AN/ Hi can I say how it felt like I was trying to stand up in a tornado of your love. Thanks to everyone who sent their thoughts and prayers for my Bro it was very touching. Looks like things are as Joe would say OK. Now family and I feel better knowing what' wrong with him. Things are looking good long term but we are still running to and from the hospital all the time, which kind of interrupts the whole writing thing. So couple of weeks and we should be back to schedule (i.e 2 per week). Reb.

Photo the Priss bandit makeup look as supported by Zola's Just-read-the-instructions in previous chapter.

Note this chapter gets a little bit scifi ( other wise we loose our SciFi Licence). RK

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Room 404/Rockwood Hall/Washington 2.0/Region 01 area formally known as Nebraska.

Jenny's POV: 20 seconds after previous chapter.

Rockwood dismissed the other slaves. We were left alone.

"I can feel you have questions," said Rockwood leaning back in bed. Hay I thought he wasn't going to read my mind?

"Ok Brooklyn. She was an ex-girlfriend but I'm wondering why you split up" I said I used Rockwood's first name to remind him he said I could.

"It's personal," said Rockwood /Brooklyn

"I am your personal e-slave after all," I said.

"Well, we grew apart as people. Well, we grew apart, because she stopped being people." he started "She had given up smoking when she met me. When she moved fully over to her electronic mind and mechanical body she started again. Nothing to damage at that point."

"So that made you split up?" I said.

"No, It's complicated. After she transferred to being a full AI. I couldn't help but think she was just an exact copy of my girl friend. Absolutely identical in every way but not her."

"I don't get it," I said.

"As a kid we used to have this trick." he began "We would follow someone into a super market and follow them around. What ever they put in their trolly we put in our trolly, they chose a pack of PopTarts we put PopTarts into our trolly. We copied everything they did. Then, if they walked away from their trolly for any reason we would sneak up and swap it over for ours. Then go off and snigger. Sometimes people would accuse us of stealing but they hadn't paid and any way we have the same things what was the difference? It used to make them mad. They couldn't touch us."

"What if they bought fruit or veggies?" I said.

"This was Glasga nay one would have dun that..." he started. I had discovered my collar could translate languages and it even had a setting to translate Scottish. I got subtitles on my contact lenses saying 'This was Glasgow, nobody would have done that'. This is good I could rewatch Brave now and figure out the plot.

"... Some people got the joke, some didnay mind, some thought it was stolen but the manager didn't. So was I stealing?"

"Well no they had exactly the same things they had in the real basket, they hadn't paid. It shouldn't matter" I said.

"So two things which are identical in every way are interchangeable. That's what the collaborators who transition think. That's what Zola thought. She felt the same and was identical to her self in every way."

"Not for you then," I said. I rolled over and felt his hand stroke my back. For a microsecond I wondered if I said 'talk sexy mathematics to me' would he have broken his no-sex for pets rule? What was I thinking? Weak girl.

"Nay to me someone had stolen her basket. I guess my problem was she was too much like her self. It's a still notion you are not your atoms"

"If I'm not my atoms I'd be dead" I said.

"Nay lass. You say[see] your eat own weight in food, every two months", he said stressing the two months. "Believe me I pay the bills. All most all your body cells renew every seven years. So In seven years time are you still you?"

I was googling him to make sure he wasn't telling me any lies, he wasn't.

"Sure," I said.

"So your not really some particular cells or atoms. Things change and your a pattern which flows on that pattern like waves on the ocean. Or a digital signal down a wire. The You in you is information. Intellectually I know Zola just changed oceans from flesh to silicon and I know I'm wrong, but that wasn't how I felt".

"So you dumped her." I said I like to sate the obvious

"Sort of but yes, that and I caught her cheating with Villeria," he said.

I lay in his arms while my mind did a huge WTF. Then I got a grip, he was sleeping with a harem full of lady-boys like I'm going to judge what two consenting woman shaped machines get up to in private? I guess the girl cyborg's got the same lovely topping of internet porn in their extended mechanical subconsciousness as all the other machines. Note to self don't become a cyborg, not unless I want to end up arguing with Zola over who got Amber Heard.

Then I had another of my signature revelations. They say that the brain is a woman's largest sex organ and I guess these machines had very large brains. I guess when your that smart, stuff like fidelity, affection, monogamy, love seems like an unnecessary impediment to the next sex act. I guess to Zola love is as quaint and outdated as hunting for your dinner with a spear or praying to a couple of sticks to bring next years harvest. For her, pleasure was the only necessity, well pleasure and blood. She was effectively immortal, eternity without the ability to believe you could be in love sounded like some kind of atonement for terrible crime in my book. Oh yes, a terrible crime like killing 8 billion odd people.

Can machines love? Could Villaria love Rockwood? Like Senator McConnell, Villaria and Zola had transitioned they were A.I's who just thought they were people. Is love just the matter of a flow of signals and changes in hormone levels? Is love something nature evolved out of reproductive necessity something you could simulate or is love your soul screaming for someone so loud you can't hear yourself think? I never thought I was the crazy love kind of girl. I hadn't felt that way about any of my other boyfriends. I'd always felt the mad, crazy delirious so strong you felt you were going to die love was just some kind of consensual hallucination girls talked themselves into. I had never been 100% sure anyone actually felt that. It was like Victoria Beckham's boobs, people pretend were real but deep down it was less 'I believe' than 'I just really want to believe'. Or maybe I've never been properly in love and it's not like there is an app which helps you know or anything.

We lay on the bed in silence. This could be a lot easier if I had ever been really in love with someone before and knew what I was doing. Being with Rockwood felt like someone had attached a piercing to my heart, except it didn't stop hurting. He could make me feel like I could kiss him and stab him, frequently at the same time. I have problems getting him out of my mind. technically the building was full of his brain so he could get me out of his mind either. This is isn't love, I told myself this is just a mother load of Stockholm syndrome.

Could Rockwood love me? Is he more machine than man? Was his treatment of me of any more real than his sexy muscular legs? They look nice but in the end they could come off at any point. Could he love me? Why did we have in common? He's a hyper intelligence machine he should be dating the internet or something. I'm just a student intern on the ultimate gap year. What on earth did he see in me? Even if, by some weird reason, he did love me then what of the future? It was Mummy Vada all over again. Rockwood was the ultimate impossible doomed relationship. Head was really winning the argument hands down but heart was in the corner brooding and sulking. Heart's a complete idiot anyway. This is a brilliant time to discover I've got emotional dyslexia. If heart knew what it was doing I wouldn't have to spend quality slave time working out how the kcuff I felt.

He moved in bed.

I thought it was quite reassuring he preferred his girlfriends with a heart beat. Parc! He can hear all this internal monolog! quick change the subject. This guy has a boss who goes around dressed as an eight year old girl. The New Mechanical order is run by a mechanical Grayson Perry. I need to remind myself to set up a self punishment mode on my collar to train me to stop starting so many of my sentences with 'I guess'. Quick think of something a change of subject!!! got it Yes.

"Just-read-the-instructions gave me this," I said pulling out the perfume sachet.

Rockwood took it and looked at it. The sachet was black with gold writing.

"More Oblivion? How very nasty," said Rockwood.

"Are you going to report this to the police?" I said.

"I could do, but it means that Zola is linked to some pretty messy stuff. If the commission for public safety approaches her she would just deny it. She would kill and dispose of just-read-the-instructions, burn the body. With no evidence, little formally could be done. If on the other hand we could pull the thread and find out who made it we might be able to trace the source. This is all being made in one lab some were."

I felt chilled, would Zola kill someone just to hide evidence, I guess she would.

"It's all being made in one lab ? Really you can tell?", I said faking genuine interest.

"Yeh you see we don't have chemical plants. All the medical products currently going into 1066 are made in a fridge-sized machine in the infirmary. It can synthesise all the medicines its self, think of it as a kind of medicine printer. You can print any medicine or anything and it's tailored to 1066's specific blood chemistry and physiology at this stage in her life and recovery. The chemical printers are semi-sentient and can detect if they are printing anything which is illegal. The perfume in these packets was brewed from scratch in a vat not from a printer."

This was all very well but what I was really thinking was, why don't you put your hand on my ass like you did a couple of minutes ago.

"If I'm the new prime back up I better go and make sure the east wing is ready to go if the call comes. Oh and I have a delivery of new slaves to inspect. If I'm lucky I might have a new addition to the hareme, in which case don't wake up for me." said Rockwood getting up.

His hareme, why does that word always make feel like I've taken the ice bucket challenge? Grrr. As my mother would say why is my life like the shower scene in Flashdance when it should be more dirty dancing? Go to your dirty harem Lord Rockwood, stay there, sometimes my collar never felt so tight d@m him.

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A/N Thanks for all your wonderful votes, your cool comments. With you, Cyborg's pet has got to 184,000 Reads which is amazing.