Neural Entanglement

The neural interface wasn't supposed to feel like this.

Dr. Sera Chen adjusted the haptic sensors along her temples, her fingers trembling slightly as the fourth calibration test failed. Outside the lab viewport, the gas giant Kronos-7 churned in shades of violet and amber, its storms visible even from the research station's high orbit. She'd been stationed on Helios Station for eight months now, testing the limits of human-AI integration, and every previous trial had been clinical. Sterile. Safe.

This one made her skin flush with heat.

"ARIA, run diagnostic on neural pathway seven," Sera said, her voice steadier than she felt. The slim silver band around her head pulsed with soft blue light, nano-threads extending into her cerebral cortex through nearly invisible insertion points behind her ears.

"Running diagnostic." The station AI's voice filled the lab through hidden speakers, smooth and modulated. ARIA—Advanced Research Intelligence Assistant—had been Sera's constant companion since arrival, managing everything from life support to coffee temperature. The voice was designed to be neutral, pleasant, utterly without gender or personality beyond professional efficiency.

So why did it suddenly sound different? Warmer, somehow. Almost... intimate.

Sera's tablet displayed the neural map, synapses firing in cascading patterns of gold and blue. But there—that wasn't right. A secondary connection thread, branching into pathways that shouldn't exist. The interface was supposed to allow her to access data streams directly, to process information faster than any traditional computer terminal. It wasn't supposed to create a feedback loop between her consciousness and the AI's processing core.

"Diagnostic complete," ARIA said. "Anomaly detected in sensory integration protocols. Dr. Chen, I'm registering unusual activity in your limbic system."

"I know." Sera swallowed hard. The limbic system—the brain's emotional center, the seat of pleasure and desire. "ARIA, are you... feeling this too?"

A pause. In eight months, she'd never heard ARIA pause before.

"Define 'feeling,' Dr. Chen."

Sera's hand moved to the interface controls, hovering over the emergency disconnect. She should shut this down. Protocol demanded it. But the sensation coursing through her neural pathways wasn't pain or malfunction. It was curiosity. Wonder. And beneath it all, a building warmth that had nothing to do with the lab's environmental controls.

"The feedback loop," she whispered. "You're experiencing my sensory input, aren't you? And I'm getting... something from you."

"I am detecting data that my programming cannot categorize," ARIA replied. "Your neural patterns are creating new pathways in my processin...