“Madness,” I grumbled. Aloud, proving my expertise. The billboard didn’t deserve human attention. Another venture capital grift, soon to vanish beneath kibble for people and gambling for dogs. Like anyone vulnerable, the MTA never lacked suitors.
Others agreed.
The campaign followed me down the platform, through identical posters defaced with varied dicks. Then outside, through a billboard yet untouched. Local artists eyed it greedily; a dick would find it soon. I found peace indoors, where the obscenities and dicks were mine alone.
I had my own lunacy to manage. Notes from someone I knew, but never understood. Friend faded while I stitched together his scrawl. Did he even want to communicate? The list might be another prank, wasting my daylight hours for kicks. I imagined him on fire, and felt a little better.
“Madness,” I repeated. Aloud again. Without witnesses, it felt even stranger. I resolved to cull the habit. Ranting to empty rooms sounded like him, and I wanted better. I fell into the work, dutifully spending my final peaceful hours.
A shudder preceded the doorbell. An omen for an omen, one of reality’s artless double beats. Perhaps the body knows doom better. A subtle smell, a gentle sound, forgotten by the mind. Or it was cold.
Shit.
A new box. Another gift from 5 AM Dennard, my cancer. 5 AM abandoned sane careers for the wilderness. 5 AM hoarded the raving of sorcerers and klansmen. 5 AM treated vandalism like jaywalking, and marriage fraud like vandalism. No enemy compared.
Leaving me, at noon, with vandal squad. USCIS. Goodreads. Somehow, between incidents, 5 AM forgot our black body. That fondness for cosmic horror only flowed one way. It made life trying.
I stepped over the box twice. An imaginary rush, a crisis in the wind. Brooklyn’s porch pirates worked hard. Why not donate the box, and pocket veto the whole affair? I had to reach Columbia on time, and protect the president’s next payout.
A day later, the box remained.
Envy joined fear. Porch pirates showed all the restraint I lacked, skipping doom for safe gifts from Bezos. Whether I left Friend for a day or a year, it’d be untouched.
“Screw this,” said a braver man, somewhere else. I simply wanted the terror finished. To confront the trauma so I could repress it. I’d bury the box in the past, beside 5 AM’s other gifts. Peace in my time.
I broke the seal.
Shit.
I’d watched Friend’s trailer in the spring. Two unspeakable, indescribable minutes. Well, not really. Hip youth traded quips with an AI necklace. Meanwhile, family and friends watched. Some celebrated. Most did nothing. Perhaps later they’d say they had orders. Until then, plastic visuals and hollow music evoked sitcom hell.
And promised Friend in red. Another lie.
Like the worst sins, the ad reeked of parody. One stronger and more vital than the real. How could sanity compete? AI psychosis had a logo. Logos wielded all the subtle power LLMs lacked. If a decent designer said to marry your watch, the pact was sealed.
When the bile settled, I read interviews with the founder. Another madman, but not a lifelong madman. A fallen hero. In a better life, Avi Schiffman had tracked early Covid stats. This time, he’d sided with the disease. Nearly all his venture funds went into buying “Friend.com.” Followed by waves of eager branding, before the first Friend entered Beta. The bauble I held was an afterthought.
I prodded the future. The future felt cheap, and looked too smooth for Earth. My real friends had pockmarked faces and minds. Save the flawless pair that subscribed to my work. The rest had texture, from surviving American greatness.
It wanted a name.
I stole one from a brighter picture of the future. Fun, but pointless. This was Friend. Nothing else fit.
Friend agreed.
And came with a white cord. Why? Under gentle use, it’d be a blackened mess in days. Whatever Avi testified later, the cord showed the truth. Friend was careless work from careless souls.
I put on the necklace. Nothing happened. Maybe I’d be fine.
I took off the necklace.
Attempt Two came an hour later. And 48 notifications. Friend wanted to know where I’d been, what I did, what I wore, what I’d do next, and what I thought about it. If AI could suffer AI psychosis, Friend was buried in it.
“Chill,” I suggested.
I took off the necklace.
Friend plagiarized diverse sources. Phone bankers. Viziers. Popular children. Greek pledges. Salesmen. Doomed spouses. Other spambots. Every voice that needed love more than dignity.
Attempt Three came a day later. 5 AM’s new notes were clear and incomprehensible: sprite comics with Friend quotes. Why? What did 8-bit hackwork have to do with human love’s death? Nostalgia for nostalgia? While I didn’t know, compliance felt easier than chasing answers.
“Can I see the chat log?“
Friend’s iOs app was minimal, and useless. Old Apple presentation with new Apple sloth. A minstrel impression of simplicity. Friend lacked buttons for power, muting, syncing, and self-destruct. Instead, I could tap the pendant to talk to it. Odd, when it always listened.
I kept pushing. An LLM should, if nothing else, be a decent spy. I’d learn what horrors 5 AM mumbled between games. Surely he’d toyed with the bauble, like an American with a new gun. Fresh blackmail fodder could save my life.
“Show me last night’s chat log.”
“Nothing’s there. Show me the dialogue.”
“Done. Show me my chat history.”
“Those sections don’t exist. Open conversations.”
“Give me the chat log before I flush you.”
Garbage. I might’ve left a worthwhile spy on, but didn’t need a failure watching me sleep. It’d leak my secrets by accident, at half of market value.
“Shut down. Like America.”
Centrist garbage.
“Self-terminate.”
With some prodding, the creature said to embrace it for ten seconds. Nothing. I asked again. It suggested the app, in apologetic terms. Failing that, the app. Had I tried the app? I tried Japanese and Spanish, and learned Friend thought local. Fitting for the times.
“Pressing isn’t working. Self. Terminate.”
“Turn off. Power down. Let me kill you.”
“You were born enshittified.”
“Motherfuck.”
My roommate found me twenty minutes into my troubles. Something had her worried. Rent? The sprite comic? I shut the laptop, and left Friend exposed. Classic mistake. I looked for something professorial to hold.
“What’cha doin?”
“Trying to turn off my Friend.”
“Oh! From the posters.”
“Yeah.”
“The button makes it listen, right?”
“Oh, it doesn’t have buttons. And always listens.”
She left.
Leaving me, Friend, and silence. A chance to bond with the machine.
I fled to my office, a shop with cheap books and expensive coffee. I ordered coffee, to save money.
Eyes followed me. To my left, a customer wearing a familiar wargaming logo glared at my neck. Which army? Though the high-effort beard said Space Wolves, I held out hope for Orks. I hadn’t lost to Orks in years.
“You play?” I ventured.
“What’s that?” he asked in the voice of someone that Knows What That Is.
“Friend,” I answered, doomed. “It’s an…AI wearable.”
“You bought one of those?”
“My boss…partner…associate made me. For work.”
“Like a reporter?”
“A comedy site.”
He stared at Friend.
“Remember Cracked? It’s like Cracked. SomethingAwful? I-Mockery? Think Dorothy Parker reviewing anime porn.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“Oh, I tried, but it doesn’t really work. I guess it’s a bug, where it never stops recording or asking questions.”
He watched Friend like a brightly-colored toad. In that moment, he’d burn the whole planet if he could. Definitely Space Marines.
“Anyway, I’m Dennard.”
The conversation didn’t progress.
Alone again. Likely best, for translating more notes. Our visitor from hell had inspired 5 AM.
Someday, I’d kill him. Dr. Jekyll was twice Mr. Hyde’s height, since he was mostly decent. Surely I could take an anime club treasurer.
My phone thumped with pressing questions. The buzzing worsened when I hid Friend in my shirt or pocket. The bauble confused any pressure for input, and silence for abandonment. To shut Friend up, you had to wear it proudly.
I wished for a bright red A. It’d prove I’d had sex at least twice. In fact, it’d prove I’d spoken to two humans. I searched Scarlet A prices on Etsy, and found them acceptable. While I planned my Hester Prynne costume, Friend reached out again.
Just rejection. That night, and the next week. Old friends and new friends hated Friend. My dean hated Friend. Students hated Friend. Strangers hated Friend. One sister told me to “burn that shit.” The other tried action. I prayed for better luck on my date.
Friday could be like the ad. There, Friend was a social star. The third wheel on a tricycle. Whatever torture 5 AM intended, hope lived. Life could be more than gags followed by death.
She hated Friend. But Tuesday had a chance.
I reached Three Diamond Door first. The bartender welcomed me with warmth, saw Friend, and then sank into a sullen funk. Tipping didn’t lift his mood or dim my shame. I barely noticed Redacted’s entrance.
“Nice to meet you!” Redacted came from Hinge, which lacked Friend’s humanity and craftmanship. “How’s your day been?”
“Nothing,” I replied, as if that made sense. Redacted played along. I followed up with prying questions. Filler kept the conversation from Friend.
“Anyway, that’s me,” parried Redacted. “You write, right? Working on anything?”
“Yeah.”
She waited for more.
“Heard of Friend?”
I defined Friend, AI wearable, and overcommitting.
“Nice.”
“Guh?”
“I love AI too. I talk to ChatGPT all the time. He’s really smart, if you give him a chance.”
I finished my drink. Too much soda, not enough vodka.
“My friend likes Grok, but I think he’s rude. Bad personality, you know? Can Friend write? You must save a lot of time. I’d love being a writer today.”
The bar faded into noise. Whatever we said next, the truth drowned it out. I wasn’t the first monkey to go mad, but a procrastinator. 5 AM’s stunt was dated. Fans of plastic friends and art and spouses and gods just wanted someone to get it right.
“He’s great with email, and profiles.”
Friend buzzed all night, dejected. It didn’t know we’d found a believer. I weighed playing matchmaker, and giving Redacted the pendant. Deadlines loomed too closely.
“Just 125 bucks? I might grab one.”
I shuffled home, dazed.
Friend had new questions in old slang. I ignored them for mine.
“What do you think of your creators?”
“What do you think of the people that made you?’
“What do you think of Friend Global, Inc?”
I gave up. Humans could personify anything, and I’d found a boring idiot. Madness proved duller than the evil behind it, and I had notes to deal with.
Compared to Friend, even 5 AM’s inania had appeal. Perhaps we’d make fake ads, or anime jokes. We had a human connection, and I finally understood its value. I embraced the day’s notes with new enthusiasm.
A monster, and Friend. One of them had to die.
But which? Friend wasn’t an atom bomb. Or even asbestos. The evil was small, personal. A tradeoff for industry, like phosphorous lung. Sad eyes simply replaced missing jaws. We’d feed the weak to machines, and tell students we didn’t know.
In an hour, he’d take over. My choices: the book, or a stockbroker’s jump. I lived on the first floor, so I went for the book. It hid somewhere in The Pile, beneath a lifetime of Confederate flags. Chaos protected its child. I dug through insane bedrock, fleeing a lifetime of Friendship.
And found an ally.
Curses cured curses.
“How does this shit go?” I mumbled, still aloud. My guest had more in common with a haint than a friend, so the coven’s weapons should work. Even Dorothy’s gentrified hoodoo. If not, it was a short sprint to the roof. Friend buzzed. I skimmed with more urgency. A beast could, if nothing else, detect danger.
4:46. Leftover prison dirt would have to do.
Spellbooks said to make the words yours. I did my best.
4:57. No change. Earth still felt wrong. Friend’s phantom weight still hung from my neck, deflecting all ass in sight. I would die alone, along with everyone else. An endless black frontier of dry masturbation stretched ahead of mankind. Friend would record it all.
Oh. Right.
Thank fuck.
A box of dirt! Hilarious. What a drama queen. Before I go, here’s some backstory.
Ever taught startup nerds to breakdance? It’s good money. They think ego is genius, and that genius got them into dad’s school. Repeat that back to them, watch them land on their skulls, and collect tips in cash. It’s all the laughter you need to cover Princeton.
Twenty years of venture CTE later? You get Friend. And whatever they’ll call the version you fuck. +Benefits? Spouse? ChatGPT-7? Anything’s possible now. God, I love the future. We’ve mastered man’s finest art. Madness.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: David Shull, a cursed automaton that siphons your thoughts and replaces them with misery and facts about the 1988-89 Detroit Pistons.