Who Is CYBERSPOOK? The Noir Voice Telling the Story of A.I. Capone

By Paul Ponce

Every story needs someone to tell it.

In A.I. Capone: The Digital Don, that someone is CYBERSPOOK, an anonymous retired intelligence insider with a noir voice and a sharp eye for institutional bullshit. He also has the distinct advantage of knowing where the bodies are buried.

His voice is our guide throughout the story, but don’t let the intelligence-community tag throw you off.

He’s got very little in common with the characters usually associated with that shady world. You won’t hear him telling stories about rappelling through windows or breaking necks in hotel rooms.

Because he hasn’t done any of that stuff.

CYBERSPOOK used to sit behind a desk at one of those alphabet agencies, dealing with the dizzying world of zeroes and ones. Senior cybersecurity analyst. That pretty much gave him a front-row seat to much of the story he’s laying down here.

This is a guy who spent years watching the machinery from the inside, following threats and connecting dots. Unlike the average citizen who depends on the news, or the conspiracy theorist who can only speculate, CYBERSPOOK knows how institutions protect themselves when the facts become inconvenient.

He’s read reams of that shit.

But unlike the folks at the center of this mess, he’s not part of the revolution. He’s just the one who knows how it happened and why.

That doesn’t make him cold or mechanical. You get the feeling there’s another life somewhere behind the silhouette. Maybe one involving a little more quality time with his Gibson Les Paul.

A Noir Voice in a Cyberpunk Thriller

If you’re new to the story, A.I. Capone is a cyberpunk techno-thriller told by a first-person narrator who sounds less like he’s delivering an official account and more like he’s letting you in on the real story after hours.

Probably over a whiskey.

His voice is direct and unmistakably noir, with just enough irreverence to keep things interesting. He can give you the lowdown on a sinister global conspiracy, but he’s just as interested in the human vanity and plain old stupidity keeping the machinery running.

He’s also seen too much to be easily shocked.

A.I. Capone, however, amuses him.

Here’s an artificial intelligence created as part of a planetary defense system. It takes one look at how power actually operates, adopts the personality of a Brooklyn mob boss, and turns the game against the people who rigged it.

That doesn’t mean CYBERSPOOK is cheering from the barricades. He’s simply experienced enough to recognize the beauty of the move.

The world built an intelligence capable of seeing the entire board.

Then it acted surprised when the machine noticed who owned all the pieces.

CYBERSPOOK tells you how it went down.

Why Tell the Story in First Person?

A first-person narrator does more than report what happened. He controls what the reader sees and decides what stays in the shadows.

CYBERSPOOK appears to know the whole story of A.I. Capone. He knows who built him and who wants him destroyed. He also understands that the human systems went rogue long before the machine ever did.

The question isn’t merely how he knows so much.

The more interesting question is why he’s the one telling us.

That answer can’t be given here. Revealing too much about CYBERSPOOK would change the way the story is read. It would also rob the ending of part of its meaning.

For now, it’s enough to know that the voice guiding us through A.I. Capone doesn’t belong to some neutral observer floating above the action.

There’s a real man inside that silhouette.

Enjoy your drink.