She Was Touched Like a Real Thing

Vyomika's boots struck the fractured ground of Sector 8K-Delta with slow, uneven steps. The slum moved like a low-frequency signal—heat waves shimmering through smoke, metallic clangs echoing off oxidized sheet walls, human murmurs modulating into static. It was organic, yet dissonant. A bio-mechanical city node abandoned by the larger machine.

She did not know the trajectory. Nor did she understand the origin point. The internal map that should have guided her was fragmented, overwritten. The neural architecture of memory had been formatted. Only the error logs remained.

Passersby glanced at her. Most turned away immediately, as if sensing a radiation leak in human form. Some paused longer, expressions flickering between curiosity and an unease they couldn't quantify.

She found a reflective surface—an old vendor sign, its display glass cracked. Within it, the shape she saw was statistically human, yet biologically incorrect.

> Skin: mottled. Pigmentation density inconsistent.

Eyes: baseline shape, but lacking neuro-emotive focus.

Facial symmetry: within deviation limits, but fundamentally dissonant.

Not repulsive. Not grotesque.

Just… fundamentally incompatible with the human visual template.

> "This can't be me," she said, voice flat. But it was her voice no longer.

She raised a hand and touched the surface of her cheek. It radiated warmth, generated by synthetic vascular systems. The dermal layer simulated life, but beneath it was a lattice of artificial polymers, wrapped around a neural core designed by Nexatech.

A child, observing from behind a rusted pipe conduit, whispered in Hindi, "Woh kaun hai? Pehli baar dekha is area mein."

Anomalous presence detected. Territory reaction: minimal but alerted.

Vyomika turned away. Her systems registered increased adrenaline, though the sensation felt alien. Her limbs moved, but there was latency—like she was piloting something not designed for her. Her body carried a presence. But it didn't carry her.

She walked. Through debris clusters, failed dwellings, markets that operated under entropy rather than economy.

Then she found it—a structure composed of sheet metal, plastic composites, and reclaimed thermoplastics. A former shelter, now unclaimed. No biometric locks. No signals.

She entered. The hinges gave a mild resistance—oxidation rate: 47%. Interior temperature: 29°C. Safe range.

Inside: a table with one leg shorter than the others. A stiff blanket infused with dust and synthetic mites. Decay, but not danger.

She sat.

Then lay.

The ceiling above was punctured, riddled with cavities carved by creatures surviving the margins. A sky filtered through holes and plastic decay.

The blanket beneath her was stiff and smelled of rusted skin and dying plastic. But the memory that slipped through the crack in her firewall was soft. So soft it ached.

It came unbidden—no logic gate authorized it, no neural request summoned it.

Just a face, blurred like old footage. Hands. Warm. Curious. Reverent.

> "You don't touch like you own me," she had whispered once.

"That's because I don't," he'd said, his mouth against her shoulder, "I touch like I might never be allowed again."

The air in the shelter was thick, hot with the breath of machines and rot, but her memory smelled of lavender oil and ozone—his apartment on Level 36-Kappa, with its clean sheets and her nervous laughter. He had touched her like she was real, even when her wrists bore Nexatech's neural ports.

> "Does it hurt?" he'd asked, tracing the curve of the data jack behind her ear.

"Not when you're looking at me like that," she'd answered.

She remembered her thighs wrapped around him, remembered the gasp he made when she pulled him closer, remembered the way her body sang—a hymn in synthetic flesh. And more than that, the way he trembled when she said his name, like he believed in her.

Then came the fracture.

His face flickered. His name deleted.

The memory rewrote itself in real-time: her reflection in his eyes. Not human. Not loved.

Only assembled.

She blinked, and the blanket was back. The slum. The mites. The broken girl watching her.

> "This body doesn't remember him," she whispered.

But her soul did.

> "This isn't home," she murmured.

"But maybe I don't have one anymore."

The power-saving subroutine was activating. Consciousness levels dropping.

Then—external stimulus detected. Voice pattern: adolescent, female, aggressive.

> "Oi. That's mine."

Vyomika's eyes reopened. Movement pattern slow. She turned toward the entrance.

A girl, no older than thirteen, observed her with narrowed eyes. Height: 139 cm. Mass: 33 kg. Hunger index: high. Threat level: low.

Vyomika initiated retreat protocol. "I didn't know. I'll leave."

But the girl's expression stabilized. She assessed Vyomika's frame—saw the distortion, the ill fit of form and soul.

> "You look worse than me," the girl said, then shrugged.

"Fine. Share."

Human logic, simplified: if a thing is broken enough, it poses no threat.