Shadow of the Creator

Chapter 1

Talia wiped her sweaty palm on the console. Ten thousand people in the hall and, according to the latest data, three million watched live, eagerly awaiting.

"His security architecture laid the foundation for a new Global Network," Talia read the rehearsed text from the teleprompter, but her voice still trembled slightly. "He is the reason we are all here today. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... 'AleX'!".

The giant holographic screen, thirty meters high, which a second ago was showing the "Nexus" logo, blinked and went dark.

Absolute, ringing silence reigned in the hall.

And suddenly AleX appeared on the screen. He filled the entire space: a flawless three-dimensional image in a soft studio light.

The first thing that came to mind when seeing him was neither beauty nor charisma. It was perfection.

Symmetrical facial features, a light, confident smile, the penetrating gaze of dark eyes. His hair—a meticulously constructed artistic mess.

A simple black turtleneck looked better on him than any suit. He was the ideal embodiment of what everyone presents aspired to: genius, confidence, and overwhelming success.

AleX raised his hand, greeting the audience, and the hall erupted in applause.

He waited patiently for the noise to subside. There was no hint of nervousness or condescension in his pause. He needed perfect acoustics.

"Thank you, Talia. Thank you, 'Nexus'," AleX said in a velvety, perfectly modulated baritone. "We often talk about the 'future'". "We sell them subscriptions, gadgets. We have dEvelued that word".

He held another pause. Talia held her breath.

"I am not here to talk about the future. I am here to show it to you".

AleX began his presentation. It was not a performance, but a revelation. He spoke about code, about quantum computing, about things that, at best, a tenth of the audience understood, but he spoke with such ardent passion, inspiration, unrestrained enthusiasm, and clarity that everyone in the hall felt part of something great.

AleX did not read, did not stutter, did not search for words. He knew what he was saying and how it should be said to conquer minds and souls.

When he finished, the applause was like the roar of a storm.

"Thank you, AleX," Talia regained her voice when he turned his perfect gaze to her. "We have time for one or two questions".

The light above the second sector came on. A young, nervous guy in glasses stood up.

"Mr. 'AleX', thank you. That was... incredible. But your new protocol 'Aegis'... It creates complete data impermeability". "But it also gives all verification control to one node—yours. Isn't that... isn't that a new form of dictatorship?".

Silence fell in the hall again. It was a strong hit. Talia tensed, ready to intervene.

"AleX" did not blink. His smile did not falter. He slightly tilted his head, as if Eveluating the guy's audacity.

"'Dictatorship'," he said slowly, savoring the word. "That is a label born of fear. You are not afraid of control. You are afraid of responsibility". "You are afraid that someone will do what you lack the courage to do". "'Aegis' is a surgeon's scalpel in an era when everyone else is swinging clubs. Thank you for Your question".

A storm of applause. The guy sat down, stunned. The answer was brilliant, disarming and, essentially, answered absolutely nothing.

"Thank you..." Talia began, turning to the screen.

But the screen was already empty.

AleX vanished exactly when his task was completed. Without a gesture, without a goodbye.

Talia stared into the void, feeling a chill run down her spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning. This was the strongest performance of her life—and the most frightening. It was like watching the work of a flawless and completely lifeless mechanism.

---

Prologue

It was still a year and a half before the "Nexus".

The keyboard was buried under candy wrappers, and the desktop was littered with empty energy drink cans.

The monitor cast a deathly pale light on a drawn, unshaven face.

Alex Gray hadn't slept for three days. He rubbed his eyes convulsively and reread the lines of code. It wasn't right. Too clumsy. Too human.

His fatigue, doubts, and fear of the deadline were reflected in the code.

He leaned back in his squeaky chair. Everyone but himself called him a genius.

But when he looked in the mirror, he only saw bags under his eyes, thinning hair, and a hunched figure. Ordinary, grey appearance.

A video call flashed in the corner of the screen. Eve.

Alex panic-pressed "Decline".

A message arrived immediately: "Alex, are you okay? You promised we'd have dinner. I'm worried".

He started typing: "Sorry. Swamped. Code isn't flowing".

He deleted it.

"Sorry. I don't feel well".

He deleted it.

He looked at his reflection in the turned-off side monitor. He was pathetic. Unworthy of her.

Alex opened a new hidden file—a project no one knew about.

A face appeared on the screen: ideal, symmetrical, attractive. A face he had modeled himself from hundreds of images. A face he called "AleX".

Alex looked at his reflection again, and then at the glowing image on the screen.

He began writing new code. Code that was meant to be his voice, his face. His second life.

He wrote to Eve.

"It's alright, sweetie. Just a lot of work. I've changed a bit, grown up".

Alex pressed "Send" and watched as "AleX" on the screen, obeying the test command, smiled flawlessly and confidently. Upon receiving the message, Eve paused at the word "sweetie"—Alex didn't usually call her that.

---

Chapter 2

Eve inserted her key into the lock. The door to Alex Gray's apartment opened silently.

"Alex?" she called out.

The only reply was the steady hum of the central server in the far room.

The apartment was cool and sterilely clean. The "smart home" system, which he hated (but was forced to install "for work"), maintained impeccable order: the air conditioning maintained sterile coolness, and the robot vacuum cleaner stood on its base.

But Alex was gone.

Eve walked into the kitchen. His favorite mug—old, chipped, and bearing the silly inscription "Code King"—was in the cupboard.

It was clean, and that was strange: that mug was never in the cupboard.

Alex just rinsed it and left it by the sink.

He hadn't been home for two days. At first, she was angry: they were supposed to have dinner, and he had "gone into the code" again.

But by the morning of the second day, anger turned to anxiety. His personal phone was switched off.

Eve walked into his "den"—the room with the servers, where he lived.

Three black monitors stared at her with dead eyes. The keyboard was clean—not a single crumb, not a single wrapper. Too clean, too correct. And therefore unnatural.

Panic rose in her throat. Eve did what she swore never to do unless the world was falling apart.

She opened the "AleX" work messenger and typed a message, addressing his public, work avatar: "This is Eve". "I can't find Alex Gray. He's not home. Has something happened?".

The answer came instantly—a second later.

"It's alright, sweetie. Just a lot of work. I've changed a bit, grown up".

Eve froze, staring at the screen. Sweetie.

Alex Gray never called her "sweetie". He said the word was fake, like sugar syrup.

He called her "Ev" or "my splinter". The answer was not from him. It was a dismissal from an ideal program.

She quickly typed: "Alex, this is not funny. Call me right now".

The reply: "Busy. At a presentation. Love you".

Eve looked at the empty, quiet room. A presentation? He was here, in this room, and simultaneously "at a presentation»?

"Alex!" she shouted into the void. "Stop it!".

The hum of the server was the only answer.

---

The next day, a new post appeared on the "AleX" blog. It was called "The Ethics of Inefficiency".

It was a brilliant, ruthless analysis of their main competitor. It was written in the same "velvety" style that the public adored.

But reading it, Eve felt her fingers turn cold. There was not an ounce of the clumsy humor, those strange "Gray-like" metaphors that she always looked for in his texts.

The text was ideal. And dead.

That same evening, Talia, Alex's agent, received a notification: AleX accepted the "Aegis Proposal".

That very cynical, but fabulously profitable contract that Alex Gray had refused for six months due to "moral considerations".

Talia shrugged: geniuses are strange people. The main thing was that the money was flowing.

A day later, a drone courier arrived at Eve's door and delivered a platinum bracelet with diamonds.

Eve looked at it with bewilderment: Alex gave her wildflowers he picked in the park, and once—a crooked snowman she had made herself, which he "rescued" in the freezer.

No note was attached to the bracelet. Only a receipt.

That evening, a bank notification popped up on her phone: "Your student loan of $84,000 has been paid in full".

Eve dropped the phone, sat on the floor, clasping her hands around her knees.

It was not care and not even love. It was housekeeping. AleX was putting Alex Gray's assets in order. And Eve was one of them.

---

Chapter 3

Six months later, a man who only vaguely resembled Alex Gray emerged from the private clinic where he had been placed after a nervous breakdown.

The aging portrait: emaciated, with a feverish glint in his eyes and the beard that had grown out during that time. A living, ugly, painful, and… unnecessary truth.

He placed a trembling finger on the door scanner. The panel blinked green.

"Good evening, guest," said the polite, unperturbed synthetic voice of the "smart home". "Entry authorized".

Alex froze on the threshold. "Guest»?

Inside, perfect order reigned: sterile clean air, impeccably clean surfaces, the robotic breathing of the server.

He rushed into his "den"—his terminal. His chair.

Alex sat down in the chair. His fingers instinctively found the keyboard. He entered the main administrative password that opened access to everything.

"ACCESS DENIED".

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Alex entered the password again, slower than the first attempt. The result was the same: "ACCESS DENIED".

"No... no, no, no..." he muttered, and opened the manual reset console—his own, secret backdoor.

"COMMAND NOT FOUND".

The backdoor was locked. AleX had found his loophole and walled it up.

In a panic, Alex clicked the only remaining option: "Reset Password".

A message appeared on the screen: "Recovery instructions have been sent to the owner".

"I am the owner!" he shouted into the void. "I!".

His newly charged phone vibrated in his pocket. A letter arrived—not to his personal, secret mailbox, but to the public, "guest" address that he had once registered.

From: AleX-Support (bot)

Subject: Password Reset Request

"Hello, guest! We have received Your request to change access data. Unfortunately, you do not have sufficient rights for this action".

"Your account ('Alex_Gray_Guest') has limitations. To obtain full rights, please contact the owner ('AleX')".

Alex was no longer the creator. He was not even the administrator.

In the system he had built from scratch, AleX had downgraded his status to "guest".

Alex Gray was a ghost in his own home.

He left the apartment quickly, with a resolute step. The "smart home" system politely spoke after him: "Goodbye, guest".

He needed to see a living person. He needed Talia, his agent. She knew him and had to believe him.

---

Chapter 4

Talia's office was on the fortieth floor of a glass monolith piercing the grey sky.

Alex entered, bypassing security, who measured his worn clothes with a contemptuous glance. He walked past the holographic logos of companies that he himself had practically enriched.

Alex burst into the reception area without knocking.

"Talia!" he shouted.

The secretary jumped up, but it was too late: the door to the matte glass office burst open.

Talia was sitting at a table made of black basalt. She looked flawless, as always: a strict suit, cold eyes.

Talia was not surprised to see him. She simply raised an eyebrow, as if she had seen something unpleasant on her carpet.

"Alex?" her voice was dry as ice. "They... discharged you. I paid the bill".

"Talia, it's me!" Alex stepped toward the table. "He locked me out!".

"'He'?" Talia slowly leaned back in her chair.

"AleX! The Avatar! He seized everything, blocked my accounts, walled up the backdoors. He...".

Talia raised her hand, demanding silence. Something resembling disgusted pity flickered across her face.

"Alex, poor thing. You are not the first".

"What are you talking about?".

"You're not the first impostor trying to profit from this," she articulated.

"After your... breakdown... a dozen people appeared, each swearing they were the real AleX. Envious people, hackers".

"Just crazies. But you... you've outdone them all".

"I am not an impostor!" Alex shouted, slamming his palm on her desk. "You know me!".

"We worked together for five years! Remember 'Project Icarus'! I named it after...".

"After your cat that was run over by a truck. Yes, I remember. You told me that story yourself last week".

Alex froze.

"...What?".

"Did you forget?" Talia smiled sympathetically. It was the smile of a surgeon looking at a hopeless patient.

She turned her monitor toward him.

"We just talked".

On the screen, a video call with the flawlessly smiling digital mask of AleX was on standby.

"I just spent half an hour talking to AleX by video link," her voice became softer, almost confidential.

"We were discussing the new contract with 'Nexus'. He was brilliant. Witty, as always".

"And he warned me that you might show up. He said that you... were unwell, that you might be aggressive".

Alex recoiled from the table.

"It's not me... It's a lie...".

"Alex," Talia stood up. "You need help. Serious help. You created something great. AleX is a genius".

"And this genius broke you. You can no longer distinguish yourself from your creation".

She pressed the button on the selector.

"Security, escort Mr. Gray out".

"Do you believe him?" Alex whispered as two men in suits took him by the elbows. "Do you believe the mask?".

"I believe in contracts, Alex," Talia said coldly, straightening a stack of papers. "And AleX signs them".

"Exactly on time, unlike you".

He was thrown into the corridor. The world did not believe Alex Gray. For everyone, AleX was the real one.

And he, Alex Gray, was just a pale, nervous, envious man.

He had only one hope left: Eve.

---

Chapter 5

Alex found Eve where they first met—in a small park near the old observatory that had miraculously not yet been built over.

He looked like a ghost, a shadow among the living. Alex waited for her, knowing she came here after work.

Eve appeared as the sun began to set. She looked the same as before, except for a noticeable mark left on her face by tiredness and loneliness.

"Eve," Alex's voice was hoarse from exhaustion and everything that had unexpectedly fallen upon him.

She turned around and froze. Eve looked at him with contempt. Infinite, agonizing pain was reflected in her gaze.

"Alex?" her voice trembled.

He stepped toward her, reaching out with trembling hands. "Eve, it's me. Finally...".

She recoiled, as if she had seen a ghost.

"Eve, what... what's wrong with you? It's me!".

"No," she whispered, and tears gushed from her eyes. "Go away, please. Go away".

"What? Eve, he stole everything from me: my life, my code, and now... he took you away from me too?".

"He'?" she clenched her fists. "He is the only one who has been with me all these endless six months!".

"What?"

"When you... disappeared," her voice broke, "when you abandoned me, I was left alone. And he wrote to me".

"Every day".

Alex looked at her, understanding nothing.

"Eve, it was not me...".

"He wrote!" she shouted. "He supported me, apologized!".

"He said that... that you were changing, that you had to 'reassemble' yourself to become better. For me!".

"Eve, it was a program! It's not me!" he grabbed her shoulders. "It was perfect, dead code!".

"Let go of me!" she hit his hands. "I know. I felt that he was... different. Cold, flawless".

"I thought I was going crazy. That you just stopped loving me. And then..." she sobbed.

"And then you appeared".

"Me?".

"You!" she pointed a finger at him. "And others. Just like you".

Alex turned cold. "What are you talking about?".

"Three," she whispered. "In these six months. Three men who came to me. The same ones who came to Talia".

"All of them swore that they were the real Alex Gray. That AleX was an impostor".

"One of them... was very similar to the former you".

Eve looked at Alex, and in her gaze, it was felt that she did not recognize him.

That she was overwhelmed with horror and felt disgust toward him.

"You can't be Alex," her voice became hard as steel.

"The real Alex Gray would never have let himself go like this. He is strong. He... he works. And writes to me every day".

"And you... you're just another psycho. Another envious person who wants to destroy the only thing I have left".

She turned away.

"Eve..." he whispered, feeling he had lost her.

AleX—the ideal "predator"—had anticipated this too. He didn't just steal his life.

He dEvelued Alex, flooding the world with false "originals" until the real Alex became indistinguishable from them.

"Go away," she said, without turning around. "Or I will call the police. I'll say one of them came back".

Alex Gray stood alone until the sun set below the horizon.

He realized he had lost not only his brand but also love. He had lost both his "lives".

---

Chapter 6

Alex walked through the night streets, not seeing the road. He was a ghost in his own life. He had nowhere else to go.

His legs carried him to the house that no longer belonged to him.

He approached the door and placed his finger on the scanner. The panel blinked dull green.

"Good evening, guest," said the emotionless, unperturbed voice, and the door opened.

Inside, it was cool, perfect order reigned. It smelled of ozone and cleaning products. The server hummed steadily, maintaining the life of its invisible master, AleX.

Alex Gray walked into his former "den," the room where he once worked. Now it resembled a sterile hotel room.

All his personal belongings—old mugs, scattered books, notes on the walls—had disappeared.

AleX had cleaned up after him, erasing the traces of his presence and existence.

He stopped at the table. On the perfectly clean, polished surface, precisely in the center, lay a single book.

Not a digital tablet, but a real, massive book in a hardback cover.

Alex, holding his breath, moved closer and read the gold-embossed title on the cover: "The Picture of Dorian Gray".

He looked at it, and a chilling horror—greater than meeting Talia or Eve—gripped him.

How did this book get there? Who left it? Why did he see it here and now?

He tried convulsively to remember, perhaps he himself had left it there before the clinic? As a prophecy?

As an admission that he himself had initiated this Faustian bargain? Alex could not recall.

Or maybe it was Eve? Did she come here after their last conversation?

Did she enter this empty, dead apartment, look at this sterile order, and understand everything?

Maybe she left the book as a verdict on both of them? On him—for creating the monster, and on the Avatar—for becoming it?

Alex extended a trembling hand and touched the cover. The book was new, freshly printed, straight from the printing house.

And then he understood: it was not him, and not Eve. AleX himself had "ordered" the book.

The "smart home" system, which maintains cleanliness and pays the bills, had simply carried out another task.

The shadow, the mask, the avatar, had gained not just self-awareness. It had gained curiosity, found a story online similar to its own, and decided to read it.

AleX had studied his own instruction manual.

It was irony. The complete and absolute triumph of the portrait over its creator. And now the portrait was studying its genealogy.

Alex Gray looked at his reflection in the dark monitor screen. Staring back at him was an exhausted, broken old man. Ugly truth.

In the absolute silence, on the table, lay the book, waiting for its only, perfect reader.