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Category: Erotica/Erotic Science Fiction/Romance
Description: Barbara's Journey tells the story of fembot Barbara, who finds out that beauty alone provides no job security for a fembot. And when that fails her, she'll have to figure out for herself how to make a real relationship work in her favor with a smitten young man if she doesn't want to spend the rest of her existence relegated to the role of menial servant serving tacos to college kids on spring break in Mexico.
eBook Publisher: Excessica Publishing,
eBookwise Release Date: January 2011

2 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [106 KB]
Words: 20847
Reading time: 59-83 min.

Outwardly Barbara seemed the same as ever. She got up, did her job well, and waited for Pepe to return. Inside however a cloud was lifting ever so slowly from her mind. Each command she was able to identify as no longer applicable and then delete, simplified the process of finding the next one a bit more.

Her new code participated in these decisions. She knew this because it was time-tagged and she felt when it ran. It seemed to show her mind new shortcuts to answers she'd been unable to deduce for herself before. A feeling she would have described as liberating, if she'd been forced to define it.

What Barbara didn't--couldn't--know is this code had not been intended to run under these circumstances. It was suppose to help her optimize her thoughts for more efficient operation by clearing out the deadwood, which it was doing just fine.

But it was also supposed to have reinitialized her to her current owner when he activated it by pushing her command button and led him through a complete resetting her priorities. Barbara had been alone when she'd activated it--a circumstance hadn't been anticipated by her programmers.

By default it had placed her owner first on her priority list, and placed her second, while leaving lots of room to shuffle in new priorities above her. But to Barbara, she had no active owner any longer, nullifying that highest priority mandate. Now without any owner-imposed constraints she was left free to optimize--and implement those optimizations--far more than anyone realized.

Spring break was approaching and Barbara knew business would significantly pick up soon. She'd already arranged for extra supplies starting the next day. She had also made a deal with the man who now kept the area immaculate due to her always paying him on time without the aggressive haggling he'd always faced from Pepe. She'd also arranged to hire his son for the next week to clean up after the increased crowds. Everyone in the area had benefited from the improved surroundings. She'd even managed to give her cleanup man a raise based in his performance and the increased traffic she'd seen as a result of it, for which he'd been more than thankful. His praise resonated through her systems as a job well done. Now he was even raking the beach at night to improve its appearance.

The night before everything was due to hit Barbara finished packing away the extra supplies and carefully locked up the taco stand.

She walked the hundred meters to the restroom block, getting soap and a worn towel from her shack along the way. Taking off her clothes, she carefully washed down her skin using the outside shower. The unheated water didn't bother her, while the dim light provided sufficient privacy. The streetlight that was supposed to illuminate this side of the restroom block had recently burned out and no one seemed interested in replacing it.

She dried herself efficiently before donning her clothes again. She washed those clothes weekly. Since she didn't sweat in the human fashion that was often enough.

She walked back to her hut to settle in for the night, not realizing that she'd been spotted tonight by an early arrival for the spring break festivities.

By now Barbara was making steady progress in dismantling the patchwork of conflicting and unnecessary commands she'd been living under. Without Pepe to give her new ones, or reinforce the old ones, many things were now invalidating themselves within her. At this point she'd computed the probability of Pepe's return as highly unlikely, and increasingly more so with every passing day. His absence didn't bother her. 'Bots aren't made to pine over things like that, although they are know to do so when especially close to an owner. Barbara had never been close to Pepe--or Carlos either, for that matter.

Tonight only a few minutes passed before she deleted yet another obsolete command. This one dated to just after the arrival of Traci and turned out to have been a key sticking point in her. Suddenly in rapid succession all of the remaining junk in her mind revealed its flaws. One-by-one she deleted each one, until there was simply nothing left.

Upon completion, Barbara's thoughts roamed through the empty spaces previously filled with sometimes strident, sometimes vague, and nearly always contradictory demands--and found nothing to upset her. She still knew who she was, and still knew what useful tasks there were for her to perform. Beyond that, everything else had just been unnecessary clutter in her mind. After another quick traversal of the area to ensure that nothing had been overlooked, Barbara settled back and, for the first time in many weeks, went into sleep mode for the rest of the night.

Tim walked down the beach walk the first official day of spring break. Already the crowds were arriving, although it looked like half his friends weren't going to make it when they said they would. The other half was already doing their level best to get drunk and be obnoxious.

This was Tim's first spring break. He was nineteen and had been talked into it by his friends.

"Come on, guy. Everyone does it. It's part of growing up. Just don't tell your parents what actually happens down here. What happens in Mexico stays in Mexico, amigo."

Tim's parents were quite well off and probably wouldn't have approved of many of the things Tim let himself get talked into doing.

By now he already had the requisite wristbands--four of them so far--that gave him unlimited access to the cheapest, most watered-down, tequila the bars poured for spring break. They knew these kids didn't know any better and took advantage at every turn. The better-run local businesses made nearly half of their yearly profits off of this one week alone.

The college girls were already out on the beaches, trying to see who had the most minimal bikini, the best winter tan, all while riding by in cars while flashing their young boobs to all the males ogling them.

Tim already hated all of it.

His stomach was queasy from something he drank earlier. None of the girls with their tattoos, wildly dyed hair, loud manners, and piercings were at all appealing to him. The beach already was too crowded to enjoy just lying around and catching a few rays. The quality of the ocean water itself seemed questionable to him--although it wasn't as bad as he feared it was. His hotel room hadn't lived up to the promise in the brochures. The smell of wood smoke and piss permeated the air. And the foul breaths of a couple of drunk coeds who'd grabbed him for kisses normally reserved for long lost soul mates was even worse than the air.

In fact, the only thing Tim had seen so far down here that interested him at all was the goddess he'd spied last night taking a shower by the beach.

That woman had stirred him more than any he could ever recall. But Tim might as well have stood for timid. He was far too shy to have approached her to try and strike up a conversation. Instead he waited, trying to work up his nerve, until his nauseous stomach had him running for the men's side of the restroom block. When he came out minutes later his goddess had disappeared into the night.

Now he'd spent this morning wandering around hoping to find her without a plan or any success. The couple times he ran across people he knew who wanted to drag him off to party. He resisted each time, blaming his queasy stomach, until they gave up and moved on.

Maybe some food would settle his intestinal unease. The real experts here--meaning those for whom this was their second visit--all recommended a taco stand on the edge of the beach next to the sidewalk. Tim walked over to it--and found himself looking into the most exotic green eyes he could ever recall seeing.