Choose a story?

[General]

Folks, I have a bit of time to write over the next few days and I've got two half started stories I'm thinking of finishing. I could use some input as to which story might pan out the best. I have included each story starter below and I'm looking for opinions and comments.

Thanks ahead of time,
General

[General]

Focus

Ariel busied herself around the house as she did almost every morning after her husband Jack went to work. After making breakfast she liked to do a little light cleaning before taking a shower and starting work. She walked around the large, sun lit house in only her pajamas, which only consisted of a pair of boy shorts and a tight t-shirt. It nicely showed off her 5’6” slim figure and milky white skin which was accented by her shoulder length red hair. It wasn’t exactly proper cleaning attire but she didn’t want to get anything else dirty before taking a shower.

Ariel’s husband, Jack, worked for a medium sized technology company and often had to pull long hours at the office or go on frequent trips. She spent many hours on her own so she did what she could to keep herself busy. Today she planned to give the kitchen a thorough scrubbing before her shower and she had just finished assembling the necessary cleaning supplies on the floor.

Ariel s started scrubbing the cabinets and worked her way down to the counter and then the floor. She finished cleaning and looked across the kitchen at a box Jack tucked in the corner a week ago. His grandmother had recently downsized and sent all the grandkids what she couldn’t fit in her new place. She wasn’t sure what was in there, but figured if he left it in the kitchen, it must belong there.

Ariel cut the old box open and lifted the paper wrapped contents onto the counter. Shedding the wrapper, she found an old stand mixer; well worn with years of use and covered with a layer of dust and grease. She had seen mixers like this before and knew enough to know that while it didn’t look great, it would be very difficult to find one as reliable or powerful in this day and age.

“Well, I might as well get you cleaned up too,” Ariel mumbled to no one in particular as she put away all the packing materials and started scrubbing the metal frame. The grease was hardened on the machine after years of neglect and her normal scrubber wasn’t doing the trick. She frowned and found a decent kitchen solvent to spray the thing down. She gave it a good soaking and waited a while for the cleaner to do its work.

After a few minutes, Ariel grabbed a stiff toothbrush and went to work. It took her almost a half hour but she finally got the old machine shinning like new. She smiled and cleaned up the mess before finding a spot on the counter to plug it in and see if it still worked. She flipped the switch and unfortunately nothing happened. “Stupid girl,” she mumbled. “It would have been a lot smarter to try it out first before you spent half an hour cleaning a broken mixer.” She looked around trying to see if there was some safety switch or other interlock she needed to trip before it would run when she noticed the power cord came out of the mixer at a weird angle. “Hrmm,” she smirked as she leaned over and pulled the cable straight.

Suddenly a bright flash and a loud snap filled the room as all the lights in the kitchen went dark. Ariel’s hand was locked on the old metal appliance and her body remained completely still for several seconds. Then suddenly her head twitched slightly to the right and she stood up straight; pulling her arm back to dangle loosely at her side. A muffled beep emanated from her chest as she stared blankly at the cabinets. “WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM SHUTDOWN. EMERGENCY REBOOT INITIATED, ADMINISTRATOR ALERT ORDER PROCESSED,” Ariel droned flatly. “CYREX SYSTEMS SERIES 705A, MODEL 278594BF9 INITIALIZING. IMPROPER SHUTDOWN…RUNNING FULL SYSTEM SCAN….HUMAN PERCEPTION DRIVERS CORRUPTED…UNABLE TO LOAD SOFTWARE. ALL OTHER SYSTEMS NOMINAL. SCAN COMPLETE. INITIALIZING PERSONALITY MATRIX ARIEL-A943.”

Ariel blinked a few times and suddenly shook her hand, “Ow damnit!” she swore in her normal voice. “Fucking thing shocked me.” She blinked a few more times as she stared down at the mixer. Something was different, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She blinked again before she realized that somehow the old appliance looked sharper and more in focus; like she just cleaned her sunglasses and put them back on. She shook off the funny feeling and got back to work. She wrapped her hand in a dish towel and grabbed the plug to pull it from the wall. She was about to pack the whole thing away when she heard the phone ring and quickly ran to grab it seeing Jack office line on the caller ID.

“Hey Jack how are you doing?” Ariel asked as she grabbed the phone and leaned on the newly washed counter.

“I’m fine,” Jack replied nervously. “Are you ok?”

“Yea I’m fine. I got a bit of a shock when I tried to clean your grandmother’s old mixer but why do you ask?” Ariel questioned, as she wondered how Jack knew to call her right after the accident.

“Oh nothing,” Jack verbally juggled. “I…just…got this funny feeling. You know, like in those movies. I thought something might have happened.”

“You know I don’t believe in that mumbo jumbo crap,” Ariel chuckled. “If you don’t have any other psychic visions, I should get going. I spent too much time cleaning that horrible mixer and threw off my entire schedule today.”

“Ok dear,” Jack laughed back, “Have a good day.”

“You too,” Ariel replied and hung up the phone. She noticed that the phone didn’t beep when she returned it to its charging cradle and then saw that the shock must have blown the fuse for the whole kitchen. What she didn’t notice was that she had set the phone precisely in the center of the cradle without rubbing against the sides of the charger at all.

Ariel knew she was running late for her shower, but figured she should reset the breaker before she forgot. On her way down to the basement she wondered how long this whole mess set off her morning routine. *47 minutes and 15 seconds* suddenly popped into her mind. Oddly specific, but when she checked her watch; pretty much dead on accurate. “That’s weird,” she mumbled as she descended the stairs into the dim basement. She noticed it was a little cold downstairs and once again *16.667 Celsius* popped into her head. “Alright, what the fuck?” she mumbled as she looked around the empty room. “I don’t even use the Metric system.”

Ariel pinched the bridge of her nose as she walked over to the fuse box. Maybe someone was messing with her and playing a speaker really low. “Or maybe I just fried my brain on that stupid mixer,” she sighed as she found the tripped breaker and reset it. She could hear the fridge kick back on upstairs so she closed the box and started to go up to take her shower. Just as she was about to kill the light and head upstairs she noticed a new door in the basement wall.

“What the hell?” Ariel whispered as she slowly moved towards the door. She and Jack had lived in this house since soon after they were married three years ago, and she had never seen this door before. She vacuumed down here once a week and thought there was no way she could have possibly missed it. As she got closer she looked carefully at mystery door and found that it was just a slightly different shade of gray than the surrounding doors and walls. She tried the knob and found it locked. She didn’t have a key herself since she didn’t even know it existed until a moment ago, but she did remember that Jack kept a spare set of his keys in his desk drawer.

Ariel quickly ran upstairs, grabbed the keys and returned; her shower forgotten as the new door had her complete attention. It took her a few minutes to go through all the keys until she found one that finally let her turn the knob. She opened the door and the lights automatically flickered to life. Her jaw dropped as she scanned the room slowly from one side to the other.

The 20’x20’ windowless room was now bathed in the bright glow of overhead florescent lighting. The right wall was covered with various computers and electronic equipment, neatly organized on a long workbench. The far wall contained large, closed cabinets, the left wall was dominated by two imposing, vertical metal tubes, and the center of the room contained a flat, stainless steel table with several wires and devices attached to it.

Ariel slowly stepped into the room and let the idea sink in for a while. “Jack what do you do down here?” she asked the room, as if it would reply. Attracted by the flashing screens, she made her way to the large bank of computers on the right wall. There seemed to be two separate but identical sets of equipment; one completely dark and dormant and the other alive with activity. She approached what looked like a user terminal and shook the mouse to wipe out the screensaver. The display suddenly lit up with what looked like a large, complex configuration GUI. She glanced over it quickly and her eye caught on the upper title bar. “CYREX AI MATRIX CONFIG: PERONALITY ARIEL-A943.”

This got her attention, and Ariel sat down at the console to give it a more thorough examination. Why did it have her name and what is it for? It appeared the program currently was set up to monitor system status. She looked it up and down without focusing on any one thing, and then suddenly the whole program just clicked in her head and she was able to focus on the whole screen simultaneously. It listed all kinds of drivers and systems and all were highlighted in green, except one. She looked down at the small text and was surprised she could read it without squinting. “HUMAN PERCEPTION DRIVERS — OFFLINE” She clicked the mouse on the red text and the display jumped to a small alert window. It described a critical system shutdown of android 278594BF9 a little over 10 minutes ago due to an unknown hardware error. It also mentioned that an administrator alert was transmitted to 212.555.1259 several seconds later.

“That is when I got shocked,” Ariel mumbled, “And that’s Jack’s office line. Is that why he called me. Am…am I a robot?” She stared blankly at the screen as her hand led the mouse to jump through various program tabs looking for some sort of answer. She finally clicked on one last tab marked external configuration. When the screen refreshed, she saw a fully nude picture of herself in a spread eagle position from the front and another image from the back. Various parts of the image where highlighted but when she moused over her breasts and clicked on them, an error message popped up.

UNABLE TO CONFIGURE REMOTELY. PLEASE ATTACH MANUAL CONNECTION.

A light arrow fell from the pop up box to point at the naked android’s navel, which now blinked red. Without looking, Ariel’s left hand rose from the desk and slowly hovered above her exposed belly. She pushed her middle finger into her navel but felt only skin. She let out a sigh of relief, “I must be going crazy thinking I was a robot.” She then shifted her finger slightly and felt something hard push back. Her face went slack as her finger pushed aside a few folds of skin before it found a small USB connection.

Ariel looked down and using both hands, pulled open her navel which completely exposed the USB connection. “Oh my God…” she muttered. She tried desperately to think of any other reason why she would have a plug, besides if she was a robot, but she came up blank. Not entirely knowing why, she fumbled around with the computer and found a long, attached USB cable and plugged herself in. The configuration program began processing as the previous alert boxes disappeared and the image focused itself on the naked android’s breasts.

The young girl paused for a bit as she stared at the screen and the wire now attached to her belly. She could feel the wire attached to her, but didn’t feel any different. Although she didn’t really know what being attached to a computer was supposed to feel like anyway. She eventually got the courage to grab the mouse and return to the program, which now displayed a very accurate representation of her breasts along with several slider bars right next to them. The bars were labeled: volume, height, shape, nipple length, and firmness. Half expecting nothing to happen, she selected the bar for volume and slid it a little to the right.

Ariel suddenly felt a strange stretching sensation in her chest and she looked down to see her breasts growing as her already tight shirt strained against the load. “Oh my God, I am an android.” She saw three buttons at the bottom of the screen labeled RESTORE, SAVE, and CANCEL. She clicked the restore button and the slider along with her breasts returned to normal. “Hrm, this is actually kinda fun,” she chuckled and broke a little smile. She grabbed the height slider next and kicked it to the left; replicating the effects of several decades of gravity. “Uhh, no thanks.” She slid it back further right and within a few seconds she was back at her late teens. She smiled and moved on to the shape option; shifting herself from natural, to pointy, to porn star fake. She firmed them up and cranked the nipple variable all the way over. Her hands reached down and grabbed her now rock hard tits, with ridiculiously long, jutting nipples and gave them a good feel. “Fun, but one weird thing at a time for now,” she said as she hit the cancel button. The screen transitioned back to the large view of her body as her own breasts returned to normal.

Ariel wandered around the configuration program for about an hour, looking at what she could change or checkout. She eventually selected the Directives Tab, which brought up a rather plain looking screen broken into MISSION, DIRECTIVES, and RULES. Below each heading was text that was grayed out but still very legible. At the bottom of each segment was a button labeled EDIT. She looked over the screen and read what she could see:

MISSION: Serve Jack Marshal as his wife.

DIRECTIVES:
1. Follow all orders as given by Jack Marshal.
2. Do whatever is possible to promote the happiness of Jack Marshall.
3. Do not inform others besides Jack Marshall or a licensed Cyrex employee about android status.

RULES:
1. Every morning Jack is away at work, clean one area of the house.
2. Rotate cleaning duties so that the entire house is cleaned once a month.
3. Take a shower after performing morning cleaning duties.
4. Perform 5 hours of in house paid work per day when possible.
5. Every Tuesday night at 10pm, disable personality matrix and recharge.
Etc.

“Now wait a second,” Ariel said to no one in particular. “I always end up falling asleep on the couch Tuesday evenings when Jack watches his stupid reality show. But then again, maybe that is what happens when my personality matrix is disabled. After all, if I’m an android, why would I get tired?” Either way she didn’t like the idea of having her personality shut off, so she moved her mouse over the edit button and tried to click on it.

The problem was that Ariel’s finger would not respond; it just hovered over the button and did nothing. She frowned and furrowed her brow but could not get her finger to move. Eventually she brought her left hand around and tried to push down on her finger, but it still wouldn’t budge. She lifted her entire right hand and tried to bring it down on the mouse, but it froze a few centimeters from its target. “Damnit,” she swore and then saw a small line of new text displayed on the screen.

*Passive restraint engaged due to potential rule 72 violation. Continued challenge of rule. Active restraint engaged.*

Just then Ariel’s arm’s suddenly and without her control, lifted off the mouse, and moved stiffly to her sides, remaining there as she struggled against an invisible holding force. She looked back up at the screen in time to catch the next line of text.

*Active restraint level 1 engaged: 90 second timeout. NOTE: level 2 restraint: 10 minute forced shutdown.*

Not wanting to trigger the shutdown, Ariel waited patiently for the timeout to expire, and then shifted to the last tab in the program, sexual settings. She expected it to be fun and wanted to save it for last, lest she not get to the other screens later. She looked over the new menu which contained a great many slider bars, check boxes and radio buttons. It had options for her to increase her overall sexual sensitivity as well as the ability to increase or decrease the sensitivity of any specific body part. It also had options to select different sexual kinks and preferences from a long drop down list; with an option to upload more from disk. The final slider at the bottom of the page was labeled “Preference” with Homo and Hetero spelled out on either side and Bi in the dead center. Currently her slider was set for just a little off Hetero.

Ariel carefully read everything over, paying careful attention to the kinks section. Jack was a pretty straight forward guy in bed and they had only really engaged in one kink over the years; she really had a thing for wearing high heeled leather boots to bed. They only indulged in it once or twice a year, but it drove her wild and he certainly seemed to get a kick out of it as well.

Sure enough, when Ariel looked she found only one choice selected: Leather-boots. “Gee after seeing all these choices, you think he could have picked something better than that,” she mumbled. Without giving it too much thought, she selected a few different other choices including androids, control, oral, and breasts. She then kicked up her overall sensitivity, nothing too drastic, just a few notches higher. When she released the mouse she felt a tingly shiver run through her whole body. “Ohh, that was nice.” Finally the mouse settled above the preference slider. She thought back for a bit, and while she and Jack had watched some lesbian porn at one point it didn’t really do anything for her. He had obviously liked it, so she figured he might like it if she took another look at the ladies. “What the hell, why not think everyone is sexy?” she shrugged as she slid the bar to the exact middle of the spectrum. “Hrm, I don’t feel any different,” she mumbled before she removed the data cable and stood up.

Suddenly something clicked in her head, “Damn I’m way behind schedule. I really should get showered and then get to work,” Ariel cursed. For some reason the whole I’m a robot concept seemed to fade in importance compared to the shower and work.

[General]

The New Partner:

“Mr. O’Neill?” the young receptionist called from behind her desk in the waiting room of Cyrex Systems. Her perfectly shaped face, with piercing blue eyes and smooth alabaster skin scanned the eloquently decorated waiting room. On the far side of the room a man in a worn suede jacket and jeans casts aside a 3 month old copy of Popular Science and quickly stands up.

“I’m Mike O’Neill,” he replies as the 30’ish man walks across the waiting room to the front desk. He stops at the counter and looks the receptionist up and down. Her nearly flawless features and fluid movement convince him that she must be android, but he wouldn’t expect anything less from one of the premiere android manufactures in the country.

“Mr. O’Neill, would you please head down the hall to conference room 57? Mr. Andrews has some questions about your order,” the receptionist replied as she pointed down one of the long hallways that lead out of the open waiting room. Mike nodded and briskly proceeded down the indicated hallway, checking the room numbers as he went. He was surprised that Cyrex had asked him in today and talk to him in person. From what he read in researching the company, most customers placed their order online and had it self delivered to their house. He found a few posts from customers that were called in to the main office, but normally it was about some defect or crazy custom order. Mike didn’t think he fell into either category, but he was free today and didn’t mind playing along.

Mike’s boots tapped along the tile hall for several minutes, until he finally reached a small door labeled ‘Room 57.’ He thought about knocking, but figured they knew he was coming and just walked right in. Inside he found a small but well furnished room complete with a dark wooden desk and several chairs. Behind the desk sat a middle aged man with tanned skin, slicked back blonde hair and a well pressed suit. Mike half expected him to be selling high end cars but he guessed the android market wasn’t that far off. The man stood up, smiled and extended his hand. “Mr. O’Neill thank you for coming in. I’m Jake Brannigan. Please have a seat.”

“Please call me Mike,” Mike replied as he shook Jake’s hand and sat down in the comfortable leather chair. “Is there something wrong with my order?”

“Nothing wrong Mike,” Jake chuckled as he brought up a file on his tablet computer. He tapped a few buttons and the display was copied to a large wall monitor next to his desk. “It is just a very unusual order and I wanted to verify it with you before it was processed.”

Mike frowned a bit and looked at his order on the wall, “I spent plenty of time researching various companies and what they could provide. Your published specs said you should have no problem fulfilling this order.”

“Oh yes, we can complete the order,” Jake quickly replied. “Let me just confirm all the specs first.” He cleared his throat and grabbed a stylus to keep his place on the form. “You ordered a Series XVII android, built around a light combat chassis, with self repairing active polymer skin, a female class four realism package and appearance configuration 12AF-B873-91C,” he paused to confirm the mechanical specifications and Mike just silently nodded in reply. Jake frowned and continued, “You also requested the following programming packages installed: accounting and business management, housecleaning, basic and advanced first aid, research assistant, basic cooking, electronics, advanced driving, auto maintenance, small arms usage, hand to hand combat, basic and advanced sexual techniques, linguistics, and self repair. Is that correct?”

Mike’s eyes looked up for a second as he mentally compared his list with the one on the wall. “Yup, that is correct. Is something wrong?”

“Well Mike,” Jake started, “normally we don’t load an android with so many skill sets. It is possible but due to the computing requirements, many customers actually find it cheaper to purchase several androids and split the skills amongst them.” Jake looked over his customer with some confusion. The android Mike ordered was pricy to start with, and with all these options was damn right expensive. The man who sat across from him barely looked like he could afford a baseline model, never mind top of the line.

Mike was only 32 but his rough stubble and hardened look made him appear much older. His dark hair was cut short and a few scars were visible on his scalp. He had deep blue, piercing eyes, lightly tanned skin and a thin smile. Besides his jacket and jeans, he wore a simple grey t-shirt and solid looking black boots. From Mike’s appearance, Jake thought he looked more at home at the unemployment office than in a high end android dealership.

“I appreciate your advise, but I really need everything in one package, and I am willing to pay a premium,” Mike explained.

“Ok if you are sure,” Jake replied, “but there is one other issue you should be aware of. Part of our basic artificial intelligence architecture is that the android will adapt its personality to best suit its programmed functions. For instance if it is loaded with a teaching program, then it will exhibit a very kind, mentoring personality. If it were also loaded with a bodyguard program then it would still have a mentoring role, but would also be more protective.” Jake paused a few seconds for the information to sink in, “We have personality programming for each one of our program packages, and we have tested all of them independently as well as in combinations of two or three. We did have one customer who purchased an android with six preloaded packages. He reported afterwards that the android was someone ‘odd’ for a while. Eventually it developed a merged personality, but it took several months. I have no idea how long it would take to compile 13 personality modules; your android may turn out a little…quirky.”

“Quirky?” Mike asked with a frown, “It isn’t going to go rampant on me is it?”

“Oh no sir,” Jake reassured his customer and maybe himself, “The baseline programming directives will remain completely intact. But it may demonstrate some other odd behavior until the programming settles. We’ve never tested that many modules together so I don’t know exactly what to expect. However, Cyrex stands by the high quality of our units. If the android’s is not performing at acceptable levels, we will be willing to reprogram or exchange the unit.” Jake stopped speaking and made a few more notes on his pad. “If you still wish to continue with your previous order, can you please sign this to acknowledge the warnings discussed today?” he said as he handed Mike the tablet and stylus.

Mike grumbled a bit and quickly signed the electronic pad, “Now that I have signed your CYA pass, how long until I get the android?”

“Ummm,” Jake scrolled down through the order sheet, “It says here that it will be ready in 12 business days…and you have selected to pick it up here correct?”

“Yup, my place can be a bit hard to find and my neighborhood isn’t the place where I want an expensive android wandering around,” Mike replied with a chuckle.

“OK then, we’ll give you a call when it’s ready to pickup,” Jake said with a smile as he stood up and extended his hand which Mike shook. “Thanks for your business, and I hope you enjoy your android.” Mike nodded and left the office. He smiled at the receptionist as he passed her desk and started home.


Two and a half weeks later, Mike returned to Cyrex and saw the same receptionist at the front desk. He smiled and signed in at the desk before taking a seat. Half an hour later the receptionist called him over, “Mr. O’Neill, your order is waiting for you in checkout room 15,” she said warmly while pointing the way down a different hallway than before.

Mike found the room and opened the door to see that it was a little bigger than the room from before. It was still well furnished and contained a table, a couch and several chairs. The table was covered in two large suitcases, but went largely unnoticed when he saw the beautiful woman sitting on the couch.

The woman stood up and smiled, but didn’t approach Mike, as if to allow him to look her over first. She stood about 5’8” tall, with dark eyes, fair skin, and shoulder length wavy hair. She had a thin build that wasn’t completely hidden by the formal skirt-suit she wore. It was hard for Mike to tell a woman’s age; all the females he met always tried to look 22, no matter if they were younger or older. The girl in front of him appeared about that age, but had a maturity about her look that made her a woman and not just a girl.

(http://www.kindgirls.com/photo2/femjoy/ ... 12/10/271/)

It seemed like an eternity to Mike, but must have only been a few seconds before she spoke, “Hello Mr. O’Neill, I’m Jennifer Clark. It is nice to meet you.” She took a few steps forward and met him halfway into the room extending her hand to his.

“It is nice to meet you too Jennifer,” Mike replied as he gently squeezed the warm flesh of her hand. He half expected it to be cold or rubbery, but it felt like a normal, but soft woman’s hand. “Please call me Mike.” He paused and looked around the room. “Umm, are you all ready to go?”

Jennifer smiled and released Mike’s hand. “Yes I am ready to go whenever you are,” she noticed his confusion and tried to explain. “Some customers like to inspect the order to insure it is correct before they leave. My specifications are on the order sheet there,” she said pointing to a small folder next to the suitcases on the table. “or you can connect in to my systems via a remote terminal to manually verify my specs if you want. I also come with several outfits and some maintenance tools if you want to verify those as well.” She paused as his attention was drawn to the two large suitcases.

Jennifer walked over to the table and popped the two cases open as Mike leafed through the paperwork in the folder. He confirmed all the requested programming modules were included and shuttered a little when he saw the final price. He already knew how much it was, and had paid it a while ago, but seeing that many numbers made the cheap bastard in him shudder.

Mike snapped out of his financial coma and looked over at the open cases Jennifer displayed. One was full of various pieces of clothing and the other contained a small laptop, a remote, and a wide assortment of parts and tools. “I have several outfits provided for a range of activities, but I will probably need to purchase additional clothing once the details of my function become more clear,” she explained as Mike absently looked through the clothes. He could make out some casual wear, more attractive ‘out on the town’ attire, a rugged jumpsuit, and he blushed a bit as he found a very thin silk thong.

Pushing the clothes back into the case, Mike straightened himself out and nodded towards Jennifer, “The clothes look good to me, and we can get you some more later. As for the tools, they look pretty good to me as well.”

Jennifer smiled as she moved around Mike to close the cases, “This should be all the tools and parts necessary for me to maintain myself for quite some time.” She paused and took a step back across the room. “Would you like to perform a more thorough inspection of my body? Some customers want to ensure that their purchases fully meet their specifications.” She smiled warmly at him as she nonchalantly unbuttoned her suit jacket.

Mike immediately blushed and looked around the room. Sure part of him would love to see this new fembot stark naked, after all he did pay extra to make sure she was fully functional as a woman. But he wasn’t really comfortable here, and wasn’t entirely sure he could stop at just looking. Plus, he had no desire to walk out of the building with a raging hard on under his pants. “Wait, I…I think we can do that later. Let’s get going if you are ready.”

“Of course,” Jennifer sweetly replied. She buttoned her jacket and grabbed the two suitcases. “We can perform the inspection later.” Mike closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths while thinking of baseball, fishing, and his uncle Lou the plumber. Now a little more decent, he picked up the folder and followed Jennifer out of the room.

The pair quickly walked down the hall and Mike had to stop himself from offering to carry Jennifer’s bags. She was much stronger than him anyway, and he still had to settle the final bill. They stopped at a small desk near the main lobby and a bubbly young woman smiled from the other side. “Are you satisfied and ready to close out your purchase Mr. O’Neill?”

Mike nodded and sat down in front of the young girl who was almost certainly a droid. “Yes I’m ready to pay up.” The girl nodded and slid him a fancy looking leather portfolio. Inside were Jennifer’s final specifications as well as an itemized bill. He sighed as he saw the large final number again, but he knew the droid behind him was worth the money and more.

Mike pursed his lips and clicked his pen. Half closing his eyes, he signed on the dotted line that would automatically bill his bank account. He handed the portfolio back to the other droid and slipped the pen away. The droid looked at the form, removed the signature page and slipped it in a drawer. “Your account has been deducted for the full amount. Thank you for your purchase.” She handed him back the rest of the paperwork and rose to shake his hand.

Mike knew the little droid really didn’t need a handshake but he played along to be polite. He firmly shook the thin hand and nodded before turning to leave. Jennifer silently followed him out of the building to the attached parking garage. The pair stopped at an old but powerful looking coupe. With a click of his fob, the trunk popped open and the doors unlocked. Mike slipped into the driver’s seat as Jennifer secured her luggage in the trunk and took her place in the passenger seat.

The engine started with a low roar as the pair left the parking lot and quickly merged out into traffic. Mike thought about making conversation, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound cheesy, not that it really mattered with an android anyway. It was Jennifer who broke the silence.

“Mike, my programming is very diverse. It would help me to serve your needs if you could tell me more about what my function will be.” Jennifer said with a warm but professional tone.

“You will serve as my assistant. I run a small business that performs a wide array of tasks,” Mike rambled as he drove towards the Holland Tunnel. “Part private investigator, part bounty hunter, with a dabble of exterminator. It’s an odd job, but its exciting and pays the bills.”

“Did you ever have an assistant before?” Jennifer asked.
“No,” Mike replied, “but I did have a partner.”

“What happened to him, or her,” Jennifer asked.

“He was killed a few months ago,” Mike said stiffly, “by a vampire.”

[DollSpace]

Both of these stories have a lot of potential, but "Focus" especially strikes me as a story that could become really amazing, especially if the writing is as tight as the beginning you posted here. I would definitely focus on, umm, "Focus" first, exploring some of the things like her new-found sentience bubbling up and fading, what she can and can't do, and how her husband reacts, in addition to the usual things we find in these stories. It didn't take me very long at all to start to care for Ariel and be emotionally invested in what happens to her. That is a very good sign! So, yeah, I'd devote most of your resources to writing "Focus", and, once that's done, you can spend more time developing "New Partner", which shows promise, too.

Catie

P.S. It's also times like these when I feel like my mind is being read...many times I've had similar ideas for stories but I don't get around to writing them, and then stories that have extremely similar plots or ideas or scenes show up on the board! It's a weird déjà vu type thing, in a way. Of course, that also happens with TV shows and movies I end up watching, too!

[Korby]

I thought they were both quite interesting, and have a lot of potential, but my vote in the end is for "Focus".

[Sthurmovik]

Hey General, I'd normally would have voted for the second, but I'm not much into Vampyre fix. Both are really great tho, can't wait to read them.

[BA2]

Really well written and great ideas both. I'd vote for focus but its a tough call...

BA

[General]

Thanks everyone for your input and support. I had a feeling that Focus might be the more popular topic, which is why I asked. What I have so far has been sitting on my hard drive for a few months now and I thought it might be worth while to try to finish it up. It originally came out of the idea of what would happen to a 'sleeper' android that became aware of its android nature. In most stories this leads to some sort of critical malfunction possibly involving masturbation and/or fire and smoke.

As a software engineer I've always been sort of perplexed that someone would design a very expensive system that would physically destroy itself during a somewhat easy to predict error. Imagine if you removed that USB drive from your computer without properly shutting down the service; you're not supposed to do it but you certainly don't expect your computer to burst into flames when you do.

So I want to explore how a human level intelligence would deal with 'becoming' an android and suddenly discovering that they could change parts of their being at will.

The other story came out of watching too much Dresden Files and Supernatural. Thoughts about how they could be better normally involved fembots and more firepower. I had a rough idea of where I wanted to go, but it was a more open ended story, where I know Focus has a beginning, middle and end already mapped out.

Unfortunately I had hoped to work on this story during a business trip this week, but due to other events I had to cancel. I normally do most of my writing when I am away on travel, as there is little to do in the hotel. I should have another trip in the next few weeks so hopefully I can pick this up then.

In the mean time, if anyone has any suggestions or would like to discus where the Focus story is going, I would love to hear from you. Thanks again for your interest so far.

General

[Trace Venom]

So I want to explore how a human level intelligence would deal with 'becoming' an android and suddenly discovering that they could change parts of their being at will.

General

I wasn't expecting you to go there, but I do like that angle. Might have just as many (if not more) titillating possibilities as the old "critical malfunction" scenario, now that I think about it.

Carry On, General. You seem to be on a very good path with that story.