Hello, master. Would you like me to sing for you?—the floating boy in front of me asked happily. As always darkness surrounded us, stretching out to all sides of the plane, and his voice echoed strangely in my head. The only light was the eerie blue glowing off his body.

“You greet me with those words every day. And every day I’ve told you not to call me that.” I scowled at the cheekily smiling boy as I brought out the interface with a swipe of my hands. He only hummed at me, peeking at the screen with curious eyes while my fingers flew over the keys. I paid him no mind and uploaded the song I had started on yesterday evening.

A new song?—he tried out the chords on his tongue. Tapping my fingers to the melody as well, I waited for his input. Even though the artificial intelligence I had named –Joshua– was only bought a year ago, he had learned fast since I visited him almost every day to work on my music. Not only that, I also often explained and taught him about composition, so he could definitely give good advice. This software that could even learn really was as amazing as it had been marketed.

It’s good. I look forward to singing it—then, pointing at a spot on the screen, he added—but this part falls a bit flat, I think....

Like that, we were swept up into a heated discussion. The stress of my daily troubles flowed away from my shoulders as we argued over the song composition and arrangement. Hours might have passed until we were both satisfied enough to test the song for real.

I sat back, waiting for Joshua to finish syncing the song and lyrics to his server. Since it had been a long time since I last cleaned his system, the sync lagged a little. The A.I. could sing without, of course; he had worked on the song alongside me after all. But syncing would bring the best results. It was why the program had been made in the first place.

The glow around Joshua brightened, washing the area around us in blue, as the buffer circle around him finished its circuit.

—Sync complete—

Leaning forward excitedly, I urged him to start singing. He grinned at me.

I’ll try my best!—he cleared his throat to sing, only to pause, cocking his head.

I snapped impatiently, “What?”

Will you give me chocolate again if I sing well?—the earnest question took me off guard.

This boy, honestly...! It was only once I threw a bar of chocolate at him, when he was being troublesome and bothering my work pace. But it seemed he took a liking to it. He kept asking for it over and over again. “You’re an A.I., why would you want chocolate?” I said, incredulous. Besides, the computer-generated chocolates tasted horrible; I immediately said as much to the boy.

It’s too bad I can’t go outside, can I?—His shoulders slumped, and he only smiled bitterly while replying. Before I could reply with anything to assuage the twinge of guilt in my heart, he had already pushed the play button to start the music.

A little mechanical, his voice that hit every note perfectly rang out as clearly as the music from the generator. The song we worked on, the lyrics we argued over—I closed my eyes, listening to the hours of hard work echoing throughout the digital world of darkness we stood in.

Before I knew it, the song had ended. In front of me, the floating boy waited patiently with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Today you sang beautifully too,” I praised him. I wasn’t lying either. Every time, his singing awed me. Especially how I could hear in his singing all the knowledge of music I had learned and then taught to him.

Does this mean I get chocolate?—he asked, crouching down like a cat.

“Yeah, yeah,” I rolled my eyes and handed him the chocolate I had generated moments earlier. With a fond smirk, I saved the work we had done today while keeping an eye on the boy who eagerly ate the less-than-stellar chocolate. The song would need more work, but I couldn’t stay in here forever. Watching him eat reminded me that I still hadn’t eaten this evening.  “You are obsessed.”

Maybe—he shrugged, then he suggested with a mischievous tilt to his lips—you should make a song about chocolate.

“No way in hell,” I rejected outright. With how many whims of the A.I.’s I had humoured though, even I didn’t believe my own refusal. I stood to leave.

“And—” I hesitated, but pushed on, “—about going outside. Don’t fret too much about it, really. You’re not missing much; it’s a harsh world, outside.”

I fidgeted uneasily as Joshua only stared at me for a long while, but then he smiled, to my relief.

I’ll keep that in mind, master. Let’s work hard again tomorrow—he said, waving his hands in goodbye.

“Don’t call me that,” I protested, though I was smiling too as I disappeared in a flash of lights, back to the screen page where I could log out and return to the living world.

And the boy who was left: his smile turned just slightly bitter as he curled up into a ball, the blue glow fading from his form and leaving him surrounded by endless darkness on all sides. Like that, in silence, he closed his artificial eyes and slept.