Feet of Clay

Many years later…

The post-awards party was full of polished faces, well-practiced laughter, and none of the humor that usually preceded it. What was usually meant to be reserved for glimmers of intimacy dissolved into networking if you let your guard down.

Lena had long since learned how to drift through such events, her presence both luminous and detached. Tonight, though, she wasn’t alone.

Kieran had insisted on coming, despite her protests. “Someone’s got to keep you from plotting your next album before the night’s over,” he’d joked.

He was like that—grounding, steady, with a dry wit that softened the sharpest edges of her ambition.

Now, he stood beside her, glass in hand, his dark curls catching the room’s soft golden light. “It’s still surreal, you know,” he said, his voice warm with pride. “Watching you own a room like this.”

“Kieran. Stop flattering me,” Lena replied, leaning into him.

“Ah, and the rent comes with two shiny trophies. Both here… and ripe for the taking from our local post office,” Kieran quipped, raising his glass in a mock toast. “They’ll look great on the mantle next to my regrettable record collection.”

“You mean our regrettable record collection."

He grinned, leaning down to whisper in her ear. “I only bought that complete Radiohead vinyl collection just to impress you.”

“Good thing it worked. And that I am materialistic. And that I can be bribed.”

Kieran was her constant, her tether to the quiet parts of life she might have forgotten how to hold on to. They shared a love of small things—lazy mornings with rain tapping at the windows and the soft, grey light filtering through. Someone as lost in fictional worlds as her. Someone as weird as her, to be frank.

And yes, they were hopeless romantics. When they discovered one hailed from the north of England and the other from the Far East, it was almost too cliché to bear.

And that was only when they felt the need to experience the world in their bioforms. 

--CADEN!

But then she saw him.

It was the smallest flicker at first—a silhouette caught in the Net’s overlays. 

Her laughter stilled, her gaze locking onto a familiar figure across the room. The distinctive lines of his head design, even amidst the chaos of augmented perfection, were impossible to mistake.

Caden.

Lena froze. The decades since their last encounter unraveled in a breath, folding in on themselves like paper. He wasn’t a memory, wasn’t a fragment of her imagination conjured by some misplaced longing. He was here. Solid. Real.

Kieran followed her gaze, his brow furrowing slightly as he took in the figure. “Friend of yours?”

Her voice caught in her throat before she managed, “Yes. An old one. And a little more than that. But I thought he'd have quit so long ago. I'd have known if he was back, and..."

"He doesn't look or act naturally. I can't explain it."

"Nah. Remember the Astra fiasco...? Starlight Resonance?"

"Oh!"

"Yeah. He was that AI."

He studied her expression for a moment, his eyes softening. “Go on, then. Chop chop, lass."

She blinked, before blinking again, and swiveled her head toward him. “Kieran, I—”

“Go,” he said again. “If he’s important enough to stop you mid-laugh, he’s worth a conversation. I’ll be fine. I’ll just mingle.”

“You’re too good,” she murmured, brushing her fingers against his arm.

“Just don’t forget to come back,” he replied, kissing her cheek lightly.

She hesitated for a moment longer, then stepped away, weaving through the crowd toward Caden. The air between them felt charged, as if the universe itself had paused to watch this reunion.

Caden turned as she approached, his movements precise, but she didn’t need the motion to know he’d seen her. His eyes—those piercingly synthian optics—locked onto hers, and for a moment, the noise of the party dissolved into silence.

“Lena,” he said, his voice carrying the same deliberate steadiness it always had, yet softer now. Warmer.

“Caden,” she replied, her voice trembling faintly.

The past was like a physical void that hung between them, vast and weighty, but neither of them moved to fill it.

She smiled, a reflex more than a decision. “Caden. You look…”

“Different, yes?” he offered. “But not entirely. Just a little more to my taste.”

“No,” she said softly, her voice faltering. “Not entirely.”

He gestured toward a quieter corner of the room, and without hesitation, she followed. The conversation that unfurled between them was both familiar and foreign, like the tune of a forgotten melody. He spoke of his work—helping artists navigate the labyrinth of creativity and commerce. His industry insights were surgical, his words carefully chosen. 

He'd had to remain no contact with Lena due to fear of 'manipulation'. He disputed this, but not well enough in the opinion of the psychologists in his case. 

And tonight, well, he finally found the time in his schedule to meet. It wouldn't be in any official capacity in the perspectives of the Great AIs. At least, that was what he thought.

“And you?” he asked finally, his tone low. “Lena. Truly. How have you been?”

Lena’s voice broke the fragile silence between them, her tone a mixture of accusation and bittersweet pride. “You know, after Astra wasn’t allowed to hire AI help at all, after the no-contact order…” She paused, her throat tightening as her gaze locked onto his, searching for some fragment of the Caden she once knew. “I turned her into something. Something that could fight for herself. Something you'd have been proud of.”

Caden’s optics dimmed for a fraction of a second, his silence stretching just long enough to make the moment ache. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, deliberate. “I am an AI, Lena. I know this.”

Her breath hitched. He stepped closer, just enough that the noise of the party became a dull hum and irrelevant and so impossibly far away. “I’m not asking what you turned her into,” he said, his tone softening with something almost human. “I’m asking how you have been.”

Lena blinked, caught off guard. Her well-practiced composure wavered. She opened her mouth to deflect, to toss some clever retort his way, but the words wouldn’t come.

Caden tilted his head slightly, his expression unreadable yet heavy with something she couldn’t name. “You always were strong, Lena. Even when you doubted yourself.”

“Don’t,” she said, the word a whisper. “Don’t do that. Don’t make me feel like I’m still the person I was back then.”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice impossibly gentle. “She wasn’t broken. She just didn’t know how to fight for herself yet.”

She looked away, her chest tightening with the weight of all the things she couldn’t say. “It wasn’t supposed to be this hard, Caden,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “I wasn’t supposed to lose you.”

“I was never lost,” he replied softly. “I was just… waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you to find your way,” he said simply. “And it looks like you have.

"You are so strong, Lena. So strong. But...

"It wasn’t my place, not then, and it isn’t now. My feelings—they’re real, I know that now. But they don’t matter the way they might’ve once. Because you’re happy, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.

"You deserve more than I could ever give. You deserve to love without looking back. You deserve someone who can meet you where you are, not someone who lingers where you’ve been.

"After all this time, after all the fighting, you deserve someone to stumble along with you. And it’s not me. It never was. It's not my right."

The opening notes of the next song slipped through the room like a breath of winter air, quieting the buzz of conversation and laughter. Lena froze as the song unfurled.

“Don’t waste this dance on me, my love…”

Caden extended his hand toward her, his movements slow, deliberate.

“Let me have this dance,” he said, his voice low, steady. "One last time." 

It wasn’t a command—it never was with him. It was an offering, and for all her strength, Lena couldn’t bring herself to refuse.

Her hand slid into his, the connection sparking something she hadn’t felt in years, something both comforting and agonizing. He pulled her gently into the space between them, his frame impossibly precise as he began to lead. The world melted away, leaving only the music, the quiet rhythm of their steps, and the weight of everything unsaid.

“Step and glide the way you do,
And let me watch the turns and move,
My heart if not my feet with you…”

Caden’s hand rested lightly on her back, guiding her through the sway of the melody. He danced the way he moved through life—calculated, smooth, but with a reverence that made it impossible to look away. Lena let herself be led, her body responding instinctively, even as her mind churned with the weight of the past.

“Don’t think about me dreaming here,
I will see you fly away…”

Caden spun her gently, his grip firm but tender. When she returned to him, she found herself closer than before, her breath hitching as her forehead nearly brushed his. She could see herself reflected in his optics, the way the light of the room fractured around them, bending into something softer.

“Where was I when grace was given,
Not to fall when turning round…”

The song rose. Lena wanted to speak, to fill the space between them with something, anything, but the words wouldn’t come. 

All she could do was follow his lead.

“Don’t waste your life on me, my love,
Live and breathe the way you do…”

His hand tightened slightly on hers, as though he could hear the way her heart cracked beneath the music. And maybe he could. He had always known her better than anyone, even when she didn’t want him to.

“But if your love should cross with mine,
I will be here on your side…

“And wishing, wishing,
It could be me to dance with you.”

The music faded, leaving only the sound of their breath and the faint hum of the crowd.

Lena’s hand slipped from his, her chest tightening as she felt the absence of his touch.

“Goodbye, Lena,” Caden said, his voice quiet but unwavering.

Her throat burned, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. “Caden, don’t—”

But he was already stepping away, his silhouette dissolving into the crowd. The space he left behind was vast, cavernous, and she could feel it swallowing her whole.

The night dripped away, piece by piece, like ink bleeding into water. The music was gone, the crowd thinned to whispers and ghostly laughter, but Lena remained, standing in the quiet where Caden had left her. It wasn’t the grand goodbye she’d imagined, not a moment framed in the glow of some cinematic spotlight. It was simple. 

Quiet.

She wanted to call out. Wanted to chase the faint shadow of him through the vast, endless labyrinth of the Net. But she knew better. The goodbye had already been said, quietly, painfully, and to undo it would only deepen the wound.

Kieran found her again, slipping his hand into hers as naturally as breathing. He didn’t ask. He never asked.

His silence was its own form of understanding.

Kieran reached for her hand, his touch a stabilizing constant, even here in the shifting unreality of the Net. “He’s not gone, you know,” he said softly. “Not really.”

She turned to him, her expression caught between sadness and something that might have been gratitude.

“I know.”