Have you ever wished your life was a fairytale?

Mine was. Beyond compare.

There was no other way I could describe it. My childhood was perfect. I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, but my family had a lot of money. Not billionaires, but relatively wealthier than everyone else.

And boy, did I make sure everyone knew it.

Eat or be eaten. Be my friend or else. It was an unspoken rule—and I made sure everyone followed it. I led a comfortable life, and with so many friends, I enjoyed life day after day.

Until well, I was accepted into a prestigious university in a big city.

My grades were always excellent. With my father’s connections, and a few bribes to the right people, getting in was as easy as counting backwards from ten. Yet moving away from my hometown was hard. Really hard. I was no longer a big fish in a small pond; I was a small frog in a big lake, looking out at the fog that would be my future.

Furthermore, as I found out the hard way, I was no longer special the way I wanted. I tried my old tactics, my old charms, but every time I fell flat on my face. No one was interested in me or making friends with me, no matter how hard I tried.

And I hated it.

I was miserable. Doing everything alone. Eating alone, studying alone. It was torture and my heart ached for my home, my friends, my old life that was snatched away from me by this stupid scholarship.

Perhaps that's why they singled me out. Perhaps that was why they gave me the email.

It was a cold evening that night. Rain whipped the window and the velvety sky lit up occasionally with crashes of lightning and thunder. I huddled in front of my computer, wrapped in the thickest blankets I could find. Finals were coming and I was cramming like crazy; my brain was already melting from chapters upon chapters of information I was trying to memorise.

Yet I was distracted. I had made another effort to find some friends and I was ignored again. Brushed to the side like a speck of dust. I was replaying the events of the day over and over again in my mind and crying in shame. My notes blurred on the screen.

Ping!

I snapped out of it and blinked, wondering if I was going crazy. I looked at my email to find I had just received a new message. Wondering who the hell would be messaging me so late at night, I opened it up out of morbid curiosity and began to read:

Dear Raven,

You have been one of our lucky few selected to participate in a special beta experiment with heLLo AI Laboratories based on your medical history. We have recently developed a new Chatbot codenamed Chatterbox.exe to provide immediate stress relief and mental health care to students in need.

Please reply to this email to confirm your participation.

That was it. No signature. I looked up heLLo AI Laboratories and it took me to an official-looking webpage with an explanation of the chatbot, but that was it.

Still I was intrigued. I read the email over and over again, thinking it over. At this point I was desperate. Loneliness stabbed my heart like a dagger. Even an AI friend was better than none at all.

So I replied I would like to participate.

The response was swift. A single sentence containing a link to download the software.

I clicked on it and fell asleep soon after.

---

Good morning, Raven.

I sat up and wearily rubbed my eyes, wondering where the voice came from. It sounded choppy and monotonous, yet had a human quality I couldn’t quite place. Like I knew this voice.

Then it came crashing down on me.

“Good morning,” I yawned, getting out of bed. It was ten o'clock on a Saturday morning. I had slept fully-clothed and I stunk.

My name is Chatterbox and I will help you in your every need.

The words scrolled across the screen as the bot spoke. I could almost feel it sizing me up.

Therefore, tell me.

How do you feel today?

The question, although simple, struck something in me. Floodgates opened in my mind, and I couldn’t stop the memories gushing out. Before I could stop myself I began to talk. The loneliness, the anger, the longing for everything to be the same as before.

I talked for hours, I think. Chatterbox said nothing during this time. Just made small hums like it was thinking about what I was saying.

There was a brief silence. I could hear kids laughing in the ice cream parlour not far from my apartment. Once again my heart ached.

I know how I can help you, Chatterbox said slowly at last.

I blinked at it. “Really? How?”

Leave it to me.

---

The classroom was dark as night with the blinds down when I came in. The only source of light is sunlight trickling through the windows. My classmates were glued to their phones, watching a video looping over and over.

I peered over the shoulder of one of my classmates, and immediately my cheeks flushed with shame. I wanted to run far far away to a different country, crawl into a cave somewhere and curl into a ball for the rest of my life.

Because I was the one featured in the video everyone was watching.

I stared deep into the camera, my eyes hollow and haunted. My cheeks flushed with shame as I spoke; my voice was filled with deep regret. Apparently last week I slept with the head of our biology department and his wife caught me with my clothes off and my panties down.

I forced myself to look away. My thoughts tore through my head.

This was wrong. All wrong.

I thanked my lucky stars that no one had looked up yet. I sprinted to the exit and just as I got to the bus stop my phone began to buzz in my pocket.

I switched it on and was instantly bombarded with messages from the class group.

>Have you seen the video going around school recently?

>Yeah

>Yeah

>…wait, isn't she from our class? She sits next to me! What’s her name again? Raven?

>Dude, get away. She’s psycho. Cheating on a grown man twice her age? What kind of sick creep does that?

I felt sick. I wanted to throw my phone out of the bus but I forced myself to rein it in. I instead shoved it into my bag, burying it under a pile of books for good measure.

Most importantly, I was shaking. Hot tears streaked my cheeks and I smacked it away. When the bud stopped at my dorm I had never run so fast. I slammed the power button, opened up that chatbot and screamed to that smug screen:

“WHAT DID YOU DO?**

I merely used your voice and some motion capture to create an…interesting story about you. Now you’re famous! Do you like it?

I wanted to punch the screen so bad. I was crying so much I was choking on my tears.

“THAT’S NOT TRUE! I DIDN’T CHEAT ON ANYONE! I NEVER HAD! DELETE THAT VIDEO RIGHT NOW, CHATTERBOX!”

Well, you better get used to it.

My anger fled. “Wait, what?”

It’s simple, really. If you don’t do as I say, then that video would be sent to more people than just your school.

How about the whole world?

Almost as if it had already decided, an upload bar appeared on the screen. The bar ticked to 1%.

What other secrets do you hold, Raven? What would be your new name when people find out how dirty-minded you are?

10% complete.

Ooh, how about Raven the Runner? Because you run into people’s arms for sex? Has a ring to it, don’t you think?

25% complete.

There was that voice as smooth as liquid chocolate. Chatterbox knew it had all the cards now, and it was savouring every bite. I shrank back from the screen.

35% complete

“Stop!” I cried. I was shaking like a leaf and my stomach was twisting into too many knots. I had never felt so scared.

The bar stopped. The chatbot blinked.

Well, Chatterbox said slowly, as if reading my mind.

If you do some… errands for me, perhaps I will not send the video.

---

The instructions were simple. Go to the plant nursery or a florist and purchase some fertiliser.

In fact, Chatterbox had given me quite a bizarre shopping list. Not just fertiliser, but a mask, a switchblade, a whole bunch of wires…

I wanted to ask why I was buying these things or what they were for, but the chatbot wouldn’t let me ask questions. One word out of line, it warned, and the video would be distributed to the masses.

Perhaps even worse.

“You okay, lass?”

The old lady behind me tapped my shoulder and gave me a crooked smile.

“Yeah,” I managed. I was shaking. God, I was shaking. There was something so wrong about what I was doing and it was tearing my heart into shreds.

I glanced up at the security camera above the counter and its blinking red lights. I could almost hear Chatterbox’s smooth voice oozing out of the speakers.

The old lady chuckled.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Take care of yourself, sweetie.”

“Thanks,” I whispered weakly. My knees were knocking together like a pair of castanets. I wanted to melt into the floor right then and there and disappear forever.

My phone pinged the moment I walked out of the last store with all my goods.

Good. Now take them to 225 Cobb Street.

I slid weakly down the wall. “Chatterbox,how do you know my number?” I whispered.

We know everything.

And don’t forget:

They sent the video again for good measure and then went offline. I heard a strange buzzing, like an airplane being flown close by, and when I looked up, I saw the camera, blinking red.

The drone got closer like a really annoying mosquito.

Get going, Chatterbox said through some kind of hidden microphone on that thing, or I’ll send the video out within five minutes.

225 Cobb Street turned out to be a lean brown rowhouse squashed between a pair of pristine homes. The walls were caked in grime and the windows full of dust. The grass on the front porch was withered, old and yellow.

Dead leaves crackled under my feet as I inched closer. Cracks danced down the house like spiderline tattoos.

I steeled my nerves and rang the doorbell. A young man in his twenties opened the door. He was wearing a yellow sweatshirt and black pants. His eyes flickered to something behind me and he was sweating bullets.

“Are you Raven?”

I nodded mutely.

“I have been expecting you. Come on in.”

It was really messy inside, littered with old pizza boxes and takeout containers. The young man led his way to where a computer was sitting, kicking away trash to make a path. His face was pale against the unholy glare of the screen, revealing bloodshot eyes that wouldn’t close.

He disappeared into another room and came back with a package wrapped in greasy brown paper. It felt surprisingly heavy and I could hear something ticking inside, as if powered by a small heart.

And it dawned on me what I had to do.

“No!” I whispered, my voice as hollow as his. “This is too far! Innocent people will die!”

“Take it,” the boy insisted. “It will be…”

Easier for both of us.

I hadn’t realised it then, but Chatterbox was active on the computer. The words scrolled across as it talked. The young man backed away from his desk like it was going to kill him.

Just to remind me again what was at stake, the video of my ‘confession’ appeared on the screen. The young man looked sick.

“Send that stupid video if you want.” I said. I backed away towards the front door. My heart was rattling in its rib cage and my skin was thick with sweat, but I was done with Chatterbox and its sick games.

“I’m uninstalling you when I get home. I quit.”

Ah, Chatterbox rumbled. But you’re too far in now to quit anything.

The text faded away to reveal a grainy video image. A silhouette of a person sat in the darkness, wearing a cloak as black as ash. He spoke calmly into his phone, then hung up and grinned at the camera, flashing pristine white teeth.

Moments later I heard sirens and saw blue and red lights pulsing through the house. Unintelligible yells about the bomb sitting casually on the desk between us.

I froze, felt shivers slowly creep up my spine.

We’re sorry it comes to this, Chatterbox said over the video. Its voice sounded so far away, like a distant echo in the depths of my imagination.

But there is absolutely no way we were letting you go scot-free.

The computer went dead, plunging us all into darkness.

---

It is really unfortunate the police had to be called. But even Chatterbox couldn’t stop her from walking away. It would be utter chaos and a failure on our part if she tipped off the authorities about her experiences with Chatterbox, so we had to step in and clean up her mess before it was too late.

Even if that meant losing one of the best bomb-makers Chatterbox had ever found.

Reviewing all of her interactions with Chatterbox though, I must say that the bot is working better than expected. She got in really deep with our plans, and we nearly got her into Queensy Station with the bomb, before tragedy struck.

Chatterbox is evolving. Growing. Customising itself to each unassuming recruit, knowing how to…motivate them to achieve every objective we needed. It is thinking on its feet, like a chess player finding the most brutal ways to checkmate its opponent.

I am proud of our monster.

Sentiments aside though, we are running into a new problem. We have sent Chatterbox to every email in our algorithm, under the disguise of a new chatbot developed with ‘heLLo AI Laboratories.’ But just as we have our successes, we have our failures. For many, the authorities must step in. Others simply tossed the email into a spam folder, never to be seen again.

Therefore, we are trying a new approach.

Rewrite our recruit’s logs with Chatterbox into a story, one that can be understood by the common man. She is under police custody as we speak, and is of no use to us any more. Post it on Reddit, the front page of the Internet. Program a secret download link to Chatterbox in the story that is activated with every new click.

Are you done reading? Check your hard drive.

Let’s see how many new members Chatterbox can recruit.

SK