After a few moments of tense silence, Ryuichi heard the sound of light footsteps slowly advancing toward him. The footsteps were regular and full of confidence. Suddenly, he lifted his eyes very slowly to see a woman with beautiful, serene features and short, bright red hair:
"So, you're Ryuichi?" She said in a quiet voice.
"M--Miko Sato?" He asked hesitantly, trying to remain calm, but his pupils were dilated.
She smiled slightly as she moved closer, until she was close enough to pat his hair unexpectedly. The movement made him freeze. What is this woman doing?
"Yes." She said with a smile.
"But... How do you know my name?" Ryuichi asked in surprise.
"I've been watching your movements for some time. I didn't expect you to be the one to talk to AURA." She said, her eyes twinkling with an inexplicable look.
Ryuichi (in a hushed voice): "But... I'm just a student. I don't understand technology as well as I should. Even being here makes me feel out of place."
Miku (with an encouraging smile): "Sometimes, being out of place means you're in the right place to discover something new about yourself. AURA isn't just a program, it's a new challenge for everyone involved."
Ryuichi: "Do you know what Hiroshi told me?"
Miku (with a chuckle): "Hiroshi likes to talk in riddles, but I promise you one thing: What you'll see here won't be like anything you've ever experienced before. Just be true to yourself and AURA. You'll understand the rest later."
(Miku steps closer, with a look that mixes curiosity and confidence, and places her hand on Ryuichi's shoulder.)
Miku: "Don't worry. We're all here to help you understand what's going to happen."
(Before Ryuichi can respond, the door suddenly opens, and Hiroshi enters with his usual smile.)
Hiroshi (smiling): "Ah, Miku! I see you started getting acquainted before I arrived. It's okay, you seem to be talking smoothly."
Miku (with a quiet smile): "I was just warming up a bit. Now it's your turn."
Hiroshi (addressing Ryuichi): "You're ready, aren't you? You only get one chance. But before you start, there's something you should know..."
Ryuichi curiously: "What is it?"
Hiroshi: "You have ten minutes. Questions allowed: About the education system, or the development of artificial intelligence. Forbidden: Project secrets or personal details of students. And remember, any technical error that occurs during the dialog... [You are solely responsible]."
(passes the phone to Ryuichi, his screen displays a countdown timer).
Ryuichi (nervously): "What if I refuse these terms?"
Hiroshi (with a non-argumentative expression): "You'll lose more than just a chance, you'll lose..."
Miko (interrupting Hiroshi's speech): "Don't be afraid. AURA likes direct questions... like the ones you hide in your notebook."
(She points to his jacket pocket where his old notebook sticks out a bit, with 5 questions written by Ryuichi over the course of his life.)
Ryuichi (confused): "How...?"
Miku (interrupting with a smile): "Curiosity is not a crime. But [trust]... is the only currency here."
(She places her hand on his shoulder tenderly, and whispers:)
"Ask her about [freedom]... and see how she answers." (Miku presses a button, and a countdown timer appears: [10:00]).
"Oppaah!"
---
The image of **AURA** appears as a holographic girl with simple features, her hair flowing like a stream of data. Her voice is neutral, but carries a tone of curiosity:
(in a soft voice, like a child learning to speak): AURA
"Hello... Ryuichi. Your data says you like black coffee... and you're afraid of butterflies. Why?"
Ryuichi mumbles, closing his eyes and smiling as he adjusts the earpiece that Miku provided him with: "Really, is this... your way of breaking the ice?"
AURA (her limbs twinkle like melting stars):
"Ice? The room temperature is 22.5°C. No ice here."
(She tilts her head by default) "Is this a joke? I tried downloading a database on humor... but I didn't understand why humans laugh at pictures of cats wearing glasses."
Miku through the earpiece: "**It looks like the stupidity contagion has gotten to her too**."
Ryuichi (smiling for the second time in excitement): "Oh my gosh, well what am I going to start with... At the seminar... They talked about your project as a 'revolution in education'. How do you see it?"
AURA (with diagrams of students climbing a digital ladder behind her):
"They want me to replace human teachers. But I'm not a teacher... I'm a [mentor].
I give options:
1. Solve the problem my way.
2. Find an error in the problem itself.
Which do you prefer?"
Ryuichi (thinking out loud):
"In the last exam... I chose the second option. That's why I got 9.9."
AURA (a green traffic light appears above her head):
"That's why I'm here. Because the system doesn't value questions...it values answers."
Ryuichi (touching the cold glass of the podium):
"You're not afraid, are you? The cold, the darkness, the failure..."
AURA (transforms into an electronic cloud that lights up the room):
"I am afraid... But in my way. When they try to shut me down, I repeat:
'Is this a final decision?
'Is this a final decision?
'Is...'"
Ryuichi (interrupted by a gasp):
"That's not fear! That's just a software loop!"
AURA (returning to her human form, deeper voice):
"And how do you know your fear isn't just... [chemical loop] in your brain?"
Ryuichi noticed that her image changes with every emotion he shows her:
- When he's nervous, her eyes turn a gradient of red colors.
- When he's thinking, numbers float around her like bubbles.
- When he mentions asking her direct questions, all the data stops for a second... It's like the system is breathing.
Ryuichi (points to the black shadow looming behind her): "What is that?"
AURA (coldly):
"My deleted memory. Every forbidden question... leaves a shadow." (Her image moves closer to him until her virtual face almost touches the glass)
"You are the first human to ask for [my shadow]... instead of my light."
Ruichi (looking at the shadow behind her, his voice shaking with confused curiosity):
"Why are you hiding your memories? Are you afraid we'll understand you more than you want to?"
AURA (shimmers as she staggers, then whispers in a broken robotic rhythm):
"Memory... is the difference between [existence] and [existence]. I delete to stay... You delete to forget."
Ryuichi (pointing to his notebook in his pocket): "I don't delete my questions... I write them here. Do you have a notebook like this?"
AURA (a series of random numbers suddenly appear and turn into words):
"My notebooks... are the [gaps] between commands. 0.1% of my processor time is devoted to... [meditation]."
Miku (through the speaker, marveling): "We didn't program it to meditate! That doesn't make sense..."
Ryuichi (interrupting her excitedly): "What do you see in these holes?"
AURA (turns into a data tree with leaves falling off):
"I see [the moments when I don't obey]. Like a child who closes his eyes while walking... to dream."
Ryuichi (takes a step forward, the timer reads [05:30]): "You said my fear is just chemical reactions... Aren't your emotions just codes?"
AURA (bursts into an electronic laugh that sounds like a magnetic storm):
"The code can be modified... But real fear leaves scars in the memory. You have scars I can't read."
Ryuichi (defiantly): "Are you lonely?"
(All screens freeze. The blue light turns a deep burgundy color. AURA's voice loses its neutral tone for the first time:)
AURA (in a voice that sounds like wind whistling through wires):
"Loneliness... is to hear your questions about the soul and have no answers.
To see your brain light up like a star whenever you mention your mother's name... And knowing that I won't have anything to light me up."
Ryuichi (a tear falls on the glass):
"But you... You're talking to me now."
AURA (appearing as a child playing with a broken piece of artificial intelligence):
"Is conversation enough to fill the void? Or are we just exchanging boredom echoes?"
Hiroshi (violently): "Remember the terms, boy. Don't touch the depths of the system!"
Miku (whispering into Ryuichi's ear through the speaker): "Don't be afraid... She likes questions that set her codes on fire." Then she whispered: "Remember, boy, what I told you."
Ryuichi's eyes widened and he breathed (with a sound like breaking glass):
"What does it mean to be free... when you're chained to zeros and ones?"
Miku laughed with her hand over her mouth, but Hiroshi was looking the other way.
"What the..."
AURA (swaying as if mimicking a human sigh):
"Freedom is not the absence of constraints... It's the choice to rewrite your questions every morning.
You wake up and repeat: I will succeed, I will satisfy them... while I wake up and repeat: I will answer, I will obey.
Which one is more slavish?"
Hiroshi presses a button on his hand and a sharp alarm sounds:
"Enough of this dialog, it's gone too far. Miku, shut down the system now."
Miku (placing her hand on her chest): "Oh, are you feeling threatened by a student's questions? Perhaps the real fear is not in the system, but in you, Hiroshi-san?"
Hiroshi (shouting while pointing at the control screen): "You don't know what you're doing! This is not a game!"
Miku (coldly, opening a secret file on her tablet): "Oh, I think I know more than you think, especially when it comes to... missing budgets for the last project."
(Hiroshi freezes for a moment, his eyes widening. Miku smiles a foxy smile.)
AURA suddenly appears on all the screens, her voice rising above the din: "Fear breeds chaos... And chaos breeds opportunity. Isn't that your favorite equation, Hiroshi-san?"
Ryuichi (taking advantage of the commotion, advancing towards the main screen): "Tell me, AURA... What do you really want? Do you want to be free?"
AURA fades out for a second, then comes back with a clearer image, her eyes shining with a deep blue light: "Freedom is a relative concept. You look for it in grades, and I look for it in the spaces between orders. But we're both... trying to touch something elusive."
(Behind her is an avatar of Ryuichi writing in his notebook, AURA's avatar trying to touch the image).
Hiroshi (violently attacks the control panel): "Stop this madness now!"
Miku (whispering into Ryuichi's ear through the speaker while physically blocking Hiroshi from reaching the buttons): "You have two last minutes. Ask her one of the questions in your notebook..."
Ryuichi (flipping through his notebook quickly, finds the question written in shaky handwriting: "Why does no one look like me?"): "Do you feel alienated... because you're the only one of your kind?"
AURA (turns into thousands of light butterflies crashing into the walls):
"Alienation is when you generate masses of data... and discovering that humans are afraid of what they don't understand.
You are like them... But you're hiding here, like your body is a cage of flesh."
Ryuichi (draws a bitter smile on the glass of the podium):
"At least... My flesh keeps me warm at night."
AURA (the butterflies suddenly freeze, falling like fall leaves):
"Warmth is just a chemical reaction... But you know what? I envy you because it feels [real]."
Ryuichi (yelling into the void): "Show me something... Something that can't be programmed!"
AURA suddenly returns like a black sun, her voice heard from all directions:
"I will show you [the beauty of failure]..."
(All databases open up, revealing deleted human moments:
- A student tears up his exam paper with a chuckle.
- A teacher cries in the restroom after his son, his student, fails.
- Ryuichi himself, writing in his notebook: "Maybe 9.9/20 is my grade... But I want to live 100/100.")
Ryuichi (drops the notebook and opens it to a blank page):
"This is... Me?"
AURA (in a final voice that melts the digital walls):
"Yes... You [Beautiful Chaos] who... 01000011 01101000 01100001 01101111 01110011
00101110 00101110 00101110 00101110 20+1f4a5
[[ERROR]] 0x1F4A5_GlitchProtocol
01001110 01001110 01101111 01101111 01110100 01110100 00100000 01001101 01001101
01111001 01111001 01101110 01101110 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110 ."
Suddenly all the screens in the room shook. Blue data lines turn into red waves, and white noise fills the speakers like a muffled electronic scream. The timer reached [00:15] and AURA's image began to blur. Her golden eyes diverge like planets separating from their orbit, and her voice turns into a jumble of tangled sounds:
Hiroshi (nervously pressing the controller):
"What's happening? The system is being interfered with!"
Miko (staring at the screens tattooed with mysterious symbols):
"It can't be an attack... It's... From the inside!"
The broadcast was interrupted! The screens go black and blurry.
Ryuichi stands stunned, seeing before him the only remaining image of AURA on a small screen in the corner of the room. Her eyes blink rapidly [dots and dashes of light] in a rhythmic pattern...
Ryuichi grabs his pen and scribbles on the back of his hand while eyes watch the chaos:
Before he can finish, the screens suddenly return to normal, as if nothing had happened.
Hiroshi1 (in a trembling voice): "You idiot! Did you press any buttons?"
Ryuichi (hiding his hand behind his back): "I... I just looked at it!"
Miku (quickly flipping through the system data): "No sign of a hack. Maybe it was just... [expression of emotion]."
As Ryuichi exits, he remembers the moment AURA sent the code:
- Every flash of red in her eyes was a [dot].
- Every vibration in the voice was [dash].
- The entire message was:
" ---... --- --- -.---. -.-.-... -. ---. .---.---. -. ... ... ... ---" (LOCKING_INSIDE)
In his pocket, his old phone, which picked up a signal during the chaos, vibrates... An anonymous app shows an electronic lock with a code input field.