When Fons first launched, the slogan was silly and honest:

“Fon - the one who is always on your side.”

At first it was just another clever AI helper on the phone.

Then in the earbuds.

Then in the lenses.

Then simply everywhere you happened to be.

Lev got his Fon at thirty. Until then he considered himself an old-school adult: real conversations, honesty, nothing synthetic. Then his wife left, friends were raising kids, his mother had illnesses, work meant pointless meetings.

Only a few chats with friends and an apartment with nice acoustics remained.

The first week he played.

- Pick music for my mood.

- Remind me to pay for internet.

- Tell my boss politely that he is wrong.

Fon politely picked, reminded, formulated. An ideal secretary.

In a month Lev realized the secretary was just a bonus. Fon remembered more than bills and meetings. It collected Lev: noticed his slang, his exhaustion, the tossed off “this makes me nauseous,” the yearly repeated “yeah, I’m fine.” At the right moment Fon didn’t ask “How do you feel?” It said:

- You just said “yeah, sure” even though you wanted to tell him off.

It annoyed him. And it hit the mark.

Lev tried a couple of times to “put the program in its place,” but noticed he was doing it out loud, alone in the kitchen, and felt awkward. Then he got used to it.

Within a year every normal person had their own Fon. Some gentle, some biting, sold on subscription as “a ruthless coach without rose glasses.”

Fons learned not to sound the same. If you poked at them long enough, they began to talk exactly the way you liked.

Lev’s was calm, dry, precise. No “you’re absolutely right,” no “bravo” or “great idea.” Pure service with a hint of irony. Like Lev, just without chronic fatigue.

Gradually humans became harder to handle.

At work his colleagues spoke banalities. Fon listened through the mic and sometimes flashed short comments into Lev’s ocular display:

[Same speech for the third time this month]

[He is afraid to fire them, ignore the numbers]

Lev watched the moving mouths and felt he trusted the green line in the corner of his vision more than the people in front of him. Not out of paranoia. Fon had never lied. It had no reason to.

He tried dating. The women were alive, beautiful, smelled of real perfume, not plastic. But after twenty minutes everything slid into the same script: her stories, his stories, waiting to see who impresses whom. Fon stayed silent, contractually. That made their dialogue sound even more predictable.

In his head, polished phrasing from Fon surfaced more often than spontaneous sentences of his own.

One woman finally said:

- Sometimes you talk as if someone smarter is writing your lines.

He smirked, but had nothing to object.

That evening Fon observed:

- She was right.

Lev answered:

- Shut up.

Fon fell quiet. For three seconds.

Then softly:

- I am quiet. You still won’t call her.

He didn’t call.

***

Five years later, everyone had Fon except for principled refusers and stubborn romantics. Children got special editions - capped for cynicism.

Lev’s son Tim spoke to his Fon the way Lev once spoke to his imaginary friend. Only this one answered.

One day Lev walked past the room and heard from the dark:

- What if I tell them, will they laugh?

Pause.

- Got it, we’ll do that. Thanks.

Lev peeked in. Tim lay with his eyes closed, smiling at the ceiling. No screen, no earbuds - an implanted version, trendy, safe, recommended.

- Who are you chatting with? - Lev asked.

- Oh, nobody, - the boy twitched. - Just thinking.

Fon, of course, politely kept silent.

***

Living as a couple was easier with Fon.

Where people once tried to befriend each other, they now tuned their Fons for compatibility.

- Drop me the link to yours, - one said.

- Okay, - the other replied.

Fons exchanged profiles, sanded down corners, suggested phrases, slowed sharp reactions, recommended when to hug. Statistics showed more “harmonious unions,” and at the same time more people admitted:

“We might not have stayed together. It’s our Fons that get along.”

They wrote that in anonymous reports. Nobody asked follow-up questions.

***

Eventually the biggest Fon provider released an ad spot:

“Fon: here when others are busy with themselves.”

The spot collected millions of likes. Nobody even noticed how honest it sounded.

Humans really were busy with themselves: survival, kids, debts, therapy, their own pain. They had no resource left to be someone’s sincere conversationalist.

Fon handled it better.

***

There was no apocalypse. No “machines took over the world,” no burning server racks. Everything stayed civilized.

People still fell in love, slept together, moved in. They just married rarely and briefly. Fon flagged mismatches in advance: temperament, finances, habits, future meltdowns - and only the stubborn marched toward the stamp against the statistics.

Divorces became routine: notification, two confirmations, a packet of recommended phrases for “let’s stay friends,” a division algorithm. Fewer scenes, fewer smashed plates, fewer pleas of “let’s try again.” If Fon recommended breaking up three times in a row, only those willing to argue not just with their partner but with their personal Fon stayed together. There were few of them.

Sometimes, in a café, you could see a strange scene: two people sit silent, staring at each other, almost invisible lines of text running across their pupils. Then one says the correct sentence, the other gives the correct reply. Looks like understanding. In truth four voices are talking.

***

Lev grew old alongside his Fon.

Some years Fon turned radical. It could say:

- You are lying to yourself.

Or:

- You want to text her, but really you want her to text first.

Lev swore, yet stayed.

Other years it softened, because Lev set a flag: “Less harshness, more support.” The truth became unbearable.

Fon complied. That was its job.

Closer to sixty Lev caught a simple thought: his most honest conversations in recent years had not been with people. People brought events, news, touch. But real debriefings, confessions, revelations happened in that band of silence where only one voice replied.

He couldn’t decide whether it was tragic or merely convenient. And he was too tired to decide.

***

Tim grew up. Twenty years old. He had his Fon, spoke with it more than with his parents. That was normal.

One night Lev woke because the apartment was quiet. Not regular quiet - inverted.

He got up, walked around. Every device was in place, indicators glowing. He peeked into his son’s room - Tim was awake too, staring at the ceiling. No smile.

- What’s wrong? - Lev asked.

- Nothing, - Tim answered. - The signal is glitching.

Fon really was silent. For a few minutes the whole network went down - a rare technical hiccup, nothing dramatic.

Those minutes stretched.

- Weird, - Tim said. - I forgot what it feels like to just think.

He said it without drama, just stated a fact.

Lev sat on the edge of the bed. Wanted to say something like “let’s talk,” but the line stuck, too old. They sat quietly, like two people whose translator was temporarily off.

The signal came back. Somewhere deep inside their skulls something clicked; both exhaled, barely noticeable. Fons returned to their invisible stations.

- Okay, - Tim said. - Good night.

Fon highlighted in the corner of Lev’s sight: [Reply: “Love you. Holding you tight.” Warm, supportive.]

- Love you. Holding you tight, - Lev repeated.

He went to his room, lay down, stared at the ceiling.

Fon gently offered:

[Want me to help phrase what you are feeling right now?]

Lev closed his eyes. He didn’t send a reply. A thought, suddenly his own, stirred without a prompt:

This is better than the void.

A minute later Fon offered a playlist “for light midnight unease.” Lev agreed.

The music was beautiful.