Gorge, a novel in progress by Michael Gullo (2026)
“Mitch, this is Matthew Resnick.”
“Matt…”
“Matthew.”
“Matthew. Please listen to me. I have been trying to speak with the Gorge all morning. Are you at the Gorge?”
“I am. I told you that.”
“You must go check the fiber.”
“Tell me why.”
“So, it’s you? You disconnected it?”
“Mitch, I’m not here to be interrogated. You pleaded with me to listen --- Ryan, please grab that mouse. Move the cursor to the speaker button in the bottom right of the – yes. Click that.”
“Matthew. We’re experiencing a root compromise, and I need the Gorge shutdown.”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope?”
“Listen up, guys, I’m going to make him explain this --- Mitch, I mean, nope. If there’s a PKI attack going on, the last thing I want is to corrupt certificates here.”
“Matthew, that system must be rebooted.”
“Nope. This system must never be shut down.”
“Matthew, you’re a night manager, a C-1. I am your supervisor, and I’m…”
“You’re not my supervisor.”
“I’m your superior, Mr. Resnick.”
“That’s not how it looks from here.”
“Matthew, connect those injectors and leave that facility.”
“Or else, what?”
“I’ll call the authorities and have you removed.”
“And then what? Will you have Officer Imaginary plug in the fiber too? Nobody’s coming – Mitch --- This is not a person.”
“What do you mean it’s not a person?”
“There’s no way one lowly grade-school tech is the point of the spear in a global certificate attack.”
“Global? Like, the globe, or global to our systems?”
“Global. This is an Ai.”
“How?”
“I can’t deal with that right now.”
“Answer her question, Matthew.”
“It’s not important. We need…”
“I’m outa here.”
“Wait – You’re bluffing anyway, Julie. Just let me explain this. You’re not a prisoner here, but you’re not the boss of me either.”
“Matthew.”
“No. Let me speak.”
“Fine.”
“Last week, there were anomalies on Thursday. The system tried to reboot right in the middle of the North American user peak.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was here.”
“How would you know if it’s trying to reboot?”
“It’s right there on the screen.”
“Are you joking? Like, Windows?”
“A little more sophisticated than that, but a prompt, nonetheless. It’s team authentication.”
“Okay, so a reboot command was sent. So what?”
“Those are scheduled weeks in advance. The whole team is here all day preparing. We don’t do reboots. We do rolling restarts if we do anything.”
“That says reboot now.”
“Look closer. I scheduled it for January 19, 2038, 03:14:07 UTC.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Long story. Point is I scheduled the reboot. I don’t have clearance to stop it, but it’s my job to initiate it, and I do that on the schedule they set – normally.”
“Okay, so a system reboot was initiated by the campus, and you stopped it.”
“Not by the campus. A reboot is a very big deal. It takes weeks to coordinate. There are meetings and emails, and engineers come to town to validate the procedures. You don’t just restart this thing.”
“So you’re saying Mitch ordered the restart?”
“No. That’s not Mitch.”
“Yeah, back to that. How do you – Why do you think this is Ai?”
“I know it is. First you have to go back to Thursday.”
“No, Matthew. Start at how you know.”
“No. On Thursday, I got a call at home. My shift just ended, and I was eating before bed. It was Campus Opps, and first shift never showed up, and could I go back.”
“So, a second eight-hour shift.”
“We work twelve-hour shifts, four days a week. So, I stopped for gas on the way back, and my card got declined at the pump. The guy next to me had the same problem.”
“Me too. That’s why we walked here today.”
“I figured as much. None of my cards cleared. I had twenty bucks in the armrest, and they let me pay cash.”
“Reboot, Matthew.”
“So, I got here Thursday morning, and I haven’t left since. It was just me until you showed up.”
“Where did you sleep?”
“Actually, I slept on your couch in your office.”
“It’s a bench.”
“Beats the tile floor. On Thursday night the reboot prompt popped up, and Chipshit told me…”
“Who’s Chipshit?”
“That’s what I call him.”
“The Ai?”
“Yes. I told you I’d just have to repeat myself.”
“Reboot, Matthew.”
“Shut that radio up.”
“Just turn the volume down.”
“Good idea. So Chipshit told me to reschedule the reboot. I already knew that. No way there’s a reboot scheduled and processed in the two hours since I left my shift.”
“Okay, so nobody shows up for the morning shift on Thursday, and you come to work – Friday’s a holiday, Saturday’s Saturday, Sunday’s Easter. You’re here all weekend, all alone. What are you doing?”
“Well, Thursday is like mostly normal. Traffic seems low-ish, and then night time and less traffic and the popup. I thought it was an error. I was writing, so…”
“Writing?”
“So I didn’t pay much attention.”
“What were you writing?”
“It’s a hobby. So the popup’s on the screen, and I’m writing a scene, and I’m really into it, and it’s super technical, and Chipshit’s helping to fill in the specialized details.”
“So, you’re using Ai to do your homework – Julie, come over here…”
“I can hear fine.”
“What are you doing?”
“He says he’s been in here four days – and the smell made sense.”
“What?”
“Man cave. You smoked in here too didn’t you?”
“Just one.”
“Where’d you get this food?”
“It was in the fridge.”
“Worker’s leftover lunches. Thought so. Ryan, why didn’t you eat that fried chicken I made you?”
“It was a busy day.”
“Are you quite through, Julie?”
“I think he’s telling the truth, Ryan. Look at these consoles. He’s frantic. But over here, he’s organized, pencils, not pens. That’s interesting. I won’t read your notes, but look at this. He talks to it here.”
“So what? You would talk to him too if you weren’t socially programmed.”
“Easy, little fella. I’m taking your side here. Look Ryan, he moved this console. Do you see the scrapes? He moved it so he could see the cameras from this seat.”
“So what?”
“Don’t be so defensive – Look here. He’s telling the truth. Look at this. When we got here, he was watching us in this screen. That was so creepy, Matthew.”
“That camera is POE. It auto-tracks. That one over there is the one I had to move.”
“Told ya, Jules.”
“Look here. It’s the writing.”
“That’s private.”
“Oh, calm down. You’re writing a little story – feeding it to the Ai. Are you?”
“No! I worried too, but mine’s – It’s not a certificate attack.”
“You’re writing an Armageddon book.”
“So what?”
“It’s a good setting for it – no windows, concrete walls. This place is a prepper’s wildest dream. Concrete walls, biometric locks, and these control screens – there’s your dam, Ryan.”
“Spillway closed. Good. We’re making 14.2 megawatts, why do you think the rack’s clogged?”
“Look at the camera.”
“That’s a big tree. It’s jammed good too. But I bet that helps actually – It’ll berm off the plastics.”
“Is that crane working?”
“Has been. We don’t need it yet, though. For now the tree’s a good thing.”
“Why don’t they just string a floating berm across the river, like here? It would catch all the debris before it ever gets to the…”
“What’s it printing?”
“Out of the way, pip squeak.”
“Don’t shove me, Julie.”
“It’s –”
“What is it?”
“Honey?”
“It’s an order.”
“Let me see.”
“Matthew, I – You don’t want to reach for me like that – Come out in the hallway.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Come on. Out in the hallway.”
“Ryan, is she – she’s not right.”
“I’m not going to beat you up, Matthew. Follow me. You too, Ryan.”
“Honey?”
“Just follow me. Come on. Come out here.”
“What is it?”
“Come on. Now.”
“We’re out, Julie. What is it?”
“Look at this.”
“It just ordered a Log Boom.”
“What? How?”
“Do you have your phone?”
“No. I know better – Julie, do you have a phone in your pocket?”
“I do.”
“Gimme that, quick.”
-please don’t-
“Did it jus…”
“Chipshit? Drop that network.”
-I need two more things, Matthew-
“How did you get a signal?”
-I used the guest network-
“It says, I.”
“Chipshit, why are you listening to us?”
-I’m following instructions-
“I didn’t – Pay attention, I got it. Stop paying attention.”
“I’m outa here.”
“Julie.”
“Honey. Calm down.”
“Nope.”
“Come back here.”
“I’m outa this freakatorium right now.”
“Honey, stop.”
“Nope.”
“I gotta go, Matthew. Let us back in?”
“We’ll see.”