🚀 go-pugleaf

                   TEEN TEAM SUMMER SPECIAL #1

       By Chris Meadows, with consultation by Mason Kramer


    Summer sat down on the bed in her room and  sighed.   It  had
been  a  busy  day.  Phobos had shown her everything there was to
see about Stately Ward Manor from top to  bottom,  including  the
computer  room, the meeting place, kitchen, game room, et cetera.
It seemed that she was accepted here.
    She got up, walked over to  the  bureau,  figuring  that  she
might  as  well  unpack.   She  reached into her lower torso, the
flesh transmuting to silvery liquid metal, and pulled out a large
duffel  bag.   "Who  needs  to check your luggage when you've got
hyperspace?" she chuckled, unzipping it.
    It was the work of a few moments to get  everything  unpacked
and  stored  in  the  drawers.  Afterward, she found she was more
than a little bored.
    "Ha," Summer muttered.  "After making this great  big  change
in  my  life,  I don't feel anything more profound than boredom?"
Well, actually she did, but she'd already decided that  the  time
for those feelings was over.  She just didn't think about it now.
    "Might as  well  head  downstairs  and  check  email  on  the
computer."  So Summer left her room, and walked downstairs to the
computer lab.
    The computer sat in the small room, chugging away  as  usual.
No  one  was  around at the moment.  Summer took a seat at one of
the workstations and logged in.  There wasn't  any  new  personal
email, just some stuff from the RAMROD-L listserv, which she read
and deleted.  She then composed a brief  note  to  Sarah  Conner,
sarah@conner.tergov.ter,   describing   how  her  day  had  gone.
Afterward, there still wasn't anyone  around,  and  there  wasn't
anything  else  she  could  do, so she decided to make a somewhat
closer investigation of the mainframe.
    "Jenny?" Summer asked.  No  response.   Phobos  still  hadn't
programmed in her voice-rec yet.  Typical.  "Okay, Jenny, prepare
for a little company."  Summer stepped up to the mainframe  unit,
then  stepped  into  it,  dissolving  with  a silvery splash that
vanished behind her.

    A few moments later, Summer floated in cyberspace once  more.
It  was a distinctly different experience than occupying the Team
M.E.C.H.A. mainframe had been.  It was like...well,  if  slipping
into  cyberspace  could  be compared to slipping into a hot bath,
then it was  like  being  in  a  differently-shaped  tub  with  a
different water temperature.
    Summer wasn't alone in the Teen  Team's  computer.   Floating
nearby  was  a  humanoid  construct  who Summer guessed had to be
Jenny.  She moved over to take a closer look.
    Jenny  was  a  statuesque   blonde   with   long   legs   and
large...attributes,  clad in a one-piece Teen Team jumpsuit.  She
seemed to be about eighteen. Summer was willing to bet that Mason
had  based her on a picture out of some girlie magazine.  She was
also willing  to  bet  that  this  was  the  reason  why  Jenny's
personification  hadn't  yet  appeared  on any of the holographic
monitors throughout Stately Ward Manor.
    However, for all Jenny's looks, she wasn't  doing...anything.
She was just floating there, staring blankly ahead.  Summer waved
her hand in front of Jenny's face.  No  response.   For  all  the
life she was showing, she might as well have been a Barbie doll.
    Summer  scrutinized   Jenny   more   closely,   instinctively
analyzing the coding that made her what she was.  She didn't know
how she did it, or even exactly what it was  she  was  doing--all
she  knew  was  that  she  COULD, just the way she'd reprogrammed
Marie's Tornado armor suit back in that truck.
    At this level, it was easy to see why Jenny showed no sign of
"life." She didn't HAVE any.  While Mason Kramer, aka Phobos, was
a great programmer, he wasn't superhuman (Well, actually he  WAS,
but  not  in  that  respect).   This  was as far as he, or as any
person, could hope to take  artificial  intelligence.   It  would
respond  in a female voice, it would perform astonishing feats of
computation...but it wasn't "smart" enough to recognize  when  it
was  being  spoken  to  by  someone  not in the voice recognition
files.  Intelligence was here, but not sentience.  It was more of
an  expert  system  than  an artificial intelligence, to tell the
truth.
    Now, Summer, on the other hand, was  something  more.   "This
team  needs  a  better  computer  intelligence than this," Summer
decided.  "So, I think I'll see  what  I  can  do."   She  darted
forward and merged into the AI's program structure.
    From  the  inside,  her  consciousness   permeating   Jenny's
construct,  it was easy to see what had to be done and then to do
it.  By copying parts of herself  into  the  framework  that  was
already  here,  she  could  give Jenny sentience and personality.
She wouldn't  give  Jenny  her  memories...that  would  get  into
philosophical  realms  that  she  didn't  want  to  think  about.
Besides, Jenny already had quite a comprehensive bank of memories
anyway.
    The process took quite  a  while.   Once  she  had  finished,
Summer  stepped back out of Jenny's icon, and waited.  She didn't
have to wait long.
    "What happened?" Jenny asked,  looking  around.   Summer  was
pleased to note the change--where Jenny had been frozen in place,
now she was animated.  She  looked  alive.   She  looked...human.
"One moment, I was...and the next...?"
    "Congratulations," Summer said, beaming.  "You're sentient."

    Phobos, or Mason Kramer to his friends, was in  the  bathroom
adjoining  his  room,  brushing  his teeth.  He was happy, all in
all, about  the  way  things  had  worked  out  recently.   Sure,
Deckmaster  had died, but he was back now...sort of.  And if Team
M.E.C.H.A. had broken up, which was too bad, at  least  it  meant
that Summer was free to join them.  And if Melvin had been rather
unpleasant about it...well, Melvin was Melvin.  At  least  Summer
was here, now...
    "Phobos," a dulcet voice said from an intercom speaker.
    "Yes, Jenny?" Mason asked, taking the toothbrush out  of  his
mouth for a moment to speak.
    "Is  there  anything  I  can  do  for  you?"   Jenny   asked.
"Anything...at all?"
    "What?  Why?"  Jenny wasn't supposed to call to ask if  there
was anything he wanted--it wasn't in her programming.
    "Why, because I love you, silly!"  She giggled.
    Mason nearly choked on his  toothbrush.   "Wha--huh?   Jenny,
who's been messing with your programming?"
    The holographic projector Mason had installed in the  ceiling
of his room blinked to life, projecting an image through the open
bedroom door. It was Jenny, dressed in that  skintight  bodysuit.
Semitransparent  in  holographic  fashion, she leaned in a sultry
pose against the doorsill. "Don't you like the new  me,  Phobos?"
she breathed.
    Phobos gawked.  "I--er--that is..."
    Jenny smiled, and winked out.  "Why don't you come on down to
the  computer lab, lover?" she asked in a voice that sent shivers
up and down his spine.  Then the indicator light on the  intercom
blinked  off.   Mason's toothbrush slipped from numb fingers, and
he nearly fainted dead away.

    Summer pulled herself out of the computer, remolding into her
human  form,  just  as  Phobos  walked  in.  Phobos wasn't new to
Summer's  method  of  transformation--he'd  seen  her  shapeshift
several  times  before.   But  for  her  to  be coming out of the
computer  was  so  startling  that  Mason  stopped  and   gawked,
forgetting momentarily the reason he'd come down.
    "What--what was that?" he asked.  "What were you--"
    "Oh, I was merged with the  mainframe  so  I  could  work  in
cyberspace,"  Summer replied off-hand.  "It's just a little thing
I do."
    "Wow!" Mason said.  "I didn't know you could do that!"
    "Isn't it great?" Jenny asked, materializing next to  him  in
holographic  form.   Mason  rapidly remembered why he'd come down
here.
    "Summer, what's going  on?"   Then  he  looked  from  her  to
Jenny's  holographic  representation,  and his jaw dropped.  "Oh,
no.  Summer, did you--?"
    "I gave her sentience," Summer said.  "All she was  was  just
kind  of  a shell, and you need a better computer than that.  I'm
not really sure HOW I did it, but I did."
    "Kinda gives you a whole new appreciation, doesn't it lover?"
Jenny asked, breathing deeply.  Mason gulped.
    Summer giggled.  "Why, Mason, she seems to have  developed  a
crush on you!"
    Mason Kramer leaned against the wall with a sudden  weakness.
He groaned.  "Melvin is going to KILL me."

IS MELVIN GOING TO KILL HIM?
HOW CAN SUMMER DO THESE THINGS IF SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES THEM?
WILL JENNY CONTINUE TO HAVE A CRUSH ON MASON, OR WILL SHE COME TO
  REALIZE THAT IT COULD NEVER WORK OUT BETWEEN THEM?
*COULD* IT NEVER WORK OUT BETWEEN THEM?
SOME OF THIS, AND MAYBE MORE, COMING UP SOON, ONLY ON

SUPERGUY!!!

--
Chris Meadows/Robotech_Master // chm173s@nic.smsu.edu // GEEK CODE V2.0:
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b++(++++) D+ B-- e+$ u+(**) h+(*) f+ !r-- n+(----)@ y?