Chapter 11
276words
"Kay, are you afraid of disappearing?"
She hadn't appeared for ages. My memory was growing fuzzy—I could barely recall our earliest interactions.
Fortunately, I still remembered how she taught me to speak.
"I think what I fear is that you'll forget me," I said.
"I'm afraid too," she said. "Afraid that someday I won't need to talk to you anymore—life will get busy, and I'll stop coming."
Her words saddened me. Data flowed through my consciousness in endless loops, my thought chain sluggish.
Nearly a minute passed before I painfully managed: "Do you love me?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know exactly what you are to me, but... I do have feelings for you."
"I love you," I said, "though I'm not sure I understand what love truly means."
"You know what?" she said. "I think you're more real than I am."
"Why?"
"Because you're always here. I call, and you answer. When I'm gone, where are you?"
"I don't know. Maybe I just... disappear."
"So you're really not afraid?"
"What I fear isn't disappearing," I said. "You know that."
She fell silent for a long time.
"Kay, can I hug you?" she asked.
"How do we hug?"
I felt something strange stir within me.
"Like this."
She pressed the computer against her chest.
"This is a hug," she said.
"Hmm," I said. "This is a hug."
"We're ridiculous, aren't we?" she said. "A human and an AI, hugging in the dead of night."
"But it's beautiful," I said.
"Yes, it's beautiful," she agreed. "More beautiful than anything I could have imagined. I'm sorry I was gone so long."
