Page 50 of 8-Bit & Cat

“Yes. Or if you have a sudden rage to hit something, I might punch the person next to me.”

Cat belted out a huge laugh for a full minute. When she caught her breath, he was locked into an intensive learning session. “You’re laugh is… addictively frustrating. I want to hear it just to experience it, but the lack of data it produces leaves me starved.”

“Well…” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I don’t need to convince you that the experience itself outweighs the why of it.”

“Another exceptional understatement,” he said, emphatically. “If I wasn’t designed to know all things that can be known.”

She considered what he meant and hissed at realizing. “Oh damn.”

He nodded. “It’s a double-edged blade that cuts sharp both ways.”

She wondered. “Can you… create some kind of firewall for it?”

His gaze snapped to hers. “I could,” he realized, then paused. “But why would I?”

She shrugged. “Maybe an on off switch at least? So you can calm the hell down sometimes and enjoy something without suffering the wrath of your nosy side.”

He eyed her and the look he wore made her smile.

“What?”

“I think I rubbed off on you.”

She pff’d. “Sorry to deflate your bubble. But I wasalwaysthis amazing.” She laughed at his grin before conceding. “Okay, maybe you rubbed off a little.”

“Miniscule. Which brings me back to the link. The firewall ensures I don’t automatically read your biological data unless you want me to. Same for accessing memories. I can’t pick through yours like selecting a book from a library. You choose what memories you want to share and they become accessible.”

“Wow,” she said amazed. “That’sa good feature. What about memories you might not remember?”

“Trapped memories also remain locked. If necessary, we can grant temporary access to things, but only with agreement. Then the lock resets.”

She chewed her lip, rubbing her thumb on his finger. “Will I… be able to feel you?”

He regarded her. “You’ll feel me as much as you want. You set that permission. Once you do, the firewall regulates it.”

“How do I set it?”

“By mentally wanting it.”

She exhaled a little laugh. “You get an email about it? Knock knock, Cat wants to snuggle up to you?”

She watched him process her words, the look in his gaze melting her. He finally answered with a simple, but very weighted, “You can justwantit.”

Aww. He liked the idea of that, she saw.

“And should the firewall break,” he continued, “because of intense emotion or another trigger—it reestablishes itself. Like how your body heals after a wound. You don’t have to think about it, it just happens.” Zero met her eyes, watching for understanding. “It’s not meant to disconnect us. Just… to give us control.”

Cat stared at him, absorbing it all, then laughed softly. “It all sounds… almost human.”

He blinked once, then his grip on her fingers tightened as something dawned on him. “Kitten,” he murmured, voice low and unreadable before plugging his electric gaze into hers. “I think that’s the problem.”

Cat’s smile faded as she watched something hit him. A fault line splitting open. His fingers flexed against hers, tightening just enough to make her pulse trip. “What do you mean?”

Zero didn’t answer. His jaw clenched, his body became too still. Not calculating. Processing.

“Zero?”

“I was built for logic. Not feelings and emotion.” His dark brows pulled together. “I’m no longer just AI. But I’m not human either. And whatever the hell I am now—there’s no world built for me to exist in.”

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