The Nannybot1000A
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP...
The hateful sound of the alarm clock jarred me out of a sound, peaceful sleep, the harsh beeping echoing in my skull as I shuddered. It just couldn't be morning yet!
I looked up blearily, and saw the bright red glow of the LEDs spelling out that it was indeed 5:20 am, as if the loathsome sound of the beeping alarm had not been evidence enough of that. The bedroom was still dark and welcoming, the bed nice and warm, I was hardly eager to get up on a chilly November morning to face the day!
I snuggled down into the warm covers, the heat from my husband's body next to me making the bed that much more toasty warm, and I heard him reluctantly stirring beside me. He rolled over to face me, and opened his eyes.
The beeping continued, until I could stand it no longer, and reached a hand out to bang ineffectually at the night table, trying to hit the SNOOZE button. After a few moments, I managed it, and the horrible noise stopped, returning blessed silence to our bedroom.
We lay there for a moment, enjoying the warmth and the quiet, but knowing that we would have to momentarily get up. And 'have to' was the precisely correct phrasing!
"Honey," my husband Ted said, his voice still half-asleep, "I don't want to get up yet!"
"Neither do I," I responded, snuggling closer to him and settling my head on his chest, but then after a moment I added, "but if we wait much longer, we're going to be getting out of the bed the hard way!"
"Well...maybe we can just lie here and rest our eyes for a minute..." he muttered.
"You know that's not a good idea-" I started to say, before a huge yawn broke my sentence. Staying up until 11:00 pm the night before had been a bad idea, really, but come on, it had been a Friday night, we had to have a little fun, didn't we?
I knew better than to close my eyes again, we had set the alarm to give us ten minutes grace for a reason, but I couldn't resist the temptation. We lay together, our eyes closed and fighting sleep, and as I had feared would happen, we drifted toward dozing off again.
"THEODORE! JANET! It's time to get up!"
The voice was very lovely, sweet, even-tempered, the word were stern, perfectly enunciated, and spoken in the tone of an order. I groaned, when that voice snapped through my head my eyes blinked open and I knew Ted and I had let ourselves doze off again! I rolled away from my husband, suddenly eager to get my body out of the warm bed.
As my bare feet hit the chilly hardwood floor, I looked up to see the source of the stern voice. She was quite a sight to see, really: 6'0" of flowing silver, sculpted into the most perfect vision of a slender female human form you could imagine. Technically, I suppose 'it' would be more grammatically correct to describe the vision than 'she', but nobody could look at INGA and not think of that vision of silvery perfection as a 'she'!
Beside me, Ted had also jumped out of bed as fast as he could manage, but I looked at the clock, and saw with a sinking sensation that it now read 5:53 am, meaning that not only had we fallen asleep after hitting the snooze button, but that we had slept almost half an hour late!
We are so in for it! I groaned to myself mentally, shivering in the chill morning air. I wished I had on something heavier than my light pajamas, and that I had some kind of house shoes on to protect my feet from the cold floor, but I knew better than to reach for either just then. Poor Ted had it worse, all he had slept in was a pair of white briefs, meaning he was even more exposed to the chilly air than I was.
"I can not believe the two of you," INGA said, her perfectly modulated voice somehow conveying disappointment, anger, and a promise of future changes, without ever becoming less perfectly sweet. Her voice was the voice of every long-suffering mother and nanny, all rolled into one.
"I'm sorry, INGA," I said. "We were up late last night, and-"
I knew better than to try to defend myself, but I could not help it. Ted wisely remained silent, but I just had to try it, and as I should have expected INGA cut me off in mid-excuse.
"I don't want excuses, Janet! You both knew what time you had to be up this morning, so if you stayed up too late it's your own fault you had trouble rising this morning. The children all got up on time, so it would hardly be fair to excuse their parents for failing to manage what teenagers had sufficient maturity to do! Don't you agree, Janet?"
I sighed. "I suppose so, Ma'am."
"I suppose so, too," the mechanical woman said. "Janet, Ted, I'm afraid I have little choice but to punish you for this."
To Be Continued
My heart sank as I heard INGA's lovely, perfect voice say that Ted and I would have to be punished. I had a fairly good idea of what the punishment would be, and I was hoping I was wrong.
"Ted, Janet," INGA said, looking them directly in the eye with her glowing green eyes, "you are both grounded for 7 days. There will be no television, no Internet, no radio, leaving the house except to go to work. I am moving your bedtime up to 9:00 pm, and there is to be no sex. Ted, you will move into the guest room until the seven days are up."
"But-" we both started to say in unison, only to be cut off my our robotic nanny.
"SILENCE! This is not open for negotiation, the decision is made! Now both of you, get down to breakfast before it gets cold!"
INGA glided out of the room, leaving my husband and I staring at the door after her. I couldn't believe it, we were grounded, at our age?! I was 42 years old, Ted was 44! She couldn't be serious...could she?
I sighed. Of course she was serious. My 42 year old butt was grounded for the first time since I was 16!
"Well," I said sadly, "so much for our anniversary dinner tomorrow night!"
Ted nodded. "Yep, and my fishing trip! I don't believe this is happening!"
After a silent moment, I said, "Well, you heard her. We'd better get down to breakfast before we get into even more trouble!"
Ten and I headed downstairs, to find that, as INGA had said, our teenagers were already at the table eating. The food was set at our places as well, where our chairs were inviting waiting, and the bacon and eggs smelled delicious. The household 'bots were programmed with everyone's favorite dishes, always cooked to perfection.
As we sat down at the circular table, I saw one of the household 'bots bringing in more orange juice. Unlike INGA, they were purely utilitarian machines, they didn't look remotely human, and they were very stupid, unable to do more than their basic assigned tasks. They did those well, but that was all they did.
Still, they were useful and well-designed. Floating on hoverfans, they could flit from seat to seat serving the diners, or fly back to the kitchen for more food or drink, and navigate the house in the dark. I had done a very good job on their design and programming if I did say so myself, and the patent had made Ted and myself quite comfortable, since they were one of Consolidated Robotics' best selling lines.
"Good morning, Mom," 12 year old Stephanie said to me as I sat down. "Good morning Daddy!"
"Hi honey," I said, ruffling her blonde hair. Stephanie is my youngest child, and I often have to fight the urge just to grab her into my arms and squeeze, she's so sweet. Except that she's a teenager now, and sometimes the sweetness gives way to a little devil. It was a progression I was quite familiar with from my older children, Brad, who was 14, Staci, who was 16, and Maria at 19. Each of them, but especially the girls, had given Ted and me their share of trouble at that age.
Of course, Stephanie and Brad were getting away with a good deal less than their older sisters had. INGA was not one to tolerate a lot of teenage hellaciousness, and she was a harder authority figure to charm or sweet-talk than I had been!
Ted and I sat on the side of the circular dining room table closest to the living room door, Stephanie sat opposite us, her brother and sisters on either side. It was a Saturday morning, and so we were all still clad in our pajamas, and I was grateful that the dining room floor was heated, it felt good to my bare feet.
Th dining room table was round and had no 'head' point, which had been the whole point when INGA made us replace the former rectangular table with a circular one. It was her way of reinforcing who was in charge in our household, and that wasn't Ted or me now!
"So," Brad asked between bites of his biscuits and gravy, "you two overslept?"
I blushed, seeing the grins the kids were exchanging. Naturally they already knew that Ted and I had to be in trouble, since INGA is very strict about bedtimes and rising times.
"Well, yeah," I admitted.
"So what happened?" Staci asked, having finished her plate of waffles.
"Well..." I said, "we-"
"Theodore and Janet have been grounded for seven days," the smooth, flawlessly silky voice of INGA said as she stepped through the doorway, the morning sunlight glistening on her polished silver skin. As always, she was a sight to see. She was clad in what I thought of as her 'nanny uniform', a knee-length skirt and severe top, sleeveless and black. The only think missing from the uniform was shoes, since it was the household custom to go barefoot indoors, and INGA did so as well.
"Grounded?!" Stephanie exclaimed in amazement and glee, "Mom and Dad are grounded?!"
The other kids were giggling, even Nichelle, and I guess I could hardly blame them seeing their parents treated as if we were naughty kids.
"Indeed they are, Stephanie," our robotic nanny said. "For the next seven days, in fact. So keep that in mind if you are tempted to break the rules, children!"
I was blushing furiously. I still had a hard time believing this was happening, but it was. I dug into my braekfast, even as the kids snickered and peppered INGA with questions about how it would work.
INGA answered them calmly. There was no question that she had thoroughly planned out how this would work, I had to admit. No question about it, when Ted and I created INGA, we had really topped ourselves!
To be continued...
Finally, I thought to myself! Thank Heaven it's finally over!
A week before, when INGA had informed me that I was grounded, along with my husband, I had not taken it all that seriously. True, I had been upset by the fact that we had to cancel out anniversary dinner, and a couple of other things, but I figured that being stuck at home for a week (except for work) wouldn't be that big a deal.
I had been wrong.
What I had not figured on was just how boring it would be. INGA had taken away the TV, the radio, the Internet, she had locked the library to us, and put Ted in the guest room so even that distraction was gone! Basically I had had nothing to do for a week except go to work, come home from work (straight home, at that!) and chores at home. By the third day of it I was going nuts, by the fifth day I was ready to scream. It had been a far more effective punishment than I had expected.
But now I was free. It was Saturday again, and I had risen (on time!), and had breakfast and now it was time to get dressed for my day's shopping excursion. I was taking Stephanie and Staci to buy some new outfits, and we were also planning to buy a new TV set to replace the one with the burned out power unit.
As I slipped off my silk pajamas, I paused to take in my image in the mirror. For a 42 year old mother of four, I didn't think I looked have bad. My blonde hair (which is mostly natural blonde, my grandmother was from Sweden) and green eyes were good features, and if I was a little heavier than I once was, my figure was still good enough to suit me. I wished my boobs were a little perkier, but that's life.
I turned to the closet holding my clothes, and reached for a pair of jeans and a blouse. As I did I thought longingly of the clothes hanging in the locked storage room, the short skirts and tight cutoff jeans and other items INGA considered inappropriate for me. OK, so I'm 42 years old, but I've kept in shape and frankly I think I've got the body for those clothes, but INGA was adamant about it, I was not allowed to wear skirts above the knee, tops that showed cleavage, or cutoffs as tight and short as the ones I once wore, period.
When I finished dressing and slipped on my nice sandals, I looked myself over in the mirror again, brushing my shoulder-length hair as I did. When I thought I looked presentable, I picked up my purse and headed downstairs, where my 12 and 16 year old daughters were waiting. I would have liked to have Maria with us too, but my 19-year old was with her boyfriend that day.
"Hi, Mom, about time!" Stephanie piped up. "We've been waiting forever!"
I rolled my eyes. Stephanie's impatience was a running family joke, her drawled out 'forever' probably meant about five minutes.
The girls, dressed like me in jeans and blouse-tops, looked adorable, and we matched fairly well, since all my kids inherited my blonde hair. Stephie wears hers short, but since she turned 16 Staci was letting hers grow down her back.
We were dressed and ready to go, which left only one more matter: allowances. Saturday was Allowance Day, and shopping was kind of pointless without some money, after all.
"Well," I said, "let's see about the allowances for the week, and we'll be off!"
I led the girls to the room where INGA kept her 'office', the room were the robot kept the records and other information, and where she also performed necessary self-maintenance. We found INGA there, putting together the weekly menu plan.
"Hello, Janet, Staci, Stephanie," the flowing-silver vision of femininity said, with her more than humanly sweet and perfect voice, "I take it you are here for your allowances?"
"Yes, Ma'am," I said, before Stephanie could say something teenagerish.
"Very well," INGA said. "Janet, I have authorized $2500.00 into your personal credit account for the new television, the clothing for the girls, and the repair work on the car's air conditioning system. For your personal allowances..."
INGA opened a small safe, and removed some cash, and gave Stephanie $50.00, Staci $50.00, and handed me $100.00.
"Be careful of spending that, girls. I will expect to see a list of what it was spent on at the end of the week, with receipts!"
"We understand," I said quickly. I knew Stephanie resented having to keep track of every penny she spent for INGA's approval, but I also knew that if she mouthed off just then, we might find our shopping trip replaced with a day of chores, which was not how I planned to spend this first free Saturday!
A few minutes later, as we drove down the road, the autopilot in the car keeping us perfectly in place in the thick traffic, the mild autumn sun shining down in what was likely to be one of the last really perfect days of the warm season, I settled back in the car seat, reflecting on the irony of having a net worth of over seventy million dollars, and going shopping on an allowance at the age of 42.
Ted and I had made our fortunes in the robotics business. The two of us were, quite frankly, among the best in the business at both the hardware and software aspects of it. We had met in college, when we were both part of a student team setting up one of the first self-organizing neural network models, and we had been married upon graduation. We had worked at several of the major robotics corporations before joining with several other specialists and some daring venture capital to form our own firm, Consolidated Robotics.
Out work was almost legendary, and I knew I was not just blowing my own horn to recognize that. But no question about it, INGA was in a class by herself. She was beyond question the most successful AI-robot Ted and I had ever designed and built.
To be continued...