Roy woke up with a jerk next morning. He had a weird dream last night. He dreamed that his laptop suddenly revealed itself as an alien called Mike and promised him superhuman abilities. He called out to Mike to make sure everything happened wasn't a very lucid alcohol induced dream. He half shouted, "MIKE!"

*Yes I am here. Calm down.* Last night's familiar voice rang out in his ear. Roy didn't panic this time, as he expected it. He relaxed his muscles and fell down on the bed.

Roy let out the breath he had been holding and thought to himself *My heart is pounding so fast, as if I just ran a 500 meter race. I was momentarily afraid that everything was a dream. I am so glad that it isn't. Let me freshen up real quick. Then we will get started.*

Roy stumbled while getting up, as if he suddenly got heavier.

He asked his alien friend, *Mike, why do I suddenly feel heavier? I feel like I have put on weight overnight. Is that even possible?*

*The reason for your heaviness is me. My total weight is almost 6 kilogram and I used all of myself to merge with you. Of course you will feel heavier.* The response from Mike actually made sense.

*Oh, that makes sense. But 6 kilo? You were so light as a laptop.* Roy remembered the laptop to weight at most 2 kilos.

*I used anti gravity technology to make myself lighter.* Mike lightly answered. Roy smiled and shook his head. Every word Mike spoke gave him something to think of. Anti-gravity tech? He could do so much with just that.

Roy tried some jumping jacks and on the spot running to get a feel for his new weight. He was still fat, and the small amount of exercise he had done made him tired, although the tiredness went away very quickly thanks to his enhanced physic. Then he checked himself out in the mirror. The pimples on his face were gone, and he noticed that his left shoulder felt different. Like taking out a small piece of food from between your teeth at evening that got stuck there in the morning. He never noticed the shoulder injury before, but now that it was healed, he could feel it. He could not feel any of the little bumps under his skin that were there yesterday. His stomach felt better and he didn't feel bloated. His back muscles didn't pain anymore. He checked the inside of his mouth in the mirror and could see 3 new teeth. He took a deep breath and felt like he had new lungs. All in all, Roy felt so much healthier than yesterday.

"I love alien tech." Roy said particularly to no-one and started to prepare. He answered nature's call, brushed his teeth, had a quick shower and ate breakfast. All within half an hour.

*You are quite excited about starting your training.* Mike suddenly chimed in his ear. Roy rolled his eyes, "Of course I am excited. It's not everyday you get a alien machine to do your bidding."

*Fair enough. So what is your plan?* Roy could discern the playful voice Mike sported. *Why are YOU excited?* Roy raised an eyebrow and inquired.

*Frank spoke very highly of you in his last days with me. Remember that he is a very powerful empath. He told me that although you may find some obstacles in your path, you will be able to fully embrace the responsibility of being the Contact. I believe in him, so I want to see what you will do.* Roy could imagine Mike making a proud face and puffing out his chest. But he had to ask, *What kind of obstacle are we talking about?*

Mike answer itself was quite clear, but the implication was vague, *Well, Frank said some of them will be moral and some mental. Though he didn't elaborate on them, so I have no idea.* Roy rolled his eyes. That old man loved his cryptic answers too much.

*Let's get this show on the road.* Roy decided to put this thought at the back of his mind and focus on the current matter, *Well I have a long term plan, but first things first. I need you to make a laptop. Exactly like the office laptop laying on my desk. Physical look and feel should be same. Also mimic all the softwares installed in there. And copy all the data. But no need to mimic the hardware specs, instead turn them up them as much as you can. For the material, I have a old broken vacuum cleaner. Will it do?*

*No problem. Where is it?* Mike's serious voice rang out in his ear. Roy knelt down and searched for it blindly under the bed. After minute of searching, he found it and took it out. There was a thick layer of dust on the cleaner. Roy was about to clean it, but remembered that dirt also counted as viable material. Mike instructed Roy to hold out his palm and he complied. A small drop of silver colored liquid gathered on Roy's palm. On behest of Mike, Roy dropped the liquid onto the surface of the cleaner. Then he watched in awe as the drop of liquid quickly liquified the vacuum cleaner. Within 5 minutes, the whole vacuum cleaner melted into a thick silver slime like substance, then out of the slime a laptop started forming. And within 10 minutes, an exact copy of his office laptop formed.

*So when you transform things, that's how it looks.* Roy's first hand experience at watching Mike work was just as he expected, very much alien-like, *But what was that liquid you had me gather on my palm?*

Mike explained that he took a small part of himself and programmed it to as per Roy's request. Every time Roy told Mike to make new things, he would need to do that. He can let that part of himself remain in the newly made things to communicate with it remotely, or he could take it back. However, he can't replenish himself, and he got a limited supply of himself, as Mike put it, so Roy would need to manage. Though that droplet was half a cubic centimeter and Roy would still be able to use a little over 4000 cc, so Roy didn't have to worry about running out anytime soon.

After the laptop is created, Roy thought for a bit and decided to put an AI there and letting it handle all software related things. Mike confirmed that the laptop spec is more than enough for housing an AI. Though Roy would need to choose between a worker AI or companion AI. A worker AI was as their name suggested, a worker. They tended to have several skills at their disposal to accomplish almost anything one can ask them to do, but had poor conversation skill. A companion AI had more emotional range than a worker. They were vastly better conversationalist, but didn't have much skills to help someone with work. As Roy needed someone who could do things, he chose worker AI.

As for voice preference, Roy chose female. If the AI was going to talk, he preferred female. He already had a male voice in his head, he didn't need one more. Mike asked if Roy wanted to give the AI a name, to which Roy chose the name Samantha, nicknamed Sam. A progress bar appeared on the laptop screen. First it showed 3%, but it quickly progressed and within two minutes, it completed. The laptop then rebooted itself and a smiley face appeared on the screen.

*Hello Roy. I am Samantha, but you can call me Sam. Pleased to meet you.* Roy didn't expect that, so he jolted in surprise when he heard a female voice in his ear. But since he already had a similar experience with Mike, he was a lot more calmer than the first time. He asked Mike through his thought, *Mike? She can talk in my ear too?*

*I thought it would be better.* Roy was astonished at the autonomous decision Mike took. Without asking for any permission from him, Mike incorporated a feature into something that Roy asked to make. This could potentially be good and bad both, so Roy pondered on the idea of either letting Mike do it in the future, or telling him not to do anything without asking for permission. But he very quickly chose the second option. He and Mike were partners now, literally sharing one body and mind. After his long experience of being the aid of The Contact Person, Mike would know which things would be beneficial to Roy. So Roy smiled and resumed the conversation, *Indeed it would. Hello Sam. Pleased to meet you too. I have some work for you, if you don't mind doing it.*

*Of course not. It is the purpose of my being.* The smooth female voice felt like music to his ears. Mike fortunately made her voice very pleasant to hear, for which Roy was thankful to him.

*Alright, I am gonna give you a crash course on how to operate the softwares my company makes.* Roy took Sam on his lap and went into teacher mode. Over the course of next 1 hour, Roy taught Sam how to use the softwares in the laptop. He also gave her a crash course on functionality of the third party softwares installed in the system. Being a machine herself, she learned everything very quickly.

After teaching everything to her, Roy was ready to give her work, *Now, this is what I want you to do Sam. Test. Test this software using all possible permutation and combination of inputs. Log all the input combinations and resulting output, I don't care how you do it as long as you can pull those up whenever I want. Correct every error you find and log those corrections too. Take help from the product documentation for reference. Can you do that?*

Sam answered him back after a 3 second delay, *I can. It will take almost 1 week to run through all the possible seven lakh ninety two thousand eight hundred and sixty six scenarios applicable for the software. Is that time-frame acceptable?* She was probably deciding the correct response.

Roy intentionally let Sam take decisions regarding the logging. He wanted to know what was the limit regarding taking decisions for Sam. Being the AI that Mike installed, he had high hopes for her. But he was quite surprised with the answer Sam gave him, and spoke out loud instead of thinking in his mind, "You kidding? 8 lakh scenario within a week? Just what kind of processing power did Mike give you?"

*I apologize for not being able to do it faster.* Sam's disheartened voice nearly broke Roy's heart. Damn it, she sounded more real than real girls. He didn't mean his words like that at all. Even Mike came to her defense, *Given the dimension of the laptop, this is the maximum processing output I can give Sam without any heating problem. She can run approximately 1 scenario in 1 second. That should still be quite an achievement.* Roy hurriedly spoke up to clear the misunderstanding, again speaking out loud in stead of thinking, “No no, you both are misunderstanding. I wasn't upset, I was praising her.” He breathed easy when both of them stopped speaking, *Alright Sam, get to work. I will check up on you from time to time."

*Commencing task now.* Sam's voice went silent after the statement.