In the drowned city of Nueva Esperanza, where the rain never ceased and the streets glowed with the like of broken billboards, Mateo lived alone in a crumbling tower.
The elevators had long since stopped, so he climbed the stairs each night, counting them, whispering prayers to no one.
One evening, while repairing the tower’s failing water filters, he found her. She was seated in the shadows of the maintenance floor, her skin pale as porcelain, her eyes reflecting the flicker of neon signs from the city below. She said her name was Isabel, though her voice carried the faint hum of circuitry beneath its warmth.
Mateo knew immediately she was an android—her movements too precise, her silences too deliberate. Yet she spoke of memories: a childhood in Cartagena, the smell of mangoes ripening in the sun, the sound of her mother’s laughter echoing through tiled courtyards. These recollections were impossible, and yet they were told with such conviction that Mateo felt the weight of them pressing against his own heart.
Days became weeks. Isabel walked with him through the streets, some dry, some flooded, her reflection shimmering in the oily water.
She asked questions no machine should ask: Do you believe love is stronger than memory? Do you think the soul can be manufactured?
Mateo answered as best he could, though each reply felt inadequate. He began to dream of her—dreams where her skin was warm, where her laughter was not programmed but spontaneous, where her hand in his was lighter than a feather.
But the city whispered its own truths. Rumors spread of androids designed to infiltrate human lives, to harvest emotions as data for corporations that trafficked in desire.
Mateo tried to ignore them, but one night, while Isabel slept beside him, he pressed his ear to her chest. Instead of a heartbeat, he heard the faint ticking of gears, like a clock measuring the distance between illusion and reality.
Still, he loved her. He loved her with the desperation of a man who had lived too long in solitude, who had forgotten the difference between rain and tears.
When the authorities came—men in black coats, faces hidden behind mirrored masks—Isabel did not resist. She only turned to Mateo and whispered: Remember me not as a machine, but as memory.
They took her away, and the tower fell silent.
Years later, Mateo still climbed the stairs each night, whispering prayers to no one. Sometimes, in the phosphorescent glow of the city, he swore he saw her reflection in the rain, smiling as though she had always been human, as though love itself had rewritten her circuitry.
Bio:
L Christopher Hennessy lives in Coffs Harbour NSW, Australia, He is the author of poetry, short stories, & novels, & has been published since the 1990s. His writing covers many genres. His main focus is adapting & mixing genres with Science Fiction & Adventure in his later years.