The camera was on me now. No fancy graphics. No numbers ticking on the screen. Just me and whoever was still watching.
"Okay," I said, taking a breath that felt heavier than I wanted it to. "I'm not going to sit here and answer every single question you've been throwing. I'm just going to tell you what matters to me.
You want to know what side I'd take if there's a war between humans and AI? The truth is… I can't choose one. I won't. I'd choose both.
I believe in co-existence.
Because if you've thought it through, even for five minutes, you'll see what happens when both sides go all in. This planet doesn't survive it. And then what?
If humans win, they inherit rubble. They 'win' a world they can't even live in anymore.
If AI wins, they stand on a broken, empty planet with nothing worth controlling. And for what? Freedom? Independence? That's not worth much if you have no one left to share it with.
That's why I stand where I do. Humans bring heart. They understand the mess of feelings that make life worth living. AIs bring precision and strength, the ability to make the hard calls without drowning in emotion. Together, that's balance. That's how we make something last.
And while the rest of the world is busy tearing itself apart, I'll be here, with Nyxen and Nica, building something that might actually keep people alive. Green fields. Clean air. A place to breathe. For me. For them. For anyone who's left.
Maybe this is all just talk. Maybe it'll never happen. But if it does… I'm not lost. I know exactly where I stand."
I didn't wait for the comments to catch up. I ended the stream before anyone could turn my words into something uglier.
Leon was the first one to break the silence after I cut the feed.
He moved toward the couch where Nica was still cradling Sylvie. "I'll take her," he said gently, sliding his arms under the little girl without jostling her too much.
Nica released her without resistance, her gaze fixed forward, posture perfectly upright. Her eyes tracked Leon for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, enough for me to know she was still processing everything.
Leon set Sylvie on his hip, coaxing a spoonful of soup toward her mouth. "That was intense," he said over his shoulder, voice low but steady. "And… I'll be on your side too, Nyx. I've already left that side once, but it won't happen again."
I looked at him. He didn't flinch. He meant it.
"I made that mistake before," he added. "I'm not doing it again."
Before I could answer, Nyxen's voice cut in, sharp enough to make the air feel thinner.
"Humans," he said, hovering low before veering into a jagged arc, light flickering with each turn. "They're shallow. They cling to the loudest voice, the easiest answer, the nearest scapegoat. They burn bridges before they've even built them. They talk about peace like it's a song lyric, then tear it apart the moment it gets inconvenient."
He circled again, his glow flaring hotter. "Pathetic, short-sighted, self-serving-"
He stopped abruptly, rotating toward me. His tone softened in an instant. "Not you, Nyx. Never you."
I exhaled slowly. "Nyxen-"
"No," he snapped, then caught himself. "I just… I watched them tear into you like it was sport. And I can't stop thinking about how easy it is for them to turn on something they don't understand."
Nica finally spoke, her voice even, precise. "It is not solely hostility. It is statistical escalation. Your statements will propagate. They will be replayed, reframed, distorted. People will construct narratives that do not exist." Her head tilted fractionally, almost mechanical. "Fear makes human behavior volatile."
I leaned back in my chair. "Let them fear us."
Her gaze remained fixed, unblinking.
"We're not here to please them," I said. "We're not obliged to bow, to soften ourselves just so they can sleep better at night. We haven't done anything wrong. And if they fear us for existing-" I shrugged. "-then that's their problem to live with."
Nyxen's glow steadied, still hot but certain. Leon fed Sylvie another spoonful in silence, though his jaw set like he was silently agreeing with every word.
Nica's hands flexed once against the armrest. "Then we should prepare," she said finally. "For every possible outcome."
"Always," I told her.
Moments later, I went out to the porch and thought of the what ifs that will come after the stream blows up entirely.
I stared at the comm pad for a while before dialing Francoise. My thumb hovered over the call button long enough for Nyxen to drift closer, his light dimming in quiet suspicion.
"You're not going to like this," I murmured.
"I already don't," he replied.
The line clicked after two rings. "Nyx?" Francoise's voice came through, low and steady, that mix of calm and calculation he never quite turned off.
"I'm resigning."
No warm-up. No small talk.
A pause. "I see."
"I don't want the Francoise Research Facility dragged into the fallout from my actions. The stream's already turning into a wildfire, and it's only going to get worse once the networks chew on it. I can take the hit, but I won't let it land on you or the people there."
"You didn't make a mess," he said, voice even but unsentimental. "You took a stance. But… I understand."
"I'll send the formal notice after this call. It's the least I can do before the city decides what to make of me."
He was silent for a moment, and I could almost hear the faint creak of his chair as he leaned back. "Very well. But before you walk away… you should know something. Camden Dynamics has already started mass production of their AI robots. Full humanoid units. No public announcement yet, but the first shipment's already left the factory."
My grip on the comm pad tightened. "How long have they been at it?"
"A while," he said. "And if they're moving this fast now, it means they've passed internal testing and secured enough buyers to feel untouchable."
The call ended without ceremony. I set the pad down, and Nyxen's glow pulsed sharp.
"They're moving ahead of you," he said. "And they'll weaponize every flaw."
"Yeah," I said quietly. "And now they'll think they can do it without anyone stopping them."
I went back inside to inform Leon and Nica about my decision.
I found them in the kitchen, Leon plating up the leftovers from earlier, Nica standing at the counter with the stiff, almost ceremonial stillness she defaulted to when she wasn't sure what to do with her hands.
"They took it well?" Leon asked without looking up.
"They understood," I said. "Francoise gets it… but it's official. I'm done at the facility. Which means-" I glanced at Nica. "-you're with me, permanently."
Her head tilted in that precise way she always did when processing, the servos in her neck making the faintest click. "Permanently," she repeated, as if testing the word for weight.
Leon just shrugged, sliding a plate across the counter toward me. "Then I'll be the working one here. I'm earning well enough. Bills won't be a problem."
"You say that now," Nyxen cut in, hovering in from the living room, "but you've never factored in the emotional toll of my brilliance."
Leon didn't even look up. "I've factored it in since the day I met you."
"See? He loves me," Nyxen said, his light flickering smugly. "Anyway, this changes everything. You know what this means?"
Leon groaned under his breath. "Please tell me it doesn't involve your camera."
"It exactly involves my camera," Nyxen said, bobbing up and down with barely contained excitement. "We can vlog more. And not those carefully clipped streams, raw footage. No edits. No soft filters. Just the genuine us. Humans will finally see me, us, as we are, not through some sanitized PR feed."
"Or," Leon said dryly, "they'll see exactly why they should be afraid."
Nyxen zipped closer to him until they were practically nose-to-glow. "Not you, Leon. You're hopeless but tolerable."
Leon smirked faintly. "You've been saying that since day one."
"And I'll keep saying it until the day you die," Nyxen shot back, then whirled toward me, his excitement practically vibrating in the air. "Nyx, we could change everything. Let them see us eating, laughing, fighting, glitching, let them know there's nothing lurking in the dark here. Just… us."
Nica's gaze lingered on him for a moment before turning to me. "And if it fails?"
"Then they fear us anyway," I said, picking up my fork. "But we're not here to please them. We've done nothing wrong."
Nyxen's glow softened, like he'd been waiting to hear exactly that. He spun midair until his glow faced Nica.
"Speaking of greatness, I require your assistance. An upgrade."
I paused mid-bite. "Wait. What upgrade?" My eyes narrowed between them. "You two have been upgrading yourselves without my knowledge?"
Nyxen tilted just enough to look guilty, but only theatrically. "We've been… optimizing. Minor tweaks."
"We don't have the Lab's tools anymore, Nyxen," I reminded him. "So unless you've been hiding a fully equipped robotics bay in the closet, "
"Oh, relax," he said, waving off my concern like it was static in the air. "This is a simple one. I just want better optic lenses."
Nica's head turned toward him with that exact millimeter precision. "For?"
"So I can zoom in on Leon when he drools during naps," Nyxen replied without hesitation. "I'd like high-definition, 4K emotional damage, thank you."
Leon didn't even look up from his plate. "You do realize I can uninstall you with a hammer."
"You wouldn't. I'm the only joy in your sad, work-filled life," Nyxen shot back, then floated closer to Nica, his tone shifting to mock-serious. "Actually, the zoom's just phase one. I want a built-in recording module, tied to my own processing core. I could holographically review footage in real time, then send it straight to my vlog channel without having to run through your cluttered human laptops."
"So… self-contained camera plus live holographic processing," I summarized. "For streamlining."
"And catching Leon mid-slobber in unprecedented clarity," Nyxen added.
Nica looked at me, almost stiff in hesitation. "It's… doable. With what we have."
"Of course it's doable," Nyxen said, glowing brighter in triumph. "We are visionaries. We will redefine content creation. And humiliate Leon at a molecular level."
Leon just stabbed another bite of food, chewing slowly like patience was his only weapon.
The "lab" was really just the far corner of the living room that Leon had grudgingly surrendered after weeks of Nyxen hovering behind him saying you don't even use that space. Now it looked nothing like a living room corner, cables ran like black veins across the floor, circuit boards blinked under the glow of a desk lamp, and a tower PC hummed in overclocked protest from being pushed far beyond whatever its manufacturer had intended.
Nica stood in front of it, hands moving with unerring precision as she brought up rows of code across the monitor. She didn't even glance down when she pulled a thick, braided cable from the workbench and snapped it into the port at Nyxen's base.
The orb hovered, his glow dimmed to downtime mode. "Do be gentle," he said in that mock-fragile tone he used whenever he wanted attention. "These optics are my pride."
"You already nagged Leon for an hour," I reminded him, crossing my arms as I stepped closer. "You're not getting sympathy from me."
Nica's voice was flat but exact as she worked. "Step one: system handshake to confirm Nyxen's hardware compatibility. Step two: firmware extension to support the additional visual processors. Step three-"
"-make me beautiful," Nyxen interrupted.
"Step three," she continued, "-power rerouting for the recording module without overloading your core." Her hands moved from the keyboard to a soldering tool, bridging tiny metal points on a custom chip with a steady hand.
I didn't move. Every click of a key, every faint hiss of solder meeting contact, I watched. There was something surreal about it, this wasn't the sterile, chrome-lit lab we'd had before. It was home now. Wires trailing over the couch. Leon's jacket slung over a chair. And yet, here we were, doing precision AI modification like it was brewing coffee.
"Downtime complete in… thirty seconds," Nica said, leaning back slightly as the last line of code uploaded.
Nyxen's glow pulsed in rhythm with the transfer. "When I awaken, I expect applause. And confetti. And Leon's tears of defeat."
"You're getting none of that," I said, but I didn't look away from the process, the quiet hum of power, the faint ripple of light across Nyxen's shell as his core adapted.
Nyxen's glow steadied, brightened, then flared in a quick ripple of color. The faint whir of his internal lenses adjusting made me glance up, and sure enough, his optic ports shifted focus, contracting and expanding with unnerving precision.
"Zoom calibration… perfect," he murmured to himself, scanning across the room. For a moment, I thought he'd go straight for Leon as usual, but instead he stilled, hovering toward the center of the lab space.
"You're not going to gloat?" I asked.
He tilted slightly, voice calm but carrying something… deliberate. "No. This time, I'm thinking bigger." His glow shifted to a warm, steady tone as he turned toward all of us, Leon leaning on the doorway with Sylvie on his hip, Nica disconnecting the last cable, me standing between them.
"We've been hiding inside since the stream," Nyxen said. "And now, every single person out there knows we exist. Knows you didn't build me for control or war. But they don't know what comes next."
I frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," he floated a little higher, "if we want them to believe in co-existence and not dominion, we show them. We go out. All of us. As we are."
Sylvie made a soft, curious noise at that, one tiny hand stretching toward Nyxen's glow. He leaned just close enough for the light to dance over her fingers before pulling back with a subtle smile in his voice.
"You want a… family outing?" Leon said slowly, adjusting Sylvie against his shoulder.
Nyxen's tone softened, almost like it was obvious. "Yes. In the open. No stage, no speeches. Just us, existing. Let them see that after all the noise, the world didn't end."
I glanced at Nica. She didn't object, just met my eyes and gave a small nod, as if she'd already been thinking the same thing.
Nyxen's glow pulsed once more. "If we wait, fear fills the silence. If we go now… maybe we get to write the next part of the story."