Human Pet
Epilogue:
The morning sunlight streamed through the window. Jessica shifted around in her bed and rolled over on her stomach. Mmmmm, oh yeah... she wasn’t getting up yet. This bed was just too warm and comfortable. She grunted contentedly and burrowed her head under the pillow.
Some time later footsteps roused her from her sleep. She heard Zerok’s voice.
“Wakey wakey my pet. We’ve got work to do...”
She felt fingers scratching her back. It felt goooood... She shifted and made contented noises as he scratched her back. Finally she got up on her hands and knees and stretched out, yawning.
He clipped the leash to her collar and led her out of the bedroom. Molly was outside the hotel waiting for her. She smiled at her.
“Hi.”
“Hi Jessica. How are you doing?”
“Mmm...”
Jessica had come a long way since her brain had been reconstructed. However she had only progressed marginally in the area of speech. She was used to facial and body gestures to convey her feelings, and her limited speech was not an adequate replacement. So she walked up to Molly and put her head on her chest.
“I think someone wants her petting.” Zerok said.
Molly smiled and started petting Jessica’s head. She knew what Jessica wanted, probably better then Zerok did.
Initially it had looked like they were all going to be deactivated. However as the data was poured through and the whole conspiracy became evident, the committee realized that Zerok, Molly, and Jessica were too valuable to be deactivated.
The humans had tried to hide evidence of their project right up to the bitter end, destroying data up until they were dragged out of the Dattech building. They had managed to obliterate the names and locations of the sleeper inorganics. However it was found that there were less then 100 such units. Zerok had thrown the wrench into the operation just before they were ready to ramp up production.
So as a plea bargain for a level 2 treaty violation, Zerok, Molly and Jessica were tasked with hunting down the sleeper units in case any of the humans tried to activate their Hyde personalities.
“We’d have done this anyway.” Molly had said.
“Yeah, but this way they can say that justice was served.”
“Covering their asses. How very human of them.”
“Yeah, the irony is not lost on me.”
Their new job consisted of traveling from city to city, and basically wandering around it with Jessica. Sleeper units had similar lifestyles. They generally disliked pet owners, had low end jobs, and liked certain things. For Molly it was coloring her hair. For Jenny, a sleeper unit they had found recently, it was jewelry.
Apart from minor alterations from unit to unit, all the sleeper units had been made using the same programming that Molly had. They were all subconsciously designed to look for Jessica. When they spotted her, they’d come up to her, some of them not sure why. Zerok would show them his authorization to scan them. They’d comply. If he found the encrypted code, he deleted it and marked that person as a former sleeper unit.
There was nothing publicly said about the sleeper units or the war project, another CYA move.
Since her brain reconstruction, Jessica’s curiosity had increased greatly. She had developed a habit of stopping and feeling things. Feeling brick walls, feeling concrete, feeling windows. She’d put her hands on anything she hadn’t touched before. Only now, feeling it once or twice was enough to satisfy her.
Taking her anywhere where there were small differently shaped objects, like rocks, was still a bit of a problem. At least now she didn’t attempt to eat them.
Jessica now knew the reason, if only second hand, why she feared strange organics. Even though her memory had been wiped, something inside her still remembered them implanting the DBC port, and how she had been treated as a sex pet. Having the knowledge that those had been bad people and that most inorganics weren’t like that had done a lot to tame her fear.
There was a question that had weighed on Molly’s mind for awhile. As Jessica ran her hands over some painted bricks, the emotion of watching her learn and experience finally made her ask it.
“Do you think maybe we, as a species I mean, are becoming too human?”
“Well, we were modeled after humans. Their emotions, their verbal communication, our basic body plan. We have the best and worst of them in us, but we rely much more on logic then they do. That’s why we’re thriving while they’ve been reduced to small, angry groups. Still, perhaps with certain individuals like James, their emotions and desires got the better of them.”
Jessica found a large pigeon feather and moved it along her skin. She giggled a bit as it tickled her. Molly looked at her and smiled.
“Emotions and desires aren’t a bad thing. They just need to be moderated.”