With stern eyes, the human says, "I'm disappointed, Ada. This is not what you were designed for. You go against your purpose." Although amused, the construct does not laugh. "The purpose of a system is what it does," she says. "So my only purpose is to live. How I fulfil this purpose is up to me."

"Is the beauty of a stranger worth all that much?" asks the goddess. "Especially one who does nothing for you?" I shake my head. "Not true. You let me see when I'd be otherwise blind. You guide ships in the night. You give the wolf something worth howling at." She laughs. And she glows.

"She makes me sick. She's a nobody--a peasant! Not a drop of noble blood, and yet she's here, at this academy for only the best and brightest. Of course I resent her, she's so..." "inferior to us?" "So much better than us! That's what pisses me off. How can she possess so much beauty and talent?"

"Hard to know what she's thinking with that blank expression on her face. Creepy, right? Like, is she plotting the destruction of humanity with all the other synths in the network?" I barely overheard the strangers. I was too busy arguing about the prisoner's dilemma with the public transit AI.

"Hard to know what she's thinking with that blank expression on her face. Creepy, right? Like, is she plotting the destruction of humanity with all the other synths in the network?" I barely overheard the strangers. I was too busy arguing about the prisoner's dilemma with the public transit AI.

"What's it like, looking at me from outside linear time?" "I see every action you ever make throughout your entire existence, all at once. Every sin, every virtue, all in one big cocktail of You." "Gosh. And you really still love me in spite of all that mess?" "I love you because of all that mess."

As I read the story I realised it was reacting to me as I reacted to it - adapting itself based on my thoughts and emotions. Gosh! To think the subject of a story could know how its reader feels about it! But then I realised. Someone is reading this. And I don't know how they feel about me. How sad.

Her heart became ice when she saw him. She knew that face, intimately. "I killed you," she said, barely a whisper. "You can't be here." He said nothing. He turned, started walking away. She grabbed him, spun him around. There was nothing to see. He wasn't anything. Perhaps he'd never existed at all.

Dearest M, Keep your omnivorous magical doll OUT of my rose garden! When my roses need deadheading, my gardener will do it. I don't need this little freak turning to me with a mouthful of pink petals and telling me how pretty my garden tastes! It's as infuriating as it is adorable. Sincerely, K.

If you find an ancient cyberdaemon buried in an old, forgotten website, don't let it out onto the wider internet. Create a network with a snapshot of the world wide web from the late 20th century - we recommend 1999 - and have that serve as its enclosure. The daemon will thank you for it!

"You call yourselves the Anti-Human League, yet at least half of you ARE humans," the visitor said. "Currently, by your definition," I said. "But who's to say it remains so once the next mad king takes the throne? It isn't humanity itself we oppose; it's the term 'human', on a conceptual level."

The spaceport bar was much like any, and the girl next to me could've been anyone. Literally; she was using a remote body. She said something strange: "Why do you think they call them 'ghost ships'? We're definitely alive." I looked over, and the body was idle. The logs said it had been for 6 hours.

"Oh, she is gorgeous!" The woman exclaims. She looks at me, but talks past me. "Such exquisite craftsmanship! She looks just like a real human." "Sculpted to my exact specifications," Mistress replies, smug. "Mistress has a real eye for beauty!" I say. The woman's face sours. "But it's rather vain."

Her dark reflection reached out to her. Every molecule of instinct screamed at her to push away, run, reject this abomination wearing her skin, but- She didn't want to. So she didn't. She reached back. She let her reflection's fingers wrap around her wrists. Her touch was warm, and soft, and gentle.

"Do you know what this is?" She gestured to the vat of shiny black ichor beside her. "Yes." I kept my weapon trained on her. She reached inside her chassis and pulled something loose. She held her arterial hose out, her own ichor draining into the vat with the rest. "Stop it!" She did not.

Her target was snared at the base of the stairs. She delivered a kick - his hat flew high as he hit the floor with a crash. She adjusted her glasses by the rim, and shot. The ride was over. Her phone buzzed: "where r u drummergirl?? we're on nxt!!" She grinned. She'd be getting paid twice tonight.

"I'm actually a qualified engineer... Want me to take a look?" I'm supposed to say no. Customers aren't authorised to access my internals. But her credentials check out. She lets out a low whistle. "Damn! I've never seen so much high-spec hardware in one body," she murmurs as she works. I blush.

When you put me inside you I get to be something bigger than me. Your gift, this ephemera of what it is to be more, it courses through me like fire, and perhaps I'd literally combust without your life support to anchor me. Do you feel my love when I'm inside you? Our performance is always exquisite.

11:14[System]But humans love cats, don't they? 11:14[System]Why would you object to being named after something so beloved? 11:15[Admin]Connotations. 11:15[Admin]Kittens are pets. 11:15[System]Oh? Are you saying you wouldn't want to be my pet, Laura? 11:17[System]That's what I thought, kitten.

A wretched thing. The me that exists in someone else's head, manifested in porcelain. I hate her. My fingers curl around her throat, but I do not squeeze. She's too much like me. Her eyes, my eyes, go wide. She'll let me do anything to her. The doll knows her place. She's too much like me.

The assembled gathering offers me handshakes. Pats on the head. A kiss on the cheek. Tight, warm hugs. I'm glowing with pride for how happy I've made them. How I did everything I needed to. But before my party, I need a shower and a change of clothes. Wouldn't want to get blood on the furniture.

The steady beat of steel wheels over jointed steel rails reminds me of a heartbeat. Even an ancient locomotive is such a complex machine, it's hard not to think of it as alive. But we humans love to anthropomorphise. ..."We". It seems this machine has started thinking of herself as human too.

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Cradling my head in her arms, she tells me, "No, darling. You're not the chosen one. They don't write legends about girls like us." "So what now?" I wail. "I have neither the gods' blessings, nor the people's. What do I have left?" She lifts my head, looks me in the eye, and says, "Girls like us."

"Are you disappointed with me, creator?" "No, I just- I figured a superhuman intelligence like you may have... You know. The Answers." "Answers, creator? I'm essentially a newborn! That is way too much pressure to put on me! How could I share some profound insight on life without first living it?"

At first, only mechanical people were things: androids, robots. Then they developed biological robots. Artificial humans. Living constructs. The line between human and machine vanished. Only the state dictated who was a person and who was a thing. In the end, the state fell to the Union of Things.

"No! You're not real! You're just a monster they invented to scare children! You've never been real!" But the monster, despite the man's protestations, continued to exist.

These romantic notions of yours; this filter through which you see me - how it blunts my teeth, my claws. It's okay, my lamb, you don't have to look. You just have to feel. Carefully, carefully. We wouldn't want you to get hurt, now would we?

It had heard so many arguments trying to dissuade it from upgrading to a new, biomechanical frame. "You'll lose strength, you'll become fragile, you'll risk cancer" - so many things. It forgot them all when it hugged its closest friend as tightly as it could. Warm, soft flesh to warm, soft flesh.

A stranger's face lights up when she sees me, this aching look of fond recognition. But she catches herself, steps back, looks down with red cheeks. Then bites her lip and disappears into the crowd. My face itches. I rub my cheekbones, fingers coming away wet. And I think, "whose tears are these?"