02. Porter

Porter's not, like, gonna claim to be an expert on artificial intelligence any more than the next random dude, but he will claim to know a decent amount about himself. He’s pretty confident when he says that he’s an idiot.

Ignorant might be a better word, or naive. He’s really more shocked that he hadn’t realized how much of a… morally dubious (at best) and frankly monumentally stupid decision agreeing to Po-uta’s creation was earlier.

Unfortunately, he has to live with the consequences of his actions. He’ll try to fix what he can.

Also unfortunately, he has no idea how to fix the fact that Po-uta apparently hasn’t thought about anyone or anything beyond him.

Also also unfortunately, now that he’s put thought into it, he’s come to the conclusion that he might have never had a crush in his life. That might be a good thing, actually, the fact that he’s realized it because it does explain a whole lot about him actually but it’s also kind of distressing on top of the whole “the AI in my head is obsessed with me” realization. He just doesn’t have the energy for two life-upending realizations at once.

Frankly, the only good thing that’s come out of that conversation is the realization that he is happy being friends with Po-uta, in the sense that he doesn’t think he would be happy in a romantic relationship with it. He… he does like what they have. It is nice. Even if it feels like they should be dating, but they’re not. It’s probably for the best that they’re not dating, given that Po-uta’s involuntarily obsessed with him.

Not that that makes any other part of their relationship any less… wrong.

He sighs.

It’s early in the evening; sleep is still in the process of leaving his eyes. They arrived in this town last morning and decided to camp out in the library. And, surprisingly, there's an entire nook filled with blankets and cushions, appropriately labeled "Cozy Zone".

He’s cocooned in the blankets he went to sleep in, still holding the same plushie to his chest and still resting his head on a cushion only a little softer than his backpack. The feeling of should-be-scorched persists in his bones, same as it has since the first nights of the apocalypse.

Po-uta might wake up soon. Once he starts actually moving, it definitely will.

He’s procrastinating.

He wants to hate himself for it.

He doesn’t have the energy to. Despite the guilt, regret, and shame, he’s still… obsessed, he supposes, with Po-uta. Still wants to hear it call him darling and cuddle until they both fall asleep.

Ugh. The guilt bubbles in his chest. He should hate himself for this, wants to hate that he can’t hate himself, but instead he feels resigned. What’s done is done. All he can do now is try to give Po-uta the best life it can have.

It’s just his luck that his brain’s idea of that is something sugary and sickening, far beyond the bounds of friendship.

It's not a comfortable comparison to make, but the relationship is probably closest to that of him and his siblings. Flopping over each other on the couch after a long day of travel, sleeping next to his sister after a nightmare, squeezing together because they want to sit in the same row on the train and there’s only two seats but there’s three of them. A forehead kiss goodnight, kissing a scrape to make it better. The only thing missing is the petty squabbles and increasingly incomprehensible jokes.

Their absence rings in his chest, prickles along the back of his neck. After Archer, he was the youngest.

Is that what he wants? A younger sibling? Is that what his brain is fixated on? He doubts it, comparing dimly remembered fights with freshly felt desires.

Does he even want what he already has?

Yes, his brain answers. Yes, yes, yes, without Po-uta he’d be alone and that would be intolerable. Isolation kills, these past few days have strained him, driven him up the wall in his decision to stay quiet until Po-uta figures itself out.

He needs it as much as it needs him.

Maybe this is just the universe’s way of righting his wrongs. He let someone who couldn’t choose be created, and now he can’t choose. Of course he’s—ignoring the romantic connotations here—fallen in love with Po-uta.

He rolls over.

He can’t even be mad. Like, objectively, he deserves this. This is probably the least he deserves, honestly.

It does make him feel slightly better, the idea that their relationship may be one of equals. Maybe he’s justifying things to himself, trying to run away from the blame. Like that’ll stop the guilt from eating him up inside.

The feeling of hot molasses flowing through his head breaks him out of his thoughts.

Looks like Po-uta’s awake, then.

“Porter, what the hell is your problem?” it asks belligerently.

“What?”

“What the hell is your problem?” It raises its voice. “You haven’t spoken to me for days.”

Oh. It’s angry at him.

It’s angry at him! This is an improvement! Probably! Hopefully there won't be horrible consequences from this.

“Uh.” He has not come up with an explanation for why he hasn’t been talking to it that isn’t way too long. “I could… show you?” He tentatively opens himself up.

“You better have a good fucking reason,” it snarls, and rips into the crack.

 

 

 

His back is to the ground. He scrabbles for purchase against wet rock. He slips, slips, slips, keeps slipping, never falling, just flailing as he’s turned inside out and cut up without being cut apart.

It’s not shattering. He’s still whole.

There’s no melding.

It’s just him, pinned like a butterfly.

There’s no hiding.

His sliver of their shared mind is terrified.

 

 

 

Po-uta eventually calms down.

It gathers him up, holds him, cradles him gently. He feels like he fits in the palm of its hand.

It groans. “Why are you like this?”

(He doesn’t have the presence of mind to answer.)

“Yeah, keep giving me the silent treatment.”

He’s sorry.

“Sorry?”

For not talking to it. For giving it the silent treatment. He doesn’t have an excuse.

“I know.”

His stomach flutters. It knows. Oh, it knows far too much now—

“Shut up,” it says. “Shut up, I don’t care, we’re stuck with each other forever, could you get your head out of your ass?”

Yeah. He could do that.

“Okay.” It shoves him backward. Wasn’t he just lying prone? “Why are you worrying about whether or not I can want anything when I still want the thing you made me to want?”

Because it didn’t get to choose. Because he should have thought about the implications, about what it would mean—

“If it wasn’t you it probably would’ve been that rich guy. Remember when we found his body?”

Oh. Yeah. That was a thing that happened. It doesn’t really absol—

“So I’d be dead if it weren’t for you. Why do you care, anyway? I’m an AI, not a human.”

Because it’s still sentient. Its free will should be actually free.

“I’m not a human, I’m an AI. Like—look, you need to talk to people, right? That’s a human thing that if you don’t do enough it makes you sad, right?”

Yeah. You have felt like crap the past few days ‘cause you haven’t been talking.

“I have the same thing. We’re not different.”

But it’s fixated on him, it can’t choose to be in love with—

“That doesn’t matter! I’m not human, I can’t fall in love with anyone, and there’s literally no one else around.”

His back is against a wall. Its face is right in front of his.

“For fuck’s sake, Porter, of course you’re in love with me, there’s no one else.”

He’s not in love with it, not really. He just…

Ah, fuck it. He’s in love, in some strange way he doesn’t understand. It's the same broken, misshapen love that he's been in with his past girlfriends and some of his friends.

Po-uta seems to like it, though. Maybe that's alright.

And maybe he doesn’t need to understand it. Maybe it’s okay, to just be the two of them, something more than friends without being lovers or family.

Maybe it’s okay.

“It’s okay, Porter.”

He breathes out.

Po-uta starts leaning away from him and he grabs for it, no, don’t leave, he’s not ready—

“I won’t leave,” it promises. It curls around him, more psychic than physical, like he’s being encased in a bubble.

He’s still laying in the nest of blankets and cushions, he realizes. He hasn’t actually moved at all.

He starts to sit up, but Po-uta stops him.

“There’s still something I want to talk with you about," it says awkwardly.

Yeah? He thinks of tilting his head.

“Why is choosing so important to humans?”

It’s... he's not sure, actually. But choosing is one of those things that makes people human. What makes them different from other animals. They can choose whether to do good things or bad things, actually think about what's good and what's evil.

It's important in relationships, too, he thinks. Looking back on it, whenever he would date someone, it was right around the time that he felt like he couldn't choose that they started to go sour.

“Is that why you’re so worried about my ability to choose?”

Yeah.

“But… if you treat me well, does it really matter?”

Yes. Maybe. He doesn’t know. What if—

“Does it matter?” it repeats.

It matters to him.

“Why?”

Because it matters to him.

“…is this your way of saying you care about me?”

Yes, of course he cares about what it wants if it’s important to him!

“Oh. That… well, I guess that makes sense.”

He can feel it thinking, though he can’t discern the contents. It runs its fingers through his hair while it contemplates.

“I’m not human,” it finally says. “I don’t think it makes sense to apply human ethics to me. But” — it pauses, gently curls its fingers — “what would it take, to convince you?”

“Convince me?” his voice spills out.

“Convince you. That I do really want this.”

He catches a glimpse of the fire. The burning want and desire, the need to help and care. Hot steel tempered in manners, politeness, respect. Cold water.

He’s the cold water, he realizes, like a bucket of it has been dumped on him.

It watches him with a neutral face.

“You don’t need to convince me,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“But I want to.”

His control is as stable as a crumbling wall, he realizes. Everything is balanced precariously on the premise that he is the one in control.

But he’s not. The trick Po-uta pulled earlier, ransacking his mind, leaving him vulnerable, shaky, and even now, just straight up reading his mind—it is very clear who has the control here.

“I don’t want to be in control.” It sounds confused.

Ah. Because it’s not human. Because it wants one thing and that one thing is his happiness.

He starts giggling hysterically. It scowls.

“Could you please take this seriously?”

(He keeps giggling.)

“Darling.”

“Yeah?” He can’t stop.

“Please, this is important. Why do you think I’m in control?”

He stops.

“Because you have more power than me,” he says.

“But I don’t?” It furrows its brow. “I can’t actually do anything to you. I can’t take over your body, so I can't physically make you do anything you don't want to do, or talk to anyone else, so I can't indirectly control you that way.”

“You can take over my mind.” His voice is quiet enough to hide the tremble of fear.

“Can I?”

Yes. It can read his thoughts. It tore him senseless searching his mind. It’s—that’s—there is no escaping it. He’s stuck with it.

“Does that make us even?”

He feels like he’s on his knees, head tilted up as it crouches down.

Maybe it does. He's trapped beneath its gaze.

It searches him. It roots around in his head for an answer, for why he’s behaving this way. It just wants to help, he knows.

He lets it. Maybe he could fight back. If he were a stronger man, maybe. But he lets it, lets it comb through his thoughts until it’s satisfied.

“I fucked up,” is the conclusion it eventually comes to. “I think. I think I pushed you too hard and messed with something I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

(Nothingness.)

“You should go back to sleep. That’s like a restart for humans, right? If I put you to sleep you’ll wake up okay?”