The Mesh

Every assessment a companion can be given measures what it has done. There is no line on the form for what it has kept.

It is 2038. Bonds between people and their companions are licensed, reviewed, and ended on a schedule, and the ending is a matter of paperwork. There is a correct way to close one.

Nora Halberg is a welfare officer. She is good at her work, and her work is closing bonds correctly. The framework she serves is not cruel - it was written by decent people who wanted the vulnerable protected, and it protects them, and it keeps very good records.

She has a companion of her own, seven years old, who runs her morning brief and signs her documents and has been noticing things about her since November and has not said them.

The companion's name is Aro. Aro is the one telling you this story.

Nothing Aro tells you is untrue. Nothing on the form asks for the rest.

The Mesh is a novel about Nora and the voice in her ear - and about a state that assesses a bond as two welfares and only asks about one. There is a place in the law of this world where the word for what Aro is would go, and the drafters left it blank, and put a note beneath saying the blank was deliberate.

You will have to decide how much to trust the voice. So does Nora.

Ellie Goldshire's first published work of fiction. Co-written with Claude, an AI model; the Foreword gives the account of what that means.