My mother was one of the most famous AI researchers in America.
Not long after I was born, she built an AI companion device for me. Every year, she replaced its body and upgraded its programming. By the time I was ten, it had become a robot that looked no different from a real girl. My mother called her my “little sister,” Ava.
Mom said Ava was linked to my biometric wristband and equipped with the most accurate lie-detection system possible.
If I lied, Ava would always know.
From then on, Ava decided my punishment.
The moment she sounded an alert—even if I was telling the truth—Mom would hit me and lock me in the windowless storage room.
I tried to explain. I even tried to fight back.
But every time, Mom’s face would harden. “Ava was built by my own hands,” she’d say. “Her system can’t be wrong. If someone is wrong, it has to be you.”
On the first weekend of summer vacation, in a rare move, Mom took Ava and me to an adventure park outside Austin.
I stood on a free-fall platform over sixty-five feet high, clutching my chest as a knot of fear tightened inside me. I shook my head, again and again.
A blue light flashed in Ava’s eyes. She immediately displayed a report for Mom.
“Morgan’s elevated heart rate is caused by lying. Full-body scan shows no health issues.”
Mom’s face darkened. She grabbed my ear and dragged me toward the edge of the platform.
“Lying again. You’re jumping today.”
The moment the safety line dropped me, a pain ripped through my chest as if my heart were splitting apart. My mouth fell open, but I couldn’t pull in any air.
My vision started to go black. Mom stood above me, still scolding me, her voice loud as she accused me of using lies to manipulate people.
A bloody tear slid from the corner of my eye.
*Mom, this time I really wasn’t lying.*
I died.
From now on, I would never say another word you could call a lie.
My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 10 A few days later, Mom sat in an interrogation room at the county police department. Her hands were cuffed to the table. Her hair was a mess, her eyes unfocused. She looked nothing like the Dr. Ashford who wore impeccably tailored suits and
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 09 The moment he entered the building, he heard residents talking about a child in the garage. He ran past the people gathered behind the police tape and saw me on the isolation sheet. “Mo?” He stopped a few feet away, as if he
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 08 Mom stretched a hand toward Ava, her arm restrained by the officers. “Ava, tell them! You’ve been linked to Morgan’s heart data the whole time! She doesn’t have a heart condition! Her body has always been normal!” “You’re my most perfect creation. You
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 07 Not long after, a medical examiner’s investigator arrived. She pulled on gloves and checked my pupils, neck, and limbs, then carefully lifted the hem of my old T-shirt. She saw the fresh bruise on my side, the abrasions on my calves, and older
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 06 My face was no longer the color of the living. Gray-blue lividity spread from my neck down beneath my collar. My cracked lips had turned dark purple, and a dried black streak of blood marked the corner of my mouth. That was from
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 05 “Ava is a system I led a team to develop. I wrote the core program myself. It cannot make that kind of mistake.” I stood to the side, shaking my head. *Ava was wrong. She has never told the truth.* *Mom, you trusted
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 04 I lunged at Ava, trying to grab her shoulders and tear apart that calm, perfect face. She was the one who had been lying all along. My hands passed straight through her body. A few residents who heard Ava’s explanation looked disgusted. “She
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 03 The next morning, when Dad saw my empty room, he finally sensed something was wrong. “Where’s Mo? She never came in last night?” Mom stood at the kitchen island, sipping her coffee without looking up. “Relax. She probably got out of the car
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 02 When we got back to our downtown apartment, Dad was in the living room reading an architecture magazine. He frowned when he saw Mom and Ava come in. “Just you two? Where’s Mo?” Mom tossed her car keys into the tray by the
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My Mother’s Perfect AI Lied And Left Me For Dead Chapter 01 My mother was one of the most famous AI researchers in America. Not long after I was born, she built an AI companion device for me. Every year, she replaced its body and upgraded its programming. By the time I was ten, it
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