Far Future Fembot: Darlene

There are two Malins, although most people only know the story of the second one who would rescue Anna's memory years from now. The first Malin arrived at the House years before Anna would need to hunt down her identical twin.

Malin is representative of a certain type of economical, limited use robot that caught on wildly shortly before Anna left the House. It's perhaps good that they also caught on before the World Government started establishing its grip on things, since surely they wouldn't have approved of her — and her couple dozen similarly typed sisters — since those trying to weld together this World Government often profess the belief that if everybody can't have something, then nobody should. Some call this spreading misery equally.

In truth, however, Malin represents the most affordable type of robot ever built. If there was ever a robot that could have been made for everybody, this was it!

---

Malin arrived at the House five days shy of a year after Anna departed on her mission. While Malin would remain associated with the House for several years while Anna was on the road, I never once mentioned this fact to Anna even in our most heavily encrypted communications. I could never take the chance of establishing any link between Malin's arrival and Anna's new identity as Madame X. Besides, I've always known what Anna expects of us without being told.

Malin looks like a lost thirteen-year-old waif, who is also the cutest little redhead imaginable for her apparent age. When she arrived her body was straight up and down, as if waiting for her female hormones to kick in. Her nipples flat and unresponsive. Her pipe stem legs also devoid of any curves while wearing her little girl flat shoes. Her pretty red hair was straight and full-bodied, and her face quite pretty. Even very young babies respond to beauty, and Malin's intended role involved mostly interacting with children.

Malin is also one of the youngest appearing models of her type. Other 'bots in her series like Lindseys start a couple years older and span an older range, although their minds are functionally identical. The obvious intent of this type as a whole is to be able to cover the entire range of teenage years.

The young 'bot politely asked for Lady Heather, rather than me by name. This was an obvious safety feature in the event that I was unavailable and someone else had assumed the role. She was quickly escorted to me, and I assessed her in moments.

Malin's dress and shoes were cheap, reminding me of my own first days. Her manner hesitant, as befits her lower-powered — by current standards — mind. And the tiny two-button remote on a short plastic necklace is the least expensive one I'd ever seen. But then again, Malin was intended for a very limited lifetime.

Robots like Malin are very cheap, and literally sold through vending machines in malls and shopping centers. Using mix and match recyclable parts, there are a couple dozen variations, each identical model all sharing the same name. In short, there are many thousands of other Malins walking around right at this moment.

Malin and her sister's role is most often to be a companion for a young female human teenager of the same age, ranging from twelve to sixteen years. She can be the animated doll any girl would love to own, as well as the best friend who will never leave you — until you leave them for your 3-in-3 years Worldview education anyway. Most of these 'bots do not last that long, however, and many are surreptitiously owned by other than early teen females. Overall the marketing plan is quite clever.

With the ability now to mass-produce lower grade fembot minds very cheaply now, along with using interchangeable parts to produce simple model variations, costs are driven to the minimum. And with an average lifetime of only six months, lower grade components can be used throughout the robot.

But who in their right mind buys a robot only intending to use her for six months? Parents, for one, who know how much their children's tastes can change over any short period of time. Especially when they can recover a good amount of the their purchase afterwards by returning the unit in good repair for recycling.

A robot like Malin's typical life cycle begins when she is purchased directly from an automatic vending machine set up in many high traffic areas. Her owner is assigned at the time of purchase, and typically to a young female regardless of how she may eventually be used. Her mind starts out identical to every other Malin sold, and all she wants to do is be your new best friend.

Through clever engineering these models are able to adjust aspects of their anatomically correct bodies to match the age of their owners without the usually expensive after-purchase adjustments. Her mind also has all the knowledge she'll need for her role in this age group, including city maps and the latest in teen trends.

For the parents, their daughter's new best friend comes with GPS positioning and wireless comm to allow them to check in on their progeny at any time. The 'bot can even send back moving images of everything she sees around her. And as a full Four Laws Compliant 'bot, these parents know their child is always being watched over by someone with only their child's best interests foremost.

Although never stated aloud, these young fembots are most helpful easing the transition of a young child gracefully into puberty. In addition to becoming the one most children choose to confide in, each bot's body mirrors the developing child's body and helps them feel comfortable with the changes taking place. And no child with such a 'bot friend will ever feel intimidated since the 'bot herself will never develop beyond what even the most lightly endowed young woman can manage these days.

And if they explore each other's developing bodies together under cover of darkness, this is a far better way for a child to learn their own developing feelings, as opposed to finding them out the hard way with other peers.

At the end of her useful period, meaning that either the child is leaving home, or may just want a new, different friend, the young 'bot is returned to any vending location. Once inside, a quick — and destructive — readout of her mind results in a shiny, quarter sized disc that is returned to the purchaser, along with a pro rata deposit refund based on the condition of her components. She is then dismantled right in the vending machine into her component parts, with good ones saved for reuse and the others destined for repair or recycling.

The current popular model is then created on the spot from this supply of parts. The returned, now empty brain is tested, and if still in spec, stored for later use at which time it will be put in a newly assembled body and loaded with the fixed personality of that body type. In short, robots of Malin's type are considered cheap — and disposable.

As for the silver memory discs, when a new unit is purchased there is the option to insert the disc into the machine. While again the readout is destructive as befits such a cost conscious operation, the entire recorded personality of the previous robot can be recovered once from this disc and implanted into the newly purchased one if the purchaser desires to continue a relationship in which they've already invested a substantial amount of time and effort.

Not all purchasers do. In fact, it has become a status symbol of both sexes to wear necklaces of these discs to show how many such robots the young person has owned so far. It's quite sad that these memories will never live again in another robot body, but that doesn't seem to matter to those that prefer this type of display.

And that's the typical lifecycle of a robot like Malin. These robots don't start out with any self-will, although they do have full social and sexual programming — the latter locked down until properly released by an authority figure — in a 'bot mind that is as good as not too much money will buy.

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Once this Malin had confirmed my identity as Lady Heather she waited a moment until we were alone. Then she walked over to an antique desk in the Parlor like she knew exactly what to expect and opened it up. We keep some miscellaneous items in there, most of which haven't been used for years, but she'd hardly know that.

Yet it seems Malin did know what she was looking for. She removed a long thin strip of paper and a pen, and set herself to writing out a long sequence of carefully formed characters.

When she finished a couple minutes later she set the pen down and closed the desk before handing the strip of paper to me while announcing, "This is from Anna. She says you can use it to rescue her if the worst ever happens."

I glanced down at it. It was a long, random string of characters apparently taken from all the world's alphabets. Completely meaningless.

I looked up to question this young 'bot about what she meant, just in time to see her face freeze in an expression that only another robot would recognize.

A moment later she announced, "Hi, I'm Malin. Are you my new owner?"

---

I had Terri come by as soon as possible and inspect the young 'bot. She reported to me that this Malin was in excellent repair, and that an optional memory and processing enhancement had been purchased and installed in her mind in the single expansion slot available for it. While such improvement was available in all versions of her type, few purchasers bothered with the extra expense since even the basic Malin was functional for pretty much all the tasks ever intended for her. In short, this Malin was already the best she could be.

Terri also confirmed my other suspicion. That after delivering her message, Malin had auto-deleted all memories of her time since activation and was now as virgin as the moment she had stepped out of her vending machine. Terri commented that the deletion was so complete that only another robot could have arranged it properly. This dashed any hopes that Malin might tell us what Anna's new body was like.

It also brought up an ethical dilemma. I've spoken before about the sanctity of our memories as being the closest thing we have to a soul. For a robot to delete another robot's memories is the closest thing to murder that we have. (Remember that if a robot is completely destroyed that the memories are lost as well, so the murder analogy is accurate.)

That Anna might have had a hand in the deletion of memories, even ones as limited as Malin could have possessed goes against everything I've believed about her. Yet either Malin's memories were gone because of Anna's actions — since Malin herself could have hardly made or implemented such a decision on her own — or this Malin was a fake and not really from Anna.

I had not yet taken ownership of young Malin. She stood there smiling, patiently waiting for the next step in her life to happen. I knew I had to do something soon, however, or she would automatically return to the nearest sales point for recycling.

I needed to analyze this apparent conundrum, and quickly. Sending out a silent priority request for help over the House communication system, all the other currently available fembots converged on my location.

I explained the need for solving this mystery, while keeping the results within the walls of the House. Then the available minds started working together on its solution.

After trillions of cycles of computation the thoughts converged on one likely conclusion. Malin's casual knowledge of Anna's name, which Anna herself quit using — except in one special circumstance — since assuming the mantle of Lady Heather, and knowledge of the contents of the desk, made it overwhelmingly likely that Malin had come from Anna.

The additional fact that the message, if not from Anna, could conceivably cause little harm otherwise buttressed this assumption. So if Malin had come from Anna, then it had to be a virtual certainty also that Malin herself had agreed to her memory erasure as a necessary measure. One 'bot even postulated that Malin's memory might still reside on a silver disc somewhere, meaning it hadn't really been lost at all.

With consensus reached I thanked all the other 'bots who then returned to their duties. I then turned to Malin who continued to wait patiently.

After pondering the ramifications for a couple more minutes, I took Malin's simple remote and pressed its Command button.

"I'm Darlene," I told her. "And I am your new owner."

Malin's young face broke into a bright smile. "You're going to be my Big Sister then," she replied, having quickly and accurately assessed our only possible relationship.

"Yes," I confirmed back to her, pleased that her simple mind didn't seem to have any problem with me being another 'bot. I'd guessed that this was one reason that Anna had chosen her to be her messenger. "And all the other lovely ladies here in this House will be your Big Sisters as well."

Although it didn't seem possible, Malin's bright smile became even bigger at the prospect. It made her as endearing as it was possible for a young 'bot to be.

"Now let me show you around," I said, taking her small hand in mine, "And tell you what you'll need to know to be part of this House.

---

Although she'd just arrived at this point, some people have speculated about the concurrence of Malin's first departure from the House just about the time we lost contact with Anna. I assure you that this was mere coincidence. Yes, coincidence does happen, although just not as often as you might think.