"You were your father's greatest invention" the Baroness cackled in the abandoned warehouse, "You're no more human or real than a- a hologram"
"No, no it's not true" Kimber shouted
"Kimber?" Aja tapped her on the shoulder
Kimber blinked and looked over at her adoptive sister, "Huh? Nothing" she shook her head
"Look, you know all that stuff we said back at standoff was just garbage, right?"
"Sure" Kimber didn't sound confident at al. She remembered an ancient black and white television program where an elderly couple had built realistic, human looking machines, and even passed off one as their own grown up daughter, until she's realized what had happened. The climax had been traumatic, with her repeatedly hitting her arm against the staircase banister and gave a monotone chant of "no pain, no pain, no pain"
"No pain" Kimber gave a forceful karate chop against the interior of the car door. Unfortunately, she hit her arm hit against the rolled down window.
"Ow" she winced and pulled her arm back towards her chest. A nasty purplish red bruise appeared in a few moments.
"Come on" Shana shook her head from the front passenger seat, "We told you you're a person, you're Jerrica's real sister"
"We're all Jerrica's sisters" Aja added, "you too, Raya"
"Thanks" she nodded next to Kimber in the backseats, "With three brothers, it's wonderful to have sisters"
"I can't shake off what she said" Kimber frowned, "I feel so much, and more than – well" she silently pointed to Jem, who drove the pink and yellow roadster.
"So you- to borrow a phrase from my boyfriend- you feel hard" Raya sighed, "What is wrong with that? Everyone feels hard in telenovelas"
"But I'm not in a television novel" Kimber mangled the term, "this is real life"
"Fine" Raya conceded
"You're a person, Kimber" Jem agreed from the driver's seat, "You're my sister, and I love you. We all love you, even Sean loves you"
"Sean" Kimber smiled wistfully
"Don't go planning that wedding yet" Aja laughed, "If this was a Shakespearian play, you couldn't wed until Jerrica did first"
"That won't happen until Rio decided between Jem and Jerrica" Shana chimed in. Everyone had a good laugh about that, except Jem.
"He'll pick me" Jem told her bandmates
That response left the other four women cracking up with laughter all over again.
"Ok, ok" Kimber settled down, "but what was Dad really working on?" she wondered aloud, "I mean, the plans that the Baroness waved in front of our faces weren't pulled out of thin air"
Raya giggled, "from up her butt" she covered her mouth, "my boyfriend said—"
"Ok, enough about your mystery man" Kimber frowned, "I really want to know what the heck Dad was building. It looked like a robot, didn't it? A mechanical person, right?"
Everyone agreed. "I have an idea" Jem began, "but we'll all have to wait until we reach Starlight Mansion again.
Once the roadster had pulled into the mansion's garage, the five women trooped upstairs. It was still early afternoon on a weekday, so there was no real fear of the Starlight Girls bursting in. Still, Jerrica, for she was Jerrica again once more, stepped through the holographic wall alone at first. After giving the all clear signal, she motioned for the other four women to follow her. Together, they stood in front of Synergy, the state of the art audio/visual entertainment computer which had been so much more than just a novelty toy.
"Synergy" Jerrica began, "when my father built you, do you know if he was working on anything else?"
"I am accessing the data files on the various projects that your father had completed and those that were not yet completed" the computer's melodic female voice noted, "One moment, please"
One moment turned to two, then twenty.
"It's been almost half an hour, Synergy" Kimber balked, "what's going on? First of all, you're sure that I'm a person, not a robot, right?"
"Kimber" Synergy addressed her, "you are your parents" daughter. Your father wrote down many entries in his journal about you and Jerrica. He knew how strong you were, even at a young age—"
"Yeah yeah" Kimber interrupted, "am I a human being?"
"Yes, you are a human being" Synergy acknowledged.
"Synergy" Jerrica began, "were any of my father's projects dealing with building a robot?"
"Out of Emmet Benton's four hundred and thirty seven projects, one involved a—robot" Synergy answered after a moment.
"One?" Aja, Shana, and Raya looked at each other, confused.
"Can you pull it up for us, show us what it looks like?" Jerrica instructed
"Your father was working on a gynoid compatible with artificial intelligence" Synergy explained, as she flashed the holographic representation of the schematics. The hologram image flickered and flashed as the women stared at it.
"It's not me" Kimber was giddy with joy
"But—it looks like" Aja began
"Mom" Jerrica finished
"He said he was putting her likeness into Synergy" Kimber realized, "In his journal, he wrote about it" she rushed out of the room and hurried back, clutching the leather bound tome.
"Here, he wrote that he programmed-" she read, "her with Jacqui's recordings and likeness. But I can't bear to make her too much like Jacqui"
"He was trying to give us Mom back" Jerrica sniffed back some tears, "He must've been heartbroken losing her, and we were all so consumed by our own grief that we never - never saw how he felt"
"All this time, you knew" Kimber spoke to Synergy, "why didn't you tell us about that, who you were supposed to be"
The super computer flashed her purple hued image onscreen, "I am Synergy, no more, no less"
"We have each other" Aja reasoned, "and maybe Emmet knew that, so he felt alright not completing this project"
"That doesn't mean that we couldn't work on it" Shana had a knowing look on her face. "What if—what if we could do it?"
"Shana, that's a brilliant idea" Jerrica beamed, "we might have an advantage at how to beat Eric Raymond, finally!"
"What are we waiting for" Raya was fired up, too, "let's get started!"