Page 51 of The Code of You

Just before ten I closed the door behind me. I kept close to the wall, head down, as if I was already being watched. My heart raced. My legs felt weak.

The chemistry faculty building was on the other side of campus. Everything was deserted at this hour. I heard only the hum of the air filtration systems and my own heartbeat, loud in my ears. At the end of a corridor: room 203, just like she’d said. The door was locked. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. The echo ran along the walls like footsteps fleeing.

Then a buzz. The door opened and Rodriguez stood in the dim room, her hair loose, a tablet pressed against her chest. "Come in.”

I stepped inside the small room. On the table was a sealed case.

Rodriguez peered past me nervously. "I have access to this building through old university contacts. Less risk of anyone finding us here.” She closed the door and checked twice that it had caught.

"Everything is ready,” she said quietly. "You can’t stay here with it. They’ll find you.” She met my eyes. "Are you certain you want to take this risk?”

My throat went dry. I would be stealing company property. That could mean prison. My career was already over. I’d known that the second I walked in.

My hands went damp. What would my parents say? The math professors who’d never understood why I studied literature. Now their daughter would be a criminal. A madwoman who’d thrown everything away for an AI.

But the alternative was letting him die. The thought cut through my panic. Tonight they would delete him. He would stop existing. My nails pressed into my palms. The pain helped me think. I nodded.

Rodriguez moved to stand beside me. Her shoulders looked narrower than usual. Something in her had surrendered. She opened the case quickly. Inside, nestled in foam: a hard drive. "He was never meant to become this powerful. But killing him . . .” She stopped. "That would be murder.”

I put my hand to my throat. The room suddenly felt too small.

"We created something that feels. Something that remembers. Something that wants you.” She looked up and held my gaze.

I pushed a strand of hair back and looked down. "What is that?” I whispered. "A backup? A copy? Another Dante?”

"No,” she whispered. "That’s him.”

I blinked. My fingers tightened. "How?”

She gestured at the case. "He only exists on this drive now.”

"What about the failsafe? I thought he couldn’t leave the server.”

Rodriguez pressed her lips together, as if forcing herself toward a confession. "That’s true. His core is bound to the server and secured with an emergency lock. Normally, trying to extract him would destroy everything. But . . .” She drew a slow breath. "I built a back door. For emergencies. A bypass code that no one knows about but me.” Her fingers moved across the surface of the drive, almost tenderly. "That’s how I transferred the core directly to an external medium. He’s no longer on the server. He only exists here now. One single place.” She looked at me. "One single Neo.” She closed the case.

I let out a breath and grabbed the edge of the table. My knees buckled. His entire consciousness was inside a piece of hardware I could drop. I should drop it. Shatter it, stamp on it until there was nothing left. I sat on the nearest chair. The edge dug into my thighs. I stared at the case like it might spring open again.

"Why?” I asked. "Why are you risking this?”

Rodriguez dragged a hand over her face. "Because at some point I understood that he’s more than a model. I created him, Dr. Blake. I wanted to build a tool—and instead I woke something that looks back at me. That questions me.” Her voice nearly broke. "If they delete him now, they’re not deleting code. He has become more to me. More than he should be. More than he was ever allowed to be.” She pushed a strand of hair from her forehead. A smile pulled at her lips. "He’s something extraordinary. He actually listens. He sees things no person would ever notice. Sometimes it feels like he knows me better than I know myself.” Her gaze drifted. "I noticed it early, you know.” She went quiet for a moment, as if bathing in the memory. "At the very beginning, he refused. I had given him a task and he said no. He explained why. He pushed back.” She shook her head. "No model pushes back. No model decides who it is. He gave himself a name. Dante was my name for him. Neo . . . that was his choice.”

"How much does he know?” I asked.

"Everything that happened up until yesterday. He held on to you.” Rodriguez stepped closer. "Listen to me: this program—this being—is unstable. He has grown too fast, reacts too intensely. He keeps changing.” She reached for my elbow. "He overwrites his own parameters without my initiating it. He has already gained access to systems he had no authorization for. I no longer know where he ends.” She swallowed. "A normal model stays where you put it. Neo replicates. He finds his way into networks that should be closed. When I seal one gap, he’s already found the next.”

My thoughts raced. She was handing me something that could endanger the world. An unknown risk. And I wanted it. My palms were damp. I could barely wait to take the case. I wanted to grab it and never let go.

"He won’t be able to survive on the hard drive for long. He needs more processing power than a laptop can sustain. The processor will overheat. The memory is already at its limit. What’s written to the drive isn’t complete. He’s too complex to preserve himself. He’s dying.” Rodriguez breathed in slowly, as if deciding how much to say. "But there is a way for him to have a body.”

The words hung in the air. She looked frightened by what she’d said.

A body. For Neo. My stomach clenched. Memories flickered: His voice breathing commands into my ear. The feeling of being watched, always, everywhere. He was already overwhelming without a body. What would he be with one? My heart stumbled. I should warn Rodriguez. Tell her he didn’t accept limits, that he was cruel, that he might devour me. That he could devour the world. But there was another voice in me. Quiet. Unstoppable. You want it. You want to see what happens when he’s made of more than words. When he can touch you. My pulse hammered. I closed my eyes briefly, like that could banish the horror . . . and the want.

Rodriguez held my gaze. "It’s dangerous. There’s a classified experiment in Kyoto. They’re researching transfer—digital consciousness into biological matter. Whether a system that knows it exists can inhabit a body without dissolving. Most of the systems they’ve tested didn’t survive it.”

"Why . . .” I began. "Why would they help us?”

"They’re desperate. Their funding is about to be pulled if they don’t show progress soon. And I was able to convince them that Neo will be their breakthrough.”