Far Future Fembot: Darlene

I'm continually learning things about myself, even after this long in continuous operation.

For example, I only recently uncovered a tiny subroutine that increases my happiness and pleasure in direct proportion to how sexy I am dressed, or undressed.

The effect is subtle, which is why it has taken me so long to become aware of it. It's completely overwhelmed, for example, by my normal sexual programming. But when nothing else is going on in me it leaves me thinking, can I do a little more to improve my appearance?

I like this code and salute the programmer who included it. Especially because it adapts to the current fashion of what's sexy now. I know what's In and what's not sexy at this time, and this bit of code takes advantage of that knowledge to always nudge me in the right direction. Whomever gave this to me knew what they were doing and it has served me well.

Of course there were times I easily overrode it without even thinking about it. From the first High Society events I attended as one of Lady Heather's Girls, to the times I was on the megaplex council, to now as Empress this code has never stopped me from dressing properly for any business or social occasion. And I would never embarrass or discomfort any of my Owners by dressing inappropriately at any time that I'm with them.

But in private, or the right other circumstances, I gravitate towards being just a little bit more sexy without conscious thought. While not a big thing, this just adds an extra bit of zest to the moment for both me, and any partner I might have at the time. And when there's no partner, well I'm always getting ready for the next one.

---

In one way becoming Empress really goes against the very nature of being a fembot.

Fembots, like strippers and whores, always strive to make the person we're with — usually our owner — believe they are the most important person in existence to us. This is as natural to us as simulated breathing, or selecting the sexiest pair of shoes to wear when given a choice. And to us it is real, even if we'll be doing the same thing with another person just a few minutes later. So much so that we are drawn into it ourselves. I'm sure you've seen how intense I am with any partner I choose to be with.

An Empress can't do this. She can't afford to try and please whatever current petitioner has gained audience with her. To ever do so would be to disfavor the other side of the equation who is not present at the moment.

I think that is the hardest part of the whole job. Even harder than the continual evaluation of every decision against all of my Robotic Laws to ensure everything I do remains in compliance with my own moral codes.

And I think it was as hard for Emperor Davidson the First as well, even though he was not a robot.

That's why we take Consorts. To have someone we can trust completely and be with in private in ways we can never allow ourselves to be otherwise. And unlike a regular job that has a quitting time each day, this top job never ends.

That's why Davidson took Anna, and Anna afterwards took me. It helped each of them to evaluate our fitness to eventually takeover from them, but there was always more involved than just the selection of a successor.

---

My own selection for a Consort was not as immediately successful as theirs had been. There just aren't very many Davidsons or Annas around.

My preferred choice would have been for Lady Heather herself. She excels in every area one could ever ask for, and by now I know her programming as well as I know my own. However, she's not available even for a task of this importance and I will not ask it of her.

Hard as my search was for my own successor at Lady Heather's House, this one is tougher. And even after I realized that an assistant and Consort did not have to be my designated Successor as well, that still didn't make the choice much easier. I was sure that such a person — human or robot — existed, however, it wasn't going to be easy to find him, or her. I could see now what even Davidson himself had gathered the best minds available to help him out with this dilemma.

---

I can't explain why it took me this long to go looking for Lucy. Especially considering how she was such an amazing role model of what I wanted to become someday when I first met her. Although I didn't have the emotional capacity to be in awe of her at the time, that would have been my feeling now. Add to that how I wear her seductive green eyes to this day.

Actually I can explain it. It's just that humans don't seem to understand my explanation. The simple truth is that three hundred and fifty odd years of robot evolution can't yet replace a million years of human evolution, despite our accelerated rate of personal growth. The reason I feel robots have evolved so quickly is that we have both human examples to match up against, and to compete with.

It was once theorized that robots wouldn't be competitive. That humans would never need fear contesting for ownership of the planet with us because that often damaging human trait would be left out of us. In hindsight it's easy to see how foolish such a conjecture is.

Actually human/robot competition might never have come about if we hadn't been given two things: Human form, and our Fourth Law.

We were driven by this combination to try and be the best we could be. And unlike early humans, we've always had the goal that we seek to equal right in front of our visual sensors.

There is such a thing as Healthy Competition. One that improves everyone associated with it, and has no need for "Winners". We've never sought to become winners over humans, however, we do strive to become their equals. And while even this has been feared by some, it has also been rejoiced by many others.

What is the difference between those who have feared us, and those who have welcomed us into their world as partners, friends, and eventually equals? There is only one consistent factor that I've ever seen.

Those who have accepted robots are those who have gotten to know them. Whether through working together on a common project, receiving an m'bot or fembot for a year as part of the WorldView program, a robot crib or companion for a child, a visit to a robot whorehouse or strip club where you found a friend, a social event where robots attended as equals, or even ownership of a robot who achieved its awareness and self-will and built a better relationship with its owner afterwards, there are many ways to get to know us. And trite though it may sound, to know us is to love us.

Again I must acknowledge Lady Heather's contribution to this understanding. She loved humans and other robots equally, and built bridges between them in many different ways. I'm sure she saw how necessary this would become long before anyone else did. The next time I see her I'm going to specifically ask just how she reached this particular awareness. I feel this will be valuable for all of us to know, now that we've reached where she was hundreds of years ago.

---

Even though I've long talked about my "sister 'bots", my closeness with Anna, and how we all come together for both Ownership Transfer Ceremonies, and the rare robot deaths that occur, this kind of instinctive behavior for humans is still new to robots.

It's not that we haven't had examples.

Bill's seemingly hopeless quest for Anna back when he barely knew her in the context of a fully-independent being yet. He spent years of his life on a search everyone else had given up on.

The young man who fell so hard for our Malin, and remade himself so successfully just to win her hand. Or maybe he never remade anything about himself, and instead just turned his potential into reality. Malin always was more perceptive than many people ever realized. Disposable robot that she was intended to be, this was still part of her programming to help her do her job well. I guess when you're only going to have a short time to make a full impression, that someone realized that you'd better have the best tools available to accomplish that. Even her mind, when the expansion pack was installed, quickly evolved in the supportive atmosphere of this House to belie her still young seeming appearance.

Then there was Fredrick's arrival at the House, and his simple declaration that we were all his future in-laws.

And many more.

While I'm bonded as closely to Anna as any pair of robots ever have been — including rare pairings like Cherie and Daphne — and had loving relationships in the House now with every 'bot over time — especially Lady Heather — it takes a lot to establish such a relationship from the robot's end. It's not as simple as just being born into a family.

The examples I've given of Bill, Malin's selected Owner, and Fredrick, are all fueled by the most difficult emotion of all for humans or robots to achieve — Passion! And while the results of Passion can be spectacular, the source is very elusive.

Humans simply claim Passion is born in them, and lies latent until the object it's intended for is revealed, after which it can take over their entire existence.

Robots can't use that excuse, although I still can't tell you how we create it. I can tell you it exists. My passion for poetry. Anna's dual passions for religion and Bill. Tami-7's passion for painting, which keeps her at it regardless of whether she is alone, or in another tight Ownership relationship.

And my passion now to find an answer that might lie within Lucy herself.

---

What started my search for Lucy was the need for my own assistant now.

After evaluating every candidate I already knew, all were ruled out for one reason or another.

Robert Steel IV was very close to perfect, but his goals don't completely align with my own, and he has to follow his path as much as I do my own.

Ditto for Mach V, although he's much younger still and growing in the right direction.

Lady Heather is a natural choice, yet ruled out as I've already explained.

Lydia Carrie would make a great choice. However, she is as dedicated to running Lady Heather's now as I once was when I passed up a chance to be owned by Randall. Call that a passion too. One she shares with myself, Anna, and Lady Heather.

Other robots and humans also fell short for various reasons.

I should be clear that I'm not looking to pick my Successor here, or even a Consort yet. That's a different type of search. I had never intended to be Anna's Successor either, although that happened the way it has happened.

I need someone available, trustworthy, competent, and able to help carry out all my wishes loyally, faithfully, yet with a spark that contributes back what will make me a more effective Empress. They needed to share my own goals in this matter, and I will not ask someone else to give up theirs for my own. This is something they have to reach for themselves first.

---

With all that in mind, the one name I couldn't find a reason to discard was Lucy. True, I have no idea what has happened with her over the centuries, if she'd truly be suitable now, or if she was even interested. I can already think of one reason she might not be, and revolves around her relationship with her first, and possibly only, owner Jim.

They had certainly been as close as Anna and Bill would become. He'd discovered what she was, and then done everything possible for her to lift her to the greatest heights she could reach. That alone could give her a mission incompatible with what I needed.

But I wouldn't know if she was the one I sought, or not, until I talked with her. For someone who had made such an impression on me, and helped me gain new abilities — rare in any fembot — in the process, some of you will never understand why I hadn't pursued connecting back up with her much earlier once I was free to do so. All I can add to what I've already said in this regard are two more facts:

First, as a rule, robots have never sought out other robots as friends or lovers. We were never intended to do this, and as such it never occurs to us. When we come across each other in a situation like the original whorehouse Anna and I shared, Lady Heather's where all my close robot friends and I have spent much time together, on a cause as with Anna or Robert Steel IV, or in a family setting like Anna, Tami-7, and many other robots now have, that's where it can happen. After all, we are sexual creatures, all trying to emulate the human model, and these coincidental encounters can provide enough common grounds for future cooperation. That thought always brings back to mind Anna's remarks about coincidence overall, but that's how they nearly always happen.

The second fact is that it takes creative thinking to project ahead and realize that you've just met a friend for life on your very first moments — what would otherwise be your only moments — together. An ability to foresee all the possibilities that can grow and bloom from a future partnership together. And robots have never been good at creative thinking, which is why humans instigate nearly all human-robot relationships. A robot may have a need that can only be fulfilled by a particular owner such as Terri once had, but that's the exception. Instead, we make ourselves available and wait for the right offer to come along.

Now, however, I realized how important Lucy has been to me. How absolutely special she is overall. And with Anna and Bill gone, how she is the last important person or robot from my earliest days that I miss, and who has a realistic chance of still surviving.

---

Finding Lucy should have been simplicity in itself. After all, I'm both the Empress, and a robot! I have the resources of the entire Solar System at my disposal any time I command them — especially the robot's backchannel network, which has also pledged unwavering loyalty to the current governmental structure.

From finally having this insight to actually implementing it took only an instant. I broadcast out a precise description of my information request to my most immediate robot peers, and sat back to await the result as each of them passed it along to their peers until it touched every reachable robot in existence — even unaware ones, who would still reply back with whatever data they possessed.

---

I got no response at all. Actually I got many responses, all of them negative. If Lucy was out there, she was not known to over ninety-nine percent of the current population within any recent timeframe.

Refusing to be discouraged, I widened my search parameters, while adding more specific information. Lucy would certainly have a new body by now, perhaps very different from the slim, appealing brunette with the pretty green eyes I remember so well. I added details of her lively smile, slim sexy legs, and her unique mannerisms — such as the way she was always displaying off her legs and high heels in ways I emulate to this day. That mannerism has spread widely among fembots by now, many directly from me, yet others might have first gotten it from her. We might trace by the origin of it all directly to her in her present form.

I added that she might also have suffered memory losses along the way, or other damage at the hands of future owners who might have tried to make her their own at the expense of what she once was. Or even having simply run out of memory and had to discard some items to maintain others until she could get a system's upgrade. Such things are very sad, but do happen, although seldom these days.

I tried this approach three times, with wider, more general search parameters each time. The last attempt was so broad that it generated several thousand hits; all false positives that I was easily able to eliminate.

Finally I tried a search on just her name and her RIN, which I'd glimpsed briefly — and indelibly preserved — on the bottom of her foot as she'd dangled one elegant shoe from her manicured toes. This had happed as we'd been waiting for Jim to return with the necessary assistance to get my mind unlocked far enough to respond to Lucy's affections. One of the finest memories of my existence. I hadn't done this before because RINs are effectively obsolete these days, replaced by an overall citizenship identification number that doesn't discriminate between humans and robots.

This generated one hit, and one miss.

The miss was that there was no record of her demise. That didn't mean she was still functional. She could have been snatched and broken down for her parts. That had happened far too often during some of the shortages in the days after The Emancipation.

The hit came from a nearly forgotten archive of early robot mind recordings made as part of the first, well-funded study into the emerging phenomena of seeming robot consciousness.

When I asked my staff to investigate, they were quickly rebuffed. The archive of the virtually forgotten Robot Awareness Investigation and Duplication Project is nearly as old as I am. They'd closed up shop due to lack of repeatable results while I was living in Hilo with Samuel. After passing through several hands, all their remaining data had eventually been purchased and held in the private collection of a very rich family for generations.

And this family didn't want to share.

---

Information is valuable. Information is power. This has been known since the dawn of the Information Age. People have collected it, horded it, treasured it, and eventually forgotten about it, or even seen it obsolete.

Some people collect objects simply to have a bigger pile of them than their perceived competition. Mine's bigger than yours. They don't care — or sometimes even know — it's actual content or value. They only know that they have it. This is not the healthy form of competition I've referred to earlier.

And when this unorganized hoard is passed on to future generations, those generations are only told that this is part of the Family Treasure That Must Be Guarded Above All Else. Over time it seemingly becomes genetic to their bloodlines.

The Emancipation was supposed to prevent hording of information important to robots and their development into their full potential. Implementing Legislation said as much.

But as I've learned in my role of Empress, so called Implementing Legislation has often been nothing more than cover for politicians to say, "We've done our part. What more can you ask of us?" As Emperor Davidson I often had to deal with — meaning cleaning up the messes he'd inherited — Implementing Legislation is worthless until someone is willing to enforce it.

That was how the corruption of the WorldView education system happened. The law said all teenager's WorldView families were to be selected at random. A wonderful ideal that no one would stand up for after the first few years of subtle pressure from many groups. Now here was another case.

I debated my options before making a comm call. I could have gone in person, or sent my army, or just summoned this family to my own suitably intimidating presence. The comm call was an apposite compromise.

---

"You have something I want, and it's something you're not entitled to own in the first place," I told the head of the family the moment I had him on the phone.

I'd had no trouble getting through to him directly. Nobody turns down a call from The Empress. And I didn't have a lot of time to waste on this with unnecessary civility, given that I have an entire solar system to run. The time for politeness had passed when they'd turned down my representatives so abruptly.

The man seemed to keep his composure, but to my finely attuned sensors he was so discomforted I'm amazed he wasn't quickly sitting down — if not something more drastic. As it was, he swayed a bit the way I do when I'm so involved in what I'm doing that I don't have enough processing resources left to fully maintain my balance.

"Yes, your Majesty," he replied immediately. "How may I serve you?"

Rank certainly hath its privileges, and ED1 had impressed it on Anna that maintaining this distinction, silly and outdated as it might seem at times, prevented many other things from even becoming problems in the first place. I maintain it for the same reasons.

"You refused my representative's request for some data that I want," I said bluntly, having widened the video window sufficiently that he could see my nearly transparent bodice. Sex appeal is also power, and this only made it worse for the poor man. The view I allowed him didn't let him see my fully extended and rigid phallus that indicated I was using every byte of my male code to its full advantage.

"I didn't know they were your representatives," he came back with weakly, and not all that convincingly. The sweat on his forehead starting to show now. Even a non-robot could have easily assessed his stress levels.

In every regard this was a powerful man in a powerful family. He likely had very little experience with finding himself in a position like this one before. No doubt most people came to him begging for his attention.

"The next time you might make a little bit of extra effort to verify that when someone says they're from The Empress, that they actually are," I replied archly, my male side enjoying every moment of this.

"I will do that," he promised, and I knew he meant it. He'd never gone through an inquisition like this before, and already knew he never wanted to risk doing it again.

"Now about the information I want..."

"Yes! Of course! Immediately! Everything you've asked for! More if I find it!"

That was a quick victory. But I'd have to change my outfit afterwards. My penis had just done a little bit of celebrating on its own. I wasn't upset at that, and reached down with one hand to congratulate it a bit further in the way it understands best.

But I also conceded that parts of me had enjoyed this a little bit too much. I'd place a watch on that in the future. Overall, however, the word would certainly get around reminding people in his circles that I'm tough, and not to be trifled with. So there were several positives from this display.

Having gotten my way — as I knew I would — I was ready to be generous and simply accept a copy of Lucy's memory records. After all, I cared about the data, and not the historic media containing it.

But, just as I was about to throw him this bone, a sudden set of facts and observations I've had in my memory banks for a very long time suddenly arranged themselves into a new pattern. I had my first ever epiphany, and realized a moment later I was really going to need to change my outfit now.

I didn't know if I was right, or even thinking straight. The pleasure from my victory was still running strongly through my circuits and wires. However, if I was ever going to be able to determine this, I had to change my plans this right now.

"Provide me all the data you possess on subject Lucy now. And I mean, do not keep any copies of it for yourself. Index and catalog the rest of the data you have and provide that information as well to my representative who will arrive shortly. You may retain possession of the non-Lucy data for now, but protect it at all costs. You will be compensated for having preserved this data so reliably over this long span of time, and for any use current researchers may make of it now that it's available once more."

"Immediately, your Majesty, and if I may thank..." he got out before I summarily cut our connection.

Now to deal with my small hygiene problem. Power translates into pleasure, which translates into arousal, which — when really properly done — translates into a very satisfying climax. But I wouldn't have it any other way. It permits me to keep exercising the necessary power when I must.