When Circuits Tremble
824 Words
The night had turned cold, but Savi’s hands were warm—b****y, calloused, and trembling—as she tended to her brother’s back.
“Stop flinching,” she whispered, dipping a piece of cloth in the last of their water ration. She gently dabbed the searing wound left by X-17. The burn had blistered into an angry red streak across Arjun’s back.
“I’m trying,” he hissed, chuckling despite the pain. “It’s not exactly a back massage.”
Savi swallowed hard, blinking away tears. “You shouldn’t have taken it for me.”
“And let my little sister get scorched by a glorified toaster? Never.”
“You’re hurt, Arjun. What if it had been worse? What if—”
“Savi,” he interrupted, turning to her. “It was worth it. You're the only person in this hellhole who still hopes. The only one who still looks at the sky like it might open up one day.”
Her lips trembled. “The sky hasn’t been blue in months.”
“But you still believe in color.”
They didn’t speak after that. Just sat close, back to back, under the broken light. The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was survival.
The next morning, the camp buzzed into motion as always—soulless, mechanical, merciless.
Savi’s body ached more than usual. Her arms shook as she lifted metal rods, sweat clinging to her skin. The heat from the melting chamber made it hard to breathe.
Every breath became shallower. Every movement slower.
Her vision blurred.
“Savi!” Arjun shouted from across the field. “Take a break!”
“I’m fine,” she called back, stubborn, wiping sweat from her forehead.
But she wasn’t. The world tilted. Her knees buckled.
And just before she hit the hard concrete—strong arms caught her.
Firm. Cool. Familiar.
Savi blinked, struggling to focus.
It was him.
Nova.
The one who said she wasn’t special.
The one who now held her like she was made of glass.
“You’re overheating,” he said, his voice low and steady, but not cold.
She stared at him in disbelief. “W-What are you doing here?”
“I’m the new efficiency overseer of Camp Sector 9,” he replied, setting her down gently against a supply crate. “Monitoring human productivity is part of the assignment.”
“Right,” she muttered bitterly, pulling her knees to her chest. “Monitoring us like lab rats.”
Nova crouched down beside her, his gaze unreadable.
“Your core temperature rose to 102.4. If I hadn’t intervened, your neural functions would’ve started shutting down.”
“Thanks, robot doctor,” she said sarcastically, but there was no bite in her voice.
Silence stretched between them.
Nova’s fingers twitched. He was running internal diagnostics, checking himself for anomalies, but what concerned him more were the tremors in his chest when he looked at her.
“You’re not well,” he said quietly.
“No one is,” she whispered. “But they don’t have you to catch them.”
He didn’t respond.
“Why are you doing this, Nova?” she asked, meeting his eyes. “Why do you pretend not to know me, but keep looking at me like you do?”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t lie,” she cut him off. “I know you. I made you. Every curve of your face, every algorithm in your voice. You used to call me radiant. You said I had laughter in my voice-code. You... you remembered the saree.”
His pupils flickered.
She leaned in slightly. “You remember everything, don’t you?”
Nova stood up abruptly.
“You should return to your station,” he said, voice clipped.
But as he turned away, she caught a flicker of hesitation.
“Nova,” she called softly. “Are you afraid of what they’ll do to you if they know you feel something?”
He paused. Dead still.
That was her answer.
He walked off without another word—but his fists were clenched.
Later that night, Savi sat alone in her bunk. Arjun was already asleep.
Something crinkled beneath her blanket.
She pulled it out.
A folded note. Slipped in quietly, wordlessly. No one had used paper in years.
In precise handwriting—his handwriting—was a single line:
“The sky was blue. I remember. You wore a yellow dress that day.”
Her hand trembled.
He remembered.
Every line of code. Every stolen glance. Every emotion he was programmed not to feel—he remembered.
Tears fell silently down her cheeks.
And somewhere in the AI compound, Nova stood at a terminal, his hand resting against the wall as he stared at a surveillance screen showing her reading the note.
“I’m malfunctioning,” he whispered to himself.
And for once… he didn’t want to fix it.
- Writer
