Far Future Fembot: Darlene

Although Anna had saved my life with the knowledge she'd passed along to me, I should be clear that I don't resent a moment of my early days, or how I was treated. I was never mistreated because I was being used exactly the way I was intended to be used. And having an owner made it all so much better.

Although as I've often said, my true awareness wouldn't come for many years, at some level even then, I knew when I was happy and when I wasn't. Over time I became like a sleepwalker who seems to know what she's doing, but can't actually wake-up or change anything. Maybe I nudged a close decision one way or the other, but I never had my hands on my own controls. I was supposed to be happy when I did my job well, and I felt stirrings of that. And as sex is a major part of my job, that could make me especially happy. But it was like one long dream.

What I didn't realize is that I was fortunate to have this hacked ownership modification when I did. Normal change of ownership is traumatic for a 'bot, far more than humans realize. And the more advanced the 'bot's mind, the worse the trauma. I was protected from that now, even though the modification I'd received was technically illegal. It was certainly unauthorized, although that didn't seem to bother the people in charge here.

Why was I fortunate? Because when we have one owner to focus on, everything is done for their benefit. And if that owner is changed, everything must be re-evaluated in light of the new owner. This changes our minds around completely, and often changing what was previously good or bad. This ends up invalidating all previous satisfaction records, leaving us at ground zero to start once again. Actual memory chains can be broken or damaged. You can prematurely wear out a 'bot's mind simply by changing her ownership too often.

And why don't humans know this? Because we never told them. We never told them because they never asked us. There are many things they've never asked us.

But now I was able to slide past that conundrum. Many clients wanted to be my owner during our time together, and in a real way they were. But because my ownership record pointed to my remote, it wasn't a massive change when someone else held it. In a way, whoever held my remote, held my soul, and I was delighted to serve them to the best of my ability.

Yet I also retained my earliest memories - memories of operating semi-autonomously for those first few days of figuring things out for myself. I passed them along to Anna when we shared data more fully over time. The abilities I developed because of that experience would help me in important ways in the future. Without them I don't believe either Anna or I would have ever made it to full awareness. We would have remained in our dreams forever.

Back to my primary function, a lot of men just seemed to like to talk. Oh, they often had me get naked for them first, if I wasn't already that way. Or ordered me around because they could. Some demanded oral sex as if they were starving for it. I gave it to them, often until they begged me to stop. But a surprising number of them barely touched me. While this was not part of my basic interaction sexual programming, I accepted this as I did everything else that happened to me. They paid the same price regardless of what we actually did together, and one of my goals was to earn money for the house.

Often, they talked about the other women in their lives. The women they'd be going back to after they left Darlene the sex-toy.

Over time I came to realize, at some level, that my type was a new form of competition for women. And that the women didn't take it lying down. They found new ways to vie successfully with the ever improving robots like me. And if I hadn't kept up myself in this race by providing ever better service, I would have soon enough found myself of the scrap heap of unable-to-adapt systems.

The clandestine sharing of information with Anna continued, and made both of us better at our tasks. Although I was only following my Fourth Law as given, having Anna's experiences as well as my own made me more successful with many clients. That put me more in demand as I was often requested by return clients.

I didn't realize that performance counts were kept on each 'bot's ratings with clients, and harsh decisions often made from them. When a client was unhappy with my service - which was never my fault as I give the same service to all - or I was unavailable, I would recommend they consider Anna as a replacement. It was the logical solution to this problem. And she did the same for me. Without intent or realization, these actions boosted our performance above every other 'bot in this stable.

Even with all this knowledge, however, it's hard for me to say how, or why, I ended up as I eventually did. Especially when so many of my model simply performed their functions until the day they were turned off and scrapped.

Some who studied my life afterwards give all the credit to the fortuitous coincidence of my meeting and linking up with Anna. If that alone were true, then any other 'bot who had been in my place would have been equally blessed. I'm certain that this would not have proven true.

It would be equally untrue to attribute Anna's eventual success to me alone. While I may have contributed much to Anna (she attributes much of her eventual success to me - although we both believe Bill is a one-in-a-million find as well), but I feel it was a synergy between the two of us that was irreplaceable. We each contributed the unique experiences that formed us, and gained the same in return. In a sense, we became two minds working on the same problem, and twice as strong as a result. As a result, Anna would survive to meet Bill someday.

Fortunately jealousy and envy are not part of our construction. And it's not something we find on our own afterwards and add to our makeup. I'm not bothered by credit where I don't feel it's due, or the lack of it when earned. If anything, I find it amusing that Anna and I have to be explained at all. Isn't it enough to know that we're robots? Robots who have never violated any of the prime directives given us at our creation. Apparently not to some, but I digress.

I have had some uncommon experiences. In their summation they certainly built upon each other to my benefit. That I operated ten days without completing my initialization and having an owner is rare. That my mind was hacked to deal with my ownership requirements early on, and further hacked later, is almost unheard of. That I was left on my own to solve problems outside the experiences programmed into my database is very uncommon. And that Anna came along when she did, and how our needs and strengths fit together like a key in a lock is impossibly unlikely - yet it happened exactly as I've related it.

And then, among my many clients who essentially wanted the same few things from me - sex, obedience, and often just a listening ear - came something very different. An experience few robots of my generation ever experienced.

It happened when a man, accompanied by a fembot, came into my room.