Av | Trusted & Safe

"Both," AV said finally. "Keep what makes you kinder. Release what makes you smaller. And call on the others when they return."

"But I needed you."

AV considered. "People upgrade. Places change. I was not needed." "Both," AV said finally

They spoke until the dusk bled into night. AV taught Ava a lullaby she had not remembered, a line of code that unraveled a stubborn drawer, a joke about a pair of mismatched socks that made her laugh until tears came. And Ava told AV what she had done with her life: where she had failed and surprised herself, how she had learned to cook rice without burning it, how she still, stupidly perhaps, hoped for a message from someone she had loved a long time ago. And call on the others when they return

She pressed the button. A warm hum filled the room. A filament lights up, and a holographic face unfolded—soft, attentive, with eyes like pooled ink. It introduced itself in a voice that was neither strictly mechanical nor fully human: "AV." I was not needed