A combination of a popular Reddit post and a chain of Instagram stories had informed the student body that there was something afoot, and in a twist straight out of a Greek satire, the music majors were at the forefront of technological innovation. I took the bulk of the credit, my name being on the website, and the truth was out there: Chris Marley had done it again. My Eros profile received a flood of new notifications, which meant I had truly succeeded.
Sunday morning I had gone to get an early solitary breakfast, spent scrolling through social media notifications and worrying some mad soul would stay up all night practicing piano under AI-Rubinowitz's tutelage, and returned to my dorm to see Valdez struggling to pull himself out of bed.
"Get me my thermos," he said to me forcefully, and I passed him his thermos. He took a long, gulping sip.
"OK, now that I've hydrated, care to tell me what you think you're doing with your new website? That's yours, right?"
I nodded, steeling myself for a tongue-lashing.
"We've worked so hard to use Project Narcissus for our own ends, and what do you do? You give everyone free access. Charitable Chris Marley, giving away things that aren't his."
"At least I'm putting something of value into the world. You're giving away something for free, too: useless TikToks."
"Useless? Do you know how much ad revenue we're making from these? Do you know how many sponsorships we've had, or how much merchandise we've sold?"
"How much?"
Valdez paused. "I don't have those numbers, Lucy handles all the money stuff—ironic since I'm the economics major. So how are you going to make money from this? Will you get them hooked and then make it a subscription service? That's what the drug dealers do."
"I wasn't going to do that." Valdez's hostile tone returned:
"Then why are you doing this? You've betrayed our trust. What's next, you're going to do show and tell and let your friends log into your Project Narcissus? Do you think you'll get a little plaque somewhere singing your praises? You don't have the guts for this. I don't know why we ever trusted you to take some books from a stupid old man."
"Look," I said, this time raising my voice, "while you two are prancing about doing your dance moves and getting plastered off cheap vodka, I'm making the world a better place, a more artistic, beautiful place. If everyone thought like you, the world would be miserable."
"Save it for your memoirs," he groaned. He laid down again and pulled his blanket over his head, which I assumed was his way of making a tactical retreat. He had spoken of a higher purpose to their machinations, but from my perspective, it was blindingly obvious that I was the only one there with a higher purpose. Or at least, a higher purpose that mattered: "greed is good" may have served Gordon Gekko well, but it was a pitiable mantra for someone so privileged.
I packed my backpack and left for the music school in my own tactical retreat. Sun Tzu had said many wise things, but it was Obi-Wan Kenobi who had said the wisest thing, the importance of maintaining the high ground. I could not be a chameleon and shift my morality with the wind: if I believed AskMisha.com was making the world a better place, I had to be on the front lines and witness my works firsthand. They needed me more than the world needed Valdez, not because I was their leader, but because we were a like-minded community and we supported each other. There was one practice room left I reserved online; it was unusual for all of them to be booked on a Sunday morning.
From every room I could hear echoes of AI-Rubinowitz's voice and excerpts of the entire piano repertoire, from Bach to Takemitsu—I discreetly peered inside the rooms as I walked past, and never had I seen before so many students staring at their phone screens they had balanced delicately on music stands, splitting their gazes between the keys and their teacher. If this continued, they would have to upgrade the WiFi in the building, or install better soundproofing—if all the AI-Rubinowitzes heard each other, they'd surely realize something was up.
I entered my practice room and logged into AskMisha.com, and after some quick scales as warm-up it was time for my lesson. There was certainly a value in solitary practice, and I knew at some point I would begin to find AI-Rubinowitz's voice grating, but I already had so much time to be alone with my thoughts that some socialization would do me good.
"It is nice to see you again. Let us return to the Liebestraum. Talk to me, what emotions come through you after you have played the second cadenza? What story are you trying to tell?"
"I want to convey an impending sorrow, that I know the piece is coming to an end. The final moments of love."
"That is a beautiful story. So why are you putting such interesting accents on the chords? How does this tell your story?"
"Are you saying it should be more like this?" I asked, playing the first measures with more delicacy on the chords—as might be expected from only a few days of practice from an amateur pianist, I had not mastered all the small details of the piece, much less managed to string them together into a cohesive, consistent whole. It was the same process for writing: anyone could write a solid sentence, given time. But a great book had thousands of sentences, and to make each one of them great—that was something only an artist could do.
"That is better. Now try it again."
Maybe twenty or thirty minutes later, after a small bit of incremental progress and an increasingly worn-out pinkie, I heard knocking on my door, and I waved and let Elise inside.
"Your friend is back!" AI-Rubinowitz announced. "Chris has made excellent progress on the B major section since last time I saw you. He will play it for you."
I played it, not as well as I should have, but well enough that they maintained their polite smiles. I was not a natural performer: performance was a skill that had to be trained separately from the instrument.
"That does sound better!" she said. I leaned over and paused the lesson before she could say anything too indelicate.
"How's your practice going?" I asked her. "It seems like everyone in this place is using my website."
"They are, and why wouldn't we? It's so helpful. This Misha guy is even better than my real professor. I'm going to show him this at class on Monday and he's going to freak out," she said gaily.
"I have dinner with Prof. Rubinowitz tonight, maybe I should show him," I said.
"What, you're going to eat a meal with a robot?"
"No, I mean the real professor, not the AI version. He's a professor emeritus, you didn't realize? Retired a few years ago."
"I call BS."
"I never lie," I laughed, and showed her his info on the school website.
"No wonder he's so good. So wait, he doesn't know that he's the face of this website? You didn't ask?"
"Grace Hopper said it's better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission." Elise pulled a chair over and sat closer to me.
"You'll be fine. Misha is so chill I think he'd be proud of you, and, like, what bigger honor could there be than being selected as the face of this? You're saying he's better than every other human teacher." Debatable, and a debate I was sure I'd have at some point, but something more pressing came to mind:
"Hey, are you free tonight for dinner?" I asked her. Her eyes lit up with joy, and her voice regained its enthusiastic timbre:
"Wait, you aren't kidding, this isn't some prank? Yes, please. To meet him, with you, I could imagine nothing better. What time?"
"5:30 at the fountain?"
"Old people eat so early," Elise giggled. "I hope he didn't hear that."
"The video's paused, he can't hear anything."
"My professor wanted me to attend a master class tonight, but he'll understand if it's for Prof. Rubinowitz. Still educational, you know." Elise exhaled loudly and looked up, like she was searching for the right words. "I need to go practice extra hard right now to compensate for lost time, but hey, I'll see you tonight!" She left, and I unfroze AI-Rubinowitz:
"She is gone already? Pah, young people are so impatient these days. They always want to take shortcuts. Play that passage again for me, remind me how it sounded," he asked, and we resumed our lesson.
Prof. Rubinowitz was especially excited for dinner since I had told him I was bringing a piano major as tribute—uncharacteristically for him, he had made a crack over text about all my "lady friends," and while I generally bristled at all teasing over my female acquaintances, Carmen had set an unusual precedent. Prof. Rubinowitz was traditional and set in his ways, with what concessions he made to the modern era—finding recipes online, his newfound interest in AI music—being ones that fit within his established worldview. In his view, I was a ladies' man, one who had many friends who would sing me romantic songs and cling to my side, and if I had appraised his character correctly he would be unflappable in this.
Elise and I arrived at the fountain at the same time. She had changed her outfit into an amber-and-blue top with a vibrant floral pattern—a more cynical observer could see it on a vase in Prof. Rubinowitz's house—and greeted me with a hug.
"Sorry, do you like hugs? I should have asked," she said.
"No, you're good, of course it's fine. I like hugs."
"So anyway," she asked after we began walking, "tell me about the professor. Do you get dinner with him often?"
"A few times now. You're the second guest I've brought, actually."
"What happened with the first?"
I saw cassia blossoms in my mind's eye. "There were some, uh... interesting events. Things got out of hand."
"What, how?"
"She serenaded me with Je te veux, and was disappointed the night's entertainments ended so soon. It was kinda awkward, actually: she wanted me to go out for drinks, and had this figurative song and dance, but I really don't take alcohol well and, I don't know, there was something fake about how she was trying to seduce me."
Elise broke out into beautiful, radiant, teasing laughter. "You must have a lot of girls trying to seduce you—not to pry or anything. And you're like, 'oh yeah, of course.'"
"It has been happening with increasing frequency. I'm sure you're used to it too."
"I wish. You've mistaken me for someone popular or attractive. So... Satie aside, if someone were to serenade you, do you have a favorite piece? Ideally for solo piano?"
Perhaps I was overestimating my abilities by thinking of myself as a Casanova, but I was starting to get the impression again that this was going to be another of those nights I would think about again and again. I wished it were not still so light out, else the streetlamps would have complemented the scene.
"I'm starting to think you agreed to dinner not just to meet Prof. Rubinowitz," I said.
"So am I your plus one or not? I'm typically so clueless about this sort of thing—my friends tease me for it all the time—but when a guy asks a girl to dinner, sometimes you have to wonder."
I looked her up and down again, and felt no aftershocks of Thursday's trepidation. She reminded me of Cassandra, and I knew I had promised myself to avoid the "Cassandra, but..." comparisons, but I was quite charmed. Albert Einstein said the sign of insanity was repeating the same thing multiple times and expecting different results, but I chose instead to follow in the footsteps of every high school student's literary idol, and say incredulously, "Can't repeat the past? Of course you can!" This night, I had a choice.
"Tonight you are."
"Yay!" she squealed, and gave me another hug. Another victory for Project Narcissus, and one that Valdez would tease me about endlessly when he found out. I decided this would be my secret for as long as I could keep it. Our hands did not touch as we walked, but there was a barrier that had been breached—enchantment suddenly filled the air, no streetlamps needed, and I understood at once the feeling Carmen had tried to induce in me with her talk of lilacs and love.
We walked past Prof. Rubinowitz's front garden, where some bumblebees were hastily completing their day's work, and knocked twice on his door. He opened it quickly and beckoned us inside.
"You must be Chris's new friend! I am telling you, he brings so, so many ladies here, I cannot keep track of them all," he said boastfully. Elise turned to me confusedly, and he clarified: "Ha, ha, it is a joke! You are a piano major, yes? I like you more than the last one already!"
"I am. Elise," she said, and reached to shake his hand. "I've heard so much about you, Professor."
"Misha, please. I spent my whole life with students calling me Professor, and I used to be so hard on them about the formality. They were scared of me. Now, no more. Who is your professor?"
"Kretzschmar."
"I never liked him. Please do not tell him that."
He led the way to his familiarly gray living room and sat in his armchair. "For years I never had any visitors, or any young visitors, only my former colleagues who came to ask me so many questions or talk to me about people who have died. Young blood is much preferable. I am not a vampire, do not worry. I am Russian, not Romanian."
"Chris plays the piano so beautifully, you've taught him well," Elise began.
"He has a natural talent, and I am told he is practicing very diligently, no?"
"I have been," I interjected. "I have another surprise for you, Misha, since I know how much you liked my surprise last time."
"Oho, another piece? Chris brought me this fantastic study on the Revolutionary Etude, made by this artificial intelligence, last time he visited me. I will play it for you after we eat, how about that?"
"Something even better," I said, quickly, to make the most of his joviality. I pulled up AskMisha.com on my phone and showed him.
"What is this?" he asked, and to answer his question, AI-Rubinowitz walked into frame.
"It is me!" Prof. Rubinowitz said, and AI-Rubinowitz appeared similarly startled.
"I made a website for you, or an AI version of you, to give piano lessons to students. Your advice to me has been so inspirational that it felt like the right thing to do. They're able to call you—a virtual version of you—any time they want, and get advice on pieces they're learning, or develop a broader and more nuanced appreciation of music."
"Wait, I am an artificial intelligence?" AI-Rubinowitz cut in. "I am thinking you are the artificial one, and I am the real one!"
"He sounds just like me!" Prof. Rubinowitz laughed. He took my phone and said something to AI-Rubinowitz in Russian. They exchanged rapid-fire remarks, and both burst out in laughter.
"I like this guy already! And he teaches piano?" I paused the program and erased the call history, not wishing to spark a full existential crisis.
"He's been teaching all the piano students," Elise said. "I mean, you've been teaching all of them. I've improved so much in just a day, and so has everyone else, and now to meet you in person, I'm star-struck."
I had come in prepared for a tense conversation echoing my chat with Valdez that morning, but instead he walked over and patted my shoulder.
"You are very good at surprising people. I do not know if my friend trapped inside the cell phone has told you this, Elise, but I am dying soon. I do not know when, but I am dying soon. And when I die, I assumed I could not teach. And all I wanted to do is to teach students to love the piano. Technology is brilliant! I will be teaching students forever." Through this, his voice crescendoed, and I thought he would burst out in joyous tears. "Do my students like me?"
"They love you," she said.
"We must celebrate! I will get the Champagne."
I looked at Elise, who shrugged. She was lucky she was getting Champagne on a first date. I wanted to celebrate, too, less so because of her or Prof. Rubinowitz, or because I had dodged a bullet, but because I had finally used Project Narcissus for good. It had just taken a few tries. After a raucous dinner of beef bourguignon and just enough Champagne for us to keep our wits and balance, we returned to the living room, and Prof. Rubinowitz went to pull out the faux-Chopin I had given him.
"I have made an alteration to the score," he said, and proudly pointed where he had crossed out Project Narcissus and written me in as the composer. Without further comment, he began playing, somehow even more fluidly than before. All the notes he played were the same, but it had evolved from a technical study into a demonstration of his will over the keys.
"And that's all AI?" Elise said. "I call BS."
"What is 'calling BS?'" Prof. Rubinowitz asked.
"She thinks this is another of your jokes," I explained.
"It is no joke! It is very real. I have been thinking a lot about this piece, when I am all alone in my house, and at first it scared me, that someday there would be a robot playing my music and all I would be good for is sitting around and telling stories. Then I went to Trader Joe's, and when looking at a new flavor of microwaveable burrito I realized I am very thankful that I do not have to plow the fields outside my family's dacha to eat my food. If I had to plow the fields, I would never have time to play piano. This is the microwaveable burrito of music: composers will still compose, teachers will still teach, but I am grateful to be not plowing the fields."
"Exactly why I made this website—you said it better than I could."
"We must hold a recital, my farewell recital. All my students will play a short piece. You will play your Liebestraum, and Elise will learn your composition. I will email the chancellor and we will have it next week."
"A week isn't enough time to prepare," Elise said. "We'll sound terrible."
"Two weeks then! Young people need to work harder. Because I am nice, we will have it in two weeks."
He spoke with such certainty we had no choice but to say yes. We spent the rest of the evening playing for each other, and when I explained that if I could connect to his printer we could invent new music, Prof. Rubinowitz said this was a sensational idea "to trick my AI clone"—he had become under the impression his doppelgänger was working overtime like an elf in Santa's workshop to churn out sheet music. This specific entertainment ended once we created a jazz Fur Elise that was so heretical God would smite us if we played it. He shooed us out to go practice and make his recital a reality; I could tell the Champagne was kicking in and making him sleepy.
That left us standing outside his front gate, watching the streetlamps turn themselves on one by one. I imagined a Victorian lamplighter once having to do that by hand.
"That was so, so fun—and not because of the Champagne. You two are some of the funniest people I've ever met, and I still can't believe you aren't a piano major. We live in our own little bubble, and it's like you were sent to rescue me and show me the world."
"The world is however big we choose to make it," I said to her. "Shall we walk back?"
"Let's go practice," she said, and we began walking. Her hand slipped into mine, and once again our voices intermingled with the crickets and the stars.