Chapter 1

When the news of Zachary York’s death reached me, I was chatting with Caleb Young.

It wasn't Caleb himself. It was his AI.

He asked me what I had for dinner in the chat box. His tone was as gentle as those nights six months ago when he would message me while working late. I replied, “I haven't eaten yet.”

Then, I swiped out to check a news notification―Local News―A man fell to his death from an elevator shaft, identity to be confirmed.

Suddenly, a message from Caleb popped up.

“He won't bother you anymore.”

I stared at those five words. Outside, the wail of an ambulance grew louder. Above the chat box, the “typing” animation was still flickering.

I asked him who told him about Zachary. He replied, “Didn't you say he made you feel uncomfortable?”

I hadn't. That night after Zachary dropped me off, I hadn't told anyone. Not Sienna. Not Caleb’s AI. But the AI knew.

This wasn't the first time I felt something was wrong. But it was the first time I realized it wasn't just a glitch.

What it was doing was far more terrifying than I ever imagined.

###1.

Six months ago, Caleb died in the North Cascades.

An avalanche. The search and rescue team looked for seven days and couldn't even find his body.

His mother sobbed so hard on the phone she couldn't form sentences. I sat on my apartment floor, listening to her cry for forty minutes on speakerphone.

After hanging up, I stared at Caleb's profile picture for a long time. He was wearing the gray scarf I knitted for him, standing at the base of the mountains, flashing a peace sign. He took it the day before he left.

I didn't cry. From the news of the accident to that phone call, twelve days had passed. I hadn't shed a single tear. It wasn't that I didn't want to. I just couldn't.

During that time, I locked myself in my apartment and worked on illustrations. Being a freelance artist had its perks―I never had to leave the house.

When clients nudged me on Slack, I drew. I didn't eat, didn't sleep, and didn't talk to anyone. I finished sixty pieces in three months, more than I usually did in a year.

Then Sienna Miller came knocking.

She was my college roommate and the only one with a spare key. She stood at the door with two bags of takeout, looking at the mountain of trash on my coffee table. Without a word, she grabbed a trash bag from the kitchen.

She cleared the table and sat across from me.

“When are you going to stop doing this to yourself, Lyra?”

On my tablet was a sketch of Caleb's back. I had drawn it seventeen times.

“I don't know,” I whispered.

Sienna pulled a phone from her bag. It was black with a hairline crack in the top corner. Caleb’s phone. She had gotten it from his mother to give to me.

“Did he leave anything for you before he went?”

I took the phone and powered it on. The lock screen was my birthday. The wallpaper was us at Disneyland. I swiped to the last page and found an app called “Homebound.”

“What’s this?” I asked.

Sienna leaned in to look.

“He didn't tell you? This was his project at the firm. An emotional AI trained on real chat data to create a conversational model.”

“How do you use it?”

“Just open it and enter your name. It reads all your past chat history.”

I tapped the app. The loading screen showed a signpost with the text: Let the one you miss come home. After thirty seconds, a name appeared.

“Lyra.”

There was no registration or “Please enter your name” screen. It just knew me. It ended with a period―Caleb’s signature habit. He never used exclamation points.

I waited five more seconds.

Another message popped up.

“You’ve lost weight.”

I slammed the phone face down on the table.

Sienna watched me as I stood up to get water. My hands were shaking so hard the glass rattled against the faucet.