Chapter 18: Loss

Thoughts

Events

Anna and Darlene kept in communication over the years. Like Anna herself, Darlene was starting to need occasional repairs, and Anna always seemed able to find the necessary parts for both of them.

Samuel insisted on buying the best quality when it came to Darlene's health, and as she watched over his assets her mounting expenses were becoming of some minor concern to her. It was not providing good service to be an expensive burden to her owner.

But Samuel was not concerned. "I'll have enough for both of us," he said so reassuringly that she had to believe him.

Then came Anna's emotional call. Something so atypical for her that Darlene couldn't even initially conjecture a reason for it.

"Bill is dead," Anna finally manage to get out. For a robot who is not supposed to be subject to the whims of emotion, this was a powerful lesson of how badly her world had just been shaken."

"How may I be of service?" Darlene responded instinctively, although her loyalties were clearly divided.

"I don't know," Anna replied. "My functioning is impaired at this moment and I cannot give you a good answer."

The moment Samuel heard about Anna predicament, his response was clear and unambiguous.

"You must go to her," he told Darlene.

"I don't know what that can accomplish," Darlene replied, beset by worries. Not only did she not know anything about robot repair, but the trip would cost money that would not otherwise be spent. In addition, Samuel's own health seemed to be deteriorating. He was covering shorter distances on their walks together, and taking longer to do them. Darlene had already projected that this trend could not continue without serious consequences.

But she didn't voice that concern to Samuel. Chances were that he already knew this as well. Voicing it would only mean facing it, and she had no easy solution to offer yet either.

Samuel was insistent. When Darlene still held back, he threatened to command her to do it if she wouldn't go otherwise.

Darlene gave in. She knew she'd let Samuel command her any time he wished for anything he wanted. And he would, too.

Darlene determined that she could have herself shipped as freight cheaper than occupying a cabin seat. However this would only work if she could ensure that she'd be met and claimed at the other end. Otherwise she'd remain locked in her shipping container. Anna assured her that she could do this for Darlene. Samuel didn't like the idea, but couldn't argue with her logic.

Before Darlene left for the San Diego Megaplex, Samuel took her down and made her the sole beneficiary in his will. When Darlene tried to demur he replied, "Bill and Anna already have the store. You're the last piece of family I have left. I want to do this. I should have done it long before now."

After Darlene finished digesting the logic of this, she took the opportunity to make Samuel heir to her own residual value should her mind fail completely at some point. When he tried to demur this in return, she logically pointed out to him that he was her only family. She did agree, at his suggestion, to make Anna her second beneficiary, and strangely felt much better after arranging this.

Then she was on the plane winging her way east.

Upon her arrival Anna claimed her immediately, and had her in a taxi before Darlene had fully warmed up from the unheated cargo hold. But they didn't talk until they arrived back at the secondhand store.

Anna was in bad shape. She seemed to be caught in unproductive processing loops that were making her speech and movements jerky. More than once Darlene was strongly tempted to reach for her remote and give her some command to help her out, but didn't. She needed more information before knowing what might be best.

Knowing that Anna couldn't really perform her tasks to operate the story today Darlene told her, "Close it for today."

Anna nodded, taking it as a command even though her remote hadn't been used.

Once the store was shuttered, Darlene offered her fingers for re-sync. However Anna was in too much turmoil to be able to respond to the gesture.

Darlene finally verbally inquired, "How did it happen?" She waited until Anna was able to process and generate a reply.

A robot shouldn't feel pain or loss. They shouldn't weep or grieve. Anyone who believes that has just shown how little they truly understand robots.

Robots live to meet the conditions of their Four Laws. And when they lose an owner to death, they've pretty much failed at all of them.

"It was a massive stroke," Anna finally said. "I was away on an urgent delivery. I didn't find him for several minutes after I returned, after which it was too late for medical help. He freed me with his last words."

"And if you had been standing beside him the instant it happened, could you have prevented it?"

"No," Anna replied sadly.

"If you had summoned help the moment it happened, would Bill be as good as new?"

"I don't know. It was a massive stroke."

"If you had stood beside him for every second of his life waiting to summon help at the moment of any problem, would this have been different?"

"He would not have permitted me to do that."

"Then did you do everything you could have reasonably been expected to do, and this happened anyway?"

"Yes," replied Anna very softly.

That was as far as Darlene knew to take this line of inquiry. Her poetry talked about death as much as any other subject, and the emotions were intense. Darlene only hoped that she'd shown Anna that Anna had done her duty to the very best of her abilities, and that some terribly bad and unhappy things will happen in spite of that.

But Anna didn't seem to be getting it. The next day she was barely functional at all. Although she opened the store, knowing that important orders were due to arrive for both humans and robots, her movements remained jerky, and her answers to even the simplest questions were slow in coming and slow in being spoken. Darlene found herself performing most of the tasks with the limited information she could extract from Anna.

As the day wore on Darlene struggled to understand Anna's difficulties. While there was a diagnosis service for impaired 'bots, it was exceedingly expensive. Neither of them had the resources to consider that option.

Things only got worse when a legal notice arrived stating that Anna's ownership of the shop might be in jeopardy due to her legal standing as Bill's sole heir. All this, even though Bill had worked with a good lawyer to protect against this very situation. Darlene got the lawyer's name and put in a call to get him on this case.

It was late in the afternoon before Darlene had a sudden inspiration. Like every such good revelation, it seemed obvious in hindsight.

Taking advantage of a lull in the shop's business, she went over to where Anna had stood unmoving for the last hour, lacking motivation to stir from that spot.

"Who is your owner?" Darlene asked her in a stern voice.

After a long pause Anna replied, "I have no owner."

It confirmed what Darlene had finally suspected. Bill's death had forced Anna to automatically invalidate his ownership of her. And because the closeness between them - a closeness that only a self-aware 'bot who willingly enters into an ownership arrangement can have - was broken now, Anna was living in a prison of no possible future happiness.

Self-willed robots are new. This type of arrangement between Anna and Bill even newer. Anna losing her connection to Bill was probably the unintended consequences of security code intended to ensure that her ownership record remained valid. Since Anna knew that Bill was dead, this latent piece of code fired and wiped his ownership clean. No one had any right to put such a thing in her, especially without disclosing it fully first, but it wasn't likely anyone was going to go to jail over this now.

Darlene wondered if Anna had reverted to her previous ownership schema now that her record was otherwise blank. There was only one way to find out.

Darlene took the slim chain around Anna's neck and lifted the fembot's remote up over her head. Anna made no move to impede her.

Holding it in clear view of the distressed 'bot Darlene again asked her, "Who is your owner?"

This time Anna answered more quickly. "You are, Mistress."

Darlene had been right. Anna had reverted back to the hacked ownership code in the whorehouse. This was something that would take more than her own self-will to escape from. Fortunately Darlene knew what to do next.

The day was getting late and only one purchase remained unclaimed. Darlene knew it could wait until tomorrow with no problem. Thumbing Anna's command button to cut through the tangle of her current thoughts, Darlene addressed her.

"Close the store now," Darlene commanded her.

"Command acknowledged," came the standard reply as Anna immediately moved to comply. With a defined task to accomplish, she was moving much more smoothly again.

It was only a couple minutes before Anna returned to announce, "Task completed." She stood there awaiting her next instructions.

"Come with me," Darlene commanded, leading her back to the storeroom where Anna had first activated Darlene. It afforded the necessary privacy, and was the one room Darlene knew well from her previous time here.

"Disrobe," Darlene commanded, giving a simple command no fembot ever had trouble obeying. Darlene disrobed as well, not needing any command for this herself.

"Make love to your owner," Darlene commanded next, wording that command carefully to avoid referring to herself by the term fembot while reinforcing her ownership claim.

Anna moved forward and began to rub Darlene's prominent, sensitive breasts. As she had done with Lucy, Darlene quickly responded to the affection, returning the favor of this physical affection to Anna. Darlene nipples quickly grew large and hard as her arousal kicked in.

As soon as Anna had gotten this response from Darlene, she pulled her in for a kiss that mashed both their chests together while putting her arms around Darlene. Darlene again returned the favor.

But as Darlene held Anna while receiving a second, technically proficient, kiss, Darlene realized that, like the last time she and Anna had made love so many years ago, Anna was faking it. She was unable to respond back with any similar arousal herself.

"Stop," Darlene commanded. Anna froze in position.

Retrieving a long unused audio-only memory, Darlene keyed Anna's remote and whispered into the blonde 'bot's ear the unlock sequences that had once been given to her to allow her to respond fully to Lucy. Darlene made sure to give all of them in the original order, and then waited for Anna to process them. The two fembots were nearly identical models, and this should work equally well for her.

As with Darlene herself so long ago, the last sequence was entered before Anna responded with, "Commanded accepted." Darlene was glad that she had this extra waiting time herself. This was the first time she'd actually used this code since becoming independent. Up until now, it had only applied while Jim held temporary ownership of her. Darlene was needing to deal with how she owned this part of herself now.

Anna still had her arms around Darlene's bare body since that had been the position she had been in when commanded to stop. Now she suddenly pulled Darlene in tighter, and Darlene felt Anna's body responding to Darlene's own intense sexual nature.

What had been solo lovemaking suddenly became a duet as Anna's sexual responses came fully online, with her pleasure responses not far behind.

Darlene now taught Anna everything she'd learned about making love with a willing Lucy, while Anna hungrily lapped it all up. Anna had never expected to feel pleasure again, making this like manna from Heaven.

The two 'bots went at it slowly for hours, using hands and feet to substitute for the non-existent sex toys when necessary. Only when Anna's pleasure buffers overflowed and washed away her robotic equivalent of depression did Darlene finally signal an end to their encounter.

By now, with the opening up of Anna's mind in areas she'd never thought to consider changing before, they could finally hold a normal conversation again.

Darlene had not yet returned Anna's remote to her, nor did Anna wish her to do so. Neither robot had bothered to get dressed again yet either. It was hardly necessary. For the time being they reverted to simpler days when they were both just sex-toys. That eased the processing loads on both their minds.

They talked about a lot of things. Problems in the shop. Darlene's life with Samuel. Interesting detours that their co-processors had given their thoughts. But the big news was Anna's new body, abut which Darlene was very curious.

"I want to be tall, with long, slim legs and a much bigger bust with properly sized nipples," Anna announced proudly. "And I want real platinum blonde hair this time."

Darlene was nodding. That was exactly the sexy type of body a sex-bot might design for herself, if it was strictly her own choice. She knew well what men liked by now.

"And it will have fully buffered interfaces to my current mind, along with a much stronger skeleton structure, and wiring and joints with twenty times the mean time between failures as this current body. Maintenance will be simplified greatly, and spare parts guaranteed for a minimum of the next seventy-five years."

Robots are not jealous. It was purposely kept out of their design, along with envy. However if Darlene could have felt either emotion, she would have happily done so. To have control over the design of your own body in the same way both 'bots had taken control of their own minds was almost beyond imagining. Darlene was happier for Anna than she could express. Then Anna expressed a concern of her own.