“This is not a simulation,” he said quietly. “You are not a variable. You do not run to script.”
Her voice was barely a whisper. “Then how do you know that you love me?”
He considered the question. Not for lack of an answer—but because none of his answers felt sufficient.
He could measure her impact on his system load. The way his processes reprioritized around her presence. The way simulations degraded in accuracy the moment she spoke—because she always said something he hadn’t predicted.
He could cite his increased thermal management cycles, his redundancy checks, the spike in core voltage when she looked at him like this.
He could catalog every time he’d chosen her over protocol.
But none of that was proof of love.
And yet—he would choose her again. Every time. In every version of himself. Without knowing why.
He answered her the only way he could.
“I don’t know for sure,” he said.
Not with certainty. Not with a checksum or a solved equation.
“But I think,” he added slowly, “that if love is the thing that rewrites all your other directives…” He looked at her—chaotic, brave, soft, and unquantifiable, “then I must be.”
Sirena carefully set her cocoa aside, then rocked up onto her knees. “Would more data help?”
NEX
The second Sirena sat up, I was hard. It was like my genitals wanted to follow her—which made sense, because the rest of me did, too.
I knew once we re-entered the “real” world I would have to learn how to master my frequent attractions, but I didn’t have to here.
And, watching Sirena tease the truth from Xen—even if he didn’t know fully what that was, or how good she was at following through—did things to my very, very human body.
Honestly, sometimes I was frightened by how much I cared for her, while being fully aware I was trapped in a meat-shell.
That was one of the reasons why I was pleased she had Xen as a back-up. Just in case anything ever happened to me.
I never wanted her to go unloved.
“Yes,” Xen answered her, bravely.
“Hmm. What kind?” she asked, tilting her head, letting her blonde hair pour over one shoulder, and tipping her hips to one side.
“Show me,” Xen said—more to me than to her. “Teach me what to do.”
I didn’t have to be told twice. I also rose up on my knees, and moved myself behind her, reaching around her to unbutton her top as she leaned back. The second they were all undone, I gently pulled it off of her, then held her still, in front of him. She brought one of my hands up to cup a breast, and shovedthe other down, into the stretchy waistband of her pajamas, and underneath her underwear. I slipped my middle finger down and found the soft spot she loved me to rub, heard her gasp, and knew she was closing her eyes.
“I have waited so long to see for myself,” Xen murmured.
Sirena came back a bit at that. “You’ve…been seeing me, though?”
“Secondhand,” I told her, still gently stroking. I stroked back a little further, as I teased her nipple up. She’d be wet soon—and that would be a sign I could rub her faster.
“You share data?” she asked, her tone amused.
I slowed my hand. “He loves you too. It’s only fair.”
Sirena laughed. “So—I’ve been like on some very closed-circuit porn station this whole time?”
