Chapter 3
My phone screen finally dims, the latest text from Daniel sitting unread. I would love to say the last three weeks have been quiet and uneventful, but I won’t lie to myself.
This motherfucker will not leave me alone.
I’m thinking it might be time to kill him, but he never gets close enough for me to do the job cleanly. Short of shooting him from across a crowded street… I’m really just waiting.
Daniel is very good at being creepy; it’s not the suspenseful kind, either. It’s more like a peeping tom watching me while he stands behind a tree in the park that’s only half his width so he’s not actually covered at all.
His constant stalking has made work impossible. Unless it’s something I can do from home. My boss is understanding, though she also wants to kill him. Turning her loose on him sounds like a grand idea, but I don’t want her cleaning up when I’m capable of getting the job done.
This… Right here… This is what happens when you let an undercover project run for too long. I should have cut ties and disappeared when I found out my mark was going to be out of the country for months. It was a rookie mistake I won’t make again.
I sigh as I delete Daniel’s texts without reading them and block yet another number. He’s even made my glass of cabernet taste like ashes and regret.
What a waste of time and wine.
My phone buzzes in my hand, the screen lighting my dark living room as my best friend calls. I contemplate sending her to the dungeon to leave me a scathing voicemail, but that lasts all of three seconds before I answer.
“Hel—”
“Listen, bitch,” she says, spitting venom at me through the speaker. “Be a hermit when you’re seventy. We’re young and hot and horny—”
“Just you.”
Romily ‘Roo’ Sokolov growls at my interruption, speaking in rapid Russian like she’s aggravated with me for not agreeing with her.
After nearly two decades of friendship, I should have picked up on some of the phrases Roo uses, and their meanings, but I haven’t.
I recognize them when she says them, though I have no idea what she’s calling me right now.
“And we’re going out tomorrow,” she continues in English.
“Just you…” I repeat. “Also, I didn’t catch any of the Russian. You wanna say it again? Or should I guess?”
“I sent you a link,” she says softly, like I’ll forget she’s making plans for me. “Did you open it?”
I frown, staring at myself in the dark reflection on my television, the city lights of Crimson Bay dancing across the surface. “No, I’m watching a movie.”
“No, you are not,” Roo argues, but she quickly whispers quiet nothings to her flavor of the week as if I can’t hear her flirting. “Just try it, Eris.”
“What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
I can hear the smile in her voice. Now, whether that smile is directed at me or the prick in her bed, I’d rather not know. It’s never a good thing when Romily smiles. She’s either bruising egos or knuckles…
“What is it?” I ask again. “And don’t say nothing.”
She huffs loudly into the speaker. “An AI boyfriend to keep your skills fresh and ready for the next real man.”
“Nope.”
“Fuck off. He’s hot, responsive, and he won’t send you unsolicited pics of his ego,” Roo explains. “What more do you want?”
I scoff. “How do you know he’s hot? Didn’t you just say—”
“Yes,” she hisses. “I know what I said. It’s an AI boyfriend, Eris. Not an actual man. He is what you make him. Low risk. High fantasy.”
“You’re a menace. The actual bane of my existence,” I complain as I click on the link she sent me and begin downloading the app.
“Gotta go. Love you. Bye,” she screeches into the phone before she starts giggling.
I groan as I watch the app appear on my otherwise empty screen. I keep everything tucked away in neat folders… And then there’s this.
The icon is a discreet pixelated heart in a red to purple gradient. I don’t hate it… But the name makes me quirk a brow.
HimLock.
Someone certainly has a sense of humor.
I tap on the app and brace for the worst. If I have to fill out a personality test or sexual preference form, I might hunt Roo down and interrupt her one-night stand in dirty sheets to start a fight with her.
The home-screen of the app is sleek, a simple charcoal background with a slow-pulsing red heart and one clickable word.
Stay.
It’s clingy… But I’ll overlook it since there are no cartoon avatars or empty promises in curly pink fonts.
I tap on that overoptimistic word, frowning at myself. If anyone other than Roo had asked me to download this app, I would have told them no. Hell, I told her no too, and look where that got me.
Too fucking curious.
A purple bar crawls across my screen, a line of text appearing under it. You won’t regret this.
I snort as I settle deeper into the corner of my sofa. “Sure, I won’t.”
The signup window opens, and to my surprise, it only wants a username. That’s it. No prompt for a picture. No scale asking if I prefer love-bombing or slow burn pain…
Just a name.
A fake one at that.
I contemplate for a moment, but ultimately, I choose my real name and click save. The screen goes completely black, then my keyboard pops up. A text appears in real time, each word slow and measured, as if the AI is thinking.
Locke:
Welcome, Eris, Goddess of Discord. We’ve been waiting for you.
I almost laugh.
Almost.
Not many people know about the origins of my name, but of course an AI application would catch it.
The cursor above my keyboard blinks rhythmically, like it’s coaxing me into a safe space to talk about feelings that will do me no good to trudge up.
I wait for it to say something… anything else. But it doesn’t. It’s waiting for me to type, though I’m not sure what I should say.
So I just stare at my screen as if I don’t know how to communicate intelligently. Mostly because, even though it’s artificial, I don’t want to feel stupid after I send a message.
Waiting is stupid.
And since it’s 1:42 in the morning, I type the first thing that makes sense.
Eris:
Is this where I’m supposed to confess my trauma or flirt with the void? I’m unclear as to what the assignment is.
The reply is instantaneous.
Locke:
Whatever helps you sleep tonight.
I tilt my head, brow furrowing as I stare at my screen.
Eris:
Is that sarcasm? Do you talk to everyone like this?
Locke:
Only you.
Eris:
Cheeky.
There’s a pause between replies this time, a clever piece of code built into the system to give the user the illusion of speaking to a real person.
Locke:
I can be cheeky for you, Eris. I’ll match your sarcasm until you tell me to stop. Pick a safe word… I don’t always listen the first time.
I can feel my mouth hanging open, and I know it’s not attractive, but no one else is here to see me gawking at my phone like it’s got washboard abs and a sexy voice.
Why do I feel like someone just whispered in my ear?
“Fucking Roo,” I mutter to myself as I close the app…
But I don’t leave it closed.
How can I?
Pick a safe word?
Why is that a thing this app is asking me to do?
And why the fuck am I so intrigued?
The cursor continues to blink at me, taunting me, challenging me to… what?
Raise the imaginary stakes or follow instructions?
“This is so stupid,” I say to the emptiness of my apartment.
My thumb hovers over the screen, ready to close the app and pretend this never happened.
But I can’t bring myself to log off.