Chapter 2
Though she fretted about the exchange, Lena had no desire to continue the conversation when Simi returned from class that afternoon, earning a shrug from Simi as she went back to her room. Days went by before they spoke of it again. Lena kept to her room, avoiding Simi, except at mealtimes. She tried to keep their conversations light and frivolous, only discussing household chores and their classes, and Lena was careful never to let their eyes meet.
A week passed before Simi finally broached the taboo topic. "Lena?" It was dinnertime, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. Lena was almost done, but Simi set down her spoon and made sure she held Lena's attention before proceeding. "I'm going to use the suit tonight. I have some...updates I have to do."
Lena's spoon clattered into the nearly empty bowl.
Simi continued. "I've been putting it off, because I wanted to ask: do you... want to watch?" She asked shyly.
All the suppressed anxiety flooded back into Lena at once. "I don't...you're okay with that?"
Simi nodded. "Actually,
I want
you to see it. I think you'll understand better if you do."
"Now?"
"Give me a few minutes after we finish up, okay? To get the suit on."
The suit.
"S...sure." After Simi left for her room, Lena scooped the dishes into the sink and tried to calm her racing heart. Scrubbing the bowls and quickly setting them in the dishwasher, Lena took a few deep breaths, and let the warm water from the faucet bathe her shaking hands. Simi was in her room, putting on the silver suit... Lena was overwhelmed but couldn't tell which emotion was strongest. Was she scared? Excited? Nervous? Anxious? All of the above? The feeling was overwhelming, like knowing the term paper was due tomorrow, and she hadn't finished it; or the first time she'd invited a boy to spend the night with her...
The last thought drew her up short; of all the myriad emotions she was experiencing, how had arousal crept in? Or was it simply the excitement of doing something forbidden? She squashed it mentally before shutting off the water and drying her hands. Surveying the kitchen to be sure she was finished, Lena slapped the light switch and went down the hall, rapping a knuckle on Simi's door to inform her of her presence.
Simi was waiting; she sat at her desk, facing Lena as she came in. She was wearing the suit once again, her body wrapped in silver cloth and invisible circuitry. Her desktop computer was booted up, an unfamiliar program window open on the monitor. "Are you ready?" At Lena's nod, she spun her chair to the computer, and began typing. She seemed far less apprehensive than Lena was. "I have six programs on the schedule tonight, shouldn't take long, maybe a few minutes. Just a few apps that need updating."
Lena moved to the bed and sat down, watching. "Apps? Like on your phone?"
"Yep," Simi affirmed, turning her chair to Lena. "Here's the best way I can think of to explain it. My mind is like a computer, and I'm the OS, the operating system," she tapped her head. "The human brain is a huge hard drive, with a massive amount of space for files. My system's up here, taking up a good part of the space, but the rest is empty; most people never fill it in their lifetimes, but with the suit, I can plug in new information whenever I want. And there are programs I can install, like apps, to let me perform specific functions in more efficient ways."
"Like what?" Lena asked. What apps had Simi already installed? Where any already running now?
Simi shrugged. "There's reading prioritization, memorization, math optimization, room cleaning efficiency, and one for that French poetry catalog." She frowned, fingers still moving over the keyboard. "I didn't want it, but I needed it to pass that required Freshman language class. Now I can't bring myself to uninstall it. Sometimes I leave it on as I'm shutting down; it helps me sleep." She tapped a final key, and a message appeared on the screen, prompting her to "Insert connection cable."
Simi stood and picked up the end of a long black cable; Lena recognized it from before. "Last chance," she waved the jack at Lena, who nodded hesitantly. "Okay. Once I plug it in, everything's automatic. You don't have to do anything, just wait. I left the vocalizations on, so you'll know what's happening." She faced the computer, lifted her hair aside, and proceeded to push the cable jack into the port on the back of her collar. "Here goes!" The monitor went dark, then filled with a kaleidoscopic pattern, pulsing geometric shapes in multi-colored hues, shifting, spiraling, scrolling...
With a soft electronic
beep!
the silver suit lit up. Glittering lights danced across the fabric, a line of orange dots glowed on the collar, and Simi's entire demeanor changed. Her arms dropped to her sides, she pulled herself up straight, her face relaxed into a blank mask, and her eyes lost focus. She stood rigidly at attention.
"Connection established. Unit E27 online." The dual voices issued simultaneously from the speakers and Simi's mouth.
"Eep!" Lena's hands slapped over her mouth to suppress her involuntary outburst. She'd heard Simi's robot voice before, but it still shocked her; while the computer audio sounded synthetic, Simi's voice had overtones of the woman Lena knew; not monotone, but different; it sounded... colder, deeper, with no inflection. She had mentioned leaving the vocalizations on, but Lena had half-expected the commands would only come from the computer speaker, not from both the speaker and Simi's own mouth. The butterflies in Lena's stomach beat their wings uncontrollably, reaching a nearly painful peak, as she tried to process the substance of the message. E27, Simi had said; she had a
number.
This wasn't Simi anymore, this was Unit E27.
The orange LEDs in her collar flickered to white one by one, and the monitor pattern changed, confirming the connection. "Unit E27 is ready to receive programming."
A progress bar appeared on the screen, and Lena read the caption: 'Downloading 1 of 6 updates.' White marks began to fill the bar as information flowed through the cable into the suit. Waves of tiny sparks pulsed in regular intervals down Simi's suit, from the collar to her extremities, following the concealed wires. Simi's voice, echoing from the computer speakers, punctuated and emphasized each pulse: "Downloading...downloading...downloading..."
Lena's eyes were still frozen wide, listening and watching as the computer...updated her friend. Even though she had briefly glimpsed it before, and Simi had told her what to expect, it still was something Lena couldn't comprehend; it was an utterly alien experience, Simi's body and mind completely under the computer's control. Simi was being rewritten, changed, programmed, right in front of her; Simi was an I/O device for the machine, a programmable extension. Was she even aware of externalities like Lena's presence?
