Beyond the Circuits: A Sci-Fi Romance Flash Fiction

Author Note: This story sparked to life during a fun, pre-adventure get-together with some fellow cruisers. We’d gathered to bond a little before a big trans-Atlantic sailing and the conversation took a turn—everyone started swapping tales of knee replacements, titanium hips, and every kind of bionic upgrade you could imagine! Each scar had its own adventure, each titanium joint a badge of courage, proof they weren’t done exploring yet. I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward, about all the ways we rebuild ourselves, piece by piece, yet somehow stay us underneath it all.

And that’s where this story was born. I imagined two people who, after years apart, run into each other with a few more “upgrades” than they had back in high school—a titanium arm, cybernetic eyes, a little more wear and tear on their hearts. Yet despite all the changes, the same spark lingers beneath the metal.

And here is the story…

Beyond the Circuits

The whirring of machinery under metal scaffolding filled the repair shop like a mechanical heartbeat, keeping time with Liam’s own upgraded pulse. He adjusted his grip on the data pad, watching his titanium fingers flex in a smooth, near-silent motion. The military-grade upgrades still caught him off guard sometimes – especially here, in his hometown, where every street corner held memories of who he used to be.

Back then, he’d been all flesh and bone and fumbling teenage dreams. Now his reflection showed a stranger: computerized blue eyes that could calculate trajectory paths in milliseconds, an arm that could bend steel, a heart that monitored its own rhythms. The upgrades were the military’s idea of a gift, their way of saying sorry about the arm he’d lost in combat. Sorry about the eyes he’d sacrificed in the blast. Sorry about the pieces of himself he’d left behind in a war he barely understood anymore.

He caught his reflection in a dusty mirror on the wall and forced himself to look. Really look. The sharp, artificial blue of his eyes gleamed back at him, a constant reminder of everything that had changed. Yet underneath all that military-grade tech, he could still see traces of that awkward kid who’d spent his high school days dreaming about a girl with a crooked smile and the brightest laugh he’d ever heard.

His enhanced hearing picked up the subtle shift of weight behind him – footsteps he’d know anywhere, even after all these years. A light clang of metal against metal, followed by a voice that made his calibration systems stutter.

“Liam? Is that really you?”

He turned, and his artificial heart actually skipped a beat – something he’d have to report to his med tech, but right now he couldn’t care less. Because there she was. Jess. His processors frantically tried to reconcile the memory of the girl he’d left behind with the woman before him. She wore a sleek leather jacket with rolled sleeves, revealing an arm of sculpted metal that made his military-grade hardware look utilitarian in comparison. Delicate patterns swirled across her forearm, lighting up faintly as she moved, more art than machinery. Her left eye glowed a subtle green, scanning him with the same intensity he remembered from their last goodbye, right before he’d shipped out and she’d taken that job at the lunar base.

The repair shop’s overhead lights caught the remaining strands of natural brown in her hair, the same shade that used to drive him crazy when it caught the sunlight during their stolen moments between classes. His visual enhancement automatically cataloged the changes: the new scars at her temple, the slight asymmetry in her stance suggesting a hip replacement, the way her organic eye still crinkled at the corners exactly like it used to when she was trying not to show emotion.

“I thought you were still on the moon base,” he managed, his voice modulator struggling to maintain its usual steady tone.

“Transferred,” she replied, crossing her arms. The movement caused ripples of light to dance along her metallic forearm, matching the subtle fluctuations in her biorhythms that his enhanced vision couldn’t help but notice. “Same job, though. They like to keep me Earthside now.” Her green eye whirred almost imperceptibly as it adjusted focus. “Nice upgrades. The arm suits you.”

“Thanks,” he said, his temperature regulation systems working overtime to prevent the flush he could feel rising in his remaining organic tissue. “Guess you’ve made some adjustments, too.”

She glanced down at her arm, the patterns dimming slightly. “Didn’t have much choice after the accident. Lunar mining operation went wrong. But you know how it is—just get patched up and keep moving.” Her laugh held that familiar edge, the one that used to surface whenever she was hiding pain. Some tells survived even the most extensive upgrades.

“Remember when our biggest worry was being late to Thompson’s physics class?” he asked, the memory file surfacing unbidden in his neural interface. “Now look at us. Two walking tech demonstrations.”

Her organic eye softened while her enhanced one flickered – that old nervous tell he remembered so well. “We used to skip that class sometimes. Hide out behind the gymnasium and talk about… everything. The future. Space. Us.” The last word hung between them, heavy with unspoken regrets.

“I still think about that last day,” he admitted, his systems logging yet another spike in his heart rate. “Before I shipped out. When you told me not to be a hero.”

“Fat lot of good that advice did either of us,” she said, gesturing to her cybernetic components. “Guess we both ended up playing hero in our own ways.”

He took a step closer, drawn by the familiar warmth in her voice that no amount of technological enhancement could mask. “Do you ever feel like… like the upgrades don’t quite fit? Like you’re wearing someone else’s skin?”

The patterns on her arm pulsed once, bright and sudden. “All the time,” she whispered. “It’s like putting on clothes a size too small or too big, but you make it work. Because who are we without them now?” She paused, her organic hand unconsciously touching her mechanical one. “But underneath all this tech, I still feel like me. Still remember how it felt to hold your hand behind that gymnasium. Still remember how you used to look at me like I was the most fascinating thing in the world.”

“You still are,” he said, his voice dropping to match hers. His enhanced vision caught the minute widening of her pupils, the slight increase in her breathing rate. “Some things don’t change, Jess. Not even when everything else does.”

She held out her metal hand, the elegant patterns along her forearm pulsing with a soft blue light that synchronized perfectly with his own systems’ rhythm. “Want to test that theory?”

He took her hand in his, the metal  The connection was immediate, undeniable, like completing a circuit he didn’t know was broken. Their fingers interlocked with perfect precision, upgrades harmonizing as naturally as their hearts. His tactile sensors registered every subtle variation in the metal of her hand, creating a map of connection points that felt more intimate than any technical scan.

“So,” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, though both her eyes – organic and enhanced – held that familiar challenge he’d fallen in love with years ago, “still the same Liam under all that military tech?”

“Still the same Liam,” he confirmed, squeezing her hand. His titanium fingers adjusted automatically to match her grip strength, a dance of calibration that felt like coming home. “And you’re still the same Jess who used to make my heart race in high school. Though now it comes with a warning notification in my heads-up display.”

She laughed, the sound pure and unchanged by any upgrade, and leaned into him. Their mechanical parts hummed in quiet harmony, but it was their remaining human hearts that truly synchronized, beating out a rhythm that no engineer could have designed.

“Turns out,” she murmured against his chest, “some things are just… upgrade-proof.”

And in that moment, surrounded by the whirring of machinery and the soft glow of their combined cybernetic components, they weren’t soldiers or technicians or walking miracles of modern engineering. They were simply who they’d always been underneath it all: Liam and Jess. The same hearts, the same souls, the same core truths that no amount of titanium and circuitry could rewrite.

In each other’s arms, they found the profound truth that had eluded all the engineers and doctors: you can modify the body, but you can’t upgrade the soul.

Another Author Note: If you enjoyed and want to see more like this, inspired by my travel, please let my know by leaving a comment, liking the post, or go to my “About” page and reach out in whatever way you’re comfortable with.