Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (36 page)

A Novella

By

Bernadette Gardner

This book was previously published

and has not been significantly revised since that printing.

Chapter 1

“She’s stunning.” Tess Ronson adjusted her thick-rimmed glasses and tilted her head as she circled the seven-foot-tall glass cylinder in the center of Gentron Inc.’s Level 4 Security lab.

The naked female form currently suspended by delicate silicon wires within the cylinder was a work of art as well as cutting-edge robotic science.

Long, copper-colored hair swirled around her pale shoulders. Dark pink areolas surrounded her distended nipples, tipping breasts that looked to be perfect D-cups. Her hips flared from a tiny waist, and her flat abs sported a tight slit of a navel. Between her slightly spread thighs sat a triangle of neatly trimmed auburn curls. Long, long legs stretched down to delicate ankles and dainty feet.

Her eyes were open, revealing light blue irises circled by a fringe of burnished lashes. Arched brows gave her a patrician appearance. Her lips were the perfect shade of pink.

Beside Tess stood Dr. Jared Simon, head of Gentron’s robotics division, hands clasped behind his back, preening. This was his triumph, and he looked about to crow.

Behind him, two other members of his top-secret research team lingered, also staring at the body in the cylinder. Melissa Stanz, PhD held a clipboard in front of her. Her dark eyes studied Tess more than the exquisite construction in the sterile tank. Next to her, Marc Roker, MD, more mechanic than physician, gaped likewise at the culmination of Simon’s last ten feverish years of work.

“She’s even more perfect than I envisioned her,” Simon announced. His eyes shimmered a bit in the fluorescent lab lighting. Pride mixed with something akin to worship made his normally stoic features seem to glow.

“Have you completed your checklist?” Melissa asked. She scribbled a few notes on her clipboard. The clinical psychiatrist disdained electronic input devices, so while everyone else employed at Gentron, Inc. walked around with iPads and BlackBerrys, Dr. Stanz carried paper notebooks and ink pens, leaving her overworked assistant the task of typing up all of her daily notes.

Tearing her gaze away from the tank, Tess nodded. “I told all my family and friends that I’m going to a symposium in Detroit for the week. I’ve recorded a couple of voicemails I can send remotely so people will think I’m calling in but missing them. I had my snail mail stopped, but I’ll be keeping up with e-mail since I’d do that anyway. Everyone I know is aware that I’ve got a coworker named Sydney staying in my apartment while I’m gone.”

“You sound excited about it, but I have to be sure you’re ready for this. You can still change your mind.” Melissa met her gaze. They’d been discussing the next phase of Dr. Simon’s experiment for months now, and if Tess had to reassure anyone one more time that she was ready to have her consciousness transferred into the beautiful body in the stasis tank, she’d scream.

This was a dream come true, not only for Jared Simon, who would get to see his most advanced android construction finally walking and talking and interacting with the world, but for Tess who, for the space of seven days, could escape her slightly plump, mousy-haired, nearsighted self and see the world through the robotic eyes of a supermodel.

“I’m one hundred percent ready for this, Dr. Stanz. This research is my life’s work too. All I can think about is how this technology will help burn victims, paraplegics, people with catastrophic injuries who’ll be able to walk around and live and work and communicate with their families while their real bodies heal. If this experiment works—”

“Not
if
, Tess. There’s no room for
if
in my work,” Dr. Simon reminded her sternly.

Chastised by his tone, she backtracked. “Of course. I meant when—”

“Once this phase of the research is concluded, we can consider the implications for life extension. No one will ever be trapped in a dying or dysfunctional body again. There will be no incurable illnesses, no irreparable injuries. Maybe even no such thing as death.”

Tess’s entire body tingled at the thought. Sydney represented the ultimate medical intervention, the answer to every disease and disorder known to man. What couldn’t be cured, one day, could simply be discarded, and an ailing person’s mind could be uploaded into a perfect, healthy, strong, disease-free biomechanical casing customized to any desired outward appearance.

The four people in this room stood on the frontier of science and technology so advanced it would transform the world the moment it was revealed to the general population. Tess felt there could be no higher honor. The mere suggestion of backing out made her ill.

Melissa glanced at Dr. Simon. “Then let’s get started.” She backed away from the tank, still making notes.

Tess’s heart rate soared. This was it. She’d dreamed of nothing else for weeks.

While Marc and Dr. Simon opened the stasis tank and began removing the suspension wires from the android body, Tess moved to one of the two diagnostic beds at the far end of the lab. A dozen different monitors and life-support devices surrounded one of the beds. Tubes and wires and electrodes hung from a metal pole along with bags of saline, antibiotics and a concoction of extraordinarily strong drugs that would keep her fragile human body alive for the next seven days while her mind resided inside the supercomputer resting within Sydney’s titanium skull.

By outward appearances, Tess would be in a medically induced coma, but on a deeper level, she’d be functionally dead, her bodily functions controlled by machines. Even coma patients, research had shown, possessed some awareness, if not of the world around them, then of a plane of existence constructed in their own subconscious. They still resided in their bodies even though those bodies were unable to respond to outside stimuli. Tess’s case would be different. Her mind would be gone, not just hiding in a little-used section of her brain.

Tests had determined the human body could only sustain itself in this state without irreparable damage for just over seven days, even with catastrophic medical intervention. So at the end of the week, Tess’s mind would be transferred back into her body...or sooner if they ran into any problems.

Eyeing the equipment around the bed, Tess unbuttoned her lab coat and shrugged out of it. She placed that and each item of her typical working uniform—black slacks, a plain white top, white socks and soft-soled sneakers—on a straight-backed chair next to the bed. She glanced around to make sure Marc and Dr. Simon were occupied before removing her bra and panties and sliding them surreptitiously beneath all of her other clothes, as though no one might suspect she actually wore underwear. She slipped on the surgical gown Melissa had provided for her and climbed into the bed to await the injections that would knock her out and begin to loosen her mind’s hold on her body.

Across the room, the two men lifted the android body carefully out of the glass cylinder. With no working central processor at the moment, Sydney hung limp in their arms. She weighed no more than an average woman of her height and build, thanks to the lightweight titanium framework that formed her skeletal structure. Her skin, made of cutting-edge polymers, actually weighed more than any other part of her. Suffused with microscopic repair units, it could heal itself of minor cuts, scrapes and burns just like human skin. It could pinken in excessive heat, pale in the cold and rise to gooseflesh if certain of the artificial motor neurons in the “brain” were stimulated.

Tess smiled ruefully as they carried Sydney over to the other bed. No machines for her. She’d wake up and walk away, hopefully, as soon as this phase of the experiment ended. She would wear only one electrode during the process, attached to the back of her neck, which would feed, via strong electrical impulses, all of the twenty-seven years of knowledge, experiences and memories that formed Tess Ronson’s consciousness.

Melissa appeared between the beds then, blocking Tess’s view of Marc and Dr. Simon as they arranged the android body on the other bed and modestly covered her with a sheet from the shoulders down.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Dr. Simon caress Sydney’s arm before he pulled the sheet over it. The look in his eyes gave her pause. Clearly he already saw Sydney as a person in her own right. She wondered if he would look at her after the transfer was complete and see Tess, the stalwart research assistant, who for the last seven years had worked tirelessly at his side to make this dream a reality, or if he’d only see the fantasy woman on whom Sydney’s looks and measurements were based.

“Would you like to record any notes before you go under?” Melissa asked. Surprisingly, she held a jump-recorder out to Tess, her one concession to technology. “I think it would be helpful to document what you’re feeling right now, any concerns, any predictions?”

Tess accepted the device, no larger than her thumb, and closed her fingers over it. At this point, she really didn’t want to share her thoughts, but in the name of science she had to. Every single aspect of the experiment had to be recorded and analyzed. Later, there would be too many questions from the press, from other companies and researchers covering all aspects of the work, and they had to be ready. They didn’t dare admit they’d neglected to document every single moment of their work.

“Um...” Tess cleared her throat as she switched on the jump. “This is Tess Ronson, phase-four test subject zero, zero one. I’m about to be put into a medically induced coma and have my consciousness transferred to the android body designated Sydney. I’m excited and not at all apprehensive about the process. I have the utmost faith in Dr. Simon’s transfer procedure, which he’s outlined to me on numerous occasions. Based on previous partial tests, I should feel nothing other than the urge to go to sleep, and when I awaken, I’ll be in full command of the android body. I look forward to making my next report from within the Sydney construct.”

She switched off the recorder and handed it to Melissa. “How’s that?”

“No apprehension at all?”

“Honestly, I feel great. I can’t wait to see what happens. I’m not afraid. This is going to be amazing.”

Marc tapped Melissa on the shoulder, and she moved out of the way so Tess could see Sydney and Dr. Simon. “We’re ready over here.”

“I’ll be the first face you see when you wake up,” Melissa said. “And remember, you can abort any time.”

“I know. I know.” Tess offered her right arm to Dr. Simon who began preparing the IV. “I promise I’ll tell you if anything at all isn’t one hundred percent perfect.”

Dr. Simon smiled at her, his straight white teeth showing a little too much. “Don’t worry about anything. Absolutely nothing can go wrong.”

Tess believed that. Simon was beyond meticulous in his work, and she’d overseen every aspect of Sydney’s construction along with Marc, who also smiled at her now over Dr. Simon’s lab-coated shoulder. She wished Marc’s smile had more behind it than just professional anticipation, but all the years they’d worked so closely together had produced nothing more than a deep mutual respect and a casual friendship.

The sharp prick of the first injection chased away any wistful thoughts of the blond, blue-eyed Dr. Roker. Seconds later, her eyelids heavy as lead, Tess began to drift into an artificial sleep.

Simon’s words played over in her head until the blackness claimed her. “Don’t worry. Absolutely nothing can go wrong.”

Chapter 2

Disappointment gripped Tess’s heart like an iron fist when, only seconds later, she regained consciousness. After all their careful planning, something
had
gone wrong. They’d had to abort before they even started.

Melissa’s face appeared above her, slightly blurry but recognizable enough. She spoke over the insistent beep and hiss of the life-support machines. “Hey, there. How are you feeling?”

“Wh…te…whaat happ’nd?” An odd numbness in her lips and tongue made the words dribble out in a syrupy drawl. “Whot weant wrooong?”

Melissa backed away. “She seems to be having trouble with her speech center. Marc?”

“Give it a minute. Her mind is forming synapses in the neural matrix. Hey, Tess. Does my voice sound normal to you?”

Tess blinked, and Marc’s face came into focus. He’d moved to the right side of her bed. Slowly, the sensation of a hand stroking her forehead reached her brain. He was touching her! She smiled. “Yeah. Yeah. Why did you abort?”

Marc glanced at Melissa, and they both grinned stupidly. “We didn’t. It worked.”

“But I was only out for...” Was that her voice? The words coming out of her mouth sounded sultry, breathy. Experimentally, she licked her lips and tapped her teeth together. She tasted salt and a bit of antiseptic.

“You were out for an hour while the transfer took place. Right now, we’ve got full brain activity coming from Sydney’s neural matrix and nothing coming from you.” Marc stepped aside to reveal the other bed, where a body lay, pale against the white sheets. A respirator mask obscured much of the face, but with a faint inner tremor Tess recognized herself.

She met Marc’s gaze. “Oh my god, it worked.”

“Was there any doubt?” Dr. Simon appeared. He carried his iPad and was tapping the touch screen in a frenzy, but he paused to smile at Tess...or Sydney, his eyes tracking down her sheet-clad body from head to toe. “Everything worked exactly as it was supposed to. Your vital signs are stable, yet there’s absolutely no residual brain wave activity. Nothing was left behind. Your entire consciousness now resides in Sydney.”

Tess took a deep, slightly unsteady breath. She smelled the antiseptic scent of the lab. A breeze rode over her exposed skin as Melissa walked by, making her artificial flesh tingle. She raised one hand and studied her fingers, created with a unique set of fingerprints, perfectly shaped pink nails and all the intricate lines and ridges a medium would need to read her palm.

Man-made muscles flexed in response to her subconscious commands, and she laughed. “I thought I might have to concentrate on fine motor skills, but everything just moves normally.”

“Of course it does. What good would a body be if you had to consciously tell your arm to bend or your legs to walk?” Dr. Simon set his iPad down at the foot of the bed. “Speaking of walking, you should stand up. Each movement you make creates a pathway in your matrix. If you put off any common activities for too long, you might have more trouble with those responses later.”

“All right.” Tess grabbed the sheet and held it to her suddenly ample chest before sitting up. Her waist and hips moved fluidly, and billions of sensory receptors transmitted the feel of the fabric as it flowed over her body. She wiggled her toes then slid her legs toward the edge of the bed.

“I feel taller,” she said, eyeing the floor. Already Sydney’s body felt like her own. She’d so far experienced none of the clumsiness they’d expected to occur in the first few moments after transition.

Marc offered his hand. “Hold on to me for a second. The gyroscopic interface is going to need a second or two to calibrate, so you might feel dizzy.”

“You don’t need this.” Dr. Simon pulled the sheet away from her. “We’ve all seen the body from every angle. No need for modesty here.”

Tess swallowed but said nothing. She thought it a bit crass of him to yank away her only protection, but he was right. There wasn’t an inch of Sydney’s perfect hide that hadn’t been studied intimately by everyone in the room, including herself.

Ignoring the fact that nakedness in her own body made her acutely uncomfortable, Tess slid off the bed and pushed herself up onto her feet. Just as Marc had warned, the room spun a bit, and his arm came around her waist to steady her. Autonomic responses cued by her own thoughts caused her heart rate to increase at the strong pressure of his hand on the small of her back.

“Whew.”

“Are you okay?” Melissa hovered, her clip board forgotten on a nearby work table.

“Yeah. The vertigo is passing. I feel steadier now. The sensory interface is unbelievably complex. I can feel the floor through the soles of my feet. The tiles are cold. The bed sheets are touching the back of my thighs. The air from the vent over there is moving my hair around, and it tickles the back of my neck. My god, I’m a real girl.”

Jared Simon gazed at her, the depth of his stare practically boring a hole through her skull. “Yes, you are, my dear. You’re finally a real girl.”

“We should have her walk,” Marc chimed in. He cleared his throat, apparently as uncomfortable with Dr. Simon’s awestruck demeanor as Tess was herself. Only Melissa seemed to ignore their project leader. The psychiatrist hurried around the side of the bed and snatched up another of the surgical gowns.

“Here. Walk over to me and see if you can put this on. That should involve all the major muscle groups.”

Grateful for a task on which to concentrate as well as the promise of clothing, Tess took her first tentative step. Sydney’s foot glided along the floor, moving naturally as Tess extended her right leg. Marc let his hand trail away from her back, and while she missed the rare contact, the freedom of standing alone, moving at her own pace, left her momentarily giddy.

“This is amazing. I thought it would take longer to adjust to the different height and weight, the length of her legs and arms, but I feel almost completely normal.”

“Almost?” Melissa handed her the gown, then retrieved her clip board. “Tell me what does feel different.”

“Give her a few minutes to adjust, Melissa.” Dr. Simon’s gruff order startled Tess. He watched her slip her arms through the loose sleeves of the gown and reach around behind her to tie the generally useless strings in the back. She fumbled that job, finding it difficult to make her new, longer fingers work when she couldn’t see them.

After a moment, she gave up in frustration and let the gown hang open in the back. “I’ll have to work on this a bit. My hands feel a little clumsy.”

“That’s normal,” Marc said. “You’ll need to spend some time writing, using a keyboard and eating utensils to help create all the delicate synaptic pathways.”

Tess stretched and discovered the movement had the same effect as it did in her natural body. Her limbs lost some of their residual stiffness and seemed to move more freely. “When can I go home?”

Marc laughed. “After the tests are complete. We need to record all the body’s vitals and do a vision test. I recommend you not drive a car, at least not by yourself. We don’t know how your reflexes have translated over.” He offered his hand. “Come with me and I’ll go over the protein balance adjuster bars—I call them PBandJ for short. That’s what you’ll be eating for the next seven days. No regular food and only bottled water, nothing from a tap or a water fountain that might contain heavy metal contaminants.”

Tess giggled. “So I’m on the supermodel diet already? Protein bars and water?”

“You don’t have a digestive tract,” Dr. Simon explained. “The bars will fuel the body and not create any waste product. You’ll have a very strict fluid intake regimen to avoid over lubrication of the internal servos. The upside is, you won’t feel hungry or thirsty, and you won’t need potty breaks.”

“This gets better and better.” Tess followed behind Marc acutely aware of Simon’s gaze on her exposed backside. Some wicked part of her psyche decided to put a little jiggle in her walk as she made her way across the lab to a diagnostic chair.
Let him enjoy the view for a bit. He’s earned it after all, hasn’t he?

She settled in the chair and put her head back, allowing herself to relax against the soft vinyl for a moment. “I can feel my ribs expanding and contracting as I breathe,” she said as Marc began hooking electrodes to her forehead, her wrists and the skin beneath her collarbones. His fingers brushed her shoulder, and surprisingly, Sydney’s nipples began to tingle. Tess watched as hard peaks formed beneath the fabric of her gown. Amazing. She hadn’t imagined the body would produce a sexual response; after all, its purpose was to provide a temporary home for someone who was critically ill or injured. The focus had to be on safety, comfort and the ability to perform everyday tasks while awaiting recovery of the natural body.

She wondered just how much of a response she could coax from Sydney’s polymer skin and biomechanical muscles. She did possess all the necessary parts for intercourse, but the experiment parameters hadn’t included sexual activity. Would she be able to orgasm in this body? Would she be tight enough to make a man come inside her...a man like Marc?

“Top line, Tess?”

“What?” His voice startled her out of her very unscientific thoughts. “I’m sorry?”

Marc eyed her clinically for a second. “Are you having trouble hearing?”

“No. No. Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Okay. Look at the top line of the eye chart and start reading. In real life you’re nearsighted—I mean, your real eyes are nearsighted, so it may take a day or two for your mind to adjust to having perfect vision. Read the chart as far down as you can.”

“E, obviously,” she began with a sigh. “M, X, L, R, P, 3, 4, G, H...”

“Keep going.” He tapped notes of his own as she read every line of the eye chart all the way down to the words ‘printed in China’ at the very bottom of the white rectangle.

“Well, you won’t have trouble reading street signs. We’ll conduct the reflex tests tomorrow. I’ve got all the vitals recorded, and everything is within normal parameters. Your core temperature is 100.7, and it should be 99.2, so I want to monitor that. Otherwise everything looks perfect.”

“Can I put on real clothes now?” Her nipples were still hard, and even though she didn’t have a stomach per se, she imagined feeling butterflies when he reached across her body to remove the electrodes.

Technically she should have reported the unusual arousal to Melissa, but at the moment, Tess didn’t want to get into a psychological discussion. All she wanted was to get dressed, go home and pretend she was Sydney for a while, just to see how it felt.

She smiled at Marc as he helped her out of the chair, then walked confidently back across the lab to the small locker where Sydney’s clothing had been stored. She shucked the surgical gown and rummaged through the items Melissa had picked out for her. Plain white underwear and a functional bra, an oversized T-shirt and a pair of sweats, socks and sneakers—none of it seemed like the type of clothing a woman who looked like Sydney would wear. She should have had a thong, high heels, a silky blouse and tight jeans.

“You seem to be doing well with your fine motor skills,” the psychiatrist commented. She’d been watching Tess get dressed. “Any numbness?”

“Not at all.” God, Melissa had no idea. Tess had expected the polymer skin to be a little limiting, but in fact, just the opposite was true. The friction of fabric against it as she pulled on her clothes left her tingling all over. She was acutely aware each time her fingers brushed her nipples or hips. Her artificial pussy, lovingly sculpted by Jared Simon himself, seemed a bit heavy and swollen ever since she’d let herself imagine Sydney having sex with Marc. Sensory overload was a problem they’d discussed in detail throughout every stage of the project, and she thought Simon had made adjustments for it. Apparently they hadn’t been enough.

“Marc will take you home, unless you’d prefer me to go with you. One of us can stay with you, in fact we probably should, just for the first night.”

Tess swung her gaze to Melissa. “That’s not how we designed the protocol, and you know it. The ride home is one thing. I agree I might not be ready to operate heavy machinery, but we planned the body to be completely self-sufficient. I shouldn’t need a chaperone, and if I get into any trouble at all, I’ll have the panic button. If the body needs constant supervision it loses some of its usefulness.”

Melissa held up a hand. “You’re right. I’m all for following the protocol, but your feelings are part of the research, and if you have any anxiety about being on your own in the body, it’s perfectly okay to ask for support.”

Tess smiled, catching a brief glimpse of Sydney’s lovely face and perfect teeth in the small mirror that hung inside her locker. “I’ll be fine. Sydney and I have to get to know each other, and I can do that all on my own. Trust me.”