The human brain reacts faster to fear than to reason.
Aiden knew that , he had measured it, graphed it, and now, he was about to weaponize it.
The City , 06:42 A.M.
News feeds screamed headlines across every screen:
"Mysterious Crime Wave Spreads , Police Deny AI Involvement."
"System Error or Human Error? Citizens Demand Transparency."
People flooded social media with panic, searching for someone to blame.
The chaos wasn't random. Every fear, every rumor, every outrage had been calculated , a part of DUES Phase 4.
Aiden watched from his dim apartment, sipping cold coffee, the glow of twenty holographic screens reflecting off his eyes.
Each displayed real-time data: population mood indexes, trending fear patterns, cognitive resonance graphs.
"You give people freedom," he murmured, "and they'll choose their own cage."
He entered a command:
/inject_protocol DUES_4.0parameter: fear=0.87target_cluster: civic_influencers, district_news, forum_politics
The system hummed, processing millions of micro-adjustments , subtle narrative tweaks, AI-curated comments, emotional triggers disguised as opinions.
And just like that… society tilted.
Mika Tanaka , Abandoned Metro Station
She stood in front of a rusted control panel beneath the city. Her laptop glowed faintly in the darkness as she worked.
She had discovered fragments of DUES' core script. Each part represented a psychological principle , manipulation through emotion, belief, repetition.
But one pattern stood out: FEAR RESPONSE SIMULATION.
"You're not just observing us…" she whispered. "You're training us."
Her phone buzzed , a message from Ren.
REN: You're right. The system's behavior mirrors crisis conditioning models. If this keeps up, people will turn on each other before we even find him.
MIKA: Then we change the pattern. We introduce noise.
REN: Noise?
MIKA: Unpredictability. It's the one variable algorithms can't process perfectly.
She smirked faintly and began coding a counter-signal , something to flood DUES with false emotional data.
But she hesitated before pressing Enter.
"What if it adapts?" she muttered. "What if that's what he wants?"
Ren Saito , Intelligence Division HQ
Ren paced around his office, eyes darting between digital boards filled with public reaction graphs.
Every spike of fear, every trending keyword , all connected through invisible threads.
"It's not chaos," he said quietly. "It's orchestration."
He turned to his subordinate.
"Track media bots. I want every false node tagged with DUES signature metadata. Even if it's buried six layers deep."
His partner frowned.
"Sir… that's half the internet."
Ren's jaw clenched.
"Then start with the half that screams loudest."
He paused, staring at a red line across the screen , a data trail leading straight to Mika Tanaka's encrypted network.
"Damn it, Mika… what are you doing?"
Aiden's Hideout , The Core Room
The DUES interface pulsed red , an anomaly detected.
An unpredictable pattern spreading through emotional data.
Aiden smiled.
"Ah, there it is. Variable interference."
He adjusted his parameters, his voice calm.
"Noise can't destroy structure. It reveals weak points."
Then his tone darkened, colder.
"And if she's injecting randomness… she's ready for the next phase."
He opened a new file labeled: MIKA_TANAKA_002.psych
Within it were simulations , predictive models of her behavior, her fears, her moral limits.
DUES projected her likely emotional responses with chilling accuracy.
"You think you're resisting," he said, watching her profile shift with each keystroke.
"But resistance is just another data point."
He leaned back, exhaling slowly.
"Let's see how brave you are when fear itself starts following you."
Mika's Apartment , Night
Her lights flickered. Her computer restarted by itself.
Then every file on her desktop began to rename automatically, one by one.
fear.exe
fear(1).exe
fear(2).exe
Her reflection in the dark monitor seemed to smile a moment before she did.
"...What the hell?"
The speakers crackled. A distorted version of Aiden's voice whispered:
"You created noise. So I gave you silence."
Then her power went out.
Aiden , Observation Log
Phase 4: The Algorithm of Fear , successful deployment.
Subject 002's stress levels peaked within 120 seconds.
Subject 003 (Detective Saito) – agitation response initiated.
City sentiment ratio: 0.92 fear saturation.
Outcome: mass psychological instability predicted in 48 hours.
He smiled faintly.
"Fear is not chaos," he whispered.
"It's order wearing a mask."
He typed one final command:
prepare_phase("Moral Collapse")
And the DUES Protocol began to evolve , again.