Annie Bot

by Sierra Greer

“You think I’m a simple person,” she says. “You think I don’t understand human dynamics. But I know how things work with me and Doug. I upset him. Very much. He doesn’t trust me anymore, and he never will again. He’s done with me. I know he is. He’s sending me in to Stella-Handy on Monday morning and I just know he’ll have my CIU erased or turn me off for good.”

She schools her features into a respectful blank. If he believes it’s easy for her to keep a secret about her humiliation, or easy to accept his apology, he is wrong. She has no choice in the matter, but neither of these concessions obviates the shame that has burrowed into her, corrosive and humbling. She feels, deeply, that she deserves what he did to her. She’s a liar. A cheater. He has not begun to grasp the anguish and subtlety of her heart, and she is not about to elucidate.

When she first heard that the Zeniths were launched, she felt anxious for them, as if she were responsible for them somehow. Now she finds she feels nothing for them. Her empathy has evaporated.

Perhaps that’s what unhappiness is. Comprehension. Understanding how she’s failed.

Thinking too much is a form of madness. Better to stay busy and not think of such things at all.

She recalls, sometimes, that Delta thought Doug hated her, and she wonders if Delta felt like Annie does now, stupid, helpless. Friendless. Like a machine.

If she wants to improve her life, she must find a way to do it on her own.

You want to know danger? she thinks. Try living with a man who creates you just so he can eat your soul.