• Chapter 1:





    Edy jumped in her bed as a loud bell rang out beside her, constant and annoying. Glaring at her retro alarm clock, she smacked the top of it and sighed. "Not again," she sighed.

    "EDY!! Get moving or else you'll be late!!"

    She groaned her frustration at her mother's shout and rolled out of bed. She flicked on the switch to her bathroom and set the temperature of her shower to a balmy 150 and jumped in. Jets of water ran over her body in a gentle dance, intermittent streams of soap spraying out over her skin, and rinsing off with more streams of water water. She cleaned up quickly and jumped out a moment later to dry herself off. She sat before a mirror and straitened out her unruly hair and pressed a button off to her side to bring out her wardrobe of clothes. Judging from the shirts, she made a split second decision on a kerchief shirt and a pair of baggy pants. She grabbed her usual panties and a strapless bra for the effect she desired. She bounded into her clothes and jumped in front of her computer for a quick "counsel" of her friends.

    Several screens popped up, all video cams; live feeds from her friends' homes. Four popped up, two guys and two girls. "Hey, mornin' guys," Edy waved. The two girls smiled at her and waved, one of the guys smiled, the other just nodded.

    "Edy!! Guess what?" the skinniest of the girls cried, glasses nearly cast askew in her excitement. Her skin was a smooth light cream. Her mousy brown hair bounced on her shoulders and bright green eyes reflected excitement. "I gained 10 pounds this week!! My doctor says things should go more smoothly now that I've gained so much~!"

    "Yeah, and better is that she's starting to get an appetite," the second girl replied, a smile playing over her calm features. Her hair was the same mouse brown, and her eyes were a warm earthen tone. She too wore glasses and her hair was up in a pair of pigtails. Her skin was the darkest of her friends' skin tones, naturally tanned.

    "Oh, hush Rose!!" her friend snapped, looking in a huff.

    The second girl laughed. "Whatever Kit, I'm still happy."

    "So are we going to the pier after school?" one of the boys asked. He was a mousy little dude with deep brown hair that hung around his head like a mop cut. He too had glasses and a pasty complexion. Brown eyes reflected interest and a hurried need to get it; he was after all, the one who lived the farthest away from school.

    Edy groaned. "You aren't honestly going to go look for more parts to that piece of junk computer are you, Momo?"

    "DUH!! And yours will be the one that's a piece of crap when I get mine going!!"

    Edy laughed. "Right...."

    "Momo, you're dreaming," the second boy grinned. Long brown hair that was hardly cared for was just pushed back into a ponytail that flew behind him crazily. A thin countenance with pale brown eyes stared into the camera with a bright twinkle in his eyes. "You've been saying that for months-"

    "OH, did you guys hear about the new models of computers that've been released?" Edy interjected excitedly.

    "Edy!! The bus'll be here in just a minute!! Get down here!!"

    "Oh, crap, gotta go guys- see you at school!"

    They all hurriedly muttered their laters and their see ya's and clicked out of sight. Edy just barely jumped to the end of her walkway when the bus pulled up in front of her house. She jumped on as it zoomed off, and before she knew it, it was time for break; time for them to get breakfast and talk. Edy went down to the cafe and waited upon her friends who all showed up in pairs. Momo showed up with Kit, arm in arm, and Rose showed up with Drake following up closely behind her.

    Edy smiled widely and hugged her two girl friends (Momo "accidently" getting involved with her and Kit) and simply gave an enthusiastic wave to Drake. "Hey guys! Ugh, first period was a drag-"

    "Oh my god, I know," Rose added, rolling her eyes. "Pre-calc..."

    "Hey, what was that thing you were mentioning about the new models of computers?" Drake asked, grinning at some joke Momo had just made.

    "Huh? OH!! Apparently there's this new line of computers coming out that are androdial-- they look just like humans!! I swear to God, it's Chobits!!"

    "Yeah, I heard that like a couple of months ago..." Drake said, giving a look as though to say "DUH!!" She gave him a reply look that told him "********."

    "Well, I'm getting one for my birthday to use for school and stuff. My parents are having it delivered sometime this week~!!"

    "What? Are you serious?!" Momo demanded, looking completely incredulous. "******** you, Edy." They all laughed, especially Edy, feeling really excited about getting her new model. She was still going to have her screen and surfing, but she would be able to do audial searches now and have 200 more gigabytes for a hardrive.

    "So, what're you getting?" Kit asked.

    "A simple model. M-cxx07."

    "What the hell does that mean?" Momo demanded.

    "Still regretting just getting into the 90's models?" Edy teased. He gave her a derisive laugh and she explained, "It's just coloring; caucasion, with black hair and eyes. Style 7... and male."

    "Oh my f---ing God!!" Drake cried with grin, blanking out his swear. Rose covered her eyes and silently shook with laughter. Kit and Momo laughed openly at the joke. Edy sighed, grinning inspite of herself.

    "I'm not going to ******** it, okay? I just wanted a guy model."

    "Sure...." Momo grinned at her.

    Edy glared at him and stepped onto his shoe, his face immediately contorting to one of pain. He gasped in a high pitch voice. Kit gave her a light smack to which she moved off his foot and told him, "Just don't say anything to my parents. They'll probably cancel the order before I get a chance to open the package."

    Momo gave her an evil little look as he pulled out his track phone and Edy jerked her finger in his face. "Don't you dare!!" The bell rang again and she sighed. Back to class, as usual.




    Wednesday for her was a half day and she was so happy. She walked home that day since she went out to eat lunch with her friends anyway. Getting home, it was just quarter past one and both of her parents were still at work. Edy came home and found a tall box standing outside her front door. The name on the box was of the same company that her parents had ordered her new computer from. She couldn't help but smile in extreme joy and shout out her happiness. Jumping up and down and circling it, she celebrated her new computer's arrival.

    It was hell getting in though. The male models held more gig than the females, but mainly that was due to the fact they were taller. So that just meant more weight for Edy to drag in. Just getting it into the foyer was an issue, having to go over the bump on the floor used to block out outside air for under the door. But then dragging it into the living room for 20 ft and onto carpet was worse.

    "God damn!!" Edy finally sighed, panting at her efforts to drag it into the house. "You better be 'versatile' or I'm sendin' you back, bar none!!" She went to the kitchen and pulled out a steak knife and cut at the tape holding the box folds together. She cut open a side and found her new computer was facing forward. She jumped at the sight of his face behind the plastic and had to remind herself that it was simply a computer, a big doll as it were. But she had had to admit, seeing the face behind the plastic was a bit nerve wracking, like seeing the body of a dead man. Pinned in front of him was the manual, which she snatched off and started to read.

    "Okay.... According to this, you should be ready to go the minute I switch you on. I just have to repeat my name to you so you recognize my voice command. Sounds simple enough!" Edy snapped the paper manual closed and tossed it onto the couch with a grin of excitement. "Okay, lets get you unwrapped!!"

    She started to pull off the plastic when she noted a sign printed into the plastic: "WARNING: NAKED WHEN SHIPPED!!" Edy halted. Nude?! She took a deep breath and steeled herself. Okay, this is no different than dressing a doll... gotta focus.... Besides, I just won't look!

    Feeling slightly mollified, she undid the plastic around his upper half and pulled him free of the box. She yanked it down to his hips and left it at that. His arms were still crossed over his chest and yet again, Edy found her self comparing his face to that of a dead man. She leant over him and took a closer look. He had long black hair trimmed for a feathery look about his head, reaching his shoulders. His face appeared a little rough but from what she knew of the models, they didn't have any planted facial hair. That's weird.. she thought as she continued her look over.

    "Okay... to turn you on... there should be a sensor just behind your ear...." She leant into him and blushed slightly. She braced herself by placing her hand on his shoulder and then she gently caressed his ear. Little whirlers went off and she heard the soft sound similar to a computer as it first booted up.

    Where a moment ago he had been cold, he now felt warm, the feel as though blood ran through his non-existent veins. His eyes opened and he appeared sleepy. Edy smiled widely, completely ecstatic that she was able to turn on the computer and set it up strait the first time. His eyes were indeed black and looked deadened.

    "Hey... I'm Edith, Edy Winters."

    His eyes seemed to brighten, appearing to look like someone who had been knocked out and finally reawakened. "Edy..."

    "Mhmmm, Edy."

    "Edy...."

    He made to step forward but he found he was still partly encased in plastic. Edy held up her hand and told him, "Hang on, I'm going to check to see if you came with clothes first..."

    She started to hunt around in the packaging and indeed found some just on the right of his packaging. She smiled again and snatched ahold of the package. "Ah! Here it is-"
    Edy turned around to show it to him triumphantly and got blasted with the sight that he had taken the rest of the packaging off-- completely. She dropped the clothes on the floor and felt her face turn beet red. He looked at her unabashedly (being a computer, why would he care?!) and simply asked her, "Where is this place?"

    "Huh? Here? This is Miami, why?"

    "Uh, data entering...."

    "Oh, I thought I had to program that in.... I suppose doing it orally is just as fast." She made herself busy by picking up the package off the floor and opening it up to pull out the clothes. She didn't look at him, simply handed over the black garments. "H-here! Just put these on..." The model obeyed and did so, though clumsily. She kept her eyes averted until she was sure he was at least wearing some pants. Upon turning, she was pleasantly surprised at how he dressed up: a black dress shirt that went to his hips, a pair of loose fit black pants of the same shade, and a strange emblem hanging from his neck that she hadn't noticed in the bag. "Wow~!! You look great, Gregori~!!"

    The android stared up at her. "Gregori...?"

    "Yeah; since you don't come with preassigned names, I thought I'd call you that~! It really suits you I think!!"

    His eyes were still clouded with confusion but he nodded.

    "Okay, I'm heading upstairs right now to go talk to my friends-- I wanna show you to them. Come on, Gregori~!!" Edy left the box and packaging to get picked up later and ran up the stairs. Though he didn't respond immediately, he did follow her up. I guess he's like any new computer when you first get it: it needs a bit of time to get warmed up and used to daily tasks.

    She hopped in front of her monitor and picked the call buttons. She leant into the screen and called out, "Hey, guys!! I got him all set up, come and see my new M-cxx07!!" The regular bubbles popped up as the lot stared at Gregori.

    "Whoa!! Nice~! You got him today?" Kit asked.

    "Yeah; I just got home a while ago and his box was sitting right in the front door!!"

    "And you have him running okay?"

    "I'll need to play around with his internet service and other programs, but I think after getting used to daily life, he'll be running great."

    "Oh you want to play with him all right," Momo suggested with a barely contained grin. Edy gave him a dark look to which Momo whimpered, "Oh s**t, she's going to kill me!!"

    "How much did it cost again?" Rose asked.

    "I'm not sure, but I know it's somewhere around three times more than it takes to buy these standard all-in-one home computers."

    "That's not bad considering he's an android. You can program him to clean and cook can't you?"

    "Actually, if I spent the extra money, I can, but my parents are broke now after having bought him, so I'll have to wait a while before asking. Well, I'm going to get off for a while. I'm going to use the screen to feed Gregori's data into it. Later~!"

    "Later!!" they chorused as all their screens went out simultaneously.

    Edy reached around and pulled loose an extra feed connection. She turned around to Gregori and hesitated. Where was the feed supposed to go?

    She opened up the manual as she sat on her bed and read aloud.

    "Okay... live feed adapter is in the tip of his right index finger. Just use vocal command 'screen plug' to get desired adapter." Edy glanced up to see Gregori at the monitor on his knees, right hand extended, index finger pointed, the panels that made up his finger seamlessly opened and waiting. She blinked at his complete obedience and went over to the monitor. She set the plug into his finger and watched as the computer screen lit up. She found herself in a strange data base center and found that it wasn't anything like a regular computer but more like a bunch of information storage bins. A pop up suddenly asked her, "Change modem settings?"

    Edy clicked yes. A set of templates arose and she found the one that was exactly like her desktop. Clicking this and applying the policy, she found an odd pop up. "Restore memory?"

    Curious, she clicked yes and let it go. It seemed to take a while to her and she noted it's sluggishness. But at the last percent of recall, an error occurred apparently. Gregori jerked in his kneeling position and suddenly toppled against her chair. She stared at him in shock and fright and then turned to her monitor to see her monitor was going on overload. Fearing that he would damage her existing system, she unplugged him from the monitor and jumped away from him with a cry. Scared at the sudden transpirance, she found him slunched up against her chair, out and completely busted. She stared at him in wonderment and felt a sudden rush of anger.

    "Damn it all!! My parents paid good money for him too!! To crash on me today- ARGH!! Great... I just named him and now he quits on me, just gre-"

    "Edy...."

    She jumped violently at the call of her name. She looked at Gregori to see his head bowed and him panting. Panting?! He was a robot, robots don't breathe!! "Oh, good, you didn't crash-" She stopped in midsentence when she noticed his face. Blood... his right eye was oozing blood.

    Edy backed up against the door, horrified.

    Gregori wasn't an android.