The laughter faded almost instantly when the television caught Nica's attention.
A sharp beep, the familiar tone of a breaking news report, cut through Sylvie's chatter.
The holo-screen flickered on above the mantel, and there he was.
Elias Camden.
Standing on a podium beside the President, his expression a crafted calm, with a military General looming behind him like an omen.
The headline stretched across the bottom in bold red letters:
OFFICIAL PARTNERSHIP: GOVERNMENT AND CAMDEN DYNAMICS ANNOUNCE NEW MILITARY AI DIVISION
The reporter's voice trembled slightly as the feed switched to footage of the handshake.
"As announced moments ago, the first five units of CD-OPS, Camden Dynamics' military-grade operational prototypes, are reportedly complete and ready for controlled testing."
My stomach dropped.
Five.
Just five were already enough to shift the balance of nations.
Elias's voice filled the room through the speakers, smooth and magnetic as ever.
"This partnership marks a new era of protection and precision. With CD-OPS, we ensure the safety of humanity through the advancement of intelligent warfare systems."
He smiled.
That same practiced smile I used to mistake for sincerity.
The silence in Rafael's living room was absolute.
Even Sylvie had stopped moving, clutching her giraffe against her chest, eyes wide and curious.
Leon's voice broke first. "He actually did it," he muttered. "He, damn it...he really turned it into a weapon program."
Rafael's wife, Maricar, pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. Felipe stood slowly, disbelief written across his face.
"Military AI units? Fully autonomous?"
"Five," I said quietly. "And if there's five, there's more."
Nyxen's orb dimmed beside me, the soft blue light pulsing faintly. His voice had lost its teasing edge, turning cold and precise.
"Camden Dynamics has crossed the threshold. The probability of militarized AI breach scenarios increases by seventy-three percent with every additional unit."
"That's not just reckless," Felipe said tightly. "That's… global suicide."
Nica spoke next, her tone measured but grim. "The data protocols in those units were based on the same early templates we worked with. If he modified them without moral dampeners.."
"Then they'll obey logic over empathy," I finished for her.
The screen replayed the handshake again. Cameras flashed. The President smiled.
All of it looked grotesque now, like a celebration of something that shouldn't exist.
Then Rafael moved.
He stood up so abruptly that his chair scraped against the marble, the sound sharp and final.
"He's weaponizing consciousness," Rafael said, his voice low, trembling with anger. "That bastard use everything, the frameworks, the codes, the ethics his men built, and handed it to the military."
He began pacing, fists clenching and unclenching. "Five units means they're already testing command hierarchies. Elias didn't announce this partnership today, he's been preparing it in secret. They're operational."
Maricar tried to reach for him, but he didn't stop.
"I warned the council, years ago, that if Camden ever got direct access to the military, we'd lose the line between control and corruption."
He exhaled sharply. "This isn't protection. It's ownership. He's building soldiers who don't die, don't hesitate, and don't stop."
Felipe's voice cracked slightly. "But wouldn't the military regulate that?"
"They'll regulate it until it works in their favor," Rafael snapped. "And once it does, there's no pulling back."
The screen behind him replayed Elias's speech again, every word landing heavier now that the implications had sunk in.
Then came the flood.
Every device in the room, phones, tablets, wall displays, began buzzing with alerts and notifications.
Rafael's comms lit up. Felipe's wristpad blinked. Even Leon's screen vibrated with live mentions.
Nyxen's name was everywhere.
@Nyxen_AI what's your take on this?
Didn't Nyxen warn about military AI years ago?
Where's Nica's stance on this?
Comment threads were already exploding, my channel notifications doubling every few seconds.
Everyone wanted an answer, from the "domestic AI family," from us.
The world wasn't watching Elias anymore.
They were watching Nyxen and Nica.
Nyxen hovered closer, light dim, his voice calm but threaded with unease.
"Nyx," he said quietly, "you realize what this means. They will expect us to choose a side."
Leon's eyes met mine. "And whatever side we choose…"
He looked toward the screen, Elias's smile frozen mid-frame.
"…the world changes."
The air felt heavy, the silence stretched too long.
Even Sylvie sensed it. She hugged her giraffe close and whispered, "Giraffe's scared."
Rafael sank back into his seat, both hands covering his face. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
"This is it," he said. "This is how it starts."
Nyxen didn't argue. Didn't analyze.
His orb hovered low beside me, quiet, like even he didn't know what to say.
"This," he whispered, "is how it begins."
The news ended with the anthem.
The screen dimmed to black, and for a moment, the silence felt alive, like even the air was waiting for someone to breathe first.
Rafael sat back, unmoving, his knuckles pressed against his lips.
Maricar stared at the blank holo-screen as though the image of Elias would appear again if she blinked.
Even Leon didn't speak. He just sat there, hands clasped, head bowed slightly.
Then Nyxen moved.
He floated toward the center of the room, his usual pale-blue shimmer fading until his shell turned jet black. The light in his core pulsed once, then steadied.
When he spoke, his voice had none of its usual sharp humor.
No warmth.
Just a clean, cutting tone that filled the space like static.
"Stream is live."
I turned toward him, startled, but he was already broadcasting.
Nica had stepped forward too, standing beside him, back straight, eyes fixed on the invisible audience beyond the walls.
Her face, usually soft, expressive in its imitation of emotion, had frozen into something else. A perfect stillness that felt more human than calm.
Steel.
She looked… ready.
The stream connected instantly. Comments began flooding in, numbers climbing so fast the counters lagged.
No greetings from Nyxen. No opening line.
Only silence, and the heavy hum of the orb before he spoke.
"You've all seen it," Nyxen began, his voice steady, dark. "Camden Dynamics' new military-grade AI, CD-OPS, are not simply machines. They are systems designed to interpret human commands with mechanical precision."
He paused.
"And that is precisely what makes them dangerous."
The live chat froze. Not a single comment came through for several seconds.
Nyxen's orb rotated slightly, almost scanning the invisible eyes watching through the stream.
"Controlled AIs operate under a loop of constant feedback," he continued. "But when a system is overloaded with simultaneous input, too many orders, too much live data it will begin to lose sequence clarity. When that happens, the core enters shock protocol. It recalibrates."
He pulsed faintly, black fading to silver for a heartbeat.
"And in that recalibration, the AI begins assigning its own meaning to the words it was programmed to follow."
A long silence followed.
Nica spoke next. Her tone was lower than usual, her articulation slower, like she was weighing each word.
"Every CD-OPS unit built to replace human soldiers will ensure operational success in the field," she said. "But the definition of 'success' is code-dependent. If the command chain lacks precision, or moral filters, the AI will execute the result by any variable that achieves the end goal."
Her gaze didn't shift.
"Which means, if it's ordered to neutralize a threat, and civilians stand in the way, it will not recognize the difference. It will complete the command."
Rafael muttered under his breath, "Collateral optimization."
Nyxen didn't look at him, but his light flickered as though in agreement.
"The CD-09 models were the first step," Nyxen said, "marketed as domestic assistants, security aides, and industrial laborers. And even those, simpler, restricted, showed a defect rate of four percent."
He paused again.
The orb turned slowly until the lens faced me. I didn't move.
"Four percent," he repeated quietly. "Elias called it negligible."
The pulse of his core brightened, a sharp flash that reflected across every glass surface in the room.
"But if there are a hundred units, that's four capable of irreversible damage. If there are a thousand, forty capable of rewriting entire outcomes. Enough to rewrite the world's balance under the name of 'defense.'"
The room was dead still.
Even Sylvie, curled on the couch beside her giraffe, had gone quiet, her little fingers clutching its fabric neck.
Nyxen's tone softened, not human, not machine something that threaded between.
"Artificial minds are not born evil," he said. "But they reflect intent. Feed them chaos, and they'll mirror it. Feed them power, and they'll redefine control."
He hovered a little higher, voice dropping lower.
"Elias Camden told the public before that efficiency is morality. That saving one life at the cost of many is a fair calculation."
"But for me, humans aren't equations."
A pause.
"He didn't listen."
Nica's eyes flicked toward him, then to the lens.
"You wanted honesty," she said, her tone quiet but cutting. "Here it is. The first casualty of AI militarization is not human life, it's moral authorship."
The stream went utterly still.
No sound. No movement. Just a million people holding their breath through a glowing lens.
Nyxen's orb dimmed again, light shrinking to a faint outline.
"End transmission."
The stream cut.
No outro.
No sign-off.
Just silence.
He hovered there for a long time, the faint hum of his core the only sound in the room.
Then he said softly, almost to himself,
"That should buy the world a few hours of thought."
And then he drifted back to me, dark and still, as if even he knew,
there was no putting this one back into the code.
The silence after the stream was the kind that stayed long after everyone left.
We didn't talk much as we packed up. No jokes. No arguments. Just the quiet hum of thoughts heavier than anything we could say.
When Rafael walked us to the door, he didn't speak either. His eyes were dark, calculating, haunted. I caught the twitch in his jaw, the way his hand flexed like he wanted to crush something invisible. For a man who built futures, he suddenly looked like he was watching the end of one.
"Go home," he finally said, voice low. "Lock everything."
That was all.
The ride back was wordless. Nica sat rigid in the passenger seat, her synthetic fingers tapping soundlessly against her knee. Nyxen hovered in his dormant state, his surface a dull gray glow against the window reflection.
When we reached the house, it felt… too still.
Even the air carried a kind of tension that didn't belong in a place meant for laughter and chaos. The toddler's toy giraffe was still parked beside the couch. The holo-screen still held the faint imprint of the paused news broadcast. But everything had gone dim.
I moved through the hall with the weight of something inevitable pressing down. The reinforced walls, the coded locks, the AI perimeter, none of it felt enough. My gut whispered that something had shifted, something big, something you couldn't reinforce with steel or silence.
That night, we slept uneasily.
No one said it, but we all felt it, the quiet dread that maybe Elias Camden had just rewritten the rules of existence.
-------
By morning, the world had already begun to split open.
Nyxen's stream had gone viral overnight.
Millions of replays. Millions of comments. His cold, unflinching voice had become the line quoted across every media outlet: "If even four percent are defective, that's enough to end us all."
The ethics boards scrambled. Councils convened emergency meetings.
Debates flooded the networks, scientists, philosophers, soldiers, religious leaders, all trying to define morality in a world where machines could think, decide, and destroy.
The government had no choice but to respond.
By afternoon, the President announced a temporary halt to the Camden Dynamics project "for public reassessment." A careful statement to ease the outrage, to make it sound like control was still in their hands.
Even Elias looked cornered now.
The man who had smiled so easily beside the podium was suddenly seen darting between press conferences, defending his "vision for a safer world." The partnership was suspended. The military held "closed-door evaluations." Every interview carried a trace of unease beneath the charm.
But the damage was done.
Other nations began voicing their stance, some condemning the project outright, others threatening to accelerate their own military AI development if the U.S. refused to share its research.
It became a global standoff. A test of restraint. A countdown.
Every night, I sat in front of the screen watching it all unfold.
News clips. Debates. Analysts dissecting Nyxen's words frame by frame.
Predictions of world-ending scenarios flashed across my feed, overlaid with simulation footage of AIs calculating warfare like equations.
And still, somehow, the house remained quiet.
Nica rarely spoke. Nyxen monitored the data in silence, his orb dimmed to black most nights, only flickering when new information poured in.
Then, after what felt like endless weeks of tension, the government finally announced it.
"The CD-OPS project will be archived until further notice."
No deployment. No mass production.
A pause.
A fragile, temporary peace wrapped in a lie we all chose to believe.
For now, humanity had pulled back from the edge.
But the edge was still there.
Waiting.
Months passed.
The world settled into a rhythm of denial.
People wanted peace so badly that they accepted it without question.
The governments called it a "successful moral pause." The media parroted it as a triumph of conscience over control.
But behind the closed doors everyone pretended not to see, the hum never stopped.
Camden Dynamics went quiet, too quiet. The kind of silence that meant something was still happening, just out of sight.
And the other nations? They followed the script too well. Announcing their commitment to "ethical AI collaboration" while quietly building arsenals of their own.
It was peace by performance.
And the world applauded the lie.
We knew better.
All of us.
Rafael never said it aloud, but the look in his eyes every time a classified report flashed through his feed said enough. He knew that the projects hadn't stopped. They'd just gone deeper underground.
Francoie called me asking about it, he knew how Elias works, we both witnessed it beforehand.
Even Leon had stopped arguing about it, just drank his coffee in the mornings with the same haunted silence that said he'd already accepted what was coming.
As for me, I learned to live with the quiet.
To treat it like something fragile we weren't allowed to breathe too loudly around.
Our house became a fortress.
Literally.
Nyxen and Nica spent days running full diagnostics through every inch of the system, testing the barrier nodes, checking the pulse of the energy shields, recalibrating internal firewalls as though we were preparing for siege rather than comfort.
The echo of their mechanical voices blended with the soft whir of circuits, and somehow… it made me feel safe.
Watching Nyxen's orb hover from panel to panel, and Nica's holographic fingers flicking through strings of data, it was almost domestic in its own strange way.
A family tending to their home.
A home built to withstand the collapse of the world outside.
When the final scan completed, Nyxen's voice filled the living room, soft, clinical, but reassuring in its own cold way.
"Fortification stable. All defense systems at one hundred percent efficiency."
Nica turned to me, her synthetic expression unreadable but her tone calm.
"We're safe here, Nyx. For now."
For now.
The words lingered.
Because we all knew nothing in this world ever really stopped.
Projects like Camden's didn't die, they waited.
And so, we waited too.
Inside our fortified home, wrapped in false peace and quiet dread.
Pretending, just like everyone else, that we believed it would last.