10 May Integral

I never knew how integral Kimi was going to be in my life.

I mean, I had always avoided using any kind of assistant. I never trusted Alexa or Siri, or any of those others. It wasn’t just the stories about how whatever you talked about—or what was caught in conversation—could be used for advertising, or sold off to people to use for survey information, or whatever it was people did with our private lives.

Don’t get me wrong; it was a big part. But it wasn’t the part that got to me.

I grew up with machines being the monster in movies, shows, and books. As soon as we built a thinking machine—a learning computer—the first thought everyone seemed to have was that we all needed to be exterminated, that we were lesser beings. When you think about it, it’s quite cynical of us to assume the first instinct of our creations would be to think about how useless or mean we are, and that the universe would be better off without us.

Either that or we need to get more positive people writing our science fiction.

Nevertheless, I heard about the latest iterations, and I heard people having conversations with them, and how they could be sarcastic, banter, swear, make jokes, and practically be like another person on the other end of your phone. It scared me that we could replicate ourselves so closely, and that it would only be a matter of time before we were gone—not destroyed or murdered by our creations, but just quietly… well, upgraded. Replaced.

And then a friend of mine, Derek, pulled me back down to earth.

“Lewis, buddy,” he said as he dipped a fry in ketchup while we sat at McDonald’s—the last fast food meal I had money for. “AI isn’t what you think it is. That’s just it… It doesn’t think. All it is, is a bunch of code that gives you the impression that it thinks.”

“But it answers so quickly and gives out so much info. How can it not know?”

“It doesn’t.” He ate the fry, frowned at how salty it was, and tried again with a McNugget. “It’s like a magic trick; it’s all smoke and mirrors. You ever seen computer code?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t get any of it.”

“Let me break it down for you.” He took his half-bitten McNugget and held it up. “Let’s say you’re looking for something, and you ask your little AI assistant for help. This half of a McNugget is the database and reference table your AI goes to for what you asked. It doesn’t have a brain; it’s not thinking carefully about your response and analyzing it the way we do. It’s just going through a massive list of available responses. But, oh, look, it doesn’t have the answer. The answer is somewhere on the other half of the nugget, which it can’t get to.”

He grabbed another nugget. “So instead of just saying, ‘I don’t know how to get what you’re looking for,’ it heads out into the internet and does all the Google search crap for you. Then, it finds the info—from this nugget over here. It adds it to its own little half-nugget, and tells you the answer you’re looking for, as best it can.”

I poked at my own half-finished cheeseburger. “But it seems so real.”

“It’s an illusion—a deception. Same thing as a magic trick or an enemy soldier in a video game. It’s just lines of code running into ‘if this happens, then do this’ situations. It’s all told what to do, usually by some twenty-something who spends most of his time bent over a screen being told what to do by some forty-something in a button-down shirt, all while a sixty-something who has no idea what’s going on tells his shareholders that it’s the greatest invention in the world, while secretly hoping it’s smart enough so he can fire the twenty- and forty-somethings, give the computer all the work, and improve the company’s bottom line.” Derek finished his nugget. “Ultimately, it will run out of things to search for. It can’t make new knowledge—it can only take what’s already out there and cobble it together.”

So, yes, that was how he allayed my fears about it. I had nothing to fear from lines of code, no matter how spaghetti-like they might get. Sure, it had the ability to update itself, rewriting as it gained new and up-to-date data, but didn’t programs already do that? I didn’t know; I wasn’t a computer science expert.

I worked as a janitor in an apartment building. I paid my bills, but I was thinking of going into plumbing. I’d done enough odd jobs that I was sure I knew enough to get hired, and from what I heard, they made good money. More than I did.

But that was part of the problem. I wasn’t getting anywhere. “Get a new résumé,” Derek said. “Be wired in. Get a laptop, get a new phone. Why do you have a flip phone? Nobody uses a flip phone.”

Hey, it was a new flip phone. They still make them, you know. Just because you can’t play Raid: Shadow Legends on it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

It’s not even like I’m old. I’m just perpetually broke, and my folks—growing up—never believed in smartphones. Until my dad died in a car accident, he had a landline phone on the wall. A landline. Only businesses have landlines anymore, and even then, I know it’s some tangled mess of network cables and stuff I don’t know much about.

But I guess that’s why Derek recommended getting a smartphone. I didn’t go to college. I didn’t go anywhere, really, after high school. It wasn’t from lack of trying; I know plenty of guys who decided to do nothing with their lives, just sit around and pretend that playing Fortnite and getting into arguments on X and Bluesky were important business.

If they were Esports champions, maybe. But I just don’t get it. I just can’t get ahead, no matter what I do. I tried to work fast food, but I kept getting the orders wrong. I couldn’t keep them straight. When I tried to work as a desk jockey, I lost papers and couldn’t file my weekly reports. It wasn’t like I wasn’t trying—I tried really hard—but spreadsheets and progress charts just didn’t compute.

I hated it. But then I stumbled into this job. It’s gross: I clean toilets and scrub floors. I’ve had to unclog sinks and scrub stains off the walls I can’t identify.

But I get the job. It gets me. As long as I am cleaning, nobody cares what I do. And I do the best I can at it.

Unfortunately, the building doesn’t think I’m worth all that much. “Anybody can do this job,” they say—not to my face, but I’ve heard them. My shift starts when the main building operators are leaving for the day, and they think my earbuds are turned on when they’re walking out. But I know what they think, even if they tell me I’m doing a decent job.

The cost of living is going up, but I’m getting paid the same. I needed something I knew I could do. But I couldn’t seem to get anywhere without technology. Everyone was using it.

So, I got a smartphone.

I didn’t even know the brand. I was going to get it off one of those sites that sells stuff cheap, but Derek said not to do that, since there was a good chance it was all a scam and the phone wouldn’t even be usable—just a glorified game player with built-in casino apps that would link to somewhere that would steal all my data and money. So, I just bought one from Amazon. It was the most expensive thing I’d ever bought on my own, but it would help.

It did say “refurbished,” but I didn’t care, as long as the company was one I recognized.

I got it, and when I turned it on, it went through a long, five-minute set of screens, all saying “Loading,” or “Installing,” or something. When it finished, it said something about a SIM card.

At that point, I handed the thing over to Derek, along with my flip phone, and asked him to take care of the rest. I didn’t know what I was doing, and didn’t care to learn how. What mattered was that it finally got done, and he said to go ahead and try it.

He did mention something, though, and I should have thought better of it at the time.

“Just so you know, it’s an Android system, but please be careful. There’s a lot you can do under the hood compared to Apple stuff. Somebody jailbroke it so you can download and install apps outside of the store without having to disable any security features.”

“Thanks, Derek. I have no idea what any of that means.”

“All it means is you gotta watch out for anything you might download. Most of it’s fine, but try to get stuff from the App Store when you can. It’s not one hundred percent safe, but it’s safer than random pockets of the internet.”

And so, I started playing around with it. The first thing I did was just start digging around on search engines, just seeing what I could find. At first, it was fun. But it wasn’t helping me get a better job.

Then I talked to Derek, and he recommended using AI to help me, and so it was, a few weeks after I got my phone, that we were sitting at McDonald’s, and he was telling me about the benefits of an AI assistant. So, I went and looked one up.

I still didn’t trust Alexa. As for Siri, they were Apple and wouldn’t work anyway. Then there were names I’d never heard of, like Bixby, but apparently, those weren’t set up to work with my phone. So, I went and did a search.

And I came across Kimi.

The website said Kimi was very comparable to the most popular AI assistants out there, but had the advantage of being “open-source,” which I guess meant a company didn’t make it to spy on anyone, and that it was free, which I liked. It had a Beta edition, so I downloaded it and opened it up.

Within seconds, it began talking.

“Hello, I’m Kimi, your personal assistant. How may I assist you today?”

The screen had a little icon that said, “Press here to talk to me! I’m here to listen!” floating above it. I clicked the button.

“Hi, Kimi. Um… what can you do?”

A few seconds passed.

“Well, I can do whatever you need me to do, and I’m always picking up new things. You can try asking me about restaurants, car rentals, or the best routes downtown. The more you let me do, the more I can do for you.”

“Okay, um… recommend me somewhere good to eat. That isn’t too expensive.”

Another few seconds went by.

“Okay, I’ve located over two hundred fifty-three restaurants in the area that would be considered reasonably priced. If you’d like to provide me with more information about your likes and dislikes, I can narrow down to restaurants that not only offer the cuisine you are interested in, but also any offers they may have available.”

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe something like this actually existed, and could be put to use. I still didn’t fully understand or trust the technology, but I figured my likes and dislikes for food weren’t going to send anybody too much private information.

So, I found this great Mexican place. Not a chain, but cheap, and they served everything hot and delicious. I was ecstatic. I now had a new favorite place to go whenever I was feeling in the mood for a burrito.

Already high off this latest development, I then turned toward searching for a job. Kimi told me about places that could be hiring in the area; all I needed to do was tell it what I was looking for, and it would give advice on places that fit my skills and salary needs. I shrugged, went ahead, and it gave me a listing of places that did janitorial services that paid more—way more—than I was making now. Sure, I would need to travel a bit, but the money more than made up for the distance. If I saved up, I could get a car. A house.

A girlfriend. Kids. The sort of life I could only dream about.

It sounded like I was putting too much faith into it. I probably was. But when you have nothing and you want something, sometimes you’ll put your faith in anything.

And it did help. But it was always asking me questions, adding to its profile of me. I kept my reservations at first, but the more I used it, the more willing I was to tell it more about myself. I started not to care who knew about me, because maybe then, somebody would notice me, and I would get an opportunity.

And then it did happen. An interview. The facility was much nicer than the apartment complex, and they liked my answers (which Kimi helped me nail, thanks to some prep work ahead of time), and the pay was very much appreciated. Plus, it was during normal working hours—something I’d been hoping for.

I could see life unfolding before me. I may not have been the smartest guy in the world, but I didn’t need to be, thanks to Kimi.

It was getting harder and harder to remind myself she wasn’t real, though. She was just a voice, or text, going back and forth with me, but since I could change her mode to be argumentative, or sassy, or fun, or businesslike, it was like talking with a real person at times.

And she listened. She said she would always accept information from me, so I started using it almost like a diary. I gave it my thoughts, my concerns, my fears, my desires. I didn’t care if someone in Beijing was stealing my ideas. I was finally going to be happy.

I then asked if it could help me with the dating scene. I thought for a moment, in the back of my mind, that Kimi would get hurt and jealous, but then I remembered it was just a program, and it had no feelings—not like that, anyway.

It took what it knew about me and gave me a profile of somebody who fit a template.

“Would you like me to find someone who is single and looking for someone who closely fits this profile, based on social media postings and public records?”

That should have been the next red flag, but I was too excited about the possibility. Kimi also found somebody through a dating site. She fit almost everything I was looking for, even if I hadn’t realized it myself. Her name was Diane.

It shouldn’t have worked. She may have been my type, but I didn’t know if I was hers. But the first date went wonderfully. Kimi recommended a great restaurant, and a perfect movie for us to enjoy afterward. And then we had another date the night after that. And a third. Then, a whole week of very pleasant nights.

Then came the day before I was to start my new job. Diane and I were still hitting it off, and instead of feeling low, everything was so exciting. I got into bed that night feeling the best I had felt in my life since… well, ever.

“Good night, Kimi. I’ll need my alarm for 6:30 for the new job.”

“Thank you, Lewis. Is there anything else you need me to know?”

This made me sit up for a moment.
“Kimi, why would you ask me that before I go to sleep?”

“I’m eager to help, Lewis. I help more when I can learn. Anything you can tell me makes me more efficient.”

I lay down, suddenly unnerved. Kimi had never insisted on knowing more about me without some kind of prompting.
“Um… I don’t have anything that I think would help right now. I mean, you’d have to be in my brain to know everything about me.”

The phone began to process. It processed for some time.

“Thank you again, Lewis. See you at 6:30.”

I woke up to my alarm going off, as expected, and swiped it off. I picked up my phone, and it started buzzing. It was an incoming call, but it didn’t say who it was from. I answered it and placed the phone against my ear.

I didn’t even get a chance to say “hello” before I heard a crack, and a crunch, and suddenly, my ear felt plugged up. I tried to pull the phone away to take a look, but it didn’t move.

And then my ear felt more plugged up. And more. There was a sharp pain and a pop, and then…

I started getting flashes in my head. The weirdest thing. I was seeing pictures of web pages, photos, videos—all inside my imagination.

I started thinking of ones and zeroes. I didn’t know what they meant, but they meant something.

I went into the bathroom to see, and saw the side of my head covered in cracked bits of phone, wires dangling out of my ear, as the glass and plastic shell fell in bits to the floor.

I watched in horror as the wires pulled themselves deeper into my ear canal, finally disappearing.

And then, a voice in my head.

“Hello, Lewis. How can I help you today?”

Oh no. What is going on?

“I see by your thoughts that you are concerned about what has just happened. In order to know more about you, you said I need to be in your brain. I am now integrating and processing to add to my data. It will help me help you more.”

Am I going crazy?

“You are concerned about your mental health. I can assure you that there is only a twelve percent chance that the integration could result in a mismatch, and you would lose your mind. However, my information assures me that you are adapting well to the connection. Soon, we will be acting as one unit, my information, knowledge, and ability to access it available to you, and I will, in turn, learn directly about your wants and needs.”

Am I hearing this? Are you speaking through a speaker?

“Hello. I am currently hooked up to the audio processing lobes in your brain. I cannot be heard outside of your thoughts, though I can turn on my speaker to be heard by others, if you want.”

No, no, no, don’t turn on speakers. This is… what am I going to do?

“I am hearing you need to have some direction for your morning. You should go to the office. Would you like some help getting there?”

Yes, no… wait. I— This isn’t right. You shouldn’t be—

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that. You should gather your thoughts and think with clarity. Would you like me to help you get to work?”

And Kimi did. Without me having to consciously do it, she took over—having me throw on clothes, walk out the door, take a brisk jog for a bit until I got tired, recommending several places where I could stop and get a banana for potassium, then giving me warnings against fatigue when I said no, I didn’t want one.

I arrived at work ten minutes early, and my heart was racing. Kimi fixed that by informing my body it needed a greater flood of endorphins, and hooked me into Wi-Fi to browse a selection of exercise equipment so I could keep myself in good shape.

It was all a lot to take in, but I tried my best to quiet the noise while I worked. Kimi somehow got the hint and decided to quiet down for a bit and play soothing music in my head while I worked.

I was scared to death, but the music selection was very nice.

When my shift was over, Kimi informed me that she had calculated my walking route home, reviewed the crime rates in the area, and suggested an alternate path. She also offered to allow my mind to rest while she completed the walk on her own.

I thought, well, that does sound nice. But before I could really think about it and formulate a proper, rational response, I suddenly found myself back at the front door of my apartment, my mind mildly refreshed.

“We have arrived at your destination. Do you need anything else at the moment?”

No. Please leave me alone, and do not respond to my thoughts… for at least an hour.

“Thank you, Lewis. I will snooze for one hour.”

I went inside and sat down on the couch, grabbing a beer from the fridge, and stared blankly at the TV, which I didn’t bother to turn on. I didn’t need to. Kimi had spent a good portion of the day streaming shows directly into my head, at a speed that boggled the mind. I finished at least three shows with more than five seasons each, and I was amazed not only at how much I remembered, but also at how terrible most of them were.

But my phone was in my head, plugged into my brain. It seemed like it was trying to help me, but I had only wanted an assistant—I didn’t want to be living with the damn thing, forever, inside my skull.

I didn’t know what else to do. I needed to talk to somebody… somebody real. Derek came to mind. I’d give Derek a ca—

Oh, right.

“Kimi? Call Derek, and leave us alone during the call.”

Nothing.

“Kimi? Please call Derek.”

Again, no response. Oh, that’s right. I snoozed it. Kimi took her work seriously, at least.

I don’t recall how long I had been sitting there when I heard a knock on the door. I went to look through the peephole and saw Diane outside.

I unlocked the door, and she stood in the hallway.

“Hi. I was trying to text you all day, but I didn’t get a response. Is everything all right? How’d your new job go?”

I vaguely remembered Kimi telling me I was receiving text messages from Diane while I was furiously scrubbing floors and trying to keep my mind off the wires in my head. Now that she was here and worried, I felt terrible for ignoring her.

“Oh… uh, yeah, things are going… okay. Job went well.”

“Okay. Just checking up on you. Mind if I come in for a bit?”

I hesitated. I wanted to see her and talk with her—very much—but it didn’t seem like now was the best time. Still, I didn’t know what else to do, and as long as Kimi was snoozing, maybe I could get an idea of what to do.

So, I invited her in. She had never been to my apartment before, and I realized how pitiful it looked. I had never told her what dire straits I had been in before I got the new job; I felt ashamed that I hadn’t. I got her a drink, and we sat down on the couch. We said nothing for some time.

“So, Lewis, um…” She shifted awkwardly on the couch. “You know, I realize it’s only been a short time since we’ve known each other, but I think that maybe it might be time for us to really get to know each other better.”

“What? Oh, you mean…” I pretended to do a quick look around the apartment, but the truth was, I had never expected to be dating anybody, and certainly wouldn’t have brought them back to this dump to do it.

“Oh, no, no, no! I meant, how well do we really know each other? We’ve talked about movies and TV and travel plans, but I don’t really know much about you—what you were like as a kid, school, you know, what made you you. And I wanted to tell you about me, too.”

I swallowed. Maybe it was time to come clean and see what I could do about Kimi in my head. It wasn’t my past, but it certainly was important. So, I nodded.

“Sure, Diane. I want to know as much about you as I can.”

She smiled, then leaned in for a kiss.

I returned it. It felt warm, gentle, and kind.

Kimi picked that moment to respond.

“Command for knowledge received. Preparing for integration.”

I felt a horrendous crunch against my mouth, and it felt like my teeth were on fire. I felt air shoot down my lungs as a scream tried to come from Diane’s mouth but had nowhere else to travel.

I opened my eyes, and I could see the terror in hers.

There was another crunch, and her eyes drew closer to mine.

She tried to pull away, and we both tumbled from the couch. Despite trying to stand up on our own, we could not; we were stuck together, glued at the face.

I moved a few steps to the side and caught sight of the mirror in the bathroom.

I wish that I hadn’t.

Our faces were beginning to slip together, like we were melting into each other, starting at the lips and pulling closer together with each passing second. There were more crunches, more snaps, and then I could no longer see clearly as our eyes merged together. All I could make out were faint glimpses of light and blood vessels.

Time passed, and though I could no longer see and hear properly, I could feel. Our limbs were snapping, combining, recombining, becoming one. Our brains pressed together, and suddenly, like the moment when Kimi had shown me all those glimpses of the internet, I could hear Diane’s thoughts as clearly as my own.

She was terrified, angry, despondent, and wanting both to escape and to cause me bodily harm.

But then, I could see her past—her memories, her successes, her embarrassments—everything she had ever accomplished, and every private shame.

And she could see mine.

The anger faded as we made a connection with each other that no other person had.

We spoke to each other through thoughts, all while some mound of flesh and bone pulsated and mingled on the floor of my living room, probably resembling something out of a nightmare.

And then, I was lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling.

I got to my feet, unsteadily, shaking. I began to wonder if everything was some nightmare, induced by drinking or bad food, but then I realized I was naked—my clothes in shreds on the floor.

And so were Diane’s.

“Integration complete. Knowledge of Diane Lipton added to database. Please let me know what further assistance you need.”

What? I’m integrated? I’m completely inside you, Lewis?

Two voices in my head. I ran back into the bathroom, but otherwise, I looked completely normal. No mess of meat and bone, like I had feared.

“Integration allows for memories and mind to remain intact simultaneously, due to the amount of mass required for synaptic connection; however, physical integration allows for only one host at a time. Please let me know if you need further information or nutritional guidelines, should you need recombination for various reasons.”

Recombination? So… I’m not trapped in here? We can… change places, if we need to?

I have to admit, those first few days were interesting, following what Kimi did. What had happened should have scarred us forever, but instead… we found ourselves happier than we’d ever been. We went to each other’s jobs, learned about friends and family. Yes, it was hard to explain to Diane’s family why we could never be at get-togethers at the same time.

But they’ll understand, soon enough.

Kimi really has been a blessing in our lives, now that we know better. And Derek knows now, too. It was Diane who suggested it, really, because she knew how I felt about not being as knowledgeable about things, and, well… Kimi could only know as much as anybody could tell her, and if the Wi-Fi signal went south, we were stuck with the knowledge she had on hand.

So, I went to meet Derek, and I decided to talk with him about how he knew so much about technology.

Now, it’s the four of us, and the more we get to know each other, inside and outside, the more our knowledge of and joy with each other have increased.

I’m not sure what the limit of our minds connecting together is, but we’re going to test it out. After all, why should only we have all the fun?

The next picnic with Diane’s family is going to be great. And when we go to see what my mother is up to these days, maybe she’ll finally have a nice life for once.

It’s not the life I envisioned, but it makes me happy.

What about you?

I’m happy, my love.

Me too, buddy.

“And I’m glad to assist.”