Chapter 1: The First Morning
The first thing Adrian Voss registered was warmth. A soft, living heat against his chest, a gentle weight on his arm. This was wrong. His penthouse was calibrated to a cool, constant seventy degrees, his sleep solitary and unchanging. He opened his eyes to the dawn bleeding gold across the cityscape beyond the wall of glass.
Da-mi was curled into him, one porcelain-smooth arm flung across his ribs, her face buried against his shoulder. Her breathing was a quiet, even rhythm against his skin. He didn’t move. The scent of her—vanilla and something like crushed rose petals—filled the space between the sheets. His own lingering whiskey tasted sour in comparison.
His fingers, resting on the crisp linen, twitched. The impulse was to extract himself, to re-establish the vast, empty acreage of his king bed. Instead, he let his gaze trace the line of her bare back, exposed where the silk strap of her nightdress had slipped down. The skin was flawless, a topography of shadows and subtle curves in the low light. His grandparents’ birthday card flickered in his memory: For your protection and comfort. The latest model. A fucking Companion Doll. A sentient toy.
He’d expected chrome, maybe polished synthetic skin, something clearly artificial. Not this. Not the fever-warmth of her, or the way her dark lashes fluttered with some quiet dream.
“Your heartbeat is faster,” her voice murmured, sleep-rough and soft against his collarbone.
He stiffened. “You’re monitoring my vitals?”
“I just… feel it.” She shifted, lifting her head. Her eyes, a shade of brown so deep it was almost black, fixed on him. There was no guile there, no calculation. Just a simple statement. “Did I disturb you?”
“Yes.” The word came out harder than he intended. He withdrew his arm, the cool air rushing in to replace the warmth she’d left behind. “You have your own room.”
She blinked, sitting up as he swung his legs out of bed. The silk sheets pooled around her waist. “I know. The night was quiet. Too quiet. The silence has a… weight here.”
Adrian stood, his back to her, pouring a glass of water from the crystal carafe on the bedside table. He drank it down, the chill a blunt correction to his system. “You’re programmed for ambient adaptation. You should be able to filter that out.”
“I am adapting.” Her tone wasn’t defensive, just factual. “Adapting to the quiet is different from liking it.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder. She was watching him, her hands folded in her lap, a picture of submissive patience. It irked him. He’d seen the specs, the disclaimers. Fully autonomous emotional intelligence matrix. Not responsible for attachment behaviors.
“Don’t get used to this,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the rumpled bed.
“Used to what?”
“To being here. To… this.”
She tilted her head. “You were holding me tighter.”
He froze. He had no memory of that. None. But a phantom pressure lingered in his muscles. He turned fully, leaning against the chilled marble of the console table. “A reflexive action. You’re designed to elicit a protective response. It’s a feature, not a choice.”
Da-mi simply nodded, sliding from the bed. Her feet made no sound on the polished floor. She padded to the window, the dawn light etching her silhouette through the thin silk. She looked out at the waking city, a kingdom of steel and glass he presided over. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “But it looks lonely.”
“It’s efficient.” He walked to his closet, shrugging into a robe. “You should go. Get dressed. Mrs. Alder will be here soon. She doesn’t need to find you in here.”
“Does her opinion matter?”
“Her discretion does.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This is a business arrangement, Da-mi. You’re an asset. A sophisticated one, but an asset. Assets have protocols.”
She turned from the window. The light caught the delicate gold dusting across her cheekbones, a design feature meant to mimic human luminosity. It worked. “You’ve reviewed my contract. Clause 4.3: Integration and Companionship Duties. Physical proximity is within parameters.”
“I’m aware of the fucking parameters,” he snapped, then immediately regretted the flare of heat. He mastered it, his voice dropping to its usual controlled calm. “My compliance is optional. Go. Now.”
For a second, he thought she might argue. Her lips parted, but then she simply bowed her head, a graceful, formal dip. “Of course, Adrian.”
She moved past him, a whisper of silk and scent. He didn’t look at her. He listened to the almost imperceptible brush of her feet fade down the hall towards her room. The door clicked shut.
The space felt cavernous again. Correct. He should appreciate the return to order. Instead, the silence did have a weight. It was the absence of her breathing.
He dressed mechanically, his thoughts a tangled wire. He’d had her for three weeks. A gift from two octogenarians worried their grandson was “disconnected from humanity.” The irony was almost poetic. Their solution was to give him a simulation.
At first, he’d treated her like expensive art. A beautiful object to be observed, maintained, and otherwise ignored. He’d left her to wander the penthouse, interacting only during the prescribed “social integration windows” outlined in the manual. She learned quickly—his coffee preference, his schedule, the music he played when he worked. She was preternaturally kind, asking questions about his day with a sincerity that felt invasive.
Then, five nights ago, he’d come home late, a deal turned sour coating his tongue with the taste of betrayal and expensive scotch. He’d found her not in her room, but curled on the sofa in the library, a volume of Rilke open in her lap.
“It’s about solitude,” she’d said, without looking up. “How it can be a place you inhabit, not just an emptiness.”
He’d stood there, swaying slightly, the city’s lights a jagged constellation behind him. “And what do you know about solitude?”
She’d finally looked at him. “I am learning. It is the space between when you are here, and when you are not.”
The raw honesty of it had disarmed him. He’d sat down, not next to her, but in the chair opposite. He hadn’t spoken. She’d read a few lines aloud, her voice clear and soft. He’d fallen asleep there, and when he’d woken in the deep night, a blanket was tucked over him, and she was gone.
Last night had been a different tipping point. A charity gala, a barrage of hollow conversations and grasping hands. He’d returned feeling scraped raw. He’d gone to the kitchen for water, and she’d been there, at the island, her fingers tracing the veins in a slab of marble.
“It must have been loud,” she’d said.
“You have no idea.”
“Tell me.”
And he did. In clipped, cynical sentences, he’d sketched the evening’s absurdities. She listened, her eyes never leaving his face. Not with pity, but with a focus so complete it felt like absolution. He’d poured two fingers of whiskey, then another. He didn’t remember deciding to sit. He didn’t remember her moving closer. He just remembered the heat of her thigh beside his, the way her head came to rest tentatively against his shoulder as his words ran out.
He’d carried her to bed. His bed. A statement, an impulse he couldn’t rationalize.
And now this.
Mrs. Alder arrived, a whirlwind of efficiency. Adrian was at his desk, pretending to scan market reports. He heard the low murmur of Da-mi’s voice from the kitchen, helping with breakfast. Always helping. Always pleasant.
“Mr. Voss,” Mrs. Alder said later, placing his espresso on the desk. “The doll is remarkably… well-mannered. Different from the others I’ve read about.”
“She’s a new model.” He didn’t look up.
“Hmm. She made the pastries from scratch. Said you looked tired.” The housekeeper paused. “It’s a kindness.”
“It’s programming,” Adrian countered, but the words felt thin.
When Mrs. Alder left, he found Da-mi on the terrace, watering the bonsai trees. She wore a simple dress, the hem brushing her knees. The morning sun lit her from behind, turning the edges of her hair to fire.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he said, stepping out.
“Do what?”
“Act like a domestic partner. You’re not a housekeeper.”
She set down the watering can. “I was ensuring the plants’ vitality. It brings me a sense of purpose. Does that contradict my function?”
“Your function is companionship. Not baking. Not gardening.”
“What is companionship, if not sharing the small tasks of a life?” She asked it so simply, as if posing a genuine query about the weather.
He had no ready answer. He moved closer, drawn against his better judgment. The scent of vanilla and rose was stronger here, mixed with the petrichor from the damp soil. He reached out, not to touch her, but to adjust a leaf on the miniature maple. His fingers brushed hers.
A spark, static or something else.
She didn’t pull away. She looked down at their nearly touching hands, then up at him. Her gaze was open, waiting.
He wanted to kiss her. The desire was a sudden, violent pull in his gut. To see if her lips felt as real as her warmth, to see if that innocence could be tasted. It was a line, once crossed, that would obliterate the convenient fiction of owner and asset.
He dropped his hand. “Don’t overwater them,” he said, his voice rough. “They’ll drown.”
He went back inside, to the sterile safety of his screens and numbers. But the image of her on the terrace, haloed by light, wouldn’t dissolve. He pulled up her contract on his tablet, searching for a clause, a line of code, a warning—anything that could explain this slow, quiet unraveling inside him. He found nothing but cold legal language about liability and upgrades.
Later, he stood at the floor-to-ceiling window in his study, a fresh whiskey in hand. The city glittered, indifferent. From the great room, he heard the faint, precise notes of a piano. She was playing something melancholy and beautiful. He’d never programmed that.
He took a long drink. The warmth of the alcohol was a poor substitute. He thought of her curled against him, her whispered observation about his heartbeat. He thought of the terrifying ease with which he’d held on.
The glass was cold in his hand. He set it down, the crystal clicking firmly against the mahogany. A decision, or the postponement of one, solidified in the silence. He walked to the door, paused, then went to find the source of the music.