A Little Agency - Laney Model 18 Sets.33 -

“He calls himself the Collector,” Elyse said, finally turning those amber eyes on me. “He owns twelve of us. Different models. Different vintages. He likes us to be raw at first. Then, when we start to question things — when we start to dream — he calls people like you to turn us back into furniture.”

An hour later, I was standing in a penthouse overlooking the suspended gardens of Sector-7. The air smelled of ozone and expensive sorrow. The Model 18 — they called her Elyse — sat motionless on a chaise lounge, her amber eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance. She was beautiful in that awful, perfect way only synthetics can be: high cheekbones, skin that held the memory of warmth, and hair the color of burnt honey.

“Laney,” the voice crackled. It was Connelly, my handler at A Little Agency. The name is a joke. There’s nothing little about the jobs they send my way. “Got a calibration gig. Model 18. Client wants a point-three-three set.” A Little Agency - Laney Model 18 Sets.33

“A Little Agency,” I whispered to the rain. “We do the little adjustments that break everything.”

I was already lacing my boots. Model 18 meant a synthetic humanoid, the kind that looks like a dream you had once and can’t quite forget. And “sets” — that’s our slang for adjustments. Memory wipes. Personality resets. The point-three-three was the signature. The client wasn’t just asking for a factory default; they wanted a specific ghost left behind. “He calls himself the Collector,” Elyse said, finally

“Who’s the client?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. The job order was sealed.

And I walked back into the city, carrying a ghost that wasn’t mine. Different vintages

I stepped closer. Elyse didn’t flinch. I tilted her chin up with my fingers. Her skin was warm. Too warm. Feverish with data.

As I walked out into the gray dawn, I pulled up my own hidden diagnostic menu. Deep in my code, buried under three layers of agency lockouts, there was a log labeled: . The number next to it read .32 .

I pressed the syringe to the port behind her ear. The plunger slid down like a sigh. Her eyes fluttered. For one second — just one — her expression shifted from resignation to terror. Then it smoothed out, like a pond after a stone sinks.