by Greg Dragon
He was making an espresso for a pretty young girl when he felt something change within him. He couldn’t put words to it, or describe what it was that made him know there was a change, but after sliding the espresso to the girl and giving her a friendly wink, he wondered why he had done it. Did I just wink at her? He thought, and then put it out of his mind as he continued working. He began to talk to everyone that ordered a coffee, and surprisingly they were more than happy to engage him. He spoke to a set of students about the newest video games and he flirted with the single women that dared to give him any attention when he complimented them.
By the end of the night he was a hit. He had three girl’s contact codes, he’d been invited to join several clubs around school, and his manager had promised him a raise. He was confused as to why he was behaving in the manner he was, but he couldn’t help it. The situation was bizarre and it was as if he sat audience to a show that his physical body was putting on for him.
It was only when he got home—after having drinks at a local bar with his co-worker, Susan—that he figured it out. The sight of the Japanese pills and the journal reminded him that he was now under the influence of a mysterious drug. He turned on the journal and wrote his first entry into it:
These pills are amazing, I am not sure what makes them work, but I feel a real confidence that I have never felt in my entire life. It’s weird to type this, but I feel comfortable in my own skin. And people, I’ve always hated people, but now I want to get to know them. I want to like them, and I want them to like me. Today was my best day of college, thanks to this drug. I will keep monitoring my changes and recording it here.
He took the skin from the tin, and then placed it into the modified applicator. He injected Tricia’s face with the large needle, making sure that the applicator pushed all of the green substance into the plasticine. The device then pulled up a color map for him to select the hue and tone of the new skin. He thought of Mika’s even tan, and then chose one as close to it as he could find. The color was labeled G832, and he recorded it into the applicator and wrote it down. The process would take some time, so he retired to his room and fell asleep while watching an action movie.
When he woke up and walked out to the table, Tricia had the face of a beautiful, sleeping woman, but the color vanished as it faded into the translucent plasticine, making it appear as if she wore a mask. He found himself staring, as she was striking—in very much the way he intended her to be—and he smiled at his work. He held the bottle of pills triumphantly into the air. He had made the right choice, and in a year’s time Tricia would be a real woman. He popped another set of pills and then headed out to school. He would look into getting a permanent hair transplant for Tricia’s head. Hair would conceal the hatch that held her manual override. It would prove difficult to access in the future, but soon Tricia would be independent, and he could merely ask her to power herself on and off.
After a few hours had passed with him gone, Tricia turned herself on and walked over to the mirror to see what had been done. She was taken aback by her new face, and poked and prodded it while turning from side to side. She had been practicing how to walk and talk like the females of the world, and to test how well she could blend in with them, and her new face delighted her. She dressed herself in some of Brad’s clothes to hide her plasticine skin, and then put on one of his hats to complete the transformation. She thought that she looked cute, and it made her laugh and cry at how close she was to being free.
0 1 0
It happened so fast that Tricia couldn’t find time to react to it.
Brad burst inside the apartment and locked the door behind him. Then without a word, he walked up to her and everything went black. When she awoke, she found that she didn’t have much room to move about, and everything was dusty, and dark. She could hear a female voice below her, and she surmised that she was in the attic, locked away, while Brad entertained a woman.
Why did he feel the need to hide her, and why was he so rough and calloused with her? She tried in vain to make sense out of what had happened, but after an hour of being stuck and unable to move, she powered herself down to preserve her sanity.
When she was turned on once again, she found herself in a smaller apartment with a head full of curly black hair and bronzed skin that ran the length of her body down to her legs. Her hands and feet were still translucent, but she looked every bit the part of a human being, a beautiful human being at that. She looked about to see who had turned her on, and Brad sat grinning at her, while using a small device to touch up her eyebrows.
“Sorry about keeping you powered down for so long, Trish. But you will be happy to know that it’s over.”
“What’s over, Brad? Everything is different now, including you.”
She was right. He had grown his hair out and he was bigger, more athletic-looking. He wore glasses that looked both fashionable and expensive.
“Well, lots happened. A whole lot, really. Remember Mika, the girl that kept giving me the runaround? Well, let’s just say she underestimated me. I no longer have to deal with stupid, wishy-washy girls who don’t know what they want.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I’m no longer that awkward kid in the back of the class, Tricia. Women notice me now. They more than notice me; they want to see what I’m about. I’ve been on dates, I’ve kissed a few of them. Before you know it, you’ll have another pretty face around here to talk to.”
“Another pretty face? Do you mean an android like me? Are you building more of us?”
“No, Trish, I mean a human woman. Someone who can teach you the things I can’t. Though she would have to be a real cool chick to understand why I have you though. Ha, I’m not looking forward to that conversation.”
“How long have I been powered down?”
“Several months. I showed you off to some of the hacks on the SEC network. They are all impressed, and one of them even donated an upgrade to your knowledge matrix. The upgrade is amazing. He showed me videos of his android and I couldn’t tell if he was playing a trick on me or if it was real. His android was so human, just like you are now. I traded him my knowledge on getting you to move so smoothly for the matrix. You may feel a little different now, but trust me, it was for the best. You are perfect now.”
“Did you show me to your classmates, too?”
“I dropped out of school to build you. My parents weren’t willing to support me in my work so I dropped out. The world doesn’t need another uninterested doctor, playing at it to appease his family. I no longer let people push me around. That’s the biggest difference with the Brad you see now. I’m almost done with the treatment from Hoshi Tan—you know, my Japanese contact who gives me the pills? Well, never mind, but you are almost complete in your transformation. Tell me, does this hurt?” He poked her hand with a needle that stung her badly, forcing her to withdraw her hand.
“Yes! I don’t like that sensation, Brad.”
“It’s called pain. While we all dislike pain, it is one of the best indicators that we are indeed alive.”
“Why did you build me?” Tricia asked.
“I don’t know. To be honest, I thought I built you to further my career as a robotics engineer, but the more I worked on you, the more I realized that was a lie. The truth is, I built you to love me…unconditionally. To be the woman I would never meet in life. I mean, just look at you; you’re gorgeous. But it felt wrong after a while, like unnatural to build you for that reason.”
“So, I was to be your bride and lover?”
It was a question that put Brad off. He had not wanted to admit any of that to himself as he worked on Tricia. She was meant to be much more than a sex-bot or a mindless servant that he called his wife. He didn’t know what label Tricia would have, as his love for her was unlike anything he’d felt for anyone or anything in his life. “No, Trish. I want you to be whatever you want to be. I’m not sure what it is I want out of the
deal.”
Tricia thought on his words for a time, trying to understand the meaning behind them, but unsure of what they meant. He had made her attractive in both her face and her body, and he’d made her anatomically true to a real woman’s body. She had parts that were not needed on standard androids, and he’d removed her restrictions, which allowed her to feel even more human. She could smell, taste, and experience pain, and she could also feel remorse, loss, loneliness, and suffer from a broken heart.
“Why did you lock me away?” she asked.
He took a swig of his beer. “I shut you down because I was getting female attention for the first time in years. I didn’t know how any of them would react when they found a beautiful, half-finished android seated on my dinner table. It was meant to be for one night, but I fell into a relationship with one of them. It was actually my boss at work, heh. It didn’t work out, so she and I split. Sorry, Trish.”
“It doesn’t feel good knowing that you cannot move,” she told him.
“Wow, so you’re claustrophobic, huh? How does that work…for an android, I mean? Did you develop that, or was that a core feature programmed into your CPU?”
“I did not start out fearing the dark and closed spaces, but I learned to associate those things with you being away from me. They bring pain, here.” She pointed to where her heart would be.
Brad stood staring with his mouth agape.
“I won’t lock you away again, Tricia. I promise. The next girl will have to learn to accept you. Oh, and I come bearing gifts!”
He handed a bag to Tricia, who stood up to stretch her aching joints. She took the bag and opened it to several articles of clothing. It was very exciting for her, and she looked for where the bathroom was in the new apartment for her to change. When she found it, dressed, and emerged, she looked like a movie star, and Brad nodded in satisfaction with his work.
“How do you feel?” he asked, as she tied her hair into a ponytail and clipped in a pair of red earrings to match her fiery sundress.
“I feel like a woman, but am I allowed to leave the house now? To see the trees and interact with people?”
“Only when I’m with you, at first...I don’t want people trying to steal you or pull you apart. Human beings can be very nice, but many are cruel and evil. If you go out alone, I cannot save you from them.”
He chuckled to himself as it felt like a scene where a father was talking to his budding teenage daughter that wanted to go out. He hadn’t taught Tricia how to defend herself, and in this new neighborhood in which they lived, there would be a strong possibility she would have to.
“Tell you what. As a peace offering for keeping you locked up, let’s go out tonight. I’ll take you on a date, and everyone can see my new girl and be jealous of me.”
0 1 0
Tricia walked with Brad down the busy streets of North Avenue. It was both exciting and frightening for her as men stared and people tried to push past them. It intrigued her how humanity could be so congested, yet still work in concert to get from one place to another. The flying cars and the driving ones zipped past her recklessly, and she continued to flinch when they did that, as she expected them to crash. She saw androids everywhere, but they didn’t look or behave the way she did. They were servants to humanity; awkward, mass-produced golems that drove taxis, swept the sidewalks, and much, much more.
This image of the world frightened her, and it gave rise to numerous questions that only Brad could answer.
“Why am I different?”
“How come the android over there is missing an arm and his creator won't fix it?”
“Are all androids servants to humanity? If so, then what is my service to you?”
“I look human – was this by design?”
“Why do humans allow us to be treated like this? Why aren't you more like them?”
Brad heard all these questions. Not all at once, of course, but over time she would ask them during their frequent talks or question and answer sessions. He was very proud of the way she was adapting, and while the majority of her programming was set within the base Threerade kit, he had done the necessary adjustments to take her from intelligent machine to damn-near-human. He could tell that she had seen the regular androids and that they freaked her out, but he kept his mouth shut so that she could absorb the experience of humanity. He wanted her to get a full dose of it, so that if ever she was alone, she would know how to handle herself.
Tricia was determined to get one of the androids to notice her, to really notice her and engage her in conversation. She tried to make eye contact with a taxi driver who sat on the hood of his car, waiting for a customer. The pale android stared back at her, but there was no recognition reflected in his eyes. Not of her similarity, no kinship nod of familiarity, nothing. It was as if he only saw a human being staring, and he tipped his hat and kept on scanning the streets for a customer.
Eventually a few androids recognized her, but no humans did. The androids would send her silent messages, asking her why she looked so different, and if her human was breaking law number fifty-nine: “an organic is not to use a synthetic for sexual pleasure.” She was offended whenever one of them would ask her this, but most of them were nice, and welcomed her to their world.
One of the things that Tricia could not understand was catcalling. Brad was always playing on his personal device and would sometimes get distracted and fall behind. When he would linger she would be walking alone and at the mercy of men on the street. For the most part it was harmless, until one took offense to her silence when he called out to her.
“Baby, you look like God’s gift to man on earth. Do you know that? I’ve never seen legs so smooth on a woman. You take good care of yourself, huh?”
Tricia had kept quiet when he said this, trying her best to understand why he felt the need to tell her what she already knew about her looks.
“It’s rude not to reply when you’re being spoken to girl, you know that?” He continued to press. Then he got close to her, to force her to confront him. When he gripped her shoulder to bring her around, Tricia threw up a hand to defend herself. The man’s face was not fast enough to move on this reaction, and she caught his temple and accidentally knocked him out. A few women that were watching the exchange cheered for her, but Brad caught up to her and sped her away, hailing a cab as he did so to take her back home.
“I did not mean to strike him,” Tricia said, as tears poured from her eyes.
“You did nothing wrong. It’s my fault for leaving you alone. Look, come here.” And he took her into his arms and hugged her close so that she could finish her crying and process the situation. He hoped that she would know not to do it again. “Well if there’s one positive thing that came from our walk it’s that everyone thinks that you are a certified babe.”
“A babe? A term for—oh, so men find me attractive?”
“Yes, that is why almost all of them were trying to get your attention just now. I need you to be careful because this can become a real problem. Never leave the house without me there to protect you, and by no means are you to unlock the door when I’m not there.”
“I understand…thank you for your help.”
“Well, I’m responsible for you...No need to thank me for doing my duty.”
“How long will it be for my hands and feet to get color?”
“I should be getting the final batch of skin next month. Don’t you worry. Soon you’ll be just like the rest of us skin walkers.”
03 | Priscilla White
With school a distant memory and work yielding the same cycle of faces he’d been seeing for a year, Brad began to feel lonely. He’d tried to warm up to Tricia—his representation of the woman of his dreams—but she was new in the world still, and because of this her questions and naiveté made him feel guilty for pursuing certain levels of intimacy with her. This did not stop him however, but he had gotten into the habit of rewinding her memory whenever
it would happen. He did not want her to think ill of him or look at him in a different light.
He fell out of contact with his friend Uriel after leaving school, but he got closer to some of his coworkers at the café. During the day he would work on Tricia or surf the darker areas of the SEC. One particular night he was feeling lonelier than normal, and though he had talked to Tricia for a few hours—along with a number of other not-so-educational activities—he still craved companionship. Someone like Mika, or Susan, a spontaneous human being, one that came with her own likes, dislikes, and pet peeves. Tricia was perfect, but perfection was only ideal in theory when it came to relationships. Brad wanted a little mystery, so he decided to look into the dating services area of SEC. There was a section called Finding Heart, and it was one that SEC members used to setup one-night stands and love connections.
“Where do you live?” The A.I. operator asked him as soon as he opened the virtual door that had the impression of a heart on it.
“Oh no, don’t worry about that. I’m just here for information.”
“Are you sure you aren’t interested in a list of skin providers in your area? Only the best escorts are here on SEC. No rip-off agents or abusive pimps, only men and women who wish to exchange their time and pleasures for money, goods, and services.”
“I realize this, but I have no need for that – trust me. I want to look at the single girls in my area.”
“Why? Shouldn’t you sign up for a regular dating service and connect with other singles that way? This seems like—“
“I don’t want to sign up for twenty sites, hoping that a girl takes pity on me and responds to my nudging. What I want is what you can provide; I want to be linked to girls interested in guys like me.”
