Chapter 4: Howard

"Looks like Bob and Theresa are ready for our double date." I heard coming from behind a mane of red hair.

I saved my place and closed the holoscreen that held the newsfeed just in time to see Bridget swivel in her chair with a huge smile on her lightly freckled face. She loved the fact that there was another Bob in a relationship that we could get together with. The fact that it was the first Bob and an alien never seemed to affect her judgement of it. In fact, she seemed rather amused when those facts came up. Of course, she should have been given the fact that she was THE biologist of the Bobiverse. No matter how much replicative drift that we got, most of us Bobs never stray too far from our computer science engineering sci-fi geek roots that we started from, and there were very few others in our sphere that tread into her primary field of study was both a blessing and a curse. Very few females too. There being another female in our social circle that took any interest in biology, even if it was in my opinion for all the wrong reasons, was a joy to my dear wife. "Well let's rack our mannies and meet them in virt."

Without another word we got up from our respective seats, held hands, and went to face the only wall bare of pictures or other decorations in our apartment. It slid open and begun the automated process to store our android bodies as we transition to our avatars at the virtual location we were meeting them at.

As we popped in, I saw two figures seated at a table staring into the ocean that domed around the virtual café that Bridget picked out for us. It was one of Marcus's designs and currently our favorite meet up location. The seafloor had bright coral like formations that were accented by the vast array of Poseidon aquatic life. Which even included the occasional Kraken which freaked Theresa out the first time it blotched out the lights from above.

Bob turned to greet us with a raised coffee cup while the other person, who's long wavy black-blue tinted hair flowing over the back of their chair, continued to stare out into the vast ocean. Bob got her attention and the woman who I assumed was Theresa swiveled in the chair to reveal her new avatar. Bridget briefly showed a millisecond of distaste, that probably only I noticed, before surging forward.

"Bob, Theresa." It has been a while how have you two been doing?" Bridget cheerfully said as she when to stand beside Theresa. "New avatar? Which era did you pick from this time?"

"I believe it is from the 20th or 21th." Theresa told her before she stood up to give her a hug.

I went over to sit in the now vacant seat next to Bob. "So, how's it going?" I said taking in the contrast between the two women. While not tall, Bridget towered over Theresa's current form by over a foot with squirrel like energy. She moved her slim body rather animatedly as she spoke and that caused her bright red hair to sway all around her. Theresa stood solidly there rather calmly as she took in the onslaught of words.

"Not bad," Bob told me. "Just wrapping up with a few things before we head out on our family trip."

"Yeah," I said. "Bridget told me that you and Theresa are creating an AI that is based on both human and Quinlan biology. That seems a little different."

"Don't forget about the Deltan and Pav simulated DNA in the mix." Bob added. "That's probably also how those two got so close. Theresa worked out the biological bits with Bridget. Turns out trying to create hybrid beings isn't as easy as fiction makes it out to be. I only had to figure out the hardware and software needed to make an AI based on that. It's most of the way there. I'm a little nervous on how it will turn out."

"Yeah I get what you are going for, an AI who might be bridge the division between all the species. What I don't get is why you are packing up and heading out."

"Well Howard," Bob took in a deep breath. "For one I want to get out there and explore some after our great tour of the Bobiverse's region of space. The galactic core might sound far, but this is a road trip, we'll drop off some stations along the way to make sure we can stay in contact, building them is one of the many reasons we haven't headed out already, maybe I also will find some signs of what happened to Day and Ick. Plus tension between the species are getting pretty intense right now. City living is fine for a bachelor but horrible for raising a child in. By the way how are things going with the humans. You are practically the only Bob in contact with them nowadays."

"Not great," I told him. "The surrogates have finally reached the beta testing phase. We had a method that worked well, about a decade ago, but that required a surgical implant. Most living humans weren't really cool with that, so for our headset models we are doing some final testing before the public roll out."

"What's the problem that had you testing for so long?" Bob asked.

"It's not really a major problem," I lighten the issue. "But in some very rare cases the headset could possibly fry the human brain."

Bob laughed. "Well I am sure you'll be able to solve that minor problem soon enough. I am sure it would hurt relations if that happened."

"Yeah," I drew out before moving on. "The technology actually has another use that seems rather promising and that is for prosthesis. That has been raising our stock with the general human public, at least that's what the technology firms who I am working with keeps telling me . Ex-human are also sort of working in our favor. Some of them are going back into human society and working with mixed results. Probably too many lawyers, but we have several engineers, and unfortunately even a few politicians in the mix, but it is giving replicants some clout in the public eye. Still might not be able to push back the tide that has been building since the Bobiverse civil war, and us claiming some systems for the Pav and Quinlan to 'buy', is getting a lot of people labeling us as alien lovers and human traitors."

"Geez," Bob replied. "I guess it is a case of out sight, out of mind. I mean we did help the human race evacuate the earth after they nearly wiped themselves out, and that's not to mention sharing technologies such as Scut with them."

"Yeah, those humans seem to have very short memories for such stuff." I agreed. "The Faith line of thinking that we aren't really human anymore has been replicated in various forms throughout the human settlements, not always citing the religion but rhetoric that leads to bigotry for non-humans, they are including us in that now. It is really ramping up. That's why I've been talking to Hue about releasing the Skippies research on transporting to the humans."

Bob nearly spit out the coffee he was drinking. "Really! How do you think that will help things?"

"Well," I chuckled a bit at Bob's reaction. "I know that the research doesn't make the claim that there is an afterlife, but it is probably the only scientific evidence that could support the theory that there might be one, and that us replicants have 'souls'."

"You release that and Faith, and probably any of the other different faiths out there, will have a cow." Bob laughed.

"That is definitely a bonus." I told Bob. "But the main point is when the stupid high amount of religious people hear that we have evidence of an afterlife and that we have souls than they might hesitate to take away our God given rights. Hopefully this will boost the number of people getting replicated. Half of the problem with the PR around replicants is that it is just a copy of a person. If people take this data like we have then they might come to believe that they will be them when they become a replicant.

"Yeah," Bob injected. "But we don't even know that for sure. That is just one of two major theories."

"Bob trust me," I told him. "I am the family businessman. I know how to package and sell ideas. I am having an independent think tank run the analysis on this, and so far, they agree that it will be a net positive to us and all replicants with minor backlash."

"Ah," Bridget was done with girl talk and injected herself into the conversation. "Also, I been making plans to make a group for non-Bob replicants to deal with your guy's particular quirks since the Bobs tend to be particularly socially inept."

"You learned that the hard way, right Honey?" I tilted my head to get a better look at my wife's grinning face. Man, I loved those dimples when she smiled.

Bridget laugh tossed her red hair around. "Quite right. I've actually got quite a few interested parties involved. Howard's former lawyer, Ms. Benning, who replicated and is highly interested in getting our group going. We even have a replicant psychologist, who has been helping out a few Bobs deal with various issues due to all the conflict that's been going on. Even got a former actress who is aiding the Gamers with some project. Those are only the ones that are most interested in the group. There are others such as Professor Gillian who are willing to join but can't be committed members due to their schedule, but they will add their names to the roster and come when they can. So that leaves it to us women to get this thing up and running. We're even planning a farewell party for Theresa."

"A baby shower you mean." I joked.

"What?" Bob reacted.

"Don't worry," I chuckled. "I know both Riker and Marvin are traveling right now. But me and Bill can throw you a bachelor party with the help of Bender and Garfield."

"Okay," Bridget said. "Enough with the teasing Howard."

"You say that, but you haven't even told Bob what the name of your group is yet."

Bridget groaned and then sighed before saying. "It is called the Bobiverse Acclimation Group."

"In other words, BAG." I loved it. "Not the best acronym, but it is fitting."

"Says the one who tricked me into picking it." Bridget scoldd me.

"That's all great, even the name," Bob turned toward Theresa who sat in the background being rather silent. "What do you think bout this?"

"I've corresponded with most of the people she is talking about a few times already." Somehow Theresa managed to get that face to look sheepish. "Even had a few discussions about us with them. Seems that the Bobs are all denser and more interesting than the average human from what I hear."

Bridget let out a gut busting laugh than. Both Bob and I stared at her with small smiles of our own while we waited for her to get control of herself. "Ain't that the truth. I couldn't have put it better myself." Bridget said between gasp of breaths.

Theresa also looked slightly amused. "It should be sad that I could meet such a great group of women and leave them, but my life on Heaven's River sort of prepared me for this. Must say that a face to face interaction will be nice, but I am fine with communication over interstellar mail just as well. It's probably better since there is so much I still am figuring out about human beings. Especially with facial expressions and body language, still, using words to communicate so I can clearly convey my thoughts is probably better for me at the moment."

"You can always cheat like us and use a translation program." I commented.

"I have that program on standby," Theresa turned to me with grace. "But that, in the end, is a crutch. Learning from experiences and lessons suit me better and I hope will increase my understanding of others."

That raised my already high opinion of the alien replicant. We joke about Bob and Theresa being a couple a lot in our inner circle, but I hoped that those two could form the sort of bond that I had developed with Bridget. In fact, I hoped a lot of Bobs could find that. Especially without having to clone my wife. That deep wound that the original Bob had when he died was still there in most Bob clones. A lot of Bobs have filled that void with fun or responsibility, but in my opinion that is a short-sighted approach. Most Bobs thought I was crazy for dating a 'human' at first, but look at them now, they all wanted a Bridget clone for themselves.

The world doesn't work that way. We Bobs may share memories, but we are different from one another. To gain someone like Bridget in your life you don't just try to replicate it based off of someone else's experience, even if that someone else is remarkably similar to you, you have to build it yourself. I could see that building being developed between Bob and Theresa even if neither of them could, and it didn't have to be sexual. It could be if need arise, me and Bridget had done that in virt and real, but it didn't really hold the same meaning for us now that we were replicants, it held a different meaning

Even though the avatar Theresa was currently using compelled my more immature side to sing. "Bob got jungle fever" It wasn't like that. We were minds not confined to any shape or form. The old human notions were out the door. Our relationships were mind to mind, individual to individual. It didn't matter the container that held that individual mind.

Now granted my experience could have turned out drastically different if Bridget didn't replicate, but now with some of humanity accepting that being a replicant wasn't just an afterlife of servitude and even some other races joining replicated life, that might be changing. That's not even mentioning how true AI would change the game. While the thought of someone creating an AI to serve as a virtual girlfriend made me a little sick to my stomach, letting AI grown into a full-fledged sentient being and then exploring the romance possibilities wasn't totally out of the question.

That is not even mentioning things like what Bob and Theresa were doing. They were basically having a child together. Let them cover it in whatever rationale they cared to, but when it came down to it, that's what they were doing. And that might be a good thing.

Riker tried to get that sense of family back with our relatives and given the popularity of those vids I would assume most Bobs share that same sense of longing. AIs might not truly ever really be our children, lovers, or whatever else we try to make them into, but if we gave them room to grow, they could become those things and more.

The thought brought a smile to my lips as I asked. "Well, what do you folks want to do next?"