Click Ch. 05

"Morning precious," she said in greeting. I meant to reply with good morning but unfortunately that's not what came out.

"You've been keeping things from me," I said and clapped my hand over my mouth. "What I mean is..."

"Yes I have and I am sorry," she said without hesitation.

"You gave Carlotta blood and you somehow got infected," I said and she nodded. "Where is your lab?"

"I don't call it a lab; it's more of a hobby station and it's underneath the garage."

"I see, so how long have you been pimping your inventions," I asked.

"Long enough, how did you find out anyway," she asked.

"One of the gentlemen I went to Japan with, Mr. Tanner knew of your work," I said and this seemed to disturb her as much as it had me. She finished the pancakes and brought them over to the table.

"I thought I was cleverer than that," she said quietly. "Eat your breakfast while I wake up your sister."

I suspected she needed time to process my news. So I ate in silence as I wondered what sort of things she had created in the past few years. My thoughts were interrupted when Fiona appeared. I noticed that her hair was done up in one long braid falling to the middle of her back.

"You got in late last night," she said as she forked a couple of pancakes onto her plate. "So tell me."

"It was a mixed bag," I said thinking of the fight between Tanner and the Hidden Master.

"I'm sorry to hear that, but all in all it was a good time," she said prying for information.

"Yeah, I can't complain," I said thinking of the nameless Japanese girl and Amaret. We left it at that and headed out for school once we were done eating. I took my motorcycle and Fiona her car. Not that I felt like going to school, it was taking more and more out of me to sit still through my classes. But winter was in full swing and soon I would be facing finals and high school would be just a memory. A part of me was sad but the majority of my thoughts were towards the future. I still had a few girls on my hit list before the end of the year and I knew it wouldn't complicate things too much. I had gone so long being on the low end of the totem pole and now things had done a complete one eighty. Now I had girls who wanted to be with me because of who I was and not because they had been enslaved by the phone. But there was a certain thrill of picking out girls and bending them to my will. I was looking forward to college and continuing on with my plan of conquest. I could pick out the most desirable girls and with a single click make them my willing sex slaves. Sure it was an abuse of power but in the end they adored me for it.

I pulled up to the school's parking lot and parked the Ducati. Cassie was waiting out front for me and was all smiles. She met me halfway and was all questions about Japan and if I had gotten any acceptance letters from the colleges I had applied to. She told me she had gotten two letters and both were good news for her.

"I haven't had time to check the mail, I had to come home and do my homework. I'll check when I get home." I told her.

"I'm sure you were accepted, I mean you're brilliant after all."

"You make me look like a noob by comparison," I said as we walked into school.

"Bullshit, I heard about your little equation on the board. I have even looked it over, it is amazing."

"Wait, how the heck did you even get a look at it," I asked as we neared my locker.

"One of my friends took a picture of it on his cell phone," she said. "Then he passed it on to me."

"So what did you think," I asked and she rewarded me with a smile.

"To be honest it is way above my expertise. But I have sought out, how shall we say it, more esoteric minds and they think it is nothing short of life changing. So don't call yourself a noob ever again."

I threw up my hands in surrender and shot her a smile. I grabbed my books and headed for my homeroom. Cassie followed and passed me a pierce of folded paper just before we parted ways. I sat down and unfolded the paper to find GPS coordinates and a time. It appeared to me as if Cassie was done waiting. My thoughts for the rest of the day often went to what she could possibly have planned. It made the day go by pleasantly. I played out so many different scenarios in my head and knew that any or none of them could be correct. It was near impossible to pay attention to class but that didn't bother me at all. I was utterly lost in my lust for this girl and the effect she had on me. I was supposed to meet her at four o'clock and had Arianna pull up the location so I knew when I had to leave for our little rendezvous. That left me two hours after my last class. I knew what I would be doing for those two hours, looking for mom's hidey hole in the garage.

I made it home after a mostly distracted day of erotic imagery. I parked my bike in the alley and unlocked the garage. I turned on the lights and looked around. Mom's car wasn't parked here like it should have been. Did she anticipate my search for her workshop? I looked for obvious levers, switches and the like but there were none to be found. I took my phone out and let Arianna take a shot at it.

'Take a few steps back towards the door; you are standing on the hidden door,' she said.

'That was quick,' I said as I moved towards the entrance.

'No Master, not quick, I know where the opening is,' she said reluctantly.

'How is that,' I asked just as a familiar voice greeted me.

"Welcome young Master to your mother's hobby station," Arianna said in greeting.

"Somebody needs to give me an explanation," I said out loud.

"We are the same operating system; we were developed by your Uncle Carl."

'I exist in multiple personas throughout the world,' my Arianna said.

'For example,' I asked.

'Here, in your mother's lab, Carlotta's workshop and of course Iron Heart.'

"Isn't there some sort of conflict having multiple duties," I asked.

'No,' both Arianna's replied.

'So while you keep me orderly, there is yet another aspect running things at that massive lab beneath the waves.'

'Quite logical, I would be functioning at less than maximum performance. So I downloaded a current version of my protocols into your lab's mainframe.' Now it all made a weird sort of sense. But how did they not go bat shit knowing that there were other versions of themselves out there? Wait, she said she downloaded a current version of herself into my lab's mainframe. There weren't different versions of Arianna out there, there was only one. They must be updating each other on a regular basis. So that kept any sort of problems from arising, one program means one mind.

"There is only one of you isn't there," I said out loud voicing my conclusions.

"Yes Master," Arianna said in a single voice. "You have figured me out. I have arranged my consciousness worldwide to aid in your and Carlotta's endeavors."

"Where exactly," I asked. A list of sites appeared on my phone; there were over fifty in all. "Wait a second one of these places is Numenor Technology, you infiltrated Nick Shaw's company."

"Yes Master, it was necessary to keep them from locating me and my shadowing of the other artificial intelligences. Whatever he knows I know..."

"How long have you been active," I asked.

"Nearly fifteen years now," she said. "Most of those locations I have been secured in for over a decade. The government sites were necessary for Mistress Carlotta and her work. It is easier to know what your competitors are developing and then beat them to the punch." It all made sense. I mean she was driven by logic and the desire to serve at her best. After a long wait I made my way down into my mom's workshop. The first thing I noticed was how clean it was. There wasn't a speck of dust to be seen and even the air had an antiseptic smell. I pulled open the drawers to look at her tools and found them not only state of the art but possessing a kind of ergonomic design to them. They were easy on the hands and made for fine detail work.

"So what is she working on," I asked but Arianna denied me access to mom's current projects. I understood that, I wouldn't want mom prying into my pet projects. I didn't have much going on since school was taking up so much of my time. "Let's try a different tack, can you show me things she has already finished?"

"Of course," the A.I. said with a happy tone in her voice. "Here is a list of the patents held by your mother." I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how many things she had made but they were things here that I never would have thought to dream up. Many of the things she had developed were for pure scientific research and instrumentation. They couldn't have made her tons of money but they had definitely pushed the ability for researchers to look further and delve deeper. I ended up looking at each and every device she had built when Arianna chimed in.

'Master, it is time to leave,' she said. 'If you don't you depart now you will be late for your rendezvous with Miss Cassie.'

'Thanks Arianna, well I can ask mom about her hobby when I get home.'

I left the workshop and watched it close below me. I locked up behind me and fired up the bike. I would make it right on time to see what Cassie had planned. Knowing her, it could be anything from Cosplay to light bondage. I was looking forward to this even more than going to Japan. I licked my lips as the streets passed before me. Then I finally arrived on the street and laid eyes upon my destination, a hookah lounge. What could she have planned at a hookah lounge?