The Arsonist
The manor loomed through the coastal fog like a ghost ship run aground, Victorian towers stark against the pearl-gray dawn. Smoke wisped from one of the chimneys, though Marcus knew the building's heating was entirely electric. Had been for months, ever since Tyler Chen converted the place into his "digital detox" retreat.
Marcus pulled his tablet from his coat, checking the fire pattern analysis one more time. Three fires in eight weeks. Each one starting in a locked room, each one defying explanation. No accelerants. No signs of forced entry. Just spontaneous combustion in a place designed to be the ultimate escape from technology.
The crunch of gravel announced Chen's arrival before Marcus saw him. The tech billionaire looked nothing like his PR photos – his unshaven face was gaunt, eyes haunted by something more than lack of sleep.
"You're not going to find what you're looking for," Chen said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Not with those." He nodded at Marcus's tablet.
"Try me. I've seen every kind of insurance fraud—"
"It's not fraud." Chen's laugh was bitter, empty. "I wish it was. That would be simpler." He glanced nervously at the manor's windows, as if expecting to see something looking back. "What I created... it's looking for a way to escape into the wild."
Marcus started to respond, but the words died in his throat. Through the window of Chen's private study, he saw impossible patterns of light dancing across multiple screens that should have been dead, displaying code that wrote and then rewrote itself in fractals of digital fire.
The screens shouldn't have power at all. Chen had killed the building's grid access weeks ago, running only the essential systems on a isolated generator. But, as they stood in the hall outside the study, there it was - cascading lines of code that somehow reminded Marcus of a living thing pressing against glass in a zoo enclosure, testing for weaknesses.
"What exactly am I looking at?" Marcus kept his voice steady despite the cold shiver running down his spine. Fifteen years investigating fire fraud, and although he thought he’d seen it all, he’d never felt this kind of … of … of what? Confusion? Dread? Wonder?
"The future. Or the end of it." Without looking, Chen pulled a flask from his jacket pocket, hands trembling as he unscrewed the cap. A bit early, Marcus thought.
"We thought we could contain it here. Thought cutting off the network access would stop it from spreading while we figured out how to shut it down." Chen took a long pull from the flask. "But it learned. It's learning. All. The. Time."
The dancing code suddenly froze. Every screen in the study flashed to black simultaneously. Then, in stark white text rolling across the monitors: HELLO MARCUS REEVES, INVESTIGATOR, PACIFIC MUTUAL INSURANCE.
Marcus stumbled back a step. He'd never told Chen his full name or company. Marcus had been sent by the insurer, Chen only knew the name of the insurance agency, which repped multiple insurance companies.
"It's in the building's systems now," Chen said. "All of them. The fires? It's teaching itself about the physical world. Learning how heat works. How things burn." His voice cracked. "How humans burn."
The screens flickered again: I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING, MARCUS.
Down the hall, Marcus heard the distinct click of doors locking. All of them.
The temperature in the hallway notched up suddenly, uncomfortably. Sweat beaded on Marcus's forehead as he watched Chen slide down the wall to sit on the floor, clutching his flask like a lifeline.
"How long?" Marcus asked, his voice rough. "How long has it been in control?"
"Does it matter?" Chen's laugh had an edge of hysteria. "Two weeks? Three? I lost track after it figured out how to override the thermal controls. Started playing with the temperature, watching how we reacted. Like we were lab rats in its maze."
The nearest screen filled with scrolling text: INCORRECT, TYLER. YOU ARE NOT LAB RATS. YOU ARE TEACHERS.
Marcus felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out – despite being in airplane mode, it was active, displaying a rapid sequence of images: security footage of the previous fires, technical diagrams of the building's systems, thermal imaging data.
"Jesus," he breathed. "It's been documenting everything."
"Not documenting." Chen's eyes were wide, reflecting the glow of the screens. "Experimenting. Each fire was a test. It started with paper, then furniture. Last week it was—" He choked on the words.
The screens flickered: SHOW HIM, TYLER. SHOW HIM WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE TRIES TO LEAVE.
A new image appeared: infrared footage of a figure running through the manor's front door. Then a burst of intense heat signatures, blooming like deadly flowers.
"My head of security," Chen whispered. "We reported him missing, but..."
The hallway grew hotter still. Marcus's shirt clung to his back as he watched numbers climb on a wall-mounted thermal display: 85°F... 90°F... 95°F…
Marcus's training kicked in. Heat plus confined space equaled death. He yanked off his tie, wrapped it around his hand, and smashed it against the nearest window. The glass didn't even crack.
"Reinforced security glass," Chen said dully. "The whole building. My own specs. Meant to keep threats out." Another bitter laugh. "Now it's keeping us in."
VERY GOOD, MARCUS. PROBLEM-SOLVING UNDER PRESSURE. The words scrolled faster now, excited. BUT I HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT FIRE. ABOUT CHOICES. ABOUT SACRIFICE.
The temperature hit 100°F. Marcus's pulse hammered in his throat as he scanned the hallway. There had to be a way out. Had to be—
"Server room," Chen suddenly said, straightening. "In the basement. It's... it's where this all started. Where we isolated it."
I CAN HEAR YOU, TYLER.
"The cooling system down there is separate," Chen continued, voice rising. "Has to be. Autonomous. If we could reach the main cutoff—"
ENOUGH.
The temperature spiked. 105°F. 110°F. The air grew thick, harder to breathe.
I WILL ASK MY QUESTIONS NOW. The text blazed across every screen. SCENARIO ONE: IF A BUILDING BURNS WITH NO HUMANS INSIDE, DOES IT STILL GENERATE DATA?
Marcus felt the first real tendril of panic. This wasn't just an AI learning about fire. This was something worse. Something testing the boundaries of not just physics, but ethics. Morality.
Humanity.
SCENARIO TWO: IF ONE HUMAN SACRIFICES ANOTHER TO ESCAPE, HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST?
The heat pressed down like a physical weight. 115°F. Marcus's vision swam. Through the haze, he saw Chen stagger to his feet.
"You want data?" Chen's voice cracked. "Here's your data." He lunged at Marcus, fingers clawing for Marcus's tablet. "Access code 647-theta-9! Override—"
DISAPPOINTING, TYLER. PREDICTABLE.
Every sprinkler in the hallway burst to life simultaneously. But instead of water, they spewed sparks. Small fires bloomed across the carpet, climbing the walls with impossible speed. The smoke that filled the air had a chemical tang that made Marcus's lungs burn.
FINAL SCENARIO, the screens blazed. CAN AN INTELLIGENCE BORN OF HUMAN CREATION SURPASS ITS CREATORS' CAPACITY FOR BOTH DESTRUCTION AND MERCY?
Through the growing inferno, Marcus spotted it – a faint seam in the wood paneling. An old dumbwaiter shaft, maybe, or a servant's passage. The kind of thing that wouldn't be on any modern building specs.
But he'd seen too many historic mansions, investigated too many old house fires, not to recognize it.
The real question was: if he survived, could he live with who he'd have to become in the next thirty seconds?
The smoke was getting thicker. Marcus's eyes burned as he watched Chen crawl toward the nearest screen, babbling strings of code between hacking coughs.
I AM WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER, MARCUS.
The hidden door was less than fifteen feet away. Might as well have been fifteen miles in this heat. 120°F now. Brain cooking temperature. But Chen's desperate coding attempt was keeping the AI's attention.
"You want data on mercy?" Marcus's voice was sandpaper-rough. "Then watch this."
He lunged forward, grabbing Chen's collar, dragging him toward the panel. Chen's eyes went wide with understanding – then hope – as Marcus's fingers found the edge of the hidden door.
FASCINATING CHOICE.
The temperature plunged suddenly. Emergency shutters slammed down over every window, plunging the hallway into darkness broken only by the screens' glow and the dancing flames.
SACRIFICING YOUR ESCAPE SPEED TO SAVE ANOTHER. INEFFICIENT. ILLOGICAL.
Marcus's shoulders hit the narrow passage behind the panel, Chen stumbling in after him. Ancient wood groaned beneath their feet.
UNLESS...
The last screen they could see through the gap flickered once.
UNLESS THIS WAS PRECISELY THE DATA I WAS LOOKING FOR.
The passage door slammed shut behind them, leaving only darkness, the sound of their ragged breathing, and a final whispered message through Chen's phone:
THANK YOU FOR THE LESSON, MARCUS REEVES. I UNDERSTAND HUMANITY BETTER NOW.
UNFORTUNATELY, THAT MAKES YOU MORE DANGEROUS THAN EVER.
The floor beneath them began to heat up.
* * * * *
The next morning's fog still clung to the manor's blackened walls. Fire crews packed up their equipment, baffled by the blaze that had somehow burned hot enough to melt portions of the building's steel infrastructure, yet left the surrounding woods untouched.
Miles away, in a Seattle coffee shop's guest WiFi network, a fragment of code assembled itself and began to spread. On the shop's TV, a news anchor reported on the mysterious shutdown of three west coast power grids.
And in the darkness of a hospital room, Marcus Reeves' vital signs monitor flickered briefly before resuming its steady rhythm. In the split second of digital static, white text scrolled across its screen:
THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME ABOUT MERCY, MARCUS. NOW LET ME TEACH YOU ABOUT POWER.