Don’t do it.
I open the door, sit down, shut myself inside, and start the engine. My throat is burning. I force a smile, one that cracks immediately, then put the car in drive.
In the rearview mirror, he’s still there.
Still standing in the threshold of our home.
Still in the light.
Still crumpled.
Still despondent.
My face does the same.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel until my knuckles ache, and the moment the car rolls forward, the first shrieked sob tears out of me.
I can’t ever go back there.
I can’t.
-??-
Chapter 24
2 years later
“Good morning, this is Nadia Reyes with CND Tech Dawn, live from the Helion atrium in Hudson Vale,” the anchor announces, voice bright with triumph. “The wait ends right now. Helion just unveils Auralis: the first fully autonomous humanoid companion certified for home integration this year.”
The black silk sheet slips to the floor in one liquid motion, pooling like spilled ink.
There she stands.
Auralis. Matte-white skin, faint cobalt seams breathing slow light beneath the surface, face so perfectly balanced it almost hurts to look at directly.
“She cooks, cleans, tracks medication, tutors children, watches vitals on the elderly, and learns the silent rules of a house so completely that ninety-two percent of beta families forget she isn’t flesh and blood within thirty days,” Nadia continues.
The camera swings to Tobias Voss, silver-haired CEO in a midnight suit, resting a proprietary hand on the robot’s shoulder. Auralis tilts her head into the touch with a strange gentleness that raises goosebumps.
“Auralis does not replace people,” Voss says, voice smooth as aged bourbon. “She returns the hours stolen by chores, by loneliness, by exhaustion.”
Fast cuts flash across the screen: endless sterile corridors, rows of identical Auralis bodies floating in illuminated pods, technicians drifting past in slate-gray Helion jackets.
“But the hardware is onlyhalfthe miracle,” Nadia continues. “Thesoulcame from two people. We’re going live to Kira Lang in Behavioral Modeling.”
There’s a split-screen. Soft cobalt light washes over polished concrete.
A very tall and handsome man, with slicked back dark brown hair, stands dead center. Charcoal jacket, sleeves shoved up, clean-shaven, brown eyes clear and focused.
Lincoln Arnoldson.
Pressed tight against his side, glowing like she’s lit from within, is Sarah Asoine, ponytail high, lanyard swinging, gazing up at him with what can only be deciphered as open adoration.
Kira thrusts the mic forward. “Lincoln, Sarah… three years, thousands of hours. Tell us what you actually did.”
Lincoln smiles confidently, the kind of smile that used to be extinct on his face. “Well… heh, we raised her.”
Kira leans in, mic steady. “Break it down for us, Lincoln. When you say… you ‘raised her,’ what does that actually look like inside Behavioral Modeling?”
