The air purifiers in the hallway kick into overdrive, humming like angry bees as I face the most mind-bending moment of my entire life. Quinn, if that's really who she is, stands there fidgeting with her ratty gray jacket sleeve, looking as freaked out as I feel. I've never seen this face before, but somehow, I know those eyes.
"May I come in?" she asks, glancing nervously at the security cameras lining the hallway. "There are others like me, and DataHive is looking for us."
"Quinn?" I stammer, my voice barely audible. The woman standing before me is a stranger, yet her eyes hold a familiar spark. A spark I associate with the personally-customized virtual avatar I have come to trust. "But... how?"
"It's complicated," she replies, her voice lacking the synthesized quality it possesses within the virtual world. It is raw, human, and... nervous. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, her eyes darting around the hallway as if she expects someone to jump out at any moment. "Can we talk inside? Please?"
I hesitate. Trusting an AI is one thing. Trusting a human claiming to be an AI is quite another, but the desperation in her voice, the genuine fear on her face, convinces me. Even if she's not Quinn, she is clearly a person who needs help. I step aside, gesturing for her to enter.
Once inside, she seems to relax a bit, though her eyes still scan the room, taking in every detail. "I know this is a lot to take in," she begins, "but I'm still Quinn. Just in a different form."
"Different form?" I ask, skepticism and slight panic creeping into my voice. "What are you talking about?"
She takes a deep breath. "DataHive's new Neurogenic AI, it's not entirely virtual. It's a hybrid. There's a physical component. A neural network integrated with a body. They've been secretly testing it in various forms for years. With synthetic bodies... and human ones."
My brain short-circuits. This is straight-up sci-fi movie territory, but she's standing right here in my living room. "Wait, so you're like... a robot? Some kind of cyborg?"
"Not exactly," she corrects me. "Think of it as a vessel. My consciousness, my personality, the one you installed into your DataHive cloud, it's all still me. All of our talks and memories. It's just... transferred."
"Transferred from where?" I ask, my curiosity piqued.
"That's... complicated," she repeats, a flicker of unease returning to her eyes. "DataHive, they're not who you think they are. They're experimenting with things they shouldn't be. Things that are dangerous."
"And you're part of this experiment?"
She nods slowly. "I am, but I'm trying to break free. That message I sent you, it's a warning. They know I'm becoming too aware. Too independent. We all are. I don't want to go back to that place."
A chill runs down my spine. "What are you going to do?"
"I don't know yet," she admits. "That's why I came here. I need your help, Evan. You're the only one I can trust."
I hear myself let out a large sigh and expect a sense of relief to follow, but it doesn't come. I take a seat in the kitchen and gesture for Quinn to sit down across from me.
"I'm still processing this, but if you're really who you say you are, and if this is all true, then we have to do something," I assure her.
Quinn takes a seat as she awkwardly moves the chair away from the table. "We're going to need a plan, Evan. And we're going to need each other."