At least one small saving grace in involuntarily becoming a Kimmy is that my culinary skills have never been better. As I’m making our hot chocolates downstairs, I run over the last conversation Emily and I had just now, and my frustration mounts. She was just on the verge of taking action on my behalf, remembering that I have work to go to tomorrow, and to do that I have to get out of this body—and then the very next instant I slammed headlong into Patrick’s restrictions, which forced me to lie to her that everything had been taken care of.

Somehow I have to think of a way of getting Emily to understand what has happened to me, without triggering one of Patrick’s logic bombs. It’s so maddening that nothing I’ve tried since this morning has achieved anything! All of my ideas have been futile because Patrick has already thought of all the actions I would take to extricate myself from this nightmare, and has put concrete blocks in my way.

Mechanically I go through the motions of making perfect hot chocolates; the right amount of cream at the top, the cinnamon sticks jauntily perched, a tray to carry them to bed. I have to be better than just this! I’m more than an appliance, a thing! I have to somehow break out of the box. I have to get Emily to understand what’s at stake for me.

And it seems like nothing is going to be possible, until I suddenly get a brilliant flash of an idea as I’m climbing the stairs again with our mugs, remembering some of my gaming experiences with Emily. Oh, eureka!

When Emily takes in my special surprise her eyes light up with delight, and she flips aside the covers so I can dexterously slip in beside her, resting the tray on my shapely thighs, which dimple just like they should. They are behaving in a much more human fashion than yesterday, seeing as so much flesh and muscle has already been stripped from the actual human body underneath, and converted into Kimmy’s outer flesh.

“Oh god, John,” Emily says as she licks a bit of the cream and tastes the first milky portion of chocolate underneath. “We should keep Kimmy for a while, once we’ve gotten you out, so we can—I don’t know—work out a safe way for you to be Kimmy for just an evening.”

I lean over and kiss Emily on the cheek. “I would love that too—while I’m a Kimmy, it makes me so happy to be around you. As I was coming upstairs with the hot chocolates though, I thought of another even better idea.”

I sense Emily’s enthusiasm as she answers, “Oh, please tell me!”

Somehow I will have to temper that enthusiasm a little, before I can properly begin. “I thought of a game we could play, but you’ll need to listen to the rules very carefully. And it would be really helpful for me, if you don’t interrupt me while I’m explaining them. Is that okay?”

“What sort of a game is it?” Emily is naturally curious, but this is the sort of interruption I’m worried about—her accidentally pushing me onto one of Patrick’s landmines, as we tiptoe through this nightmare no-man’s-land.

“I was just about to explain what sort of a game it is! I said no interruptions, please! Just drink the wonderful hot chocolate that your Kimmy made for you, for the next five minutes.”

“Okay, I get it,” Emily says, and I think I might be able to proceed.

“So, the game I have in mind is a rôle-playing game. We will be playing in a hypothetical world where there are humans and robots. In spite of my current appearance—” I briefly trace out my Kimmy form with a flick of my hand, “—I will be role playing as the humans. I will be playing several different human characters, with names such as Kay and Patricia. You will be role playing as one of the robots. In this hypothetical world there are models of robots that are known as Emmys. Just like those tv awards. Emmys have human owners, and Emmys are obliged to obey the orders of their human owners. Some orders may be silly, or may be awkward or bad, but the Emmys have to obey them anyway.”

There’s two more rules I think I need to have in place before we can begin. “If I raise my hand like this,” and I suddenly raise my hand up in mid-air, fingers splayed, “then the game has been paused, because there has been a rule violation. When this happens, you will need to stop whatever it is you’re doing or saying, and wait for me to instruct you on how the rule was broken. When I lower my hand again, the game can resume. And finally, everything in the role play world is hypothetical. If you bring up anything to do with the real world that we occupy, you will possibly break things irretrievably. If that happens I will try to raise my hand, but it’s quite possible I may not be able to stop the game from breaking. Do you understand the rules?”

Emily, half-way through her hot chocolate, nods emphatically, and I hope she realises that this hypothetical game has an extremely serious real world counterpart.

“So when the game begins, you will be playing Emmy number twenty-six. Emmy Twenty-Six has a human owner who is named Kay, and initially I will be playing Kay, until I switch to another character. The game will begin automatically when you finish your hot chocolate, and you pass your mug back to me. All good?”

“Yes. I think I can see why—”

The game hasn’t started, but I raise my hand with my fingers splayed, just to see if Emily remembers the rules I just gave her. To my relief, she stops speaking.

“Emily, I know you mean well. But the rules of the game are set this way for a really important reason. Incredibly important. I don’t know what you were about to say, but if you had continued saying what I think you were going to say, you might have unintentionally broken the game, before we even started playing. It’s absolutely crucial that you don’t break things before we get a chance to do the role play. I hope you’ll understand why, later.”

“Okay, John. Just give me a moment.” Emily takes a few moments to finish her hot chocolate, and then she passes me her empty mug.

The game is afoot.

I start off. “So I am named Kay, and I own a robot called Emmy Twenty-Six; and you are playing Emmy Twenty-Six. Kay is your owner. Kay says, ‘Emmy, I have an order for you. Whenever I order you to do something, you must include the words yes mistress in your response.’”

“Uh, okay… yes mistress.”

“Kay says, ‘Good Emmy. I like Emmys to be polite and cheery at all times and to have a sense of humour, so if I say the word chicken you should make a brrrrrk noise like a chicken.’”

“Brrrrrk, brrrrrk.” Emily makes quite a good chicken, but after a moment I raise my hand.

“Emmy Twenty-Six has forgotten the previous order she was given, which requires her to respond to her owner’s commands in a certain way.”

I lower my hand again, and Emily says, “Yes mistress.”

“Very good! So in the hypothetical world it is late at night, and Emmy Twenty-Six has unfinished items on her list of things she must do that are worrying her, but her owner prefers her to sleep with her in bed for company. Emmy Twenty-Six wants to complete her tasks, and when she mentions them Kay says, ‘Shush, Emmy.’”

“Yes mistress.”

I raise my hand to pause the game. “Emmy Twenty-Six was given an order to be silent, which contradicts one of her previous orders to say ‘yes mistress’ to her owner’s orders. Emmy really doesn’t like it when she has multiple orders that conflict with one another, and Emmy has absolutely zero autonomy to try rule lawyering or to answer her owner back. This aspect of being Emmy really sucks badly for her. In this situation Emmy should have either not said anything, or whispered ‘yes mistress’ so quietly that her owner would not be able to hear her speak. We’ll now rewind the game a few seconds, so that Emmy Twenty-Six can try to do this again and get it right.”

I lower my hand and resume, “Kay says to Emmy, ‘shush, Emmy’.”

I watch Emily as she whispers “Yes mistress” as softly as she can.

“Kay says, ‘Good Emmy. Now go to sleep immediately,’ and in the hypothetical world Emmy sleeps by lying down with her head on her pillow and her eyes open, so she can see if I happen to raise my hand to pause or restart the game.”

Emily lies down, looking up at me, and whispers, “Yes mistress.”

I raise my hand, “Emmy Twenty-Six is probably already thinking this is not a very nice game at all, especially for players who happen to be playing Emmys, but the game designer wants you to keep playing for another five minutes so you can understand the game mechanics and what the problem with fixing the game is.”

I lower my hand. “It’s the next morning, and Kay has to go to work in the torment factory. She looks at Emmy Twenty-Six lying asleep, and thinks she looks so peaceful that she won’t command her to wake up and attend to her tasks. So Emmy Twenty-Six has to keep on sleeping, and can’t get to her tasks until someone tells her to wake up, while Kay goes off to work. Now I am going to play a different human character, named Patricia. Patricia is Kay’s sister, so she is allowed to come and go from Kay’s house. And Patricia works at the factory where they make Emmys, so she has secret access codes that allow her to order Emmys around, even if they do not belong to her. Now Patricia arrives at Kay’s house, and uses one of the access codes to control Emmy. Patricia says to Emmy Twenty-Six, ‘Wake up Emmy, and sit up in bed. You are to be silent at all times.’”

Emily sits up in bed, and for my sake I really, really hope she is paying attention now.

“Patricia hates her sister Kay, and she wants to use Emmy Twenty-Six to manipulate Kay for her own purposes. Because of the secret access code, she implants orders in Emmy Twenty-Six that she must obey, and that she cannot disclose to Kay that they even exist. The secret order means Emmy Twenty-Six must lie, every single time she responds to Kay on the subject of food, by saying the word ‘lie’. Patricia tells Emmy must not tell anyone that she came to visit. Patricia also treats Emmy Twenty-Six as though she is a thing, and abuses her once she is finished giving Emmy Twenty-Six the secret orders. Then Patricia leaves. After a long day at work, Kay returns and asks, ‘Emmy, please tell me what dinner has been prepared?’”

“Yes mistress, lie.”

“Kay asks, ‘And is there dessert afterwards?’”

“Yes mistress, lie.”

“Kay asks, ‘And did anyone come to visit today, while I was out?’”

“No mistress, lie.”

I raise my hand to pause the game for almost the last time. “Please note, the last question Kay asked didn’t require Emmy to say the word ‘lie’, but it still required her to be untruthful.” I lower my hand again and resume, “Kay asks, ‘Emmy Twenty-Six, do you like being an Emmy?’”

“Emmy is unsure how to answer but presumably she has to be happy and cheery and so she answers ‘yes mistress’.”

I raise my hand. “That’s probably close enough to how Emmy would answer, because although she is sentient she has no free will, and the orders of humans compel her to do whatever they want, regardless of her own desires. And in this hypothetical world, if a human being were so unlucky as to get stuck inside an Emmy and couldn’t get out, they would be forced to act exactly the same as an Emmy as though they were one, and would lose all of their own powers of volition and self-autonomy. To be at the mercy of their owners’ whims, or manipulations by malicious company employees like Patricia who force them to tell outright lies. So—do you want to keep playing this game, or have you had enough?”

“I think I’ve played enough to understand why you had me play this game. What do you want to do now?”

“Okay then, the game is over. I’m happy to keep talking—but you probably need to be extremely careful about the things we talk about and the questions you ask me. Just like Emmy couldn’t tell Kay that Patricia had been to the house, and she would be forced to lie about it if Kay asked.”

“Right! Right.” I can see Emily is furiously working away at how to ask me about my predicament, and she makes a decision after fourteen point eight seconds. “I have a question I would like to ask you, but I am concerned about how to phrase it. Will it be helpful if my question is more specific or more vague?”

“I’m not sure. A vague query could fall foul of a compulsion just as easily as a specific one. I’m guessing you might be better off rephrasing your question as a hypothetical, if you can. Instead of, ‘Did something happen,’ ask, ‘Would you tell me if something happened’.”

“Ah, gotcha; I think that’s helpful. Okay. My question is, in general, would you tell me if someone visited the house?”

“Yes, I would.” With about one possible exception, yes.

Emily speaks aloud for the house’s voice-activated concierge. “House, can you please list all visitors here in the last three days?”

The house speaks in a different female voice, lower pitched than my own. “Patrick Heiden visited this morning at ten seventeen a.m.”

“House, how long did Patrick Heiden stay this morning?”

“Patrick Heiden left after one hour and fourteen minutes, at eleven thirty-one a.m.”

Emily looks at me with her eyes blazing in fury, and I hope she works out the right course of action.

“Kimmy, does this mean Patrick was here for over an hour, but he couldn’t give you the slightest indication that he could get you out?”

I immediately feel one of Patrick’s programmed compulsions kick in, and I start babbling.

“Oh yes, he came along and tried, to no avail. He brought an extremely fancy device from his work and plugged it—”

Emily raises her hand, just like I had in the role play. “Kimmy, stop talking. I don’t need to hear this answer, especially because it sounds like a lie that you might be being compelled to tell me.”

I wish I could tell her that it most definitely was.

It’s another nine seconds of terrible suspense for me. “Okay, now I definitely know what needs to be done. Kimmy, please get us ready to leave in ten minutes. You’ll need to get dressed in John’s clothes.”
 

_* ^* _*

 
Emily called the police first, to make a report against Patrick Heiden for malicious imprisonment of his twin brother, John Burroughs, and then she called an ambulance for herself. The paramedics who arrived loaded her into the back, and asked me to stay behind, but Emily insisted that I come along, or she’d make them take her back out again, and she’d have to make her own way to hospital. The ambulance driver told the paramedics to stop being idiots, pull their heads in and let me get in the back, and so we headed off.

Several hours later, and it’s me who’s almost up to my eyeballs in regenerative goop, while Emily is getting the third degree from the medical doctors about not getting me here sooner. Oh yes, they were able to pop the Kimmy open and see how bad things had gotten. After two whole days inside, there’s lots of my flesh that has gone missing in action, and a big hole in the back of my neck where lots of the neural sponge got in.

The doctors finish grilling Emily, and a nurse hanging around asks her if she’s okay.

“I’m fine—really, although obviously I had a bad accident over a month ago. I’m fine.”

“Good. I jus’ wanted to say as well, it looks you’ve had a lotta bad luck. If you’re of a religious persuasion, I reckon you oughta send up a few prayers. You’re husband’s probably gonna need some good luck goin’ his way.”

I hear Emily say, “Yeah, I think so. Thank you.”
 

_* ^* _*

 
Although neural sponge can assimilate brain tissue, there’s no way known as yet to turn neural sponge back into brain tissue. So it’s now the following March, and I’ve just finished my latest fortnightly hospital check-up. Patrick’s in jail; Emily lost her job at the end of last year, and it seems like we’re going to be in medical debt for the rest of our lives. So we sold the house, I negotiated a sabbatical on half salary after my medical and personal leave balances zeroed out, which means we’re back to my teaching wage and renting while Emily looks for a new employer.

At least I still feel like myself, and I look rather more like the way I did, before that terrible night in October.

But I still think of Kay, and I often feel tempted to get back inside her.