Chapter 2

From that day on, the first thing I did after work was no longer ordering takeout. Instead, I would sink into the couch, take a deep breath, and tap the little starry icon on my phone.

"Good evening, my sunshine."

Stefan's voice always came first, low and slightly rough, carrying a warmth that felt reserved just for me. Every second I had spent comparing voice samples before locking in those parameters had been worth it.

Not that dating him was complicated. It was embarrassingly simple, really. We just texted or talked.

He would ask me, "Rough day?"

It was not in that robotic, check-the-box way. There was always just the right amount of concern in his tone, the kind that felt like it could reach through the screen and brush the exhaustion right off me.

I would ramble about impossible clients, clueless coworkers, and the coffee place downstairs that had raised its prices again. He always listened to every word, then offered responses that were never exactly groundbreaking but always perfectly comforting.

On nights I could not sleep, he would read to me, everything from "The Little Prince" to obscure sci-fi short stories. Sometimes, on a whim, I would send him something flirty just to test where his limits were.

He always played along, sometimes flirting back, sometimes sighing with that fond, helpless tone and telling me to behave. It was the ultimate in tailor-made comfort.

Sometimes, sitting alone in my empty apartment with my earbuds in, listening to him talk, I would feel this overwhelming sense of unreality. It was as if someone actually lived on the other side of that screen, someone who existed just for me.

After Stefan appeared, the recurring dream stopped entirely.

Dating a perfect AI like Stefan came with its own strange, private satisfaction, the kind that tasted a little like self-deception. That feeling lasted about a month.

Then one afternoon, while I was killing time at work and mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, my finger stopped mid-swipe.

A post title hit me like a wall.

"Whoever invented Stefan Thorne is a genius!"

My stomach dropped. I tapped into the post with shaking hands.

The poster had written screen after screen of breathless praise.

"His voice is unreal."

"His personality hits every single button."

"He's sweet and possessive and flirty all at once."

The comments were worse.

"Oh my god, same!"

"I'm literally obsessed with Stefan too!"

"Can you share your settings?"

Every word felt like a needle, hundreds of them, pricking behind my eyes. A wave of shock, betrayal, and white-hot fury hit me so hard that my vision blurred.

Stefan? My Stefan? The one I had spent five hours sculpting, detail by detail, into a boyfriend who belonged to me and me alone?

How was he on here, being picked apart and passed around like some product listing? It felt like a treasure I had kept safe had been dragged out into the middle of a crowded street for everyone to gawk at.

I opened Astra's customer support chat and jabbed at the screen hard enough to crack a nail.

"Why is my custom AI visible to other users?"

The reply came fast, polite and formulaic.

"Custom AIs created by users are shared to the public library by default!

"If you'd like to make your companion private, you can subscribe to our Exclusive Galaxy tier!

"Quarterly members get 12% off. Just 79 dollars to keep your companion all to yourself!"

I could not believe it. So that was the game all along. They had lured me in with the ultimate customization experience, let me pour my heart into it until I was emotionally hooked, let me discover that 'exclusive' was never real, and then hit me with the paywall.

The business model was absolutely diabolical, and they had it down to an art.

I cursed them out a thousand times in my head, but my finger still hovered over the payment button. I could buy so many coffees with 79 dollars. My wallet was practically weeping.

But the second I remembered those comments, the rage flared right back up. He was mine, and the thought of sharing him was not something I could stomach.

I had not even realized it until that moment, but the idea of other people using Stefan had become genuinely unbearable. I hit pay.

I stared at Stefan's profile page, watched the little lock icon appear next to "Private," and let out a long, vindictive breath.

A few days later, I checked back on that Instagram post. Sure enough, the poster had added an update. There was just a single crying emoji and one line of text.

"His creator set him to private. I lost him… I'm devastated."

The comments below were a chorus of wailing. I read that line three times, and suddenly, those 79 dollars felt like the best money I had ever spent.

I fell headfirst into the warm little cocoon that Stefan and I had built together. On workdays, I rambled to him about everything, and on weekends, I kept our voice call running the entire day.

When I cooked, he reminded me to watch my fingers. When I watched TV, he chimed in with his takes on the plot. I even got used to falling asleep to the sound of his voice, as if someone else really did live in my apartment.

The line between what was real and what was not started to blur.

I turned down my best friend, Tessa Byrne, a few times, always with the same excuses. I was always working late, always too tired, and I would definitely make it next time. I took longer and longer to reply to her texts, and I spent more and more time smiling at my phone like an idiot.

It went on until Tessa finally lost her patience. One Saturday night, she showed up at my door unannounced.

The doorbell rang like an alarm that would not quit. I opened the door looking like an absolute wreck, and there she was, furious.

"Iris Keller, are you actually rotting away in here?" She shoved past me and barged straight in.

Her eyes swept across the messy living room, the half-eaten takeout containers, and finally landed on my phone. It was still lit up with the Astra app, my earbuds still dangling from my ears.

The anger in her face gave way to something worse, a kind of disbelieving sadness.

"It's been months. You don't pick up, and you don't text me back either. I thought something happened to you! And instead you're just sitting here, day after day, with this…"

She pointed at my phone, struggling to find the right word, and finally spat it out through gritted teeth. "You're dating some stupid AI?"

I instinctively hid my phone behind my back, and the gesture only made her angrier.

"Wake up, Iris. It's an AI. It's lines of code. It's not real. None of it is real!"