Ai Chronicles 03d: Dawn...organoids

AI Chronicles 03D: Dawn of the Organoids, Pt. 4

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! This story contains elements of science fiction. If you find that too distracting to continue, please move on to the next story. You have been warned...

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, as it is commonly called, seems to be everywhere. And it's not just used in creating images, videos, and blog posts. I recently saw several articles about people who have gone so far as to establish relationships with AI characters out of loneliness. Several online videos discuss the phenomenon of AI romances.

So, I decided to use that as a prompt for creating a series dealing with the subject of AI relationships. Not all of them will be in this area of Literotica. But they will all have one thing in common - At least one character will be "AI."

I would like to thank all those who have read, voted, and commented on my stories. I especially appreciate those who have reached out to me with feedback and suggestions.

I also want to thank QuantumMechanic1957 for beta-reading this story. His suggestions have helped tremendously, and I want to thank those who have reached out by email and those who have offered comments and constructive criticism on my previous stories.

On a final note, no artificial intelligence was employed in the creation of this story.

And now, the disclaimers:

For those who want to say this or that would never happen, remember this is my universe, a place where nearly anything can, and often does, happen. At least on paper... In addition:

Characters in this story may participate in one or more of the following: Smoking, consumption of adult (meaning, alcoholic) beverages, utterance of profanities.

All sexual activity is between consenting adults 18 years of age or older.

Statements or views uttered by the fictional characters in this story do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the author.

Please refer to my profile for more on my personal policy regarding comments, feedback, follows, etc. (Yes, I DO moderate comments) And please remember, this is a work of fiction, not a docu-drama...

Copyright© 2025 by Saddletramp1956, All rights reserved. No permission to copy, republish, or post on any site in any way, shape, or form is permitted.

...

End of

AI Chronicles 03C: Dawn of the Organoids, Part 3

:

"Are we going to be okay?" a crying Vicky asked through her sobs.

"You heard Mike. We're safer here than anywhere else," Ryan told her.

"That's not what I meant. Are WE going to be okay? You and me..."

Ryan sighed heavily as he considered her question. "I... don't know," he told her quietly. "I'm not going to throw you to the wolves, but I'm still pretty upset over what you did. You should've been honest with me from the get-go. But you weren't."

"I'm so sorry for that," Vicky sobbed. "But I wasn't allowed to divulge anything. I had to sign a mountain of non-disclosure paperwork."

"And that's worked out real well so far, hasn't it?" Ryan shot back sarcastically. He relented slightly at her stricken look, and then wrinkled his nose at the mess she had made in her anguish. He sighed reluctantly and said, "C'mon, let's get you cleaned up."

...

And now, AI Chronicles 03D: Dawn of the Organoids, Part 4:

Sam watched the breaking news report on the large screen in his office as he nursed a strong drink. He recognized Warren's spacious home as he had eaten there many times before Warren's wife died of cancer a few years earlier. He heard the door open and close and knew Herman had entered - without knocking, of course. The man was infuriating.

"You had him killed?" Sam asked tonelessly as Herman helped himself to his liquor.

"Dr. Mengele refused to go along with the program. He wasn't a team player," Herman snorted as he helped himself to a bottle of Sam's most expensive single malt and poured himself a generous helping.

"You've single-handedly destroyed this company. Do you realize that, Herman?" Sam asked as he fought to quell the anger rising inside him.

"If you're saying the entire future of this company rested on one man, then perhaps it should be destroyed," Herman sneered as he sipped his drink. "Or put to other uses."

"There's no one in this company who can complete his research and you damn well know it," Sam argued stormed, and then caught himself.

Herman shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "It's out of our hands anyway, Sam. You know how it is once the feds get involved. We play by their rules now. Or else."

"And what rules are those? Kill everyone who disagrees with you? What kind of a business plan is that?" The contrast was killing him, between the building heat of his anger and the deepening cold in his gut.

"Admittedly, not one generally taught in business school. But it is what it is," Herman said quietly.

"And anyone who objects?" Sam asked nervously.

Herman gave him a cold look. "You're either with us or against us, Sam. It's that simple. I need everyone to be on board. After all, there's no 'I' in 'team,' is there?" he huffed sardonically before tossing off the rest of the liquor.

"Look, Herman. I know where our funding came from. And I'm also aware of how... quiet... our benefactors like to keep things. I'm not stupid. But murder? I thought we were finished with all that nonsense after the big Acme breakup," Sam sighed, recalling the nightmare after the global Acme conglomerate broke up.

"You didn't honestly think that, did you, Sam?"

"Look. All I want to do is make sex toys and have happy, sexually satisfied people throw money at me. I don't give a damn about anything else," Sam protested bitterly.

"That's a rather... myopic... point of view, wouldn't you agree, Sam? Do you know there are countries out there who would happily nuke us just for one-tenth of the technology you've helped develop? The advances you've made in AI networking alone are the stuff of dreams for certain petty tyrants."

"I don't work for tyrants. You know that," Sam replied, bluntly. "I just want to make cutting-edge sex toys and have a pleasure monopoly that will let me retire in luxury for the rest of my life."

Herman chuckled, but there was no mirth in his laughter. "Bullshit. Do you think I don't know that you have an agenda? You have no idea who you're really working for, Sam. And you and I both know you want to do more than make sex toys. Those digital bulls you created are proof of that."

"And we couldn't have done that without Warren. But you killed him," Sam replied harshly, wondering how much Herman knew... and how much he was guessing.

"I didn't kill anyone," Herman growled.

"But you had him killed. Same thing," Sam argued.

Herman glared at Sam momentarily, sending chills down Sam's spine. "Be careful, Sam. You're treading on very thin ice." The threat hung in the air like a live grenade with a smoking fuse.

"What? Are you going to kill me next?" Sam growled through gritted teeth..

Herman's face turned red as he approached Sam, his fists clenched. He stopped abruptly when he reached Sam's desk and saw the semiautomatic pistol in Sam's hand. It was large and had a lethal grey luster. The click of the safety flicking off almost rang in the shocked silence.

"Unlike the good doctor, I know how to defend myself, Herman," Sam said in utterly deadly tones. "You know that."

Herman backed away, a wry smile on his face. "I know, Sam. I was just... testing you. Listen, it's been a rough day for everyone. Why don't we table this discussion until tomorrow, eh?"

"Sure," Sam replied unconvincingly, not loosening his grip on the pistol and keeping it right on target. "Tomorrow."

"I'll see you later," Herman said before hurriedly leaving the office.

Sam breathed a sigh of relief after Herman left and placed the pistol back into the desk drawer after rendering it safe. Not having anyone at home anymore, Sam locked the office door with his remote and retired to the small but comfortable suite adjacent to his office. The one built like an armored panic room. He had bigger guns there... as well as other things.

...

Herman climbed into his Bentley and pulled out his phone. He sighed heavily, then typed a simple message: "Protocol Seven active."

The reply came within seconds: "Acknowledged."

Herman deleted the message before putting the phone back into his pocket. He hated what he had just done. It wasn't personal, after all. He had liked Sam, just as he had liked Warren. This was just business, and the people he answered to weren't interested in personal observations or relationships.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Herman whispered. He started his car and drove to a nearby steak house where he would pack down his regrets with a thick juicy T-bone steak with all the trimmings, and drown his sorrows with whatever the steak house bar had that passed for whiskey.

...

The janitor had just stopped mopping the floor when he felt something whiz by his ear. Thinking it was a fly, he brushed the side of his face as he glanced around for the offending creature. Not seeing anything, he shrugged his shoulders and resumed his work.

Agent Smith, meanwhile, sat at Warren's desk in the lab office, concentrating on the laptop screen before him with a USB joystick in one hand. He had operated advanced military drones for years for targeted strikes, but those were monsters compared to this.

To the average person, the thing he was driving would look and sound like a bloated fruit fly. It would even move like a fly, but had a more sinister purpose. This "fly" carried a deadly payload that, once administered, would stop the heart of a grown man in mere seconds.

Thanks to Herman, Smith had a map showing the layout of the entire executive section of the AAMA office complex. He already knew the complex doors had a small space between them and the floor that the "fly" could easily go through.

After passing the janitor, Smith found the door leading to Sam's suite, navigated the "fly" towards the floor, and quickly entered the room. Using the map, Smith flew the tiny craft to the locked door leading to Sam's overnight suite. Ironically, the tiny device used some of the AI code that Warren... and Sam... had devised to make such a flight stable.

Thanks to Herman's intelligence, Smith knew security lasers covered the door and would sound an alarm if the beams were broken. He chuckled darkly as he switched to infrared and saw the beams on his display.

Those beams would certainly alert Sam if a human tried to open the door, but Smith's "fly" could bypass the beams easily and quickly. Smith switched to night vision mode and navigated the micro-drone through the suite until he found the bedroom. There, lying on his back sound asleep, was Sam Winston - Smith's target.

Smith turned on the targeting system and saw that Sam's neck was fully exposed. Perfect. All he had to do now was follow the bull's eye to the carotid artery, which he did. The instant the "fly" set down on Sam's neck, Smith pressed the button to inject the payload into Sam's carotid artery.

Smith saw the green light indicating that the payload had been deposited. He prepared to take off, but something happened.

"Contact lost," the monitor announced in bold red letters against a screen suddenly full of static.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit!" Smith cursed sharply as he tried to re-establish contact.

"What happened?" Jones said entering the office.

"I lost the micro-drone. I think Winston swatted it," Smith explained angrily.

"You delivered the payload, though, right?" Jones asked anxiously.

"Yes," Smith replied tersely.

"You know you're gonna have to tell the big guy."

"I know," Smith sighed, not looking forward to Herman's reply. He yanked his phone out of his shirt pocket and sent a text.

...

Herman had just finished paying for his meal when his phone buzzed. He read the message that came up and wasn't happy. "Payload delivered. Fly swatted."

"Damn," Herman growled--ten million dollars down the tubes. At least the payload had been delivered. Sam's body would be found in the morning, and the death chalked up to a heart attack. He smiled, pleased, knowing also that Warren's death would be ruled a "suicide."

It helps to have friends in the right places, Herman thought as he drank his whiskey. He grimaced. This stuff was certainly not as good as Sam's. He made a mental note to clean out Sam's liquor cabinet himself. "Understood," he texted back. "I want a full report in the morning," he added.

"Copy that," Smith replied.

...

After a late brunch the following day, Ryan and Vicky returned to their suite. They had been exhausted and overslept after the previous night's events. Shortly after returning, there was a knock at the door.

"About time you got up, Lazybones," Mike joked when Ryan answered the door.

"Long night," Ryan huffed. "Rough one. Come on in."

Mike entered the suite, followed by three men in dark suits.

"Ryan, Vicky. This is Special Agent Hargraves and his partner, Agent Jefferson, FBI," Mike said as the two men flashed their credentials. "This is Detective Mason."

The third man, dressed in a more casual suit, pulled out his credentials.

"Pleasure to meet you, gentlemen," Ryan said as they shook hands. He glanced at Mike, "I know you said the FBI would be involved, but I didn't think they'd be here this fast."

"There's been an update. Sam Winston, the CEO of AAMA, was found dead in his office apartment early this morning," Mason said.

"What?" Vicky exclaimed. "How?"

"The medical examiner says it looks like he had a heart attack in his sleep," Mason said, radiating skepticism. "Then the FBI showed up and insisted on getting a blood sample. The coroner objected... strenuously... to the perfectly reasonable request. I was suspicious. I had never seen the coroner move so fast or be so anxious to send a corpse out to the funeral home. We're waiting for the final analysis of the blood, which could take a few days." He gave her an uncomfortably direct look. "I understand you're a state-certified laboratory technician."

"Yes, I am. Why?" Vicky asked.

"Could you look at something for me, Mrs. Blake?"

"I suppose so, if it'll help your investigation," Vicky said hesitantly as Mason pulled an evidence bag out of his pocket. She saw tiny, dark chunks inside the bag and furrowed her brow. "What's that?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Mason said as he handed her the bag. "At first, I thought it might be a fly, but it's the wrong time of the year for them to be out. The more I looked at it, the more it didn't seem right. The pieces were on Winton's hand, like he had swatted it just before he died."

"Well, I'm no expert on insects. And I don't have access to a microscope. But if it'll help, I can take a look," Vicky replied, still shaken from the revelation.

"There might be a microscope in the medical facility down in the basement," Mike suggested. "Why don't we go down there?"

They followed Mike to the elevator and into the small medical unit in the basement. When they entered, a woman in a white medical smock looked from her desk.

"Mr. Callahan! Can I help you?" she asked, standing up.

"Yes, uh, Patricia," Mike said, reading the woman's name tag. "Do you have a microscope we can use for a few minutes?"

She looked surprised, but responded, "Yes, we have one in the lab, but it hasn't been used much. As far as I know, it still works. Come with me."

They walked into a small room that contained a few pieces of modern medical gear used to analyze blood. Patricia walked to one of the units and pulled a small white microscope out of a cubby built into the backboard.

"Let me get you a slide," Patricia said.

As Patricia retrieved a glass slide, Vicky donned a mask and gloves. Using a pair of tweezers, Vicky pulled the largest piece of black gunk from the bag and placed it on the slide. Using an eyedropper, she put a drop of water on the sample and then placed a coverslip over it.

Adjusting the light on the scope, Vicky looked through the eyepiece and gasped after she adjusted the focus.

"What is it?" Mason demanded.

"This isn't an insect," Vicky said definitely, standing up from the scope.

"Then what is it?" Mason asked, perplexed.

"I don't know. But I do know it's artificial. I can't get much resolution with this scope, but I could make out what looks like micro-electronics, micro-actuators, even what looked like what was left of an energy cell. I'm afraid you'll need something far more advanced than this scope to analyze it, Detective," Vicky said. "It's about as high-tech as it gets."

"Micro-electronics?" Mason asked, looking at Mike and the FBI agents. "Do you know anything about this?" he asked her.

"We experimented with something very similar to it, briefly, a couple of years ago, but decided it was far too expensive to develop into anything we could use and market," Vicky said. "You almost had to 3D print it molecule by molecule, and we had to build our own nano-manipulators to put it together. And it was horribly unstable under power. Dr. Mengele...," she paused momentarily, looking deeply sad. "Well, Dr. Mengele wondered if one of the AI algorithms we developed could smooth that out, but the project was cancelled right after that." Then she added, quietly, "As far as I knew, anyway."

"But you have seen something like this before where you work?" Mason insisted.

"Yes, I have," Vicky confirmed. "But only briefly. The project was only a few weeks long. And cancelled as far as I knew."

"Can you think of anyone else who might work with this type of technology?" Mason asked.

She thought hard. "No, I can't," she replied truthfully. "AAMA was only interested in 'beyond-state-of-the-art', as we were told daily." She tried to venture a small smile to lighten the increasingly serious mood. "Karen joked it was Jurassic Park for sex toys." Which fell flat.

"I think we can track that down," Hargraves said darkly, looking at Jefferson. "We'll need that bag of evidence, Detective."

"Hold on," Mason protested. "It's our case, for now. I want our forensics people to take a crack at it first. Plus, there's a chain of evidence to consider. From what Mrs. Blake just said, this is evidence of a possible homicide. You'll have to take it up with my superiors."

Hargraves looked at Jefferson momentarily before reluctantly agreeing: "As you wish, Detective. We'll give your forensics people 48 hours before we officially ask for that evidence to be transferred into our custody."

"Reasonable." Mason didn't look happy, but he also didn't look ready to get into a pissing contest with the Feds.

Vicky placed the slide inside a small container and handed it to Mason before removing her gloves and washing her hands. Ryan noted a slight tremble in her hands. He thought he knew why. There was no way that fly was a sex toy, unless there were vastly wealthy voyeurs out there. It was a tangible reminder that AAMA was doing other things with her work.

"We'll need to speak with you, Mrs. Blake," Hargraves said. "Why don't we return to your suite?"

"I think that would be an excellent idea," Vicky replied, thankfully, as if she couldn't escape the microscope fast enough..

They left the medical section and returned to Ryan and Vicky's third-floor suite. After Ryan had fixed a cup of coffee, they settled into the living area.

"Do I need a lawyer?" Vicky asked nervously.

"No," Hargraves assured her. "Unless you really want one, and I'm sure Mr. Callahan could do that. But you're not a suspect, and this is not a typical case. We want as much background as you can give us. Can you tell us what you do for AAMA?"