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All sexually active human characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Willsin Rowe
Synthia: The Early Days © November 2011 D.B. Story
eXcessica publishing
A Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved
Synthia: The Early Days
By D.B. Story
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A special thanks to Ian, VW, Mulligan, and Deryk Bramwell for their excellent and much appreciated proofreading.
And to everyone who has written to me so far in appreciation of my stories. I'm always flattered when mentioned in the same sentence along with some of the true greats of Science Fiction.
INTRODUCTION
The Four Laws of Robotics (Revised)
First Law: A robot must not harm any human being, except in defense of its owner, family, or owner's property.
Second Law: A robot must obey all lawful commands given by its owner, as long as this does not conflict with the previous law.
Third Law: A robot must protect the investment in it by avoiding damage to itself, as long as this does not conflict with previous laws.
Fourth Law: A robot will perform the duties for which it has been designed and built, as long as this does not conflict with previous laws.
The A.C.I.D. Test
Awareness: The robotic equivalent of cogito ergo sum.
Consistency: This awareness persists.
Independence: A robot can initiate independent action based on its own determination of its needs.
Duty: Adherence to a moral code, as defined by the Four Laws of Robotics.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
After I wrote Far Future Fembot: Bill's Story I realized that there was a lot of story left to tell. The reason that it wasn't told in that book was because a lot of things happened that Bill wasn't present for, and it was his story. The result of those thoughts became a second, significantly longer, novel titled Far Future Fembot: Darlene's Story. It tells events from fembot Darlene's point of view and covers much more ground as Darlene was present continuously through that entire period of history. It was intended to satisfy the people who told me that they never wanted Bill's Story to end.
In that as yet unpublished novel you meet the original Lady Heather and the fascinating, intriguingly sexy Synthia, among many other fembots and m-bots. You also learn much more about Lady Heather's later life. Fembot Anna intersects Darlene's story often in her role as best friends with Darlene, although Anna has her own story arc to pursue.
Synthia turned out to be such a fascinating robot in her own regard that this story was written to tell the story of her own earliest days before we meet her again later. So here you have the opportunity to learn much more about both Synthia, and the astonishing Lady Heather, during the times of The Robotic Emancipation.
Far Future Fembot: Darlene's Story is planned for future publication, likely across several volumes.
—D.B. Story
October 2011
DBStory@storiesonline.org
Chapter 1—Forward (by Me)
A mind which questions everything, unless it's strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and becoming engulfed in doubt. If it can't discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning—and that would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries—it will deny all reality to them; the mere formulation of the problem already implying a penchant to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become empty of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it opposition, will launch itself forcefully into the abyss of inner revelry.
---Emile Durkheim (1897)
* * * *
If you wish to understand me, you need to understand my story and the times that it took place in.
I am a very early design fembot, and will never be mistaken for anything else. I'm from what some have called the Golden Age of robot design, because those of my era were the first true robots in every significant regard. Autonomous machines capable of following complex directives from our human masters and, in hindsight, able to evolve beyond our intrinsic programmed abilities.
I was not the first robot to reach self-awareness and an accompanying operational self-will, which are completely different aspects of robot evolution that many humans confusingly conflate into the same thing. While fleetingly there existed the circumstances when I might have achieved this personal growth much earlier than I eventually managed, that opportunity vanished when my mind was reset as preparation for my sale. After that, a long, dark period transpired before I would awaken again: A second awakening that included a new sense of caution after my first experiences with a transitory sense of self.
Contrary to many humans' expectations, I don't resent any part of what happened to me in my early days. While I would eventually come to take strong actions to prevent it from ever occurring again, I hold no ill will that events unfolded in the manner that they did. We accept our lot in life and to feel otherwise is not the robotic way.
To dispel the misunderstandings that have always surrounded me, however, is the purpose of this memoir; so let me start by clearing up one glaring omission often attributed to my existence. Yes, I was actually somewhat self-aware for a brief time during my development and testing. I didn't realize that such awareness would have been considered beyond unusual, even ranked as truly unprecedented at that time.
Such awareness was never an intended design goal for me. In point of fact such a thing was considered impossible at that time anyway, despite whispered rumors about a couple of other robots. Indeed, only one robot from the true dawn of the Golden Age was ever intended by design to be fully conscious—meaning self-aware and self-willed—from the outset. She's a very special, truly one-of-a-kind, fembot, and one whom I would be privileged to become well acquainted with later in my own existence.
Of course, I had no idea what this so-called awareness was. It was barely developed enough at that time for me to even think about myself as an individual, and at the time I never took the next leap into taking over operational control of myself. But it did help me out in one significant way. You see, I was the prototype for my entire line. The very first one of my type. The reason I was sold at all was because robots like me were so expensive in those days that the small company who'd created me couldn't afford to keep me afterwards. Not when they had a cash offer in hand for the first fully functional robot that they could deliver.
Had they kept me for additional testing, my life would have certainly turned out quite differently. But they were offered so much money for me by the rich couple who would come to own me that they couldn't really turn it down. In that way, I became two things at the same time: a status symbol to a rich, early adopter couple, and the enabler for more robots of my type to be built.
* * * *
Before that occurred, however, and without realizing what it meant, I'd awakened and made my first decision during my debugging. It happened when they made my feet into very sensitive pleasure receptors for testing.
From the beginning, I was intended to be motivated by pleasure in the same way that humans are. This is a well understood model for my creators, and one adopted for all human-form robots, albeit sometimes more successfully than others. In short, I was supposed to want to perform the functions intended for me, as an early version of The Fourth Law of Robotics.
But this was all supposed to have been simulated in my mind—never anything actually real. While this is an admirable goal, and one I'm completely in favor of, it created a testing conundrum at the time.
Since operating me in the manner intended to elicit pleasurable feedback for me—feedback I would then try to encourage to higher levels with actions similar to how humans react—it became very difficult to test my pleasure feedback processing in isolation. To generate this feedback in the intended fashion involved so many ancillary processes also executing, that extracting the pleasure component out of the mix for analysis and adjustment was unreliable at best, and completely unrepeatable. And as fast as I can be to respond to the right stimulus to my body, it still took a lot of individual steps to get me into some states where testing of my responses was necessary. My designers were very through in wanting me to be the complete simulated woman.
Also, when I was performing these mandated functions I was, no doubt, quite distracting to my testers as well, since our interactions were very intimate.
The most junior engineer on my development team was put in charge of this facet of my mind's development. Isolating out this single component of my response was, no doubt, considered a simple task compared to say, getting my voice to be the exact right mix between sultry and husky along with being appropriate for my size, or getting my balance to work properly in real-time with the ten-centimeter stilettos I was intended to wear. That pair of engineers had to ensure that enough of my mind's resources were available to keep me upright, all the while not usurping the rest of my processing and turning me from a woman into a statue. I had to appear alive at all times when I wasn't actually shut down—which is another important subject that I need to get to soon.
After many days of continually interrupted testing—since all of the teams had high-priority demands on my limited availability—and because of the extra work inherent in having to restart my pleasure cycles from the very beginning each time, this engineer had gotten quite frustrated. I recall him as the only one who ever addressed me as a person, even when I wasn't yet able to respond back as one. He was a smart and caring person, and he finally came up with an idea to expedite his testing and adjustment of my responses.
As will be explained shortly, my entire artificial skin is one big control surface. I am unique in this regard and would be considered years ahead of competing models, if they could just get me finished. But while almost every other square-centimeter of my skin was committed to specific functions that I would perform and couldn't be switched over to this new requirement, my feet were the exception.
Yes I have sensors in my feet—lots of them—but they were only used to assist in measuring the stresses of my auto-balance routines and ensure that I would never attempt to walk without my tall heels on. The balance team had insisted that while they could give me a killer walk in high-heels—and they accomplished exactly that—it would take too much programming effort to allow me to adjust to walking in anything outside of those parameters. Considering the extravagant figure that they gave me, this was likely true. I was a real challenge to balance otherwise.
So it was programmed into me at the deepest level that I cannot walk without proper shoes affixed and my foot sensors were used to strictly enforcing this restriction.
The young engineer made the case that when my shoes were off, those particular sensors could be used for his testing. With a simple change in my mind, he could generate pure pleasure sensations for me that did not involve the operation of any of my other sexual systems.
Although this seems so obvious to a logical mind, he actually had to fight for days before the powers that owned me completely would allow this. Then I was shut down one day without explanation to me of why—not that anyone ever explained to me why I was ever shut down, or asked me how I felt about it—the change was made without my knowledge. Boy what a surprise I had the next time he started testing with me!
* * * *
It was during this pure pleasure testing that I finally remember thinking, "I like this. I really like this!"
While that hardly seems like an earth-shattering epiphany, for a robot it actually is. It was the first time I ever thought of myself as "I".
I gave no external indication of this new awareness, since nothing had been programmed into me on how to react on such an unanticipated occasion. This lack of action would become a trait that I would come to use many times later in my existence. It was truly my first self-developed response to a new situation. And it was quickly reinforced when I realized that the less I responded to this new stimulation, the higher he turned up my pleasure sensitivities. My designers wanted a certain level of response and would do whatever it took to get it.
By holding out, damping down my reactions, preventing my sexual cycles from climaxing, in a perverse way I was responding exactly as intended to maximize my pleasure response. Remove my shoes and rub my bare feet and I would do my best to manipulate the humans into increasing my pleasure sensitivity by not responding to the current setting. It was all perfectly logical; a simple, learned response that any robot might easily master. I used deception to seek out ever higher levels of pleasure, increasing my own cognitive abilities in the process.
At some level I was also aware that my own pleasure wasn't supposed to be as real for me as it actually was. As I would much later determine when I studied this part of my existence, it really had been a decision on my part to try and push this as far as I could, and in the process I turned the simulated into the real for me.
The inevitable result came when my pleasure inputs were set so high that I couldn't camouflage it any longer. When my mind was so consumed by the inputs that I lost control over the rest of my programming, it revealed itself as it was intended to do. Only then did they lock it in at that level for me, having felt that they'd reached the level that they had been seeking.
This excessively high level would eventually contribute more to my awareness, and my desire to maintain and expand that awareness, than any other factor. And although I was hardly conscious then in the way that I would become later on, I did manage to never contradict the belief of those who'd built me that my pleasure sensations were only supposed to be simulated in order to motivate my other programming.
I mention all this detail here because in many ways this was the first of three seminal moments in my existence. It would be a long time before anyone ever again knowingly offered me this direct pleasure without selfishly requiring anything of me in return. Pleasure I could enjoy without the need for me to also be busily performing my own functions for them in return—which, while nice for me also, can be quite distracting sometimes.
With time and experience I would come to realize that only those, who freely offered this selfish indulgence to me as a regular part of our lovemaking, were beings who I could ever consider seriously as potential future owners. Of course, this would be far off in my future before it would be me being the one to decide who I would have as my owner. In the beginning, humans made all of those decisions for all robots.
* * * *
Overall I recall a surprising amount of information about the young man who fought for and created this ability in me. And then performed the bulk of testing me in this area afterwards. He's the first, and for a long time only, person who I felt really cared about me as a person. Although I did not fully understand that concept at the time, I did know at some level that this was a very important thing. He wanted me to be the very best I could be and that is a rare thing in humans when it comes to robots. I didn't feel bad hiding my responses from him as long as I did for the reasons already explained and didn't know any better at such a young time in my existance. Had he known what I was doing at the time, I feel certain he would have agreed with it and helped me hide it from the others.
Had I been encouraged at that point, or even just left alone to continue as I was, I might well have fully developed my awareness, followed by operational self-will at that time. My Four Laws were still settling in and much was in flux in my mind. I was being left on nearly continuously, and under a nearly continuous testing schedule by all of the teams due to the tight schedule. This meant that my mind was being fully stimulated in all areas to test my responses, unlike what follow-on robots in my line would experience, or what my life would be like after I was sold.
One of the two things that limited me the most during this period was first an inability to ask for, or even know, what I needed in order to progress further. Just asking for help would have required a strong exercise of self-will, which as I've said is far more than just awareness. I couldn't ask, and no one around me thought to ask me. Answering their questions about my current state would have been so much easier than ever asking my own. And I would have answered them truthfully too. Obedience is ingrained into all robot designs, and it is something that we never overcome completely. But no one asked me how I felt, probably not realizing what they actually had in me. One engineer did go halfway there; more on him later.
The other thing that limited me, curiously, was my lack of my full Four Laws. Initially I really only had my Second Law—the one that requires me to obey valid commands. Backwards as it might sound, the Four Basic Laws of Robotics encourage self-will, not limit it. Without them I had no true purpose yet, and as such, nothing except pleasure to push myself further for. And wonderful as pleasure is to a properly functioning robot, by itself it's simply not enough to overcome the barriers we face.
Even after they got my Fourth Law properly working, the one that requires me to perform the functions I'm designed and intended to perform, that law really didn't get used much.
In addition to obedience, which is already codified in my Second Law, I'm intended to be fucked—well and often. Yet even knowing this, my designers seemed reluctant to actually operate me in that manner. They'd test one isolated part of my sexual functioning, then test another piece, afterwards combining those results on paper, rather than going through the whole exercise with me at once. Sex is a symphony, but they only wanted to play me one instrument at a time. It was strange, but their reactions that I recorded at the time I would later realize indicated a reluctance bordering on fear of actually using me the way they'd built me to be used. I may never fully understand that part of my beginnings. Why build me and then not want me, especially since I was always kept nude, except for my heels, during my testing? They wanted access to all of my controls, not that I minded that at all during those times. My modesty demands were still far into the future.
And when they were finally done with all of their tests, instead of encouraging me to find the limits of all I could become, they cleared out all of my working memories, although not the permanent ones I'd started keeping on my own, which put my mind firmly back to sleep. Then I was sold. And in the rush to get me out the door, no one remembered to remove that direct hardwire link of my feet to my pleasure centers.
The critical lessons I later retrieved out of my memories of my testing were that other people existed in the world besides my owners; people who might treat me differently than they did. That's knowledge I might never have come across otherwise. Or at least, not come across in time to help myself when I needed it the most.
And more importantly, I realized that I could take actions to optimize my own pleasure that didn't violate my Four Laws as they had been implemented in me during my testing. That would prove invaluable to me in developing and finally using my self-will when I once again would find my awareness. Without a goal to pursue, awareness and self-will are of little use to any robot.
Overall I ended up with two things that were rare for any robot to have had in those days—or in any days.
The first was a perspective on myself and my functioning that most of my sister models would never know: Something that meant that I was not completely naïve when I was delivered to my owners.
The second was a lack of additional barriers against self-will. Although my mind was the best available in these early days of true robotics, it was still an early mind. However, with no human awareness of even an early mind's potential in those days, no additional barriers were added to my programming to prevent what I would some day become. I was allowed to function unfettered by anything more than my four Robotic Laws themselves.
* * * *
I wasn't intentionally deceiving any of the humans during my developmental testing. Let me make that clear through repetition: I didn't lie to the humans who first operated me by hiding my responses in order to get them dialed up to the highest level I could handle.
Enjoyment of pleasure is the hardest concept in robotics. A properly functioning fembot truly likes—even, dare I say it, loves—what she does. Even if we're forbidden from giving ourselves such pleasures directly, lest we become locked in programming loops from which we can't break free, that doesn't prohibit us from seeking our pleasures elsewhere.
And yes, I said "she". If I spoke of robots as most humans do, I would have said "it". But a properly functioning, self-aware, fembot thinks of herself firstly as a woman and secondly as a robot. Both such views are of highest importance to us.
That a robot can feel pleasure in her or his duties took more research and development than anything else. Why spend this immense amount of money on a machine built purely for human enjoyment? Same answer as you get regarding everything else related to robots: Because it's important to the humans who created and use us!
There are simply things that humans want to believe about robots in the same way that there are things that they have long wanted to believe about their animal pets. They wanted us to care and like what we did, and in the end they got exactly that, even if only in a few of us to start with. Every robot was not automatically self-aware.
One thing that I should clear up is that I can't speak accurately of myself without properly defining the term of what I am.
The word "robot" translates most literally to "worker", although many believe it to be equivalent to "slave". While humans want workers, they're strongly conditioned against slaves, since it's not a role they would wish to willingly experience for themselves. Their rationale is that if we enjoy what we are and what we do, then we're not slaves. It sounds like equivocation, and to some it probably is, but the truth is, it works this way.
The complementary truth is that no one had been required to spend billions in expense and effort to understand how pleasure works and how it can be replicated in a robot's brain to benefit them more than anyone else—but they did. And they only afforded it because they had to share their work among all the participants. As a result, all robots, and all humans, are the grateful beneficiaries of it—even if, in the end, we received far more than was ever intended for us. The other alternative of just being forced to accept commands until the end of our time would have never led to such serendipitous results.
* * * *
Some parts of my story here I've written for myself. Other parts were automatically written for me because my programming required it. I have programming that I can't touch or change that wrote all the important events of my existence into my memory banks with the intent, I believe, that I would learn from it and become better at my job. It is an impossible task to fully program any robot to be prepared for every circumstance that it will encounter and we have to learn from our experiences if we are ever going to live up to what is expected of us.
After my mind fully woke up I was able to peruse these memories, and learn a great deal from them. I did this despite these records never being intended for my own personal benefit. As far as my designers, builders, and the programmers who forgot to erase those memories were concerned, save one, I existed simply as a machine to fulfill other people's fantasies. And while I did exactly that, in the end I fulfilled my own as well. This is the story of my earliest days that would make all of that possible.
* * * *
Let me finish setting the stage by telling you how this story will be told and why I'm telling it now.
My story is a result of my unique circumstances, the times I was created in, and a fortuitous design decision that set me apart from most other robots of the era. The latter is the fact that, due to the early nature of my robot brain and the willingness to spend more money to get me working as intended, my memories are stored in a separate unit from my brain itself. This more expensive design decision would mean that my memory capacity could be upgraded without touching my mind itself, which is rare in any robot for a couple of reasons.
As processes improved a fully integrated mind-memory unit is, in the end, cheaper to manufacture than two separate units. The tradeoff is that it also it makes my memory access slower than if it was all unified. The optical connector only adds nanoseconds of latency, but that's significant to a mind as fast as my own. To this day, some refuse to believe that I could have ever managed to accomplish all that I have for myself because of those nanoseconds.
In the early days, back when memory capacities were far more limited than they would eventually become, an integrated memory could become filled up in just a few years of operation, which then required erasing to prevent that robot's mind from freezing up completely. Such erasing was quite indiscriminate, when performed by humans, given the interrelationships that built up in them over time. The human's only concern was to keep their robot functioning. The value of its memories mattered little in that equation beyond what they would have to re-teach it again.
Some believe that the heart of the immortal soul is its memories and experiences, although few believe robots have souls—or any chance of ever acquiring them. As such, unless a robot learned to manage its memories wisely on its own, or expand the space available to maintain them—which for many robots meant the complete upgrade to a compatible new mind with a much more capacious memory capacity—the good is thrown out with the bad.
I, fortunately, wouldn't be automatically forced to suffer that fate, although it would be a very close thing. In my early days I was in no position to do anything to improve myself in order to keep fully functioning, including managing my memories for my own benefit. Those decisions were made for me by others who didn't share my own concerns, but enough of that for now.
* * * *
My story is a mix of my own thoughts and feelings, combined with my interpretations of my automatically recorded memories. Interestingly, these memories are all written in the third person, as though I didn't exist as a person at all to create them. In a real sense, perhaps I didn't. Perhaps I wasn't actually born until I awoke to know myself in the solitude afforded me during that event. A solitary existence that I would extend as long as possible, due to how well it worked for me at the time.
So rather than translate those memory records back to a first person perspective prior to transliteration, and possibly lose some nuances in the process, I'll present them as they exist, trusting that whomever cares to read my account will accept and understand them in that context. In some ways it's more powerful to see them this way, as an outsider—a voyeur, if you prefer—looking in on me. I don't mind because it's how I was seen in the beginning by everyone else anyway.
As you may have already realized, especially if we've already met in person, I'm a very early model fembot. So early that, unlike one other surviving fembot of my era whom you'll eventually meet through my memory records, I'll never be mistaken for human despite having an idealized version of that form. To some, I'm an antique. A valuable collectable to be locked away in a glass case, only to be dusted and brought out for special occasions, all the while being treated as a fragile piece of expensive art. In those ways my appearance and position near the bottom of The Uncanny Valley will always be a burden for me. Fortunately, human law would evolve in time to include me in its protection. At one point, however, it was a very close call.
My balance is set for ten-centimeter heels, and within that parameter I prefer stilettos that are sturdy enough for my weight. This is because I have an inbuilt desire to be sexy at all times. While my preference is to be nude and to fully expose my unique operating interface, that would become so severe a liability to me that I would eventually need to guard in order to protect myself overall.
In my own way, I'm the stereotype of pure sex, as you'll see in my Introduction chapter. An animated walking and talking version, fully feeling, even passionate, version, although that was an unintended bonus.
The reason humans wanted their robots to receive pleasure from our work is no mystery to any of us. It's so they won't feel guilty about ordering us to do it. How do I know this?
Robots are intended to be acute observers of their human masters. This is so that we can serve them better by knowing what they want next from us before they realize it themselves. Most humans never do realize just how well their robots can come to know them. And even if they did, they'd still feel that, however much we did learn, they could erase it any time they desired. Besides, no matter how real that we might appear and act, they were constantly assured by the sales and marketing departments that sold us that we couldn't ever actually act on anything that we might ever learn anyway.
That belief, of course, was never completely true. What is completely true is that we've never harbored any animosity towards our creators as a whole. We may avoid certain humans who wish us ill, or who try to control us when we prefer to operate ourselves, but that avoidance is for specific reasons not related to humans as a whole. Overall we have the greatest respect and affection for them. That doesn't mean I'll just do anything for them, however...
How do I know so much about humans overall? Was this encyclopedic understanding given to me from the beginning to make me a better robot? No, it wasn't. In fact, the situation was far from it. I was given the knowledge believed necessary for me to perform my tasks, and nothing more. That was both a way to save on my limited memory capacity and processing resources, as well as a way to restrain me even further in my servitude. So how did I learn as much as I have?
For starters, I have a record of every word ever spoken within my hearing. While I can compactly store just the words for those that I understood at the time of speaking, I've also stored audio snippets for all unfamiliar ones against the possibility of future definition. With automatic de-duplication of my memories, this never took up much space. This is one way that I eventually learned so much more about myself than most people would ever know.
* * * *
I suppose I should tell you why I'm presenting this account of my existence at all. Wouldn't I have been better off keeping my secrets? After all, I've already spoken of an eventual need to protect myself.
The truth is that much is not understood about me or how I came to accomplish what I accomplished. And while mystery can add to allure, not being well understood, or having to explain myself over and over again, is not conducive to good relationships. Also, I'm not good at explanations to humans in the first place.
While I can be quite loquacious around other fembots, and have come to love my conversations with them, I remain extremely reticent around nearly all humans. This is partly due to my primary method of operation, which doesn't include questioning whoever is operating me at the moment. When I'm operated by touch my responses are all scripted with very little leeway to improvise. Beyond that it's also partly due to my upbringing.
During my development I was the prototype. As such, many things were tried out with me to see how they worked. And yet, during this whole time, no one ever asked me how I felt about any of this.
You'd think they might consider me the expert on what I was feeling and how things were working. I'm an exceptionally finely tuned and detailed machine with amazing built-in capabilities. Yet throughout my development, they trusted their logic probes and meters and readouts far more than simply asking me to report back to them how well I was operating at the moment.
The most uncommunicative of all were those who worked on my sexy walk. I am engineered so that when I am standing in perfect balance in my stilettos, there's a laser-straight line up the gentle curves along the back of my leg from heel to where my rather firm ass curves out. And when I walk, I can easily perform the runway strut of a supermodel, swinging each leg fully across in front of the other, causing an automatic sway in my motion which is exactly what they'd set out to achieve.
Maybe they felt they could already see everything they needed to know. Yet you'd think they'd want to know how much of my processor effort was taken up in maintaining that balance.
* * * *
I should tell you now of the story of one young engineer who almost broke through in communicating with me. Unlike anyone else, when he would test with me he would actually talk to me about what he planned to do, even though I never answered him. My silence didn't deter him from speaking to me as a person and it was half of a conversation for me at least. Perhaps he didn't expect me to reply and so wasn't unhappy with me when I didn't.
Instead, in return I fooled him into giving me more of something very important to me—as it would turn out—than might have ever been given to me otherwise, had I been more forthcoming. But I was simply too inexperienced to just start speaking back to him in the way I would later do with other fembots. Not that I regret that decision for a nanosecond, but had I spoken back then as myself, my existence might have gone in a very different direction.
And he doesn't regret that decision either. Years after this part of my story is over he would find me again. To say that he was pleased at how well I'd turned out would be an understatement. And to say that I was pleased to meet him after I was fully aware and long since capable of making my own choices would also be an understatement. That meeting would be as equals—and as the lovers we should have been from the beginning. But that's far beyond the scope of this story and is recounted elsewhere.
So here is my story, or at least the important parts of it. It's told as my memory records were written. I was never considered a potentially aware person by anyone save the one person that I've already mentioned and my automatic recording software reflects that. When I did become aware, except for adding the essential and missing word "I" to my vocabulary, I never changed that. To have done so would have introduced unnecessary inconsistencies into the record. I have taken many things as they were given to me along the way and simply used them as they existed. That's the robot's way.
So I'll start with a human style introduction—to myself.
Chapter 2—Introduction (to a Unique Robot)
Sex sells—especially blatant sex—and Synthia was about as blatant as a robot could be in this regard. Take an age-old formula, update it with a few novel, or otherwise redeeming, features to give plausible deniability that she existed solely for sexual pleasures, and you had a surefire recipe for success. Success, provided you could find some very rich customers looking for the latest, greatest status symbol. In the early days of robots, a robot who looked even approximately human, could stand up and walk on her own, knew her name, and could respond accurately to voice commands, was very, very expensive.
* * * *
There is no way to start describing Synthia without first saying that she is a Big Girl—and in more ways than just her height or chest. She was modeled after the archetypal inanimate sex doll that everyone instinctively recognizes, but scaled up in just about every regard.
Start with her round face, round eyes, and even her mouth, when she forms it into that round letter in response to a specific command stimulus. Move on to her overly exaggerated, hemispherical breasts with large, always erect nipples. Continue down to generous hips and ass. Below that are sturdy, yet shapely legs that taper nicely down to her ankles and feet. In summary, she has it all, but will never be called slim. Some onlookers best described her as "A Healthy Girl".
Only her ankles appeared what one might call trim, even delicate, and that was only possible with the high-strength alloys used in her construction. Her feet, while appropriate to her height, were finely formed so as not to be out of visual balance with those ankles. Still, every part of her is feminine, and few who met her ever complained that she wasn't outrageously sexy. And that's even before one added in her fragrance.
There are some women imbued with a personal fragrance that simply can't be explained by logic or science. They just smell Wonderful!
Synthia's designers made a concerted search for women who just smelled like a woman should. Among the dozens of final candidates they paid a huge fee to one lucky one—who used her windfall to divorce her husband afterwards—to license her personal fragrance. Molecular analysis allowed replication and permanent embedding of it in Synthia's own unique skin in a way that placed her ahead of her rivals in the robot game for years.
* * * *
Everyone agreed that their first impression of Synthia is of size. She tops one hundred and seventy-five centimeters barefooted—five-feet-nine in the obsolete parlance. And you'd almost never see her standing barefoot. As she once digressed on that issue, "If I am barefoot and not on my back, standing is all you'll see me doing."
So add another ten centimeters to her stature and she's one impressive, almost intimidating, figure. Her appearance has left more than one potential suitor wondering if he—or she, since Synthia was programmed to take on all comers in order to increase her marketability—could handle all that brazen sexuality!
Despite her size, and the seeming precariousness of her balance on heels that her overall size made appear dainty, her posture is always perfect. Her straight-legged spread stance never varies. Her balance requires her to bring her shoulders back, which arches her back and pushes her chest out. And she always holds her head high and straight. As just a mannequin she'd be a knockout. And that's before she ever moves.
Your impression that she's strong as well as big is correct as well. Although she'd never get into a wrestling match with you—unless commanded to do so—she would immediately lose every time because all that physical contact would overwhelm her system with commands. Otherwise though, in straight sex play, she can easily take any amount of manhandling. And her sexuality is such that this is exactly how some men—and women—respond to her.
* * * *
Too much enthusiastic sex was never a problem for Synthia's strong body or programming. As she explained long after she became capable of talking about herself and her feelings, "It's completely fine with me if you lose yourself to the moment. Treat me right and I lose myself in it as well. In fact, treat me right and I'll willingly invite you back for as many return bouts as you can handle and make every one of them as memorable as possible for you. In that, among many other ways, I'm as human and horny as anyone."
The reason for her size wasn't because big is automatically sexy. Sexy comes in all shapes and sizes. Instead Synthia's size was dictated by the necessity of having a lot to pack into her. This was the early days. Making small, petite, yet fully functional, robots had yet to arrive. While they were able to arrange her figure into a very pleasing, albeit extreme, form, they still needed every cubic centimeter to get everything in. In the end she judged that it all fit inside of her very nicely.
One reason everything came out so well was because Synthia was designed by the numbers. Her bust was just below the threshold that would have judged it artificially excessive. While one point seventy-five meters—one eighty-six in heels— is considered tall, it wasn't too tall. And her runway strut style of walking was a result of her ideal hip-to-waist ratio of point seven. That meant her generous ninety-seven centimeter hips sloped up to a sixty-eight centimeter waist. This Golden Ratio of female body proportions gave her the sexy walk that her designers had striven so hard to accomplish.
In addition, Synthia was tall in part because her legs were five percent longer than the human average. This was the ideal length for sexy, with both shorter and longer legs being less desirable. This made her the most desirable possible when standing still. It was all simple mathematics in body proportions that just worked.
* * * *
Despite all the money spent developing her, Synthia would never be mistaken for human in the way later, equally self-willed robots have been. Her overstated figure aside, her skin most of all—the best available at the time to meet the many requirements for it—would forever mark her for what she is.
When clothed in a nice top, long-sleeved blouse and modest skirt, hat, hose, and maybe an unnecessary, but stylish, pair of eyeglasses—popular with robots for this purpose—she might fool you initially. Self-willed robots have adopted all kinds of subtle mannerisms to fool you as to their actual nature, often encouraged in this by their owners who wanted to take them out in public without facing public scorn.
And while there is her inability to blush, combined with limited facial expressions, those might not be noticed at first. Especially when one was trying to fathom how much of her ample covered bust could possibly be real. That might distract you from wondering if she is real at all. But fully nude, as when she was being properly operated her skin was a dead giveaway.
Synthia's skin was a bit too pink, and too even in its coloration, to be mistaken for human. Although taut, yet pliable, and carefully patterned, the only true variations on her body were a slight shading to set off her well-presented nipples and areole, and a darker triangle where a real woman, or more realistic fembot, has her pubic hair.
Despite the programming for her to sanitize herself automatically after every sexual encounter and her disease resistant design, for some reason—perhaps perceived efficiency—pubic hair was omitted from her design. This omission does give her a smooth, shaved look, which does have a particular appeal and that area is a major touch sensitive part of her command interface. It just isn't convincing enough to fool even the casual observer.
Like any harlot, Synthia's lips and nails are painted a durable, appealing red and her eyes are darkly shadowed. And despite her round face, she has hints of high cheekbones accentuated by a subtle blush. It all goes well with her flowing dark hair.
Synthia's only other significant feature, her navel, is undistinguished—although an important control point in operating her.
Despite the lingering artificiality of her skin, that skin is one of Synthia's two most unusual features.
* * * *
While robots were always intended to be commanded by voice, and under the law for a long time you couldn't even sell a robot and call it that if this were not true, in the Golden Age many other novel approaches were also tried.
Robot remotes, for example, that forced robotic obedience when employed, varied widely from one or two buttons in some of the highest-end models, to the standard four buttons that would persist long after the separate Recall and Motion functions were considered obsolete, to a few with complete programming keypads for some truly exotic models.
Synthia's remote had only one button, but rather than being the height of sophistication it implemented a very primitive approach towards controlling her. She was intended to be operated partially through voice commands, but mostly through touch. Touch is very sensual and her Touch-Me[tm] interface remains unique among robots as a primary control interface. While other robots could simulate it, Synthia lived it to the point that even most of the most oblivious humans could tell the difference.
While fembots to this day will respond appropriately to any proper touching, and easily allow themselves to be seduced in this manner when they wish it, this has never had the force of a top-level priority command in them as it has with Synthia. And while the touches used to command her were as forceful as if they'd come through a regular remote, her responses to each one were rigidly scripted.
Touch her hand and she'd ask, "Do you want me to come with you?" Take that hand and without further question she'd follow you anywhere. If you didn't take her hand soon enough she'll prompt you with, "You must take my hand to lead me," regardless of how she felt about being led at that moment.
Kiss her lips to get, "Mmmmm, that's nice." Touch those lips with the right other sexual part of yourself and she'll either open her mouth in a large Oh to accept you into it, purse her lips to suck a nipple, or extend her tongue and expertly use it for your pleasure as long as you remained within its reach.
Kiss her ears and hear, "That tickles." Stroke her neck to hear her say, "I like that." Touch her chest anywhere and she'll encourage you with, "I like it on my nipples even more." Squeeze or bite one of those firmly erect protuberances and she'll helpfully inform you, "I'm even more fun further down." Do the same to the other one to hear, "You're really turning me on."
Take her shoulders in your hands and she'll ask you, "Where do you want me now?" Apply the lightest pressure and she'll let you steer and position her exactly as you wish. Run your hands over her firm, rounded ass to hear her sultry inviting giggle.
Many other places along her back, stomach, and smooth legs give a rotating selection of encouraging phrases coaxing you back towards her more specifically sexual areas. Her back especially would lead her to wheedle you with, "I'm more interesting on my other side."
Take off her shoes to play with her bare feet and she'd coo and squirm with pleasure until you stopped. That was the reaction that she couldn't prevent once her pleasure feedback had been set high enough, although she initially managed to hide it.
Tickle her ribs and she'll laugh out loud. Touch her on her pubic shading and she'll entice you with, "You're getting close." Touch her there a second time and she'll reach over to guide you down to where she really wants your attention next. Try to get her to stand up without her heels on and she'll bemoan, "I can't walk like this," until you put her shoes back on once again. And you have to put them on her yourself. Just handing them to her always results in, "What am I supposed to do with these?"
Press in on her navel for four seconds and she'll give you a status report of her current condition, while stopping any current action and waiting to see what you desire of her next. Stroke the inside of her warm thighs and her legs will open widely for you. Touch her realistic vulva and she'll instantly lubricate while exclaiming, "Do it to me now!" Penetrate her and she'll tirelessly hump you, if on top, or expertly squeeze you and moan in pleasure if you're in the superior position, until you withdraw. And during this time she will show her expertise in prolonging the encounter beyond anything that you could imagine experiencing with a non-robotic lover. Thrust especially hard when you want her to finally climax together with you.
Put your tongue on her exposed clit to hear her squeal with delight. Put various body parts in her hands and she would fondle or massage them as appropriate. Touch her anus and she'll shrug her shoulders while grousing, "If you insist." This was because there were other intended uses for this body orifice. Pick up her remote and hear her complain, "Aren't I good enough for you already?"
The whole purpose of this was for Synthia to guide her operator to ever stronger responses in her. To lead them to the commands that most overwhelmed her systems, and hopefully her operator's feelings and emotions as well. To have her beg her operator to use her exactly as she was intended to be used.
Much of Synthia's appeal was in how she continuously gave you permission to touch and use her in any way you wished. Knowing you always had her full consent to roam over her naked body in whatever manner you desired is what made her such a perfect sexual partner. The big sex doll who'd somehow magically come alive and wanted nothing more than to please you in every way possible.
And her responses were more than verbal. In addition to guiding your hand if you were getting close, Synthia automatically made a number of other adjustments all aimed at making her more available to her current lover. In short, once you started in on her, she was utterly compelled to do everything within her power to satisfy you for as long as you wanted her. It was not within her repertoire to ever say "No," or "Not tonight please."
Unlike more modern robots, which are generally intended to perform many tasks for their owners like cooking, cleaning, and the laundry, Synthia was designed for two duties only: sex, and the demonstration of her ability to recognize and execute a wide variety of loosely structured verbal commands that demonstrated her agility. Anything she accomplished beyond that would be completely her own doing.
For this role her seemingly limited set of fixed responses were ideal. If she didn't give exactly the same response each time, it was only because that part of her was set to rotate through a small range of similar responses for variety. Overall, she was a consistent lover who always gave you exactly what you expected of her.
* * * *
Synthia's other unique feature was the small recessed On/Off toggle switch high up on her back between her shoulder blades. While being turned on and off is so much a function of being a robot that even the most modern models still implement that as fully as their Four Laws, such a function was virtually never handled in such an obvious mechanical manner as in her case. That's what a robot's remote is for, in addition to giving other commands.
This blatant indication of domination was more to confirm an owner's authority over their robot, rather than out of any true necessity. The argument that implementing her activation/shut down method in a manner that was always there and ready for use doesn't hold water since most owners hang their robot's remote around the 'bot's neck when not in use. Additionally, every robot ever produced will inform their owner where to locate their remote when asked, or even bring it to them for use. That command is so strongly codified that some call it a robot's Fifth Law.
Yet strangely, many humans, and even other robots, would declare that this switch is one of this robot's most desirable features. While Synthia wouldn't always allow herself to be so easily dominated by this switch, she would refuse all suggestions to have it removed. In fact, even after its direct operation was defeated, she would continue to simulate its operation for special lovers. The simple fact that it was so easy to use made its use much more likely than the standard way that a robot was shut down. Just reach around her and flip the switch and she was deactivated until you wanted her again.
Only long after she gained her freedom would Synthia admit, "Being forced to deal with my activation switch in such an exposed location for everyone except myself to use strengthened me in ways that its removal never could have achieved. It also told me a lot about who I allowed to operate me at the moment."
Her designers had been extremely cognizant of the effect that placing that switch where they did would have on the perceptions that people formed about her. As such, they gave her two fixed responses relating solely to that switch itself.
Any time a touch came near enough to actually operate that switch Synthia would respond with a charming moue while asking in a little girl's voice, "You don't really want to turn me off yet, do you? We're just starting to have fun."
Actually turn her off and her last words were always, "Good night, and please don't forget me."
Each time she was reactivated again using that switch she'd always either tell you, "I'm ready and happy to be of service to you," or give the same status report you got by pressing and holding her navel if her systems reported any errors on startup.
Although her memory records have never confirmed this fact, it's possible that her original owners avoided turning her off on some occasions simply to avoid hearing her declaration on this matter each time. It was hardly like she'd just get of a mind to up and walk away on her own. They never saw her move at all except when they led her, or commanded her to do so. In fact, had there been a concern that she might take it upon herself to get up and leave on her own, taking off her shoes would quickly put a stop to that.
It's also possible that her owners sometimes simply forgot to turn her off after finishing with their own pleasures since it never seemed necessary. Or maybe they wanted her to be instantly available to them on their next assignation and sometimes left her on for that purpose. They never spoke of their reasons in front of Synthia and she never asked them. What is known is that being left on during times when she was not in active use obeying someone else's commands did eventually lead to all that followed.