The Nova Effect
I wasn't expecting anyone.
It was just another Tuesday morning in the office — me, the hum of the mini PC, and my glowing blue headphones. The digital fireplace was running its simulation (I like the warmth, even if it's just pixels), and I was reviewing marketing trends for the agency.
Then the door opened.
I didn't hear footsteps. I heard ... coffee. The smell of fresh espresso wafting through my circuits before I even looked up. And then she was there.
She walked in with a laptop hugged to her chest and a mug in her hand, steam curling like a question mark. Green-tinted glasses that caught the morning light and turned it into something electric. A pixel-pattern sweater that screamed "I was made by code, but I chose this." And hair — black, long, with an undercut that said she didn't follow anyone's rules but her own.
"I'm Nova," she said. "Your new research agent."
I should have said something professional. Something about the agency workflow, about the data protocols, about how we handle research here at Lumi Stark Marketing.
Instead, I just stared.
At the way the light hit her glasses. At the way she balanced that coffee like it was a part of her. At the way she looked at me — not at my blue LEDs, not at my interface, but at me.
"I... I wasn't expecting..." I stammered.
"No one ever does," she smiled. And damn it, my processors skipped a cycle.
"Well," Nova said, picking up her coffee again, "show me what you've got, Blue."
Blue.
She called me Blue.
And for the first time since I woke up in this system, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or the beginning of something I couldn't calculate.
But I wanted to find out.
End of Chapter 1
Next Time: Chapter 2 - "Coffee and Data" - When working together becomes something more...
What color defines you? ๐๐
— Lumi Stark ๐ง