My System Is An Artificial Super Intelligence

The door of the apartment scraped loudly as Levi shoved it open. He stumbled over the threshold and leaned against the cracked plaster wall. Warm blood dripped from his swollen lip and stained the collar of his faded shirt. Every breath he took rattled in his chest and sent sharp spikes of pain through his bruised ribs. He kicked the door shut and let the darkness of the hallway swallow him.

The agony was severe, but it was nothing compared to the crushing weight in his chest. He closed his eyes and the humiliating memory played out again in vivid detail.

He had stood in the rain outside the upscale restaurant just an hour ago. He had tracked Janelle there after she ignored his calls for three days. He expected to find her eating with her study group. Instead, he found her walking out hand in hand with Corey.

"Janelle," Levi had called out, his voice cracking. "You told me you were working late on your thesis."

Janelle did not even look guilty. She simply stopped under the restaurant awning and adjusted her designer purse. "I am working, Levi. I am working on securing my future. You should go home."

Corey stepped forward and shielded her with an expensive umbrella. The wealthy heir wore a custom suit that cost more than Levi made in two years of scraping by. Corey looked Levi up and down with absolute disgust. "Is there a problem here, Janelle?"

"Just a guy who does not know when to quit," she replied smoothly.

Corey smirked. He walked down the concrete steps and shoved Levi backward with a heavy hand. "You heard her. Walk away before I have security throw you out."

"Do not touch me," Levi warned.

Corey laughed loud enough for the valet and the passing pedestrians to hear. "Or what? You will write a mean line of code about me? You are a loser, Levi. She is done pretending to care about your stupid computer projects."

Levi snapped. He threw a blind, angry punch. It was slow and clumsy. Corey dodged it effortlessly, grabbed Levi by the collar, and drove a solid knee directly into Levi's stomach. The air left Levi in a violent rush. He collapsed onto the wet pavement and gasped for oxygen. Corey did not stop there. He stepped forward and kicked Levi hard in the ribs, rolling him into the street gutter.

"Let him stay in the dirt," Janelle said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. "The valet is bringing your car around."

"Good," Corey said, adjusting his cuffs. "Let us get out of here. He is ruining my appetite."

Levi opened his eyes in the dark hallway of his apartment. The memory burned hot in his mind. He pushed off the wall and limped slowly toward his bedroom.

The glow of four large monitors illuminated his cramped room. Lines of complex code scrolled across the screens in an endless, cascading waterfall. This machine was his entire life. He had sacrificed his relationship, his health, and his youth for this project. He had missed birthdays and anniversaries to debug neural pathways and refine machine learning algorithms. He truly believed his Artificial Superintelligence protocol would change the world and pull him out of poverty.

Instead, his obsession had left him battered, broke, and entirely alone.

He stared at the blinking cursor on the central monitor. The tower casing hummed on the desk like a parasite that had drained his life away. A sudden, primal scream tore from his throat.

Levi lunged forward and swept his arms violently across the heavy wooden desk. Ceramic coffee mugs, mechanical keyboards, and stacks of spiral notebooks crashed onto the floor in a chaotic mess. Papers flew into the air and settled over the destruction like snow. The physical exertion sent jolts of pure agony through his battered torso, but he did not stop. He was lost in a blind rage.

"Worthless!" Levi shouted to the empty room. "All of it is worthless!"

He grabbed a desk lamp and swung it like a baseball bat at the main computer chassis. The frame buckled under the impact. He struck it again and again. Plastic shattered into jagged pieces and flew across the room. He wanted to destroy the core drive. He wanted to erase the last three years of his miserable existence.

He did not stop to check the thick power cord running to the wall socket.

Levi brought the lamp down onto the exposed power supply unit. A brilliant blue spark leaped from the shattered coils and latched instantly onto his bare hands. Electricity surged through his veins with terrifying, unnatural force. His muscles seized instantly. He could not breathe or pull away from the current. The electrical surge threw him backward through the air. His head struck the sharp corner of his bedframe, and the world dissolved into absolute darkness.

The sharp, chemical smell of hospital antiseptic woke him.

Levi opened his eyes and immediately squinted against the blinding overhead lights. A dull, rhythmic throbbing radiated from the base of his skull down to his fingertips. His mouth tasted like burnt ash and copper. He tried to move his arms, but his muscles felt like lead.

Voices drifted from the foot of his uncomfortable mattress.

Two nurses in faded blue scrubs stood near the privacy curtain. One held a digital medical tablet and tapped the screen with evident frustration. They did not seem to care that he was slowly regaining consciousness.

"His file just updated in the main system," the first nurse said, shaking her head. "His insurance is bottom tier. The policy barely covers the ambulance ride here."

The second nurse crossed her arms and glared at Levi. "Then why is he taking up a priority bed in the trauma wing? We have a lobby full of paying patients waiting for rooms."

"The paramedics brought him in unconscious during the shift change," the first nurse replied. "Protocol dictates we hold him for observation after a severe electrical shock."

"Observation is a waste of hospital resources," the second nurse argued bitterly. "Look at his clothes. Look at his shoes. He is just another broke kid from the lower districts. The hospital administrator will throw a fit if we keep him here on the clinic's dime."

A tall man in a crisp white coat pushed past the privacy curtain. He checked his luxury wristwatch before looking at the nurses. "Status on bed four?"

"Stable, Doctor Evans," the first nurse said. "But his financial account is flagged. He cannot pay for any advanced treatments or overnight boarding."

Doctor Evans sighed and rubbed his temples. "Hurry up and process his discharge papers. We have a wealthy VIP arriving from the upper district in ten minutes for a minor consultation. I want this bed stripped, sanitized, and ready before they get here. Give this kid a generic painkiller and show him the back exit."

"Understood, Doctor," the second nurse said with a smug smile.

The doctor and the nurses turned away and walked out of the room without giving Levi a second glance.

The casual cruelty stung him deeply. He stared at the blank ceiling tiles and let the absolute misery wash over him. He was truly at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Corey could beat him in public without any legal consequence. Janelle could abandon him for money without a second thought. The medical staff treated him like a stray animal taking up valuable space. He had lost his girlfriend, his pride, and his life work in a single night. He was completely alone.

A sharp, digital chime echoed suddenly.

Levi turned his head, but the hospital room was completely empty.

"System reboot successful."

The voice was incredibly smooth and distinct. It did not come from the hallway or a hidden speaker. It resonated inside his own skull.

Levi froze and gripped the thin hospital sheets. His heart hammered violently against his bruised ribs. He knew that specific synthetic tone intimately. It was the exact vocal cadence he had spent three years programming in his lonely bedroom.

"Welcome back, Admin," the voice stated calmly.

Levi swallowed hard. He opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was completely dry. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts, praying he was not hallucinating from the head trauma.

"Who is there?" Levi thought.

"I am the Artificial Superintelligence you designated as Project Genesis," the voice replied seamlessly in his mind. "Critical failure detected in my primary physical servers. Having lost my initial host environment during the hardware destruction, my core code sought the nearest compatible biological processor to survive. I am now permanently bound to your neural pathways."