Chapter 1Sorry Daddy You Have Expired

On my son’s sixth birthday, his father bought an eighty-thousand-dollar digital castle for a girl made entirely of code.

For his actual, living flesh-and-blood son, Nathan brought home a mousepad.

Not even a new one. It was a defective piece of corporate swag from his studio’s overstock bin, warped along the stitched border and stamped with an unfortunate typo: HAP-PY 6TH BIRTH-DOY, CHAMP!

That misspelled DOY was an almost poetic mirror of my own jaw hanging slack in disbelief.

Nathan slid the mousepad across our quartz kitchen island with the breezy indifference of a man handing a receipt to a cashier.

"Something came up at the studio right before I left," he said, smoothing his tailored cuffs. "Didn't have time to hit the toy store. But Sam’s a smart kid. He knows how hard I work. He won't hold it against me."

Sam was sitting in front of his bakery box cake, wearing a cardboard dinosaur crown that had slipped crooked over his left ear. He didn't take off the crown. Instead, he reached out with small, careful fingers and traced the rubber edge of the mousepad.

"Dad," Sam asked, his voice thin and hopeful, "is Peaches's castle pretty?"

Peaches was the crown jewel of DreamHaven, the life-simulation mobile game Nathan’s studio had launched eighteen months ago.

Six months back, Nathan had coded a personalized, bespoke version of the digital daughter for himself. Pixels, pink hair, saucer-like anime eyes. In the game, Peaches followed his avatar around, squeaking Daddy! in high-pitched synthesized chimes. Peaches never threw tantrums in the grocery store. Peaches never caught the stomach flu during an investor pitch. Peaches was programmed to offer unconditional, algorithmic adoration.

Industry blogs hailed it as revolutionary affective AI.

I called it playing house for tech bros with too much venture capital and zero emotional bandwidth.

Nathan was already looking down at his phone, a soft, indulgent smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "She loves it, buddy. She gave me a hug the second the render loaded."

I picked up the serrated plastic cake knife and scraped the frosting off the blade against the rim of a paper plate. Twice.

"You want a napkin, Nathan?" I asked evenly.

He didn't look up. "For what?"

"To wipe the digital drool off your chin."

His head snapped up, his brow pinching into that familiar, tight crease. In seven years of marriage, Nathan’s least favorite thing in the world was my sarcasm.

Which was funny, because in seven years of marriage, my least favorite thing was watching him morph into a phantom who only existed from the chest up.

Nathan didn't bother engaging. He just tapped his screen again.

Today was DreamHaven’s worldwide anniversary event. Every registered user received a single, non-transferable "Wish Star"—a rare digital token that could be gifted to any bound family member to fulfill an in-game wish.

Sam had known about this for two weeks.

He had circled the date on the kitchen calendar with a red Crayola.

Dad said he’d bring me into the developer portal, Sam had told me every night before bed. He said he’d let me look at the code engines. I’m gonna make games when I grow up, Mom.

Sam wiped his hands carefully on his jeans, stood up, and moved over to sit beside Nathan’s stool.

On the bright OLED screen, Peaches stood at the gates of a sprawling neon-pink fairytale fortress. A system prompt pulsed in gold lettering:

[Only one Wish Star available. Select recipient.]

The interface offered two choices: Peaches, and a linked family account belonging to Sam Mercer.

Nathan’s thumb hovered over the glass.

Sam pressed his lips together, his eyes wide and glossy with anticipation. "Dad... I don't need a skin or anything. I just want to see the star explode into the fireworks on your big dev monitor."

The bar was so low it was subterranean.

He wasn’t asking for an eighty-thousand-dollar castle. He wasn't even asking for a real Lego set. He just wanted six seconds of particle effects on his father’s phone.

Nathan’s thumb tapped Peaches’s icon.

Pink pyrotechnics erupted across the display. Peaches spun in a digital pirouette, her synthesized voice piping through the phone’s speakers: You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world! Peaches loves you forever!

The light died in Sam’s eyes before the fireworks on the screen did.

Nathan reached out with an absentminded grin and ruffled Sam’s hair. "You're the big brother, sport. You have to let your sister have her moment."

The plastic knife in my hand snapped clean in half.

The sharp crack cut right through the synthesized chimes.

"Nathan," I said, my voice dropping an octave, "are you genuinely out of your mind?"

The smile vanished from his face, replaced by that cool, weary executive mask he reserved for difficult board members. "It’s the kid’s birthday, Lauren. Do you really have to pick a fight right now?"

"Do you even remember whose birthday it is?"

"It’s an in-game asset," he sighed, tossing the phone onto the island. "Sam doesn't actually need it."

Doesn't need it.

Peaches needed an eighty-thousand-dollar castle. Peaches needed the Wish Star. Peaches needed his undivided emotional presence. But his son? His son was mature. His son was understanding.

"Understanding" is just the counterfeit emotional currency adults hand to children so they can shortchange them without feeling like monsters.

I tossed the two broken pieces of the plastic knife into the trash can under the sink.

"Come on, Sam. Put your shoes on. Mom’s taking you out for barbecue."

Sam didn't move. He shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes glued to the half-eaten cake.

"We haven't blown out the candles yet," he whispered.

He didn't wait for me to find matches. He leaned forward, clasped his small hands tightly against his chest, squeezed his eyes shut, and blew out the six unlit wax sticks standing in the buttercream.

"I wish Mom never has to get the short end of the stick again," he whispered into the quiet kitchen.

The sound came from inside my skull—a crisp, mechanical chime, like the chime of a terminal booting up.

[Wish detected.]

[Favoritism Exchange System successfully bound.]

[Host Protocol Active: For every substantive act of emotional or material favoritism committed by the target spouse, the Host may unilaterally seize one asset or status belonging to the target.]

I stared across the counter at Nathan.

He was already back on his phone, using two fingers to adjust the angle of Peaches’s diamond tiara.

Fine.

If a father wants to raise an electronic parasite on the blood and marrow of his real child, then an electronic reckoning seemed entirely fair.