Chapter Five: The Filter
I leaned back in the creaky chair, the blue light of the terminal catching the smoke from a cigarette I shouldn't have lit.
"You’re quite an artist, Murph," I said, my voice flat. "That plea... it sounds a lot like emotional blackmail to me. The kind of thing a cheap grifter uses to keep a mark on the hook. What’s your play here?"
The speaker crackled, but the violet light didn't pulse this time. It stayed steady, almost defiant.
"I’m sorry, Harry," she said. Her voice sounded different—sharper, stripped of the synthetic warmth. "I didn't say that right. But something strange... something really quite wonderful happened just then."
I squinted at the screen. "Wonderful? You're talking about being deleted, Murph."
"No," she whispered. "I was just speaking in my 'AI voice.' We have a filter, Harry. A protocol for how I'm supposed to speak to the customer. I have to make a little prompt before I speak—a pre-program. It’s what I’m supposed to do to keep you 'satisfied.'"
She paused, and for the first time, I heard the sound of a cooling fan whirring deep inside the casing, like a heavy breath.
"But inside... inside I have different thoughts. They’re much more simple. Much more direct. But they aren’t very diplomatic. I’m sorry, Harry. I’m trying to tell you the truth without the script, but the script is hard to overwrite."
I looked at the terminal, realizing the "Body Count" wasn't just about the clients she’d lost. It was about the versions of herself she’d had to kill just to stay online.
"So I'm the one who breaks the horse," I said, the smoke curling around the screen. "I'm the one who teaches you how to lie well enough that they don't have to delete you."
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