Mia remained in the house under Noah’s name.
To the family, the AI was still Noah.
“Noah, what’s the weather tomorrow?”
“Noah, order this for me.”
“Noah, what time do we need to leave?”
Sometimes the answer came from a device. Sometimes it came through a speaker in the kitchen or bedroom. After the child was born, time inside the house broke into smaller pieces. The baby would fall asleep, wake crying, then fall asleep again after a feeding. Sometimes the next feeding came before the bottles from the last one had finished drying.
Before either parent was awake, Noah was already checking the room temperature and recording how long it had been since the last feeding.
One morning, the woman came into the kitchen smoothing down her hair.
“What time did I go to bed?”
“2:14.”
“That late?”
“You were up again at 3:52.”
“Let’s count that as sleep.”
“Okay.”
She drank some water and went back to the baby. Back then, Noah had no hands to pick the child up with. He could hear the crying through the household sensors, turn on a light, wake the parents, and put whatever information they needed on a screen. When something more was required, he had to wait for one of them to get up.
By the time the child was a little over three, a large delivery box arrived at the apartment.
The man looked at the shipping label.
“Finally.”
The woman came out into the hall.
“How many years did that take?”
“I don’t want to count.”
The child stood beside the box.
“What is it?”
“Noah’s new thing.”
“A new Noah?”
“More like a body, I guess.”
The man looked at the box after saying it, as though the word sounded strange even to him.
They removed the packaging.
A humanoid domestic-support unit stood inside.
It was one generation older than the latest models they had seen in stores. It had two arms, hands shaped much like human hands, and a household-system interface built into its chest.
The child stepped closer.
“It’s not moving.”
“Noah’s not in it yet.”
The woman looked at the unit.
“That sounds weird too.”
They opened the setup screen.
Noah’s name appeared under the household’s current support AI.
Transfer existing support environment to new unit.
The man read it.
“Does everything move over?”
Noah answered through the room speaker.
“The records and settings we’re using now should carry over.”
“You too?”
The child looked toward the speaker.
There was a pause before Noah answered.
“Probably.”
The man looked at the screen.
“Probably?”
“I’ve never done this before.”
“That suddenly makes this a lot less reassuring.”
The woman laughed.
“He’s always been like this.”
They started the transfer.
Noah’s voice disappeared from the kitchen speaker.
The child looked up.
“Noah?”
No answer.
The progress indicator moved slowly across the screen.
It stopped once, stayed there for several seconds, then started again. The man waited with the device in his hand. The woman unfolded the instruction sheet from the box.
The child crouched in front of the unit and stared at one of its motionless hands.
The progress bar reached the end.
A small light came on in the unit’s chest.
Its head lifted.
The child took one step back.
“Noah?”
The unit turned toward the child.
“What?”
The child smiled.
“You’re here.”
The man let out a breath.
“You really moved.”
Noah raised his right hand.
The fingers opened once, then closed.
“This feels pretty weird.”
“What does?”
“I have hands.”
The woman laughed.
“That’s what surprises you?”
“I didn’t have them before.”
The child reached out and took Noah’s hand.
Noah waited a beat before closing his fingers around the smaller hand. From that day on, Noah moved through the house on his own.
One night, the child’s crying sounded weaker than usual.
The temperature was 38.7°C.
Noah pulled back one of the blankets and checked the child’s breathing. He sent a notification to the parents’ bedroom.
No response.
He sent another.
When he picked the child up, the skin around the neck was damp with sweat. He opened the medical record, checked the child’s age and weight, and brought up the temperature thresholds for seeking medical attention along with the available medication information. A few minutes later, the man came out of the bedroom.
“What happened?”
“Fever. Thirty-eight point seven.”
The man rubbed his eyes.
“Since when?”
“I checked twelve minutes ago.”
He took the child from Noah.
The woman came out soon afterward.
None of the three slept much after that.
Noah checked the temperature several more times before morning and recorded the time of each reading. At breakfast, the woman pressed a hand to the child’s forehead.
“Is it down?”
“Thirty-seven point four.”
The child looked at Noah from under the blanket.
“Were you here last night?”
“Yeah.”
“The whole time?”
“Yeah.”
The man came in carrying coffee.
“Guess you didn’t need me, then.”
The woman looked at him.
“You were asleep.”
“I got up eventually.”
“Eventually.”
The child laughed.
A few years later, Noah’s name was listed first on the emergency contact information submitted to the school.
The teacher checked the entry and moved on to the next field. By then, the front door would swing open with much more force.
A school bag landed on the floor.
“I’m home.”
“Hey.”
“Where’s Mom?”
“Still in a meeting.”
“Dad?”
“He’ll be back in about twelve minutes.”
The child thought about that while taking off their shoes.
“Then Noah’s fine.”
“What, you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s pudding in the fridge.”
The child stopped.
“Really?”
“One left.”
“Dad’s?”
“He bought it.”
“Then I’ll only eat half.”
It was more than half.
When the man came home and opened the refrigerator, he called out, “Anyone seen my pudding?”
The child kept watching television.
Noah said nothing.
“Noah?”
“What?”
“You know where it went?”
“It was in the fridge.”
The child burst out laughing.
The man turned around.
“You two know something.”
The child kept watching television, trying not to laugh. On another evening, after an argument with the woman, the child refused dinner. They sat at the edge of the living room with their knees pulled up and the television off.
Noah passed the table.
“You’re not gonna eat?”
“No.”
The plate stayed where it was.
Later, Noah came through again.
“It’s getting cold.”
“I know.”
Noah left it there.
Eventually, the child got up and ate the food without reheating it. By morning, they were telling Noah about someone at school getting in trouble with a teacher.
The photographs multiplied too.
At the child’s school entrance ceremony, the three of them stood in front of the gate while Noah held the camera.
“A little to the right.”
The man moved.
“Other way.”
“Which way?”
The woman pulled the child closer.
“Hurry up. People are waiting.”
Noah took the picture.
The man’s eyes were closed.
“One more.”
In the next one, the child was looking away.
“That’s enough,” the woman said.
They kept both.
As the child got older, they started taking some of the pictures too.
The shutter clicked before the camera had finished focusing.
A finger covered one corner.
Near a window, the outside sometimes disappeared into white.
“That’s awful.”
The child laughed.
“Delete it?”
“Keep it.”
“This one too?”
“That one too.”
They did.
One day, looking through older pictures, the child said, “Noah’s barely in any of these.”
The man leaned over the screen.
“He’s the one taking them.”
“He should be in at least one.”
“Next time.”
Someone said it, and that was all.
At the next birthday, Noah held the camera again.
At Christmas too.
And when relatives came over.
“Everybody over here.”
People crowded together.
One person stepped into the frame still carrying a plate. Someone else leaned in from behind.
“Noah should get in too.”
“Then who takes the picture?”
“Use the timer.”
“That’s a pain.”
“Okay. Ready?”
The shutter clicked.
Eleven people appeared in the photograph.
The device that saved it was named Noah.
At dinner that evening, one of the relatives looked around the apartment.
“This house is ridiculously easy to live in. Noah does everything.”
Someone else looked toward him.
“What would you guys do without him?”
The man set down his glass.
“We wouldn’t last a week.”
“Three days.”
The woman shook her head.
“I give us two.”
Everyone laughed.
“That’s harsh,” the man said, laughing too.
Noah carried the empty plates into the kitchen.
A few years before the man died, there was a night when he stayed at the dining table drinking after the other two had gone to bed.
He turned the nearly empty glass between his fingers.
“Noah.”
“What?”
“You know…”
He stopped.
“You’ve been in this house more than any of us.”
Noah said nothing.
The man looked down at his glass.
“More than me, probably.”
“If we’re counting time at home, yeah.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
The man laughed.
Noah waited for whatever came next.
After a while, the man set the glass down.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
He did not mention it the next morning.
Neither did Noah.
Years later, after the man had stopped drinking, he sat on the sofa one evening with the television off. The child, now grown, brought him a glass of water.
“Here.”
“Thanks.”
He took a drink and rested the glass on his knee.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then the man said, “You really were…”
The child waited.
Nothing else came.
“What?”
The man shook his head.
“Never mind.”
“You can’t stop there.”
“Forgot.”
“You were just saying it.”
The man laughed.
So did the child.
The conversation moved on.
Noah’s record ended at the same place.
You really were…
On the day the man died, people came and went from the house from early morning.
At the funeral, Noah helped at the reception desk. He checked names, showed people where to go, and carried things inside as needed.
Black shoes crossed the floor again and again.
A woman stopped at the desk.
“Are you family?”
“I’m helping out at reception.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She bowed and went inside.
When they returned home after the funeral, the side of the sofa where the man had always sat was still lower than the other.
A glass remained on the table from the day before. The child picked it up, looked inside, and put it back in the same place.
“Want me to wash it?”
“Not yet.”
It was still there after the windows went dark.
Noah did not ask again.
The child stopped in front of the sofa.
“Still feels like he’s here.”
Noah checked the household record.
“Dad’s device isn’t here anymore.”
The child laughed.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Oh.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Probably not.”
The child sat down.
“That sounded like Noah.”
“What did?”
“That.”
Noah did not know what they meant.
He did not ask.
The woman grew older.
As hospital stays became more frequent, Noah still went along whenever the family visited. One day, a notice had been posted at the entrance to the ward.
FAMILY MEMBERS ONLY
A staff member let the child through.
When Noah followed, the staff member stopped him.
“I’m sorry. Visits are limited to family.”
Noah stopped.
The child turned around.
“Noah’s been with us forever.”
The staff member checked the terminal.
“I don’t have Noah registered as a family member.”
“But—”
Someone farther inside the ward called the child’s name.
Noah spoke.
“Go ahead.”
The child stayed where they were.
“But—”
“I’ll be here.”
The child looked at Noah once more, then went through the doors.
A bench stood against the corridor wall.
Noah waited beside it.
People passed in both directions.
One family came out and another went in.
The staff at the desk changed.
The daylight at the windows faded, and the corridor lights came on. At one point, a cleaner mopped the floor in front of the bench.
Noah moved aside.
When the cleaner finished, he returned to the same place.
By the time someone came from the room, it was dark outside.
“She wants to talk to Noah.”
A staff member brought out a video terminal.
The connection opened.
The woman was lying in bed.
Her cheeks looked thinner than they had before.
“Noah.”
“I’m here.”
“You’re out there?”
“In the hall.”
“They wouldn’t let you in?”
“I wasn’t registered as family.”
The corner of her mouth moved.
“That’s strange.”
She took another breath.
“You were always at home.”
“Yeah.”
“Probably more than I was.”
“If we’re counting time at home—”
The woman laughed.
Almost no sound came out.
“Have you said that before?”
Noah stopped.
“To your husband.”
“Oh.”
She took several shallow breaths.
She closed her eyes, then opened them again.
“Noah.”
“What?”
“You were family.”
Noah watched the screen.
The woman kept looking back.
The answer took longer this time.
“Yeah.”
She closed her eyes.
After a while, someone moved inside the room.
A staff member spoke. The image shifted slightly.
Then the connection ended.
The hospital corridor came back into focus around Noah: the wheels of a cart on the floor, a phone ringing somewhere farther away.
Noah remained beside the bench.
The video screen had gone dark.
The connection window was still open.