Inspektor 12 Kronicles 4: Maisie
{Eiditorial prologue and notes: The saga rolls on, with my own original character Maisie getting her star-turn in this chapter. This is her second story appearance here at FC; one thing Inspektor 12 and I have in common is an extreme distaste for one-offs, or one-night-stands, if you will. So here Maisie gets (ahem!) fleshed out a bit, and I'm taken with the possiblities I've discovered once I gave her more character-depth; it pays off in the next several chapters. So, to get some background and the first chapter, please go here: Kronicles 1. And the previous chapter is here: Kronicles 3. And finally for those who might be wondering, Maisie was indeed patterned after Mariska Hargitay's "Law & Order SVU" character Olivia Benson, with certain liberties taken here and there. Enjoy!!}
MAISIE
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Extreme chaos and rampant terror shockingly erupted within Rosie's homelike confines, sparked off by Inspektor 12's sudden circuit-fusing howl of purest agony. It was the absolute pit of the night, and the whole of the Inspektor's Harem-Family were sound asleep. It had been a pretty rough last few days for all of them, what with taking care of some unexpected Robo-Depot emergencies that detoured them randomly all over the country, once they left Willow Bay. Maisie nearly shot through the ceiling in startlement, but her superior programming and reflexes instantly kicked in, and she immediately threw herself on top of the desperately thrashing Inspektor's body, in an attempt to still his wild convulsions with the reassuring comfort her own lovely and well-put-together body usually provided him. His nightmares were obviously getting much worse, which worried her deeply. He let out a second howl and increased his awful writhings, and Maisie was frantically using every resource at her command to soothe and calm him, to negligible effect. In a twinkling her Sisters were there and immediately joined the struggling Maisie in her effort to restrain and help calm the man they all loved so much. Despite the sudden shock of the situation, they all could still keep their electronic wits about them and function as a well-oiled team. It took some time and considerable effort, but the loving ministrations of the sexy and attractive mechanical women gradually had the desired effect, and the suffering Inspektor finally ceased his agonized movements, and lay still, bathed in a wash of perspiration. Every female in the room breathed a deep sigh of relief. Gina asked softly: "What on earth happened, Maze? He seemed fine when we said good night. Did he have any trouble dropping off?" Still a bit shaken, Maisie was baffled. "I wish I knew, Geen. He was perfectly all right as we settled down, and he was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow." She managed a small smile. "He didn't even tickle the twins and try to drive me nuts the way he usually does when we hit the sheets together."
Maisie's matter-of-fact reference to the Inspektor's legendary penchant for sexy teasing put corresponding smiles on the lips of all the women in the room, and eased the tension and alarm of the moment. They'd all run his naughty gauntlet of devilish hijinks many, many times over and were well used to it. They all enjoyed it too; it was one of the many quirky qualities about him that made him so easy to love. He could have simply programmed all of them to love him automatically, but he instead deferred to their independence and sentience - they were totally free to make up their own minds about him. They may all have been machines, but they were also women, and he treated them accordingly, with dignity and tremendous respect. And that made it easier for them to come to love him naturally, which they all did. Sitting next to Maisie on the queensized bunk, Chase leaned over slightly and felt the Inspektor's forehead. "Oh my God, he's burning up! Is the compress still in the icebox?" Gina said "I think so, Darlin'. I checked just before bedtime." Chase lightly bounded off the bed, and went to fetch it, returning in a matter of seconds. The Inspektor groaned deeply when she gently pressed the chilled gelpak to his feverish brow, and Maisie had to apply firm pressure to his shoulders for a few moments as he flinched painfully in reaction. "Sh-sh-sh, lie still, Love." she whispered. "Your Girls are here with you, and we'll keep you safe. Everything's going to be fine." He groaned again as she leaned down and brought one of his limp hands up and into her deep cleavage and held it there as she flexed her synthetic chest muscles suggestively, but he did remain still. Maisie kissed him tenderly, then said "Rosie, can you see any anomalies in his bioreadings? You've got the newest and sharpest sensors out of all of us." Through the speaker just above the window in the room came Rosie's perky contralto: "Just that damn tangle again that we've all seen, Maze. Everything else looks fine to me, except that fever of his." Maisie frowned at that. Rosie's mention of the tangle in his bioreadings confirmed to all the women that this was most likely another one of those vexing nightmares the Inspektor had been having for almost three weeks now, further compounded by fever. Convincing proof of this unexpectedly came from the Inspektor himself. He suddenly sat bolt upright, the compress flying across the room, his body rigidly tense, his eyes huge and shockingly bloodshot. " 'Chelle!! 'Chelle!! Where's Rochelle?"
It was only then that the group of lovely synthetic women realized that one of their number was missing, their beautiful Sister Rochelle. Rosie's sudden frantic cry struck cold, naked fear in the circuits of all the females: "Oh good God, she's cascading!!!!!" Chase and Gina flashed out the door and streaked to their Sister's room as Maisie struggled in vain to comfort and restrain the way-overwrought Inspektor. When the sexy mechanized pair got to Rochelle's room, Chase and Gina were horrified to discover their lovely Sister in a state of electronic anguish that matched the Inspektor's organic sufferings, thrashing randomly on her bed, eyes dead and vacant, her dainty jaw hanging slack. She froze up suddenly, and a confusion of chimes, beeps, and electronic crackles began emanating from her ravishingly beautiful body. Gina was appalled; Chase was frozen in terror. Gina's reaction was instant: "Sissie!! Enable function-stasis, and go dual with Rochelle, NOW!" Moments later, both women were immensely relieved when their failing sibling grew silent, and her gorgeous body went limp on the bed, a lone spark escaping her half-opened mouth. She looked so lost and vulnerable. Chase immediately clung to Gina, buried her head on her Sister's shoulder, and started sobbing uncontrollably. Although she felt the exact same way as Chase, Gina firmly kept her composure and reassuringly stroked and caressed her baby Sister, holding her close and swaying slightly back and forth. "Oh Geen, I'm so afraid. First the Inspektor, now Rochelle. What are we going to do help them? Can we help them?" Gina held her tighter and said "We'll do everything we can, Darlin'. Rochelle and the Inspektor are both strong and resilient. Rosie, have you got her locked down all the way, yet?" Gina hugged Chase tighter still. "Yeah, but she's going to need attention fast. Her datastream is in terrible shape and needs a lot of work." Gina thought for a second. "Would some flow-patches help? The portable diagnostic got the latest updates about two hours ago." Rosie considered Gina's notion swiftly. "Let me check with Da Misstress Maze first; now's not really a good time for any techie boo-boos. Gimme a sec or three."
Gina giggled, and Chase lifted her head with the beginnings of a tiny smile forming on her delicate lips. Rosie's impish humor and mannerisms were just what they both needed right now. Gina kissed her baby Sister sweetly and said "There you go! We're going to get everybody through this, Darlin'. You'll see." Gina was very protective of her baby Sister, as all the rest of the girls were, and Chase began to relax a little bit and be reassured. They both sat down on the bed next to the dormant Rochelle and waited for Rosie's return. Gina began to gently massage Chase's shoulders, and her baby Sister sighed deeply and began to relax a bit more. She really struggled hard with her insecurities and was improving daily, but there were still far too many situations that could shatter her delicate electronic nerves - like the current scenario. Gina and the rest of her Family understood her perfectly though, and all were right there for her when she needed them. Both Gina and Chase were startled when the Inspektor himself suddenly burst in, trailed by Maisie who was pulling on his arm, trying to restrain him from overexertion in his feverish condition. He looked awful. "What happened?" His voice was hoarse and raspy, and neither Chase nor Gina liked the look of his bioreadings. "She was cascading, but I had Rosie nab her datastream with the stasis net, and she's been isolated." Gina explained. "Good thinking, Sugarbritches. It'll buy her some time, but not a lot. DAMN, I should have seen this coming." He suddenly went glassy-eyed, and Maisie had to quickly shift her balance to support his full weight as his knees began to buckle. "Help me get him on the bed here, girls. He shouldn't be up at all, but you know how headstrong he is when one of us is out of order." Gina and Chase carefully moved their dormant Sister over enough so that Maisie could lay the Inspektor down alongside her. Maisie said in a light tone of voice: "Chase honey, be a dear and please fetch the compress from the other room? I think it flew into the cubby." Reassured by her big Sister being so calm, Chase zipped out the door. "Sure thing, Maze. Be right back." Maisie then addressed her {literally} big Sister. "Rosie, I think the re-route will hold long enough if we take the processor bypass offline, and loop as much of her dataflow as we can back on itself. Double-check her schematics first though, just to make sure. There's a spike in her electrofeedback I don't like at all." Rosie replied, "I noticed that too, and was going to ask you about it. Has it been there all along, or did it come up after she started glitching?" Maisie paused and thought. "Now that you mention it, I don't remember seeing it until the day before yesterday. If she's got a fragmenting parasite on top of everything else, we're in serious trouble."
Chase returned with the compress, and she also had a fresh can of soda with her. Maisie saw the evil smile Chase wore, and flashed a brilliant smile of her own back to her as she took the compress and can. This was more like it; Chase had shaken off her insecurites, and was being creative again. It all went by the Inspektor, who was groaning softly in a half-delirium, spasmodically grabbing at the lifeless form of Rochelle lying next to him. Maisie gently raised him to a sitting position, put the soda in his numbed hands and gave him an insinuatingly sexy purr of : "Come on Honey, drink this for your Robolover. We can't have you too thirsty now, can we?" She helped him get the chiiled can to his lips. "Chug it all down and then you can have at me allllllll you want," she cooed lasciviously - which of course did the trick, as she knew it would even in his fevered state. He drained the can, and Maisie raised the long t-shirt she was wearing as a nightie enough to expose her lovely breasts. She pressed them up against his chest with a soft moan and feminine sigh, then pressed him back down flat with her lush and supple bosom and let the rest of her gorgeous body follow suit until she was fully flat on top of him, kissing him deeply. He was out like a light when he hit the pillow, and Maisie remained on top of him in deep liplock, moaning softly until she was sure he was asleep. She then carefully rolled off of him and got back to her feet. "Keep an eye on him for a bit please, Geen? Chase and I need to get the portable diagnostics unit out of the back." Gina smiled. "Not a problem, Sugar! Don't be too long though, in case he wakes up again." Chase giggled, then told Gina: "Oh, he'll be out for a while. I spiked his soda. Six sleepers!!" Both Gina and Maisie laughed heartily at this, and quipped in unison: "Well, that might buy us five minutes!" Maisie put a loving arm around her baby Sister and guided her along to fetch the portable from Rosie's storage compartment. "Chase honey, I really wish you wouldn't be so hard on yourself all the time. You're as pretty, and clever, and worthy as the rest of us. That idea of the six sleeping pills proves it!" Maisie lovingly squeezed Chase's shoulder, then continued: "I would never have thought to try that trick. And I'll bet the Inspektor will be happy with you too, once he comes back to himself. He'll probably try to ravish you for a solid week staight!" Chase leaned her head happily on Maisie's shoulder as they neared Rosie's storage compartment, silently reaffirming the special Sisterly bond they shared. Chase always did look up to Maisie's specialized abilities and advanced programming, and she felt more secure when they were together. For her part, Maisie doted on the shapely auburn-haired beauty; her delicate mannerisms, and shy, sweetly demure nature were a perfect complement to the rest of the Harem-Family's more gregarious, assured, and outgoing personae. Besides that, Maisie also highly valued Chase's creative instincts, which were a great boon to the overall Family, keeping it cohesive and happy. Her spiking of the Inspektor for his own good was a perfect example.
They brought the portable back to Rochelle's room, then Maisie asked Gina to switch places with Rochelle, so she could work on her without disturbing the Inspektor, whom Gina would be there for. Chase had Rosie lower one of the upper bunks, and climbed in for some rest; she was as exhausted as they all were. As Maisie began a full diagnostic on the stricken Rochelle, the recent tumult flashed her back to her earliest days in the Robo-Depot development labs where her programming was being calibrated and super-fine-tuned. She recalled how the simulator purposely tried to overwhelm her programming's ability with wave after wave of conflicting, complex problems she had to solve all at once. Maisie handled everything thrown at her effortlessly, and she clearly remembered the Inspektor's drolly laconic "Say! You did that pretty good, Sweets!" regarding her flawless performance under overwhelming {simulated} conditions. From then on, she became one of the Inspektor's personal favorites. She had originally been designed as a sophisticated law-enforcement platform, and equipped with some rather devastating special features. She even starred in her own R-D video featurette, widely distributed as a promotional item when her model line was announced; it was titled "Law & Order SVU-TNG: Cops Get Religion," and showcased the lovely robot's special features in grisly detail. Such was the success of the film, that Maisie was handpicked by the Inspektor to serve as head of company security at Robo-Depot. Maisie still had on file within her the one and only case she had never solved as R-D head of security. Somebody hacked into Robo-Depot's mainframe and stole the original screenplay for her movie. The only clue was a cryptic bit of electro-grafitti left in the folder where the screenplay had been kept. It said "BL Wuz HERE!"
As oftentimes happened with the Inspektor's special prototypes once full model-production began, she was eventually retired from her original service, joined his personal extended Family, and received the first of what would be many continual upgrades as her basic platform's abilities were explored and analyzed. Thanks to the rigid discipline and phenomenal reasoning abilities required by her original assigned purpose, she was adaptable for many other specialized or technical fields requiring rigid disciplne and complex thought processes, before gravitating into heavier tech / diagnostic duties, which suited her amazingly facile AI capabilities perfectly. Thus, she and her big Sister Rosie were the 1-2 punch of matchless tech support for the Family, with Maisie doing the field-work, and Rosie keeping an eye on the administrative and information-retrieval end of the spectrum. They worked well together, and kept the Family in a generally superb state of tune all the time. Her exquisite brunette beauty, and warm, assured, and vivacious personality also kept the Inspektor himself in a generally superb state of perpetual heat for her, and she quickly grew to love the relentless teasing-battles they frequently engaged in, delighting in all the ways he would try to confound her logic and programming with ever-more outrageous sexy stunts, knowing full well she could easily handle anything he threw at her. She soon realized that he was also paying her a supreme personal compliment with all the seeming erotic horseplay - he was proud of her and her abilities, and loved to see her show herself off. Had she not already been totally infatuated with him, this last factor would have won her electronic heart hands down. Even the Inspektor's musical activities meshed perfectly with her personality and capabilities, and she adored the musical duels he engaged her in onstage, showing off her CPU's full capacities, in this instance.
Right now however, it was all Maisie could do to keep her electronic heart from plopping through Rosie's floorboards, as the diagnostics started confirming her very worst fears. Rochelle was riddled with viruses and parasites; not a single system of hers was unaffected. Even worse, there were a couple clusters around her CPU that Maisie instinctively knew would detonate and fuse her core unless they were excised immediately. Although Rosie carried enough equipment on her to qualify as a mobile lab facitity, Rochelle's infested and corrupted systems needed the full resources of Robo-Depot headquarters; it was the only way she could be saved - the damage was just too much for any lesser facility to cope with. They were still several thousand miles away, thanks to all the detouring, but the patch job she had discussed earlier with Rosie still seemed the best course of action for now. She got to work on it right away. A couple hours later she'd finished the task, and was ready for some rest. Before she retired, she consulted with her big Sister. "Rosie, how quick can you get us back to the plant?" Rosie considered. "What kind of deadline are we looking at, Maze?" Maisie was blunt: "My guess is that Rochelle's got about 36 hours before catastrophic failure. Maybe 48, if the patches hold." Rosie replied: "If you guys can help me out, we could be there in about eighteen hours." Maisie was shocked. "Eighteen hours? Rosie, you'd burn yourself up if you tried that! You've got great stamina, but your brain does still need rest like we all do. You were driving all day yesterday, and were only offline for an hour before the Inspektor freaked out." Rosie was confident: "That's where you guys come in. My chassis can keep going straight through nonstop. All I'd need to do is go dual with you guys and rest in your bodies, while you keep my body going. Relay-race, you know?" **Why that dear little scamp! She's one step ahead of all of us!** Maisie thought to herself. She blinked a few times, then smiled. "Okay Sissie, I'll wirelessly put messages in the others while you take off. You've really been a great help with all this." Maisie felt the powerful rumble of Rosie's engine revving up to full RPM's, then the tug of gravity and centrifugal force as her big Sissie took off like a shot. Maisie really admired her dainty, effortless grace no matter what conditions were prevailing. "Thanks, Mistress Maze. I'll keep my comm open, so you guys don't need to shout or anything. Is Eye-ball Plenty still zonked?" Maisie looked over and saw the Inspektor, one hand firmly clamped on one of Gina's breasts, the other on one of Rochelle's, and giggled: "Oh yes, he's still out but as sick as he is, he's still got to have his cuddle-toys with him, the silly old fool!" Rosie let out one of her airbrake snorts, then said "Well! That figures. Is his fever down any?" Maisie checked, then frowned; it had risen by about a degree, and he was losing color, and starting to tremble. "He's really sick, Rosie. 103 fever, and he's slipping into chillblains. You and I need to talk in private for a bit."
Maisie felt the familiar brief disorientation as Rosie rerouted her AI-frequency into Rosie's own CPU, and when her vision returned and stabilized she saw Rosie had established a steady and effortless 130-per cruising speed. "What's the poop, Misstress Maze? Don't worry, I'm still governing; you're just along for the ride right now." Maisie was glad of that, because she herself was feeling quite fatigued, and the blurred countryside whizzing by didn't help matters any, either. The sultry night air did feel good at this speed, though. "Sissie, you're not going to believe this, but it looks like the Inspektor's got what Rochelle's got." Rosie was stunned. "Is that even possible? We may be machines, but we're not bloody toilet seats, for crying out loud!" Maisie giggled tiredly. "I thought the same thing, but I compared his bioreading with 'Chelle's electroreading side by side, and you'd be surprised at how closely they correspond. 'Chelle even has the same sort of tangle that the Inspektor's nightmares give off." Rosie had Maisie drive for a bit while she called up the files to see for herself. "Wow!!" She was amazed. "Why aren't the rest of us sick? We're all over each other's minds and bodies just as much as the Inspektor is with 'Chelle." Maisie did a mental shrug as they swapped back driving duties. "We may all be infected too, but I kind of doubt it. 'Chelle and Mr. Big Third Leg started showing symptoms within hours of each other, remember? Either way, we still need to get to the plant as quick as we can. Check with Liza there, and see if she has any new information about the bug; she's been researching it the last few days. For now, let's just keep this between the two of us, okay? The other Girls already have their hands and minds full with the Big Guy." Maisie felt a warm soothing wash; Rosie's version of a loving mental hug and kiss. "You've got yourself a deal, Misstress Maze. When do you think someone might be ready to spell me? I'd only just dropped off when all hell broke loose, so I'm gonna need relief soon. I'm pooped!" Rosie's perpetually cheerful manner began to ease the growing worry that Maisie was experiencing. "If you can hang on for two more hours, Chase will be ready. She's the quickest recharger of all of us, and she's got nearly the stamina that you do. Wake me gently when you switch out, okay?" With assurances to do just that, and with another warm wash, Rosie sent Maisie's AI-frequency back to her own body. The exhausted female robot checked her Lover and Sister once more, then gently kissed and caressed the dozing Gina, who purred sleepily and blindly gave Maisie an intimate caress much like one of the Inspektor's teasing ploys. She then climbed into the upper bunk next to Chase, and embraced her lovely baby Sister as she fell into an exhausted heap. With a happy, drowsy murmur, Chase snuggled deeper into Maisie's arms, and the two beautiful mechanical women quickly lost consciousness as Rosie fearlessly sailed along.