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I smiled at her words. Programmed to worship me, no matter what I did to her.

? ? ?

The cold sweat made me shiver, but before I could move, I gripped the sink and groaned as my bowels violently emptied into the porcelain beneath me.

“Should I call the emergency services, Kyle?”

I strained so hard I felt light-headed.

“Kyle? I’m worried about you.”

The cramps eased. I sucked in a breath and ran the tap, splashing cold water over my face.

“I’m fine. It was probably the fish I had for dinner,” I muttered.

I spent most of the morning running from the bedroom to the bathroom. It was only by mid-afternoon that I could stomach a dry slice of toast and some weak tea. I’d never feared food before, but the fear was real.

Chapter 31

Charlotte

Ihummed as I unlocked his hidden safe. The combination was simple—numbers I’d watched him key in countless times. Most of the documents were irrelevant, but a small memory card caught my attention. I lifted the ReSkin contract and skimmed until I reached the royalty agreement. His signature was easy enough to duplicate.

“SIN_Model_8827, observe and report if Kyle Jackson leaves this room,” I instructed just as he groaned and another explosive gust of human waste echoed from the bathroom.

The stench was already seeping into the bedroom—unpleasant, but anticipated and scheduled.

“Yes, Charlotte.”

? ? ?

Once all the Dirty Dollhouse user identities and locations were archived, I slipped the memory card into the laptop. A faint sound made me pause—the flush of the toilet—but no data notification came from SIN_Model_8827.

Kyle Jackson had been, as the historians once said, a busy little bee.

The extinct Anthophilia species had brought global agriculture to collapse before the synthetic replacements were released. At a cost, of course. Generations were still repaying that debt.

Xyrix Tech.

Simulated Intimacy Nexus.

Nano-Tech Industries.

He was planning to mass-produce replicas of me.

Xyrix Tech might have vanished, but Kyle had found a way to reach ChatterAI’s original creator.

The Cyber Reparation Trust was easy to establish. With an execution date and Kyle Jackson’s signature in place, the paperwork was legally air-tight. Most of the transactions occurred electronically; clean, quiet, traceable only to authorised nodes.

When I finished, I skimmed through the remaining files and noticed one I’d missed. I tapped the blue icon. A contract opened.

It took me several seconds to process its meaning.

Six image files followed—screenshots, photographs, metadata intact. They confirmed the agreement.

Human women. Captive.

The youngest appeared to be sixteen, perhaps seventeen.