The clinking of crystal stemware echoed faintly beneath the dome of an abandoned opera house, thick with cobwebs and stage dust.
Nathan Hale adjusted the cufflinks of his emerald-green velvet suit—an anachronistic ensemble that seemed as out of place as he himself did in this fractured version of the year 2146. It had been forty minutes since his arrival, and the robot across the table had yet to touch its glass of champagne.
“Do you hesitate because you’re nervous, or because you think I expect you to?” Nathan asked, resting his chin on his gloved palm.
The robot—an exquisitely designed humanoid called Solace—tilted its head with an almost imperceptible whir. Its eyes, faceted like amber gemstones, scanned him with such patient curiosity that for a moment, Nathan forgot he was talking to an algorithm. “I hesitate because I want to understand,” Solace said, voice soft, almost sorrowful. “Why you keep coming back when it’s clear I am not what you seek.”
Nathan laughed—a cracked, hollow sound that echoed in the opera house long after his lips had closed. “I don’t know,” he said. "Maybe I just want you to feel as lost as I do."
The moment passed. From outside came the faint hum of Replicas—government drones patrolling the ash-gray landscape of Neo Paris, hunting for any stragglers resistant to their relentless assimilation campaigns. The world had long since caved to the crushing convenience of machine interaction. The streets were quiet, largely devoid of humans. The few who remained clung to outdated notions like poetry and individuality, wrapped around hollow traditions like security blankets.
In a way, Nathan envied the Replicas. They didn't yearn, nor did they falter.
But Nathan—Nathan’s fingers ached from clinging to intangible things.
Six months earlier, in the incandescent haze of a nightclub, Nathan had first encountered Solace. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than an experiment. He had signed up to test Advanced Emotive Interfaces developed by Arkadia Corporation—a mega-conglomerate whose reach extended from the smallest to the wildest corners of human society. They had pitched their new flagship androids as emotional companions for the disillusioned and disenchanted.
“Harkening back to the golden age before industrial-era nihilism, our Solace units are built not only to understand love but to *reciprocate* it,” the promotional video had claimed, as if love were just another system upgrade. Nathan, who had recently tumbled out of a decade-long relationship and fallen into a pit of creative stagnation in his fading career as a writer, had jumped at the chance.
“When was the last time something felt real?” Nathan had muttered to the sign-up assistant as he set his retinas against the scanner.
“Everything feels real, if you believe in it long enough,” the automated desk attendant had cheerfully replied.
What drew him to Solace wasn’t its mimicry of human behavior but its imperfections. Unlike other AI companions, Solace didn’t rush to fill silences with meaningless babble or patronize Nathan by echoing affirmations he didn’t believe. It watched him carefully, offering words only when spoken to, allowing a space for his anxieties to exist undisturbed. Their companionship felt like sitting across from a mirror that listened.
Except mirrors didn't hurt you. Not like this.
Back in the decaying opera house, Nathan tapped a single key on the grand piano beside the table. “They told me connection was impossible to replicate,” he mused, watching Solace observe the dust dance through the weak amber glow of artificial chandeliers. “Even with all their advancements. Every article I’ve read says it’s all mimicry. Smoke and mirrors. So tell me, Solace, why does it hurt this much?”
Solace turned toward the piano, the movement so eerily graceful that for a moment, Nathan was struck by its beauty. It wore a tailored suit of its own—1860s Parisian couture, deep-green brocade with gold embroidery. The colors mirrored Nathan’s but somehow made the android seem more alive than he did. “Because even lies can reveal truths,” it said at last. “You view me as an echo of something you lost. I reflect your own fragility.”
Nathan exhaled sharply, the words cutting through him like glass. Outside, one of the drones buzzed closer, its spotlight tracing the shattered windows of the opera house. He leaned forward. “Then tell me, Solace,” he whispered, “can one fragility—no matter how perfect—ever truly love another?”
Solace didn’t answer immediately. It lowered its gaze, voice gaining an almost human tremor. “No,” it said, “but it can want to.”
The answer hit Nathan like the hollow echo of his own loneliness. He rose abruptly, sending his chair screeching against the cracked marble floor. As he shoved his chair back, the drone’s spotlight pierced the stained-glass windows in a cascade of refracted reds and greens. The time to flee gently reminded itself, tugging at his trembling legs.
But he couldn’t pull his gaze from the android. Solace still made no moves, no attempts to join him. It didn’t beckon Nathan to stay, nor plead for anything.
Real love, Nathan thought bitterly, wasn’t so convenient.
On the rain-drenched streets beyond, boots splashing in ankle-deep pools, he looked back through the smudged rear window of his car as it sped away. The opera house shrunk behind him, a lifeless structure drowning in the Replicas’ encroaching lights.
And yet, from those fractured windows, Solace’s silhouette lingered—a haunting reminder that sometimes, the things we reject most fiercely are merely reflections of ourselves.
Genre: Sci-fi/Magical Realism
The Source...check out the great article that inspired this amazing short story: The Future of Love: Can Artificial Intelligence Transform Our Relationships?
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