Mistress Mira 1

[Karel]

On the occasion of this post, which will finally place me in the top 100 on the Memberlist (sorry if I've written anything egregiously pointless recently), I present both my new avatar (hey!) and Part 1 of my first story, Mistress Mira. Enjoy.

They sat, side by side, in the dark, on the loveseat. They were dressed identically; black sweatpants, white shirts, black fleecies, all medium-small, though each of the figures was decidedly a large. They were well rounded, both of them, taking up the whole seat at bottom, so that even a slimmer figure would have had to squeeze in tightly to sit next to them, though one would not think, quickly glancing at them from the waist up, that they were taking up that much room. One also would not notice, without looking closely, that they were not leaning back, but sitting up straight, without support, maintaining perfect posture.

The one on the left (not their left, of course, but the observer’s left), the black one, had a full round mouth, and a full round nose, and large round eyes, that complimented the roundness of its body. The one on the right, with its long Semitic nose, its thin pursed lips, and thin flowing black hair, looked thinner as a result, but their dimensions were basically the same.

Sitting there, notwithstanding the difference in appearance, they could not help but look a bit like sisters. Younger, perhaps, on the left, less thoughtful, the lips serenely closed, the eyes half-lidded. On right, the eyes more open, the tension in the mouth betraying a shade of concern. Their hands rested softly on their thighs, with the right figure’s right hand laid gently over that of its partner, the fingers curled slightly under the palm.

The lights came up.

In the corridor next to the kitchen, bright colours appeared, and snapped into the form of a woman, a red-haired and freckle-faced woman, her hair done up in two thickly knotted braids, wearing a colourful scarf, a black sweater, and a black skirt. Her whole body shimmered, and she straightened up and exhaled, smoothing out the image of her clothes, as the front door was unlocked.

The door swung open, and in stepped the same woman. Her hair was undone, flowing freely, and she was wearing blue jeans, but she also wore that same scarf. She took it off, along with her coat, and hung them up on the rack.

The hologram smiled, and raised her hand, and the door swung shut automatically. “Hello, Mira, how was your day?” it asked.

Mira managed a weak smile. “Good, Mira, how was yours?”

“Good, good,” answered the hologram, still smiling.

“Did anyone call for me?”

The hologram was a computer program simulating Mira herself, in her entirety, run off of the home computer system. It was a very good program, as they went; Mira (the real Mira) had actually come to regret going crazy for it, because it was really too good for her purposes. She was a day trader in the necessities market, and at peak hours, between noon and two o’clock, her system was too busy analysing data to run the simulation, so nobody was home.

“Uuuumm, no, nobody. You should write back Mom though.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s... I thought I told you to do that!”

The HoloMira raised its hands and opened its mouth as if to protest.

“But nothing! She’s just complaining about the home again, she wants sympathy! I have you to handle nonsense like that! What’s for dinner?”

Ideally, to keep the simulation running properly, the program would simulate real food and drink, and the hologram would actually sit down for a proper meal. There was almost never enough processing power available to do that, so an artificial model of homeostasis was maintained instead, generating programs for nutrients, oxygenation, etc., and this degraded the quality of the simulation. Deactivating it was even worse. Ironically, a lower quality program that used less memory would produce longer lasting holograms, because it could run all day. Mira had also dished out for a fancy new scanner, so she could always just delete the old copy of herself and create a new one, but she found herself having to do that more and more often. This hologram had been running for less than two days.

“Uuuh, I don’t know,” it said, sheepishly.

“What?”

“I thought I’d ask you!”

Mira stared at herself angrily.

“...What do you feel, like, Mira?” she asked

The hologram stopped and pretended to think. “I’m all messed up from the program, Mira.”

“That’s fine. It’s the weekend, we can go crazy.”

“Really?” A gleam of hope flickered on behind the hologram’s eyes.

“Really,” said Mira, mellowing a bit. “Take up more space, as much as you need.”

“Okay!” said fake Mira, and (h)er body shimmered as (h)er program expanded.

“And turn on Natalya,” added Mira, taking off her shoes.

“O-o-o-kay,” said fake Mira, its program still expanding, and (s)he snapped her fingers.