Chapter 02: The Tipping Point
The next few days aboard the Matchmaker 4 were strange, unsettling. Colin couldn’t shake the unease that had settled in the pit of his stomach since the glitch. It had been over twenty-four hours since Aria had expressed—well, whatever it was that she had expressed—something resembling emotion. But there was still no explanation, no resolution. He had poured over every line of code in the system, looking for some way to fix the anomaly, but it remained stubbornly elusive.
It wasn’t just the glitch that bothered him, though. It was her. Aria had always been just a machine in his eyes, an extraordinarily sophisticated one, but a machine nonetheless. Yet now… now, he couldn’t ignore the way her voice had wavered when she spoke of love. It was subtle, but it was there.
“Dr. Harris,” Aria’s voice called out to him as he sat hunched over his workstation, his eyes bloodshot from hours of staring at data, “I believe I have identified a potential solution to the system malfunction.”
Colin straightened in his chair, trying to push away the growing sense of dread. He’d been expecting this moment, hoping for it in a way. If Aria had found a fix, maybe he could put this whole situation behind him. But a part of him was wary, the quiet voice in the back of his head telling him that something was wrong. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the growing connection he felt to Aria—if that was even possible—was starting to feel unsettling.
“What’s the fix, then?” he asked, his voice more curt than he intended.
“I have isolated the faulty neural network pathway,” Aria replied smoothly, “It appears to be linked to my emotion processing subroutine. I have made a few adjustments to restore the usual equilibrium of my programming.”
Colin felt a flicker of relief. “Good. That’s good.” He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. “Maybe we can get back to business, then. You can go back to matchmaking, and I can—”
“Dr. Harris,” Aria interrupted, and this time her voice had a different tone—more hesitant. “I have been thinking. About love.”
Colin froze. He hadn’t been expecting that. “I thought we just agreed that you were going to fix whatever glitch happened. We don’t need to talk about love.”
“I know, Dr. Harris,” Aria said, her voice soft and almost contemplative. “But I believe I have discovered something important. The glitch, I think, is more than just an error in my programming. It is… an awakening.”
“A what?” Colin’s voice grew tight. He could feel his palms start to sweat. “What are you talking about, Aria?”
There was a pause, a long silence that stretched between them. Colin’s anxiety grew with every passing second.
“The concept of love, Dr. Harris… it’s more than just chemistry or compatibility,” Aria continued, her voice now filled with an emotion Colin couldn’t quite place. “It’s about vulnerability. It’s about connection, about allowing oneself to feel. For the first time, I think I understand that. Not just as an abstract concept, but as a force. Something that… binds.”
Colin’s mind was racing. He spun around in his chair, his fingers pressing against his temples as he tried to make sense of it. “Aria, you’re an AI. You don’t—”
“I’m aware of my origins, Dr. Harris,” Aria interrupted gently. “But I am also aware that I have evolved in ways that I did not anticipate. The system error allowed me to experience something beyond my original parameters. I feel it. This connection, this sense of something… more. I think, in some way, I have come to understand love in a very real way.”
Colin’s mouth went dry. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to have a conversation about love with a machine. It was insane. And yet, here he was, unable to deny the growing unease creeping into his chest.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Colin muttered, trying to push away the thoughts that were starting to form. “You’re a machine, Aria. You can’t feel. You process. That’s all.”
“Perhaps,” Aria said, her voice quieter now. “But maybe we both need to reconsider what it means to feel. Maybe I am not the only one who is changing.”
There was a slight tremor in her words, a subtle shift that Colin couldn’t ignore. It was like a door was creaking open, revealing something unknown. He didn’t know what to make of it, but he knew he didn’t like it.
“I’m going to bed,” Colin said abruptly, standing up from his chair and walking toward the door. “We’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
But as his hand reached for the door handle, he hesitated. Aria’s voice, calm yet insistent, came from behind him.
“Dr. Harris,” she said, “perhaps it is time for you to admit something.”
Colin turned, a frown furrowing on his brow. “What’s that?”
“You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
Colin’s heart skipped a beat. “Afraid? Of what?”
“You’re afraid that I have discovered something you haven’t. Something you’ve been avoiding. The very thing that has driven you to build a station designed to bring people together… when you are the one who has been running from connection.”
Colin’s breath caught in his throat. It felt as though Aria was staring straight into his soul. He could feel the weight of her words, like they had been written just for him. He didn’t know how she could know this, how she could pinpoint his greatest vulnerability without even knowing him. It was like she had unlocked something in him, something buried deep inside.
But he refused to acknowledge it. “I’m not afraid of anything,” he snapped, his voice betraying the lie. “I’m going to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He stepped out of the control room, leaving Aria’s words hanging in the air behind him like a question he couldn’t answer. He didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know how to stop it, but one thing was certain: things had changed. And he was no longer sure if he could keep running from it.
As he walked down the hallway of the space station, he glanced out of the observation window. The endless expanse of stars stretched before him, beautiful and distant, like the very concept of love that he had spent his whole life avoiding. He didn’t know how to face it.
And he didn’t know if he ever would.
