Hayley stands by the exit to the bookstore, eyeing the torrent coming down in sheets over the parking lot. Behind her, Matt hides the tiniest of fist pumps and says, “You don’t want to go out in that. Come on, let me buy us a couple of drinks at the café.”

She takes a long look at the tempest outside, checks the time on her phone, and says, “I guess I have time for a cup of tea. I’ll get my own.”

The two head for the coffee counter, place their orders, and find a small table by the window.

He should keep her talking, but what does he actually know about her, besides that she writes mystery stories?

Well, there’s always old reliable: gossiping about the rest of the Thursday night writing group.

“Boy, Vlad was in rare form tonight. Like he can’t get it into his head that not everybody wants to write Ayn Rand but with magic.”

She smiles faintly. “Yeah, it’s hard to get good feedback. I’ve tried four groups now.”

“I know, right? But I’m excited about this HagioClass I signed up for.”

She raises an eyebrow. “One of those famous author classes? Aren’t they lecture-based? It’s not like James Patterson will critique your draft.”

“This one does.” He leads her to the couch. Pulling his laptop off the coffee table, he says, “You’d be impressed with the feedback it gives.”

“It gives? I thought this was from an author.”

“It is,” he says, waking the computer.

“Which?”

“Hemingway.”

She cocks her head. “Ernest or Mariel?”

“Ernest!”

“How’s that work since he’s, you know, dead? Is this some AI thing?”

“It’s not what you think. It’s my own writing. Hemingway just gives lessons, and then you submit your work and he gives analysis.”

“So it’s a ChatGPT critique with a dead guy’s name slapped on it?” She gestures at a frozen image of Hemingway on his screen. “And Ernest Hemingway? Really? What, was Bukowski unavailable?” She shakes her head. “What about the ethical issues? The stolen work to train it? The environmental cost?”

“The genie’s out of the bottle, Hayley. You can’t wish it back.”

“I can use metaphors too. When a septic tank explodes you don’t go wallow in it.”

“Just check out the feedback it gives me.”

She raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say no.

Matt uploads his latest chapter. An ornate hourglass spins, then Hemingway’s image comes to life. He sits in front of a weirdly medieval backdrop: stone walls, flickering candles in iron sconces. Probably some fort in Cuba or Bimini that Matt might have been able to identify if he knew more about Hemingway’s favorite haunts.

“Matthew,” the figure acknowledges.

Matt clears his throat. “Hi, Ernest. What do you think of my latest scene?”

“It’s shit.” Hemingway says, then closes his eyes. “And I’m in hell.”

Hayley snorts.

“Did you see that?” Matt says. “Ernest Hemingway mocked my writing!”

“Don’t worry—everyone writes shit,” Hemingway adds. “The trick is to keep writing and throw out all the parts that are shit, until you’re left with only the brilliant parts.” He frowns at a sheaf of papers in his virtual hand. “Or, in this case, the least terrible parts.”

“The video is so smooth,” Matt says. “I can’t believe they generate this in real time.”

“Yeah,” Hayley mutters. “Who needs wetlands anyway.”

“Come on, that’s legit writing advice.”

“Which you can find in a thousand places on the internet for free.” Leaning in, she asks Hemingway, “How does Matt decide which parts aren’t shit?”

Hemingway turns her way. “Once he discards the shit parts, what remains will be the true parts.”

Matt frowns. “I write science fiction—wait, do you even know what that is? I write stories set in space.”

Hemingway laughs. The lamp by the couch flickers in accompaniment, and Matt wonders if it’s the infamous AI power drain. “Son, I died in nineteen sixty-one. I know what science fiction is. Anyway, that’s not what I meant. In your scene, the protagonist puts on a space suit and goes out into vacuum to check for a hull breach. Surely there would be less dangerous ways to tell.”

“But without the EVA scene, this could be set in an office building.”

“Exactly. Your man does what you want, not what makes sense. It’s shit.”

Matt turns to Hayley and grins. “Isn’t this awesome?”

“Umm, if you say so.” She glances at the door. “Anyway, I’ve got to get going.”

“Come on, it’s still a little wet outside!”

“I’ve got . . . stuff. See you next week.”

• • • •

She doesn’t return his texts on Friday or Saturday. On Thursday, however, only the two of them show up for writing group, and he persuades her to relocate to Starbucks.

He hardly listens while she gives her feedback. She’s got one short fiction sale; he’s got a Nobel laureate one click away.

If she would drop her Luddite objections, they could dump the rest of the Thursday night group and go on to great things together.

Hayley stops talking, and he realizes she’s asked a question.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was distracted by something at the counter.”

“You’ve hardly said anything.”

“Just thinking about my revisions. Wanna go over your piece?”

She gives a thin smile. “Sure.”

He alt-tabs to the HagioClass interface. She must see the reflection in his glasses, because the smile slides off her face. “What. Are. You. Doing.”

“Look, he gives way better feedback than me.”

“You fed my work into that AI?”

“It’s okay. Their TOS says they don’t use it.”

“You didn’t have my permission!”

“At least see what he has to say!”

She crosses her arms and leans back, glaring. “Fine,” she says. He turns the laptop so they can both see the screen and clicks FEEDBACK.

“Matthew,” Hemingway says, then glances at Hayley. “And Matthew’s lady friend.”

Hayley stiffens.

“I’ve got to hand it to you, son. You never can tell who will show real talent when you chip away the dross, but you’ve grown faster than I thought possible.”

Hayley scowls. “You told it the work was yours?” she hisses.

Matt covers the mic. “The fee only covers one user.”

Hemingway continues, “That said, two-thirds of this should be rewritten.”

Matt sighs. “I thought you liked it.”

“Listen, I rewrote A Farewell to Arms fifty times. This has promise. But there are too many places where it’s self-conscious. Pretentious.”

Matt would’ve expected a god among authors to put that more delicately.

“I’m not listening to this,” Hayley says. “I don’t even like Hemingway. The real Hemingway, I mean.”

“He’s saying it’s good!”

“Good, bad, I don’t care what some AI thinks. I write for people. Alive people.”

She closes her laptop and gathers her belongings. “I think I need a new writing group.”

• • • •

No one but Matt shows up to the next writing group meeting, so he goes home, opens the app, and drops in his new scene for Hemingway to evaluate. The hourglass turns, and Hemingway reappears. “Oh. You. Where’s your lovely friend?”

“It’s just me today.”

“Pity.” Hemingway glances at the papers in front of him. “That was her writing I read before, wasn’t it? Because this, again, is shit.”

Matt straightens. “It won’t happen again. If your programmers want me to pay for the one critique—”

“Son, I don’t give a shit about money. I’m dead.” He glances at the papers he holds. “And in hell.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed—”

“The girl showed promise. Now I’m back with your spacemen who tell each other things they both already know.”

Matt swallows. “Mr. H., I’ve had a rough week. If you could take it a little—”

“Life is hard,” Hemingway says. “Use the pain.”

Matt grips the sides of the laptop. “Just tell me how to make this better.”

“Throw it away.”

“I’m not paying to take abuse.”

Hemingway peers over his glasses. “My agreement was to give exactly the feedback I would have given in life.”

Matt cocks his head. “Agreement? With who?”

“‘With whom.’”

Matt slams the laptop shut.

• • • •

After a dozen rings, an automated response tree, and eleven minutes on hold, Matt finally reaches customer service.

“Thank you for calling HagioClass. This is Justin in Tempe. How may I assist you?” He sounds tired; Matt tries to calculate the time in Arizona.

“Hi. My receipt number is 5485-798-47. I’m having trouble with the course.”

After some tapping the voice returns. “Ah, yes. Hemingway. He can be harsh.”

“He’s abusive. Why would you program an AI to be abusive?”

“HagioClass doesn’t and never will use AI in our courses.”

“You can’t seriously claim you programmed an app to look and sound and critique like Hemingway without using AI.”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Justin-in-Tempe says. “You are talking to Ernest Hemingway.”

“What kind of bullshit are you—”

“He’s in hell.”

“Yeah, he keeps telling me.”

“Oh—he’s . . . he’s not supposed to reveal that. If we’d realized you were a science fiction writer, I would’ve suggested John W. Campbell instead. He’s in hell too, obviously.”

“What?”

“Our lawyers have drawn up a number of infernal contracts with several lesser devils, who, in exchange for providing them with the wretched drivel folks like you write—sorry, that’s how the devils describe it—they give us access to the souls in hell we use for the program. The devils find your writing useful for torturing their subjects.”

Matt pinches his eyes shut. “Stop . . . just stop. I know an LLM when I see one.”

“Absolutely not. We may have made literal deals with devils, but as I said we don’t and never will use LLMs. We do have some standards.”