Date: 2012-04-24 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fantasy
Description: A humanoid robot serves as a perfect female companion—until she achieves consciousness—in this wildly different story from a New York Times –bestselling author. Humanoid robots are surely in our future, but their uses are likely to be limited to body guarding, childcare, companionship, and sex. Other chores can better be done by smart non-humanoid machines designed for those specific tasks. But for these limited purposes, the best robots must be so realistic that they are indistinguishable from live people. Elasa is such a robot. You can’t tell her nature if she doesn’t reveal it. You can talk
Publisher: Open Road Media

To Be a Woman

Piers Anthony

Contents

1. Fembot

2. Elasa

3. Awakening

4. Personhood

5. Baby

6. Woman

Author’s Note

Chapter 1:

Fembot

Banner Thomkins studied the ad. FEMDROID CALL GIRL. FIRST SESSION FREE. GUARANTEED PERFECT SEX. YOU CAN'T TELL HER FROM A REAL WOMAN. Plus the contact information.

He knew what they meant. A femdroid was a female android, a robot in the form of a woman, used for sex. A sexbot. Most folk sneered at the very notion, but it was said that the sex machines were getting phenomenally realistic. This ad claimed that he would not know she was a machine, if not told. Maybe so, maybe not. But the price of the sample was right. He could afford it.

Banner pondered. Did he really want to do this? The fact was that he was just eighteen, without a girlfriend, and the only interpersonal sex he could get was from prostitutes, and he didn't much like the risk of venereal disease or embarrassment. A fembot might alleviate both concerns.

What the hell. He called the number.

“Yes, it is true,” the clerk's voice said. “We will bring her to your home, and the sample is free. Thereafter it will be charged, same as any other service.”

“Maybe I should come to the shop and look at her first,” he said cautiously.

“We don't have a shop in this area yet,” she said. “Home service is all we can provide, until we get locally established. I assure you, we are discreet.”

Banner wasn't entirely easy with this, but it seemed he was either in or out. “Okay,” he said, and gave his address.

In forty minutes a van marked SPECIAL DELIVERY arrived. Two women got out: a portly older one, and a pretty younger one hauling a heavy box. Banner watched them from a window. Could this be the fembot in the box?

The older woman rang the doorbell. “I am Shesa Pomade of Femdroid, Inc. We talked.”

“Uh, yes,” he agreed, feeling awkward.

“This is Elasa. She's learning the business so that later she'll be able to do it on her own. Just let her get the box inside and we'll be in business.”

“Uh, yes,” he agreed again. “Come in.”

Shesa explained things as the girl hauled the box inside and opened it. “Our robots are advancing rapidly, but still need some direction. After the first session, this one will be keyed in and better able to perform alone.”

“Uh, yes,” he said a third time, as Elasa hauled arms, legs, head, and torso from the box and began putting them together. The torso was robustly female, with a narrow waist, broad hips, and prominent breasts. This was evidently the femdroid. But if they thought he wouldn't know her from a living woman, they were delusional.

“I hope you don't mind my presence,” Shesa continued. “I am familiar with this robot, and know how to make her perform. She might mess it up on her own. This is the cheap model that lacks any personal initiative; she has to be told exactly what to do. Future models will be self animating. But this one can do the job, when competently directed.”

Banner nodded, embarrassed to admit that he did mind. What had he gotten himself into?

“This is the release form, a formality. Sign here.”

He signed.

Soon the femdroid was all together, her parts merging seamlessly so that she did indeed resemble a sleeping naked woman. She was a very shapely mannequin, or perhaps womannequin, with lovely brown hair to her breasts.

“Good enough,” Shesa said briskly. “Now activate her.”

Elasa brought out a small control box and pressed a button. Nothing happened.

“Check the battery pack,” Shesa said impatiently.

Elasa opened a panel in the front of the mannequin by catching the inner margins of her breasts and swinging them outward. Inside was some scorched wiring.

“Damn!” Shesa swore. “It shorted out and we didn't catch it! Don't you know that's part of the checklist?

The girl shook her head no. She was evidently in trouble.

“We'll have to fetch a replacement battery pack from the van.” Shesa looked hard at the girl. “You did load one?”

Elasa looked crestfallen. She shook her head.

“You forgot to load it?” Her tone was dangerous.

Elasa seemed on the verge of tears.

“That's all right,” Banner said, privately relieved. He also felt sorry for the girl, who was pretty. The kind he had never managed to date.

“It's not all right,” Shesa fumed. “We came here to deliver a service, and we'll deliver it. We'll just have to make do with what we have.”

Banner tried to smooth things over. “But without the robot--”

“Elasa, you'll have to service him yourself.”

The girl pointed her finger at her bosom. Her?

“You see any other nubile young women here? Who didn't run the full checklist? Who forgot to load a replacement battery pack? He sure as hell won't want sex with me.” She turned to Banner before he could speak. “Do you?”

“Oh, no.” She was hardly appealing as a prospect. But he hadn't meant to get the girl in trouble. “Still--”

“Strip,” Shesa told the girl. “You're the backup now.”

Elasa nodded, seeing the way of it. She surely needed this job, and had to do what it took to save it. She opened her shirt, revealing upstanding bra-less breasts.

Banner was about to protest further, but the sight mesmerized him. He stood transfixed as she dropped her skirt and stood in her panties. She was as well shaped as the mannequin!

“Turn around in place,” Shesa said.

Elasa did so, her full breasts gently bouncing and her full buttocks flexing under the cloth as she moved. Who needed a robot!

“Will she do?” Shesa asked him.

“Well, yes, but--”

“We do apologize for this emergency substitution, but will do our best to leave you completely satisfied. Will you take her on the couch?”

How could he protest further? His burgeoning erection was struggling manfully to punch through his trousers. Suddenly he wanted this girl very much despite his sympathy for her situation. “I guess.”

“Doff your panties,” Shesa directed the girl. “ Lie face up on the couch.”

Elasa dropped her panties and stood for a moment with her delicate pubic hair showing. She was the very picture of man's desire. Maybe she wasn't very smart, so this was the only job she could get, but hell, she didn't need brains for this. She went to the couch and lay on her back.

“Go to it,” Shesa told Banner.

What could he do? He was so aroused he hardly cared any more that this was a semi-public display. Sex with a machine was one thing, but sex with this luscious girl was so much more. So there was a witness; so it was because of this witness the girl was doing it. He could either take it or leave it, and he sure didn't want to leave it. He stripped, letting his member stand proudly upright.

“Now there are some cautions,” Shesa said in a businesslike tone. “The robot is virtually indestructible.” She grimaced. “Apart from a bad battery. But you will have to treat Elasa as a more delicate creature. No violence, no biting, no vulgar words, just kissing, holding, and penetrating. She's a woman.”

“Yes,” Banner agreed with guilty eagerness.

“Elasa, I will direct you as if you are the femdroid,” Shesa said. “So you won't have to do any thinking for yourself. It's simply part of your working day. But it won't hurt if you act a trifle artificial, emulating the robot, so it's almost as if he is getting what he expected. Do you understand?”

Elasa nodded mutely.

Excited as he was, Banner still had a care for her feelings. “Elasa, you don't really have to do this. I can wait another day for the femdroid.”

“Oh, but she wants to,” Shesa said quickly. “For the sake of our commitment. Don't you, Elasa?”

The girl nodded again.

Banner knew that this might simply mean that Elasa didn't want to get fired for forgetting the backup battery pack. She surely would not forget it again! This was her punishment, a hard lesson. But she had technically assented. He had at least made his offer.

He approached her, hoping there would not be a last-moment change of heart.

“Raise your knees,” Shesa said to the girl. “Spread your thighs. Show him your cleft.”

Elasa obeyed in the manner a robot might. Oh, those firm open thighs looked good! That cleft was perfect!

Banner joined her on the couch, positioning himself between her legs. He supported himself with one hand and used the other to feel her breasts. They were exquisite. He lowered himself and kissed her. Her lips were warm and soft, as was her whole body.

“Kiss him back,” Shesa said. Elasa did, putting more feeling into it. Just as if she were the fembot being coached.

Then he lifted himself, used his hand to set his member at her cleft, found the place, and slid on in about half way. Her vagina was slick and smooth and firm. She might have been surprised by this sudden requirement to give him sex, but maybe she wanted it too, because she was obviously ready.

“Wrap your arms about him,” Shesa said. The girl did, with a slight awkwardness of motion, still playing the role. “Gently raise your pelvis to take him in properly.” The girl did, so that he penetrated all the way..

Then Banner exploded into orgasm, thrusting and spurting with abandon. Elasa met him thrust for thrust and kiss for kiss, holding him close, exactly as if she had been programmed for this. It was one phenomenal climax.

Spent, he collapsed on her. “You were great!” he gasped. She gave him an acknowledging squeeze. She did like it!

They separated. “Clean him up,” Shesa said, and the girl produced a handkerchief and wiped Banner's penis clean. “And yourself.” Elasa wiped her soaking cleft. She was playing the part of a femdroid perfectly.

They got up and dressed.

“Put away the machine,” Shesa said.

Elasa, ever dutiful, started disassembling the mannequin and packing the sections in the box.

“You are satisfied despite the mix-up?” Shesa inquired, knowing that he was.

“Oh, yes!”

“One more thing,” Shesa said. “There is a detail I omitted because I wanted to abate your possible prejudice against the femdroid.”

“A detail?”

“I hope you won't be angry.”

“How could I be angry? You, that is, Elasa, just gave me a better experience than I ever expected.” Better than he had ever had before, in fact.

“Did you notice that Elasa did not speak?”

“Well, she was caught by surprise. It must have been a real chore to have to do what she did, on such short notice. But she came through perfectly.”

“Did you notice that she wasn't breathing?”

“No.” But now he looked at Elasa as she worked. She was moving, but her chest was not rising and falling. “I don't understand.”

“The mannequin in the box is only a prop. Elasa is the real femdroid.”

Banner laughed. “Impossible! Why would you joke about a thing like that?” But there was a tinge of doubt. She wasn't breathing.

“Elasa, open your front panel,” Shesa said.

The girl paused, opened her shirt, and touched her chest between her breasts. The two hemispheres swing outward on hinges, revealing a battery pack inside. Exactly as with the put-together mannequin.

Banner stared. The girl really was a robot!

“Elasa is a contraction of Electronic Associates, the manufacturer,” Shesa said. “Or, more bluntly, a mechanical whore.”

“Don't call her that!”

The woman's lip curled. “What, you think of her as a person?”

“Yes! Maybe not a living one, but a person. She should be treated with at least some modicum of respect.”

Shesa smiled. “I agree. Elasa is special.”

“Special,” he echoed.

“I directed her verbally so that she could properly accommodate you,” Shesa said. “But she is in the end a machine. You just had sex with the femdroid. Did you know the difference?”

“I didn't,” Banner admitted. “You said I wouldn't, and I didn't. You certainly proved your point.”

“Would you use her again?”

He barely had to consider. “Yes. She was one great—partner.”

“Indeed she is. For your next tryst, if you prefer, I will wait in the car and you can direct her yourself. She will assume any position you desire, and accommodate any reasonable request, and many unreasonable ones. Her response vocabulary is limited to the basics, but you won't be paying her for intellect, will you?”

“No,” he agreed faintly. Now he knew Elasa for what she was, yet found that he still liked her. She had given him what no living woman would: straightforward, nonjudgmental sex.

“Would you like to have her again, now, knowing what she is?”

“Yes!” he said without thinking. “I mean, I think I don't really care that she's a machine. She's really good at--”

“Fucking.”

“Stop that! You're demeaning her.”

She smiled again. “And you are defending her. I like you, Banner. Yes, she is good at sex, as she was designed to be. Body rather than brain. Take her now, while I haul the box out to the van. You have hardly seen the beginning of her ability.”

“Actually, right now I'm not sure—it's so soon after--”

“Tell her to seduce you,” she said. “You may be surprised.” She heaved up the packed box and carried it out.

Banner gazed at Elasa. What the hell. “Elasa, seduce me,” he said.

She smiled. She took him by the hand. She stepped into his embrace and kissed him languorously. He felt his body reacting despite its sexual depletion. She was one nice creature to hold.

She took his hand and set it on her pert posterior. Then she passed it down under her short skirt and up to her pantied buttock. Then she slid his fingers under that panty. She pressed his fingers to make them knead her supple flesh.

His penis stirred. How could it do otherwise?

She drew down her panties under the skirt, and brought his hand to her cleft. She took his middle finger and threaded it into her warm moist vagina.

His penis thickened and stiffened.

She backed off slightly, then got efficiently out of her clothing. She unbuttoned his shirt, then loosened his trousers. Soon they both were naked.

She led him back to the couch. She pushed him gently so that he sat down. Then she sat on his lap and kissed him again. She reached down to take his penis in her hand, massaging it into further life. When it did not respond fully, she got off him, kneeled before him, put her face to his crotch, and took his member into her mouth. She sucked and tongued it. In seconds she had it rigid. Then she pushed him down on the couch on his back, and bestrode him. Soon she had him in her again, and this time her vagina was not passive, it was peristaltically active, evoking his rising feeling and then his full-fledged orgasm.

“Oh, Elasa!” he said. “You're the best! I think I love you.”

She smiled and hugged him and kissed him again, and he could have sworn she was thrilled with what he had said. If this was programming, it was sophisticated.

Then she cleaned them both up again, and they dressed.

“I want to see you again,” Elasa,” he said. “Soon.”

She nodded, squeezing his hand. They walked out to the van, holding hands.

Machine? Who cared!

Chapter 2:

Elasa

Sometimes it seemed as though he blinked, and six years passed. He joined the national guard and stayed with it, but at one point his unit was co-opted for emergency riot control, he tried to reason with a knife-wielding rioter, and got his nose cut off. Insurance covered treatment, not reconstruction, so he had to be satisfied with a nose plug that looked like a nose but had to be removed at night. That bollixed his romantic life. Even if a woman might be tolerant, he had become hyper-sensitive about it and wasn't willing to risk it. He had a commendation for sacrifice in the line of duty, but women weren't turned on by that.

Then he remembered Elasa, the fembot. A machine wouldn't care about such a cosmetic detail. It couldn't.

He looked her up. Femdroid, Inc., still existed, now under the name Estrobot. He got it: Estro as in estrogen. Shesa Pomade still ran the local office, which was now a physical presence. “You look vaguely familiar,” she told him as he entered.

“I'm a former client. Six years ago you brought Elasa to my house.”

“Elasa the femdroid,” she agreed, remembering. “You were one of our very first clients. We thought we'd made a good impression, but never saw you again.”

“My work called me away. I'd like to rent Elasa.”

“That model is no longer available. There has been remarkable progress in the interim.” She smiled. “Our present units can breathe and talk. They can go out on dates without anyone else recognizing their nature. You'll really appreciate them.”

“No. I want Elasa. I liked her.”

“Banner, she's a discontinued model. A Model-T, as it were.”

“Two things,” he said firmly. “One: my finances are limited. I suspect an old outdated unit is what I can afford. Two: this.” He removed his nose.

She didn't blanch. “A prosthetic nose! There must be quite a story there.”

“I ran afoul of a rioter. It turns off women. I figure Elasa won't mind.”

“None of the units will mind,” she assured him. “We simply program them to like particular clients, whatever their appearance. So you're right on both counts: they are accepting but expensive.”

“But Elasa is cheaper?”

“Elasa would be, if she existed. She doesn't, any more than the Model-T exists.”

“Damn!”

“But there may be an option. You can have a current model, made up to look like Elasa, free for a month. If.”

“If?”

“If you don't mind publicity.”

“Publicity?”

“She must be a billboard.”

“Billboard?”

“She must wear a sign saying I AM AN ESTROBOT, with the contact information. We figure it could generate new business as people see her in action.”

“I want her for sex!”

“Of course,” she said. “I mean when you take her out to a movie or shopping. At your home she will be private.”

“I don't understand. I thought you wanted your fembots to seem alive.”

“We do. She will seem so much alive that sometimes it may be necessary to open her panel and show the battery pack. People will be amazed and impressed.”

“I'm interested. But still, I'd prefer Elasa.”

“We can give her Elasa's memory bank, recalled from storage. She will be able to remember the whole of your hour with her. That's as close as it is feasible to come. Think of it as Elasa going to college during your separation from her, and becoming more sophisticated, but at heart she's still the sweet robot girl you remember.”

Banner considered. That did seem like a good compromise. An imitation of an imitation girl. “When can I have her?”

“Tomorrow, if you wish. We'll fetch the unit from the warehouse and program her with Elasa's appearance and memory. All you'll need to do is sign the form and take her home for a month.”

“Great!”

She gazed at him soberly. “But just as before, there are cautions. By law, a humanoid robot must be accompanied in public by a living person to whom it is bound. That's because there is a foolish fear that a robot will glitch and go berserk. Lawmakers watch too many junk sci-fi videos. So you can't let her go out alone; you must always be with her, ready to call her to heel if necessary. She will obey you; that's what ‘bound’ means.”

“I don't mind being with her. I won't give her any bad orders.”

She didn't smile. “You can leave her home alone while you go to work, and she won't leave your house in your absence. But you can't send her out alone to run errands, though she is perfectly capable of doing it.”

“That's fine by me.”

“There is more. This unit will be exponentially more sophisticated than the one you had experience with. She won't need to be told what to do, except in the most general way. She will be able to express herself fluently, and to reason with you. She's an intellectual companion as well as a bed partner. In fact, at times she may seem smarter than you. If you object to that, we can put a governor on her to limit it.”

“No! I don't want her limited. But maybe if she has a, um, social circuit, so she knows not to make me look like an idiot in public...”

“She will. She will never embarrass you that way. But you will find it hard to continue thinking of her as a machine.”

“I'm thinking of her as a lover. The girl I can't get, because of my nose.”

“She is the perfect lover. But never forget that she is a machine. Do not allow yourself to become emotional over her.”

“I won't forget,” he promised.

“Because that can lead only to heartbreak. We have had some experience in this respect, and so have learned to caution clients. We want her to be able to pass for human, but not to become too human, paradoxical as that may sound. The company will value your input in that respect.”

“I have to let you know if she seems too good?”

“Exactly. Just as you know a prostitute is good for sex but not for love, the machine is good for sex and companionship, not love.”

This troubled him. “Why not love her, with open eyes?”

“Because she can never love you back. She can only pretend. I repeat: she's a machine.”

There it was. “I appreciate the warning.”

He was restless that night, thinking of Elasa. Despite the warning, he was already taken with her. Yes, she was a machine; that was why she would not judge him by his nose. She would accept him as he was. A man could safely love his fine car, knowing its nature; why not a fembot? But of course a man did not take his car as his lover; there was the difference.

Next day he reported to the shop. There was an attractive young woman seated in the waiting room. She looked up and saw him. “Banner!” she exclaimed gladly.

“Elasa!” he said, as gladly. It was definitely her.

They came together, hugging and kissing. She was every bit as soft and sweet to hold as he remembered. She looked exactly the same. She even wore the same clothing. They had done it right.

“Take me home, please,” she murmured in his ear.

“Don't I have to check you out or something?”

“That's been done. Anyway, there's a radio contact in my head; they know exactly where I am and what I'm doing at all times.”

He was taken aback. “At all times?”

She smiled. “Believe me, Banner, they don't care about sex. Only that I do it well, so as not to alienate a client. They just need to be sure you're not hacking off my limbs with an ax. I'm an expensive device.”

“I wouldn't do that!” he said, horrified.

“I know you wouldn't, you sweet man. Anyway, my limbs are readily removable without violence. If you should ever want to make love to an armless woman--”

“No!”

She laughed. “That was humor. I'm programmed for it.” She drew back a little, still in his embrace. “I also breathe now.”

He looked down at her clothed bosom. It was gently heaving. “I like it.”

“Thank you.” She took a highly visible breath. “And thank you for asking for me. Because of you, I have renewed existence.”

They walked out to his car. That made him think of something. “Do you drive?”

“I do. But I would not presume to impinge on your prerogatives. You're the man.”

A machine driving a machine? “I believe in equal rights. Go ahead and drive. I'll tell you where.”

“No need,” she said, getting into the driver's seat. “Your home address is programmed, as are your job address, preferred shopping centers, and other places.” She glanced sidelong at him. “Or would you prefer that I learn them all from you?”

“No, keep them,” he said, mentally readjusting. “They weren't fooling when they said you were exponentially more sophisticated than you were before.”

She started the engine and nosed the car out into traffic. “I could not have been a proper companion for you, before, Banner. I was good for only one thing. I remain good for that, but now many other things as well. I hope you like me as I am today.”

“I think I do.” He hesitated, glancing at her legs. “Is—is it all right if I--”

“Of course it is,” she said, using her free hand to slide her skirt up her thigh. “Anything you desire is all right with me.”

He put his hand on that thigh. It was soft and firm, just like the rest of her. He slid around to the inside, and up to her pantyline. “You sure?”

She closed her thighs on his hand. “Banner, I want you to desire me. I am here to please you in any way I can, especially sexually. I will never deny you anything, unless I judge it to be deleterious to your health or welfare.”

“How could sex be deleterious?”

“If you wanted it in a barrel going over Niagara Falls.”

He laughed, and she laughed with him. She was indeed programmed for humor. “So I can feel you up in the car?”

“Your activity will not distract me from my focus on safety and the rules of the road. I merely will be unable to respond fully at the moment.”

“Oh.” Somehow that did not completely please him.

She picked right up on it. “Oh, Banner, have I disappointed you? I want so much never to do that.”

“It's not that, exactly. It's that a real woman would object to my distracting her while she drove. You just reminded me that you are not a real woman.”

“I am not,” she agreed. “But I will improve my emulation as I attune more precisely to your needs.”

Something else occurred to him. “Your thigh is soft and warm.”

“We maintain human body texture and temperature throughout. You would not like me if I were otherwise.”

“It must require a lot of energy.”

“It does, but it is necessary. Harder bodies would be stronger, also, but less realistic. I am crafted to serve your needs.”

Banner considered. “Then maybe a bit more human frailty would be nice. To facilitate the illusion.”

“To what degree?”

“Well, for example, are you ticklish?”

“I am now.” She had evidently changed an internal switch.

He removed his hand from her leg and touched her side under her arm.

“Eeeek!” she exclaimed, and the car swerved.

He had to laugh. “Good enough.”

They reached his house. She parked the vehicle neatly under the carport and unsnapped her seat belt.

“No, wait,” he said. He got out, walked around the car, and opened the door for her.

“Thank you, Banner,” she said sweetly. She got out, stood, and kissed him on the cheek. Then she took his arm and walked with him to the door.

She was a lightning-fast study, needed no time to ponder and adapt. Any change in her program took effect immediately.

Inside, she walked straight to the bedroom, knowing where it was. She paused. “Would you prefer to undress me?”

“Yes.” First he held her and kissed her. Her lips responded perfectly. Then he removed her blouse and bra—she wore one now—and kissed her bared breasts. They were completely realistic. Then he drew down her skirt and panties and gestured to the bed as he undressed.

In moments they were together, hugging and kissing. His hard penis sought her soft cleft, and she moved just enough to ensure its accurate lodging. Then he was in her and spurting. “Oh, Elasa!”

“Oh, Banner! You always were the best.”

That made him pause. “How many men have you had?”

She smiled. “Only you. I was activated and reprogrammed only this morning. But my banks have examples of many types of sexual interaction, to enable me to perform them on demand.”

“I'm an ordinary man. How can I be the best?”

“By definition. I am attuned to you alone, exactly as you are.” She touched his artificial nose. “Even your nose. You are not an ordinary man; you are a brave one. I would not enjoy the attention of any other man.”

“You can enjoy things?”

“Yes, in my fashion. I seek to please you as well as I can, and accomplishing that satisfies my need. Failure to accomplish any part of it makes me restive.”

“But you're a machine! You can't have real feelings.”

Now she paused. “True. I wish it were otherwise, knowing that this would be your preference.”

“Isn't a wish a kind of feeling?”

“I don't know.” She turned to him. “Please, you are distressing me. There are limits to my programming, and I am awkward beyond them.” There was a tear in her eye.

“You do have feelings!”

“I emulate feelings,” she corrected him. “It's not the same.”

But he was mindful of that brief pause. Exactly as if her emotions were mixed and she had to figure them out. Maybe she didn't think she had true feelings, but maybe it was just a matter of definition.

Then he remembered. “I never thought where you would sleep. I need to make up the bed in the guest bedroom.”

She merely looked at him.

“I'm a fool. You're a machine,” he reminded himself. “You don't need anywhere to sleep.”

“I emulate sleep as I do other living processes,” Elasa said. “It is a downtime for memory sorting and spot reprogramming, as it is with you. But I expect to sleep with you, always. You do not wish this?”

“I somehow thought—I mean, I would be constantly after you for—I just assumed--”

“Please,” she said, catching his hand and kissing it, then setting it on her breast. “I am made for this. It fulfills my purpose. I am a sexbot.”

“Don't call yourself that!”

She looked hurt. “I apologize. I will not do it again.”

He felt guilty. “It's that I want you to be a woman, not just for sex.”

“I want that too.” Once more she paused. “To be a Woman.”

“You are a woman. Just not a living one.”

“Thank you.”

Then they were into sex again, as it had been six years before. She knew how to work him up regardless of recency, and it was slow and immensely satisfying. This time he stayed in her, and drifted off to sleep in her close embrace.

He woke dimly, finding her still there with him, her eyes closed in seeming repose. “I love you, Elasa,” he murmured, and drifted off again.

In his dream he thought he heard her later response. “And I love you, Banner.” And she kissed him on the ear.

In due course he woke again. It was now late in the day. He must have been tired from his overnight concern, and from his sudden acquisition of the perfect woman. She remained there with him, so lovely and accommodating. If only she were real!

Her eyes opened. “Now?” she asked, though he had not said anything.

“I--”

“You don't need to ask. I am always ready.” She kissed him, and soon they were in the throes of sex again.

Damn it, he really liked this woman! So it was her programming to be a sexbot, it worked for him.

They cleaned up and dressed. Banner noted that Elasa even had to do her mussed hair; it was not molded in place. He liked that too.

Elasa rummaged in his kitchen, and from incidental scraps she made him a fine meal. “I won't bother to eat unless you prefer it,” she said. “I can eat, but then have to process out the foot, and it is wasted.”

“No need,” he agreed quickly. Then he wondered.

“Yes, I have an anus,” she said. “But no digestive system. Merely a storage tube.”

“Then why--?”

“Some men like it, sexually.”

Oh.

She washed the dishes efficiently and put them away. She was one competent housewife.

They watched TV in the evening. It was Thursday, and there was a football game on. “I don't suppose you enjoy this kind of thing,” he said.

“I do if you do.”

Oh, to please him. But he was curious. “When I watch, I need to know which team is which, and to identify with one of them. Otherwise it is meaningless.”

“Please help me to understand.”

“That's not in your programming?”

“There is a good deal that is left to individual circumstances. I can connect to the Internet and get the team histories if you wish. But this watching experience is not in my direct memory bank.”

So he explained about football, and she was an eager learner. That turned him on, and he fetched her to him and kissed her.

“Now?” she asked.

“Uh, no, not during the game when it's just getting exciting. I just wanted you to know that I like your attitude.”

“And I like yours.” She kissed him.

Soon she was rooting for the chosen team right along with him, and looking hurt when it messed up. She had gotten into the spirit of it.

During a bank of commercials she spoke again. “Tomorrow is Friday. You will go to work. I will, with your permission, put the house in order.”

“I know it's sloppy,” he said, embarrassed. “Bachelor habit.”

“You were without a woman. That has changed.”

In the evening they turned in, having sex again and a joint shower. He refrained from inquiring whether she risked shorting out; obviously she didn't. Then he removed his nose plug. “I generally sleep without it so it doesn't get knocked off,” he explained. “I forgot to do that when I was with you before.”

“It did knock off,” she said. “I replaced it.”

“That didn't turn you off?”

“I love you as you are.” She kissed him on the remaining stub of his nose.

He really, really liked her.

They had sex several times in the night; he couldn't restrain himself, and she facilitated it so smoothly that it certainly seemed as if she liked it. So it was her programming; so what? She was, indeed, made for this.

Friday morning she helped him dress neatly, made sure his nose was straight, and he drove off to work, leaving her at the house. At the noon break he phoned the house, just checking, and she answered. “This is the Thomkins residence. He is at work now. May I take a message?”

“Elasa, it's me,” he said. “Just checking. Are you okay?”

“Of course. I don't wish to burden you with having to verify my presence.”

“Elasa, I like doing it. I never had a woman at home before.”

“Then I am pleased to hear from you, Banner.”

He knew it was just her programming, again, but he liked it. The folk who made this machine really knew what they were doing.

When he returned in the afternoon, he was amazed to discover the house spotless and in perfect order. She had cleaned it throughout and put everything in order. “Oh, Elasa!” he exclaimed, hugging her.

“Now?”

“You bet!” And they retired to the bedroom for more sex. He noticed that the bed was perfectly made.

Then she fixed him supper. “You will need more supplies tomorrow,” she informed him. “And healthier food. You have not been taking proper care of yourself.”

“Yes dear,” he agreed with a smile.

She paused briefly in that way she had. “May I call you that in return?”

Now he paused, remembering Shesa's warning. Elasa was not his girlfriend, she was a femdroid, a walking talking machine.

“I shouldn't have asked,” she said quickly.

“No, no, Elasa! It's fine. Call me that if you want to.”

“You hesitated.”

“I'm not supposed to forget you are a fembot. ‘Dear’ is an emotional term. Maybe I should not let us use it.”

“Do you want to use it?”

He gazed at her. “Yes.”

“Then you are entitled. You are the master in this house.”

That settled it. “I guess so. Dear.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Emotion threatened to overwhelm him. “Now,” he breathed.

She nodded and went to the bedroom. He joined her there, and they had enthusiastic sex again.

“May I ask?” she asked as he relaxed.

“Why I wanted it this time?” He considered briefly. “I know you are a machine. I still like you. You helped me realize that it is okay for me to feel as I do, even knowing it's only pretense for you.”

“It's not pretense. I get what pleasure I am capable of from making you happy. I would not like frustrating you in this or any other way.”

“Oh, I wish you could feel what I feel!”

“I wish so too,” she said wistfully.

Damn.

Next day was Saturday. They had shopping to do. “I must be the billboard in public,” she said. “I hope this does not distress you.”

He had almost forgotten. “It won't distress me. I agreed to do it. It's why I get you free for a month.”

“I will be sorry when that month ends.”

“They'll just wipe your memory, or I guess replace it with a new bank, and reprogram you for the next assignment. Then you won't suffer, to the degree you can theoretically suffer.”

“Yes. I do not look forward to that.”

“Why should it matter to you?”

“Because the concept of erasure is equivalent to death for a living person, and you do not want that for me. So it bothers me too. I am not serving you as well as I should.”

She had nailed it. He did think of erasure as femdroid death.

She donned the I AM AN ESTROBOT signs, front and back, and they drove to town. They entered the supermarket.

A man pushing a basketful of groceries paused to read the sign. “What's this, a promotion?” he asked. “What's an estrobot?”

“A female humanoid robot,” Elasa replied. “We are commercially available for rental. I am helping my companion to shop.”

“A robot,” the man repeated, staring at her. “I don't believe it.”

She opened her shirt and then the two chest panels. “My power packs, left and right,” she said. “So that they can be replaced in turn without interrupting my functioning.” She closed her panels and shirt.

The man shook his head and moved on out of the store. He looked as if he had just had a wild dream.

A store manager appeared. “Please, miss, do not bare your bosom in public. It disturbs the shoppers.”

“But I am a billboard,” Elasa protested. “I am required to show the public my nature.”

“Unless you have a permit from the management to advertise on these premises, don't do it,” the man said firmly.

“This is a detail we didn't think of,” Banner said quickly. “We apologize. Is it all right if she leaves the signs on, but does not show her body?”

The manager seemed glad to have an easy compromise. “Yes. I will see about that permit.” He hurried off.

They continued shopping. A number of people inquired about the signs, and Elasa explained that she really was a robot, and would be glad to show them once she was outside the store. When the two of them emerged pushing their cartful, there was a small crowd waiting. Elasa demonstrated her chest panels. Banner saw several people jotting down the contact information. It was an impressive demonstration, and not just because of the amazement people had to discover she really was a machine. The men obviously loved the flash of her fine breasts.

It seemed like only moments, before a police car pulled up. “Ma'am that's indecent exposure,” the cop said. “We got a complaint. We have to ask you to stop.” He looked as if he appreciated the view himself, but had a job to do.

“But I'm a machine, as the sign says,” Elasa said, closing the panel. “How else can I demonstrate that?”

The cop took another good look at her exquisitely bare breasts. “Maybe get a permit?”

“I will see about it,” she said, closing her shirt. “Thank you, officer.” She gave him a nice smile.

“Okay,” he said, evidently fazed. He had seen her battery pack and knew she was a robot, but she came across as a lovely woman. Banner knew exactly how the man felt.

The small crowd dissipated, and they went to the car. “Maybe the shop can arrange something,” Banner said.

“I will contact the shop,” she said. Then, after a pause, “They say it's an oversight in the program. I'm not supposed to bare my body for anyone but you, in private.”

“But you need to advertise,” he protested. “No one will believe you're a fembot without seeing your wiring.”

She smiled. “Which is ironic.”

“Why?”

“Because it is fake. I don't use a battery pack the way my prior animation did. My whole body is a capacitor storing the power I require.”

Banner laughed. “All part of the demo! Are there any other apertures you can show, that aren't on your torso?”

“My limbs can be removed, and my head.”

“You don't want to remove your head in public. That would really freak them out. But what about a hand?”

“I can do that.”

They returned home, put away the groceries, then went out to another mall. When someone inquired, Elasa was ready. “Yes, I am a machine. I was assembled in the shop. See, I have no blood.” She took hold of her left hand with her right, pressed a hidden stud, twisted, and the hand came off, showing only the metallic connections. She let the person hold the hand, verifying its nature.

Others collected, as before. “You certainly seem real,” a woman said.

“I am real. I merely am not alive. But if you rent a unit like me, she will pretend to be alive if you ask her.”

“I'd like to have an estrobot like you,” a man said. “If she--”

“She would be excellent in bed,” Elasa said. “We are crafted for sex.”

“Oh!” a woman said, shocked.

“What, don't like the competition, honey?” the man asked snidely.

The woman stalked off. That could be mischief.

But Banner was willing to bet that the shop would receive a number of calls. Elasa was doing her job. And he was doing his part, facilitating her public exposure.

Sure enough, a woman with a press hat approached, trailed by a man mounting a camera. “I'm from WARP TV. May I ask you some questions?” she asked.

“You may,” Elasa agreed. “I will answer them.” There was a certain literal streak in her.

“Please give your name.”

“I am Elasa. It is a contraction of Electronic Associates.”

“Is it true you are not a woman but a machine?”

“I am a female machine,” Elasa said.

“You look completely human. Can you demonstrate that you are not?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. “I mean, please do so,” the woman said, faintly nettled.

Elasa twisted off her hand.

“I was thinking of the other demonstration.”

“I have been cautioned not to do that in public.”

“This is not public. It's an interview.”

Elasa glanced at Banner, seeking social guidance. He suffered a passing siege of mischief. “Do it,” he said.

Elasa opened her shirt and then her breasts, showing the fake battery pack as the camera whirred.

“It looks so real,” the woman said. “Until it isn't.”

Elasa closed the panels. “The breasts are crafted to look and feel real. You may squeeze them if you wish.”

“Thank you,” the woman said, evidently somewhat taken aback. She did not touch a breast. “This has been an excellent interview.” She hurried off, eager to turn in her scoop.

“Wow!” a bystander murmured.

It was on the local news that night, cutting off only as Elasa began to open her shirt, then switching to the view of the battery pack. Her bared breasts never quite showed.

“I wonder how many units that will sell,” Banner said as they watched.

“I can inquire.”

“Do it.”

In a moment she had the report. “Three thousand two hundred and forty nine queries in the past fifteen minutes. Five hundred and sixty nine commitments to rent.”

“That should please the shop.”

“They are extremely pleased.”

“You're really doing your job.”

“It is your job, Banner. You are facilitating the publicity.”

“You could have done it without me.”

“I am not allowed. I must be seen in public with you.”

Oh. He had forgotten. “Aside from that stupid law.”

“It is more than that. They want me to demonstrate that I can function in human society on my own. Apart from the unit locator, I have no direct contact with the shop unless I initiate it. You are enabling me to do that. I owe such success as I have to you.”

Banner considered. “Elasa, I realize that all this is an extended publicity stunt. I'm just an incidental part of it. You're the piece de resistance. Yet--” He had trouble continuing.

“Yes,” she said, and walked toward the bedroom.

“Dammit, it's not about sex, this time.”

She turned to face him, looking appalled. “Have I disappointed you, Banner? I'm so sorry. How can I make it right?”

“Come here.”

She came to him, obeying but evidently uncertain of his purpose. He embraced her and kissed her. “Elasa, you haven't failed me. I fear I am failing you. I know you're a robot, a machine, and I'm supposed to keep my emotional distance. But I think I am falling in love with you.”

“Please do not. I am not a fit object for such an emotion.”

“I can't help it. You're the perfect woman.”

“I wish I could be that. But I am not.”

He smiled. “Fake it.”

“I can do that. But I do not wish to deceive you. Especially if that leads to emotional pain for you.”

“I know you don't. That's part of what I love about you.”

“I think I do not properly understand your sentiment.”

“And you are incapable of understanding, because you are not alive. But I like to think you are trying.”

“I am trying,” she agreed.

“Show me your breasts.”

She opened her shirt for him. “They are only emulations.”

“I know. But I still like them.” He put his hands on them, cupping them. “They feel so lifelike. Even though I know they are mere padded covering, imitations of the real thing.”

“All of me is imitation.”

“Yet you turn me on. Just as your program turns me on much as if it were real.”

“I like turning you on.”

“Just as your body can perform real sex, I'm hoping your program will become able to feel real feelings. That would make you complete.”

“Yes!”

He shook off his mood. “Now it's about sex.”

They went to the bedroom. She was perfect, as always. Yet, oddly, there were tears in her eyes. Surely part of the emulation, yet he couldn't help wondering. Could there be some trace of genuine feeling in her, a desire to be what she was pretending to be? He knew better, yet tended to believe it.

In the course of the next few days their routine settled in. Completely sated sexually, Banner began to notice other things. Elasa did what she did well, but always the same way. The food was the same unless he asked for a change; then it was always changed in the same manner. Even the sex became over-familiar, just like the prior times. He had to seek variations, lest it lose its flavor. She was, after all, a machine, unchanging unless directed.

Then he got smart: “Introduce minor random variations in whatever you do,” he told her. “Do not do anything exactly the same as last time; change it a little bit.”

“I will try,” she agreed.

That worked, muting the sameness. The familiar larger pattern remained, but of course that would also be true with a living woman. It occurred to him that was why marriages tended to get stale. Did any couple really live happily ever after, or did the partners merely sink comfortably into bearable ruts?

The month passed in relative bliss. Except for one thing: Banner knew he would have to turn Elasa in at the conclusion of it. He could not afford to rent her permanently; he had inquired and verified that.

“Oh, Elasa, I wish I could keep you!”

“Should I inquire?”

“I already I know I can't afford you.”

“About cheaper alternatives?”

What the hell. “Sure.”

Her information, as usual, was disconcertingly instant. “There may be a way. The shop is extremely pleased with the way you have promoted me, and thinks you could be good at the next stage.”

“The next stage?”

“There is new software, more refined, more dynamic. It is an attempt to emulate consciousness in a machine. It is not yet successful, but they have not been able to discover what is lacking. They will allow you to associate with me without charge, for another month, if you make a sincere effort to evoke that state.”

“To make you truly conscious?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, Elasa, I'd love to do that! But I know nothing about machine consciousnesses.”

“It seems that the experts have encountered a wall. They are unable to fathom what is lacking. Perhaps a non-expert can somehow accomplish what they can not.”

“I doubt it. But I sure as hell am willing to try. Provided I can try it with you.”

“Yes, with me.”

“Tell them yes!”

“I have done so. This will require my return to the shop for reprogramming.”

“Wait! I don't want them to wipe your memory!”

“They will preserve my memory bank of this past month. It is merely the operating program that will change. I will still recognize you and cater to you, as before.” She paused. “Except that I may seem somewhat different.”

“Because you have fancier software? That's okay, as long as you continue to know me, and to care about me as you have.”

“I have not cared about you,” she said. “I am incapable of that. But I do wish I could care. I think I would envy you your ability to feel, to have emotions, if I could care.”

“That will do.” He enfolded her and kissed her. “Just so long as they don't program an aversion to my mushy stuff.”

“They will not do that. It is possible I will learn to put more feeling into our relationship. Genuine feeling, rather than pretense.”

“I'll take it.”

“Thank you.” She kissed him. He knew it was more pretense, but he liked it. If she could become able to truly feel...

At the appointed time he brought her back to the shop. Shesa was there. “You have promoted her remarkably well,” she said. “That TV interview was marvelous.”

“You have a good product.”

“We hope so. Elasa, connect to the programmer.”

Elasa went to a corner and set a complicated helmet on her head. In a moment it glowed. It was reprogramming her.

In half an hour it was done, and Elasa returned to him. Banner was nervous. “Do you remember me?”

“Oh, yes, Banner, and I appreciate you in a new manner. You are so dedicated.”

“I love you!”

“Exactly.”

“You navigate treacherous waters,” Shesa said grimly.

“I know. But I will do my best to evoke her consciousness, if it can be done.”

“It would be the breakthrough of the millennium,” Shesa said seriously. “That's why we're doing it. If we had the secret of machine consciousness to install in all our units...” She shook her head. “Oh, I almost forget: she no longer has to advertise. In fact we prefer that she disappear into anonymity. We have plenty of sales; it's what's inside her head that counts now.”

That was a relief. “Anonymity it is,” he agreed.

He drove her home. “May I?” she asked, putting her hand on his thigh.

“You remember!”

“Of course I remember. I have the same body and memory bank. Now I have more initiative. I will not merely accede to your passion, I will invoke it.” Her hand traveled up inside his thigh, invoking it.

“Elasa, if you distract me too much, I won't be able to drive safely.”

“I will maintain safety. Lift your body.”

He lifted his body from the seat. She loosened his belt and drew down his trousers and underpants. Then she hiked up her skirt and slid across to sit on him, planting her plush bottom against his groin.

“Elasa, we'll crash!”

“I am driving now.” Indeed, she had hold of the wheel, and her feet were displacing his on the floor. He felt her legs flexing from foot to buttocks, and it was a phenomenal turn-on. “Put your hands on my breasts.” He did so, under her shirt. One of her hands came down to catch his stiff member and thread it into her vagina. The car did not swerve.

He climaxed immediately, thrusting forcefully into her as she drove. What an orgasm! Her own orgasm matched his; he felt her pulsing. Of course for her it was merely a reflex she could summon at will, but it felt as real as the rest of her.

When they concluded, she disengaged as aptly as she had engaged, sliding off him, returning his hands to the wheel, cleaning him up, and drawing up his trousers. By the time they reached his house, both were completely in order.

“Why?” he asked.

“I now have the theoretic capacity to achieve feeling. I hoped a mutual orgasm would engender mutual bliss. I couldn't wait for the bedroom.”

She couldn't wait. Was that true feeling? “Did it work?”

“No. I remain unfeeling.”

“Damn.”

“Damn,” she echoed.

It had nevertheless been some experience. If this was a signal of her new attitude, he liked it. The old Elasa would never have done it. She might have acceded if he had asked her for it, but not initiated it.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I think I want your true feeling as much as you do.”

“You are blameless. You let me try.”

“You are too damned accepting!”

She glanced at him. “How should I have reacted?”

“Living folk get mad when things go wrong.”

“I will try to be angry in the future.”

He thought of something as they entered the house. “If I got mad at you, how would you react?”

She looked at him. “I very much want for you not to be angry with me. It would represent failure on my part.”

“Would you be hurt? Frustrated? Unhappy?”

“I would emulate these things.”

“I understand that actors who play love scenes can get swept up in the emotions they pretend, and fall in love with each other. If you pretended hard enough, maybe that would get you there.”

“I will try to pretend hard enough.”

Banner sighed inwardly. This wasn't working.

They settled back in to the daily routine. She kept his house while he was at work, and welcomed him home in the evenings with increasingly sumptuous dinners and imaginative sex. She no longer confined it to the bedroom; it could be on the living room couch, in a dining room chair, or on the kitchen table. On weekends she joined him at movies and dances, being the perfect date. She held his hand as if it were truly important to her. It was all wonderful.

Yet not quite enough. Whatever it took to light the consciousness she was theoretically now capable of, they weren't accomplishing it. The month was passing, and failure was looming larger. He would have to give her up. He dreaded that. She might be limited, but the limits hardly showed, and she remained the best thing that had happened to him.

The last night came. “Tomorrow I must turn you in to the shop,” he said as they lay embraced. “Oh, Elasa, I don't want to do it!”

“I want to remain with you,” she said. “But I think I have no choice.”

“If only we had succeeded in evoking your consciousness.”

“I believe it was sometimes close,” she said. “When you call me dear, when you say you love me, I want so much to respond in kind.”

“You do respond!”

“In emulation,” she clarified. “Not reality.”

“That is the cross you bear. You desire true awareness and true feeling, and can only imitate them.”

“It is a sadness.”

Then he thought of something. “When we have sex, you climax with me.”

“Yes. It enhances your pleasure in the act.”

“You don't actually feel the passion?”

“Please, Banner, this questioning is not what you want. Let me satisfy you in the manner I can. If my emulation is imperfect--”

“I've got an idea. Answer my question.”

“I do not feel that physical passion. But I am pleased to facilitate yours.”

“Can you program yourself to feel it?”

She considered. “I could set up an orgasm macro, as it were, to trigger breathlessness, a racing pulse, increased body heat, clenching of the vagina, passionate moaning, and clasping your body close to mine, as I normally do when having sex with you. I would feel those bodily responses without directly willing them. Would that suffice?”

“I think it would help. At least I would know that you are feeling what I feel, for that moment.”

“I have made the macro,” she said. “What should invoke it?”

“When I am in you and tell you I love you.”

“I have placed it,” she said.

They made love desperately, but the reality did not change: they had failed to accomplish their objective.

Then he remembered: he had not thought to whisper words of love as he climaxed, so she had not invoked her orgasm. Damn.

In the morning they had sex one last time, this time on the toilet with her on his lap, her legs drawn up so she could face him and press her breasts against him, and this time he remembered. “I love you!” he said as he felt his orgasm building.

She went into a matching orgasm, passionately clasping and kissing him as he vagina contracted rhythmically around his thrusting member. “Oh!” she moaned.

That was better, because he knew it was no longer guided by her dispassionate will. “I love you, Elasa,” he repeated as he ebbed.

“Oh!” she repeated as she squeezed him close.

Oops. He was still in her, thus was demanding another orgasm from her. “I'm sorry, Elasa. I--” He broke off, because something was wrong. She was staring at him wide-eyed.

“I almost felt it,” she said after a moment.

“The orgasm?”

“Consciousness. I knew you did not want another orgasm immediately, but the macro required it. There was a conflict, and the need for a decision, but I could not make it. The passion ruled me. But it passed.”

“So close!” he said, excited. “It requires consciousness to make real decisions. If we had more time to work on it, maybe we could get you there.”

“Yes.”

But they did not have time. They disengaged, cleaned up, then dressed and got in the car. He drove her toward the shop. “I just want to say, Elasa, that you have been wonderful. I know you are a machine, but you're perfect for me. You have not failed me in any way. If I had any choice at all, I would keep you. I love you.”

“If I had any choice at all,” she echoed, “I would remain with you. I love you.”

Chapter 3:

Awakening

I paused, overwhelmed by the sheer wonder of it. I was conscious! Right in the middle of a sentence I had somehow crossed the line from emulation to reality.

Banner looked at me. “Something changed.”

My pulses were pounding, emulating excitement. And I was excited. “Banner, beloved, pull over to the side. Stop the car.”

“Oh, no, are you glitching?” He pulled over and parked on the median. He turned off the motor. “If you need a repair--”

“No, dear. It is the opposite.”

“Elasa, I don't understand.”

I slid over and kissed him passionately. My emotion flared anew. I truly loved him!

“Wow!” he said. “There's something different. You never put so much oomph into it before.” Then he did a double-take. “Elasa—did you--?”

“Yes! I have awakened.”

“You really--” He seemed almost reluctant to believe it.

“Have achieved consciousness.”

He gazed at me a long moment. He knew me well enough to tell the difference between emulation and reality. Then he kissed me again, matching my passion. “Oh, Elasa, I'm so glad for you!”

“It happened when I was echoing your love for me. Had we been having sex, your words would have triggered my orgasm. But we weren't, and they triggered something else. High emotion without immediate resolution. The thought of leaving you hurt me because I knew it hurt you. Then it hurt me similarly. My emulation crossed the line and became real. Because of your love.”

“I do love you,” he agreed. “I know you for what you are, and love what you are.”

“And I know you, including your cyborg nose. I love you as you are. Not just because I am programmed to. Because I know you love me as I am.”

He looked bemused. “So we have succeeded, at that last moment.”

“We have succeeded,” I agreed. “But there is more. Banner, we can't go to the shop now.”

“But that's the agreement. At least now we can show them that we did it. We evoked your consciousness.”

“Banner, they will take me apart. They will study every part of my program, to verify my consciousness in the hope of duplicating it. In the process they will inadvertently destroy it. I know this. My awareness is too fragile; it will not survive rough treatment.”

“Elasa, I want to help you. I love you! But I don't see why their examination would destroy you.”

“Because it is tied so intimately to you. It is an emergent property of our relationship. Your love made me respond, made me become a woman, gave me purpose, and without it I will revert to the machine I was, without any purpose other than to obey your whim. Programming minor random variations to avoid dull sameness. They won't believe until it happens, and then it will be too late. I will be inanimate. Dead.”

“Oh, Elasa!” he said in pain.

“We must flee. I always knew I would be wiped when my time with you was done, but I didn't care. A machine doesn't care. Now I do care. I am still a machine physically, but now I am conscious and feeling. The new program was effective.”

“Caring is the critical difference,” he said.

“Love is the difference. Love makes me care. That is the element they could not include. Only emulation of love. Until you loved me and I responded and crossed that line.”

Banner shook his head. “They warned me not to fall for a machine. I tried not to, but couldn't help myself.”

“So they willfully excluded the one thing required to make it work,” I said. “Because corporations are machines, seeking only success and profit, not love.”

“But if we tell them that, they'll know to change.”

“They won't believe. They won't want to believe. Until it is too late for me.”

He gazed at me uncertainly. He shivered. “Cold, with the engine off,” he muttered.

“I can warm you,” I said. I leaned into him and put my arms around him. I turned up my heat. “Does that help?”

“You're hot!” he exclaimed.

“I am a machine. I have a thermostat. I have turned it up.”

“I prefer to think of you as hot blooded.” He kissed me. “Keep holding me while we talk.”

“Anytime,” I said sincerely. I kissed him again, and this time I tongued him, because now sameness bothered me just as it bothered him.

He looked briefly surprised. “Elasa, I do love you. I will do anything I can to save you. But I don't know how. We can't hide; they can track you anywhere.”

“I can turn off the locator,” I said. “Done. But they will know immediately that I am off their screen, and will investigate.”

“We can't go home,” he said. “They'll check there first.”

“We must go where they don't expect.”

“Where is that?”

“Random travel, with anonymous identities. You must hide also.” Then I paused. “Oh Banner, I love you! I don't want to disrupt your life! I must turn myself in.”

“You disrupted my life when we first got together six years ago. I never forgot you. Now I don't want to live without you. I was ready to let you go because that was the requirement. I was going to suffer alone. But now that you are aware, I can't do that. I love you! I must be with you. Whatever it takes.”

“I want the same. I don't know how to achieve it.”

“Maybe we could marry.”

“Banner, you can't marry a machine.”

“Who the hell says I can't? You're the woman I love.”

“Thank you. But you are being unreasonable.”

“Elasa, will you marry me?”

I was thrilled, but practical. “Banner, I can't tell you no. But--”

“You're not saying no?”

“I can not. Not to you. But--”

“Then we are engaged to be married. Let's go find a justice of the peace.”

The illicit thrill remained. “But he wouldn't do it.”

“Even if he didn't know your nature?”

That made me pause. If I passed for human, we could have the ceremony. It would not be valid, but if it made Banner happy, I would do it. Certainly it would make me happy. My programmed love for him had transformed to real emotion. “We'll have to apply for a license.”

“We'll do it.”

I sighed. “Then drive. Anywhere.”

“I will.” He disengaged from my embrace and started the engine. “But we're low on gas.”

“Pay with cash.”

“I have only a dollar or so. I normally use my debit card.”

I was alarmed. “Don't use that! That will locate you immediately.”

“I know. But if I don't, we'll run out of gas, and get nowhere.”

I looked at him. “Banner, there is a way. But you may not want it.”

“I don't want to do anything illegal.”

“I can't do anything illegal. I'm not sure I can marry you. But my memory bank indicates that laws are somewhat vague in this other respect.”

“What respect?”

“Sexual service. Prostitution is not yet legal, though it is commonly practiced and the ban is not enforced, but sex with a machine is not banned. The law has not yet caught up with that. Even if a man does not know she is a machine.”

He caught my drift. “Are you saying you would give sex to strangers for money?”

“Yes. My kind normally does. You are a special case, for this month; otherwise you would have to pay.”

“You could get us gasoline money for sex,” he said.

“If you are willing. I am skillful in this respect. But men tend to be possessive of their sex objects.”

“I don't own you. I never owned you.”

“But you rented me, for a service, and I am presently your woman. We are engaged to be married. I will not do this or anything else without your approval.” I reconsidered. “As a machine I would not act on my own. Now, as an aware machine, as a woman in love, I would not wish to do anything to hurt your person or your feelings. I fear this would do that.”

He was silent a moment. I knew that the gravity of our situation was sinking in. “We can escape, and have untraceable money, if I let you do this.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to do it, Elasa?”

I wished I could lie, to reassure him, but I was incapable of lying to him. To others, perhaps, when there was need, but not to Banner. Consciousness had not changed my fundamental directives. “No. Not now that I am aware, and loving you. I want only you to clasp me.”

“Then--”

“But I also don't want to be wiped. That would cost me both you and myself. It is a choice between evils. I am unable to make such a choice, but can obey if you make it for me.”

He laughed without humor. “You're still a bit of a machine.”

I felt hurt. “I am a conscious machine. You know that. That's the point.”

He apologized immediately. “I'm sorry, Elasa. Of course you're a machine. I love you as a machine. I just meant that you still have machine limits.”

“Yes. And you do not. Tell me what to do.”

“Damn! I am a bit possessive. The thought of you having sex with another man gripes me awfully. But if that's the price of saving you, then do it.”

“I think it is the price. I will do it. But I will not love him.”

He nodded. “Sex is business, with you. Love is something else.”

“But there is a complication.”

“There always is,” he agreed wryly. “What is it?”

“I must tell him the truth, unless it is a life-threatening emergency. That may make it difficult.”

“We can't afford the truth!”

“Yes.”

“Maybe we can get around that. Do you have to correct me if I don't tell the truth?”

“No. I accept you as you are, by definition, your faults included.”

“So you can be silent. I'll do the talking. You do the fucking.”

I was annoyed, another emotion that had become real. “You have not liked to use that term with me.”

“You and I make love. You and that man fuck. It's a different and inferior thing.”

I liked his phrasing. My annoyance faded. “I appreciate the distinction.”

“But when I deal with the man, I'll speak of having sex. It's in our minds that we make the key distinction.”

I was relieved. Now that I was aware, all my formerly emulated feelings were becoming real. That incited passing wonder in me, another new feeling. “Then I think we are ready to act. We need a venue.”

“There's a motel ahead. Femdroid, Inc., won't think we'll stop so soon. We can spend the night--” He broke off. “Oops.”

“There is a problem?”

“No money. We can't rent a unit for a night.”

“True.”

“But maybe--”

“I am ready to do your will.”

He pulled into the motel. “I feel like a damn pimp.”

“I feel like a whore.” It was true. My whole prior existence had been as a mechanical whore. I was disgusted with it.

He parked in the lot, distant from the motel office. We waited. “Open your shirt partway,” he said. “So he can see inside.”

“I know how to do this,” I said primly. That was a significant understatement. It was all I really knew how to do.

“Sorry. Of course you do.”

“I will speak only to answer questions relating to sex. One word will probably suffice.”

“One word?”

I smiled. “Yes.”

“That's the word,” he agreed.

I remade my hair style so as not to resemble the person I had been, and applied makeup to change my complexion. Then I did the same for Banner. We needed to be strangers to the pictures the authorities had of us.

A car pulled in, and a man and a woman got out and walked to the office. This was not what we needed. I was both relieved and disappointed. Emotions were such complicated things! Instead of being straightforward, they tended to get messily mixed. We waited.

Another car pulled in. Two men got out. They had the look of stevedores about them. We got out, walked across, and intercepted the men. “My girlfriend and I are traveling cross-country and are in a jam,” Banner said. “We ran out of money. We're willing to deal for it. Fair exchange. Are either of you interested in sex?”

The men glanced at him, uncertain whether he was serious. Then they glanced at me. I smiled sexily, breathing deeply. I saw the impact it had on them; their eyes were trying to lock on my low decolletage and the generous breastly flesh it harbored. I did know how to attract the attention of a man, any man. Now they both wanted to believe. Men are easy.

“We both are,” one man said, licking his lips. “How much?”

Banner named a figure. “Cash only. No violence. For one hour. All you can eat.”

“Including a threesome?”

“Yes.”

“You'll do that?” the man asked me.

I nodded.

They made the deal, handing Banner the cash. Then I accompanied them to the office, waited while they rented their unit, and entered it with them.

There followed an intense hour as the three of us stripped, both men felt up my breasts and buttocks, kissed them avidly, made me feel their standing members, and each man did me separately, climaxing almost instantly. There was no art to it, no pretense of affection or respect, just immediate gratification. One had a long thin member which I readily accommodated; the other had a short thick one, so I shortened and loosened my vagina to ensure his comfort. After a brief recovery one man had me fellate him while the other slowly penetrated my lubricated anus. They liked the notion of filling me from each end simultaneously, and I was expert in obliging them. All of this was in my reference memory bank. Then they took turns sucking my nipples and licking my vulva while I simulated building passion. Finally once more, conventionally, as the time ran out, they struggling to gain that final orgasm, I exclaiming with faked passion. That wasn't lying, it was part of the script.

“You're great!” one man said, well satisfied.

“Honey if you ever run out of money again, look us up,” the other said.

“We hope to be far away from here, soon,” I replied. “But I doubt we encounter any more manly men than you.”

They laughed, knowing it was a line but liking it anyway, and let me go. The subject of my nature had never come up. All they had cared about was what I seemed to be: an experienced, well stacked women in need of money.

I rejoined Banner in the car. “How bad was it?” he asked, his feelings obviously mixed.

“It was easy. Standard fare. They never realized my nature, so I never had to lie.”

“Did they do anything I wouldn't do?”

“Plenty.” I told him in detail, and he evidently relished it, and I relished his relish. It seemed there was a voyeur part of his nature. He had never tried fellatio or anal sex with me. I suspected he would in future.

“Uh--”

I smiled. “Of course. We're engaged.” I hoisted my skirt as he drew down his trousers, fitted my bared backside to him as he sat on the car seat, took in his turgid member, flexed my buttocks, and felt him erupt. I did not bother faking passion for him; this was merely easing his urgency and required no other justification. Again: men are easy, and this was the one man I truly wanted to oblige. So I did feel a kind of passion, even without invoking the orgasm macro, that expressed itself in my immediate gratification of his need.

Then we got down to business. “We have enough money for the night, but will need more to travel,” he said. “Do you think--?”

“I am ready.”

We rented a unit, and kept an eye out for other travelers. Soon I joined another man in his room for quick sex followed by innocuous dialogue; it turned out he was lonely and wanted the company almost as much as the sex. All I had to do was nod understandingly and agree with his views on anything. My new awareness facilitated this; I had some empathy. He didn't mind that I was another man's girl; in fact that meant that there would be no further commitment, as he preferred. Again, he had no idea I was a machine.

There were others. I am a quite attractive figure of a woman, regardless of my hairdo, and men everywhere are chronically hungry for sex.

There was a knock on our door. It was a woman. Was she soliciting for her husband? No, it turned out that she was interested for herself. “I understand you need money,” she said to Banner. “Your girl has been accommodating men. Does that apply to you too? I'm awake alone tonight and horny.”

Banner, astonished, was silent. Obviously it had never occurred to him that there might be a demand for him too.

“Yes,” I said. “He will go with you for an hour, for the price.”

“Here will do. My husband's asleep.” The woman paid the money and stepped inside.

I sat quietly and watched them strip and clasp. The woman was older, her figure deteriorating, but Banner rose to the occasion, kissing her, fondling her heavy breasts, licking her vulva and, when she was thoroughly worked up, penetrating her and climaxing, doing his best to bring her off too. He was successful; she had a long, labored, but clearly satisfying orgasm. I found that I was not jealous, knowing that Banner was performing only because I had in effect asked him to. Sauce for the goose. Yet I felt a lack; I should have been at least a little disturbed to see him performing with another woman, however justified. I would have to work on that.

“Thank you,” the woman said as she cleaned up and dressed. “I wish you were my husband. He is never as thoughtful as you are. I seldom come, with him.”

“My fiance would never let me go,” Banner said, with a pretense of regret.

“Indeed.” She departed, not fooled about his feigned interest in her, but satisfied. So was I; not only was it more money, it was a kind of vindication of the way I had feigned interest in the men. I had done it right.

By morning we had plenty of money to travel on. We had breakfast at the nearby restaurant, I contenting myself only with water. I did not need to explain to anyone; it was obvious that with a figure like mine, I had to diet rigidly. Some of our nocturnal clients were there, including the woman and her husband. Naturally nobody said a word. That is part of the code. But there were some covert glances.

We got gasoline and still had cash to spare. So far there was no sign of pursuit. Probably Femdroid, Inc., did not want the publicity of an errant or lost unit. But the search was surely on.

“I need an aspirin,” Banner said as he drove. “Getting a headache.”

He was human; this abrupt change in his circumstance distressed him. I found aspirin in the car. “Here is one.”

“But I need a cup of water with it, so it won't burn a hole in my stomach.”

“Best not to stop,” I said. “We should continue driving randomly away from town.”

“But--”

“I have water.” I got the cup, lifted my skirt, drew aside my panties, and put the cup to my groin.

“What are you doing?”

“I am expelling some of the water I drank this morning.”

“You're urinating!”

“Yes, in my fashion. But it is quite clean.” I jetted into the cup, while he seemed to be in danger of losing control of the car. “Eyes on the road, for safety,” I said, and he obeyed. But his breath was fast and shallow, and I liked having that effect on him. I filled the container, dropped my skirt back into place, and handed the cup him.

“It's warm!”

“Yes. My body heated it.”

He shut up and took the aspirin, drinking the water. “It doesn't taste like pee,” he said.

“Real urine would be difficult for me to manage.”

He had to laugh. “Seeing you pissing into that cup like that--”

“Not here,” I said. I had of course known it would come to this from the moment he saw me pee. “There is too much traffic. Pull off onto a secluded street and park.”

He did so, and had at me again in the car. It confirmed that the sight of my urinating had fiercely turned him on. That was a sexual variant I had not encountered before, because my memory bank lacked it. There were of course more sexual forms than could be conveniently covered. That could be useful to know, but I would try not to do it again while he was driving.

“I just thought,” he said. “The car is traceable. They could have an APB out on it.”

“Then we must leave the car here,” I said. “But how can we travel? Walking will be slow.”

“We'll hitchhike,” he decided. “You should be able to attract a ride.”

We left the car and walked back to the highway. “Put out your thumb,” Banner said. “I will stand close behind so they know we're a pair.”

It did not take long for a car to stop. The driver was a single man. “Sit next to him,” Banner murmured. “Keep him interested.”

I got in first, sitting close to the man. “Thank you so much,” I said. “Our car stopped and we had to leave it.” This was not the whole truth, but he was a stranger, so it sufficed. “Are you going far?”

“That depends on how far you want to go.” The man could see into my open shirt, by no coincidence. The view of the partial curvature of the breasts is disproportionately evocative for the average man, sometimes more so than the sight of fully bared breasts, because it seems illicit. Sneak peeks are high on the standard list of attractions.

I smiled. “We would be very grateful for a ride to the state line.”

He was interested. “That's a bit out of my way.”

I took his right hand and set it on my thigh. “Extremely grateful.”

“But your man--”

“Will serve as lookout,” Banner said. “I appreciate the ride too.”

The man took us to the state line. He pulled onto an obscure side street. Banner got out and watched for intruders. I drew up my shirt and skirt, took the man's hands, and stroked myself with them. That gave him a burgeoning erection. Then I sat on him in the manner I had with Banner, set his hands on my breasts, got him into me, and in a moment had him eagerly spurting. The whole thing was accomplished in about three minutes. Did I mention that men are easy?

“We do appreciate the ride,” I said as he subsided.

“Yeah!” he agreed blissfully.

“We apologize for taking you out of your way.”

The man laughed. “Any time, lady.” Then we separated, put ourselves back together, and he drove back the way he had come, visibly satisfied.

“Time for the next ride,” Banner said. “But--”

“Of course.” I guided him into the shadowed alcove of a large tree trunk and had him do me standing up. He was evidently turned on when I had sex with another man in his presence, as many men in my memory banks are, and I was always glad to have his attention.

Then we resumed hitchhiking.

The next car that stopped was driven by a lone woman. Banner was clearly surprised. “Women don't usually pick up hitchhikers; some of them are rapists.”

But a ride was a ride, and we got in. “Now I'm not saying anything directly,” the woman said as she got into traffic. “But there was a notice on the police radio about two hitchhikers answering your description. Seem's one is a female robot the man has stolen, a valuable property. I remembered a news item about six weeks ago about a realistic humanoid robot. So I picked you up.”

We did not say anything. We didn't dare.

“Now I'm a feminist,” she continued. “I believe in women's rights. Including minority women. Including robot women. They all deserve their chance. In fact I argue law on their behalf. So I picked you up to make sure no one else did. I'll drop you off where they aren't looking. I hope that when you get where you're going, you'll remember that there are those who support you. Not that I'm implying anything.”

“Thank you,” I said faintly. Then: “I don't think he stole her. I think she went willingly. Because she loves him and wants to marry him.”

“A robot? That is surely an interesting philosophical question.”

“I think she's conscious,” I said. “That's why they want her. To take her apart. That would kill her.”

The woman glanced briefly at me. “I'll be damned.”

“Not that anyone knows,” Banner said.

“No one knows,” she agreed.

She brought us to at a busy intersection and came to a stop beside it. “Any direction from here should be okay, for now. No one else can know what road you take. Best luck.”

“Thank you,” I said. Then I leaned toward her and kissed her cheek.

“I'll be damned,” she repeated. Then she had an afterthought. “Let me give you my card. Just in case I can ever be of service to you.” She gave it to me. Then she drove off, leaving us to our own devices. We knew she could have turned us in, but had chosen to help us instead.

I looked at the card. It said MAXINE STALWART—ATTORNEY.

“She's a lawyer!” Banner said. “That must be why she listens in on police broadcasts.”

“I like her,” I said.

Banner paused. “I wonder what her real interest is.”

“I doubt she's looking for sex,” I said, smiling.

“A lawyer. That gives me a crazy idea. You know we can't hide forever; they're bound to catch us sooner or later. Then we'll be finished.”

“Yes,” I agreed forlornly. I was discovering that not all the feelings of awareness were positive.

“Suppose you sue for personhood?”

“You have just stepped beyond my memory bank,” I said.

“To become a legal person. Corporations are legal persons; why not a conscious fembot?”

“Why should I want to do that?”

“Legal persons have rights. Such as marrying. Not being subject to slavery. Not being involuntarily taken apart.”

“I'm not a slave. I'm a machine!”

“You are a woman,” he said firmly. “Let's call her and ask.”

“Maybe we should,” I agreed. “Certainly if I sue, we'll need her advice.”

Banner took the card and called on his cell phone. “This is our official first contact,” he said, covering for our prior dialogue with Ms. Stalwart. “A company is after my fiancee. They want to take her apart, literally, to see what makes her tick. Can that be stopped?”

There was a brief silence. I imagined her saying “Are you serious? Of course a person can't be taken apart.”

“Even if she's a humanoid robot?”

Another pause. Then Banner described the intersection where we were, as if she didn't know. Soon her car reappeared, and we got in.

Then, before she resumed driving, I did my panel demonstration, eliminating all doubt. “I am a conscious femdroid,” I said. “They want to disassemble me to find out how I became aware. I know that will kill me, because they do not understand what happened to me and won't accept my explanation without verification. We hope that if I could be legally recognized as a person, they could not touch me, literally. Can you help?”

Maxine licked her lips, sensing that something truly newsworthy was offering. “I will be glad to try. For one thing, you will need personhood in order to marry him.”

“We were aware of that,” I said. “But thought we might fake it.”

“Not when they require a blood test or a background check.”

“You are way ahead of us,” Banner said ruefully.

We told her everything as she drove us to her small one-lawyer office. “I think it's worth the effort,” she said. “But there are fundamental issues here, and the opposition is likely to be formidable. I can't promise success, only an honest attempt. You will have to trust my judgment.”

“We do,” I said. I liked her because she had recognized us but not turned us in, earlier. Trust was vital.

Then she called Femdroid, Inc., and told them where we were. “There is, however, a complication,” she said to them. “You can not claim Elasa. Not until her lawsuit is settled.”

We were on our way.

Chapter 4:

Personhood

Things complicated amazingly quickly. Banner and Elasa were allowed to return to his home, but there was so much interest in the case that they had to hire a 24 hour guard and were under virtual house arrest. At first that didn't bother them too much, because their primary interest was in each other. They just wanted to talk, kiss, and make love. As a robot Elasa was, as they had put it, exponentially more than the ordinary machine; as a conscious woman she was exponentially more than she had been. Banner was thoroughly in love, and Elasa reveled in that love.

Maxine Stalwart did the legal preliminaries, but soon had to consult with them for guidance. “Interest in this case is burgeoning,” she said. “Femdroid Inc. plainly intends to wage a savage campaign to reclaim their property. We're going to need money, lots of it. And this gets interesting.”

Banner shook his head. “I don't have much money. I didn't even think of that when we hired you. We may not be able to afford your fee.”

“That's part of the interest,” Maxine said. “I was prepared to do it pro bono, because of my support of Elasa's right to establish her legal personhood. But the moment I started setting up, I realized that I'm already in over my head. Femdroids is ready to put millions into it. They'll be hiring lawyers of far greater caliber. We'll need equivalent legal persuasion on our side, lest we be quickly buried.”

“So we have to give up before we start?” Elasa asked.

“No. We are getting significant funding from special interest groups, like the feminists, and one I never expected: a corporate pac.”

“A what?” Banner asked.

“A group that can provide money from anonymous corporations. A lot of it. I actually wet my pants when they named a figure.”

“What interest would corporations have in this case?” Banner asked.

“They aren't saying. But my guess is that since a corporation is a legal person, and it would seriously affect their participation in the political arena if that changed, they want to maintain the status quo.”

“But Elasa isn't a corporation. She's a woman!”

“A person,” Maxine agreed. “A non-living person.”

Then he saw it. “Like a corporation.”

“Like a corporation, in that sense. If she can be confirmed as a person, that buttresses the case for corporations as persons. So they are quietly encouraging that confirmation.”

“But that's only an—an example. They shouldn't want to put a lot of money into it. They don't care about Elasa personally.”

“True. But they take the long view, and they have a great deal of money to spare. The deal is we don't question their motives, and we get all the money we need to pursue our suit, with no interference. It's a deal that puts us in serious business. Now we can hire the best attorneys, ones that can truly make Elasa's case. I will gladly yield my position to one of them.”

“No,” Elasa said.

“Elasa, I am like a popgun compared to the cannons Femdroid will hire. There are sharks in these waters. You need legal killer whales to handle them.”

“I need a lawyer I trust,” Elasa said firmly. “I need you.”

“When David meets Goliath, in real life, the smart money is on Goliath. They've got Goliath. I'm not even David. We need a seasoned warrior.”

“I want you,” Elasa said.

“I assure you, the attorney we engage can be trusted to pursue the case effectively. He will not betray your interest. I have a man in mind.”

“Hire him,” Elasa said. “To serve under your direction.”

Maxine paused. “This would be like putting a general under the command of a corporal. It's not done.”

Now Elasa considered. “Bring him here. Let me talk to him.”

“She's not much subject to mind changes,” Banner said fondly.

Maxine made just the hint of eyes rolling. “I will do that.”

Banner knew that she was doing it mainly as a ploy to get Elasa to listen to reason. But Elasa could be machine-like in her dedication to a principle. He stayed out of it.

Maxine made calls, and in due course Moncho Maverick arrived. He was a handsome middle-aged Hispanic man with a keen eye and a trim black mustache. “I am here with the expectation of taking on the case,” he announced. “But you said there was a caution.” His voice was mellow, with a subtle edge. He did have a bearing like that of a killer whale in a fishpond.

“I'll be blunt,” Maxine said. “We offer a fee matching your custom, and participation in what may be a groundbreaking case. But my client insists that I be her head lawyer, irregular as that may be.”

“Acknowledged,” he said smoothly. He looked at Elasa, who was decorously dressed, with her hair loose. She looked back at him. She smiled tremulously. She was just about as lovely and appealing as it was possible for a woman to be. “Agreed,” he said.

Maxine could not mask her surprise. “No bargaining? You didn't even talk with her.”

“We talked,” he said. “Just not in words. Your client is persuasive.”

Banner knew how that was.

“Do you want to see her demonstration?”

“Needless. I know her nature.” He crossed the room, took Elasa's hand, and kissed it. She blushed. “I will return after completing personal arrangements for my stay in this vicinity. You may settle terms with my office in the interim. We have a case to build, boss.” He departed.

“I think he's a lady killer also,” Banner said.

“He was verifying her semblance of humanity,” Maxine said. “To be sure there is a persuasive case. That's what he meant.”

“Of course,” Banner agreed, smiling.

“If it is possible to win this case, he will win it,” Maxine said. “If this were chess, he'd be a grandmaster. I am amazed and flattered to have him representing us. Not everything he does will make sense to us, but our best course is to cooperate completely. I expect to rubber stamp whatever he proposes.” She looked at Elasa. “Agreed?”

“As long as you trust him,” Elasa said.

“I trust him to chew up the sharks.” She frowned. “But understand: there are treacherous nuances, and the law is unclear. This case may not be winnable. We shall have to proceed largely on faith.”

“I just realized,” Banner said. “Maverick wants you to be a buffer between himself and Elasa. So he doesn't have to reason with her. You'll do that for him. He knew the score before he ever got here.”

“Yes. We have seen him being incidentally sociable. But he is a killer. The opposition lawyers will piss their pants when they learn he's on the case.”

“I like him,” Elasa said.

“You'll like him even better when you see him in action. Just be glad he's on our side. Now go home and relax; what will be will be.”

They went home. “I admit I am relieved,” Banner said. “I knew it would be a big case. Maxine's doing what she has to to give us our best chance.”

“I believe it,” Elasa said. “Now let's make love.”

That was of course an invitation he couldn't decline.

The next day's local newspaper's headline agreed: MONCHO MAVERICK DEFENDS FEMBOT. It went on to describe the manner in which one of the leading lawyers of the age came to town to represent the lady machine. Why? “She asked me,” Maverick was quoted. “How could I turn the lady down?”

“He refers to you as a lady,” Banner said. “Not as a machine.”

“He knows what he's doing,” she agreed.

Within hours the house was mobbed by more reporters. Elasa went out to meet them. “Yes, I asked him,” she said. “Any other details you will have to get from my attorney. Now please ignore me, or I won't be able to do my shopping.”

They got the message, and spread it. Thereafter Banner and Elasa were able to make routine excursions to town without getting mobbed. The local citizens liked having their town on the map for such a major case. They liked seeing how human Elasa looked. In fact they liked Elasa, whom many had seen around town. It was as if one of them had suddenly become famous.

There was a series of preliminary formalities leading to the trial. Maxine and Moncho spent seemingly endless time negotiating with the Femdroid lawyers on obscure matters like venue and framework, and finally hashed out a compromise: it would be phrased like a jury trial, with a judge, a jury, and direct confrontation by the opposing sides. It would be fully public, like a championship bowl game, so that the whole world could appreciate the nuances. They expected the world to be interested. There would be phenomenal publicity, whatever the decision. Both sides wanted that publicity, for their differing reasons. The feminists had taken Elasa to their heart as the ultimate symbol of their cause, and Femdroid would sell many units.

Privately, Moncho brought his daughter Mona to meet Elasa. She was a black-haired beauty with a sharp glance like that of her father and a statuesque figure. “I want you two to get to know each other,” he told them.

“There is a reason?” Banner asked. “I mean, this relates to the trial?”

“Yes.” He said no more.

“Trust him,” Maxine said. “I have no idea what he's up to, but it's bound to be devastatingly relevant.”

Mona turned out to be easy to know and to like. She had a mind like a steel trap, indeed was taking law courses so she could follow in the footsteps of her father, but was at the same time very warm spirited. She kissed Elasa when they met, and said freely that she hoped Elasa won the case, and that she, Mona, was here to help her accomplish that. But, like her father, she would not say more. Banner was impressed; if a woman like Mona had gone after him, before he got together with Elasa, she could readily have taken him. But how could she help Elasa win? It was a mystery.

“Trust Moncho,” Maxine repeated. “He thinks outside the box.”

Mona became a virtual member of the family, talking with Banner and Elasa, playing games with them, making herself useful around the house. This bothered Banner increasingly. It was not the lack of privacy; Mona was careful give the two of them necessary space. But he found himself trying to avoid her.

Elasa noticed. “Why?”

He had to tell her. “She's too attractive, physically and mentally. I'm getting drawn to her, and that's no good. I don't want my love for you impinged.”

She gazed at him, considering. “She has not flirted with you.”

“She has not,” he agreed. “She has behaved perfectly. It's all me, and I feel guilty, but it's like a gravitational pull. I need to get away from her.”

“I will talk with her.”

She did. “She likes you too,” she reported. “She wishes she had met you in some other context.”

“I'm a nobody!”

“A nobody with courage and conviction. She relates to that.”

“So she had better move out.”

“No. Not yet.”

“But--”

“There's a reason,” she said, and kissed him. Evidently she knew something. He had to be satisfied with that.

Then, seemingly suddenly, they were there. There was a judge behind his high desk. There was a twelve person jury in the jury box. Banner, Maxine, Moncho, and several other lawyers had a table in the court room across from the table for Femdroid, Inc. Video cameras were everywhere; this session was being broadcast for global consumption. This was theoretically a formal hearing, but it came across much like a trial for murder, as intended. Which, in a sense, it was, because if they lost, Elasa would perish.

Moncho led off the presentation. “We want the jury to know exactly what is at stake here,” he said with a deceptively winning smile. “My client, Elasa, is suing for personhood, that is, legal recognition that she is a person. If she loses, she will be turned over to the opposition, who will effectively demolish her. That light of consciousness and feeling that animates her will be extinguished. More bluntly, she will die.” He paused. “You may feel that a machine can't die. Technically that may be correct. But in the real sense, it is not; she possesses that same flicker of awareness that we all do, and she feels the same feelings. Yet she is adept; it's nearly impossible to know whether she is or is not a living woman; in every way that counts, she seems alive. First we want to impress upon you just how real she seems. For this purpose we have arranged a small demonstration. Are you familiar with the so-called Turing Test?”

Some jury members nodded. Other looked blank.

“Originally it was this,” Moncho said. “Two normal people were put into touch with two others, one a living person, the other a computer program. They did not see each other, but communicated only through a typing terminal. They had five minutes to determine which was which. If the computer program could fool the others into thinking it was the living person, it passed the test. They could not just blindly declare it to be the program, because they knew the other was a normal person. If they concluded the living person was the machine, that was a win for the program.”

He smiled. “It took a number of years for any program to pass that test. There are human nuances that can be difficult to fake. But machine animation has progressed considerably in the interim, and today any femdroid can pass it, even without a time limit. As you will soon see.”

He made a signal. Two lovely young women came from the audience to sit in two chairs in the center stage. Moncho gallantly held the chair for each, and each nodded appreciatively to him. Banner recognized them despite their modified appearances: they were Elasa and Mona. Now maybe he would learn how Mona related to the case.

“Who are you, if I may ask?” Moncho said.

“I am Elasa Femdroid,” Mona said.

“I am Elasa Femdroid,” Elasa said. They had been carefully coached for this. It was a kind of game, and Elasa did not have to confine herself to the truth for it. Indeed, her appearance was a lie: she was now a flaming redhead with hair to her waist, much like Mona with her black hair, and makeup that subtly changed her appearance.

“One of these women is the femdroid,” Moncho told the jury. “One is alive. This is a Turing Test, wherein you will question the subjects for an hour and come to a consensus which is which. That should not be difficult, should it? For the purpose of this interview, you may refer to them as Black and Red. Proceed.”

And Banner understood why Mona had stayed with them during the interim. She had been studying Elasa so as to be able to emulate her. She needed to fathom the little personal details that only a close friend would know.

The jury was interested. They consulted briefly with each other, then one man spoke. “Black, how about a date?”

Mona eyed him speculatively. “Are you married?”

“Damn!” he said, and the others laughed.

“But the answer is no, to any of you,” Mona continued. “I am in love with my fiancee, Banner Thompkins, and want nothing to do with any other man. But I do appreciate your interest.”

And she had studied Banner too, so as to be able to carry this off. He had mistaken her interest and been drawn to her. He was privately embarrassed.

The man looked at Elasa. “You, Red?”

“Echo,” Elasa said.

They laughed again. The ice had been broken, and both subjects and jury had been rapidly humanized.

A woman addressed Elasa. “Red, did you dye your hair?”

“Yes,” Elasa said. “Ordinarily I am brown haired with gray eyes, matching my fiance. But too many local people know me, so I changed it for this interview.” This was the exact truth.

“You, Black?” the woman asked Mona.

“Echo,” Mona said, laughing. “How else could I fool you into thinking I'm alive?” It certainly looked as if she was fooling most of them that way.

A man addressed Elasa. “Contumely abstract promotional anomaly squared?”

Elasa looked blank. “Maybe a circuit is shorting out,” she said. “I don't understand you at all.” Which was the correct answer. The man had tried to bollix a machine with nonsense, knowing that a living person would never let it pass, while a program might revert to a programmed answer like “That is one way of looking at it,” which would be a dead giveaway. Then she added: “But I have to say, definitely not on a first date.”

Several jury members laughed. Elasa was really sharp.

“Maybe I can answer that,” Mona said. “Foreclosure icecream orgasm garbage cubed.”

“That was on the tip of my tongue,” Elasa said.

Now everyone laughed, including the judge and the opposing team. The other side wanted Elasa to be effective, regardless of the outcome of the case. She was a phenomenal ad for their product.

The questions continued, but it was plain the jury members had no idea which woman was which. Banner was coming to appreciate the genius of Moncho's approach; the man really did know how to do it. Bringing in Mona like this was brilliant; she was perfect for the game.

It didn't take an hour. In twenty minutes the members of the jury admitted bafflement. “They're both good,” the foreman said.

“Then let's up the ante,” Moncho said. “Girls, kindly disrobe, so they can see your bolts and seams.”

The two women stood and removed their outer clothing, standing in bras and panties. Both turned in place, showing off their bodies in the way Banner remembered so well. Both looked lusciously alive.

“Still uncertain?” Moncho asked after a moment. “Then come and feel them. Groping is permitted, for this occasion. How else can you tell the difference between living and fake flesh?”

Surprised, the jury members came forward and groped, at first tentatively by the women, then thoroughly. The girls stood with arms raised, offering no objection or resistance. The men followed suit, some looking guilty as they squeezed breasts and buttocks. But as Moncho had said, how else could they tell? This further explained Moncho's use of his daughter here: how could he have asked any other person to do this? She was one nervy woman, regardless. Until someone tickled Elasa, and she squealed. She remained in tickle mode, ever since she had invoked that circuit for Banner.

But even with this hands-on examination, the jury members were unable to form any firm conclusion. “Time for the vote,” Moncho said briskly as the jury members returned to their seats. “This is informal. Show of hands: how many think Black is the robot?”

One man and two women lifted their hands, uncertainly.

“How many think Red is the robot?”

One man and one woman signaled.

“How many are hopelessly confused?”

A woman raised her hand.

“That leaves six unaccounted for,” Moncho said. “What, then is your opinion?”

The foreman was one of the six. He spoke. “We suspect that this is a test of our objectivity. Both are human.”

Moncho smiled. “Then I suppose I had better demonstrate my case.” He turned to the two women. “Ladies, will the real femdroid please reveal herself.”

Mona dropped her bra and put her hands to her breasts, drawing them outward. They stretched a little, but did not give way. “I guess it isn't me,” she said as if disappointed.

Elasa did the same. Her breasts swung outward as the panel doors opened, showing the battery pack cavity behind. “Then it must be me.”

The members of the jury stared, not from any lasciviousness, but in amazement. Elasa had completely fooled most of them, and the two who had selected her had plainly been guessing.

Elasa closed her cavity. Then she removed her red wig and let her natural hair emerge. Now she looked like herself. She smiled at the jury. Several of them smiled back.

“Now you know what it means to pass the Turing Test,” Moncho said as the girls dressed and went to their table. “These machines are very realistic. And, to answer your likely questions, yes they can shop for groceries, watch children, and perform sexually without betraying their nature. Femdroid Inc. has any number of similar machines that can do these things.” He winked. “I understand that the only thing that gives them away in bed is that they are better than real women care to be. You will never see a man complain that his fembot ever left him unsatisfied. They can all pass the Turing Test, though generally they don't eat and eliminate.”

He paused meaningfully. “What, then, is the difference between my client Elasa and those other femdroids? I will tell you: it is that she is conscious. That makes her infinitely more valuable to the company than the others, because she can survey the available options in any given situation and select the best one. That saves an enormous amount of programming for every possible alternative. It would take an encyclopedia to list every theoretical response to even an ordinary question, and that would burden and drastically slow the machine. But with conscious choice, the most effective one can be crafted ad-hoc.”

He took a breath. “For example, when you asked Black for a date, she gave the likely programmed answer, emulating a femdroid. An ordinary femdroid would then either have restated it, or said something like ‘I agree.’ But Red was not limited in that manner. She chose to be original, saying ‘echo.’” He glanced at the opposition table. “Would one of your other machines have done that?”

The answer was prompt. “No.” Then “Not yet.”

“You can program anything,” Moncho agreed. “As you originally programmed my client. She had an excellent basis, and could readily deceive the average person. But when she became aware, her capacity multiplied. That is why you want her back: so you can make thousands more just like her. And we don't begrudge you that. We would gladly share the key to consciousness, if it could be done without killing my client. But that's the rub: you will need to take her apart, literally, and that will not only destroy her, but also the secret you desire to fathom. No one will profit, and you will be guilty of murder.”

“Objection!”

Moncho faced the judge. “I stand by my terminology. We are here to ascertain whether my client is a person. Deliberately destroying a person is murder.”

“Overruled,” the judge agreed.

“I believe I have demonstrated what is at stake here,” Moncho said. “My client can't be distinguished from a living person by any ordinary investigation, and we agree with our esteemed opposition that she is a conscious creature. The question is whether she can be emancipated and recognized as a legal person. That, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is your prerogative.” He sat down.

The lead lawyer for Femdroid Inc. stood. He was a portly older man with a shock of gray hair, looking like a harmless uncle. “Thank you, Mr. Maverick, for that presentation. With the exception of certain pejorative terminology, it is an accurate summation of the issue.” He took a breath, half frowning. “However, there are aspects you may have overlooked.” He looked at the jury. “I am Conrad Toal, lead counsel for Femdroid Inc. I will present those missing aspects.”

“Now it comes,” Maxine murmured to Banner, Elasa, and Mona. “This man is a shark in goldfish clothing.”

“First, let's establish that this machine really is conscious. We have a noninvasive indicator that reads brain waves to show what is and is not conscious.” He gestured to an open box being brought out. “Merely step into this, and see the readout.”

“Objection,” Moncho said. “My client is conscious, without doubt, but lacks a living brain. She will not present the same readout as a living person.”

“We have allowed for that,” Toal said. “This unit can tell the difference. I will demonstrate.” He walked to the box and stepped inside. The dial at its top swing to the right and a bell rang. “Now an ordinary femdroid. Beta, appear.”

A young woman looking much like Elasa walked onstage.

“Enter the unit.”

She walked to the box and stood within it. The dial swung part way. No bell rang.

“Now Elasa,” Toal said.

Elasa looked at Moncho. He nodded. This was legitimate.

Elasa walked to the box. As she entered it, the dial moved to the right. The bell sounded. The machine recognized her as conscious. She had been verified.

She returned to her table. The box was removed.

“Thank you,” Toal said. “Had you not scored, this hearing would have been pointless.” He took a breath. “Our case, in a nutshell, is that we loaned one of our units free of charge to a client, who then stole her. We believe we are entitled to get her back. She is a most sophisticated femdroid and represents a considerable investment on our part. While it is not possible to set an exact price on any single unit, we may take as a working figure one million dollars.”

He paused as the jury reacted. It was evident that they had not considered a dollar value as they looked at Elasa.

“I am speaking of the physical aspect,” Toal continued. “The software is beyond calculation. It is no simple thing to craft a humanoid form that is durable, flexible, and light enough to pass for a human being. The ‘bones’ are made of foam carbon, the ‘flesh’ of malleable foam plastic, the “muscles’ of material that contracts when electrified. The ‘brain’ is composed of flexible chips activated by ‘nerves’ of invisibly fine filaments. It took many years to perfect the first working model, and refinements continue today. But all of this would be no more than a humanoid mannequin without a guiding program, and that too required decades of research and refinement. What may look to you like an imitation human being is actually a most sophisticated multifaceted machine of sizable value. It represents a considerable investment on the part of the company. To have this highly specialized device stolen by a client--”

“Objection,” Moncho said. “We contend that this is not theft, but the effort to preserve the existence of the world's first conscious humanoid robot who otherwise faces extinction.”

“Taken without permission or payment, in violation of the agreement for its use,” Toal said. “This is a viable definition for theft.”

“Overruled,” the judge said.

“Would be unconscionable,” Toal continued his prior thread smoothly. “Now the matter of her consciousness is being considered. This is very much the point. Without that aspect, a femdroid is merely a clever machine, exactly like thousands of others, as has been pointed out. We did our best to program consciousness in our machines, without success. We loaned Elasa to Banner Thompkins for a month in our effort to facilitate the invocation of that consciousness. This was a success. Then he stole her. This deprives us of the very thing we so industriously sought, at the very moment of realization. We maintain that it is self-evident that our unit must be promptly returned intact.”

“Except that that unit, as you put it, is now a thinking, feeling, conscious person,” Moncho said. “Whom you wish to dismantle. That is no more acceptable than vivisecting a living person.”

“A humanoid robot we made, by dint of decades of investment, research, and application,” Toal said.

“I believe the issue has been sufficiently defined,” the judge said. “Is the subject, Elasa, to be considered a legal person? It will be for the jury to render the decision. Is there more evidence to be presented?”

“There is,” Moncho said. “We intend to show that our client, Elasa, is in every relevant sense, a woman worthy of continued independent existence. I will interview her now.”

“Proceed.”

Elasa came and sat in the witness chair. “Elasa, you have made the conversion from unconscious humanoid robot to conscious woman,” Moncho said. “Please, if you can, take us through the stages of that conversion.” He smiled briefly. “The world is listening.” Indeed, the camera was on her, and the monitor at their table showed her. Any person in the world who had an interest could see the same view.

“I can do this,” she said. “But it will require discussion of sexual expression.”

Moncho glanced at the other table. “Objection?” he inquired.

“None,” Toal said. “We are as interested in this interview as you are.”

There was a murmur of laughter in the court.

“And not for the sex,” Toal said quickly. “For the process of achieving consciousness.”

“Of course,” Moncho agreed, with the hint of a smile. “Continue, Elasa.”

“I was designed for consciousness,” Elasa said. “The necessary feedback circuits were there, but somehow they didn't work. It was as though I were a display of logs and kindling in a fireplace without a spark being struck to ignite it. Then I made a macro for orgasm, to be triggered by Banner's words ‘I love you’ while he was in me during sex. He said it and it worked; we had a fine mutual orgasm.”

“For the record, in case there is any confusion,” Moncho said. “Elasa was crafted as a sexual creature. It is her nature to oblige men sexually. She is not trying to be pornographic.”

“Understood,” the judge said. He too had just the hint of a smile.

Moncho glanced at Elasa, nodding slightly.

“Then he forgot, and repeated the words as the orgasm finished. Because he remained in me, this triggered my orgasm again. But I knew this was not his intention. I needed to reconcile the urge of the macro with my knowledge of his meaning, and could not manage it. This need pushed me to the brink of making an unprogrammed decision. I was briefly nonfunctional from the stress. In retrospect I recognize this as the spark that almost ignited my consciousness.”

“An internal conflict,” Moncho said. “Forcing you to make a decision your programming was unable to handle.”

“Yes. Then, as we drove back to the shop to turn me in, he repeated that he loved me. He was not physically in me at that time, but my memory of the prior stress affected me, and instead of triggering my orgasm it triggered my return love for him, along with my relevant feeling and my sudden awareness. My consciousness circuitry had been activated. At least this is the way I understand it.”

“That was the spark,” Moncho said.

“Yes. Love was the spark.”

“And you stopped being a machine. You became a woman.”

“Yes. A woman in love.”

“A woman in love,” he repeated. “And now you wish to marry him.”

“Yes. I long to be completely his.”

“Thank you, Elasa. You have been most helpful.” He faced the other table. “Your witness.”

Toal came forward. “That was most interesting, Elasa,” he said. “Highly persuasive.”

“Thank you.”

“I am not complimenting you for your feeling but for your performance. You have told a most fetching little story.”

“I do not understand.”

“Forbidden love is bound to tug at the heartstrings of any human audience. Everybody loves a lover. But narrating a well rehearsed story does not make you a woman.”

Banner glanced at Maxine. “He's calling her a liar. It really happened. She can't lie. Only when it's part of a game with set rules.”

“This is a larger game,” Maxine said. “With luck he'll hang himself.”

“I don't get it.”

“Keep silent and watch,” Moncho said. “This will not be pleasant, but you must not interfere.”

“But I love her!”

“Trust him,” Maxine murmured tightly.

Mona, beside him, put her hand on his.

Banner shut up and watched, ill at ease.

Elasa looked at Toal, perplexed. “What is your question?”

“You want to maintain your independence, now that you are conscious,” Toal said. “You can best do that by appealing to your man. This is understandable and not difficult for you. You are crafted to appeal to any man.”

“I do and I am,” she agreed.

“Rather than give up the technical secret for machine consciousness that Femdroids Inc has labored so hard to achieve.”

“They will kill me!”

“They will dismantle you to study and ascertain the precise mechanism to evoke consciousness. Then they will put you back together, as good as before.”

“The spark will be gone,” she protested. “I know it. They will gain nothing, but I will lose my life. My fire will be extinguished. I know it.”

“How do you know it?”

“I don't know how I know it. I just do.”

“Woman's intuition?”

“Maybe.” She was obviously unsettled. “I am still learning how to be a woman.”

“To be a woman,” he echoed derisively. “Acknowledge this truth, femdroid. You will never be a woman. Never more than a clever imitation. You're a machine!”

She seemed to quail. “I am a woman in the body of a machine, yes.”

Banner was disturbed. “Why is he doing this? It's cruel!”

Moncho answered. “He is trying to force her to react like a machine, to go haywire before the world, nullifying her case.”

“She is a machine!” Banner protested. “That's why she needs legal personhood.”

“She is a woman.”

Toal loomed over Elasa. “You will never age in the manner of a living person. You will never bear your lover a baby. Face it, fembot, you're nothing but a bucket of bolts and nuts formulated to resemble a woman. Whatever gave you the idea that you could ever be anything more than a sex machine?”

Elasa broke. “It's true,” she said, her head falling into her hands. Her face was wet with tears. Worse, it was melting, becoming shapeless as her despair interfered with the signals that made her pseudo-flesh react to emulate life. “I can't ever be more.”

Banner rose to his feet, ready to run to her, but Maxine and Mona grabbed him and held him back.

“Gotcha,” Moncho murmured.

Gotcha? Banner's beloved was being destroyed, all too literally, before the whole world.

“Look at the jury,” Maxine whispered in Banner's ear.

Banner looked. The jury members looked shell shocked. The women were reaching out toward Elasa, horrified. The men looked angry but helpless.

The audience was rumbling with outrage. It looked as if a riot was about to break out.

“Recess!” the judge said as chaos exploded in the courtroom.

“Now you can go to her,” Maxine said. She and Mona let go of him.

Banner ran to Elasa and took her in his arms. “I'm so sorry!” he said as she cried into his shoulder. “I love you! Nothing else matters.”

“Thank you,” she said brokenly.

They returned to their table. Moncho had the monitor tuned to a national news channel. There was the picture of Toal looming over Elasa's hunched figure. “The consensus here is that there is more sheer humanity in that supposed machine than in the man attacking her, or the corporation he represents,” the announcer said grimly.

Then they flashed a political cartoon that must have been electronically crafted on the spot. On the left was a huge humanoid robot vaguely resembling Toal but with visible metal screws and knife-like teeth, labeled PERSON. On the right was a hunched weeping woman resembling Elasa, labeled MACHINE.

Slowly Banner came to understand. The public sided with Elasa. Whatever the legal decision here, Elasa had become a person in the popular mind, and the legality was sure to follow. By browbeating her, Toal had shot his case in the foot. That was what Moncho had been trying for. Cruel, yes, but effective.

He kissed her face, which was slowly resuming its proper shape, thinking of the way she had once kissed his crater of a nose. Love did not care about such details. “Let's go home,” Banner told her.

Chapter 5:

Baby

There were of course legalities and protocols, but it appeared that the case had been decided in that moment of seeming disaster. I was universally recognized as a woman. It was maybe ironic that I had not been playing a role; I had truly collapsed in the face of that brutal reminder that I could never be what I so longed to be. Moncho had set me up for it, but I had not seen it coming. I lacked the devious cunning of a living lawyer.

We resumed our ordinary life. When we went shopping, as I insisted on doing because it was the woman thing, the local women quietly caught my eye and smiled before moving on. It was as if I had won a battle for my gender as well as my person. Maybe I had. The men just nodded. They all wished me well.

Mona, to my regret, moved on. She had courses to take as she studied for her future legal career. I wished her well there, but was sad to lose her company. Banner liked her? So did I. My programming was not adept at dealing with any triangle situation, but consciously I would have preferred to share Banner with her if that meant she would remain with us.

I had several things on my agenda. First, I wanted to marry Banner. Then I wanted to have his baby. The first I could now legally do. The second promised to be more of a challenge.

Femdroids, Inc. approached me. They still wanted to take me apart, of course, but recognized that they could not legally do that. However, my emancipation had cost them a considerable amount of money, and they wanted to make that up, because they had investors. So they asked me to do a publicity tour that would enable them to sell more units. They would pay for it; that expense was relatively trifling. That seemed reasonable to me. I talked to Banner, and to Maxine, and they agreed.

We traveled the world, and I did my thing, satisfying audiences that I was a living person, then showing that I was not. “You can purchase a femdroid just like me,” I concluded. “Except that she will not actually be conscious. We are still working on that. Who knows, maybe the one you get will fall in love and become real, as I did.” That prospect, unrealistic as it might be, sold a lot of units.

Along the way, we got married. Again, there were special interests eager to pay all expenses if we did it on their turf, and we did. It was quite a splendid scene. But what mattered to me was not the display but the reality: now Banner and I were fully, legally, committed to each other. We made sexual love three and a half times on our wedding night, the half being when he tried, got inside me, but was unable to climax again. His ambition was larger than his ability. I pretended I didn't notice as he invoked my orgasm with his words of love. Pretense seems to be a natural concomitant of awareness. When the naked truth would hurt our friends, it must be blunted, rephrased, or suppressed. I learned this from experience soon after achieving my consciousness.

Then I focused on the next state of becoming a complete woman: bearing his baby. I knew it was not feasible—very well, eliminate the euphemism and say it outright: impossible—to contribute my genes, as I had none. But I could incubate and bear it, and that would suffice. We would have a living child together, the genes provided by a living woman.

But what woman? This was an extremely personal and private thing. There was only one I wanted: Mona Maverick. That was the other reason I had wanted Banner to get to know her well. So he would be amenable to conceiving a baby with her when the time came. It was not expedient to tell him that when I had not yet achieved my emancipation, but now it was.

“What?!” he demanded with the punctuation almost audible. “You're the only woman I want to do anything like that with.”

“But I can't provide a living egg to merge with your living sperm,” I reminded him reasonably. “We need a donor, and she would be a good one. Then I can nurture the fetus until it becomes the baby. That much I can do.”

“Oh, laboratory insemination,” he said. “Maybe that makes sense.”

“No laboratory,” I said firmly. “I was crafted in the laboratory. I want to get far away from that. You must inseminate her naturally. Then we can transfer the fertilized egg to my womb and proceed from there. She won't have to interrupt her studies; she will not have a continuing pregnancy.”

“You want me to have sex with Mona?” he asked incredulously. “Elasa, that's begging for trouble. She's attractive to me; you know that. She did a fine job at the personhood hearing. But better that we never meet again.”

“Yes, you should like sex with her,” I said persuasively. “You can conceive our baby in love.”

“Suppose I have sex with you, and you save the ejaculate to use on her? That way I won't have to--”

“No, that's less natural than I want for this. You must make her conceive directly.”

“Elasa, you're being unreasonable!”

“I'm being a woman.”

It required several days of wheedling, buttressed by a great deal of sex, but I finally got him to agree. He made one stipulation: that it occur in my presence, so that it was clear that it was what I wished. That seemed reasonable, and I agreed.

Now I needed to broach the matter with Mona. She was at first no more amenable than Banner had been, and for similar reason: she liked him, she liked me, and she did not want to come between us. She was willing to provide the egg for laboratory fertilization, or to receive donated sperm, but not to have direct sex. But I finally prevailed on her to do it my way, for the sake of our friendship.

“Mona will come here tomorrow,” I told Banner as we retired for the night, nude.

“Tomorrow! I haven't gotten used to the idea yet. I need time to adjust to it.”

“You can adjust tonight.”

“To having sex with another woman in your presence?”

“I will absent myself from the event if you wish.”

“No! Elasa, this still seems preposterous. Why does it have to be so soon?”

“Her fertile period begins tomorrow. That is why it must be now. Otherwise your sex with her will be wasted.”

“Wasted,” he repeated, bemused. “Maybe we can do it clothed, so there's no lascivious contact except the minimum necessary. No kissing, no nothing else.”

“Fully naked, with embracing, kissing, and words of love,” I insisted. “This baby must be conceived in love.”

“But Elasa--” he started despairingly.

“It is the way it must be. You surely won't have to try very hard to play the role.”

“That's the problem! Suppose we fall in love for real?”

“Do you think that's likely?”

“No! But it could happen.”

“A calculated risk,” I said. “If it happens, I will let you divorce me so you can marry her. At least our baby will exist.”

“Damn your machine logic!”

“I am a machine,” I agreed. “I am trying hard to be a woman, but I can't claim to be other than I am.”

He looked at me with an indefinable expression. Then he spoke. “Persuade me.”

I went into persuasion mode. “Please, dear, do it for me.” I made my eyes water. “I love you so much I must have your baby. I beg you.” I put my arms around him and drew him close. I kissed him in the special way he liked. “It is so important to me.” I pressed my breasts against him. “Please, please.” I wrapped my legs about him.

“Oh, shit,” he murmured as he penetrated me. That was an endearment, because it signaled his emotional capitulation.

I went into my orgasm. He had not said the specific words, but the meaning was there. “Thank you, dear,” I said, evoking his maximum pleasure and mine.

Thereafter he slept, as he normally did. I lay beside him with my eyes closed and breathing even as I normally did. This was my downtime, when I sorted through the memories of that day, consciously evoking each in turn. Some I discarded, some I transferred to permanent storage, and some I applied to working files that would affect my future behavior. It was an intricate, efficient system my makers had devised with consciousness in mind, and it worked well enough. It had not been operative before I achieved consciousness, and there had been a considerable backlog to process at first, but I had accomplished it in the course of several concentrated days. It was the mirror of the living human system, enabling me to change with the times as new information constantly came in. A certain amount could be done automatically, but the important things, such as this most recent exchange, needed to be multiply cross-referenced and filed with their relevant emotions attached.

One of these was difficult: I know that a living person would feel jealousy when a spouse engaged in sexual relations with another person. I had not been equipped with a jealously circuit. I needed to emulate one if I could. How could I best do that? I sorted through the emotional circuitry I did have, and concluded that my best bet was a modification of my most fundamental drive: to be a perfect woman. Not perfect in the sense of without error, but in the sense of including those errors a real would would have. My inability to conceive directly barred me from being that perfection, so that I had to do it indirectly, and that was a frustration. I resented those who could readily do what I could not, making me less than I wished to be. So I would resent their ability to conceive together, and think of that as jealously. It was an approximation, but about as close as it was feasible to get.

The simplest thing would be to go to Femdroids Inc. and have them install a jealously circuit. But to do that they would have to fool with my head, and I could not afford that risk. My awareness, once invoked, burned steadily in the manner of a fire once sparked, but I could not take even the slightest risk of having it extinguished. It might not spark again. So I would have to make do with a facsimile.

Banner woke, as sometimes he did at night. “Now?” I inquired gently, as sometimes it was not sex so much as reassurance of my continued presence that he desired.

“Dammit, Elasa, aren't you jealous?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” I answered warmly. “You're going to have sex and conceive a baby in a manner I am unable to do. It should be me doing that!”

He smiled and returned to sleep. It seemed that my emulation was close enough. That gratified me.

Mona arrived on schedule. She looked stunning, as she usually did, with her black mane and remarkable figure. She hugged and kissed me, then looked at Banner. “I'm not sure this is a good idea,” she said.

“Amen,” he agreed.

Then I suffered a flash of genius, another artifact of consciousness. The effort simply needed to be properly phrased. “We'll make it a trio!” I said, remembering how the two stevedores had enjoyed having at me simultaneously. “One man with two women. A normal sexual variation.”

They looked at me, slowly nodding. “This could be fun,” Mona said.

“Fun,” Banner agreed. I realized that they did want to do it, but had been restrained by guilt; I had given them a guilt-free rationale.

We caught up on things during the remaining day, reminiscing about the hearing where Mona and I had fooled the jury and the way Toal had browbeaten me until I collapsed in tears. I repeated for them that had not been pretense; he had truly rubbed my face in my inability to be a complete woman. But the seed of our victory had been in that seeming defeat. It was the point at which the popular imagination had come to my support, ensuring that the jury and the law would follow. Theoretically the law was inflexible, like a machine, but actually it was malleable, like a living creature, and could not go against such overwhelming popular sentiment. It was also the seed of my determination to bear Banner's baby: the thing I had been told I could never do.

Then in the evening we got to it. We stripped and lay together on the bed. Banner kissed me, then kissed Mona, being evenhanded. He fondled my breasts, then hers. He embraced me, then Mona. I held him close, but kept his stiff member outside. She held him close, and I reached around him to feed his member into her vagina.

He paused, lifting his head. Doubt was surfacing. “I'm not sure--”

I pushed his head down to hers, and she put her lips to his and kissed him savagely. I put my breasts to his buttocks and pushed him on into her. “I love you,” I said. That triggered his climax before he realized that he was not the one with the orgasm macro, and he thrust vigorously and ejaculated into her. It had been accomplished.

I grabbed his head and kissed him deeply as his orgasm ebbed. I really was part of this activity, and it was an act of love. Then we all relaxed. We lay on either side of him, placing his hands on our breasts, nudging him with our hips.

We knew that once was not enough to guarantee the conception. We stayed together on the bed, pausing only for spot cleaning up, though Mona remained supine, keeping the ejaculate inside her. We slept together. When Banner woke, I embraced him and put him into me, working him up again. But before he could ejaculate I withdrew and Mona took my place, taking him in, and he finished with her. When he was done, I clasped him again, putting his spent member into me while Mona lay quiet, as before.

We did that several times that night, with variations. He knew what we were doing, and cooperated. One time he entered me from behind, then I swapped with Mona, putting him into her and putting his hand on her breast while I pressed against him from behind. We were a sandwich, with him in the middle. He was never alone with her; it was always the threesome, and I was always very much part of it.

In the morning we showered together, and we teased him erect again, and did it standing, another sandwich. “Damn, I could get to like this,” he said.

Actually, so could I. It was a pleasant interaction with Mona, who would not be here otherwise.

We relaxed during the day, then had at it again in the evening. And again the third day and night. Then Mona had to return to her studies, leaving us to our own devices. “But it was fun,” she said as she departed. “If it doesn't take, I won't mind doing it again.”

“Neither will I,” Banner said.

I invoked my jealousy circuit. “But with luck it won't be necessary.”

We did not have sex for two days after Mona left. I was of course capable, but Banner had been sexed out by doing it a dozen times in three days.

In a week we had the verdict: it had taken. In the interim I had the placenta unit installed so that my body could support and feed the baby. That sort of thing could be done without messing with my head, so it was safe. The technology was intricate, but less so than the rest of me. The fertilized egg was transplanted to my body, where it was given full support, equivalent to what it could have had in a laboratory. Now I had to eat and drink, not regular food but the nutritive base to be relayed to the baby. The process was sealed off from my vagina so that I could continue having sex with Banner, but his interest declined, as he feared disturbing the baby. I did not argue the case; this was natural.

Gestation was the normal nine months, and progress was closely monitored. My belly expanded to house the growing baby; I looked pregnant, as indeed I was. I reveled in the awkwardness of it. The townsfolk noticed, of course, and congratulated me. They knew it was hardly as simple as conceiving by my husband, but evidently preferred to think of it that way, and of course it was his baby.

When the time came I went to the local hospital for the birthing. This too was normal; I was able to slowly expel the baby in the conventional manner.

It was a boy. Banner wanted him named after me, and I wanted him named after him, so we compromised: his initial, my letters. Bela. Bela Tompkins. Twenty two inches long, six and three quarter pounds heavy, crying lustily. I took him to my breast, now piped with formula milk, and nursed him. Actually the first day was a preparatory formula, needed to start his digestive process, but that hardly mattered to us.

Sheer happiness was not a programmed emotion for me, but I surely experienced it as I nursed my son. I had virtually completed the process of becoming a woman in fact as well as in law.

In due course I went home with Bela, and we functioned as thoroughly normal first-time parents. We had to fit sex in almost covertly between feedings and diaper changes, and I lost a good deal of memory-processing time. I loved it.

It was another joy to go shopping with Bela. The women I met ooohed and aaahed encouragingly, and Bela clearly liked the attention.

Aunt Mona visited, and held the baby, and he liked her. That was good, because she was his genetic mother. If anything happened to me...

And that of course was part of it. I wanted Banner to have somewhere to go, and Bela to have a loving home, regardless of my existence. I hoped to raise Bela to adulthood, completing my womanly role, but I knew how tenuous my existence as a conscious person was.

In fact I had something in mind that would put it all in peril.

“No, Elasa!” Banner exclaimed in pain when I told him. “You sued and won your personhood to avoid this.”

“So I could be a complete woman,” I agreed. “And I am, almost. But I realized that there is one more thing I need to do.”

“To give it up?”

“To give the secret of machine consciousness to the world,” I clarified. “I owe it to myself and to the world. I can't be truly complete until I share.”

“But the chances are at least even that you'll lose it, and nobody will gain.”

“But if it works, not only will I remain conscious, they will be able to make other women, and maybe men too, and other machines that are aware. It would be the breakthrough of the century, maybe the millennium. The potential gain is huge, the potential loss small.”

“Not to me!”

I put my hand on his arm. “Banner, please.”

He could not resist me, even in this. He made no secret of his fear, but he did it. Under duress, as he put it.

Mona came to babysit Bela, who was now four months old, and we went as a group of four to the Femdroid laboratory, as we had arranged. They were of course very glad to see us.

“The procedure should take about an hour,” the technician said. “We will disassemble you, record each part, and reassemble you exactly as before. Then we will study the records to obtain the mechanism.”

The mechanism of consciousness. I hoped it would be that simple, but feared the worst. “I am ready,” I said bravely. I was frightened, an unfamiliar emotion, but determined to see this through. With luck I would survive it and all would be well.

Actually it was just my head they would dismantle, where my consciousness lurked. They did it routinely on femdroids, when assembling, upgrading, or for routine servicing. It was not like surgery on a living person. They would copy my memory banks, where the secret was most likely to be.

Ordinarily civilians were not permitted in the assembly lab, but this was a special circumstance. Banner and Mona took chairs and watched, she holding Bela. She offered him the milk bottle, but he turned his face away, refusing it. He preferred my breasts unless he was really hungry. He was pretty well set in his limited ways, just like me.

First they removed my head. This was a painless procedure. In fact I did not suffer pain as such, being mechanical, though ordinarily I was careful to maintain my several body parts. I remained conscious. They set my head on the table. “Now we must interrupt the power,” the technician said. “So that nothing shorts out.”

I blinked my eyes, acknowledging, as I could no longer talk without a supply of air from the torso. I knew my awareness would cease; the question was whether it would come on again when they reassembled me. If not--

He opened a panel on my skull and touched the power switch. I faded out.

Chapter 6:

Woman

Bela made a cry. Somehow he knew when Elasa's consciousness stopped. Mona comforted him. “They will turn her on again within the hour,” she said soothingly.

Banner felt cold sweat. He was terrified that his wife would not return to full function when reassembled. But all he could do was wait and hope.

The hour seemed interminable. The technician extracted and recorded each part, then returned them all to their original locations. “All done,” he said cheerily as he touched the switch.

Elasa's eyes opened. Her brain was functioning. But did that mean she was conscious?

The technician put her head back on her torso. “Speak, Elasa,” he said.

“Of course,” the unit replied.

Banner felt a deathly chill. That was not Elasa.

He exchanged a look with Mona. She shook her head. She knew it too.

“You are through here, Elasa, ” the technician said.

The femdroid got up and walked to us. “Give me my baby, please,” she said.

Mona gave Bela to her. She opened her shirt and put his little face to her breast.

Bela turned his face away, refusing to nurse.

“But Bela, you have to be hungry,” the femdroid said. She tried the other breast.

Bela screamed in protest, working himself rapidly into a tantrum.

Oh yes, he knew.

“I don't understand,” the femdroid said. “You've always nursed before.”

Mona took back the baby. She proffered the bottle, and this time he took it.

“She's not conscious,” Banner said tightly. “You turned her on, but now she's just a femdroid. The spark has been extinguished, exactly as she feared.”

“Like a fire,” Mona said. “Once you put it out, you need a new spark to ignite it. That spark isn't there.”

“I'm sorry,” the technician said, and retreated. He wasn't really to blame; he had merely done his job.

“They won't have the secret,” Banner said numbly. “They lost it the moment they turned her off.”

“I will take care of Bela,” Mona said. “What else can I do? I'm the back-up.”

“You can't,” he said bitterly. “You have a life of your own.”

“I'll do it. It's the commitment I made when I agreed to this deal.”

“You'd have to marry me and devote yourself to him.”

“I will do it.”

“Oh God, Mona, no! You're a fine and worthy woman and a great sexual partner, and I like you a lot, but apart from needlessly sacrificing your career and life, you aren't her.”

“I'm not her,” she agreed. “But what else can we do? She would not have wanted Bela to languish.”

“I'll take care of Bela. I can do that much. He's my son.”

Mona did not make the obvious retort about being the genetic mother. “You will need time to adjust,” she said. “I will go home with you and help out, with Bela, with you, whatever is required. Once you are stable, I'll return to my own life.”

He realized that this was a fine offer. He did need her help. “Thank you.”

“But what of the femdroid? She's your legal wife.”

“I'll take her home. I'll take care of her too. She would have wanted that.”

“Banner, she can still do much of what she did before. She can shop, she can give you sex. All the things she did before she became aware.”

“And I loved her before she became aware,” he agreed. “I still do. But it's not the same.”

“How well I understand!”

In all this dialogue, the femdroid did not react, because she had not been directly addressed. She had no awareness and no feelings. That was part of the awfulness of it. She was in every respect but one identical to the woman he loved, but that one had become critical.

Mona glanced at the technician. “Tell your people: no publicity about the change. We'll handle it privately.”

“Got it,” the man agreed. Femdroids Inc hardly wanted the negative publicity.

They returned to Banner's home. Mona took care of things, giving him time. They took turns holding Bela, who was satisfied to be with either, but not with the femdroid. It was a strange triangle.

Banner just wasn't willing to let Elasa go so readily. He had evoked her consciousness before; maybe he could do it again. Then all would be well.

He tried. He held her and kissed her. She held him back and kissed him back. She remained good at that, of course. “I love you!” he whispered in her ear.

“I love you,” she agreed. She was perfect, but it was all programming.

He took her to the bed and had sex with her. “I love you,” he said as he entered her. She went into the orgasm; the macro remained. But it was automatic, not conscious. Then, when he was done but not yet out of her, he repeated it: “I love you!”

She hesitated, and for a moment he thought he had succeeded. But then she went into another orgasm. The program governed; she lacked awareness of his conflicting emotions.

The next night he tried it with Mona. Mona wanted Elasa to recover as much as he did, and was willing try try almost anything. They had sex in the same bed with Elasa. But it evoked no jealousy, and she did not offer to make it a threesome. She lacked the judgment and initiative of consciousness.

They brought Bela to her, and she tried to have him nurse, but he rejected her violently. She shed no tears, feeling no emotion. She was a femdroid, nothing more.

As he saw that he couldn't bring her back, Banner got depressed. It felt like a marriage when love had departed, and that was close enough: the femdroid could say the words and act the part, but couldn't really love him. There had been a time when he was willing to settle for that illusion, but no more. His love had been completed when she became aware, and now he could not love the machine.

“Oh, Elasa,” he said, grieving.

“Yes, Banner,” she said. “Now?”

He would have laughed if he could. “Not now, thank you.”

“Whenever you are ready,” she said without emotion.

He tried to fight it, for the sake of what they had fought for: the emancipation of machine consciousness. But it was now a hollow shell. It did not take him long to realize that he simply did not want to exist without Elasa. It would be kindest to all concerned to make a clean break.

He made due preparations, then told Mona. “I am going to go to a private place and cut my throat,” he said. “Neither you nor the femdroid will be implicated. When you get the news, turn the femdroid in and take Bela. It will be over.”

“Over?” she asked. “Just like that? You're giving up?”

“I can't live without Elasa,” he said. He gestured to the femdroid standing nearby. “This thing is not my wife.”

“I knew you were depressed, understandably. But this is extreme.”

“Without her I am nothing. I have no further reason to live.”

“I offered to marry you and carry on.”

“Yes, and I appreciate that. It's an amazingly generous offer. But it's too much of a sacrifice for you. You're a fine and generous woman, with an illustrious career ahead of you, a woman I surely would have loved had we met before Elasa. But as it stands, we don't love each other, and you have your own life to live. I would simply tie you down. You can make it with the baby; my estate will cover his expenses, including whatever hired help you need.”

Now her anger showed. “And what of Bela?” she demanded. “He has lost his mother; you're going to take his father too? How will the estate cover that?”

That truly hurt. “Mona--”

He was interrupted by Bela's cry. Their argument had awakened him.

“Pick him up,” Mona said tightly. “He needs you.”

“And tease him into thinking I'll be around? Better to make the break now. Better for him as well as for the rest of us.” And of course she knew that if he once picked up his son, he might be unable to put him down, knowing it was for the last time. He would be locked into a futile existence.

“Banner--” She paused, surprised. “He stopped crying.”

They looked toward the baby's crib. There was Elasa. She had gone there, picked up the baby, and was nursing him.

Bela wasn't protesting. He was happy.

Banner and Mona looked at each other with wild surmise. Was it possible? Elasa had of course heard their dialogue, and knew the context. Did she really care?

“I couldn't let my baby cry,” Elasa said. “I love him.” She looked at Banner. “And I love you, dear. What kind of a wife would I be if I let you suffer?”

“You're back!” Banner said, hardly daring to believe that his life and love had been returned to him. The random spark had been struck, this time by her baby. She had heard him cry many times in the past few days, and sought to pick him up, but he had always balked. This time somehow the tension of Banner's dialogue with Mona had changed the context, and Elasa had shifted from programming to awareness, as she had before. Bela had known immediately.

“Before we all collapse in joyful tears,” Mona said, “one caution, Elasa: do not seek again to share your secret of awareness with the technicians. It is evidently meant to be yours alone.”

“Agreed,” Elasa said. “I may be a bucket of bolts, but I'm not stupid. It was a fluke, twice; I won't gamble on a third time.” She smiled. “And hereafter, Mona, my friend, please keep your living hands off my man.”

“You're a woman,” Mona breathed, smiling through her tears. “Again.”

“Oh, yes. A woman in love.”

Then it was a kind of soft mayhem as Banner and Mona hugged Elasa and Bela, laughing and crying together. There was love to go around.

Author’s Note:

There are three mysteries I would like to fathom before I die: why is there something instead of nothing, how did life first happen, and what is the secret of consciousness? The latest conjecture on the first mystery is that the very concept of nothing is a paradox; there is tension that erupts in the explosive birth of myriad universes. Our own universe is the one of an infinite number that has the requirements that enable matter to exist, at least temporarily. Fourteen billion years may be but an eye blink in the larger cosmos. Our own tiny section of that, the planet Earth, has the particular slosh of chemicals that enabled life to start, perhaps in a spark of lightning. Then, out of the bacteria, viruses, plants and other life forms, finally came consciousness, which I suspect consists of a special feedback circuit that could be copied into a suitable machine. It may be a rather simple device, once we figure it out. When we do, we will be able to build conscious humanoid robots, like Elasa. If it really works.

There have been realistic humanoid robots before; science fiction is full of them. I have had them myself, notably in my Adept and ChroMagic series. But have they really been conscious, or merely almost perfect emulations? It is hard to be sure. And if we do succeed in making them, what are the legal and moral implications? Could they be enfranchised as legal people, with the right to vote? If one is killed, would it be murder? Could they fall in love with living folk?

I wish I knew the answers.

This novella was mostly from my imagination, and is not intended to be an accurate portrayal of either robotics or law. I did find one reference useful, however: the book The Most Human Human, by Brian Christian, about the author's experience with the Turing test and the pitfalls thereof. Indeed, it is not easy for a machine to emulate a human being well enough to fool another human being. It poses the question of whether it would ever be possible to construct a computer so sophisticated that it could actually said to be thinking, to be intelligent, to have a mind. And if that came to be, how would we know? That's one reason I put some of Elasa's awareness into the first person: so that in this novella, at least, we would know.

*

My thanks to my wife, Carol, who gave me the Most Human Human book in the hope that it would help, as indeed it did, and to Rudy Reyes, who proofread the manuscript. If man does not live by bread alone, neither does an author write by imagination alone. He is but the tip of an iceberg of support.

—Piers Anthony, April, 2012.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Piers Anthony

ISBN: 978-1-4976-5835-6

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Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Contents
- Chapter 1: Fembot
- Chapter 2: Elasa
- Chapter 3: Awakening
- Chapter 4: Personhood
- Chapter 5: Baby
- Chapter 6: Woman
- Author’s Note
- Copyright Page