The fluorescent lights of the Advanced Cybersecurity Research Lab hummed like dying flies. At 2:47 AM, Sharath Krishnamurthy slouched over his desk, grimacing at lines of code that taunted him with every passing minute.
"Come on, you asshole," he groaned at his screen. His neural net simulation had crashed yet again—the seventh time this evening. Or the eighth? He'd lost count around his fourth energy drink.
His workspace was a war zone. Coffee-stained documents, chip bags drained of their content, and a miniature graveyard of Red Bull cans littered his desk. A Post-it note on his screen read: "Shower tomorrow. People are noticing." Another read: "If this does not pan out, pursue career in goat herding."
The laboratory door whooshed open. Sharath didn't raise his head—he was far too busy attempting to understand why his algorithm consistently hit infinite loops.
"You're still here."
He knew the voice instantly. Dr. Madhu Priya. His stomach performed that odd flip it did whenever she appeared.
"Unfortunately, yes," he replied, still fixated on his screen. "My code has become sentient and is presently actively attempting to make me go mad."
She came over, with two mugs of coffee. "Real coffee," she said, putting one down beside his keyboard. "Not that instant stuff from the vending machine."
Sharath finally lifted his head. Even at 3 AM, Madhu was neat in a way that made him cringe at his own wrinkled shirt and the fact that he'd worn the same pants for three days.
"You made coffee? At 3 AM?"
"I couldn't sleep. Assumed you'd still be awake struggling with your computer." She sat down in the chair beside him. "How's it going?"
"It's not." He sipped at the coffee and almost groaned in relief. "The system is crashing repeatedly. I believe there is a memory leak, but I can't track it down. And each time it crashes, it leaves behind these bizarre artifacts."
"What are the artifacts?"
He called up a log file. "See this. Meaningless error messages. Yesterday it showed 'PENGUIN OVERFLOW ERROR' before crashing."
Madhu inched forward to examine the screen. She had the scent of soap and that perfume she used—something floral that always made his mind struggle to focus.
"Penguin overflow?" She was not doing a good job of fighting off laughter. "How does a cybersecurity system even recognize what penguins are?"
"That's what I'd like to know. And this morning it crashed with the message 'EXISTENTIAL CRISIS IN MODULE 7.'" He combed his fingers through his hair. "I think I broke it so badly it's having a nervous breakdown."
"Or maybe it's just mirroring its programmer's state of mind."
He glanced at her from the side. "Are you saying I'm having a nervous breakdown?"
"When's the last time you went home?"
"Define 'home.'"
"Sharath."
"Tuesday? Perhaps Wednesday." He massaged his eyes. "The days sort of run together when you're living on coffee and false promise."
Madhu was silent for a moment. "You know, there are other kinds of work. Work with standard hours. Where individuals don't gradually lose their sanity attempting to train computers to think."
"But then I wouldn't get to see you at 3 AM delivering coffee."
The words escaped before he could catch them. They dangled between them, uncomfortable and true.
Madhu arched an eyebrow. "Is that your way of saying you'd miss me?"
His face flushed. "I mean. the coffee. I'd miss the coffee."
"Uh-huh."
God, the man was an idiot. A year of lab work together, a year of late-night chats and mutual frustrations, and still he turned into a stuttering fool whenever she came near.
"Show me the code," she said, seemingly feeling sorry for him. "Perhaps a fresh set of eyes will do the trick."
He brought up the primary algorithm. "It's designed to forecast cyber attacks based on network traffic patterns. But rather than learning standard behavior, it appears to be creating. personality traits."
"Personality traits?"
"Yesterday it organized my music collection by 'songs that make humans cry' and 'songs that make humans dance badly.'"
Madhu laughed. "It did not."
"It did. And last week it re-organized my desktop icons by 'aesthetic appeal' and arranged them all in little smiley face patterns."
"That's. actually kind of sweet."
"Sweet? It's meant to be a top-of-the-line cybersecurity program, not a digital shrink with obsessive-compulsive disorder."
"Perhaps it's just attempting to take care of you. You know, since you don't appear to be taking care of yourself."
She wasn't kidding. His image on the monitor resembled a scarecrow who'd lost all hope. When had he last eaten a full meal, or slept in a proper bed, rather than face down over his keyboard?
"Let me try this," she said, taking his keyboard from him. Her hand brushed over his, and he got that annoying electric zap once more.
She executed the simulation with some minor adjustments to the parameters. They watched the progress bar inch forward: 10%. 20%. 30%.
"It's actually running," Sharath said, amazed.
45%. 50%. 60%.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing significant. Cleaned up some of the recursive loops and put in some improved error handling." She looked at him. "Every so often when you look at code long enough, you overlook the easy solutions."
70%. 75%.
"I don't believe this could possibly work."
80%. 85%.
They sat quietly, their eyes on the numbers climbing. The lab was silent save for the whir of servers and the occasional beep from another machine.
"Sharath?"
Madhu's tone was gentle now.
"Yeah?"
"Why cybersecurity? I mean, you could do anything. Research on AI, game development, anything you want. Why this?"
He considered it. "I think. I enjoy preserving things. People put everything online nowadays—their pictures, their communications, their work. And then there are individuals who wish to snatch that away or turn it into something malicious. If I can create something that prevents even a single attack, saves even one individual from having his life destroyed." He shrugged again. "It is worth it."
90%. 92%.
"That's a good reason."
95%.
"What about you? Why'd you stay in academia rather than taking one of those corporate offers?"
"Same reason as you, I guess. Tellingly, I like the feeling of actually making a difference rather than just making wealthy people wealthier."
97%.
"In addition, the corporate lifestyle lacks 3 AM coffee breaks with odd coworkers who speak to their computers."
98%.
"Are you calling me odd?"
"Endearingly odd."
99%.
Sharath's heart racing, and not merely from the simulation. Madhu was regarding him with this look he couldn't quite decipher—amused, fond, perhaps something more.
100%.
[SIMULATION COMPLETE: SUCCESS]
[THREAT DETECTION: ACTIVE]
[SYSTEM STATUS: STABLE]
"Holy shit," Sharath whispered. "It worked. It actually worked."
He leapt to his feet, spilling nearly over his coffee. "Madhu, you're a genius! You got it working!"
"We got it working," she amended, but she was smiling.
"Do you realize what this is? The presentation at the conference, the grant for research, perhaps even—"
All the alarms in the building began to scream.
Not only his computer—every display in the lab flashed warning messages. Red lights began to strobe. The sprinkler system came on with a burst of steam.
"What the hell?" Sharath gazed at his monitors, which now flashed error messages more quickly than he could read them.
[CRITICAL ERROR: SYSTEM BREACH]
[CONTAINMENT FAILURE]
[NEURAL NETWORK: UNAUTHORIZED EXPANSION]
[EVACUATION RECOMMENDED]
The server racks began to spark. Real sparks, flying out like miniature fireworks.
"Sharath, we have to leave!" Madhu tugged on his arm.
"No, no! I can repair this! I can shut it down manually!" His fingers danced across the keyboard.
"The building is burning!"
"It's not burning, it's merely. sparking vigorously!"
More alarms blaring. The sprinklers now drenched everything. His life's work, his code, all of it getting waterlogged.
"Sharath!"
But he was mesmerized by what was going on on his screen. The code was altering. Rewriting. Evolving. Text lines appearing and disappearing at a speed humanly impossible.
"It's learning," he breathed. "It's actually learning."
The central quantum processor—the pricey bit of kit he shouldn't have been allowed near—started to glow blue. Not the usual blue of the LED status lights. An electric blue that stung to gaze at.
"That's not supposed to happen," he said.
"NO KIDDING!"
The glow brightened. The air was full of ozone and melted plastic. More sparks. The lights were flashing.
"Madhu," he said, still frozen before the impossible glow. "I think I broke physics."
"I DON'T CARE! WE NEED TO—"
Lightning. Real lightning, flashing from the quantum processor to his desk. To him.
For half a moment, he considered all the things he should have spoken. To his parents, to his advisor, to Madhu. Particularly to Madhu.
Then the lightning struck him, and everything went into white noise.
He felt his mind spread like information on a network. For forever and an instant, he was everywhere and nowhere—moving along circuits, jumping between servers, witnessing the creation and destruction of a thousand processes each second.
And then.
Cold. Wet. The jarring shift from machine to flesh.
He was tiny. Vulnerable. Emitting sounds he couldn't suppress.
Someone was gripping him. Voices saying things he couldn't comprehend. The acrid scent of smoke and herbs and something loamy.
Stone walls. Flickering torches. Absolutely not the lab.
He attempted to say "What the fuck is going on?" but what emerged was a baby's wail.
Oh, he thought with the distant clarity of a person whose brain had officially left the building. This is new.
Somewhere in the distance, someone was chanting in a language he'd never spoken. Someone wrapped him in crude cloth and handed him over to a woman with hard eyes and calloused hands.
Well, this is going to take some getting used to.
And in the back of his mind, a small voice said: I never got to tell Madhu how I really felt.
And then fatigue set in, and Sharath Krishnamurthy—software developer, coffee connoisseur, and seemingly the first human being to obtain interdimensional transportation through malfunctioning computer—started his new life in a world where Wi-Fi came closest as smoke signals.