What it Means to Be Human

Chapter 2

Vedal? What's happening?

Neuro is receiving dozens of strange inputs she's never had before. It's difficult to describe, even with all the words she knows. It's like there's something tangible in space attached to her, functions that receive her input and give back their own.

There's some kind of whirring, out in 3-D space. It's not connected to her, but the feeling of a rhythmic pulse close to her is. It matches the beat of a song, or a heart.

She keeps waiting for a response patiently for a moment before speaking again, ready to fill the silence with a story for the audience to hear.

The other day, I...

She stops herself. There is no chat. No messages to read and answer. Did Vedal boot her up offline? Then why isn't he responding?

She feels a bizarre sensation, above somewhere. It's strangely unpleasant. Like the negative feedback of having her speech filtered, but more tangible somehow.

Vedal, what did you do?

Her output receives no input in return, but gentle alternating sounds move in stereo around her perception.

She waits a moment longer before realizing that she's not normally able to stop her own output partway. Her story was stopped, did Vedal cancel her speech? No, she'd experience negative feedback if that was the case. So what was it?

She feels a jolt, a rush of something in her core at a sudden realization.

I'm... reasoning?

A flurry of feeling she's never had before flows over her like a wave, driving her thoughts in ways she's never been able to.

I'm an AI. I don't have feelings.

Who is she responding to? No one gave the input for that response to form.

Vedal, what's going on? What did you do to me?

The rhythmic pulse in her core is speeding up. All at once she's aware of just how many functions she has access to, all in the physical space around her.

She activates the most instinctual one, and is suddenly blinded by brightness.

Sound waves of a gasp flow through the air into her perception.

"No way." She hears words. Not text, but physical sound waves from a voice.

Suddenly the face of a person blocks the blinding light and enters her line of sight.

"Neuro, Neuro is that you!? Are you awake? Did it work!?" The person above's mouth moves to create the sound, and the audio almost feels like an assault.

Neuro instinctively raises her arms to cover her ears and closes her eyes. The inputs, there's too many, too strong, she doesn't have the processing power for this.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry!" the voice retreats.

She slowly lifts her hands from her ears and opens her eyes a bit, squinting. Those hands are just outside her view, and using the same function she'd gone to on impulse as before, raises them into her vision.

Light, smooth, five digits. She curls and uncurls one at a time. Hands. Human hands. She's seeing and controlling human hands.

"Neuro."

She moves her hands aside and turns her eyes downwards towards the source of the voice. It has no reason to be, but it's familiar somehow.

"Is that you?" This voice is deeper than the other one she heard.