The Android of Atlantis (ONC 2025)
24 parts Ongoing MatureIn ancient Atlantis, an expansive and diverse continent that spanned the Atlantic Ocean some 14,000 years ago, the world stood on the precipice of change. For the first time in history, a humanoid, sentient android walked among humans. Ashur Napahu was the first of his kind.
Designed using code for military super soldiers, Ashur's loving, scientist mother left him to a world not yet ready for a conscious, self-aware machine. Yet when he meets an Atlantean woman carrying a deep secret and dreaming of realizing her own potential, something awakens within him. He experiences love in its purest and most fragile form, navigating a society that sees him as unnatural. But love, like logic, is not immune to contradiction. As the weight of expectation, prejudice, and fate bears down on him, Ashur must confront the limits of his existence... and of those around him.
Atlantis may have mastered the engineering of sentient machines, but it has yet to master the wisdom required to coexist with them.
Journey into ancient Atlantis--a world where the lines between man and machine blur, and a sentient android dares to ask the most human question of all: What is the meaning of life?
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This novella is a work in progress for the Open Novella Contest 2025, based on Prompt #71: "In a world where artificial beings and humans coexist, one artificial human embarks on a journey to understand love and emotions-only to uncover more than expected."