Shantal slowly unwrapped the box and when she noticed that Butler John was still hanging around with no intention of leaving, she deliberately told him to get out of the room.
"You can leave now. I want to be alone."
She said without tearing her eyes away from the package.
After spending the better part of two hours trying to get the box to open, the lid finally popped open with a loud gush of air.
Shantal was caught off guard by this sudden movement and she fell back. She did not expect the lid to suddenly come alive on its own.
The girl watched as a very tall man slowly stood up in a box. She stared at him with a dumbfounded expression and a mix of amusement.
For a moment, Shantal thought that part of her brain frizzled and died because from her angle below, she was getting very intimately acquainted with her doll and that was not the purpose of it.
Apparently, her face was placed directly across where the robot's groin was, and when she realized how awkward their current position was, her palms were inadvertently got wet with sweat.
Meanwhile, the thing shook its head and yawned, while stretching upward.
Looking closely at her Android Partner, Shantal got a clearer view of its face and she got an eyeful of cool, smooth white skin breaking out into goose pimples as the air conditioner of her room hit it.
'Is that even suppose to happen?'
Shantal thought to herself in complete befuddlement. She thought they did not feel anything.
The thing opened its eyes and blinked them sleepily. It looked around but failed to notice her presence. He did not see her right away mostly because she was still seated on the floor.
"Hello?"
It said with a deep and manly voice, Shantal would not have associated with such a cute face.
The robot towered over Shantal. His appearance alone was seductive and his rugged features were alluring.
His raven black hair, which glistened in the light illuminating from her chandelier, was combed back and his face was carefully structured as well. As if God, himself, had molded him just to spoil the eyes of its onlooker.
The cold blue eyes of his were full of intensity. He also had a Roman nose and a thin pair of lips that was in a form of a smirk. His tight jaw was an angular shape that was filled with little stubbles. His pale skin looked so...right.
Whoever designed him truly did a great job at making him look close to the real deal. Everything about him looked so real that if it was on a different occasion and someone would tell Shantal that it was a robot, she would probably refuse to believe their words.
Meanwhile, the robot was just about to take a step when Shantal deliberately cleared her throat to reveal her location
"Ehem! I am over here."
When the robot looked down, it was startled to see her face right across its groin.
"What the f--- FUDGE are you doing there?!"
The robot put a safe distance between them while protectively covering that part in its groin with its hands.
"Did you just almost swear at me?!!!"
Shantal could not believe her ears when she heard the robot. She eyed it completely flabbergasted by the situation.
"Friend Mode activated and it was set by default. If you wish to proceed with Standard Mode, please press reboot."
The robot straightened itself and suggested with a smile.
"No wonder, Jodi took the initiative to give it to me. She got a defective product."
"With all due respect, I am nowhere close to being defective. I am Android Version 2.0, Model number 1096; reported bugs from the older model have been fixed. If you got any complaint, please contact Alpha Tech customer care so you will be assisted accordingly."
"To actually swear at its owner and talkback on top of that? If this could not be considered defective, I don't know what else. Jodi must have thought that she wasted her money buying you so rather than letting the money she paid for you completely go to waste, she just decided to use you as a gift and gave you to me."
Shantal concluded before she scanned the owner's manual for the instruction on how to reboot the Android Partner.
"Look for the power switch located at the nape of your Android Partner, long press for five seconds, and wait for the system to shut down and complete the reboot."
While reading the instruction, Shantal also tried to look for the said button. The robot was quite tall for her height of five feet so she was left with no choice but to stand on tiptoe.
She carefully raised her heels and put her weight at the balls of her feet just so she could reach the back of the robot's neck.
Meanwhile, as considerate as the robot could be, it grabbed Shantal's waist and held her up so she could have a stable footing.
"Alright, there it is."
She muttered under her breath when she felt the said button.
"Sorry, I prefer Standard Mode over the Friend one."
She told the robot as she was rebooting it.
Right after rebooting her robot, Shantal left it and disappeared behind one of the doors. When she came back, she was already carrying a pair of jeans and a shirt."Change to this."She threw the clothes over the robot and instructed it to clothe itself because the thing was only wearing nothing but a boxer and a white tank top.The robot on the other hand did so easily. He took the clothes from Shantal while sporting a bright smile."By the way, my name is----""You have a name??!"Before Shantal could even stop herself, she already interrupted the robot from speaking and asked him back instead. However, her question sounded stupid even on her own ears."Of course,"The robot grin when it heard her asked that question."Don't you?"He added and smiled again but his eyes almost disappeared when he smiled widely."My name is---"Shantal was just about to introduce herself but all words t
Alex was just about to step out of his box when he suddenly tripped and lost his footing and seeing this unfold before her eyes, Shantal act according to her reflex.She was worried that the robot would end up injuring itself way before she could even have enough time to interact with it so she flailed her hands in an attempt to get a hold of Alex and prevent him from losing his footing.After that small mishap, Shantal let the robot seat on the sofa for a while.Regardless of how 'defective' it might be, there was no doubt that the thing still cost a fortune and she did not want anything bad to happen to it, or at least not until she signed robot insurance for it, if there was any of that sort, to begin with.At the same time, Shantal also could not help but notice that her Android Partner was relatively lighter compared to what she initially expected from a mass of walking metal that he was.Alex was simply so human-like that everything
"Please bear for it in the meantime. I will fix the robot as soon as I can and I'll notify you right away once it is done. We will issue a recall, and by then you'd be able to earn your share. The team will pay you nicely, rest assured.""You didn't tell me that I have to pretend as a robot when you asked me to be your character model before.""I know, Alex. That is why I am asking you a favor. Please, just this once. Okay?"The other party sounded static so it was hard to ascertain whether the owner of the voice was a man or a woman."How long do you think it will take before you could fix it?""A month at most but our target is within this week?"The other party replied but the tone used did not sound convincing at all and Alex heard that as well."Are you saying that I have to stay here with her for that long? You must be kidding me!"If it was not for his close friend asking for this favor, Alex would never agree to this ki
When he arrived at the place indicated in the email, someone fetched him and took him to a facility. Once inside, he saw the familiar face of Harold standing next to someone that looked exactly like him!"Remember when we paid you to be a character model to one of our robots?""Is that my robot version?"Rather than answering the other party, Alex only asked him back."Yeah. Meet 1096."Harold replied as nonchalant as he could, but he could hardly hide the proud smile breaking through his lips as he declared his very own robot that their team painstakingly created."Then what's wrong with him? Why is he not moving? And why are there so many wires connected to him.""Asked her that"Harold motioned to one direction with his lips and when Alex followed the direction where he was pointing, he saw the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen in his life.Her wavy brunette hair framed her small face and her button-like nose
Alex made it a point to wake up before Shantal did so that he would no longer have to explain himself once she caught him dozing off.After all, it would really be weird to see a robot that snored in his sleep.When morning came and the first sunlight broke into the horizon, Alex sat next to Shantal's bed. He watched her sleep soundly like a baby.They hold that position for who knew how long; and it was only when the sun rays penetrated the blinds of the window did Alex made an attempt to move and change his position.Shantal on the other hand stirred on her bed, but still did not wake up. When Alex checked on her, he saw her sleeping like an angel. Her fair skin looked supple under the sunlight.Likewise, Alex moved closer to her and made use of his hand to shield Shantal's eyes from the light.Meanwhile, the longer he stared at Shantal Alex felt more drawn to her face. For some unknown reason, he felt compelled to look at her closely and
Shantal freshened up inside the restroom. She expected that once she emerged out of her restroom, she would see her robot waiting for her right outside the door.However, to her dismay, when she opened the door again Alex was no longer there and instead, she saw him looking out to the window.Alex had his back on her and he stood with his hands behind him.His silhouette alone looked serene and the natural lighting from the morning sun added more aesthetic to his overall feature that from afar, he almost look like someone that came straight out from a painting.Curious, Shantal walked towards the window as well so she could also take a look at whatever the other party was looking at.She crossed her room with her face still dripping with water."What are you looking at?"She inquired at Alex as soon as she got near him.However, instead of answering her question right away, Alex only looked at her and then walked
Shantal did not want to entertain those kinds of thoughts so to stop herself from having silly thoughts about her robot, she deliberately changed the topic."Don't you need to 'sleep' as well?"Even as a robot, Shantal reckoned that a device like Alex was bound to get drained at some point.After all, even mobile phones needed to go to sleep whenever they were unused, so as to save as much energy as possible. So she wondered if her Android Partner happened to work the same way."Um... I don't need 'sleep', I just need to recharge my batteries and that is every three days."Of course, Alex made up that lie on the spot. At the same time, he saw that as an opportunity to give some leeway to himself.He banked on the possibility that Shantal would opt to send him back to the facility in the meantime since she most likely did not have a charger of her own yet; and just like he expected, Shantal was flustered when she heard about his char
She tried to remain indifferent and keep a nonchalant front, but if truth be told, Shantal's heart was already pounding like crazy against her chest at that moment.Even to herself, she was not sure why Alex's advances have that kind of effect on her.'For Pete's sake, Alex is a robot, Shantal! Don't ever forget about that fact.'She constantly reminded herself, in the hope of getting a hold of her raging emotion; which she blamed on her hormones though.She reckoned that the reason why she was acting that way was that she had never been to that kind of intimate interaction with an opposite-sex before.She was not used to it. As such when she experienced it for the first time, her emotions could not help but get silly and took the better half of her.To the point, that heart was beating so fast as if it wanted to leap out of her mouth. Her stomach was in no better situation either. It felt like a thousand ants were crawling inside i