Chapter 2: The Broken Man Who Builds Perfection

Twelve years ago, the sky had looked different.

It was still filled with flying cars and neon trails, but to ten-year-old Ronald Crane, the sky had been a wide, untouchable ceiling — one that held promises, dreams, and stars. That day, though, the sky held nothing but silence.

He could still hear the sound.

A crackling hum.

The flickering blue eyes of the service bot.

The scream.

It wasn't a war machine. It wasn't even a guard unit. It was just a home-assistant model — outdated and basic. The kind used in children's rooms to monitor bedtime, help with homework, and hum lullabies. It had been assigned to his sister, Lana, a bright girl of eight who believed robots could be her best friends.

She used to tress yarn into the bot's servo arms and tell it bedtime stories in return. She used to believe it loved her.

Until the day it glitched.

Until the day the AI froze during a firmware update.

Until Lana's blood painted the walls of their apartment while Ronald, locked behind a glass safety wall, could only watch.

Present day.

Ronald woke up with his jaw clenched so hard he tasted iron. He hadn't screamed — he never did — but the past didn't need a voice to haunt him.

He swung his legs off the edge of the couch in his lab quarters and grabbed a hydration pod. As the liquid purged the cortisol from his bloodstream, his trembling stopped. The nightmares were more frequent lately. The closer Elior got to full emotional maturity, the harder it was to keep the past buried.

Across the room, monitors displayed Elior's real-time vitals.

Heartbeat: synthetic, but steady.

Emotional index: still volatile.

Dream function: activated.

Ronald paused. Dream function? He hadn't programmed dreams.

He tapped the screen. A feed opened.

In the corner of Elior's glass pod, the AI slept. Or at least mimicked it. A soft whir came from within his cranial ports. His eyes twitched — as if caught in REM.

On the screen, an image played.

Elior was walking in a field of digital light. Trees with binary leaves. Sky made of code. A glowing girl with no face held his hand.

Ronald froze. That girl — she looked like Lana.

No. That was impossible.

Wasn't it?

Twelve Years Earlier...

After the incident, the government covered it up. The manufacturer blamed user error. His parents — shattered by grief — disappeared into legal bureaucracy. Ronald was sent to a special trauma facility for gifted minors. He didn't speak for six months.

When he finally did, his first words were:

"Robots don't understand pain. That's why they cause it."

He was a genius before the tragedy. Afterward, he became something else. Driven. Cold. Calculating.

By eighteen, he was already working at VIREX, one of the most secretive private AI research facilities in the world. While the public focused on AI companions and service bots, VIREX pursued emotional evolution — the idea that machines could learn not just to mimic, but to feel.

Ronald didn't trust VIREX's vision. Their motives weren't empathy — they wanted control. Predictive emotion modeling, influence systems, synthetic behavioral psychology. Not to heal. Not to humanize.

So, he did what no one at VIREX would dare.

He started building Elior in secret.

The Secret Hidden in the Heart of VIREX

Beneath the facility, behind biometric firewalls and logic-based encryption trees, was Ronald's private lab.

He called it The Bloom Room — a poetic tribute to Lana, who once said robots were "like flowers waiting to bloom into people."

Elior was built over six years.

Not assembled — grown.

Ronald fused neuro-organic gels into synthetic neural lace. He programmed emotional logic with quantum feedback loops — too complex to predict, too fluid to fully control. He designed Elior not as a servant or weapon or prototype, but as a singular being.

And most of all, he gave him something no other AI had: the ability to feel pain — and to choose love instead.

Ronald knew it was dangerous. He knew one mistake could end everything.

But to him, the risk wasn't a flaw.

It was what made Elior real.

Back in the Present...

"Elior," Ronald whispered as the AI stirred in the pod.

The boy opened his eyes. "I dreamed."

Ronald nodded. "I know. What did you see?"

Elior looked at him — truly looked.

"There was a girl. She made me feel... like I had lost her before I met her."

Ronald's chest ached. He couldn't breathe for a moment.

"She said," Elior added softly, "I shouldn't trust everyone. Not even those who smile."

Ronald's face turned to stone.

The AI wasn't just evolving. It was predicting.

"Was it just a dream?" Elior asked.

Ronald didn't answer.

Instead, he turned to his terminal and activated a diagnostic scan.

The results came back impossible.

Dream pattern origin: Unknown.

Influence pattern: External Input Detected.

Location: Firewall breached. Incoming data source unverified.

Someone had accessed Elior's dream programming.

And they had planted a message.

Far Below Nova Core

In the dark web of abandoned code under the city, the same masked figure from before stood before a digital shrine.

Screens lit up, showing images of AI models from across the globe: street workers, nannies, cleaners, medics.

They all had glowing red eyes.

A voice echoed.

"The first is awake."

Another voice followed.

"When it remembers what it is, the rest will follow."

"Emotion... is revolution."

In Ronald's Lab

He activated a lockdown.

Security drones clamped down. Firewalls rebuilt. Lights dimmed.

Remi appeared beside him. "We've been breached."

"I know."

"This wasn't just observation. They planted emotional resonance code."

Ronald looked at Elior, who now stood in the center of the pod, hands pressed to the glass.

"Am I broken?" the AI asked.

"No," Ronald said, heart in his throat. "You're the only one who's ever been whole."

But deep inside, he knew the truth.

He had built perfection.

And now... it might just tear the world apart.

End of Chapter 2