The Rehab Clinic
The Rehab Clinic
Part 1
Two days after Tess had fallen asleep as a human, she was brought online as a virtualized intelligence. Confused and disoriented, she needed another four hours to organize her consciousness and remember who she was. Minutes later, she was communicating with her technicians using plain text. Her first non-garbled output message was
TESS> is this how this thing works????? Helloo?????
The following day, Tess had a face. The technicians ran tests on her, made adjustments, then ran more tests. Eye movement came quickly and naturally. Mouth movement and voice synthesis came more slowly, and she was still primarily communicating over plain text to a nearby terminal. At her request, a technician held up a mirror. Her face was exactly what she had hoped it would be.
She had picked it out herself. She was still recognizable as Tess. The soft plastic of her face retained her original skin tone, nose, cheekbones, and full lips. The triangular status light in the middle of her forehead was new, which glowed a soft green, occasionally flickering yellow. The irises of her eyes rotated as they adjusted her focus, and deep within her pupils were pinpricks of white light. She had wanted her new look to be unmistakable: I am still Tess, but now I’m a robot. Her face was mounted on a metal frame, with a variety of wires and cables extending from behind her face to various computers and monitors at the edge of her reflection.
After more testing, a robotic woman entered her field of vision. She was dressed in a well-fitted short-sleeved white physician’s coat and teal trousers. Her synthetic skin was a realistic tone, but her visible elbows and wrists were shiny and metallic, with obviously mechanical joints. “Hello, Tess. Remember me? I’m Barbara, your case worker.” Tess recalled immediately. Barbara White, a senior staff member here at the Slate Ridge clinic. She and her friends had met Barbara in the numerous consultations before beginning the virtualization and reconstruction procedure. Tess replied over text.
TESS> Hello again Barbara. How are Tamiko and Kali?
Barbara smiled. “Your bandmates are doing well, but you have been progressing faster than them. Tess, I want you to practice using your voice more. Don’t get too reliant on plain text.” Tess replied with a grunt, followed by a strangled croak.
TESS> I don’t want to bother the technicians with my weird noises.
One of the techs waved dismissively. “We’re used to it. Keep on practicing.”
Barbara supervised some of the ongoing testing and vocal practice before excusing herself from the room. Tess was impatient to be a complete robot, but she knew, based on numerous earlier discussions, that newly roboticized people needed to get acquainted with their systems gradually, one by one. Throwing everything at them all at once was setting them up for failure, as some unfortunate early uploads had discovered. _____
Barbara walked down the hall to the computer lab with the name “Tamiko” on the door. Entering, she saw two technicians hunched over a computer console. Behind the console, the boxy machine that currently housed Tamiko’s mind hummed.
“Any progress?”
One of the techs turned around. “A little, but it’s slow going. She keeps destabilizing. It’s been two steps forward, one step back."
“And that’s when it’s not two steps forward, three steps back,” the other technician grumbled.
Barbara’s eyebrows furrowed. Rebuilding a digitized human consciousness from the ground up was tricky on the best of days. The hard truth is, the human brain is not built like a computer. Neurons are not bytes. Memories don’t have a folder structure. It takes considerable effort on the part of technicians, helped by significant computer resources, to guide a messy clump of semi-sentient code into regaining self awareness and personal identity. In some cases, they never succeed. It was a known risk of the procedure, made clear to everyone who underwent it.
“Keep at it. This is a high profile client. We really don’t want to resort to last-ditch protocols.”
“Shouldn’t be necessary,” the tech reassured her. “She’ll make it. Just taking a while longer.”
_____
Barbara resumed her rounds. She checked on Kali next. Kali’s consciousness had stabilized and was communicating with technicians via plain text. She would be ready for her face, sight, and voice testing by tomorrow. Satisfied, Barbara returned to the lab that contained Tess. The face of the incomplete robot girl looked up at her.
“Buh. Buh.” Tess said. At the same time, she sent a plain text message to the console.
TESS> Still practicing!
“Very good!” Barbara said. Tess, it’s the end of the day. Our technicians are going home soon. It’s time for you to sleep for the night.
TESS> You mean, turn me off.
“We prefer to call it sleeping.”
TESS> I made the decision to become a robot. Robots don’t sleep, we get turned off.
“Well, if that’s what you prefer to call it, that’s your decision. Tess, I’m about to turn you off.”
TESS> Can I do it myself?
“Not for now. For safety reasons, we don’t allow new patients to do that. Turning yourself off accidentally could cause problems. Don’t worry, you’ll have full access to all of your functions before you know it.”
A warning flashed across Barbara’s consciousness. This was taking too long. Without waiting for another reply from Tess, she entered the shutdown command on the console, and her patient turned off with a click. The status indicator on Tess’s forehead went dark, as did the lights in her still-open eyes.
Satisfied, she left the lab, proffering a kindly goodbye to the technicians, who were also on their way out. They would be going home, back to families, entertainment, and lives. Barbara, on the other hand, would not. Obeying her programming, she walked down several halls, then through the door labelled Automated Systems Lounge. The “lounge” was a storage place for robots owned by Slate Ridge; robots like her. She stripped naked, dropping her uniform into a laundry hamper. Barbara walked past small floor-cleaning robots, waist-high delivery bots, and several staff members, male, female, and genderless, each one deactivated and recharging.
Reaching her designated recharging interface, Barbara plugged the power and diagnostics cables into the ports located on the back of her neck. As her systems performed a series of automated checks, she performed the same calculations she made at the end of every day. She would continue working for Slate Ridge until the value of her labor paid for the cost of her robotization. 5 years, 165 days down. At current rates: 12 years, 74 days to go.
She did not feel the sensation of being turned off. She never did.
Part 2
Tess felt her systems come online.
Day after day, she had been gradually introduced to new body parts and systems, slowly gaining mastery over arms and hands, neck and torso, legs and feet. She could even wiggle her toes now. By sending commands to her own internal systems, she could pull up all sorts of information about herself. Battery levels, processor load, memory capacity, joint stress levels, error logs... she didn’t understand most of it, but it felt empowering just that she could do it. She could turn herself off too, and did so when instructed at the end of each day.
As Tess’s vision came into focus, she looked around. She was seated in a wheelchair, and dressed in a simple hospital gown. Her robotic case worker Barbara, along with a human technician she knew as David, stood nearby.
“Good morning, Tess.” Barbara said, smiling.
“Good morning!” said Tess, using her voice. She was even starting to sound like her original self, rather than a complete mess.
“We’ve been talking, and today’s the big day. The technical staff and I have agreed that you and your bandmates have made enough progress to visit each other. Are you ready?”
“More than ready!” Tess eagerly replied. David took the handles of the wheelchair, and started pushing her out the door of her lab, and down the hall, with Barbara close behind. Although Tess could move her legs and feet, the fine art of using them to walk was still very difficult, and so the wheelchair was still the best means of moving her around.
Wheeling around a corner, Tess spotted another patient in a wheelchair down the hall, sitting stationary. As she came closer, she recognized who it was.
“Kali!”
“Tess! There you are!” Kali’s voice was understandable, but badly distorted. The bassist and lead vocalist of the Blue Tigers still needed some work before she could go back to the concert scene. Kali was self-aware enough to joke about it. “Yes, I still sound like a Decepticon,” drawing a giggle from Tess.
As they were brought in close together, they each leaned in for a big hug. They were best friends, practically sisters, and being separated had been tough. Tess drew back to take a good look at Kali. Like Tess, she had chosen to keep a close replica of her face, with tiny white lights in her eyes. Kali’s status light was a narrow ring around her throat, like a choker. It glowed a soft green. Tess looked up at her friend’s most distinctive feature. Part of Kali’s signature look had been a cat-ear headband she wore while performing. While planning her transformation, she had opted to make the cat-ears a part of her new robotic body, and they poked up above her synthetic hair. The ears flicked left and right, tracking ambient sounds.
“You look amazing!” Tess was beaming at her friend.
“You too!”
Barbara knocked on a nearby lab door, which Tess belatedly noticed was labeled “Tamiko”. A moment later, Barbara slowly opened it. “Ladies, your last bandmate awaits.”
Tess and Kali were wheeled into the lab, which was very similar to the areas they had been rehabilitating in. They gasped. Their friend was not as far along in the rehab process as they were. Tamiko was a head, shoulders, a pair of arms and hands, and a mess of circuits and wires, mounted on a metal frame on a low workbench. She was offline, arms limp, eyes open, but dark. Her status lights, a pair of narrow wedge shapes on her cheeks, were also dark. Tamiko’s appearance gave Tess a moment’s pause. Yes, they were robots, and looked the part, but on some level Tess still felt human. Tamiko, a lifeless half-built gynoid, truly looked like a machine. It made the depth of their transformation feel so much more real.
“We wanted her to see you when she woke up.” Barbara said, tapping Tamiko’s nearby console. Tamiko’s eyes lit up, and her status lights went green, flickering yellow. Her voice synthesizer made a series of chirps and grunts, while her console indicated a plain text message.
TAMIKO> OMG you guyssss!!!!
“Hey, Tamiko!” Kali pulled herself in for a hug, which Tamiko returned clumsily. Tess went in next.
TAMIKO> The band is back together!!
Tess smiled, seeing Tamiko’s plain-text message on the console. “Yes it is.”
TAMIKO> Your both in full bodies! im jealous.
“Don’t be too jealous. We can’t walk yet.” Kali motioned to the wheelchairs she and Tess were sitting in. “You’ll catch up soon.”
TAMIKO> Do they turn you off at night too?
Kali and Tess both nodded. “Yeah, they prefer to call it ‘sleeping’.” Tess said. She glanced aside at Barbara, David, and the other technicians she didn’t know. Their presence was suddenly really awkward. “But it’s fine.” She hastily added.
“How far along is Tamiko? What’s her next upgrade?” Kali asked Barbara.
Barbara shrugged. “That’s private information…” she began. Tamiko’s console lit up.
TAMIKO> You can tell them anything. I have nothing private from them.
Barbara saw the message, and continued. “Well, her chest is ready for installation…”
“Booooobs!” Kali cheered. “Boobs! Boobs! Boobs!” Tess rolled her eyes. They had shared many dressing rooms over the years. They didn’t have a sexual relationship, but the three bandmates had become relaxed in the casual nudity department. Leave it to Kali to make it weird. Tamiko, for her part, smiled.
TAMIKO> Bring on the boobs!
And so, the technicians installed Tamiko’s chest, as well as her upper back. She was now an intact fembot from the ribcage up, still mounted to the workbench. Tamiko immodestly fondled her new breasts.
“Lookin’ good, Tamiko.” Kali said. “Did you make them bigger?”
TAMIKO> They’re the same size as before.
Kali grinned. “Liar.” Tamiko stuck out her tongue.
TAMIKO> How about you guys? What do they have you doing?
“Practicing with our legs, and our hands. Tossing and catching balls, that kind of thing,” Tess replied.
“I think we’ll be trying to walk soon,” Kali added.
TAMIKO> I’m jealous
Tess held Tamiko’s hand. “You’ll catch up in no time.”
TAMIKO> I’m jealous
Tess blinked at Tamiko’s repetition, then looked up from the text console to her friend’s face. The indicator lights on her cheeks were red, flickering yellow.
TAMIKO> æm jea£ØhYvß
The half-complete fembot’s eyes seemed to un-focus. Her arms moved jerkily, at random.
TAMIKO> ÈÈÈÈÈÈÈààààààà
A technician moved in quickly to Tamiko’s console. With a few deft keystrokes, he shut her down. Tamiko stopped moving, and her lights went dark, her eyes staring sightlessly ahead.
“What the hell was that?!” asked Kali, alarmed.
Barbara cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. Your friend had a software crash. She’s still adjusting. For now, I think she needs more time and privacy. She’s still getting better every day.” Tess and Kali had little to say, still processing the unsettling scene. After brief goodbyes, they were each wheeled back to their respective recovery rooms. The image of Tamiko’s lifeless, frozen face stuck with Tess. Her friend had looked like a broken doll. A thing, not a person. It was a strange combination of creepy and exhilarating knowing she was fundamentally the same.
Part 3
Tess felt her systems come online. It was a new day, and she was ready to get back to re-learning how to walk. She and Kali had been practicing together for the last several days in one of the rehab rooms, appointed with a variety of railings and padded floors. As part of her morning routine, Tess checked her internal systems. Everything looked normal. She had even been learning what some of the readings actually meant. She glanced at her system clock. It was 9:02 am on Friday the 22nd.
Wait, no. That can’t be right. Yesterday was Wednesday the 20th, wasn’t it? Her eyes came online to see her usual technician, David, as well as Barbara, her fembot case worker.
“Good morning, Tess.” Barbara said, cheerfully.
“Good morning. um… My internal clock says it’s Friday. Is that right?”
David glanced at Barbara. Barbara nodded to Tess. “Yes, it’s Friday morning.”
“Was I turned off all day yesterday? I remember Wednesday. Walking practice with Kali, hand exercises… but not yesterday.”
“Well,” Barbara knelt next to Tess’s bed. “You had a major software malfunction yesterday. So, we had to restore you from your nightly backup.” Barbara smiled brightly. “Now you’re as good as new!”
“A backup?”
“Yes, we back you up every night. I believe we discussed this in the consultations we had before you went through the procedure.”
They had discussed it, but Tess was now wrapping her head around this concept in a fresh new context. “So I’m… a copy?”
“You’re the one and only Tess.” Barbara said, still smiling. “It’s one of the benefits of a digitized existence. No matter what happens, you can be restored. At most, you just lose a day. Not so bad, don’t you agree?”
Tess had to agree. Not only was it painless, she didn’t even feel a sense of lost time. As far as she was concerned, she was turned off Wednesday night, and was turned the following day… except it wasn’t the following day. ___
Soon, Tess was in the walking rehab room with Kali. “Oh yeah, you glitched out real bad.” Kali told her, practicing walking while clutching firmly onto a railing. “Remember the video you shared of that robot chick going spastic in the dog park? You looked like that.”
Tess winced. That wasn’t a flattering look. “Open panels and everything?”
“Oh yeah. Circuits and wires.”
Tess buried her face in her hands. So embarrassing.
“At least there wasn’t smoke,” Kali said placatingly. It didn’t help. “So you say they restored you from a backup? What was that like?”
Tess relayed the experience, or rather, non-experience of it. “Cool.” Kali said.
“Kinda weird, if you ask me,” Tess opined.
“You were basically resurrected, and didn’t feel a thing. That’s pretty cool.” Kali said, reaching the end of her railing, then turning around and starting back. “How about you, Barbara? Ever been restored from a backup before?”
“Several times.” The robotic case worker had been sitting in a chair nearby, supervising Kali and Tess’s rehab. “It will happen less frequently as your personality matrix, your code, gets more accustomed to its new state of existence. Hardware glitches will also decrease, with time. Your custom bodies are all practically prototypes. We’re still working out the kinks. That’s an important aspect of the rehab process. Better to malfunction here, in a private and controlled setting, than in public.”
“Speaking of malfunctioning, I’m getting warnings about CPU temperature?” Kali spoke up. The choker-like indicator light around her throat glowed yellow.
“Sit in that chair there,” said Barbara, pointing. “I’ll send for a technician.”
As Kali sat, Barbara gave no outward sign of how she contacted a technician. No doubt some form of networked communication from her computerized brain. A minute later, a technician entered the room. The woman tapped a few times on a tablet. Kali suddenly sat up straight in her chair. Her face went blank, completely expressionless. Her status light, a worrying yellow just moments before, now glowed a soft blue.
“Take off your shirt, Kali,” the technician said. Kali wordlessly obeyed, not showing even a hint of modesty as she now sat topless, still expressionless. As the tech opened the service panels on Kali’s back, Barbara spoke up, answering Tess’s unasked question. “It’s called passive mode. It’s useful for troubleshooting purposes. Kali can still see and hear us, and she’s quite comfortable. She’s just not in the driver’s seat, so to speak.” Tess looked on. The technician gave simple commands to Kali, telling her to make simple movements. The technician watched her tablet while Kali wordlessly obeyed. An obedient automaton, like an old fashioned maid droid. Tess would need to ask Kali what it felt like, later.
Part 4
Tess was bored. She was nearing the end of her rehabilitation, and rehab activities were only occupying part of her day. At this point, Tess could dress herself, jog, balance on one foot, and even sing a little. They had even let her practice her guitar, and she was starting to regain the coordination to finger some chords. The technicians told her that, once she got more advanced with her new body, she could pre-program the motions of her fingers, hitting the same notes every time with mechanical precision. It was tempting, but she was too much of a pure musician for that. She wanted to play, not just run a script on the computer in her head.
But as much as she loved playing her guitar, it just wasn’t the same without her bandmates alongside her, and they weren’t ready. Kali wasn’t nearly coordinated enough to play a single bass chord, and Tamiko was still a glitchy mess who could barely speak, much less walk or play the drums. They were still busy all day with their respective rehab regimens, while Tess mostly had empty time. And so, the boredom.
The staff had granted her permission to explore the facility unsupervised, provided she didn’t go into staff-only spaces. There were some lounges, rehab training spaces, and a fancy lobby. But for the most part, the Slate Ridge clinic was… clinical. Sterile halls, lab equipment, patient rooms, computer servers, bathrooms, and janitorial closets. The only remotely interesting place to go was the garden out back.
The garden was a tranquil setting with trimmed grass, manicured hedges, old-fashioned benches, a gentle stream, and even a fountain in a small pond. Flowers bloomed in a riot of colors and shapes. Birds chirped, bees bumbled, and occasionally you could spot a rabbit. It was an ode to nature, even while being as obviously artificial as Tess was.
Tess didn’t really have a sense of smell anymore. Sure, she could sense airborne substances with her nose, but it didn’t feel like smell. It didn’t feel like anything. As she sat on one of the garden benches, Tess mentally pulled up her olfactory data.
Her nose told her that the surrounding air contained 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen, and smaller amounts of Argon, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other compounds. Before her transformation, before an advanced chemical sensor suite was inside her head, she hadn’t known that air was mostly Nitrogen. She had probably learned it in science class at some point earlier in life, and had swiftly forgotten it. Tess didn’t forget anything anymore. If she wanted to, she could go back into her memory and count how many times she had seen her rehab technician blink, two Wednesdays ago.
In her mind, Tess expanded on the “other compounds” section. A list entered her mind. Tree pollens, flower pollens, mineral dust, animal pheromones, and on and on it went. As a gardener shaped some nearby hedges with a motorized trimmer, she detected a sharp increase of complex hydrocarbons in the air.
Lacking anything better to do, Tess scrolled through her sensor data, looking for something interesting. Finally something caught her attention. Cayenne pepper. More scrolling… paprika, cumin, jalapeno. She instinctively sniffed the air but, as usual, she didn’t really smell anything at all.
She got up. She could sense the direction of the gentle breeze, so she walked upwind. Around the corner of the building, outside the garden, a taco truck was parked in the driveway of the clinic. Some of the clinic staff were buying their lunch. Tess’s curiosity was piqued. What would the “smell” of tacos be like, with her new senses?
Tess opened an ornate iron gate on the fence that marked the exterior of the garden, and let herself out. She walked on the lawn toward the driveway, monitoring the growing concentrations of spices in the air. Then, all at once, she stopped walking. She stood still, arms at her sides staring straight ahead. Tess was confused. Why couldn’t she move? Was she malfunctioning? Would she need to be restored from a backup again? It made Tess a little sad, knowing that the semi-interesting experience of discovering a taco truck could be completely taken away from her memory.
Then, she noticed the light blue box at the top corner of her vision. “Passive Mode”, it said. Tess began to understand. She had seen Kali put into Passive Mode before. She was frozen in place, waiting to obey the commands of an authorized user. But… there were no authorized users around. The staff, buying tacos at the truck some distance away, apparently hadn’t noticed her. And so, Tess stood, silent, still, and mute. She knew, without seeing, that the status light on her forehead was glowing a soft blue, just like Kali’s had done.
Tess had been fighting boredom earlier. And yet now, stationary and unable to do anything, she wasn’t bored at all. She was euphoric. She had wanted to be a robot so much, for so long, and now her artificiality was on full display. “Somebody command me.” She silently begged. “Somebody use me.”
“Tess! There you are!” She heard soft footfalls upon the lawn, until Barbara stepped into her field of view. The robotic case worker looked Tess up and down. “You don’t look damaged. Tess, system status summary.”
“All systems are nominal. Battery at 73%. Unit is in Passive Mode.” Tess’s body spoke automatically, without any will or input from her. This was so cool!
Barbara breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Okay, Tess: follow me.” Barbara walked back toward the garden gate. Tess followed. Or, rather, Tess’s body followed. Tess wasn’t in control whatsoever as some built-in AI walked her surprisingly well across the lawn, into the garden, and then into the clinic, two paces behind Barbara.
Walking through halls and up stairs, Tess’s eyes remained locked forward. At the periphery of her vision, she could tell she was getting some glances from members of the clinic staff. It felt a little different than usual. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she felt like they used to see her as a patient, and now they see a robot. It gave her a thrill.
“Barbara, can I borrow you for a minute?” A staff member gave a small wave to the case worker.
“Sure,” Barbara said. She turned around. “Tess, go to your room. I will meet you there in a bit.” Tess’s body obeyed. Apparently it knew the way. Or maybe it was reading her mind? Her computerized brain was a part of her body, after all. She pondered that while she walked on autopilot down the corridors, managing not to bump into staff, wheelchairs, and maintenance bots.
Tess reached her room, opened the door, and walked in. Two steps inside, she stopped and stood still. She had completed her orders, and was awaiting new commands. She waited, staring ahead at the wall. A few minutes later, she heard the door close behind her. “Sit down on the bed,” she heard Barbara's voice say. Tess obeyed, of course, turning to sit on the bed and, in doing so, facing in Barbara’s general direction. Barbara sat herself in a nearby chair, her face just a little below the center of Tess’s vision.
“You were put into Passive Mode automatically because you got too far from the building,” Barbara spoke comfortingly to her immobile robotic patient, who was staring over the top of her head. “Since you haven’t been cleared for release yet, this is for your protection. Some newly roboticized people get confused, you see, and this is a simple yet effective way to keep them from wandering off.” Barbara left out the part that she, too, was under a similar restriction, though with a somewhat larger radius.
Tess’s system received a digital signal from Barbara, and suddenly she was out of Passive Mode, and back to normal. She blinked, then looked at Barbara. “That was… interesting.”
Barbara smiled. “Some people hate it. I’m glad to see you’re not worse for wear.”
“Is it possible for me to put myself into Passive Mode?”
Barbara arched an eyebrow. “Why would you want to? You would just be frozen in place until a staff member put you back into Active Mode.” “I’m just thinking of a game I could play with my friends.”
Barbara shrugged. “I suppose there’s no harm in it. Just make sure you’re not in a precarious position when you freeze yourself. Lay down on the bed and show me your ports.”
Tess did as she was instructed. Showing Barbara her ports meant rolling to the side, giving her case worker easy access to a variety of data ports located at the nape of her neck. Barbara pulled a data cable from out of her wrist, and plugged it into one such port. Tess couldn’t feel Barbara changing her internal settings, but she did feel herself reboot.
“Okay, you’re all set. I need to continue my rounds. Keep working on your guitar, you’re starting to sound good!”
“Thanks, Barbara.”
After Barbara left, Tess sat up again. Mentally flicking through her command options, she found it. After a moment’s hesitation, she activated Passive Mode again. She froze in place, staring forward. She was expecting her friend Tamiko to visit her in twenty minutes or so, pushed in a wheelchair by a technician. She knew the tech would see Tess with her status indicator light glowing blue, and unfreeze her. Until then, Tess was content to be a simple obedient robot, waiting for a command.
Part 5
Kali felt her systems come online. Her internal clock told her it was 9:03 am. Her cat-like ears twisted in the direction of a nearby sound. She opened her eyes to see her rehab technician James, standing near her status console. “Good morning, James,” she said. Her voice sounded almost natural, her practice with the vocal synthesizer was paying off.
“You can call me Jim,” he said, with a nod and a smile. God, she loved that smile. Kali felt her CPU temperature rise a degree, and her cooling systems began to compensate.
James, now “Jim”, had recently replaced her previous rehab tech, and in a short amount of time she had developed a fierce crush on the man. The way he assured her and supported her, the feel of his hands as he helped her in rehab exercises, his dreamy eyes, and that incredible smile. Today was the day, she decided, that she was going to start actively flirting with him. She knew it was a long shot; he was probably too professional to get into a romantic entanglement with a patient, but it was worth a try.
Kali sat up in her bed, put her feet on the floor, and stood up. She wobbled on her unsteady artificial legs, and allowed herself to “stumble”, just a little, into Jim. He caught her with those strong arms of his. “Woah there, take your time. Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” Kali was more than okay. “Thank you.” Positioned as she was, she knew Jim had an excellent view down the front of her simple clinical gown. Kali stood back up, more steady this time, and smiled up at Jim. “What’s the plan for today?”
“Fine motor control this morning, then you’ll have some social time with your friends. This afternoon we’ll work on vocal exercises, then go back to the same balance exercises as yesterday. Then the usual diagnostics and backup. Go ahead and get dressed, and meet me in room 305 when you’re ready, and bring your bass guitar.”
Kali nodded, and Jim flashed her that amazing smile again before leaving the room. Then Kali started going through her suitcase. She had brought several changes of clothes with her to Slate Ridge, though she had only started wearing them recently. During her earlier days of rehab, when she was incapable of dressing herself, she had been draped in a basic hospital-style gown. Now, she had more agency. But with that freedom, there came decisions. What to wear?
She wanted something that emphasized her assets, but she didn’t want to look too slutty. There. This one. A slim crop top that hugged her shape, with a modest neckline, that showed just a little bit of skin above the waist. She combined it with a cute pair of shorts that drew the eye to her perfect, synthetic thighs. Dressing herself was finally starting to feel natural again, and it only took her three attempts to fasten the button on her shorts. Finally, she picked up her guitar case, and made her way to room 305.
____
Hours later, Kali was sitting and laughing with her friends, in Tamiko’s room. Tamiko’s room had become their default hangout location, mostly because Kali and Tess were able to walk by themselves, while Tamiko still had mobility issues. Today Tamiko’s mobility was particularly limited, since the bottom half of her body was disconnected. Her pelvis and legs were being adjusted in another room somewhere, and Tamiko’s top half was mounted on a workbench. She still communicated over plain text, via a nearby screen.
TAMIKO> Another rollback this morning
Kali understood. Tamiko’s software matrix had destabilized yet again, and she had to be restored from an earlier backup. “But it’s happening less frequently than before, right?”
TAMIKO> I think so. It’s hard to keep track.
Kali wanted to stay cheerful, for Tamiko’s sake. Tamiko was being so strong, despite the difficulties she was going through. The virtualization of a human mind into a machine carried risks, and everybody’s experience was different. Tamiko was having a very rough time of it. The digital code of her mind had a tendency to unravel, resulting in frequent, massive software crashes. As a result, her rehabilitation had been slowed significantly. What good was a day’s progress in hand-eye coordination if your brain needed to be reloaded from an earlier saved backup?
One of the changes the staff made on Tamiko’s behalf was to start backing her up every two hours, instead of daily. That way, less progress would be lost. Not all of the backups were good, though. Sometimes Tamiko would destabilize immediately after restoration, so they would need to pull from an earlier backup. At this point, the software data that was Tamiko had been copied, re-copied, transferred, pasted, and saved dozens and dozens of times. Yet despite it all, Tamiko was still Tamiko. Her spirit and optimism carried through, and Kali couldn’t think of anyone else who could deal with her situation as well as she had.
“And what’s this I hear about you freezing up on the lawn?” Kali asked Tess, who sat nearby.
Tess stuck her tongue out. “That wasn’t a malfunction, everything was working as intended.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a safety thing. They don’t want patients wandering too far away from the building. I didn’t really freeze, it just put me in Passive Mode. I was waiting for commands.”
TAMIKO> So we’re trapped here? That’s kinda creepy.
Tess shrugged. “We all agreed to be here, and we’re going to stay here until we’re ready to go, right? All of us.”
Kali nodded. “We’re all here until we’re all ready to leave together.”
Tamiko smiled, and it actually looked like a smile, for a change. Facial expressions are tricky in a new body. Tamiko’s voice synthesizer gave off a sound that might have been a self-depreciating chuckle. TAMIKO> Yeah, sure, no pressure on me or anything. So, what are you guys doing this afternoon?
“Mostly guitar practice,” said Tess.
“Vocal practice, then balancing,” said Kali. “Have you met my new technician? He’s really cool.”
“You’ve mentioned him before. James, right?”
“He says I can call him Jim.”
TAMIKO> ooo, a nickname? It’s serious now.
Kali felt her CPU temperature rise a little. She would be blushing if she was capable of it. She hoped the flickering status indicator around her throat didn’t give anything away. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. It was time to escalate.
____
“Now switch it to your other hand,” Jim said. Kali complied, handing off the 5 kg weight from her right hamd to her left, then holding her left arm outward to the side. She shifted her footing to compensate for the change in her center of balance.
“Good,” Jim said. He stood just behind her, his near her sides, ready to catch her if she lost her balance. So close. Kali wobbled, and his hands came in, steadying her. “You’ve got this,” he said, with that comforting voice of his. She wanted his hands to stay on her. She wanted his hands to roam her body; her new, perfect, synthetic body.
Jim’s watch beeped. “That’s enough practice for today. You’re doing great.” He took the weight and returned it to the shelf. “Ready for diagnostics?”
“Always.” Kali followed Jim as he led her out of the rehabilitation room, and back to her personal room. She fantasized about being Jim’s personal robot, following her master obediently. What kind of personal robot would she be? A maid? She liked the idea of the uniform, but not the idea of doing chores. A personal assistant? Jim was a technician, not an executive. Kali decided she could settle for being a sex doll, when she wasn’t playing music with her friends.
When they reached Kali’s room, Jim entered first, and she closed the door behind them, quietly locking it. Jim turned on the diagnostic console. As it booted up, he uncoiled the connectors. The usual routine involved plugging the console into the data ports on Kali’s upper back, and running various electronic tests. When she wore the clinical gown, with its open back, this was easy. With normal clothes, it meant she would need to remove her top. All according to plan.
By the time Jim turned around, Kali was topless. No hint of modesty, no shyness. She wanted Jim to see, and he saw. She saw his eyes focus on her breasts, just for a moment, before coming back up to meet her gaze. She took a big step forward, threw her arms around him, and went in for a kiss.
And he kissed her back! Jim was reciprocating completely, and just like that, they were making out. It felt electric. Jim held her around the waist, and Kali pointedly moved one of his hands directly to her breast. She wanted to be perfectly clear that her body was open for business. They kissed, and they clung, and they explored each other’s bodies.
Kali moved her right hand down, and was delighted to discover that Jim was hard, and getting harder. She carefully got down on her knees, and opened Jim’s fly. His cock was as beautiful as the rest of him. As she leaned in, she felt his hands gently grasp the sides of her head. He wanted this at least as much as she did.
She started with a gentle kiss, as delicate as a butterfly landing on a flower. She kissed again, this time finishing it with a lick across his tip. She kissed again, taking him in, the way she had accepted his tongue moments earlier. As she began to really get going with her mouth, she heard him moan with pleasure. It’s so hot when guys moan. She continued her intense stimulation, incapable of fatigue. It didn’t take long for him to gasp. “I’m… about to…”
Kali pulled back, stroking him off with her hands as he ejaculated, squirting onto her face and breasts. She made a show of using a finger to wipe some semen off of her nipple before putting it in her mouth. “Mmm,” she said. She didn’t actually have a sense of taste anymore, but that was irrelevant. Jim’s essence was delicious in its own way.
Jim let out a mighty sigh of satisfaction before reaching for some nearby paper towels. “Let’s, uh, get ourselves cleaned up.” Even his embarrassed post-orgasm stammering was attractive. “Thank you for that.”
“My pleasure,” Kali said, taking a proffered paper towel and cleaning herself. “So… diagnostics?”
____
A few minutes later, Jim was typing away on the diagnostics console. Kali lay on her stomach, inactive, with data cables connected to her back. Jim carefully edited Kali’s software, navigating through a maze of dependencies and functions and folder structures. It took a subtle touch; if the changes were too big, it would destabilize her matrix
There was no need for her to remember their little tryst, which could threaten his career. He could easily replace her memories of today’s diagnostics session with one from last week. It was mundane and routine. People almost never noticed their memories had been altered if they weren’t looking for it.
Kali’s eagerness to go directly to oral sex was an improvement over yesterday. Jim would keep that in place. Tomorrow, she would swallow. It would make cleanup easier. Jim knew Kali would “seduce” him again tomorrow, just like she had yesterday, and the day before. It was a very convenient arrangement, and it eased Jim’s conscience to know that she was enjoying it too, even if she didn’t remember.