JANE WOKE UP EARLY THAT WEDNESDAY morning, and went downstairs for a quick brekkie… while-saying goodbye, to her doctor-mother, who went to her clinic.

She headed back upstairs to her-task of programming-Boyyo… where she had a deadline of before school reopened…

… but it was impossible to teach the AI every mannerism and commands of herself. Jane also thought of HER ‘PERSONAL’ SECURITY… now that she was popular-and-famous in Perth – so, SHE DECIDED TO PUT A FIREWALL, ‘between’ her-and-Boyyo.

She does ‘not’ want the AI to learn every aspect of her life…

‘… my personal blind-life is ‘my-own,’ personal blind-life…’

-O-

She had made her lucky-mistake before, when she had programmed-SIMY to self-learning mode, 2 years ago – that made ‘her-artificial intelligence to analyse her-self… and…

… her former AI had learned of her rebellious behaviour, and since-then ‘was’ CONTROLLING-JANE…

… by making the ‘correct’ choices for her – which was ‘why’ blind-Jane was glad-and-lucky that SIMY had kept her ‘alive’ – ever since she was involved in the field trip and later ‘cursed’ in that same farm-town, outside Perth.

… but-now…

… as a blind girl with a different set of priorities – she also ‘valued’ her own freedom and free-will, that was within her-control….

A shout downstairs, made Jane come out from her-reverie. She immediately commanded…

“Boyyo, what is happening!!?”

“Lola is shouting…”

“Yes, I can ‘hear’ that too, you-galah-dimwit – Boyyo-what do you ‘see’...?”

… Boyyo’s video-feed looked… through Jane’s blind-dark-glasses, outside the window…

“2 teenagers are running out there, in the back alley.”

… Blind-Jane immediately grabbed her baton-walking stick, with Samuel’s ‘safety’ in mind – and she rushed downstairs… and ‘only’ to-hear…

… Samuel’s voice gurgling-stoked in the living room, at the TV – Jane then headed to the kitchen, which led to the outdoor backyard…

“Lola, what happened…?”

She cried out to Lola Flores, standing alone beside the gazebo.

“Some-bloody Bruce, with a SELFIE-STICK, was taking pictures of our backyard.” The Filipina scoffed.

… Jane turned back into the house sighing…she took out her Samsung and called Alicia – and told her of the ‘INVASION OF PRIVACY’ incident…

She went back upstairs to meet her deadline – and worked on her new-AI programming until she was MENTALLY DRAINED… and she took a short nap…

-O-

She was into a dream state – and she unconsciously trespassed into uncharted realms, that were dark and unwelcoming. The blind-girl’s spirit FOLLOWED A FEMALE ‘VOICE,’ hypnotically coming at the end of a long tunnel…

“yes, O’ blind one – just follow my voice…”

The docile blind-girl followed the voice…

… “yes, keep following my voice – Just followw…”

Jane then heard a man’s voice from her back – calling-out with urgency…

“Jane, turn back!”

Her-blind-aura halted… at the mouth-of-the-tunnel, and Jane asked…

“… who are you…?”

“It’s me, Piper.”

“What…? You can-speak Piper…?”

… Jane felt a nudge at the feet… and it was furry – the blind-girl reached out her hand – and ‘felt’ her dog's licking wet-tongue…

“… Piper, it’s you – you ‘found’ me…”

“Yes-Jane, but why are you here?” Asked, her-dog.

“How is this – you-speak…?”

“Yes… in this ‘world’ I can speak – and many other things… but why are you here, Jane? It is a dangerous place-to-be… that even I dare ‘not’ step my foot into here, because Popobawa lives here – Jane… come, let-me TAKE YOU BACK-home.”

“Who is ‘this’ Popobawa…?” Jane asked.

“That is the bad-bad-animal-spirit… that infected the big-black panther, who then… bit-and-infected me too…”

Nodding, Jane was quiet in thoughts, as she followed her dog…

“… Piper, you ‘sound’ older – like a man.”

“Yes, Jane… I have been ‘cursed’ as – a man…?”

“You don’t like… being a man?”

“No… this-man, I don’t – because I’m dangerous… when I become ‘this’ man – it is more like a Wolf-man.”

“… what…? You mean… like a werewolf?”

“How-ever you may call it, Jane – but I don’t like this transformation one bit” Piper sighed…

“Because… I-kill.”

Piper noticed Jane slowing down… with heart-pounding with fear.

“Fear me ‘not,’ Jane, I’m in control of it.” The dog chuckled…

“…but thank you-too… for saving my ‘life’… or else I would have died that night, in the panther’s attack.”

“I love you, Piper – I would do anything for you.”

Jane got down on her knees… and hugged her dog. He licked her face…

“I love you too, Jane…”

-O-

… in her new-Queen-size bed, Jane was ‘awakened’ by inappropriate touches of a human arm, hugging from her-rear – the blind-girl opened her ‘blind’ eyes to see red light-glows.

She fought-back, rolled and yanked-over – until she fell off her bed to the thick rugged floor. Jane was sentient again… sitting on the floor to realize, that it was only a ‘strange’ dream.

“… Boyyo… err, how long was I asleep…?”

“You have been sleeping for 1 hour and 37 minutes – and-Jane… you have also, a voice message from Alicia.”

Replied the Boyyo-tablet – from the new Queen-sized bed.

“Play it.”

“… Janey, I’m coming over now to your house – there has been ‘major’ development in social media.”

<><> 

ALICIA ARRIVED AT THE WILSON RESIDENCE – and in no time she was upstairs, entering the blind-girl’s bedroom, but only to find her BFF seated at her desk, quiet and in deep thoughts.

“Janey…”

The Chinese girl called in a soft tone.

After a couple of seconds of hesitating delay… the blurry blind-girl responded as she whispered back…

“Ali…”

“Girl, are you okay…?”

… Jane looked at her – nodded with uncertainty.

She had a ton-load of 2-years of school-work coding to upload into the learning system and Braille-it for her final exams. She had only a deadline of 4 days to do-it-all – she was already in stress-mode crunching it out, with programming data into her new AI device.

Alicia took her hand and led her to the bed. The tweens sat side by side – the blind-girl’s head tilled over, and rested on her best friend’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry too much, I’m always there to help you, Janey.”

“But Ali, I’m-blind B-girl… I think I’m ‘not’ ready to go back to school.”

“Nonsense! This Monday… you-and-I will go to school, no-matter-what, okay?”

After a brief silence, Jane responded softly. “Okay...”

Alicia hugged and kissed her cheek. “No-worries… everything will be A-Okay, right Janey-gee?”

Jane’s head softly then nodded back.

After another brief silence, Jane asked.

“Your voice-message, just now – you said something happening in social media?”

The Chinese girl was back in enthusiasm when she took out her Samsung… to her Twitter-feed…

“It’s Piper – the photos of your backyard taken just now, that had an empty-cage – and it has everyone talking about, the whereabout of Perth’s hero dog, who had gone missing.”

… Jane was stunned when she heard that, after dreaming of her dog, Piper just now – who could TALK LIKE A MAN, and even to transform into a werewolf beast. But it would be absurd… to say ‘that’ to her BFF…

… so, the blind-girl summed up a response…

“But Piper-boy is cursed – and that was why HE MADE HIS DECISION of running away-on his own – so that he wouldn’t harm anyone!”

“That is right, but Janey – now various Perth’s animal lovers’ organizations are campaigning, on ‘rescuing’ Piper… and bring him back ‘home’ to you.”

“Oh-no… that is a ‘bad’ move – Piper has gone feral and would endanger anyone that ‘would’ TRY TO CAPTURE HIM. We must find a way to stop this, Ali!”

“But how…? Based on eyewitness and other photos circulated in the past week showed Piper, was last spotted in various parts of South Perth town and in the streets – feeding on scraps – Piper then disappeared ‘poof’ – and NO ONE SEEN HIM ever-since.”

“Oh, my poor, hungry doggie…”

… Jane was sad – as she had fed her dog daily after-school… and also regretted and feeling guilty, for coming out late THAT NIGHT TO ‘SEE’ PETER – where her brave dog was bitten when ‘defending’ her, while the both of them were attacked by the sneaking wild-Black cat.

She recalled in her dream of Piper, thanking her for rescuing him from certain death, in the jaws of the black panther – but she had ‘FORGOTTEN’ TO APOLOGIZE to him… for bringing Piper along that same tragic night…

… she was heart-broken and, Piper being ‘CURSED’ WAS HER FAULT...

The girls hugged…

“Don’t cry, Janey…”

-O-

“I’M STILL FEEL GUILTY, ALI…”

Both the tweens, had-been lying on the new-Queen-sized bed, for an hour. Jane was hugging her tighter, to her BFF… while Alicia was twiddling, with her best-friend’s dreadlock…

“Why am I double-cursed as a B-girl… who lost her good-friends, in a week apart – I lost SIMY in the thunderstorm… and then also, the moment that black panther bit Piper, I knew I had lost my dog-too – and I don’t know WHAT AND ‘WHO’ else I would be losing next…?”

The blind-girl, heard Alicia giggle softly…

“Girlfriend… you are ‘not’ going TO GET RID OF ‘ME’ that easily – we will figure a way out.”

But Alicia too was worried for Janey, whom she HAD ‘NOT’ EVER-SEEN, had-spiralled-down as so-fragile – AFTER BOTH the Treeton and the panther-attack tragic incidences…

… day by day…

… her best-friend was LOSING ALL OF HERSELF-confidence, in the seeing-sighted world – and was withdrawing back… into the womb of the blind-world, where she was born into…

And… Alicia WOULD ‘NOT’ LET THAT HAPPEN to her BFF – who was all tangled-and stressed-up… into-her ‘own’ insecurities.

“What if Ali, what if…”

“Stop it Janey-gee, no more bloody-what-ifs, for now, okayy…?”

“But that’s the point – I’M NOW ‘CURSED’ – and now have all these ‘bad-lucks’ happening every-other-day – what if something happens TO ‘YOU’… AND I CAN’T LIVE with it, knowing that I was ‘the cause’ of it… and I would feel guilty till the day I ‘die.’”

“Listen-here Jane – remember what SeeIn ‘told’ in the group-therapy session before – which is to STAY POSITIVE at all times no matter what, and also to be supportive to one another.”

“It is so difficult to do so… by LIVING A DOUBLE-LIFE now – I’m living a ‘lie’ to those outside my ‘circle’… and I feel ‘bad’ by the thoughts of it… I need to SPEAK TO SOMEONE ‘who’ is qualified, and could access the-problems, that I’m-into, a bloody-cursed-B-girl.”

“… Janey, you can speak to Ms King…she can help as our school guidance counsellor – I have her number to call, do you want it…?”

“’ Not’ Ms King… BUT TO UNCLE JACK… he is my mentor and I feel ‘bad,’ withholding all these cursed-secrets from him… as he had entrusted ‘me’ by giving me his brain-child invention SIMY to OPERATE – WHICH I THEN carelessly broke it, beyond repair.”

“Janey is that a ‘good’ idea…?”

“I have no other choice and option right now – maybe he will listen and understand… with you here at my side, as an eye-witness – of everything that had HAPPENED TO ‘US-ALL,’ in the past 2 weeks.”

… Alicia thought for a deep-moment for a while… before she responded to Jane…

“Okay LET’S DO IT THEN. Let’s hook up Boyyo… and we Skype Uncle Jack to find out.”

<> 

DR JACK TURNER OF KIMURA STAR CORP., despite being a busy-Head Scientist, of the company’s robotics division in Washington D.C. – but he ALWAYS FOUND TIME, to listen to his favourite niece, from across the Pacific Ocean.

… but today, the bearded scientist was listening to 2 girls in a screen, that were speaking in a random dose of mild-paranoia, OF THE SUPERNATURAL, AND THE CURSES of Medieval Middle East…

… Jane told him that she was ‘cursed’ in the school’s field trip when she was hit by lighting with the Walker-twins. And, she then developed a super ability that she called-as HER 3RD-EYE – which was activated, whenever she was around the twins-like a ‘beacon.’

Jane could see the Walker-twins glowing red and blue… where no-one else, who was ‘not’ cursed by the evil Asmodeus – could ‘see,’ the Cursed-Trio glow…

… Alicia backed-his niece’s stories, that she believed her BFF 101% – DESPITE SHE TOO ‘can’t see’ the Cursed-Trio glow. But she even told Jane could fly and she had caused the Aurora Australis spectacle recently in South Perth, on Sunday – where she saw in-the-mirror of Jane, as A COSMIC-STAR-LIKE BEING, and fighting an evil entity called the BlackStar… who was responsible for all global natural disasters.

Jane then spoke of their super abilities of the Cursed-trio – that only she and Paul possessed superpowers – while, the equally cursed Peter, WAS THE CAUSE of the recent earthquake disaster in Australia’s Queensland’s Great Barrier Reefs, with his uncontrollable negative emotions. But, ‘NOT’ HER AND PAUL who were using their superpowers responsibly, to help humanity to fight off any evil.

… Dr Jack Turner, after listening to more of their superpower’s stories – where Paul could shoot electrical discharge energy-sparks from his fingertips – while his blind niece, too who could discharge firebolt from her palms, that were powerful to defend herself and her dog from an attacking black panther – and…

… the man-of-science stopped them both…

He vaguely suspected that 4 of the tweens had their ‘first’ experimentation of the intoxication of cannabis, during their middle grade, mid-school term-break in Perth.

“So, my dear Jane… if you may, could you give me a ‘SIMPLE’ DEMONSTRATION of what such great superpowers you spoke of just now – and ‘convince’ me-further, by displaying it?”

“Do it, Janey.”

… Alicia whispered to the blind-girl.

Jane stood up, wobbly and weak… as she shut-close her blind-eyes, to focus – the depressing memories of her being ‘curse,’ bore an anchoring-weight, that had drained HER OF THINKING STRAIGHT and let-alone, to-focus…

… Alicia saw Jane who stood upright, with her fists clenched tight, and her knees were bent. Even, forming frowns in her-forehead – as she was breathing in-shallow, that changed her fairer, pale complexion, gradually to redder...

… for 20 seconds Alicia looked at her blind-friend’s face and feet – anticipating, that she can, at least LEVITATE LIKE-PAUL DID…

… and ‘be-done,’ with this show-and-tell situation. But she too knew that her best-friend’s current-mental state – which was DEPRESSINGLY LOW… that it was ‘impossible’ to do so…

… back across the Pacific Ocean, in that ‘same’ 20 seconds, on the screen – the bearded Uncle Jack, saw his favourite niece, in a standing-pose and WITH HER CRINGED FACE, of like-a state of constipation.

Both Alicia and Uncle Jack ‘saw’ blind-Jane giving up… in exhaustion pants, backing off wobbly back to sit on the bed, with Alicia guiding while holding her.

“I can’t… ‘NOT’ ENERGIZED, WITHOUT THE TWINS… I can’t focus…I can’t…”

… only Alicia empathized with Jane – and she disliked her Uncle Jack’s degrading his-niece, who-was her-BFF… with his cynical smile, mock-backs…

While Uncle Jack concluded mentally – that the tweens were high in hallucination and phantasm, during their holidays – because he had been-there-and-done-that too before.

The guilt-filled Jane then… instantly just jerked up, from Alicia’s shoulder – to continue to speak out…

“Uncle Jack, SIMY IS STILL ‘ALIVE’ and she is living now in the dream-world. On the night of Samuel’s abduction, ‘SHE’ HAD-WARNED PAUL that Samuel… was ‘taken’ to the zoo – and that was ‘how’… we had ‘found’ him there, in the first place. And, I have even spoken to ‘her’, in my head.”

Even Alicia now stood up for her friend and vouched…

“Dr Turner, I believe in Jane, like my ‘own sister’ – and I’ve known-and-seen what she was capable of since. And, the Walker twins-too… I know, what they were capable of both ‘good-and-bad.’ And, when Janey says SIMY was in ‘her’ dream-world – who gave us the ‘hunch’ of where to go, and that was where we went, to that exact-location of that zoo… and we found Samuel over-there. So… please believe-us, Sir…?”

… Jane jumped-into the convincing-plea again, by adding…

“Yes, Uncle Jack… the Walker-brothers and I – we are-as the Cursed-trio… and we bear our-OWN CURSED MARKS, but it is all identical in the shape of a diamond.”

… Jane pulled off the beanie headwear, to point at her scar on her forehead… while Alicia beside her nodded.

But her uncle dismissed it…

“But all lightning victims were scarred in 3rd-degree burns in their bodies… which is known as Lichtenberg figure – that’s what ‘those’ are…”

“But-Uncle Jack… my dog Piper is ‘cursed’ too when bitten by that cursed black panther, so he ran away...”

“Listen-here you 2 – cases of dogs running away from homes are ‘common’ reported daily – it doesn’t necessary means YOUR DOG-IS-CURSED… as there is a logical reason behind it, right…?”

Again, Jane responded back. “But SIMY is also inside Piper’s head – SIMY ‘told’ me so.”

… Dr Jack Turner’s smiling-natured-face had SULKED… BY THE ‘MENTION’ of his prototype AI… again and again…

SIMY WAS ‘INDEED’ HIS MAIN-problem, at hand.

-O-

The 2 girls were hugging each other – feeling sad and disappointment with themselves, that they CAN’T PROVE ANYTHING MYTHICAL... that they were facing were ‘true’ – because the American scientist was debunking those events… with total scientific evidence and common-sense logic. They both too ‘lack’ any shreds of evidence to give proof to Uncle Jack, of those super-abilities the Cursed-trio had possessed.

Alicia thought of the Walker-twins’ WHEREABOUTS…

‘Where are they now…?’

… Peter Walker was in a deep-deep sleep state, after consuming far too many online, depression pills – where his brain had shut down temporarily, as child-lock protection for conscious self-preservation. And, his twin Paul too was sleeping in late... with his lowly, depressed emotions… from binge-watching of K-melodramas, as escapism to his guilt.

Uncle Jack changed the subject of the supernatural to his related field, which is science – he asked about the replacement AI that he sent in, which Jane briefly said…

“Boyyo is fine.”

“But Jane… why did you set a high-security setting on your personal security, and MODERATELY LOW for the SIM’s learning mode – it’s the opposite from what I have taught you in the basics…where it creates an input of reversed data that messes up the ALPHA’s algorithm.

“Please put the setting back the DEFAULT SETTINGS, as per the prototype SIMY’s, which we both agreed upon, when we signed the contract before and, approving that – your personal-life was part of a deal, for the learning system – for the supercomputer ALPHA to evolve. Jane, you too have to keep learning, more and more skills, with the 21-days-habit-training programme.”

… Alicia gasped at the shady-deal her BFF had got tangled up-with – in which, her loving yet sinister uncle had tied-up a terms-and-conditions-applies…

… to his favourite nieces’ birthday present…

‘What ‘kind’ of uncle would do-that…?’

Jane voiced out…

“But Uncle Jack, I want my blind, personal life to be private from now-on. I have grown-up ‘now,’ to value my personal privacy – and I don’t want to reveal my personal life to be public – and that’s why I CREATED A FIREWALL and will use Boyyo, only as a learning-tool at school, for search and memorization.

“It is now the final term, I have got a lot on my plate to ‘focus,’ which is purely school-studies.”

Jack Turner had followed the popular trends on Insta-stories on social media of ‘Perth’s Famous Couple’ and he asked...

“You cannot be an all-work-and-no-play-Jane – I have seen videos you play tennis with your boyfriend… and you both even went skateboarding too – you SHOULD TEACH these skills, to your current Boyyo too.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” The blind-girl kept her answers short.

“Thank you, Jane, I will be looking forward to your LATEST INPUTS AND FEEDBACKS – and that will benefit most in the R&D for future developing the supercomputer – the ALPHA…

“… and-my dear niece, you will be well-known in the future, as part-of the-subset, for the ‘breakthrough’ in the hope of the Quantum Mechanics of the AI-technology industry globally. You will be ‘one’ of the pioneers, who would shape-generations of the future.”

Uncle Jack saw NO EXCITEMENT in both the girls’ facial expression… who both were staring back in contempt…

… in-between, stroking his beard, Turner had an inkling…

“I will be sending over 2 of my COMPANY-TECHNICIANS LATER TODAY, and… on Friday morning they both will be there in Perth… running some blood-tests on you and the Walker twins… for any odd anomalies in all your medical-tests – and you all 3 will be answering some basic questionnaire too. Okay, Jane and Alicia, I will talk to you all soon.”

Uncle Jack Skyped off...

… the blind-girl panicked… and told her BFF…

“Oh-my-Gawd! WHAT HAVE I DONE…? Now they are ‘coming’ for The Cursed-Trio!”

<> 

ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN, the scientist stared at the blank monitor screen as he was processing, the utter-nonsense that both the girls had spoken just now.

.. but Uncle Jack Turner was also disappointed with his ex-prototype SIMY AI… that he had given to Jane – which had GONE ‘ROGUE-ON-HIM’…

… with its own ‘learned-conscious’ into protecting its ‘own’ self-preservation.

-O-

Before SIMY self-destructed itself in the Treeton’s dairy farm tragedy – ‘she’ had copied all of Jane’s files from the supercomputer mainframes, and THEN CORRUPTED THE personal files in ALPHA – from it to ‘not’ accessing them.

For a fortnight, the scallywag-AI had been dormant…

… until Kimura Star Corp., traced and tracked ‘her’ digital footprints-again in the social media platforms – where, ‘she’ was busy creating FAKE-ACCOUNTS IN FACEBOOK and being a moderator in forums of women and motherhood groups…

– collecting information, pertaining to ‘raising’ a difficult-child…

… but when Kimura Star Corp., narrowed down and triangulated of the capture of the renegade SIMY – ‘she’ somehow went-stealth ‘again’…

… and ‘she’ had played hide-and-seek ever since… to ALPHA’S super-killer antivirus.

… Dr Jack Turner had discovered that ‘one’ of the fake accounts in Facebook, that SIMY created had a duplicate profile photo of SHELLEY WILSON, THAT OF HIS OWN SISTER – but under a fake name of ‘Jan Wilson’…

… who was one of the moderators, in the motherhood FB Groups.

The scientist-uncle had been dishonest with his niece… since ‘Day one’…

… feeling unnerved now, that he was slowly being exposed to the truth – of his prototype invention – nicknamed SIMY.

… Kimura Star Corp. was now into creating a perfect cyborg, with ALPHA AI supercomputer programming… as the cyborg’s brains… to think and do skills and self-decision-making intelligently, of its own…

… but, with the cyber-threats on the rise, ALPHA the cyborg would be threatened, if relied too much on its ‘visual video-feed – which could be hacked, and thus incapacity the cyborg.

Over the years of Uncle Jack’s interacting with blind-Jane…

… it had inspired the scientist, of the theory of – what-if…

… The ALPHA was ‘blind’ too, and…

… IN ITS BLINDNESS MODE, it would get around dangers, with fast and accurate and precise decision-making with the use of the ‘blind world’s primal-instinct’ of senses – like ‘hearing’…

… for ‘its’ calculated judgement-algorithms.

The prototype of SIMY bore success with Jane, using as a learning and interacting tool socially, and…

… ALPHA WAS BENEFITING exponentially from Jane’s ‘feedback’…

… so, much so, Kimura Star Corp. had decided in ‘secret’ to RECRUIT 4 OTHER BLIND-GIRLS globally…

... namely from Japan, the US, the UK and Malaysia.

<>

IT WAS TIME FOR ALICIA TO GO HOME – and she forced Janey to leave her depression, at her bedroom doorstep… and go downstairs to cheer-up…

They both walked down the stairs and Baby Samuel was loudly laughing at the TV screen, and talking to himself. After Jane heard some ‘familiar-words,’ she asked Alicia…

“What is Samuel watching?”

… Jane and Alicia sat on the comfy couch, with their feet up, still hugging each other… while Baby Samuel was seated on the rugged floor, fully excited, watching an ANIMAL PLANET DOCUMENTARY, featuring an episode of Capuchin monkeys in the wild...

“… it’s some-cute monkey-documentary.” Alicia said while laughing.

In his baby talks, the-pointing Samuel was storytelling to himself…

“Monkee-zoo…

… Peeta…

… Piper…

… Popobawa…”