Lina
Lina
Part 1
To this day, I still can't believe that it happened the way it did. Me, a robo-fetishist with what I thought was a joke program on a borrowed phone, waiting in the bathtub “just in case”, and her....
….well, I suppose that's getting ahead of things, isn't it?
For starters, let's just run through the specifics of my status before it all went down: 30-ish, virgin, didn't get out much, aspiring writer and amateur voice actor, with a back catalog of family issues that don't bear elaborating on. How I got the phone is, to be honest, the most mundane part of the whole thing: a friend of my uncle's was upgrading to a new one, let me have his old one as a “starter”. One app caught my eye right off the bat: “FCon”. I had no idea what it was for, but in the interest of discovery, I opened it.
After a few minutes, you'd probably find it easy to understand why I thought it was a joke. From what I gathered, it'd been written to debug and remotely control androids—specifically, female androids (or “gynoids”, if you want to get technical about it). There were settings to “lock on” to a nearby gynoid, trigger her debug mode (or “command mode”, if one was available—this, straight from the in-app help file) and sliders to test motion of individual limbs, etc. Weird stuff...but, me being me, I didn't delete it. Either the guy who'd given me the phone was as big a robo-fetishist as I was, or he had one Hell of a sense of humor...whatever the case, it looked entirely too well-written to just get rid of.
Flash forward three months. My older brother was the reluctant host of a party for the weekend, and some friends would be bringing their girlfriends, with the chance that they'd bring their friends. There was no way he'd be able to pull it off at his place, so I did him a favor and let him hold it at the house—my house, that I got from our parents. I didn't know any of the “guests”; they were all my brother's friends, or friends of those friends, etc., and I knew their interests would skew far past mine. I'd intended to just chill in my room after the party started...except two “guests” wandered in. One was a girl, about my height—5’6” maybe—with pale-ish skin and long red hair; the other was probably her boyfriend, a tall, typical surfer-dude-looking guy whose head was in the clouds. I was about to tell them to get the Hell out of my room (in less polite terms) when I got a phone call (vibration mode—I hadn't changed the ringtone), but they just turned around and left; one of them mumbled a “sorry, wrong room” at me. I couldn’t even find my phone before the buzzing stopped, and when I did, there wasn’t even a missed call in it. Stupid phone…
Half an hour later, I was in the bathroom—doing my business, at first, but then just reading a book on my phone about an expedition into the Arctic that went really, really wrong. I had no desire to go “mingle,” try to start a conversation and either be ignored or told to piss off....anyway. Midway through a bit in the book where two of the stranded sailors suspect another of murder, the phone started going insane. I thought I was getting a call, or a text, at first....
Nope. It was FCon. Twelve notices—it'd been going off sporadically as the guests arrived.
First reaction: “....what?!”
Second reaction: “....there are gynoids here?! Right now?!”
I would've had a third reaction to this, if not for the fact that FCon rather conveniently informed me that one of these alleged gynoids was on their way to the bathroom at that moment—hence the snap decision to jump in the bathtub and draw the curtain. I had no idea if the thing was just goofing on me or not; if it was, I'd just close my eyes, ignore the sounds of whatever was going on outside the tub, wait until whoever had entered the room left the room, and then get the Hell out of there as soon as possible.
If it wasn't.....
I can't even remember how long I was waiting. All I know is that after however long it was, a girl walked in. A bit shorter than me, blonde, nice tan, orange top and jean shorts....and of course, a very nice body. Not too curvy, her butt wasn't cartoonishly big....in short, she didn't look like she was a gynoid. Yet FCon insisted that she was—thankfully, without beeping continuously, otherwise the jig would've been up as soon as she entered the room.
Feeling both adventurous and stupid, I stepped out of the tub, waiting to get yelled at..only to find that the alleged gynoid was on her phone by the towel cabinet. Didn't even notice me.
Might as well see if this thing works. The “Act. Debug” function was highlighted; I pressed it with my thumb and hoped I wasn't just hallucinating.
The girl froze—for a few seconds. Mid-sentence, too. Without even finishing, she turned off her phone and put it back in her pocket....and proceeded to just stand there, staring at the towels. I got closer, despite part of my brain yelling at me to back off before she snapped out of it....except she never “snapped out of it”. I touched her wrist, to check for a pulse—nada. Neck, same reason—not a damn thing. She wasn't even breathing.
South of the Equator, something was stirring. I ignored it...for the time being.
For some dumb reason, I decided to just ask the girl if she was in Debug Mode or whatever. I'd read so many stories on the forum about this kind of thing—usually they were a bit more abrupt, without the niceties of an attempt at conversation, but I figured I might as well try. “....are you in Debug Mode?”
“Affirmative.” She didn't speak in a staccato, obviously synthetic monotone, but the flatness of her voice still sent my pulse racing. Below the belt line, my, ah, anticipation was growing quite rapidly.
“.....what do you want me to do right now?”
Yes. I did indeed ask that question. Don't ask why, I've still got no idea. If this was some big con, or if she wasn't fully in Debug Mode, the next words out of her mouth were probably going to be “let me leave this room”, or some variation of it. There was no way in Hell she'd say anything else....right?
Well, you can imagine my surprise when she stated “I would like you to undress me.”
My eyes went wide (along with something else a bit further down the totem pole). “....ah, what?”
“I would like you to undress me.”
I glanced at the screen of the phone. For some reason, it wasn't showing her name, but it was showing a lot of “levels”, including “Arsl”—which I quickly translated to “Arousal”. Clearly, this girl—this gynoid—had shown up to the party entirely too horny to think straight, but she hadn't done anything to rectify the situation, and could only address the problem in Debug Mode....maybe it was a virus, maybe she wasn't configured correctly. Hell if I know. With a shrug, I carefully set the phone down and went to work removing her top. At every single second, I'd expected her to “come to life” again, grab me by the wrist and scream “PERVERT!” in my face....and every second that went by without her doing that, my pulse rate went up just a little bit more. The top was easy enough to remove, as was the bra; by the time I got to her shorts I was wondering if this whole thing was just some insane dream. Moving her arms and legs to get the clothes off was....surreal, to be honest; she felt a bit cool to the touch, but other than that and her lack of a pulse (or breathing), there was nothing to indicate that she was anything other than human.
Another stupid question came to my mind as I went about my business: “How old are you supposed to be?”
“Twenty-one.”
Well, at least whoever built her wasn't a prick....anyway, after helping her step out of her shorts and panties, I now had the task of figuring out what I was supposed to do with a 95% naked (she still had her socks and shoes on) fembot standing right in front of me.
The fembot in question made the decision for me: “I would like you to have sex with me.”
At this point, I almost legitimately got pissed off. I've said already that I was a virgin, at that point—I'd had a history as a “solo act”, of course, almost always to stuff from the forum. Thus, I found it bizarre and (in my uniquely stupid way) almost insulting that this naked chick was politely requesting I take her from behind.
As if sensing my hesitation, she repeated herself: “I would like you to have sex with me.”
I'd seen a few clips of this kind of thing before, and they were always more.....I dunno, “dynamic”, I guess, than this. At the very least, I (or the relevant part of my anatomy) had in fact risen to the occasion, so what was about to happen wouldn't be a total flop (that was the actual thought going through my head at the time, believe it or not). Before she could repeat the request a third time, I dropped trou, whipped it out and did what I'd been asked to do—gripping her by the waist to, ah, get things where they needed to go, and all.
What followed was unlike any sex scene I'd ever borne witness to before. I was too stunned to make a sound, and my “partner” was utterly devoid of emotion—no orgiastic cries or moans here. She did make the occasional noise, a sort of quiet “oh” or “ah” here and there—but.....yeah. It was weird.
Despite the high strangeness of the moment, I was in fact giving it my all.....
….and somewhere midway through it, I thought, you're on a roll so far, let's see how much further you can go.
Still thrusting away like there was no tomorrow, I managed to say “Turn your head...180 degrees....to look at me.”
If she was a gynoid, what happened next would be amazing. If not....
Thankfully, I didn't have to dwell on the “if not” for too long—a seam appeared at the base of her neck, and her head actually rose up a centimeter or so and rotated to face me! And yes, there was, in fact, a servo rizzing noise to go with it. Even more insane than this, her face had no expression at all—just a sort of calm, anticipatory look.
I'm pretty sure that's what pushed me over the edge. Dropped my payload right then and there.
Once in the depths of sweet release, I let go of her and actually staggered backwards, nearly falling on my ass in the process. She was still standing, surprisingly; her head was still rotated to face me, that patient, calm look still there.
I sat there, gear out, gasping in surprise and shock, for probably a full minute. She stood there, staring, the whole time.
“.....turn.....turn your head back around, please,” I managed, still gasping.
“Affirmative.” The expression on her face never changed as her head turned, lowering back down a centimeter (with that beautiful rizzing again). Once it finished, she was just standing there completely still (and buck-naked).
Seeing as how I'd undressed her, I decided to show my appreciation for the best (and, in all honesty, first) sex I'd ever had by putting her clothes back on her. I didn't really have a lot of other options—I sure as Hell wasn't going to leave her just standing naked in the bathroom for any length of time.
I was a bit quicker in redressing her than I'd been with the undressing—due in part to not wanting some rando to open the door, see what was going on and go yell about it to every other person there. She never acknowledged my actions, by the way, while I was putting her clothes back on her; she just...stood there, the entire time.
Once she was fully (re)dressed, I put my own pants back on (after drying what needed to be dried), grabbed the phone and walked past her to the door. “Ah, follow me to my room, please.”
“Affirmative.”
My room, thankfully, was just a quick right turn away from the bathroom. Even better, there were no randos in the hall, or lingering by the door of my room or anything like that; everyone was either in the living room or outside, playing Frisbee golf (or more accurately, chucking the Frisbee around with reckless abandon and nailing each other in the back of the head with the stupid thing).
“Just...sit on the bed, for now....” I barely acknowledged the “affirmative” that she replied with, instead pacing back and forth next to the bed. This....this was unprecedented. This weird-ass random program on a phone that I was given as a gift just so happened to actually work as a debug tool for gynoids, and the incredibly attractive girl who just so happened to be sitting on my bed at that moment (and who I'd just had sex with) was, in fact, a gynoid.
Right....question time.
“Why did you want to have sex with me?” The stupid question trend continued—I was still basking (or was it sweating?) in the afterglow, and that was the only thing I could think to ask.
“It was the highest-priority task in my process manager.” ….okay, not what I expected...then again....
“And, ah, why was that the highest-priority task?”
“It was assigned by my owner before we left—”
“Okay, okay, just....I get it.” The picture was starting to form in my mind....her owner, or boyfriend, or whoever, thought it'd be a laugh to get her sexed-up and then turn her loose on any unsuspecting rando at the party—probably so he could bust in on them and beat up the poor sod she was with. There was, of course, one flaw in this plan... “Is your owner still here?”
“.....processing....processing....” Every damn time she said that word, I felt stirrings in my gut (and elsewhere).
“.....she is currently outside—”
“Wait, how do you know—she's outside?!” Just one twist after another....
“Her bio-metric signs are being measured by her smartwatch. She is currently unconscious.”
Well, that makes sense.... She'd probably planned exactly what I'd thought, except she derailed her own “brilliant idea” by getting sloshed. “The smart watch isn't, ah, receiving anything from you at the moment, is it?”
“...I do not understand.”
“The watch can send data to you, right?”
“Affirmative.”
“Can you send data to it?”
“I can only send data to the watch if debug mode is activated from the watch.”
I hadn't felt more relief wash over me since the time I'd had to go get my homework off the bus after school. “So she has no idea that you're in here with me right now, then....” I almost laughed. “She's drunk off her ass outside without a clue that you're—”
“Would you like me to activate the watch and inform her of my current location?”
FUCK! “No, no, no, ah, no, that won't be, ah, necessary....” Nice dodge there, genius. “Can you, ah...return to human mode on your own, or do I need to do anything?”
“I am capable of returning to human emulation mode on my own.”
“....okay, then, ah, do that, please.”
She didn't even say “affirmative” this time—all she did was sit there, perfectly still, for a moment. Her eyes glowed for a bit, then she blinked a few times....all the while, I couldn't stop staring. This went on for a few seconds, then something in her beeped (and I felt something deep in the pit of my stomach leap), and she sat a bit straighter...then, as natural as anyone else I've ever met, she turned to look at me, smiling. “Hi, there!”
“.....hi. I'm, ah...Matt. Matt Harker.” I tried for a smile, but probably ended up giving her a half-smirk, half-grimace.
Apparently, this was enough to concern her. “Are you all right? You look like you just—”
“You....ah....do you remember anything about the past few minutes?” Yet another wonderfully stupid question in a day full of them...at least, that's what I thought.
“I know I went into your bathroom, and then you put me in debug mode...” She counted off the moments on her fingers (which, of course, were perfectly manicured). “....I asked you to undress me, then I asked you to have sex with me, and you did.” She smiled again. “Thanks for putting my clothes back on, by the way.”
I'd never had a more awkward silence in my life before that moment. “....so,” I reasoned, “you...didn't mind me, ah...”
She rolled her eyes. “That's what I'm here for,” she replied, giving me an “oh, you” kind of look. “And before you ask, no, I'm not just a sexbot.” She sighed. “Every time we—I mean, me and the one who made me—get invited to a party like this, she ramps up my arousal and tells me to 'have fun'. We've already been to three parties earlier this week, and she never turned my arousal settings down between them!”
“.....you, ah, never actually told me your name,” I mused, sounding about as suave as a dead fish.
“...oh, right! I'm Lina.” The girl grinned again.
“.....Lina,” I repeated, as if what we'd done in the bathroom had somehow drained my brain cells in addition to my earlier “contribution” to her. “Nice name, Lina....”
“Are you okay? I don't mean to pry, or anything, but....”
I managed a nervous chuckle. “Back there, in the bathroom.....that was my first time.”
Lina's eyes widened. “Really? I couldn't tell!”
“Well, maybe you could tell me why it is that your owner turns your horniness all the way up to eleven and sets you loose at random parties,” I snapped—at least, I intended to snap. The combination of exhaustion from the sex and the sheer disbelief at what was going on had taken every bit of anger out of me. “....I thought the most interesting thing I was going to do today was count how many action figures Mattel ever made of the Joker....”
Lina gestured for me to sit next to her on the bed. “You did great,” she assured me. “My arousal levels would still be at maximum if you hadn't.”
“....so, you have to get laid to turn them down if your owner doesn't?”
“One of the quirks of my design,” Lina replied, shrugging. “That, and she thought it was ironic at the time.”
“.....that's pretty fucking stupid. No offense to your owner.”
“Well, she wants me to 'do my own thing'.” Lina shrugged again. “I was built....five months ago, but written probably a year ago. My A.I., I mean....that's what was written—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I held up a hand. “Your owner wrote...you....first, then made your body?”
“It's complicated.” Lina flipped a bit of hair out of her eyes—it was insane that such a small action made her look so damn human. “Anyway....you have a nice room.” She gestured at the bookshelf (loaded with sci-fi novels, strategy guides and an entire row of manga), my action figure collection and the rack of DVDs.
I chuckled. “You're the first person to tell me that in a long time.....ah, speaking of firsts....”
Lina rested a hand on my shoulder. “You weren't my first,” she admitted, “but so far, you've been the most polite.”
“.....the most....polite.” I gave an eyebrow that The People would've cheered for days. “I used a program on a phone to put you in Debug Mode without asking you—”
“Well, I needed to be put in Debug Mode!” Lina insisted. “I was going to the bathroom to try and call out to find a shop that'd turn my arousal levels back down, instead of staying here and having to deal with the usual parade of guys who swear they're God's gift to the entire female gender.” She rolled her eyes (part of my brain, even at that moment, wanted to call them “ocular receptors”, because meh) at the thought. “I didn't think anyone here even had a copy of FCon on their phone.”
I held up the object in question. “.....the funny thing is, I got this as a gift, from a friend of my uncle's.”
“Let me see....” I handed Lina the phone, and she thumbed through the screens for a bit, frowning. “....how long ago did you get this phone?”
“Three months. Why, is Ricky in trouble or something?”
“....is that what he called himself?” Lina was giving me a suspicious look.
“He was a friend of my uncle's, and my uncle works on exotic cars and arcade cabinets—”
“Interesting...” Lina was focused entirely on the phone, now....and her eyes were glowing. “....three months ago....he was supposed to hand this in....”
Something in the tone of her voice suggested that whatever fun I was having now was about to come to a swift, sudden and probably jail-related end. “....if you want me to give up the phone, you can leave with it. I just—”
“What?”
“.....I'm in trouble, right? For using FCon on you, and the, ah....”
“Like I said, you did me a big favor with that.” Lina gave me a reassuring smile. “It's who used to own this phone that I'm worried about....he went missing two months ago. Nobody's heard from him since then...” She continued thumbing through the screens on the phone. “....you said your uncle repairs exotic cars?”
“...among other things. Why, is he in—”
Lina turned to face me, putting her hands on my shoulders. “What if I told you that what you did for me earlier means you might be able to....have me?”
“.....'have' you?” I was starting to get tired of repeating every other phrase Lina said. “Sorry, I just....”
“...if I told you it means I'd be able to live with you, be your girlfriend or whatever else you need me to be?”
“....I'd ask if this was a prank, first off.” WAY TO GO, CAPTAIN HONESTY!
“It's not.” Lina's smile was warming my heart and embiggening the same thing she'd become intimately acquainted with in the bathroom, all at once. “I'm really, truly telling you this....”
“.....then I'd say.....I'm all for it, even if I have no idea what the fuck is going on.”
Lina frowned. “D'you have to cuss so much, Matt?”
“.....it's a defense mechanism when I get overwhelmed by something I've never had happen to me before.”
“Even if it's something you've....dreamed about before?”
And she knows about the forum. “.....ah....”
My hesitation earned me a sigh. “Look, Matt. My owner didn't think anyone with your particular...proclivities...would be at any of the parties here, and I certainly didn't expect to run into someone running such an up-to-date version of FCon, especially here. I'm not mad about you using it on me, I'm not mad that you had sex with me—after all, I asked you to, remember?” Lina lightly prodded me in the arm. “....I am wondering why you were waiting in the tub—”
“I'd been taking a sh.....doing my business, in there! The phone went off, with twelve signals.....”
“....I didn't think there were that many others here.”
“....yeah, well, I damn near panicked when one of those signals—which happened to be you—actually walked into the bathroom.....” I sighed. “What does any of this do with your question, the whole 'you can have me' thing?”
“....my owner wants to start on a new project,” Lina explained. “And seeing as how I classify as sentient on the charts...y'know what, we don't need to go into details on that now—”
“Go into details about what?”
“....I'll explain later. Anyway, I'm sentient, so she can't just drop me off at the nearest Goodwill or recycling center. She's been using these party-hopping trips to....find someone, I guess, for me. Someone I'd be interested in, romantically and, well, sexually....”
“And I get the part because I just so happen to have an app on my phone that you found useful.”
“It's not just the phone, you doof!” Lina was giggling, now. “....you're just....you! You're not trying to act like you're James Bond or Evan Stone or whoever....you're just you. You didn't cut to 'sweet-talking' me, or just stripping me and having your way with me when I was in Debug mode....you asked.”
“.....and that somehow makes me better than anyone you've been with before.”
“Believe me, Matt, compared to the last three guys I met, you're a saint.”
“Right.....I just....” I chuckled again; my brain was still having issues with trying to wrap around the full details of what I'd just been through. “...I still find it kind of hard to believe that you're a gynoid....”
I stopped, noticing Lina staring at me—not lifelessly, like she'd done with her Linda Blair routine in the bathroom, but with a smile. Her eyes flicked down for a second....directing me to the somewhat-trapezoidal seam that had just formed above her breasts (again, like her butt, they weren't too big...I'd say a high B cup or a low C, at the very least). “...well, go on,” she prompted.
Again, I hesitated; it felt like a full hour before I finally reached out to the skin highlighted by the seam....
...and yet again, my pulse (and something else) started rising when it popped out.
“Removing it won't hurt, if you're wondering.”
“Right, right....” I managed to tug the thing out to reveal what was underneath it...
To be quite honest, before that moment I'd never really understood the use of phrases like “my heart leapt up into my throat” or stuff like that. Now, staring at the exposed panel with its USB port, a 15-in-one card reader and indicator lights for stuff I had no hope of understanding, I was floored.
I heard myself ask yet another utterly stupid (to my mind, at least) question: “....what exactly were you made to do?”
“In all honesty, I don't have a specific purpose or 'directive',” Lina replied. “I started as a coding experiment—” She tapped the side of her head, again alluding to her A.I. having been written before her body was built. “....and the rest was done later, as a home-build.”
“....home-build?” The echo effect, yet again, this time due to me being mesmerized in equal measure by the panel and by how close I was to Lina's boobs.
“Weellll, 75% home build....my parts and such were sourced from the Institute.”
“...and are you, ah, modeled after anyone in particular?” The stupid questions just kept on coming.
“A little bit.” Lina made a “50/50” motion with one hand. “My measurements—height, limbs, all that boring stuff—are basically dictated by my internal frame. Stuff like my drive system—it'd probably be 'propulsion' if I was a vehicle—and some padding...” She smirked, noticing my stare had drifted to one of her boobs. “...anyway, stuff like that can go a long way towards making me look a bit more unique—there's some in my arms and legs, too, not just in the more obvious bits.” She rolled her eyes. “You can cover the panel now, by the way.”
“...cover the....oh, right.” I managed to not put her skin panel back the wrong way around. “....sorry.”
“You don't need to apologize so much, Matt,” Lina reminded me. “I appreciate the sentiment, but...”
“I get it, I get it....” Another chuckle left my mouth. “....you didn't say if your face was modeled after anyone specific, by the way...you don't have to go into it if you don't want to.”
“She designed it herself—my owner, I mean.” Lina glanced off to the side, grinning. “Apparently, it was something she just couldn't get out of her head until she realized it somehow, in some form...” She gestured at herself; it struck me as utterly weird that it'd taken me so long to get a good look at her face—the only thing I'd noticed back in the bathroom was that patient, calm and almost blank look when she'd done the 180-degree turn at my, ah, request. Up close, I could see now that there was nothing too exaggerated in either direction—she was attractive, but not so much so that it might be a distraction.
The height and spacing of her eyes, the positioning and size of her nose, the length of her mouth, the thickness of her lips and the structure of her cheekbones....it all brought to mind countless character creation suites from games I'd played (or watched other people play) over the years.
“....amazing.” It took a few seconds for me to realize I'd spoken.
Lina arched an eyebrow. “My face is 'amazing'?” she mused, sounding equally amused and intrigued.
“....there's something familiar,” I muttered, “but something.....” I reached out a hand to brush her cheek, expecting her to shy away—which she didn't. “....must've taken hours to fine-tune everything.”
“I had a bit of input,” she replied, her voice soft. “I actually got to watch her develop my face, at one point.” Noticing my confusion, she grinned. “A.I. first, body second, remember?” She didn't object to me tracing a finger along the contours of her face; if anything, she seemed...relieved. “The last guy I met at a party like this,” she mused, “said I had lips like a sex doll.”
I recoiled. “...really?!”
“Along with saying it'd be a shame if I 'couldn't fit it in there'....I'll let you guess what 'it' was.” She rolled her eyes at the thought. “Fell asleep midway through, if you're wondering...he was midway through his fifth beer.”
“....has anyone else actually...complimented you on your looks?”
“Pretty sure being compared to a sex doll, a porn star and 'the last three girls I had' aren't what you have in mind.”
“Hell no......” I shook my head. “So they were just....”
Lina gestured at her boobs and her waist. “Purely there for the T & A.” She guided my hand back to her face. “It was nothing like this....it wasn't nearly as....”
“Intimate?” I was surprised at how quiet I sounded.
“Good choice of words there....” She paused for a moment.
“....what?”
“You haven't asked if I want to 'go again', or anything like that.”
“....am I supposed to have done that?”
Lina giggled, which confused the Hell out of me. “What?! Is there some kind of protocol I'm supposed to be following here where we have a heartfelt conversation for a bit and then just get right back to—”
“What's wrong with just talking?” Lina had stopped giggling, but was still smiling. “I don't have a problem with that...”
“.....y'know what? I don't have a problem with 'just talking' either.” I got up from the bed, quickly explaining that I was just going to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. “You won't glitch out or crazy on me if I accidentally spill anything on you, right?”
“Fully waterproofed.” Lina did a funny eyebrow thing. “Just in case you were getting any ideas...”
Whatever I was going to say in protest was cut off by a laugh. “Go get your water...get me one, too, if you don't mind.”
I was in and out of the kitchen faster than I could think—the water bottles were in the mini-fridge, and I was able to get them without anyone in the living room noticing (they were all too busy playing some stupid party game anyway...pretty sure it was “Never Have I Ever” or something along those lines). Bottles in hand, I headed back to my room—somehow thinking that, in the brief span of time I'd been out, Lina had changed her mind about me and left. Thankfully, my brief burst of paranoia was unfounded; she was sitting on the bed reading a book off the bookshelf when I got back, looking up with a smile as I closed the door. “You've got a nice collection here,” she mused.
“The books, or the figures?” I unscrewed the cap on my bottle.
“Both, really....” She accepted the bottle I offered her. “Thanks...it's cold!”
“Straight out of the mini-fridge....it's not going to be a problem, is it?”
Lina shook her head. “On the contrary...” She took a long swig. “....helps with cooling the internals.” She twisted the cap back on, nodding. “I have other cooling methods, but every little bit helps, y'know?”
I nodded, taking a drink from my own bottle. “So...what now?”
“Dunno...unless you want to go again.”
“You just said you didn't have a problem with just talking....”
“I know, and I don't....but when I was in Debug Mode....I did get to 'appreciate' what went on in the bathroom, but...”
“You prefer being in full human mode,” I finished. “Just....this is going to sound fucking stupid....”
“I'm sure it won't,” Lina countered. “And you don't have to swear so much, y'know....”
“....do you have....an internal volume control, or anything like that?”
“Don't want to get any unwanted attention from outside?” Lina was giggling again, twirling a bit of hair between her fingers. “I can put myself on mute if you really want....”
I nodded. “Yeah, that....that'd be great. Last thing I need is one of the randos outside to come wandering in.....”
Whatever I'd planned on saying next trailed off rather quickly—Lina had already started taking her clothes off, from the bottom up. The shoes went first—to my relief, she didn't just kick them off, but actually slid 'em off, one by one, and set them down by the bed. Next, the socks—I swear, I'd never seen any woman manage to make taking off a pair of socks look so damn erotic before. The shorts came next, followed by her underwear; finally, she ditched the top and slowly, carefully undid the straps of her bra, setting it aside as she'd done with the rest.
Once she was fully disrobed, she turned to regard me. “Your turn.”
I tried my best to match her “undress from the bottom up” routine; shoes first (I nearly fell over trying to get one of them off), then socks (this time, I did fall over, backwards onto the bed), then jeans, the shirt and finally my briefs. I had my own reasons for the slow disrobe—among other issues in my life, I'd had a fluctuating weight problem, and as of two years prior had finally gotten things under control...but I still bore a few signs of struggling with it, mostly stretch marks on my sides and inner thighs. I'd stopped wearing shorts for that exact reason, even around the house.
Lina, thankfully, didn't remark on them. She just took me by the hand and helped me into my bed.
“I'll take the lead,” she whispered. “Ready?”
I nodded.....
There are a ton of ways I could describe what happened next. On the one hand, I could start throwing around words like “heaving”, “throbbing”, “pulsing”, “quivering”, “sensual” and all that stuff, but that'd turn this into one of those crappy bodice-rippers (y'know, the ones that have that guy who still can't believe it's not butter on the covers). I could also go the route of mentioning “contractions” from certain “walls” of Lina's anatomy—plenty of stories on the forum have that kind of descriptive language, and more power to'em....but to put it in those terms here would be a disservice to what went on between us. So, in the interests of not sounding like a trashy romance novel, I'll sum it up as follows: it had a slow start, built up rather effectively and gave a spectacular finish, without any dodgy bits anywhere in between.
And no, there was no “Swirl”, “Twist”, “Pinch” or stopping short involved anywhere.
Anyway......
Lina and I laid next to each other for a few minutes, me still gasping, Lina smiling.
“.....was that....as good....as before?” I managed.
“No.....” Lina turned to regard me with a grin. “Better.”
My eyes went wide. “....no kidding?”
Lina kissed me on the cheek. “Nope. You outdid yourself.”
“Yeah, well.....you helped...”
“C'mon.” Lina threw the covers off, looking graceful and absolutely smoldering (metaphorically, not literally...unlike so many of the stories I'd read, our second time didn't end with her in pieces) as she got out of the bed. “Let's go clean off in the bathroom, then we can come back in here and talk....”
“Right, right....” My head was still swimming. “I'll, ah....get the clothes....”
Once in the bathroom (unobserved by any wandering randos, all of whom were still outside and probably still chucking a Frisbee around), Lina invited me in to join her in the shower, and...well, how exactly are you supposed to say “no” to someone so beautiful? We both climbed in, and for the next few minutes, Lina proceeded to scrub me down in what had to be the most...okay, I'm going to break my earlier rule here and use the word “sensual”, because there's no other way to describe it. It was a lot like how she'd undressed from the bottom-up, really—granted, she didn't start scrubbing at my feet and work her way to my shoulders or anything like that...it was more of how it felt.
I did the best I could to return the favor, all the while hoping that she wouldn't start sparking or anything like that—I'd read enough stories on the forum about androids not taking too well to water, and I didn't want Lina to meet a similar fate. In any case, she didn't glitch out, neither of us slipped, and it was a pretty good clean for both of us—granted, we each handled our own scrubbing below the belt line, since I wasn't about to ask and I didn't want Lina to have to ask me, so...yeah.
I let Lina get out first—she made a joke about me just wanting to see her ass, I groaned, and she giggled.
When it came time to dry off, I handed her a towel, and she gently tossed one to me...nothing about it felt like I was interacting with a lifelike robot. Every motion, every look, every glance—if it hadn't been for the phone freezing her, her head turning around and her opening her panel, I never would've known she wasn't human.
Granted, who she was meant just as much to me as what she was...
After we got dressed—which saw me nearly try on Lina's top by accident, prompting another giggle fit from her—we both headed back into my bedroom. There was...maybe one girl in the hall, on her phone; she didn't notice either of us, and actually looked kind of nervous—I couldn't tell, since the light was off, but she gave the impression that she was trying very hard to not be noticed by anyone else there.
I wrote it off after a while, and just made my way back to my room with Lina—the matter of what she was had already been firmly established. Now, it was time to ask who she was....
Right off the bat, she clarified that she didn't even have a last name yet. “I've had a few, over the weeks,” she admitted, “but those are just in case I get stopped. I've been working on getting some new papers made, for legal reasons...” She rolled her eyes. “Other than that, I can't really complain.”
“And you live with....the one who made you?”
Lina nodded. “I don't mind calling her my 'owner',” she admitted. “She doesn't treat me like I'm 'hers', either...she lets me do my thing, as long as I don't get in trouble.”
“...and your own thing is....”
“Shopping, hanging out, looking for work...” Lina shrugged. “The party thing—me going with her from party to party, like this one.....that's a bit more recent.”
“Sounds like a pretty decent arrangement...what's the catch?”
“The 'catch' is, I don't advertise my true nature or get in trouble.” Lina sighed. “I've done a pretty good job at both...or at least, I was doing a good job at both, until you kinda sorta maybe forced me out of the first one today—not that I'm complaining, or anything.” She grinned. “Like I said, you did me a favor by using FCon back in the bathroom.”
I nodded. “I'm still trying to get that into my skull, y'know...why the Hell is the inside of my mouth so damn dry?” Lina looked a bit concerned, but I waved it off. “...I'll just head to the kitchen, real quick...get a bottle of water or something to drink, then be right back...feel free to, ah, check out my books if you want!”
Lina nodded, heading over to the shelf and picking one at random.
True to my word, I headed back to the kitchen to get two more bottles of water—that nervous-looking redheaded girl from before was just standing around, not really talking to anyone—and then headed back to my room. Lina was back on the bed, still reading. “Welcome back,” she beamed, accepting the second bottle. “I would've finished the first...”
“I figured this would be better than cigarettes...I don't smoke anyway.” I shrugged. “So, now that we, ah....”
“Know each other intimately?” Lina offered.
“Yeah, that.....what now?”
“Well,” Lina replied, “there was a bit more to me offering to go a second time.” She set the book aside and motioned for me to sit next to her on the bed again. “Before the whole transfer of ownership thing could be completed—”
“You needed a sample of viable genetic material from me?”
Lina frowned. “....what?”
“....sorry, it's just....I watch a lot of sci-fi shows, read a lot of novels....I just thought—”
Lina cut me off by kissing me on the cheek again. “I get it. I've watched a lot of shows and read a lot of novels too, y'know...Lucy doesn't just have me march around the house cleaning up after her all the time.”
“Lucy ....your owner?”
“Mm-hmm. Like I said, she's starting on another project—no clue what it is, but it's probably another A.I./android thing, and she can only have one with her at a time...” She draped an arm around my shoulder, grinning. “The whole idea of party-hopping to find someone for me was....a mutual concept,” she admitted. “I didn't have a problem with it, and she thought it'd be an interesting test.”
“So she decided to try out your social interaction by...party-hopping.”
“Let me put it this way, Matt. If you'd met me out there, in the crowd with the rest of those people, without the phone....would you have been able to guess I wasn't human?”
“.....in all honesty, no.” I chuckled. “I still find that just....amazing, y'know...”
Lina nodded. “....and all of this, going from one party to another, getting with guys....I've never been able to ask any of them what I'm about to ask you, because we never really got that far, so....” She put her hands on my shoulders, staring into my eyes. “....do you accept me for both who I am and what I am?”
I didn't hesitate. “Yes. I accept you for both.”
“And you're not just saying that because—”
“Lina,” I cut in, “from the moment we....ah....” My bravado faltered a bit. “....ever since we met each other, over in the bathroom, and since we've been talking in here, I've been thinking about nothing but spending more time with you, getting to know you—and getting to know how to fix you, how to make sure you're running at peak efficiency, how to upgrade you if at all possible...and most importantly, just being with you.”
To my surprise, Lina's eyes were brimming with tears—I thought, at first, that I'd massively botched it and said something completely insensitive, until I noticed she was still smiling. “Really?”
“......yeah. Really.”
Without another word, she wrapped me in a hug. “.....thank you, Matt.”
“Yeah, well...” I couldn't think of anything meaningful to add, so I just returned the embrace, letting her weep tears of joy into my shoulder. A few minutes passed before we broke the embrace; Lina dried her eyes, the smile still on her lips as she did. “ Lucy is going to flip out....”
“Hopefully, in a good way...” I retrieved the phone. “I'm still wondering....”
“The other eleven signals?”
I frowned. “....you some kind of psychic, too?”
Lina stuck her tongue out at me, which I found irresistibly adorable. “I've been thinking about them, too, to be honest...if my arousal levels hadn't been at the top of my priority queue, I'd have pinged one or two of them, maybe fired off a wireless question asking who they were with...”
“But first you had to go sort out the 'me so horny' problem,” I finished. “Which led to...”
Lina mussed my hair and giggled. “How many of those stories on the forum end this way?”
“Before I answer that, tell me this: have you been on the forum before?”
“A few times, always as a 'guest'....I actually thought about signing up, but Lucy told me it'd probably be a bad idea to pass off selfies of myself as 'photo manipulations'....” Lina took another swig from the second water bottle. “Said she'd send me to Reclamation if I ever tried to intentionally damage myself for a 'photo op', too.”
“....Reclamation?”
“Long story, I'll explain later.” Lina nodded at the bookshelf. “So....you said you're a writer?”
“Aspiring writer. There's a difference.” I chuckled. “Aspiring writers are lucky if they get anything published, especially if they have to worry about relatives always pitching lame ideas and proposing 'their ways' of rewriting old TV shows...” I crossed to the other side of the shelf, returning with the Inspiration Notebook—or rather, the current year's “edition” of the series of notebooks that I'd written down my most interesting dreams in, occasionally working them into ideas. “All of these are mine,” I explained, handing it over to Lina. I watched her thumb through the notebook, nodding her approval. “And you've turned all of these into books?”
“Short stories, mostly....but I did get one novel written, based on my dreams.” I pointed to a novel on the top shelf, with Dreams of a Steel Falcon written in one of those “retro-futuristic” fonts on the spine. “Took a while to work everything into a coherent 'plot', and all that...but once I managed to hammer out the basics, it all came together pretty quickly.”
Lina got off the bed and picked up the book, flicking through it in record time. For a first novel, it was kind of...I guess the best term would be “elementary”. It's a standard kind of story—small-town guy longs to meet a girl, small-town guy meets girl who just so happens to be on the run from dark forces, girl turns out to be the last hope for her people, girl turns out to be an incredibly powerful android....okay, maybe not all of it was standard, but it did draw comparisons to a few other works (all of them favorable, thankfully). Once Lina closed the book—about twenty-five seconds later—I sat down by her. “Well?”
“...you could tell I was reading it that fast?”
“Call it a hunch...seriously, though, what did you think?”
“Well....” Lina handed me the book. “I liked it. The pacing was...off, in a few parts, and at least a few of the secondary characters were kind of....I dunno, annoying, maybe?”
“The salesman,” I muttered. “That salesperson alien who talks like a used-car dealer.”
Lina actually snorted as she giggled. “...I wasn't gonna say anything...”
“Every review—Every. Single. Review—has mentioned that one character.” I flipped to the page where said character first appeared. “He was supposed to just be a one-off, but....I kept thinking of more and more stuff for him to say, how he'd react to others....he just sort of got away from me.”
“Well, he didn't completely wreck the story,” Lina assured me. “The one friend of the main character was kind of nice.”
“If it's the one I think you're talking about...” I rolled my eyes. “I actually made the local news when this was published,” I added. “The real irony there is that I stopped watching the local news way the Hell back in 2015....well, after things got a bit....stupid....”
I felt Lina's hand on my arm. “You don't have to go into details about it if you don't want to.”
“....thanks.” I headed back to the other side of the shelf, picking up a rather thin binder. “And these,” I stated, “are the only ideas my brother ever put down to writing before he got pissed off at me and decided to throw himself back into his desk job just because I tried to give him a bit of constructive criticism.”
Lina took her time reading the binder, occasionally making a face at what she found on the pages. “...he actually wanted to write books based on these ideas?”
“He wasn't even thinking of books,” I scoffed. “He was thinking of TV series, or even movies....”
“....of this?!” Lina recoiled at one page in particular—I knew exactly which one.
“Apparently, he thought his 'vision' was a lot better than what any fans of the show 'ever knew they wanted'.” I couldn't help but think back to when he'd pitched the idea to me, how proud he seemed to be of it...and how oblivious he was to the fact that only he would ever find his interpretation of that particular show to be anything remotely resembling “entertaining”.
Lina flipped a few pages ahead. “.....this page is all just...sentences.”
“Oh, that one...” I sat down next to her, going over each line and shaking my head. “He thought it'd be a great idea to take the 'GDAF' approach to reworking the show.”
“....GDAF?” Lina echoed, frowning.
“Grim Dark As Fuck.” I rolled my eyes. “And he never had full outlines, for his ideas, or bullet-point lists of personality traits and such for his characters....he could never nail down anything like that. I had five folders' worth of notes for Dreams of a Steel Falcon, and damn near everything from those made it into the book....” I gestured at the binder. “..all he could ever come up with was that.”
“...well,” Lina admitted, “there's....a glimmer of what might be a sliver of a decent idea, buried in all of this...I mean, if he took his time and made notes, he might actually have something worth working with.”
“....you really think so?”
“Well, if he put some time into it, definitely...” She gently set the binder down on the bed. “....just, not that.”
“You've summed up in five minutes what I tried to tell him for five years.” I chuckled. “He probably wouldn't take your advice anyway...the only thing he ever wanted to hear in relation to his efforts was 'I'd watch it', or 'I'd buy it on DVD'. I tried to tell him—dozens of times—that nobody was going to watch what he wrote...” I picked up Dreams of a Steel Falcon again. “....when this got published—I mean, not right after, because right after it hit the shelves he was all 'Glad for you, bro', slap on the back, stuff like that....but then he actually read it.”
“...and?” Lina was perched on the edge of the bed, wide-eyed.
“He was pissed. And I mean royally pissed. He just 'couldn't get' why people actually liked what I wrote. After a few weeks he went back and basically regurgitated his own ideas into what he claimed to be a novel—changed all the names, but if you knew what to look for....anyway, he went to my publisher, asked if they'd release his book, too.”
“What'd they say?”
“Laughed his ass out of the building. He set his manuscript on fire in the sink that night.”
Lina looked genuinely sorry for him. “....that must have been terrible for him...”
“He says he got over it...I have my reasons to doubt him.” I sighed. “Y'know....you're not acting at all like....GOD, this is going to sound so stupid....”
My hesitation seemed to brighten Lina's mood. “I won't think you're stupid for asking it...I don't act like what?”
“....like a robot!” I actually laughed. “You're using contractions when you speak, you don't just sit there and stare at the wall when you're done talking, you move like a real person...” I shook me head at the sheer weirdness of it—“it” being either my situation or the fact that Lina was the least robotic gynoid I'd ever...encountered, pretty much (not to mention the first).
“Would you prefer it if I act. Like. A. Robot?” Lina's voice went into a deliberate monotone as she spoke, stiffly rising from where she'd been sitting on the bed.
“I'd prefer it if you act like you.” I ignored the growing, ah, enjoyment of her brief performance. “Not some..blatantly fake robot act, or anything, but just you.”
Midway through a halting, robotic step towards me, Lina stopped. “....really?”
“....yeah. Really.”
Any tenderness the moment might have had was lost when the door flew open to reveal...that girl I'd seen in the hall, on the way back from showering off. Lo and behold, she was also one of the two guests who'd barged into my room earlier, when the party was just getting started. “Ah, hi....” I arched an eyebrow at her.
“....this isn't the bathroom...” She glanced over her shoulder, as if regretting being in the house at all.
“Just take a left from here and you'll find it.”
“.....thanks.” She turned on her heel and pulled the door closed; a few seconds later, the bathroom door slammed shut, and the taps on the sink were turned on.
“Well....” I returned my attention to Lina. “That...happened.....” I let my words trail off as I noticed her hands on my shoulders. “Like I was saying...I prefer you acting like you.”
“.....y'know, Matt,” Lina admitted, “I prefer acting like me, too.” She grinned, drawing me closer to her....
….and the door flew open again. This time, it was some guy—the one who'd walked into my room earlier, with the redhead. “....did a girl just come this way asking where the bathroom is?”
“....slim, red hair?”
“You saw her?”
I nodded. “She's in the bathroom now.”
“Right, thanks...” The guy closed the door, apparently not interested in the fact that he'd interrupted such an intimate moment between Lina and myself.
“....so, now that that's over—”
Lina gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “I think we should save the rest for later,” she murmured. “Otherwise we'll just keep getting interrupted....unless you want to just lock your door.”
“Can't. Long story.” I sighed, remembering how the old doorknob had broken and actually locked me into my own room once, forcing my dad to bust out the sledgehammer to bash it off. “The door to my brother's room doesn't lock either, though you can blame Mom for that one...her way of settling an argument between us over taking each other's stuff. She didn't talk to us about it, or offer some other way of mediation....she just had Dad go and saw off part of the door frame so the door couldn't actually lock.”
“....that sounds kind of stupid,” Lina admitted. “I mean, Lucy doesn't have a problem with me having my own room, at her place—“
“And I wouldn't have a problem letting you have a room here, either.” I assured her. “Once the paperwork is sorted out, and all that stuff....and you're positive that she wants me to...ah, 'have' you?”
Again, Lina rested her hands on my shoulders. “I think even she'd realize that you're the best possible choice, Matt.”
“Well, I guess I can take that as good news.” I tried for a smile again—judging from Lina's reaction, I managed to actually get it right, instead of looking like I was shot up with Botox. “The weird thing is, I thought this whole party would just be friends of my brother, and friends of his friends, all that crap....”
“I think your brother works for a firm that does business with the Institute,” Lina explained, glancing at the chair by my computer desk; I nodded, and she took a seat. “Lucy didn't give me a lot of details, but she did say that she wanted to talk to him for a bit, maybe get an estimate on....something, I dunno.”
“And yet she's passed-out drunk outside.”
Lina giggled. “She might've just messed with the smartwatch to make it read that way...in any case, your brother never really went out and mingled with people apart from telling everyone not to break stuff or steal anything.”
“He doesn't really do parties this big,” I explained. “He's got his own place—a small apartment in the city—so he had to talk me into doing this one here, and I kept coming up with excuses not to, but it didn’t matter...” I shrugged. “At least he didn't go out there and act like the whole thing was my idea...” I let my words trail off. “Do you, ah....hear that?”
“....the sink still running in the bathroom?” Lina cocked her head a bit.
“Yeah. That girl turned the taps on when she went in...”
“Maybe she's washing her hands,” Lina offered.
I didn't immediately respond to her guess. Instead, I headed for the door, opening it as quietly as possible and making my way to the bathroom....the door of which was wide open. Lo and behold, the girl wasn't there, nor was the random guy who'd barged into my room looking for her. “....everything okay?” Lina was at my side in an instant.
“....they left. The girl and the guy.” I frowned. “Something's going on, here....”
“Maybe she just called him and told him she didn't feel comfortable being here anymore,” Lina mused. “Or maybe she got sick...it could've been anything.”
“....maybe.....” I turned off the taps. “...something about this....”
Lina guided me back to my room. “....whatever it is, I'm pretty sure we won't have to worry about it.”
“I'm not so sure....they were in my room earlier, before I went into the bathroom, but they walked out before I could ask what they were looking for. My phone kind of went off...that's why I had it out in the bathroom, even when I was, ah...”
“I get it.” Lina rolled her eyes. “You don't think...”
I shrugged. “Wasn't even thinking about it at the time, to be honest. I'd seen them when they first showed up, maybe said 'hi'.....after that, I was just kind of on autopilot.”
“Well, maybe...” Lina paused, frowning.
“Something wrong?”
She nodded to the window—which had been blocked off by a gray plastic cabinet meant to hold clothes. “I think you might want to break up the 'party' outside.....”
I groaned, heading for the bathroom (again). “Back in a sec!” Sure enough, some idiots had started fighting in the backyard; someone had gone to intercept the Frisbee and “accidentally” grabbed someone else's girlfriend's ass.
“Oh, GOD....this is...this is just unbelievable. There's a fight. It's ending with a fight.” I chewed my lip, shaking my head as the stupidity unfolded. “I knew...I just knew that if we had a party here, it was going to end with a fight....”
“Everything okay?” I hadn't heard Lina enter the bathroom. “I thought for a second that you'd gone outside...”
“No way in Hell am I going to try to break that up.” I nodded at the two jock-types beating the piss out of each other on the grass. “I happen to like having functional kidneys....and more are joining in.”
Lina craned her neck to get a better look, frowning. “What even happened?”
“One of the idiots went to grab the Frisbee, got a handful of ass instead.” I'd already turned away from the window.
“Did you see which girl it was?”
“....ah, the one with the white tank top, the star tattoo above her ass and the long black hair.”
Lina focused on the girl in question, standing away from the fight and looking concerned. “....I think she might be one of the eleven.”
“.....you're shitting me.”
“I'm not—also, you really need to cut back on the swearing.” Lina's eyes—now glowing a soft green—narrowed.
“And what's with the Demon Headmaster routine?”
“I'm trying to scan her, not hypnotize her.” After a few seconds of staring, Lina nodded. “Yeah, she's definitely another gynoid. Can't get a make, model or manufacturer, but she's on the WiFi now, trying to contact her owner.”
“.....so the guy she's here with isn't her owner?”
“My guess is, he borrowed her for the party....” Lina frowned. “Also, she's probably going to need a recharge soon.”
“Ah, while I'm thinking about that...how are you faring on that regard?”
Lina glanced at me, grinning. “Topped up before I left with Lucy. I won't poooooowwwwweeeeeeeeerrr......” She froze in place for a moment, and I nearly reached out to tap her shoulder to see if she was okay—all the better that I didn't, because she stuck her tongue out at me again. “Sorry, couldn't resist.”
“....I'm starting to think you've read a lot more from the forum than you let on....”
“You can't say you didn't enjoy that...” Lina smirked, allowing her gaze to wander below my belt line.
“Twice in one day is enough, I think. For now, we need to—”
Further down the hall, someone let out a battle cry and charged—not towards the bathroom, thankfully, but through the kitchen and living room. “....oh, Hell....”
“Who was that?” Lina asked, frowning.
“My brother. And I'm pretty sure he has either the tennis racket, the bat or the 9-iron....” I nearly charged out of the bathroom to go stop him, but Lina's hand on my shoulder convinced me otherwise. “Let's just wait until all of that dies down, then we can go wake Lucy up...or I can, at least.”
“....fair enough. Also...you've actually seen The Demon Headmaster?”
“ Lucy has the whole series on DVD.” Lina grinned. “She has...eclectic tastes—”
Something hit the wall under the bedroom window from outside, causing Lina to flinch and me to almost fall over ass-backwards. “The HELL?!”
“I think everyone's trying to leave at the same time...” Lina tried to get a better look—only to duck down just before that stupid Frisbee smashed into the window. “I'll go check on Lucy, make sure she's okay...”
“Good call. I'll go make sure the cat is safe—she's probably hiding under the bed, what with all the randos around...”
“You have a cat?”
“Lucy's not allergic, is she?”
“I don't think she is...” Something else hit the window. “I'll go check on her, you go check on your cat.”
“Right.” Lina and I ran out of the bathroom—Lina heading right, at the end of the hall, with me taking a left turn.
As predicted, the cat was hiding under the bed in what, years prior, had been the master bedroom. With my dad out of state and my mom...well, with her also out of the house on a permanent basis (not dead, if anyone cares), the room had yet to be fully cleaned out. Mom's books had long since been given away, and Dad had taken his essentials (CPAP gear included) with him, but the bed—or rather, beds—were still there.
The cat was, indeed, hiding under them, not so much stressed out or panicking as she was bored.
“....good call, cat,” I muttered, nodding and giving a thumbs-up to the cat.
Predictably, the cat just stared back at me, as she tended to do when she was thoroughly uninterested with things.
I headed into the living room, hoping that Lina and Lucy were okay....
...and giving a quick “yes!” as the side door opened to admit Lina back into the house. “Lucy's up, now,” she stated. “I told her about, well....” She grinned.
“I get the idea. She's okay with it?”
“She is, but there's some paperwork to fill out before it's over with—it'll probably take a few days to sort. Three, at the most....anyway, you'll only have to sign one thing. How's the cat?”
“Hiding under the bed.” I chuckled. “Her standard procedure when she gets bored, or just wants to chill out.”
“Kind of reminds me of Lucy,” Lina giggled. “Except she goes to her office instead of under the bed...” The sound of many feet rushing across the carport cut her off. “.....guess everyone's on their way out, now.”
“Hopefully before....” I groaned; my brother had managed to get in between the two meatheads who'd been fighting earlier, and was now capering around with the 9-iron like a deranged Musketeer, swiping at one of the guys. The girl Lina had identified as another gynoid was trying to talk him out of it; another girl (presumably the girlfriend of the other pissed-off jock) was carefully moving past the fracas, heading for one of the cars still parked on the grass and grabbing her boyfriend's arm. “....guess they've already had enough.”
Lina nodded. “Probably...and your brother is chasing the other one back into the yard....”
“Oh, for fuck's sake....” I nearly charged past Lina, but again, her hand on my shoulder was all the persuasion I needed to stay put. “....you, ah, might want to go join Lucy in the car,” I muttered.
“Trying to get rid of me?” Lina teased.
“Not so much that as I don't want you to get caught up in the rush of idiots peeling out in the grass...my dad would get pissed, if he was here......”
Lina gently turned me away from the door. “Just for the record....this has been awesome.”
“And it'll stay awesome once the paperwork is signed, I hope...”
Lina's smile brought back that “heart leaping into the throat” feeling again. “It will.” She leaned forward and gave me the best goodbye kiss I'd ever received in my life (and the only one that was lip-to-lip, what with the rest having been from relatives). “I'll see you again in a few days.”
“Ah....we could....maybe e-mail each other, between now and then....” I fumbled for a piece of paper and a pen.
Lina smirked, glancing at my pocket—and something in it started vibrating. “...the Hell?!”
“I left my e-mail address on your phone. Don't share it.” With one last, playful grin, she gave me a quick peck on the cheek, then turned to head out the door, giving a no-look wave as she walked away. “Bye for now!”
“....yeah....ah, bye for now!” I nodded, throwing a quick “Love you!” in at the last minute; Lina turned, acknowledging it with a smile and a mouthed “Love you, too”. I didn't watch her go up to Lucy's car, choosing instead to go fall over on the sofa, replaying the events of the past hour or so in my head. Just on a hunch, I looked at my phone—sure enough, there was Lina’s e-mail address, as well as—to my surprise—a picture of Lina in the “Photos” section, along with plenty of FCon confirmations, including some from the past few minutes...weird stuff indeed. From now on, things were going to be interesting...and I had no idea just how interesting they'd get, in the coming days.....