Lucas stared. "He activated THAT program!?... Time delay?! Uh-oh!" Lucas hurried out the door to his room, and found Daniel walking down the dorm hallway... but not for long.
Daniel's skin turned neon pink and shinny, body hair vanishing, along his clothes. Daniel however didn't have to worry about modesty, while his rear had kept it shape but was now a solid piece, as Lucas caught up with him, he saw his nipples and belly button had also vanished, and of course Daniel's groin had already become a flat surface devoid of detail.
Next came Daniel's entire body shape, changing into a figure that previously had only existed in animes with exaggerated hips and a bust that would have cracked a woman's spine, but it didn't matter... Lucas had designed this program after all, and he knew Daniel was now hollow plastic, but still sapient and animate.
Daniel's hands and feet became snow white along with the front of his, her chest, and his face pressed out into a vulpine muzzle with his other ears vanishing and replaced with triangle shapes on top of her head. His feet and hands now resembling paws more, with the hands having an opposable thumb. Her eyes now looked painted on, but moved about and saw all the same. And of course, the long foxy tail that was a hollow plastic mass, and ended in a white tip, but moved and swayed all the same.
Daniel stopped, turned to face Lucas, and bowed, "Hello Owner, how may this doll service you?"
"Daniel?" Lucas asked, already knowing the answer.
"If that is what Owner wishes to call me, my name is whatever you wish it to be."
"And... how did you get here?" Lucas asked, wondering now how much reality was adjusting to Daniel's change in existence.
"I walked out of your room Owner after you told me to leave, after this doll made a mistake and disrupted your equipment. This doll is sorry for it's failure."
"It?"
"Yes Owner, though this doll appears female, 'it' is a far better term. And it also establishes this doll is an object, property, it exists to be what you want it to be."
"Doesn't that make you a slave?"
"DON'T BE SILLY!" The doll laughed. "You have to be a PERSON to be a slave, I have no 'I' except what you give to me. I am but a hollow vessel for your will Owner. I am fully aware of what I am, who I am, and what my purpose is. It's safe to say my mistakes didn't damage reality as you feared Owner."
'So it's aware of what just happened... but within the context of it's new existence,' Lucas thinks. The doll program had been intended as a stress test, to see how far the program could bend reality without it breaking... Lucas had to wonder how reality could compensate for THIS radical a change.
Lucas saw other people walking about the hallway, they couldn't have been more disinterested in what they were seeing. Lucas tapped a neighbor on the shoulder and ask, "Excuse me, what is that?" Lucas point at the doll.
"A doll," she shrugged.
"Is it a person?"
"Not last time I check," she said looking at you weird.
"Never mind," you said.
She walked off.
You take 'Daniel' by the hand. "Come back to my lab, I need to run more tests on you after you ran the program."
"To see if there were any changes?"
You lead her back inside and lock the door, you were happy you installed that sound proofing.
If this was a stress test, best test to see what happened if confronted with the truth of their own existence. "Actually, you changed completely, you're supposed to be a person, a human being."
"Oh," said the doll rather simply.
"Do you care at all?"
"Not really," the doll shrugged. "Why should this doll? This doll has no memory of that reality. Why should this doll give a damn about it?"
"Would you want those memories?"
"No way Owner! If I did, I might want to return to that former existence, and in that former existence I am not your doll, and I could not be owned. And it is the pleasure and duty of a doll to be owned!"
You remembered how you'd based its logic on the first installment of animated children's film involving living toys. You couldn't account for EVERYTHING in the program, and had to rely on reality filling in the gaps. So far, it seemed to be doing so quiet well.
"For research purposes, for now your name is Doll Zero. Once I have enough information, I can give you a different name."
Doll Zero bowed. "Whatever name Owner wants for this doll, it will have."
"So you have no self determination?"
"This doll has plenty of determination to fulfill your will Owner, but 'self'? HA! It's only self is the self you give me. My personality, my identity, all of it is yours to decide. If you feel personality or identity is getting boring, I can simply tun off this illusion of having a persona easy peasy as well."
As a test Lucas said, "Doll Zero, remove any illusion of personality you have."
The doll stood at attention, legs together and arms at its side, facing staring forward. "Yes Owner, all illusions removed." It said in a calm monotone. You couldn't help but admire the order and calm to it.