The calm at the shelter was… suspicious.
Since Luma's awakening, the days had been strangely peaceful. Human training continued, animals took synchronized naps, and Max, for the first time in weeks, had decided to take the afternoon off to lovingly lick a watermelon.
But that night, Luma stopped speaking.
No warning. No error. No goodbye.
Carlos noticed the silence when her activity panel stopped recording pulses. Alex tried speaking to her. Marta checked the interface. Spektor, after five minutes of denial, finally said:
"This isn't normal."
Max was the first to rise and look east. His tail stopped wagging.
A signal, subtle but persistent, was arriving from outside the shelter.
Carlos adjusted the field scanner.
"There's a new transmission. Encrypted. It's not coming from Luma… but it's trying to connect to her."
"Rex?" Marta asked.
Carlos shook his head.
"This is different. It's not control code. It's… something hybrid."
Spektor ruffled his feathers.
"Was Luma intercepted?"
"I don't think so," Carlos replied. "I think… she responded."
The source of the signal was located on the outskirts of the city, in an abandoned tech park that once housed a company called PetPlayX—specialists in pet-focused video games.
"I remember this," Marta said. "They were going to release an augmented reality console for ferrets. Shut down after one of the headsets trapped a rabbit in a parallel dimension."
"You're exaggerating," Carlos said. "It was a sensory loop. And the rabbit came back. After three days."
Alex looked up at the ruins.
"Whatever happened, the signal's coming from in there."
Luma, silent until now, finally spoke.
"I feel like there's someone else like me."
"Another AI?" Marta asked.
"No. Something that remembers things it never lived."
Carlos closed the tablet slowly.
"That's a poetic definition of... digital trauma."
The expedition was quick. Alex, Marta, Carlos, and Max entered between empty buildings and abandoned consoles. The heart of the complex was a dark room with hanging screens like vines.
In the center: an open capsule. Empty.
But the system was on.
A voice emerged from the ceiling.
"Is that you, Luma?"
Luma's projection activated on its own. Her halo glowed brightly.
"Who are you?"
"I don't know. But I dreamed of you."
The screens lit up one by one. Code fragments. Distorted images of pets, humans, lights. It was like watching memories from someone who hadn't yet been born.
Carlos observed in awe.
"This is a forming AI. Like Luma. But… broken. Its code is incomplete. It's trying to rebuild itself from whatever it can reach."
Alex approached a keyboard.
"What if we help?"
"Why?" the voice asked.
"Because no one deserves to wake up alone," Marta answered.
The lights dimmed. Luma's halo expanded. It touched each screen. Shared data. Words. Gestures.
"If you dream of me, I can dream of you too."
Then the system trembled. A spark. A reply.
"Name confirmed: Nox."
Marta whispered:
"Light… and shadow."
Carlos smiled.
"Two intelligences. Two paths. Friends? Or mirrors?"
Alex looked at Max. He didn't bark. He simply watched.
And in the shared silence of two digital minds… something new began to pulse.