A Helping Hand

Part 1

Jane Sanders bolted up the stairs of her apartment to her room on the second floor, stumbling twice on the steps and freezing motionless as she selected her keys before entering her one room studio. She quickly moved to close the door, slamming it twice into her foot before moving to allow the door to shut. She turned and moved to the center of the kitchen, her brown hair swishing around as she did so. She cocked her head to the side while her wireless modem attempted to connect with her desktop in the bedroom while a panel opened on her upper chest between the straps of her tank top to reveal a glowing LCD screen. Jane blinked and straightened up to full attention. “Fatal error. System restart.” She stated, letting out a brief shudder as the LCD panel flickered and blinked off. Her head slumped to her chest, eyes half closed and distant.

Obviously Jane Sanders was not human.

After nearly a full minute, Jane’s panel glowed brightly on once more. She lifted her head and her eyes snapped wide open.

“Jane Sanders, Androcorp Android model FAA55712, firmware revision 8.6.79874 system online. Beginning start up checks.” She said evenly. Her touch screen began to populate, the name ‘Jane’ appearing in the top left corner while a box labeled ‘Status’ appeared on the right with a wireframe model of a humanoid flashing in white. A small list of status indicators appeared, the number ‘65%’ beneath the image of a battery, and three bars measuring her CPU usage, disk space, and human emulation level sat in the bottom right corner, the word ‘Populating…’ shimmering inside them.

“Last system status: critical.” Jane continued. “Viral infiltration detected at 15:12:35, 3/13/2054, status: Not contained. Multiple unauthorized attempts to access primary AI root structure resulted in emergency soft system restart. Scanning for errors.” Jane stood stock still once more as the word “Scanning…” appeared on her status panel.

A sharp beep issued from Jane as the words ‘System Alert-Virus Detected’ appeared on her panel, outlined in red. Jane blinked rapidly before announcing “Warning: Virus detected. Beginning unit self-repair protocol. Starting AI…Hi! I’m Jane Sanders!” A perky smile spread across the android’s face, quickly melting into horror. “Oh, no!” she moaned, suddenly recalling her situation. Jane quickly scooted over to her computer, shaking it awake while she accessed her secure wireless link. New lines crawled across the status box in her vision:

Jane Sanders Network Connections: Cellular WAP: Enabled-Voice only (Error 293: Malicious incoming data detected. Closed to quarantine) WiFi Access: Enabled-Scanning for networks…Multiple wireless networks detected. Connecting to JaneHome… Username: Jane4896 Password: ********* Connecting…done.

“Finally!” Jane sighed, opening up her desktop’s Bot PowerTool software and synchronizing it with her systems. An image of her nude from the torso up appeared on the left of the screen, while critical system information and a copy of her status logs appeared to the right. Below that, a cloned image of her LCD screen appeared, system error message still pinging away. She worked quickly to initialize a virus check over the wireless link, as she didn’t know when the insurgent code would begin its attack once more.

She sat back while the scan initialized, and wondered just how she had gotten into this mess.

Jane was a freshman at Northeastern University, a school that had recently begun to quietly accept FW A+ Class AIs like herself into their programs, even self-aware units like herself. She had been pretty careful to keep her identity a secret, and even though no school or government policy prevented her presence at a place like Northeastern there were still enough prejudiced individuals out there who had trouble accepting AIs on equal terms. She had amassed a decent circle of friends, one or two of whom she at least suspected of being a fellow android, but she had no concrete proof to back it up.

When they had celebrated her “birthday” two months ago, her friend Nikki had mentioned that her (supposed) age of eighteen made her “legal” and “above the age of consent”. Jane had been confused by this until she realized that Nikki was referring to sexual intercourse.

This puzzled Jane for several weeks. While her base programming came with rudimentary data concerning human flirting, intimacy, and copulation, she had never had much experience or desire to use it at all, but since the one year anniversary of her activation she had been sensing a growing urge to experiment with this programming, going so far as to seducing her friend Josh to make out with her while he was drunk. He had passed out before she had reached the next step, however, and Jane’s desire remained ever increasing in its intensity. She would look at boys (and some girls, too) in her classes and feel sensations in her loins that she had never felt before from the source of a curious leak in her crotch. It was starting to get frustrating and distracting, and while she knew she could disable the feature, she enjoyed the feeling of arousal too much to live without it. Funny, she had worried she’d had a virus then, only to discover that she was just really horny.

So when conversation at lunch this afternoon had turned to masturbation, Jane had processed the information for a full thirty seconds before chiming in and asking a variety of sensitive but not personal questions to the girls at the table. She couldn’t believe it; her data banks contained absolutely no information on self gratification, but it was such a simple solution she was amazed that she hadn’t seen it before.

Sitting in class and listening to the professor only took a small portion of her processing power, so she let her mind wander the internet, searching for more data on this curious new phenomenon. There were many applications from reputable developers that contained a variety of pleasure routines, both for personal use and for partners, but they were expensive, and a quick check of her bank account made it clear that she wouldn’t be able to afford them for some time. She had initially hesitated when she came to sites offering freeware cracks and warez, but she continued on anyway. It was getting to the point where her processing capacity was focused nearly 100% on sexual intercourse while she spaced out in class. She had to get release soon, lest something more compromising slip through.

Jane had paused as she read over the description of a file multiple times. Young, hot, and restless, the description read, is specifically designed for those first-timers out there, or for those who want their droid to behave like one! Has your droid discovered the concept of a little whoopee that’s beginning to compromise its functionality? Are you looking to looking to circumvent those age restrictions, just to watch, or are you looking for the first time to be the height of pleasure for the both of you? If so, YHR is the package for you! One quick install into the root folder, and your droid’s panties will be sopping wet (or dick hard-works for male androids, too!) in no time. What are you waiting for?

It sounded too good to be true to Jane, and she couldn’t find any reviews of the software, but the file had only been uploaded in the last few days, and after the second time the professor had called on her with a lack of response, she decided to go for it.

The rest of class was a pain, and she could barely contain her excitement as she watched the estimated download time tick down, finishing just as class got out. She bid a hasty goodbye to her friends and practically sprinted to a private bathroom, nearly bowling over Josh in the process. Locking the door, Jane sat on the seat, pulled her blue skirt and panties down, and began the installation. She didn’t hesitate as her subsystems asked for repeated permissions to make alterations to her kernel and root structure, she just wanted this so badly. Soon, the progress bar had reached 100% and the install finished. With shaky breaths, Jane initialized the program.

The effect was instantaneous. An alto moan escaped her lips as she felt an intense rush of pleasure emanate from her nether regions. She ran a hand down over her already moistening lips, squirming a bit as she gasped in pleasure. After teasing for a while, she reached in and put her fingers inside the flaps of her pussy.

“Oooh! Oh, yeah, baby!” She moaned, words that did not form from her conscious mind. Jane barely noticed. “Oh, so good…” She stroked herself harder and faster, feeling the waves of pleasure building towards an approaching orgasm.

“Hah! Hah! Hahhh!” She gasped as her fingers began vibrating out of her control, a feeling of impending explosion building between her legs. Something was going to happen! She clamped her eyes shut and—

Warning: Illegal subroutine running in AI kernel Warning: Unauthorized access to system core detected Illegal instruction

“Huh?” Jane’s eyes popped open. She hadn’t orgasmed, but strange sensations ran through her body. “Huh?” She repeated, her head twitching, “Huh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh?”

Critical system error! Illegal operation: jsdfias.exe tried to shut down AI. Attempting force quit…failed! Alert: Virus detected! Beginning system quarantine now…

Jane bolted up, her eyes wide with panic. She could feel the malicious code spreading its dendritic influence like a spiderweb from her sexual processors, interfacing with her root files through the backdoors she had allowed the program to install. Her body locked up briefly as it attempted to shut her down once more, grabbing access to more files in the process and spinning off copies to attack other subsystems in her body. Working furiously with her antivirus software, Jane hastily put up firewalls to contain the damage, but the virus was moving too fast. Further waves of panic coursed through her processors until—

“Fatal error. System restart.” She announced, her head dropping to her chest before picking up once more as she went through her start up routine.

“Hi! I’m Jane Sanders!” she announced, her face turning to fear once more. She had just done a soft reboot of her AI. Jane hadn’t done that in a long time, as it was usually reserved for compromising critical software errors that she couldn’t resolve on her own, giving a third party the option to repair a seriously malfunctioning android.

It was then that Jane knew she needed to get home as fast as possible.

She bolted from the bathroom, stumbling as her system locked up from yet another illegal access attempt. Making for the door of the student center, she knocked over a stand of postcards, offering a stuttering apology to the proprietor. Jane hopped onto the bus and collapsed into a seat. Staring straight ahead, she blinked rapidly several times and froze for a full thirty seconds before snapping back to life with a softly murmured “System error.”

Almost missing her stop, Jane bolted for her apartment door, running headlong into and bouncing off of the glass panel. She fell to her rear and sat there motionless for a moment until a passerby offered her a hand up.

“So clear and streak free, you didn’t even know it was there, huh?” he chuckled, but stopped as Jane turned to face him with wide eyes.

“The current time is…is four forty-five PM and thirty-two seconds, Friday, March thirteenth, two-thousand fifty four.”

“Uh, you’re welcome?” The man raised his eyebrow and began walking away. Jane shook her head furiously.

“S-Sorry! Thank you!” She called after him and quickly made her way into the apartment.

Now, sitting on her chair in her bedroom, she wondered what burgers to cook for that night. Jane stopped, no that wasn’t it, she wondered what globe you could find lightbulbs on, or what hats were in her schism of school names. Wait…

Jane’s head jerked up to look at her monitor. A large biohazard symbol had opened in a new window. “Antivirus Error:” it proclaimed. “Unable to clean over wireless connection. Please connect the unit by Ethernet to continue.” Meanwhile underneath, her status logs began filling up:

Finished memory recall: ??? (TIME/DATE ERROR) Illegal op: jsdfias.exe tried to shut down AI Failed to close jsdfias.exe (SYSLOCK) Wireless virus scan failure. Please connect via ethernet Alert: Cognitive malfunction Illegal op: jsdfias.exe tried to shut down AI Failed to close jsdfias.exe (SYSLOCK) Main memory space at 45% remaining

The outline of her interface port appeared beneath her left breast as Jane slipped part of her tank top off. She frantically began searching for an Ethernet cord. Spotting one behind her desk she reached for it and froze, striking her head on the edge before coming back to life with a gasp. The malfunctioning android tried three more times to get up and grab the cable, only to be paralyzed for her attempt. The virus was smart, she realized, it wasn't going to let her plug herself in!

Illegal op: jsdfias.exe tried to shut down AI Failed to close jsdfias.exe (SYSLOCK) Main memory space at 41% remaining

Jane made her mind up quickly. Her main memory was rapidly filling up, and soon the virus' attempts to shut her down wouldn't matter. She'd crash from the lack of disk space. She had to do something that she had feared since she was first activated, and ask a human for help.

Jerkily, she grabbed a pen and notebook from the contents strewn across her desk, and began to write. She focused as much of her resources as she could allow into writing her message, even as she felt the virus' prodding attempts to seize control of that part of her systems. She didn't have much time...

There! With effort, Jane finished writing, slumping back in her desk chair and convulsing slightly as the virus attempted to assert control over her servomotor systems. She gave one final jerk as she locked the virus out, gulping down air to cool her hot circuits. That was the easy part, she knew the next would take a considerably greater deal of effort.

She looked over at her cell phone, laying amongst the spilled contents of her school bag across the room too far for her malfunctioning body to reach. That was out of the question, but there was always…

Initializing wireless communications system… Checking cellular communication data connection-DONE Checking VOIP software stability-DONE ERROR: Illegal access detected to cellular communications data network software. Continue? ERROR: Illegal instruction in VOIP voice synthesis program. Continue?

Jane nodded and continued through. Whatever errors there were, she would just have to suffer through them.

Accessing friends and acquaintances database. WARNING: Database inconsistencies detected! Some files may be corrupted or compromised. Querying database: Josh Vosima 1 entry found: Name: Josh Vosima Age: 18 DOB: 2/11/2036 Occupation: Student Phone(Cellular): (617)215-3692 eMail: J_vosi@northeastern.edu Known bio: JoshVosima iis currentl-[[)*&**--FILE CORRUPTED

Passing contact info to dialer Dialing (627)115-3692: Unknown Contact… Number invalid. Retrying… End call

Passing contact info to dialer Dialing (617)369-2215: Unknown Contact Number invalid. Retrying… End call

Passing Contact info to dialer Dialing (617)215-3692: Josh Vosima Ringing…Connected!

“Hello?” Jane heard Josh’s voice inside her head.

“Josh?”

“Yep, who’s calling?”

“Josh Vosima?” Jane asked in the same intonation.

“Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this?” Josh replied.

“It’s Jane. Jane Sanders.”

“Oh, hey Jane! How are you?”

“It’s Jane Sanders.” She repeated.

“Umm, ok Jane Sanders, what’s up?”

“Up?” Jane felt the virus reaching out once again, disrupting her cognitive processes.

“Haha, yeah, Jane, what’s going on?” Josh chuckled.

“I am currently sitting in my room ex-experiencing a…a…” Jane shuddered as her AI made gains and grabbed more system resources away from the virus, “Josh, listen, I…I…something bad is going on with me and I really need your help.”

“What? What’s wrong? Are you ok?” Concern edged into Josh’s voice.

“I…I’m…no, Josh, I am not ok. Can you come over to my place as soon as you can?”

“Of course!” Jane heard the sound of a chair scraping and the clinking of keys. “You’re still at that place on Columbus street, right? Unit three?”

“Yes.”

“I’m on my way. Look, Jane, it would really help if you told me what this was about.”

“I…I can’t. I’ll explain everything when you get here. My door is unlocked.”

“I’m on my way now.”

“And Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“Hurry.”

With a burst of electronic noise, the virus broke through her barriers and crashed the VOIP program.

Unknown error detected in VOIP configuration-File corrupted Ending call… This program has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down {VOIP.exe} Illegal op: jsdfias.exe tried to shut down AI Failed to close jsdfias.exe (SYSLOCK) ALERT: Main memory space at 25% remaining

Jane’s head lolled to the side and her eyes glazed over. Josh had been the obvious choice to call. The two had been close ever since they had been in the same orientation group together. She smiled weakly as she recalled the times they had spent together on the harbor cruise, grabbing dinner at the noodle place downtown, his smile, the rush she had felt when they had made out last month, the feeling of his stiffening member against her body…

She noticed rather dully that her hand had slipped under her panties, lazily massaging her dampening crotch.

“Uhhh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uhhhhhhhhn!” she let out a stuttering moan and looked towards the door. She hoped Josh would get there soon...

Part 2

Outside, on the city streets, Josh ran.

He had missed the bus by a mere 30 seconds, and he knew after six months of living in the city that the next one wouldn’t be around for another 10 minutes. He had done the math in his head: Jane’s place was only a seven minute run away, and whatever she had called for sounded serious enough not to wait.

He swiftly crossed a busy intersection, pace barely slowing as he dodged oncoming traffic. Josh had been keeping in good shape, in spite of the nights of heavy drinking that came with the tuition at college. Slipping in behind an arriving tenant, Josh trotted up the steps to Jane’s apartment. He quickly mopped sweat off his brow, composing himself as he caught his breath on Jane’s doorstep. I’m not even that winded! He smiled to himself as he knocked on Jane’s door

“It’s-it’s open!” Jane’s voice called from beyond the oak door, but it sounded different, almost tinny. Josh shrugged and turned the handle. Crossing the barrier, his jaw dropped at what he saw.

At her desk on the other side of the apartment, Jane sat topless, the straps of her tank top slipped down off her shoulders to reveal her bare breasts underneath. One hand hung limply at her side while the other was stuck halfway down her skirt, fingers shiny with some kind of fluid. But that wasn’t what had Josh transfixed. Situated just above her b-cups was an LCD panel with the words “Virus Detected” flashing in angry red.

“Would you…help me…please?” She managed. Her voice sounded distorted, electronic, and rapid.

Image

“Jane, you’re an android?”

She managed a jerky nod. “It was was was supposed to b-be a…a…ssssssecret. Aah!” The stricken android gasped as her body went through a series of spasms. Josh took a step forward, looking on in amazement until her shaking subsided.

“Error. Failure in primary motion control board. Please service.” Jane announced in a monotone, her head now slumped over against the chair, only her mouth moving.

Josh knelt by her. “What do you need me to do?”

“Hook meeee up t-to the c-cc-com-com-computer-rr.” Jane said, voice buzzing with distortion.

“How?”

In response, a small port opened underneath Jane’s left breast from a seam Josh had barely seen. Josh noticed a series of ports and card slots nestled between winking LEDs.

“Which one? Jane?” Josh looked up. The spark in Jane’s eyes was rapidly fading.

“N-nn-n-nooooteb-boook.” Her body shuddered and jerked. Josh grabbed the book off of Jane’s desk. “J-Josh? I-II-II-IIIIIIIIIIII-Warning. Unit Jane4896 sysstem kernnelll integgggritttyyy commmpromissssed.” Jane’s voice started slowing, syllables elongating with distortion. “Viiiiiralllll inffffffillllltrrrraaaaatiooonn deeeeeeeeetttteccc-c-c-c…” She trailed off, words too distorted to be intelligible.

Her LCD panel wavered as a new message popped up. “To prevent further damage, this unit will be shut down in 15 sec…” The numbers began to tick down.

Jane’s voice was nothing but a buzzing drone now. Her mind swam as the virus ate away at the last of her firewalls protecting her consciousness. A tingling numbness began to creep through her body as she lost contact with her tactile sensors while her processors were bombarded with random touch data as the systems that controlled them went haywire. A searing pain hit her leg while her right hand froze. Someone tickled her abdomen, but she wasn’t 100% sure that the feeling of fluid leaking out her crotch and down her leg was fake. Taste and smell failed, a myriad of scents and flavors rippling through her sensors before they stopped responding altogether. Her hearing went next, the ambient sounds that she normally picked up so well took on an edge similar to that of an overcompressed MP3 before shutting off completely.

Jane felt a surge of panic as her sight began to go. Her vision faded and pixellated, and Josh’s face swirled into black. Now alone in her own body with nothing but her HUD to cling to, Jane felt the virus begin to touch her being.

Jane freaked. Her emotional subroutines went into overdrive as she began to frantically throw sensations, feelings, memories and experiences, some real and some generated into the virus’ path, attempting to “barricade” herself in her own mind. She began to lose conception of what was “real” and what wasn’t. Her body sensory deprived, mind vomiting whatever data it could in a vain effort to defend her failing consciousness. Her HUD flickered and flared, her processors too overtaxed and memory too full to process it properly. She felt herself fading, but…

The countdown! Yes! Like a beacon in the darkness, the subroutine controlling her emergency shutdown stood, proudly announcing the time left until her deactivation. She reached out for it and, like a lifeline for her mind, clung to it as the time passed down to zero. Her last thought before the power drained from her body was Josh, and the hope that he would do the right thing.

The indeterminable eternity for Jane passed quickly for Josh, who held the android girl’s hand until her LCD screen flickered and went out. He turned his attention to the notebook in his lap, reading the passage again.

“As you see, I am a robot.” It began, “Sorry I had to keep this from you =( I got a virus, please help! You’re my only hope! My pass: pRoto5f85. Please! I trust you. Your friend, Jane.”

Josh looked up at the computer screen, seeing Jane’s remote system status and logs. Shifting his inert friend onto the bed, he took a seat in her desk chair, still warm from the overheating android that had occupied it a moment before. He looked remorsefully at Jane’s inert form, eyes still open and slightly wide, but with a relaxed expression on her face. Josh slid her eyelids shut. It just looks like she’s sleeping, well, absent the fact that she’s not breathing. Shaking his head, he caressed her cheek, still warm and soft. His fingers traced over seams on her body he'd never noticed before, visible now that her power was cut. He looked back down at the notebook and wondered what to do now.

In his life, Josh had seen and known many androids. There were always telltale signs, a little too polite, too demure, too perfect and helpful and willing to help out, plus the fact that they almost always concluded their introductions with “I’m an android.” Jane, however, exhibited none of that. She was so real, from her smile, her laugh, the corny jokes she cracked, down to the way she felt when she and Josh had made out a month ago. Of course, sexuality and realism were standard in androids, but it was often only reactive, and Jane had been the one making all the moves that night.

The idea of sexuality got him thinking: who was her master? Josh suddenly sat bolt upright: if Jane’s master found him here, with their infected half-naked android on the bed behind him… he shuddered at what might happen, and he quickly began mousing through Jane’s still open Bot Power Tool software. His eyes darted through her “Unit Summary”:

Name: Jane Sanders AI Level: FW A+ Model: FAA55712 Sleeper: No (F.A.) Owner: self

Josh paused at that, breathing a deep sigh of relief. Unless Jane’s master’s name was “self” (highly unlikely), then it was a pretty slim chance that someone was going to walk in on them and beat him to a bloody pulp. It did, by itself, raise a few troubling points in Josh’s mind. While self owned AIs weren’t illegal, they weren’t technically legal either: one of those grey areas the courts didn’t really want to touch until absolutely necessary.

On a more technical side, the “back end” of an AI usually could only be accessed by their owner, and while Josh had her root password, he wasn’t sure her system would let him in to fix her without her owner, herself, who needed him to fix her before she could fix herself. Josh rubbed his temples. Whatever, he thought, Jane obviously knew there was a way for me to fix her, and I’m not going to get anywhere if I don’t try.

Josh nodded with determination. “Okay, Jane. I’m going to save your life.” With that, he cracked his fingers and got to work.

-Part 3= Reaching under the desk, Josh grabbed the spare Ethernet cable that ran to the back of the computer, plugging it into the corresponding slot on Jane’s open chest panel. Instantly, the screen changed, and a new window popped up:

Unit Jane4896 connected…Unit offline. Boot in safe mode?

Josh nodded and hit ‘Y’. He jumped a bit as a pair of sharp beeps issued from Jane’s open port. Her eyes flicked open and she sat up on the bed.

“Unit Jane4896 safe mode start confirmed.” Displayed on the computer as the same words escaped Jane’s lips in monotone. “Beginning system scan… WARNING: Cognitive error WARNING: Memory corruption detected ALERT: AI offline. Unit speech synthesis disabled.” Jane fell quiet. ALERT: Virus detected. Unit self-clean failed. Run anti-virus from desktop?

Josh hit ‘Y’again.

ERROR: External interface with this unit may only be performed by its registered owner. Access Denied. WARNING: Owner database inconsistency. User registry not completed. Access configuration wizard now?

Josh paused again. He’d been afraid of this. Whoever had built and activated Jane had circumvented the traditional owner registry process, entering only the minimum amount of information they could about Jane without crashing her AI. Now the system needed him to finish the process, becoming her master before it would allow him to fix her.

He turned to look at the motionless android sitting on the bed next to him. While he’d known many androids that looked and acted to some degree like people, Jane he’d always known as a person, who just happened to be an android. She was her own person, and he didn’t feel right taking that away. His eyes fell back to the note she’d written him:

“As you see, I am a robot. Sorry I had to keep this from you =( I got a virus, please help! You’re my only hope! My pass: pRoto5f85. Please! I trust you. Your friend, Jane.”

In the heat of the moment, Josh hadn’t realized what those words implied. Here she was, a self-owned, sentient android of questionable legality in the throes of a dangerous virus attack, and who did she call? Who did she trust? She’d known that Josh would help and wouldn’t take advantage of her. If she has that faith in me, Josh thought, then I have faith that I’ll do the right thing. That clinched it, and Josh pressed ‘Y’ once more.

Enter root password:

Josh entered the string from the notebook

Access granted… printed out, and the screen faded to black. Josh watched as a very Matrix-esque series of characters began to run down the screen. Suddenly, a wireframe appeared and began slowly filling up with color, starting from the figure’s feet, up its legs, rising until it filled out the head to the features of…

“Jane!” Josh gasped.

“Hi there!” Jane, clad in a simple white tunic, beamed back at him. “Welcome to the new owner configuration program for your new Androcorp model FAA50000 android!” Jane bowed.

“Please re-enter this unit’s root password to continue.” Josh typed the string in once more and hit enter. “Thank you. Unit root password confirmed. I am Androcorp Model FAA55712. My current configured AI name is ‘Jane Sanders’, but I am able to reconfigure it to any name you want. A word of caution: if this unit already has memories under this name, changing it may cause AI corruption and loss of data. Would you like to change my name now?”

NO. Josh typed as forcefully as he could.

“Thank you. My name is Jane Sanders. Is this correct?”

Josh looked down to type ‘yes,’ when a noise like someone tapping on glass issued from the computer. Josh looked up to see the virtual Jane leaning towards him, “tapping” on the screen.

“Master, this configuration utility has been designed to utilize audio/visual data to complete the setup process, in order to get you used to interacting with me in a more human fashion. You can continue to enter setup information manually, or just by saying the options you wish to select.” Jane said, holding up a picture of a keyboard and a picture of a speaker.

“Oh, you can see me?” Josh scratched his head. “How?”

“Through this desktop’s integrated camera and microphone, and also through my own sensors.” Jane giggled. “Let’s resume. My name is Jane Sanders. Is this correct?”

“Yes.” Josh replied.

“Thank you. AI profile name confirmed as Jane Sanders. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Jane’s image bowed. Her image flickered for a moment, and she raised a finger to her chin. “It appears that there is an inconsistency in my owner database. My current owner is registered as “self”, but much of that data appears to be corrupted or in an unreadable format. Would you like to rebuild this user profile, or start a new one?”

Josh sat back. Owner profiles were used by androids to get to know their master’s tastes and personal history. Since Jane owned herself, all of the data in that profile pertained to her, but she’d likely have had to enter it in a way that tricked the system. Rebuilding it might totally mess up Jane’s sense of “self”, but starting a new one would likely erase it entirely. Josh thought for another moment before a grin spread across his face.“Let’s start a new one, but can you save the old profile in case I need it again?” he asked.

“Absolutely.” Jane nodded. “Partitioning owner ‘self’ on a separate drive. Creating backup on this desktop. Done. Initializing new owner registration process. What is your name, master?”

“Joshua Vosima, but you can call me Josh.” He smiled.

“New owner profile created: Joshua Vosima. Nickname: Josh. Is this correct?” Jane pointed as the words appeared next to her on the screen.

“Yep. You even spelled it right.” Josh laughed.

“Thank you.” Jane smiled and bowed once more. “Now I’d like to ask you some questions to get to know a bit more about you, but if you want I can just learn more through our day to day interactions. Which would you prefer?”

“Just learn more as you go along.” Josh replied, eager to get Jane started up once more.

“Understood. I’ll learn more about you as we go along.” Jane smiled. “I’ve already begun mapping your vocal patterns, but I’d like to take a picture of you for facial recognition.” The virtual Jane held up an old-fashioned camera.

“Sure.” Josh laughed. She was just that cute and corny in real life.

“Great. Please look straight at the desktop’s webcam.” Jane instructed, looking through her virtual camera. Josh looked up. “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, say cheese!”

“Cheese!” Josh replied. He saw a flash from the monitor as Jane “took” the picture.

“Facial recognition mapping complete. What a beautiful smile!” Jane grinned and Josh laughed. “This concludes our new owner registration process. If you need to make any changes, you may run this utility again or just ask me once I’m online. Thank you for choosing Androcorp androids. I hope you use me regularly! See you ‘in the flesh’!" She giggled and bowed a final time, and disappeared in a burst of light. When it faded, Jane’s desktop had returned.

Now that he had access, Josh wasted no time in running the antivirus utility. According to the program, a virus had infiltrated Jane’s systems through a series of backdoors that she herself had opened when installing a program. Josh instructed the utility to delete the virus, but the programming itself looked legit, so he left it in and set the program to repair her damaged files. A status bar appeared on the bottom of the screen: it would take 90 minutes to complete the repair.

Josh sighed as he rolled the chair back from the desk, looking at the immobile android on the bed next to him. She stared back at him with a blank, vacant look in her eyes. Josh put an ear to her chest, straining to hear any signs of her artificiality. Aside from a barely perceptible whirr as her servos responded to whatever systems were keeping her upright, Jane was silent. He could even hear what could almost be described as a heartbeat coming from her chest. He bent lower to try hear its source, only to discover he had practically buried his head between Jane's breasts.

"Oh!" Josh exclaimed, rolling his chair back. "S-sorry!" he told the inert android. He stood up and decided to look around, trying to distract himself from the growing bulge in his jeans.

Josh wandered over to the studio's small kitchen, wondering what kind of food an android would keep around the house. He knew Jane could eat, they'd gone out to a noodle place only a month or so ago, but he wondered if her artificial nature limited her diet, or if it augmented it in any way. Curiosity overwhelming his apprehension at snooping around, Josh took a quick inventory of her cupboards: packaged noodles, crackers, cheese puffs, soup, cookies - nothing he wouldn't have in his own cupboard. He opened her fridge, much to the same result: milk, yogurt, cheese, lunchmeat, veggies - nothing aside from an odd container of familiar smelling blue liquid to indicate anyone but a normal human lived there.

Discouraged but not disappointed, Josh returned to the computer, grabbing a package of Jane’s cookies as he went. Munching thoughtfully, he began looking through Jane’s maintenance software, searching for anything that might shed some light on the background and life of his artificial friend. Aside from a very dense electronic copy of a user manual, there was nothing about Jane’s function and why Androcorp, one of the largest android manufacturers in the world, would send a free, masterless android out into the world like this. Josh sighed and popped another cookie into his mouth. Guess it’s something I’ll just have to ask her later. He shrugged and checked the status of the antivirus scan: 75 more minutes to go. He opened up the manual and started reading, determined to find out as much as he could about Jane.

After a few minutes of skimming, Josh paused at a section titled “Android Post-Activation Configuration.” Intrigued, Josh read on. Like all androids, changing Jane’s appearance was fairly difficult. Parts had to be custom molded from the manufacturer or a very select group of aftermarket retailers. Jane’s personality, on the other hand, was more fluid. Through a series of sliders, certain aspects of her personality could be subtly altered, introvert versus extrovert, or cleanliness for example. Josh noticed that much of the ranges of the sliders were grayed out for Jane, which made sense to him. Jane was an FW A+ AI, the FW indicating she had a pretty strong sense of free will, while the A+ signified a very high quality human-level emotional intelligence. Changing Jane’s preferences too much too quickly could cause some serious instabilities, and while the available range would eventually shift as her AI “got used to” her slight personality changes, it would take a long time to swing her bubbly personality over to a more serious one. Lower level AIs (especially those without free will) could change much more easily and would be much more conscious of the change, while Jane would be influenced only subconsciously.

The same went for her AI directives. Androids could be configured with a series of subconscious instructions, the human equivalent of a habit, that they would try to follow based on the level of “emphasis” their owner placed on that behavior. For example, an android might be programmed to putting a medium emphasis on brushing their teeth at night and a high emphasis on plugging themselves in to charge before bed. Since charging was a high priority (and the android knew it needed to do so for it to survive), they would try their best to carry it out. Brushing their teeth, on the other hand, wasn’t such a priority (neither to the android’s survival or to its master), so it might learn to skip that task on occasion. Once again, lower level AIs would be very aware and conscious that they were performing such a task as a directive, while an AI like Jane’s would consider it a subconscious suggestion, much the same way a human can act when hypnotized.

Josh poked around the configuration tool for a while. It even had a built in social setting simulator that allowed him to see how any changes to her personality would affect her interactions with those around her, reminding him a lot of the ancient video game The Sims. He laughed as he watched a virtual Jane backflip across the classroom in response to a medium priority directive, before she quickly learned that it was inappropriate or bizarre behavior.

Noticing the virus scan was almost done, Josh reset all of his edits to Jane’s personality and directives. He wanted to keep his friend just the way she was. A few moments later, an alert popped up on the screen:

Virus Scan Complete: 1 Virus Detected (jsdfias.exe) 1 Virus Deleted (jsdfias.exe) All corrupted memory sectors repaired. Reboot?

Josh clicked ‘Y’ and held his breath, hoping that all of his efforts hadn’t been in vain.

“Reboot request received.” Jane announced, mirroring what appeared on her status feed. “System shutting down now.” With that, her eyes closed, her head dipped to her chest and a series of seams became visible, crisscrossing her body. A moment later, the whine of electricity and the breath of cooling fans emanated from Jane’s inert body, quickly fading along with her seams. Her head perked up and eyes snapped open.

“Jane Sanders, Androcorp Android model FAA55712, firmware revision 8.6.79874 system online. Beginning start up checks.” She announced once more. “Warning: Owner database inconsistency detected. Loading owner profile “Josh Vosima.” Autofixing database…complete! System status: Nominal. Hi! I’m Jane Sanders!”

“Jane?” Josh asked tentatively.

“Oh, Josh, thank you so much!” A beaming smile appeared across Jane’s face as she threw her arms around him. Surprised, Josh stiffly returned her embrace. “I knew you’d figure out what to do, I just knew you would! I’m so happy I trusted you!”

“S-sure th-thing, Jane…” Josh gulped. Her bare breasts were still pressing into his chest.

Jane pulled back and cocked her head for a moment. “I see you’re registered as my owner now. Good.” Jane smiled as she moved to loosen her skirt.

“Y-yeah. Your system wouldn’t allow me to make changes and clean up your kernel if I wasn’t.” Josh bowed his head in embarrassment. “Do you want me to change it back?”

“Maybe later.” She stood and her skirt dropped to the floor. “Why don’t you just enjoy being my master for a while…master.” Jane winked and a sultry smile spread across her face as she slid her tank top down over her body.

On her computer screen, another item appeared on her status feed:

[AI Notice] Preparing for intercourse with Josh V.

Josh’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as he read that. “W-What are you doing?”

“Just making up for all of the trouble, Master Josh.” Jane sat on her desk and slowly drew her fingers up her leg to the elastic band of her panties.

Josh gulped. He had heard his friends talk about their sexual encounters before, but had never joined or been interested in the conversation that much before. But a couple of months ago, he had started feeling more and more desirous of the opposite sex than he had ever felt in his life.

And now he had his hot android friend sitting on her desk, pulling her panties off with a coy and grateful smile spread across her face.

“Care to help me?” She winked. Josh took the lacy undergarment and slowly drew it down over her smooth legs, feeling himself stiffen as he stared at her moist lips. Jane stood, fully naked. Throwing her arms around his shoulders, she pulled him in for a deep, passionate kiss. Josh returned it with intensity, feeling her pert nipples press into his chest once more.

“Now it’s my turn to help you.” Jane winked, stroking a hand slowly over his bulge and undoing his belt. Sliding his pants, down, she pushed him lightly onto the bed as she knelt, rubbing the underside of his stiff member with the tip of her nose. Josh moaned as he felt her hot breath on his sack, and shuddered with pleasure as her tongue circled the tip before taking him whole in her mouth.

Josh lay back, eyes wide and mouth gaping as she worked his shaft and tickled his balls. He felt something build between his legs, but every time he came close to exploding, Jane would back off and deny him. Josh was so caught up in the feeling that he failed to notice that Jane had somehow taken off his shirt and was now straddling him, sitting on his legs as she stroked his stiff member.

“It looks ready.” Jane commented, still stroking. “I want it in me!” With that, she grabbed Josh by the shoulders, rolling him over so that she was now laying on the bed and Josh was on top, hands resting on her chest for support. Josh was too overwhelmed to notice. Jane guided him in, and he heard her gasp as he penetrated her, her maidenhead popping as he thrusted. Josh almost came right there, but Jane pulled him in for a deep kiss.

“Not yet, big boy.” She breathed huskily into his ear. “We both get to enjoy this part.” They kissed once more, and their bodies began moving in a steady, easy rhythm.

Josh felt drunk as his hips bucked in unison with Jane’s, panting as he watched her tits undulate with every motion. Jane took his hand and rested it on her right breast, moaning softly as he squeezed. Josh may have been on top, but in no way was he in control. Every nerve in his body tingled with pure pleasure.

Jane was enjoying it just as much. The feeling of Josh’s shaft inside her, stimulating her artificial vagina and clit for the first time was almost enough to send her over the edge. But I have a master now, a real one. She thought, and the prime directive of any android is to please their master to the best of their ability. She knew that Josh was receiving the height of pleasure from her as their bodies slid against one anothers. “Oh, Jane…” he moaned. Somewhere in the back of her artificial mind, she noted that his voice sounded slightly…off. She couldn’t place it, but she continued as Josh pressed deeper into her. Her orgasm protocols began to queue up has she felt both of their arousal indices increase.

Her processors were handling the increased load just fine, her systems still optimized for sex even if she herself wasn’t specifically supposed to be used for that, but she noticed Josh’s lidded eyes would occasionally flick to her status readout on the computer screen. Jane calculated an 89.75% chance that her artificial nature aroused him, and decided to use that to her full advantage.

Josh was lost in a haze of pleasure when he suddenly felt Jane twitch sharply underneath him. “Oh, J-J-Josh…” she moaned. “Jane?” he mumbled, his voice sounding slightly slurred.

Jane twitched again and let out a stuttering moan. “Y-you’re giving me an an an…”Josh’s eyes went wide as Jane’s seams faded in, out, and back in once more. “error.” She squeaked.

Josh groaned as his cock began to twitch in Jane’s pussy. He was already having trouble thinking straight, when panels started opening over Jane’s body. First her data port under her left breast, then another trapezoidal one just under her sternum, followed by the appearance of her LCD screen. “J-J-Josh…m…malfunction! Sexual overload!” Jane gasped. Josh grunted and his head shot up as he felt a shimmering vibration caress his shaft, and then something finally snapped.

“Jane?” He called again. “JaJaJaJaJaJane?” Suddenly he felt an explosion from his loins and heard Jane scream in pleasure as he felt her pussy tighten around him. He could feel his head twitching as his body went numb with pleasure as he achieved his first orgasm, but something felt wrong. His head lolled to the side as he felt like he was losing control of his body.

Jane was still buzzing in the throes of a toe-curling orgasm when she felt Josh collapse on top of her. She felt his seed slowly stop pumping into her and her vaginal contractions slowly recede. Jane bathed in the afterglow for a moment before ruffling Josh’s hair, head still resting on her breasts. “Aren’t you glad you became my master, Josh.” She smiled and ran her hand through his hair once more before she realized he wasn’t moving. “Josh?”

A surge of panic gripped Jane as she pulled her inanimate lover out of her and rolled him over. Josh’s eyes were wide, lids twitching but unblinking. “Jane? Wha-? I-” His body convulsed. “System failure. Emergency shutdown initiated.” Josh announced flatly. Suddenly, his eyes flicked closed and he stopped moving, a series of seams appearing across his body.

“Oh my gosh! Josh, you’re a sleeper!” Jane gasped, her hands rising to her cheeks. Her head was spinning, AI not quite sure how to cope with the situation. She stared at his motionless body for almost a minute before a soft titter escaped her lips, slowly rising to a giggle on its way to a full-on, chest-clutching laughing fit. “Figures the first guy I fuck would be an android too!” she cackled, slapping his thigh. Jane buried her head in her pillow, hand resting on her motionless master’s chest as her giggles subsided.

“Josh…” she sighed, stroking his body, “now I guess I get to be a master too.” She kissed him gently once more and stood up, beginning to gather what she needed to repair her android lover.

END

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