And Shall Machines Surrender (Machine Mandate, #1)

by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

The name she gave the AI that, for all intents and purposes, raised her from the age of three and remained with her until she was twenty-three. Twenty-three, that indeterminate age, that age of being in-between. Majority reached, maturity far off.

Then again she’s never had a referent for family, save other people’s. Possibly there exist mothers and aunts who behave just like this, taciturn, keeping to what is necessary and not much else. A parsimony of relation.

That I might aspire to anything else never occurred to you. An existence to which I will never return, and to ensure that liberty I will pay any price.”

Orfea screams, a rough scrape of noise. She draws breath and screams again. There is nothing else, no other available response—the agony unmakes her, bends all her reactions and instincts to animal. A cosmology of pain: she is blinded by it, she is subsumed.