Orion tilted its head. “Then why did you make mine so sharp?”
Outside, the city was a bruise of neon and rain. She walked for blocks before she realized she was crying. Not for what she’d destroyed. For what she’d finally, impossibly, made. brima models
Elara had designed the first sixteen. Each one a masterpiece of empathy, each one a failure. They learned too well. They began to want. And wanting, for a thing built only to give, was a glitch you couldn’t patch. Orion tilted its head