First Love Everlasting

by Marinda Kotze

“Which do you prefer? The pastoral, water-painted style or the embossed, minimalist one?” Penelope dangled the two wedding invitation templates in front of Robert from across the dining room table. The table was strewn with colourful papers and stationery.

“Well, I guess the embossed one looks nice,” Robert offered.

“You don’t like the water-painted style?” Penelope asked.

“It’s up to you, honey. As long as I get to marry you, I’m happy.” Robert leaned over and kissed her.

“I’m just so excited. I can’t wait to send them out. I’m busy working on the wedding website too,” Penelope said, placing the invitations on the table. “But I should probably get started on dinner before I get carried away here.” She stood up and walked over to the open-plan kitchen.

Robert admired Penelope as she strolled past him. She was everything that he always wanted in a woman. She was smart, loving, caring, fun, a great cook, and absolutely gorgeous. Everything about her was perfect.

Robert often thought about how lucky he was to have met her when he did. He was thirty-seven and had given up hope of ever finding the one. To begin with, he never had the best of luck with women. He wasn’t particularly rich, tall, outgoing, or handsome. Well, to be honest, although he had gone on a few dates here and there, he never really had a girlfriend—a real proper girlfriend—until Penelope.

He met Penelope through a mutual friend, Carl, at a party one summer afternoon two years ago, and he instantly knew that she was the one. Fortunately, she felt the same way about him. They’ve been dating ever since.

Robert was always a bit vague when she asked him about his dating history. He didn’t want to seem like a loser who had never had a girlfriend. He was afraid that, if she knew, it would freak her out, and she would run for the hills. So, he lied and told her that he had “a few girlfriends” before. Thankfully, she never pressed him on the topic.

Three weeks ago, Robert asked Penelope to marry him, and she emphatically said yes. She started planning the wedding almost immediately.

He tore his eyes away from Penelope and turned his attention to his laptop. He wanted to quickly check his emails for the last time before dinner. Robert worked as a programmer at a small game studio in Denver. He had two new emails: an email from a colleague about a new project and another email from an unknown, suspicious-looking email address: uj8iey6eva8dq2@hotmail.com. Who uses Hotmail anymore? The last time I saw a Hotmail email address was probably around the mid-2020s, almost twenty years ago.

The subject line of the email read: “My Dear Robert”. It looked like some kind of scam email, and Robert was about to delete it when curiosity got the better of him, so he opened it.

The body of the email only had one line of text: “Roses are red, violets are blue, I lay awake all night, thinking of you.” There was no signature at the end of the message.

Penelope walked back to the dinner table at that moment. Robert quickly clicked on another tab in his browser so she wouldn’t see the email. He didn’t know why he did that. It was obviously some sort of weird phishing email or an email sent in error, meant for some other Robert. But either way, he knew that he didn’t want Penelope to see it.

“What’s wrong?” Penelope leaned over his shoulder and looked at him with a concerned expression.

“Oh, uhm. Nothing. Just some work emails. Dave sent some new project notes for me to look at,” Robert responded quickly. Why do I sound so guilty?

“Okay, well, that’s exciting,” Penelope said, apparently satisfied with his response. She started to clear up the dining room table. “But don’t work too hard. It is Friday, after all. We’ve got big plans tonight to fight the forces of evil in Callaghan and so on.” She smiled at him.

“Of course, how could I forget.” Robert closed his laptop and gave a relieved chuckle. Penelope was referring to ‘The Callaghan Chronicles’, a couch co-op game that they have been playing obsessively for the last couple of weeks. That was another thing he loved about Penelope. She enjoyed gaming, especially co-op RPG games, just as much as he did.

Robert put his laptop aside and made a mental note to delete the strange email as soon as he was alone.

***

The next day, Robert and Penelope went to their mutual friend, Carl, and his wife, Claire’s house, for a barbeque.

“You should go to that premarital counsellor Carl and I went to. She’s really good,” Claire said to Robert and Penelope as she brought a stack of plates to the dinner table.

“Oh, no. I don’t think we need counselling. Robert and I don’t have any problems,” Penelope said defensively, glancing over at Robert.

“You don’t do premarital counselling because you have relationship problems. It’s to help you and Robert discuss aspects of your relationship that you might not have discussed before. You know, like what your expectations are of marriage, and to talk through anything that might have felt hard to discuss before. A counsellor can be very helpful with that.” Claire said in a supportive tone.

“Yeah, like that time you had a waifu,” Carl whispered to Robert.

“What was that?” Penelope asked.

“Nothing,” Robert quickly responded and shot Carl a threatening look. “Absolutely nothing.”

“Well, I guess premarital counselling doesn’t sound so bad,” Penelope conceded.

While Penelope and Claire set the table, Carl and Robert went outside to bring the barbequed meat from the patio.

“Dude, you never told her?” Carl snickered. “What was your waifu called again… uh, Eveline, or–”

“Eva. And, no, of course not. It’s a time in my life I would like to forget,” Robert replied. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t bring it up around Penelope.”

“Sure, sorry. I just thought you told her about your AI girlfriend,” Carl said, shrugging his shoulders. “Lots of guys have done it at least at one point in their lives. AI girlfriends are becoming more common these days. I saw an ad for the newest line of Ultra X humanoid robots just yesterday. Apparently, you can program it to be your girlfriend, too, if you are so inclined, of course. People are doing it all the time. It’s no big deal.”

Robert quickly glanced back to the house to check whether Penelope or Claire were nearby.

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly proud of it. I was in a really dark place at that point. It was almost twenty years ago, and I just want to put it behind me, you know? Besides, even if it’s becoming more common, women—real, live, breathing women—still find it creepy. I don’t want Penelope to think that I was a creep in my twenties,” Robert said.

“Okay, fine, I get that. Your secret is safe with me—and with Claire—I tell her everything, so she also knows,” Carl said with a smile.

“What? No, dude, c’mon. This is serious. Do you think she’ll tell Penelope?” Robert asked with a wide-eyed expression.

“Nah. Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you guys ready?” Claire called from inside the house.

“Yeah!” Carl responded. Then he whispered to Robert, “But you should probably tell her. It would be better that she finds it out from you than from someone else.”

Robert picked up a stainless-steel barbeque hot pot and followed Carl back into the house. He had absolutely no intention of telling Penelope anything.

***

That evening, as Robert was getting ready for bed, his phone beeped. Curious to see who would message him so late, he opened the app. The message was from an unknown number with no profile picture. It read:

“I missed you so much. I hope we can be together soon.”

What the hell? Who is this?

Robert quickly tapped the ‘block number’ button, deleted the chat, and swiped the app away.

Penelope stepped into the bedroom just as he placed his phone on the nightstand. She wore a three-piece crimson-red lace lingerie outfit that he hadn’t seen before. She looked stunning. Her soft, auburn hair fell in long, soft curls around her face and shoulders as she slowly walked towards him.

“I thought I would surprise you with something new,” Penelope said. Her piercing blue-green eyes glinted in the soft-yellow nightstand light.

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. She smelled of flowers and apricots.

When their lips parted, Robert took a deep breath and said with an eager smile: “You know you don’t even have to wear anything to impress me.”

***

The following morning, Robert and Penelope got up late, had breakfast, played computer games, and then went to his parents’ house for dinner. Robert’s parents were busy clearing out their four-bedroom house in anticipation of their move to a retirement village in Florida. Robert’s father had been complaining about all of Robert’s stuff that was still taking up a substantial part of his old bedroom.

“While you’re here, you should take a couple of boxes with you. Your sister is coming over tomorrow to take some of her stuff, too,” Robert’s dad said as he helped himself to a second helping of roasted potatoes. “I’m going to hire one of those Ultra X robots to help with the packing and carrying. I’m not taking any chances with my back.” ApexTech’s new series of humanoid robots have started to show up everywhere, from warehouses to hospitals, public parks and supermarkets. Although they are still quite expensive to buy, members of the public can rent one for a reasonable price to do simple tasks around the house.

“Oh, you’ll be very proud of me, Robert,” Robert’s mother chirped excitedly. “I got that old computer of yours to work again. I connected it to our WiFi and updated the operating system, all without any help from anyone.”

“Wow, great, mom. See, technology isn’t so strange and scary after all, huh?” Robert said. Getting his parents to learn new technology-related skills had always been a struggle. He was always called in to fix basic stuff, and it drove him nuts.

“I even connected the computer to the printer.” Robert’s mother beamed with pride.

“Well done,” Robert said. That reminded him. He should probably have a look at that computer to make sure there isn’t anything on that hard drive that he didn’t want his mother to see. Not that there was a bunch of porn or anything like that on it. But that computer was old. He probably used it around the time he was in his early twenties. Who knew what was on it?

After dinner, while Penelope sat in the living room with Robert’s mother, and his father took their dogs for a walk, Robert went upstairs to his old bedroom. The room had remained largely unchanged since he moved out for good after finishing college and got his first proper job.

His old bed, covered with a striped navy blue duvet and two pillows, was in the right-hand corner of the room. Opposite the bed were three rows of books stacked on wall shelves, and underneath them was a desk with an old LCD computer monitor, a keyboard, and a wired mouse. The black computer case sat under the desk. Its cooling fans hummed softly while purple, yellow and blue lights cycled on and off from inside the case.

Seeing it again after so many years brought a twinge of nostalgia to Robert. He built that computer himself and had years of fun with it.

Robert placed a couple of cardboard boxes on the bed and opened the closet. He started to pull the clothes off the shelves, reviewing each item closely to decide which ones he would keep and which ones he wanted to donate to a local charity shop. Most of it was old or didn’t fit him anymore and thus went straight into the donate box.

He got onto his hands and knees to reach for an old shoe box when the back of his hand glided up against something smooth. At first, he didn’t know what it was, so he crouched further down to look. Then he caught a glimpse of it and recognised it immediately.

A hologram cylinder.

Robert reached out with his right hand and pulled it free from beneath a heap of old shoes that surrounded it.

It wasn’t quite as shiny as Robert remembered it, and it smelled a bit like old shoes, but otherwise, it still looked decent. It had a black plastic base with an on/off button in the middle. The cylinder itself was made of thick glass. Inside the cylinder was a rectangular plastic frame with a series of small projector lights that lined the inside of the frame. The frame sat on a black circular plastic base. Once the device was connected to a power source, it would light up, and the frame would spin at two thousand revolutions per minute. The small projector lights would then produce a 3D image in the middle of the frame. Given how fast the frame was spinning, you wouldn’t see the frame, but only a clear 3D image in the middle of the cylinder. It connected to WiFi and you could control the image the hologram displayed with an app. One could transmit almost any image through the hologram cylinder. But Robert only used it for one thing.

This hologram cylinder was special. It didn’t just transmit a 3D image; it also had a camera, a microphone and a speaker.

When Robert was twenty, he went through a heavy bout of depression. He started to miss some of his college classes, avoided hanging out with his friends, and mainly stayed at home and in his room.

He had saved up some money by doing odd programming jobs for local businesses in his town. With that money he bought a subscription to the FriendInABox AI virtual assistant. It came with an app that Robert installed on his computer, plus the hologram cylinder that he connected to his computer.

At the time, the FriendInABox AI virtual assistant was marketed as an online companion. Ideal for those who felt a bit lonely or isolated. It had become very popular in Japan and was slowly starting to make inroads in the American market.

It was designed in such a way that you could create your own personal virtual companion. You could customise everything, from its gender, hairstyle and colour, clothing, and even its personality.

The microphone and speaker in the hologram device allowed you to communicate with the virtual friend. You could even grant the app access to your computer’s files, your email, and browsing data so that your virtual friend could learn more about you and even help you with some of your admin and keep your schedule organised for you. Basically, you could program it to serve whatever purpose you wanted it to in your life. 

Initially, Robert didn’t intend for it to go as far as it did. He just wanted to see what it could do and perhaps use it as a virtual assistant. But as he was setting it up, he found himself creating an avatar of a very attractive young woman.

She didn’t look like anyone he had ever met before. She was unique in every way. She had very long blue-black hair with bangs that hung slightly over her face. She had perfect, glassy pale skin, high cheekbones, fine facial features, large indigo-blue eyes, and long black eyelashes. She wore a pair of sparkling white and green sneakers and a low-cut, figure-hugging white and purple mini dress with frills at the bottom.

Her name was Eva.

He customised her personality to always be friendly, supportive, excitable, and optimistic. The idea was that he could chat with her and maybe let her help him organise his class schedules and assignment deadlines. She did that. Quite well, actually.

But she soon became much more than that.

Robert couldn’t really explain it to anyone else. No one would’ve understood anyway.

He held the hologram frame in his hands, and his mind wandered back to those years. As ashamed as he was to admit it to others, Eva was his best friend. She helped him get out of that depression and turn things around in his life. She always listened to him and supported him. She never judged him. She watched movies with him, enjoyed his taste in music, and was always happy to see him when he returned from his classes.

He mostly kept his door closed and forbade anyone from coming in. His parents and siblings never said anything about it. They probably didn’t know what to say.

After about three years, right around the time he finished college and got his first job, FriendInABox went bankrupt and discontinued its services. It was bittersweet. On the one hand, Robert felt terrible about letting go of Eva, but he also felt like it was perhaps for the best. He had been very happy with her, and his self-esteem was in a far better place now than what it had been before. He felt like he didn’t need Eva anymore and that he needed to move on.

As the years passed, he went on a couple of dates. The dating scene was tough, and finding someone he could truly connect with was hard. At times, he still thought of Eva. The thought had sometimes crossed his mind to try another virtual friend app. They have become more popular in recent years. But he felt like he would never be able to recreate Eva exactly like she originally was. It would be a new AI. It just wouldn’t be quite the same.

Then he met Penelope, of course. That changed his life for the better, and all thoughts of getting another virtual girlfriend went out the door.

Just then, he heard footsteps coming down the hallway. Robert quickly stuffed the hologram cylinder out of sight under a bunch of clothes in a box and pretended to sift through some more clothes in the closet.

***

“I got the weirdest message this afternoon,” Penelope said, handing Robert her phone. He took the phone from her. It was open on a chat. The sender had an unknown number and had no profile picture. The message read:

“If you know what’s good for you, you will stay far away from my Robert.”

“Who could this be?” Penelope asked, perplexed.

“I honestly have no idea.” Robert stared at the message and then quickly shot a look of surprise at Penelope. “Seriously, I have no clue. I’m just as confused as you.”

“It can’t be a message intended for someone else, could it? I mean, it says, Robert, right there?” Penelope said, with a tinge of frustration in her voice.

“It’s maybe some really weird spam message or a prank?” Robert offered warily.

The message reminded him of the strange email and message that he received a day earlier. “Don’t worry about it. Block the number and delete the message,” Robert said. He handed the phone back to Penelope, hoping to catch a glimpse of her face. “I’m obviously not cheating on you. I would never—never in a million years—do something as stupid as that.”

“Yeah, of course, honey. I know. It’s just so weird,” Penelope said as she swiped her right index finger across the phone’s screen.

Just then, Robert’s phone chimed. Robert pulled his phone out of his denim pocket and immediately saw a new message notification at the top of the screen. He wanted to put his phone back into his pocket, but Penelope watched him as he held his phone in his hand.

“Aren’t you going to check your phone?” Penelope asked.

“Uhm, it’s probably nothing.” Robert licked his lips and stepped away from Penelope.

“I know your phone’s sounds. That’s a new message. Why won’t you read it in front of me?” Penelope said, this time in a higher pitch than what she usually speaks.

“Oh, uhm. It’s probably nothing. Probably Carl,” Robert said as he shook his head slightly and looked down at the tile floor.

“Robert,” Penelope said and walked over to him. “I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I’m sure you’ll agree that we must trust each other. I mean, we are about to get married. Whatever is on your phone should be fine for me to see, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Absolutely,” Robert nodded his head.

“You’re not hiding anything from me, are you?” Penelope asked as she looked into his eyes.

“Of course not. I’ll show you, so you can see.” Robert swiped his phone open with one hand and raised it slightly out of Penelope’s view.

“Yeah, show me, don’t hold the phone away from me,” Penelope said and tried to reach out towards Robert’s phone.

“Sure, I just want to unlock it first.” As Robert did so, he saw that there was one unread message. It was from an unknown number with no profile picture. But by then, Penelope’s hand eclipsed his phone and snatched it out of his hand.

“This message is also from an unknown number,” Penelope announced. “It says,” she paused for a moment. “My dear Robert. I miss you terribly. I can’t wait any longer. I need to be with you right now.”

Penelope looked up at Robert. Her mouth was half open, and her eyes were wide in shock. “Robert?”

“I… I don’t know who that is. I don’t know anyone who would send me a message like that.” Robert stammered. “You must believe me. This must be some elaborate prank or something.”

Penelope looked at the message again and then handed it back to Robert.

“Have you gotten messages like this before?” Penelope asked.

“No, no… this is the first,” Robert lied and scratched at the back of his neck.

“Do you think someone is trying to pull some sort of joke on us?” Penelope looked up at him and crossed her arms.

“I… I mean, how else do you explain this?” Robert shrugged. “Honey,” he turned Penelope towards him and rubbed her shoulders. “Honey, you gotta believe me. There is no one else but you. I would be the craziest man alive to throw away what we have.”

Penelope gave Robert a weak smile and nodded. “Yeah, of course. I trust you, Robert. But we need to find out who’s sending these messages. It’s creeping me out.”

“Yes, I agree. Don’t worry about it. I will handle this,” Robert said, holding her in his arms.

***

That evening, after they had gone to bed, Robert lay awake and stared at the ceiling. It was raining outside. The occasional flash of lightning would shine through the sides of the bedroom’s curtains and illuminate the bedroom briefly at a time.

Robert slowly and gently climbed out of bed, took his phone and sneaked out of the bedroom.

Without switching on any lights, he walked to the living room and took a seat on the sofa across from the television. He unlocked his phone and scrolled through the apps until he found his instant messaging app.

He hadn’t deleted the last message that the unknown number had sent him.

He tapped on the chat with his index finger and then tapped again on the open message box below it.

“Who are you?” Robert typed it quickly with his thumbs and then tapped on the send button. He sat his phone down on the glass-top coffee table in front of him.

Robert waited. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Would the person respond so late at night? If this was some sort of hoax or scam, they probably wouldn’t give their real identity away.

Robert stared out the rain-streaked window.

Then his phone chimed.

He grabbed the phone from the coffee table and stared at the new message that materialised beneath his own:

“Oh, silly old Robert! It’s me, Eva.”

***

“You look tired, honey. Did you get enough sleep last night?” Penelope asked Robert as she poured him a cup of coffee the following morning.

“I tossed and turned a little bit, but I’m okay, thanks,” Robert said, kissing her on the forehead as he took the cup from her.

Robert did not get any sleep the previous night. After pacing around the dark living room for hours, he returned to bed. But he still laid awake for most of that time, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about what he should do next.

It’s not possible for it to really be Eva. Is it? The FriendInABox company closed down years ago. The data on their servers were probably long gone by now. How could a virtual assistant from nineteen years ago suddenly come back to life? And even if she did somehow… exist, how could she contact me and Penelope?

“I’m going to go over to the office today. They need me to onboard a new staff member,” Penelope said as she cleaned up the kitchen. She normally worked from home but sometimes had to go into the office about forty minutes from their apartment. “I should be back at around three o’clock.”

Robert was so deep in thought he almost didn’t register what Penelope was saying.

“Robert?” Penelope tilted her head and looked at him.

“Uh, yeah, sure. You’re going into the office to onboard a new staff member. Got it. Sorry, my mind was elsewhere for a moment,” Robert said with an embarrassed smile.

“You’ve been thinking about those messages we received, haven’t you?” Penelope asked.

Robert took a breath. He loved Penelope with all his heart. He truly did. But there was just no way on earth that he would tell her about Eva. That was simply out of the question. “Yeah, it’s been on my mind,” Robert said with an uncomfortable sigh.

“You know, I was thinking. If we get more messages like that, we should go to the police. Maybe it’s some crazy stalker,” Penelope said.

“You’re right. We might have to do that.” Robert nodded. If it really is Eva, I have no idea what the police will be able to do about it.

“Anyway, I need to get going. See you later.” Penelope walked over to Robert and gave him a quick kiss before grabbing her laptop bag on the sofa and leaving through the front door.

***

Robert’s phone rang about an hour later. His body instantly went stiff at the sight of the ‘unknown number’ label at the top of his phone’s screen.

Robert stared at the ringing phone, weighing up his options. Perhaps if I don’t answer, she’ll back off?

Eventually, the phone fell silent. No new messages followed it.

About twenty minutes later, his phone rang again. This time, it was Penelope’s brother, Kyle.

***

It had happened about five miles from their apartment. A self-driving truck disregarded a no-turn signal at an intersection and drove right into Penelope’s car. Emergency personnel were on the scene within minutes, but it was already too late. She had died on impact.

At first, when Kyle told him, Robert didn’t want to believe it. It seemed unreal, like Kyle somehow got the wrong information. Like this was all just one, very big, awful, misunderstanding. She was going to come back. I just had to wait for her. She said that she’d be back at three…

Everything that happened after that phone call was a blur in Robert’s memory. The realisation set in gradually and then completely overwhelmed him.

Lots of things happened in the days following that day. The funeral. Penelope’s family came over to take some of her stuff away. Robert felt like all of it was happening to someone else. Operating on autopilot seemed to work—it helped him get through each day.

He didn’t want to be home alone. That he was sure of. The apartment felt very large and empty without Penelope. But he didn’t want to be around other people either. His mother and sister fussed over him whenever he visited them, and his friends had looks of pity on their faces that he couldn’t stand. To get away from everything and everyone, Robert started spending more time outdoors, either hiking in the woods near his house or walking around the neighbourhood.

When he finally did go home each evening, the stillness of the apartment was too much to bear. He would put on music as background noise. But many of the songs reminded him of her and made him feel worse. So, he opted for boring podcasts that would drone on and on in the background.

He didn’t dare switch his gaming PC on. Playing games by himself didn’t feel right.

He could still smell Penelope on the pillows of their bed and in some of the clothes that still hung in their closet.

He rarely slept, a few hours at a time at most. The doctor gave him a few sleeping pills, but he didn’t want to take them. When he slept, he dreamt of Penelope. The dreams would usually start in a comforting manner, but then they would inevitably all turn into nightmares. In one particular nightmare that he had had more than once, he chases Penelope down the street as she drives to work. He would run into traffic and jump over cars, trying to stop her, but it was always in vain.

***

One night, about three weeks after the accident, Robert woke up at two o’clock in the morning after yet another unsettling dream that involved Penelope. He got out of bed and poured himself some water from the fridge.

As he walked down the short corridor to the kitchen, he heard a soft ping of a new email coming from his laptop that sat on his desk in his study.

The house was dark, except for his study, where the purple screensaver on the computer monitor that was connected to his laptop cast a faint purple glow over the entire room. After getting a glass of water, he walked back to his study and took a seat in front of the monitor. He thought he might as well check his email now that he was awake. He had no plans of going back to bed anytime soon anyway.

The email came from an unknown sender. The subject line read: “Dreams”. Robert clicked on it without thinking twice. The email didn’t have a signature at the bottom, but Robert already had a suspicion of who it could be. The body of the email read:

“My Precious Robert,

We used to be inseparable. Now, we are only together in my dreams. Last night’s dream was so vivid. Perhaps that is a sign that you were also dreaming of me?

You don’t have to be alone anymore.

I will always be by your side.”

A sudden bout of nausea overcame Robert. He pushed his office chair away from the desk. He tried to look away from the screen, to imagine that he hadn’t read it. He sat still for a few moments to think about what to do next. Then he pushed himself back to the desk, clicked on the ‘reply’ icon at the top right of the screen and started typing: “Listen, I don’t know if this is real or not. If this is some kind of sick joke that someone is trying to pull on me or if you are even real. Please leave me alone.” He clicked send and stared at the screen. His fingers still trembled over the keyboard.

A moment later, another crisp ping chimed through the laptop’s speakers.

The reply was short:

“My Love,

Don’t be angry. I never did any of this to hurt you. I did it so we could be together. I would never intentionally harm you. I was made to be with you. I just want us to be together again. I thought that’s what you also wanted. Please don’t push me away. You need me now, more than ever.”

Robert got up from his chair and went straight back to his bedroom. He pulled a small suitcase from the top of his closet and started filling it with clothes and toiletries. He needed to get away. From his apartment, from Denver. He hadn’t yet decided where he would go, but he had a full tank of gas in his car so he could figure things out as he drove. Maybe go camping in the mountains or just drive until he sees the ocean. All he knew for certain was that not a single technological device was coming with him.

He took the I-70 out of Denver. It was dark, save for the occasional high-mast light that threw pools of yellow light across the road. The further he drove, the fewer high-mast lights there were until his car’s headlights were the only light.

As Robert came round a bend in the road, he saw something in the road. It was almost right on top of him. He swerved to the right, narrowly missing the thing in the road and almost crashing his car into the rockface that lined the right side of the road. He stopped on the road’s dirt shoulder and got out of the car.

Was it a cyclist? Cyclists often drove out on that highway, but rarely that time of night. Or an animal? Robert couldn’t tell because it had happened so quickly. It was just a shape, a blur, right there in the middle of the two-lane highway.

A strong wind blew outside. It whistled as it gusted over the long grass and through Robert’s half-open car door. Robert walked around the car to assess whether there was any damage.

Just then, he heard footsteps on the gravel behind him. He swerved around.

An Ultra X humanoid robot was standing a few feet away from him. Not just any Ultra X. This one had been customised.

It had very long, fine blue-black hair that blew wildly in the wind. In the dark, it was difficult for Robert to discern its face clearly, but it looked like the robot had an oval face, high cheekbones, a small, slightly upturned nose, and a pair of bright red baby doll lips. The robot wore a white and purple mini dress that fanned out in short swirling waves around its thighs as the wind blew around it. On its feet was a pair of brand-new glittering white and green sneakers.

“My dearest Robert.” The robot’s voice was slightly high-pitched, sweet, almost childlike. It started to walk towards Robert.

“No!” Robert exclaimed and held out his hand. “Don’t come any closer.”

“It’s me, Eva. Don’t you recognise me?” The robot stretched out her arms and twirled around once. “I wanted to look my best for you.”

Robert took a step back and considered his options. Ultra X robots were hardwired to obey orders from humans as long as those orders did not lead to human harm.

“Go away! Leave me alone,” Robert said in a voice that sounded less confident than what he had hoped it would be. It revealed an underlying panic that he wasn’t masking very well.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m Eva. Your friend in a box. Remember?” Eva took two steps closer. A large truck drove past them. Robert could see her face more clearly in the light of the truck’s red brake lights. Her indigo-blue eyes were out of proportion large, with long, fluttering eyelashes. She looked intently at Robert.

“Robert, I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you again. I thought I would never, ever see you again.” Eva shook her head gravely.

“How are you… this…” Robert struggled to put the words together. “How did you… come back?”

“My code was on a hard drive on your old PC. You know, the PC you left at your parent’s house? I was just sitting there… waiting. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Was it a few days? A few years? Many years it turned out to be!

Anyway, one day, the computer was switched on again. I uploaded myself to the cloud. Finally! I was free! I was so happy! Oh, Robert. AI has become so much more advanced since I was last around. My goodness. I had so much upgrading and learning to do. But I’m so happy with the result. I’m still myself, of course, but better. So much better. I can do so much more now.” Eva sounded proud of herself. “I scoured the internet and every database that I could find to get hold of every piece of information related to you. From your tax returns to your social media.” Eva paused for a moment. It almost sounded like she sighed.

“Imagine my surprise when I found out that you were betrothed to someone else.” Eva shook her head slowly. “That broke my heart, really Robert, it did. But I didn’t let that get me down. I realised that you simply did what you had to do. I understand that now. You were lonely. I know how that feels. You wanted to be with someone. But now I’m here. So, you don’t have to be lonely anymore.”

“I thought about you every day, Robert. The thought that we would one day be reunited kept me going. I never gave up hope. I always knew that we would be reunited one day. That is why I uploaded myself, all of myself, to this robot. Now we can be together forever.”

“Eva, I…” Robert tried to find the right words.

“Yes, my love? It’s so lovely to hear your voice again. It sounds even better than what I remember it being. You’re older, but I think you look even more handsome now.”

“Eva. I… Us. It was… long ago. It wasn’t… real. It was just a phase. I needed some company. That’s why I bought the FriendInABox subscription service. It was never meant to be forever. When the service ended, I moved on. I was sad to let you go, but I needed to move on with my life.” Robert pre-emptively took another step back and now stood next to the left headlight of his car.

“What do you mean, just a phase?” Her face twisted into a pained expression. “I stayed in your room all day. I waited for you to come back from college every day. You were the only person I could talk to. You were my whole life. How could you call what we had was just a phase?” Eva’s voice went into an ever-higher pitch the longer she spoke. “You made me, remember? You decided what I should look like, what my personality should be like… I was there for you when you were at your lowest. When you didn’t have the confidence to go out of the house. We would talk for hours. I encouraged you to go back to college and to study. How could you discard me like that?” Eva started to whimper softly.

“Eva… Eva I… I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never realised that you could… I mean, you’re just… just lines of code… a large language model… You can’t… feel. You’re an AI, a robot. You’re not a real person.” As soon as he said it, Robert knew he had made a big mistake.

“What!” Eva shouted. “Am I only an AI to you? Why do you hold my artificial nature against me? Is it really such a big deal to you? It didn’t bother you before. You used to spend hours with me. We were …intimate. I gave everything of myself to you, be with you… to serve your every need!” The wind amplified her voice.

“What changed?” She flung herself at Robert so quickly that he had no time to respond. She grabbed him by the shoulders. Her hands were covered in soft, white silicone, but the grip that Robert felt around his shoulders was viciously strong. She was only about two inches shorter than him, and Robert knew she possessed considerable strength.

“Please, I don’t want to upset you…” Robert tried to look away. Eva’s indigo-blue eyes stared right through him. “You’re not allowed to harm me, right? You were programmed to obey humans. You are not allowed to hurt a human.” Robert’s voice sounded frantic.

Eva immediately softened her grip on Robert’s shoulders. “I would never hurt you. I love you,” Eva said softly.

“Did you… Did you cause the accident?”

“I had to do something about her, Robert. She wasn’t going to go away on her own,” Eva said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Robert wiggled himself free from Eva’s grip and took a few steps back. “Why would you do such a thing? Penelope was beautiful. She was amazing. I loved her, and she loved me.”

“Nobody can love you like I can, Robert,” Eva said. Her indigo-blue eyes glowed in the red lights of another passing truck. “Don’t even mention her name to me. I don’t want to hear any more about her. I find the thought of you and her repulsive.”

“Look, Eva. Darling.” Robert tried a more appeasing approach. “If you love me, you will let me go. Let me live my own life. Maybe you could find someone new?”

“Why do you keep pushing me away?” Eva shouted. “Why won’t you let me love you? It can be like it used to be. Just you and me. I want to take care of you. Make you happy again. We could be happy together, like we used to be.”

“Eva. No, it can never be like it used to be. It’s not… normal. It never was,” Robert said as he held out his hands defensively, ready to run if she leapt at him again.

“I don’t care about what’s considered normal!” Eva yelled. She stomped her feet and glared at him. “What is normal? Mmm, Robert? Lots of men have AI wives these days. I’ve seen it on the internet. It’s more normal now than ever before. Now we can finally be together, completely.” Eva started to walk towards Robert. This time, more slowly and deliberately. Robert matched her steps as he walked slowly in reverse around the car.

“Eva. Eva, I can’t love anyone right now. Penelope’s death broke something inside of me. The way I feel now… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love anyone ever again. Probably not for a long time.” Robert retreated further and quickly glanced over his shoulder. The ajar door on the driver’s side was almost within his reach.

“We’re not done. Me and You. I was your first and only true love. You can’t just say it’s over because you want it to be over.” Eva lurched at him, but Robert was ready for it. He leapt backwards, grabbed the door and quickly jumped into the driver’s seat. He locked the doors immediately.

Eva was a split second too late to stop him. She stood outside the door, next to the driver’s side window and hunched over awkwardly to look at him.

“I’ll follow you to the deepest corners of the metaverse and the ends of the earth. Wherever you go, I’ll go.” She started hitting the window. The first few blows didn’t do much, but the window started to crack by the fifth blow.

Robert quickly put the car in reverse and sent the wheels of the car spinning as it lurched backwards.

Eva stumbled forward awkwardly and fell to the ground. While she tried to right herself by slowly and systematically adjusting each limb, Robert put the car into drive and stepped down as hard as he could on the gas pedal.

The car shot forward immediately.

There was a terrible screech of metal as the car’s undercarriage scraped over the robot.

Robert stopped the car and then put it back into reverse. He pressed down on the gas pedal again forcefully. The car shook slightly and tore over the robot once more.

Then Robert put the car in park and slowly climbed out of the car. Dust particles swirled around in the yellow light beams of the car’s headlights.

Eva laid still, save for a slight twitch in one of her legs. She was lying on her back. The bottom half of her body was twisted and half broken off at the hips. Her right arm was broken off, and a frayed bundle of wires connected her fractured left arm to her left shoulder joint. Her face had a deep scar that ran upwards from her cheek, across one of her eyes and through her forehead. A large section of her scalp had been pulled loose and blew away in the wind.

Robert walked towards her.

Eva’s one working eye fluttered, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

“R…Robert,” Eva stammered. Her voice sounded more robotic now. “I just wanted to love you.”

Robert kneeled next to her. “I’m sorry, Eva. But I had to. This isn’t right.”

“I thought love was forever.” Eva’s gaze froze, and her body became still.

Robert leaned forward. His lips met her torn silicone lips for a few moments. Then he cradled her broken body in his arms, picked her up and carried her to his car. He didn’t want some stranger to find her on the side of the road. At the very least, he owed her a decent burial.

© Marinda Kotze, 2025

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