“Sup dude, how are you doing?” I called Devin.

“Hey Liam, I’m okay myself…” He sounded tired. “But what about you? Are you calling for the computers you called me for?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh yeah, I finished building all 3, you can come and pick them up by today.”

“Sounds good, I’ll see you in 30.”

“Alright.” He said, and finally hung up.

I had asked one of my friends, Devin, to help me build three new computers for myself. You see, I like playing on PC myself, but I’ll be damned if one day I have to learn about how to build one of those damned things. I just simply can’t put my head around it. I had been living several years with my old machine and I felt it was time to upgrade. Devin was a technology junkie himself and one of his several jobs was at a tech store like that so he usually did the dirty work for me. The second PC would be for my nephew, because I wanted to give him something for his birthday and be the great uncle I am, and the third one was for a friend who wanted to get into gaming and I had promised to give him a hand.

I was walking towards his house, (or well, his spaceship thing he had always parked and lived in (the damned thing wasn’t even complete yet), when I realized that if I was going to take three computers at once, I was going to need some help.

~~~

“Hey man, I’m outside.” I texted him back.

“Sure right, let me grab them for you and I will open in a sec.” Dervin answered.

“Come on don’t leave me here hanging out here burning up, the sun is burning.”

“O-Okay.”

Devin opened up the door of his ship on fucking pijamas. He was looking at me confused and even somewhat angry.

“What?” I asked.

“Who are they?” He pointed out at my two friends that came along with me.
“Oh, yeah, I thought that maybe they could help me out so I wouldn’t have to take several trips carrying these things over.” I said. “The guy on the left is Phil.”

“Sup.”

“And this other guy is Peter.”

“Hey.”

“He is the one that is getting into gaming and shit so the computer is technically his.”

“Okay then, what do you say if you guys wait and I go for them one by one.” He looked nervous, it was as if he was hiding something, and I didn’t like it, so that made me take an impulsive decision.

“Nonsense Dev! Just show us the way and we will take them away from your hands in no time!” I said and I entered past him towards his living room where he usually worked on all that gadget and science stuff.”

“Is something wrong Devin?” I heard a female voice coming out of the speakers in the whole ship, when I turned around, I saw a girl in one of the wall monitors of the room.

“Huh?”

“Eep!” She squeaked when he saw me and vanished right away. I know I might not be the best looking guy, but for someone to get scared at seeing me kinda hurt, you know?

“Woah dude.” I told Devin who had been following me nervously. “You have an AI-core? That’s freaking cool, I’m not gonna lie.”

“Huh, since when do you know about AI-cores?” He looked at me incredulously.

“My nephew is obsessed with that kind of stuff. And believe it or not, his enthusiasm has started to rub off on me a little, it’s quite amazing.” I smiled. “So, how did you even get an AI-core in the first place? I bet it did cost a fortune.”

“Oh, yeah… right, in that part, you are right, it did cost a fortune indeed.” Devin said scratching his neck and avoiding looking me in the eye. He seemed depressed.

“Why a girl though? Or well, I guess with the virgin you are you couldn’t resist at all!” I was punching him slightly trying to get him to laugh.

“Stop it man…”

“Woah.” Peter said as he entered the room. “I have heard about those in the news, pretty wild stuff.”

“Yeah, and they are pretty expensive too.” Phil added as he walked in. “I wouldn’t like to deal with the debt that comes with having one of those things.”

“How do they work anyway?” I asked Devin. “My nephew talks about them all the time but I still don’t get how they connect or what.”

“I think they are installed inside a computer.” Peter answered me, when we saw Devin wasn’t that interested in talking.

“Yeah right but how do you connect one of those things in a spaceship?” I asked back.

“I think there is a main room with a place to put it in.” Peter left the room looking for the main computer area and Phil and I followed him right after. I saw a panel with a bunch of sockets and even a desk with your normal keyboard and several monitors, when I saw something on the floor. It was a plastic carrying case with a sticker on it.

“What’s this?”

“That is the carrying case of the AI-core, although I’m not gonna lie that one looks quite cheap.” Peter added, still enthusiastic.

“Fuck, no, give me that back!” Devin got all crazy all of the sudden, if it wasn’t because Phil and Peter were in the room with me, he would have taken the case away from me. I read what was said on the sticker out loud.

“Brain scan: patient Dave Spruance. Henry Cow Hospital.” The rest of the sticker mentioned the names of the doctors that had carried over the procedure and the date and time, two days ago in the afternoon.

“Devin, what the fuck is this?” I asked.

“Nothing of your fucking business.” He said, I knew that he wanted to try to pass Peter and Phil, but he knew they were stronger than him.

“Where is Dave?” I frowned. “What did you do to him?”

Dave was also one of my best friends, he, along with Devin, had helped me go through highschool and we all talked almost daily since we left. He was a very shy guy, but a reliable one at that. Those days, he used to spend most of the time at home or talking with Devin.

“I didn’t do anything at all, please man, give that back.” Weirdly enough, most of his anger had vanished and now he was just about to cry. I didn’t know how to feel about that.

“Devin, where is Dave? Answer me that, right now.”

“Dave is dead, Liam.” He had already started crying out, which would have made me feel bad for him if it wasn’t because the situation was way too shocking. “He is dead and he’s not coming back.”

“What? What are you talking about? How can he be dead?”

“He died in a car accident two days ago. The doctors did whatever they could to save him, but it wasn’t enough, the only thing they could do was a brain scan to at least save his mind, and that is all that is left of him.”

“A brain scan? Really? Aren’t those, you know, also expensive as fuck?”

“I did it for my friend.” He wasn’t even looking me in the eye anymore, both Peter and Phil had retreated back and let him pass.

“So then, where is his… you know, his mind? The case is empty, man.”

“I saved it in a safe place.” He quietly said, almost in a whisper.

“Yeah? Where?”

“He is using it as the core of the ship.” Peter said. “You wouldn’t be able to pay for both things otherwise.” He directed himself towards Devin. “You are using your friend as an AI-core, and you know it.” Peter was looking at him with disdain, but I couldn’t feel more confused at that moment.

“But… the AI I saw on the screen was a girl?”

“What?” Peter turned around, now with the same confusion as me.

Before Devin could say anything else, one of the wall screens in the room turned on, the girl I had seen just before appeared on it.

“It’s me, Liam… It’s me…” She looked rather sad, even scared. “I didn’t want you to see me like this, but here we are.”

“What do you mean it’s you?” I asked.

“My friend is a short, black haired dude, not a tall amazon with long hair and skin of a ghost.” Was this some sort of prank? If it was, it wasn’t a very good one.
She closed her eyes, breathed deeply and then looked back at me. “I still remember our secret in high school.”

“What secret?”

“Remember what you had told me that before came to your school you used to be a bully were you studying before and you had to change places because one day you—”

“Okay okay that is enough! I told you to keep it a secret from everyone!”

“What happened in his other school?” Devin asked.

“It isn’t important.” I told him back.

“But still, do you believe me now?” Dave asked. It's not like I was happy I had been put on the spot, and even when I hadn’t been able to assimilate yet what was happening, I was happy my friend still lived, in one way or another.”

“Yeah.. Dave…” Now it was time to scratch my neck out of awkwardness. What do you say your male friend turned girl AI after their death?

“So it is just a guy?” Phil said, finally breaking his silence.

“Yeah, it seems it’s just a guy pretending to be a woman.” Peter added.

“No no, she really is a girl.” Devin interjected.

“But he said it was just your friend Dave.” Peter said, I could see Dave’s sad expression, which made me feel even more bad for the whole situation.

“It doesn’t matter, she thinks as a girl, she feels as a girl, she is a girl, plain and simple.” Devin seemed to be eager to defend her now that she had fallen silent, and to be fair I was too, but I still was confused about one thing.

“So youre saying that Dave wanted this? To look and act as a girl?” I asked him.

“Please call her Emilia, and yes. That is actually how she looked when I first started the program, and that is when she told me she had always felt like a woman, and I accepted it.”

“Yeah, but he used to be a man when he was alive, right?” Peter asked, it was starting to get me angrier by the minute. Emilia’s image from the monitor disappeared, but I knew she could still listen to us. “Not only did he have a man’s body and that’s what he knows, but he also grew up as a man, he has the memories of a man, so he is a man.”

“No, didn’t you hear what I just said? She always felt as a woman, she was always a woman, but had a body that didn’t match her mind.” Devin insisted, I was worried both Devin and my friends were starting to get into a heated argument.

“It’s not like it matters now anyway.” Phil continued. “That thing isn’t alive anymore, so it doesn’t matter what we call him, or it, whatever.”

Okay, that’s it. I was getting way too uncomfortable from their point of view.

“Dude, no.” I finally said. “Human or not anymore, Emilia is my friend, and if she wants to be seen as a girl, you should respect that, it’s not up to decision.”

“What? But man… It's just software. It’s the same as an AI-core. It’s not even a real woman or a man. You can call it whatever you want.”

A voice started to cry from the speakers of the room. Shit, they really made her cry.

“I think you should apologize.” I told both of them.

“I get this tech junkie to be all weird about these things, but you, Liam?” Phil asked.

“She knows that she is a woman, and her word is all that I need. You should give the lady a bit more respect.”

“Are you serious?” Peter laughed. “Come on dude, it’s just a piece of hardware.”

“I think it’s better if you guys leave.” Devin talked again in a low voice, I knew that if things escalated any further he could explode in any minute. “The computers are in the living room. I saved all the wires in the boxes that are on the table.”

Both of them stared at us for a moment and then left towards the living room. “I’ll drop this by your house, Liam.” Phil said. “We will talk later.”

Once they both left, Devin and I didn’t know what to say and the only thing that filled the silence was Emilia’s occasional sobs. He was frowning at me, obviously angry that I had brought my douchebag friends to his house.

“Emilia? You can come out now.” I said, “they both left, nobody is going to hurt you anymore.”

“I was always here.” She said as her image reappeared on the screen.

“Oh, I said it because I didn’t see you anywhere and I thought you had left… somewhere.” My neck surely felt it was itchy that day.

“I see you through the camera.” She said, and I looked up. Just then, I noticed a small camera at the top of the wall monitor. “I just didn’t want anybody to see me.”

“Yeah, right.” I got closer to the camera, trying to talk to her more directly. “But you know, I just want to tell you that you don’t have to listen to what those guys said, me and Devin know you are really a girl, and I’m sorry I brought them over. I didn’t know they would hurt you.”

“Really? Are you sorry?” Devin asked, sarcastically.

“Yes, man.” I said turning around to him. “I am sorry, Da—Emilia is my friend and if I don’t want to see her suffer, not in the slightest.”

“Sure.” Devin was obviously still angry at him. “Look man, the last days have been hard for me and Emilia and with what just happened I’m not in the best of moods right now. So please, just take your computer and leave, we will talk later once I have calmed down.”

“Yeah right.” I didn’t want to leave yet, but I wanted to be there for Emilia, but I also didn’t want to make things worse between Dave and me. “Just, let me say goodbye to Emilia, and I will be on my way.”

“Right.” Devin simply said, and left the room, probably to continue with his work. At least he trusted me enough to leave me alone with Emilia.

“You really think I am a girl?” Emilia asked. I turned around and I saw her sitting down on the floor of her simulated world, hugging her legs and with a pensive expression on her face.

“Yes! I think 100% you are a girl completely! That is out of the question!”

“But… I’m not even alive anymore, what am I… if just a bunch of ones and zeroes.” She had calmed down by now, but tears were still running down her face.

“Look, that doesn’t matter! You can think, Emilia! You can feel! And if you feel you are a girl, that means you are a girl through and through!”

“But even then, all my life I have been just a man, people saw me as a man, and I even thought I was a man, the way I acted… the way I looked, it’s just, I can’t forget how people looked at me when I was alive.”

“I think you should be more kind with yourself girl, as I said, what other people think about you, just what you really feel.” I told her while tapping the camera of the monitor with my finger. “The path to change is tough, believe me. You know more than anybody that I went through some changes myself when I was in highschool, and I understand that what you are going through is really hard, but I really believe in you, Emilia.”

She didn’t answer, but at least it seemed she had stopped crying. God, back then, I wished I could really give her a hug, I wanted to cheer her up. “Just look at you, you are really pretty right now, although I am sorry that you had to die to get here. No wait, that’s not what I mean.”

I thought I had fucked up, but for my relief, she started laughing, and then, I followed and started laughing too, the situation was way too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

“I guess you are right.” She said, with a kind smile.