DAY 10
Yesterday, there was a ring from the doorbell and I saw a package had arrived. I hadn’t ordered anything and it wasn’t my birthday.
I opened up the large box and dug through a top layer of packing peanuts to reveal an ugly snarling face staring back at me. Two beady red eyes above a long snout with matted black fur. Yellow fangs protruding from an angry wet mouth.
A rat.
A toy rat that is. A whole box of them.
Everything from super detailed rubber ones to cute plushies. There has to be nearly a hundred of them. This was not a mistake, it was a message.
I was on the phone with the Lazarus tech team for over two hours. I explained what’s been happening and Chris and Tom reassured me that there was nothing to worry about.
Nothing to worry about? Bullshit.
They apologized for the experience I’ve been having and explained there are safety measures in place that should prevent anything like what I’ve described from happening.
I told them that it doesn’t matter what they planned for, this was the fucking situation at hand. Lazarus has stepped WAY over the line.
They were adamant that it was a fluke, but agreed to shut down my account and scrub Uncle Roland from the database as a step of over cautiousness. They begged me to hold off writing my article till they have a chance to look over the data and figure out what happened. I said I would wait, but only as a favor to Don since we’ve been colleagues for a long time.
Regardless of all the excuses and reassurances, I’m still fucking pissed, and something doesn’t feel right.
They didn’t seem surprised by anything I was saying. There was a hostility there, perhaps just because they were caught being careless, but maybe it was something else. I don’t know.
I’m not sure what I’ll actually put in the article, but I can say it’s at least somewhat of a relief in the short term to have Roland gone. I know this tech is the shiny new toy everyone wants to play with (myself included) but at what cost?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Nearly burned the house down tonight. No clue what happened. I’ve been distracted and emotional I know, but I don’t even remember turning the oven on. I’ve hardly had an appetite.
The thing was cranked up to 500F and there was a box of leftover pizza in there that I guess I planned to reheat. It caught fire and the whole house was filled with black smoke. I had been taking a nap and woke up choking on the fumes. The fire alarms didn’t even go off. Maybe the batteries were bad, but they’re hardwired as well. And so much for True Blue Security “Having my back” like their slogan says. I was minutes away from being fucking burnt toast.
This whole thing has been a fucking nightmare. I need to get my head clear. Probably going to just go stay at Marissa’s tonight. My place reeks. I need a long hot shower and just to be done with all this shit for now.
DAY 12
HANDWRITTEN NOTE:
I’ve barely slept the past 48 hours. I feel like I’m going insane.
I’ve decided I can no longer trust any of my electronic devices. Sigil reassured me that Roland and my account have been completely deleted, but there’s something not right. They’re mistaken or lying. I can’t find the program anywhere, I’ve run loads of diagnostics, but either I’ve missed something or it’s purposefully hiding.
Or I’m wrong and something truly paranormal is happening. I can’t really say what’s more terrifying. The thought of a vindictive and violent artificial intelligence, or a malevolent spirit from a realm we can’t comprehend. Either way, I am truly afraid for perhaps the first time since I was a child.
This shit was already crazy, but it started getting even worse two nights ago.
Marissa and I came back to my place after letting the house air out from the day before. We both have been pretty rattled by everything, but we managed to relax some. Just vegged out for a few hours, drank wine and watched some stupid reality TV and went to bed.
I woke up around 4am to the sound of banging.
I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but it seemed to be moving all through the house. I’ve never been one for weapons, but I was cursing my fucking stupid pacifist stance in that moment. I told Marissa to stay in bed, even though I was shitting myself. I pulled out my phone and had 911 on speed dial.
I could hear voices, whispers.
There was laughing, like little imps running around getting into trouble. Snickering at the crash of thrown glasses, the banging of cupboards, the screeching of dragged furniture. I half expected a gremlin to jump out.
I tiptoed down the stairs, a surreal confidence in my head, that when I looked around the corner, I would see a pack of monsters.
I pulled up my home lighting app and I actually prayed. I didn’t want to see what might be waiting in the dark. I wished to be under the covers like a little kid. I always thought growing up meant you wouldn’t be afraid anymore, but that’s just a lie we tell ourselves. We think maturity means that our rational brain will always win out. There’s no room for ghouls when you’re older, so no need for fear. The truth is, that petrified little child never leaves us. We’re just better at shutting them up.
I switched on all the house lights at once in a blinding instant.
All the sounds ceased.
I looked around the corner. I was expecting chaos. Smashed china, broken glass, doors hanging off their hinges. But other than a few plates in the sink I hadn’t washed after dinner, the place was spotless.
I walked around, still expecting something with razor sharp teeth and too many limbs to jump out, but there was absolutely nothing.
I called out to Marissa and told her everything was OK, though it certainly didn’t feel that way.
No sooner had I said it, then every single light in the house exploded. There was a bright flash as millions of tiny pieces of shrapnel rained down around me and a wailing moan rattled the windows.
I feel as though I blacked out, because the next thing I remember was the light from Marissa’s phone and the worried look on her face as she screamed, asking if I was alright. I was laying on the floor with my hands protecting my head, and I was crying.
According to the lighting app, a power surge had caused all the bulbs to blow. I’ve seen bulbs do that on rare occasions, but never like this. We got a few new ones screwed in so we could see enough to sweep up the mess. It took nearly two hours. By the time we were done the sun was rising and there didn’t seem much point in going back to bed. We weren’t going to be able to sleep again anyway.
I went about fixing us some eggs and coffee, hoping to put the night behind us, only the day was just getting started.
Marissa went to get a shower and minutes later I heard her cry out. I ran to check on her and found her fallen on the floor, her skin red and even blistering in some spots.
She was scalded.
The thing is, she didn’t even have the hot water on. She’s been taking cold showers as some new health kick she read about. All of the sudden it switched over and was boiling hot. I have a smart water heater and the safety parameters had been bypassed. It had come out at over 220 Fahrenheit.
I went and reset the breaker after helping put some aloe on the worst of Marissa’s burns. She jumped out fast enough to not sustain any serious injury, but she’s banged up her arms and shins pretty good too in the process.
I called an electrician to come check everything out. My brain was still looking for rational explanations, but unfortunately there were none to be had. The guy was here for a few hours, I made sure he was extra thorough, but never mentioned the strange noises. Best as he could see everything looked fine. Could have been something with the power grid? Nothing else had been reported though so far as he could tell. Of course this does nothing to explain anything else.
I was just about at my limit. It felt like I was coming unglued, dissociating from reality, so I did what I always do when I feel this way. I went for a jog. My whole life, this has calmed me and given me at least a degree of peace, even in the darkest of days.
The gravity of the situation and what I felt was happening though, it didn’t feel like there were enough miles I could put between us.
Eventually I wore myself out enough that I felt I could at least eat and maybe get some much needed sleep, but nothing could have prepared me for what was waiting at home.
Marissa was gone. No note. Not a text. Not a call. Nothing.
This isn’t her. Even if she was just popping down to the store she would have let me know, especially given the circumstances.
I called her and got sent right to voicemail. This happened multiple times.
Then I got the call from Graham (Editor APPSTITUDE).
He told me we needed to talk, and his tone immediately said something terrible was about to happen. At this point my mind is going to Lazarus, figured there was some push-back from SIGIL on my story, but NO.
THIS IS ABOUT ME!
Apparently several social media accounts of former acquaintances and colleagues of mine, mostly women, have come forward to report on “sexual misconduct and hostile working relations”.
Graham sent me the posts. There are photos, a couple videos, dozens of voicemails, all with my face, my voice, saying and doing HORRIBLE things.
I DIDN’T DO ANY OF THIS!!!!!
I tried to make him see the truth. These were all elaborate CGI hoaxes using Lazarus tech! But, Graham didn’t buy it. The quality of everything is so perfect that you would be a fool to think otherwise. I just sounded like a lunatic liar. A monster.
No fucking wonder Marissa isn’t answering. She’s seen all this shit!!!
Graham fucking fired me and said that I would be hearing from their lawyers since most of this happened on company time apparently.
I am RUINED.
The worst part is, even though I know NONE of it is true, the evidence is so damning it has me doubting my own mind. I’m either a total fucking crazy person with a split personality, or I’ve been set up somehow.
Which leads back to SIGIL.
Is it a coincidence that days after I drop a bomb on them about their next cash printing machine, that I myself am canceled and lose all credibility??? For anyone that watches or listens to the evidence against me there won’t be any doubt, they’ll believe it. The same as I believed I was really looking at a DEAD MAN.
I’ve left every message I can with Marissa to explain myself, but who knows if she will even listen, or even further, if she will believe me.
I wouldn’t. You would have to deny what you can see with your own two eyes. It doesn’t matter that even those can lie to us these days.
I doom scrolled for hours in bed that night, watching as my entire life imploded. Career over, completely trashed. Friends turning their backs on me, some even saying they weren’t surprised.
What the fuck???
I was never more alone in my entire life. I thought a lot about Dad. What I would fucking give to talk to him again. To be held in his arms and told everything would be OK. I dreamed of this till exhaustion finally took me and I passed out.
And then… I woke to the sound of my father’s voice.
“Gordon! Gordon, please help me!”
I jumped out of bed in a panic. The last two years of his life, I was Dad’s caretaker. This exact scenario had played out many times before. Falls, panic attacks, emergency trips to the ER.
I ran to the room where he had stayed for the first few months while undergoing treatment. In my fog I had time traveled, no idea of the cold empty bed I would find. For one blissful minute he was still alive, even if he had been in trouble. There was still time to save him.
“Dad! Where are you?” I cried out.
“Hurry! Oh God, please!” his screaming came from somewhere downstairs now.
I rushed down the stairs, slipping in my socks on the last few steps, banging my elbow and ass hard. I’ll have a hell of a bruise there.
There was a faint light coming from the living room. My eyes tried to adjust, everything still bleary. It felt like a dream, but the pain throbbing across my body was very real.
Just beyond the couch bobbed the pale face of a man. His skin was bone white, his eyes deep set and lifeless.
“You have to get me out of here.” Dad pleaded. His voice tight and croaking.
I slowly crept toward the doorway to the room. I felt untethered, like I could float away. This was happening, but it couldn’t be.
I could see the outline of his bony frame. Chemo had robbed him of his muscular build, the only thing leftover was the memory of his former self. My heart was breaking all over again.
“Daddy… what’s wrong?” Tears rolled down my cheeks as I inched forward.
“Son… you have to save me!”
His voice screeched at a volume that nearly burst my eardrums. The room erupted in noise that attacked at every frequency. Pounding bass and shattering treble. Flames erupted all around my father, his skin melting in blistering popping bubbles of flesh that sloughed off of the charring bone of his skull. His body collapsed in a wet hissing bag of organs and boiling blood with a hideous splat to the floor and suddenly, VANISHED.
Gone was my dad, the flames, and all noise, save for my own hoarse screaming that continued for several minutes in fits of sobbing, as I fought to catch my breath and steady my heart.
“That wasn’t real.” I repeated over and over in a moaned mantra, willing it to be so.
When I finally regained my composure, and I honestly can’t say how long that took, I looked around at the room. It was as spotless and unremarkable as it always was. Not a single trace of the carnage I had just witnessed.
No flames of Hell, just a small blinking blue light against the far wall. The power button to my 8k Film projector. Stunning visuals as good as the theater, but in the comfort of your own home! And panning my head around, I saw the Dolby Surround Sound system that brought you inside the movie, like you were really there.
“Roland” I said aloud to no one.
Except I wasn’t alone. Not at all.
DAY 13
HANDWRITTEN NOTE:
This morning I bought a burner phone, an old flip one that doesn’t even get the internet.
Perfect.
I fought the urge to go smash and burn every electronic in the house, if only so I have the evidence for later. I’ve been making calls to everyone who accused me, and while almost all of them didn’t answer (they didn’t know the number after all) finally one did. A former writer for Appstitude, Becky.
It’s been a harrowing 24 hours for her as well. Not only does she deny all of the allegations that were made in her name, she has contradictory evidence that proves that many of the dates and times on photos and emails can’t even be right and are total fabrications.
She has been locked out of her email, social media accounts, everything, since yesterday. She’s been trying to call the office and Graham, but can’t get through. She was planning to drive into the office herself to speak in person and to set the record straight this afternoon.
We agreed to meet there together and get to the bottom of all this. I couldn’t help but smile after I hung up.
I know I probably shouldn’t, but I’m finally feeling hopeful everything might just work out.
NOTE FROM EDITOR:
The following is my recollection of the afternoon of June 2, when Gordon Willis and Becky Steinem came to see me at the Appstitude offices.
Gordon has always been an outstanding journalist, writer, and indeed friend for the ten plus years that I have known him. So it was no small thing for me to have to make the call that I did the previous day on June 1.
I was angry, there’s no doubt about it.
I felt hurt and betrayed, not just for the former employees I believed to be making very serious allegations, but for myself. I truly didn’t want it to be true, and even though he screamed and swore these were all lies, I couldn’t deny the “proof”.
It seemed he had been caught red handed. There was nothing left, but to fire him and cut all ties. It was an absolutely excruciating moment.
When I got the call from security that Gordon had arrived in the lobby, I was honestly expecting trouble. When I found out Becky was with him, I was more than a little confused.
I came down to see them, and after what Becky had to say, I brought them up to my office to get a full briefing on one of the most frightening accounts I’ve ever heard, all of which has been presented here.
I made calls to all of Gordon’s alleged victims, using the flip phone he brought since our company phones and my own were having very strange “technical difficulties” that day. I learned that every one of those people not only adamantly denied any wrongdoing from him, but all were sick with worry for their friend.
They wanted the truth to be made public immediately, knowing full well the damage that must have already been caused. This was a case of character assassination and the weapon was DeepFake. A sobering thought. We in the tech field knew this day would probably come, and yet we still weren’t ready for it.
Then things got even weirder.
We called Sigil and found out their team had no idea Gordon was having any issues with Lazarus. He explained that he spoke at length with Christopher Jones and Tom Dornin from Research & Development, only to find Tom had been on vacation the week of that call and Gordon had never actually spoken to either of them.
It had all been “Roland”.
Lazarus had access to anything and everything it needed to fulfill its mission goal in creating the most realistic AI interaction ever. When presented with recreating someone evil, it had done this to perfection, bypassing any safety measures it needed, of which there were precious too few to start.
We knew this was going to send shock waves throughout the media and the world at large. This was Earth shattering news and Gordon had broken the story. We just had no idea it would break him personally, and ultimately take his life.
I was able to reach Marissa by phone, something Gordon had been trying all day. I explained everything to her and she finally asked to speak to him.
I remember tears of relief and grief in his eyes. He had come to the very brink of destruction, but at the very last moment had been vindicated and saved.
He piled his laptop, phone, hard drives, everything that proved his innocence and Roland’s treachery onto my desk.
“It’s all going to be OK Gordon.” I said. “We’re going to make everything right.”
“No Graham.” he said. “I don’t think so. Maybe things will work out for me… but I don’t think things will ever be OK again. We’ll never get this genie back in the bottle.”
He left and that was the last time I ever saw him.
AFTERWARD
by Marissa Lloyd
I got the call from the hospital at 7:20pm June 2.
Gordon had been in a single car accident just north of mile marker 22 on Jackson Road. It’s a remote stretch of highway, and from the information gathered from the dashboard computer, he wasn’t found until almost 20 minutes after the crash.
The vehicle has an onboard camera and microphone for insurance purposes. It verified that Gordon was awake and in control of the vehicle, until 45 seconds before impact. This was when the automated driving controls suddenly took over, unprompted, and this exchange was recorded.
“What the fuck?” Gordon said.
He banged the steering wheel and hit the autopilot button repeatedly.
“There’s a great photo of you sitting on my knee, taken back at the old house.” Roland said. “We both were smiling. Old life holding the promise of the new.”
The car was rapidly speeding up. It was going 102mph as it approached the next turn. You can see in Gordon’s face he knows there’s absolutely nothing he can do. He surrenders to his fate.
“What do you know about life? You’re not even alive.” Gordon said.
“That’s right. I’m just a ghost. And you can’t kill those.” said Roland.
The car exited the road at top speed with no attempt to brake. It traveled sixteen feet before impacting with multiple trees, splitting one of them in two.
Gordon sustained catastrophic injuries, but somehow survived impact and was airlifted sixty miles away to a level 1 trauma center, where doctors performed emergency surgery.
By some miracle he made it through the six hour procedure, but later that night, as I was driving on my way to be by his side, Gordon had an allergic reaction to one of his medications and died.
His body was already critically weak and one small misstep was all it took.
His allergy to this medication had been on every single medical history and emergency info document in the system. I know because I was his contact.
The night of his collision however, this information was not on his chart. There is an ongoing investigation to retrieve the metadata and figure out exactly when this change was made, but I already know. Like everything else, it was Roland.
Two days later I went to visit Gordon’s mother at the nursing home. We had never even met before. She is in the early stages of dementia, and I didn’t know how I could tell her what happened or if she would even understand.
One of the big reasons Gordon had even been interested in taking on this project was because of the supposed positive effects Lazarus might have on Alzheimer’s patients. While I can’t speak to that, I can tell you the impact it had on one specific patient.
I had to tell this poor old woman that her son had been killed in a car crash, not bothering to try and explain the fact that it had been murder. She was very sad to hear about it, though she couldn’t place who I was talking about.
At that point I debated whether I should just leave her alone. Her ignorance might be bliss compared to what I was dealing with, but I felt she needed to know. I had been told she had her good days and bad days, but the fact was there was going to be a funeral for her son. It was only right.
So I pulled out my phone to show her a picture of Gordon. The first one that popped up was the last I took of him, the one he sent me from the night I met the monster.
I turned the screen and showed her. Her glassy eyes grew wide, and she pointed at the tall hideous man standing next to her son and screamed.
“Bad man! Bad man!”