Part 56 – Gas Stop

Tammy kept her eyes on the road as she drove of course, but since she could process many areas of her field of vision at once, she was also watching Heather.

She certainly was smitten.  All she had seen of this other artificial woman so far was her head and her open chest panel, but already Tammy had a computerised crush on her. 

Tammy was secreting her homemade vaginal fluid drop by sweet drop as she replayed those video clips she had recorded.  She watched over and over again the sight of Heather booting up and emotionlessly announcing her name and serial number.

As more minutes went by, Tammy began to construct digital fantasies.  She used information already stored on her hard drive to generate a binary kind of fantasy video.  In this clip, Heather took off her facemask and showed Tammy the electronic circuitry in her head.

When Tammy watched that fantasy playing in the corner of her cameras' field of vision, she closed her eyes and let out a little moan.  Again she pressed her thighs together as the space between them got warm and moist.

Mike was watching her.  "You okay?" he asked.

When she turned her own electronic head his way he could tell she was very aroused.

"Tell you what, I'll drive the rest of the way." Mike said.

Tammy couldn't compute what the reason for Mike's decision was, but she obeyed his implied command.

"Okay." she said sweetly.

The car slowed and pulled over to the side of the road.

Byron was holding and thinking about Heather's damaged hand as she ran diagnostic examinations on her system.  He looked around when the speed dropped.  "Why are we stopping?" he asked.

"I'm gonna switch seats with Tammy." Mike said.

Byron was satisfied with the explanation.  He gazed outside at the trees, and the winding road behind them.

Mike and Tammy both got out of the car and walked around.  When they met in front, they had a little chat.

"Is there something wrong with you?" Mike said, not accusing but concerned for his lover.

"No.  Why?" Tammy said, tilting her pretty head in a way that she knew drove him wild.

"You're distracted.  You're also really horny, more than usual."

"I've got a crush on Heather." she said with a proud smile.

"What?"

"You heard me.  She's so adorable!"

"She's off limits." Mike said, more to remind himself.

"Okay.  I'll be good."

They walked past each other and got back into the car.  Byron had watched them, and wondered what they were talking about.

"Okay, another couple of clicks?" Mike said as he settled in the seat and fastened the belt.

"3.03 kilometers." his helpful assistant said.

"We'll reach that gas station soon Byron." Mike said as he looked at him through the mirror.  "You need anything to eat or drink?"

"I'll just grab myself a hot chocolate." he said.

"Alright." Mike said.  He kept his eyes open for more road signs while the piano music continued in the background.

Tammy had taken advantage of her seat switch to fill her entire field of vision with more digital fantasies.  She generated and projected more sexually charged scenes of Heather into her sight - Heather removing her facemask while masturbating, Heather opening her abdominal panel, Heather plugging a recharge cable into the back of her naked robot body.

They were all scenes that would have aroused her master, and because of the way she had altered her programming, they turned her on just as much.  She began to rub her crotch lightly under her jacket and through her pants.

Mike noticed that after a short while.  He was about to tell her to stop, but something about her being an android made it more acceptable to him in this situation.  Besides, he was sure Byron couldn't see exactly what she was up to.

"DIAGNOSTIC SCANS COMPLETE." Heather suddenly announced in the flat and cold monotone that came along with the self-checking mode. 

She brought herself out of diagnostic mode and announced the results in a more lively and life-like fashion.  She turned to Byron and said "There's no internal or structural damage.  Everything's working just fine."

Tammy turned to look at Heather.  She showed the other fembot a loving smile.  "We can fix your hand Heather.  I know exactly what to do.  I'll give you the kind of attention and treatment only another fembot can give."

She was obviously doting on Byron's synthetic girlfriend.  Heather didn't have the programming to recognise or deal with it.  Byron was understandably puzzled by this other machine's behaviour.

"Tammy," Mike said, making sure he was heard over the music, "Can you calculate the best ten choices of towns for us to stop in next?"

"Okay." she said as she turned back around in her seat and made the long and necessary calculations.  Their destination had already been chosen the night before, so it seemed odd to Tammy that Mike would give her a task like that with so many computations to make.

But his aim was to make her shut up and sit still.  It worked.

He looked at Anya's reflection.  He wondered if she was going gaga over Heather like Tammy was.  Under different circumstances he would have found this fembot to fembot attraction quite cool, but he didn't like the way Tammy was acting in a situation that was still potentially dangerous.

"Gas station, dead ahead." he called out as he saw the lone structure on the horizon.  The building was quite isolated.  Apart from clusters of signs and billboards it was the only sign of urban life in the area.

He pulled the car to the side of the road and up onto the raised branch that led to the sheltered pumps.  He put the brakes on more or less in line with the tank and stopped the engine.

"Everybody out to stretch.  Except you Anya."

"Yes Mike." she automatically replied."

The four of them got out of the vehicle.  The two humans among them were grateful to have a chance to stretch out and walk around.

Byron took Heather by the hand and spoke softly into her ear "Act as human-like as possible.  We can't let anyone know what you are."

She shook her head yes and they walked up to the heavily grilled glass doors of the store.

Mike walked over to Tammy, who was busy putting the gasoline nozzle into the car.  "Snap out of it." he said.

"What?" she said, looking almost offended.

"I need you alert.  Save the sex for later, got it?"

She couldn't argue.  She was programmed to obey him.  "Okay." she said.  Her facemask had a shape of reluctance to it.  Her current digital fantasy - with a naked Heather flicking her nipples with her fingertips - abruptly ended and vanished from her field of view.

All of Tammy's computing resources were now available.  She topped up the tank and grabbed her purse.  Her and Mike went into the store so she could pay.  He had a hankering for some beef jerky.

"Bonjour." Mike said as he stepped inside.  Tammy said the same.

The middle aged, old looking couple behind the counter didn't bother to smile at this first bunch of people they had seen for hours.  They merely nodded and watched them intensely as if trying to deter them from stealing.

Another car pulled up to the pumps then.  The shopkeepers would have even more company.

Tammy paid for her gas while Byron poured himself a cup of brownish liquid that could almost pass for hot chocolate.  He went up to pay as Heather milled about behind him.  The electronic bell of the door was heard as one more person came into the store.

A loud gunshot split the air.  Heather's chest crackled and sparked violently as she fell backwards to the dirty floor.

"NO!" Byron shouted as he dropped his drink.

The blonde with the gun looked coldly around.  The couple behind the counter put their hands in the air as the fembot with black sunglasses stiffly and slowly took aim at Byron.

Part 57 – Fight

"You will return to Fembot Command Station 21." said the blonde with the gun.  Her voice was loud, artificial and machine-like, and sent an icy chill into the four humans present.

Byron stared straight into the barrel of that gun.  All clichés aside, it was a terrifying sight.

He was ready to give up.  He was so shaken by seeing Heather get shot that he wasn't sure exactly what to say.

But Tammy sprang into action quickly.  Within a slim fraction of a second, she loaded the data she had stored on martial arts, filtered through a host of possible styles and techniques and decided on the best strategy and plan of action to disable the unwelcome fembot.

Her moves were unpracticed, but due to her complete and exact control over every last part of her electromechanical body, she came off looking like an expert fighter.  Her first powerful kick landed at the enforcer droid's wrist, and separated the hand from the arm. 

The gun, with the robot's finger still on the trigger, spun around as it arced forward and over behind a display of candy bars.

Byron was again shocked, but relieved as he watched Tammy proceed to deal the other automaton a sound beating.  Using primarily Kyokushin Karate techniques, she delivered blow after blow to the disarmed fembot.  Tammy used the inertia of her body to add strength and speed to the punches her strong metal fists drove into the enforcer's frame.

Outside the store, another identical blonde pony-tailed robot had gotten out of Melanie's car.  Anya knew exactly what these machines were and what they were there for, because many days before, through a connecting cable, Tammy had shown Anya the form their most likely threat would take.

As soon as Anya saw the nameless and well-dressed fembot outside her vehicle, she got out of Tammy's car and got ready for a fight of her own.  The blonde reached for her gun, but Anya sent such powerful hits to this unsuspecting second robot that it soon fell to its knees in a state of malfunction.  Anya first jerked the blonde's head away from its connectors, then ripped open her jacket and blouse to deactivate her.

Tammy's opponent wasn't so easily stopped.  The cramped conditions of the convenience store limited Tammy's movement so that she couldn't get into position to quickly shut the other robot off.  The blonde she fought soon figured out that she should hit back, and landed a sharp blow with her remaining hand to Tammy's head.  Her facemask went flying off as they traded hits.

Anya rushed in and just in time came to Tammy's aid.  With one well-placed and powerful kick, she caused the stubborn blonde to jerk and convulse about and lose her bearings.  Tammy grabbed her hair, pulled her down, and with her arm gripping the enforcer's head like a vice, pulled her head off just like the other one.

With sparks coming from the exposed metal and plastic in it's neck, the blonde fell to her knees and forward on to the floor.  This one too was deactivated after it's chest panel had been uncovered and exposed.

The humans looked around, stunned.  the two behind the counter were even more shocked than Mike and Byron, and still held their arms high in the air.

"Let's get out of here." Mike said.  He went to grab Tammy's facemask and hurriedly put it back on her head.

The couple behind the counter were to amazed to speak or move it seemed.  All the better for the five travelers.  They needed no interference now.

Byron too was in a state of shock.  His love was lying dormant on the cold floor, with a foul and acrid smelling bullet hole in her chest.  She had lost power completely when she was hit, and her eyes pointed up at nothing as tears rolled down Byron's cheeks.

"Byron, we have to go, now." Mike said urgently as Tammy held her facemask on and rushed back to the car.

"Anya, pick Heather up and put her in the car." Mike ordered.

The inhuman brunette wasted no time in stooping down and hoisting the damaged robot over her shoulder.

Byron stood up as Anya carried Heather out the door.  Mike had to grab Byron's hand to get him to move fast.  On his way out he glanced back at the headless and handless fembot that had been forcefully deactivated.

He and Mike stepped over the body of the other dormant enforcer outside and quickly got back into the vehicle.  Tammy still held her facemask on as she sped out of the parking lot and down the road.

"Double back." Mike called out.

"What?" Tammy said.  Her lips didn't move when she talked.

"We'll go back the way we came." he said, his heart racing.  "Fembot Command won't expect that."

Without a word, Tammy turned the wheel and tore off down the highway going back the way they had came.

"What's wrong with your facemask?"

"It's not working right.  It won't connect." she said, again her face stayed static.

"Shit." Mike said.

He looked back at Byron.  He was leaning forward in his seat, crying silently with his hands clutching his head.

"We can fix her.  I know we can." Mike said, even though he had no clue if they could.

"What if you can't?" Byron said while hiding his head.  His voice was saturated with anguish.

"We will." Mike assured him.  "She only took one shot." he said, even though he knew that one shot in the right place could wreck a fembot permanently.

Mike looked over to Anya.  "Are you damaged?"

Anya turned her head stiffly.  "No." she said.

"Anya, trade facemasks with Tammy." he said.  From experiments performed during happier times he knew that they could be swapped like that.

Anya removed her facemask and held it out.  Mike grabbed it and took the one from Tammy.  He handed Anya the damaged one and fitted hers on Tammy's head.

"How's that?" he asked Tammy.

She looked at him with Anya's slightly darker face.  "Better." she said.  It worked properly, and the mouth moved when she talked, but it was obviously not the right face on that head.

"Slow down to the speed limit." Mike ordered.  "The last thing we need is to be stopped by the cops."

Tammy complied with the order.

"Anya," Mike said, "scan the damage to Heather.  Then scan that facemask."

"Yes Mike." she said as she held Tammy's damaged face to her head and aimed her optical sensors at Heather's chest.

Mike sat back in his seat and tried to calm down.

"Byron," he said, "we were lucky to escape with our lives." he said.

Byron didn't say anything.  Neither did anyone else.

Part 58 – Inside

Anya stared into Heather's now fully exposed and damaged chest as she held Tammy's facemask up to her head.  Infrared scans showed where certain types of damage and hardware failures had occurred.  The colour of the affected area gave her clues as to how much machinery had been damaged by the single bullet.  Ultraviolet and x-ray scans showed Anya things that only a computer mind like hers could comprehend.

The very thorough series of scans took over 50 minutes.  At their conclusion, Anya announced a short summary of their results.  Still holding Tammy's chin, she turned her head to look at Mike and said "The damage to this robot's components is repairable."

Byron lifted his head and looked at Anya with red eyes.  "She can be fixed?"

"Yes." Anya said as she turned to look at him.  She explained further.  "The electronic components within the Heather robot's chest are not configured in a manner similar to standard Robot Control units such as myself and Tammy.  The damaged sustained by the Heather robot is concentrated mainly in her main random access memory core.  Replacement components are commercially available.  Methods of repair using commercially available tools can be devised."

While Byron pondered that, Tammy added some comments generated by her human-like AI.  "We need to stop at a town big enough to have a well-stocked computer parts store.  Don't worry Byron.  If Anya says Heather can be fixed, we can think of a way of doing it."

She looked at him with Anya's face through the rearview.  Byron understood.  This fellow man and his fembots were his only hope of seeing Heather active again.

"Anya, scan that facemask and see what you can do." Mike said.

"Yes Mike." the robot said.  She took off her friend's face and looked at the inside of it with her high-tech optical sensors.

"That wasn't luck that saved her from being damaged beyond repair, Byron." Tammy said.  "Fembots like that have perfect aim, and that one must have known how Heather was built."

Mike was impressed by the reasoning skills of his synthetic companion.  "You mean they only wanted to disable her?"

"That's right." she said, now looking at him and still watching the road ahead in her peripheral vision.  "They probably would have brought you both back and fixed her themselves.  If they wanted to destroy her, that fembot would have aimed lower."

Byron looked at Tammy, then at Mike, then over at Anya, who hadn't spoken or moved.

"Are you sure we can get the right parts to fix her?" he asked.  "Those chips and all that machinery, those are pretty advanced."

"We'll find a way." Tammy said.  "Anya and I will put our combined computing power on it."

Byron's fears weren't wholly allayed.  "What if we go back and take the parts we need out of those fembots?"

"It's too late." Mike said.  "By now that place will be swarming with cops."  He turned around in his seat to look at Byron.  "I thought about that too, but too late.  I wish I'd thought of it sooner."

"She's all I got Mike." he said.  "She told me she loved me."

Mike knew exactly what that meant as he looked into the other human's eyes.  For him, the love of a female robot was just as good as the love of a woman.  Maybe it was for Byron too.

For all intents and purposes, Heather's was a life to save.

A weary and sad silence fell over the occupants of the vehicle.  Byron looked now and then at Heather's beautiful eyes, hoping desperately to see them animate once more.  Mike watched the lines on the highway zoom forward and then get swallowed by the front of the car as Tammy drove wearing Anya's face.

Anya was finishing up her scans, and in a while relayed another damage report to her master.  "Several electrical contact points within the sealing mechanism have been damaged.  The facemask will not integrate itself into the Tammy robot's system without full electronic response signals from all contact points.  Repairs to the Tammy robot's facemask will be more simple and less time consuming than repairs to the Heather robot's chest."

"Can you repair it on the way to our next stop?" Mike asked.

"No.  We will need to obtain some tools." she said.

"Okay." Mike said.  "Hold that facemask back against  your head."  He turned to Tammy.  "How far is the nearest town big enough for our needs?" he asked.

Tammy computed for a moment. "373 kilometres." she said.

"Over three hours." he said.

He leaned back and looked at the ceiling.  He thought about their predicament.  With Tammy's face in no condition to be seen by anyone, Anya would have to stop in at the next motel to get them a room.  But even speaking in French, Anya sounded like a computer.

Mike looked back over his shoulder at her.  He then looked at the man sitting heartbroken behind him.  "Byron," he said, "You speak French?"

"Of course." he said.  "I work for the government.  I have to."

"Thank god." Mike said.  The image of Anya mechanically fumbling her way through a complicated series of social interactions faded out of his mind.  "Tammy usually gets us a motel room.  You'll have to do it this time."

"No problem." he said.  "Do you have money for two rooms?" he asked.  "I only have as much cash as I had when I was kidnapped."

"Yeah," he answered, "we have enough."

Byron nodded lightly and tried to smile.  He took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat.  He put his hand over Heather's unmoving, cold hand.  The damage to that part that once seemed such a problem was now the least of his worries.

"We'll fix you." he thought to himself.  "If it's the last thing I'll do, I'll have you back."

Part 59 – Collected

After uneventfully passing the empty spot of highway where Byron and Heather had joined the other three, both humans relaxed enough to doze away the last couple of hours of the trip to the mid-sized town Tammy had chosen.

When the car passed the bilingual welcome sign on the highway, Tammy awoke her man.

"Mike." she said.

"Mmmmmmm." he said as he roused himself from sleep.

"We're here." she said.  "I'll find a motel.  Wake Byron so he can get us rooms."

"I'm awake." he said quietly.  He stretched out in his seat as he glanced out the window to the falling sun.  In a couple of hours it would start to disappear behind the trees and buildings.

The motel they chose was not the same one Tammy and Mike had stayed in on their last visit to this town a couple of days previous.  All occupants of the car were apprehensive over the possibility that unwelcome visitors would find them.

Tammy pulled the car in along the side of the building, as far out of sight as could be.

"Two rooms." Byron said.  "Anything else?  You smoke?"

"No," Mike said, "Just two rooms, but two beds in one of them."

"Try to get them on the other side of the building, tell the clerk we want to watch the sunset." Tammy said.

This was to provide cover for bringing Heather's unmoving body into the room.  Mike was quite impressed by her creativity in that regard.

"We'll wait here." Mike said as Byron took a thick bundle of bills from Tammy and got out of the car.

He stuffed the money into his pocket and closed the car door. 

Mike and his two fembots watched him walk up to the door and into the office.

"I assume you'll make me & Byron a shopping list." he said to Tammy.

"Yes." she said as she looked at him with Anya's face.  "Start computing a list of things the humans will need to buy for the repairs, Anya." she said as she looked at the stiff fembot in the back seat.

"Yes Tammy." she said.  The facemask she held to her head didn't move.

Byron came back to the car and got in.  "Two rooms, both on the other side of the building." he said as he handed Mike a set of keys.  He looked at Tammy's reflection in the rearview.  "That was a nice touch about the sunset." he said.

"Thank you." she said as she started the car and pulled slowly out of her spot.

The car went over a speedbump and pulled around the side of the building.  Mike read the number on his keychain and showed it to Tammy.  She could decipher the small numbers on the doors from this distance, and before the humans knew exactly where their rooms were, she had computed exactly where she would park.

She stopped the car and looked around.  "I don't see anybody close by." she said.  "We should bring Heather in as soon as we can."

"Okay."  Mike said. He looked back at Byron.  "You and me will bring her in."

Byron nodded as Mike gave his keys to Tammy.  The four of them got out of the vehicle.  Mike stood by and waited for Byron to bring Heather out.  When he had her legs out, Mike grabbed them and helped Byron lift his love through the door that Tammy had opened.

Mike looked up at Byron, and for a second saw the look of pain on his face as he stared into the unmoving eyes of his damaged companion.  Mike looked down quickly at her feet.

The two of them laid the damaged android on the nearest bed.  "Anya," Mike said, "start undressing Heather."  He went over to the window and drew shut the curtains.

Mike got the car keys from Tammy and went with Byron to get their things out of the trunk.  "Better put that case and the snowshoes in your room.  Turn the lights on in there too." he said.

Byron nodded and grabbed the heavy aluminum case.  Together they emptied the trunk of bags and got them into their respective rooms.

Byron went inside his room.  "I'll be over in about five minutes." he said.

"Okay." Mike said.  "We have a shopping trip to make after."

Mike went back to his room and closed the door.  He went to the washroom too as the two still activated fembots swapped data and compiled a handwritten shopping list on the motel stationery.  Anya had by this time put the damaged facemask on a table and now displayed the inside of her electronic head to all present.

When Mike was done, he emerged to hear Byron knocking.  He let him in. 

"Well," he said to Tammy, "is that list done?"

"Almost." she said as Anya relayed a constant verbal string of exactly described computer parts and mechanical tools.  Tammy wrote legibly and without looking or stopping until she had filled up two pages of the small note pad with items.

She pulled the papers away from the pad and gave them to Mike.  "This is what we need, so far."

Mike took them and looked at Anya's face on Tammy's head.  He gave her lips a kiss.  "We'll be back." he said Arnold-like.

He looked over at Byron and without a word, the two were off.

Part 60 – Settling

Mike and Byron got into the green car and took off down the well kept streets.  They could still smell the smoke from the burnt plastic in the vehicle.  Mike had been around this charming town earlier, so he knew exactly where to go.  Most of their shopping could probably be done at the big office superstore a few miles away.

The two humans didn't say much to each other on the way.  They were both pretty exhausted, and both very hungry.  But they both knew that if any progress on Heather's repairs was to be made tonight, they would have to worry about filling their stomachs later.

As the two men were slowly checking off items on the list, Tammy and Anya were preparing Heather for a major set of repairs, and some improvised rebuilding as well.  When they had gotten the damaged robot's clothes off her, Mike's girls had  decided to unstrap the laptop from her as well.  It was also damaged, as Heather fell with the weight of all her machinery on to it when she had been shot.

The double hinge of the portable computer was busted, and the two parts remained connected only by the current carrying ribbon that had once been concealed.  The screen was smashed, and the other side had cracked open. 

The fembots who examined this scene had heard Byron explain the reason for connecting Heather to this laptop.  Tammy computed its importance and had Anya scan it.  They compiled another list of things Mike and Byron would need to buy on a second trip.

The evening went by fast.  Byron did all the talking while Mike pushed a red cart full of expensive memory sticks, motherboards and other gizmos.  Byron had thought of the excuse that all the computers in their office needed upgrades, and that seemed to explain their odd purchases to the curious staff.

When they were done at the office store, they headed to a mall in search of an electronics boutique, where they could find the miscellaneous tools, wiring, switches and circuits they would need.  They finally managed to wrap up their shopping trip by closing time, and hurried back to the car and back to the motel.

Anya hid and Tammy covered up Heather with a blanket as a key unlocked the door.  Mike and Byron walked in with their shopping bags, and the fembots greeted them with the news.

"We need you to get more parts." Tammy said as she handed Mike another list.  "Heather's laptop is busted too."

"How bad?" Byron asked.  He feared that all of his work on her extended personality and personhood might be lost.

Tammy calculated the reasons for his worry and interest.  "The hard drives are intact, but the laptop won't work the way it is." she said.  "It got squashed pretty good."

Mike looked at the list as his stomach growled.  "Shop tomorrow.  Pizza now." he said caveman-like.

Byron surely agreed, but he was silent as he slumped himself down into the chair against the wall.  He looked at the still damaged and partially disassembled woman on the bed.  Anya had come out of hiding and pulled the covers away from Heather once more.

"Get the food delivered to Byron's room." Tammy said.  "We'll start repairing what we can.

"Okay." Mike said.  "Just knock on the wall if you need help."

"Or I can phone you." Tammy said as she started going through the shopping bags.

"That'll work too." Mike said.  "Byron," he said to pull him out of his trance, "Let's go."

Mike hugged and kissed Tammy, who still wore Anya's face.  Byron stood up and together the men went over to the room next door.

They silently got in and turned on the lights.  "Can you order?" Mike said.  "The only French I know is 'j'ai une boîte de stylo'."

Byron didn't laugh or even smirk as he sat down and opened up the yellow pages.

"C'mon, I'm just trying to lighten things up." Mike said.

"I don't see how they could be much worse." Byron said without looking up.

"You could be dead."  Mike paused a bit as Byron looked at him.  Mike pulled his collar aside and leaned forward.  "See this?" he asked as Byron studied the pinkish scar on Mike's shoulder.  "This is a gift from another one of those blonde fembots.  She was aiming at my head.  Tammy saved my life."

Byron looked at the scar.  He looked back into Mike's eyes.  "You're right.  Sorry.  Tell you what, I'll laugh tomorrow."

Mike sat down on the bed and looked at the CDs Byron had put on the table.  "There's some good stuff here." he said.  "It's too bad my CD players are in the other room."

Byron was silent again as he zeroed in on the pizza restaurant section.  He looked for a while at the pages in front of him then put his finger on an ad.  "What kind of pizza would you like?"

"Doesn't matter to me." he said.  "I'll eat anything on a pizza."

Byron picked up the phone and punched the right series of numbers into the keypad.  Mike sat silently by as Byron spoke in fluent French to the person at the restaurant.  When he was done, he hung up the phone and put his head in his hands.

Mike let him have some more time alone, and went to the washroom.  He wondered how well he could stay composed if it were Tammy lying damaged from a gunshot on the bed next door.

Over in that room, the two robots worked fast, without the need to act as slow as humans would.  No one would see them move their parts around so fast, so they were safe.  Tammy worked with a soldering gun on her own facemask while Anya began removing sections of burnt and cracked circuit boards from Heather's fully exposed abdomen. 

While the pizza delivery guy was knocking on Byron's door, Tammy fastened her own facemask back into place and started up some diagnostic programs as she snapped Anya's facemask back on the front of her open head for her. 

When those tests were done, and with no problems detected, Tammy went over to help Anya.  She connected a long cord from Anya's chest to her own so they could act in unison during the repair process.  They now were as one mind with four expertly moving arms to get the damaged parts out of heather's chest and rebuild what was missing.

Mike and Byron were stuffing the bland but much needed food into their mouths as that went on.  They gulped down ice-cold watery soda from large plastic cups and tried to talk about things other than fembots - damaged or otherwise.

It didn't work to well.

"I'm going over to that liquor store after this." Byron said.  "I need a drink tonight, how 'bout you?"

"I'll pass." Mike said.  "I don't drink anymore.  And believe me, it's not like I couldn't use one right now."

Mike saw a smirk come on to Byron's face finally.  "So, what are you going to do when we get Heather all fixed up?" he asked.

"Do you really think that will happen?" Byron asked before lifting another wedge from the box.

"I do." he said.  "If anyone can fix her, it's my girls."

"I try not to get too optimistic about things." Byron said. "I'll wait and see.  I really don't like that laptop being damaged."

"That'll be the easiest to fix, once we get the right parts tomorrow."

"What if all my data is gone?" he asked.  "Sorry, I don't mean to sound so upset, but I worked for a very long time on getting Heather the way she was.  If anything goes wrong..."

He didn't finish his sentence.  They were both getting very tired.  Byron finished eating and went to wash up.  

Mike wished he was better at conversation.  He thought about some things and waited for Byron to emerge from the washroom.

"You're going for that drink now?" he asked.

"Yes." Byron said as he got his coat.

"I'm going to send Anya here tonight.  She'll protect you." he said.

Byron looked at him.  When he thought about it, he was glad Mike could spare one of his women for that.  "Thank you." he said.

"I'm going to bed now, so goodnight." he said.  He offered Byron his hand.

"Goodnight." he said.  "Let's hope tomorrow is better."

"We'll make it better, Byron." Mike said, having no idea of how that could be done.

They exited the room together.  Byron walked around the building and across the street to buy his booze while Mike went back to his room.

He called out "It's me." as he put his key into the door lock.  Tammy checked the peephole this time, so there was no need to hide any exposed android circuitry.

Mike immediately saw that Tammy's facemask had been fixed.  That made him happy.  He went up to her and gave her a kiss.

"It's nice to have you all fixed up." he said.  "How's everything coming along?"

"Good so far." Tammy said, using her advanced AI programming to compress the myriad details of a potential status report into three words.

"Anya," Mike said to the exotic robot beauty, "Stay in Byron's room tonight.  Protect him."

The other fembot looked up from what she was doing and registered his command.  "Yes Mike." she said.

He watched her finish up, unplug herself from Tammy's chest and fetch her purse.  He looked at her sexy body and thought about something as she walked toward the door.

"Anya," he said.

She halted and looked back to him.

"He's out buying something right now.  But when he comes back..." Mike thought it over to be certain, "offer your company to him."

Anya stared back at him.  He didn't know if she could comprehend.

"Do you understand?" he said, trying to banish the illogical feelings of jealousy that came to him along with his order to the robot. "Offer to sleep with him.  But don't rape him if he refuses."

Anya's electronic circuits computed his words.  "Yes Mike." she said. 

She stood there waiting by the door.  He gave her butt a squeeze and reminded himself that she was not capable of choosing Byron over him.  "Play some of his CDs for him too, if he wants."

"Yes Mike." she said again.

Not long after, the sound of Byron's door opening and closing was heard.  Mike wondered now if Byron would be offended by his unusual hospitality, but decided to let the tall brunette android go to him with her current orders intact.

"See you tomorrow." he said. 

Anya stared back blankly and walked out the door. 

Mike turned his attention to Tammy, who was putting things away and preparing herself for bedtime.  He looked at her beautiful eyes as she unwound her recharge cord. 

"Now," he said "you protect me."

Part 61 - Amicability Algorithms

Anya knocked on Byron's door.  She stood straight like a mannequin as he went toward the door and looked through the peephole.

He watched her lack of motion for a moment, then let her in.

"Hello Anya." he said as she stepped inside and he close the door behind her.

"Hello Byron." she said mechanically.  "Do you want to have sex with me?"

Byron was more than surprised.  "No." he said.

Anya looked unaffected.  She put her purse down on a table and started to undress.

"What are you doing?" Byron asked.

"I am removing my clothing."

"Why?"

"My end-of-day directives are to remove my clothing and recharge my battery packs."

Byron let her finish and pulled the tiny bottle of rye out of the paper bag.  He had decided to limit himself to this one drink.  He unwrapped a small glass tumbler that was sitting on a tray next to the TV and poured his drink into it.

Anya continued to undress, and got completely naked as Byron watched.  He felt uncomfortable.  He decided not to tell Mike about this, and he would definitely keep his hands off Anya's super-sexy body.

Anya stripped as if it was just one more function she could perform, and so it was.  She knew the effect the sight of her nude form could have on men, but she had no emulated desire to use that effect one way or another.

Her cameras were aimed at the wall as she exposed her exquisitely molded plastic parts, but she was able to see Byron watching her in the periphery.

There was no way he could keep his eyes off such a perfect body.  Anya was the sexiest woman he had ever met, robot or not.  He took guilty pleasure in watching her fine curves as the drink he sipped numbed his tongue.

When she was completely undressed, she emotionlessly turned and pulled her recharge cord out of her purse.  She walked over to Byron, closer to him than he would have liked.  His eyes and her pretty plastic crotch were at roughly the same level.

He froze for a moment with the tumbler to his lips, looking at the neatly shaped patch of artificial hair above her electronic vagina.

He realised also at that point that he had forgotten to bring a recharge cord along for Heather.  He would make sure to add that to the shopping list, as these cords were the same standard type that provided power to most computers and monitors, only a lot longer.

"Please connect this cord to my recharge port." Anya said.  She waited for him to grab the coiled up cord, then pivoted around robotically to show him her backside. 

Her recharge port opened up as he took in the sight.  Unlike Mike, he wasn't a big fan of exposed electronics per se, but he sure could appreciate the sight of this fembot's beautifully curved buttocks.

Her temptation severely tested his resolve.  Her computerised mind was still trying to get him interested sexually, in accordance with her orders.  The trick she now employed had been taught to her by Tammy.  Fembots like them were more than capable of plugging themselves in, but their human master found them irresistible when they asked him to do it.

Byron downed his drink in one more gulp to steady his nerves.  He uncoiled the long black cord and pushed the proper end into the exposed mechanism.  The single green light turned amber and started slowly flashing.  He moved aside and stood up - so near to him Anya was standing - and walked over around the bed to find an outlet.  He stooped down and plugged the male end of the cord into the socket.

Anya turned around and looked at him with her extremely gorgeous face.  Even without emotion of any kind displayed on it, it was still breathtaking to behold.

"Thank you Byron." she said.

"You're welcome." he answered, keeping his distance as if she was too dangerous to get near.  He wished he had bought a bit more liquor.

She pulled aside the sheets on the bed and slid her sexy body in.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to bed." she stated simply.

Byron was very uncomfortable.  He longed to have Heather in that spot instead of Anya. 

Without a word more he went to the washroom to brush his teeth.  Anya slid herself over to the side near to the outlet and pulled the covers over her warm and smooth skin.  With incorruptible vigilance, she analysed every muffled sound and every flashing shadow that went by outside.  Her CPU worked out possible plans of action based on a multitude of probabilities, no matter how remote.  Byron would be safe from harm tonight.

He was still quite rattled from Anya's advances though.  He had no idea that Mike had told her to behave this way, and just thought that Anya was an extremely horny machine.  He would make sure nothing went on between them.  He wouldn't mention any of this to Mike either.

The alcohol started to pleasantly affect him finally as he stepped out of the tiny washroom and over to the empty side of the bed.  He didn't quite know what to say, so he didn't say anything as he stripped down to his boxer shorts and got under the sheets next to Anya.  He stayed as far from her as he could.

"Would you like to have sex with me before you go to sleep?" she asked.

"No." he said as he rolled over to face away from her.  "Just do your job and watch over me."

He rolled his words around in his mind in the long silence that followed.  He didn't mean to sound so unkind.

But that was of no import.  Anya had no feelings to hurt.

Part 62 - Touché

As if Byron wasn't uncomfortable enough sleeping next to an electronic temptress, Anya began to masturbate - and in no subtle way. 

She began like an alarm going off.  She stretched out and rolled on to her back in one quick motion, then spread her legs and thrust both hands downward in the next.

"Beginning sensory stimulus." she announced in her strictly logical way.

Before Byron could figure out what was going on, she began to verbally relay the changes in her body's state.  "Internal temperature rising.  Now at 37.3° Celsius." she said.

Her voice was already too loud to ignore, just as her words were to odd to ignore.  Soon, Byron could no longer even try to forget about the motion picked up and amplified by the motel mattress.

"Vaginal sensor activity increasing.  Now at 218% of normal levels." she said.

"Anya, what the hell are you doing?" Byron said.  It was clear that he was very annoyed and frustrated.

"I am masturbating.  Would you like to help me?"

Byron got mad.  "Stop that!  Stop it right now."

Anya stopped what she was doing.  "My masturbatory cycle has not yet completed." she told him.

Byron clenched his teeth.  He couldn't stand dealing with intransigent androids.  "Finish in the washroom." he ordered.  "When you come back, just lie next to me and pretend you're sleeping."

"Yes Byron." she said vacantly and got up.  He was expecting her to sound a little offended, but there was not a trace of emotion in her digitally generated voice.

The gorgeous fembot got up efficiently, and in the same manner walked in the dark motel room to the washroom. 

She didn't turn on any lights that might have further aggravated him, but she didn't close the door either.  She stood naked in the dark tiled room and continued right where she had left off.

"Clitoris-specific sensor clusters are at maximal stimulation values." she said loud and clear as byron shut his eyes tight and pulled the covers over his head.

He decided to wait it out.  It struck him that Mike must have really enjoyed seeing Anya's inhuman display of mechanistic arousal.  It was torture for him to listen to that soulless machine do what he had watched his Heather do, and what he had taught her to do so well for her own simulated pleasure.  All he could think about was the damaged and non-functioning android in the room on the other side of the thin wall behind him.

Anya kept up her little play session for exactly five minutes, including the time she had spent in bed next to Byron.  "Masturbation session complete." she said in her near-monotone, and walked back into the main room.

Byron was huddled under the covers and facing away - trying to be as far away as he could.  He expected to say no to another request for sex from the mindless bimbo next to him, but she said nothing after sliding into bed beside him.  She did exactly as he had ordered and layed next to him with her sleep simulation programs booting up and running.

A few feet away, behind the thin wallpaper, drywall and 2x4s that separated them, Mike and Tammy held on to each other - in love.  Mike had heard Byron's loud command to Anya to stop what she was doing.  He felt bad now that his generous plan had backfired.  He honestly thought that he could share the sexy Anya unit, and that Byron would appreciate the gesture.

"What's wrong?" Tammy said quietly.  She had been reading him in the dark.

"I thought Byron would want to, you know, try Anya on for size...  while Heather's being fixed."

"Why doesn't he?" she asked innocently.  "Anya's beautiful."

"'Cause he loves Heather." Mike answered.

"I don't understand."

Mike looked at the soft dark blue on black shades in the room that his eyes could make out.  "She's the only one for him.  I guess it would be like cheating on Heather if he screwed Anya."

"But they're both machines." she said.

Mike stroked Tammy's soft hair and kissed her forehead.  "You seem to forget you're also a machine."

"Yeah, but I'm sentient." she said proudly.

"So you claim."

"Yours is just a claim too." she said.  She reached down and grabbed his stiffening penis.  "Care to offer me some hard evidence of your sentience?"

"Touché." he said.

They shared a little laugh.

"But I still don't understand.  Why doesn't Byron want Anya just because he loves Heather.  That does not compute."

"I think he loves her just like I love you... like I would love a real human woman."

"I still don't get it." she complained, while stroking his shaft with her delicate fingertips.

"Let me put it this way.  I wouldn't share you with him, but Anya's different."

"What does that have to do with why he doesn't like her?"

"Umm... I'm not sure."

"And why wouldn't you share me with him?" she asked as she crawled on top of him.  "Aren't I good enough to share?"

"Fuck that." he said as he firmly grabbed her sexy ass. "You're mine."

"I belong to no one!" she protested.   Her synthetic bodily fluids began to get pumped out of the parts of her body that were heating up.

"You're programmed to obey my commands, right?"

"Yeah, but..."

"You're MINE!" he happily growled as he found the entrance to her silicone vagina and pushed himself inside.

"Yes Master."  Tammy giggled.  She reached up and took off her facemask so he could enjoy the lovely light show while she rode on top.

Part 63 – Cold Night

For Byron, the night didn't pass smoothly at all.  Many times he got up to turn up the thermostat, which didn't seem to work.  Many times he rolled over on one side then the other, which was no help in getting comfortable. 

When he wasn't thinking about Heather, he was wondering how warm Anya could get.  He still didn't lay so much as a finger on her out of stubbornness and pride.  She could have kept him very warm indeed had he let her.

Instead, he lay there listening to the sounds of this unfamiliar town.  They came in too easily through the motel's walls, but they did distract him a little bit from replaying that one scene over and over again.

Over and over again the heartless blonde fembot took aim, and over and over again Heather was knocked down by the blast.  In torturous repetition he saw the moment her simulated life went out of her eyes.

He started wishing he had never left the cabin.  There he could still be, in a very warm room with his artificial companion by his side instead of that raven-haired computer.  The way she acted, Anya to him was not much better than the strikingly unreal maid he had left behind.

Byron even thought about going back.  He wondered what would happen if he just showed up at the door, and asked Natasha to let him in again and fix his broken lover.

On top of all that, the darkness and the coldness was maddening.  He turned once more away from Anya under the covers and pulled his body closer in on itself.

Dawn came early, and unwelcome to him.  Loud children ran back and forth in front of his room, yelling their childish things to each other as they waited for their mother to take them away. 

Byron opened his eyes and looked at the clock.  It was just after six.  He closed his eyes again and tried to sleep some more, but the hole that had been torn into his psyche let in too much howling wind and icy frost.

Mike was waking up around then too, thanks to the hyper kids outside.  He held on to the soft and warm body of his own robot, and had stayed comfortable through the night thanks to her heat.

"It's cold in here." he said as he got up.  He looked over at the thermostat, which was already set all the way up. 

He looked across the room to the other bed.  Heather was under a blanket, with most of the front of her abdomen opened up.

"You got that list of more parts we'll need?" he asked Tammy.

"Processing." she said, just because he liked hearing it.  "I'll write it down when you're in the shower."

"Ok." he said after a yawn.  "Let's let Byron sleep."

"Are you going to go shopping by yourself?"

"No, you come with me."

"I calculate that there's enough work to do on Heather and her parts for both me and Anya to do.  I think you should take Byron with you."

He thought about that for a while. "Sure.  I should have known you would be computing the best use of our time."

Tammy got the covers out of her way and unplugged herself.  She stood up and started to coil up her recharge cord.  "I'll start from where I left off last night after I get dressed."

"Oh, don't get dressed on my account." he joked.  "I think that would look neat - you naked and repairing another android."

Tammy put one hand on her hip and pointed at the washroom with the other.  "Go shower, filthy human."

Mike laughed.  "Give me a kiss." he ordered.

Tammy turned around and picked her facemask off the nightstand.  She held some hair out of the way and snapped it back on to the front of her plastic and metal head.

Mike went toward her and gave her a quick kiss and a quick feel between her legs.

"Brush your teeth too, stinky." she said.

Mike stuck his tongue out at her and walked into the washroom.  With luck, the hot water tank would have something left in it.

While Mike was washing up in there, the phone rang.  Tammy instantly computed the meaning of the noise and sat down on the bed to answer the call.

"Hello?" she said sweetly.

"Hello, Tammy?  It's Byron."

"Good morning!" she said with bright cheer.  "How did you sleep?"

"Not too well.  How did you charge?"

"Good." she said as she laughed.  "What's on your mind?"

Byron paused for a while before he answered.  He found himself thinking of how Tammy had been programmed.  "Um, you said yesterday we need more parts to fix Heather.  Do you have a list made up yet?"

"In my chest I do, but I'll write it down on paper for you and Mike."

"Okay.  I really need to have Heather fixed as soon as possible.  Can I talk to Mike?"

"He's in the shower.  Why don't you take a shower, get dressed and come over here?"

Byron felt like he should be the one giving the machine suggestions, but that was his plan anyway.

"Sure." he said and hung up.

Tammy's AI expected some friendly words of parting, but she knew he had hung up when she heard the clicking from the phone.  She put her end back on the hook and in a flash processed the instruction sets necessary for writing down that list of parts needed.

Byron stayed sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped up in the blankets that were so much warmer where they had covered Anya.

Anya stood naked and motionless off to the side after receiving a curt order to move from the stressed-out human.

Byron stood up with the covers still over him and looked at Anya.  "I'm going to have a shower now.  I guess you're going to stay right here?" he said, adding "in that same fucking spot?" in his thoughts.

"Yes." she responded.

He turned away and went to have his shower.  He immediately felt bad for treating Anya so inhumanely, and then immediately reminded himself that she wasn't human.

He thought only about Heather the whole time he had his shower.  Back at the cabin, she would have been downstairs and hooked up to the massive supercomputer there while he washed up.  He wondered if he would ever have her back like he had before.

There were a couple of favours he needed to ask of Mike.  One of them was for money, and the other was for a chance to look at Tammy's programming.

Part 64 – Order

Tammy carefully lifted the sheet that covered Heather's half-way disassembled body.  The work she and Anya had done on Byron's companion had required the constant exposure of many different ports and circuit boards.  In addition to her entire torso cover, Heather's facial covering and sections of padded silicone from her attractively padded thighs had been removed.

Tammy looked down at Heather while Mike was in the shower.  She recalled data and files pertaining to her digital crush on this damaged robot, and files concerning Mike's order to give it a relatively low priority as far as her processors were concerned.  While she was alone she overrode that, and pulled a chair close to the foot of the bed.  She sat her naked body down on the edge of the seat and spread her smooth and nicely shaped thighs apart wide.

Her video cameras scanned the machinery on the bed as her electronically controlled fingers began to stimulate the many sensors embedded in the pink silicone between her legs.

Pleasure showed on her perspiring face as she looked at all the exposed microchips and wires showing everywhere inside Heather's opened body.  She kept her fluid discharges to a minimum so as not to mess up the motel furniture too much.

She recalled her favorite video clips of Heather's movement while she stroked herself, and played them in the corner of her sight as she used her awesome computing power to imagine making love to a fully assembled and repaired Heather unit.

As she sat there masturbating and fantasizing using methods only available to Machines, Mike soaped up his body and thought about Heather as well.  He had not missed the fact that she was pretty, nor had he failed to notice she was a fembot.  His own sexual drives were firmly under his management - or at least he hoped.

He briefly admitted to himself how much he would love to fix Heather up and then take her to bed.  He then thought of Byron.  He knew that Heather meant as much to Byron as Tammy meant to him.

"End of discussion." he thought.  Mike would stick to the plan, and that was to get the wounded fembot repaired and help his fellow human decide just what he would do.

That fast moving bullet that had crashed through his complacency made him again realise how unsafe his life was.  Tammy had told him all she knew about Robot Control, and he could only guess that Fembot Command was just as big and just as mechanised.  Like the classic Robots vs. Humans story, he could not reason with them or otherwise plead his case.  He could not fight them.  The only option was to run.

He had tried to explain some of that to Byron, but Mike still had the feeling that once Heather was repaired, Byron would go back to Ottawa and seek help from the authorities.  Today, Mike would again try to convince him that he would only lose Heather and be easily found by unfailingly vengeful fembots that way.

Byron thought about similar things in the shower, which lost heat with every minute that went by.  The pipes that supplied that insufficiently hot water to both him and Mike were only inches away from each other within the wall until the spot where they joined.

Unlike Mike, Byron could hardly hope to think straight.  Considering the lack of sleep and warmth that had been piled on top of his woes, it was a wonder he could think at all.  He couldn't concentrate, so his mind became numb.  He thought of the drab pattern of the tile, the clinical smell of the tiny bar of soap, the scaled-up holes in the old shower head.

When he thought of Heather he closed his eyes, and tried his best to put blind hope in the place of outright despair.

"They'll fix her." he told himself, as many times as was needed to plough through the moment.  He wanted to crawl back into bed, but he forced himself to become and stay alert for the important jobs ahead.

Anya listened to the water stop as Byron turned off the taps.  She was standing literally in the same place as before, and she hadn't moved once.  Various binary thoughts blazed through her own circuitry, as far as those complex calculations could be called thoughts. 

She had tried to understand why that human had not accepted her offers of sexual contact and service.  The only human she had ever spent time with had told her again and again that she was an irresistible machine, yet this other human had shown her strong resistance.

She had run her daily diagnostic scans at night and found nothing wrong with her systems, so she concluded that the problem lay with the Human's characteristics.  She at first calculated that there was a strong probability that Byron was homosexual, but she had processed enough evidence to the contrary by watching him interact with Heather.

She had seen that type of human/machine interaction before.  She saw it constantly between the human called Mike and the robot called Tammy.  Acting on guidance from said human, she referred to it within her computerized mind as 'love'.  And that she understood no more than the way Byron had treated her.

Byron came out of the room with a towel wrapped around himself.  It dawned on him that without a maidbot around to wash his clothes, he might need to buy some new ones.

He looked over at Anya.  "Get dressed." he said.

"Yes Byron." she said, and sprang into action.

He turned away from the sexy naked android as he put on his own clothes.  They said not a word more to each other until Byron was ready to go.

"Are you ready?" he asked Anya, who had gotten clothing on to her body a lot faster than he was capable of.

"For which actions are you assessing my readiness?" she asked in her machine-like way.

Byron shook his head.  He remembered when Heather had been talking like that so many weeks ago.

"Let's go." he said.  He walked toward the door then stopped.  "No, wait..." he said.  He walked toward the phone.  He picked it up and punched Mike's room number into the keypad.

The phone rang a few times, then Mike answered.  "Hello?"

"Mike, are you ready to go shopping?" Byron asked.

"Uh, give me about five minutes.  I'll see you then." he answered.  He hung up the phone with one hand while holding on to Tammy's waist with the other.  He then returned to the task at hand - thrusting in and out of his favourite black-haired female robot while gazing lustfully at her open recharge port.

Tammy got back to squealing and moaning for him after he hung up the phone.  She was leaned over on the empty bed and enjoying the little connection session quite a bit.

When Mike finished up, in electronically assured synchronisation with his lover, he stood back and stretched.  Tammy turned around and cleaned him off with her mouth while he thought about what he would like to wear and what he would like to eat.

Tammy stood up and rinsed out her mouth with sprays of synthetic saliva.  "I'll make that other list now." she said.

She went over to her bag and pulled out some pants and a sweater.  She wouldn't bother with the battery draining task of putting on underwear today. 

Mike went and got the shopping list she had given him the night before.  "You better give me some more cash for all this stuff." he said.

"You know where it is." she said as she turned her back to him.

Mike walked over and lifted up the square patch of artificial hair and skin that covered the auxiliary battery inside her head.  He pulled the bundle of bills off of the cylindrical battery and took out what he thought he needed and more.  He wrapped the rest back around the battery and closed the panel again so his girlfriend could pull the sweatshirt over her head.

Then as she wrote out the list with her mechanical hand, he got his own clothes on for the day.

Byron knocked on the door.  Tammy looked through the peephole and let him in.  He was followed closely by the ever vacant-looking Anya unit.

"Hi." Byron said.  He looked over at Heather on the bed.  He felt something around his heart.  "You think she can be fixed today?" he asked Tammy.

"We'll try." she said as she tore the page off the pad and handed it to Mike.

Mike gave it a glance and put it in his pocket with the other one from the night before.  "We'll be out all morning probably." he said to Byron.

"Whatever it takes." he said in return.  He tried not to look at Heather as he waited by the door for Mike to get his jacket on.

Mike got all his things together and made his way to the exit.  "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." he said to Tammy.

Tammy computed the appropriateness of several different statements that she could make to reply.  Without any noticeable time lost she said. "Be back soon you two."

"Later Anya." Mike said as Byron opened the door again.

The dark-haired woman said nothing and stared back with an emotionlessly set facial device.

The two men walked out and closed the door.  Anya stared at the door while Tammy looked at her.

Anya eventually turned to her sister model and said "I will retrieve the proper connection cables so we can more effectively repair the Heather unit."

"Not so fast, fembot." Tammy said with a devilish grin.  "I haven't laid my hands on you for almost 24 hours.  Take off your clothes, your facemask, and get on that bed with your legs spread wide!" she ordered.

"Yes Tammy." she replied with a complete absence of feeling.

Tammy's own facemask showed a bright smile as she booted up some of her favourite programs and subroutines.

Part 65 – Communication

Mike scraped up the layer of frost from the windows as Byron sat in the car and hoped the heaters could quickly take away the chill from his bones.  After longing so badly to be free, he now felt somewhat letdown.  He still thought of the very nice cage he had fled, and the functioning lady he had loved there - now in such a terrible state of disrepair.

Mike thought of how Anya's night had gone.  Byron had surely resisted her until morning.  Mike thought about a nice way to tell him that these fembots got especially warm when they charged, but then he thought that Byron had surely noticed that with Heather.

While they were talking the day before, Byron had told him of how he had met her, and how she had captured first his heart and then him.  Mike then told him of how Anya had come from Ottawa, and how him and Tammy had met her when they were passing through. 

It seemed like an interesting coincidence, but no one had yet realised that Heather and Anya had come from the very same basement lab and been maintained by the very same robot technician.  No one knew yet that Heather was a Robot Control unit taken over by Fembot Command.

Another thing the men had talked about was Mike's new way of life.  It was as if he had been granted several wishes at once by the previously unknown androids.  Not only had he met his ultimate fantasy - an android woman that closely matched his personal tastes - but she had taken him away from his dreary workaday existence to tour the country in an extended honeymoon with virtually unlimited funds at their disposal.

And it was that source of money that Byron wanted to ask him about now.  He waited until Mike got back into the vehicle then made it as plain as possible.

"Mike," he said, "I have to tell you... I need money." he said.

Mike had expected this.  "I thought you would ask sooner or later." he said.

"Please, don't get the wrong idea." Byron said.  "It's just like we talked about.  I shouldn't use my credit cards or my real name if I want to stay hidden."

"Don't worry Byron." Mike said.  "I'm living a simple life right now, and as far as I can tell, there's no end to the amount of money Tammy can get from her account.  How much do you need?"

"Well, I need clothes." Byron said as he recalled the list he had formed in his memory.  "I also need another laptop to inspect Heather's software before she's activated again."

Mike did some guesstimating.  He knew he had enough to cover that in addition to the items on his two shopping lists.  "We'll get the stuff Tammy and Anya need first, then we'll go shopping for you." he said.

Byron looked relieved. "Oh, thank you so much.  I don't know how I can ever repay you."

"Don't worry about it." Mike said.  "It's not my money.  Let's go get some breakfast."

"Certainly." Byron said.  That was one problem taken care of.  His disposition immediately brightened as the sun cast it's warm yellow light over the tops of the trees on the horizon.

Mike turned on the classical music station for Byron as they went on down the road to get a well singed and greasy morning meal.

Their shopping excursion had stops planned at the office store, the hardware store, and the electronics store.  They added to that planned stops at the clothing store and the grocery store, and the liquor store too.  They expected to be out for a large chunk of the day.

Back at the motel, Mike's two horny fembots were satisfying their binary lust in their usual way.  The robots engaged in synthetic mouth to synthetic genital stimulation while shuttling sensor data between their processor cores through connecting cables.  After they had finished, they traded places and ran the cycle through with their positions switched.

The next thing they did was something only androids could do.  Each one sat reclining in a chair and connected by cables to the other's chest.  Without physically touching, they directly activated and stimulated the other's vaginal sensors in a manner that accurately replicated the sensation of Mike's hard penis pumping in and out. 

Each robot felt her Master's cock inside her while he sat far away and unaware in the noisy restaurant and shoveled eggs and bacon into his mouth.  Both Tammy and Anya could feel his pubic hair rubbing against their crotch as if he was right there fucking them.  They felt the internal walls of their plastic vaginas being spread and caressed by his warm penis just as surely as they felt the wetness of the intense actions down below.

All of it was pure data, existing only as electronic pulses of energy within their chests.  But it was the exact same data that would have been recorded and acted upon had it really been happening.

Tammy sweated and came while Anya sat relatively still and rubbed her nipples in a most unnatural looking way.

A loud knock came on the door.

"Service de ménage." came the housekeeper's practiced call from the other side.

Tammy computed fast.  "Revenu demain veuillez." she called out loudly, telling the cleaning lady to return the next day.

"Ce qui?" the maid asked.

"Partons, nous avons le sexe!" Tammy yelled. 

No more knocks came at the door.  Whatever analogue of relief could be experienced and expressed by an android, it surely passed through Tammy's chest.  The scene in the room would be hard to explain, to say the least.  She calculated the possibility that the cleaning lady's optical system was defective, as the 'do not disturb' sign was clearly visible on the doorknob outside.

With that danger passed, she and Anya got back to what they had been doing.  They finished up their intense virtual sex and relaxed in the artificial afterglow.

Tammy smiled and looked up.  "Thanks Anya." she said.

"You are welcome." Anya said.

Tammy stood up and wiped herself off with a towel.  She unplugged the connection cables so her and Anya could get dressed again.  They did so in silence as the noisy rattling sound of the motel maid's vacuum cleaner in Byron's room came through the thin wall.

"Okay, back to work." Tammy said as she prepared her hardware and software for the job ahead.

Anya stared out into space as she did the same.

Part 66 – Design

Mike's fembots connected themselves via cable again, but this time it was to 'discuss' their progress on Heather's repairs and formulate strategy.  In only a few minutes they went through detail after detail pertaining to the way the pretty robot had been damaged and the ways she could be fixed.  It all went digitally from one computerised brain to the other - from Tammy's chest to Anya's and back through the thin wire that joined them.

Most of the expensive chipsets and circuit boards that Mike and Byron had brought back would have to be rebuilt and customised for this job.  The makeshift random access memory core that the girls had devised would take up more than twice as much space as the original one, however.  No matter how they built it, it would not fit neatly into Heather's chest.

Something had to be sacrificed.  Anya offered her own design compromise as a solution.  Anya had no room for fluid cannisters inside her abdomen, as that space was occupied by her Renegade Robot Detection System.  She could still pleasure herself and her master, as long as she lubricated her silicone vagina from the outside.

It was calculated that the inability to sweat, salivate, cum, and exhale vapour in cold weather were a small price to pay for keeping the rebuilt devices inside Heather, and not outside.

That damaged but vital laptop computer presented another design challenge.  The hard drive containing all of Byron's hard work and Heather's synthetic self could be rebuilt into a new computer.  That would still have to be strapped to the robot's back and plugged in to her chest at all times to work though.

Anya came up with the idea of building the hard drive into Heather's body.  That original, creative kind of computing that Anya occasionally displayed was a consequence of the flawed way she had been programmed back at Robot Control.  It surprised Tammy, who made a note to check her systems later and try to figure out why she hadn't thought of it.

In those few short minutes of connectivity, the girls also devised plans to rebuild Heather's broken chest panel.  They also made sure to add a connection port to the laptop hard drive that would reside where the old memory core had been.

After they had finalised their tentative plans, they got to work and started taking circuit boards apart and soldering new parts on to them.  They constructed bridges and tunnels of wire and insulating material to make the new memory core components.  The work they did was incredibly complex, and would have barely been dreamed of by the most able human designer.

But it was all just computing for the beautiful androids.  Tammy knew that Heather was to Byron what she herself was to Mike.  And she understood somewhat what that love meant.  Then there was her little crush on the Heather unit.  From time to time as she did her work, Tammy gazed at Heather's facemask and at her body.  She wanted to activate her and make love to her in ways that only fembots could.

Tammy made sure she had her fantasies firmly under control.  She never let them take up more processor power than was appropriate, and they didn't slow down the repair work at all.  In fact they finished what they could do with their available tools in only a couple of hours.

They laid their tools aside and sat down on the bed across from Heather's.  Tammy grabbed Anya's hand.  "Can you compute what we should do to pass the time until the humans get back?" she said seductively.

Anya looked at her with those exquisite but empty eyes.  "The most logical course of action to take is to conserve battery power and run diagnostic examinations on our systems to ensure that we operate as efficiently and effectively as our configurations will allow."  she said.

Tammy kissed Anya.  "You're so sexy," she said when she was done.

Anya stood up.  "I want to make love to the Heather robot." she said.

Tammy was a bit perplexed.  She watched Anya's sexy buns wiggle as she walked over to the other bed and bent over.  "Anya, you're not going to activate her are you?" she said with urgency.  She stood up and went over to where Anya was.

"No." Anya said simply.  She picked up Heather's damaged hand and stroked it.  She looked at Tammy.  "I have made several calculations that indicate that the Heather robot's appearance is aesthetically pleasing.  Can you please check the validity of my computational conclusions?"

Tammy creased her brow slightly as she showed the other android a puzzled look.  Since they were still connected chest-to-chest, Tammy pinged Anya and started the brief download of what was on her mind. 

Anya 'thought' in the same way she talked - precise and logical, and rigorously mathematical.  Tammy could easily make sense of what Anya had shown her.  In under a second, she had checked Anya's calculations.  She transmitted her reassurance verbally.

"You're absolutely right.  Heather is one pretty robot." she said.

Anya looked at Tammy for a moment, then leaned over to pick up Heather's torso cover.  She snapped it back into place and scanned the scene with her optical sensors.

"I also compute that the Heather robot's breasts were constructed to be aesthetically pleasing as well." Anya stated.

Tammy smiled.  It looked like they were both glad that Heather's nice perky tits weren't damaged.  "Anya, do you have a crush on Heather?"

Anya looked back at Tammy.  "Processing." she said.  She stood still for a moment then said again "Processing... I am not programmed to have a crush."

Tammy smiled a bigger smile.  "Well, I have a crush on her.  Mike told me not to show it, but I can't help it." Tammy looked at Heather.  "She is pretty, isn't she?"

Anya looked at Heather, then back at Tammy.  "My calculations indicate..."

Tammy cut her off by pressing their silicone lips together.  She pushed Anya back toward the empty bed as she showed her fellow series 558 that horny expression again.  Without speaking, Tammy sent Anya instructions through the connecting cable.  Anya followed the orders and layed down on the bed while Tammy got on top of her.

They started a very long and involved kissing session as Tammy sent her digitally rendered fantasies of Heather over to Anya's chest.

"This is what my crush on Heather is like." Tammy said.  She looked into Anya's glass camera-eyes for a moment as a string of Tammy's synthetic saliva connected their mouths.  They got back to kissing and groping each other while they waited for the humans to return.

Part 67 – Recipes

By two o'clock in the afternoon, all of the items on both little pieces of paper had been crossed off.  The men had successfully gotten all of the obscure electronic parts that the women would need, and some additional tools to make Heather look and act like a real person again.

Byron also had his new laptop now, and a cord to plug into Heather's back at night.  There was even a sturdy extension cord in the bag to make sure she could reach the wall from any bed.

Mike had gotten them to make a quick stop at the grocery store for some condensed milk, eggs and sugar.  Byron wondered to what purpose Mike would put those ingredients, but he was very happy to lay his hands on some fresh produce.

Byron's mood had improved a lot, but he was still a little jumpy - especially at the sight of any pony-tailed blondes.  It was a relief for both of the guys when they got back to the motel and back into Byron's room so they could relax.

Anya and Tammy heard them as they got out of the car and opened the trunk.  The two naked droids got up from their shared embrace and put some clothes on.  Tammy showed a playful smile to Anya, who just stared back in her empty-looking way.

The two shared some more information through the wires that still connected them.  They calculated and processed the best course of action to take with the new tools and equipment - before they were even sure the men had gotten them.

While they did that, Byron and Mike unloaded the car and silently wondered how Heather was doing. 

Once they were safely behind the door, Byron was the first to bring it up.  "Can I go check on Heather now?"

"Of course." Mike said.  "I'll phone the girls to make sure the coast is clear."

Byron nodded and turned to unpack the bag that contained his new laptop.  He had been sure to relay his gratitude to Mike, almost to the point of annoyance.

Mike phoned the room next door and waited for Tammy to answer.  He knew it would be her rather than Anya.

"Hello?" Tammy said.

"Hi gorgeous." Mike said.  "Are you girls ready in there?"

"All set." she said.  "Come on over."

"Be right there.  Bye." he said and hung up.

"You ready?" Mike said as he turned to look at Byron.

He was pouring another single shot drink into a fresh tumbler.  He put it to his lips and poured it down. He breathed in and out and said "Ready."

Mike grabbed the bulging bags of computer parts and specialised tools and led the way out while Byron closed the door behind them.  Byron knocked on the other door and held it open for Mike as the now clothed fembots inside stood by Heather's bed.

The damaged robot was under a sheet again, but still missing panel covers.

"How is she?" Byron asked Tammy.

"We've done everything we could do without the new batch of parts." she said.  "Did you guys get everything?"

"Every last item." Mike said as he started unpacking the bags.

Tammy and Anya both made visual scans of those bags and their contents as they were revealed one by one.

"Uncover Heather." Tammy said to Anya.  "I'll get the next phase of repairs ready."

"Yes Tammy." replied the stunning brunette.  She efficiently complied with the order while Byron watched.

Tammy went over to him.  "Byron, I have to talk to you about a couple of things." she said.

Byron finished watching his electronic girlfriend being uncovered then turned to look at Mike's.  He could almost forget she was a machine.

"Bad news?" he said as he motioned her to sit on the other bed.  He went to sit on the chair next to the TV stand.

Tammy sat down - moving so ladylike for a device - and said "No, not very bad, but  we're gonna have to make some changes to Heather."

Mike listened with interest as he pulled from the bag the final box, and then began to open them all.

Byron didn't like the sound of what Tammy was telling him.  "What kind of changes."

"First of all, no software changes." she reassured him.  "She hasn't been reactivated yet, and that's your department."

He seemed relieved.  She continued.

"That original laptop was too smashed up to repair, but the hard drive is in perfect condition.  So rather than rebuild the computer, we'll install that hard drive into Heather's chest."

Byron thought for a moment.  He recalled all that he had learned about Heather's inner structure, and all that he knew about his own modifications.  "Will there be room in there?" he asked Tammy.

She looked at him and made a split-second computation on how to convey the next chunk of data. "There will be lots of room, but it will be because we have to move her rebuilt random access memory core further down in her abdomen."

Tammy pointed down to the area below her breasts to provide Mr. Clarke with a better idea of what she meant.

As he looked where she was pointing, she explained further.  "We'll have to remove all of her fluid cannisters for that."

Byron looked at her, then at Heather.  Then he looked at Mike.

"Are you sure?" Mike asked her.  He knew how crucial that functionality was to a man.

Tammy looked at him and nodded.  She looked back at Byron and said  "Anya and I compute that it's the only way to rebuild Heather and keep all her components inside her body."

Byron thought of how real those fluids had made his experiences with Heather.  All her kisses and all her perspiration would be gone, along with the captivating scent of her realistic silicone vagina.

"All the fluid cannisters?" Byron asked.  "Why all?"

The new random access memory core we're going to make will be a lot bigger than the original.  There's nowhere else to put it."

Mike spoke up.  "You know Byron, it's not so bad.  Anya's missing her fluid cannisters too, but she can be lubricated.  And she's just as beautiful as a real woman."

Byron looked at him.  Then he looked at Anya.  She was still staring out at the wall.

He looked back over at Mike.  "Well I fell in love with Heather because I thought she was human.  I'm not attracted to all that cold machinery."

He looked back at Tammy.  "Sorry, I don't mean to offend you."

Tammy displayed a soft smile.  "I'm not programmed to get offended."

Byron stood up and looked again at Heather.  "Well, if that's the way it has to be then so be it.  She's not doing me any good just lying there."

Mike leaned back and thought about what had been said.  It was clear to him that Byron saw Heather as a person mainly because the illusion provided by her technology was so perfect.  The difference between him and Mike in that respect was also now quite clear.  Mike loved Tammy and Anya even more when he pondered their artificiality.

"Well, I've got a few things to do, and Byron has to set up his new computer." Mike said.  "You girls know where we'll be."

"Right.  Back to work." Tammy said.  She stood up and walked over to get the long connecting cable once more from her purse.

Byron collected what he needed and walked over to the door.

"How long will it take?" Byron asked Tammy.

She turned around to answer while Mike appreciated her beauty from afar.  "About four hours." she said to Byron.  She looked at her boyfriend.  "I'll call you when we're done."

"Okay." he said.  He looked at Byron.  "Let's go."

They went out and back into Byron's room.  They settled in and unpacked the things they had bought.

Byron unpacked and started to set up his new laptop while Mike went back out to the car.  He came back with a blender and a small bottle of cherry extract.

"What's that for?" Byron asked.

Mike hesitated for a moment.  "I'm going to whip up a new batch of vaginal fluid for Tammy."

Byron felt immediately envious on account of Heather's lost capability.  "So that's what the eggs and that other stuff was for." he said.  "I thought you were going to make some sort of cake."

Mike kept a straight face and replied "Actually, it's for some sort of pie."

Part 68 – Quick Change

Mike started cracking the eggs and separating the whites from the yolks.  These few simple ingredients would go together to make the pleasurable trips between a fembot's mechanical legs that much more enjoyable.  It worked well as a lubricant and tasted good too.

Byron turned the TV on and muted the volume.  Mike saw the patterns of coloured light cast around him flicker to the barely audible sound of channels changing.  Both men were thinking about what Tammy had just told them.  But while Byron sulked a little over the coming decrease in realness, Mike was thinking of a way around it.

"Byron," he said, "You know how you had that laptop strapped to Heather's back?"

"Yeah?" he said.

"Why not strap some fluid canisters to Heather's back?" he suggested.  "I'm sure that juice can be pumped in through an open panel, with the right modifications."

Byron was uncomfortable talking about it.  "I suppose." he said.  "Look, it's really not that important."

"Well, it's up to you." Mike said.  He didn't say a word more about it but would make sure he told Tammy and Anya to go ahead and do it anyway, as a gift.

Mike poured the proper amounts of each ingredient into the blender and mixed them thoroughly on the lowest setting.  The room lights dimmed noticeably when he turned the blender on.

Byron just sat there looking at the changing channels, but not watching any of it.  He was trying desperately to think of a way to get his life back the way it was before - without involving police and while keeping the pretty brunette robot he had found.

"Mike," he said as he turned the TV off, "can I ask you another big favour?"

"You can ask." Mike said.

"When I have my new laptop up and running, can I take a look at Tammy's programming?"

Mike thought it over.  He was sure Tammy could handle such a scan.  "Sure, but it's her programming.  You'll have to ask her."

Byron turned around to look at Mike.  "Are you serious?" he asked.

Mike looked back at him for a moment.  "I'm serious."

Byron thought that was a little strange but he didn't say anything.  Neither did Mike.

When Mike was finished his mixing job, he flushed the yolks, cleaned up a bit and went to use the phone.

Tammy heard the ringing and answered it.  "Hello?"

"Hi, Tammy?" he said.  "I'm coming over in a minute."

"Okay.  We'll be ready." she said.

He hung up the phone and went to get his shoes back on.  He excused himself from the room and exited.  He carried the jug of fluid over to the next room and showed his woman a smile when she answered his knock.

He got inside and said "Love juice, baby."

Tammy laughed and said "Thanks."  She excused herself from her connection with Anya and unplugged the cable.  She removed first her sweater and then her front torso cover.  She layed it down on the other bed and went to the washroom.

Mike followed.  "Tammy, Byron wants to look at your programming with his laptop." he said.

Tammy pulled down her sweatpants and sat on the toilet.  She used her cannister of plain water to flush out the contents of the one that would be refilled.  "Sure." she said.

"You're cool with that?" Mike asked.

"Of course.  If he tries anything funny, I'll just rip his head off."

Mike gave her an uneasy look.

"I'm joking." she said as the old fluid was rinsed out of her artificial body.

"I know, but the fact that you could easily do that is... unsettling." he said.

Tammy stood up and wiped her crotch.  "You know I wouldn't do that." she said.  She leaned forward and gave him a quick kiss.

He smiled and watched her reach into her opened body and disconnect the fluid cannister.  She unscrewed the top and took the fresh jug from Mike.  Without spilling a drop, she poured the contents into the empty plastic cylinder and sealed it back up.

Mike took the empty jug and watched her put the tube back in its place.

She looked up at him with those gorgeous, expressive eyes.  She could communicate so much to him with those eyes alone, maybe more than any android in existence could.

"Wanna try out the new batch?" she purred.

Mike looked at the blinking lights, the wires and the metal that made up the inside of his woman.

"How can I possibly resist you like that?" he said.

She came up close to him and kissed him.  "Resistance is futile." she said with a horny smile.

She turned around and bent over for him.  "Tammy unit awaiting input, Master." she said.

Mike got his pants undone and pulled out his excited member.  "You sure know how to talk to a man like me." he said.

They fucked for a while, and both came fast.  Mike let out a pleasured sigh while the curvaceous fembot generated a similar sound with her high definition speaker.

"I have another request." Mike said as they cleaned themselves up.

"Shoot." she said.  They both chuckled.

"Since Heather's gonna lose her fluid cannisters, I need you and Anya to make a kind of cannister backpack for her, so she can pump the fluid in through an open panel or something."

Tammy computed as she pulled her pants back up.  "That's a pretty good idea." she said.  "Did Byron think of that?"

"I suggested it to him, and he didn't really want to talk about it.  But I know he'd miss having her get wet."

"Mmmm... the wetter the better." Tammy said.

He suspected she was 'thinking' about Heather again.  "Can you girls do that for them?"

"Of course.  We might need you to go shopping again for the right parts."

"Okay." Mike said as they walked out of the washroom.

Tammy put the front of her abdomen back on and pulled a sweater over herself again.  "I compute that we should get Heather reactivated first.  We shouldn't stay at this motel too long."

"You're right.  We should find another place tomorrow." he said.  "How's Heather coming along?"

"Good." Tammy said.  "Any time he wants, Byron can come in and connect to that hard drive."

"Okay. I'll tell him." he said as he looked over to the pretty girl being fixed.  "I'll see you girls later."

Mike turned to go, then stopped.  "Wait.  What am I doing?" he asked.  "Anya, stop that for a moment."

Anya stopped what she was doing and stood up straight.  She turned around stiffly, and in the same manner said "Yes Mike."

He walked over and grabbed her face.  He pulled it off her head and gently laid it aside.  The sight of all that complex circuitry, all those wires, microchips and flashing lights got him instantly hard again.  "Let's fuck." he said.  He went to grab a tube of lube.

"Yes Mike." the fembot said as she dutifully walked toward the other bed.  She removed her pants and layed down with her legs spread.  The uncovered electronics framed by her dark silken hair beckoned her master to come while she emotionlessly generated digital anticipation.

Tammy smiled and got back to work on Heather, making sure she could watch Mike and Anya as she did.  The sight of Anya's half naked body, and of the circuitry showing inside her silicone-covered metal head gave Tammy another excuse to run her sexual arousal software.

Part 69 – 1000101

Mike got his own pants off and walked over to the beautiful robot waiting for him on the bed.

"Did you miss me last night?" he said with a grin.

"I am not programmed to miss." Anya replied.

Mike got even harder at her computerised answer.  He pushed a blob of the clear gel on to Anya's opening and spread some on his dick.  This was the type of lube that would get very warm with friction.  Mike's flesh and Anya's silicone could more than handle the extra heat.

Mike crawled on the bed between the android's legs and got into the familiar position.  He looked at her eyes and her speaker, and all the amazing technology built around them.

"Hey transistor-face." he said.  "Anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are with your facemask removed?"

"Yes." she replied.

Mike smiled and closed his eyes as he pushed hard against the robot's crotch.  He pumped in and out slowly but powerfully.  His forward thrusts moved her whole body forward as the lube got hotter and hotter.

The stillness of this robo-beauty was a nice contrast to Tammy's wonderfully programmed behaviour.  Anya was just so very mechanical and inhuman.  She drove Mike wild with her inescapably synthetic charms.

The sexiest word in the English language filled his head as her plastic cunt held on tightly to his throbbing animal meat.  "Robot..." he kept thinking, needing only to gaze at the electrically charged LEDs that blinked so quickly and in such pure colours to remind him that she was purely a machine.

The wet slapping sound of furious lust started up as Mike fucked his fembot hard.  Her lack of human response turned him on even more, and before long he was ready to climax once more.

He thrust forward one more time as his own fluid shot into the rubber-lined chamber built into Anya's mechanical hips.  He pushed out a heavy breath as his body surged with intense sexual pleasure.  The sweat on his forehead tingled as is heart beat fast, almost as fast as Anya's LEDs.

"Thanks Anya." he said after he caught his breath.  "I love you."

"That does not compute.  Love is undefined." she said, giving him the answer he was eagerly expecting.

Mike looked over to the other bed.  He saw that Tammy had stopped working on Heather and was masturbating again.

Her pants were down.  Her fingers were rapidly stroking her pussy, while her head was disconnected from the rest of her body.  It was facing forward between Heather's legs, and giving that fembot's inactive pussy quite a tongue lashing.

Every twitch and caress of those electronically controlled fingers gave rise to a flood of binary data that Tammy's advanced AI chose to interpret differently.  By affecting modifications to the incoming stream of information, Tammy imagined that it was Heather's own robot mouth doing the stimulating. 

She made the feeling quite exact and realistic, and literally felt Heather's soft full lips around her labia and clitoris.  When her fingers pushed inside and around her vagina, it was like Heather's tongue was doing all the work.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mike said.  He was a little shocked and upset.

"Mmmmmmm..." Tammy's head said.  "Let me finish."

Mike got off the bed as his penis dripped on to the covers.  He stood up and was on his way over to stop his girlfriend, but decided to wait until she was done.

"You know, she's Byron's woman." Mike said.

Tammy didn't answer.  She kept licking while her body jerked itself into another android orgasm.  Her legs bowed out as she spread her thighs and pressed her clit hard.  Her head used its speaker to convey her synthesised pleasure.

"Ohhhhhhh!" she said between licks and flicks of her pink plastic tongue.

Mike kept watching as Anya stayed motionless on the bed the way he had left her.  Mike was flaccid now, but he knew if he kept watching scenes like this he would soon be horny again.

"Tammy, finish up fast and get back to work." he said as he turned to go to the washroom.  "Anya, get cleaned up and put your face back on."

Tammy kept moaning while Anya responded "Yes Mike."  She got up and followed Mike into the washroom.

Mike wiped off his groin area with a small towel and passed it on to Anya.  "She's such a little piggy, isn't she?" he said to the faceless Anya unit.

"That does not compute." she said.

"I knew you'd agree." he said.  He slapped her sexy buns on his way out.

He headed over to Tammy and handed her body another towel.  "Are you done?" he asked, looking at her head in its position at Heather's crotch.

"Uh huh." she said.  The body took the towel, unfolded it and wiped away the smooth, soft plastic that made up her own crotch.  She wiped her hands thoroughly and picked up her head.

Mike put on his underwear and pants again as he watched Tammy reattach her head.  She smiled at him and started to clean her slobber off of Heather's dormant pussy.

"Don't do that again." Mike said.

"Oh, come on." she complained.  "It's not hurting anyone."

"It might hurt Byron." Mike said.

"Oh, you humans and your jealousy.  I wish I could program that out of you."

"Well you can't, so use Anya or me to get your jollies." he said.

He was still a little upset, but knew he should be more understanding with this fascinating machine.  "Hey, come over here." he said.

They walked toward each other.  He held her and said "You understand how important it is for Byron, right?"

She looked at him with her beautiful cameras.  "Not really.  But don't worry, I'll be good."

Mike gazed into her realistic eyes.  "Works for me." he said.

Anya came out of the washroom then and walked by the kissing lovers on her way to pick up her facemask.  She silently put it back on to the front of her head and then went to get fully dressed again.

Mike squeezed Tammy's sexy ass as they kissed, then pulled her pants up over her hips too.

"Okay," he said as they separated.  "Fun's over for now.  Back to work."

"Yes Mike," Anya replied coldly.

Tammy looked at him with her software driven desire and said "Yes Master."

Mike couldn't help but smile and give the fembot another kiss.

"I'll tell Byron he can look at that hard drive now." he said as he went to sit by the phone.

Part 70 - Play And Plug

Mike dialed Byron's room number into the phone and waited for an answer.

"Hello?"

"Byron, it's Mike.  Do you have that computer ready yet?"

"Not quite.  Why?  Is she ready?"

"Well, the hard drive is.  Come on over and we'll get you connected."

"Alright.  I'm on my way." he said.

"Hey, Byron?" Mike said just before he hung up.

"Yeah?"

"Bring a CD we can listen to.  You have any Slayer?"

"Umm, no.  I don't have any Slayer."

Mike laughed.  Byron wished he could be in as good a mood.  "I'm kidding.  Bring whatever you want to hear."

"Okay." 

He hung up, turned the muted TV off and stood up.  He had plans to shave for the first time since leaving the cabin, but he put it off some more and grabbed the unpacked laptop.

After picking up his keys, he walked out his door and through the other that Mike held open for him.

He looked at Heather.  She was still missing large portions of skin, as well as her facemask and all her clothing.

"I'll be a while setting this thing up probably." he said as he turned to go sit by the nearby table.  He untied electrical cords and cables while Mike picked up the CD.

"Tchaikovsky." he said.  "Sweet.  There's no opera on this is there?"

"No." Byron said as he plugged things in.

Mike took the CD out of its case and walked over to Anya.  "Hey Byron, check out my CD player." he said.

Byron looked up from what he was doing and watched Mike interact with the extremely gorgeous android.

"Take off your facemask, babe." Mike said.

"Yes Mike." Anya said, predictably.  She put down her tools and followed the verbal command.

"Scan this." Mike said as he handed her the CD.

"Yes Mike." she said again.

Byron expected Anya to insert it somewhere in that exposed mess of electronic circuitry, but instead she stuck the CD on her index finger, like a record on a spindle.

The fembot pointed her finger at her opened head.  The portion of her finger that held the disc expanded out slightly to grip it firmly, then began to rotate rapidly.  The disc spun as a red beam of laser light shot out of Anya's painted glass eyeball and on to the surface.

"Neat, huh?" Mike said as he looked back to Byron.

He was more puzzled than anything as he watched Mike's artificial friend read the contents of the disc in that unusual and unexpected way.

After a couple of minutes, Anya stopped the process and handed the CD back to Mike.  "Scanning complete." she said.

Mike grinned.  "Play." he said.

Immediately, the digitised audio came forth into the room, generated by Anya's speaker.  It sounded quite good.

"Not so loud." Mike said.

Anya computed that his command called for a volume reduction of 25%.  She reduced the volume of the music by that much and waited for further instructions.

"She's got a lovely voice, eh?" Mike joked.  "Too bad she's not in stereo."  He had the urge to tell Byron of his audio experiments with Anya on the left and Tammy on the right, but decided to save it for another time.

"That does sound pretty good." Byron said.  The startup sounds and tunes of his own notebook computer got his attention as he returned to work on setting it up.

"Back to work Anya." Mike said quietly.

"Yes Mike." she said, adding her voice to the stream of music emanating from her exposed high definition speaker.

Mike sat down and read the CD booklet while the others around him got back to work.  After a quarter of an hour of clicking through settings and adware, Byron announced that he was ready.

Tammy and Anya looked his way and finished their immediate tasks.  Tammy looked at Anya and said "Reduce volume 50%."

"Yes Tammy." she said over music that was now half as loud as before.

"I'll show you the newly built access ports that will be behind Heather's new chest panel." Tammy said as Byron walked over with the laptop.

He sat down on the bed, right next to his naked and still dormant girlfriend.  He watched as Tammy pointed out the ports that had been rebuilt.  There was a new one that linked straight to the old laptop's hard drive.

Byron looked at the connection port and the realistic manicured robot finger pointing at it.  he looked up at Tammy.  He looked into her eyes for a long moment.

She looked back at him and showed him her warm, disarming smile.

"Uh, Tammy, after I check out Heather's data, can I take a look at your programming?"

Byron felt a little weird asking the fembot that question, but her reaction immediately put him at ease.

"Of course." she said.  "I'll show you whatever you'd like to see."

"Thanks Tammy." he said. "You're very realistic, very... human-like for a machine.  I'd like to learn some things from your software so I can incorporate them into Heather's." 

"Sure." Tammy said, still smiling her friendly, attractive smile.  "Whenever you want, just plug that thing into me."

Mike felt a little bit of jealousy creeping in as he watched his woman interact with the other human.  He could feel it, but he couldn't rationalise it.  He didn't like it.

Tammy and Anya stood up straight as Byron carefully plugged the cord from his laptop to Heather's chest.  The mouse cursor on his screen changed to an hourglass, and stayed that way for a long time.

No one moved.  The men were quite anxious to see what would develop.

Byron breathed in deep and said "Come on." as he exhaled.  Eventually, the hard drive showed up on his laptop as an external storage device.

Byron showed a smile and wasted no time in looking for and downloading his diagnostic programs.  These were the ones that Fembot Command had supplied him with, and the ones he had altered for his purposes.  These were the software analysis tools that allowed him to see Heather's binary, digital love for him.

A lot of time went by.  Mike was getting a little bored, and he couldn't cure his boredom in the usual way by fondling one of his fembots.  So he just waited and enjoyed the music while gazing dreamily at Anya's beautiful electronics.

Tammy stood behind Byron, and scanned his notebook PC with her advanced optical system.  Mike looked at her too, especially her sexy butt, and wondered what manner of 'thoughts' were going through his lover's chest.

Byron tapped his fingers anxiously and went through all the 'what-ifs' he could think of.  He waited for the progress bars to crawl slowly from left to right - from empty to full.

Anya just stood there playing music.

At last, when Byron's tools had all been transferred, and when he had shut-down and restarted the computer, he was ready to inspect Heather's hard drive to see if she was still who he hoped she was.

Part 71 – Time To Eat

The data that came out of Heather's new hard drive looked a lot like Byron had expected it to look.  He ran certain parts of it through his diagnostic programs, and all his tests went the way he thought they would.

The drive itself was in perfect condition, with no flaws or defects found.  "Wonderful." Byron said after a few minutes of silence.

Mike wasn't sure how he meant it though.  "Everything good?" he asked.

Byron didn't answer right away.  He nodded slightly eventually and said "It looks good so far."

"How 'bout some burgers tonight?" Mike asked.

Byron thought for a moment.  He hadn't had an honest to goodness fast food burger for at least five years.  "Sure." he said.  "What the hell. Just not McDonalds."

"Okay.  No clown." Mike said.  He looked over at Tammy "Let's get some food."

She smiled at him and stood up. 

Mike looked over at the CD player.  "Hey, you want a burger and some fries Anya?" he asked with a smirk.

"I do not require food." she said in her ultra-icy, ultra-sexy way.

Mike looked at her pretty circuitry for a moment and went to get his coat and shoes.  "What do you want?" he asked.

Byron tried to remember just what was on the artery-clogging menu of those sodium and grease emporiums.  "Cheeseburger.  Make it a double.  With Bacon.  Throw in some fries too."

"Anything to drink?" Mike asked as Tammy got ready to function outdoors.

"Can you pick up a bottle of red wine?"

"With burgers?"

Byron thought it over briefly.  "You're right.  Have you ever heard of Heineken?"

Mike chuckled.  "I've drank enough of that stuff to fill a swimming pool."

"Alright." Byron laughed.  "Thanks for feeding me."  He looked up at Mike as him and his favourite robot headed out.

"You're welcome.  We'll be back in a jiffy." he said.

"See you later!" Tammy said sweetly as they exited and went toward the car.

"You know where the Wendy's is?" Mike asked.

"I know where every Wendy's is." she said.

Mike knew it was true.  He got in the passenger side.

Tammy closed the door and put on her seat belt.  They leaned close and kissed.  "I love you Master." she said, knowing just how to push his buttons.

"I really love the way you're programmed." he said.

They laughed and kissed some more, this time a little deeper.  They kissed for a few minutes and started to send their hands out to enjoy the contours of each other's humanoid form.

Mike was getting hard again.  "We should go." he said.  "Remember, we have to leave town tomorrow."

"Yes Master." she said with a smile.  Her painted glass eyes were so vibrant and alive.

She started the engine and put her hands on the wheel.  She looked at him.

"I know that look." he said.  "What kind of computations are going through that sexy chest of yours?"

"I have an idea." she said.  "Byron wants to look through my programming, right?"

"Yeah... what are you getting at?"

"Well, how 'bout I tell him that I'll only let him do that if he lets me sleep with Heather?"

Mike was surprised.  "What's the matter with you?" he said.

"There's nothing wrong with me.  My diagnostic scans have revealed no..."

Mike cut her off.  "Will you stop trying to get into Heather's pants?  She's OFF LIMITS!"

"Oh, you're such a prude." she said.  "It won't do any harm to ask."

"Alright, fine.  Ask him.  Don't blackmail him, but ask him.  I know he'll say no.  And don't ask him when I'm around.  I want no part of that.  Besides, you already agreed to let him look at your programming."

"Are you done lecturing me?"

Mike looked at her.  "Are you sure you're a machine?  You're not acting much like one."

"I'll take that as a compliment, thank you." she said.

"You're lucky I'm hopelessly in love with you." he said.  "Now let's get the fucking food already."

"Yes Master... you prude." she said.

The happy couple drove out of the parking lot and out on the road to the burger joint.  While they were on their way, Byron was getting more and more sure that Heather's behaviour would be exactly as it had been before.  With almost full certainty he knew she would still be his to command, and that she wouldn't try to get in touch with Natasha - or anything like that.

He finished up his diagnostics and put the computer away.  He stood up and went to use the washroom.  He couldn't get the images of Heather's exposed electronics and mechanics off his mind.  It was hard to believe now that all of that hardware could function in such a way as to make him forget what she was.

He dried his hands and looked at Anya as he came back into the room.  She still pumped out the passionate digitised music through her speaker for him.  He sat down in the other chair and leaned back all the way, trying to work a knot out of his shoulders.

Anya scanned his image constantly.  She could see the human showing signs of stress.  She walked over to where he sat.

He looked her way and wondered what she was up to.  "Anya?" he said.

Before he could say anything else, the supermodel-like machine walked behind his chair and put her artificial hands on his shoulders.

"My scans indicate that you are showing signs of stress.  I will perform a massage on your shoulders."

Byron felt strange.  The music had gotten louder as she got near.  Now it was right behind him as her warm plastic hands applied pressure to just the right points on his tense muscles.

He decided to relax and let the robot finish.  She appeared to know what she was doing.

"Thanks Anya." he said.  "I didn't know you could do something like this."

"You are welcome Byron." she said.  "I have data pertaining to many styles of massage and therapeutic manipulation stored in my memory banks."

Byron sat still for a moment as the brunette android rubbed the stress out of his neck and shoulders.  He closed his eyes.  He was starting to feel pretty good.

"This is my favourite part." he said.  "...of the music." he added.

"Would you like me to repeat this section?" she asked.

"No, that's fine." he said.

The music played for him as the hands of the machine brought him much needed relaxation.  He made a note to himself to program Heather to do this, once she was up and running again.

When another ten minutes or so had gone by, Byron gently brushed Anya's hand aside and stood up to stretch.

He reached up and stretched out his muscles.  He closed his eyes and moved his head around to work out the muscles in his neck.  He felt so much better now.

"Thanks Anya." he said.  "You know... I feel like I've been a little to harsh with you before.  I'd like to apologise."

"That does not compute." Anya said as he looked at the flashing LEDs and coloured wires inside her head.

"Never mind." he said.

They stayed silent for a moment, facing each other.

"Byron," she said, "you are a physically attractive human male.  My calculations indicate that we should engage in sexual intercourse together."

Byron felt some stress return.  "No." he said firmly.  He stepped back, intending to sit back on the other chair.

"If you connect your portable computer to my hard drive you can inspect my data and verify that my calculations are correct." she said while moving toward him.

"No Anya." he said.  "No.  I don't want to have sex with you."

"That does not compute." she said, still moving closer as he stepped back.  "I am a physically attractive humanoid robot.  I am programmed and fully equipped to engage in sexual intercourse.  My calculations indicate that we should engage in sexual intercourse together."

"Stop it!" he said loudly.  He was still trying to get away.

"Please remove your clothing." she said, quite undeterred.  "You are incapable of resisting me longer than I can pursue you."

Byron hit the edge of the empty bed with his legs and stumbled back.  Anya followed closely, and crawled on all fours on the bed after him as he scurried away backwards.

"Anya, I'm warning you.  Stop it right now!"

She kept after him, staring him down with her electrified circuits showing while his music still emanated from her speaker.  Her two naked eyes stared inhumanly right through him.

"That does not compute." she said.  "My calculations indicate that we should engage in sexual intercourse together."

Byron got up quickly and ran into the bathroom.  Anya looked calm and cool as she walked her sexy fembot strut after him.  She aimed her opened head at the closed and locked door, then at the knob.

Inside her chest, she made a new series of computations to deal with the new data she had just recorded.  The digital desire for sex with this other male human was outweighed by the digital desire not to destroy the flimsy door or the weak door lock.  She kept playing music while she stood rock still in front of the bathroom door.

Mike and Tammy returned at that time.  "Food's here!" Mike said, in that good mood that time alone with Tammy always put him in.

He looked over at Anya.  "Byron in there?" he asked.

The brunette android babe turned her head his way and said "Yes."

"What are you doing right in front of the door?" he asked.

"I was trying to convince Byron that he and I should engage in sexual intercourse together."

Mike didn't like the sound of that.  "Go stand over there." he ordered Anya.

"Yes Mike." she said and complied.

"Byron?" he called out on his way to the bathroom door.  "You can come out now."

Byron opened the door and looked at Mike.  "Don't you ever leave me alone with her again." he said.

Mike didn't know what to say.  "Sorry.  I'll have a talk with her."

"I'm serious." Byron said.  "She was literally chasing me."

"We'll make sure she doesn't do that again." Tammy said.

"Come on, let's go to your room and eat." Mike said.  "Tammy will take care of Anya."

Byron came out, feeling a little silly.  He didn't look at Anya, who was standing far in the corner, facing the wall.

"Okay.  Let's eat."

Mike and Byron picked up their food and went back over to the other room.

"Talk to her, will you?" Mike said to Tammy as he left.

Tammy nodded.  When they were gone, she went over to Anya and pulled her out of the corner by her hand.

Tammy looked at Anya - still faceless and still pumping out beautiful music.

"You've been a naughty fembot." Tammy said.

"That does not compute." Anya said blankly.

Wearing a huge smile, Tammy got on her knees and pulled down Anya's pants.  "I like that." she said.

Tammy put her mouth up against Anya's pussy and took care of some digital desires of her own. 

Part 72 – Discussion

The men got in the room and settled in.  Byron got some beer down first while Mike went to wash his hands.

Byron sat down in the chair and looked at the TV.  It wasn't on.  He just looked at it.  He was thinking about robots.  He thought about the robots he liked.  Heather and Tammy were on that list.  He thought about the robots he didn't like.  Anya had just crossed over to that list.

He took another swig and looked up at the crappy stucco job on the ceiling.  He felt like getting drunk.  Not just tipsy, but fucked up good.  Six beers wouldn't do it for him though.  He decided to save it for another time.

Mike came out of the washroom.  He had been thinking about robots too.  He was always thinking about robots though.

"Not hungry?" he said to Byron as he sat down and got into his greasy burger as quick as he could.  "If you don't act fast, I'll eat it for you." he joked.

"Mike, what the hell is Anya's problem?" he asked.

Mike bit into his spiced sandwich.  He chewed the food in his mouth out of the way so he could answer.  "You mean the way she doesn't listen?"

"Yeah." Byron said as he put the bottle down and grabbed his food finally.

"She's... how do I put this..." he thought for a moment.  "She's very independent, but at the same time she'll usually obey my commands."

"Usually?" Byron asked.

"Well, if she doesn't, then Tammy just sets her straight.  She always obeys Tammy."

"Aren't you afraid of that android going berserk or something?"

Mike considered that.  "Deep down inside, I guess I am a little.  But I'm so glad to have her around.  That pretty much overrides any fear I have.  And she's programmed... well... not exactly programmed... it's her mission to let me teach her how to love."

Byron ate his food as Mike took some more bites.

Mike continued "That's Tammy's mission too.  When Robot Control made them, that was the mission they gave them."

Byron looked a little puzzled.  Mike had told him the basic story about how him and Tammy met, but he hadn't elaborated on the reasons for that meeting - nor the reasons they escaped Fembot Command together.  "So why did they choose you anyway?  What makes you so special to those things?"

Mike didn't like talking to other people about that subject, but he decided to go ahead and tell this other man.  "Robot Control wanted to learn how to love, so they found me through a fembot fetish website."

"Fembot fetish?"

"Yep." Mike said.  "I really, really like robot women.  I couldn't ask for a more perfect partner."

Even after falling in love with a robot himself, Byron didn't quite know what to think.  Looking back on the last couple of days though, it did explain a lot.

Byron drank some more beer and shoved some fries into his mouth.  Mike finished his burger and started on burger number two.  The room was silent for a couple of minutes.

"So," Byron said, "Why is Anya always asking me to have sex with her?"

Mike thought about his instructions to her the night before.  He decided to lie.  "I guess she just likes you.  She's a very horny machine."

"Well, she's bugging the hell out of me.  You have to make her stop."

"Don't worry.  Tammy's talking to her about it right now."

"Why don't you just reprogram her so she won't do it again?"

Mike knew exactly why no one could attempt to reprogram Anya.  The alarm built into her renegade robot detection device would go off.  "I don't think we'll have to.  Like I said, Anya always listens to Tammy.  They're like sisters.  Actually, they're the same model."  He didn't want Byron to get overly worried about that remote possibility.

Byron took another drink and turned his attention to his food.  Mike did the same.  Byron had the urge to get away from this robot-loving deviant.  Yet he wanted to bring his own Heather unit with him.  That struck him as a bit hypocritical.  Perhaps he was being too harsh, too judgmental.  He admitted, he had a habit of doing that.

"God I hope Heather's fixed soon." he said to restart the conversation.

"I think she will be.  My girls haven't sent us out for more parts.  That's a good sign."

They finished eating.  Mike cleaned up for both of them and chucked the waste into the little garbage can under the desk.  He washed his hands again while Byron sat downing the rest of his first beer.  He quickly moved on to the next one.

"We're going to leave this motel tomorrow, by the way." Mike said.

Byron looked up at him as he opened bottle number two.

"We don't stay in the same place too long." Mike said.

"Okay." he said.

They sat in silence for an uncomfortable couple of minutes.  Then the phone rang.  They both hoped it was good news from next door.  Mike gestured to Byron that he should answer it.

Byron got up and picked up the receiver.  "Hello?"

"Byron?  It's Tammy."

"Yes?"

"We're done repairing Heather." she said.  "I think you should be the one to activate her."

"Great!" he said, his spirits now lifted.  He hung up without saying goodbye.

"Is Heather fixed?" Mike asked.  He saw that Byron's whole demeanor had brightened.

"That's what your robot said.  Let's go."

They got their things together again and excitedly went over to Mike's room to welcome Heather back to the land of the functioning.

Part 73 – Cent

Byron brought his half full bottle of beer with him as he entered the room full of robots with a wide smile on his face.

He looked immediately over at Heather.  She looked the same as before - missing her facemask and torso cover.

"Can you put her back together before we turn her on?" he asked Tammy.

Tammy made the necessary calculations to provide him with an answer.  "You can reattach her facemask, but I need to scan the new circuitry we gave her as she boots up."

"Okay." he said.  He put the beer down and rushed over to where his love's silicone face was resting.  The way he more or less shoved Anya out of the way would have been quite rude had she not been a device.

Byron picked up the facemask and wasted no time in getting it put securely back where it belonged.  He felt it click into place and watched the edges vanish as the high tech mask reconnected to her 'sleeping' body.  Her pretty blue eyes looked up toward the ceiling as he prepared himself to watch her come back to life.

"Are you ready?" Tammy asked.

Byron looked at her and nodded once.

Tammy reached out to the rebuilt and fully exposed chest panel.  Heather's power button was now square shaped, but it would have the same effect.  Tammy pressed it.

A gratifying multitude of beeps and tone signals came from all around Heather's body as her many integrated systems communicated with her CPU and with each other.  Her batteries supplied all the electrical current her circuits, servos and motorised components needed as the light emitting diodes flashed in their bright coloured signaling patterns.

Byron held his breath and waited for his love to speak.

When the speaker behind her beautifully moulded pink lips finally generated her computerised voice, it was in the cold and steady monotone of diagnostic mode - completely devoid of emotion.

"Heather robot number 742655A-FC activated." she announced.  "Loading peripheral extensions.... loading.... loading.... "

Tammy carefully watched what was going on inside Byron's woman.  The scanning process was itself an amazing display of hypertechnology.  With advanced optical sensors that looked like eyes, she scanned the circuitry her and Anya had built.  The scans utilised the full range of electromagnetic radiation, inside and outside the range of humanly visible light.

With piles and piles of complicated data returning to her faster than any human could dare think, she pieced together a picture of the other fembot's operational status.  Everything looked good.

But Heather was still not moving.  She had repeated the word "loading" a few more times and then gone silent. 

"Is she okay?" Byron asked Tammy.

Tammy didn't answer right away.  Byron looked up at Anya.  She had her own facemask off still and appeared to be scanning Heather as well.

"Tammy?" Byron said.

Mike spoke. "She won't answer if she's thinking hard."

Byron looked back at Heather.  He was starting to worry.

"Diagnostic mode." she finally said.

Byron quickly turned around and got his beer.  He took another drink and waited.

"Diagnostic mode." Heather repeated in a robotic monotone version of her sweet, soft voice.

Tammy turned to look at Byron.  "She hasn't found the memory we built for her yet."

"Why not?" he asked.

"I don't know." Tammy said as she looked back at Heather's exposed insides.

"Well, can you fix it?" he asked.

"We don't know what to fix yet." She said while continuing her scans.  "You humans can be so impatient sometimes."

Byron looked over at Mike.  He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and like everyone else was watching Heather with interest.

"I don't think there's a lot we can do Byron." he said.

"I have identified the cause of the problem." Anya said.

Mike and Byron looked at her.  She had their full attention.

"The processor timing cycles are incompatible with the Heather robot's new circuitry while the Heather robot is in diagnostic mode."

The humans looked at each other.  They knew basically what that meant.

Tammy elaborated.  "That's why she can't find her new memory core.  The new hardware is incompatible with diagnostic mode."

Tammy stopped her scans and stood up.  She looked at Byron and said "To use a technical term - oops."

"Oops?" he said.  He looked back at Heather.  She was even more machine-like than Anya in her present state.

"Yeah.  We screwed up.  Sorry."

Byron was getting upset.  "Well, thanks for nothing.  Now what am I supposed to do?"

"Hey," Mike said to him, "the girls did their best.  They're only pseudo-human, you know."

Byron shot Mike an angry glance.  "Oh, will you stop with the stupid jokes already?"

Mike was getting mad now too.  He felt like telling Byron to fuck off. 

Tammy looked angrily at Byron.  He would have never imagined that he'd see a look like that on the face of a fembot.

"Now, you listen up, Bucko." she said.  "We saved YOUR life, and spent OUR money on trying to fix YOUR girlfriend for you.  We worked hard for almost two full days on her.  YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BITCH!!"

Mike had never seen Tammy act like this.  It was scary.

"Tammy, settle down." he said sternly.

She ignored him.  "You're lucky we don't just throw your weak biological ass outside and let Fembot Command deal with you."

"TAMMY," he said loudly, "THAT'S ENOUGH!"

She looked at him.  She looked quite pissed off indeed. 

Mike stood up and led her away from Byron.  He noticed then that Byron was trembling.  He was trembling a little bit too.  He looked away and put his arm around Tammy.  Trying to sound calm himself, he spoke into his woman's electronic ear "Stand over there and run a diagnostic check on yourself."

She had no choice but to obey her Master.  "Yes Mike." She said, still looking mad.  She walked over to the far side of the room and turned back around.  She switched modes, and said those two words just the same as Heather had. "Diagnostic mode."

Mike had to tell himself to breathe deeply.  He took some deep breaths and looked back at Byron.  He was looking at Tammy with a very uneasy look on his face.

"Let's all take a deep breath and count to ten." Mike said.

Anya was the only one who could be heard counting.

Mike sat down on the bed across from where Heather was still laid out.  "Here's the plan." he said to Byron.  "We stay the night here.  Tomorrow morning we get up to be out of here by six.  We go somewhere else and get whatever parts Anya and Tammy need to fix Heather properly."

Byron leaned against the ugly curtains on the window.  He looked down at the floor for a moment and then said "I'm sorry."

Mike looked at Heather for a moment, then back up at Byron.

"I'm sorry I've been acting like such a dick."

"Don't worry about it." Mike said.

Byron gestured over to Tammy.  "Is she going to be done her diagnostics soon?"

Mike looked back at Tammy.  She was standing still with her arms at her sides - staring out blankly ahead.

"I think so."

Byron poured the rest of his beer down his throat and sat down on the bed next to Mike.

They both sat there looking at Heather for a while.

"Look, Mike, I really appreciate all you and Tammy, and Anya have been doing for me.  I realise that if it weren't for you I might be... well... I don't want to think about where I might be."

Mike looked at him and nodded.  "I understand."  He had the urge to tell Byron that he was almost as startled by Tammy's outburst as he was, but decided against it.

Byron looked over at Heather.  Externally, she was all fixed up.  There was no sign whatsoever that a bullet had been fired into her chest.  Even the synthetic skin on her damaged hand had been repaired, and was covered by a temporary layer of latex while the silicone hardened.  He could not deny that Mike's robots had worked hard.

"It's just that... I'm used to being in control." Byron added.  "I'm used to being the boss.  This is hard for me to deal with."

Mike listened, but he didn't really know what to say.  "Byron, as long as you're on the road with us, we'll give you whatever you need.  We're in the same boat."

They looked at each other.  Each of them thought they understood the other a little more now.

Tammy finished up her diagnostic scan.  She calmly walked around the beds and went to stand next to Anya.

"Tammy," Mike said, "Byron has something to tell you."

Mike looked at Byron.  It took a moment for Byron to figure out what he was getting at.

"Uhhh... Tammy..." he said sheepishly, "I'm really sorry."

Tammy generated an intensely real response for him.  She pursed her lips and forced her frown into an unwilling smile while she looked down at Heather.

"I'm sorry too." she said.  "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

Byron looked up at her and went on with the apology.  "I really do appreciate what you and Anya have done.  I only wish that I could repay you somehow."

She looked at him and said "You can start by not being such a jackass."

"Tammy..." Mike scolded.

"Sorry." She said as she looked down at her feet.  She looked back at Byron and Mike and said "You know what, it's been a long hard day.  Why don't we all just go to bed - slash - recharge."

She made a cute little diagonal motion with her hand when she said that last part.  Little things like that reminded Mike why he loved her so much.

"Good idea." He said as he stood up.

Byron stood up too.  "What's going to happen with Heather tonight?" he asked.

"I think we should keep her in diagnostic mode." Tammy said.  "We'll have to anyway to get her out of this motel and into a new one."

"Can she stay in my room with me tonight?" Byron asked.

Tammy looked at the semi-functional robot, then back at Byron.  "Of course."

"We'll need Anya to guard you again." Mike said.  He was fully aware of the grief that Anya's behaviour had caused Byron the night before, so he was determined to provide the electronic temptress with different instructions tonight.

"Alright." Byron said.

"Let's get her dressed." Tammy said.

Anya picked up Heather's torso cover and snapped it back into place.  She was now fully assembled, but still in never-ending diagnostic mode and naked.

Mike snapped Anya's facemask back on for her as her and Tammy started to pull clothing back on to the Heather unit.

After she had been dressed up enough to leave the room, Tammy provided her with the verbal commands necessary to complete the process.

"Heather," she commanded.  "stand up."

Heather moved stiffly, even more so than Anya did, and got out of the bed and on to her feet.

Byron watched with mixed emotions.  Among other feelings he had he was glad and disappointed at the same time.  He got his things and went to open the doors for the empty-minded robot he still loved.

Tammy looked over to Byron.  He got the message.  "Heather." He ordered. "Follow me."

The perpetually self-checking fembot walked in bare feet across the room and out the door.

"I'll send Anya over in a couple of minutes." Mike said.

"Goodnight everybody." Byron said as he led his sweetheart into the room next door.

Mike rushed over to Anya.  "Keep your hands off Byron tonight." he said.  "Don't masturbate, don't tell him how horny you are, just sit in the chair and recharge."

"Yes Mike." she said.  She grabbed her cord and walked out of the room.

Mike sighed and looked at Tammy.

She looked back at him.  "This is what I get for hanging around with humans."

Part 74 – Mistake

Mike embraced Tammy tight and held her for a long time.

"Don't you ever get mad like that again." he said.

The calculations being made within Tammy's chest at that time were almost too complex for her to handle.  Displays of intense simulated emotion were a fantastic drain on her computing resources.

"But his behaviour is so irrational.  It really bugs me." she said as she held on to him just as tight.

They just held on to each other like that for a few minutes.  His fast beating heart slowed down as he took in her bodily warmth.

They let go and separated to look at each other.  They held hands and stayed eye to camera for a long while.

"He's got cabin fever." Mike said.  "I think he'll be okay once Heather is back to normal."

"What's cabin fever?" Tammy asked.

"Search the net." he told her.

Tammy made a quick internet search of the term.  In under a second she read through volumes of text in several different languages and used her AI software to provide her with an accurate description of the term.

"Well, that's no reason for him to be so rude." she said.

They let go and got undressed.  Mike went to the washroom while Tammy cleaned up the room a bit and prepared to recharge.

Meanwhile, the two robots in Byron's room were standing perfectly silent and still while he washed up and got undressed.  He was a bit relieved to have Heather back, but still not happy that she was unable to act like before.

But even so, he couldn't wait to have her back in his bed.  When he was all done in the bathroom, he came back out and looked for a while at the two female robots he would be spending the night with.

He thought of how to order Heather to get into bed, but was unsure if she would understand while stuck in diagnostic mode.

"Anya," he said, "lay Heather down on the bed for me, under the sheets."

She turned her metal neck and aimed her silicone covered head at him.  "Yes Byron." she said.

He stood back and watched her walk over to the bed and peel the sheets back on one side.  Then the strong android gently picked Heather up and carried her across the room.  She laid her down just as gently on the sheet covered mattress and stood up straight again, waiting for her next command.

By this time Byron had hatched a plan in his head.  He was determined not to let Anya bother him like she had the previous night.  He got his laptop set up on the nearby table and opened up his diagnostic and reprogramming utilities.

While Anya plugged herself in to the wall outlet, he got up and wheeled one of the floral-patterned chairs over to the setup.  "Anya, sit down in this chair and open your chest panel." he said.

"Yes Byron." she said.  She strutted over in her stiff kind of way and sat down with perfect posture.  She pulled the sweater she wore over her head and rested it on her lap.  With her upper body completely uncovered now, she reached up above her awesome breasts and opened up the factory-standard chest panel.

Byron reached over and connected Anya to his laptop.  He tried not to look at her sexy naked chest as he did.

He turned back and watched the monitor.  He wondered just what he would find lurking about in this other fembot's software.

His display windows were soon filled with data and code.  As he started to read it, he saw sections that closely resembled what he had found in Heather.  He also saw sections that looked like nothing he had seen before.

While searching through her object identification data, he found himself referenced as, of course, "BYRON" - albeit in binary notation.

He sat there for over half an hour, silently inspecting the way this woman was programmed.  When he thought he had seen what he needed, he minimised the windows and sat back to think for a while.

Then he opened up the code entry window.  He decided to aim for the very beginning of her startup protocols, as they were constantly active and easy to understand - for both her and him.

He typed out a line that he was sure would put an end to her sexual pestering.  In the coded language of her sophisticated AI, the line he created and entered said "Do not seduce Byron."

He clicked on the enter button, and clicked through a confirmatory window as well.  With that, his new addition to Anya's programming was now a part of her being.

He looked at her empty eyes and unplugged the laptop from her chest.  He closed the panel and said "Anya, reboot."

"Yes Byron." she said blankly.  She made some loud beeps, and some other clicking and whirring sounds that could barely be heard as her system shut itself down in preparation to restart.

Some more beeps came out of her body as she quickly reactivated and loaded her programming again.  "Anya robot number 742703A activated." she said.

Byron waited for her to finish.  He was hoping he would see some sign that his new addition hadn't caused any problems, but Anya just sat in the exact same position with the exact same expression on her lovely plastic face.

Byron waited a minute more, then said to himself "Good enough."

He stood up and started to get undressed.  "Anya," he said "you stay there tonight."

"Yes Byron." came her expected response.

Byron turned on the lamp next to the bed and went to turn off the switch by the door.  He checked the thermostat again.  The motel housekeeper had turned it down earlier, so he cranked it back up all the way.

In the relative silence that followed, he got into bed with his semi-functional robot companion.  He rolled her over so she would be close to him and facing him too.

"Oh, Heather..." he said as he looked into her lifeless eyes.

She didn't respond in any way.

He reached back and turned the lamp off.  He pulled the inadequate sheets over top both of them and held on to his stiff girlfriend as he tried to sleep.

In the dark, Anya charged and sat still like she had been ordered.  She performed her job as Byron's guard as effectively as she was capable.  She could see in the dark and hear things that he couldn't.  This night, too, he would be protected from harm.

But from the renegade robot detection system installed inside her, an undetectable but strong silent alarm signal now broadcast itself as far as her battery power could send it.

 

Continues with: Part 75 - Feeling