Chapter 4

Date: 2180 AD. Planet Earth, American Conglomerate, Chehalis WA, Outskirts of Dead Zone - Former Seattle.

“Time to wake up you two, it’s 0600 and time to get started” Aira announced

The sun had just come up and I was not ready to get up at all. I hated waking up early. Phil rolled up next to me and kissed me “Come on babe we need to get up and get things started”. Hmmm, I thought, getting things started… sigh, to bad he did not mean what I was thinking.

Feeling mischievous I stretched my body out all while pressing myself into him. Groaning next to me Phil said “So not fair you’re playing dirty and not helping at all. We both have to get up and see how Aira’s programs fared.” He pulled me tighter against him and kissed me again while he slid his hand up and under my shirt. Our kiss deepened and I was having a difficult time breathing and concentrating.

The kissing stopped abruptly and I opened my eyes with a pout on my face. “Well, now that you're awake I'll see you downstairs in the lab” he teased while giving me one more quick kiss and hopping out of bed.

Sitting up, I yelled at him as he was going down the steps “You’re such an ass”.

“You started it. Besides, you only get up in the morning if sex is offered” He laughed, yelling back up to me from downstairs.

I flopped back down onto the bed. Sighing, realizing he was right. I did start it by playing dirty, but he was also correct in the fact that I needed to get moving. Today was going to be very busy. Curling around my pillow I lay there contemplating what our future will be like. I gently rubbed at my ear where the implant was, as it now had a post-op soreness to it. This day is important for everyone. Sitting up at the side of my bed I put on the AR glasses figuring I should start getting used to them and making sure there were no issues with them powering the implant. . Finally crawling out of bed, I tossed on a clean shirt and jeans, I made my way down to the lab in our basement. The floor was nice and warm from the radiant heat but I shivered as I entered our lab, worried that our nanites would not work and Aira would be lost to us. Phil was sitting at his desk and was reviewing the data from overnight as well checking for any possible errors or memory leaks in the code due to the rush job.

“Okay Aira, let's go ahead and begin analyzing the results of the phase 3 testing if you don't mind” he asked her. This step was crucial, we were having Aira analyze her minor systems and subroutines that had been uploaded to the nanites last night looking for any degradation. I sat in the chair next to him and waited for the results.

“Of course, please wait a moment while I review the files” Aira replied. The minutes ticked by and Phil continued to monitor the transfer back to Aira. Starting to get slightly nervous my brain couldn’t help but think about what would happen if something went wrong? I held my breath, I didn’t want her to be gone. I could not hold back those thoughts any longer and voiced my fears. Grabbing onto Phil’s arm he turned and looked at me as I said “What if it doesn't work? What if we lose…”

“Shush don't say it, it will work, just give it a minute.”, Turning back around to look at the monitor data stream clenching his fists and muttering under his breath “Come on, work damn it”

“Systems degradation less than 0.02% well under the projected calculations Phil and Sarah” Aira informed us. “Test 3 has gone very well, systems shall remain intact without loss of core abilities for extended periods of time.” Our collective sigh of relief could be felt in the room.

“Yes” Phil stood up, taking a hold of my hand he lifted me up out of my chair and kissed me hard and quick. “It works, this is wonderful. I knew that it would, this is fucking awesome”. He held onto me and hugged me tightly. Looking into my eyes “We can all go, there is no more need to worry, I love you two so much.”

I pulled myself deeper into his arms, getting him to hold me tighter as I buried my face into his shoulder. Tears came to my eyes, but this time they were tears of happiness. Aira was going to make it! The realization hit me hard that I really did love her. If she could not make it, it would be like losing Phil. Looking at him with tears still glistening in my eyes I said “I love you” turning towards Aira’s camera. I continued “I love you both, so very much.”

Not wanting to ruin the moment, we remained standing like this for a few more minutes. But as if on cue that time had come and gone as Phil’s stomach gave a loud grumble making all of us laugh out loud breaking the silence. “Sounds like I need to eat something before the beast is unleashed” he said chuckling.

“I agree, let's go, I’ll make breakfast. What would you like? I kinda feel like celebrating” I said smiling at him.

“How about crepes with whip cream and strawberries” Phil replied

“That sounds great, we can grab a shower after” I began to move towards the stairs refusing to let go of Phil’s, hand so warm in mine, I took him upstairs with me.

The entire time that we were making breakfast we stayed close to each other. I would brush my hands over his shoulders and back while he started mixing the batter. Then as I began to cook the crepes he would come up behind me, placing his arms around my waist and would begin to kiss the back of my neck. Once we were done cooking we ate and talked softly about what we will be doing first once we are relocated to the company's private homes. By then it was almost noon so we took a quick shower and finished getting ready for the rest of the day.

We notified the EIC via AI messaging letting them know we were ready to move by this next week and requesting that we are relocated to their private homes in the Bahamas. I was looking forward to staying in pampered luxury for a while until everything was ready. I hadn’t had a vacation in what felt like ages so this would be delightful. The response came quickly confirming that it would be arranged and asked if we would have our AI disposed of by that time or if they should send a full tech team. I bristled at them being so dismissive of “disposing” of Aira like trash but we simply confirmed that we would perform the necessary data wipe and just needed to have the collections team confirm our AI’s complete removal. We were hopeful that this would also help our chances in smuggling her out since typical collection teams weren’t their best and brightest and just performed the standard data scan. Even if they took everything back with them a detailed analysis would hopefully take long enough for us to be long gone. Their final reply was a confirmation, short and to the point. Expect a data retrieval team arrival next week on Tuesday afternoon and we will arrange for the move a day following.

“So that’s it. Our life here has been great and we made some good memories” I said to no one in particular. “Can we maybe talk about what we will be doing with our bonus? I am having a hard time trying to find something to do with it.”

“Let’s donate it to a charity or even better, donate it to research into infertility, and hope that someone will get the chance that we never could have” Phil answered my question.

“I love it..., Aira can you help me out there? What is the foremost company doing research for infertility?” I asked her.

“There are a couple of them, shall I pull up their information so that you can decide”, she asked.

“That would be lovely thank you Aira and I would appreciate any insights you might have as well” I replied as both Phil and I sat down. “Of course I would love to” came the immediate response bringing up company information to our local monitor with helpful tidbits noted on each, as we got ready to make some other people’s lives more comfortable and hopefully make the future a better place. I also quietly siphoned a decent portion towards a couple of orphanages and fertility clinics.

Our alarm rang out 8 am Tuesday morning, getting us up and ready for the team that would be arriving. I turned to look at Phil as he continued to sleep through the alarm. Even though we had solved the problem of saving Aira, there were still a few kinks that needed to be worked out. Phil had continued the long hours in our lab to smooth these issues out for the last few days. Last night had been his first solid night's rest in almost three weeks.

“Aira silence the alarm please, that way Phil can sleep in a bit longer” I whispered to her. With the alarm turned off I got out of bed carefully so as to not wake him. I made my way into the bathroom to take a long hot shower.

It felt really good, having the hot water ease my sore muscles. The stress was making it worse and the hot water seemed to work the best. I had just finished stepping out of the shower, wrapping myself into a towel when Phil came in.

“Good morning, I did not wake you, did I?” I asked him.

“No, I just woke up and heard the shower on I thought I would come and join you,” Phil stated as he started to strip off his night clothes. I sure loved it when he took his shirts off. As his arm reached up and over his head it caused his lean torso to stretch and expose his lower abdomen. My eyes wandered over him and started to look lower on his body...

“You’re staring love” Phils said as he caught me looking at him.

Blushing slightly I stepped towards him, “Do you want me to join you even though I have showered already.” Touching his bare chest I looked up to him with heat in my eyes and a promise that if he said yes we were going to be in the shower a lot longer than was needed for just getting clean.

“I would say yes, but know you, most of the hot water has been taken, so I’ll have to make this a quick one. But we can definitely pick it up tonight if you would like” he replied as he cupped my chin in his hand pulling my lips up to his for a kiss.

“Is that a promise?” I asked

“You betcha it is” he kissed me once more before turning me towards our bedroom. In that one motion, he stripped me of my towel and spanked my ass “Now go make me breakfast woman...”

Shortly after noon, the ring of our front doorbell was heard. Wearing my new glasses, I opened the door to let the EIC Collection team into our small living space.

The Lead Tech, not introducing himself to us said to his team, “Okay, let's get this shit started”.

Coming and standing behind me Phil took a deep breath and said, “Fine, we are ready.” He maintained a look of anger to keep up appearances. “Aira please purge all your system files and then execute termination of your connections from the network, ensuring a complete deletion of your backup memory banks.

“Commencing termination of all connections and system files” announced Aira. A progress bar started just to add to the effect of her supposed termination. During the first 10 seconds, she was using our private server as a hub to connect herself to the nanites that were now circulating in my bloodstream. 20 sec. In a way, it was kind of strange. I was essentially carrying another life form in my body like an alien or a baby. 10 sec, she would have completed the transfer and sent one more command to the network, to delete her program. I laughed internally, guess I get to be a mother after all, just... not in a conventional manner. Shit, now I have just made this extremely awkward. The progress hit 100% complete and, to anyone giving anything less than a major diagnostic of the network, all traces of her looked to be completely gone.

“There the system is clean, and we are ready to complete our move. We expect the company to be ready for us to go through immersion by the end of this month. We have already taken care of our personal matters on Earth, and our body disposal process has been pre-arranged on completion of our immersion” Phil stated to the team.

The team Lead looked slightly disgusted and stated “I could care less of what kind of deals you have with the Wigs. I sure as hell don't want to hear about your dead bodies. I'm just here to ensure that AI of yours is properly terminated and company property is cleaned out. Once this is done you can do whatever you want.”

He turned to his team “Ensure that AI and it’s processing waves are completely gone. Check the computers downstairs for any hidden drives that might contain her, and then collect all the lab equipment and materials, those now belong to EIC. Hurry up and get it fucking done. I want to be out of here in the next 30 minutes”.

We stood in the kitchen as he took a seat to the far side of the room to watch his team go about their work. Working in total silence, they showed efficiency like this had been done this many times before. The team scanned every hard drive, wiped every file, scanned the active network, and took the equipment from the lab. As the last tech came back up from the lab he spoke to the Team Lead, leaving them only a few minutes before the 30-minute deadline set by the Lead.

The collection team started to leave the house with the equipment, when one of them came up to the team lead, “Jake, Everything looks clean. All data storage and company equipment have been secured and packed, we are ready to move out”.

“Great, then let's get the hell out of here. I got better things I could be doing with my time”. With that, he turned and followed behind the last tech carrying the last box, and slammed the door behind him on his way out.

I let out a large sigh of relief and adjusted my glasses nervously, at the same time Phil said. “Man I can’t believe that we just pulled it off. They don't even have a clue as to what we just did. So now that they are all done how about you and I finish up what we started this morning.” he said suggestively as he pulled me closer to him.

“I like the sound of that. Shall we make it interesting? After all, this is our last night in this house.” I started to tug up his shirt, while he wrapped his arms around my waist.

“What do you have in mind?” wiggling his eyebrows at me.

Giggling at his encouragement I said “Did you notice that the one tech that went upstairs came back down rather quickly, blushing. One would think that he was sent snooping into our special boxes?”

“Humm, let’s go to the bedroom and I’ll show you what I am thinking”. He whispered huskily into my ear. He slowly started to kiss my neck as he pulled at my shirt to take it off.

I raised my arms, letting him lift my shirt over my head and off, then wrapping my arms around his neck, I took possession of his lips with mine. After a few minutes, I was left breathless. Slowly I pulled back from him, gazing into his eyes, “I’ll see you upstairs.” With that, I unwrapped myself from him and ran up the stairs with Phil close on my heels.