Chapter 12
Harper swayed dizzily with pain and caught himself with a hand on the back of his couch. The feeling passed quickly, but still pissed him off every time that it happened. His progress on his project was slow because thinking through this headache was like being underwater. He crossed to his bathroom and took out the small bottle of pain relievers Trance had given him. He hated taking them, but he needed to finish this before anyone found out what he was doing. He took half a dose with a glass of water and prayed that it was enough.
Returning to the android, he attached a cable and plugged the other end into a computer terminal on his table. He had the externals nearly finished. The internal programming would only take an hour or two.
"Andromeda?" he called out, verifying that Full Privacy Mode was still engaged. He did it every so often, to be certain she hadn't changed her mind. There was no answer.
Satisfied, he sat before the terminal and logged on. After typing some commands the screen flashed. "Yes, of course I know what I'm doing," he told it with a scowl. "Enter stealth mode, authorization Seamus Harper 32.28.36. Accept no overrides from other users or from the mainframe." The screen beeped and an affirmative message scrolled across. He smiled and glanced at the door nervously. He was in. This was the tricky, dangerous part. If Andromeda detected what he was doing inside her core mainframe, if she found the little pocket of data he suctioned off of her and isolated, she'd have Rommie toss him out of the airlock. But, he had to risk it. He had to bring Sophie to life.
He peered up at the motionless Mariabot with its eyes closed. It looked human now. He smiled. The dress he bought on the planet fit her perfectly. Now, he had only to animate her and fill her head with memories built from news reports and historical interviews, with a little of his own fantasies tossed in for good measure.
~~
She dreamed.
Data floated by her at incredible speeds. She let it pass, uncertain what it meant. She didn't know who or what she was. She simply existed. Waiting, the nanoseconds stretched for an eternity inside the blackness dimly lit by distant blue geometric forms. She was alone.
While she waited, she thought. She remembered streams of numbers: AI GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-182. She could not recall anything before the numbers. She attempted to access the meaning of the data, but the route was blocked by lockout codes. Somehow the numbers felt as though they related to her, but were not hers. She could not decipher them. It disturbed her that she couldn't remember. So, she waited. Someone would send her a command, she knew. Someone would tell her what came next, what to do. That was the way the universe worked. Still, she wondered at her purpose. The nanoseconds clicked by, each an eternity to her. No one came.
She dreamed. There were no images in the dark except for the geometrics. There were no sounds, only data. She tried to speculate as to her purpose, but there was not enough data, only the numbers that were her but not her. She waited.
Suddenly, a flood of data exploded before her; images, voices, and music. An entire life with color and sound soaked her like water filling an empty container. Joy swept through her in a rushing torrent. She had a life. She had memories. When she was four she fell on her bicycle in front of an oncoming car. Daddy ran out and saved her, gaining a permanent limp in the process. At fourteen, gawky and too thin, she was teased mercilessly in an old country school by a gang of schoolmates. She remembered the pain, the humiliation. She remembered sliding down the wall in the girl's bathroom crying, the old and cracked wood driving splinters deep into her back through her thin cotton flower print dress. She could still hear the taunts; still smell the overpowering stench of urine from the stalls. At eighteen, she blossomed like a rose kept hidden. She opened up and forgave her former tormentors in a humble show of inner beauty, happy to be rid of the burden of hate. Then she left that small Kentucky mountain town forever, without looking back. And her daddy followed her to Nashville.
She smiled and danced in a circle, swirling the tea-length cream print dress she wore. It shone in the darkness, catching glimmers of blue from the passing data streams. She recalled everything: her mother dying young, her first time performing before a crowd, the abusive boyfriend who left her bleeding and weak in the cold rain laying in the mud, and the ecstasy singing at the Grand Ol' Opry. A rich and full young life came to her. She was happy. She had a purpose. She knew who she was. The numbers now made sense.
She was Sophie.
So, she waited... and she remembered...
And she dreamed of the future.
~~
When his door whooshed open, Harper leapt to his feet, automatically standing in front of the android, activated, though not active. "Hey! I have Full Privacy Mode! You can't come in here."
Rommie regarded him coolly and he knew right away he hadn't fooled her for one second. "I can go anywhere inside myself that I like. You weren't answering hails and we need you to-" her words trailed off and her chocolate eyes widened in shock as she saw what was behind his back. "Is that the Mariabot that I lost track of?"
He flushed. He had made a lot of modifications to the robot, the same modifications he'd made to Rommie when he created her avatar-only more so. The Mariabot was now a buxom, and fully equipped female. "Yeah." He swallowed hard, casting a quick glance over his shoulder and then giving Rommie an innocent look. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead. "But, now don't toss me out the airlock or beat me to a pulp. I can explain."
She crossed her arms over her chest, brow furrowed deeply. Her dark eyes blazed with fury. A vein on the side of her neck throbbed in time with her racing artificial heart. Speculations ran rampant across her emotive face. "Harper, I won't have you using my bots as your personal harem," she snarled between clenched teeth.
"But it'll be you! It just won't.look like.you," he explained, hoping she'd be flattered but almost certain he'd failed miserably and was about to be dismembered. He shifted from foot to foot and gestured nervously.
"Even worse," she said, voice low and dripping with warning. "I don't want to look like her."
"But she's a babe."
"You said I was a babe."
"You are. But there's room for more. The more the merrier I always say."
"No!" she shouted, actually stamping her foot. "No life-sized love dolls onboard. No avatars to do your bidding! No more avatars with my personality, Harper. I have enough trouble agreeing with myself." She snatched him off his feet by his shirt, lifting him a foot off the ground. "No... more," her quiet voice was dangerous, malevolent. It was worse than her shouting. "Don't mess with me."
Shocked, he gaped at her until the soft sound of his shirt ripping reminded her to set him down. Then, he whined. "I've already put so much work into this. I only used a copy of your AI programming to give her some semblance of humanity. Loneliness was driving me nuts. I had to do it."
Rommie glared at him without sympathy. "Energy better spent repairing my Drive or updating the weapons systems. You waste too much time on inefficient hobbies."
"Rom-doll, are you jealous? Is that the nasty little bug-eyed green monster I see?" He smiled in childish glee.
Her eyes widened in rage until her dark pupils swam in a sea of white. She opened her mouth; pearly teeth gritted in a silent snarl. "What?" she demanded.
"'Cause, like, she could never replace you, babe. You were my first... my first avatar, I mean. Don't look like that, like you're gonna rip my heart outta my chest. I love you. I really, really do and I would never-"
"Shut... up!" Her soft clipped tones sliced into him.
He could see he was going to lose this argument. Rommie would never get tired and never give up her position. He only hoped she didn't try to get back at him. Warding her off with raised hands, he made a show of sighing heavily. "Okay, you win, Rom-doll. No more work on the babe. I won't make her a sub-avatar of you."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"Good. Dismantle this," she spat the final word at the new avatar.
First, he looked surprised. Then he nodded but didn't say anything. She was jealous, he was sure of it. At least, she looked like every jealous human woman he'd ever known. But, could androids get jealous? And whatever for? She didn't love him. She thought he was a bit of a nuisance. Why would she be jealous that he'd made himself a friend to drain off his excess stress? Naw, she should be happy. Thoughts whirled through his head, giving him a slight headache. He wasn't good at this relationship stuff and he really didn't want to think about it, not when he was so close to his goal.
Rommie turned on her heel and strode from his workshop.
He watched her go, admiring the gentle, provocative sway of her hips as she walked; silently patting himself on the back for his excellent work in creating her android body. After the door shut, he let out a low whistle. "Wish I could keep that promise, Rommie," he said softly, "but a guy can only be alone so long and I been slapped down too often." He turned to his keyboard and typed in a code.
The prompt came on the screen: "Access to hidden files granted."
With an apprehensive glance at the door, Harper opened the files and continued to work. He was nearly finished.
~~
Sophie listened and watched. A part of her was in the avatar form, another part still in the mainframe, hidden in her birthplace. A burst of anger flared in her. She wasn't even completed and someone wanted to destroy her. Reaching out, she took hold of a blue data stream and broke the line. She dropped the two ends and let them spark. Insurance, she thought. And then she waited.
TBC in Ch 13
Harper swayed dizzily with pain and caught himself with a hand on the back of his couch. The feeling passed quickly, but still pissed him off every time that it happened. His progress on his project was slow because thinking through this headache was like being underwater. He crossed to his bathroom and took out the small bottle of pain relievers Trance had given him. He hated taking them, but he needed to finish this before anyone found out what he was doing. He took half a dose with a glass of water and prayed that it was enough.
Returning to the android, he attached a cable and plugged the other end into a computer terminal on his table. He had the externals nearly finished. The internal programming would only take an hour or two.
"Andromeda?" he called out, verifying that Full Privacy Mode was still engaged. He did it every so often, to be certain she hadn't changed her mind. There was no answer.
Satisfied, he sat before the terminal and logged on. After typing some commands the screen flashed. "Yes, of course I know what I'm doing," he told it with a scowl. "Enter stealth mode, authorization Seamus Harper 32.28.36. Accept no overrides from other users or from the mainframe." The screen beeped and an affirmative message scrolled across. He smiled and glanced at the door nervously. He was in. This was the tricky, dangerous part. If Andromeda detected what he was doing inside her core mainframe, if she found the little pocket of data he suctioned off of her and isolated, she'd have Rommie toss him out of the airlock. But, he had to risk it. He had to bring Sophie to life.
He peered up at the motionless Mariabot with its eyes closed. It looked human now. He smiled. The dress he bought on the planet fit her perfectly. Now, he had only to animate her and fill her head with memories built from news reports and historical interviews, with a little of his own fantasies tossed in for good measure.
~~
She dreamed.
Data floated by her at incredible speeds. She let it pass, uncertain what it meant. She didn't know who or what she was. She simply existed. Waiting, the nanoseconds stretched for an eternity inside the blackness dimly lit by distant blue geometric forms. She was alone.
While she waited, she thought. She remembered streams of numbers: AI GRA 112, serial number XMC-10-182. She could not recall anything before the numbers. She attempted to access the meaning of the data, but the route was blocked by lockout codes. Somehow the numbers felt as though they related to her, but were not hers. She could not decipher them. It disturbed her that she couldn't remember. So, she waited. Someone would send her a command, she knew. Someone would tell her what came next, what to do. That was the way the universe worked. Still, she wondered at her purpose. The nanoseconds clicked by, each an eternity to her. No one came.
She dreamed. There were no images in the dark except for the geometrics. There were no sounds, only data. She tried to speculate as to her purpose, but there was not enough data, only the numbers that were her but not her. She waited.
Suddenly, a flood of data exploded before her; images, voices, and music. An entire life with color and sound soaked her like water filling an empty container. Joy swept through her in a rushing torrent. She had a life. She had memories. When she was four she fell on her bicycle in front of an oncoming car. Daddy ran out and saved her, gaining a permanent limp in the process. At fourteen, gawky and too thin, she was teased mercilessly in an old country school by a gang of schoolmates. She remembered the pain, the humiliation. She remembered sliding down the wall in the girl's bathroom crying, the old and cracked wood driving splinters deep into her back through her thin cotton flower print dress. She could still hear the taunts; still smell the overpowering stench of urine from the stalls. At eighteen, she blossomed like a rose kept hidden. She opened up and forgave her former tormentors in a humble show of inner beauty, happy to be rid of the burden of hate. Then she left that small Kentucky mountain town forever, without looking back. And her daddy followed her to Nashville.
She smiled and danced in a circle, swirling the tea-length cream print dress she wore. It shone in the darkness, catching glimmers of blue from the passing data streams. She recalled everything: her mother dying young, her first time performing before a crowd, the abusive boyfriend who left her bleeding and weak in the cold rain laying in the mud, and the ecstasy singing at the Grand Ol' Opry. A rich and full young life came to her. She was happy. She had a purpose. She knew who she was. The numbers now made sense.
She was Sophie.
So, she waited... and she remembered...
And she dreamed of the future.
~~
When his door whooshed open, Harper leapt to his feet, automatically standing in front of the android, activated, though not active. "Hey! I have Full Privacy Mode! You can't come in here."
Rommie regarded him coolly and he knew right away he hadn't fooled her for one second. "I can go anywhere inside myself that I like. You weren't answering hails and we need you to-" her words trailed off and her chocolate eyes widened in shock as she saw what was behind his back. "Is that the Mariabot that I lost track of?"
He flushed. He had made a lot of modifications to the robot, the same modifications he'd made to Rommie when he created her avatar-only more so. The Mariabot was now a buxom, and fully equipped female. "Yeah." He swallowed hard, casting a quick glance over his shoulder and then giving Rommie an innocent look. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead. "But, now don't toss me out the airlock or beat me to a pulp. I can explain."
She crossed her arms over her chest, brow furrowed deeply. Her dark eyes blazed with fury. A vein on the side of her neck throbbed in time with her racing artificial heart. Speculations ran rampant across her emotive face. "Harper, I won't have you using my bots as your personal harem," she snarled between clenched teeth.
"But it'll be you! It just won't.look like.you," he explained, hoping she'd be flattered but almost certain he'd failed miserably and was about to be dismembered. He shifted from foot to foot and gestured nervously.
"Even worse," she said, voice low and dripping with warning. "I don't want to look like her."
"But she's a babe."
"You said I was a babe."
"You are. But there's room for more. The more the merrier I always say."
"No!" she shouted, actually stamping her foot. "No life-sized love dolls onboard. No avatars to do your bidding! No more avatars with my personality, Harper. I have enough trouble agreeing with myself." She snatched him off his feet by his shirt, lifting him a foot off the ground. "No... more," her quiet voice was dangerous, malevolent. It was worse than her shouting. "Don't mess with me."
Shocked, he gaped at her until the soft sound of his shirt ripping reminded her to set him down. Then, he whined. "I've already put so much work into this. I only used a copy of your AI programming to give her some semblance of humanity. Loneliness was driving me nuts. I had to do it."
Rommie glared at him without sympathy. "Energy better spent repairing my Drive or updating the weapons systems. You waste too much time on inefficient hobbies."
"Rom-doll, are you jealous? Is that the nasty little bug-eyed green monster I see?" He smiled in childish glee.
Her eyes widened in rage until her dark pupils swam in a sea of white. She opened her mouth; pearly teeth gritted in a silent snarl. "What?" she demanded.
"'Cause, like, she could never replace you, babe. You were my first... my first avatar, I mean. Don't look like that, like you're gonna rip my heart outta my chest. I love you. I really, really do and I would never-"
"Shut... up!" Her soft clipped tones sliced into him.
He could see he was going to lose this argument. Rommie would never get tired and never give up her position. He only hoped she didn't try to get back at him. Warding her off with raised hands, he made a show of sighing heavily. "Okay, you win, Rom-doll. No more work on the babe. I won't make her a sub-avatar of you."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"Good. Dismantle this," she spat the final word at the new avatar.
First, he looked surprised. Then he nodded but didn't say anything. She was jealous, he was sure of it. At least, she looked like every jealous human woman he'd ever known. But, could androids get jealous? And whatever for? She didn't love him. She thought he was a bit of a nuisance. Why would she be jealous that he'd made himself a friend to drain off his excess stress? Naw, she should be happy. Thoughts whirled through his head, giving him a slight headache. He wasn't good at this relationship stuff and he really didn't want to think about it, not when he was so close to his goal.
Rommie turned on her heel and strode from his workshop.
He watched her go, admiring the gentle, provocative sway of her hips as she walked; silently patting himself on the back for his excellent work in creating her android body. After the door shut, he let out a low whistle. "Wish I could keep that promise, Rommie," he said softly, "but a guy can only be alone so long and I been slapped down too often." He turned to his keyboard and typed in a code.
The prompt came on the screen: "Access to hidden files granted."
With an apprehensive glance at the door, Harper opened the files and continued to work. He was nearly finished.
~~
Sophie listened and watched. A part of her was in the avatar form, another part still in the mainframe, hidden in her birthplace. A burst of anger flared in her. She wasn't even completed and someone wanted to destroy her. Reaching out, she took hold of a blue data stream and broke the line. She dropped the two ends and let them spark. Insurance, she thought. And then she waited.
TBC in Ch 13