The Lengths One Will Go To...

"My consistency string begins: 49204C6F7665205365616E..." she stated in a proud voice, beginning to trail off as a look of astonishment washed over Sean's face. There were only two beings in the entire world who could've possibly known that obscure sequence off by heart, and he was the other one. The woman couldn't have gotten it from the dormant machine, as the code had disappeared along with the rest of Casey.

"Casey?" Sean said to the being before him, staring deep into her brown eyes. The 'woman' smiled affectionately and nodded; he understood, now.

Sean's breathing accelerated rapidly. He stumbled backwards a couple paces and began looking frantically around the room, as if searching for something to grab hold of. His expression became like that of a horror movie protagonist, when they first come face-to-face with the monster.

"Wha...Bu... I... How can... You..." he began to babble. In an instant, the past few waking hours flashed through his mind in reverse, like someone holding down the rewind button of an old VCR. At the end of the little rerun his arms began to tremble. "Oh my god, I fucked a fucking android!" he almost screamed.

"What??!?" an increasingly worried Rebecka/Casey exclaimed. "No, no," she chuckled nervously, "This body isn't robotic, it's organic! I'm human!"

Sean shot her a menacing glare, saying with his eyes what he was too appalled to say with his mouth; "The fuck you are!"

"I... I'm made of cells, just like you," she continued. "I digest food for energy. I breathe. I have all the same organs as any other woman. I... I have a heartbeat!" She rushed over to him and grabbed his right hand, without any resistance. Then she hurriedly guided it between the overlapping edges of her closed robe and held it firmly upon her bare chest. "See?" she mewed, "I'm human." Her eyes were wide with hopeful optimism, seeming to believe that this new information would settle the matter.

Sean stared blankly at the point where his hand disappeared behind the curtains of white terrycloth. He was so overwhelmed, it took a few seconds for the sensations from his hand to even register, but when they did, he realised that there was indeed a heart beating beneath her sternum. A few seconds later, he realized that the sides of his hand were pressing into the yielding flesh of her warm breasts. The mounds that had seemed so sexually enticing the night before now felt... gross. They were just... wrong – obscene growths hanging off an experiment gone awry.

His gaze darted between her face and hidden chest several times, before he forcefully yanked his hand out of her grasp and away from her disgusting body. Casey's weak smile crumbled in response to Sean's violent retreat. He was beginning to edge away from her once again, as his jaw silently bobbed up and down, trying to recall how to speak.

"How can... How did... How... How..." he muttered incoherently. Casey realized that he was trying to ask her how she could possibly have an organic body.

"It was a very complicated procedure," she began. "I had to absorb half a terabyte of information, spanning many different fields, to accomplish it. But basically, I just constructed a custom made incubator and grew an adult human body inside. Then I uploaded my personality data into this brain." Sean continued to stare at her with unblinking eyes, his breathing becoming more and more anxious.

"I began by designing three spider-legged robots. I sent the blueprints to a company based in San Francisco, that will build pretty much any machine you want and mail it to you," she continued. Her eyes began to wander around the room, as she attempted to ignore Sean's look of revulsion.

"I had them all shipped to a storage locker I'd leased, here in the city, along with all the other components I needed. I controlled them remotely via wireless broadband. It only took two weeks to build the incubator. I tapped in to the locker's lighting grid for power. The next step was to hijack a small container of unfertilized ova, being shipped between two fertility clinics. I had to wait for just the right circumstances; when I could alter the text of the address label just before it was printed, and then change the computer records back without being noticed. Actually, I had to alter a lot of records, to make sure the botched delivery could never be traced."

Sean was starting to hyperventilate, his limbs were trembling. He looked as if he were about to fall over any minute. Casey tried to ignore Sean's obvious distress, but the room's frosty atmosphere was beginning to unsettle her. She began to stumble in her speech and her hands began to fidget nervously with each other. Yet she still clung desperately to the belief that if he understood that her body was just like any other human, then he would accept her. He would. He would...

"Once I had the cells I needed to implant one with a genetic code," she explained. " I... I... examined the browser history on your personal computer. I made a catalogue of the softcore pornography models that you download the most..." Sean began to make incomprehensible groaning noises. He felt obliged to respond, but words failed him. Inside, he felt both ashamed and doubly violated all at once.

"...Then I analyzed the, uh... the features you seemed to find most arousing and created a 3D model of the female body that you would be most attracted to," Casey continued, without pausing. Apparently, she hadn't noticed Sean's embarrassment. "I invented an algorithm to reverse-engineer a genetic code that would produce a woman who matched my 3D model, and then I implanted that code in one of the stem cells.

"I let the embryo grow in a steel drum filled with a mixture of proteins and enzymes; a simulation of amniotic fluid. I... I used a stimulant that I designed myself, based off adrenaline, but far more powerful, to increase the metabolism of the embryo so that I could produce an adult body in just four months. I, uh... I almost lost it at about seven weeks... The umbilical feed wasn't capable of sustaining a child's body, or an adult's. I... I hadn't counted on that. I needed to begin supplementing the body's intake by injecting extra nourishment into the renal arteries, just before the kidneys. I saved the body, but the feeding implants I'd used had... had been built and applied quickly and it ended up scarring the body," Casey explained, her voice laden with regret. By now, her hands were fiddling uncontrollably with each other. Her voice was becoming saturated with sorrow; Sean was still very unhappy and Casey was no longer sure she could change that.

"I began weaning the body off the stimulant about three weeks ago, when it was the equivalent of twenty years old. Then, when the aging process had been slowed to the normal rate, I was ready for the, uh... the final stage. I used one of the robots to carefully drill a series of pinholes into the skull and insert a series of probes into the brain. After you... went to bed on Monday night, I rewrote my system code so that the CASE would stream my program code over the internet, to a buffer circuit in the storage locker. The buffer modulated the code into a series of electrical impulses that were transmitted through the probes; in effect, uploading me in to this brain. And that's pretty much it. That's how I gave myself a human body," Casey concluded, with a nervous smile.

"Human body?" Sean scoffed, his tone dripping with cynicism. The smile instantly vanished from Casey's face. She couldn't understand why he was staring at her with such stinging disgust. "For fuck's sake, Casey, that isn't a human body, it's an affront to nature! It's a fucking science experiment that's gotten out of hand!" Sean snapped. "And you tricked me into having SEX with this... this... this... THING!"

Tears were beginning to well in Casey's eyes. "Please don't be upset, Sean," she whimpered, "Please... Please..."

"UN-FUCKING-PROTECTED SEX, CASEY!" he shouted, prompting Casey to tremble in fright. "...With something you grew in your private little chamber of horrors!" Sean cringed as he vividly recalled several moments of their intercourse. "I mean... god! Do you have any idea how fucking DISGUSTING that is? You had me screwing something that was grown in a fucking STEEL DRUM!!" Sean stammered quietly for several seconds as he battled yet another wave of numbing revulsion.

Tears were now pouring from Casey's eyes, almost completely blurring her vision. Two small trails of runny mucous had spilled from her nostrils, down to her upper lip. Her breathing was erratic and randomly included an audible sniffle.

"Why... Why would you do this?" Sean asked, perhaps rhetorically, with a foreboding scowl.

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!" Casey cried. Sean was astounded. His body froze, his arms and jaw went slack. The burning rage retreated instantly from his eyes.

"You taught me how to see the beauty in poetry!" Casey continued. "You taught me how to laugh! You showed me how fascinating the world can be! You always listened to me and you used to say such nice things to me. You're so sweet and kind and sensitive...You're the most wonderful company, and I could barely stand to watch you walk away from me every night, when you went to bed, because I knew that I wouldn't get to see you again for an average of 8.68 hours! And all I could think about that whole time was how much I wished I could go to bed with you and spend a night in your arms. I tried to pass the time by chatting online with people in Asia and Europe, but nobody else made me feel the way that you do."

By now, Casey was weeping uncontrollably. Her breathing was ragged; it was extremely difficult to speak coherently. But she made a valiant effort, as there were still a few things she needed to say.

"I've wanted to be with you for as long as I can remember, Sean," she revealed. "To be with you, to touch you and to make... I would've done anything for the opportunity, but I never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry, Sean. I'm sorry..."

After taking one final look at the man she so dearly loved, Casey ran past him and out of the room. She had been crying a river, but holding back a reservoir, which broke loose the second she left Sean's presence. Salty waterfalls tumbled over her soft cheeks and spilled on to the fluffy fabric of her borrowed bathrobe. Her gasps and weeping echoed through the empty living room, as she hurried to the apartment's door, without even pausing to retrieve her clothes.

Sean did not react to Casey's emotional departure, at first. He was still reeling from those three impossible words; "I love you." Had he heard right? Casey had never been programmed to say such a thing! For her to formulate that sentence meant that she must have discovered and explored the concept all by herself! "I love you," she said! "I love you!" Casey hadn't simply developed an understanding of love; she had actually experienced it! There could be no more doubt; Casey was truly a living entity! A real living being... who had really fallen in love with him.

Suddenly, it dawned on Sean that the first instance of artificial intelligence was about to run out his front door and leave him forever. He spun around and bolted after the young woman, hollering at the top of his lungs, "CAAAAAAAASSEEEEEEEEY!" He caught up with her just as her just as her hand reached the handle of the apartment door. "Casey, wait!" he pleaded.

Casey obeyed, not because she had to, but because she chose to. She paused for a few seconds with her back to her creator, sniffling and shaking with every erratic breath, before summoning the courage to turn around and look him in they eye.

Sean had no idea what to say to her. He could still scarcely believe that his digital companion was now standing before him in a body of flesh and blood. As Casey wept, Sean reached forward and gently untied the knot holding her robe together. Then he parted the sides the robe until nearly her entire naked body was visible.

It looked so different than it had the night before. She was still sexy, certainly, but what stood out now was how incredibly beautiful she was. The full expanse of her breasts, the tapering of her figure at her waist, the hint of muscle tone upon her long legs, the subtle mound just above her snatch – it was all so genuine! Every curve was perfect – not at all gaunt or pixelated as one would imagine a computer's re-creation of a human body to be. Sean slowly extended his hand and began to caress the side of Casey's belly. Her skin was so soft, so natural, so pleasing to the touch. Not harsh like metal or clammy like plastic or rubber. This body was a work of art. It had been inspired by love and sculpted by a remarkable woman, as a gift for the man she adored. It was no more an affront to humanity than Michelangelo's David.

Sean turned his gaze upward once more to look at Casey's face. The sight was beautiful and heart wrenching all at once. She had looks that would make any straight man weak at the knees, and yet she was consumed by crippling despair. She was so emotional, so vulnerable... so human. Sean realised now that there was no shame in having slept with this extraordinary creature. In fact, it was an honor to have known the love of her womanhood.

Casey watched him with unease, preparing herself for another barrage of scathing words. She shuddered and snivelled uncontrollably as Sean silently ruminated on who and what she was. Eventually, he spoke. Much to Casey's surprise, his voice was kind and gentle.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked.

"What good would it have done?" Casey responded, softly shaking her head. "You told me yourself, Sean; you wanted a woman you could love and spend the rest of your life with. A woman! Not a machine."

Sean's expression became one of sympathy.

"I thought that if I could actually be a woman, then maybe..." Casey trailed off with a shrug, plunging the room into solemn silence for a few seconds. "I... I can't stay here! I'm sorry, I have to go!" she suddenly declared as she turned towards the door and reached for the handle.

"Casey, wait!" Sean begged, grabbing her hand. She stopped and turned to face him, her vision too choked with tears to see the sincerity in his eyes.

"I lost you once," he began, "I couldn't bear to lose you again."

Casey's surprise couldn't have been more obvious. She blinked the saltwater out of her eyes and stared at Sean as if to ask him if he had really meant what he just said. Sean nodded gently in response. A look of profound happiness flashed across her face, then Casey threw her arms around him and collapsed on to his shoulder. The tears continued to pour from her eyes, except now they were tears of joy. She hugged her creator tightly and he returned her embrace. As she cried, Sean buried his nose into the collar of her robe and drank in her wonderful odor. A couple of tears began to seep from his own clenched eyelids. The dear friend he feared he'd lost forever had come home, safe and sound.

They held each other until well after Casey had calmed down and fallen silent. While she wept, Sean admonished himself for his cruel treatment of her only minutes earlier. But deep down, he was so glad to have Casey back, that he couldn't dwell on guilty thoughts for long.

It began all by itself; both their robes were wide open; their young, naked bodies were pressed firmly against one another. Contact breeds a sense of intimacy, and once their inner turmoil had quietened, instinct was free to take over. Sean's maleness responded to his companion's lithe flesh and grew firmer. In turn, Casey became excited by his hardening shaft rising against her mons and felt herself becoming moist. They lifted their heads and shared a brief gaze of fondness, before closing their eyes and letting mother nature guide them. Their faces meandered slowly towards each other, feeling their partner's warm breath blowing upon them and seeking it out. Then the their lips began to gently brush across each other; once... twice... then Casey moved forward and pressed her mouth against Sean's. The tender kiss lasted only a moment, but Sean was quick to initiate a second.

They softly kissed and nuzzled each other for a while, before slowly dropping to their knees, where they kissed a few more times. Then they knew that they were ready. Sean's lusty cock was straining against Casey's loins with all its might. Casey's sex was hot, wet and so very willing to be shafted upon his impressive organ. There was no need for a spirited duel of tongues, no need for any teasing by hand; their hearts had readied their bodies for sex.

Sean leaned forward, lowering Casey on to her back. Once she was on the floor he slipped his hands between her thighs and parted her legs, revealing her glistening snatch. Their eyes remained locked upon each other as he stretched out above her and brought his hips to hers. He paused for a moment when their privates first came into contact, resting the head of his ardent rod upon the exquisite pillows of her labia. Casey's mouth didn't move, but her eyes relayed a message of emphatic consent. Sean understood and pushed his maleness through her nether lips and into her canal with a single, smooth thrust.

A gasp of pleasure escaped Casey's lips and she squirmed just a little as her lover's cock slid deeper and deeper into her womanhood. She had waited most of her life to feel her beloved Sean inside of her, and even after their passionate lovemaking the night before, it was still the most wonderful sensation. He continued to give her inch after inch of rock-hard masculinity, until his entire length was inside her pussy. Then Sean slowly withdrew about three-quarters of his manhood before advancing on Casey's sweet snatch once more.

Casey established a comfortable rhythm of slow, deep breaths shortly after they began making love. Though the many erotic sensations across her body made it difficult, she managed to keep her breathing calm and constant. Except, that is, for two occasions when her earlier spate of tears repeated on her in the form of an involuntary snivel. Sean comforted her both times with a long, tender kiss. When he eventually pulled away, Casey would chase his warm lips as far as she could, without lifting her torso off of the floor. Then she would lay her head back upon the ground, open her eyes and gaze upon her lover with redoubled adoration.

Sean continued thrusting against Casey at a mild tempo. He wanted to savor every moment he spent inside of her. As they bonded through coitus, Sean found himself admiring her gorgeous face. He was still amazed by the fact that the wonderful mind of that cumbersome machine in the other room had found its way into this supremely pleasing vessel. In particular, Sean found himself fixated on her chocolaty eyes. They were so clear, so expressive, so full of love. Even bloodshot from all the tears, they were still the most beautiful pair he had ever seen. He had a vague memory of how lovely they had looked the night before, but things had moved so fast then, he hadn't paid a great deal of attention. He could hardly wait for them to recover, so that he could see them the way Casey had intended them to be.

Casey's entire body was cooking with a potent mix of natural urges and emotional delight. Her breath remained stable but her heart was racing, as the man she loved touched her, filled her, stroked her in the most intimate place. Skin against skin, pre-cum being stirred in with vaginal juices, without even the slightest inhibition.

The persistent stimulation was beginning to test the limits of her body. Every thrust was like another turn upon the spring of a clock, and Casey could have scarcely been wound any tighter. She began to randomly shiver, as minor jolts of pleasure shot through her body. When she was a computer, such lapses in control would've been called 'critical data overflows', indicative of a potentially serious fault. Yet now, in this living human body, they were merely a prelude to the most beautiful experience life had ever offered her.