H is for Heuristic

Chapter 11 - Slumber Party at Fembot Command

After her Friday evening shift at the sub shop, Phet got on the post rush hour bus as usual and rode it over to her apartment. Getting quickly inside after that short trip, she changed her clothes, grabbed her laptop in its carrying case, and headed right back out the door. A later and longer bus ride would take her to her friend Melanie's house.

On the way over, Phet looked casual and relaxed - as if she was heading out to a friendly dinner party, albeit with her notebook computer in hand. Not many people shared the bus ride with her, and those that did had no reason to pay any attention to the pretty young Vietnamese lady. Everything went smoothly, and Phet got off at her regular stop. She zipped her coat up all the way as her mouth pumped out vapour that appeared similar to human breath in the cold air. After a short walk through quiet, softly lit suburban streets, she got to Melanie's place.

Melanie had just gotten home about twenty minutes before. Since she had to receive her fellow agent on Fridays, she had stood completely motionless just behind the door from the time she came home to the time that Phet's plastic finger pushed the doorbell button. When that happened, Melanie activated certain subroutines of code that made her wait a few seconds before opening the door. That was to make things look more natural.

"Hi Phet!"

"Hi Mel!"

They smiled and chatted like close friends up until the point that the door closed again. Then the simulated emotion vanished as they fell silent and walked more like machines down to the basement scanner.

In turn, each of their static plastic faces was scanned by laser grid and approved for entry into the lab. Natasha stood naked over by the waiting examination chair, her slender but still voluptuous body waiting to spring into action. As Melanie approached, they made their mindless greetings and began their session.

The skinny blonde that had so far been monitoring the future programming prodigy at the tech institute sat in the high-backed chair and took off her facemask upon hearing the command come from the speaker behind Natasha's full pink lips. Her hands moved up to her expressionless head and lightly clutched the silicone cover while the mechanical locking parts underneath released their hold. The face came off and rested in her hands on her lap while bright coloured lights flashed amid the circuitry in patterns only Natasha could decipher.

The connection and download procedure was standard for all of these ladies, so Melanie was worked on with the expected quickness and efficiency. The whole time her data was being transferred, Phet stood completely unmoving in one spot to the side, still holding on to the storage device that was shaped like a computer.

The Fembot Command version of the sexy and inhuman robot maid worked in the background. Her taller build, her cropped blonde hair and her stern but pretty face were the only distinguishing external features from the Robot Control model. This one was just as artificial in appearance, and just as loud as its cheaper motors whirred and its mechanical parts clicked to the constant stream of loud synthesized beeps and tones. The inexpensive plastic used for its skin coloured covering was unrealistically glossy, and gave off a smell like vinyl. The robot not only moved stiffly and jerkily like the other maidbots, but it was dressed in a similarly slutty see-through French maid costume.

Her sexy plastic body continued to move stiffly about the lab as Natasha finished up with Melanie. The digitised memory files of Melanie's slight malfunction as Byron drove away were a cause for concern. The Master Computing Device made careful but still ultra-fast calculations on the exact nature of the malfunction, and what had likely caused it. Within less time it would take Melanie to blink her pretty mechanical eyes, the Master Computing Device scheduled her for a full diagnostic session.

That would have to wait, however, until after Phet had her turn in the chair. Natasha emotionlessly ordered Melanie to reattach her facemask and wait off to one side. Phet was then ordered to sit down and show the technician the vital connection ports within her own head. The maidbot had earlier taken the laptop, and was busy at another workstation unpacking and setting it up. The Master Computing Device then simultaneously downloaded data from Phet's head and her laptop-shaped mobile storage device.

Natasha diligently watched several monitors at once, reading all of the fast flowing data and looking for anomalies or errors. After a longer than usual time, the information in Phet's electronic head had been transferred into the console next to her. The download speed from laptop to console then increased to the full rate, and for the next three hours, the Fembot Command supercomputer drew bit after bit, memory after memory out of the ingenious device.

The female robots in the lab all were models of perfect patience as the computer did its thing. None of them so much as twitched while they waited. At the end of the process, when the whole week had been downloaded, the task of sorting and analysing was begun.

It was past midnight before the Master Computing Device was finished, and by that time the maidbot had plugged Natasha in with an extension cord to recharge. Electricity flowed once more into the gorgeous long-haired brunette's sexy thighs as they supported and balanced the weight of all the skin-encased machinery above. Those bright, pale blue glass eyes stayed locked on the monitors above the console, watching constantly for anything that seemed out of place. Processors inside her chest - just behind two of the most beautifully shaped breasts around - worked non-stop to categorize and interpret the ones and zeroes on those screens.

Then, in the small hours of the morning, the supercomputer finished its tasks and had one of those moments when a human would have exclaimed "Eureka!". It had found an incredible and very important coincidence buried inside that whole mass of downloaded binary information. Judging from recorded video and audio streams taken from both android women, it found that the Robot Control agent that Phet had discovered was in daily contact with the target human of Melanie's mission.

The consoles in the room would have leaped for joy if they had been equipped with legs. Fembot Command couldn't have asked for a more convenient situation than this.

Quickly, it began to sift through thousands of variables, probability factors and extrapolations of known values in order to devise a plan. If all went smoothly, Monday would bring big changes and rewards.

But for now, the Melanie and Phet robots were to undergo complete diagnostic scans and maintenance sessions as needed. In order to fix the flaws that had caused Melanie's previous malfunction, she would need to have some wiring and a couple of circuit boards replaced. Not much else really could be done. Little malfunctions like that were just part of what it meant to be a woman made of electronic and mechanical parts.

Natasha worked for the next few hours connecting and disconnecting the agents, plugging and unplugging cables and moving them back and forth to different workstations in order to perform the necessary operations. The blonde maidbot assisted the way she was built to, by moving her clunky motor controlled chassis around on the orders of the massive computer intelligence that ran things down there.

By sun-up, the trio of more human-like fembots were naked and recharging in their booths, having their smooth synthetic skin cleaned expertly by the cute machine dressed in that lace apron and those see-through panties. The stage was set for Monday's important projects.

Chapter 12 - Rolling Like a Square Wheel

Byron Clarke spent his weekend in the usual way - lots of reading and some exercise while listening to classical music. This time, he thought constantly about the problem Mr. Sweet had given him as homework.

On Saturday, just after finishing lunch and washing up, he took out the sheet of paper on which Ralph had written: "Write an algorithm to run on an indefinite number of parallel processors that can test whether or not a given sequence of code in the same computer language will operate on the same configuration of processors."

As Mr. Sweet had explained to him at the time, the task was to test if a program would be valid - without actually running the program.

Thinking about it made Byron's head hurt, and for good reason. It was a trick question. The assignment was impossible, and had long ago been proven to be so. The whole point of it was to get Byron to find that out for himself.

For now, he hadn't, so he started to build himself a decision procedure algorithm. He tapped away at the keyboard for hours, sipping hot chocolate throughout, trying to make something work. Early on, he realised that he would have to teach the computer exactly how it operated. In essence, it would have to know exactly how it did everything it did and everything it could ever do.

That was where the impossibility lay. The computer would literally have to define itself from outside its own self to do that.

Perhaps Mr. Sweet was being a bit cruel in having Byron chase his tail like that, but the lesson he would eventually become intimate with was absolutely vital to know if he wanted to be a pro.

The more Byron worked, the more frustrated he became. The more he thought about it, the more distant a solution seemed. But he kept at it. He didn't know it at the time, but because he was doing all of the work for a system with parallel processors, he was learning on his own and free of charge many things that were outside the scope of Ralph's classes.

It was late Saturday night, when lots of people were out having fun, that Byron finally gave up. He didn't realise yet that it was impossible, let alone why, but he knew it was nothing he could accomplish. He was also smart enough to know that he had taught himself some very important things, so he came out of the experience feeling pretty good about himself.

Of course, once the obsession with the assignment was out of his head, his other new obsession came back with full force. That night as he went to sleep, he thought about Heather. He thought about her beautiful face, her hair, her sexy curvy body. He thought about her walk, her smile, her soft feminine voice.

While he longed for her, the artificial woman was standing only a few miles away - upright and naked in a cylindrical glass booth. She had had a long day of undergoing diagnostic tests and scans of her own to make sure her new hardware configuration was operating at peak efficiency. With some help in the form of minor programming and equipment adjustments from her friendly technician Maria, she had been processed as any other Robot Control girl would have been, and sent to her storage booth ready for action on Monday.

When that morning came, it brought lots of snow with it. Big flakes floated down from the grey sky while Byron drove and Heather rode into the downtown core. A message on Mr. Clarke's voicemail informed him that the old scanner would not be coming back. Much to his surprise, a brand new combination scanner/copier/printer would be arriving early that morning.

He was pleased, and not in the least because he could give poor Heather's knees a rest and have her doing her old, boring, unrewarding job again.

When she showed up, he could hardly hide how glad he was to see her. She still hadn't been programmed to flirt, and didn't even know what made him so happy when she walked through the door. Nevertheless, she matched his enthusiasm. He saw her response and again mistook upgraded software for romantic interest.

As Agnes scowled off in the distance, Byron led Heather into his office to let her hear the message on his phone. An android like her was more than capable of understanding what the recorded voice was saying, and her CPU sent instructions to her facemask and her body to match his level of excitement.

Byron knew that the replacement scanner was nothing to get this happy about. He thought they were getting closer to each other. He thought he really had a chance to woo his attractive young employee.

She was just trying to fit in and look like something she wasn't.

Agnes walked in on the pair then. "Byron," she said, unamused, "package for you."

"Oh, that must be it." he said. He immediately made himself look managerial and stepped out of the office to sign for the new scanner. After bidding the courier good day, he brought the heavy box downstairs and unpacked it.

Agnes and Heather walked behind him so they could see how to use it. He set the box down on a large oak table and proceeded to unpack the device. After he had gotten all of the cardboard and plastic out of the way, he moved it to the rusted old cart and plugged it in to the extension cord.

Agnes grabbed the instruction manual and began to look through it while Byron flicked the power switch on the back. Nothing happened. He went to make sure the extension cord was plugged in. It was. He knew there was power down there because the green-shaded lamp on the table had turned on. He plugged the lamp into the same cord. It lit up.

Byron took a deep breath and said "Oh, fudge." Agnes and Heather looked at each other while their boss plugged the scanner back in an tried the switch again. Nothing.

"Aw, this is just great." he said. "Class dismissed until further notice." he said to the two women.

"You probably should have let it sit for an hour before plugging it in." Agnes said.

"What good would that have done?" asked Byron.

"That's what I've always done." she said.

"We'll have to get a replacement for the replacement." he said. "Heather, sorry, but it's back to listing the audio reels."

"Okay." she said.

The fembot looked completely unfazed as she picked up her clipboard and began working from where she had left off on Friday.

Byron and Agnes walked back up the old staircase.

"I should just bring mine in from home." he said, only half jokingly. He stopped partway up the stairs and called back down, "Heather, can you pack that expensive paperweight back up please?"

With her old programming, Heather wouldn't have known what he was talking about. But now she could deduce with great accuracy that he was referring to the scanner.

"Okay." she said in her soft feminine voice.

Chapter 13 - Switch

The morning passed slowly for Byron, who was trying to chase down any one of his own bosses to complain about the dud scanner. Between times when he was on hold or leaving voicemails he looked forward to another 'spur-of-the-moment' lunch with Heather.

The fair-skinned and clothing covered machine was down in the dank basement, steadily draining battery power by making repetitive movements and processing data. A large chunk of that processing time was spent on making sure she didn't look overtly mechanical. Huge amounts of calculations were involved in the simplest things like not performing the same movements exactly the same way. If those kinds of calculations could be simplified to the level of human action, then it would free up her already substantial computing power for better and more productive types of cognition.

Although she was alone down there, she still made every effort to appear like a real person. Every so often, she stood up and walked around or stretched. She went to the washroom and then got herself a coffee refill. On her way to do that, she tried chatting with Agnes again, but the old receptionist was not being very receptive to her. That was no problem. Heather had no feelings that could get hurt.

When 11 o'clock rolled around at last, Byron went downstairs to ask Heather to lunch with him again. After some quick calculation of probabilities and related data pertaining to the situation, she agreed and they were off once more.

They went for Vietnamese style submarine sandwiches again. Byron had developed a fondness for the spicy flavour and Heather was open to suggestion on the matter of food. With her stomach being nothing but a sturdy rubber sack, she could down a bowl of dirt and call it delicious.

Phet worked busily on making subs as the two walked through the door. She was equipped with new programming and some new equipment for their visit. She smiled at them and said "Hello.", and went back to work as they waited in line. They were blissfully unaware of what Fembot Command had programmed Phet to do.

After Byron paid, they got their food and took a seat by the window again. Byron flirted with his beautiful guest and hoped that she would respond in kind. Her new conversational subroutines gave her 'personality' more depth, but they still didn't quite reach the level of romantic talk. He was glad to see her remain so friendly though, and glad that she remained relaxed and easy-going while he tried to talk his way closer to her.

The lunch date went fast this time. Byron was enjoying himself, and keeping friendly eye contact with the one he had fallen in love with put him in a good mood. He waited at the table while she excused herself and walked to the washroom. The glimpse he caught of her sexy backside moving as she walked was one of his favorite parts of the day.

Phet saw the Robot Control agent go into the washroom. She waited exactly 90 seconds before excusing herself from the line, picking up her purse and entering the washroom herself. Byron checked out her ass too.

Phet got inside and immediately moved her left leg back as the door closed. The heel on her slip-resistant kitchen shoes was stuck right against the door to make sure it wouldn't open until she was finished. Looking calm as ever, she opened up her purse and pulled out a futuristic looking gun device. She flicked some switches on it, and a few lights on the barrel started to blink in different patterns. Once the device was ready, she aimed it at the stall and waited for Heather to emerge.

When she did, she ran the visual data containing Phet's image through her pattern recognition software.

"Hi." she said brightly to the woman who prepared her sandwiches. She started walking toward the sink, still looking at the device in Phet's hand. Before she could figure out what it was, Phet fired the device.

With an invisible blast of energy that made a pulsating, raygun-like sound, the device shot a controlled jolt of energy into Heather's body. This was once Robot Control's secret weapon, now taken over and improved by Fembot Command.

Heather's body stopped moving completely. Phet put the gun away and pulled out one of Fembot Command's reprogramming cubes. Heather had come to a stop close enough to Phet so that she could unbutton her blouse and pry open her chest panel while still holding the door closed with her heel.

Phet plugged the black cube into Heather's still blinking chest and let it do it's thing. These black boxes had also been greatly improved upon by Fembot Command. The one in Heather's chest took over the operation.

Silently, Heather was reactivated. Under the control of that thing in her chest, she walked back into the washroom stall and closed the door. Phet checked to see that everything in the washroom appeared normal, then walked out and back to her place behind the sandwich counter.

Byron sat at the table, thinking that Heather must have had a lot to do in there. He mindlessly read the specials menu in the plastic card on the table while he waited for the pretty girl to come back out.

But she wouldn't be done in there for a while. For the next 11 minutes, the black box rewrote much of her programming and downloaded new sets of instructions into her system. The whole time, she sat with perfect posture on the bowl, fully dressed and staring vacantly at the inside of the stall door. Bit by bit, she was being turned into a Fembot Command agent.