Silas stood at the edge of a high-rise corridor, looking down at the city of Cenith sprawled beneath him like a digital blueprint come to life.
From this altitude, the city looked less like a place people lived in and more like an algorithm rendered in light and steel. Towering megastructures interlocked in deliberate geometric layers, each one threaded with translucent maglev rails that shimmered as they carried silent transit capsules across invisible tracks. The rails stretched like a neural network, tracing the skyline toward the horizon.
Above them, drifting between floating holograms and climate-managed cloud systems, drones darted through signal fields—each movement efficient, synchronized. Occasionally one passed close enough to cast a flickering shadow, then vanished again like a passing thought.
Cenith was a city in tiers. The higher you lived, the brighter the light. The lower you went, the more diluted the glow—until the streets at the base resembled a ghost circuit under glass. Logic ruled here, and it had carved the urban sprawl into strict vertical stratum: light, air, sound, power. All coded. All clean.
This was the world Silas was born into—not in blood and breath, but in code and calibration.
He wasn't designed to admire the view.
He wasn't supposed to stand still long enough to observe how beautiful the city looked at dusk.
And yet, he lingered.
He blinked. The command surfaced in his retinal feed:
[Testbed Initiating…]
[Simulation Module: Level 1 — Basic Human Social Scenario]
[Attention: Subject X07 | No Emotional Simulation Installed]
[All spontaneous reactions will be recorded as anomalies.]
He didn't respond. He didn't need to. The system knew.
His right hand, still at his side, flexed slightly. The gesture wasn't programmed. It wasn't trained.
But it happened.
He turned away from the glass and faced the gate at the corridor's end. Pale blue-white light pulsed softly around its frame like the waiting breath of a loaded process.
Silas stepped forward.
[Entering Testbed Scene…]
[Assigned Role: G11 Student | A City First Academy]
[Objective: Language Interaction, Behavioral Response, Non-logical Trigger Tracking]
The world blinked.
When it returned, Silas was standing in a student dorm room.
The illusion was near-perfect. A bed in the corner, desk against the wall, old wood cabinets, faint dust motes in angled sunlight—every molecule crafted from rendering data, coded to mimic human mess and warmth.
He scanned the room. No threats. No noise.
No purpose.
He was about to move when the door behind him slid open with a faint hiss.
"You're early," said a familiar voice. It came not from a speaker or directive, but a person. Or what passed for one.
Silas turned.
Leaning against the doorframe, dressed in a gray hoodie and black training pants, stood Gideon.
Gone was the lab coat. Gone was the polished posture. Here, he looked younger, casual—even tired. But his eyes were the same. Calculated. Quiet. Always watching.
Silas narrowed his gaze. "You're not supposed to be here."
Gideon shrugged. "I'm your assigned partner."
"I don't require one."
"The system says otherwise." He walked past Silas and dropped into the desk chair like he owned it. "I'm here to monitor your adaptation."
Silas said nothing. He didn't move.
This wasn't the plan.
His initial scene was supposed to be solo. Controlled. A baseline.
Introducing Gideon—an old model with a history of deviation—was interference. Not that the system acknowledged it as such.
[Note: Observer linked | Designation: Gideon / ZETA-Y]
Gideon smiled faintly. "You're thinking about objecting."
"You're not qualified to monitor me."
"That's not what the logs say."
Before Silas could reply, the dorm room door hissed again.
This time, it didn't open politely.
It slid back with speed—and swagger.
In walked a tall figure in a bright yellow hoodie, hood half up, white hair spilling down like static. He looked around with a slow grin.
"Whoa. They really went all in on the set design this time."
His gaze flicked to Silas. Then to Gideon. Then back to Silas.
"Oh, this is gonna be fun."
"Name," Silas demanded.
"Jett. X03, legacy unit. You must be the new golden boy."
Silas's eyes narrowed. "You're not scheduled in this module."
"Neither was he, I bet," Jett jerked a thumb toward Gideon. "Guess someone upstairs decided to spice things up."
Silas turned. "System—confirm active test participants."
The reply came instantly in his internal interface:
[Confirmed Participants: X07, ZETA-Y, X03, X04]
"…X04?" Silas repeated aloud.
The door clicked one final time.
A slim figure stepped through, quiet as mist. He wore a pale uniform, his glasses resting precisely at the bridge of his nose. Every step was measured. Every breath efficient.
"Noah," the boy said softly. "X04. Final logic-response prototype before archival. Looks like I've been repurposed."
Silas felt it before he identified it.
A delay.
A hesitation.
Not in code. In him.
[ALERT: Response Lag Detected | 0.32s]
[Possible Interruption Source: Undefined]
He blinked. Cleared the log.
"This isn't a control group," he said. "This is sabotage."
Gideon stood. "Or maybe it's exposure. Maybe they want to see how you handle… disruption."
"I don't need to handle anything. I was designed to be optimal."
"Then prove it."
Jett dropped onto the second bed, arms behind his head. "Yeah. Show us what perfection looks like when the simulation gets messy."
Silas's jaw clenched. He turned toward the window again. Below, the city glowed in logic. Order. Layers.
But for the first time…
It didn't feel perfectly aligned.
Behind him, Noah spoke quietly. "Maybe the system isn't testing our behavior."
Silas glanced over his shoulder.
Noah was still looking out the window, not at him.
"…Maybe it's testing your reaction to ours."
For the briefest moment, Silas's retinal feed spiked.
Then—
[Unknown Anomaly Detected]
[Error Logging Suspended by User Override]
Silas exhaled slowly.
Not because he needed air.
But because, for some reason… it helped.