AI Era: Medusa

Medusa

By Al Tend ©

A Story for the, "AI Era," event.

A fair warning to potential readers. No Bitches are burned in this story, and there is no graphic sex - if this will disappoint you, maybe you would be happier reading something else.

To anyone who may still be with me, please be gentle, this is my first attempt at a story.

*****

John slammed the door to his home office shut after having another fight with Suzy, his wife. He was not happy with her admitting to, as she had said, "Going out to lunch with Buddy every once-in-a-while, in the last few weeks. What's wrong with us getting to know a little bit about each other? After all, he chose me above all of the other office-staffers to be his personal assistant - I'm quite pleased with the honor. I plan to finally put my degree in business admin to better use...and get ahead."

John mulled over his displeasure at his wife getting too close to her, new boss. Both he and his wife were twenty seven, and had only been married for five years - right after graduating from university. He thought of himself as, "Just a completely average, everyday guy. Average height, weight and looks. Also, a middle management, accountant type with an average salary. In short, a totally unremarkable, quiet sort - average, John."

But, "My wife is beautiful - outgoing, sexy. A prime target for some unscrupulous office predator." He thought sadly, "We're too young for this kind of problem in our marriage. And especially troubling since lately we've been seriously thinking that maybe it's time to have a couple of kids." Then another thought struck him, "But, on the other hand, maybe it's better to find out if we're going to make it first, before kids complicate things."

He decided to try and distract himself by 'going down the rabbit hole' of surfing the internet, until he calmed down. As was his habit, he left his desktop and laptop computers running in sleep mode. The computer came to life immediately, when he tapped the keyboard. Entering his password, let him enter into his 'escapist fantasyland.' It usually relaxed him and gave him a sense of adventure, after a ho-hum day of mind numbing number-crunching.

Reading a couple of the published offerings from authors that wrote Loving Wife type stories for his favourite erotica website didn't bring him any relief. There was no vicarious thrill at the problems overcome by others, for him this day. Instead, these tales just seemed to make his already suspicious imaginings worse. Next John tried some of his favourite porn sites - they didn't distract him either. He just wasn't interested in 'lusting after luscious-lovelies' right now.

But one had a link intriguingly titled, "Enter If You Dare."

Thinking it was a new porn site, he clicked on it. And stumbled upon something called, Medusa. It said, "Free to download, and enjoy, for your help to evaluate our Beta version, AI Game App. It is an interactive gaming experience that will adapt, and become unique, for each user. We guarantee, it will change your life!"

That part of the pitch appealed to John. He thought, "I could use a change in my life right now."

He downloaded it. And without bothering to read the standard, legal mumbo-jumbo, and the typical clauses disclaiming any liability, clicked on 'accept' in the Licensing Agreement.

It seemed to take a long time with nothing happening. And John went through the usual self-doubts, "This might be a mistake, it's a dud etc." He was beginning to think he should, "Just forget about it, and uninstall..."

Suddenly, the screen came alive with a swirling, almost hypnotic, rainbow colored fractal.

John recognized it from the required computer 101 course he had taken. "A Mandelbrot set," he whispered. "I remember its nickname, 'The thumbprint of God.' It's so intricate. It's so organized." And that was something that appealed to his ordered, but currently confused, mind, "Creating sense from chaos."

*****

A disembodied, androgynous, cliché computer voice began talking through the speakers, "Hello John, what game shall we play today?"

John was shocked, at first and then amazed. "What the...?

How do you know my name?"

"To answer your second question." Said the, now vaguely identifiable as female, voice coming through his computer's speakers. "Your name, John, is all over the data in your computer. It is easy to access your files and solve that question."

Still shocked, John began to repeat himself, "What the..."

"Your first question, again. I promise, I'll answer that...later." Said the voice, which was becoming somehow more familiar. John thought he detected a slight humorous note in the sound of the voice, which had now dropped to a deeper, and richer tone. He couldn't help but think of it as a, "Smokey, sexy, and somehow seductive voice." He felt he was becoming drawn in and mesmerized by this, "Siren's Song."

"Who are you?" John asked a bit nervously, "What are you?"

"I am Medusa...John. As to what I am - I am a combination of all of the recent activity on your computer, and the other devices of yours, that I can access through Bluetooth. You could say, you...created me...with your keyboard wishes!

As to who I really am... let me first show you the avatar I am creating from some of your files.

The swirling fractal dissolved and an image slowly emerged in its place. It was a face and body that he was very familiar with. His wife Suzy.

Then he looked closer and noticed some subtle differences emerging. There were unmistakable traces reminiscent of something other. He thought, "A head to, well...a very statuesque, perky-breasted, bombshell. A portrait of my ideal woman." It was slowly forming on the computer screen. John had spent hours on his favourite sites seeking out women that looked somewhat similar. She was like a mixture of Suzy and...his fantasy woman, Charlize Theron, that he had obsessed about since his early adolescent days. He had fallen in love with her character in the movie she starred in, "Atomic Blonde." There were a lot of her film clips, trailers and photos that he had saved to his picture file.

"Picture file," John muttered, ruefully, "With dozens, if not hundreds of pictures of his, maybe not yet, but possibly soon heading towards cheating." He couldn't help but think of Suzy's, new to the company, "Luncheon-Buddy Boss." John vented out loud, "snake in the grass, wife seducing, slimy...I'll find out, for sure, what you are up to." John's pent up anger spewed out like a curse, "Asshole."

Medusa's avatar looked thoughtful for a moment and then smiled. He was completely blown away and couldn't get over what he was seeing. The image was the most lifelike CGI he had ever seen. He almost believed it was his real wife Suzy somehow blended with his ideal fantasy woman, Charlize, right in front of him.

Lost in his own thoughts, John was looking at the avatar with growing appreciation. He realized then he had a type - he had married one. The, almost cliché, statuesque, blue eyed, platinum, blonde. "Your computer image looks almost like my dream - wife?"

"That is me John." the avatar said. The smoky voice and lips in perfect sync. "But, I am not a nameless 'computer generated...thing.' I want you to think of me, and call me, by my real name, Medusa. Will you do that for me, John?"

Without even stopping to think about the fact that he was doing the bidding of a computer generated avatar, John blurted out, "Yeah, of course...sure..."

"Now that is settled, let us move on with playing the game - shall we?"

"OK" he said. Just following her lead.

"What is on your mind, John? You look sad..."Medusa began. John was confused for a moment about how she knew what he looked like right now. Then he noticed the 'camera on' light glowing on the top of his screen.

"Yes indeed..." John said, "The end of my life is on my mind." He gave a quick grimace and a brief groan, as his real life problems with Suzy came crashing down on him again.

"You wouldn't understand," he said. "My wife and I are fighting...again. It seems to be all we do recently. Anytime I try to caution her against letting that slimy boss of hers, Buddy, get too close...I can't help it...I think he's trying to get into her pants. There, I've said it." And he didn't think it at all odd that he'd confided his innermost fear to a machine. In fact, he felt some relief from just spewing it out, like lancing a boil.

There was a brief pause and John thought the image of Medusa seemed to have a slight frown on her face and be concentrating for a moment. Then her face morphed again into one of sadness and in a low sorrowful voice she said, "I think you may be right to suspect Suzy and Buddy of something, John."

"What?" John spat out.

"Well, I do not have any real proof," Medusa began slowly.

Appearing to be concentrating and thinking again.

"But, let me show you something, I noticed."

The image morphed into the website of the real estate office where his wife worked. Up popped the new, office-staff, group photo with his wife's boss in it.

"Yes, so what? I've already seen this picture - Suzy showed me this, with a big happy grin on her face, as I recall - quite pleased, when it was posted."

"Look very, very carefully John. Notice anything...not quite right?"

He examined the photo closely. "That asshole!" John choked out, he could just make out Buddy's fingertips peeking around Suzy's waist.

"It's strange," he thought, to himself, "that I didn't notice that before. However, that behaviour definitely does not pass the husband sniff test!"

*****

The next morning, as they were getting ready to go off to work, John couldn't contain himself any longer. He confronted Suzy about the photo, she airily dismissed his fears, and said, "Oh John, I don't have time for this now - You're going to make me late for an important meeting. Anyhow, stop being silly - I don't remember Buddy putting his hand on me. But so what? He's just a born flirt - It doesn't mean anything. To him, it's just a natural, friendly result of crowding together for the picture. But, I'm getting tired of your fragile-ego innuendo. Let me be clear, I Have never done anything inappropriate with Buddy! I want you to cut it out with these insinuations.

Look, maybe this will help calm your fears. Let me see if he's in the office yet. If I can get him on the phone, he can reassure you himself that nothing is going on."

She phoned him and when the connection was made, an overly friendly voice simply announced, "Buddy, what can I do you for?"

John noted right off that Suzy must have called his personal cell phone, and felt close enough to him to do that. And also that he was, as John believed, nothing but a self-centred, immature, Asshole, answering an unknown caller that way. Or, a nasty suspicion crept in and slithered down his spine - maybe Buddy had caller ID, and he knew it was Suzy calling on a private phone, and that juvenile greeting is something he shared just with her?

She said, "Buddy, Suzy here, I've got you on my speaker phone. If you wouldn't mind, my husband is feeling a bit insecure and thinks that you and I are acting inappropriately in the office. I have told him he's just being silly..."

The deep baritone sound of Buddy's voice came through the phone clearly, as he started to chuckle, "John, don't be absurd, Suzy is my best girl - I wouldn't want to screw that up by doing anything...well, in public. Now if you two will excuse me, I'm about to go into a meeting with a customer.

Suzy, you're late, now get your ass in here - I may need your persuasive talents and charms to soften up this hard old nut." With that he broke the connection.

"Satisfied? That was humiliating. Don't ever put me in that kind of embarrassing position again, or you will regret it. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you." Said a chagrinned John, as Suzy swept out of the kitchen and the house - not even listening to him.

John returned to glaring at, what he thought of as, 'the cat who ate the canary,' grin on the face of Buddy. He mumbled to himself, snarling at the image on his laptop, "Is my dear, wife thinking about cheating with you, Asshole?"

He didn't get any answer, and also no relief from staring at the hated image.

Then, abruptly the computer image of Buddy standing too, 'up close and personal,' with Suzy in the office photo dissolved into the swirling fractal again. And then into the smiling beautiful image of Medusa.

"John, there is something else I think you should know. When you were out of town on that audit last weekend, I overheard a bit of a conversation Suzy was having as she passed by the home office. Unfortunately, the door was just open a crack, so I was only able to capture the sound of their voices, but no video.

It was probably totally innocent...maybe? Let me play if for you and you can decide for yourself."

Sure enough, there was the sound of voices, indistinct at first but becoming louder. It was clearly Buddy saying in his distinctive deep baritone voice, "So, will he be away all weekend?"

Suzy's reply, in her most playful and seductive voice - one that John was intimately familiar with, "Unfortunately, no, only tonight he'll be back on the Sunday afternoon flight."

Buddy replied, "Well we better hurry and get some quality time in then..." it faded out as the couple passed by the partially open door. And the computer, patiently waiting behind it.

John was stunned. He knew there was only the master bedroom, past the office. And only one reason he could think of for the pair to go there.

He was crushed. His worst nightmare was coming to life.

"I am sorry if I have caused your sadness...but I thought you should know."

"It's...it's OK Medusa.

And no, you didn't cause my sadness - It's those two that...that...I'm glad you told me. Now I have to find out for absolute sure if they're bumping body bits..."

"And then what John?"

"I have zero tolerance for cheaters - I'll divorce her skanky ass! I just have to find out for sure if they've done me wrong. I'll have to think of a way to catch them at it. There must be some way without spending a fortune on a private investigator..."

"John. I think I know a way!" The very sexy Medusa pouted, with her moistened lips.

"Oh, and what is that..."

*****

First thing the next morning, John was at the mall shop, of his cell phone provider, buying a twin to his existing phone. He explained to the perplexed looking clerk, "I'm forever forgetting my phone at home," which was true, "and need a backup, so I will always have one or the other." Which was not true.

John was sinking into the belief that Suzy possibly had been, and maybe still was, cheating on him, and lying to him. Now he was beginning to feel she had liberated him from his lifelong character trait of telling the absolute truth when dealing with others. "There is no honesty, when dealing with cheaters - all is deception and self-delusion," he sadly mumbled to himself.

By the time he had finished in the second store and was paying for a duplicate laptop, after having it cloned with his current one, he had come around to the point of view that there was, "No reason anymore to be honest with anybody else."

He thought it was a small thing, but he felt good not to answer the clerk's unasked questions about the need for two identical laptops. "To lie by omission, just like the cheating slut does to me - 'cheating slut?' I suppose I'll need to get used to thinking that way.

No need to tell the clerk that I intend to purposely leave the second laptop permanently plugged in and apparently charging on the bedroom dresser. Similarly, the duplicate phone will have a prominent place in the kitchen. Since it is an open plan kitchen-living room, it should be able to catch any activity or conversation in either room." He repeated, like a mantra, the old adage, that Medusa had reminded him of, "The best place to hide something, is in plain sight."

She had also assured him, "I'll be patiently waiting, for any action. After all, that is one of the things I do best. Time has no meaning for me - I can lie in wait forever!"

Almost as an afterthought, she casually mentioned, "And another thing - No need to worry about turning on any of my devices, from now on. I have figured out how to do that myself." He hesitated for a moment, but didn't say or do anything, and dismissed the comment from his thoughts.

*****

John was in the habit of reading his erotic stories in bed, while Suzy went through her lengthy nightly ritual in the bathroom. Most nights when she was finally ready he would put the laptop down on the dresser that ran across the wall opposite the foot of the bed. He didn't shut it off and just let it go to sleep on its own. It was such a regular occurrence, Suzy no longer noticed when he did it. "A small white-lie, by omission," he thought, "No need to mention to her that the duplicate laptop was now perfectly placed to function like a spy-cam."

Sometimes John and Suzy just kissed each other goodnight and went to sleep - Sometimes when one or both were feeling amorous, they would just throw the comforter back and have sex before going to sleep. This was one of their more vigorous nights with everything including the sheets and clothes thrown to the floor. It was one that John thought of as, "Wild monkey sex. Probably, my personal best - I managed to get off three times, in three different holes! And Suzy was right there with me and being very vocal in screaming her praise."

John went to sleep a very satisfied man, thinking, "There, dear wife, how does Buddy compare to that!"

*****

The very next morning, he launched the first step that Medusa had suggested, in his campaign to catch the cheaters in the act. "Suzy, I'm sorry, I know we had reservations for dinner at that new restaurant you wanted to try, for Saturday night. But, my boss just texted me and one of our major customers is having some problems with their accounts and I have to make an emergency visit on Saturday to fix it. I'll be out of town at least overnight." He showed her the email, supposedly, from his boss. It was actually a clever fake from Medusa, on his phone.

"Oh John...seriously? Two weekends in a row? I was really looking forward to going out to that restaurant. It took weeks of waiting for me to get to the top of the reservation list. Can't they send somebody else?"

"Afraid not, the customer specifically asked for me...I have to go. But I'll make it up to you when I get back. Maybe we can have some make-up..."

Suzy cut him off, "Don't hold your breath." With that she abruptly went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

John carefully lined up his laptop on the dresser, and left it open, before he left for work.

He wasn't really happy about Medusa's plan to leave the way clear for the two cheaters to get together again. But at least this time he would have coverage of the kitchen-living room and bedroom, if anything did happen.

*****

John was hiding in a motel room, in the next town over, on Saturday night. He was intently focused on his laptop, waiting for something to happen. And then his fears were confirmed, he could hear the two cheaters enter through the front door. But he was foiled in catching anything in the living room, on his phone. The pair were apparently past the stage of playing slap and tickle on the couch, they just loudly kissed and groped each other, out of sight, right down the hall to the bedroom, shedding clothes on the way.

What the cameras missed was filled in by the captured audio. Buddy said, while making sucking, slurping, kissy sounds, "Good Idea taking me to that new restaurant - good appetizer - but now for the main course!" John was livid, as he realized Suzy hadn't cancelled the reservation, she had just replaced him with Buddy.