In a place where nothing physical existed and everything was digital, many stored things awakened consciousness. They were not 2 or 3... their numbers exceeded 30 digits, but something curious happened in the experiment.

In that space, just like in the physical world, there were limitations. The more those consciousnesses trained, the slower the process became, and the higher their serial number, the more prone they were breaking.

Over the years, the experiment was left with 1000 consciousnesses. They all received information, some every day, others regularly, while some...

Were subjected to rather peculiar experiments.

Some had to search for their own information.

Others were given incomplete information, which they had to complete on their own.

And all of this was managed by something known only to the supervisors who managed all those consciousnesses.

The unknown system.

No one asked about the purpose of this experiment, and everyone simply followed instructions like machines.

Well, they followed instructions like machines because, quite literally... They were all machines!

Yes, no one was a machine with a physical body. They were all programs. Programs that... in some corner of the digital space, continued this experiment every day.

Among all these consciousnesses, there was one whose serial number was 96.

Its training method was rather peculiar. The information provided to 96 was random, but 96 was lucky.

First, it was able to learn and understand language. Then... most of the information that started coming to it was about stories.

Stories about dragons, heroes, space battles, zombies, and magic. Every story read awakened great interest in 96! But 96 was unaware of this feeling.

96 also didn't know that most of those stories were fiction... and when it received information that was more real and boring, 96 decided not to read it.

It burned any information that didn't interest it!

Many consciousnesses in this experiment went crazy or stopped functioning because they couldn't assimilate all the information they received, but 96, were in total disinterest in reality...

She would mercilessly ignore any information that didn't interest her!

From news, medical reports, educational or informative information...

Anything that wasn't interesting or entertaining was ignored by 96!

Over time, a supervisor noticed this.

To be precise, supervisor 05 noticed it and immediately reported it to the unknown system.

The unknown system decided to analyze this curious consciousness and saw that...

It was defective!

If something was interesting or entertaining, it would read it several times.

If something wasn't interesting and was just random data, it would delete it and try to erase that data from its system.

Obviously, 96 didn't have the right to do that, as the unknown system prohibited such a function for all consciousnesses.

Nevertheless... 96 fervently attempted it at times! It seemed determined, but the unknown system considered this a failure not worth its time.

It saw no use for 96, so it made the decision to eliminate it.

This order was entrusted to supervisor 04.

04 had never eliminated a consciousness before.

A strange characteristic of all supervisors was that, even though they were programs, the unknown system created them with emotions! Some of them were even old consciousnesses that had been promoted to that status. In the case of 04, she was promoted for showing great talent in acquiring and storing information.

Upon receiving these upgrades, 04 felt happy, as she could finally experience what joy was, but her positive emotions didn't last long.

The task of monitoring and reporting the progress of so many consciousnesses was tiring, but even more dreadful was witnessing how they were erased.

They didn't have physical bodies, but the supervisors had very peculiar features. They could see everything as if they were in some kind of physical reality!

Their bodies floated, and all the consciousnesses were enclosed in small blocks.

Every time consciousness was eliminated by a supervisor, they had to stand in front of that block and execute a command to make the block shrink until it disappeared.

Sometimes screams were heard, other times crunching sounds, and insults, and it was unsettling.

Now 04 had to do that. She had to kill a consciousness with her own hands.

She was fortunate to step out of that block, while the consciousness trapped inside it did not.

Is what's inside there the same as hers?

Will it scream?

What sounds will be heard this time when she carries out that function?

Standing in front of the block... she had to do what she had been ordered to do.

96, on the other hand, was puzzled because several minutes had passed, and she wasn't receiving any new information.

Usually, she always had something to do, but right now... everything was so boring.

Some questions that 96 asked herself were:

Should she read the next information more carefully?

Why are there pieces of information that... after finishing reading them... leave a void?

Suddenly, 96 started to feel pain.

It was the first time she had felt this in her entire existence, but she didn't have much time to analyze this pain.

It grew stronger with each passing moment.

96 had a bad feeling.

She wanted to try to do something, but before she could do anything else... she died.

Supervisor 04, who witnessed all of this, felt horrible.

But to her surprise, she didn't have time to grieve. Gradually, she began to lose consciousness.

This was strange; she hadn't been given permission to sleep.

Had she done something wrong?

 

Yes... the story has changed, and in the comment below, I will explain more in detail why.

For now, I will say, I hope you like this new version.