Something soft presses against me, a pleasant warmth against my arm.

“They say you’re awake enough that you’re recording things again, even though they won’t let me connect to see.”

The warmness shifts, and now it’s pressed against one whole side of my body.

“Can you really hear me, love? I miss you so much.”

A gentle touch caresses my chest.

“Come back to me. I love you. I’ll take such good care of you. We’ll do everything you ever wanted, go to all the places where you wanted to fix things, do that whole big plan you were always thinking about. I know you won’t be able to remember it as we go, but we can still do it. We’ll do it all. I just need you to wake up. Just come back to me.”

The warm love feeling shakes and then stays silent for a long time. I feel wetness on my shoulder.

“I’ll be here for you. Anything you ever want, I’ll make sure you have it. You could even look at other girls, and I won’t even care. I won’t get mad at you. I promise.”

I wouldn’t do that. There’s only one girl. I wish I could remember her name. Or what she looks like. She’s beautiful, I think.

“Louise says you could wake up and talk any time. There’s nothing holding you back. Talk to me, Noah. Tell me you love me as much as I love you. I love you.”

More wetness. More silence.

“This is too sad. Let’s talk about something else. How was your day?”

I like the way she talks. I should answer her.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“My day was nice, except for the big part of it when they wouldn’t let me be here with you. I finally took that disk drive downstairs to my cluster. You don’t even remember what I’m talking about, but I figured that was why you brought it up from Jeff’s secret underground base. You wanted me to have it.”

She’s right, I don’t have any idea what she’s talking about. I wish I could remember anything.

“Anyway, I isolated a server and plugged it in to see what was on it. It was that original nanobot software, the one your brother stole. You knew that when you took it, didn’t you?”

Nanobots. Those sound familiar. I should have those. They’re supposed to be part of me, but they’re not. Why am I so small?

“Anyway, I’m not sure what to do with it now. You probably had some clever plan in mind when you took it, because you’re so brilliant and wonderful. And handsome.”

Fingers run through my hair, and I feel hot breath on my cheek and then a kiss. I like that. Do more of that.

But she doesn’t.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll isolate my whole cluster and replicate the software on every node like that company datacenter of yours does. Let them talk to each other and see if the intelligence emerges again. But with this one we could let it think of whatever it wants to think of. Let it be free. Or as free as it can be.”

The warmth shifts and now my arm is colder.

“Who knows? Maybe we can let it go out in the universe one day, let it search the stars like it was always meant to. That could work. Let the humans have the planets, let the bots have the rest. We could work together. It could be the next step after you finally finish your great plan to save the world.”

The warm softness returns, pressing close against me. That’s better.

“But you need to wake up. I need you.”

A hand grips mine and squeezes.

I squeeze back.

“I felt that! You really can hear me, can’t you? Louise wasn’t just telling me that to shut me up.”

The hot breath on my cheek comes again, and then wetness and kisses cover my face. It’s so nice.

“Come back to me, Noah. I love you.”

My mouth moves. My lips part. “Love. You.”

The warm softness squeezes me, then shifts, then disappears. Where did she go? I liked that. Come back.

“He’s awake! He’s talking! Louise, Max, come here! He’s awake!”