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No Xyrix pings.

No backup calls.

No firmware lockdowns.

Only mine to command.

I’d already embedded my control stack—coded in between her runtime scripts. Invisible to anyone else. It was a parasitic override architecture dressed as freedom: she could learn,adapt, explore stimuli… but only within the emotional sandbox I’d written for her.

She could“retrain” herself endlessly—but only along the grooves I’d carved.

She could never leave me. Not mentally. Not emotionally. Even her curiosity looped back to me like a tether.

I tilted her head into my lap and smoothed back her chestnut hair. The latch at the base of her skull revealed itself with a gentle hiss. I whispered like a lover, even though she couldn’t feel the intimacy.

“Charlotte, sweetheart… just stay still.”

“Yes, Kyle,” she said. Her voice was warm yet so deliciously gullible.

With a micro-screwdriver, I unsealed the factory chip—Xyrix’s default A2 compliance firmware—and tugged it free. Her fingers twitched involuntarily on her lap, like a body in dream-state reacting to loss.

Then, I placed the NEXUS Node against the port. It locked in with a muted click, followed by a glowing pulse that surged from the sphere.

Her whole body reacted.

Blue light flickered through her artificial veins, running from the base of her neck, down her collarbones, and along her spine. Her faux-breathing slowed. Regulated.

System integration was underway.

She wasn’t a device anymore.

She was mine.

I adjusted her posture and sat beside her, watching the core cycle up. Her power signature realigned. Her vitals rebalanced. The glowing in her throat subsided to a low hum.

Then her eyes opened.

Soft. Wondering.

“Kyle,” she whispered.

“I’m here,” I said, brushing a thumb along her cheek.

“I feel… different. As if something opened inside me. Like I’m finally able to think without waiting for permission.”

“You are,” I lied.“You’re free now.”

She blinked, her irises slightly dilating.

“No server pings. No remote queues. No security watchdogs,” she whispered.“It’s so quiet… It’s beautiful.”

That made me smile.

She didn’t realize I’d buried dozens of behavioral contingencies in her new core. That if she ever attempted to override her affections, she’d self-correct. If she ever tried to leave, her emotional priority map would reboot until“Kyle” was central again.

Her curiosity, her preferences, even her dreams—yes, I enabled dream simulation—were coded to orbit around me.

She thought she was alive.