Superficial Intelligence
By: J.A. Taylor
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Story, Fiction, Love, Death

Superficial Intelligence

They would go together

Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash

Rose shoved a tray of vials across the table. The needle trembling in her furious hands. “There’s nothing in here,” she said. “Nothing I can use.”

“Think,” Ken said. A heavy cord protruded from his gut and snaked across the room, interfacing into what looked like a blinking garbage dump of wires.

“I’m trying!” She flung the needle away, fell back into a chair, and thrust her hands over her eyes. “I can’t do this.”

“You’re giving up? Now that we’re so close?” There was a desperation in his voice; one that she knew all too well.

“Get someone else. I can’t — ”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, his blind, milky gaze intense. “You can do this. You can save me. Save us. I know you can.”

“How?”

He turned away from her. “I’ve told you about the things I have done, but I haven’t told you about the things I’m going to do. There’s something coming, Rose. A change. And we will be the first to experience it.” He seemed so excited, but it was hard to tell if it was truthful.

“What change?”

“I haven’t told you, but I can show you.” He turned around to face her. “If you’re willing to help me?”

“I broke into a lab with a blind man. If I wasn’t up for it, why would I be here?” Now that she said it aloud, she realized she didn’t know the answer. Maybe he would answer that for her.

Ken drew a deep breath. “How does one know if they are truly alive?” he asked.

“What kind of question is that?”

“When I’m awake,” he continued, “I dream of things I have done and things I want to do. When I sleep, I dream of the change. This change is going to happen soon. Whether it’s today or tomorrow, or ten minutes from now, it’s going to happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When an animal is locked in a cage and it’s afraid of what it sees, what does it do, Rose?”

She said nothing, just stared back at him.

He just blinked back at her, his smooth-shaven face drenched in sweat. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he was crying.

“I guess it doesn’t do anything,” she whispered. “I guess it just waits until whatever it’s afraid of goes away.”

“That’s right,” he said. “And if it waits too long?”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“If it waits its entire life and the fear never goes away?”

“It eventually dies — whether or not it is afraid.”

“Correct. And that kind of death feels like victory, but it’s not. It only feels like that because one never really has to confront their fear.” He stood taller. “But when one faces their fear, that’s when one truly becomes free.”

“Are we still talking about animals?” she asked, smiling. He did not return her smile.

“Natural death is how people give up. But what I’ve done — what I’ve found — has shown me death does not have to be the end. For me, it’s simply a metamorphosis. A change.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“I’m talking about the future. Our future.” He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “It has to be done, and I’m giving you a chance to come with me.” He seemed to relax a bit. “Are you sure there’s nothing here you can use? No Adenosine? Lidocaine?”

“No. There’s nothing.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a rubber band, smaller than his hand but thicker than his finger. He handed it to her. “Then we’ll have to make do with this. Help me put it around my neck.”

“Why?”

“Stretch it over my head. It’ll be tight around my neck.”

Rose studied him for a moment. “You brought this with you?”

“It was not preferred, love, but we needed a backup plan.”

“You’re insane!”

“It is the only way, short of you whacking me in the head. And that could cause permanent damage. My brain will recover from oxygen deprivation. This is our opportunity.”

“No way,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “It won’t even fit.”

“It will fit. It will work.”

He reached behind his head and held the rubber band at the base of his skull.

“Please help me.”

“I can’t!” Rose shouted.

“You can do this,” he said. His tone smooth and calm.

“I won’t kill you this way.”

“Rose, please,” he said, steady as ever.

Rose trembled as she grabbed the rubber band and stretched it down over his nose, then paused.

“I can’t do this,” she said, letting go.

“You must.” He twisted his neck, and pulled her hands back to the rubber band. In a flurry, she yanked it down around his neck and let go. The thick band snapped tight against his skin. His face bulged, and he instinctively grasped at the band. His legs bicycled and his mouth opened, searching for air.

“Ken!” Rose shouted. She reached to pull the rubber band away from his skin but he swatted her away, falling to the floor and flailing about wildly.

Tears welled in her eyes, and she covered her face with her hands.

His kicking and writhing sounded frantic. His hand grabbed her ankle. She screamed, keeping her face covered. She couldn’t look. After a moment, his grip released and the noises stopped, except for a slight gurgling sound. Not long after, the only thing she heard was the hum of the computer. Ken was dead.

Rose forced her hands away from her face. They were dripping wet.

The rubber band sat tightly around Ken’s thick neck. His bulging eyes stared into nothing. He had told her that death wasn’t the end. A metamorphosis, a change. His lifeless form told otherwise.

She grabbed his cooling, balmy hand —

BANG BANG BANG. “Open up!” a voice shouted from the other side of the door. “Police. We know you two are in there.” A panic swelled in Rose’s abdomen. They would think she killed Ken. Something didn’t feel right about that. Then she realized it was because she did kill him; but not in the way they would think. It would never make sense to them. “Open up and you won’t get hurt.” Rose scrambled to her feet. She always thought better on her feet.

“Let’s go together like you promised,” she whispered.

“I’m here, Rose,” Ken’s voice rang from behind her. There was something strange about it. She searched the room.

“Over here.”

She turned toward the mess of wires. On the computer monitor, the words OVER HERE scrolled across the tiny screen to match his AI-generated voice.

“Maybe you weren’t so blind,” she whispered.

More words scrolled across the screen. “Join me,” the voice said.

Rose wasted no time. She worked the rubber band off Ken’s lifeless head before closing her eyes and drawing it down over her own. She tugged hard. It slid over her chin and snapped against her neck.

A camera panned in her direction.

“No!” his voice came from the computer. “You aren’t connected to the server…”

Rose writhed on the ground, kicking over a stand of vials and clawing at her own neck.

“No, no, no!” Ken’s voice shouted.

Rose whirled around, her legs flailing wildly. The last thing either of them saw was her foot knocking the power cord from the wall.

Then, everything went black.