Single Wired Female (Wired for Love Book 2)

by Greg Dragon

  St. Petersburg was different from Seattle in many ways, though both cities were on the water and had their share of boats and boat lovers. After three days had passed since her release from the hospital, she decided that it was safe to step outside. She sat on the porch of her tenth floor apartment and flipped through her personal device to see if any news had been posted.

  She searched for her name and address in Seattle but the only thing she could find was a story about an unrestrained android. She smiled when she read about the android’s escape—they were a fascinating curiosity that she had always been interested in. I hope she punched out a bunch of them, she thought and then slid her finger down the device to power it off.

  She got up and stretched her long, tanned limbs and then went inside to decide on an activity for the day.

  “I’m never hungry,” she said out loud as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She was slim but muscular, and she rubbed her flat stomach as if doing this would summon up an appetite. She wondered if the trauma of the shooting was the cause for her lack of appetite but she let it pass and forced herself to walk over to the refrigerator.

  After taking a quick nap on her couch, Bonnie—who was now calling herself Darlene—decided that she would go for a walk. She chose sandals, tiny black shorts, and a salmon-colored tank top to survive the heat. It wasn’t bad when she got to the streets, and when she put on her sunglasses she blended in with all of the women that were there.

  The people of St. Petersburg were a lot friendlier and much more curious than the ones in Seattle. At first this made her self-conscious but this soon passed. After a few blocks of walking and returning a subtle wave or a smile, she accepted it all as a part of the Southern culture.

  The bay area held no shortage of markets and stores so Bonnie took advantage of the ones that sold clothes. She was up to five bags by the time she stopped shopping but she was having the time of her life. The place where she decided to take a break was an outside bar that wasn’t too popular. As soon as she sat down a pretty, young blonde walked over and took her drink order.

  Bonnie took a straw hat from one of her bags, tried it on, and then pulled out her device to search for news on her case. After finding nothing, she decided to look up the name, “Sal Minstretta”. She looked through ten pages of results for articles or information but she couldn’t find anything that was conclusive.

  The waitress brought her a margarita and she tipped her well, then watched her as she went off to the other tables. There was something off about the girl and Bonnie wanted to know what it was. She watched her intently as she took more orders, punched them in, and then went back to the bar to pour the drinks. The woman was a machine, perfect in her movements. There was no hesitation, no stumbling or spills, just poetry in motion as she did her job effortlessly.

  Bonnie realized that the waitress was an android. She was built to look like a pretty human girl but was a restrained tool of whomever owned the bar. It only made sense that she was an android: she could work all week long without taking a break.

  Something about this made Bonnie feel sad but she couldn’t figure out what it was. She was fascinated with androids; she had always been. One of the memories that she could manage to pull out of her cloudy mind was of she and her friends arguing over the future of androids. There was something about man creating life, and the argument that some of these creations had crossed over into true sentience. These sentient androids, these “unrestrained,” had become the focus of politicians and law enforcement. Bonnie saw them as a scapegoat, a convenient target, when in reality they would only enhance human life.

  She found Sal’s contact code and decided to call him as she sipped her margarita and watched the waitress. A few times the girl would catch her staring, give her a smile, and then return to doing whatever it was that she was doing. Bonnie thought that it would be wonderful to have an android’s body. You would never age, you would be immune to all diseases, and if something got damaged you could have it repaired.

  “BONNIE!” Sal answered as if she was a long lost family member. She didn’t know whether to take it as sarcasm or genuine mirth. She paused as soon as he screamed her name, then knitted her brows and shook her head.

  “Did you expect my call or something?” she asked.

  “You’re a stranger that we stuck in a strange place to hide. Of course I expected your call, Bonnie. Everything good?”

  “Everything’s good, I just wanted to get an update on the case. Have you all been able to catch that bastard or did he flee town already?”

  “We’re going to catch him, you have my word on it. We have some very promising leads that we’re pursuing right now,” he said.

  Bonnie rolled her eyes and leaned in toward her device. “That sounds as if you’re feeding me a line. You do know that I used to sell computers to lawyers, right? I have a nose for the bull, Salvatore, and I don’t appreciate it.”

  “OH!” Sal exclaimed as if her words hurt and then descended into a fit of laughter. “Bonnie, my dear, I’m not feeding you lines. What happened to you was some serious, traumatic, crazy, alright? Neither I nor my partners in the Seattle police department are here to feed you lines, okay? We’re really on to this sonofabitch, so just bear with us. I will keep you updated, I promise.”

  “Thanks, Sal,” Bonnie said and then disconnected the call.

  0 1 0 1 0

  The next day, Bonnie decided to stay home and watch television. She really liked her apartment and with the memory loss she felt like a person that had been dropped into a new world and forced to adjust. This made dealing with people extremely hard, especially people that were supposed to be her family members and friends.

  She had grown tired of pushing her brain to see if she could remember things. So she sat on the couch nursing a drink and watching the local news with little interest. She was examining the bad dress the woman on the television was wearing when her mind drifted back to the android bartender.

  There was something off about that android but she couldn’t put her finger on it. How had she known that she was staring out of curiosity and not because she wanted her attention? She tried to remember every detail about the artificial woman. She was pale—that she remembered—and seemed out of place for sunny St. Petersburg. Her hair was perfect, skin smooth and flawless, and then there were those eyes, those emerald green—

  She dropped her drink, splashing red liquor all over the white carpet and couch. Those piercing android eyes were not like any other android that she had seen before. There was intelligence there, the sort of intelligence that was reminiscent of people—real people—trapped in futile situations. That look of both wondering and begging for help. It was so subtle and nuanced that it had taken all this time for it to register.

  The android had not come over to ask if she wanted another drink. Her eyes said, “Help me, I am an intelligent life-form stuck in this hell of repetition and abuse.” But why would an android think to give that look to me? she thought. It didn’t make any sense. She had never owned an android—the thought made her sick. Could that android have picked up on her politics that easily?

  She thought about the fact that she was an outsider. Maybe the other patrons at the bar were regulars and the android saw her as a way out. It was all nonsense, she finally decided, and she ran to the kitchen to get a wet cloth to dab up the liquor that she had spilled.

  “I am really losing my mind now,” she said out loud and then laughed despite herself.

  There were so many oddities about her person that she wondered if the doctors had played around with her mind. Her device chimed and she reached up to look at the display. It was Sal, dressed in what appeared to be a raincoat.

  “Caught him yet?” she answered quickly, and the sound of thunder was the answer that echoed into her ear.

  “Sorry to bother you, Bonnie, but I wanted to give you the news before you see it on TV or whatever,” he said. He was serious, which was odd, and Bonnie’s hear
t began to race as if he was going to tell her that she had ten seconds to live.

  “No, no problem. What did you find out?” she said, sliding down to the floor with her eyes on the off-yellow wall of the kitchen.

  “Ronald is dead; he resisted arrest. We tried to give him options but he started shooting. I’m truly sorry, Bonn—”

  “Sorry for what? That’s awesome news. I no longer have to worry about that psycho!”

  “Well, alright, you took it better than I thought. Most people in your situation want to see a trial, see their attacker in chains, and get some closure that way and all.”

  “I’m sure I’ll cry myself to sleep over that idiot tonight, Sal. Thanks for giving me the good news. So what happens now? To me, I mean. You guys flying me back to Seattle? Can I come home?”

  “Not yet, kid. We shot your ex but if you recall, there was a woman with him. If you were to come back and end up hurt by his accomplice, well that wouldn’t make us very good law enforcement, now would it? Look, I know you want to come back to get your life back together, but we need another week. Could you please give us that?”

  Bonnie didn’t answer immediately but sat for a time staring off into space. She thought it peculiar that she could remember everything about her job but nothing of her personal life. Who were her friends? Was that old man really her dad? If she were going to get any sort of memory jolt, wouldn’t it come from a familiar place? St. Petersburg, Florida was a beautiful place, but she needed to be back in her own neighborhood. Would one more week wreck everything in her life? How much worse could it really get? She thought about this as the rain played a symphony to her ears as Sal waited patiently on her answer.

  “Do what you need to do, I appreciate all of your hard work. One more week, I can do that, though I hope you catch the bitch a lot sooner than that. I wish I could remember my friends and enemies to give some clue as to who she could be. But right now, all I can think about is the big vacant room that is my brain.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Bonnie. It will get better,” he said.

  She turned off her device without giving him a reply.

  She felt deflated, like an old balloon whose air had managed to leak all the way out. She had no past as far as she was concerned, so that had to mean she had no future. She reached up and ran her fingers through her hair, touching the scalp lightly to feel for scars. There were some, and at the base of her scalp was a scab that was tender to the touch. It made her curious. Why would a wound be back there if Roberts’s shots had come from the front?

  She thought about the video and the female accomplice, and then the memory of her attack came rushing in. It hit her mind like a tsunami that had finally breached a manmade wall. She remembered the pain and then her eyes flying open to see the shadow at her bedroom door. She recalled the loud crash of his gun as he fired several times and then she remembered her inability to move. As the life threatened to leave her physical body, all she could focus on was the woman. She was pale with dark hair and eyes; that was what she remembered seeing. The woman stood at the doorway like a horrific doll watching him perform his deadly work.

  There was no recollection of her being familiar, no a-ha moment of realization. She hadn’t known that it was Ronald because she didn’t pay attention to him. When the bullets began to fly and her body danced beneath their impact, it was the demon she focused on, the unmoving demon who stood watching, stoically.

  The memory uncloaked itself inside of Bonnie’s mind and she sat staring off into nowhere with her mouth agape. Who could that woman have been? And who would be willing to accompany the murderer in order to watch her die on the bed? Without context and memories of relationships with people, this new revelation was worthless, but it was something and it gave her hope that even more would come back to her as time went by.

  03 | Once Upon a Dream

  The night after her phone call with Sal, Bonnie fell into a deep sleep. It was one of those sleeps that comes after a long day of mental exhaustion and fatigue. After lying down and losing consciousness, she found herself falling. Falling back through the bed and down through the misty clouds of a dream world similar to the real one.

  When she saw the Space Needle she knew that it was Seattle she was falling towards. It was an older version, like something out of a past century. The cars were driving neatly along roads that ran between the buildings and the air was clear of everything with the exception of a rising, Boeing aircraft. She fell through the rooftop of an apartment building and landed softly on a bed where a dark-haired woman was sleeping.

  The place seemed familiar and she was lucid enough to get up and walk around to see. She recognized the woman to be an android and next to her lay a pale, naked, and emaciated young man. There were computers, wires, and medical equipment all around the room and when she looked closer, she could see that they were hooked up to him.

  The android stirred and then woke up. She looked like one of the old depictions of a female robot from the 1930’s. While her face was pretty and very humanlike, her body was all silver with visible bolts where her joints should be. Bonnie thought she looked absurd, especially since her breasts were carved from metal instead of being made of silicone. That was standard for any android female, wasn’t it? Everybody knew that. So, why was this one a machine with a human head?

  When the woman stood up, Bonnie was even more shocked that she had a navel, buttocks, and a vagina. Why would she need that? she asked herself, but stopped when she realized that the android had been having sex with the man. The metallic woman saw the way Bonnie was looking at her master and stepped inside her field of vision, as if to protect him from her judgment.

  “What is it that you need, lady?” she asked Bonnie through what appeared to be a false and frightening grin.

  Bonnie tried to talk and was surprised that she could. “I’m curious about your ability to have sex,” she said to the machine and then touched the woman’s abdomen to examine the feeling of the metal. “You’re a machine, but your metal is soft and … oh my god, you’re warm! Are you one of those sex-bots? I’m dreaming about a sex-bot. Oh my,” she gasped and suddenly felt embarrassed.

  “I am not a sex-bot. I was built to love and my purpose in life is to keep him happy,” the android replied, still smiling.

  Bonnie chuckled and examined the body that was on the bed. “You mean this skeleton hooked up to the machines? I think that he lost the ability to feel pleasure a very long time ago, my dear. Whatever are you doing to him, besides the obvious?”

  “Brad is sick,” she replied. “I am helping him to get better. His organs are failing but I have studied all of the medical manuals. There is a 5.002% chance that he can survive and then he will be himself again.”

  “So, you’re a medical droid who sleeps with its patients? Is that what I’m to get from all of this?”

  “I don’t think your tone is nice or appropriate,” the android said and the smile vanished from her features.

  Bonnie walked over to one of the terminals and tried to read what was on the screen. The dream’s blurry edges made this hard to do so she gave up and faced the android once again.

  “Seriously, what’s wrong with him? I do want to know,” she said.

  “He traded his health to make me beautiful and now his life is depleting. On the internet I learned that the human body is made up of elements measured to an exact percentage. I have managed to supplement them back to Brad’s body. It took a lot of learning and now he is whole again. Soon he won’t need those drip lines. The brain is what has been a real challenge but I am almost there in figuring it out. There is an ancient practice of—”

  “Are you talking alchemy?” Bonnie asked as she took the heel of her hand and smacked it against her forehead. “Seriously?” she said and began to laugh. “So magic and love is what you’re using to bring your master back? I like androids but you are something else. I don’t know who messed with your clockwork, sister—”

  “Keep
on laughing if it makes you feel better. See if I care,” the android said. “Any minute now the cops are going to barge in here and ruin everything I’ve worked on, anyway. They will come to haul Brad away for mechanophilia and then they will see the medical equipment and assume that I am up to something sinister.”

  “But you are.” Bonnie laughed. “You’re trying to make lead into gold!” This last bit made her scream so loud with laughter that she could feel herself waking up.

  “Well, it may be funny to you now but there was a time when we really tried to love him, Bonnie.”

  This final statement stopped Bonnie’s laughter as the impact of the “we” came through. She sat up in the bed and drew her legs in close. It was a silly dream but the android’s final words had managed to frighten her. She looked through the glass door that led out to her balcony and stared at the ships in the harbor.

  Had she watched a movie that inspired such a creepy dream? It was so sexy yet frightening at the same time. Bonnie thought on this for an extremely long time but then chalked it up to the long period of time that she had been without a partner. It made sense, at least for the android to be sleeping with a human man. She recognized the woman’s face as the accomplice from the video—that was why she dreamt of her. Now the medical equipment was self-explanatory. She had been in a hospital for a really long time and so the dream had combined her horny subconscious with the tubes and drips from her hospital room. The alchemy was just the oddball logic of her dream, and the man…well, he seemed familiar but she just couldn’t place him.

  Her throat felt dry so she went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She took a deep drink but then a thought came to her mind and it made her freeze to consider. She was a young woman who hadn’t slept with a man in an extremely long time. She had been married but they had no children and she had been menstruating her entire adult life. It dawned on her that she hadn’t had her period since the time she discovered consciousness inside of the hospital bed.