All of My Maids are Robots? Pt. 01

"Received sex?" I asked, cocking my head.

"Oh, uh...what you are," she said, nodding. "It's like Received Pronunciation, but for sex, since, like, rather than being born with your right sex, you gotta go in, and get medicines and such, in the same way a Cockney fellow goes in to get trained to use RP!" She smiles. "It's the term what we all use around here. I think the Indians use something else, but-"

"Why not transgender?" you ask.

"Trans...I..." Jeanette blinked. "That's...that's so much easier to say! Transgender man! Trans man! Trans woman! I..." She laughed. "Oh that's marvelous! So, yes, you have the brain structures we're used to seeing in trans people." She grinned. "But, our Young Master, fer all that he was a hellion and a half, was also as comfortable in his skin as you can possibly think!"

"...that's not what cis stands for," you say.

Jeanette blinked, slowly. "Cis...oh! You mean, liken...the Latin...counterpoint for trans, oh, I see, tarnation that's clever as a half!" She said, cheerfully. "You don't just have better words for trans people, you have better words for...well, calling them normal always felt darn rude..." She looked sheepish. "But, well, no one ever quite came up with anything better..."

I blinked slowly. "I...they don't have...much to...can I get girl pills?"

"Pills!?" She exclaimed. "Good heavens, no. We use an inductive hormonal implant that self regulates and feeds back in a recursive system. It's easily five times faster, n' it takes not a single tweak, since yer body self regulates with it." She smiles. "Add in some elective surgeries, if yer wanting to trade in the stem for a pot and yer ready to debut at the ball in gowns and slippers."

I almost wanted to faint out of my chair.

"Before we discuss that..." A stern voice jerked my attention around to the door. The severe, black face of Marci loomed from the shadows of the corridor and she strode into the room. "We must discuss your other findings, Miss Hope. This is not the young master?"

Jeanette nodded as I sprang to my feet.

"I can explain-" I started.

"Can you?" Marci asked. "I am Marceline Steward, the butler who manages these estates and has managed them for the Young Master ever since his parents died tragically. It has been my duty to see about the management of the estates and, with the assistance of Miss Proctor, to ensure that he was brought up properly. That does not mean I can stand by idly as he is replaced utterly by...a complete unknown? For all we know, you are responsible for his death."

I blinked a few times, opening my mouth, then closing it.

And then, like J.C Denton emerging from the closet in a trench coat and sunglasses...a deus ex machina swooped in.

Specifically, that golden orb I had picked up again after dropping it began to glow from my pocket, throbbing with light and a soft chiming noise. I scrambled and snatched it from my pocket, holding it up. "I came here when, I...this! I was holding this!" I said, nodding quickly as I held it out. The sphere glowed and Marci's eyes widened as she took it in.

"The Curio from the dig on Alpha Cassiopeiae III?" Marci exclaimed.

"The boffins said that it was inert!" Jeanette exclaimed as well.

"It sure as fuck isn't inert now-" I started, but then the sphere began to expand outwards, sweeping open into the flower pattern. And then from it came...my voice. Not the cute, femmy voice that this body had. The macho, rumble of my old body's voice.

"Hello? Hello!?" I sounded petulant. "HELLO!?"

"...hello?" Marci asked.

"Ah, Steward, you're not completely useless this one time since my father pulled you from that lice riddled box you came in," my voice said, snidely -- like, dripping with utter snide contempt. And what was more, it sounded like I was British? Like, me, if I was British as hell. And snooty. "I have ascertained that the curio that my expedition recovered is some kind of...mental transpositive device." He scoffed. "And you told me it was worthless."

"I-" Marci started.

"Be silent," my voice snapped. "If I want a damn machine speaking to me, I'll ask you a direct question or give you a direct order. Now, since you have found this orb, you may have also found my own body, likely containing the mind of whatever...cretinous peasant owned this one." There was a short chuckle. "Though, I admit, it is pleasant to be away from the tiresome requirements of the noble disease." He sighed. "But this world is quite tiresome. It was painfully simple to deceive the rest of this oaf's family to believe that I was taken ill -- apparently some kind of...untreated pandemic is ravaging what they claim to be Earth. Preposterous. Have you met my doppelganger?"

"How...are you contacting us?" Marci asked.

"I did not ask you to ask me inane questions, Stewart!" my own voice grew even more waspy. "Did you see my doppleganger or not?"

"I did, Master, but-"

"Then clap him in irons immediately. Have that useless Fusilier accomplish something other than failing to obey orders at inopportune moments and restrain the peasant. Then all I need to figure out is how to activate the duplicate curio that appeared with me on this end of things, and I can return to my body properly and we can present my findings to the Royal Academy." He chuckled.

"Sir, I-" Marci started.

"Are you questioning my orders, Steward?" My voice was growing increasingly deadly. "I have had it up to here with your prevarications and your snide disobeying. Do you think I am an absolute fool? I have noticed your little side conversations, your whispering campaign with the rest of the staff. I know you are jealous of my drive and ambition -- like the rest of the small, petty minds in the rest of this pathetic excuse for an Empire! Well, I won't HAVE it. You will clap my doppleganger in irons, you WILL activate the device and you WILL bring me home or by the Stars, I will have you SCRAPPED!"

I hadn't thought that a robot's jaw could get tight.

But Marci's was.

"You don't have a choice, you have to obey me, you are my property, machine!" my voice said. "I will not labor in some...peasant refectory and-"

Marci dropped the orb.

Then she stomped on it. The heel of her shoe came crashing down on it and it shattered into a thousand pieces.

Jeanette and I both gaped at her.

"Oops," Marci said, dryly.

I blinked.

And, well, the first thing that popped into my head was: "Y-You're not my property, though, uh, I emancipate you all immediately."

"Of course we're not your property!" Marci said, while Jeanette cried out in horror.

"Don't you dare!" she said.

I blinked. "Huh?"

"Mistress," Marci said, simply. "It is the sixty ninth year of the twenty second century of the common era -- the three hundred forty ninth year of the Industrious Revolution. You are in the solar system -- and your dukedom -- of Burgundy II in the Galactic Concert, a civilization of human and machines that spans all of known space." She took her skirts into her hands, spreading them, and bowing. "And it is my absolute pleasure...to be at your service."

Her eyes showed a hint of humor.

"After all...you literally could not be worse than our alternative."