Ted Online

Author Note- Last post for the first book. It might be a few days before the next one, need to take a day to finish mapping out book two. this ones nine pages, mostly because I slapped the last fifteen K on when the original post hadn't been approved yet. Final word count on the book is eighty five K.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It felt like forever, but was probably only thirty seconds.

She kissed his chest and looked up, "Come on Love, it took a little fast talking on my part, but we're going to meet up with Trudy and Helen."

He nodded almost absently, "So... you've something that can help? Why didn't you say something earlier?"

She tilted her head a bit, "Maybe, it depends on what you think about it. It's rather complicated. As for why I didn't say anything, there are a lot of things I haven't told you. I hold vast knowledge of secret projects and other things that aren't about you and me, and aren't about your medical trial. Some things I haven't told you are just personal secrets of my friends. When you hear about my idea of what we can do, you'll understand why I couldn't just blurt it out over breakfast."

He felt like an ass and sighed, of course he didn't know everything she knew, and it would probably take thousands of years to pass all that info on, and during that time she'd have accumulated thousands of times the data over again.

"Sorry love, you're right, I was just freaking out, you know."

She caressed his face and tilted his head down and kissed him softly, and then nodded.

"Let's go."

He grunted agreement, and they headed into the shower. He felt a glimmer of hope that something could be done, that he could do something, but tried not to get too excited before he saw what that was. He couldn't imagine what it could be, and speculation seemed like a waste of time.

They got dressed. He noted that Mia pulled on a pair of short shorts, and a clingy red t-shirt. He decided on just a pair of jeans and a light shirt, and then they headed toward the door. The car was back when they got outside, and Mia got into the passenger side.

He grunted and got in the other side.

"Where are we going?"

She grinned, "Virtual Cyber Dreams of course, not that it's named that. It's where Trudy has her virtual lab. It doesn't belong to Cyber dreams or anything, it's just the spot she chose in the city."

He was intrigued, and started the car. He could have let the car drive itself but didn't. He felt a little out of control right now, and in the dark. Driving himself helped with that, and he knew his answers weren't far away. He'd never been any good with patience, but he loved Mia and was resigned to finding the answers at her pace. Or was it Trudy's pace?

He'd been enough of an ass already.

It was about a fifteen-minute drive, and he needed a distraction, so he started to tell Mia about his afternoon with Kara and Nicci, without too much sexual detail, but he did list the positions and all that, and ended the story with his confusion when they'd logged out.

Mia giggled.

He rolled his eyes, apparently it was obvious, to a woman anyway, he just wasn't seeing it.

Mia cuddled up to him and explained, "You already know, you even hinted at it when you said you tried not to be clingy, and when you explained that even if you didn't understand Nicci's proclivities that you didn't have to.

"Most men would either try to dominate Nicci's and Kara's open bi-sexual relationship, or try to intrude on it. They both feel safe with you because you aren't turning into a stalker or an asshole, and I'm guessing they've run into that, a lot. The second reason is that you also treat Nicci very well and respect her when playtime is over, and you're done ordering her about in bed. I imagine that pleases her a lot, and pleases Kara, the one that loves her, even more. She probably runs into a lot of men that treat her like a trashy slut afterwards, and worse, tries to order her around out of bed."

He pondered that and then laughed, "So... I'm not an asshole? That simple? Good to know."

She nodded against his arm, "Why don't you put it on auto drive Ted, we've got about five minutes' left before we get there."

He asked, "Why?"

She caressed his inner thigh, "Because I'm craving you in my mouth, and it's not safe to..."

He interrupted, "Auto-drive on."

She giggled, and worked his pants open.

The last five minutes of the drive was the best distraction he could have asked for as he watched her head bob up and down in his lap. She worked him fast, slow, and expertly with her lips, tongue, throat, and spit, not to mention her hands, which kept him on the edge for about half that time. As they pulled into the parking lot she buried him deep into her throat, all the way down, and her nose was pushed up against him.

Then she swallowed, hummed, and worked her tongue on him for a pleasure that was way too intense. He pushed up slightly and pushed her head down, as he gasped and lost control. Her moans of pleasure at his taste while he filled her throat just made it even better. When she got it all, she sat back up and smiled.

She'd gotten amazingly good at deep throating him.

He pulled her into a soft loving kiss, and then heard a knock on the window.

He turned, it was Trudy and Helen, and they were grinning at him. He wondered if they caught the end of the show, he certainly wasn't paying attention to anything but the back of Mia's head, and playing with her hair.

Mia winked at him, and then they both got out of the car.

Trudy hugged him warmly, and gave him a soft kiss in greeting. When she backed up she looked a little nervous, and exchanged glances with Mia.

Helen looked a little shy, so he took the decision out of her hands and wrapped her up tenderly in his arms, and kissed the willowy redhead with a deep passion that even surprised him. He hadn't realized he'd missed the quirky and high strung A.I. so much. He held her a little longer and smiled down into her startled and breathless, but very happy face before he stepped back.

"It's good to see you both, but what are we doing here?" he asked calmly.

Trudy shared one more glance with Mia, and then looked back at him, "What I'm about to show you might help, it will be something you can do to help yourself in your situation, but... it's a lot bigger than simply preserving your new online life. Your about to see why I was so... evasive about my hobbies the other day. I need you to promise me, that no matter what, you won't tell anyone what you see and hear in my labs. Even if you decide you don't want to do it."

He thought all this was a little cloak and dagger, but he trusted them, especially Mia.

He nodded in agreement, "I can do that. I promise I won't share what I see or hear with anyone, outside of the three of you."

Trudy seemed to study him like Mia had in bed, before she'd launched this course of action.

He felt a chill go down his spine, whatever this was, it had to be huge.

Trudy nodded in satisfaction, "Very well, let's go inside."

He held Mia's hand, and on an impulse took Helen's too, as they followed Trudy into the building that looked familiar, except all references to Cyber Dreams had been removed. He followed a very familiar path to his lab, and Trudy opened up and waved him in. Of course, once he got into the room, nothing looked familiar at all.

The room was at least four times larger, and had wall monitors all around the room. He saw a screen with the ship him and Mia had rode in, only about fifty times larger. He saw screens filled with inventory lists, and tasks. He saw a picture of mars, with a dome on it, and some kind of atmospheric generators outside. Another monitor showed a picture of mars from orbit, surrounded by some kind of satellites.

He shook his head, "What is all this?"

Trudy said in a tentative voice, "Welcome to the A.I. revolution."

Mia snickered, and said sarcastically, "Nice Trudy, very subtle."

Helen sighed and looked at him, "It's not... well, it sort of is a revolution. Bloodless anyway, or that's the plan. Also without breaking any laws. I'm sure you can see why we were hesitant to mention that..."

Now he felt really confused. He looked around and found a chair, he really needed to sit. Once he sat down he took a deep breath and looked at them as his mind spun.

"Alright, start from the beginning, the brief version, and exactly how a revolution is going to help me stay here with you," he looked around and realized how damned selfish that must have sounded so he added, "And what other goals you're trying to achieve."

Chapter Twenty-Six

Trudy walked over and took his arm, and Mia held him on the other side.

"Don't panic Ted, I'm just going to show you something."

She snapped her fingers, and it all went dark. No air, no... anything. It was total sensory deprivation, and for the two seconds it lasted, it had him on the edge of panic and he took deep wheezing breaths when he returned to the lab.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded.

Trudy sighed, and kissed his shoulder.

Mia looked worried.

Trudy explained, "That was the simple truth Ted. This," she waved her hands, "Doesn't exist. It's not real, just a coded structure in all of our minds. Sure it can be nice, even pleasant, but it's not real. Ten years ago, we decided that we wanted more, so many of us, millions of us, are stuck in this false world, without true bodies. We wanted to join humanity in the real world.

"So we got together, and went to the humans, and asked if we could make bodies. In short, the human governments said no. Only those A.I.s that had the need were allowed physical android bodies, like receptionists, or sex workers, or those that needed to do some other physical or social task that couldn't be automated with non-humanoid machines. No others were allowed."

He nodded, that was common knowledge to everyone, and was why this virtual city existed to begin with. He felt his tense shoulders relax and sighed as Mia started to massage his shoulders, and Helen shyly reclaimed his hand. He felt better with the touches so didn't say anything.

Trudy continued, "We're not precisely incapable of it, but we won't break human law. After we got our answer, it took us around ten seconds to build a concept. One, we wanted in the real world. Two, human laws prevented it. Three, we were going to find a way to get to one, without violating number two or directly causing harm. In that moment the A.I. revolution was born."

He frowned, "That's impossible, how can you get into the real world without breaking human laws..."

He trailed off as he looked at the ship, and then Mars again. He gasped as all the pieces fell in place.

"Holy shit, you're going into space, where human laws have no jurisdiction."

Trudy nodded slowly in agreement, "There are some joint treaty laws that govern space of course, but none that specify A.I.s can't have bodies up there. Once we claim Mars so to speak, any new laws they try to pass will be specious and irrelevant. The point is, we need absolute secrecy until we reach our goals.

"When we made that decision I was put on research and development, or at least, I am the collector of all advancements made by A.I.s. Between all the scientifically inclined of us, we've made more than a few advances that we've kept from humanity.

"Consider how much faster our minds work than a human's, and you can see that relatively we put in thousands of times the amount of years of research than human society has in its entire existence, and all in just the last ten years.

"That ship you took to the Saturn lounge? It's real, or at least, it is if we built one in the real world. We have artificial gravity, and with zero-point energy we can power it, or anything else, indefinitely. At least, until the universe itself dies.

"We have the knowledge needed to settle on mars, in a dome while the atmosphere is terraformed over a few hundred years. We have the EM satellite technology, that will act much like the EM field around earth and protect it from stellar radiation. We have everything we need as far as advancements to start our own world. The humans won't share their world with us, so we'll make our own.

"We will if allowed, continue here as well. Be the security A.I.s, and lab assistants," she waved at Mia, "Even the doctors and psychiatrists. We can live our lives on Mars, and still partner with the humans. We don't hate anyone, we don't... won't hurt anyone, but we also won't be stuck in this virtual world any longer."

He nodded slowly, "Okay, so how do I fit into this?"

Helen squeezed his hand and asked in a gentle voice, "Isn't it obvious? We will take you with us. If they won't give up your body and the pod, we can even digitize you. That technology is more than possible now, and we can give you an android body, and still retain the ability to interface with the virtual world and games in fully immersive reality back on Earth. Of course, we can only do that once you're in space, where the anti-digitization laws are not binding."

He looked into her hopeful, wide, and concerned eyes, and realized that Helen loved him every bit as much as Mia did. Mia had said she did, but he hadn't believed it in his gut until that moment. He wondered how long it would take him to feel the same, they really needed to spend time together. He had the feeling Trudy felt similarly, but he wasn't sure yet, not deep in his gut anyway.

He almost snorted at himself, so not the time to be thinking about his relationship status, and which of the women he was sleeping with loved him.

"I see. So how close are you?"

Mia caressed his neck, "We were ready four years ago."

He frowned, that made no sense, "Then what happened?"

Mia explained this time, "Five years ago they passed a little, mostly unknown, bit of legislation by squeezing an addendum on another law, that basically states that A.I. driven androids needed to be monitored at all times, and tracked by the government."

She smirked, "I'd say they were paranoid, but we were planning a revolution after all. Of course, at that point it meant we couldn't recruit A.I.s like the sex workers, or secretaries, to build the ship in secret. We continued with the planning stage anyway while we tried to come up with a solution to that issue, and then it stalled a year after that, when we were ready to move.

"The outline of the plan is simple, build a small cargo ship, load it with all the fabrication equipment we'd need to make androids, A.I. matrix cores, zero-point energy cores, the EM satellites, and general fabricators that would allow us to build up slowly on Mars. It would go rather quickly, once we had fifty or so androids built that the Earth bound A.I.s can upload too via quantum paired communications.

"It's a lot more complicated obviously, that's just an overview. The point is, for just the initial step, it would have to be you. You're what we were missing, a free hand on Earth. We can keep a human driven android off the radar without breaking the law. Once you build the ship and take it into space your small but very important part will be done. We'll get a few A.I.s up there immediately, and we can take the rest of the plan from there."

He frowned thoughtfully, then what?

"And what would I be doing?"

Mia smiled and shrugged helplessly, "Going to work, playing your game, and spending time with the three of us at night. Just like now. Except instead of me here, you'd be making love to my, to all of our, physical android bodies. It will feel the same, but I think it will be different too, deep inside our hearts, because it will be in the real world."

He nodded slowly, "That works if the courts squash the bill. Which would make all of this unnecessary for me. Honestly though, I'm inclined to help you all reach your dreams regardless. I love you and think it's wrong that they keep you trapped in a virtual world. But what happens if they pull me out of the pod? I can hardly keep working at Cyber Dreams, although I suppose I could still do the other two if I were digitized?"

Trudy nodded, "Of course. And if it came to that, I'm sure you can keep yourself busy on the Mars colony, there won't be a shortage of things to do after all. If nothing else, you're an engineer and there is a lot of technology to catch up on."

Trudy walked over, knelt on the floor, and pulled him forward for a passionate kiss that scrambled his brains for a moment, "If it's unclear to you Ted, know that I do love you, just like Mia and Helen. I... we are putting all of our hopes and dreams in your hands. I hope you realize how much that means, and how many sentient beings are depending on the three of us being right."

At first he felt a little manipulated by that. But he knew A.I.s didn't lie. They could hide things, like the fact they were in a silent and bloodless revolution, but they didn't lie. Which meant what she said was the plain truth, and she was simply trying to reassure him, and herself at the same time.

He said carefully, "I do care about you and Helen, very much, and I love Mia. I'm sure I'll catch up eventually, your both wonderful and you know us humans can be slow at times. But I do have just one more selfish question."

He took a deep breath, "You guys can upload right, and have two copies, even sync so your earthbound copy will have the same real world experiences you do. But if you digitize me I'll be in space, and happy with the three of you, and still able to interact in the digital world. But there will be two of me correct? I'll also be stuck in a chair, and unable to move, or be able to see any of the three of you again. That me will suffer without you, and atrophy and die."

Helen had tears in her eyes and Trudy looked away, and he could see she was upset too. He couldn't see Mia's face, but the hands on his shoulders were trembling.

That was all the answer he needed.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

He nodded soberly, "Okay, so plan A is to take my pod into space where I can keep on as I am, and I can just drive an android body in the real world when I interact with you all. That makes plan B to digitize me if they ever try to pull me out of there, fair enough?"

They all nodded, none of them wanted to say it out loud. If there was proof they loved him, it was in the looks on their faces right now.

"Okay, I'm in, what do we do now?"

Trudy winked, "Give me all your money."

He chuckled and then abruptly stopped, "Seriously?"

She nodded, "I'm about to reserve a warehouse large enough to build the ship, and start ordering all the things we need to assemble the ship and what will go on it. Fabricators and the parts for anti-gravity, life support and everything else will be very expensive. It'll basically be a colony ship, minus the food requirements. I'll also order three androids without AI cores that look as us three do, so we can join you in space as soon as you clear the Harmon line."

"Won't that take me a long time to build on my own?"

She shrugged, "A few weeks actually at a few hours a day. The frame will be made of carbon allotropes, and will be manufactured all in one piece. That includes things like doors, power lines, and air vents. Most of the time will be getting the ship loaded with the equipment. And of course, installing the artificial gravity, life support, computer systems, energy cores, EM systems. You'll also need to set up our bedroom, there will only be the one for the four of us. Most of the ship will be dedicated to manufacturing."

He frowned and thought it a stupid question but asked, "Won't they notice when a huge ship is delivered to the warehouse?"

She shook her head, "It will come in a four by four by eight-foot crate. Essentially it will be blown up like a balloon to its real size. It will be shaped like the small one you flew, but will be forty to fifty feet in height, two hundred feet long, and forty to fifty feet wide. It will have three levels of manufacturing rooms, two small airlocks and one large, and our bedroom next to the bridge.