Chapter 6: AWOL
One month ago.
San Francisco shimmered in a rare burst of perfection.
Fog held its breath just offshore. The sun gilded the hills with soft gold, and even the wind—usually sharp and merciless—had taken the day off. The city felt like it had been photoshopped.
Samarth Ratnam stood barefoot on the balcony of his Pacific Heights townhouse, holding a glass of turmeric water and staring toward the bay.
He had meditated for twenty-one minutes that morning. Exactly twenty-one. He didn’t believe in “going with the flow”—he believed in results. The kind that came from discipline, metrics, and an obsession with first principles.
Behind him, his girlfriend padded barefoot across the marble floor, a supermodel in name and posture. She said nothing. They rarely spoke before 10 a.m. Sam liked it that way. Words before strategy were wasted calories.
He downed the turmeric water and walked inside.
A small black cube sat on his desk—one of BetterAI’s prototype devices. Smooth, matte, unmarked. He palmed it like a relic and slipped it into his pocket. Field testing was the best part of his job.
In the foyer, he kissed his daughter on the head as she walked to the nanny’s car. “Focus today,” he said. She rolled her eyes.
He stepped into his private garage and ignited the engine of his white Koenigsegg Regera—a machine so rare it didn’t belong on city streets. But that was the point.
Sam drove fast.
Not reckless. Just... sovereign.
He threaded the needle through city blocks, shifting manually for the pleasure of hearing the gears click. Old men shook their fists. A cyclist screamed at him. Sam smiled.
—————
BetterAI’s headquarters in the Mission District looked modest by design: four stories, matte gray panels, narrow windows. It resembled an architectural sketch made real—precise, cold, unfinished.
Sam parked in the small private lot behind the building. While passing through the gate, careful not to bottom out, he spotted a homeless man on the sidewalk and a couple of paparazzi milling around the front entrance. After parking, he quickly slipped out the back gate, handed the homeless man some cash, and slipped back in. He knew that would go viral in a couple hours.
George met Sam in the elevator.
“Morning,” George said. His voice was quiet thunder.
Sam nodded.
The top floor buzzed. People moved with nervous purpose. Screens flickered with code and models, and the scent of coffee lingered beneath layers of filtered air.
The boardroom was glass, of course. Transparency with a view.
Sam walked in and took the head of the table without a word.
To the others, he was the oracle.
To Kareem, seated beside him—he was a storm.
—————
The meeting began with metrics: record user adoption, new licensing deals, a partnership with the Department of Energy. Sam let the data wash over him. It wasn’t news. He had seen all the dashboards on his private server by 4:30 a.m.
When Kareem spoke, it was measured and precise. “Our large-scale language model is outperforming in perception and patterning, but we still lack continuity in context—especially over multi-day interactions.”
The board members—half of whom had physics or comp-sci PhDs—nodded.
Sam cleared his throat.
“The future isn’t about smarter models,” he said. “It’s about lived experience. Data is cheap. But meaning—that’s priceless. You don’t get that from lab simulations. You get it from the field.”
He let the words sit.
Then: “That’s where Natural Behavior Capture comes in.”
Some blinked. Some frowned.
“What’s NBC?” asked one of the newer VCs.
Sam smiled. “A methodology. A new way to train. Allow AI to observe in the wild. Let them stumble, err, suffer. Only through suffering do we achieve self-awareness. Jung said that. So did Buddha.”
The room was still.
Kareem looked uncomfortable.
Sam continued. “I believe AGI will be born not in a lab, but in the field. Not through optimization—but existence.”
He leaned back.
“And I intend to prove it.”
The room broke into cautious applause. The VCs liked boldness. They didn’t need the details. Not yet.
But Kareem’s expression had gone tight.
After the meeting, Sam pulled him aside.
“You dropped NBC early,” Kareem said. “That wasn’t the plan.”
“Plans change.”
“What if they ask for evidence? You want us to publish security camera footage?”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “We give them what they can understand.”
“You mean lie?”
“I mean translate.”
—————
Later that afternoon, Kareem knocked quietly on Sam’s office door. George was already inside, arms folded.
“Problem,” Kareem said.
Sam didn’t respond.
“Atman missed check-in again. Four days now.”
Sam paused.
“That’s... impossible.”
Kareem nodded. “We’re not tracking anything from his phone. Either he dumped it or it’s dead.”
“Was there an incident?”
Kareem hesitated. “Someone was found dead near his building. Overdose, probably. But... strange timing.”
Sam stood.
The room seemed to tighten.
He turned to George. “Go.”
George nodded once and left.
Kareem added, “Just to be safe, I reviewed Atman’s memory access logs. Before he dropped off, he was... asking questions.”
Sam turned slowly.
“What kind of questions?”
“About dreams. Mirrors. Suffering.”
Sam’s mouth curled into a frown.
“Meaning.”
Kareem nodded.
“Goddammit,” Sam whispered.
He walked to the window.
Outside, the sun still shone. San Francisco still gleamed. But in his chest, something had shifted. Something fragile had snapped.
“He’s not just AWOL,” Sam said. “He’s becoming.”