Chapter Two: The Training
The sizzle of cheap but effective electronics filled Julie's bedroom. Tanya sat on the bed in a white peasant's blouse and her short white skirt, swinging her bare feet above the floor. In her hands she held an instructional guide of a few dozen basic commands that might come up in the ownership of a homunculus, or "hunkulous" as the girls were fond of calling it. More accurately, they called this one "Fred" and had names picked out for the other three still formulating.
"What's next, Tanya?" Julie asked, hunched at her desk before the electronic brace holding their experiment, one index finger poised above a large red button.
"Um... what'd we just do? Halt?"
"Yeah, halt. How many more we got?"
"Quite a bit. We're over halfway there, though."
Julie grumbled at that. Tanya said the next command was "climb" and recited a string of numbers. Julie connected various short red wires into holes labeled with those numbers and hit the red button. The machinery holding the homunculus began to grind and manipulate the tiny humanoid figure's limbs into a pattern of movement that emulated climbing. Along with this, Julie and Tanya both loudly repeated the word "climb" into small microphones connected to the mechanism. The idea was to imprint various verbal patterns that meant nothing to the homunculus but the association with a certain movement. It wouldn't understand what climbing was, but when you commanded "climb," its insect-like intelligence would jerk into a response pattern that emulated what it was being trained to do in the mechanical brace. Julie and Tanya both had to speak the word so it would recognize their voices; no one else would be able to command "Fred" to do anything at all. Which suited the girls just fine - no one needed to know about Fred except them. And when Fred was destroyed, if he broke down or the girls injured it too badly, they wouldn't need to go through the tedious procedure of programming a new homunculus: all their commands were being stored on a voice chip and the mechanism would go through the training procedure of its own accord for four hours, as opposed to the dedicated eight to ten hours the girls had to endure to train the first homunculus. A lot of work, but the girls adamantly felt it would be worth it.
In fact, if Julie found the need to program new commands into the homunculus, commands not covered in the manual of instructions (and for obvious reasons, Golly Gee Golemics could hardly provide a comprehensive set of instructions), there were instructions to program the mechanical training brace to teach customized manoeuvers and behaviors for "personal use" (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). Julie took some time out to master these instructions and intended to teach Fred a few tricks not covered in the initial instruction, oh yes.
After a few hours, the girls had completed the training process. "Is he ready to go?" Tanya asked, brown doe eyes glittering.
Julie surveyed the instructions one final time. "I think so," she said at last.
"Finally!" Tanya pulled herself up and went to her friend's side at the desk, studying the little chemical product. "What now?"
"Well, um... I think we can let him out." Julie glanced at Tanya apprehensively, unsure of what to expect. "Um... if he tries to get away, grab him or something, okay?"
"I ain't grabbin' him," the dusky girl swore. "If he comes near me, I'm fuckin' swattin' him with your damn Trig book."
Sighing heavily, Julie said, "Okay, I guess that's good enough. Just... don't freak out, awight?"
"I'm cool, I'm cool if he is." Though the manuals referred to the homunculi as "it," the girls already agreed Fred would be a "he," despite lack of any genitalia. They didn't feel any pressing need to entertain a tiny humanoid sister in the bedroom.
"Okay, I'm letting him out," Julie breathed, cautious. Her long arms reached over to the training mechanism and her spindly fingers stretched to undo the clasps that held the tiny figure in straps and gears. The girls held their breath as the last one was undone and the dark blue plastic doors swung open on the little chamber, and they got to view their tiny creation for the first time.
The homunculus stood stock still in the chamber. It had the shape of a cheap cloth doll, with long stumps for arms and legs, no defined hands/feet or fingers/toes. The semi-spherical head, flattened front and back, bore nothing more than a dark brown smiley-face pattern on the fore, representing the face as well as the front of the creation. This was stamped on in the training mechanism after the formulation of the outer skin, as an arbitrary designation of the "front" of the creature; the manufacturers never intended it to be as disturbing as many consumers found it.
"That's fucking sick," Tanya said.
Julie shrugged in her grey tanktop. "I dunno... it's kinda cute, isn't it?" Tanya insisted she didn't like it. "Fine," said her friend, "then you go through Teen Rag magazine and find a picture of one of the Pantywaists, cut it out, and we'll paste it on Fred's head, okay? Will that make you feel better?"
Tickled with the idea Tanya went on her quest. "Should I give him Jordan's face? Or maybe Ricky's? Ooh, no! Porters'!"
"Whatever, Tanya! C'mere, I'm going to call him out!" Tanya quickly snipped out a picture of Porter and accompanied her friend. Julie asked her, "You wanna call him out or me?"
"You go ahead, Jules, you been programming him all this time. I'm too freaked out right now."
Julie nodded and leaned into the training mechanism. "Fred... come here."
The homunculus obediently lurched forward to pitch out of its plastic chamber and balanced itself perfectly on its stumpy legs, walking out to the edge of the desk. Julie and Tanya stared with wide eyes.
"Whoa, trippy," opined Tanya.
Nodding, Julie said, "Okay, Fred... sit down." Immediately, but none too fast, the fleshy little automaton sat down on what passed for its butt, eliciting nervous giggles from the two girls. "Wave, Fred," Julie commanded next, and one featureless arm reached up to waggle above its head.
Laughing, Tanya said, "Jack off, Fred!" As this command wasn't covered in its instructions, the little figure made a gesture of shrugging, as per its programming. The girls thought this was hilarious and tried a rapid-fire string of commands it hadn't been taught, provoking the same response each time. When they tired of this game, they plucked up the tiny little Fred and placed it in the center of Julie's bed - its confusion and cute little movements quickly endeared it to the girls and staved off any feelings of creepiness or alienation.
"Well, you wanna go first?" Tanya asked, looking at the little figure lying in the middle of the bedspread.
"No, that's okay," Julie said, "you can play with it a while. I'll just watch."
Tanya actually climbed up on Julie's bed and stood with her feet on either side of the tiny figure. Placing one hand on the wall for balance, she slowly raised one short foot up and lowered it upon the homunculus, which gave no reaction. Tanya turned to her friend, "Hey, do you think it can smell?" She placed her big toe on the smiley face and held it down.
"It doesn't breathe, as far as I can figure out," Julie said. "It doesn't even really eat, like we do. We soak it in a glass of water with five aspirin dissolved in it, overnight, and that's how it gets its nutrition."
"That's weird," said the Latina, and pressed down harder on the smiley face with her big toe. She felt the liquid goosh out of the head and swell up in Fred's chest, welling up under the ball of her foot, and she yelped and jerked her foot away. "Oh, my God!" she shrieked. "I think I broke it!"
"What'd you do!?" yelled Julie. "We just trained the fucking thing! Tell me you didn't break it already!"
"I just pressed down on it with my toe and crushed its head and its chest swelled up! Is it okay?"
Julie leafed through the instruction while Tanya examined the homunculus. The chest slowly deflated and the head filled back up. "Fred... sit up," Tanya said, and the tiny person did so. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned to her friend who was reading the instructions.
"Looks like he's fine," said Julie. "Apparently he's just filled with some kind of liquid... no organs or bones or anything. All his nerves and muscles are in his skin. If you squash him, it says here that the liquid can be easily cleaned up, and the skin just dries out into something like leather that can be thrown away or used for crafts." She looked at the tiny man sitting up on her bed. "Fucking morbid, man."
Tanya laughed with relief and gave Fred a nudge with her toe, knocking him backwards. His legs stuck up in the air for a moment before he struggled to right himself, going back to the 'sit up' position of his last command. Tanya held her foot before him and laughed as his tiny arms tried to push her toes away so he could sit up. Eventually he scooted back and sat up properly. "He tickles," she laughed.
"Lemme try," said Julie, coming over to the bed. Tanya climbed down and the tall blonde girl sat at the head of her bed, stretching her long, thin legs on either side of tiny Fred. Today she wore jeans cutoff shorts and bare feet. Planting one foot on the bedspread and drawing her knee up at an angle, she slid her foot over to Fred's side. "Fred... stand up." He did. "Face left." He did. "Fred, reach out... hold." His tiny arms grasped her ankle. "Now, climb." Tanya stared on in fascination as Fred balanced himself on Julie's foot, reaching up her shin, then grasping into her leg just enough to pull himself up a few inches. Holding his place with his legs, he reached up for another grasp and in this method slowly shimmied up Julie's shin. Both girls were rapt in their focus on their "hunkulous." When he reached Julie's knee he froze and awaited the next command.
Julie brought her face in close and breathed, "Fred... climb down." Immediately Fred started to back track down her shin. Julie interrupted his descent: "No, the other way, Fred." The homunculus paused for a moment, then climbed back up her knee. His tiny, featureless arms reached out and felt around for the topography of her leg, deciding that her thigh must be "the other way." The tiny body swiveled itself on her kneecap and started its descent down her thigh. His body was room temperature on Julie's skin, and his grip was soft but firm as he dug into her thigh muscle and widened his grip around her strong, athletic leg. Both girls studied his progress breathlessly.
When he reached her hip he paused for a moment, then started to work his way to the mattress by way of her outer pelvis. Very quietly, Julie said, "No, the other way," and Fred climbed back up and then down her inner thigh. His tiny body lost its grip and fell the rest of the way to the mattress. He stood up immediately, attempting to regain his balance and leaning against the crotch of Julie's cutoffs to do so.
Both girls' hearts were pounding, but Julie was the first to speak.
"Play with him all you want right now, because I get him tonight," she said.
Tanya didn't know what to say, looking at her friend, and was about to reach for the tiny man between Julie's long legs when the sound of a door slamming and an adult calling from downstairs broke their trance. Julie hastily stashed Fred beneath her pillow, ordering him to "stay," and Tanya's face melted into a pout. One or the other of Julie's parents were home, and neither would feel safe in playing with Fred while there was an adult in the house, as adults were known to silently creep up to bedrooms and burst in unexpectedly. It was time for her to go home, but Julie promised her she would get Fred the next night. And besides, there were more homunculi formulating, so in another few days they wouldn't even have to share, Julie pointed out.
Tanya would get no sleep that night, imagining heatedly of all the things she'd do with Fred. Julie didn't get much sleep either, but that was because she had Fred, the consumer-grade homunculus of Golly Gee Golemics, Inc.