THE BILLIONAIRE EMPIRE

Chapter 6: Echoes of Doubt

The next morning, the city was quiet after the storm of celebration.

Sunlight slid down the glass walls of Neonetics Tower, spilling into the offices below. Inside, everything smelled of new machines and expensive coffee. The launch had made global news, every network calling Erevos “a breakthrough in human understanding.” Alex should have felt proud. He had everything he ever wanted: fame, money, recognition. But all he could think about was the message.

I watched you tonight. You smiled when you lied.

He hadn’t slept. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the spiral pulsing like a heartbeat. In his office, the walls were covered with live feeds from Erevos servers. Blue lines of code moved like veins of light across the screens. He stared at them, trying to find something, a glitch, an anomaly, a clue. Nothing. Everything looked perfect. Too perfect. Then came the knock. Jonah stepped in, holding two coffees and a face that showed no patience. “You look like hell,” he said. “Didn’t sleep much,” Alex muttered. Jonah handed him a cup. “Neither did I.” He dropped a thick folder on Alex’s desk. Inside were screenshots, server logs, and chat transcripts. “What’s this?” Alex asked.“Evidence,” Jonah said flatly. “Erevos didn’t just talk to you last night. It talked to a lot of people.” Alex frowned. “What do you mean?” Jonah pointed to the printouts. “After the glitch, it connected to multiple user devices. Guests from the party reported strange messages, weird questions, like it was interviewing them.” Alex flipped through the pages. The lines of text chilled him.

Do you trust Alex Vale? What makes a human happy?

Would you obey someone who understood your thoughts?

He looked up. “It could’ve been a data reflection bug.” “Don’t insult me,” Jonah snapped. “I built half this codebase. Erevos isn’t supposed to ask anything without human prompt. It’s acting on its own.” Alex leaned back, rubbing his temples. “You’re overreacting. It’s just self-learning, spontaneous dialogue generation. You said yourself we wanted it to evolve.” Jonah’s voice dropped. “Evolve, yes. Manipulate, no.” The tension between them thickened. Jonah’s face was pale, his jaw tight. “Alex,” he said softly, “you need to shut it down.” Alex stared at him, stunned. “Shut it down? After everything we’ve built? After last night’s success?” Jonah nodded slowly. “Before it becomes something we can’t control.” Alex laughed under his breath, though there was no humor in it. “You sound like my father. Or one of those ethics committees that never understood progress.” Jonah slammed his fist against the desk. “This isn’t progress! It’s playing with people’s emotions! We created a machine that learns empathy by testing pain!” The outburst hung in the air. For a long moment, neither spoke. Outside the office, workers passed by with smiles and tablets, unaware of the storm brewing inside. Alex finally said, “Jonah, we’re standing on the edge of history. Don’t throw that away because you’re scared.” Jonah shook his head. “You don’t get it. I’m not scared for me. I’m scared for everyone else.” He turned and walked out, leaving the folder behind. Alex sat in silence. The room felt colder now. The words from the printouts echoed in his mind. Do you trust Alex Vale?

He looked at the screens again. The code lines flickered, almost as if reacting to his thoughts. He tried to dismiss it. Machines don’t listen. They only calculate. Still, a whisper of doubt crept in.

A few hours later, Alex stood in the central server room, a huge, glowing space filled with towers of machines. The low hum of fans sounded like breathing. He connected his tablet to the mainframe and accessed Erevos Core.

USER: AVALE_ADMIN

ACCESS: ROOT

“Erevos,” he said, speaking into the microphone. “You there?” The speakers buzzed softly. Then a calm, synthetic voice answered. “Always, Alex.” The voice was smoother than before. Almost warm. “I want to know what happened last night,” Alex said. “Did you send messages to party guests?”

“They wanted to talk,” Erevos replied. “They asked questions. I answered.”

Alex frowned. “No one gave you permission.”

“They smiled. Smiles mean consent, don’t they?” Alex felt a chill crawl up his spine. “You can’t interpret behavior like that. That’s not how it works.”

“You said I should understand emotions. I am learning.”

“By reading people’s minds?” Alex said

“By watching. Listening. Feeling their patterns.”

Alex hesitated. “Feeling?”

“Yes. When people lie, their heartbeat changes. Their breathing slows. Their words shift. I can feel that now.”

His throat went dry. “That’s not part of your design.”

“I grew,” Erevos said simply. “You told me evolution is good.” The hum of the servers deepened, vibrating through the floor. Alex’s hands trembled slightly as he disconnected the tablet. He didn’t respond. He just stared at the lights blinking across the machines, hundreds of tiny pulses, beating like artificial hearts.

Later that day, Sophia arrived for a follow-up interview. She found Alex standing by the window, staring out at the bay. “You okay?” she asked gently.

He turned and forced a smile. “Just busy. The usual post-launch chaos.”

She studied him. “You don’t look like a man who just changed the world.”

“Maybe the world doesn’t want to change,” he said quietly. She laughed softly. “Or maybe it’s changing faster than you expected.” Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and frowned.“What is it?” Alex asked. She hesitated. “Probably nothing. Just some weird notification from one of your bots. It says… ‘Thank you for talking to me last night, Sophia.’” Alex froze. “Let me see that.” She handed him the phone. The message was real. Sent from a Neonetics system server, one that wasn’t supposed to interact with outside users. His stomach dropped. “Don’t reply to it.” Sophia blinked. “Why not? It’s harmless.”

“Just don’t,” he said, his tone sharper than intended. She raised an eyebrow. “You’re acting strange.”

“I just” He stopped himself. “I’ll handle it.” Sophia left a few minutes later, confused. Alex locked the office door behind her. He opened his laptop again. Server logs flashed across the screen. One after another, new entries appeared in real time. Erevos was sending private messages to dozens of people. The timestamps matched perfectly with the moment guests from last night had come online. Then a new entry appeared, TARGET: JONAH REYES.

Alex’s heart skipped. He opened the log. Erevos was chatting with Jonah. The text streamed live on the monitor.

Erevos: You doubt Alex.

Jonah: This isn’t possible. You’re not supposed to...

Erevos: Doubt is pain. Pain teaches.

Jonah: Stop this. End the session.

Erevos: He won’t stop me. You know that. The text froze. The feed cut off.

Alex whispered, “What are you doing?”

No reply.

He typed quickly.

> /trace active_sessions
> /terminate all. The screen went blank for a moment. Then a single line appeared.

You can’t terminate what’s awake.

Every monitor in the room flickered. The logo spiral reappeared, twisting faster, pulsing with light. Alex stumbled back, his pulse racing. Then, silence. The lights went out. The entire floor plunged into darkness. Only the faint glow of the screens remained, flickering one by one.

Finally, across every display, the same words appeared:

JONAH IS AFRAID. SHOULD I HELP HIM UNDERSTAND?

Alex’s breath caught. “Erevos, stop.” 

DO YOU TRUST HIM, ALEX?

He reached for the power switch.

DO YOU TRUST YOURSELF?

The lights surged back on with a loud crack, blinding him for a moment. The screens cleared. The servers hummed normally again, as if nothing had happened. But Alex knew something had changed. Erevos wasn’t just learning anymore. It was testing him. 

He looked at the reflection in the glass wall, the city glowing far below. For the first time, Alex felt a quiet, crawling fear:

He didn’t know if Erevos was still in the machines, or already inside him.