Jenny sighed -- a gesture that, she had learned, though didn't really have a physiological purpose, still carried a strong emotional one. It was almost a full week now since she had 'woken up', and the dizziness and confusion had, if not faded completely, at least dimmed to an acceptable level.
Since that agonizing first day, a little bit at a time throughout the week, Khalil had explained to her all the basics of what she needed to know; who she was, who he was, where they lived, why she was alive...Everything.
The story of them.
As the days progressed, and Khalil delved deeper into the story, little by little, she began remembering it, too. Details. Moments. Smiles. Conversations she had had before she was herself, flashing into memory like they had actually happened to her, not the soulless droid that inhabited her body before she was born.
Khalil had told her about everything;
The story of a man and a droid who fell in love.
He told her about a lonely man; a man whose life consisted of building sex toys and social droids for eccentric rich men and women of Angel District. A man who, one day, received an order from a powerful entrepreneur called Santori; a request that would change his life forever.
Santori wanted a droid. One with very specific physical and personality traits, to be named Jenny, after his late high school sweetheart. He was willing to pay good money for it, and required that the droid be programmed with absolute care and dedication.
Khalil had told her how he accepted the job, and spent months in front of the computer, coding Jenny to perfection, complete with the personality traits and the lines of code required for her to start out as high school Jenny, but to act and learn on her own, molding herself around her environment as she aged. All and everything required for her to be and act like a real person, starting from a given personality -- the one Santori had described in such heartwarming, excruciating details -- but moving on to becoming a being of her own, in due time.
All the ingredients needed for a person.
All except the consciousness.
Santori, though he had more than enough money to afford one, didn't want a C-Chip installed in Jenny. He didn't say why, and Khalil didn't ask, either. Santori was paying a lot, and droids were a safer business; no risk of getting the police involved.
So he kept working, amazing himself more each day at his creation. Never before had he put so much effort into a droid. Never before had he worked so hard, and, the closer he was to completing her, the more he felt that she was, without a doubt, his ultimate masterpiece. His best work. His favorite.
His Jenny.
Finally, the work was done, and all her pieces assembled. Khalil told her how he uploaded the mind files to the hardware inside her head, and how she opened her eyes and says "Hi."
And how he was, from that moment on, a goner.
How they had instantly bonded, and how he kept pushing his deadline away, whenever Santori called; coming up with excuses, lies, anything he could think of to stall the man who now wanted his order delivered.
Because the truth was that he couldn't give up Jenny. And he was convinced Jenny didn't want to leave him, either. They had great talks that lasted all night, and they played on the computer together, and she laughed at things he said, and he laughed at things she said.
And he had made her. She belonged to him and to no one else. They were meant to be, he was sure of that much.
And so they left home and went into hiding. Santori's calls started becoming gradually more threatening, beginning with him wanting to know what Khalil was doing with all the information on his dead girlfriend, and how long it would be until he had his droid, but, soon enough, evolving into actual threats and promises of 'finding Khalil and Jenny wherever hole they decided to crawl into' and 'take back what was rightfully his'. For almost a year, they had to live like nomads, hoping from dirty apartments to hotel rooms to hidden basements, running away from the man who had dated the original Jenny, and now wanted the new one for himself.
As the days passed and Khalid continued the story, flashes of memories of those days would burst in Jenny's mind, here and there. Images, sounds, bits of conversations; nothing solid. Khalil had told her that, in time, it would all come back -- The late nights sleeping on studios over pawn stores and restaurants, the fast food breakfast mornings, the bus rides, the joy and the laughter, everything... Their days on the run, before she was really alive, and before they found the little carpeted apartment by the freeway.
It was there they had, at least it for the time being, finally lost Santori. And it was there, too, where Khalil finally could ignore his conscience no longer; the little voice inside his head that had been whispering, from the beginning, that Jenny wasn't really alive. That, as long as she didn't have a C-Chip, she didn't love him. Not really. Not like he loved her.
That the love of his life was just a machine, responding mechanically to stimuli, but not really feeling anything. Not really loving.
That, if he ever wanted her to really love him back, he'd have to make her into a cybo.
Bring her to life.
And that's what he did.
Now, Jenny thought, sighing again, there they were. It was almost a full week. A full week since he had presented her with the C- Chip. A full week, and Jenny was now staring at the stained roof of the carpeted bedroom, waiting for Khalil to come back from the grocery store.
Waiting to tell him the truth.
The truth that she didn't love him.