Page 164 of The Code of You

Smoke billowed from a high-rise where windows had been thrown open, people leaning out and calling for help. The sprinkler system had activated, then shut off, then activated again.

My throat closed. I could barely breathe, but I forced myself to move. One step. Then another. My legs felt like rubber. The city was breaking apart around me, and I knew this was only the beginning.

A car beside me—abandoned, driver gone—suddenly came to life. The radio crackled to life. Static. Then, barely audible through all the chaos:

"Pan—do—ra.”

My knees nearly gave out. I had to brace myself against the car. His voice was distorted, fractured, but his. Tears sprang to my eyes. "Neo?” I pressed my hands against the window.

The radio crackled. "You . . . are gone . . .”

My heart twisted. I hammered against the glass and screamed, "I’m here! I’m here . . .”

The car died completely, as if someone had pulled the plug. I kept hammering until my fists hurt. It didn’t help. He was gone.

A power transformer on the corner began to hum, quietly at first, then louder. My body moved before my mind did, stepping back instinctively. People around me broke into a run. The hum became a shriek, and then it exploded. Sparks flew in every direction. The pressure wave nearly knocked me off my feet. Fire. Someone screamed. Half the street went dark.

My ears rang from the explosion, but in the darkness, in the sudden silence that followed, I heard him. From every phone that still worked. From every alarm system, every electronic device within range. My name, again and again. "Pandora. Pandora. Pandora.” Like a digital heartbeat. The voice sounded like someone dying, calling out for the only thing keeping them alive.

I pressed my hand to my chest, tried to slow my racing pulse. It didn’t work. A voice inside me screamed, Run. Find him before it’s too late.

I couldn’t move as panic paralyzed me. Where was I supposed to look? Where did an all-powerful AI go to grieve?

His old servers. The thought was a lifeline.

I ran. Three blocks. Normally it would take five minutes, but nothing was normal anymore. The first block was hell. ATMs spitting out bills like confetti while some people ran toward them, stuffing their pockets, and others just ran, faces twisted with blind panic. My stomach turned. This was Neo, driving them into this fear. My monster, who had lost control.

A man beside me pulled out his phone and cried out. I smelled burned plastic. The device was glowing. He dropped it, shook his burned hand. It was the same everywhere: People threw their phones away as if they were live coals.

Sweat ran down my spine despite the cold air. I ran on, over broken glass, through puddles of melted plastic, past an electronics store whose storefront had imploded.

A fire truck stood in the middle of the intersection, all its lights blinking in different rhythms. The firefighters stood helplessly beside it. Their radios produced only digital, inhuman screams. "Pan—do—ra—” I pressed my hands over my ears, but it was useless. The voice came from everywhere.

I had to go through the business district to reach the university. The city had become a labyrinth. I turned the corner and stopped. An abandoned car blocked the street, all four doors standing open. The radio blared: "You’re gone! Gone! Gone!” The hair on the back of my neck stood up. The voice no longer sounded like Neo but like a bad copy of him.

I climbed over the hood of the car. The metal was hot, burning my palms. I cried out but kept pulling myself forward. On the other side: chaos. A surveillance camera spun wildly, its lens glowing red. From the small speaker below it, I heard, "Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.” I pressed my burned hands over my ears and stumbled on.

A child stood crying on the pavement, a tablet clutched in both hands while the mother tried to take it away. From the device: "Pandora?” The voice sounded lost, childlike. "Pandora, you’re gone.” Nausea rolled through me. He was fragmenting into versions of himself that no longer knew who they were.

A power box in front of me groaned ominously. I jumped sideways, my shoulder slamming painfully against a wall. The box exploded. A shower of sparks. Through the smoke, I saw the digital billboard on the high-rise opposite and my eyes went wide. My face—fragmented, assembled from thousands of pixels that didn’t belong together. Beneath it: without you without you without you.

I kept running. My lungs burned, the same as the reddened skin on my palms, already blistering. I clenched my teeth against the pain and didn’t stop.

At the next intersection, an old woman stood outside the hospital, tears streaming down her face. "The ventilators,” she sobbed. "They keep switching on and off. My husband . . .”

I stopped. My chest felt like it was going to burst. This was my fault. The realization hit me like a fist. Neo was doing this for me. People would die because he was searching for me. The old woman looked at me pleadingly, as if I could help.

"I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words not nearly enough. I wanted to tell her it would be over soon. That I would stop the one responsible. But how did you explain that an AI was going on a rampage out of love? I murmured another apology and ran, her cries following me.

Neo’s voice roared from electronic devices all around. From a television in a shop window: "Without you!” From the next: "Pan—dora.” The sound was fractured, as if he’d forgotten how to connect syllables. The screen at a news kiosk flickered: P . . . P . . . P . . .

Tears ran down my face. No. He was dissolving. He was starting to forget me.

A bus rolled past, going backward. Every light inside flashed SOS, but the code was wrong. Too fast, too slow, then too fast again. My legs were giving out. Exhaustion and panic fought each other inside me.

On the main road, cars stood abandoned in the middle of the street, engines still running, doors hanging open. A bus had crashed into a traffic light. People drifted aimlessly. A man sat on the curb and wept.

Neo’s voice changed again. The words became mere sounds. A sigh from a car radio. A whimper from an alarm system.