Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 15:58:02 EST
From: AmateurishWriter@aol.com
Subject: M.A.R.C. Ch. 19

M.A.R.C.

Warning: The following story is a work of fiction.  It is a fantasy.  It
never happened, except in the author's imagination.  This story may contain
sex between teenage boys, a man and a teenage boy or multiple male teens.
The author does not encourage or condone sex between adults and little
children. If you are underage, or this is illegal where you are, you
already know what you're supposed to do.  Delete this file and find
something else.  If this kind of story turns you off, delete this file and
find something else.  If you're looking for a story that has someone having
sex in every other sentence, this one is not it.

The author retains the copyright for this story.  Placing this story on a
commercial web site or in print without the authors permission is a
violation of that copyright.

Disclaimer: M.A.R.C. is in no way related to a certain movie character or
characters of a similar age and construction and/or recently released
sci-fi movie.  Any and all similarities are purely coincidental.

Comments to AmateurishWriter@aol.com, pro and con and of a constructive
nature, will be gratefully received and acknowledged, if possible.  Flamers
will be ignored.


               * * * * * * Dear Readers * * * * * *
It has been very nice getting occasional e-mail from all of you kind
readers.  I am very flattered and gratified that you have enjoyed
M.A.R.C. so much that you keep writing and asking for more.  My brain has
been elsewhere since September 11th but the other night something clicked
and off I went, back into Marc's world.  I'll try to keep chapters coming
but they wont be as fast as Part One.  I'm also working on some other
projects which will take up a good part of my writing time.  Thanks so much
for your interest and support.
               * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Part Two - Life goes on

Author's Note and Reintroduction

My name is Marc.  Just Marc.  No official last name.  Or none that I know
of anyway.  However, I have used the last name 'Furst' on occasion.  I kind
of get a chuckle out of it as you'll understand in a moment.

If you remember, Marc is an acronym.  It is short for Male Adolescent
Recreational Companion ... M.A.R.C.  Or just Marc.  I'm 13.  Well, I look
13.  As I write this I'm really much older as a great many years have
passed since I gained consciousness for the first time.  But, I still look
just 13.

To explain, I was the first fully functional adolescent android and this is
my story.  Well, John's and my story.  The story of how it all started.  It
is written from John's perspective.  I did this because I knew it would
please him and make him very happy.  You see, John was my first father.

To briefly go back; John had retired from his marketing firm at age 44,
having sold it.  At the beginning of our story, some five months later, he
had been using his new found free time to investigate all sorts of high
tech and scientifically intriguing companies for investment purposes.  What
he discovered proved to be far more life changing than a simple financial
investment.

In his investigations he began to see a pattern of relationships in a
number of firms that whet his curiosity.  He was particularly intrigued by
some apparent medical breakthroughs that, on the surface, seemed to be
unrelated.  A variety of companies, all over the country and some smaller
ones in Europe and Japan, had made significant advances in things like
prosthetics, skin grafting, organ transplants, gene technology, processors,
data storage, software ... the list seemed nearly endless.  Each company
and it's individual breakthrough, taken on their own, did not seem anything
other than fortuitous for investors and those that needed, for example, a
limb or an organ replacement.  It was a time of great strides in medical
technology that rivaled and even surpassed the technological strides after
World War Two and the so called computer revolution.

Then John discovered the key piece to what he had come to view as a life
sized jigsaw puzzle.  An executive's name that appeared randomly, though
irrefutably related to each and every one of these breakthroughs.  The man
in question seemed to have put together a consortium of these companies as
subcontractors, the purpose of which John only had the vaguest of inklings.
However, what piqued John's interest the most was the man's name.

It was the name of a lost love.  Eddie had been John's one and only boy
love.  John had been 19 and Eddie had been 13.  They were lovers for over
two years until Eddie's mother made them break it off.  It had nearly
broken John's spirit for he had truly loved the boy with all his heart.
The past twenty-three years had scarred over the hurt but seeing his name
made it all come rushing back.  It took all the courage that John could
muster to send the first e-mail.  Would Eddie be angry or just unfriendly
or had his love been everlasting, as John's had been?  It proved to have
been so and their first contact after all those years was warm, kind and
friendly.

They met, renewed their acquaintance as friends and Eddie recruited John
into the consortium, as an independent contractor, for his research and
marketing skills.  That was how John and I first met.  I was the very new
product that John was to research and market.  And, as cold and
dispassionate as it may sound, I turned out to be John's compensation.  It
was the most wonderful day of my short life.

Now, let's pickup the story the night that I first learned of my true
nature, that I was not a human boy but an artificial life form.  An
android.


Chapter Nineteen - A Dream of Memories

Consciousness.

Awareness.

Thought.

White.

Pain.

Searing white.

What is this hot white?  No, it's cool white.  What is it?

"Can you hear me?"

Huh?  His mind spun.  What was that?

What was that?  His spinning mind wondered again.  Was that thought ... or
sound ... or both?  Was the white ... light?

"Marc?  Can you hear me?"

A question.  His mind struggled.  It was a question.  It was sound and it
was a question.  A voice.  Someone was asking a question.  Someone was
asking someone named Marc a question.

"Try Marc.  I know you can hear me."

He breathed ... swallowed and felt his throat move ... and his tongue.
Yes, he had a throat.  And, a tongue.  He coughed and choked and cleared
his throat.

"That's it Marc.  Keep trying.  You'll get it."

His spinning mind slowed and cleared a little.  He was Marc.  The question
was for him.  He tried to speak again and coughed again, though less than
before.

Then he breathed once more and spoke.  Barely a whisper.  "Yes.  Hear.  I
... I hear.  I think and I hear."

"Good.  Good boy Marc."

The voice was warm and friendly but businesslike at the same time.

"This will help."  A cool soft dampness blocked out the white.

Time passed.  His spinning mind understood time.  Time passed and he calmed
and relaxed.  The cool soft dampness allowed the white to come back but it
was not so white.  Not so intense.  There were ... there were shapes.
Fuzzy shapes ... and ... and colors.  The shapes and colors moved.

"Is that better Marc?  Can you see better now?"

"See? ... See.  Yes, I see.  It was light.  The white was light ... and
there is smell.  Something smells sweet."  He continued to whisper.

A shape moved in his blurred sight and he felt the cool soft dampness again
and the light was gone again for a moment.  Felt?  Felt ... these were
senses.  He had senses.  Then the light was back and the shapes were
clearer.

"Can you see me now?"

See me?  The moving shape?  The moving shape that smelled delicately sweet.
"Yes.  I can see you now."  His voice was stronger.

The shape smiled warmly.  "Hello Marc.  My name is Sharon and I will be
helping you over the next few days."

"Help ... helping me?"

A wave of prickly coldness flashed through the boy's body.  It was fear and
it showed on his face.

"It's okay Marc," the delicately sweet smelling Sharon soothed.  "You're
safe.  I'm here."  She gently stroked his forehead with the cool damp
cloth.

He trembled.  "Here?  Where's here?  What? ... Who? ..."  He tried to raise
up but couldn't.  He was weak.

Sharon placed her hand gently on his shoulder and continued to softly
speak, trying to soothe and reassure the boy.  "You are fine but you must
rest Marc."

He was still confused.  "But.  Why am I ... where is this?"

"You aren't hurt at all but you're in the clinic Marc."  She chose her
words carefully, trying to avoid scaring him.  "You fainted, that's all."
It was a small lie.

"Fainted?  How?  Why?"

He was getting a little agitated again.  Sharon brought the damp cloth to
Marc's forehead and, at the same time, Marc noticed that she made a small
motion with her other hand.  A technician on the other side of the glass
partition saw the signal and typed into his work station.

"You're still tired Marc.  Sleep a little while longer and then you'll feel
better."  She gently ran her hand over his forehead and smoothed his soft
light blond hair back.  The boy closed his eyes and appeared to drift off
to sleep.

Sharon went to the intercom and made a call.  A few minutes later a man
arrived.

"Good morning Sharon.  How are you this fine morning?"  His management
style was friendly and informal.

"I'm fine thanks and good morning to you too Ed."  Her smile was warm and
confident.

Ed joined her at the boy's bedside and consulted his notes.  "Was he
conscious?"

"Well," she sighed.  "He successfully gained consciousness but was a little
frightened so I had the technician induce a light sleep."

The boy's need to hear proved stronger than the technician's efforts to
have him doze and, though quite sleepy, he carefully kept his eyes closed
and listened as best he could.

"Any idea what had him frightened?"

"From the way he gained consciousness, the things that he said, I suspect
the memories didn't fully take."

"Damn!"  It wasn't often that Eddie let his frustration show.  "We have to
be sure that when they gain consciousness for the first time, they have
something familiar to anchor them."

"You know I completely agree with you Ed."  Sharon was sympathetic.  "As
far as I'm concerned, the study of amnesiacs verifies it.  They all,
without exception, experience some emotional trauma when they regain
consciousness.  With familiar memories, even just a few, significant
problems can be avoided.  We showed that with the early adult models.
Personally, I think it is even more important with a child model."

"You are absolutely right." Ed smiled.  "I appreciate your support Sharon.
Do you think there was any damage?"

"No.  He wasn't conscious very long.  The technician will be running a
diagnostic on him in a few minutes.  The memory code will be reinstalled
and verified and then we will wake him up again this afternoon."

Ed smiled his approval.  "It seems you are handling everything just fine
Sharon but I appreciate your calling me down."

"Thank you Ed."  She absently brushed the boy's hair back from his forehead
again with an uncharacteristic show of affection.  "He really is quite a
sweet looking one."

Ed chuckled at that.  "Yes, I have something very special planned for our
first android boy so I want him as close to perfect as possible."

Marc sat bolt upright, his eyes flew wide open and he was instantly wide
awake but the room was dark.

He looked around.  Out the window, nearly on the horizon, he could see the
bright running lights of a fishing trawler making its way down the coast to
the East.  Then he looked down and saw John sound asleep, completely
unaware of the wakeful and frightened little android boy by his side.

Shaking off the dream, Marc carefully slid off the bed, so as not to
disturb John, and went into the bathroom to pee.  He marveled at this
common but necessary activity.  He was an android, artificial intelligence,
an artificial life form and yet ... and yet ...  He was still awash in awe
at the magnitude of it all.  He didn't feel like part machine and part
living tissue.  But then, what should that feel like?  He felt like a boy,
a human boy.  But then, what did a human boy feel like?  He didn't know the
answers to either question and decided that it didn't really matter.  He
felt like himself and it was good.

As he quietly made his way back to bed, forgetting to wash his hands just
like any other boy, he gazed down at John again.  He stood by the bed
looking at the peacefully sleeping man and something else, the equal to the
awesomeness of his very existence, came to mind; He loved this man ... and
he knew that he, even as an android boy, was unconditionally loved in
return.

Next: Chapter Twenty - Overload