The Savages

Chapter 7: Kasperskies

Life for him was eminently different to how normal people around him lived. He held all his memories from his creation in April two-thousand and nine, when he had simply been an application called Kasperskies created by Derrick Manning. The fact he could recall almost every memory formed since then made him valuable and exceptional, envied by almost everyone he came into contact with. His highly developed brain contained parts from the motherboard that used to be him, making him smarter than anyone in the world. Aside from Stephen Hawking.

He had been created for a sole purpose: to be the application for a close friend of Derrick's, named Trisha. He was programmed to speak limited English, mostly used to help her locate information she required such as the whereabouts of her long-lost friends, past lovers, and anything else she happened to think of involving those she cared for. Their relationship never transpired into anything physical until, one day, Kasperskies found himself in love with her. The only problem being, of course, that he was a piece of machinery.

Five months down the track, Derrick gave him the opportunity of a lifetime. When Trisha picked out a look for him, and the cloning process had begun, he found himself happier than ever to actually be capable of kissing her, touching her, and listening to her raspy voice. The idea appealed to him so much the first thing he did in his new body was book a flight to Australia, where she would be waiting for him. Only, when he scaled the rooms and halls of her house in search of his beloved, pink orchids in hand, he found her in bed with his older brother.

Ever since that day, he never found himself capable of forgiving Edgar for what he did. It was Trisha's fault as much as it was his, but the betrayal from his blood relative stung more. The only way he could describe the pain was like being impaled through the heart by the world's sharpest and thickest spearhead, left to die in the gutter of a lonely street like so many before his time. He had no idea - literally none - how humans could endure so much emotional pain. It was the kind of pain that left people feeling numb, stealing away their sleep and appetite for weeks on end, ultimately making them feel like they were never good enough for anyone and lowering their self-esteem to the point where they wouldn't bother sprucing up their appearance.

That was the kind of thing that happened to Kasperskies.

It lasted for so long he couldn't remember how he overcame such a life-changing downfall. If not for Caspian - Derrick's brother, who implanted his hardware into a cloned body - shifting him off to Teemu's house, he would still be in that state with no one to grab his hand and pull him out of it.

An indistinct sound woke him from his harrowing slumber. With a drowsy grumble, he propped himself up on his elbows against the rock-hard mattress Perseverance leant him.

The room was bathed in pale blue light, signalling the approach of dawn. Outside, thin orangey pink clouds stretched across the rainbow hued sky, promising hot weather ahead.

Below the only window in the vast space, Perseverance lay with one arm folded behind him, cushioning the back of his head. Kasperskies was almost relieved to find it'd only been him making those noises in his sleep, until his eyes traced over the slender figure between his legs, bobbing their head up and down a little too enthusiastically.

Kasperskies quickly rolled on to his side, clenching his eyes shut to try and rid the image from his mind. He did not just see the defined muscles in his brother's torso expanding and contracting with each heavy breath he took, nor did he just catch a glimpse of what was meant to be his brother's most private bodily part.

He recognised the girl from the previous night, stumbling intoxicated through their home with absolutely no idea where she was. Abby was her name, he was half-certain.