“Has He Fallen for Her?”
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A pressed against her lips until the fireworks show had completely ended.
Clearly, they had already kissed once before. That time, he had even sucked on the tip of her tongue.
At that time, she had also felt an electric-like tremor, but it was far less shocking than now.
She hadn’t expected that his spontaneous action without command would be to kiss her.
Did he have a personality now?
Did he have emotions now?
… Had he fallen for her?
In the night, the lingering smoke from the fireworks had already vanished without a trace. Drizzling rain swayed in the air, and an advertising hovercar passed overhead.
At the center of the vehicle’s body was the logo of a biotechnology company.
Like a giant cold green eye, it looked down at them from above.
Jiang Kou finally snapped out of the brief moment of romance.
As long as the company existed, as long as A’s algorithmic red line remained, he could never truly have life.
No matter how beautiful everything before her seemed, it was nothing more than an illusion generated by her eyes.
Jiang Kou looked into A’s eyes.
At close range, the patterns in his irises were even more precise and uniform than she had imagined, like the most intricate silicon wafer. The floating filament-like structures around them presented a unique and beautiful pale silver color, reminiscent of the moon in daylight.
He himself was just such an illusory creation, like the moon in daylight.
Jiang Kou moved away from A’s lips.
She had originally wanted to say, “Analyze the reason for your spontaneous action without command,” but then realized that even though he wasn’t truly alive, he had developed self-awareness. Asking in that way would be disrespectful, so she rephrased her words:
“Why did you kiss me?”
“According to biometric monitoring data, when you approached me, your neuronal electrical activity significantly increased, while dopamine and oxytocin secretion began,” A answered rationally. “I thought you wanted to kiss me, so I took the liberty of doing so.”
“I see,” Jiang Kou said softly. “Thank you for taking the liberty. I really liked that kiss.”
“Of course,” A said. “Besides biometric monitoring data, there were also special reactions from my internal programs. However, I am currently unaware of their principles and may not be able to provide an explanation.”
“It’s fine,” Jiang Kou smiled. “I can’t explain every action I take either.”
“But,” A suddenly asked, “my actions are based on logic and rules. If one day, logic, rules, algorithms, and programs can no longer explain my behavior, that would be an extremely dangerous situation. Would you not feel uneasy about that?”
It had been too long since she last smoked. Jiang Kou felt a slight dizziness, like the light intoxication of alcohol. After a long pause, she finally understood what he meant.
She took the grape juice from his hand, took a large sip, and curved her eyes in enjoyment: “No, I would only feel happy for you. It would mean that you have gained humanity, and humanity is inherently unexplainable and unpredictable.”
“I see,” A said thoughtfully. “I will add a random error rate to my algorithm.”
Jiang Kou nearly choked again.
She held back, but in the end, she couldn’t resist and gave his head a vigorous rub. “Let’s go home. The sky is about to brighten.”
A, of course, had no objections.
After returning to the apartment, everything returned to its original mode.
He observed her, and she studied him.
Perhaps because of that kiss, she felt an added sense of unease in her heart, like when a cut is made without enough decisiveness, leaving behind an unclean, jagged edge.
In this state, just glancing at him seemed to trigger some kind of chemical reaction—one that occurred unilaterally within her.
Being close to him made it even harder to breathe.
Even though the indoor temperature was neither hot nor cold, she felt as if she were inside a steamer, a distinct trail of sweat sliding down her back.
If A were not a machine but a human, she might have already started pursuing him.
Even if she didn’t pursue him, at the very least, she would have expressed her feelings instead of lingering in this vague, unclear, half-lit, half-obscured state.
Jiang Kou was not someone with strong desires. On the contrary, when she was a researcher, she had been frighteningly self-disciplined. She rarely touched cigarettes or alcohol and didn’t even stay up late.
Cigarettes, alcohol, heavily oiled and salted food—these were all bad habits she picked up in the slums after being dismissed.
—When a void appears in life, one seeks ways to fill it elsewhere.
She only liked research. She didn’t like noise, violence, firearms, or music with strong rhythms.
She had been completely forced into this world, forced to deal with the company, forced to learn to solve problems with violence.
After A found her, she was finally able to return to the pure life she had before.
But once all her needs were met, another kind of void appeared.
Late at night, she always felt an inexplicable restlessness, as if her chest were dampened by hot air—sticky and heavy.
What tormented her the most was that A was just downstairs.
As long as she called him, he would come to her side and carry out any command she gave.
It was hard to imagine how much willpower it took for her to resist indulging in her own desires.
Jiang Kou manually set the air conditioning to its lowest temperature and lay on the bed, limbs sprawled in resignation.
As the cold air spread, goosebumps immediately rose on her arms, yet between her hip bones, a sticky heat still seeped out.
In the dim light, she seemed to have turned into a berry on a branch, filled with abundant juice, ripening to the point of falling. If a cold wind blew past, the skin of the fruit would seep with sweet, cloying juice.
Jiang Kou closed her eyes.
In the end, she still couldn’t hold back. She buried her face in the pillow, her hand moving downward.
In her mind, A’s hands surfaced.
His skin was cold white, his fingers slender and bony, the veins on the backs of his hands distinct, with a few faint blue veins slightly protruding.
Because they were too beautiful, they even carried a hint of aggression, giving off an air of dominance.
If such a hand were to grip the berry on the branch tightly—what would happen?
Would he be puzzled to see the juice overflowing between his sharply defined fingers?
Would his calm and objective demeanor change?
Or would he remain unaffected by any external factors, maintaining the machine’s cold precision, his eyes like a high-powered microscope, analyzing and assessing the object in his grasp?
Just thinking about it made her heart surge with scalding guilt.
What was even more sinful was that she did not stop fantasizing.
More than ten minutes later, she felt as if she had just crawled out of a sun-scorched mud pit, drenched in sweat as she went to take a shower.
The shower’s water temperature malfunctioned again. When she reached out to test it, she was nearly scalded into crying out—it was almost no different from boiling water.
Fortunately, she hadn’t stepped directly under the stream. Otherwise, her skin would have peeled off.
While rinsing her reddened fingers with cold water, Jiang Kou opened a shopping app and ordered a new water heater.
She didn’t want to call A over for repairs, but she also feared the water temperature might suddenly spike while she was showering. So, she quickly rinsed off with cold water and went straight to bed.
Perhaps because of the cold shower, the next morning, when she got out of bed to wash up, she felt lightheaded and unsteady on her feet.
Her phone screen flashed with a new message.
A told her that he had something to take care of and would be leaving for two days. He would return at 20:00 on the third day and hoped she would take good care of herself.
Jiang Kou pressed the screen off, filled a glass with cold water, and drank it all in one go.
A was gone.
She could finally tidy up her chaotic emotions.
She should be happy, right?
Yet Jiang Kou couldn’t summon any energy—she was listless the entire morning.
Probably because A had left at the worst possible time—she was sick and desperately needed his care.
Jiang Kou used her tablet to order a bowl of chicken porridge and waited for the mechanical arm to deliver it.
While waiting, she turned on the TV. She hadn’t even had time to change the channel before the screen flickered twice with static—the Anti-Corporation Alliance had hacked in.
Just like with the fireworks show hack, the Anti-Corporation Alliance frequently hijacked television stations to broadcast conspiracy theories against the company.
Just then, the chicken porridge arrived.
Jiang Kou couldn’t be bothered to switch channels. She took small sips of the porridge while waiting for the Anti-Corporation Alliance to make its latest shocking statement.
Might as well treat it as entertainment.
“Let me guess, what have you just been doing?” a synthetic voice came from the television. “Talking to your phone AI? Ordering a bowl of noodles with your home AI?”
“What did I tell you? This world no longer belongs to humans—it belongs to AI!”
It seemed the Anti-Corporation Alliance was at war with AI.
Jiang Kou expressionlessly took another sip of hot porridge.
“Do you think I’m being alarmist?—That AI is just a bunch of fools, only capable of following human commands, completely incapable of ruling the world.”
“If you really think that, then congratulations—you’ve become a big fool yourself!”
“Fools like you will always see only the surface, never the hidden hands pulling the strings behind everything.”
“Remember the chaotic stock market fluctuations from a while ago? A criminal organization used AI technology to execute high-frequency trades within a single second—and managed to make a profit of 100 million dollars!”
“Yes, that’s right! One second, 100 million dollars—do you even grasp what that means?
“You could drink coffee until you die of caffeine poisoning, replace your cybernetic eyes over and over again, work from morning till night, and toil away until retirement at 75—but could you even make a fraction of that money?”
“But those sons of bitches actually made the money—and they did it in just one second!” The synthetic voice spoke coldly. “Do you still think AI is just a fool at your command? Their ability to manipulate money is far superior to yours!”
“Wake up! High-frequency trading is just one example. Stop being a slave to the company! The capitalists are using these terrifying technologies to control our eyes, ears, and even our thoughts!”
“And those bastards are even trying to pass the ‘Artificial Intelligence Personality Act.’ Do you know what that means? It means that one day, you’ll be the one buying coffee and polishing shoes for AI!”
“Your phone AI, your home AI—they follow your orders, but at the same time, they are monitoring everything about you, including what you browse online, how long you snore in your sleep, and even what you look like when you shower!”
“Your freedom, your dignity, your privacy—AI has stripped them all away!”
“Stop trusting the AI that monitors you every second of every day! We need to unite and take back our freedom, dignity, and privacy!”
“If we don’t unite now, if we don’t stop licking the company’s boots, we are destined to be replaced by robots and reduced to their slaves!”
The synthetic voice disappeared.
The television program resumed.
Jiang Kou finished her hot porridge and glanced at her phone.
Her ordered water heater was still on the way—estimated to arrive in the afternoon.
She turned off the screen, wrapped herself in a blanket, and lay down on the sofa, preparing to take a short nap.
Her head was too dizzy. Everything she saw and heard felt like it was shrouded in a hazy drizzle. It wasn’t until she closed her eyes that the Anti-Corporation Alliance’s words fully flooded into her mind.
AI, stock markets, high-frequency trading—making a hundred million dollars in one second.
One hundred million dollars.
For a split second, her blood froze completely, and she shuddered violently.
—Could it be that the hundred million dollars A transferred to her was that hundred million dollars?