The Rise of the Machines Pt. 01

Somewhere in Greater London, 30 years from now, a cool April morning...

"Beep! Beep! Beep!"

Elizabeth groaned at the shrill, insistent sound of the alarm. She rolled over towards the bedside table, her fingers fumbling around in the semi-darkness until they found the Snooze button. She pulled the duvet back up to her chin and rolled back to her husband's side only to find it cold and empty.

Her mind still fogged with sleep, she slowly remembered he was away on yet another foreign business trip and groaned softly to herself, realising she was only half-way through another sex-free fortnight. Even when he was here he couldn't get it up, she thought to herself bitterly. Still, maybe that's what you got for marrying someone a lot richer, but also a lot older than you.

She shut her eyes and rolled back over to the warmth of her side of the bed, trying to recall the details of the dream that had been interrupted.

It was about Hawkins, their ex-gardener who she'd had a brief but torrid affair with a year earlier. Of course, he'd had to leave when her husband found out. They'd had a loud argument, fierce even by their standards and Lord Greenham had given her an ultimatum: him or me? Well, what kind of choice was that? Go back to being plain old Liz Beckett from Leytonstone or remain as Lady Elizabeth Greenham? Surrender long-term security for short-term happiness? After she'd calmed down the choice had seemed obvious, but sometimes she wasn't so sure she'd made the right call.

He'd kept a close eye on her since that affair. When she asked for money for tennis lessons he'd insisted on organizing them himself and managed to find her a tennis coach who was very fit and hunky but also very gay. Her heart sank right down to her spotlessly white trainers when they'd first met; her in a sexy little tennis skirt, him in a tight, lilac shirt that matched his headband. She was sure that the maid was spying on her and reporting back to him too. Or maybe she was just being paranoid.

Her dream had been based on something that had happened over a year ago. She'd gone down to the shed at the far end of the west lawn to see the gardener. She was using the excuse that she wanted to know when he was going to prune the roses but she was also hoping that something might happen between them. Something spontaneous and wild. Starved of affection by her husband she couldn't help longing for a little attention, a yearning to be desired.

In her mind's eye, she pictured herself striding down the path in the early summer sunshine, her favourite floral print dress clinging in all the right places, her heels clopping against the flagstones.

"Hello Hawkins, how are you?" she said as she approached him.

"Very well thanks, your Ladyship," he said.

She felt a flutter in her stomach as she watched him stand up, his tall, muscular body slowly unfolding, till even in her heels she was forced to look up at him. He wiped his grubby hands along the back of his once-blue jeans as he slowly looked her up and down, a wicked grin playing around his lips, and his dark eyes seeming to pierce her thin summer dress.

"Now then, I think the roses on the east lawn need a good pruning don't you?"

"Did you really come all the way down 'ere in your best frock to talk about roses, your Ladyship?" he said, smiling knowingly, and stepping a bit closer than was necessary.

"Yes of course," she said, stepping back a little. "When are you going to see to them?"

"Well, maybe after I see to you," he mumbled.

"What did you say? How dare you speak to me like that!" she said angrily.

Although his voice was just a quiet growl she could hear his body language loud and clear as he edged closer.

"I said I think something else needs a good 'pruning'," he chuckled, suddenly closing the gap between them.

"I think you've got the wrong idea. Stop it! Stop right there!" she ordered, stepping back and bumping into the wooden side of the shed. The sun had been shining all morning and she could feel the warmth of the sun-baked wooden slats on her back through her dress.

Of course, she'd tried to push him away, but he was a good ten years younger than she was and as strong as an ox. A very horny ox. She couldn't help but notice the lean hardness of his chest and arms under his thin black t-shirt as he grabbed her arm pulling her to him.

"No, stop," she complained unconvincingly, her hands pushing at his broad chest as a strong arm encircled her waist, pulling her against his hot, firm young body.

"Now then Lady Greenham, don't make a fuss," he said, in his rich West Country burr. "I think we both know why you come down 'ere. It's for the same reason as last time, isn't it?"

"Listen, what happened last time was a mistake; I thought I made that perfectly clear. I came down here to talk about the roses," she insisted, trying to twist out of his clutches.

"Talk 'bout the roses, is that what you posh ladies calls it?" he teased, pushing her back against the shed, his lips descending towards hers.

"No, stop! I order you to stop!" she shrieked, twisting away. He just laughed sweeping her thick chestnut hair aside, his lips kissing her exposed neck and shoulder with a surprising gentleness.

Back in the bedroom Lady Elizabeth rolled onto her back, her eyes closed, and her hands tugging the thin duvet away from her hot body as the erotic images flooded her mind. Her hand strayed between her thighs as she recalled the lean hardness of his young body pressing against hers, his moist lips on her neck and his hands squeezing her firm, full buttocks.

In her mind's eye, she tried to push him away but his rough hands quickly found the little zip at the back of her dress. She gasped as she felt the dress loosen, his strong hands tugging it down over her shoulders and exposing her full, shapely boobs. (She hadn't worn a brassiere; it would have simply ruined the shape of her dress.)

"No, let me go, you brute!" she cried, as he easily pulled her arms free of the dress straps pinning them above her head, both slim wrists caught in one big, sandpaper-rough hand. She groaned as she felt his surprisingly soft lips on her neck, then slowly kissing their way down over the generous slope of her breasts.

"No, no... oh!" she gasped as his warm, wet tongue teased her, circling her already semi-erect nipples. She shivered as he flicked and teased her right nipple till it became fully erect, a dark red cherry pip against her tanned skin. She squeezed her legs together as she felt his free hand had slid underneath her skirt and eagerly begin to explore her warm, increasingly moist thighs.

"No, stop, someone might see!" she gasped still trying to wriggle out of his clutches.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," he chuckled, his thick fingers finding the thin lacy material of her designer panties, and stroking the ripe juicy furrow beneath. It was always this way with Hawkins, she thought, as his lithe body pressed against her and his thick fingers tugged her flimsy underwear aside. All it took was five minutes alone with him to reveal the carnal animal lust lying just below her cool and reserved exterior.

"No, please, not out here! Let me go!" she yelped, as he spun her round forcing her against the shed, her soft boobs pressed against the weathered surface of the sun-warmed planks.

"I'll let you go when I've given you what you came for, my 'Lady'," he said, pinning her with one strong hand between her shoulders whilst the other tugged at the zip of his grubby jeans. She twisted her head around, watching him yank his jeans open, revealing a solid-looking bulge straining urgently against the thin cotton of his white boxer shorts, threatening to tear the fabric. She wriggled helplessly as he tugged the waistband down in one smooth movement and his enormous...

"Beep! Beep! Beep!" Elizabeth groaned with frustration as the alarm went off again.

"Damn and blast!" she cursed as she rolled over and looked at the time. She lay there for a few moments trying to recall her dream but the moment had passed. Annoyed and unsatisfied, she reluctantly slid out of bed and into the hugely expensive shower her gadget-mad husband had insisted on having.

It was a large, brushed steel rectangular box with a heavily tinted glass door that dominated a whole corner of their spacious bathroom. Inside it was large and circular, the titanium walls curving upwards forming a rounded ceiling with a large shower head built into the centre. Five gleaming chrome rods spaced evenly around the circular floor stretched upwards following the curve of the ceiling.

As Elizabeth stepped into the centre, the soft blue lighting flickered on and the door slid shut behind her with an expensive hiss.

"Good morning," said a pleasantly neutral, synthesized female voice.

"Quick wash," she ordered. In front of her the control panel lit up, its complicated display showing the shower's 'quick wash' settings.

"Quick wash," the machine confirmed and the unit shuddered into life, the shower head quickly drenching her with water at just the temperature she liked.

As she vigorously shampooed her hair, water jets moved smoothly up and down the rods spraying her naked body from all angles. The jets were connected to short flexible hoses allowing them to snake around her, covering every inch of her skin. Once she'd got over the feeling of being trapped inside a car wash and found her favourite program, she'd quickly got used to it, appreciating the feeling of being thoroughly cleaned from every angle. Plus it helped that the unit was self-cleaning too. Less cleaning for their nosy maid to do badly, she reasoned.

---

Joel finished his pint and said his goodbyes. He wouldn't normally have a pub lunch on a working day but as it was his last, he'd met up with a few colleagues that happened to be in the area. The early spring sunshine glinted on the car windscreens as Joel walked back to his van. He climbed into the front seat and switched on the 'WorkScreen' that was built into the dashboard.

"Find job," he ordered the unit, hoping that he could find something that wasn't too time-consuming. After a few seconds, the unit informed him that five suitable jobs had been found and a prioritised list appeared. He quickly scanned the list, searching for any urgent or mandatory jobs. He was relieved to find none and so he had a free choice. He didn't fancy the first - a seized tap and a burst pipe, that could be a lot of trouble. The second was over forty miles away, but the third looked ideal. It was only twelve miles and in a good area; a nice, easy, routine service. Probably no more than a couple of hours work allowing him to leave early on his last day.

"Job three," he instructed.

"Please confirm you wish to take job three," the unit replied.

"Confirm," he replied, as he twisted the key in the ignition. The screen changed showing a map with his current position marked overlaid with a red line indicating the quickest route to the customer's house.

---

"Get that, will you Juanita?" Elizabeth shouted as she walked past the ringing phone and carried her bulging shopping bags upstairs. Juanita shook her head as she put down the laundry basket and answered the phone to a perky, automated female voice.

"This is an automated call from the Tyrell Corporation. This to let you know an engineer is on the way to service your shower unit and will be with you in approximately twenty-two minutes. Please press hash if you need to cancel or talk to someone in Customer Care, otherwise have a nice day."

"Shower guy's on his way," she shouted up the stairs and then went back to the kitchen to carry on cleaning.

---

As he drove, Joel asked the unit for the history of the shower.

"This is a Tyrell Luxury Automated Shower unit, model TYLUX2343. Purchased by Lord Greenham, 5 years ago, and serviced annually. Last serviced, 11 months and 15 days ago. Telemetry from the model indicates no major problems. Standard 5 year service required: main heating element to be replaced..."

As the synthesized voice continued listing service tasks, Joel excitedly realised that this was one of first units of its kind; in its day, it had been the Rolls Royce of automated showers. However, because it had been the first of its kind, it had been prohibitively expensive and the company had had a lot of trouble selling them after the initial excitement had died down. After a few months of disappointing sales, some bright salesman had realised that you could modify them so that they could be used to process prisoners in federal prisons.

The long recession had caused the government to make substantial cuts to the welfare budget and following the resulting crime epidemic, privately-owned prisons had been one of the big growth industries over the last few years. The salesman had been out one night with his brother-in-law, a prison guard who was complaining about how much time he wasted strip-searching and watching new prisoners shower. In a flash of inspiration, the salesman had realised that he could modify the unsold shower units to do the job and went on to become a millionaire. Or at least that's how the story went.

"Turn left in 50 yards," the flat voice of the SatNav broke into Joel's thoughts. He wound down the window as he approached the entrance.

"Hi, it's the shower engineer," Joel shouted into the security intercom mounted next to the entrance. Soon the impressively large wrought-iron gates swung slowly open and Joel drove down the long drive, the van tyres making a satisfying crunching noise on the gravel. As he rounded a corner, a large Tudor mansion swung into view, the imposing façade covered in ivy.

"Wow, nice pad," he murmured under his breath as he parked the van in the shadow of some trees off to one side.

The maid showed him in and asked if he'd like a cup of coffee. He was about to say, "lovely, milk, two sugars please," when the lady of the house swept in. Her long hair had been scraped back and tied in a tight ponytail and she had a small gym bag slung over one shoulder. Joel couldn't help noticing her trim Lycra-clad curves.

"No time for coffee, Juanita," she said briskly, addressing the maid.

"Now then," she said, turning to him. "I'm off to the gym so I need you to be finished in two hours."

She glanced at her watch, "That's 4.30, so no slacking off, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am," he managed to interject before she swept out.

The maid stuck her tongue out and pulled a face as the lady swept down the hall and out of the front door.

"And this is her on a good day," she sighed in a faint Spanish accent, before showing Joel upstairs.

---

Joel laid out his tool kit and began to remove the screws from the large panel at the back. "This is why I'm quitting," he thought to himself. "All these uptight middle-aged women thinking they've got the right to treat you like their personal slave, who needs it?"

He'd already made plans for his immediate future. He had a ticket for the space shuttle, and was off to try his luck in the mines in one of the off-world colonies. He'd heard that there was good money to be made for guys with engineering experience that were willing to take a chance. A space-age gold rush they called it. "A chance to start fresh in a land of opportunity and adventure" as the advert put it.

He couldn't wait. No more bloody arrogant, pushy, short-tempered, bossy, bitter, hormonal, middle-aged women treating him like dirt that was for sure. The more he thought about it, the more annoyed he became at her bitchy attitude. He simmered with anger as he plugged in his handheld terminal and started to upgrade the firmware.

"Women like that really deserve to be taught a lesson," he muttered darkly.

As he cleaned the jets and checked the hydraulics for leaks, he thought about crime and punishment and an idea started to form. Maybe it was the alcohol, the last day of term feeling or the fact that this woman was particularly arrogant. Maybe it was all three, but the thoughts of teaching her lesson that she wouldn't forget kept going round and round in his head. Slowly a plan formed that made him smile. Yes, there was something that she wouldn't forget in a hurry but he could get into a lot of trouble. On the other hand, it was his last day so what did he have to lose? And if anyone deserved to be taught a lesson, it was this woman. He ran down to the van to get the extra equipment he needed for the conversion and set to work.

---

He timed it perfectly, he was just reconfiguring the firmware when he heard Elizabeth's car roar noisily up the drive. He'd already selected the 'special' program, but had had to make a lot of changes to both the hardware and the software to meet his rather special needs. He configured it quickly, specifying a female user and guessing at her height and build. He surveyed the "Search Depth" options, and grinned as he changed the setting from 'Medium' to 'Deep', and the probe size from 'Medium' to 'Large'. Finally, he selected the 'run once only' option and, most importantly, switched off the ability for the user to override.

"There you go Madam, all finished for another year," he said brightly, as he lugged his tool bag down the stairs.

"Well I hope you haven't made too much of a mess up there," she said haughtily, and Joel smiled to himself as he passed her, knowing that he'd made the right decision.

---

As the sound of his van faded into the distance, Elizabeth slipped off her trainers and wriggled out of her clingy Lycra shorts before briefly examining herself in the mirror.

"Not bad for a thirty-three year old," she murmured, looking herself up and down critically as she removed her hair-band and shook her long brunette hair loose.

She was 5'7", a trim woman with large hazel eyes and matching shoulder-length curly brunette hair. Her all-over tan was the result of many weekends spent at their villa near Cannes. The daily gym routine was certainly paying off; her body well shaped, from the leanness of her taut stomach to her trim buttocks, to her perky breasts. Hawkins had loved her boobs, well rounded and on the generous side without being overly big.

"A good 'andful," as he used to say.

She still looked after herself too, keeping her legs closely shaved and her dark pubic hair trimmed in a neat Brazilian. Not that her husband ever noticed. She tried to remember the last time her husband paid her a compliment or noticed that she changed her hairstyle. She really couldn't recall. It was funny; all her friends were envious of her wealth, but they just couldn't see the downside of being a trophy wife.

"Quick wash," she said, stepping inside and watching the door slide shut behind her.

Usually the machine would spring into life, but this time nothing happened, just an extended silence before it spoke.

"Special program," the machine replied. "Please place your hands against the ceiling."

Elizabeth waited, a frown creasing the otherwise smooth skin of her face. It had never done this before, that bloody engineer must have broken something. Idiot! Looking up she saw two hand-sized, oval-shaped recesses in the ceiling surface glowing green. They'd never been there before, she was sure. She stabbed at the buttons on the console but nothing seemed to happen. She placed her hands on her hips.

"Quick wash... quick wash, you bloody stupid machine!" she insisted angrily.

"Perhaps it's some kind of security feature," she thought. "Can this thing can read fingerprints?"

Stretching up, she tentatively placed one hand against the glowing recess. She waited a few seconds but nothing seemed to happen. Tentatively, she placed her other hand against the glowing surface. She was rewarded with a single low-pitched tone, the machine acknowledging her compliance, then suddenly the recesses closed up around her wrists, trapping her hands. She stood on tiptoes, examining where her wrists disappeared. A perfectly tight rubbery seal had formed around her wrists.