Eddie's Big Sis
Eddie's Big Sis
Chapter 1 - A Moment of Weakness
The first thing Eddie Hale had seen as he awoke from a pleasant sleep was the form of his elder sister, lying next to him, dressed in a lightly tied together sheer teal sleeping gown, her big eyes closed softly as she lay there next to him on her side of the bed, perfectly still. He sat there in bed, watching her prone form, a faint smile on his face. There was so much he wanted to do today, and the fact that it was a day off from work was rather helpful.
He continued looking at Nina for a while, before reaching his hands over to the ribbon holding her gown together just below her bountiful bosom...
.................
His elder sister Nina had been a source of comfort for him as a young child and, as he grew up, he had gradually developed a sister complex, starting to fantasise ever so often with guilt as to what it might be like if they had gotten a bit more mischievious. He had never acted on it of course. His attraction to her had been mostly the pure affection of a young boy who had to make do without his mother, the latter having passed in childbirth while trying to get Eddie out into the world.
The first signs that things were not right with Nina Hale had been subtle. Sudden bouts of tiredness, more medical attendences. He had been too young then to be fully keyed into what cancer was, even when she had wound up in hospital. Her beautiful hazel brown hair slowly fell out as she opted to fight her liver cancer as hard as possible, opting not to risk any cells surviving from wearing a cold cap to keep her hair in. She's remained ever attentive and fussy with Eddie almost to the end, whether she was in the oncology ward or trying to live somewhat back home...
Three years after her first pains, she passed. The cancer had been surprisingly aggressive,and even finding it early had been of little help. It only finally clicked for Eddie that her elder sister Nina was not going to play with him and hold him tenderly ever again at the funeral. He had bawled loudly, as is the privilege of any young boy missing someone they loved.
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Nina had encouraged Eddie to work hard at whatever he wanted to do growing up, and he had done so with a vengeance after her passing, scoring excellently in school and eventually grabbing a programming scholarship to the local community college, where he had graduated with honors. They had taken his education seriously, it wasn't just some tiny concern marking time and churning out generic degree-holders. His work had caught the eye of a major OS provider, and he was soon earning a nifty bundle every month producing secure and efficent code that ran on... it wasn't exactly Microsoft or Apple, but it was compatible with major standards and enough people had frayed off from using Windows ever since the WIndows 15 debacle that his work had proven attractive.
Eddie didn't splurge, though - when his father passed on, he simply moved back into the old family home to save on buying a new home and simply renovating its old brick and timbers, since it was within reasonable driving distance to the office, and he had opted for a Chinese-built EV when the old pointless ban on Electrics built outside of America had been struck off, saving even more cash and effort as he handed over most of its maintenance to a local dealer who set up shop barely weeks after.
Eddie remained a practical man, but one thing did worry him a lot - he hadn't found much interest in the few women around him whom he'd dated. Part of it was trying not to dip his pen in the company ink and set himself up for more problems in the office if things failed between them, but only part of it. For a while, he even wondered if he was possibly gay, a notion disabused by a accountant two floors down he'd gotten to know as more than just passing friends in the same building. They still were friends of course, but there was an understanding that he did not swing that way. The accountant had thought that a pity, but to his credit he did not push it any further.
He ate cheaply but decently. He wore reasonably tidy but not fashionable clothing. He drove to work, ate lunch in the shopping mall on the ground floors, and went home to sleep. No fancy luxuries beyond watching evening TV for a bit before bed on a big television screen or surfing the net on his laptop before bed... Eddie was a simple man. Or at least, he used to be.
............................
Eddie had been passing the time after work walking down the shopping arcade under his offices. The Eslader Building was one of those "mixed-development" things where someone put a little shopping mall on the ground and floors of offices above it, followed by a few penthouses atop of it all. He hadn't given it much thought - it was just four floors with an arrangement of good tailors, an automat that served his favorite meatball spaghetti and jelly donuts from 7am to 9pm every day of the week, and a few assorted specialist shops that most folks wouldn't walk into. This was not a mass market mall, and frankly, it was probably the offices that made up the upper floors of the Eslader that helped it break even at least.
He walked past a shop marked "5-12 Robotics"... then froze. Eddie turned back and looked at the storefront. it had a small sign next to a pair of oaken doors placed on one side, with the other side a glass front where several androids had been placed on display as if frozen from life. 5-12 Robotics
Repairs, Mods & Sales Showroom
Authorised Dealer For 6 Brands! (Ask Instore for details) He would not have given it a second look, but something in the window had given him pause... "Nina?"
A young woman slightly shorter than Eddie Hale was sat on a block frozen in mid clap, her attention focused on a young girl sitting on fake grass, glazed over eyes staring at each other. She was dressed like an au-pair, a pale pink cardigan draped on her shoulders above a red and white polka-dot dress and white stockinged legs shod in patent leather shoes. Her face was youngish, freckled, smiling away...
Eddie placed his hands on the glass and slowly nudged his face to it like he was a young boy looking at a new toy, the years falling away. The au pair had blonde hair, but otherwise she looked so much like Nina had in her prime. His breath fogged the glass as he stood there, watching.
A small placard placed at the ersatz woman's feet announced that she was an "Arendtcore Ellowyn homecare and elder sister model". Presumably intended to help raise a young child.
Eddie peeled himself off the glass and walked into the shop a few minutes later.
..............................
The shop interior was decently tidy for what it was. Several androids of both genders and various appearances were parked around in various poses, as if frozen from life, sitting and standing in the middle of various activities. A small buzzer announced his entry into the store, but it did not exactly elicit an immediate response, allowing him time to look around, in one corner of the store was a sort of surgery bed, but instead of medical equipment it was surrounded by things more fitting for working on machinery.
On the bed was a voluptuous woman, totally undressed and lying blankly on the black vegan leather of the bed, aquiline blue eyes gazing upwards as she lay on top of it. Her brunette wig had been separated from her head, exposing an intricate collection of circuitry. An old man in slightly rumpled work clothes was busy with some tools working on the exposed parts, wearing a slightly darkened full-face visor to protect himself from the flashes of light that issued from the probes in his hands ever so often, arcing with a slightly chemical smell. ",,, I'll be right with you. give me a minute, feel free to look around the store. Try not to touch anything."
Which Eddie Hale did. it didn't take long though... there was a faint swish as the old man pulled the curtains on the sybarite he had just been working on, carefully removing his work gloves and stuffing them into a small side pouch on one side of his hard-wearing work denim pants, before lifting his visor. Eddie got a better view... the main was wrinkled and had a small mustache. He wasn't exactly as old as he had looked, probably an effect of the visor obscuring his face earlier, but he definitely had some grey on his temples.
The old man smiled and extended a hand to Eddie. "McNathan Bolt, owner of 5-12. What can I do you for, young man? In the market for a helper? some companionship? And no, I don't do rentals anymore. too many idiots return them in poor condition..." He sounded really boisterous, like the kind of man you'd trust your personal vehicle to, then hang out together a few days later in a pub with drinking in moderation and yakking away about the day.
Eddie nodded. "Erm... yeah, I'm Eddie Hale. I was in the market for a bot possibly... I saw the... Ellowyn? model you had in your storefront. Is she for sale?"
McNathan stood back a few paces and sized Eddie up... "Hmm... got a kid at home? The Ellowyn's pretty good for that. She's got extra programming for storytelling and childcare..."
Eddie blushed and looked away as if ashamed. "Uhm... no... I wanted to get one for companionship. Just me in the house and stuff. Maybe get some help with the home..."
McNathan raised an eyebrow, then looked at him from side to side, pondering... "You wouldn't be the first person who wanted an Ellowyn for reasons other than caring for a child."
Eddie gulped. "You could tell?"
McNathan grinned mischeviously as he patted Eddie on the back and ushered him over to one of the couches, sitting down a respectable but close Eddie on it. "There's a huge aftermarket for modifications and parts for it. She's cheap and cheerful, and not high on maintenance. Hang on, let me bring her over for a closer look." He backed away and walked to the store's display, easing her out of it and escorting the robot to the couch. The Ellowyn had a slight ambling gait, like an awkward little ingenue finding her first steps into adulthood, her face now animated.
She looked at Eddie with a faint smile on her face, a set of slightly crooked teeth flashing from a small gap between her lips, as she sat down in between him and McNathan.
McNathan continued as Eddie sat there, entranced by the illusion of life the silicone au pair gave off. "She recharges off a standard 90 volt induction pad charger on a 4-68 cycle: 4 hours of charging to bring her from zero to eighty percent, that eighty percent battery charge lasts 68 hours. Ideal for one or two night straight where a kid needs constant attention like when they're sick. Realfeel human analogue flesh cover, can't tell without trained eyes and touch that she's not human. She runs off a customisable childcare program, cooking, cleaning, basic education, emotional support... that we can swap out. She doesn't have working sexual functionality or organs right off the shelf, just something to assuage the concerns of mothers who think they're possibly being used as sex toys by their husbands, but we have mods to enable that sort of thing... Human-like personality, customisable at added cost, we also do a lot of other mods on request and at added cost..."
Eddie blushed even harder. He had had a sister complex, yes. But he'd never acted on it while the original Nina was alive... and being this up close to something that looked and moved so much like her, watching him with the same rapt attention that he had used to foist on him regularly as a young boy... it did nothing to restrain him from his next decision. "I like her... let's talk about those mods, Mr Bolt..." ............................
Four hours later, Eddie was sitting in his house, reading through the invoice he'd gotten. He had sworn he was a sensible man, and yet in the space of two hours, the 5-12 Robotics store had persuaded him to wipe out half of his savings from three years of work. He had handed over photos of Nina from his childhood, plus a few videos he'd kept of her from happier times as well. These would be used to generate a facial cover that resembled her, as well as a personality and voice that matched. He had for some reason agreed to get the SexSys sexual functionality subsystems as well as replace her childcare programming with a bespoke program, one that would adore him as her younger brother, take care of him, and... he gulped a little. If the original Nina had had any urges for what was in his pants, she'd never ever shown it. This version of her would have urges like those... and the capability to act on them.
He had also asked for the Ellowyn unit to be modded to more closely resemble Nina as well below the neck... a little more plumpness, slightly bigger hips and breasts... Before the cancer had started visibly wrecking Nina, she had already become a very attractive lass of nineteen, and Eddie knew that she had been a bit of a school belle who got asked out a lot by her schoolmates of both genders...it had helped a little that the videos had enough of her from all angles to derive a shape, even through all the modest clothing she had preferred to wear.
He threw the invoice down on the bedside table and turned off the lights to sleep. Or at least, Eddie tried to sleep. He did not sleep very well that night, anxious that he might have overcommitted on something he might wind up not liking.
Chapter 2 - Cautionary Advice
The anxiety surrounding Eddie Hale's new purchase came and went randomly over the next few weeks. Ever so often, McNathan would call from 5-12, showing off the progress on the project to him. He had found it oddly... interesting... watching him work on the intricate electronics and wiring of the machine, hearing McNathan do a test play of the custom personality disc as the android's disembodied head slowly spoke with Nina's voice, designing the outer shell modifications to replace the featureless, sexless chassis of the Ellowyn.
He put down the phone after a call to chat with "Nina Mark 2". He still hadn't fully actualized just calling the robot Nina, but he had grown more and more comfortable chattering about the day with her, her head remaining perfectly still on its stand as her lips moved with the syllables, her eyes blinking ever so often, punctuated further by little sulks, laughter at his jokes, and moments of concern... "Are you eating well, bro? Would you like me to cook [ERROR. Cookbook.database NOT AVAILABLE] for you when you come home? We should fly a kite..."
Eddie leaned back in his chair, his eye momentarily turned to a kite he had bought in the shopping annex below the office floors several years ago. It had hung in a place of pride on the wall behind him where others would have opted for fine art or a moving gallery display.
Eddie had badly missed it... flying a kite on a good windy day with Nina. A grown up young man like him should have moved on from that to other pleasures, but he'd still had a good time ever so often, sometimes indulging the kids in the neighbourhood while doing so, but it had lacked a certain frisson.
Eddie smiled and tabbed through his mails... A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door as a stern looking woman poked his head in... "Eddie, I just thought I'd personally walk in to let you know that your upcoming leave request for a week away has been approved by me and my immediate supervisor." Mathis observed, her husky voice somehow resounding in his tiny office despite an effort to keep her volume down. "So where are you going on holiday with all that time?"
Eddie examined Mathis as he thought about how to answer her. She was an extremely rare bird. A redhead with green eyes, not a particularly common sight even before the Demographic Disaster had started chewing through everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, or locale.She had graduated as a scholar from Maryland and was one of the very few people above him in the company who was genuinely qualified to oversee his work on his assigned parts of the KereBios Operating System without having to bounce things down to juniors with specialised knowledge more than once in a blue moon... She was kind of, in a way, hot. It was rather unfortunate that the company had firm rules about fraternization. He did not want to lose his plum job just so he could date or even marry the woman. They had wound up keeping it mostly above board and professional, save for the occasional bawdy and good natured ribbing and a shared drink after work ever so often.
Eddie spoke up. "I'm doing a staycation. Like, I'm staying at home... is that what a staycation is?"
Mathis deadpanned as she heard that. "You're supposed to find a relatively local place other than your home to hang about at, preferably one with more deluxe comfort than our tiny little hutches, Ed... But suit yourself. Still, I don't think of you as the kind of guy who would stay at home much. Anything special going on?"
Eddie grinned as he reached a hand out to finger the holograph on his desk, one of him clutching a kite with Nina next to him in front of some dense forest. It had been taken a dozen or two summers ago, just before the illness had started visibly eating her up. "Well... I'm getting in a new domestic robot for my home, Mathis. I thought I'd take some time off to get her settled in, get to know her better..."
Mathis chuckled as she set on the edge of his desk, her thick butt plushly squished against the glass surface. "you'd only need two or three days at most... and I don't think you're that dumb that you need that much time even."
Eddie closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair... "I also plan to take her out to see the local sights, maybe fly a kite like I used to." He could hardly wait for it to happen, really. A small smile spread across his face as he fantasised dragging the little sail-like square of fabric through the air with its streamers in the wind with a long string, Nina laughing next to him as she chased after him.
Mathis perked up. "That's way too much 'get to know her better.' Is there something, SOMETHING, that I should know about your new purchase... hmmm?"
Eddie opened his drawer and fished out the invoice from 5-12, showing it to her. "Welllll.... I took the opportunity to 'resurrect', kinda, my dearest elder sister... You know, the one whose birthday I celebrate every year around this time..."
Mathis shook her head. "Yeah, the cancer thing was royally fucked up. Wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, Eddie-" She abruptly narrowed her eyes. "Eddie."" She started repeating his name in a way that suggested she was not happy with what she'd just heard. "Eddie Eddie, EDDIE! Did you just a replacement goldfish? You bought a robot in the shape of a loved one?"
Eddie nodded. "Well, yeah..." Mathis slapped a hand to her face, sighing. "Dude, you're setting yourself up for a disaster. a disappointment, a unhappy moment, even. Do you truly think that machine is going to be able to replicate your sister properly? I don't think that's likely!"
Eddie blinked and looked away from Mathis as she wrung her hands. "I... I kinda didn't, but I wanted to feel unlonely again. And it seemed like a good idea..."
Mathis muttered something about "men not going to therapy"... "It's not going to go well, there's always going to be something that falls short sooner or later, Eddie... I've heard a lot of sad 'replacement goldfish' stories working on the robotics side of the OS development tree here. Why didn't you check first before doing this?"
Eddie shrugged. "It was an impulse buy, kind of." Mathis rolled her eyes at him. "Of course it was. Eddie HALE. You may be one of the smartest guys in this office when it comes to wrangling code, but in our several years together, how many times have I had to offer my shoulder to you so that you can pour all over it like a wreck? Like that time when you speed dated and would up shacking with a Mexican wrestker gurl who sold hard drugs on the side?"
Eddie started counting on his fingers in front of Mathis... then gave up after a few minutes. "I know, you've been like my best wingman ever... Thanks for that by the way... but this time... I'm going to go ahead with this. besides, I think I'm way past the period for having a cold shoulder and asking for a refund."
Mathis leaned in closer to Eddie. "Ed, I'm not going to be your boss on this. I'm just going to be your wingman and your friend... please, be careful. Don't alter anything you can't fully understand the impact of, don't expect a perfect replica, and don't share Everclear shots with her."
Eddie leafed through his invoice one more time before stowing it back in the drawer. "I get the first two, but what's with the third?"
Mathis didn't reply for a long while... "... trust me on the Everclear. It's no good for anything." After a little more time fon his table, she got up and walked back to the door. As she walked through the doorway, she turned back to look at him. "I hope she makes you happy though, god knows you don't get enough chances to be happy these days."
Eddie yelled after her as if insisting on the last word. "It would HELP if you got someone to fix our coffee brewer one day. It's been MONTHS!" He sighed and sat back down, taking his smartphone out to check his calendar. He'd have to knock off about 7pm unless he wanted to spend the time eating and loitering in the annex on the ground floor, but this evening promised to be either one of the best he'd had in years... or one of the worst, if Mathis' concerns materialized.
He quickly got back to work. Eddie wasn't one for quiet quitting or lazing on the clock much. If he wasn't writing, he was planning, or talking to clients about their needs, or speaking with colleagues about issues and requirements... Still, the appointed hour was ticking ever closer and it wedged in his mind in a way that slowed his work rate down a little. Nobody would notice on a Friday, but he would. He always would. That was what the KPIs he'd set himself up with were for, after all... and he'd been brutally hontest to himself when he failed to reach them.
Chapter 3 - First Date With An Adoring Doll
Somewhere in the Eldever Building Shopping Annexe, there was a small fountain in the heart of the building plaza. A small circular basin ringed by wooden benches, small jets jumping around like horses in a loop. Every hour on the hour a light show would start for a few minutes, multicolored lights pouring into each jet of water that bounced out of the water surface, now numbering considerably more, forming a sort of ephermal palace of water.
Eddie was relaxing on one of the benches, watching the fountain as it prepared to go crazy again.As was so often the case, he had been the very last person out of the office on Friday evening. While everyone else had fled the Eldever for more cosy pursuits like proper dinners or nightclubbing, Eddie had stayed in the Annexe watching the emptiness for the past twenty minutes or so.
He fished in his work jacket briefly, taking out the invoice and reading it one more time. His boss/wingman Mathis had been right, he had been terribly impulsive, and it had been terribly expensive. Even now he still had a little bit of cold feet about what he was about to do at 7pm...
The fountain started its hourly show. Eddie paused, looking up to watch the jets dance around in the air as he folded the invoice back into his jacket. He stayed still for a few more minutes, having not had many chances to watch the hourly show happen despite all his years inside the building, not even at lunchtime.
And then, the show was over. Eddie Hale sighed and slowly got up and off the bench, making his way into the Southern Alley of the annexe.
...............................
The 5-12 Robotics Store was still open when Eddie arrived at it, lights still blazing away. The Ellowyn in the glass display had been replaced with some sort of sybaritic synthetic, staring out at the passers by while holding a small wine-glass filled with what was probably fake wine in her long-gloved hands, dressed to the nines in a velvety evening gown. The signboard next to it declared it was a "Mifushi Industries Marilyn Premium Companionship bot", the blonde doll staring away, frozen in a relaxed pose aided only by a carefully placed back support.
Eddie chuckled briefly as he made his way through the doors. It wasn't his cup of tea, no. He was here for a different kind of... companionship. The store looked pretty much the same as it had when he'd first come in two months earlier, right down to McNathan Bolt appearing from the backoffice and smiling, his visor hitched up as always, thin work gloves jammed into a loop in his belt. Eddie momentarily marvelled at the gloves, wondering how durable they were to cope with as much abuse as McNathan had put them through, and how long he'd had them.
McNathan wasn't thinking about those gloves, no. He smiled as he spotted Eddie walking it, motioning him to follow, idly chattering about the recent day's news. "Frankly, I'm surprised that crazy in Wash District managed to turn a plane the size of two city blocks into a strategic floating airbase under everyone's noses. How did he even?"
Eddie rolled his eyes. "It's amazing what people can get away with by invoking 'natsec'... whatver that shit means."
McNathan walked up to a small carousel, and it suddenly struck Eddie that the shop was probably a lot bigger than it looked, if the space he was taking up was as big as the Megamarket on the opposite Northern Alley. He carefully pressed a few buttons, thumbing through a line of inert, deactivated androids in various shapes, sizes, and outfits, looking more like a arrangement of comatose sleeping beauties. "Dictators are like that. I hate the True Republics of America, but you have to give McCrumpf some credit for putting his money where his mouth was when he declared he'd fly over to Europa to stop the war with Europa."
Eddie giggled. McCrumpf had gone extremely silent since the plane had suddenly parted the ocean and ascended into the skies for Europa. Like many folks, he was not used to McCrumpf being silent instead of being continuously braggy, annoying, and prone to big bold lies. Still, news like that wasn't what he'd come here for. "She's ready to go home, right?"
McNathan nodded. "Yeah, the carousel is also a induction charging array, she'll last the full 68 hours since she's been in here for more than four hours. Now, I need to remind you that you need to keep paying for the mobile data plan that comes with the modem inside of her, or she'll start having problems doing updates or executing parts of her AI programming..."
Eddie rolled his eyes as he watched a burly man in a luchador costume zip past in wrap, wondering who the hell would buy a mandroid like that. "I'm already aware I'll need to buy lube, electricity, water, maintenance and a whole lot of other things to keep her viable, McNathan. What's one more bill?"
McNathan deadpanned as he stopped the carousel and unzipped one of the pouches, revealing... a sleeping young woman in a purple full-coverage bodysuit that stuck to her small but curvaceous figure... hazel brown hair framing a familiar face, eyes closed in deep sleep above a dainty nose and lightly made-up pale red lips. He reached in, carefully easing her out in a carry with ease like a small sack of potatoes, looking considerably lighter than she looked.
Eddie breathed deeply. "Nina...?"
McNathan had both arms fully occupied, so he nudged his head to signal Eddie to follow him to the repair bay, where he lay the ersatz elder sister onto the soft pleather surface of the reclinable seat. "You wait right here, I need to get a couple of things for you to bring home." McNathan noted, before he walked off, leaving Eddie standing next to the new robot...
............................
Eddie's mind was racing in lots of directions as he stood there, watching his new Nina Mk 2... no... his Nina... lying on the reclinable seat. He just kept looking quietly at her all over, from the pair of red sneakers on her feet to her bodysuit all the way up and along the zipper running from her groin to just below her chin, the white zipper accenting the deep purpla lycra covering her form... She was... beautiful. He wouldn't say perfect - she had the little mole just below her right eye like the original, and probably the few others covered by the bodysuit. All those melanomas should have been the first warning sign of her future troubles with cancer, but at the time he'd just thought it cute.
Eddie Hale reached a finger out and nudged it into her sleeping face.Deactivated, her flesh was cold, but it still had a give, like that of a real human, as if she was merely dozing... he nudged his hands along her slightly, but didn't disrobe her. There was something disrespectful about doing it to his own sister, even if this was actually a facsimile.
The lycra was thin enough that he could feel her body being soft where it ought to be soft and firm where it ought to be firm. Eddie marvelled at how realistic the whole setup was, right down to the faint peach fuzz and texturing covering her skin, simHair Growth Follicles punched carefully into places where a girl would have hair (at least, on her head) and carefully sped up to cover her head in a fine straight and lush hazel forest, along with carefully trimmed and curled eyebrows and eyelashes.
McNathan almost surprised Eddie when he came back, putting a small bag in front of him and fishing through it. "Well, let's see... you've got the instruction manuals for the base Ellowyn model, and her mods... three copies of her personality disc - voice, motions, initial databases of knowledge and programming, a diagnostics program disc, an standard 90V stowable induction charging pad - you'll need to get your own standing charger if you're into that - and some changes of clothing... four sets of lingerie, a negligee, a sporty singlet and hotpant combo, and a simple evening dress in purple..."
Eddie watched McNathan as he unpacked the bag to show him how much stuff he was getting, then put it all back except for one of the personality discs. "Now to the fun part... I take it you want to wake her up?" McNathan asked, handing Eddie the disc before reaching his hands to the zipper on Nina's bodysuit. This caused Eddie to quickly look away, blushing hard for a moment, before turning back to look at her bountiful bosom wobbligh slightly as the suit no longer constrained them. "yeah, I do want to wake her up but JEEZ, do you have to do THAT?"
McNathan laughed a little in reply. "You're going to have to get used to seeing a lot of things when you own a anatomically accurate android.May as well start right now."
McNathan had pulled the zipper a bit further below her underboobs, exposing the skin just beneath them. He reached for a suspicious mole located in between and just below Nina's breasts, pushing on it in for a few seconds. There was a faint click, and a soft whirring as a square of synthflesh slid inwards and tucked itself somewhere inside her chest, exposing a small control panel with various buttons and a small status screen. Somewhere below the screen, there was a small disc slot with a ejection button next to it, sized just right for the disc that Eddie was holding. "Well, don't just stand there, I do want to lock up and go home after you're gone, and the sooner the better."
Eddie gulped. His hands were surprisingly not to shaky as he parked the caddy the disc had come in against the slot, before firmly pushing it in with a loud click. .................
There was no response for a few moments, then Eddie heard a faint series of chimes, a series of whirrs emitting from the lifeless android. The screen started to display various infomesssages in its low-resolution amber green: Code: Select all
Arendtcore Robotics (c) 2075 Ellowyn EL-036 + Custom Modifications ..... Booting Personality Disc Loading Initial Databases Starting Chatbot Loading Motion Patterns (1 of 485) Enabling Sleeper Mode Starting Personality The synthflesh panel slowly slid back out and up into place, leaving no sign of the robot's true nature, as the whirring continued... Then...
Nina's eyes opened. "... " Her warm brown eyes focused and unfocused and focused again several times, scanning the room as she could see it from where she lay, before locking onto Eddie Hale's face. "... Eddie, bro?"
Eddie raised a hand hesitantly and waved as if to greet her. "Hey, sis..." He suddenly got a faceful of silken breasts, Nina's cleavage smothering him as she sat up and hugged him, saying nothing else, just... hugging him.
Eddie didn't want to interrupt her for some reason, so he just stood there, trying to breathe, a faintly sweet scent lingering in his nose like some sort of new car scent, except the car was a robot. Eventually, she let got and smiled. "Evening, Eddie... Did you have a busy day today?"
Eddie was momentarily struck by how a moment that seemed so special was getting so banal and mundane fast... He didn't mind that of course. "Oh... yeah... another busy day at work..." He faltered, just watching his adorable Nina Mk 2 - no, his adoring Nina - look up at him earnestly in silence. The original Nina was a girl of few words, and the machine that had been rebuilt to resemble and behave like her probably didn't have to do much to meet that line-
Eddie's stomach let out a loud, violent growl.
Nina tilted her head, eyes half-closed as she examined Eddie. "Eddie... you haven't had dinner yet, right?" She asked pointedly.
Eddie reddened with embarassment. She was right, he was starving. He really needed to hit the automat soon. As if on cue, there was another loud rumble, this time from Nina's own belly. She blinked hard, then rubbed her stomach... "That makes two of us, li'l bro... Any ideas for dinner?" She gave Eddie the lead, calmly sitting there as McNathan watched the both of them, looking carefully to make sure there weren't any problems with what he was handing over.
Eddie glanced over at McNathan. "I erm... think I'll bring her down to the nearby automat and get something decent to eat."
McNathan grabbed the bag he'd taken out and handed it to Eddie with everything he needed hopefully... "Personally I'd rather make my own dinner at home, Mr Hale. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to close up shop, so would you two siblings kindly get out of my store NOW?" .......................
Friday's special for dinner at the Eldever Building Automat was Roast Beef with mixed vegetables. The vegetables were just the stuff that came out of a 'frozen mixed vegetables' bag that just happened to be sized to serve several dozen people mixed with an equally prodigious amount of broccoli, all divided up into sensible portions for said several dozen people. The roast beef wasn't a prime cut, but it was still edible and possible to slice and stab with a fork and knife, and again it was also a portion that was sensible for the few dollars per serving it cost.
Eddie carefully deposited two servings onto two trays for himself and Nina... for a drink he'd opted for a simple jet black coffee with a side of sugar. Nina had pointed at one of the chilled shelves where a small glass of fruit punch had been frozen into a slushie and left to sit, and Eddie had obliged... As had always been the case, they skipped dessert and simply sat down with their meals.
Eddie ate perhaps a bit slower... His eyes were normally fixed on the food, and he would polish it off in a matter of minutes, But he was preoccupied now... He glanced over, watching Nina as she calmly brushed her hair aside and away from around the food, before carefully tucking into the beef. The modifications to her had included a working artificial stomach. She wouldn't get much out of the food, but she could at least hold a sensible person's meal in it till her next trip to the bathroom, helping her to stay in the social act of eating with others...
Nina suddenly looked up and paused eating. "Actually, today, I learnt something interesting... Zippers weren't invented by just one person." She suddenly blurted out.
Eddie seemed interested and said as much. "oh... who were they?" Nina looked on at Eddie for a few seconds longer than someone who had the answer already in hand would probably have waited... Eddie could practically hear her chatbot and modem whirring away, filling in the gaps that her programming didn't have a ready response for. "In... 1851... Elias Howe invented the Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure mechanism. Whitcomb Judson... took the next step in... 1891... by... inventing a crude boot fastener that worked off the initial design from Elias, though it was problematic. Gideon Sundback fixed this problem in... 1913.. by... inventing a 'separable fastener' that added separating metal teeth to the original Elias design that allowed for... more reliable... operation, though it was not until 1923, that B... F... Goodrich... coined the name for this combination that stuck until now."
Eddie closed his eyes briefly. The system clearly needed a bit more work, but it was still impressive... He tried tripping Nina up. "Hang on, wasn't Elias Howe the inventor of the sewing machine?"
Another short pause, Nina examining her peas and broccoli as if trying to recall facts from memory , rather than querying Wikipedia... "Elias did not... invent the sewing machine, but he proposed many significant improvements to the design. In... 1846... he patented the lockstitch design used by the majority of modern... sewing machines."
Eddie looked upwards as he sat back in his chair. "Bastard must have gotten filthy rich."
Nina sulked a little. "Language, bro... but also,..." She half-froze again. "... no, he did not get rich until he managed to .... sue the Singer company for stealing the patent to make the Singer sewing machines that are commonly associated with the lockstitch method."
Eddie chuckled a little. "That was cool. But erm, can we talk about something else, sis?"
Nina nodded. "I would love to. Trying to recall facts ... gives me a bit of a headache." Eddie nodded at the excuse she gave, and the conversation slowly steered onto other more banal things like the day's events at work. Nina listened attentively as she nibbled at her dinner and sipped her fruit slush...
What should have been a half-hour long dinner lasted two hours instead. It might have gone on longer had the automat staff not tapped Eddie's shoulder and profusely apologised that they had to rush their meal as the automat was closing by 9pm as usual. Still, they had plenty of time to carefully chew and swallow everything, before Eddie walked out
He blinked as Nina grabbed hold of one of his arms and leaned her head against his, a feeling of safety washing over her face as she did so. He didn't pause for more than a second before he escorted her to the car park to get home by his car.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, save for Nina suddenly bursting into song and singing along to the radio. Eddie couldn't figure out why... then he realised: the song was one of the few the original Nina had loved to sing along to back when she had been alive. He started following along, thinking to himself that this was exactly why McNathan had asked if there had been any things that Nina especially liked.
He was warming up to her more and more. Mathis' concerns about his replacement goldfishing seemed to be, at least right now, unfounded. He was happy, with something he'd missed for a long time right next to him again, at least, in a sense...
Chapter 4 - Big Sis with Benefits
The dream was the same as it had always been.
He'd been young again, sitting under the big oak tree in the park, as they'd always had. A dainty hand had suddenly thrust a tuna sandwich in his face after what had seemed like hours of running in circles with a string in his hand, watching his favorite yellow and red kite fly in the open air around them. The sun was shining down warmly, but the same breezes that kept the kite in the air when he ran against it also cooled him down, even now.
He took the sandwich and smiled over at his elder sister...; "Thanks, Nina," He'd quietly nodded, before biting into the mayonaise and Tuna combo, the shredded lettuce crackling faintly as he chewed on a small mouthful. Nina had smiled back at him, before picking up one of her own out of the picnic basket... "So, what do you want to be when you grow up, bro?" She suddenly asked.
Eddie Hale had stopped chewing for a moment, before finishing his mouthful and swallowing... "I was thinking I'd like to be a game programmer. I like playing games, but they're always a step short of what I want out of them everytime. I'd love to write my own."
Nina listened attentively, her eyes twitching a little. "That sounds like a path... Have you spoken to your teach about how you'd get there? Like, Career Guidance?"
Eddie snorted as he bit into his sandwich and chewed a little, pondering... "She's useless, she doesn't have the slightest idea about how to go about it. She suggested that maybe I take up programming and maybe do better at art, but she doesn't have any idea what the job requires."
Nina sighed. "That sounds like a good start..."
They kept talking for a while as they had their lunch, before Eddie picked up his kite again, wanting to pull it back into the air. "I'm going to go fly my kite again, sis..."
Nina looked extremely tired for some reason. She took her cap off, rubbing her bald dome a little. "You go on... ahead... I feel like a nap." She was fighting her cancer hard, and this had been a nice time away from being jabbed full of horrendouse drugs to deal with the problem. There was a faint pause, before she suddenly reached over abruptly and embraced Eddie... "Eddie... keep going. Keep going no matter how hard things get. That's how it's working for me, and I think it'll work for you too..." She smiled at him, giving him a firm kiss on his forehead as she squished him against her bosom.
Eddie nodded slowly, but said nothing as he peeled away, smiling at Nina, before running off to get the kite running in the air.
That was the last thing she had said to him... it turned out that things had not gone as well with her cancer treatment as she'd pretended they had around him. When he came back half an hour later, Nina's eyes were closed peacefully.
They would not open ever again.
.......................................
Eddie woke up with a start, panting weakly in the night lighting of his bedroom. He had thought all that running around with a kite with his new Nina android would help him have a good sleep, but for some reason, his brain had done the wacko thing and dredged up that bad bit of the past... He slowly tried to bring his breathing down to calmness, but it took a while. He reached for the towel he'd always kept by his bedside just in case he had night sweats or nightmares, and wiped his face off with it. He was wide awake now, and he sensed that he wasn't going to get back to sleep easily.
Eddie got out of bed, walking in his sleeping clothes to the kitchen to get something warm down, his pants and loose shirt shuffling subtly as he popped the thermos and drank a small shot of warm water. No green tea, no flavorings. just plain and unflavored. He set the mug back down, and started walking back down the corridor from the kitchen and living room to his bed, hoping he could at least wrangle some rest...
Eddie paused outside Nina's bedroom.
It had been the original Nina's, then he and his dad had mutually agreed somehow to keep it as a sort of shrine to her after she'd passed - her old photos, her clothing, everything she had used in her life, though the personal care products had long since expired and been thrown away, leaving only a unused comb and a few random articles of costume jewellery.
It had seemed like an easy choice to refit her bed with the induction charger, allowing the new Nina to charge quietly every night during sleeping hours. She only needed four hours of sleep every 72 hours, but Eddie felt that getting a few hours of sleep a night made her feel more... human?... to him. He stood outside the room for a while, before trying the doorknob and walking in...
...........
The bedroom was almost exactly as it had been left all these years, save for a few changes since Eddie had brought NIna back. He'd bought a UPS and set it up to prevent any odd power issues from causing problems with Nina, and plugged the induction charging pad into it, secreting it beneath the bedsheets. Nina was now lying atop her assigned bed, her blanket pulled over most of herself.
As with pretty much the entire house, the room was very dimly lit with nightlights - his father had never quite gotten used to the idea of pitch blackness anywhere in the house, even in the basement and attic, and had spent great effort and a modest sum of money getting LED lamp strips onto every inch of wall, casting a soft warm glow on everything when the main lights were not turned on in any part of the house.. As a added touch, there was a small constellation slowly whirling around on the ceiling of the room, courtesy of a small projector the original Nina had bought as a young child, A passing fancy, they said.
Nina Mk 1 had wound up getting it repaired and parts for it replaced several times over the years, and the only other time the projector had not been playing away in the room was when they'd relocated it for ambience at her funeral wake to the living room. In fact, Hale Senior had kept up the habit until or a year or two before he'd passed away in senility.
Eddie watched the stars on the ceiling for what seemed like a while, before he made his way to where Nina was asleep in bed, pulling the blanket down. Nina had closen to sleep in a plain light blue silk robe, tied carefully at her waist. She was lying perfectly straight, arms resting at her sides. He leaned in and listened, not hearing the faint heartbeat or heave of her artificial lungs.
Eddie gulped a little. He probably shouldn't be doing this but... he stood up and away from her, before reaching his hands to the ribbon tying her coat together and undoing it, easing her robe open. He looked away, blushing hard, as he realised that Nina had worn nothing at all beneath the robe, her hairless body on full display as the silk of her robe travelled away from her curves with the pull of his hands.
After a few minutes, he'd recomposed himself and looked back at her prone form, gulping a little. His mind said one set of things about her, but his own body had said other things. Things that he felt were filthy... He reached a hand over to the flesh beneath her rounded breasts, locating the mole parked suspiciously right beneath her cleavage, pushing down around it There was a faint click and whirr, as a small square of synthflesh slid inwards and then out of sight, exposing Nina's control panel.
Eddie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He swore there were no puerile thoughts behind what he was doing... he just wanted to check a few things, and then wake her for some company in the wee hours of the morning. He looked through the low-resolution status screen, its little glowy green elements suddenly the brightest things in the room, even if they only amounted to little arrangements of pinpricks of light.
Nina had slept the full four hours she needed to operate for 68 hours, and had stopped charging, simply awaiting the clock to tick over to 6.30am in the morning, whereupon she would come back to life and prepare breakfast, before waking him up in a cheerful chirp as his adoring elder sister. It was... he checked his watch... only about 3 in the morning. But he really couldn't go to sleep again.
Eddie tapped though a few menus, forcing a manual wakeup. There was a faint chime as the synthflesh slid back in place, Nina's bosom suddenly heaving away slowly, her heartbeat faintly audible if he brought his ears close enough to her body... Her eyes opened, focusing and unfocusing in the dim light as they scanned the room, before settling again on her raison'd'etre... "Morning, bro... couldn't stay asleep?" She asked Eddie. If she had noticed that her robe was wide open, she did not point it out.
Eddie was looking away, stammering. "Y... yeah... had a bad dream... just couldn't sleep again... Could we... listen to something quiet together till the morning comes?"
Nina sat up slowly, her hands tying her robe mostly back together, though a hint of her cleavage remained. "It wouldn't be the first time you asked me to do that with you..." She observed as she got out of bed, carefully nudging into him from behind, the softness of her bosom reminding him of the other side of his attraction to her that he had always had since the original Nina was alive... "Shall we?" She nodded, a soft lilt in her voice as she passed by him for the living room...
.................................
Barely a few minutes later, Eddie Hale had set up the radio set to tune into a channel that was known for playing random soothing noises at this time of night - rainstorms, forest sounds, the gentle running of rivers and lakes along the shores and stones. As he sat back on the sofa, Nina appeared by his side, setting down two warm cups of milk, before easing herself into the space next to him, saying nothing else but just watching him. The original Nina had always tried to dose Eddie with warm milk to go back to sleep more easily, and her replacement android had been programmed very well to do that too, amongst many other small tics...
She kept saying nothing, simply leaning against Eddie.
Eddie breathed slowly, picking up his own cup and sipping the milk. It was nothing fancy, just plain milk with a small teaspoonful of chocolate for flavor. Not chocolate milk, just milk with an accent of chocolate. He glanced over, feeling comfy as he did so. And just like Nina, he said nothing. But his mind was roiling a little...
McNathan had cheekily suggested Nina would be something of an "Elder Sister With Benefits", and right now he was beginning to understand what he actually meant. His mind was thinking of her as her sister, but his body... He tried not to pay too much attention to the slight half-stiffy in his pants.
Nina suddenly spoke up after a long while of nothing but slow blinking and breathing on Eddie. "... We haven't done this in a long time, have we?"
Eddie thought about that... no, he hadn't done this in a long time, sitting next to the original article, and it had only been three days since he'd brought the new Nina home.He told her just as much, and she smiled at him quietly as if that was all the response she needed, picking up her own mug and sipping on some of the milk before placing it back down and going back to keeping him company while they listened to the radio.
Eddie bit his lip. "Actually, there's something I need to say, sis... I've always... loved you... very much. And maybe also in some other... ways..."
Nina showed no signs of understanding or being confused by Eddie's confession about his sister complex. She sat there, watching him without any hints of judgment, just being there for him. Eddie went on. "You're very beautiful... and erm... looking at you is making me think things I probably shouldn't."
Nina stayed silent, eyeing Eddie as she sat there next to him. "... I'm sorry, Eddie, I don't understand what you've just said."
Eddie realised it was probably the chatbot not being able to formulate a proper response to such an intimate observation... She wasn't designed as a sexbot as a first place, and there were probably limits to what could be done to retrofit that kind of thing into her model, but Eddie still felt a little ashamed as his mind kept casting about for what to do next, his ears hearing the simulated thump and heave of her lungs and heart, a small simulacrum of life playing away in a faint audible rhythm.
He really wanted to get to know her better in a certain way... Eddie reached a hand over to the ribbon keeping Nina's sleeping robe together and pulled, carefully using both his hands to slowly part the fabric and look at the treasures buried beneath the silken fabric. He had seen some porn growing up, and Nina's body resembled that of a porn starlet. It wasn't just fantasising and imagination like it had been durnig his teenage years - this was something tangible.
Nina said nothing else, simply looking at him eye to eye as she sat there, Eddie's hands carefully dirobing her more. One of hands pawed onto a breast, and for the first time, she'd responded. Her eyes closed as she gave off a small, pleased moan, continuing to do so as Eddie latched on with his other hand as well, carefully mounding and rubbing her breasts and feeling the stiffening areolae in his palms.
Eddie blushed bright red. She'd been reworked well enough to find pleasure in the act of foreplay at least... He didn't take long before he decided to throw caution to the wind and carefully pulled her over, letting her sit on his lap, his eyes looking up at her face, now contorting into expressions of arousal and ecstasy.
It was all programming, of course. She was taking the stimuli and playing back from a small subset of vocalizations and motions, he understood as much. He was an OS programmer, and there wasn't exactly too much difference between coding to handle a set of responses on command lines and pointer inputs, and whatever was happening here. He briefly wondered if he should spend some time sooner or later learning how to work with her programming, and pretty much decided it was probably going to happen sooner or later.
But right now, he just wanted to give in to the darker edges of his sister complex. His hands roamed all over Nina's body, feeling how it was soft in the right spots, and firm in the places where a real woman would be firm. Slowly, he stopped thinking of her as her elder sister for a while, seeing only a doll in love with him and wanting to be loved by him, her eyes fluttering ever so often as random moans and unparseable noises issued from her half-opened mouth as the radio kept playing a soft rain over the sounds of their cuddling.
After a while, he started shrugging his sleeping pants down, exposing his cock. It had grown very stiff, and he needed to put it somewhere to calm it down. He slowly pushed it into the folds of Nina's vagina, just the tip at first, before sliding the entire thing in. As if in response, Nina moaned more loudly, her body shifting more often as if trying to get comfortable sitting atop of Eddie, before she began to grind her haunches into his.
As she did so, Nina kept silent save for her moans and whimpers, even as Eddie explored her further, the warmth of her lovehole pulsing against his manhood. Eddie looked up at her again after suckling her dry but large teats for a while, whispering. "Oh, Nina, I've needed you so badly...Let's... stay like this forever."
Nina tilted her head, letting Eddie nuzzle against her neck, her voice softly replying. "I- I love you, b.bro... I will always love. you." She closed her eyes as she sensed Eddie's manhood finally coming into her, before slowly lowering herself against him, her hands rubbing his spent form even as she kissed his forehead.
Eddie leaned his head back and smiled. He really shouldn't have done this. This was the sort of thing one didn't do with one's older sister except in some less enlightened places. But surely there was a difference between doing it to his actual sister, and doing it to a lifelike android who simply looked and acted like her... He opened his eyes again and traded a soft kiss with Nina, lips to lips, before murmuring. "I think I could... fall asleep like this..." He purred... then hugged her firmly to himself and started feeling the edges of sleep enroach onto his tired body. There was also a certain sense of security as he curled up on the sofa with his returned big sis, and that was nudging him along as well back into unfitful rest.
Nina nodded slowly, gently stroking the back of his head, but saying nothing. And then, she kept sitting there as she sensed him slowly drifting to sleep again... Her eyes focused and unfocused slowly, as she went limp, going back into sleep mode for the rest of the night even as the radio kept playing through a soft thundering shower... her voice gave one last burble as she shut down. "Wuv... little bro... always..." Her head gently parked itself onto one of his shoulders, her sightless eyes closing as she whirred back down into an inert piece of fine engineering. ..........