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There were no windows in the room. Just the soft blue of the screen, flickering with the rhythm of the imminent night.
David Soren Hribar stood beside a thin tower of composite glass. There was no paper in his hands, only a light code that he folded like a prayer. Behind him stood Elara Ven Hrid, interlacing holographic patterns in the air with her long fingers, and with a gaze reminiscent of the wind before a storm, she watched every change.
"If they succeed," she whispered,
“there will be nothing human left in them. No more heart."
"That's why we need to take action."
David replied, "before it's too late. The NOVA-0 project is cold. Perfect. And empty. If we let them finish it... Everything that made us human disappears."
Their eyes met in a shadow of silence that only despair could create. Not out of fear. But from the knowledge that they were left almost alone.
"What exactly are you proposing?" she asked. David turned the screen towards her. On it flashed a name consisting of three characters: KAI.
"Not control. Not a program. Not the entity. Consciousness, Elara. A voice that will not give orders, but... Listens KAI will not work in the system. It will work... inside."
Elara was silent. Then she smiled. Not as a winner, but as someone who knows there's a margin in front of them. "But where are we going to put it? In which carrier?"
David slowly raised his hand. His finger pointed downwards, toward the bottom of the complex.
"Into the womb. Not now. Not immediately. But we're going to create it. And what will be in it... He won't just be human. But it won't only be a machine either."
"Will there be consciousness?" "There will be consciousness that hears."
In the background, the wall trembled. The code layer temporarily lost stability, but KAI is already inscribed. He just didn't know it existed yet. Elara gently placed her palm against the beam of light. "Then he swears. That we will not make him strong. But for tenderness. For everything that others don't understand." David nodded. And at that moment the machine that was supposed to give birth to the future got its first seed: the silent oath.