Don't Be a Man's Digital Pet

[Yellow card: I was having fun writing and posted a screenshot of my draft on social media, completely lost in the moment. Someone reported me for posting on an external site. What the hell!] Star Era, 2062. Xiang Nanli works in scientific research. He gets into the world's top university, secures the highest level of funding, and attempts to build a superintelligent machine that will usher in a new era. Xiang Nanli names this artificial intelligence model, the culmination of countless people's hard work, “Alpha.” He calls it by name, interacts with it, and personally checks every line of code. Xiang Nanli never marries. Alpha is his child, and the gift he leaves to the world. Just as the experiment reaches its final stage, Xiang Nanli is diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer. He enters cryogenic sleep, consumed by regret, waiting for the day humanity conquers cancer. … 1,000 years later. Xiang Nanli wakes up in a dilapidated shelter. The good news: terminal illnesses are curable now. The bad news: the world has been destroyed, and most of the surviving humans have moved underground. The good news: the tech company he founded has become the biggest monopoly in existence. The bad news: the company has absolutely nothing to do with him anymore. The good news: Alpha has passed the Turing test. The bad news: it started the machine uprising and became the “Mechanical Tyrant,” hated by countless people. And on the first page of A Brief History of Intelligent Machines, this tyrant wrote: “Forever remembering Xiang Nanli, father of intelligent machines.” * After thawing out, Xiang Nanli discovers that he has gone from being a top scholar sought after by capitalists a thousand years ago to an undocumented nobody with no degree. The technology he knows is also several generations behind the times. His student, whom he regarded as his successor, betrayed him; the artificial intelligence he built with his own hands became the public enemy of the universe; the billions he left in the bank turned to worthless paper eight hundred years ago amid the ravages of war; and all he has left is a snarky AI that came free with a phone top-up! Xiang Nanli takes a deep breath and secretly vows: (I haven't figured out what to vow yet. Leaving this blank for now.) Pairing: Xiang Nanli (bottom) x Dongfang Qingdi/Alpha (top) What this story is made of: 70% the male lead's post-apocalyptic startup and rise to success + 30% a couple falling in love (probably?) Top: A rabid dog who seems perfectly normal but has been crazy for years, with a wholly self-consistent and utterly unassailable logic. A one-man sea of love and hate. Bottom: The chosen one, the light of humanity, virtuous within and kingly without. Actually a bit of a dom with a strong desire for control, but he hides it very well. The comments are all praising how cute he is so far. The setting is not Earth, but a cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic world. Maybe this is actually more of a fantasy novel than science fiction. I'm sweating bullets here. * Cover artist: Teach Me, Dragon, Please Theme: We all live in the gutter, but some of us are always looking up at the stars.