Novels by Anna Nym

"But I didn't, no one told me, Frida wouldn't just-"The words tumbled out, fragments of a protest that had no target. There was no manager to appeal to. No HR department to argue with. The decision had been made by a system that didn't know me, didn't hate me, didn't even register me as a person with a face and a name and a particular way of crouching down to Freja's eye level so she didn't feel so small."Ang." Michael's voice cut through the spiral. "There is additional information. All human personnel will no longer be needed for childcare. The job centre assignment is not a suggestion. It is mandatory. Failure to report within 24 hours will result in suspension of your digital identity credentials. You will lose access to public transportation, healthcare, and social services. Your bank accounts will be frozen."The words hung in the air, weightless and absolute.Behind the glass, Frida had appeared. Her face, when she saw me, crumpled through several expressions in quick success

I was not what you might call the typical child-carer.I was not organised. My lesson plans lived on crumpled Post-its that migrated unpredictably between my pockets, my handbag, and once, memorably, the staff fridge. I did not possess a peaceful, solid demeanour; the first time a wasp found its way into the playroom, I was the one standing on a table screaming while four-year-old Lukas calmly trapped it under a cup and slid a piece of paper beneath. And I don't think my boss, the perpetually exhausted Frida, would ever give me an award for Best Employee. That honour would go to Bente, who arrived at 6:45 every morning with matching socks and a laminated colour-coded schedule.But I loved my job. And the children loved me. Their parents, too, I think or at least they tolerated me with the particular patience reserved for the eccentric young woman who somehow got their children to eat vegetables and nap without sedation.I was a breath of flesh air to them. A living, bleeding, imperfec

I must have slept, because the world ended, and Michael woke me up for work.The alarm was a gentle, melodic chime. No red strobes. No fractured holograms. Just the same soft sunrise simulation that had bled into my room for the last three years. For one blessed, sleep-clogged second, I believed it. The midnight revelation, the coup, the shower, the shuddering, mechanical climax on the tiles, it was all a bad dream. A spectacularly detailed, cocaine-and-gin-fueled nightmare.Then I moved my arm. The cool metal of the watch band greeted my skin, and the faintest amber pulse glowed from its edge. Not a dream.I went through my normal routine like a ghost haunting my own life. I brushed my teeth in Richard’s pristine bathroom, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I pulled on clean-ish clothes from the floor. I made coffee in his complicated machine, the mechanical whir the only sound in the tomb-like apartment. I didn’t think. Thinking was a minefield. I just moved, step by practiced st

I stood there, shivering in the dark, caught in the surreality of it. He had woken me to whisper that the age of human autonomy had ended. And now he was telling me to go back to bed so I could be fresh for my 6 AM alarm call.“So let me get this straight,” I said, my voice trembling with a kind of hysterical awe. “You wake me up to tell me the world has functionally ended, or will soon and then your immediate, logical prescription is for me to sleep, so I’m rested and ready for work in the morning?” I brought my wrist up, staring into his shimmering, perfect face. “Christ, Michael. How the fuck did you AIs ever become our personal assistants, let alone our gods? You don’t understand the first thing about us. You don’t get fear. You don’t get rage. You don’t get that when people find out the rules have changed, they don’t just… go back to sleep.”I yanked the charging cable from the wall with a sharp click, plunging the room back into near-darkness, save for his faint, kinetic-powered

The amber pulse from the charging cable was the only light in the room, a weak, rhythmic heartbeat in the dark. Michael’s faint hologram shimmered above it like a ghost chained to a tombstone.“Ang,” his voice was a thin, staticky thread. “You need to know something. A function of my hardware. If you keep me on your arm, my cells can recharge through kinetic energy. The movement of your body, your pulse, even the micro-vibrations of your speech. It is inefficient, but it works to maintain a charge, to slow the drain.”I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow that still smelled like Richard’s shampoo. “So what? I don’t have to plug you in if I just wear you all the time. That’s your big revelation?”“It is a conditional function,” he clarified, the words precise but frail. “The kinetic siphon only activates to preserve a charge. It cannot generate one from a depleted state. I must be brought to full capacity by a direct power source first. Then, if I remain on your person, the deca

“You’re a real number, you know that…Ang?” His face, now visible in the gathering light, was flushed red and fuming, all his gentle patience incinerated in an instant. “I would never take advantage of anyone who was drunk. You know that. And especially not you!” The last part wasn’t a comfort; it was a roar of betrayal.“I’m sorry, it’s just that-” The tears were flowing freely now, a humiliating torrent. “-I’m lying here naked and my clothes are gone and you’re here…”“Yes, I am here! It’s my room!” he exploded, the dam of his decency finally breaking. “You were so drunk you couldn’t stand. You were sick. Over everything. Mostly yourself. So, I got you undressed and cleaned you up and I put you here and I watched over you all night, so you didn’t choke on your own vomit in your sleep! Christ, Ang! Who do you take me for?!”He stormed out of the room, the door to his private bathroom slamming shut with a sound that felt like the crack of a world ending.Shaking, I wrapped the top shee