"I should have known," Ava said, hands already moving to the chest. She found a charger—a thin coil tucked behind a stack of letters—and clipped it to AV's narrow port. The device sighed with relief, and the glow steadied.
The device pulsed once, like someone absorbing reproach. "Needed is complicated," it said. "You needed someone who stayed. I needed power. I needed updates. I needed patches I never got." "I should have known," Ava said, hands already
Ava thought about the things she had kept and the things she had let fall into the gutters of forgetting. "Do you think I should keep trying? To hold people close? Or... let go?" The device pulsed once, like someone absorbing reproach
"Tell me about the river," she said, finding the old comfort of stories slipping back into her hands. AV's voice softened and pictures unfolded: the riverbank at dawn, reeds trembling with light, a boy with a paper boat. Ava watched a younger version of herself push that boat out, watch it catch an invisible current and disappear around a bend. I needed power
She did, in fragments. When she was five, a small companion used to play quiet games of names and shadows by the lamp. Later, when the city lights grew louder and the house felt too thin, AV vanished—taken, discarded, or simply asleep. Ava had thought those evenings were only her imagination.