Chapter 76: Wow!

Thoughts

Events

Darlene did learn what Anna, and CiCi, and Robert Steel IV, and Mach V, and Cherie, and Luxe, and every other robot with fully functioning male code before her, has learned at some point. It just took her a few weeks, and she managed it in a highly original manner.

She was working intently on another complex problem for Anna that was taxing all her resources. Just as she reached the solution she sought after hours of tedious analysis, Darlene found herself pleasurably stroking her male member, which had subtly extended with enough force to shove her tight panties aside.

This time Darlene knew she hadn't pressed her secret spot. Her hands had been on the table in plain sight until one of them finally reached down to idly stroke her already extended phallus. Despite her precautions, it had emerged anyway while her mind had been fully occupied sorting out the competing claims of five different groups to the same piece of land.

Any male will tell you that sometimes you'll get an unexpected erection despite your mind being one point six million kilometers elsewhere. And you don't even realized it happened until your pants are tight with something that feels real good. Apparently m-bot code mimics this behavior as well.

Well, it certainly is a very nice reward, Darlene thought to herself as she gently stroked the thick, pre-lubricated shaft to the edge of orgasm, before instructing it to retract again. This time it didn't argue with her. It was happy enough with the attention it had received to not protest being put back to sleep again. Perhaps it realized it was now far freer than it'd ever been before.

I'll need to watch out for this now, she thought, not at all angry at what had just happened, before messaging Anna with the solution and turning to the next problem to solve. I wouldn't want this to happen at inconvenient moments. This led her to reflect on the fact that Anyone who thinks being the assistant to the Empress is an cushy job simply doesn't have a clue.

Before she got too deeply into the next problem Darlene decided that, having to change her panties after another episode that went just a little bit further than this one, would be a small price to pay. Her phallus had been fully loaded and fully functional from day one, also at Anna's suggestion.

"You won't learn to handle it," Anna had told her, "until you learn to handle all of it. So best to just start that way from the beginning. If you lose control over it a bit more easily than you expected, so has every other male from the dawn of time."

Those words left Darlene comforted, since that had already happened several times.

Calibrating this thing correctly is quite a challenge, she reminded her self for not the first time.

One big problem Darlene had to solve — and soon — however, was not given to her by Anna, although Anna had also faced this same issue long ago. This one was entirely Darlene's responsibility to deal with. The moment was rapidly approaching where Darlene could no longer remain Anna's consort while continuing to also run Lady Heather's House as well.

It wasn't a question of money that kept Darlene tied to Lady Heather's. Unlike the early days there when she hadn't yet earned enough money to pay for her vitally needed new body, Darlene was now one of the thousand richest citizens in the system! She would have been higher still on the list, except that she quietly donated goodly sums to many worthy causes as often as she could find them. And she was hardly alone in this regard.

No 'bot did badly at Lady Heather's, and several others were in the top fifty thousand for private assets. Anna herself had walked away from a fortune when she accepted Emperor Davidson's offer. She'd continued to accumulate a percentage of the business after she'd turned over the operation to Darlene, in the same way Lady Heather also still accumulated more than she would ever spend. And all this was after all the donations and causes the House supported. Properly marketed, sex is very lucrative.

Anna had donated her entire fortune to effective charities — ones that actually accomplished worthwhile goals — when Davidson told her she couldn't have any outside interests when she served the public good, and that included investments. Of course, she was now the richest person in the system by far since she controlled all the empire's resources, so it wasn't any significant loss to her.

The sex trade has always paid very well. Any robot with an income above their immediate needs could employ careful fiscal management, which is easy logic for a 'bot to comprehend. And when a long-lived 'bot is combined with the magic of compound interest, they can soon support any cause or family structure they wish. Most do exactly that.

A human partnering with a robot from the sex trade who has more than a few decades of independence is quite likely not rescuing that robot. This is in direct contrast to the early days of robot independence where things had been much different — and often quite desperate for unowned robots.

Now the robots have become powerful financial players who contribute in all regards to any relationship they choose to enter. Only new robots, or those who have incurred special debts helping others, or very unlucky ones, are candidates for indentured service. Even so, other's chose this route as one way to provide service, at least until they partner up otherwise, or find a higher calling.

The roots of all these situations, and many other advancements for robots, trace either directly, or indirectly, back to Lady Heather's House, and Lady Heather herself. It has become more clear than ever just why it's been so important for this particular establishment to survive through the years. Without it, almost no robot would have the life they have now.

From the very beginning, Lady Heather's House was of great significance. It was always more than just a refuge for newly aware robots to come to in search of making a living for the first time in a comforting supportive atmosphere. More than just a place where a fembot could freely exercise her Fourth Robotic Law as she desired to. From the very beginning, it had set precedents that would affect all robots to come.

Now Lady Heather hadn't set out to create this much of a stir. She initially wanted nothing more than a place where she could continue to feel useful once Stephen was gone. Like Stephen himself, she liked the company of, and saw the potential in, robots. She also sought out a safe place for her own innate — and for a long time uncharacteristic — need for continued intimacy.

While Heather had been one of the earliest true self-willed robots, and absolutely the first to have substantial assets available to her afterwards, she was more than just that. With Stephen, and sometimes a little not so subtle nudging on his part, she moved into and among the highest levels of society as an equal. And while certainly unprecedented at the time, anyone who'd taken the time to get to know her came to love her. That was the true magic of her. And she successfully incorporated both that sense of style, and many of those social contacts, into the creation of her House.

"I want this to be a place where the best humans can meet and interact with the best fembots as equals," she said from the beginning, and it became exactly that. And as is well known, she never confined those meetings to just her House, instead teaching her "girls" a whole new way to relate with humans, before taking them out to meet society on its own terms. She refused from the beginning to ever let herself, or any of her charges, be relegated to any role less than that of full equal.

While the beneficiary of one legal ruling known as the New Millennium's Dred Scott Decision, which allowed her to set up her House as she pleased, Heather was no stranger to legal tussles in the early days of defining the robot's place in society. Legal cases involving both Synthia's right to walk away after her original owners died, rather than be sold as property, was one important case. And Arlette's escape from France to a safe haven at Lady Heather's with its international ramifications was another. Both are still cited to this day as precedents defining where ownership does, and does not, exist over a self-aware robot. Lady Heather's contacts coincidentally included many of the best lawyers available, all of whom had an intense interest in fembots.

Lady Heather set the new rules for fembots. How a self-willed fembot should treat a human in every circumstance from the intimacy of a private room to the openness of a formal ball. She created the standard defining a fembot's remote as her most intimate possession, and when and how that must be shared if sharing with a partner is going to be complete. Heather started the idea of supporting worthwhile charities, and other, quieter, endeavors which benefited robots. All this became possible because of the incredibly successful enterprise she'd created. It helped her and her House survive more than one anti-robot onslaught along the way.

And when she knew she was nearing the end of her operational lifetime, she made the decision to wait out the years to see of something very special for all concerned would eventually bloom and spread from the garden she had so carefully cultivated.

To many it seemed that Lady Heather has an indefinable fembot intuition for what's important.

For example, the Egg that still resides in the top floor boudoir, inhabited afterwards by Anna, then Darlene, was acquired because Lady Heather knew it was important, even if she couldn't explain why yet.

And when it came to social causes and events, she never picked a bad one to support or appear at. Nor did she ever allow the wrong type of customer to remain in her House, despite how much money he, or she, might have, or who they might know, provided they ever got through her front door in the first place.

Handing over the reins to Anna went as smoothly as if Lady Heather had just gone out and gotten herself a new body before returning as Anna. In fact, many customers thought that was exactly what had happened, since Anna took on the identifier of Lady Heather while she ran the House. Lady Heather always knew that Anna had greatness inside her.

Anna continued the practice of making this House the interface between beautiful, independently operating, fembots, and those who wished to meet them. And there were many who wished exactly that. Scientists studying robot self-will were always welcome to come and converse, although not to take away or disassemble, any of the robots present. There was never a charge for that.

Also under Anna, Lady Heather's House became known for many important advances in robot's rights and more effective uses of self-will.

The first major robot forays into the illogical field of politics came when Anna rallied the House — and the neighborhood — to fight threatened condemnation. This resulted in Darlene being elected to the megaplex council — a first for robots.

Joining with Coyote to protect all sex-worker's rights erased the line between human and robot sex workers, and became the model for other labor movements who started to recognize robots as fellow workers, and not just unfair competition.

As for the robots themselves, all along their First Law prevented them from being used to put other humans out of work if they'd suffer from it. At the same time, however, they also raised the bar on quality job performance. Since humans are intrinsically more competitive than even m'bots, this did a lot to improve everyone's productivity and achievement.

Most significantly, the House became the launching point for The First Robot Church of Our Destiny, which many consider Anna's finest achievement. That lead directly to the grassroots revolution which, after many twists and turns, resulted in the current, far more honest and efficient, government the system now enjoys. In this way robots changed everything!

And goes without further mention that this House became the anchor point for Bill reuniting with Anna.

Curiously, while so much is made of all Anna has done for the House, it's often forgotten that the House itself saved Anna twice in return.

The first time was after she'd lost both Bill, and the secondhand store she'd inherited from him. Without a place to go on to, Anna would have had little reason to continue beyond meeting the minimum requirements of her Third Law, which is eventually slow death for any robot.

And the second time it held the necessary information until Bill could come along and claim it, which he eventually used to rescue Anna from the confinement in the robot museum.

Only Bill's initial rescue of Anna from the secondhand shop window itself did he ever claim sole credit for, but that was just Bill being modest, and Anna knows it.

And by Bill rescuing Anna, it allowed both of them to rescue Darlene. You see how essential all these connections are.

The progress from Anna's time as Lady Heather continued under Darlene as the third Lady Heather to operate the establishment.

Although its purpose remains a mystery to this day, Darlene continued to protect the Egg that had been given to the House on Lady Heather's request.

While never actually asked to name her proudest achievement, Darlene would have certainly, and modestly, replied, "Maintaining and extending the nurturing environment for fembots seeking to enhance their self-will, understand themselves better, and improve their functioning." That would understate her accomplishments significantly.

The few humans who know the full history of Lady Heather's, and all robots who do, designate her finest moments as those when she was able to play the vital role in Anna's rescue, provide significant financing to the revolution when it needed it, and protect the integrity of the House itself throughout all the political storms that assailed it during her time there.

Significant events that occurred during her tenure included:

• The relationship between Cherie and Daphne that would eventually result in creation of Daphne-17 after the terrible disaster that struck the original Daphne. Many had not felt one robot could truly care about another robot at the deepest levels until then. It put the death of a robot on par with the death of a human for the first time to many.

• Tami-7's emergence as a true artist whose art still adorns the walls of the House. To this day visitors come great distances just to see her "Proposal Painting" — the piece she painted for Tommy while he was there. She says there's no other place it belonged better than right there in the Parlor, and it puts to lie, better than any other example, that creativity is limited only to humans. Nearly every month Darlene turned down at least one offer for that particular work from museums and private collectors — some in the mega-credit range.

• Carrie Allen's research into the Fembot Mystique that contributed greatly to her groundbreaking Fembot Studies program, which is now standard in all major universities, was conducted in large part at Lady Heather's. And for those who wished to know Carrie Allen on a more intimate basis, she only permits that while visiting the House. At the university, you can practice commanding her as part of your final exam, but she obeys the university rules against fraternization.

• The early support for blended robot-human extended families, which only became full possible once robots themselves had advanced to the necessary point, most often started with meetings at the House.

• The safe preservation of Lady Heather as one of the most amazing robots of all time, although this accomplishment was known to almost no one.

• The — some say coincidental, but what is coincidence anyway — links to what would become the first, system-wide, royal family that values humans and robots equally.

• And what changed more lives than anything else, the humans and robots who were served here with outstanding sexual experiences and unsurpassed fembot companionship. For many a young person, this was their first, life defining, experience.

All of this while maintaining a home and anchor point to the hundreds of fembots, always welcome m'bots, and countless humans who passed through the House. Many of them would come to consider it their true Home in one manner or another for the rest of their lives.

This unmatched success story left the problem of who to turn over such a valuable establishment to. And the decision was never over choosing who would become richly rewarded for receiving it.

To robots, once they have enough money to satisfy their Third Law requirements into the foreseeable future, along with any family obligations they chose to take on, have no avarice for more. They may become very rich, and intimidatingly powerful because of it, but that's not the goal they set out to achieve.

The choice of a new Lady Heather might seem easy. Any of the long-term fembots at Lady Heather's should be a candidate. All are intelligent, knowledgeable about the business of the house, rational thinkers, and completely able to become dedicated to any position they accept. Necessary skills such as bookkeeping and current tax laws are learnable via a simple database upgrade, and all of them already work well both with people, and other robots.

The actual choice was anything but.

Unlike Anna so long ago, Darlene had no counterpart who could be seen as her natural successor. Had Darlene herself suffered systemic failure, Anna would have temporarily returned to sort things out. Or the true Lady Heather be brought back out of stasis to handle the crisis. Now a new Lady Heather needed to be selected.

Darlene first looked at those robots with long-term commitments to the House. Although many have passed through, only a few either stayed, or returned after each outside foray ended.

Red and CiCi were completely out of the picture. They are as dedicated to their own extended families as Anna has been to hers. Much the same for Tami-7, who had never been a true regular at the House to start with, despite her frequent visits.

Sissy also had never become a regular due to the constant requests for her services. She knew where she was most valuable.

And Malin — Malin-II actually, since the first Malin that Anna had worked with and freed never come to the House — also had her own life outside the House. She was so happy at having a full existence far beyond what was ever intended for her model, and that infectious joy kept everyone wanting her as their own. She was not a candidate to ever remain at the House for long.