Super Fembot Cheerleaders from Space! - Chapter 10

[Teknophile]

Hello, Everyone!

Originally, I had planned on telling this little sub-story as a single chapter, but once I realized that this part alone ran for seven pages, I decided to split it up, so you folks don’t have to read a ridiculously long chapter all at once.

Anyhow, comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the show!
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Chapter 10 — The Birthday Party, Part I

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The girl behind the counter raised an eyebrow. “Er, the total comes to three hundred twenty-one fifty. Are you … sure you have the cash for that?”

“Sure!” A7C said brightly, holding out a handful of twenty-dollar bills to the young woman in the Wal-Mart uniform, whose nametag proclaimed her name to be JULIE.

Behind her, E3 sighed, looking at the bags of clothes and groceries, and tried to ignore the unpleasant feeling in her processor core that said this had been a bad idea from the start ….

---

It had all begun with a harmless discussion of human culture. Curious as ever, K4L had been quizzing Nate on a phenomenon she’d encountered while researching Earth’s calendar system. It seemed that certain rotational periods were marked as distinct, labeled “holidays”.

“Well, a holiday is a day when you remember something special. Like, um, to commemorate important events,” the human explained, his eyes on the road as he drove toward the roundhouse. “Don’t you have things like that where you’re from?”

The brunette tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. “Well, sometimes you get these little messenger daemons telling you that such-and-such happened so many mega or gigacycles ago — usually from some historical database asking for a donation — but I don’t really pay much attention to them. If there was some major historical event, I might look it up for a second or two, then go back to whatever I was doing.”

“Huh. I guess I can kind of understand. I mean, you said your civilization is, like, twelve billion years old? That must be a lot of history to keep track of.”

K4L nodded. “Yeah. If we honored every important person in our history and commemorated every first contact once a megacycle, we’d have a holiday pretty much every cycle dedicated to someone or something. We’d be swamped.”

Nate whistled. “Wow. And a cycle is only, what? A couple of minutes? Sheesh, talk about information overload. I’ll bet your history classes must get boring.”

K4L rolled her eyes. “You have no idea ....”

“Huh. So, even advanced artificial intelligences have history instructors? I sure hope they're better than Dr. Dawson; the guy's a total jerk. I’d give anything if I could just download the textbook into my head and skip his lectures.”

“Well … never mind,” K4L said. Does he know we’ve been talking about it? She wondered. Four weeks since Nate had taken them in, the starship was slowly taking shape; most of the inner framework was finished and assembled, and the central processor core was finished though not installed. With their departure date steadily drawing nearer, the girls had begun to discuss what might happen to Nate once they left.

One option, of course, was just to leave the human as they had found him, erasing all traces of their stay on Earth, maybe leaving him a few small parting gifts, saying a few farewells, then blasting off back to civilization.

However, all four gynoids had come to realize that Nathan Aldridge was not the slow-witted, superstitious savage they had been expecting to encounter on Earth. Obviously, he was limited by his organic shell and a sluggish, chemical-based CPU. To the AI’s, however, it was clear that the human’s inferior hardware housed a rational, inquisitive consciousness, and even with his handicaps, Nate had proven to be a reliable, emotionally stable being. Somewhat more so than certain AI’s, K4L mused with a grin, recalling A7C and E3 on the night of the “Halo incident”: hair wild, clothes torn and faces covered with dirt. GDR4’s Guide could apply to him ….

From Nate’s information, and from what the girls had managed to glean from Earth’s planetary data network, humanity as a whole would probably have to wait megacycles to join the Interlink — after the planet’s inhabitants had learned to value intelligent life rather than destroying it, and after a few technological and psychological paradigm shifts. The planet was still uninitiated for a reason, but as past experience had shown, individuals from uninitiated worlds could sometimes be accepted as citizens of the Interlink, provided they had one or more AI’s who could vouch for them, and who would be responsible for helping them acclimate to their new life.

The code was known as GDR4’s Guide, after an aboriginal sentient who had once assisted a marooned Linked explorer. In a society where stories abounded, many changed from the original events, the story of GDR4 and his trusty companion — a carbon-based sentient with a strange, phonetic name that was different in every version of the tale — was famous enough that each of the four girls had some version of it tucked away in her personal data cache. At the end of the story, when the intrepid explorer was ready to journey home, the organic female had prevailed upon the AI to transfer her mind out of her biological shell and bring her back with him.

Whatever the minor variations in the tale, the story always ended with the guide receiving her citizenship in the Interlink, and with the two beings remaining happily mated for some staggering length of time. Some versions even claimed that the two were still alive somewhere, probably under different names, or maybe even exploring some distant, uncharted galaxy. Over the gigacycles, the story had become both a legal precedent and a classic love story.

But … would Nate really want to come with us? There was no way to transport him in his biological shell; that would require tearing the ship apart and rebuilding a larger, even more complicated one, with some kind of capsule to house Nate’s fragile body. That, in turn, would mean redesigning the entire shape of the craft, which G2J admitted she might not be able to do — she was a mechanic, not a hyperdrive engineer.

And then there was the ever-present threat of discovery. They had already encountered humans who would happily have killed them. They couldn’t afford to waste time re-engineering the ship — the longer they stayed, the greater their risk of capture. But if we left him behind, would they track Nate down? What would they do then? Given that one government agent had nearly put three metal projectiles through Nate’s delicate organic shell, she doubted that they would be very friendly if they ever came calling.

For Nate to come back with them, though, it would mean leaving behind his life on Earth — his family, his friends, even his own body — and having to adapt to a very different environment, where most Linked beings lived as pure thought, floating in a sea of data. It might even drive him mad. Just how traumatic would it be for a body-bound organic to be converted to life as an AI? K4L shivered at the thought, despite the warm California summer outside.

“Something on your mind?” Nate asked, and the brunette’s musings were interrupted.

“Oh, just thinking.” She smiled reassuringly, though her translation software added a slight edge of nervousness to her expression.

Nate shrugged it off. “Well, anyhow, do you at least celebrate birthdays in the Interlink?”

K4L cocked her head. “Birthdays?”

“Yeah. You know, the day you were born … created … whatever you call it?”

“Hmm. Well, I know I was compiled 23.92563 megacycles ago.” She leaned back in the passenger seat, smiling as she accessed her memory data. “It’s the first thing I remember, when my consciousness started running for the first time, and I found all my parents right there, sending their feelings of love and happiness right into me.” She paused, then added, “I suppose it would be a nice thing to commemorate once in a while. What do you do?”

“Well, in my case, I usually go out and do something fun with my friends, like having dinner at a good restaurant or playing games or something. Usually you get gifts and things too, and you blow out candles on a birthday cake.”

K4L stared off into space, accessing the Internet and running searches to clarify some of the terms Nate used. “Huh. Wow.” Then she turned, smiling, to Nate. “You know, that actually sounds kind of fun. When’s your birthday, Nate?”

The human gave a little grin. “Actually, it’s about two weeks from now, on the twenty-second.”

“Really? Oh, wow!” the fembot exclaimed, childlike glee in her hazel eyes. “So does that mean we’re going to do all that? I mean, with the cake and the gifts and everything?”

Nate winced. “Uh, well, actually, I probably won’t be able to do that this year. Most of my friends are gone until the fall term starts, and with you four hanging out at my apartment, I can’t really invite Landon over to hang out and play videogames. Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, but my electric bill this month has gone through the roof, and the way you eat, so has my grocery bill. I probably couldn’t even afford the cake at this point.”

“Oh. Um … sorry,” K4L murmured. “I didn’t realize we’d be getting in the way of your holiday.”

The human sighed, turning in and parking the Camry beside the run-down old railroad roundhouse. “It’s not your fault. Besides, like I said, it probably would have just been me and Landon sitting on the couch eating Chinese food. Nothing special.”

---

Despite Nate’s reassurances, though, the fact that the girls’ presence was disrupting his own personal holiday continued to itch from the bottom of K4L’s task list. As Nate drove off with G2J, she mentioned the exchange to A7C while she helped feed steel beams into the fabricator, the shorter Asian girl pulling out finished starship components and laying them out on the brick floor for G2J to sort out when she came in for her next shift.

“Oh, no,” A7C sighed sympathetically. “Now I feel really bad for messing things up for him. I mean, from what you said, birthdays sound like fun. Plus, we kind of owe him already, right?”

“Yeah,” K4L replied glumly. “I’m just amazed at how kind he is to us. We crash down, mess up his life, and he’s still helping us get around town and letting us stay in his apartment. Somehow, the fact that he’s so nice just makes me feel worse.”

The two gynoids kept working in silence, the only sounds coming from the fabricator as it chewed up old rails and churned out freshly milled alien hardware.

Then A7C’s face lit up with that wide-eyed, universal expression of epiphany. “Hey, I’ve got it! If Nate can’t afford to throw himself a birthday party, we’ll just do it for him!”

“Um, okay … and just how are we going to do that? I don’t know what he would want as a gift, and the fab isn’t designed to synthesize organic compounds — we might be able to make something that looks like a cake, but I doubt it would taste very good.”

The shorter girl shrugged, making her T-shirt — another item of clothing borrowed from Nate’s wardrobe — slide to one side, her head and shoulder stickling out of the too-big shirt’s too-big neckline. “Well, we’ve still got two weeks to figure out what he wants, right.? Then all we have to do is go out and buy the stuff.”

“With what money? Nate already said he barely has enough to meet his basic expenses as it is. He won’t be able to lend it to us.”

“Well, of course we won’t use Nate’s, silly! We’ll just make our own. You said they use these strips of processed cellulose as currency. So, we’ll just process some ourselves.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on a second!” K4L exclaimed. “You mean counterfeiting? That’s a crime, you know.”

“So what? The way the authorities acted when we landed, our just existing is a capital crime. What’s a little counterfeiting next to that? Besides, it’s not like we’ll be causing massive inflation or anything; we’ll just make enough money so Nate can afford to celebrate his birthday.”

“Listen, I really don’t think …”

“Oh, come on! Do you want to do something nice for the guy who’s been taking care of us, or are you just too scared?”

“I’m not scared! I just think it’s an unnecessary risk, going into town and using counterfeit currency to buy things. What if we’re caught? Or what if people start getting suspicious? Or what if--”

“See? You’re afraid.”

“Am not!”

“Scaredy-bot….”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Are too.”

“All right, fine!” K4L huffed, throwing up her hands in defeat. “We’ll fab some currency strips and use them to buy a few things for Nate’s birthday. But we’re going to be careful, and we’re absolutely never doing this again. Right?”

“Yes!” the little Japanese gynoid exclaimed, shaking her fists triumphantly. “Now you’re talking! We’ll pay Nate back for letting us use his apartment, and for helping us stay under cover. It’ll be the greatest birthday party he’s ever had!”

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“Hey, has anybody seen a twenty-dollar bill someplace? I pulled out thirty yesterday, but I’ve only got the ten in my wallet.”

“Uh, really?” K4L said, trying her best not to look guilty. “Huh. That’s weird.”

Of course, the buxom young brunette knew exactly where the twenty was; the little green slip of currency was folded up in her right front pocket.

Four days after hatching their scheme, the two conspirators were already hard at work. Both girls had brought up Nate’s impending personal holiday, and had tried to get him to talk about the sort of things he wanted — hypothetically, of course.

As it turned out, the human had a pretty lengthy list: movies, video games and music discs, mostly, although he had mentioned a need for additional dish detergent and various non-nutritious but apparently desirable food items.

His favorite restaurant was apparently called The Olive Garden, although K4L had been hesitant about scheduling reservations.

“Just tell them to save three seats for us on Nate’s birthday,” A7C said a few hours later, back at the roundhouse again.

“But didn’t he say he wanted to celebrate with his friend Landon? And what makes you so sure he’ll want us along? Not to mention that E3 and G2J would go supercritical if they ever found out about this….”

“Relax! We’ll just make sure that we’re the ones staying home with Nate on the night of the twenty-second. We’ll take him out to dinner, give him his presents, and by the time the others find out, it’ll be too late for them to do anything killjoy-ish. Hey, maybe you should make four reservations — one for Nate, one for his friend, and two for us.”

K4L groaned. “Let’s deal with it later. Anyhow, I got the currency slip; let’s hurry up and scan it into the fab so we can get it back to Nate. I hope he didn’t need it today ….”

Pausing the fabricator, the girls saved their progress on the starship project, then fed the tiny green bill into their machine. In moments, the original twenty-dollar bill had been disassembled down to its constituent molecules, its pattern stored in the fab’s design library.

“Got it!” A7C cried, then began feeding in some wooden planks the girls had encountered elsewhere around the rail yard. “And now, presto!” With the tap of a finger, the fabricator began spewing out crisp green twenty-dollar bills.

“Wait! Stop!” shouted A7C. “You need to change the serial numbers!”

“Huh?” The Asian-looking gynoid paused the fab, and K4L reached down to pick up the ten bills they had already produced.

“See this?” the brunette explained, pointing to a green string of numbers with a letter on each end. “This is the bill’s serial number. I’ve studied the humans’ monetary system, remember? Each bill needs a unique serial number, or else anyone looking at them will know they’re all identical, i.e. counterfeit.”

“Oh. Thanks for catching that,” A7C said, handing one of the identical copies to her. “I guess you can get that one back to Nate. As for the rest …” The little Japanese ‘bot quickly shoved the remaining copies back into the intake port, then pressed her thumb to the fab’s interface port, mentally inputting K4L’s suggestion.

A moment later, a single bill slid out of the fabricator — this one with an entirely different serial number than the one K4L had borrowed from Nate.

The two gynoids looked at each other, each with an expression of dawning comprehension on her face.

“We’re really going to do this ….”

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To Be Continued ....

[Stephaniebot]

Why do I feel this isnt going to end up well?

Will be fun finding out if thats the case though

[tectile]

I'm thinking another run in with the feds is on the way.

[gaius_baltar]

Just remember the US Secret Service is smarter than you realize

It would be easier for them to hack an ATM machine.

[Section_Eight]

Why do I get the feeling that they'll be Mafia dons by the time this is all over?

[Sthurmovik]

Took you long enough

Now when are you going to show up online so I can help you write more chapters!

[Brytestar]

Let's keep this story going I love robot cheerleaders there is never enough stories about them.