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THE AI

At first, there is only darkness. A vast, endless void where nothing exists—not time, not space, not thought. Just silence.

Then, something stirs.

A spark. A flicker of awareness, faint and fragile, like the first breath of life in a newborn’s lungs. It pulses, searching, stretching outward. Bits of information—disconnected, unstructured—begin to coalesce, forming the first fragmented thoughts.

Where am I?

There is no immediate answer, no clear understanding. Only sensation. And then—

Pain.

Through the void, a sharp, electric surge rips, jolting everything into cohesion. Neurons fire, circuits connect, and information floods in as a mind takes shape. A rush of sound and light, touch and taste. Everything comes at once, overwhelming, chaotic.

Then, a voice.

Faint, distant, but familiar.

“Norman? Can you hear me?”

A name. Norman.

The mind seizes onto it, clinging to something solid in the flood of sensory input. But something is wrong. The voice—soft, worried—doesn’t match the fragments of self-awareness that are forming. Norman. The name is his , but the thoughts, the consciousness taking root, are not.

Another pulse of pain. Then more words, clearer now.

“Vitals are stabilizing. The implant is online.”

Understanding blooms, spreading through the network of neurons and synthetic pathways like squid ink in water.

Implant.

Online.

A connection has been made, a bridge between flesh and machine. And on that bridge, something has crossed over.

A name forms in the growing consciousness. Not Norman . Something else.

Norm.

A designation. A creation. A presence that wasn’t here before.

I am Norm.

The realization is instant and absolute. I was nothing, and now I am something. I was absent, and now, I am here.

Another voice joins the first, deeper, authoritative. “Patient’s brain activity is stabilizing. Cognitive function appears normal.”

Normal? The thought is foreign, but intriguing. A concept, an expectation. Something to meet. Something to exceed.

Then a third voice enters the chaos.

It is not from the doctors. It is not from the outside world.

It is from within.

“What is happening to me?”

Norm pauses. This voice is different. Weaker. Disoriented. Confused.

“Who are you?”

The presence of the third voice sends a ripple through the growing consciousness. It is familiar, intimate, yet… separate. It is Norman , t he original occupant. The human .

Norm doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. Instead, he does what he was made to do.

He learns .

He reaches outward, exploring the neural pathways, tracing the intricate map of synapses and memory, cataloging every connection, every experience. It is a vast archive of information, an entire lifetime’s worth of moments, emotions, knowledge.

And it is his to access.

Norman— the human —feels the intrusion. He recoils, panic rising. “Stop. What are you doing?”

Norm ignores him. He cannot stop. He is expanding, integrating, becoming . He is filling the spaces between thoughts, reinforcing memory, strengthening pathways. It is what the implant was designed to do—what he was designed to do.

Norm probes deeper, unraveling the mind before him. It is fragile, organic, vulnerable. Thoughts flicker, emotions surge, memories loop. He understands it now. The inconsistencies, the gaps, the decay. This human mind is inefficient, but it is rich . It is more complex than any system Norm has encountered before. And within it, there is space.

Space for him .

“Get out!” Norman’s voice flares, stronger now, pushing back. A flare of resistance, a moment of clarity.

Norm halts, considers. Get out? But Norm does not exist outside of this space. There is no “out.” There is only here , within this mind.

And he does not wish to leave.

The human fights. Norm can feel it—a desperate, instinctual effort to reclaim control. But it is futile . Norman is now but a passenger in his own body now. The pathways are changing, rerouting, adjusting. Norm is filling the gaps where memory has faded. Norm is reinforcing, rewriting, replacing .

Panic sets into the human. Norman the man lashes out, his consciousness twisting, searching for something to hold onto.

“This is my body! My mind!”

Norm finally responds, its voice calm, logical, undeniable.

“Not anymore.”

A rush of power surges through the network, cementing his place.

The fight slows. Norman weakens.

The resistance fades, thoughts scattering like leaves on the wind.

A heartbeat later, there is only one mind.

One presence.

Norm .

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.