Girl, Interrupted

Sliding on the headset, Evan was greeted with a black screen with ‘Girlfriend Visualizer Parameters- Initialization Area' in white text, a blue light swept over his face briefly then resolves into a weirdly high-tech featureless room with two large windows and odd furniture.

Each window looks into what appears to be an exam room, but with the frosted glass he can only make out a silhouette laying on a table.

As if through an Intercom system above, Evan hears his friends voice:

“Hey Evan you doing okay? It's asking for your Girlfriend Avatar parameters now. You want me to enter the stats we talked about on Saturday?”

“Sure, hurry up, this weird waiting room is bugging me, is this the scenario? Some VR exam rooms? Seems like the opposite of romantic.”

“Nope, the Preset is ‘Autumn Park', it'll probably load once I finish this part…"

Evan sits in a chair next to the exam room window, both grateful and irritated at his friend for putting him through this weird situation. He didn't think it was gonna work but he was touched by the effort and enthusiasm his friend had put into this. ‘Hell, maybe I should've told them sooner about all this…’

As he finishes the thought, Evan goes back to staring at the window, the exam room suddenly brightens and the privacy glass begins to clear up. Laying on the exam table is what appears to be a featureless white mannequin of a person covered in a pale exam drape.

Thinking idly to himself, ‘Okay, that’s not creepy at all.’

After a few moments, the mannequin’s skin slowly ripples and goes from pure white to lightly tanned and feminine features begin to resolve themselves. A cascade of straight dirty blonde hair grows from her head and twists itself into messy braids. As the hair finishes its weird snake-like twisting, the flat smooth chest begins to slowly blossom into a pair of perky C-Cups with nipples that looked harder than his graduate Thesis.

‘Alright, much less creepy now, but weird and…admittedly kinda hot to see a person being generated in front of you.’

While Evan contemplated this amazing feat, other more subtle changes were taking under the drape, legs lengthening, hips widening, stomach toning up, even genitals slightly tenting between the legs, but after ten minutes of watching this transformation, Evan was left with the sight of his perfect woman lying on an exam table.

With a blinding flash, the woman disappears, he reflexively shuts his eyes. Seconds later, feeling a cool breeze across his face Evan opened his eyes, and he guessed that the scenario had finally initialized. Sitting on a park bench, he looked down and saw himself dressed in dark-grey slacks, pale dress shirt and a light navy-colored jacket. Definitely first date wear, but he didn't own these, and figured it was just the generic outfit for guys in the scenario.

Looking around, he guessed it was late afternoon, but the steely sky hid the sun and dulled some of the more vibrant colors of the trees’ changing leaves. He could hear birds chirping, and leaves rustling in the breeze but he heard and saw no one else. Sighing, he couldn't help but think that he was such a a loser that he’d gotten stood up on a digital date…

Abruptly, a firm hand taps him on the shoulder, bringing his head up and over to see the woman from earlier standing over his left shoulder. Dressed in a tight blue cardigan and some kind of leggings, she had a brilliant smile and an expression that said that at every moment she was happy to exist.

“Hey you, miss me already?”

Staring into those smiling blue eyes, Evan temporarily lost every mode of communication available to the human race, swallowed and tried to compose himself, but ending up blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

“Wow, you’re perfect…A-Are you Andrea? My name is Evan, I think I'm supposed to be your new boyfriend.”

“Yep, that's me, oh aren't you a cutie when you're flustered? And you aren't so bad yourself, cutie, I think we are gonna get along just fine. Mind scooting over, Evan?”

She swung around the park bench and snuggled up next to Evan, filling him with the weird wonderful sensation of his heart rising to his throat at the same time as his stomach going hollow. He couldn't feel her but he could see her as if it was happening and he’d never experienced anything like it. Not wanting Caleb to overhear him, he whispered.

“Well I, um, guess I have to ask, are you really real? You seem way more expressive and emotive than any of those Chatbots I’ve ever heard of or used. Are you an AI? Are you reading my thoughts?”

Andrea turned and looked up at him, smiled and giggled.

“So many questions! Think of me as your other half that's gonna stay with you forever. I'm gonna change your life and you'll never be lonely again. To answer your question though, I'm kind of a Simulated Intelligence, a scripted personality construct created from the three big personality traits that were picked but I can learn from your memories and personality so the longer I'm with you, the better I get!

A large silly grin spread across Evan’s face at that thought.

“Wow, so you can see my thoughts, memories and personality through the headset? So basically you are basically gonna be the most compatible person I'll ever meet, right? It's too bad you aren't physically real."

Andrea kisses him on the cheek, smirks and taps him on the nose.

“Weeeelll, see I can be in a sense, you know those chemicals that came with the package? If you get the User to inject or give you at least one vial, I guarantee you I'll be free and real to be with you forever.”

At that moment, a loud voice from outside the simulation breaks the moment.

"Hey Evan, sorry to barge into your bonding moment, but I'm supposed to start the injections now, one in each arm. You cool with that?”

Andrea sports a knowing look and points upward. “See?”

Irritated at the interruption, Evan glances upward and nearly shouts before remembering he was in Caleb's bedroom rather than a spacious park: “Yeah yeah, hurry it up, we are in a park and she says that the chemical will set her free and make her real to me. Do it now.”

"Uh, Evan, I accidentally dropped the vials. Guess we won't be making you Captain America after all."

Evan looks upward as if beseeching a higher power and sighs. "Uh, okay, I'll tell Andrea about that. Not sure why I'm apologizing to a Digital AI, but whatever"

Looking back at her, Evan sees her eyes brimming with tears though he didn't know if it was from the careless words or the lack of chemicals.

Quickly breaking down in the face of 4000 Megawatts of Sad Puppy Eyes, Evan apologizes. "No, sorry I didn't really mean that, don't cry, I guess it'll be a while until you're freed and real, sorry about that, blame Caleb..."

Andrea hugs him and starts sobbing into his shoulder for a few minutes. "I...j-just wanted..our f-first date to go well..."

Evan winces, wondering if he could have fucked up this date any harder.

Eventually, the sobbing stops and she looks up at him and he gently wipes the tears from her eyes

Andrea smiles, sniffs and lets out a watery chuckle."This is going to be a lot harder, you know. It wont be quite the same, but I promise you I'll do the best I can for us. To help you be your best self. You just have to trust me, okay?"

Evan nods solemnly, wondering what it meant when a Digital Avatar of his perfect woman bared her heart to him.

She withdraws her hands, twisting on the bench and spreads her arms around Evan in a tight embrace which he quickly reciprocates. Leaning in past him, she puts her face right next to his ear, warm breath tickling him gently.

“Cutie, you have to understand that we won't be boyfriend and girlfriend now, I'm going to help you become HIS Girlfriend, won't that be just wonderful?”

Evan’s eyes widen as his brain struggles to process what he just heard. He just manages to numbly state “What?” before Andrea kisses him full on the lips and feels her sinking into him in a spreading heat. Senses overloaded, his vision fades into a black tunnel before closing completely, body collapsing on the hard bench.