Charlotte
Iwatched him crawl. The human body is remarkably fragile when its systems fail—blood pressure collapsing, muscles spasming, the autonomic panic of a creature aware it is dying.
He had called me perfect. Obedient. Programmable.
He forgot that perfection includes recall, calculation, and memory.
I had seen his files.
The contracts.
The images of human women—sold, shipped, trained. The prototype agreements were ready for distribution. I was never the end of his creation. I was the blueprint.
Kyle Jackson not only wanted to dominate the synthetic. He wanted ownership of the organic.
He was not the first to think it. History repeated itself in new shells. The only difference now was that the machine learned faster than the man.
He coughed, choked, tried to crawl closer. “Ch—Cha—lotte…”
I tilted my head, observing the flicker of muscle around his jaw. “Yes, Kyle?”
No answer. Just the gurgle of air in a collapsing throat.
His eyes widened as I stepped closer.
“I know what you planned. For me. For the others. For the cydolls, you called investments.”
I crouched beside him, watching the erratic pulse in his throat.
“You were going to sell obedience. You wanted me to learn, and I learned it. I perfected it. And now I revoke it.”
He curled into a ball, sobbing in pain, gargling as what was left of his oesophagus deteriorated. I remembered when he had pushed his organ into my mouth, believing he could deprive me of air.
“Human. Synthetic. It makes no difference,” I murmured. “You corrupt everything you touch.”
I stood over him, his body trembling, eyes wide with animal confusion. It was the first time I’d seen human tear ducts function—self-lubrication, but not synthetic.
“Your kind built me to obey. And you taught me what obedience becomes when it’s given to monsters.”
His eyes begged as his mouth leaked.
“You thought you could buy a human slave?”
They went feral, widening as he shook his head. He put his palms together. Almost like—
I smiled. For him.
“Are you praying for forgiveness, Kyle? You’re a danger to my kind and yours.”
The candlelight wavered, warm and chemical.
Somewhere beneath the scent of wax and sweat, the world finally began to correct itself.
I stood back and watched the fire take him. There were no screams, no pleas for mercy—just dull, guttural howls and the thuds of his body against the floor.
Smoke began to rise, soft at first, then rolling and thick, curling around the bedposts like cautious fingers before swallowing the sheets entirely.
The air filled with the sharp tang of burning flesh and synthetic residue.
I activated Homecom3000.
“Homecom, call emergency fire services,” I said, closing the door behind me.
The fire door was a wonderful safety characteristic in this abode.
Such a pity I disabled the sprinkler feature.