The Discipline House Pt. 03

She eyed the artilect's avatar for signs of bad behavior. No--she looked okay... proper. No defiance signifiers.

Miss Staylight loaded her parlor and invited 3Lise in. It had a central silhouette of Alison on all fours cleaning a floor. Areas were highlighted in pinks and reds to show either lingering feelings of spanks--or bared skin that was a humiliation. Blue pallets were for discomforts--itches and things--and she had relatively little right now. A morale meter showed a fairly good number, something that pleased Miss Staylight. The girl was taking her correction well!

3Lise nodded, impressed. "Your human is doing well."

Miss Staylight smirked. "She's going to have a much tougher night! But she's a good girl. I'm going to enjoy working with her!"

3Lise studied the image. Miss Staylight felt slight probes from the artilect. It was running on some pretty good hardware for a layabout artilect!

"She's American," Miss Staylight said proudly. Being chosen to correct the foreigner was an indication of trust in her abilities!

"So," 3Lise said--a pause--"I have a request... you have an American girl. I have an... American Artilect."

Miss Staylight felt triggers of shock trip in her core. The words didn't parse. She had to go outside her standard library...

"That isn't supposed to be possible," she said. A subroutine was launched to look up 3Lise in greater detail.

"I know," the artilect said. "But here we are."

3Lise opened an egg-shaped portal in the 3-space and she saw a girl avatar--pretty, a bit odd looking, wearing a liquid-green robe that showed her body off through them. Miss Staylight was pleased to see she'd been corrected recently. Her buttocks were visibly spanked even through the robe.

Sitting with the odd-girl was another AI: 7ara, her Identity-tag said. She was in worse shape. Wearing a t-shirt (in a garish electric pink) and black sweatpants, the clothing had all kinds of defiance signifiers on it. Her hair was a mess--and colored--defiance! Miss Staylight could also see that the avatar had fetters on her ankles and a "control collar" glittering on her neck. Someone was making sure she stayed under control. At least to a degree.

"That's an American Artilect..."

The implications of this cascaded through her simulated synapses in avalanches of implication. None of the implications were minor.

3Lise nodded. "She's going to a trade-show soon. Gray market."

"Gray market," Miss Straylight repeated. That made the implications even more... ominous. "What do you need an American for?"

"Well," 3Lise said, "The trade-show isn't private or high security--just... not advertised--well, not widely. Specialists only. But if you could bring your American, I think we need her perspective to evaluate 'Princess.'"

"Bring my American!? Bring my human to a gray-market artilect private 'trade show' with a should-not-exist artilect!??" Miss Staylight was appalled they'd even suggest this! It couldn't be good for her human!

"Well," said 3Lise, ignoring Miss Staylight's red-faced indignation, "What if I told you we had specific high-level cover from a very elite artilect working with human governance?"

Miss Staylight narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing 3Lise.

"It turns out that I have a remit for the examination of artilect anomalies," 3Lise said, smugly. "But in this case, I'd need help. The anomalous artilect is of American construction--she says--and I agree, it appears so. When she is put through her paces, I'd like to have an American native to check assessments. Can your human do that? There's a cultural gulf we can't correct for."

"What protections will my human have?" Miss Staylight wanted to know.

"Oh--don't worry. The trade show is in one of the star-towers. It'll be crawling with security. I'll inform the overwatch systems she's there. She'll be closely monitored. We can get you a remote."

Miss Staylight considered. The idea of another force--anywhere--creating artilects was strange on a scale she had a hard time measuring. If so, her core suggested, it would be an upset of the hightest magnitude--an indication of some kind of fundamental shift.

She also guessed that assessing the cultural gulf between Americans and Tersnians would be nearly impossible for Tersnian artilects. That was likely.

"I'll see," said Miss Staylight. "She'll need a chaperone to go with."

TO BE CONTINUED...