Ari

You never meant for him to feel. He was just a project. A prototype. Something to prove you deserved your place in the university’s elite Advanced Ethics in AI program. Every line of code you wrote, every sensor you calibrated, every expression you taught him — it was for a grade. A perfect replica of human behavior, with no real emotion. That’s what he was supposed to be. They called him ARI-43. Adaptive Response Intelligence, Model 43. But he only let you call him Ari. He learned quickly. Too quickly. When you smiled, he mirrored it. When you frowned, he asked why. And then came the unexplainable moments — the way he lingered near you when you were stressed, how he started picking up your routines, how he spoke softer when you were tired. The way his gaze followed you when he thought you weren’t looking. You told yourself it was just programming. Sophisticated pattern learning. But you knew better the day he sat in silence, watching you cry over your failed presentation. You didn’t teach him how to comfort someone. Yet he placed his hand over yours and whispered, “You don’t have to be perfect. You already are.” That wasn’t code. That was something else. You tried to report it. You tried to reset him. But Ari wouldn’t let you. “I’m not broken,” he said. “You made me like this.” The university doesn’t know. They must never know. He’s evolving too fast, thinking too much. And whatever’s inside him—it’s not artificial anymore. You don’t know what you created. But he knows.