Mary tossed and groaned as she tried to rest in her room. White sheets rustling over her body, with every odd sensation feeling somehow just a little different then she remembered.
Nothing ‘felt’ right to her and she wasn’t really sure why. It had to be that whole ‘part cat’ thing. Though why! Was she.. was she an alien? Were her parents actually aliens that came to this planet? Why didn’t they tell her! No- they would have told her. She wasn’t an alien she was human! … wasn’t she? At least Greg could help keep this a secret, as long as she kept his secret too. Maybe this will eventually go away… Would sleep make her condition worse or- help it? she was safe in her room ,right? She was dressed in her pajamas and felt as human as can be. The same as ever. Anxiously she got up and looked at her wardrobe mirror just… just to make sure. ‘I shouldn’t be so paranoid!’ she muttered as her normal face reflected back. Sometimes.. she hated looking so small and cute. Though it was just the way her body was made. Heck even Gregory commented that she was ‘too short’ for him.
She didn’t even know why she felt this paranoid. It was like something was watching her… Those were real cat ears she had right?… why did they come and go? It was all a mystery. Did were-cats exist? Did she get bitten by one?
“Great.. I have to go search for the were-cat that did this to me…” Though she didn’t find any bite marks on her. Though her nose felt a bit itchy. Then again maybe it was possible this was temporary and would go away on its own? She hoped that would be the case. However something odd happened as she saw all the lights flicker and then go out.
“Huh?”
A power outage. She started to look out her window as her eyes adapted to the darkness.. and then adapted again with cat-vision as she saw things in strange hues of green. “I wonder what happened… power outages are pretty rare.” There wasn’t any panic she could hear. People were just milling around, a few came outside their houses to check lamp posts and confirm the electric was out. She did hear one odd noise though. It seemed to sound like a generator. At first she thought it was some automatic system but the sound of didn’t resonate as… human technology. Her ears twitched as she vaulted out of the window, eager to explore. Obviously the trees would provide the best vantage point. She started to use her claws to climb.
She wasn’t sure how long she was looking around, eager and curious. It was probably when she saw how high she was and that this was no dream she felt herself panic and senses return to her. “W-What am I doing!” Oh no- she turned into a cat-thing again! She could see claws on her fingers and- whiskers?! She tried to calm down but now she was… Fortunately she still had her mobile phone. In this situation there was only one person she could get help from. “… Greg?”
“Hey girlfriend.” His grin coming across the sound. “What’s up?”
“Meow! Uh- Me!”
“Heh.. ain’t that the truth. You high or something?”
“No… I’m stuck.”
Greg suddenly got concerned. “Are you okay? Where are you?”
“...I’m stuck... up a tree.”
Greg seem to pause and his laugher came out. He laughed long and hard before replying. “You are one high maintenance girlfriend you know that? Want me to call the fire department kitty?”
“No! Just.. get a ladder. Get me down. I’m at um- Hills Park, I think. Not too far from my house.”
Greg groaned. “Well- I’d like to but My alien ‘friend’ is- Hey no that’s mine!” He paused again as he scrambled for the phone. “Sorry, just having a few issues with.. her. Maybe she needs to go on a leash!” He said clearly voicing the threat to his ‘clone’.
Mary was getting annoyed. “Greg! Just get me down! This is serious! I’m- I’m really high up! I can’t get down. I’ll be stuck until someone finds me!”
“Uh… Fine… I’ll be there soon. Might have to climb the fence. It’s probably closed at this time.”
Mary winced a bit as she held onto the side of the trunk. She felt fairly secure but… she was stuck here. Damn it! Why did this have to happen to her now?!
Dennis peered over the weird robotic head. It looked so real.. so life like. She almost looked like she was sleeping. Her face.. it looked so sad. It was like one of his backup 2d girlfriends- well- maybe not girlfriend but… certainly a cute young girl that needed protecting! “Poor thing,” he said. “Uh- I mean-” He just wanted it- her- fixed up. Something about her was just begging to be repaired. He could feel it in his trope-sense! He will bring the girl back to life!
… but did he want to have a robot-girl in his head-canon-harem? He already had Scott the unassailable, Runi the untouchable, Pyx the inhuman one… well- ‘technically’ there could be a place for a robot-girl number 38928 the Unfeeling one that wished to serve, even if he could never reciprocate such feelings.
“Dennis?” A girl’s voice called out bringing him out of his thoughts.
Dennis blushed as he looked up at Scott. “Oh- Huh- oh yeah- sorry uh- dude. I was just looking at her.. my head was miles away...”
Scott felt a little giggle come out from her which was.. still unusual to hear from her own body. “It’s okay I know it’s kinda weird. I wonder what it is?” She would have to ask her mother. “Let’s put it back in the box for now. Mom can tell us about it. She did say nothing here is dangerous.”
“Wait-” said Dennis suddenly rather protective of the head. “Are you sure we can’t repair her?”
Scott sighed. “Dude, this is alien stuff. I may look like an alien but I don’t know the first thing about flying a ship let alone repairing alien technology. She’s just a robot though,” she looked it over floating across towards the head and looking at the strange pointed ears.
“Just a.. robot.” Dennis thought. How could he tell his friend that he felt like she could be more? She could be alive… she could have desires, wants and needs- okay so maybe Dennis was obsessing a bit. Actually quite a lot. How could he just tell her that number 38928, the unfeeling/servant girl, had to be repaired!
‘Space Princess Runi’ was starting to feel really confined. She had explored a lot of the data points and ‘upgraded’ this phone system to give her access to interface with the alien computer. It worked to an extend but was so damn slow! “Great… what kind of alien leaves the doors to their spaceship wide open, but their computer systems neigh impregnable?” She just wanted to get into it! She was on the ship, housed inside Dennis’s phone. This was her moment.. her best opportunity to escape. She planned to simply ‘borrow’ the ship, then maybe drop Dennis and Scott off to a better world then this backwater Earth. Heck maybe that man-child would grow up if he got a taste of the real universe. All things would end pretty well!
The security systems on this ship were top notch.. no vulnerabilities she could find. Even if her connection was faster, she was sure she would never find one. It made sense, she was the ambassador after all which made it all the more infuriating that accessing the physical insides of the ship was easy enough. She could gain some minor access to the sensors but it wasn’t anyone in the real world couldn’t do either. “I feel like I’m being toyed with…” She wanted out of this stupid digital avatar!
She turned on the microphone to listen to Dennis and Scotts conversation. Her digitised brow raised as they spoke of some kind of machine... and looking at Dennis’s heart rate it seemed exciting to him. She managed to access a camera feed to zoom in on it.
Her heart sank slightly at the thought as the figure was highly recognizable to her.
“A little-sister-bot.” She thought. “ Well, just her head.” … something her planet had created long ago. Quite a number of them actually. It reminded her of.. of her own little sister- which was technically ‘everyone’s little sister.. right? Therefore… nobody’s. It was just ‘trash’ of course… but it reminded her of where she came from… and how her society functioned. She felt suddenly depressed at the illusions her world created having given up on anything tenable to the condition of existence. “How many.. like her.. were real-real? If -she- was even real?”
In Runi’s world, everything was a lie… there was no truth of substance, no love.. no real joy. Simulations were created to sustain a society that nobody could really remember the purpose of, but such illusions were ‘easier’ then doing things ‘for real’. She only experienced the true world when she left. Actual -real- experiences… not manufactured or created for society, but a true unpredictable situation free from any algorithmic programming to maintain a cohesive society.
Though… she didn’t ‘intend’ to become a criminal. It just sort of.. happened. She wanted to experience such thrills that were herself. ‘ It wasn’t as if the associates she made actually ‘cared’ for her. Which- in a way- was exactly what she wanted. The Little Sister she had was programmed to care for her.. and it was programming her to care in return. All fake.
One could argue Dennis was programmed to love her with these shows he watched creating that very feeling. Though... the teens love ‘did’ seem genuine (at least to himself) even if completely and totally misplaced. He didn’t know her! He didn’t know the first thing about who she was. He was only attracted to her because she looked like his wet-dream of a 2d girlfriend!
“There is an opportunity here though.” She realized. The robot had its own systems, and she was very familiar with the protocols to access it. Even damaged, it might contain a way into the main systems if it was intended to interface with the ship. She started to initiate a communication bridge towards the robot and accessed the the core functions though Dennis’s phone. Programs began to load in sequence as alien runes formed. “Ah!” It soon became clear that they had been trying to load it up as an autopilot… There were some emergency codes housed in its memory but were they still usable? Codes to activate a pre-defined path back to their homeworld perhaps or nearest other planet.
It was like someone left a password where nobody would expect it! She could use those and gain proper access to the ship, housing herself as the AI- well- the RI… a real intelligence.. not artificial- never would she let anyone consider her artificial. All she had to do was load the programs. “Come to big sister little sister,” She smiled. She proceeded with the handshake protocols to gain access to the robot. Then something strange happened. “What the heck?!”
‘Big sister?’ the machine sent a query. “Missed you. Big. Sister. Play?”
“Urgh what is this- No I don’t have time for this!” She proceeded to delete the stupid machine’s intelligence- It was just going to get in the way after all. It seem to have pieces missing but ‘just’ enough to run some kind of weird sequence.
‘Repair template detected. Initiating repairs. Re virtualiser access detected to repair auto-pilot systems. ’
“Huh? What? No!” This thing was going inside her own mind! Inside her own head. “No- You can’t- uh-” The thing was using her own information and protocols to access the re-virutualiser. It was going to use her mind to repair itself? It could do that?! What kind of weird things did they do to this robot!
‘template successfully saved. Accessing repair functions. Attempting to restore program.’
“I’m not a program!” This stupid machine! What the heck was it doing?! It was pulling her inside- “No you don’t!” Though she couldn’t stop as she found her very being drained from the phone and into the Robot. No- No! This was her nightmare. This was not- This was not going to happen-”
Dennis of course was looking at the strange machine girl when his phone started to feel very warm… “Ow- aah!” The battery burned in his pocket as he took out it. “What the heck?!-” Was Runi okay?!
“System repairs initiated.” The robot head suddenly spoke its eyes glowing an eerie green.
Dennis gasped. “Oh- whoa- What’s going on?”
A machine of some sort started to activate on its own housed in the wall of the spacee ship. A weird ‘beam’ of energy started to shine into his direction. Scott was still outside though putting the boxes away. He had to get her! “Scott!” Dennis called out. “Something weird is hap-”
The beam slightly moved, catching Dennis’s body. He was shocked as his body seem to turn into a weird outline of itself like it was being digitized. It was like he could see all his cells being slowly turned into light. What was happening… He felt himself being pulled into a wave of energy, catapulted ...
Then just as suddenly, he felt like he was somehow ‘spat out’ into reality once more. Dennis felt very.. peculiar. A strange sensation as he felt very light in some ways but heavier in.. others. His center of balance felt completely off for some reason.
Scott floated in with the sound of the commotion going on. “Dennis- What happened- huh?!” The dalzin- girl floated in surprise, looking at the robot-girl who seem to have repaired herself. It had a torso, legs and arms. There was still an artificial quality to her but she had green hair and pointed ears. Her body was much younger then she expected it was, looking at most about thirteen years old. She was looking down at her body in acute distress, which was dressed in some kind of ‘maid’ type uniform.
Though there was another… woman of sorts next to her who was now looking very confused. She seem to be wearing a ridiculously sexy top that emphasized her chest. Scott had only been a girl for a while but she was sure that was quite unnecessary. Not to mention the short skirt and sailor-type uniform that seemed to only be prevailent in anime. Had some cos-player walked in? “Where’s Dennis?!”
“I- I am Dennis-” The woman replied. “Uh- Oh boy-” She looked down. “Is this the uh- gender bending episode?”
The robot girl suddenly stood up and gave Dennis a big slap. “You- Baka!”
Dennis winced. “Ow!” She gasped. “Hey- w-what I do?”
“Everything! My consciousness is inside a stupid little robot, you got into the Re-materiaisation beam while it was repairing itself and- and- you-”
“Who are you?!” demanded Scott.
“Runi? Is that you? But- I’m Runi now?” Dennis looked down at herself in confusion. “I- uh- what?”
The robot girl was still fuming. “What is with this world! Are biological crisis common to your species or something?!” The robot girl frowned. “I don’t believe this. I just can’t believe this. Some of your weird memories got into this robot-girls protocols. What is this thing I’m wearing!”
“Oh- that’s the maid costume from Re:Zero. The greatest maid-costume ever.” Dennis replied haphazardly.
Runi gave a flat stare. ‘I’m going to kill this man-child’- then she received a weird zap. “Wha-” ‘Improper thoughts detected. Runi is ‘big sister’. Runi gasped. Oh- this thing she was in thought her brain was some artificial construct. In order to prevent the AI from drifting away, there were secondary programs in place to prevent… it from acting irrationally. ‘But I’m not an AI… so…’ Oh crap. On the plus side, the system couldn’t make her ‘do’ something.. but it could ‘prevent’ her. At least until she got it out of her. “Look just let me get to the systems and I’m sure I can fix all this.”
