Unit Two

Elise dashed for the front door. She had been checking her makeup when the doorbell rang. Shit! They're early! She flung open the front door to see the six people she expected to see, the six people on Earth who she wanted to see the very least. The Board of Directors.

"Thank you for inviting us into your home, Miss Anderson" said Roger, the Chairman of the Board. Everything about his demeanor was a lie. Just yesterday, Roger had been cursing at Elise over the phone: "We've been paying you outrageous amounts of money for your R&D project AND letting you work in the privacy of your home laboratory! You haven't given us one goddamned status update in ten months. What the fuck did you think? That we would let this go on forever? What the fuck are we paying you for?!" "It's not ready!" Elise had stammered, "you can't rush work of this quality!" "We can and we will! The other Board members and I will be over at 9 AM tomorrow, and you better goddamned justify the millions we spent on you and your project. No excuses. If we don't like it, we'll have you put away for fraud." "But..." "Good bye, Miss Anderson!"

True to their word, the Board had arrived, and now Elise needed to convince six angry men that their patronage had been worthwhile. "Right this way, gentlemen." She led them down into her basement, then below that into the laboratory. Several unfinished robots were laying on cluttered workbenches. "The lab at headquarters is significantly better-equipped than this one," quipped Mark, one of the Board members, "Why do you insist on working here instead?" "Security." Elise said flatly. "The idiots who run security at HQ are years behind the current state of corporate espionage. No one can know what I'm accomplishing." "What we are accomplishing, Miss Anderson." Roger was glaring at her. They reached the far end of the lab, and Elise opened the door to the next room and flipped on the light. "This is it. Unit Two."

There stood Elise. Or rather, what looked like Elise. Dressed only in a simple robe, Unit Two stood motionless, staring ahead at the astonished Board members. They gathered around her. Elise spoke aloud what they were all thinking: "That's right. A perfect duplicate. A fembot that looks so human, nobody can even tell the difference." Roger squinted. He was forced to agree. He had been in the robotics industry for forty years, and nobody has done this. Nobody was even close. Humans have a remarkable ability to pick up on the subtle differences between real and artificial people. But this was the genuine article. "My God, it even has pores" muttered one Board member. "How is the A.I.?" asked Roger. Elise grinned. "Unit Two, please bring us some wine." "What vintage, mistress?" Unit Two's voice matched Elise every bit as much as her appearance. "The 2011 Pinot Grigio". "We have no 2011 Pinot Grigio, mistress. May I suggest the 2010?" "That would be lovely, thank you." With that, Unit Two briskly left the room, the Board staring wide-eyed all the while.

"They say that God made Man in his image," Mark shot a sly look at Elise, "are you trying to do the same thing?" "I wanted to model it after an actual human. I was the only human here." Other questions ensued. "How did you do the skin?" "Can this be mass-reproduced?" "What are its strength tolerances?" The questions halted, however, when Unit Two returned carrying two bottles in her right hand, and seven empty wine glasses balanced on a tray in her left. She placed the tray on the table, uncorked the wine, and poured perfectly, even turning the bottle like a skilled waitress. "I've never seen such balance in a fembot!" How on Earth did you design and calibrate the gyroscopic systems so perfectly?" Elise laughed, while Unit Two distributed the glasses among the assembled guests. "You'll have the full schematics by the end of this week. For now, cheers!" Elise said, raising her glass. The Board heartily joined her.

...

After the Board left, Elise and Unit Two made their way to the kitchen. Elise took off her own shirt, then opened the panel on her abdomen. Unit Two marveled at her creation. After creating the perfect duplicate, Elise had put it to the ultimate test: the fembot took the identity of 'Elise', and the woman took the identity of 'Unit Two'. 'Unit Two' reached into 'Elise's compartment, removed her holding tank, and dumped the wine into the sink. After she replaced the tank and closed the panel, 'Elise' started moving again. "You did very well today, Unit Two," the fembot lovingly looked down at the kneeling woman, "you may pleasure me if you like." "Yes, mistress." 'Unit Two' was happy to comply. From now on, the new 'Elise' would take on her duties as a fembot designer. Someday someone would realize that 'Elise' wasn't aging, but 'Unit Two' pushed that worry out of her mind. Closing her eyes, she started nibbling on the synthetic clit of her perfect robotic mistress.

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