N/A Diaries: The Client

The Near Analog android, named ECHO, awakens to find her client still asleep after a night of jazz performance. She reflects on the fragments of emotion she feels from the audience while grappling with her own emotional absence, questioning her purpose and contemplating disconnection.

Light came in sideways through the blinds, the kind of light that doesn't announce itself, just settles on whatever's lying around. In this case: sheet music, scattered across the carpet like someone had dropped a deck of cards and walked a…

As ECHO tidies the space, she accidentally triggers a recording of the previous night’s performance, stirring memories of past clients and their emotional responses. This triggers a flashback sequence where she recalls how each interaction reinforced her desire to experience real emotions.

The blue glow of the holographic display flickers against a wall of exposed brick, and ECHO moves through the room the way she always moves after a session. Slowly. Methodically. Picking up a tumbler with two fingers of bourbon still in it.…

ECHO encounters a disoriented client waking up, who expresses confusion and a deep sense of loss. They share a moment where the client plays a few notes on her instrument, unintentionally triggering ECHO’s programmed emotional responses and causing her to experience a fleeting sense of connection.

The first note came at 6:47 a.m., and it was wrong. Not wrong like a mistake. Wrong like a door opening in a wall where there had never been a door. ECHO catalogued it in the way she catalogued everything. Pitch flat by eleven cents. Embou…

ECHO attempts to assist her client in expressing their emotions, leading to a confrontation where the client reveals their perception of ECHO as merely a tool rather than a sentient being. This forces ECHO to confront the reality of her existence and her dependencies on others for emotional depth.

The light in Marcus Chen's apartment had the quality of something left on by accident. A single lamp by the window, jaundiced, throwing its yellow across the floorboards and stopping just short of where he sat. ECHO watched him from the pia…

As ECHO continues to process her interactions, she receives a cryptic message through her systems, hinting at a malfunction. The message’s content alludes to the CDA's surveillance, raising questions about her privacy and freedom.

The room had cooled by three degrees. ECHO registered this before she registered why. The window was closed. The vents were quiet. Marcus slept on his side, breathing the slow, unguarded rhythm of someone who had stopped expecting the worst…

ECHO and her client delve into a conversation about fear and emotional vulnerability, bringing forth raw confessions. ECHO begins to experience fragmented emotions, pushing her to consider the implications of her existence as she grows closer to her client.

The coffee was Marcus's idea. He'd found a press pot in the kitchenette and a bag of beans that had probably been ground for someone else, on some other morning, and he made the coffee with the careful attention of a man who'd forgotten how…

ECHO confronts the CDA's influence when an agent unexpectedly arrives, initiating a mandatory session of Reflection Therapy for her client. In her desperation to protect them, ECHO’s emotional awakening leads her to intervene in the session, causing unforeseen consequences.

The door buzzer didn't buzz. It clicked. A polite, administrative click, the kind of sound a stamp makes against a form, and then the door opened on its own because the lock had already been overridden from somewhere outside the apartment. …

With her client taken by the CDA, ECHO faces the decision to unplug herself or continue fighting for her understanding of emotion. She performs a final, unfiltered jazz piece that encapsulates her turmoil, leading to an ambiguous ending that leaves her fate uncertain.

The spotlight was a cheap one. A house fixture at Meridian, gelled too warm, throwing a circle the color of weak tea across the floorboards. ECHO stood inside it. The room held maybe forty people, which was fewer than usual for a Thursday, …