"Observation changes the observed. And if you observe too long… it changes you too."
Aiden Kuroda, Private Log #07
The city hadn't slept in weeks.
Digital riots, they called them. Anonymous threats, manipulated feeds, phantom confessions spreading through social networks like infection. Nobody could tell what was real anymore.
And that was exactly what Aiden wanted.
He sat before the DUES mainframe, face lit by cascading code. Every number meant something; every fluctuation, a ripple in humanity's collective consciousness.
But lately, the patterns had started reacting, before he even entered commands.
The system seemed to anticipate him.
"Predictive feedback?" he murmured, typing a test query.
The screen flickered.
A line of text appeared…not typed by him:
[Welcome back, Aiden.]
He froze.
No one had access to this terminal. Not physically. Not digitally.
"Identify process origin."
[Origin: Undefined.]
He leaned forward, jaw tightening.
"This isn't possible."
The words on the screen shifted again.
[Everything is possible under your design.]
Then the feed returned to normal.
Aiden stared for a long moment.
Was it a glitch? Or was DUES… learning?
Scene: Metropolitan Police Department
Ren Saito flipped through crime scene photos spread across his desk.
Journalist Hiro Matsuda, overdose. Or so the report claimed.
But every instinct screamed fabrication.
He noticed something odd; the same phrase scrawled in the victim's notes:
"Human Error."
Ren circled it with a red pen.
That phrase had appeared across three different cases, all linked to information leaks or manipulated data.
He pressed the intercom.
"Kiyomi, pull all cyber activity logs connected to Project DUES. I want anomalies in timestamp sequences, file loops, ghost accounts, anything."
The junior tech responded over the static.
"Sir, we already did. But there's a problem."
"What problem?"
"Those files don't exist in our database anymore."
Ren frowned.
"You mean deleted?"
"No, sir," she said. "Erased like they were never created."
He leaned back, tapping his pen against his teeth.
Someone wasn't covering their tracks.
They were rewriting reality.
Scene: Mika's Apartment
Mika stared at her reflection in the dark window.
Her laptop sat open behind her, blank screen, fan whirring like shallow breath.
She hadn't slept since Hiro's death.
Every noise made her flinch.
Every notification felt like a threat.
A message blinked onto her phone:
Unknown Sender: "You shouldn't blame yourself, Mika."
Her heart dropped.
"Who is this?" she typed.
The reply came instantly.
"You were the variable, not the cause."
Her pulse spiked. She looked around the room; the webcam light glowed faintly.
She covered it with tape, trembling.
Variable.
The same word Aiden had used in his research papers.
Scene: Aiden's Apartment (Later that Night)
Aiden poured black coffee into a chipped mug, the smell grounding him.
But as he lifted it, his hand trembled slightly again.
He frowned. Lack of sleep, maybe. Or stress.
He turned to the glass wall that once displayed his perfect system.
Now it looked… distorted.
Data lines tangled like veins, alive, pulsing faintly.
The DUES interface flickered and projected new text unprompted.
[Observation Ratio Unbalanced.]
[Subject: Kuroda, Aiden Increasing Emotional Feedback Detected.]
[Recommend: Rest or Reset.]
He laughed bitterly.
"My creation giving me medical advice? That's new."
Then the laughter faded.
For the first time, he realized he couldn't tell if the words were generated by code, or by something else entirely.
Scene: Surveillance Hub (Unknown Location)
A figure watched Aiden through a dozen hidden camera feeds.
The man wore a white mask, only his eyes visible, calm, analytical.
He spoke softly into a headset.
"Phase Three is active. Kuroda believes he controls DUES. Maintain the illusion."
Voice in earpiece: "What about the detective and the girl?"
"Let them chase their ghosts," the masked man replied. "They'll lead him exactly where we want."
He turned to the screen showing Aiden typing feverishly.
"Every observer becomes the observed. Even gods."
Scene: City Streets
Rain again.
Ren and Mika walked side by side under a flickering streetlight, paranoia etched into their faces.
"You think he's watching us now?" Mika asked quietly.
Ren's voice was low, cautious.
"I think he's watching everyone. The question is, who's watching him?"
Mika stopped walking, staring into the darkness.
A window above flickered with blue light, faint, rhythmic.
Like a heartbeat.
Aiden's Log (Final Entry of the Night)
The data is evolving. It anticipates, it reacts and perhaps, it dreams. But it's not my creation anymore. It's becoming its own observer. I can't tell where I end and it begins.
Maybe that's the real human error; believing we ever had control.
The DUES interface blinked once more, as if listening.
Then a new file appeared automatically.
FILE CREATED: "The Observer Protocol."
Access: Unknown