A-Cup Angst Ch. 06

Sonya swerved the Cayenne onto a path parallel to the X5's and stuck her gun hand out the window. Both cars were weaving between the trees, trying to get out of the park as quickly as they could. There was no chance to accelerate until they got out of the park and onto the road.

Jamie watched the vampire's foul aura for signs of an imminent spell being cast. As soon as he saw her casting, he cried, "Mark," and Sonya shot the woman in the head, disrupting her concentration. The vampire was annoyed by the bullets, but she kept giving chase and trying to cast. She tripped, after a few more shots, and dropped out of sight, behind some bushes. Sonya and Helena kept flooring it as hard as they could without wrapping their cars against a tree. They knew that any stop would be fatal

Finally, the cars made it onto the tarmac and began to accelerate. Sonya handed her gun to Jamie and he swapped magazines. Just as Sonya sighed in relief, a dark blur landed on the X5's hood.

"What do we do," cried Sonya..

"Get alongside them," Jamie ordered. He handed her the gun.

The vampire landed smoothly on the X5's hood and dug into it with her clawed hand. Helena swerved, but couldn't dislodge the woman. Jamie could feel her gathering her magic to cast. "Shoot her now," he ordered Sonya. Sonya put a bullet in the vampire's head, to keep her still, and then shot out her eyes. Jamie telekinetically removed the stunned vampire's claw from the hood and Rose and Sandra instinctivelly joined him in heaving her bulk at the front grill of a semi that was passing in the opposite direction.

Jamie turned on the walkie talkie and yelled, "Floor it, floor it, floor it!" The two mighty engines roared to life, the Cayenne leaping ahead of the X5. They passed through a busy intersection and Jamie ordered them to split up and meet back at Bastion. Jamie's eyes were glued to the rear window, desperate to make out an early sign of the vamp and hoping that there was no further pursuit. Sonya's eyes were darting between her mirrors incessantly.

A few intersections later, the police gave chase. They were doing 120mph in a residential area. heedless of red lights. Sonya kept weaving and bobbing through a few more intersections, until the police car started to get backup. Then they sped off and took a hard corner. Immediately after they passed the corner, Jamie snapped his fingers, changing the car's color from silver to black, and Sonya slowed them right down. The police overtook them without a second glance, thanks to the car's wards.

"Ok, ok, ok, ok," Jamie kept saying. Finally, he took a deep breath and said, "Let's go home. We'll be safe there." Sonya nodded and drove to Bastion. The X5 was already there and all the girls rushed to hug Jamie as soon as Sonya parked in front. Jamie ushered them all in, saying they were exposed out on the sidewalk, but he was very glad to feel all five of them alive and in a group hug.

Inside, they sat down on a couch, still holding on to one another for dear life. They wrapped some blankets around themselves and shivered, nonetheless. Jamie asked Sonya to fetch some booze and she shuffled off to bring back a bottle of gin and a bottle of whiskey. As the five of them drew straight from the bottle, their limbs slowly stopped shivering. They spent hours just sitting huddled together and reminding themselves the vampire couldn't enter Bastion, even if it was right outside.

At long last, the adrenaline rush of facing certain death eased off and the booze asserted itself. The five of them fell into a light, fitful sleep.

Sunday morning found them slowly returning to wakefulness. "What a night," said Jamie. He wiped his face and ran his hand through his hair. "What a fucking awful night." He wished it had all been just a nightmare.

Helena punched his shoulder. "Don't you ever dare do that again, Jamie," she said. Jamie's eyes met hers. They shared a long, haunted look before hugging each other tight.

"I promise I won't," he said. After the five of them hugged each other out and felt reinvigorated, Jamie ordered them to review their external surveillance. They needed to know if the vampire had managed to follow them back home or not. There was no trace of it on any of the camera footage. They spent the day warily watching their surroundings and debating quietly if they were ever going to risk leaving Bastion. The day ended by storing a power in one of Jamie's rings.

By Monday morning, the trauma of Saturday night had weakened to the point where they all decided that hiding in Bastion was fun and all, but not how they would spend the rest of their lives. They left and attended classes. Nothing bad happened, but that didn't stop them from being skittish the whole day long and then deciding to stay in.

After they stored the second power, Jamie kissed Rose and Sandra and they fell asleep in his arms. Laying there, with the two beauties in his arms, he took careful stock of his circumstances. He couldn't keep living his life glancing over his shoulders. If the vamp did show up on the street, all Jamie could do was effect a delaying action in order for them to run inside somewhere. That was no fun. He wanted to feel like he did on Saturday afternoon; powerful and invincible. He needed a weapon that could take out the vampire. He needed a terminator. His decision made, he fell into a deep, restful sleep.

In the morning, he gathered the girls around the coffee table and announced his decision. "I am going to try to make a gynoid, like the ones we destroyed this summer," he said. He raised his hand and preempted the barrage of questions and complaints. "I will not slay or sacrifice or abuse anyone in order to create the gynoid. If Rose and Sandra and I can make non lethal substitutes for all the trapped spirits that the warlock used, then we will make it. If we cannot, then we will not be making a gynoid."

The girls gaped at the plans he showed them on his laptop. They were the schematics of the Arlene Hartford shaped gynoid, and they were ridiculously detailed. Jamie outlined a basic plan of action and the girls jumped at their assigned tasks. They were glad of the opportunity to create something in the wake of their recent near death experience.

The first step was Jamie changing the facial features of the gynoid into asian ones and straightening her black curls. He dubbed the gynoid Nova, after Arlene's character in her defunct webcomedy. Sonya was given the original DNA, that had been contained in a chip in the gynoid, and told to change it by adding the gene for slanted eyes and changing the genes for hair curliness and the non-coding sequences used for DNA identification.

Next, Sandra charmed her way into access to the University's 3D printers after hours. The following weekend, Jamie and she modified them with magic and had them print out the bones, joints and muscles, including the veins for coolant that would be pumped between the mucles and electronics and the fake lungs that were actually a ventilated heat sink. It took all weekend and they had to stand watch over the process in shifts. They barely had time to change the printers back before Monday morning. The numerous gel batteries that powered Nova were a simple design and each caster could make them with their own magic, it just took a whole hell of a lot of time, since they were microscopic and there were supposed to be millions of them in Nova's belly to give her days' worth of autonomy. The breasts were made out of the high capacity battery gels, as well.

In lieu of soul fragments, trapped in gems in the gynoid's skull, Jamie decided to assemble a grid of supercomputers in the basement of Bastion. Each of the supercomputers was transmitting to a micro receiver inside Nova's skull and was dedicated to calculating one of the many things needed to simulate a human being's mind. The skull was also fitted with microphones, cameras disguised as eyes and an inertial guidance system with gyroscopes for simulating the inner ear. All those electronics transmitted to receivers that were connected to the computers in the basement.

His girls were of the utmost importance in creating the artificial intelligence that would run the robot. Rose would charm the minds of the neurobiologists and other brain scientists in order to get them to instruct her on how the brain worked. It was their template, after all. After getting a basic understanding of what their computers were supposed to simulate and how, they parked themselves in the robotics and computer science labs between lectures and used their charm magic to get everyone from professors to gifted first year students to write algorhythms for Nova.

They didn't tell anyone what it was for, but they were making gigantic progress by drawing on the entire intellectual might of the relevant University departments. In just a few days, using a program a T.A. had designed to simulate a person chatting online, they taught Nova how to learn languages and converse.

Sonya was instrumental in impregnating the gems, that would be connected to the computers, with thoughts. Jamie, Rose and Sandra tried to do it themselves, but they soon found that it was impossible for a normal person to concentrate on only how to recognize faces, without a stray thought slipping in. Sonya, on the other hand, was perfect for the task. Jamie would order her to think on nothing but the task they wanted to program Nova for and she did just that. Then one of them would record her thoughts in a gem and connect it to the supercomputers.

Within a week, Nova began to recognize items and connect them with the words it already knew for them. They all jumped for joy, feeling the kind of pride a parent would upon hearing their child say its first words, or take a step for the first time. By the time Jamie, Rose and Sandra stored up all ten of his power spirits, there was a skeletal robot flexing its muscles and running all over Bastion, effortlessly recognizing and evading obstacles.

At that time, Jamie took the opportunity to project Sonya's thoughts into a series of gems. He then placed those gems inside Nova's skull and set them up as the robot's main processors that would determine whether ot not Nova would do what the computers calculated as the right thing to do. Sonya's thoughts were an algorhythm of obedience to Jamie and how to tell if an order was coming from him or not and whether the order was beneficial to Jamie or not. He also made sure that there would never be a robot insurrection led by Nova. It wasn't exactly Asimov's Three Laws, but Jamie did consider them in his deliberations.

Nova was learning about the world at a prodigious rate. The computers processed information at ridiculous speeds and with the aid of the gems they were connected to. It was the gems with Sonya's thoughts imprinted in them that truly made Nova an A.I. They gave the computers the ability to instantly sift through a deluge of data and spot and concentrate on the important stuff, disregarding the excess, much like a human being would do.

Jamie and the girls brought colleagues over for parties, after charming them into thinking Nova was an eccentric girl in a costume. Nova interacted with them convincingly. It demonstrated an understanding of sarcasm and humor and even exhibited some of its own. Their project was turning into a greater success than they ever dared hope.

In her dorm room, Mara meditated and contacted her spirit guide. She communicated her frustration with her investigation and requested supernatural aid.

"You already owe a favor, Mara," said the otter. "You cannot owe another until the current one is repaid." Mara wilted. She wished she was an investigator. She wished she had the cash to pay for a private eye, or private investigator lessons. The otter interrupted her Veronica Mars fantasy, saying, "However, there is another supernatural way for you to gain knowledge, if you really wanted it. If you truly needed it."

"Yes," said Mara. "I want it. I need it."

"I can teach you a ritual that puts you in touch with a being that trades information, but it requires a personal sacrifice on your part, Mara," said the otter, "a great and very personal sacrifice." In the infinite prairie of the spirit realm, Mara O'Donnell nodded.

"Tell me of the sacrifice, spirit guide," she said.

"If you wish to trade with this creature, you must sacrifice your virginity," the otter said.

Mara snapped out of the spirit realm with a gasp. Sitting in her dorm room, she blushed. She needed to have her v-card swiped in order to gain traction in her investigation. Could she do that? Would she do that? After a few minutes of deliberation, she decided that the answer to both questions was yes. After all, she was going to turn nineteen in a few months and the window of time, during which virginity was acceptable and not a sign of mental illness, was closing.

She decided to go through with the ritual the otter offered to teach her. Then she would have to find a man willing to deflower her. She'd go for someone with some experience, she decided. She didn't want her first time to be with a bumbling idiot. "But not too old," she said to herself. She wanted someone young, who could feel what she felt, on an emotional level. She felt up her boobs and grinned. Who could possibly resist her charms? Even though she had spent most of her life on the run with her mom, she had had no shortage of admirers and borderline stalkers. She was now quite glad she had turned them all down.

Mara smiled as she watched the workers putting up the Christmas tree, outside in the quad. Her virginity would make a very nice Christmas gift for some lucky dude. She sat down at her laptop and started to peruse the registrar's office's files. "Who shall it be," she said to herself.

Three weeks before Christmas, Nova was ready for interaction with the outside world. Sonya had cloned enough skin to make a covering for its face, and Jamie and the girls slapped on some clothes, gloves and a wig and finally saw how it got on in an uncontrolled environment. Nova excelled. Its facial expressions still needed some work, but, since it had an asian face, people simply assumed Nova's oddity was because she was a foreigner.

There were only two problems left to tackle. The skin and the subsequent range. The skin needed to be applied to the robot all at the same time, in order for Rose, Sandra and Jamie to be able to use it to curse Nova to be immune to magic. The skin had to have the DNA that a human body under it would have, or the curse would not hold. The curse would also be broken by the skin being torn open, like Jamie and the girls did when they dismantled the originals.

Cloning an entire human skin was going to take a whole hell of a lot more work. The tiny labs that the University had were simply not up to the task. They would need to buy large, specialized equipment and that was going to cost them a lot of money.

After buying all the computer equipment and gems for Nova, Jamie was left with less than half a million dollars under the name of Julius Jordan. He still had the bounty for the warlock in his own name, but he didn't want to use that money to buy cloning equipment. Section would doubtlessly notice that and come round to ask questions.

The other problem was that of range. Nova's mind was in Bastion's basement and it needed to clearly, instantly communicate with its body, wherever it was. The emitters in the robot's skull were not strong enough to send a clear signal for more than a few miles and, amidst all the concrete, steel and electronic pollution of the city, that distance was cut down to less than a mile. Beyond that distance, the robot would freeze up after receiving garbled and unsynchronized instructions.

Jamie sat down in the library and sighed heavily. He needed to make some kind of super program that would enable him to smoothly piggyback Nova's communications through cell phone towers. The task before him was daunting. Even Nova, an honest to goodness artificial intelligence, was having trouble with it. He had already created a tiny rift spell with Sandra and Rose's help. One end of it was static, in Bastion's basement, next to the emitters, and the other was mobile, magically following Nova, wherever it went. With the use of a rift spell, Nova could communicate with her mind from anywhere in the world, without a hitch. The only problem was that after it would be sheathed in a magic proof skin, no tracking spell could follow it.

Jamie sighed and turned on his laptop. He had no idea how to solve this conundrum. Just browsing through the basic information about how many cell phone service providers there were in the city and how many different systems and programs they used, was giving Jamie a headache. He rubbed his eyes, wiped his face and then tensed up as he felt an intense attention on himself.

The very next instant saw a raven haired girl trip and stumble, catching her balance by grabbing Jamie's biceps with her alabaster skinned hand. "Oops, sorry," said the girl, in a whisper. Jamie felt that she hadn't tripped by accident. He gasped as he saw that the girl had magic about her. Her aura was different than any he had ever seen before.

The girl's full lips gave him a dazzling smile as she sat in the chair next to his. "Gosh, you're strong," she whispered and set down her books, laptop and notepad. "Do you work out?" Jamie regarded her with an expression that he hoped said cool detachment and not deer in the headlights, which was what he was feeling like, at the moment. "I think it would be prudent of me to sit and study next to someone strong enough to catch me if I fall asleep. Besides, if I keep walking like that, I might hurt myself. Or someone else." She kept smiling and laughed soundlessly at her own joke.

Jamie had felt that she was devoting all of her attention to him, but she was acting almost nonchalant. He found himself thoroughly regretting the sharp suits his girls had made for him. Ever since classes started, he was on the receiving end of so many girls' attentions that he had to train himself to tune out his ability to sense the minds of others. If he hadn't, he would have felt this witch thinking about him from a distance, and she wouldn't have had a chance to touch him and take a seat right next to his. He began checking out the sleeve of his suit, looking for a sign of anything untoward that she might have tried to slip past him. His senses told him the girl wasn't a danger, but he reminded himself that his magical senses were all but atrophied.

The girl shrugged out of her jean jacket and saw his examination. "Oh, dear," she whispered, "I didn't rip it, did I? Or dirty it?"

Jamie looked into her huge, blue eyes and then looked down at her half exposed breasts with their gorgeous cleavage. "Um," he said.

"I'd hate to think I've ruined such a beautiful suit," she whispered. She leaned towards him and whispered, "It looks really good on you, by the way." She straightened up and whispered, "I envy you men, sometimes. All you need to look so good is a tailor made suit." She smiled her dazzling smile again.

"Uh," said Jamie.

"Anyway, my name is Mara," she whispered, extending her hand. "Mara O'Donnell."

"Um," Jamie said, shaking her hand. As soon as their hands touched, his mind was assaulted by an image of his face, sporting a rakish grin, between a pair of soft, pale, bountiful thighs. He blinked and wondered if that image was truly coming from the imagination of the girl that sat next to him.

"Is that your name," she asked. "Um? Sounds exotic. Is it your only name, like Cher or Prince?"

Jamie was about to introduce himself when he caught an image of himself, naked and buff and writhing above this girl. He blinked and looked at the girl in amazement. Was she really sitting here, next to him, talking to him and imagining him fucking her at the same time? He felt like an idiot for not saying anything, so he just smiled and turned his face back to his laptop. He concentrated solely on his peripheral vision and the pale cleavage that was moving in it.