Lumpy Lisa's Transformation
Copyright© 2025 by Tori T. Jones
Chapter 2
Lisa woke up slowly. She had experienced the worst nightmare of her life. She was almost certain that she had left her apartment last night with the intention to end her miserable existence. But this morning she was awake in her own bed, and except for feeling just as miserable as the previous evening about her continued existence she actually felt much better than she had in years. It almost felt as if several of the hot-spots created by her excessive weight were less painful than usual.
Lisa got out of bed. Her existence was too miserable to endure. She was going to get out of this horrid life. She took a step toward her small kitchen in her studio apartment. That wasn’t where I wanted to go! Yet she couldn’t take a step toward her door. Part of her nightmare was real! Any time she tried to direct her steps away from the kitchen with the intent to go commit suicide she couldn’t do it. Her body stopped obeying her intent.
Testing what was in her control she headed to her bath. She didn’t need to go, which seemed unusual but maybe she was still caught in the nightmare and not really walking around her apartment? In moments she was sitting on the pot and pushed just to see if the mild urge to go would produce results. Her body failing in many ways was part of what was driving Lisa’s suicide attempts. She knew her weight was slow motion death and she wanted to get it over with.
The push actually produced the worst smell Lisa had ever experienced. She gagged and barely got dressed enough to make it out of her apartment. She left the door ajar as she headed to Homer’s to get a fan. She was on the road and on her way before her mind caught up with the fact that only her intent to end her miserable existence trapped her in her home. She wondered for a moment as she drove how she was going to pay for the fan because she was almost certain she had neither her phone nor her purse.
Something caused her to glance at the seat beside her. There was her phone. Had she left it in the car? She just couldn’t remember it being out of her purse the night before. “I hope I’m not getting early onset Alzheimer’s,” Lisa worried. She remembered her mother recently dying of the disease, frightened and uncommunicative at just over forty years old. Yet Lisa could remember at least a decade of her young life while her mother faded further and further away.
The Traveler hadn’t meant to frighten his property, but in one way the intense memories the moment brought forward were helpful. It had been able to somewhat access the general knowledge that Lisa had of her world but without triggers there were a lot of specific things like Lisa’s experience with her mother and her memories of the time that It hadn’t been able to truly access or put into any sort of context. After all Lisa’s memories weren’t organized in any particular order, just by intensity and even that had been muted as It didn’t really have an operator’s manual for Its new property.
The Traveler was glad though that at least the instance of its AI which had been in its lifeboat had ‘borrowed’ material both from Lisa’s body and around her apartment, improving the function of several appliances as it sent out nanites on a gathering mission to obtain materials though if the AI and The Traveler hadn’t felt constrained to remain hidden in Lisa’s body It would have set up a reactor that could spill heat to the atmosphere and transform any material rather than scavenging from Its environment. There had been plenty enough gold, silver, and copper to borrow a few atoms of each one to increase the size of the AI’s matrix.
The improved Ai would emulate Lisa’s phone on the shell it had created. That small task plus creating the ET trading company were some of the things the AI had done over night when it had gained access to the data and communication networks of humans. Borrowing a tenth of a percent of a million or so transactions meant that the AI and The Traveler had the first resources It would need to leave Its temporary hiding place.
The borrowing from Lisa and detoxifying her body as much as The Traveler could without causing harm were the actual source of the stench that had exited her body earlier. Her urge to get a fan wasn’t harmful and would give her a sense of agency. The open door was no problem because the stench would probably be considered a hazardous waste zone by humans. It wasn’t truly harmful, but was unpleasant enough to probably stand in for an area denial weapon. The nanites that they’d left behind would project an aura of menace that should drive off anyone who persisted in trying to enter the space that Its pet rented.
A half hour shopping expedition returned Lisa to her home with a fan and air freshener spray. Her neighbor was waiting by the closed door of her apartment. “Hey Lisa,” the woman said, “I heard you leave in a rush. I managed to close your door, though I don’t think anyone would have been willing to brave that frightful smell to rob your place. Still since it’s Saturday, I thought I’d be helpful and watch the door to make sure.”
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