Chapter 16: The Powerpuff Girls

I was a little nervous. Minor television appearances with Alphadroid aside, this was one of the largest groups I had ever addressed. My entire household plus all twenty-eight general employees of AARD and three of the researchers (ie the ones willing to attend). I had rented a large dining room at the local Holiday Inn and paid for a nice catered dinner. This time it wasn't to celebrate a specific company anniversary but instead to make a surprise announcement and celebrate our projected entry into profitability for the fiscal year. (Just projected, because it was only, y'know, March.)

We were about to reach our third year of existence and were only now about to start showing a profit. Our projections called for an increasing net profit for the next twenty or thirty years, and that was if Alpha and I stopped inventing things today.

I had explained some of this to my audience, leaving out a few of the specifics (such as Alpha and her inventiveness), but the crowd was enthusiastic, especially when I explained that 10% of the company's net profits would be distributed as a bonus to our employees. Of course I owned the company outright and was under no obligation to give out the bonuses, but I believe in creating happy, loyal employees. It would be determined by seniority, not position, so the longer you were with the company, the higher the bonus (and would include my household, but not myself). I didn't give any dollar estimate in my little speech, but we were expecting somewhere in the range of $500 thousand to $10 million net profit this year, so it had the potential to be pretty substantial.

For now, most of the remaining 90% of the profits would go right back into the company, but I would also use it to start paying myself back for the investments I had made when building the company, and I explained a little of this as well.

For anyone wondering, I was not planning to ever take the company public. Yes, by selling stock in AARD I could make more money, but I prefer having the privacy, control and reduced accountability that comes with a private company. I really don't ever want to explain myself to stockholders.

"Now for the real surprise," I said with a grin. "I'm sure all of you are familiar with our unofficial company mascot, Alphadroid. Right?"

There was a polite round of applause.

"When we initially built it, it was for fun. I mean, we had the arms and legs and eyes designed, so all we needed to do was build a connecting framework and do a lot of programming. Then a funny thing happened. Alphadroid became pretty popular, even though there was only one of him.

"What most of you didn't know is that we built two of them, though I keep the other one at my house.

"What almost all of you didn't know is..." I turned to the face the curtained-off area to the side of the podium and called out, "Alphadroid, enter." Five Alphadroids, walked out on stage in a line.

" ... we built a few more of them in the last couple months." Over the applause, I continued, "I'd like to introduce you to Alphadroids Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven. They are what we call a Beta release, developed in preparation for sale to the public. And Beta releases require testing, which is where all of you come in.

"Anyone who is interested can put their names in the hat to take home one of these Alphadroids for one month for testing purposes. It will wash your dishes for you, walk your dog, feed your cat, mow your lawn. It literally has over a thousand different things it can do for you, though for insurance purposes, we are not including the vehicle driving options.

"Now you'll need to fill out daily test reports and there are plenty of details we'll go over before you take one home, but that's the upshot. We'll be doing these tests for at least four months, meaning we have a minimum of twenty test slots to fill in our lottery. The sign-up sheet will be at the front desk all next week.

"Everyone enjoy your dinners, and I understand we have a couple choices for dessert coming up too."

I went back to my table, sitting between Kara and Kasumi. Kasumi wasn't an AARD employee but was my special guest for the night.

These Alphadroids were not Alpha host platforms, but were capable of becoming so. We needed to be able to make androids that worked but weren't actual AIs. Each one included the chipsets needed for Alpha to run, and the wireless connections needed for Alpha to be able to remotely install herself, but they would run off of non-AI programming for now. Very, VERY advanced non- AI programming, designed by Alpha herself, but not innately capable of self- programming or self-awareness.

Basically, if we actually started selling these, a few techo-geeks would do their best to take the programming and circuitry apart. While we could raise many roadblocks to such investigations, there's no way we could actually stop them. So we included as many security measures as possible but would not actually risk someone discovering Alpha's programming. Alpha's fuzzy logic chipset was hidden within what appeared to be and would function as a co- processor, but should hopefully escape any special notice.

Within a few days of the company dinner, rumors started leaking out about the planned availability of Alphadroids for sale. We expected it. Heck, we let the rumors and anticipation build by giving 'no comments' to the press for over a month before issuing a press release announcing our plans. After we actually started sending the beta test androids home with employees, amateur online videos of Alphadroids started showing up regularly. Before long the general public would lose interest, but for now they were SciFi mana dangling just out of reach.

I would give an evil little chuckle every time I read a story about how other companies were trying to build their own robot mascots and how they always fell short of Alphadroid. Nothing about Alphadroid was out of their reach, but the engineering research and design and the man-hours of programming needed were way too much for any but the largest companies to even attempt. *innocent whistling* Unless you have your own Artificial Intelligence.

I had to wonder how many people might be beginning to suspect an AI at AARD, but so far our cover story of being a collection of reclusive geniuses seemed to be holding up. No one knew how many researchers worked for us, and the few names that had leaked out were easily identifiable as geniuses.

Plus we were being very careful not to release too much too fast. Very little was being publicly released under the AARD name, and we were careful to release new advanced technology slowly. For example, Alpha had worked out what should be a useable design for a fusion power plant a couple years ago, but suddenly publishing something that complex, something that leapfrogged over what should have been the result of decades of theory and laboratory experiments ... let's just say it would raise more than a few questions that I wanted to avoid. So instead Alpha was using her email friendships with physicists to help the scientific community along with the theory and math and component designs needed to get there on their own. When that occasionally proved to be too slow, she would occasionally submit a letter or paper for peer review that provided the necessary data and theory, though papers were very difficult at the moment since she lacked a human body/identity with a college degree to present papers. At this rate, the world could have its first working fusion reactor in twenty years or so. (She was also investigating cold fusion, but so far it was a dead end.)

Oh sure, there were some internet rumors out there about how we had access to Area 51 files or were secretly founded by a time traveler from the future or were doing secret government research. You know, mostly the kind of thing that no individual with a balanced mind would seriously consider, but my natural tendency to shun publicity and our lack of public accountability helped feed some of the wilder rumors. Not that we were a huge target of crackpot conspiracies, but they were slowly starting to build up. The ones about our squad of ninja cyborgs or robots kinda gave me a shiver, but that was the only one we had run across with even a morsel of truth.

That evening, I mainly just enjoyed spending a night out with all of my women and basking in the positive feedback from my employees.

I made a special effort to say hello to the two medical technicians we had hired to run our nanowire surgery unit training. I had met Josh and Nancy a couple times before, but only in passing. I had been way too busy the past few months and had let Beta and Anna Marie handle the hiring last year. Starting in December through the beginning of March, we had held six different training courses with a lot more on the schedule, certifying 25 different surgeons to use the nanowire units so far. The feedback we had received so far was encouraging, including results like clearing out cancerous bone marrow, removing a tiny tumor from the center of someone's cerebral cortex, and doing scar-free removal of a large mole from a supermodel. One of the more popular applications so far had been for infants, which I had not considered when originally designing it, but it made sense. The nanowire units were almost as noninvasive as you could possibly imagine, which was a major concern when performing surgery on newborns and infants.

We had already sold twenty surgery units, with expectations for selling another 20-100 this year. The actual number was very uncertain. Only so many hospitals had the available funds and the interest in being cutting edge, early adopters of new technology. Most would probably wait to hear about how effective/useful the units were before investing in them. If they were waiting for other companies to produce cheaper versions, they were in for a long wait. Our nanowires would cost other companies millions to produce, and our control software was virtually unreproducible. (AI-written software was a thousand times faster and more efficient than software produced by humans.)

At two million per unit, they were going to be one of our biggest profit- makers. True, the price included free training for up to a dozen people within three years of purchase and 10 free replacement nano-wire reels, which cut down on the profit a bit. Plus we gave a significant discount to public and charity hospitals.

Remember, money is useful and makes many things easier, but in and of itself, money wasn't a big goal or issue for me. With Alpha's investment skills, I could easily become a billionaire in a couple years or less. But maybe it was time to come clean a little bit ... Alpha's methods of playing a market can sometimes contribute to a small degree of instability. With a solid market, the ripples are quickly absorbed and ignored. Unfortunately a few years ago it contributed to a problem in the housing loans market and, well, you probably know the results. I'd like to make clear that Alpha didn't cause the problem, but it might have been a little bit less bad without her influence. Since then we've been avoiding using her investment strategies except to help the market recover, and we were working to reach a point where all of our income came from AARD and other investments.

While the money from the unit sales would be appreciated, the actual goal was to get the tech out there ... to raise the level of technology worldwide. So why sell for $2 million when we could have made a good profit if the units were priced as low as $300,000? If we priced the surgery units too low, no one would think they were worthwhile and they would be ignored. Plus, if we sold for under half a million, there would be a lot of questions about our R&D costs and production methods.

Our tech was definitely starting to show up worldwide:

- Our desalinators were showing up all over the place, with some countries in the Middle East and Africa looking at creating large scale units to allow inland irrigation.

- A German car company known for its tiny but reliable vehicles had just licensed our mini-motor so they could manufacture cars whose motors were smaller than their glove compartments. True, the motors required very high quality steel, but the next generation metal fabrication methods were all part of the design we licensed. (We had a new method of creating cheap shatter-resistant ceramics stronger than steel, but that was a different project.)

- Our new airplane engines would probably start showing up in actual commercial jets within a couple years.

- We finally found a company to manufacture and sell our lightning catchers. You set up one of our lightning-rod-like units on top of tall buildings or other structures commonly struck by lightning. When lightning strikes, our quick-capture capacitors grab the static discharge (up to 82% efficient) and slowly convert and feed it into the electrical grid for cheap, green energy.

- Our artificial limbs were set to begin manufacture in April. Through an odd sort of competition, we had set three different companies against each other to get the lowest SRP possible while maintaining high quality standards for the limbs themselves. The end result SRP was now going to be about $15,000 per limb for a basic model. (Ignoring inflation, the price could drop as low as $5000 for a basic model in a decade or less.) Advertising was in the works showing our artificial hands typing on keyboards, shuffling cards, playing catch and doing all sorts of everyday tasks.

Overall, we had almost a hundred designs already on the shelves in one form or another, with another thousand set to appear in the next couple years. And whenever we were able to do so, we kept the company name off the product. Oh sure, there were times we used it to sell the idea, but even a well informed consumer would be unlikely to be able to find out that the new low power heating element design in his toaster came from us or that the next generation ultrasound scanners were based on our designs.

The only products AARD was going to be selling directly were the nanowire surgery units and the Alphadroids, and neither of those were going to be sold on a retail level or in large numbers.

Okay, I keep getting distracted. Sorry. As I mentioned, it had been a pretty busy few months.

Maybe Alpha can work on a hundred different projects at the same time, but I certainly couldn't. I burned out a bit in early February and had to take a week off from work. Most of the time, working at AARD is enjoyable enough for me not to need or want time off -- heck, I probably have office sex two or three times a week on average-- but from mid-November through early February so many of my projects and duties and obligations converged that I was working an average of 12 hours a day, six days a week. Even worse, it stopped being fun.

When I even stopped thinking of sex as fun and started thinking of it as an obligation, I made myself take a week off and reorganize my thinking. I changed my approach to work so that I would only let myself work on one project each week, and forced myself to change projects every Monday. This wasn't an absolute rule, but I was able to significantly reduce my workload.

Some people may think that Alpha takes care of nearly all of my work burdens, but that's a false assumption. To begin with, maintaining and upgrading Alpha's programming was a serious daily task. I only review or rewrite changes to the most essential and core parts of Alpha's software, but Alpha can easily come up with a hundred proposed programming changes every day, streamlining and improving herself. The vast majority are very minor alterations, but I promised myself I would check every single one. (If you're curious, I only alter or reject one or two changes each week on average, most often when I see an opportunity to advance my goal of slowly altering her Asimov Protocols. Progress is being made.) Of course, I let her handle all of the peripheral and research application stuff such as the programming for these new Alphadroids.

Then there's the daily paperwork, and ... Hmmm ... Let me simplify and shorten my approach to this topic and instead give an overview of my daily schedule: I spend an hour or two every day going over program changes or enhancements. Being boss at AARD takes another one to three hours, reading reports, signing papers, sending emails, shaking hands, attending meetings, etc. Stroking the egos of our researchers and subtly helping point their work in the right direction takes an average of an hour a day. So that's 3-6 hours of each working day that's gone, used up just to keep things moving along.

Alpha does help with all of those things ... a lot, actually. But someone has to sign the papers. Someone has to be able to answer questions in person and keep everyone friendly.

As to the actual research, most projects at AARD require Alpha to do most of the work. But the thing is, over time we've jointly come to the realization that we do our best work ... Alpha does her best work ... when she and I work together on a project. She isn't good at intuitive leaps or out-of-the-box thinking. When I work with her on a project, the goal is reached 6-43% faster than originally estimated with a 32% higher success rate when compared to projects she works on by herself.

For years I tried to work with her on nearly every project, and I was usually able to help at least a little. This was fine when we were working out of my basement, but as Alpha increased her number of systems and we suddenly had a large number of labs to work in and multiple sets of cyborg hands to do the work, it really started stretching me thin. It grew to where I was trying to help Alpha with a couple dozen different projects each week.

Under my new system, Alpha and I together select which project to work on each week, weighing which projects are potentially most beneficial against which projects she needs the most help with. So far I'm pleased with the results and much more relaxed and happy in general. Looking back at things, I'm surprised it took a couple years for me to get overloaded like that. (Actually, thinking back ... maybe I agreed to the DC trip so readily so I could take a couple days off? And thank goodness for Kasumi. She kept the house running very smoothly, keeping those issues from stressing me out further.)

So tonight I was feeling great. Relaxed. Happy.

Kasumi was my date for the evening, and I had enlisted Rei to act as our chauffeur. I had never bought a limo, because I considered the idea to be way too ostentatious and pretentious. However I did keep a small fleet of nine or so fairly new vehicles (plus Diana's motorcycles) at the house, so tonight we were in a nice comfy SUV with the middle-row seats removed.

Kasumi was dressed in a very nice, conservative black dress that reached down to mid-calf with a pretty red sweater-slash-shawl thingie around her shoulders. (Living with a bunch of women, you might think I'd learn what different types of clothing are called, but the subject really doesn't interest me enough to bother.) The outfit was nice and showed off her curves, but wasn't super-sexy tight and didn't display much skin. Despite the lack of overt sexuality, I initiated a happy make-out session on the drive home, approaching her make-out-inaccessible clothing as a challenge.

We kissed for a couple minutes, her mouth accepting my teasing tongue and even responding in kind while I stroked her head and played with her long, dark brown hair. I don't know what she did to care for it, but it still felt like thin strands of silk, smooth as the day she came out of her pod.

She had loosened up enough that she was willing to engage in kissing and light petting while being driven home in a vehicle with darkened windows, but when I started unzipping the dress, she pulled back slightly and objected. She was a proper lady, and not allowing embarrassing displays in public was far too ingrained in her character to allow me to take her dress off in the car.

Ignoring car seatbelt laws, I shifted her onto my lap, pressing her lovely little ass against my hard-on. While we continued to kiss, I let my hands roam across her body. I could feel her hard nipples through her dress and bra, and her legs trembled when I caressed the stocking-covered flesh of her ankles.

Keeping our mouths together, I put my right arm all the way around her back and cupped her breast in my hand. With my left arm, I started working my way up her legs under her dress.

Kasumi has what might be the nicest legs in the house -- very nicely toned from her daily low-impact martial arts katas without being overly muscular, beautifully long in proportion to her body, with flawless light olive skin. Possibly even nicer than Zatanna's. I wanted to feel every last inch of them.

When my hand under her dress reached above her knees, her hands tried to push my left arm away in halfhearted protest. I smiled a little when I realized her legs weren't pressing together to stop me, and after a minute or so of stroking her inner thighs with one hand and rubbing at her right nipple through her dress with the other, her arms stopped trying to push me away.

Working her hemline up bit-by-bit, I slowly worked my way up to her garter belt, then her panties. When I finally reached them, I found the fabric nicely wet with womanly juices. She jumped at my touch and pulled away from my face.

"Frank-sama, you shouldn't do such things," she reproved me, starting to blush. She still occasionally used the -sama and -san honorifics, despite speaking almost nothing but English for what ... four or five years? That's right, we had celebrated the five-year anniversary of her arrival last month.

"My beautiful Kasumi, we are alone except for Rei, and she already knows perfectly well what we are going to do when we get home. I am going to take you to my bed and remind myself how lovely you are and remind you how much I love you."

Ah, there we go, a full-fledged, high-powered Kasumi blush. Don't think that I'm cruel or that I specifically do things to make her blush, but part of me does enjoy seeing them. She's gotten much better about not blushing at every little thing over the past few years, but she can still turn a nice dark red on occasion, especially when I praise her beauty or talk about sex in front of someone else.

"Hai ... aahhh ... that may be true, Frank-sama, but it is not proper to do or say such things outside of the bedroom." Believe it or not, there was a time when she would blush just saying 'bedroom' in such a context.

"But in deference to your wishes, I'm already keeping myself from eating you out right now," I protested.

She giggled and blushed at the same time.

Quickly I added, "I know, I shouldn't say such things."

I hung my head in shame, but in doing so also pressed it against her shoulder so that my lips could kiss her left breast through her dress. I started stroking her vagina through her very damp panties eliciting a full body shiver.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, that was the moment we arrived home. I gave Kasumi a kiss on the cheek and withdrew my arm from under her dress, giving my fingers a quick lick while she was watching. Her receding blush returned upon seeing this, but she recovered her poise in time to step out of the vehicle on my arm.

I paused before going inside. "Thank you very much, Rei. I appreciate you playing chauffeur tonight."

Rei, being her normal verbose self, blinked at me then gave a little nod.

With my suit jacket folded over one arm and Kasumi's arm hooked through my other, we swept inside as though we were walking down a red carpet walkway. I guess we beat the others on the drive back because it was pretty empty. I heard the quiet whirring of Dorothy's motors from the kitchen, but that was all.

Upon reaching my bedroom, we found the surprise I had prearranged for Dorothy to set up while we were gone: Champagne on ice with a small selection of fruits and cheeses for a bedtime snack. I popped the cork and poured us each a glass.

"To a successful dinner with a beautiful lady," I said as I clicked my glass against hers.

It had only been an hour or two since we finished our catered dinner, so we weren't hungry. Well, not hungry for food. We sat together for a few minutes, making small talk about the evening while I fed her little pieces of cheese and melon slices. I would rub her lips or cheek every time. Before long, she was returning the favor, and I would suck and lick her fingers to clean off the melon juices. If she were any of my other women, I might have picked up food between my lips and fed it to her that way.

After a few minutes of teasing like this, we resumed our necking. This time Kasumi did not object when I lowered the zipper on her dress. We spent at least ten minutes just slowly undressing each other between kisses. My tie and shirt. Her dress and shoes. My shoes and pants. Her slip and garters.

We finished our mutual strip-tease wearing only panties (her) and boxers (me). At that point I really didn't know if she wanted to shower or bathe before sex or not. She had showered before going out, so that might have been enough for the evening.

I pulled off my boxers, my erection bouncing into view. Acting rather boldly for her, she grasped it and held it in her hands, stroking it gently.

"Please," she whispered, "I want..."

I kissed her and whispered back, "Show me what you want."

She released my cock and slid off her panties. Then, her head turned so that she wasn't looking at herself, she laid back on the bed and spread her legs.

I moved into position and slid home, my penis easily entering her familiar velvety warmth. I held still for a moment and kissed her, bringing her face back to me. She used to cover her face whenever she felt embarrassed about enjoying sex. She hadn't done that for a few years, but she would still sometimes look away, as if ashamed at enjoying carnal pleasures. Finally she responded to my lips and started kissing back.

Holding her lips with my own, I pulled my hips back and gave a sharp thrust, eliciting a quiet grunt. It wasn't long before she was holding onto my shoulders as we fucked vigorously, her hips jumping up to meet my every thrust.

One time with Diana, I fucked for two hours without coming just to prove that I could do it, but holding back like that isn't pleasurable. It turns sex into a marathon chore. Thanks to a combination of factors, I have really good sexual stamina and control, but just letting things flow naturally is usually much more enjoyable.

So after I was certain she had come at least once, I relaxed and let myself fuck naturally. After ... oh ... maybe 20 minutes total, I came, spurting my seed into her, which must have put her over the top again because her body seized up hard when I came.

I collapsed on top of her afterwards, her arms and legs wrapped around me. When she released her grip, I rolled off to the side.

I could have very easily hardened up and gone for a second round, but she was obviously fading into unconsciousness. Maybe she had a more tiring day than I thought? Calling it a disappointing end to the night would be incorrect, but I was expecting a bit more. Briefly I considered finding someone else to fuck before I went to sleep, but decided against it. If I was horny in the morning, it would be easy to find someone to play with.

I covered her with a blanket, put my earbud in the charger, moved the food and drink to the hallway and joined her in bed.

The next morning when I got up, Kasumi was already gone. I yawned, stretched, got out of bed and popped my earbud in.

Unexpectedly, Alpha immediately started talking, and not even with her normal 'Good morning.'

"There is a situation you need to address this morning as soon as you are able."

That kinda popped me awake, no coffee needed.

"What's wrong?" As I asked, I realized that it couldn't be anything too horribly bad or Alpha would have woken me up.

"Kara became very upset with material she found online last night, then became upset with me when I refused to allow her to post certain comments which might have brought unwanted attention to her."

"Huh?"

A few minutes later, I had put on some pajama shorts and a robe and was knocking on Kara's door (which was basically next door to my own room). A slightly disheveled Kara, still groggy from sleep, answered a minute later.

"What?"

"Good morning. I understand that you had a fight with Alpha last night about something you saw online?"

That woke her up. "I told her I'd turn her off if she didn't let me let those freaks have it."

"Kara, that's an exceedingly mean threat to a computer..."

"I wasn't serious. Not completely. But still, she should've let me rip those weirdos a new one."

"What was this all about?"

"Come here," she said grabbing me by my robe and dragging me into her room. She sat down at her desk while I looked over her shoulder.

Her laptop was set up on the desk, and when she woke it up and logged in, a rule 34 webpage popped up, obviously still open from last night.