Chapter 16

Charles stood outside the main entrance to the Sunnyvale Mega Mall and waited. While he waited, he watched closely the people that went by him into and from the mall. A week had gone by since the change and in that time, Charles had been very busy, watching and paying attention to the people that droned by him. Charles had become very observant and his observations helped him in the task that he had set for himself and for Connie, his friend and workmate.

Charles smiled when a woman walked by with two children in tow. The woman was cleanly dressed in a bright summer dress and sandals, calm and relaxed, with a content look upon her face. Her children matched her. They were clean, tidy, and well behaved, two perfect little angels. Unfortunately, while Charles appreciated the plus to having two perfect angels when a parent needed to get some shopping done, he also knew that what he was looking at was far from normal. The mother and kids, for all their appearance were still drones, drifting through life without experiencing it. It filled Charles with anger and frustration, and it moved him to action.

As he watched the mother and children go by, Charles remembered the trouble that he and his sister used to get into when they went shopping with their mother as children. He remembered how frazzled their mother used to get. He also remembered how forgiving his mother had been once they behaved themselves. He brought those memories to the forefront of his mind, and then with a push passed them on to the woman and her children as an upgrade.

All hell broke loose. The children started running about, trying to be the first to get to the doors and the woman started shouting, telling them to behave themselves. Charles just smiled and chuckled to himself. He knew that the woman would catch the children and the children would behave for a bit, before acting up again. Still the woman would forgive her children, remembering that at one time she was a kid as well.

Charles smiled again and thought that he would talk to Connie about it. Perhaps they could spend a day or two at the local schools, upgrading the children as he had just done a moment ago. It would take a little finessing to get it right, but it was something that they could do together as a team, before pushing it to the world. Of course, thinking of Connie brought warmth to his heart and a twinkle to his eyes. It also reminded him of how close they had grown over the past week.

They had been busy and things were happening. True there was still a lot to be done, but the main point was that it was getting done, which made Charles happy. It made Charles happy because each little success put a smile on Connie's face and that was important to him.

True, he had told the girl that he wasn't going to pursue her sexually and that he would never do anything to screw up their friendship, but in honesty, he did care about her. Mostly as a friend, but sometimes, as a woman that he desired. So, when she smiled, then he smiled.

Today he was meeting Connie at the mall again. It was their designated meeting place and where they worked to sort out the mess that Clyde had left them. It was a good place to meet, for the mall provided them with ample subjects to experiment upon. Here they could reprogram people within a controlled environment, where they could watch the results of their reprogramming. If all worked out, they took what they had discovered, and in a way uploaded their latest patch to the people of Earth. It was fulfilling work.

Unfortunately, it was also tiring. Charles and Connie always arrived when the mall opened and worked until the afternoon. With each patch they would spend time discussing what they wanted to achieve. Then they would experiment on the people in the mall and then, if it worked they would push the patch to the world. That was the tiring part. The more people that Charles and Connie had to deal with, the greater the effort they needed to exert to achieve anything. Two or three patches a day was their usual limit. Still they were dedicated.

Today was different however. Connie had asked Charles to meet her at a specific place today, rather than their usual table in the food court. The location was the local outlet of 'Victoria's Secret'. Charles had gasped with surprise when Connie had asked him to meet her there, and Connie had blushed nervously in reaction to his response.

Charles had asked teasingly why that particular store, but Connie had refused to explain. All she would tell him was that she needed him to give her, his honest opinion.

As always, Charles promised that he would and now that he had mischievously added a little more normalcy to the world, he decided that it was time to get moving and keep his date. He turned towards the main doors, when all of a sudden, a horn sounded.

Connie had just pulled into the mall parking lot in her car. As she honked her horn, she parked her Lexus in the spot beside Charles' Porsche. Charles waved to her and smiled.

He smiled because he remembered how on the third day after the 'crisis' he had suggested that they should both get vehicles. Connie had hemmed and hawed for a half hour or so before agreeing with Charles that it was a good idea. She was still resistant to the idea when they arrived at the car lot. It was only when he had convinced her to take the Lexus for a spin that she finally lightened up. Now it was her pride and joy, one of the few things that she had 'gifted' herself with as payment for what they were doing for the world. When she drove it and the wind whipped her hair about, she smiled. And when she smiled, Charles smiled.

"Hi there friend," Connie called as she hopped out of her car. She was wearing a bright green dress that clung to her torso and billowed about her thighs. Charles thought she looked very pretty.

"Hi there friend," Charles said in reply.

Walking up to Connie, he took her into his arms and embraced her. They did this every time they saw each other and every time they said good bye. Charles would pull her against his body and press her young, petite bosom into his chest. Connie would let him, wrapping her arms around him tightly so that his body would encompass hers. Then after a minute or two, they would separate. Then Charles would kiss her on her cheeks, and then quickly on her lips. It always made Connie blush, but it was nice. After all, even with all the changes that they had wrought in the past week, it was the only moment of true affection that either of them felt in the passing of the day.

Not that Charles minded too much. After all, he had Anna and Jennifer to satisfy him physically whenever he desired it. True, their affection for him was partly artificial; a mix of feelings from before the crisis and a touch or two of his mental manipulation but it was okay. In fact, there were times, especially when the twins lay in Charles' arms, their naked flesh snuggling up against him in the dark of the night, that their declarations of love sounded very real. It wasn't the same for Connie.

As far as Charles knew, Connie was still alone in the world. She had said she would try Charles' suggestion and he knew that she had dropped by the school a few times in the past week. Yet there had been no cry of success so far and Charles, still sensitive to her fragility, had not pushed her on it. Still it worried him a lot.