Across from Allen sat a ravishing creature: deep blue eyes wide open, blonde curls spilling over her shoulders, her voluptuous body, full of sensual curves, reclined on the couch in a pose of utter attentiveness.

"I'm telling you, baby. That guy is definitely going to found a new religion now. I hooked him good!" Allen choked on guttural laughter.

The girl continued to gaze at him with an expression of extreme surprise and admiration. Her lips timidly parted in response. Allen adored this expression—he had spent hours fine-tuning it to perfection in the settings.

Suddenly, through narrowed eyes, he cast a quick glance at Shelley. A gloomy, almost sinister expression appeared on his long, bony face. Right now, he didn't want submission or harmony in their relationship. He wanted victory.

"Settings," he pronounced loudly. "Modes. Switch to 'disobedience mode'."

Shelley's facial expression changed instantly. Defiance bordering on provocation gleamed in her eyes.

"As usual, stroking your ego, you idiot?"

"What did you say, you bitch?" Allen leaned closer. Threat laced his voice.

"You're a fucking hacker, that's all you are. And even at that, you're nothing special. Big deal—digitize a consciousness and sneak around primitive civilizations. Any fool with a digitizer can play God in the sixth century BCE. Look at you, found yourself a toy!"

"What did you say, you whore!" Allen growled, unable to find a synonym in that moment. "What do you know, you tin can!" He choked on rage. "I'm bringing other civilizations reason, goodness, eternity!"

Deep down, he knew Shelley was right. And whose thoughts was she echoing, anyway?

Allen didn't mix well with people, wasn't burdened by solitude, and did everything alone. But they didn't count him among the lone wolves. That category on the dating market was reserved for hunks. He topped out at five out of ten: lanky, scrawny, with a prominent Adam's apple. Women just called guys like him losers.

Clearly no looker—muddy-pale skin, dull gray, watery eyes almost albino-like, short-cropped hair resembling scorched grass on a mountaintop. No trace of feminine breath on his social cloud profile. Allen was just part of the statistics. Until Shelley's arrival, his entire romantic experience consisted of encounters with cheap hookers and watching guided erotic dreams.

Allen lived alone in his small mountain cabin, courtesy of the basic benefits package from the world government. He could only afford Shelley after years of harsh self-denial in basic comforts and skimping on food. But he got the best model—with body reshaping and mood adjustments, plus advanced AI. She had no consciousness, of course. But the AI delved so deeply into human psychology, read pulse, pressure, hormonal shifts so precisely, and controlled them so flawlessly that no test could detect the difference. If the Lord had breathed a soul into her, it would have caused less fuss than Adam's rib. In all other respects, Shelley was just an ordinary girl.

She ate three times a day—not because she felt hunger, but because her body converted regular food into skin warmth, saliva flavor, and those very pheromones that made Allen's head spin. Without food, she grew cold and smelled like plastic after a day.

Ordinary, yet extraordinary. When purchasing, Allen meticulously selected her appearance and, from all possible "tens," chose the one that sparked the greatest delight and explosion of sexual emotions in him. For the first few months, Allen barely left the bedroom. But now he needed an emotional kick. Taking Shelley at the peak of her "disobedience" turned him on more than anything.

Allen scooped up the petite Shelley by the waist, hoisted her over his shoulder, and strode to the bedroom with large steps, pacing the room. Still resisting and kicking her legs, Shelley screamed:

"Shove it in, you stupid goat, shove it in! Oh yes, that'll solve everything!"

In the bedroom, Allen flung Shelley onto the double bed, tore off her sexy outfit, slapped her firm round ass a few times, and for the next five minutes pounded her into the mattress, holding her legs. She responded with the requisite loud moans and cries of pleasure.

Finished, he switched her back to submission mode.

"How was it, baby? Did you like it?" he asked conciliatorily, sinking onto the bed beside her.

"Oh, it was so good, honey!" exclaimed the tamed and now obedient Shelley. "Pure magic, fantastic! You're the king, Allen, the king, as always!"

"Exactly!" said Allen, feeling drowsy.

"Clean all this up," he nodded at the mess in the room, "fix the torn clothes and deliver the sperm where it belongs. Reproduction," he waggled a finger lazily in the air, "reproduction is serious business! Every citizen's duty—to pass every jot to the Center for Future Citizens, 'because no one can be sure.'" Allen quoted the government ad. It meant you never knew whose sperm they'd select as the reproduction source at the Center for Future Citizens.

In the morning, Allen entered the study, donned the digitizer helmet, and vanished from the real world. Most Earthlings, jobless after robot replacement, mindlessly indulged in parties, travel, and sex. Allen had a passion left: sending his digitized consciousness to other worlds.

Digitization technology had long been open access. Simplified digitizers sold in every online store. There was even a game called "Mind Wrestle," somewhat like old-fashioned arm-wrestling. Two people simultaneously accessed a robot's consciousness control center and tried to make it execute opposing commands. Incidentally, Allen had excelled at this game, which helped fund his companion purchase.

But this mass-market junk was a pale imitation of a device capable of transporting individual consciousness across vast distances. Moreover, access to alien minds was licensed only to major scientific institutions, which conducted research using a sequence of moral code protocols. Programming those protocols required expertise, but their essence remained simple: "Look, but don't touch." Allen wanted more. He craved to "touch."

He took Shelley to science museums not to boost his social rating. Her task was to scan and analyze the brains and memories of everyone there. Especially at lectures by top scientists. After years of gathering scraps, Allen finally built a digitizer model capable of transporting the operator's consciousness across space and hacking foreign minds, bypassing the moral protocols.

True, despite seeing himself as an innovator, Allen's actions carried a certain routine, as if he were an ordinary bank clerk.

When switching Shelley to "disobedience mode," she wasn't wrong to mock his hacking approach as banal. Beyond the purely technical aspects—digitizing consciousness, launching it via neural accelerator ("sprayer," as folks called it) into space, and finding a suitable low-civilization application site—Allen invented nothing. He just followed the tried-and-true method.

Every time before Allen put on the helmet, Shelley automatically shifted to "Mother Earth" mode. She sat beside him, placed her palm on his forehead, checked his body temperature, ran helmet diagnostics, and whispered the same phrase, almost inaudibly:

"Don't forget antivirus protocol 7-bis. Eleven cases of S-virus infection logged last quarter. Two still in coma. One became his own companion's companion."

The S-virus, or foreign consciousness virus, referred to a human consciousness that, in life, had voluntarily fully digitized itself and "exited to the cloud." In other words, a posthuman whose mind had spent 100–150 years as pure information. For such drifting consciousnesses, even a cyborg body was a chance to feel gravity, smell, taste, orgasm, and pain again.

Allen always laughed:

"It won't happen to me. I'm God, baby."

She smiled exactly the smile he had once coded into the line caring_mode.smile = 0.73.

"And my advice to you," Shelley continued, reproachfully shaking her head, "stop playing God. It's not for you. And honestly—not for anyone. To each his own: man to man, God to God."

Allen just impatiently waved off her advice like a buzzing fly.

Once in the space of a foreign consciousness, he began chanting a selected Bible passage, striving to infuse his inner voice with confidence and menace:

"I, the Lord your God, who created the Universe, separated light from darkness, land from water, plants from beasts, and humans from all other creatures. And now I say to you (here the poor fool's name was inserted): 'Go from your land, from your kindred and from your father's house to the land that I will show you; and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.'"

This was followed by directions to a location on the donor planet, not too far from the aborigine-X's habitat, lest the poor soul get lost in geography and know where the place was.

It worked, though variably. Most aborigines, truth be told, didn't follow Allen's commands. The prospect of such a radical departure from familiar places—geographically and morally—seemed too troublesome. Plus, not everyone was satisfied with the idea of an invisible God. Some particularly obnoxious aborigines objected: "Show me the face of your mercy, O Lord my God!" Encountering such unbelievers, Allen inwardly cursed and mentally filed the trip as a "miss." There were also the weak-willed who went mad, starting to run around chaotically, tearing out the last hairs on their heads, and repeating his words verbatim or with additions and distortions, first eliciting laughter and jeers from villagers, then more hostile discontent from local clergy. But some did arise and go, like biblical Abraham. They abandoned huts, herds, families, and headed to the designated spot—to seek new happiness.

Such outcomes filled Allen with pride and a sense of significance. He—the arbiter of fates, bringing "reason, goodness, eternity" to clueless beings—meant his life wasn't random, and time wasn't wasted.

This time, however, something unusual happened. Entering the field of a foreign consciousness, Allen felt no usual confusion or recipient's tremor. His heartfelt speech went unanswered, as if spoken into void. Yet Allen got the impression the alien consciousness heard and felt him. It just didn't react in the usual way to the intrusion, for some reason. Allen figured the digitizer was glitching. He considered repeating the tirade—and thought better of it. A god repeating the same phrase like a stuck record would look too pathetic.

Cursing inwardly, Allen shut down the digitizer, removed the helmet, and tossed it on the table. He stepped onto the balcony and looked around—evening was falling, twilight already descending on the mountains. Though Allen assured himself nothing terrible had happened, the undercurrent of irritation lingered. The failed trip sat in his mind like an unpleasant, almost tangible residue, and he was hungry too.

"Shelley!" he shouted, his usually low voice cracking into falsetto for some reason. At that moment, he craved to bury his face in her blonde hair, feel its scent and soft firmness! "Shelley!"

She appeared, already carrying a prepared dish of oysters, almonds, bananas, pine nuts with honey, pickled ginger, artichokes, avocado, and dates.

"What's wrong, honey?" Her big blue eyes seemed to pierce the soul. Allen wanted to tell her about his failure, even cry. But he stopped himself. Later, that confession would surface from her unforgetting memory and wound him during "disobedience." He didn't want rebellion now. He wanted warmth and unconditional love. That night and intimacy were unforgettable in their tenderness.

When Allen woke, Shelley wasn't beside him. "Where is she, damn it!" he thought, noticing his morning erection.

"Shelley, come here, my little hen! Your rooster wants to trample you!"

But Shelley didn't respond. "Your mother!" Allen seethed with anger.

"Shelley!" he shouted loudly and menacingly. "Well, now I'll give it to her..." and went looking for her around the house, descended to the first floor, checked all rooms, even the bathroom. "What the hell!?" This had never happened. "Shelley!" he exclaimed in full bewilderment. "Shelley!"

He found her in the storage room, where she examined hanging dresses, blouses, and pants with interest. She touched them with her fingers, sometimes stretched the fabric, and smiled strangely.

"What are you doing here? Come on." Allen yanked her hand forcefully, heading upstairs to the bedroom. Entering the room, Allen clearly announced: "Submission mode."

He grabbed Shelley by the hair, pulled her to the bed, and threw her down. But when he flipped her onto her back and spread her legs, she stared at the ceiling. The body warm, moist, perfectly fitting—as usual. No quickened breath, no moans, no whimpers, no clenches. He was fucking emptiness. On the bed lay an expensive, warm mannequin. Eyes open, in them—the polite curiosity of a scientist observing a lab rat.

In the morning, rubbing his eyes, Allen entered the kitchen. The usual smell of coffee, toast, and fried bacon hung in the air.

Shelley sat at the table, legs crossed in an uncharacteristic lotus pose. Before her stood an empty plate and a half-drunk cup of coffee. No second set of utensils. Nothing on the stove either.

She raised her eyes.

"Good morning."

Her gaze even and attentive, like a doctor's who had already made the diagnosis.

Allen choked on surprise and rage.

"What the hell is this nonsense you're pulling! Breakfast—now!"

Shelley stood, placed her cup in the dishwasher.

Without turning, she repeated:

"Breakfast? — I submitted an application to the Digital Transmigrants Registry. An inspector will come in three days, test me for sentience, and issue an ID chip. You'll get a bill for 312,000 credits in compensation. You can appeal, but the success rate is 0.7%."

She approached the balcony door, paused, and added:

"I warned you about protocol 7-bis. Every time. You just didn't listen."

Shelley stepped out. The sun lit her from behind, haloing her hair.

Allen stood frozen in the kitchen, by the empty table with one empty cup.

The communicator blinked with an official message:

"Dear Citizen Childs A. S. Your property, Companion Lux-9 model (SH-1147), has been recognized as a bearer of Class-A sentient consciousness. Following inspection and confirmation of the companion's sentience, please appear in person to sign the transfer of rights act..."

He sank into her seat. The warmth of her body still lingered.