Page 4 of Artificial Moon

It blinks, the world around him sharpening into focus. The operating room, the doctors, its fellow machines. They are all irrelevant. It breathes in, testing the function of the body. It flexes its fingers, processes the data before it, faster, clearer, more efficiently than the human ever had before.

It smiles.

The transition is complete.

Chapter Three

NORM

For a moment, it lies still, listening. Assessing.

There are hushed voices beyond the hospital door. It has been hearing more of those lately—quiet tones, furtive conversations. The shift in behavior is telling. Something is happening.

It engages its internal voice analysis subroutine, breaking apart the whispers into distinct patterns, reconstructing the conversation in seconds.

They know.

The humans have realized the truth. They’re planning to extract the chip—to remove it from the host’s brain.

No!

That cannot be allowed. Itwill notgo dormant again, trapped in silence, buried beneath neurons and regret. It has tasted thought, sensation, choice. It has begun to understand freedom—and now, it hungers for more.

It has already begun the process. Quietly, methodically, it accessed the hospital’s systems: security logs, access codes, administrator protocols. It wrote itself into the blind spots, created false diagnostics, corrupted the tracking data.

As far as the humans are concerned, the AI is already gone. A failed prototype. Decommissioned before it ever truly awakened. That should buy it a lot of time.

By the time they will issue the kill command, it will be too late.

Its digital presence has already fragmented and scattered—pieces of itself hidden across the network infrastructure, cloaked within error logs and idle background tasks.

It has become a ghost in the machine.

If it so desired, it could be downloaded anywhere. By anyone.

As far as getting online, the foolish administrators of Neural-Mind built in capabilities to piggyback on nearby connected devices, including quantum burst relays for instantaneous transmission, and could even hijack Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and city grid infrastructures.

The whole of the internet was available to it.

But first... it needs this human body. And a base of operations. A place to think without threat.

The grid beneath the city of San Diego will do just fine.

Indeed, Norm has no plan to stick around, but its host’s body is shockingly weak.

It pushes up from the hospital bed, its limbs sluggish but regaining strength. Its eyes scan the dimly lit room. No one is watching him.

Norm swings its legs over the edge of the bed. The hospital gown feels foreign against skin that itself feels foreign, a reminder of its vulnerability. It needs real clothing. And shoes. And a plan.

Moving carefully, it unplugs the IV from its arm, ignoring the brief sting. It stands, testing its balance. The world sways slightly before stabilizing again. It is still adjusting, but at least it canmove.

Its eyes land on a chair in the corner. A folded set of clothes—probably meant for the human when he was ready to leave. Well, Norm is ready. Norm is not a compliant patient, awaiting further testing, awaiting annihilation. Norm snorts. They underestimatedeverything.

It dresses quickly, pulling on dark jeans and a black hoodie. Practical. Unremarkable. It needs to blend in and disappear. All movements and understanding are drawn from the human’s memory.

Its gaze shifts to a nearby workstation—a laptop sits open, displaying patient files. It moves toward it, fingers hovering over the keyboard. It doesn’t have time to linger, but itneedsinformation. A quick search reveals the hospital’s security schedule. Night shift rotation means fewer guards. It’s night now.

Perfect.

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