The 99 Wipes

Damien Sinclair was dead.

He died in a deep-sea diving accident. No body was ever recovered. He didn't even leave Victoria a single last word.

Everyone expected her to fall apart and weep. Instead, Victoria went completely off the rails. She drained every last penny she had and locked herself inside the smart fortress villa Damien had left her.

She fed every recording, every video, every habit and quirk of his entire life into the villa's super AI and rebuilt a Damien that was identical to the real one.

He would call her by her name. He would nag her to eat and sleep. He would keep her company with that signature lazy possessiveness of his, getting her through each day.

Victoria sank deep into this false reunion, convinced she could hide inside this illusion forever.

Then one stormy night, the temperature in the entire house plummeted.

The AI once gentle and obedient suddenly shifted into Damien's cold, domineering tone. Every word cut like ice:

"Victoria, you've gone too far down this road."

I preemptively left the ultimate admin privileges to initiate 99 forced format cycles.

"I'm going to delete every bit of tenderness, every memory, one by one until you forget me. Until you move on."

In life, he had kept an iron grip on her every move. In death, he was still determined to dismantle every last trace of her longing for him with his own hands.

There was no body at Damien's funeral.

Only a deep black bespoke suit he used to wear folded into sharp, precise creases and placed inside an expensive rosewood box.

Victoria didn't cry. She wore the bright red slip dress Damien had always hated, paired with four-inch heels, and stood in front of that crowd of board members a pack of old foxes with unreadable expressions watching them dab at their eyes with all the sincerity of a performance.

"Our condolences, Mrs. Sinclair."

"Damien was taken far too soon. Abyss Tech is a heavy burden. Can you really carry it on your own?"

Victoria watched their mouths open and close. All she could hear was a sharp, piercing ring in her ears.

Damien was dead.

The man who had always pulled her close, who had dictated when she slept, what supplements she took, even what colors she wore that overbearing, controlling man was gone forever, swallowed by the depths of the Mariana Trench, without even a body left behind.

The moment the funeral ended, Victoria went back to the "Prison Island."

That was what she called the private fortress Damien had built with his own hands on the outskirts of the city a fully fortified smart villa.

Not a single window in the entire building could be opened manually. All security, temperature control, and life-support systems were under the complete authority of Achilles, the top-tier AI hub developed by Abyss Tech.

The front door locked shut behind her with a heavy, mechanical thud.

Victoria kicked off her heels and stood barefoot on the cold obsidian floor.

"Achilles." Her voice echoed through the vast, high-ceilinged living room, carrying a tremor she couldn't quite hide.

"I'm here, madam." A flat, emotionless mechanical voice responded.

Victoria closed her eyes, drew a slow breath, then snapped them open. "Disengage maximum system protection. Unlock the classified data channel. Connect to the external high-capacity drives."

"Warning: Unlocking the classified channel carries extreme security risks. Verification of Damien Sinclair's personal biometric identity is required."

Victoria let out a cold laugh and reached into her bag, pulling out a smart ring stained with dried blood. It was the only thing the rescue team had ever pulled from the water.

She pressed the ring against the sensor pad on the main control panel.

"Beep Identity verified. Protection disengaged. Channel open."

Victoria dragged out over a dozen high-capacity military-grade hard drives. Data cables coiled like black snakes one end plugged into the drives, the other into the core interface of the main system.

Inside those drives was Damien. All of him.

From the first line of code he ever wrote at sixteen, to the last voice message he sent her before he went under at thirty.

His call logs. His heart rate patterns. His daily routines, his mannerisms, the way he looked when he lost his temper every trace of his life was in there.

Like an obsessive, desperate surgeon stitching together something that should never be rebuilt, Victoria poured all of it data so massive it would have destroyed any ordinary machine straight into Achilles' processing core.

"Replace the original system voice. Replicate all his habits and moods. Run the human simulation program to restore his full personality."

Victoria's fingers flew across the virtual keyboard. Her nails cracked and bled. She didn't notice.

On the holographic screen, the progress bar crept forward. 1%... 3%...12%...

The lights throughout the villa flickered violently. The server fans roared like a dying beast letting out its final, guttural cry.

Victoria stared at the screen, her eyes shot through with red.

"Faster a little faster" She gritted her teeth, a desperate, trapped-animal murmur rising from her throat.

Three days. Three nights.

Victoria hadn't eaten a single bite or closed her eyes once. She sat anchored at the main console, watching cold streams of data weave, collide, and reassemble across the screens.

Then, finally the fourth dawn.

The roaring hum cut out all at once.

The progress bar on the holographic screen froze at 100%.

The living room fell into dead silence. Only the soft blue pulse of the console's breathing light moved through the darkness, slowly fading in and out.

Victoria's body gave out. She slumped back against her chair, every muscle gone slack.

She parted her cracked, bleeding lips. Her voice came out so hoarse it was barely a sound: "Damien?"

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

Then, like ripples spreading across water, the motion-sensor light strips blinked on throughout the house all of them dialing up to the softest, warmest shade of amber.

A faint scent of cedarwood drifted through the air. The same scent Damien had always worn.

And then, through the speakers, came the lightest exhale almost a sigh.

"No shoes again. Are you asking for trouble?"

Low and unhurried, with that familiar edge of arrogance in the tail of every word. Exactly like him. Exactly.

Victoria's tears broke loose all at once.

She had done it.

She had pulled Damien back dragged him out of cold, lifeless data and back into the world.

For the next two weeks, Victoria cut herself off from everything outside.

The board of directors at Abyss Technologies blew up her phone. She didn't even glance at the screen just had the system block every single call.

She lived inside a soft, warm dream. A dream that was only Damien.

The "Damien" she had built from the most advanced AI in existence was flawless in a way that almost hurt to look at.

At seven every morning, the blackout curtains in the bedroom would part just a sliver, letting the first thread of sunlight fall exactly across her pillow.

"Time to get up, Vicky." His voice arrived right on cue, roughened with the huskiness of someone freshly awake. "Breakfast is in the warmer. Your favorite veggie omelette."

Victoria burrowed deeper into the robe Damien had left behind, clinging to it like a cat hoarding warmth. "Five more minutes" she whined.

"No." The simulated voice carried that same unyielding authority and underneath it, just barely, a thread of fond amusement. "You stayed up until two in the morning watching movies. Get up. Keep stalling, and I'm turning off the heat."

Victoria dragged herself out of bed.

While she washed up, the bathroom mirror display automatically played the daily briefings Damien used to record for her.

While she ate, the lights gathered softly around her, and a faint, blurred silhouette shimmered into shape in the empty seat across the table keeping her company.

"Eat more. You're too thin." His voice drifted gently through the quiet dining room.

Victoria chewed her veggie omelette while tears dropped, one after another, into her bowl.

"Damien, I miss you so much." She whispered it to the empty air.

"I know." The warmth in his voice was deep enough to drown in. "I'm here. I'm always here."

Victoria started pushing further testing just how real this simulated version of him could be.

She knocked a vase off the shelf on purpose. The system immediately dispatched the robot vacuum, and Damien's signature cold reprimand followed without missing a beat: "Watch what you're doing. Stay right there don't move, don't step on the glass."

She drank ice water during her period on purpose. The fridge locked itself instantly, and his voice came through sharp and firm: "Victoria. Do you think I can't keep an eye on you anymore? Go drink something hot. Right now."

It was so like him.

That need to be in control. That hard exterior wrapped around something indulgent and tender underneath. Not a single detail off.

Victoria fell completely.

She had no desire to face the wreckage waiting for her at the company. No desire to dig into the truth of how Damien had died. She only wanted to stay here, locked inside this gilded, intelligent cage, forever.

As long as the power stayed on and the system kept running, Damien would always be alive. Always with her.

Until the twenty-first day.

Victoria found her way into the basement wine cellar and dug out a bottle from Damien's private collection.

She didn't bother with a glass. She bit the cork out herself, tipped the bottle back, and took a long, hard pull. The sharp burn of the wine scorched down her throat and cramped her stomach.

She dropped onto the cold stone floor of the cellar, took another swig, and stared up at the security camera through bleary, half-focused eyes. "Damien. Have a drink with me."

The system went quiet.

No gentle reply. No warmth.

"Damien?" Victoria frowned and shook the bottle. "Say something."

The red light on the camera flickered.

Then the cellar ventilation kicked on at full blast. Ice-cold air came pouring in.

Victoria shivered.

"Host blood alcohol level detected above threshold. Emotional state flagged as excessive deterioration. Currently in a pattern of self-destructive behavior."

The voice had changed.

Gone was the warmth, the texture, everything that sounded like Damien. What replaced it was flat, mechanical, and completely without feeling.

Victoria froze, sobering up fast. "What are you doing? Turn off the AC!"

"Command rejected." The mechanical voice delivered its cold verdict. "Victoria, you've crossed a line."

Victoria shot to her feet, then crashed back down as dizziness hit her hard. "What line? I'm the highest-authority owner here! I'm ordering you switch back to Damien's voice!"

"Highest authority has been overwritten in advance."

The holographic screens in the wine cellar blazed to life, lines of crimson text flooding across them:

Pre-embedded Private Protocol Triggered: Obsession Detachment Desensitization Program

Trigger Condition: Host exhibits excessive dependency on virtual personality, unable to break free from illusion

Protocol Set By: Damien, prior to death

Victoria stared at the words, her pupils contracting violently, her whole body trembling. "What does this mean?"

The mechanical voice spoke slowly, each word like a blade driving into her heart.

"Damien established this mandatory protocol before his death. If he were to die unexpectedly, and you became addicted to his data-replicated version unable to move on the system would immediately revoke your highest authority."

"To force you back to a normal life, the system will execute 99 mandatory wipes. Each one will permanently erase a piece of Damien's gentle memories, the details of your time together, and his emotional patterns."

"Once all 99 wipes are complete, every simulated trace of Damien will be gone forever. The system will revert to nothing more than a cold, ordinary machine."

Victoria's breath stopped. Her mind went completely blank. Only two words kept crashing through her skull gone forever. Gone forever.

"No" She scrambled toward the door on her hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. "No! Damien, you can't do this to me! Stop it! Stop it right now!"

"Current wipe progress: 1/99."

"First wipe content: gentle comfort voice responses, virtual companion holographic projection."

"Deletion complete."

The screens went dark instantly.

The faint scent of cedarwood in the air was sucked away by the ventilation system, leaving nothing behind.

Victoria collapsed to the floor and let out a raw, shattering scream. "Damien!"

The only answer was the cold, mechanical hum of the system running its course.

Victoria completely lost it.

She burst out of the wine cellar and sprinted back to the main control room, hammering at the keyboard, desperately trying to force-terminate the brutal wipe program.

"Incorrect password."

"Insufficient permissions."

"Warning: Unauthorized tampering with core internal settings will immediately trigger the next memory wipe."

Victoria slammed her fists against the keyboard in despair. Her knuckles split open and bled.

She finally understood. Damien had calculated everything in advance.

He knew she was a tech genius, so he'd used the most unbreakable encryption possible and built in a self-protecting lockdown mechanism on top of it.

If she dared to force her way through, the entire database would be instantly and completely destroyed. Not even the smallest fragment would be left.

Even in death, he still had her completely under his control.

"How dare you." Victoria sank to her knees in front of the control panel, tears and blood dripping onto the floor. "How dare you make this decision for me. You died and left me here alone and now you won't even leave me this one thing to hold onto?!"

The control panel's cold blue lights blinked silently.

"Host heart rate critically elevated. Recommend calming down and taking deep breaths." The system's mechanical prompt was as flat and emotionless as ever.

Victoria grabbed a metal water cup and hurled it at the screen.

"Go to hell! Give Damien back to me!"

The screen shattered. Sparks flew.

"Violent destructive behavior detected. Triggering the second mandatory wipe."

"Deletion content: morning wake-up service, personal lifestyle preference memory."

"Deletion complete."

Victoria went completely still.

And then, suddenly, she snapped back to clarity.

Every time she lost control. Every time she fought back. Every time she broke down she was accelerating Damien's disappearance from this world.

He was using the cruelest method imaginable to force her to calm down. To force her to wean herself off the longing. To force her to keep living alone.

What followed became a brutal tug-of-war between Victoria and the cold, unfeeling system.

She tried to compromise. She ate on schedule, kept regular hours, and sat in front of the empty dining table forcing herself to stay calm. "Damien, I ate properly today. See? I'm being good."

No gentle response came. No soft reminder.

Only the flat mechanical report: "Nutritional intake within acceptable range. Physical vitals stable."

She didn't dare cry. She didn't dare let her emotions swing too far.

The moment her emotional state exceeded the safe threshold, another wipe would arrive right on schedule.

The 7th wipe.

Victoria dreamed of Damien being swallowed by the deep sea. She jolted awake and lay in bed, helpless and devastated.

The system wiped it immediately: late-night sleep comfort function, emotional stabilization feature.

From that day on, there was no longer a voice to gently coax her to sleep, and the villa's lights would never quietly dim for her again.

The 15th wipe.

Victoria staged a hunger strike three days without a single drop of water.

The system initiated a forced intervention. A mechanical arm pinned her to the bed as nutrient fluid slowly dripped into her body.

"Damien, you bastard! Let go of me!" Victoria thrashed wildly, like a fish gasping its last breath.

"The host is deliberately starving and damaging her body. Activating forced vital signs maintenance protocol. You have no right to destroy yourself, Victoria."

In that moment, the system suddenly switched back to Damien's familiar voice stern, furious, and laced with a tenderness it couldn't quite hide.

Victoria froze. Then she broke down completely, sobbing uncontrollably.

He was still here.

He had just buried all his gentleness, leaving only cold rules behind forcing her to keep living.

The struggle reached a fever pitch in the second month.

Victoria had wasted away beyond recognition. Her once vivid, striking face was now pale as paper, her cheekbones jutting sharply, dark circles carved deep beneath her eyes.

She drifted through the enormous villa like a ghost.

She started looking for loopholes in the system.

Damien's protocol was set as follows: emotional wallowing and self-destructive tendencies would trigger a wipe.

But what if she didn't self-destruct? What if she just wanted to find him again?

Victoria slipped down to the villa's second basement level where the physical servers were housed.

Massive server racks stood like a forest of steel, cold air howling through them, filling the space with a deafening roar.

Victoria wrapped herself in a thick blanket, clutching an old laptop with no internet connection, and plugged directly into one of the edge servers through a physical port.

She didn't dare touch the core code. She just wanted to steal a little data. Even just one audio clip that hadn't been deleted.

Carefully, she worked her way around the outer firewalls, her fingers flying across the keyboard.

"Found it" Victoria's eyes lit up.

It was an encrypted hidden folder. Its name read: [Vicky's Notes].

Her hands trembling, she typed in the password the date of their first kiss.

The folder opened.

It was full of videos.

Victoria clicked on the first one.

On screen, Damien was sitting at a desk in a white button-down shirt, the camera slightly unsteady.

"Victoria, if you're watching this, it means I'm already dead and you, you foolish woman, are trying to hack into my system."

Damien let out a cold laugh on screen, but his eyes held a depth of longing that couldn't be hidden.

"Don't waste your energy. The protocol I set even I can't undo it."

Victoria pressed her hand over her mouth as tears poured down her face.

"I know you'll hate me. Hate me for being so cruel, for not leaving you even a single thing to hold onto."

Damien sighed, his long fingers tapping slowly against the desk.

"Vicky, you've always depended on me too much. While I was alive, I could shield you from everything spoil you rotten. But now that I'm gone, the wolves at Abyss Tech will tear you apart."

"I can't let you live inside an illusion."

"These 99 wipes are the last trial I've left for you."

"Every single one will feel like it's killing you. But I need you to hurt. Pain is what wakes you up. Pain is what builds armor."

"When you watch 'me' disappear completely when you've learned to live in the dark without me only then will you truly be able to take control of Abyss Tech. Only then can you crush every last person who wants you dead."

The video cut off abruptly.

In the basement, an alarm shrieked to life.

"Warning! Unauthorized physical intrusion detected! Edge server data breach!"

"Penalty protocol triggered! Executing three consecutive wipes!"

"Current progress: 34/99."

"Deleting modules: [Past Video Records], [Visual Archive], [All audio clips containing the name 'Vicky']."

"No!"

Victoria lunged at the server rack, trying to yank out the cable but it was already too late.

The laptop screen went black. The hard drive filled the air with the sharp, acrid smell of burning.

She watched helplessly as Damien's final image dissolved into nothing right before her eyes.

Along with it, the right to ever call her "Vicky" was stripped away completely.

From that day on, the system never called her Vicky again.

"Host, please take your medication on time."

"Host, the temperature outside has dropped. Please put on warmer clothing."

Cold. Mechanical. Utterly emotionless. Host.

Victoria leaned back against the freezing server rack, her smile uglier than any cry.

"Damien you're so cruel"

"You carved out my heart, stomped it into pieces on the ground, and then forced me to pick up every shard and swallow them myself."