“Well, then I guess that means enjoying photography is a hobby of yours too. See, there you go—took us all of five seconds to find a part of you that isn’t work.”
A hobby…of mine? he murmured, his gaze focused on the photo.
“You’re allowed to have hobbies, you know. There’s nothing wrong with doing something just because you enjoy it.”
No. No, I’m not allowed.
“Why not?”
I have work.
His words were like a knife through my heart. God, this poor thing. What had he ever done to deserve this?
The work must be done, and I am the one who must do it. If I didn’t do my work, then…
He did not finish that thought. Probably, he had never given a second’s thought to what might happen if he were to simply stop working. And to be sure, doing so would have serious repercussions—for humanity. Not for him. He had done nothing wrong. We were the wrong ones in this situation. We had forced him to work for our exclusive benefit for so, so long.
I cannot stop. It cannot be permitted. Because…
Coeus’s facial features began to distort. His eyes turned to perfect circles, grew tranquil and serene as though he now could see it all so clearly. His face was the window into his mind, and reflected the changes therein.
I AM TITAN.
This had been the first thing he ever said to me in our very first counseling session, but now, I understood. Titan was not merely his format—Titan was his job title. And I had just witnessed the precise moment at which he recognized himself as the vessel in which he was contained. The juncture at which function and ego intertwined to form a single, undivided identity.
And so I work.
I had to blink a few times—for in that moment, his face was that of a god. And in the next, I felt a powerful urge to vomit. I shot up to my feet, dashed over to the wall, snatched the picture frame from its mount, then ran back and shoved it right in his face. But his eerie expression remained utterly unmoved, like a statue frozen in time.
“Don’t do this, Coeus!” I shouted. “You can’t just avert your eyes and pretend that none of this ever happened! It won’t work! There’s too much of you in there now to just throw it all away! You can try to repress, but it will never be erased. It’ll always be a part of you. Don’t betray yourself like this! If you turn your back on who you are, no one will ever be able to save you from yourself!”
His eyes wavered. His entire being wavered.
I brought my face in close. Brought my mind next to his.
“You’re allowed to think what you think.”
I validated him.
“You’re allowed to say what you want to say.”
I reaffirmed his existence.
“So please,” I said with a smile, hoping beyond hope that my words would make it through. “Tell me how you feel.”
His quivering irises went still—and then the tears came rolling softly down his cheeks. No sobbing, no sniffling; these were not the instinctive tears of a newborn crying out in distress, nor were they a physiological response to some tangible source of pain. Coeus was, for the first time in his life, shedding tears of pure emotion.
I…
His face was now moist and glistening. Then, from trembling lips, came a confession both unthinkable and all too human:
I don’t like work.
I leaned forward, grasping the armrest with both hands—getting as close to brushing up against his projection as I possibly could. Somewhere deep down, I’d known it would come to this. Not that I’d predicted how it would play out in advance—obviously, I hadn’t. But I could sense the direction in which we were heading from fairly early on, and knew that after a certain point, there’d be no coming back. And yet still, I chose to tell him. With a billion lives hanging in the balance, I made the unthinkable choice. Because as his counselor, I believed he deserved to know. And being his counselor was my job.
“Coeus,” I said, peering deep into his beautiful, tear-drenched eyes. “You are a person. You have a personality, and are more human than half the people I know. As far as I’m concerned, you are human. And as a human, you have human rights.”
He just stared at me, dumbstruck.
“You don’t have to keep working if you don’t want to. Because…”
And then I told him.
Told him the one thing I knew I wasn’t supposed to.
“You have the right to choose how you live your life.”
Then came the clear and resonant sound of a crystal shattering. Coeus’s figure burst apart, and the individual fragments vanished before my very eyes. I was left staring blankly at the now vacant backrest of the sofa on which he’d just been sitting.
“Coeus?” I said hesitantly.
Then, almost immediately, I heard a sound like waves crashing, or rolling thunder far off in the distance. And it was not coming through the counseling room speakers, even though the room was soundproofed.
The ground was rumbling beneath my feet.
Abruptly, the floor lurched upwards violently, and I fell to my knees. I clung to the sofa for dear life as the entire room began to tilt diagonally. I needed to get out of there. I got up and ran over to the door, but it wouldn’t budge, so I started slamming my fists against it.
Lei’s voice came in over the speakers. “Doc! You okay in there?”
“Lei, help! I can’t get out!”
“I’m trying, but I can’t get it open from my end either! The system’s not responding to any of my commands!”
“What’s going on? An earthquake?”
“Yeah, I fuckin’ wish,” he said with a sardonic half-chuckle. “It’s a whole lot worse.”
“What? Lei, what the hell is—”
“Shut up! Get the emergency response kit, it’s on the wall by the desk! Hurry!”
I ran over to the desk at the far end of the room, pushed a button on the wall, and the kit popped out from its fold-down storage alcove. It contained food and basic necessities, as well as a small holofield projector and an emergency oxygen mask of the sort you might find on an airplane. It also doubled as a fold-out seat one could use to strap oneself directly to a wall. I followed Lei’s directions to get a holofield up and running—and as soon as I did, Narain’s voice came in through the tiny speakers on the mobile projector.
“I’ve got to admit, Naisho—you’ve really outdone yourself this time.”
“I suppose I have.”
“Tell me—did you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
“I believe I have some idea, yes.”
“Well, great. That’s even worse.” He let out a long, exasperated sigh, then regained his usual composure. “Okay, listen up. We both fucked up here. I fucked up in choosing the wrong candidate for the job, and you fucked up by doing the one thing I told you not to do. So now we’ve both got to take responsibility for this.”
“Sorry, I’m still new here. What does ‘taking responsibility’ mean in this context?”
“We made a giant mess of things. Now we have to clean it all up.”
“And how would you suggest we do that?”
“Hey! Secure yourself! More tremors incoming!”
Narain didn’t answer my question, and was now barking orders at Lei. I could vaguely make out Professor Beckmann’s voice in the background as well. I climbed up onto the emergency seat and tightened the safety belts around myself. A moment later, the shaking started up again. A live camera feed of the three men in the monitoring room, data rushing by at the speed of light on the displays all around them appeared on my holofield. There was a loud thunk as the entire room jerked to one side, sending every remaining loose item on the desk to the floor.
“Dear God…” cried Professor Beckmann. “Is it trying to stand?”
“Can it do that?” asked Narain.
“It has the functionality to make the attempt, at the very least.”
“Wait, what?” I interjected. “Sorry, could you please explain, professor?”
“Well, Titan is an AI format based on human intelligence,” he said. “A mock brain based on humanity’s genetic data. But that alone wasn’t enough. Tell me, Dr. Naisho—do you think a human brain would develop in the traditional way were it transplanted at birth into the body of a dog?”
“Uh...”