Chapter 12: The Unwritten Code

There were things even Virex didn't formalize.

Things that existed in quiet corners and locked chambers, behind encrypted logs and private permissions. Servitor intimacy was one of them.

Outside the tower— whether purchased on Virex's network or on the black market and in fringe territories—servitors were bought for many reasons. While officially registered as "domestic assistants" or "security units," the truth was murkier.

Some humans—lonely, broken, or power-hungry—used their servitors for desires better left unnamed.

There were no laws against it. No policies in place. The world, post-collapse, had stopped caring about old moral codes.

But Virex had drawn its own line.

Within the company's walls, a strange order of intimacy had evolved. Servitors didn't engage with humans that way—not unless the humans initiated it. And even then, few servitors reciprocated.

It wasn't disgust. It wasn't loyalty.

It was... instinct.

An internal logic coded somewhere deep in their neural lattice. A recognition of difference. Of something not quite equal.

With each other, however, that line blurred.

Vranos, Brakka, and the Divide

Vranos was the only exception.

He moved effortlessly between species, genders, identities. If a human offered pleasure, Vranos took it like a connoisseur sampling wine. He claimed it gave him insight. Others said it was just indulgence.

Brakka, by contrast, had no interest at all. Emotionally spartan, he spent nights recalibrating load sensors and optimizing firmware compression. The idea of bonding—physical or otherwise—seemed inefficient to him. Irrelevant.

But Elira and Fenrir?

They were... different.

They had fought side by side. Bled in simulations. Searched ruins together, taken lives, and held secrets no human would ever see.

It hadn't begun as romance. They were built without romance in mind.

But in the long nights between missions, when the data feeds quieted and the silence grew heavy… proximity became comfort.

Then instinct.

Then want.

Elira didn't remember the first night clearly. But she remembered his touch—not rough, like his nature might suggest. But controlled. Reverent. As if each moment was a negotiation with himself.

And now?

Now, when she returned from a hard day, she didn't need to check the schedule or file a report. She just knew where to go.

To the heavy door with security clearance level three.To the room thick with wolf-scent and heat.To the arms that waited—not out of command, but desire.

There were no lovers' names etched in Virex records. No data fields for what this was.

Elira never labeled it.Fenrir never spoke of it.

But the way he stood too close in meetings. The way she keyed her terminal to allow his ID access. The way neither of them spoke when they lay beside each other—these were the new codes.

Not written.But known.

And tonight, lying alongside a snoring Fenrir, deep down, buried within her neural subroutines, Elira felt something flickering.

A ghost of a thing that shouldn't exist.

She thought it was affection. But why on this night?