Lost in the Shuffle
Lost in the Shuffle
Part One: Discovery
Mike was a seasoned Security Officer for the First Line of Defense security contracting agency…at least, that’s what it was called now. He’d been posted at a rather large tech company in the middle of Silicon Valley for the past seven years now, though in that time the contract had switched hands three times and Mike had chosen to stay posted at the same client because they treated him well.
Mike was very quick to learn, rising to the rank of Field Training Officer after only six months and training dozens of officers over the years. That, and his prior experience in retail, gave him all the skills he needed to complete his work.
At the age of 30, he’d finally been promoted to Relief Supervisor. To solidify his new promotion, he was assigned the task of clearing out an old storage room in one of the garages. Most people would have dreaded such an assignment, but Mike looked forward to it.
Fortunately for Mike, he was assigned to clean out the room during the holiday season shutdown period at the building, when there would be minimal personnel on-site to distract him. He was also able to assign himself only to the project at hand, so he wouldn’t have to assist with anything else.
When the time finally came for him to get started, he gave himself the three days just after Christmas so that he could rest up over the weekend from what he was sure would be a satisfying, yet grueling assignment.
The first day of the project was the most tedious. There was a great deal of garbage, outdated paperwork and uniforms, and clutter. Mike spent the entire day clearing those items out, walking back and forth to the landing dock.
The second day of the project was mostly clearing out old lost & found items, mostly clothing, and setting aside the good conditioned items for donation at a nearby donation station. He also cleared out even more outdated items that were buried underneath the clothing. It wasn’t until the third and final day that Mike came across something very interesting…something that would change his life forever.
He’d saved the more delicate items for last, since he would have to go through each of them to determine whether to keep them or chuck them. These items were e-waste, for the most part, and old equipment.
Most of it was old computer monitors, damaged cables, and spent batteries, so he chucked those into an e-waste bin that he was about to transfer to the e-waste storage room. After he’d cleared a few boxes out of one of the corners, though, he uncovered an interesting looking metallic case. The case stood on its side and was nearly four feet tall.
Upon closer examination, it appeared to be a trunk of some sort and it had a property sticker slapped on it from one of the old security companies that had since gone defunct.
“Huh, what have we here?” Mike said to himself, moving the box from the corner and dusting the area off; the box was quite heavy, but fortunately it had wheels.
Mike decided to treat the trunk like any of the other boxes in the room, so he looked for a way to open it. Unlike most of the other boxes, this one had an electronic lock on the top that required a 4-digit passcode.
Mike realized that, due to the weight of the case, the contents hadn’t been removed before because no one knew what the passcode was. Mike had a hunch though, because he’d overheard a 4-digit passcode from a supervisor during that administration who was passing it down to one of the assistants so they could unlock a secure area.
Mike entered the passcode, and sure enough, it was accepted and the locking mechanism disengaged with a mechanical whir and a hiss from the hydraulics used to secure it. Mike carefully grabbed hold of both sides of the case and opened both of them.
As soon as he opened the box, he let out a gasp and recoiled as he saw what was inside. Inside the box, nestled neatly in foam, was a dismantled female android…at least, most of one. Directly in the center was a torso, wearing nothing but a black bra and panties branded with the logo of its manufacturer, and neatly packed in a perfectly shaped foam mold. Both arms and legs were detached from the torso and were in their own foam molds inside of each door. Next to each arm and leg was also the corresponding hand and foot, detached from its corresponding arm and leg; the head was nowhere to be seen.
“What the hell,” was all Mike could say to himself. He spent the usual amount of time pinching himself and making sure it wasn’t a dream. He even quickly left the room and got a minute or so of fresh air, thinking it could have been a mixture of the dust and the cleaning solution he used to clean the room that might be causing him to hallucinate.
Still, when Mike re-entered the room, the box with the dismantled female android was still sitting there, exactly where he left it. He was now faced with a mystery: Who was the android? and why would such a highly advanced android be dismantled, stored, and collecting dust in this storage room, completely forgotten?
Left with little options, Mike felt the only way to answer his questions would be to examine the android. Based on his visual inspection of each limb, nestled in a perfectly shaped mold of each body part, the female android was definitely Caucasian, and had an approximate age of 25. Furthermore, due to the stunted looking appearance of the body, he figured it would stand no taller than 5”5, once fully assembled…assuming he could find the head.
Finishing his visual survey, he decided to pull out one of the limbs. Since the torso was most likely the heaviest part, he decided to grab one of the feet instead. He grabbed the right foot out of the foam and held it gently in both his hands.
Eyeballing it, the foot appeared to be a size 7. Unlike a Human foot, the android foot, and the rest of the body, had the coloring one would expect from a living, breathing person. Also, unlike a human foot which one would expect to feel cold and dry, the android foot felt more of a neutral temperature, and it even felt strangely moist. Strangely, though it felt moisturized, no moisture rubbed off onto his hands, despite multiple attempts.
After initially feeling a little creeped out, holding a severed foot, Mike’s foot fetish finally kicked in. He turned the foot over and placed the bottom of it on his face, briefly enjoying the softness of it, and then took in a whiff. He briefly recoiled when he detected a subtle scent of body odor near the toes. After gently parting each toe and closely inspecting between them, he saw sock residue in between the small toes; clearly, she’d been active before. Mike didn’t expect a realistic odor coming from an android, but not only did he not mind the smell, for some reason, the smell seemed familiar…
“Huh, that’s so weird,” Mike said to himself, turning the foot over and over in his hands, smelling it some more. Unfortunately, because the foot, and the rest of the body, had been washed before being stored, the scent of the body soap was interfering with his memory.
Mike spent a few more minutes playing with, and examining, the foot. The foot ended just above the ankle point, so he briefly looked inside the mechanical opening on the top. It appeared to be mostly mechanical inside, with a small layer of skin and musculature surrounding the mechanical components. He placed the foot on a flat surface and bent the arch to make it stand on its toes. He noticed that when he moved it, he could hear the sound of tiny servos moving within the foot.
Unable to glean anything else from the foot, Mike regrettably placed it back in its mold and then let his hand run the length of the corresponding leg, feeling the various muscles and even seeing the skin tone change with the light pressure from his touch. He quickly pulled out both legs to check if they had any tattoos or identifying marks on them, along with the left foot, but found nothing new. He placed them back in their molds as well and moved on to the hands.
Mike decided he would fully examine the right hand, so he gently removed it from the mold and examined it. If there was one word he could use to describe the android’s overall body type, it would be plump. She wasn’t obese, but she also wasn’t athletic or skinny. Her hands had just enough plumpness to hide the veins and give it a healthy look, especially the palm, and it also made her hand feel extremely soft.
The hand ended just past the wrist, and the inside of the mechanical opening also had very complex looking servo mechanisms, though it looked more like the mechanical portion of her body was covered with a thin, flexible plastic layer that had a more organic looking musculature and dermal layer attached to it, for enhanced motion and realism. He could actually see and hear the mechanisms inside move a little each time he moved one of the fingers.
Just as with her feet, he could see subtle evidence that this android had been active before being disassembled and stored. In the case of the hand, he could see small residue of nail polish on the fingernails that hadn’t been fully washed off, and there were minute amounts of dust residue under the nails.
Just for fun, Mike pretended to shake the hand, but when he gripped it, he was once again hit with a jolt of familiarity…he was sure he’d shaken this hand before. Not only was it the feel of it…it even looked familiar.
Mike felt the same sense of familiarity with the left hand, but just as with the right hand and both feet, he just couldn’t quite pull the memories together. Still, he didn’t want to get caught up, so he placed both hands back in their molds and moved to the main torso.
The torso too had a plump appearance, though with a slight hourglass shape. It had mechanical stubs on the neck, on both legs just past the groin, and both arms past the biceps. Unlike the other body parts, Mike decided not to attempt to remove the torso, since he was unsure if he could get it back in, due to its apparent weight. Instead, he gently probed the abdomen, the ribs, and the chest. He could feel all of the bones and ribs, exactly where they should be, and her belly even had a slight give to it.
Since he’d already gone this far, Mike lightly groped both breasts, and peeked underneath one of the cups. Due to the level of realism present in the rest of the body, especially the hands and feet, he was not surprised to see nipples, and that the breasts felt perfectly real.
He also peeked under the panties and saw a neat patch of dark brown pubic hair, and what looked like a functional vagina. He even detected a slight womanly aroma from the area.
“Wow, who would’ve stashed such a real android here?” Mike once again asked himself. He admitted that maybe the stunted, almost overweight appearance of the android could potentially be off-putting to some people, but still…
With all the parts examined, and no obvious identifying marks, Mike still had no clue who the android could be…not without the head. He quickly double checked all of the nearby boxes to see if there was an android head in it, but his search turned up no head. It wasn’t until he banged his head on the inside of the case that he finally realized where the head might be.
Mike initially thought it was just a thick layer of foam on the upper section of the case, above the torso, designed for additional shock protection. But, upon closer investigation, he saw that there was a depression that served as a handle. He eagerly grabbed hold and pulled the upper section of the case open, nearly falling back in shock as he saw the head inside.
“Lena?!”
The head, neatly packed in foam, was that of a young woman in her mid-twenties. She had a pale, plump, rounded face that was spattered all over with freckles. Her thin, dark brown hair was tied into a tight pony tail and was wrapped loosely around the bottom of her chin.
Mike immediately recognized the android…woman, as Lena Schulz, one of the very first officers that Mike ever trained…and, someone he’d been falling in love with.
Mike felt instantly connected with her, because her extremely friendly personality, and even her body type, reminded him of his favorite cousin, who’d been brutally murdered by people who took advantage of her kindness. In remembrance of her, Mike, in later reflection, felt like he was subconsciously protective of Lena, since her friendly personality often caused people to take advantage of her too.
She was posted at his site for almost a year and half, and in that time, he felt like they’d been developing a real chemistry and good working relationship together; she even frequently got him cookies from the onsite café. Just as he was about to make a move and ask her out, however, she suddenly quit and disappeared off the face of the earth.
Mike was devastated, of course, thinking maybe she got cold feet and fled, or that something had happened to her. Whatever the reason, he had very little time to react, because a few days after she left, all hell broke loose.
The security company that he initially worked for suddenly got bombarded with multiple criminal and ethics lawsuits from everyone from private citizens, to entire states, and eventually the FBI. Apparently, they’d been doing everything from stealing from their clients, to full on murdering people who attempted to blow the whistle.
Suffice to say, the client he was assigned to rapidly terminated the contract, and there was a sudden upheaval and purging of the roster. Fortunately, Mike had developed a good trusting relationship with several of the client’s managers, and he was among the few who were permitted to remain posted there with the new security company they brought on; everyone else was given the boot.
Between Mike having to train dozens of officers in a span of a month, where normally he’d only be training one or two a month, the sheer stress of the ordeal practically aged him several years and he nearly forgot about Lena. From time to time, he’d attempted to look her up on social media, but she’d gone completely dark.
A few years later, the new security company lost its contract, and Mike once again had to train a new batch of new officers posted from the security company he now currently worked for.
Eventually, he’d basically blocked her out of his memory, since it was too painful. Still, the few people he tried dating afterwards never seemed to work out, and in hindsight, he figured the buried memories of Lena may have affected them.
In her current state, Lena hardly looked friendly and cheerful, though. Instead, it looked as though she were simply sleeping peacefully, nestled in a foam compartment. After a moment of hesitation, Mike finally grabbed both sides of her head and carefully pulled it out. He was slightly caught off guard by the weight of her head, but he quickly adjusted himself and then sat down with it resting in his lap.
Mike never even came close to thinking Lena was an android. Her personality alone was real enough to convince him, not to mention her body. Mike was now convinced that this Lena android had to have been a custom job, and not a cheap one.
He spent several moments playing with her face, enjoying the feeling of her plump skin and musculature. He could hear tiny servos motors moving beneath her skin, as he played with it. He tried to open the mouth and eyes, but they remained steadfast, due to her inactive state. He was able to part her lips, however, and see her clean, white teeth. More evidence that this was indeed the Lena that he had interacted with was small traces of food, still stuck between her teeth. Fortunately, she had brushed her teeth before being disassembled, so the food had not been able to decompose.
As he played with her face, he realized that most people don’t usually get to see other people in this way. From close up, he could see every single pore on her face, and her face even seemed to have a natural, almost oily moisturized feeling to it like he would expect from a real person. Just like with her feet though, the moisture seemed oddly glued to her head and did not transfer to his fingers.
He then spent some time smelling her hair and enjoying the scent of the shampoo she used before she was dismantled and stored. The smell brought back even more memories of his times with her. He suddenly realized that he should attempt to turn her on somehow, so he turned her head over and over in his hands to find some sort of on switch.
While Mike knew of the existence of androids, he was by no means an expert. He’d often fantasized about getting one at some point in his life, but the more affordable ones had little personality, or realism; androids like Lena would have cost a fortune.
After searching for a bit, he thought he may have found an on switch: a slightly discolored portion of skin just behind her left ear. Having nothing else to try, Mike placed his finger on the section and pressed in.
Mike felt a click as his finger depressed the button underneath her skin, and the discolored section suddenly lit up with a blue light, along with the components inside her open neck. He could now hear the sound of the machinery coming to life, like a computer booting up for the first time in a long time.
The sound of machinery inside her head continued for nearly 30-seconds, nearly lulling him into a calm, before all of a sudden, both her eyes suddenly popped open. He was briefly startled, since both eyes were completely white, but almost as soon as they had opened, small slivers of brown started appearing, coalescing into two realistic looking brown irises. There was no trace of personality in the stare, as the eyes were simply wide open.
Shortly after both eyes opened, they appeared to scan the room from left to right, focusing on Mike’s face when they made contact. While her eyes were scanning, her mouth had also begun to systematically open and close, almost at though she were testing her motor controls. Mike began to feel aroused at this point, because every time her mouth opened and closed, her face servos whined loudly.
Once her mouth finished, it closed and then her eyes began blinking rapidly for several seconds, making a clicking sound each time, before closing. Before Mike could do anything, they opened one more time, but this time in a slower, more natural way. Both brown eyes calmly focused on his, and her face configured itself into a smile, whirring and clicking with each movement.
“Hey Mike!”
Mike no longer had any doubt that this was the Lena he was interacted with five years past. That was the exact way she always greeted him, even with the same smile.
“Um, hi Lena,” Mike managed to say, still too shocked and confused to show more emotion than that.
Lena still gave Mike her usual friendly smile, despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm. Her eyes briefly looked as far as her field of vision would allow and then she spoke once more.
“Soooo, I can totally understand that you might be a tad confused right now,” she said with an innocent expression, “But I have two questions first…where am I? and what year is it?”
“You’re in one of the security storage rooms at Cloudtron,” he told her, “And it’s been a little over five years since I last saw you.” While he said the last bit, he fought back a tear, as the emotions suddenly came pouring back.
“Wow, five years…that’s interesting,” Lena said, the she seemed to freeze up for a few seconds before coming back to life. “I’m sorry, but may I please see the current date on your phone…it’s not that I don’t trust you, but my stupid programming needs some sort of confirmation of the current date, and I don’t currently have network access in here.”
“Sure, hold on,” he told her, reaching into his pocket and grabbing his phone. After he unlocked it, he quickly logged into an official government timekeeping website and showed her the current time and date. “Is this good enough?”
“It’s perfect,” Lena smiled, then she froze up once more before coming back, “Thanks Mike, that really helped! I can’t believe I’ve been sitting in some box for the last five years, two months, 17 days, 18 hours, 42 minutes, and seven seconds.”
“Me neither, I also can’t believe that you’re an android,” Mike told her, smiling despite himself at the exact timeframe she had just recited so matter-of-factly.
“Oh yeah, that,” she chuckled nervously, “That’s actually a long story, but I have a more pressing problem at the moment.”
“Yeah, you’re kinda in pieces,” he told her, picking her up and showing her the pieces of her in the box before resting her head back on his lap.
“Well, obviously I know about that silly, I meant a more serious problem,” she laughed.
“What is it?”
“Well, my head would usually have about 15-minutes of emergency power when I’m removed from my torso,” she explained, “However, you may have noticed that my head was running some tests before my personality came online…that dropped me to two minutes.”
“Oh no, is there any way I can plug you in or something?” he asked, frantically searching for a power cord, “Could I attach you to your torso?”
“No, and please stay calm,” she said, still in her friendly voice, “In the compartment that my head was stored in, there should have also been a disc-looking device: Please remove it, plug it into an outlet, and then attach my head to it.”
“Alright,” he said dubiously, gently placing her head down on the cushioned lower section of her box and then reaching up to the upper compartment. Sure enough, tucked just below the head mold, was a metallic looking disc device. Mike quickly pulled it out and then plugged it into a nearby outlet before placing the disc on top of a box, to keep it off the ground.
“Good, now just attach me to it…I’ve only got about 40-seconds left,” Lena said. Mike could swear her voice sounded a little deeper, but he focused on picking her up and bringing her to the strange device. The top of the disc had a round protrusion that appeared to perfectly match the opening of her neck. He clicked her head onto the protrusion and then watched as the device powered up and integrated with her head.
“Ahh, that’s much better…thanks!” Lena said, almost appearing to sigh contentedly.
“You’re welcome,” he told her, “What is that thing anyway?”
“It’s called an Artificial Neck Apparatus,” she explained, “or just A.N.A. for short…basically, it’s so my head can remain online even if my body is being worked on…or, in this case, dismantled,” she added wryly.
“Wow, cool,” he said absently, “So, you’re an android…have you always been one, or did you convert from a human body?”
“Yes and no,” she answered, “I’ve always been an android, but I’m actually a copy of a real person.”
“Huh, interesting…and, did Stryker Security Services know you were an android?” he asked her.
“Yes…actually, the whole reason I was built and posted her is a rather interesting story,” she smiled, “See, Triple S was having a PR problem with a lack of diversity, but for some reason they couldn’t actually entice real women to join their security force, so they decided to build women instead.”
“What!? You mean to tell me you were assigned here to fill our gender gap?” he spluttered.
“Yeah,” she said apologetically, “And, to make us appear as real as possible, they sought out people who were dying and paid them to the donate their physical appearance, personality, and even memories in exchange for a generous payout to their families.”
“Wow, that sounds like it cost SSS a ton of money…wouldn’t it have been cheaper just to settle any lawsuits?” Mike asked incredulously.
“No, they only spent a few million on ordering a few hundred androids like myself,” she explained, “But it would have been hundreds of millions in lawsuits and PR costs.”
“Ah, I suppose that make sense,” Mike nodded, “So, was there was a real Lena Schulz?” Mike asked, feeling a bit more comfortable about his chances with the android Lena if she was actually based off a real person.
“Yes, though her last name wasn’t actually Schulz,” Lena laughed, “Unfortunately I’m prohibited from disclosing her real name, due to my programming, but SSS decided to give me the last name ‘Schulz’, because the real Lena had German ancestry and Schulz in German translates roughly to ‘sheriff’.”
Mike chuckled at that…it was just something SSS would do. “Wow, so can you tell me why you ended up in this box, and dismantled?”
“Well, I was going to see my registered owner, the SSS District Manager, for my weekly check-in,” she explained, “Usually that’s when I would receive new programming, updates, and hardware…but this time, he seemed panicked. He told me that he was going to have to decommission me and have me sent back to the factory, so I quickly showered up and got dressed in my default undies. The last memory I have before seeing you is being shut off remotely.”
The matter-of-fact way Lena explained it all shocked Mike to his core. “Wow, so you just allowed yourself to be shut off, knowing you were going to be destroyed?!”
“Yeah,” she said simply, “Mike, you have to understand that even though I’m based on a real person, I’m also an android and I have no choice but to adhere to my programming…in this case, my programming was to follow the orders of my registered owner.” After seeing the still shocked look in his eyes, she then smiled and said, “Look, I don’t want you to get the impression that I wanted to be decommissioned, but I literally had no choice…and, I was truly happy when I came back online a few minutes ago and saw your face looking down on me.”
“Really?” Mike asked, his voice catching a little.
“Yeah, we were best buds, right?” she asked, “I’m not always certain if my human emulation is allowing me to pick up certain cues from real people, but I am certain that we were very close.”
“Yeah, we certainly were…actually, I was planning on asking you out on a first date the next time I saw you,” Mike admitted, his face instantly turning scarlet.
“Aww, that’s so sweet!” Lena gushed, “I had a feeling you might be working up to it, so I was actually planning on bringing that up with my owner, to see if he would okay me being in a relationship…but then he just suddenly decommissioned me.” Her face flushed a bit too as she said this.
Mike felt instantly revitalized upon hearing her confirmation that she returned his affection. Before he knew it, he had quite a boyish smile on his face.
“Hey, Earth to Mike, what’s going on in that head of yours?” Lena shouted playfully at him.
Mike quickly snapped himself out of his reverie and smiled at her. “Sorry, I was just a bit elated…so, he never told you why you were being decommissioned?”
“No,” Lena answered, “and my programming didn’t permit me to ask him.”
“Well, I think I have a good idea,” he told her, and then he spent the next several minutes recounting the chaos that ensued shortly after.
“So, your previous owner ended up committing suicide the day after you were disassembled,” Mike finished, “So it looks like between the investigations, destruction of evidence, his suicide, and the change in administration, you were simply lost in the shuffle.”
Lena had been paying very close attention to Mike’s story, but as he finished, it suddenly looked like she had frozen up. Mike gave her a few seconds before waving his hand in front of her face and saying, “Hey, Lena, you okay?!”
Several seconds went by before Lena suddenly snapped out of it, but something appeared to be wrong. Her eyes were blinking out of order, and her face was twitching.
“Iiiiimmmm sooooory Mike,” she managed to say, parts of her voice electronically distorted, and her voice unsynchronized from her mouth. She then froze up again for about ten seconds, seeming to do a quick reboot or something, before coming back. “Ah, sorry about that, but I’m afraid some of my systems were acting up.”
“What do you mean?” Mike asked, genuinely concerned for her.
“Well, at risk of diminishing myself, I’m kinda like a car. If I’m not run for lengthy periods of time, my systems begin to degrade. Fortunately, my memories are all backed up on a private server, but I still need to run a full-scale diagnostic on my A.I. systems in order to prevent any more errors, “she explained, “Don’t worry, I was programmed with a very comprehensive set of diagnostic tools.”
“What will that entail?”
“Well, unfortunately I’m going to have to shut off all my personality software, which basically means my human emulation will be off,” she told him, “And, it’ll probably take up to two hours to complete.”
Mike was a little disappointed that his reunion with Lena was being interrupted so soon, but he then remembered that he wasn’t even done cleaning the storage room yet, so this gave him the perfect time to complete it.
“Aww, I was hoping to learn some more about you though,” Mike said with a disappointed voice.
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll still be able to talk to me while I’m running the diagnostic,” she assured him.
“How?”
“Well, you can still talk with my A.I. All you have to do is say something, or ask something, and add my name to the beginning and my A.I. will do it’s best to answer or respond to your query,” she told him with a helpful smile, “Unfortunately, it won’t have any of my friendly personality, so it’ll speak with my voice, but it will sound somewhat empty.”
“I can live with that,” Mike smiled, “I just want you feeling better, and I have to finish cleaning in here anyway.”
“Good!” she beamed, “Now, do you have any more questions before I start?”
“Yes, will you have any memory of what happens during this ‘talk and speak’ mode?” Mike asked her.
Lena laughed at his basic description. Then she gave him a cheerful smile and replied, “Yes, and no. I will only have memory files saved regarding the questions you ask me, or whatever you happen to say to me,” she answered him, “But, when you aren’t speaking to me, I’ll sort of just be staring ahead blankly waiting for you to speak with nothing recording to my memory.”
“Okay, good to know” Mike told her, “You can start whenever you’re ready.”
Lena merely nodded and then put on a stoic expression. “Personality programs suspended, beginning full diagnostic.” After her somewhat robotic speech, she fell silent and did nothing but stare blankly ahead, blinking only occasionally.
Just to be certain that she was indeed offline, Mike waved his hands in front of her face several times, and even poked her nose, but got no response. It seemed that she would only respond to a spoken question or statement directed at her, just as she said.
While there were many questions he wanted to ask her, and just as many things to tell her, Mike decided to discipline himself first. He’d already made a pile of items to take to the loading dock trash heap, so he threw the remaining items in the cart he’d placed outside the room and then hauled it all there.
The first trip to and from the loading dock winded him, so after loading up the next pile of junk, he decided to take a break and ask Lena a few questions.
“Lena, can you hear me?” he asked her, simply experimenting this first time.
Lena’s previously stoic face once more came to life with a series of whirs and clicks and her voice replied, “Yes Mike, I can hear you.” She answered dispassionately, just as she had warned him, but Mike did not mind.
“Ah, good… um, were there any times while you were working here that your android nature was almost revealed?”
“Yes, twice” she answered simply, “Fortunately, both instances were while I was on grave shift and no one found out.”
“What happened?”
“The first time I did not properly calibrate my charging schedule to account for my new hours, so I nearly ran out of power and had to plug myself in while I was posted in the garage,” she answered, “The second time I was electrocuted by a faulty light switch and that forced a reboot to mediate the overload.”
“Wow, I’m glad you were okay,” Mike said.
“Thank you,” she said, though dispassionately, “did you have any more questions?”
“Were you the only android that SSS ever posted here?”
“No, there was one other android posted here during SSS’ tenure,” she answered.
Mike was quite shocked to hear that answer, to be certain, since SSS had only been around for a short time before he was posted here. That meant the android was likely someone he had worked with. Trying to rack his brain for guesses, he finally asked, “Who was it?”
“Elena Gonzalez.”
“What!? Elena!” Mike was shocked. Elena was a young, 20-year old woman who had started working here two months before Mike was hired. She had a wild and energetic personality, and a lazy work ethic. She would often arrive late, and dilly dally while working, causing many headaches for her coworkers. The only reason people tolerated her was because she had a sob story of being a foster child, and she could be adorable at times. One day, she left to go meet her real parents and never returned.
“Why was she replaced?” Mike asked, though he had a fairly good idea why.
“Unlike with me, SSS used an intern as a model for Elena-Bot’s body and personality, in order to save money. They didn’t bother conducting a thorough personality profile on her and were shocked by her behavior here. Eventually, they had no choice but to make an excuse to remove her and decommission her. A few months later, I was brought online to replace her.”
“Interesting…was the real Lena an intern as well?” he asked.
“No, she was the daughter of one of the upper-ups who was dying of terminal cancer…she donated her image and personality to pay her hospital fees so her family would not have to.”
“Wow, that seems cold,” Mike grimaced, “Well, I’m still glad, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to meet you.”
Lena said nothing, but merely asked, “Do you have any more questions?”
“Not right now,” Mike responded, feeling he’d rested up enough for the time being to take the next load of junk; Lena did not reply, but went stoic once more.
Mike spent another 10-minutes or so hauling the next cart of junk and disposing of it in the appropriate areas, all the while thinking of more things to ask Lena. When he returned, he took another rest break.
This time, instead of immediately asking her a question, he decided to lean in and get a closer look at her head, since it was inactive the previous time. Despite Lena staring ahead blankly, she still looked quite cute. He could actually see the moisture on her eyes, sustained by the random blinking her systems dictated from time to time.
Mike tried opening her mouth again, but it once again remained closed. “Lena, could you please open your mouth so I can look inside?”
“Sure, but please do not attempt to conduct any sexual acts while my mouth is opened,” Lena warned, “Since you are not my registered owner, you are not permitted.” Her mouth then slowly whirred open and locked into place with an audible click.
“Thanks,” Mike said, though he received no reply. He then leaned in for a closer look inside her mouth.
He quickly noticed that the inside of her mouth was almost completely dry, except for a similar type of moistness that was present on the rest of her body. It appeared to be some sort of smart sweat/saliva or something that was designed to adhere only to her body and nothing else. He played around with her tongue for over a minute, enjoying the texture and realism present, before focusing on her teeth.
Even though she was an android, her teeth were not perfectly white like you might see on a supermodel that had bleached their teeth. Instead, they appeared to be deliberately stained in just the right places one might expect from an imperfect tooth brushing so that she could pass even more so as a human.
“Lena, you can close your mouth now,” Mike finally said, after several more minutes. He withdrew his fingers and watched as her mouth whirred closed and her face resumed a stoic look.
“Lena, how is it that after more than five years in storage, your skin and mouth still have moisture?” He asked her, wanting to know for sure.
Lena’s face once more sprung to life and responded. “My body uses a smart nano-bio-serum dermal coating designed to last for up to ten years. It’s primary purposes are to give my dermal layers a realistic look and feel, to prevent them from desiccating, and to protect them from dust & dirt.”
“Wow, I wish my body had something like that,” Mike said, absently feeling his hands that had been dried out by all the dust that had been in the room prior to his vacuuming. Because the comment was not directed at Lena, however, she did not reply.
Mike decided to test the veracity of her claim that her skin was basically dust-proof, so he quickly pulled one of her hands back out of its mold and ran it across a nearby box that was still covered with dust. While the fingers did capture some of the dust from the box, it did not smear like it would have on a human, and it actually brushed right off, leaving her hand looking perfectly clean.
Mike placed the hand back in its mold once more and decided to go on another trash run, this one taking him more than twenty minutes since he decided to knock out all the remaining bins at once. By the time he returned, he had only to neatly organize the various cabinets and drawers in the room. He also had less than an hour left in his shift, so he chose to focus on the work instead of chatting with Lena’s A.I.
When Mike finished with the cleaning, he sat back down in front of Lena’s head and stared into its eyes. He marveled at the extreme realism present in both brown orbs before they suddenly closed and reopened.
“Diagnostic complete,” Lena announced in her usual cheerful voice.
Mike, although briefly startled, couldn’t help but smile. “Well, how are you?”
“There were a few bugs caused by my extended downtime, but I think I’ve resolved the more serious ones,” she reported, “The rest can easily be repaired when I’m able to update my software later.”
“Why can’t you update your software now? Mike asked.
“Well, for one thing, I can barely get a signal in here,” she told him, “But most importantly, since my previous owner passed and my registration period has expired, I am now an unregistered android and am unable to access the update server.”
“Oh no…is there anything we can do to re-register you?”
“Yes, but not here…I need a stronger network connection, and the longer I stay here like this, especially now that you’ve cleaned this room, the more likely it is I’ll be discovered by someone else.”
“You’re right,” he told her. While before he wouldn’t have given her storage compartment a second look, it stuck out like a sore thumb now that the room was spotless. This presented a new problem, since the box was quite large and heavy. “The question is, how are we going to get you out of here?”
“If my memories of the site layout are accurate, we’re pretty much right next to the garage,” Lena answered, can’t you just pull your car up to the second-floor door and lift my box in?”
“I could, but there’s a camera watching that door, and the last thing I want is there to be footage of me hauling a large box of expensive electronics into my car,” he told her, “we’d have to go to the 2M level, which means I’d have to haul you up about 10 steps, and I’m assuming you aren’t light.”
“No, including the weight of my body, the whole case weighs about 250lbs.” She grimaced.
“Yeah…so, is there anyway I could just reassemble you so you could walk into my car?”
“No. Again, I’m kinda like a car. In a nutshell, my body relies on a bio-electrical fluid in order to move properly, and without it, I risk seriously damaging my systems. That fluid would have been drained from my body prior to my disassembly and storage, since it would have otherwise coagulated and permanently damaged my body during the last five years.”
“Ah, I see…is this stuff easy to get and inexpensive?”
“Well, it was five years ago, but I would hope it is much cheaper now…for the meanwhile, you’ll have to find a way to get me out of here,” she said.
“Hmm…maybe I could carry you into my car piece by piece?” He suggested.
“And what would you tell someone if they saw you carrying out female body parts?” She asked pointedly.
“Damn, you’re right...ugh, I guess I’ll have to do it the hard way then.” Mike said. He then looked around the room and saw his only other option: a hand truck and some spare extension cords that he could use as straps. He also found an old car jack, that he could use to lift the case up a bit so Mike could more easily put it in his trunk.
“Alright, I’ll manage with this hand truck,” he told her, gathering all of the materials near the case.
“Ok,” she nodded.
“I’m assuming I’ll need to power you off before putting you back in there?” He asked, not looking forward to basically killing her.
“Yeah, but don’t worry, next time I won’t have to go through that lengthy startup routine,” she assured him, “My personality will just automatically boot up, since it will have only been a short time.”
“Good,” he said, sighing with relief, “I only live about ten minutes away, with traffic, so it won’t be long,” he told her, “Are you even aware of the passage of time while you’re powered off?”
“Only vaguely,” she answered cryptically, “My personality is offline, but some of my ambient systems still track the passage of time for logging purposes…though not when I was decommissioned and disassembled, which is why I asked what year it was.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
“Anyway, I suppose we should get this over with,” she mock sighed, “I’m ready to be put back in storage,” she told him.
“Ok,” he said. Not wanting to stretch this out any further, he quickly pressed the power toggle behind her left ear and watched as her head wound down. He was surprised how peacefully she shut down, as opposed to how quickly she powered on before. Once he was sure she was powered down, he disconnected her from the A.N.A and placed both it and her head back in the upper compartment of the case. He then secured the head compartment and the case and began securing it into the hand truck with the extension cords, as well as some duct tape he found.
Upon further reflection of his moving plan, Mike decided to instead relocate his vehicle to the 3rd floor garage, since the incline was only three steps instead of ten. He made quick work of relocating his car, and then he returned to the storage room and wheeled Lena’s case, and the jack, out of the storage room, into the nearby elevator, and up to the 3rd floor.
For some reason, the 3rd floor garage elevator exited into a balcony overlooking one of the lobbies, but since it was flat, Mike did not mind the extra length he had to travel. He then made quick work of the three steps, carefully lifting the hand truck, and then wheeled it to his car, which was in a nearby spot with the trunk already opened. Mike then placed the whole hand truck on the jack and cranked it up to its highest setting, allowing Mike to gently tip the case with hand truck still attached over the lip of his trunk and neatly inside.
Smacking both hands satisfactorily, Mike closed the trunk and then returned to the storage room to return the jack, and to finish tidying up some final things. Fortunately, removing Lena’s case alone made the storage room that much cleaner, so he merely organized a few of the loose items and then took some photos of the way the room looked after being cleaned for his report before securing everything and heading up to the office to punch out.
Mike tried to remain calm the entire time, still slightly paranoid he may have been seen potentially stealing something from the building, but he remembered that his manager explicitly told him that if he found something he liked in there, he could take it…no questions asked. Still, Lena was a very expensive treasure, so Mike figured they may have taken exception to her. Regardless, he received no queries while in the office, and was able to return to his car unmolested.
Just as he drove out of the garage and headed onto the road home, he looked into the rear-view mirror at the case sticking out of the trunk, since he’d had to expand it by folding over the rear seats, and said, “Don’t worry Lena, we’ll be home soon.”
Part Two: Registration
In development...