The defect

Chapter2: her name was Natalie

The memory of that day still haunted Liam, playing in his mind like a holovid on an endless

loop. It happened exactly one year ago. Unlike the rainy filled day currently choking Kroy Wen, that morning had been remarkably

clear. A golden sunlight had pierced the upper atmosphere, casting a warm glow over the metalclad streets. Liam had been sitting at his console, nursing a cheap, synthetic coffee, when the high-priority alert chime had first echoed through his headset.

He had clicked to accept the transmission, expecting a routine, low-level firmware glitch.

Instead, his three-dimensional holographic projector hummed to life, and a young woman materialized in the space above his desk.

She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman Liam had ever seen. She was a lightskinned African American woman, likely of mixed heritage, with deep brown eyes that held an intense, almost hypnotic clarity. Her dark hair fell in soft, natural curls around her face, and her features were so striking, that it felt strange that she stays in a lower-sector residential block.

For a few seconds, Liam’s brain completely stalled. His brain, usually capable of calculating

routing pathways in microseconds, was utterly useless. He simply stared. A subtle, amused smirk played on her lips. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I called?” she asked, her voice carrying a dry, sarcastic edge

that cut right through his stupor. Liam felt an instant, hot flush creep up his neck. He scrambled to adjust his headset, nearly

knocking his synthetic coffee onto his physical keyboard. “Yeah—right! Sorry,” he stammered, his fingers frantically tapping commands to hide his embarrassment. “This is the Kroy Wen branch of the Emotional Maintenance Office. My name is... uh, how may I help you today, citizen?”

“Now that is much better,” she said, though the playful light in her eyes suddenly vanished.

A sharp, violent spasm racked her shoulders. “I want to... ahh! Ugh, mmph!” She cried out in pain, her hands flying to the base of her neck where her HAP hardware port

was embedded. Her posture collapsed inward, her knees buckling as she clutched her head, her knuckles turning white with strain.

Liam’s professional instincts kicked in, overriding his awkwardness. While his supervisor AI

always preached clinical detachment, Liam’s chest tightened with a very real, very un-HAPregulated anxiety.“Can you rate your pain on a scale from zero to ten?” Liam asked quickly, his fingers

bringing up her real-time neural telemetry. Her emotional spikes were off the charts, a chaotic

line of red data.

“What kind of... of stupid question is that?” she gasped, her voice thick with irritation and

agony as she struggled to breathe. “How does a number help me right now?”

“It helps me calibrate the remote dampener,” Liam replied, trying to keep his voice steady

and blunt. “I am just doing my job.”

As abruptly as the spasm had arrived, her posture suddenly relaxed. Her hands slowly

dropped from her neck, and the agonizing expression vanished, replaced by a eerie, vacant calm.

The temporary ceasefire of early-stage HAP failure had kicked in, a brief buffer while the

hardware attempted to reboot its emotional suppression protocols.

She blinked, looking at her hands in disbelief, before looking back up at Liam’s terminal

feed. “I am so sorry for the way I just reacted,” she said softly, her voice dropping into a deeply

apologetic, vulnerable register. “I know you’re just trying to help. I’ve just... I've never

experienced anything like this before. My mind suddenly goes completely blank, and then this

sharp, terrifying pain follows. I have no excuse for snapping at you. Please accept my apology.”

Liam waved his hand dismissively, his cheeks burning. “Don't worry about it. Honestly, it

happens all the time. You're dealing with a system error, not a personal failing.”

The moment the words left his mouth, a cold knot of regret coiled in his stomach. Years ago,

after watching his mother’s slow, heartbreaking mental decline and dealing with his own

physical insecurities, Liam had made a strict promise to himself to stay far away from romance.

The emotional detachment of his Click condition made genuine connection feel like a

dangerous, unpredictable hazard. But looking at her, he felt a desperate, irrational urge to throw

every single one of his protective barriers out the window.

“Please...” her voice cut through his internal panic, small and pleading. “Is there any way you

can fix this from there?”

Liam forced himself to look back at his screen, slipping into the familiar, cold corporate

script. “It is completely normal to experience emotional outbursts when your HAP is

malfunctioning. The entire purpose of the HAP is to regulate and suppress the emotional flaws

humanity has struggled with since the dawn of existence.”

He hated saying it. The script was mandatory corporate propaganda, and Liam thought it

was absolute garbage. If humans were so fundamentally flawed, how had they survived long

enough to build Kroy Wen in the first place? In their current society, friendships, casual

conversations, and romantic relationships were all artificially sustained and optimized by the

network. It felt completely fake. He didn't want optimized metrics; he wanted authentic, messy,

real life.“Oh. Good to know,” she said, her face returning to a straight, innocent expression as she

tried to trust the corporate rhetoric. “So, how do we stop the chronic pain?”

“While we were speaking, the automated diagnostics team scanned your device,” Liam

explained, keeping his voice reassuring. “It looks like a standard firmware corruption. A simple

remote patch should clear it up.”

He began to initiate the patch, but halfway through his command, she let out a blood-

curdling shriek. “Ahhhg! Ugh! It’s happening again!”

She collapsed out of her chair, her jaw clenching violently as she began rolling across the

floor of her apartment. It was a horrific sight. The high-fidelity 3D holographic transmission

sent full-body sensory impulses to his station, making her screams and the sound of her body

hitting the floor feel terrifyingly real.

An alert flashed on his screen. The diagnostic program had completely miscalculated. The

corruption wasn't firmware—it was a catastrophic structural degradation of the HAP core itself.

“Warning,” the system's synthetic voice chimed. “Deploying N.E.S.T. unit (Neural

Emergency Stabilization Team) to coordinates.”

The N.E.S.T. was an elite tactical-medical division, comprised of high-grade androids and

specialist human operatives trained to handle severe, violent neural crises. Thanks to the high-

altitude emergency lanes, a N.E.S.T. cruiser would reach her apartment in less than two

minutes. But until they arrived, Liam was the only link keeping her grounded.

Panic clawed at his throat. “Take deep breaths,” Liam urged, gasping for air himself as he

watched her writhe.

“Please, help me!” she choked out, her eyes wide with a pure, unadulterated terror she had

never been allowed to feel before.

Liam’s mind went completely blank. Then, out of nowhere, a memory of his late father

surfaced. 'The marching hands of time are slow, Liam, but they are consistent. Nature obeys this

rule, but man always tries to rush the process, creating complex solutions to solve problems that

were never there.'

Liam locked his eyes onto her trembling holographic form and spoke in a calm, assertive

tone. “Human beings have controlled their own emotions for thousands of years without the

help of an external processor. The pain you are feeling right now is just the sudden influx of your

own original thoughts. If you can't master your own mind without a machine, then you don't

have the right to call yourself human. Fight it!”

A priority red notification flashed from his supervisor AI: UNAUTHORIZED SPEECH

DETECTED. DIRECT VIOLATION OF PROTOCOL. Liam ignored it, his focus entirely locked on

her.The woman gasped, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp anger. “You think you're so

smart! If humans don't need help controlling themselves, then why were there four great wars in

less than two centuries? Why were millions of people slaughtered all in the name of honor?”

Liam sat there, completely dumbfounded by her fiery counterargument.

“No response, just as I expected,” she added heavily, her breathing still ragged but noticeably

steadier.

A slow smirk crept onto Liam’s face. “I notice your headache is gone.”

She paused, a look of realization washing over her features. The pain had vanished the

moment her mind had actively engaged in the argument. Slowly, she pushed herself off the floor

and sat back in her chair.

My theory was correct, Liam thought triumphantly. The catastrophic migraines weren't a

virus destroying her brain; they were just the shock of her mind adjusting to functioning on its

own natural power.

“Even if humanity goes to extremes,” Liam said softly, looking her straight in the eyes

through the projector, “that doesn't mean our natural reactions are evil. I’ve read historical

archives about how love and friendships used to be genuine and authentic. Just because a

feeling is strange and new doesn't mean it’s bad. Remember that. Let’s face this obstacle

together until the medics arrive.”

Her expression softened, a visible weight lifting from her shoulders. But just as she opened

her mouth to reply, a massive crash echoed through her audio feed.

The door to Natalie's apartment exploded inward. Five figures flooded through the opening.

The first one tripped.

“Dumbass,” a woman snapped.

The giant man caught himself against the wall, nearly bringing the doorframe down with

him. “The floor is slippery.”

“Your feet are the problem.”

“Enough.”

The argument died instantly. The man who had spoken stepped through the group. Liam

knew him before he even saw his face. Henry. The Specimen.

Even after a year, Liam recognized the calm voice. The academy's perfect student. The man

who had never once remembered Liam's name correctly.

“Sam,” Henry said. “Stabilize her.”A woman stepped past him. At first glance, she looked human. Then her fingers split open. A

thin raecemium interface extended from her index finger and slid into the port at the base of

Natalie's neck.

“Localized hardware degradation,” she said. Her voice was flat and clinical. “No extraction

required.”

Liam stared at the feed. Of course. Samantha didn't need a medical team. She was the

medical team.

“Max, secure the room.” The giant operative straightened immediately.

“Alisha, perimeter.”

“Already on it.” The small woman moved before Henry had even finished speaking.

Jacob was the last one Liam noticed. He had already dropped beside Natalie, checking her

vitals and preparing the sedative with the tired efficiency of someone who had done this too

many times.

Five people. Five different ways of dealing with a crisis. And somehow, Henry was the one

Liam kept watching.

Liam let out a massive breath of relief. On screen, Henry glanced up, his eyes catching the

terminal feed.

“Lam? Is that you?” Henry asked, a polite, entirely perfect smile crossing his face. “Long

time no see. I know you must have been terrified handling a category-four failure, but don't

worry, we've got it fully controlled now.”

Before Liam could even attempt to correct his name, the young woman pushed herself up,

ignoring the elite tactical squad entirely. She walked straight toward the holographic

transmitter, her eyes locking directly onto Liam.

“Lam, right?” she asked.

Liam started stuttering, desperate to explain his real identity and correct Henry’s mistake,

but she just laughed—a warm, genuine sound that lit up the entire room.

“Natalie,” she said.

Liam blinked, visibly confused. “What?”

“That's my name, silly,” she smiled. “It’s Natalie. You wanted to know earlier, didn't you?”

A slow, real smile broke across Liam's face. “I’m glad you're feeling better, Natalie.”Even though his console was currently flashing a notice of fifty strikes, a one-week

suspension, and a devastating forty percent pay cut, Liam didn't care. That moment changed everything. Because that was the day he met Natalie.