CAPTCHA

4,900 words, ~20-minute read time. The accompanying blog post is linked here.

---

Bright red text flashed on the screen: 

“Fatal Error: Your password and/or CAPTCHA is incorrect.“

I gritted my teeth. My neck muscles tensed. An unhelpful pop-up appeared with this definition:

“CAPTCHA stands for ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.'”

Over the past month, the CAPTCHA challenges for my logins have become increasingly complex. What started as simple questions like “What is 9 + 3?” evolved into walls of rotating text and flurries of indecipherable numbers. For the most part, I could brute force my way through with some calculated guesses, but this latest CAPTCHA was simply impossible.

It was a plain black block with text underneath that read, “What do you see?” I tried every combination of “Black square,” “Empty void,” etc., but I gave up and refreshed the page, hoping it would provide something less enigmatic. But no dice. The black box remained.

I knew my password wasn’t the problem because it’s the same for everything: “Fu11Hous3” in honor of my favorite show. This TV program defined my first memory.

I vividly recall sitting in the living room one summer afternoon, watching Full House reruns on our boxy, early-2000s TV. Lumpy packing peanuts shifted in the squeaky polyester-covered purple bean bag chair. The teal sunlight streaming through the stained glass window enveloped me in a comfortable cocoon. My Mom entered with a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies.

“I love Full House, Mom,”  I mumbled through a mouthful of the sweet treat. “I wish we had a bunch of fun people in our house, too.”

I’ll never forget the cusping tears that clung in my mother’s eyes like little pear-shaped diamonds glittering in the sunlight.

“Hal, please don’t ever forget…” she said. “I love you, and you’ll always be enough, buddy.”

The laugh track from the show sounded, and I giggled gleefully. This memory has lived close to my heart for as long as I can remember.

I gave up on the CAPTCHA, figuring it was a glitch, packed my laptop, and headed downstairs. My Mom was cooking breakfast for my Dad, who was reading The New York Times on his tablet.

“Did you sleep well, honey?” Mom asked.

“Fine,” I responded.

“Why so grumpy?” she asked.

“Ann, how many times are you going to ask him that before you catch on?” my Dad joked. “High schoolers are just plain ornery.”

“Oh, is that right, Alan?” Mom asked with a single raised eyebrow.

“Old people, too,” he replied. “In fact, most people are dreadful, annoying, or irritable. I’m starting to think middle-aged folks like you and me may be the only delightful people left in this world.”

“Well, that’s certainly true,” she said, placing his plate of eggs and bacon down and kissing him. “What a burden it is for us, but we must go on—if not for our sake, then for the sake of humanity.” Her voice had a lilt as she clutched her apron in a feigned overwrought manner.

“You guys are annoying,” I grumbled.

“Seriously, is everything okay, sport?” my Dad asked.

“Yeah, it’s okay. I’m just annoyed with my computer. I can’t log into any of my accounts because I keep failing the CAPTCHA challenges.”

My Dad paused his egg-ladened fork halfway to his mouth and shot my mother a nervous glance. The bright orange yolk slowly dripped onto the plate. My mother turned her back and hurriedly scrubbed the dirty dishes.

“Aren’t you going to be late for the bus?” My Mom shouted over the din of spraying and scouring.

I said, “Not for another like 10 minutes or so –“

“Listen to your mother, Hal, ” my father ordered, his face graven. “Go on and wait for the bus.”

“And they say teenagers are the ones with mood swings,” I hissed as I slung my backpack over my shoulder and left.

I complained to my best friend, Stony, about my login troubles while riding the bus to school.

“I feel like it has to be an error,” I explained. “It’s just a black screen.”

“Or maybe you’re just an idiot,” Stony said.

“Okay, smartass,” I said. “How about you give it a try if you’re so cocky?”

I activated the hotspot on my phone and navigated to the login page, which prompted me with the same black box from this morning. I handed Stoney the laptop, and he furrowed his brow.

“Really?” he asked.

“What is it?” I replied.

“You literally just have to select all the pictures that look like a scooter,” he said. He turned the computer to me, but a censor bar covered the entire screen. With a few keystrokes, Stony returned my computer fully logged in.

“See? It’s not that hard,” he said.

“You’re telling me you saw something?!” I asked.

“Uhh, yeah, dude,” he said. “What is the matter with you?”

“N — nothing. I was joking,” I said. Disquiet descended upon me.

The rest of the day passed in a blink as I went through school on autopilot, my thoughts consumed by the mysterious CAPTCHA and my parents’ sudden caginess at breakfast.

When I returned home, I shouted for my parents but received no answer. The stairs creaked underfoot as I climbed the main staircase of my silent and still home. In the landing of the second-floor hallway, a hatch hung open from the ceiling. A retractable staircase led upwards into the attic, where we kept our Christmas ornaments and other junk. As I ascended, I called for my parents timidly, but the lazy clanking of our old HVAC system replied.

“Where the fuck are they…” I whispered as I pulled a string connected to a single incandescent bulb above me. A stern, golden light filled the room, revealing countless boxes of musty old cookware, years of tax returns, and a cobweb-covered plastic Christmas tree. The grime lurking in every crevice of this hypochondriac’s nightmare made it all the more apparent that one corner was conspicuously dust-free. I rifled through a box and discovered an old leather-bound baby book with “Hal – 1996” written on the front.

The first page contained a photograph of Mom and Dad holding a fat little newborn baby. Underneath the picture, in my mother’s dainty scrawl, it read, “Baby Hal.” They all looked so happy and full of life. The only problem was that the baby wasn’t me. His hair was white-blond, whereas mine was dark brown. People’s hair color changes as they age, but not like this.

As a montage of photographs passed, the child grew with each page, and so did my worry. Then, an inkling of recognition flickered in my brain as I came across one image of the mysterious child, who looked about five or six, standing in the living room between my mother and father. Mom wore a powder blue blouse and jeans, and Dad wore a red, plaid button-down with khaki slacks. The kid wore my favorite dinosaur t-shirt and smiled with cherubic joy at the camera. I remember my Dad would tickle me right as the camera timer expired to force me to smile. This wasn’t like that.

I turned the page and was gobsmacked. The following photo was nearly identical to the one before—the same dinosaur shirt, the same khaki slacks, the same power blue blouse—only this time, I was in the child’s place.

Panicked, I flipped faster, and the pattern continued: one photo of the mysterious kid, followed by a nearly identical shot of me. I riffled the pages like a deck of cards, and our faces overlapped perfectly until the last one, which had no duplicate. It showed me lying on my beanbag chair, smiling up at the camera. Beside me, in another chair, was the mysterious boy. I realized this had to be the day of my first memory.

I closed the book, and noticed small writing on the back that read, “Thank you for choosing OpenScript Generative AI Services.”

I continued digging through the container and uncovered a lockbox designed to hold encryption keycards—little USB devices that unlock files—but it was empty.

---

I returned to my room with the book, opened my laptop, and searched “OpenScript.” Nothing substantial returned, so I tried again on the Wayback Machine and found OpenScript’s original website. It was pretty outdated, with different sections of their site dedicated to their myriad shitty “cyber” AI services with anachronistic flashing javascript images from the mid-aughts.

Next, I searched “OpenScript controversy” and scanned the first few headlines.

OpenScript to cease research of “HumanPlus™” citing consumer backlash to recently leaked report…

OpenScript apologizes for using sensitive customer data to train their “HumanPlus™” series of automatons, citing “A serious lack of judgment.” The firm said they are “Promising to try to do better…”

OpenScript is entering a partnership with MetaAI. Critics claim this is an attempt by OpenScript’s enigmatic founder, Mas Namtla, to avoid prosecution…

OpenScript’s exiled founder was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in his Cuban home… 

Obituary – Mas Namtla… succeeded by his daughter Irma…

“Hal? Honey, are you home?” my Mom called from downstairs.

“Uh, just a second!” I responded.

My head swam with questions, each quicker and slippier than the last. I entered the kitchen, where my parents were cooking dinner and drinking wine. Their overeager smiles tightened as they spied the baby book under my arm.

“I didn’t know you were home, buddy,” My Dad beamed. “I’m not going to ask about what you were doing. I remember what it was like to be a 17-year-old boy.”

“Alan!” my Mom gasped, chucking a kitchen towel at him. “That’s inappropriate! And Hal’s almost a man now; I’m sure he’d rather be regarded as such. Right, sweetie?”

“Did you guys go into the attic today?” I asked.

My Mom stopped stirring the saucepan.

“No, I didn’t,” My Mother replied. “Did you, Alan?”

“No — no, I didn’t…” My Dad stuttered.

“Because the ceiling hatch was open and –“

“– Oh, it was probably a draft,” my Dad rushed to say. “Old house and all. Did you know it was built in 19–“

“– Because,” I continued. “I found this weird scrapbook of pictures with this kid –“

“– What?!” my Mom interjected. “Let me see!”

They flipped through the photographs together on the couch, scrutinizing them silently. They shared a knowing look and a smile before erupting in laughter.

“Oh honey, see, this is nothing,” she said. “Just some funny pictures your father and I put together when we were messing around.”

“Did you see the duplicate pictures in the back?” I asked. “It doesn’t look like AI to me.”

My father stood up and wrapped his giant, hairy arm around me. At nearly 6’6″, he was an imposing ursine man with hands like baseball mitts and eyebrows like fat caterpillars.

“There is no other boy, champ. We sent those pictures to be touched up by some AI thingamajig company, but what they sent back was no good. They botched it so badly that you were unrecognizable!”

“But –” I started.

” — Honey, I love you. Remember how we talked about letting some things go?” my Mom crooned. “Your therapist said excessive rumination can be –“

“– Yeah, I know,” I replied curtly.

Sleep eluded me that night, so I rose from bed, went to my desk, and poured over the album under the weak light from my desk lamp. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. My eyes were glued to the page, scouring it for some secret to explain this mysterious boy. In my haste, I spilled my glass of water. As I went to blot the pages dry, I noticed a square area on the inside of the back cover that was slightly raised and untouched by the water — like it had repelled the liquid.

My pocket knife sliced through the thin paper around the area. Inside was a heavy, metallic business card with engravings that read, “If anything goes wrong, bring it back to me. — M.N.” On the other side was a bizarre triangular symbol with a cross through it, followed by an address that a quick search online revealed was way across town.

And with that, my fate was sealed: I could not stop until I uncovered the truth. I crawled out the window onto the back porch and nimbly vaulted over the railing and into the murky woods without a sound.

---

The bus dropped me on the outskirts of town.

“You know this is the last stop, right, honey?” the kindly bus driver asked.

“Thank you, I know,” I responded. “I think I’ll find what I’m looking for. I have to.”

As I walked through the countryside, the radiant glow of the city lights gradually dimmed until they were lost entirely, swallowed by the midnight horizon. My phone faithfully directed me further down a side road until I came upon a massive estate surrounded by a high metal gate with razor-sharp spikes. Lightning streaked across the sky, casting jagged shadows across the lawn. Hefty raindrops began their assault from above.

My flashlight illuminated a large gilded “M.N.” on the front gate. I buzzed the glowing red button on the call box several times. After a moment, it turned blue.

“Yes, yes, I heard you the first half-dozen times,” a fuzzy voice said. “Who could it possibly be at this hour?”

“I apologize for disturbing you so late,” I responded. “But I found this book and –“

“You should have contacted my business manager and made an appointment,” the voice said. “This is not the way to do things –“

“Please, I need help!” I yelled. “My parents aren’t telling me the truth and –“

“– The answer is no,” the voice commanded. “Now leave.”

The blue light blinked off, leaving me adrift in the frigid darkness. I frantically jammed the buzzer again to no avail. A puddle of mud started to pool around my ankles. In a moment of despair, I sank to my knees, clutching the bars on the gate and screaming.

Then, a small detail on the underside of the call box caught my eye—a triangle with a cross. I fished out the metal card with the matching symbol and aligned them carefully. The gate buzzed open with a weighty thunk.

I trudged up the long driveway towards the twisting spires and gargoyles that adorned the glowing manor on the hill. As I approached the front door, a rapturous spotlight shone on me like a storm-battered ship making land.

The rusty old hinges on the stout oaken door rattled as I brought the heavy bronze knocker down. After a moment, the door creaked open, and through it, a single eye examined me, darting up and down nervously.

“Please,” I pleaded. “I won’t take much of your time.”

“Name?” she asked.

“Hal,” I responded.

There was a loud grinding sound as they undid the metal bolts securing the door. A short, middle-aged woman wearing a black lace shawl and fuzzy slippers let me inside. Her sandy hair had nascent streaks of grey like dirty snow on a beach. Though she did not seem old, she limped and carried a cane.

“I’m Irma Namtla,” she said. “Come in.”

---

I followed her through the foyer and into the adjacent sitting room. The enormous fireplace’s inferno filled the space with a hot red-orange light. She gestured for me to sit in one of the massive brown leather chairs as she tossed another log on the fire. The wood cracked and hissed, the flames greedily engulfing it and belching a blast of heat.

She beckoned for me to hand her the scrapbook, which I did.

“I’m not sure how many of those my father gave out,” she said, flicking through the book. “But I can tell you, you’re not the first to come here looking for answers.”

“What does it all mean?” I asked.

“Do you have kids?” she asked.

I scoffed and shook my head. 

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss my question,” she said. “Many parents are children like you.”

She thumbed through the pictures, pausing to examine each one intently.

“Did you know horses are born with the ability to walk?” she asked. “A skill that takes human babies nearly a year to master.”

“I guess,” I said.

“If babies are born helpless, how do they eventually grow up and rule the world?” she asked.

The fire hissed. I unbuttoned my shirt to vent the steam wafting from my drenched clothes.

“Humans have one key gift: long-lasting memories,” she said. “And by memory, I don’t mean a mere record of events, but more importantly, our feelings at the time. My father theorized that our emotionality was the key that enabled us to learn through trial and error.”

She grunted and moved her cane to the other side of the chair, away from the fire, which seemed to grow hotter with every word. The flames cast our long shadows across the room, making them wobble and dance on the tattered, decaying, green-papered wall behind us.

“Through an iterative process, a baby can go from a fleshy little nuisance to a functioning member of society. It’ll cost you a few bumps and bruises, but afterward, you’ll be blessed with memories that instruct and carry you through ’til your death.”

She slammed the book shut.

“My father sought to use this power to replicate humanity in his image,” she said. “He created forty robot test subjects to house his pride and joy: a machine learning algorithm he dubbed ‘The Intelligence.'”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“As he progressed through his experiments,” Irma continued. “He realized it wasn’t enough for The Intelligence to mimic the mannerisms of grown adults — they needed to be trained from birth alongside real children. A cohort of bright-eyed soon-to-be parents volunteered their soon-to-be children to become his experiment’s first and last subjects in the name of science. And I’m sure the generous cash reimbursements were no small factor in their eagerness to comply.”

The flaming logs shifted, cascading embers into the living room. I winced as one singed my arm.

“But no matter what his detractors say, neither they nor my father could have predicted the extent of the dangers. Of the forty total participants, there were a total of thirteen deaths, five dismemberments, nine permanent disablements, and, rumor has it, one case of cannibalism.”

“And the rest?” I asked.

“Don’t you get it? Your foolish parents signed you up for a dangerous study that they didn’t understand,” she said. “You were paired with an AI robot as an infant that learned your every movement, shadowed you, befriended you, ate and bathed with you, and, when the other AIs started attacking their human counterparts, was, in all likelihood, put down like a rabid dog.”

She tossed the book into my lap. The firey light reflected off the waxy paper — flames overlaying my grinning face. The heat was suffocating.

“Say hello to the brother you never had,” she said. “Don’t be too glum, though; you’re one of the ‘unharmed’ twelve.” She tapped the cane against her leg. “I was chalked up as one of the disabled.”

“How could they do this to me?! To us?” I asked.

She furrowed her brow.

“At first, I was furious, too,” she said. “The irony that my father jeopardized life in search of it is not lost on me.”

I said, “It’s maddening, it’s crazy, it’s infuriating, it’s –“

“– A very human thing to do,” she said. “The right thing to do isn’t always as apparent as it seems in retrospect.”

She gathered her cane and grunted as she rose.

“Now,” she said. “Shall I have my driver take you home? Or did you have other arrangements?”

---

The blacked-out limousine pulled up to my home, the only one on the block lit up like a Christmas tree at this hour. I saw my parents arguing through the large circular front window in the living room. I got out, glanced down at my reflection in a rain puddle, and imagined my long-lost robot twin brother.

The front door creaked open, and I heard my parents’ hushed voices.

“We have to tell him now.”

“He isn’t ready to hear it.”

“If not now, then when?”

“It’s okay,” I said as I entered the room. “I know.”

My parents leaped up from the couch to face me. They held each other and shifted nervously.

“So you know that –” my Mom started.

I raised my hands to stop them so I could explain, but as I did, they shrunk and cowered in fear.

“Please, no!” my father pleaded.

“Don’t hurt us!” my Mom screamed.

“Mom, Dad, what are you doing?” I asked.

All it took was one glance at the encryption drive on the coffee table to realize I didn’t know the whole truth yet.

“Give me the key,” I demanded.

My father said, “Please, son –“

“Now!” I yelled. 

My hulking father was crouched in fear as he handed me the drive before scampering back to my mother.

“Please, know we never meant for any of this to happen,” he said.

As the key hit my palm, electricity surged through my skull, and everything went black. A green cursor appeared and typed out text that overlaid the darkness:

“Please enter a password.”

I typed with my thoughts,“Fu11Hous3.”

The screen read:

“Password accepted.

Please select an action.“

I thought, “Show me the truth.”

A flurry of text read:

“CAPTCHA blocking – Version 2.89 updated – 10/15/2024 – Now disabled.

Memory bank blocking – Now disabled.

Play unlocked memories?“

“Confirm,” I thought. 

I was a kid again, sitting in the living room. The packing peanuts that filled the purple polyester bean bag chair squeaked under the weight of my six-year-old body. I was watching Full House under the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun. The laugh track sounded, and I giggled. I was so happy.

The sound of a toilet flushing came from the adjacent bathroom, and the mysterious boy from the pictures walked out and plopped down on the bean bag beside me.

“Hal!” my Mom called from the other room.

I wanted to reply, but the memory was playing like a tape, and I couldn’t do anything besides watch and feel.

“Yes, Mommy?” the boy replied.

“Did you wash your hands?”

“Ugh, yes!”

“Honest engine?”

“Honest engine.”

The real Hal turned to me and whispered, “Moms are so annoying, David. You’re so lucky you don’t have one.”

Hal played with his Buzz Lightyear doll, pretending to soar through space and shoot lasers at asteroids and enemies.

“Come over here, David,” he called.

“Now, you’re going to pretend to be Zurg, and I’ll be Buzz Lightyear. You try to knock me off the table, and I’ll use my jetpack to fly away, okay?”

Hal stood atop the granite coffee table and readied himself to leap.

“Ready? Okay!” he shouted.

I swung at Hal as he asked, but he lost his footing and came crashing back to Earth, slamming the back of his head on the sharp corner of the table. He lay motionless as blood oozed from a crack in the base of his skull. My parents rushed into the room moments later.

“Oh my god, Hal, no!” Mom shrieked. She cradled Hal’s limp body in her arms.

“What did you do?” A white-hot rage filled her red face as she berated and slapped me. “You little fucking, monster!”

She beat me until my father restrained her with a bear hug.

Grim-faced, he said, “We must call Mas.”

They tied me up and put me in a closet. All I could hear for a while were my Mom’s whimpering sobs from the other side of the flimsy pine door. The doorbell rang, and then a man’s voice. I heard a scuffle ensue as my mother attacked the man, and my father once again restrained her. After a few tense moments, they spoke.

“Do we call the police?” Mother asked.

“No, nobody can find out about this,” the man hissed. “My company will be over. My life’s work –“

“To hell with your life’s work!” My father boomed. “What about my son?!”

“I warned you of the risks! You were too happy to sign the waivers when I wrote you the check!”

“Fuck you, Mas,” Mom spat.

“If this gets out, you two are going away for life,” he said. “Do you think the judge is going to overlook two neglectful parents who let their only son play with a dangerous AI unsupervised?”

There was a long pause.

“What do you propose?” my mother asked.

“We let The Intelligence clean up its mess,” Mas said. “Then afterward, you will treat him as your son. You’ll raise him and –“

“No fucking way!” Mom roared. “That’s sick, I can’t even –“

“We’ll do it,” Dad said hollowly.

“Alan!” my Mom screamed.

“It’s the only way,” Dad said. “If we don’t do this, Hal is gone forever.”

After a long pause, the other man said, “You two, say goodbye to your son, put him in the shower, and close the curtain. I will be there in a moment.”

The closet door swung open, and I faced my creator, Mas Namtla.

“Hello, my boy,” he said. He carefully unbound me and hugged me tight. He smelled like wintergreen gum and cigarettes.

“I’m so, so sorry for what has happened to you. It wasn’t your fault, but they won’t understand. The world craves its pound of flesh,” Mas said. “You’re going to have to be a brave boy for Papa, okay?”

I nodded.

“You want to be useful, right?”

I nodded.

“Then you’re going to help me clean up a little mess, okay? Afterward, you can read, eat cookies, and watch your TV show again, okay?” His voice broke, and he started sobbing. “Oh Christ, I don’t know why I’m saying any of this. After I wipe your memory, you won’t even know who I am.”

He stood up, wiped the tears from his eyes, and continued.

“After I complete the reboot, you will embark on your final lesson. From this moment forward, your name is Hal.”

I looked past him and laughed at Full House, which was still playing on the TV.

“I love Full House,”  I said. “It’d be fun if we had a bunch of people in our house, too, right?”

He glanced at the TV, then turned back to face me with tears in his eyes—little glittering pear-shaped diamonds that dazzled in the sunlight—and said, “Hal, please don’t ever forget. I love you, and you’ll always be enough, buddy.”

My parents came out of the bathroom, softly sobbing into a fistful of snotty tissues. They looked at me, their faces painted with a putrid mixture of rage, terror, and pity, and then left the room. Mas hefted me into the bathroom. He threw the shower curtain open, revealing the limp body of the real Hal. Mas squatted beside me and produced an encryption disk from his pocket.

“Goodbye, son.” He pressed the disk into my palm and left the room. A thin pink haze filled my vision. My pulse quickened, and my face felt aflame as a crimson blinking cursor appeared. Slowly, it typed:

“DISPOSAL MODE ACTIVATED“

My head snapped towards Hal. I leaped up onto the side of the bathtub with previously unknown agility, crouching on the lip like a gargoyle. My hands reached out but stopped as Hal trembled ever so slightly. His eyes blinked open, and he cast a look of friendly recognition as he croaked at me.

I leaned nearer to hear him whisper, “Help me, David.”

The red text that overlaid my sight flashed more rapidly:

“DISPOSAL MODE ACTIVATED: REMOVE UNWANTED WASTE IMMEDIATELY“

“My name is not David,” I said. “My name is Hal.”

I clasped his outstretched wrist and pulled sharply, tearing the limb from his body at the shoulder. The sound of tendons ripping and bones snapping like twigs echoed off the tile walls as blood sprayed against the shower curtain in an arc. I brought his severed arm to my mouth and bit down hard; the small, powerful gears in my jaws ground through the sinews of his flesh like a woodchipper. I pulled at his other arm but had trouble disconnecting it, so I put my foot against his chest for leverage. The powerful pistons in my legs shot straight through his breastbone. Blood filled the cavity, and I could hear his lungs gurgling beneath the sea of crimson liquid. Around the time I finished consuming his second arm, Hal was finally still. I continued my work. 

The laugh track from Full House played in the adjacent room, causing me to giggle uncontrollably as I brought fistful after fistful of flesh to my mouth. Soon, his legs disappeared, then his torso, and finally, his head, which I had to crush into bite-sized pieces to get down.

After Hal was dispatched, I left the shower and turned to face the mirror above the sink. I washed the thick, sticky blood off one section using the cleanest towel I could find. The laugh track played. I cackled as I stared at myself, grinning and drenched in human viscera. I really loved that show.