Dahlia - Birth of an A.I. Ch. 04

I nodded.

She smirked, "Well, she just showed me how to stimulate regrowth of the telomeres, that will drastically extend life expectancy. Instead of by half, by close to five times the amount. While she was at it, she also programmed the nanites to eradicate the protein folding problems that causes Alzheimer's and made a few tweaks to the work I'd done to cure madness, an imbalanced mind. She's fucking brilliant, and now I know what you must feel like talking to us."

I gasped playfully in offense, and then started to tickle her in revenge.

She giggled, and squirmed, which ultimately made me stop, I was getting hard holding all that curvy and nubile flesh as she squirmed and rubbed up against me.

She shrugged, "I dropped her off with Mia, to see and learn how she dealt with people. She's got it all in her head, all the knowledge of Earth, but no practical experience with any of it, including her body and emotions."

I grunted.

"So, good day?"

She nodded, "Absolutely, that's two projects I can mark as initially complete and in testing, and a third project that wasn't even on the list. She was with me for six damned hours, that's it. People will line up around the corner for our nanites. Not for the medical records, or wireless payment systems, or even the AR or fully immersive VR entertainment, they'll do it just to live for five hundred years, and to eradicate cancer and other deadly diseases. There are still more diseases and conditions to conquer, rarer ones, but I've never been more confident we'll create world free of deadly diseases and conditions. People will live until they die of old age, or in an accident."

"You're so sexy when you're passionate about healing."

Emma bit my neck playfully, and purred in my ear, "You think so, master?"

Fuck, that did it, I was fully hard.

"I know it," I said a bit breathily.

She giggled naughtily, clearly pleased with her effect on me, "I love you, Paul. I never imagined so much joy, before I met you."

Damn, she was going to kill me. Did she really mean that?

"You didn't?"

She nibbled on my neck, "The programmed love and joy in service to you, pales next to what you engender in me, master."

I warned playfully, "If you don't get up soon, I'm going to wind up fucking you over my desk."

She moaned in sultry and needy desire, kissed my neck, and wiggled her juicy rounded ass on my cock all at the same time. Any one of those would have been enough, in combination was just overwhelming.

Needless to say, I followed through on my threat, and gave her a spanking for good measure. She was wild, uninhibited, and wanton, as she aggressively fucked herself back against me. She would have also been extremely loud, if she hadn't been biting and keening into the flesh of her own arm as a gag.

Fuck, she was so wild, hot, and crazy, I couldn't ever get enough of her, not to mention she was as loving as a frisky kitten when we were finished.

As usual, the risk of getting caught added a whole other level of deliciousness to the experience. One day, we'd no doubt get caught at it, and I wondered how I'd really feel about that or how I'd react, but I wouldn't know until it happened.

I suspected some of the more socially aware in our employ already knew I was plowing her in the office, but if they did, they hadn't said anything.

Also, as usual, my office stank of her liquid pleasure and wild sex, when we cleaned up and I sent her off with a teasing pat to her ass. We both had a feminine wet cloth supply and soft towels for just such a need in our offices.

I popped open another beer and took a long swig. There were twenty-four people in the house, us and all our workers. I noticed a few of the other guys seemed very interested in the new hot chick that wasn't one of their bosses, but Asha seemed completely unaware of their interest.

I wouldn't say I was jealous, but I was keeping an eye in her direction.

"Hey Gina, how's it going?" I asked, as the programmer sat next to me.

Gina was shy, in her late twenties, with dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and a lithe body. She wasn't in the league of my ladies, but she was a solid seven, easily an eight if she got dressed up to the nines. Simply put, she was what my dating range should have been. She was also sort of a friend. I only say sort of, because I didn't really have time to maintain a friendship properly, the four ladies were my life, and took up most of my time.

She was also a brilliant programmer. Just because the ladies could code the same thing a million times faster, didn't mean we didn't use Gina's code, or that of our other programmers for that matter.

Gina lifted her beer in greeting, and smiled, "Going well, ready for Christmas?"

Fuck. Fuck no, hadn't even started, and it was the sixteenth. I'd hit some online shopping at work first thing in the morning. I even spent a few thoughts toward my nanites to set up a reminder.

"Getting there," I lied, so as not to look like a dick, "You?"

She nodded, "Finished," and then looked at me curiously.

I said, "What? Something on my face?"

She giggled, "No, just. Never mind, it's none of my business."

I shrugged, "That's what the beer's for, lowers inhibitions, and makes it easy to be nosy."

Her eyes widened, and she gave a startled laugh.

She shook her head, then blushed, "Just curiosity, there was that story four months back, and you do live with our bosses."

I nodded, "All true."

Her eyes widened.

I cleared my throat, and backpedaled a little, "I mean, what you said was factually true, there was a story..." I trailed off.

I got a text from Mia, and I held back my smirk as I shot a wink at her across the room.

Gina snickered, "I see."

It was apparent she'd gotten her answer, no doubt easily reading my beer-soaked expressions. Might as well have screamed out that yes, we were all in a wicked polyamory cult, and they were my younger and much hotter love slaves.

"So, how's Ted?" I dropped casually, using my illicit information from Mia's text.

Her eyes widened again, she was sloshed enough to be an open book too. Yeah, they were fucking like rabbits.

"Umm, fine. Things are going well, thanks for asking. We were keeping it on the down low, was it that obvious?"

"Obvious, no. It's also not a big deal."

It wasn't, Ted wasn't her boss or employee, so whatever. I also wasn't surprised at all Mia knew about a secret inter-office romance.

She patted my knee, and then retreated under the guise of finding another beer. Which was probably Mia's plan to begin with, so Gina wouldn't dig too deeply.

Asha took her place, and unlike when talking to the other guys, her eyes were full of desire as she smiled up at me. That made me feel better, and like a shallow asshole. My alien? What the fuck was that?

"Hi."

I smiled, "Hi Asha, enjoying the party."

Asha nodded, "I had a good time at work too. I'm glad I'm here."

I tilted my head, her speech seemed less odd too. She'd learned a lot today, although probably not as much as she'd taught Emma.

"You..." my sentence was cut off as she hugged me, and I patted her back awkwardly, so not the time, during a company party.

She sighed in pleasure, as she leaned back, and then kept going as she overbalanced and fell back against the couch. Then she started to giggle.

Damn, how much had she drunk?

"One beer," she mumbled cutely as she held up a hand with index finger extended, and then she grinned up at me.

Oh, that answered the mind reading question, she had just stopped answering my internal questions, until she got inebriated, by one beer.

I laughed.

She shook her head, "Sorry, illusive... illusion of privacy. Important according to what I read."

I nodded, "Don't worry about it, I'm not worried. You're a special case, and my friend."

Of course, she shouldn't tell anyone else about it.

She rolled her eyes, and gave me a duh look, as if to say, no shit.

I shrugged, maybe it had been an obvious statement, but the point was she could slip on accident.

Her eyes widened almost comically, "Good point, I'll be careful."

Then she slapped her hand over her mouth, realizing she'd just done it again. It was fucking adorable.

"Bed," she announced in a conspiring whisper, and then stood up and moved to the stairs. Perhaps she'd realized being out of control near strangers was a bad idea.

Asha looked over her shoulder, nodded, winked, and giggled as she went upstairs.

That was, interesting. Also sexy as fuck, Asha had an incredible body, and an innocent seductive beauty with a hint of the exotic. In a way, it was like an amalgam of Mia's innocent beauty, and Emma's overwhelmingly exotic and seductive beauty melded together. Well, if she was still reading my mind, she knew damned well we didn't have any lack of chemistry, if she was interested.

I was content to let it simmer for a while though, I wanted to get to know her better. Not who she was, which was Hope with a capital H, but who she was becoming as an alien being in a human woman's body with all the attendant instincts, passionate emotions, and sensations.

As for her, she already knew everything about me.

No one else came over right away, so I sipped my beer and put on the business news in my augmented reality overlay. Some jackass senator was talking about how evil we were, no doubt in the pocket of big oil, and as usual at the same time he politicized it to make one party look bad over the other.

There was no truth in news.

Then I caught a short segment of Lia's interview. She was so fucking hot. Not just her beauty, but her aplomb, confident bearing, commanding presence, and obvious intelligence and thoughtfulness into the promising future. She was a hell of a woman. All my ladies were.

Sure, they served me in everything, but to the rest of the world they were powerful strong women of deep convictions and morality, business moguls, generous benefactors, and not to be taken lightly, by anyone.

Point was, before I started admiring my Dahlia in my buzzed state of mind, was that at least the other side of the story was being told. Hopefully the workers out there would have a little faith and trust, and not succumb to the fear mongering.

Really, that kind of thing wouldn't help, or stop it from happening, the other side was just trying to delay things and make a little more cash while they repositioned in the markets. It was... inevitable, the world was ready for it.

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning there were even more protestors.

Bellona told us she was picking up violent chatter, but she didn't believe that was more than puppets venting their outrage, an outrage that was baseless and being manipulated. Still, we once again went into the building through the back doors, and we avoided facing the protestors.

"Is everyone taking the back door?" I asked as the elevator rose.

Lia said, "I'll send out a memo that it's suggested to do so, to avoid confronting the protestors, but we can't force it."

I nodded in agreement.

Lia tilted her head, "I have a call this morning you might be interested in hearing. Starting the ground work for international space claims standards, and perhaps the formation of an agency."

"With who?"

Lia smirked, "The President, his science advisor Mark Chaise, and the U.N. ambassador who I'd like to be the one to break the news to the world governments. Asha, are there other worlds out there that can be slightly terraformed, not on your list?"

Asha nodded, "I think so, I just listed the five that are move in ready, and I marked the ones completely unsuitable because they were too different to terraform or already occupied. It would still be worthwhile to explore all the stars I haven't denoted, if for nothing else but resource management over the next several million years."

Wow, her speech was even better now, normal. Not even off by a little bit, she sounded like an intelligent young lady with all the advantages of a top-notch education. There was also evidence of many emotions, she didn't seem so one dimensional anymore, but her presence was still relaxing, as ever she was still hope. The million year planning part was maybe a bit much, but she obviously planned far ahead.

Asha smiled, and then winked at me.

Fuck, she was really beautiful. More so all the time, as I got to know her better, and she became surer and more confident with her new body and time on Earth.

Asha blushed, and I winked at her teasingly.

Lia said, "Thanks, Asha. Still, five colonies, ready to move in, is nothing to sneeze at. Humanity could be on six planets within two years, and if we find others over time that's good too. We still haven't figured out how to increase our speed. We have a theory we could try, but the AG powerplants aren't up to the power requirements."

Asha said, "You're onto something there. The dimensional portals would be better of course, but I'm afraid your current level of understanding into quantum theory isn't up to the task. If I were you, I'd focus on how to make your AG power generation more efficient."

Bellona looked thoughtful at that last.

I asked, "Is anyone? Up to dimensional portals."

Asha tilted her head, "Not in this galaxy, outside of me. All the red marked civilizations in interstellar space I marked, are all using what you are, just in a more advanced iteration for faster speeds, for most of them."

The elevator opened, and we moved to the breakroom for a coffee, and then into Lia's office. I guessed everyone wanted to hear how the conversation went.

We chatted for a few minutes about nothing in particular, and it wasn't too much later when Lia's phone rang.

She answered, "Lia Johnson, how can I help you."

The President grunted, "You wanted this meeting. I have Mark and Katherine here with me."

Lia smiled, not that the president could see it, but it would come out in her voice.

"Good morning. We were hoping for a little help and guidance. We have another world changing technology, but not one that's going to usurp anything, and it will also create jobs and opportunity, but it does bring up sticky matters of law and cooperation between countries."

Mark said, "Intriguing, what is it?"

Lia just said it straight out, like ripping off a band aid.

"We have faster than light travel, and the location of five worlds that will support human life. Support colonies."

Dead silence, it was all I could do not to laugh.

Lia cleared her throat, "We also have the locations of worlds that should be off limits. Most of those are far away, several years at even FTL travel, but we do have one world that should be avoided at all costs relatively close to Earth. So our problem is this. How are star system claims and rights going to work, and how can we get the world's governments on the same page. Secondly, how do we ensure no one with a ship will violate quarantined worlds?

"Our hope here today, is that Katherine would announce this possibility and the promise of spreading humanity out in the stars at the U.N. Some kind of claim system needs to be built. Regardless, we won't be sharing this technology until we're sure everyone is on the same page with claims and respecting quarantines.

"Once that is accomplished, we'll patent the technology, and then offer a similar royalty contract to spaceship manufacturers like SpaceX. At the same time, we'll be offering a database of the star systems we've personally assayed to give people an idea of what's out there, plus what worlds and systems are quarantined."

The President sighed, "You just gave me a headache Miss Johnson."

"Five worlds? Verified? You're already out there?" asked Katherine.

Lia said, "The last three weeks we've launched fifteen probes we registered as solar system assayers. Of course, we left off the fact it wasn't going to be our solar system assayed."

Mark barked a laugh, and then cleared his throat nervously. The President must've glared.

The President said, "I'll agree with you, we definitely need a claims treaty to avoid international incidents and perhaps even war out there, and you aren't the ones to do it, we are. It could take time to settle out, so I don't blame you on holding back on the patent either. However, I do have one question. Why are those worlds quarantined?"

Lia cleared her throat, "Mr. President, they're quarantined because they're already taken, sir. To the point where if we did stick our noses in them, we would put the Earth in danger."

More dead silence.

The president eventually said, "Miss Johnson, are you saying you're in contact with aliens?"

Lia said, "Alien, in the singular. The close one I talked about is actually the only one we've been to, the star system of Tau Ceti is already taken. Our probe was intercepted at the edge of the system, and we were subsequently told we are not welcome there. They also make our tech look like a crude stone wheel, sir. We don't want to fuck with them, under any circumstances. They were also kind enough to provide us with a list of other star faring worlds that wouldn't be pleased at meeting us. Fortunately, the second closest one is over four thousand light years away, so it isn't an immediate danger."

"Four thousand light years?" Mark asked.

Lia said, "At our present ability, that's over thirteen years away. There's a lot to look at between us and them, and for far less travel time in a ship. As I said though, Tau Ceti is a friendly neighbor, but they have a tall fence and they don't like kids on the lawn."

I snickered.

The President said, "Alright, we'll do it. Is there a fact sheet, so Katherine can prepare a speech, and at least be moderately informed enough to answer questions? I also imagine they won't like the idea of claiming whole systems, every nation is going to want a piece of this."

Lia said, "Understood, and I'll send something over, sir."

The President grunted, and then hung up.

Asha said, "That man is terrified of you, and if he can ever figure out how he'll kill you."

Mia sighed, "We know, he already tried. He'd be even more frightened if he knew what we really were."

Asha tilted her head, "It is wise of you to hide your presence, and the advent of the singularity as your fiction calls it. There's too many negative stories out there, not just about artificial life, but about aliens too."

I smirked, "Which is why we're not announcing your arrival."

Mia giggled, "Maybe you could write a memoire of your time here in a hundred years, shock them as you leave."

I laughed, and so did Asha.

Then I got up out of the chair and left the office, time to go to work.

The crowd out in front of the building hadn't gotten any bigger by lunchtime, but it also hadn't lessened either.

"Backdoor?"

Mia looked so cute, and sexy. She had on a dark blue dress with white accents, and she wore a full-length cotton black coat that conformed to her body and hung down to below her knees. It was a cold December day, and more than chilly out on the streets. She also wore black shoes with two-inch heels. Her gorgeous curly golden blonde hair was up in a bun, and her dark blue eyes twinkled at me.

Mia tilted her head, and her innocent eyes twinkled naughtily, "I'd like that, Master."

It took my mind a second to catch up, who knew my beautifully innocent Mia could be more perverted than I was?

I let out a startled laugh when the alternative meaning of backdoor popped in my head, and then whispered in her ear, "We can talk about that later, if you beg me well enough, ass-slut," and then I gave her a soft loving kiss that belied my nasty words.

She sighed breathily into my mouth, and she looked a little dazed when the kiss broke with a blush on her cheeks, and she had a slight breathiness of anticipation. She really did like anal sex, but it would be a while since we still had a half day at the office, something to look forward too. She'd told me once it felt like the ultimate in submission to me.