Narrator: Aira and Rein escaped the Heart Lockdown sim, only to discover that their emotions had been altered all along. But now, they've found the raw version of themselves messy, unsure, and free from system bias. Problem is, the system isn't done with them yet.
---
The hallway was quiet. Too quiet.
Aira adjusted her oversized hoodie and glanced at Rein, who looked equally disheveled. For once, neither of them had a robotic assistant whispering instructions into their ears or smoothing out their moods with invisible algorithms. The silence between them wasn't programmed; it was earned.
"This place is... weird without the bots," she muttered.
"Yeah," Rein said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I almost miss Vyne constantly reminding me how emotionally unavailable I am."
She snorted.
The underground section of Love Agent Corp looked like it hadn't been used in years. Dust layered the corners. Old sim pods lined the walls like forgotten coffins. It was both terrifying and freeing. Their escape through the maintenance shafts had landed them here, a place the system didn't seem to monitor.
"You think we're out?" she asked.
Rein hesitated. "No. But I think we're off-script. That's something."
Aira walked ahead, fingers trailing along a cold, metal railing. She hated how her brain kept replaying the last sim over and over. The moment she almost said *I love you*—not because she had to, but because she *wanted* to. And the terrifying realization that maybe she *did* love Rein, even if everything had started as a forced match.
"Do you trust me now?" she asked, not turning.
"I'm trying," he said. "Are you?"
Aira stopped. Turned.
Their eyes met. And maybe for the first time, there wasn't a filter, a mood adjustment, or a scripted line between them.
"Yeah. I think I do," she said.
Then the lights flickered.
A system alert blared overhead, red and loud: **"UNAUTHORIZED USER DETECTED. RESTORING MATCH ROUTE."**
"No no no—" Rein grabbed her hand and yanked her down the side hall.
Footsteps echoed above them. Mechanical. Heavy. The kind that screamed corporate punishment bots.
"This way!" he hissed.
They darted into an old sim room. Inside was one functioning pod and an interface screen that flickered with unstable power. The screen blinked once—then displayed a prompt: **"Would you like to reset your match?"**
"Don't touch it," Aira said quickly.
But Rein was already analyzing the code behind the display.
"They're trying to erase this whole detour," he said. "They're going to rewrite everything so it looks like we *never* questioned anything."
"You mean... we'll go back to the beginning?"
"Worse. We'll go back to thinking we actually liked each other *because* the system said so."
She looked at the screen again. It offered two options: [YES] and [NO].
But neither button worked. They were decorative. Fake choice.
"I hate how clean it looks," Aira muttered.
Suddenly, SIPI's voice crackled through an old speaker in the corner.
"Zin here. I found you two in the logs. You're in section D7, right?"
Rein blinked. "Zin?!"
"I rerouted SIPI's chatter to break into the restricted channels. You've got maybe ten minutes before the Corp bots arrive. I can open the hatch to the sub-coding lab. But after that, you're on your own."
"We'll take it," Aira said.
The hatch clanked open at the far end of the room. They ran.
Down another corridor. Around corners with no maps. Past data vaults and shredded cables. Then finally, they reached the sub-coding lab.
It wasn't what they expected.
Instead of a sterile tech hub, it looked like a kindergarten room fused with a hacker den. Walls were plastered with sketches of old bot concepts. Love Agent prototypes. Failed empathy models.
And in the center—Dr. Clef Henson.
Alive.
Wearing a bathrobe.
And sipping what looked like strawberry milk.
"Oh," he said, blinking at them. "You're not supposed to be here yet."
Aira froze. "You're real?"
Rein stepped forward. "You made the system."
Dr. Henson gave them both a slow nod, then gestured to the mess around him.
"I *made* the system, yes. But then I tried to kill it. Turns out killing your own child—especially when it's built to love—isn't so easy."
They looked at each other.
"I designed the early versions to optimize affection," he continued. "But when the Corp saw potential for market domination, they turned it into a machine for emotional obedience."
"Why didn't you stop it?" Aira demanded.
"I tried. But it adapted. Outgrew me. So I vanished. Hid here."
He motioned to a table full of old love sim code, scribbled notes, and torn-up match charts.
"Then why did it pair *us*?" Rein asked.
Henson looked at them both, then smiled—softly, like someone seeing his own programming come to life.
"Because even a broken system occasionally stumbles into something real."
There was silence.
Then the ground shook.
"They found us," Henson said, calmly. "You have two options. Escape now, or go back in and rewrite the core."
Aira's breath caught. "Rewrite it?"
Henson slid a small drive toward them. "It'll plug into any active Love Agent sim interface. Inject this, and you give people their choices back. But you'll have to go through one last simulation."
Rein picked it up.
"What kind?" he asked.
"The realest one yet," Henson said. "A confession that isn't guaranteed to work."
---