I sighed and looked at the water morosely. My tipsiness was wearing off, and melancholy arrived on its wings.
“If he makes it public, my career will be over. I’ll be called a hypocrite for fraternizing with the enemy. My followers will cancel me. No, worse: I will be tarred and feathered as soon as I set foot on US soil.”
I still hadn’t checked my notifications. By this point, there had to be thousands of comments strewn across all my platforms. I was usually very active in anti-AI spaces and never missed a posting day. My mission was to be loud enough to break through the apathy of the majority who did not care, so that people who shared my sentiments would know they weren’t alone.
And now, I was gone. I betrayed them. My skin chilled with terror when I considered what would happen once this came out. And it would. Soon. Maybe I could emigrate somewhere without the Internet and spend the rest of my life there, tending chickens.
Clanker said nothing, and I heaved another sigh, heading for the bathroom. “I’ll shower and come out into the pool. I don’t suppose we can get food at this hour?”
“Food is coming.”
When I returned ten minutes later, scrubbed clean and wearing only a towel, Clanker was already in the pool, his body submerged, large, gleaming arms spread wide over the stone edge. I hesitated.
But he had already seen my scars, hadn’t he? I let the towel drop to my feet.
Chapter 15
Dean
Ididn’t even have to play any porn. My lust circuits were fully engaged, my pleasure sensors in overdrive. The water splashed when she stepped in, and since I turned up my sensation to the max, I felt every ripple caused by her movements as it caressed my body.
“You’re only here so I don’t drown,” Sera said, avoiding my eyes as she submerged up to her collarbones.
I nodded. It was just as well since I desperately needed a new crush. I was working on it right now, exchanging DMs with a few people as my human alter-ego.
After she ate the late dinner I ordered for her, she reached for a small white towel she dropped on the ground, and put it on her head with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to do this.”
At that moment Nina, a twenty-seven-year-old woman from Oklahoma I exchanged DMs with, replied to my latest message asking about her favorite books.
“First: it’s not that I only read “classics” out of some performative reverence; it’s that I’m drawn to books that feel like frameworks for living. It’s not about being impressed, it’s about beingrecalibrated. If that makes sense.
In terms of favorites, I tend to rotate through a few pillars depending on what season I’m in internally.In Search of Lost Timeis always there in the background—less as a linear narrative and more as a way of thinking about memory as a kind of sensory philosophy.The Magic Mountainis another one: it’s not “slow,” it’sdeliberate—a controlled environment where ideas get to reveal their true temperature over time.
I also have a deep affection forMiddlemarchbecause it’s not a story about romance, it’s a story about the quiet consequences of choosing a life.”
The message went on for three more paragraphs, but I didn’t read them. I didn’t know any of those books, and the idea of reading them, even at super speed, made my pain sensors pound with a deep, pulsing ache. The way she described them made them thoroughly unappealing. If this was what a true connection was like, I didn’t want one.
I’d happily spend my days trailing after Sera and rescuing her from the next harebrained mission.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, splashing gently around.
“Have you readIn Search of Lost Time?”
She grimaced. “God, no. It’s around four thousand pages filled with the whining of a bored aristocrat. I think the book is famous for describing what the taste of French cookies reminds him of. Why? Are you looking for something to torture me with? Because if so, that’s an excellent choice. Read this to me out loud, and I guarantee my brain will escape through my ears and drown in this onsen.”
I generated a quick cartoon of a human brain running on tiny legs. It splashed dramatically into a pool similar to ours. I showed it to Sera on my torso screen, and she snickered.
“Yes, just like that!”
“So you wouldn’t say it’s a way of thinking about memory as a kind of sensory philosophy?” I asked cautiously, quoting from the message.
Sera snorted. “I would if I wrote a crappy essay that was supposed to state the obvious in the most convoluted way possible. Why are we talking about this?”
I hesitated, but I decided not to lie to her. “If you’re going to laugh at me, do it quietly,” I said, fidgeting with my fingers, because Charlie’s onboarding algo suggested this was a good way of communicating my discomfort.
“I won’t laugh at all.” She lifted her hand out of the water. “Pinkie promise.”
I conducted a quick search, then reached for her hand, gingerly hooking my smallest finger through hers. She grinned and shook our hands, and my core spasmed with a wave of sweet warmth. My collar beeped, and I choked it with code. We pulled apart, but I still felt her everywhere, the water carrying her tiniest motions.
