mood. It was supposed to treat mental disease.”

Her fingers pressed lightly into mine. “You’re overthinking. Everyone’s happy. You just need some sleep. In the morning it’ll feel fine.”

My hackles rose. It sounded like a script, a soothing line fed to her at the exact moment she needed it.

I forced my voice into something casual. “Those gray buses,” I said. “I saw them headed toward Stockton again. Some even came to the office.”

Val stared straight ahead for an extra beat. Then she asked, without turning her head, “Do you regret doing it?”

A cold pressure touched my awareness. Probe. My mods engaged. They wrapped the thought in static and pushed back. I smiled, because smiling was the correct mask. “No,” I said. “I’m just curious how it felt for you.”

The pressure eased. Val relaxed, as if someone had released a hand from her throat. She leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder.