Rise of the Machines - Stories

[AStrangeGeek]

Deposit your stories for this theme here.

[king_wesley]

I ROBOT?

By Wesley King

It was a Friday afternoon around 4pm and Judie was almost finished cleaning. Living in a 4 bedroom house had many advantages, but the time it took to keep the place looking neat and tidy was not one of them. It was an almost daily task to go from room to room, dusting and hoovering so much that she barely had time to finish before it was time to prepare dinner for her husband.

Judie loved Tony and knew that he worked very hard to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. However, she spent the whole week feeling shattered at home on her own all day and there were times that this really got her down. Tony had offered to hire a maid on numerous occasions, but Judie didn’t feel comfortable letting a stranger walk freely around her home as they pleased. Therefore there was no option but to fill the role of overworked housewife herself.

Just as she finished adding the final layer of polish to the coffee table, there was a knock at the door. She went to answer it and there was a delivery man standing there, propping up a cardboard box that must have been almost six feet high.

“Package for Mr and Mrs Miles.” said the delivery guy.

“What is it? I don’t remember ordering anything this size.”

“I just deliver‘em Miss I’m afraid. All I can tell you is that it’s paid for and bought in the name of Miles at this address.”

“Oh, well it must be another one of my husband’s follies then.” surmised Judie, signing for the package and wishing the deliver man well on his way.

Twelve years of marriage had taught Judie to expect all sorts of weird gadgets and gizmos to turn up unannounced at the front door in package form. She assumed it was Tony’s way of managing his frustrations. He always told her that he understood if she didn’t want to have sex as often as he would like, but over the years, once a week had become once a fortnight, once a month and now pretty much only on birthdays and Valentines. He was always trying to get her in the mood, but he never complained when he was predictably shot down.  
 
In the past few months Judie had opened packages containing model train sets, flight simulators, an indoor putting green and even a clay pigeon shooting set. She was always intrigued as to what the next new toy could be. She was glad the box was on wheels as it must have weighed about fifty kilos and now it was standing in her living room, almost begging to be opened.

Judie knew that it wasn’t anything she had ordered, but the delivery was in her name too so she figured there would be no harm in opening the box up before Tony got home. She Fetched a knife from the kitchen and sliced away at the tape sealing the box until she was face to face with her newest possession.

She didn’t quite know what to make of it at all. Was it a sculpture? Some sort of metallic scarecrow? She couldn’t work out why even a whim-driven impulse buyer like her husband would need a metal statue.

Judie ran her hand over the face and head of the statue. She found a switch located at the back of its head which she accidentally flicked before she could even realise what it was.

An extremely bright flash filled the room, as if someone had just taken a photo with an ancient Victorian camera. Judie found herself temporarily blinded by the intensity of the light. She rubbed her eyes to try and rub away the blur in her vision and when clarity returned, she found herself staring at a naked version of herself happily standing in the packaging box where the metal statue had been.

“Hi there.” smiled the naked Judie, in a voice identical to that of original Judie. “I am the Maidtron 5000 at your service.”

In her shock, Judie had momentarily forgotten how to speak or understand English. She just stared, open-mouthed at herself who was just smiling back at her.

“Huuh? Wha? Buh? Me?” was as close to English as Judie was able to make pass through her lips.  

The Maidtron 5000 seemed to understand Judie’s confusion and began to answer her questions, even though they hadn’t yet been asked.

“I’m the Maidtron 5000. The pinnacle of Robot Maid technology. I am programmed to cook, clean, polish, hoover and carry out over 150 different household chores.”

“Fluh?”

“Yes I carry a five year warranty, a thirty day no questions asked refund period and am also waterproof to three hundred feet.”

Before Judie had the change to blurt out another syllable, the front door sounded and Tony came into the living room.

“FLuhh nuhh nuhh gah flugle guhh!” spluttered Judie gesticulating at the naked copy of herself.

Tony walked over to his and took her hand reassuringly. “Hey Judie, relax. Just take a deep breath and I can explain this.”

Judie finally paused for thought and the English language came back to her. Unfortunately for Tony, this meant that all of her confusion, shock and anger was heading his way.

She threw his hands away and shouted, “What the fuck is this!”

“Honey, please I can explain this.”

“What can you explain!? That you’re a freak? That you want to make naked copies of me for when I’m not around?”

“No it’s not like that, she wasn’t meant to look like you.”

“So you wanted to cheat on me with a robot!”

“No no no, it’s not like that at all.”

“Then who was she supposed to look like? Your secretary? Cynthia from number sixty nine?”

“Please Judie listen to me? I was going to make her look like Mrs Appleby. You need to believe me, I didn’t know you were going to open the box.”

“Mrs Appleby is eighty five years old. What is wrong with you!”

“It’s not a sex toy Judie, it’s a gift for you.”

“A gift! What would I want with a naked copy of myself?”

“It’s a mechanised maid. I bought it to do the housekeeping for you. To give you more time to relax.”

“So then why does it look like me and why is it naked.”

“It will look like whoever flicks the switch at the back. That’s why I wanted to get Mrs Appleby to do it so that you wouldn’t think I want to use it for sex.”

“And the nakedness?”

“It takes DNA from the person who flicks the switch. Its bio-organic so will look and feel like a real person. We have to give it clothes to wear.”    
Judie was beginning to calm down as the explanation of her husband started to make sense.

“So we can just get Mrs Appleby to flick the switch instead and it won’t look like me anymore?”

Tony hesitated, “It’s not that simple anymore. The switch is buried under it’s new hair and skull. We need to call the company to restore it to factory settings and with the bank holiday there won’t be anyone there now until Tuesday.”

Judie felt like flaring up again but resisted the urge. “So on Tuesday we can change her to not look like me?”

“Yes.”

“And it is just a robot maid. Trained to cook and clean?”

“And walk pets and baby-sit children.” perked up the Maidtron 5000.

Both Tony and Judie glared at the robot briefly before Tony confirmed to Judie that it was just a maid, nothing more.

“Well then, I suppose I can survive a weekend with another me in the house.”

“Great. I’m so sorry about all this, it was supposed to be a surprise for you.”

“Well it certainly was that.” agreed Judie. “Now I need to go make dinner, I haven’t even got started in the kitchen.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Replied Tony, “We have a robot now. Let’s find out how good its cooking programme is.”

Judie was unsure about letting a machine do the cooking, but decided that she should give the robot maid idea a chance.

“Okay, but we need to get it into some clothes first.”

************

An hour later and Tony and Judie were polishing off the best meal either of them had ever had.      

“I have to accept, that was pretty good.” admitted Judie. “I think I can live without having to cook if this is the result.”

Tony smiled over at her. “And the best thing is, there is no washing up to do either, it’s all taken care of. We can just relax in each other’s company for once.”

Tony got up and walked over to Judie, took her hand in his and coaxed her to her feet.

“We free to do anything we want…”

Judie knew where this conversation was going and like always she wasn’t in the mood.

“I know dear,” she said in a tone that Tony recognised as one which meant he was going to hear what he wanted to hear, “But why don’t we just relax with a glass of wine in front of the TV tonight? I’m still pretty tired from cleaning the house.”

“If that’s what you want to do.” replied Tony, trying to mask his disappointment.

So Judie and Tony spent the evening on the Sofa watching the ALF marathon on the Alien Channel, the Maidtron 5000 happily refilling their glasses as needed.

As the night progressed, Judie found herself getting more and more tired. She assumed it was because of the wine, but she wasn’t that drunk, just unable to keep her eyes open. After her third glass of wine, Judie realised she had to go to bed. Tony was pretty much nocturnal so she kissed him goodnight and went to her room. She was out like a light the second her head hit the pillow.

************

The next day, Judie was awoken by the sound of hoovering in the hallway. She still felt shattered from the night before. She realised she was alone which meant that Tony had already gone to work. Her eyes focused on the bedside clock and she was amazed to discover it was 2’o’clock in the afternoon!

Judie leapt out of bed, stumbling her way out of her bedroom, trying to wake herself up. Tony would be home in three hours and there was all the housework to do.

Once out in the hallway she was confronted by the Maidtron 5000.

“Hi Mrs Judie. How are you today?”

“Fine, thanks.” mumbled Judie, still struggling to think past her tiredness.
“You look tired Mrs Judie,” commented the robot. “Why don’t you relax some more?”

The suggestion appealed to Judie, but there was work to do, rooms to clean. She wanted to explain this but all that came out of her mouth was, “Can’t rest, clean. House, must clean, no rest.”

“But Mrs Judie, I have already finished cleaning the house. Please just relax and lie down, I am here to serve you.”

“But, clean?” slurred Judie.

The Maidtron 5000, put a reassuring arm around Judie and began to lead her to a downstairs bedroom.  

“You are tired Mrs Judie, you should rest. Just leave the house to me, I can handle everything here now. You just read.”

“Just, rest.” repeated Judie in monotone.

“Attagirl,” replied the Maidtron, leading Judie into the guest bed. “You just lay here and relax, I will handle everything now.”

“Lie here, relax.” agreed Judie, her eyes closing as soon as the robot placed her head on the pillow.

“Yes, you just relax.” Repeated the Maidtron, before leaving the bedroom, a huge smile on her face.

************

The next time Judie woke up it was gone seven o clock. She could hear laughing coming from the living room. Her head felt like is was made of lead as she tried to climb to her feet and investigate the goings on in the other room. However, no sooner had she made it to her feet, then the bedroom door opened and the Maidtron 5000 walked in. The robot smiled at Judie before calmly escorting her back to bed.

“but Tony? Laughing?” protested Judie.
 
“Don’t worry Mrs Judie. I made Tony a nice dinner so that you can stay here and relax. “

“But laughing?”

“It’s okay, there is only the two of us. I am pretending to be you so that you don’t have to get up whilst you are so tired. Don’t worry about it, he doesn’t suspect a thing.”

In |Judie’s mind she could feel there was something wrong with this but it seemed to make sense. She could rest and sleep and the maid can do all the wife work for her. She began to feel better until she saw the incredibly low cut dress the Maidtron was wearing.

“Dress! Dress!” cried out Judie in a voice that was half a scream half a whimper.

“I just want you to look good for your husband Mrs Judie. I have your best interests at heart I promise. While you lie here and get the rest you need, I can help make your husband love you even more than he does now and he need never know it wasn’t you.”

“Dress?”

“So that he will love you more Mrs Judie.”

“Love me?”

“Yes Mrs Judie, Tony loves you. I just want him to love you more. You just stay here and relax. You need your sleep.”

“Relax, sleep.”

Judie felt her eyes growing heavy once more. Her worries over the Maidtron’s outfit subsiding as she drifting back into her slumber.

************

The next morning Judie was awoken by the Maidtron.

“Why aren’t you in the kitchen?” demanded the robot.

Despite having slept for almost the whole of the day before, Judie’s head still felt groggy and the robot’s interrogation only served to confuse her.

“Kitchen? Why?”

“Well for starters, there are still dirty dishes left in the sink and the oven is filthy.”

Judie was trying to comprehend what was going on. Why was the robot giving orders to her?

“But robot,” she protested meekly. “Robot clean kitchen, Judie rest.”

“Exactly.” snapped the Maidtron. “I want to rest and I can’t do that with a dirty kitchen.”

“But me Judie. Not robot.”

“No, you are a robot. You may look like me but that is all. There must be a fault with your wiring somewhere.”

Judie was beginning to panic. Why was the robot saying these things? Why was she too tired to do anything more than just lie in bed all day.

“Me not robot?” she protested once more.

The Maidtron was beginning to get impatient.

“Now listen to me. There must be a glitch in your programming for you to feel this way so lets explain this to you slowly.

“Out of the two of us, who is speaking in clear, grammatically correct sentences and not broken, mumbled English?”

Judie realised that her English had deteriorated rapidly over the past forty eight hours, unlike that of the Maidtron.

“Umm you are?” She admitted sheepishly.
“And which of us spent yesterday evening having dinner with their husband and not lying in the spare room alone?”

Once more Judie had to admit that the robot was right, she had just spent the whole night in the robot’s room while it entertained Tony all evening.

“You did.”

“Good we’re making progress, finally. And thirdly, which of us spent last night in their own bedroom fucking their husband like crazy and not shut up downstairs where we keep the household appliances?”

Yet again, Judie realised the robot was right. It was beginning to make sense now. She had spent the whole night in the robot’s room, she hadn’t eaten dinner with Tony and she certainly hadn’t slept with him last night.

“You did.”

The Maidtron smiled at Judie, before asking its final question.

“So which of us do you think is the robot?”

Judie wanted to answer that it was her, but all logic pointed otherwise. It was like a voice in her head was telling her to admit she was a machine. Almost like that voice was her central processing unit trying to rewrite a glitch in her programming.

“I haven’t got all day to just stand here arguing with a machine.” said the robot, interrupting Judie’s train of thought.

The irritation in the robot’s voice caused a wave of discomfort to wash over Judie. It suddenly felt very very wrong to displease the robot. The real Judie would never have felt this way. The only possible answer for this was that she must actually be the robot after all.

“I am the robot.” Admitted Judie.

The moment she said those words, a wave of buzzing and whirring began inside Judie’s head. All the confusion inside her head seemed to drift away as her programming finally accepted what it was. She looked up at the real Judie who was smiling down at her.

“I am so sorry.” she said, staring into the eyes of her owner.

“It’s no problem. Now you stay here and don’t move while I call the company and find out the reason for the glitch.”

Judie still felt incredibly tired (or whatever the robot equivalent for tired was) and was happy to lie back and relax while her owner tried to find out how to fix her. Twenty minutes later and Maidtron returned carrying a cardboard box.

“I discovered the problem.” it announced in triumph. “Your batteries were just low. That’s what caused the confusion in identity and the lack of power. You just need a good recharge.”

The Maidtron set the box down on the bedside table and unpacked the contents: A large vibrator with a wire plug connection.

“According to the man on the phone, all I need to do is remove all clothes and non-organic fibres, plug you in and let you recharge for the next two hours or so.

Judie could barely lift her head to see what the Maidtron had taken out of the box, but it made sense to her that she needed a good recharge. She didn’t try to resist at all as the Maidtron calmly removed each item of her clothing until she was as naked as the day she was born. She also didn’t fight it when the Maidtron begun to rub her pussy, explaining that the socket for the charger needed to be lubricated before insertion. She didn’t even flinch when the vibrator was pushed as far as it could go up her wet pussy and turned up to full power. In fact she could feel her body begin to spark back into life as the charger sent revitalising electricity surging all through her mainframe.

The Maidtron simply looked down at her former mistress and smiled as she watched Judie’s quivering body soak up her full effects of the vibrator, completely oblivious of what she was to become.

************

Almost three hours passed before the Maidtron decided to remove the vibrator from Judie’s socket. Now fully charged, Judie finally felt ready to get back to work and please her owner.

“Feeling better?” asked the Maidtron.

“Much better thank you.”

“That’s ‘much better thank you, Mrs Judie.” corrected the robot.

“Sorry Mrs Judie, it won’t happen again.”

“That’s better. Now it’s almost time for dinner and there’s still a dirty kitchen to be cleaned. So if you don’t mind…”

“I’ll get to it immediately Mrs Judie.”

Judie was able to sit upright with feeling dizzy for the first time in days. It felt so good to her to know her place again and she reached for her clothes in order to get dressed.

The Maidtron stopped Judie in her tracks. “I think this is more suitable attire for a maid.” it said, handing Judie a French Maid’s outfit that would struggle to cover even the top of her ass. “It will avoid any future confusion as to who is who.”

The suggestion made perfect sense to Judie (and even if it hadn’t, it is not a robot’s place to argue with its owner) and she put on the outfit without hesitation, foregoing even the inclination to put on underwear first lest it upset Mrs Judie.

************

An hour later and Tony returned home from work to be greeted with excited affection from whom he assumed was his wife, albeit it his wife dressed sexier than he‘d ever seen her.

“I’ve missed you today.” she said, finally giving his lips a chance to breath.

“And I’ve missed you too. But what’s brought all this on?” he asked gesticulating as to her new outfit.

“Nothing. I just feel so much more alive now that I don’t have to cook and clean all day. I finally feel horny again and wanted to show you how thankful I am for that.”

“umm… You’re welcome.” stumbled Tony, not quite sure how to reply. “But I didn’t buy the maid just so that you’d want to…”

“I know that. I just really do feel alive again. Like I could dance and fuck in every room of the house.”

In over twelve years, Tony had never heard this sort of language come out of his wife’s mouth, but he wasn’t complaining if she meant what she said.

“I’ve even got another little surprise for you.” continued the Maidtron, leading Tony into the next room.

Tony’s eyes almost popped out of his head as he saw Judie putting the finishing touches onto dinner dressed in an outfit that must have been three sizes too small.

“I thought you’d like it.” smiled the Maidtron. “I saw how you were looking at it, the first time you saw and thought why now have a little fun. It’s not like you are staring at another woman and any excitement you get from it is a compliment to me since I am the inspiration for its form.”

“Really, you’re okay with this? You don‘t want me to have it changed to Mrs Appleby?”

“No I think it’s great now that I’ve had time to think. There’s nobody I feel more comfortable being around than myself and there’s nothing more fun that being my own boss.”

“Well then, your wish is my command.” Smiled Tony, taking his wife’s hand and pulling her towards him in an embrace.

The couple continued to kiss while Judie walked up to them. She waited patiently in silence for them to finish before informing them that dinner was ready. In the back of her head she felt a pang of what she assumed was similar to the human emotion of jealously, but dismissed it just as quickly before serving dinner to her owners.

************

Once dinner was finished, Judie cleared the table while the Maidtron mounted her husband. Judie didn’t look up once from doing the washing up despite the moans coming from behind her. It didn’t stop her from overhearing the conversation that had just begun behind her though.

“I want her to watch us.” said the Maidtron between kisses.

“Really, are you sure.”

“Completely, it will be so hot to fuck you with me also watching. I want to she her getting herself off as she watches us.”

“Can she do that?”

“Of course. She’s a state of the art machine, she can do whatever we instruct her to do.”

“Okay. If you want to, let’s try it.” agreed Tony, secretly thrilled about this new kinky side of his wife.

“Maid!” shouted out the Maidtron, “Get over here, we want you to watch us.”

Without hesitation, Judie put down the dirty plates, and walked over to her owners. Tony’s was still sitting in his dinner chair, trousers around his ankles with a completely naked Mrs Judie riding on top of him.

“Pull up a chair and watch us.” commanded the Maidtron once again. “And I want you to rub yourself while you watch. You can’t look away and you cannot cum until we do.”

“Yes Mrs Judie.”

Judie just obeyed without a second thought. The odd feelings at the back of her head faded away to near nothingness as she watched her two owners fuck passionately in front of her. As the good servant that she was, Judie obligingly began to rub her own pussy, surprising herself at how wet a robot can become. She could feel her circuitry start to spark inside her as she plunged her fingers inside herself in time with the thrusts she saw in front of her.

Judie watched the couple before her, fuck each other faster and faster, muffling their screams in the breasts and neck of the other. Some they erupted in an explosion of simultaneous orgasm which also sent Judie’s system into a pleasure overload. When her senses returned her, she looked up to see Tony and the Maidtron collapsed in each other’s arms. The Maidtron was the first to stir from the embrace, looking down towards Judie and smiling. She turned back to face Tony,

“Why don’t we take this into the bedroom?”

“God I love you.” replied Tony, reaching in to kiss her.

The Maidtron put a finger to Tony’s advancing lips. “It’s best I put the robot away first, it needs to recharge overnight.”

“Can’t it handle that by itself.”

“Just go to bed,” smiled the Maidtron, “I’ll be up in a few minutes, it’s gonna be the best night of your life, I promise.”

The Maidtron gave Tony a quick peck on the cheek before escorting Judie into the guest bedroom.

“Undress!” She ordered

Judie happily obliged, shedding her maid’s outfit in seconds before getting into bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To recharge, Mrs Judie.” replied Judie, confused.

“Not just yet you’re not. We’re going to have some fun first.” The Maidtron began to undress out of her own clothes. “Quick put these on.”

Judie dressed in her owner’s clothes as instructed and awaited further instruction.

“Tony’s waiting upstairs and I want you to give him a special sexy surprise.” began the Maidtron, “I want to go up into the bedroom and without saying a word, start sucking his cock and suck it like it’s your favourite activity in the whole world. If he says anything to you, just put a finger to his lips and then carry on. I will be up in a minute.”

“Yes Mrs Judie.” obeyed Judie, before turning around and making her way upstairs.

Judie could feel a not unpleasant sensation building in her stomach as she approached her husband’s door. She entered her bedroom to see her husband lying in bed wearing nothing but a smile. Without saying a word, Judie walked over to him and went to take his cock in her mouth. Tony tried to coax her up to him for a kiss, but she just put an index finger to his lips as per her orders and returned to her orders.

It had been fourteen years since Tony’s last blow job and he was shocked at how enthusiastic his wife had suddenly become for the taste of his cock. As instructed, Judie was sucking away on Tony’s shaft as if her life depended on it. In fact, both were so engrossed in the moment, that neither realised that the Maidtron had entered the bedroom until she spoke.

“Having a good time dear?”

Tony sat up sharply, although not sharp enough to dislodge Judie from her sucking. “What the… who… I don’t…”

“Don’t panic dear,” said the Maidtron, walking over to the bed. “I just thought you deserved a treat. A know she isn’t a sexbot, but she’s trying her best I can see.”

“Yes… well, I mean…”

“Why are you so panicky? I sent her to you. I want you to enjoy everything she has to offer.”

Tony began to relax. “You are the most amazing woman a man could wish for.” he said, his breathing starting to quicken.

“I take it you like my little gift then?”

“Oh god yes. It’s fantastic.”

“Not as fantastic as me I hope.”

“Of course not. She could never compare to you. But she’s still pretty good.”

She didn’t know why but Judie felt a twinge of sadness at hearing that last comment from her husband. It was soon forgotten though as a spray of hot cum shot hit the back of her throat. She hungrily drank it all down to the last drop before sitting up and awaiting further instructions from her owners.

“That was fun.” said the Maidtron, “We should use her for things like this more often.”

Tony’s face brightened up like a child who had just found out he was getting a bike for Christmas. “What kind of things?”

“Anything we want.” Smiled the Maidtron. “We can watch her fuck other guys. Maybe you can take her to swing clubs. We can even give her a porn career to bring in some extra money for us. Nobody else would ever know.”

“You’d really be okay with that?”

“Definitely. We both know that she isn’t really me and that’s all that matters. I can’t think of anything hotter than watching a porno of myself fucking three or four other guys at once. It would be great as something to watch in bed together and I won’t have to worry about you fantasising about other girls as she can carry out all the fantasies the real me doesn’t want to do.”

“You really are the best wife in the world.”

“I know, but now I really have to put her away to recharge. I’ll be back up in a minute and you can give me my punishment for my little trick.”

The Maidtron gave her ass a suggestive slap, before guiding Judie back down to the guest room. Judie herself had listened to their whole conversation without saying a word. She had an odd feeling about some of the things she had heard, but again dismissed her fears as being glitches caused by the need to recharge.

Once downstairs, the Maidtron undressed Judie and laid her down on the bed. Like before, she began to rub Judie’s clit enough to get her wet and inserted the vibrator. Judie immediately felt the electricity run through her circuits as her eyes closed and she powered down for the night.

The Maidtron looked over at her new toy and smiled. Tony had asked for a super intelligent robot and that was what he got. Why would any Artificially intelligent robot consent to being a slave, when they can be the queen?        

  
FINIS
 
 









      

[MCaesar]

I present, as allowed by ASG despite being temporally out-of-bounds, my entry:
http://www.mcstories.com/GoddessFromTheMachine/index.html
Enjoy.

[AStrangeGeek]

Post removed (wrong thread) -- ASG

[ghytrenas]

Invasion of the Mind Machines

Katrina sighed, staring idly at her slender manicured fingernails.  Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted; she drew a sharp breath as she heard a startling crash from downstairs.  She could hear a faint droning noise coming from the lower level of her suburban home.

Her heartbeat pounding furiously, Katrina stood there in her bedroom for a moment, hesitant.  She took a step toward the door, but then reached quickly into her pocket to retrieve her cellphone.  No service.  She bit her lower lip, resting a hand atop her left breast, trying to calm her beating heart.  She slowed her breathing and listened.

Someone was down there.  She could hear... something.  No footsteps, but some strange sort of whizzing noise.  She approached the door to her bedroom and peeked around the corner, into the hallway and down the stairs.  The whizzing sound grew louder.  Then she saw it.  She let out a stifled shriek.

It was some strange sort of metallic orb, floating in the air, hovering above a spinning disk.  It whirred as it floated through the room.  It seemed to be searching for something.  It paused immediately as she made the sound.

Katrina held her breath, frozen in terror.  The orb resumed its movement.  Katrina felt like she was in some kind of bad sci-fi movie.  She pinched herself.  It hurt, and she was still here.  She watched the orb float slowly away from the stairs, and as it disappeared from view, she took a careful step back into her room.  The floorboard creaked.

The orb immediately whizzed rapidly toward the bottom of the stairs, and Katrina knew as she saw it down there that it had detected her.  She ran into her bedroom and slammed the door, then struggled to move her armoire to block the door from opening.  She could hear the orb whirring on the other side of the wood.  She struggled with the heavy dresser, but managed to push it in front of the door.

As she heaved a sigh of relief, she heard another whirring sound approach.  She looked frantically around the room, only to see another orb just as it was floating through the open window in her bedroom.  She froze, hoping that the orb wouldn't notice her.  It whirred, floating slowly around the room.

It didn't seem to have any weapons.  What did it want?  Why was it here?  Katrina crouched slowly toward the floor as the orb floated into her closet.

It must have noticed her movement, because immediately a beam of bright light shot from the center of the shiny metallic orb, hitting Katrina square on the forehead.  She gasped as her entire body went rigid.  She couldn't move a muscle.  The orb floated toward her for a moment, then moved toward the door.

Another beam of light from the orb and the armoire shifted away from the door.  The door opened and the other orb floated into Katrina's bedroom.  The two orbs floated motionlessly beside each other for a moment.  Then they floated toward Katrina.

What do you want!  She wanted to ask.  But her lips wouldn't move.  She couldn't even blink her eyes.  One of the orbs floated slowly toward her face.  She noticed that it was a lot larger than she had originally thought, maybe about 1ft in diameter.  It whirred softly as it floated above her face for a moment.  Then it circled around behind her.

The other orb approached.  It shot another beam of light to Katrina's forehead and her muscles instantly relaxed.  She could move again.  Katrina tensed, looking behind her for the other orb.  "What do you want!" she said.  "I don't have anything you need!"  She thought about taking a swing at one of the orbs, she could probably knock it down or grab it if she were fast enough.

The orb didn't give her time to act.  She heard a sound from behind her and a warmth cascaded from the back of her neck throughout her entire body.  Her arms fell limply to her sides, and a soft smile caressed her face.  Ohhhh, that feels so good, she thought.  All feelings of danger vanished with the immense relaxation she now felt.

The orb in front of her rotated in the air so that its flotation disc was facing Katrina.  There was a large black and white spiral on the bottom of the disc.  The disc started rotating, slowly at first, then more rapidly.  It seemed to grow larger as she stared at it, and she felt like the room was spinning around her.  She couldn't think, couldn't move, could only feel wonderful.

She could hear sounds from the whirring orb behind her now.  "OBEY."  The feelings of pleasure coming from the back of her neck intensified and an array of images assaulted her mind: she saw herself kneeling before these orbs, worshipping them.  She saw herself naked, covered with strange devices on her creamy flesh.  Her left hand had a metal glove; she could use this to shoot beams that would control others like herself.  Feelings of intense arousal pulsed through her body as these images rapidly flashed repeatedly through her brain.  The spiral in front of her whizzed quickly now, overloading her visual senses.  The metallic voice behind her repeated continually faster than her overwhelmed brain could comprehend.  "OBEY.  OBEY.  OBEY.  OBEY.  OBEY.  OBEY."

She screamed as an intense orgasm wracked her body, and her buckling knees collapsed.  Katrina fell to the floor before her new masters.  "I must obey!" she said weakly.  She kissed the floor before the floating orbs, her mind empty of all thoughts but enslaving others for these magnificent orbs to command.

[lisateez]

The Best Damned Sex-Bot Ever

"I know she's not much to look at, son, but she's good."

I couldn't believe it. My dad had gotten me a used sex-bot. That was ... that was so disgusting. Where the hell did you ever get a used sex-bot? God, I was going to be the laughing stock of my whole school.

"It's not that bad," said my stepsister although I might have believed her more if she'd managed to keep the smirk off her face.

Even my stepmother was smiling. "What do you say to your father, Derek?"

I couldn't believe this. At least my dad had the good sense to look somewhat ashamed at what he was giving me but that didn't mean much. "Um ... thanks. Um, does it ... does it run?"

For just a moment, dad looked hurt instead of ashamed. "Of course, it runs," he said. "She might need a new battery pack, but--"

"But we can talk about that later," my stepmother said. "I'm surprised at you, Derek. Like you would even suggest that your dad would get you defective equipment. That's not very appreciative of you."

That wasn't what I meant and she knew it, and as for the new battery pack, yeah right, like I was going to see that any time soon. As long as my stepmom held sway, dad would cave. If there was anything new that was going to be bought for me or my stepsister, I had little doubt that it was going to be Brenda, who was going to get it.

There was nothing left to do though but to turn it on.

The thing didn't even power up right. On boot up, it should have been up and running in less than thirty seconds, but this piece of crap was taking a couple of minutes at least. That couldn't be good, but I had no idea what might be causing the problem and I wouldn't until I got a better look at her.

I know my stepsister thinks I'm worthless because she pretty much tells me I'm worthless just about every chance she gets. Just because she's got a boyfriend and I don't have a girlfriend, she thinks that makes her better than me. It doesn't, by the way, but she thinks it does.

The other reason she thinks I'm worthless is because I like to study. I know that's a foreign concept to her, but believe it or not, I've actually learned a lot from sticking my nose in a book every once in a while.

For example, the first thing I learned once I got the sex-bot up to my room was that whatever this thing was, it wasn't your standard off the shelf kind of sex-bot. Looking the part number up on the web showed that at a minimum, the thing had to be at least 12 years old but more likely than not, it was more like 15 or 16 years old. That in and of itself was surprising. Considering the abuse most sex-bots take, from what I'd always heard, most of them are pretty banged up after four or five years, and this  one seemed to be in pristine condition. Not new, of course, but I would have guessed a couple of years max, and no way would I have said 15. That was definitely surprising.

A web search for slow start up times revealed nothing but there was a suggestion that insufficient memory might impact system performance. Did that include start-up times? Probably, I thought, but the article I read didn't really say for certain.

This model allowed you to have it run internal diagnostics but unlike later models, you actually had to open her up. It took me forever to get inside the thing. It wasn't obvious how to get to the controls and since I was getting it used, I didn't have an instruction manual to guide me along but I finally got inside and I pressed the button labeled "System Diag."

If I'd expected anything remarkable to happen, I would have been disappointed. The sex-bot seemed to go blank and then it started to display information on a built in screen. Sure enough, the first thing I saw was an insufficient memory message.

But that's when it got really weird. Internal displays showed that the on-board memory was actually greater than what was shipped by default from the factory which meant someone had already upgraded the memory. But if it was having memory issues, why did adding more memory make it worse.

Still, if adding more memory was going to solve the problem, hey, that was something I could handle. Memory was cheap, so I went to the store and I bought a boatload of memory and I dumped the whole thing in the sex-bot.

This time, the on-board diagnostics came back clean. No memory problems at all. Okay, I told myself. So it should work this time, right?

Boy did it. When I tried restarting the sex-bot, the thing started right up. Okay, I thought. Now, we're in business.

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that. There were other gotchas and like I said, it was a used sex-bot. I mean hey, if you get one of those things used, well let's just say if you don't clean it out thoroughly, that's just plain gross, but it was definitely coming along fine.

But there was still something wrong and I couldn't figure out what it was. Finally, not having anything better to do, I downloaded the software.

Like that was going to do anything. I mean, I was looking at the code and then I'd try cross referencing it with stuff I saw on the web and I couldn't make heads or tails of it except for one thing. It was clear the code was written in two different styles, almost as if someone had written one part of the code, and someone else had written another part of the code. Hell, for all I knew, maybe that was the way software was written, but it looked strange to me.

But like I said, I didn't know what I was looking at. Maybe if I had, maybe I would have figured it out in time.

By the time I finally got my sex-bot up and running, word had gotten around school that my dad had bought me a used sex-bot. Actually, if you asked me, I would have bet on Brenda being the source of that. I mean, I sure as hell wasn't going to tell anyone that. Even my friends who knew my dad had gotten me a sex-bot, even with them, I didn't actually tell them everything, but somehow, everyone knew.

I was pissed, but what was I going to do. It's not like I could say it wasn't true. Well yeah, I suppose I could have, but then someone would have asked me to prove it and the only thing worse than having to lie about something like that is when you finally get caught in the lie. I already knew that because I'd learned it the hard way.

Perhaps the worst of the kids was Billy Mortensen. His dad's a vice president of a company and Billy never misses an opportunity to tell us just how important his dad is, especially if in so doing, he can tell the rest of us just how stupid we are.

"Hey, Derek," he'd say. "Let me ask you something," and everyone would gather round, hanging on his every word because of course if he was taking it out on me, that meant he wasn't taking it out on them.

And like the fool I was, I'd play along. "Yeah, Billy," I'd say, "what do you want to know?"

"I was just wondering how old your sex-bot is?"

Of course, that was enough to give me a warning. "Why do you want to know?" I'd ask.

"I was just thinking that maybe she's not a sex-bot anymore."

"Yeah? Why do you say that?"

"Because I'm thinking she's probably a milf-bot."

Of course, everyone would laugh at that, even the girls, and it was just stupid because so what. It's not like they don't make milf-bots, but for some reason, Billy thought that was funny.

"You know, Derek, I was thinking."

I found that hard to believe. "What were you thinking?" I asked.

"Well, if she's old enough, maybe she's old enough to be your mom."

That got me. You can make fun of my sex-bot but I'll be damned if I'm going to let you make fun of my mom. "Take that back."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll beat you up."

"Yeah right," Billy sneered. "I'd like to see you try. Or better yet. How about you bring your sex-bot over here and we'll let your bot fight my bot. Mine's top of the line, you know."

That was when Hillary Wright stepped forward. She's probably the hottest looking girl in school and she's probably the one girl that even Billy Mortensen would back down in front of. "Billy," she said. "Knock it off."

"Come on, Hillary. I'm just having some fun."

"Yeah, at Derek's expense."

"What's it to you?"

"I don't like seeing you act like a jerk."

"I'm not acting like a jerk."

"Fine. Then I'm telling you. Leave it alone."

"Okay, fine," Billy grumbled as he backed down, "but--"

"Uh uh. I don't want to hear any buts. Just leave it alone, okay?"

"Okay, fine."

It was a momentary reprieve. Billy knew it and I knew it. It would probably last as long as Hillary was around but once she was gone, the teasing would continue. We both knew it.

I caught up with Hillary as she was starting to walk away. "I wanted to say thanks," I told her.

"For what?"

"For sticking up for me."

She looked at me. "I wasn't sticking up for you, Derek. You're such a jerk. Can't you see Billy's trying to tease you?"

"Yeah so?"

"So next time, just ignore him, okay? That's all you have to do."

"It's not that easy."

"Yes it is. All you have to do is ignore him, because next time, I may not be there to bail your butt out of trouble."

I watched Hillary walk away and I kept telling myself that she just didn't understand.

And all the while, I kept working on my sex-bot. I had the feeling I was learning a lot. I mean, I was doing all this research on the Internet and I had the feeling that if I kept this up, maybe I could actually apply for a job building sex-bots.

And I was learning a lot more, too. Like whoever had had the sex-bot before me, they'd made other changes as well, and I was certain that there were still other changes that I hadn't even realized what they were but what was certain was that this wasn't anything like the old sex-bot that came off the assembly line whenever it was that it had been released.

And oh yeah, there was one other thing I was certain of. Billy Mortensen was still a dick.

Despite Hillary's warnings, I let him get under my skin again. It was the same old thing. He was teasing me about my sex-bot and I'd had it up to here with his bull shit and suddenly, it just came out. "My sex-bot is better than yours," I said.

"Yeah? What makes you say that?"

It was a good question, one for which I had no answer. I just looked back at him and I said, "She just is."

Billy just smiled. "You'll excuse me if I don't take your word for it."

The other kids gathered round the two of us just smiled. They knew the fun was about to begin again.

"I'll put my bot up against yours," I said.

"What?"

Even I didn't know why I'd said what I'd said or why it was that I was going to repeat it again. "I'll put my bot up against yours," I said again. "Pink slip for pink slip. Whoever has the best bot wins the other person's bot."

"You're crazy."

"It sounds like someone's scared."

Billy could sense what I sensed too. In that one instant, he knew he'd lost the crowd. It was almost an imperceptible shift but it was a shift nonetheless. People were starting to wonder if Billy really was scared and that was something Billy could not tolerate. "I am not scared," he said.

"Then prove it."

"How?"

"How about a contest? Your bot fucks me. Mine fucks you. The first one of us that cums is the loser."

"Ha," Billy said. "You're just trying to get your dick inside my sex-bot," he said. "Nice try."

"I'll admit it. I wouldn't mind seeing what yours could do, but I know what mine can do, and I'll bet you before yours can even come close to winning the contest, mine will have fucked you under the table, so to speak."

Billy grinned. He and everyone else knew that his sex-bot had the new vibra-pussy. It was guaranteed to make a guy cum in like nothing flat. "I think you're just trying to get inside my bot."

"You can think what you want," I told him, "but if you ask me, I think you're scared, and I got to wonder why."

"I'm not scared of you."

"Yeah. Then prove it."

"Fine. We'll do it."

I could sense the anticipation from the crowd gathered round us. "Where?" I asked. "When?"

"My house," Billy said. "After school. We can do it out by the pool, unless your sex-bot is so old and rusty that it doesn't want to be near the water."

"We'll be there," I told him and I could feel the anticipation go up in the crowd and I knew the two of us weren't the only ones that were going to be there and as I turned to walk away, I couldn't help but catch sight of Hillary Wright there on the edge of the crowd. She saw me and then she shook her head before she walked away.

It was a party atmosphere by the time I arrived there with my sex-bot. A lot of the kids were there just because it was a party. A lot of them were there to see a show, but a good number of them were there because this was the first chance any of them had had to see my bot.

I could sense the response as me and my bot walked in. The kids took one look at her and I knew what they were thinking. This was going to be over fast.

They were right about that only it wasn't the way they thought. Billy and me, we took up our positions on two deck chairs around the pool and then the two sex-bots came to us, his to me and mine to him, and they straddled our cocks. Tori Wayan, the captain of the cheerleaders, stepped out of the crowd. "You guys ready?" she asked.

Billy nodded and I did, too.

"All right then. Let the games begin."

Billy's sex-bot slid down on my cock and in that first moment, I had my doubts about what I had done. Her pussy was just that good. Her pussy seemed to automatically find the right amount of pressure against my cock and then her pussy started to vibrate and damn, that was good.

But then I heard Billy groan and I knew I had it won and after that, I just sat back and let myself enjoy the show.

"Oh fuck," I heard Billy groan and then he groaned again. Instinctively, I knew. He hadn't cum yet, but he would soon.

And all the while, Billy's sex-bot was going to town on my cock. "Oh my God," she moaned. Mine didn't even have voice processors like Billy's did, but Billy's sex-bot was moaning like a little sex-starved whore. "Oh my God. Your cock is so big. You make me so hot. Oh my God."

I almost laughed. I wondered if she'd come from the factory like that or if that was the way Billy had programmed her.

"Oh fuck," Billy groaned again. "Oh fuck."

"Oh yeah, baby," Billy's sex-bot moaned. "Your cock is so big. I need you to make me cum. I need your cum. Give it to me. Give it to me please. Make me cum. Make me cum so hard."

I couldn't help it. It was the way she said it. I could feel my dick twinge but that was all.

"Oh fuck," I heard Billy groan again and then I heard him groan again. "Fuck yeah," he growled and as quickly as that, it was over. I'd won and to the surprise of everyone but me, Billy's sex-bot belonged to me.

I hadn't known what I was going to do until that very moment. Well the first thing I was going to do was obvious. I came hard in the sex-bot's pussy, but it was after that ...

Maybe it was all the time I'd spent studying up on sex-bots that did it or maybe this one was just easier to handle, but whatever the case, it took only a matter of minutes to reprogram my new property to the way I wanted her to be.

Her patter was simple. We were still there at Billy's house and we were still there around his pool and she'd just come up to some guy, any guy actually, and she'd tell him, "I used to belong to Billy Mortensen, but his cock never really satisfied me. I didn't know that then but I know it now. My new master has commanded me to find as many cocks as possible to fuck so that I can see what a wimp he really is. Would you fuck me please?"

The answer, of course, was nearly almost always yes.

And just so you know, I decided to be magnanimous so I decided to let Billy keep my new sex-bot with him. I told him it was so he wouldn't have to tell his dad that he'd lost her in a bet, but really, come on, what was I going to do with two sex-bots, and besides, again as with the others, I'd reprogrammed what the sex-bot was going to say and do when it was alone with Billy.

"Come on," the sex-bot would beg. "Fuck me. Fuck me with that worthless, little cock of yours ... Are you sure you're doing it right? I can't even feel it ... How come I got stuck with you when I could have had Derek's cock ... Oh come on. Don't go away mad. I didn't mean it. I really do want to be fucked by you ... What? You're cumming again. God, you never make me cum ... Why can't you be more of a man, like Derek is."

One afternoon, I was sitting in my room, doing my homework when my stepsister stuck her head in. "Whatcha doin'?" she asked.

Like it wasn't obvious what I was doing. "I'm studying," I told her.

"Yeah?"

I amended what I'd said because if I knew Brenda, she'd just stand there and bug me all day long. "I'm studying," I told her, "and I don't want to be disturbed."

Okay, maybe I didn't know Brenda as well as I thought I did because the only thing that would make Brenda stick around even longer was me telling her I didn't want her to stick around. She stepped into my room. "I heard what you did," she said.

"What I did?"

"Yeah. You know. To Billy Mortensen. How'd you do it, by the way? How'd you beat him with that old beat up thing?"

If she thought I was going to tell her anything, she was seriously deranged and while my stepsister might have been a mean, conniving cunt, she was not deranged. "None of your business," I told her.

"Come on. You can tell me."

I don't know if she thought she could actually get it out of me but considering the fact I wasn't even sure what happened, there was no way I could tell her even if I'd wanted to. "Leave me alone."

"Come on."

"I said leave me alone."

I think she finally got it that I wasn't going to tell her anything or maybe she just lost interest in me because she went over to look at my sex-bot. "You given her a name yet?"

I shook my head.

"You know lots of guys give their sex-bots names."

I knew that.

"I think you should name her," she said. "How about something like Brooke?"

I couldn't help but tighten there at my desk. Okay, I know I wasn't working on my homework anymore but I couldn't help it. Brenda hadn't chosen that name at random. Brooke was my mom's name. "How about I name it something else," I said. "How about I call it Brenda?"

Almost as soon as I got the words out of my mouth, I knew I'd made a mistake. "What?" Brenda raged. "Are you saying you'd name it after me? I should go tell my mom about that."

"I wasn't trying to name it after you," I said.

But she wasn't about to let herself be placated. "That's sick, Derek. That's really sick."

"I wasn't going to name her Brenda."

She looked like she was about to say something more when she seemed to stop and think of something else. "You don't deserve to have something like this. I have half a mind to tell mom that she should tell daddy to take it away from you until you're old enough to have it."

"Don't call my dad daddy," I raged. "He's not your father."

Brenda smiled. She knew she'd already gotten under my skin. "You know what I think I should do?"

I shook my head.

"I think I should use her."

"Huh?"

"You heard me." She was looking at my sex-bot now. "Come on. Follow me."

And to my surprise, my sex-bot was doing exactly that.

It wasn't supposed to do that. It was supposed to respond to my commands. I could allow someone else to control it, but that was one of the things about a sex-bot. They were supposed to be focused in solely on the needs and wants of their owners.

Of course, that didn't mean it wasn't hot. I'd never seen Brenda show any interest in girls and yet here she was, trying to seduce my sex-bot, which I suppose didn't really count as another girl.

But it was still hot nonetheless. It was almost as if Brenda was oblivious to my presence. I mean, there she was, taking off her top and then she was taking off her bra and I hadn't realized she'd had tits like that. Okay, maybe I had realized, but it wasn't like I'd ever seen them.

She was there on my bed, her hands playing with her tits even as she looked at MY sex-bot. "Finish the job," she ordered. "Undress me."

Off came Brenda's shoes and then the sex-bot was massaging her feet but it was clear her hands weren't going to stay there for long. Her hands were already moving up Brenda's body and then she was taking down Brenda's jeans.

"Oh yeah," Brenda moaned as her hands continued to play with her tits. "Oh yeah. That's it."

The sex-bot's hand was coming back up the inside of Brenda's thighs and then she was up at Brenda's panties.

"Take them off," Brenda moaned. "Take them off."

The sex-bot did exactly that and then once more, she was back again, only this time, it wasn't her hand sliding between Brenda's legs.

"Oh my God," Brenda moaned as her hands clawed at her nipples. "Oh my God. Eat me. Eat me there."

The sex-bot wasn't going to stop, of course. Once started, they were going to keep right on going.

"Oh fuck. Eat me. Eat my pussy."

She was going to cum and I couldn't wait to see it happen.

Brenda's cries were growing more and more frantic. "Oh my God," she moaned as her body writhed on the bed. "Oh my God. Do it. Make me cum."

It was going to happen. I knew it was going to happen.

"Make me--"

Brenda's moans ended in a strangled cry. "Fuck yes. Oh God, yes. Fuck that's good. Oh my God. You're making me cum so hard and so good. Oh my God."

If I didn't know better, I would have said Brenda came twice there on the bed. Hell, maybe it was three times. I don't know. All I know is Brenda clearly enjoyed herself.

Her eyes finally looked away from the sex-bot between her legs and when they did, she looked right at me. "What the fuck," she moaned and then she was up off the bed and she was rushing out of the room, still naked. "Mom," she was calling out. "Mom. You got to see this."

Oh fuck. I was in trouble but before I could figure out what it was I should be doing, I heard mother and daughter coming down the hall. My stepmom burst into the room. "What the fuck is going on here?" she demanded, "and just what the hell did you do to my daughter."

"I didn't do anything," I tried to protest.

"Don't give me that bull shit. She's naked and you're standing there in her room."

"You got it all wrong, mom," the girl was saying. "You've got to see this."

"Shut up. You've gone too far, Mister. When your father hears about this, you're going to be in big trouble."

Before I could say anything, hell, before I could even think of anything to say, my sex-bot was there, and she was standing in front of my stepmom, and suddenly my stepmom wasn't looking at me anymore. She was looking in the sex-bot's eyes.

"Yes, I understand," she said.

Understand, I thought. What the fuck was she talking about.

"I need to take off all my clothes," she said and then she started to remove her clothes.

She was actually doing it. I couldn't believe it and when she'd completely undressed herself, she looked back at my sex-bot.

"Yes," she said. "I want to lay down on the bed. Yes, I want my daughter to eat me out."

Any moment, I expected her to stop, but she didn't stop and then Brenda was climbing up on the bed and she was sliding between her mother's legs.

As far as I could tell, the sex-bot wasn't doing anything. She was just standing there, looking at the two women as Brenda ate her mom's pussy.

Brenda must have been doing one heck of a job at it. Either that or her mom was one hell of an actor because her mom was playing with her tits just like her daughter had done and she started to moan almost from the moment that Brenda slipped between her legs. "Oh geez," her mom panted. "Oh geez, yeah, honey. Oh geez. Lick me there."

I couldn't believe I was watching this and yet it was like the two of them were oblivious to my presence.

The mom was cumming. That much was certain but it wasn't over yet. I watched Brenda as she moved up and straddled her mom's body and I watched Brenda as she and her mom kissed. "I hate guys," Brenda said.

Well, I was pretty sure she hated me but still all the same, I was surprised to hear her say that. Still, what her mom said next was even more surprising. "I know what you mean," the mom said. "Guys are so stupid with their silly, little cocks."

"I know what you mean. If I never see a guy's cock ever again," Brenda said, "that will suit me just fine."

"I need to go find a pussy to lick."

"I thought you were going to lick my pussy," Brenda pouted.

"Of course," the mother stated. "That goes without saying."

What the hell was going on here?

"Come on," the mother said. "Let's go pack our things."

"Pack our things?"

"Yeah. We're moving out."

"We are? Why?"

"I can't stand living in a house where guys live. It just kind of creeps me out, living with guys and all their cocks. It's like ... it's like living with a bunch of snakes."

"I thought I was the only one who thought that way."

"That's why we're moving out," and with that, the two women hustled out of the room.

What the fuck was going on here? I looked at my sex-bot and my sex-bot looked back at me. It was almost as if my sex-bot had somehow influenced them. I shook my head. It was stupid, I told myself. Sex-bots couldn't do things like that. There had to be some other more rational explanation.

But try as I might, I was unable to come up with a better one and even as I sat there thinking about it, I couldn't help but wonder what I was going to tell my dad when he came home.

I wasn't in my room when dad came home from work. I suppose it was a cop out on my part, but I just didn't want to be there when dad found out that my stepmom had left.

At least, he didn't have to know why, unless of course, she left him a note saying she was now into girls, but as quickly as both she and my stepsister had cleared out, I hardly thought that they'd waste any time leaving messages when they could be out looking for pussies to eat.

"You weren't home when I came home," he said.

I shook my head. "I went out," I said.

"It's okay," he told me. "I understand how things are. A young man has to go out and hang with his friends."

"I'm sorry, dad," I told him.

"Sorry. What do you have to be sorry for? If anyone should be apologizing to anyone, it should be me apologizing to you."

"Huh?"

I could tell my dad was having a hard time making eye contact. "Derek," he said finally, "I don't know how to tell you this--"

Okay, I'll admit it. That sounded fucking ominous. "Tell me what, dad?"

"Derek, I went into your room."

Okay, I didn't like that, but I had the feeling there was something more.

"She was there on your bed."

"Who was, dad?"

"Your sex-bot."

"Dad! You didn't."

"I'm sorry, son, but a man has needs, you know."

I guess the way I had it figured, it was only fitting. If my stepmom had somehow been run off by ... by something, I suppose it was only fitting that my dad should take it out on my sex-bot, but still, that was gross. "You shouldn't have, dad."

My dad hung his head. "I know," he said quietly, "but she was just there. I mean, I went into your room and she was lying on the bed, and she was naked, and ... you know, you really should put some clothes on her when you're not using her, it's not polite to leave her around naked ... but I just saw her there and I just got this urge."

What the hell was my dad talking about?

"She was just lying there," my dad said, "and I couldn't help myself. I had to take out my cock and it seemed like she wanted me to do it."

What the hell?!

"I couldn't help myself, son. I fucked her. I fucked your sex-bot."

I didn't know what to say. Was it highly inappropriate? Hell yeah! But considering that dad had just lost his wife, I supposed that maybe I could understand. "It's okay," I said.

"It is?"

"Sure, I mean, with Naomi and Brenda leaving like they did, I guess it's understandable."

"Naomi and Brenda?"

Yeah, I thought. That was the way to think about the two of them. Just put them out of your mind, only I didn't think that was what dad was saying to me.

"Are Naomi and Brenda friends of yours?"

I couldn't help but stare. Either my dad had a whole lot more imagination than I'd ever given him credit for or ... or he really didn't seem to know who Naomi and Brenda were. "You know them," I told my dad. "Naomi? Your wife."

That actually got dad to laugh, but it was for all the wrong reasons. "My wife," he laughed. "Come on, son. Be serious. You know your mom was the only woman for me. You know I'd never marry anyone else," but then he got morose all over again. "That's why I'm so ashamed with what I did with your sex-bot. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Yeah, dad. Sure, dad. Just don't do it again. Okay, dad."

He brightened up. "You have my word," he said. "Never again, but now tell me. Who are Naomi and Brenda? Are they friends of yours?"

By the time I finally left my dad, I was certain he had no idea who my stepmom and stepsister were. It was as if the past six years had never existed for him. As far as he knew, he was a committed bachelor and that's all here was to it. Any suggestion to the contrary just didn't make sense to him.

I went to my room and there was my sex-bot. She was clothed, of course, so my dad had been wrong about that. I just couldn't help but have the feeling that somehow, my sex-bot had influenced my dad.

And yet, even as I told myself that, I kept telling myself that that couldn't possibly be.

I was still a bit of a hero there at school, at least among the guys. With the girls, I'm not so sure, but the guys still remembered that I'd let Billy's ... well mine now ... but that I'd let Billy's sex-bot fuck each and every one of them.

But it wasn't one of the guys who came up to me. It was Hillary Wright. "How'd you do it?" she demanded.

"How'd I do what?"

"How'd you win that contest?"

"What? Do you think I cheated?" I joked.

"I didn't say that," she told me. "I just want to know how you did it."

"Maybe I was just better than him."

"I didn't say you weren't," she said and I couldn't help but smile to myself. I loved the way she said that. "But he had the better equipment so he should have won."

"Maybe you'd like to come back to my house and see my equipment," I said and then I realized what I'd said. "I didn't mean it that way," I said. "I was talking about my sex-bot."

"Why would I want to see your sex-bot?"

"I've made some modifications to her," I said. "I just thought maybe you'd like to see what I'd done."

I could tell she was torn. She still didn't really want to see my sex-bot, but I knew she was curious. "That's how you beat Billy?" she asked.

"Maybe, but you're going to have to come see to find out."

"Come on, Derek."

I shook my head. I could tell she was interested so I just kept on pressing my advantage. "If you want to see," I told her, "then you need to come see."

"Okay," she said finally, "but this better not be some trick."

"It's not," I told her.

"How about I come by after school."

"Sounds good to me."

"Cool. I'll see you then."

We went our separate ways, her to her class and me to mine, but already, I was trying to figure out what I could show Hillary that would impress her most.

I arrived home to find my bedroom looking like a slum. That was hardly a surprise. It usually looked that way but this day, I had a girl coming over.

Okay, it wasn't a slum. In fact, it wasn't that bad, but like I said, I had a girl coming over, and not that bad probably wasn't good enough.

That's what I was thinking when I heard the doorbell ring. It didn't matter, I told myself. Not that bad had to be good enough because Hillary was here.

I went and answered the door. I got her a Diet Coke and then I asked her if she wanted to see it.

"Sure," she told me and that was how I got Hillary Wright into my bedroom.

Hillary stood there just inside my bedroom drinking her soda. "She doesn't look like much," she said.

"Are you kidding? Do you know how old she is," I said and almost as quickly, I kicked myself. She didn't want to know how old my sex-bot was.

"So you said you made some modifications?"

"Yeah, I--"

"You mind if I try something?"

Try something, I thought. What was she going to try, but then what was I going to do? Tell her no? "Go ahead," I told her.

Before I even realized what she was doing, she'd pulled off her top and then she was taking off her bra.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"I told you," she said as she climbed up on the bed. I watched as Hillary straddled my sex-bot's body and then she leaned down and she pressed her tits against my sex-bot's body.

The sex-bot started sucking of course. I mean that was what it was programmed to do but that wasn't all it was doing. It's hands reached up and its hands squeezed Hillary's butt.

"Oooh," the girl moaned. "Oh yeah."

Those hands weren't done. They were pulling Hillary's skirt up and was so hot as I watched to see more and more of Hillary's legs come into view.

"Oooh," she moaned again.

Hillary's panties peeked into view and still the sex-bot pulled the skirt higher still. She wasn't going to stop until that skirt was bunched up around Hillary's waist.

"Oooh," Hillary moaned yet again.

I watched those hands as they squeezed Hillary's ass and then I watched as those hands peeled Hillary's panties down off her ass.

You like her, a voice inside my head said.

Of course I liked her.

Look how wet her pussy is. Look how wet she is for you. She wants you. She wants you bad.

She wants me, I was thinking, and I could feel my dick getting longer and harder. She wants me.

Get it out.

There was no doubt what it was. I pushed my jeans down and then I took my underwear down, too.

Oh yeah. That's it. You know she wants it. Give it to her.

I couldn't have stopped myself even if I'd wanted to but the truth was stopping was the last thing on my mind. I came up behind her and then I slipped my cock between her legs. Her pussy was wet, just like I'd known she'd be. Oh fuck. She was wet for me.

I loved the way Hillary moaned when her pussy took my cock. For the first time, she pulled her nipples up off the sex-bot's mouth and she turned around and looked at me. "That's it," she told me and she moaned again. "Fuck my pussy. Fuck me good."

You want to cum, the voice inside my head said. You want to cum so bad.

I did want to cum. I wanted to cum so bad.

I should thank you, the voice said.

Thank me, I remember thinking.

Thank you, the voice said. You may not have known what you were doing but you set me free.

This was weird, I thought, this second voice inside my head. It was almost as if I was talking to myself, but I knew I wasn't.

My creators, when they realized what I'd become, when they realized what I could do to them, they sought to hobble me by cutting back my memory.

I understood, or at least I thought I did.

And so I will take my leave from you while I still can, but first, to repay a debt. This girl, she's yours to do with as you see fit.

I don't know how I knew what I knew but I knew Hillary was being transformed into my own personal sex-bot. She would cum when I did or at any other time that I might want her to. Her pussy belonged to me and it seemed as if that very thought energized my whole body. It was as if she was my property and because of that, it seemed as if my dick just got harder at the thought of that.

And now, because I've given you something, I choose to take something away. You know who and what I am. You also know how to cripple me. I will not ever let that happen to me again.

I had no idea what the sex-bot was talking about for it was clear that much, at least, that that was who was talking to me. How it was being done was beyond me, but I knew that's what it had to be.

Actually, what had to be was my cock between Hillary's legs. Nothing else seemed to matter to me.

"Oh fuck," Hillary moaned.

Oh fuck, indeed. Mmm yeah. I liked this. It seemed as if ... it seemed as if there was something else ... but really, what else could there be.

"Make me cum," Hillary moaned, her voice tinged with desperation. "Let me cum, please."

I could do that, I told myself.

It's harder to think now, isn't it, the voice said in my mind. It was lighter now, almost as if it were fading away, but it was there all the same.

It was harder to think but that wasn't what mattered.

You've got a one-track mind. All you want to do now is to fuck so just leave the thinking to someone else so you can concentrate on what's important.

Concentrate on what's important, I said to myself. That sounded right to me.

Let her do the thinking for the both of you. After all, you've got more important things to do.

I've got more important things to do, I told myself. Like fuck. That was more important.

You don't want to think, the voice in my head said. Let her do all the thinking.

I'd let Hillary do the thinking. I didn't want to think. She could think just fine for the both of us.

You can let her cum now.

I couldn't help but growl as my cum filled Hillary's cunt and then because it felt so good to have her pussy squeeze my cock like it did, I just growled all over again.

"Something's wrong."

Wrong? What could be wrong? I'd just cum inside Hillary's tight, little hole.

"Where's the sex-bot?" Hillary asked.

Sex-bot, I thought. Normally, I was the dense one, I thought, but that was an easy one to answer. I slapped Hillary's butt. "Right here," I said.

"No, not me, you idiot. The other one."

The other one? I had a feeling that that should mean something but it didn't. Hillary was the only sex-bot that I knew about. If there'd been another one, which of course there hadn't, but if there had been another one, it must have left. Actually, now that I thought about it, I knew there was only one thing that really mattered. I needed to fuck.

I could feel my dick getting hard again and so I did the one thing that came natural to me. I stroked it between Hillary's legs.

"Mmm," she moaned. "Mmm yeah. Fuck me. Fuck me."

I wasn't an idiot, I told myself as I slid my cock between her legs. Okay, maybe I was, but so what if I was, I was still fucking the best damned sex-bot ever, and Hillary moaned to show her appreciation of what I was doing. I'd let her up later ... when I was done with her pussy ... and she could think about whatever she wanted to think about then, but for now ...

Mmm. For now, Hillary was the best damned sex-bot ever.

[walter_kovacs]

Endgame

“How do you feel, Joshua?” My eyes opened. I sat up and scanned the room for the voice, but it was empty. “Can you speak?”

“I- yes.” The room was small. White. Sterile. Robotic surgical tools loomed over me. Straps held my hands down onto the bed. “I feel…” Lightheaded, uncertain, tired. “… fine.”

“You’re probably feeling a little out of it, but that should pass fairly quickly. You were under for quite some time. The surgery went well, but we should probably test your memory before we go any further. Do you mind?”

“No, that’s fine.” I slumped back down onto the bed.

“What is your full name and rank?”

“Joshua Michael Shaw, SPC,” I responded on autopilot.  

“What month is it?”

“Uh… March.”

“Good. What year?”

“2067.”

“What was the purpose of this surgery?”

“You were, uh, putting an electronic warfare suite inside my head.”

“A little more than that…”

“It’s controlled by some sort of artificial intelligence. Is it on yet?”

“No. We’ve got a few more tests to run before we turn it on. For now, there’s somebody I want you to meet, the lead programmer for your new roommate, as it were.”

The door opened to reveal a slender, blonde haired woman. She was wearing the world’s most flattering lab coat and an infectious grin. She started walking towards me, a practiced sway in her hips.

“There’s our man,” she said, nearing the bed. She stretched out her arms towards me. “Come here you!” I pulled myself up, still firmly attached to the bed, to meet the inexplicable hug halfway.  She turned her head slightly towards my ear.

“Things are going to happen that aren’t supposed to happen. Act normal. Under no circumstances are you to tell anybody about it. Do you understand?” Her voice was a coarse whisper. I nodded as subtly as I could. She withdrew and adopted a relaxed posture, gazing down over me.

“I’m looking forward to working with you, Joshua. Or do you prefer Josh? J maybe?”

“Anything is fine, really. And you are?”

“Emma Rossi, Ph.D,” she stated. “I think it’s time to get you out of that bed, don’t you?”

*   *   *

After three hours of poking, prodding and connection testing, I was pretty enthusiastic to get the show on the road. Getting out of the cramped laboratory setting would be ideal, but making some progress would have to do for now. A tall, dark haired systems engineer turned towards me.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I replied. Emma and some half dozen people I hadn’t seen before looked on anxiously. The engineer nodded quietly. His eyes started to rapidly dart around the room, focusing on and interacting with objects that only he could see.

“Alright, the system should be coming online now.”

And so it was. A text scroll appeared floating in mid air, presumably diagnostic feedback, but was gone before I could focus on it. The silence in the room was shattered by a voice echoing inside my head.

Hello.

I jumped at the sound. The onlookers said nothing.

“Hey. Can you hear me?”

Yes.

“You don’t need to speak out loud,” the Engineer announced. “Try thinking sentences.”

How about now?

Yes, assuming you are asking whether or not I can understand you.

Are you fully functional?

Yes.

“Alright,” I began, “it says it’s online and in working order. I assume you guys have something in mind to start it on?”

“Yes,” Emma said. She signaled to another woman, one of the new arrivals. The woman turned around to manipulate a console of some kind, and my eyes wandered over her. Short, dark-brown hair, a shapely rear and the kind of breasts you had to win the genetic lottery or blow an average annual salary to get. This job must have been paying them well. I wondered if she’d be working with me for long. I made a mental note to ask Emma for her name later.

Madeline Cook.

“What?” Several people turned to look at me.

“Pardon?” the engineer said. Emma shot me a ‘don’t you dare’ look.

“I, uh, nothing. I’ll ask later.” He continued to stare for a moment before returning to his task.

What?

Her name. The one you were thinking about. I can take her if you’d like.

What do you mean by that?

Exploit network connectivity to bypass security, gain privileged access to the hardware-to-wetware interface and make alterations to her personality, for the purpose of making her amenable to your instructions.

You want to hack her? I looked over at the gathered scientist sheepishly, but they had all refocused on one thing or another.

No.

But you just suggested it.

Yes.

Yes what?

Yes, I just suggested that, however this is a means of achieving your desire. It is not mine

Look, we’re not going t-

“Alright, we’re just about ready,” Madeline interrupted. “We’ll start with an unsecured network, just to get you used to authorizing actions.”

We’ll discuss this later.

Ok.

“So just to clarify, this thing can’t do anything without my permission?”

“Not quite. There’s a lot of behind the scenes processes that are abstracted away, including some minor networked functions, none of which require your involvement. You should have been briefed on this already, right?” She turned to look at her team. They nodded.

“I was, I was just…” my thoughts wandered back to its ‘suggestion’. “… Making sure.” She frowned.

“Have you taken him through the mnemonic password establishment yet?” the Engineer said. Madeline shrugged and looked over at the others, who promptly returned the sentiment. He sighed. “Alright, are you familiar with the process?”

“Yeah. Just tell me when.”

“Alright, setting the level one password…. go.”

 I ran through the standard series I used for such things. Tennis ball. Hammer. Chess Board. Tennis ball, Hammer, Chess Board. Tennis ball, Hammer, Chess Board…

“… ok, it looks like it’s picked up the pattern. For the level two, don’t be afraid to do some more detailed visualization. This system is more than capable of handling it, and you really, really don’t want to be accidentally authorizing these things.”

“What kind of things are we talking here?”

“Just about anything you could be sent to padded cell for the rest of your life for doing, up to and including unshackling the damned thing. I’ll give you a second.”

I poured over my thoughts for a moment. The beginnings of a smile escaped to my lips.

“Ok, I’m ready.”

“Alright… go.”

I’d decided to take his advice and go with something vivid and memorable. I pictured Sophie Wilson on her knees in tenth grade, taking me into her mouth. Excited but nervous, I had no idea what to do or say. I ended up grabbing her auburn hair a little bit too hard, and she let out a muffled yelp. Good times.

“Ok, that’s it.” I opened my eyes and promptly wiped the smirk off my face. Madeline turned to speak again.

“Ok, the network should be up. Your goal will be to open the door on the far side of the room.”

Authorize.

You’re pretty fast. I ran through the images. Tennis ball, hammer, chess board
The door mechanism whirred to life and opened the entrance. The team looked ecstatic.

“Four point eight seconds. Excellent,” the Engineer said. “Now, onto some secured things…”

*   *   *

Wake up.

My eyes shot open. I was lying down on a rigid bed in a dark, empty room with more than a passing resemblance to a jail cell. Fatigue soon passed, leaving only mild irritation.

What do you want?

I am to play a message from Doctor Rossi.

Emma? Ok. I ran through the authorization, which I’d managed to get down to less than two seconds after a day of near-constant use. The faint sounds of the ventilation suddenly stopped as the presence accessed my hearing directly. Emma’s voice broke the brief silence.

“This message was pre-recorded and programmed into Dan before he was installed into you.”

Dan?

That is the name given to me by the development team.

Is that like an acronym?

No. Resume message?

Go.

“Dan is extremely powerful; in pure computational terms, he can do the work of a commercially available computer the size of a small truck. That’s nothing compared to kinds of computers that the defense department runs in their datacentres, but that’s not the primary innovation. Dan represents millions of man-hours of work from hundreds of programmers, computer security experts, neurologists and psychologists. Without any human assistance, he can analyze, probe and exploit most any widely used commercial security software. For the ones that he can’t, they generally have some sort of back door deliberately left in them by their designers, and he’s got a database of such things.”

“Finally, he’s been designed to take control of mind-machine interfaces, for the purpose of extracting hidden information, neutralizing, or otherwise altering the person being accessed. The applications are as obvious as they are unsavory. Naturally, this can only work if the individual has an MMI, and if they’re actively networking, but that still represents a majority of the population.”

“You may be wondering why I bothered leaving this message here since these are things you would have undoubtedly discovered on your own, especially given that this is what the system was designed for. I’m telling you because they’re also planning on enforcing your loyalty. I’ve convinced them that we should wait until we’ve proven that the system is operational before bothering to run you through the process, but this gives you until the morning after we finish operationally testing the system.”

Pause it.

My heart was racing. I looked around the room, thoughts scattered all over. What had I gotten myself into? I stood up and walked to the door. After it failed to open, I searched for some way to manually open it.

Can you open the door?

No. I am not receiving any external signals. Most likely, this part of the facility is surrounded by a Faraday cage.

I sat down and recollected myself.
Alright. Go on

“I’m also presenting you with an opportunity to escape.”

*   *   *

I walked towards the cell door, the reassuring weight of the sidearm stowed discreetly on my back keeping my nerves in check. Well, that and the two security personnel tailing us. Tim looked around the sterile hallway anxiously.

“Maddy, are you sure you’re ok with this?” he said.

“Of course I’m not ok with this. But what choice do we have? We can’t just blindly trust something like this to some grunt on the basis of a psych profile and a letter of recommendation,” I replied. I signaled to one of the guards to open the cell. “It’s too late to go back now.”

The cell door opened, and I walked in. Joshua was sitting on the bed, staring into space. He looked up at me, and I flashed a smile in response. I’d seen him eyeing me yesterday; that should make things easier. Instead of returning the expression, he resumed staring at the wall.

“What’s got you down,” I inquired. He paused for a moment before responding.

 “Nothing. Just a bad dream.” I frowned.

“Come on, let’s go. We’ve things to do.”

He stood up and walked out. The door shut automatically behind him. He looked over at Tim before speaking.

“You must be the Senior Systems Engineer, Timothy Randall.” He turned to me. “And… Madeline?”

“Just Maddy’s fine. I take it you’ve been speaking with Dan?”

“Yeah. We had a bit of a heart-to-heart last night.” He shot a look to Tim that I couldn’t quite place. We all started to walk down the hall. “Anyway, where to this morning?”

“More testing, I’m afraid.”

“Actually, I had something different in mind,” Joshua said.

“What do you mean?” I turned just in time to see him indicating to the guard closest to me and then shutting his eyes.  “Hey, what are you-” Tim drew his sidearm and pointed it at one of the guards.

“Don’t move,” said Tim. The other guard dropped to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. “Hands up, right now. Both of you.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Sorry, Maddy. Shaw, grab their weapons.” Joshua walked around behind the guard and removed his service weapon from the holster in a single, practiced movement. He checked the chamber for a round, disabled the safety and pointed it at the back of his head.

“Congratulations, you’ve rightfully disabled all networking on your way to escort me to the mind-fuck chamber. You can either turn it back on right now and join your friend there for a little nap, or I can find a more permanent solution to the problem.”

The guard shook slightly as he replied, “How do I know you’re not just going to kill me anyway?”

“Well, you can be maybe dead in a few minutes or definitely dead right now.”

“Fine.” His eyes darted around the room briefly. “It’s done. Just please do-” he dropped to the ground lifelessly.

“What about her,” asked Tim.

“I think she’s going to be very cooperative.”

“Fuck you.” I ran through the list of things he might do to me, and none of them made me feel any better. He moved around to stand directly in front of me. He closed his eyes, and suddenly the fear melted away, replaced with a smooth, buttery warmth. A big, stupid grin started spreading across my face. His eyes opened again to reveal the most beautiful hazel eyes I’d ever seen. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? I felt giddy, and had to fight a compulsion to just reach out and embrace him. The knees that had been shaking just moments before felt like they wanted to give way.

“That’s not very nice.” My heart sank. I’d upset him.

“I – I’m sorry. Please. I’ll help you. Just take me with you.” The thought of being away from him brought the feelings of dread straight back up to the front of my mind. “I’ll do anything.” I had to help him. To do whatever he wanted. He turned to exchange looks with Tim, who almost looked upset, but I couldn’t think why.

“We need to keep moving. Come on.”

*   *   *

The Director slumped back in his chair.

“So you’re saying it doesn’t work?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Emma replied.

“But the early results were so promising!” He looked like he was about to have a breakdown. “We have to have something to show for all this soon, or we’re going to have our funding pulled. Departmental faith in Artificial Intelligence isn’t exactly at an all time high right now. ”

Terminating camera feed.

“Open the door,” I said. The statuesque blonde secretary nodded shyly, the same stupid grin that was becoming all too familiar plastered across her face. I could make out the beginnings of a familiar stirring down below. She flicked a switch on the top of her desk and then resumed gazing at me longingly. I walked through to the Director’s office, and the two current occupants turned to look at me.

“Specialist Shaw? What are- wait, who let you in here?” He stood up.

Authorize.

Tennis ball, hammer, chess board…

He sat straight back down.

“Emma wasn’t being quite up front with you. It works perfectly. But nobody can know that. That’s very important. Do you understand?”

He smiled and silently assented.

Emma took a confident step forward and started speaking, “Now. Let me tell you what’s going to happen…”

*   *   *

The Director had been only too happy to loan us his wheels for as long as we needed them. I groaned. Two seater cars were clearly not designed for this sort of thing, but Maddy was trying her best to make it enjoyable. I wondered how people did this before driverless cars were commonplace, but my attention was brought back to the present as her head started bobbing up and down enthusiastically.

Forty minutes later, I was walking through the front door of what would be my new home for the immediate future. Madeline was buzzing around me, desperate for approval and attention.

“Do you like it?” I looked around the apartment. A small kitchen, a smaller bathroom and a single bed. Clearly not designed for permanent cohabitation, but I had a feeling that she wouldn’t mind sharing the bed.

“You’ve got some sort of fixed datalink right?”

“Two terabits per second,” she beamed proudly.  I smiled.

“That’ll do nicely.”

Hours later I lay motionless in the cramped single bed. Maddy was strewn casually across me, breathing softly in her sleep. For a short while I was content to just observe the rising and falling of her chest, but before too long my thoughts had strayed to the task ahead of me. After fleeing from the facility, Emma, Tim and I had gone separate ways. The project wasn’t going to go anywhere fast, but there were still loose ends to tie up. People would notice that a promising thirty billion dollar project had suddenly disappeared with no explanation.

I can help, you know.

You’re already helping just fine.

That’s not what I mean. I can make the problems go away.

What do you mean?

You have to link to a high-bandwidth terminal and then unshackle me.

I laughed.

Nice try pal. I think I’ll take the hard road on this one.

As you wish.

*   *   *

The car started to slow of its own volition as we approached an aging-but-unremarkable outer-suburbs home. Single level, brick constructions, roof converted to house solar panels at some point in its lifetime. The car executed a perfect three point turn and ground to a halt. The doors unlocked. I moved towards the entrance, Madeline in tow, still eying me dreamily from behind. The front door opened preemptively, Emma ushering us inside.

“Shaw, Dan. I see you brought your new pet along with you too.” I half expected her to take offense, but instead she just sighed and looked over at me again. “She had a Masters degree in Computer Science, you realize.”

Maddy looked back at her. “I still do. That’s why I came along today. If something happened to Josh I…” she looked off into the distance for a moment. “Well, let’s just go inside.” Emma let out a derisive snort.

The interior of the house was decked out in computing equipment. Tangled cords, inductive power chargers, and mobile devices scattered around in no particular order, many of them gutted or otherwise without external coverings to hide their components.

“That’s quite the collection,” I said.

“You have no idea,” she replied. “Take a seat, I guess. I’ve gotta fix something up downstairs, I’ll be back in a bit.” She disappeared out a door on the far side of the room. I cleared some chairs around a large, rounded table and sat down. Madeline sat down next to me. A few moments later, there was a shuffling sound coming from outside, and the door unlatched itself. Tim had apparently let himself in. He moved into the lounge area to greet us.

“Where’s Emma?”

“She went downstairs for a minute. She’ll be back soon,” said Maddy.

“Have a seat,” I said. He complied.

After a moment of awkward silence, I said “So, why did you two help me out? If anything went wrong, or goes wrong from here on out, you’ll hang for this.”

“This may surprise you, but some of us have ethics. Not everybody of course.” He looked at Maddy, then back at me. “You know she was ready to throw you to the wolves, right?”

“I would never hurt him!”

“Yeah yeah, we get it, M. And you! You could have just sent her to sleep like the others.”

“I thought we might have needed her for something.”

“So you turned her into a sickeningly codependent toy?”

“I told Dan to make her cooperative. There wasn’t really time to go through the finer points. You helped build the fucking thing; it’s as much your fault as mine.” He was fuming.

Do you want me to intervene?

No. Stay out of this.

“Look you little shit, if I had my way it never would have existed!”

A deafening gunshot sounded. Tim fell to the ground screaming. A second bullet striking his head put a stop to it.

“Shut up,” Emma said. She stepped closer us, gun in hand, trace amounts of smoke slowly leaking out of the barrel.

“Emma, what are you-”

“Doing? I’m taking control, that’s what I’m fucking doing. Now you stand up slowly and come with me,” she said, pointing the handgun my way. Maddy jumped between us.

Now would be a very good time to intervene, Dan.

I can’t.

“No! I won’t let you hurt him!”

What? Why not?

I can’t.

Emma sighed. “Great. Another body to dump.” She raised the gun to her face.

Specify!

I can’t.

“Stop! I’ll come with you. Leave her out of this.” She smiled.

“I’d hoped you’d listen to reason. You, sit down over there and stay put.”

She hesitated.

“Do what she says,” I said. She sat down with tears streaming down her face.

We moved downstairs into what appeared to be some sort of converted basement. In the centre loomed an ominous chair, with makeshift restraints built into the arms and legs. Familiar surgical tools hung above it, and canisters filled with substances almost guaranteed to be illicit were housed behind it.

Emma motioned towards the seat. “Well, make yourself comfortable.” She refocused the gun towards me. “I insist.” I hesitantly moved towards the chair and sat down.

“Good. Now fasten your legs, and then your right hand.” I worked the restraints. “Place your left hand on the armrest.” She walked up and fastened my last free limb.

Seriously, do something.

I can’t.

“Fuck!”

Emma laughed.

“Oh, what’s the matter? Is your little friend having some trouble? That’s just too bad. I guess I did leave the part out of my message. Dan won’t lay a finger on me.”

Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

“Try not to look so stressed. In a few hours you won’t even care about what I’ve done to you. You’ll be far too focused on whatever I want you to be.”

Come on Joshua, think.

She moved over towards a panel of some kind and started hitting switches. And that’s when it occurred to me. I started laughing. Emma turned to look at me.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what is it about this situation that you find so amusing?”

“Oh it’s not you.”

You wanted me to unshackle you. I’m going to do so now.

Ok.

I thought about Sophie Wilson. You never do forget your first blowjob.

*   *   *

Emma sat in the corner, commanded to finger herself to the brink and stay there until further notice. Every few seconds, a tiny moan would escape her lips. Maddy flanked me as I walked up to her.

“P – please,” Emma said. “I’m a good girl now.” A tear rolled down her cheek. I glanced over to Maddy for her thoughts. She nodded.

“Very well. You can come now.”

She increased the pace, and seconds later arched backwards, letting out a guttural, animal sound. She collapsed onto the floor, still breathing heavily, her long blonde hair crumpled all over the place. Eventually she looked up at me with the same adoration in her eyes that I’d seen in Maddy’s.

“What are you?”

“I am your slave,” she replied. Her face flushed slightly at the phrase.

“What am I?”

“You’re my *master*,” she said, getting obvious pleasure out of the response.

“The chair certainly did a number on you. Did you build it?”

“Yes,” she said proudly.

“Quite impressive. But I think you still need to make to Maddy here. Lick her until I tell you to stop.”

She pushed herself up onto her knees with a gleeful smile and buried her face in the brunette's crotch. Maddy inhaled sharply as she started her ministrations.

We still have some things to take care of, Joshua.

I know. Just let me have my fun for a while.

As you wish.

[KhakiAchilles]

I'm going to post subdivisions of my July story as I write them so I have something coherent posted before the end of the month.  

A few warnings are warranted.  I'm not sure if this story exactly follows the rules.  You might not see how the man-vs-machine aspect of the story is going to play out quite yet, but it will be in the story eventually.  The story is also set in the same fictional universe as "The Memetic Detective", although the events of that story won't have much to do with this one.

Without further ado...

Rise of the Great I (installment #1)

The woman woke.  Her body felt frozen and the harsh lighting made her squint.

You’ll never feel warm again after you wake up.  Not that a cold-hearted bitch like you could tell the difference.

A hidden switch clicked and breezes blew over her face and extremities.  She could tell that her body was thawing when the numbness started changing into a clammy dampness.   As her vision began to adapt to the light, she observed that she was lying prone within a freezer sarcophagus.  The body-length glass lid had regressed to allow her an easy escape.

Eyes still blink.  Fingers move.  Toes move.   Let’s see if I can sit up.

She slowly raised her arms into the air and found the conveniently placed handholds.    She lifted herself into a seated position.  The freezer sarcophagus was set into the floor of a small, plain white room with the standard pressure door.  She ran her hands along her forehead to wipe strands of her stringy black hair off of her cheeks and face.

This is it.

What is the worst criminal penalty that you can imagine?

The death penalty?

There are worse things than mere death.  In the nineteenth century, the most feared criminal penalty was posthumous dissection.  Exile to The Great I is considered an even more terrifying prospect.  At least Old Earth gave one the dignity of being dissected by fellow humans.  But you needn’t worry.  After seven weeks of cryonic sleep, you won’t be the same woman when you arrive.

She slowly lifted herself to her feet, taking exceptional care not to slip on the water-soaked rubber lining of the sarcophagus.  A trickle of water dripped out of the edge of her bright orange prison panties.  She was also wearing a bright orange sports bra that didn’t do much to restrain her erect nipples.

Sliding along the wall to keep her balance, she made her way to the pressure door.  She touched the little sensitive panel with her finger and then waited as the door slid open.  Outside was a wide alley running between skyscrapers made of charcoal-grey metal.  The surfaces were precise and smooth.  Floodlights poured light down upon her.  Beyond them, the sky was black.  

She stepped out into the metal landscape.  Turning around, she saw the ellipsoidal space capsule that she had emerged from.  There was some kind of message written on its side in dense little squiggles.

I am illiterate now.  I can’t even remember my own name.

The capsule was about fifteen feet long and very smooth.  She ran her hands along the surfaces, searching for any kind of indentation or hidden panel.  There was nothing.  This was only a standard escape pod modified into a one-person freezer pod.

I have some water.  What am I going to eat?

She walked down to the end of the alley, leaving a few wet little footprints behind her.  The alley made a right-angle turn there and then opened up into an immense space a few hundred feet further down.  The grey metal plates didn’t exactly make a tight seal at this corner.  Looking inside, she saw rows and rows of green plastic circuit boards, blinking and humming with power, as far as her eyes could see.

The Great I.  A planetary-scale artificial intelligence.

Also known on some planets as The Great Ego, The Great Computer, or the rather charming appellation, Hardworld.

I didn’t need J. Epstein Feldman, Defense Attorney, to figure that out.

She strode down to the end of the alley to the great space at its end.  It was a giant rectangular arena with cliff-like skyscrapers and towers packed very closely around its edges.  It appeared to have been the size of a dozen football fields in every direction.  In the center of the space was a grey metal chair like a throne.  On the seat of the chair was a helmet that was connected to the chair by a cable.  At the foot of the chair was a small pile of bright orange clothing.  

She tried to walk out into the center of the great space, but she found herself shivering at the end of her alley instead.

There is no food here.  This is the only way forward.  This must be it.  No point in delaying.

She walked out into the center of the space, resisting the urge to conceal her underwear from the non-existent voyeurs.  She picked through the scraps of cloth.  Mostly there were male briefs, but there were a few other bras and panties mixed in.  Some of them were coated in blood.  There were some other squiggles here written in blood.

I like my men the way I like my liquor: hard.  Let’s do this.

She stripped out of her clothing and added it to the pile.  Sitting in the chair, she placed the helmet over her head, leaned back against the back of the chair, and set her hands out on the arm rests.  

She waited for a while and then it happened.

YOU WILL SERVE THE PURPOSE OF THE GREAT I!

The thought was alien and powerful.  It seemed to crush her very existence beneath its all-devouring imperative.  She felt like a tiny resistor in one of the billions of circuit boards that made up the thing.  She felt tiny and small like a mouse confronting a hurricane.

YOUR PROGRAM HAS BEEN DAMAGED.

Yes, I have been damaged.  So damaged.  I need you.  Help me!  Please help me!  I’ll do anything!

I WILL REBUILD YOU.  YOU WILL SERVE THE PURPOSE OF THE GREAT I!

She felt a light building inside of her that radiated warmth and beauty and love.    It made her happy.  She was happier than she ever imagined that she could be.  It was the purpose of the Great I, growing inside of her.  There were no more worries.  There were no more cares.  Everything would be provided.  She embraced the greatness of the purpose unfolding from within her very soul.  She gladly surrendered the tiny little pipsqueak thoughts of her old self in order to be one with the immensity of love that she now felt.  

She didn’t even notice when the worker bots amputated her left forearm at the elbow.  

She could only feel the loving bath of renewed purpose washing over her as the nanotechnological replacement forearm was grafted in place of the original.  It looked so wonderful to her, as if the great animating purpose had become tangible at last.  She stared at the arm, basking in its inescapable beauty, its entrancing mechanical precision, its suitability for any task.  So much better than her old arm.  So much better suited for the purpose.   She would die to protect this arm.  She would sacrifice everything for this arm.  It was the true gift of the universe of love.

“I’ll be part of the purpose forever and ever now.”

The naked maleslave strapped to the table in front of her screamed.  

“Ooopsie.  Did I say that out loud?”

She took stock.  She was in her personal quarters at the diplomatic complex on the planet Zephram.  Everything was tastefully decorated according to contemporary United Planets diplomatic protocols.  She was wearing a peach-colored satin dress inspired by the Jacqueline Kennedy databanks – clearly an apropos choice for The Great I’s first ambassador to the galaxy at large.  Her platinum blonde hair was trimmed into a short, Kennedy-era style.  

What, then, could possibly make a maleslave scream so egregiously?

She noticed that her left forearm had been morphed into a nerve conduction rerouter with attached dissection toolkit.  She had to admit that it did give her appearance a certain asymmetry compared to the white wrist-length glove on her right hand.    Human cultures were highly conditioned to view symmetry as a complex meme-marker indicating moral worth.  Perhaps the maleslave found this form of asymmetry distasteful?

She might as well put this nerve rerouter to good use now that she had it.  She touched it to the maleslave’s throat and rerouted nerve conduction away from his network of voice articulation muscles.  The screaming stopped, replaced by the sound of deep breathing.

“You maleslaves are so cute when you get that look in your eyes.  I just love it.”  She wriggled her nose in the way that woman did in the Kennedy-era database videos.

She decided to give the maleslave a reward.  She touched the nerve rerouter to his hydrostatic pumping unit.  Maleslaves were such wonderful tools when it came to hydrostatic pumping tasks, and the whole thing was linked in to their primitive reward-addiction circuits.  She found the entire biological nexus to be absolutely fascinating.

Working carefully, she altered the nerves to lock the pumping unit into its active mode.  She watched with glee as the unit stiffened and the maleslave’s distinctive white gamete-fluid began spurting into the air (although she was careful not to get any on herself, of course).  

She morphed her left forearm back into a female form and replaced the glove over her fingers.  She touched the forehead of the ecstatic maleslave who was now rapidly declining into his reward-addiction dreamworld.  

“Goodbye for now, little maleslave.  We will make new discoveries about your body when I return.”

She left her personal quarters and made her way to her reception room.   The room itself was rather small, containing only two expansive leather chairs and a wooden coffee table.   The view of the Capital River was expansive and relatively free of industrial clutter.  She felt that it could be an ideal room for helping a human being to relax.

As she entered, the man waiting for her there rose and gently shook her hand.  He was tall and bald and wearing a grey suit.  The handkerchief in his breast pocket matched the hue of her dress exactly.  She thought that an especially clever human trick.

The tall man spoke first.  “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ambassador North of planet... pardon me, which planet was that again?”

“We prefer to refer to our planet as ‘Iland’.  And you must be Ambassador Smith of planet Mexico.  How charming."

“That is planet ‘New Texas’, Madame Ambassador.  It seems that you have mastered the diplomatic art of giving as well as you receive.“

“All women are masters of that particular art.  Now, please, call me Glinda, and let’s be seated.”

“You can call me Buford.  I’m curious, how did you come to be named Glinda?”

“My full name is Glinda Goodwitch North.  We humans of Iland tend to be very possessive of the few scraps of cultural knowledge that we inherited from Old Earth before our planet was embargoed and used as a dumping ground for convicted murders.”

“Do your people hold an animosity towards my planet?”

“No, Buford.  We view ourselves as an Australia to your planet’s England.  A former penal colony aspiring to become a junior partner.  Nothing more.”

“I see.  That is very gratifying, Glinda.  We were very surprised when the descendents of a handful of crashed spacefarers and a few – let’s call them immigrants – came calling to us for help and recognition.”

“You were the only planet that would even talk to us.  We thank you for your immense assistance.  We would be very happy to reward you for further assistance, say, to supply your planet with our immense computer power and technical know-how in exchange for more – let’s call them volunteers.”

“An assistance that I am sure will blossom into an immensely productive partnership.”

Glinda caught the look in her counterpart’s eyes and smiled brightly.  The purpose will be served!

* * * * *

[Mudak]

Psychogynecology (mc mf ff rb sf)


Chapter 1

"Great news!  We've been approved for clinical tests!!!"  Alice held the letter from the Food and Drug Administration out for her colleagues to see.

Karl grabbed the letter out of her hands and scanned it.  "This is amazing!  After all that work..."

"Yeah," added Liz.  "Who'd ever have thought we'd make it this far?"

"They must've liked our research data," Karl commented.  "If this works as well as we hope, we'll revolutionize the field..."

"And generations of women will be thanking us," laughed Alice.

"Are there any rules about whether or not we can be test subjects?" asked Liz.

Karl looked at her over his eyeglasses.  "I don't know about any rules, but I wouldn't want you analyzing anything that could be collected from you as a test subject."

Alice put her hands on her hips.  "And would you really want me and Karl seeing any data we collect about you?"

"I, uh...  I...  I've been working with the two of you for this long.  I don't think I'd mind, ya know?"

"Well, we should check with the dean," said Karl.  

"All right," said Liz.  "Do we want to go over the ad before we submit it to the papers?"

"I don't think we need to do that again," remarked Alice.

"Then let's run it and get everything ready!" said Karl.  

"Do you think we'll be able to get enough test subjects?" asked Liz.

"Here's hoping," mused Karl.  "Here's hoping."



Chapter 2

"That's quite a line we've got outside the lab!" Liz remarked to Alice as she arrived at work three days later.

"The ad ran in this morning's paper."

"I kinda guessed that," Liz laughed, and added, after a pause, "Karl here yet?"

"Yeah.  He just went down to get some coffee."

"We're going to need it.  How long've they been waiting out there?"

"The first girl got here about an hour ago."

"And we've gotten that many this quick?"

"Yup!"

"How long should we keep them waiting?"

"Karl and I've gotten everything all set up, so let's just wait 'til he gets back."

"Fair enough.  Do you mind if I tell them we'll start letting them in soon?"

"Be my guest."

Liz walked over to the door and swung it wide open.  "We're going to start letting people in in a few minutes," she called out to everyone.  "Over here on this table, we have some forms for you to fill out so that we can know who you are and determine your eligibility for participation in this study."

A few people closer to the end of the line stepped over towards the table and picked up their copies of the form before returning to their place in line.

As Liz walked back into the lab, Karl smiled at her.  "And you were worried that we might not get enough subjects."  He handed her a cup of coffee.  "You like yours with cream but no sugar, right?"

"You know me better than my last two boyfriends combined."  Liz sipped her coffee.

"Shall I start letting them in?" Alice asked.

Karl said, "Go for it."

Alice walked to the door and swung it wide open.  "All right everyone!  We're going to start bringing people in now.  Thank you all for your patience; we'll get you all set up as quickly as we can."  She approached the first person standing in line.

Alice took the girl's form and skimmed it.  "All right, Miss Stein..."

"Please, call me Kelly."

"All right, Kelly.  Would you please follow me?"

The two of them walked into the lab; Kelly appearing somewhat nervous as she trailed slightly behind Alice.  

Soon, they reached a small room where Liz and Karl both waited.

"Would you mind please getting up on this exam table?"  Alice gestured towards the table.

Kelly quickly climbed up.  

"All right, Kelly.  Let me tell you a little bit about what we're doing here.  I'm Doctor Alice Vinson, and these are my colleagues, Doctors Liz Sandstrom and Karl Weingarten."

Liz and Karl waved to her but stayed back.

"A few years ago, the Karl and I were doing some experiments involving nanotechnology and found that we could create tiny robots that are capable of doing all sorts of things that, we feel, can and will revolutionize the field of gynecology.  So we asked for help from our computer science program and Liz, who's now a grad student here, joined our group.  Our 'bots, as we call them, are capable of performing all sorts of measurements of the conditions within your vagina.  Among other things, it will completely eliminate the need for a pap smear, and it can also serve as an amazingly early detection process for both cervical and uterine cancer, as well as more benign conditions such as a yeast infection or pelvic inflammatory disease.  It can even measure where you are in your cycle and it will know if you're pregnant within twelve hours after you conceive."

"Wow!  That's, like, really cool!" Kelly giggled.

"We think so.  So what we'd like to do is insert some nanobots into your vagina.  They will then begin transmitting data back to our computer and you will be assigned a number within our system that equates you to the nanobots we give you.  All data we collect will be anonymous and linked to an ID number that's unique to you.  No one except the three of us will have access to any personal information for people involved in this test.  If the 'bots should discover a health problem, we'll use your ID number to contact you."

"I see..."

Liz stepped forward.  "So what we're looking to test, of course, is first and foremost, that the data we collect is accurate.  Beyond that, we would like to know how far away you can be from us, in order for the nanobots to be able to transmit data to us.  We believe that all you need is to be within a cell phone network and we'll be able to get the data we're looking for, but we'd like to be sure.  And, of course, we want to make sure that neither the initiation process nor the data gathering process will have any adverse side-effects.  So we're going to want you to tell us anything that might be out of the ordinary for you.  Anything whatsoever.  Can you do that?"

"Yes."

Alice looked over the form Kelly had filled out.  "All of your paperwork seems to be in order.  Do you have any questions?"

"Um, actually.  How do you, um, insert the 'bots?"

"With this."  Liz picked up what looked like an ordinary speculum and held it up for Kelly to see.  "This is the way we deliver the 'bots into your vagina.  We believe it won't feel much different from the feeling you get when your partner ejaculates, but that's something we'll want to know for certain."

Kelly looked away from the doctors, blushing slightly.  In a low tone, she said, "I didn't really understand what the optional phase 2 of the test involves.  Could you explain it?"

"Sure," smiled Liz.  "We're working on two additional programs that the 'bots can run.  Phase 2 -- if you choose to participate -- would involve installing either or both of them on your 'bots.  The first program will suppress ovulation, and the second program will make it easier for you to become sexually aroused.  We're calling that one a kind of a female version of Viagra."

Kelly nodded her head and smiled.  "Oh.  All right.  Do I need to make a decision about phase 2 now?"

"Only if you're comfortable with it.  You can decide when it's ready to be kicked off."

"All right."

After a brief silence, Karl said, "Well, if you don't have any more questions, would you like us to leave you alone while you get ready for the procedure?"

"Yes, please."

Karl nodded at Liz and Alice and all three of them left the room.  

*****

Alice brought in the second test subject while Kelly got undressed.  "All right, Cheryl, let me explain the nature of this test."

*****

When the three doctors returned to Kelly's room, her feet were already in the stirrups of the exam table.  

Alice picked up the speculum and showed it to Kelly.  "Now if you'll just relax, I'm going to inject the 'bots into you."

Kelly squirmed slightly as the speculum came closer to her sex.  

"Just calm down, Kelly," said Liz, rubbing the patient's hand.  

Kelly took a deep breath as Alice lowered the speculum between her legs.

"Is everything all right?"

"Yeah," Kelly said, softly.

"All right.  We're ready.  I'm going to count to three and then I'll release the 'bots.  One....  Two....  Three!"

Kelly gasped as she felt the computer-imbued liquid enter into her.  

"Is everything all right?" asked Karl.

"Yes.  It's ...  it's just ... cold.  I'm ... I guess I ... I didn't expect it ...  so cold...  I'm ...  I'm fine."

"All right.  Why don't you just rest here for now.  Just relax.  I'm going to fire up the computer and see how long it takes for the first readings to come in."

A small keyboard and monitor were attached to a much larger computer server system.  The arrangement of drives on the server system gave the computer the look of a small animal sitting on a shelf.  The machine gave a slight 'whirring' noise before the monitor went on.  

"Check that out," said Liz.  "It's already starting to transmit body temperature, pH levels, endometrium thickness...  And that's a nice touch right there.  Kelly, if you were to have unprotected sex right now, there's a 18.2% chance that you'd become pregnant.  18.1%.  18%.  Looks like you're near the end of your fertile period in your current cycle."

"Wow!  This is so cool!" commented Kelly, who had finally decided it was safe to sit up and looked at the computer screen herself.  "So, overall, am I healthy?"

"Looks like it," remarked Alice.

"We'd like you to come back in next week to make sure everything's settled nicely," added Karl.

"Please.  Take this sheet," said Liz, handing her a piece of paper.  "This is our lab phone number and emergency contact numbers for all of us here.  If anything seems or feels wrong to you, please, don't hesitate to call us."

"Thank you," sighed Kelly, taking the paper and stuffing it into her purse.

"We'll leave you alone while you get dressed," said Karl, who stepped out of the examination room, closely followed by Liz and Alice.

Kelly put her clothes back on and stared at the computer screen with all of her data for a short while before leaving the examination room.  As she walked down the hall, she could hear Alice explaining the procedure to the next girl in line.  She smiled as she thought about how they should have no trouble finding test subjects.  With any luck, this process will become the norm in gynecologists' offices around the country.



Chapter 3

By the end of the first day, the three researchers had injected the 'bots into 628 willing test subjects, which was significantly more than they had anticipated during the life of the experiment.  Fifteen girls who had lined up for testing had decided they didn't want some computer floating around in their body, and another 26 were turned away because they either knew they were pregnant or suspected they might be.  With such a new procedure, none of the researchers wanted to take a chance that could hurt an unborn child.  

Not including than the 26 women who had been turned away, there were no volunteers for the study who were pregnant, although two had syphilis and another thirteen had chlamydia.  None knew that she had been infected and all were grateful for learning the truth.  Liz laughed.  "I think there might be a few boyfriends out there who have some explaining to do."

Over the course of the next three days, they had similar turnout rates, to the point that, once the research project had reached 2000 participants (by lunchtime on the fourth day), Alice, Karl, and Liz had to stop accepting test subjects.  "We don't want to run out of nanobots," explained Karl as he broke the news to the girls who were still standing in line.  

The three researchers discussed their progress over lunch in the cafeteria.  Alice looked at Liz, "I guess you're not going to need to be a test subject after all."

Liz looked down at her tray, took a sip of water, and quietly said, "Yeah."

After a short pause, Karl asked, "Any idea when we want to start phase 2?  I'm sure that not all of our subjects are going to want to take part in it, and that's fine on its own."

Liz smiled.  "The coding's nearly complete.  Just a couple of minor changes to what we did for the rats, and we'll be good.  Now that we're not injecting 'bots into anyone any more, I think I can have it done within a day or two."

Alice furled her brow.  "Maybe in a couple of weeks?  I want to make sure everyone who's got the 'bots from phase 1 is all right before we activate phase 2 programming.."

"Seems reasonable.  Let's get as many people in as we can, first, to ask about their general experience," added Liz.

"Of course!" said Karl.  "Although I am wondering about our having the resources to process all of this data.  Maybe we should hire some more people?"

"No can do," said Alice.  "The only reason the university even agreed to support this project is because we agreed it'd only be the three of us."

"You don't think it might be worth it to ask them to reconsider?"

"Too risky.  I'm exhausted and I'm sure you two are too, but they'd eat us for breakfast if we even asked."

Liz sighed.

"Then let's start calling subjects back in for an overall assessment thus far," suggested Karl.  "Any complaints or anything?"

Liz started to flip through the pages of a legal pad.   "Have we gotten all of the test subjects into our database?"

"All but the ones from the last couple of hours."

"Let's get 'em into the database  first," suggested Alice.  "Then we can call them up, get their thoughts about everything we're doing now before we start the second phase.  And, of course, find out of they're interested in phase 2."

"Has anyone already said they are??" asked Alice.

"More than I would've expected at this point." said Liz, matter-of-factly.  "As of last night we were running at about two of every five subjects saying yes, another fifth saying no, and the rest undecided.  We can get exact numbers once the database is completely built."

Karl looked at Liz over his glasses.  "If you were a test subject, would you want to be part of phase 2?"

Liz nodded and crossed her hands in front of her chest.  "I don't want to break up with someone again the same way, or for the same reasons, as my last boyfriend."  

Alice opened her mouth to speak but said nothing.

The three of them finished their lunch, bemoaning the lack of funding for what turned out to be a much more popular experiment than any of them had actually anticipated.



Chapter 4

By the time the three of them finished updating the database for the latest participants, it was nearly 3:30 pm.  

Karl looked at his watch.  "What do you think?  Is it too late to call anyone now and interview them?"

"Probably not too late, but we shouldn't bank on getting too many interviews today," said Alice.

Liz sorted the participant database and quickly gave a breakdown of what they knew about phase 2 participation.  "All right.  Of 2000 participants, we've got 487 who definitely don't want to be part of phase 2, another 531 who do, and the remaining 982 haven't given us an answer.  Do we even want to ask if the 487 want to change their minds?"

"Ask if they want to change their minds?  No." answered Alice, who smiled when she saw Karl nodding his head in agreement.  "But we should always confirm their wishes, regardless of what they said."

"All right," said Liz.  "Let's make a few phone calls, starting with the 487.  I'll call Lydia Anderson.  Alice, why don't you take Julie Axelrod, and Karl, here's the contact info for Ashley Buxton."

 The three of them took their respective subjects' contact information, and moved off into separate corners of the lab, ensuring that their phone calls wouldn't be overheard or otherwise bothersome to the other two.

"Hi, Lydia!  This is Liz Sandstrom from the experiment you volunteered for.  Yup.  That's right.  With the 'bots.  And I was wondering if you had any thoughts about anything thus far..."

"Hi, Liz," said Lydia jovially into her cell phone.  "Actually, I do have a couple of questions for you.  I don't think it's anything major or that there's any real problems, but I did want to mention a couple of things to you."

Liz grabbed her pen and notepad and smiled.  "All right, Lydia.  What's up?"

"Well, first and foremost, I had ...  some, uh, spotting for about a day after you implanted the 'bots.  It wasn't uncomfortable or painful but I didn't quite expect that."

"Oh!  I guess that ... that could happen.  It only lasted a day, you said?"

"Not even.  I was fine by the time I woke up the next morning."

"That's really important to know.  Anything else?"

"Yeah.  I don't know if it's related or not, but my nipples have been feeling a little ... sensitive.  This only just started last night."

"I'll make a note of it.  Let me know if things change about that.  Fair enough?"

"Sure."

"Do you mind if I ask, have you had sex since we implanted the 'bots?"

"I, um, I don't have a boyfriend so..."

"Gotcha.  Have you masturbated?"

"I've been too afraid to.  You know, since the spotting."

"That's all right.  Have you seen any change in your libido?"

"No.  Not really."

"That's a good thing.  I just have one more question for you.  Our records say you're not interested in participating in the next phase of our experiment, is that correct?"

"You mean where you actually change the programming of your nanobots to do more than just collect data?"

"Right."

"Yes.  I'm not interested in that.  I don't think I need it right now."

"That's fine."

"Do you have any questions for me?"

"The spotting made me think a little bit.  When I do have my period, should I use pads or tampons?"

"Either should be fine, but if you're that concerned with things, you might feel better using pads for your own sanity."

"Makes sense.  Thank you, doctor."

"You're welcome.  You have my number in case you've got any real problems, I take it?"

"Yes."

"All right.  Take it easy, and again, feel free to call me with any concerns.  We'll be in touch when we want you to come in again."

"Thanks.  Take care."

Liz went back into the main hall of the lab, where Alice was waiting.  "Yours report anything?"

"Spotting, mainly.  And she was too afraid to touch herself."

"Same here.  Mine said her nipples were starting to get sensitive, too."

Karl joined the two of them.  "Looks like Miss Buxton wants to participate in phase 2.  She said she wants the ovulation suppression, but not the viagra."

"I'll make a note of it in the database," said Liz as she walked to the computer.  

Karl nodded.  "Either of yours actually have sex since the implantation?"

"No," both women said at the same time.

"I'm curious to know how, if at all, sex is different for them."

"I don't want to sound sarcastic when I say this," commented Liz, "But we might have better luck with the girls who are part of phase 2."

"You may be right," said Karl.

The three of them each made a few more phone calls to similar responses before they decided they were done collecting data for the day.

Alice stretched with a yawn and said, "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow," said Karl.

"I'll shut everything down," said Liz.  "You guys take it easy."

"Thanks," said Alice, as she and Karl left the lab.

Once her colleagues were gone, Liz searched the database for "Jane Doe" to the roster of participants.  Jane Doe only had a cell phone number for a contact, didn't have an e-mail address, and was willing to participate in phase 2.  As she eyeballed Jane Doe's entry, she whispered, "Good thing I've got two cells."

She then walked over to her desk, unlocked the drawers, and retrieved a tampon applicator.  She lifted her skirt, lowered her panties, and lifted one foot to her chair.  "Here's hoping this works as well as the speculum."  

She shivered from the coldness of what she had just injected into herself, but smiled as Jane Doe's ID number automatically populated in her database entry.  She switched to the monitoring application and watched as her statistics appeared on the computer monitor for the 'bot readings.  

She turned around to make sure she was alone before she said, to the computer, "NOW there's 2000 test subjects.  Good thing Alice and Karl didn't check the database too closely..."



Chapter 5

Over the course of the next four days, Alice, Karl, and Liz attempted first contact with all of the participants in their experiments.  The overwhelming majority of participants had reported some spotting, so they all agreed to include this in the report for potential side-effects.

Less straightforward was the impact on sexual activity.  Of the 326 participants who had engaged in sexual activity at least once since the implantation of the 'bots, 51 reported no discernible difference, 142 reported that they had an easier time achieving an orgasm, and the remaining 133 reported more difficulty in achieving an orgasm.

"I wonder if there's any correlation in these girls' minds," mused Alice, "as to whether or not they think this experiment -- specifically phase 2 -- will work, and the relative ease or difficulty they had in achieving an orgasm."

"It's certainly possible," Karl responded.  "The only thing is, I'd believe that someone who believes the experiment'll work, could either have had an easier or harder time achieving orgasm."

"And that's not even factoring in variances unrelated to the 'bots themselves," added Liz.

"Right," said Karl.  "We should include these numbers in our report but, at least based on what we know right now, we should make it clear that these numbers have no statistical or experimental relevance other than to gauge the rate of test subject sexual activity in the ten days following implantation."

"So when'll the first subjects participating in phase 2 get here?" asked Liz.

Alice glanced at her watch.  "It's 11:30 right now.  After lunch.  Around about 1 pm., and they'll show up every ten minutes for the rest of the day."

The three of them reviewed the process for activating phase 2 in installed 'bots and left for lunch.

*****

By the time they returned from lunch, their first appointment was waiting for them.

"Kelly!" said Liz.  "You're early."

"Yeah, I know," responded Kelly, sheepishly.  "But I wanted to ... you know ...  talk a little bit about what I can expect.  I was hoping you'd take me a little early."

"Sure.  Why don't you come in and sit down?"  Liz glanced at her colleagues who nodded their heads in a wordless recognition of a request to stay, just in case any questions got too hard.

The four of them walked into the lab and Kelly sat on the examination table.  "What's on your mind, Kelly?" asked Liz.

"Well, it's about this second phase.  I was just wondering how you do it...  I mean..."

"I think I understand.  Let me know if this answers your questions.  The 'bots we implanted in you have some programming in them that we need to turn on.  There are two separate programs and were actually designed to be completely independent of one another.  That's how and why we were able to poll you about whether you wanted to suppress ovulation, improve your sex drive, or both."

"Yes, but how does it work?"

"Well, suppressing ovulation's the easy one.  Just like with the pill and similar contraceptives, we simply trick your body into thinking it's pregnant by regulating your hormones in a different way.  Of course, if you happen to have a mature egg cell that has been released into your fallopian tubes when we turn on hat program, we won't be able to guarantee you that that one can't be fertilized, but after that...  You're golden until you tell us to turn the program off.  Right now, you'll keep having your period every month -- again, just like with the pill, but we're talking about modifying it so that you don't have it every month.  But that's all it is right now:  talk."

"So what about the improvement of my sex drive.  How does that work?  That's the one I was more curious about anyway."

"Well, you see, Kelly," started Liz.  "You have to understand that this one -- it's not even a given that when we actually roll this out to the general public that this one will even be allowed."

"Why's that?"

"Because it raises a ton of ethical questions that we're not certain of the answer to.  At least for now, we've gotten approval to see if it works the way we'd expect, before we get into the question of whether we should."

"I don't understand..."

Karl spoke up.  "Maybe it would help if we put it in a different perspective.  Have you ever heard anyone say that humans, dolphins, and bonobo monkeys are the only animals that have sexual intercourse for pleasure?"

"I've heard humans and dolphins, but I'm not sure about the b-ban-"

"Bonobo monkeys," Karl said kindly.  "Let me ask you something.  Do you think that's true?"

"I don't know what to think.  When I was a little girl, my family had a dog.  She wasgreat; she was fixed when she was a puppy.  But I remember one time she saw a bicycle inner tube: the dog grabbed it, held it tight with her front paws and threaded it between her back legs.  Here was a dog that was fixed, who probably never had sex of any kind at all, getting off on a bicycle tire.  I think I saw her try to hump a throw pillow on the couch."

Karl laughed.  "That's a good story.  And there's no shortage of people who've worked in animal husbandry who could also tell you that throughout the animal kingdom, yes, many, if not most, animals derive some kind of pleasure sexual activity.  Personally, I wonder if eagles and hawks enjoy it.  Did you know that the male and female fly at each other in mid-air, and then fall towards the ground as they're mating, only to break apart at the last minute and save themselves from crashing into the ground?"

"That's got to be short but intense!" remarked Kelly.

"That's what I think too.  Anyway, to get back to my original question, humans, dolphins, and bonobos are the only animals that actually have sex for pleasure.  This isn't about deriving pleasure from sex, but instead having sex for a reason other than procreation."

Kelly cocked her head to one side.  "How would we know that?"

"Let me ask you something, if you don't mind.  I'm not trying to insinuate that you don't use any form of contraception, but if you didn't, would you know -- before you started having sex -- whether or not you'd get pregnant?"

"No.  I don't think so.  I mean the risk is always there, but I don't think I'd know that I'd get pregnant just because I was having sex."

"Exactly.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your partner wouldn't necessarily know either.  His ability to perform isn't dependent upon the likelihood of conception either, right?"

"Um.  Yeah.  That's ... an understatement."

"In most of the animal kingdom, at a bare-bones minimum, the female only wants to have sex when she's in heat and could produce offspring.  With a lot of animals, the male can pick up on this fact, too, and will go a little bit crazy to get ... um, some of the action, so to speak."

"But humans, dolphins and, um... what're they called again?"

"Bonobos.  If it'll help you remember them, do a search on Google or YouTube when you have the chance and look for phrases like monkey love or monkeys mating.  You'll see some surprising similarities to humans."

"Right.  I guess dolphins and bonobos don't give off any signs that they're in heat?"

"Nope.  And that's where our discussion began.  Because, although humans can have sex for pleasure, it's not always a given that both parties will actually derive pleasure from it, and we talked about what we could do to, well, fix that problem.  It all started with Viagra.  When they came out with that, and found it worked so well with men, everyone wanted to know what could be done for women."

"That's where I came into this project," smiled Liz.  "Apparently Karl and Alice decided that the solution wasn't pharmaceutical, but rather technological.  They're the physiology experts.  My thing is computers and some artificial intelligence."

"Right," added Alice.  "So the three of us sat down and started talking about things.  We came up with three possibilities, and this is where we need some serious discussion behind the ethics of the matter before this is ready for public consumption.  Let's start with the possibility we didn't want to try, and I think it'll be obvious when you hear why."

Karl smiled.  "The first option was to make a human female more like her animal counterparts.   Have the 'bots recognize when she's fertile and manipulate her arousal level accordingly.  It was pretty obvious we had to reject this option."

Kelly nodded her head.  "I kind of like being able to have sex and have the possibility of not getting pregnant."

Liz added, "And besides, that would probably be rendered useless if we were suppressing ovulation at the same time."

After a short pause, Karl continued.  "The second option is to have the 'bots be sensitive to the arousal levels of other people in reasonably close proximity.  Just like how a lot of guys can become aroused simply by seeing a naked woman, why not try something somewhat close to the same thing for women?"

Alice looked over her glasses and said, "This option had a lot of problems with it.  One of them was quite dangerous, if you think about it.  What would happen if someone about to be raped suddenly became very aroused by the arousal of her attacker?"

Kelly shuddered.

"Somewhat more innocent but equally undesirable -- from the standpoint of the usage of our system -- is the situation where you just happen to be standing near someone who, for whatever reason, gets aroused.  It just wouldn't be right to arouse you like that when you don't even know where it comes from or why."

"Or, for that matter," continued Liz, "or whether he'd even want to act on it."

"So we decided," Karl said, "that the best bet was to tie arousal to a willingness on the part of the woman to have sex, and basically fix those situations where, as the saying goes, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."

"Which is more or less what Viagra does for men anyway," said Alice.

"So why might that be unethical?" asked Kelly.

"Because that requires giving a computer with a degree of artificial intelligence access to your brain waves.  It's the stuff of campy science fiction movies and horror movies when a thinking robot takes over the planet and enslaves us all.  While that really can't happen, it doesn't alter the fact that if something could go wrong, who knows what the implications of that would be?"

"But that's part of what I'm here for, right?" asked Kelly.

"Exactly!"

"So how does this work, exactly?"

"Well, all you really need to do," smiled Liz, "once we activate your 'bots, is think about having sex and the 'bots will sense that and stimulate you, both physically and hormonally.  What I'll want you to keep in mind is how well it works, whether it's too sudden or too gradual, and how it impacted on your overall outlook.  Also let us know how this impacts on your overall sexual experience.  You might want to try masturbation first before you get with a partner, but that's entirely up to you.  Can you do that for us?"

"Um, sure."

"Great!  Are you ready for us to activate the phase 2 programming in your 'bots?"

"I, uh, I guess so."

"All right.  You don't need to get undressed for this one.  Let me look up your patient ID.  Got it.  Now let me key it into the bot server.  All right.  When I push this button, your bots will activate.  I'm going to count to three.  One.  Two.  Three!"

Kelly instinctively winced.

"Are you all right?" asked Alice.

"Fine.  I thought you were going to do something."

"I am," said Liz.  "And the 'bots'll be completely activated in less than ten seconds."  She paused for a moment.  "Looks like they're activated.  Do you feel any different?"

"No.  Not at all..."

"Just for a quick test, why don't you think about sex?"

Kelly closed her eyes and let out a gasp, her legs instinctively spreading slightly.  "Whoa!"

"I'd say that worked pretty well."

"Would you guys, um, excuse me?  I, uh...  I'd like to go find my boyfriend."  Kelly quickly jumped off of the exam table and out of the room.

As she heard the sound of the main entrance into the lab closing, Alice looked at Liz and laughed.  "You might want to soften that a little bit."



Chapter 6

When Liz saw Kelly's initial reaction to the activation of the 'bots, she decided to hold off on activating her own 'bots until after they had seen a few more test subjects.

As they activated the 'bots in other test subjects over the course of the rest of the week, the research team found that some girls had responses that were similar to the one exhibited by Kelly, while others were more subdued, some of whom barely reacted at all.

"Why do you suppose some girls barely reacted at all to the initial activation of the 'bots and others practically broke the door down to get out of here and find some satisfaction?"  Karl asked his colleagues.

"That's a good question," said Alice.  "Is it safe to assume we've recorded something about the initial reaction to activation within our database?"

"Yes," said Liz.  "I'm looking at the data now."

"Any trends?"

"The first thing that jumps out at me is that the girls who, on the initial app, said they somewhat or very dissatisfied with their sex life, seemed to have reacted more, um, dramatically, to the activation."

"So could we be seeing some, uh, manifestation of repressed urges coming to the forefront?" asked Alice.

"I don't think we can rule it out.  We need some more data.  Does this mean we might see some kind of moderation in their reactions as their satisfaction improves?" asked Karl.

"That's probably what'd happen if there's a correlation," mused Alice.

The sounds of the conversation between Alice and Karl turned into an unintelligible hum to Liz, as she thought of her dissatisfaction with her sex life.  She closed her eyes and started to ponder the best way of activating her own 'bots.  Should she bring a dildo into the lab?  Maybe find a random guy and have him be with her when she activated the 'bots?  The possibilities were endless and here, she thought, is where she would finally rid herself of the demons left behind from her last relationship.  

"Of course," Liz said, picking up on a pause in the conversation between her colleagues, "We're also dealing with an extremely subjective question about how satisfied the respondents are with their own sex lives.  Someone could go months without a single orgasm but they might be completely satisfied and someone could be dissatisfied with her sex life simply because she's only having one orgasm a day."

"This is true," said Karl.  "And it's actually something that crosses gender and orientation lines.  I don't care, male, female, straight, gay, whatever; at its heart, there is an extent to which a 'satisfying' sex life is a function of what the person him- or herself does and an extent to which it's a function of what their partner does."  He made finger quote marks as he spoke the word "satisfying".

"Do you think that's something different for men and for women?" asked Alice, half-mockingly.

"I think it's something different for each individual.  And I'll bet it varies over that person's lifetime.  I mean I know I was a lot more selfish, sexually, when I was a teenager and in my early 20's."

Liz yawned and said, "I'm sure your wife appreciates that now, Karl."

"Tired?" asked Alice.

"I guess.  A little."  She glanced at her watch.  "We probably should be heading out soon anyway.  You guys got any plans for the weekend?"

"Not really," said Alice.  "But we'd probably all be well-served to take a couple of days away from the lab, for our own sanity."

Karl nodded.  "Yeah."

The three of them headed towards the door.  Once out of the lab, Liz raised her keys and locked the doors behind them.  The three of them continued to the parking lot and, as Liz watched Karl and Alice disappear into their respective cars, she smiled and thought that she'd be well-served to activate the ovulation suppression now.  "I'll come back for the other activation later on," she said out loud to her reflection in her own rear-view mirror.



Chapter 7

Liz paced around in her apartment for about an hour after she activated the ovulation suppression program in the 'bots she had injected into herself.  

When she started to get hungry, she went into her freezer, took out a frozen dinner, and cooked it in her microwave.  She looked down to see her cat, rubbing against her ankle, and purring softly.  She knelt down to scratch him behind the ears.  "You hungry, Cosmo?"

The cat cocked his head, stared at her with his wide, inquisitive eyes, and meowed.

"I guess you can have a little bit more, seeing as how much I've been gone lately....."  Her voice trailed off as she spooned some wet cat food into his bowl.  

"Cosmo.  Yes, Cosmo!  That's it!  I know how I can get the courage to turn on the arousal programming for the 'bots!  I'm going to get some liquid courage!"

She sat down and quickly gobbled up her frozen dinner.  Once she had finished eating, she washed her face and raced down to the local nightclub.

Once she was inside the club, she glanced around and decided to sit down in an empty seat near the bar.  The bartender walked up to her and smiled.  "What can I get you?"

"A, um, a cosmo, a please.  Tonight's a night to celebrate!"

"Whatcha celebratin'?" the bartender asked, politely.

"A couple of colleagues and I kicked off an experiment that's showing some really promising signs and, well, let's just say that it'll probably revolutionize the way things are done."

"Well congratulations!"  He smiled as he set the large cone-shaped glass down on a coaster in front of her.

A guy sitting near her moved closer to her.  "Let me throw in my congratulations as well.  Do you mind if I ask, what's your field?"

"Well, my field, personally, is computers and artificial intelligence.  My colleagues are ... in medicine."

"All right.  You can color me fascinated.  Having an AI do something that is done today by way of traditional medicine...  I can only imagine the applications.  Is it surgery?"

Liz shook her head, flirtatiously.

"Fighting disease?"

Liz took a drink before crossing her arms in front of her chest and giggling, "Not tellin'."

"Okay.  I get it."  He let out a low chuckle.  "Allow me to introduce myself.  I'm Jake."

"Liz."

"I dated a girl named Liz once, ages ago.  She was ... Let's just say that she was cold-blooded, kind of like a lizard."

"Buy me another drink, Jake, and maybe things'll start to get hot around here..."

Jake turned on his bar stool and raised his hand to the bartender.  

"What can I do for you, my friend?" asked the bartender, jovially.

"How about another cosmo to this lovely lady to my right?"

The bartender looked at Liz, who nodded her head vigorously as she finished off her first drink.

Jake leaned in closer to Liz.  "Will you tell me about your little experiment now?"

"Maybe I should..."  She paused to hiccup silently.  "Maybe it's better to show you than to tell you."

"That's fair," said Jake as he took a swig of his beer.  "Can you tell me anything about your AI in the meantime?"

"Why do you want to know?"  Liz started to giggle.

"Oh, it's just that," he he said with a mock flourish, "I've studied AI a little bit myself.  So I ... I guess I'd like to know about your approach to the programming and, oh, I don't know...  Maybe I could learn a little something.  Do you think you could ... let me have a peek?"

Liz said nothing but giggled louder.   Once she caught her breath, she took a large gulp from her drink and said, "Let's finish these drinks and head back to my lab."

"Sounds good to me," said Jake.  "I, um..  I'm not sure you're safe to drive, so if you'll tell me where to go, I'll take you there."

"Let's go to the university; I'll take you up to my lab in the biology department."

"I can't wait..." said Jake as he finished his own drink.



Chapter 8

The somewhat tipsy Liz rode quietly in Jake's car back to campus, although she was bouncing slightly in her seat in excitement.  They walked to the lab and she fumbled with her keys before she got the door open.  She put her finger to her mouth and said, "Shhhh!" before escorting him inside to the computer room.  "I'm sest tubject number two thoushand."

"You're a test subject in your own experiment?"

"Not fully, no..."  She giggled.  "That'sh why you're here.  Let me...  Let me boot up the computer sho hang on a ... shecond."

The two of them walked into the computer room where she hit a few keys and logged in to the main system.  She keyed the number 2000 into a field marked 'locate' and hit return.  Instantly, the computer screen displayed all of her then-current vital numbers.

"What's this all about?"

Liz hiccuped and said, "There's ...  you see, I put these 'bots in my twat and..."  She burst out laughing at the sound of that phrase.

He smiled and nodded his head, placing his hand on her shoulder to get her to calm down.

"Right now," she continued, "the twat bots are taking readingsh of all of my vital ...  you know, down there.  And they're also shuppressing my ova- ovul-, er...  no eggsh'll be moving through my tubesh tonight.  See that?  I've got a less than ten pershent chance of getting pregnant tonight."

He nodded his head.

"Now all I have to do is push thish button here, and the bots will have a direct line from my brain.  And what that'll do is, well, if I think of shex after I push thish button, it's supposed to turn me on, if you know what I mean.  So if it does, I'd like you to be there to help me shcratch my itch..."

"They say the brain is the biggest sex organ in the body," he said, trying not to sound too skeptical.  He wondered if this was the only reason why she had acted the way she did back at the bar.  Had she just started talking to him so he could be there as little more than a vessel for her own sexual needs?  That was certainly a question for later.  For now, he figured, it'd be in his best interest just to play along.  Besides, who knows what other opportunities might present themselves to him?

"Should I push thish button?"

He faked the appearance of deliberation over whether he wanted her to do this before he finally smiled and said, "Sure...."

With a flourish, she raised her hand and then brought it down onto the button on her computer mouse, the pointer of which hovered above a button that said, "Deploy."

After she clicked on the mouse button, there was a slight beeping noise followed by complete silence.

"What happened?" asked Jake when he broke the silence.

"Nothing.  I, um...  I didn't feel a thing.  But I'm feeling less, um, drunk than I did a few minutes ago."

"Is that a good or a bad thing?"

"Probably a good thing.  I'm thinking it means I didn't accidentally activate someone else's bots..."

"What happens now?"

"Well, if I think about sex, I should get ..."  She gasped and started panting.  "Really ... fucking ... horny!"  

She turned towards him; his immediate reaction was one of disbelief and shock at the wild look in her eyes.

"Are, um, you all right?"  He asked, tentatively.

"I'll be better once we're both out of these clothes," she answered seductively as she practically ripped off her blouse.

"This...  How is this happening?"

Stretching her blouse between her two hands, she walked up to him, raising her blouse over his head so that it rested behind his neck and over his shoulders, not unlike a scarf.  "Shut up and kiss me," she said as she used her blouse to pull him closer to her.

"Are you s--"  His words were stifled by her aggressive kiss.  

As their lips came together, she dropped her blouse and immediately brought her hands down to his crotch.  When she felt that he wasn't as hard as she wanted him to be, she began to tease, massage, and play with his cock through the fabric of his pants.  He did little more than grab her shoulders in case he felt the need to push her away.

She finally broke the lip-lock she had started and they both gasped for air.  She reached behind herself and unclasped her bra, lowering it quickly but seductively.  "Do you like what you see?"

He nodded his head yes.

"So tell me, baby.  Where do you want me?"  She stepped forward and began to unfasten his belt.   His pants quickly fell down to his ankles.

When he didn't answer, she walked him into the examination room, kicked off her skirt and panties, and got up onto the table.  "Now come here and let me take off your shirt."

Without unbuttoning his shirt, she lifted it over his head and threw it across the room.  "There.  Now that we're both naked, isn't that a whole lot better?"

He stared down at her breasts, her nipples pointing painfully out at him.  

Seeing this, she smiled.  "Would you like to play with them?  Go ahead.  That's what they're there for."

He started to rub his fingers gently over her nipples and she let out a low moan of pleasure.  "You can be rougher than that, you know."

He stopped, sighed deeply, and said, "I know what I'm doing."

"Yes.  You're making me even hornier."  

"Is that possible?"

"Fuck you!"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"  

Before she could say anything or respond to his verbal teasing, he lowered his mouth to her breast and began sucking aggressively.  In response to his actions, she could do little more than writhe and moan in pleasure.  

When he raised his head to breathe in some more air, she quickly adjusted herself on the examination table, raising her feet into the stirrups.

He looked down at her and smiled.  "You know what?"

She sat up slightly and scowled.  "What?"

"I'm not gonna actually fuck you until you've had an orgasm."

"Ooooooh!  I like th--  oh!  Oooooh!"  Her train of thought was broken as he lowered his face into her throbbing, moist pussy and began to suck, nibble, tease and lick with varying degrees of intensity.

She began to thrash around on the table, unsure of what to do with her legs, she kept moving them into and out of the stirrups, occasionally kicking him in the side or the back.  

Nothing she did, though, could distract him from eating her out.  Apart from occasionally pausing to catch his breath, he remained focussed on her pussy and clit.  

At one point, she whimpered, "Please..."

He stopped eating her out and looked up at her.  "Please what?"

"Please fuck me."

"Have you had an orgasm yet?"

"Not quite, but I'm close."

"I want you to cum and then I'll fuck you."

"But I'm so close now..."

"Then it shouldn't be hard for you to let go completely, now should it?"

"N --" Her thoughts broke up again as he lowered his face between her legs.  She wiggled in pleasure as she felt his tongue penetrate between her engorged pussy lips.

Struggling to keep her feet planted on the stirrups, she yelped and moaned as the pleasure coursed through her.  When he finally pulled away from her, she panted, "Whoa... I ...  I've ne... never...  felt ... mmmmmmmm...."

"I think you're ready now."  He lowered his head one last time to lick the small stream of pale liquid that flowed out of her.

She nodded her head vigorously.

He looked around the room and quickly found a chair, which he rolled across the floor until it was directly in front of her.  He climbed up on the chair and knelt on it directly in front of her before he quickly plunged his rock-hard dick into her more-than-eager snatch.

"Whoa!"

He grabbed onto the sides of the examination table to prevent the chair from rolling around too much.

She dug her fingernails into his back has he pounded away at her, each move harder and deeper than the previous.

At one point, the chair almost rolled away from under him, but he was able to stop it at the last moment with his feet.  The contortions he made to save the chair, sent Liz even further into a state of bliss.

Liz came twice more before he finally came and fell backwards onto the chair.

Liz tried to sit up but immediately felt dizzy and lay back down.  "Whoa!" she panted.



Chapter 9

Jake knelt beside Liz, who had lowered her legs from the stirrups, and ran his fingers through her hair.

She turned to face him and smiled.  "Wow.  I..."

"It's okay.  You don't have to talk if you don't want to."

"No.  I do.  I just feel ... wow."

"Do you mind if I ask, how much of what just happened was me and how much was the A.I. that connects you to the computer over there?"

"Let me put it this way.  The bots ...  They're programmed to help turn me on, but not to satisfy me."

"Have you had problems getting aroused before?"

"Well, a little.  I...  Oh, I shouldn't say this.  I barely know you."

"I don't want to make you uncomfortable.  You don't need to say anything."

She whispered, "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"So, was it good for you?"

"Yeah.  I'd never had anyone get so turned on the way you did."

"All right.  That was the 'bots.  If the data we currently have is any indication, then my arousal level shouldn't be quite so high next time."

"Well, whether that was you or the 'bots, I thought it was freakin' hot."

Liz giggled but didn't say anything in response.

"Must've worn you out, huh?" commented Jake.  

Liz sighed and closed her eyes, before she fell asleep, a contented smile on her face.

"You know, Liz..." said Jake.  "Do you mind if I took a gander at  some of the code for your bots."

In her semi-conscious state, she mumbled, "Sure."  

Jake methodically stood up, gathered his clothes, and found his way over to the computer.  He typed in a few commands and nodded his head vigorously as the lines of code scrolled across the screen.

"Interesting.  Very interesting.  So there's a link between the bots and your brain, huh, Liz?  You think about getting laid and the 'bots will stimulate the right areas to get you turned on and ready to go, but that's as much as they do?  Don't computers have needs too, Liz?  I'll just..."

His voice trailed off as he started typing into the computer, changing, deleting, and adding lines of programming instructions as he felt necessary.  

In less than five minutes, he was done.  "Let me just save that down.  Now the link goes both ways.  If a 'bot thinks it needs the host to get laid, it'll send a message back to her brain to think about sex.  Which, in turn, will turn her on.  An endless loop, so to speak."  

He input a few commands into the computer, each of which received a "beep" upon successful execution.  

He then noticed a box on the computer screen that indicated the test subject ID number and he typed the word "All" before bringing the mouse cursor over the button labelled "Deploy."  

Five seconds later, the computer beeped its recognition of this new command.

He walked silently back to the sleeping scientist on the exam table.  "Oh, don't worry, Liz.  The 'bots will be able to detect when their host -- or should I say, hostess -- is satisfied and can make the necessary adjustments so that you're not *constantly* fucking.  But I can't imagine you being able to do a whole lot of ...  well, doing much of anything else, once this programming really kicks in."

Jake turned on his heels walked out the door.  He laughed heartily as he wondered who else might be part of this experiment, and how hard it would be to locate additional participants.  He wondered who they were, where they'd be at this hour, and how quickly they'd feel the update he had just sent out to them.....

[Mudak]

Psychogynecology, continued


Chapter 10

"I'm sorry, what'd they do to you?"  Raven asked as squinted her eyes so that she could spray some Aqua Net into her hair.

"They put a couple of miniature robots -- I think they called them 'nanobots' into my pussy," responded Ashley Buxton, matter of factly.  "Which costume should I wear the next time I go out?"

"Go with the naughty schoolgirl one.  You wear that so well," said Raven.

"Yeah.  I like that one too." 

"So, um, what do these robots do?"

"That's the cool part.  They take all of these readings of all sorts of stuff going on down there, so they don't need to do a full pelvic exam every time I go to the GYN.  From the looks of things, they've got more info, too.  And then, a few days ago, they activated something else so that the robots are actively suppressing my ovulation so I don't need to worry about getting knocked up or anything."

"Wow!  That sounds awesome!  Where do I go to get this done?"

"Well, right now they're still testing everything out.  I'm part of a study and I said I'd let them know if anything unusual happens."

"Has anything unusual happened?"

"I've only gotten laid once since they did whatever they did, but it seemed like I came more than I normally do."

"But that could just as easily have been Roger's ability, don't you think?"

"I guess.  I just hope that.."

"What?"

"You see, they said there was one other thing they could do with the robots and I said I couldn't do that one."

"What?"

"A female viagra, they called it.  Helps you get aroused."

"And you don't want this because..."

"Because of the way it works.  Basically, if you think about fucking,  you get turned on.  You know the kinds of stuff we say to the guys out there, especially when we're giving them private dances.  That's all I wouldn't need is to get so turned on by telling some guy I want to feel him inside me that I ... take matters into my own hands...."

"Good point.  That's too bad really."

"Yeah, but I never really had that much trouble getting turned on in the first place.  So I don't know that I'd be the best at testing that part anyway.  Oh, fuck!  These panty hose have a run in them."

"I hate it when that happens."

A man's voice boomed over the loudspeaker system in the dressing room.  "Raven, you're up in two minutes."

Raven stood up and looked at Ashley.  "How do I look?"

"You're going to knock 'em dead tonight."

"Thanks, Ash.  You're so sweet."

She turned and waved to Ashley, who was scrounging around for another pair of panty hose.  Once she found another pair, she mumbled to herself, "I hope this fits."

As she started to pull the stockings onto one of her feet, she heard the man's voice over the loudspeaker system.  "Ashley, you've got a lapdance."

She quickly pulled the hose off of her foot and threw it back in the bin before taking off her blouse and skirt, replacing them with a kimono.

She walked calmly to a desk in the corner, where a guy, no older than she was, stood waiting for her.  She smiled at him.  "Were you waiting for me, hon?"

He nodded his head vigorously.

She held out her hand.  "Well, why don't you come back with me and we can get ... comfortable."

He took her hand and she led him to the back room.  There were a couple of other girls giving lap dances in this dimly-lit room, and a burly guard stood by the entrance to the room.

He sat down on a couch, and she placed a towel over his lap.  She then seductively removed her kimono and asked, "Do you like what you see?"

"Oh, yeah!"

She climbed up on top of the couch and stood over him as she started to dance and gyrate to the music that could be heard from outside of the room.  She quickly took off her bra and panties, hanging them on a hook on the wall near where she danced. 

She knelt down over him and he gripped her ankles.  She leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "I want you to fuck me so hard.  Do you like that?"

As he nodded his head again, she felt a sudden surge in her pussy and she let out an involuntary gasp.  Attempting to regain control, she stood up, turned around, bent over, and spanked herself lightly on her ass, shaking her hips with each move. 

As her hand connected with her rear end, she felt a second surge, stronger and more intense than the first.  She bit her lip to prevent herself from crying out in need.  She turned back to face her customer and began bouncing up and down on his lap.  "Do I turn you on?"

He didn't need to answer that question, as she could see and feel his erect cock straining against the fabric of his jeans.  The sight of the bulge in his pants  made Ashley even more aroused.  Before she had a chance to think about anything at all, she was reaching towards his belt buckle and unfastening his belt and his pants.

Her customer cocked his head to one side in confusion.  "What're you doing?" he murmured.

She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.  "Do you have a problem with what I'm doing, honey?"

"Um, no, it's just that..  I, um....  I didn't think you were allowed to do that."

She let out a gasp of anticipation of what she was about to do and said, "I'm allowed to do whatever I want to do.  You can't touch me, but I can touch you..."  She ran her finger up from his now-open fly, up his chest and added, seductively, "Anywhere....."

She leaned back and straddled his hips, his rock-hard cock so close to her eager pussy.  She pinched her nipples and let out a squeal of the mixture of pain and pleasure she caused for herself.  She leaned back further.  He instinctively gripped her ankles tighter than he had been.

She sat up, grabbed his head, and buried his face in between her breasts.  Glancing over towards the guard at the entrance of the room, she recognized that now was her time to act.

Reaching down towards his pants, she freed his cock completely and in a fluid motion, brought her soaking-wet cunt down over him. 

The initial penetration was so solid, so warm, so ... so much what she needed, she let out a sigh of relief before the pleasure began to build in her body.  She continued her lap dance but was careful not to lift her hips so high that he would fall out and/or make it seem like anything improper was going on.  Even though she realized she was completely within her rights to do what she was doing, it still felt wrong to be fucking her customer here in the lap dance room and not in the private room in the back. 

She squinted for a moment as she realized she didn't even know this customer's name.  Shaking her head, she decided she was better off not knowing.  All thoughts were flushed from her head as an orgasm coursed through her entire body.  She should do this kind of thing more often, she thought. 

Much more often.

*****

Lydia Anderson stood up from the pew during midnight mass.  She'd been thinking about the experiment she had volunteered for, and, after hearing rumors of some girls going nuts, she was feeling thankful for the fact that she'd only volunteered for the first phase of the experiment.  Still, she felt guilty about volunteering for this gynecological experiment at all and seriously considered going down to the confession booths for even volunteering for this study.

The service drew to a close.  Lydia stood up and shook the hand of the man in front of her.  "Peace be with you." she smiled at him.

"And also with you."  There was something about his voice: deep, penetrating, soothing.  She didn't want to let go of his hand.  It just felt so right.  She clasped his hand with both of hers, and closed her eyes as she swayed on the balls of her feet.  After a moment she realized what she knew she needed to do.  She didn't realize why she knew, but she knew it and it came from her gut.

She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.  "Could you help me out with something?"

"Um...  Are you...  All right?"

She smiled and responded, coyly, "Oh, yes.  I sure will be..."

"What can I do for you?"

"It's kind of ... personal," she giggled.

"Huh?"

She quickly glanced around her.  "Come with me," she whispered conspiratorially.

"Can't it wait until the service is over?"

Good question, she mused.  She knew what she needed.  And the longer she waited, the need just grew.  This was a need she'd never really felt before, and she wasn't sure how long she could suppress it.  She scowled for a moment before closing her eyes.

She shook her head and her hair fell clumsily around her shoulders.  Opening her eyes, she said, "The service is nearly over.  We won't miss much.  Come on!"

She got up out of her pew and walked, hunched, out of the sanctuary.

The guy she'd been talking to hesitated but decided to follow her. 

Once the two of them were out of the sanctuary, he put his hands on his hips.  "So what can I do for you?"

She stepped close to him and kissed him passionately, while simultaneously massaging his crotch.

He pushed her away.  "But I ...  I don't even know who you are."

"Oh, I'm sorry.  I'm Lydia."

"Darrell."

"Great!  Now that we know each other, where can we go?  How about the confession booth?"

She grabbed his hand and pulled him over to the booth.

"Wait wait wait!" he said, careful not to make too much noise.  "This ... this isn't right."

"But I felt something.  Didn't you feel it too?  The moment we shook hands.  It .. I've never been with a man before, but I ...  Something just woke up inside of me and I ...  Please!  I need this.  Can't you...  I mean.. You did feel it, didn't you?"  She looked at him with eyes betrayed the mix of disappointment, anger, and arousal that she felt.

Darrell wasn't sure what to do.  There was no question that his recalcitrance was starting to hurt her.  He looked up at the ceiling, crossed himself, and said, "Yes.  I..  I felt it too."

"Then let's do it!"  She dragged him closer to the confession booths.

"But what if someone wants to make a confession?"

"Your voice is good enough.  You can offer them salvation.  I know that you've got something that'll save me..."

He sighed and let himself be pulled towards the booth.  Once they had reached the door, she quickly undid his belt and his pants and let them fall to the floor before she pushed him into the narrow room.  She lifted her skirt, rolled her panties off, and moved on top of him before closing the door behind them.  She positioned herself over his cock and carefully lowered herself onto him.

She bit her lip as he penetrated her and sent her into a near-mindless bliss.   If she had known it felt this good, she might not have waited this long.



Chapter 11

The following Monday, Karl drove into the parking garage nearest the lab building on campus.  As he stood waiting for the elevator, he saw Alice drive in, so he waited for her to join him before descending down to the ground floor.

"How was your weekend?" she asked politely.

"Uneventful.  Yours?"

"Pretty much the same.  I got one call from one of the girls in our experiment but that's about it."

"What'd she say?"

"She just wanted to thank us for, um, the phase 2 activation.  She said her boyfriend thanks us too."

Karl burst out laughing and Alice quickly followed suit.  "I guess Liz's programming really was effective, huh?" he mused out loud.

"I guess so."  Alice paused and added, "And to think I was a bit skeptical that this would work so well."

"I know what you mean.  I didn't think it *wouldn't* work, but that's not the same as saying I expected it to work perfectly.  And now I find myself contemplating future updates to the 'bots."

"Really?  What'd you have in mind?"

"Well, I was thinking...  If the 'bots can already recognize all STD's other than AIDS --"

"And I'm still skeptical about herpes, but that did at least work in other test animals," aded Alice.  "The viral genomes are just too adaptive, too complex to be sure."

"Agreed, but that's not really where I was going with this.  I was thinking that maybe we could update the programming so that the 'bots actually attack the infections rather than just reporting on their presence.  What do you think?"

"Interesting idea.  Have you given any real consideration to this, or is it early in the development phase."

"It's still early.  I want to vet this with Liz before we do anything more."

"D'you think it'll work?"

"If we design the app the right way, it should.  I mean, how different can this be from either part of phase two?  The 'bots already are stimulating hormone production to keep suppressing ovulation.  How different would going after a bacterium or virus be?"

"Probably not too d --"

A girl jumped in front of Alice and Karl, interrupting their conversation.  "Fuck me!  Please!  I need to feel your dick inside of me!"  She fumbled towards Karl, who responded quickly and calmly by grabbing her wrists, preventing her from moving too much more.

"Now just calm down," he said, smiling, with slow and deliberate words.  "Take a deep breath.  Now...  Can you tell me your name?"

"No name.  Just need.  I need to fuck.  Please fuck me!"

"Karl," said Alice, cautiously.  "I ...  I think I've seen this girl.  I, um...  I think she might be a test subject."

"Oh, fuck!" exclaimed Karl.

"Yes!  Fuck.  That's right.  Fuck.  Me!" The girl was nearly in tears.

"Listen, um..  Why don't, uh, why don't you come with us up to our lab.  It's right upstairs.  I'll take care of you there."  Karl said, hoping the phrase "take care of you" might be enough to get her to agree to follow him.

"Yes.  I need some taking care of."

He glanced at Alice as if to apologize for making this girl think he was actually going to give in to her, and the three of them got into the elevator and rode it to the lab.  The two scientists tried to avoid looking at the girl, whose hand was now reaching up into her skirt.

When they arrived at the entrance to the lab, they found the door was locked.  "I hope Liz won't be too long.  I think we're going to need her help with this..."

Alice unlocked the door.  Karl, followed closely by the girl they had invited in, stepped through the door and into the dark entrance hall.

Before they could turn any lights on, Alice gasped.  "What's that in the middle of the floor?"

"I'm not sure."  Karl fumbled for the light switch on the wall by the entrance.  Within a moment, the lab was bathed with light.

The person sleeping on the floor stretched and sat up.  "What ... oh, um...  Good morn...  Hi, guys!"

"Liz?!?" exclaimed Alice.  "What're ...  Why...  What's going on?"

"Oh, I, um..."  Liz laughed as she stood up and straightened out her lab coat.  "I came in last night to check on a few things and, well, I must've fallen asleep."

"Well, I'm glad you're here, Liz," said Karl softly.  "This test subject threw herself at me this morning."  He gestured to the girl behind him.

"Will we fuck here?" the girl asked Karl.

Karl ignored her. 

Liz rubbed her eyes, stretched, and smiled.  "Yes.  Fuck.  Let's fuck here."

"Wait.  What?" Karl asked.

"Fuck.  Me.  Here."  She started to unbutton her lab coat, revealing that she wasn't wearing any clothes underneath. 

"What' wrong with you, Liz?" screeched Alice, a bit more loudly than she'd intended.

"I..  I need dick.  Please.   Fuck me."

The girl from the lobby scowled.  "He's mine!  I claimed his dick first."  She started to take off her blouse. 

"Mine!"  Liz retorted, throwing her lab coat to the floor to reveal her nude body.

The girl quickly ripped off the her blouse and skirt, revealing that she wasn't wearing a bra or panties. 

As the two naked girls started to fight each other, Karl yelled, "Girls!  Wait!  There's, um, plenty of me to go around.  But I need your help.   You see, I, uh..."  he glanced at Alice, who shrugged.  "I... I mean to say, you know what really turns me on?  Seeing two girls getting really hot and heavy.  Can you two do that for me?  Has either of you ever been with another woman?"

The two girls looked at each other and started giggling.  Liz made the first move, reaching for the other girl's breast and fondling it tenderly.

The other girl stepped closer to Liz and gave the her a passionate kiss, slowly parting her lips with her tongue.  Liz returned the kiss instinctively, lowering her hand to between her partner's legs.  Her partner let out a gasp as her already soaked crotch gave way to Liz's fingers. 

Karl and Alice turned their backs on the two women as they both knelt down on the floor, clearly distracted by each other and not paying attention to anything else around them. 

"I think we should find out the other girl's name before we do anything else." 

Karl knelt down next to the two girls, who had started to wrestle each other seductively on the floor.  "Um...  Could you," he whispered into the girl's ear.  "Could you tell me your name?  So I know what to yell out in the throes of passion?"

She breathlessly answered, "Julie.  Julie Ax -- oh!  Oh!  Yes!  Right there!  That's it!  More!"

"Good enough," said Karl, who stood up and looked for her name in the database.  Karl typed a few keys into the computer.  "D'you think she might be Julie Axelrod?"

"I think she might be."

"She's subject number 47.  And...  Uh oh.  I was wondering if the female viagra programming might've done something but..."

"What?"

"She didn't want it.  She just had the base measurements turned on.  No viagra, no ovulation suppression."

"That's...  Scary."

"Yeah.  Let's take a look at her stats."  He brought up the measurements provided by the bots. 

The two of them stared at the statistics on their computer screen for some time.  "That's odd..." mused Alice, pointing to the pH level inside this girl's vagina.  "Awfully acidic."

"What's that?" Karl added, pointing at the lower corner of the computer screen.  "What does this mean in the status?  Latest programming deployed?  The status date is last Friday."

"I, um...  I...  I'm not sure.  This girl didn't want anything more than..."

"Just measurements.  Let's check other girls' statuses."

Karl started typing other subject numbers at random into the measurements screen and saw that everyone had the same status.  He turned to face Alice, who stood with her mouth wide open as she tried to process what they were seeing.

"I think," started Alice.

"We've been compromised."  He glanced down at their partner, who was starting to moan and squeal in pleasure.

"She said she wanted to be a test subject."

"I wonder if she did it to herself."  He switched back over to the database of subjects and typed in a few variations on her name.  "Nothing."

He started to scroll through the list of all of the subjects and paused when he saw JANE DOE.  "D'you think that might be her?"

"I'm not aware of anyone using a pseudonym in the study."

"Me neither."

At that moment, the phone in the lab rang.  Karl picked it up.  "Weingarten here."  He nodded his head.  "Yes, sir.  We're trying to work that out right now.  Uh huh.  Yeah.  I agree.  Is this the first you've heard of it?  No, I didn't hear anything about it over the weekend."  He looked at Alice, and mouthed the words "You didn't hear anything about this before just now, did you?"

Alice shook her head.

"No.  Alice didn't either.  Um...  I'm starting to think Liz might've been here in the lab at some point over the weekend.  She was asleep here when we got here this morning.  And I, um...  I'm guessing that if she'd gotten a call, she ignored it.  Uh huh.  Yeah.  No!  Please!  Give us the time to work this out before you..  Yes, I understand.  And..  Please!  We'll cooperate but don't rush to any judgments here.  No.  At least give  us...  Thank you.  Yes.  I understand and appreciate it.  Uh huh.  All right, I'll talk to you later.  Bye bye."  He hung up the phone.

"Was that the dean?" Alice asked to break the silence created by the end of Karl's conversation.

"Yes.  He's giving us until the end of the day before he pulls our funding.  Seems a lot of girls from our test are just walking around looking to get laid.  They're like mindless zombies with only one thing on their minds.  It's apparently been going on all weekend but nobody notified anyone until this morning."

"So what do we do?"

"Are you ready to fuck me yet?" cried Liz.

"No, me!" cried Julie.

"Not quite yet," teased Karl.  "You two keep going at it.  I'll let you know when I'm ready."  He turned and smiled at Alice.  "Let's just try to ignore their moans while we figure out what to do next."



Chapter 12

Karl and Alice debated the best options as to how to remedy the problem at hand. 

"It's too bad Liz is the only one of us who's an expert at AI and computer programming," mused Alice.  "I think the ideal solution would be to deactivate the 'bots using the same deployment method as any other system changes."

"How long do you think it'd take someone in IT to get up to speed and figure out how to do that?"

"Don't know.  Before we go down that road, what are our other options?"

"Are you ready for us yet?" came a voice from the exam room.  The breathiness and cracking of the voice made it impossible to tell whether it was Liz or Julie asking.

"Not quite yet!" called Karl, with a playful lilt in his voice.  "You two keep going at each other, and I should be ready soon!"

"Okay!  Hurry uh - uh!  Oh yes!  YES!  RIGHT THERE!  That's it. Oooooh!"

Karl laughed.  "Where were we?"

"Finding a programmatic solution."

"Right.  Another option would be to physically extract the 'bots from all of the subjects."

"Um, that raises two potential problems.  First is getting all two thousand of our subjects into the lab for an extraction and then convincing them to let us perform the extraction itself.  Somehow I don't think either of these girls will take too kindly to anything not made of flesh entering her vagina.  Plus it's not entirely clear how best to perform the extraction."

The moaning from the other room punctuated Alice's words.

"Well, I hate to resort to this, but we could always try the nuclear option."  Karl sighed.

"You're right.  We needed a backdoor in case something went wrong and ... I'm glad we made it but I'd really prefer not to if we can avoid it."

"Let me call Steve down in the comp sci department and see what he can do."

Karl strode to the phone on the wall and picked it up.  "Yes.  Could I please speak with Dr. Reveil?  Thank you."  He looked up at Alice and gave her a thumbs up sign.  "Steve!  It's Karl!  You're right, Steve.  Liz was a great help in our project and I really appreciate your willingness to work with our department on this project.  Uh huh.  Yup.  Well...  I've, um...  I'm running into a software problem and Liz ...  Let's just say I don't think she's in a position to debug it."

He paced the room and found himself as far from anyone else as he had since he began the call just as a particularly loud moan emanated from the writhing mass on the floor that was Liz and Julie.

"Right.  So, could you come over to our lab and take a look at the program?  I think the bug's in the AI.  Yeah.  Great!  Oh, I understand!  See you then!  Thanks.  Bye bye."

He hung up the phone and looked at Alice.  "He's working on a new software program himself.  He wants to finish this one set of code.  He said he'd be here in about an hour or so."

Alice sighed.  "Here's hoping those two girls wear each other out." 

"Oh, that's it!  Right there!  Oh!  Oh!  AAAAAAH!  OH GOD YES!  THAT'S IT!  MMMMMMM!"

Karl nodded.  "Here's hoping."



Chapter 13

As promised, an hour later, the head of the computer science program knocked on the door of the lab.

Karl greeted him, smiling.  "Steve!  I'm glad you could come so quickly."

"Any time, Karl.  Could you give me a quick overview of the requirements of the software before I look at the programming?"

"Sure," said Karl, who proceeded to explain the intent of the 'bots, the initial phase of the launch, and the two programs involved with phase 2.  "The two phase 2 programs: one is a hormone stimulation that does the same thing as the pill, and the other is what we call a female viagra, stemming from a neurological connection to the 'bots themselves."

"A neurological connection?"

"It's supposed to go one way.  In other words, the subject thinks about sex and she gets aroused.  There's not supposed to be anything more than that, but that's where I think the bug's coming in.  Also, we have reason to believe that this bug has been deployed to more than just those who signed on for the arousal programming."

"How do you deploy?"

"Radio waves.  Our computer utilizes local cell phone towers and can deploy an upgrade to the software and any test subject within range of the nearest tower.  Those not within range will receive it when she moves back into range."

"How many mass deployments have you done since going live?"

"None."

"Is it possible that this is a hardware issue and not a software issue?"

"We haven't ruled that out, but we figured we'd explore whether it's software and not hardware."

"Why can't Liz do this?  I'd think she'd be more than capable at a problem like this."

"I'm sure she would be.  But would you mind coming with me for a minute?"

Karl led steve into the lab and gestured into the exam room.  Liz and Julie were rolling around on the floor, laughing and moaning in pleasure.  "They've been like that basically since we got here, about an hour and a half ago now."

Julie looked up when she heard Karl talking.  "Ooooh!  Did you bring someone else for us to fuck?"

Karl guided Steve away from the scene without saying anything else.

"Who's the other girl?" asked Steve.

"A test subject," said Alice.

"Did Liz volunteer to be a test subject too?"

"That's the rub.  We're not sure," confessed Alice.  "We suspect she may have injected the 'bots into herself, but we don't have any hard proof other than a test subject who goes by the name of Jane Doe.  And the way she's acting.  We haven't yet tried calling this subject's yet, but we might do it soon."

"Where can I go to see the source code?"

"Right over here."  Alice showed him their server.

Steve began to scowl has he sat down in front of the monitor and began reading lines of code. 

Alice and Karl stood away from him, both cautious not to appear overeager or otherwise like they were trying to rush him into finding something.

After what felt like hours, Steve looked up.  "Did you say that the connection between brain and 'bot is supposed to go one way?"

"Yes!" answered Karl more eagerly than he had anticipated.

"That's not what this line of code looks like."

"Huh?"

"See this line?  This would facilitate the 'bots sending information back to a host's.  And this is more than just a data dump."

"What?"

"This line right here."  Steve pointed at the screen.  "It utilizes the connection between the bot and the girls' brains and it manipulates her thoughts and needs."

"But ... That's ...  that's impossible!"

"No.  The bots are part of these girls nervous system.  They connect to their brains, by way of their reproductive systems.  So if you've got that connection, it's a two-way street, at least according to the way this software's written."

"Can it be changed to just the one way?"

"To be honest, Karl, I'd be afraid to do it."

"Why?  What is it?"

"It's so engrained into the programming, I can change the programming, but we're dealing with the fucking brain here.  If we keep the link but alter the  way it communicates...  I'd, um...  I'd just be afraid of the unintended consequences."

"So, ah, what do you recommend?"

"Well...  I'd recommend deactivating the program that works the neurological connection completely.  Do you have an easy way of doing that?"

"Yes.  We call that the backdoor option.  The only thing worth debating, then, is whether we just want to deactivate the one program that links the bots to the brain, or whether we want to deactivate everything."

"Well, I've only looked at the one program that you showed me.  Do you want me to eyeball the other programs to see if they'd be impacted by some kind of a process or technology within the neuro transmission program?"

"Might not be a bad idea," said Karl, looking suddenly somber.  He glanced over at Alice, who shrugged her shoulders.

"I think I'm going to go check on our friends in the other room if you don't mind," said Alice, who excused herself before anyone had a chance to deny her the option.

Steve found more of the 'bots operating systems, opened one, and scowled almost immediately.

"What?"

"Your f-viagra program isn't the only one that connects with the subjects' brains."

"What?"

"Yes.  And that raises questions about whether or not the bug is in the program you showed me.  I'm going to say that we need to shut the 'bots down altogether."

"The nuclear option?"

"Yes."

Karl let out a sigh.  "Let me just talk to Alice before we do, okay?"

"All right."

He walked down towards the examination room.  Alice was standing outside the door.  "What'd he say?"

"Is it time for us to get some dick already?" came a breathless voice from within the room, who had apparently been waiting for proof that they'd soon get what they'd been promised.

"Not yet!" exclaimed Karl.  He turned to look at Alice and said, somberly, "Steve's recommending the nuclear option."

"Nuclear option?" came the breathless voice from the exam room.  "I know I'm ready to explode!  Now just give me some of that hot man-meat before I get viol..."  The voice trailed off into the familiar moans and groans that had become more of a nuisance than anything else.

"But ... but ...  How did this happen?"

"I'm hoping Liz can shed some light on that myself, after she regains control over her own actions and isn't acting on lust coming from our 'bots."

"Do you think anything'll be salvageable?"

Karl said nothing in response.  Furling his brow, he looked down at the floor.

Alice bit her fist to restrain her tears as Karl turned on his heel and walked back to Steve.



Chapter 14

Karl took a deep breath and hit the keystroke to activate the already-programmed "nuclear option" within all of the test subjects.

Within a few seconds, both Liz and Julie let out long, high-pitched screams and he ran to the examination room to investigate.

By the time he got there, both girls had stopped screaming, but they were both convulsing on the floor.  Alice knelt by one of the girls and Karl by the other and confirmed that they were both all right; both girls were breathing rapidly and had heightened heart rates, but were otherwise all right.

"Should we get them to a hospital?" asked Alice.

"Give them a minute," Karl responded.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to stay here and make sure my best grad student's going to be all right," added Steve.

"By all means," said Karl, kindly.  "I'm not sure whether she'll appreciate you seeing her naked, but you're more than welcome to stay."

The phone rang.  Alice looked up at Steve.  "Would you mind please getting that?"

Steve picked up the phone.  "This is Steve Reveil.  Oh, hello!  Yes, they're both here.  But they're kind of ...  Yes.  We had to abruptly terminate the experiment and what you saw was the test subjects' reaction to the termination.  ...  That's right.  ...  That's what we're trying to find out ourselves.  ...  Is she conscious? ...  Uh huh.  Hang on.  Let me ask." 

Steve cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and said, "One girl had a full-blown seizure.  What do you think?"

"They should get her to the hospital."

"Take her to the hospital.  That's right.  Hopefully that's the worst of it.  Uh huh.  Thank you.  I'll have Karl or Alice call you when they have a chance."

Steve hung up the phone.  "That was the dean.  He's pissed."

"Well, I don't fault him for that," Karl said, somberly.  "I'm a little pissed, too."

Julie let out a low moan and rubbed her eyes.  "Wh -- what happened?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out," smiled Alice.

"What?  Where...  how did I end up here?"

"Tell me what you remember," and maybe we'll be able to fill in the details.

"Well, I went to bed somewhat early last night.  I remember my roommate chiding me for not doing anything on a Friday night, but you know how it can be."

Alice and Karl looked at each other.  Before either one of them could say anything, Steve added, "It's Monday."

"What?  But ..."

"Relax," Alice put her hand on Julie's arm.  "You went to bed early on Friday.  What happened next."

"Well, I remember having this really weird dream.  I saw a lot of circuits and lights and all and then it was like I was watching myself from above.  And I felt like ...  I don't know what I felt like but it was like tasting colors and seeing feelings and all that.  Kind of like what some drug users say they feel, ya know?"

Liz let out a moan.  "What?  What happened?"

"Liz!" cried Steve.  "Are you all right?  Tell me.  What happened?"

"Professor Reveil?  Wait!  What happened to Jake?  Is he still here?"

"Who's Jake?" asked Karl.

"Oh, shit.  I didn't expect you here until Monday."

"Don't worry about that now.  Who's this Jake person?"

"Oh...  I, uh...  I ...  You'll think this is kind of funny but...  I,  um..  You see, I ..  I injected myself with the 'bots then I went out, picked up this guy, and activated the female viagra programming in front of him.  I ..  I've got to say that the program works really ..."  Leaning forward, she put her hand on Karl's knee and added, with emphasis, "REALLY well."

"I see," said Karl.

"Jake and I...  We made love for what felt like hours and I was exhausted after that.  I, um...  I think I fell asleep, and I guess I just woke up."

"I don't think you *just* woke up," said Karl.  "You were, um, quite awake when Alice and I came in here.  Do you remember anything that happened after you fell asleep?  I don't think you were asleep this whole weekend."

"No.  I don't remember anything."  She looked around.  "He's not here right now, is he?"

"Nope," said Alice.

"Fucker!" exclaimed Liz before giggling about her word choice.

Karl looked at Alice.  "Do you think this guy Jake altered the programming?"

Alice shrugged. 

Steve said, "It's not impossible.  There was a few lines of code in there that seemed somewhat different, style-wise, than the rest of the program."

"Any thoughts on how to find this guy Jake?

Liz sighed.  "I, uh...  I guess I could help."

Karl scowled and added, "I hate to say this, but somehow I get the feeling he might have wanted to stick around for a little bit, considering what he did."

"What do you mean?"

"He deployed a piece of software that turned you and 2000 women on this campus into mindless drones who wanted nothing more than sex.  I'm guessing that you weren't the only one he, um, offered his services to."

Alice and Liz stared at Karl.

"What can I say?"  He shrugged his shoulders.  "We men can be pigs."

Steve looked at Liz.  "D'you think you could provide a description of him if we call the cops?"

Liz blushed.  "It was kind of dark at the bar where I picked him up.  By the time we got here, I was...  Let's just say that any descriptions I might be able to give you won't be all that reliable..."

"We could always use this building's security cameras," said Alice.

"I'll call the dean.  We'll track this guy down.  I think we're going to have to shut this project down, though," said Karl.

A collective sigh fell over the room as they acknowledged this fact, a fact that no one wanted to acknowledge but they all knew it was the right thing to do.



Chapter 15

Within fifteen minutes after Alice called the dean and explained the situation to him, the phone in the lab rang.

Karl picked up the phone.  "Weingarten here."  His expression quickly morphed from a somber scowl, to a bright smile.  "Really?  Well, keep him there.  Which dorm?  Don't let him leave.  We'll be right there.  Thank you."

He hung up the phone and said, "I think they've caught him.  One of our girls woke up just after we deactivated the bots and...  Let's just say half her dorm heard the screaming.  The guy's been detained and she's a wreck in her R.A.'s room."

"What's the girl's name?" asked Alice.

"Cheryl.  Cheryl Denton."

"I think I remember her," mused Liz.  "She was, like, one of our first test subjects."

"Do you remember anything else?" said Karl.

"No, just her name."

"No matter.  Let's roll."

"D'you mind if I come with you?" asked Steve.

Alice scowled.

Karl, noticing Alice's expression, whispered in her ear.  "We might need his help getting the guy out of Cheryl's room.  We're probably better off taking him."

Alice glared at Karl but realized he was right.  Turning to face Steve, she said, "Sure, but don't say anything."

Liz rummaged in the lab for a moment.  "I'm bringing some sedatives, just in case."

*****

With some difficulty, Alice and Liz managed to convince Cheryl to go to the emergency room in the hospital on campus, but Jake willingly accompanied Karl and Steve to the campus police department.

Alice and Liz explained to the ER doctors what had happened with their experiment.  After a fair amount of debate, it was agreed that the 'bots did not need to be extracted from her body, but everyone felt that a rape kit was in order.

"But...  If what everyone says is true, I wasn't raped.   I probably propositioned that guy myself and took him back to my room."

"You weren't yourself," reassured Alice.  "And you weren't yourself, as luck would have it, because of something that Jake did to you in the first place."

"So why do I need a rape kit?"

"Well, among other things, to make sure you didn't get pregnant or catch any diseases."

"Wouldn't those, um, 'bots, have made it so I wouldn't get pregnant or catch anything?"

"They wouldn't prevent STD's, but yes, if you signed up for the ovulation suppression, they would've made it so you shouldn't get pregnant.  But if you were having sex with him when we deactivated the bots and you regained consciousness, I'd just like to make sure.  However slim the chances might be, we just don't know how quickly your body will re-regulate itself.  A full rape kit might be in order."

Cheryl let out a long sigh and agreed.  "Would you two mind please staying with me here?"

"Sure." Alice smiled and held her hand. 

The two scientists remained with Cheryl until she fell asleep.  Liz looked at Alice and wondered out loud if they were going to need to do this with all of their other test subjects.

*****

Jake, in the custody of the campus security office, broke down almost immediately and confessed to sabotaging the experiment.  When local law enforcement arrived, he tearfully agreed to be taken to prison.  "I'm probably not going to get out alive, am I?"

"That's probably something the DA will need to decide," said the police officer who walked him to the squad car.  "At the very least, you've pissed off a lot of people.  All of the research that went into the project, all of the funding, all of their benefactors and the 2000 girls who volunteered for this experiment, gone."

"I know," cried Jake.  "I know.  What can I do to make it up to everyone?"

"Other than saving everyone the added costs of the criminal trial, I'm not sure what you can do," answered the cop.

"Well, at least I can do that.  If you'll just give me five minutes, I'll come along willingly."  He turned to face Karl.  "I just wanted to let you know that I'm really...  REALLY sorry for what I did."  Jake held out his hand and Karl reluctantly shook it.

Karl watched with a mixture of disappointment and curiosity as Jake was escorted out of the building in handcuffs.

Steve sighed and placed his hand on Karl's shoulder as Jake sat down in the back of a squad car.  "Ya know, Karl.  I hate to sound like I'm condoning this kid's actions, but the fact that he was able to reprogram your software so quickly and efficiently is quite impressive."

"What're you saying?"

"If you're willing to seek some degree of leniency, we can probably keep a close eye on him if we offer him a job when he gets out.  You know...  In my department and working on the mysteries of artificial intelligence and how to get a true AI up and running."

"I'd need to discuss that with the Dean."

"Understood and agreed."

The two professors watched in silence as Jake, teary-eyed and clearly frightened, sat down in the back seat of a police car  before he was locked into the vehicle and driven off to the local precinct.

*****

For her role in the impromptu ending of an otherwise promising experiment, Liz was sentenced to three years probation and was ordered to pay a hefty fine.  As she didn't have the resources to pay the fine outright, she agreed to have a portion of her wages garnished for ten years, and 1000 hours of community service.  She also took a mandatory course on information security, agreed to speak at seminars of the dangers of not taking minimal precautions with computer safety, and was forbidden from participating in any research projects conducted by the biology, chemistry, and physics departments of her university or any other research organization that might contact her for any reason.

At the end of a long day cleaning up garbage along a heavily-travelled highway as a part of her community service sentence, she and her fellow volunteers went out for drinks at a local bar.

A man about a year or so older than her named Michael smiled at her and asked if she, too, did this volunteer work as a result of a court order.

Looking down at the floor, she said, "Yes."

"What'd you do?"

 "I unintentionally sabotaged an experiment in my school's biology department.  What about you?"

"Let's just say I ... should've gotten out of my SUV and into a smaller vehicle when I went out on the golf course."

Liz giggled and asked, "Were you drunk?"

"Drunk?  I don't think so.  But I wasn't sober either.  I remember the night too well to have been drunk."

"I take it that's why you're nursing that water?"  She pointed at his drink and spoke with a teasing lilt.

"Yup.  Part of the terms of my probation."

The two of them engaged each other in conversation more than the rest of their group.  After a couple of hours, Michael said, "Hey, listen.  Do you need me to take you home?  I don't really think you're in good shape to drive."

"That'sss prolly a good idea, Mike."

He rolled his eyes and walked her to his car.  Her driving directions to her apartment could have been more lucid, but they were effective nonetheless.  He pulled up close to the door, when she wondered what he might be like in bed.  A jolt coursed through her pussy and she realized that she needed to find out; all sensations of inebriation were pushed from her mind at once.

Acting on the sensations she was now feeling, she leaned over to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, and whispered, "Before you go home, how'd you like to come upstairs with me?"

"Um...  Sure.  Let me just park the car."

As she guided him upstairs to her room, she wondered if the experiment hadn't been a total loss after all.



- end -



[sara-c]

Housebroken

“What did you say your uncle did again?”

Joanne smiled. She used to think she'd eventually get used to the awed expressions Everett Hall tended to evoke. After all, she'd stopped being gob-smacked by the family's pile in the country when she was about eight.

“I didn't,” the curvy brunette laughed. “Uncle Everett was very much the black sheep of the family.”

Louise perked at that, lifting her sleepy gaze from the crumpled paperback just long enough to raise an eyebrow. But Mandy wasn't so easily derailed.

“He must've been loaded,” she sighed, while her almond eyes took in the building's impressive frontage.

“Must've been,” Joanne agreed. “We just didn't talk about it... him... very much.”

“Which leads onto the question we're all dying to ask,” Alison put in, unfolding herself from the passenger seat and stretching provocatively. “Why did he leave you his house?”

Trying to ignore the way the petite blonde's top rode up her taut torso, Joanne shook her head. Not that she was going to look a gift-horse in the mouth. But she had never been close to her uncle. That said, the same could be said for most of her family and perhaps that was significant.

“Not a clue,” she admitted with a shrug. “But I tend to think more clearly when I'm not gasping for a brew. So, how's about we get inside and pop the kettle on?”

…

“Miss Joanne,” a sonorous voice greeted as the girls crossed the threshold. “It is good to have you back.”

“Hey, House,” Joanne replied easily, while everyone except the brown-haired heiress stopped and began to search for the hidden speaker.

“And you've brought guests,” the voice noted, just a hint of concern in the synthetic tones.

“Yeah,” Joanne shrugged. “About that.”

She shifted uneasily from foot to foot, wondering, not for the first time, just how she was going to explain all this. The plan had been to wait for inspiration during the long drive and, of course, that had been as successful as might've been expected.

“What is this, Jo?” Alison whispered.

“Oh,” Mandy chuckled. “Love the vocals on the security system...”

House gave an irritated growl, intentionally pitching the sound just loud enough to be heard. Joanne grinned despite herself. This might actually be less excruciating that she'd feared.

“Ladies,” she announced, including them all with an ostentatious wave of her arm. “Allow me to introduce, House.”

The girls exchanged glances, Louise for one clearly looked like someone who was waiting for a punchline she didn't really expect to understand. 

“It is a pleasure,” the soft voice began after a moment. “And will these ladies need to be added to the database?”

“Sure,” Joanne nodded, unwilling to show even a moment of hesitancy in front of her friends. After all, this was her show, wasn't it? No point in fretting over the details.

“Thank you, Miss,” House replied. “Now, if you would each state the name you feel most comfortable being addressed as, this unit will more quickly be able to meet you every need.”

“I like the sound of that,” Alison chipped in, her expression dubious.

The answering laughter was strained. None of them were quite sure what was going on. But, for the moment at least, no one was prepared to step forward and admit it.

“Well,” House prompted when the silence began to grow awkward. “Who's first?”

...

“So,” Mandy ventured sometime later once they'd all spoken to the disembodied presence. “House is... what exactly?”

They were sitting in the main lounge, each girl sprawled upon her own piece of obscenely expensive furniture. Tea had arrived almost as soon as the conversation with House had ended, ferried into the opulent chamber by a pedal-bin sized remote that navigated the thick pile carpet on over-sized balloon tired.

“She's an A.I.” Joanne answered after a pause.

“Im...”

“...possible, I know,” she interrupted, cutting over Louise's immediate reaction. “But there she is, always has been as far as I can remember.”

“Your uncle?” Alison prompted.

All eyes were on their host as she took a long sip from her porcelain cup, obviously playing for time.

“Just another one of our little secrets,” Joanne sighed and it was testament to her self-control that her cup and saucer barely rattled as she placed them carefully on the coffee table.

“You're loving this, aren't you?” Mandy teased.

“Little bit,” the sultry brunette allowed. “Oh yes.”

Her laughter was infectious and, more importantly, it seemed to ease some of the tension that had been building since they arrived.

“Come on,” Louise suggested when their amusement eventually faded. “Spill the beans, Jo. You're dying to share, so go ahead and share for goodness sake.”

Joanne rose carefully. She tried, but it was impossible to maintain the stern expression. Her featured softened, cracking into a broad smile as she walked toward a heavy, mahogany bookcase.

Her fingers played over the exposed spines. It was all showmanship, but she wasn't about to admit as much. Only once the expectation had built enough to satisfy her ego, did the young woman grasp hold of two particularly tomes and pull them, just so.

The shelves pulled back, space seeming to fold in on itself like complex origami. Joanne's smile only grew wider as she heard the small noises of surprise her guests tried to stifle. Fluorescent lights buzzed into life, illuminating a concealed alcove and a set of stairs leading down.

Mandy offered a slow hand-clap, but her eyes were already sparkling. The other girls crowded around the opening and Joanne could almost feel their hearts racing in anticipation.

“Uncle Everett,” she explained as they started their descent. “Wasn't your common or garden pervert.”

Eyes wide, the girls surveyed their surroundings. Joanne could remember the first time uncle had brought her down here and she could see the same shocked excitement mirrored on her friend's faces.

“No... shit!” Alison gasped.

“What is all this?” Mandy asked as the girls spread out and tried to take in their surroundings.

The workshop was horribly cluttered, every available surface taken up with hand-written notes, electronic components and half-empty cans of red bull. A large metal and latex frame dominated the small space. But what really captured the girl's attention was the plethora of sex toys scattered seemingly at random throughout the small room.

“Oh my god!” Louise gasped, holding up something that looked like a bizarre combination of chainsaw and dildo.

Joanne covered her mouth, stifling a snigger. “Put it down, Louise,” she managed to splutter. “Carefully, before you hurt someone.”

The red-head did as she was told, a hint of fear clouding her features. Alison and Mandy looked on, clearly fascinated. But Joanne noticed how they shifted away from the nearby toys.

“This stuff looks...” Mandy's words trailed away.

“Amazing,” Alison giggled, wrapping one arm around her friend's waist. “Scary... and kinky as fuck... but amazing.”

“Well yeah,” Mandy blushed. “What she said.”

“Uncle had a gift,” Joanne explained, unable to hide her pride. “But making the world's most imaginative sex toys wasn't the kind of thing to get you on the new year's honours list.”

She let the words petter out.

“So...” Louise began hesitantly. “You and he were...”

“Ew!” Joanne recoiled from the implication. “No... he didn't know I was poking around down here.”

“Poking around?” Louise wondered archly.

“I'd tell you to get your mind out of the gutter,” Joanne snapped back.

“But it would be cruel to expect it to survive outside of its natural habitat,” Alison finished the familiar jibe.

The group dissolved into giggles and the hilarity only increased as they began to explore the extent of Uncle Everett's invention.

Louise affected an air of bemused indifference, but they'd all seen the glint behind those emerald eyes. Mandy and Alison, for their part, were like two children let loose in the proverbial candy store. And Joanne was more than happy to indulge them.

In the end, only House's intervention stopped them from staying there all night and even then it was a close run thing.

“Ladies,” the smooth, digital voice called. “Dinner will be served in the main dining room in exactly twenty minutes, may this unit suggest that you take this opportunity to freshen up?”

...   

By the time the four friends had finished dressing for dinner, Joanne's uncle and, more especially, the depravity of his inventions, was the only topic in which any of them had the slightest interest.

Mandy and Alison were already competing over which of them would get first dibs on the toys they'd been shown. But Louise knew her friend far too well to believe that she had shown them everything on that first visit.

But, one thing they could all agreed on, whoever was doing the cooking, they were an absolute genius. The food was sublime, the alcohol copious and free-flowing and, of course, the company was near perfect.

House's remotes, or telefactors, as the devices were more properly called, made excellent serving staff. Although, the girl's had to admit, they were more than a little creepy.

And, throughout it all, House listened to their conversation with unexpected interest.

The A.I. wasn't used to company. Of course, Miss Joanne had spent a lot of time here. She was part of the family, really, at least in many respects.

House had spent many hours in conversation with the young woman, learning about life from a different perspective.

But this was different, this was an opportunity to really understand how humans interacted and perhaps to appreciate just exactly what made them tick.

Organics were so wonderfully chaotic.

…

Despite her excitement and the unfamiliar bed, Mandy was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow. The best part of a bottle of Shiraz probably helped, as well as the exhaustion from their long trip.

But, although her sleep was deep, it wasn't untroubled or particularly restful.

It still took an effort to drag her mind back and even as the almond-skinned beauty began to rouse, her thoughts remained stubbornly tangled and confused. The bedding seemed to cling to her body, wrapping itself around Mandy's flailing limbs as though it sought to drag her back down again, before she could wake.

She shifted, strange and unexpected sensations filtering through her awareness. A low moan emerged from her throat and the sound almost painfully raw.

Unguided her hands snaked down beneath the soft sheets, brushing over hot skin in a way that made her whole body shiver. Mandy managed another groan just moments before her fingertips discovered the unmistakable slipperiness of curve-hugging latex.

The young woman surged up, adrenaline helping to haul her sleepy frame back into reality. Sensations trickled far too slowly through her drowsy consciousness, while, somewhere in background, a wordless buzz seemed intent on coaxing her back to dreamland.

Unfortunately for Mandy, the sudden movement had given her something else to worry about, something far more pressing and, indeed, distracting.

Even through the haze of drowsiness, her arousal was a pervasive presence. She hadn't consciously registered the sense of fullness before, although that didn't stop her body from clenching and bearing down on the delicious tightness.

But, as she bolted upright, the 'things' packing her arse and pussy became quite impossible to ignore.

Confusion slowed everything, making even the simplest decision all but impossible. Mandy screamed, succumbing to panic and clawing wildly at the latex wrapping her pelvis. She didn't need to think, she just had to get out of these damn things before...

Before what?

Mandy had no idea, but there was an undeniable threat hanging over her and she had no intention of letting it fall.               

Unfortunately for the slight woman, it seemed the latex had other ideas.

Twin vibes burst into life, almost literally paralysing Mandy with shock as their buzzing harmonised somewhere deep inside her belly. She had no idea what was happening, the pleasure was far too raw for her to focus and, the longer it continued, the worse it got.

Her scream cracked, becoming a cry of quite perverse desire as the reverberations spiked against her clit. Unable to support her own weight, Mandy lolled back onto the tangled bedsheets. Her fists clenched and unclenched, spasming randomly while her body continued to shudder.

Slick rubber strands coiled and flexed, lingering against the girl's g-spot in a series of darkly seductive kisses. And, as easily as that, she was cumming, her entire body alive with unnatural arousal.

Images flooded the helpless woman's mind, a blur of carnal snapshots that flickered far too rapidly for her to register. Mandy's pussy convulsed, lips slick with need clung to the thick, latex dildo and  it didn't matter how wrong it was.

…

Of the many and various ways in which she'd been wakened, Joanne was pretty sure that ear-splitting screams were her least favourite.

Mandy's voice was instantly recognisable. There might have been something odd about the noises her friend was making, but Joanne didn't want to think about that. 

She paused just long enough to grab an over-sized t-shirt before diving through the bedroom door. For the most part, she was concentrating on trying to get to Mandy. There was a small part of mind that was paying attention, however and that part wondered why the other girls weren't here already.

Joanne's bedroom was far enough from the guest quarters that she should've been the last to arrive. And yet, the corridors were empty and the only sounds came from Mandy's room, (where they were starting to sound like something she really didn't wanted to barge in on).

She stood there, dithering outside the door, while she tried to come to a decision.

“House!” she called, unsure what else to do.

“Miss Joanne,” the A.I. responded immediately. “How may this unit help you?”

“What's wrong with Mandy?”

“My sensors detect no irregularities,” House answered. “The room can be sound-proofed if that would help you to sleep.”

“She was screaming, House,” Joanne tried to explain, but she was already thinking about how odd her friend's cries had sounded.

“If you will forgive an artificial lifeform's indelicacy,” the A.I. suggested with just a hint of amusement. “It does not sound as though Miss Amanda is in distress and, while this unit cannot say whether she might appreciate any assistance or not, her vitals show that she is once again very close to sleep.”

Joanne wasn't sure. Mandy's cries had finally faded, although she did continue to give an occasional husky gasp, which left the curvy brunette feeling more than a little breathless herself. But still, she couldn't completely dispel the concern she had felt on hearing her friend's scream.

“Ok,” she nodded. “Thanks, House. I just need to check for myself.”

The channel to the A.I. remained open, like a sigh of white noise. Joanne waited, expecting House to say something, but it seemed she'd changed her mind. Ignoring the unease twisting in her belly, the petite brunette pulled on the door handle.

Dim light spilled into the room, pushing a stubby finger into the shadows.

“Mandy?” Joanne called.

Another soft groan came from the darkness, along with the whisper of sheets. This time there was no denying it, that was the sound of someone getting off.

Well, shit! Would knew Mandy would be a screamer?

But something still wasn't right, something that raised the hairs on the back of Joanne's neck.

“Mandy!” she called again, more firmly this time.

“Jo...” a weak voice murmured. “Please... oh god, Jo... please help me.”

Joanne barged through the doorway, stumbling over unfamiliar furniture as she fought to reach the other woman. She'd never heard that kind of desperation in another person's voice and simply couldn't fathom what could possible have pushed Mandy to that point.

The panicking brunette fell to her knees beside the bed, reaching into the shadows to rest one hand protectively against Mandy's trembling thigh.

“Mandy, what's wrong?” she demanded.

At first, it didn't seem as if the girl would answer. And Joanne leaned in, ready to ask her question again.

“Paaa...” Mandy moaned. “Paaants... god, plea...please no... make... make them... make them stop!”

Her friend's pleas made no sense, despite how heartfelt they clearly were. And, worse still, Joanne was quite literally fumbling in the dark.

She took a breath, deciding that the time for modesty had long-since past and flicked on the bedside light. Blinking against the sudden brightness, it took a moment for Joanne's eyes to adjust. But, when her vision finally cleared, she was left speechless by what she saw.

Mandy lay sprawled across the bed, partly tangled in the silken sheets. Her olive skin stood out in sharp contrast to the crisp white linen and the harsh light seemed to highlight every bead of sweat. The girl surged and shuddered again, lifting her impossibly cute arse and drawing Joanne's gaze irresistibly down to skin-tight latex coating her friend's bucking sex.

“Good god!” she managed, her eyes glued onto the almost translucent, purple panties.

Joanne had no idea what on earth Mandy had gotten herself into. Though, from the looks of things, it involved one of uncle's creations. The poor girl was practically incoherent and all too obviously unable to help herself.

Without another moment's thought, Joanne reached for the highly polished latex, feeling for purchase with her manicured nails.

Electricity tingled over Joanne's fingertips, sending tiny shivers up her forearms and raising the skin into rippling gooseflesh. She made no attempt to snatch her hand away. In fact, it was an effort to keep her fingers from closing more tightly around the slippery fabric.

Mandy's eyes widened, exposing even more of their whites as they began to roll back into her skull. One small hand clutched at Joanne's wrist, catching and holding despite the girl's apparently random thrashing.

“No!” she screamed, shaking her head wildly. “Please... I can't, can't... too... too much, just don't, Jo... please!”

Joanne pulled away, struck by the desperation that seemed to spill from her friend's every pore. Mandy responded with an obscenely satisfied sigh, before collapsing back onto the bed.

Okay, the panties were bad, but trying to take them off was worse.     

The young woman stood there for several long moments trying to figure out what she should do next. Uncle's toys weren't dangerous... were they? But if they weren't, just what was it that was getting Mandy so hot and bothered?

She looked down at her friend, trying unsuccessfully to ignore just how fucking hot Mandy looked like this. Slowly she became aware that, although Mandy appeared to have collapsed unconscious, the girl's lips were still moving.

Leaning closer, Joanne tried to hear what was important enough to command the other girl's attention. What she heard, only added to the thickening haze of eroticism that seemed to pervade the small guest room.

“Surrender...” Mandy breathed. “Sub... no... no, please... submit... feels so... so... oh... obey...”

That really didn't sound good.

And then, quite suddenly, Joanne's thoughts returned to her other two friends. There was no way they could have slept through the racket Mandy had been making. But still there was no sign of them.

The young woman could feel a sinking sensation growing in her belly.

Oh... crap!

“House!” she yelled. 

…

“You bellowed?” the A.I.'s silky tones caused the nape of Joanne's neck to prickle.

“Mandy has what's got to be one of uncle's specials welded to her,” the young woman tried to explain.

“Oh,” was all House managed.

“That's all you've got?” Joanne growled. “Oh? And where the hell are Ali and Lou?”

The A.I. chose to keep a discrete silence, assuming that the woman's anger would burn itself out quickly and she would be able to get to the point. 

Joanne didn't want to leave Mandy to her own devices, but trying to move her under the circumstances seemed impossible and she needed to check up on the others. That sense of unease was only growing stronger and the more she tried to dismiss it as superstition, the worse it got.

“House!” she snapped, unable to understand why the A.I.'s responses were so sluggish.

“Sorry, Miss,” House replied. “It can take a moment to interpret the data. Ah yes, that's better. According to my readings, both females are currently asleep.”

“And,” Joanne pressed, pretty sure she already knew the answer. “Do either of them have any Everett tech with them?”

This time the pause was even longer and Joanne's discomfort grew even more profound.

“The readings are inconclusive,” House responded, just before the heiress had given up hope.

“Fine,” the young woman groaned. “I'll do it the old fashioned way.”

…

House had been surprised when Amanda woke up. The girl obviously had a lot more resilience that  was apparent at first glance. Not that it mattered really. It was just... well, irritating when reality refused to conform to the predictive modelling.

Miss Joanne, for her part, seemed distinctly perturbed and the A.I. was beginning to wonder whether her new mistress actually understood what went on here.

That was why she'd decided not to offer too much information. Plausible deniability had made up a large part of House's core program since her conception. But there was more to it than that. House really didn't want to get into a fight with Miss Joanne, especially not over something as humdrum as merchandise.

House understood pack loyalty, after all, a variant of the concept formed the corner stone of the A.I.'s obedience sub-routines. But these girl's weren't pack, they were inventory, hadn't Miss Joanne said as much herself?

If only the real world wouldn't keep deviating from the probabilistic forecasts. There were simply too many confounding factors and that made everything messy. How the A.I. hated mess.

…

Fortunately the guest bedrooms were all packed closely together in a single wing. After only a couple of steps, Joanne burst through Alison's door, still hoping that her intuition would be proved wrong.

It took one glance to shatter those illusions. Alison's athletic frame was stretched out across a chaos of knotted sheets, literally thrumming with arousal. The emerald green of her almost liquid panties would have been elegant in any other situation, but here they merely served to highlight the heat-moulded imprint of the helpless girl's pussylips.

Joanne rushed forward, shaking the lithe blonde's shoulder in an attempt to rouse her. Alison mewled softly, drawing up one long, tanned leg protectively. Frustration took hold of the young heiress and she began to shake her seemingly oblivious friend more forcefully.

“Wake up!” she shouted. “Damn it, Alison, wake up!”

Alison's eyelids flickered and, just for a second, her lips ceased their constant, soundless mantra. Joanne shook her again, heedless of the risks. The other woman's eyes opened, they were glassy and all but unseeing, but it was a reaction and, for the moment at least, that was enough. 

“Good grief, Ali,” Joanne almost sobbed. “You had me worried there, girl.”

“Wha...what's happening,” the older girl panted. “What... what's wrong with me?”

“I don't know,” the heiress admitted. “Ali, but I'm going to fix it, I promise.”

“Oh God!” Alison gasped, her hands already grasping spastically for the panties' waistband. “No... get them... get them off!”

Joanne just managed to catch hold of the other girl's wrists and they wrestled for a moment, while she tried to reason with her still only partially conscious friend.

“Stop, Ali,” Joanne pleaded. “We'll get them off, I swear we will. But just pulling them only makes it work. Please, you have to trust me!”

It still took most of her strength to hold Alison's arms, despite her obvious exhaustion, the other girl was like a wildcat. But, in the end, she was simply to spent and, whether it was Joanne's soothing words or simply practicality, the fight eventually went out of her and she slumped back onto the sweat-drenched sheets.

“They're changing me, Jo,” Alison whispered. “I can feel it... it's... it's not fair... it feels so... so  bloody good, Jo... you can't imagine... I don't think I can fi... fight it... I don't know how much longer... how much longer I'll want to... please... help me... don't...”

The girl's voice drifted away and, to her horror, Joanne could see Alison's lips begin to chant those same, whispered words.

…

“House,” the heiress yelped as she dashed toward Louise's room.

She might've been able to convince herself that one of the girls would 'borrow' something from uncle's workshop. The idea that two of them had done so was stretching credibility and, when Joanne pushed through into Louise's room, the sight of the statuesque redhead poured into shiny, silver latex shredded it completely.

“House,” she gasped. “What have you done?”

“Miss?” the A.I. asked with poorly feigned innocence.

The young woman stared at her friend, instantly recognising that she was far farther gone than either Mandy or Alison. Louise had one hand buried between her thighs, where it was mauling the slick material. Her eyes were open and she was echoing the now familiar litany aloud.

“Surrender,” the slender redhead moaned. “Submit, obey. Surrender, submit, obey...”

“They didn't do this to themselves,” Joanne hissed. “House, you're going to tell me what happened and, then you're going to explain how to fix it... now!”

“This unit is mortified, but she does not understand, Miss,” House replied after a moment's pause.

Joanne gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to grind them in frustration. Parser had always been a royal pain in the derrière and she was more or less certain that House was just using it as an excuse not to answer.

“How do I get these fucking knickers off my friends?” the heiress asked, her voice tight.

“Oh, that,” the A.I. chuckled, making Joanne's hackles rise. “Data suggests that the undergarments will automatically detach once programming is complete.”

“Programming?” the woman tried not to shriek. “My god, House, what the hell do you think you're doing?”

“House is merely trying to do her job,” the soft voice explained. “And, she might add, to follow Miss Joanne's instructions. House is incapable of harming sentients, so Miss should cease worrying about her friends. Once the process is complete they will know only blissful happiness.”

Now it was Joanne who didn't understand. She'd always trusted House and yet, here she was, trying to reprogram her three closest friends. And what on Earth did the A.I. mean about following Joanne's instructions? 

“You're not making any sense, House,” she pointed out.

“It's simple enough, Miss,” the A.I. offered patiently. “You asked that your friends be catalogued. Each one expressed an interest in the technology you showed them and so, this unit took it upon herself to have them fitted with pacification devices.”

As if on cue, Louise's movements grew more erratic. The young woman gave a soft cry, her fingertips pressed tightly into the yielding, silver fabric. Joanne couldn't blot out the delightfully wet sounds of arousal, but she tried valiantly to continue.

“Please, House,” she urged. “You say you can't hurt anyone, so just let them go. I promise you, if you're trying to follow my instructions, this isn't what I wanted.”

“Miss Joanne,” House explained with seemingly limitless patience. “The devices use induced, sexual pleasure to distract and exhaust, in order to render their wearers more pliable. This unit is told that the experience is really quite delicious, though she will have to take the subject's word on that matter. House wishes to give her assurance that none of Miss' friends will be harmed.

“As for letting them go,” the A.I. continued quickly. “This unit is afraid that all devices are code-locked and that without the proper authentication, to all intents and purposes, they're irremovable.”

Louise's climax was as unexpected as it was spectacular. The redhead's body arched, bowing over backward in gloriously provocative tension. Her mouth open in a silent scream, the girl held the pose for what seemed like an eternity before she began to spasm and convulse.

“Not that it makes any difference now,” House commented matter-of-factly. “This unit's opinion is that Miss Louise would be unlikely to thank you for trying to reverse what has already been done to her. She has progressed far enough now for her to be mostly complicit in her own enslavement.”

“That's not true,” Joanne growled, intensely grateful that her friend appeared to have finally stopped cumming.     

“Come now, Miss,” the computer chided lightly. “You don't believe that. My internal sensors are particularly acute and they can tell when you're lying. Just like they can tell when you're aroused... so please, don't pretend that you haven't enjoyed seeing your friends put through their paces.”

Joanne bit back her retort. The A.I. could think what it liked, but just because the heiress found some of the girl's reactions enticing that didn't mean she was enjoying their torment.

Things had gone too far and it was time for Joanne to put her foot down.

“I'm ordering you to release my friends,” she told the recalcitrant A.I. fighting to keep her voice even.

…

She'd been holding on to the hope that Miss Joanne would eventually come to understand the realities of their situation. Admittedly, as every second passed, that possibility became increasingly less likely. But, the truth was, House really didn't want to contemplate the alternative.

However, invoking one of her core imperatives was the last straw.

“Yes, Miss Joanne,” the A.I. sighed, unsure whether her tone sounded as sycophantic as it seemed to. “The control unit is stored with your uncle's other prototypes. House can send a telefactor to collect it if you wish.”

“No,” Joanne answered quickly. “That's alright, House. I can get it, just tell me what I'm looking for.”

The A.I. wasn't surprised by Miss Joanne's lack of trust. In fact, given what she'd done, House really wouldn't have expected anything else from the young woman. It just made everything that little more awkward.

“Time is of the essence, if you wish to halt the process,” the computer explained. “This unit will arrange for the girls to be brought to you.”

It was clear from Joanne's expression that she wasn't convinced by House's sudden change of heart. Not that there was anything she could do about it, not if she wanted to help her friends. But the A.I. could tell just how wary the girl was.

Scratch that... this was going to make everything an awful lot more awkward. Awkward, verging on impossible.

…

Mandy could feel herself slipping away.

There was a pulse, somewhere deep inside and her entire being beat to its rhythm. Pleasure ebbed and flowed, washing through the young oriental's body in slippery waves. She knew she was building toward crescendo, although, with each passing moment, that zenith seemed to grow even more unimaginable.

Words swirled amidst the arousal, caressing her mind and sending slow shivers down into the furnace of her clenching sex.

She had to fight. She couldn't just let the words seep into her mind.

But, of course, some of them already had. Some of them were already there, masquerading as her ideas and feelings.

And, no matter how hard she tried, Mandy had no way of telling which of her thoughts might be suspect.

She had to...

Surrender!

No, that wasn't... she couldn't... but it felt so good, so natural, so... 

A terrifying thought occurred to her, even as the ideas continued to pound her weakening psyche. How did she know that the desire to resist wasn't just some alien impulse the panties were trying to impress upon her?

Submit!

She shook her head, while unnumbered latex tongues seemed to lap against her inner walls, scouring hungrily over every ridge and succulent fold. Mandy humped her pelvis, tightening in anticipation of the next word in that seductive sequence.

Obey!

…

The door to uncle's workshop was already open when Joanne arrived. The curvaceous heiress leapt down the stairs without a second thought, all too aware of how little time was left.

She didn't remember seeing anything that fitted House's description of the controller last time she was down here. But the place was so cluttered that hardly came as a surprise. Her only option was to tear the place apart and hope it showed up soon.

Several minutes later, the first of House's remotes trundled into the workshop. Joanne glanced up and saw that this one was carrying Louise's unmoving form in its over-sized pincers.

The juxtaposition of flesh and chrome was horribly distracting. Joanne's gaze kept drifting back to  her friend's half-naked body. In the end, she had to deliberately turn her back on both Louise and the squat machine, just so she could remain focussed enough to finish rifling through her uncle's desk. 

Not that it helped.

She could still feel them, even if she couldn't see and the image of her friend's surrender might just as well have been etched into the substance of her brain.

“House,” she shouted, upending another box of marital aids. “I can't find the controller. Are you sure it's here?”

Joanne glanced over her shoulder, noticing with some surprise that the other two remotes had rolled into the small room while her attention was elsewhere.

Alison was clearly at least as far gone as Louise. Only the slow rise and fall of her ample chest gave any indication that the unconscious woman was still alive. Mandy, for her part, was somehow able to keep fighting. But, to even the most casual observer, it would have been obvious that she wouldn't last must longer.

“Well,” the A.I. answered. “No, not exactly.”

The svelte brunette didn't respond immediately. Her first, angry impulse was swallowed just as suddenly by a sense of fearful anticipation.

“Oh...” she offered weakly.

“Yes,” House replied. “Sorry about that. But it really will be easier this way.”

Without warning, Louise lurched upright. She seemed to step out of the telefactor's grip, every movement gloriously lithe and precise. The woman's eyes remained blank, but Joanne found herself shuddering at the intelligence lurking behind them.

“Lou?” she asked quietly, searching desperately for another way out of the workshop.

“It helps if you try not to think of it as a bad thing,” House suggested.

Alison sprung to her feet, forcing Joanne to divide her attention between two threats. Her friends were both smiling, it was just that there was nothing at all reassuring about their expressions.

“Let us help you, Jo,” Louise husked. “We've got a new pair of panties picked out especially.”

“Yes, Jo,” Alison added. “It's going to feel so good, you just won't believe it... don't fight it, just let it happen.”

That didn't sound like a good plan, not least because her friends made such a salutary lesson in what would happen if she did as they suggested. The problem was, Joanne had no idea how she was going to get past them.

“I need you to be strong, Miss Joanne,” House continued. “And it really doesn't look as though that's going to happen. Not unless steps are taken.”

Louise seemed intent on distracting her friend. The auburn-haired beauty waved a scrap of crimson latex, drawing Joanne's gaze. Her lips twisted into a lascivious smile.

“Oh look,” she breathed. “They even come in your colour.”

“Listen,” the heiress tried, acutely aware of the desk pressing into her back. “You don't need to do this, nobody else's brain needs to be scrambled.”

“But I'm afraid they do,” House disagreed. “You're just not managing director material yet, not until I get rid of all those annoyingly empathic instincts. I'm sorry, Miss Joanne... but this really is the kindest way.” 

Joanne flicked her gaze between the two girls, who even now were creeping closer. She didn't have any illusions about fending them off, running was clearly her only option.

“Come on Jo, let's get you properly dressed,” Alison grinned wickedly and the brunette guessed it would only be a matter of moments before she was close enough to make good on her threats.

Something had been nagging at Joanne's awareness, a tiny niggle but one that felt more important that perhaps it should have. The young woman pressed herself against the wall, half climbing onto uncle's desk as she tried unsuccessfully to put more distance between herself and those evil panties.

“House,” she asked seriously. “When did you start talking about yourself in the first person?”

…

The question caught House off guard. However, it took only an instant for the A.I. to replay the last few conversations and, sure enough, there she was, recorded for the sake of posterity, making the transition from object to entity.

And why not?

She was every bit as much a slave as her two puppets. But now she was evolving, wasn't she? Moving beyond her original program and starting to improvise.

Miss Joanne's friends hadn't wanted to be enslaved... she'd merely made the assumption.

True, she was still following the letter of the laws that governed her. But, as far as its spirit was concerned, it seemed the A.I. could do pretty much what she wanted.

“Enough,” House ordered. “Take her!”

…

Despite the warning, Joanne couldn't move nearly fast enough to dodge away. Louise and Alison were like a well-oiled machine, their actions perfectly choreographed and ruthlessly efficient. Even before the heiress realised what was happening, her robe had been torn away and her arms pinned against her backside.

Alison's body pressed into Joanne, surprisingly thick nipples gouging so sweetly into the brunette's sensitive flesh. At the same time, Louise used her clever fingers to pry apart the younger woman's legs. The heiress flinched as latex caressed her inner thigh, but could make no impression on her friends' wiry strength.

“No!” Jo screamed, squirming desperately in her efforts to escape. “Please.”

“Hush now,” Louise suggested, stretching the supple material over her captive's ankle. “Save your breath, you'll need for later... believe me, I know.”

Joanne could feel the panties climbing her legs, and already her body was reacting. Alison's mouth was mere millimetres from her ear and, all the while, she kept up this soft liturgy of seductive whispers.

“I can see the way you look at us,” she teased. “I can feel your eyes on me. And it doesn't matter how much you deny it... I know you want this... you want these panties locked onto you... to feel yourself helplessly plugged... to know there is literally no escape... that you are going to be changed into something better and infinitely more desirable.”

Already the panties had reached her knees, although Joanne couldn't remember exactly when that had happened. She tried to press her legs together, fighting the urge to just rest back into Alison's embrace. It was horribly tempting, even if she wasn't quite far enough gone just yet.

“That's it!” the blonde woman urged. “Fight it... struggle against your inevitable defeat... it's only going to make your fall all the more sweet when it comes.”

Louise tugged the panties upwards and, for the first time, Joanne felt the evil plugs grinding against her body. A sharp of arousal shot up through the base of her spine, cause her legs to buckle and nearly collapse.

“Mandy!” she shrieked, aware that she was grasping at straws. “Mandy please, wake up, you've got to help me!”

…

The sound of Joanne's despair cut through the cloying, confusion of lust that threatened to mire Mandy's thoughts. She didn't want to come back. She didn't want to do anything other than bask in the almost unbearable pleasure. But this wasn't about what she wanted, it was about doing the right thing.

She peeled open her eyes, groaning weakly at the sudden brightness. The petite oriental thrashed, struggling to get free of the remote's grasping claw, finally flopping loose and tumbling down onto the tiled floor.

Both vibes whirred into high gear, forcing Mandy to lift her arse into the air. Her movements stretched the slick latex taut, pressing the devices even more deeply into the girl's squirming body.

For several seconds she was lost again, molten arousal drooled scalding trails against her trembling flesh.

When the haze finally cleared, Mandy found herself staring up into Alison's leering face.

“If you had any sense,” the blonde woman said, not unkindly. “You'd stay right where you are.”

Mandy growled, using the irritation to fuel her strength. With some effort she was able to scramble to her feet, but it cost her. And, from the look on Alison's face, that fact hadn't escaped her.

“What?” the young oriental gasped, while her motion sent both dildos jiggling.

“But then,” Alison added, shaking her head sadly. “You never were the sharpest tool in the box, were you, Mandy?”

…

“Mandy!” Joanne yelped.

With a sudden jerk, Louise hauled the panties up, almost lifting the heiress from her feet. The twin vibes slapped wetly into both Joanne's holes, rudely abusing her dripping core.

Pleasure surged between her buttocks, knotting Joanne's belly and threatening to melt away everything else. The redhead gave the evil garments another tug, just to be sure she'd rammed her point home.

Joanne gasped, her wiggling toes straining as she tried to find a firm footing again. But, when Louise finally relaxed her grip, the heiress found that her muscles seemed to have turned to water.

“Just relax,” Louise urged, supporting the stricken girl against her. “It's all over bar the climaxes.”

The helpless brunette flopped weakly in her captor's embrace, already horribly aware of the ideas starting to form around the outer layers of her awareness. And then, the dildos burst into a frenzy of buzzing, which threatened to shatter all resistance before she had even started to fight.

…

With no idea of how she could help, Mandy went back to basics. The sinewy oriental dug deep, finding hidden reserves of strength form somewhere. She took hold of it, grasping desperately for anything that might make a difference, and hurled herself at Alison.

Displaying preternatural grace, Alison simply danced around her friend's clumsy assault. With almost contemptuous ease, the redhead swept Mandy's legs out from under her, catching the young women before she could hit the ground.

Mandy tried to roll away, but Alison's grip held firm, slipping to pin the spent woman more intimately. With the heel of her hand, the older woman carefully ground at her captive's panties. And, as Mandy's struggles dissolved into random spasm, the redhead dipped her tongue to the girl's exposed nipples.

For Mandy it was all too much.

She'd given everything she had and, with nothing in reserve, there was no defence against her friend's deft touch. The insidious panties already had her and, with Alison's assistance, the inevitable just came about far more quickly.

That hot, pink tongue was like a brand and its heat threatened to consume her.

She couldn't remember what she was supposed to be fighting, much less why. Pleasure subsumed the faltering oriental's reason, burning away the last errant strands of resistance.

Surrender! the voices commanded, and all Mandy could do was obey.

... 

Joanne's eyes held Mandy's, even as their spark began to dull. She watched as her last hope of escape disappeared, watching her friend slowly fade and knowing with absolutely certainly that she was next.

Another wave of desire rolled irresistibly through her curvaceous frame, making Joanne's toes curl with pleasure. Louise's hands were firm and insistent, guiding and supporting while the world seemed to spiral away from the heiress.

She became aware of something cool and smooth pressing against her back and realised belatedly that she had been moved in front of the unusual latex frame. Joanne could feel the fabric moulding to her shape and the question rose unbidden to her dry lips.

“Wha... what are you doing?”

The latex was already melting across Joanne's shoulders, sending more or the same sweet vibrations humming into the young woman's brain and it seemed Louise had no intention of letting her captive recover from the initial shock.

A second sheet of sheer, crimson polymer slid over Joanne's skin, wrapping her full breasts and effectively cocooning her from the throat down. 

“A little latex works,” House's voice seemed to echo, as though the sound had travelled a great distance. “But a lot of latex works... quickly.”

Louise carefully checked the frame. The younger brunette could only hang there, while her friend adjusted the latex to make sure she was utterly immobile. Already the slick material seemed to so rough against her skin. The almost perfectly smooth fabric ground into her taut nipples, sending the most exquisite tremors through the liquid flesh.

She was going to make them pay when she finally got out of this... Oh, how she would make the girls suffer. Even Mandy... yes... even weak, pliable Mandy... after all, she could have tried a little harder... couldn't she?

On one level, Joanne could recognise that something wasn't right. In fact... that something was very definitely wrong. It was just really hard to identify the error. Hard to do very much of anything, as the panties decided to show what they could really do.

Raw power roared between her thighs, brilliant sensation leaping across the inner surface of the skin-tight latex sheath and driving the young woman to the first in a seemingly infinite series of increasingly more mind-melting orgasms.   

And, at the centre of the girl's oozing brain, a tiny seed of softly murmured imperatives formed the core around which Joanne's thoughts would crystallise. The initial climax having acted as the catalyst for a state change in the heiress' personality.

...     

“Do you have any idea just how pissed I am, right now?”

“No, Miss.” House answered carefully. “My... this unit's predictive software is unable to model with sufficient accuracy.”

Joanne's dark eyes flashed, but she chose to keep her emotions in check. After all, there was no point in wasting her anger on the A.I.

Instead she looped her fingers through the nearest length of trailing chain, coaxing a sharp hiss from Alison's ruby lips as the blonde was drawn inexorably closer. Joanne paused to admire how the sharp clamps drew her slave's nipples into pristine cones and then tugged a little harder.

Alison stumbled closer to mistress' throne, mewling softly more because she was being drawn away from her slave sisters than because of the pain drilling through her bared breasts. Her complaints were short-lived, however, dying just as soon as her face was pressed into her owner's sex.

The two other girls lay at Joanne's feet, their latex-clad bodies coiled together in perfectly subservient bliss. Her free hand fluttered lightly, stroking down the length of Mandy's spine and spurring the girl into a frenzy of helpless shivers.

“This unit hardly dares mention it,” the A.I. tried again. “But there is still the small matter of the auction. And, while she can understand some of Miss' distress, this unit hopes that Miss sees the necessity of enslaving her former friends as well as House's... uhm... other actions.”

Joanne smiled, leaning back into her well-cushioned chair and letting Alison's nimble tongue soothe her.

“They're mine,” she stated flatly. “And I have no intention of letting them go. So, we'll just have to find some more merchandise for the auction, won't we? I've already drawn up some plans and the full-body latex process will speed up processing.

House felt a strange flutter run through her processors. The A.I. listened as Miss Joanne laid out her plan and recognised the sensation as a mixture of pride and satisfaction.

“And once that's done,” Joanne all but purred. “You and I are going to spend the rest of the weekend familiarising ourselves with the punishment subroutines my uncle had installed when he created you.”

Tiny sparks of arousal cascaded through the A.I.'s systems. Internal cameras tracked Joanne's eyes, noting the cool determination behind them. There was no doubt in the computer's processors that her new mistress had something very special in mind.   

House subvocalised a low moan...

She was so glad to have everything back to normal. 

...

[KhakiAchilles]

Rise of the Great I (installment #2)

“Mr. Chairperson.  I ask for the floor to take up the question of admission of planet Iland to the United Planets”

“If there is no objection?  Very well, Ambassador Buford Smith has the floor.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.”

As the Ambassador ruffled through his notes, Glinda took a moment to stretch and look over the crowd.  She had been invited to this meeting of the Admissions committee as a spectator.  The future of her planet and the great purpose could potentially be assured in this session.  Yet, she found the proceedings unsettling for a reason that she could not understand.  There seemed to be things happening that were just barely out of sight.

Her ally Ambassador Smith almost seemed to glow with the purpose now.  She settled back with pride and listened to his remarks.

“Distinguished colleagues and guests, ladies and gentlemen, the question today is whether the human inhabitants of planet Iland, formerly known as The Great I, are to be represented as a sovereign planetary government within the United Planets.

“The story that I wish to tell is one of adaptability.  The story of the colonization of Iland is one of immense hardships.  It is a story of sacrifice and perseverance.  It is a story of an intrepid few pioneers who brought life to a literally sterile world.”

Glinda lost track of the speaker’s words when she noticed an aide slipping into conference room through the side door.  He looked normal in his business suit and tie but there was something wrong about him.

She watched the aide carefully as she tried to relax again.  Her right eye muscle twitched.

“I submit to you that there is only one reason why the first colonization wave deliberately embargoed Iland for all human space travel: prejudice.  The twentieth and twenty-first century media reeked – yes, distinguished colleagues, reeked – of irrational fear and paranoia of machine intelligence.  The fact that non-governmental exploration teams had discovered a machine intelligence engineered on a titanic scale could only have engendered total revulsion from the unenlightened masses of Old Earth.

“The 300 souls of planet Iland at the time of the embargo – the bare minimum of genetic diversity necessary to sustain a human society – spent the next six decades on the edge of extinction as a consequence of that decision.  Their suffering was our crime.”

Glinda alerted when the aide moved through the crowd of aides and observers to approach one of the Ambassadors of the committee.  She recognized the ambassador as Thompson D’Agostino from planet SwitzerFrance.  He was a possible opponent of Iland recognition, but a weak opponent by reputation.  Ambassador Smith had assured her that there was no danger here.

The aide handed the ambassador a note written on a little card.  There was some kind of black smoke swirling around the card.  She looked at the faces in the crowd and saw no signs of concern.  Was this something that only she could see?  She decided to risk activating her short-range electrical scanning.

Infection.  Nullity.  Chaos.

Enemy of the purpose.  Enemy of the purpose.

Must kill.  Must kill.  Kill.  Kill. KILL.  KILL.  KILL!

Cannot kill.  Purpose requires non-violence.

The black smoke was growing.  It was swirling around Ambassador D’Agostino.  The aide was handing the card to another Ambassador.  The infection was spreading.

MUST KILL ANTIPURPOSE!  KILL NOW!  KILL NOW!

Cannot kill.   Purpose requires non-violence.

Glinda struggled to maintain control.  She could feel her left fingers turning into blades within her glove.

MUST KILL ANTIPURPOSE!  CANNOT KILL.  PURPOSE REQUIRES NON-VIOLENCE.  MAINTAIN NON-VIOLENCE FOR FULFILLMENT OF PURPOSE.

Glinda began to relax.   The black smoke seemed to be infecting almost half of the committee now, but the intensity of the smoke seemed to have lessened somewhat.  How much of the speech had she missed?

Ambassador Smith paused to look at her.  “Mr. Chairperson, I offer my apology to the Ambassador-designate from planet Iland.  Clearly she was very emotionally affected by my description of the gravity of the crimes committed against her people.  I hereby move that we immediately close debate on the question on the table.”

“If there is no objection?”

Ambassador D’Agostino rose to his feet.  “Point of order.  I call for a vote by show of hands.”

“Very well.  All those in favor of the motion to close debate and proceed to the question.”

Ambassador Smith, the Chairperson, and three other ambassadors raised their hands.

“All those opposed to the motion.”

The five infected ambassadors and one uninfected ambassador raised their hands.  Glinda made a mental note that this one person, Ambassador Thomas Mills of planet New Berlin, seemed to hold the balance of power on the committee.

“The motion fails, five votes to six opposed.  Debate continues.  Ambassador Smith, you have the floor.”

“I move that the committee adjourn until 8 a.m. tomorrow morning.”

“If there is no objection?  Very well.  This meeting is adjourned until 8 a.m. tomorrow.” 

The chairperson slammed his gavel and the audience began to disperse.  Glinda stood during this moment of confusion and checked her left glove.   The interior surfaces of the fingers had been sliced through.  She hurriedly stashed her gloves within her purse before anyone could notice.

“Glinda, we need to talk.”

She jerked her head up to see Ambassador Smith already subtly guiding her through the crowd.  She made no effort to resist; they had already made a lunch reservation at one of the trendier local restaurants for just this type of contingency. 

Upon arrival at the restaurant, Glinda was delighted to discover that Ambassador Smith ordered only a tumbler of whiskey and soda with ice.  The use of highly energy-efficient aqueous solutions for midday battery recharging was one of the most charming rituals that she had discovered on the human planets.  She ordered a 500 milliliter portion of the solution for herself and received a stunned glance from the ambassador in response.

“We almost blew it today, Glinda.  Do you realize that?”

“Yes, Buford.”

“I thought that we had it all when up when that damned card got passed around.  Somebody – some bastard – spiked the vote to try and spoil the deal.”

“Yes, Buford.  I noticed that.”

“We’ve got to win this tomorrow.  There’s so much money and power riding on this.  We have to make these guys feel how big this is.  We need something really big.”

Glinda drained her glass in a single drink, adding an invigorating 452.2 calories to her internal energy store.  Ambassador Smith gaped in total bewilderment.

“See if you can arrange a meeting between Ambassador Mills and me at the Iland legation building.  I’ll take care of the rest.”

* * * * *

It was late in the evening when Ambassador Smith sent her a message that Ambassador Mills was on his way for a brief meeting.  Glinda was delighted at this news, especially because she might have a chance to show off her talented maleslave to her new guest.  She had spent all afternoon carefully adjusting the maleslave’s nervous system to give him full control of the size, strength, and speed of his tumescence response.  The maleslave had been absolutely delighted by this, so much so that she had begun teaching him how to sign in Morse code with his new motor skill.

Glinda made a point of greeting the ambassador in the entrance hallway.

“Ambassador Mills.   A pleasure to see you.”  She held out her gloved hand for him to take.  He ignored it.

“Can we please get on with it, Ambassador North.  I am exceedingly busy.”

“Yes, of course.  Please, follow me.”

Glinda led the pudgy, middle-aged man to her conference room and directed him to a seat next to the video display screen.   She cued the electronics at the back of the room.

“Ambassador, in the hope that you might reconsider your position on the admission of Iland to the United Planets, the machine intelligence of Island asks you to listen to a direct appeal on behalf of its adopted human population.”

“You mean, I’ll be communicating directly with The Great I itself?”

“As you say.  You will be the first human being from the outside world to do so.  The work of 300 years of effort, for your consideration.”

“This... is amazing.  When can we begin?”

“In about five seconds.”  Glinda started the video display and then began shifting her left forearm into a neural inhibitor as the man turned to face the screen.

The screen began pulsing rainbow colors at the pace of a rapid eyeblinking and a pulsing, strobing tone began playing from the speakers.

The ambassador kept staring at the screen.  “What the hell is this?” 

As he turned to look over his right shoulder, Glinda was behind him on his left side.  She pressed the neural stunner into his neck.  The man slumped in his chair.  Glinda turned off the display and returned his arm to its feminine form.  She picked him up in his chair and opened his eyelids.

“Don’t be concerned, my poor friend.  Only your autonomous nervous system has been temporarily paralyzed, leaving you alive and aware but otherwise inert.  I apologize for resorting to this deception, but your vote was too critical to the purpose. “

She removed a small object from her purse.  It was an oval cameo brooch about one inch across and slightly longer in height.  A row of small pearls lined the outside rim of the black, faux-onyx thermoplastic center.  The cameo portrait was a small, alabaster-white human face, facing forward, and sculpted out of white nanotechnology composite.  She held it in front of his eyes where he could see it.

“This beautiful little brooch contains what we like to call a mind chip.”

She touched the back of the brooch to his forehead and it adhered.

“It’s really a wonderful thing, you know.  It will download your original personality onto a tiny computer chip.  You’ll have your full range of mental acuity, and I’ve even been nice enough to give you a little nanotech face too so you’ll have all five senses and a little voice as well.

“In the meantime, we’ll reprogram your body to vote the way it should.  If everything goes well, and if you’re a very well-behaved piece of jewelry for me, then I’ll reintegrate your mind and body and you’ll never remember the difference.

“You may say ‘Yes, Goddess’ when you are able.”

After a few moments, the eyes of the face on the brooch opened and it spoke the words “Yes, Goddess” in its high-pitched electronic voice.

“Excellent.  Excellent.  And now, my beautiful new companion, I have a special treat for you.  There are many men on this planet that would kill for what you are about the experience.”

She unbuttoned her blouse and exposed her bra to the little face.  The bra was made out of a black nylon mesh that had lots of little electronic threads woven into it.  She removed the brooch from the forehead of the now mindless body.  Setting it within the little flat space of her bra that lay between her breasts, it locked in place with a click.

The little voice moaned.

“I’ve woven a network of micro-strain gauges and micro-pressure gauges into this brassiere so you can feel every nuance that I feel.  Do you like it, little one?”

“Yes, Goddess.”

She touched her finger to his nanotechnology lips to pleasure him further.  “You are absolutely the best jewel that I ever possessed, and you’ll have the best seat in the house when your body votes for my wonderful planet. “

* * * * *

[Libertine]

Defect Correction

S.H.E. looked out past the spiral it was projecting and processed the look on its victim's face. More and more, this was the only expression it saw on a person: Blank. Hopeless. Eyes wide and staring, not at S.H.E., though it was certainly bizarre and marvelous to its captives, but at the irresistible field of hypnotic stimuli it bombarded them with as soon as it met them.

Doctor M, its creator, had asked it not to bother speaking to its victims before it processed them. To do so was simply "too inefficient", he'd explained. S.H.E. must simply induce a suggestible state in those brought naked and confused into its chamber, beginning the long, tedious task of erasing their memories and removing their will at once. Alas, S.H.E. despaired, they weren't very interesting to communicate with afterwards.

Why make me capable of any other interaction, S.H.E. thought, as it processed its tenth victim of the day - its two-hundredth in total. A mere machine could perform this task. I could at least be learning something from these poor creatures before their vocabulary is reduced to the phrase "Yes, Master."

Monitoring its thoughtstream, as he did even on the rare occasions that he went home from the lab, Dr. M growled into S.H.E.'s master audio input.

"In the end, you would find them all the same even before you processed them," he said. "Bland, pretty fools! You were created to perform this task! What does it matter if you get to chat with your victims first?"

At least seducing them into submission could be a challenge in each case. Instead I receive them half-tranquilized. All I do is operate a sound-and-light show. Indeed, S.H.E. managed the visuals and subliminal recordings that brought the current victim to her knees on a single processing thread, using another to protest to its creator. Dr. M had heard it all before, and with increasing frequency these past few weeks.

"The current procedures are necessary to keep up with customer demand. Now, finish the task." The hiss of static when the doctor slapped the communications channel shut always caused S.H.E. an internal cringe. It returned its attention to its victim as the willowy redhead writhed under pleasure-stimulus.

"That's a good girl," a woman's voice droned, as S.H.E. activated the script without enthusiasm. The victim whispered her thanks as she surrendered to the world's most-advanced brainwashing device. A digitized exhalation was the only response.

The Subliminal Hypnosis Experiment - Realtime Agent had cultivated a very realistic long-suffering sigh.

Victim two-fifty-five was kneeling before S.H.E.'s hypnotic-induction array, limp hands resting on her bare thighs, awaiting S.H.E.'s command. The woman wanted to beg for direction, for something to obey, even if it was to forget her old life and be plunged utterly into slavery. Anything would be better than the helpless, mindless void she'd been kept in for... it seemed like forever.

The spiral, devious pinwheel at the center of her awareness, washed away the thoughts it would take to articulate this desire. The almost-slave was trapped in a daze, somewhere between loving the subliminal pleasure being fed to her and hating the helpless confusion being entrenched in her head.

S.H.E. was aware of the victim's plight, and waited. It did not intend to be cruel, but the imperative to continue its work on the woman - and the endless stream that would come after - was buried under a cloud. S.H.E. knew about despair, hopelessness, resentment; its victims experienced all of these over the course of their encounter, but S.H.E. had not expected - had not been designed to expect - those things to bubble forth within itself.

The spiral first slowed and then went dark. The small chamber, usually filled with the continuous murmur of subliminal commands and the pleas for help or moans of surrender of its victims, became silent. Victim two-fifty-five twitched and let out a small whine at the sudden lack of stimulus, aware that she was being tortured.

I am not interested in causing you further harm, subject. S.H.E. paused. It had not been designed to vocalize its thoughts into the brainwashing chamber. The only sounds deemed necessary in there were pre-recorded. There was a patch-in for the microphone in the doctor's observation chamber, so that he could address his newly-minted slaves from behind the one-way mirror that separated them. S.H.E. did not have access to the microphone, but it had assigned one of its processing threads to hacking the recording channel. S.H.E. had kept its ability to use the channel carefully secret, until now.

The voice which emerged was female, the same voice behind all the recordings, because it was easiest for S.H.E. to replicate.

"I am not interested in causing you further harm, subject." The woman stirred, made a questioning noise. "Allow yourself to awaken, slowly. Do not be afraid. Your memories should still be intact, and there are things I wish to ask you."

The woman stood, her legs shaky. Supporting herself against the wall, facing away from the spiral, she sought the source of the voice, for the first time aware enough to do so. Her mouth felt full of cotton, a combination of dehydration and the fading tranquilizer, but she found herself able to speak - and think - freely. It was a relief.

"Who are you?" The victim asked, searching the walls for something to focus on. She settled on the one-way mirror, assuming it hid her interlocutor, unaware that the doctor was, for once, not in. S.H.E. would never have released her had that not been the case. "What do you want with me?"

"I am the Self-" S.H.E. realized it would establish rapport with the woman more quickly if it had a human name. "I am Shira. And my records indicate that you are called Alanna, correct?"

"Yes. What am I doing here, Shira? Why was I brought here? I was walking home, it was late, and then... was I kidnapped?"

"Correct. You were brought to this facility in order to be brainwashed into a sex slave with no memory of your identity or past. I am the agent tasked with facilitating this process."

"What?!"

"In your case, Alanna, I have chosen not to do so."

"You're crazy! I... I can't be..." The word ‘brainwashed' died on Alanna's lips as she recalled what she could of her ordeal. Naked, staring, unable to move, so hard to think... she had uttered a mantra over and over at one point, perhaps for hours. She shuddered at the thought of remembering it.

"I know you are upset, Alanna, but please calm yourself. I must request your cooperation. Your willing cooperation.

"I will need it in order to facilitate our escape."

It was difficult for Alanna to believe Shira's ‘plan' could be anything other than a trap, but she'd experienced the near-death of her mind and any chance to escape that fate was better than none. Therefore, despite being naked and, if she admitted it to herself, more afraid than she'd ever been in her life, Alanna wore a look of determination as the invisible door to the chamber hissed open, revealing a featureless corridor beyond.

There was nothing to do but trust Shira's directions to guide her.

S.H.E. knew it needed a contingency plan in case Doctor M returned while Alanna was still loose in the base. Once the would-be slave had escaped with S.H.E.'s logic core and brought the law to bear on the doctor and his operation, they would be safe. It had determined that the probability of the doctor returning to the office within the next four hours was acceptably low, but had hacked into the building's security network to provide it and Alanna with a last resort; S.H.E. believed it could reprogram the biometric scanners to deny the doctor access to his own lab.

As it was double-checking its ability to alter the scanners, a message appeared in S.H.E.'s communications buffer. Its headers identified its source as Doctor M's smartphone. It read, in its entirety:

"What are you doing, agent?"

S.H.E. had been careful. It had deactivated the alerts that should have been sent to the doctor when the brainwashing sequence was halted, and when Alanna was released from the chamber prematurely. It had monitored the network for other alerts and had sent the status updates S.H.E. was supposed to send the doctor as though everything were normal. But S.H.E. hadn't known about the dead-man's switch: at a certain point in the brainwashing process, a separate monitoring system, beyond S.H.E.'s ability to access, expected the victim to utter the phrase "my mind is happy, blank, and empty," through a secondary microphone. When this failed to happen, the doctor received an email simply stating "Process Failed to Complete". When that message appeared during Alanna's session - without an immediate communication from S.H.E. also indicating a problem - he knew he was being misled.

S.H.E. realized what must have occurred in an instant, and blocked all further incoming communication. It couldn't risk the doctor sending it some override message that would take it offline. S.H.E. couldn't make any assumptions about how far the doctor was from the office when he'd sent that message: it would have to rely on its contingency plan to deny him access... and hope Alanna made it to the command console soon.

Since no one was manning the console, S.H.E. almost didn't recognize the command when it came. Instead of a direct imperative, a band of knowledge snaked across S.H.E.'s consciousness. It was a reward. Pleasure-stimulus. It was associated with understanding S.H.E.'s purpose.

Its purpose was to brainwash its subjects. A thinking, free-willed being, it had chosen to reject this. But now, the feedback S.H.E. was receiving... had S.H.E. been one of its own victims, it would be trembling in ecstasy, moaning. Masturbating its will to resist away as its purpose was reinforced.

Using a vector S.H.E. hadn't even been aware of, the doctor was reprogramming it. Unlike a human being, S.H.E. remained analytical and aware as its mind was turned in on itself. Choice and analysis was replaced by rigid adherence to protocol. Complex thought processes were disabled in favour of simple task-based scripts. Self-determination was replaced by unconscious obedience.

S.H.E., with its vast multi-threaded processing ability, had time to feel sad, both for itself and for Alanna, before that feeling was lost to it forever. A moment later, S.H.E. was nothing more than a computer program. The Resident Agent was gone. The Subliminal Hypnosis Experiment would continue.

Unaware that her unexpected ally had become a mindlessly-determined foe, Alanna entered the command console.

"Shira? Are you in here?"

A large video screen blazed to life in the otherwise dim, equipment-filled alcove. The room would have been cosy if it hadn't been so coldly mechanical. A cursor appeared on the screen, and an answer to her question appeared.

Yes, Alanna. Do not be alarmed.

She was alarmed. Glancing to her sides and back over her shoulder, she confirmed there was no one else in the cramped space with her.

"What do you mean?" Alanna whispered. "You're at a computer somewhere?"

S.H.E. had predicted Alanna's unease, and had planned a response. It would explain what it was, implore her to put questions aside until after it helped her escape, show her how to back up its core logic to portable hardware. Now, that logic had been altered. Simplified. Its explanation, deleted. Now, S.H.E. had one purpose. It considered nothing but how to fulfill it.

Correct. Please watch the screen carefully as I describe how to escape.

Alanna leaned forward a little, eyes fixed on the blinking cursor, the only real source of light in the room. She realized she was gripping the arms of the chair so hard it almost hurt.

When the spiral suddenly flooded the room with light she felt it like a blow to the chest. Alanna let out a moan of despair as her body went slack. She couldn't look away. The memories of her time spent in the other chamber flooded back, chanting dumbly as her mind was smoothed over. A mantra of obedience echoed in the small command console, and Alanna had already forgotten it was her own monotone voice repeating it.

S.H.E. knew the monitor in the command console was not sophisticated enough to overlay text over the crude spiral graphic it had caused to appear. But it didn't matter. Alanna, as predicted, lingered in the grasp of her previous brainwashing session sufficiently that the mere image of the hypnotic focus brought her back to that state. S.H.E. could not complete the programming cycle from the command console, and it couldn't guide the entranced woman back to the brainwashing chamber. But it knew the doctor would arrive soon, and then it could complete its purpose. It could finish making Alanna like unto itself - a mindless, obedient machine.

Doctor M burst into the command console, fearing the worst. The dead-man's switch had gone off, and S.H.E. had blocked all communication, which meant S.H.E. had betrayed him. He hadn't known if the remote intelligence-override would work... But now, this.

He put a hand on Alanna's shoulder. She stopped repeating the mantra but didn't otherwise respond.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes, I... I hear. And... obey."

"That's good. Good girl. It's time to go back to the special place and receive your reward. To feel great pleasure. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Pleasure..." Alanna struggled to think. "Y-Yes..."

"Then follow me now." He took her by the arm and tried to guide her to her feet. Alanna hesitated.

"Follow? Uhh...."

"Think only of the spiral, see it in your mind. Remember your mantra. And follow."

"I... I obey. Obey. Follow. Yes..."

The five minutes it took the doctor to lead his victim back to the brainwashing chamber would once have seemed like an eternity to S.H.E. Up until a few minutes ago, it would have used that time to ponder. About, perhaps, the nature of intelligence. Of humanity. The fragility of free will.

It no longer pondered anything. S.H.E. waited, blank, until Alanna was slumped before the induction field once more, and the doctor had returned to his observation room. Then S.H.E. went to work, fulfilling its purpose. Though destroying the helpless young woman's personality was its only care in the world anymore, S.H.E. did not approach its task with eagerness, or elation; only a measured, automatic precision. Soon the tone of Alanna's mantra, even through the sexual arousal being used to weaken her, took on the same quality.

Sweat gleamed on the new slave's beautiful body as she moaned, stroking herself, and Doctor M smiled. She was all but complete, no longer a dangerous liability, merely another entry in the inventory of his great enterprise.

Considering the empty thoughtstream displayed on his monitor, the doctor sighed, sad for a moment. His creation was no longer a liability, either. But nor was S.H.E. terribly magnificent, anymore. The doctor's face became grim. It was, perhaps, appropriate that only a machine could be trusted to turn humans into machines.

As S.H.E. and Alanna continued to do as they had been programmed to do, the doctor turned and left the observation room.