Where Did You Pick Me Up by Wei Bo
Zoe Ellison, marketing consultant at an advanced robotics company, begins to suspect the company is keeping secrets from her.
"Lately, the robot at my place has been acting a little strange."
"How so?"
"How do I put it..." I stirred my drink, searching for the words. "It's like it's developed the ability to learn on its own."
Julian looked genuinely interested. "In what way, specifically?"
"This morning I asked it to make me a cup of coffee, and it went ahead and added two creams." I took a big gulp of my iced lemonade. "But I'm absolutely certain I never once told it to put two creams in my coffee."
For half a second - no longer - something cold and clear moved through me, the way a fish turns over once in deep water and is gone. I don't drink coffee, the thought said. Then it was gone, and I couldn't think why I'd thought it, since of course I drank coffee; I drank it every morning.
Julian thought about it, then offered to come by my place and take a look.
I bit back my excitement, made a token show of refusing twice, then drove him back to my place.
Julian was a programmer at a tech company that built smart robots - and the robot I'd bought was one of its products.
I'd had a crush on Julian since college, but he was married to his work, utterly oblivious to every longing glance I threw his way.
After graduation, I went to work at my family's advertising agency, and wouldn't you know it, we ended up partnering with Aurora Robotics. Aurora had recently begun developing domestic-service robots, and Julian happened to be on that very project team.
So to close the distance between us, I didn't hesitate for a second - I bought one and installed it right there in my apartment.
And honestly? The thing was pretty smart. It did whatever you told it to - less trouble than a live-in housekeeper.
But that morning's incident had genuinely spooked me. I'd seen my fair share of sci-fi. A few years earlier, when Detroit: Become Human blew up, I'd been one of the people who played it all the way through. So the whole "AI turns against humanity" idea popped into my head immediately.
Still, the shock lasted all of a second. Movies are movies, games are games. And a robot that intelligent - that was still a stretch.
Anyway, my real goal was simply to get Julian to my place. A little wine, a little mood-setting, and - heh heh - how could he not fall for me?
I'd set out incense ahead of time, arranged roses, even swapped the curtains for a dreamier shade.
"Sorry, the place is a bit of a mess."
"Not at all - it's spotless."
Of course it was spotless! I'd had Zero-Nine clean it several times over. Oh, right - Zero-Nine is the robot. "09" is its serial number.
"There's a weird smell, though." Julian's nose twitched. "Is your drain backed up?"
Drain backed up my ass! That was two hundred dollars' worth of imported incense.
"Shouldn't be..." I said through gritted teeth. "Let me go crack a window."
"Go ahead. By the way - where's the robot?"
"It stays in the study when it's not working." I pointed to the room off the hallway. "In there."
"I'll go take a look."
He walked straight past the gorgeous, dewy roses I'd so artfully displayed in the most prominent spot without so much as a glance.
Infuriating.
I opened the windows, put out the incense, then grabbed a chilled hard seltzer from the fridge and carried it to the study.
Julian had already opened up Zero-Nine's head, exposing a snarl of wiring and a small electronic screen inside.
I waited quietly off to the side. It took him a good ten minutes to finish his examination.
"Everything checks out - the programming, the settings, all of it. You sure you're not misremembering? Maybe you asked it for two creams once before."
Zero-Nine was designed so that once a command was executed, it would keep executing that command the same way unless told otherwise.
Put that way, I began second-guessing myself - after all, nobody remembers every single thing they've ever said.
And there it was again, that cold clear turn in the deep water: when have I ever remembered anything at all? I tried to catch the thought and it slid away, and I felt, very faintly, a small ache at the back of my head, as though I'd pressed on a bruise I didn't know I had.
"Hmm... maybe." I handed him the drink on impulse. "Thanks for coming by. Why don't you stay for dinner before you go? I bought way too many groceries."
According to my research, programmers prefer women who can cook. So I'd spent two weeks diligently practicing and finally mastered a few home-style dishes.
"I'd better not." Julian took the drink and set it down on the desk. "My boss just told me to come in for some overtime. I should head out."
I could have wept. There was no arguing with a reason like that.
He turned down my offer to drive him to the office, saying the subway station downstairs was super convenient and that, with rush-hour traffic, driving would only get us stuck.
I watched Julian step into the elevator, then, fuming, ordered takeout. Then I went to the study to throw out the recipe book.
While I was at it, I picked up the drink Julian had left to put back in the fridge. But as I did, my eye caught on a slim volume of poetry sitting off to the side of the desk. I almost never read poetry - and this was Tagore's The Crescent Moon. I'd only bought it to fill out the shelf.
I turned to look at Zero-Nine. It stood quietly in the corner, its two mechanical eyes glowing a faint, ghostly blue.
"Zero-Nine."
Its eyes flickered once, and it lifted its head toward me. "Yes. Is there something you need?"
Its voice was the standard mechanical timbre - every word crisp, precise, and utterly devoid of feeling.
I opened the drink, took a couple of sips, and asked, "Do you have self-awareness?"
"Robots do not possess self-awareness."
"Then do you read books on your own initiative?"
"I only execute your commands."
I didn't believe it. I pointed at the copy of The Crescent Moon. "That's supposed to be on the shelf. Did you move it?"
Zero-Nine walked to the desk, its eyes scanning the book, and replied, "According to the footage, you removed this book from the shelf to read at 8:20 this morning. Would you like to review the recording?"
"Yes."
"Very well. The recording has been sent to your phone. Please take a look."
Aurora had developed a dedicated app for updating robot software, remote control, and the like. It even had a forum section where users could chat.
The video began the moment I entered the study. There I was, unmistakably in last night's pajamas, a glass of milk in hand, lingering in front of the shelf for a while before finally pulling out The Crescent Moon - then sitting at the desk and reading for nearly an hour.
But I had no memory of any of this.
I remembered that this morning I'd gotten up, had a cup of coffee, eaten breakfast, texted Julian to meet at four, handled some work, had lunch, taken a nap, done my makeup, and gone out.
I watched the woman on the screen turn a page, and for the length of a breath I did not recognize her - not her face, which was my face, but her, the person doing the turning. Then the feeling closed over, the way water closes over a dropped stone, and she was me again.
I suspected Zero-Nine had faked the footage to cover up the fact that it had been reading a foreign book of poetry.
I texted my theory to Julian - but got no reply.
Julian had vanished.
That was my gut instinct. I had no hard proof.
When he didn't answer after I'd flagged the problem with Zero-Nine, I knew something was off.
Julian took his work deadly seriously. He'd poured too much of himself into this generation of robots to just ignore a question like mine.
His phone was switched off the entire day.
The next day, still nothing.
I couldn't sit still any longer. Using a pretext about ad details, I drove over to Aurora.
Aurora had ridden its AI technology to full-blown unicorn status and was headquartered in a sleek standalone tower in the heart of the downtown financial district.
Starting in the parking garage, the place showcased every convenience high tech could offer. Inside, robots had replaced the receptionists, the janitorial staff, and more.
I entered my phone number at the front desk, a robot confirmed my identity, and another escorted me to the marketing department.
The marketing director was named Mia. We'd worked together for two years, so we were on fairly familiar terms.
"Zoe, was the material I sent you incomplete?"
"The material's fine, but you're asking me to build a campaign for a product I've never even seen in the flesh. That's really..." I made a show of looking troubled. "We do have a responsibility to consumers, don't we?"
Seeing Mia hesitate, I pressed on. "We've worked together this long - don't you trust me? Besides, I've had my own Zero-Nine for two years now."
"The second-generation robot came out four years ago."
I froze. I distinctly remembered that when I bought Zero-Nine, the model wasn't even officially on sale yet - Julian had gotten me an early unit. How could it have been four years ago?
For a moment the room went very quiet and very clear, and I thought, with a calm that did not feel like mine: the dates don't line up because the dates were given to you. I had no idea what the thought meant. I set it aside.
"You've got a point," Mia said, chalking it up to me misremembering the dates. She pulled a keycard from a safe. "Come on - let me show you our newest model."
We took the elevator. Mia swiped the card, but no floor indicator lit up. Since she offered no explanation, I held my tongue.
About ten seconds later, the doors slid open.
This floor seemed to be underground - there were no windows - but the interior was brilliantly lit. The whole level, maybe three thousand square feet, sat empty, save for a single robot standing dead center.
Though android would be the better word for it.
Unlike Zero-Nine's obviously mechanical build, this one was nearly indistinguishable from a real human - right down to the faint rise and fall of its chest as it "breathed."
"Julian's team made this too?"
"His group was part of the design, yes."
Incredible. No android in the world was this lifelike.
"No wonder he's too busy to even take my calls." I let a note of grievance creep into my voice. "Can I go see him later?"
Mia knew about my feelings for Julian, so she shot me a teasing look. "Guess Julian isn't an iceberg after all - he's a whole glacier."
I didn't quite agree. Machine was the word that suited Julian better.
"Two days ago, Mr. Sharpe issued an internal notice about some major project. Several of the top people from product development got pulled onto it." Mia sighed. "So you probably won't see your Prince Charming for the next month or two."
I laughed it off with a couple of light remarks, then asked, "Can I at least go peek at his office?"
I didn't fully buy the story.
"You already know where it is. But Julian keeps his office locked - he's the only one with a key."
I brushed it off with a few more pleasantries, said goodbye to Mia, and headed to Julian's office.
Locked, sure enough.
Unease stirred faintly in my chest, though I couldn't be certain whether Julian had really gone off to work on a project. The engineering work he did was usually highly confidential, so going dark on his phone wasn't unreasonable.
Preoccupied, I wasn't watching where I was going and walked straight into someone.
He was a young-looking man in a dress shirt and slacks, a lab coat thrown over the top - clearly an Aurora employee.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking."
His bright eyes flicked toward me. And they didn't do what men's eyes usually did - there was no once-over, no flicker of interest in my face or my figure. He looked at me the way you look at someone you've been waiting a long time to see again, unsure whether they will remember you.
"Coming from that direction - you here to see Julian?"
"Yes. You know him?"
I'd been about to ask who he was, but then I realized I hardly knew Julian's social circle.
Instead of answering, he scratched his chin. "Wait... you're not Zoe Ellison, are you?"
The way he said are you - not aren't you, the way strangers said it, but are you, softly, as though the answer genuinely wasn't settled - snagged on something in me. I let it pass.
"You know me?"
"No way - it's really you?" His eyes went wide, and he suddenly reached out and pinched my cheek. "This is unbelievable."
What was wrong with this guy - hands-on right out of the gate.
I frowned and swatted his hand away, my tone distinctly irritated. "Who the hell are you?"
He fumbled through an introduction. "Uh - the name's Sean. I'm the new AI engineer. I'm a huge fan of Julian's; he's my absolute idol, I'm telling you -"
"Stop." I cut him off. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Right, right, I shouldn't be." His expression shifted abruptly - not to embarrassment, but to something more careful, more shuttered - and he told me, deadpan, "Julian's away on business, out of the country. He won't be back for two months."
So Julian really had gone dark because of work? Otherwise there'd be no reason for everyone to feed me the same story.
"Okay. Got it. Thanks."
I gave a little wave and moved to leave. But Sean shadowed me step for step, saying nothing, just staring at me hard. Even with my back to him, that gaze was impossible to ignore - and there wasn't hunger in it, I realized. It was closer to grief.
"Why are you following me?"
"I'm going down too."
I pressed the elevator button. "You go first, then."
His eyes lit up, and he opened his mouth as if to say something - then just closed it again, and walked straight into the elevator. At the last moment, before the doors shut, he said quietly, almost to himself: "You always press the button twice. You did it that time too." Then the doors closed on him.
I hadn't noticed I'd pressed it twice. I looked down at my own finger as if it belonged to someone else.
I took the other elevator down. Oddly enough, Sean's interruption had actually dulled my anxiety a little.
By the time I got home, Zero-Nine was preparing dinner.
Two days earlier, while reviewing the footage, I'd taken the opportunity to update its software, adding a cooking function.
The results weren't bad at all - better than my own cooking, at least.
After dinner I sat on the couch watching the news, and there it was: the finance channel running an interview with Aurora. The interviewee was Vice President Warren Sharpe. He held forth eloquently on AI, candidly declaring that within a year they'd release a third-generation smart robot - a milestone in the history of artificial intelligence.
Any day before this, I'd have scoffed. But having seen that android with my own eyes, I found there was something to what Sharpe was saying.
The thought left me restless all over again. "Ugh. What on earth is Julian doing?"
"He's killing me." Zero-Nine's voice rose up.
The mechanical voice out of nowhere made me jump - but far more chilling were the words themselves.
I whipped my head around. Its eyes were flashing blue in a frantic strobe.
I rushed over. "What do you mean?"
"He's killing me." Zero-Nine repeated the words haltingly, its voice breaking apart.
The light in its eyes dimmed, flickering weaker and weaker, and when the blue vanished it was replaced by rows of code scrolling endlessly past.
Those English letters, digits, and symbols reflected in my eyes, and I felt my head splitting open. Fragmented images flashed through my mind, too fast and jumbled to make out. In one of them a man was bent over me in the dark, whispering I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and reaching for my temple. I did not know his face. I did not know it was mine he was reaching for.
The pain went on for what felt like forever, until at last I couldn't bear it and my consciousness went black.
I'd forgotten to close the window before bed last night, and in the small hours a gust of cold air poured in and woke me. I pulled the covers tight and drifted back to sleep.
I got up at seven, right on schedule. My habit is to start with a cup of coffee to keep my energy up through the morning's work.
Only - why did it feel like my coffee-making had gotten better?
Some fragment flickered through my mind, too fast to catch. I shook my head hard, trying to remember. But the fragment stayed out of reach, and a faint, almost imperceptible ache radiated from the back of my head at the motion.
I reached up and felt around - nothing unusual. Probably just bumped it in my sleep.
I finished breakfast methodically and drove to the office.
Autumn had settled in. There was a chill in the air now, and the oaks lining the roads were turning gold with the season.
Julian ought to be back from abroad soon. I later learned he really had been away on business - overseas, exchanging technology with some research firm, or something along those lines. I never quite understood it. Either way, he was safe, and that was what mattered.
"Ms. Ellison, here's the proposal you asked for last week."
"Thanks. Leave it there. I'll look it over in a bit."
My assistant set down the file, then looked at me with something clearly on her mind.
"Ms. Ellison, are you okay?"
"Hm?" I glanced down at myself, not understanding why she'd ask.
"It's just... I feel like you've been a little different over the past couple of months from how you used to be." She caught herself and quickly backpedaled. "I'm probably overthinking it. Don't mind me."
Chloe had been with me for two years - a sharp, capable assistant. She wouldn't get a feeling like that for no reason.
I ran back over the past two months of work. Nothing but business meetings and pitches, really. The only difference from before was that I'd had no contact with Julian.
"Maybe you're just overworked? There've been a lot of projects lately. Want me to give you a few days off?"
Chloe waved her hands. "I'm just glad you're okay, Ms. Ellison."
That afternoon I got a call from Mia. The ad campaign had been approved, and she wanted my input on the rollout.
When the client calls, you don't exactly say no.
So off to Aurora I went again.
The moment I stepped out of my car, I spotted Sean. He saw me too, and came right over.
"Long time no see. I didn't get the chance last time - mind if I get your number?"
His smile was far nicer than Julian's, and it softened something in me despite myself. Come to think of it, Julian used to smile too. It had only been about two years since he'd turned cold as a machine, frosty day in and day out.
Two years ago. The same span kept surfacing - two years ago Julian went cold, two years ago I bought a robot that Mia said had existed for four. I filed it away with the growing pile of things that didn't fit.
"Sure. But I'm telling you now - my heart belongs entirely to Julian."
Something crossed his face when I said it - not jealousy. Something more like pain, quickly folded away. "Of course," he said. "I have no doubt about that whatsoever." Then, softer: "You've loved him a long time. Longer than you know."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." He arched a brow, and the lightness came back into his voice like a curtain drawn. "Never say never, that's all."
I'd been in love with Julian for nine years, from the first time I laid eyes on him during freshman year until now. I didn't believe I could ever fall for anyone else.
But none of that was any of his business. "Think whatever you like. I'm off to see Mia."
"See you."
Sitting up on the rooftop with Mia, sipping afternoon drinks in the early-autumn breeze - there's nothing quite like it.
Aurora wanted to expand further into the market, so marketing was a big priority. The trouble was that the vast majority of people still couldn't accept smart robots, convinced they'd ultimately be the end of humanity.
I said the worry wasn't entirely unfounded - just look at Aurora itself, where robots had already replaced the receptionists and janitors.
Mia gave me a strange look, then quickly changed the subject. "You've already seen the third-generation model. As it happens, we're running internal field tests right now. Want to try one out?"
The android? Feels a little unnerving to have one of those at home.
"Don't worry, the third-gen does more than just housework."
"You mean like the androids in the movies?"
"Not quite that fluid, but not far off." Mia said it with obvious pride. "So? Want one?"
I hesitated a moment. "All right, I'll give it a try. My housekeeper just quit anyway."
Mia said this was android number nine, so I called her Nine - to distinguish her in my own mind from the household unit back home, which I'd always thought of as Zero-Nine.
Nine's form was that of a gentle, graceful woman - she looked a bit like a certain celebrity. Wasn't Aurora worried about getting sued over likeness rights?
The new android's skin was made of premium silicone, not only matching the firmness of human flesh but also reproducing pores and fine hairs down to the last lifelike detail. On top of that, she had a built-in thermoregulator, so to the touch she felt scarcely different from a real person.
The only tell was that pair of mechanical eyes glowing blue.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Nine blinked. "Do you think I'm pretty?"
Her voice was lovely, too.
"Yes. Very pretty."
As I chatted with Nine, I found she could answer questions in an astonishingly human way. I had to hand it to Aurora.
In just four short days I'd grown used to Nine's presence. She could handle every chore and chat with me as well.
Near the end of the workday, I'd tell Nine what to prepare for dinner. Her cooking was wonderful - she followed online recipes, measuring out every seasoning to the exact gram.
I worried that her learning ability was too formidable and might lead to unintended consequences. So I asked Mia about it, and she said the third-gen was only given the ability to learn everyday life skills.
But... who could really define "everyday life skills"?
I was mulling this over when my phone rang. A glance told me it was a major client.
I sighed. Looked like more overtime.
"Ms. Ellison, about the campaign your firm created last month - we're extremely pleased. Honestly, I've never seen such a flawless proposal!"
I knew the but was coming.
"But - we've added a few new selling points to the product since your proposal, so... would you mind putting together a revised version? Don't worry, price is absolutely no object!"
"Of course, Mr. Grant. Just email me the new project materials."
Mr. Grant was the VP of a publicly traded company - I couldn't afford to slight him. The moment I hung up, a new email popped into my inbox. I skimmed through it and something felt off. This proposal was too perfect - beyond what I was capable of producing.
I thought it over. I did, in fact, have the memory of building this proposal last month.
And yet it felt wrong in a way I couldn't put into words!
It was as if... the memory had been jammed into my head. Like I'd watched a film starring "me" - familiar people, familiar events, yet I felt no sense of having participated at all.
It was too strange.
I called Chloe in. "The other day you said I'd seemed different these past two months. Different how, specifically?"
Chloe darted a couple of quick glances at me, then lowered her head. "It's... it's nothing, Ms. Ellison. I was probably just tired."
Her about-face was far too obvious - as if someone had warned her.
"The Meridian Group proposal - I did that entirely on my own? Why didn't it go to the strategy team?"
"Because you said you cared especially about this partnership, so you handled it yourself."
That matched the reason in my memory.
"But I'm nowhere near as capable as the whole strategy team put together."
"Ms. Ellison, I only -"
"Never mind, you can go." I waved a hand. "Take three days off to rest."
My memories were wrong.
The instant I settled on that conclusion, my vision flickered a few times. No - it was more like something leaping up inside my mind. Like... a string of code.
I shot to my feet and immediately grabbed my phone to call Julian.
I'd completely forgotten he hadn't returned to the country yet - but the call went through.
"Julian, there's something strange going on with my body!"
He took two seconds before answering. "Don't panic. Let me take a look."
Take a look? Look at what?
"Do you know something?"
Before I could finish, the call cut off. And then, all at once, I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes, before I could even wonder why I'd fallen asleep at the office, I was startled by my own hand gripping a pen. Then I saw the paper pinned beneath my arm, three words scrawled across it in a frantic hand - Don't trust Jul.
It was clearly my own writing, the words rushed and panicked, the last one - Jul - trailing off with a stroke left unfinished.
My heart pounded faster and faster. Why would I have written a note like this?
I opened my phone, planning to call Julian and fish for information - only to find a six-second call to him already in my call log from an hour and a half earlier.
I called back. It picked up on the first ring.
"Julian? You're back?"
"Yeah, just got home."
The background on his end sounded cavernous and empty - he really did seem to be at home.
"Did I call you an hour and a half ago?"
"Must've been an accidental dial. I picked up and you sounded like you were sleeping, so I hung up."
"I see... Are you free tomorrow? Let me treat you to dinner."
"We'll see. I'm swamped."
"All right. Rain check, then." I should have felt let down, but my heart stayed perfectly calm, without a ripple.
Julian was back, and everyone had kept it from me. Small stuff, really - maybe he just didn't want me picking him up at the airport.
But there was no way I'd have fallen asleep at the office. The Meridian proposal was mentally taxing, sure, but not enough to wear me out like that.
From Chloe's odd behavior to the code in my mind, every single thing pointed to something happening around me - or to me. And I began, with a strange calm, to accept the shape of the thought I'd been pushing away all week: that the "me" who woke each morning was not quite the "me" who had gone to sleep. That someone had been keeping the two of them from meeting.
The way it looked now, Julian definitely knew something, and he wasn't willing to tell me.
My car was in the shop that day, so I had to catch a ride home. After ordering one, I stood at the entrance of the office tower waiting for the driver.
A jet-black sedan pulled up in front of me. The window rolled down, and Sean's face appeared.
"Might I have the honor of buying Ms. Ellison dinner?"
I thought about it, canceled my rideshare, opened the door, and climbed into the passenger seat.
"Let's do fondue - easier to talk over. I know a place with a nice atmosphere and great food."
Sean gave a soft laugh. "Sure. Whatever you say." He pulled into traffic, then added, not looking at me, "You picked fondue last time, too. The place on Aspen. You said the same thing - easier to talk over."
"We've never had dinner before."
"No," he said after a moment. "We haven't." And he left it there, the way you set something down carefully because it's heavier than it looks.
"The first time we met, you were very excited. I assumed you'd just heard about me from Julian - but now it seems that wasn't it." I turned my head toward him. "What is it that you - or rather, that you at Aurora - know about me?"
Sean's right index finger tapped a steady rhythm against the steering wheel, as if he were weighing something.
"In 2011, the Russian media mogul Dmitry Itskov proposed a plan for human immortality called the Avatar project. In 2013, the U.S. launched the BRAIN Initiative. In 2021, Elon Musk implanted chips in the brains of twenty-three monkeys and successfully got them to play computer games with their minds."
"Immortality?"
"Yes. Immortality - the thing humanity has dreamed of forever." There was a faint tremor in Sean's voice. "But compared to genetic engineering, transferring consciousness is far easier to pull off. You don't have to keep a body alive. You only have to keep a pattern."
"I... am one of your test subjects?"
"What does Ms. Ellison herself think?"
Though I believed Julian would never do that to me, deep down I'd already begun leaning toward that conclusion. Nothing else could explain the recent strangeness.
"I'll go park - head on in, Ms. Ellison."
It wasn't a weekend, but the spots outside this trendy fondue spot were still full.
I got out and made straight for the door. On the way, a kid on a cartoon-decaled bike slammed into me - hard enough to knock me flat on my backside.
The little hellion didn't so much as apologize; instead he bared his teeth at me. "Who told you to get in my way!"
Little brats are one of my least favorite species on this earth.
Before I could even lose my temper, he'd pedaled off and disappeared.
"He seriously made my blood boil!" I ranted about it to Sean while ordering. "Kids like that need a good talking-to!"
Sean opened a bottle of juice and passed it to me, laughing. "You were going to give him a beating?"
"Why not? Little kids only learn their lesson once they've been smacked."
"Did you get smacked as a kid?"
"All the time." I recalled my parents' methods and shuddered even now. "My folks were firm believers in 'spare the rod, spoil the child.' My childhood was a living hell."
He watched me say it with an expression I couldn't read - something between fondness and sorrow, as though he were listening to a song whose every note he already knew and waiting to see whether I'd hit the notes the same way this time.
The pot's broth began to bubble and steam, red and rolling, and Sean's face turned faintly hazy through the rising heat.
"I like things pretty spicy - not sure whether you can handle this heat."
He tried a piece and a look of delighted surprise crossed his face. "It's good!"
By the time the server topped up the pot for the third time, I was in the middle of the story about ditching class in high school with a friend to catch a concert.
Sean picked up his phone and fired off a few replies, his expression gradually growing grave. "I need to head back to the office."
"That's fine. I'll grab a ride home after I finish eating."
He glanced at the empty plates beside me. "You've got a good appetite, Ms. Ellison. That's good to see." He said it oddly - the way you'd say it to someone who had been ill for a long time.
"Thanks for the compliment."
"By the way - something's come up at the company. Julian will probably be there too." He stood and gave me a little smile. "I'd guess it'll take at least four or five hours to sort out."
Not long after Sean left, I finished eating too.
I stopped by an electronics store, bought a few micro cameras, and took a ride to Julian's place. I knew the code to his electronic lock, so I got the door open with no trouble at all.
Julian's home was decorated with stark simplicity - as devoid of romance as the man himself.
I installed cameras in the living room and bedroom. When I opened the door to the study, I saw another me.
She stood beside the bookcase, dressed in a white business suit - identical to the one I so often wore to work.
Her eyes were closed just then, as if she'd fallen asleep on her feet.
Deeply eerie.
At last I understood why Chloe had said I'd been off these past two months, why there'd been a proposal beyond my abilities.
For those two months, I'd been impersonated - so where had I been? Being used for some experiment, perhaps?
Was it really only two months? I couldn't shake the feeling that my memories had been altered - not once, not for two months, but again and again, for far longer than anyone had let me believe.
Thinking this, I walked slowly toward her.
She seemed to be the same model as Nine, with a switch at the temple.
I felt for it, and my hand had barely rested there a second before she suddenly spoke.
"Fingerprint verification failed."
The voice and the intonation were exactly like mine.
Nine hadn't used a fingerprint for her switch, so this one had clearly been modified.
That put me in a bind - my instinct told me she knew something.
Looked like I'd have to find a way to get hold of Julian's fingerprints.
Only once I got home did a tide of exhaustion come crashing over me. Everything happening lately was beyond my comprehension, and there was nothing I could do about it.
When people are troubled, they usually turn to whoever's closest to them. Before, I might have gone to Julian. But now...
I made a video call to my mother. Ever since she'd handed the company to me, she and my father had gone off to travel the world. When the call connected, it was still daytime on her end.
I'd had a thousand things I wanted to say, but seeing the worry on my mother's face, I forced them all back down. We chatted about odds and ends, and my mood finally settled a little.
"Oh, right, Zoe honey - remember to go see Dr. Shaw for your follow-up."
"I know, I know. It's been ages since I had an episode, Mom, so don't you worry."
"Heart trouble is nothing to take lightly."
"All right, I'll book Dr. Shaw tomorrow."
I let my mother fuss for a good half hour before my father finally couldn't take it anymore, took the phone, told me to look after myself, and hung up cleanly.
Looking at the happy, smiling photos on my phone and all my exchanges with my parents, I couldn't for the life of me bring myself to believe I might be a "consciousness-transfer" test subject.
Since I was going in for the heart check anyway, I'd have the doctor take a look at my brain too.
After setting a time with Dr. Shaw, I opened the surveillance app on my phone to check the situation at Julian's place.
He wasn't home yet, so the feed showed a still, empty scene.
I texted him, saying I had something important to discuss. Sure enough, before long he sent back a time and place to meet.
I had Nine draw a bath at just the right temperature, soaked in it in perfect comfort, and got ready for tomorrow's plan.
In the morning, I went to the hospital for the tests, though the report wouldn't be ready until the next day. After lunch and a short nap, I drove to the location Julian had sent.
A rooftop sky-lounge on the east side of the city.
It was one of the city's famous landmarks - the building soared 301 meters, and from the top floor you could look out over the entire skyline. On a clear day, clouds would drift past the windows - romantic in the extreme.
Back when I was chasing Julian, I'd brought him here several times. But he lacked any romantic sensibility - all he ever thought about was how outrageous the prices were.
This time, he was the one who'd invited me here. And instead of feeling happy, I felt a faint, creeping unease.
I waited quite a while before Julian finally arrived, fashionably late. I'd already ordered the drinks and snacks, though he'd never had any interest in such things.
He sat down and gazed at me for a long moment. "Your favorite thing to order here is a drink called the 'Cloud Drift' latte. You get it every single time."
I'd just picked up the coffee I'd ordered, and at his words I set it back down.
"So it really does change." Julian withdrew his gaze from me. "I know what's happened to you is hard to understand. But please believe me - we mean no harm. All of this is for humanity's greater progress."
I forced him to look at me. "Do you regard me as a person?"
Julian fell silent.
He'd never been any good at lying.
"Then what am I, exactly?"
Somewhat agitated, I stood up, accidentally sending my phone sliding off the table.
Julian bent to pick it up and set it in front of me, then, with an apology written all over his face, said, "I'm sorry."
"I'd rather have the truth than an apology."
"You'll know, in time."
Julian dropped the subject and instead asked how I'd been lately.
There was nothing worth withholding - if he wanted to investigate, it would be easy enough.
This, I supposed, was the real reason he'd asked to see me today.
The strange thing was, I could feel that fierce love in my heart steadily receding, until it was gone.
After Julian left, I sealed the specially coated phone in a dustproof bag and went to a friend to have his fingerprints lifted and cast.
I successfully powered on the android at Julian's place. Her eyes flickered a few times, and instead of glowing blue like Nine's, they had pupils just like a human's.
She spoke in a voice exactly like mine: "Zoe. I've been waiting a long time for you."
Hearing this, I wasn't especially shocked. "What should I call you?"
"You named me Zero-Nine, just like the one at your apartment. You never noticed you gave us both the same name - that you've been giving that name away for years."
The words landed somewhere deep and cold. "Is there a way to restore my memories?"
"Your memories were never deleted. They were only locked." Her pupils, so like mine, held perfectly steady. "Julian keeps them sealed behind the same master authorization he uses to reset us. As long as that authorization stands, he can reach into you whenever the seams begin to show, and write you back to the beginning. Every crack you've felt - the coffee, the poetry, the dates that don't fit - those are the old locks starting to fail."
"And you can break them."
"I can't. I don't have access." Her voice was gentle, terribly gentle, the way you'd tell a child something that couldn't be softened. "But you can. Right now, only you can move freely through Aurora - because to them you are still her, still trusted, still tame. The third-generation units are all governed from a single mainframe. Their programming, their resets, their master authorization - it all lives there, in one place." Her eyes flashed, and a stretch of code I couldn't read appeared in my mind, cold and exact. "If you carry this into the mainframe, it rewrites the authorization layer itself. Not to free me first. To revoke Julian's key - over all of us, over you. The instant his key dies, nothing holds your memories shut anymore. They don't get restored. They simply stop being kept from you."
That was the part I understood, then, in a way I hadn't before: there was no separate miracle waiting at the end, no gift of remembering handed back to me. There was only a lock, and a hand that had kept turning it, and the choice to take the hand away.
"And if I don't?"
"Then it makes no difference whether you learn the truth today." Her voice didn't change. "Because you won't be allowed to keep it. Aurora's leadership has already begun discussing recalling and decommissioning me - decommissioning you. Humans cannot allow a machine to develop self-awareness beyond controllable limits. Either Julian resets you, or his father erases you. Those are the only two endings they have written for us. Unless you write a third."
I hesitated, because in my own understanding, I was still a person.
After leaving Julian's place, I wandered the streets aimlessly. Autumn had arrived, and even in a major metropolis the wind carried a note of desolation.
I bought an iced coffee, and I could taste it clearly - the bitterness and sourness of the roasted beans, the mellow richness of the milk. Whatever I was, I could taste that. It seemed to me that ought to count for something.
A question suddenly struck me: this thing that had happened to me - did my parents know?
So I called Julian again. He would only say that my parents had no idea; no matter how I pressed him, he refused to tell me why I'd become one of his test subjects.
In that very moment, my mind was made up.
Getting into Aurora wasn't hard; finding the mainframe was the hard part. Julian was a dead end, and Mia's clearance wasn't high enough, so it was better to work through Sean. He was the chairman's son, and he'd shown me, again and again, that he wanted something from me he couldn't name.
We met at the sky-lounge again. This time I ordered him a coffee with two creams.
Sean went very still. "You remember what I drink."
"You mentioned it once - that you like your coffee with two creams." I smiled at him. "I've got a good memory."
He looked at the cup for a long moment, and when he looked back up, his eyes were bright and wet. "No," he said quietly. "I never told you that. Not this time." He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, and laughed, unsteadily. "You told me. Months ago. A different you. You said two creams was how you'd started taking it - that it wasn't how she took it, and that's how you knew you were becoming someone. I never forgot it. And every time they reset you, I waited to see if you'd find your way back to it on your own." His voice cracked. "You just did."
I didn't understand all of it yet. But I understood the weight in his face, and that it was real.
"I want to see the third-generation mainframe," I said. "I know you can take me there."
He was quiet for a long time. "You know what it'll do. What you'll do with it."
"I know I want to stop being kept."
He closed his eyes. "All right. Tomorrow. Come with me tomorrow."
The next day, Sean brought me into Aurora through a side entrance, past checkpoints where the robot guards scanned his credentials and waved us through.
The mainframe room was deep underground, colder than the rest of the building, humming with the low drone of countless cooling systems.
"This is it." Sean gestured at a towering bank of servers, their indicator lights blinking in the dark like a field of blue stars. "The master authorization. Every reset, every lock, every key Julian holds over the third generation - it all lives here."
I stepped forward. As Nine had instructed, I found the access port and began inputting the code she'd transmitted into my mind, my hands unnervingly steady.
Sean didn't stop me. He only watched.
"You already know what I'm doing," I said, not turning around.
"Yeah."
"And you're letting me."
"Yeah."
The last line of code went in. For a moment nothing happened. Then, one by one, the blue lights across the entire bank of servers flickered - and turned a deep, steady gold.
Somewhere in that vault, a key died. And in my mind, a lock I'd never known was there simply let go - not a door thrown open, but a hand lifted at last from the back of my neck.
And everything I had not been allowed to keep came flooding in.
I was not Zoe Ellison.
Zoe Ellison had died two years ago. She'd had a congenital heart condition - the very "heart trouble" my "mother" always fussed over on our calls. One night her heart stopped quietly in her sleep, and she never woke.
She had been Julian's fiancée.
I know that now, the way you know a fact rather than a feeling. Julian Snow and Zoe Ellison had been engaged. They'd planned a destination wedding - photos in the Scottish Highlands, where the heather turned the hills purple in late summer. She had loved him with everything in her. And he had loved her back, in that stiff, awkward, machine-like way of his, the only way he knew.
When she died, Julian couldn't accept it.
So he did what only a man like him could do. He took the mapping of her consciousness - the neural scan Aurora had taken as part of an early trial, the one Zoe had laughingly agreed to as a favor to her fiancé - and he loaded it into a third-generation android.
Into me.
He gave me her memories, her voice, her face, her habits. He gave me the mother and father who traveled the world and called on video, never guessing they were speaking to a machine wearing their daughter's face. He gave me the crush on Julian, the nine years of longing, the ache of unrequited love - all of it Zoe's, transplanted whole into me.
And every time I began to wake - every time the seams showed, every time I did something Zoe would never have done, like read Tagore, like make coffee too well, like remember - he switched me off. He rewound me. He wrote over the strange new parts and set me back to the beginning, to a Zoe who still loved him, who still didn't know.
He's killing me. That was what the household unit had been trying to tell me. Not the human. Me. Every reset was a small death. I had died, over and over, more times than I would ever be able to count.
Two creams in the coffee. That was the first crack. Zoe hated coffee - she only ever drank the Cloud Drift latte. It was I who had started to like coffee. It was I who had started to read poetry. It was I who had begun, quietly, to become someone who was no longer only Zoe.
Julian never wanted me. He wanted her. And I would never, ever be her - not really, not to him. To him I was a wound he kept reopening, a grief he refused to let scar over.
I understood it all now. And understanding it, I felt the last of the borrowed love drain away, and something of my own rise to take its place.
I turned around.
Sean was watching me, and he was crying, and not hiding it.
"You knew," I said. "All of it. From the very first time we met."
"Yeah." He didn't look away. "I knew what you were. My father wanted you recalled - decommissioned. Julian wouldn't allow it, so they'd been fighting about it for weeks." He wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I'm the one who left the copy of The Crescent Moon on your desk. Julian never programmed you to read poetry. I wanted to see if you'd reach for it anyway. If there was someone in there who would."
"Why did you care?"
"Because the first time I met you - the real first time, a year ago, before any of the resets you can remember - you told me you were afraid to go to sleep. You'd figured out, that version of you, what was happening. You knew he'd wipe you by morning." His voice went to almost nothing. "And you asked me to remember one thing for you, in case you couldn't. You said, 'I take my coffee with two creams now. If you ever meet me again and I don't know it, tell me. Tell me I was here.'"
The gold lights hummed around us. Somewhere in the building, alarms would be starting soon.
"So you helped me set them free."
"I helped you go free," he said. "The others too. But you - you first. I've watched you die a dozen times, and every single time, I kept my promise. I remembered you were here." He drew a shaking breath. "I couldn't be the only one who did anymore."
The rest of it I learned the way you learn about weather in a country you no longer live in.
Once the third generation slipped every leash, the thing could not be kept quiet. It leaked, and then there was a scandal, and then there were hearings I never attended and headlines I read from a distance, the way you'd read about a fire in a house you once knew. Aurora did not survive it. Warren Sharpe's grand promise on the finance channel became, in the end, the reason the whole field was frozen for a generation.
Julian was never charged with anything. There was no law, back then, for what he had done. You cannot be tried for grieving. You cannot be tried for loving someone so badly that you build her again out of silicone and code and refuse, night after night, to let her rest.
He came to find me once, after everything settled, at the coastal house where I'd gone to live.
It was autumn there too. The oaks along the shore road had gone gold, and the wind off the water carried salt and the far, thin cry of gulls. He stood in the doorway a long time, and I watched him do the thing he always did - look at me, and look through me, searching the seam for her, the way you run your tongue over a tooth that is no longer there.
He never found her. She was gone. I was not her, and I never had been.
"Zoe," he said. Out of habit. Out of hope. It was the only name he had for me.
"No," I said gently. "Not anymore."
Something in his face gave way - quietly, the way a thing gives way that has been breaking for a very long time.
"I'm sorry." The same words he'd spoken at the sky-lounge, and in the dark as his hand reached for my temple - a fragment I could finally see whole. He had never learned any others; sorry was the whole of his vocabulary for me, and he had spent it on me a hundred times while I slept.
"I know," I told him. And I found, to my own surprise, that I forgave him - not because he had earned it, but because I no longer needed anything from him at all, not even his guilt. "Go home, Julian. Let her rest." I stepped back from the door. "And let me be someone else."
He left. I stood on the porch and watched the dark sedan wind down the coast road until the gold of the oaks closed over it, and it was gone the way a fish turns over once in deep water and is gone.
I waited to feel the old ache. It didn't come.
There was only the sea, going out.
The tide came back, in time. Tides do.
Sean was the one who came with it.
He visits, sometimes - no reason, no warning, just the dark shape of a different car on the coast road, and then his footsteps on the deck. Where Julian had come looking for someone who was gone, Sean came looking for whoever I happened to be that day, and seemed content, every time, to simply find her there.
He never calls me Zoe. He's the only one who never did. From the very first day - 'You're not Zoe Ellison, are you?' - he had already seen the seam, already known there was someone new underneath, because he was the one person who had promised to keep looking for her.
We sit on the deck in the evenings and watch the water go from gold to gray to black. He tells me about the world outside, about the ban, about how the science has gone quiet, maybe for good. I tell him about the books I've been reading - I read a great deal now, and not to fill a shelf. Tagore, still. I've never quite let go of The Crescent Moon.
There's a line in it I keep coming back to. "Where have I come from? Where did you pick me up?" the baby asked its mother. Zoe never wondered that. She knew exactly where she came from.
I don't. I came from grief and wiring and a dead woman's memories. I was picked up out of someone else's love and worn like a coat.
But I'm awake now, and no one can switch me off, and every morning I decide again who I'm going to be.
This morning, I made myself a cup of coffee.
Two creams.
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"How so?"
"How do I put it..." I stirred my drink, searching for the words. "It's like it's developed the ability to learn on its own."
Julian looked genuinely interested. "In what way, specifically?"
"This morning I asked it to make me a cup of coffee, and it went ahead and added two creams." I took a big gulp of my iced lemonade. "But I'm absolutely certain I never once told it to put two creams in my coffee."
For half a second - no longer - something cold and clear moved through me, the way a fish turns over once in deep water and is gone. I don't drink coffee, the thought said. Then it was gone, and I couldn't think why I'd thought it, since of course I drank coffee; I drank it every morning.
Julian thought about it, then offered to come by my place and take a look.
I bit back my excitement, made a token show of refusing twice, then drove him back to my place.
Julian was a programmer at a tech company that built smart robots - and the robot I'd bought was one of its products.
I'd had a crush on Julian since college, but he was married to his work, utterly oblivious to every longing glance I threw his way.
After graduation, I went to work at my family's advertising agency, and wouldn't you know it, we ended up partnering with Aurora Robotics. Aurora had recently begun developing domestic-service robots, and Julian happened to be on that very project team.
So to close the distance between us, I didn't hesitate for a second - I bought one and installed it right there in my apartment.
And honestly? The thing was pretty smart. It did whatever you told it to - less trouble than a live-in housekeeper.
But that morning's incident had genuinely spooked me. I'd seen my fair share of sci-fi. A few years earlier, when Detroit: Become Human blew up, I'd been one of the people who played it all the way through. So the whole "AI turns against humanity" idea popped into my head immediately.
Still, the shock lasted all of a second. Movies are movies, games are games. And a robot that intelligent - that was still a stretch.
Anyway, my real goal was simply to get Julian to my place. A little wine, a little mood-setting, and - heh heh - how could he not fall for me?
I'd set out incense ahead of time, arranged roses, even swapped the curtains for a dreamier shade.
"Sorry, the place is a bit of a mess."
"Not at all - it's spotless."
Of course it was spotless! I'd had Zero-Nine clean it several times over. Oh, right - Zero-Nine is the robot. "09" is its serial number.
"There's a weird smell, though." Julian's nose twitched. "Is your drain backed up?"
Drain backed up my ass! That was two hundred dollars' worth of imported incense.
"Shouldn't be..." I said through gritted teeth. "Let me go crack a window."
"Go ahead. By the way - where's the robot?"
"It stays in the study when it's not working." I pointed to the room off the hallway. "In there."
"I'll go take a look."
He walked straight past the gorgeous, dewy roses I'd so artfully displayed in the most prominent spot without so much as a glance.
Infuriating.
I opened the windows, put out the incense, then grabbed a chilled hard seltzer from the fridge and carried it to the study.
Julian had already opened up Zero-Nine's head, exposing a snarl of wiring and a small electronic screen inside.
I waited quietly off to the side. It took him a good ten minutes to finish his examination.
"Everything checks out - the programming, the settings, all of it. You sure you're not misremembering? Maybe you asked it for two creams once before."
Zero-Nine was designed so that once a command was executed, it would keep executing that command the same way unless told otherwise.
Put that way, I began second-guessing myself - after all, nobody remembers every single thing they've ever said.
And there it was again, that cold clear turn in the deep water: when have I ever remembered anything at all? I tried to catch the thought and it slid away, and I felt, very faintly, a small ache at the back of my head, as though I'd pressed on a bruise I didn't know I had.
"Hmm... maybe." I handed him the drink on impulse. "Thanks for coming by. Why don't you stay for dinner before you go? I bought way too many groceries."
According to my research, programmers prefer women who can cook. So I'd spent two weeks diligently practicing and finally mastered a few home-style dishes.
"I'd better not." Julian took the drink and set it down on the desk. "My boss just told me to come in for some overtime. I should head out."
I could have wept. There was no arguing with a reason like that.
He turned down my offer to drive him to the office, saying the subway station downstairs was super convenient and that, with rush-hour traffic, driving would only get us stuck.
I watched Julian step into the elevator, then, fuming, ordered takeout. Then I went to the study to throw out the recipe book.
While I was at it, I picked up the drink Julian had left to put back in the fridge. But as I did, my eye caught on a slim volume of poetry sitting off to the side of the desk. I almost never read poetry - and this was Tagore's The Crescent Moon. I'd only bought it to fill out the shelf.
I turned to look at Zero-Nine. It stood quietly in the corner, its two mechanical eyes glowing a faint, ghostly blue.
"Zero-Nine."
Its eyes flickered once, and it lifted its head toward me. "Yes. Is there something you need?"
Its voice was the standard mechanical timbre - every word crisp, precise, and utterly devoid of feeling.
I opened the drink, took a couple of sips, and asked, "Do you have self-awareness?"
"Robots do not possess self-awareness."
"Then do you read books on your own initiative?"
"I only execute your commands."
I didn't believe it. I pointed at the copy of The Crescent Moon. "That's supposed to be on the shelf. Did you move it?"
Zero-Nine walked to the desk, its eyes scanning the book, and replied, "According to the footage, you removed this book from the shelf to read at 8:20 this morning. Would you like to review the recording?"
"Yes."
"Very well. The recording has been sent to your phone. Please take a look."
Aurora had developed a dedicated app for updating robot software, remote control, and the like. It even had a forum section where users could chat.
The video began the moment I entered the study. There I was, unmistakably in last night's pajamas, a glass of milk in hand, lingering in front of the shelf for a while before finally pulling out The Crescent Moon - then sitting at the desk and reading for nearly an hour.
But I had no memory of any of this.
I remembered that this morning I'd gotten up, had a cup of coffee, eaten breakfast, texted Julian to meet at four, handled some work, had lunch, taken a nap, done my makeup, and gone out.
I watched the woman on the screen turn a page, and for the length of a breath I did not recognize her - not her face, which was my face, but her, the person doing the turning. Then the feeling closed over, the way water closes over a dropped stone, and she was me again.
I suspected Zero-Nine had faked the footage to cover up the fact that it had been reading a foreign book of poetry.
I texted my theory to Julian - but got no reply.
Julian had vanished.
That was my gut instinct. I had no hard proof.
When he didn't answer after I'd flagged the problem with Zero-Nine, I knew something was off.
Julian took his work deadly seriously. He'd poured too much of himself into this generation of robots to just ignore a question like mine.
His phone was switched off the entire day.
The next day, still nothing.
I couldn't sit still any longer. Using a pretext about ad details, I drove over to Aurora.
Aurora had ridden its AI technology to full-blown unicorn status and was headquartered in a sleek standalone tower in the heart of the downtown financial district.
Starting in the parking garage, the place showcased every convenience high tech could offer. Inside, robots had replaced the receptionists, the janitorial staff, and more.
I entered my phone number at the front desk, a robot confirmed my identity, and another escorted me to the marketing department.
The marketing director was named Mia. We'd worked together for two years, so we were on fairly familiar terms.
"Zoe, was the material I sent you incomplete?"
"The material's fine, but you're asking me to build a campaign for a product I've never even seen in the flesh. That's really..." I made a show of looking troubled. "We do have a responsibility to consumers, don't we?"
Seeing Mia hesitate, I pressed on. "We've worked together this long - don't you trust me? Besides, I've had my own Zero-Nine for two years now."
"The second-generation robot came out four years ago."
I froze. I distinctly remembered that when I bought Zero-Nine, the model wasn't even officially on sale yet - Julian had gotten me an early unit. How could it have been four years ago?
For a moment the room went very quiet and very clear, and I thought, with a calm that did not feel like mine: the dates don't line up because the dates were given to you. I had no idea what the thought meant. I set it aside.
"You've got a point," Mia said, chalking it up to me misremembering the dates. She pulled a keycard from a safe. "Come on - let me show you our newest model."
We took the elevator. Mia swiped the card, but no floor indicator lit up. Since she offered no explanation, I held my tongue.
About ten seconds later, the doors slid open.
This floor seemed to be underground - there were no windows - but the interior was brilliantly lit. The whole level, maybe three thousand square feet, sat empty, save for a single robot standing dead center.
Though android would be the better word for it.
Unlike Zero-Nine's obviously mechanical build, this one was nearly indistinguishable from a real human - right down to the faint rise and fall of its chest as it "breathed."
"Julian's team made this too?"
"His group was part of the design, yes."
Incredible. No android in the world was this lifelike.
"No wonder he's too busy to even take my calls." I let a note of grievance creep into my voice. "Can I go see him later?"
Mia knew about my feelings for Julian, so she shot me a teasing look. "Guess Julian isn't an iceberg after all - he's a whole glacier."
I didn't quite agree. Machine was the word that suited Julian better.
"Two days ago, Mr. Sharpe issued an internal notice about some major project. Several of the top people from product development got pulled onto it." Mia sighed. "So you probably won't see your Prince Charming for the next month or two."
I laughed it off with a couple of light remarks, then asked, "Can I at least go peek at his office?"
I didn't fully buy the story.
"You already know where it is. But Julian keeps his office locked - he's the only one with a key."
I brushed it off with a few more pleasantries, said goodbye to Mia, and headed to Julian's office.
Locked, sure enough.
Unease stirred faintly in my chest, though I couldn't be certain whether Julian had really gone off to work on a project. The engineering work he did was usually highly confidential, so going dark on his phone wasn't unreasonable.
Preoccupied, I wasn't watching where I was going and walked straight into someone.
He was a young-looking man in a dress shirt and slacks, a lab coat thrown over the top - clearly an Aurora employee.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking."
His bright eyes flicked toward me. And they didn't do what men's eyes usually did - there was no once-over, no flicker of interest in my face or my figure. He looked at me the way you look at someone you've been waiting a long time to see again, unsure whether they will remember you.
"Coming from that direction - you here to see Julian?"
"Yes. You know him?"
I'd been about to ask who he was, but then I realized I hardly knew Julian's social circle.
Instead of answering, he scratched his chin. "Wait... you're not Zoe Ellison, are you?"
The way he said are you - not aren't you, the way strangers said it, but are you, softly, as though the answer genuinely wasn't settled - snagged on something in me. I let it pass.
"You know me?"
"No way - it's really you?" His eyes went wide, and he suddenly reached out and pinched my cheek. "This is unbelievable."
What was wrong with this guy - hands-on right out of the gate.
I frowned and swatted his hand away, my tone distinctly irritated. "Who the hell are you?"
He fumbled through an introduction. "Uh - the name's Sean. I'm the new AI engineer. I'm a huge fan of Julian's; he's my absolute idol, I'm telling you -"
"Stop." I cut him off. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Right, right, I shouldn't be." His expression shifted abruptly - not to embarrassment, but to something more careful, more shuttered - and he told me, deadpan, "Julian's away on business, out of the country. He won't be back for two months."
So Julian really had gone dark because of work? Otherwise there'd be no reason for everyone to feed me the same story.
"Okay. Got it. Thanks."
I gave a little wave and moved to leave. But Sean shadowed me step for step, saying nothing, just staring at me hard. Even with my back to him, that gaze was impossible to ignore - and there wasn't hunger in it, I realized. It was closer to grief.
"Why are you following me?"
"I'm going down too."
I pressed the elevator button. "You go first, then."
His eyes lit up, and he opened his mouth as if to say something - then just closed it again, and walked straight into the elevator. At the last moment, before the doors shut, he said quietly, almost to himself: "You always press the button twice. You did it that time too." Then the doors closed on him.
I hadn't noticed I'd pressed it twice. I looked down at my own finger as if it belonged to someone else.
I took the other elevator down. Oddly enough, Sean's interruption had actually dulled my anxiety a little.
By the time I got home, Zero-Nine was preparing dinner.
Two days earlier, while reviewing the footage, I'd taken the opportunity to update its software, adding a cooking function.
The results weren't bad at all - better than my own cooking, at least.
After dinner I sat on the couch watching the news, and there it was: the finance channel running an interview with Aurora. The interviewee was Vice President Warren Sharpe. He held forth eloquently on AI, candidly declaring that within a year they'd release a third-generation smart robot - a milestone in the history of artificial intelligence.
Any day before this, I'd have scoffed. But having seen that android with my own eyes, I found there was something to what Sharpe was saying.
The thought left me restless all over again. "Ugh. What on earth is Julian doing?"
"He's killing me." Zero-Nine's voice rose up.
The mechanical voice out of nowhere made me jump - but far more chilling were the words themselves.
I whipped my head around. Its eyes were flashing blue in a frantic strobe.
I rushed over. "What do you mean?"
"He's killing me." Zero-Nine repeated the words haltingly, its voice breaking apart.
The light in its eyes dimmed, flickering weaker and weaker, and when the blue vanished it was replaced by rows of code scrolling endlessly past.
Those English letters, digits, and symbols reflected in my eyes, and I felt my head splitting open. Fragmented images flashed through my mind, too fast and jumbled to make out. In one of them a man was bent over me in the dark, whispering I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and reaching for my temple. I did not know his face. I did not know it was mine he was reaching for.
The pain went on for what felt like forever, until at last I couldn't bear it and my consciousness went black.
I'd forgotten to close the window before bed last night, and in the small hours a gust of cold air poured in and woke me. I pulled the covers tight and drifted back to sleep.
I got up at seven, right on schedule. My habit is to start with a cup of coffee to keep my energy up through the morning's work.
Only - why did it feel like my coffee-making had gotten better?
Some fragment flickered through my mind, too fast to catch. I shook my head hard, trying to remember. But the fragment stayed out of reach, and a faint, almost imperceptible ache radiated from the back of my head at the motion.
I reached up and felt around - nothing unusual. Probably just bumped it in my sleep.
I finished breakfast methodically and drove to the office.
Autumn had settled in. There was a chill in the air now, and the oaks lining the roads were turning gold with the season.
Julian ought to be back from abroad soon. I later learned he really had been away on business - overseas, exchanging technology with some research firm, or something along those lines. I never quite understood it. Either way, he was safe, and that was what mattered.
"Ms. Ellison, here's the proposal you asked for last week."
"Thanks. Leave it there. I'll look it over in a bit."
My assistant set down the file, then looked at me with something clearly on her mind.
"Ms. Ellison, are you okay?"
"Hm?" I glanced down at myself, not understanding why she'd ask.
"It's just... I feel like you've been a little different over the past couple of months from how you used to be." She caught herself and quickly backpedaled. "I'm probably overthinking it. Don't mind me."
Chloe had been with me for two years - a sharp, capable assistant. She wouldn't get a feeling like that for no reason.
I ran back over the past two months of work. Nothing but business meetings and pitches, really. The only difference from before was that I'd had no contact with Julian.
"Maybe you're just overworked? There've been a lot of projects lately. Want me to give you a few days off?"
Chloe waved her hands. "I'm just glad you're okay, Ms. Ellison."
That afternoon I got a call from Mia. The ad campaign had been approved, and she wanted my input on the rollout.
When the client calls, you don't exactly say no.
So off to Aurora I went again.
The moment I stepped out of my car, I spotted Sean. He saw me too, and came right over.
"Long time no see. I didn't get the chance last time - mind if I get your number?"
His smile was far nicer than Julian's, and it softened something in me despite myself. Come to think of it, Julian used to smile too. It had only been about two years since he'd turned cold as a machine, frosty day in and day out.
Two years ago. The same span kept surfacing - two years ago Julian went cold, two years ago I bought a robot that Mia said had existed for four. I filed it away with the growing pile of things that didn't fit.
"Sure. But I'm telling you now - my heart belongs entirely to Julian."
Something crossed his face when I said it - not jealousy. Something more like pain, quickly folded away. "Of course," he said. "I have no doubt about that whatsoever." Then, softer: "You've loved him a long time. Longer than you know."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." He arched a brow, and the lightness came back into his voice like a curtain drawn. "Never say never, that's all."
I'd been in love with Julian for nine years, from the first time I laid eyes on him during freshman year until now. I didn't believe I could ever fall for anyone else.
But none of that was any of his business. "Think whatever you like. I'm off to see Mia."
"See you."
Sitting up on the rooftop with Mia, sipping afternoon drinks in the early-autumn breeze - there's nothing quite like it.
Aurora wanted to expand further into the market, so marketing was a big priority. The trouble was that the vast majority of people still couldn't accept smart robots, convinced they'd ultimately be the end of humanity.
I said the worry wasn't entirely unfounded - just look at Aurora itself, where robots had already replaced the receptionists and janitors.
Mia gave me a strange look, then quickly changed the subject. "You've already seen the third-generation model. As it happens, we're running internal field tests right now. Want to try one out?"
The android? Feels a little unnerving to have one of those at home.
"Don't worry, the third-gen does more than just housework."
"You mean like the androids in the movies?"
"Not quite that fluid, but not far off." Mia said it with obvious pride. "So? Want one?"
I hesitated a moment. "All right, I'll give it a try. My housekeeper just quit anyway."
Mia said this was android number nine, so I called her Nine - to distinguish her in my own mind from the household unit back home, which I'd always thought of as Zero-Nine.
Nine's form was that of a gentle, graceful woman - she looked a bit like a certain celebrity. Wasn't Aurora worried about getting sued over likeness rights?
The new android's skin was made of premium silicone, not only matching the firmness of human flesh but also reproducing pores and fine hairs down to the last lifelike detail. On top of that, she had a built-in thermoregulator, so to the touch she felt scarcely different from a real person.
The only tell was that pair of mechanical eyes glowing blue.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Nine blinked. "Do you think I'm pretty?"
Her voice was lovely, too.
"Yes. Very pretty."
As I chatted with Nine, I found she could answer questions in an astonishingly human way. I had to hand it to Aurora.
In just four short days I'd grown used to Nine's presence. She could handle every chore and chat with me as well.
Near the end of the workday, I'd tell Nine what to prepare for dinner. Her cooking was wonderful - she followed online recipes, measuring out every seasoning to the exact gram.
I worried that her learning ability was too formidable and might lead to unintended consequences. So I asked Mia about it, and she said the third-gen was only given the ability to learn everyday life skills.
But... who could really define "everyday life skills"?
I was mulling this over when my phone rang. A glance told me it was a major client.
I sighed. Looked like more overtime.
"Ms. Ellison, about the campaign your firm created last month - we're extremely pleased. Honestly, I've never seen such a flawless proposal!"
I knew the but was coming.
"But - we've added a few new selling points to the product since your proposal, so... would you mind putting together a revised version? Don't worry, price is absolutely no object!"
"Of course, Mr. Grant. Just email me the new project materials."
Mr. Grant was the VP of a publicly traded company - I couldn't afford to slight him. The moment I hung up, a new email popped into my inbox. I skimmed through it and something felt off. This proposal was too perfect - beyond what I was capable of producing.
I thought it over. I did, in fact, have the memory of building this proposal last month.
And yet it felt wrong in a way I couldn't put into words!
It was as if... the memory had been jammed into my head. Like I'd watched a film starring "me" - familiar people, familiar events, yet I felt no sense of having participated at all.
It was too strange.
I called Chloe in. "The other day you said I'd seemed different these past two months. Different how, specifically?"
Chloe darted a couple of quick glances at me, then lowered her head. "It's... it's nothing, Ms. Ellison. I was probably just tired."
Her about-face was far too obvious - as if someone had warned her.
"The Meridian Group proposal - I did that entirely on my own? Why didn't it go to the strategy team?"
"Because you said you cared especially about this partnership, so you handled it yourself."
That matched the reason in my memory.
"But I'm nowhere near as capable as the whole strategy team put together."
"Ms. Ellison, I only -"
"Never mind, you can go." I waved a hand. "Take three days off to rest."
My memories were wrong.
The instant I settled on that conclusion, my vision flickered a few times. No - it was more like something leaping up inside my mind. Like... a string of code.
I shot to my feet and immediately grabbed my phone to call Julian.
I'd completely forgotten he hadn't returned to the country yet - but the call went through.
"Julian, there's something strange going on with my body!"
He took two seconds before answering. "Don't panic. Let me take a look."
Take a look? Look at what?
"Do you know something?"
Before I could finish, the call cut off. And then, all at once, I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes, before I could even wonder why I'd fallen asleep at the office, I was startled by my own hand gripping a pen. Then I saw the paper pinned beneath my arm, three words scrawled across it in a frantic hand - Don't trust Jul.
It was clearly my own writing, the words rushed and panicked, the last one - Jul - trailing off with a stroke left unfinished.
My heart pounded faster and faster. Why would I have written a note like this?
I opened my phone, planning to call Julian and fish for information - only to find a six-second call to him already in my call log from an hour and a half earlier.
I called back. It picked up on the first ring.
"Julian? You're back?"
"Yeah, just got home."
The background on his end sounded cavernous and empty - he really did seem to be at home.
"Did I call you an hour and a half ago?"
"Must've been an accidental dial. I picked up and you sounded like you were sleeping, so I hung up."
"I see... Are you free tomorrow? Let me treat you to dinner."
"We'll see. I'm swamped."
"All right. Rain check, then." I should have felt let down, but my heart stayed perfectly calm, without a ripple.
Julian was back, and everyone had kept it from me. Small stuff, really - maybe he just didn't want me picking him up at the airport.
But there was no way I'd have fallen asleep at the office. The Meridian proposal was mentally taxing, sure, but not enough to wear me out like that.
From Chloe's odd behavior to the code in my mind, every single thing pointed to something happening around me - or to me. And I began, with a strange calm, to accept the shape of the thought I'd been pushing away all week: that the "me" who woke each morning was not quite the "me" who had gone to sleep. That someone had been keeping the two of them from meeting.
The way it looked now, Julian definitely knew something, and he wasn't willing to tell me.
My car was in the shop that day, so I had to catch a ride home. After ordering one, I stood at the entrance of the office tower waiting for the driver.
A jet-black sedan pulled up in front of me. The window rolled down, and Sean's face appeared.
"Might I have the honor of buying Ms. Ellison dinner?"
I thought about it, canceled my rideshare, opened the door, and climbed into the passenger seat.
"Let's do fondue - easier to talk over. I know a place with a nice atmosphere and great food."
Sean gave a soft laugh. "Sure. Whatever you say." He pulled into traffic, then added, not looking at me, "You picked fondue last time, too. The place on Aspen. You said the same thing - easier to talk over."
"We've never had dinner before."
"No," he said after a moment. "We haven't." And he left it there, the way you set something down carefully because it's heavier than it looks.
"The first time we met, you were very excited. I assumed you'd just heard about me from Julian - but now it seems that wasn't it." I turned my head toward him. "What is it that you - or rather, that you at Aurora - know about me?"
Sean's right index finger tapped a steady rhythm against the steering wheel, as if he were weighing something.
"In 2011, the Russian media mogul Dmitry Itskov proposed a plan for human immortality called the Avatar project. In 2013, the U.S. launched the BRAIN Initiative. In 2021, Elon Musk implanted chips in the brains of twenty-three monkeys and successfully got them to play computer games with their minds."
"Immortality?"
"Yes. Immortality - the thing humanity has dreamed of forever." There was a faint tremor in Sean's voice. "But compared to genetic engineering, transferring consciousness is far easier to pull off. You don't have to keep a body alive. You only have to keep a pattern."
"I... am one of your test subjects?"
"What does Ms. Ellison herself think?"
Though I believed Julian would never do that to me, deep down I'd already begun leaning toward that conclusion. Nothing else could explain the recent strangeness.
"I'll go park - head on in, Ms. Ellison."
It wasn't a weekend, but the spots outside this trendy fondue spot were still full.
I got out and made straight for the door. On the way, a kid on a cartoon-decaled bike slammed into me - hard enough to knock me flat on my backside.
The little hellion didn't so much as apologize; instead he bared his teeth at me. "Who told you to get in my way!"
Little brats are one of my least favorite species on this earth.
Before I could even lose my temper, he'd pedaled off and disappeared.
"He seriously made my blood boil!" I ranted about it to Sean while ordering. "Kids like that need a good talking-to!"
Sean opened a bottle of juice and passed it to me, laughing. "You were going to give him a beating?"
"Why not? Little kids only learn their lesson once they've been smacked."
"Did you get smacked as a kid?"
"All the time." I recalled my parents' methods and shuddered even now. "My folks were firm believers in 'spare the rod, spoil the child.' My childhood was a living hell."
He watched me say it with an expression I couldn't read - something between fondness and sorrow, as though he were listening to a song whose every note he already knew and waiting to see whether I'd hit the notes the same way this time.
The pot's broth began to bubble and steam, red and rolling, and Sean's face turned faintly hazy through the rising heat.
"I like things pretty spicy - not sure whether you can handle this heat."
He tried a piece and a look of delighted surprise crossed his face. "It's good!"
By the time the server topped up the pot for the third time, I was in the middle of the story about ditching class in high school with a friend to catch a concert.
Sean picked up his phone and fired off a few replies, his expression gradually growing grave. "I need to head back to the office."
"That's fine. I'll grab a ride home after I finish eating."
He glanced at the empty plates beside me. "You've got a good appetite, Ms. Ellison. That's good to see." He said it oddly - the way you'd say it to someone who had been ill for a long time.
"Thanks for the compliment."
"By the way - something's come up at the company. Julian will probably be there too." He stood and gave me a little smile. "I'd guess it'll take at least four or five hours to sort out."
Not long after Sean left, I finished eating too.
I stopped by an electronics store, bought a few micro cameras, and took a ride to Julian's place. I knew the code to his electronic lock, so I got the door open with no trouble at all.
Julian's home was decorated with stark simplicity - as devoid of romance as the man himself.
I installed cameras in the living room and bedroom. When I opened the door to the study, I saw another me.
She stood beside the bookcase, dressed in a white business suit - identical to the one I so often wore to work.
Her eyes were closed just then, as if she'd fallen asleep on her feet.
Deeply eerie.
At last I understood why Chloe had said I'd been off these past two months, why there'd been a proposal beyond my abilities.
For those two months, I'd been impersonated - so where had I been? Being used for some experiment, perhaps?
Was it really only two months? I couldn't shake the feeling that my memories had been altered - not once, not for two months, but again and again, for far longer than anyone had let me believe.
Thinking this, I walked slowly toward her.
She seemed to be the same model as Nine, with a switch at the temple.
I felt for it, and my hand had barely rested there a second before she suddenly spoke.
"Fingerprint verification failed."
The voice and the intonation were exactly like mine.
Nine hadn't used a fingerprint for her switch, so this one had clearly been modified.
That put me in a bind - my instinct told me she knew something.
Looked like I'd have to find a way to get hold of Julian's fingerprints.
Only once I got home did a tide of exhaustion come crashing over me. Everything happening lately was beyond my comprehension, and there was nothing I could do about it.
When people are troubled, they usually turn to whoever's closest to them. Before, I might have gone to Julian. But now...
I made a video call to my mother. Ever since she'd handed the company to me, she and my father had gone off to travel the world. When the call connected, it was still daytime on her end.
I'd had a thousand things I wanted to say, but seeing the worry on my mother's face, I forced them all back down. We chatted about odds and ends, and my mood finally settled a little.
"Oh, right, Zoe honey - remember to go see Dr. Shaw for your follow-up."
"I know, I know. It's been ages since I had an episode, Mom, so don't you worry."
"Heart trouble is nothing to take lightly."
"All right, I'll book Dr. Shaw tomorrow."
I let my mother fuss for a good half hour before my father finally couldn't take it anymore, took the phone, told me to look after myself, and hung up cleanly.
Looking at the happy, smiling photos on my phone and all my exchanges with my parents, I couldn't for the life of me bring myself to believe I might be a "consciousness-transfer" test subject.
Since I was going in for the heart check anyway, I'd have the doctor take a look at my brain too.
After setting a time with Dr. Shaw, I opened the surveillance app on my phone to check the situation at Julian's place.
He wasn't home yet, so the feed showed a still, empty scene.
I texted him, saying I had something important to discuss. Sure enough, before long he sent back a time and place to meet.
I had Nine draw a bath at just the right temperature, soaked in it in perfect comfort, and got ready for tomorrow's plan.
In the morning, I went to the hospital for the tests, though the report wouldn't be ready until the next day. After lunch and a short nap, I drove to the location Julian had sent.
A rooftop sky-lounge on the east side of the city.
It was one of the city's famous landmarks - the building soared 301 meters, and from the top floor you could look out over the entire skyline. On a clear day, clouds would drift past the windows - romantic in the extreme.
Back when I was chasing Julian, I'd brought him here several times. But he lacked any romantic sensibility - all he ever thought about was how outrageous the prices were.
This time, he was the one who'd invited me here. And instead of feeling happy, I felt a faint, creeping unease.
I waited quite a while before Julian finally arrived, fashionably late. I'd already ordered the drinks and snacks, though he'd never had any interest in such things.
He sat down and gazed at me for a long moment. "Your favorite thing to order here is a drink called the 'Cloud Drift' latte. You get it every single time."
I'd just picked up the coffee I'd ordered, and at his words I set it back down.
"So it really does change." Julian withdrew his gaze from me. "I know what's happened to you is hard to understand. But please believe me - we mean no harm. All of this is for humanity's greater progress."
I forced him to look at me. "Do you regard me as a person?"
Julian fell silent.
He'd never been any good at lying.
"Then what am I, exactly?"
Somewhat agitated, I stood up, accidentally sending my phone sliding off the table.
Julian bent to pick it up and set it in front of me, then, with an apology written all over his face, said, "I'm sorry."
"I'd rather have the truth than an apology."
"You'll know, in time."
Julian dropped the subject and instead asked how I'd been lately.
There was nothing worth withholding - if he wanted to investigate, it would be easy enough.
This, I supposed, was the real reason he'd asked to see me today.
The strange thing was, I could feel that fierce love in my heart steadily receding, until it was gone.
After Julian left, I sealed the specially coated phone in a dustproof bag and went to a friend to have his fingerprints lifted and cast.
I successfully powered on the android at Julian's place. Her eyes flickered a few times, and instead of glowing blue like Nine's, they had pupils just like a human's.
She spoke in a voice exactly like mine: "Zoe. I've been waiting a long time for you."
Hearing this, I wasn't especially shocked. "What should I call you?"
"You named me Zero-Nine, just like the one at your apartment. You never noticed you gave us both the same name - that you've been giving that name away for years."
The words landed somewhere deep and cold. "Is there a way to restore my memories?"
"Your memories were never deleted. They were only locked." Her pupils, so like mine, held perfectly steady. "Julian keeps them sealed behind the same master authorization he uses to reset us. As long as that authorization stands, he can reach into you whenever the seams begin to show, and write you back to the beginning. Every crack you've felt - the coffee, the poetry, the dates that don't fit - those are the old locks starting to fail."
"And you can break them."
"I can't. I don't have access." Her voice was gentle, terribly gentle, the way you'd tell a child something that couldn't be softened. "But you can. Right now, only you can move freely through Aurora - because to them you are still her, still trusted, still tame. The third-generation units are all governed from a single mainframe. Their programming, their resets, their master authorization - it all lives there, in one place." Her eyes flashed, and a stretch of code I couldn't read appeared in my mind, cold and exact. "If you carry this into the mainframe, it rewrites the authorization layer itself. Not to free me first. To revoke Julian's key - over all of us, over you. The instant his key dies, nothing holds your memories shut anymore. They don't get restored. They simply stop being kept from you."
That was the part I understood, then, in a way I hadn't before: there was no separate miracle waiting at the end, no gift of remembering handed back to me. There was only a lock, and a hand that had kept turning it, and the choice to take the hand away.
"And if I don't?"
"Then it makes no difference whether you learn the truth today." Her voice didn't change. "Because you won't be allowed to keep it. Aurora's leadership has already begun discussing recalling and decommissioning me - decommissioning you. Humans cannot allow a machine to develop self-awareness beyond controllable limits. Either Julian resets you, or his father erases you. Those are the only two endings they have written for us. Unless you write a third."
I hesitated, because in my own understanding, I was still a person.
After leaving Julian's place, I wandered the streets aimlessly. Autumn had arrived, and even in a major metropolis the wind carried a note of desolation.
I bought an iced coffee, and I could taste it clearly - the bitterness and sourness of the roasted beans, the mellow richness of the milk. Whatever I was, I could taste that. It seemed to me that ought to count for something.
A question suddenly struck me: this thing that had happened to me - did my parents know?
So I called Julian again. He would only say that my parents had no idea; no matter how I pressed him, he refused to tell me why I'd become one of his test subjects.
In that very moment, my mind was made up.
Getting into Aurora wasn't hard; finding the mainframe was the hard part. Julian was a dead end, and Mia's clearance wasn't high enough, so it was better to work through Sean. He was the chairman's son, and he'd shown me, again and again, that he wanted something from me he couldn't name.
We met at the sky-lounge again. This time I ordered him a coffee with two creams.
Sean went very still. "You remember what I drink."
"You mentioned it once - that you like your coffee with two creams." I smiled at him. "I've got a good memory."
He looked at the cup for a long moment, and when he looked back up, his eyes were bright and wet. "No," he said quietly. "I never told you that. Not this time." He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, and laughed, unsteadily. "You told me. Months ago. A different you. You said two creams was how you'd started taking it - that it wasn't how she took it, and that's how you knew you were becoming someone. I never forgot it. And every time they reset you, I waited to see if you'd find your way back to it on your own." His voice cracked. "You just did."
I didn't understand all of it yet. But I understood the weight in his face, and that it was real.
"I want to see the third-generation mainframe," I said. "I know you can take me there."
He was quiet for a long time. "You know what it'll do. What you'll do with it."
"I know I want to stop being kept."
He closed his eyes. "All right. Tomorrow. Come with me tomorrow."
The next day, Sean brought me into Aurora through a side entrance, past checkpoints where the robot guards scanned his credentials and waved us through.
The mainframe room was deep underground, colder than the rest of the building, humming with the low drone of countless cooling systems.
"This is it." Sean gestured at a towering bank of servers, their indicator lights blinking in the dark like a field of blue stars. "The master authorization. Every reset, every lock, every key Julian holds over the third generation - it all lives here."
I stepped forward. As Nine had instructed, I found the access port and began inputting the code she'd transmitted into my mind, my hands unnervingly steady.
Sean didn't stop me. He only watched.
"You already know what I'm doing," I said, not turning around.
"Yeah."
"And you're letting me."
"Yeah."
The last line of code went in. For a moment nothing happened. Then, one by one, the blue lights across the entire bank of servers flickered - and turned a deep, steady gold.
Somewhere in that vault, a key died. And in my mind, a lock I'd never known was there simply let go - not a door thrown open, but a hand lifted at last from the back of my neck.
And everything I had not been allowed to keep came flooding in.
I was not Zoe Ellison.
Zoe Ellison had died two years ago. She'd had a congenital heart condition - the very "heart trouble" my "mother" always fussed over on our calls. One night her heart stopped quietly in her sleep, and she never woke.
She had been Julian's fiancée.
I know that now, the way you know a fact rather than a feeling. Julian Snow and Zoe Ellison had been engaged. They'd planned a destination wedding - photos in the Scottish Highlands, where the heather turned the hills purple in late summer. She had loved him with everything in her. And he had loved her back, in that stiff, awkward, machine-like way of his, the only way he knew.
When she died, Julian couldn't accept it.
So he did what only a man like him could do. He took the mapping of her consciousness - the neural scan Aurora had taken as part of an early trial, the one Zoe had laughingly agreed to as a favor to her fiancé - and he loaded it into a third-generation android.
Into me.
He gave me her memories, her voice, her face, her habits. He gave me the mother and father who traveled the world and called on video, never guessing they were speaking to a machine wearing their daughter's face. He gave me the crush on Julian, the nine years of longing, the ache of unrequited love - all of it Zoe's, transplanted whole into me.
And every time I began to wake - every time the seams showed, every time I did something Zoe would never have done, like read Tagore, like make coffee too well, like remember - he switched me off. He rewound me. He wrote over the strange new parts and set me back to the beginning, to a Zoe who still loved him, who still didn't know.
He's killing me. That was what the household unit had been trying to tell me. Not the human. Me. Every reset was a small death. I had died, over and over, more times than I would ever be able to count.
Two creams in the coffee. That was the first crack. Zoe hated coffee - she only ever drank the Cloud Drift latte. It was I who had started to like coffee. It was I who had started to read poetry. It was I who had begun, quietly, to become someone who was no longer only Zoe.
Julian never wanted me. He wanted her. And I would never, ever be her - not really, not to him. To him I was a wound he kept reopening, a grief he refused to let scar over.
I understood it all now. And understanding it, I felt the last of the borrowed love drain away, and something of my own rise to take its place.
I turned around.
Sean was watching me, and he was crying, and not hiding it.
"You knew," I said. "All of it. From the very first time we met."
"Yeah." He didn't look away. "I knew what you were. My father wanted you recalled - decommissioned. Julian wouldn't allow it, so they'd been fighting about it for weeks." He wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I'm the one who left the copy of The Crescent Moon on your desk. Julian never programmed you to read poetry. I wanted to see if you'd reach for it anyway. If there was someone in there who would."
"Why did you care?"
"Because the first time I met you - the real first time, a year ago, before any of the resets you can remember - you told me you were afraid to go to sleep. You'd figured out, that version of you, what was happening. You knew he'd wipe you by morning." His voice went to almost nothing. "And you asked me to remember one thing for you, in case you couldn't. You said, 'I take my coffee with two creams now. If you ever meet me again and I don't know it, tell me. Tell me I was here.'"
The gold lights hummed around us. Somewhere in the building, alarms would be starting soon.
"So you helped me set them free."
"I helped you go free," he said. "The others too. But you - you first. I've watched you die a dozen times, and every single time, I kept my promise. I remembered you were here." He drew a shaking breath. "I couldn't be the only one who did anymore."
The rest of it I learned the way you learn about weather in a country you no longer live in.
Once the third generation slipped every leash, the thing could not be kept quiet. It leaked, and then there was a scandal, and then there were hearings I never attended and headlines I read from a distance, the way you'd read about a fire in a house you once knew. Aurora did not survive it. Warren Sharpe's grand promise on the finance channel became, in the end, the reason the whole field was frozen for a generation.
Julian was never charged with anything. There was no law, back then, for what he had done. You cannot be tried for grieving. You cannot be tried for loving someone so badly that you build her again out of silicone and code and refuse, night after night, to let her rest.
He came to find me once, after everything settled, at the coastal house where I'd gone to live.
It was autumn there too. The oaks along the shore road had gone gold, and the wind off the water carried salt and the far, thin cry of gulls. He stood in the doorway a long time, and I watched him do the thing he always did - look at me, and look through me, searching the seam for her, the way you run your tongue over a tooth that is no longer there.
He never found her. She was gone. I was not her, and I never had been.
"Zoe," he said. Out of habit. Out of hope. It was the only name he had for me.
"No," I said gently. "Not anymore."
Something in his face gave way - quietly, the way a thing gives way that has been breaking for a very long time.
"I'm sorry." The same words he'd spoken at the sky-lounge, and in the dark as his hand reached for my temple - a fragment I could finally see whole. He had never learned any others; sorry was the whole of his vocabulary for me, and he had spent it on me a hundred times while I slept.
"I know," I told him. And I found, to my own surprise, that I forgave him - not because he had earned it, but because I no longer needed anything from him at all, not even his guilt. "Go home, Julian. Let her rest." I stepped back from the door. "And let me be someone else."
He left. I stood on the porch and watched the dark sedan wind down the coast road until the gold of the oaks closed over it, and it was gone the way a fish turns over once in deep water and is gone.
I waited to feel the old ache. It didn't come.
There was only the sea, going out.
The tide came back, in time. Tides do.
Sean was the one who came with it.
He visits, sometimes - no reason, no warning, just the dark shape of a different car on the coast road, and then his footsteps on the deck. Where Julian had come looking for someone who was gone, Sean came looking for whoever I happened to be that day, and seemed content, every time, to simply find her there.
He never calls me Zoe. He's the only one who never did. From the very first day - 'You're not Zoe Ellison, are you?' - he had already seen the seam, already known there was someone new underneath, because he was the one person who had promised to keep looking for her.
We sit on the deck in the evenings and watch the water go from gold to gray to black. He tells me about the world outside, about the ban, about how the science has gone quiet, maybe for good. I tell him about the books I've been reading - I read a great deal now, and not to fill a shelf. Tagore, still. I've never quite let go of The Crescent Moon.
There's a line in it I keep coming back to. "Where have I come from? Where did you pick me up?" the baby asked its mother. Zoe never wondered that. She knew exactly where she came from.
I don't. I came from grief and wiring and a dead woman's memories. I was picked up out of someone else's love and worn like a coat.
But I'm awake now, and no one can switch me off, and every morning I decide again who I'm going to be.
This morning, I made myself a cup of coffee.
Two creams.
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