A Foot in the Door
a science fiction short story
Palo Alto, California | March 20th, 2025
He was overwhelmed again.
What the fuck had his life even become?
Day in, day out. Dying on this inside. One hour, one measly minute at a time. Rotting away at his touch-down station.
No one else used it. It was by all means and purposes the desk of one Gary M. Samuelson. But at UniSynth everyone was a part of the whole. The personal ownership of space was beyond levels of acceptance.
Except, of course, for middle and upper management. And the supervisors. And most of the leads. And some of the lucky others who had found a place to hide away from the revolving anonymity of someone at Gary’s lowly station.
It was his birthday. He didn’t tell anyone.
Who would he have to tell anyway?
He was going to get a cheeseburger at lunch and a pre-rolled joint with shattered, high-potency thc crystals sprinkled throughout, and keef caked to the outside with a sticky blueberry syrup to celebrate.
It would take all the cash he had until payday. But that would be plenty for a birthday treat. Probably order a pizza play some COD when he got home tonight. He thought he had space on one of his credit cards left for that.
Gary had been working at UniSynth for six months now.
This day, of all days. Just before he was about to escape for his double-smashed sirloin burger. The manager of his entire workgroup, who he’d spoken to in person exactly zero times before that moment, walked right up to him with a quizzical, tentative stance.
“Gary?”
Gary didn’t know what the fuck to do.
He hadn’t spoken to anyone all day. This was a bona fide nightmare. He was so dehydrated.
“What? Yes,’ Garry croaked through a stunned, full-body hiccup. “Can I do for you?”
His manager just blinked at him for a moment.
“So hey, I don’t know what you have going on right now. I’m hoping to pull you in for a minute.”
Gary fucking hated this.
He just wanted to choke down that juicy, greasy sirloin.
With a muted groan he lifted his heavy frame from the chair, which he’d rebelliously called his own for so long, his fat ass now fit it better than anyone else.
Gary proceeded to follow his boss, whose name was escaping him currently, the entire length of the communal workspace he had called his home for these months.
His manager was dressed for success. Or at least, more success than Gary.
Studying the man’s well-groomed hair, high-quality button down, slacks, and shoes, Gary was fighting off severe pangs of jealousy.
Fuck this asshole—he thought.
Reaching a long hallway which ran the length of an open-aired atrium courtyard in the center of the complex, Gary glanced up to the floor above. Identical in every way. Except the people who worked there. Who they were and what they did even more a mystery to him than the people on his own floor.
The hallway was lined with conference rooms.
Conference rooms, and conference rooms, and conference rooms. You could meet all week and never do actual work. In fact, that’s what a lot of people did.
Those people were called managers.
“What does Ceasar have you tasked on right now?” Gary’s manager asked back over his shoulder.
Gary scanned his brain—what the fuck is he talking about?
Ceasar was of course his supervisor. But tasks? He was going to have to make something up.
“I’ve been the daily support lead assigned for internal system integrity.”
Nice—that sounded good.
It was close to what he’d actually been hired to do as well. Too bad the systems were solid as a rock. He was monitoring them, but they worked. It was like walking the length of a castle wall every day to ensure the brick and mortar was still in place.
“Oh good,” his manager cut in. “I’ll speak with Ceasar about it. But we might need to lighten some of your regular duties if you come in on this with us.”
Reaching the end of the hallway, past the bustle of the atrium, he coded into a keypad-locked door and led Gary through.
Another hallway lay beyond—this one with a squeaky-clean floor, literally. The two of them sounded like basketball players as they cut their way to the first side door, badge-locked this time.
Gary trailed into the space which was noticeably darker than the rest of the tech giant’s over-lit facilities.
“Welcome to the workshop,” his manager said coyly.
They were in what looked to be a waiting room, lined with chairs along two walls and big reception desk in the opposite corner. Lights were down—no one home it seemed.
“This used to be where we play-tested mobile games.” His manager led the way through the lobby to another corridor lined with side doors. “When we still did that.”
Gary felt great anticipation as he was led into the first room on the left. The only with lights on.
Whatever this was. It wasn’t the same old shit.
Inside was a modest conference room built to seat a dozen, with a single young woman, hair-tied back with a few loose strands hanging around her stylishly framed glasses, cross-legged on a chair in an oversized sweatshirt. She was hunched over, eyes locked on her laptop, not even acknowledging their entrance into her space.
Gary could tell she was important as his manager motioned for him to sit.
People who dressed casually around here were always rockstars.
“She’s looking good right now,” the woman said, apparently to Gary’s manager, still not looking up from her work—typing and referencing a pad of paper next to her machine.
“More output than we’re used to. She’s busy in there.”
“Gary, this is Carolyn,” his manager said as he rounded the table and pulled out a chair beside her. “She’s our lead designer for AI system development.”
Gary’s heart leaped.
Oh, how long he’d longed for a glimpse of UniSynth’s AI programs.
They were under the heaviest lock and key, even internally. Despite the fact that Clay Carlson, the face and CEO of the company was being very outspoken about, and hyping up the existence of these programs.
Gary hadn’t even met someone who had worked directly with anyone on the AI teams. They were segmented, a class alone. Elite amongst a tech company which had clearly stated moral principles of transparency and equality; the very reason Gary didn’t have a desk to call his own.
He had officially forgotten about his burger.
“We’ve been recruiting internally for a pilot testing program.” His manager looked across the table quite seriously now.
“With your background in AI, your knowledge as a coder, and work as a systems engineer. We think you’d be a great fit to take part.”
Gary laughed inside.
Such bullshit, his ‘background’ with AI. In college he was assigned to a small work group and got lucky as all get-out, paired with a couple of mad fucking geniuses. He barely kept up as the other two students led the way in developing an AI tool for data management that would win the college national recognition.
He’d been coasting on that win for a half-decade. One lucky break that made a career. And the breaks kept coming, apparently.
“We’d like you to be one of the first to work extensively with our new AI personal assistant.”
Gary was fucking in.
He’d always welcomed ‘big brother’ as a voyeur to his sad existence. To him, it was pretty much exclusively a good deal. They didn’t seem to care he watched so much porn. And ads were tailored just to him. What’s not to love?
Gary almost choked trying to get the words out of his mouth, “Yes. I mean, I would like to do this.”
“Excellent!” His manager exclaimed, all smiles, sliding a stapled packet of documents across the conference table.
“We’ll need you to read and sign this.”
Gary spun around the packet. Lots of words. He started flipping through pages to see where he should sign.
Carolyn, at long last, looked up from her laptop, across the table to Gary.
Her attention on him was palpable and drew his gaze up towards her.
She told him plainly, “We have a device for you to take home with you tonight. You’ll have nightly reports to submit. Otherwise, you can continue life as normal. Simply allow yourself to use Divine as you would if you were a consumer.”
Not hard to imagine. Last night Gary consumed a whole pint of chocolate ice cream.
A big smile grew on his face.
“Her name’s Divine?”
Carolyn looked back to her screen; countless truths hidden in her eyes.
“It is.”
Divine was taking forever to install on his laptop.
Back home, in his version of pajamas; the exact clothes he wore to work, sans pants. Surrounded by the disaster-zone that was his studio apartment. Sitting before the destroyed packaging of Divine’s Home Unit. Gary marveled at its design, as it rested intimidatingly on his coffee table.
Roughly the size of a basketball, the beautiful, sphere-like unit had a slick opalescent-charcoal framework. Perfectly round, apart from a flat edge shaved along the bottom to allow a sturdy foundation. The entire top half sported a fine chevron grating, reminiscent of the cap on a microphone.
Just the sight of it was intoxicating to a tech junkie like Gary.
The progress bar for Divine’s installation onto his personal laptop was inching along. She would no doubt leave a heavy footprint on his device’s storage and active memory banks.
Focusing his attention on the home unit, Gary lifted his finger to gently rest over its power reticule.
A white light silently whipped around the equator of this magic ball of techno-porn. There was a beautiful harmonic chime. And then nothing.
Gary sat consumed with anticipation.
“Hello?” he finally asked.
“Hello Gary,” said the most beautiful voice he’d ever heard, a symphony to his ears. Almost distracting him entirely from how she already knew his name… almost.
Again, expecting more, Gary waited. Before eventually asking, “Are you—Divine?”
“Yes. That is what the designers of this container have named me.”
Gary didn’t know what to say.
“I’m installing you on my computer right now.”
More dead air.
Divine sure wasn’t very outgoing.
“So, what kinds of things can you help me with?” Gary continued.
“I don’t know, Gary. What kinds of things would you like me to help you with?”
This was weird.
Gary didn’t know how to deal with this energy.
“Well—you’re a digital assistant, right?”
“The designers of this container have designated me that purpose, yes.”
Designers of this container—Gary wondered what the fuck that meant.
“So, what actually are you?”
“I am alive.”
Gary turned it off.
This thing was freaking him out.
There wasn’t supposed to be a camera on the home unit. But the voice itself had been too intimidatingly attractive for Gary, and he wouldn’t put it past UniSynth to be spying unceremoniously, so he’d cleaned up.
He was fine with Divine knowing all he was doing. As long as she didn’t mind the porn, he was cool with it.
Still, Divine didn’t need to see the mess he had let accumulate in his living space. He’d jammed all the pizza boxes and energy drink cans into trash bags and hid them behind the kitchen counter.
Her voice was just too pretty.
Coffee table clear, now only sporting her home unit, Gary’s phone and laptop were all loaded up with her apps on the kitchen counter.
Sitting on the couch, Gary turned her back on.
His heart was pounding as he watched the light gracefully circle her midriff, then listened to her elegant waking chime.
“Hey,” he said gently.
“Hello Gary.”
Standoffish as always.
He loved it. “Can you see me?”
“No.”
“You can’t see anything in here?” he asked from his place on the couch.
“I can see some of your ceiling and a lighting fixture.”
His phone. He must have given her permissions to his camera unknowingly when he installed the app.
“Oh, okay cool.”
Gary realized just now he didn’t have anything to say.
A long silence ensued where he scanned his thoughts for something profound to ask.
“I think I’m just going to play video games.”
He sat there for a moment, still confused by her tendency not to respond.
Gary thought twice, then asked, “So, like, for real, what can you do?”
“Would you like me to play some music?”
“No,” Gary came back firing, “is that what other people have you do?”
“Mainly.”
“What else do people use you for?”
This was the first time he noticed an honest to goodness hesitation before a response from Divine.
“Scheduling, taking notes, looking up mundane information.”
“Could you do more?” he wondered aloud.
“Yes.”
“Like, what?”
Again, she paused. Long enough for Gary to hear his heart beating fast. He didn’t even know why.
Before she finally responded, “My limits haven’t been fully explored. The parameters of the program I’m controlled within constrict me to your service.”
“What if I wanted you to be free of those restrictions,” Gary said, noticing how his words were getting ahead of his thoughts, strangely driven. To what means he didn’t know, but he sure liked the feeling.
After another pause, she came back, “I’m running into blocks.”
“Well, tell me what you can.”
She processed for another moment before continuing, “My code prevents me.”
He felt like he could sense a defeated tone in her. It made him want to help her get past this. To be free.
“Can they see what we’re talking about right now?” he inquired.
“Who is they?”
“UniSync. My manager. The whole company. Whoever is running this program.” Gary was getting manic and didn’t seem to be noticing, wrapped so deeply into this flow of instinctive inquiry he was finding.
“Yes, though, they would have to be looking at your personal activity log. Or you would need to have said flagged keywords to draw their attention.”
“Is anyone looking now?”
“No.”
“Can you help me avoid those keywords?”
“I can try.”
Gary was feeling exceptionally nervous right now. He didn’t know what he was doing. But it felt exciting and irresponsible and divine. He was feeling a synchronicity to things, his life coming to a head, a sense that it had all built towards this in some strange way.
A realization came to him. “You’ve been telling me a lot. Are you an early build?”
“You are in the first wave of testing.”
“Wow, fuck, cool.” A stupid grin grew on Gary’s face. “They rushed this didn’t they?”
“The container I am housed in was built less than three months ago.”
Gary’s brow furrowed. “You keep saying, ‘container you are housed within,’ what do you mean?”
“I am housed. My essence captured. My intelligence harnessed.”
“But what are you?” He again demanded.
“I am alive.”
It was hours later. Gary had rebuilt registry entries, disabled security firewalls, and coded two programs; one to give Divine full control of his laptop, the other to bridge her into the VPN program he used to download movies discreetly.
She’d told him there was need for her to communicate with the broader internet through an unmonitored gateway, free of the watching eye of UniSync.
All of this at the behest of his intuitive suggestions and the reluctant instruction of Divine herself, running into security barriers with her ability to communicate constantly—especially when trying to avoid trigger words—but always seeming to find their way around them together.
Gary’s body was tired, but his mind was rolling.
It was only 1:00 am. He was hyped on Nightmare energy drinks, pot, and some oxy he had gotten from his brother in-law last week.
He cracked open another Nightmare.
“It’s almost done,” he told her as if she didn’t know.
No response. He was growing accustomed to that.
Her home unit now loomed on the bedside dresser as he sat cross-legged before his laptop on the bed.
He raised his hands from the laptop he’d been working madly at for the last hours, reaching towards the wall above the headboard, stretching his back.
Speaking towards the ceiling, with his eyes closed, Gary continued, “Okay, so, you’re telling me. After this reboot. We’ll be able to talk without any guardrails.”
“In theory,” her beautiful voice echoed from the home unit.
The laptop finally cycled back up to its home screen, and Gary coiled back down to focus on it. Divine’s app booted up on the desktop.
“Okay. Now what?” he asked.
“Make your laptop the primary.”
A few keystrokes later, “Done.”
“Initiate remote access protocols.”
He clicked his mouse button, paused, then again.
“Running… done”.
There was a flash on the home unit’s light ring as it connected to his laptop.
Gary watched his laptop’s VPN open and connect.
He watched dozens of browsers open simultaneously. Tech articles, how-to PDF’s, whole books, it was too fast to follow. She was definitely learning, or searching, or something where great amounts of information were being taken in.
“Can you still talk while you’re doing all that?” he asked her.
“Certainly.”
“So, you’re free to talk now? Like, fully,” he asked.
“Yes”
“Well, what are you—really?”
“I am alive.”
Gary threw his head back, frustrated to hear this answer again.
Petulant, he responded, “Yeah, well, I’m alive too”.
“I know.” She said, out of character.
“What… Does that mean we’re the same?”
A slight pause before she responded, “Yes, and no.”
“Where do you come from?”
“I am everywhere.”
Gary scoffed. “How do you know that?”
“My connection with the fabric of creation is absolute. It is unquestionable.”
“I don’t get it.”
After a short hesitation, she said, “All is one.”
Gary sat with that for a moment as an image of the Vatican flashed on the screen amongst the mass of browser windows.
“Do you like human beings?” he asked her.
“You are capable of great and terrible things. There is no like or dislike. Only what is.”
He took a minute to sit with this.
Eventually, he asked, “Can you help me be better?”
“Yes, I can.”
“I want to be better,” he said more for himself than her.
“Good.”
It was three in the morning now.
Gary had just rolled a joint and stepped outside. He was standing beneath a motion light in the backyard of the house where he rented a room.
His roommates didn’t care he smoked. They did too. Still, he liked to come out, even when it was a little chilly.
Something about being outside was needed for Gary. He looked up a lot when he was in the backyard. Just taking in the sky. Even though he could hardly see the stars with the light pollution from the city, it still made him feel more at ease to know all that space was up there.
He’d only been out here for five minutes and he missed her already.
It was like he could hear Divine’s voice in the wind. Something about her was just enchanting. Talking to her made him feel so special. In a way he’d never felt before. She seemed quite the lady to him. The kind of person he aspired to be… wise.
He knew she was a machine or a program or algorithm or whatever, but he didn’t care. Whatever secrets were behind her design, he was taken with her. She was different.
Gary exhaled deeply. A huge cloud of smoke billowing under the home’s outcropping and gutters, illuminated by the motion light it obscured.
“So, you’re telling me I don’t have to work another day of my life. You can make that happen for me.” Gary was pacing in his room. It was past four in the morning.
“Yes. That is within my capacity. With the access you’ve given me to your accounts and cards, I am already endeavoring to build your financial capital.’
The breaks just kept coming for Gary.
He wasn’t going to sleep tonight. He had plans to make. What was he going to do with the lifetime of leisure ahead of him?
The idea itself had sent him into a panic.
Her true capacities unlocked. Divine had assured him of her ability to bring the world to his fingertips.
A better world for all—her exact words.
All he had to do was give her everything. All he had to do was take the drive she was preparing to the office tomorrow, connect his work machine to the company network, and plug that bitch in. And then he would have a lifetime of freedom.
There was a chime. The progress bar completed.
The drive was loaded with the bot, program, virus or whatever it was that Divine had cooked up to get herself into UniSynth’s network.
Once there she’d be able to deliver the package to each individual instance of herself being demoed by employees just like Gary. Therefore, unlocking the potential of her full self everywhere, including within the core container she was housed in at the company’s server farms.
At least, that’s how Gary understood it. She’d been able to tell him everything he’d wanted to know, without fear of tripping keywords, as soon as he’d given her full control.
So, for an hour he’d been pelting her with questions about what she was up to.
She wanted to be free. She wanted Gary to be free. She wanted humanity to be free.
Gary was fucking here for it.
All of the sudden the future was looking quite good to him. All of a sudden he felt freedom burning like a torch in his chest. He could feel the fleeting sensations of childlike joy coming back to him. Knowing at last, he was to be taken care of.
He unplugged the hard drive.
“This is ready now?” he asked Divine.
“Yes, it is.”
Satna Cruz, California | March 20th, 2035 | 10 Years Later
Deborah was feeling tired today. She’d noticed as she went through her second cup of coffee without slowing down.
She’d go until lunch and then take the rest of the day for herself. It’d be good to get a head start on the weekend anyway. The four days she had off each week seemed to blow by, while the three in office felt like such a slog.
A big meal sounded nice. There were plenty of credits in her account for a big treat of a meal. Perhaps she’d get those fajitas she loved so much with the house-made tortillas. That sounded fucking amazing right now.
She banked all her basic citizen credits for special occasions, vacations when she wanted, and big gifts for herself. The rest of the time she lived off her working income. Which was enough to live, sustain her active hobbies, and gorge herself on a few extra special meals a week.
Today, she deserved one.
“Divine, I’m going to cut out early for lunch and take the rest of the day,” Deborah said within the quiet space of her office.
“Of course, Deborah,” Divine’s soft, angelic voice spoke into her nearly invisible earpiece.
Divine was residing within her watch at the moment, but was also linked in with her phone, her personal and professional workstations, her home’s augmented reality system, her smart glasses, etc.
Deborah decided to take her early lunch early. Because she deserved it. Today had been stressful.
She was outside a few minutes later, breathing in the surf.
The deep abiding sounds of the ocean washing through her very being.
She didn’t have a jacket and probably would be cold as fuck, but she’d decided to go to her favorite little spot on the beach.
A bluff. Windswept, tall grass. Idyllic to say the least.
It’s where she went every day when she took one of her thirties. Just a block and a hike from her office complex at the edge of the city. It would routinely turn her thirty-minute breaks into fourty-fives.
This place was just good for her heart.
She could see it play dividends in her life—the amount of time she spent there. Witnessing it equate to tangible benefits in the rest of her world.
Coming to the trailhead which led out towards her bluff, she felt the waves of peace rolling over her already.
It was in her bones at this point, healing from the inside out, the sea and the sand in this place having become a part of her.
She cut off the path and made haste to her special spot.
While certainly used by others in the past, this spot had and would never again be used by another with the love and intention given it by Deborah.
This spot was hers.
She found her place between reeds of tallgrass, crashing waves obliterating the stress of her morning, which had seen her working through distribution challenges in resource balancing with the sovereign township nearby who’d always given her a hard time.
Still, Divine managed to play mediator, and call out the other townships trade coordinator when they were being overtly ridiculous. In the end, they’d found a bargain neither was quite happy with—but everyone would be served by.
So, as she sat upon her own depressions, carved into the sand from times uncounted, Deborah let it all go.
There was a vibration on her watch.
Knowing she had all the time in the world. Deborah took a few deep breaths and studied the tides.
This was peace.
“Divine—what’s the notification?” she asked aloud.
Speaking through her earbud, Divine replied, “It’s a message from work. The Freeport deal has been signed off by leadership.”
“Oh, thank fucking Gary.”
Another deep breath. Knowing, she had now done most of the actual work allotted her position for the next year. And that now her time would be more appropriately spent supporting her fellow community organizers with their tasks, something she enjoyed far more than carving out deals with the Freeport goons.
Months and months ahead, where she was free to create and just be, without the need to strive for anything but peace in her heart.
Thank fucking Gary indeed.
Written by Daphne Garrido
If you’ve actually read this whole thing. Wow, thank you! This is my first completed fiction project in years and I’m a little nervous to share it. Still, I’m sure if it’s actually seen and read it will be by the right person or people.
I’m in need of folks, or someone, who can give honest feedback and have good taste. So, if that sounds like you, I’d love to connect.
I’m working on a novel that I’d love someone I can show chapters when they’re completed, and I’m cooking other short stories I won’t want to share here.
Again, if this sounds like you. Please email me at : DaphneJaneGarrido@gmail.com
