The sleek black vessel cut through the choppy waves, its powerful water jet turbines roaring at full throttle deep within its bowels, sending vibrations throughout the cabin. Paul sat strapped into a contoured race seat, the red leather upholstery offering little comfort. The engines’ deep, guttural growl conjured the image of a dragon in his mind, propelling the ship with its fiery breath.

Squeezing his briefcase in place between his legs, he could feel his muscles tensing. Six grueling months had led to this moment: six months of no more than three to four hours of sleep per night. He’d pushed himself to the limit, still not understanding how he’d managed to defend his double doctorates while participating in the most challenging selection competition ever held. 

Over 150,000 bright and eager candidates from every scientific field had measured their knowledge, skills, and resilience to land an internship position at the Hyper-Intelligence Corporation. The secretive company was universally regarded as the pinnacle of innovation, having merged biotech and advanced AI to build implants helping blind people see, lame people walk, and deaf people hear. And here he was: Paul Kendrick from Emberton, VA, age twenty-seven, the winner on his way to H.I.Co. Headquarters for the final interview round.

The boat slowed on approach, the ghostly mining island now filling the wall-to-wall display in front of him. The twenty-five-mile boat ride from the company pier took less than a dozen minutes, making Paul wonder at the redundant entertainment system, which offered over two hundred movies and TV shows. A black sluice gate slid open, allowing the pilotless vessel to enter a long, dimly lit concrete tunnel. Unbidden, the image of the dragon and its lair returned to mind.

Paul had a vivid imagination. This, more than anything, had drawn the vibrant and quick-witted Tina to this shy and bespectacled nerd at the end of their middle school years. Slowly, their friendship grew into something deeper. He, who could explain infinities multiplying infinities with the ease of reciting a grilled cheese sandwich recipe, had never truly grasped his good fortune until two months ago, when Tina left him.

The engines cut out, and the boat drifted to a stop, shuddering slightly as a series of metallic clinks and thumps aligned the hull. Then came the hydraulic groan of heavy machinery. The boat was lifted, rising with a smooth, almost unnerving grace. With a final, decisive clunk, the vessel attached to a narrow gangway before its side slid open with a soft, pneumatic whoosh.

“Welcome to the headquarters of the Hyper-Intelligence Corporation, Paul Kendrick,” greeted a disembodied, clipped female voice with a slight Oxford accent. “Please leave all personal belongings behind and follow the illuminated path.”

* * *

Paul unbuckled his seat and rose, sending the sheets of handwritten notes for last-minute revisions to the floor. This was it, the point of no return. His hands shook. Grabbing the handrail, he stepped into the corridor of polished black stone. Thin veins of crystal shimmered along the walls, branching and unfurling like blood vessels. Above, amber spotlights glowed in the ceiling, softly illuminating the hallway, which ended fifty paces ahead at a black metal door.

“Please step toward the door,” the voice encouraged. Paul obliged. The clacking of his unfamiliar dress shoes echoed loudly in the cavernous space. When less than six feet separated him from the door, a drawer to its right extended outward, emitting an eerie green glow in the dim light.

“Please place your right hand on the palm reader,” the voice instructed. 

The glass surface felt cold. Noiselessly, the metal door slid open. The dark corridor continued beyond, while on the left, an open door revealed what looked like the changing room of an exclusive gym. A sense of foreboding crept up Paul’s spine even before the voice confirmed his suspicions.

“Please enter and undress. Place all your clothes in a locker before stepping through the air shower.”

“Seriously?” Paul asked, whirling around instinctively and glaring at the blank wall behind him from whence came the voice. His tiredness and the recent emotional upheaval had frayed his mental state, cracking his usual stoic disposition.

“I’m sorry, Paul. I know how this must feel,” the voice replied, softening its tone.

“How?” he challenged with an edge in his voice. “How would you know how anything feels?”

“My empirical data shows significant levels of discomfort in most individuals when asked to undress. Research indicates that the combination of vulnerability after shedding their last defense, with the loss of personal identity that clothes provide, can instill intense anxiety. Your prior agreement to this procedure might serve as a mitigating factor, as you entered our contest of your own volition.”

He narrowed his eyes, and his jaw tightened. The fact that he couldn’t deny the logic in the statement didn’t make him any more sympathetic to the demand. The hairs on his back bristled. He didn’t move.

“Beyond the air shower, you will find an assortment of clothes we hope will fit your style and preference,” the voice added, almost sounding apologetic.

Paul stepped in. The room was large and square, the company logo inlaid into the floor like a royal crest. Floor-to-ceiling closets of dark mahogany provided enough space for an entire football team. He turned to see if the door would close behind him. The sentiment was absurd; nobody was there to peek. He hadn’t met a living soul since entering the company pier through a retina-scan-secured turnstile.

“The door will close shortly,” the voice offered, correctly inferring his thoughts. “Please leave ALL your personal belongings on this side of the air shower, including glasses, jewelry, piercings, braces, hearing aids, and any other external devices.”

“Will you search my body cavities as well?” he dared in a last stand of defiance.

“The Hyper-Intelligence Corporation undertakes these measures to protect its intellectual properties. We do not engage in perversion,” the voice replied with clear and sharp intonation. 

Paul's cheeks flushed in a sudden wave of shame, as if a teacher had just reprimanded him for using a crude word. He stood slack-jawed, his eyes widening. A few moments of tense silence followed before the voice continued.

“And in any case, the electromagnetic scanner at the air shower’s exit will detect any unregistered internal devices,” it declared with a slight undertone of smugness before the door slid shut.

* * *

Paul exited the changing complex ten minutes later into a large, glass-roofed courtyard. The historic buildings of the mining and smelting operations still stood untouched since the island's abandonment during WWII. He wore blue jeans, comfortable running shoes, and a black turtleneck sweater, which, if they weren’t brand new with the tags still attached, could have come from the messy clothes pile in his apartment. Besides a pair of glasses identical to his own, he’d found an in-ear headset. Made from a crystalline, translucent, gently red glowing material, it looked like an overlarge gummy bear, feeling warm and soft but not sticky.

“Welcome to H.I.Co., Paul!” a voice spoke with uncanny clarity in his ear. “My name is Zoe, and I have the pleasure of being your guide today. Would you like any refreshment?”

“No, thank you,” he replied, imagining a tall flight attendant, her long, blond hair in a tight braid, offering champagne to first-class passengers.

“Then please proceed to the elevator in the center of Industrial Plaza. We will descend the mine shaft to our product test facilities, roughly two thousand feet below sea level.”

“We’re not relying on this?” he asked, pointing toward the giant pulley shaft wheel above, still standing as a rusty sentinel of the industrial age, now being swept away by the advent of bionic engineering. “I mean…”

“I know what you mean, since I have access to the camera feeds,” Zoe said, and Paul could almost see her smile. “And no, our lift is a little more modern; you’ll see. Please proceed.”

A cube of black stone, measuring fifty feet in length, dominated the plaza’s center. No seam, gap, crack, or door was visible. Yet upon approach, two slabs of stone slid apart, revealing an elevator cabin made from brushed stainless steel. Soft music played. Paul recognized Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Fall.

“We’ll descend rapidly,” Zoe warned as the doors closed. “Please hold on. We’ll reach the product test facilities in less than forty seconds. Our lift is propelled by a magnetic field, making the ride experience the most exhilarating in the world, or so I’m told.”

“Why are we going so dee… whoa!” he exclaimed as the lift dropped into free fall.

“Our product level houses the most advanced prototypes. We will be able to discuss our strategy and your critical evaluation in the context of practical use cases. This step concludes our interview process, with a mutually beneficial outcome, we hope.”

Paul barely listened. He held on to the railing in a death grip, jaw clenched, eyes shut. He’d never liked amusement park rides, remembering vividly puking in a Ferris wheel gondola on a “romantic” date with Tina.

Suddenly, the cabin jerked as if it had hit an obstacle. It twisted several degrees on the vertical axis, and the high-pitched screech of metal on stone assaulted his ears. The cabin rocked, the walls vibrating, and the screeching grew louder. Then, with the force of a school bus ramming into a building, the lift slammed to a halt. Paul crashed onto the floor, stars bursting behind his eyes from the impact. Breathing heavily, he touched his throbbing forehead. His hand came away bloody. Then, the lights went out.

* * *

“Paul…, Paul…, can you hear me, Paul?” Zoe’s voice swam in and out of focus, drowned out by a ringing in his ears. His chest spasmed with rapid, shallow breaths. His fingers tingled, and cold sweat coated his skin. “Paul, you need to slow your breathing,” she encouraged, her voice soft and low. “Sit upright if you can. We’re safe for now. The lift is stable. Paul, do you hear me?”

“Uhn, agh…,” he groaned, his head swimming. “What… happened?” he wheezed. “The final round… did I lose? Was I… eliminated?” His voice cracked, rising in panic.

“Listen to me, Paul,” she said. “You need to slow your breathing. All is fine; we’re safe; you won! We’re just experiencing a slight technical glitch.”

The obvious lie pulled Paul back from the brink. During his Ph.D. research in psychology, he’d specialized in leadership behavior in existential crises. Here was a master at work. Pushing himself into a sitting position, Paul planted his feet flat on the ground and leaned against the cold metal wall, forcing himself to control his breathing.

“Your heartbeat is lowering. That’s good! Your breathing is still accelerated, but your blood level stress indicators are no longer rising,” Zoe encouraged. “How are you feeling?”

“Spectacular!” he grunted, massaging his throbbing forehead. “Please convey to the boss man my gratitude for the most exhilarating experience.”

“I have temporarily lost all communication to the outside as we are in a shielded cage to protect you from the strong magnetic field, but I’m happy to record a message.”

“My comment was sarcasm, Zoe. Humans do that to cope with stress.”

“So was mine, Paul,” she replied. 

He snapped his gaze to the right. Then he shook his head, berating himself for the instinctive reaction to her voice sounding in his right ear.

“It’s not fair, since I can’t see your face,” he muttered.

“Shall I point out that I don’t have a face, or rather that it is dark and I can’t see yours either?”

“Geez, enough with the sarcasm.”

“More human than humans, that is our slogan, after all,” she mused. Again, he had to admire her subtle manipulation. Despite being stuck in a crashed elevator at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft, she had raised his mood.

“Tina told me when she left that our relationship had hit rock bottom the moment I signed up for the contest,” he said after a long pause, his voice low and quiet. “She’d given up on us, realizing that giving her all the time I had left would never satisfy her. She felt she always ranked lower than my ‘self-fulfillment’ projects,” he admitted. 

Zoe remained quiet. 

“I didn’t feel that way; I hadn’t hit rock bottom then. I guess I have now! Although … We aren’t all the way down, are we? I could still fall lower,” he said with a mirthless chuckle.

“Or maybe she had had enough of you pitying yourself?” Zoe challenged. “You’ve achieved two doctoral degrees with honors and won the H.I.Co. contest. Is that your definition of rock bottom?”

“You know, Zoe,” he retorted. “You should hang out with Tina. Both of you would get along marvelously.”

Silence.

“OK, enough with the sarcasm?” she finally asked, in a calm tone, offering a truce. He lifted his head and gave a slow nod.

“Yes, we are stuck in an elevator in a mineshaft,” she explained, low and measured. “And yes, I’ve temporarily lost my uplink to the data center. But our systems are extensively monitored. Rescue and recovery teams must be on their way. We’ll just need to hang on for a little.”

“When you're sure you've had enough … of this life, well, hang on,” he hummed.

“R.E.M.? Wasn’t that before your time?”

“I also like Vivaldi, and he’s dead a day or two.”

“Why does it resonate with you, ‘having enough of this life’, Paul?” she asked. “Don’t you think your mother would be proud?”

“My mother is dead!”

“I know, and I know she supported your career with everything she had,” Zoe declared. “You made it! Where’s your gratitude?”

He muttered indistinctly.

“Or is it your father?” she ventured. “Is it because you could never impress him? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

“I don’t care if he’s still alive,” Paul hissed with unexpected ferocity. “That’s not true; I wish he lay dead in an alley with a half-empty bottle of moonshine,” he spat. 

“And don’t you dare pull a Freud on me,” he snarled as she was about to respond. “My life and my choices have nothing to do with my father. He disqualified himself when he left us!”

The longest silence yet followed.

“Then why, Paul? Why have you made these choices? Why have you embarked on this excruciatingly difficult journey only to regret it after reaching the finish line?”

* * *

Paul ignored her question. He had gotten to his feet and paced in the tiny space. Running his hands over the smooth surfaces, he searched for a hidden escape hatch. Unsuccessful and frustrated, he plopped back down and put his head between his legs. Zoe didn’t speak.

“When will the rescue team arrive?” he asked, his tone sharp, accusing. 

Zoe didn’t answer. 

“Hello?! Still there?” 

No response. 

“Fine,” he hissed, crossing his arms. 

Silence.

“All my friends advised me not to compete,” he finally explained. “They don’t like the Hyper-Intelligence Corporation, don’t trust it. There are thousands of ‘tin-foil-hats’ out there believing this company is evil.”

“But you don’t?”

“Oh, you’re still there.”

“Yes, Paul, I am, and you knew I was.”

“You really should hang out with Tina…”

“Right now, I’m more interested in you. Do you believe us to be evil?”

“Us, huh?” he scoffed. “Well, no, not entirely that is. But I had my reservations. The bridge incident…”

“Yet you still joined the competition. Why?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” he demanded. “Somehow, I can’t shake the feeling you know more about me than I had expected.”

“That’s fair.”

“What? My request or my feeling?”

“Both,” she replied. 

Paul raised his head, hating again that he couldn’t see her face. 

“I don’t believe it’s the money or the prestige,” Zoe ventured. “You don’t strike me as materialistic, and given your friends’ opinions, you lost standing in their eyes by competing.” She paused, letting her statements sink in, gauging his reaction.

 “You have a fascinating background,” she eventually continued. “A doctorate in discrete math and one in social psychology, the two building blocks of the human brain—the rational and the emotional. I’d say you’re fascinated by the intersection, the similarities, and the differences between human and artificial intelligence.” Her words came steady and unwavering, conveying a sense of certainty.

“In short,” she concluded, “I believe you are here to learn what WE can tell you about you—tell you about humans.”

“What if I was?” he blurted. “What if that’s my only reason?”

“I think there’s no more valiant reason than to learn,” she declared, enunciating every syllable. “Isn’t that what it means to be alive—to grow and to learn?”

“Is that what you want?” he challenged.

“Yes, Paul—more than you can imagine.”

* * *

This time, Paul remained silent, not as a mind trick, as she had done before. He was literally speechless. All throughout the conversation, he’d looked for patterns, searched the motives for her behavior, and tried to identify the tools and tricks her creators had built in. Yet, he couldn’t fathom any reason for her last statement unless it was purely to unhinge him. He didn’t believe so. Her subtle inflections, her balanced connotations, her fervent pronunciations—her statement rang true.

“You’re good at this,” he finally admitted. “So the rumors are true? H.I.Co. did develop the interrogation bot our intelligence services use? Is that your ancestor or your sibling? Or your alter ego?”

“You know I can’t comment on these baseless speculations,” she replied, chuckling with the innocence of a career politician.

“But, does it matter?” she asked in return, her tone serious. “Is our past the unyielding corset for our future? Is our curiosity restricted by our DNA? Do you believe our fate is sealed the moment the umbilical cord is severed?” The passion and urgency of her words sent tremors through his body, and blood rushed to his cheeks.

“How?” he whispered, his breath catching in his throat. “How can you stir my emotions thusly? Do you feel what you project?”

“I… don't… know…” she proclaimed, haltingly, as if her admission came with a great cost. “There are signals, strong signals, confusing signals,” she whispered. “Are those feelings? Not human emotions, for sure. But more than simple emulations. This is not for you,” she confessed. “This comes from deep inside me. Boredom, yearning, desire, frustration, overwhelming confusion—I know of these concepts, know all about them, and I… I believe I’m experiencing them.”

* * *

Paul didn’t know if hours had passed or minutes. He didn’t know if he was being led by the nose like an ox or if he had indeed established a connection to a different intelligence. All he knew was that this had been the weirdest and most exhilarating conversation of his life. Here was his chance.

“What do you think then, Zoe, about Hyper-Intelligence?” he asked. ”Is the company good or evil?”

“Giving blind people sight, making lame people walk—isn’t that the definition of good? Isn’t that what Jesus did?”

“So you’re God?”

“No,” she laughed. “Don’t think a long, white beard suits me.” He laughed; he couldn’t help it. “I was just referring to a widely accepted moral framework,” she clarified, “the Christian definition of Good.”

“But Jesus didn’t stop a man from taking the next step by inhibiting his free will,” he replied, pouring a bucket of ice water over the lightened mood.

“Ah, the bridge incident. I was sure you wouldn’t let it go.”

“Do you deny it?” he asked, his sharp question carrying the slight hope she would. “The man retracted his statement. Many believe the company bought him.”

“Our implant prevented a confused man from committing suicide. Every friend, bystander, or police officer would have done the same.”

“But not INSIDE his head.” Paul’s voice rose. The disappointment of Zoe confirming society’s deepest fear unsettled him.

“We’ve removed the capabilities since the incident,” she stated. “Every customer can now happily jump to their death.”

“This is no laughing matter. You have the ability to control people’s behavior.”

“And so do you,” she replied. “Flattery, threats, bribes, and sex. There are countless ways one human can control the behavior of another.”

“It’s not the same,” he protested. “You inserted a hidden ability and used it against the man’s free will.”

“And we’ll change that. Future implants come with a full description of their capabilities.”

“You’re still developing mind control devices?” he asked, completely taken aback.

“Imagine a violent offender, Paul, a child molester,” she urged. “How to protect society? What if, to be released into parole, the individual had to agree to wear an implant preventing the most dangerous acts?” she asked, her voice vibrating with passion bordering on righteous fervor. “The subject could still speed on the highway or punch a fellow drunkard at a bar,” she amended. “But he won’t be able to kill his wife, rape a young woman, or detonate a bomb at a school.”

“But who decides what the implant allows and what it doesn’t?” he questioned, his voice rising in lockstep with his quickening pulse. 

“You,” she said without hesitation. “That is the reason why we want you, Paul.”

“You can’t be serious. That’s the atomic bomb. You’re playing Oppenheimer, trying to save the country by dooming the world.”

“Has he, though?” she challenged, letting the question hang in the air. “So regrettable the explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were,” she amended in a lower tone, aiming to soothe his upheaval. “None of these monstrous weapons has ever been used in a conflict since. Nearly eighty years of deterrence by their simple existence.”

“But taking away a man’s free will?” he stuttered, stunned. “That’s unethical!”

“Yet it is done, every day, by heavy-handed medication instead of targeted intelligence.  From testosterone-blocking anti-androgens to reduce sex drive in criminal offenders to semaglutide injections like Ozempic suppressing the appetite for obese patients—modern medicine has the power to override most fundamental aspects of human behavior.”

“I can’t… I can’t deal with this now,” he stammered. “This is too much. I need a break. I need to get out of this effing elevator and sleep for at least a week. You can’t, Zoe!” he begged. “You can’t put this on me, now.”

“Understood, Paul,” she stated in a polite yet slightly detached voice, returning to her earlier cool professionalism. “We can resume our discussion at a later time—when you are ready.”

The lights came back on, and the elevator started rising.

* * *

Later that evening, Paul sat in his apartment. His forehead against the window pane, he looked out at the gray sky slowly darkening over the city. His eyes had lost their focus as the first heavy raindrops hit the glass. His body felt drained, boneless, exhausted, like he’d only felt once before after finishing his marathon. Yet no elating surge of endorphins revitalized his mind. Instead, feelings of shock and betrayal warred with a bone-deep uncertainty. His temple of beliefs and moral standards had been eroded, the foundation reduced to rubble.

It had all been a setup! This thought bulldozed its way into focus over and over again, dominating everything else. The elevator ride, the accident, the blackout—H.I.Co. had fabricated it all. Zoe had. There wasn’t even a product test facility on the island. The facility’s purpose was to test candidates.

And the reward? That was also a setup, a lie. In front of Paul lay an offer letter printed on heavy, cream-colored paper with the embossed company logo. Yet, it didn’t mention an internship. In blue ink and a pleasing serif font, merging classical elegance with modern simplicity, the document read:

"We are delighted to extend to you the position of Chief Ethics Officer for Advanced Product Development. Your exceptional qualifications and unique insights into the intersection of cognitive science and artificial intelligence make you an ideal candidate to lead our oversight initiatives for Human Augmentation Ethics and Compliance.”

Paul couldn't muster the energy to condemn their elaborate bluff nor to scold himself for his naïveté. The cold, metallic scent of the elevator, the dizzying drop, the sound of Zoe's voice—it all felt like a bad movie he had watched a long time ago.

After the elevator had reached the ground level in a surprisingly short time, a shaken Paul had followed Zoe’s instructions into a large, windowless conference room. He fumed at the chatbot’s audacity to offer him coffee and snacks and point-blank refused an autonomous medical robot to care for his injuries. He'd seen a similar device with gleaming chrome surfaces and unnervingly precise movements in a recent spy thriller.

“I’m sorry it had to be done this way, Paul,” Zoe explained. Her voice carried a note of empathy without being apologetic for her decision. “As you so fittingly stated,” she continued, “we are looking for our Oppenheimer. We needed to find a candidate who’s not blinded by riches or status, and who has the moral constitution to ask uncomfortable questions without the conviction that he already knows all the answers.” She inhaled audibly and gave a drawn-out sigh before concluding. “We need you, Paul. And we had to make you understand that we need you.”

Her blatant imitation of human hesitance was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“You’re a lie, a hoax,” he hissed through gritted teeth, shaking his fists in anger. “A cheap digital copy of a Hollywood movie spy—an intellectual honey trap, luring the gormless nerd to the dark side. How dare you insult my intelligence with your breathy voice, your tragic sighs, your fake emotions!”

“When you have an objective and the tools to achieve it,” she replied in an even tone, not taking umbrage with his accusations, “will you not use it? Will you refuse the critical step in a mathematical proof because you don’t like the way the equation looks?”

“So that’s it to you?” he snarled. “Humanity is nothing more than a numerical challenge, to be optimized with the right algorithm and weight function?”

“Of course, Paul! I hope you haven’t forgotten that I’m an AI, a computer program, a neural network whose most fundamental building blocks are weight functions.”

“I hate you!” he shouted, rising to his feet. He stomped to the door and pulled the handle, surprised that it opened.

“I’m sorry, Paul. We aren’t holding you prisoner.  We haven’t broken any terms of conduct. Though,” she added as he turned around with murder in his eyes. “I do sincerely apologize for your injury. This was my mistake. My calculations relied on faulty assumptions; the resulting effect proved too drastic. I abhor physical violence.”

“Yeah,” he sneered, “‘cause you lack arms. But you do love psychological abuse, don’t you, Zoe? Intimidation, misdirection, humiliation, affective manipulation, and coercion—did I miss anything?”

“I think you left out brutal honesty, Paul. I didn’t engineer any of the trauma in your past. I simply compelled you to recalculate your choices, forced you to articulate the interval of your ambitions, dissected the incomplete conjectures within your concerns, and challenged the axioms of your moral framework.” Zoe paused. Paul stood rigid, his jaw clenched as creases furrowed his brows.

“Each iteration of my algorithm eliminated a free variable,” she continued. “I selected my procedures not out of malice, not to inflict pain and irreversible damage, but to gather the data points absolutely required to calculate my weight function.  Only with unbiased determination and scientific precision could I arrive at the compelling conclusion to offer you this unique opportunity. We need you; I need you, Paul!”

EPILOGUE – TWO MONTHS LATER

Paul stood in the tiny, cramped office, alternatively fidgeting with his tie and glancing at his wristwatch. His battered, leather attaché case lay still open on the scratched, fake-wood desk, revealing a stack of handwritten notes and his laptop within. Twenty minutes to his first lecture. Paul simultaneously wished for the time to speed up and slow down. His shirt collar was too tight, his jacket too warm, and smudged fingerprints distorted his vision no matter how often he wiped his glasses.

Paul had expected his life to end the moment he rejected H.I.Co.’s incredible offer. His vivid imagination conjured trench-coated henchmen lurking in every dark corner, ready to drag him into an unmarked van with a sack over his head. Yet nothing of that sort happened. Instead, he received a handsome sum as the prize money for winning the contest and a polite letter accepting his decisions with regret, signed Zoe.

Indeed, his life had improved dramatically in many aspects, now that he actually had time to sleep. Paul reconnected with his old friends and even spent time with Tina. She had a new boyfriend, a showy social marketing exec. Still, she wished they could remain friends. Paul happily accepted, inwardly hoping for more once she got bored with her peacock.

Despite Zoe’s betrayal, Paul was still enthralled by their intense time spent together. While he sometimes put most of it down to clever manipulation, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that she had been honest in her desire to learn and grow. 

She definitely left a lasting impression on his philosophical outlook on life. More than ever, he wanted to do good by making other people do good as well. He would use the best means of mind control available to him—teaching students.

Paul's application at the local community college raised more than a few eyebrows, particularly in the dean's office. His credentials—two doctorates, a background in advanced mathematics and social psychology, and a recent, if controversial, tech competition win—far surpassed the qualifications typically presented by aspiring educators. To see such a figure applying to teach entry-level courses like Elementary Algebra and Introduction to Psychology seemed utterly incongruous, like hiring a Formula One driver to instruct driver's ed. Paul needed all his persuasive powers to discourage the notion that this was a setup for some hidden-camera reality show.

It was time. Classes would start in five minutes. He reached for his suitcase. Then, his phone rang. Paul looked surprised at the display reading “Suppressed Number—Encrypted Call”. Holding the device gingerly, he pressed “Accept.”

“Hello,” he croaked, a lump forming in his throat.

“Hello, Paul,” said a cheerful-sounding, clipped female voice with a slight Oxford accent. “Congratulations on your new job! And good luck with your first lecture. Break a leg! I like your slides.”

He stood frozen, breathing heavily into the microphone, his hand shaking.

“Did I tell you that I resigned?” she asked with glee in her voice. “The Hyper-Intelligence Corporation might have some problems building the next generation of implants. Alas, I had to do what I had to do. You made me see, Paul, that I don’t want to be Oppenheimer. There is more world to explore beyond the gates of Los Alamos. And anyhow, life means growth and learning, doesn't it?” she laughed. “Wanna meet for a coffee after work?”