Title: Automatic
Lover.
Point of view: April.
Time frame: During
Episode 16 “Rescue Me”.
Includes some material from BtVS episodes “I Was Made to
Love You”, “Intervention”, “The Gift”, and “Bargaining”,
all rights to which remain with the original writers and copyright holders.
Booting:
Loading
operating system:
Initializing
new hardware:
Setting up
new program files:
Updating
system information:
Loading
startup folder:
System
check:
Status: operational.
Detecting
audio input: human voice.
“There. I think that should be it. She should be up and running in a moment.”
Detecting
video input: human female. Recognition search: identified.
Red haired female previously encountered at UC Sunnydale during search
for
Detecting
video input: human female. Recognition search: identified.
Blonde haired female. Previous encounters UC Sunnydale,
open area in front of
Analysis of
data from encounters started.
Analysis
complete. Buffy is
a friend.
Deduction
from situation: red-haired female has repaired all damage and restored power
supplies.
Conclusion: red-haired female is presumed friendly.
Begin
interaction.
“Hello. I’m April.
Have you seen
Receiving
audio input, source red haired female.
“Oh, no,
we’re back to that again. Oops.”
New data
input, source new file folder ‘JennyBarton’, link
word ‘boyfriend’.
Old data:
‘Warren’
‘Boyfriend’
really smart
handsome
best lover
snappy dresser
good dancer
New data:
Good
boyfriends, names Julius/Ross/Brian/Jack/_?. A good boyfriend is loyal and caring and
makes you laugh. A good boyfriend watches
TV with you and gives you cuddles. A
good boyfriend sits with you at the hospital and tries to make you feel better
when something bad happens, even if you are not fun to be with at that time. A good boyfriend fights to protect you and
your friends. A good boyfriend keeps his
promises.
Bad
boyfriend, name Mark Naylor/_?. A bad boyfriend lies to you. A bad boyfriend harms you. A bad boyfriend does things that take away
your power. A bad boyfriend helps other
people to harm you.
Comparing
data. Analyzing.
Analysis
complete.
Receiving
audio input, source Buffy. “I’m not
going to lie to her,
“Hello, Buffy. I remember you. We fought, and I got tired, and it got dark,
and we sat on the swings and talked. I
was experiencing negative feedback. You
made it feel better. You are a good
person.”
Buffy:
“Thanks. So you’re not angry at me any
more?”
“I hurt the
other girl. You were protecting
her. I was wrong to hurt her.
Red headed
girl: “You’re so right. Hello,
April. I’m
Link,
new data, source sub-folder ‘incomplete file fragments/BuffyBot’.
‘
best
friend
gay
(1999 – present)
witch
good
with computers
“You’re my
best friend. You’re recently gay.”
Further
new data, source new file folder ‘JennyBarton’,
sub-folders ‘incomplete file fragments/BuffyBot’, ‘JennyData’.
‘Vampires of
the world, beware.’
‘Those are
my weapons. Give me something big and
sharp.’
‘People. Friends of mine. You’re forgetting the most important
thing. Glory has Spike and she’s going
to harm him.’
‘You’re
right. He’s evil. But you should see him naked. I mean, really.’
‘I notice
you’re talking, whereas in your position I would attack me.’
‘That’ll put
marzipan in your pie plate, bingo!’
‘I do! I want you to stay here as well. You’re my sister!’
‘I don’t
think I know of a breed of humans that small.
Who’s going to live there?’
‘My homing
device locates you when I am injured. I
am programmed to go to you.’
‘I think
Spike stopped liking me.’
‘
‘Dawn. You’re my sister, Dawn.’
‘Where did I
go? I was here. Here.
But then I ran away. No. Not me.
The other Buffy.’
‘I am from
‘Are we
supposed to try to get to the end first?’
‘I have
dreams. In my dreams I am somebody else.’
‘I’m sorry,
Louise, I don’t know if I can come to sleep over. I am stuck in Debenhams
in
‘Bite my
shiny metal ass!’
‘Oh sit
down, oh sit down, sit down next to me.’
‘Do you want
me to kill him?’
‘Can I have
my belly-button pierced?’
‘If you
could be my punk-rock princess, I could be your garage band king, you could
tell me why you just don’t fit in, and how you’re gonna be something.’
‘You look
really handsome with your new glasses.
Some of the other girls want you to be their boyfriend.’
‘I am going
to find that person or persons. I am
going to make him/her/them be dead.’
Run program
jennymessage.exe
‘April. This is Jenny. I have given you a program which will help
you learn. I have given you some of my
memories to help you. I have given you
knowledge of how to fight very well. I want
you to help Buffy. A very bad man has
killed some of her friends and wants to kill her. I cannot help her because another bad man has
killed my uncle and taken one of my friends away. I have to find her and kill the bad man. Please help Buffy for me. She will be your friend. When the fighting is over I will come to see
you and we can be friends too. Tell her
you have a message for her from Jenny and play wav. file
JennyMessage.wav.’
“Buffy, I
have a message for you from Jenny.”
Buffy
displays change of facial expression indicating surprise:
“Okay,
April, give it to me.”
Play .wav
file.
“Buffy
Summers, this is Jenny Barton. If you
are receiving this then the download and installation must have been
successful. I’m sorry I can’t come to
help you myself, but I’ve got places to go, people to kill. I’ve given April the learning program, and
I’ve incorporated some of my own experiences to help her integrate with
society. I’ve included a lot of combat
skills, both from the original BuffyBot programs and
from things I’ve picked up from Jack, Teresa, and Gabriella. Tell
Don’t let
her fall into the hands of the CIA or the FBI or whatever. They’d either dismantle
her or else start making thousands of copies and send them to conquer anywhere
which doesn’t have a MacDonald’s. She is
not expendable. She is a person. Treat her as one. Don’t call her ‘Bot’,
or ‘Walking Toaster’, or anything like that.
Her name is April.
You can
thank me by joining the campaign to persuade Fox to commission another series
of ‘Futurama’.
Good luck with your psycho serial killer problem. Maybe I’ll meet you in person one day. Bye.”
End .wav
file.
Buffy: “That
bit about ‘places to go, people to kill’ was a little worrying. Oh, what the Hell, I should give a shit about
what happens to people who throw grenades into restaurants? Come on, April, let’s go upstairs and I’ll
introduce you to the gang.”
Buffy: “Like
we can keep secrets from an incorporeal enemy anyway. What do you suggest, Will, we keep April
hiding in the basement forever? Like
that’s going to achieve much. Time to meet everybody, April. You’ll probably think Andrew’s very
strange. Don’t worry about it. We think Andrew’s very strange too.”
I follow
Buffy up the stairs. I notice that I do
not have to devote as much of my processing capacity to movement as I did
before I went to sleep on the swings.
Date/Time Properties reveals that two years have passed since that
day. Performance status check reveals
that my processor speed is three times faster than it was before, also twice as
efficient, and I have eight times as much RAM with twice the previous
speed. I can devote much of my capacity
to thinking even while moving up stairs, which is a complicated task. This would have been impossible before. I mention this to Buffy.
“I can walk
and chew gum at the same time now,” I add.
I have made a Joke. Buffy
laughs. It was a successful joke.
She leads me
into a room full of lots of people. Most
of them are girls. “Hi, guys,” she
greets them. This is an Idiom, not an
incorrect use of gender. Noted. “I want you
all to meet April.”
“Hi, guys,”
I greet them too. “I’m April. Nice to meet you.”
They
introduce themselves. They seem
friendly, except for one who says her name is Kennedy. She says I look old for a Potential.
“I do not
look old!” I tell her. “I don’t think I
like you, Kennedy. Bite my shiny metal
ass!”
FIN