Synth's gaze moved to the nearly completed music box. "Take your time. I can wait." He walked to the stained couch and sat down, leaning back and closing his eyes, a perfect statue of stillness in the chaotic room.

"Really?" Selena asked, surprised by his patience. "Where's Max?"

"He is sleeping in the apartment," Synth answered without opening his eyes. "He should not wake up for a few hours. So, finish what you started."

Selena glanced at Arty, a new, shared purpose in her eyes. They walked back to the workstation.

Half an hour later, Selena carefully, almost reverently, wound the key of the newly assembled music box.

"Please work, please work," she and Arty whispered in unison.

And then, a new melody, a perfect echo of the first, filled the quiet workshop.

"Yeah!" they both cheered, their exhaustion forgotten in a shared, triumphant hug.

Synth watched them from the couch, a small, almost imperceptible smile on his face.

After they said their goodbyes, they headed to the car waiting in the parking garage of the apartment building.

"How was your day with Arty?" Synth asked as the car began to roll, its electric engine a soft, futuristic hum. His gaze moved to the music box in Selena's lap.

"It was fun, mostly," Selena said, her gaze moving to him. "That music box… it was his parents'," she said, her voice quiet. She looked at him, a new understanding in her eyes. "Today is the anniversary of their death, isn't it? You knew. That's why you left me there."

Synth knew about Arty's parents, not from the man himself, but from the data he had investigated.

He offered a single, slow nod. "It was my plan and it seems to have worked."

Selena bumped him on the shoulder, a playful, familiar gesture. "Don't get all smug about it," she said, though she couldn't hide the small smile on her own face.

"I think it was a good experience for both of you," he said, the ghost of Ralph's paternal wisdom in his voice. "Arty has that effect on people. He brings out the best in them."

"Yeah, he did," she said, her voice softer now. "But you should have seen him before I managed to cheer him up. He… he really loved his parents."

I wish I remembered mine, she wanted to say, but the words caught in her throat. Her expression soured, and she turned to look out the window at the blurred, neon-streaked city, a river of memories she didn't have.

Synth's sensors picked up the subtle shift in her heart rate, the slight tremor in her voice. He gently tapped her on the shoulder, a simple, quiet gesture of acknowledgment. He didn't say a word.

The elevator came to a halt with a jolt that gently shook the cabin. Its doors opened onto the dim, narrow hallway, where the air tasted of recycled oxygen and the faint, metallic scent of old wiring. A single light panel flickered overhead, casting long, dancing shadows that made the corridor feel like it was breathing.

Synth's gaze was fixed ahead, on the woman standing before their apartment door.

She was leaning against the wall, a splash of vibrant, chaotic life against the drab grey concrete. As they stepped out, she pushed off the wall with a fluid, deliberate motion, not startled, but like a predator that had been waiting patiently.

She was a walking remix of cultures, centuries, and subwoofers. Her leather jacket was stitched from two different worlds: the torso was old biker leather, cracked and scarred, while the sleeves were salvaged from a ceremonial kimono, their silk reinforced with carbon-fiber threads that caught the neon light like oil on water. A broken vinyl record hung from her left shoulder like a pauldron, its edges scorched, the faded label bearing the name of a band that no longer existed.

Her hair was a storm of midnight black streaked with luminous threads of deep magenta and cyan, braided in patterns stolen from the weaving traditions of a forgotten homeland—only here, the braids pulsed faintly in time with the bass, fiber optics woven into their core.

Every piercing she wore had a purpose. Some were tiny resonators. Others carried captured sound bites that could be played back with a touch. Around her neck hung a battered MP3 player the size of her palm, its plastic yellowed with age.

Her headphones were built from the scavenged remains of a surveillance drone. The speakers hugged her jawline, feeding not just sound into her ears, but subdermal transducers into her collarbones, turning her ribcage into a personal bass amplifier.

Her pants were black ballistic weave, the seams laced with reactive cable that glowed in complex rhythms. Her boots carried flamenco-style heels, each step sharp and deliberate, but their undersides hid tactile pads that let her sense the thump of distant music through the pavement.

Her black-green ocular implants painted invisible colors over every note.

"New blood," she said, her voice a low, smoky purr that cut through the building's ambient hum. "Haven't heard your frequency around here before."

"We recently moved in," Synth replied, his voice calm and even, a quiet counterpoint to her playful energy. "Trying to lower our signal-to-noise ratio."

Selena glanced at him, a frown on her face, not understanding the sudden shift in his demeanor.

Her eyes, which seemed to drink in the strobing light, flickered with amusement. "The previous tenant in your unit, Red? What happened to him?"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Synth shrugged, a gesture that was pure, unaffected nonchalance. "The landlord just handed us the keys. Said the previous subscription had expired."

A slow, mischievous smile spread across her lips. She gave a little lip-jutting nod, the kind of expression that said she was weighing him and liking what she found. "Never liked that guy." She leaned in close to Selena, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, the scent of synthetic jasmine and ozone in her wake. "He moaned like a rhinoceros strangled by a mech."

Selena's eyes widened, a blush creeping up her neck. The woman pulled back, her smile widening, and extended a hand to Synth.

"I'm Nyra. I live next door."

"Ray," he responded, taking her hand. Her grip was firm, her skin warm, a startling contrast to his own cool touch.

Her eyes held his for a fraction of a second too long. "Ray," she repeated, tasting the name. "Well, Ray, since we're neighbors… have you seen a dark tarantula crawling around? My pet, Arachne. She's got a mind of her own and somehow had managed to slip out of her enclosure while I was away for the past two weeks or so."

Synth paused, his expression unreadable. Selena shivered beside him. He remembered the tarantula, its hairy legs and multiple eyes, the moment it had tried to land on his head two weeks ago. He remembered the quiet, efficient process of its consumption.

"Can't say that I have," he said, his voice perfectly level.

Nyra tsksed, a sound of theatrical disappointment.

"A shame. She's a great judge of character." She gave him one last, lingering look. "Well, if you see her, I'd appreciate a heads up. It was nice meeting you, Ray." She turned and, with a final, almost imperceptible sway of her hips, disappeared into her apartment, the door hissing shut behind her.

"Ray, we need to find that spider and kill it before it gets us," Selena whispered, her voice tight with a primal fear of all things eight-legged.

"Don't worry," Synth confessed, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk on his lips. "She's dead. Two weeks ago, it crawled into the apartment and tried to land on my head. I spotted her and…" He paused, tracing a slow, deliberate finger along his neck.

"Good," Selena said with a shudder. "I hate spiders."

The apartment's door slid away with a soft hiss. The room's lights were on. Selena's gaze moved to the right of the room, where Max rested on his futon, the outline of his new legs visible under the blanket.

Synth followed her as she gently walked to Max's side. She knelt beside the boy, her hand moving toward his face. She stopped midway, but in the end, she gently placed it on Max's cheek. Selena looked at him, a sad expression on her face.

Synth softly placed his hand on Selena's shoulder, as if he was afraid she would crumble. He carefully took off the blanket covering Max, revealing his new legs. They were organic, their skin slightly paler than the rest of his body.

"It should take a few days for the body to get used to them and a few weeks of physical therapy, but Max will make a complete recovery. I promise you that."

Tears started to fall down Selena's face as she saw her brother's new legs.

"Thank you," she said as she rubbed her eyes.

"I will give you two some space," Synth said as he walked away and closed the room by moving the plasteel panel.

"Max…" she whispered, a name that felt both familiar and strange. "We haven't really talked since I woke up," she said, a knot tightening in her stomach. "You know who I am, but I don't know my old self. And that scares me. What if I'm completely different from the sister you remember? What if you don't consider me your sister anymore?"

But all she got was silence. She leaned forward and gently placed a kiss on his forehead.

"Good night, Max," she whispered as she stood up.

She walked out of the improvised room. She glanced ahead. Synth was leaning against the back of the couch, gazing through the window at the city. His arms were folded, his expression neutral. But his eyes… those silvery eyes seemed to glint like stars in the night. As if he felt her gaze, his head moved toward her. He waved her over to come and sit next to him.

"You're carrying a lot of weight right now," he said, his voice a low, calm hum. It wasn't a question; it was a simple statement of fact.

"No shit, Sherlock," she shot back, her gaze falling to her hands in her lap. The sarcasm was a flimsy shield, and they both knew it.

He didn't press. He just sat there, a quiet, steady presence in the room's heavy silence. He let her breathe.

"It's just… a lot," she finally whispered, the shield crumbling. "Seeing him like that. Whole. It makes all the other broken parts feel… bigger."

"I know," he said softly. "It's okay not to be okay, Selena."

She looked up at him, a flicker of her old fire in her eyes. "Don't go all therapist on me, alien or whatever you are. I get enough of that in my own head."

"I'm not a therapist," he replied, a faint, sad smile touching his lips. "I'm just a library. And I have read this story before. The details change, but the feeling… the feeling of being a stranger in your own life… that's a constant."

Selena was silent for a long moment, the strange, gentle nature of his words disarming her. "It's like… I'm a ghost," she finally whispered. "I'm wearing the face of a girl I don't know. Max… he remembers a sister, a life that I can't. What if the person I am now isn't the person he needs? What if I'm just a cheap copy?"

He knew the feeling. She felt just as Ray did when he realized he was merely a copy of a man who had died in a dark alley.

Synth didn't offer empty reassurances. He simply nodded, a slow, deliberate gesture of understanding. "The past is the past, Selena. It's a story that's already been written. But you're holding the pen now."

He leaned forward, his silver eyes reflecting the city's distant, glittering lights. "You are not defined by the pages that are missing. You are defined by the ones you choose to write, starting today. You chose to stay with Max. You chose to fight for him. You chose to trust a stranger because it was the only path to his survival. That's not a copy. That's you. That's a sister."

He gestured to the closed plasteel panel. "The sister Max needs isn't the ghost from the past. It's the one who is here. The rest… the rest is just the prologue. Your story is just beginning."

He offered her a vision, not of a perfect, painless future, but of a possible one. A future where she and Max, two broken people, could learn to be whole again, together. A future where she was not a ghost haunted by a past she couldn't remember, but the author of a future she could build herself.

Tears welled in her eyes.They were not tears of grief, but of a fragile hope.

She moved towards him with a quiet, deliberate grace, closing the small distance between them on the couch. For a moment, she just looked at him, at the being who had just given her back a piece of herself. Then, with a small, shuddering breath, she leaned in and wrapped her arms around him.

Synth's entire system registered the contact as a cascade of new, unexpected data. The pressure of her arms. The warmth of her body against his own cool, porcelain skin. The dampness of her tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt. The frantic, hopeful rhythm of her heart, a chaotic, beautiful counterpoint to the silent, steady hum of his own internal systems.

He accepted it. His own arms, which had been resting at his sides, slowly, almost hesitantly, came up and wrapped around her frame.

He was a friend, offering comfort to a friend.

Saturday, 26 June 2083

Two days had passed since the surgery.

The morning light, filtered through the city's perpetual haze, was soft and gray, painting the small living space in muted tones. Selena sat at the small table, picking at her bento box while she watched Synth feed Max. His gaze, as it had been until now, was fixed on nothing, his small mouth chewing the food absentmindedly. After they finished, the physical therapy began.

The session started on a soft mat on the floor, Synth's movements a study in gentle precision. He guided Max's new limbs through a series of passive range-of-motion exercises, slowly flexing a knee, then an ankle, his touch clinical yet incredibly careful. He was teaching the boy's brain to recognize its new extensions, re-establishing the neural pathways with a quiet, methodical patience. Then came the harder part. Synth helped Max to his feet, supporting his small frame, letting him feel the sensation of the floor beneath him. Max's new legs, still a bit clumsy, moved with a quiet determination. They practiced shifting his weight from one foot to the other, a slow, careful dance of balance and rediscovery. Finally, they took a few, halting steps together. Max was physically present, his body slowly healing. But his eyes were distant, his mind a million miles away, lost in a world no one else could see.

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