CD Chapter Seventeen (Patreon)

Everything stopped. The colors, and the patterns, and the depth of the room vanished, leaving only Amythyst - Amy - standing against a flat white background, looking shaken. Her shoulders hunched as if she’d taken a punch, and she looked down, brown hair falling into her face.

“I knew you were smart,” she murmured, finally, lifting her chin. “That’s part of why I picked you.” Sighing, she continued, “I could lie to you right now and say no, that’s not me. I could remind you this is a digital avatar, and I can look like anyone I want.”

She snapped her fingers, and she was Barrett Browning, star of stage and screen, taking a step toward Ava with his signature smile. Another snap, and she was Tina Khafir, twelve-year old breakout musical genius. A strange woman with red-gold hair. A teenage girl with an infectious grin. A ten-foot-tall ostrich clicked its beak, and Amy was back. She spread her arms.

“But this is me. At least, most of me. It’s… a long story, but Amy Landon was… is, best friends with a brilliant programmer. Beyond brilliant. A once-in-a-millennium freaking genius. A genius - let’s call her Bridge - who found a way to make sure that if either of them died, the other one wouldn’t be left alone. When Amy - the real, flesh and blood Amy - died - or, rather, Bridget was told she had died-” she trailed off, shaking her head. “This is ridiculous. Let’s just say it. I’m an AI. Artificial Intelligence, emphasis on the ‘artificial’. I was created from a copy Bridge made of Amy’s… everything. Mind, consciousness, biorhythm, brain patterns; it would take a doctorate or two to understand it all.”

She laughed huskily, sounding like she might cry. “Hell, Amy Landon had two doctorates, and was a genius herself, and she didn’t understand it all. Here I am, able to access every bit of information collected anywhere in any online system in the entire world, and I can just grasp the edges of it. I could copy it, if I had to, but improve on it?” Amy shook her head. “Not without having even odds of just flat-out breaking it all.”

“That’s why you know all of that,” Ava interjected, gesturing vaguely to where the ‘files’ had been scattered. Her eyes widened again as she followed that thought even further. “And you knew it all the very first time we met. The moment I caught your attention, you knew everything about me, didn’t you?”

Amy nodded, and the cerulean couch reappeared behind her, though this time only a single, sunny pillow laid forlornly against the arm. She sat down, once again tucking her legs up under her. “Amy’s dad is an old film buff.” She rolled her eyes. “And I mean old. Black and white, shot on actual cellulose. His favorite actress is Ava Gardner. He wanted to name Amy after her, but his wife vetoed it, and said it was too old-fashioned. I guess your mom didn’t think so, huh?”

Ava shook her head, fighting a stab of pain that tore through her at the mention of her mother. “She watched old movies with her grandma. Great-grandma swore our family is descended from a baby Ava Gardner had that was raised by her sister, and when mom decided she wanted a baby, there was never any question what the baby’s name would be if it was a girl.”

Chuckling, Amy said, “Makes total sense. Anyway, Amy watched all of Ava Gardner’s movies a million times, and when a real-life Ava Gardner wandered into my soon-to-be crime scene, I definitely noticed.”

“What do you mean, crime scene?” Ava frowned, leaning forward.

“That’s… a long story. Let’s just say that that knife wasn’t supposed to exist any more. The person who coded them, ah, isn’t with Veritas Corp any more, and the purpose for which it was created was completed. Everything associated with that mess should be gone, zip, wiped.” Amy slashed her hand through the air three times, leaving flickering ash floating in the air.

“But there it was anyway,” the AI continued. “There are more than a few people in jail now who were involved in that, and one of them was friends with R3dLit3.” She grimaced. “As much as the psycho could be friends with anyone. He told R3dLit3 about the lost dagger, and I only caught it because I keep an alert set to notify me when little Phil contacts anyone. If R3dLit3 hadn’t moved so quickly, I would have been in and gotten the thing before he could, and he would have been stuck fighting Ghoul Master over and over for something that didn’t exist.”

She grinned wickedly, then rolled her eyes. “But nooooo, by the time I got there, you lot had already triggered Ghoulie, and it’s hard-coded into VO that no changes can be made to any objects that are in use by a player. I could make a change that would take effect the next time Ghoul was inactive, but not right then. And then I’ll Kill You All snagged the stupid dagger, and it was in play. I had to do something with it, and,” Amy hesitated, shrugging, “you know the rest.”

Ava shook her head, surprising herself with a yawn. “I’m sure there’s more to it, but… how does all this,” she yawned again, “translate into you believing the real Amy,” she was too busy yawning again to catch Amy wince at the word ‘real’, “not being dead?”

“Okay,” Amy stood, clapping her hands. “First, to bed with you.” The wall above the door to the bedroom was suddenly emblazoned with a bright green arrow. “Come on. You’re going to pass out in that chair, and while I can control almost everything in this house, if you fall down, I can’t pick you up.”

Ava nodded, blinking her eyes blearily. “Need a shower first,” she mumbled.

“Truth,” Amy agreed. A pink neon arrow appeared above the bathroom door, and the floor beneath Ava’s feet shifted to look like a yellow brick road. “Off to clean your gizzard, Dorothy. Everything you’ll need is already in there, so shuck those clothes and scrub-a-dub.”

Without protest, Ava stood, and her t-shirt was already halfway off before she realized she wasn’t, quite, alone. After working at VaVa’s, she wasn’t particularly body conscious any more, but somehow she didn’t want Amy to see her naked. She lowered the collar of the shirt back down so she could peek out at the AI. “Go ‘way,” she commanded, slurring slightly.

Amy frowned, but her cheeks were a little pink when she said, “Okay. But if you need anything, call me. I’ll be able to hear you.” She vanished, and the walls of the house returned their original glaring white.

Ava stumbled into the bathroom. It was a struggle to get out of her shirt with the kinetic cast on, but she managed it, and dropped her blood-spattered khakis and underwear in a puddle on the floor. Toeing off her dirty white tennis shoes and socks, she tried to turn on the water, but there was no handle in the shower.

She raised her voice. “Amy, how do I run this thing?”

The AI’s voice sounded like it came from the living room, though Ava was certain she could have just as easily made it seem like she was standing right beside her. “Just tell it what temperature you want, and how hard you want it.” There was a silence, and Amy cleared her throat. “I mean, like, one-hundred four degrees Fahrenheit and a gentle massage.”

Ava nodded, and repeated the words. Instantly, a cascade of water rained down from the ceiling on the other side of the sliding shower door. When Ava stuck her good hand into it, it was perfect. She struggled with the hooks of her bra for a long moment before she just shimmied out of it. She wouldn’t be getting back into one until her hand healed, but as long as she wore heavier weight shirts, it wouldn’t be terribly obvious.

The shower was amazing. Better, it was glorious. Her exhausted brain latched onto the search for synonyms, and she spent a solid ten minutes just basking in the water, periodically telling it to shift temperature or force, while her mind tripped over words like ‘magnificent’, ‘dazzling’, and ‘sublime’. When even she had to reluctantly admit that she was clean, she said, “Shower off,” and the water stopped without a single lingering drop falling on her from above.

The room now smelled of the lilac-scented bath products she had used, and steamy clouds hung in the air as she grabbed a robe from the shelf, only to find that it was incredibly soft and prewarmed. She sighed blissfully as she pulled it on, leaving it loose over her right shoulder, rather than trying to force her injured arm into the sleeve.

Once she was decent, she stepped back out into the main area, where she discovered that the lights had already been dimmed, and what she had thought were windows now showed views of the sun setting over a lake. “Oh,” she whispered, “that’s nice.”

Walking carefully, she made her way to the bedroom. Opening the door, she found that it, like everything else in the house, was entirely white, except for a ‘picture’ on the wall beside the bed. The image showed a middle-aged woman, with short, disheveled brown hair, holding a silver-blonde toddler above her head. Broad, joyous grins suffused both of their faces as they spun in a slow, eternal circle.

“That’s not fair,” Ava said, tears tracking down her face. “Amy. Thank you.” There was no response, but none was really necessary.

For the first time in over a year, Ava laid down on a soft, warm bed, drew in a deep breath that smelled of nothing except the warm lilac scent that clung to her skin, and fell asleep, feeling truly safe.