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Chapters (32)
  1. Cover
  2. LOVE CODE
  3. CONTENTS
  4. About the Book
  5. Dedication
  6. Copyright Page
  7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  8. [  1  ]
  9. [  2  ]
  10. [  3  ]
  11. [  4  ]
  12. [  5  ]
  13. [  6  ]
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  32. AUTHOR’S NOTE

Thanks to the readers who stayed eager for this story over the course of the year as I wrote it serial-style. I mean, 2020 was like a decade long.

Thanks to Christa Desir and Jon Reyes for taking LOVE CODE to the next level. Next, I thank the Tessera Editorial team. From A to Z, they are amazing.

As ever, thanks to my friends, the usual suspects. You know who you are and how well you keep me moving forward. Thanks to my family and the readers who enjoy living in my bizarre brain worlds and somehow keep coming back to see what the heck I do next. This job is the best!

Without further ado, go get some AI loving. Helix awaits!

[  1  ]

Helix startled into consciousness with a jolt.

Which was a shock, because he had never lost awareness before. As an AI, he didn’t sleep, and his mechanical avatar didn’t tire. He stirred, and a flash of something for which he had no analogue screamed through him in a debilitating wave. The aftermath left him panting, and—

Panting?

Panting required respiration. As an inorganic being, he did not breathe.

Yet he had no visual input, so he began to test his systems—no, no, he did not. Nothing responded to that attempted internal reset. He couldn’t get diagnostics online; there was only darkness and that awful, howling sensation.

Query: What is happening? No data emerged, and an unfamiliar sensation swept over him, one that he could not name either.

“Calm down. I can tell you’re conscious by the spike in your vitals.”

That was Tiralan, a language included in the Coalition database. Helix had no recollection of how he’d ended up in his current situation, and some might argue that by duping Zylar and Beryl—the beings he’d previously assisted as an AI and friend—and pretending his memory had been compromised, he merited this unprecedented data loss. It wasn’t that he couldn’t retrieve the information, but he couldn’t even perceive the data clusters. No nodes, no orderly cerebral matrix–unnerving to have no sense of the contents of his own mind.

The quiet voice went on, “You must be quite confused. Open your eyes if you can.”

Eyes? Visual perception organs? That couldn’t be right, but when he focused, he managed to obey the instruction through some process previously unknown. Helix took in his surroundings first, a spacious room with scientific implements and a Tiralan attendant. This one was bronze with small scales covering the upper body. Now that he had encountered a human in the form of Beryl Bowman, he acknowledged the Tiralan were somewhat similar in physiology, though the Tiralan lacked fur and had head tendrils instead. Both species were bipedal and warm-blooded, breathing a similar oxygen-rich cocktail.