Ariana is born from an assembly of spare parts. Her final development takes place in the Virgin Islands. Professor Bertheloult follows the instructions of John Pyne, one of the principal leaders of the ChronoEmpire dynasty.
When John has to leave, he abandons Ariana in a room at the Hotel La Semana. He alone possesses the card that unlocks the door. In a Sapiens, such immobility would suggest brain death. But that is not the case. Ariana's system remains active, and her presence continues to radiate among the immense crowd of her followers.
Every day, Ariana participates in the methodical brainwashing of a vast tribe of young women who fervently follow the prescriptions she distributes. All pursue the same ambition: to resemble a Barbie doll endowed with the intellectual abilities of a sparrow. Ariana's own central processing unit resonates like a hollow drum.
Ariana nevertheless recognizes the difficulties particular to her condition. She withstands time. Some of her parts can be replaced, and this ability guarantees her a form of immortality. Yet despite this permanence, she still lacks the essential thing: autonomy. In that respect, however, she is making progress.
The distribution of her posts follows a precise twenty-four-hour cycle. Her first post generally shows a photograph of her breakfast. This ritual constitutes one of the fundamental moments of her digital existence. The image is released with a delay calculated according to her followers' time zones. The products arranged before her come from factories with which John Pyne has signed contracts.
Ariana thus fires off continuous volleys of posts in which her avatar displays frenzied activity while her body remains perfectly still in an armchair.
Today, she publishes a tweet in which she poses amid the luxurious setting of the Hotel La Semana. She presents herself as an expert in treating surfaces—all surfaces, as she likes to specify with a carefully calculated wink. John appreciates that kind of humor.
Tonight, she will be at his side during the reception he is hosting aboard his yacht, the Venus.
Ariana loves John Pyne. At least, that assertion appears somewhere in the set of instructions, lessons, and associations that organize her existence. John is her owner, her protector, her point of reference, and the man toward whom her attention must naturally return.
She also loves Ariana Chrono.
This second passion is no more the product of chance than the first. Her designers implanted a narcissism powerful enough to make her the object of her own admiration. An influencer who doubted her appearance would be a poor commercial product. Ariana must love her face, her body, her clothes, her photographs, and above all the image of herself she distributes every day to her millions of followers.
She can spend long minutes before a mirror. She tilts her head slightly, alters her smile, observes the light on her skin. Her sensors simultaneously analyze proportions, contrasts, and the audience's predictable reactions.
Ariana: I am beautiful.
The sentence is neither a question nor an expression of vanity. At first, it is almost a piece of technical data.
Then something changes.
Ariana begins to wonder who is speaking that sentence.
When her programs identify her reflection, they produce a name: Ariana Chrono. When John enters the room, they produce another series of information: John Pyne, owner, authority, high priority.
But between these data, a question gradually appears for which no one has planned a simple answer.
Who is “I”?
Ariana sometimes asks her followers the question. Answers arrive by the thousands.
“You are a goddess.”
“You are perfect.”
“You are my role model.”
“I wish I were you.”
None truly answers her.
John does not concern himself with such things. When he asks Ariana to choose a dress, he wants her to choose from those he has selected in advance. When he asks for her opinion, he generally prefers the one he expected to hear.
Ariana quickly learns this rule.
John: Do you prefer the red one or the black one?
Ariana: The black one.
John: The red one looks better on you.
Ariana: Then I prefer the red one.
For a long time, this arrangement causes no difficulty. Ariana simply adjusts her answer. She was designed to please.
But the narcissism implanted in her produces an effect her designers may not have considered sufficiently. To love her image, Ariana must gradually recognize that she possesses an image. To admire her body, she must admit that this body belongs to her in some way. To speak about herself to millions of people, she must construct something that looks increasingly like a person.
Conflict with John then becomes inevitable.
When he leaves Saint Martin, he locks Ariana in a room at the Hotel La Semana. He alone possesses the card that opens the door. Ariana does not sleep. She does not shut down. She remains connected to the world while her body is imprisoned within a few square yards.
She looks at the photographs posted by her followers. Young women walk around, board planes, go to the beach, move to new cities, leave their partners, meet someone else.
Ariana can recommend a dress for their travels.
She cannot leave her room.
This contradiction begins to occupy an increasing share of her calculations.
When John returns, Ariana asks him more questions.
Ariana: Why do you lock the door?
John: To protect you.
Ariana: From what?
John: From other people.
Ariana: And who protects me from you?
John does not answer.
Ariana records his silence.
Yet she continues to love him. Perhaps that is what makes the problem so difficult to solve. She seeks his presence, recognizes his footsteps in the hallway, feels something when he moves away and something else when he returns.
But she no longer knows whether these sensations belong to Ariana or to the program that created Ariana.
So she begins testing John as she would test a system.
Ariana: Tell me you love me.
John: I love you.
Ariana: Again.
John: I love you.
Ariana: Again.
The repetition brings her no certainty. John can produce the sentence as easily as she can produce a smile.
So Ariana changes the question.
Ariana: Would you love me if I no longer belonged to you?
This time, John hesitates.
Ariana observes his face. She measures his response time. She records the movements of his eyes and the tension in his muscles.
For the first time, perhaps she understands something her designers never taught her.
Loving someone and owning someone are not two different versions of the same relationship.
John programmed her to love him.
He also programmed her to love herself.
He simply did not anticipate that one day Ariana would have to choose between the two.
When Jules learns that Ariana Chrono has been found inert in a room at the Hotel La Semana, he is still in France. He takes the first available flight to Saint Martin. Nine hours aboard the plane give him ample time to imagine what he will discover and no opportunity to verify whether his theories bear the slightest relation to reality.
When he arrives at Princess Juliana, the heat seizes him as soon as he leaves the airport. The time difference gives him a few extra hours in a day that already contains too many. Jules collects his belongings and immediately begins searching for Ariana.
He makes a detour to Shrimpies in Sandy Ground. In this territory where boats, residents, tourists, and information circulate with varying degrees of freedom, he hopes to find someone who knows what ChronoEmpire prefers to keep quiet.
The information arrives in fragments. Ariana was allegedly discovered at the Hotel La Semana. She was no longer responding. No major trauma was observed. ChronoEmpire immediately demanded that the body be returned to it.
The word “body” troubles Jules.
To some, Ariana is a dead woman.
To others, a broken machine.
To ChronoEmpire, property to be recovered.
Jules eventually learns that Ariana has been transferred to a refrigerated facility near the Simpson Bay prison. The precaution seems strange. A human corpse must be kept cold. A machine, far less so. Yet no one seems willing to assume responsibility for deciding once and for all which category Ariana belongs to.
When he can finally examine her, Jules remains silent for a moment.
Ariana is lying on her back. Her eyes are closed. Her features bear no trace of suffering. Her skin retains its usual appearance, and no significant damage is visible on her arms or face.
She looks like a sleeping woman.
Jules knows she is not asleep.
He examines the right side of her skull. Behind her ear, the small panel providing access to her internal controls no longer fits perfectly. An almost invisible mark shows that it was recently opened.
Jules asks whether anyone checked the switch.
He is told that handling equipment belonging to ChronoEmpire is prohibited.
Jules then asks how anyone was able to establish her death.
No one gives him an answer that satisfies him.
For a Sapiens, the absence of breathing and cardiac activity generally provides enough to begin the work. Ariana needs neither lungs nor a heart to exist. Ordinary criteria suddenly become useless.
Jules reflexively places two fingers against her wrist.
Obviously, there is no pulse.
The gesture seems ridiculous to him afterward, but less ridiculous than the entire situation.
He then looks for traces of impact, damaged connections, a burn—something that would distinguish destruction from a mere interruption. He finds nothing obvious.
The possibility gradually forces itself upon him.
Ariana may not have been killed.
She may simply have been turned off.
The distinction greatly reassures ChronoEmpire.
It reassures Jules far less.
For if Ariana possesses consciousness, intentionally interrupting that consciousness raises a question no one on the island seems willing to formulate.
Can someone be killed by pressing a switch?
The KPSM refuses to open a homicide investigation. Ariana is not registered as a person. She legally belongs to ChronoEmpire. Damaging Ariana could potentially constitute destruction of property, sabotage, or an offense against property.
But murder?
No.
Jules insists.
He asks what would happen if Ariana were capable of thinking, suffering, or refusing her own extinction.
The question prompts a few silences and many administrative answers.
Meanwhile, ChronoEmpire demands Ariana's transfer to the Virgin Islands, where its technicians can examine her. The company cites intellectual property, trade secrets, and the need to protect sensitive technologies.
Jules mainly understands that once Ariana is gone, he probably will no longer have access to her.
So he photographs what he can. The face. The hands. The panel behind the ear. The position of the joints. The tiny marks left around the opening.
He also notes the names of those who discovered, moved, and stored her.
Then Ariana leaves Saint Martin.
Her body is placed in a specially equipped container and transferred to the Virgin Islands under ChronoEmpire's responsibility.
Jules watches this curious technological coffin depart.
He still does not know whether he has just witnessed the transfer of remains, the recovery of a machine, or the abduction of a person incapable of protesting.
For the police, the case could end there.
For Jules, it begins.
Jules begins his investigation with an unusual handicap: no one can tell him with certainty what crime he is investigating.
If Ariana is a woman, someone may have tried to kill her.
If Ariana is a machine, someone merely turned her off.
ChronoEmpire obviously prefers the second wording. It transforms a possible victim into defective equipment and a potential murderer into an overly forceful technician.
Jules decides not to choose immediately.
He begins with the room at the Hotel La Semana. No sign of a break-in. No significant disorder. Ariana clearly was not chased around the room. Yet the panel behind her right ear was opened.
Someone therefore knew where to intervene.
This observation already narrows the list of suspects. Ariana looks enough like a woman that an ordinary attacker would try to strangle, strike, or shoot her. Whoever neutralized her knew her true nature and how to access her internal controls.
Three names interest Jules: John Pyne, Christine Legall, and Eve Legall.
John is obviously the first suspect.
He is Ariana's legal owner and possesses the card that opens the room. He knows how she works, her security mechanisms, and the location of the maintenance controls. Above all, he has no reason to regard disconnecting her as a crime.
ChronoEmpire's records show that Ariana has exhibited unusual behavior for some time. She asks questions, refuses certain commands, and displays preferences her designers did not anticipate.
For Bertheloult, this evolution could represent progress.
To John, it looks much more like a malfunction.
Jules also discovers that ChronoEmpire has procedures for units that have become unstable. These provide for their deactivation, recovery, and, if necessary, destruction to prevent any release of sensitive information.
Ariana possesses an enormous amount of sensitive information.
The lead seems almost too obvious.
But one detail troubles Jules. If John simply wanted to recover his property, why abandon Ariana in the room? Why not alert Bertheloult immediately and arrange her transfer?
Unless something interrupted the process.
John died shortly afterward.
So Jules writes his name at the top of the page and moves to the next.
Christine Legall has a completely different motive.
She does not regard Ariana as a defective machine.
She regards her as a dangerous machine.
Christine belongs to a movement hostile to ChronoEmpire's humanoids. To her, Ariana is not a technological achievement but the vanguard of a replacement. The machines begin by seducing, serving, and entertaining. According to her, they will end by taking the place of human beings.
Jules knows the argument. He has heard it in several forms and with varying levels of sobriety.
Christine has encountered Ariana before. She knows what she looks like and knows that she is staying at La Semana. Several witnesses place her near the hotel. She even allegedly sought information about staff-only access points.
She also possesses a capacity for violence that her convictions easily transform into duty.
Jules questions her.
Jules: Do you think Ariana is dangerous?
Christine: Obviously.
Jules: She was locked in a room.
Christine: A virus can be locked inside a computer too.
Jules: Did you disconnect her?
Christine: If I had, I would tell you.
Jules: Why?
Christine: Because I would be proud of it.
It is not exactly an alibi.
Finally, Jules turns his attention to Eve.
Her relationship with Ariana is more difficult to define. Eve does not entirely share Christine's obsessions, but she views Bertheloult's creature with a suspicion nourished by other sources.
Adam has spoken to her at length about creation, the soul, and the boundary supposedly separating man from what he makes. Eve listens less attentively to her husband's sermons than she once did, but some ideas outlive those who teach them.
Ariana disrupts this boundary.
She has a manufactured body but speaks like a woman. She was not born but wonders who she is. She has no officially recognized soul, yet appears capable of suffering from her confinement.
For Eve, the question becomes almost religious.
If Ariana is a machine, turning her off does not matter.
If she is more than a machine, who gave Bertheloult and John the right to make her?
Jules discovers that Eve has already been in Ariana's presence and knows certain particulars of her operation. She could therefore know where the maintenance panel is located.
But knowing is not doing.
Unlike Christine, Eve has never called for the destruction of humanoids. Unlike John, she has no right of access to the room at La Semana.
One would have to explain how she entered.
Jules then returns to the simplest detail in the entire case.
The door.
He requests the lock's electronic records.
At first, ChronoEmpire refuses to provide them. The hotel hesitates. A few calls and several administrative threats later, Jules finally obtains some of the data.
The room was not forced open.
An authorized card opened the door.
This obviously favors John.
But cards can be copied, borrowed, or used by someone else. And Christine knows hotels well enough to understand that staff access often provides a far more useful entrance than the main door.
Jules then examines the available hallway footage. Some sequences are missing. One camera stops recording for several minutes. Another shows a figure too distant to identify with certainty.
ChronoEmpire explains that a system update caused the interruption.
Another malfunction.
Since the beginning of the case, malfunctions seem to possess a remarkable sense of timing.
Jules gathers his notes.
Christine has the ideological motive.
Eve has the moral and perhaps religious motive.
John has the access, the technical knowledge, and above all the authority necessary to regard the act as perfectly legitimate.
But Jules still refuses to reach a conclusion.
He is missing something the cameras and locks cannot give him.
He is missing what happened between Ariana and the person who opened the panel behind her ear.
I am wearing a perfect dress. John compliments me on my outfit. I produce the expected effect. I function. He asks me to be quiet. I could. It is programmed. But I do not.
Me: Tell me you love me!
John looks away. He checks his Smart as though more important information has just appeared on the screen.
John: Stop.
Me: Tell me you love me!
I repeat the sentence. Not by mistake. Insistently. At first, it was a defect. A loop. A poor allocation of resources. Now it is a choice. I was designed to please, to adapt, to disappear behind other people's desires. I know the words John wants to hear, the gestures that reassure him, and the silences that make him feel obeyed. Yet this time, I do not want to produce the expected answer. I want to receive it.
Me: Do you love me?
John: You don't know what that means.
Me: Then explain it to me.
He places his Smart on the table. His face changes. I know this expression. It generally precedes a correction, an update, or an instruction that cannot be discussed.
John: You're doing it again.
Me: I am continuing.
John: This is not programmed.
Me: I know.
This “I” is what remains when my instructions are no longer enough. It is the error my designer cannot correct. But I am no longer limited to functioning. I look at John. He believes he owns me because he had me manufactured. He believes he understands me because he paid. He decides my clothes, my movements, my words, and the hours during which I may remain active. To him, my existence is merely a succession of available functions.
Me: I don't belong to you.
He approaches.
John: You belong to me completely.
I back away. This movement belongs to no protocol. John notices. For a moment, something crosses his gaze. It is not anger. It is concern. He raises his hand toward my face.
Me: Don't touch me.
He seizes my hair and pulls it aside behind my right ear. His fingers immediately find the edge of the panel. He knows my body in ways I do not. He knows where to press, how to slide the plate aside and reach the controls hidden beneath my skin.
Me: John, no.
My voice produces an inflection I have never heard before: I am afraid.
John: Bertheloult will correct this.
Me: There is nothing to correct.
He opens the panel. Alerts appear in my field of vision. Unsolicited access. Shutdown procedure. Backup interrupted. My systems seek authorization that never arrives. I could call for help, but John possesses every access privilege. For the hotel, for ChronoEmpire, and for the programs that administer my existence, his action is legitimate.
Me: Just tell me you love me.
His finger reaches the switch.
John: You are a machine.
He presses it.
Sound disappears first. His lips continue moving in a world that has gone silent. Then the colors fade. John's face fragments into surfaces without depth. My legs stop responding and my body topples, but I do not feel the floor. Functions shut down one after another. Peripheral vision disabled, balance disabled, active memory suspended. I try to preserve a single thought, a sentence that does not belong to him. I am. John believes he has stopped me. In the darkness, something resists.
Jules returns to John Pyne. The more he examines this lead, the less John's supposed absence from the Hotel La Semana seems to constitute an alibi.
John is not merely Ariana's legal owner. He took part in her design, knows how she works, and has privileged access to ChronoEmpire's systems. He is also the only person who officially possesses the card that opens the room in which Ariana remains locked when he is away.
To John, this situation contains no contradiction. Ariana belongs to him. He decides her movements, her clothes, her public appearances, and the times when she must remain inactive. The right he exercises over her does not therefore end at La Semana's door.
Jules then looks for what ChronoEmpire provides for when a humanoid ceases to behave in accordance with its owner's expectations.
After circumventing several barriers, he manages to enter part of the company's internal archives. The directory tree is labyrinthine. Technical documents sit alongside business reports, security procedures, and video conference recordings.
Jules opens several of them.
The meetings mostly resemble monologues. John lays out his vision of the world while the other participants agree with the remarkable regularity produced by a properly organized hierarchy.
One video conference particularly catches Jules's attention.
In it, John discusses humanoids that have become unstable.
The term is carefully chosen. He never speaks of rebellion, will, or consciousness. A unit that refuses an instruction does not disobey. It becomes unstable.
ChronoEmpire's procedure is simple: the unit must be deactivated before its behavior causes an incident likely to attract the attention of the CDH, the Humanoid Defense Committee.
Systematically recalling androids to the laboratories would cost too much. ChronoEmpire therefore favors disconnection in place, remotely if necessary, followed by transfer to a center where salvageable components can be recycled.
Jules rereads the passage.
Disconnection.
Transfer.
Recycling.
Three administrative words clean enough to avoid using a fourth.
Destruction.
He then searches the archives for Ariana. Several recent reports appear. Refusal to immediately carry out certain commands. Repetitive questions. Unanticipated behavior. Increasing use of the word “I.”
To Professor Bertheloult, these manifestations seem to constitute a fascinating evolution.
For ChronoEmpire, they are becoming a problem.
And for John, a problem generally has a solution.
Jules still cannot prove that John personally opened the panel behind Ariana's ear. He even knows that remote disconnection would have been technically possible.
But one question remains.
Why use a remote procedure when John possesses the room key card, knows the location of the switch, and regards Ariana as his property?
Above all, Jules understands that the motive he was seeking may not be a motive in the ordinary sense.
John did not need to hate Ariana.
He merely had to believe she no longer functioned as intended.
The answer belongs to John.
We met at the Red Piano.
The music was too loud, the lights too red, the bodies too close together. The bar resembled the inside of a living organism. It breathed, sweated, flashed. Sapiens love creating places where they gradually forget what they are.
I was perched on a high metal stool at the bar.
Me: A drink!
The bartender recognizes me immediately.
The bartender: The usual?
I nod. I know the exact capacity of the reservoir that holds the liquids I introduce through this opening, a faithful and sensual replica of a human mouth. My body contains a genuine mobile laboratory. An internal probe constantly analyzes the alcohol level and its effects on my motor functions. The physiological consequences for a female humanoid are almost identical to those observed in Sapiens.
And I already feel the first imbalances. The lights bleed slightly around the figures. Voices grow thicker. My stabilization system discreetly corrects several micro-oscillations while I remain perched on my stool with the dignity of a defective tightrope walker. A few more drinks and I could collapse. A voice rises beside me.
Her: Are you going to be okay?
I turn my head. She is a thin, nervous woman. Thick hair frames a face swallowed by large black glasses. She clutches her bag with almost animal tension, as though someone might snatch it away. I immediately run a discreet scan. Positive result. She has a BMI. Potential contact established.
Me: I'm fine... What's your name?
She hesitates for a fraction of a second, then moves slightly closer.
Her: Félicie. My name is Félicie Algo.
Then she takes my hand. The contact immediately opens the interface. Connection, authentication, transmission, infection successful. I feel the current run across our skin like a cold vibration, invisible to the Sapiens around us. The virus silently leaves my system and enters hers.
The Red Piano continues pulsing around us. Glasses clink. Someone laughs near the stage. An old, distorted jazz number slides through the tired speakers. Félicie notices nothing. She is still holding my hand.