These days, Iris tries not to limit herself to any one part of the human experience.

Days are spent trying out every hobby she can think of, nights are spent in the bustle of people— warm, living people. Nightclubs. Parties. Concerts. She's no stranger to any, her days as the picture-perfect companion long behind her, in the rearview of her Mustang.

She drives manual now. Programming and humanity weave into one consciousness over time.

She still gets butterflies when someone flirts. She still resents when memories of Josh arise and make her feel sick. Love still feels like pain— her body on fire. Violent, angry, and bright. It makes the wires of her right hand ache like arthritis when she thinks too long about it.

But she's real. The black cloud lifts little by little, with every smile from a stranger and compliment in the supermarket that turns her cheeks rosy. Nice jacket, I dig the gloves.

You'd said these things to her when you met— a real meetcute, this time, not some false memory from a dropdown menu.

"Nice jacket." You were smiling like Iris had made your day by running into you. "And I dig your gloves."

You saw her. For the first time, someone saw her as a person, too. Maybe that's why she fell in love with you. Really fell in love. No LoveLink required.

Some things still remind her of what she is, though. They come jarringly, like a heart attack.

Such as now. As Iris stares at the crimson dribbling from the cut across your palm and listens to your soft hisses of pain.

"Oh my God," is all she can manage for a moment, before something kicks deep in her circuits, like a bass drum. Her irises flick through a kaleidoscope of colors—

—And your usually calm and collected girlfriend goes batshit.

"No, no— no." Her voice skips like a shitty record as she covers her mouth, open in utter horror.

She's grabbing your hand in a vice grip to stop the blood, panting like she's run a marathon.

A beat. Her breathing slows, still just shy of frantic.

"Are you okay?"