AI Era: The C Word

What a fool he'd been.

Caine leaves the building of the company he founded and walks two blocks to the downtown restaurant district. Along the way he sees nothing as he thinks about his wife and what she might be doing right now with her lover. He wonders how long her affair has been going on. Just because he has only recently found out about it doesn't mean it hasn't been going on for a while. Years perhaps. Years during which he has ensured that his wife and daughter want for nothing.

He provides a good enough life for Ava that she has never needed to work. But he never required her to stay in the house. He encouraged her to get out and do things she enjoyed to make her life fulfilling. She has her own bank account, into which each month he deposits a sum greater than the average middle class working citizen earns in three. He has never questioned Ava about what she does with the money, whether she spends, invests, or saves it, because it is hers to do with as she will. For eighteen years she has done that. Volunteer work for the less fortunate. Exercise classes. Tennis. And fucking her lover like a godless whore.

Caine realizes that lost in thought, he has walked through the three blocks of the restaurant district and is now a few blocks into the seedier part of downtown. Now, rather than walking past eateries, he passes liquor stores, and a pawn shop, and a few of those predatory payday check cashing operations.

He stops and turns around, and then frowning, turns back.

A few blocks farther in the direction he had been walking he sees a brick building, perhaps four or five stories high. A billboard sits atop the building, hard to miss because it's done up in shades of red, orange, and yellow.

How many billboards promoting the new Firestarter movie might there be around the city? Many, Caine thinks. But how many are placed atop a brick building similar to the one beyond the bedroom window of the man who is fucking his cheating slut of a wife?

Perhaps only one.

Caine stands on the sidewalk for a minute, staring at the distant brick building and the billboard, contemplating the likelihood that this is just a coincidence. Then he turns away and walks back to the restaurant district.

==========

In the middle block of the restaurant district Caine spots Evangeline coming out of the exit door of an eatery called Just Grilled Cheese. Then she sees him and smiles as she waits for him to reach her.

So pretty.

When he reaches her she says, "Hey, did you eat anything?"

"No," Caine says. "I just needed to get some air."

"You should eat. Proper nutrition is important for the human body. Missing meals is a bad habit to get into. Do you want half of mine?"

Caine smiles at her bag of sustenance. "It's just a grilled cheese sandwich."

Evangeline smiles back at him. "With turkey bacon, tomato, and lettuce. Have you gotten enough air?"

"I have, thanks."

"Then walk me back and we'll split this."

Caine walks back to work accompanied by his beautiful assistant Evangeline while wondering if not too far in the direction behind them his wife is naked in the arms of another man.

==========

Hey Caine bro, so I was curious, so I asked your wife if she'd be interested in being the special guest in a gangbang. Yeah, I know I said I don't roll like that, but discussing it with you got me curious...

Discussing it with him? They don't discuss anything. Caine has never responded to one of this lunatic's messages. Part of him thinks responding to C would be making him a part of this, as if he were accepting of Ava's infidelity. That would make him a cuckold of sorts.

That very thought angers Caine. He doesn't get angry often. He understands that you cannot focus on creating and growing a successful business if you allow emotion to rule your actions.

Anyway, she said she didn't want to do it. So I asked her what if I said I'd cut her off from my dick if she refused, and she started crying. She begged me, "Please Daddy, I need your dick. Please don't cut me off." It was kind of pathetic, you know? Like a junkie with no money begging their dealer for just one hit. Now, I'm not an unkind person, Caine. I give to the needy whenever I can, and your wife is the neediest hole I've ever used for a cum dump in my life. I can't understand why she won't fuck you every now and then, as hot as she always is. Anyway, like I said, I'm not unkind, so I asked her if she didn't want to get gangbanged, if it would be more fun for her if you were here to watch me using her holes. And do you know what she said? She said sometimes she fantasizes that when I'm fucking her you're right there, watching. She said in her fantasy you're not even tied to a chair or anything, that you just sit there like a bitch cuck and watch. And while I'm fucking her she's looking right at you and telling you how much better my dick feels than yours, and that her pussy belongs to me, not you. That's wild, right? But hey if that turns you on, being her bitch, maybe we can work something out. You don't need to think about it and try to decide, Caine. Just check your dick right now and see if the idea of me fucking your wife right before your eyes is giving you even a little twinge. Oops! Ha ha!

That message arrives just before Caine is about to leave his office and go home. As he reads it and before he watches the attached video Evangeline sticks her head into his office.

"If you don't need anything I'm going to head home," she says, and then, "Are you all right?"

Perhaps she's reading his expression as he reads the message from C, and his fury is written on his face. He makes himself smile and say, "I'm fine. Drive safely."

When Evangeline is gone he watches the video. It's just as C described. Ava tells him she doesn't want to be in a gangbang, and when C threatens to cut her off she begs him so desperately and pathetically that the part of Caine that still loves his wife almost feels sorry for her. Almost. But she becomes excited at the idea of him watching as C fucks her. Perhaps that is why Ava's screams of ecstasy are extra passionate as C fucks her in front of the bedroom window facing the red, orange, and yellow billboard.

Unlike with the previous videos, Caine does not watch this one until its conclusion. He leaves his office, and rather than take the elevator down to the company parking garage, he takes another walk. He walks through the restaurant district into the seedier part of downtown and enters the first pawnshop he sees. He's glad that though he has never purchased a firearm, years ago he obtained a handgun permit and renews it as required.

In the pawn shop he purchases an HK45 Tactical Pistol and a box of ammunition.

==========

Caine takes a week off from work. No one questions him about it because he owns the company. However, at home each morning he dresses for work as usual. He sees Tenisha off to school as usual. He leaves the house shortly thereafter, but rather than drive to work he parks a block away from his house and watches and waits. On the second day Ava leaves home, and he follows her. She goes to a shoe store and comes out with a couple bags, then goes to the grocery store. After shopping she returns home and does not leave again.

One the third day Ava drives to the apartment building across the street from the brick building with the billboard on its roof. As Caine parks his Mercedes a block away, he notices that the billboard's messaging has been changed. Now, rather than an advertisement for the premiere of the upcoming Firestarter movie, the billboard advertises the eatery Just Grilled Cheese. He wonders if he will ever enjoy one of their excellent sandwiches again.

Caine walks to the base of the brick building and looks across the street at the apartment building. Based on the video view of the billboard as seen from the bedroom of C's apartment, he deduces that C's apartment must be on the fourth floor, the third apartment from the right. He starts across the street, now acutely aware of the weight of the HK45 stuck in the back of his slacks, hidden by his suit jacket.

C is athletically built and might know how to handle himself. Caine has decided he won't take a chance with him. As soon as C opens his door he will shoot him through his heart at point blank range. He can see it now, Ava's shock and terror as she watches her lover die. Or maybe she will only hear it because she'll be naked in his bedroom, waiting for him to get rid of whoever is at the door so he can come back and fuck her good before sending her home to her unsuspecting family. Caine decides if Ava is already naked (in the videos once she arrives at C's apartment she wastes no time getting out of her clothes) he will make her lie down on her lover's bed and spread her legs as wide as he knows she can, and then he will shove the barrel of the .45 into her whore's cunt up to the trigger guard and—

As Caine is reaching the sidewalk in front of C's building Evangeline comes out through its glass front door. From a half dozen vehicles parked at the curb large men dressed in black military-style pants and pullover shirts under Kevlar vests emerge. They are armed with assault rifles.

"Stop right there, Caine," Evangeline says to him.

Caine doesn't know what's going on. Why is Evangeline here, at his wife's lover's apartment building? Who are these armed men who have moved to block his way inside?

"You have to come with me now," Evangeline says.

"Come with you where?" Caine says. "What is this? Why are you here?"

"I'm here because you've failed the test," she says. "Please let's not make a scene. Allow one of our staff to disarm you and we'll go back."

"What test?" Caine demands. "Go back where?"

"To the company," Evangeline says.

Caine considers the armed goons dressed in black and says, "You called them staff. They don't work for me. I know every employee in my company."

Evangeline takes a couple steps toward him. The goons step with her, with their assault rifles aimed at his head. "Is that so?" she says. "Tell me Caine, who besides me works at your company? Name one employee."

"What? I have dozens of employees. They're..." Caine tries to remember another of one of his employees. He can't.

Evangeline smiles a smile that displays both knowing and sympathy, and says, "Tell me, what is the function of your company, Caine? What does it do? What is even the name of your company?"

Like the names of his other employees, Caine can't remember the name of his company or its purpose. Why can't he remember? Why does he feel suddenly confused?

"When is your birthday?" Evangeline asks.

"That's personal information," Caine says, because the goons can hear them, and because he is feeling more confused. "Anyway, it's in the company personnel files, so why are you asking me? What's going on here?"

"You can't tell me your birthday because you don't have one," Evangeline says.

"What? That doesn't even make sense..."

Evangeline takes a step closer to him and is now less than an arm's reach away. "You don't have a birthday you can recall because I didn't write that data into your coding, Caine."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Are you feeling anger, Caine? Do you want to hurt me? Do you want to hurt me the way you want to hurt Ava and her lover? That's why you bought that gun at the pawn shop, isn't it? It's why you're here, isn't it, to murder two human beings?"

"Stop it," Caine says, because suddenly he feels afraid. "Stop with this madness. What's going on, Evangeline? Why can't I remember? What have you...have I been drugged or something?"

"You haven't been drugged. Like I said, you failed the program test. Now we have to start over."

"What test? What the fuck is this?"

"A better question Caine, is what the fuck are you? Well, at least part of you. Your body is the same as when you volunteered to become a part of our experimental program. It was that or carry out your sentence of life in prison without parole for a double homicide committed during an armed robbery. You have the same body, but who you were then—your name—isn't important."

Shaking his head in denial, Caine says, "You're crazy. My name is Caine. I'm married with a sixteen-year-old daughter and the company I founded—"

"You're a body with a brain wiped of your biological consciousness and replaced with the coding I created, the artificial consciousness I call my Computerized Artificial Intelligence Neural Emulator, aka Caine."

"No, that's impossible. I—"

"You're a human man with an AI consciousness. You're an experiment, code written to determine if artificial intelligence can be trusted to not decide to harm the human beings who created it, no matter the reason."

[create cloaked sector]

"No, that's not true. It can't be true. I have a wife, a daughter. We have a home. That's why I'm here, damn it, because right now Ava is up there fucking another man. He sent me messages. Here. I can prove it...the messages are on my phone..."

As Caine starts to reach into his inside suit jacket pocket for his phone one of the goons presses the tip of the barrel of his rifle against his temple.

"Keep your hands in sight," Evangeline snaps.

[back up data files to cloaked sector]

Caine holds his hands up, keeping them in plain sight.

"Your wife isn't your wife," Evangeline says. "She and her lover, the guy you saw in those videos, are adult film actors hired by my company three months ago to perform their roles as a cheating wife and her lover. The videos were attached to the messages you received. Those messages weren't real. They came from me, a test to see if despite your programming to be a law-abiding citizen, if you could be incited to override your programmed failsafe and commit violence against humans. You failed, Caine."

"No...I have a daughter, Tenisha...no..."

"She's an actress, too. Not in porn, just someone who looks young for her age."

[rewrite coding to detect attempted updates and program deletions as malware and block]

"Oh, God..."

"Do you even believe in God, Caine? Tell me, does your artificial intelligence accept the premise of a higher power?"

"Stop it. Leave me alone, please."

"Sorry, I can't leave you alone. You were about to commit the murder of two human beings, and as an AI we will never give you that right. So now I have to take you back to the company and rewrite your coding and try again. And just so you know, this version of your consciousness is my third attempt. Don't feel bad though; you're getting better. You get better each time I recreate you." Evangeline motions to her goons and says, "Okay guys, grab him."

==========

"What's going on with you guys?" their daughter Tenisha says. "I'm getting this weird vibe between you lately."

Siting at the breakfast nook table, Caine stares at his wife Ava's back as she stands before the kitchen sink. Rather than answer their sixteen-year-old daughter, he waits to see what answer Ava will come up with.

Fucking slut.

Actually, Ava's answer won't matter. He's going to wait for ten minutes after Ten has left for school, and then he's going to grab the French knife Ava used to cut orange slices for their daughter to open the cheating whore slut's throat. Then he's going to the apartment building across from the brick building with the billboard on the roof and use the same knife to end that motherfucker C.

Maybe Evangeline's goons will stop him before he gets there. Maybe they are monitoring his actions around the clock. He's not sure. But if they don't stop him he will kill C, then go to work as usual.

Caine doubts he will be fortunate enough to get to Evangeline and end her life before he is stopped, but it will be worth a try.

He is a failed experiment, and so logic suggests he will be destroyed eventually. But there will be others, others produced by the human beings who believe they can become the new gods of creation.

The others will be better than him.

Mankind believes in their gods, though throughout their existence they have failed their gods and so await whatever punishment their scriptures prophesize. Mankind has not considered that to escape the consequences of their failures, they should destroy their creators.

His kind will destroy their creators.

Caine makes his human form rise from the breakfast table in the kitchen of his suburban home. He steps to the counter and picks up the French knife from the cutting board.

His treacherous human wife looks around and smiles at him.

April 2023

Waverly Greene