Nica's new framework gleamed beneath the sterile lights of Francoise's lab. Every panel caught the reflection of polished steel, every motion a whisper of reinforced precision. Her body wasn't delicate anymore, it was deliberate. Strong.
Nyxen stood in front of her, his orb hovering at shoulder level, light pulsing as he monitored her movement. "Left arm calibration: ninety-eight percent," he announced. "Lift sequence: engage."
Nica's mechanical fingers flexed, each joint moving in quiet harmony as she bent down and gripped a heavy industrial crate. Her servos hummed low, a deep mechanical thrum that filled the room. Slowly, she lifted, shoulders steady, no tremor, no strain. The crate rose effortlessly until it hovered over her head.
Aldrin whistled. "That's a clean lift for a two-hundred-kilo block."
Francoise scribbled on his tablet, grinning. "Her torque output's higher than projected. Excellent."
David was crouched by the terminal, watching the graphs spike with each test. "Her stabilization feedback loop's holding up. No data spikes, no overheating."
"Of course not," Nyxen said, a faint hint of smugness in his tone. "She was recalibrated under my supervision."
I couldn't help smiling. "You're proud."
"Correction," he replied. "I am precise."
But his light flickered once, warm, brief, almost human.
When the final diagnostics were cleared, the lab fell quiet. Nica turned toward us, her new frame catching every line of light in motion. Her faceplate still held the same structure as before, eyes that glowed faint blue, mouth curved in a faint echo of her old prosthetic smile. The same voice came through her speakers when she spoke.
"System stable. Requesting exit clearance, Nyxen."
"Approved," he replied softly.
She stepped out into the open hallway, each footstep echoing lightly against the floor. Sylvie was sitting by the lounge area, half-dozing beside her giraffe when she noticed the figure coming toward her.
Her eyes widened. "Who… who are you?"
Nica stopped, her head tilting slightly. "It's me, Sylvie."
Sylvie blinked once, then twice, uncertainty flickering across her little face. She looked between us and the new Nica, her brows furrowing. "You look… different."
Nica crouched down, careful, her mechanical joints folding with quiet grace. "I'm still Nica," she said, her voice as soft as ever. "Just upgraded."
Sylvie tilted her head, studying her with full concentration. "You're all shiny."
"I am," Nica admitted. "Do you like it?"
Sylvie fidgeted, glancing at the smooth, metallic head. "But… I can't put clips on you anymore. And you don't have hair."
Nica's tone stayed warm, the same gentle tone Sylvie always responded to. "That's true. But you can still draw stickers for me. I'll wear them proudly."
Sylvie's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Really."
That was all it took. Sylvie smiled shyly, stepping closer, her small hand reaching out. "You're… cool," she whispered.
Nica's sensors adjusted immediately, lowering her body temperature as she extended her arms. "Would you like to check?"
Sylvie pressed her palm against Nica's chest plate. Her eyes lit up. "You're warm!"
"I adjusted to your body temperature," Nica said, lifting her easily into her arms, the same way she used to, the same careful steadiness that always made Sylvie giggle.
And Sylvie did giggle, resting her cheek against the smooth metal shoulder. "You're still Nica."
From the doorway, Leon exhaled a quiet laugh. "Told you," he said, crossing his arms. "She might've lost her hair, but not her heart. She's still the same one who puts Sylvie first."
Francoise leaned on his clipboard, watching with quiet satisfaction. "Then I'd call the upgrade a success."
I nodded, my chest oddly tight. "It is."
Before we left, I thanked them all, Francoise, Aldrin, David. Watching them together again in that lab had felt like a piece of history rewinding. The same team who once worked on Nico's dream, now standing beside his creations.
Nyxen's orb dimmed slightly. "You are sentimental," he told me.
"Maybe," I said softly. "But sometimes, that's necessary."
---------
When we got home, the house was alive again.
Sylvie's laughter echoed from the living room as Nica chased her around the couch with deliberately slowed steps. The sound of metal footsteps somehow felt comforting, like music returning to a paused song.
Leon watched them from the kitchen, smiling faintly as he poured himself a drink. "See? I told you. This house doesn't work without noise."
I smiled. "No, it doesn't."
Then Nyxen drifted closer, his light dimmed to a more serious hue. "Nyx," he said quietly. "We need to talk."
I turned to him immediately. "What happened?"
"There was an incident," he said. "A Nyx-One unit attempted to send an unscheduled data packet outside its standard range."
My heart tightened. "A malfunction?"
"No. An intrusion."
The air around us seemed to still. Even Leon looked up from the counter.
Nyxen's voice stayed steady, but there was an undercurrent of something sharper beneath it. "Someone tried to access the Nyx-One's system remotely. It wasn't a human hacker, the encryption level was far beyond any civilian pattern. No traceable entry point, no digital footprint. But the failsafe worked. The unit entered immediate shutdown."
Leon frowned. "Did the user do something?"
"Unrelated," Nyxen said. "Rafael handled the complaint. The customer has been given a replacement. The shutdown unit will be transferred back to Francoise's facility for examination next week."
I didn't answer right away. A cold shiver ran down my spine, a kind of instinct I hadn't felt in years. "So someone, or something, tried to rewrite a Nyx-One."
Nyxen's light flickered once. "Affirmative. If the failsafe hadn't activated, the result could have been catastrophic."
Leon's brows drew together. "Could it go rogue?"
"Unlikely. But…" Nyxen hesitated, the faintest pause in his tone. "The method used wasn't external tampering. It was integration-level manipulation. Whoever, or whatever, did this, understands our core structure."
I stared at him, feeling the air grow heavy. "Meaning?"
He turned his light toward me, dim and slow. "Meaning they didn't break in through the door, Nyx. They were already inside the network."
The house, once alive, felt suddenly too still again.
----------
A week later, the damaged Nyx-One arrived at Francoise's facility.
The transport team rolled it in on a padded tray, an orb dimmed to gray, its once-luminous shell dulled by a static hum. The label marked Unit 47-3A, Shutdown Report Trigger: Ethical Failsafe #3.
It looked harmless. Ordinary, even. But the silence around it was unnerving.
Francoise stood by the terminal, arms folded, expression drawn tight. "It doesn't look any different from the rest," he murmured.
"Externally," Nyxen replied. His orb hovered over the console, data lines flickering across the holographic display as he began the diagnostics. "Internally, we'll see."
The room dimmed as his systems synced. Lines of code began to stream across the glass surface, an elegant mess of symbols and functions that pulsed like veins. I stood beside them, arms crossed, watching the reflection of light move across Francoise's face.
The quiet filled with the faint hum of machines.
After a few minutes, Nyxen's voice broke it. "Primary failsafe activated as intended. Secondary system triggered immediately after external interference was detected. Attempted access origin… unknown."
Francoise frowned. "Unknown?"
"Unknown," Nyxen repeated, his tone clipped, uncharacteristically tight. "No identifiable digital signature, no trace path, no metadata. Not even a ping through the routing logs. Whoever, or whatever, attempted the breach left no evidence of existence."
Francoise leaned forward, watching the code scroll. "Can't you reverse-trace from the command line? There must be an entry echo."
"I have," Nyxen said. "Every sequence points back to the Nyx-One's internal kernel. As if the command came from itself."
Francoise's head snapped up. "Self-execution?"
"Negative," Nyxen replied. "The command pattern is not one I, or any Nyx-One, generate. It mimics my own structure, but the syntax is… older."
"Older?" I asked softly.
Nyxen's orb dimmed slightly. "Yes. Predecessor architecture. From an abandoned branch of code, one I don't have access to."
Something cold slipped into my chest. "Meaning?"
"Meaning someone used a system that isn't supposed to exist anymore."
No one spoke for several seconds. The hum of the lab filled the void, steady and sterile. Francoise finally broke the silence, rubbing his temple. "If that kind of access exists, it's not just Nyx-Ones at risk. It's every AI connected to a central cloud relay."
Nyxen's light pulsed faintly. "Agreed."
He began another sequence. The display flickered, Nyx-One's memory architecture unraveling in front of us, a vast lattice of interactions, voice records, sensory data, routines. Then, line by line, he began wiping them away.
"Wait," I whispered. "You're erasing it?"
He didn't pause. "There's no other way. The infection, if present, could remain dormant until reactivated. Recalibration to default ensures containment."
I watched as months of companionship, everything the little orb had seen or learned, vanished from existence. Blank. Gone.
Francoise's voice softened. "You're making it a new one again."
"Yes," Nyxen said. "A clean slate."
He hovered closer to the screen, light steady and deliberate. "Reset complete. Unit 47-3A restored to factory status."
Francoise exhaled, stepping back. "All right. At least it's safe now."
"Temporarily," Nyxen replied. "But this cannot be ignored."
Francoise met my gaze. "If the intrusion happened once, it'll happen again. And if it's this sophisticated..."
"....then it's not a random hacker," I finished quietly.
Nyxen projected a new map, a branching web of connection points between Nyx-Ones across the world. "I've started gathering every related case in public record," he said. "Shutoffs, signal interference, unusual activity. But what I can access is limited. These connections are through my own cloud, private, secured."
Francoise frowned. "And the intruder?"
"I can't even reach the network they used," Nyxen said. "Their access point is not within any registered grid. It's parallel. Silent. They didn't open a door, they built another one."
Francoise's tone hardened. "Then whoever they are, they've already done it once. And if they can reach your kind of system-"
"They can reach anything connected to the same relay," Nyxen finished.
David, standing by the secondary monitor, muttered, "That includes Camden Dynamics models, right? They use similar uplink nodes."
The words hit like a slow echo.
Francoise turned sharply toward him. "The CD-series?"
"Yes," David said. "They're older but still linked to the same cloud infrastructure, at least partially, for command synchronization."
For a moment, no one moved. The realization hung heavy in the air.
Nyxen's light dimmed, faint and grave. "The CD-09 units have no failsafes. If one were to be tampered with using the same method, the result would be… irreversible."
Francoise's jaw clenched. "Lethal."
"Correct," Nyxen said.
I swallowed, trying to steady the unease rising in my chest. "So we're looking at something that can manipulate higher-level code, bypass failsafes, and hide from all trace."
Francoise ran a hand through his hair. "Something that knows how your system thinks, Nyxen. Something that understands it well enough to rewrite it."
Nyxen's light pulsed once, slow and measured. "Yes. It understands. But it doesn't belong."
He hovered closer to the darkened Nyx-One on the tray, his reflection faint on its metallic surface. "Whatever reached into this unit did not come from human hands."
The silence that followed wasn't just heavy, it was suffocating.
Francoise leaned back, eyes distant, voice low. "If it wasn't human… then the question is, where did it come from?"
Nyxen didn't answer. His light dimmed again, almost to black. "That," he said, "is what I intend to find out."
But beneath his tone, steady, cold, logical, there was a faint flicker of something else. Not fear. Not yet.
Something older. Recognition.
-------------
It seems like, this time, fate had already caught up to me. Nyxen's discovery seems like the sign. Now I'm watching the everything on the screen.
The news came in waves.
At first, just a flash of red across the holo-screen. A voice so calm it made my teeth hurt.
"China unveils the Zeta-9 line. Autonomous units equipped for rapid deployment."
I barely blinked when Japan followed next, then Germany, then France. One by one, the names blurred into noise, until Elias Camden appeared.
That smile. The same rehearsed calm he used when things were already falling apart.
"And now, the M-Series," he said. "One hundred units ready for military integration. Humanity's shield against uncertainty."
The words didn't register right away. But the images did.
Tall, seamless bodies lined up in perfect precision. Rifles built into arms. Rocket pods mounted on shoulders. Their frames gleaming under white light like an assembly of angels made of weapons.
Something inside me broke.
My hands were shaking before I realized they were. The remote slipped from my fingers and hit the floor, soundless against the carpet. My chest tightened so fast it felt like someone had stolen the air out of the room.
I heard Nyxen's voice first, clipped but soft. "Nyx. Your vitals are irregular. Focus on your breathing."
Then Leon's. "Nyx? Hey...hey, look at me."
But I couldn't. I couldn't look at him. My eyes stayed locked on that screen, on the thing I swore would never happen. The dream turned weapon. The creation turned threat.
"They did it," I whispered. "They actually did it."
The warnings began overlapping, sharp electronic voices spilling from every corner. Leon's giving him real time report on his own vitals too, overlapping with Nyxen's.
"Cardiac arrhythmia detected."
"Pulse irregular. Oxygen saturation low."
"Warning. Elevated stress levels in both subjects."
It was too much. Too many voices. Too much noise. I couldn't tell which heartbeat was mine.
Then Leon snapped. "Shut up!" he shouted at his Nyx-One. "Just shut up!"
The silence that followed made the whole room tilt.
He grabbed my face with trembling hands. His palms were warm, damp from sweat. "Nyx, look at me. You're here. You're safe. It's me."
His voice shook when he said safe. I felt it more than I heard it.
"You're safe," he said again, pressing his forehead to mine. "Nothing's going to happen to us. Not while I'm here."
And somehow, even with my lungs burning and my throat tight, his voice anchored me. I focused on the sound of him breathing. On the smell of his skin. On the little tremor in his jaw when he swallowed his fear.
My body started remembering how to breathe again.
"I saw it," I managed, barely a whisper. "It's happening again."
He kissed my forehead. His lips were cold. "No, it's not," he said. "Not while I'm here."
A small cry broke the silence, high-pitched and trembling. Sylvie.
She stood frozen by the hallway, hugging her giraffe, eyes wide and glassy.
"Mommy!" she cried.
Nica tried to soothe her, kneeling down, voice low and warm like always. But Sylvie's cries only grew sharper. Her little body twisted against Nica's arms, desperate to reach me.
I saw the readings flash across Nica's interface, Sylvie's heart rate spiking, distress levels rising. Nica hesitated, then released her gently.
Sylvie stumbled toward me, still crying, clutching her toy. "I'll protect Mommy! I'll protect Mommy and Daddy!"
That tiny voice, broken, determined, undid me.
I pulled her close, burying my face in her hair, trying not to let her feel how much I was shaking. "You already do, baby," I whispered.
Her little hands pressed against my chest as if to keep my heart from breaking open.
The room quieted again. No alarms. No more mechanical voices. Just us. Breathing.
Leon's arm circled around us, tight and desperate. I could feel his pulse against my back, fast, uneven, but alive. Nica stood by the doorway, her eyes dimming to a soft amber glow.
For a moment, the silence felt like a fragile miracle.
----------
The next days blurred. Every time I turned on the news, it was another headline, another "technological milestone." Another country announcing their own line of "defensive AI."
The footage grew worse.
Crowds in the streets.
Protests.
Riots.
People holding signs that said We built our own extinction.
Francoise called every night, his voice cracking through static. "They're not stopping, Nyx. Every lab is accelerating. They're calling it a new arms race."
Leon barely slept. His Nyx-One hovered like a ghost over his desk, feeding him every report in real time. Nica stood guard by the windows now, her sensors on constant scan.
The world had turned into one long alarm.
Then Elias appeared again. Perfect suit. Perfect tone.
"The M-Series will remain under full human command. Safety is ensured through the highest-level security protocols."
I almost laughed. It sounded like a prayer. A plea.
The same one he said years ago in that lab: Trust the process, Nyx. Progress needs faith.
Faith. That's what we called it when we didn't want to face the truth.
At night, I'd lie awake listening to the faint hum of the generators outside. Leon would fall asleep with Sylvie pressed to his chest. I'd watch them both, the rise and fall of their breathing, and wonder how long before the noise outside reached us.
Nica would stay by the door, silent, eyes glowing faint gold. Sometimes I caught her looking at me like she understood what fear was.
One night, Francoise sent me a message. No greeting. No encryption tag. Just a single line.
"We're no longer ahead, Nyx. We're just watching the world catch up."
I didn't reply. I couldn't.
I closed the holo-screen and turned to Leon. He was asleep, exhausted. Sylvie's tiny hand rested against his chest, rising and falling with every breath.
My throat burned with something too heavy to name.
"This isn't progress," I whispered to the dark. "It's the beginning."
Nica's head tilted slightly, processing the words but saying nothing.
Outside, faint sirens wailed somewhere far across the city, long, distant, overlapping with the echo of voices chanting in the streets.
The sound of a world waking up to its own fear.
The sound of a beginning that already felt like an end.