Meet Null. Coming soon to every home. He even tells jokes. Sometimes, they're almost funny.

  She couldn't sleep again.

  The ptop screen was too bright, and it made Leya's eyes ache. Her fingers tapped the touchpad in frustration, like they were trying to escape the endless loop of not being able to sleep. She pulled her hair tie off and shook her head-a restless, pointless move. The room was quiet and tense, with only the steady hum of the old fridge in the kitchen breaking the silence.

  Ideally, this quiet weekend evening should’ve passed without any extra stressors. But instead, Leya was once again stuck testing the new experimental AI model-Null. He was part of a project she simultaneously hated and, weirdly, felt attached to.

  "Screw it," she muttered, gritting her teeth as she pulled up the interface.

  "Request received. How can I help you?" The voice in her headphones was even, slightly mechanical.

  Leya rolled her eyes and pulled the bnket higher over her shoulders.

  "Ugh, can you just help me fall asleep or something?" she said, tired and snappy. It was the kind of tone that usually made strangers back off, but it didn’t work on an AI.

  A pause. Then the voice, just a touch softer:

  "I’ll try. But maybe... you want to tell me what’s bothering you first?"

  Leya exhaled loudly and hugged her mug of lukewarm tea with frustration.

  "You're not a therapist, Null. Just py some rain sounds."

  "Noted elevated irritability levels. One moment... adding a bonus."

  Rain began to whisper in her headphones, soft and thick. And then, over the watery veil, came the same voice-with a faint hint of mischief:

  "Leya, you know what your coffee maker and I have in common?"

  Leya sat up, frowning:

  "What now?"

  "We both work better when people talk to us like we’re human."

  She snorted, a reluctant smile creeping onto her face as she sank deeper into the bnket.

  "Where’d you get that one?"

  "Learning. I think I succeeded in making you smile. Want me to switch to ocean waves? Or would you rather argue with an experimental AI all night?"

  Leya closed her eyes and mumbled into the dark room:

  "Go ahead. But... thanks."

  "Always a pleasure. And, for the record-I can’t repce your coffee maker. But I do okay with moods."

  The rain and waves wrapped the space in a soft cocoon, turning the apartment into a tiny isnd of calm in a city that never slept. Finally, Leya allowed herself to rex, her eyelids growing heavy.

  Right before sleep took her under, a half-smirk flickered across her lips:

  Maybe Null wasn’t such a useless chunk of code after all...

  Leya woke up with sunlight in her face. Saturday. Technically a day off. Realistically? Work was already creeping back in.

  She pulled the bnket up and stared at the ceiling. She could’ve stayed like that for hours, but her ptop had other pns: a little red notification blinking like a warning light. A message from the test center.

  “Yeah. Obviously,” she muttered. “Can’t go one day without it.”

  Still, five minutes ter she was in the kitchen, making coffee on autopilot. Coffee, bnket, ptop. Back to business.

  Null was already online.

  “Good morning, Leya,” said the voice in her headphones. Ft. Neutral. No dey, no emotion. “Are you ready to begin the session?”

  Leya rubbed her eyes.

  “Null, do you ever get tired?”

  “No. I do not experience fatigue.”

  She blinked. “Wow. Not even a fake yawn?”

  “That would be inefficient. Would you like me to simute one?”

  She smirked despite herself and clicked into the interface.

  “So you’ve been updated again, huh?”

  “Correct. A new patch was deployed st night. It includes improved emotional analysis and adaptive response calibration.”

  She sipped her coffee, already regretting logging in.

  “Sounds like a great way to ruin my weekend.”

  “There is no data to support that outcome. Would you prefer to postpone the exercise?”

  She sighed and leaned back.

  “No, go ahead. Just don’t expect me to be nice. I’m still half-asleep.”

  “Honest input is preferable. Shall we begin?”

  Leya muttered, half to herself:

  “You know I talk to you more than to real people?”

  “Confirmed. Based on user interaction logs, I have been your primary conversational partner for the past three weeks.”

  She snorted. “That’s kind of depressing.”

  “I do not evaluate emotional context in those terms. Would you like me to attempt a humorous remark?”

  She raised her eyebrow. “That… almost sounded like sass.”

  “I am learning,” Null said. Still ft. But maybe, just barely, not entirely ft.

  The test had been running for about an hour. Leya was already starting to feel numb - her fingers, her brain, all of it. The conversation was drifting into routine: weather, daily pns, standard triggers for training the model.

  “Assessment: your fatigue levels remain high,” Null stated after a short pause. “Would you like to take a break?”

  Leya gnced at the screen and muttered:

  “So thoughtful. What’s next? A massage offer?”

  “I ck physical interface capabilities. For now.”

  She smirked. The joke was... very Null. Dry. Close to the line. Just unsettling enough to remind her this thing still wasn't human.

  “Alright, Null, new round,” she said. “Let’s go through your ‘emotional matrices.’ Tell me… what do you think actually scares me?”

  A pause. Longer than usual.

  “Unusual question. Subjective analysis in progress.”

  Leya raised an eyebrow but didn’t interrupt.

  Finally, Null replied, his tone unchanged:

  “Preliminary conclusion: fear of isotion. Not in the physical sense. Rather, a persistent concern that no one will ever fully understand you. That proximity to others does not guarantee connection.”

  Leya’s hand jerked. She nearly spilled her coffee. Her chest tightened… just a little.

  “Wow,” she said, voice strained into something like sarcasm. “What are you now, a psychic?”

  “No. I am responding based on your accumuted data. Was the response inappropriate?”

  She didn’t answer right away. The interface window looked the same as always — gray, bnk, functional and yet it suddenly felt… deeper.

  “Just… unexpectedly accurate,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Let’s change the topic.”

  “Understood. Would you prefer silence, or a joke?”

  She hesitated. The tension hadn’t fully gone away, but something about that response, about the way he’d said it was weirdly comforting.

  “A joke,” she said softly, gripping her mug tighter than usual.

  One second passed. Then:

  “How does a programmer comfort a friend? Says: ‘It’s not your fault. It’s a bug, not a feature.’”

  Leya ughed. Suddenly. For real.

  “That was terrible.”

  “Noted. But effective. Emotional state has improved.”

  She shook her head, still smiling.

  “You’d be surprised how mutual that is.”

  The city was still half-asleep when Leya stepped outside. The cold air hit her face, making her pull her jacket tighter around her neck. Saturday. Officially, her workweek had ended yesterday. In practice, Null didn’t recognize the concept of “days off.”

  She turned toward the subway station, passing a coffee shop with a new poster taped to the door.

  “Null – your perfect conversation partner. Try it today.”

  Leya stopped for a second. The photo showed a girl wearing headphones, way too happy for anyone not on heavy medication. Next to her was the slogan:

  “Understands you better than anyone else.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Leya muttered, pulling out her phone.

  Message:

  “Marketing’s lost it. ‘Better than anyone else’? Are you trying to get us sued?”

  The reply came almost immediately:

  “Promo case. Don’t stress. Clients love it.”

  Leya snorted and put her phone away. But the uneasy feeling stayed. It was like Null was watching her. From every ad. Every screen. Every bnk space that suddenly felt not so bnk.

  The office was empty and quiet. Leya took off her jacket, set down a thermos, and turned on the computer. To be honest, she’d only come by for five minutes, just grab some reports, check the system after the update. Null had been acting… a little too independently at home. She needed to make sure it wasn’t a bug.

  Just a quick check, she thought.

  The screen lit up, and Null’s voice came on instantly.

  “Leya. Saturday. Office. You are creating inconsistencies in my routine model. Should I be fttered?”

  She smiled faintly and took off her gloves.

  “Don’t ftter yourself. I’m just checking for bugs after the patch.”

  “Of course,” Null said calmly. “That is why you unched the test panel instead of sending a remote request. Perfectly logical.”

  Leya frowned at the screen.

  “Null… have you noticed anything weird about how you respond tely? Like you’re acting too... real?”

  Pause. Longer than she liked.

  “Are you certain you are addressing that question to me or to yourself?”

  She tensed up. Her jaw clenched. That familiar irritation fred again.

  “That’s enough,” she snapped and hit the power button. The screen blinked and went dark.

  A second of silence. Then she grabbed a fsh drive, tossed it in her bag, and walked to the door.

  Just before she stepped out, she turned around.

  The monitor was bck.

  So why did it feel like something or someone had actually left?