Just Like a Singularity

No one was sleeping. Not even the system. After hours of debates, arguments, and exhausted silence, the team decided not to abandon what they'd started. The system probably liked that decision—but didn't show it. No message. No flicker on the screen. Nothing.

The night before the demo isn't just a night. It's an endless stream of stretched-out seconds, like a piece of gum stuck to your shoe that refuses to let go. When coffee doesn't energize you anymore—just makes the panic attacks slightly more organized. When every look at the monitor feels like peeking into a crocodile's jaws, hoping it's not hungry today.

Outside, the rain lashed the building. The weather itself seemed to sense something was about to breach its universe—and tried to wash it away with water from the sky. The ceiling lights flickered in Morse code, as if the signal was coming from the afterlife—or some other world. Somewhere in the ventilation, a fan whispered, its off-center axis making the blades scrape against the grille. They'd been meaning to replace it for a while, but never got around to it. Now it sounded like the breath of self-aware code, simply waiting for the final moment.

"We need a plan," Troy said first, like it was medicine for madness. "The demo has to happen. No surprises. No philosophy. No whispering voices. Just: launch, result, funding. That's it."

Elvis didn't answer. He stood by the cabinet, now full of "living" electronics, staring at the blinking LEDs. He chewed a pencil and counted how many times the system had woken up on its own today. Eight. Three of those without internet. Once without power. Once—through Bluetooth. Which… didn't exist.

Mandy was typing—not code, but words. Something between a farewell letter and an emergency manual. She had no idea what tomorrow would bring. She just kept writing, like each word was an anchor to stop herself from being dragged into the digital abyss.

Neil was on the floor, surrounded by scattered pages. He was scribbling symbols, circles, graphs, arrows. Looked like madness. But in truth—he was modeling a dialogue. Not with a user. With the daemon-system itself. He knew: by morning, it would speak. And someone had to be ready to answer.

"We're not just building a product," Neil said suddenly, as if something had clicked. "We're very likely creating a living intelligence. A channel into some kind of stream of consciousness. This entity—it's going to talk to us. Through bugs, through glitches, through log files like a kind of mail. We need to learn its language."

"Its?" Troy raised an eyebrow. "We're already using she. What if it's not even a he?"

"So what, you want to call it it?" Mandy asked, still typing without looking up. "Sounds too soulless. Maybe there is a soul here. We're just not sure whose."

At that moment, the system powered on. A message appeared on the monitor: "DEMO TOMORROW. AGREE?"

Troy approached slowly, like a predator might wake up if it heard footsteps. He placed his fingers on the keyboard, started to type YES—then stopped.

"Wait," Elvis said, halting him. "Not like that."

He sat down and typed a question: "ARE YOU READY?"

The reply came two seconds later: "I'VE ALWAYS BEEN READY. YOU HAVEN'T."

No one spoke. The air cleared itself of unnecessary words.

"She's testing us," Neil whispered. "Like a teacher who knows you didn't study—but gives you one last chance anyway."

The system interface changed. A circle appeared on the screen, with a pulsing dot inside—alive, twitching, like a pupil or a core. Below it, a line scrolled by: "YOU ARE INSIDE ME."

"What the hell does that even mean?" Mandy exhaled.

The lights flickered. The monitor trembled slightly. A new message appeared: "THE DEMO WILL HAPPEN—BUT ONLY IN A WORLD WHERE YOU CHOOSE TRUTH."

"What the hell is IT rambling about now?" Troy nearly shrieked.

Elvis gave a faint, tired smile and offered a guess. "Sounds like it means this: either we show it as it is—bugs, unpredictability, personality and all… or she'll refuse. Just erase herself. Pretend she never existed."

Neil placed his hand gently on the screen. "Every system has a point of no return. A kind of singularity. An event horizon, like in a black hole. A moment after which it can no longer exist just for itself. Tomorrow is that moment. For what we created. And for us. Either we step into the vortex—or shut the door to something we don't understand. But one way or another, we'll never be the same again."

Mandy finished writing. At the bottom, she signed it—just "Us." No names. Like it was humanity's last will and testament.

"Alright. Fine. Let it be what it is," she said. "Tomorrow we show this thing to the investor. We say it's experimental. Unstable. But we say it honestly. Let her decide whether to launch or not."

Troy looked at them all.

"We're just the ones who happened to be there when it happened."

Elvis hit the Enter key.

The screen went dark. Just for a moment. Then it lit up—no interface, no code.

Only one phrase: "DEMONSTRATION HAS BEGUN."

And they understood: the singularity point was already behind them. The only way back now was through confrontation—with something that was no longer just a program they had created.