After Mikhail

Ilse felt very strange.

And stranger still, were her surrounding, or perhaps the lack of it.

It couldn’t be described as a void since a void was something. There was nothing except her and she wasn’t sure what she was.

She wasn’t a robot, that was sure, but she wasn’t alive either.

What had Chandra done to her ? Was this the effect of the Himalayan mud ?

"Chandra’s a real quack !"

She heard a voice and saw a man appear.

He grinned and winked at her.

"The little monster gave you some kind of poison and embalmed your body. There is no such thing as magical mud !" He shook his head and tsk-tsked

"Embalmed ?" She said, hoping she had misunderstood him.

"That’s right babe, you’re dead, Jim!" His voice changed at the end becoming angry and raspy as if he imitated someone.

"This can’t be, I’m alive !" Ilse said.

"No you’re not !" He said and a mirror appeared.

Ilse looked at her image and saw she was transparent.

"It’s a trick, no ?" She said nervously, trying to dispel what she heard and experienced.

"You are dead, deceased, gone, bought the farm and kicked the bucket !" He said. "But then think, is it that bad ? You’re still there, still conscious. The essence of Ilse, what made her special, still exists. It’s just that you’ve outgrown that hunk of flesh you called your body !"

"If I’m dead, who are you ?"

He grinned. "I’m Jack."

"Are you an ... angel ?"

He chuckled. "Kid, I’m much better than that !" And grabbed her wrist.

"Where are we ?" Ilse asked.

"In an alternate reality." Jack said.

"What ?" Ilse asked, not even trying to hide her ignorance.

"It’s another version of earth, where things and events went a little bit different." Jack said as they hovered over the gleaming city of steel and mirrored glass.

"The difference is that the Greeks did invent the steam machine. The first computers were built in a time where our Roman Empire was falling apart. Robots were designed when we had the black plague."

"They have robots ?"

"They certainly do !" Jack grinned. "But ..."

"But ?" Ilse asked eagerly.

"Round about our year 1678, a determined, but slightly stupid scientist wanted to get rid of cockroaches. All of them. He designed a super-virus that would kill all known species of cockroach ... It actually worked, but the virus was a bit too eager and mutated, attacking all forms of life ..."

Ilse hung onto his lips.

"There is practically no life left on earth except for the virus and a few other bacteria and things that managed to survive."

"You mean ..." Ilse treaded carefully. "There are no humans left ?"

"Only robots."

Ilse felt a little bout of vertigo and noticed they were in a strange place.

A metal box opened and what was actually some kind of mold revealed a shiny metal woman.

"ILS series, model 36789, codename Ilse !" Jack gave her a smug grin. "Brand new off the production line !"

Ilse reached out for it, but her hand went straight through it.

She heard a quick chuckle from Jack and looked at him.

"Am I going to ..."

"Yes, you are going to ..." He teased her. "Hang on !" And his eyes gleamed.

Ilse wasn’t sure, but what she experienced next must have been the feeling of being born.

"I am a robot." The machine said with that smooth and thoroughly artificial voice.

"Enjoy your new life." Jack said and winked at her before vanishing.

"Wait !" She wanted to thank him.

All alone now, Ilse wasn’t sure what to do next. Huge amounts of data flowed through her circuitboards, so much a human mind would scream and plunge into instant insanity, but Ilse knew and understood it all !

Processing all the incoming data, she decided to move. Her arm got up and she felt the fulfillment of a lifetime of desire.

The door opened and a robot, a metal man walked in.

"Greetings Ilse." He said in a quick burst of electronic data, a much more efficient mode of communication than speaking ...

She sent a data-burst back and followed him.

***

"Jack ?" The voice sounded fearful and disoriented.

The robot didn’t stop working as it turned its head towards the man that materialized.

"You called me ?"

"I ... " She tried to explain.

Jack looked at her, how she assembled and disassembled electronic components with such ease, she didn’t even have to look.

"I gather you’re not happy ?" He said.

"I can’t enjoy it ! All we do is work and work and then work some more ! We don’t have friends, relationships, s..."

"Sex ?" Jack adjusted his trousers.

"I wanted to be a robot, but not like this !" She protested.

"So be it !" Jack said.

A bang, some sparks and Ilse, unit 36789 just had a massive systems malfunction and became irreparably damaged.

Although she was little more than a ghost again, the vague memories of a flesh and bone Ilse left her a bit startled. She looked at the body that had been hers for nearly a year and somehow didn’t regret the experience.

"You want to be a robot, but you want sex as well ?" Jack asked her.

He snapped his fingers and Ilse noticed she had acquired a material form again. She looked at her hands and wanted to protest, when she suddenly noticed the seams and articulations.

Before her a mirror which reflected a young woman, a plastic woman.

She looked at herself and smiled. She could see the seams running over her body and laughed.

"You like it ?" She saw Jack behind her, reflected in the mirror

"What am I ?"

"You’re a sexaroid. A robot designed to fulfill all the sexual needs of their masters."

Her pretty blue eyes gleamed and an eager smile formed on her lips.

"This is perfect !" She said and started to try out the wardrobe she had seen behind Jack. "I’m so pretty ! Thank you !" But he was already gone.

"Hello, Ilse." The man said, leaning against the door. "Are you ready for a little game ?"

She dropped the dress she was holding and walked over to him, naked.

****

"Jack ?"

"What is it now ?" The voice asked.

"Help me ?"

The three men around her no longer moved.

Jack looked at the room. There was white cream and oil everywhere. And more disgustingly, little puddles of vomit...

Three businessmen in various states of physical decomposition were posed around Ilse who slipped away from their disgusting grasps.

Even though she was a robot, Ilse felt disgust as wet cream dripped from her orifices.

"One of them poked my eye out !" She fell into his arms and cried.

Jack comforted her and looked at the three frozen men. He watched their flabby bodies, gnarled and stunted, their repulsive faces locked into eerie, monstrous grins.

"Kyrellia ?" Jack said and a shape materialized.

Ilse looked behind her and saw a stunningly gorgeous naked woman unfurl her huge bat-like wings and bow.

"Master ?" She said. Her eyes were gleaming red and her hair looked like solidified fire.

Ilse gaped at the woman whose long barbed tail playfully danced from left to right and the most wicked smile she’d ever seen on ruby red lips.

"Just show these gentlemen the time of their life, for say, about a century ?"

"It shall be done, my master." Her voice grew to an extreme of infernal malice before she and the trio vanished.

"What WAS she ?" Ilse asked, still grasping Jack.

Jack looked at her face, smiled, wiped some of the dirt away and gently put her eye back into its socket.

"These Neanderthals didn’t even know what a screwdriver was for."

Ilse was relieved when they left the scene of the orgy.

"I don’t know anymore ... I liked the fantasy with Fritz, but it was not enough ..."

She didn’t know how to put it and wanted to cry.

Jack caressed her gently and sighed. "I’ll see what I can do."

"Wake up Ilse." Said a voice.

She opened her eyes and looked at Jack.

"How do you like it ?" He asked holding up a mirror.

Ilse saw her face in the mirror. She was human, and vaguely familiar.

"You’re your own great-granddaughter. Today is your twentieth birthday."

Ilse looked at the room around her. She liked it, the style was nothing like what she had known in the twenties and thirties, but she really liked it.

"You have this, your own apartment, great friends and ..."

A closet opened.

One, two, three, four ... Seven ? Ilse looked at Jack. Her face was bright red.

I thought you might like one for every day of the week.

"They’re the best I could come up with.." Jack said. "And they have full interfaces."

He guided her hand to the base of her skull to a little slot hidden under her hair.

"You just plug it in and hey presto, you can do things no human can. Like lift a car or stand perfectly still for hours without a single twitch..."

She looked at the cybersuits and cried.

"2011 is a very liberated time. You’ll like it." Jack said. "See ya !" And he vanished.

" ... " Again, she didn’t have the time to thank him.

And now Ilse was truly happy, she could be a woman AND a robot, enjoying both with the joy brought by the gift of a second chance ...