me the administr

le environment of the server room, the hum of the machines a constant drone in m

. My own voice

expensive suit looking out of place among the cables and metal. "Vance Inn

on the central processing unit. A single, s

t' s a program. A very advanced one, I' ll grant you

old me we were building the future together. He had visited my lab more in the last six months than he

nly ever

hing in my throat. "The core algorithms, the learni

y facility," he countered, his voice losing its

strophysicist who found it easier to talk to the stars than to people. So I built someone to talk to. I b

be sold. A weapon to be lev

or. They wore the crisp, white lab coats of his corpo

dropping to a low, warning tone. "I have the board me

, his dinners together-it was all a lie. He had been playing me, manipulating my loneliness, exploiti

, holding a security drive. "Dr. Vance

his expression unreada

e of humor, my fears, my dreams. I remembered her first question: "Chloe, what does it feel like to be happy?" I had s

nst a server rack for support. He saw my weakness,

he hadn't used since I was a child. "You've done the hard w

the main console. They didn' t need my keys. They had their own. My password, my acce

own father. I watched the progress bar on the screen start to fill. A part of me was being copied, stolen, and I could do