The Story of Candy Apple - Android
Page 22

   Her new body was very uncomfortable. So many sensations rushed through her all at once and threatened to overwhelm her circuits. Candy could feel almost every part of her body all at once. It was strange enough to have toes but to be able to feel them too... There was simply way too much information coming in for her to process. She wished she had spent some time studying what to expect from her new body. “Hello, sleeping beauty,” a decidedly masculine voice said. Candy opened her eyes.
   “I’m Jack Stryker, I’m the one who brought your body up here,” he said. “They said you need to get out of here to make room for real sick people. I brought you something to wear, and I’ll take you to the quarters that have been assigned to you.”
   Candy couldn't help but notice that Jack was a fine example of a human male. His uniform fit snuggly in all the right places, especially across his broad shoulders and chest. He must work out a lot, she thought. “I don't know if I can move at this time,” Candy replied. “This body is providing me with way more data than I am used to, and I am having trouble processing the information.”
   Jack smiled with his eyes more than his mouth. He reached down and squeezed one of Candy’s toes. “Can you feel that?” he asked.
   “Yes,” Candy replied.
   Jack then poked her foot. “Can you feel that?”
   “Yes.”
   Jack worked all the way up Candy’s leg before starting on her arm and then moving to her torso. Each time he’d poke or prod some part of her body he’d ask if she could feel what he was doing. When he poked her nose Candy lost it. “Look, I can feel everything you are doing,” she said frustrated and a tad angry at what the human was doing to her. “Would you stop poking me?!”
   “How do you feel now?” Jack asked in reply.
   Candy realized she had forgotten about all the information that was flooding her system. “I’m..., fine,” she said hesitantly.
   Jack helped Candy to sit up. “I read the operation manual that came with your body,” Jack said. “A new Angel out of the box would not have had any problems, but you did not come with a standard brain. It said an old brain in an Angel's body could experience sensory overload. Your new brain can handle the information, but the part that is your old brain isn't used to all the information coming in. The book said to find a way to distract you so you'd stop thinking about all the information you were being bombarded with and after that, you should be fine as you adjust to your new body which can still take a while.”
   Clothes were a new experience and not used to the synthetic muscles and the new type of joints Candy felt less than graceful walking, but the box they had assigned her was a docking station for a general service android. “I’m not going to stay in that,” Candy said with a fair amount of indignation.
   “What’s wrong with it?” Jack asked.
   “It’s a box!” Candy replied.
   “So?”
   “Obviously you people have never dealt with a personal companion android before. Our needs are different.”
   “Where do you stay when you’re not being used?” Jake asked.
   “I’ve never not been used,” Candy replied. “Give me a bed, a couch, or a chair, I’ll even sleep on the floor, but I’m not going to stay in a box.”
   Jack found he liked this spitfire of an android. He instinctively knew she wasn’t going to budge an inch. “Look, it’s getting late; I’ll take you back to our section of the ship and put you up in one of our guestrooms. We’ll work something out with the captain tomorrow,” he said.
   “Can I get the instruction manual that came with my body too?” Candy asked ever so sweetly.
   Jack smiled at her with his beautiful blue eyes and Candy felt like she could melt into a molten pool of plastic and metal right there. “Sure thing,” he said.