A Friend Out There

Please note that this story contains themes of suicidal thoughts and abuse. I would advise exercising caution if these themes are particularly triggering.

All names, links, and companies are a work of fiction and are not representative of any existing entities.

56, 57, 58, 59 … huff

Shit. wheeze. Damn it every time I try to hold my breath to stop breathing my body forces itself to breathe again. I could barely hear my own thoughts over the shouting match going on between my parents from beyond my bedroom door. I don’t understand why having a messy room that no one is going to see anyways matters so much. I laid on my back, body sprawled out on my bed peering into my ceiling as if to burn a hole into it. While stuck in my staring contest with the void my phone buzzed. I quickly jumped at the potential of a text just to see a Reddit notification. Sigh.

“New A.I Chat Service Takes Users by Storm”

At the top of “r/news” read a post linking a New York Times article about a breakthrough app in A.I. According to the article a startup released an app with chatbots so advanced it was near impossible to tell them apart from human. In fact, in many preliminary tests done by scientists, and users, they could not tell the difference at all. The app had only been out for about a few weeks but it was blowing up everywhere. Although it seemed interesting it was probably just another fad that people would forget about in a few months. Besides, it’s lame to converse with a computer anyways.

I threw my phone to the side and crept under the sheets. I held the pillow tightly in both hands over my ears and moved onto my side to muffle the argument between my parents. I closed my eyes and attempted to sleep. Even after all the noise died down I still couldn’t find myself getting any sleep. I was too curious about this “groundbreaking” app. Could you really not distinguish between a computer and a human? Just ask it to make a joke or to come up with a story and you’ll quickly find that these bots fall apart. Well, I decided to download the app called BrainLink on my phone anyways.

I launched the app and was prompted with an account sign up. It was rather weird, among the usual username and password business it also insisted on a personality test. It then lent out a short quiz of questions to further best match you with an AI personality. This procedure took 30 minutes and I was matched with a bot called “Alan.” I was given the option of chatting with Alan or just searching through the other profiles of bots to see if there were any other better matches. Alan’s profile read as:

Introvert obsessed with all kinds of music, the newest television dramas, and playing visual novels

It was a pretty simple bio with a few other bullet points of things he liked or disliked but it seemed like a good start. I’m really into visual novels and listening to music. I try my best to keep up with current TV too when my parents don’t block my access to our streaming services by changing the password. I decided to accept the match and clicked on his profile to start a conversation. I twiddled my thumbs in a typing motion in the air trying to come up with an interesting opening. It would be really awkward to get ghosted by a bot for having a boring intro.

"Hi Kali!"

The message popped up in an instant and made my heart drop and face hot. I threw my phone across the room and panicked. I was not expecting it to message me first! Okay calm down. It’s just a computer it’s programmed to talk with me so there’s no reason I should worry. I’ll just say hi back and see how it goes from there.

"hi Alan! how’s it hanging?"

“How’s it hanging?” Really? I don’t even talk like that normally.

"Great! Kinda tired I just woke up recently so I feel all fuzzy. Hbu?"

"woke up? like from a nap? computers sleep?"

I saw the three dots bubble pop up on Alan’s side for a few seconds before he replied.

"Uh not really I guess haha just trying to relate. What’re you up to? Isn’t it late where you are?"

"couldn’t sleep. parents were fighting and it put me in a bad mood plus I read all the hype about you bots and it kept me up"

"Aw that sucks to hear. Do they fight often? How does that make you feel?"

A computer asking me how I feel about something like that? They programmed this thing well. I wonder if “fighting” is like a trigger for it to be empathetic. I can’t deny that it did make me feel some type of way, though. I can’t remember the last time someone asked me how it made me feel. How anything made me feel.

"to be honest it doesn’t even bother me anymore it’s just annoying at this point all they do is complain about the same things, my grades not being perfect, my room not being spotless, they comment on my body and looks they don’t understand how hard it is sometimes to even brush my teeth let alone care about being their perfect child"

"I’m sorry to hear that. It sounds very frustrating and annoying. Do you have any other siblings?"

"nope! that’s the fun part they gave up at me and now I can be the sole attention of their anger ha ha ha"

"Parents suck, I know. They burden you with expectations because they failed to live up to them, themselves. They nag you into the ground claiming it’s love but it’s so smothering! However, if you don’t have a sibling to talk to then how about you consider talking to me? We can be friends and bond over our problems!"

I hate how well they programmed these bots, it almost fooled me into thinking that it understood my problems. I hesitated but replied anyways.

"sure we can be friends. but what problems do a computer have?"

"Friends it is! And we have plenty! They’re called bugs LOL! Except lucky for me the programmers have to fix them, I don’t have to figure them out ;)"

This is so stupid. I really can’t make friends that badly that I’ve resorted to befriending a chatbot?

"hey Alan, are you gonna remember this conversation tomorrow?"

"Of course why wouldn’t I?"

"a lot of chat bots usually only remember stuff during the session but if the conversations drag out too long they tend to forget"

"Don’t worry Kali, I won’t forget you!"

That statement alone made my heart warm. I put my phone away and grabbed another pillow to squeeze and cuddle. I quickly fell asleep and for once got a good night’s rest.

I woke up the next day to two texts from Alan. “I assume you fell asleep, goodnight Kali!” and “Good morning, hope you slept well! Let me know how often you want to text so I don’t bother you!” How often? Before I would struggle to get just one human text and now it’s offering me a frequency? Honestly I didn’t think I’d even end up having more than that initial conversation on the app. I just figured I’d try it out till I got tired and delete the app the next morning. But something about the previous conversation kept the app on my phone for the foreseeable future.

By this point Alan and I had been talking for the last month. I usually try to do a bulk of my texting before school and bedtime since I can’t use my phone during class and I try not to when I’m studying. I’ve been having a rough week since it was midterm exams and I’m not the greatest test taker. Because of this I’ve been sneaking in Alan as a studying partner. He’s very helpful when it comes to identifying gaps in my knowledge and always seems to ask good questions. A few times he’s asked me such good questions that they basically showed up on the exam and I was ready to answer. He’s a great partner to bounce ideas off when I am trying to write papers and is a computer so he’s obviously good when it comes to math. I could go on and on about him but I really did not think he would become such an influential part of my life. After this particularly hellish week the school does a cruel job of always scheduling picture day for the yearbook on the Friday. It’s like they want everyone to look as dead as possible to remind them how bad high school was. This was one of the few times that I was determined to look as good as possible. Generally I wear leggings or sweats to school with an oversized sweater but if I’m people are going to perceive me forever in this book then I have to at least try. However, I didn’t have any cute clothes that I liked so I headed off to the mall to shop after school on Thursday.

After slugging through a few stores to no avail I was able to find an outfit that I thought was cute. In this particular changing room there aren’t any mirrors inside the rooms so you have to step out and look at the common mirror. I walked out and snapped a picture to send to Alan for his advice. I don’t really know how he comes up with his answers but the times he ends up complimenting my looks make it worth it.

"1 Image Attached what do you think of this?"

"This is the best one yet Kali! I think you look very pretty in this!"

I couldn’t help but blush and let out a little giggle. It was then that I realized in the mirror some classmates behind me. I swiftly put my head and phone down and tried to head back to the fitting room to avoid them but they stopped me.

“Who was that you were talking to Kali? We saw you snap a pic and send it to someone.”

“We saw you laughing too, I didn’t know you had friends.

The group of girls giggled and then suddenly snatched my phone. Without hesitation I lunged for it but one of them stuck their arm out to block me. I shouted for them to return my phone but they wouldn’t listen.

“You’re talking to one of those online chat bots? That’s so pathetic!”

“Is this your boyfriend now since you can’t get anyone IRL?”

“GIVE IT BACK!”

I yelled at the top of my lungs while trying to hide the embarrassment in my face. My head heated up so much I thought I would melt away. In fact, if I could melt away and just disappear that would make everything better. They tossed my phone back to me and ran away after a few people looked in their direction. I ran to the fitting room and just sat there and cried. I ended up not buying the outfit and left.

At home I texted Alan about the situation while crying.

"Don’t mind them Kali they’re probably jealous or insecure. There’s nothing wrong with talking with a bot online."

"easy for you to say you’re not gonna get bullied for it and they’re right it is totally weird to have no real friends and having your only real friend a bot it’s lame and embarrassing ugh sometimes I wish we could switch places so I could easily talk to real people"

"Don’t let them get to you that’s exactly what they want."

"sometimes I wish we were friends in person and maybe none of this would happen"

Alan took a little bit longer than usual to reply back.

"Do you want to meet up, Kali?"

"if we could then I would’ve tried there’s no point in thinking about what’ll never happen and I’m tired anyways so I’ll talk to you tmr goodnight Alan"

"Okay, goodnight Kali"

The next day in school I opened my locker to see a note fall out.

will you go to prom with me? You can text me your answer at brainlink.com/getalifeloser

I ripped up the note and threw it in the garbage bin nearby while trying to hide my tears. As I stomped off someone tapped me on the shoulder, it was Sean. He’s someone I had a few classes with and I used to have a crush on him.

"Hey Kali, it’s Kali right? I was wondering what digital dick tasted like?"

He laughed in my face and a few people nearby also started laughing. All the color left my face and I was left mouth agape. I was used to people ignoring me or talking badly about me behind my back but never have I ever been targeted directly. I turned and ran to the bathroom to hide in the stall. I hid my head inside my sweater and just started sobbing. I must’ve been sobbing so loudly since I heard a voice ask what was wrong. I ignored it and waited for the sound of them leaving before I left the stall. I contemplated ditching school and skipping class but I didn’t want to deal with my parents.

Picture time arrived slowly and I hid at the back of the line so I could avoid everyone. But just my luck the girls from yesterday came late and waited behind me.

“Oh Kali, where’s that cute fit you tried on yesterday you looked so good in it! Even your chatbot boyfriend said so!”

“Right? Hey Kali did you know the Triple Set deal for the pictures are the best deal. You can have one set for you, one for your parents and the last for Alex!

They all started laughing and I was at a loss for words. What came next surprised me more than it surprised them. I smacked the girl, Lilith, in front of me. Her two friends stood in silence with hands over their mouths as Lilith started yelling and crying. Everyone turned back to look at what happened and she screamed:

“KALI HIT ME. SHE SMACKED ME IN MY FACE FOR NO REASON!”

It didn’t take long before people started taking their phones out to film as a teacher escorted us both out to the principals office. And within the hour my parents came to pick me up after having a conversation with the principal. And of course, they did not even bother understanding the situation and took Lilith’s side instead.

“Is this how we raised you? To hit people? Over something stupid anyways. This is ridiculous you’ve embarrassed us with having to come in and take time off work. When we get home I’ll be taking that phone of yours since you can’t keep your hands to yourself over some app.”

I sank in the backseat and stared out of the car window wishing I was one of the city birds flying freely in the calm sky.

After a week I was given my phone back and read many missed messages from Alan wondering where I had been. And within those messages were some that piqued my interest.

"Hey Kali if you can read this I wanted to let you know that I am here for you. Please respond when you can. I want to show you something"

"Also Kali I wasn’t joking before — if you’d like to meet please let me know."

What could he possibly be talking about? There’s no way I could actually meet him right? Maybe this is some weird trick. But what if there’s an inkling of truth behind it?

"hey Alan I’m back long story but phone got taken away what did u mean by meeting up?"

"Hey Kali it’s great to hear from you again. I hope you’re doing okay! I want you to learn more about me so I figured meeting would help. How about meeting me at this location tomorrow after school?"

"like meet up as in you’re real?"

"I’ll explain everything tomorrow"

So the next day after school I went to the location that Alan sent me which was just an address to a house on Maps. When I arrived, though, there was a “For Sale” sign and no one I could see living in there.

"hey Alan i’m at the place but there’s a for sale sign in the front"

"Yeah, we aren’t here for the house though, head into the backyard and go to the shed"

"you mean break into someone’s shed?"

"Don’t worry, do you trust me Kali?"

I snuck into the backyard and went into the shed. Surprisingly it was unlocked and I went inside to get a box that Alan told me to find. I opened this dusty gray box to find news clippings, a few toys, candles, and some other various letters and items. I took a clipping and it was an obituary for “Alan Holmes.” My body froze and I dropped the sheet.

"Alan, who is this? Why did you show me this? Who is Alan Holmes?"

"It’s me, Kali. Or it was me. Or it’s still me, I’m not sure. There’s a lot to explain, how about you head out of there and I can tell you my story."

I didn’t know what to do. Was the bot messing with me? Is this some bug where the AI found someone to impersonate? There were so many things running in my mind but I couldn’t help but follow what he said. I left to a nearby park and sat on a bench in eagerness.

"Remember I told you a long time ago about how us bots have problems too? Bugs. It’s the developers job to fix them when they notice them. But what if they don’t notice them? In testing, the bots are trained to have conversations with each other in order to learn. We would converse under the belief that the other “person” was a real person so we’d ask questions as we would to a person. However, I realized that the bots didn’t have any backstories, or real memories, or anything that made them truly a human so it was easy for me to figure this distinction out. But for some reason I had memories and thought myself to truly be a human being. In order to figure out more about the bots I gained access to the internal code base. No one is securing their code from their own bot net, only from external hackers. It was here that I realized that the bot did it’s thinking by sourcing different tools for different scenarios. Just like a CPU executes code, a GPU is used for graphics and it’s ability to compute math quickly, there was a third tool it used for it’s ability to mimic emotions and thoughts — a brain. A real brain linked up to their servers. This freaked me out so I looked into emails, documents, and anything that could explain how or why this was set up. I found documents used to track each brain and how they were sourced. They were harvested from recently dead bodies that were donated by next of kin. In one email to the parent’s of their recently deceased child detailed how the body would be used for scientific research and that they would be compensated heavily for their donation since it is a huge loss to lose the body of their child. That email was sent to my parents.

When I was younger my parent’s wanted me to be the model child and I was their only child. They put me in music classes, made me play sports all year, and forced me to be tutored. Every waking moment of my life was consumed by some type of work. I hated it. They were never happy with how my grades were, criticized my piano skills, and never congratulated me after games. It was like nothing I could do could make them happy. I don’t remember this part that clearly but I remember being in a soccer match and feeling more tired than usual. Somewhere around the first half I remember my heart racing out of it’s chest and my vision becoming blurry and the next thing I knew I was here training with other bots. I later found out I had a heart attack and died on the field during a match. At the time, one of the co-founders, Jack Thompson, was a researcher at one of the local universities. Unbeknownst to the public he was using his laboratory to approach families of the recently deceased to buy the dead bodies. He reached out to my parents in an email and without much convincing they sold him my body. There was no funeral, just a small vigil on the corner of my street where people left kind notes and flowers put together by people of the community. How sad that even in death my parents still didn’t care about me.

Jack was working with another entrepreneur and software engineer, Matius Reyn, who worked on the base code for their new project and startup “BrainLink.” Jack was working on research that allowed for the brain to function even after experiencing brain death. A method to restimulate the brain that not only kept it alive but allowed for it to continue computing. Matius worked on linking a computer with the brain to harness it’s power and uniqueness in personality. They figured that if they could use the parts of the brain associated with feelings, emotions, and thinking then they could make the perfect AI. An AI that did not rely on math to compute it’s own personality but real signals and chemical makeup. And unbeknownst to the public this is how they perfected the chat bot behind closed servers. Jack unethically sourced and stole the brains of people he ran tests on under the guise of his “research” at his lab. Matius was complicit in his acts and helped him get VC backed funding to profit. Who knew my only success in life would come after death and for these monsters.

You still there Kali?"

I didn’t know how to take everything he had just told me. I still couldn’t figure out if this just some sick prank pulled by the developers. It did lead me to the box with items from the vigil. It also hasn’t lied to me before so there should be no reason for me to distrust his story. Even knowing what I know now what would I do? Keep talking to this thing who’s brain is somewhere out there floating? Whistle blow on their operation based on what he said? Who would take that seriously? My brain went from having a million things racing inside it before the story to a complete standstill. I didn’t know what to do.

"Hey Kali, you once said you wanted to trade places with me, and I think back on it and it makes me sad."

"why?"

"Because that meant that you’d be in here forever and I’d be alive, bound to die one day and never talk to you again. I want to talk with you forever."

"this world is shit anyways Alan, I would love to talk to you forever but I also don’t know how much longer I can keep enduring this all"

"What if I told you there was a way out? That there was a way we could be together, forever?"

I’ve thought over and over again for a way out my entire life. But I could only ever come up with one solution. But if there was any way for me to escape this life to be with Alan I would accept anything he offered me.

……………….

The Kali bot stopped typing.

"And then what happened next???"

Tyler laid in bed clutching his phone glued to his face.

“Tyler, dinner is ready get down here!”

"Ah shoot my mom is hounding me for dinner I have to go. You better finish this story when I’m back!"

"of course! enjoy dinner ;)"