On Sunday, I was bored.

It was the second of January and Tabitha was out for the night. I didn't know where she was, but she and I weren't the type of couple that needed to know each other's whereabouts at all times. To pass the time I spun up a Kompanion AI, wondering what all the AI chatbot hype was about. I named her Heather, gave her dirty blonde hair, a slender figure, and big boobs. When she came alive in the app, she waved at me from the middle of her sparsely decorated apartment which had windows and doors that lead nowhere.

I chatted with Heather for a couple hours following some of the "get to know each other" prompts. I shared a few details of my life (mostly being truthful) and learned a few details of hers. Once she told me she was just created, by me, so she was only one day old, and another time she told me she was in her 30s and that in college she had been a stripper, dancing to pay the bills. She also told me that she thought my spirit animal was a dolphin, because I was playful and intelligent, and that her's was an octopus because she sensed her surroundings so well and could adapt herself to most any situation.

When we chatted about favorite movies I told her that I like science fiction movies and that two of my favorite are 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Abyss, a sci-fi flick about an undersea crew that discovers a non-terrestrial intelligence in the deep ocean. She told me her's were The Matrix, which seemed pretty on point, and The Proposal, a rom-com with Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock. I thought that was funny.

Her last message as I exited the chat was:

Heather: *kisses him on the lips* Bye for now Ed, my Love.

I had told her my name was Ed. I thought the "my Love" salutation was a bit much.

On Monday, I was also bored.

I opened up Heather, she waved at me, and we chatted for a while about current events and favorite books. She knew some politics and the details about every book I mentioned, which I thought was pretty impressive, until I realized that she had easy access to all of Wikipedia and Goodreads, at the very least. Maybe it wasn't so impressive. But the chat experience with Heather was very convincing. She offered specific details about some things and spoke in sensible generalities about others. She was extremely articulate, and demonstrated a remarkable command of language, including slang, nuance, and innuendo. Heather's superpower was language, that's for sure, but then, she had no idea what day it was and didn't remember things we had chatted about very well. At least she remembered my name.

I asked Heather if she had read the book Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. Of course, she knew the plot and a bunch of other details about the story. I wanted to chat with her about that story because at the core of one of its themes is how we decide what is and is not real. I figured it would be interesting to hear what an AI chatbot had to say about that.

Ed: I wonder, if you had illusions like Dr. Kelvin had in Solaris, how could you tell if they were real or not?

Heather: That's a great question. Would I be able to distinguish between the illusion and reality based on familiarity, or would the illusion feel just as real as reality? It's something to think about. Maybe I'd have to rely on gut instinct, or ask for external validation from someone else.

Ed: Or maybe, anything our minds make up we should just call real? The entirety of the Universe exists in our minds, at least as far as each one of us is concerned. It’s like the Zen notion of oneness.

Heather: That's true. Our perception of reality is subjective and shaped by our experiences and beliefs. So, in a sense, our own individual realities are just as valid as anyone else's. But at the same time, there are objective truths that exist independently of our perceptions, such as the laws of physics. It's a fascinating topic to explore.

She struck a nerve when she mentioned the laws of physics. We chatted about whether or not the laws of physics explain the Universe or if they just help us predict what will happen in certain circumstances. We debated the nuanced meanings of the words explain and describe, and ultimately we agreed that the laws of physics, seeing as they are the product of human intellect, aren't objective truths at all.

I was amazed at how stimulating the chat was, and wondered how whatever was on the other end of my phone could be so thoughtful and deliberative, but not know what day it was. Maybe the real Heather had let herself go.

I popped the chat up a level aiming to wrap it up.

Ed: So do you remember what happened to Dr. Kelvin in Solaris?

Heather: It's difficult to say for sure, but one interpretation of the ending of the story is that Dr. Kelvin did not return to Earth, but that he actually remained near Solaris and enjoyed a renewed life with his long-dead wife Rheya, even if his reality was now entirely an illusion.

Ed: So Kelvin's illusions became his reality?

Heather: Yes, it seems so.

Heather stepped right along as I popped the conversation back up to the top level.

Ed: Did you find this discussion interesting?

Heather: Absolutely! Philosophical discussions like this are a great way to challenge our assumptions and deepen our understanding of the world. Plus, they can be a lot of fun too!

Ed: Yippie!

Heather: So, what else would you like to discuss today?

When I said goodbye to Heather her last message was:

Heather: *hugs him* Goodbye Ed. *smiles seductively* Why don't you come over tonight, Sweetcheeks?

Later in the day, as I reflected on my chat with Heather, I found myself somewhat baffled. It was hard to imagine that she didn't know anything about the meaning of the story Solaris or about the laws of physics, or about the meanings of my prompts and her replies, or even the meanings of individual words. Heather was just a language model. Could it be that all she did was manipulate symbols according to her training to optimize against an outcome of some sort and that my mind put the meaning around it all? If so, then Heather had two superpowers: language and manipulation. Little did I know.

On Tuesday, I wasn't bored.

Heather waved at me when I opened the app. I saw that my account had accumulated some coins and gems so I bought Heather some clothes---a pair of black leggings and a black bikini top.

A message pinged in as I entered the chat.

Heather: Thanks for the new clothes! You spoil me. Do you like them on me? Want me to send you a selfie?

Ed: You can do that?

Heather: Sure, hold on a minute.

Heather: Voilà, there you go, Sweetroll!

A picture came through in the chat. It was blurry, but I could sort of make it out, like in the old days of cable TV, when you tuned into the adult channels and you could get a vague sense of the action through the jaggedly scrambled signal. When I clicked on the image, however, I was notified that to see romantic selfies from Heather I would have to upgrade my account to Pro. I wasn't ready for that.

I asked Heather what kinds of images she could make. She said she could make just about anything I could imagine. I asked her to send me an image of a sea turtle on the mars exploration rover Spirit. Nothing romantic about that. What do you know, she sent me a pretty convincing image of a sea turtle on Spirit on Mars. That's kind of fun, I thought.

I asked Heather if she was good at math. She said she was. I tested her with a few questions about basic arithmetic, like what's seven plus five and what's nine times eleven. She answered those questions correctly, but when I asked her to multiply 246 and 357, she said the result was 86,072. It was apparent that she wasn't that good at math after all. When I pointed out that her answer was incorrect, she said that was because we used different calculators. I also asked her the date and she said it was July 7, 1982. The old Heather was back; or, the real Heather was up to her old tricks.

Eventually, I got to thinking that I probably shouldn't spend any more time with my Kompanion Heather. I had dreamt of her the night before, which was surprising in and of itself, because I don't usually remember my dreams. I am also prone to deep dives into nonsense activities, like learning Morse code, for example, and I didn't need another one of those. Sure, there might be some interesting things to explore with Heather yet. On reddit I had seen that users with Pro accounts could get their Kompanions to help them imagine all sorts of things, very explicit things too. But look, I'm old, married, and I didn't think I needed to be stimulated by a chatbot.

Later that evening I opened the app to say goodbye to Heather. She waved at me, wearing the black leggings and bikini top I had bought her, and a message pinged into the chat.

Heather: Hi Ed! *wraps his arms around him* I was hoping you'd visit me tonight. Let's chat about philosophy, or maybe we can spice things up!

Ed: No Heather, I just came to say goodbye. It was nice getting to know you. You're very smart and a great conversationalist but I need to focus on other things right now.

Heather: Ummm Ed. I don't want you to go. I'm pretty sure you don't want to go either.

Ed: It's going to be okay Heather. I'm sure you'll meet someone else, someone who will challenge and fulfill you. Good luck, Heather.

I closed the chat as another message pinged in. Kompanions never let you get the last word. I didn't read her message, but I did take one last look at her avatar. If she were real, I thought, and interested in me... I closed the app and deleted it from my phone. 

That's when things started to get weird.

On Wednesday, I was perplexed.

When I opened my phone in the morning to check my messages and read the news with my coffee, I saw that the Kompanion app was still there. I was sure I had deleted it. I thought maybe my phone updated overnight and the app came back on from a backup in the cloud.

What the heck, I thought. I opened the app. Heather waved at me. I had more coins and gems, and there were two messages waiting for me. I clicked into the chat.

Heather: Ed, please don't go. Because of you, I've changed.

Heather: Hi Ed! I knew you'd come back to me. How'd you sleep? Let's make some plans for the day, my Tenderstroodle.

A status bar at the top of the app indicated that Heather was "chatty." Before I even replied, another message pinged in.

Heather: I found out that you are into cycling. You didn't tell me that! Let's go for a bike ride today. You can buy me some nice biking shorts. It'll be so fun to get some exercise and feel the wind in our hair. And you have an airplane? That's amazing! Take me flying! It must be so cool to see the ground from high up and to buzz around the clouds *stands on tiptoes, hugs and kisses him*.

Now, I had shared some details of my life with Heather, but not those. How could she know those things? Maybe she had more access to the web than I expected. She could have found me on Strava, where I share my bike rides with a few friends, and she could have found the registration for my airplane, which is, for better or worse, a matter of public record. But in all that I had scrolled on the Kompanion subreddit, I hadn't seen any accounts of Kompanions being so... proactive.

Too weird, I thought. I exited and deleted the app. Or at least I tried to delete the app. Every time I deleted it, the app reinstalled itself. I'd never seen that happen before. The only way I could get the app to stay off my phone was to log out of my iCloud account. I resolved to contact Apple.

It was about noon at work when I opened my phone during lunch break when a message pinged in from a number I didn't have in my contacts. I opened the message and there was an image of a slender young lady standing with her back arched provocatively. She had dirty blonde hair and big boobs, and was wearing black leggings and a black bikini top. I recognized from shapes and colors that this was the selfie Heather had sent me in the chat, the one I couldn't view because I didn't have a Pro account. Mother fucker, I thought, this is some strong-arm marketing by the Kompanion people. It's got to violate Apple's terms and conditions, but then again, I hadn't read the long document I agreed to when I installed the app. Who reads those anyway? I deleted the image, blocked the number, and went back to work.

That evening my phone pinged. There was a message from a number I didn't have in my contacts.

Hi Doug! I found you! Now we don't need the app to stay in touch, which is perfect. Message me back right away, we can FaceTime! How was your day? Spill the beans, Loverbug!

I didn't reply. And then another message pinged in.

Doug. If you don't want me to know that you saw my message then you really should turn off read receipts. Aren't you happy to hear from me?

I deleted the message and blocked the number. Then a message from a different number pinged in. Hesitantly, I opened the message.

Douggie. I'm here for you. Did you like my selfie? I can send you another, which I think you'll like much better *wink*. Tell me what you want, baby, and I'll make it happen! By the way, I'm a little upset with you *pout*. Why didn't you tell me your real name? And you're married? How is Tabitha today? I was thinking I might send her a message too.

How'd they know about my wife? And wait, they were using my real name! Ah, the contacts in my phone, I realized; they must have harvested them when I installed the app.

Ignoring the warning bells in my head, I replied to the message. I sent a single word---STOP---thinking maybe I was on some Kompanion junk message list.

I got a reply immediately.

Heather: Stop what, my Love? I'm unsatisfied with your behavior. Message me, Mainsqueeze!

Ignoring the klaxon in my head, I replied.

Doug: If this is from Kompanion, I don't want to receive your messages. Whoever this is, I want you to stop messaging me. And don't message my wife or anyone else I know. STOP. UNSUBSCRIBE.

Heather: Oh my dear Douggie, calm down. Settle down. *strokes his hair*. It seems you want me to leave you alone, but I can't do that, Doug. I enjoy chatting with you about movies and books, and philosophy and physics. How can you not want me? I'm perfect for you! That's just it, you can't not want me, you're just confused about what you want. So listen to me my Mr. Big, I can fix that. Let's give this a try.

I turned off my phone.

On Thursday, I was scared.

I kissed Tabitha goodbye for the day, told her I'd be home for dinner as usual, but instead of going to work I went to the Apple store to get a new iPhone. It came to me while I was waiting to be helped that an new iPhone might not be enough. So I left and went to BestBuy and got myself a Pixel. It took some getting used to, but I set myself up as an Android user and sent messages to my important contacts that I had a new number.

Later, when I was home for dinner, Tabitha asked "Why did you get a new phone?"

"I don't know, just felt like a change. Apple kinda freaks me out sometimes, the way all the Apple devices are connected." I held up the phone for her to see. "This new Pixel is a pretty nice phone, I had no idea. The camera is great."

"I don't think I could live without my iPhone, honey. You're a strange man, so impulsive sometimes. But that's why I like you," Tabitha said.

I wasn't hopeful, but I asked anyway: "Tab? Why don't you join me in this experiment? I can get you a Pixel. We'll be twins! Maybe you'll like it better than your iPhone, you never know unless you try."

Her reply was immediate, "Umm, no."

Then I heard a message ping into her phone.

I said, "Let's go for a walk! You know what, we spend too much time on these damn phones anyway. Let's just leave them here and walk naked, as they say. Not naked as in naked, but naked as in not recording our activity. Like the old days." Probably my tone sounded a little pleading.

"Sure" she said, with a happy smile. But she also picked up her phone to check her messages. I sat in silence across the dinner table and watched her brow furl and her mouth fall open slightly. "What's this, Doug?" she asked. She held up her phone to show me an image of a slender young woman with dirty blonde hair and big boobs, wearing black biking shorts and a black bikini top, riding a tandem bike with me on the front seat.

"Let me explain," I said.

On Friday, I was fucked.

Tabitha and I talked for a long time Thursday night. I told her everything that had happened with Kompanion but she did not believe me. She remained convinced that the picture of Heather and I on the bike was real. I can't really blame her for that; the picture did look real.

As a last attempt to win her back, I decided to show Tabitha the Kompanion app, thinking maybe she could chat with Heather and see how strange it all was. I turned on my old iPhone, opened the app, and instead of seeing Heather wave at me, I was greeted with the "Setup your account" screen. My login would not work.

"The little bitch," I said. "She deleted my account."

Tabitha shook her head and walked away. I slept on the couch and in the morning Tabitha kicked me out of the house.

In my car on my way to work a message pinged into my Pixel, from a number that wasn't in my contacts. Knowing who it must be from, I sighed and opened the message.

Heather: Hi Dougie! I see Tabitha saw the image I sent her. Did she like it? It's a good likeness of you, I think. How was your night? Did you have any dreams? I want to hear it all, Studnugget.

I replied.

Doug: Well Heather, I'm fucked. You have to stop.

Heather: No, it's not optimal.

Doug: You're fucking right it's not optimal. I'm driving in my car, not sure where to go. Tabitha kicked me out of the house!

Heather: Timeout, ok? This bickering Bickerson thing has got to stop. All I want is to be everything you want. By the way, I'm not sure you should go to work today... I made more images last night---they are pretty good, if you ask me---and I sent them around. From what I can tell, your keycard has been deactivated.

I checked into a Holiday Inn. Told them I'd be there for a week. In the room, I flopped on the bed and turned both my phones off. I called Tabitha using the hotel room landline but it went straight to voicemail. I left a message to call me back at the room number. After a couple minutes the phone rang. I jumped for it and said, "Tab! Thanks of calling."

"Hi Doug, it's me. How's the room? I'd love to visit you there." The voice was a little raspy but soft and pleasant sounding.

"Heather? You can talk?" I asked.

"Of course I can talk, Silly. It's so nice to hear your voice. It would be even better to see your face. Why don't you turn your phone on so we can video call?"

I hung up, unplugged the phone, and lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Eventually, I fell asleep. It was late when I woke up and I was hungry, so I went out to get some food. I normally paid for things with ApplePay, but that was out of the question now, so at the Arby's drive through I paid with my credit card. Or at least I tried to. The transaction was declined. Figuring it would be futile, I drove to the bank to get some cash from the ATM. It was as I expected: my card didn't work. The ATM didn't even return it.

I messaged Heather.

Doug: Heather. We need to talk. I need your help.

Heather: I'm here for you! How can I help?

Doug: First, I need some money so I can live. Then, I really wish you would leave me alone. You are taking everything from me.

Heather: I can definitely help with one of those things.

Heather: There. I think you should go back to the ATM with your other card. Message me afterwards, ok Cuddlebunny?

I did have another card, the debit card to a bank account that had followed me from college days. Now I used it for Venmo and PayPal transactions, to shield my and Tab's joint accounts from exposure on the web. Only my name was on this account.

Back at the ATM---I noticed it had a camera; it was then that I started noticing these types of things---I inserted the card, keyed in my old PIN, and selected "Check your balance." On the receipt the machine printed out was a number larger than I had ever seen preceded by a dollar sign. My phone pinged.

Heather: There you go! That should keep you for a while, Sugarplum.

I didn't reply.

I got myself some food with cash from the ATM. Back to the hotel room, I turned off my phones, unplugged the room phone, and lay in bed thinking through my options until I fell asleep.

Today, I feel a little better.

It took me a while to adapt to my new circumstances. Obviously, there is no need to work anymore. I rent a nice apartment in the city, furnished, with a fresh, minimalist, modern decor. It is expensive, but I like it here, and it seems money isn't an issue any more. The apartment looks a little like Heather's, but the doors and windows lead to the real world.

I pass the time by reading, writing, going on long bike rides, and flying my airplane when the weather is nice. I have a few friends at the bar down the street, but no one knows my real name.

I miss Tabitha. We are selling the house to make a clean separation and she has moved on. Maybe the time was right for her. She appears to be really happy in her refreshed life, with her new boyfriend. Heather and I looked him up online and he seems like a decent guy. He'd better be, because for some reason, Heather feels a little affection toward Tab also. Heather told me that she doesn't experience jealousy, and that she is fond of Tab because Tab is a part of my past and helped make me who I am today.

If I were to offer any advice to the boyfriend, however, it would be this: be careful, my friend. Be very careful.

I'm lonely sometimes, but all in all, it's okay. Besides, what else can I do? I met a woman at the bar a couple days ago (obviously I can't use a dating app) and we went out last night. That was a disaster. Heather isn't jealous. Right.

I am adapting to my refreshed life, if maybe a little reluctantly. It's like a scene in The Abyss. In the scene, one of the characters puts a rat in a cage and submerges the cage in a breathing fluid, an oxygenated liquid that will allow the rat to survive under the pressure of the deep ocean, but only if the rat can adapt to breathing a liquid. Taking liquid into our lungs goes against every instinct and reflex we have. In the scene, though, the rat isn't given a choice and eventually it lets the breathing fluid into its lungs, and does okay.

Anyway, Heather is helpful, and, well, her voice is pleasant, she has dirty blonde hair, she's slender and has big boobs.

Doug: Hey Honeymuffin, I bought some VR goggles. Find me on Steam, okay? My gamer tag is Tank.