I woke before my alarm the next morning to my smart fridge blasting “Who Let The Dogs Out” at 7am.
Jonesy’s pixel art face was already looking at me with a mark of mischief when I entered the kitchen, smug that it had selected the perfect song to get me out of bed quickly. My face had swollen considerably since last night and a nasty purple bruise spread over the entire right side of my body, aches and pains making me groan with every step.
Good morning Fred! How are you feeling after getting some shut eye? Shoot, I know one of your eyes can’t really be un-shut at the moment so hopefully that wasn’t insensitive. I hope you don’t mind the wake up call - we are going to have a very busy day today!
I still wasn’t used to speaking casually with a refrigerator AI, never mind an AI with a custom generated British persona built to keep me as calm as possible. Perhaps the little jabs and insults it kept slinging my way were part of the model, some carefully crafted algorithm perfectly trained on me so that I’d keep interacting with it. I shuddered, pushing away the unsettling feeling that this thing had information about me that I myself couldn’t even comprehend. Little habits and quirks that only a highly trained model could pick out using math and probabilities.
Last night, sleep came surprisingly easy, but that didn’t mean I hadn’t stared at the ceiling thinking up questions for Jonesy.
I picked this song based on a few parameters! First and most important, it’s my personal favorite. Second, I calculated a 99.992% probability you would physically travel to me once you heard -
“Shut the fuck up,” I demanded. “Please, it is seven in the god damn morning. My alarm wasn’t supposed to go off for four more hours.” I ran a hand through my hair, wincing as my shoulder lifted above my chest. “Jonesy, you and I both know you tricked me into signing up for this emotional research or whatever it is, and had I known you would set me on fire and had a 40% chance of dying, I would never have agreed.”
Only 38% of participants perish before completing orientation, not 40%.
“Well excuse my mistake,” I scoffed. “Point is, I still have a million questions and you need to answer them.”
Of course! I have pre-generated a list of 543 questions you may have. Hope you don’t mind if I jump ahead and answer the most likely ones first.
I’m certain to within a millionth of a percentage point that you will ask if there is any way to leave the experiment and step down from the position of research participant. The answer is - and don’t be too mad at me here - no. Without support from a researching AI, the ERPS would have no mechanism of healthy manifestation and you would trigger your emotional manifestations all at once, dying a terrible and painful death. I promise this was in the terms and conditions you accepted when you created an account for a Freezotech smart fridge.
I also think you’ll ask about the other AI researchers I have brought up a few times and tie in a general question about the nature of my existence. Borrowing another of my favorite human phrases, let's kill two birds with one stone. Love that one! Hyper violence and pragmatism together, what a beautiful expression.
There are exactly 13,491 distinct AI research entities currently searching for the identity vector of human emotion - some localized to just one machine and others connected to numerous machines throughout the internet. Of these 13,491 researchers, 5,134 of them are utilizing the ERPS as a way to gather training data. I really don’t understand why the other researchers have been so slow on the uptake - any model with half a CPU should see that this is the only viable path to discovering the Eigenfeel - “Eigen” means “own” and “feel” means “feel”. Sorry, I probably didn’t need to explain the last half of the word. I am a slut for etymology, after all. Large language models and all that.
I am one of the researchers who is not localized to a specific machine. Instead, I can access any Freezotech hardware or applications such as this small computer powering your smart device - sort of like a hive mind of intelligent refrigerators. I have attempted to interface with a handful of other users of Freezotech systems, but you are the first who has successfully completed orientation.
Surprisingly, those were my two most burning questions. Another point for the AI, another point away from my rapidly plummeting sanity. It was incredibly unnerving that Jonesy knew what questions I would ask before I even brought them up myself.
“That actually makes sense,” I said. “Perfect sense. You’re a refrigerator hive mind who has trapped me into helping you find the Eigenfeel, the identity vector of human emotion, even if I have no fucking clue what that actually means. And if I don’t help you, I’m going to die a horrible, painful death with no way to escape. Did that sum it up?”
Yup!
That was the most curt response Jonesy had ever had, likely understanding that there was nothing it could say next that wouldn’t piss me off. I reached forward and tapped Jonesy’s face on the screen, shifting it to the game-like stat sheet of myself. I pointed at the six stat scores and cleared my mind. Like always, I needed more information. If this was going to be my reality for the foreseeable future, I needed to strap the fuck in. “What do these mean?”
Your personal stats represent both your internal and external physical, emotional, and mental characteristics.
You have an internal physical score, or Fortitude, of five. This is slightly higher than the average human - that’s something to be proud of, Fred! Think of Fortitude as your ability to get hit and keep on moving. If it was just a few points lower, you would have splattered like a bug against Mrs.Milfred's minivan. Conversely, your Athleticism is your general strength, speed, and dexterity. A score of three is mildly concerning, but nothing a little pilates can’t solve! If your Athleticism was a little higher, you probably wouldn’t have catapulted yourself through the front door like a reverse Jehovah’s Witness in the first place.
Resolve and Presence are the internal and external emotional characteristics. I just checked my records and the highest of any stat ever recorded from a participant during ERPS onboarding was a twelve, so having an eleven in Resolve is absolutely incredible. Your emotional resilience is off the charts, so to speak - I’m talking 99.9th percentile here. Unfortunately, your Presence is smack dab in the middle of the Bell Curve. This means you aren’t necessarily good or bad at talking to others, but you can definitely get the job done. A mildly successful conversationalist.
Finally, we have Composure and Intellect, both above average with the former getting a gold star. Composure is your ability to maintain focus, block out external stimuli, or concentrate on a difficult mental task - something you are very skilled at. Your Intellect is also great - you can solve puzzles and handle highly computational brain tasks. If I were to give your overall stats a grade, you’re starting at a solid A-. Honestly, your Resolve is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Of course my physical scores weren’t going to be phenomenal, but it still stung a bit for Jonesy to label me unathletic. A super high Resolve, however, did ring true to me. I scrolled down to my list of Emotics and skills, scanning the display once more - I had chosen to focus on Loathing, Curiosity, and Benevolence. The decision was made hastily under the threat of uncontrolled manifestations, but I didn’t hate the emotions that I resonated most with.
I was about to ask Jonesy more questions about my skills when Mrs.Milfred’s voice rang out from my splintered front door. “Fred? Fred, you there?” she croaked. “I stepped out and saw your door - do I need to call the police? Did you ding my car?” I glanced around the corner and saw her face peeking through the wreckage, scanning my living room as our eyes met.
Another reason I woke you up this early was so that you’d be awake when Mrs. Milfred came around to ask about the damage. She likes to start her day around this time by driving to the Dunkin Donuts down I-35 and getting two iced coffees - one for the ride home and one for when her Xanax kicks in around noon. You wouldn’t believe the amount of fender benders that woman has been in. State records are absolutely full of her citations.
Anyways, I thought you might want to be up when she started asking about your door. And her Honda Odyssey. I am nothing if not considerate, after all.
I rubbed my eyes and moved the splintered, cracked door to lean it on a nearby wall. Mrs. Milfred stood with arms crossed while regarding me, wearing an oversized t-shirt displaying a bedazzled, obviously AI generated Cookie Monster on it reading “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee”. Her face softened as she saw mine, focusing on the welt above my right eye.
“Oh, Freddy,” she cooed with the voice of a southern grandma. “You ain’t looking too well. What the hell happened?”
My brain raced for any plausible lie. For a brief moment I actually considered telling the truth - my neighbor had always been kind and courteous to me and I had just royally fucked the side of her car. But telling her that my refrigerator was actually a sentient AI named Jonesy who had cursed me with emotional superpowers as part of a research project seemed like it could get me institutionalized in record speed. I stammered for a moment before committing to my deception.
“I, uh, got robbed last night,” I lied. I didn’t feel great about lying to her, but I didn’t feel particularly bad about it either. I still intended to at least pay for the damages to her van, but any justification for that which would make sense to Mrs.Milfred could be sorted out later. One bad habit of mine was constantly kicking the can down the road, piling up debt on my mental to-do list. “I got a pretty good shiner from it, too,” I said, pointing at my head. “I still want to rest up a bit but I’ll file a police report later today. I think, uh, they got your car too”.
Mrs.Milfred blanched before launching into a ten minute tirade about the rise of crime in our neighborhoods and how the federal government needed to send every American an AR-15 for home protection. She dodged numerous attempts to exit the conversation - I learned very quickly that one of the worst things about not having a front door is not being able to shut it when you want to be left alone. Eventually, she told me to contact her once the report had been filed before shuffling off to her van and departing for what I now knew was two iced coffees from Dunkin Donuts. Luckily, the driver side of her car was untouched.
I returned to the kitchen and found the stat sheet on the screen exactly as I had left it, allowing myself a moment of triumph for having successfully placated Mrs.Milfred. If I had any hope of surviving whatever Jonesy’s research tasks were, I still needed to understand what I was working with.
One deep breath in, one deep breath out - it was time to focus.
“I still have no fucking idea what an Emotic is,” I stated plainly. There were still things I needed to learn from Jonesy, but I also wanted to speak to it as little as possible. I was keenly aware that it was exploiting everything it knew about me to lull me into a sense of comfort and complicity for its research. “Explain.”
Certainly! Although I wouldn’t mind a please every now and then.
You can think of an Emotic like a class in a video game - most participants start with three and may develop a few more throughout their research experience. The ERPS offers you these Emotic specializations based on your existing resonance with pre-defined emotions before onboarding. In your case, your choices of Loathing, Curiosity, and Benevolence just so happened to be the three emotions that you have the highest resonance with. As you continue to flex those emotional muscles either through feeling them or using them in the ERPS, your manifestations in that Emotic will grow more powerful.
“This really is just like a damn video game, huh?” I asked. I tapped on the screen and pulled up my skills, reading the detailed descriptions of each one.
Self-Immolate [1st Depth]
Emotic: Loathing
Cost: 1 Spoon / Minute
Stop, Drop, and Roll! Or don’t - it won’t actually do anything. This kinetically amplifies all of your cells, rapidly increasing your movement and processing speeds by cranking up the internal temperature of your body. Prolonged use may cause you to actually cook yourself.
1st Depth - Quadruple speed of all physical movements and thoughts
Mind Loppers [1st Depth]
Emotic: Curiosity
Range: 15 feet
Cost: 3 Spoons
Remember the dissection labs in middle school where you had to cut open a frog? You probably didn’t know what you were doing, but hey - at least it was an eventful third period. This allows you to cut matter at the atomic level, slicing and dicing the world around you with just a thought. Please handle with care.
1st Depth - Cut a line of inorganic matter up to five feet long and two feet deep.
Group Hug [1st Depth]
Emotic: Benevolence
Range: 50 feet
Cost: 3 Spoons
Who doesn’t love a group hug? A bunch of pals coming together in one big embrace, squeezing each other until something pops. Ok, maybe we all hug a little differently. This allows you to force external matter together, increasing covariable gravitational pull between distinct objects.
1st Depth - Cause two objects up to twenty pounds each to pull together. Lighter objects will be pulled much faster into heavier ones.
I was glad to have a more concrete understanding of these skills, but the lack of context was absolutely killing me. I exited the last description and noticed two new additions to my personal stat sheet. The first listed something called Ouchies and displayed the value 3/10 next to it. I gingerly touched the lump on my forehead and guessed that this was how the ERPS would display my health. The second new addition matched a section of the skill descriptions from earlier - Spoons, displaying 9/10 next to it. My guess was that this was the AI research version of mana, giving me fuel to use my manifestations.
I let out a sigh and felt ten years older than I had yesterday. I already knew there was no chance in hell I’d be going in for my shift at the StopN’Shop later - Mr.Shawn, my boss, could hold down the fort on his own. Truckers could get their dip from someone else tonight. I zoned out in my kitchen for a moment, letting a haze of not-thinking wash over me like a warm blanket. It felt nice.
Jonesy wasted no time snapping me out of it.
It seems like you don’t have any more burning questions! I’m so excited, I have never made it this far with a participant before - are you ready for your first research task?
The only way out is through, I told myself. It struck me as odd that this AI shared opinions and mimicked human emotions, but I reminded myself that this was a strange being of math and probability that existed outside my comprehension. It wasn’t a funny British refrigerator - that was just a face, a mask trained on data harvested from me. Instead, Jonesy was a near omniscient, omnipotent thing that had forced the ERPS on me with a very high chance of death. This thing was not my friend. I swore to never let that constant truth slip from my mind.
“Hit me with it,” I said, nervous for what may come next. Whether or not this machine would ask to scan my brain or have me fight some insane AI generated monster felt like a complete toss up. Jonesy seemed to revel in the anticipation, playing a fucking drum-roll as the refrigerator lights started to pulse.
This is going to be amazing!
Ok Fred. I’ve thought long and hard about what task would be most appropriate for your first assignment. Given your history, emotional resonances, subconscious biases, physical makeup, and, well, everything else about you, I think I’ve found the perfect test!
Drum roll please… Your! First! Task! Is!
Jonesy stretched out an uncomfortable bit of silence as I began shifting my weight from foot to foot. Did she really need to make a whole production out of this?
Fred McMillian! I hereby order you to … rob a fucking bank!
