The Peculiar Journey of Lauren Barnes, Installment Five.

[TheSpotConlon]

He lives! Sorry for the very long delay in between chapters; moving, Katrina, and other disasters have gotten in my way. But, here 'tis, the fifth installment. Feel free to go back and familiarize yourself again, then lay into me with the always-appreciated comments and criticisms.

Installment Five: Everything I Knew About Her.

Carolyn Utada had been born in New York. Her earliest memory was of standing on the observation deck of the World Trade Center, her mother telling her to always look ahead, and never look down. Her parents eventually retired and moved out of the city, but they kept their apartment so that Carolyn could continue to attend school there. She had lost her virginity in the bathroom of CBGB’s on the last day the club was open. The first album she ever bought for herself was a copy of the Police’s “Synchronicity.” She had taught herself guitar while cutting her algebra lessons, more entranced by the logic of melody rather than the systems of mathematics.

Now she stood before me stark naked, trying to explain to me how each and every one of these memories was a lie. Her torso was split above the navel from side to side, revealing a complex web of circuits and machinery. I could see up to where her ribs would be located if she were human; there were replacements for the real thing in their place, made from what appeared to be some sort of dense plastic fiber. Lights would occasionally flash inside of her, sometimes followed by a grinding noise or a twitch. Carolyn didn’t move a muscle as I gazed into what was obviously not a human body.

I looked up into her eyes, glassy and lifeless where I had found love just moments before. “Carolyn? What is this?”

She cocked her head to the side, regarding me with no discernable emotion. “My designation is KOEI-60388. I am a product of the J.P.P. Artificial Person line, fourth generation. How may I serve you?”

Her torso snapped shut. Life back in her eyes. She shook her head like she was awakening from a nightmare. “Now you know. Now you know who I am.”

She told me everything. She was designed by a firm in Nagano, Japan, which had decided to beat another team of European investors to the punch by creating a line of simulant humanoid robots which were indistinguishable from the genuine article. Carolyn was the first to be designed and released to be field-tested; her memories and appearances came from the daughter of a programmer who lived in the New York area. She had operated on the assumption that she was the human Carolyn, occasionally swapping in and out of her life while being imprinted with her memories. However, it was only recently that she had accidentally stumbled upon what she actually was. An accident in the shower, she said, and it was only through an intense amount of begging that her father didn’t fully erase her memories of the incident. She did ask him to erase any grief she had over not being human. “It was the least he could do, after all. If I had to be the fake Carolyn, there was no point in getting all bent out of shape about it.”

Then she gave me a small touchpad from her desk. On it was a diagram of her naked frame, along with a few buttons and sliders. She told me that it was her control. “I need a field tester. I know that you’ll be up to the task, sweetie. Go ahead, try something.”

“Will it hurt?”

“We’ll find out.”

I regarded this device with no undue amount of trepidation. I don’t think I had ever been around something this complicated, and even if I had, my addled brain wouldn’t have been able to recall. So I simply pressed the first button I came to. Carolyn let out a moan and fell to the ground.

Oh, shit. I had killed her. I had killed her, and there was no place to hide her body anywhere in the room. A knock at the door. A few measly seconds to do something with her naked frame. A realization that I hadn’t left the door locked. And there stood my RA, gaping at me carrying up my roommate’s supine body. This wouldn’t have been so bad, actually; she could have just caught us playing a game of “Naughty Robber.” It’s just that Carolyn’s torso opened, spilling some of her oil out onto the ground. This obviously wasn’t any good at all.

I expected her to cry out in terror, or at least go running the other way, or maybe even ask what’s going on. Amazingly, she did none of these things. She just turned quietly and locked the door. Then she looked me right in the eye. “Lay her down on the bed. I need to see what you’ve broken.”

“What?”

“I said get her on the bed!” I wasted no time at all, as Jenn sounded mighty pissed. I laid her down on the bed as best I could, trying not to set loose any more fluids or gizmos from her open torso. Suffice it to say that I jumped pretty high in the air when I turned around to find that Jenn had stripped her shirt off. “Jesus! What are you doing?”

“I need to interface, make sure her internals aren’t busted.” “You need to who with the what now?” By the time I could figure out what the hell was going on, Jenn’s torso had slid open, revealing the same complex web which lay beneath my love’s skin. She drew a firewire cable from her gut into Carolyn’s. All I could do was stare and occasionally emit a rather high-pitched moan of disbelief. One of these managed to escape in the form of the word “what;” this caused Jenn to turn and look at me with a thousand-yard stare. Out of her lips came the same inhuman tone I had heard minutes earlier: “processor is busy. Please inquire again later. Message number 6-14.” I backed into a corner of the room and let the robots do their thing.

They took hours. They must have; I dozed off while Jenn worked on the prostrate Carolyn and was only awoken when she ran her hand lovingly over my cheek. “Honey, she just suffered a small malfunction in her–“

“Who are you? What the hell was that? What’s going on, Jenn?” Can you blame me for being anxious? She looked me straight in the eye and told me the truth: she was a robot as well, sent to make sure Carolyn’s adjustment to college life went smoothly. And if I told anyone, I’d be killed. “Deactivated” were her words, but I was sure that she was getting her words mangled. Then she left the room, putting me in charge of the newly rehabilitated Carolyn.

Classes started. Classes continued. Every night I returned to Carolyn’s loving embrace. She was the only certainty I had, but she was growing more alien the more I thought about her true nature. There wasn’t a story she could tell me which she could say with certainty happened to her and not to the “Other Carolyn.” I knew that beneath her warm, comforting exterior lay a complicated bed of cold steel, and that she could love me or hate me with a change of a line of code. I realized this fact walking home across Fagg Quad one day, knowing full well that part of her was nothing more than a walking vibrator. If I cheated on her with Jenn, was it any different than upgrading my vibrator? I needed someone who could really love me, or what there was to love; word had already started to spread around about my amnesiac state, and I was becoming more of a curiosity item than a real person. There had to be something real in my life. If I was never going to evolve again, if I had to live my life without my base, then I had to know that someone would be there to provide it for me. I was going to talk to Carolyn as soon as I got back in my room, ask her if she really loved me; if she took offense, I thought, I could erase any sour feelings just like her father had. This was the state of affairs as I put key to lock and opened my door.

Everything changed when I walked in on Carolyn making love to me. It wasn’t me. It was Lauren Amanda Barnes.

The world went black.
[/b]

[Korby]

Wow. This is definitely getting interesting.

I hope Real Life doesn't keep throwing curves at you; I'm hip to see the next chapter!

[A.N.N.]

Wow, a dorm full of college age looking fembots looking for love

[DollSpace]

Another great installment! This is a first class story, all the way! I hope you can continue writing!

Ryn

[A.N.N.]

Hey, haven't seen any updates in a while. I hope you mean to continue, this was pretty neat

[TheSpotConlon]

I'm just trying to figure out where this can go. Honestly, between life and writer's block, I haven't been able to figure out a decent continuation. Here's hoping something develops soon.

[DollSpace]

I'm just trying to figure out where this can go. Honestly, between life and writer's block, I haven't been able to figure out a decent continuation. Here's hoping something develops soon.

Hrrm...writers' block is my specialty! In other words, I can get anyone out of writers' block except myself

Seriously, though, IM me sometime even if I'm listed as away and we'll try some brainstorming, if you're interested. ^^

Ryn