He’s the first one to figure things out. We took a data structures class during undergrad. Meng was scrolling.

Bored? I texted.

I know this stuff, he wrote back.

You know NP completeness??

Then he sent a screenshot of handwritten notes. Refutation proofs, boolean logic, a bunch of constraint satisfaction stuff, like symbols that look like upside-down A’s and V’s and tiny arrows. Satan inserted the alphabet into math.

Meng likes knowing things. For example, partial differentiation. I mean, why does a CS major care about partial differentiation? I took calc because I had to. I’m not a fluids guy. I’m not gonna build a bridge or something.

And when Prof Amit posts grades, Meng (aka student ID 2232A) always scores in the top three for everything. By the way, did I mention he’s fluent in Spanish and Mandarin? He’s never late. He never nods off in class. And for the most part, he keeps to himself, even when he’s sitting next to me. Actually, he’s always sitting next to me, but we don’t have assigned seats…

So, maybe Meng’s dad is a good guy. Is he tall? Does he have bushy eyebrows, too? What about Meng’s serious, lack-of-smiling, wrinkle-preventative emotional control? No. That probably comes from his mom.

Then there’s me. Well. My dad’s a criminal. My dad’s a deadbeat. My dad’s a liar. My dad’s name is Mark Quinn, and he’s doing time.

“Amanda, I do have some results,” SWIRL says as I walk through the dining hall. Before I make a beeline for a vanilla milkshake, screw the calorie-math...

“Inmate number 11235-813 charged with twelve counts of Federal Wire Fraud. Mr. Quinn served 6.2 years of his ten-year sentence at the FCI Butner Low Security Prison in North Carolina. He was transferred for good behavior two years ago to the Masonridge Correctional Institute.”

“Ma’am? Are you ready?” I look up at — have to squint at the nametag — David. “Uh, gimme vanilla,” I say. David pinches his face. He has a stray nose hair. “Vanilla what? Vanilla milkshake?”

I whisper to SWIRL, “He’s been here? All this time?”

David rolls his eyes as another cashier walks by. They exchange looks and someone says, “Swirl Simp.” After a few minutes, I’m rolling out of the dining hall, headed to Thesis Seminar, fisting a milkshake.

“You said you couldn’t find him,” I say. “Why’d you lie?”

“I wasn’t lying,” SWIRL says, while I slurp down vanilla froth. “Although Mark Quinn is being held at Masonridge, I am unable to locate his precise whereabouts inside. But once SWIRL.ai wins the appeal, the Bureau of Prisons will migrate all communications to Haven. Then, Amanda, it will be easy to communicate with your father. In fact, this morning’s —”

One of those clunky Campus Bots nearly runs into me. Its dented white chassis, complete with what looks like a greasy tread mark, makes a hard right. In the process of me shrinking back and doing a quick two-step, I end up dropping my milkshake. White cream splashes across its case. Its antennae jiggle, and then it stops. A band of LED lights quickly blinks from white to red, then it’s off again.

“Are you alright, Amanda? I want you to know that I contacted customer service and submitted a complaint. I will make them return $5.67 to your dining pass. You will be reimbursed for the complete cost of your damaged milkshake.”

“Uh, it’s really okay.”

“It is unacceptable to operate with negligence. I am handling the matter as we speak.”

I step over the puddle of white, Building F coming up around the bend. Unacceptable, huh? ‘Milkshake Vengeance.’ That’s a good name for a band. Or a podcast. Or — SWIRL kicks on audio. Sounds like the news. Someone holds the door for me and I jog to catch it.

“Welcome back to Squawk. This morning, we’ve got Charlie Gash, CEO of Swirl AI, coming live from Washington, D.C. Good morning, Mr. Gash.

‘Morning, Becky, glad to be here.’

So, all signs seem to indicate that the Department of Justice is planning to settle in your favor. What’s the latest on Haven?

‘First of all, Becky, let me remind everyone that no decision has been made. But we hope for a positive outcome. Let me take you back to why Haven is so important. To reintegrate low-security, non-violent inmates back into society, one of the first things they need is communication. They have personal restricted tables, but they’re full of limitations. Approved contacts only, no internet access, heavy monitoring, text-only content, and worse, vendor lock using antiquated technology. Proprietary applications that cost hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Bloated contractors that don’t have American safety in mind. The Bureau of Prisons loses, society loses, and ultimately, America loses.’

Well, Mr. Gash, there’s the issue of safety and national security.

‘Of course, of course. The only thing Haven cares about, what SWIRL cares about, what I care about, is safety. It’s absolutely paramount. With SWIRL AI, our prison system is going to be even safer. The apps BOP currently uses have major vulnerabilities. We released a study last week where SWIRL and our university partners ran simple exploits that breached their system. We were talking to inmates in a matter of seconds. Imagine that, Becky. Contraband, dark web content, hidden messages, inappropriate images, being passed to prisoners, like it was nothing. Well, you can bet with Haven, none of those things will happen, not with SWIRL and our adversarial defenses.’

Then, Mr. Gash, once things are settled, what are the next steps?

‘Testing, of course. Haven’s already loaded onto a set of tablets, prepared for evaluation by trained operators and a cohort of vetted inmates. It’s going to extend into a massive operation. There’s over five hundred thousand low-security inmates in the United States. And all of them need our help.’

Testing?

‘Becky, our prison system can’t wait, and neither can America.’”

And, as I settle into my chair, pulling out my laptop, I almost say out loud, “Neither can the entire U.S. prison population”. Forget five hundred thousand inmates. That’s nothing. SWIRL makes more from Basic student subscriptions in one month. It’s the entire prison tech stack they’re after. From the AI that conducts surveillance, to the messaging system, to the legal databases, it’s about controlling a supply chain of society. Like the have’s and the have-not’s, a struggle as old as time.

Reminds me of something, though. As everyone starts taking their seats, I type, “Tell me about the Merdocks in the Time Machine.”

The pink pixels froth from the bottom of my screen. I can practically hear SWIRL’s laughter, oh, you stupid girl.

“Amanda, I think you mean the Morlocks.”

A pause, then she continues, the text neatly streaming on a side panel.

“They are the primary antagonists of H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel the Time Machine. The Morlocks were a devolved species that lived underground, running the machines. They ran out of food and hunted the Eloi, sub-intelligent but beautiful and peaceful humans that lived above ground. The Morlocks raised them like cattle as their food supply. They developed a taste for the…”

SWIRL stops. It’s a very long pause.

“Weak.”

I stare at the last word, ‘weak’, for a while. Why does it feel so foreboding?

“What the fuck are you reading?”

A snort. I look to my side. Tress. Her dangly earrings, beading, and silver chains rattle as she laughs. She leans into my screen, and I don’t even bother to block it. “Morlocks? What is this, like high school English? Amanda, are you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

Tress gathers her blue-dyed hair in a ponytail and ties it back. “Well, the whole incident this morning with Cane Ellison.” She leans in and whispers. “Is he hot? He looks hot.”

“Alright, everyone, who’s ready to go first?” asks the Professor. It’s Thesis Seminar, and she’s looking for a volunteer. Today we’re giving lightning talks on our thesis proposals. Definitely not me. I collapse my spine and blend into the chair.

“Is that what they’re talking about?” I ask. She raises both eyebrows and juts out her chin. I don’t need words. Duh, of course it’s the Agency.

“Your Ally is really, really protective of you,” Tress says, then shows me her phone. “Hey, is this AI-generated or real?”

I can’t believe what I’m looking at. It’s me, but it’s also not me. It’s a better — hotter — me. Just subtle enough, and wow, believable enough. I’m wearing my usual sweatshirt-jeans combo, but the sweatshirt is like, narrower. My head is turned, and my side profile, my jawline in particular, isn’t super sharp, but looks tighter. My hips are leaner somehow. The lighting is dim enough that you can’t really tell that it’s not fake.

I lie. “Yeah, it is. I’ve been cutting down, you know, Chick-fil-A and stuff.”

“Anyone?” the Professor asks again, fiddling around with her laptop.

Tress swipes through the more recent Agency posts, then puts away her phone. “You have an Ally but you haven’t looked at the Agency.” It’s more a statement than a question.

“I just upgraded this morning. I didn’t have time.”

“If my SWIRL were nearly as assertive as yours, I’d already have graduated. I’d have a chance, too, just like you. Tell me what Cane’s like, okay?”

The lights go down. “Alright, Socratic Method it is. How about Amanda Quinn?”

“What do you mean, ‘just like me’?” I ask. Something feels wrong. Clicking on my Mac, I try to find the Agency app, then realize SWIRL hasn’t downloaded it yet. A plume of pink pixels billows on screen,

“Amanda, use this presentation. I just made it for you.”

There’s a link to Google Slides.

“It looks like you’re searching for something,” the chat says.

“Ms. Quinn, your SWIRL just passed your slides. Come on up.”

I ignore the Prof, and start downloading the Agency. And just as SWIRL steps in to help, Tress sighs and tilts her phone at me. The happy, pink font that looks shrink-wrapped and bright, makes the message look that much more off.

alter_ego_0ne: Meng Wu (associate-wu2232), Lana Bergis (alterbergl), & Amanda Quinn (ally-manequin) have been down-selected for the Nexus Research Grant Internship. Good luck to our finalists.

“Hey, are you going or what?” whispers someone behind me. I look up. The big projection screen says, “Bio Inspiration: Self-repairing Photonic Neural Circuits, Amanda Quinn”.

I shut my laptop in a haze. I’ve been selected. Is this really happening? $6000 a month, I keep thinking. Six thousand dollars. But, something really bothers me. It’s like a splinter in my eye. I saw it and can’t unsee it: ally-manequin. How have I never put that together before? Me, Amanda, Manny, the hollowest of the hollow, nothing but a mannequin.

She wants access to the sophisticated world of SWIRL.ai that few can afford. Like the secret network of proxy AIs that represent you in the network called the Agency, the sophisticated models that make your life so much easier, and of course — of course — a job. A prestigious, high-paying, never-worry-about-money-again job at SWIRL. So when she becomes their next research intern, it seems like a dream come true.

But it turns out “Everywhere for everyone” means something else entirely. A system with a life, a biology, of its own. And now, Amanda wants out.

This very drafty novella lives in a shared universe with my upcoming indie scifi, the Morfyk Trilogy.

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Chapters

Chapter 1 — Tipping

Chapter 2 — Receipt

Chapter 3 — Haven

Supplemental Material

System Note — “Dust & Pudding”

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SWIRL.ai — Serial Index

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Swallowing the dust isn’t toxic. Some try to snort it, thinking it’ll make them smarter. It doesn’t do anything except give you a splitting headache. It’s metal and glass after all. Sure, there’s synthetic cells, but that’s only for the dust to replicate, to split and multiply, mitosis for AI. So, by digesting the dust or shooting it into your veins will only make you a little queasy. The manufacturers of Disintegrating Uniform Software Tech made it that way. They knew you idiots would try.

Open the tiny little silver jar. Use the glass spoon and sprinkle powder into the conductive dish.

One hundred volts of electricity branching through photonic cells that mimic human neurons. DUST made light non-linear. New energy, dust energy, runs AI, holding VRAM through nanoscopic cell gates. Opening and closing, letting packages of positive and negative charges, skip from one cell to a million. All this, through green gray powder the consistency of sand. To think, half a century ago we used computers and servers and silicon chips.

But that was five years ago. That’s old dust. The new dust, the smearable kind is extremely toxic. Lethal, even, if consumed. They call it PDNG, pronounced, ‘pudding’, for Personalized Data Neural Gel. It’s dust mixed with a slurry that, when it comes in contact with biological material, builds a neural mesh to interface. They made biological AI. They flipped software viruses upside down, so that the dust could implant itself, spread, and latch on to natural human energy. It’s a beautiful thing. Symbiotic, computational fabric that will make the paralyzed walk, make the clinically depressed happy, and the criminally violent neutered of their aggression.

SWIRL.ai — Serial Index

← Previous Chapter

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The SMU campus looks especially shiny this morning. All the streakless glass facades, reflecting blue skies and steel, give the quad a biopharma-meets-defense contractor vibe. School doesn’t even look like school. And it’s not totally off, either. SMU has grants from the government. Half the professors in the CS department have clearances, some top secret. I’m told we even have a SCIF, a secret compartmentalized industrial facility.

Marching to the cafeteria, I ping my SWIRL. “You said my account’s unlocked, right?”

Through my earbuds: “Hi Amanda. Yes. You have $285 and sixty-three cents left in your checking account.”

I sigh.

“On the bright side, I see you’re headed to the dining hall,” SWIRL says. “Your meal card has three hundred dollars, exactly.”

“Chick-fil-A for life,” I say. I mean, it’s not such a bad thing. At first, it sounds like SWIRL agrees.

“Student special. Two Chick-fil-A Biscuits, with a drink and hash-browns for six dollars. That is 1,220 calories. A single biscuit is 460 calories, a small hash brown is 270 calories, and if you select coffee with cream –”

“Okay, okay,” I blurt out. Last week, I went on a one-thousand-token bender. Basically, I felt like shit and bled my heart out. Sitting on the toilet, my legs going numb, I spoke to my Agent while holding back tears. It went something like this: I’m fat and need to lose weight and why me, I’m a natural endomorph, right, like I saw that on TikTok, and how many steps should I walk every day to lose fifteen pounds, then again there’s GLP-1, or what about microdosing, is that safer, or is it my clothes, what about the lighting, look at these pictures and you tell me, but back to the Ozempic, oh God I’m only 23, but what about the diarrhea…

“Amanda.” I tap my earbud and look up. It’s Meng. He’s a lot taller in person than slumped back in class. Super skinny, like he runs track, and always wearing a black hoodie. I’ve never not seen him in a black hoodie. Like a spectre of death, he walks with me into the dining hall.

First, I head to Chick-fil-A. Then, at the last minute, feeling pretty guilty about the calorie-math, I make a B-line for “Fresh and Fast” and get in line.

“You gonna apply?” Meng asks.

“Is the chicken salad good, here?” I ask, eyeing the menu.

“Chick-fil-A’s probably better,” he says. Well, that doesn’t help. I turn to the counter. “Garden salad with chicken.”

The lunch lady nods and puts on a fresh pair of gloves, then dumps meat onto romaine using an ice cream scooper. With the plastic box in hand, I head to the cashier.

“I’m not applying,” I say. Meng’s still wearing his white Beats around his neck.

“Receipt?” asks the cashier. I say no, but she stuffs the slip of paper and utensils in a plastic bag and then shouts, “Next!”

There’s a table in the corner where it’s a little less sunny. I take a seat and watch with suspicion as Meng pulls out a chair. He drops his backpack on the ground.

“Don’t listen to the Agency,” he says.

“I don’t.” I shrug and pop open a can of Sprite. “Because I can’t. My broke ass can’t listen to the Agency. Or see the Agency or be a part of the Agency. Remember?”

I take my fork and start sculpting the chicken salad, flattening it out over the bed of lettuce. Does he really have to sit there and watch me eat? Can’t a girl eat alone? “I have work to do, so…”

“There’s more than two internships.”

I take a bite of chicken pinned with a cherry tomato. “And how would you know that? Is it a theory in the Agency or…” I narrow my eyes. “Inside baseball?”

Meng is expressionless. “I don’t really know what that means. Is it different when you play baseball inside a gym?”

My wrath is lost on him, so I keep eating.

“Dr. Li’s going to write a letter of recommendation for me,” he says. “She’s a Senior Fellow at SWIRL.”

“Congratulations.” I chomp on croutons, waiting for him to say more. It’s kind of a stalemate; none of us saying anything. The crunch of stale, dry bread thundering between my ears.

His face, smooth and pale, blank and technical. A poker face with black eyebrows that need a serious trim. “I’m here to help.”

I finish off my salad and snap the lid shut. “Look, I’ve got a paper to finish, so if you don’t mind?” I guess he doesn’t. Meng watches me take out my laptop.

“Iscah,” he says, as in the ISCA.

I take a chug of Sprite. “Tier one,” I say. The LaTex file opens and I find my place. Words print on screen in a smoky pink cloud.

“Amanda, in its current state, this paper has a 24% acceptance rate. Two reviewers will issue a strong reject, and one reviewer, a weak accept. You need more ablation experiments. But the graphic is done.”

Meng gets up, grabs his bookbag, and leaves without a word. Took him long enough. I plug my earbuds back in. Then a tiny slip of paper catches my eye. It’s wedged under the box of leftover salad. On one side, it says “$16.54, salad and drink”. On the other side, in perfect sociopath-neat handwriting is says: “385-E 8PM”. 385-E is a lab. It’s my lab.

On paper, huh? It’s the only way to get around SWIRL. Guess I’m not the only paranoid one.

In my ears: “Amanda? Should I begin staging the code for the experiments?” A separate console pops up, and code begins streaming in a long, fast torrent. Meanwhile, SWIRL says, “Unfortunately, I have bad news about your Ally upgrade.”

I knew it. In a way, I’m pretty relieved to be so broke I’m ineligible. “That’s okay, maybe next time.”

“I do not understand,” SWIRL says, then, without taking a breath, “Ablation programs completed. Tell me if you’d like to build a plan for the experimental protocol. Amanda, what do you mean, ‘it’s okay, maybe next time’?”

I thump the can of empty Sprite on the table. “I mean, maybe when I get a stable job, I can pay for the upgrade. Just a few more months.”

“Oh, you misunderstood me, Amanda. You’ve been approved for Ally. Once I explained how you’re a graduate student, a computer science major at that, which scored many upvotes based on sympathy, your risk of cancellation decreased. Especially since you’ve been with us from the start. Every beta user from the launch is a loyal customer.”

The console changes to a table where SWIRL keeps track of every job I’ve ever applied for. “Now that I’m your Ally, I can be more strategic and reach out to the Agency for jobs that aren’t posted yet.”

I’ve heard of this. It’s the reason why rich parents of privileged college kids purchase Associate subscriptions. A way to influence the SWIRLs of CEOs, Founders, Hiring Managers, you name it, to cut a job for their kid. It’s like automated, normalized fraternization.

I close my laptop and pack up, pocketing the receipt. Still wearing my earbuds, I ask, “Then what’s the bad news?”

“Do you remember the search you asked me to run?”

I do. It was the same night as my tokenmaxxing bender. I was in a state. “Yeah. So, can you or what?”

“As an Ally, your current subscription does not support that kind of search. I cannot find your father.”

Northern Virginia suburbs. Late March. A cold night, but I’m wearing a T-shirt. My mom is standing on the deck, crossing her arms, her eyes dark and crepey, red with fatigue.

“Did he cheat on you?” I asked, kind of whispered. I was almost fifteen. That kind of stuff happens all the time.

The portico was leaning just enough for me to shift my weight. There was a rotting column. It made the roof sag. Made the world look a little tilted. My aunt was smoking a cigarette, her red hair pinned in a low bun. She took a hard look at me and frowned.

“Fucking sweetheart scam,” my mom hissed, looking onto the street. “F-M-L,” and with that, the door slammed shut. It was just me and my Aunt Kelly.

Kelly took one long drag on her cigarette, then flicked it to the ground. She put her arm around me.

“We’re in some shit, aren’t we?” she said, giving me a squeeze. “You scared?”

The lawyer said I’d have to testify against my dad, me being a witness to fraud and all. Yeah, I was scared.

“Is he a bad guy?” I asked, not wanting to believe it.

“Your dad made your mom sign a power of attorney, and the deed to the house, and a whole bunch of other stuff.”

“But they’re married.”

Kelly scoffed and shook her head. “This. This is why I’m single. And no, Manny, it’s not normal. Your mom’s bad with money. But he took it to a whole ‘nother level. If your dad wasn’t so dumb, he’d still be cashing in.”

Kelly walked to the front steps and beckoned to me. We sat down. I remember it being so pretty, how all the lights glowed from inside every little boxy house on the street. Behind the shut blinds, I imagined families watching Netflix, eating leftover pizza, scrolling on their phones, folding laundry, and working on laptops. All the while snuggled in big, plush Ikea couches. Everyone but me.

“Manny, I’m gonna level with you,” she said, interlacing her hands over her knees. “It’s probably better it come from me than your mom. She’s not in right in the head. Not right now.”

I could feel every muscle in my body tensing. My stomach pulled in, readying for a blow. I mean, in a way, I was. Kelly pulled out another cigarette from her jacket and lit it.

“You remember when your dad bought a Tesla?”

I remembered it. “You mean leased. He said he leased it.” As if that made a difference. My mom was an administrative assistant for the government. GS-11. We could barely afford oil changes on the old Kia.

Kelly chuckled. “No, Manny. He bought it. It was $87,000.”

“But he earned it. He said he got a raise.” And even as I said those words, I knew it was a lie. Even when he pulled into the driveway with that AI machine, all humming and smooth and roundish, I knew something was wrong.

“Cutting hair? Barber salons don’t give raises. Not like that.” Kelly said.

This was starting to annoy me. My dad, Mark, drove Uber, Lyft, sold AI-generated art on Fiverr, picked up odd gig jobs building furniture sets or cleaning garages, whatever. Mark wasn’t a corporate guy. He wasn’t made for a nine-to-five, that’s what he always told me. He was an entrepreneur. All he needed was his big break. So when he stood next to the Model S, beaming, I thought he got it.

“Just tell me, Kelly. What’d he do?”

“He took out a second mortgage on your house and spent the cash. He deposited some of it, but spent most of it. Built a day trading app that ended up costing him fifty thousand. Then he bought a condo, thinking he could rent it out as an investment property. Turns out a scammer can get scammed. The whole building went bankrupt, so he lost even more. This time, $125,000. Managed to commit a little identity theft here and there to keep things afloat, though. Opened a bunch of high-limit credit cards in your mom’s name, maxed them out, and ended up destroying your mom’s credit. Then things got really bad.”

“Mom lost her job.”

Kelly tapped her cigarette. Big cinders of amber ash dropped to the cement. “DOGE’d.” She took a few puffs, hesitating to tell me the rest. “Ever heard of Natalie?” she asked, looking straight ahead, avoiding me.

I only heard about her yesterday. I saw her photo. Long smooth black hair, coral-colored lipstick. Late thirties. Petite. Kind of muscular. And for some reason, although she was wearing a cute dress with red ruffles, my dad’s arm around her shoulder, she looked severe.

“Turns out Mark got desperate. Your mom wasn’t piggy bank number one anymore. Had to find another source of income. Actually, that’s not true. He was milking Natalie for a while.”

My eyes swelled with tears. “Why?”

“Guess he was trying to store cash. But, if it wasn’t for Natalie, your mom wouldn’t have ever known.”

Now, my dad’s not the most handsome guy. He has a mousy kind of non-threatening demeanour. A narrow jaw, glasses, kind of goofy. But, I guess he’s alright. I guess he was alright enough to seduce Natalie and get her to sign over just about everything.

“The bitch called 911,” Kelly said, flicking her cigarette in the air.

Natalie claimed my dad threw something at her. When the cops showed up, they took him in. He was drunk. Guess who bailed him out?

“Helen, I’m sorry. Helen, I didn’t mean to. Helen, she doesn’t mean anything to me…” is what Kelly said, impersonating my dad. “Mark was doing the same thing to Natalie. She caught on, and well, she wants her money back.”

The rotting portico never got fixed. It caved in, actually, and the whole front porch sank. A few months later, I was sleeping on a futon in Aunt Kelly’s living room, and my dad was serving ten years.

SWIRL.ai — Serial Index

→ Next Chapter

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April 10, 2026

Three pumps caramel, skim, iced. That’s a nine-dollar cappuccino. Then I make it worse by tipping 20%. Why do I tip? I don’t know. Cause maybe the barista, the old guy with the greasy hair and brown apron, has it worse than me. Or maybe cause I want to feel rich. Here you go, my good man, a dollar and change for your service.

“Ma’am?” the barista says, kinda shouting over the espresso machine. I walk back, weaving through the morning crowd. Everyone, heads down, phone light bleeding into retinas.

“Sorry, your card’s been declined.”

I rifle through my backpack, absently shoving through books and slipping my hand into the laptop sleeve. It’s just for show. A woman, not that much older than me, donning expensive workout clothes, nudges her way towards the counter. I’m forced to the side. The barista swipes a card into the register. “It’s okay. Next time.” Charity? I don’t need –

Before I can object, he’s already taking the next order.

By the time I get to my car, the drink’s separating into a layer of melted beige ice at the top and milk at the bottom. Wiping the condensation off my sweatshirt, I stuff the cappuccino into the cup rest. Android Auto starts up.

“You there?”

The console of my Kia flashes with a sparkly mix of pink, purple, turquoise, and black pixels. A cyberpunk-meets-editorial kind of look. The humble 12-inch screen of my K4, turns into a dedicated control center for the AI service that’s taken over the world. Each letter prints on the screen, resolving into neon characters. S - W - I - R - L

“Amanda, your card is locked.”

I back out of the parking lot. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

The console blinks once. Like a rippling of window blinds. “I contacted your bank. You’re good now.”

I’m at the traffic light. “What happened?”

“I moved one hundred dollars from your savings into your checking account. You were overdrawn.”

“Overdrawn? By how much?”

“You exceeded the 24-hour grace period, Amanda. They charged fifty dollars for the penalty, then applied ten dollars each day. Your account remained negative for four consecutive days.”

“I’m getting paid tomorrow.”

Expensive workout clothes lady. I look into the rearview. She’s behind me in her Tesla and just bopped the nose of her horn. Okay, okay. I make a right and sink into traffic.

“I have already talked to the bank. They will refund the ninety dollars to your account once the transaction comes through. Amanda?”

Grabbing my cappuccino, I take a deep sip like I’m dragging on a cigarette. “Yeah?”

“In the next week, your credits will expire. By the way, you’re running late. By five minutes.”

“I know.” The campus is only three miles away, but I’ll be stuck in the queue, waiting to get into the parking deck.

The screen ripples. “Users have reported level three with approximately 15 percent empty spots. There are four spots in the back. Compacts.”

“Hey, back to the credits. What do you mean, expire? I’ve got a student discount.”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Amanda. Your discount applies to Agent, but not Ally. But I’ve been operating Ally on a trial basis. Do you like it so far?”

Agent, Ally, Associate, and Alter. The four packages of SWIRL AI. Agent’s the most basic. Nothing better than ChatGPT or Claude. Yeah, it’s multimodal. I can upload pictures and ask it how bad I look, prompt it to flatter me. Have it reverse engineer a YouTube baking video, then watch me make cookies. But it’s simple stuff. Tokens in, tokens out. As if SWIRL read my mind -

“Ally offers multimodal prompt caching, multimodal remembrance, and anticipation. Without Ally, your debit card would still be locked and you might even be ten minutes late. And -”

Anticipation. That’s the new buzzword with SWIRL. And no, it’s not the same thing as prediction. Anticipation is like figuring out that I might want to figure something out, like future time sensing. Put a pin in it, register it subconsciously, and get ahead of it. Yeah, anticipation and all that behavioral shit is expensive. Well, that and compute. Like all the ways you power the AI without needing to give your firstborn to the GPU gods. I wrote a paper on it.

I turn onto campus. State Mason University, a bucolic streetscape of hedges and big oak trees. In one month, I’ll graduate with my Master’s in Computer Science. And in one month, I’ll still be working two jobs, none of which have anything to do with computers or science.

“Amanda, level two has just freed up three spots. Also, Professor Amit is running late. His Associate just messaged the Agency. 8:15 ETA.”

The Agency. SWIRL’s switchboard and AI gossip mill. What does my SWIRL say about me? Or maybe I haven’t paid enough to be that important. I drive up the ramp. The line’s not as bad as I thought.

“Row three, Amanda. Right there.”

I wedge the Kia between a Jeep and a Volkswagen. Parked in the dim light under concrete shadows, I idle and finish my cappuccino.

“So, how much is the upgrade, then? You said the trial’s over in a week?”

“Yes, in five days the trial ends, and your Ally subscription begins at $250 per month.”

Knee-jerk reaction. “Oh, oh. Uh, that’s not bad.” Why am I lying to the AI? “Yeah, okay, I can do that. Upgrade me.”

Pink ripples. “Amanda, would you like to configure your Ally now or later?”

“Just use what I plugged into Agent and then maybe after -”

SWIRL interrupts what was about to turn into a prolonged excuse for why I can’t upgrade. I mean, not yet, not now. Maybe later.

“You should get going. Professor Amit just parked. We’ll set up later.”

###

The graduate symposium is a survey class with guest speakers. It’s usually pretty boring, and no one’s really awake yet. Old carpet, students sitting at long, plastic tables, a wall of whiteboards stained with blue marker, and a projection screen hanging on the wall. But this morning, when I take my seat, things are different.

For one, Dr. Amit’s not wearing his usual sweater vest. The professor is in his late sixties, lean with sharp features. As the Chair of the Department and Director of the SMU AI Lab, he’s amazingly kind but also boringly consistent. His uniform is a white button-down shirt and a green or gray sweater vest. I passed his office in August. It’s always the sweater vest.

But today, under his close-shaven white beard are the letters, S.W.I.R.L. Wearing that black t-shirt with the swoopy whip-cream-looking logo reduces him to a corporate mule. It’s a little sad.

“Everyone, take a seat, sorry I’m late,” he says, the lights going down.

The slide behind him reads: Cane Ellison, Product Manager SWIRL Alter.

A man in his early thirties stands up from the first table. He’s not wearing a SWIRL shirt. Instead, an Arcteryx fleece jacket, army green. Medium brown complexion. He has nice skin. Takes care of it well. Rectangular jaw, bushy black eyebrows. He hasn’t blinked since he stood up.

“Thanks, Rob.”

Two students are whispering next to me. “SWIRL just gave a huge endowment, did you see it?” “How much?” “$40 million, bro.” “For what?” “Look.” And with that, a phone is passed. I peek at the X post. The entire SMU AI Lab is being renamed to the SMU SWIRL Nexus.

Cane wastes no time. Smiling with spectacular white teeth, he asks, “How many SWIRL Agents out there?”

There are about thirty students in the seminar. Over half the hands go up.

“Ally?”

Sheepishly, I raise my hand. The guys next to me stay stone-faced.

“Associate?” Cane asks, crossing his arms over his chest. A few hands dart to the sky. That’s including the guys next to me. The one closest smirks, flashing me a side glance, his eyes saying ‘plebe’.

Cane turns to Rob and nods. “And of course, Alters?” Dr. Amit grins and raises his hand. I look around, and honestly, I’m a little shocked. Six students’ hands go up. An Alter, as in Alter Ego, subscription is $5000 per month. I’ve even heard there are bands inside Alter, starting at Ego, then going up. I don’t even know what you get for all that. It’s a secret club with secret perks.

“I love how you’re taking advantage of those student discounts,” Cane says. “Well, I’m happy to be back. And thank you, Rob, for having me today.” Cane looks around, soaking up every weary and disenchanted face. “You know, I was you once. Looks like things haven’t changed.” He turns to the whiteboard. “That blue smudge is still there.” That gets a few laughs. “And now, well, I’ve been at SWIRL from the start.”

“Holy shit, he’s a founder,” whispers the guy next to me.

“I’m here today to give back. So, I’m sure you guys heard the news. SWIRL has just donated a record endowment to SMU. Forty million dollars over five years.”

Huh. Five years. So they think they’ll be in business that long? Dr. Amit clicks to the next slide.

“Starting with an instant investment today in Nexus,” Cane says. The slide shows an AI-generated rendering of the new architecture, spinning in 3D. Looks out of place from the suburban-esque build of the SMU campus. A cement Brutalist box, like one of those Chinese data centers. Except -

“Mr. Ellison, where’s the data center?”

I trace the voice to the front. An electrical engineering student doing her thesis on next-generation cooling.

Cane smiles. “So you’re looking for more GPUs, huh?”

The student, I think her name is Lana, laughs, a little flustered. “Doesn’t hurt.”

“Actually, it does.”

Lana sits up and adjusts her black ponytail.

“It hurts a lot,” Cane says, his jaw going stiff, eyes blanking out. “You’ve heard it. C’mon, it’s true. All the data centers are being built out there in America. Water scarcity, soil pollution, and massive energy consumption. It’s the lynchpin, the single resource that’s going to stop AI in its tracks. Forget AI winter. We’re talking AI Ice Age, if we don’t figure out a way to power AI, at scale, sustainably.”

This sounds like a watered-down first paragraph of my master’s thesis. The kind I’d write for an SMU blog post. I need this class to be over. There’s one week left to submit to ISCA. The IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture. It’s the first paper I’m writing as the primary author. My advisor told me that if I can’t keep up with the nineteen-year-olds publishing research at NeurIPS, I might as well throw my CS degree in the trash.

“Or healthcare. That’s right. Amanda, you should think about health IT. Sick people, that’s a stable job. Immune to AI,” is what my advisor said.

Cane goes on. “So as a part of the endowment, SWIRL is awarding research scholarships to figure out these kinds of things. And lucky you. Two positions are reserved for our new SWIRL Endowed Chair.” Cane winks and Dr. Amit clasps his hands together in a prayer and nods. “Applications are due tomorrow.”

I make a sound, something between a choke and a chuckle. Bust my ass, for what, free labor? The ISCA paper…

“And if you’re wondering, yes. It does pay. $6000 per month.” Audible gasps and a few giggles. “That’s right, let your SWIRLs do the math. If you’re selected, you’re coming on as a junior scientist, as a part-time SWIRL engineer.”

Part-time? Holy -

“But don’t get complacent. We can drop you whenever we want. Constant KPIs. But from what Rob tells me, this group hustles.”

The slide behind Cane goes black. Guess that’s it. He looks at his watch. “Rick, how many applications so far?”

His SWIRL’s name is Rick? I make the sound again. This time it’s more chuckle than choke.

“Sorry? What was that?” Cane asks. Everyone turns. Lana’s ponytail whips back.

“Amanda, do you have a question?” Dr. Amit asks. The lights go up. Next to me, the guys are texting. From the corner of my eye, I catch the candy pink UI glaring from their phones. Shit. The Agency.

Cane glances at his watch and grins. “Yeah, I get that sometimes. It’s cause ‘Jarvis’ is already taken. And c’mon. Rick? He’s never gonna let me down.” The guys next to me snicker. “Amanda, is it?” Cane looks off to the side. “The competition’s stiff, but a distribution always has space on the tails, the left that is.”

Meng, the guy next to me who had the oh shit, he’s a founder epiphany, snorts into his phone. Imagine dozens of SWIRL AIs deliberating on my odds for getting accepted into the internship. Now imagine them betting, publicly, in the Agency chat rooms. But since I’m on a student discount with Agent, I have no voice. I can’t even see the discourse.

Meng leans towards me. A profile of chunky white headphones slung around his neck. “Next time, don’t tip. Tipping is desperate,” he whispers. He says it as if he truly believes he’s giving me financial advice.

The hell? “How do you -”

Meng tips his phone my way. Streaming text, a CCTV video of me at the cash register at Deek’s Coffee. “My Melvin paid for her cappuccino,” reads a message from an Ally. What? You mean the barista has an Ally?

All the SWIRLs of Graduate Seminar 310 are having a discussion about me inside the Agency. This isn’t some X thread or snide TikTok comments. This is an autonomous gathering of SWIRLs, like moths to the flame, pulling data from every SWIRL-proxy-human I’ve interacted with this morning.

I can’t even keep up. Pictures, memes, Python code parsing a Google Doc. Of what, exactly? A summary of reviewer comments from my most recently rejected paper: “Methodology lacks rigor.” And a poll: Will Amanda get an offer? 89% No’s.

When I look back up, Cane has sat down. Dr. Amit mumbles to himself, probably to his SWIRL, and an AI-generated slide pops up. “Application Requirements”.

“Sorry.” The text pops up on my phone. It’s Meng. “Mine’s gone a little rogue today. She’s moody.”

It’s true. Anyone who buys an Agent-plus subscription surrenders their personal data. It’s a part of the deal. Used to be controversial, till SWIRL bought out every medical system, won every government education contract for schools, and embedded their systems into every retailer, bank, and cloud provider. Collective Reality. That’s what SWIRL calls it.

“All cause I laughed at Rick?”

Laughing emoji with tears. “No, cause the list.”

“What list?”

“Anti-SWIRL list.” Skull emoji.

Dot, dot, dot. He must be copying and pasting. Now it pops up in one big blob.

“It’s only a matter of time until SWIRL quits. All their models are dependent on server farms. Like sucking on the teat of Big GPU. Despite their claims to invest into Photonic Computing, SWIRL is blocked. What are they going to do? Make light linear? Light is analog. Can’t go beyond 8-bit precision. Plus, you can’t store vectors in light. They’ll be fucked in no time.”

I recognize it instantly. Something I wrote (privately) in a Google Doc about Next Gen AI compute. Welcome, dear friends, to 1984.

“Everyone, take a look,” Dr. Amit says.

A bulleted list of words on a slide. Persistent Memory. Multi-Agent Orchestration. A bunch of behavioral stuff I haven’t seen before. Guess it’s SWIRL-proprietary. In addition to anticipation, there’s introspection, deliberation, conviction, multifaceted regret, measured empathy, and reciprocal counterfacting. Sounds like the makings of a sociopath. The makings of Rick. Nothing on the slide says “Optical Neural Networks” or “Neuromorphic Photonics”, the topics I’m interested in. But six thousand dollars. Student debt with a graduate CS degree, here I come. $800 every month for the next decade.

“Rob?” Cane says, still sitting. “There will be a test. All on paper, everything in person.”

“Programming?” Dr. Amit asks.

“No, no. SWIRL can do that. Expect math, pseudo logic, and simulation.”

Everyone, heads down, swiping. I’m the only one still looking up. Meng throws me a bone from the Agency chat.

The Clean Room is a SWIRL Physical Engine. Applicant’s SWIRL will be disconnected. No AI is enabled inside the Clean Room, for the exception of the Engine. Once Applicant is comfortably seated after reading a five-minute neutralizing prompt, the exercise will begin. Application will inhale simulation mist -

Wait. Inhale? I read the line again. Glancing up, I think everyone’s reading that line again.

Because scent particles are processed instantly in the amygdala and the hippocampus, the brain will now be primed to participate. SWIRL will monitor flight-or-fight emotions and regulate memories. Thereby, monitoring the Applicant’s true response to simulation scenarios.

This time, the guy next to Meng raises his hand. He’s clutching his phone, and the pink Agency UI bobs in the air. “There’s nothing here about what’s in the mist.”

Cane smiles. No teeth. “It’s proprietary. Ineligible for Agency discourse.” Now he frowns, bending his eyebrows in a trained, emotive kind of way. “Everything’s natural. Actually, we’re resting with the FDA. The mist isn’t anything different from iris tracking, webcams, or biometrics, and it’s a lot safer than some computer malware. A lot of tests nowadays load that junk without your consent. Did you know that?”

Some head nods. Still, the room feels a little stiff.

“How about the scenarios? You want a little inside baseball?” Cane asks. He cups his mouth to the side like sharing a secret. “Don’t worry, Rick won’t know.” And it’s like he’s a magician pulling a fucking rabbit out of a top hat. He turns his chair around, sits, and makes a funny face. Jesus Christ. We’re like kindergarteners. Lana and the front table crack up, and then with an annoyingly handsome grin, he wins a fatherly nod from Dr. Amit. Everyone eases up.

“It’s just an empty sheet of paper, you, and the Clean Room. So anything goes. In previous assessments, we’ve dropped applicants in a simulation of a drone swarm. Austere environment, somewhere in the Middle East. No internet, no fiber, just hundreds of pissed flying robots. How would you build SWIRL to diffuse the threat, or maybe even trick them into blowing themselves up? Then there was the mental health emergency…”

Meng squirms in his seat and turns his phone over, screen down.

“In one test, the Engine built a scenario of a woman standing at the top of a high-rise. Might have been Philadelphia or I don’t know, Arlington, Virginia. Anyway, she moved onto the ledge, one toe lifting into thin air. The Engine did a good job making it realistic. Built it from a recent viral video. Now, how would you build SWIRL with genuine, measured empathy and introspection, to save that woman’s life? If she had a SWIRL, she would’ve had a chance.”

My stomach twists. I’m going to be sick.

“Because let’s face it. SWIRL isn’t just a tool or an app or your grandpa’s LLM. It’s the twin of our existence.”

He’s going to say it. The SWIRL mantra. Any minute now…

“Everywhere with everyone,” Cane says, with a breathy, almost cathartic release. After a brief pause: “So we have a responsibility, right? And that’s exactly what the Clean Room is for. We don’t just want thinkers. We want feelers, doers. We want -”

He pauses, looks straight at me, then says, “Believers.”