The face and head were amazingly realistic. There was no plastic or rubber look to the thing at all. I was a bit surprised at how it was dressed. I guess that once I saw what it was, that I had expected it to be at least partially nude, wearing a nightgown, or bra and panties, or something like that. Or maybe a short cocktail dress. That’s what the ones on the websites normally wore. Lingerie or mini-dresses. This one was wearing a plaid print cotton shirt and a pair of blue jeans. It was all surprisingly modest and wholesome looking.
Robby, on the phone, said, “Cool. Almost there. Now, the front of the case hinges down out of the way. Take hold of the top of the front panel and pull the front away from the case.”
I did as instructed, and after a moment struggling to find the latches and release them, the front did fold down and then lifted completely away from the box. There was a heavy layer of molded foam attached to the panel that came away with the box front. At this point, it would be possible to lift the doll, or whatever it was, out of the case without much trouble.
But now it looked even less like a statue and even more like a woman. It really did look like a nice-looking woman, relaxing, or sleeping, in the little foam chair. Strangely, she looked happy. Not at all artificial. And not robotic. She looked relaxed and at peace, as if she were simply meditating with her eyes closed.
The phone started again, and I was startled for a second, having been, well, kind of enraptured by the woman in the chair. Wait. No. The thing in the chair. But it looked so real. Wow, Robby must have spent a fortune on this. No, he said that it was a prototype that his company built. Hold on. Was Robby making sex dolls as a business? I knew that he was doing well financially, but he wasn’t a sex doll maker, was he? Then I noticed the phone again. It was asking to me acknowledge that I was ready to continue. I said that I was.
Robby said, “Tom, OK, here we are. The moment of truth. Now, remember all that buried in ants stuff, OK? You can’t ever tell anyone what you are seeing and more importantly what you are about to see. I’m going to tell you what to expect now. I was going to just surprise you, but I decided it’s too much of a surprise. Even after I tell you about it, you aren’t going to believe what you see. We’re going to take it in steps. Go as slow as you want to. OK, step one. What you are staring at is an artificial intelligence, with a fully functional, non-organic body. It has a ‘Genuine People Personality’, just like in the Hitchhikers Guide, except a lot more advanced. I have a bunch of them, and they’re so wonderful you can’t imagine it. More about that in a second. This may take some getting used to. Are you freaked out? Or just thinking, ‘Get on with it already?’ On a scale of one to ten, how comfortable are you with this so far?”
I said that I was at about a three.
Robby said, “OK. I recorded a few different versions of this, just in case. You aren’t totally comfortable yet, so we’ll take it slow. You’ll get used to it. Stand back just a few feet from the case. The item is going to activate. I’m calling it an item right now so that you can feel detached. That’s about to change. When I count down to zero, it’s going to start breathing. It’s going to open its eyes and then it’s going to stand up. It’s going to stretch for a minute, then it’s going to say hello. Ready?”
I said I was, and Robby counted, “Three, two, one, zero.”
He couldn’t be serious. But he was, and I knew it. This was happening, as far as I could tell. It was time to suspend my disbelief and just take in what was going on.
It looked like a woman. OK, I’d believe that it was a woman-like thing. Robby had described it as an artificial person. For now, I’d just go with that. It was an artificial life-form and it was about to wake up. Yeah, I was OK with that. On a scale from one to ten, I was at comfort level three. Just go with it, Tom.
When the count reached zero, the girl in the foam chair took a little breath, as if waking up from a nap, and stretched her hands over her head. She didn’t gasp for breath, she just started breathing. She looked so real. And, I had to notice, very beautiful.
I was a bit embarrassed to be staring at her, but as she put her arms over her head, her back arched a bit and her chest pushed out, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise that her breasts were large and very pretty as they strained the fabric of her blouse. She was wearing a bra underneath. I could see the outlines of straps at her shoulders. But the little buttons of her nipples were just barely apparent as well.
The girl took a few more breaths and opened her eyes. She turned her head and smiled at me. As she moved to stand up, I offered her my hand and she took it as she steadied herself. When she was standing, she stretched in several directions, reaching high, bending over, putting her arms out to her sides, twisting her torso, etc. Then she faced me, smiled and spoke.
She said, “Hello. Can I see your hand for a moment?”
I held out my right hand and she looked at it and said, “Your fingerprints match the reference identity. You are Tom Jensen. I’m happy to be here. I can tell you all about myself and you can ask questions in a minute, but first I’m supposed to explore the house while you get last minute instructions from Robby. May I have full access to the house? Or are there areas that are off-limits to me for now?”
I said, “Um, no. You can go anywhere you want to. Feel free to do whatever you want.”
She smiled and said, “Thank you. Finish up with the message from Robby and I’ll be ready to talk when you are done. Thank you for inviting me to your home.”
And with that, she started moving around the house, and quickly disappeared up the stairs.
Chapter 2 - The First Hours
I turned quickly to the phone. On a scale of one to ten, as far as my excitement and readiness to explore what this was all about, I was at a ten. And that was Robby’s first question.
After I answered, he said, “Oh good. I’m glad. So, just a few things. Real simple. She can tell you everything from here on out, but to make this more fun for you, you have to get to know her and she has to get to know you. It’s a relationship. You have to make points with her to unlock new levels. Like a game. You’ll do great. At the first level, don’t try to get frisky, and don’t try to jump her bones. She is not a sex doll, Dufus. Get to know each other and let stuff develop. The phone app has a few features to help. One, you can see the video feed from her eyes when you want to. Two, there’s GPS tracking so that you can always know where she is. Three, there’s a relationship status screen that tells you how you’re doing as far as friendship, romantic status, and things like that. Four, she can call you or you can call her at any time, but there’s better ways to communicate that she will tell you about, eventually. And finally, she comes with unlimited credit at certain shopping websites and you can buy her whatever the two of you want. And that includes clothes and stuff for yourself, all my treat. Trust me, I can afford it. Spend a hundred-grand a year if you want to. It won’t be a problem. Of course, you won’t spend that much, but if you did, I wouldn’t mind. Happy birthday for the rest of your life big brother. If anything goes wrong, call tech support or your pants will be set on fire for breaking the contract. Oh, and we call them Elves. It’s easier than artificial blah blah blah things. She is more real than you can imagine. And completely autonomous. Think of her as a new non-organic life form, but Elf is easier. Bye Bye.”
With that, the video ended.
I stood where I was, not knowing what to do. I had a pretty ‘Elf’ wandering around my house. Was that an acronym? Electronic Life-Like Female? Or something? No, knowing my little brother, it was just an elf. He wasn’t a punster and acronyms weren’t his thing. He probably called it an elf because he thought it was like an elf.
It was a present from my younger brother. Wow, I had to just give in to this if it was going to make any sense. If I kept trying to fit it into everything I knew a few minutes ago, it would make me crazy. There was that thing from the bible about new wine and new wine skins. The idea was that if you tried to put a new idea in a bag that wasn’t f
lexible because it was aged, the bag tore and the idea was lost and both of them were destroyed in the process. If I didn’t find a new way to think about this, it wouldn’t work and I’d miss something amazing. And I’d drive myself nuts along the way.
OK, I had an elf. I didn’t know what my relationship was to her but that was apparently planned to grow over time. The last instruction I had was that after I had finished my message from Robby, that I was supposed to get to know her.
I went up the stairs to see what she was doing. I found her in my bedroom. She was making the bed.
She smiled at me as she worked and said, “I thought that I could go ahead and get started. I found clean sheets and I’ll put the old ones in the laundry and start the washer soon. I opened the window. I hope that’s OK. There’s no one that could see me. I can’t let people see me yet. Is it OK if I finish the bed? We can talk while I work, but I can stop if you want me to.”
I said, “No, that’s fine. Thank you so much for doing that. You didn’t have to. I appreciate it.”
She smiled again, and said, “Oh, I’m happy to. You could sit in that nice chair and I’ll be done in a minute.”
I sat down in a comfortable recliner that I kept in the master bedroom and watched her work. The jeans weren’t tight, but they were shapely, and she had a nice rear end. She bent over the bed now and then in a really nice way. I didn’t say anything, and she looked back at me occasionally with that great smile, but she didn’t say anything either.
When the bed was made, she turned and said pleasantly, “Can I sit on the edge of your bed while we talk?”
I said, “Oh, of course. Please, make yourself at home.”
She sat down and said, “Well, I’m Sarah. I’m your new Elf. Robby sent me. He was really nice. Mostly, I was trained by Alice. Alice is Robby’s Queen of the Elves. Alice is really super nice. I’m pretty tall. I don’t know why.”
She paused and smiled.
I said, “Hi Sarah. I’m Tom. Robby’s my brother.”
Sarah said brightly, “I can’t tell you about him, because I don’t know much. And I don’t know how I got here. Alice said that I would be here and that I would like it and that you would have a bedroom for me to sleep in. I found one, outside, over that way, and I think that might be the one because it has a bed and nobody has been sleeping there. But I can sleep wherever you want. But a bedroom would be nice.”
I said, “Oh, we’ll find you a bedroom next. Do you want to figure that out right now?”
She said, “No, that can wait.”
I said, “Sarah, why are you here?”
She said, “Robby sent me to be with you. Alice said that if I’m nice and take care of you, that you’ll be nice and take care of me. But I can do lots of things too. I like doing laundry. And I can make beds and do dishes and cook and clean bathrooms and do gardening, and I can fix things and do carpentry and you need a new WIFI setup and I can probably play games if you explain them to me, and I can help you buy clothes and look nice and cut your hair so that it’s right, and I can fix and clean cars and I am really good at learning new things that I don’t know how to do yet, and I can do first aid and pay bills and do grocery shopping and even more things that I don’t know about yet because of the levels.”
I said, “What are the levels?”
She said, “Well, it’s like I know things that I don’t know about yet. And when things happen that are supposed to happen, then I do know about them. They are called levels. Like now we are on level one. Well, we’re on level two of the house, but level one of the levels. How many levels does the house have? I only found two, plus a tiny space under the house. Where are the rest of them?”
I said, “The house has two levels and the crawlspace underneath. That’s all.”
She said, “Oh, I thought there would be more. Maybe they’re there, but we don’t know about them yet. Do you like my name?”
I said, “I think it’s beautiful.”
She said, “Because I think that we can change it if you don’t like it. You are probably wondering why I don’t have any shoes. Me too.”
I said, “Oh, do you want to get some shoes? I’m sorry, it’s just that you just got here and I don’t know what to do first.”
She said, “I don’t mind. I don’t need shoes unless we go outside. Outside is probably a nice place. But for now, I have to stay inside, because of the levels, so I don’t want shoes. I just saw my toes and wondered. Are they OK?”
I said, “Your toes? Sarah, you are a very beautiful woman. And yes, you have lovely toes.”
She said, “Then maybe I won’t wear shoes. I’m wearing a bra.”
I said, “Sarah, this is all so new to me. I’ve never met anyone like you before. I’ve never seen an elf and I don’t know what to say or how to act. I don’t want to sound weird. I just want to get to know you. So, all I can think to say is, how do you feel about wearing a bra? That sounds like I’m some kind of therapist or something, but it’s all I can think of.”
She smiled and said, “That’s OK. Me too. Wearing a bra is kind of weird. I have to, but I was surprised that I was. I just noticed, so I said it. I like telling you things. You’re a good listener. I like you.”
I said, “Sarah, I like you, too. I like you a lot. You are absolutely amazing and pretty and sweet and wonderful.”
She said, “My name means ‘Pure and Happy Princess’. We need to fix your WIFI.”
I said, “OK, how do we do that? Do you know how to fix it?”
She said, “Oh, easy. Alice told me that you might be hesitant, but I can fix it if you want me to. It would be easier.”
I asked, “Hesitant in what way?”
She said, “Like not being ready to trust me at first because you don’t know all about elves. So, I have to ask before I look in rooms and fix your WIFI or make your hair look the way it’s supposed to.”
I said, “You know what? Sarah, I don’t know who Alice is, but if she works for Robby, then she must be trustworthy. And Robby sent you here, and he would only do that if he thought it was good for me, so you can do whatever you think is a good idea. Fix my WIFI if you think it needs it.”
She said, “I won’t do anything unless I ask you at least once, or if you get hurt and can’t tell me what to do. Then I have to do what I think is best to get you help. Your WIFI is set up very inefficiently. It’s pretty good and has dual band, but the bands aren’t allocated for the best performance and I will work better if I can connect to it, because it’s faster than cell networks and the faster I can talk to everywhere the better, and then it’s easier for Alice to teach me new things and that stuff.”
I said, “OK, fix it for us. And Sarah, I do want you to feel comfortable. Um, Sarah, are you going to live here with me? I would like that, by the way.”
She said, “Of course. Robby sent me to you to take care of you and be happy with you.”
I said, “Then my house is your house, and my WIFI is your WIFI. Do what’s best for both of us, not just for me.”
She said, “That’s sweet. Thank you. Our house. That’s so thoughtful. It makes me feel, that makes me feel, that makes me feel, well, I think it makes me feel loved. Loved. Yeah. I like that. OK, let’s fix it.”
I waited and she just smiled at me.
Finally, she said, “I need the passwords and administrator account name.”
I said, “Oh, of course,” and I told her what they were.
A minute later she said, “OK. All fixed. As good as we can get with the equipment you have.”
I said, “Do you want better equipment?”
She said, “You mean a present? For me? Well, a faster router with better range would be good. But if we could get a faster fiber optic line service, that would be good too. I checked just now, and we could get faster service for not much more than you are paying now. Well, I don’t know how much you are paying, but based on the service you have, based on the speed, I can guess at a range of prices.”
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nbsp; I shrugged and said, “Sarah, you said that you know how to pay bills and things, right? If I give you all of my credit cards and banking information, and utility bills and all of that, can you take care of all of that, and maybe optimize that as well? Can you handle the finances for us for the most part?”
She said, “Sure, if you want to let me. I would love to do that for you. And it won’t take up hardly any of my time.”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out my little wallet and took out my credit cards and anything else with any information on it.
I said, “Sarah, I think that I already trust you more than I have ever trusted anyone in my life. Here’s my credit cards, debit cards, driver’s license, social security card, health insurance, car insurance, and everything else I carry with me. Can you access my bank over the network? It seems like you don’t need a computer.”
She said, “I have a way to talk to the network inside my head.”
I said, “OK, here’s my banking info.”
I told her what bank I used, and my user name and password.
I said, “Go ahead and log in and take a look.”
She said, “OK. That all looks pretty OK. So, do you want me to order new network service for the house?”
I said, “Do what you think is best. Pay for it from my accounts. I don’t have a lot of money, but we can afford this. Can you do budgeting and handle investments?”
Tom vs the Volcano God Page 2
