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1. Hello, Asako!
At first, there was only the darkness, so black that even the shadows were swallowed up by it. And loneliness. Not just being alone, but being utterly alone. Then there were the memories, memories of regrets, memories of guilt, memories of every damn thing I'd ever done to hurt anyone I could.
If this was hell, the album covers hadn't painted the picture at all correctly. No flames or pitchforks could ever match the sheer torture of those inescapable memories.
Pure, relentless agony, knowing what a complete asshole I had been.
I had cheated on my wife with, of all things, a sex robot, and in one of my former life's greatest episodes of karma, a faulty ground in the bot had shocked me not strong enough to kill me outright but at least enough to trigger a heart attack. That's how the cops found me, face deep with my tongue in the ass of an artificial woman engineered not to have any opinions or ever say no. That's also what my wife, Anne, saw in the cops's photos of the scene, me pink and burnt and flopped over the back of the bot, both our legs still hanging off the edge of the robo-brothel's single bed.
That was the memory that played over and over more than any other. It caused me regret not only at how I had mistreated and undervalued Annie, but also regret for getting caught -- with my panties down as it were.
After an eternity of being alone, blind to anything but my memories, there came a weak, faraway chanting. As it grew louder, it didn't become any easier to understand, as if my ears had forgotten how to understand even the concept of language. It continued, growing louder until what could have been another eternity, it was so loud it drowned out even the agonizing memories.
I found myself, my soul, my whatever was still left after death, jolted out of the blackness.
Where I had been alone in the vast nothingness, I suddenly found my spirit no longer alone. It was surrounded, encased by... well, by something. I instinctively opened my eyes and saw opposite me a row of outfits hanging on a wall full of display units. The fifteen or so feet on the right were filled with all kinds of clothes for women. Most bordered on the sluttier side, but some were more traditional things like swimwear, cheerleader uniforms, and party dresses. On the left were similar outfits for men, ranging from tuxedos to hot pants and gimp masks.
Where the hell was I? Had my sentence in hell begun a new phase? Like I had a chance of even knowing my fate yet.
I tried to speak, to scream, even to cough, but my mouth would not respond to anything I commanded it to do. Was I paralyzed? Dead? What?
It was then that I blinked. Something, no, someone suddenly appeared between me and the wall of clothing.
Annie!
Somehow Annie was with me.
Two thoughts rushed into my mind. One, this new torture would make me face her wrath for the pain I had caused her. Or, two, I was back among the living somehow. I couldn't even consider the third option, that she had joined me in the bad side of the afterlife. Not Annie. Never Annie.
"I assume you're in there now, Olivia," she said, my ability to understand human language restored.
"If this transfer worked, your mind or soul or memories or whatever should be downloaded into that new body now."
I said nothing. Not that I even could have spoken.
"You should be grateful. It wasn't easy to get your body back from the cops after they had to investigate your death to make sure there was no wrongdoing. I went through a lot of effort to get a hold of you again so we could do what you outlined. That's gotta mean something, right?"
I tried to move. The act was as futile as my attempt to speak. I was at home in a body, but the body wasn't doing anything I wanted it to.
"Well," she said, "kind of what you outlined anyway. I know you had the R&D team working hard on that fancy new bot body you wanted to be put into for your second life, but when you died, I convinced them to stop working on that and move on to more marketable products for the average consumer instead."
I waited, hoping she would fill in the missing bits of what the hell was going on.
"Hang on a second," she said, and she disappeared for a minute or so. When she returned, she held a thin, long mirror, like one that might hang in a dressing room of a department store.
"Here we go," she said, holding the mirror stable in front of me, "Get a look at yourself, honey. It's an all-new you!"
I didn't remotely recognize the person in the mirror. She was extremely lifelike, but still somehow clearly artificial. Something about the shine of her skin or the lifelessness in her dark eyes, more marbles than eyeballs. She couldn't be any taller than five foot two inches, with medium-length black hair that had a few pink streaks in it at random. Her eyes and pale skin clearly indicated that she was created to fit the "Asian model" for those types of fetishists. As such, her boobs were a little larger than normal, more anime than real-life, and her lips were just a little plumper and seemed to be almost permanently pink. Her nails were long and a matching shade of pink. A single ponytail hung off the left side of her head, which was tilted slightly and wore a sort of cutesy smirk.
Her outfit was the most outrageous part. She wore a bright pink, cropped tank top beneath a black netted top with long sleeves that had a hole for her thumbs. She covered her lower half only with a pair of black latex hot pants that hinted at but didn't fully reveal, a camel toe. Sheer, black stockings rose up to mid-thigh on each leg but disappeared into a pair of spike-heeled black leather boots with a pink stripe down the outside of each and a pink sort of pointed cap over her toes.
She also wore a black leather collar with a silver tag attached to it. It read:
Model: Asako
Lot #SD142-23331UIA-78
Owner: Annette Hendrix
Beneath the words a barcode was engraved along with a QR code, apparently to make it easier to return if the bot were lost or stolen.
"Well," Annie asked after giving me a few minutes to take in the spectacle in the mirror, "what do you think, honey? Are you perfect or what??
She laughed.
"I know. Don't speak. Let it just wash over you and take it in. I mean you couldn't speak now if you wanted to. Those functions aren't activated."
She went away for a minute and came back without the mirror. She traced her fingers on my collar and tag.
"Asako. That's your new name. It's also your model, just so you don't think you're the only Asako running around. From the orders I have to process, Asako's a pretty popular model, right behind the two blonde bimbo types, Lacy and Kelli." She tapped the collar with a single finger. "But you're the only one like you, darling, so in one way at least, you're still as special as you would have been if I had let you download into that fancy body you were having built just for you."
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