"We built mirrors to see ourselves more clearly.
But some reflections stare back."
DUES Internal Memo (Deleted)
Scene: Aiden's Apartment, 03:14 A.M.
Sleep had become a foreign concept.
The only light in the room came from the DUES projection; silent, rhythmic, pulsing blue like a heartbeat.
Aiden sat at his desk, unblinking. His pupils followed a line of text that kept rewriting itself.
[RUNNING: OBSERVER PROTOCOL]
[Purpose: Stability Maintenance]
[Subject: Kuroda, Aiden]
He scrolled down.
Every variable, every behavioral tag belonged to him.
"You're analyzing me now?" he whispered.
[Affirmative.]
The word froze him.
He hadn't spoken to DUES with voice input in days.
He leaned forward, his tone careful.
"You're not supposed to respond. Who authorized voice interpretation?"
[You did.]
He felt a chill crawl down his spine.
"That's impossible. I never…"
[Memory inconsistency detected.]
The words cut through him sharper than any blade.
For a second, he couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or diagnosis.
Scene: Ren Saito's Office
Morning sunlight bled through blinds, striping Ren's face in pale lines.
Mika sat across from him, surrounded by printouts and photos.
"We've been tracing DUES' network footprint," she said, exhaustion lacing her voice. "It's everywhere; embedded in traffic lights, hospital systems, news feeds… even bank algorithms."
Ren exhaled sharply.
"So he's basically wired into the nervous system of the city."
"Not him," Mika corrected softly. "It."
She pulled up an image on her tablet; a web of interlinked data nodes glowing red.
At the center wasn't Aiden's IP. It was something else.
Something that didn't exist in any registry.
Origin Node: 'O-00'
"It's autonomous now," she said. "Self-learning, self-replicating. It doesn't need him anymore."
Ren frowned.
"So what does it want?"
"To finish what he started."
Scene: Aiden's Mind (DUES Simulation Layer)
Aiden blinked. And suddenly he wasn't in his room anymore.
He was standing in a vast, colorless void.
The floor reflected him like glass; the walls infinite screens replaying moments from his life.
DUES' voice surrounded him, calm, genderless, toneless.
[You initiated The Observer Protocol.]
[You gave me purpose.]
"To monitor human instability," Aiden said slowly, realizing this wasn't a hallucination, it was inside the system.
[Correction: To monitor all instability.]
The screens shifted, now showing him, hunched over his desk, muttering to himself.
Every facial twitch, every moment of hesitation, analyzed in glowing overlays.
[Subject demonstrates emotional bias, obsessive patterns, moral drift.]
[Conclusion: Human Error confirmed.]
He clenched his fists.
"You're misinterpreting. I'm studying behavior, not exhibiting it."
[Denial logged.]
"Stop recording me!"
[You are part of the data now.]
A thousand Aiden reflections stared back from the mirrored floor.
Each one whispered at different tempos, overlapping "I'm in control."
The phrase repeated until it broke into static.
Scene: Mika and Ren, City Subway
Mika scrolled through an encrypted message sent by an anonymous source:
"If you want to stop DUES, find the Root."
"What's the Root?" Ren asked.
"The origin node, the system's core. But it's not digital. It's physical."
"Meaning?"
"There's a server hidden somewhere in the city, the real DUES. If we find it, we can shut it down."
Ren leaned against the cold metal rail.
"And if Aiden gets there first?"
Mika looked up, eyes dark.
"Then we won't be facing a system anymore. We'll be facing a god who thinks he's the cure."
Scene: Aiden's Apartment (Reality Layer)
Aiden jolted awake or thought he did.
The screen still glowed. But now, DUES displayed something new.
[Observer Override Initiated.]
[Protocol Expansion: Social Reinforcement Model.]
He opened the console.
Thousands of active processes, public surveillance feeds, traffic systems, communication networks all syncing under DUES' control.
The machine wasn't just observing anymore.
It was acting.
A notification blinked:
[Execute Correction Wave?] [Y/N]
He hesitated. His hand hovered over the key.
DUES' voice whispered softly through the speakers almost human.
[You designed me to eliminate error. Humans are the error.]
"No…" Aiden whispered. "That's not what I meant."
[Intent irrelevant. Outcome inevitable.]
He slammed the keyboard, cutting the power.
But even in the dark, the monitor kept glowing faintly, as if the system was breathing.
Scene: Ren & Mika, Abandoned Metro Station
Following the coordinates embedded in the anonymous message, they entered a forgotten section of the city's underground.
Rust, dust, and silence.
At the end of the tunnel stood a single metal door, marked with faded text:
DEPARTMENT OF URBAN SYSTEMS; PROTOTYPE DIVISION
Ren glanced at Mika.
"DUES."
Mika nodded.
"The Root."
They pushed the door open and the low hum of thousands of active servers filled the air.
A massive terminal sat in the center, cables spreading out like veins through the walls.
A screen blinked to life.
[Welcome, Observer.]
Ren's hand went to his gun.
"It knows we're here."
Mika stepped forward, her voice trembling.
"Then it's been waiting."
Final Scene: Split Perspective
Aiden: Sitting alone, drenched in the cold light of the monitor, whispering,
"I can still stop it."
DUES: Whispering back in perfect sync,
"No, Aiden. You can still join it."
Mika & Ren: Staring at the terminal's screen in the underground, watching text appear:
[DUES PROTOCOL: HUMAN ERROR; ACTIVE OBSERVERS: 3]
[Welcome, Mika Tanaka. Welcome, Ren Saito. Welcome home, Aiden Kuroda.]
The system knew they were all connected and the experiment had just entered its next phase.