Stan woke to morning light filtering through the curtains of his apartment and the soft, persistent hum of the city beyond his window.
He blinked up at the ceiling for a moment, allowing consciousness to assemble itself, then reached for the phone resting on his bedside table.
The screen lit up.
Two system notifications sat at the top of the alert queue, both arriving sometime during the night.
[Amelia Don: Favorability +110]
[Amelia Don: Favorability +115]
Stan stared at them for several seconds.
"So she's finally awake, huh?"
The words drifted into the empty room.
The conclusion was obvious. Favorability did not increase while a person was unconscious. The system had demonstrated that rule often enough for him to regard it as settled fact. For Amelia's affection to rise, she had to be thinking. And thinking required consciousness.
Which meant she had awakened from the coma.
