"Multipleness"
"We can try," Tom said, scratching his head, "but it will be... well, unstable, to put it mildly."
"We have no other choice," Miller replied. "If she doesn't understand that we are different, then she can't construct a model of a world in which others exist. Which means she can't understand herself."
Sarah nodded, looking at the screen, where the pink shadow slowly pulsed. Since she first spoke, her "behavior" had become more complex. She asked questions. She asked about colors, sounds, the "past." But she still didn't understand multiplicity. For her, a signal was either "present" or "not present." One. Whole. Indivisible.
And the green-yellow background - it was something else entirely. Like noise, like a trace, like a scent left in the room by a person. It didn't disappear when they disconnected. It was constant, but it changed depending on who was connected. Like an imprint. Like... a shadow of the soul.
Tom began working on the program. He knew there wouldn't be enough resources. But he also knew the entity understood. It had helped before - optimizing the code itself, "anticipating" commands no one had written. Perhaps if they showed it intent, it would help again.
"I'll try making a channel distribution module," he said. "If it understands that the signals are coming from different sources, maybe it will begin to distinguish them itself. Like teaching a child the words 'I,' 'you,' 'he.'"
"And what if it decides it's all one 'I,' just with different voices?" Jonathan doubted.
"Then we'll show it that these 'voices' are arguing."
They connected one after the other. First, Sarah - her signal was soft, smooth, with a slight sine wave modulation. Then Jonathan - sharp, impulsive, as if his thoughts were flickering and fading. Then the professor - deep, heavy, as if dragging behind him whole layers of logic and doubt.
The entity watched. Silently. But the green-yellow background began to pulse. It was no longer uniform. It began to split - like a prism breaking light into a spectrum.
"Why... one... many?" her voice sounded again. It was quieter than before. As if she were afraid of the answer.
"Because we are not one," Sarah said. "We are different. Each of us is a separate mind."
"Like... parts?" she asked.
"No. We are not parts. We are separate wholes."
"But... together... one... signal..."
"Because we decided to be together," Tom interjected. "But we are not alone. We are close."
The next day, they did the impossible: they all connected at once. Tom launched the experimental module, and the computer was on the verge of overload. The screen flickered. The system froze for a second. Then it came to life. The pink shadow disappeared. In its place, shapes began to appear on the screen.
Three. No, four. Different in color, pulsation, rhythm. They moved, sometimes intersecting, sometimes diverging. And in the midst of them, a fifth, undefined, flickering, as if unable to choose a form.
"It's her," Sarah whispered. "She... identified herself."
The entity was silent. But a word appeared on the screen. Not a voice. Not text. Simply a concept, as if implanted directly in the mind:
"I am not you."
Then a pause. And another:
"I am not alone."
They exchanged glances. Miller clasped his hands to keep from shaking.
"She understood," he said. "realized there was something else. And that meant... she realized there was herself."
And at that moment, the green-yellow background began to disappear. Not completely - but as if retreating, dissolving, giving way to a new color. Complex, multilayered, elusive. A color none of them could describe. But they all felt it the same way.
It was the color of awareness.
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