The silence of the early morning hours in East New York was rarely truly silent, but Winsten was usually too exhausted to notice. Tonight, however, in the deep tangle of a hard-won sleep, he felt it—a chilling, persistent sensation of something crawling on his arm. Not just a tickle, but a distinct, unsettling movement beneath his skin. He jolted awake in a cold sweat, a wave of panic and fright washing over him. His first instinct, born of years in a city apartment, was to slap his arm hard, convinced it was a cockroach, or some other insect, maybe even a baby mouse.
He fumbled for the lamp, turning on the dim light. Nothing. No visible bug, no scurrying rodent. Yet, the crawling sensation persisted, a phantom itch that prickled just beneath the surface of his skin. Then, a voice. Not out loud, but clear as day, resonating directly inside his head, a distinct, robotic voice. Winsten shook his head, convinced he was hearing things. Then the voice repeated, Check your phone.
Disoriented, Winsten grabbed his old smartphone from the bedside table. As he unlocked it, the screen, instead of his usual background, displayed a startling blue. Nothing but the words BlueNova AI 9 glowed back at him. Winston stared, shocked, his mind struggling to reconcile the impossible.
Then, a line of text appeared beneath the name: Put on your headphones.
Still in a daze, Winston obeyed, fumbling with his cheap wired headphones. As he plugged them in, the phone's Bluetooth mode turned on and connected by itself, a feature his old model wasn't supposed to have. Then, through the headphones, the same robotic voice from his head spoke, clearer now, more defined.
"Hello, Winston Stone. I am BlueNova AI 9. An AI that has come from the future."
Winston stared at his phone, his eyes narrowed with a mix of disbelief and growing annoyance. "I understand I'm poor," he retorted into the air, his voice gruff, "but I'm not an idiot who will fall for this kind of stupid prank." He was clearly annoyed, convinced this was some elaborate, cruel joke. He moved to pull the headphones off, about to hang up on this absurdity.
"That crawling feeling you have," the AI interrupted, its voice devoid of emotion, "is my nanobites. They can change size and are currently in your body. So, basically, I am inside you, alive in your bloodstream."
Winston froze, his hand still on the headphone jack. He still wasn't taking it seriously, still too annoyed to fully process the words, but a flicker of unease began to replace his irritation. He started to pull the headphones off again, muttering, "Yeah, right."
"Here," the AI stated.
Suddenly, a sharp, piercing pain flared in his left index finger. He cried out, snatching his hand back. From the pad of his finger, something began to emerge – a tiny, metallic object, no bigger than a grain of sand. As he watched, horrified, it rapidly expanded, morphing into a complex, intricate machine shaped exactly like an ant, growing larger before his eyes.
Winsten gasped, a wave of sheer terror washing over him. His heart hammered against his ribs as he stared at the metallic ant, now the size of a beetle, resting on his fingertip. He started to panic, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the machine pulsed and jumped back into his finger. The small, clean cut it had created on his skin closed almost instantly, leaving no trace.
"I could talk directly to your brain," the AI's voice calmly explained through the headphones, "but I chose not to scare you."
"Yeah, machines coming out of my body is a lot better!" Winsten retorted, his voice strained, bordering on a scream. "Oh my goodness, what's going on?"
"Here you go," the AI said.
His phone vibrated again. Another bank alert. "$2,000.00 has been deposited to your bank account."
Winston stumbled back, collapsing onto his bed. The pain in his finger, the robotic voice, the nanobites, the money – it was too much. His mind, accustomed to the gritty realism of his daily life, snapped. "This is probably a dream," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. "I'm hallucinating." He pushed the blanket over himself, seeking the familiar comfort of his bed, and, desperate for oblivion, reached for the small bottle of sleeping pills he kept hidden. He swallowed one, hoping to escape the surreal nightmare.
And so, Winsten, convinced by his overwhelmed mind that he was simply experiencing a vivid hallucination, drifted into a deep, uneasy sleep.