Chapter 4: Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane

Dramatis Personae:
Frank ___ - Lead character, inventor of Alpha
Alpha - First A.I. in existence
Kasumi Tendo - artificial woman based on character from Ranma 1/2
Daria Morgendorffer aka Daria Morgan - artificial woman based on character from
Daria
Jane Lane aka Jane Lannister - artificial woman based on character from Daria

Daria was an MTV cartoon series that ran for 5 seasons, plus 2 TV movies. It was a spin-off of Beavis and Butthead, a series that I loathed.

The main character, Daria Morgendorffer, was a high school student who was highly intelligent, anti-social and cynical. She responded to high school stereotypes with sarcasm and wit. In general, she was designed to appeal to people like me ... intelligent and hated high school society. (Yes, I was out of high school by the time the series aired, but so what?)

Her best friend throughout the series was Jane Lane, an intelligent artistic type who shared Daria's disdain for high school social structures.

Physically, Daria and Jane are not great beauties, though they showed potential. Daria had long, fairly straight brown hair that seemed to be in need of a trim and/or stylist, was flat-chested and needed strong glasses. Jane had short dark hair, blue eyes and maybe an A or B cup chest.

The series ended when they graduated and went off to college at different schools in the same town.

I was trying to avoid the same emotional problems I had created with Kasumi, so I worked with Alpha to add in some extra background for after the end of the series. Again, there was no workable way I could recreate their families, so again, I needed to make them orphans. I actually felt guilty for "killing off" their families right after the two of them left for college, but I wanted most of their grieving to be over with by the time they woke up in my house.

Basically, the story we set up was that their home town of Lawndale had been hit by a hurricane (again) during their first semester in college, and both of their families had died. Since they were legal adults by now, no distant relatives needed to be called in. They dropped out of their respective universities, collected some insurance and helped each other through the losses for a year or so. They had decided to go to a university far away in Texas to get away from the memories. Thus, they would be staying in my house while they started taking classes again at Texas Christian University (a good academic school in Fort Worth, though not 5-star).

In the TV series, they were both strictly heterosexual, even when Jane was hit on by a bisexual artist at an art colony. I had Alpha add in some strong attraction to each other, developed during their year of grief but not yet acted on.

And one other change seemed necessary. Daria the TV series no doubt held some appeal for college students. Even though it was off the air, there was probably a decent chance that Daria and Jane could run across their own TV show, which could lead to unnecessary complications. Therefore, when Alpha coded their memories, Daria became Daria Morgan and Jane became Jane Lannister. Yes, the risks were still there, but at least they wouldn't attract instant attention by fans of the show or find themselves with online searches.

(Author's Note: In the interest of staying in character, I'll actually still refer to Daria as Daria Morgendorffer and Jane as Jane Lane.)

The TV series was entirely mundane, which worked well for bringing them into the real world, but might cause problems when they had to deal with future house residents. Actually, that's not entirely true. There was one weird fantasy episode where they met the incarnations of holidays ... that episode stood out like a sore thumb in the series, but a little emphasis on it how it 'really happened' might be what I needed to help them accept the existence of superhumans ... if Alpha ever succeeded at bringing one to life.

Alpha assembled enough documentation for the girls that they should actually be able to live relatively normal lives if they had to make it on their own. TCU had a rule about Freshmen having to live on campus, but a heartfelt plea about their emotional state and a $250,000 donation convinced them to make an exception. At this point it was early summer, so we still had a few months before registration.

As a side note, there was one aspect of creation that proved to be unexpectedly difficult - Daria's glasses. As it turns out, it's very easy to grow eyes with perfect vision, but it's virtually impossible to create vision that is imperfect to a specific degree. In the end, Alpha built Daria's eyes and sent me to get glasses built to a certain specification. After she was alive and breathing but before she was activated, I pulled her head out of the goo, put her glasses on her and opened her eyes. With the nanites still in her system, Alpha directed minor reshaping of her irises to match the vision prescription glasses. (From my perspective, that was a pretty boring half hour.)

Kasumi and I had lived together for about 3 months before I told her that a couple of college students would be moving in, named Daria and Jane.

By this time, Kasumi was Red Cross certified for First Aid and CPR and had taken a few cooking classes to become familiar with different styles of cooking. She was now almost as comfortable cooking chicken-fried steaks or pot roast or barbeque as she was making ramen or rice. She wanted to tackle French and New Orleans cuisine next.

We slept together every other night, on average, though we had sex almost every day. No anal sex, but that was fine. She still blushed every time we got naked together, but had advanced far enough that she could initiate sex entirely on her own.

I think she would have liked to sleep together every night, but I often worked late down in the lab and had a small bed set up there for catnaps. And to tell the truth, I didn't want to sleep with her every night. I loved her, but I knew I would not be exclusive to her. I occasionally teased her about the possibility of bringing other women in to join us in bed. I'm sure the real Kasumi would not have been receptive, but this Kasumi had a few reactions hard- wired so that such suggestions made her more excited than normal, regardless of how embarrassing her sense of propriety told her it should be.

And let me tell you, knowing everything about a woman's history and being absolutely certain that she is very attracted to you does wonders for your self- confidence. I doubt I would be as adept with a normal woman, but with the artificially created women, I was supremely confident and smooth, a huge change from my past self.

When Daria and Jane were ready to "arrive", late one night, Kasumi insisted on staying up to welcome them. This was actually very easy to work around since all of Alpha's creations had a built-in kill switch for safety reasons.

Well, the term "kill switch" implies the wrong thing. Maybe "off switch" would be more accurate. When the time came, Kasumi simply fell asleep on the couch while I carried Daria and Jane upstairs to their room. They were to stay in the same room, furnished with two full size beds, a couple of desks, a TV with cable (minus MTV) and connected to a large bathroom. The bathroom was shared with an unoccupied bedroom. I arranged them on their beds, dressed in long T-shirts instead of pajamas. Almost forgot about Jane's ear piercings and had to go back downstairs to retrieve them.

They were physically slightly advanced from their high school selves. A little taller and Daria's body was beginning to mature a bit. Daria had A-cup breasts and slight curves of the waist and hips, and normal pubic hair. Jane now had full B-cup breasts (nearly C-cup), a few body piercings and a completely shaved pubis.

I had done some basic shopping for them, to provide them with purses and small carry-on bags. I had even set up checking and savings accounts for them. (I'm not sure how Alpha was able to get them working SSNs, but she did. If it was possible to give Alpha an IQ test, I'm sure she would be a super-genius.)

It had taken a little bit extra shopping, but I had found a faded green jacket, amber-ish t-shirt, knee-length black skirt and heavy shoes for Daria to match her class toon image. Jane had her red jacket with rolled-up sleeves, black v-neck shirt, dark shorts, black stockings and boots. I tossed it all haphazardly across the dressers, as if discarded after a long, trying day of travel.

When everything was set, I went back downstairs and gathered Kasumi up in my arms. While I was carrying her up to her room, I had Alpha let her wake back up.

Looking down, I saw her eyes flutter. "Oh, you're awake. You fell asleep on the couch. I was going to take you up and tuck you into bed."

"Daria and Jane? Are they here?"

"Yes, they were tired and went straight to bed. You can meet them in the morning. Actually, we need to take them shopping. The airline lost their luggage."

She still wasn't quite awake when we reached her bedroom, so I just pulled off her shoes and dress, tucked her into bed, kissed her goodnight and let her go back to sleep, naturally this time.

I woke up early the next morning, excited at the possibilities stretched out before me. With Kasumi, the excitement was mainly focused on creating my first fictional lover. Kasumi herself is a number of things - beautiful, kind, helpful and, should my house fill up as planned, needed - but not really exciting or mentally stimulating. A good variety was what the house needed.

I had another long conversation with Alpha as I prepared for the day. Kasumi was still asleep and Daria & Jane hadn't been activated yet. The exercise room was just down the hall from their door, so I left the door open when I started my morning workout ... and had Alpha activate the girls.

With my earbud tuned to their room and the exercise room's monitor tuned to their camera, I watched as they both stretched and took in their new surroundings. Theoretically their memory implants took them up to last night, when they arrived in town, complained to the airline, took a cab out to my house and crashed for the night.

They talked quietly to each other for a few minutes, but I couldn't make out exactly what they were saying. They got up and went to the bathroom (no camera in there.)

Alpha interrupted. "Frank, Kasumi is now awake too."

"Thank you. Let me know when she reaches the kitchen, please."

Kasumi's door is not visible from the exercise room, but I think I heard her door a couple minutes later. When Alpha gave me the heads up, I had Alpha route my mic to the kitchen speaker (ie. intercom).

"Kasumi? Are you there?"

"Yes, Frank. Good morning."

"Good morning. I'm up exercising and I think I hear movement from the girls' room, so they'll probably be ready for breakfast in a few minutes."

"Thank you for letting me know."

"And thank you for helping out so much. See you in a bit."

A couple minutes later, Jane and Daria emerged from their bathroom, dressed in the clothes they wore last night (as far as they knew). I switched the exercise room monitor to the morning weather report.

They emerged from their room a minute later and I waved to them.

"Good morning! Have you recovered from your flight?"

Daria muttered something to Jane, who laughed. To me, Jane said, "Yeah, we're doing just Jim-Dandy fine."

I smiled, recognizing the voice and tone from the show. "Come now," I panted. "There's no need for colloquialisms between friends ... or brand new acquaintances, as the case may be. Kasumi just started breakfast, so it should be ready soon."

They both moved their hands to their stomachs. "Yeah, food would be good," Jane agreed.

They meandered towards the exercise room, taking in the sights. It was much too small to call a gym, but it had a treadmill, stairclimber, rowing machine, a floor pad for aerobics and weight-resistance workout machines. I noticed with pleasure that their eyes kept being drawn back to me ... their pleasure programming just beginning.

Daria watched me jog on the treadmill for a minute. "Treadmills, the Sisyphus of exercise equipment. Wouldn't exercising outside be more interesting?"

"Actually, I prefer to think of it as running the Red Queen's race. Run as fast as you can to stay where you are."

"If that's as fast as you can run, you need to exercise more."

"Thus my time on the Sisyphian treadmill."

"So who's Kasumi? Your cook or maid? Mail-order bride?"

I started slowing the treadmill, moving into a cooldown phase, and gave her a sharp look. "Kasumi is a very close friend who has agreed to help me manage the house. She's not a servant, and I'd greatly appreciate it if you would not treat or refer to her as one."

I lightened my tone. "I don't have servants. The concept is socially uncomfortable. I suppose I do have a cleaning service, but they only come once a week."

Daria said, "Ummm ... Sorry. I didn't mean to insult you. Having a house this big just implies certain attitudes."

"Oh, you can insult me all you want. Just don't insult my friends, at least not behind their backs."

Jane rejoined the conversation. "So this is quite a place you have here. Looks pretty new. You have, what? A new bedroom for each day of the month?"

I was toweling myself off a bit at this point. "Not quite. I'll give you the grand tour after breakfast, but I suppose I can offer a few points of interest on our way down to the kitchen.

"This is, of course, the exercise room. Use it as much as you like."

"We're not really the sweaty, exercise-y types," Daria responded. "We prefer mental gymnastics."

"Yeah, less chance of broken limbs."

"Being healthy is its own reward. It's also a pretty wide open neighborhood, if you like to run outdoors. Outdoor activity is best done early or late. Gets way too hot during the day this time of year." Jane was a runner, as I remembered. Even went out for track once.

"Oh, joy," muttered Daria, in her classic monotone.

"But to help build up your mental muscles, I do have a small library," I said as we left the room.

My library/study was only three doors down the hall. I am a bibliophile myself and was proud of my collection. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 books. Probably 4000 SciFi/Fantasy, 1500 classic literature, 1000 modern fiction, 1500 nonfiction and biography and the rest miscellaneous (Mystery, Childrens, Religious, etc.) My comic collection was larger and kept elsewhere.

Daria muttered that she would have to visit here again later, which I took to be approval. I wasn't worried about Daria's lack of strong verbals at this point. If the implants were working correctly, I was expecting muted initial reactions from her, including short, quiet responses in conversation instead of her trademark verbal jousting.

I made small talk the rest of the way downstairs. I noticed both girls sniffing the air a bit, and I apologized for not showering after my workout, in my haste to get them breakfast, that is.

Mentally, I was wondering if the smell was turning them on or off. Theoretically anything I did with them should trigger little spikes of lust in their brains.

I introduced them to Kasumi. I don't think they quite knew how to react to her. She was beautiful and kind and practically radiated an aura of motherly goodness. But she also seemed a bit subservient ... which may have been ameliorated slightly when she noticed I was still sweaty and sent me to my room to clean up before she would let me eat.

I had Alpha route the audio from the kitchen to my earbud as I went back upstairs to clean up.

Jane: "So ... Kasumi. Nice house, huh?"

Kasumi: "Oh yes, it is very efficient and new. It has a very different feel than where I grew up. Our house there was old and beautiful. But at least here we don't have to make repairs every day." I could hear her starting to choke up a bit.

Jane: "Oh, hey, sorry ... I didn't mean to uhhh..."

Daria: "Hey, breakfast!"

Kasumi: "Yes, this morning, I prepared a traditional American breakfast for you. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, cereal and fruit."

Sounds of eating.

Daria: "So, what's Frank like?"

Kasumi: "He is a very kind man. He has helped me adapt to America and he helped me find new purpose in life after ... I lost my family a few months ago."

I had convinced Kasumi that most people would not understand the chaos and strangeness of her life in Nerima, so we agreed to simply tell people that she had lost her family.

Daria: "Wow, sorry about your family."

Kasumi: "It is all right. I am learning to make my life without them. And Frank has been sending me to classes."

Jane: "And he's kinda cute too. Do you know how old he is?"

Daria: "Jane, how about a little self-restraint before you sprain an eyeball?"

Jane: "Oh, bite me, Morgendorffer. You were checking him out too."

Kasumi: "Yes, he is rather handsome. I am not certain how old he is. I believe he is about 30, but he seems a bit younger than that sometimes."

Jane: "So are you two ... y'know, together?"

Kasumi: "It is not proper to ask such questions." pause "I ... I do not know. We have spent a great deal of time together, and I know he cares for me a great deal. But I do not think I can claim him for my own. I sometimes think that he has spent time with me mostly to help me recover or to distract me from remembering."

I really wanted to be available to interrupt this conversation, but I knew it would happen sooner or later. My goal was to eventually get everyone to have sex with everyone else, so that no one would feel jealous or left out. But early on, before that happened, possible problem conversations like this were inevitable.

I could always just had requested Alpha create some female orgy-bots, but there was no challenge in it. An animated masturbation tool might be fun for a little while, but I felt that in the end, it would be as interesting as trying to make friends with your own hand. I had started to love seducing Kasumi using what I knew about her life in anime, and I was looking forward to seducing Daria and Jane using what I knew about them. Suddenly, I felt very manipulative ... and evil ... and horny.

I missed a few minutes of their conversation while I was in the shower, but when I picked it back up, there didn't appear to be much of significance being discussed.

Kasumi: "Yes, I don't like the idea of having to care for such a large lawn, so I leave it all to his service. But I have spoken to Frank about building my own traditional garden. I hope to have the time to prepare the ground this fall, but I don't know if I will have the time."

I dressed quickly and headed downstairs. Apparently I had missed out on some significant part of their conversation, because they all gave me an amused look when I entered the kitchen, with Jane and Kasumi apparently suppressing giggles.

"Okaaayyy ... I assume you've discussed me behind my back, which is fine and expected. Kasumi, I don't blame you, as these two are obviously devious and underhanded and tricked you into revealing whatever secrets you let loose. However at the same time, I deny any and all rumors Kasumi has passed along. Unless they reflected positively on me, in which case they were too understated."

"Kasumi refused to divulge any of your secrets," Jane responded.

"So we decided to make them up ourselves," Daria continued.

"Yeah, so exactly when did you start dressing up as Kris Kringle's evil brother?"

"And what exactly are your plans for world domination?"

And the banter began. Maybe I was wrong to expect a quiet Daria to being with?

After a few minutes of conversation, Daria and Jane had decided I was a closet computer geek and explained what that meant to Kasumi. I protested on the grounds that I was more than just a computer geek. I was also a game geek, book nerd and possible comic book fetishist.

Daria and Jane only needed minor prodding to provide conversational entertainment for all. I did my best to join in occasionally, but didn't yet have the rhythm down for syncopated sarcasm.

After breakfast was over, I gave them the grand tour of the place, including a brief visit to the basement labs. They were impressed (or possibly disturbed) by the masses of computers I had down there, as I explained how I had made my money with analysis and predictive computer models of the markets.

When they saw the lab portion of the basement, I was accused of being a mad scientist, to which I gave my best mad doctor/world domination laugh.

"But seriously, no, I can't tell you. If I ever get around to patenting anything, you'll be the first to know. But for now, I just want to keep it to myself. Don't worry, there's nothing explosive or hazardous down here."

When we left the house, I locked the doors, and Daria asked me about an alarm system. I laughed.

"You know how I told you I'm working on AI-type programs, right? One of the systems I set up is hooked into the outside cameras." Here I pointed to a couple cameras discreetly placed around the house. "The facial recognition system can identify Kasumi and myself and now you two. If someone other than us approaches, an alarm goes off. It'll even call the police if the house is forcibly entered. And there's another system that runs at night."

"And if you lose power?"

"I have a generator backup that would kick in."

"What if you grow a beard?"

"There are voice recognition overrides."

"What if you had a new beard and laryngitis?"

I laughed and walked on.

And then we went shopping. Kasumi didn't have a drivers license yet and Daria and Jane were new to the area, so I drove everyone in my minivan. (I have three vehicles: a 4 wheel drive pick-up truck, a minivan and a hybrid compact.)

I asked about the airline and their missing luggage (knowing the answer already) and was told that their bags had been tracked to Detroit where they disappeared. The airline had refunded their tickets and paid for replacements. The girls would be using their own money for shopping today, but since they had the accounts I set up for them to represent the insurance and property sales from Lawndale, they were financially sound for a while.

I drove us to a mall in the area - fairly empty since it was a mid-week morning - and the girls took us to a number of different stores, piling up bag after bag of clothes and miscellaneous mysterious girl things.

When I asked for a fashion show strut while they were in-and-out of the fitting rooms, Daria demurred but Jane jumped on the idea, choosing flashier and racier outfits to model for me.

Daria blushed a little and soon accused Jane of wanting to be like Quinn.

"Hey, now," I jumped in. "We're just having a little fun, not talking about how..." I pressed one of my nostrils closed for a nasal effect. " ... How the cognoscente of Paris and Milan are so much more refined and fashion- conscious than the riff-raff of Texas."

Switching back to a normal voice, I asked, "Didn't you ever watch Madonna's Vogue video and laugh yourself silly at the pretentiousness of it?"

Daria looked like she had been caught a little off guard. "Critiquing music videos wasn't really my thing, unlike some guys I used to know ... but yeah, I suppose so. I just don't have the body or temperament for fashion strutting."

"Body type is irrelevant when you're trying to have fun like this, and besides, yours is, to all appearances, perfectly healthy. And temperament is variable. I bet if you put your mind to it, you could even be bouncy and perky!"

"Perky!"

"Yea, one thing Morgendorffer has never been accused of being is 'perky'," interjected Jane, strutting by in a pretty racy babydoll nighty which dragged my eyes along with her as she went by.

Kasumi who had been sitting quietly next to me all this time admonished me. "Frank, it's not nice to tease Daria so."

I sighed expansively and turned back to Daria. "I apologize for having suggested that you were secretly perky. I promise that if I ever do so in the future, I'll endeavor to use alternate terms such as preppy or chippy..."

"Animated?" Jane suggested.

"Jaunty?"

"Bubbly."

"Enough! If you want to describe me, pick some antonyms instead. And stop staring at Jane like she's a piece of meat you're appraising."

Jane posed provocatively. "Please, Morgendorffer, I am at least a strip of veal."

"Wrapped in bacon," I added. "If I actually offended her, I would apologize profusely and try to make restitution. But we're just having fun. Come here for a minute."

I darted up, grabbed Daria's hand, and dragged her back with me to our viewing bench.

"Now look at your friend. She is obviously very animated and bubbly at the moment. She's having fun. So let's just sit back for a minute and appreciate her."

I grabbed both her and Kasumi by their shoulders in a sideways hug and turned my attention back to the preening Jane. I think I threw them all off- kilter a bit with this gesture of intimacy. I honestly expected Daria to make an excuse and run away temporarily.

Daria was immensely attracted to me; this was a programmed involuntary response. I had been doing my best to engage with her intellectually through conversational banter. And whenever Daria was with someone she was attracted to, she tended to either freeze up or run away. Even her trademark banter wasn't up to par at the moment, meaning she wasn't yet comfortable with her attraction to me.

Jane was a bit freer with herself and her emotions. Not a lot more, but she was much more socially comfortable than Daria.

This time, Daria just froze up. I gave Daria's shoulder a squeeze and winked at Jane, who was apparently trying to look like Marilyn Monroe. Our tableau only lasted for a minute, but it was a minute of progress for me.

I treated everyone to lunch at Red Lobster, at which time I talked Jane about art for my house.

"I'm sure you noticed that most of my walls are pretty bare. The problem is, I have no fashion or decorating sense."

Kasumi, her mouth full at the moment, nodded in agreement. I gave her a mock glare.

"You, however, are an artist, so I would like to engage your talents if you are willing."

"Sure. What are you looking for? You want me to shop for you or paint for you?"

"Both, probably. We can invest in some new art supplies for you this afternoon and you can take a more thorough look around the house. I want a mix of styles, and while your judgment will no doubt be better than mine, I still have a few restrictions:

"Nothing Dadaist. Nothing that requires you to be high to appreciate it. Nothing totally abstract. And nothing that looks like it came off the shopping channel."

"So, no urinals on display stands and no tie-dye style swirls of color and no Thomas Kinkade prints. I can work with that. What kind of art do you like?"

"My favorite artist is probably Turner. J. M. Turner or something like that. He did these great landscapes just filled with energy."

"J. M. W. Turner."

"That's him, I think. But I like a good range of styles. Classical Realist. Impressionist. Expressionist. Modern. Well, some expressionist and modern. I like Warhol and Dali and Chagal and Toulouse-Lautrec. Some of Picasso's stuff, but not all. Don't like Pollock. Don't like velvet Elvis prints. I love some classic illustrations like for Winnie the Pooh and the Sherlock Holmes stuff from The Strand."

"I can work with that. What's your budget for this?"

"In general, don't worry about the cost. If you think a Monet would look nice in a room, go for a reproduction. I don't want to turn this into a huge investment, but I'd probably prefer a mix of nice, original pieces by unknown or upcoming artists and reproductions of expensive works. I suppose if you feel the need to go over $60,000, check with me first."

Daria commented, "You sure seem to throw around money pretty freely."

"Aside from the house and computer setup, most of my throw-around money helps other people. And I keep enough investments going that I shouldn't have to worry. Well, unless I start trying to collect the old masters. That would probably bankrupt me pretty quickly. Money isn't really important except as a means to an end."

"So how much are you really worth," Jane whispered conspiratorially.

"I don't keep a close track," I whispered back loudly. "Maybe somewhere in the $50 to $100 million range."

She whistled appreciatively. "That's some investment program you worked up. Why don't you sell it?"

"First, because I don't want to. Second, because it would stop working if everyone used it. And third, because it requires some really serious processing power to crunch the information."

I made some personal inquiries on the drive back home.

"So ... Daria, Jane. Are you two ... involved with each other?"

That got some startled, indignant responses.