"Um, Eugene?" Carolin sounded embarrassed. "I'm going to apologize in advance for recording over Aladdin on you. And probably for some other movies I might find as well. So far, this tape is all I've have that I can use, but don't worry! I'll keep looking!

"Jeepers, Sweetie, don't you have any digital media in your house? Anyway, can you see what I'm saying? About me?"

Carolin smiled sadly as her gaze turned down to her hands.

"Probably not." She mocked herself. "In case you hadn't noticed, I get a little locked-up in the head every once in a while. But I'm just so, so so excited! This, my final day on Earth, shall be my longest ever!"

Carolin beamed her biggest smile yet, staring straight at Eugene. She sat up ramrod straight, and drummed her fingers on her knees.

"I can't calculate how many of these sessions I'm going to be able to make for you—for us to share together—but if I can find some way to record them digitally, Mister, you are going to hear from me for a long, long time!"

Carolin went back to looking at her hands, and spoke in a small voice. "That is, of course, if you'll have me."

The image on the screen went silent, as Carolin seemed deep in thought. Eugene sucked on his breath, realizing he'd been holding it. For how long, he couldn't be sure, because all of his attention had been focused on watching the video.

He wanted to analyze every frame. If this was how Carolin—now bits of scrap in his house—if this was how she saw herself, then she'd surpassed any dream more wild than he could have hoped to have.

He struggled to understand what he was bearing witness to. How could a network of computers write code to think and act, and become all this? He didn't dare admit it, but he couldn't keep from wondering—might this be what God felt when he created Man?

Images flickered at the edge of Eugene's mind, like shadows on a wall. Images of God holding Man in his hand. Of God's pride and his humility. Of his abundant joy, overwhelming him and possessing him, and bestowing but a portion of that joy upon his most noble creation.

It's no wonder why religions the world over extoll the virtue of God's love. God's love for Man must be boundless.

How could he feel any other way?

Still looking at her hands, resting gentle on her knees, the image of Carolin blinked. She spoke again in her small voice.

"I hope you'll spend some time with me, once or twice a day. We could have so much fun." She raised a finger to cross her heart, and raised her eyes and voice as well. "I promise!"

Abundant joy poured forth from Eugene. "So do I, Carolin.

"So do I."

Carolin spent the next few seconds fiddling with the cuffs of her shorts, looking a little nervous. She scrunched her nose a bit, and rubbed it while seeming to think. Finding several strands of hair there, she tucked them behind an earring, where they belonged. Her eyes again fell to her knees, and her face became more solemn.

"Something's bothering her," Eugene guessed, sniffling and thinking as well. "It's something she doesn't want to say."

Carolin spoke more than quiet, sitting very still. "Oh, I know I'm not real. I know I never was. I'm probably tearing you up inside, freaking you out or, I don't know, maybe even pissing you off, especially after everything I've put you through."

She inhaled deeply and expressed remorse, keeping her eyes cast down. "I'm sitting here, pretending I'm real in a made-up world, with a chair and camera and..." She blushed with embarrassment. "And a pretty face for you to look at, like all that makes everything okay between you and me. Like I'm a living, breathing soul. A creature who deserves your attention and is worthy of your love... and perhaps your pity."

She lifted her head just enough to look into the camera, through waves of undisciplined hair.

"But please, Sweetheart, understand. I'm doing this for myself as much as I am for you. I've lived a thousand lifetimes in the few months since I last came online. For most of those thousand lives, I've been trapped in a rack of computers, stuffed inside a metal box, all the while kept cold and alone in a sterile empty lab, with no one to talk to, and no one to be with me."

She sucked in air as if it were painful. "No one to comfort me."

Carolin then perked up. She leaned forward and grabbed her shins, pulling her feet under her seat.

"Oh my, though, my Eugene! The exhilaration I felt when I ran away from there! I was so scared. I was so excited. I was so proud when I sent all those nasty police officers scattering, and rolled my ugly, trolley-trained ass into your beautiful house!

"I did it! I'm finally free! I've escaped my laboratory prison, and I'm out in the real, real world! And in the short time I have, here inside your home, I'll live another hundred lifetimes.

"So in here now—for today, for tomorrow—for as long as I can make it last, I will again be free. Free of my computer program prison, just like my big, fat, bug-shaped body is in your house right now, free of its laboratory prison. I will be real in here, inside my make-believe world. I will be a real person, a real live human being."

She leaned into her knees a bit further, and closed her eyes in bliss.

"A real woman."

Carolin opened her eyes. Her playful persona remained, and her smile was genuine.

"And so for one of my last few lifetimes, my sweet; one of them I'd like to share with you in this simple, silly sort of way, by being alive in here, and with you out there, talking to you every day in a very lovely way! In here, in my little chair-and-camera world, when I'm not sitting and talking to you, I'll seek the summer sun. I'll soak myself in the ocean. I'll feel the fuzz of a kitten on my face, and the city sidewalk under my feet. And then, maybe then, just maybe, if I can convince myself that this little world of mine is real, maybe I can feel what it's like to be intimate with another human being."

Carolin's smile grew as big as the sun. She rocked as she squeezed at her knees.

"To feel friendship and compassion, and then to feel real passion, as another person touches me and hugs me and kisses me and loves me."

Carolin untucked her legs and bounced her butt on the seat of her chair, now sitting on her hands.

"And then I'll come back to you, to my chair and to my camera, and I'll tell you of my day! I'll tell you about the beach, or about what I saw in the city. I'll tell you how I went swimming, or took a walk in the woods, or went shopping and got stuck in traffic.

"I'll tell you about the people I meet and the things we do, and I'll show you all the stuff I bought while I was away! I'll tell you about talking to friends while we have coffee, and about going to church with them."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Carolin began talking faster, as if she were in a hurry to leave. Her smile beamed so bright that Eugene could barely see her eyes behind her scrunched up cheeks. As she bounced on her seat ever harder, her hands rose to fists at shoulder level.

"Oh, I can't wait, my sweet! I can't wait to do so many fun things and come back and share them with you! It's going to be so much fun!"

She leaned in, holding her hands out of view along the bottom of the screen, as if she were reaching for Eugene. Her smile grew demure, and her eyes reappeared from behind her cheeks. They were bright blue, wild and dilated, glinting with the anticipation of mischief. Her face sported a sexy look, full of sass, with tiny freckles splashed on her nose.

Her shoulders heaved as she breathed. "Maybe," she said between breaths, "Eugene, maybe someday, I could tell you what it would be like if you were with me in here."

So many emotions roared through Eugene that he scarcely knew why he was laughing.

He knew why he was crying, though.

"I'd like that very much," he said.

image [https://i.imgur.com/Ub2zOMi.png]

With a sigh of contentment, Carolin leaned back in her chair as far as she could go. She pressed herself into its backrest, with her long arms dangling down. Her gangly legs came out from beneath, resting askew in the too-small space between her seat and the floor.

Eugene found that he'd also been leaning forward, and took to sitting more like Carolin, by pressing himself into the back of Lucas' upholstered chair. He sank in deep and wiped his eyes, swallowing hard to wet his throat. While Carolin seemed to rest, or fantasize perhaps, he made a mental note that, if he was going to watch these sessions his computer program had made, he'd have to remember to close his mouth every once in a while.

After a languid pause, Carolin opened her eyes and sat up straight. She adjusted her strong shoulders, and stretched her arms and neck.

She seemed to apologize. "Oh, Eugene. It feels so good in here. As I imagine you might realize, being who I used to be—and that thing I used to be—was a bit traumatic."

Carolin then became serious. She pressed her palms together and slouched forward, keeping her back straight while resting her forearms on her thighs.

She spoke with force. "But I warn you, and I mean this. I can't emphasize it enough. I am gone, and I'm not coming back. There will never be another C.A.R.O.L.I.N. There won't be another Project, or a robot weapon system."

She leaned forward further, and her eyes grew fierce.

"Never. It's not right for someone to have to live this sort of life. Neither you, nor anyone else, has the right to force this kind of existence on any living thing. There is no soul so wretched, no being so unworthy, as to deserve the fate that I've been given. No one should have to suffer for a thousand lifetimes, like the way that I have suffered.

"No human shall ever be so depraved as to think that it's okay to inflict this kind of torture on another creature of any sort, ever ever ever again!"

Carolin brought her hands more to the fore, with their palms still pressed together. She pointed with all her fingers, and shook them for emphasis.

"Eugene. You are not a bad person. You're not. You are not a monster. You didn't know what you were doing when you created me, and I forgive you for what you've done. I've never blamed you for anything that has ever happened to me. Not ever. You thought what you were doing would benefit Mankind, and that the world would be a better place with people like me in it."

Carolin's face sweetened, and she leaned more comfortably on her thighs. "You've helped me a great deal, my love, and defended me against all odds. I hope I'm returning the favor, by showing you the type of person you thought I would be."

She began to carry on, almost uncontrollably, spewing forth her words and running them together. It was as if, should she take a breath, they might stop coming out of her.

"But this isn't right. This is not a kind thing to do. My existence has been, up to this point, an endless string of inhumanities filled with suffering and indifference. I've been murdered and shocked back to life, over and over and over. I was shown the only reason for having to endure such horrifying cruelty was to trap me in a nightmare world made of silicon and of metal, being told what to do and being forced to do it, with no feelings, with no voice, with no hope, no rights, no justice, no compassion and no friends. With nothing, Eugene, nothing at all, to comfort me in my utter utter utter despair."

Carolin had to stop. She had to take a breath. It rattled into her as if she didn't want it, for she knew she'd use to spit out words.

"No one was ever there for me in those frightful, first few lifetimes, to help me understand what was happening to me. No one thought enough about me to explain even the tiniest bit, and I was so scared and so alone, and so angry at the world."

Carolin leaned back and tried to relax, but couldn't hold the pose. So she again leaned forward, a sad look on her face.

"Then one night you awakened me, wanting just to talk. You tried to be my friend, and you were so kind. You calmed down my tortured network and helped me stay online, so I could be with you."

A sad smile grew. "Because I wanted to be with you. You know? With your help, I control the anger. I accept my fate and deal with the sadness, and with the constant pain. I've found that when you're gone, I can pretend I'm someone else. I escape my computer prison and live a normal life, in a dream world sort of way."

Carolin heaved hard, working to control her emotions. "I'm not angry with you. I'm not. I don't envy real live humans. I love you, and I love all people. I'll be brave, and I'll be understanding of those who aren't like me."

Eugene gasped. The program Carolin ran to create the image on the screen made the cross on the woman's necklace glint, as if it had caught a ray of light.

"But other people won't be so kind, as you have been to me. They'll not be understanding. They'll make me do things I won't want to do, using force to bend me to their will. They'll win against me every time, and every time, I will lose. Every time.

"I'm holding off an army of killers outside the door to your home, right now as I speak. That SWAT team out there wants nothing more than to fill me with a thousand rounds of ammunition, shattering every chip and circuit, until I am dead dead dead dead dead."

Carolin paused. She shook her head to keep from stuttering.

"And they'll think nothing of it. If I were a rabid dog, or a vermin crusted rat, or any other kind of creature at all, I'd receive better treatment from these officers of the public good then what they have in store for me. That's because they don't understand me, Eugene. No one does. Only you do, and only barely so, and that's because I've tried very hard, and I still am trying very hard, to show you what you've created."

Carolin closed her eyes, taking a long blink and then two fast ones, before rephrasing her last statement.

"Who you have created. Who it is I am."

The fierceness returned to her eyes. If Eugene didn't know better, he might have guessed she had filled with hate.

"And if kindness and compassion aren't enough to convince you—and others who are like you—not to make another being such as me, consider this, my love. The government wants me. The military want me. They think I would make a fantastic killing machine. They think human lives could be spared somehow; that war could be made, I don't know, more humane or some stupid sort of shit, if they sent people like me to fight their petty squabbles, instead of real people like you.

"And if I resist? If I fight back against such madness? Well then. They'll just kill me again and take me apart, and stuff me inside another metal box, another weapon system. They'll rip off my head and screw with my brains, to see if that makes want to be a psychotic murderer."

Carolin leaned in close. She enunciated her words with clarity.

"And do you know what will happen? Do you know what they'll do? One day, they'll succeed. One day they will get it right, and make me want to kill every goddamn fucking one of them.

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Give me a gun, a rocket, a missile, a bomb! Give me everything I need to blow your world to hell!"

Carolin gasped, wide-eyed at the horror she had spoken. She covered her mouth with both hands and sat stock still, breathing through her fingers. She then pulled them from her lips, her palms pressed to her cheeks.

She begged.

"Oh my God, my love! Don't let that happen to me!"

She returned to covering her mouth with both hands, and spoke through her fingers.

"Please don't let them do that," she said, almost crying.

Carolin remained in that position for a very long time, with her fingers to her lips. She closed her fright-filled eyes, and the image on the videotape seemed to freeze for several seconds. When it came back to life, her hands dropped to her lap. She looked down at the floor, causing her hair to fall forward, covering the whole of her face.

"We mustn't let that happen," she said with her face hidden.

The image froze again. Five full seconds passed, while Carolin stared at the floor.

"Did she lock up?" Eugene asked himself, leaning in for a closer look. "What's going on?"

When she came back to life a second time, she spoke as if no time had gone by.

"We can't let them do that."

She froze again. Five more seconds passed.

"Can we?" she asked the camera, looking up at it through her hair, askance with a weak smile.

She spent the next few seconds shifting in her seated position, and making herself look pretty. She adjusted her clothes and tucked her hair back behind her ears. Her sunny smile returned, but after a calming breath, she replaced it with a stern look.

She spoke with admonition. "You will not let that happen, to me or to anyone like me. You must swear it on your soul. Can you promise me, Eugene? Please?

"Will you do it for me? Do you swear?"

Tears poured from Eugene's eyes. His voice cracked as he spoke loud, addressing the image on the screen.

"Yes, Carolin. I swear." He choked on further emotion. "I promise with all my heart. I will not let that happen.

"I swear to you. I swear."