Thank You For Your Patronage!
Chapter 1
“Thank you for your patronage,” exclaimed the cheery-faced blonde barmaid to the departing guests of Frenchy’s Bar & Grill. As the door closed, her face momentarily became blank as the next set of instructions spooled out into her electronic mind. That same pink-cheeked face turned and her electronic, blue eyes alighted on the men dining at table four, in her designated section. Straightening her stylized barmaid’s uniform, she approached them with a frosty, cold pitcher of a local, craft beer.
Frenchy’s Bar & Grill, was a gastropub located in a trendy part of the city. On paper it was owned by Farnham Cochran and Associates, but no one had ever physically seen the man. All his business dealings were done by phone call, email or through a group of lovely women who identified themselves as secretaries and associates of the company.
As Sonia finished serving the diners their refills of beer, she replied to her customers, “Thank you for your patronage!” Her manager poked his head out from the back,“Sonia, take your break! I’ve got Alexandra to cover for you!” The fembot named Sonia nodded and flashed that same pre-programmed, cheery smile at Bill. Behind that smile were a complex series of miniature servomotors that moved the soft, latex skin of her face into its range of expressions, all part of the intricate electronics that made up her mask of a face.
Sonia stepped into the back, passing through the kitchen area where the human cooks worked to fill orders for the hungry customers. In the empty female employee’s restroom she locked the stall door and automatically reached up to her cheeks. A series of quiet clicks and a slight hiss of pressure preceded the seam line of her faceplate before it was pulled away to reveal the intricate series of electronics that functioned as her eyes, ears, and voice.
Disguised as a rather lurid artwork on the wall, the scanning panel emitted a green light, slowly moving across the circuitry, and flashing electronics of Sonia’s exposed, inner skull. When the light dissipated, a series of heavy bolts automatically slid back into the wall, and the toilet, along with the back wall of the stall opened inwards to reveal a series of stone stairs cut into the floor and leading into a chamber below. Faceplate still cradled in her realistic fingers, the machine called Sonia stepped down into the darkness, lights from her opened head illuminating the dark passage, intermittently as they flickered.
Another heavy vault door opened automatically at the fembot’s approach, revealing a well-lit, room filled with complex machines, tables and several glass tubes situated along the far wall. Inside the tubes stood more fembots, dressed in Frenchy’s barmaid costumes, staring blankly into space. A series of cables ran beneath each fembot’s frilly dress and into a port recessed in the small of their back. These cables fed power to the rechargeable lithium ion batteries in each girl’s shapely thighs, and updated programming to their firmware minds.
As if on autopilot, the faceless fembot continued across the lab and sat down in a chair surrounded by complex machinery. “Hello Sonia, how is your day?” asked Moira, one of the 700 series technicians assigned to the lab beneath Frenchy’s. “Fine, thank you,” the speaker set into Sonia’s electronic jumble of a face vibrated as she replied. Moira nodded, then pressed her fingers to a spot in Sonia’s collarbone, exposed by the deep-cut cleavage of her uniform. A rectangular section of skin in Sonia’s chest popped up, and Moira removed it, exposing more of Sonia’s electronics and ports.
Moira plugged a few cables into Sonia’s ports and head, then began working at the terminal connected to the other fembot. The technician model fembot’s realistic fingers flew over the keyboard as she collected data from Sonia’s storage drives. Sonia’s batteries showed 65% charge, and should have been more than sufficient to finish her 8 hour shift. What concerned Moira was the indicator that Sonia’s elbow servoes were showing a marked degradation in performance, likely from the work she was doing. She scheduled Sonia for a complete arm replacement, rather than taking the time to strip the skin, remove the servoes and replace it with new components, as it would take longer to do so. Moira noticed that Sonia had used the same response 30 times with the customers and began to add variations to the unit’s responses and changed the allowed number of responses between recycle.
Sonia’s faceless head began to emit each new response as it was added to her database, “Why thank you Sir/Madam, It’s been my pleasure to serve you Sir/Ma’am, thank you kindly Sir/Miss, thank you for your custom Sir/Ma’am, Frenchy’s thanks you Sir/Miss.” And on the list went until a total of 15 new responses were generated for Sonia to use when interacting with customers. Moira noted the time and unplugged the barmaid from her terminals, and replaced Sonia’s panels. “Resume job function, Sonia,” responded Moira as she stepped away to attend to another barmaid who lay supine on a table nearby.
Sonia stood up from the chair and proceeded back out of the lab, and up the stairs. Straightening her clothing, she stepped out of the bathroom stall with a customary flush of the toilet and back out into the pub.