Dv-874 -

Now I sit in a derelict relay station on the edge of a dead sector. The device is warm against my skin—still recording, though its official log says decommissioned . It has begun to pulse. Once every seventeen seconds. The same rhythm as her heartbeat when she used to fall asleep on my shoulder.

I spoke her frequency. Not her voice, but the shape of the silence she left behind. The way a room changes when someone who loved you has just walked out. The air turns brittle. The light leans wrong. dv-874

They are coming to wipe me. To reset dv-874 to factory zero. Now I sit in a derelict relay station

Then the recall order came. "Purge all emotional residue. dv-874 is non-compliant." Once every seventeen seconds

For seventy-three cycles, I wore the device against my floating rib. It learned to dream my memories: the smell of rain on hot asphalt, the click of her heels on the third stair, the half-smile she gave when she knew I was lying about being fine.