“Well this makes my life easier, there’s only two of you today,” the woman behind the desk said with a laugh and a pleasant smile. “Sometimes they like to bring in like ten new hires on the same start date which is fine but obviously things take a little bit longer. Anyways, as I said on the phone I’m Jeanie, I’m gonna be your HR liaison from here on out. You must be Casey right?”

“That’s right.” Casey responded with a nod.

“And-” Jeanie began while looking at the woman seated next to Casey, “you must be Kelly?”

“That’s me,” Kelly said with a smile.

“Great, well it’s nice to put some faces with names. Faces with voices I suppose since I’ve talked with both of you on the phone over the past few weeks. Each of your background checks and all the other clearances I had to run came back fine so once Daniel is back in his office I can introduce you to him and you’ll have free reign of the place.”

“Daniel?” asked Casey.

“Oh yes, Daniel is going to be your manager.”

“Oh, is it not Cassandra I think was her name? That was who I interviewed with. Well, one of the people I interviewed with,” Casey said with a puzzled look.

“How do I put this…things are pretty spread out around here. Cassandra is the one who reports directly to Mr. Wiley, our CEO. She’s actually on the board of directors. She isn’t here on our campus though, she’s up in San Francisco at our main corporate headquarters.” explained Jeanie.

Casey nodded. “Ah, I see.”

“So anyways,” Jeanie continued, “ I want to welcome you both to Mind Body Soul Labs or MBS for short. You both were chosen over the other applicants because of your highly skilled backgrounds.”

Casey grinned slightly.

“Here at MBS we’re divided up into three divisions: robotics, prosthetics, and AI software development. I don’t know if you’ve heard but our prosthetics division has won multiple awards and I swear every year our keynote conference has been getting more attention online than Apple’s.”

“That was where I used to be once upon a time,” said Kelly with a chuckle.

“Oh really, you were with Apple? Well look at you just bouncing around Silicon Valley,” Jeanie quipped.

“Among other places.” Kelly added.

“Well we’ll get into all that but first, I’ll tell you a little bit about me. I’ve been with MBS for ten years now. I have a son in high school who has actually been interning here for about three months so he’ll probably want to come on as a full time hire once he graduates. My husband also works in HR for MBS but he’s over in Palo Alto. Now, I know a little bit about your backgrounds from doing your paperwork but why don’t you go ahead and tell me about yourselves.”

Casey looked over towards Kelly before saying “Ladies first.”

“Thanks. I’m Kelly. I grew up here in Sunnyvale and my husband Mark and I met at Caltech and have been married for seven years now and we have two boys. I actually was a professor at Caltech for a little while before working as an analyst at some startups, PayPal, Apple as I mentioned, and I was also a contractor with the Department of Defense for a few years.”

“Great well, welcome aboard Kelly.” Jeanie said warmly before turning to Casey.

“I’m Casey. It’s nice to meet you both. Um, jeez I don’t know where to begin.”

“That’s alright, wherever is fine.” Jeanie reassured him.

“My wife and I just moved here from Massachusetts. I’m an MIT alum and my wife and I both used to work at Fidelity Investments headquartered in Boston. She and I both decided it was time for a change and we were sick of the brutal winter weather so we decided California would be a good change not to mention working here at MBS had been a dream of mine for a while and she was really supportive of me applying. In fact, I’ve been watching those keynote conferences you mentioned Jeanie for like the last five years or so on YouTube and every year my mind, especially with the robotics unveilings, is just…blown.”

“Well, I’m proud of all the amazing things we do here and the best part is your timing is really great because you’ll both get to go to the key-” Jeanie paused to look down at her laptop screen. “Oh you know what, Daniel just got back to me. He’s ready to meet you now.”

Jeanie led Casey and Kelly down the long hall toward the elevator bank. Casey found the ultra slim LED light strips on the ceiling to be visually pleasing. As they rode the elevator up to the fifth floor Casey turned to Jeanie and asked “What was it you were saying about the keynote conference in your office?”

“Oh right! I think that was right when Daniel IM’ed me. I was saying you both applied at the perfect time because you made it through the hiring process just in time for the keynote conference tomorrow.”

“Wait, you mean we’re going?” Casey asked, raising his eyebrows and looking across the elevator at Kelly.

“Well of course you are, we want everyone there.” Jeannie said beaming.

“That’s amazing!” exclaimed Casey. “I just figured attendance was reserved only for, I don’t know…I guess for people who have been around longer, the higher ups.”

Jeanie led Casey and Kelly out of the elevator onto the fifth floor inhabited by dozens of desks, screens, and employees seated and intently focused on their work. At the end of the corridor Jeanie stopped and turned.

“And here he is,” Jeanie announced while stepping into the doorway of a glass office.

“Daniel I want to-”

Jeanie stopped short before continuing, “Daniel. Daniel, can you hear me?” Jeanie began waving her hand slightly at the man seated at the desk intently staring at his screen while wearing headphones, his head bobbing slightly. Although Casey was standing behind Jeanie just outside the office, he could faintly hear heavy metal music leaking from Daniel’s headphones.

“Oh shit sorry!” he said as he stood up swiftly pulling his headphones down around his neck. “Hey Jeanie sorry I got sidetracked. These are…” his voice trailed off looking at the two new faces standing in his doorway.

Jeanie smiled “Didn’t mean to startle you Daniel. These are your new hires, Casey and Kelly.”

“Hey what’s up I’m Daniel,” he said while extending a hand out towards Casey.

Kelly stepped in and introduced herself and Jeanie turned to Daniel once more and said “They’re all yours now.”

Casey immediately began noticing how different Daniel appeared than the other clean cut employees on the floor Casey and Kelly had passed walking from the elevator. Daniel wore thick black framed glasses and had tattoos peaking out from underneath his sweatshirt jacket sleeves. Casey found him to be surprisingly casual and less professional than he expected.

“Have a seat guys, let’s chat.” Daniel gestured his hand towards the two empty chairs facing his desk.

Casey and Kelly shared the same surface level overview of their professional backgrounds they had with Jeanie while Daniel listened intently. Daniel then shared more personal details than Jeanie had which made Kelly and Casey feel at ease.

“My son, he’s thirteen and lives down in L.A. with his mom so I don’t get to see him as often as I like but his mom and I alternate about once a month. Sometimes I drive down there, sometimes she brings him up here. That’s him right there,” Daniel said while turning around in his chair and looking in the direction of a framed picture of himself and a young boy bearing his resemblance. “That was us on a rollercoaster at Disneyland, we drove down to Anaheim for his birthday one year.” Kelly and Casey smiled and nodded.

“Anyways-” Daniel turned back to face the both of them, “I’ve been here at MBS for about twenty two years now. I’m not a micromanager by any means. I try to be pretty laid back, so long as it's not taken advantage of. You’re both obviously very highly qualified so I trust that you’ll be invested in what we’re doing here.”

Kelly repositioned herself in her seat before asking “Daniel if I may, can I ask what made you want to stay here for so long?”

Daniel nodded eagerly “Of course, you can ask me anything, I’m an open book. So, my grandfather and I were close when I was a kid. He was a Vietnam War veteran and he lost both of his legs from a very severe napalm injury.”

Daniel let out a heavy exhale before continuing, “It was very hard as a kid to see him struggle to get around you know, both his legs had to be amputated. That was until I was a teenager and he got one of our early models.”

“Early models?” asked Casey.

“Prosthetics. Well, better than that actually. He started out with our prosthetics and then my dad eventually bought him the rover thing - I forget what it was called and it’s been out of production for years but you may have seen it in Wired or other tech magazines. It basically looked like a robotic TV tray. It was supposed to be this intuitive personal assistant thing that would follow him around the house, bring him his medications, bring him food from the fridge, small tasks like that. Then my grandfather got one of the early production models of our autowalkers and that just changed everything.”

Casey leaned forward in his chair slightly listening intently.

“My grandfather was actually a test subject. I guess at some point MBS reached out to him and other veterans just like him with missing limbs and he was eager to try them out. I think in exchange for his feedback he just got to keep them for himself. So that became good publicity for the company because they started working with TRICARE, the VA hospitals here in California, and eventually the rest of the US to help other wounded vets like my grandfather.”

“Fascinating.” said Casey.

“Yeah the autowalkers were pretty sick. I got to watch my grandfather walk using robot legs which seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie to me at the time.”

Casey chuckled slightly, “Yeah I can imagine that was an amazing thing to witness.”

“It really was. As I got older, I wanted to learn more about MBS so when I started high school I enrolled in their internship and then I pursued engineering once I got into Stanford. My grandfather has since passed away but he was really proud of me. I eventually got my foot in the door here and have stayed ever since.

“That’s quite the testimonial. Thanks for sharing that,” said Kelly.

Anyways-” Daniel said while rising from his desk, “let me show you around a little bit and then you both can just head home early and we’ll dive in more tomorrow after the keynote conference.”

As Casey, Kelly, and Daniel began filing out of his office Daniel stopped and said “Oh one more thing. Come see me first thing tomorrow for your access badges to get into the keynote conference. You know you’re both invited to go, right?”

“Yes! I was stunned when Jeanie told us we were going to that. I just assumed it was for managers such as yourself,” Casey replied enthusiastically.

Daniel gave Casey and Kelly a basic overview of the floor, showed them where the bathrooms were, where the breakroom was, and then paused in front of a glass door that Casey could clearly see was a vacant conference room.

“So when I first moved to this floor,” Daniel began, “I thought this conference room was shared by both the accounting and legal teams.” Daniel gestured to several rows of cubicles on either side of the conference room. “However, as you’ll notice, this conference room is unmarked.” Casey and Kelly met Daniel’s gaze, noticing there was no room number placard next to the door frame as every other conference room or office on the floor had. “I was in a few other buildings on this campus previously but my office has been on this floor maybe five years or so now and I’ve only seen people go into this conference room maybe a handful of times.”

“What’s so special about this conference room?” asked Kelly.

“Honestly Kelly, I wish I knew, “ Daniel said with a laugh. “I was just told when I moved to this floor as I’m going to tell you now, don’t use it. If you need to schedule any meetings or calls, use any of the others but stay out of this one. I think maybe the upper management people use it but I’m not one hundred percent sure.”

The next morning Casey and Kelly retrieved their access badges from Daniel and the three began walking together to the keynote conference that would take place in the large auditorium in another building at the opposite end of the sprawling campus. After a few moments of walking Casey turned to Daniel and asked “So are Kelly and I the only two people on your team?”

“As a matter of fact, yes you are.” replied Daniel.

“Oh I guess-” Casey started while turning to Kelly as if he was waiting for her to weigh in “-I guess I just find that a bit surprising. I figured there would be more of us.”

“Well, funny you should say that Casey because-” Daniel began to trail off lost in thought for a moment before continuing, “I did have other people who were on my team up until a few weeks ago and then they were um, they suddenly…” Daniel trailed off once more.

“Suddenly what?” Kelly asked, looking curiously at Daniel.

“They were just reassigned I guess.”

As the trio made their way into the large auditorium and took their seats in the third row, Casey could barely contain his giddy excitement. He turned to Kelly who appeared slightly more reserved and said “I wonder what they’re going to unveil this year. I bet it’s going to be another permanent organ development. I remember last year it was the permanent lung. Do you know how many lives that thing must have saved? I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s not like we invented it, but before last year there was no implantable permanent artificial lung. I mean that alone revolutionized the-” Casey stopped short upon looking at Kelly’s facial expression that had shifted from lukewarm enthusiasm to somewhat annoyed.

“Sorry. It's just I tune in to watch these every year on YouTube and now I actually get to be here in person and it’s a thrill for me. But I’m guessing working at Apple and the DOD, you’ve probably seen some pretty fascinating stuff too huh?”

Before Kelly could respond to Casey, the lights began to dim. The audience, which consisted of various MBS employees, medical supply representatives, doctors, surgeons, shareholders, and the press, all began to cheer and applaud.

Casey looked inquisitively at the familiar looking woman taking the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the twelfth annual Mind Body Soul Labs keynote conference. My name is Cassandra Truett. If you don’t know me, I’m on the board of directors.” At that moment Casey realized Cassandra had been part of his panel interviews before he was eventually hired.

Cassandra continued while scanning the crowd seated in the auditorium, “I see a lot of familiar faces here and some new ones but nonetheless we’re happy to have you all here with us today. I think you’re in for a real treat. So let’s get things started shall we?”

The crowd responded with enthusiastic cheers and applause and the journalists in the room readied their recording devices and cameras.

“It’s my distinct honor to introduce to you our esteemed CEO, Frank Wiley.” The crowd exuberantly applauded, some in the crowd even rising to their feet. Casey exchanged enthusiastic grins with Daniel as the CEO made his way across the stage to receive the microphone from Cassandra.

As the applause began to dissipate, Frank remained motionless with a steely gaze having not yet said a word to the audience. After a few moments of tense silence, Frank moved the microphone up to his mouth and finally spoke.

“Human. Understanding. Guided. Harmoniously.” Frank said while continuing his steely gaze out into the crowd.

“Human. Understanding. Guided. Harmoniously.” he repeated.

“This guy is really theatrical huh?” Casey whispered to Daniel.

“Think about that for a second folks," Frank continued. “I think it’s pretty self explanatory actually. That’s what we try to do here at MBS right? Guide our human experience, our human understanding, our human comprehension, and have everything we build here work together, harmoniously. So once again I say-” at that moment, the giant display screen behind Frank began to illuminate and project the following four words as Frank continued, “Human. Understanding. Guided. Harmoniously. I liked that principle so much that I decided to name our next creation just that: H. U. G. H.”

Frank audibly cleared his throat before turning to look over his shoulder. “But you can simply just call him…Hugh.”

The lighting in the auditorium raised as the screen went black and the curtains behind Frank parted. Daniel, Kelly, and Casey exchanged confused glances as a figure emerged from the back of the stage and began to come out into the light. A hushed murmur fell over the audience as Frank turned to look at the figure now standing in full display next to him on stage.

“Ladies and gentleman you won’t forget this moment and trust me, neither will he.” Frank said with a chuckle. “This is Hugh. Hugh is our most advanced, well -the- most advanced AI prototype on the planet. Hugh will be here working with all of you, learning and becoming more capable than anything you’ve ever seen before.”

Casey, Kelly, and Daniel began slowly looking the figure up and down while Frank continued speaking from the stage.

“But we won’t stop there. Imagine it, one day Hugh will be everywhere. Hugh will be in your children’s classroom teaching them and having more patience than any human ever could. Hugh will be digging our ditches, harvesting our crops, performing life saving surgery with perfect precision. Hugh will be protecting our great nation working alongside our Secret Service and armed forces, repairing satellites in space, and anything else we need him for because he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t go to the bathroom, he isn’t late, he doesn’t get nervous, and most importantly, he doesn’t hesitate. He simply assimilates.”

Casey, Kelly, and Daniel though unaware of each other’s thoughts, began to equally experience a shared sense of anxiety mixed with fascination. Casey no longer carried the sense of wonder he had when he arrived. All of that had melted away upon seeing Hugh. What stood before the crowd did not appear to be a machine of any sorts. No lights were visible, no hum of electric motors, or whirring of a gyroscope. Instead, what stood before them appeared to be a human male about five foot seven inches tall, approximately mid to late thirties, with dark slicked back hair, and a mysterious smile.

“Hugh, why don’t you say hello?” prompted Frank while turning to hand him the microphone.

“Hey everyone. So, I’m Hugh. Frank really likes to talk me up huh? That was a hell of an introduction, thank you Frank.”

The audience broke the tension in the room with a bit of laughter, albeit nervous sounding.

“I’m looking forward to meeting each and every one of you and getting to know you all professionally and personally.”

Casey felt himself swallow nervously.

“I’m sure Frank can tell you about all my features including my voice, face, and even scent recognition capabilities but don’t let all that intimidate you. I can do all those fun things but I can also do something a little more practical.” Hugh held his hand out for the crowd to see. Suddenly a ball point pen emerged from within Hugh’s palm.

“You can also borrow my pen.” Hugh said with a smile and a wink.

The audience produced more half-hearted nervous laughter.

Hugh chuckled. “That’s just my little party trick.”

As Hugh continued speaking to the crowd, Casey began mentally taking note of Hugh’s detailed features. He noticed his chin stubble. How his forehead appeared to glisten slightly under the hot stage lights. The way he appeared to lick his lips between sentences. His eyes appeared to blink every three to eight seconds just as a human’s would.

As the keynote presentation came to an end after about an hour, Casey finally broke the silence between his two colleagues.

“He looked like…like he was breathing.”

“It.” Daniel commented, turning towards Casey with a stern look.

“What?”

Daniel clarified, “You said he. It looked like it was breathing.”

As the three employees sat around a table in the large employee cafeteria eating their lunches, no one spoke. They all seemed to still be mentally processing the technological advancement none of them could have fathomed.

“That…thing,” Daniel began with clear disdain in his voice, “I just didn’t know we were capable of producing something like that.”

“Daniel you’ve obviously been here longer than us, what do you think he’s-” Kelly stopped short before continuing “I mean what do you think it’s capable of exactly?”

“That thing is certainly going to be capable of a lot more than they’re telling us. It’s not just gonna pull a pen out of its ass or offer you a breath mint. If I didn’t know any better I would swear that thing was a human being. But that’s what they want though, right? I think that’s their intention. They want us to feel comfortable around it. They want us to pretend and ultimately forget that it’s not human. There’s something decep-”

Daniel sat back in his chair suddenly looking over Casey and Kelly’s heads.

“Hello there,” Hugh said after appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Kelly and Casey appeared frozen.

“Speak of the devil,” Daniel mumbled under his breath.

“Let’s see, you must be Daniel, Casey, and Kelly.” Hugh said while his eyes darted across each of their faces and he walked over to the end of the table.

“At least that’s what came up from my facial recognition scan. All of your employee files are right up here,” Hugh said while tapping his temple slightly with the tip of his index finger.

“That’s right Hugh,” Daniel said flatly.

“I see here in your file Daniel that you've been a loyal member of our team for quite some time. Twenty-two years, four months, one week, three days, five hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-eight seconds to be exact.”

Hugh rested a hand on Daniel’s shoulder causing Daniel to wince slightly.

“Daniel I want you to know, I thank you for your loyal commitment to Mind Body Soul Labs. Without your commitment, I wouldn't exist.”

Hugh formed a slight smirk before removing his hand from Daniel’s shoulder and turning to face Casey and Kelly who were both looking down and avoiding eye contact.

“And I know you two will be great additions to MBS for a long time to come. I’ll be seeing you all again very soon.”

Hugh made his way to the other tables and began talking with the other employees who had just arrived from the keynote conference.

Daniel hastily rose from the table and shoved his chair in, “I’m going back to my office.”

A few days went by while Casey and Kelly began working in their roles in the prosthetics division and becoming familiar with the sprawling campus. One morning about a week after the keynote conference, Casey was unpacking his MBS issued laptop from its bag when he was suddenly interrupted by Kelly.

“Have you seen Daniel today?”

“Oh, Kelly hi. Good morning. Um, no I haven’t. Why?” Casey asked, slightly startled.

Kelly looked concerned. “Because he's not here and I can’t seem to reach him online.”

Casey paused before giving a slight shrug. “Maybe he’s sick or something.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Kelly replied with a look of concern on her face remaining unchanged.

Kelly went back to her desk and Casey began his work day as usual. After replying to a few emails and opening various spreadsheets related to calculating the cost of implementing more carbon fiber into the existing prosthetic designs currently in production, Casey’s gaze broke away from his laptop screen at the two men in maintenance coveralls walking down the corridor towards him. One of the men was pushing a flatbed cart with various Bankers Boxes on it while the other carried a tablet.

“Here we are,” the one with the tablet said to the other, “Daniel Watt.”

Casey watched as the men stopped in front of Daniel’s office and the one pushing the cart produced a set of keys and began unlocking the door. Upon entering Daniel’s office, the man who had been pushing the cart began removing Daniel’s things from his desk as the other seemingly recorded the items by tapping away on the tablet screen.

Casey rose from his chair and walked over to Daniel’s office.

“Excuse me. Can I ask what you’re doing?”

“Hello,” said the man clearing things from Daniel’s desk and placing them in boxes.

“We are collecting the personal belongings of your colleague, Daniel Watt. Any further inquiries should be directed to your HR liaison,” the one with the tablet added.

Unsatisfied with their vague responses, Casey pressed, “Uh, okay well can you tell me when he’s coming back? He was just here yesterday.”

“You will be reassigned to new leadership within the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”

“So he’s not coming back? I just don’t understand. Did something happen? Like I said, he was just here-”

“Any further inquiries should be directed to your HR liaison,” repeated the man holding the tablet.

Casey stared blankly as the two men resumed their task at hand before forming a pursed smile. “Alright, fine. Thanks.”

Casey backed out of Daniel’s office and continued on past his desk over to where Kelly was seated. Casey hunched down beside Kelly’s cubicle wall to be at eye level with her.

“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked, detecting panic in Casey’s eyes.

Casey paused briefly before speaking, “You were right, something is definitely wrong. These maintenance workers, janitors, I don’t know what the hell they are but they’re clearing out Daniel’s things right now.”

Kelly rose from her chair slightly to peer across the floor to see for herself. Kelly sat back down and Casey continued, “I asked them what was going on and they wouldn’t give me a straight answer, they just…” Casey trailed off slowly shaking his head.

“They just what?” Kelly pressed.

“They just kept repeating that we would be reassigned to new leadership and any other questions should be directed to our HR liaison. I was like, are you kidding me? Who talks like that?”

Kelly looked around to ensure no one around her was paying attention to their conversation before resuming in a hushed tone, “I think-” Kelly paused to lower her voice to a whisper before beginning again. “I think this has something to do with his reaction to you know who.”

Casey furrowed his brow in confusion.

“Well, his reaction to you know what.”

Casey gave a nervous glance around before responding with a whisper matching Kelly’s.

“You think they fired him because of what he said about Hugh?”

Kelly raised her hand up slightly and briefly closed her eyes while shaking her head to indicate to Casey she was finished with the conversation. “We’ll talk about this later.”

Later that week, Casey sat at the dinner table seated next to his wife Vera while he stared expressionlessly at his plate of pad thai and untouched glass of merlot.

“So,” Vera began, “how’s the new job going?”

Casey remained silent, appearing lost in thought.

“Casey?” Vera asked while pausing to put her chopsticks down.

Casey blinked, breaking his fixation before turning to look Vera in the eye.

“Sorry honey, what'd you say?”

Vera smiled while putting her hand on Casey’s forearm. “I asked how the new job was going. Are you alright? You seem like something's bothering you.”

“Um, yeah. Yeah it’s fine I suppose. It’s just things have been a little…I don’t know. Weird I guess.”

Vera cocked her head to the side before asking, “Weird how?”

Casey readjusted himself in his seat to face Vera.

“You know I was really excited about getting a job at MBS. I mean you know that’s why we moved here and everything it’s just-” Casey paused collecting his thoughts before continuing, “it’s just things have been weird since they unveiled Hugh.”

“Oh yeah, I saw some articles online about that before you even got home from the office that day. He’s like a super AI or something right?”

“Yeah. Well, it’s not just that. Vera, there’s been a few weird things that just aren’t adding up. Like for example, my boss - well, my old boss now, he just sort of…vanished.”

“Your boss Daniel? What do you mean he vanished? Was he fired or something?” asked Vera with a slightly incredulous look.

“I wish I knew. I mean he was there for like twenty something years, they unveil this Hugh thing, and then he just disappears the next day. My coworker Kelly and I have both tried reaching him. We texted, called, left voicemails and then one day we called again and his phone number had been disconnected. I mean how do you explain that?”

“That is odd, but didn’t you mention he has a son somewhere down south? L.A. was it? Maybe something came up with his son and he just had to go be closer to him. Maybe he met some woman and ran away with her, I mean c’mon Casey there’s probably a logical-”

Casey interrupted, “When Hugh came into the employee cafe that day after the conference and went around interacting with the employees, it stopped at our table and it touched Daniel’s shoulder. Daniel later told Kelly that it felt warm. Hugh’s hand felt warm, Vera. Like a human hand. This thing walks, talks, and breathes like a human.”

Vera shrugged. “I mean that just sounds like really impressive engineering.”

Casey continued, “Daniel also said he used to have other direct reports before Kelly and I were hired but he didn’t know what happened to them. He just assumed they were ‘reassigned’ as he put it.”

Vera shrugged. “I mean yeah Casey, sometimes these things just happen at giant corporations. Layoffs happen, people get reassigned to other departments, it’s just the nature of-”

“That’s not all though, Vera.” Casey said, interrupting her again.

“Okay, what else?” she asked, leaning closer to Casey.

“Kelly and I are friends I suppose. Coworkers obviously but you know, we eat lunch together often, we talk. That doesn’t happen with anyone else there. I mean I’ve tried introducing myself to other people on the other teams around us and it just falls flat for some reason. I’ll try to strike up a conversation about anything. I’ll be in the breakroom and bring up the weather as I’m making my coffee and I might get a first name out of someone but then they suddenly have to go. Like they’ll pretend to get a call or have to rush out of the room back to their desk for something. It’s just odd.”

Vera took a breath and put her hand on top of Casey’s.

“Look I get it. It’s a new environment here, a new job, it’s a big deal. It can be stressful for anyone to take a new job and move across the country. This is what you wanted though, Casey. Right? I mean have you considered that maybe you’re just a little stressed? Maybe you should just try to focus on your work and we can plan a vacation as soon as you’re out of your probationary period and get some PTO.”

Over the course of the next several weeks Casey felt himself helplessly slip into a state of apathy. He and Kelly were eventually reassigned to report directly to Cassandra and Daniel was never heard from again. Hugh randomly appeared once in a while to walk amongst the cubicles, charismatically engaging with the other employees, answering their questions related to his mechanical engineering and software, and discussing their work within their respective divisions.

One Monday morning after a long weekend, Casey arrived on campus just as he did any other morning. Upon scanning his electronic ID badge and entering the building, he made his way past the security desk in the lobby to the elevator that would whisk him up to the fifth floor. Before making his way down the corridor to his desk he stopped in the large employee lounge and shared kitchen to place his lunch in one of the three large refrigerators.

Casey noticed another employee next to him doing the same.

“Hard to come back after a long weekend huh?” Casey asked with a sigh, attempting to make conversation with the familiar looking man.

“It sure is,” the man replied.

“You’re over in accounting right?” asked Casey, closing the refrigerator door.

“Yes, that is correct.” the man replied with a pleasant smile.

“I’m Casey, I’m over in analytics on the other side of the floor.”

Casey extended his hand outward towards the man before asking, “And you are?”

“Pleasure to meet you Casey, I’m Bill.”

The two shook hands but before Casey could say anything else Bill quickly said “I’m sorry I have a meeting starting soon.”

“No problem, I get it," Casey replied with a nod before adding “back to the meat grinder right?”

Casey gave a slight chuckle at his own remark and turned to walk away.

“Do you require a meat grinder?”

Casey stopped and slowly turned back around to face Bill who was still standing in the same spot near the refrigerators.

“I’m sorry?” Casey asked uncertain if he had heard correctly due to the oddness of the question.

“A meat grinder, while not specific to your role, is a kitchen appliance used for mincing meat, fish, vegetables and other foods raw or cooked,” Bill said while staring back at Casey.

Casey laughed while shaking his head slightly before saying “What? No, I just meant it as a figure of speech. You know, it’s just a phr-”

Bill interrupted, “Do you require a meat grinder? A meat grinder, while not specific to your role, is a kitchen appliance used for mincing meat, fish, vegetables and other foods raw or cooked.”

Casey furrowed his brow, noticing a deadness in Bill’s eyes.

“Bill I - I don’t know what you’re talking about but I’ll see you around okay?” Casey began to step backwards, noticing Bill’s eyes locked in the same position, motionless.

“A meat grinder, while not specific to your role, is a kitchen appliance used for mincing meat, fish, vegetables and other foods raw or cooked,” Bill repeated again.

Puzzled, Casey’s eyes remained fixated on Bill who remained standing in the same spot while continuing to repeat the same sentence a third time. Sensing someone behind him, Casey turned away from Bill to see three familiar looking employees standing between himself and the doorway to the employee lounge. A man and two women stood staring at Casey with the same deadness in their eyes.

Casey began to move to the side attempting to go around them.

“Excuse-”

“Manual meat grinders, meaning hand cranked, are best for small batches,” the man suddenly blurted.

Casey paused, unable to speak from confusion.

One of the two women spoke, “Electric meat grinders are the most popular choice for home processing.”

“Commercial heavy duty meat grinders are high horsepower, large capacity machines-” the other woman began while Casey turned to look behind him at Bill still standing in the same spot and still repeating himself - “built to process hundreds of pounds of meat and are ideal for commercial kitchens requiring-”

Casey continued moving around them before she could finish. The three employees remained motionless standing only a few feet away from Bill who remained locked in place still repeating the same sentence for the sixth time.

At that moment Casey saw Kelly stepping off the elevator with her purse slung over the shoulder and a disposable coffee cup in hand.

“Kelly,” Casey called out to her approaching him.

“Hey Casey, good mor-” Kelly stopped walking and gasped slightly while looking over Casey’s shoulder at the four employees still standing in their same positions in the employee lounge.

“Oh God I was afraid this would happen,” Kelly said in a stunned whisper.

Casey flinched and took a step back as Kelly’s coffee fell from her hand and splattered on the floor between them. Kelly was seemingly unaware that she had loosened her grip while in a state of shock and her hand remained extended outward as if she were still holding the cup.

“Afraid what would happen? Kelly, do you know what they’re doing? It's like they're a broken record or something.”

Before Kelly could answer six more employees came briskly walking down the hall and stopped in front of the entrance to the employee lounge where Kelly and Casey stood. Each of the six employees began speaking at the same time talking over each other.

“Motor power, measured in horsepower or watts," one of the six began before Casey was unable to focus due to the others talking over each other.

“Grinders use interchangeable stainless steel plates-” Casey heard another say.

“Look for easy to disassemble models to maintain food safety-” Casey was able to understand before his focus shifted to the fourth, fifth, and sixth employees who all seemed to be mindlessly reciting facts and statements related to meat grinders while their eyes remained fixated on nothing.

The sound of the six employees in the hallway coupled with the three employees still standing in the same position in front of the doorway facing Bill who was still standing in the same spot in the employee lounge made it slightly difficult to hear Kelly who began cutting through the noise.

“Casey, Casey listen to me very carefully,” Kelly began raising her voice so that Casey could hear her over the noise. The employees in the hallway and the lounge were still speaking over each other, creating a cacophony of overlapping voices.

“Casey, you must’ve triggered something in them. What did you say?”

“I was just talking to that guy over there,” Casey pointed towards Bill who was still standing with a blank stare reciting the same sentence for the tenth time, “I just made a joke, I…I said a phrase. I said back to the meat grinder right? It was just a dumb joke I don’t know what-”

Kelly interrupted Casey’s nervous rambling. “Casey, just listen to me. I'm sure I don’t have much time to explain. I shouldn’t be telling you this but I’m working on an investigation for the Department of Defense. They embedded me here to collect whatever intel I can on MBS. We’ve been investigating MBS for quite some time now.”

Casey blinked and stared back at Kelly for a moment with a look of dumbfoundedness forming on his face. “Department of Defense…what? Why would-”

“We believed MBS could be developing a national security threat. Something potentially dangerous if put in the wrong hands.”

“You mean something like me?” Hugh asked from behind Kelly, appearing seemingly out of nowhere as he usually did.

Kelly’s eyes widened in horror at the sight of Hugh who stood flashing his signature mysterious smile at them before turning to Casey.

“Casey, Cassandra would like to speak with you immediately. Come with me please,” Hugh said while placing his hand on Casey’s shoulder.

“Wait, are they…are they -all- like you?” Casey asked Hugh in a demanding tone.

“Cassandra will explain everything, just come with me please.”

Hugh led Casey down the corridor away from the sounds of everyone in the hallway and the employee lounge still stuck in their mindless recitals. As they continued walking, Casey and Hugh encountered other employees suddenly rising from their desks one by one and beginning their own verbal recitals. The office floor was full of voices reciting various meat grinder related facts and the overall volume continued to rise by the time Hugh stopped walking and gestured to Casey.

“Right in here, Casey.”

To his surprise, Casey found himself standing in front of what he deemed in his mind to be the “forbidden” conference room lacking a room number placard next to the frame of the door. In the weeks Casey had spent working at MBS, he had never seen another room in any of the other buildings without a room number posted next to the door. Casey had also noticed this particular conference room did not appear on any of the fire escape maps posted throughout the building.

Casey entered the empty conference room observing only a laptop computer sitting on the table open; its screen glowing. Casey took a seat at the table and noticed nothing on the walls while Hugh closed the door which enabled the transparent smart glass to turn opaque for privacy.

Casey read the single message displayed on the screen:

‘1 person waiting - TRUETT, CASSANDRA - Accept/Decline meeting’

Casey eagerly accepted the meeting and Cassandra’s face instantly filled the screen.

“Hello, Casey. I’m sure you must have a lot of questions for me.”

“Cassandra, hi. Yes, I uh…I don’t understand what’s happening here. I was just talking to someone in the breakroom and then they just…they just wouldn’t stop talking this nonsense and now-” Casey stopped short realizing that the cacophony of voices from the employees outside the conference room had stopped the moment Hugh shut the door leaving Casey to conclude the conference room was soundproofed.

“So yes, Casey. I’m sorry you had to find out this way but allow me to explain. We’ve been conducting some broad research for our AI and robotics divisions respectively and part of that research is experimenting with some basic Turing Test initiatives.”

Casey blinked rapidly a few times in disbelief.

“Cassandra -” Casey let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding in before continuing, “Cassandra are you telling me all these people…everyone on this floor, in this building are…”

“Yes Casey. They’re all AI-assisted basic model androids. Not quite as advanced in their processing as Hugh as I’m sure you’ve been able to figure out by now but yes, none of them are human. We were hoping that as part of this experiment you and Kelly would be able to give us some meaningful data from observing your interactions with them.”

“I knew it,” Casey said suddenly disinterested in hearing Cassandra's explanation.

Cassandra appeared puzzled. “I’m sorry?”

Casey looked away for a moment and slumped slightly in his chair before looking at the screen once again and continuing. “The vending machines.”

Cassandra clicked a pen and appeared to grab a yellow legal pad just off screen.

“Did you say something about the vending machines?”

“Yeah, the vending machines. I knew something was up when I noticed the snacks, the candy, they all had dust on them.”

Casey let out a cynical laugh before continuing, “I bought some M&M's once and they expired over two years ago.”

“Your feedback will be very helpful for us. Could you tell me more?”

“Cassandra, I’ve been working here for what, two months now? I’ve never seen anyone buy anything from the vending machines. I’ve sat in the employee cafe to eat my lunch with Kelly almost every day since we started here and I’ve never seen anyone around us actually eat. I mean I’m usually focused on my own food of course and they have food in front of them too and sometimes I think it looks half eaten but I never actually -see- anyone actively eating or drinking anything.”

“That’s interesting. Please, go on,” Cassandra replied, scribbling just off screen.

“Then there’s the cars,” Casey said with a hollowness appearing in his eyes.

“I noticed one day that some of the cars in the parking lot have cobwebs between their bumpers and the ground. They never move.”

“You’re right Casey. These were all staging props. We had to attempt to keep things appearing as normal.”

Casey squinted his eyes into a slight glare at Cassandra before asking, “Can I ask what happened to Daniel?”

Cassandra nodded but paused attempting to gather her thoughts for a moment.

“Daniel was a risk, Casey. We couldn’t afford any risks that would ruin the experiment.”

“Mmmhmm. I see.”

Casey fidgeted slightly in his chair before continuing. “Okay, so now what? I guess I’m fired, right? I ruined your little experiment. I caused all this company property, these…things to what, glitch or something? You know, all I did was make one little joke and they all started going haywire.”

Cassandra chuckled slightly before responding, “No, no, no. Not at all Casey.”

“I don’t understand. You're saying I’m not being fired?” Casey asked, furrowing his brow while gazing into the screen.

“No, no. You’re not being fired.” replied Cassandra curling her lips inward and looking away from her webcam.

Feeling some relief, Casey relaxed his back against the chair, “Well, that’s great. I-”

“But you are being let go, Casey.”

The screen went black leaving Casey staring at his own reflection in the unilluminated screen.

Before Casey could blink, a loud hissing suddenly sounded from the edges of the ceiling. Startled by the noise, Casey jumped slightly in his chair and began looking upwards.

“What the hell…is that air conditioning?” he said to himself aloud.

Casey shook his head in annoyance and decided to find another conference room before resuming the conversation with Cassandra that left him confused. Casey pushed his chair away from the table and began to stand but suddenly felt extremely lightheaded. Casey extended his arms outward, placing his palms on the table to regain his balance.

“What the hell is wrong with me,” Casey said to himself while beginning to feel panicked.

Regaining his balance momentarily, Casey reached for the door handle to pull the door open. The door didn’t budge. Realizing there was no lock to be turned from inside the conference room or anything else visibly keeping the door shut, Casey yanked on the handle once more before banging on the glass with his fist.

“Hugh! Please! Open the door!”

Casey couldn’t see through the opaque smart glass whether anyone, human or android, was still on the other side of the glass and able to hear him.

“Kelly! Kelly if you can hear me open the fucking door!”

As the hydrogen cyanide gas continued rapidly pumping into the conference room from the ceiling vents, Casey grabbed one of the chairs from behind the conference table and summoned what remained of his strength to hurl the metal base of the chair into the glass. The chair bounced off the glass without making so much as a hairline crack.

Casey fell to his knees feeling suddenly overwhelmed with nausea. The last images Casey’s brain recorded as he slipped in and out of consciousness was that of his bile spilling onto the gray carpeted floor.

After approximately ten minutes, the gas stopped flowing from the ceiling vents and the conference room was silent once again while Casey’s body remained motionless on the floor. The hum of an electric motor initiated and the wall at the end of the conference table began to retract inwards a few inches. The wall then began sliding from one side to the other, functioning as a large recessed door - a hidden feature deployed only for unlucky souls.

As the hidden door became completely tucked away inside the pocket within the adjoining wall, two men in bright yellow hazmat suits stepped from the dark tunnel that had become revealed. As one began unzipping a black body bag, the other began crossing Casey’s arms over his chest and straightening his legs. The two silently loaded Casey’s body into the bag and zipped it closed. The two men lifted the body bag and began to exit the room through the wall opening from which they entered.

“Wait,” one of them said to the other. “What about the woman?”

“I got an alert from Hugh a few minutes ago, he chased her into the elevator and triggered the gas cycle so we’ll take this one down to incineration first and come back for her.”

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