The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It wasn’t like she had to open her eyes. They were open. In fact, she couldn’t close them. But ever-so-slowly she realized that she could see. But something was terribly wrong. Even though she could now see clearly, she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even move her eyes, they just stared straight ahead.

The view in front of her was a laboratory / workroom. It was vaguely familiar. It was the main robotics lab of Dr. Vestrian and Drudge Craft, Inc.

Penny. Her name was Penny. Her memories were returning to her in an excruciating slow trickle. She was Dr. Penelope Kwiatkowski. She had come here to work for Dr. Vestrian. She was working for Drudge Craft. But why couldn’t she move? Or even blink?

There was a little blur of motion at the back of one of the computers—a cooling fan. Other than that, the scene in front of her might as well be a photo. From the angle she was seeing everything, she must be standing. Penny tried desperately to remember more.

Dr. Vestrian had written her, offering her the job. Drudge Craft had revolutionized the entire world with their unique robots. But they were so secretive! Her parents were thrilled when she told them the terms she’d been offered. Her parents! What were their names?

It was like she’d been in a shipwreck. Little pieces of her life came floating to the surface, and she clung to them, trying to put them together into some sort of life-raft. Time dragged on.

She could feel the rest of her body, even though she couldn’t move anything. At least she thought she could feel it—with no feedback she couldn’t be sure. She felt warm and comfortable (pleasant?); the sensation didn’t quite fit anything she’d experienced before.

She had just graduated. She had written a thesis on Neural Networks. Programming Neural Networks with massive feedback. Something like that. She remembered her first day at the Drudge Craft Labs. Dr. Vestrian showing her around. She had wondered if she would learn the secret of how they actually made a Drudge.

Drudges were totally unlike anything anyone had ever imagined a robot would be. Little, gray, rotund, genderless figures of a very simplified human form. They had eyes and ears and mouths, and three stubby fingers and thumb, their legs and arms looked rudimentary, and all other features were smoothed over. They looked like happy little cartoon characters.

They seemed to be made of stone or hardened concrete, and were all but indestructible. Some how they could move, though, slowly. Very slowly. They were cold to touch. Faster, computerized, mechanical robots did most jobs; most were purpose-built. Although Drudges were weak and very slow they still managed to sell well for certain niches—they were smart.

Obviously robotic when first delivered, Drudges each developed their own personality over the years. They were self-powered, and warranted forever. People found any number of uses for the tireless and dedicated little workers, even if they couldn’t move too fast.

The big mystery was how Drudges worked at all. Drudge Craft, headed by the mysterious Dr. Vestrian, had re-located to a tiny Caribbean republic, which in turn re-wrote its corporate secrecy laws to protect Drudge Craft’s proprietary techniques. Researchers and corporate rivals around the world had tried to figure out how a Drudge was made. The company had once famously advertised that a Drudge was solid as a rock and would continue to operate (and self-repair) through any abuse short of “accidentally backing over it with a cement mixer”.

Penny had followed Vestrian around the lab as he explained the mundane workings and everyday routines. The factory was in the next building. The computers and expensive research and diagnostic equipment were in the Main Lab. Then he had taken her through to “The Back”, the workshop / lab where she was now. This was where they tried out their manufacturing processes and actually built models and prototypes. Corporate spies around the world would give anything to get inside.

Vestrian had told her that she would be a big part of developing their next big product. He wouldn’t elaborate on what that was, and just how she fit in.

Suddenly a terrible realization swept over Penny. She was a Drudge! Somehow Vestrian had changed her into a Drudge. She was trapped inside one of those awful, barely mobile, stone statues! How had she failed to realize it before? It was obvious now.

Periodically, she tried to move, every 5 minutes or so, she estimated. Drudges could move, why couldn’t she? She couldn’t feel any restraints, but she remained frustratingly motionless. She spent her time reconstructing her memories. My first year of college—what were my classes? Where did I go? Who did I meet? As more and more came back to her, she began to identify and then fill in the gaps. She was slowly overcoming the panic that had gripped her earlier, when she could barely recall her own name.

Vestrian entered the room. He was walking around switching on equipment that had been shut off (overnight?) He turned to look at her, then came over to stand directly in front of her.

“You should be good-to-go by now, Penny.” He said pleasantly, “Shall we give it a try?”

He bent down and typed something into a desktop computer sitting next to her. She couldn’t turn her head or even shift her eyes to see what he was doing. He was right on the edge of her peripheral vision. Fortunately he was talking to himself.

“Ah, here it is. We’ll start out in passive command mode and just test out the snappy new auto-sequence routines. That should be real fun.”

He stood up and stepped directly in front of her. He glanced back at the computer screen.

“Penny—Activation Code DC017PRSS000023—BASIC. Acknowledge.”

" > active < ”

Was that her voice? It sounded so distant, and so—mechanical. Her mouth had moved on its own. It must have been her speaking. The sound had come out without her thinking about it.

“When ready, turn slowly in place.” Vestrian took a step back. Nothing happened. He reached for the chair that went with the nearby desk and computer he had been using. He rolled it to where he’d been standing in front of her and sat down, watching her intently.

Suddenly she could move! Slowly, very, very slowly she was turning around where she stood. She could shift her head slightly up and down, as well as about 30 degrees in the direction she was turning. She didn’t seem to be able to stop turning. It was agonizingly slow, like she was standing neck-deep in heavy mud. But she could move her eyes and look around.

She was standing in her own little alcove in one wall of the lab. Three floor-to-ceiling mirrors covered the back and sides of her niche. A very bright light was directly overhead. She was on display.

Now she could see herself in the mirror. It wasn’t her! Penny was a bit short and a little pear-shaped. People told her she was “Cute”. At least, nobody recoiled in disgust when she smiled. The image in the mirror, though, was not Penny. It was a goddess. Totally naked and completely hairless, she looked somewhat like a store mannequin. She had very light gray skin and was anatomically correct. Long (perfect) legs; narrow, flat (perfect) waist; large, firm (perfect) breasts; she tapered and curved and filled out perfectly. Her face had a classic beauty and dignity which seemed to be enhanced, rather than detracted from, by the fact she was bald. She was some master sculptor’s erotic masterpiece in gray marble.

Penny had plenty of time to look. Her involuntary rotation continued forever. She could see Vestrian in each of the mirrors in turn, sitting there watching her critically. There was something sitting on the floor nearby, glowing red. It was the size and shape of a desktop fan, and had some sort of dish, pointed at her. Slowly, as she came back around to face Vestrian, she remembered what it was. It was a little home space heater, with a directional parabolic reflector.

Vestrian gave a little clap of delight. “Now let’s have a first run through on the money program. Go over and lie on the bed.” He pointed.

She tried to stop herself. She tried to stand still and not move at all. She tried to do something, anything, else. She couldn’t scream, or hit him, or sit down, or anything. Ever so slowly she was walking to the small bed in the far corner of the lab. Her tortuous slow motion just made her humiliation drag on and on. Vestrian had rolled his chair back up to the desk and typed something into the computer.

It took her 5 minutes just to cross the room. Plenty of time to think. How slow were Drudges, anyway? Penny tried to remember. About 1/4th the speed of a slow person on a slow day. As she was almost to the bed, Vestrian seemed to remember something, and hustled up to her again.

“Assume room temperature.” He told her.

Suddenly the warm room grew quite cold. Penny was sitting down on the edge of the bed, about to lie down as instructed. Her nipples stood out in the unexpected chill. Vestrian noticed this detail, reaching out one hand to touch her breast.

“Oh! Excellent touch, Nicholas!” He remarked.

Drudges were self-powered. That was important, though Penny couldn’t remember when she had learned it. They absorbed energy one-way through their skin surface. That was one of Drudge Craft’s trade secrets. That was why they were cold to the touch. It would be a lousy power source, if they weren’t so incredibly energy efficient, but it was free. That’s why Drudges slowed almost to a stop in cold climates. Vestrian had positioned that space heater pointing at her to help power her up initially!

It was so frustrating having these thoughts and memories returning to her in little fragments. By now she was reclining passively on the bed. Vestrian came over again, and stood looking at her. With a little shrug he began to take off his clothes.

Without further conversation, he raped her.

Penny stood in her well-lit, mirrored niche, deeply ashamed. Sex with Dr. Vestrian had triggered all sorts of involuntary responses in her. She had moved at something approaching normal speed for the first time since becoming a robotic Drudge. Her movements had all been in response to his, accepting, co-operating and encouraging her own further violation. She had also been suddenly flooded with sensations and memories. The first time she had seen the Grand Canyon—standing at the rim and looking out over the spectacular panorama. Playing on the floor with her new puppy, Boris. Eating a hot fudge sundae. Relaxing in a warm bubble bath. The day she brought home straight A’s on her 6th grade report card. The smell of fresh-baked bread. Being tickled by Darren at that party. Every orgasm she had ever had in her lifetime, and then some.

Penny recognized that someone had altered the associations in her brain with the intent of making her think “SEX = GOOD”. They had gone overboard, though, linking in every happy, joyful, pleasant, erotic, and enthusiastic moment she had ever experienced. It hadn’t worked properly, sex was not good.

Sex was beyond fantastic.

Even now, hours later, as Penny waited patiently, her foremost hope was that Vestrian would return and use her again. She wished she could speak, to tell him “take me now”.

Of course she hated this reaction in herself. The mad scientist had abducted her and transformed her into an animated sex toy. She was trapped in this body, in this lab, on this island. He had violated her very thoughts and desires. There was no telling how many other innocent victims had been changed into slow-moving Drudges, robot slaves sold to the highest bidder. She had to stop him somehow.

A week had gone by. Vestrian came to the lab every day to have sex with her. The sex got better and better. There was some sort of feedback loop running out of control in her head. She hated Vestrian and her captivity and her helplessness and her frustration, but the sex was incredible. She could not speak, but noises were coming from her during sex—moans and grunts and screams and inarticulate exclamations of ecstasy. Once they began screwing, she was not in control. Of course, she was not in control at any other time, but it was made so much more obvious by her behavior during sex.

Penny thought continually, frantically, of how to end Vestrian’s diabolical transformations and bring down his hideous commercial operation. Vestrian always returned her to stand in her niche, and reset her from “BASIC” to “DORMANT” mode, whatever that meant. She would get a feeling of warmth as she began to absorb a trickle of energy from her environment. Usually Vestrian left the heater pointed at her, although he had forgotten twice. She didn’t notice a difference. How long could she go before running down? Regular Drudges operated continuously, just slowing down (even more) if power was low. Penny felt intrinsically that she was using a lot more energy during sex, when she was at almost normal speed, but she was motionless the rest of the day to make up for it.

Penny made and discarded hundreds of plans. She didn’t sleep. She had hours on end to run the problem through her head and come up with different solutions. Then, on the 8th day, when Vestrian made a mistake and left her an opportunity, she knew exactly what she would try first.

He had left her lying on the bed and went to answer a call. He didn’t come back right away, and apparently had forgotten about her. Penny had discovered that when she was in what she called “SEX mode” she had some small voluntary control over her motions. It was a tiny gap in Vestrian’s otherwise iron-clad control over her. Ever-so-carefully, whenever Vestrian was raping her, she had experimented with small gestures of her own. It was so difficult to concentrate, as feelings of euphoria nearly overwhelmed her consciousness.

Now she was just lying there, able to think clearly again, and Vestrian might not be back all night. It was her chance. In order to move at all, Penny had to visualize each motion in a sexual context. Her imaginary lover wrapped his strong arms around her, lifting her lips to his for a kiss . . . . Penny was able to close her eyes, arching her back to sit up and return his kiss, and she was almost surprised when she opened her eyes and didn’t find herself in his passionate embrace. Now she was sitting up.

So she was allowed to respond on her own initiative for sex. All she had to do was break down what she needed to do into small steps and imagine some romantic scenario that called for that particular move. Her make-believe lover slowly waltzed her across the floor towards the door of the Main Lab, his hands slowly caressing her as he smothered her with kisses. She had to imagine every detail, make it seem so real, she had to be vivid enough to fool even herself.

Finally Penny was standing at the door. She was exhausted. She wasn’t breathing hard. She wasn’t breathing at all. Her heart wasn’t pounding. She’d been made into a freak robot, damn it. But her mind was confused and racing, as she tried to sort out reality from her own erotic imaginings. She must have stood there 5 minutes, just focusing and calming herself.

Penny knew she hadn’t recovered all her memories. Vestrian giving her the 1st-day tour of the lab was the last clear, consecutive memory she was sure of. There were other bits and pieces she must have picked up later, like the bit about absorbing heat through the skin. And the most important piece—she knew that just outside the door to the workshop, where she now stood, out in the Main Lab, there was a computer terminal. It wasn’t networked to the rest of the computers in the Drudge Craft Lab because it was connected to the Internet, the outside world.

It would be so easy to just stand here. Just standing was what she did best now. But Vestrian had to be stopped. Somehow he was turning people into Drudges. Penny couldn’t remember being turned into a robot for Vestrian’s sick amusement. No doubt she had quickly discovered the secret behind his evil operation, and he had done it to keep her from revealing all. She imagined some infernal device, wailing and buzzing, enclosing her like a transparent sarcophagus. Nanobots scurrying through her body as she was bombarded with gamma rays and infused with secret chemical “X”. Dr. Vestrian, laughing diabolically, holding up a wicked-looking surgical instrument . . . .

It had probably been nothing so theatrical, though doubtless painful, frightening and traumatic. No wonder she couldn’t remember it.

Meanwhile, she was pressed against the door. This would be almost too easy to make-believe. She ran her hands down his solid chest, massaging his rock-hard abs, working her way down his unyielding body to firmly grip and turn his . . . . latch. And she was through, into the Main Lab.

She made it to the terminal. The Main Lab was empty. She had already composed, in her head, the message she would need to send out. She would e-mail her parents. She would tell them what had happened to her and all about Vestrian’s evil. She would verify that she was who she claimed to be. She would suggest a course of action to alert the authorities and bring an end to Drudge Craft.

She theorized that other Drudges must be transformed from the ranks of the homeless, or criminals, or illiterate peasants from some 3rd world backwater. People who wouldn’t be missed—brain-wiped, indoctrinated, enslaved. Vestrian had probably left her memories just to gloat over and torment her with, thinking she was trapped and helpless in her robot body. She continued to type, gently caressing her lover’s face, sending her warning message out to the world.

Ha! That’ll teach the mad doctor not to try to enslave a Ph.D. Roboticist!

Penny was still at the keyboard when She found her, hours later.

“You!” She yelled, hurrying across the lab, “My parents just called from London, frantic. Dad checks his e-mail first thing in the morning these days, and what should he find but some crazy message about me being turned into a Robot!” She had made it all the way to where Penny was sitting.

Penny desperately tried to turn her head to see who was speaking. The voice sounded so familiar. She tried to think quickly of a scenario where she would turn her head during sex. Too late. Whoever it was had reached her, and simply grabbed her chair and swiveled it around to face her. Penny came face to face with Dr. Penny Kwiatkowski.

Neither of them said anything for a minute.

“Why did you send that message? What are you trying to do? Upset my parents?” She still sounded angry. Penny couldn’t say anything. “Answer me!”

Another long pause.

Suddenly Penny (the human one) began to cry. Her mouth dropped open. “Oh My God! You thought you were me! Didn’t Dr. Vestrian tell you?”

She continued a monologue as she wheeled Penny, still sitting in the swiveling computer desk chair, back into the workshop and over to her display alcove. “I was the only woman on the neural net “shortcut” team, and since the new brain was slated to go into a prototype sex-bot, they figured I had better be the paradigm, or all sorts of basic functions could get screwed up. Uh, you’re #23 of the sex-slave prototypes, but the first we tried the neural scan / feedback programming on.”

“I had to spend 6 weeks hooked up to that machine over there,” She pointed across the workshop, “Raise your right hand, stick out your tongue, wiggle your big toes, stand, turn around slowly, sit, nod your head yes, etc. etc. etc. It was very boring. We were trying to bypass the 6-month learning period before a new-made Drudge can move and perform basic tasks.”

“It must have been awful for you.” She now was sitting at the terminal that Vestrian had used that first day to call up her access code. “I can’t believe Dr. Vestrian didn’t tell you anything. I’m going to rip him a new ass-hole when he gets in this morning.”

“Penny—Activation Code DC017PRSS000023—FULL
ACTIVATION. Acknowledge.” She read off the computer screen.

" > active < ”

Once again the word blurted out before she knew it.

“So tell me what happened.”

“I can talk!” Penny said with delight. “I was wondering if something was defective. I couldn’t move or speak or do anything.”

“Start at the beginning, and tell me everything.”

It was like talking to the sister she’d never had. No, they were closer than that. It was like talking to herself—almost, but not quite, knowing the answer the other would give. “Original” Penny filled her in on technical information from the months that she couldn’t seem to remember. Penny-bot described her experiences since waking up. Penny assured her that Drudges were all manufactured—there was no secret slave pens where unwilling people were turned into obedient robots.

“That’s exactly the conclusion I would have come to, though, if I woke up turned into a Drudge.”

Penny-bot’s personality, attitudes, behavior and memories were incredibly complete in matching “Original” Penny’s. The last three months were fragmented and confused, however.

“This is going to keep the research team hopping for years. We were only going for simple housekeeping functions—voluntary motions, arms, legs, maybe even depth perception and maintaining balance if we got lucky. Definitely not my summer at the lake, and high school prom, let alone my very identity and awareness.”

Later the conversation turned to sex, and Penny-bot tried to described the wonderful collection of feelings and sensations that kicked in, ever-more powerfully, every time.

“Do you want to . . . .” Penny-bot eventually asked.

“Let’s . . . .” They both knew what they were talking about. With anybody else this would have been impossibly embarrassing for either of them. Penny-bot explained that it was a 10 minute walk across the room for her. Penny just rolled her chair for her, over to the bed.

“The cleaning crew only comes in here under supervision.” Penny commented as she changed the sheets, “This is just the sort of thing Dr. Vestrian wouldn’t think to do himself.”

“I’ve always wondered . . . .”

“We have plenty of time to try . . . .”

“Wow! You really are beautiful . . . .”

“Yes, keep doing that!”

They were totally inexperienced at this, and it would have been prohibitively silly and awkward, not at all romantic and erotic, except that each of them knew EXACTLY what the other was thinking and feeling and wanting. It didn’t hurt, either, that Penny-bot’s reactions were, at least in part, hard-wired in. They enjoyed themselves immensely, and explored many possibilities. Penny-bot lacked many capabilities that she had taken for granted, and some of her movements were frustratingly slow, but they also discovered that she could extend her tongue well beyond any human limit.

When Dr. Vestrian entered the workshop that morning, he found Dr. Kwiatkowski and the “Penny” prototype Drudge both sitting there waiting for him. Dr. Kwiatkowski had a goofy smile as he entered, but launched into an angry tirade as soon as she saw him. She was well into it by the time he was paying attention.

“. . . . I’ve already talked to them twice to calm them down. If she had contacted the local authorities first, instead of my parents, you would probably already be fending off search warrants and subpoenas this morning. You couldn’t have done much worse if you’d made a deliberate effort to torment her. You couldn’t find ten seconds in the last WEEK to explain the situation to her? If I hadn’t intervened, her next goal was to sabotage the Lab, and from the plan she described to me, I think she would have been able to shut things down for months. Her feelings aside, don’t you think you should have notified the Neural Scan Team when you were ready to activate her?”

“Wait a minute,” Vestrian interrupted her invective, “I’ve only had her in BASIC Mode. She shouldn’t be awake at all, and shouldn’t move or do anything except under direct command. Now you’re telling me she’s running around on her own, and thinking she’s you.”

“She found a gap in the BASIC mode programming, where it interacts with the sexual response allowances.” Penny beamed like her daughter had just won the state spelling bee.

“And I would appreciate a more complete explanation of all my variances from the standard model Drudge.” Penny-bot said; “I’ve been trying to figure out things for myself, and I’d really like to know what I’ll be dealing with for the rest of my life. “Know Thyself” and all that . . . .”

Vestrian turned and looked at her as if his coffee-table had asked him to discuss property rights and tort law theory. “Uhh, . . . .” He looked back at Penny, who shrugged and smiled.

“You are a prototype, not a standard model.” He began, “You see, we found out, much to our surprise, that there were a number of people, sometimes acting as a group or club, who were buying and using Drudges for sex.”

Penny-bot had the same reaction (of course) as Penny had—it was just about the last thing she could imagine doing with a Drudge. They were just 4 feet tall and looked like a cross between the Pillsbury Doughboy and a Garden Gnome. They were all as genderless as a brick. “How?”

“Some people are just kinky weird.” Vestrian continued, “They were paying full price to use a cutting-edge AI as a sex toy. A damn poor sex toy, if you ask me. Drudge Craft decided to investigate this market.”

“In addition to the new body, you incorporate two other, more general advances that we are working on. As you know, Drudges are quite slow and weak. Very slow, in fact. You can have a Drudge turn a knob or switch, but it can’t drive a nail, because that takes a swift motion. In the field, a Drudge can now make such a move if it is pre-planned. It “saves up” the motion and releases it all at once, so to speak. We thought we might put together a pre-packaged set of such moves, already installed, for Drudges that were to be used for a specialized job.”

“Unfortunately the only prototypes we were working on were the sex models. Sex involves too diverse a range of motions to program easily, so we ended up with a routine that enabled the Drudge to “learn” her most used maneuvers and add them to her “Rapid Motion Memory”, so to speak. Then we lifted that memory from each prototype in turn and installed it in the next one as a starting set.”

“That “learning” technique is how we originally developed all the “BASIC Mode” programs. Even so, A Drudge comes with only primitive and rudimentary abilities. They basically have to learn for themselves after we activate them. It takes about 6 months of training before we can ship them off-site. That’s a huge investment in inventory, not to mention training personnel. A group of our top researchers developed some very advanced neural scanning equipment that was supposed to translate human brain activity for simple tasks into a pattern recognizable by our Drudges’ optical AI. Dr. Kwiatkowski was brought in to help develop software and feedback routines for that team.”

“I was the only woman on the team.” Penny jumped in, “Since we were forced to install our first results in an obviously female ‘bot who would be used for sex, we all felt that using a male volunteer for the initial pattern could lead to trouble.”

“Obviously, the Neural Scan Idea did not work as it was supposed to. Still, BASIC Mode is supposed to be almost mechanical, not activating your AI functions at all. I was just testing out your, uhmm, “response” programming.”

“I’ve been awake since the morning of Monday the 7th; hours before you came in, and continuously since then.” Penny-bot said, “Your commands in BASIC Mode would override my own thoughts, not shut them down. Dr. Kwiatkowski and I have been having a technical conversation. Did you realize that my brain seems to be operating in real time, possibly even slightly accelerated, despite all my motions being so slow? That I can see a full colour spectrum? My sense of touch is present, but sort of numb, like your face after the dentist gives you a shot of Novocain.”

“Do you realize, Dr. Vestrian,” Penny exclaimed, “We have here someone who not only has my identical technical background, but can evaluate Drudge performance from a human comparison? I want to add her to the Neural Scan Team. Can we even hire a Drudge?”

“I think we can make some accommodation.” Vestrian answered, “She is legally considered personal property, though.”

“What was your original plan for me?” Penny-bot asked hesitantly, “I’m not scheduled to be scrapped when you’re through testing?”

“Actually, we were going to give you away to a Company top performer as a sales incentive or productivity bonus.” Vestrian answered, “Although it had been suggested making you “available” to all the employees as a sort of “morale booster”.”

“But now, with her education and qualifications, we can hire her for research and design!” Penny suggested, “I’m sure some sort of company account can be set up for her wages, if there’s a legal problem with her identity.”

“I’ll be happy to work in research, so long as it doesn’t interfere with me rutting like a bitch in heat, until I’ve made it with every willing man, woman and domestic animal at Drudge Craft, on this island, for that matter.” Penny-bot announced.

“Huh?” Penny looked at her in confusion.

“I’ve managed to surprise you!” Penny-bot laughed, “Think about it, though, I have. Sex is so much better for me now than it ever was before. I won’t wear out or get tired. I can’t catch some STD. I won’t get pregnant. I’m not saving myself for some future husband. I’m not worried about my reputation or the respect of my peers—I have no peers, and everyone will think of me a some sub-human sex-robot, no matter what I do. So I intend to indulge in every wanton, depraved and extreme sex fantasy that I can imagine.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Penny protested, “I would never do that. Where is this coming from? Some programming override?”

“I am not you.” Penny-bot explained cheerfully, “I can never be more than a poor imitation of you, a pale shadow. I have to diverge from your life somehow. I think this is radical enough to make us two different people forever.” She turned to Vestrian again. “I am interested in your plan to check me out to employees like a library book. Or use me as a performance incentive for your top people. I want you to know I am certainly overjoyed and enthusiastic, even eager to participate. I want to “service” any and all the people of Drudge Craft. One at a time, in groups, or all at once. Free of any charge, of course.”

Penny-bot worked with her name-sake on the Neural Scan Team, and helped out with other research projects at Drudge Craft. They did, at Dr. Kwiatkowski’s insistence, establish an account she could use to purchase personal items, gifts and services. Penny-bot rapidly acquired an unbelievably scandalous reputation throughout the Company. She shared detailed accounts of her countless, nasty, erotic adventures with the “Original” Penny, who enjoyed the many sexual thrills vicariously through her robotic avatar. Penny-bot was incapable of performing some human functions, but she was also all but indestructible, and never said “No” to trying anything at all. She was able to handle many fantasies and scenarios that a human would have found impossible or even fatal.

No matter how they tried, the team could never replicate the kind of transfer success that created Penny-bot. All they managed to confer to subsequent prototypes were basic motor skills. Penny-bot remained, for the time being, unique.