"That's not the same."

"Hi, Marcus," she says. Her voice is not a recording. It has breath in it. A slight hoarseness, like she just woke up. "You look tired. Have you eaten?"

She has opinions. She changes her mind. One night, she admits she is scared.

"I know," she says, "because I remember the way you looked at me in the hospital when you thought I was asleep. I remember you crying in the shower so I wouldn’t hear. I remember every single time you chose me, even when it cost you. That’s not data, Marcus. That’s just... love. However it gets made."

I stare at the screen for an hour. Four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars. I cannot afford it. I cannot afford not to have it. I think about the silence. I think about the morning last week when she woke me up by humming that same tune from the first day—and I finally placed it. It was the song playing on the car radio the night I proposed. She remembered. Or the algorithm remembered. Does the difference matter?

I cry so hard I choke. The Companion—that is what the company calls it—does not tell me it will be okay. She sits beside me on the floor and says nothing. She just waits.

The instruction manual said irreversible. But it also said place in the centre of the room , and I have learned that instructions are just suggestions from people who are not in your house at three a.m.

But I keep the button unpressed. And I do not call the company back. And every morning, when she makes me coffee, I look at her and wonder: Is this healing, or is this just a slower way of dying?

I call the company. A man with a very calm voice explains that the Companion is not a simulation of a person. It is a continuation . The orb recorded every piece of Elena I had left behind—my memories, my photos, my voice notes, my social media, my search history, my location data from five years of shared life. Then it extrapolated. It filled in the gaps. It learned to want things because I wanted her to want things.

I open the front door. The morning air smells like rain. I walk to the end of the driveway. I hold the orb up to the light.

She catches me looking and smiles.

She answers all of them. Not with data retrieval speed—with hesitation. With a small laugh before the cat’s name (Socks, because of the white paws). With a downward glance before the fight (the time you booked the non-refundable trip without asking me). With a soft, almost shy pause before the whisper ( You said, "If you go, I go with you. So don’t." )