The Creation of Amy Read online

  Morse was counting down the seconds until this interrogation was finished. He hated feeling patronized, but nonetheless, he gave a weak smile and agreed with her, “I’m sure.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll go. Call me if you need anything else with your project. Oh, by the way, what names you have in mind for her?”

  “I think, since I wanted to name my child this if she was a girl, I’m going to name her Amy.”

  Kara smiled with a glint of approval in her eyes, “I like that name. Hey, if you’re her dad, I guess I’m her mom, huh?” she chuckled and placed one hand over the other just above her bosom.

  Morse smiled brighter with a nod, “If you want to be.”

  “Only it’s reversed,” Kara pointed out. “I add my contribution and you make the baby. Let me know when she arrives, our little Amy!” she said rocking the cradle she made with her arms.

  “I will,” Morse promised. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Kara stepped out, and turning back on the threshold, she asked, “Is it okay if I drop in from time to time? As I think of this more and more, it’s a really cool idea.”

  “Sure,” Morse agreed, “you are welcome here anytime, and remember, this isn’t happening.”

  Kara pretended to zip her mouth and waved goodbye, then walked to the car she parked close by.

  Chapter Five

  Morse got to work the second after Kara left. With everything that he needed in the computer, he began to separate the data. The exact measurements of Kara’s skeletal structure were broken down to two systems by bone type, which were the axial skeleton and the appendicular skeleton. The axial skeleton included the skull, vertebral column, and rib cage, and the appendicular skeleton completed the collection of bones in the human body with the pectoral and pelvic girdles, and all the limbs. This process took the rest of the day for Morse, as he was still getting used to the complex and latest computer systems. Now he was glad he spent a week longer at work to familiarize himself with their new equipment before getting into this part of the project.

  For the next three days, he sorted Kara’s musculoskeletal system, including her ligaments, tendons, cartilage, joints, with the rest of the connective tissues. For two days after that, he devoted his focus to her nervous system, and the following four on the skin with all the positions of every hair follicle on her body.

  During these ten days, Morse ate like a college kid, usually pizza, Ramen noodles, and beer.

  Once all the systems of Kara’s body were ready, Morse set up a small I-beam with a sturdy base, approximately six feet tall. He rigged up a chain a couple of inches long and attached it to a small metal bar that was two feet wide, and then on the ends and in the middle he placed chains with hooks. The purpose of this was to suspend the new machine from it.

  Morse then turned on the 3D metal lathe, got a block of titanium, twelve inches long, eight inches high, by eight inches wide, and placed it securely in the metal lathe. He calculated the best way to begin creating the skull using the high-tech computer and sent the information to the lathe. With the right bits installed in the lathe, he started the program, and the metal lathe came to life, cutting off small bits at a time. Morse realized that this would take hours, since the skull is very complex, so he took this time to wax his Charger.

  Two hours later, he checked the lathe, still working, but nowhere near done. Earlier in the week a few parts arrived that Morse thought would be nice for the Charger, a set of disk brakes, a DVD/CD player, and a set of speakers. He sat in the car, and as he admired its dashboard, he decided to connect a computer to the Charger, to modify the dash to house it, and incorporate a two-way radio, and a police scanner. The batman wisecrack Kara said to him made him think, so he decided to make one badass car.

  To this point, over two years later, the Charger had come from being a beat up but running car, to near mint condition, with a cowl induction hood, 426 Hemi, 4 speeds, with center force clutch, a Posi traction rear end, and fresh jet-black paint. The wheels were brand-new, five-star styling, with the new suspension components that lifted the car a couple of inches. The exhaust was a dual flow master, strait out the back. Morse went over to a drafting table and began sketching a design for a custom dashboard. Busy work it was in between building Amy.

  Hours later, it was after one AM when the sketches were complete, but the skull still was not; it was only beginning to take shape. Morse decided to go to bed, let the lathe do its work.

  The morning came about eight; he ate breakfast, showered, and got down to his lab. He had a giddy happiness that he had not had in a long time, with his working overtime to the next steps of his creation.

  He moved over to the lathe and saw step one of the skull was complete. He repositioned the solid metal skull to get at the bottom sections the lathe could not reach. The basic shape was complete after a few more position changes throughout the day. Once the eyes, nose, and even the teeth were ground into it, Morse pulled the skull out, and looked it over, then changed the lathe bit. He calculated the best location to cut the top off, measured it carefully, marked it, and using a large band saw, slowly cut it off. He then programmed the computer to dig a cavity in the main portion of the skull, keeping small tabs around the perimeter for small tapped holes in which to keep the top of the skull attached to the bottom later. He positioned the skull back into the lathe, the program restarted with a click of his mouse, and the lathe next began to create a cavity. The top portion of the skull he also placed in the lathe later on.

  Once the space finished inside the skull for the custom computer system that he would create later, he then drilled holes where the tabs were on the main part of the skull, drilled holes on the top part, and counter-sank them. Then he added titanium hex bolts and fastened the skull together. He made sure that there was a quality fit and finish and added a small rubber seal around the inside edge of the cap of the skull, to prevent any water or other fluids from getting in, just in case.

  The skull was complete once he polished it, and Morse marveled at it, proud of himself. The hardest bone of this body was complete.

  He repeated this over two hundred more times for the rest of her skeleton. Morse then used a very hard, rubberized substance for the cartilage and joints, made molds, and began stringing the titanium bones together. The tendons were next that went in the molds, ligaments, and muscles; this process was tedious, and took a considerable amount of time.

  After about three weeks of working, the skeleton hung by the chains on the frame he constructed, and it looked strange. Morse realized that all the joints would need some kind of tiny lubrication system, even though all the joints had the rubberized material, and it was smooth, it may start to bind at some point, so he set up an entire network of tiny hoses. They all fed to a tiny reservoir near the back of the neck. He then added a special lubricant that slowly dripped through the hoses, keeping the joints lubed for a month or more he calculated. That way, one could drain the old fluid out the bottom of the feet as an android oil change, and the tiny amount of fluid would not amount to much of a mess.

  Next came the muscles in the body, one of the most difficult parts of this crazy venture. The reason for this was simple: there are so many muscles in the body, and each one would require two wires that would route up through the spine directly to the computer brain. In Morse’s supplies, he also bought a roll of micro wire since these wires were nearly indestructible yet could carry enough voltage to move the synthetic muscle. After much time on the computer designing a nervous system, he realized that it would only work with four distribution nodes, one for each limb. In that way, there would not be a choke of wires heading to the brain. Which would mean there would be one command wire, and one power wire going from the limbs to the brain. Morse could not make his machine the way Data on Star Trek had, where he could disassemble him. He only believed he knew how to copy very closely something God had already constructed. At least he could fool people into thinking this girl was real.

  Once he
attached all the muscles to their locations, he then proceeded with making a tongue. There were a number of small muscles in the tongue that he covered with the out section, making it a natural color, and ensuring it did not exceed the natural movements of a human tongue. This process was more than difficult, but at last achieved.

  Then, high quality microphones he installed where the eardrums would be, and a voice box added in the neck. The voice box he made closely resembled the voice box in a normal person on the outside, but was all technology on the inside.

  Then he installed lungs that would only serve to make this girl look like she was really breathing, and maybe blow up balloons. Since women tend to be belly-breathers, he added one there as well. Next, he assembled and installed a fluid pump and a reservoir for the circulatory system. He would later connect the system to various areas of the skin, to give warmth the skin, and a pulse. The pump was similar to a regular heart and would have a beat as one.

  Morse went on to installing eyes, high-tech cameras that look just like human eyes, which he got at great expense from Japan. He added the small synthetic muscles that controlled eye movements, and using the main computer, tested every system he installed. Morse adjusted the eye movements and can see in the computer monitor what they eyes see.

  Once he completed this, he stopped working on the body for a moment. The next two weeks he used the computer components he bought to make a brain. This was brain was just a very cutting-edge computer that would fit comfortably in the skull cavity. Knowing that the computer would need to keep cool, he made up a vent through the skull, through the ears, inside a bit where no one would ever see.

  Morse set up a tiny, silent exhaust fan to make sure the computer brain stayed cool. Also knowing that she would someday get wet, he created a door for each ear vent so that they could close with water seals when they detected moisture at any of these sensors. Using the circulatory system, he derived a secondary cooling system with a small radiator underneath the computer brain. These little systems were immense for Morse, and became frustrated many times, but eventually got it. He tested the cooling systems and they worked.

  The next step was the main battery, small enough to fit in the stomach cavity, but big enough to power the android for two days with moderate muscle usage. He installed two power switches, a main one in the lower back and a secondary in the back of the wrist. He placed them both on the right-hand side for economical wiring.

  When he finished with the battery, he fashioned some filler that was very similar to intestines, only they had no use other than packing peanuts. This safeguarded the battery would not ever be heard clunking around, no matter how hard she landed. He also fashioned with perfection the reproductive parts and designed them to be cleaned without much effort should one consider using them.

  Morse had been working on little Amy for months now, using the same neurotic attention to detail he used on the Charger, and finally, it was time for the skin. He picked up the body and laid it in the scanner to have it give the dimensions of the skinless android. He removed her from it, set her beside the bench, and used the lathe he used for her skeleton to create epidural molds in eight section blocks of hard plastic. Retrieving the sheets of very expensive, synthetic skin now, he pressed the sections of them into the molds. In doing so, he created, with extreme precision, every pore.

  So now Morse had two long pieces of skin, and if anyone saw him at this point, they would think he was Buffalo Bob from the Silence of the Lambs. He positioned the back half of the skin on the bench. He went back to the body, used the measurements from the mold to make up for any imperfections, and added silicone-like material to areas of the body that warranted it, applying a powerful boning agent that made it simple to replace any of her parts.

  He slathered the skinless body with a type of clear grease and put the front half of the skin on. He constructed a metal form that, with the body laying down, would fit snugly around the body halfway up. The purpose of this was to make sure the skin was the correct tautness, and all the limbs would move freely without any unnatural scrunching.

  Connecting all the hoses to the areas of the skin that had capillaries moving toward them, he bonded them tightly, so there was no circulatory system leakage between the skin and the body and tested his work. There were no leaks and could move on the next stage.

  Now it was time to bond the two skin halves together, which was a matter of making sure the tautness remained accurate and using a heated metal roller with skin patterning on it to meld the two pieces into one piece. This process was time consuming and tedious, but the excitement in Morse’s face was evident.

  He cut the nostrils and connected the muscles that blink the eyelids to the skin. He fused the ears to their canals and continued along in that manner for all the other orifices of her body. Morse no longer saw a grim, skinless body, he now saw a hairless girl laying on his workbench.

  He checked all the movements of her legs and arms manually to observe how her skin behaved. They all appeared to look natural. Morse fetched a metal chair from the storeroom in the back, added arm restraints, and bolted it to the floor. He ran a computer cable from the computer to the head of the chair. Morse hoisted up Amy and sat her in the chair and plugged in the cable to a USB 3.0 port in the back of her neck, a port imbedded in her neck bone that connected to her brain.

  With a grunt, he noticed he forgot to install the soles of her feet. He made molds of the bottom of her feet using the lathe and made them from a harder rubber. He then attached them to her feet and made the job seamless.

  The final step was to attach hair to her. Morse had ordered natural human hair, some woman somewhere shaved her whole head, and he acquired it through a wig retailer. He had considered the fake hair stores offered, but it was definitely not for him. He made certain the woman that this hair came from had the same color hair and was very close to Kara’s age. He used a hair plug technique and added one strand at a time to every spot on her head that the surface of her hair called for it. This was also tedious and time consuming. Of course, Morse insisted he get eyebrows from the same girl, and there they were, in the box separate from the long hair.

  A week he spent on her hair alone and when it finished, there she was. Amy did not appear to be a fake looking doll, but indistinguishable from Kara, except with no life yet. The lubricant system Morse invented for her joints and replicated reproduction organs, he also used for her eyes, so that when she blinked, her eyelids would not bind up.

  Morse brushed Amy’s new hair, put it in a ponytail to keep it out of the way of the computer interface in her neck, and started the main computer in her brain. Blank, but all the little systems were connected and ready for programming, and Morse hated programming computers, hated code, but he started one muscle at a time, until he had groups of muscles working to move an arm, or a leg, or turn her head.

  Once the basics were down in her brain, it slowly continued. Almost a year later, Morse had to go to bed, so he did. He forgot to stop a diagnostic he started, he had gotten her to kind of walk, but she kept falling down.

  Chapter Six

  There was a noise coming from the lab late in the night, and Morse came down to see what the racket was. It turned out Amy arose from her chair that he never bothered to strap her to since she should not have been capable of autonomy just yet. Still, she started walking on her own and walked into the wall and continued trying to walk through it.

  “Stop Amy,” Morse hollered.

  The girl stopped and remained there, starring at nothing, only the wall.

  “Take five steps back,” he said to make space between her and the wall.

  She obeyed with effort.

  By this time, Morse had taught her basic voice commands, but the complexity of walking or doing anything was formidable. He had to write an entire program just for her to walk, and she did for the first time that night.

  He was ecstatic, “Amy’s first steps! Good girl,” he said hugging her, but all she did was cor
rect herself so she could maintain complete erectness.

  “Turn around,” Morse instructed, and Amy gingerly turned herself around and stopped.

  Now he instructed, “Walk.” She began, walking toward her chair. When she got to it, he said, “Stop….Turn around….Sit in the chair.”

  She followed his instructions exactly.

  Morse jumped for joy, “Yes!” He made 80s victory elbow jerking movements with his hand in a fist. “I did it! She’s alive!”

  Amy only remained in her position in the chair with a blank look on her face, and Morse decided to work on her a while longer.

  He began teaching her words and phrases and fine-tuned her voice a little bit. Then, he shut her down and went to bed.

  The next day, Morse realized it was time to put some clothes on the poor girl. Still completely naked, he went to the storage room and brought out some clothes he bought for her. He the underwear and bra on her, but he considered her a bit dusty now, so using a cotton cloth and mild soapy water, gave her a nice wipe. As soon as that was finished, he put her blue jeans and black t-shirt on her. He slipped her black socks on, along with her fall black boots, (he observed while shopping all the well-dressed ladies of all ages wearing some sort of boots that season). He took her in, stepping back and laughed.

  “Great! Now I am dressing dolls!”

  Still chuckling at himself, he sat down at the computer, and booted her up. Her head moved up and froze. He went on to install a program in her that allowed her to learn things on her own, a program he had hijacked from work, then improved on it a bit for this application.

  Morse’s plan was to improve Amy’s motor skills enough to walk to the diner down the road with him and back to see if anyone notices anything different about her. Morse had been working on Amy for about two full years at this time, while being a recluse in the process.