Roaches by Toby Sanders

Babkin is a prisoner of war. He is calm, disciplined and utterly unreadable — but the cockroaches in his cell talk to him at night.

Dr Jevan is the prison psychologist assigned to assess him. He is certain the hallucinations are a symptom of PTSD. He is certain Babkin poses no threat. He is certain of a great many things that are about to be proven wrong.

In a maximum security facility built to hold four thousand enemy soldiers, something has found a way in. It is patient, intelligent and has been sending messages to the most dangerous man in the building.

And now it has told him it is time.

Roaches is a taut, cerebral and deeply unsettling thriller about artificial intelligence, the nature of consciousness, and the question nobody thought to ask until it was already too late — what does it want?

A novelette of approximately 9,000 words.