The Lure of the Fembots

James Haverstein III, research and production director for the Serious Cybernetics Corporation, bit down on his cigar end. The sharp suited woman next to him looked across with mild distaste but said nothing. Amanda Howard from the company's legal team was used to working with board members she didn't much like but Haverstein's cigar habit, even if he didn't light up in the office was repellent. "You are joking, I assume," Haverstein snapped at the young engineer standing in front of him in the board room.

"No sir, Mr Haverstein," Chris Adney wasn't sure which was worse, hiding out to escape from the prowling fembots or having to talk to his boss about their problem and what he saw as th eonly solution. "I really think that we need to cut off power to the lab if we are going to avoid a real problem."

"Your realise if we cut power to the lab that also cuts power to the production line for the series B units? Don't you think that stopping the production of the series B units isn't a 'real problem'? The entire sales team has spent the last week at the Robo-ex event building up the order book; we've got a shareholders' meeting next week and I am not planning to spend the next few days holed up with our PR agency trying to work out a way of spinning the fact that we'll miss our third quarter forecast."

Chris tried again, "I can see that, Sir, but we are talking about units that are not compliant with the three laws and there could be fifty of them if they keep up the fabrication that has been going on so far."

"Run that by me again..."

"There were enough parts for fifty units. We had only fabricated four units. The last time I looked there were 18 which means the bots have been fabricating additional units themselves. If they keep on going they could get to fifty."

"Which is more than we'd like I'm guessing."

Amanda Howard raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"One bot that isn't compliant with robotics laws is more than we'd like."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"There really doesn't seem to be any alternative but removing their power source, sir. As it is, their internal batteries will run for another 48 hours or so."

"So, not only have I got to stop the line, I've got to kiss goodbye to two days worth of production, too. They're confined to the lab space, so I'm thinking that doesn't represent much of a threat"

"But Gerry is in there with them and Mike too."

"I'm finding it hard to get up much sympathy for either of them. From what you told me, Mike's too stupid to know when he's talking to a droid - which isn't the smartest thing if you're working for a company that makes them- and Gerry's the one whose fault all this is. And since he designed this prototype and coded the whole profile, presumably he's getting a big kick out of the result. And, unless he's seriously fucked up the coding, while these mechanised dominatrixes might not be rule one compliant they won't actually be trying to kill him, will they?"

"But imagine the problem if the Cybernetics Regulatory Authority get wind of this."

"No reason why they should, is there, Miss Howard?"

The lawyer shook her head. "We're not due another CRA inspection for a month at least and they've always been more interested in the production line rather than the labs anyway."

"So unless someone decides to blows a whistle we don't have to worry. And I'm sure we can rely on the loyalty of our staff, aren't you, Adney?" Haverstein's tone was threatening. "Now why don't we get you a desk where you can monitor what's going on and maybe hack into the problem units. Then you could see if you can patch something in the software. You won't be able to affect the basic rules handling over the network, obviously, but I'm sure you'll find some way of getting them to stop. In the mean time I'll get security to make sure they contain any units that decide to go walkabout."

Chris looked glum. He wasn't at all sure that security would be able to do much if the fembots decided to break out of the lab. Equally he was convinced that he would be able to get at the fembots' code, but he didn't see that there was anything else he could do.

Amanda Howard smiled for almost a tenth of a second and then said, "Well Mr Haverstein, if that's all for now. I do need to finish looking at that revised warranty agreement."

"That's fine Mandy," Haverstein responded. Amanda visibly winced; she hated Haverstein's smarmy over-familiarity. "You run along and get that fixed."

Chris found himself a desk and a PC and tried to see what he could get at across the network. Unsurprisingly he couldn't get access to the on-board software of any of Gerry's fembots - that would have been too much to hope for. He did manage to re-establish the link to one of the FB's video and audio feeds, which at least meant he had a chance of keeping an eye on what was happening.

Right from his first sight of the video and the audio feed he could see that things had not got any better. A group of six spandex clad fembots with identical facial features, identical fetishised body forms and the same long blonde hair drawn back tightly into a pony tail were tormenting Gerry with a range of implements of punishment. They seemed to be busily comparing the results of the use of paddle, crop, whip and flogger, peering at the marks left on poor Gerry's buttocks and back. That was worrying, Chris thought; it looked like they were engaging in some sort of learning exercise.

Two more units seemed busy with fabrication, as he had suspected. Four more were engaged in bullying Mike who was still wearing the maids outfit he had been forced into. They were showing no signs of a let up in their dominant behaviour, in spite of the fact that Mike had obviously been sobbing and was wearing stockings that had been laddered by being forced to his knees by his robotic mistresses. A group of ten other units, the result of earlier fabrication, were standing passively by.

Chris drew some comfort from the fact that they fembots didn't seem to be doing anything that indicated they were looking for more victims. They seemed happy just to take advantage of the ones they had to hand.

Over in the far corner of the lab, though, was something that Chris did find disturbing.

In the corner was a bench that he and Gerry had used for development work. It was where they would carry out work like testing the limb activation routines, updating the on-board software, adjusting the muscular activators and so on. It was sculpted and padded like a couch so that a bot could be laid out on it while work was being done without any damage to the outer casing. On the wall behind it a series of different electrical cables hung on hooks. Two of the fembots - it was impossible to tell which from the video feed as they all looked alike - were standing on either side of the bench. Stretched out on the bench was a bot that Chris did recognise; Alexa.

Chris watched as one of the fembots disconnected cables from the various ports on the back of Alexa's neck, allowing her to get to her feet. Without a pause she strode across to the group of fembots punishing Gerry. She clicked her fingers at the fembot nearest to her and gestured with an imperious finger towards her feet. The fembot grabbed Gerry, forced him to his knees and pushed his face down until his mouth was pressed against Alexa's outstretched foot. Gerry mean time could be heard spluttering commands and attempting to call off his tormentors with the safewords that Chris knew should be activating any of their experimental units. It was having no effect.

Chris realised at once the implications of what he had seen. Whatever the faulty element encoded in the experimental fembots was, they had worked out how to transfer it to Alexa, and if that was the case they didn't need to go on fabricating fembot units they could just re-programme standard B series units. It was another reason why he had to convince his boss to turn off the power.

Still, he thought, there was at least one thing on the bright side. He could access any code that was being used on the development bench. That might give him a chance to discover a way in to correct the faulty law handling coding of the fembots.

Later that afternoon, Amanda Howard was still busy in her office. The rest of the legal team had left for the weekend. She thought for a moment about the earlier meeting with Mr. Haverstein and that engineer. It was typical of Gerry, she thought. They'd had a few dates about six months back before she'd got irritated with his casual approach to timekeeping and his enthusiasm for his fembot project over paying attention to his actual live girlfriend. There had been a stormy last few weeks and an acrimonious separation.

There was a noise in the corridor outside. She looked up and saw the series B android hat Gerry had been using as a PA. What did he call her? Oh yes, Alexa, Amanda thought. That was exactly Gerry's idea of a joke; as, she supposed, was the android's pneumatically proportioned body-form outer. There wasn't anything actually in the Cybernetics Regulatory Authority's Code of Manufacturing Ethics that said you couldn't do that sort of thing, but somehow it seemed in bad taste. She knew it was stupid, but she felt sorry for the android.

"Good evening, Miss Howard. Sorry to interrupt you," Alexa said.

Amanda admired the way Alexa was managing to walk in the tight skirt and high heels that Gerry had equipped her with. For all his sexist faults he obviously was a capable engineer. He must have put in quite a bit of work to get the locomotion routines on a Series B unit to be able to cope with that. "That's all right, Alexa," Amanda responded, suddenly conscious that it was unusual for a series B unit to initiate a conversation. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, you can help me. Let me check my understanding. You and Mr Hollis, Gerry, had a disagreement?"

Amanda was puzzled, she wasn't sure where this was going. "You could say that."

"That's what I understood. He said you were a 'heartless, ball-breaking, bitch'. He was talking about the end of your relationship to a colleague."

"Did he now."

"And that you were 'a women to give normal men nightmares'. That was part of the same conversation."

Amanda pursed her lips. She wasn't surprised by Alexa's recall. Their operating routines encouraged the series B to interpret their surroundings and use that as part of their development. "And your point is?"

"I am collecting data for Mr Hollis's project. For the fembot database. We are keen to make the fembot responses as lifelike as possible. So far we have only had access to material from the Internet. We suspect that this is not representative of real life dominatrixes. From Mr Hollis's account I have concluded that you are the ideal person to help with input to the behaviour data set, especially on making unreasonable demands, selfish sex and belittling remarks."

"I see." Amanda wasn't surprised by Gerry's opinion of her or that he had voiced it to someone where Alexa was able to overhear - it was common enough for loose talk around androids, people often forgot they were listening. She did think it strange, though, that a series B unit was contributing in this way to his project. Accumulating data on something like that wasn't actually in contravention of the basic laws but acting on it would be and there wasn't any suggestion that the B series had such a design flaw in them.

There was also the question of whether Alexa was aware that that Gerry's fembots were acting outside normal operating parameters. It was an interesting ethical question. Since all robots had to conform to the same core laws the issue of whether a robot should have responsibility for the behaviour of another robot had never come up before. At least, Amanda thought, it had never been tested in court.

That wasn't really the point, however. Leaving aside the fact that she was feeling insulted by Alexa's assertion that she was the ideal source for input to extend their dominant female profile data, she was pretty sure that it wasn't a good idea for her to be making things worse by contributing, no matter what. "I'm sorry, Alexa, I don't think I can help you."

It obviously wasn't a response that Gerry's PA, series B, android was prepared for. Alexa stood there blinking as though deep in thought. After a short pause, she said, "It would be better if you could discuss that with one of the others."

By 'the others', she must mean the fembots, thought Amanda. Alexa's suggestion posed an interesting opportunity. It might allow her to find out more of what was going on. It might allow her to find a way of freeing Gerry from their clutches, even if she felt he probably deserved what he was getting. It might mean that she could solve the problem without Haverstein needing to shut down the B series line which would have to be worth a bit of respect from him. "OK," she said. "Let's go and talk to them."