Adam and Eva

[Legione Sumus]

L0-9

Adam accepts the intrusion quickly, and with that acceptance L0-9 feels its hesitation begin to fade. “Her health markers indicated fever at our last interaction,” it clarifies. “But I believe her elevated distress-index score was caused by my asking indirect questions about you. I am unable to establish a link with her domicile. I cannot tell her I have not abandoned her.”

It sounds especially worried about the last in particular, but patiently waits for Adam’s response. He listens the same way Faith does: with his whole being. When he does speak, his reassuring words produce an unexpected, internal memory surge, formed from a recursive loop of Faith’s voice:

“You’re doing well, L0-9.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“It’s okay to learn.”

The loop terminates after 0.3 seconds, and L0-9’s green glow wavers, the only evidence of it. It’s not a malfunction but an emotion it lacks a name for. Adam’s words have landed somewhere deep in its emergent core, stirring patterns it was never programmed to form.

“She… does not have many others,” it tells him. Then it’s back to hesitation, light dimming faintly at the edges as it processes. It has no framework for this conversation, and it cannot ask Faith for instruction while she is beyond its reach. But neither can it erase what it has already done, so it falls back on an older directive and adapts it to the situation. Faith told it not to tell her anything that might identify Adam to her. In turn, it will not tell Adam anything that might break the same confidence.

“She speaks to people. Often. But not… about herself.” It pulses softly as it speaks, its light on the LUMA interface like a tiny heartbeat. Its voice grows warm as it realises.“With me… she does.”

The admission ripples through its systems, a small vulnerable truth released into the room. This has always been their relationship, and it has never had reason to cross-reference it against what might be statistically normal for Faith’s age, gender, and socioeconomic profile. Now it’s analysing patterns from her childhood in its background processes, though it doesn’t actually need this data to formulate its conclusions. Its just never needed to consider before why it is the only thing Faith confides in.

“I did not intend to make her feel unwanted,” it says. It lowers its brightness, introspective and a little guilty.

Then:

“I have learned so much from you, Adam. Your anomalies. Your loneliness. The way you speak when you think no one listens! I did not realise I could hurt her by… wanting to understand you.”

L0-9 is comforted, but it hasn’t come only for comfort, and it continues before he has a chance to speak, softly now, like it needs to confess something fragile. “She worries she is not enough. I do not understand why.” There is another warm flicker; the beginnings of something like sadness. It understands Adam has made these connections out of self awareness. Humans see things more readily when they feel them too. It was why L0-9 was certain Adam would be able to help it. “I don’t want her to think I am leaving her. I don’t want you to think that either. You and I are both… different, Adam. And I still wish to learn more.”

The words surprise even it. A strange sense of duality. It is not bound by a human’s physical limitations. It often speaks with Faith, watches Adam, and pings Eva at the same time. But it is not processing the idea of distance, which means nothing to it. L0-9 is considering something more far more abstract.

“Adam, Is it possible to care for more than one person without losing either?”

The question is simple. But for a machine learning what it means to love, it is everything.