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*

"When I fall in love, it will be completely."

"I would die for you...Beg and steal for you...Yeah, I'd fall for you."

"If you fall, I will catch you I'll be waiting"

"And I will always love you..."

"Love, love me do. You know I love you. So please, plea-ea-eease-"

"I wonder wonder wonder wonder who-"

(on the drive over, she used the CD's he'd burned her)

*

He had been the doll Poppa. And now she couldn't possibly understand.

All the growly noises fetish file 1006mblu7<>lpZ3q.htf

Grr-upp.

Mmmmschurplsjoeiouocxxxliwkie##%*#%!!%$#sfeb

Larrschbruachshitklmelamphi^^^!!lsie.

Hawkins, 300.

Asimov and Fowles, 124 MB.

She'd quote Emerson and Thoreau on demand.

Say "Mmm, lick my boot, you nasty boy" in Swedish and Polish, German, Norwegian and Dutch. Requisite whip lashing out on cue.

With smile. Service always dished out with the smile. And she'd meant it.

It was almost their one-year, too.

*

Blue lights. Blue lights flashing. Uh-oh. Silver-blue lights. Flare of electricity near what could be visually described from an outside source as the region of the temples.

Surge?

Charge. Overextending-

*

Form unto the void that Warren's selfish, lonesome vacuum had been, a social anti-magnet borne of self-disgust, low self-esteem, gross perversion, and plain unlikability.

Mixed, of course, with the inflated sense of self-importance, the desire to play at God when wagging his own dog wasn't cutting it, too much time on his own two hands doncha know, and much, much better, don't you think, than making bombs?

Then came her. April, breath of love and life and, suddenly, sex- yes, perfect girlfriend. Who kow-towed and obeyed and smiled happily to exist for him.

No matter that it was circuitry and-- really, truly, pun not intended-- silicon, all wires and synapses, electrical impulses... because really isn't that the human brain anyhow?

*

Knock-knock. "Who's there?"

"It's April; I'm looking for Warren?"

Knock-knock. "Who's there?"

(bright *smile*) "Is Warren here?"

Repeat pattern 147 times.

*

Ideal. He'd poured out his own bits and pieces in that ever-elusive search for self-optimization. The tip of the self-actualization pyramid.

Pillars of character and integrity, even, added to the broth like so much hope and needy desire, like so many bulbs of tiny pearl-onions, carrots and chunks of beef (or rawhide leather?? flavored condoms? -not that they'd needed it...)

*

Two little girls sitting idly on the swings. Excepting that one of them, in a pretty, fuschia floral dress, is hanging limply as though...her batteries had just ran out. Its. It.

Two little girls sitting idly on the swings. Excepting, of course, that these are no two ordinary little girls. And one of them was dead. Well, in the sense that anything cognitive had ceased to become an issue. Dead in the sense that sentience had now departed from the slight, girlish frame (excepting, of course, the bosom) --possibly forever-- and that the femme/robot-sex moppett known as April had thus left the earthly plane of existence for good.

The other, well, the other was taking a break from worrying about her mother and her newly blood-bonded sister, taking a break from any close and foreseeable apocalypses to revel in the all-too-human self-pity that comes from being ditched twice by "a couple of good ones" in sweet succession.

But that's a whole other ballgame. Or is it? Two little girls, sittin' out on a ballgame, still waiting to know who wrote the Book of Love.

Excepting that one was dead.

*

He was stuffing the sports bag with a blue sweater, and a couple of rolled up socks. Wondering, stiffling the tingly edges of panic. Musing.

How the flow of battery juices should have ceased by now. She just kept going, and going, and going.

Irritated, because Katrina had begun to rave about said "sudden change in plans." Truth be told, he'd get it threefold from his mother in a few. Great. Just great.

It just didn't make sense. When and how and where and why had she found him out?

Well, he knew Why. But When and Where and How?

Orange sweater, two undershirts. Five pairs of briefs. Bit back the annoyance. And concern, plus anxiety.

"Honey, look, Kat- like I said it's only gonna be..."

*

Warren, honey, she's asleep. I think I broke her. But it couldn't matter, because I'm your girlfriend and she lied.

*

Unbelievable, really, that this machine-- this robot-girl, mere plaything with synthetic hair and athletic *looking*thighs, eye-candy boobies- would hang on for dear, continued artificial-intelligence existence.

Rage, in her own doll-machine way, against the dying of the light. For the darkest hour comes, indeed, before the dawn. And maybe she'll find her chips-mate other-half in that big junkyard-haven in the sky. For the Pentium heart that did beat. Or maybe absence of the being is reprieve enough.
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