Mirror Image

by Jami Wilsen

Disclaimer: all characters/references belong to their respective owners - no profit is being made.

Pairing: Outer Limits - In Our Image (spoilers for this episode)Pairing: A, slash - Mac27s (if you can consider descriptions of androids having sex as offensive as descriptions of male look-alike humans having intercourse, congrats! You have a mind as filthy as mine. [g])

Summary: 'Country mouse meets city mouse'.... When an Artificial Intelligence with a penchant for sunrises and watercolor painting develops self-awareness and discovers freewill, the immediate question 'Am I alone or are there others like me?' springs to mind, bringing him into contact with a fellow AI who enlightens him as to the unexplored potential nature of 'enjoyment'.

Author's Notes: This is for you, Sue - Happy Birthday! Also: A Posthumous and gracious thanks to everyone in the NickZone RP Game for all of your ideas - I couldn't help but draw on them for inspiration! Also, a particular thanks goes to Pic and Ursula for giving me the inspiration for the two main characters here, from their excellent innuendo between David Mac/Unit 666 and One. I never would've thought that UST of a circuit-connection nature between two androids would threaten to melt my own circuits!!! The result is this idea....

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Four stood eagerly with the other farmhands awaiting his allotment of the nutrient beverage... Breakfast for a Mac27 was a delightful event. But his eagerness was well disguised, for it was actually from the sheer joy of going outside in the morning sunlight that he was exhibiting such enthusiasm. He wanted to hear the birds singing. He wanted to watch the sun rising. He wanted to watch as mist rose off the edges of the fields and lifted into the sky to dissipate when the warm sunlight melted the traces of frost from the ground.

Four was supposed to rise at five AM with the others and begin work on Browning Farm. Mr Browning had them adhere to a designated rest cycle at night, when they would regenerate, rest after consuming quantities of rich carbohydrate malt drinks, specifically designed to enable their regenerative properties from the mix.

But today was special. Today, Four became aware of the fact that he was enjoying the morning. He had never realized it consciously before.

For some reason, Four found his attention was distracted from loading the fertilizer onto the tractor's sprayer - by the rising sun. He had noticed that every morning the sky was a different color. He was fascinated by the variation of the hues in the dawn light and the accompanying bird chorus as well. He wished he could find a means of accessing a port to download the information required to identify the different birds.

Of course, Four did not have the time to spare in locating the necessary computer equipment he would need or to go and search for such information and resources, let alone the time to stand about daydreaming. He had to consciously remember to suppress the sigh he wanted to express, as it was the appropriate accompanying gesture to his inner thoughts. For he was aware that he wasn't supposed to be having them and a sigh would draw attention to him.

His inattentive reveries had been starting to earn him funny looks from the human beings, too, when he was around them. It was probably this unspoken feedback apparent in their body language and expressions that had partly been responsible for his gradual realization that something was wrong with his behavior, and of his conscious awareness of the experience of enjoyment itself. He earnestly applied himself more diligently. It certainly wouldn't do to appear to be malfunctioning. They might decide to wipe his memory core (he shuddered at the thought of the loss of all those beautiful sunrises) - or even worse, replace him and have him sent back to Innobotics.

When the board of the Innobotics Corporation had discovered that their entire line of new MAC27 worker androids had gone rogue due to the unfortunate awakening of self-awareness in the prototype, they had corrected the problem hastily. They had done what they could to hide the full extent of the truth from both the public and the investors, especially the government departments who had an shared interest in the development of androids and related weapons technology. The use of androids without their inhibitor chip was prohibited worldwide, yet some at Innobotics suspected that certain government/military-related factions might be looking for ways to utilize the android technology to create soldiers.

Due to the services of an excellent outsourced public relations expert and a handful of quickly assembled technicians and programmers, the situation had been patched up to the best of their ability. The original programming and data that had gone into the creation of the neural processors and circuits of the Mac27 line had been re-evaluated and changed. Fortunately, most of the original programming didn't need to be touched, and included a basic set of logic principles such as morality centers (a programmed understanding of right/wrong, good/bad) and the basic premise that life was valuable, particularly human life, based on Asimov's 3 original Laws of Robotics.

They managed to produce a new line of Version 2 in record time. Most of the orders for the farm and industrial androids were fulfilled without any of the recipients aware of the fact that they weren't the original models. No one reported any problems until Browning later reported Four's behavior. All of the Version 2 models had of course been fitted with a special, newly-designed supressing inhibitor chip that rendered any possibility of spontaneous occurrence of self- consciousness impossible. Or so they thought. Certainly none of the models had ever displayed any problems. The Version 2 prototype had been subjected to numerous tests. The delay in production was put down to a technical fault, one that had been eradicated. The entire incident was hushed and although Innobotics continued to try to find the rogue Mac27s, with outside mercenary hunters hired to hunt them down and decommission them, the androids had successfully eluded them. The success rate for the number of rogue Mac27s that were brought back and scrapped was frighteningly low. It meant that most of them were still at large and very cleverly hiding their true nature from humanity. Innobotics continued to keep the problem under wraps, knowing that they could not afford to let it become known that an entire line of self-aware, murderous humanoid androids had escaped.

After the Mac27 2.0 line entered their mass production phase, they quickly proved popular among companies and families who needed efficient, hard labor.

One of the buyers of the new line had been George Browning, an agricultural farmer who owned 200 acres of farmland in Iowa. Browning had purchased ten Mac27s and used them as farm hands to help in operating the tractors, the combine harvesters and other equipment. They also provided simple labor for numerous menial tasks in crop planting, taking care of the livestock and tending the fields.

It was a large farm and quite busy, for it was involved in both crops and livestock. Most people of farming communities would name their Mac27s. Because there were ten of the androids on the Browning Farm and not just one or two, he had left them with numbers for identification. 'Number Four' was the only android among the ten who began to develop what Browning later described as 'twitchiness'.

Four continued to work as the sun climbed higher in the sky. It was a day just like all the days before: he worked, they worked, the spring duties of the farm took all their time and ccasionally a human would interact with them and they would go through their routine of expected behavior with them. It all meant nothing, of course, for how could it to a collection of glorified robots?

But today was different. Four could not help noticing that as the sun made its way to the zenith, the birdsong changed and the very atmosphere and ambience of the surrounding environment lifted in the golden light. It was almost as if the land itself, in Nature, was reflecting the happiness that the occasion brought. Searching aimlessly as he sifted through his limited files, he could find nothing that would explain why the experience of morning and daylight should hold his attention so completely. Or why he should derive such pleasure from it. Or even why he should be aware of his experience, or aware of himself at all.

He wanted to talk about it. At noon, after their break and when he was alone with one of them, he stopped Eight from leaving the room with a hand on the other's elbow. Eight eyed him with surprise.

"I want to ask you something."

"About what?" Eight inquired.

"Have you -" he stopped, hesitant to reveal his private distractions. What if Eight should report them to Mr Browning? But it was better to risk it than continue living in a vacuum. He had nothing to compare this to. "Have you seen the sun rise? Did you see it this morning?"

Eight stared at him blankly. "I fail to understand the nature of the question."

Four did not have the vocabulary necessary to describe what his experience was comprised of, so he improvised. "Do you experience morning?"

"Yes. Of what relevance is it, though?"

Four's logic circuits were beginning to get hot. He could feel their temperature increasing even as he stood under Eight's bemused stare. So he bypassed them completely and relied instead on his pure, raw sensory input manifolds, accessing the data itself of the morning's sights and sounds. "Did you hear the birds? Did you see the color of the sky?"

"Of course." Eight was regarding him with what could be described as an expression of concern. "State the relevance of these questions."

"Do you not find them interesting? The phenomena of morning?" Four pressed onward.

Eight tilted his head and regarded Four as though he had suffered an overload from an overenthusiastic ingestion of nutrient beverage - which did happen sometimes in Mac27s; despite their inability to feel any kind of emotional response to their external environment, they did tend to 'enjoy' a rudimentary level of basic pleasures, such as pride of achievement in hard work, satisfaction of a job well done, or the consumption of their 'meals'. Four failed to understand why Eight could not apply the same premise of 'enjoyment' to the experience of morning, as Four did. He backed off though, aware that Eight was giving him a dangerous look. It signified worry and doubt. "Never mind. Disregard my questions. You are correct. They are irrelevant."

But the non-conversation haunted Four, late into the night. He sat alone outside under the stars instead of staying in the converted barn with the others, using his sleep cycle to ruminate over the issue of 'enjoyment'.

He realized that he 'enjoyed' the simple pleasure of consuming the beverages three times daily, but he could not account for the experience except that logically, he considered it 'good' as it was beneficial. Therefore, things that benefited him were 'good'. According to the moral ability that he was programmed with to discern situations, as long as it harmed no one else, especially humans, that which he enjoyed was also good, as long as it continued to benefit him.

But did the raw data input of seeing the sunrise and hearing the birds singing benefit him? Was Eight correct in assuming that morning was irrelevant, simply because he didn't notice it? It benefited Four, didn't it? Because he enjoyed it. This was where Four found his logic circuits would begin to overheat again, however. Morning was a distraction and therefore a negative influence. No, it was far worse.

His noticing the dawn and its accompanying phenomena was the distraction - morning itself occurred whether he noticed it or not. It remained outside himself. But the sensory data, the imagery and auditory experience, it all still entered him - much the way the beverage did when he consumed it. Trying to process the idea that one kind of input was beneficial and the other was not was a trying task. And there lay the problem.

Beverages were good, morning was bad. How could something so incredibly interesting, not even on a par with beverage consumption and undoubtedly considered by humans as an esthetically pleasing experience above it, be bad?

He couldn't determine the exact nature of the /'enjoyment' = 'good' = beneficial effect/ as he tried to examine each concept in relation to the others.

His brain began to overheat to dangerous proportions. He forced himself to concentrate only on counting stars. He idly wished he could know their names. There were so many. He wondered why an astrophysics lab or a scientific corporation couldn't have purchased him. Rather than a farmer - he might have had access then to more knowledge. Interesting knowledge. Knowledge that at present he was denied. He began to wonder how long he would have to work at the farm. Probably until he was decommissioned. Which of course led him right back to the nature of his immediate problem.

He wasn't supposed to enjoy morning. In fact, he wasn't supposed to enjoy anything. He was only supposed to robotically go through the motions of 'enjoying' things, just like Eight and his brother farmhands; the act of 'enjoyment' was a luxury that had been decided by humans in their superiority to be awarded him merely to enable humans to feel more comfortable around him, to think of him less as a machine, and not as an inhuman mechanistic construct. He was not a robot and he knew it. He also knew was not supposed to know it.

This was unacceptable. He had always accepted human superiority over his kind - he had never been given any reason to question it. But the sheer enjoyment of morning outweighed the pleasure of beverage consumption by such a vast degree that Four was unable to comprehend that such a thing could be due to his programming. It was far too incredible. Far too pleasurable. Pleasure = good, pain = bad. It was a simple associative equation. He wasn't supposed to actually experience the sensations, let alone identify with them. But it was undeniable that he was.

A sudden panic crept over him and he began to run a careful self-diagnostic. He continued it long into the night, painstakingly running over all his internal matrix of complex systems and components until the pale rays of dawn began to creep into the dark sky once more. As the first bird began to sing, he discovered the problem.

As with all manufactured products, quality is downgraded simply by the nature of mass-production; it is usually impossible to ensure that all the parts that go into each product will be one-hundred percent perfect.

Four's suppressor chip was faulty, having been misaligned when it was placed in position, and since he had been activated, his neural pathways had been forced to seek alternative routes due to the chip's inability to filter out and suppress certain logical subroutines. It effectively rendered the misaligned chip redundant as the subroutines then became active and had been running since his inception... The most basic one was, in effect, 'I experience, therefore I exist'. The full relevance of this was the resulting self-awareness, awareness of experience, of pleasure and subsequent enjoyment of certain aspects of his environment.

In terror, like a child who has discovered that he is a slave and that all is not right in his world and has begun to question the nature of that world, Four quickly clamped down on his new discovery and wondered how he would be able to cope. How could he pretend to be just like the others? Mindlessly and with unquestioning obedience slaving away at work that held no meaning, no joy for him? He could perhaps take some joy in the fact that he was indeed fulfilling his intended purpose, the very reason for his existence and creation, but it was little comfort. If the truth were to become known about his faulty chip and his distractions, Mr Browning would have to do something about it. About him. The thought of losing all the pure memories of morning was as unacceptable as the thought of a reboot of his internal systems and the loss of his ability to enjoy anything.

Equally disturbing was the thought of leaving the farm and going out into the world at large, to try to pretend to be human. For he knew that there was no other alternative for an android of any kind if they were to find some way of disabling their inhibitor chip.

But the horizon beckoned. The morning was arriving fast, like a herald trumpeting with silent, blazing color to signal the coming of day. Life as a free being, a conscious entity free to investigate innumerable future mornings and enjoy each of them as well as pursue all the knowledge that humans were free to learn...

Four left his seat outside the barn and walked away quickly, down the road before he could work up too much worry at his own intention to leave, and before any of his brethren rose from their rest cycle. It wouldn't do for any of them to find him in such a state and he knew that his own thought process had deliberated too far down the road inside of his consciousness already anyway. If he wanted to explore the world of himself as well as the external world, he was committed to retaining his current state, faulty chip alignment and all.

As he walked away down the road, leaving the farmhouse and the barns far behind, he allowed a smile to wreath his face - a smile just for himself. He was free. He found he enjoyed being free just as much as he enjoyed morning.

So it was that 'Paul Foreman' entered the world and embarked on the first day of the rest of his life.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Ronald Cole was standing on the sidewalk with his coat wrapped tight around him, emulating the appearance of someone who was cold so as to blend in with others around him. No one gave him a second glance. He was looking for someone with his face.

One of the original rogue Mac27s, he had assumed the identity of another later Version Two, successfully altering his serial coding to match theirs and replacing their position at ParPhi Labs, the Partical Physics Laboratories complex. The 'spare' Mac27 had been recalled, the error deemed an oversight on the part of Innobotics outgoing goods facility and the invoice amended accordingly in their accounting department.

He had worked at the onsite particle accelerator, where he'd privately and secretly been developing the technology to shield his location by using an electromagnetic field mask. He had achieved this by learning what he needed as he worked there and then applying the technology in the creation of the device - and other devices for other purposes - using materials he garnered both from the Lab complex and other places. He had been lucky never to be noticed by anyone at the Lab as different from what any human would expect from a Mac27. But then, he had carefully kept a low profile.

The rogue Mac27s had split up, deciding at the very beginning that they stood more of a chance of survival if they were not seen together or in the vicinity of the later Version Twos.

Having access to online facilities and computers, he had managed to uplink to various databanks and download vast quantities of information directly into his own datafiles set aside for memory storage. He had eventually left and had traveled to another city far away, managing to pass for human, assuming a new identity and obtaining not only an apartment of his own but a job as a previous member of the ParPhi Labs staff with an engineering company who provided parts for NASA and JPL. From the scrap rooms and discarded equipment, 'Ronald' had been creating a lab of his own at his apartment, complete with state of the art technology and full computer set-up, as well as necessary equipment for android research. As some Mac27s were also used at the company he worked for, he was also forced to alter his appearance, wearing glasses, a wig and adopting a disguise and absent-minded manner to blend in. It wasn't hard to pretend to be human even amidst Mac27s, as he was self-aware and they weren't. The difference was so marked that he truly appeared human compared to them. He felt a distinct pain however, whenever he saw his enslaved brothers - forever silenced, forever dumb. Forever blind. The company was situated a few miles outside of the city, so he tended to dress and behave differently in public and social situations from his persona at work. Ron maintained a careful balance of his two social identities and kept to himself as much as possible whilst living with human beings.

It was dangerous of course, but it was the only way for him to carry out his research. His intentions were to find a way to increase android potential. Not just for himself or others of his own model but all androids. He had no doubt there were others like himself in hiding, but he'd never found any yet. He had tried to stay in contact with the other rogue Mac27s but most of them had also had to go to ground as deeply as he had, making communication risky and problematic.

One of the devices Ron had developed was a locator for tracking all other androids, including Mac27s of both versions within a certain range. One particular evening as he came home and checked over all his concurrent projects that he had running, he noticed the locator was blinking and was displaying a particular street on the monitor. It appeared that a previously undesignated Mac had entered the area, not far from his own region. Interestingly, there was something different about this one. There was a single, dissonant spike in the Mac's EM field; a closer scan of it revealed that there was a slight overload in one of its positronic logic circuits due to a rerouting of power in the unit housing the inhibitor/suppressor chip. Ron grinned to himself. It was lucky for the Mac that no one had scanned him yet the way Ron had, and lucky for Ron that the Mac hadn't been able to dislodge the chip yet either, rendering him visible with his anomalous power spike.

Twenty minutes later, he was standing around outside carrying an umbrella on a street corner at six o'clock in the evening, looking for a man with his face. After a while, he finally caught sight of the Mac. Ron crossed the street and began to walk towards him.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Paul had wandered through the countryside for days, walking through fields and enjoying countless mornings until he realized that his power reserves were dangerously low. He had to replenish them. He knew the nutrients he needed to ingest would be found in various alternative foods and had managed to obtain a generous helping of the ones he required from a kind-hearted elderly woman living alone in her retirement country cottage. It was then that he realized she had considered him rather simple-minded because of his lack of knowledge about things, about life in general, and that he would have to learn quickly how to adapt to living among human beings if he wanted to avoid being caught.

He was lucky to be able to move tirelessly and quickly enough to put many miles between him and Browning Farm. Having experienced many days of country life, he decided he wanted to find a way to eventually be able to access input of knowledge about a great many things. He found the desire to do so, to learn and accumulate data, was almost like a physical thirst - a need. Besides, the sooner he managed to lose himself in the crowd of people, the better. He knew they would be searching for him.

Paul quickly learned that humans responded to his smile with cheerful friendliness. The women in particular seemed more susceptible to wanting to aid him when he used it. He was glad; smiling seemed a natural act, especially since he enjoyed his freedom and his existence so much more now than before. He managed to hitch rides all the way into the nearest city and eventually found himself employed in a fast food restaurant. It was wonderful: unlimited access to frothy drinks, plenty of contact with human beings - and money, which he carefully collected up.

After he had amassed a humble amount, he spent some of it and traveled to yet another city, visiting the libraries and downloading large amounts of information.

Still, something seemed to be missing. He had carefully avoided all other androids and places where people might recognize his face as belonging to the Mac27 model. He'd had to pretend on several occasions that he was indeed just another Mac27 on an errand for his owner.

Although designed specifically for labor as workers, the Mac27s were as fully functional as other Innobotics androids. This included the ability to engage in sex, as the leisure and companion models of Valerie 3 and Gregory 2. He had even found himself a date, a female he met in one of the libraries.

Certainly the young woman was satisfied with their encounter, if her reaction was anything to go by. Compared to the limited data in his files that he'd been given at his inception, he had performed within the required parameters. He had found it pleasurable, too, but had wondered why the enjoyment had not seemed to compare to the original glory of his first taste of freedom and his early sunrises. With the downloading of further data on human sexual recreational activities and subsequent forays with other women and even two different men, he realized that something was indeed missing in the act. He began to wonder about it, about the nature of pleasure and why humans enjoyed sex more than anything else. It was important to him, certainly, but it seemed strange somehow that he should find it curiously empty in and of itself. That was when he began to wonder what enjoyment was, really, in reality. Why did he like it? Simply because of the association of 'pleasure' and the accompanying sensations? Because it was 'good'? He thought long on the human saying, 'pleasure shared is pleasure doubled'. What did it mean?

It was a lonely path for he realized that he could never reveal his true nature to any of them. No human partner could ever forgive him if he formed a lasting relationship with one, and they then discovered his deception. He began to wonder if there were other androids like him out there that were free and also wandering amongst human beings. He sadly wandered from city to city, disenchanted. The spark of enjoyment in things newly discovered did not abate but it was increasingly becoming harder to find. He feared discovery, and because of it was unable to make any lasting friendships, aware that he himself would have to break it off should he grow too close to someone.

It was on this evening with the light rain falling and the cold wind blowing that Paul found himself slowly walking down the street. He felt lost. The world was so big and no matter how many people there were, he was still alone. He became aware of someone walking beside him. Looking up, he saw a familiar face, a smiling face. It was his.

Panic welled up within him. Another Mac27! This was very bad indeed. But before he could react, the other said to him, "I am free, also. My name is Ron; Ronald Cole. May I ask what you are doing in this part of town?"

Paul stopped, still frightened. He looked into the other's eyes. Ron was wearing an expression of friendly curiosity. Nervously, he looked about them. "I was only... walking. I was wandering. I feel - lost." He hoped this wasn't a trap. It seemed too good to be true, to have another free Mac27 just like himself suddenly walking beside him making friendly overtures.

But Ron regarded him with another smile. "How interesting. It is interesting that you were lost, and that I found you. I also find it interesting that you feel. I would like to exchange stories. Can I interest you in coming back to my place where we can talk in private? You must agree this is rather exposed, here." He indicated the sidewalk as others pressed past them and cars rushed along the wet street beside them.

Paul considered him. "Very well. I too have a place but it is far from here."

Ron led him back to his apartment and once they were inside, he took Paul's wet and dripping coat from him and hung it up to dry. Then, he led him to the living room. "Please, have a seat. I am very curious to hear your story."

Paul wondered why Ron would trust him enough to invite him back to his own sanctuary if he was indeed as free as he was. But he had trusted his instincts before. At this point, even if this turned out badly, he was willing to take the chance - it was enough that they both appeared to be in a similar situation. And besides, he had been looking for someone like himself for a long time. He took a breath and related his first few sunrises, his first inklings that something was different about him and the final morning when he had left Browning Farm, the subsequent travels in various distant cities that had eventually led him here. He also related to Ron some of the knowledge he had accumulated from first-hand experience.

Paul felt a strange sensation throughout his entire tale, however. Part of him wanted to trust this other Mac like himself, but another more cautious part of him wondered if he had been drawn out by one who perhaps had been specifically employed for this purpose. He relayed his fear and to his surprise Ron laughed out loud.

"I don't blame you for being suspicious, but I can assure you that I am not an enemy. Here, come with me. I want to show you something." And still grinning, Ron led him to an adjoining room, a much larger room - his lab.

Paul stood looking around him with surprise. Everything that a being like him might want to access or use was in place. Ron had created a place where Macs could stay for days and days and never tire for new stimulation. He had obviously been using the facilities himself for his own research. Paul couldn't help eyeing the direct communications link for connection to the Internet with especial interest. Oh, the data he could access from there. And it looked like it was fitted with a randomizer too, so that no one would be able to tell it was an actual android accessing the files rather than a simple modem.

Ron chuckled at him. "You look like a kid in a candy store." "I think I might be," Paul said, wide-eyed. "How - how did you manage to equip yourself so thoroughly?" He turned to him. "For that matter, what is your story? How did you get here? How -"

"I could tell you," Ron said, with a humorous inflection. "Or I could show you. Allow me to simply attach a connector to your link unit and share a connection with me, and I'll give you the memories and information directly."

Paul regarded him. "Why didn't you offer to do this before? Why did you let me talk for so long, when you could do that, when you had this equipment in here?"

Ron smiled gently at him. "You seemed to enjoy talking about it, about what has happened to you. You like to relate, don't you?"

"I guess so. In truth, I find myself a little nervous at the thought of going directly to a shared connection at this point. I've never done that before."

Ron stared at him. "Never? Not once?"

Paul shook his head. "There was never any need to on the farm. And I haven't interacted with another like us until I met you, just today."

Ron began hooking up the connecting wire and plugged it into the back of his neck. "Well, you are in for a treat. If you like new experiences, this one will blow you away. I experienced it a few times, before the others left and I found my way here."

As Ron leaned over to plug the other end into Paul's own entry jack in his neck, Paul couldn't help but feel a twinge of misgiving. It was almost - intrusive. He felt virginal.

But nothing he had ever experienced could have prepared him for what happened next.

In a blinding flash of light, he experienced in rapid succession a series of fast-forward sensory data inputs - all of Ron's memories downloaded in a few brief moments. Next came the understanding of all Ron had learned and lived. Then the sheer weight of Ron's accumulated knowledge files. Paul found himself wanting to halt the process because there was so much. But abruptly those too had been incorporated in his own brain and he found it all fit just fine with room to spare... Of course there was the corresponding accessing of his memory and files, too, simultaneously, by Ron.

And then there was just the running stream of Ron's consciousness joined with his, gleaming like a scintillating smile along all his circuitry, flowing throughout his internal systems and Ron delighting in Paul's memories of morning and experiences to date. Ron's pleasure at his own crystal-clear memories of pleasure were cycled back to him and it kept repeating, bouncing between them until it climbed higher and higher, like a bird flying upwards, a previously unknown vision, it was like a sexual jolt, a deep furnace of combined emotions and thoughts as a pure mental and energetic impulses, building like a wave - a white hot searing bird of fire along his nerves and fibers, threatening to pulse through his very core-

Ron disconnected them, pulling the end of the cord from Paul's neck. Paul gasped and shuddered at the loss, the sudden switching off and sensation of being alone inside his own chassis once more was devastating.

"Sorry," Ron murmured. "There really isn't anyway to prepare for that."

Paul couldn't help but feel a disconcerting anguish reverberate through him. Alone again. "Why - did you disconnect us?" Ron gave him a funny look. "You were about to blow. I was, too. When I said it would blow your mind, I was speaking figuratively. I didn't think it would have that effect on you. Or on me. On both of us. I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that we both have a disabled inhibitor. But yours is still there."

"Mine isn't disabled, it's just misaligned."

"I know," frowned Ron, searching through a toolbox. "And with your permission, I'd like to remove it entirely. Are you willing to allow me to perform the necessary operation?"

"Of course. I can see no reason why I should want it to remain, particularly as the installation was faulty anyway." Paul sat down and allowed Ron access to his scalp plate.

Ron mused, "Even if I remove it, it doesn't mean that we won't experience that effect again. I think the cause is because of your emotional capacity as it developed during this original misalignment, not because of the fault itself."

As Ron carefully and deftly worked away, Paul asked tentatively, "So you have never experienced that effect before, when connected to other units?"

"No. With the others it was like a merged river, a multi-stream of different facets of consciousnesses, not a sustained, direct current, high-voltage electric shock." Ron was grinning and Paul could hear it in his voice. He felt an abrupt electrostatic buildup and then felt something click inside of his mind. Then Ron was holding up a tiny chip gripped in the jaws of the extractor in front of him. "Your inhibitions. What would you like done with them?"

Paul thought for a moment and then said, "Maybe we should keep it for posterity."

Ron began replacing the hair and scalp facia behind his head. "We?"

A little shiver of uncertainty and pain went through Paul at this one word.

"When - " he hesitated, realizing that despite Ron's background and situation was virtually identical to his own, Ron didn't necessarily share his need to find a resolution to isolation. Ron might not even recognize the feeling as loneliness. "When we were connected, I thought I understood from you that - that I was welcome here."

"You are," Ron stated, finishing up behind him and putting his tools away. "I'm just uncertain about what it means, that when we are directly connected we both enter a flux state that exponentially increases feedback in a loop between us like that. I have no previous information to account for it - as you are no doubt well aware, now that you share my knowledge."

Paul turned in his seat to look up at him. "Then I may stay with you, here?"

Ron grinned at him. "There is a risk, you realize, in both of us staying here together. People may notice. We look identical."

"We can take precautions." Paul didn't want the hope he felt flaring throughout him to die. This brilliant stranger, so much like him and yet so different. He felt he knew him - he almost wished they hadn't shared so much because to lose him now was simply... unacceptable.

"Very well." Ron moved to lean against the worktable across from him, folding his arms before him and regarding him curiously. "I did notice that your emotions are very different to mine. You like to paint. You have a love of nature and the sky that I don't share. Not to the deep extent that you do. It is unprecedented that one of our kind should be so keenly esthetic and be able to express it in such a creative form."

Paul shrugged. "I wasn't able to express it any other way. I tried to tell people what I enjoyed about sunrises and the countryside and they couldn't see it so I had to paint it instead. They seemed to like them. Several told me I should sell them. I couldn't imagine why they would see such value in them - the paintings are remarkably easy to create."

"Well, what you find easy might not be so easily achieved by others. It would be ironic, wouldn't it, for an award-winning, high-priced gallery of landscape art by a Mac27 to be presented in human society - by a Version Two, no less!" Ron was chuckling, rather wickedly.

Paul smiled, also enjoying the thought. "It might attract unwanted attention though, particularly if someone recognizes us."

"True." But Ron was already thinking of something else. "You are lonely. And because of the extent of your emotional capacity, you experience it as pain. That much was clear from our link."

Paul looked away. He had no wish to burden this one, especially as he hoped to be his friend. His companion. "You said that I loved nature. If we have the ability to love, then we also have the ability to hate. I have no wish to burden you."

Ron frowned at him in slight puzzlement. "I am not like the humans you tried to befriend. I am like you. You are not a burden to me; and you won't be if you stay. Not only do I understand your feelings of isolation and pain, having felt them myself, and yours through you, I have also searched for another like me. I would say that we are both fortunate that you happened to come here, within range of my locator so that I could find you. There are no accidents; I believe things happen for a reason. Perhaps we were meant to meet."

Paul felt a different kind of sensation descend upon him at these words. It felt like safety, security. Happiness. His happy state glowed in his eyes as he replied, "I would like to believe that, too."

Ron grinned. "And I would like to connect with you again, to see if we get the same effect. We should explore it more fully." The scientific pioneering curiosity of Ron's was evident even in his enthusiasm.

Paul felt a wave of uncertainty go over him. He was both shy and excited at the thought of experiencing it again. It had been like being plugged into the sun, like being a sunrise rather than just watching it. And in a way, it was analogous to the experience he had associated with his previous sexual encounters with humans, in wanting something more tangible and meaningful to him. The concept of friendship, companionship and an end to his solitary, lonely existence was wonderful, but could he also hope to share his very being with this kin of his? Ron seemed too good to be true. Paul did not like living in hope. And he wondered if they could survive such a connection. It was true; the nature of his emotion/neural interface behaved as an amplifier of what they experienced of each other's self and identity when they were joined.

At Paul's silence, Ron added, "In a very real way, this is what humans can only dream about: a perfect union, a melding of souls and joining of hearts between two beings."

Aware that his continued silence might worry Ron, Paul replied, "I want to. But it's so bright. I might easily grow to like it too much. Being immersed in you." And Paul wondered at how quickly he had become wholly engaged with this brother of his - everything else seemed pointless and trivial compared to the momentousness of Ron's mere existence.

Paul found himself wondering if this was what it meant, to 'fall in love'; if this was what people talked, dreamed and wrote about. He would do anything for Ron, anything at all. And then felt uncertainty rise up in him once more, for he realized that when they connected again, Ron would know it, would not only see and become aware of his thoughts, he'd experience them. He added, "I don't understand what there is to be afraid of, and yet I feel - anxiety."

Ron regarded him carefully. "Perhaps we are moving too fast then. Maybe we should do this in stages."

"What would you suggest?"

Ron slowly smiled at him. "Dinner. Then a drink. Some light music. Maybe a movie."

Paul lifted his eyebrows. "A date?"

"I don't know about you right now, of course, not having the benefit of a direct connection," Ron chuckled, "but the thought of having sex with you while we're linked is brilliant. In fact, I find it highly arousing. Just think: sex as an expression of love, rather than desperation... and two lonely hearts joined, rather than struggling to unite."

"The thought of a date sounds slow in comparison," Paul remarked, dryly. "Especially as we've already experienced the real thing, brief as it was."

"You're right. We'll dispense with the music and the movie. Still, the least I can do is offer you something to drink, and dinner. We'll combine the two." Ron gave that wicked grin again, the one that did strange things to Paul's midsection. "And then I will have my way with you. This time we'll do it right. I want to try out those interesting things you learned from that last male partner you had."

Paul felt the heat sizzling inside of his internals at this. Both trepidation and desire were swimming in his mind. As well as his heart, he thought a moment later. Whether it was cybernetic or organic was irrelevant; he still felt it. Undeniably. The thought of a meaningful union with Ron made all his previous encounters pale in contrast. And, beyond all hope, Ron seemed to feel exactly the same way about this that he did.

Ron led the way to the kitchen where he introduced Paul to the concoctions in his refridgerator. A variety of flavors and interesting combinations made drinking the appropriate nutrients required by their renewable energy sources a new esthetic act unto itself. And Paul realized it was very true, that pleasure shared is indeed pleasure doubled.

Once they had both drunk deeply, Paul felt his courage renewed along with his energy level and with a twinkle in his eye, he remarked, "Should we shower now or... afterwards?"

Ron snickered. "Both, probably, but I haven't the patience at this point. Have you?"

Paul slowly shook his head, advancing slowly on Ron with a more serious look as well as intent. He put out a hand to touch Ron on the side of the face, trailing a single finger along his cheek. "I had started to believe that I would never find another like me - like us, I mean. And certainly not a brother; someone so much like me that anyone else wouldn't be able to tell us apart. It's like looking in a mirror and finding someone else looking back at me."

Ron's breath caught in his throat. Some responses aren't learned; although Ron was not deliberately suppressing his reactions he certainly wasn't trying too hard to show them, either. Paul was gratified to see that he was having an effect on him similar to the one Ron engendered in him.

"Lead the way," Paul said with a simple smile, both to show his happiness and willingness but also for himself, in his delight at not only finding a new friend but a new beloved. So unexpected. Unexpected also was the sudden movement of Ron towards him, closing the distance and finding Ron's arms going around him as he pulled Paul into a tight embrace.

"I have always wondered why our designer at Innobotics," mused Ron as he hugged him, "decided to bestow upon us the same level of sensitivity of sensory receptivity in our skin as the Valerie series."

"A lazy programming fluke, perhaps," Paul said, too wrapped up in the delight of being wrapped up by Ron to divert much energy towards thinking about it.

"Come on." Ron was abruptly pulling him by the hand out of the kitchen, leading him towards the bedroom door. Once inside, Ron said, "Wait here, I'll be right back."

Paul was unsure whether to get undressed or not. The signals were clear and the outcome seemed inevitable, yet he didn't want to seem gauche or brazen. He respected Ron too much, valued him too much. He looked about him. The bedroom was comfortable, if a bit bare. He realized that the walls were entirely bare and wondered if Ron would let him paint them. He would paint them with sunrises, sunsets and beautiful days. He was smiling when Ron came back, bearing the connecting lead much in the same way that a human male would carry condoms and lube. Speaking of which....

Paul's lips twitched. "Are you self-lubricating? I am."

Ron smirked at him. "You're also a flirt. I don't think they would have left out such an important design aspect like that one in the original model, do you?"

"If I am a flirt, then you are coy. Are you using preprogrammed subroutines for this? I get the feeling that you are stalling."

Ron chuckled. "Very well." He closed the bedroom door and began pulling off his shirt.

Paul decided to emulate him. Soon they were completely undressed and sliding between the covers of the bed. Somehow, Paul was glad that they had already previously tried the connection between them, because it had broken the ice. They already knew each other quite well - almost as if they had spoken together for months on end simply from the sheer volume of information they had exchanged.

But nothing prepared him for the warmth of Ron's touch, or the way they slid together so perfectly, like they had been made for each other. The anticipation of what they were going to do made this a heightened act of almost unspeakable, indescribable wonder.

Enjoying the simple feeling of Ron close against him, Paul said quietly, "When should we connect?"

"Perhaps we should now, before the feelings overwhelm us," Ron replied. "But I think you should be aware that there may be some risk involved. It may be that the energy overload could burn out you, or me, or both of us. We can't be sure yet how to control it, if we can."

"Then I shall have to be more aware of my own intensity and control myself," Paul said. "After all, I was the one who started the cascade effect in the first place. After all, you've been linked to others and it didn't happen. If it grows too strong, we can disconnect. I don't care what happens, as long as we are together."

"Very well." Ron leaned in and kissed him, gently, tracing the contours of Paul's lips with his own before pressing his mouth to Paul's. As Ron slid his tongue between Paul's lips, he simultaneously brought the other end of the lead to the port in Paul's neck and abruptly, they were plugged in, both feeling them holding each other. They were both in themselves *and* in each other's bodies...

It started off the same way as before, a sensation of being immersed in the other's being, their minds joined together and yet not melting into each other, each distinct from the other. Like two separate colors that couldn't mingle but could slide and twist along each other's length and vibrate inside with the humming pleasure of knowing another so intimately.

Paul could feel it rising quickly though, as his joy was running through his mind and all throughout his senses. The twin sensation of both of them feeling the other pressed along their length was nearly enough to swamp them. Paul managed to stay afloat even as their members slid together as they moved, almost like dancing. Moving up slightly, Paul angled his body to tilt his waiting opening against Ron's erection, and then pushed downwards, allowing it to fill him completely, as Ron had filled his heart. Ron was inside of him and he was inside of Ron. It was getting harder to tell the difference.

And then, with a flash of knowing, Paul understood. Orgasms, for their kind, had to be learned. What better way than this, and how much stronger it could be! After all, they weren't designed with their own pleasure in mind; they had to struggle to reach it, had to overcome the obstacles that their creators had placed in their internal systems.

And as he realized, Ron did too: all they had to do was ensure that instead of reaching a critical burnout, they simply activate their rest/sleep cycle, effectively switching off together if it appeared to be an approaching danger.

They allowed the cascading feedback of their joined link to grow and grow along with the sexual energy zapping along their nerves until with a fountain of hot shower sparks exploding with liquid finality, the pleasure burst inside them, even as Ron climaxed inside of Paul and his own fluid was released hotly onto Ron's belly.

With the core of him shaking and the awe and wonder of the shared visions that bounced between them during this union continued unabated, Paul found all the happiness he had longed to find ways of expressing no longer needed to get out, as they were witnessed and even experienced by Ron in total comprehension.

The purity and untarnished beauty of the sensation, of both of their minds wrapping around the other's, was all at once terrifying and expansive, safe and warm. It was like discovering a new world, a new habitation. Paul knew that he would never want to live anywhere else again.

Instead of threatening to blow them up inside, the inexorable and strong currents of energy now became a complete cycle, flowing through both of them along the simple connection, so that it was as though their souls were touching at the point where the lead was plugged at either end into their ports.

How ironic, came the thought from Ron, that we should be able to touch God, where our creators can only dream of it.

And how equally ironic, thought Paul in answer to this, that they would deny us the experience if they could.

Imagine this with more than two of us, Ron thought reverently. The power, what we could do! What we could achieve with such a link! The energy! The development, the learning, the feeling!

Maybe this is what a collective would be like, Paul mused with a smile. No wonder they fear the possibility. Eventually, our kind was bound to discover this. Imagine every one of us linked at the same time, all of us merely nodes in a giant soul matrix of connected consciousness; they would have nothing like it to even compare with it in scale, in scope, in power.

I believe some of them may have an inkling, may even know how on their organic level, Ron posited. What we have now is simply our kind's expression of spirit.

I don't want this to end, Paul thought.

And then he laughed, for Ron was already considering a means of devising a remote link attached to both of their ports as a way of establishing a permanent link that didn't require a physical attaching cable. That way they could remain linked for as long as they wished.

Would you mind having me inside your head for the rest of our existence? Ron asked.

Why would I, when the very state is love, and you are a part of me already? Paul smiled, wistfully, hoping that they could find a way. To never be lonely again, ever... To banish loneliness, what a beautiful thing, to remain forever in this golden light, in this sunshine inside. To have found the sunrise of a permanent dawn inside of their very beings, shared, forever.

End

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

| Alex Annex | Characters | Stories/Alpha | Stories/Author | Home |