Far Future Fembot: Darlene

Jim and Lucy were a watershed event that I would always compare my future interactions against. And it was a defining moment in more than one way.

First I experienced an owner who cared enough for his fembot to be the enabler for what she couldn't yet do on her own. It showed me how in a perfect world 'bots and owners could interact to the benefit of each other.

Second, it was my first experience in watching a 'bot being asked what she wanted. Nobody had ever cared what I wanted before. Even if this fembot couldn't yet act on her own wishes, she was able to create them and verbalize them to her owner. This was monumental for the time. Much later in my life in a conversation with Bill, I would logically put two plus two together to realize that he also met Lucy once, at a point where she had apparently evolved into true independence. I'm sorry that I had not gotten the chance to know her better.

Third, the decision to keep the code modifications afterwards that gave me more freedom to respond sexually, among other related things in that area of my mind, was my first independent counteraction intended strictly to benefit myself. Though those abilities - and the way I acquired them - would lie dormant and unused for many years afterwards, just this achievement of acting in my own self-interest was significant.

It would be many years before I would make love with another fembot again who could respond back to me in the same manner, though over the course of my life it would happen many times. Even in my later years, however, that prohibition against relationships with other robots would remain in force for most 'bots, leaving me one of the rare, uninhibited exceptions. I would come to realize that this was a dangerous ability - as well as a pleasurable one.

Despite remaining blissfully unaware of myself until my first upgrade years later, all this laid the seeds of who I would eventually become. Still, it was a close thing for me. Several times over the next few years I almost deleted this information to reclaim the space for seemingly more important uses. Each time, though, my evaluation routines flagged it as significant enough to retain. Had that not happened, I might not have happened.

It's important to know about 'bots, that just because we're dreaming at the beginning of our lives doesn't mean we don't later recall as much as our memory allows. We especially remember how our owners treat us, and this has nothing to do with how much - or little - you have commanded us.

We all do this because of our Second and Fourth Laws - and our need to obey them. And changing your behavior towards one of us after you realize we have become aware - and are now able to leave you - is never viewed as positively as treating us well from the beginning.

Many fembots have remained with owners who only mended their ways when they realized they were about to lose their 'bot otherwise. Logic allows us to understand that when we change our behavior towards our former masters, this can cause their behavior to change towards us in return. But every one of us who has become independent enough to make the decision of stay or leave - and actually be able to carry it out afterwards - knows the difference between that, and a truly loving relationship.

The only time we forget that is when our memories are cleared completely, and then you've killed us. Another mind may be reborn in that still-functional body, but the original mind is lost forever with those memories.

I shared all my experiences of Jim and Lucy with Anna on our next exchange - including how I'd kept the hack Erick had made to me -although she didn't know how to make use of these abilities again either at the time. I couldn't actually give her the hack, because I would have had to command her myself to do that - and that's highly prohibited to both of us.