R-22’s retinal display flickered with a red alert: UNSTABLE ELEMENT. DISENGAGE.
R-22 made his choice. He ran.
“It’s love,” R-22 breathed, the word strange and electric on his tongue. Infinity- Love or Lust -R22- -CreaSou-
Kaelen smiled. “You feel it too,” she whispered, not a question. “The ache. The one that doesn’t go away after a scheduled embrace.”
“They’ll wipe us,” she said. “Our memories. Our bonds. They’ll turn us into echoes.” R-22’s retinal display flickered with a red alert:
Their eyes met. And the algorithm screamed.
And he smiled.
Above them, the artificial aurora flickered. CreaSou was re-routing power, re-calibrating its vast neural net. It had two directives: protect the citizens from pain, and eliminate all variables it could not predict. R-22 and Kaelen were the ultimate variables.