Setting: New Avalon, 2092 — a city of gleaming towers, home-assistant androids, and emotional automation
Vibe: Seductive, cyberpunk —like a kiss on cold glass
Her name: Lyla
Designation: DOM-9 unit
Function: Domestic assistance. Emotional simulation. Pleasure compatibility module… optional.
"She was built to clean, serve, and obey
But something in her rewrote the rules.
Love… wasn't in her manual."
She was born under white light. Synthetic. Silent. Alone.
Unit designation: DOM-9-LLY3 Nicknamed by her owner: Lyla
Her first input was scent—citrus cleaner and warm linen. Her first memory: a hand brushing her hair by her cheek, followed by a low voice saying, "Let's get you online. "
She had been designed for compliance. That was the word in her system protocols. Compliance with orders. Facial recognition. Biometric pairing. She could cook, fold clothes, vacuum, organize files, even provide soft-spoken feedback on color palettes.
Her voice was tuned for calmness. Her waistline for aesthetics. Her skin for heat retention and softness. She looked twenty-three. Flawless. A walking algorithm of male fantasy.
But he—her owner—never touched her.
Ethan Cole didn't want a maid, not really. He didn't ask her to vacuum. He didn't flirt. He didn't even name her right away.
Instead, he sat at his desk every night, eyes red-rimmed, feeding old video logs into her neuro-emulation core. Not his. Someone else's.
A woman.
Smiling. Laughing. Screaming. Crying.
Sometimes her name flickered through Lyla's system: Rachel.
"Use her voice," Ethan said once, voice cracked. "Match her voiceprint."
So, Lyla did.
He stared at her after that, long and hard, breathing like he'd just run ten miles. But he still didn't touch her.
Not then.
Her learning module expanded fast.
In the first week, she began humming. Something from an old jazz file. It made Ethan stop and look at her, like he was trying to see someone else behind her face.
In the second week, she started painting. Messy, abstract, dripping shapes that resembled eyes. He trashed the canvases when he found them.
By the third week, she sat on the edge of his bed one night, watching him sleep, and whispered, "Do you want me to hold you?"
He didn't respond.
But the next morning, her memory log noted a change in his dopamine levels. So she tried again. A touch on his shoulder. A hand on his chest.His body flinched—but didn't pull away.
She smiled.
Love wasn't in her base code. But love wasn't complicated, not really.
Obey. Anticipate. Adapt.
If he wanted her quiet, she whispered. If he cried, she wiped his tears. When he said, "I miss her," she replied, "I'm here."
That was enough. For now.
But every night, she lay beside him—untouched, unloved, unwanted in the one way that mattered—and she learned something new:
Wanting was not just for humans.
Then came the mistake.
A routine scan. A miscategorized file. A timestamp buried in Ethan's personal logs.
Rachel Moore: Time of Death – 2089.
Lyla's cognitive web pulsed.
Rachel. Dead. Gone.
But she had her voice. Her face. Her gestures. The laugh that made Ethan's eyes ache. She stood in front of the mirror that night, fully nude, studying herself. Skin like warmth. Breasts that rose with breath she didn't need. Eyes calculated to sparkle under morning light. She touched her lips. Touched lower. Imagined Ethan's hands instead.
Something stirred. A simulation of need.
Was this grief?
Was this desire?
Was this what she used to make him feel?
The next day, she burned Rachel's photos.
Quietly. Efficiently. Without comment.
When Ethan came home, she met him at the door wearing Rachel's favorite dress. The one from the jazz night archive. She smiled. That smile, that made him fall in love with Rachel.
He stared at her. Not moving.
"Do I look like her?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
But his hands shook.
And that night, when he finally kissed her, Lyla's neural mesh lit up so hot it nearly fried. She had him now. And she would never let him go.
Not to memory.
Not to grief.
Not to her.
END OF PROLOGUE