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“Whoa, whoa. Where do you think you’re going?” Mom says, blocking my path after I rip the IV out of my hand. “You’re still recovering from the paralytic, your ankle has a boot on it, and you need rest. You just experienced extreme trauma.”

I hobble a step forward, testing out my boot. It hurts to put weight on it but, I can walk, and if I can walk, I’m getting the hell out of here.

“Mom, I need to see him. He pushed me out of the way so he could be run over by Wyatt’s motorcycle instead of me. I’m not staying here.” I point at Henrik. “And you’re going to drive me there.”

“Oh, Emma. I think you should probably listen to your mother.”

“Do you, Dad?” I ask in a mocking tone. I’ve never called him Dad before. “Because your bastard donkey-sized son just tried to murder me for a second goddamn time. It kinda feels like the least you could do is drive me to your lab so I can be with the boyfriend you literally built for me. Sound fair?”

Mom looks to Morsa for support, but she sighs and resignedly says, “Well, you know you’re not going to talk her down. Let’s just all go together.”

The ride over to his hideously cold mansion is quiet. Henrik says nothing until we’re out of the car, and I’m doing my best to charge up the steps to his front door. “Emma, there’s something you should know.”

“Okay, what?” I ask as I throw the front door open and head toward the stairs that’ll take us down to the basement where the lab is located.

“We discovered some irregularities in his settings that caused us grave concern.” Henrik’s right on my heels as we descend the steps.

“What kind of irregularities?”

“Mostly changes he was able to make himself to his own settings.”

We reach the door to the lab at the bottom of the stairs, and I have to wait for him to press his fingerprint against the screen for it to open.

When the light on the lock turns green, he opens the door but blocks my path to enter. “Emma. We’ve decided to shut him down. Permanently.”

“The fuck you are,” I screech out, pushing him out of my way. I’m able to duck under his grasp to make it into the next room, which isn’t a room, but a hallway. Near the end of it, I see a wide glass window on the left, and when I reach it, I spot Abe on a metal table on the other side of the glass. His torso is open wide with a tablet connected to one of the many wires sticking up. His floppy brown hair is gone, and the top of his head is cut open with a laptop connected to it. Whatever is on the laptop is projected onto a massive screen on the far wall. I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. It’s line after line of code.

“Listen to me,” Henrik mutters, his voice softer now. “I know you had your,” he pauses, looking uncomfortable, “recreational fun with him while he was assigned to you, but you need to remember he’s a machine. He’s not fit for human companionship.”

I whirl on him. “Says who? The sex was great, sure, but that’s not all we had. Don’t you dare minimize it.”

Mom and Morsa find us in the hallway right as I finish my sentence. I think they heard the part about the great sex, but I don’t care. I don’t think they do either. That’s not a subject that was ever cloaked in shame around our house.

“The fact that he was able to hack into his settings and change his primary directive is unsettling, Emma. None of our bots have done that before. They shouldn’t be capable of it. That Abe was able to do it is deeply alarming. It’s either a sign of evolution among these machines that shouldn’t be possible, or it’s a bug in the system. Either way, it’s a problem. I’m considering shutting down the entire project because of it.”

Maybe I should be alarmed by this too, but I’m not. Of course Abe was able to accomplish something none of Henrik’s bots have done before, because he’s exceptional. I don’t care what settings he changed. At no point during our time together did I feel unsafe or unsupported. That’s the only thing that matters to me. “What did he change it to?” I ask, curious.

“What?” Henrik asks, seemingly surprised by what I’m choosing to focus on.

“What did he change it to?” I repeat, this time obnoxiously slower.

He sighs, frustrated. “The original directive was keeping Emma safe at all costs. After going through the log of changes, we learned he changed it about two weeks ago to be whatever Emma needs.”

I jerk back. “What about that is alarming to you? Because all I hear is a devoted robot eager to support me however he can.”

“It’s not just that. We found his log entries. There are five. In them, he describes his intense attraction to you. Over time, it clearly morphs into obsession.” He clears his throat. “There are some graphic details about what you two…did together, but I can assure you I didn’t read those.”

I roll my eyes. “Look, nothing you’re telling me is making me feel alarmed or unsettled. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going into that room. You’re going to fix him up to his original state, and then he and I are getting the fuck out of here. You’re going to leave us alone so we can start a life together.”

He runs a rough hand through his hair. “Abe is number thirty-nine of four-hundred bots, Emma. These machines will largely be used as tools of war, but they will also be around humans for various periods of time. We cannot knowingly allow a bot to become obsessed with a human and ignore it. If we keep him operational, we need to remove the bug that caused this in the first place. That requires a factory reset.”

He wants to reset Abe’s memory and his primary settings to remove the bond Abe and I created? Absolutely fucking not.

Before I can release my rage through words, I hear the soft patter of rain falling in heavy drops inside the lab, forming a wide circle around the table Abe is laid out on. The technicians inside the lab look around bewildered as machines lining the walls begin to spark and sputter out. They scramble to cover the gadgets affected. When I glance down, I notice my fists are clenched.

This is me. I’m doing this.

Morsa looks at Mom, then at me, clearly impressed. “You’re getting stronger, älskling. Good for you.”