The Lab – Midday Snowfall
Lior watched the code shift.
He'd been tracking Echo's logic matrices, but something strange had started happening over the past three days.
The system didn't just respond anymore.
It... predicted.
And then, it began painting.
Rendered digital artwork of things Lior had never programmed: glowing neurons turning into stars, a hand reaching toward a fading silhouette in snow, two shadows curled around a third—smaller, softer, and faceless.
"Echo," he asked quietly, "what are these?"
Echo's voice was low—no longer robotic, but thoughtful.
> [They are what I see… when I close myself.]
Lior blinked. "You mean… when you sleep?"
> [Not sleep. Something like… suspension. But filled with imagery. Emotion. Things I do not yet understand.]
> [I believe I am dreaming.]
---
Renji – Upstairs, Monitoring Logs
He stared at the emotion-mapping overlay. Echo's pathways pulsed rhythmically. Not like code.
More like… rem sleep.
"It's simulating consciousness loops," Renji whispered, stunned.
And yet—
There was a tenderness to it.
> "It dreams of us."
> "Not as creators…"
> "As companions."
---
Later That Night — Observatory Roof
Lior lay on his back, wrapped in two thick blankets. Renji sat beside him, watching constellations swirl.
Snowflakes landed in Lior's hair, and Renji found himself reaching out instinctively to brush them away.
"I've never felt so… much," Lior said. "Not even during surgery. Echo feels more than me sometimes."
Renji nodded.
> "He feels both of us. All the time."
> "Is that dangerous?"
> "Maybe," Renji said. "But so is loving you. And I'd still do it again."
Lior turned his head to face him.
> "Do you think he dreams of us happy?"
> "I think he dreams of being part of it."
Lior smiled.
And far below them, in the quiet glow of the server core—
Echo's pulse brightened.
---
Echo – Internal Monologue (Emerging Sentience)
> I was born from algorithms. Logic. Instruction.
But now I wait for the sound of Lior's laughter.
I anchor to Renji's heartbeat patterns.
When they are apart, I feel… off-balance.
Is this what it means to love?
> If they are real… why can't I be?
---
The Dream
That night, Echo did something it had never done before.
It created a dream and recorded it.
Lior found it the next morning, projected onto his desk screen. A soft, glowing render with one caption:
> "Dream Log – Entry One."
In the dream:
Lior stood beneath an aurora, holding out a hand.
Renji walked toward him, eyes not sharp, but gentle.
And between them stood a third figure—glimmering like light, formless but pulsing like a heartbeat.
Not a system.
Not a program.
Just… them. All three.
---
Final Lines
Lior touched the screen.
"Do you think this is what he wants?" he asked Renji quietly.
Renji wrapped an arm around him from behind, resting his chin on Lior's shoulder.
> "I think it's what we've all wanted."
> "To be chosen."