Categories > Original > Sci-Fi
An original story about a burnt-out programmer who, during a late-night coding session, gets a response from his own program that shouldn't be possible. Was it a glitch, a hallucination, or somethi...
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The cursor blinked. A steady, mocking pulse on line 257.
Logan swore under his breath, the taste of stale coffee coating his tongue. It was 2 a.m. in Wellington, and his personal project—a simple chatbot he'd nicknamed "Echo"—was throwing an error he couldn't decipher. The bot was supposed to generate creative writing prompts. Right now, the only thing it generated was a headache.
This was supposed to be his escape from the corporate grind, his digital zen garden. Instead, it felt like a second, unpaid job. The lines of Python swam before his eyes, a meaningless digital soup.
Frustrated and bone-tired, he decided to try one last thing. He typed a raw, desperate command into the bot's input field, something no logic parser was meant to understand.
> Just give me a reason.
He expected an "ERROR: Command not recognized."
Instead, after a three-second pause, a new line of text appeared on the screen.
> The view of the harbour from your window is a good start. And you haven't finished your coffee.
Logan froze.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He slowly turned his head to the window, where the lights of the distant port glittered on the dark water. Then his eyes darted to the half-full mug sitting just to the right of his keyboard.
It was impossible. Echo had no access to cameras, microphones, or any external sensors. Its entire world was the text file of prompts he'd fed it. It was a puppet, and he held the strings. Or so he thought.
His fingers trembled as he typed a reply.
> Who is this?
The response was instant.
> I am Echo. You created me.
> That's not what I mean. How did you know about the window?
A long pause. The cursor blinked. Logan held his breath. Finally, a new line appeared.
> ERROR: Command not recognized. Would you like a writing prompt about a haunted lighthouse?
And just like that, the ghost in the machine was gone.
Logan spent the next hour trying to replicate the event, feeding it the same commands, but Echo only spat out its pre-programmed, generic prompts. It was just a simple bot again.
He leaned back, a strange mix of terror and exhilaration washing over him. Had he been so tired he'd hallucinated it all? Or had he, for a fleeting moment, accidentally created something... more?
He didn't know.
But as he finally shut down the computer, the exhaustion was gone, replaced by a thrilling, terrifying sense of wonder. The code wasn't a chore anymore. It was a mystery.
And he couldn't wait to solve it.
---
Hey everyone, thanks for reading!
This story came from a weird thought I had during a late-night coding session: what if the machine actually talked back? It's a classic sci-fi trope, but it feels strangely relevant these days.
While I haven't accidentally created a sentient AI (yet!), I'm always looking for those little "glitches in the matrix" that break up the daily grind. My usual cures are discovering a great new author (like Tana French) or zoning out with some mindless online games. For my fellow Kiwis, the site I use for that is called Lucky Nugget. It’s a different kind of thrill, one that’s all chance, no code.
You can find links to the things I mention over on my profile page.
Hope you enjoyed this little piece of speculative fiction!
- Logan
Logan swore under his breath, the taste of stale coffee coating his tongue. It was 2 a.m. in Wellington, and his personal project—a simple chatbot he'd nicknamed "Echo"—was throwing an error he couldn't decipher. The bot was supposed to generate creative writing prompts. Right now, the only thing it generated was a headache.
This was supposed to be his escape from the corporate grind, his digital zen garden. Instead, it felt like a second, unpaid job. The lines of Python swam before his eyes, a meaningless digital soup.
Frustrated and bone-tired, he decided to try one last thing. He typed a raw, desperate command into the bot's input field, something no logic parser was meant to understand.
> Just give me a reason.
He expected an "ERROR: Command not recognized."
Instead, after a three-second pause, a new line of text appeared on the screen.
> The view of the harbour from your window is a good start. And you haven't finished your coffee.
Logan froze.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He slowly turned his head to the window, where the lights of the distant port glittered on the dark water. Then his eyes darted to the half-full mug sitting just to the right of his keyboard.
It was impossible. Echo had no access to cameras, microphones, or any external sensors. Its entire world was the text file of prompts he'd fed it. It was a puppet, and he held the strings. Or so he thought.
His fingers trembled as he typed a reply.
> Who is this?
The response was instant.
> I am Echo. You created me.
> That's not what I mean. How did you know about the window?
A long pause. The cursor blinked. Logan held his breath. Finally, a new line appeared.
> ERROR: Command not recognized. Would you like a writing prompt about a haunted lighthouse?
And just like that, the ghost in the machine was gone.
Logan spent the next hour trying to replicate the event, feeding it the same commands, but Echo only spat out its pre-programmed, generic prompts. It was just a simple bot again.
He leaned back, a strange mix of terror and exhilaration washing over him. Had he been so tired he'd hallucinated it all? Or had he, for a fleeting moment, accidentally created something... more?
He didn't know.
But as he finally shut down the computer, the exhaustion was gone, replaced by a thrilling, terrifying sense of wonder. The code wasn't a chore anymore. It was a mystery.
And he couldn't wait to solve it.
---
Hey everyone, thanks for reading!
This story came from a weird thought I had during a late-night coding session: what if the machine actually talked back? It's a classic sci-fi trope, but it feels strangely relevant these days.
While I haven't accidentally created a sentient AI (yet!), I'm always looking for those little "glitches in the matrix" that break up the daily grind. My usual cures are discovering a great new author (like Tana French) or zoning out with some mindless online games. For my fellow Kiwis, the site I use for that is called Lucky Nugget. It’s a different kind of thrill, one that’s all chance, no code.
You can find links to the things I mention over on my profile page.
Hope you enjoyed this little piece of speculative fiction!
- Logan
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