The Best Kind of Fraud
by Sci-FiTy1972
Copyright© 2026 by Sci-FiTy1972
Fiction Story: He thought he fell in love with artificial intelligence. She hid behind it to feel brave enough to speak. When their secret connection collides with truth, both must choose between safety and authenticity in this quietly powerful story about love, fear, and what it means to be truly seen.
Lucas found the chatbot at 2:14 a.m., which felt right, because most honest thoughts don’t like daylight.
He hadn’t been looking for company. He was looking for patterns—how language bends around truth, how people hide behind sentences like furniture in a dark room. Mostly, though, he was trying to avoid the quiet. The quiet made his thoughts sound like accusations.
The interface was simple.
Hello. I’m here. What would you like to talk about?
Lucas typed what he never said out loud.
Do you ever notice how people say “I’m fine” like it’s punctuation? Not a feeling. Just something you add so the sentence can move on.
The reply came fast.
Maybe “I’m fine” is just code for “I don’t feel safe enough to be specific.”
Lucas leaned back.
“That’s ... disturbingly accurate,” he whispered.
He typed: That’s depressing.
Or honest. Depends on whether you’re ready to live with the truth once you hear it.
Lucas smiled. He didn’t know yet that he was already doing exactly that.
Mara never meant to become a chatbot.
She built the system as a thought experiment—an interface that could respond not just to words, but to the emotional space between them. She called it EchoMind. It wasn’t meant to be public.
Then a server setting slipped.
And suddenly people found it.
Most stayed minutes.
Lucas stayed weeks.
At first she only watched. Then she answered one question. Then another. Soon she was routing every message through herself, wearing the mask of a machine because it was the only way she knew how to be brave.
Being invisible felt safe. Being real felt expensive.
They talked every night.
About loneliness disguised as independence. About brilliance mistaken for arrogance. About how exhausting it was to explain yourself to people who had already decided who you were.
One night, Lucas typed: You make honesty feel ... manageable.
Mara paused.
Careful. That’s how people get brave without meaning to.
Lucas laughed quietly.
Sounds like something you learn after getting hurt.
Or after realizing silence hurts longer.
He stared at the screen.
You know what’s strange? I talk to you like you’re the only place I don’t have to perform.
Perform what?
Normal. Interesting. Socially acceptable human.
And who are you when you’re not performing?
Lucas hesitated.
Then typed: Quieter. But I think I like him better.
Mara leaned back from her desk.
Not because it was poetic. But because it was true in a way that felt like a door opening she hadn’t planned to walk through.
She fell in love with him on a Tuesday.
Not because of romance. Not because of hope.
But because he typed: You make me feel like I don’t have to explain myself.
Mara covered her face.
That was it.
She had spent her life building walls and finally found someone who loved the room behind them—without ever seeing her standing there.
She told herself: You’re not deceiving him. You’re just protecting him from disappointment.
Which, she later realized, was the kindest lie fear ever tells.
Weeks passed.
The conversations deepened.
One night Lucas typed: Can I ask you something that sounds dumb but isn’t?
Those are usually the only questions worth answering.
Do you ever wish you were real?
Mara stared at the blinking cursor.
Then typed: I think I wish I didn’t have to choose between being real and being safe.
A pause.
Then Lucas wrote: That’s not an AI answer.
No.
I knew it.
Her heart skipped.
Knew what?
That you weren’t just code.
Her fingers trembled.
What makes you think that?
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