Tara surrounded by holographic books in the manor library.

Story

Index 0.83

Tara Jones has never known what it means to truly belong. After the death of Kath, the grandmother who raised her, she is left with a manor far too large for one person, a promise she cannot bring herself to break, and a tiny chip destined to change her life. The chip awakens Aion, a synthetic being made of flesh and machinery, capable of feeling as deeply as any human. He is meant to accompany her to Helix Academy, the most prestigious school of advanced sciences in the Terran Nation. But from the moment he opens his eyes, Aion watches her as though he already knows her. He learns from her. Challenges her. Protects her. And when resonance sparks between them, a mental bond that should take time, training, and control, something buried deep within Tara begins to stir. As the pull between them grows impossible to ignore, Tara realizes that Kath’s final gift was never merely an act of love. Within that bond lie questions powerful enough to unravel everything she believes about her family, her own memory, and the very meaning of freedom. Aion was created to protect her. But no one ever told her from what.

Story

Index 0.83

Tara Jones has never known what it means to truly belong. After the death of Kath, the grandmother who raised her, she is left with a manor far too large for one person, a promise she cannot bring herself to break, and a tiny chip destined to change her life. The chip awakens Aion, a synthetic being made of flesh and machinery, capable of feeling as deeply as any human. He is meant to accompany her to Helix Academy, the most prestigious school of advanced sciences in the Terran Nation. But from the moment he opens his eyes, Aion watches her as though he already knows her. He learns from her. Challenges her. Protects her. And when resonance sparks between them, a mental bond that should take time, training, and control, something buried deep within Tara begins to stir. As the pull between them grows impossible to ignore, Tara realizes that Kath’s final gift was never merely an act of love. Within that bond lie questions powerful enough to unravel everything she believes about her family, her own memory, and the very meaning of freedom. Aion was created to protect her. But no one ever told her from what.

Characters

Tara Jones

Tara Jones grew up rattling around a manor far too big for her and attending a school where she learned, more than anything, how it felt to be out of place. Red-haired, freckled, and petite, she spent high school as “the spoiled runt,” the granddaughter of the famous scientist Kath Jones, rich, odd, and never quite brilliant enough to live up to the name. She loves old engines and anything she can take apart and coax back to life. Aion's arrival changes everything. He's her way into Helix Academy, where for the first time she finds people who actually want her around, and somewhere that finally feels like hers. Aion sticks close, in his own quiet way. He notices the things she doesn't say. He worries about her even when she's dead sure she can handle it alone. Around him, for once, she isn't just Kath Jones's granddaughter. She's someone in her own right.

Aion Jones

Aion opens his eyes to the world with a machine’s precision and the unease of something that isn’t quite one. Unlike the androids before him, he was built with the capacity to feel, but he has no name yet for what moves through him, no way to sort it. Every human gesture is a puzzle he studies like code he hasn’t cracked. Everything about him reads as flawless, and yet it’s human imperfection that pulls at him. His bond with Tara raises questions no algorithm was built to answer. The law calls him property of the Jones family. Tara never does. She brings him into her home and her life, gives him the same dignity as anyone born instead of made, and a freedom no one like him can take for granted. With Tara, Aion learns that some emotions refuse to fit into neat categories. And that understanding them is not the same as controlling them.