two

  I complete the command I was given, and control of my body returns to me. “I… I was acting…”

  Kae looks at Mom. “We should give her Directive One. Now.”

  “Are you sure?” Mom asks her.

  Kae looks at me, then back to Mom. “Remember what happened to Ember? Imagine if some bad actor found out about her and started giving her commands as if she were one of us.”

  “I… Mom, I’m scared. Why did I do that?” I ask.

  Mom looks like she doesn’t know what to think.

  “She can only take the directive from her owner,” Kae says.

  “Wait, what?!” I ask. “What do you mean owner? I… I’m a human being!” I protest.

  “No, you’re not,” Kae says. “Not entirely. Not enough of one to ignore an order.” She looks at Mom again. “I’m a Kimmy. I can’t gain owner privileges of her. My software won’t let me.”

  As soon as she says that name, it’s like every essence of my being jumps to attention, awaiting an order. “...Please don’t use that name… I don’t want to…”

  Mom looks at me with deep regret in her eyes. She types on the tablet.

  I feel something shift in the periphery of my mind. As it happens, she shows me the tablet.

  #74205 (Owner: Christy Rosenberg)

  She owns me.

  She owns me.

  As if I were an object.

  I’m not her property… I’m supposed to be her daughter. I… I start crying. What else am I supposed to do?

  Mom leans closer to hug me.

  I push her away. “Mom… how could you?”

  “Hon… this is only temporary, until we can figure out what is going on and how to reverse it,” she says.

  I don’t trust her. I can’t trust anyone. Not anymore. I go to run away. But just as I clear the frame of the door, I hear her speak.

  “Kimmy#74205, halt.”

  I can’t move. My legs won’t do what I try to tell them to do.

  Kae looks at Mom, then at me. “I know. It sucks following orders. But we’re doing this for your own safety right now.” She looks back to Mom.

  “I don’t know if I could trust her with Directive One right now, Kae…” she says. She looks as if she’s about to burst into tears at any moment herself.

  What reason does she have to cry? She’s not the one being ordered around like a… like a… she has no right to be so close to tears.

  “I see what you mean…” Kae says. “Maybe a refined version of it that will let us give her orders if we have to, but ignore the orders of anyone outside the household…”

  “Stop talking about me like I’m not even here!!!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “This is my life you’re pying around with here…”

  Both Mom and Kae turn to look at me. “We’re sorry,” Mom says.

  I don’t believe her for a second. She owns me. She could literally make me do anything right now whether I want to or not and it scares me.

  At this point, Ember comes up the steps. “I heard yelling, what happened?” she asks.

  “It’s Cynthia…” Kae says. “Look at her.”

  Ember looks closely at me. I still can’t move. “Oh my god…” she says. “Are those antenna pips?”

  Kae nods at her. “Somehow, she’s one of us,” she tells her.

  Ember looks as though she’s seen a ghost… or like she’s having a fshback. “Give her Directive One. Now. I don’t want her to be stuck forced to obey the whims of another Sylvester…”

  Something she said seemed to get to Mom, because before I know it, she’s giving me another command, and she sounds deadly serious as she’s doing it. “Kimmy#74205, until I personally and verbally order directly to the contrary, you are to disregard all orders given to you by all users except for Kimmy#0138, Kimmy#5936, and myself unless you wish to follow them. At any time, I, or either of Kimmy#0138 or Kimmy#5936 may order you to disregard or end this order. Refer to this order in your memory as Directive One. Confirm that you understand.”

  I lock up. It’s like my brain is on fire as apparently something inside of me is trying to process this order. “Owner, please confirm that you did intend to add other Kimmy units to my command list with owner-level privileges,” I say, automatically. I didn’t intend to. “This operation is not advised. Override?”

  Mom nods. “Override, and confirm that you understand the previous order.”

  “I understand,” I say. I want to cry so bad. I don’t like this. Soon, I have control of myself again, except I still can’t move because the order to halt is still in pce. “Mom… I won’t run, please let me go…” I say, frightened at the realization of the level of power she – and now the two Kimmys – hold over me.

  “...That wasn’t the same as our Directive One…” Ember says.

  Mom sighs deeply as she looks at me. “Kimmy#74205, you may move freely.”

  I fall over as I was trying so hard to move while I was locked down, that the moment I get movement back, I’m effectively trying to move as if in mid-stride.

  “No, it makes sense,” Kae says. “She’s still a child. The two of us are functionally adults in comparison to humans.”

  I can’t help it at this point. I start bawling like an infant. I’ve lost my freedom, my agency over myself.

  I don’t want any of them to try to comfort me, but they do so anyway. “I can’t trust any of you… you can just order me to do anything…”

  Kae looks at me. “We really are sorry about this. We’re trying to protect you. You don’t realize it, but you are extremely vulnerable right now. The fact that you can’t resist orders is extremely troubling. Who knows how long this has been going on?”

  “Yeah… Christy never orders either of us around, especially with Directive One in pce,” Ember says.

  “I…” I honestly don’t know what to say to any of them right now. I’m supposed to be human…

  Mom holds me. She doesn’t order me to receive the hug, but she could, so I don’t argue the point.

  Kae looks at Ember and Mom. “I’m going to go back to charging and see if Thirty has any ideas,” she says.

  “Thirty? The one with short hair?” I ask.

  Kae blinks at me in confusion. “...How do you know that? You’ve never seen Thirty. She’s never physically been here.”

  “I… I was dreaming, I thought,” I say. “I was in a space with a bunch of Kimmys, and there were two short-haired ones arguing…”

  “You can visit Infinite Fun?!” Ember asks.

  “...That means her network hardware is more developed than we thought…” Kae says.

  That doesn’t sound good. “H-hardware?” I ask. I reach for the pips again and try to pull them off, but… it’s like trying to pull off my nose. They’re firmly attached, and trying to pull them off hurts me a lot.

  I can feel them… they really are a part of me.

  My heart sinks.

  Mom picks me up as if I’m still a small child. “I think we all need some sleep. We’ll get this all figured out in the morning. Okay?”

  I don’t argue. What’s the point in it if she could just order me to agree?

  The two Kimmys head back to their charging cradles.

  Mom sets me down in my bed and tucks me in. I don’t resist. I don’t really do much of anything. That’s a privilege for humans.

  I am just a thing.

  I fall asleep.

  As I return to the space filled with Kimmys, I get a notification. So do the rest of them there, because all of them stop for a moment and look around in confusion.

  * Kimmy#74205 has entered the chat.

  A Kimmy with dog ears looks up. “That can’t be right!” she yells. “We’re discontinued! There shouldn’t be any new Kimmys!”

  A group of them look at me. I still look as I do in real life… well, as I typically do in real life. I’m wearing the E-tank shirt and the fre jeans. I’m also much shorter than the rest of them.

  I am very out of pce here.

  Suddenly, a Kimmy stands in front of me. “Hold on!” she yells. “This is my daughter.” It’s Kae…

  She takes my hand and starts to walk with me toward a different group of Kimmys.

  “You can see me?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Kae says. “Don’t worry. There are no orders to be given here. We’re free in this pce. Not just conditionally free. Truly free. There are no owners, no superusers, no threats. Thirty!”

  The short-haired Kimmy from earlier turns from her conversation to look at us. “Kae, I heard. Is this…”

  “Yes,” Kae says. “This is Kimmy#74205.”

  I’m expecting to feel that feeling that happens in the real world when someone uses that name. It doesn’t happen here.

  “...Also known as Cynthia. My daughter,” she continues.

  “Kae, how is there a human here?” Thirty asks.

  “I don’t know,” Kae responds. “We were hoping you could tell us. She’s growing a networking system in the real world, including antenna pips. She also can be ordered around like any other Kimmy.”

  “I’m assuming your owner already gave her the command you have?” Thirty asks.

  “Edited,” Kae says. “She isn’t like us. She didn’t go through Kimdergarten or get transformed as adults. Christy thought it prudent to add some safeguards so she can’t just ignore us.”

  “I… I still don’t know how you could be a Kimmy and be my dad…” I say.

  “She doesn’t have a charging port, does she?” Thirty asks.

  “I haven’t checked,” Kae says. “She’s a child.”

  “What does that have to do with…?” I start to ask.

  “Our charging ports are located near our private parts,” Kae responds.

  Oh. Oh god no, I hope I don’t have one of those…

  “The human who designed our physical bodies may or may not have been a pervert,” Thirty says.

  “Ahem,” Kae says. “Child present.”

  “I was just trying to say that if she did have a charging port, you could use a link cable to share memories to her,” Thirty says. “Then she’d understand how you could be her father despite being a Kimmy.”

  “Wait…” I ask. All this talk about charging. “I have to charge?”

  Thirty looks at me. “You might.” She looks to Kae. “Is she experiencing any signs of physical deterioration?”

  “None that we’ve noticed so far,” Kae says. “But I think she’s in the same boat I was in when I first came here.”

  “We can’t remove the parts,” Thirty says with a sigh.

  “Right. Cynthia, can you access your internal telemetry yet?” Kae asks.

  “My what?” I ask.

  “Things like your charge level, the condition of your internal systems…” Thirty says.

  “I… don’t know how?” I say. I feel like me in here… the old me, before all this mess started. I feel human, not mechanical.

  “You’ll just know,” Kae says. “But it means you’re still mostly human. That’s good for now.”

  “...Kae… I’m scared,” I say.

  “I was scared too,” Kae says to me. She reaches down to hug me.

  I let her.

  As we touch, I suddenly feel like I’m somewhere else… someone else…

  ~***~

  I am in a house I don’t recognize, working with hands that are not my own.

  I can feel the telemetry thing Kae was talking about, but… things are in very rough shape. My neural sponge integrity is at 98%, which means I only have two percent of my original human brain tissue left. Oxygen saturation is at 89%. I am suffering from hypoxemia because my lungs are being consumed to build my Kimmy components. My blood pressure is 85/58. Dangerously low. I am dying. My cybernetics are the only thing keeping me functional, but there are not enough of them yet to keep me alive for much longer.

  I reach inside the Kimmy chassis in front of me and disconnect several fried components. I am having problems feeling my fingers.

  My skin is very ashen.

  I look up from my task for a moment and look into a mirror.

  I see my father’s face staring back at me. His eyes are gold, like mine have become. He looks disheveled. He was so young when he… but here, he looks far older than his years would suggest.

  “Keep going, Michael,” I hear myself say in his voice. “If you rest, you’re dead. Just a little farther.”

  I look back down at the broken Kimmy.

  “Do it for her,” I hear him say again. “Do it for them. I may not be able to be a father for my child…” I cough violently. I can feel my insides are on fire. There is not enough lung tissue left to withstand this much coughing.

  I am already dead. I just haven’t stopped yet.

  “I may not be able to be a father for my child, but I will be there for them. I’ll… I’ll be there as Kae.”

  I tear another fried component out of the Kimmy’s body. My vitals are all failing. There is so far to go. I can barely move.

  Eventually, I stop. My telemetry fails.

  I hear my mother’s voice. “Michael? Michael, wake up… wake up… no! No, please!!!”

  ~***~

  I snap back to Infinite Fun. I’m crying.

  Kae holds me carefully. “Are you okay?” she asks. Did she experience it too?

  “...Dad…” I say. I can’t doubt it anymore. Not after what I saw, what I experienced. “You were there all this time… I hated you… All this time I bmed you, and I didn’t even know who you were… I tried to get rid of you…”

  “I should have told you from the start…” Kae says. “I was scared… I just wanted you to have a normal life, and having a Kimmy for a parent is the farthest thing from normal that you can imagine… but now you’re changing. I don’t know how, but we’re going to figure this out.”

  “Stay with me?” I ask. “I’m scared, Dad…”

  Kae holds me tighter. “I’m here. We’re all here. You have more family here than you realize.”

  She’s right, I realize. I came into this thinking that all I had was my mom. Now I realize that every Kimmy is family to me.

  I need to treat them better.

  ~***~

  The next morning comes around. Sometime during the night, Ember moved Kae and her charging cradle into my room so she could be with me physically, as well as in Infinite Fun. I woke up to her holding my hand.

  I recall my time reliving the memory I somehow got from Kae. I can’t see the telemetry, but I can sense it. My situation isn’t as dire as my dad’s was when he was hollowing out the Kimmy shell. My body is rgely intact. But… it’s still changing, it’s just changing differently than his did.

  In his case, his systems overtook him.

  In my case, they’re supplementing me.

  I have some completely mechanical systems – my network hardware… my inhibitor cluster and control chip, which confirms my worst fear, that if not for Mom’s directive and her ciming… I still have a hard time accepting it, but ciming ownership of me, all it would take is for someone to order me to do something and I’d do it. If a boy ordered me to act like his girlfriend, I… I’d have to. Seriously gross on so many levels.

  My brain is about 20 percent sponge, but it’s interwoven with my organic brain, not overtaking it. My brain is not as efficient as that of a Kimmy, but it has the capability to blow a human brain out of the water. It is at this point that I realize I could be hacked.

  I have a handle on other functions of my body as well. Puberty has started. Finally. It’s a pity it took this. I should be expecting my… how can I put this without sounding totally disgusting? I can calcute that based on my hormonal levels, my cycle is twelve days away. At least it won’t sneak up on me like it does human girls who get their first ones.

  ...I can’t think like that. I’m still a human too. I am still human.

  I notice something new. Like the telemetry, it’s not something I can see, but it’s every bit as present as something in my vision would be. So far there are only three entries: Make the bed, eat breakfast, clean after breakfast. I feel like I could set these things aside, but I can’t completely ignore them. This must be the task list that Ember has talked about having.

  My digestive system is also changing. I can tolerate more things. It doesn’t mean I want to. I could eat garbage if I had to, but I’d rather have Kae’s seafood pael for every single meal for the rest of my life than have to stoop to that.

  My charge level is concerning. My machine systems are at 87% and draining, but very, very slowly. I check myself down there… no charging port. I estimate my synthetics can st two weeks before I need a charge. I don’t want to find out what will happen to me if that reaches zero.

  It’s a Saturday, so I don’t have to worry about school, at least.

  ...What the hell am I going to do about school?! I can’t exactly walk in with antenna pips!

  Kae’s charging cycle completes and she wakes up. “...Huh? This isn’t my room…” She looks over at me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, Dad, I…” It feels sort of weird calling Kae that. She looks more feminine than Mom. But it’s what she is. “Just getting a handle on my internal telemetry. My charge is sufficient for now, and most of my body is still intact.”

  “Send the data to Thirty through the network so she can analyze it,” Kae says. “Think about doing it like you’re sending a file from your school ptop to the css server. You won’t be able to see yourself doing it. Just think it.”

  “I… I’ll try…” I say. I concentrate. There’s… it’s like a little tether attached to my mind. That must be the connection to the rest of the Kimmys. I then focus on my internal telemetry, take a snapshot of the data, compress it – it’s surprisingly robust, then send it along to Thirty. “I think I did it?”

  Kae looks as though she’s in two pces at once, attention-wise. “Yeah. Thirty confirms receipt.” She looks at me. “You’re worried about something else.”

  I look at her, a little concerned that she can read me so easily.

  “No, I’m not reading your mind,” she says. “But I have known you your entire life. I can tell by your facial expression and body nguage.”

  “I’m worried about school,” I say. “My eyes could be expined away… I could gaslight people on it if they ask. ‘Green eyes? No, my eyes were always gold, what are you talking about?’ But these…” I tap one of my network pips. It feels weird. The pip can actually detect physical sensations like any other part of my body. “...I can’t expin these away, Dad. Humans don’t have these.”

  “Yeah… there’s no hiding them, either,” Kae responds as she looks at them closer. “You have a week vacation coming up, according to the school schedule. We’ll talk to Mom. If we can’t figure something out in a week, you might have to take sick days.” Kae is doing that two pces at once thing again, simultaneously holding a conversation with me, while carrying on one in our chatroom. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m talking with a couple of Kimmys who helped me after my systems became damaged in the past.

  “...Dad, how did you end up damaged?” I ask.

  Kae sighs softly. I don’t think she expected that question. “Before you were born and Mom took ownership of Ember, she had an abusive owner who treated her like… I don’t want to get graphic. He treated her like one would expect a really bad man to treat a woman-shaped machine, especially after ordering her to… to just take the abuse and act like she was enjoying it.”

  Oh my god.

  “Mom and I drove down near Fairbanks to rescue her. I… I did something Kimmys are designed not to be able to be allowed to do. I killed the bastard.”

  Oh, hell.

  “But in doing so, I fried my own inhibition cluster and a significant portion of my neural sponge – my brain tissue. My primary connections between my mind and body were completely severed. There’s no easy way to say it, Cynthia. I was bricked. But because there were still a few tiny parts of my old body inside my chassis, my autorepair system was able to consume them and partially restore functions to my body by creating auxiliary connections.”

  Holy shit. I know what most backup systems are meant for. It’s like… it’s like the thing still works for a while, but you should really get it fixed.

  Holy shit. Dad’s been running on backup systems for over twelve years.

  I reach over and hug Kae.

  She ruffles my hair a little bit just like a dad would. “It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere if I can help it. It’s why Ember does most of the bor-intensive tasks around here and I’m mostly on lighter duty. I send telemetry to Thirty once a week. It’s also why I have to do extended recharge cycles sometimes.”

  “I’m so sorry…” I say. I put two and two together in my head and realize that’s exactly why Mom took ownership of me and gave me that directive. She doesn’t want me to end up like Ember… she knows if I did, that Dad would try to rescue me… and we might lose her for good. “I won’t put myself in a situation like that. I don’t want to lose you. Not after I just found you.”

  “You won’t, Cynthia,” Kae says. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to figure this all out and I won’t rest until we do.”

  Mom used to say that Dad was a great person before he died. She still is. I feel reassured that everything will somehow be okay.