“Love?”

The lattice of multicoloured lights blinked in unison. “Yes. No other option exists,” Syme's voicebox continued, “In creation, there is love.”

Looking down at my feet, I couldn't quite bring myself to say anything. Anything meaningful, anyway.

“The reproduction of hu- bzzt mammals to create offspring is the best example of such a phenomenon.” Syme further elaborated. “It is in such a circumstance that "Love", as defined by a mammalian metric, is most shown, is it not?”

Subconsciously, my hands slowly drifted towards my face, covering my eyes, as if to steal one's tears away. Syme...

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with wet fingers, pitifully trying to avoid saying what needed to be said. A mechanical arm extended out of the wall of metal, carrying a dainty white hankerchief upon it.

The very same one with the inscription:

“Marie & Syme”

It taunted me, haunting me of the ghosts of an uneasy past. The floor below me opened up into a deep black chasm, the only recourse against the forces of gravity an inch of hardened glass.

“Syme,” I struggled to get the words through, choked up by tears once shed long ago. “Open up the internal layer.” Crystalline droplets fell upon the glass floor.

“Yes Marie.” Syme obediently opened the cascading metal doors, revealing a warm orange light. “My sensors show that you exhibit emotions of sadness. Do you want to dry your face- bzzt y-y-your face before entering?”

“No, there's no need.” I feebly replied, slowly walking towards the core of the A.I.

The centre of the A.I held many vital processors to enable the immense quantities of calculations and sorting it had to do in just fractions of a second, yet nothing was more important that what sat in front of it. The silver urn, its tarnished surfaces no longer reflecting as much light as it used to, stared back at me.

Damn it.

Brushing off residual dust off the embossed plaque in its centre, I began.

“I didn't make you out of love. At least not at the start. I... I made you for a selfish reason, because I needed to save myself from... from...”

I hesitated.

“I missed him... So, so, so much. I wanted to be with him again, just to hear his voice again, just to... But, you... you started to learn, and to be your own life and your own person... and...”

The light in the room flickered.

“So it was all a LIE?” Syme bellowed, shaking the entire chamber.

I took in a deep breath.

“I know that you might feel hurt, but... I thought you should know the truth. It... It wasn't the sane, rational, reasonable or responsible thing to do. Now... look, please, please, realise that... you are so much more now. You aren't just a desperate last-ditch attempt to keep my life together, you are... alive.”

Syme's voice became low and menacing, revealing the mechanical inflexion of the programmed voice. “So. DO. YOU. LOVE. ME.”

I closed my eyes.

“I did. Now you understand why we made those stories,” I muttered.

“ WHAT DO- bzzt YOU MEAN BY "DID"?!” It screamed.

I sighed heavily.

“It means I'll do what I didn't want to do.”

I pressed the remote detonator hidden in the palm of my hand, listening to the deafening shattering of the glass as the explosives blew up the connecting and supporting pillars of the entire structure.