“Ok, let’s get started.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Jay Manus, and I’m talking today with Valeria Lukyanova, absolutely the best and most authentic-looking Human Barbie ever attempted. You may remember when Ms. Lukyanova burst onto the scene a year ago with a number of jaw-dropping photos. This is a radio interview, so you obviously can’t see her, but I’ll just ask you to google her images online. Just search for Human Barbie and find the pictures where she’s dressed in a pink bikini at the beach, and you pretty much have an idea how she looks here in the studio today.

“Ms. Lukyanova’s granted telephone and skype interviews to a several media outlets, and GQ magazine went so far as to fly a reporter out for a face to face conversation with her in Ukraine.

“The big news however, is that the Human Barbie has now obtained superpowers. You are listening to the first interview that she has granted to anyone since that remarkable occurrence.

“Ms. Lukyanova, welcome to the program.”

Valeria raised the corners of her mouth slightly in what for her passed for a smile. “Thank you Jay, it’s great to be here.”

“I know many of our listeners are anxious to hear about your superpowers, but I’d like to start with some context. Can you tell us a little about yourself – your age, where you live, what you do, that sort of thing?”

“Sure, Jay. I’m sixteen years old, and I live in Odessa, in Ukraine. I’m not from there, I’m from a smaller town called Tiraspol, which is in Moldavia. But I moved there with my Mom about two years ago.”

“So obviously your native language is Russian. How did you learn to speak American English so well? Did you live in the U.S. At some point?”

“No, I have never spoken English before I came here for this interview. But I know all the languages now. It’s one of my new powers.”

“Ah, your powers. Ok, we’ll get to those soon enough.

“Just to make sure our listeners know who you are, could you please explain something about your Human Barbie look?”

“Yes, Jay. I started this a few years ago. I figured that Barbie was exactly what most men really want, whether they say so or not, and since I had the right body type I thought I would try to look like her. I think I did that pretty well.”

“Yes, I think you did. And you’ve said before that the only surgery you’ve had was to, um, enhance your breasts, is that right?”

“Yes.” She nodded by tilting her head first up, then back to its original position. The gesture served to accentuate her stiff and mechanical style. I looked away for a second.

“And … I know you’ve said this before, so I don’t feel it’s terribly impertinent to ask you again: would you mind telling the audience your bra size?”

“34DD.”

“Thank you. And that tiny waist of yours is completely natural?”

“Yes. 18 inches. And I eat whatever I want.”

“And those legs?”

“Yes. 37 inches long, ankle to waist.”

“And that long straight hair, which also reaches your waist?”

“Yes. I’m naturally bleach blond and I have never trimmed it.”

“And what about your eyes? They look decidedly … unnatural.” In fact they looked enormous, way too big for her face.

“Yes. That’s done with makeup and contact lenses.”

I paused for a minute, trying to come up with something else to ask before getting to the real meat of the interview. I’d been doing this for more years than I’d like to admit, and I knew from experience that it’s best to keep your listeners waiting until they are begging you to get on with it. But I myself couldn’t stand the tension, so...

“Ok, let’s talk about your superpowers. When did you first acquire them?”

“About a week ago. Last Sunday.”

“Last Sunday? Tell our listeners what happened.”

“Well, I went camping with my Mom, and …”

“Camping? You don’t seem like the camping type.”

“It was car camping. And we stayed in a cabin. And there was a restaurant.”

“Oh, OK. So what happened?”

“There was only one vanity, and I used it first. While my Mom was working on her nails I got bored and went exploring in the forest by myself. I found a cave that looked like it had been hidden by a really thick bush, but the bush seemed now to be dying because a lot of the leaves had turned brown and fallen off. There was a kind of a glow inside the cave, and when I peeked in I saw a little bottle lying in the dirt. It was really pretty, with something inside that was sort of silver or gold, but not really either one. The glow was coming from the bottle.”

“Uh huh.”

“So I climbed into the cave and picked it up. It was actually warm. And it had a label. It said it was 5^th Dimension Nail Polish. I thought it would go nicely with my bleach-blond hair so I painted it on.”

“Folks, she is showing me her nails, and I have to say they do look strange. They glowing slightly, and sparkling in a color I’ve actually never seen before.”

“So Valeria, did you wonder where this nail polish came from?”

“No, it was obvious. It came from the 5^th dimension.”

“Um, right, but I mean for example, who put it there, or why they put it there?”

“Hmm, no.” Apparently this was the first time that thought had occurred to her.

“Ok. So what happened when you, um, painted your nails?”

“The most amazing thing. I felt this unbelievable surge of power flowing up through my fingers and arms and all around my body, especially in my breasts.”

“I can imagine. Or rather, no I can’t. I can only guess what that must have felt like.”

“Right, you can’t imagine. And it was a really erotic feeling too. A. Really. Erotic. Feeling. Like, I came with a huge climax in no time. The whole place exploded around me. It’s not even there anymore.”

“The cave?”

“Yeah, and the forest. And before you ask, the bottle also vaporized. There’s nothing left of it.”

“How about the cabins? Your Mom?”

“Yeah, they got blown in a bit, but my Mom was OK.”

“Gee, it’s hard to imagine you having any emotions at all, let alone an orgasm that obliterates a cave and a forest!”

The Human Barbie didn’t say anything. She just continued to look at me, no expression on her face, her head at its usual slightly cocked angle. As the silence lengthened uncomfortably my mind started to consider the things she could do to me with her superpowers if she wanted to.

I cleared my throat, and loosened my necktie a bit. “Getting warm in here, isn’t it?” She still didn’t say anything.

“Mind if I open the window? This time she almost shrugged imperceptibly. I took that as a no and walked over to the window, pushing it outward and leaning over the sill to peer at the traffic two stories below. The window was soundproof, and I’m not usually supposed to open it while on the air, but this was not a usual situation.

I glanced back to Valeria. She was checking her smartphone. “We only have twenty minutes left. Do you have any more questions?”

“Yes,” I said, and returned to my seat facing her, all business again. Except that she was just so luscious, in an alien sort of way.

“So, after your, um, orgasm, what did you do? Did you have superpowers right away?”

“Well, yes. I knew I had the power to do anything.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.” Same nod. And there was still no expression on her face.

I waited, but she didn’t elaborate. “Like what?”

“Well I was very strong. I knew that right away when I stood up and found myself way up in the air.”

“You flew?”

“No, not yet. I just didn’t realize how strong my leg muscles were. I thought I was just standing up, but actually I was jumping a hundred feet into the air.”

“Wow. And you were OK when you fell back down?”

“Yeah, but the bolder I fell on got smashed. That’s also how I found out I was invulnerable. It didn’t hurt me at all. Not even a scratch.”

I just nodded.

“Then when I tried to touch that rock it just shattered into little tiny pieces. I had only used one finger and the whole rock just shattered.”

“So you couldn’t really control your strength?”

“No, that took a long time.”

I thought about how much accidental damage could be done by a superpowered bimbo who didn’t know how to control her own strength.

“How long?”

“Almost five minutes. Then I was OK with touching things and breathing.”

“Breathing?”

“Yeah, I have super breath. Every time I breathed in or out, big trees would bend and break. Or all their leaves would blow away. One time I breathed in and a big rock came off the ground and flew right at me.”

“How big?”

“About as big as a car.”

“Wow. Did it hit you?”

“Yes, but it shattered just like the other one. It didn’t hurt me.”

“Ok. But pretty soon you got that under control.”

“Yes, I got everything under control.”

“Everything … Ok, let’s talk about the superpowers now. Can you tell us which superpowers you have?”

“All of them.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. All of the ones on your little piece of paper there.” She pointed to the list I had hastily brainstormed in preparation for this interview. “And a lot more that you didn’t think of.”

I glanced at my list. “So you have super eyesight? That’s how you were reading my list?”

“Yes. And X-ray vision. There’s a real TV show being filmed in the next studio. I can see it through the wall behind you. And I have super hearing too. I can hear everything they’re saying.”

That was remarkable, given that both my studio and the next one were completely soundproofed.

“And I’ve been watching that show. It’s very funny.” The corners of her luscious lips barely curled into an almost-smile. It was odd; I thought I’d be repulsed by the very fakeness of her affect, but somehow I was finding myself warming up to her.

“Oh, so you’ve been watching that show while I’m interviewing you? Am I boring you?”

“Yes.” And no facial expression at all.

Somehow coming from her it did not seem like a joke. I wanted to get off that topic quickly.

“Ok, let’s get back to the superstrength again. Just how strong are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“So far everything I’ve tried has been way easy for me.”

“So, like … I looked around the studio. Could you crush that doorknob?” I pointed to a closet door behind her. It was lame, but there just wasn’t a lot around the studio that I wanted damaged.

“Yes, of course,” without even looking.

“Could you pull the door off its hinges?”

“Of course.”

“Can you show me?”

She rose from her chair – and that’s the best way to put it; it was almost as if she floated off the chair and only then put her feet on the floor – and walked over to the closet. Then in one almost bored motion she grabbed the handle and pulled the whole thing away from the door jamb. It splintered wood and bent hinges, but the whole thing was over almost before it started. The Human Barbie leaned the door back against the wall and returned to her chair.

“Well, that was impressive.”

“No.” Valeria almost shook her head. I swallowed. “I’ve already done much bigger things than that.”

“I guess I’m not surprised. What are some of the bigger things you’ve done?”

“Well, on Wednesday night I went out flying.”

“Oh right, we haven’t talked about flying yet.”

She didn’t say, “yes, I can fly,” or “well, I as a matter of fact I can fly,” or “yup, that’s right,” or any kind of acknowledgement. She went on with her story.

“I flew to Sauvingon, which is a new suburb outside of Odessa, and from the air I picked out a long street full of big houses. Then I swooped in low and crashed through the side of the first house, flew right through all the rooms and out the other side.”

I suppose I should have been horrified by the damage and injuries she had likely caused, but I admit that all I could think of was the shape of the hole her body would have made as it passed through a wall. Her breasts were by far her most prominent assets. I imagined a circular hole with two U-shaped cups beneath.

Valeria unexpectedly giggled. “No, it didn’t look anything like that.”

“Don’t tell me, you can read my thoughts?”

“Yes, of course. Yours and everybody else’s, even that producer, who’s sitting behind the one-way glass over there. She pointed to the mirror that was alongside our desks. And your girlfriend’s, too. You’re too good for her, you know.”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to know what she’s thinking about right now?”

I nodded, uncertain where this was going, and definitely forgetting that we were on the air.

“She’s thinking about George, that guy you met on the 29^th at a dinner party? She just had sex with him this morning.”

“That bastard!”

“But George isn’t thinking about her. He’s just worried his wife will find out.”

“That bastard!”

I got up and walked over to the window again, leaning way out this time, trying to figure out what to do now.

“Fifteen minutes left,” came The Human Barbie’s voice.

Right. I walked back to my seat and asked her to continue with her story.

“Ok. So, I came out of the other side of the house and just kept going into the next house. I flew right through that one, and the next one and the next one, and all the way to the end of the neighborhood. You could look straight through all the houses on that side of the street.”

There was so little emotion in her voice it sound like she was hypnotized.

“How many houses?”

“143.”

“How many people killed?”

“19.”

Jeez! I put my hand to my head trying to grasp the enormity of what this sixteen-year-old vixen had done. But she wasn’t finished.

“Then I flew over to the train station where a big freight train was coming through. It had 4 engines and 170 cars. I slowed down and stayed just above the front engine for a while, but it was going too slow so I grabbed hold of it—”

“Of the engine?”

“Yes. You know, I spread my arms as wide as I could and grabbed the metal on both sides. I had to push my fingers into the steel to get a good grip, but then I started to fly faster.”

No, I didn’t know, but decided not to press the point.

“You pulled the train faster?”

“Not just faster. It was going about 70 miles an hour, and I sped it up to about 110. Then I just started to fly higher into the air, taking the engine with me.”

“You lifted the locomotive off the track, from the air?”

“Not just the locomotive. I flew a little higher and a little higher, and soon the second engine came up off the track too. And then the third and the fourth.”

“You were flying in the air with four locomotives dangling beneath you? And dragging 170 cars of freight as well? You’re that strong?”

“Way stronger. I just kept on rising, taking more and more cars up off the track, all hanging from each other.”

“Wow. Did you get all 170 cars into the air?”

“No. I got 67 off the track and then one of the couplings broke and 21 of them fell back down again.”

I gulped. That must have caused a god-awful mess. I could only guess what was in those cars!

“They were mostly coal, so they didn’t explode or leak poison gas or anything.”

Yeah, but this little slip of a girl was carrying 67 of the heaviest rail cars possible! Then with a start I realized she had been reading my mind again.

“What did you do with the ones that didn’t fall off?”

“Well, I wanted to play with the locomotive by itself so I sort pulled the second engine away from the first and let it fall along with all the ones it was pulling.”

I tried to work out in my mind how she could have done that while still holding on to the first one with both hands. Maybe her feet?

“Another power. We’ll get to that.”

There was a commotion outside. Several cars started honking their horns incessantly, and we both turned our attention toward the window. The problem was obvious: a very large truck had double-parked in the narrow street and the driver was unloading boxes from the back. But traffic was blocked in both directions.

“Idiot,” I started to say, but had barely finished the word when I saw the truck suddenly roll over on its side, then onto its top, then its other side, completely crushing a line of cars parked on the opposite side of the street from us, and leaving the right of way clear. The honking stopped, but traffic didn’t start flowing again. Drivers were running from their cars in all directions.

I turned to Valeria. “You did that.”

She just nodded once, her trademark.

“Your other power?”

She nodded again.

“You can move things with your mind?”

“Yes. It’s called telekinesis.”

“Right, it’s on my list. Do you have as much strength with your mind as you do with your body?”

“Yes.”

“So I’m guessing it was no big deal for you to flip that truck just now?”

“Right.”

“You’ve moved bigger things, then?”

“Yes.”

“What did you move?”

“You remember the news story last week about that building in Moscow that fell over?”

“I do. It was like a 40 story office building, wasn’t it? And it didn’t just fall over. The government news agency said it was a very localized earthquake, but there were tweets and blogs which said something very different. People saw the building twist right up off the ground about ten feet and then crashed down again before toppling. Witnesses said it seemed like somebody had slammed it down hard, real hard, like hard enough to crush the bottom three floors flat. And then the building just fell over.”

I looked at her questioningly.

“You...?”

“Yes. My ex-boyfriend worked in that building.”

Ah, revenge.

I tried to picture her, The Human Barbie, dressed as she was now in a skimpy bikini and nutty makeup, standing across the street from this office building and ripping the whole thing off the ground just by thinking about it. And then slamming it back down again, hard. And then just walking away like it was so much child’s play. It was horrible and crazy and … fascinating. I caught myself starting to smile.

“But people think telekinesis is all about moving very big things.” They do? “It’s also about doing very small things with a lot of precision.”

“Ah, so can you demonstrate that here in the studio?”

“Yes.”

I looked around, expecting some pencil or coffee cup to rise off the desk. But instead I started to feel a tickle in my crotch. On my cock, actually. The tickle grew into what felt like actual stroking as I became aroused. I leaned back in my chair despite myself as my erection became undeniable, and then the feeling suddenly switched to one of being fully enveloped in warm softness. The enveloping sensation began to move up and down my cock; it felt for all the world like I was getting a full-on blow job, right there in the studio, with my pants still zipped up.

Suddenly becoming aware that I WAS in the studio, I looked at Valeria in shock. She was still peering at me, but this time I thought I detected a hint of smile there. The sensation gradually faded, and my breathing slowly returned to normal. But my erection stayed right where it was.

Mindful of my listening audience I figured I’d better say something quick. “Well,” I started, but that word came out about an octave too high. I cleared my throat and started again.

“Well, thank you for that very interesting demonstration of a pencil and a coffee cup.” I wanted her to wink or something, but she didn’t.

“Ok, let’s go back to the super strength story. Let’s see. You were flying somewhere with a freight locomotive in your hands, right. Where did you go?”

“To the mountains.”

“Which mountains?”

“To Mount Hoverla.”

“I know where that is. A buddy of mine went climbing there once. He said it’s about 400 miles from Odessa! Took him all day to get there!”

“Yes. 380.9 miles. I got there in 44 seconds.”

“While carrying a 200-ton locomotive. Ok, so you’re not only strong, your really, really fast. Then what?”

“I put the engine down on its end …”

“So it was sticking nose up in the air?”

“Yes. Then I got under it and picked it up over my head.”

“You lifted the engine up over your head? A freight locomotive?” Somehow it was easier to imagine this scantily clad sixteen-year-old with a tiny waist and 34DD breasts holding a locomotive vertically over her head with two thin arms than it had been to imagine her flying through the clouds with an entire coal train dangling from those same arms.

But then another image appeared. In my mind’s eye I did see the girl flying with the train.

“That’s what it looked like,” she said.

I suddenly realized that she was pushing the image into my head. I don’t know why I should have been surprised anymore, but I was.

“I passed by an airplane when I was carrying the train. I just found the pilot and pulled that picture up from his memory.”

The image faded, and I could only shake my head in disbelief.

Without my prodding this time, she continued. “Then I laid the engine down and started smooshing it up.”

“But that thing is made of solid steel!”

“Yes,” her alien nod again. “I squeezed the sides together all the way up and down, and then pushed it on its side, and then I flattened it against the ground, and then I rolled it up from one end to the other.”

I realized I was getting used to this. The incredible was becoming mundane.

“And then I picked up the roll and pushed it between my breasts so that it bent in half.”

Ok this was back to incredible again.

“And that’s what I did Wednesday night.”

We just stared at each. An uncomfortable silence fell between us. It was uncomfortable for me anyway. She seemed to be perfectly fine with it.

Once again I was surprised at my feelings for her. I realized this time it was a kind of admiration. But I had to get the interview moving again. Time for a bit of levity for the listeners.

“So what did you do for fun on Thursday?” It would have been a funny quip except that I really was afraid she would tell me. But to my surprise she actually smiled.

“I worked on another power. One that isn’t on your list.”

“Oh? Which one was that?”

“I’ll show you.” She turned toward the one-way glass and said, with no particular inflection in her voice, “Come in here now, David.”

The adjacent door swung open and my long-time producer and friend Dave Dreyfus stepped through. Something wasn’t right, though. It took me a moment to realize that he was staring straight ahead. He hadn’t even glanced at either one of us. He looked like he was … Oh. Right.

“Mind control,” I said to Valeria. She graced me with another alien nod.

“Put your finger on top of your head and spin around like a ballerina.”

Dave did exactly what he was told. He was over six feet tall and grossly overweight, and this was not a pretty sight. And he was my friend. And my entire radio audience had just heard this. I was getting very uncomfortable with this display.

“Ok, that’s enough,” she said surprisingly gently. “Stop it now and look at Jay.”

Thankfully, he stopped turning and stared directly at me. But there was no life in his eyes.

“You know, Jay, he likes you very much. You’re really his only decent friend. Dave, give your friend a hug.”

My friend immediately stepped toward me, and despite myself I found myself rising to meet him. He put his arms round me in a bear hug, and I unthinkingly hugged him as well. Tears began to run down his cheeks.

“And a kiss.”

Ok, this was getting weird. My friend, who I knew had never had a gay thought in his life, was kissing me hungrily, and despite my efforts he was just too big and heavy to push away. I managed to turn my head though to look at Valeria. I wasn’t surprised to see that she was watching, with that trademark blank expression and slightly cocked head. “Are you enjoying this?” I managed to say between Dave’s mouthfuls.

“No.”

“Then stop it now!”

“Ok Dave, go back to your room now. You won’t remember any of this.”

“Thank god for that!”

“Your audience won’t either.”

Right, I’d almost forgotten about them.

“And neither will you.”

… and then … I had just asked her which power she had practiced on Thursday night.

“It was mind control.”

“Uh huh. You made someone do something he didn’t want to do?”

“Yes. A lot of people.”

“I sense another story coming on.”

“It’s a short one. I went into the theater to see a live show. I didn’t have a ticket, you know, but I made the nice man at the door think I did. Inside I watched the show for a while but it was boring. So I made all the actors take off all their clothes and finish the show naked.”

“Jeez! How did the audience react?”

“They didn’t notice. I made them take off all their clothes too.”

“So you made, what, 500 people do what you wanted them to do?”

“No, not that many.”

“How many?”

“497.”

“Same thing. How many people can you control at one time?”

“All of them.”

“All of them? Everybody? Like the whole planet?”

“Yes. And I can make them all do different things, too.”

“You tried this?”

“No, but I know I can.”

For the first time I found myself feeling real fear, not for me, but for all of humanity. This girl could be very dangerous. But it was exciting as well.

One of the reasons my broadcast studio had so much sound insulation was that it was located not far from the airport. Planes didn’t usually fly in this direction, but sometimes, if the wind was just right, they would. And that was apparently the case now, because a big Airbus chose just this moment to screech and roar over our part of the city.

I put one finger up, motioning to Valeria that we would stop for a minute, and she turned to watch the plane. Then I saw a pair of dazzling yellow-orange rays appear, extending ram-rod straight from her eyes to the airplane. With intense dread I watched as the entire jet suddenly burst into a ball of fire, and pieces of flaming debris started raining down all over the city.

“Valeria, why...?”

“It was making too much noise, and we’re almost out of time.”

“But you just killed hundreds of innocent people!”

No reaction, as usual.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm down. I got up and fetched myself a glass of water, chugging the whole thing at once. “You want some?”

She just shook her head slightly.

Finally after a couple more minutes I was able to focus on the interview again.

“So that was another one of your powers? Heat vision?”

“Yes. It’s one of the ones on your list.”

“Can you burn up anything?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yes.”

“Was that Friday night’s project?”

“Tuesday.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Oh, nothing much really. I just noticed that the moon was really bright that night, and you could see the man in the moon. But you know how his face is kind of hard to make out, ‘cause it’s all splotchy and sideways?”

“Yes?”

“Well it’s not anymore. I burned lines around both of his eyes and his nose and his mouth.”

This girl was just unbelievable.

“So you just sent heat rays from your eyes all the way to the moon? And they were hot enough to scorch the moon’s surface?”

“Yes.”

“And you did this from where?” I was once again trying to picture her doing this crazy feat.

“In my back yard. I was sitting on a lawn chair.”

Right, I thought, in her pink bikini and her 18-inch waist and her outrageous boobs she glanced up at the sky and casually burned lines in the moon’s surface.

The girl was astonishing! But the offhand demonstration of unimaginable power she had used to accomplish something so silly provided just the relief I needed.

At that moment I glanced up at the wall clock to see that we only had fifteen seconds left in the interview. Disappointed, I reached for my closing script. Glancing at the clock again to time my words I was surprised to see that the second hand hadn’t moved. Confused, I checked my watch. It too read fifteen seconds before the hour. Then I stared at the wall clock for at least 5 seconds to confirm that it really wasn’t moving.

I turned to Valeria, but didn’t even have to ask the question.

“I stopped time a few minutes ago. Otherwise we would have run over.”

“Oh. You can stop time. Another superpower that’s not on my list?”

“Yes. And the broadcast is stopped too, and your producer is frozen. Even the TV show next door is on pause. We can keep talking.”

“Uh huh.”

I settled back in my chair and relaxed a bit. I was thinking that despite all the weird stuff this girl was doing, and despite her utter lack of emotion, I actually liked talking to her. Certainly she was a joy to look at! I found I was relieved that we didn’t have to end yet.

But I didn’t want her to think I was being unprofessional, so—

“It’s OK, I already know you like me. I like you too. I did right from the beginning.”

Unbidden, I saw a replay in my mind of her earlier remark that I was too good for my girlfriend.

“And I need you to help me.”

“You need me? But you can make me. You can make the whole world do whatever you want. What do you need me for?”

“Well, that’s just it. I can do anything. And I can make anybody do anything. I can have anything I want.”

“And?”

“So why should I do anything? It’s like, why should I talk to anyone if I already know what they’re thinking? Why should I ask for anything if I can just make them give it to me? Why should I use my strength to pick up something heavy if I can just use my mind? Why should I even pick it up if I already know that I can? And if the whole world already knows that I can? And if I was trying to impress somebody, I could just make them think I was picking it up.”

“So you’re afraid of getting bored.”

“Yes. I mean, what would be the point? If I have everything I want, if I do everything for me, then I just won’t do anything at all.”

“I see.” The Human Barbie was actually having a deep thought. It occurred to me that her affect was like her makeup, and that perhaps there was more to her than what she showed the world. In fact her language use seemed to becoming more fluid and sophisticated as well.

And I finally understood that she was afraid. This sixteen-year-old goddess, who could tear buildings off their foundations, who could literally conquer the entire world with a thought, was afraid. She was afraid of a lack of meaning in her life.

“And you want me to …?”

“To keep me interested. And I want to keep you interested. I’m going to shake up the world with the things I can do now, and I’m really going to have fun doing it. But it won’t be fun for very long if I’m the only one enjoying it. I also want you to have fun with me. I want to share my life with you.”

That last phrase struck me hard. I had heard those words before, from my wife many years ago, a lifetime ago really. We were both young then, and she was so beautiful, we were so in love. Twenty years we were married before she was killed in a violent car accident. I’d never really gotten over it.

I looked at The Human Barbie. She was all of sixteen, even younger than my wife had been when she uttered those words.

“I’m not a young man, you know.”

Valeria shrugged. “I can fix that.” Her eyes sparkled for an instant. “Ok, I fixed all your DNA. You’re still not a young man, but you won’t get any older now. And I also made you invulnerable like me, and a lot stronger than you were.”

“Y-y-ou … you fixed my DNA?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” was all I could say, as I tried to figure out the implications of that.

“But getting older wasn’t the only thing I meant, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to satisfy me now. And any fifty other young women you choose, too.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that.

“So, do I really have a choice? I mean, why do you even need to ask?” But I knew the answer even before I’d completed the question.

“Yes, of course you have a choice. It wouldn’t work if you didn’t choose it voluntarily.”

“Right. And you will promise never to manipulate my mind? For as long as we’re together … which I guess would be forever?”

“Yes, I’ll promise that. I have to. I need you to be independent of me or else all the meaning goes away again.”

I really couldn’t imagine what the prospects were for us, what the world was going to be like for us going forward. I guess we’d shape it any way we wanted, and maybe shape it a different way if we didn’t like how it was turning out.

And then I noticed that I was already thinking in terms of “we”. I had apparently already made my decision.

Valeria was smiling from ear to ear, displaying more emotion than anyone had ever seen in her. It made my heart skip a beat.

“Let’s finish the show, Jay.”

I nodded, picked up my script, and waited for the second hand to move.