H is for Heuristic

Byron looked at her and nodded. He watched her pivot exactly 90° and start walking over to the supply cabinets that held the cartridges. He watched her buns wiggle in their obviously mechanical way as she led him over to the other side of the lab. The robot technician's plastic butt was smaller than Heather's, but shaped just as nicely, and very appealing. The absence of a cover for her lighted recharge port was still a little strange to him though.

For a moment, he thought of how Natasha's system would react if he did for her what he had just done for Heather. He could just see her - sitting on the cold concrete floor of the lab, legs spread open, mechanical fingers rubbing her sensor-laden plastic, while her static and vacant face stared out at nothing.

The corner of his mouth raised in a sly half grin as Natasha reached out stiffly to open the supply cabinet.

"How many replacement vaginal lubricant cartridges do you require?" she asked.

"How many?" he thought. He hadn't foreseen this, and decided instantly to take advantage of it.

"How many can you give me at once?" he asked.

"Ten." she said, keeping her blank, lifeless stare focused on him.

"Give me ten." he said.

In a flash, her processors computed and formulated instructions that were sent to her motors and flexors. She bent over to pull out a large aluminum case. She raised it and turned to hand it over to him.

"Please return the empty vaginal lubricant cartridges as soon as possible." she said.

Byron took the case from her cold hand, and immediately felt that the metal briefcase was heavier than he had expected. He let it bring his arm down to rest beside his leg and looked at the artificial woman.

"Thank you, Natasha." he said. He parted with a sardonic remark. "If you were a woman, I'd kiss you."

Natasha stayed unmoving as Byron watched for a response. Finally, he got one.

"That does not compute. I am a woman." the humorless robot said.

Byron chuckled as he walked with the heavy case out of the lab and back up the stairs.

Back in the living room, Heather was still going strong. Her sexy body was shiney with synthetic perspiration, and the smell of all that depleted girl juice filled the air like intoxicating perfume.

"I'm back." he said as he put the case down and sat on the floor beside her.

Heather's simulated breathing was deep and frantic as her hand worked on her artificial pussy. "Get on top of me." she demanded in a breathy half whisper.

Byron had been thinking about what he would do next for several minutes, since before he had gone down into the lab. "Sorry Heather." he said. He swiftly reached out to her opened chest panel and pressed her power button.

The android lady froze, then brought her limbs to rest and made a loud electronic-sounding beep.

The graphic meters displayed on the laptop monitor fell to zero and stayed there as Byron went to get a couple of towels.

Chapter 45 - Complexity

Byron wiped his electronic mate clean and unplugged the cable from her open chest panel. "You hot little dynamo." he said quietly as he stroked her unmoving silicone lips with his fingertip.

Still wide open, her eyes stayed aimed at the ceiling as he picked up the laptop and began methodically searching through and reading the data that had just been collected. There was a lot. When he saw just how much data he would have to sort through, he decided to have lunch first.

He prepared and ate a quick meal alone, watching the supermechanical maidbot go about her routine as he did. By now, he was getting used to seeing her and he could almost come near to appreciating her feminine curves - cloaked as they were by her excessively machine-like appearance. He even wondered what her glossy robot skin would feel like against his. He wondered too about the strange sensation it would be to feel vibrations coming from her loud motors as she beeped, buzzed and clicked beside him.

Still, he need not bother think about any of that, he reminded himself. Heather was the finest rose among all these artificial flowers. And she was his.

But that innocent suggestion to override part of her programming had turned her into an insatiable sex machine, and he didn't want that. He wouldn't be able to keep up. And he knew he couldn't begin to think of a solution to that problem before he had thoroughly gone through the data in that laptop. So he finished lunch fast and left the dishes for the robomaid to clean.

Relaxing on the couch - with the dormant, naked, and now blanket-covered Heather robot at his feet - he started reading code and trying to make sense of it. Berlioz's 'Symphonie Fantastique' played in the background, providing a fitting soundtrack for the day's passionate events and delirious pace.

After a while, it became clear to the captive amateur programmer that his small suggestion had changed the nature of her sexual programming beyond recognition. The values he had told her to override were no longer even present, although they had been replaced with analogues of greater plasticity.

There was no way that two sentences out of his mouth could have restructured her software so completely. The conclusion was inescapable. Heather had changed her own programming.

Byron's mouth fell agape at the realisation. He was stunned. He looked back down at the pretty deactivated girl on the floor, her eyes still focused on the same spot.

He scrolled through more and more lines of test data, and checked more and more lines of programming. He was now so engrossed in his work that he left the CD unchanged for hours after it had ended.

The hour or so that they usually spent outdoors came and went with Byron still analysing the test results and checking her self-written software. He was amazed at its consistency. He would have never believed it was possible if he wasn't looking right at it with his own eyes.

There was another important factor he now recalled. The relatively small bit of software he had crafted for this purpose made the portable computer into an extension of her 'being'. All of that changed programming probably existed only in the laptop he held.

Byron needed to know that for sure, so he put the laptop aside and reactivated Heather. He pressed the red button and waited for the loud beeps and flashing lights.

"Heather robot number 742655A-FC activated." she said mindlessly.

"Diagnostic mode." Byron said simply, loud and clear.

"DIAGNOSTIC MODE." Heather said in an emotionless and robotic monotone.

He pulled the blanket right off her and got to his feet. "Stand up." he ordered.

Heather said nothing, but did as he had told her. In diagnostic mode, she moved stiffly and gracelessly, almost as robotic as the maidbot.

"Sit in the chair next to my desk." he said while pointing.

Heather walked robot-like over to the chair and sat her stiff naked body down in it. With ram-rod straight posture she stared out blankly at nothing.

Byron followed her over and plugged some cables into her chest. Reluctantly, he removed her facemask as well and connected some ports underneath to his computer.

Seeing her this way seriously tested the love for her that he had let grow, but this was the only way he could activate her right now without having her demand constant sexual stimulation from him.

He started to download data from her body to his computer and went to find the maidbot.

She was in that unused bedroom, sorting unused clothes. He walked up to the short-haired blonde and said "Hey, you."

The ultra-mechanical maid whirred and beeped as she turned her pretty plastic head to face him.

"Make me something to eat. Cream of broccoli soup and tuna sandwiches."

She kept on with her clicking and beeping, and the only sign that she had registered his command was that she stiffly turned and walked out the door in her windup-doll-like strut.

He followed her out, watching her shiney plastic butt move through her see-through French maid uniform.

"Who could possibly get aroused by such a display?" he thought as he entered the living room again.

It was getting dark quickly. He put on some Beethoven and some pants and waited for the download to finish.

As he ate the efficiently prepared meal, he scrolled through the freshly downloaded data and verified his hunch. Within Heather, no programming at all had changed. Every line of code was exactly as Fembot Command had written it.

This confirmation was good news. His plan with the laptop was a success. As long as it was connected to Heather's chest, it took over and superseded her original programming. Now he just had to deal with the changes that Heather had made.

He munched on his sandwich and looked at the vacant face of his android companion. He had originally intended to leave the laptop connected to her non-stop, but he wouldn't get any sleep tonight if he did that. He would have to reboot her without it until he found a way to cool down her awesomely powerful and never-ceasing electronic sex drive.

When he was done eating, he disconnected his lady friend from his computer terminal and put her face back on. The way the facemask clicked back in and covered up all of that high-tech circuitry made him feel like she was returning from an absence.

He pressed her power button to reboot her once more, disconnected from her newfound sexuality residing on the hard drive of the laptop.

"Heather robot number 742655A-FC activated." she said again, just as mindlessly as before.

She looked around the darkened room and down at her naked self. "What happened Byron?"

"I ran some tests on you." he said, not realising until now that her readily accessible reconstructed memory files were also only on the laptop.

"I hope I passed!" she said jokingly.

"You passed." he said with a warm smile on his face.

Byron closed her chest panel for her and stood up. "Stand up, dear." he said softly.

She stood up and let him grab both her hands. She reflected his loving smile back to him in the best way her technology allowed.

"I love you." he said. "I don't think I've told you that yet."

She looked at him. She had that lost and confused look come over her face again. She cast her head downward and said "I don't know how to love."

He reached up to her chin and tilted her head gently back up to face him. He beheld his beautiful rose and smiled. "Yes you do. Believe me Heather, you know how to love."

Chapter 46 - Dedicated

In the short silence that followed, as he held on to her soft, life-like face, Heather looked up at her master. Her electronic eyes blinked and scanned his face, and her processors watched for the patterns and changes in his features that were his expressions. He looked proud.

But the reasons for his pride remained thoroughly uncomputable by Heather's processors. She didn't know what kind of things she had been up to for the last half day. Her readily accessible reconstructed memory files were only a digital summary - built up by algorithms that weighted more data to more important or novel events and details - and the memories compiled for the last several hours were nowhere within the pretty fembot's sexy body. All the interesting stuff was on Byron's laptop.

Held within her audio and visual memory banks - deep within her head and behind her realistic eyes - was all the data necessary to reconstruct what had gone on. However, only the Master computing device in the basement had the programming and the power to sort through that mass of binary information. Heather couldn't find out what had made Byron so proud of her even if she wanted to.

So many variables in her software mind went without values to give them meaning as Byron leaned forward and kissed her lips. She responded like she had been programmed to, and like she had done many times. She also prepared her sexual systems for action.

Byron led the android by the hand to his bedroom. Already undressed, she got into position on the bed and watched and waited while Byron took off his few garments. He turned on the small lamp by the bed and turned off the big ceiling light.

He got her cord ready and went behind her to reach down and open her recharge port. The female end of the cord fit securely in place in her back as he uncoiled it and walked over to the wall outlet. That end went into place too, and her power systems adapted instantly to the change. The batteries in her thighs and head switched tasks from providing current to taking it in, and the rest of the electricity went into whichever circuits, wires, chips, conduits and motors requested it.

"We're making good progress, my dear." he said as she recorded and analysed his words and actions.

She didn't know what he meant though, and her Fembot Command programming wasn't sophisticated enough to make her wonder. She just computed the effects of his touch, and ran the sensor data through her CPU like she always did.

He was making love to her differently now. It was a very subtle difference, but her dermal sensors precisely measured the way he caressed her artificial body. Compared to previously collected data, this was new.

As for what was going on in the human's mind, now he couldn't help but think of what went on inside her body - nor did he resist those thoughts. When he made love to her, he always tried to think only of her as Heather. Now, with his mind so full of details of software and hardware, he thought about the experience for what it was.

He inserted his penis into a machine - one covered with plastic that looked and felt like skin - but a machine nonetheless. The human-like device, with legs, arms, eyes, ears, vagina and mouth, reacted a lot like a person - but it was still a robot.

And Byron still loved her. This was almost all he needed in a partner, and he knew he could work to make her programming closer to what he had always dreamed of.

The programming he needed to write the most was on his mind too. And then there was 'Project H', that which his captors wanted him to write.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the android underneath his body. He smiled as he recalled what she was capable of - what she had shown him earlier. She looked back up at him, synthetic love displayed on her face as they made each other wet and hot. The sweet computer was so unaware of what she had done that day.

Byron climaxed, oddly for him, while thinking about her circuitry. He pumped out the last of his load and relaxed on top of her. Right away, he visualised the first lines of code he would need to write to advance the next phase of his project. It would take a lot of work, and a lot of testing, but if all went right he would have her connected to his laptop and his programs again tomorrow. Soon after that, she would be more and more a creature of his design.

But for now, he disconnected from their interface and fell onto the empty part of the bed beside her.

The attractive fembot leaned on to her side, smiled widely and said "My turn on top?"

Byron stroked her breasts and looked into her camera-eyes. He was tired, but he couldn't refuse a pretty lady - plastic or not.

He responded by pulling her on top of him. She spread her legs over his and leaned forward to kiss him. Her sweet smelling light-brown hair tickled his face as she gently kissed and sucked his mouth. Her hard nipples rubbed against his chest, arousing him into action once more.

His hands cupped around her sexy round buns while he thought of programming and machinery again. He felt her tongue play with his while he asked himself what he would want from perfection.

With all that had happened, all that he had done and all that he would do, he wondered now about all that he could do.

Chapter 47 - Loaded Again

When the morning came, Heather awoke Byron. After some more gentle expressions of love from him and some more accurate executions of code from her, she dressed and was on her way to the Basement lab for her daily data exchange session and cleaning.

He had his shower and made breakfast, the whole time worrying that the supercomputer that controlled his fate wouldn't approve of his latest work. His mind never lost track of the peril that was near, even as his comfort level increased by the day.

Downstairs, when the connection between the brown-haired fembot and the powerful console was confirmed, audio, visual, and sensory data collected over the previous 24 hours were dumped into the mainframe.

After the transfer, the Master Computing Device had full access to all that Heather had done and said, and all that she had seen and heard. Much processing time and power was then expended on analysing one particular anomalous moment.

While Byron's electromechanical love sat naked and motionless in the cold examination chair - her facial covering removed now to allow the physical connection from the advanced circuitry in her head to the console - the computer tried to make digital sense out of what had happened.

A simple and direct instruction from the human had led almost instantly to a cascade of substantial changes in the robot's behaviour - contrary to her programming. The Master Computing Device didn't know what to make of it. All settings and configurations within the connected Heather unit were as they should be - all software and hardware was as had been designed and installed.

Just to make sure though, the supercomputer made a series of thorough tests. Those tests on Heather's system and settings lasted well past the time she usually returned from the basement, and the human being upstairs could only grow more worried.

As Byron paced and fidgeted about, all was quiet in the lab - except for the usual inhuman sounds made constantly by all the ceaselessly active consoles. Natasha smiled her meaningless fembot smile at nothing, eternally obedient and perfectly patient as the machine that controlled her did its work.

Heather held her facemask in her lap and flashed her bright LEDs in sequences and patterns that no human could read. She could no more want the supercomputer to hurry up than it could want to be done with the tedious tasks.

From her vantage point off to the side, Natasha read and calculated what each flash of Heather's exposed LEDs signified. She could do that without looking directly at the display, as long as it was somewhere in her field of vision. Natasha detected no errors in the relay of data between humanoid robot and console computer as she simultaneously watched two monitors full of quickly streaming binary code in addition to Heather's lights.

There was so much going on inside all of these machines, so strongly contrasted by their relative silence and lack of movement.

Upstairs, Byron waited... and worked, and waited, and had lunch. Heather was still in the basement in the afternoon, and the poor human had the feeling that he had been caught doing something wrong.

So his relief was only partial when she came back up the stairs, activating again the programs and sub-programs that made her look real.

"What took you so long?" he said as he got up from his work and strode over to hold her.

As he did, she computed the meaning of his words, accessed the appropriate memory files and responded "The Master Computing Device ran extra tests on me today."

He left it at that. He didn't want to know what kind of tests they were or how they had turned out. He was just glad she was back with him, and glad he wasn't in any immediate trouble.

"Let's step out then." he said as he prepared to be harnessed again to her for their almost daily bout of snowshoeing.

Heather smiled and took her end of the harness from him so she could strap and lock it around her waste. With coats, hats, gloves and finally the snowshoes on, they stepped outside into the very cold air and walked off in search of a path they had not yet taken.