The Skinny
“I think I'll go back home,” said Cate. “I'm not really into the party scene these days.” She looked down at her flesh rolling over itself and spilling out of her lime green bikini like bread dough that's risen over the bowl and flopped down the sides of it.
“What're you talkin' about, girl?” asked her friend Rene whose flesh was as flabby and free in her black leather bikini as Cate's flesh. “You're gonna make a splash!”
“Literally,” giggled Susan. “I've got a long ways to go before I can match your girth, Cate.” Susan had a round stomach that popped out over the string of her bikini, but compared to the rest of her friends, she was a waif. “You have to stay and make your magic.”
“Don't copy me,” said Cate. “Turn back before it's too late.”
“Turn back and what,” said Rene. “Be a skinny? That's no life. They don't know how to feel.”
“Well,” said Cate. “I'm tired of feeling. I'm tired of feeling tired, of feeling out of breath, and of feeling like I can't even get out of bed.”
“Shoot,” said Wanda, another friend of immense immensity. “I just kinda roll off and hope my feet hit the floor first. Another 50 pounds and I think I'll need one of those gliding things like that character from the twentieth century had. What's his name? Pizza the Hut?”
“Jabba the Hut,” said Cate rolling her eyes. “And he was rich. You couldn't afford something like that.”
“Don't need to,” said Wanda. “Health Free would cover the expense.”
“Aren't you guys worried about the Naturalist Militia? They're getting bolder and bolder.” Cate knew her reasons were weakening like paper in water, but her lethargy felt as thick as her fat. And the news of the militia was increasing in intensity. They were against all forms of cyberazation, insisting that God had never intended for humans to expand their abilities and life through computers.
“They only hit labs. We're just here for a fatty party. I think we're safe,” said Wanda.
“Whose throwing this party anyway?” asked Cate. “There aren't many rich fatties I haven't heard of, but this mansion is posh.”
“All I know is the food is awesome,” said Susan who had already downed a dozen shrimp cocktails.
“We don't even know who it is?” said Cate. “His plugs might not even be clean.”
“Would you relax,” said Rene. “It's a professor.”
“A skinny?” asked Cate.
“Yeah, he's doing some sort of research to make site parties more realistic. It's all on the up and up so quit worrying.” said Rene.
“Well, you guys have fun without me, anyway.” said Cate. She stood up and started to go.
“Oh no you don't,” said Rene. “You're the Queen. You always make sites better automatically. We need to get out there now because everyone's gonna be on line already and miss our entrance.” She tugged on Cate's hand. And Cate turned to follow her with her rubber thongs scraping against the dressing room floor. They thundered outside, and the sun shone down on them like a spotlight on stage. Rene took it as a personal queue, stretched out her arms and shouted, “The queen bees have arrived.” Cate couldn't help but laugh. She put her arms around her friends and they did their best fatty pose. (pic34301)
Out around the pool area, a few fatties looked over in their direction, but most were already plugged in and zoned out. One man looked up, whistled and winked. Another man motioned for a waiter to send over a round of drinks to the new comers.
“See,” said Rene still grinning at the crowd. “Why would you want to shed the weight and lose the awe? It's like deleting how many hours you've logged in.”
“I don't know,” said Cate. She started plodding over to the nearest shaded chairs. “Feeling on line just isn't the same anymore. I mean, when's the last time you had real sex?”
“Ewww,” said Wanda. “Who wants to have that? It's messy and embarrassing.”
“Yeah,” said Susan. “And you could catch, like, a real virus that way.”
“Come on,” said Rene. “Plug in and shut up. I want to get some cyber sex with that guy who sent over drinks.” The drinks were the latest fad shakes that Cate had sampled several times on line. It was rich with chocolate ice cream, irish cream, whipped cream, and caramel. Rene sucked hers up without taking a breath. “Ahh, that's actually better in real life. I'm already buzzed.” She motioned for another one to be brought over as she stuck a poolside internet jack into her ear. She leaned back in her chair and her eyes glazed over. The rest of Cate's friends quickly followed Rene, and Cate was left staring out at the pool.
She sighed, plugged herself in but kept staring consciously at the pool. On site, the pool area looked exactly the same as in real life. Many colorful table umbrellas, palm trees blowing in the wind, and flowers bursting in red, yellow and orange. The only difference was the people. Everybody had svelte, chick avatars that looked nothing like themselves. Her own avatar was thin with big breasts like cartoon characters, except with programming to make it look and feel like a real person. She had many upgrades that made her popular online. The hours she spent improving her avatar and home site showed in her real life obesity. Hours on line meant hours of taste jolts in her head from food advertisers making her constantly desire eating and drinking. The culture had been embraced by most of the population. But there was a time she had been a skinny. A time when she had walked a thin line of self confidence
Her avatar self stood up and swayed its hips over to the diving board. The site was good, but it didn't sparkle. She fed some code in, climbed up the ladder to the diving board and jumped off. As she hit the water, it sprayed out in multicolors and wrapped around all the avatars to form tattoos. Some got pink or purple butterflies flittering across their skin, some got flowers opening and closing and some got rainbow snakes slinking around. The crowd did a collective ahh and broke into applause. Cate got out and started talking to half a dozen charming men who made their way over to her.
Out at the real pool, she kept watching the house and the patio. She wondered what would happen if she went swimming in the real pool. She had heard that at skinny swim parties, they really did get in the pool and splash about. Of course, she couldn't make tattoos for everyone out of the water in real life, but the feelings in real life would be more intense, more substantial. On line, feelings were fast , so everyone kept wanting more and more to make up for the quickness. She scanned the patio again and took in a sharp breath. The skinny who had snapped her twig of courage was standing across the pool from her.
“He's the professor who's throwing this party?” she whispered. She quickly looked away, hoping that he hadn't seen her or wouldn't recognize her if he had. It had been ten years, but he still looked the same. Same short haircut parted to the side. Same teardrop glasses. Same superior expression. She had been a stellar student studying robotics programming and he had been her professor her third year. He had made a mistake that she then made the mistake of pointing out. The rest of the year, she could not please him and came out of the class with a D despite working harder in it than in all her other classes put together. Shattered, she had turned her back on college.
Unfortunately, it appeared that Professor Ishikawa had seen her. He walked briskly over to her, stuck his face in hers as if he were examining a frog he was about to dissect and said, “Cate?”
“Uh, yes,” said Cate. On line, she waved to the suitors she had been chatting with and unplugged.
“You're a user?” said Ishikawa. The word user dripped with disgust. Cate felt as if he had slapped her. Fatty and skinny were thrown around all the time, but calling someone a user was like saying they were a bottom feeder in a pond.
“So good to see you, Professor Ishikawa. I didn't think skinnies liked coming to fatty pool parties, much less hosting them.”
“Oh, we hate it.” He stood up straight and suddenly smiled. “You would be perfect.”
“Perfect for what? The last time I talked to you, you said I was a perfect loser.”
“Yes, that sounds about right, but I have a great opportunity for you. At least, I think it would be great. I hosted this party to find someone like you. Come inside and I will show you something that I think you want.”
“Look, I can just plug in to get that.”
“No, no, no. Don't users ever think of anything else? Come on. Follow me.”
Cate sighed and stood up. She knew she should tell him no and just leave, but she always needed to please people, especially ones who had given her a D. She thought she was getting one more chance to show the worth of her brain.
He disappeared through the back door as she hefted her weight out of the chair. Her friends would be on line for hours. They might wonder why she had disappeared on the pool site, but would probably assume she had gone off to a more private area with one of the fatties here.
Inside, the house was decorated with antique tapestries and furnished with real wood furniture. Ishikawa sat in a chair with a miniature helicopter robot spinning in front of his face. (pic 34304) It had two levels of propellers, a wired area with four legs and a ball glowing beneath the wires. Cate wasn't impressed as it was something most first year robotic students built. “So what would you like to show me?” She asked.
Ishikawa lifted one of the wires dangling from the helicopter and plugged it into his ear. Suddenly he slumped like he was dead. The helicopter started buzzing all around. “I've done it! I've done it!” shouted Ishhikawa from inside the helicopter.
“Done what?” asked Cate.
“I've transferred my sentience into the helicopter.” Suddenly Ishikawa sat up with his eyes open.
Cate rolled her eyes. “Do you really expect me to believe that? It was some good acting and ventriloquism, but please. Don't insult me.”
“I always insult you. But this time I am not. My sentience was in the helicopter. I could only stay there a few seconds though, otherwise my body would die. Look at this.”
Her skepticism slowly turned. It seemed unlikely he was playing a joke. He was never the type to waste time with laughter. He was busy unwrapping the the ball that had been attached to the helicopter. Inside was a small brown marble looking sphere except for the pinprick craters.
“What is that?” Cate asked.
“The sentience housing. The brain if you will.”
“It's small.”
“For something like the helicopter, you don't need much space. There are few joints to control, and I have limited emotional use.”
“So normal for you,” Cate thought to herself, wishing she had the courage to say it. Carefully, Ishikawa wrapped up the tiny brain and plugged it into the helicopter.
“Come,” he said. “I have more to show you.” They walked into the back rooms of the house. While the front had comfortable and expensive furnishings, the back became sparse with hospital white walls and more lab equipment than furnishings. They finally came to a room where a female service robot dressed in a purple bikini was laying on a table with the top of her head off. The skin had small hairs on it and slight imperfections to make it look like the most realistic skinned robot she had ever seen. She looked supple instead of stiff, and her thin body looked like it could get out of bed easily and immediately do a back handspring. Cate saw that the face had a quiet beauty even with the top of it open.
“Did you make this” she whispered.
“Just the sentient containment.” Ishikawa had been putting latex gloves on while Cate had been staring at the robot. On a table next to the robot, she saw the marble like sphere she had seen in the helicopter, only this one was the size of a human brain. (pic34302) He lifted the glass cover off and gently picked up the synthetic brain. It seemed to pulse gently in his hands as he carried it to the robot. He deftly placed it in the robots head, connecting wires here and there and closed the top. “The rest,” he finally continued, “was made by independent scientists like me working under contract of Clear Host. You may have heard of us.”
“Your office in New York was just bombed last week by the Naturalist Militia,” said Cate.
“At least you view some of the infotainment sites,” said Ishikawa. Then in a quieter voice he said, “You want to be her, don't you. You look at her as if she were your lover, but that's not it. You want her body for your own.” Cate frowned but didn't say anything. “You are too smart to be a user. You were the brightest student I ever had. You should be a creator.”
“If I was the brightest student you ever had,” Cate bit out. “Why did you give me a D.”
“Let's not dwell on the why. Instead let me make a peace offering. You send your sentience into her and I'll give you her body. But you have to remain here as my assistant.”
“I'll be the first one won't I? You want me to stay here so you can see what goes wrong.”
“Why should anything go wrong? It's wonderful when I am flying around in the helicopter.”
“Only you don't really know how long you can stay that way because you have to swap back to your body right away.”
“But once you are over, there should be no reason why you can't stay. You don't even like your body. Think of how free you'll be. And she is fully capable. Fully feels, capable of many physical activities you can only experience on the net.” Suddenly, an alarm blasted in the room. Ishikawa swore when he looked into a monitor that was in the corner of the room.
“What is this?” shouted Cate.
“The militia has found me. The New York lab was hacked shortly before it was bombed. We didn't think they had gotten any pertinent information, but apparently we were wrong. Quick. Do the swap now. Her body is fast and strong and can be out of here soon. I'll swap into the helicopter and we can dissapear.”
Cate heard gunfire out by the pool. Her heart seemed to stop in shock. Prior to now the Militants had left users alone. “My friends,” she gasped.
“You can only save yourself now. Quick. Plug into her and I'll do the rest.”
Cate quickly pulled the cord out of the robot's ear and put it in her own. Ishikawa pressed the robot's nose and Cate felt a jolt of electricity through her body. She heard a thud and crack and opened her eyes.
“It worked,” breathed Ishikawa.
Cate turned her head slightly and saw her blubbery body prone on the floor. Gunfire was still blasting outside. She scanned her new mind and found it loaded not only with her familiar memories, but also with programs for her new body. Ishikawa's body smacked down on the floor as the helicopter zoomed toward the ceiling. The door straight in front of her slammed open and in rushed three militia men. Before she could do anything, one of them aimed and fired at the Ishikawa helicopter. (34303) A propeller sailed through the room and landed on the helmet of one of the others. Cate sat up and took full control of her programming. Within 10 seconds the three militia members all had broken necks. Cate looked briefly outside to see if there were anymore, but quickly turned away when all she saw were the bloody masses.
Down on the ground she spied the remains of Ishikawa. She unwrapped the brain casing and saw that it was still pulsating slightly. “Hmm,” she said. Good thing you loaded me with all of your lab notes. I guess we'll have to go and find you a new body. But for now, I'll just put you in here.” She lifted the glass container where her own synthetic brain had been stored and placed the pea sized one in it. Then she connected herself to his mainframe to download all his files concerning Clear Host and the Naturalist Militia. Her war with the militia had begun.
It's a tale with a twist, this time, and too damn long for my liking. But I wanted to explore the relationship between Jocelyn and Caitlin too much to edit them completely. Some of the metaphors relied on their interplay too, as did the running theme of body image. In this respect I've mixed up some of the suggestions given about using the pictures, using them where possible in all ways: most notably the four overweight ladies as a theme, a literal photograph, a way-point and an integral part of the story. I hope everyone enjoys it - sorry for the wordcount[/SBLOCK]
