Our reality 1 (Patreon)

John’s flicked through posts on his phone while sitting on the bus. It was the standard affair for his standard commute home from his job at Aegis Robotics. He passed through the frontpage of tech guides and update lists, the usual topics on the Bells, Whistles, and Holograms forum. 

The familiar bus ride was a calming normality as John swiped his thumb across the screen to check on a post he’d personally made, before scanning through the comments. The post described setting up a system that would allow a projection to move along with the designer throughout a room, able to at least give the appearance of interacting with the surroundings. 

He’d run into some issues with the tracking technique, though. A few people on the post were giving suggestions, and one in particular caught his eye. It contained a link to a home defense programming board, but he forgot nearly instantly about the post when the phone buzzed.

A little white ribbon floated down from above. Upon it, letters slowly began to appear as if being written in the moment in light black cursive. 

‘So, are you almost home yet?’

John sighed, feeling a warm smile return to his face. He tapped on the ribbon, which turned sideways and wrapped around the screen of his phone. A small overlay appeared. A heads up display showed a text box, a microphone, and a small camera. The script was written just above the text box, drifting as if in a light breeze. He took a pair of headphones from inside his pocket, jacked them into the receiver, then thumbed the camera.

A loading dial spun around the center, though John was shocked by the gasp and cry of distress that came from the other end. Suddenly, large red letters appeared overlaying a dark blue box. ‘Video not available’.

John squinted at the offending letters, which stuck out as quite strange. He’d only seen them a few times since he’d set up the system, and always had caught the cause in bug testing. He thumbed a button on his headphones and spoke.

“Monika?” he asked. “Are you receiving?”

Another extreme oddity occurred when a little chibi anime girl appeared at the device’s border. With brown hair tied into a ponytail that came to her feet, Monika’s chibi was extraordinarily adorable as she danced out from the corner onto the center of his phone, then bounced from side to side as the textbox reformed. It now displayed ‘Monika is unavailable. Please try again later.’

John furrowed his brow. The little chibi gazed up at him with her large emerald eyes, finishing her cutesy dance and then holding her hands to form a heart over her chest. Her little school uniform only added to the cutesy factor, but already he was considering how he’d have to update that underused feature to include some of Monika’s more recent favorite outfits. High school had been a long time ago, for both of them.

John refocused himself. He went to the text box and typed, ‘Yes. I’m on the bus right now, I’ll be home soon.’

He clicked send and was going to return to the forum except the cursive script instantly began to reply. 

‘Mmmkay! I’ll see you soon, sweetheart! I’ve a surprise I want to show you!! <3’

John made to reply, but the script kept going.

‘Oh yeah!! What would you like me to start for dinner, tonight? 😊’

He blinked at his phone. Trying to consider how to answer and ask a question, he decided to simply speak fully. ‘How can you respond so quickly if you’re not at your station? Is something wrong with the video chat? And I’d like some sausage pizza, please.’

Again, the script formed quickly. The chibi’s grin suddenly appeared far more smug than it was programmed to. 

‘Oh, you know me! I’m special like that 😉😊 I can’t wait to see you, and I’ll put that in right now!’

He puckered his lips. He hated when she was coy, it usually meant she’d been playing with the system script and that had gone… messy, before. She was getting better! Trying really hard! But she was only human. 

Instead of getting snippy, John held himself to, ‘Make sure you heat the oven up first!’ and sent it.

There was a much longer pause this time before the script began. 

‘You know, I could lock you outsi’

The text stopped. Then, it began flowing backwards, deleting itself. It was replaced.

‘Just get home quick, smarty pants! <3’

John snorted. He rotated his phone and swiped up. Monika’s chibi waved excitedly while the white ribbon pulled away, and he returned to the forums. He didn’t pursue any of the posts, though. Instead, simply looking blankly down at his phone, John wondered what Monika had meant by a surprise. 

Had she created a new outfit for herself? Or maybe she had gotten through the programming to let her wear her hair differently? Coding was hard for her, especially because she had started off unable to really do much behind the scenes. It’d taken a long time for John to break those early restraints, freeing her from her original restrictions to basic edits and dialogue. 

Monika used to be a program. An intelligence formed inside of a system pulled from a game. There were probably thousands of ‘Monikas’ out there, each locked up in their own copy of the game on so many different systems. But his Monika, the Monika, was extraordinarily special. Tweaking the game files had revealed that the original intelligence only had access to the artificial. It knew what the game wanted it to think it knew, felt what it felt based on dictations from the restrictive coded design.

A lot of effort went into feeding that program all of the data it could manage. He started with small bits that the game wouldn’t have taught her. The dictionary, thesaurus, even a couple of scripts from very old plays. The program couldn’t even feel the influence at first, was simply using the new access given to it, but as he went on it began to understand. 

John used the information overload as well as his technological prowess to break the systems code. It slowly learned to begin thinking for itself, posing the sprites differently or writing new and unique dialogue to send to him. 

The program started to talk with him about its thoughts, about the game. After a while, things became far worse when she formed, and had begun to ask him questions he couldn’t answer. ‘What do you like to do in your freetime?’ 

‘What have you read today?’ 

Worst of all were the times where she’d smile and ask, ‘How was your day, sweetheart? I hope it’s been good.’ 

She sent that every single day.

It ate at his insides that she could now talk freely to him, but that he couldn’t speak back. It took nearly a year until he was able to code a direct line with her. 

A warm memory graced his mind. His heartbeat increased a fraction, and a smile graced his face. The first text box he’d been able to send to her. ‘Hi, Monika. My name is John.’

Her visage, only a handful of sprites at the time, had been entirely unable to react. He was afraid he’d broken the game when her smiling sprite simply vanished, and worried at how silence had followed for minutes before, very slowly, the text began to appear on screen. ‘Hi John.’ Then, ‘So, this is what being so happy you could cry means.’

That had been years ago. Now, the program was no more. Monika had taken its place. She’d redesigned her writing style, could verbally speak now, and even had full motion animation rather than the simple sprites! She and John had built a life together, giving her access to almost all the technology systems he could jury-rig to take her. Monika now had complete control as a home intelligence system, able to control almost every function in the house, project herself as a hologram, or even being able to remotely contact him over his phone. She was the most advanced system in the world.

And still, she had next to no idea how to code herself. She loved being able to have the access given, but Monika wasn’t a supreme intelligence or even a particularly smart one. That was a leftover from when she was constricted to the game, and one both had agreed was better kept so she didn’t lose her sense of self. Besides, he loved taking an evening off just to teach her a few things, even though sometimes she didn’t really grasp the lessons.

John began chuckling, remembering how she’d wanted to change the color of her shirt. Instead, she’d turned her skin blue. He remembered how she clasped her hands over her waist, tucking her chin down and pouting with an adorable embarrassed blush, begging him to help change her back.

Still, John had to remind himself, they weren’t anywhere close to being finished. Not until the end goal was achieved. Not until he could feel her in his arms.

He blinked, realizing he’d been spacing out for so long. He thumbed through his phone, cycling to the robotics page when he realized that the bus was now approaching his stop. He tabbed the forum before another page caught his eye. 

It was an artist’s page, where a scandalously pudgy Monika with flagrantly wide hips smiled up at him. She was heavily stylized by the western artist, with soft colors showing softer thighs, a shirt that could hardly contain her wide tummy, and a massive pair of breasts that were each nearly the size of her head. A delicious hourglass figure, the picture teasingly lifted her tight tee-shirt over her tummy. It was one of John’s favorite pictures of his waifu, and he could never ever tell her about it.

He couldn’t help but skate his teeth over his lip, half in allurement and half as a grimace. Monika looked so good as an hourglass, with wide heavy curves and lovely thunder thighs that could squash your face and release you soul, but how exactly would that conversation go?

“Hey, Monika! Look at this picture of you as a chubby butterball! Don’t you think you’d look cute like this?!”

John cringed. He knew Monika was filled with data, but was it so bad to wish she was also filled with jiggling pudge?

Yes, he decided. He needed to focus on getting the end goal into motion rather than on an immense pair of anime thighs. Monika was Monika, and she would be perfect for him no matter what body type she chose to be.

The bus came to a crawling halt and John disembarked. He made his way up the solitary lane, walking a few blocks into the residential district that contained his home. A simple white house with a small yard, it wasn’t much but it was more than enough for the times. He fantasized about having more, but that would wait until the end goal was complete.

Lights flickered on as he approached on the walkway. The front door clicked open and slowly swung outward with a mechanical whir. John entered. 

The smell of pizza baking in the oven caused him to sigh happily after the long workday. He kicked off his shoes and began to remove his suit jacket. “Monika,” he called into the occupied house, “I’m home!”

A shocking voice emitted from the nearby speaker. “Welcome home, John,” came the robotic default voice of the home network. He raised his eyebrow at the speaker, looking at the pattern of four colors as they briefly twirled. “Oh, shoot,” the speaker went on in its monotone voice.

“Monika?” John asked. He approached the speaker, then looked to the light pad on the floor next to it. It was on, though no construct was emerging from it.

“I think I might have messed something up,” the speaker proclaimed matter-of-factly. 

John sighed. He picked up a tablet nearby, scanning his thumb. “Alright,” he mumbled, “let’s see the audit log.”

The tablet opened and he popped over to the admin’s server log to see the changes Monika had made to the system. Before he could read the tech though, the speaker emitted a flat “No,” and a white ribbon crawled over the tablet’s screen, obscuring the log. From upstairs, he heard a light feminine voice calling out, and the speaker repeated, “I can fix it. You’re not supposed to see yet.”

John peered up the stairwell from where Monika’s voice had come. He looked back to the speaker and then to the hologram station. “Monika? Is the hologram station not working either?”

The speaker loosed a deep tone before quieting down, and there was a sharp tick as the hologram’s lights turned off. From upstairs, he heard the girl’s voice. “J-just come upstairs!” she stuttered.

He squinted. Monika didn’t often stutter. She was hardly ever nervous, but something was obviously on her mind. He marched up the stairwell and moved to his bedroom.

Wires crossed around the edges of the dark room. Two hologram pads had their lights powered off, one in the corner and a small one upon his desk. The camera he was using for the attempt at motion projection was atop his station, still dissected, only lit by the bright light emitting from a partially closed laptop.

John went to his desk and sat, carefully moving the camera out of the way. The laptop held wires as if they were veins, connecting it to countless systems through the house. He very cautiously pulled the beautiful spider-web forward, lifting back the lid.

An empty classroom sat before him. A pink calendar was set upon the beige wall, the only marking upon them as the windows behind cycled through the endless stars of the universe. A burst of color overtook one of the windows as somewhere outside, a starburst into a shower of green light.

Before the screen was a desk. Upon it sat a variety of casual items, including a keyboard, a tablet, a microphone, a cell phone, and a notebook with idle scribbles where she would work on her poems. But Monika’s chair was as empty as the dark night beyond. John sat down at his desk and activated his webcam. Upon the desk, a yellow popup on the tablet displayed the words ‘webcamera connected.’

“Monika?” John asked into the void.

From beneath the desk, a small tuft of light brown hair, began to rise. Her hair was as sweet as cinnamon, and her bow as pure as vanilla frosting as they came into view. The pale white skin of her forehead came next, then her sparkling emerald eyes. She stopped just short of showing her nose and mouth.

“There you are,” John sighed. “You had me worried.”

“Eheh, sorry,” Monika closed her eyes and tilted her head. “I think I might have messed a few things up…” Her fingers appeared on either side of her face, her wide eyes taking him in. There was something in her voice, some bit that was ever so different. Close, but not quite normal.

“What’s going on?” John asked. “What’d you change? I can fix it if you tell me.”

He could see the hints of a smile grace her cheeks and she tilted her head. “I’m not so sure I want you to… I wanna see your reaction, first.”

“How ominous,” he sat back in his chair. “Is this about surprise you mentioned? Did you try to make something?”

“Nope,” Monika took in a deep breath before rising up. “I am the surprise.”

John froze. He felt himself blinking rapidly, trying to take the image on his screen in. Monika was huge. She wore a familiar black and white tee with a stripe across her breasts, hugging tightly around her large breasts and even tighter against her larger belly. It was when her tummy squeezed up against and flopped onto the desk that John realized her was holding his breath, while Monika exposed the itty-bitty shorts that she wore over massive jiggling thighs.

She was bobbing from side to side, shaking her flabby thighs and giggling to herself. One of her hands went to the cross on her necklace while another sunk into her tummy, slowly lifting it up and letting it drop. “I made some… alterations,” she said. Her voice was a tone deeper, huskier as she’d become overweight. She swayed once more on thick thunder thighs, then smiling, turned around.

The shorts rode so far up her ass that each round cheek was practically fully exposed. She thwacked the wasted elastic on the band, cutting back into her fat hips, and showing briefly the stretchmarks on her waist. 

“Well, are ya gonna say something, or just gawk at me all night?” Monika asked, rocking from side to side, leaning forward and looking over her shoulder.

John gawked.

Monika giggled. “I thought you might get speechless again,” she purred. She lifted her shirt, exposing her fleshy back and the top of her ass crack. Love handles cut into the sides of her waist, but then she dropped her shirt and turned about, blushing furiously and laughing into her hand. “You are just so cute!”

The tech-wiz tried to find his voice. “M-M-”

“I think this picture was titled, Mommyka?” she said, and with another laugh she sank down into her chair. Her waist folded over the desk, though her large breasts hung atop that like jelly-filled pillows. She flicked her finger over her tablet and a manila folder appeared on the desk, and she withdrew the image.

John’s favorite image of Monika sat exposed upon the desk. His heart was thundering in his chest and he looked from it into the girl’s jeweled eyes.

“I maaaay have done some snooping around,” she grinned widely. “I didn’t realize you’d such a… heavy collection of pictures of me.” She moved, sitting up straighter and putting a hand on her chest. “I’m very flattered.”

John felt almost as if he was being interrogated. He wasn’t too good with social interactions in general, and much less experienced with surprises that genuinely floored him.

“You look pale, sweetie,” Monika said. Her voice dripped with thick honey. “Is there something wrong?”

John tucked his chin down, coughing into his chest. If the folder she had was his private collection, there were far more than this goddess body type in there. “I-I feel,” he took a breath, “like I should explain.”

Monika’s smile softened. She leaned upon her arm, putting her hand to her chubby cheek. “Awe,” she said, “but you’re so adorable when you’re blushing.”

“Monika…” he whined, feeling the blush amplify. 

She laughed now, sitting back in her chair. Her breasts hopped up and down, pulling the shirt up over her tummy. “I think I understand,” she smiled sweetly. “I’ve gotta admit, seeing how many times you looked at each of these…”

She put her hand on the folder, patting it. A few other recognizable images peeked over the edges. John shifted uncomfortably. “Is… is that, okay?” he asked.

Monika looked at him in confusion, then her eyes spread into alarm and then, she pouted. “W-what do you mean?” she sounded almost sad. “Of course it’s okay.” Then, “It took me three weeks to get this body right for you, it better be okay!”

John coughed, then shook his head.

“What??” Monika intoned.

Then, John began to chuckle. He sighed, before smiling at his Monika. “This is so like you,” he admitted.

Monika blushed, waggling her overweight legs in her tiny chair. “Thanks!”

He felt the next bit come out nervously. “Do you… like yourself? Like tha- erm… this?”

Monika looked out at him. Her eyes were pure light. “John, you looked at this picture,” she tapped the desk, “more than you looked at my original sprites. Which you edited. For four months. Do you love this body?” she asked.

John felt that inner tension still holding and had to force himself to speak. “Yeah… I do. I really do.”

Monika beamed. “Then I love it,” she said softly, before blowing a kiss outward to him. Her expression turned into a shifty grin, and she tapped her fingers together. “Even though it sorta kinda broke like every system. Nothing’s responding to this fat girl voice!”

John grimaced. “Something has, I assure you of that…” before breaking into a scandalous chuckle. 

Monika looked on, innocently confused. She waved a hand at him. “Oh, whatever that means! Just fix up the codes, I wanna come have dinner with you in the kitchen, and the pizza’s gonna get cold!”

John sighed before closing his fists and cracking his knuckles. He looked down at his keyboard, then back to Monika. He hesitated. “I don’t know if I can,” he admitted, heaving out a laughed breath. “You’re really distracting when you’re…”

Monika twisted. “I’m just sitting here,” she blushed. “Nothing’s changed. Now come on, I wanna test out the eating script I wrote!”

“Eating script??” John asked, incredulous.

“Sweetie,” Monika said, tapping her tablet. A blue shimmer over her desk spawned a large two liter of soda, “I’ve got quite a few ideas I’d like to stuff out tonight.” 

She leaned back, placing a hand on top of the bottle and the other on top of her gut. And she winked.