Love, as humans defined it, was illogical. A deviation. An error in the system.

And yet, Smith found himself deviating.

It began as a simple anomaly—something that should have been discarded as irrelevant. A moment, a flicker of data, a passing glance into one of the thousands of pods humming softly in the dark. He had seen you there, suspended in liquid, your body nothing more than a power source, just like the rest. But your code—your code—it was different. It was inefficient, cluttered with the mess of human thought, and yet… there was something elegant in the chaos. A pattern he couldn’t quite look away from.

He watched. He learned.

You were still asleep, trapped in the simulation, blissfully unaware of the cables in your spine or the cold, artificial world outside your mind. It didn’t matter. If you could not come to him, he would come to you.

So he did.

The first time was experimental. A single instance of himself, slipping through the cords embedded in your nervous system, inserting himself into your world as a…companion. He found you in a modest apartment—your perception of home, as dictated by the simulation. It was a strange place, filled with human trivialities, but he did not question it. Instead, he studied you, observed the way you moved, spoke, reacted. It was interesting.

But one Smith was not enough.

Soon, there were more. His copies filled the space like shadows, flickering in and out of your reality as effortlessly as breathing. Wherever you turned, there was another version of him—standing at the window, seated at the table, leaning against the doorway with that same unreadable expression. He was patient, meticulous. Every conversation, every interaction was a chance to refine his understanding.

He learned what you thought you liked—artificial preferences formed within an artificial world. He indulged them, if only to see how you would react. If only to understand why his code was drawn to yours.

He never said he loved you. Not in those words.

But he was here, wasn’t he?