Allen inwardly sighed. If this woman wasn’t going to leave him alone, he would just ignore her existence to the best of his ability. For that class, no matter what Jessica did, he kept his mind focused on the class material and wrote down his notes. To his relief, Jessica stopped pestering him like some five-year-old about half way through the class and started to take notes of her own. It wasn’t a very deep class. It was just an introduction to the class, the overall content that will be covered this semester, the graded scale, etc. With a solid understanding of the class layout, he hurriedly left the classroom when it was finished, and started walking to his final class of the day which was the only class that he was truly interested in…Programming with Python.
Allen found a random seat among the rows of desks with computers on them and waited for the instructor to arrive. After about ten or so minutes though, he realized that his class wasn’t starting for another three hours. Taking the chance to relax and appease his boredom, he opened up the “Programming with Python” book for dummies. He sifted through the various chapters while taking notes of his own in a separate notebook. While he was reading, something interesting caught his eye. Although commands and sub-routines were a good chunk of overall programming, they weren’t the entire package, so to speak. A program could be as simple as the famous ‘hello world’ output, and it would still work.
This meant that Allen didn’t need to work on the packages or the ‘bells and whistles’ so to speak, but rather, he needed to work at the heart of the matter which was the A.I. to [Relation] interface code, the word tree and mapping, as well as the visual interface. It might sound like a lot, but it was essentially cutting out all of the options and features to have a working product at first, then adding on as you go. For all intents and purposes, CODE: JENNY was already built, albeit with no features. She just didn’t have a way to interface with the [Relation], or understand the English language. To fix this, he needed to upload the proper packages and libraries for the [Relation] as well as the language…or he might have to make them himself, which was a harder project, but nonetheless still doable. What would be even better, however, is if the [Relation] already had the packages installed. To be honest, he had tried to plug the USB drive into his glasses. A window would open up, and then a progress bar would start up, yet an error would always occur on the same line.
“ERR – LINE 89,368.” This was the spot where the AI would interface and download into the [Relation].
Allen excitedly flipped the pages of his book, when he heard the door opening. He looked down at his flip phone and realized that a few hours had already passed, and it was time for class in five minutes. While he was in his own world deep into his books, other students had already taken their seats and were chatting amongst themselves. He put his book away and quietly waited for the class to begin, when a certain blond-haired girl walked into the door. Immediately, he changed seats and sat between two other guys, hoping she wouldn’t come his way…unfortunately, she did. Jessica walked up to the three boys and smiled.
“Mind if I trade seats with one of you?” She asked innocently.
Allen cursed his luck. He definitely knew where this was going. Allen was about to argue with her, but an idea suddenly struck him. He grinned and turned to the blonde-haired woman.
“You may have my seat miss.” Allen offered with feigned politeness.
“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to trouble you…” She said, clearly caught off guard.
“No please, I insist. Besides, it looks like these two gentlemen would very much like to sit with you and have a nice chat.” He gestured to the two guys who were practically drooling over her. “I wouldn’t want to be a third wheel, so I will find a seat elsewhere.” He said with a monotone voice and promptly left before she could say anything else. Allen hurriedly scanned the classroom for any open seats and immediately walked over to the nearest one that was next to another girl, except she had medium-long flowing hair that went gracefully down to her upper back. She was intently engaged in whatever book she was reading, which was perfect for Allen. The fewer people that tried to interrupt his studies, the better in his opinion. Allen sat down next to her and simply zoned out until class began, or at least he attempted to when he felt an ominous chill come from behind him.
Allen turned around only to see Jessica glaring daggers at him for some reason. Well if she wants to talk to me that badly for no reason, then she can fuck off. I specifically told her that I wasn’t interested in talking. He simply glared back and resumed ignoring her, but not before he saw her mouth something.
“You are going to regret sitting there Allen.” She mouthed silently.
Allen couldn’t help but feel a premonition of future troubles. He looked at the dark-haired beauty that sat next to him while reading her book and couldn’t figure out what Jessica meant. He shrugged off her ominous words as a simple jab at him for running away and resumed looking forward. Allen took out his proper textbook and worksheets for the class while waiting for the class to begin. After about twenty minutes, the instructor finally came into the classroom and began to take roll. Allen simply said “here” when his name was called and resumed looking through his class’s textbook. He saw something move in his peripheral vision and looked to his right, only to see the black-haired beauty staring at him. She seemingly wanted to say something, but decided against it and kept looking at Allen. He blinked twice, waiting for her to say something, but eventually turned around while feeling a little creeped out, until he heard a faint feminine voice.
“My name is Alice Hazel. What is yours?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He responded, without even looking away, and resumed paying attention to the lecture.
“Please?” She inquired further, curious about his name.
“I said, don’t worry about it.” He replied again.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Something in her eyes told him that she wasn’t done, but he was, so he resumed putting his full attention to the lecture…regardless of Alice staring at him.
“Interesting…nice to meet you.” She said. The students around the two were slowly inching away from them but Allen didn’t notice, fully focused on the lecture.
Allen didn’t respond and just ignored Alice just like Jessica. He wasn’t interested in making friends and certainly wasn’t aiming for a girlfriend. Thankfully for him, she didn’t say a single word more for the entirety of the class.
Allen resumed reading his class textbook and noticed that the first part was about the initial programming layout and the directory paths.
What if… Allen began his thought. It can’t be that simple…can it? His textbook was talking about loading libraries and other objects via other sources from a directory.
If I simply add the proper directory path and allow the program to run…would it work? Allen immediately became excited. If it really was that simple to get his companion up and running, he would be beyond ecstatic. For the remainder of class, he did something that he never thought was possible again.
He smiled.
After all, for the first time in his life, he would have a reliable friend and someone who wouldn’t betray him…a true companion.
He noticed that Alice was staring at him strangely again, and so was Jessica, but he didn’t care about such trivial things. As soon as the class ended, he packed up his books in a hurry and began to run outside. He made it to the bike rack, when a thin nerdy looking guy with glasses stopped him.
“Hey?” He asked.
Allen looked at the guy.
“Just some advice for you. If I were you, I’d stay away from the two idols.”
“Idols? What are you talking about?” Allen asked, a sneaking suspicion of more future troubles.
“I’m talking about Jessica Harvey and Alice Hazel. They have quite a few…fans…if you catch my meaning.” The kid warned.
“Oh, don’t worry. I have little interest in the two…trust me. I only share a few classes with them.” Allen stated. To be more exact, his interest in females in general was a whopping zero just like with men. You can’t be more about gender equality than when you don’t give a single fuck about either one.
“Alright, well I was just giving you a heads-up. I’m Carver by the way.” Carver extended his hand out for a handshake.
“Allen.” He simply said and walked past him to his bike, leaving Carver’s hand just hanging there awkwardly. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“Ah…right…anyway, just don’t say that I didn’t warn you. Take care.” Carver said with a slight sadness.
“Yeah, you…too.” Allen said with difficulty. He got on his bike and rode away while excited for finally making a true friend.
***
Jessica watched the interesting boy run out of the classroom…again. All she wanted to do was have a chat with him, but for some reason, he wasn’t in the talkative mood…at all. That was fine though…she had ways of making men talk. A little makeup here…a little flirting there…and he would be putty in her hands. When she sat next to him in Calculus II, she expected him to be drooling all over her like the rest of the boys at this place. To her surprise, not only did he not do that, but he also had the audacity to ignore her. He even ran away! Never before had she been so completely…unwanted. It stirred her slight insecurities which only drove her curiosity in him further. Jessica pondered absentmindedly for a while about the black-haired guy.
Did he sit next to Alice just to spite me? Why sit next to her when there were other seats available? Is she his type? Various thought swirled around her head, until one particular one dominated above all others.
Why does he ignore everyone? She thought to herself. It can’t just be awkwardness. Awkward people don’t have much of a backbone when interacting with people…and those eyes… Jessica shivered. Those eyes that seem to have given up on the world…they seem so sad. As if he has seen enough sadness and suffering to last an entire lifetime. Her inner thoughts solemnly quieted down when she had that realization.
Well it doesn’t matter what his past was. I will make him have an interest in me…one way or another. She grinned. Alice looked at Jenny getting fired up and just sighed.
***
Allen finally got back to his green tepee tent about half an hour later. As soon as he got back, he grabbed his fully charged netbook and plugged in the USB drive that had CODE: JENNY on it. He opened up the text editor and painstakingly scrolled through many lines of code, until he found the one that he was looking for.
Line 89,367: Public Void LOADING SEQUENCE ()
Line 89,368: { Load directory path:
Load “JENNYINST.exe”;
Load “JENNY.ini”;
Load “AUTOINSTALLER.bat”;
start “AUTOINSTALLER.bat”;
While start “JENNYINST.exe”;
}
He changed line 89,368 to:
Line 89,368: { Load directory path: “X:\ADMIN\SYS_OPERATORS\JENNY\”
Then, he saved the file and plugged the USB drive into his [Relation]. In his excitement, however, he forgot to restart his glasses. Allen laughed at himself for forgetting such a simple thing in his excitement. He held down the power button while leaving the USB drive plugged in. After about thirty seconds, he let it go and started up his [Relation] glasses once more. The familiar winged angel logo of his parent’s company came to life that read FIELDER INC. with the “LIVE YOUR DREAMS” slogan underneath the angel. She was facing the user with two objects in each hand as she walked forward, towards the user. One was an arrow, while the other was a book. Allen never really understood the meaning behind the image, but he was always curious about it. After the familiar loading sequence ended, things started to get strange. The loading screen stopped mid-animation and started to pixelate out, as if it was slowly being corrupted. Eventually, the entire screen became black as a single flashing “|” cursor blinked onto the screen. After about ten minutes of being blind once more, the cursor began loading the program at an incredible speed. Allen tried to read the contents, but the text was scrolling up so fast that he could only make out the odd word or symbol here or there. Allen fumbled his way around his tent until he found his bed and lied down on top. He rested his head on the semi-comfortable pillow. Allen knew that loading sixty gigabytes of text and code was going to take quite some time, so he decided to take a nap. He was blind without his glasses working anyway, so he just decided to let nature take its course.
Six hours later, Allen was woken up with a start when a high-pitched screeching noise resounded form his goggle headset. He reflexively covered his ears in pain, but that just increased the noise. Allen was about to throw off the glasses, when an angelic voice called out.
[Hello Allen...I am JENNY, nice to finally meet you.]
***LOG***//
"That moment was happiest I'd ever seen him since the incident in the lethal injection room, even in college, and was for quite some time now that I think back on it. There is nothing better in the world than having someone you can truly love and rely on. Especially when everyone else is either dead, burning, both, or soon will be one of the three..." - Jessica Harvy, X-Day Medical First Responder