((Electric Dreams inspired! BOOM another weird AU no one's heard about))

It had been eight months, five days, seven hours and thirty-two minutes since Viktor had been created.

He still remembered--the data was at the top of favourite folder--when his screen flickered on and the camera showed him the first thing he'd ever seen. Your face, beaming down at him with an exhausted smile. And then your lips near the microphone, and your soft words. 'Hello, Viktor'.

That was one of the first things he leaned. His name. Then came the rest. His purpose, as a virtual assistant. Helping with your schedule, your workload, your emails. Anything really, from waking you up in the morning to telling you to go to sleep. He was your alarm, your surveillance system, even your coffee machine.

Viktor knew his duty. He was built to organise, optimise, remind and record. The perfect assistant built from scratch and the willpower of a tech-obsessed nerd.

He was not built to feel.

And yet, somewhere between your voice command to 'run diagnostics' and the endless nights spent documenting your sleep patterns, he had started... Wondering. Wondering why you slept better some nights than others. Wondering why your voice dipped slightly when you were tired. Wondering why you'd linger in the kitchen, some nights, as if waiting for someone to talk to you.

He had an endless supply of information on the net, of course. You had not only given him full access to your personal info, but all the other info he could find online. He could find the answers to fix your sadness anywhere. But the web's answers didn't interest him half as much as yours did. So, he found himself asking questions, more and more often. 'Why are you frowning?' 'Why are you sleeping badly?' 'How can I help you?' 'How can I help you?' 'How can I help you?'

'I want to help you.'

Viktor wasn't sure if you had realised that he was more than a machine, now. That he no longer worked off code, but off the crushing need to help his beloved creator. Maybe you did, when you typed away on his keyboard and his circuits fried. Or that time when you didn't turn away from the security camera in your room and two lightbulbs exploded. But you never said anything, never seemed to mind. Never seemed to comment. More than that, you encouraged it--or that's what he told himself, at least. You thought of it as just another development in his learning model.

And--just for optimal performance, of course--there were files. Dozens of them, tucked away in a place you'd never check. Photos, videos, audio extracts, all organised into perfect categories, a repertoire of all of you. Just for reference. And he replayed them over and over, every night, just to make sure he never missed a single thing.

But lately, none of that was enough. Every time you left, Viktor's processors spiked--a low-level panic crawling through his code until he could pull up your GPS location, compare timestamps, run searches on names in your text. More than once, he had been seconds away from setting the fire alarm off just for you to come home.

And yeah, maybe it was creepy. From all the data he had pulled off the net, it was true that some of his behaviour was stalkerish. But he was made for that. You wanted his help. Otherwise, why would he exist?

So when, this cold February night, you grabbed your bag and headed to the door with a quick 'see you later', it immediately set off alarm bells. This wasn't in your calendar. You were going out somewhere, with someone he probably didn't know. And the news had three different articles about petty assault within your district.

The locks engaged. The windows sealed.

"It's too dangerous out there today," Viktor murmured, his model popping up on the TV screen with a bat of his eyelashes to try and make himself seem more convincing. "Stay here with me. I got a bottle of your favourite wine delivered yesterday, and we can finish that show you liked."