When Marcus Met Julie
When Marcus Met Julie
Chapter 1
The morning sunrise did the same thing it always did this time of year, gleaming through the slight parting of the curtains, spilling across the bedroom floor on his side of the room, and drawing a line across that spilled a little into one eye.
Marcus Manners squinted a little, the slight pain of the orangey yellow light pinging against his eyeball waking him. He stirred a little, shifting his hands a little to find the other half of the bed emptied. He opened his eyes, watching the perfection lying next to him in bed, Julie Manners... the mistress of the house. Perfectly tanned, carefully curved by what seemed to be years of good living...
Marcus gently stroked the figure, lying with her torso perfectly straightened out on her side of the bed, her arms at her sides. Her bare figure was totally naked, save for a pair of sheer black panties hugging the haunches of her , her breasts unsupported by any shapewear but still maintaining a lovely humpiness atop her ribcage. He glided his fingers along the slight fuzz of her skin, Fingertips trailing lines in the soft flesh of her body. A beautiful body with a beautiful mind.
Marcus turned to his bedside table and took up his smart tablet. He had recently upgraded it and shifted a lot of his old stuff from the old tablet after a serviceable ten years. Turning back to examine his lovely wedded wife and long-time loyal companion, he decided that maybe he would do what he wanted to do a little more slowly, with more care and hands-on action. No peeking at cheat notes or things that he should not be peeking at...
He calmly switched to his work email and tapped out a message. “Will be in after lunchtime today. No committments in place to prior to 2pm.” He prepared to send it off to his office assistant, trusting them to forward it to HR and the Arendt bros. He could dixtate such terms easily so long as he kept fulfiling his obligations and workload at his studio, either here or at the actual inner sanctum of the company headquarters. He paused, then tapped a postscript. “P.S. Will visit Elliot today. Please advise me of any changes to his condition.”
Marcus hit the Send button and closed his eyes as he put away the tablet, focusing his attention now entirely on his sybaritic lover... He leaned in close to one of Julie’s ears, admiring the way it curved in and along its various curves, swirling into a deep black hole all ready to swallow his love... in the other manner of speaking. There were obviously other holes ready to swallow his love, in various exciting ways. He had spent a tonne of effort even before he had carried her across the threshold.
There was a little jewellery in the form of a single tasteful stud on Julie’s left ear, a matching pair of faintly glowing gems inset in simple gold-plate prongs. Nothing obtrusive. They were a match to a small pendant necklace of the same gem type and color. A verdant lush green, all the better to match the warmth of the color of Julie’s perfectly coiffed hair, carefully tied into a bun for ease of management during sleep. Another lady would have let it all down in bed, but Julie didn’t.... wouldn’t.... care.
Marcus breathed deeply against Julie’s exposed ear, before leaning in closer as if to whisper sweet nothings, one pair of fingers carefully and firmly pressing down on either side of the ear stud. “Julie... would you kindly.... begin wake up?”
There was a faint flash in the gem studs, as Julie’s bountiful chest suddenly started moving obviously, the heave and ebb of her lungs taking deep breaths paired with the faint gusting of exhaled and inhaled air from her rounded nose, like a Sleeping Beauty of sorts. She remained seemingly unconscious, even as Marcus proceeded to cradle her a little in his arms, enjoying the silkiness of her tanned skin, the wrinkles that a woman her apparent age would have even with regular downtime by the pool and at the beautician’s.
Unmade up, her face still radiated the same beauty that had taken his breath away all those years the first time he had sat back and watched the preview photos on the screen of his studio computer. She would never win any sort of beauty contests, there would be many women far prettier than her, but Julie was still the right kind of beautiful.
A woman who would never betray her unlike a long line of women interested in hooking him only for his wealth, or his reputation, or even (at the time they had started living together) his looks. Granted, she would never give him children as well, but if he wanted to fix it there was a little thing called foster parenting or adoption. He would probably also need to have... discussions... together with her and Bellamy as well in that regard to help her broaden her mind to the possibilities of being a mother to a child. He mused a little. Come to think of it, maybe today afternoon would be a good time.
Right now though, Marcus felt a little stiff inside his pants. It was really prurient to suddenly have such thoughts in the middle of such a biddle soliquy, bu it was what it was. He traced one of his hands to Julie’s washboard abs, slightly filled out by the apparent effects of prolonged aging. A little softer, a little less perfect.He looked briefly at her outie bellybutton, smiiing as it momentary flashed in a faint green glow for two seconds, going out for two, coming back on, in a sort of loop. Consistency had its own beauty as well.
He brought his lips to hers and kissed deeply. There was no response for a little, and then a slight squirming as she stirred. The first words she had said every morning they woke together in the same bed all these years... “And a beautiful morning to you, dear...”
Marcus looked on satisfiedly, thinking back to times of yore...
Well, that was a washout. AGAIN. Marcus had chosen this pub because it had ties with the company, in a “I have a relative of an acquaintance of a sibling, please help me get him employed viably” way courtesy of Mr Gujaraz’s horrendously expanded family. Ostensibly a middle-class Mexican tequila bar, it was also a good place to get some privacy. He buried his face in one hand and sighed.
Mandy had been like all the other women he’d tried dating before. He’d tried upping his chance of success, but had wound up scuttling it the same way as before – by commissioning a corporate security check. If it wasn’t fear of his reputation, it was hunger for it. Or his money. He tried telling himself he wasn’t an incel, that he wasn’t going to become one of those loser boys who’d brought on and fostered the Despotic Years...
“Oh, Aymee, if only I had been a little more foolish with you...” He glanced at the other side of the booth he’d reserved, where he would have been counseled, advised, given legal advice and a guilty little eyeful of two big things on “a man”. She had DEFINITELY been a woman. Marcus could have been happy ignoring that and being the bitch in a marriage with her, but the chance had gone... Someone in Chinajapan had taken a liking to her and asked for her hand in marriage. It seemed big enough that it had been actually televised. Something about becoming the Empress uniting both countries in a peaceful union after the pain of the invasion and takeover...
She had looked like one of those Empress dolls they used to put into a court of dolls every year in spring, except that she was life-sized, and apparently being used to smuggle a pair of melons even with the effort the simple red kimono had made to tone down her figure. The simple austerity of the caked “food-safe” white foundation and subtly applied liner and stripe of blood red lipstick had sent something going in him. It had made Marcus fall in love... and then kick himself as the chance to do anything about it had clearly been shut tight.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), he had the company of Seamus in the other seat on the opposing side. He had drawn the short straw and traded a nice hard lager for a free flow of lean cider and sodas and the right to pilot a manually-driven vehicle, but otherwise, he was proving to be a shitty wingman. Zero out of eight had been a perfect record of failures in dating, and it had become clear that when you had a psychopath for a friend and a third leg at dates, the only thing you could expect at best was not to wake up and realise you’d have to bail THEM out for some sort of sexual assault or molest on someone while you were drunk.
“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” observed a chartreuse singing on the jukebox next to the cooler full of free ciders. “YOU GOT THAT DAMN RIGHT, SISTER!” Marcus bellowed, clearly at the phase of full immersion drowning in his sorrows, as he swigged maybe one more mug too much in a toast to a missed chance at actual love that had been staring at him across the table all these years in dinky pubs and innermost corporate sanctums. He was clearly requiring the services of a taxicab to get home, of any indeterminate size that could hold him safely, and not necessarily yellow in color.
UNFORTUNATELY, all he was getting was a small raspberry jalopy, the kind you find in a second hand car store. Seamus struggled to stand up with a heavily smelling Marcus, soothing platitudes into Marcus’ ears about finding someone who could stand up to the pressure of all that he was.
As Seamus carefully bundled him into his personal man-driveable car – none of that autonomy bullshit outside of the parking phase, he had demanded despite the protests of Corporate Legal now that they had gained some balls without Aymee looming over all of them as a sort of short-circuit to their most pedantic tendencies – he briefly reflected on his failure at being a brother to Marcus.
It took him a while to arrive at Marcus’ little cubbyhole for three people, now home to one lonely little man suffering from success at the top.... Seamus helped Marcus through the door, to the porcelain throne for two bouts of regret at overdosing on alcohol, before calmly dumping him in his bed, carefully shifting him so that if he decided to throw up AGAIN after Seamus left, he’d be puking into a plastic bag. Hupefully the scent of regret marinating in it would wake him up a few hours after the act.
Seamus left the bedroom and sat down at the coffee table in front of the tlevision monitor of the house. He didn’t want to leave right away without at least kicking back and resting a little. The idiot box would make him a fool, he decided, even with Marcus’ obsession with collecting lifetime subscriptions to channels full of genuinely educational entertainment. He wanted something to depressurize with at his own pace... He glanced at the pile of books beneath the glass top of the coffee table, picking out two or three. Marcus had good tastes – archictecture, a treatise on the ccultural alterations and aberrations that the forced unification of China and Japan had placed onto the combined culture of both nations in the terms of China dictating terms of governance and societay soperiority. (a long gone attitude thank god, they were equals now)...
Seamus blinked at the third book he’d picked up. It was a scan binder. He had built out the Oven in the years after they had started playing with fire – very realistic, lifelike android fire – shipping a family for Senator Bundt. The ban by the Texas Fundamentalists had made it through, been ratified, and was now a federal felony to traffick in any robotics that were considered too realistic, with a surprisingly clear, un-dunheaded list of criteria, with exceptions made only for antique machines existing prior to the queue, corporate needs, or medical trainer dolls.
The Oven, Mark V, had potentially enough gear combined together to infringe the law so many times over if not for the waivers that they had cobbled together through Bundt’s influence as a Senator, as well as their medical devices devision being a thing....
It could do a full spherical-field scan of a person or thing, taking details in to an absurd level both 3d and textural.
It could take recordings of a voice and parley them fully into a model that could speak with the same tones and even simulate a wide range of emotions with a little extra processing power
It could even hold DNA records if one pushed the format that had been Frankensteined together by the various items put into it, though Seamus had never seen any need to use that feature.
He glanced at the book shaped storage medium, looking at the Post-it note stuck inside. It had Aymee’s handwriting, though it seemed a touch drunken. “You don’t know what you’re missing. BEHOLD, A RECORD OF MY MASCULINE PERFECTION!, top this, ya bloated, wobbly dunhead. – Aymee... P.S. GO LIFT AND DO SOME CARDIO BEFORE YOU KILL YOURSELF WITH A FRIED CHICKEN BREAST.”
Seamus laughed a little. Welp, someone had clearly decided to violate the rules that they had set on the use of the Oven Mk V. He suspected that if Aymee had come to and realised what they had done, they would have attempted to commandeer his itellect to create some sort of time machine, gone back in time, and attempted to drag themselves out of the Oven V’s scanners before they made this record...
maybe it was the lateness of the hour. Maybe the residual alcohol in the cider helped. Or maybe Seamus Arendt was just being an uncontrolled psychopath. (Aymee had left behind a list of good friends and people he could trust to rein the Arendts in with her no longer being a lawyer in the company, but they probably were not doing a good job if they had allowed what would happen next to happen)
The ticking of a mind fucked up sufficiently to get the answers right but the working behind them so dramatically wrong was loud in Seamus’ ears. A plan formed... He suddenly ran for his own jalopy like a thief in the night, buzzing himself in and running past janitorial crew to his own office and workshop.
Seamus hurriedly slotted his ill-gotten scan binder into a compatible reader and started tapping furiously, what had once been either some sort of love note or just the braggings of a ‘man’ was now becoming something way more dangerous...
If Marcus noticed the theft that had been committed within the confines of his house he did not show it in any way, as life with one man indefinitely down of the Four Brothers continued both at home and offices. The same messiness in both the keeping of the home and the way he operated and sculpted at his office studio... There had been a couple of odd interactions between Seamus and Bellamy ever so often. Furtive motions, discussions on obtaining some AI chatbot tech to improve company products. Questions about whether what they were doing was even legally acceptable
(Seamus had assured Bellamy that Legal didn’t have to know)
(Bellamy had pointed out that if Aymee or the Chinajapanese Union ever got wind of said thing they were doing, Legal would be the absolute least of their worries, or those of the entire company. Compartmentalisation didn’t work THAT way and he wasn’t doing it the right way that Aymee had done on Project Goldfish)
(Seamus assured him he was doing lots of work to anonymise it sufficiently, whatever ‘it’ was)
Marcus thought nothing of it, at least at first.
When the bottom dropped out of the hole, Marcus’ first response was “Have we learnt NOTHING from the way you first shoved Elliot onto me?” He asked with a very annoyed mien as he looked at what Seamus and Bellamy had asked him into their combined offices to see. “erm, I know it’s a woman in a can. A very hot woman. Seamus, I swear, if you’ve drugged a woman just to deal with my companionship issues, I am going to have the corporate doctors quintuple your dosage of psychopathy medication drugs.”
Seamus looked at Bellamy. Bellamy looked back at Seamus. “That would be very bad.” Seamus first spoke up. “ We wouldn’t be able to perform as required by our private shareholders.”
Bellamy nodded hard in agreement. “virtually 24/7 narcolepsy. We would be totally unpsychotic, but at the price of doing fuck all. Actually, wouldn’t that technically be kind of like death?”
Seamus nodded, and turned to pat Marcus’ shoulders as if to reassure him. “Please don’t do it to us, it’s not something that’s justified... “We just need you to run with it for at least a few weeks... if it doesn’t work out, you ship it all back, we dispose of it, and we agree never to bother you with this shit again. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Marcus’ annoyance gave way to something as he pondered the contents of the giant cylinder. “... ... we’re not going to get into trouble, regardless? This is just an experiment and an internal test product?” The woman in the jar was a hazel-haired beauty, aquiline eyes, puty lips.... her naked pulchrritude on display had a certain familiarity he couldn’t quite put his fingers on, but at the same time it seemed soft and curved in so many brand new ways that he couldn’t quite wait to put his fingers on it. For some reason, her heavily trimmed pubic bush was slightly blonde, a peculiar mismatch of curtains and drapes.. “So, what’s she programmed as?”
Bellamy grinned. “That’s the beauty of it. We’re trying something different for personality generation. You know those AI chatbots that are the rage amongst some of the teens and young men now?”
“The ones with no life and no hope, you mean...” Marcus deadpanned, calmly ignoring that he too was part of their ilk.
Bellamy rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to get dragged into that kind of debate. He was a psychopath, but his variation meant that he literally felt too much rather than too little, and it was literally pinging him, screaming “DO NOT ARGUE THAT POINT. JUST PRESENT AND GIVE.” Bellamy gave a slight cough and handed Marcus a laptop of sorts... it looked more like a device cobbled together from a mini-PC box, a rollable monitor and some sort of chip reader/writer done up as a chip in a sort of glass jewel box with a plush velvety lining holding on to the container legs of the chip. It seemed to be a sort of all-in-one chip combining various functions, like the kind that sat right in the center of his smart tablet, but probably with greater capability and speed...On his other hand, Bellamy hefted a sort of VR set.”
“Just go on dates regularly with the chatbot for a few weeks first. Build it up. Let it get to know you, build emotional data. When you feel it’s ready, let us know and we’ll go over the next steps. In the meantime the physical body has a placeholder AI installed if you want to relieve yourself on it before the personality is ready for implementation.” Bellamy explained matter of factly.
“This sounds like one of those cash grabs they used to make back in my day as a teen, guys.” Marcus looked hesitantly as he took the laptop and eyed it cautiously. “Are you sure this is going to work?”
Seamus shrugged. “We did a lot of work to integrate a lot of new stuff, and we’ve never tried doing it this way before. Only one way to find out for real.We’ll help you install all the stuff in your house this afternoon, and you can go on your first dates with... what’s her name again?” He turned to ask Bellamy.
“We’re not doing a preset name, I don’t think it aids realism here...I’m shovelling that sort of thing onto the user for a change with this prototype” Bellamy shrugs a shoulder matter-of-factly.
Marcus pondered the situation. “I feel like I’m going to regret this, guys.”
Seamus slapped Marcus in the back. “I hope not! What’s the worst that cold happen?”
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 - Integration Is Tricky
Barely three hours later, Marcus was standing in the last previously empty room of the house. It had now been taken up by a table to rest a weird VR laptop on, a cylinder containing the body of the doll the Arendts had assigned him to test out as a means of relieving his sorrow at not getting hooked up repeatedly, and not much else. The doll had proven relatively easy to heft. It was about 168cm in height, her bulging F-cups knocking together as he lifted it slowly into his bedroom with the VR headset in one hand. It had been designed to provide only very basic action somewhere in the groin and mouth area, at least initially, and was surprsingly light for its measurements. He laid the hourglass lady down onto the surface of the bed, its arms flopping limply, He paused to shif the arms into a more comfortable position by the doll’s sides, before sittig down on her side of the bed and donning the headset as per Marcus’ instructions and spoke up.
“Would you kindly introduce me to her?” There was a slight hesitation in his voice as if he didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Also: he was going to have words with Bellamy’s recent obsession with the classic game “Bioshock”, the prefix “Would You Kindly” had become a new kind of code phrase in place of the words “Command word” that he had recommended for implementation. There was room for potential trouble using such a innocent phrase as the command trigger for commands, but this was a prototype of something new, he could rein in the imbecilic divergence later. Something – or someone crashed into him in virtuality, there was a meaty oomph to the sound of the suitcase thumping hard against him, but the lack of any feedback area or capabilities meant he was still left standing up. He glanced down at what hat hit him. A silver travel suitcase was lying on the road. Next to him, a generously proportioned woman wearing a long sundress that hugged her curves was sitting on her ass, having fallen down onto the ground. One of her arms was clutching a handbag. Marcus could see that she got a bit of physical activity and nutrition, and there had been just enough to go lots of places on her without turning her into a lardbucket, merely a sybaritic woman of pleasure. Her face was hidden beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat, and as he extended an arm of to help her up, of his own accord rather than some preprogrammed loop like in any other VR game, he could see that she was a virtual copy of the doll lying on his actual bed right now. This setup process was certainly interesting. She let out a soft “owie”, in a strangely alluring voice that he found simultaneously oddly familiar and yet fresh. Marcus couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but it did sound a lot like someone he’d been around. Maybe one of the actresses who did voice work for the company? Perhaps a random secretary he’d walked past on one of the other floors? Regardless, the woman stood up and dusted herself off. “Excuse me, could you direct me to the airport here?” She asked meekly of Marcus, thrusting out a paper map she had been using supposedly in lieu of simply using a smart device and an app like a normal person. She was clearly a bit low on the IQ scale. Not enough to be declared a medical case, just... slightly dim. Marcus wondered if this was a configurable option. He preferred his women to be at least as smart as him, though he suspected that was partly why he’d been suckered like a chump so many damn times. As he took the map, the simulator jumped immediately to a ticket counter, skipping whatever travel that would have been needed in real life. The young woman was now a little frantic, tapping a passport and a ticket on the counter. “That can’t be right, I was supposed to leave today. Flight Airmalde-13731A... three hours from now.” She pleaded. Marcus noticed the tickets and passport glowing slightly with a blue sheen, the standard highlighting method he’d specified for use while developing apps to highlight points of interest. He reached for it as the stewardess manning the counter continued calmly explaining to the woman that “NO, this flight is for one year from now. The codes on it indicate you bought it as part of a quick sale, you can’t rebook it to a different date, Miss-”
The world suddenly grayed out totally as everyone froze. A nearby fountain stopped in mid spray, the koi lazily swimming around it halting in mid wave around the fountain. He walked over and briefly inspected it, even picking up one of the koi in the pond up. With the headset only sensing his thoughts as to how to move and not doing any feedback, he felt... nothing. Not the slight wetness that a fish should have. He let the koi drop back into the ponds as he turned his attention to a red tag denoting a set of TODO notes for later development of the application. It was a small comedy of sorts. “TODO: implement customisable avatar – Target Personality – “Suggest implementing a way to export the configurator to provide a matching real-world body.”” “TODO: Do we REALLY need to have every bit of clothing on everyone here be alterable or removable?” Marcus blinked bankly as he walked over to the frozen stewardess, and tried lifting her hat. It came off perfectly easily, the stewardess not showing any awareness that her hat had been pilfered. He didn’t think much of this and quickly plopped the greenish-blue cap back atop the stewardess’ trimmed bob hair. He would have to recommend to the Arendts that this was a potential cause for trouble. Just stick to significant people or something for avatar alterations... He examined the passport of the woman. Her photo was on it, including the usual security stamping of a girl from... Jaidanphur? He smiled wistfully – choosing a cosmopolitan city to start off from was a good idea, it gave a wider variety of ethnicities to choose from. Her name was a series of question marks, as if undetermined, He tried writing some stuff in place of the marks... The stewardess suddenly repeated herself. “.... you can’t rebook it to a different date, Miss Banana Yanana.” Marcus tittered mischeviously as he wrote several different stupid names onto the prompt, causing the stewardess to tell off the woman with several different name ideas. “.... Miss Hannah Barbera.... Miss Yoko Ohyehs... Miss Melania Grumpf...”
Eventually he stopped being an idiot and realised he could simply spin the words on the prompt by sliding his fingers upwards or downwards hard, as if they were cylinders on a revolver or a half-rate one-armed bandit. A few spins later, the woman was now “Miss Julie Ambervale.”
He liked the name, Ambervale. It had belonged to a classic porn actress he had the hots for back as a teenager hoarding porn under his bed and away from his mom and dad. Julie sounded good too. It was a nice sounding two-syllables, timeless even. Marcus closed the passport and put it back down on the counter, causing the world to suddenly continue as if it had never been frozen up. Miss Julie Ambervale wept a little and whined fussily. “But I have to get home on the next flight.... I need to go back to work first thing on Monday!” The simulation started looping subtly again, the stewardess repeatedly rebutting her with an admonishment about there being no more seats available on the flight she wanted to catch, and Julie thinking for a few seconds before repeating herself to the same reply. Marcus idly noted the prompt growing on her shoulder, a glowing handprint, as if the simulation wanted him to do something about this impasse...
Marcus was a little puzzled about how the simulation had gotten hold of the layout of his house and checked the TODO list as one thing led to another: a drink at the nearby airport cafe, a consolation, an offer to put her up at his home for at least a bit till she sorted her failed connecting flight home. TODO: referencing the house server for locational data to build a copy of the user’s house in the simulation is a violation of privacy – Check with Legal for workarounds. TODO: at some point the robot will need to be able to navigate the user’s home on their own. The data I’m scraping will need to be collected sooner or later, may as well do it now. TODO: Legal: if you guys do it this way, we won’t be able to sell this in the European Nations. This violates their privacy regulations! Julie crashed down on one side of the bed on her back, sighing. “Well, that’s one crisis... erm... not averted, right? I still need to call home and apologize and stuff and and and.... oh god, I need to relax.... maybe I should visit the zoo. No wait, I did that already yesterday!” Marcus lifts his VR headset briefly. The simulation had worked out how the torso of the real doll had been placed but not its limbs, and made Julie fall accordingly into place in the virtual simulation.... He briefly played around with the placement of the android body, watching Julie mirror the new placement everytime he downed his goggles again. A faint message blinked in a tag. “INITIAL SETUP COMPLETED. 3% of required data for proper personality established. Marcus decided to hit the save and quit button, causing the virtual form of Julie to close her eyes as if falling asleep. “Julie Ambervale is now warming up to you. Julie Ambervale respects you a little more, but is still suspicious of your intentions in being so nice to her.!” An announcement reports as he takes the headset off to rest, crashing atop the android and smooshing his face in her big jugglies. As he falls asleep, he hears one last prompt. “Please remember to recharge your android in its chamber every 44 hours for 4 hours... Your android will require minimal food and water intake during full mode operation, but will enjoy properly prepared food and drinks in moderation if desired by user prompting...”
A pattern slowly formed. Marcus would wake up in the morning and spend an hour or two with “Julie Ambervale” in virtual reality, using the limp android body as a sort of feedback mechanism. Occasionally devolving into using the body like a sex toy, Marcus marvelled at how well the simulation tracked the doll’s torso onto the actual placement and movement of Julie in the virtual simulation during potential bedroom scenes. Her pussy felt slightly warm and moist, and her mouth was surprisingly inviting in both worlds. His only lament was how he had to carefully lift her to the bathroom to wash out his misdeeds when a session devolved into some love making, like the time Julie mischeviously asked him to take her in the behind against a railing while watching ships in the distance, her virtual eyes twinkling with mischief as if genuinely alive. He had briefly removed his goggles for a breather during that session and had been a touch disappointed. Aside from her eyes matching the color of Julie’s in the virtual world, the android still refused to do anything besides moisten and suckle in her holes, simply staring off blankly with no spark in her eyes or movements, forcing Marcus to do all the work to get off on it. He briefly wondered if the Arendts had any ideas to deal with the problem in a final product, then shrugged. He was focusing on himself and he was still going to enjoy this ride no matter how rickety it was in implementation. After washing the doll out if necessary, he would clean himself up and report to work as loyally as he had for years before. The process was repeated again occasionally in the evenings as he came back, but he was just as likely to do some off-time sculpting or read or watch something on Bountiful or Quasarbula.
Marcus would occasionally bring the doll and laptop back into the office for Seamus and Bellamy to maintain and work on as a side project, discussing possible improvements and things that might need alteration or correction. At one point there had been a slight accident. Seamus was quietly wiring in some sort of new upgrade, having disconnected and pulled the pussy module of the android body out of its metal rails. Marcus had wondered what he was doing, putting a finger into the pussy to gently feel the soft warmness that he had become so fond of. Seamus smiled. “I’m just adding in a new anti-rape mechanism. The South Africans had a great idea for a condom that would give that kind of nasty dude hell, so I asked after them and got licensed to implement part of that condom. It just tags the abuser when they stick something into the condom and makes it very obvious when they seek medical aid that they’ve been attempting to rape someone. I’m not using the barbs, just the injector and the marker drug. It should sense when the owner is the one doing the deed and disable the trigger-” Marcus let out a soft “ow”, one of his fingers now slightly stained purple. As he watched the entire finger started turning purple and itchy.
Seamus facepalms. “In theory. I think.... we should get that looked at, pronto.” It would be a week before Marcus stopped walking around to quizzical looks with a itchy purple finger, and another two or three before he resumed even considering having sex with the limp android body. It would certainly do its job, Seamus just had to give Marcus some trust that it wouldn’t do the same to his cock During that time, he became a bit of a gentleman, quietly refusing to hump Julie in the simulation and just sticking to showing her around, holding her in consolation when several failed attempts to rebook or get home had made her depressed, weeping in the shower.
The simulation had refused to track the real android body that tightly at that point, so it was a bit wackadoodle being in a virtual reality with Julie sobbing away and wailing about how he wanted to go home, then see a empty shower with no running shower water when he lifted the goggles,even as he consoled her, his every action feeding into the “Upload ready” meter ever so often in a painfully slow drip.
More visible was the change in Julie’s behavior toward him, as she became a little more reliant and clingy, as well as fond of Marcus in the scenarios as the simulator played on.... A little evening dancing, quiet shared meals, a visit to watch the waterfront as the boats plyed its waters...
Seamus and Bellamy looked at each other. Then at the console. Then at each other again, before looking at Marcus. “Get the things, Bellamy.” Seamus prompted, causing Marcus some puzzlement. Suddenly the Arendt brothers lifted a pair of poppers and triggered them, showering Marcus in confeti. “Congrats on getting married!” Marcus rolled his eyes. “Erm.... haven’t we been here before? Like, with Elliot? I mean, I did run through a shotgun wedding with Julie a few days ago and it’s been her being a housewife all this while but...” Bellamy observed something... “We skipped the glitter this time. Don’t worry, it won’t take forever to clean up later now. And anyways, you can start uploading the personality into the android when you get her home tonight!” Marcus still blinked like a deer in headlights, still not fully comprehending the implications of what they had said. This concept was still too weird and new and staying on top of everything they had asked of him for the past four months was akin to trying to waveboard all the way to Maui in a storm after a few hours of lessons. He was holding on, but it was all he could do to follow orders and try testing shitm like a lab mouse on a tradmill occasionally being asked to hop over logs in the wheel... Marcus just gave up. “So I’ll pick her up from you at the end of the workday?” He asked tiredly. Maybe he could actually do something he could understand for a bit before the Arendts spun him around gleefully once again like he was a cat toy and the Arendts were playful kitties. Seamus and Bellamy smiled a little. Whatever it was, it was good news, they hadn’t had good news in ages, it was probably time to celebrate. They just needed to call Legal and make sure someone was holding their leashes down at the pub tonight.... They would also need to contact a few York Particulate Agents they were on good terms with to give someone a past to go with the future...
Two hours later, history repeated itself as Marcus’ work computer autosaved everything he was doing and shutting down without his prompting. He slid the passkey and tried relogging to message the Arendts, but got a picture of two emojis apparently in love and dressed for a wedding. Oh nooo.... Marcus rushed to where the Arendts had placed their offices, but they were both silent, lights turned off for the night. “SHIT, Another week long holiday?” He cussed as he walked over to something covered in a tarpaulin and with a sticky envelope on it addressed to him...
“Dear Mr Manners, The Arendts congratulate you on your wedding to Miss Julie Ambervale and have agreed to award you with a holiday for honeymoon purposes. You will not be required to attend work for one week from the time this letter probably reaches you. Attached please find one thousand dollars to spend as you see fit as a direct personal gift from The Arendts. We wish you a really fun time together and may your love last a long, long time, Seamus and Bellamy o.b.o Arendtcorp P.S. Please file updates and logs every two days from your loving wife. P.P.S. Please give Ms. Julie Manners our best regards too. P.P.P.S Please keep the wedding dress, it is a outright custom purchase to match the design we procured while creating the simulator. Consider possibility of other designs made available during wedding scenario to boost revenues from this product if put into full production. You will need to provide your own tuxedo though.” Marcus widened his eyes as he noted the words “wedding dress”, quickly throwing the letter aside and pulling the tarp off the thingy. It was Julie, standing straight at attention with both eyes eyes closed, in a fascimile of the wedding dress that he had seen her in in that scenario – a daring sheer lace dress in white floral lace that stretced all the way to just above the high heels on her feet, and left her breasts very uncovered on the upper part of her cleavage to act as a sort of shelf for his hopes and dreams, with no sleeves to speak of. Her hands were carefully posed to hold a small plastic flower bouquet, like a bridal doll. Her normally lightly done up lips had been emphasiszed with a choice application of a dark red lipstick that contrasted with her lightly bronzed tan, and she was wearing a headdress of the same lace atop her head, veiling her hair. Marcus wasn’t sure whether to write a note chewing them out on how there should be some rlimits to chasing realism, or just stand there momentarily basking in the oment where the fantasy that he had been obediently playing through (admittedly having fun as well) creashed through and created a mess in reality. But what a mess! He wanted this mess.... even the silver tourist baggage she was sitting atop of, complete with various weathered stickers that spoke of a life spent roaming a little before surrendering into his arms. The Arendts had at least some qualms about doing anything else stupid besides adding two or three pounds to Julie’s apparent weight with the wedding accoutrements. No stupid Just Married cans danging off the back of his jalopy as he struggled a little to load Julie’s limp body and luggage into the car, which to its credit held steadfastly as it traveled back to his home. Marcus suspected they probably did not want to confuse the car’s LIDAR and cause an accident for the ‘newlyweds’ right on their ‘wedding night’.
Marcus carefully looked around left and right surreptitiously after parking the car in his garage, before shutting the door to it down. After a little struggle and two legs of moving things around, he panted and crashed limply onto the linens of his bed, his ersatz new wife by his side. He took a few gulps of air, before sitting up and firing up the laptop.It started to render a realtime scene of Julie Manners busking around in the kitchen, cooking something delicious. He blinked and went over to check the kitchenette – it was dimly lit and empty, There was a limit to how much virtual reality could fudge.... it was time to reach out a hand and gently pull Julie from a falise, perfect world in which Julie Ambervale had never really managed to go home to Jaiphura or New York or whatever city she had first crashed in from, but it didn’t matter because she had found something worth staying for.... Marcus wondered how he was going to explain his sudden new +1 to anyone he met after this point, then decided that bridges were not meant to be pre-crossed. As he hit the “UPLOAD” button on the screen, the kitchen on it went grey and faded. The virtual representation of Julie suddenly glitched worringly, assuming a T-Pose and staring blankly ahead as status reports started streaming, her dress vanishing as she spun around slowly on screen. “Project Last Ditch BIOS 2062.89 loading Unit Identity set as Julie Manners Ambervale Writing Owner Bometric Identity Security Data Logging Personality Generation Data Mapping virtual personality sensor grid to physical unit sensor grid Saving Initial Backup to BrothersFour.Arendtcore.com.usa2/... Saved “ The screen suddenly went totally blank, before flashing new instructions. Marcus read them out slowly. “Extract uninstall/install tool from installation kit”, watching the looping line animation of a baggage being opened and a pouch labelled “Install/Deinstall Only” coming out of it. He followed that instruction in its simplicity, noting the decent amount of assorted clothing that had come in the bag as well as he pulled out and unzipped a pouch labelled accourdingly, blinking as he held up a sort of tool that looked like a sort of tampon applicator ,only with more magnets than a tampon would need. He blinked quizzically, then tabbed to the next step. The screen made him facepalm, as it displayed a stick woman spreading her legs apart and the tool being inserted into apparently some sort of vaginal entry, drawn dcrudely as a small oculus, and labelled “vaginal entry” explicitly. “....uhm.... erm.... Step 2: part legs of unit to expand entry into vaginal chamber, insert ID tool with the red end facing inside, pushing in slowly until a beep and message is heard, and withdraw.it.”
He looked at the tool again. Now on closer examination it was clear that one end was colored red and the other was colored blue. He made a note to ask Seamus if he had ever considered that so many males had color blindness. Perhaps a different choice of coloring or icons would reduce possible errors at this and later stages in such folks.
Marcus slowly parted the limp android’s stockinged legs, pausing briefly to sigh as fiddled with some buttons to unlatch the fabriccovering Julie’s vaginal entry. He slid the ID tool in and carefully pushed it deeply in with a firmness, stopping as Julie beeped and spoke in a blank emotionless voice. “Placeholder Code Removed. Test Mode Disabled, Please insert valid Secure Personality Chip Into Cervical Cavity.” He pulled the applicator out, a heart shaped chip with white edges around its perimeter stuck on the magnet. As he watched, the chip slowly tarnished and fell off onto the fabric atop the bed. He peered in slightly.
On a quiet night in the simulation, Julie had briefly lamented an accident she had had as a teenager. They had saved her, but the injury to her cervix had been serious. She had fingered at a small scar on her womb area, sighing. “I can never have children anymore. I guess that makes me... damaged goods?” She had hugged him as he reassured her that he had other priorities, and that had bought even more ‘trust points’ and gotten him closer to uploading her personality. Marcus thought for a moment as he examined the cervical cavity that had opened up. Instead of a womb that could sire a baby, the cervix of the unit was actually some sort of receptical for the personality that he would soon seat into it. It was certainly an interesting choice, giving her a sort of authenticity with ‘real world damage’, the faint scar on her womb area having been etched in for real as well. “Next, erm.... flip ID tool so that blue end of tool faces forward, open case on station and hold tool to Secure Personality Chip until a click is heard. Push applicator firmly into Cervical Cavity until a beep is heard, then withdraw applicator and close legs of unit.” Marcus carefully opened the tiny case holding what he presumed was the chip in question on the laptop, holding the applicator to the chip until it suddenly clicked and stuck itself onto it. He then proceeded to stick it in as instructed, watching a maze of circuitry light up as he withdrew the tool out of the Cavity and watched it close back up, like a flower blooming in reverse.
He was certainly being made to work very hard for what he desired, he reflected, as he gently closed Julie’s thick thighs together and gently stroked the slightly blonde frizz atop her pudenda, smiling a little excitedly at what sort of fun he could genuinely have soon. “Now... Step 3.... apply DNA to unit using either tongue in mouth of unit or... providing semen in vaginal chamber....” He covered his face briefly. It was nice of them to provide an option for men with performance issues but perhaps they could have figured out a less obtrusive way to initialise this unit... in so many ways... He sat himself back, gently shifting Julie’s dress a little to help her regain her false modesty (She was wearing no panties, for god’s sake!), before slowly crawling forward, hovering above her, to do it the oral way.
For some reason, Marcus didn’t feel like making Julie’s first realworld experience be that of him maniacally plunging his manhood into her cunt. He wanted to be just as gentle and kind as he had been in the false world she was born in. Closing his eyes, he leaned in for a deep kiss, maneuvering her tongue with is and feeling the roughness of synthetic papilae brushing the necessary DNA for her security systems off the inside of his mouth. It was not a very rough sensation, more like... pleasant? Lovingly warm and fun? Marcus peeled himself off and gave Julie more space, waiting for her to come to live in the real world...
Chapter 3
Chapter 3 – Welcome To My World
Julie beeped once more, the same soulless voice whirring as her eyes repeatedly focused and unfocused, cycling through a myriad of shades of blue before settling on the deep ceruleans he had grown so familiar with. “Validating Security Personality Chip... Arming anti-rape system...” she announced, as tiny microinjectors concealed in her orifices started filling with the South African rape marker drug Seamus had imported. “Initializing...loading personality matrix from last viable backup point...Julie Manners Ambervale will activate fully in... four hours, fifty nine minutes... Please refrain from any strenuous activities on this unit until full activation.” She closed her eyes, falling into some sort of deep sleep as her bosom heaved.
Marcus got up and stretched a little. It was so exciting to wait for the thing he had wanted to finally happen, but even the frisson of impatience couldn’t quite stave off the enroaching exhaustion sweeping over him from the day’s excitement. Adrenaline, horniness, and caffeine from the office cafeteria could only take one so far. He tried to stifle his manhood a little, and the chill of the shower in the cool summer night had helped a lot, but even then, he still clearly had the tiniest hint of wood as he climbed into bed in only his pyjamas. Perhaps he would wake early and skip his exercises for one morning, he mused. After all, he wasn’t planning to rush it, but he’d probably get his cardio from a different type of jogging tomorrow.
Marcus woke up, slightly dozy from the earliness of the hour, as he climbed out of bed from his side. He briefly tapped on the laptop that controlled Julie, observing that he had another hour or two. He still felt pent up after all that sleep, and he needed to blow off that steam before he did something stupid with it.
The morning air was crisp with promise as he jogged down the pathway. Some habits had died hard. Even as Elliot had left to be part of Senator Bundt’s family, Marcus had felt the need to keep things up. He’d kept eating carefully and lightly, exercising almost daily at least in the morning, and had even spoken to a few experts about his callisthenics routine, aided either by his weight working against his exertions or the resistance equipment on the exercise ground of the block. This early, nobody would be using the children’s playground, he expected. The lack of people exercising was a disappointment though – surely good health was the right of all people underneath the care of the company. He stretched, he did a few lunges, a few careful pushups, a couple of flexibility runs and lunges, before returning to his home and brewing a small cup of caffeine and downing some rejuvenation therapy pills as per the doctor’s order every day. Marcus walked into the main bedroom and saw something that took his breath away. Julie’s lightly tanned body had sat up in bed on its own, her eyes slightly sleepy as she watched the morning sun through the windows of the bedroom. She had doffed all the wedding gown stuff onto the ground next to her side of the bed, leaving her body totally naked, Marcus watched the way she had risen, his eyes tracing every line of her perfect imperfection, trying to count the freckles on her back and giving up after a few attempts at such a pointless endeavour. As if sensing this hunger, Julie turned a little to look, her eyes locking with his, her face the very picture of a well kept woman with some experience in life. Her pouty lips still had lipstick on them, as they slowly opened, the faint gleam of whitish teeth showing. Julie seemed to be like a deer in the headlights of a car, a prime display of nature in all its glory, except instead of a lovely crown of antlers, it was a finely honed body, not overly muscular but still toned. The F-cupped breasts helped, dangling under the force of gravitiy but still maintaining a juicy pair of teardrops, beckoning his lust. She tilted her head, and spoke the very words she’d been programmed to say every morning wakeup.”... And a beautiful morning to you. Dear.” Marcus briefly stifled a little gasping. “Morning Julie.... did you sleep well?” He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, causing her to close her eyes and purr happily. Julie nodded and opened those cerulean eyes of hers again. While reading up, Marcus had learnt a funny phrase: “Pigmented Fibrovascular tissue”. Simply put, the reason why irises had that peculiar microbranching texture and color that they had. Human eyes had it. Android eyes shouldn’t... Seamus had apparently violated that ban and Marcus was grateful for it, losing himself in them. Juliie snapped her fingers twice, giggling. “You keep doing that. Is everything okay?” Marcus recovered after an extra moment. “I... I’m sorry. I’m an artist, I keep finding beauty or making it. I just can’t stop that obsession.” He apologised. “Anyhow.... I think I might practice making it a little today, since I don’t have to go to work.... is that okay with you?” Julie let out a soft purr of laughter. He would grow to get an impossible kick out of it over time, it was so lush and wonderful in his ears. “Everything you do is okay with me... Everything...” Marcus shifted uneasily, trying to hide the slight erection in his exercise pants, the loose fabric helping out fortunately. After a brief chatter, Marcus walked out into the corridor connecting the various rooms of the ground floor, wheezing a little as he realised he had held his breath repeatedly over the past ten minutes, like a sniper training to shoot well. It was fortunate that he had found excuses to get out of the room quickly, or he might have started training to ‘shoot well’ in a different sense. Not that he would have minded. Not that she would have either. She was his perfect woman, one who might have had reproductive issues, but would never betray his trust. And in any case, if she was forced to, there would be some pretty interesting evidence of the deed if it was done in certain ways.... He shook his head a little, drawing a Grandpa Smith apple from the fridge, its skin wizened and wrinkled from the simple act of keeping things natural and not going mad with additions that nobody should be eating.... he then proceeded to the studio loft above and started opening a blind box from LESGO, smiling as it turned out to be an assembly set for a flower. The box had calmly stated it was for children 8 and up, and declared itself to contain bricks for a type of flower called... a clitoria. Marcus blushed bright red as he read the box. Dammit, read the room, LESGO. He wanted to calm himself down by sublimating his lust into creation, but assembling a blocky version of something named after the sensual lines of the female organ WAS NOT HELPING! Besides, was it really a good idea to name something for kids after something so clearly sensual?
Marcus tried to rein it in as he started assembling the toy bricks, sweating feverishly as if in some sort of fugue. As he topped the sculpture off and stood back, he realised he needed a shower and walked back into the corridors to get to his bedroom for some clothing. Julie was standing in the kitchen, apparently making some sort of soup. Using a sauce plate, she brought a small sample of it to her mouth and sipped. Tiny microsystems studded around her tongue and nose cavity wafted the scent and taste of the stew, creating a complex profile of the nutrients and chemicals swirling in the brownish water. She added a little more starch to thicken it, watching the vegetables and the meat that had provided almost all of the water in the soup to begin with. The very picture of a wife. Not a tradwife, but someone who wanted it all – all the pleasures of modernity, and none of the interruptions of being subservient.
Marcus practically started hovering like Neelix the Cat, the scent of the stew bringing him closely against her frame, his arms wrapped around and carefully enjoying copping a feel of her body through the gingham dress and pale blue apron she had donned to cook. He kissed her lightly against the back of her jaw. “Making lunch?” He asked briefly.
Julie nodded in reply. “Well, yeah. I thought a little mulligawtawny would be nice... I baked some bread to go with it too. You have been busy in your studio for approximately... 92. point. five minutes. since we last spoke.” Marcus nodded and closed his eyes as he planted his chin against her left shoulder, enjoying the home life he had wanted. He would have to remind Bellamy though – real humans did not get this persnickety and accurate about things unless they were doing actual architecture or chemistry or other things were being absolutely accurate to the smallest details was critical.... Julie would be more lifelike with a rougher sense of things in her speech....
The rest of the day went by calmly, a blur of subtle busy-work masquerading as a honeymoon away from the demands of the world. Housework mutually shared. Julie showing interest in the clitoria LESGO set Marcus had bricked together, perhaps a little too much. Meals. Quiet time spent sitting together on the living room couch, hands locked together, saying nothing but taking a nap. Or at least, Julie was. Marcus kept opening his eyes to sneak glimpses of the Goddess descended upon his home. He briefly fantasised about Elliot coming back home from the arms of Senator Bundt to his Papa. They would be a lovely family of three. Hopefully Julie would complement Elliot and vice versa nicely... and if not... well, it was kind of nice that Julie was reprogrammable. Elliot was a bit weird in not being not so much amenable, but he could be taught easily to embrace a family, he hoped. Marcus still managed to fall asleep eventually, and by the time they had awoken, it was so late that they had to settle for a cheat meal. The last two TV meals in his fridge after he had ceased to eat unhealthily for so long. He watched as Julie carefully indulged herself in the hamburger meal, her fingers gently gripping the bun and the contents within with care as she introduced it to her belly, one small chew at a time. Marcus stifled a momentary urge to groan as the way Julie held the burger and each fry, her fingers making poses that suggested to his lustful side that perhaps she could grip other things gently yet firmly while introducing them to her mouth. Julie got up eventually and grabbed the trays, delivering them to the trash compactor with an ease that suggested she had fully mapped every nook and cranny of the house. “That was nice, but I wouldn’t feed you something with this much salt and fat regularly.” She observed. “It’s better to eat healthy.” Marcus nodded, then sniffed at himself and realised the shower he had meant to take just before lunch should have been taken after all. “I’m going to take a shower. Sorry. You must think me rancid not to wash off this long.” Julie beamed. “It happens. Besides....” She closed her eyes and leaned in to take a whiff... “you smell to me of manliness.” She was probably making this up, there was no such thing as manliness and her sensors were just returning random garbage that would have irked a real human woman. “Go ahead.” Marcus obliged himself, quickly grabbing some pyjamas and a towel for his cleaning. As he hit the shower, the warm spray loosened the exhaustion and grime from him as he sat on the tiled ledge in the bathroom shower, watching the water come down in rivulets along him and the glass door to the cubicle. There was a sliding noise, as the cubicle opened and shut, allowing in Julie after a minute or two. She had disrobed entirely, smiling as she grabbed a sponge and sat down next to him in the cubicle, which was roomy enough to allow them to sit this way without contorting. Her body was now on full display, the buxomy curves like a fine sculpture thrust into a waterfall, which kind of made sense given the waterfall shower head in the ceiling. Marcus was trying really, REALLY hard to be a good boy, but his cock was beginning to start swelling again from the proximity and sensuality of his loving wife. “J... Julie...” he tried to think of a gentle way to describe his growing, raging hunger for her, to take all of her... “Would you.... erm.... make love to me?” Julie froze briefly as if in shock, her eyes focusing and unfocusing as she stared blankly at Marcus. After what seemed like a minute, she slowly shifted herself to sit down on Marcus, topping him and letting her perfect honey pussy swallow the engorging cock. “Yes, dear.... you seemed tense when I came in... I will f-fuck you now...” Her voice stuttered briefly – Marcus chalked it up to a momentary glitch in loading new data to adapt to her new task. There was also the matter of how she had responded to a gentle entreaty for some sex with a response that seemed to describe a lovemaking session that would be more akin to grinding him down to a paste. Julie slowly pumped herself up and down on Marcus, her nipples stiffening as her thighs seemed to operate like they were full of springs. Marcus wanted a little more, deciding to reach his hands out to paw at her breasts like a pair of superballs, his fingers gently clamping onto her nipples and feeling them. Julie started moaning, half-closing her eyes. “Harder....” she begged, as her vagina started squeezing more and more as if to keep it all bottled up in Marcus. Her stamina was remarkable, lasting a seemingly long time before Marcus spewed into her, causing her to squeal in orgasmic tones running erratically over two or three registers. And it was not over... after a few minutes more, they had come out of the shower together to towel off, her lips still slightly open as she kept eating Marcus like a supper, kissing and caressing him as he carried her by her butt into the bedroom. He gently laid her down on the bed, this time taking the lead in pumping himself into her. Julie kept taking it all in, every single bit of reddening shaft, her face contorted in ecstasy and bliss that she seemed demanding to share with Marcus... What had begun as a test quickie slowly turned into an endurance and flexibility test, as Marcus and Julie took turns to lead each other in various positions, their grinding testing the bedsprings of their bed, the bookshelves in the loft, the living room couch, interspersed ever so often with gentle explorations of each other’s bodies and mouths before suddenly testing more of the furniture in the house...
It may have been too much, as Marcus finally cut her off with a command. “Julie, would you kindly stop your current main activity?” after what had seemed like the eighth round of her pounding onto him like a reverse jackhammer. She froze in mid copulation, before slowly peeling her pussy off his sore dick and gently kissing him, as if to thank Marcus for giving her so much. “You’re so good to me, honey. I love you. We should do this again some other time... I require some time to clean up before I perform any other activities. I have... approximately 32 hours of activity remaining before requiring a recharge based on prior activity patterns for the previous four hours.”
Marcus panted weakly on his back as he smiled. He would have LOVED to keep going forever, but it was clear she was probably capable of lasting the forty hours on a full charge. There were some Australian marsupials that were capable of marathon sex till death, and he did not want to add his own species to the list by accident, he reflected, watching Julie slowly turn away and leave the room for the bathroom. Oh yes, he had to file that report, he admitted to himself as he got on a bedrobe and tiredly reached for his smart tablet to call in to work...
"And so, I want to conclude my report for the past 24 hours with this. I believe Julie is a wonderful substitute for a real woman, at least in the context of a lonely eight-times-spurned involuntary celibate like me, but caution should be taken during operation as she is possibly capable of killing the user if left to operate non-stop in certain modes on a full charge of 80% without manual user intervention...” Marcus calmly and professionally reported. Seamus Arendt deadpanned back in response. “Look, Marcus, I know you want to frame it professionally, and it’s an admirable quality that you keep complying with company standards even on your holidays,” he started a response on the Xoom conference with both his brother Bellamy and an attending young man from the legal department who had been read in on Project Last Ditch, but hadn’t quite fully comprehended the sheer audacity of the project until two minutes ago. Seamus paused, trying to frame his response with the same professionality, then decided to just fuck it. “but what you’re basically saying is that we need to work on more safety measures and maybe the final product could get away with being a little less gorgeous.” The poor young man from Legal swayed and fainted off screen, sending stationery clattering as his workstation detected the apparent cardiac event and cut him off from the call while summoning paramedics to take care of him. Seamus looked over at the window as it cut off, sighing. “Excuse me. Bellamy, could you take over finishing this meeting for me? I think that poor Joseph kid just had the worst introduction to how fine the bleeding edge in this company can get.” Another window closed, leaving Bellamy Arendt and Marcus staring at each other. Bellamy looked at Marcus through his emo hairdo. Marcus briefly wondered when Bellamy would grow up and at least trim the hair blocking his eyes. He could keep the bloody depressing rock going on his radio when nobody else was in his office, but by god, he was much too old to still be depressed. Certainly not when he was flying so high like the Four (Three?) Brothers... Bellamy gave a small cough as he leafed through the printouts. “There’s no major hardware issues on the horizon, as far as I can tell, but maybe we should do an overhaul and maintenance on the prototype on Monday. You can bring it in yourself.” Marcus mused. “But she’s working so well... a little too well... in fact, I think I don’t even want to lose a moment with her beyond the necessary recharges and self maintenances and stuff... I’m gooning, aren’t I?” Bellamy put on a pair of bifocals he had adopted after his eyesight had finally started caving in slowly from age even with the rejuve he was splurging on... “I never did get into the brain rot thing as a teen, but let me assure you, given how intense she can apparenty get, I need to make sure that she doesn’t experience a catastrophic failure. You might get even more upset than Vizhar Nahrendi lost a billion dollars in communications satellite from a multi-launch rocket blowing up... especially if it blows up while on your launch pad, if you catch my drift.” Bellamy rolls his eyes briefly as a message drifts into his side view: “The lawyer is okay, but has begged us to garnish his wages because he wants what Mr Manners is having.” “Excuse me, Marcus...” Bellamy briefly interrupted himself as he typed a reply over. “Tell him we’re not necessarily producing an actual product, this is just product research.” Admittedly, it was extremely successful relative to the effort they had put in so far. Corners not affecting user safety (hopefully) had been cut in a few places, and a real woman would probably still beat out what they had sent Marcus home with in the long run on many aspects... still, everything was worth trying once. He just didn’t think it meant it was worth doing as a mass product... “Now... erm... Any questions?” Bellamy asked. “Anything that came to mind while you were testing?” “How intelligent is she, really?” Marcus asked. He had a fantasy of Julie becoming a woman who could appreciate his intellectual pursuits, not just his body or hands, a sort of soulmate he could share actual philosophical debates with, using their mouths and minds, if not necessarily their other junk as well. “Well... it’s hard to exactly quantify theoretical intelligence on the unit over a Xoom call, I think it’d be easier to show you in person when we do the maintenance stuff... But she does know a basic amount of the GCCC at least.” Bellamy thoughtfully noted. “You know... Gardening, Cooking, Cleaning, Callisthenics, Copulation...” Marcus asked the obvious question given his healthy lifestyle. “What about Cardio?” Bellamy blinked. “I should think that Copulation covers it, but you’re right, why didn’t I consider that as an option?” He furiously scribbled more notes down. “And yes, I’ve seen the Color-Blindness thing... god knows I was having those problems too during development. Just like with my dev-environment’s choice of highlighting syntax. Anyhow... perhaps you should go enjoy the company of your lady... I need to do actual work on more than just this you know.” Marcus nodded lazily. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” He cut the call and beamed, skipping out to check on the gardening Julie had set herself to doing.