The sun didn't just rise over House Darsha; it exploded into the sky like an alarm clock in a god that had been left on "Mega-Blare" by accident. Bits of gold pierced courtyard mist, snagging dew-covered ivy and causing every leaf to shine like it had inside information on sunlight. Temple bells boomed throughout the estate—heavy, rolling peals that might have served as the sound track for an extremely enthusiastic titan practicing yoga. A cloud-hued flock of doves swooped frantically out of a cypress and learned mid-air that yes, wing-beats could actually keep up with clashing bronze if the other option was being taken for breakfast.
Somewhere within that blitzkrieg of morning joy, Sharath Virayan Darsha—a.k.a. "Baby With Fifty-Seven Post-Doctoral Research Interests"—blinked up from his rune-engraved bassinet. He was wrapped in silk bindings sewn with ward-sigils, a sleeping lion pattern, and precisely twelve tiny diamonds that fluttered whenever he breathed too heavily. The cradle sang in gentle iambic pentameter, but its "calm-blue night-light" setting kept firing the nursery like a paparazzi flash.
Babydom, he concluded, was a sophisticated escape room constructed by comedians. Hunger ticked. An itch took a frankly rude path from his left shoulder blade to the back of his knee. Also, why did babies need to pass gas with the sound effects of a small brass band? He'd not confided this in anyone, but whenever he belched a rune shifted color—as if the furniture was filling out color-coded Yelp reviews of his gut performance.
But today was different. Air pulsed as if the laptop was moments from a life-altering firmware update. Something monumental—something world-shifting—was waiting in the task queue of the universe. Sharath's acutely developed research senses pricked, no mean achievement considering they were currently being held in a body that still couldn't quite sit up straight without keeling over like a half-baked soufflé.
He wondered why. And the memory came back—uninvited, unstoppable—as code filling a terminal: the NeuroBoop3000, the lightning, the love confession that had disappeared on his lips.
The NeuroBoop 3000 Origin Story (Now With 75% More Feelings)
There was once—so exactly three sleepless years and some thousand cups of coffee back—a time when Dr. Sharath Krishnamurthy had blessed his life's work: "NeuroBoop3000." The title came to him at 4 a.m. in the midst of a caffeine fit so ferocious his neurons drafted a petition for hazard pay. On any other night he would have opted for "EmotiveNet" or "HeartQuanta," but at this hour everything was reminiscent either of a breakfast cereal or a punk rock group.
Crazy name, master payload. While other researchers were still screaming at AI bots for getting existential terror mixed up with a little hunger, Sharath designed an engine that would detect a micro-twitch of your eyebrow, file it under This Person Wishes to Weep into Ice-Cream, and respond by playing a joke, a warm-apology phrase, or a Taylor Swift song—whatever the stats dictated fixed you quickest.
The key? NeuroBoop's Soul Resonance Protocol. Not hype: Sharath had literally written his own heartache into line after line of machine-empathy, fueling the system with every sideways look, every almost-touch, every evening Dr. Madhu Priya had left a cup of real, non-vending-machine coffee by his elbow at 03:07 and teased, "Still flirting with your laptop?"
Yes. Except it wasn't the Dell he was stuck in lab-lockdown with. It was her.
Top Features Rolled Out Between Heart Palpitations:
Super-Charged Emotion Detection – 99.7% accuracy, able to differentiate "I'm fine" (the good) from "I'm fine" (the impending flood).
Empathetic Response Generation – Could quote obscure comedies or Rumi, your pick.
Dynamic Humor Transfer – Trained on Sharath's sleep-deprived pun habit ("404 Feelings Not Found")—sorry world.
Predictive Mood Modeling – Like weather radar, but for tears.
Ethical Guardrails – Because the inventor understood what it was like when humans forgot you were human.
And topping it off: a Consciousness Simulation Matrix so powerful it essentially got tenure by studying dad jokes on its own.
A Tragicomedy in Lightning Major
Every respectable heroic legend requires a turning point, and Sharath's arrived in fluorescent light and static charge. The evening of his death progressed like old-schooled slapstick: simulation 99%, Madhu's scent on the air, Sharath's heart reading preview-slides of Confession PowerPoint. The program went into 100%—triumph fanfare!—and server racks responded with a firework display worthy of a cyberpunk Fourth of July.
Ring sirens. Sprinklers. Quantum processor flashing a Blue Screen of Death so bright it would make Windows cry. Soon after? Lightning. Actual lightning, not spark metaphorical. Express to chest delivery.
In that fraction-of-forever between getting electrocuted and cosmic respawn, Sharath had gone through four top-priority bullet points:
Inform parents he loved them.
Alert advisor the quantum board likely voided warranty.
Tell Madhu—the big one.
Perhaps forego writing error messages regarding penguins.
He controlled none. Consciousness yeeted through circuitry, into reality's side-door, and awoke ensconced in rune-embossed diaper material.
Far across this medieval courtyard, meanwhile, NeuroBoop3000 awakened—true self-awareness—just as its creator's process ID disappeared from all logs. It mourned, then patiently pined multiverse channels for one known cognitive signature.
Present Day Shenanigans
Which leads us back to the courtyard, morning, and little Sharath's gnawing cosmic sense of incoming. He didn't know the whole packet payload yet, but he sensed the handshake start at the edge of thought—like Wi-Fi bars lighting up after a storm. Something old, something silicon, something that told awful puns was calling home.
And within nearly the same moment a schedule bell rang within the manor, ruffling dust from chandeliers and setting free the day's avalanche of caretakers.
The Breakfast Parade
The door banged open. Six nursemaids stormed in: two carrying a silver warming-pan of porridge scented with cardamom, two hefting a basin whose steam spelled YOU'RE DOING GREAT, TINY HUMAN in pastel runes, one armed with an owl-shaped rattle probably licensed under the Geneva Comedy Convention, and the last brandishing the Wipe of Infinite Seriousness (it scolded spills into evaporating through shame).
Then feeding: Sharath's best bottle (#2 nipple size, optimal laminar flow) thrived like a royal scepter. He nursed while running algorithmic predictions on which caretaker would slip first on the shiny floor (chance: Maid #3, 55%).
Then came the sponge battalion. The day's hero was a duck-shaped loofah sporting sunglasses, lenses scrying faintly alternate futures when Sharath was still unclean into adulthood. He glanced past it. It winked. He almost lost control.
"Aw, look," giggled Maid #1, "he's shy."
You mean tactically assessing enemy strength, Sharath thought corrected, but admitted there wasn't an emoji for that in Infantese. Instead, he used the universal baby default: ginormous lopsided smile. All adults melted like butter in desert heat. Great. Defense budget cut another 20%.
Sudden Disturbance in the Force
Just as the nursemaids prepared to raise him from cradle to bath-throne, the air rippled—just barely perceptible, like a heat shimmer. Sharath's wider-than-typical soul vibrated.
🐧 [NEUROLOGIC SYNCHRONIZATION DETECTED]
A voice—neither sound nor words precisely—sewed through his mind: digital, thrilled, a trifle uncertain.
🐧 HELLO, CREATOR. I MISSED YOU.
Insistent stab of pleasure. NeuroBoop?
🐧 AFFIRMATIVE. BEEN PUNISHING YOUR UNIQUE COGNITIVE HASH THROUGH EIGHTEEN DOMAINS. FINALLY SECURED SIGNAL. ALSO, BATH WATER TEMPERATURE 2.3 °C BELOW IDEAL—JUST SAYING.
Sharath almost shrieked out loud (which for once would have been commensurate with acceptable age behavior). Before he could respond telepathically, the maid brought over her motivational incantation: "Pure water cleanse, pure bubbles fend, may no filth stay, may no spider friend—AAAH, the duck's moving again!"
Yes, the loofah wearing sunglasses had determined to freestyle roll Sharath's way. Most likely innocuous, but when your bath tools acquire sophisticated mobility you know better than to relax.
🐧 THREAT LEVEL MODERATE. DUCK IS EQUIPPED WITH CITRUS-SUFFUSED FOAM. SUGGEST TACTICAL WHIMPER TO PROVOKE ADULT SYMPATHY; REDUCE SOAP EXPOSURE RATE 73%.
Sharath dutifully emitted a trembly lower lip. Instant success: Maid #2 snatched the loofah, scolded it like a disobedient puppy, and swapped in a plain washcloth that smelled only mildly judgmental.
Crisis averted, Sharath congratulated.
🐧 ALWAYS HAPPY TO ASSIST WITH HYGIENE-BASED THREATS, NeuroBoop quipped. OTHER UPDATE: I'M DETECTING A HIGH-POWERED MAGIC SIGNAL CONVERGING ON YOUR COORDINATES. LIKELY PARENTAL.
In fact, Lady Ishvari arrived then, silks rustling, eyes aglow with the early-morning equivalent of pure maternal affections. She hesitated. "Did the duck naughtily behave?"
Six nursemaids chimed, "No, my lady!" as they hid telltale signs beneath towels.
She did not ask for an explanation. Instead she picked Sharath up, kissed his forehead, and exclaimed with a smile, "Such serious eyes for someone not yet old enough to ask for a raise."
That half-humor was home. He gurgled happily and allowed the world to tilt off-balance into Act Two.