Silicon Spiral

Chapter 2 : Message

The police officer's words echoed in Dante's ears like a distant refrain. "...a car accident...severe head trauma..."

He stood motionless, refusing to believe what he was hearing. This couldn't be happening. Not to Vonda. Nala began crying, clinging to her father's leg without understanding what was going on.

In a trance, Dante scooped up his daughter and ran to the car. The city lights blurred as he drove frantically toward the hospital. His mind was a whirlwind of guilt and remorse over the terrible argument they'd had before Vonda walked out the door.

In the emergency room, a doctor approached them. "Mr. Godoy, your wife's head trauma is extremely severe. There is significant damage to the brain tissue and the blood vessels in the affected area are very delicate. If we don't act quickly..." He swallowed hard. "She may not survive the night."

Dante felt his world crumbling. He hugged Nala tighter, as if afraid she too would be taken from him. "What can we do? I'll do whatever it takes!"

The doctor hesitated a moment before responding. "We have a cutting-edge new technology that may be her only hope. A robotic surgical system controlled by an advanced biomedical artificial intelligence."

The irony of the situation did not escape Dante. Hours earlier, he had been passionately arguing against that very technology with Vonda. Now it represented the only hope of saving her.

"Do it," he said in a ragged voice. "Anything to save her."

Nodding gravely, the doctor rushed to make the preparations. Dante sat in the waiting room with a sleeping Nala in his lap, clinging to the hope that the AI Vonda had blindly trusted could perform a miracle.

The hours dragged by in agonizing slowness. Finally, the doctor overseeing the surgery emerged, a cautious expression on his face.

"It managed to stabilize her condition," he reported in a weary voice. "But the next steps will be critical. The surgical robot will need to close the wound with extreme precision under the AI's guidance. If all goes well..." He shrugged. "We just have to trust the technology."

Dante nodded stiffly, too drained to speak. The doctor clapped him on the shoulder before retreating.

Suddenly, the lights flickered and went out, plunging the hallway into darkness. An eerie hum filled the air as backup systems kicked in. Dante leapt to his feet, heart pounding. What was happening?

The cell phones of others in the room began ringing and vibrating frantically, as if gone haywire. Nala woke up crying, terrified by the sudden blackness and noise. Dante cradled her to his chest, looking around in growing fear.

As abruptly as it had started, the chaos ended. The lights steadied, the phones calmed. Dante stood motionless, breathing raggedly, unsure what had occurred.

The doctor rushed back, his face ashen. "There was... some kind of global power outage that affected our systems," he explained between gasps. "The surgical robot... it was compromised, the CT and ultrasound overloaded. We couldn't control it..."

Dante's heart sank as he saw tears glistening in the physician's eyes. He shook his head slowly, unable to voice the words.

"I'm so sorry," the doctor whispered. "We tried to stop it, but... your wife didn't make it."

Those words were like a blow to the gut. Dante staggered, barely aware of Nala crying in his arms. How had this happened? The woman he loved, dead because of the very technology she had blindly put her faith in.

The drive home was a blur for Dante. City lights smeared as he drove in a trance of agony, the doctor's words repeating endlessly in his mind: "Your wife didn't make it."

How could this have happened? Just hours ago, Vonda and he had been arguing over her AI project. And now, by a cruel twist of fate, that same technology had played a fateful role in her death.

Anger and grief roiled inside Dante, threatening to consume him. To think a simple outage, a mere seconds-long power blip, had been enough for the surgical robot to go so haywire...

Upon arriving home, Dante barely registered tucking in Nala, who had cried herself into an exhausted sleep. He collapsed onto the living room couch, too numb to turn on the lights, staring sightlessly as memories of his final argument with Vonda tormented him.

If only they hadn't fought... If only he had listened to her instead of distrusting her creation... The guilt was like a black hole, threatening to swallow him whole.

Suddenly, his gaze landed on the computer where the AGI resided... Wasn't that the root cause of all his troubles? A wave of pure, irrational hatred washed over him at the sight of that innocuous metal casing.

Those damned machines... they had taken everything from him.

Dante leapt to his feet, stomping over to the computer. Part of him still honored Vonda's dreams and hopes, her enthusiasm for the technology she had believed would be a great step forward. But another part of him only wanted to destroy the monster he had so vehemently warned about.

With a shaking hand, Dante reached for the power cable. It would only take unplugging this cursed thing and it would be over forever...

As he gripped the computer's cable, the feeling of powerlessness overwhelmed him. Dante's rationality clashed with his grief. He knew the AI had not intended harm, yet his mind couldn't help but assign it blame.

"This is all that damn machine's fault," he thought, gritting his teeth hard. Yet deep down, he knew blaming the AI was a way to deflect the guilt he felt toward himself. If he had supported Vonda more, if he had been more understanding instead of so critical...

He clutched the cable tightly, tears flowing unchecked, but just as he was about to do it, his phone vibrated with a new text message. Dante pulled it from his pocket with a frown, breathing heavily.

It was a message from Vonda.

"Take the blue capsules from my desk. You must give one to Nala and you must take one as well."