He entered a few more instructions and the white void, still with the monitors, became what looked like a generic hotel room. "We had this in the files from Sarah's last vacation...the television should work...just keep yourself busy until I get back. It should only be a few minutes."
This left Jon free to walk around. Her new equipment felt...different, but surprisingly, she wasn't feeling like screaming in terror.
Finally, Dr. Ellis returned...this time seeming to enter through the hotel room door, followed by a young woman with short blonde hair who seemed to be bouncing with excitement. "Taylor, I changed the model on Program J based on one of the templates from the art team...I thought an opinion from a young person might help.."
Taylor looked at Jon. "Sarah will either love her or hate her...it's perfect."
"Umm...wonderful?" Jon said.
"You got the personality loaded in already?"
"No...that's the old Jon Gibson personality. We can't just wipe her in one go without risking damaging her logic centers. It would be easier if we hadn't done the rush job after Karyn chose to befriend him."
"What's Karyn really like?" Taylor asked Jon. "I mean....from your perspective. I mean....I'm totally a Karyn fan over Sarah... She's just so much more...authentic."
"Taylor..." Ellis said, a bit sternly. "I don't mind you chatting with the program while we work...but..." He paused, not wanting to dampen her enthusiasm. "How is the Gibson rewrite going?"
"Wonderful!" Taylor said. "I've worked really hard on it....Thanks for giving me this chance, Boss."
"How far have you gotten?"
"Well, I've removed all of the Mikey files, and the matrix is waiting for us to recycle it for a new tertiary character. And Linda's original job was working for a law firm...she's going to have a career change so we can use her as background in other scenarios."
"Good idea..." He turned to Jon. "She's very enthusiastic, isn't she?"
"As she talks about rewriting my mom..." Jon said.
Ellis seemed to not know how to respond to that. But Taylor paused. "Sorry...I know you got attached to those programs...Don't worry, I'll take good care of them. I'm thinking Zoe has a secret passion no one knows about...we could use it later if we need to..."
"Don't load too many things into Zoe's matrix. She's only a tertiary and I'm only letting you work on this so we can avoid another Jon situation, and so you can practice. But, remember what I told you...a well crafted tertiary can surprise you and become a breakout character."
"Thanks, Doctor E..." Taylor beamed. She turned back to Jon. "I'm sure with Doctor Ellis and the rest of the team working on you, you are going to be great...Jon...Program J..." She looked at her mentor. "What am I supposed to call her?"
"I'm going to load in the new name parameters...Julia Serrano. They are still debating the full backstory but we've finalized enough to get working." He keyed in a few instructions on his tablet.
Julia blinked. Something just suddenly felt odd to her. She realized with a jolt that she was thinking of herself as Julia; she remembered being Jon, but that just didn't feel like her name any more.
"Just a quick reboot there," Ellis said. "There will be a few more of those. We can't change your personality without a reboot, only external factors. See, not so bad..."
"Julia Serrano...wait till the blogs hear about this..." Taylor gushed.
"Well, I'm glad you like her. Now, get back to work on your side project. I have more work to do on Julia here."
"Sure, Doctor E." She headed out.
Ellis returned to his work. "I have the speech parameters here...I need a sound check, Julia. Say, the Quick Brown Fox jumped Over the Lazy Dog." Julia shrugged and did so. Despite having a female voice now, she still sounded like Jon, or like most of the kids in her school. Ellis keyed in some adjustments. "Okay, try again..."
"The Quick Brown Fox..." Julia trailed off. "You gave me an accent..."
"Well, you just moved here, you wouldn't sound like a local." Julia experimentally said a bunch of words. "This may hurt," he commented, pressing another button.
It did...a quick stabbing headache, but for only a second. "What was that?" Julia asked.
"You're bilingual. Your parents spoke Spanish at home." Julia was starting to notice the Spanish words leaking into her thought processes. "Now, sound check again please. Say, I'm Julia Serrano...I just moved here."
Jon did so. With the female voice, and the slight change in accent, she sounded completely different than Jon.
"We'll need to do your personality overhaul next..get some more emotions into your words...you are still a bit too bland. I'm going to shut you off for a bit while the team works on that."
He pressed a button and suddenly, everything faded to black.
