by Jon Jacks
Self-Assembled Girl
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife
Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland
The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas
Memesis – April Queen, May Fool – Sick Teen – Thrice Born
Text copyright© 2016 Jon Jacks
All rights reserved
Thank you for downloading this ebook. It remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
Thank you for your support.
Important Note: Your Iona comes with a fully extensive warranty, but this may be VOIDED if the seven stages of assemblage are not correctly followed
Chapter 1
‘What the–’
I slapped the boy kneeling before me hard across his shocked face.
Trying to cover my naked body as best I could with my hands and arms, I dashed behind the nearest cover I could see; a traveling cupboard, full of hanging lingerie.
I thought of reaching over to take one of the garments to slip on, but they hardly gave me more cover than my hands provided.
‘My clothes – where are my clothes?’ I shrieked furiously at the startled boy.
I was confused, furious, wondering how I’d ended up here naked, fearing what this boy had already seen or done as I’d just stupidly stood before him.
Had I been drugged?
Had I been given a spiked drink?
I couldn’t remember – couldn’t even think – how I could have ended up in this dreadful situation.
Strangely, the boy seemed even more startled and embarrassed than I was. He rubbed his deeply reddened cheek as if he couldn’t believe I’d struck him.
Still, he stared directly at me as if he didn’t see why I should feel ashamed for presenting myself naked before him.
‘You…slapped me!’ he said with an affronted tone, a disbelieving, wide-eyed expression.
‘Of course I did!’ I protested. ‘What do you expect me to do, when I wake up with you fondling m–’
‘I wasn’t fondling you!’ he insisted innocently. ‘I was just–’
‘Well that’s what it seemed like to me! Why am I naked? Did you drug me?’
‘No, no: of course not! Why would I need to drug–’
‘Where are my clothes?’ I repeated anxiously, realising I was still naked, still vulnerable.
‘There: they’re all there!’ he said vehemently, pointing to the wardrobe of skimpy underwear I was hiding behind.
I frowned, more puzzled and furious than ever.
What did he mean – all these ridiculously useless things were mine?
Was he some pervert who’d abducted me, bringing me here to dress me up like some more realistic Barbie doll?
I glanced over at him; he certainly didn’t look like a pervert.
Then again, what’s a pervert supposed to look like?
He still seemed startled, however, like he was some little school kid who’d been falsely accused of running in the playground.
But he wasn’t a little school kid, was he?
He was around my age; which meant he must have known perfectly well what he was doing when I caught him kneeling close up to my naked body!
I now glanced down at the floor by him, expecting to see my clothes there, or at least somewhere close by.
Nothing; just bare floorboards, bar a few workman’s tools.
(What the heck had he been intending to do with those?)
What had I been wearing?
I couldn’t remember at all!
I must have been drugged!
‘I mean, where are my clothes; the ones I came in!’ I shrieked at the boy.
‘You didn’t come in any clothes, of course!’
‘Of course I came in some clothes! They’ve been taken from me; I’ve been stripped at some point!’
Second by second, my situation seemed to be evermore horrific.
If he really was telling the truth – if he really had come across me standing here without any clothes! – then that could only mean someone else had taken them off me!
‘That's all you came with; it’s all there, I swear!’ he said, like I’d been accusing him of pinching some of this underwear he was nervously pointing at.
‘What? All this tat is mine?’
What the heck would I need a traveling wardrobe full of lingerie for?
‘It’s not tat!’ he adamantly declared. ‘It’s the best–’
‘It’s not mine!’ I growled. ‘Even if I were some sort of travelling lingerie saleswoman, why would I be standing here naked?’
‘That’s the way you came!’ he insisted once more, but this time drawing my attention to a tall wooden crate leaning against the wall just behind me.
On its front, there was a life-size picture of me; me wearing the very skimpiest of lingerie.
‘I’m Iona,’ printed words said above my head, adding, ‘Please Please Me!’
*
I felt sick.
This couldn’t be happening to me!
Is this boy really saying I came in a box?
I looked down at myself, my body.
No way I came in a box!
I’m a girl! A living, breathing girl!
Not some sort of machine!
Everything’s there; all where it’s supposed to be!
Still, I run my hands quickly over everything, just checking, just reassuring myself I’m not going crazy!
My skin’s warm, pliable; supple.
It all moves the way it should, too!
‘This is…ridiculous!’ I spit back at the boy, wondering if I’m the victim of some cruel prank, some stupid TV programme.
‘The police: I want to call the police!’ I demand, looking quickly about the room in the hope that I can spot a telephone.
‘The police?’ The boy chuckles, like all this is some huge joke.
At last rising up from his knees, he strides over towards the wardrobe, apparently with the intention of stepping behind it to join me.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Let me take another look at you; I must have put you together wrong–’
‘You stay away from me!’ I snarl back at him. ‘Get me some decent clothes to wear now: or I call the police!’
‘The police!’ He laughs again.
‘What’s so funny? Are you telling me the police won’t want to know that I woke up standing naked before you, you pawing me like–’
‘I wasn't pawing you! I was turning you on–’
‘You weren’t turning me on at all! I w
as disgusted!’
‘I meant switching you on – I mean, I was setting you in motion: you know, making you aware of who you are–’
‘You’re talking like I’m some sort of machine!’ I snap at him. ‘But I’m real, I’m human…memories!’
My mind had been racing as I’d desperately searched for some proof that I had to be human, that I couldn’t be a machine.
‘I have memories of when I was child! Of my mother!’ I cry triumphantly.
He grins.
‘They’re false memories; built in to make you, you know, sort of more interesting when you’re having to make conversation.’
He reaches towards me over the top of the small wardrobe, handing me a thick booklet I realise he’s been holding all this time.
Just as on the crate, I’m featured on the cover, only this time wearing other pieces of lingerie, and in a different, more seductive pose. There are other, smaller photographs of me too; different positions, different pieces of underwear.
‘I came with instructions?’ I wail.
I swiftly skim through the booklet, groaning or gasping in increasing dismay as I come across detailed diagrams featuring my every ‘facility’.
‘I can’t be a machine!’ I wail once more.
‘Well, no; I wouldn’t say a machine,’ the boy declares, briefly raising my hopes before adding nonchalantly, even maybe with a touch of eagerness, ‘You’re more of a…a…well, a sex toy, I suppose.’
‘Sex toy? I’m no sex toy!’ I growl determinedly.
‘I mean, well,’ the boy says apologetically, backing away a little as he sees the fury in my eyes, ‘that’s what you were built for; only, I must have put something together wrong, as you’re not supposed to be acting like this!’
*
Chapter 2
Joel, the boy who’d put me together, was fired.
I wasn’t letting anyone near me to ‘put right’ whatever it was he’d put together wrong.
Naturally, they could have held me down, forced me to undergo the changes they wanted to make.
But no one was quite sure what changes to make.
This had never happened before.
Tampering with me once more might simply result in my complete shutting down, meaning I would be of absolutely no use to anyone.
Besides, when I say Joel had been ‘fired’, I mean he’d simply been moved on to another job within Nevaeh, the Floating Whale.
He was the Womb Master’s son, after all.
Thankfully, he’d also had the good grace to insist I wasn’t tampered with.
That, too, I should be given one of the more regular jobs, rather than being sent to the Rooms of Pleasure, which I quite obviously no longer had the correct aptitude to work within.
I was undoubtedly the most expensive ticket girl the Circus of The Soul had ever purchased.
I was a top-of-range model; absolutely perfect in every way.
Apart, of course, from the imperfections in what I prefer to call my mind, but the more technical minded insist on referring to as semi-biological circuits.
My extensive warranty had been declared void; this being Joel’s first full assemblage, unaided and with no supervision, there was no case to answer.
Joel had insisted he would more than capable of getting everything right.
Thankfully for me, he’d been wrong.
*
The Floating Whale’s arrival in any town always resulted in joyous celebration.
Nevaeh – that’s ‘heaven’ reversed, of course – is a travelling Garden of Delights, containing everything from the most elaborate fairground rides to shows or displays guaranteed to bring about a welcome metamorphosis in even the most staid person.
Our arrival was announced with a vast, airborne parade, one that no one could either miss or ignore. Shoals of fish drones swam on far ahead of us, creating vast, flowing patterns amongst the clouds as they swooped, split, and intertwined, their innumerable scales glittering with rainbow shades in the sunlight.
Next came the birds, again single, self-thinking droids programmed to interact together, to form multi-toned displays high above the town.
Music and birdsong emanated from a large enough number amongst them to give the false impression that every bird, every fish, was gaily heralding the arrival of the Circus of Souls.
Larger drones came next, unmanned apart from the human acts who had volunteered for the dangerous task of performing on the upper decks; trapeze artists, lion tamers, elaborate gymnastics. These particular platforms would fly low along the roads and streets, offering clearer views of the performances to the crowds gathering below.
Despite the excitement generated by this elaborate, exotic display, it was always the appearance of dear old Nevaeh herself that would draw the largest gasp of awe from the crowds assembling below.
Even though they couldn’t fail to see her drawing ever closer in the distance, and the attendant droids and drones swooping everywhere about her granted the watchers some idea of her vast size, it wasn’t until she was almost upon them that the gawping people could at last grasp her true immensity and begin to vaguely accept what now seemed so surely impossible: how could something so vast float so languidly in the air above them?
Her moves were indeed languid: the slightest swaying of her elongated body, the flip of a fin, the rise and fall of her tail.
With a languorous opening of her cavernous maw, she released yet another plethora of colourful flying platforms; while also apparently unconsciously swallowing any of the original drones that had lingered too close.
Of course, this was all a part of the show, a means of allowing the riders and performers who had set out earlier a chance to rest until they were ready to re-join the parade.
There were extra special squeals of delight and surprise as those almost directly below were doused with a light, cooling spray, the towering fountain of water erupting from Nevaeh’s blow hole scattering in the wind once it had reached its high point.
The spray fell about us too, our flying platform having drawn too close alongside Nevaeh’s flanks to avoid it. Like the crowds, however, we laughed as the fine mist fell everywhere about us, the whole effect refreshing rather than drenching.
Naturally, to call my ride a ‘platform’ was rather unjust, even if that was the technical term used by Nevaeh’s many mechanics.
Personally, it’s a term I’d use for something quite ugly, quite flat: but the winged dragon we were riding in was spectrally graceful, rushing and weaving through the air as swiftly as any kite, its serpentine yellow coils flickering like a flame whenever it ran alongside the looming, dark sides of Nevaeh.
The dragon was self-thinking, to a limited degree, and so required no human involvement in its controls. But there were four seats, used for either humans or droids to occupy and wave at the people massing below, or even drop down towards them sweets, colourful streamers, or small toys on parachutes.
Joel had invited me on-board the dragon, assuring me it was quite a thrill flying alongside Nevaeh; though he was the one who looked queasy whenever the dragon flipped over, or looped the loop. Thankfully, we were all tightly strapped in, otherwise the sudden and unexpected tilts the dragon performed every now and again could have resulted in all four of us being thrown out.
I’d forgiven Joel for what I’d erroneously taken as his callous indifference to my nakedness on our first ‘meeting’.
It hadn’t even crossed his mind that it would cross my mind that I’d be shocked at finding myself standing naked before him.
Apparently, all the other girls he’d helped put together hadn’t batted so much as an eyelid; let alone bat poor Joel aside, as I’d done.
When it had at last dawned on him that I was serious, that I didn’t want to be seen naked by anyone, he’d apologised and rushed off to find me some decent clothes to wear.
Not fashionable, but yeah, decent.
He’d made up for that, too, by later buying me a ran
ge of clothes he thought I’d find more ‘suitable’.
They weren’t bad actually; but they weren’t great either.
But it’s the thought that counts, so I’d be one heck of an ungrateful girl to carp about that.
So, it turns out Joel wasn’t the dreadful little pervert I’d first taken him to be.
Fact is, I realised, once I’d calmed down, and started looking at him in a better light, he was quite handsome.
Naturally, as soon I realised this, I’d told him that I found him attractive.
He’d laughed, blushing richly.
‘Ah, well,’ he’d almost stammered, he was talking so hesitantly, ‘maybe that’s because that part of your programming is still working as it should be…’
‘Programming?’
I was immediately incensed once more.
I’d attempted to flatter him and he’d rewarded me with what was virtually an insult, in effect telling me I didn’t have a mind of my own.
‘Much as I’d like to believe you find me attractive,’ he’d added quickly, blushing once more, ‘I’ve got to be honest with you and let you know that your particular model – because, of course, of the sort of job you were built to, er, fulfil – well, naturally, you’re supposed to find any of your companions attractive: and flatter them too, of course.’
I frowned.
Yeah, that did make sense, didn’t it?
But it raised the question; when I flatter myself that I’m coming up with spontaneous thoughts, just how much of that is what I’ve been programmed to think?
*
Chapter 3
Joel had apologised for messing up my ‘installation’.
‘What’s to apologise for?’ I asked. ‘If you’d done it all right, I’d be working now in the Rooms of Pleasure.’
I’d shuddered at the thought.
(So, obviously, there are times when I can override my programming!)
‘Bedsides,’ I’d added, ‘maybe I was the one who came off the line late on the Friday; so faults and wackiness are all inbuilt.’
Maybe the guy responsible for programming me knew he was about to be ‘laid off, superfluous to our needs’; maybe I’m his revenge on the company, turning out a girl who’d refuse to follow instructions.
Maybe the company’s forte is producing models that all have individual characters, coming up with unique thoughts and attitudes; maybe they just pushed that facility a little too far this time.
