Yandere
Olivia loved Micah, she always had. From the moment she laid eyes on him she knew that there was something special there. Her heart pounded in her chest every time she laid eyes on him. Micah was a friend of a friend, who had introduced the two of them at one of his parties long ago when everyone was still taking college courses and figuring out what to do with their lives. Oliva had been shy at first, not wanting to scare off Micah with the knowledge that he had just met his soul mate. Oliva played it cool and tried to keep her welling obsession with him to herself over the course of the next four years of university, but when she began taking more and more classes along with Micah and sitting next to him, and always volunteering to be his lab partner, well, the secret wasn’t exactly secret for long.
Micah had enrolled in a number of modern electronics, robotics, and technology classes. Many of which Olivia didn’t have the prerequisite classes for, but she managed to sneak in whenever she could. Micah didn’t mind so much, there was a quiet understanding that she was obsessed with him, and under any other circumstances he might have asked her to be a steady girlfriend, but there was no time for that. His studies and his chosen major prevented him from doing anything other than fully throwing himself at his work and studies.
By all measure, Olivia was a mostly normal girl, perhaps a little on the excitable side, but average otherwise. She was cute too, sporting a dark black cropping of choppy hair that fell down around her shoulders. As it cascaded from her head it curled up in a number of places ending in a number of frayed and slightly frizzy offshoots. Her smile drew most of the boys at school to her, and she never had a shortage of suitors who would have given anything to date her, but she would always tell them that her heart belonged to someone else.
When Olivia was in class with Micah, most of the material went far over her head, and not because she was busy swooning over Micah. The elecontrincs classes were all boring diagrams and math, subjects that Olivia wasn’t terribly talented in. Micah tried his very best to explain it to her though, usually after class as the pair walked from class to class, or to have lunch together. Micah didn’t really mind the obsession and her constantly following him, it was nice company. She was a genuinely nice girl too, the only issues ever came about when Micah interacted with another girl that Olivia felt threatened by.
Part of the reason she had taken such an interest in going to classes with him was because he had one time mentioned to her and a group of friends that he and his lab partner were working on some kind of neuro kinetic transferral technology as part of their study project and his partner happened to be a girl. Olivia had stopped listening to the rest of his conversation at that point and began trying to figure out a way to prevent that from ever happening again. Her solution was to first attempt to enroll, and when that didn’t work, to simply start coming to class instead. SHe would always volunteer to be Micah’s lab partner, reasoning to him that it meant he could work with someone he was familiar with and it would allow them a bonding moment as she tried to learn about something he was interested in.
Micah had reluctantly agreed that it would likely work as long as she was never tasked with presenting anything to the class. He would admit though, that it was relatively nice to have someone he was familiar with chatting with him while he worked on circuit diagrams and studied the finer points of robotics technology. Olivia was interested in what Micah was interested in and was a good sport about asking questions when she didn’t fully understand something. Micah, even a good person and attempting to educate, was always happy to answer the questions in, perhaps, a bit too much detail.
College progressed, and the two remained together, though never dating, for the entirety of the time. Olivia proved to be a good sport about his study habits and would generally just want to be near him while he studied and she did the same. She asked him, several times, over the four years if he was ever going to ask her out. He would always respond with the same vague and dismissive response.
“We’ll see what happens after college, okay. I want to focus on this first.”
Micah said it as a way of pushing out the inevitable, while Olivia took it to mean that all she had to do was get through school first and then Micah would finally be hers.
The years marched on and as Micah entered into his fourth year, he began working to start paying off some of his student loans. His studies managed to land him in a very nice laboratory job as a research assistant for a robotics company. Considering his thesis was on the effects of converting a human mind into a digital format, they were more than willing to let him use their state of the art equipment in his own studies so long as any breakthroughs were owned by them.
So Micah began spending his days at school, learning and spending a small amount of time with Olivia and his evenings were spent in the labs. He was brilliant in his studies and he became an immense asset to the tech lab that he worked for. The complex that he worked on was an amazing and sprawling campus, with a number of buildings all dedicated to their given specialty, and Micah was given access to almost all of them without supervision.
It wasn’t long before Olivia began taking an interest in Micah’s work there. She wanted to know what he did, who he worked with and when she would see him more. The question, though answered, was beginning to wear on Micah. He was beginning to feel the strain of what it was like to have someone be overwhelmingly obsessed with him. He tried his best not to let it get to him, but the obsession was becoming more and more of an annoyance.
Micah’s current project involved mice, more accurately it involved extracting a precise portion of the brain matter then placing it into a digital reader and inserting it into a robotic replica of the rat. These “cybernetic rodents” were then observed for how well they adapted to the process. Initial tests were incredibly promising and could lead to a number of future advancements.
Those future advancements came soon enough.
Another three years of research would yield the results the world was holding its breath for. Micah had graduated, so had Olivia. Micah was able to afford a small one bedroom studio apartment where he could finally spend some time alone when he came home late at night. He had begun working late into the evenings in order to avoid having to worry about Olivia pestering him to come hang out with her. The time and study had paid off though, the lab campus he worked from had finally been authorized to begin trials on humans. The world's first cyborgs were just around the corner.
Micah’s phone buzzed again. It had been going off constantly all night long. It was another text from Olivia asking if he was going to be off of work soon, commenting on the fact that she missed him and wanted to see him. Micah was beginning to get the distinct impression that Olivia wasn’t going to leave him alone until he replied.
“Working late tonight, sorry.” Micah tapped out a quick response.
“Lame, I wish I could see you.” Came the nearly instant reply.
“Sorry.”
“Maybe there's something I can help with. Like we used to do in your labs.”
Micah thought for a moment. She could probably get in here and hang out, sure but there was little he could do to have her help with anything. His current project was sorting through the meager profiles of the volunteers for the upcoming cybernetic conversion therapy. His phone buzzed again and Micah gritted his teeth as he looked down at another message from Olivia. He let out a long, low, seething sigh. It had been cute and fun at first, but that was seven, or was it eight, years ago. Olivia’s weird obsession with him was grating on his very last nerve. He wished there was some way to just trim that portion out of her brain…
Micah looked down at the small stack of conversion applicants on the table.
“Maybe there is something you can do to help.” Micah texted back.
“Really??” Came the rapid response.
“I mean, maybe. I don’t know if it would be something you would be interested in…”
“Anything! What is it?”
Micah only felt a little bad about what he tapped out on his phone to her. But it was true.
“Well, how would you like to be considered for the world's first cyborg program? When you’re converted you would have to stay with me here in the lab every day and we would work very closely together.”
“Absolutely, I’ll be right there.”
True to her word, Olivia arrived within a matter of half an hour or so. Micah had to meet her at the front gate of the facility campus to badge her in. It was late enough that there was no one around to take her name down in their visitor book, so no one would know that she was there. Micah led her through the campus, chatting merrily as they went along until they reached his small portion of the overly large facility.
They walked down long steril white hallways past smaller labs and storage rooms. There were lockers lining one side of the hall, but they were alone in the facility tonight. Micah finally walked them to his space and held open the door and allowed Olivia to enter first.
“Whoa-” She muttered breathlessly, “-this is where you’ve been working?”
“Yep, behold, my robotics lab.” Micah said, flourishing his hand and waving it over the room.
There was a central table that had been prepared for the first subject once they were selected, and hovering above it were a number of bulky looking mechanical arms. All around the table were rolling storage bins, carts with tools of all shapes and sizes, and a number of computer terminals that all seemed to connect to some part of the table in the middle of the lab space.
“What are you doing here?” Olivia asked.
“Preparing it for the first ever human to cyborg conversion.” Micah replied, flashing that same smile that had won Olivia’s affection all those years ago.
“And that’s what you needed me for?” Olivia said, surprisingly excited.
“Uh yeah, if you’re willing, that is.” Micah confirmed. Knowing that there was much more to it than just that.
Olivia’s brain patterns and organic material would be passed through a number of computer systems and Micah, theoretically, could trim out some of her habits and modify her personality to a certain degree. She would still be herself, that was the whole point, but there were small things that could be modified. That was why it was marketed as therapy. The process allowed for bad habits to be toned down, good habits encouraged, and for small modifications. Micah’s intention was to begin trimming her obsession with him out of her mind and dumping her into a cybernetic body. The body was already in the fabrication lab, or at least most of it was.
The framework and the circuitry was all installed, there was no skin wrapped on it as they hadn’t had a firm volunteer yet, but as soon as Micah had contacted Olivia, he had set the final stages into motion. The fabricator lab was in the process of applying sensory laden artificial flesh onto the frame. It was only the basics for now, once they began working on Olivia a full body scan would happen and the data passed to the fabrication labs where the modification would happen. In the end, Olivia would still look, feel, and act like herself. Mostly at least.
“Okay Olivia, all I need you to do is lay on this table here and let me hook a few things into you. It’s just some painkillers, okay?”
“Is this going to hurt?” Olivia asked, showing some concern for the first time.
“Nope, you’ll feel the needle going into your arm, but that’s all.” Micah confirmed and she agreed.
With that, Micah poked the sharp end of the first needle into her arm after cleaning it with an alcohol wipe. Once in place, the computers took over, pumping her full of painkillers. The warming sensation flooded Olivia’s body and she let out a small contented sigh, commenting that it actually felt really nice. Olivia shivered as the warmth took on an edge that wasn’t quite cold, but more tingly, almost effervescent.
“Whoa, uh something changed.” Olivia muttered as the new sensations swept over her entire body. It still felt wonderful to her, but it was a change and she felt compelled to let Micah know.
“That’ll be a small injection of nanobots. They are going to start preparing your body for the next steps.” Micah commented in a soothing tone, to which Olivia simply smiled. She was happy to be helping him, and she even felt a little naughty. The idea of being restrained on a table below Micah stirred something in her and she bit slightly into her lower lip in response to her thoughts.
“Okay, we find that for this next step it’s much better if our subjects are blinded. So those nanobots are going to disrupt your vision, okay?” Micah said, looking down at Olivia. His hands were poised over the keyboard, ready to give the command to the swarm of nanobots inside of Olivia.
“Oh, sure, yeah go ahead.” She confirmed.
With that, Micah tapped enter on the keyboard and the signal was sent to the nanomachines inside of Olivia. They chewed into her optic nerve, painlessly to her, but in short order she was unable to see anything. It was probably a good thing too, as the signal that the nerves had been cut triggered the next step in the sequence. A series of mechanical arms began to descend on her from above and aligned themselves all around her head. Olivia wanted to talk, but as more painkillers and nanobots flooded her body, her muscles became unresponsive. It was an intentional step, a squirming moving person on the table could lead to catastrophe.
First, a specialized arm rotated around Olivia, taking in a three dimensional scan of her body and making approximations on her measurements. Another arm began buzzing the hair from her head, letting it fall to the floor in large chunks. Olivia was concerned though, she could feel all the movements and arms on her body, but only in a strange, disconnected sense. She felt the pressure of her hair being buzzed off and heard the sound, but she didn’t know what it was, nor was she able to ask. Micah appreciated this step as he knew that she was completely disabled and helpless, it was the one time they had been together and she wasn’t trying to talk to him.
Next a series of ultra sharp spinning bone saws began to move around Olivia’s head. They were aligned just above the tip of her ears. Micah moved the headrest so that it was only supporting the lower back of her head, allowing the arms to freely move around her skullcap. They began to move gradually inward, slicing into Olivia’s head as they moved in smooth circles around her head. As they rotated around her skull they cut deeper and deeper into her skull. The swarm of nanobots inside of her had already severed or blocked the flow of blood to the skin there, so there was no excess blood or fluid to spill out everywhere. It took upwards of fifteen or twenty minutes to finally cut deep enough that another mechanical arm could move in and pull the top of her skull off of her head. Her brain now exposed, it was time for the next phase.
With the rats they had specifically cut into the brain and transferred only portions of the brain. Motor controls, memories, and some of the parts of the brain that assisted in survival instincts. With human’s though, there was no part of the brain that wasn’t useful. There was a theory that the entire brain needed to be extracted in order to successfully convert someone to a cyborg. Others thought it might be possible to use electronic stimulation to force the brain to act and the chemical results could be recorded and sequenced. There was still a case to be made for that method, but the end result would be the complete destruction of the users brain tissue, meaning they would be less cyborg and more of a fully converted human robot.
Micah wasn’t about to weigh in on such matters with Olivia still awake and waiting on the table in front of him. He would use the tested method that had already been laid out. The brain would need to be fully extracted from the body and encased in a pod that would supply it with nutrients needed to continue working. Along with that though, there would have to be some amount of electrodes inserted into very specific portions of the living tissue to help stimulate it and to read the instructions. From there a powerful central processor inside of the newly formed robotic body would interpret the signals and convert them into commands for the body to use.
The personality control aspects of that came with the signal interpretation. Signals from the brain could be intercepted and modified, though admittedly it was not a perfect system. Strong emotions were difficult to control or modify. The marketing for the therapy was that an individual could benefit from a nearly immortal robotic body as well as live their life with some of their greatest vices “dialed down.” As time progressed those habits could be toned downward or upward gradually until they were in line with what your ideal was.
The nanomachines inside of Olivia were responsible for physically cutting free her brain from the stem that connected to the spinal column. Micah stepped back from the computer and watched as a new set of specialized arms slipped into Olivia’s skull and scooped her actual brain into a waiting container. It was slightly egg shaped, fitting her organic tissue easily into its space. Along the edges of the egg-shaped container were a number of loose electrodes that a new set of mechanical arms grasped and then gently inserted into the extracted organic matter with immense precision. They would connect to the rest of the robotic body once inserted, but first there was a large amount of automated readings and stabilization that needed to happen. The computer was set to do the calibrations and carry the new cyborg brain to the fabrication lab once it was done.
The process would take several hours, and for some of that time Micah tapped away commands on the computer terminal. He had received the initial scan of Olivia’s mind and was already beginning to trim and modify small things here and there. Some of it was just the normal calibrations, but many of the changes he was making to her mind and her behavior were in regards to him. He was thoroughly done with her obsession with him and he began to somewhat aggressively trim that out of her brain.
The yawning let him know exactly how late it was getting. He glanced at the system clock on the computer with the understanding that there were at least another two to three hours of work that the computers would need to do before her newly computerized brain was inserted into the waiting body in the fabrication lab. It was just before midnight and Micah was feeling the weight of a full day and night of work. His portion of the process was done, from here on out it was all automated systems. There was little harm in him folding his arms in front of him and taking a small nap. He rubbed his eyes for a moment and then put his head down and darkness enveloped him within moments.
A sharp inhale of breath marked Micah’s return to the evening. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and tried to regain a sense of awareness. The brilliant light of the computer terminal in front of him was nearly blinding, and he had to slam his eyes closed to banish the light from it. He rubbed his eyes again and tried to look at the screen to get a status report and see what time it was.
It had been nearly two and a half hours, and the status of the project was marked as complete. The dialog box on the terminal indicated that the process had finished almost forty five minutes prior to him waking up and that the experiment was awaiting his activation. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. It had been a success, all of it! Olivia was the world's first cybernetic woman. He moved the mouse cursor over the activation button, clicked it and immediately stood to meet her in the fabrication lab. He only made it a single step away from the computer terminal when he heard a small warning tone from the computer. He stopped and returned to the screen, looking at the error message there.
“Subject not found. Activation not possible. Try again?”
Micah frowned and tilted his head. He clicked on the retry button but was met with the same error message. Two more times he tried before switching to the log files and finding that everything was in order. Everything indicated that the transfer had been a success, why then could he not activate Olivia? He stood up again and moved to the door and moved into the hallway. The lights had all been turned off automatically as part of an energy saving program, not that it mattered, the emergency lights, though dim, lit the hallway enough for Micah to see where he was going. He had been from his lab down to the fabrication labs hundreds of times over the last few years and he could practically get there in the dark.
Moving up the hallway Micah pushed the small button on an elevator, stepped inside and tapped the button for a floor that was three levels below the lab floor he was on. The gentle rumble of the elevator was somewhat soothing and the ding of the door let him know he had made it to his destination. Another long hallway with a number of off-shoot hallways was there, each one ended in another fabrication space. Micah moved up the hallway to fabrication lab five, where he had sent Olivia’s cybernetic brain and where he had spent a number of months building the robotic body that lay in there.
Opening the door to the space left Micah in a massive room. All around the perimeter were 3D printers that could fabricate any number of parts in a matter of hours using materials ranging from simple biodegradable plastics to carbon fiber. Many of them had been running almost nonstop for weeks on end generating parts and prototypes for the android body he had been crafting here. There were great bins with electronics of all kinds as well. Wiring and tubing on spools that could be pulled out and cut to precise lengths as well as workbenches with soldering and other electronic manufacturing equipment. Mechanical arms similar to the ones up in the lab Micah had just occupied were around the room as well, available for when something with mechanical precision was needed.
The scattered computer terminals were all here as well, simply waiting for someone to walk up and use them. The only thing that wasn’t here though was Olivia.
Micah looked at the center of the room to the empty operating table that was there. It had been his primary work space for months now. In fact just earlier today he had been down here putting the final touches on the framework of the body. It was gone though. Micah looked around with concern, wondering what could have happened. He stepped across the space to one of the computers and logged in to it before browsing to the audit logs of what had happened. According to the files, Olivia’s body scan had been accepted and synthetic flesh molds had been made. Her skin layers had been applied and accepted. There were entries about the cyborg brain container arriving as well. Another entry that it’s insertion had gone as expected and then nothing more.
As Micah stood dumbfounded and pondering what might have happened he heard something, just at the edge of his hearing. It sounded like it could have been a rapid clicking, perhaps a printer's motor was stuck, but that wasn’t quite it. He stopped and tilted his head in the direction of the sound, hoping to hear it better. He heard it again, a little more clearly, a little closer, and a little louder. It was the same sound that bare feet would make as they slapped against the smooth tile flooring. Micah turned and looked across the fabrication lab.
“Olivia? Is that you?” His voice was unsure, and more than a little cautious.
“Micaaaaaah.”
The sound of her voice was more of a low hiss than anything. It was definitely Olivia’s but there was something sinister about it. It set Micah on edge in an instant, his heart was pounding in his chest and based purely on instinct he dropped to a crouch and hid himself behind the large central work table.
In the small window that occupied the center of the door into the lab, Micah could still see the dim emergency lights outside on the hall. They provided just enough light to see out, and when the shape of a set of shoulders and head occupied it, he knew it was her.
“Miiiiicaaaaaaah.” It was another long hissing sound, but this one was followed by a sweet but eerie giggle. It was the same giggle he had heard Olivia make hundreds of times before. There was no mistake that it was her, she was active and moving around out there, but based on her behavior it seemed like she was stalking him more than simply looking for him.
If she had been activated almost forty five minutes ago like the log files had said, then she would have been down here, roaming around, looking for a way out or looking for Micah. Both possibilities set him on edge. Micah ventured another look, creeping slowly towards the corner of the work table until his face and one eye were just barely able to peer around the corner. She was still there, a pair of glowing red eyes peering into the space. They were flicking back and forth, up and down, as if they were scanning for something, or perhaps someone. Micah slipped back behind the table and hoped she would leave.
“Micaaaaaaah.”
The slapping of feet let him know that she was moving again, and as the sound faded it meant that she was moving away from him. The fabrication floor was one of the biggest in the facility, not just because it needed large amounts of space for the maker labs, like the one he was in now, but because there were also a number of other branching halls with smaller spaces. Micah waited for several minutes, hoping that she would get lost in those branching hallways and allow him a chance to slip out. When he felt like it had been long enough, he slowly crept from his hiding place and moved to the doorway.
Placing a hand on the handle, and slowly turning it as silently as he could, he placed his shoulder against the door and pressed outward into the hallway. Once there he spun around the door, grasping the handle and turning it so that he could quietly close the door again. In the distance off to his right he heard the hissing sound of his own name again as the cyborg recreation of Oliva prowled somewhere in the darkness.
The very sound of his name called in that way sent an electric shiver up his spine. Worse was that the elevator was in that direction and he refused to get anywhere nearer to her at this point. His only thought at the moment was to get off this floor, get back to his lab and see if there was some way to remotely disable Olivia. So Micah began quietly creeping along the hallway in the other direction, hoping that he could perhaps find a set of stairs that he could take up to the next floor.
“Micah. I see you. Come here. I love yooooou.” The voice was behind him, far away, but it was immediately followed by the rapid slapping of feet against the smooth tile floors.
Micah didn’t bother looking over his shoulder, he yelped once and began to sprint up the hall. He took the first hallway corner he could find and ran. Then he took another turn, and another, and found himself at a dead end with only two doors on either side of him. The sound of slapping feet still approaching with haste. Then they stopped.
“Micah, where did you go? Come back, let me love you.” Olivia pleaded.
Micah thought that perhaps he had lost her, but the sound of feet on tile was still moving closer, though it was slower now, more paced and measured. Each step coming in slow, even strides. Micah needed to move, looking to one door led into another small fabrication space with a few desks and nothing else, the other was a large steel door labeled as stairs. His luck wasn’t quite out yet.
He turned the handle slowly and as silently as he could manage. There was still a small click as the heavy lock disengaged and he pushed carefully inward hoping that the hinges were oiled enough to allow him to easily open it. The door swung into the stairwell with relative ease and Micah slipped inside then turned to grab the handle and turn it so that he could silently close it. He was met with a crash bar instead of a handle, and it was far too late for him to grab it. The door quickly swung shut with a resounding crash.
The sound was enough to actually startle Micah, but he knew that he had just tipped off Olivia to exactly where he was. He needed to move, now! He turned and scrambled up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He was just turning and ascending the next flight of stairs when he heard the door below him wrench open and the hissing sound of his own name echoed around the stairway. It was too late for him to stop moving and be silent, so he sprinted all the more. Olivia looked up at him through the cement steps. Micah only briefly caught her eye, they were still glowing red and she was wearing a grin that was somewhere between sinister and sweet.
“Why won't you let me love you Micah?” She asked, her voice sounded wounded before changing to a shriek. “Let me love you!”
Micah ran and he could hear Olivia giving chase as well. She was sprinting up the stairs with an unnatural speed and Micah knew he needed to get up two more floors, a total of six flights of stairs just to make it back to his lab. He was already outpaced, and so he crashed into the first door he saw, spinning around and shoving it. Oliva was there, her grinning face could be seen between the door and the wall.
“Love me Micah! Love me!” She wailed.
As she repeated the phrase over and over, she managed to worm her hand into the space between the door and the door jamb. It was clawing and reaching and pawing at Micah’s throat. Every time he shoved just a little harder and it came close to the hand it was always trying to constrict and wrap around his throat. Micah shoved hard against the door and heard the sound of cracking plastics. He looked down at Olivia’s hand and it was pinched in between the door and the frame. He shoved hard again, it didn’t seem to cause her any pain but he could hear the internal framework that he had worked so hard to meticulously craft beginning to fracture and break. He shoved again, then again, and again. Each time more and more of the internal workings broke and finally he shoved hard and the door slammed shut.
Olivia’s hand fell to the floor, sparking and snapping as the last remnants of the electric life inside of it discharged and burned out. Micah didn’t move from the door, he held it shut and began to hear Olivia slamming her fist and presumably her broken wrist against the door. She was wailing something incomprehensible to Micah. He knew he couldn’t make a break up the stairs now, but he might be able to make a mad dash for the elevator and pray that he could call it and get in before she pounced on him.
He eased off of the door, hoping that she would still think that he was holding it closed and not try and open it. Once he barely had any weight on it, he turned and ran. The sound must have tipped her off because the slamming sound resumed for a few moments before he heard the door swing open and then shut. She was here on the floor with him now. With any luck the twists and turns he had taken would confuse her enough to give him enough time. When he heard her calling his name in the distance again he knew she was once again stalking him. He, unfortunately, had no idea where he was going. This was one of the many recreation floors that consisted of game rooms, cafeterias and break rooms.
Micah ran, turning corners at random and hoping one of them would lead to an elevator and a way out. He turned another corner and saw Olivia’s naked form at the end of the hallway. Her glowing red eyes illuminated her face enough for Micah to see her grin, even in the relatively dim light. There was a doorway about halfway up the hall, Micah could turn and run or dash in there and hope he could either trap her inside or find a window to jump out perhaps. He sprinted forward and saw that the robotic Olivia was doing the same. Micah was able to reach the door and swung around dashing inside of it.
There was no door here, worse, there were no windows either. It was just a kitchen. Micah sprinted in and slammed into the wall on the far side, running past cutting boards and dishes as he did so. He turned and looked on in panicked terror. Olivia was in the doorway now.
“I found you Mi-Micah. I can love you now. Let me love you. We can be-be in love together forever now. Let me love you Micah.” Her voice was low, even, almost predatory.
Micah ventured a look down at her wrist, the missing hand had left a mangled and still sparking stump in her wrist. There were wires and some tubing jutting from the shredded synthetic skin there. She was really and truly a robot now, but there was something wrong in her brain. Micah was sure that he had corrected some of her obsession, so what had gone wrong? Micah could only assume that her obsession with his was far too strong to simply edit out of her. In fact, it might have been that her humanity was the only thing keeping it in check, and since that had been removed she was now a single minded machine with a singular goal.
Micah snapped his mind back to the moment, he could analyze what went wrong later, first he simply had to survive. He looked around him for something, anything, to defend himself with. A set of steak knives were sitting in a wooden block on the counter, so Micah dashed forward and drew one of them out and held it in front of him.
“Stay back Olivia. There’s something wrong here. I need to get you back to the lab and see if I can fix it.” Micah said at last, the knife shaking in his hand as he held it in front of him like some kind of protective talisman.
“There’s nothing wrong with me-with me. I just want to love you Micah.” Olivia replied and began stalking forward. “You made me this way, now let me repay you.”
Olivia lunged forward in an attempt to grab Micah, her one remaining hand was still aimed at his throat. If both hands had still been attached Micah was sure she would have had him in that moment. Instead the pair tumbled to the ground. Micah landed on his back with the naked Olivia straddling him. Her one hand on his neck was cutting off his air supply and he was already gasping and struggling below her.
“Shhh, it’s ok now. Don’t worry. This will be over in a moment.” Olivia cooed.
Micah looked frantically around him and all he managed to get his hands on was the steak knife. Acting purely on instinct he swung up with the knife and barely dragged it across the neck. It was sharp and split the artificial skin across her throat with ease, but she wasn’t human any more. The cut did little more than leave a slice across the artificial skin and expose a little bit of her internal workings. Micah wasn’t done though he reoriented his arm and jammed the knife into the side of her head. It landed somewhere around where a human girl’s temple might be. It sunk deep into her head until it impacted something hard.
Her hands released Micah and her entire body began to wobble and jolt from side to side. Her mouth opened and her tongue lolled out of her mouth as her eyes rolled up in her head. She was vibrating more and more intensely on top of him and Michah took the opportunity to scramble out from under her.
Olivia was still shorting out once Micah was free. The metal knife must have sliced into some kind of power conduit under her synthetic faceplate. He watched in horror as she twitched and spasmed more and more. He backed away, glancing up at the door and then suddenly she was still. She was still on her knees, her head had fallen back and was looking up at the ceiling now. Her tongue hung from the side of her mouth and her eyes were still rolled up into her head, showing only the whites of her artificial eyes. His heart froze when he heard her voice again. It was coming out as a small whisper. It sounded distant too, as if Olivia was trying to speak to him through a wall.
“Micah. Why don’t. Why won’t you just. Love. Me.”
With that, something seemed to fully break down inside of her. She slumped backward, crumpling to the floor in a heap. Micah could see that she was offline now, fully. The glow from her eyes was gone and there were no more short circuits in her broken wrist. He knelt next to her, not entirely sure what to do. After a few moments of contemplation as the adrenaline began to drain from his blood stream, he thought of a plan. He gently and cautiously reached down to her neck, and into the slit he had carved there. It took a moment of fumbling under the flap of artificial skin, but he found the locking mechanism. Disabling it allowed him to detach her head from the neck joint, though the skin was still holding her head in place.
Micah took the knife from her head and gently sliced free the skin all around her neck until her head was fully disconnected from her body. He set it on the counter top and then knelt down to the body. He scooped it up in both arms and then hoisted it up onto his shoulder. He picked up Olivia’s disconnected head by the hair and walked out of the kitchen.
Micah made his way back down to the fabrication lab where he laid the robotic chassis on the workbench again. Her head would come with him back up to the research lab. Once there he hooked it into a power regulation system where enough power would be supplied to the brain casing, just enough to keep the life support systems running, but not quite enough to allow her to power on. He left her there and returned home. She would be a new project for him to slowly work on for the next few months. He was determined to fix her obsession and return her to a working body. One way or another, he would fix her, and make her his perfect girl.