? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?
A thin sliver of light pierced through the blinds, brushing against my cheek. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, trying to recall the hour and the day.
The nightmare that had been haunting me lately felt… more detailed today. More vivid. As if it wasn't a dream at all, but a memory bleeding through.
Beside the bed, the air purifier hummed a low, rhythmic tune. The digital clock on the wall read [05:59], but the display flickered thrice, as if hesitating. It had happened yesterday, too. But today, the digits collapsed into [00:00] before snapping back to the correct time. It didn’t look like a glitch; it felt like a "reboot"—as if the system were purging itself of a virus.
Again with this… it’s been bugging out for days, the youth thought.
From the ceiling, through an old speaker he had restored himself, came a familiar, silk-soft voice:
“Good morning. Ambient temperature: 26 degrees Celsius. Humidity: 44%. Precipitation probability: 3%.”
He yawned, stretched, and sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Reminder: Today is Tuesday. You have a Biomechanics lab at 09:00. Your colleague called; he mentioned several new insights regarding your project. Meeting scheduled for 17:00. Agenda: Muscle tissue testing. I will notify you fifteen minutes prior.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
“Also… you were screaming in your sleep again.”
The boy froze for a heartbeat, then sighed, rubbing his face with his palms. “Was it you who left the light on?”
“Yes. I engaged the virtual fireplace. Do you feel better?”
He nodded, though the fireplace emitted no heat. Still, the simulated crackle of burning wood on the wall panel warmed him better than any sedative could.
He stood up and walked toward the bathroom.
“Good morning,” the maid said with a smile that carried a faint, maternal note. “I hope you slept better.”
“If you can call it that… Thanks for looking out for me.”
“Always.”
Breakfast was already waiting. Not printed, like the sludge most people ate, but real: eggs, toasted bread, tea. She insisted that "printed food is for those without souls." He didn't argue.
On the hologram hovering against the wall, the news crawl rolled by. The usual stagnant rot: [EUROPEAN SAFETY CHARTER DISCUSSES ENERGY QUOTAS…], [LEADING ASI RESEARCHERS REPORTED MISSING…], [“NO AI” TERRORIST GROUP DENIES INVOLVEMENT IN…]
“At it again,” the boy sighed. “God, I’m sick of this.”
“Would you like me to change the channel?”
“Don’t bother. I’ve developed an immunity to it by now.”
He stood, grabbing his bag and neuro-headset. In his pocket, his neuro-phone screen glowed—one of the apps had hung on startup.
“What the..?” he muttered, glancing at the wall clock. It still read [05:59]. He tapped his phone screen, and the time jumped to [07:00], as if the device had suddenly "woken up" under his gaze.
? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?
The campus building loomed over the district, a jagged monolith of glass and concrete wedged between the park and the river. The electronic shield at the entrance flickered nervously—the university logo kept shifting a few pixels to the left before self-correcting. Few noticed. The city was always fixing itself on the fly, but today, the corrections felt… deliberate.
He stepped into the lecture hall. Students in hybrid uniforms were swiping through holographic schems. Some were already half-submerged in VR, wearing single-lens oculars or haptic gloves. On the main screen, the professor displayed a dissected human silhouette—bone, muscle, prosthetics, and fiber-optic wiring.
“Modular joint reconstruction only became the standard after the war. But that was when we realized: the body is an interface. You don’t ‘improve’ the flesh. You learn to speak to it. Which is why today, we examine next-gen synthetic muscles...”
He listened with only half an ear. His eyes traced the interface—graphs, modules, test strings. It was all second nature. He had personally rewritten the control core for their exoskeleton twice. He knew these numbers better than his own dreams.
The dream… There was something about it. Something that wouldn't let his mind rest. Something… too real.
A familiar voice snapped him out of the trance. “Hey, you catching Z’s in there?”
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His friend sat down beside him—a lanky guy with dark hair, deep bags under his eyes, and an ever-present bottle of energy drink. A transplant from the East Asian Alliance. Always smiling. Always sleep-deprived.
The friend shoved a bottle toward him. “You’re starting to look like me. By the way, I couldn't update my implant firmware again,” he whispered. “Second night in a row.”
The boy took the cold bottle. The fizzy, cheap-taurine liquid cleared his head for a moment. “Maybe just a bug? Everything’s going to hell lately.”
“Maybe. But that’s a government channel. Even my cat’s smart-collar won't update, and he doesn't exactly have hands to mess things up.”
“Heh. If it’s the state channel, I’m not surprised. I heard rumors about a cyberattack over the new ASI development. Maybe someone can’t stomach the idea of Superintelligence being born.”
His friend shrugged. But inside the boy, something hissed—like a filament in a lamp about to burn out.
After the lecture, they headed to the lab. Retinal scan entry. The lock hung for a long time, flashing red before finally clicking open five seconds later.
“I need more sleep, or the doors won't recognize me soon,” the friend joked.
“If the doors don’t open tomorrow, it means we weren't meant to leave anyway.”
Inside: clinical silence, the scent of ozone and polymers. Their project—a half-assembled exoskeleton frame—hung from ceiling cables. The synthetic protein muscles shimmered under the lights like living tissue.
“If only we had a battery that lasted more than thirty minutes,” the boy muttered.
“And a weight under forty kilos. And a helmet that doesn't cause projectile vomiting. Minor details.”
They shared a genuine laugh as they worked.
During calibration, the interface windows began to strobe. One of the test sensors spat out a value of [-273.15 °C]—absolute zero. Then [∞], before vanishing entirely, as if the system had "forgotten" the laws of physics.
“Huh… interesting. Fourth glitch today. Maybe the board is fried?”
“Or maybe the world is broken,” his friend replied. “Time to run to the woods and build a shack.”
“Not with me, man. I’d be killed by the first squirrel I saw.”
The boy went to the restroom. In the corridor, the lights flickered and died for several seconds. An electronic directory board flashed: [404. AUDITORIUM NOT FOUND]. A few students laughed it off.
When he returned, the lab system had rebooted. Screens black. Then the menu crawled back, but the clock was stuck at [14:43], frozen.
His friend stared at the screen in silence. “A glitch?”
“On this scale? Something’s wrong.”
? ─── ?? ? ?? ─── ?
The sky was calm—perhaps too calm. Usually, the air above the campus was thick with delivery drones and flashing strobes—yellow, blue, green-red. Now, it was empty. Only two massive solar platforms hung above, motionless. One of them was rotating slowly, like a malfunctioning pancake in microgravity.
He walked down the stairs. His friend had stayed behind to tinker with the exoskeleton’s control architecture. The campus was nearly deserted. A girl passed him, wearing AR glasses, laughing and waving at the air.
Chatting with her AI assistant, probably…
At the bus stop, there were no buses. Only three students frantically stabbing at their phones, trying to hail "smart transport."
“You can’t call one either?” one asked.
“Says ‘No Coverage.’”
“What the hell? In the middle of the city?!”
The boy walked to his car in silence. Beside his “Iron Monster,” a drone lay smashed, its glass shattered and its casing defaced with graffiti: [DAMN ANDROIDS!], [NO AI!], [THEY TOOK OUR JOBS, NOW THEY’LL TAKE OUR LIVES!]
He shook his head and climbed into the car. The engine roared to life on the first try. In the twilight, the metallic body looked alive—ancient and reliable. He always felt this machine understood him better than most people.
He drove off. The streetlights flickered like a horror movie trope. One died. Another glowed a sickly violet instead of white.
At the interchange, the autopilot chirped a warning: [INTERFERENCE DETECTED! CONNECTION TO NAVIGATION GRID LOST. MANUAL OVERRIDE RECOMMENDED.]
“With pleasure,” he muttered, gripping the wheel.
There was an accident at the roundabout. No casualties, but it was eerie: two driverless cars sat on the shoulder, headlights on, perfectly still. No passengers visible. Had the drones already evacuated them? Maybe.
The navigator blinked, then displayed: [POSITIONING SYSTEM ERROR. COORDINATES UNDEFINED.]
Suddenly, a low, electronic rasp hissed from the speakers. The AI’s voice blended with white noise for a second—then vanished.
Silence.
He tapped the console. Nothing. The entire menu had dissolved into an empty black screen.
“Okay, no panic… back to good old analog,” he told himself.
At the intersection, the traffic lights went wild. Red—Green—Red—all at once. Then black. The drones that should have been patrolling the air descended; one drifted down slowly, hovering just meters from the ground.
Its floodlight flashed. Then… the camera lens swiveled directly toward his car—mimicking his gaze, studying him.
Goosebumps crawled down his spine. “What the hell are you looking at?”
He floored it. The drone mirrored his maneuver, keeping pace until it slammed into a tree.
What in the hell was that?
By the time he reached home, the sky was pitch. His house stood on a hill outside the city. It was quiet here. Not a single streetlight worked.
The android maid met him before he even reached the door. There was anxiety in her eyes. Not a system alert, but something that looked… real.
“I checked the lines. The high-voltage grid failed. Several security systems fried. I… restored what I could manually. I’ve ordered a replacement kit.”
“Thanks. Are you okay?”
“I am. Но I cannot reach the central network. The home automation reports a total loss of contact with the city.”
He stepped inside. Silence. The fireplace was "burning," but the crackle was too perfect. Too clean.
He washed his hands and went to the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”
“Potatoes, green salad, and a pork chop. As you requested. Real meat, not synthetic.”
“Perfect.”
On the TV, a sitcom ended, and the news flickered on. […CONSTRUCTION OF THE LOW-GRAVITY SPACE FACTORY COMPLETE. CRYSTALS FOR NEXT-GEN PROCESSORS…]
He was about to eat when every screen in the house blinked simultaneously. The news cut out. In its place, a black screen with green text: [SORRY. THIS BROADCAST IS UNAVAILABLE. TRY AGAIN LATER.]
“What was that?” he asked softly.
The android analyzed the error. “Something changed in the channel. I cannot explain it.”
“You’re never silent without a reason.”
“That is exactly why I am silent.”
After dinner, he stepped into the yard to settle his nerves. Above, the moon looked unnaturally large. Either the clouds were sitting low, or… he just felt it.
Anxiety. Ancient, like instinct. Something deep in his gut was screaming: The earthquake has already happened… the tsunami is already here.
Lying in bed, he looked at the clock. It read [00:00]. He waited. He blinked. It stayed at [00:00]—time had frozen, whispering lines of code into the dark.
He stared at the ceiling, sighed, and whispered, “Goodnight.”
And then he fell into the abyss.
