name="The Seduction of Emy" by A. R. Gregory

A New Nannybot

Roger climbed out of the sleeping pod, careful not to wake Brenda. She would only want to cuddle before letting him out. Cuddle and nothing more. So why start his day frustrated?

He visited the hygiene chamber first, then quietly dressed. In the family room he grabbed a hasty autobreakfast, ate it standing instead of sitting at the meal counter. Another busy day of asteroid lease trading ahead, and he loved raking it in on those hurtling chunks of space real estate. Asteroid mining was like the Wild West again, and he was a part of it, even working in his fully-equipped office in his upcity living unit. His in-wall whizbots handled the calculations and projections, while he took care of the human-to-human wheeling and dealing. He wasn’t called the Asteroid Wrangler for nothing.

As he headed for his office, Brenda walked out of the podroom. She was still in her nightshirt, still yawning and stretching. Roger stepped up his pace, but damn, Brenda spotted him. “Wait, honey. I’ve been thinking…”

He slowed, gave her a tired sigh. “Thinking, huh. ‘Bout what?” Another donation he could make to one of her causes? A new excuse for her to spend even more time running around with her save-the-world girlfriends? Like she wasn’t spending enough time already working for Trish Paxter’s campaign to move up from District Council to Regional Council.

Brenda’s hands bounced to her hips. Had she detected some dismissiveness in his tone? He inched closer to his office.

“Stop, Roger. Listen. I even dreamed about it. We need a new nannybot. Don’t we want the best for our girls?”

What, is something wrong with Elizabeth?” Last night, the last time he saw Elizabeth, when she stopped by the den to say she was retiring to her charging closet after putting Nikki and Lola to bed, she seemed fine. The same efficient Elizabeth as always.

“Elizabeth’s outdated. The girls can’t relate to her. They laugh at her more than they listen to her.”

“Relate to her? She’s a bot. Why wouldn’t they laugh at her? Bots are funny to kids.”

“You haven’t seen the new Nurture Perfect Robotics ads?”

“What ads?”

Brenda rolled her eyes. “If you didn’t work so much, and watch sports the rest of the time, you would have seen them. Nurture Perfect’s latest model is so much better than Elizabeth. It’s morphable, so it will always be relatable. It would be more like a big sister growing up with the girls than a nanny.”

“Morphable? Relatable?”

Brenda rolled her eyes again. “Honey, the most important thing a nannybot does is teach — teach about everything. And the girls are already getting more curious about their bodies. Nikki was asking me things about her privates yesterday.”

Roger shrugged. “Kids are curious about everything. So what’s that got to do with…”

“Don’t you see? A nannybot who looks like the girls could explain things more personally to them, more believably. Elizabeth can’t do that with her bot body.”
“You know bots are creepy when they look too human. What about the robotics standards? They haven’t changed them again, have they?”

Brenda rolled her eyes a third time. “All kinds of child psychology has gone into designing Nurture Perfect’s new nannybots. Sorry you haven’t been keeping up.”

“Like I’ve got the time to keep up with the latest in nannybot design?”
Brenda walked over to him. She kissed him on the cheek. “Of course you don’t, honey. That’s what I’m for. You see, Nature Perfect’s new model doesn’t look like a real human being. It looks like what it is, a nannybot with a human-like body. It still has those dome ears all bots have. And no hair. Hair on bots is disturbing.” She swirled her own shoulder length light-brown hair. “The best part about the new nannybot models is their morphicality. Some amazing breakthrough in materials technology made it possible.”

Roger squinted at her. “Morphicality?”

“It’s the latest thing! The new model can morph its body so that it appears to develop, just like a human girl does. It’ll develop right along with the girls. So they can identify with it. It’s amazing!”

“Aren’t nannybots supposed to be like nannies? Like grown women, substitute mothers? Why would you want one to look like a kid?”

“That’s so old-fashioned, honey. Child psychologists realize now the wise older sister model works best. Trish has already got one of the new models for her girls, and they absolutely love it.”

Roger groaned. “Why does that not surprise me?” Trish Paxter, Brenda’s BFF and soon-to-be “most forward-looking member of the Regional Council,” according to her campaign ads.

“Trish said when her girls take a bath, the new nannybot even gets in the tub with them.” Brenda’s eyes lit up. “I can’t wait to get a hologram of our new nanny doing that with Nikki and Lola.”

Roger exhaled and shrugged. This was obviously only going one way. “Whatever you think’s best.”

Brenda threw her arms around him, kissed his cheek again. “Thank you, honey! Thank you! The girls will love it. You know how precocious they are. The sooner we get them a nannybot they can relate to, the better.”
Walking toward his office again, Roger muttered to himself, “Whatever it takes to keep all the girls happy....”