PHANTOM DOLL - PART V
The two of them scrambled out of the pool, drying themselves off the best they could in the hurry they were in, and found themselves in the kitchen where Sandra Quinn was pacing back and forth on the tile floor.
"Do you realise what you could've done? You don't bring sensitive electronics in the pool! What ever were you thinking?" she asked incredulously.
"Mum, the robots that all the rich kids have at school are waterproof! Why wouldn't Rylie be as well?" Jeremy asked.
"Oh, I don't know, because she's an *older* model, perhaps?" Sandra said caustically. "If you had made friends with some of your classmates before school was almost over, you may even have known that!"
"You know how much I tried to get into those stupid cliques we have at school. All they wanted to know was my income bracket," Jeremy retorted.
"Then you didn't try enough! And who cares about cliques? I'm sure there are plenty of boys for you to be friends with, and girls too, that may not exactly be popular. We're not really concerned with social cachet here; we're concerned, or at least I am, why you're spending your days holed up in your room with a glorified machine," Sandra spat, full of venom.
"Hah! Go tell that to people at the school. I acted like myself, then I acted like them. I tried to look like them, too, and that failed. Besides, if you just got to *know* Rylie, I'm sure your opinion would change of her, mum" Jeremy suggested back.
"You seem to be forgetting that I *do* know Rylie, back when...back before we moved. And she was devoid of any personality then, so she's devoid of any personality now. You know it was just a gift or something your late father tried to buy us all off with before he went and got himself killed," said Sandra.
"Don't say he's dead!" Jeremy said with surprising force. "You don't know that! And I find that Rylie has a perfectly charming personality."
"What, were you trying to get it on with her? You know she's not programmed for sex, right? So don't get any ideas," Miss Quinn informed her son.
"What? How do you know that? Were *you* trying to get it on with her?" Jeremy asked. "Huh? Of course not. I'm just saying that only very specialised models of robot are designed for...*that*...and Rylie's certainly not one of those," Miss Quin told her son.
"Well, maybe she is and maybe she isn't, but that's certainly not why I activated her. Do you know how lonely it is here without...without anyone to talk to, or play games with, and you're at work all day!" said Jeremy.
"I have to work all day so we can live in a place like *this*," said Sandra, "and it's not impossible to make friends. You're just not trying hard enough and now you have a copout in the form of a pretty robot."
"Stop referring to Rylie that way! She's right here in the room! She can hear every word you say!" Jeremy pointed out.
All eyes turned to Rylie. "Umm, hi..." she waved. "I wish you'd get to know me, Miss Quinn," she said quietly, "I'm really friendly and Jeremy likes me a lot. I can help with chores around the house, too, and I can be quiet when I need to."
Miss Quinn looked almost livid. "I know you can be quiet," she said curtly and swiftly clicked the button behind Rylie's ear, making her eyes dim in sadness as the whirring motion indicated her powering down.
Jeremy was shocked. "How...mum...how in the *world* can you do that? She's *sentient*! You can't just turn someone off!" He quickly reached behind Rylie's ear and turned her on again.
"I'm sorry if I did something offensive," Rylie said in a quiet voice, once she was back online.
"Uggh! I don't believe this! Fine, keep her on if you want to. Just don't come crying to me when she breaks. I can't take this stress right now, I'm leaving. I'll be back late." Miss Quinn informed her son and his companion as she angrily stormed out of the house.
Rylie looked like she could cry at any moment as she soundlessly mouthed the words "I'm sorry" to him. Jeremy only hugged Rylie in return.
In fact, Rylie stayed on almost permanently after that altercation. She charged while she was online, not daring to let Jeremy shut her off. Often Jeremy would come home from school to find Rylie randomly shut down, in those last weeks before school let out for the summer, as Sandra Quinn often came home from her job for lunch. Rylie would be stuck in all sorts of positions, like reaching up to get a box of crackers--Rylie eating was a particular bane for Miss Quinn, it seemed--trying to dust the downstairs, watching TV in the living room, even once dripping wet and mostly naked just out of the shower.
Jeremy would confront his mother many times about the cruelty of this, and the damage she may even be doing to Rylie's systems, but she seemed not to care and was very insistent that, while Jeremy may prefer Rylie turned on, she most certainly preferred her turned *off*, and since Rylie wasn't a "real person", Miss Quinn had no qualms about what she did.
It was during this time that Rylie discovered a most interesting thing about herself, something that surprised even her. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, two weekends after their expedition to Riddle Hill and the weekend before the last few days of school, where Jeremy and Rylie had curled up together on Jeremy's bed, watching TV in Jeremy's room, since Miss Quinn was currently ruling the roost downstairs. The clouds hung low in the sky, threatening rain, but all that fell was a cold, raw drizzle.
Jeremy's eyes had started to close halfway through the old black-and-white movie that was playing, and Rylie found herself on top of a sleeping boy. Rylie tried to watch the movie while Jeremy slept, but it wasn't the same, and she couldn't seem to focus. Out of habit to appear more human, perhaps, or just a random fluke, she closed her eyes and listened to the rhythm of Jeremy's breathing. Up and down, in and out, in perfect time. Before she knew it, it seemed like she wasn't fully conscious herself anymore. She saw things through a haze, shimmery even. There were pictures swimming about, of their first kiss, of their first time outside. Then things got weird.
Rylie started seeing things she'd never seen before, like alternate endings of some of her times with Jeremy, or times when she'd get surprised by Sandra but instead of being deactivated, Rylie would turn around and slap her in the face. Those visions scared her, because she knew they never happened, but she relived them as if they did. Some of her old memories played in black-and-white, like the movie they were watching. In fact, at one point, she substituted herself and Jeremy into the female and male leads of the picture.
Then, her vision switched to a picture perfect sunny day with skies of blue. She remembered it was hot, but not humid, and she was walking up a path near the woods. No, she was running up the path. Quickly. She moved into the cover sun-dappled forest as she ran quickly, even breathing heavily, but she didn't seem she was getting anywhere. The same trees passed her multiple times. Something was agitating her, though, and she felt the need to push on, keep running, and she wasn't making any progress. At least, with a huge gulp of air, she sat straight up, shocking Jeremy into waking up, too.
"Rylie? What's wrong?" Jeremy asked, concerned.
"I...no I...I had another one of those memory things, like in the pool, that I can't compare to anything I have access too. Only it was warped; I was running and running and couldn't get anywhere. And I saw lots of images of us, but some things we've never done, either...." Rylie trailed off, trying to explain it.
Jeremy thought for a moment, and then his eyes got wide. "Rylie, you *dream?"
"No, I'm not programmed to dream," Rylie said.
"Then...wait a minute. What were you doing right before you started having these images?" Jeremy asked.
"Well, you had fallen asleep, or close to it, so I just closed my eyes, almost getting hypnotised by the rhythm of your breathing," Rylie said. "My own breathing program kinda put mine in sync with yours, and I started seeing everything even though my eyes were closed, in some sort of haze..."
"Rylie...no matter what you may think of your programming, you *dreamt*. You approximated sleep and somewhere in there you *dreamed*. What time do you think it is now?" Jeremy asked, to prove his point.
"Umm, three in the afternoon?" she guessed.
"Nope. We were about halfway done with the movie around two or two-thirty, but it's nearing five-thirty now," Jeremy said. "Look at the sky."
Rylie turned to look out the window and saw that the grey skies of the early afternoon had turned into broken clouds beautifully illuminated orange and pink by a spectacular sunset. "Dreaming? I...dreamed?" Rylie asked, again.
Jeremy had a huge grin on his face as he nodded. "Yeah... Rylie, you know, you seem more human everyday."
Rylie's face fell a little at this. "But apparently I can still get caught in the act by your mother, turning me off at random times throughout the day. And when you turn me back on, my thoughts are all jumbled cause I didn't get a chance to organise them before shutting down. Your mother should know better; I think I told her that once, but she's probably forgotten." She giggled nervously. "Why won't she...why won't she just accept me for who I am? I'm doing my best to keep out of her way and be helpful."
"Well, maybe you shouldn't bother being helpful? She certainly doesn't appreciate it, and her and I both do our fair shares cleaning the house so it's not really in need of drastic cleaning," Jeremy suggested.
"But that's just it; you and her do your part. If I'm *ever* going to be accepted as a member of this house, I should do *my* part," Rylie elaborated.
"I guess you're right. I just wish my mum saw it your way," Jeremy said as his mother knocked on the door.
"Come in," Jeremy told her.
Sandra Quinn looked disapprovingly at her son in bed with something she saw as an oversized love doll for him, and then told them tersely, "Dinner is ready. I'll be out late." and closed the door.
Four days later, Rylie was waiting up in Jeremy's room for him to get home a little after lunch. It was his last day of school, where he'd be getting his exam grades back, and then he was free for the summer. Free to be with her, Rylie thought dreamily. But then she turned her attention to the problem. She was thirsty. How she got thirsty she didn't know, and didn't know if it even served a purpose, but she knew what she wanted: pink lemonade. Normally she'd just head downstairs to the refrigerator and pour herself a glass, but today there was an obstacle: Miss Quinn. She had stayed home from work that day to meet Jeremy as he arrived home, collecting his exam grades and making him lunch on the first day of her long weekend. Rylie did not factor into those plans.
So Rylie waited, staring out the window in Jeremy's room, hoping for a sign of him. The hours came and went, though, and there was no Jeremy. On the last day of school, the students went home when each was done, so if Jeremy needed to speak to a teacher who had lots of other students to talk to, he may not be home until the normal let-out time of two in the afternoon. Rylie looked at the clock and was dismayed to see it only registered quarter-to-twelve. After another half-hour of waiting, she decided she had waited enough. She wasn't going to let Miss Quinn dictate where she could go and what she could do. If she ran into her, and got shut down, at least Jeremy would be home in less than two hours to turn her on again. Her eyes glinted with resolve, and she threw open the door as quietly as she could, and made her way downstairs.
She made it to the kitchen with no problem, and poured herself a large glass as a reward. She had drank most of it when she heard a noise behind her. Already on edge, she jumped, dropping the glass in the process and watching with dismay as it shattered on the tile floor. She looked up, and directly into the severely disapproving face of Miss Sandra Quinn.
"Oh no! I'm so sorry, let me clean it up, just a sec," Rylie said. "Please don't shut me down, I can clean this...." Rylie reached around to grab the roll of paper towels and felt a cold hand on her neck. She spun around so quickly that Sandra had to actually jump back a few steps.
"Please? I don't know what I ever did to you," Rylie said nervously. "I'm...I'm just trying to be the best friend to your son I can, and I want to help around the house too and be a part of this family."
"What family?" Miss Quinn said haughtily. "It's just me and Jeremy; a pretty close self-contained family unit. Why do we need someone else?"
"Because Jeremy needs me. Your son *wants* me in his life, and I think I'm a good influence," Rylie said.
"I don't necessarily disagree," Miss Quinn said, surprising Rylie a bit, "but Jeremy needs *real* friends, not of the artificial kind. He can't cloister himself away in our house like he has since we've moved here. He used to be such a social boy, too, back in his old school. He found out the hard way that friends don't necessarily move with you. But I haven't seen him make any kind of effort he tells me he does ever since he dug you out of the closet and reactivated you."
Rylie looked up at Miss Quinn as she dried up the lemonade and tried her best to pick up the broken glass with the paper towels. "Miss Quinn, I'm...I'm as real as you or Jeremy. I don't...well, I may not look the same as you do inside, but I'm just as much alive as you are. I love Jeremy just as much as you do--"
"You are a machine. Machines do not love," Miss Quinn said coldly. "My husband loved me. My son loves me. I love my son. You...do not..."
"Yes, I do!" Rylie said, finally straightening as she stood up. "I may not know a lot of things, but I know love. Jeremy loves me and I love him back. Just as I loved your daughter--"
Rylie was brutally interrupted by a slap across her face. "Don't *ever* say that you loved my daughter. Kylie was *my* daughter and I took care of her, not you. You were just some tin machine my husband left me before he foolishly ran off on a mission for the government. I don't know how he got ahold of you, but you were just an expensive toy used to placate a daughter who was sad to see her father leave *again*, and a bribe to a wife who couldn't understand why..."--Miss Quinn got a bit choked up--"who couldn't understand why her husband was always *leaving* her!"
"I...I don't know where I was made or for what purpose, but I tried to fulfill as many functions as I could while living here. I did my best!" Rylie said.
"Well, your best wasn't good enough. And you'll never know what kind of pain I went through as a mother, who lost her child, and--"
"I LOST HER TOO!" Rylie shouted, tears now cascading down her face. "On that day, I lost the only person who treated me as a person, like I was some*one* and not some*thing*. She loved me, and I loved her too. We were like, no, we *were* sisters, and she was torn from me just like she was torn from you!"
Miss Quinn stepped back in shock at Rylie's outburst, and could only manage to get out, "You're crying...but...but you never...you never cried after..."
"YOU DIDN'T ALLOW ME TOO! YOU SHUT ME OFF AND DIDN'T EVEN ALLOW ME TO GO TO THE FUNERAL! You know I've never visited her grave? How sad is that? I can't even pay my final respects to someone who gave me my sense of self! And now someone else has finally discovered I have more to offer than being a talking toaster and you want to take *him* away from me, too? Why? I just...I just want to live my life...." Rylie said as she dropped to her knees and let the tears flood the floor she had dried only minutes earlier. Sandra Quinn did the only thing she could. She helped Rylie up from the floor and led her, sobbing, to the couch, and held her as the tears soaked Sandra's blouse through and through. "It's okay, really...it's okay...I'm sorry I came off that way, I just... Well, I'm still not comfortable with having you up and about, you know, but...maybe..."
"Rylie? Mum? What's wrong?" said Jeremy as he stepped into the living room, letting the door slam behind him and startling them both.
"It's okay Jeremy," Rylie said between sobs.
"Yes, Jeremy, it's...it's okay..." Miss Quinn said in a measured tone. Half of her seemed to be the mother Jeremy remembered comforting him when he got things like a skinned knee or a spill off his bike, and half of her seemed to be stunned and, in a way, disgusted, that she was holding and comforting something she may have seen as nothing more than a glorified household appliance.
"But, Rylie, you're...you're crying?" Jeremy asked.
"Yes, Rylie, since when can you cry?" Sandra asked, her voice once again turning to a motherly tone.
"It just...I don't know it just started happening when I was emotionally overcome, talking to your mother and.." Rylie faded off.
"Well, maybe some nice pasta or soup will...will make you feel better?" Sandra asked.
"I...I...well, maybe..." Rylie said, nervously.
"Don't worry, I guess I won't turn you off...for now," chided Miss Quinn delicately.
Rylie managed a wan smile that got wider as she found herself in the middle of Jeremy and his mum on the couch. "This family," she whispered softly as she drew them both closer.
To be continued...
*hearts*
Rynnie