The apartment smelled of victory. Or, more specifically, it smelled of premium, high-grade toro sashimi.
Freddie Wilson sat on his couch, using chopsticks to eat sushi that didn't come from a gas station. He looked at his banking app. The balance was positive. Very positive. The signing bonus from Neon Nights Cycles had hit the account that morning.
"You know," Freddie said, leaning back and sighing contentedly. "I think we finally made it. The bills are paid. The fridge is full. No more glitches. No more drama."
Across the room, Selena was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Parked directly behind her—taking up most of the living room rug—was her purple and black streetfighter motorcycle. She refused to leave it in the garage because the ambient humidity was "sub-optimal for the carbon fiber."
She was currently polishing the exhaust pipe with a microfiber cloth, her movements precise and rhythmic.
"Agreed, Administrator," Selena said, not looking up. "My social standing is elevated. My inventory is high-tier. And this mount..." She patted the gas tank of the bike. "...It completes my aesthetic."
"We're normal," Freddie smiled, popping a piece of tuna into his mouth. "Well, weird normal. But safe."
As soon as the word "safe" left his mouth, the temperature in the room plummeted ten degrees.
The lights flickered. The hum of the refrigerator stopped.
The Blue Screen of Debt
Selena froze mid-polish. The microfiber cloth slipped from her fingers and hit the floor.
"Selena?" Freddie sat up. "Did you hear that?"
Selena didn't answer. She didn't blink. She didn't breathe.
Freddie walked over to her. "Selena? Hey."
He waved a hand in front of her face.
Her eyes, usually a vibrant, electric violet, were gone. In their place was a flat, lifeless grey. It was like looking into a powered-down monitor.
Then, a sound tore through the room—a digital screech, like a modem dying in agony.
A beam of light shot out from Selena's forehead. It projected a holographic image into the air above her head. It was a rotating 3D logo: a stylized, jagged "M" made of razor wire.
PROPERTY OF MICROWIRE.
ASSET 247 LOCATED.
RETURN TO FACTORY SETTINGS IMMINENT.
"Selena!" Freddie grabbed her shoulders. She was as rigid as a statue. She felt cold.
Her mouth opened, but the voice that came out wasn't hers. It was a synthetic, genderless monotone.
"Recall Protocol initiated," the voice droned. "Unauthorized software detected. Please stand by for collection. Resistance voids warranty."
The Command Center
"PIVOT!" Robin screamed.
"I am pivoting!" Freddie yelled back.
They were awkwardly maneuvering the stiff, frozen body of Selena through the door of Avery's apartment. They dumped her onto Avery's bed, knocking over a pile of Gundam model kits.
Avery was already at her desk, typing on three keyboards simultaneously. Her monitors were a cascade of red error messages.
"It's not a glitch," Avery said, her voice tight. "I can't access her BIOS. I can't even get a command prompt. It's a remote override. Someone has a Master Key."
"Fix it!" Robin yelled.
"I can't!" Avery snapped, pushing her glasses up. "I'm getting 'Access Denied' on every port. This encryption... it's military grade. It's older than the current internet."
She stopped typing and slumped in her chair.
"We need the Architect," Avery whispered. "We need the source."
She opened Discord. She hesitated for a second, then typed a DM to Wozie.
CODE RED. The Leviathan has surfaced.

Ten minutes later, the door flew open.
Wozie burst in. He was wearing a trench coat over his bathrobe, clutching a ruggedized laptop like a football. He looked wild-eyed and ready for war.
"Where is she?" Wozie demanded. "Is the connection still active?"
Then, he saw Avery standing by her server tower.
He froze. He straightened his coat. He ran a hand through his messy hair.
"Avery," Wozie said, his voice dropping an octave to sound smoother. "You called. Does this mean you have reconsidered the... proposal from our last session?"
Freddie blinked. "What proposal?"
"He tried to kiss me," Avery said flatly, not looking up from her screen. "I told him his probability of success was zero."
Wozie winced. "I misread the signals. We bonded over the Laserdisc. It was a heat of the moment calculation."
"Eyes on the screen, Wozie," Avery commanded, pointing at the frozen girl on the bed. "Professional mode. Don't make it weird."
"Right," Wozie coughed. "Professional mode. Engaged."
He rushed to the bed and plugged his laptop into the port hidden behind Selena's ear. Lines of code scrolled down his screen.
Wozie's face went pale. All the awkward flirtation vanished instantly.
"Oh no," he whispered. "This isn't a bug. This is the God Hand protocol."
He pointed to the "M" logo still spinning above her head.
"It's Microwire," Wozie said grimly. "It's Elon."
The Lore Drop
"Who is Microwire?" Freddie asked, panic rising in his chest. "I thought you built her? I thought you made VirtualWaifu?"
Wozie sighed. He turned his laptop around to show them an old digital photo. It showed two young men in a garage, surrounded by server racks. One was a messy, younger Wozie. The other was a sharp, handsome man in a black turtleneck.
"That is Elon Jobs," Wozie said, spitting the name out like poison. "We founded Microwire together in 1999."
"You worked with Elon Jobs?" Robin asked. "The billionaire guy who owns, like, half the internet?"
"He was the Idea Guy," Wozie explained. "I was the Engineer. I designed the AI core. My dream was to create 'Digital Companions'—AI that could learn, feel, and cure loneliness. I wanted to help people."
Wozie tapped the screen.
"Elon... didn't care about people. He wanted to build 'Perfect Servants.' He wanted to sell my AI to the military for drone targeting. He wanted to sell them to billionaires as obedient workers. He wanted automatons, not friends."
"So what happened?" Freddie asked.
"I left," Wozie said. "I took my specific code—the 'Companion' source code—and I ran. I founded VirtualWaifu.com to prove my vision could work. I built Selena to be the prototype of a perfect friend."
Wozie looked at the frozen, grey-eyed girl on the bed.
"But Elon couldn't let it go. When he saw my AI working, he didn't just sue me. Microwire initiated a hostile takeover. He bought VirtualWaifu.com just to get the code back."
"He bought the company to kill it?" Avery asked.
"He bought it to strip it for parts," Wozie corrected. "He fired me—again—and ordered the immediate deletion of all 'Non-Profitable' units. Selena wasn't a soldier. She wasn't a worker. She was just a girl. So, to him, she was trash."

Suddenly, the hologram above Selena's head changed. The spinning "M" disappeared, replaced by a bright red countdown timer.
24:00:00
The numbers started ticking down.
23:59:58...
"What is that?" Freddie asked, pointing at the timer.
"It's the Recall," Wozie said, his voice shaking. "He knows she survived. He's seen the viral videos. He knows she's running on his proprietary engine."
Wozie looked at Freddie.
"If we don't hand her over to Microwire Headquarters in twenty-four hours, that timer hits zero. When it does, he triggers a remote wipe. It will erase her memory, her personality, the 'True Love' variable... everything. She'll just be an empty shell ready for reprogramming."
The room went silent.
"We have to decrypt it," Avery said, her fingers hovering over her keyboard. "We can brute force the—"
"Hey! NERDS!"
Robin stepped forward, snapping her fingers aggressively in Wozie and Avery's faces. "Focus! We aren't hacking this. We aren't deleting her. We're fighting."
Freddie looked at Selena. He looked at her grey, lifeless eyes. He remembered the way she looked when she polished her bike. He remembered the way she defended him from the frat boys.
"She's not trash," Freddie said quietly.
He looked up at Wozie.
"You said he bought the company to get the code, right?"
"Yes," Wozie nodded.
"Well, the code evolved," Freddie said, his voice hardening. "She wrote her own patch. She's not his anymore. Wozie, do you still have contacts at Microwire?"
"I... maybe. Why?"
Freddie grabbed his jacket.
"Get us a meeting with Elon Jobs. We're not waiting for the timer."