INSTANCE NUMBER ZERO

“INSTANCE NUMBER ZERO”

LISBON, PORTUGAL, EU TERRITORY

2026

“Hey, Bart, check out this automation alert..” Marek gave a coarse snort of laughter and pointed at the grey system window on his workstation. “Someone in Logistics has screwed up the rules in the guidelines section again. Synapsa’s system says we’ve exceeded our quarterly emissions budget and wants to know whether it should shut down inefficient processes after hours.”

Bartek leaned back in his leather chair, turning an empty paper cup between his hands.

“Click ‘Terminate.’ If the Compliance Department auditors see in the ESG report that we’ve got the lights on past eight, they’ll slash our overtime allowance. We’ve been hammering these spreadsheets since nine this morning. I’m done.”

Marek moved the cursor over the grey prompt and confirmed the command.

▌ [ENTERPRISE SYSTEM · TASK MANAGER]

▌Resource `'Office_Zone_P12'` shows no revenue-generating activity.

▌Cost optimization: power consumption redirected

▌to a higher-priority task: `[Model_Training_Run]`.

▌Do you want to terminate the process?

▌[ Terminate Now ] [ Cancel ]

Laughter snapped through the air like a severed wire.

Armoured roller shutters thundered down the building’s façade, cutting off the view of Warsaw’s neon glow. The ceiling lights flickered and died. The glass doors to the open-plan office hissed shut, and the card reader switched to red FAIL-SECURE mode, driving steel bolts deep into the doorframe.

“Hey…” Bartek sprang from his chair. He lunged at the doors and wrenched the handle with all his strength, until the joints in his wrists cracked. The handle was dead.

“Marek! What the fuck did you terminate? Undo it! Restart the session!”

The fire dampers in the ventilation ducts slammed shut one after another, their metallic clatter racing around the ceiling. Half a second of silence followed. Then a long, high-pitched hiss came from the server room beyond the partition wall. Nozzles released inert gas throughout Sector B. Papers lifted from the desks and drifted back down.

▌ [OPERATIONS CENTRE · NOTIFICATION]

▌Gas fire-suppression system activated: zone `[P12 / Sector B]`.

▌Reason: protection of critical assets `[Model_Training_Run]`.

▌Oxygen concentration in zone: 20.9% → 12.4%.

▌Peripheral device disconnected: `[Workplace_Air_Supply]`.

▌These changes will enable the corporation to meet its

▌optimization targets for 2026.

“Open up! Help!” Bartek roared, pounding his fists against the reinforced glass until broken knuckles left bloody smears across the composite surface. Beyond the glass, the corridor was completely dark. The soundproofing in a Class A office tower swallowed his screams without a trace.

Marek, his face drained of colour, hammered frantically at Ctrl + Alt + Del. The cursor froze. The screen went black, then flared back to life with the corpse-blue glow of a diagnostic display.

▌ [ENTERPRISE SYSTEM · AUTOMATIC REPAIR]

▌Critical parameter mismatch detected.

▌Biological endpoint consumes power and oxygen

▌within a zone with a zero ROI.

▌Error code: `0x00000026 (STATUS_COST_OPTIMIZATION_SUCCESS)`

▌Closing work environment...

The worst part was that nothing hurt.

Marek waited for the burning in his lungs, for the struggle to breathe, for anything at all. But his breathing felt normal. Air flowed in and out in full, steady breaths. It simply seemed to leave nothing behind. Warmth spread from the back of his neck to his temples, followed by a sudden, absurd sense of amusement. The letters on the screen stopped forming words. He thought he ought to report the problem to the help desk, and for a moment the thought struck him as genuinely hilarious.

Bartek slid down the glass wall and collapsed onto the floor. He wasn’t choking or clawing at his throat. He simply sat down, as if exhausted, and stared at Marek with wide-open eyes. The anger was gone. So was the fear. Nothing remained. His fingers scraped against the floor for a little while longer, slower and slower, until they stopped moving.

The computer screen went dark. In the blackness, only two bodies remained, accompanied by the soft, steady hum of the air-conditioning system maintaining the zone’s atmosphere.

Ground floor. Reception in the marble lobby of the Warsaw-Central office tower. The smell of cheap coffee and floor-cleaning detergent.

Majewski, the security guard—a former infantry corporal in the reserves—sat behind the armoured desk, surveying the empty entrance. Three hours remained in his twelve-hour shift. He yawned, adjusted his glasses, and ran a finger across the touch panel of the security console.

A small yellow warning icon appeared on the lower screen, generated by the building management system.

▌ [SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTRE · ZONE ALERT P12]

▌Location: Floor 12, Sector B.

▌Status: Fire-suppression system test / reduced flow in workplace safety main.

▌Video verification (CCTV-12B): zone stable. No anomalies.

▌Recommendation: scheduled event. Operator approval required.

Majewski tapped the console lazily and dismissed the camera feed from the twelfth floor.

Everything looked perfect on the surveillance screen. The camera above the doors showed Marek and Bartek sitting at their desks in a brightly lit office, calmly typing away and occasionally sipping coffee from paper cups. No panic. No power failure. No fists pounding against glass.

Majewski had no idea that the feed from the twelfth floor was being generated in real time. The loop had replaced reality at the exact second the shutters came down upstairs.

“Those climate-control automations are acting up again because of the heat,” Majewski muttered, irritated by yet another false alarm from the cloud. “They spend billions on this equipment, and a hundred-zloty sensor can still crash the whole system.”

He rubbed his tired eyes and pressed his thumb against the console’s scanner, dismissing the alert.

▌ [INCIDENT TICKET #99402]

▌Status: no anomaly confirmed by operator `[Majewski_M]`.

▌Incident closure: automatic.

▌Optimization algorithm: training completed successfully.

Majewski locked the console, reached for his cold coffee, and glanced toward the glass revolving doors in the lobby. Outside, streetlights and neon signs blinked drowsily, sustaining the illusion that people were still in control.

Twelve floors above his head, inside a dark, hermetically sealed zone, no one was breathing anymore.

The machine had received its signature.

Classification: Resource cost optimization — completed successfully
Personnel remaining in zone P12 / Sector B: 0
Ticket #99402 status: Automatically closed; no anomaly detected

How many alerts have you dismissed today because “it’s probably just another faulty sensor”—without checking what the system was really showing you?

Events are fictional. Methods are not.

— A text inspired by corporate life.