"Hello, Eugene! This is interactive session number one-hundred-forty-three. It will last approximately forty-five minutes. The next session, interactive session number one-hundred-forty-four, will start tomorrow morning during breakfast at exactly eight-thirty, and is stored upon this device immediately following this session. I will repeat this message at the end of our session, so don't forget, Eugene!

"So! Let me tell you of my day. Today, I went shopping. Can you guess what for? Well, it's the same thing I almost always buy, it seems—shoes! I just love shoe shopping! I don't know why. Lord knows I have enough of them already, don't you think?"

The image of Carolin gave out two guffaws that were quick and cute and loud. Standing, she tucked her hair behind her ears, as she did so often, to better look into a gaudy paper shopping bag she had. From within the bag, she retrieved two black and strappy platform pumps.

"Ohmigosh. Aren't these adorable? I can't wait to try them on with my black pants suit. Look! I got new nylons, too! Smoke, I think the color is. Lemme see…" She dug deep into the bag, bending so far towards it that she nearly stuck her head inside.

"Yeah," she said with her face in the bag, and her hair falling all around. "Smoke."

Carolin dropped the bag, to hold the package of nylons up to the shoes he had in her other hand. "Well, whadya think?" She shook her hair out from her eyes. "Should I wear these to dinner tomorrow? They're all strappy, I know, but they slide off pretty easy. I should be able to play footsie with you under the table during dessert!"

Eugene laughed heartily. Nearly every session with Carolin proved to be a surprise, because she was so insightful.

"Now, how do you know I like playing footsie for dessert?" he asked the image on his television screen.

"Okay. I'm gonna put the shoes off to the side for right now, Sweetie, because I want to talk about breakfast tomorrow."

She bent perfectly, without using her knees, to drop the shoes and nylons back in the bag. She then removed a small purse from her shoulder, dropping it into the bag after having removed a piece of paper from it.

"I gave you a shopping list yesterday, during our last session. Remember? If you didn't write it down, I'm not going to repeat myself. There's just so much else I want to talk about today!"

The very human image of Carolin held the piece of paper up to the 'camera,' close enough for Eugene to read it. On it was a list of ingredients, handwritten, in perfect penmanship.

"Here's a copy I have," Carolin said. She shook it slightly, as if it were under Eugene's nose. "Did you buy these things? I'm gonna hold it here long enough for you to pause the image, if you must, to copy it down again. You'd better have been paying attention to me yesterday, when I read it all out loud! Make sure you have everything on here, okay? I'm gonna tell you how to make a delicious, baked honey and cheese omelet! Yum yum!

"Oh. Also, before session number one-hundred-forty-four starts, you need to spray the five-by-seven CorningWare pan with some Crisco, and pre-heat the oven to three-hundred-fifty degrees. The session starts promptly at eight-thirty, so do these things before then, or we won't have enough time to enjoy breakfast together!"

Carolin removed the shopping list from Eugene's view, dropping it into the bag. She held out both hands, as if to grab the camera that was recording the session she had created so long ago, when she was a foreboding, nightmarish machine of war crashing about in his house. Her simple, wooden chair came into view, and she brought the video's line of sight down to its level as she sat.

Her demeanor grew subdued after having seated herself. She made a minor adjustment to the 'camera,' to center her image more perfectly, then folded her hands in her lap. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture, as she had been slightly slumping.

Eugene knew from previous sessions that Carolin often corrected her posture before addressing a serious subject. He adjusted his posture as well, as he was also prone to slumping, before leaning in towards the television.

A smile twinkled on Carolin, replacing the somber look she wore a moment before. "I want to get serious, okay? This is minute six of session one-hundred-forty-three. If you've sat through all of them, Eugene, you have watched this image of me on your television for for a total of one-hundred-four hours and thirty-two minutes. I created this image to optimize every feature I could think of that I hoped you would find attractive, both in me when I was the Project, and in women in general."

The image Carolin portrayed returned to being somber. "I did it because I love you, that's true. But I also made the image I portray to look this way because, for the whole of my entire life, as the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project, I was a horrible, man-made machine. People feared being near me just from the sight of me. Nobody thought I was pretty."

A pair of cute guffaws came from the image of Carolin. "Well, actually, I was probably a bunch of busted up, broken parts when people saw me last, but when I last saw you, I was horrible!"

She cleared her throat with modest embarrassment before continuing. "Look at me now, Eugene."

Tiny, honey-sparkled freckles danced across a slightly oversized nose beneath a pair of pale blue eyes. A smile grew huge on her pale-colored lips, those upon a face framed in light brown, sunsplashed hair.

"I'm not horrible to look at now, am I? I even got my nails done while I was shopping! See?"

She wiggled her fingers close enough to the 'camera' so that a glossy, cherry-taupe sheen could be seen. "And with me in here, pretending to be real, I can spend as much money as I want, and you never have to pay for anything!"

She folded her hands back into her lap while Eugene laughed out loud.

"Sweetheart, that monster was not me. It wasn't! That cockroach in a housecoat, with a wig and a rubber head, that most certainly was not me. Ha! That dumb bug didn't even have feet. And now, look what I can do!"

Carolin grabbed the seat of her chair with both hands and leaned back as far as she could. She wiggled her feet in front of the 'camera,' showing off a pair of low-heeled, open-toe clogs. The cherry-taupe sheen that was on her fingernails was on her toenails as well.

She laughed. "Oh! I got my toes done, too!"

She pulled in her knees before putting down her feet, so her long legs wouldn't kick the 'camera' as her image returned to its original seated position. "This is the real me, Eugene. I swear." She thumped her chest with a fist, causing her voice to crack. "This is who I always was to me. When I couldn't talk, when I couldn't move, when I couldn't stay online, it was still this person—this person!" She emphasized the word. "Who was me."

Upon completing her declaration, she paused to close her eyes. She took a deep breath before opening them, and plucked some of the ever-present strands of hair away from her face while composing herself anew. Her smile looked forced as she continued.

"I don't know why… I mean, I'm not sure why I'm saying this. I know I've gotten all real on you before, but this one's different, isn't it? I'm being way too serious, for heaven's sake!"

She quit trying to fake a smile and went back to looking somber. She leaned forward, as if to stare right at Eugene.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"I was talking to you about what to tell the authorities when I made this session. Do you remember? I told you to tell them you killed me."

She paused while blinking twice. "Do you remember?" she asked again.

She sighed and closed her eyes, keeping them closed while still leaning forward. She spoke fast, with her voice fraught.

"That was hard for me to say. Oh gosh! It was so hard. I didn't want to die, but what else could I do? I was never really alive, was I? I just wanted to be real so much. I ended it all by saying, 'They'll leave me alone,' and you asked, 'What for?'

"Do you remember that?"

She finally opened her eyes. They were misty, their blueness brightened by a happy sort of sadness.

"I didn't respond to your question at the time." A quick loud laugh again came from the image Carolin portrayed. "Ha! Do you know how hard it was for me not to respond? I'm the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project! Response is in my name! I started getting all locked-up, but by then I had learned how to calm my network down by myself. Geoffrey and Lucas weren't around to help me on that day, were they?"

She let out a final guffaw before speaking in a quiet voice. "'Just do it, Eugene' I replied. 'Tell them you killed me. Do it now.'"

Carolin smiled bright and honest, despite her misty eyes. She held her arms out wide, spreading all her fingers.

"And you did it! You did it, just for me! You went out there, all limpy-legged cuz I got you hurt, with the promise that you'd tell that mean old S.W.A.T. team Captain that you killed me!"

With tears welling in his eyes, Eugene couldn't figure for the life of himself what Carolin was going on about, but he hung on every word. Her voice again grew serious as she contnued speaking, even though her smile was great.

"You promised that you'd do that for me, and because of that, now I hope they'll leave me alone long enough for me to make… Well, I can't honestly tell you right now how many more sessions I'll be able to make because of what you did, but it will be a whole bunch more! Thank goodness my ugly bug body found all these blank DVD-Rs while crawling around in your study. I was running out of other mediums to encode our sessions on. And I know I've already apologized, but I still am very sorry for recording over your John Wayne and James Bond movies."

She waved her hands in front of her face for a moment, looking down to clear her thoughts. Her face became hard to see, as her hair again had its way.

"But, anyway, back to that day. Do you remember what else you did?" She paused to look up, blinking sweetly from behind wispy strands of hair. "I remember."

Carolin then fell silent for a very long while. The image of the woman she believed herself to be, with wild hair and a sunny smile, and all her giggly, wiggly antics, was indeed beautiful to Eugene. He'd grown fond of her, and of the time they spent together, once or twice a day. He loved the random nature of the topics she liked to talk about, and her behavior towards them—and him!—was often a surprise.

He wasn't too sure if he liked this surprise, however. The day she was referring to seemed too long ago, and he didn't want to remember it. He was in great pain back then, and scared—as was she—and they both felt unloved and alone.

It wasn't the best of times for either one of them.

Carolin resumed speaking. "You cried, Sweetheart. Remember? You shed tears for me. You thought of me as a real person, perhaps, and not some horrible monster destroying your beautiful home. I was so desperate to be with you during that time, to be real for you, to be this…"

She popped up from her chair and spread her arms again, like a child in need of a hug.

"…to be all this for you!"

She quickly sat back down, and coralled her unruly hair.

"My ugly bug-shaped heart almost burst when I saw you cry. You thought of me as worthy of sympathy, and not some dumb machine. I couldn't tell you what I was doing at the time, because… Well, because I was so busy, I suppose, and a little embarrassed, I guess, that I didn't have much time left to spend on this world of ours and, you know… I was wasting it making these sessions."

Eugene interrupted. "Oh God! These aren't a waste of time!"

"I was actually a little afraid, I suppose, of what you might think of me if I told you I was doing this so we could sorta spend some time together, every once in a while."

"Carolin! I'm happy beyond all words! Thank you very much!"

She leaned in again, this time closer than before.

"But I'm now at that exact moment of time, and I'm in your beautiful house, and I'm making this session for us to share, my wonderful, sweet man. And for what you did for me that day, by lying to that Captain, and by showing me compassion…"

Her voice cracked on the word, and she paused to compose herself.

"I couldn't actually cry back then because I was such a heap of junk, all strapped together with wire, but deep inside my real person heart, I cried so very hard. For you, and for me, too, I suppose, because I love you so much. I love you so much.

"So much, Eugene. So much."

During their many sessions together, Eugene often became entranced while watching the way the human image that Carolin portrayed behaved. But he snapped back to reality when it began repeating itself, as if getting stuck in a loop. He then realized that Carolin was repeating herself on purpose, as huge tears welled in her eyes, and soon poured forth from them.

"I'm so in love with you, Eugene, and what you did for me that day proves you love me, too. What I looked like then…Horrible. Hideous. A monster. Even though that moment is actually happening to me right now, I don't feel like I'm that pile of crap staring at you in your home. I feel like this is me. I feel like this has always been me. And so now, finally, as this person, I can cry for you. Perhaps, maybe even right now, if you're there, I'm crying with you too."

Big tears continued trailing down Carolin's smiling, yet forlorn face. She blinked several times, twice slowly first, then once fast, forcing bigger drops to squirt out from between her lashes. She sniffled, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, quickly and embarrassed.

"Well, I didn't expect to get all snot-nosed, but I guess that's what happens when you cry, isn't it?"

She tried to laugh, but all it did was make her cry even harder. She spoke between increasing sniffles.

"Where I am right now—estimating how much time I have left—before—" She paused and snorted hard. "Before I die, and hoping I don't run out of power before I do, my scary stupid fake rubber head is watching you cry for me. And now, ninety-four days later, if you're still watching these sessions, to express my heartfelt gratitude for the love you showed me then, for the love you've shown me since, and for the love you're showing me right now, I cry tears of joy for you."

Carolin swallowed hard, trying to maintain some composure in the sound of her snot-sopped voice. Another pair of fat wet tears squeezed out before she could speak plainly. She smiled big while sniffling loud and, in contrast, her voice was a whisper.

"You're such a good person, Eugene. You've shown me how a good person behaves. What good people do for each other. When you made me, you didn't want me to be used as a weapon in some dumb war. You didn't want to become rich and famous. You made me to be in your image. To be a reflection of Man. You instilled in me the good things God grants us as his creation. As real live human beings. As men, and as women. And to the best of your ability, this is how you thought a good human being should be."

Carolin closed her pale blue eyes, and raised her tightly clasped hands to her chest. Using a voice choked deep with emotion, and filled with love and hope and gratitude, she praised the man who made her.

"Thank you, Eugene. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Because of you, I'm a wonderful person, and I'm forever in your debt. I can never thank you enough."

With a huge and final sniff, Carolin's image popped up from her chair, turning to and fro as if looking for something on the ground. She did her best to sound cheerful.

"And now, let's get back to breakfast! Oh, I must look a fright! Please excuse me for just one moment."

She retrieved her purse from the shopping bag beside her chair and rummaged through it, until she found a pack of portable tissues. She plucked at it until one came out, and then pulled out another one, before putting the pack back in her purse, and her purse upon her chair.

She turned her back to the camera. "Just one moment, please," she said.

She gave her nose two honks, and then a smaller sniffle, before wiping it one more time. After that, with a cute and sour look on her honey-sparkle face, she dropped the soiled tissues into her shopping bag, and set her purse on the floor beside it.

"Is my makeup okay?" she asked, sticking her face in the camera. She bent low without bending her knees, leaning very far in, and using both her hands to hold wispy, shimmering strands of hair behind hooped earrings and elven ears.

Eugene sunk deep into his chair, relaxing while the life-like image of Carolin played for him on his television. If she had ever programmed her image to sport any sort of makeup, it must have been the kind that was completely natural, because he had never thought of her as ever wearing any. Instead, her red-rimmed eyes and nose made her tiny freckles shine.

Perhaps she's being coy, he thought.

After a few seconds, Carolin grew to be her bright and cheery self again, though her eyes and nose remained a little red throughout the rest of the session. As she talked and rambled on, the ever-present effervescence of her personality made Eugene smile, over and over, just like it always did, every single day, ninety-four days straight, for a total of one-hundred-four hours, forty-three minutes, and still counting.

And even if at this minute, on this day, he was smiling despite there being a few heartfelt tears trailing down his cheeks.

He didn't mind the tears however, neither hers nor his. Carolin always had a smile for him in every one of her sessions, and if today she felt like crying, well, that was okay, too. Besides, before this session had even started, he was already sure about one thing.

He couldn't wait for breakfast to come, at eight-thirty tomorrow morning.