Old Wife, New Life
Old Wife, New Life
Part 1
This life will get busier for you. to put it mildly. It used to be that you could just sleep in till the sun of New South Harales shook you up around 9, whenever you are at home and not gallivanting on some wild trip around the wilds of the Almares. Now, you will be regularly woken by small deliveries.
You just don't know it yet right now. The first delivery is interesting in its own way.
It is a large red metal box with some sort of code hash printed on every side of the box at least once... Fingering your thumbs along the raised gold logo of Berequel Customs, your mind briefly goes back to a trip you made to Belkow capital in the Sovinhaya, to chase the details of a highly exclusive programme nobody wished to talk about.
What you found instead was a new part-time job that pays abusively well for how little you are expected to contribute as a layman, an old man your own old man used to know, and a hot middle-aged woman who used to care for your old man as thanks for his taking a nice radiation bath to his back for her and her hubby. Said woman also put a plastic washbasin hard into your face the one time you walked into her in the nude washing up at your home, but you always felt it was so worth it in terms of jerking material.
Said hubby did not have long though with said woman though due to the radiation killing her ability to take rejuvenation therapy from the Godon aliens like any normal human being. Said hubby sets up new company with new concept around a different way of managing and programming Autoslav androids without requiring them to be fully aware of their true nature. Said hubby accidentally stabs himself with a dagger in the form of a Autoslav made using the processes he introduced to the company, has you pull it out by taking it away from them.
Someone will eventually come up with a word for what Berequel Customs s doing, you are sure. Right now, though, you have canned the article and apologized to your boss for your ineptitude in drawing out Dr Saulomon on the actual nature of Sleeping Dream as operated by Berequel Creations
It is a lie of course. You are now privy to the nature of the programme. You are also under an NDA that also covers your new part-time job, and your new 'wife'.
The raised logo on the metal box, of course, also acts as a biometric lock. As your thumbs rub over it, it takes a read of your thumbprints, and clicks open, exposing a smaller red wooden box done up in the same way as the metal box holding it, plus ten bottles marked "Vaginal Lubricant SLX-020" and "Dielectric fluid Concentrate - For Tear and Saliva Simulation" in equal amounts of each, plus a sort of weird contraption with lots of tubing and some sort of electrically pumped syringe thingy.
Opening the wooden box reveals what you expected it to hold, after briefly seeing a room full of these things during your visit to Berequel Customs in the Sovinhaya branch: a UltraHighBand (UHB) connector cable, and a blood red Emergency Data Rescue Restore Module. As the metal part sits heavily in your hand despite its relative smallness, you can feel the heaviness of the responsibility you took in relieving Dr Saulomon of a reminder of his old life.
You learn during your initial visit to the Berequel Customs HQ of the local franchisee of New South Harales that unlike normal EDRRMs, this is made of a write-once material rated to last potentially thousands of years if kept safely in proper conditions, like the storage box- all the initial programming and personality of an artificial life, baked into an immutable form for easy install and restoration if things get bad. This doesn't mean you can slack off and not get a few more normal EDRRMs for normal regular backups. Time to take a trip to the local Tek2Go shop when you're free...
You sigh and close the boxes, choosing to put them into the storageroom for later.
Your next delivery comes about a week later. This time there is a casualty: the single-person bed that was your source of relaxation whenever you were at home here in New South Harales as a bachelor for almost a century is calmly chucked out, replaced by an unusual King-sized bed.
On the right side, is where you can sleep, the foam backing is amazing, almost as if sleeping on clouds. On the left side, the bedding is... not so soft. As you examine it with your fingers you can feel a subtle stiffness beneath the mattress on that side- an induction pad for recharging and ultra-short-range high-bandwidth radio transmission.
Drawing your eyes along the bed, your eyes lock onto the new "answering machine" that has been parked under the bedside telephone on your side of the bed. It is apparently meant to allow your new wife to respond to maintenance enquiries or issue urgent calls for repairs while lying on her side of the bed.
You sigh, once again, and strip the bagging with the labels outlining who sleeps on which half of this giant new bed right off of the mattress, for later secure disposal. You assume she will never ask to sleep on the right side of the bed for obvious reasons.
The next delivery comes the week after, while you are out in the town seeing to your various errands after the end of work for the day. You find a message in your instant messages- someone has used the entry code you provided Berequel Creations specifically to allow them entry as needed to enter your home for any maintenance or repairs or delivery, under promise not to abuse it.
Standing perfectly still in the middle of the small living room, just past your tiny kitchen, is the figure of a blonde, voluptuous woman. Every bit of her virtually the same as when she introduced your face to a washbasin for walking in on her bath. Not the original flesh and blood woman, but a silicone and electronic facsimile. She is dressed in a simple floral sundress and has a serene face, her eyes closed, as if frozen in the middle of thinking about how nice it would be to have a delicious sweet at this time of day.
For a change, you don't sigh. It would make no sense really, sighing when something you have been excitedly waiting for for the better part of three months is here. What you do do, however, is briefly rack your mind. Your obsessive memory, already a major help in journalism work, has proven quite helpful for memorizing the command reference, and you think you know enough to get this show properly on the road.
You lean in slowly, examining her face closely, marvelling at all the detailing that has gone into making her. the faint peach fuzz all over her, usually ignored by most people building Autoslavs or androids in many places, is all over her in subtle amounts, adding to how real she looks. But enough talk, really.
You say the first words you want to say to her. They are far from romantic, but the mind at home right now in her would not appreciate romance, you think. "Bronii, override command: disable coma mode. Passcode: X 36 Ruby 41 25."
Part 2
There is no response at first, and you start to suspect you goofed up memorizing the unlock code from the command reference, quickly turning and going into the storage room to get out the metal box that you got earlier. You decide you may as well get out the wooden box too since you will need it soon.
Coming out of the storage room though, you find out that you got it right. Bronii Mk 2 stands in front of you, eyes open and scanning the living room without moving her body. As her eyes lock onto you, that long-missed honeyed voice you heard a long time ago sounds again, this time in a language you can now understand thanks to proper language lessons. "Owner. Mr Bob Hayanto. Short name. Bob. Detected. Releasing all limb locks, resuming normal placeholder functions."
You take a deep breath. God, that voice. Some choir is missing its diva, you think to yourself. "Pleased to meet you, Bronii. Sorry I was late in getting back home, I had some late night shopping to do and..."
Bronii interrupts you. Or rather, the soulless thing controlling her body at the moment does. "Error. This placeholder program is unable to engage in social interactions. It is designed only for basic standard Berequel Customs commands and safe transportation of this unit to its owner, plus initial mapping of home location."
You look away and take another pause. Okay. You expected this, you got this. You turn back to face her. "Yes, I got it." You can always try small talk at another time. "Bronii, override command: install."
Bronii beeps faintly a few times, before slowly walking past you and into your bedroom. After a brief moment scanning the bed, she lies down on the left side of it, her body sinuously moving as she unsheathes her feet from her shoes, revealing a foot fetishist's daydreams as she lies straight down. "Owner. Unit has located self on induction and UHB communications pad. Please plug your provided installation Emergency Data Rescue Restore Module into the nearby Management Hub and wait six hours for full recharge plus installation."
You fumble the wooden box as you sit down on your side of the bed, but eventually manage to rest the dense block on your bedside table, plugging it in. As you do so, you say what might amount to a prayer for the departing from an atheist. "Placeholder program, I thank you for your service, and I am sorry you have to go to let the new one in..."
Her eyes dart towards you, her body otherwise perfectly immobile and straight, arms by her sides. "Error. Placeholder program will remain in place to negotiate serious errors, regular maintenance, and updating. Please, issue sleep command to initiate installation procedure."
You roll your eyes. The program indeed does not know how to do social interactions, if it can ruin such a heartfelt goodbye with such a blank "I'm staying on in the basement" response. Anyways... "Bronii, override command: sleepytime."
Bronii rolls her eyes upwards jerkily, before her eyelids shut entirely over them and she falls totally silent, leaving the house totally quiet save for the ticking of your kitchen clock and the faint hums of the Maintenance hub, flickering more wildly than it has for the past few days since it was installed.
You think for a moment, then decide to just hit the shower and grab a quick Rapid-Rations meal instead of cooking a proper meal...
Part 3
The rest of the night goes by uneventfully. You have a good clean, rip the cord on a Ready-Ration configured as a Chicken Meatball Spaghetti in Green Pesto Sauce, and spend a good hour quietly chewing on its contents very slowly, while watching random music videos on SoVision on your media viewer setup in the living room. Or rather, you try to - for some reason your heart's not in it to bop along to Martin Treesius rapping about life in the warp lane.
A couple of times you get up and walk into your bedroom to gaze at the stiffly prone form of your ersatz Bronii, your eyes tracing along the curves of her body just millimetres beneath the fabric of her sun dress and presumably whatever underclothing they saw fit to put on her before sending her over to you.
As you turn away again, you notice a large luggage that presumably came with Bronii, sitting in the living room. There are no identifying marks from the Berequel Customs company on it, but the thumb-lock responds to your thumb as well, exposing a carefully packed choice of various clothing and undergarments. What a thoughtful gesture, you muse to yourself, wondering if you should send a thank you note to the staffer who decided this was a important addition.
The blue luggage has worn stickers festooned from various places, suggesting Bronii has travelled around the world, plus a passport and a purse with an identity card, both from North Harales. This earns a chuckle as you remember a piece you did earlier in your career, exploring the corruption of officials in North Harales. Clearly, whoever did a job on cleaning it up since then did not do a full job, or the Berequel Creations people have ties with good forgers. You probably do not want to risk it on an actual check by North Harales officials, though.
Eventually, you give up on repeatedly walking into the bedroom and out of it, shutting off the media video in midlyric about pink and purple and blue and red... some sort of ludicrous brainrot meme tune. You walk back in, and wire the newly purchased rewriteable EDRRMs into a shelf hidden beneath Bronii's side of the bed, before park yourself slowly after tapping the power button for the lights. in the minute it takes for the lights to totally go out, you spend maybe a little too much of it just letting your eyes linger on Broniis form, barely resisting the urge to let your hands join in. "... good night, Bronii." There is no response, as you expected, so you turn away just as the room light goes out...
... sniff. sniff.
You smell something delicious cooking.
Opening your eyes, you see that it's almost work time. At this point you'd just grab and nuke a breakfast burrito from the freezer. Detractors claim it's not healthy eating, but you've done the math and it's basically a decent serve of protein, carbs, and some fiber and vitamins courtesy of the egg, pita and mushrooms in the brand you bought.
That assumes nobody is making breakfast. You get up from the bed and look around, noticing one thing: the spot occupied by Bronii in her 'sleep' night is emptied out. You quickly pack the installation Emergency Data Rapid Restore Module away from your bedside table with its cable into its wooden box and step out with it to investigate the source of the smell.
A egg is slowly cooking on a frying pan on the small electrical stove in the kitchen, next to a plate that already has some slightly shrivelled tomatoes and a few dry-toasted fries as an attempt at breakfast. Someone is busying themselves in the kitchen, and even from this distance, blocked partially by the kitchen partition, you can tell they brought a bakery along, in the slang sense of the word...
Hair like warm gold swooshing slightly under a tied hair-bandana. The floral dress you saw yesterday. The patent leather shoes. It's just Bronii. She pauses for a moment at the sink, before turning slightly to smile at you. For one moment, you go insane. That smile. Clearly you have been starved of companionship if this is how little it takes to drive you to this state... The lilting voice that introduced your young face to the pains of a basin to the face and your young dick to the joys of saluting feminine beauty speaks up. "Oh, hello, honey... I almost finished making breakfast for the both of us. She gestures to the living room table with one hand, her teeth faintly yellowed with the impact of modern living and an inability to access tooth whitening procedures. "Just let me settle mine and I'll be with you."
You have at least the presence of mind to quickly go into the storage room and pack the wooden container into its metal storage box, pausing to take the weird pump device and one bottle each of the two lubricant types and head into the bathroom to leave them in obvious spots as per the setup manual. Bronii has sufficient programming to clean herself out and refill her lubricants as needed, so giving her the privacy of the bathroom to do so works for you...
By the time you come back, Bronii is already gingerly chewing on her own plate of eggs and potato fries. You already know the answer to this, but... you try to test her anyways. "It looks good, Bronii, but where's the ham?" You ask her as you start cutting into your own meal.
Bronii looks away embarassedly. "We must have forgotten to buy some. I tried to find some meat to go with all this goodness, but I couldn't find any ham, and I didn't want to risk food poisoning by serving sausages that were four months past their expiry date." She says, her lilt going on top of the meal as it if was real Canunia Maple Syrup atop hotcakes. "We should schedule a delivery that includes them or buy them on our next grocery trip. Maybe... with some more lollipops? I know I'm running out of strawberry lollies too along with the milk."
You almost choke on the impressiveness. Not the flat, pure factual, emotionless statement of a normal Autoslav from a normal shop or modded by someone in a basic mod shop. Almost an actual human, speaking actual human words... complete with the irrelevance humans tend to have? If this wasn't just prerecorded but put together from scratch... you develop a new respect for Dr Saulomons work.
And yes, it's embarassing that you let a pack of rotten sausages mildew in your fridge. You suspect, given the presence of a small pump-spray full of "Dr Engovar's Fridge Cleaner", that she may have gotten more done, but chosen not to talk about it either.
You reach over and gently rub her head as if to praise her for this. "I'm a forgetful idiot, I'll remember to do so." She reciprocates with a full on kiss, much to your surprise (even though you were kind of hoping for it). "Silly billy, you're MY forgetful idiot, don't forget that." She coos before going back focusing on her meal much as you should on yours.
After breakfast and a proper shower and clean, you step into the living room with your journalist's backpack, all ready to tackle another good day of work in the office at Kanovia Press. You hear a couple of faint squeakings, and turn around the corner to see Bronii in your kitchen soft clogs swishing a cleaning mop around the floor, occasionally causing it to make another squeak. It still doesn't stop her from pausing work to add another peck, this time on the tip of your nose, just as you step out of the house, along with an incitement to "SEIZE THE DAAAAY!" yelled in an almost juvenile but certainly uplifting manner.
You arrive at Kanovia Press and head to the part of the office assigned to "Adventures In Perversion". Coincidentally, in a perversion of your usual behavior, your adventures over the past few hours have left you in an unusually high mood rather than the dour 'fuck all of you numbnuts' mood you usually bring to the meeting table.
This does not go unnoticed. You are asked several times by various colleagues what's come out of your craw that you're so chipper. You fall back on the excuse you've rehearsed with Berequel Creations staff in your locale: a good friend has come out to New South Harales to hang out and enjoy the local air and sun, and you're excited about it. Which, technically is most of the truth, no lies, one of the more kinds of lying more resistant to being found out.
Some praise your fortune, others lament their inability to have such friends. At least one or two ask for her to come hang out with the team on one of their regular weekend events. You say you'll consider, but offer that she's a bit of a homebody, as you are still anxious about whether you can safely wrangle any public outings with Bronii without causing some unfortunate commotion or breakdown.
As the driverless fetchcab pulls up to your building after easy journey across the river and down the nearby roads, you notice a Eko-Van belonging to your grocer of choice stopped outside your house. Having made sure your fare has been wired to the cab company, you hop out and walk over, noticing the driver/delivery man is just standing there, a faint red lipstick mark on his forehead.
"Oh hey, thanks for bringing the groceries," you say as you check your communicator, before pausing at the notification for it, as it gives a time of delivery over an hour ago. This man... has been standing on your porch for an hour after delivering the goods."You okay, buddy?" You ask worriedly, knowing this business he's in is not one for hour long stalls outside a delivery venue.
The driver/deliveryman turns his head slowly to you, a happy but dazed look on his aged face. "I'm... great. very.... great. Just met a goddess. don't mind me." He turns back to looking at your house.
You dont quite know whether to pat his back and nod in the mutual understanding of men who have together seen something truly beautiful, or thump him with your backpack in rage. You realise that one of these actions is a sign of jealousy and possessiveness... "Well, we need groceries once a week, so if you'll try to wrangle getting that job when it happens, we'll see about this mood of yours, okay?" That is all you can offer him as you slip into the house and make sure the front door is properly locked, not stopping to see how long it takes him to finally snap out of it, but presumably he finally goes away for the moment...
Part 4
The new life Mr Bob Haryanto has with Bronii continues apace on its pleasant meandering way, with things settling into a schedule of Haryanto waking up, sharing a passionate kiss with Bronii, having hopefully a good day in the office, coming back right home after the job is done most days, sharing a passionate kiss again over dinner, and then having a quiet time after Bronii performs her nightly fluid top ups and clears out her food wastes. Mr Haryanto continues to be a gentleman, but there's two something that keeps puzzling him...
"I was thinking we'd go watch Speed Freaks tomorrow at the movies, or maybe that new chick flick Road to Palilomar." Haryanto suggests to Bronii one morning over breakfast. "They sound interesting. Let me get back to you later today about whether I want to watch either of them..." Bronii says, seemingly interested.
Barely several hours later,
Bronii looks apologetically at Bob. "I don't think either of those films interest me, Bob..." She seems sorry that neither of them appeal to her.
"No harm done." Haryanto nods as he realises Bronii might possibly not be a fan of movies.
This cycle repeats several times, though, exactly the same way... eventually Bob can't put his finger on it, but something smells off to him in the way Bronii keeps brightening up at the mention of some incoming movies at the local movie theater, then turning him down entirely exactly eleven hours later.
"I'm thinking she might be malfunctioning, or maybe I'm in the wrong for trying to force my taste in movies on her..." Haryanto laments over lunch in the local Berequel Customs base, the quandry taking away a little of the enjoyment one might derive from a decently prepared Mala Xiangguo (Numbing and Spicy Pot Meal of assorted small cuts of meat, vegetables and noodles as enjoyed in parts of Eastern Sovinhaya space) as made by the company chef.
His colleague in his part-time job at the local base is listening carefully. The boy has intellect, but he also needs to have his hand held because he doesn't have the experience from the ground up that many of them have in how the company runs... Goren smacks his lips, slowly enjoying the horrendous numbing pain of the pot meal for a few moments, before suddenly saying something. "Bob... can you give me a list of the movies you've tried to get her to go with you to watch at the theater?" Goren asks.
Haryanto looks quizzically at Goren. Sometimes, he swears, his mentor in this company's workings does weird things. Still, he complies, spooling out a small sheaf of paper and thinking for a moment, before writing down the names of eight different movies, passing it to Goren across the table.
"Righto, give me a few minutes," Goren announces, standing straight up over his half finished pot meal. "I need to check something."
Haryanto blinks, staring at Goren's unfinished meal. "But you haven't finished your meal!" He protests, pointing at it as if its being wasted is a tragedy of sorts.
Goren waves the note slightly as he walks off. "Honestly, the numbing is great, but GOD it would be great if the chef would stop using so much hot stuff in these Mala pot meals! You can have my share of that suffering!"
As Goren promises, he has an answer for Haryanto in minutes.
But he didn't promise it would be one that Haryanto would understand, as he triumphantly waves the note, now with all the movie names on it crossed out. "Bob, the reason why Bronii wanted to watch any of these movies, is because none of them have laugh tracks."
"Goren, two of these movies are horror flicks, two are action movies, and the last two are sob shows for the ladies. I don't think any of them have much comedy ." Bob tilts his head in askance. "Maybe Bronii hates these kinds of genres?"
Goren shakes his head. "It's not a laugh track like in the ancient days of Earth where some shows spliced in noises of people laughing to cue human audiences as to how to react. I think there's only one way to explain it..." He ponders what he's about to say, because like everything he does it makes no sense to his protege initially...
"I want you to come in on the night shift from 9pm to 6am the following day on this Friday night. And bring Bronii with you. I need her around to demonstrate something." Goren voluntells Haryanto.
Haryanto is perplexed. "But that's right in the middle of her usual bedtime! I dont think I can keep her powered during those hours, Goren."
Goren laughs a little and pats Haryanto on one shoulder. "Haryanto, we have ways of keeping an Autoslav charged up for longer than usual... besides this also gives us an excuse to look her over with more capable tools and fix any issues that can't be fixed with just the Maintenance kit in your home. Feel free to dress her in style too."
Torn between wanting to know what is going on, and the amount of weird shit he's being asked to go through to do so, Haryanto vacillates for a bit... eventually though, he nods and agrees to the request.
The next two days are kind of busy for Haryanto at his normal job, as he interviews an up and rising starlet who recently gained notoriety for gangbanging 500 Aquilian males in possibly the first serious attempt at making a episodic orgy with cross-species sex. Haryanto almost flubs the interview, as his mind wanders to Friday night every now and then and what might happen. Fortunately, he recovers fast enough to turn in material to the editor for another "Adventure In Perversion" column.
Friday night eventually comes though. To be safe, Haryanto takes the whole day off, and tells Bronii he needs her to stay awake between 9pm and 6am the next morning at all costs. Bronii, being smart in selective ways, manages to do so... but at a terrible cost. As Haryanto wakes up to his old alarm just after 7pm, he smells... nothing. None of the scent of good cooking that usually fills the air is present. Instead, he is confronted by the most terrifying of horrors, standing on the living room table next to a reusable fork:
a Ready-Ration of the infamous "Mushroom Cream Penne Lasagna" flavor that everyone always despised during field exercises at Postal Academy. A meal so dire, his seniors regularly just opened the lid immediately, poured out the lasagna's constituents, and replaced it with bits for instant chicken strip and leek ramen purchased on their own dime before pulling the cord to trigger the reconstitutor beneath the food container...
Beggars can't be choosers, besides, Bronii chose this with love, surely, Haryanto muses as he pulls the cord to set off the reconstitutor in the cup, as he reads the sillest apology anyone has ever given him. "Sorry, I had to choose between proper sleep and cooking a proper dinner for you. This is what I chose. Please forgive my laziness." Bronii has scrawled in a dainty cursive on a notepad paper, like an overeducated little child seeking forgiveness for a laughable little offense.
Haryanto laughs, and digs in quickly, before following up with a quick shower before plonking himself in bed, enjoying perhaps an hour or so of peace before his odd workshift starts. Bronii is in the bed, eyes totally closed, tucked nicely under the shared mutual giant blanket. Haryanto smiles as he towels his hair dry. What a good girl at heart this machine is, he briefly thinks to himself. She does the chores, she takes care of her, and when she goes to bed, she wears sensible clothing. He beams at the last thought as he pulls the covers down slightly-
Only to find out that Bronii has decided to be extra lazy this evening, having decided to forgo sleepwear. Her slightly chunky body is on full display, her breasts mounding slightly across her chest despite the cruelty of gravity pulling down on everything standing without hard support atop the rest of her naked body.
Haryanto gulps a little. as his hand slowly clamps onto her body and gently explores it, fingers trailing though the fields of peach fuzz, slight explorations of squeeze and nudge where they seem like a good idea. Pinching her nipples, squeezing the glorious orbs on her chest and above her legs, feeling the softness of her belly ... After a while, he decides to stop - there's no fun to be had in his mischief when there's no response coming from Bronii in her current powered off state. He quietly pulls the covers back over her mature body and focuses instead on tamping down the erection he's been growing from all the teasing.
When Bronii finally wakes up, stretching like she's had the best sleep in the world, she lets the cover slip off her breasts as she raises her arms in the air, the two orbs bouncing threateningly as the reform into menances with gravity now pulling on them the right way, forcing Haryanto to look away quickly. "Are we going off soon?"
Haryanto meekly nods, and looks away harder.
By the time Haryanto and Bronii arrive at the Berequel Customs offices in New South Harales, it is about 8:30pm. The normally manned front counter area is completely empty of people save for a security guard who seems to be sleeping in his chair. He clearly isn't though, as he raises his arm to greet the couple without even opening his eyes or lifting his security cap.
"is anybody even working right now here?" Bronii pokes her head out from behind Haryanto's back, looking around as if expecting a haunting to occur.
Haryanto shrugs as he continues walking. "I was told to report to here today from 9pm to 6am with you in tow, dear. Just that, and no more. I do wonder what my teacher has for me tonight."
He turns his head slightly to glance, and smiles. Bronii has elected to go with a diaphanous white lace dress, dripping over the shape of her body in tempting ways, accentuated by matching white lace stockings and a pair of sensible middle-heel dress shoes and a small scarf in the same pearl color to keep herself warm on a colder summer night. It also shows off a couple of her best angles... and already Haryanto curses himself inside as he starts having to close his eyes for a moment to beat down the resulting new engorgement before it ruins his aura of decency.
Rounding a rounded corner down the main entrance corridor, they finally have their answer of sorts: Goren is standing in front of a small crowd of people, whom Haryanto recognises as nobody hes met in the offices before during daytime. In one corner, the cafeteria is sulking, but still dutilfully being a food and beverage professional as she taps the Freestyler custom drink machine and popcorn dispenser, before plopping down several stacks of some sort of giant two-compartment cups apparently designed to hold the popcorn and soda mix separately. The cups are all labelled with the Berequel Logo and "sponsors Spifftrax Nights".
Goren lifts up a loudhailer and begins to boom loudly through it. "Testing... testing, check your cash, check your ass, don't write a check your ass can't cash" he says nonsensically, as some sort of test pattern... "Okay, folks, welcome to another session of Berequel Customs' infamous SpiffTrax Nights! Tonight we have another advance screening of a movie that will only be out two days from now in the theaters here. and you get to do it for FREE!"
"Everyone get your choice of popcorn and/or mixed soda over there from Agatha. You can choose to fill both sides of your cup with only popcorn, or both sides with two separate mixes of soda, or have popcorn and soda, just not in the same compartment..."' He briefly pauses as he notices Haryanto and Bronii approach the crowd.
"The movie The Return of Shucky will last 95 minutes and will not start until everybody is seated properly with their cups. This is a Mature movie, and it's full of wicked horror, so if you're too young or young at heart to stomach that kind of shit, the exit through the main lobby is in that direction," He points in the direction Bronii and Haryanto just came from. "We'll refund your movie ticket in full tomorrow."
"We didn't pay jack shit to attend this event!" Someone in the crowd yells loudly.
Goren focuses his attention on the wag. "Doesn't that make wiring the money back to your accounts so much easier!"
The crowd bursts in laughter. Goren smiles wickedly, revelling in the moment as the leader of possibly an illegitimate event held under secrecy. Even Haryanto claps, admitting to himself that Goren might have a second career if he hadn't landed under the roof of this office building.
Bronii looks from side to side blankly. As well shall see, this is a sign of exactly the problem Goren wants to show Haryanto.
Part 5
Despite the apparent chaotic nature of the movie goers, they settle down surprisingly well, filling the hall in a surprisingly orderly manner...
Haryanto and Bronii do not join them in the stalls though.
Goren motions to the two of them to follow him up a nearby staircase and into a sort of stall in the upper floor seemingly intend for just a few people. "This is where all the bigshots sit around the hall during meetings, but tonight, you are my special guests in these hallowed seats." Goren proudly smiles as he suddenly bends a little to take one of Bronii's gloved hands, kissing it gently like a gentleman dealing with a lady. For one brief moment Haryanto has a tinge of green in his eyes from the proverbial monster as he watches Goren manage to extract a sort of giggling emotion from Bronii with ease... the feeling goes away as he remembers his master has far more experience working with Autoslavs than he has had, zero in fact.
Goren backs away and apologizes. "Beg your pardon, I need to start off the Digitalcam to pour the movie into the screen now. Be back in about... ten seconds... with that he walks out of the booth. Funnily enough, he does exactly as promised, sitting himself so that Haryanto is in between Goren himself and Bronii on his other side. "Movie starts in about a minute. Sorry I didn't think to bring any refreshments, but I think it would cause a mess later."
"What do you mean?" Haryanto asks quizzically. He doesn't get an upfront answer. What he DOES get is a piece of chewing gum and a pair of dark glasses. "Is this a 3d movie?"
Goren looks over, having already worn his own pair. "Wear them when I tell you to. I'll explain everything I promised I'd explain to you myself after this movie is over, but this is one of four parts of the answer."
Haryanto stares back and forth at Goren. "And what about Bronii? doesn't she get her own pair?" He asks in a soft whisper, trying not to disturb the enjoyment of the movie fans beneath them...
Goren thinks for a moment. Suddenly he has this wistful, apologetic look on his face. "She doesn't need them. Which is part of the problem, actually. Sorry for what I'm about to pull here, Haryanto. I promise I'll try to keep it short. But you need to promise not to make a fuss in here when it happens. There's a lot of people who won't understand or appreciate it if you do." He gestures to the stalls below, teeming with lots of happy people.
Haryanto goes on edge. Goren always has a reason when he pulls a stunt on him... but usually he just doesn't give a damn about anyone else, the perfect troll of sorts. He starts wondering how serious what Goren is about to pull on him is, if he's actually this pre-repentant about it.....
The movie title suddenly comes on, as a patrolman calmly walks through the snow in frame. He is suddenly set upon by a pint-sized doll of some sort with pigtails in a kid's short dress, and dispatched with a brutal series of stabs with a knife.
Goren glances over. "Now would be a good time for you to put on those glasses I gave you, Bob." He notes as if it was an aside.
"I don't see what could happen, really..." Haryanto offers, but he still puts the glasses on... and boggles at what he sees instead.
Goren leans over as Haryanto sees a new version of the world through the glasses Goren gave him. "It's kind of like what happened in They Live, except instead of consumerism, it's an encoded block of SMPTE data."
Haryanto nods. "It's not very pleasant, at the least. What's it for?" He asks as he takes off the glasses to rest his eyes, as he can only stare at the hall in monochrome and those blocks of hash on the code changing wildly every moment for so long.
Goren whispers under the loud mayhem as Shucky stuffs herself into a little girls Christmas gifts to pass her self off as an innocent toy... "Laugh-tracks, or L-Tracks, to use the technical term, are a data set that can be generated to flag important moments or sequences in a movie that they are associated with. By cross referencing that SMPTE code hash watermarked into the movie, with the data in the relevant L-Track, a Berequel Customs AI can be directed to generate selected responses to the movie itself. It's kind of like the old Captain Power cartoons they used to show on mornings on Earth, if you've ever taken "Ancient Memetics" in college."
Haryanto slowly starts disliking what he's hearing. "So you're telling me that we've fucked up how we simulate the reaction of all those hapless souls under our care?" He hisses. "Do you want to tell me what else could go wrong?" He motions his hands to Bronii, staring hard and trying not to get any louder than the hard whispers he's uttering right now.
Goren has only a few words. "What, indeed. Have you looked at Bronii lately, Bob?"
"What do you mean, Goren, she's right here, having a good time-" Haryanto turns his head to look at Bronii.
Bronii is, in fact, not having a good time. She seems to be having some sort of fit, eyes wide staring widely at the screen. Something is surpressing her volume, and Haryanto can hear her whispering gibberish, occasionally hearing an audible word like "Bob", or "help", or "error". a slight fluid is leaking from her eyes, trailing down her face like tears as her body violently shudders, sending her breasts wobbling like puddings in a big earthquake. Something is forcing her to shred her human simulation, and strangely enough it looks like she actually hates it...
Goren calmly lifts up a company badge belonging to himself. "We can save her the anguish. Just put her in coma mode with your owner code, or I can use my tech override if you can't remember it exactly. there's still an hour left before it expires and no longer generates a valid override tone code tone..."
Haryanto grits his teeth, in a pain of his own at seeing his loved one in what seems like pain to her. "I'll take door number three, sir." He remarks as he grips Bronii's lace scarf and pulls it right off of her bare shoulders. Grabbing hold of one end of the scarf, he quickly starts wrapping the scarf around Bronii's head, turning it into a makeshift sort of blind fold, based on a hunch.
It works. Bronii's fits slowly subside, before she slumps a little in her seat, weakly panting but no longer held hostage by her peculiar tremors...
Haryanto keeps his promise, maintaing his volume to a low hard whispering as he turns back to look at Goren. "Actually there's a second prize in there, Sir."
Goren tilts his head in puzzlement. "And that would be?"
A movie goer briefly glances up and behind himself to take in the majesty of the local Berequel Customs hall. It's amazingly well attended. amazingly well attired too. The sound speakers feel like you were there, the Digitalcam projector makes everything feel like it's happening right in the room unlike the dinky old clunker back in his village's rec room -
He pauses his appraisal of the hall and event as he watches someone Asian, darkskinned, punch the event host hard in the jaw in the stalls above, as a woman dressed totally in black lace including a sort of helm wrapping around half her head clutches her head.
"Nope, that did not happen, did not see it." He thought to himself as he abruptly terminated his lookaround to focus on the less violent act of Shucky running a pitchfork through two bullies cosplaying as farmers...
Part 6
The movie screening ends with no further major incident, save the horrifying end of Shucky as she gets sent through a bacon slicing machine as a final act of defence by the girl and her mother. As the crowd files out to find their ways home in the absence of most public transport running this close to midnight, only one movie goer is left as the post-credit scene rolls, threatening another return of Shucky.
He watched the three people slowly leave the stall seats above her, the Asian man gently offering his shoulders for the lady to walk with, the event host following in tow clutching a iced bottle of drink to a bruised jaw. As he considers all of this, he has one thought:
"THIS SPIFFTRAX NIGHT THING IS FUCKING AWESOME! I'm coming back next time it happens!"
Agatha pales when she finds the three of them resting along the staircase to the VIP stalls. The incident Goren caused wound up turning into a three casualty.
Bronii is still sitting on the staircase, her head wreathed in her scarf-turned-protective-blindfold.
Haryanto is sitting next to her on the steps, his feelings and possibly the knuckles on one of his fists hurting.
Goren seems to be the worst off of the three, gingerly using a celebratory drink from the fridge in the VIP stalls to tenderly nurse a bruised and possibly cracked jaw. "It's on me. I inflicted possible damage on the loved one of a patient man with a vengeful rage. this is on me."
"That's not what I was going to ask about, Goren, sir." Agatha frowns as she looks worriedly at Goren. You can tell there might be some sort of emotion that she has for him... Still, she remains professional. "I have given the L-Track crew the audience cameras and the review forms from the audience."
Goren nods slowly, trying not to set off a new twinge of jaw pain. He sits there, watching Agatha slowly descend back down the staircase until she can no longer be heard going down its curving path.
There is no more noise left as the three people stew in the aftermath of what just happened 90 minutes ago...
It is Goren who suddenly whispers, as if if trying to avoid stirring up more pain by opening his jaw. "I tried to warn them. I saw it in testing. I gave my protests but nobody listened to me. I thought... I thought if I demonstrated it to the new bright and shiny boy that just came in, I could get it finally escalated somewhere where Dr Saulomon would pay attention to it..."
Haryanto doesn't speak for a while. Eventually though... "Congratulations. it probably will work better if you pretend you didn't know exactly how it would happen, and mention who was harmed exactly to make this demo happen... when you write the minority report and field it to Dr Saulomon's office over their heads. I'll help you with that if you need it... just not right today."
Goren looks away. "I'm... terribly sorry."
Haryanto stands up slowly, clearly very exhausted as he dials out on his communicator for a cab ride, pausing to add his company code so as to send the bill to Berequel Customs to pay on. It's the least they can do after what they did to his wife.
His wife... Haryanto pauses and looks to Bronii. "Come on, Bronii, the movie's over, you can take off that blindfold. Let's go home."
Bronii does something unexpected. "Can't. don't want to. would rather stand on this step forever. too scared. don't want any more demons taking over all of me. Can't do anything. Bob. Help me. Bob. Help me." She bleats plainitively, a sort of rictus of fear on her mouth as she just stands there.
Haryanto sighs. "You don't have to do the walking then..." There is a faint eep as Haryanto suddenly lifts up her body, slightly surprised at how light it is despite its visual heft, and starts princess carrying her. He thinks for a moment, then realises he has something more to say.
"If you do that minority report properly and omit the bits I ask you to omit, I will vouch for you when Dr Saulomon speaks to me about this incident. and I might begin to forgive you and respect you again as someone to learn things from. Make no mistake though, I want you to treat me and anyone else in your reach right from now on. No more trolls. No more hurtful stunts like this."
Goren blinks and glances hard at Haryanto for a few moments, before looking down and realising that the young man who just walked in and stole his thunder these past few weeks genuinely was superior to him. "I... I understand."
Haryanto drops the rest of his grudge right there on the steps and proceeds to walk down as well, eventually leaving Goren alone.
it is already 3am in the wee morning by the time Haryanto nudges the door to his... their... home open. There were some security risks to using a key that unlocked the door simply by coming close to its lock, but right now he was too tired to care about all those detractors. He walks slowly into the dim light of his bedroom, slowly easing her onto her side of the bed, her lace-covered bottom causing the bed mattress to squish down a little, before he sits down on his own side of the bed, facing away from Bronii, sighing a little as he begins to get off the clothing of the evening. He has already gotten off his shirt is starting on his trousers when he notices that Bronii hasn't moved a single inch, simply sitting on the bed, shaking slightly.
"Bronii? Are you... okay?"
Bronii slowly turns around to look at Haryanto. or at least, if her blindfold wasn't on she'd be looking at him. "I... am not okay... That thing did... something to me... I couldn't see anything real. all I could see was little bits slowly fraying away from me. something inhuman beneath. My motion, restricted. body. burning." She quivers, as Haryanto looks even more worried.
is it possible he might have to roll back her memories to before this wretched evening...? But then... he looks at Bronii. There's something different about her now, something that needs to be protected despite crack that's been made in her firm outer shell...
He opts for Door number 3 again, suddenly reaching out to hug her to him, as he breathes deeply against her skin, watching the peach fuzz ripple slightly. One of his hands reaches for the back zip of Bronii's lace dress as he sits there, struggling slightly to leave on his briefs on. "I am Bob Haryanto. You are..." he pauses a little, then decides there's no turning back anyway. "You are my wife. you have seen something truly horrible tonight. Tomorrow, I will begin to help you put the pieces together. I will help you become stronger than you ever were, the day you stepped off your flight and helped me get my life put together."
Bronii shivers. either from the peach fuzz buzzing along her naked shoulder, or from the words... possibly both.
"But for tonight," Haryanto continues, his mind abuzz as he tries to put nice things together, lies or not. "tonight, you started by losing your control. So, I think we should fix that by giving you a chance to regain it with something else..." He continues, as he slowly helps her shrug off her lace getup, one small piece dropping off followed by another until she sits totally naked against his own bare body. "And maybe you will see something beautiful again."
And with that, the blindfold comes off... as Bronii turns into a wild animal atop Haryanto's prone body.
"And sir, this is my own report on the incident that happened and which involved ..." Haryanto pauses briefly over the telecommunicator. "her."
If Haryanto could see Dr Saulomon's face, he would be frightened by how vengeful he looks. instead, he can only hear the calmness, as if of an ocean wave banging against a rock. Dr Saulomon gives a sort of nodding hmm over the phone. "And Geron had no responsibility in this beyond accidentally discovering this issue because of a lark when he invited you and..." another one of those pauses, is it longing for something he can no longer have? "Bronii?"
"It is as you state, sir." Haryanto lies through his teeth. Covering his ass was far better than he deserved probably, but he'd made a promise to him about it and he was still kind of a good man once you ignored his occasional moments of being an asshole. Besides, there was much more that he could genuinely teach him. "Sir, may I attend further to Bronii now? She is still in a bit of a fragile state and I need to be more attentive to her."
"Go to her. And Haryanto?" Dr Saulomon starts ending the call. "I'm glad I chose you to give her to your care." There is a click as the line goes dead.
Haryanto wistfully clicks the power button on his communicator... before a sharp pain runs down his back. as he walks back to the bedroom, letting his gaze fall on her prone, naked body. She had become something frightening, looming over him with an inexplicable lust, turning him suddenly into the weaker sex as she'd ravaged him all over with raking nails and hard kisses in strange new places, using his own staff as a source of joy by doing something with her pussy to crush it ever so often. This had all been done without any care for her power reserves, leaving nothing for the act of self-maintenance or proper positioning for bed. The whole rush had ended with her quietly declaring a love for him through her lowering voice, before the whole assembly flopped limply against him. It had been an interesting time shifting her around by hand, making sure she was getting recharged before he'd flopped tiredly against the rising sunshine painting his... their bed.
Haryanto laughed oddly as he thought through everything that had just happened in the past four hours. The original Bronii merely sent a washbasin into his face. He truly did prefer this version. As Dr Saulomon had said, 10% of her was someone different. Clearly it was different enough to wreck him, but he kind of liked that in its own way.
He sniffed at himself. Clearly they were going to have to get a proper bath together to start this Saturday later.
And with that, he joined his new old wife in deep sleep.