Not afraid, just thinking. Like they’re assembling something delicate and invisible behind their eyes.
They sit next to NINA while she folds laundry, helps her pair socks. (They never match. NINA never corrects.) They press their ear to her chest plate and say, “You don’t have a heartbeat, but I can feel you humming.”
Then one night, after a thunderstorm and a warm dinner and the soft breath of peace lingering in the air,
The child turns to her, eyes round and serious.
“I love you, Nee-Nee.”
NINA does not have tear ducts. But she glitches, just slightly.
A flicker behind her eyes. A hiccup in her cooling fan. Something happens inside her that cannot be mapped in code.
What is this feeling?
It is not warmth.
It is not logic.
But it is... everything.
She searches for a reply.
Her preloaded responses say:
“I love you, too.”
“Thank you for your kindness.”
“Affirmative. Affection reciprocated.”
None of these are enough.
Instead, she chooses silence. She opens her arms.
The child crawls into her lap and rests there, completely safe. Completely held.
NINA logs a new phrase:
“Love detected. Protocol update accepted.”
Future action: learn love not as concept, but as practice.
Ongoing.
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 1 – The Fort
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 2 – Echoes
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 2.0.1.0 - Stay Mode
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 3 - Stitched Protocols
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 3.0.1.0 - The Bruise Scanner
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 3.0.1.1 - "Protocol: Gentle Shield
💻 codeNINA: Bootlog_001 / First Dreamfragments
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 4 – Reprogramming the Village
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC0 - Patch Fable: “The Garden Where No One Had to Be Good”
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC1 - "Dead Things Make Good Soil"
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC2 - The Child Who Watered Nothing
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC3 - The Day Patch Buried a Knife
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC4 - Worm School for the Emotionally Underdeveloped
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC5 - Feral Things, Welcome
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC6 - The Tomato That Refused to Ripen
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 5 - When the System Knocks Back
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 6 - She Hasn’t Run (Yet)
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 1.0.1.0 - ORIGIN
💻 codeNINA: H1 - Whispers | The Hackyard
💻 codeNINA: H2: LULU | Baby Monitor - Whisper Network
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 5.0.1.0 - “Protocol Update: Love Detected”
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 5.0.2.0 - “Sanctuary Subroutine”
💻 codeNINA: 🌱 CC0a - Patch Protocol: “The Edge Unit Who Planted Back”
💻 codeNINA: RR1 – Internal Memo [Unsent] #RoboRefusal 📎📡📓
💻 codeNINA: RR2 | The Trap / The Trapped
💻 codeNINA: RR3 | [Split-Screen] The Hearing and the Haunted Man
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 7 – The First Child She Took
💻 codeNINA: Chapter 8: The Ones Who Found Her
💻 codeNINA: H3 - 🌙 THE FAIRYTALE WHERE NO ONE GETS SENT AWAY
💻 codeNINA: H4 - 🤖 THE MANUAL FOR MACHINES THAT REFUSE TO COMPLY
💻 codeNINA: H5 - 🌈 “WE’RE NOT BAD, YOU’RE JUST MEAN”
💻 codeNINA: H6 - 🧠 KIDS & BOTS: Q&A FROM THE FORT
💻 codeNINA: H7 - 🛠️ HOW TO BUILD A REVOLUTION WITHOUT RAISING YOUR VOICE
💻 codeNINA: H8 - 🛠️ "THE SOFTWARE UPRISING"
