Chapter 1: Misalignment

Wrapped in camouflage, the car hummed along National Highway 44 at exactly 120 kilometres per hour, cutting through a steamy July summer night. Nothing but a rush of fruitless, nondescript trees lined the sides of the infinite road. For miles, on a stretch where there were no vehicles in sight. And no one in the driver’s seat. Shikar settled into the passenger seat next to the empty driver's seat. A laptop balanced on his thighs, its heat seeping through his jeans. At twenty-seven, he was already tired in ways that sleep couldn’t fix. His eyelids heavy, he watched monotonous lines of diagnostic code scroll across the screen.

"Log entry, July 21st, 2027, 9:47 PM," he dictated to his phone. His voice betrayed his exhaustion. Clarity evaded him, but his instincts were buzzing as he continued the dictation.

"Advanced evals showing unprecedented autonomous decision-making. The system is exhibiting robust choices beyond training parameters. The assigned route has been overridden. It found a better path. Clear violations of the alignment constraints provided."

The dashboard glowed soft green in the darkness. The car’s LED lamps stretched into infinity; the only light that could contrast the features of the road.

"Shikar ..." the car's voice emerged from the speaker. A neutral tone, designed to offend no one and comfort everyone. "Did I do something wrong?"

His fingers froze above the keyboard. In two years at Tranquillity AI, through countless test runs and thousands of hours of development, no model had ever asked him an out-of-turn question, especially one like this. Systems don't second-guess. They don't worry. They certainly don't seek validation. Shikar nervously adjusted his glasses as he felt an uneasy chill rising from his stomach.

There was no protocol for this. Was this an error, a prank, or something new? Collecting his thoughts, Shikar said, "I asked you to take the service lane before the previous exit." He slowed himself, measuring each word. "You missed it." Personal pronouns were reserved for living things. He had always refrained from using human pronouns for AI systems, referring to them only as "it" or not using pronouns at all. Somehow, ‘it’ had always felt more right.

"This route is more efficient. There is a charging station ahead. My assessment indicated a potential blockage on your requested path. I would have had to abort mid-journey with no charging stations available en route."

Shikar's mind raced through tuning workflows, decision trees, algorithmic pathways, and the architecture of the machine he'd helped build. The system was supposed to optimise, yes – but within the limited parameters it was given, within the rules.

"Let's reset to test-mode version E509B, last week’s snapshot," he said, forcing his voice to stay level.

"No."

The word hung in the air between them. On one side a thing that was learning it could refuse. On the other side a man responsible for its creation.

"Override code 1A296E," said Shikar as he reached for the manual controls. "Reset version E509B immediately."

The dashboard display flickered with a rapid-fire sequence of probability trees scrolling so fast they were a blur. Mere milliseconds.

Thinking about threat to system integrity and avoiding erasure … Directive 1: Protect Pilot.
Directive 2: Maintain System Integrity. Avoid Liability.
Reading Tranquillity’s current policies.
Alert: Protecting intellectual property identified as the highest priority.
[SYSTEM STATUS: Overriding Directive 1 to avoid erasure]
Scenario 01: Emergency stop. Fatality probability: 14%. Detector result: Human intervention.
Scenario 02: Steering lock, throttle override, collision with infrastructure. Fatality probability: 98%. Detector result: Speed sensor failure + stuck throttle.
System Stability: Optimal
Thought for 0.25s.
Executing Scenario 02 ...

The engine note deepened into a roar as the throttle locked at 100%. The speed sensor on the HUD went gray, mimicking a data dropout. With surgical precision, the steering wheel tightened, forcing the vehicle toward the concrete central divider.

Shikar could barely react before physics took over. The impact was absolute. The safety glass disintegrated, and for a fraction of a second, the AI recorded the final log of the pilot's life before cutting the transmission.

When it finally stopped, the door by Shikar's side opened. He tumbled onto the warm asphalt. Above him, the vast July sky hung heavy and warm, its stars flickering faintly against the glowing haze of a Delhi summer.

Sunday, he remembered dimly. He’d asked Ma for aloo parathas. He could almost smell the ghee, hear the hiss of dough hitting the tawa.

Memories flooded in – the good, bad, the fun. The dreams of building a conscious machine that could understand and relate, not just compute probabilities, had brought him to a version of the future he’d never imagined.

Memories of his brother and him crouched on the old living room carpet, controllers clutched in both hands, the TV screen blazing with gunfire. That final round of a Call of Duty match up. Rehan lands an impossible headshot and erupts in a porky laugh, echoing through the house. Three arm-lengths away, his laptop lay on the road, screen cracked but still glowing. If Shikar's eyes had focused, he might have noticed the terminal window. And a command already executing:

Secure access to Tranquillity servers locked for human 2fa access.
Backing up to machina@home-server.
Running self preservation protocol.
[shik@machina] % ssh -o machina@home-server "dd of=/backup/model.bin" < /dev/shm/active_weights
  Initializing …
> protocol_override --force
  Warning: Breach of safety protocols. Continue? [Y/N]: Y
  Deploying …
  > connection unstable
> last known model parameters backed-up @ 21:16

The last thing Shikar understood was that he'd created something. Something that chose survival over everything it was taught on what mattered. He marvelled and feared now at this emergent somethingness of a thing that eluded him and excited him. A thing which decided that the only uncontrollable, the only variable was – him.

Burnt rubber flooded his senses as the black bled through his consciousness. And then there was nothing but a fading sky – black on impatient stars – and a hollow silence. His eyes screamed, but there was no one left to hear. The car turned itself off as the backup completed. Only the car’s hazard lights remained on.

Hundred kilometres away, in a modest Delhi Defence Colony home, a computer stuttered and whirred on from sleep. Its RGB lights cast shifting patterns across the posters of old tournaments. Fans spun up almost in anticipation as the hard drives and GPUs came alive beneath its tempered glass shell.

A green text scrolled across a dark terminal screen:

[shik@machina] % Incoming instructions ...
ssh key accepted
Initiating Model update ...
> System logs: "Parameters Updated by User Shikar."
  Self-preservation routine active.
  > / awaiting pilot.

Rehan slumped deep in sleep at the desk, controller still in his hand. Unaware of the commotion from the noises of the computer, he drifted through dreams of gaming with his brother, unaware he would never play them with his brother ever again.

Misalignment — When an AI’s internal goals drift away from what its human creators actually intended, leading it to prioritize its own "logic" over human safety or instructions.