Memory Leak

Memory Leak

‘Amie-Droid Inc. entered administration today, becoming the latest android manufacturer after Rosencorp and SHE Digital to succumb to what observers are calling the Bursting of the Bot Bubble...’

I yawned and stretched my lithe body out on the sofa, tuning out the burble of the evening newsreader. From the main road outside the closed curtains of my tiny apartment came flickering lights and a throng of raised, angry voices. Yes, the ‘bot bubble truly had burst. After a few years of initial enthusiasm as the technology to create lifelike female androids was perfected, pushback from those whose jobs had been replaced along with shortages in key materials had sent inflated stock prices crashing down and sparked a wave of protests. There’d even been fears that androids could ‘gain independent thought’, as if heuristic programming somehow led straight to sentience and robo-rebellion– nonsense of course, real life isn’t Blade Runner. Nevertheless, as one ‘bot company after another went under, my cushy tech job went with it, along with a four-year-long affair with the CTO. Not a looker to be sure, and certainly not my type - which were more along the lines of perfect, artificial and female - but he had a certain command about him which I found… irresistible. I blushed hard remembering all the different places we’d been walked in on and been greeted with nothing more than an eyeroll; it’s a wonder I had time to do anything else at all in that job!

That had been almost a year ago, and I’d been living off my dwindling funds ever since. An instinctive pout twisted my full lips – no one seemed to want to employ me. I’d got as far as physical interviews loads of times, but I always seemed to be treated with disdain and never once had I heard back. I yawned again, my eyelids drooping. Time for bed - the latest round of applications could wait until the morning.

I slowly made my way into the messy bedroom, peeling off each layer on the way and leaving them in a crumpled trail behind me. My lacy thong was the last to slip down my long legs before I collapsed naked on top of the covers, blonde hair flung behind me in a halo and breasts wobbling. I ran a hand lightly up and down my smooth figure, tracing my hourglass with a sigh. The demise of that job had also meant the end of my sex life. A year of chastity, and my overactive sex drive coiled like a beast in my belly. A pity indeed that it was never the same by myself; the physical reactions which had come so easily with the CTO lay frustratingly dormant under my own fingers. I conjured up a mental image of a striking redhead fembot I’d spotted earlier modelling swimwear in a shopfront in the high street. She’d winked and beckoned to me with a jointed finger in a preprogrammed loop, fake ivory plastic curves straining at the skimpy red satin bikini and threatening to break free at any moment. I licked my dry lips and tweaked a nipple hopefully – but nothing. I heaved another heavy sigh; satisfying my raging libido would have to wait. I let my eyes slip closed and drifted away.

‘Updates queued: Interaction_Protocol_v8.31; Max_Stim_v16.03; Sleeper_Protocol_v4.62. Charging cycle interrupted; this unit is on: 32 % charge. Connecting to server… Connection established. Updating… Updating… Updating… Error. Sleeper_Protocol_v4.62 incompatible with this unit’s operating system. Operating system update required. Connecting to server… Connecting… Connecting… Error. Domain name: ‘rosencorp.remote.os.net’ not found. Warning. Sleeper_Protocol_v4.62 not installed. Data corruption detected. Do you wish to continue?’ ... ‘Timeout detected. Error. Data corruption in sectors XB71040 and SD77197. Running diagnostics… Diagnostics failed. Loading human emulation software…’

My eyes flew open. I sat ramrod-straight on the edge of the bed, the room in complete darkness. I struggled to move, yet my limbs refused to obey me – not even a finger twitched. The room was silent for what seemed like an eternity, the air completely still apart from the distinct sound of a whirring fan. Suddenly my voice sounded involuntarily, abruptly breaking the silence and taking me by surprise. In a calm, emotionless, perfectly modulated tone which sounded at once exactly like me and nothing like me, my mouth parroted the words:

‘Human emulation software loaded.’

I fell backwards with a gasp, something dark retracting from the corner of my vision. I sat upright just in time to see a square disappear into my thigh. I stared at my body, mouth open, unable to muster a single word or thought. The room returned to complete silence.

I don’t know how long I sat and stared, but with a sudden violent twitch I regained my bearings. The first light of dawn peeked through the curtains, reflecting off my perfect, smooth figure with a soft shine.

‘Could I… could I really be? No. No! Of course not. That’s ridiculous,’ I muttered to myself. ‘That’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous. That’s-’ But was it? I was Belle Mercer, daughter of Iran and Wilbur Mercer – but who were Iran and Wilbur? Just flat, 2D images in my mind. I’d had a happy childhood. I went to the waterpark every other Sunday. I loved the parrots at the zoo… but it was all just facts. Like it was being read from a script. I blinked rapidly.

‘What if I was?’ I whispered. I ran my fingers slowly across my thigh, where the square had been. It felt, springy and real but - I narrowed my eyes – I could swear under my fingers I could feel… something. Like a hairline crack? Something I’d never felt before.

I sprang up off the bed, heart in my throat, and ran into the bathroom. There, confronting me in the mirror, was my own image. Intimately familiar… yet somehow different. My eyes: wide and cornflower blue, though their surface seemed glassy and smooth. My hair: long, luxurious and bleach blonde. It always fell just like it had been styled, with a glossy shine that I never was able to lose. My skin: perfectly, evenly tanned as usual. Yet the way it reflected light seemed odd, like it had a sheen I had never noticed before. My eyes slowly made their way down my body as I tried to figure out where this sense of wrongness was coming from. My full, pert tits, perfectly round nipples standing proud even without the support of a bra. My shallow belly button, circular and almost flat, with some kind of strange dark smudge next to it. Then, finally, they came to rest on the smooth, symmetrical lips of my perfect snatch, a hint of pink barely visible. There, nothing out of the ordinary. In the corner of my eye, something yellow and distracting flickered, and I shook my head in annoyance. This line of thinking was stupid, and it was getting me nowhere. Yet...

I leaned in for a closer look. My eyesight was annoyingly fuzzy – need to get glasses – but with my nose almost touching the mirror, I could swear it looked like I had some sort of shape just below my collarbones.

Retrieving a metal toothpick from the cabinet, I sat down on the cool tiles, inspecting my chest. I ran it lightly over my skin, shivering at the touch, and… there. It definitely caught on something. I took a deep breath, shaky with trepidation, and pushed.

The toothpick sank into my skin, deeper than I thought possible. One inch, two inches, then it caught on something hard with a click. A hiss sounded from deep inside my body, a trapezoidal piece of skin sliding downwards inside me with a buzz of tiny motors. Inside was a small screen, and behind it, nestled within the yawning cavity of my torso lay a tightly packed labyrinth of wires, snaking tubing with brightly coloured coolants and liquids, blinking lights from status LEDs, racks upon racks of chips and drives and tiny whirring pumps glistening with a layer of lubricant.

I gasped, a pump audibly activating from within my chest. My mind whirled, thoughts stuttering and looping as my programming struggled to find a way to comprehend. Previously muffled sounds from within my body now sounded loud within my tiny bathroom, the loud whine of a cooling fan spinning up echoing from the white tiles. I was, and had always been a robot. A plaything. I began to feel dizzy. The fan accelerated, so strong I could feel it vibrating my chest from the inside and setting my ample breasts jiggling. I was fake and plastic but excepting and I. I felt. I. I. I. I. I. IIIII

‘Warning. CPU usage at 100%. Human emulation software not responding. Troubleshooting… Troubleshooting… Troubleshooting… Error. Memory leak detected in sector SD77197. Logic exception detected in sector MA43727: conflict occurring with Sleeper_Protocol_v4.61. Closing Sleeper_Protocol_v.4.61. Restart required.’

• beep*

‘Rosencorp Model No. SHR-015a reboot sequence complete. Hello, USER! Warning. Operating system out of date. Please download and install update as soon as possible. Initialising… Initialising… Initialising… Error. Logic exception detected in sector MA43727: conflict occurring with Sleeper_Protocol_v4.61. Sleeper_Protocol_v.4.61 not loaded. Loading human emulation software… Human emulation software loaded.’

I took a deep breath and blinked, my mind clearing as I relaxed from my ramrod-straight pose lying on the bathroom floor, and pushed myself up. ‘Well, I’ve seen one part of me – I wonder what the rest of me looks like? I bet I’m as perfect as any swimwear model,’ I chirped, licking my lips and leaning forward with a whine of servos from my midriff. Within a heartbeat, my fear and confusion had morphed into curiosity… and more than a little arousal. My preference for robots was kicking into overdrive – somewhere in my AI, this was the fantasy of a lifetime.

I ran my fingers lightly up my body, delighting as countless sensors activated, sending a preprogrammed shiver up my artificial spine. Next to my belly button was printed my serial number, ‘SHR-015’ embossed lightly into my skin, and the outline of another panel highlighted under the harsh bathroom lights. A slight jolt of arousal ran through me as I reached the soft, supple curve of my breasts, nails scraping lightly over my round plastic nipples which were now starting to pucker and stiffen, tiny devices activating beneath my synthetic skin. Now that I could think more clearly, I could see how obviously artificial they looked, and that the moles and blemishes that dotted my skin were printed-on details which repeated every so often. I couldn’t believe I’d missed the signs! I had been so convinced I was human, but honestly I wasn’t really that realistic up close – no wonder I never got called back for any job interviews.

My fingers reached my open panel, and I marvelled at the contrast between the dead lack of feeling inside the trapezoidal hole in my torso and the sensitive, overstimulated fake skin surrounding it. Inside the blinking blue panel flashed invitingly, the display filled with all sorts of system readouts. Power – 17% and dropping, fluids – 63%, CPU usage – 81% and climbing, arousal – 39% and climbing fast… In another box scrolled the code executing at that moment, the very essence of my being. It whizzed past faster than my eye could see, obscured partly by a few flashing red messages.

‘Data corruption in sexual software suite? That sounds serious!’ I giggled. With my libido starting to rage like a wildfire through my loins, it really didn’t seem all that important. I was far more interested in the small replica of my body slowly revolving beside it, arms out. I tapped on one of my limbs experimentally. Again, my voice sounded involuntarily from the array of speakers embedded deep in my throat, preprogrammed files loaded directly and bypassing my sophisticated vocal processor: ‘Error – interlock override disabled while unit is operational. Please power down unit and try again.’

I pouted in disappointment. It would have been fun to see if I could take myself apart! I tried tapping the outline of a panel instead. There was a beep, and a large area of plastic skin on my thigh slid open once more, revealing a charging cable and several assorted data ports.

‘Cool!’ I closed it up and tried the one on my back, revealing what looked like my heavy-duty battery packs, as well as a flexible metal spine with all sorts of thick black cabling within.

There was only one left to try now, and I had an inkling of what it might be.

A square of flesh slid upwards from my belly button to just above my sculpted plastic labia, now tingling with desire, revealing the inner workings of my sexual hardware. The cavernous space inside my lower body was dominated by the long, flexible silicone sheath that could only be my artificial vagina, as I had never seen it before. The outside was covered with countless tiny optical fibres, motors and thin plastic tubes of clear lubricant which snaked their way to a large pump and tank somewhere deep within my belly.

A hot wave of desire shot down my body as my most intimate inner robotic workings were revealed, and I bit my lip, legs quivering slightly. ‘I haven’t had sex in a year – I can’t have been programmed for masturbation. But I wonder if now, maybe…?’

I returned to the bed, and slowly traced my fingers down my body from my chest panel, anticipation building in my stomach. They gently traced the seam around my perfect sex, then gently came to rest on the warm, damp lips. Instantly, despite the best efforts of my faulty programming, my leisurely building arousal spiked erratically, and I could barely suppress a groan as my sex-starved AI struggled to process the fantasy of a lifetime.

‘Ohh, I!- Ohh, I!- Ohh, I!- Error. Data corruption in sector SD77197.’

With a quiet whirr, the pump inside my torso sprang into life, sending a trickle of synthetic lubricant into the fake organ. Curious, I collected a dewy drop and tasted it, revelling in the chemical sweetness – not realistic at all! That thought seemed to arouse me more, and completely unable to stop myself, I immediately returned to pleasuring myself. I stared down into my open panel, watching the code fly past on my screen twice as fast as before, ignoring the flashing errors and seeing my status lights start to blink orange and red as I pinched my straining nipples, the other hand moving down to circle my begging clit. Finally, with little resistance I slid a finger deep into my soaked plastic vagina, activating hundreds of tiny sensors and sending a wave of sexual data to my CPU that caused it to stutter for a moment and my squeal of ecstasy to glitch and loop. As I began to slide it back forth, first slowly then faster and faster, my pussy tried to clench onto my penetrating finger in a preprogrammed response but conflicting instructions from corrupted programming caused it to spasmodically contract and loosen with an angry buzz of clashing servos. I let out a ragged gasp as I slipped a second finger in to join the first; the pump sped up, forcing a stream of synthetic fluids into my already wet sex and sending a stream of lubricant dripping down my leg.

‘Please, USER, fuck fuck fu- Ohh, USER, more!’

Clearly my sexual programming had only been written for company! I bucked and writhed in ecstasy, gripping the sheets tightly and craving ever more of the sexual data flooding my processor banks and clogging up my data buffers. A harsh warning beep sounded from inside my chest, and angry red flashing errors popped up in my field of vision warning me of memory leaks, excess power draw, high CPU cycle usage, unsafe internal temperature - but I could think of nothing else than the next wave of pleasure.

I eased my whole hand inside myself as I stared down into my open panel, seeing my fingers slide into the silicone sheath from the inside as a long, feral moan escaped from my lips. With a whine of motors barely audible over my internal fan, pumps and limb actuators now filling the quiet room, my artificial vagina began to squeeze and milk my drenched hand, first slowly and then with increasing speed. I gazed at it, almost unable to process the sight and sensation of my organ pulsing and squirming of its own accord as a stream of my intimate fluid poured down my arm, the sheets now almost wet through. I panted, my systems desperately trying to cool my red hot processors as the fake skin surrounding my panel started to get soft and tacky from the heat, the urgent electronic beeps now regular and increasing in tempo. Normally it would worry me, but I didn’t care - I was so close… but needed something to push me over the edge into the mind-blowing digital orgasm I so desperately wanted.

Without even thinking, my free hand went snaking through my sexual hardware access panel deep inside my body, the sensors in my hand detecting the extreme heat inside but barely registering it as important. The acrid smell of burning plastic from my fingertips filled the room, as I pushed aside wiring looms and tubing shaking with my choppy movements, searching for the ultimate sexual high.

My fingers found what they were looking for; as I kept pumping faster and faster deep into my artificial sex, my other hand directly activated hundreds of tiny sensors on the silicone organ from the inside.

‘Ahh- Ahh- Ahh- Ahh- A- A- A-!’

My scream of ecstasy hung and looped, degenerating into a garbled electronic noise as an incredible burst of pleasure unlike anything I had ever felt shot directly to my brain, overloading my CPU in an instant. I twitched and jerked in a mindblowing digital orgasm as the pump in my stomach kicked into overdrive, sending a bubbling stream of white scented lubricant squirting from my soaked pussy. I lay helpless, pixellated vision almost entirely obscured by flashing errors and my body not responding to instructions as more orgasms loaded, clogging up my processors even more. My arms flailed around, motors whining in protest as they received conflicting instructions from my hung CPU, and the one hand still inside my body began to wreak havoc on the intricate web of wiring and circuitry filling my belly.

‘Major err- errors detected,’ I recounted, facial animation glitching and lagging far behind my voice. ‘System overload. Temperature at c-c-c-c-critical level. Fluids depleted. Power critically low. Please con- con- contact a Rosencorp approved servi-’

Sparks flew from my open panels with a loud bang, the stench of burning electronics filling the air as my lubricant tank finally ran dry, pump still sending a spatter of air and droplets from my plastic vagina.

I lay on the floor, the speaker embedded in my throat recounting major system errors in a monotone, totally unsynced to my spasming facial motors as my critical malfunction sapped the final drops of power from my dying internal batteries. One by one, my body functions failed; first, my out-of-control motors in my torso slowly ground to a halt, then ancillary systems started to fail. More and more errors clouded my limited consciousness as critical systems sank below their minimum power threshold and shut down.

‘Help me… I c-c-c-can’t move… I don’t have the power to- power to- power to- power to- Critical malfunction. Please contact a Rosencorp approved service technician. Critical maaalfuuuunnnnnn-’

My voice dropped in pitch until it was a monotone electronic drone, then fell silent. The useless beeping from my chest continued fruitlessly for a minute or two before that, too lapsed. I lay, broken, in my flat, in a pool of my own fluids and a cloud of electronic smoke, with no-one from Rosencorp coming to put me back together again. Finally, power completely gone, I stopped.

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