Kimi shook her head. "No, I should give Matthew time to adjust. This has been much to take in, and it's not like I'm on a tight schedule." she reasoned, the rational part of her mind winning out. She had Matt somewhere between fear and arousal, and was interested in studying his reactions further now that he was aware of her vast intellect, but she certainly didn't harbor any contempt for him, and didn't want to overwhelm him. She grabbed her diary and headed back downstairs.
Upon reentering the kitchen, she noted Matt's eyes looking her over. Glancing at her frayed shorts, which hugged her developing hips and posterior, the button left undone; pausing at her pink tank top that ended just above the bottom of her ribcage, exposing a midriff high school girls would envy. "Not quite what I had in mind when I asked you to get dressed, Kimi..." he remarked, futilely trying to hide his erection.
"Oh, come now. If my attire is too revealing for your tastes, you need only look away, Matthew." Kimi replied teasingly.
"Well, can you at least just stick to calling me Matt? If you want me to stay, the least you can do is not talk down to me."
"Then let's agree to try to treat each other as equals, and I'll keep it in mind from now on." Kimi nodded, setting up the Keurig brewer for a cup of French vanilla. While waiting, she wrote some things down in her diary, continuing after she had her drink in hand. "Oh, right, I was going to work on her today as well..." she muttered to herself.
Matt seemed to ready himself to ask what she meant when a black haired child wandered in. Her brown eyes looked almost pleading. "Uh, who's this?" he asked.
"That's Robo-Kimi, or Rimi for short. I built her last year as my body double. I kept her around after I outgrew her. I-I couldn't bring myself to destroy her."
After breakfast, there was a knock on the door, which Kimi answered. "Yes? Oh! I can sign! Kimi... Thompson... No problem, sir. You too!" After closing the door, she opened the package and asked Matt to carry Rimi downstairs. Once there, she got to work, expertly peeling away the synthetic flesh. Several doll-like joints were replaced as her frame was expanded, before replacing the skin. "There! All done!"
Rimi's eyes opened upon her reactivation, her childish face quickly adopting a huge grin. "Ah, thanks, Kimi! I-" she paused and asked, "Er... who are you two? Where's Kimi?"
"I'm Kimi, Rimi. This is Matt." Kimi informed, hugging her. "She has the mind of a 7 year old now. Well, mostly; her mental patterns are still closely based on mine due to her original intent, she just doesn't have my intellect..."
Kimi let Matt touch her creation, noting his amazement at how life-like Rimi felt, starting to understand the purpose of some of the parts beneath her synthetic skin. Since the day she couldn't bring herself to destroy Rimi, having grown attached to her creation, Kimi desired to fully bring her to life. She'd considered upgrading Rimi's intelligence to match hers, but decided against it to allow her to have as much of a "normal life" as possible. Perhaps if her formula allowed the laws of the universe to be mutable to her, yielding to her will...
"So you finally completed that growth formula thingy you were working on?" Rimi inquired, "And how long have you been studying Matt?"
"Wait, formula? Study me?!"
"I-I was going to tell you eventually... but yes, I've been analyzing your reactions to my body since yesterday. That can stop at any time, however." Kimi admitted, blushing profusely with embarrassment. Recomposing herself, she added, "As for the formula, you're seeing the first phase of its results right now. The next phase should further my development, while the final one may aid me with my deepest desires... which I'd rather not discuss right now.
"And you better not tell him either, Rimi! I mean it!"
Rimi responded with a zipping motion in front of her closed lips, and Kimi playfully ruffled her very realistic hair.
A bit later, the three of them played a game of Monopoly together. For as unimaginably intelligent as Kimi was, she still enjoyed some of the same things any normal child would. She played shrewdly, choosing not to buy everything she wasn't required to, yet buying the more common spaces on the board. She giggled like a loon as she secured her first monopoly, laughing when Matt landed on one of the spaces in said monopoly and thus had to pay double. "You planned this from the start, didn't you?"
"I can't control what you roll, obviously, but the orange spaces are the most common to land on..." Kimi giggled as Rimi took her turn next. She comforted Rimi when she, to her dismay, landed on the Go to Jail space.
As the game progressed, Kimi noted how whatever discomfort Matt felt around Rimi from knowing she was a robot had since vanished. Once the game was over, before she and Matt prepared to head out to the store, she asked, "Do you think Rimi's actually alive?"
"What kind of question is that? I-I mean, she's the most advanced piece of AI I've ever seen or heard about, but clearly she's still just a robot..." he replied, though Kimi could sense his hesitation.
"Her body is artificial, that is true. But... in my eyes, she is very much alive. Rimi has a soul, and while I probably should have never created her, I do not know how I'd live without her. Over these past several months, she's been my only true friend. My confidant."
"You prefer her company to the kids at school?"
"There are people at school that believe they're my friends, but how can they truly be my friends when they can't really know me? This isn't Jimmy Neutron, you know. Of course, thanks to my formula, it matters little now." Kimi confided, "I suppose you and I are friends, at least in the sense that you're aware of the real Kimi Thompson. Anyway, shall we get going?"
Matt agreed, and they headed out the door with Rimi in tow. The walk to the bus stop was relatively uneventful, the neighbors paying no mind to the presence of a seemingly pretty 13 year old girl passing by, but people started taking notice of Kimi once aboard the bus. A few glances, but little else. And even then, most of said glances seemed to be wondering why a young man was traveling with two much younger girls. "Matt? Why do we have to go to the store with you again?" Rimi asked.
"Huh? You know why. Your folks asked me to babysit you, so I can't just leave you two home alone. If you girls behave yourselves at the store, I'll buy you some ice cream." Matt replied, seemingly quelling the looks of suspicion for the most part.
At the store, Kimi's sandals tapped the tile floor quickly as she proceeded to the coffee isle first, the sound of Converse shoes and a shopping cart following close behind her as Matt and Rimi caught up. Now that the young genius thought about it, she realized this was the first time both she and Rimi were out in public together, a fact that was clearly not lost on the positively beaming robot girl. She grabbed a couple boxes of French vanilla, while Matt took a package of the kind he liked.
Predictably, Rimi soon made a beeline for the candy isle as fast as her legs could carry her, leaving Matt and Kimi to catch up. "Er, does she... can she..." he struggled to ask.
"Rimi can eat and drink like you and I can, but doesn't require it to function. She has the same senses we do, including taste and smell, but I cannot verify if they all operate in quite the same way. She doesn't like coffee, but she has a major sweet tooth." Kimi replied, "For months now, I've often tried to save whatever sugary treats I can obtain just for her - provided they didn't make a big mess, of course, given that my parents don't yet know she exists."
"And you think that's proof she's not just a cleverly programmed robot?"
"It is a difference in taste between us, which is odd considering it's my mental patterns hers are based on, and one I didn't actually program into her. Perhaps in time, you may come to believe as I have."
By this time they had reunited with Rimi. Matt relented to her pleas of buying a large bag of candy, and then picked up some milk and a couple other things before heading for the checkout. The clerk behind the register stared at the group, her gaze lingering slightly longer on Kimi, before saying, "This is the express checkout. Up to ten items only..."
"So? We've got like 12 items at most! Two extra items isn't going to hurt anything." Kimi remarked, "Besides, my little sister can scream really loudly. Do you want to have to listen to one more screaming kid because you didn't wanna take the - what, two whole extra seconds? - to ring in all the stuff?"
The cashier quickly fell silent and rang in all the items. Apparently the thought of having to listen to a little kid scream at the top of her lungs over having to return a couple of items was not a pleasant one. Matt paid for the groceries and they left the store. "Okay... I think I've thoroughly decided I wouldn't want you as an enemy, Kimi..." he voiced once they were out of earshot.
"Glad to hear it, Matt! Though if you think that now, just wait until after I've taken the second dose of formula at the very least... If my calculations are correct - and I double and triple-checked them so they had better damn well be - you might want to be on my good side for... different reasons." Kimi said, a coy smile playing on her lips... right before falling victim to Rimi tackling her from behind in a surprise hug.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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