Off-season - The Motel

The Small Business Chronicles: Off-season - The Motel

Chapter 1: Morning

Jack woke up rather suddenly…he didn’t like being awoken by the incessant beeping from his alarm clock, so he somehow trained himself to wake up mere seconds before it went off. He quickly pre-empted the alarm and then relaxed a bit in his bed, reminiscing over the past few months.

It was now the month of April; the repairs and upgrades he had performed on Christmas were still making life for him a whole lot easier. The inclusion of Serriah alone had increased shop efficiency considerable. Immediately after acquiring the motel from his neighbor, he quickly retrofitted the place with more modern comforts and equipment in order to optimize overhead.

Building the addition connecting the motel to the shop, as well as the addition to the shop itself also happened quickly, what with the new robotic construction services available nowadays. Now Serriah was working in the new gift shop and making the shop even more money.

Unfortunately, the work was done a little too quickly, and Jack was forced to staff the motel before he could completely finish repairing the android he had chosen to work the reception desk, as well as fine tune the trio of sex bots he had recently acquired. He was forced to set aside an entire day to working on each staff member of the motel, but fortunately Rakhee, the maid, required only routine maintenance and cleaning of her filters. Gina, the security guard, also required only routine maintenance.

A few minutes after awaking, he sensed movement to his left as Gabby awoke, or rather, as he internal clock informed her she should awaken. She woke up with the same smile as usual, leaning over and giving him a kiss. “How come the alarm didn’t go off?” she asked with a curious look. Even though she was pre-programmed to sleep until a certain time, her systems still monitored surrounding noise levels in case there was an intruder or emergency.

“I’ve never liked waking to an alarm,” Jack admitted, “So I’ve been training myself to awaken just before it goes off,”

“Oh, I see,” Gabby nodded, “You know, if the alarm is an issue, I can always wake you up,” she offered.

“Thanks Gabby, but I don’t want to use you as an alarm clock,” he told her, “You’re a bit better than that,”

“Well thanks, but it’s no problem, really,” she said with a modest air, “I’d love to be your alarm clock,”

“Well, if you really don’t mind,” Jack shrugged, “Still, I haven’t been tweaking your systems so you could be my alarm clock.

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” Gabby asked.

“I’ve got to work out all the issues with the motel staff,” he responded, “Especially with Varsha,” he added, coughing uncomfortably.

“Oh,” Gabby said sadly.

“Yeah, anyway, they’ll probably take me all day,” Jack continued, “I might not even be in for dinner,”

“Well, I’ll make you some anyway, just in case,” Gabby said.

“Thanks dear,”

Jack and Gabby cuddled in bed for a few minutes longer before starting their usual morning routine: shower, breakfast, sending Henry off to school. Jack waved them off until the car disappeared past the driveway and then he headed into the back office of the shop.

“Good morning Jack,” Rachel greeted him. As a timesaver, Jack had programmed Rachel to activate 30-minutes before the store was to open. Now she activated the rest of the staff in the mornings, and shut them down at night.

“Good morning Rachel,” Jack replied, “I’m going to need you to transfer your work to Varsha’s station and follow me,” Jack told her, “I’m going to be working on all the motel employees, starting with her,”

“Alright,” Rachel said, tapping a few keys on her station to link it to the motel office. She then picked up a tablet and stood up, waiting on Jack.

“Alright, let’s go,” he told her, heading towards a door on the far side of the office, the side where Rachel’s desk used to be.

Chapter Two: Varsha

Jack and Rachel walked through the new loading dock, which was a near mirror image of the old one. The one exception was a doorway leading into a smaller storeroom on the far side. This storeroom emptied out into the employee side of the reception area to the motel. There was a rather beautiful looking Indian woman sitting motionless at the reception desk. As Jack and Rachel approached her, motion sensors in the office triggered her out of standby mode.

“Welcome to Brown Motel, how may I be of service?” she declared in a pre-programmed message, before turning her head left and right to see who triggered her.

“Behind you, Varsha,” Jack called out.

Varsha immediately swiveled her chair around to face them. “Hello Jack,” she smiled.

“Hello Varsha,” Jack smiled back, but his smile was a bit strained as he stared into her face. Varsha was designed to look like an Indian woman in her late-twenties. Jack could tell she was lovely, but unfortunately her face was pretty badly damaged. Jack had looked into the report of her previous owner. She was originally purchased to perform secretarial duties at a travel agency in Arizona…her Indian appearance was chosen to help diversify the office. Things went great, until the company was purchased by a highly bigoted man who delighted at torturing Varsha both physically and verbally, not because she was a machine, but because she happened to look like an Indian.

A hundred years earlier, Americans were treating Latinos the same way…that is until they got used to them. A few decades earlier, things got so bad in India that millions of people fled the country as refugees, many of them ending up in America performing many of the same menial or servile activities that Latinos once did. Suffice to say they were treated the same.

In Varsha’s case, the damage was quite apparent: her left eye was non-functional and looked as though a cigar had been plunged into it. There were numerous scratches on her face going as deep as her metallic skull, and he had beat in a few dents on her head, giving it a slightly lopsided look. She also had difficulty walking, since he had kicked at her right leg rather severely. Also, despite her being a machine, she suffered something very akin to PTSD in humans, though the best experts at Spaztec concluded it was a conflict in her programming created by the abuse.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to know too much about androids, so he didn’t realize her processing systems were located in her torso, otherwise the damage would have been far more extensive. Still, it pained Jack to look at her, since he was an advocate for ethical treatment of androids. He had actually successfully prosecuted the man who damaged her, accusing him of hate crime by proxy, since he very easily could have done that to a real woman.

Jack had been meaning to get her fixed up before the motel opened, but a combination of quick work on the renovation’s, and a convention in a nearby town creating overflow into his motel, meant he had to open up a bit early.

“I’m going to be performing some repairs on you today, to erase everything that horrible man did to you,” he told her, “Rachel here will be filling in while I work on you,”

“Alright,” Varsha nodded, slowly rising to her feet and limping over to him. Rachel quickly sat down and logged onto the computer. Since there were only eight people staying in the motel, Jack was confident she wouldn’t be too busy.

“Follow me,” Jack told her, walking slowly so she didn’t have to stress her bum leg. Eventually, they ended up at the top of the lift into the lab, where they entered and arrived a short time later.

Jack had made a few minor improvements to the lab area of his lab, adding a more extensive work area in the corner which housed his secret project; so far, only Gabby knew what it was. The mass under the sheet looked larger now and had a rough human shape to it.

Once they reached his main work area, he booted up all his equipment and then instructed Varsha to strip. He had to assist her with the business jacket she wore over her blouse, since her arms were slightly damaged and couldn’t reach up very accurately. She finally stood before hum nude, revealing even more deep scratches on various parts of her body.

As difficult as it was for Jack to see her like this, he was in his lab now and acted in a professional manner. He instructed her to open her primary access panel and interface with the terminal. Once she did, he helped her up onto the table and laid her down.

“Alright Varsha, I’m going to be repairing all of the damage caused by your previous owner,” Jack explained, “And I’m also going to be removing all your memories of him to remove your logic errors,”

“Okay,” Varsha nodded. She didn’t really care either way about losing her memories, but Jack felt it was polite to inform her.

Jack quickly tapped away on his computer, creating an algorithm which could seek out and identify all memories associated with her abusive owner, as well as any supplemental memories created as a result of the trauma. Once he started the search, he grabbed his repair kit and approached Varsha, laying patiently on the table.

He sighed again as he saw the deep scratches. Still, as bad as it looked, many of the scratches were mostly superficial and required a light lather of skin repair cream to fix. The cream was the first thing he took from his kit, applying it to each scratch and gently rubbing it in. The cream was essentially the same artificial skin, but with additives to allow it to instantly meld with the surrounding skin. Within a few moments of applying the cream, the majority of the scratches simply vanished to be replaced by the more tanned skin tone natural to her Indian heritage.

The scratches which did not heal needed more serious attention, since they went all the way down to the metal. Jack carefully injected small amounts of the same nanites he had used on Annina a few months earlier and watched as they repaired the nerve connections. This time, the cream worked.

“Well Varsha, you look almost good as new,” Jack smiled to her. She was passively watching him work, but gave him an innocent smile. “How’s that algorithm I installed in you working?” he asked her.

“Good,” she responded, “It’s already tagged several hundred memory files for deletion,”

“Well, I’m deleting them from you,” Jack corrected her, “But I’m backing them up on my systems for evidence in case the loser ever gets out of jail,”

“Okay,” Varsha shrugged, “As long as they don’t interfere with my programming,”

Jack just continued working, fixing a few damaged components in her open panel and adding a few new ones to assist her with her job. Unlike Rachel, Varsha had to be active 24/7, so her power systems needed to be in top working condition. Jack supplemented this by having Varsha go into standby mode when she had no outstanding work, activating only when a customer triggers her motion sensors.

“Alright Varsha, I need to remove your head now to repair the damage,” Jack told her, “Could you please save me time by unsealing it for me?”

“Sure,” Varsha smiled, then her face went stoic as the seam lit up around her neck, the mechanisms beneath whirring away. Once the lights vanished, Jack carefully grabbed hold of her head and pulled it free from her neck.

“Ok Varsha, please let me know you can still hear me,” he told her, propping the head on a pedestal and removing the scalp.

“I’m still with you,” her voice sounded from her torso.

“Good, just making sure,” Jack smiled. He always made sure now, because a few years back he was working on an android, and one of his habits is talking aloud. He was working on its head for nearly three hours before he realized that the microphone in the torso was damaged; the android couldn’t hear a word he was saying and just laid there waiting for its head to be reattached.

Once he had the scalp cover removed, he pressed a few releases underneath the forehead, causing a seam to appear around her face. He then slowly peeled the skin down her face like a mask until it came clear off. This method of face removal was rarely used, and therefore most customers and low-level technicians were unaware of it.

The area underneath her face was a marvel of intricate facial mechanisms to allow her to mimic every known facial expression. Her eyes were two white orbs with brown pupils, and her nose was nothing more than a tiny bump with holes for the air to pass through. Her teeth were bare pearly whites, giving the impression her face was giving a big smile. Now that her face was removed, Jack could now see the extent of the damage to her skull, mostly in the cheek region where she was punched repeatedly.

The fix was a combination of Jack applying pressure on the interior of her head and using a sort of suction device to pull the dents out. It was a long and tedious job, taking a considerable amount of time, but Jack finally reversed the dents. Still, his job wasn’t done. He applied a metallic liquid to the areas where the dents were and rubbed it over. The substance was a sort of living metal which could seep into damaged metal, repair it, and then die. After what seemed like forever, he finally had the damage repaired on her head. He carefully lined her face up on her head and resealed it in place. He moved her face around in a variety of expressions to ensure he had placed it on right and fixed all the issues, then he clicked her scalp back in place.

“There Varsha, I knew you had a pretty face,” he told her, taking her head from the pedestal and holding it in view of her neck camera.

“Thanks Jack,” her voice sounded, “If I had my head, I would be smiling,”

“Well, let’s see if we can remedy that,” he smiled. He then carefully lifted her up and clicked her head back on. It took a few moments for her head to come online, since she was running basic diagnostics on the repairs, but it finally activated and turned into a smile.

“It feels much better,” she said, reaching up and feeling her cheeks.

“Good to hear,” Jack told her, “Now I just need to finish repairs on your leg,” he said, reaching down and tapping on the skin on her right thigh. A few icons lit up beneath her skin and he tapped on that looked like two halves of a circle being transected by a line. The light lit up around her leg and then went dark. He quickly pulled it free from her body and then carried it over to his work table, noticing absently that she had a pretty foot, dangling at the end of the leg.

Since the damage was in her upper leg, Jack had to slice his way in and tear out a damaged servo mechanism, slowly placing a new one in its place. He then resealed the skin, picked up the leg, and had it step around on the floor. Even though it was disconnected, the muscles still responded normally, so Jack was able to tell if anything was wrong with the leg. Everything looked fine, so he carried the leg back over and attached it to Varsha’s torso.

“Thanks for repairing me Jack,” Varsha said, moving her legs around.

“I’m not quite done,” he told her, “Did that algorithm ever finish?”

“Yes, my systems are ready for the memory purge,” she reported.

“Good, I’m also going to have it install a few software patches when it’s done,” he told her, sitting down at the computer and prepping the sweep, “This will shut you down, but when you come back online, you’ll have no memory of your previous owner,”

“Alright,” Varsha nodded, then he started the sweep, shutting her A.I. down.

The sweep took several minutes, as it was systematically deleting and copying the suspect memories from her database to Jack’s. It finally finished and Varsha came back online.

“Hello Jack, I appear to be missing a number of memory files,” she said with a confused look, “Would you like me to attempt to recover them?”

“No, thanks Varsha,” he told her, “The deletion was part of your maintenance,”

“I understand,” she nodded, “Am I finished?”

“Sure, just run a quick diagnostic for me to confirm no outstanding issues,” he ordered.

“Very well,” she nodded, then her face spaced out for a few seconds before returning to normal, “Diagnostic complete, no issues found,”

“Good, now get dressed, relieve Rachel, and send Rakhee down here,” he told her.

“Yes sir,” she acknowledged, dropping from the table and redressing. As she headed out, Jack absently considered having sex with her the next time Gabby gave him a free pass; Varsha was very attractive.

Chapter 3: Rakhee

Jack had just enough time to reset his equipment before he heard the sound of the lift open. There was a brief sound of footsteps and then a short Indian woman walked in in her mid to late twenties. Unlike Varsha, who was dressed in semi-professional attire, Rakhee was dressed in casual clothes: sneakers, loose jeans, and a t-shirt. She also had a much less mature appearance than Varsha, despite being around the same age.

“Hello Jack,” she smiled, “Varsha told me you wanted to do some work on me,”

“Yes Rakhee, please undress and lay down on the table,” he told her.

“Yes sir,” she replied politely, efficiently removing her clothing and laying down on the table.

“Alright, you know the drill, open you primary access panel and interface with my terminal,” he told her, taking her clothes and putting them in the quick wash system he had installed; the smelled strongly of cleaning chemicals. As he prepped the wash, he reminisced about how he had acquired Rakhee.

Rakhee was originally purchased as a Perfect Friend model for a college student. Unlike most other people, he didn’t get her for sex, despite being based on a 21st century amateur model; he got her to clean his apartment and to keep him company. He kept her for almost two years before he got into a relationship with a real woman, one who felt uncomfortable having an attractive female android around. He sold her to Jack at a very low price, just to show his girlfriend he wasn’t that attached to her.

Rakhee was even more of a money saver because Jack didn’t really have to do much reprogramming. Many of her heuristic algorithms were already enhanced for cleaning, he just had to tweak them to handle more professional cleaning agents. The only issue he had was that the Mark II androids couldn’t seem to handle the fumes and chemicals too well, with their artificial skin and all. This was a problem they were working on in the Mark IIIs, but even Gabby didn’t have those improvements…yet. It was for that reason he didn’t use any professional grade cleansers in his house, but he couldn’t get away with that in the motel. “Alright Rakhee, why don’t you do a silent install of the updates I’ve queued up for you while I do a checkup and repair of your skin and filters,” Jack announced, walking over to her and getting the skin repair cream ready.

“Alright,” Rakhee nodded. She made no other announcement, but Jack absently noticed a message pop up on his terminal that she was downloading the updates. While she did that, Jack leaned in very close to her skin in an almost creepy way and scrutinized every square inch of her tanned skin, shaking his head in disapproval every time he noticed a chemical degradation.

“I know your programming is up to date, but you still need to be a bit more careful when using the cleaning chemicals,” Jack told her, applying cream to various locations on her arms, upper chest, and face. “Unlike Humans, you’re skin doesn’t heal itself,”

“I try my best, but after a while the gloves you gave me start leaking and the fumes get everywhere,” Rakhee explained.

Jack sighed. “Alright, I’ll get you some better gloves as soon as I can, but I want you to start wearing goggles and a facemask when you work,” he told her, “You can tell Rachel I authorize you to take some from the shop,” he added.

“Yes sir,” Rakhee nodded.

“Alright, switch over to your vocal synthesizer,” he told her, “I need to remove your lungs and filters,”

Rakhee merely nodded, then she stopped breathing and said in a digital voice, “Vocal synthesizers activated,”

“Good,” he said, reaching in and pulling out the twin balloon system that served as her lungs. They were much smaller than an actual Human’s lungs, since their only purpose was to cool off her internal systems, allow her chest to realistically rise, and to give her a means to vocalize more naturally. At either end of the balloons was a complex filter that prevented dust and fumes from entering, serving a more enhanced purpose than even a Human’s nose hairs. Because unlike a Human, her lungs couldn’t heal…only be replaced, and replacing them was expensive.

Jack removed each filter and shook his head at the sight of them. They were made of a material which had an indicator with a series of colored lines, depending on how dirty they were: White was clean, a blue bar meant chemical fumes present, a yellow bar for dust, a brown bar for dirt, and if the entire thing was black, the filter was at its limit. Rakhee’s filters were both black.

“Yeah Rakhee, you need to start wearing a mask immediately,” he told her, removing each filter and replacing it with a fresh one. After verifying there was no damage to the balloons themselves, he carefully reinserted them and told her she could switch back over. She immediately started taking in several deep, measured breaths before slowing to a more natural pace.

“Better?” he asked her.

“Much,” she replied.

“Good, let’s hope it stays that way,” he told her, allowing her to close her panel back up, “I want you to run daily diagnostics on your filter and send them to my lab as soon as they finish,” he told her, “I really want to see how much better the filter helps,”

“Okay,” she said, pausing to add that line to her programming.

“Are those updates finished installing?” he asked her, knowing she had a relatively small queue.

“Yes, I just need to reboot,” she told him.

“Go ahead and do that, and then you can get dressed and return to work,” he told her, “AFTER getting goggles and a facemask from the shop,” he added, “Oh, and activate Gina and tell her to come down,”

“Alright,” Rakhee nodded, then she briefly went offline as her system installed the updates, then she came back online a short time later and began executing the instructions Jack gave her.

“Keep up the good work,” Jack called after her as she left.

“I will Jack,” she called back, then the sound of her footsteps fell silent as the lift activated.

Chapter 4: Gina

Jack managed to get a little bit of work done on his secret project before the efficient footsteps of Gina approached and stopped a short distance away.

“I’ve been summoned?” she queried, sounding like a military grunt.

“Yes Gina, I need to do some routine maintenance and tweaks to your systems,” he told her, quickly covering up his project and turning to face her, “Please undress and lay down on the table,”

“Yes sir,” she acknowledged, then she began to slowly undo all of her clothing…and for her, that was a lot.

Gina was a personal trainer model, and unlike any of Jack’s other androids, she was a Mark I….in fact, she was one of the ones that were initially shown at the Future Expo twenty years earlier. This particular one had suffered a minor malfunction and nearly beat someone to death in a bout of MMA, but fortunately the techs stopped and fixed her before she could; the tester still had a little bit of fun with her afterwards.

He wasn’t originally planning on getting her, but after listening to the crime reports of the motel given to him by the previous owner, he decided that purchasing a cheap Mark I personal trainer might reduce the likelihood of having to contact the authorities.

Gina was initially his first choice either…he was originally going to purchase a custom model designed to look like one of those freakishly tall, yet perfectly proportioned girls; approximately seven feet tall. He changed his mind when he saw the price tag, and when the Gina model came up; Gabby wasn’t too keen on the idea either.

He was surprised they were selling off one of the first prototypes, but he jumped at the chance to see the first iteration of the great line of androids he made a living working on. The same issue was still present with Gina as it was before, so Jack had her wearing a bulletproof vest to reinforce her torso. And, since he primarily had her surveying the perimeter of the property at night, he had her decked out in all black.

After a while, she finally had all her armor and clothing off and she laid down on the table. Despite being a 20 year old unit, her skin was still in good condition and she still looked quite lovely.

“Alright, unseal your access panel,” he told her, and one she did, he carefully hefted it off; he had installed a small layer of padding to insulate her from shock damage, so that made that particular section of skin a little heavier than normal.

The electronics in Gina’s panel were considerably more basic than his other staff members, but it was still solid. It had to be, since he hoped she’d last another 20 years. Unlike his other androids, there were no, nor would there ever be, and hardware upgrades for her systems. She was still running on hardware released two decades ago. About the only thing Jack could do to her, aside from reprogramming her, was to enhance her code to improve her already existing systems. As such, Gina was essentially a pet project. He would occasionally tweak her code to see how much it improved her, then he would implement that same code in other people with older androids to help them along.

“Well Gina, everything looks normal,” he told her, “As always,”

“I run hourly diagnostics, as programmed, and haven’t found any serious hardware faults,” she reported.

“What about non-serious faults?” he asked.

“I have had periodic issues with my night vision, but it usually clears up after a few seconds,” she shrugged.

“What sort of issues?” he asked.

Gina paused as her antiquated systems attempted to formulate a response, “It’s difficult to explain,” she finally said with a frown on her face, “Perhaps I can show you,” she suggested.

“Fair enough,” he shrugged, noting absently that he should attempt to enhance her vocabulary for next time. “Interface with my terminal and bring up your visual feed,” he told her, and while she did that, he brought up the remote controls for his lab and prepared to shut off the lights.

Gina merely nodded and then spaced out as her systems interface with the terminal. A short time later, a window popped up showing Gina’s vision.

“Alright, hold on,” Jack said, toggling the control for the lights. The lights slowly dimmed down until it was near dark in the room, save for the light emitting from the computer screens, which he promptly dimmed, “Okay, switch over to night vision,”

Gina said nothing, instead executing his command. The previously dark window suddenly lit up with a green light as her night vision kicked in.

“Are you experiencing the issue now?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she replied.

Jack scrutinized the feed but saw nothing, “Okay, look around, especially at me,” he told her, “It’s difficult to see what you’re talking about when you’re staring at a stationary location,”

“Yes sir,” she replied, sitting up and looking around. As soon as she looked at Jack, he could tell what she was referring to. Instead of seeing a constant night vision enhanced image, her vision of him was being distorted as he apparently seemed to flicker brightly and then dim.

“Ah, I see what you’re talking about,” he told her, “I’m not 100% certain, but it looks like your thermal detectors are intermittently interfering with the night vision,” he explained, “That’s why anything you look at that emits any sort of heat seems to light up,”

“My routine diagnostics haven’t reported any issues with it,” she said with a confused look, as Jack turned the lights back on.

“Well, it looks like you’ll need to run a non-routine diagnostic,” he joked, though she didn’t catch the humor. “Go ahead and run a full diagnostic,” he ordered.

“Yes sir,” she said, then her face went blank as the diagnostic began, taxing all her systems.

While Gina ran the diagnostic, Jack quickly studied up on the Spaztec website on how to resolve the issue if it was a hardware fault; he hoped it wasn’t. Based on what he read, however, it seemed it was most likely to be a software issue which the diagnostic would resolve.

Sure enough, several minutes later she came back and announced that the diagnostic sweep had discovered and resolved the issue.

Jack let out an explosive sigh of relief, glad he didn’t have to fork over any money to replace damaged hardware. “Okay Gina, considering your…age, I’d like you to run a full diagnostic every day before you plug in for recharge,”

“Yes sir,” she nodded.

“Good, now get dressed and return to your station,” he told her, placing her skin panel back on “Oh, and tell the Kaley’s I need all three of them down here,” he added.

“Ok,” she nodded, getting up and putting her clothing and armor back on. As soon as she was dressed, she quickly left.

“Man, she’s hot,” Jack said after she left, “Too bad she’s too old to take out for a spin,” he added, sitting down at his bench and getting things set up for the Kaleys.

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