Diana - Deceased Step Sister of Christopher

It certainly wasn't my first experience with an Emulated, and not even a dead one. Two of my colleagues were post mortem Emulateds and I hardly even paid attention to the fact anymore. I mean... sure, Jake was a cheap fuck and had purchased a low end humanoid body so he looked more like a fridge with arms and legs, but Hannah? Hannah spent a fortune on a luxury Emulated body, and she simply looked real. Hell, the only way you could tell she wasn't the original version of herself was because she looked too good. The bitch didn't use to be a smoking hot twenty five years old, that's for sure! She used to be a greasy forty year old with sagging tits and an attitude that made Satan seem like a teddy bear. The attitude was still there, you can thank human emulation for that, but the tits looked so good I could forget all about it.

But when, a year and a half after my step-mother and step-sister died in a car accident, I was summoned by EmRobotics for a surprise inheritance, I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy. It was one thing to live peacefully alongside machines that simulated dead people's consciousnesses, but quite another to be responsible for an Emulation of someone you knew a bit too well.

You see, Diana, my step-sister, had one hell of a life insurance policy. After her divorce, she had appointed her mother, Angela, as her beneficiary, tasked with making sure her next generation Emulated would be able to pick up where the real life Diana had left off. But since the two bitches managed to die at the same time, leaving no direct living relatives behind, ownership of Diana's Emulated passed on to me, the son of Angela's last husband, also deceased.

So there I was, standing in my small living room, staring at a perfect replica of my hot step-sister. She used to be hotter than hell when she was alive, and she'd still managed to improve upon her already amazing looks after ****. Knowing her, she probably spent entire days on designing and customizing her Emulated body, making sure that this Diana 2.0 was better than ever, though still perfectly recognizable, like buying an upgraded version of the same car model you used to own, brand new and a bit refined.

The motionless Emulated stood in front of me, wearing nothing but a simple white robe and looking so good I could feel a stiffy quickly building up in my pants. Her short dark brown hair looked perfectly smooth and styled, with her bangs just begging me to reach forward and brush them away, a good excuse to slide my fingertips against those delicate temples. Her tits, already magnificent when she was alive, had somehow gotten bigger since, slightly jiggling with her shallow simulated breathing. Her perfect hourglass figure begged me to move my eyes up and down the curves that had often made my mouth water. Her eyes, always big and bright green, shimmered even now, though their lack of movement made them seem a little eerie, a reminder that this Diana was nothing but inactive digital copy of the real woman I had loved and hated so many times growing up.

The procedure was pretty straightforward. Diana's brain had been scanned a few months before her demise, all the detected pathways turned into a simplified, yet precise AI model that could act and even think like the real Diana, or rather like a convincing impersonation of her. In the end, behind the scanned personality, she was working the same way any non-Emulated android was. Just a bunch of artificial neural models trained on large amounts of data and following complex prompts to dictate their final behavior. In the end, just a crazy expensive piece of hardware. The world was still debating whether or not an Emulated counted as a true continuation of the original person's existence, with physicalists arguing that if you couldn't tell the difference between the real Diana and the Emulated one, then it didn't really matter, and mentalists claiming that consciousness couldn't truly be emulated and that Diana was only a convincing puppet. I couldn't give less of a shit about philosophy and the moral quandaries of Emulation, so I had never bothered to weigh in with my opinion. But now, standing a few feet away from the Emulated that seemed like the real Diana, alive and breathing but unmoving and quiet, the question seemed to echo in my mind, growing louder by the second: was Diana still Diana, even after ****? The government, however, had made their stance clear: Emulateds where half-human. As such, their 'life' was protected and they were allowed many of the same rights as living human beings, with just one big difference: they were the responsibility of their legal owner, just like parents or guardians were responsible for kids. Non-Emulated androids weren't that lucky. They were seen as simple machines and could be scrapped or sold or rented at will, just like any object. It didn't matter how realistic they looked or how convincing their behavior seemed; if they weren't running on the scanned personality of a real person, they were treated as simple machines. Legally, their rights were those of the deceased individual who was used as the blueprint for their AI model, inherited by the machine to ensure continuity. As such, a being born robot just wasn't lucky enough to count as a real human being, even though their intelligence and behavior were basically indistinguishable from Emulateds'. There weren't that many of them, anyway. Such machines costed hundreds of thousand of dollars, so it made sense that most of them were purchased by people seeking immortality rather than by curious consumers looking for a sex doll or whatever politically correct term you want to use.

I shook my head and took a deep breath, trying to come back to reality and to the present moment. Diana's Emulated was just standing in front of me, motionless and quiet, her hands down at her sides and her perfect face looking straight ahead like a statue. It was really creepy, honestly, and for a second I seriously considered putting her back in her big metal box, power her down for good and selling her cheap on the black market. Or maybe just store her forever in my basement and forget about her... That wasn't remotely legal, though, and the penalty for trafficking or mistreating an Emulated was pretty serious. Besides, her friends had probably already been informed of her digital reincarnation now that I had accepted that burden, and they'd definitely start asking questions if they never heard from her again.

So, after squeezing her large natural feeling tits for good measures, a little **** for all the times she used to tease me as a teen, I grabbed the EmRobotics tablet from the coffee table and scrolled through the limited options available. She was her own person, or rather half-person, so almost all of her settings were either hidden or locked. All I could do was activate her core functions and let her start running like any other Emulated. She'd be given maintenance control and would care for herself. I would have no other responsibility than to make sure her existence continued without problems or disruptions.

I hovered my thumb above the Activate Diana button for a couple of seconds, the sirens of a far away ambulance and the muffled voice of a television show in my neighbor's apartment the only noise in the silence of my quiet living room. Then, swallowing down, I clicked on it.

Diana's eyes twitched for a second, her perfectly plump lips opening slightly to let out a short breath. Her eyebrows lowered over her clear green eyes, making her suddenly look less creepy and more recognizable. From statue to human being, it took less than a second, and as the Emulated looked around with confusion, taking in her surroundings like waking up from a dream, I really couldn't tell the difference anymore. Diana was back. Emulated Diana, anyway, and damn she still looked as hot as ever.

"Chris?" She asked, her eyes locking onto me and her voice sounding so real I had to mentally remind myself that it was just a simulation. "What the fuck am I doing here?" She said, glancing down at her slightly open white robe and immediately covering up, pulling the fabric tighter around her magnificent tits and closing the knot.

I sighed, running a hand through my hair and trying to find the right words. How do you even tell someone that they're dead? "You're dead, Diana..." I grunted, staring at the ground so I wouldn't have to look into her hypnotic eyes.

"Dead?" She asked, her voice sounding genuinely surprised and a little scared. She lifted an eyebrow and placed her hand on her chest, looking more confused than ever. Was she looking for a heartbeat? Did Emulateds have heartbeats? I wasn't sure. "Where's mom?" She said after a moment of silence. Her artificial face was distorted by doubt and fear, her mouth forming a concerned pout and her forehead creased in thought.

I shrugged, swallowing down and taking a deep breath before speaking, but she interrupted me before I even began: "This is fucking crazy... What happened to me?"

"A car accident a year and a half ago, Diana..." I said, rubbing my face with my hands and leaning back on the couch, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the whole situation. "A manual driver hit your car while you were going downtown and..."

"Shit!" She groaned, raising a hand to her forehead and brushing her dark brown hair behind her ears with the other. "Mom was supposed to activate my Emulated... me... I guess? If I ever..." She paused, her eyes suddenly getting wet with fake tears before she angrily rubbed them away. "Why are you here anyway?" She grunted, suddenly switching back to bitch Diana and giving me one of her signature evil stares.

"Your mother passed too, Diana..." I grunted, crossing my arms over my chest and shaking my head, staring at a tiny crack on the wall across the room so I wouldn't have to watch her expression turn into despair. 'She's not real!' I reminded myself mentally. "She was in the car with you... They... you both died instantly..."

Diana didn't say anything for what felt like an eternity. I could feel her fake green eyes piercing through the top of my skull as she scanned my reaction, probably trying to find the hint of a lie somewhere in my face. Then, suddenly, her tablet buzzed, a little light flashing in the corner, asking me for an authorization. She was trying to access the web with her Shadow, or rather the robot equivalent of one.

"You piece of shit!" She grunted, slapping my arm so hard I winced in pain. "You're keeping me prisoner or what? Let me access my stuff! My messages!" She insisted, slapping me again and walking in circles like a caged lion.

"Hey! Calm down for fuck's sake!" I groaned, grabbing the tablet and entering my authorization code. Diana snatched it right away, looking pissed but also slightly relieved, like she actually thought she was trapped in the apartment forever or something. She stopped moving for a while, clearly accessing her virtual inbox and trying to catch up with the world, probably seeking confirmation about her mother's demise.

Then, after letting out a deep breath and putting the tablet down on the coffee table, she sat down next to me, looking slightly defeated, her chest rising and falling with fake breathing. "Shit..."

"I'm sorry..." I said, surprising even myself that I actually meant it. Diana and Angela were awful bitches for most of my teenage years, and I had often dreamed of this day when Angela would croak, but even now that the nightmare of my step-family was literally standing in front of me alive again, I couldn't find any joy in having to tell Diana about her mother's ****.

"And her Emulated?" She asked after a long moment of silence, an ounce of hope in her voice.

I cleared my throat, scratching the back of my head and avoiding her eyes. "Her life insurance didn't include one, so..." I shrugged, clenching my jaw and huffing. Another siren broke the silence, and colorful lights flashed through the curtains, moving through the dark living room like ghosts.

Diana swallowed down and sighed, wrapping her arms around her waist and leaning forward on the couch, defeated. "So... you?" She asked, biting her bottom lip and raising her eyebrows, confused.

I gulped and nodded. "Hey! It's not like I'm thrilled about it either!" I grunted defensively. Diana scoffed and shook her head, a nervous smile on her perfectly plump lips.

"Oh, that I can believe," she grinned, crossing her long legs and pulling down at the knees of her white robe to keep her legs closed. Then, as she shifted back on the couch, fury suddenly lit up in her eyes, her voice getting suddenly louder and angrier, "Where the fuck is my money? All my money?!"

I jumped slightly back, surprised by her sudden outburst and trying to stay calm. Of course she'd ask about the money. It was pretty much her driving **** when she was alive, milking money out of men left and right and spending it like it was nothing. Her Emulated was doing a pretty good impersonation, I had to admit.

"Your money's all yours!" I yelled back, waving my hands in the air. "That's the law! I didn't even get a penny for my trouble of having to... to deal with all this," I gestured toward the tablet and the metal box Diana came out of, suddenly feeling both furious and sorry for myself.

"Good!" Diana hissed, crossing her arms over her tits and huffing through her perfect little nostrils, like a real life fucking dragon or something... "So what now?" She asked after a long annoying silence, her perfect tits rising and falling with simulated breathing and her eyes firmly on mine.

"Now, you're supposed to stay here for twenty four hours while I make sure everything works and all," I explained with as much calm as I could find, nodding toward the tablet and the EmRobotics plastic instruction sheet next to it. "You'll have to go through the mandatory updates and whatever, and then... you'll be all set I guess."

"All set?" Diana repeated, her eyebrows twitching in confusion.

"Well... Free to go do your own things!" I clarified, spreading my arms and shrugging. Didn't she read the terms and conditions before spending her fortune on an Emulated?

Diana nodded and huffed, resting her elbows on her knees and looking down at the coffee table, clearly deep in thought. "Fine," she sighed after a while. She got up and headed to my tiny bathroom, shutting the door behind her, clearly needing some alone time to process everything. I honestly couldn't blame her...

I stretched back on the couch and tried to ignore the annoying buzz of my neighbor's television upstairs. This was a lot to process for me too. Diana had always been a thorn in my side, with mom or without, and now I was somehow her guardian or owner or whatever... I could have given up on her Emulated when first contacted by EmRobotics a few weeks ago, but that felt cold, even for me. It was too late now anyway. Diana 2.0 was officially my responsibility. Shit...

The bathroom door creaked open after twenty minutes of awkward silence. Diana slowly walked back into the living room, her flawless face back to its serene expression and her eyes once again locked onto mine. "Your place sucks," she grunted matter of factly, walking past the coffee table and sitting back on the couch. "At least I'm looking hot for a dead chick," she grinned sarcastically, shrugging and forcing a little laugh.

I relaxed slightly, allowing myself to chuckle along with her. She was Diana alright. Same old Diana. "You look okay for an Emulated, I guess," I said, cracking a grin and shrugging back.

"Why thanks, asshole!" Diana scoffed, rolling her eyes and giving me her usual you-are-beneath-me-Chris expression.

I rubbed my face with both hands, suddenly realizing how tired I was and how late it was. "I'm gonna head to bed, Diana," I grunted, yawning and getting up.

"Wait!" She protested, her voice suddenly sounding nervous and worried again. "What do I do now?"

I scratched the back of my head, thinking for a moment, "I dunno... Are you feeling sleepy?" I asked, knowing how stupid it sounded. Did Emulateds sleep? I wasn't sure. I'd never asked Hannah or Jake about it.

"Not really?" Diana said, frowning and looking genuinely unsure herself. I sighed, picking the EmRobotics instructions off the coffee table and reading through them again.

I skimmed through the long explanations of Emulated maintenance and care, finally finding something useful toward the bottom. "It says here that Emulateds can program themselves to enter an inactive state for periods of time..." I explained, handing Diana the sheet of paper so she could see it herself. "That's when you'll update yourself."

"What if something happens while I'm... powered down?" She asked, sounding a little scared.

I smiled slightly and shrugged. "Your body will wake up in the presence of movement or noises or whatever," I reassured her, pointing a finger at the instructions.

She nodded, reading the sheet of paper over and over until she seemed satisfied, "Fine. I think I found the settings for that..." She said before suddenly falling silent, her eyes frozen and staring into nothingness.

"Diana? Hey..." I asked, waving a hand in front of her face. Nothing. Her Emulated had entered inactive state, entering a dreamless sleep, if you could call it that. Her personality model probably wasn't even running anymore, leaving me alone with a beautiful motionless statue for the night. It was creepy, honestly. Just as quickly as she had activated, Diana was turned off, leaving me alone with nothing but the sirens of ambulances and the sound of my neighbor's flickering TV upstairs. Before me stood an half a million dollars doll, frozen like a wax figure in a museum.

I sighed and shook my head, feeling exhausted and more than ready to hit the hay. I turned off the lights and was about to walk back to my bedroom when something caught the corner of my eye. Diana's tablet, flashing again. A long list of updates and upgrades blinked on the screen, already downloading one after the other.

I scoffed, nodding to myself and finally turning off for the night, trying to fall asleep to the soft buzz of an old fan in my room, the city noise of an always awake neighborhood soothing my anxious mind. Diana would still be there when I woke up, and whether it was a relief or a burden, I'd have to figure it out.