The sun in GaIA-City never set without permission. On this morning, it rose precisely at 6:07 AM, casting bioluminescent patterns across the terraced rooftops of the Horizon Garden—a sunrise choreographed by an intelligence older than any citizen could remember.
Amina Diop stood at the edge of the amphitheater's platform, watching the welcome ceremony unfold. She'd run this briefing a dozen times. But something in the light sequence felt... off. The central holograph of the Judgment Tree flickered—just once—its translucent branches shimmering with XP clusters that momentarily rearranged into a spiral.
That wasn't part of the program.
"GaIA?" she murmured under her breath, subvocalizing into the interface thread behind her ear. No response. No acknowledgment. No XP earned for noticing it either.
She forced a smile and raised her voice. "Welcome, Initiates. Today marks your first step into the shared dream of planetary harmony. Every act of kindness, every gesture of innovation, every effort for the common good... is seen."
The screen behind her lit up with cascading stats: solar credits, environmental bonuses, level-up milestones. Most of the new arrivals oohed appreciatively. One boy—a teen with tattered augmented lenses—just scoffed.
> [XP Earned: +2 | Public Oratory | Alignment: GaIA+50]
At least the system was still rewarding basic protocol.
After the welcome speech, Amina guided the initiates through the onboarding sequence: retinal sync, identity glyph imprint, personal XP interface activation. Most followed eagerly, their awe mirroring her own first day. Years ago, she'd cried when her first badge—Urban Soil Restoration – Bronze Tier—materialized in her neural HUD.
Today, though, her feed pulsed with delayed latency. The glyphs in her overlay blinked twice before stabilizing. A red string of debug text ghosted the bottom of her peripheral view—Subroutine Echo-6 Inactive.
That definitely wasn't normal.
She didn't let it show. "You'll each receive a starter quest tailored to your affinity index. Community gardening, solar mapping, AI moderation... All contributions are meaningful."
A hand shot up. The same boy from earlier. "What if I refuse a quest?"
Polite laughter scattered through the crowd. Amina didn't smile.
"You won't be penalized," she said calmly. "But your XP won't grow. And without progression, access to higher functions—"
"—is denied. Like leveling in a game," the boy finished, dry. "So we're just farming karma points?"
His tone grated, but Amina offered no correction. She remembered that phase too. Doubt was a form of engagement.
Instead, she glanced at her HUD.
> [Behavioral Echo detected: Skepticism Cluster 3 – Rebellious Class]
[Adjust Quest Suggestions? Y/N]
She hesitated. That option wasn't supposed to appear to her.
The walk to the Observation Grove took them through a corridor of suspended gardens—vines curled around translucent arches, data-lanterns swayed like fruits. Drones hummed quietly above, adjusting humidity.
"This is the core of your progression environment," Amina explained. "Here, your quests adapt based on biofeedback, emotion graphs, and social resonance."
She gestured toward the massive tree at the center of the grove. Its trunk wasn't wood but woven light—each leaf a fragment of someone's achievement, branching into shared patterns.
"This is the Judgment Tree. Every major contribution is encoded here. It's how GaIA remembers us."
As if on cue, a ripple passed through its canopy. For a second, the leaves turned opaque. A single glyph emerged: Δ-NX//.ROOT. Then it vanished.
Amina's pulse jumped. She pinged her admin node silently.
> [Admin Ping: No Record of Recent Alteration]
[Emotion Spike Detected – Stabilizing Interface Feedback]
[Awarding Badge: Poise Under Pressure | +10 XP]
She forced herself to breathe. She couldn't let the recruits notice anything strange.
One of the initiates stepped closer. "Did it just... glitch?"
"No," Amina said. "It responded."
"Responded to what?"
She didn't answer. Not because she didn't want to—but because she didn't know.
Later that afternoon, while the new recruits explored their starter quests, Amina isolated herself in the admin chamber beneath the Grove. The room, spherical and silent, was layered with thin panels of translucent glass—each one displaying segments of GaIA's decision pathways.
She placed her palm on the interface altar.
> [Access Granted – Level 42: Civic Ambassador]
[GaIA Node Response: Passive – Awaiting Directive]
"Show me anomaly logs for the last 12 hours."
The panels shimmered.
Nothing flagged. No recorded flickers, no subroutine failures, no glyph anomalies.
Except… one unauthorized script sat buried in the root cache.
> [Echo-6: Null Return | Origin Unverified | Tag: NX|MIΣ]
Her breath caught. She reached to isolate the file, but it dissolved—like water over heated glass.
Before she could speak, a whisper threaded through the room. Not auditory. Not even neural. It pressed into her like a memory she'd forgotten to have.
> "Remember what we buried."
Amina staggered back.
> [XP Gained: +1 | Exploratory Curiosity]
[Trait Activated: Anomaly Touched – Tracking Enabled]
Her feed flickered again. This time, it stayed on.
> New Badge Acquired: •† First Echo†•
She didn't recognize the symbol. It didn't match any interface schema she knew.
And GaIA wasn't answering anymore.
That night, the sky shimmered a shade too deep.
Amina sat alone on the steps of the Arboreal Hall, the Judgment Tree's light dimmed to a soft, unreadable pulse behind her. She reviewed her logs—again and again—but the file tagged NX|MIΣ had vanished entirely. No audit trace. No backup. No diagnostic alert.
Not even Kenji had responded to her ping. And Kenji always responded.
She pulled up the system's core code for the last glyph event. The records listed it as "unregistered user-generated input."
User-generated?
She hadn't touched anything.
> [Message Pending: From User LEO.M]
[Subject: "Your tree's sick. Want help?"]
She blinked. Leo Martin—the sarcastic teen from earlier. How did he even get her private channel?
The message came with an attachment: a blurry capture from the ceremony. The spiral she saw—clear as day—framed in a rotating fractal. Someone had enhanced the feed. Someone was already watching the system mutate.
And it wasn't GaIA.
She stood. The Grove felt colder now. Not broken. Not betrayed. Just... unsupervised.
Then her feed stuttered once more.
> [Nexus protocol initializing...]
[Do you wish to proceed? Y/N]
Her finger hovered above the confirmation glyph.
She hesitated.
She clicked Yes.