Far Future Fembot: Darlene

I first met Tami-7 walking down the second floor hallway of Lady Heather's. She was unabashedly naked, except for a modest pair of heels and her remote, which appeared to have some security features to prevent its unauthorized use. She looked like a pretty seventeen-year-old teenager who still had the last of her baby fat to lose. Once that happened, she'll be quite striking indeed.

Except that, being a robot, Tami-7 will never lose that baby fat without a full body re-sculpting, or complete body change. These minor imperfections on her otherwise mature female body actually make her seem much more real than any perfect fembot body ever could. This, no doubt, made it much easier for her to live and interact with other human children of her own apparent age group.

I didn't know Tami-7 yet. In fact, I didn't even realize it was Tami-7 until she gave me a bright smile while announcing, "Hi, I'm Tami-Seven." Then a small frown crossed her young face as she added, "And I think I'm lost."

"I'm Darlene," I replied, as I suddenly correlated the name Tami-7 with that of a young fembot who had recently completed a year of living with Paul and Sharon while their own children were living with other families around the world. And now with Paul and Sharon setting out on their dissolution honeymoon - a current custom among human couples who are amicably parting after their children have left the nest - Tami-7 had come here.

Truthfully I have a hundred and twenty-eight questions I want to ask her. She'd lived with Paul - the closest living link to my own permanent owner, Bill - for a year, and I want to know all about him. Certainly he'd given her many necessary commands during that time, along with much heartfelt advice and support. What was that like? What kind of man is he? What had finally brought about the end of his and Sharon's marriage. I wanted all the details that a 'bot as lucky as Tami-7 had been to live with Paul had picked up.

But I didn't ask her any of those things. That would not have been being of good service to the House's guest. Instead I expanded on my introduction by asking, "How may I assist you?"

"I was looking for Lady Heather," the young 'bot replied sweetly. "I must have taken a wrong turn."

I queried the House for Anna's current whereabouts and received a silent signal back that she'd returned to her private rooms.

"She's in her suite," I replied. "Is she expecting you?"

"Well," Tami-7 replied. "She said to come see her after I finished talking to one of the other robots here who has had some experiences like mine."

"Then let me take you there."

To my surprise Tami-7 extended her arm to me like we were on a date together. I responded by linking arms with her and escorted her to Anna's door.

"I'd like to talk with you too," I told her, "when you have time. If you'll queue my request..."

"I'd like that," Tami-7 replied brightly. "Everyone here is being sooo nice to me. I just love you all!"

With that I left her at Anna's door. Anna certainly had priority for any information about Paul.

---

I soon learned a number of interesting facts about this new robot in our midst. The first of which is the meaning of her name. And it's not the generation of her model series, which is most people's first guess.

In the attempt to better bridge the divide between humans and robots while creating a better model overall, Tami-7 was not completely human designed and programmed. In addition to the standard programming every robot receives, Tami-7 also started out with the selected knowledge and experiences of seven other robots.

Now she didn't have seven other entire robot minds inside her own. That would have never fit, let alone gotten along well with each other. I'm reminded of my own warring co-processors in the early days whenever I contemplate that scenario. Instead, each of her self-aware robot "parents" selected their most important memories - like how to more effectively utilize a robot's self-will, or how to cope with the illogicalities of the humans, or even just what felt best about being a robot - to contribute. In a way, Tami-7 has seven actual "biological" parents in her memory path engrams and robotic DNA. And through her memories, all her robot parents live on inside her. But this isn't the only new thing about Tami-7.

Unlike other robots such as myself who began fulfilling their functions from the moment of first activation, Tami-7's first function was to grow up as a robot girl in a still human dominated society.

Although she started out with the body she has now, as soon as she achieved her own awareness she moved in with an adoptive human family who couldn't have children of their own due to an adverse ruling of the Population Control Agency. Tami-7 arrived with some specific rules attached to her adoption, and joined society as an initially home-schooled twelve-year-old who only looked seventeen.

She lived with that family, along with their friends and neighbors, for the next three years until, like all fifteen-year-olds she left for her Worldview education.

In compensation her adoptive parents would host another child for each of the next three years, this program doing more to break down the barriers of racial hatred and bigotry than any other such attempt in human history. At the same time Tami-7, and the few others like her so far, were doing their part to better bridge the gulf between robots and humans. Tami-7's first adoptive parents felt well rewarded for their efforts.

Tami-7's next host families mainstreamed her carefully into public schools where many teenagers of her own apparent age and maturity got their first interaction with an intelligent robot who was more like them than not - and who wasn't just owned by somebody's parents. It often changed the way they thought about robots altogether.

T7's host family for her third and last WV year turned out to be Paul and Sharon, which was a complete surprise for both of them. By now, though, they were well experienced in taking in new WV kids each anniversary of their own children's departures.

Surprised or not, they took Tami-7 in and treated her like their own daughter. In return, T7 proved to have a bright, alert mind that contributed much to them in return. And as Sharon once remarked, "It is so nice to have a daughter who keeps her room so impeccably neat!"

In addition to the interests you might find in any girl her age - including clothes, movies, changing her mind nearly every week on what she might do in college, and evaluating the boys around her in the public school she was attending as potential future owners - T7 developed a unique interest in Sharon's painting.

It started with questions about why Sharon did something in a particular way. What decision tree had led to that precise stroke or color choice. How would it generate the feeling that Sharon wanted to create. But unlike most children her age, Tami-7 was patient, watching for hours without interrupting while queuing up her questions to ask afterwards. She didn't wish to interrupt Sharon's creative process while it was in full bloom.

Sharon said these questions actually were helping her become a better artist, because Tami-7's questions forced her to think more about what she was actually doing. Soon Sharon was giving T7 a running commentary about her thoughts, feelings, and decisions as she was making them. Tami-7 faithfully recorded every word.

The next step had Tami-7 becoming Sharon's figure model. This worked out great because T7 could comfortably hold any position for as long as Sharon needed her to do so, and never became bored.

Tami-7 eventually picked up the brush herself, although she'd be the first to tell you that all her work so far has been derivative combinations of Sharon's own original styles.

---

In order to have lived this kind of life and developed this way, Tami-7 has had several proscriptions imposed on her behavior.

Although never considered owned by any of her human families in the classic sense, she did have to give her loyalty to them as if it were so. In this way she was a lot like me back in my first whorehouse days.

In return, these parents needed to provide a proper robot upbringing for her. This included giving her approved specific commands through her remote as necessary, and listening to her problems and concerns - which might be quite different from those of other children her apparent age.

They also had to protect her delicate developing emotions - while not being too overly protective - from the casual cruelty often found in children towards anyone different than themselves. At least T7 didn't suffer being terrified by the socially maladjusted bullies that society is still trying to understand and eradicate. Physically she is tough, and easily repaired.

---

One thing I didn't realize on our first meeting was how unusual it had been to see Tami-7 naked. My sister fembots and I are nude much of the time, and never think anything of it except that we admire each other's artful bodies, and dress tastefully before ever leaving the House

But in Tami-7's case she was proscribed from appearing naked around humans due to how much nudity discomforts many of them. However, in an apparent oversight, there was no proscription when around other robots, which is how I first met her.

Tami-7 later told me how hard it had been for her to disrobe in front of Sharon the first time she'd modeled for her. Until that time, she'd only been naked in the shower at home with the door locked, and in the girl's locker room at school as part of her directives to conform to the behavior around her as much as possible.

"It was so hard for me to do it," she confided, "even though I knew there was nothing wrong. I struggled with myself to the point where I was about to hand Sharon my remote and beg her to command me to do it. But I didn't want her to have to do that because I was afraid she'd then think she was forcing me to do something I didn't want to do!"

"You succeeded, obviously," I commented admiringly.

"Yes I did," Tami-7 replied. "And it expanded my self-will abilities more than anything else ever had. I'm so much better off after that first time And it was always so much fun too!"

---

Another area Tami-7 was proscribed is sexually. Quite simply, until she accepts an owner who then releases it for her - or until she is unblocked by a proper authority figure - Tami-7's sexual responses are completely locked out.

"They said it was necessary for my own good," she told me. "But I think they were actually worried about everyone else around me."

No doubt, I thought to myself. Turning a sexually-enabled Tami-7 loose in that hormone-charged atmosphere was a certain route to disaster - and would have resulted in a complete failure of the role so carefully charted out for her. There were plenty of other sexual outlets available to the teenagers around her without having one of your classmates being far too capable in this area as well - even if the consequences of robot sex are far less than between two humans.

The fallout from this was that Tami-7 was viewed more as another girl - than just an available sex-bot. And that really was in her own best interests.

"So you've never done it?" I questioned, finding it impossible to remember a time in my own existence when the same was true for me.

"Oh, I've been kissed," she replied with a completely realistic blush. "And been felt up a couple times by boys who obviously were enjoying themselves at the time. They also tried to talk me into letting them use my remote. But they dropped me the moment they realized they'd have to become my owner to get any further, and that I have some high expectations of my own for someone before I'll consider giving my ownership away to them. For starters, I believe a person should be able to support a family before they try starting one."

"Good for you!" I wholeheartedly told her.

"Besides," she continued. "After I got interested in Sharon's painting, and discovered how much better it was when Paul commanded me compared to what the boys at school kept trying to do, I rather lost interest in them."

---

And that rather describes Tami-7. Although I later got a lot more detail about Paul from her, I also got the distinct impression that if it hadn't been for Sharon that T7 would have been making a play for Paul herself. Even though he'd clearly never led her on, she has a dreamy way of talking about how he handled all her needs during her time with him.

However, she also feels that all of her extended parents have added a lot to her life in different ways, which is what I believe this experiment is all about.

One thing I did do with her was to have her recite verbatim all of the commands she'd received from Paul. I was able to take many applicable ones and treat them as if Bill had commanded them of me directly himself.