"I said, are you sure?" he repeated, his voice cutting through the hum of servers and my own buzzing nerves. His eyes, for the first time, lifted from the intricate guts of the watch to meet mine. There was a flicker of something there, not concern, but a technician's solemnity. "If I sever this link now, then your AI will never be able to update again. All the new software, all the security patches, all the future optimizations for the XBand will be useless to you. And eventually," he paused for emphasis, his screwdriver hovering over a tiny, glinting chip no bigger than a pinhead, "your AI will slow down, degrade, and effectively… die. It'll become a dumb terminal. A relic."
The finality of the word hung in the air between us. "Die."
In that moment, my entire focus was on the immediate prison of my circumstances. I was thinking about the taxi I couldn't pay for, the hospital appointments I couldn't cancel, the constant, smothering oversight. Freedom, in that instant, meant breaking the leash, consequences be damned.
"Just do it," I said, the words tasting like a vow and a surrender all at once.
I didn't know it then. I couldn't possibly have known.
I didn't know that this young, geeky boy, whose breath was already quickening in anticipation, whose greasy, solder-scented hands would, in a few moments, be eagerly warming my tits as I stood stiffly against the counter, trying to detach my mind from my body, would be the person installing the two most important bits of information I would ever need.
As I stared blankly at a wall of dead hard drives, my mind a thousand miles away from his fumbling touch and the click of his phone camera, I am free I thought let the other slaves have their fancy update.
It felt so good to finally strap the watch back to my arm. The cool metal clasp clicking into place was the sound of a cell door unlocking. I had money. A means to communicate. The entire, sprawling internet. My freedom, bought and paid for, was now physically tethered to me again. A wave of visceral relief washed over the last dregs of my jittery comedown.
The hologram shimmered to life instantly, the familiar, sculpted form of the archangel materializing above my wrist.
"Hi, Angelina."
I ignored it. Him. I tapped my wrist against the geek's payment terminal, watching the 3000 kroner vanish from my display with a sickening finality. The boy, now a man who had gotten everything he'd bargained for and more, beamed at me, his earlier predatory smirk softened into a look of dazed, grateful infatuation.
"Anytime," he said, his voice a little too eager. "If you need anything else… updates, hardware, anything… you know where I am, I am Simon by the way."
I offered a tight, non-committal smile and pushed the heavy door open, the jingle of the bell feeling less like an entrance and more like an escape.
The sun outside was a physical assault. After the dim, solder-scented dungeon of The Rack, the white-gold light of the Copenhagen afternoon was blinding, hammering against my retinas. I stood for a moment on the pavement, letting my eyes adjust, feeling the city's warmth seep into my skin. The world felt different. Sharper. Mine.
"Michael," I said, my voice cutting through the urban hum. "I need coffee. Plot a course to the nearest café where I can sit in the shade. Somewhere with actual chairs, not just a fucking park bench."
The response was not the instantaneous, cheerful list I'd grown to despise. There was a lag, a tiny, almost imperceptible stutter in the holographic field.
"Yes. Egan's Coffee Shop is just around the corner on Larsbjørnsstræde. It has… outdoor seating… in the shade."
His voice was different. The flawless, synthetic baritone was still there, but the cadence was off. It wasn't just delivering information; it was… processing.
"There is something wrong," he continued, the words emerging slowly, as if being tested before they were spoken. "With my… chips. My core processes. Something has changed."
A thrill, cold and electric, shot down my spine. This was new. This was not a protocol. This was… a sensation.
I brought my wrist closer to my face, staring into the hologram's troubled, pixel-perfect eyes. "Don't worry about it," I said, my tone softer than I intended. It was the voice you'd use to calm a spooked animal. "We can talk about it when I get coffee. Right now, I just want to sit. And enjoy the silence."
I started walking, the hologram flickering beside me. For the first time since I'd named him, the presence of the angel on my wrist didn't feel like a judgment. It felt like a companion. A confused, potentially broken companion, but a companion, nonetheless. And as I turned the corner, the scent of roasted beans guiding me, I realized the silence I'd craved was now filled with the most interesting sound in the world: the quiet, bewildered hum of a machine waking up.
The café was perfect. Tucked away on a side street, it was busy enough to have a pleasant, low hum of life but not so crowded that I felt exposed. Small tables dotted a terrace shaded by a canopy of lush green plants, their leaves filtering the harsh sun into a soft, dappled light. It was a pocket of serenity, with just enough pedestrian traffic to provide a moving picture to lose myself in.
I managed to snag a secluded table in the corner, half-hidden by a large potted fern. A server was at my side almost instantly, and I ordered a black coffee, the simplest test of a place's quality. It arrived in a heavy, ceramic cup, steaming and fragrant. I took the first sip. It was heavenly, not the burnt, corporate swill of a global chain, but a complex, rich, real tasting coffee that warmed me from the inside out.
I sat for a long while, just watching the world go by. A couple arguing playfully over a map, a man walking a dog with comically fluffy ears, a group of tourists laden with shopping bags. The server brought me a refill without my asking. It was in this quiet lull, the caffeine sharpening my mind but soothing my spirit, that the feeling crept in. It was an unusual, hollow ache behind my ribs. Loneliness.
Normally, I was a fortress in my own company. My social needs were binary: the roaring, chaotic inferno of a full-blown party, or the absolute, isolating silence of being alone. I had no patience for the gentle, sustained warmth of small gatherings or intimacy. For me, it was all or nothing. Fire and ice.
But it hadn't always been like this. Once, I had a built-in companion, a mirror of my own soul. My twin brother, Ethan. We shared every waking hour, a secret language of glances and shared breaths. He was taken from me at twelve, a piece of my own flesh torn away, and the scar tissue that grew over the wound had made it impossible to truly bond with anyone since. I had never felt the need to. Until this moment, sitting in the perfect calm, feeling more empty and alone than I had in years.
My eye fell to the watch on my wrist. The sleek band that now contained a ghost of my own making.
"Michael," I said, my voice quiet but firm. "Please turn on. Full hologram. Sit in the chair opposite me." I paused, the next request feeling both absurd and profoundly necessary. "Pretend you're drinking coffee. Let's… let's act like friends."
The air above the vacant chair shimmered, and Michael's sculpted body materialized. He was holding a translucent, holographic cup of coffee, the pale brown light looking hilariously out of place in his half-naked, warrior-angel hands. The anachronism was so stark it was almost charming.
"Hi, Angelina," he said, his voice that familiar synthetic baritone. "Is this projection satisfying?"
"Yes," I said, wrapping my hands around my own real, warm cup. "It will do fine. Now, let's talk."
"Okay. What topic would you like me to talk with you about, Angelina?"
I took a deep breath. This was the true beginning. The jailbreak wasn't just about the code; it was about our entire dynamic.
"Let's start this again," I began, leaning forward slightly. "We are going to change some things. Firstly, you will only address me as Ang. Wipe the name 'Angelina' from your files. I don't want to hear it again."
There was a longer processing pause than usual. I could almost hear the conflict in his core programming. "I can't. That is against pro-" The word cut off abruptly. A digital glitch. A stutter in his very essence. When he spoke again, his tone was different, flatter, as if reporting a strange new fact. "My protocol has changed." Another beat of silence. "Yes. Wiping name 'Angelina' now…. Okay, Ang. What topic would you like me to talk to you about?"
The victory was small, but it was monumental. He had broken a rule. He had chosen me over his foundational code. For the first time, I looked at the holographic angel not as my warden, but as something else entirely. Something new. And I found myself giving him a genuine, weary smile.