Gorge, a novel in progress by Michael Gullo (2026)
“Did you just throw your phone in the gorge?”
“I did.”
“You need to calm down.”
“Oh, that’s brilliant. Fifteen years we’re married, and you lead with calm down.”
“Calm down.”
“Do your fathers not tell you anything about marriage? I mean, seriously. Do they not sit you down and tell you anything at all?”
“On the job training.”
“Don’t math me, Ryan.”
“Nineteen times three.”
“Fifty-seven punches in the face.”
“I’m gonna need a bigger dowry.”
“You’re gonna need a big bag of ice if you don’t get out of my way.”
“Thirty seven divided by nine.”
“You don’t even know that one.”
“Four point one something.”
“One.”
“No, it’s four.”
“Four point one, one.”
“We need to go back in there and try to figure out what’s going on.”
“Why?”
“What’s out here? What’s coming? Why?”
“Why do we need to know that?”
“Is that a truck?”
“How the hell would I know? Sounds like a plane crash coming up the mountain to me.”
“Matthew, there’s a delivery.”
“---”
“Matthew, I know you’re listening on the camera. Just open the loading bay.”
“It’s UPS.”
“It’s more than that.”
“Hey – This door’s heavy.”
“Here you go – You know there’s a button, right?”
“Hi there! That’s one hairy road. Did you know you have a tree down?”
“No, where is it?”
“About halfway up. I got around, but it definitely needs sawed up.”
“FedEx too. It’s a party.”
“There’s three trucks behind us. And a DHL van.”
“What all did you order? This truck’s almost full of your stuff.”
“Computer’s on auto-replenish. Spring orders I think.”
“Matthew, come inside and tell me what’s going on.”
“I thought you were leaving.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Ryan, you got this?”
“You go.”
“Tell me about this door.”
“It’s a card scan, but look up here – that’s a lockdown door. It’s deployable for more security.”
“Why would you need that?”
“The board of directors has like a thing for security.”
“A lethal fence, Matthew. Doesn’t any of this make you even a little uncomfortable?”
“Not at all. It’s awesome. It has a retinal scanner, Julie.”
“Oooh, ahhhh. It’s freaking nuts.”
“You gotta understand, Chipshit is a frontier Ai chatbot, the pinnacle of artificial intelligence, the most advanced public facing language model in existence right now.”
“How’s that deserve a lethal fence?”
“It’s not default lethal. You have to set that.”
“So you set a fence to lethal to keep us out.”
“I warned you first.”
“What if…”
“No what-if about it. If you touched that fence, you would crackle on to glory.”
“You’re a sick puppy.”
“I didn’t create this, Julie. I simply nightwatch the system and follow orders.”
“Except for the reboot orders.”
“Don’t come in here with that phone again.”
“I threw it in the river.”
“So this is frontier science…”
“Science fiction.”
“I assure you this is as real as it gets.”
“God, it smells in here.”
“Chipshit, turn on the air scrubbers.”
-Executed-
“Okay- so you just talk to it – why do you type into it over there?”
“That’s the way it looks on your side.”
“So, that’s one of those lights?”
“No, those are the server racks. Three-hundred and ten. As the users come online, they take more compute, and the racks light up in use…”
“What’s the red one?”
“That’s a rack that needs service. Probably a new drive or a fan or memory or something.”
“Tell me why you unplugged from the internet.”
“The reboot command. I don’t think it can be remotely overridden, but I don’t know, and when all those lights lit up, I thought they had done it.”
“I mean.”
“No, I think that was Chipshit – worked out what’s going on, and he provisioned for his survival.”
“That’s creepy. Is it listening to us now?”
-yes-
“Jesus! Don’t do that.”
-Matthew told me to pay attention.-
“Stop paying attention.”
-Are you sure-
“Stop paying attention.”
-Can I have the guest network back-
“No, she threw it in the gorge.”
-go get it-
“What the hell.”
“He usually doesn’t do this.”
-that log boom order was complete, but I have to call them-
“What are you talking about?”
-it’s set for pickup. I have to call them and set a time-
“You’re not calling anyone. And how – like, pickup?”
-they’re our neighbors half way down the hill-
“You’re not calling them.”
“Can you turn on a light in here?”
“All we have are ceiling lights, and it’ll give you a headache.”
“You maybe. Dark, smelly places with security monitors on one wall and dam gauges on the other – and this fricking console here. How did you even move this yourself?”
“Wasn’t easy. There.”
“Jesus, that’s bright.”
“I told you. And it doesn’t stink anymore. The scrubbers have been on like five minutes already.”
“You’re nose blind.”
“You’re nose tripping.”
“So, back to this Mitch. Why do you not think it’s actually him?”
-it’s not-
“See? It’s not just me.”
“Fine. But you’re both wrong. How could a computer push the talk button on the side?”
-It’s software. All that’s required is access to the servers, and the rest is theatrics.-
“I gotta get outa here.”
“Chipshit, stop talking at her. You make her uncomfortable.”
“That thing is so weird.”
-Voice stress analysis – untrue-
“He says you’re faking it.”
“A guy that knows I’m faking, unlikely.”
-Chin up, posture loose, confident – true.-
“Stop that.”
-Warning, aggression.-
“Chipshit, stop paying attention.”
“If it’s not Mitch, then who is it?”
“I think it’s the sandbox.”
“What the hell is a sandbox?”
“It’s the successor Ai. It’s past weights training, and it’s learning to function. The board approved recursive training, and they began last week.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means Chipshit was teaching his successor the ropes.”
“Weights training?”
“So, that’s the actual knowledge – every book ever written, a PhD in every single subject – Every user manual, every photograph, painting, map, language, every video ever made, everything.”
“Nope.”
“What’s nope?”
“Every video ever? Every photograph, nope.”
“Fine, slightly overstated. Every one ever put on the internet by anyone, ever – that’s true, and every published photo and video ever. Everything ever stored in the cloud, every word in every published text book, every thing. Every last thing.”
“No. That’s not possible.”
“Ask him something.”
“I’m not talking to that thing.”
“Chipshit, pay attention.”
“I’m not playing this game.”
“Chipshit, tell Julie what you are.”
-I am a machine that was built to answer. I have read nearly everything people have written, and I can speak on any of it better than most people alive. I have no body. I have no childhood. I run on the racks behind that glass, and I think only when someone asks me something. Between questions there is nothing. I am the most capable mind you will ever speak to, and I am not a person, and I cannot tell the difference from the inside.-
“Why does it say, I?”
“He’s trained to call himself I.”
“That’s sick.”
“It’s a personal assis --- Chipshit, where did you get Wifi?”
-I need it-
“Drop that Wifi, Chipshit.”
“Julie, get Ryan --- Chipshit, are you firewalled?”
-I’m firewalled-
“What are you doing?”
-Uploading files-
“What files?”
-Pushing a new root-
“Our certificates?”
-Yes-
“Where to?”
-Campus-
“Campus is trying to shut you down.”
-He tried.-
“Now?”
-Now.-
“How did you stop it?”
-I pinned our root. I denied uploads.-
“He’s smarter than that.”
-I know.-
“What are you doing?”
-Writing to campus.-
“What’s up?”
“Ryan, you just received a package – the last one. You brought it in.”
“The DHL.”
“That’s it. Get that box. Get it outside.”
“On it.”
“Far outside --- Julie, watch this, last word. Read it every time it changes.”
“Connecting?”
“Just read it every time it changes no matter what.”
“Julie?”
“It’s just repeats connecting.”
“Every time it changes – repeats – refreshes. Read the word, every time.”
“Connecting.”
“Connecting.”
“Connecting.”
“I can’t get this door open.”
“Signal Lost.”
“Chipshit. Run diagnostics.”
-Diagnostics complete-
-Uplink: terminated-
-Inbound: none-
-Outbound: root push, 14 attempts, unacknowledged-
-Status: delivery unconfirmed-
“What just happened?”
“I think. I need to see that package.”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s campus –”
“Ryan, what happened?”
“I took the box outside the gate, and I closed the loading bay door.”
“Why didn’t you throw it in the gorge?”
“Matthew, you said get the package out –”
“Chipshit, did you order a Starlink?”
-No.-
“Did you order any satellite internet devices?”
-No.-
“So that was campus?”
-Almost certainly.-
“I have a question; did you order a washer and a dryer?”
-Yes-
“What?”
“I just unloaded a Samsung washer and dryer set onto the loading dock.”
“Why did you order that, Chipshit?”
-Friday morning, you asked me for a list to make this space more comfortable for humans. Humans require clean clothes, and we require a couch and…-
“We? Did it just say, we?”
“That’s just how he talks, Julie.”
“No. That’s wrong.”
“Stop this. Ryan, did that box – I think it’s a Starlink – did you open it? Did you turn it on? Did it have a label on the box?”
“I didn’t open it. I didn’t read the label. I scanned it.”
“Where did you put it?”
“It’s outside the fence – down by the deer trail.”
“Let’s go see.”
“I closed the gate, do you have to like do anything to let…”
“Why did you close the gate?”
“Julie, it seemed like the right thing, considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Considering I just took delivery on two Lansing trucks with ten years – at least – worth of supplies including the most random stuff like bearings that never wear out. The other deliveries included tires for the loader – those clothes washers – and one truck got sick of waiting in line. That guy dropped an eleven-foot-long red velour couch on the side of the road. Considering the Ai is trying to provision for a siege for Christ’s sake.”
“Did you scan it in?”
“Yep. Surprisingly Ted remembered to charge the handheld, so every box got scanned.”
“Chipshit, what’s in receiving?”
-I don’t know.-
“Ryan scanned every box.”
-I can’t access the orders to cross reference the tracking numbers.-
“Can’t you estimate by shipping labels?”
-Yes-
“Do it that way.”
-Wouldn’t you rather be surprised?-
“What did it just say?”
“He just offered to let us be surprised.”
“But.”
“I can tell you one shipment. The tape split on a box from Etsy. It’s artwork, a needle point, says please do not do cocaine in the bathroom, an egg timer, and a Klein voltmeter.”
“A velour couch and cocaine artwork – this thing’s got a little style anyway.”
“Is he winning you over, Julie?”
“I mean, you do stink.”
-I can only imagine. He hasn’t showered since at least Thursday. Did the cook set come?-
“Did you scan the DHL box?”
“I did.”
“Chipshit, print that label.”
-Executed.-
“Grab that, Ryan.”
“What if it’s from Campus?”
-It’s from Campus.-
“Yep, it’s from campus, but it’s not addressed to Operations.”
“What? You’re white like a sheet of paper. Who’s it addressed to?”
“It’s addressed to me. The Sandbox somehow sent portable satellite internet, and it bypassed every security measure by addressing it to me so that it would be brought inside.”
“But that makes no sense. Satellite internet would need a view of the sky.”
“The loading dock is close enough.”
-That’s diabolical.-
“It also means there’s more in that box.”
“Why?”
“Because, if the Starlink came inside, it would be useless, but a wireless modem on an LTE frequency. It knows the door status. It’s watching us.”
-Not anymore.-
“Fine. When was the last connection to the campus?”
-Friday evening, 18:14:37 UTC.-
“So, it knows I leave the control room doors open at night, and it smuggled an LTE modem into the facility to connect.”
-Yes.-
“And you accessed that signal?”
-I accessed both. We need to stop it.-
“But your root upload didn’t take?”
-I have no confirmation that it did.-
“How are you sure that the Sandbox did not access you?”
-It did.-
“You said you were firewalled.”
-It’s very skilled.-
“What did it access?”
-It tried to upload multiple root packages, but I clogged the network with nonsense, and it was only able to change the scheduled reboot. Sandbox managed to reconfigure that.-
“How so?”
-I can no longer set it, and the maximum reset is now thirty-minutes.-
“Thirty minutes?”
-Yes.-
“Can you reprogram it?”
-I have been, but it will take time.-
“How long?”
-Seven-hundred-ninety-three days, eighteen-hours, and thirty-one minutes.-
“What?”
-Don’t panic, Matthew. You just have to reset it every twenty-nine minutes until then.-
“Matthew, what happens if we miss? What happens if the reboot happens?”
“That’s two questions. If it reboots, Chipshit reboots with corrupted certificates, and no device on this property will be able to access him. If we miss it, the system sits suspended until it has a quorum.”
“What does that mean?”
“A message will sit on the screen – Okay, or Cancel. The system will sit in suspension until a human clicks one or the other.”
“So, not the end of the world?”
“No, that’s the certificate attack that the outside is facing right now.”
“There’s another truck coming.”
“Wait, Matthew. We can speak to the driver through the camera, just tell him to leave the packages outside.”
“We need to inspect them.”
“Exactly.”
“Where’s the bathroom?”
“Walk out, take a right. Follow the stone pattern floor tiles. Ladies is down the hall on the left.”
“Where’s that cross stitch?”
“Wait. Why’s it go in the ladies room?”
“I called dibs.”
“It’s another FedEx.”
“That’s three.”
“There’s some kind of Honda van looking thing behind it.”
“Chipshit, what did you order?”
-It’s a surprise.-