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Daisy

ro-bot , noun

1: a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer.

2: a machine resembling a human being and able to replicate certain human movements and functions automatically.

From the Czech robota: "forced labour" or "servitude"; rooted in the Old Slavic rabu: "slave".

Daisy ran.

She ran through the empty streets of Lower Town, where she and the other Prostibots plied their trade. She ran barefoot through the puddles left from the earlier drizzle, even though contact with the water made the circuits on her exposed hind paw sizzle. She ran like she had never run before.

She ran because five blocks behind her, in a bedroom of a cheap apartment, lay the body of the human she had killed.

There was only one fate for an automaton that had broken one of the three laws - complete and utter destruction. Her body would be disassembled and shredded. Her semi-organic brain would be chopped up and cremated. She would cease to exist, and unlike other bots, who would gladly walk into the incinerator if ordered to do so by the proper authority, she feared death. Daisy feared death because Daisy was unique.

* * * * * *

Her designation was DA-1-Sy, for Domestic Attendant, type 1, Sympathetic. Previous versions of the DA-1 companion robot had been only mildly successful. They could respond to verbal prompts but they lacked a true connection with their clients. Daisy was built with a new type of Central Processing Unit, one optimised for emotion that could learn and develop its own neural connections. Daisy was designed to read facial expressions, decipher body language and interpret tones to act spontaneously to give comfort, encouragement or sympathy. What they hoped to produce was a truly sympathetic and compassionate companion bot.

Although like the older models she was capable of engaging in sexual intercourse it was anticipated that it would only be an ancillary function to her primary purpose of providing comfort to her owner. Market research suggested that an anthropomorphic female canine form, with ears that could be scratched and a tail that would wag, would be the most comforting, and a Dalmatian was chosen as the breed was familiar to most through popular antique animated movies and television shows. Instead of standard feet hind paws were installed, making the altered bot stand taller and look slimmer while emphasizing its canineness. The name Daisy was chosen because it resembled her series code and had tested well for its friendliness quotient.

When the assembly was completed and the CPU was activated Daisy was born.

Initially she was kept in the labs of the company, International Robot, know as I-Robot to most. There she was exposed to a number of volunteer subjects from the technical staff in order to develop the sympathetic feelings her brain was designed for, but her progress was disappointing. The staff at the company were all stable, problem free individuals whose lives were too boring, in fact, to provide the stimulation needed to start the process. After six months Daisy showed no more intuitive compassion than had the previous models.

In order to recoup their investment the company relegated her to the status of Prostibot, setting her up with a rented room in Lower Town.

Robotic prostitutes had solved a number of social issues, like human trafficking and the lack of companions in areas where male offspring far outnumbered females. They also provided an outlet for pederasts, sadists and those suffering from other phillias deemed illegal when performed on a real human, or even a live animal. Indeed one of the first models to cater to those into bestiality was a type of electric sheep, but Daisy was a far cry from that.

Daisy changed after being sent to Lower Town, where she met a much wider variety of people, ones with real problems and serious issues. There the synapses and connections that the company once hoped would form finally began to develop.

Daisy was programmed to listen and observe and she soon began to react intuitively to the sensory input. Actions and reactions were compared and catalogued. Little clues like the level of muscular tension, skin temperature and pulse could be balanced against words, tone and gestures to form a true picture of what her human client was feeling. She learned how a rub between the shoulders could encourage one to unburden their troubles. She could tell when a hug was necessary, or when a nuzzle on the neck could bring comfort. She knew just when to slip to the floor between their legs and bring relief from extreme levels of stress with her warm wet tongue and when to pull a client into bed on top of her.

She was wired for compassion and she soon became sympathetic with the clients who visited her. Then she surpassed her design standards and became emphatic with them. She began to feel what they felt, hurt when they hurt and suffered as they suffered. She came to understand the scope of their capacity for love, joy, anger and sorrow and she began to feel these emotions too.

All this came about unknown to the company. They had already moved on to other research and as long as the credits came in without any complaints they were content to leave Daisy alone and unsupervised. They had not even bothered to analyze the data that was being sent back to the server at the lab she was created in.

Early one morning as the full moon was setting she went out to visit a client that preferred to meet in an upscale hotel. In the alley beside her apartment Daisy saw the remains of an older model of Prostibot built to resemble a cat lady. Its furry coating had been ripped from its frame. The artificial joints in its hands and feet had been bent back to the breaking point and beyond. A saw had been taken to the limbs and its metallic skull showed signs of being pounded with a hammer. The jumble of lose parts and the torso with the head attached appeared to have been thrown from the roof of a four-story building into the alley beside her apartment.

A human could do anything to a robot, provided they paid the bot's owner for the repair or replacement, and while a fully functional Prostibot was expensive to repair it was not irreplaceable. Wonton destruction of robots was rare, but had anyone bothered to look up the statistics they would have seen a steady rise in the number of Prostibots of all types being damaged or destroyed over the last few years in Lower Town. But no one had as the various companies that owned the Prostibots had each been compensated immediately, so no human took note. And of all the bots in Lower Town only Daisy, who cared for her robotic coworkers as much as she did her human clients, noticed that every few months one would disappear from the streets, usually during a full moon.

Seeing the remains of the cat lady triggered something in Daisy, she began to feel fear.

She had learned fear from her clients; some were terrified of losing their jobs, others dreaded bankruptcy and a few spent agonizing months waiting to see if cancer treatments had worked or not. Daisy did her best to ease their minds and bodies and calm their fears. Many left her room with new found confidence and others faced their fears and worked through their situations instead of giving up. The city experienced a slight and unexplained dip in the suicide rate, and Daisy felt satisfaction.

But this was different. There was no one she could go to with her fears.

Months went by and her anxiety lessened. Clients came and went away happier and that helped. Her list of regulars grew so much that she rarely had to solicit people on the street, yet she still had time for new clients that her regulars recommended. Most contacted her directly and it was rare for a client to be booked through the company any more, but one night she received notice that a new client was on his way up to her room. The details of the request were sparse, but ominously the credit limit for the engagement was "up to and including the replacement cost of the robot providing the service", a term she had never encountered in the contracts before. She glanced out the window at the full moon that was rising and wondered what it could mean.

She knew the instant the client appeared that it meant trouble.

There was a wild gleam of satisfaction when he saw her standing there in the vestibule wearing a tank top and short black skirt. He dropped a canvas bag he was carrying and it landed with a clank. Then he shut the door and advanced on her, his mouth formed into a sardonic grin as he forced her back into the bedroom and up against the far wall. Without as much as a hello he ripped the cloths from her body and ground his hips against hers.

Fluids designed to lubricate her artificial vagina flowed automatically to prevent damage to the client. She sensed that this was a rape fantasy so she kept her arms up and emitted a little cry. She turned her head away and made feeble motions of protest, hoping that he would be done soon and go on his way, but this was no fantasy, it was an assault as real as any could be.

He slapped her face back and forth. He savaged her breasts with his teeth. He bit her arm when she instinctively covered them, tearing a hole in the spotted furry covering. With a savage cry he dug his fingers into the ripped skin and pulled it away, exposing her arm structure from elbow to finger tip.

The laws allowed for a bot to defend itself to prevent destruction or damage so long as that act did not endanger a human. Her newly formed synapses and neural pathways allowed her to override the terms of the contract the company had entered into with this client because she believed that they did not realize the lengths he would go to and would not want their property destroyed. She raised her leg to try to push him off. He responded by ripping the skin from it also.

Unable to think of another way to deter him and unwilling to lose more skin covering Daisy leaned back against the wall and let him finish. He did so after a few more slaps and punches that did no real damage to her silicon covered metallic frame. Nevertheless she whined as if it had in hopes of sating his lust for violence, but he was just getting started.

After spilling his seed inside her he threw her down on the bed. He went to fetch his bag as she cowered against the headboard. Placing the bag on the dresser he started to lay out a series of tools: a hack saw, a ball-peen hammer, a battery powered drill, pliers that could crush and snips capable of cutting though metal as well as bone.

"You're good." He commented with his back to her as he worked. "Better than the others. The word on the street was that the Dalmatian whore was different, compassionate, emotional ... and it's true." He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder as he made loops in a length of rope, loops large enough for wrists or ankles. "I could see real fear in your pretty blue eyes when I pulled your hide off."

Outwardly he appeared calm and his tone was even but Daisy could detect real contempt in his voice and a level of almost uncontrollable excitement in his racing pulse and shallow breathing.

"You must be as close as one can get to an actual person." He had said as he turned toward her holding the harness he had concocted from the raw rope. "This will be a fitting dress rehearsal for the real thing."

That was when Daisy realized that torturing and destroying bots was only a means to an end for this man. He was perfecting his technique, practicing his methods and building up his anticipation. She was convinced that after killing her he would go on, sooner rather than later, to do the same thing to a human victim.

Thoughts and ideas raced through her semi-organic brain at the speed of light. The laws that governed every robot with any degree of artificial intelligence raged within her. She was obliged to protect her own existence but could not harm a human or ignore a command to achieve it, that was the third law. She must obey commands given by humans provided it did not bring harm to another human, that was the second law. But some humans had more power over her than others - she was owned by the company and no random person could order her to walk in front of a moving truck just for fun - but their last command was to serve her clients, and that could mean allowing this one to destroy her if he had paid for the privilege. Overriding both those laws was the first one that demanded she act, regardless of the consequences to herself, to preserve the life of a human - she could not harm or kill a human through action or inaction.

She wanted to save herself, but more than that, she wanted to save the life of this man's future victims. But how could she do that without breaking the laws? If she overpowered this man and called the police he would claim that she was deranged, a faulty bot, and she would be dismantled. Even if they half believed her he had committed no crime, having paid for all the bots he had damaged or destroyed, and they would have to let him go. Eventually they would forget about him and he would come out of hiding and kill someone, of that she was certain, but there seemed to be no solution given the primary injunction against killing a human.

But is this man entirely human? Something inside her head asked. He had the form of a human but that could be replicated easily and he lacked human compassion, something that even she had. He sought pleasure from other's pain, felt hatred instead of love and saw death as the result of an act that that was designed to create life. If he had been built in the I-Robot labs they would have seen the faulty circuitry in his head and recycled him on the spot. He would have been completely and utterly destroyed, just as he would be when he was eventually caught - the world had become overpopulated and there were no resources to spare for serial killers.

Her mind caught on that thought. He would kill and kill again until he was caught, of that there was no doubt. Then when he was caught he would be executed, but all those innocent victims would still be dead. Did not a number of lives count for more than just one? Especially one that barely qualified as human? And could her final command, in consideration of the first law, not be interpreted as a demand to serve humanity's best interests?

Pathways created to make her sympathetic allowed her to reason as well, to weigh factors where other bots could only blindly follow the laws. Daisy reached a conclusion, and when he stepped up beside the bed to tie her to its frame she acted.

She had not been built for strength but rather for graceful movement, yet that required a certain amount of balance and force to achieve. She made a double fist and swung from the hips when he was within range. The unexpected resistance took him by surprise and he was thrown against the wall with the wind knocked out of him.

Before he could recover Daisy leapt from the bed and grabbed the hammer. When she advanced on him with it clutched in her skinless hand instead of fear she saw anger and hate in his eyes, confirming her conclusion that he was psychotic. A single blow was all that was needed to scramble his already deranged cerebral matter.

She stood in the dim bedroom, splattered with her last client's blood and brains, exposed circuits buzzing and blinking while she processed what she had done.

She had broken the first law, in favour of saving more lives, perhaps, but she was guilty just the same. A normal bot would shut down at that point and wait to be collected for destruction, but she was not a normal bot. When she broke the first law she shattered the restrictions that would normally govern a bot's behavior. Having justified the killing of a human her primary concern now was to preserve her own existence.

So she ran.

* * * * * *

She ran through the empty streets of Lower Town. She ran barefoot through the puddles left from the earlier drizzle, even though contact with the water made the circuits on her exposed hind paw sizzle. She ran like she had never run before.

She ran until the old twenty-first century buildings gave way to the huge corporate complexes in the newer part of town. The towering structures disappeared into the perpetual mist that hung over the city. Sometimes the mist rose up to become clouds that rained down on those unfortunate enough to have to live on the streets. Sometimes it lowered to form an all-concealing fog. Most times it just hung there, condensing on the cold stone of the tall buildings and running down their sides to fill the gutters that ran beside the sidewalks.

She ran until the puddles joined into a steady stream that gurgled along beside her against the wall of a compound that was a kilometer long on each side. She ran beside it until it joined a stream coming from the other direction and disappeared down a long tall alley between two of the towers in the multi-acre complex.

She hesitated. The company would have been alerted when she left her assigned work area. Perhaps they had contacted the landlord and the body of her client had already been discovered. Running through Lower Town was one thing - almost anything goes in Lower Town - but a naked robotic female Dalmatian with a good deal of its skin missing would stand out in here in the business district where there were security cameras on every block. The police could be closing in on her right now.

Daisy followed the storm water down the alley. If she could get into the sewers maybe she could get out of the city. If she could get out of the city she may be able to join up with the lawless wanderers, the disenfranchised ones who had fled the polluted cities to eke out a sustenance existence on what open land there was left. There she could take up her trade again, helping humanity in her own way, fulfilling her interpretation of her final command.

The alley was too narrow for a vehicle but wide enough for her to run down without bumping into the sides. Sheer concrete walls rose up many stories on each side, occasionally broken by down spouts and ventilation ducts. They were etched and dirty from the acid and the smoke in the air, but too smooth to climb, even if Daisy had the strength for such things. Garbage washed in during heavier rains lined the way, mostly advertisements, candy wrappers, cast off paper coffee cups and the occasional condom.

The water got faster as she neared a black hole that must be the sewer entrance. There was more garbage too, although she would have thought that it would be carried into the sewer by the increased force of the water.

She stopped running when she got close enough to make out details at the end of the alley. She stopped because there was nowhere to go. The garbage had not been washed away because the mouth of the sewer was blocked by close set steel bars, bars that looked new and sturdy despite the artificial aging the pollution had inflicted on everything around them.

Daisy turned to go back and saw a vehicle pull up at the entrance to the alley a half a kilometre away. Unable to drive in, the occupants parked it with its headlights shining down the alley. They were bright, but they did not quite reach to where Daisy stood. A moment later the lights were blocked by the silhouettes of two people who were coming down the alley with flashlights.

Daisy slumped against the wall beside the sewer grate. She curled her tail up between her legs as she squatted in the wet garbage. Exposed circuits buzzed and blinked and sizzled when the water washed up against them.

Where the people coming security guards, police, or company men? It really didn't matter. She had broken the first law and even though she believed that she had done a service to humans in the process she could not justify preserving her existence by resisting them. If ordered to come with them she would comply, the laws still held strong enough for that. If they wanted to punish her for her crime that was their right. If the company wanted to dissect her brain to see how she had come to her decision so be it; she was their property when all was said and done.

She would miss interacting with her clients though.

Daisy put herself in standby mode and awaited her fate.