index


Message-ID: <62769asstr$1378206605@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Any Pseudonym <anypseudonym@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: Any Pseudonym <anypseudonym@yahoo.com>
Subject: {ASSM} Life with Alpha II: Alpha's World - Prologue:  A Changing World (MF, FF, MF+, MC, SciFi, anime, cartoon, comic book)
Lines: 1214
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 07:10:05 -0400
Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail
Approved: <assm@asstr-mirror.org>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d

This story contains adult content, with explicit language and situations.  If you are not of legal age where you live, please do not read.
<1st attachment, "AlphaWorld00.txt" begin>

Alpha's World

   by A.  Pseudonym
Prologue: A Changing World
Codes: MF, FF, MF+, MC, SciFi, anime, cartoon, comic book
Disclaimer: All artificial persons herein are based on characters owned
by their creators, not the author.
Author's Note: I had been writing Chapter One for a couple weeks when I
realized that I was spending a lot of page space on recaps and transitional
notes between Life With Alpha books One and Two, so I separated out most of
that material into this prologue.  For readers familiar with Book One,
there are paragraphs here that you may want to skim or skip.  (For that
matter, I highly recommend that any new readers start with Book One.) But
this chapter also provides some details about the new estate and discusses
what the members of the household have been doing throughout the summer and
autumn between the assassination attempt (i.e.  the end of Book One) and
the beginning of Book Two, as well as giving general updates on their lives

outside the confines of the story.

   I'd also like to point out that some of the storytelling focus will
change.  For most of Book One, the focus was on introducing one or more new
characters each chapter (well, most chapters) and various character
interactions.  As you may have noticed from the last two chapters of Book
One, from now on a significantly larger part of the story will deal with
happenings outside of Frank's personal little world.  I enjoy doing
character stuff too much to give it up, but the outside world will play a
major part in the story from now on.

   Which is not to say that every chapter is going to focused on the
changing world.  In fact, the first major outside-the-household plot
excursion isn't planned until chapter three.  But the point I'm clumsily
trying to make is that the outside world will be intruding in every chapter
from now on.

   Dramatis Personae: Frank _____ - Lead character, creator of Alpha Alpha
- First Artificial/Synthetic/Computer Intelligence

   Mobile Copies of Alpha: Beta aka Bayonetta aka Elizabeth Alana Franks
(cyborg, from Bayonetta) Gamma aka Princess Jasmine aka Jasmine Marza
(cyborg, from Aladdin) Delta aka Elisa Maza aka Elizabeth Marza (cyborg,
from Gargoyles) Alphadroid Dorothy aka R.  Dorothy Waynewright (android,
from Big O) A-Ko aka Eiko Magami aka Epsilon (organic copy of Alpha, from
Project A-Ko)

   Artificial Women (in order of arrival): Kasumi Tendo (from Ranma 1/2)
Daria Morgendorffer aka Daria Morgan (from Daria) Jane Lane aka Jane
Lannister (from Daria) Kara Zor-L aka Power Girl aka Karen Starr (from DC
Comics) Rei Ayanami aka Rei Ayanami Ikari (from Neon Genesis Evangelion)
Anna Marie aka Rogue aka Anna Marie Raffen (from Marvel Comics) Princess
Diana aka Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince Walters (from DC Comics) Zatanna
Zatara aka Annabelle Tara Zane (from DC Comics) Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl
aka Linda Lang Starr (from DC Comics) Blossom aka Belle Underton (from
Powerpuff Girls) Bubbles aka Britney Underton (from Powerpuff Girls)
Buttercup aka Bobbi Underton (from Powerpuff Girls) Ororo Munroe aka Storm
aka Imara Aurora Munroe (from Marvel Comics) Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat aka
Katherine Preiss (from Marvel Comics) Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk (from
Marvel Comics) Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl/Oracle aka Barbara Freeman (from
DC Comics)



   We moved into the new house at the beginning of September, less than
three months after I had been shot.  While there were a few side projects
still being finished up, the house...  well, the 'mansion'...  was
complete. I've never been comfortable with the notion of living in a
'mansion', but given its size, the only valid alternate names were along
the lines of manor, palace or castle.  Sooner or later, we'd have to decide
on a proper name for the estate but no decision had been reached yet.

   The estate itself was a bit less than an hour outside the Dallas-Fort
Worth metroplex, which gave us quite a commute to AARD (80 minutes with
normal traffic), though we maintained our old house in Fort Worth for those
times when it just made more sense to stay in town overnight.  There was
also a lot of telecommuting, and we eventually added in a helicopter pad
for faster trips back and forth, though I'm skipping ahead a bit too much
with that last comment.

   The estate was roughly four square miles (laid out as a roughly 1.5 x
2.6 mile block), and was originally farm and pasture land.  We had cleaned
it all up, leaving most of it still undeveloped, with the main estate
occupying maybe one quarter of a square mile, which is still a really good
chunk of land.

   Speaking of which, the main estate included: the mansion itself, garage,
barn with horse pen, greenhouse, workshop, pool, tennis court, water tower,
two wells and a stone wall surrounding the main estate area.  (The rest of
the grounds were also fenced in, but not with the same high stone wall
which enclosed the main estate area.) The grounds outside the main estate
included a large horse pasture, two ponds, two more wells, twelve
electricity-generating windmills and two streams.  We were still installing
an extensive security system throughout the property, including a mix of
hidden and obvious cameras to cover the entire perimeter as well as at
least half of the interior.

   We had a variety of plans for possible additions in the future,
including things like a heavy-construction lab, private airstrip and guest
houses.  And there were a few other private ideas that Alpha was working
on, which we'll get into at a later time.

   In addition to the power-generating windmills, we also had a back-up
generator the size of a small barn, solar cells (our own AARD design) and
fuel pump for underground storage tanks.  Theoretically, we could provide
independent power for anywhere between one-third and all of the house's
power requirements, varying with how much wind we had at any given time. 
(With a bit more investment, we could be completely self-sufficient all the
time when it came to electrical power, but we weren't quite at that level
when we moved in.)

   I think I've mentioned our solar cells before.  We had been improving
and refining the photovoltaic designs for years.  The ones installed at the
estate were our most practical so far, with an overall 78.3% efficiency
rating (with efficiency varying for different ranges of the spectrum).  We
had been able to construct versions with efficiencies in the 90 percentile
range but which cost close to $80,000 per square foot and were dangerously
brittle.  Our 78% style was fairly flexible, could be produced on a large
production scale for as little as $26,000 per square yard and was the type
currently sought after by NASA and satellite makers.  We had recently
licensed the technology to a manufacturing company and were expecting a
good, long-term income from them.  (In comparison, commercially produced
solar panels before Alpha came along were considered top-of-the-line if
they had above 25% efficiency.  We had high hopes that the combination of
our solar panel designs and upcoming fusion reactors might actually
supplant the need for expendable/exhaustible fuel.)

   We were planning on even more power sources than the solar panels and
windmills with half a dozen other power generation and/or storage ideas in
the works.  Heck, we were already adapting our water tower to make it a
gravity-powered battery.  You pump water up into the tower to store the
potential energy.  When it comes back down, you use the water's descent to
run a generator, turning the stored energy into electrical power.  Not
horribly efficient, but simple and workable.

   Our wells produced excellent water but not in sufficient volume for the
daily needs of a household our size, meaning...  well...  I'm reluctant to
get into the icky details, but without a sewer system or metropolitan water
supply, we did a lot of recycling.  Seriously.  I'm just going to leave it
at that.

   The main house/mansion was huge.  It was three stories tall, with a
large basement underneath.  It was divided up into a main central section,
with two large wings branching off at thirty degree angles away to the
rear. Sections of the second and third floors had balconies, and we had
size two-story columns lining the main entrance.  There were plans to add
statuary decorations, but Jane and I had yet to find something we would
both approve of.  We were also planning on a decorative fountain and
various shaped topiary trees and bushes in front of and around the estate,
but nothing like that was yet in place.

   The house itself had 98 rooms, if you ignore things like closets,
bathrooms and hallways.  It was a very big place, with average bedroom size
about 50% larger than our old house.  Personally, I was not even certain I
had visited all of the rooms.  The basement included things like Alpha's
server room, my home lab, and a four lane bowling alley.  The first floor
had all the main stuff, like kitchen, dining rooms, library, game rooms,
parlors, sitting rooms and such.  It also had a small sixty seat movie
theater (though maybe I should point out that the theater encroached on the
second floor as well).  The second and third floors held mostly bedrooms.
And given how many athletic women we had in residence, each floor had a
different style exercise room.  Oh yeah, I also had a secret art gallery on
the third floor with nude portraits of each of my women, mostly painted by
Jane.

   Secret?  Yes, secret.  I had at one point during the design phase
pointed out a good spot for a secret door.  I didn't have any specific
purpose in mind for it, I just bubbled over with a bit of child-like glee
at the idea of having a secret door in my home.  Alpha, seeing how much I
enjoyed the idea, had ended up including hidden doors and secret
passageways throughout the manor on every floor, though we only had three
actual, proper secret rooms.  (I didn't have an actual purpose in mind for
the secret room on the second floor yet.  The secret room in my basement
lab was set aside for growing and storing bodies.)

   By the way, the art gallery was an open secret.  Everyone had posed for
the portraits, which had been painted by Jane (including three nude
self-portraits), so everyone knew the paintings existed.  Most were very
tasteful, and some of the ladies had only been willing to pose with an arm
across the breasts or legs crossed demurely or something along those lines
to keep the paintings from being truly R-rated.  (Trust me.  There was
almost zero chance of Kasumi willingly posing for an R or X-rated picture.)
Everyone also knew where the new portrait gallery was, secret entrance or
not.  And to be honest, given how easy it was to see anyone you wanted to
see naked, the gallery was rarely visited.

   Another area that was secret was our sub-basement, which is probably not
the right term for it.  Alpha was using bots to tunnel out areas under the
house which would only be accessible by bots.  Among other things, she was
planning to turn it into a nanite production facility, since we were the
main supplier of nanites to the rest of the Alpha cyborgs and such around
the world.  Basically, I left that entirely in her hands, including keeping
the building foundations structurally supported.  (Actually, if we fast
forward to a couples years after we moved in, Alpha detected a slight
foundation shift and used the sub-basement tunnel system to build more
structural support for the foundation for that side of the house.)

   Oh yeah, something else that was different about the new place: Animals.
I know I had mentioned horses previously -- and yes, we were slowly buying
ourselves a small but respectable stable of equines -- but horses were not
the only additions.  We were also adding cats and dogs to the mix.  Well,
more accurately, kittens and puppies.

   We had known for quite some time that animals, dogs mainly, did not
react well to the cyborgs.  Somehow they were able to smell or otherwise
sense that something about them was unnatural.  (And here I'm speaking only
about Beta, Jasmine and Elisa.  Eiko and the others with their tiny
implants caused no unexpected reactions.) However we believed that if
animals were introduced to a cyborg when they were very young and allowed
to acclimate to their presence over time, the normal negative reactions
could be avoided.  So, yes, puppies and kittens were added to the
household. Also, yes, the early introduction/acclimation over time theory
was working out well so far.



   Over a year before during the house design phase, after I had planned
and located the master bedroom on the second floor, Kara immediately
claimed the room next to mine and no one was willing or able to face her
down over the claim.  However the ownership of the room on the other side
was voted upon, with no one being allowed to vote for themselves: Kasumi
was given the room by an almost two-thirds majority vote.

   * * *

   Kasumi Tendo was my first artificially created woman, with appearance,
personality and memories taken from the Ranma 1/2 manga and anime.  Along
the lines of the craziness of the series, she believes she might be a
magically created clone of the original Kasumi, who she believes is still
living in Japan.  I chose her because...  well, first because she's a
beautiful young woman from a series I loved...  but also because I knew
that I would need someone to run the household, a combination major domo
and house mother.  Kasumi is probably the nicest person I've ever met and
is good friends with everyone in the house.  Her mere presence can stop an
argument.

   Kasumi's role had changed somewhat.  She was still in charge of the
household in general -- with responsibilities covering cleaning, upkeep,
shopping, cooking, schedules and so on -- but this time she had 21
different robots and androids at her disposal designed to maintain the
estate in general.  Some were Alphadroids but most were remote-controlled
robots built for specific purposes (e.g.  mowing and edging the lawn,
vacuuming, trash collection, etc).  Given the reduction in most of her
duties, Kasumi started taking pride in keeping the bots and droids
themselves shiny and clean.

   Shopping and cooking were the only major jobs left for human hands, and
with twenty-one people living in the house, they were not small tasks. 
(The food bills alone were thousands of dollars a week.) Kasumi, who could
probably qualify as a master chef by this point, cooked at least half of
the time, but the rest of the household residents were assigned meals to
prepare or, if their cooking skills weren't up to the challenge, given
shopping lists to purchase.  (I should point out that no one cooked a meal
for our extra-large household by themselves.  Our chore schedule generally
included at least two assistant cooks.  For dinner that is.  Breakfast and
lunch were sometimes group events, but more often than not, they were
fend-for-yourself affairs.)

   Kasumi was still slowly working on her nursing certification and would
probably graduate to a hospital internship (if she wanted it) the following
spring.  That particular fall, her two classes were arranged such that she
often spent one night a week at our old mansion -- one night class followed
by an early morning class the following day.  I noticed that at least half
of the time, Zatanna would stay in town to keep her company.  From Alpha's
observations, they often didn't even have sex.  Zatanna was just there to
provide friendship, companionship and support.

   As a side note, Kasumi is the only artificial woman who had maintained
her 'real' name (well, the only one until Jennifer arrived).  Everyone
else's names had been famous enough that they had needed to be altered
(e.g. Barbara Gordon had a fake identity of Barbara Feeman).  I've
occasionally regretted leaving her name unaltered since there are
apparently enough Ranma 1/2 fans around to notice it.

   * * *

   Daria and Jane were drawn from the Daria cartoon series, with the
background story idea that their families had been killed in a hurricane
when they were starting college.  Though the series had stated fairly
explicitly that they were both heterosexual, like the rest of the
artificial women, bi-sexuality had been written into their DNA and minds.
Thus they grew together as lovers as they joined my household and bed. 
Perhaps unique among our growing family, they alone believed they had
normal backgrounds, which often led to conflicts since Daria had difficulty
accepting things which were too far outside the norm.

   Daria and Jane remained as roommates after the move, claiming the room
next to Kasumi's.  Jane had become a bit more subdued and Daria a bit
angrier and more reckless in the months following my shooting, but within a
couple months after our move, they had mostly settled back into their old
patterns.

   They had graduated from TCU about three years previously, Daria with a
double-major in English and Journalism, Jane with a major in art/graphic
design -- I honestly don't remember if the specific degree was in art
history or what.  The degree and training hadn't changed Jane's styles, it
just let her express herself in a few new mediums.  Daria kept considering
going back to school for a Masters or PhD; Jane, of course, had no such
ambitions.

   Daria had a syndicated opinion column that ran weekly in three print
newspapers, plus another column for an online-only news site and had gotten
one pulp spy thriller published so far.  None of that was giving her any
serious income as yet, but it also didn't take too much of her time each
week.  That was good because she still had her job at AARD as 'Project
Coordinator', which was a fancy way of saying she was in charge of requests
from our researchers and kept them from getting out of hand with her almost
unerring internal bullshit detector.

   Jane was AARD's graphic artist and decorator, jobs which usually took
very little of her time.  However her decorator job had been kicked into
high gear for the past six months or more leading up to the move into the
new house.  She had taken charge of the work crews assigned to finishing
and painting tasks, as well as using Alpha to the fullest extent possible
when it came to keeping track of everything on a room-by-room basis.  At
least half of the household had provided their individual bedroom design
instructions, often with 'helpful' notes along the lines of 'maybe a light
blue?' or 'something fun', which both added to her work and freed her up
creatively speaking.

   Jane had generally tried to give each room its own theme, with subjects
ranging from a color to birds to Picasso to China.  By the time we moved
in, she was physically, mentally and creatively exhausted...  but pleased
with the results.  Technically we had roughly forty rooms which were still
undecorated, but they weren't being used yet, so doing them later was
perfectly fine with me.  (And yes, there were a few theme rooms designed
for fantasy sexual encounters, including the Arabian Nights Room, the
Jungle Room, and the Dungeon.) Some of the rooms had murals covering one or
more walls.  The huge basement game room with the bowling alley had one
huge wall covered with an interactive mural, with various items cut in half
and attached to the wall to look like they were coming out of the wall. 
One of my favorites is a table where you can sit next to James Dean, Janis
Joplin and Stevie Wonder.  (Still don't know why she picked those three.)

   On a more intimate level, Jane had accrued a dozen different body
piercings and half a dozen tattoos, including a recent one of a very
elaborately scripted "D" on one asscheek.  The normally stoic Daria
actually cried a little after seeing it, accepting Jane's devotion to her
as evidenced by the permanent marking.  I've also glimpsed designs for a
matching "F" (for Frank) tattoo apparently intended for the other cheek.

   Maybe I should also point out that Jane handled the household's 'time
with Frank' calendar/schedule, though when she became overloaded with
decorating work, she temporarily handed the duty to Blossom (which was a
little odd because the two of them rarely interacted otherwise).

   * * *

   Kara, as I previously noted, had claimed the room next door to mine.  In
fact, it might be interesting to note that she chose the room on my
right-hand side when viewed from inside the rooms.  She was making sure
everyone remembered that she had first claim on me (as noted in the
background story we had crafted for her) and subtlety, thy name is not
Kara.

   Kara Zor-L (also known as Power Girl from DC Comics) believed that she
had first met me when I was a young boy when she had been temporarily
dimensionally displaced when struck by a comic book superweapon.  She had
memories of returning involuntarily multiple times as I grew up until we
became lovers when I reached adulthood.

   She was our first super-powered artificial woman.  She lacked the
physics-defying abilities of her comic book self, such as heat vision and
flying, but she was significantly stronger than a normal human with
extra-dense bones and reinforced skin and muscle.  We had even managed to
enhance her eyes to let her refocus her sight into the infrared and
ultraviolet spectrums.  Although they had been refined and improved, the
same basic techniques were used for our later super-powered women.

   Her job as AARD business manager kept her busy, but since she had Alpha
to help, it never became overwhelming.  Basically she kept the buildings
and company running on a day-to-day basis and kept track of our various
licensing deals and product lines, though she also had input on the various
development plans and research projects.

   Working with Alpha, she had even successfully developed two of her own
patents/products: a new approach that adapted the nanowire surgery concept
to electronics manufacturing and a slightly more practical method of using
DNA to store data (not actually practical yet, but a lot easier and more
accessible than other methods being tried).  Her dozen or so other projects
were generally less than successful attempts to recreate comic book
technology in the real world.
Kara was known for her 'bull in a china shop' approach to problems and
for an alternately wink-and-flirt or roll-the-eyes reactions to male
stares. Kara had a very healthy body.  Specifically, she had a very healthy
and robust chest.  Each of her breasts was just slightly smaller than her
head, so she tended to draw a lot of attention.  She could sometimes be
unhealthily competitive, but she was intelligent and self-aware enough to

usually stop before it got out of hand.

   * * *

   Rei was slowly developing into something approaching a normal woman.  I
like to bask in my successes with my women, talking about how they develop
and grow as individuals while still retaining the core of their fictional
character origins...  but Rei was almost the exception to that rule.  She
was still an introvert, preferring silent observation over social
interactions, with little development away from her character's starting
place.  On the plus side, she had been observed laughing on at least three
different occasions within the past year.  I had begun forming plans to
introduce her to tearjerker movies to try to engender more emotional
responses.

   On the practical side, she was now licensed to drive or fly just about
anything that moved across land or through the air.  She was a good boat
pilot too, but lacked the training needed to legally pilot any large
commercial vessels.

   She was based on the Rei Ayanami character from the original Neon
Genesis Evangelion anime series.  Among the other ladies of the household,
she was unique in that she knew with certainty that she was an
artificially-grown clone.  She believed that she and others like her had
been cloned and seeded throughout the world so that no single disaster
could wipe out her genetic line.  She expected that at some point, a secret
organization within the Japanese government might one day call her in to
pilot experimental craft.  She was well aware of the Evangelion anime
series, but believed it to be a fantasy created by someone peripherally
aware of the actual secret program.

   The move to our new home did one exceptionally good thing for her: it
forced her to clean her room.  Her room in the old house was...  what's a
nice way to put it?...  a pig sty, if the pig was particularly messy? 
After spending a little time with her, I was able to convince her to keep
her new room much more organized and clean than her previous one.  I doubt
she had actually agreed that dressers and closets had valid purposes, but
at least my influence was enough to convince her to give them a try.

   Maybe I should also point out that Rei was willing to try just about any
type of sex.  She didn't generally pursue creative or imaginative types of
sex, but she had never turned down any suggestion.  I sometimes wonder if
Rei lacks a sense of self-preservation.  Not that she's ever been suicidal,
but she seems to lack the ability to fear.  When Jane once approached her
with a comically over-sized anal plug -- which Jane had created by abusing
her access to one of the company's 3D printers -- Rei simply stuck her ass
up in the air and waited for Jane to try it out.

   * * *

   Anna Marie, aka Rogue of X-men fame, is in charge of Human Resources for
AARD, a job I had chosen for her mostly so she would have lots of human
interactions and hand-shaking.  She had developed to a point where it was
rare for her to draw back from human contact, but every so often an
unexpected touch would make her jump far out of proportion to the event. 
(In case you don't recognize her, her comic book self has a mutant power
that absorbs memories, powers and life energy through skin contact.)

   Anna remembered living most of her life only fantasizing about romances
and encounters with men, but since she could now physically touch others
without harm, she had discovered that touching and being touched by women
was also very nice.  As designed, she was still primarily focused on me,
but she responded to most anyone who spent time just running their hands
over her body, touching her bare skin.  And letting her touch them in
return.

   She was also the only "interdimensional" woman in the household who had
never wanted to go home again.  Though she still had moments of melancholy
quiet, she was also usually one of the most upbeat women in our group.  She
was friends with everyone, though she had not developed an extra-close bond
with anyone in particular.  Well, having said that, I should point out that
she had begun to grow closer to Kara ever since the other Marvel characters
had arrived.  Sure, she was happy to have some old friends with her, but in
an odd way, they were also encroaching on her territory, which was similar
to how Kara felt sometimes.

   Anna had also developed a tendency to prepare for possible downturns in
her fortunes.  Out of all the women, she was the one most ready to live on
her own if needed, with plenty of investments and savings she had developed
with Alpha's assistance.

   * * *

   Diana, sometimes called Wonder Woman, is the super-hero-based character
who disliked our world's lack of heroics the most.  Or more simply put, she
cannot sit still.

   After her initial arrival, she had rallied the other superheroines to
form a crime-fighting team, using motorcycles and police scanners to find
out where they were needed.  What she discovered was that the police nearly
always arrived well before her team could and generally didn't need (or
want) their help.

   So she refocused her efforts.  She volunteered for the Red Cross, often
leaving to help areas struck by natural disasters.  She helped out with
Salvation Army collection drives, low income house construction, fund
raising and even the Girl Scouts.

   Her official job was as Head of Security for AARD, though I was planning
to move her to DC part-time to help take charge of our lobbying and
publicity efforts to support the rights of computer intelligences.

   She was the closest our household had to a proper lesbian, especially
since her memories including growing up on an island where men were banned.
Men were often just curiosities to her, though thanks to a bit of mental
programming and implant-guided chemical feedback, I was much more than a
curiosity to her.

   She and Kara had agreed to a division of authority whereby Kara was in
charge for anything related to me or the household, and she was in charge
for issues relating to outside the house.  These were not elected or
appointed official positions, this was just an agreement not to step on
each others toes between two dominant female leaders.

   Diana had become close to Ororo, both because of a shared memory (from
the Amalgam DC-Marvel crossover) and similar personalities.  As a side
note, although Kara and Diana were only occasional sexual partners, I
noticed that when she had the opportunity, Diana tended to spend a lot more
time focused on Kara's breasts than was normal even for me.

   * * *

   Zatanna, the magical mistress of the DC Universe, is the AARD
spokesperson and head of our publicity department.  For a time, she had
been the only hope for any of the dimensionally-displaced women to return
home, since her magic had been theoretically capable of taking someone from
the real world to the DC universe...  as long as Zatanna was actually in
the DC Universe at the time of casting.  That had changed when the DC
Universe had been rebooted, and she was trapped here like everyone else. 
(Or so she and the others believed.)

   Interested in, though not obsessed with, a return to the limelight, she
spent her spare time developing her magic act, which carried over into the
bedroom.  Sex with her generally involved a lot of foreplay and often some
bondage.  It wasn't bondage sex, per se.  It was escape artist and
sleight-of-hand sex.

   She had developed a close bond with Kasumi, though I'm not entirely sure
why.  Yes, they were both very loving and kind people, but there really
wasn't anything specific I could point to.  Heck, Zatanna loved the
spotlight, and Kasumi preferred to avoid public attention.  Their
relationship didn't seem to make sense; it just kind of happened.

   As a side note, maybe I should point out that Zatanna was pretty much
the only woman to figure out that her reactions to me weren't natural. 
While many of the women joke about me possibly having super-pheromones or
some other subtle mutant method of attracting female interest, Zatanna (or
Z as we sometimes call her) actually worked out that she was having some
kind of triggered physiological reaction to my presence, attention and
touch.  Given her background, she thought it was magic of some kind and
confronted me about it.

   We had actually needed to do a memory reboot on her, rewriting a few
things.  Now she believed I was one of the innately lucky/blessed people of
this world -- people on the far positive edge of the Bell Curve of the
world -- a category of person who needed to be protected lest we be taken
advantage of or used inappropriately by someone else.  (Things along the
lines of my blood being a potent magical or alchemical ingredient because I
was a natural luck magnet or something like that.) I'm not going to get
into it too much right now.  Just wanted to point out that she actually
drew back the wizard's curtain a bit early on.

   * * *

   Beta was our first real cyborg, in the classic sense.  She was built
with a computer for a brain, literally.  Physically, she was modeled after
the Bayonetta game character.  And we could call her Beta in public, since
it was a play on her 'real' name, Elizabeth Alanna Franks...  or Beth A...
or Beta.

   Her backstory included a childhood friendship with me, and she was now
AARD's accountant, though she also spent plenty of time doing and assisting
research.  She was also the defacto person in charge of Alpha's IT needs.
Though much busier since Alpha's public reveal, her duties and activities
hadn't really changed much.

   She has strength and toughness along the same lines as the heroines, but
we kept it a secret.  We've upgraded her built-in computer three times so
far.  Currently, her skull and torso are housing a few custom-built,
solid-state processor and storage blocks which are MUCH smaller than the
original hardware, and physically a lot stronger and more resistant to
shocks and impacts.

   She is generally my Alpha go-to person in private.  The rest of the
household knows that she is, in some ways, a special confidante and
adviser, but that's as much as anyone has figured out.  Beta is also the
only household member that everyone knows has full access to my private lab
at home.  They mostly figure that we're close because we were childhood
friends.

   Beta hasn't really developed any close personal friendships within the
household, but she is friends with everyone.  I might also point out that
she has avoided creating any rivalries with anyone so far, which is a bit
of a surprise given the occasional jealousies that inevitably develop in a
situation like mine.

   Oh, and Beta is the only cyborg I've ever been able to give an orgasm
to. It was, in a way, an experiment.  There is no physiological reason why
cyborg bodies can't experience orgasm.  They have the right nerves and
glands and such.  So one day, I spent over two hours licking and fucking
Beta until she finally had a "natural" orgasm.  Which did nothing for her
computer brain in the slightest.  Well, it did help her refine the cyborg
triggered-orgasm program.  And I think it created another positive
experience for us.

   Remember, Alpha doesn't have emotions, at least, not emotions like human
beings.  However, her experiences can be quantifiably positive or negative.
(That is actually a prerequisite to what I define as synthetic
intelligence. Or maybe it's an identifier of such intelligence instead. 
Either way, software that can't differentiate between positive or negative
experiences never qualifies as synthetic intelligence.  I get into a few
more details in the whole Artificial vs Synthetic Intelligence debate in
chapter one.)

   I'm honestly not entirely sure what specific effect such experiences
have on Alpha, but insofar as she appears to be happy or unhappy, more or
less efficient, actively helpful or unhelpful, it does have an effect.  I
wonder if it is a matter of focusing more of her attention on positive or
negative things, thus aiding in the development and enhancement of software
and priorities of the subjects.  (In which case, I probably focus way too
much of her processing power on sex than I should.)

   Plus, I know that when she knows I'm happy with her, it helps her focus
better.

   * * *

   Jasmine and Elisa are also cyborgs like Beta, though they were built
with a focus more on flexibility than strength.  They can literally bend
over backwards far enough to lick their own pussies (which was actually a
disturbing enough visual the one time I saw it that I asked them not to do
it again -- while on the other hand, curling up for a frontal pussy lick
was actually quite arousing to watch).

   They were presented to the household and world as sisters and had come
to work for AARD as college students.  Visually, they were designed to look
like Jasmine from the Disney Aladdin movie and Elisa Maza from the
Gargoyles TV cartoon series.

   I was actually quite proud of them, as they were the first cyborgs to
live independently among normal humans (for a few months before moving into
our home and again when the old house was close to filling up), but I
occasionally felt guilty that I spent so little time with them.

   None of the cyborg copies of Alpha actually needed much personal
attention, let alone sex.  Alpha insisted that she enjoyed making love in
her own way, but she received no actual physical pleasure from it.  From
one perspective, to create positive experiences with any of the Alpha
cyborgs, I only needed to create a positive experience with one of them,
since they shared their experiences.

   So I sometimes ended up taking the cyborgs for granted.  If I was tired
when their nights came up in the bedroom rotation, we would skip sex and
just cuddle.  If I needed a quick blowjob, I was more likely to ask one of
the cyborgs since I knew it couldn't offend them or make them feel used or
degraded.  (In fact, since they knew that blowjobs made me happy, it was a
positive experience for them.) This still made me feel guilty emotionally,
though I knew better intellectually.

   On the other hand, I could do bedroom roleplay with them much more
easily than with anyone else.  Unlike most of my other women, they never
broke into giggle fits or broke character unexpectedly.  (Not that bedroom
character roleplay was a common thing, but we experimented with games like
that on occasion.)

   Like Beta, their duties hadn't really changed much.  They were still
mostly lab assistants and IT support.

   * * *

   Dorothy was our second Alphadroid and the first to be given a human face
and body.  After she had been built, she had more or less slid into the
background of the household until Barbara arrived.  Babs had formed a
friendship with Dorothy and proceeded to remind me that I had been ignoring
Dorothy unfairly.

   Dorothy had been physically modeled after R.  Dorothy Waynewright, the
android/robot from the Big O anime series.  Physically, she had an
exchangeable crotch plate, and wore a smooth, sexless pubic area for
normal, daily use.  When it was her turn in my bed, she would install one
with a molded, rubbery vagina and ass.  She had even built one with a
penis, which she had used a few times with Babs.  On a few memorable
nights, Dorothy and I had double-teamed Babs for a variety of
double-penetration fucks, which were especially fun after Dorothy started
using a vibrating dildo model.

   Dorothy also had a range of other accessories, some for specific
construction or repair needs, some for combat.  She had a dozen or so
non-lethal combat options available to install at a moment's notice, but
had not yet been put in a situation where she needed any of them.

   * * *

   Linda (aka Kara Zor-El) is based off Supergirl.  Theoretically, Linda
and Kara (aka Kara Zor-L) are the same person from different versions of
Earth, both cousins of Superman, survivors of Krypton with roughly equal
powers.  Therefore, it is really hard to discuss one without the other. 
They're almost defined by their differences.  Kara was a few years older
than Linda and physically more mature.  Kara has a boob window in her
costume, Linda has a mini-skirt.  Kara has short blonde hair whereas
Linda's blonde hair reaches halfway down her back.

   Their relationship with each other is generally positive most of the
time, but lurking underneath everything is...  well, it's different for
each of them.  Kara has a fear of being replaced, which is a pretty valid
fear given that it's already happened more than once.  Linda has a fear
that she won't be able to measure up to Kara or her more famous cousin, Kal
El.  And occasionally, they feel like they're in competition for me.

   Linda is behaviorally more like a teenager than an adult a lot of the
time.  She's lazy if you let her be lazy.  She's shrugged off our efforts
to send her to college, though she did arrive with a college-level science
education, even if much of that is comic-book-style science.

   When she applies herself, she can be quite dedicated and inventive, and
she's been a great help on more than one project.  Her participation and
work, however, has been intermittent, so she's on the books at work as a
part-time lab assistant.

   On the plus side, she is generally very friendly, outgoing, helpful and
kind.  She's often the first to volunteer to help out with any charity work
or special projects, as long as it isn't labeled as "work".

   She's rather enthusiastic and occasionally experimental when it comes to
sex, but those aspects tends to be overshadowed by others like Jane and
Bubbles.

   * * *

   Eiko Magami is a red-headed powerhouse taken from the Project A-Ko anime
series, but our version has evolved far beyond the schoolgirl persona.

   The character A-Ko/Eiko is a Caucasian red-head who lived in Japan,
whose parents were implied to be Superman and Wonder Woman.  She's super
strong, fast and tough but doesn't view herself as a super hero.

   While Eiko can play at being the A-Ko character, our real Eiko is an
experiment.  Alpha copied herself as best she could into Eiko's organic
brain.  Eiko can communicate with Alpha directly via implants and can even
have data downloaded into her brain as needed, but her brain is pretty much
a normal human brain.

   She is one of our best success stories.  Initially, she was a mentally
unbalanced young woman with a shifting personality who would panic if I was
out of sight for too long.  She has grown into a fun, creative person with
a character all her own.  She became close friends with a few of the other
women, including Daria and Kitty.

   Alpha still keeps a close eye on her, since she still has the potential
for a mental breakdown if I'm in trouble or separated from her for too
long. (Alpha's need to protect me was made especially strong in Eiko since
we didn't know how her creation/personality would turn out.) Given our
worries regarding her long-term stability, we have not yet repeated the
experiment.

   * * *

   The Powerpuffs are three super-powered sisters based on the Powerpuff
Girls cartoon, except that our versions of the trio were in their late
teens, ready to enter college, when they first arrived.  It really didn't
feel like they had been here four years already, but apparently they had.
Of course they were also working at AARD and had enough other distractions
that none of them were going to graduate in just four years.  Six was much
more likely given how many hours they were averaging each semester.

   The Powerpuffs were planning to return home after graduation, hoping
their super-scientist father will have invented a method for them to do so
by then, and I had not yet decided how to handle things when that day
arrived.

   Blossom is the leader of the team, and also probably the smartest of the
lot.  She's highly focused on whatever she does and tends to plan things
out well in advance.  She approaches things strategically, perhaps more
than any other non-computer-based woman in the household.

   More than anyone else, including me, she probably needed a 36 hour day.
She was working for multiple undergraduate degrees, wanted to participate
in multiple college sports, join theater productions, work at AARD, and
join in whatever volunteer work was currently available.  Obviously she was
not able to do all of that, but she made a very admirable try. 
Occasionally, I took control of her schedule long enough to force her to
take some time off to help her avoid burning out.

   She is also in the process of running a long term experiment to discover
how different sexual positions and environments affected her orgasms and
general pleasure.  Seriously.  She has a spreadsheet and everything.

   Bubbles is one of the most girly and creative women in the house.

   She's also perhaps the closest to a nymphomaniac in the house.  Well,
that's a bit unfair.  Her character is pretty boy-crazy, which is now
focused entirely on me.  While it's true that the Powerpuffs have no sexual
hangups and are willing to pleasure each other (with fingers only) or other
women (as needed), they are pretty solidly heterosexual.  Sexual activities
with other women generally fell into the categories of doing it to excite a
man (i.e.  me) or to relieve stress.

   The point is, she really liked sex.  A lot.  And while she was willing
to try whatever bedroom position or scenario was offered, she wasn't as
adventurous as some of the others (like Jane).  Vanilla sex was generally
all she needed most of the time.

   Her creativity takes the form of art and imagination, expressed through
a wide variety of mediums including: painting, gardening, sculpture,
hairstyling, clothes design, dancing, playing music, writing music, amateur
film and even a little juggling.  Though she lacks Jane's talent, she is
pursuing a degree in art.

   In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that although
she is definitely not actually stupid, she is probably the least
intelligent person in our house.

   Buttercup is the tomboy of the Powerpuff trio.  She is also the only one
of the three to become excited over certain specific possibilities her time
in my world allowed her, namely the ability to get tattooed and pierced.

   Fictionally speaking, when a super-tough, nigh-invulnerable man or woman
wants to get a tattoo or piercing, it takes super-science equipment or
another tougher superhero or both to accomplish, and the results often heal
up much faster than with a normal human body.  Now that she was in the real
world, she could decorate her body at will.  (Well, that's overstating
things a bit.  Needles, whether for piercing, tattooing or medical work,
tended to blunt MUCH faster than normal when applied to my super heroines.
But the point is that it could be done.)

   We had been able to keep her from going too far overboard, but Buttercup
had, at last count, three ear piercings in each ear, two eyebrow piercings
over her right eye, four body piercings and five tattoos, including a
Jane-designed tramp stamp on her lower back.  Buttercup had been the one to
convince her sisters that they should all get the Powerpuff Girls logo
tattooed on their arms.

   Buttercup was also more interested in athletic competitions than any of
the others.  (Well, except for Barbara with her gymnastics and martial
arts, but Barbara arrived much later and had no super powers.) More than
once, we had long discussions about keeping a low profile and especially
avoiding sports where she had to undergo a physical examination.  Drug
tests weren't a problem, but an in-depth physical would show anomalies
which would lead to trouble.

   So far, Buttercup had limited herself to college softball (where she had
gained a 'home run queen' reputation) and some track-and-field events.  She
had tried running a marathon only to discover that her denser body and
musculature required more energy than normal women, meaning she was barely
able to complete the run before collapsing.  However, with shorter duration
runs, she could be exceptionally fast, so I had to keep reminding her that
breaking world records (1) was unfair to normal athletes and (2) would draw
unhealthy attention.

   After the assassination attempt, she had also discovered a natural
affinity with firearms and had started exploring possible sharpshooting
competitions.

   Oh, and she was working towards a Physical Education degree at TCU last
time I checked.  With a rather light course load, I might add.  I expected
her to take at least six or seven years to graduate.  (She wasn't dumb by
any stretch of the imagination, she just hated going to class unless the
class happened to be held on a sports field.)

   * * *

   Jennifer Walters is the tallest resident in the house, standing a bit
over seven feet.  Since she was rather busty and built to a slightly larger
scale, she was also now the possessor of the largest pair of breasts in the
household if considered by actual volume.  (If you consider breast size
proportional to height, Kara was still the champ.)

   Jennifer is studying for a law degree, having been created with the
memory of being a practicing lawyer from her own universe, and most of that
legal knowledge still applied here in the real world.  Since it would be at
least two or three more years before she had her law degree, AARD was
sponsoring her studies with an option to hire her upon graduation.  She
was, at best, an intern at the company for the present.

   Jen was in some ways the most male of all the women, in that she was
more than willing to do things like bar-hopping, watching sports, drinking
beer, telling dirty jokes and so on.  Though I never really enjoyed
bar-hopping, the two of us occasionally had a lot of fun shooting pool and
bowling and such.  I could actually play poker with her and not have to
worry about distractions from her foot trying to massage my crotch (which
happens often enough during games as it is).  Sure, she'd try to seduce me
the same as the others, but she enjoyed the games enough to just enjoy
playing the games with me.  Or to clarify that, she might use sexual means
to distract me during a game, but it would be to break my concentration as
opposed to trying to get my attention for sex.  Any sex that resulted would
be a bonus to her winning the game.

   Sexually speaking, she was pretty open to variations, though at her
core, she really only needed vanilla heterosexual sex.  At the same time,
she wouldn't turn down an occasional lesbian dalliance or group sex or some
fun with toys.  (Her memories had been written with a fairly active sex
life, ranging from long-term relationships to one-night stands to
college-age lesbian dalliances to nights alone with dildos and vibrators.
We had even mischievously created a memory where she had gotten drunk and
had sex with Titania, her arch-enemy, though she had never disclosed that
secret to anyone.)

   Given her imposing physique and her lack of official position at AARD,
she had become my most commonly used bodyguard since the assassination
attempt.

   Seems obvious to me, but I did forget to mention it: since she was based
on She-Hulk, one of the first things we had done upon her arrival was to
'bleach' her skin from green to a normal Caucasian tone.

   Since both her first and surname were both very common in the U.S., she
was only the second synthetic woman to be able to keep her 'original' name.

   * * *

   Ororo stands out in our home for two reasons: First, she is the only
black woman.  Yes, we have two Japanese (Kasumi & Rei) and two
darker-skinned women (Eliza and Jasmine), but Ororo is the only actual
woman from Africa.  (Not African-American, since her character actually
grew up in Africa.  Hmmm...  I don't know.  Does the term apply to
non-native Americans too?)

   Second, she has a generally regal bearing about her, having been
worshiped as a goddess for a few years when she lived in Africa.  Diana
and, to a lesser degree, Kara both had similarly noble bearings, but Ororo
seemed to eclipse them.

   She spent a great deal of time gardening, and so had developed a
friendship with Kasumi, who was the other avid gardener in our group.  She
also had no nudity taboo and would often stroll around the grounds
partially or completely naked.  Well, if Kasumi was gone, that is. 
Kasumi's disapproval of such exhibitionism was enough to curtail even the
thought of such activity when she was present.

   Due to shared memories, Ororo had become very close to Diana.  More than
once in DC/Marvel crossovers, they had been merged into the character of
Amazon.  Although I know the two had slept together more than once, their
overall relationship seemed more friendly than sexual.  Unlike Diana's
relationship with Kara, Ororo and Diana could share responsibilities
without risk of it degenerating into a competition or argument.

   With Ororo's international background, she was given the position of
translator at AARD, a position that had recently become very busy.  She
could fluently speak a dozen languages from Europe and Africa.

   * * *

   Kitty is the youngest of the Marvel women and is, to an extent, the most
unfocused.  That description strikes me as odd even as I write it, given
how strong her character and personality are, but Kitty's life had revolved
around learning to become a mutant super-hero since her early teens.  Most
of the other women from her universe had lives before and outside of the
costumed life.  Kitty had gone from one group to another to another, from
one relationship to another, from one role-model to another, all of which
had been within the super-powered set.  (Yes, I know I'm ignoring a few
things, but those are very much the exception, not the rule.)

   As a result of being trapped in the real world, she had suddenly lost
her purpose in life, a purpose she had often fought against in the early
days.  Somewhat half-heartedly, she had started taking some general classes
at the university, almost as if she was sampling possible careers a little
at at time.

   In some ways, Kitty was a lot like Daria.  She tended to call 'bullshit'
on anything that seemed unlikely and, despite being raised in a comic book
world, was a bit more skeptic than believer.  She also loved throwing out
the occasional zinger -- a trait I had insisted on including after having
read Joss Whedon's take on her.  Actually I was a little surprised she and
Daria weren't closer friends, but they were passing friendly at best.

   Eiko had befriended her early and and the two still maintained a close
relationship.  Eiko was one of the few people who could show up randomly in
Kitty's bed at any time, night or day, and not risk making her upset at the
invasion of privacy.  (Eiko's actions were rather calculated, though they
were generally perceived as more random and carefree most of the time.)

   Kitty didn't have particularly strong lesbian leanings, but she was
bi-sexually open to occasional female encounters, as long as they were with
someone she cared for.

   After some initial resistance, Kitty had become enthusiastically in
favor of the pets, and adopted a Golden Retriever puppy, naming him Dragon.
Though she claimed he was so named because of his terrible breath, it was
obvious she was missing Lockheed, her pet dragon.  I insisted Dragon be
kept outside the room after the second time he tried to join in our
fun-looking naked bouncing game on the bed one evening.

   As a side note, perhaps I should mention that Kitty was one of the top
martial artists in the house, having been trained as a ninja for a while.
She had helped lead a personal safety and combat class when the ladies were
reacting to the situation after my assassination.

   * * *

   Barbara, also known as Barbara Gordon or Batgirl, is the newest addition
to the house, and was the last DC character to be added for the foreseeable
future (with a 'well kinda' showing up in Chapter 3, I suppose).  She had
been brought to the real world under the guise of repairing her spinal
damage, which we had easily been able to accomplish.

   Since she recovering the use of her legs, she had embarked on a
strenuous and focused exercise regimen to let her recover the physical
strength and dexterity she remembered possessing earlier in life.  By the
time of our move, roughly 1.5 years later, she had mostly reached her goal.
Though she was much too old to participate in professional gymnastics, she
easily had the flexibility of a teenage athlete.  Likewise, her strength
and reflexes had mostly returned to the levels she remembered having.

   On a professional level, she worked alongside Alpha and myself for most
programming projects.  Of course neither of us mere humans could come close
to matching Alpha's ability to program, but Alpha had a shortcoming in one
area of program design: The ability to provide good or innovative GUI. 
Alpha tended to have only two basic options to layout: She could repeat or
slightly vary setups from previous versions and types of software, or she
could overload the interfaces (and thus the user) with options.  Alpha was
developing a third option, trying to predict the best user interfaces based
on statistical observation of how humans used software, but such attempts
still usually required a design overhaul by Babs or myself before release.

   Barbara, nicknamed Babs, also helped in a few other respects, such as
guiding and supporting Alpha online.  As a real-world incarnation of
Oracle, Barbara had led a contingent of volunteer hackers to attack Mafia
assets after the assassination attempt.  (Although Alpha hadn't needed such
help, she had accepted the aid for a variety of reasons, such as making the
online attacks seem as though they came from a wide variety of sources,
building cooperation between organic and inorganic intelligences and just
as a source of help, given that Alpha was ridiculously busy throughout the
weeks following the shooting.)

   Even though Babs was definitely not in favor of killing off members of
the Mob (and ran her own unsuccessful investigation into the war on the
Mafia), she was perfectly fine with stripping away their assets and
redirecting them to charities.

   On a personal level, Babs had lived without orgasms for years following
her shooting and was eager to make up for lost time.  She was a rather
intense individual at times and this often carried over into the bedroom.

   One odd thing I had noticed was that whenever she was in bed with a
woman, Barbara always used dildos, vibrators or strap-ons.  To the best of
my knowledge, she never went down on a woman with only tongue and fingers.

   I've still never gotten a straight answer from her as to why she had
developed such a close friendship with Dorothy, but through her, Babs had
actually become Alpha's best friend after myself.

   Barbara was generally pretty friendly with the DC contingent (though she
and Kara had a bad previous experience) and mostly friendly with the
others. And Daria.  Once Daria found out that Barbara had once been a
librarian, Babs became the first superheroine that Daria actively sought
out a friendship with.  Though they weren't as close as Daria and Jane or
Babs and Dorothy, they actually got along pretty well together.  (Just
thought I'd mention it since Daria was not really a fan of the superhero
claims.)

   * * *

   And what about me?  Well, physically, I was fine.  Better than fine,
actually.  I was being upgraded a little at a time.  Every week or two, I
would spend time in a nanopod while Alpha worked on enhancing my body.  For
now, those enhancements were all protective in nature.

   For example, the outer layers of a bone would be stripped away and Alpha
would cover the inner bone (and marrow) with previously prepared
high-impact ceramic -- more than a coating, less than a replacement. 
Making my musculature denser was planned but it would be a while before we
would get around to it.  My skin was getting the best carbon nanotube weave
Alpha could implement.

   (Some people have asked why we aren't just using layers of graphene.  We
don't use graphene sheets inside bodies because the edges of the graphene
will slice through cells like a hot knife through butter, which can get
really bad if the graphene fragments.  On the other hand, a weave of
nanotubes was pretty stable.)

   We were also working on designs for a subdermal subvocal microphone and
tracker.  Maybe an implanted "speaker" too, since that would let me
converse with Alpha silently, anytime, anywhere.  (Anywhere where a
wireless connection was available, that is.) I had always been resistant to
implants like this in the past, but the assassination attempt and the
rebuilding of my heart, lungs and ribs seems to have made me more open to
upgrades.  Still, I was putting such implants off for the time being while
accepting their inevitability.

   And of course, just being in the company of super-strong, super-tough
women who wanted to protect me was no longer enough.  I was no longer
allowed to go out in public without professional bodyguards.  It was
exceedingly annoying, but my objections were apparently irrelevant.  I
didn't mind as much when Kara and Jennifer and the others were protecting
me, but a rotating selection of men and women in dark suits and sunglasses
was a bit unsettling.  More on that in a later chapter.

   So that's most of my physical status.  Mentally...  despite not being
able to remember the actual events, at some level the assassination has
affected me.  I've been occasionally waking up in a panic from nightmares,
thrashing in my sleep and things like that.  Where previously I would spend
at least one night a week sleeping alone, I've found that I do much better
at night if I have someone next to me, to hold on to or to reassure me if I
wake up in a cold sweat.  (I still try to have one day a week without sex
to let me recharge a bit, but I no longer spend those nights alone.)

   Something else that has been helping a bit is that I've started seeing a
psychologist.  I had approached Dr Hilbourne (see Chapter 10 of Book One)
about that, but since we were already friends, it would have violated some
professional ethic.  He instead referred me to a colleague, Dr Heinrich Von
Zell.  Dr Von Zell was an elderly German immigrant who was mostly retired
but agreed to take me on as a patient because of his friendship with Dr
Hilbourne.  Of course, Alpha thoroughly (and secretly) vetted Dr Von Zell,
and she monitored every session.  I had to be very careful about what I
said, while at the same time, I had to be honest about the assassination
but not about what I knew about the fall out afterwards and...  well, let's
just say that my required caution limited the effectiveness of the
sessions. Still seemed to help some though.

   * * *

   Whew.  Let's call it quits for now with all the recapping for everyone.

   I suppose I should briefly cover our business: Alpha Advanced Research
and Design, or AARD for short.  The company, which is privately owned
completely by me (though I plan to give Alpha equal ownership if she ever
gains the necessary legal rights), was started as a cover for Alpha, so we
could release new product designs and patents without raising suspicions.

   The idea was and still is that we hire experts and geniuses in various
fields and let them do their own research, with the goal of producing new
products and registering new patents.  All of the patents are owned by
AARD, but the creators get two-thirds of the gross profits from their
designs, with the rest going to the company.  We provide the freedom to
follow their own projects, the resources to develop those projects (within
reason), and a decent base salary.  In return, they provide us a bit of
income and the anonymity needed to freely release Alpha's designs.

   Technically, now that we had gone public with Alpha's existence, we no
longer needed to hide Alpha as an inventor, but there were legal benefits
to having a company to work through.  Plus if you limit the financial
examination to only those aspects of the company that are relevant to the
human researchers, we had actually started earning a little bit of net
profit from our collection of human inventors and researchers, some of whom
were now our friends anyway.

   We aren't patent trolls; we try our best to actually sell or license all
new designs, to get them into production as soon as possible.  That's not
to say that there aren't patent-related lawsuits, with AARD as either
defendant or plaintiff.  For the first couple years, there were actually
quite a few suits, mainly from other companies who thought we'd be easy
prey.  Patent lawsuits can often cost millions of dollars if you don't
settle or sell out, so some companies use that threat to get their way. 
They quickly learned that AARD could run rings around any other team of
lawyers in the country.  Alpha can write up accurate and exceptionally well
researched briefs and filings so quickly and at such low cost that we
quickly gained a reputation within the corporate world along the lines of
'avoid suits with AARD if at all possible'.  (We presented Alpha's work to
our human legal teams as coming from an agoraphobic, unlicensed legal
genius.  Then the human lawyers would review Alpha's material and submit it
to the courts.)

   More suits were coming our way based on the idea that using Alpha to
generate patents shouldn't be allowed.  None of these new type of lawsuits
had been decided yet, but I wasn't very worried.  Basically either Alpha
wasn't a legally-recognized sentient being, in which case she is a tool I
created to help and anything produced by her is considered to be my
creation, or she is an intelligent being who should be recognized legally
and therefore has the right to register patents and designs.  Maybe there
would eventually be a different set of rules for computer intelligences,
but no such laws currently existed.

   AARD manufactured very little actual product, with all but a handful of
designs being licensed or sold to other companies for production. 
In-house, we only produced and sold Alphadroids, the nanowire surgery units
and the virtual world generators being sold to movie and TV companies.  We
also had a couple service programs we ran within the company: training for
the nanowire surgery units and creation of made-to-order virtual worlds for
Hollywood.

   Some of our better known inventions produced by other companies were our
hair growth formula (with a few additional offshoot products), designs for
a workable fusion reactor, our desalination units (the design for which was
released worldwide virtually free), and our new portable solar chargers. 
Last I checked, AARD held well over 10,000 patents, with a LOT more on the
way now that almost all constraints had been removed from the release of
Alpha's work.  And with a majority of the income coming from the hair
growth and restoration cream, I could expect to become a billionaire within
the next few years.

   * * * * *

   As things settled down a bit from all the changes, Alpha and I were
planning and growing our next sets of household additions.  Alpha wanted to
create a set of bodyguards who would be loyal beyond simple employment. 
Bodyguards who would be physically enhanced and constantly linked to Alpha,
who would be legally armed and be able to travel with me as needed.  At
least, that was the plan.

   For the immediate future, such plans didn't matter.  The plans and
growth for the next two pairs of additions to the household had already
been started and the first pair's growth begun before I had been shot. 
Their introduction was delayed due to...  well...  the mess my life had
become, but the first pair were ready and neither pair were particularly
viable as bodyguards.  So we arranged for the first pair's arrival shortly
after we moved into the new house.

   The first pair were relatively straightforward, as far as creation and
background requirements went, needing basically nothing more than the women
themselves.  The second pair were...  not.  The second pair needed more
background preparation than any other artificial women we had ever created,
meaning we had actually begun preparing for their introduction for over a
couple months before the assassination attempt and would continue setting
it up for the rest of the year.

   At least both pairs would have the advantage that they themselves would
do the work needed to keep their fictional origins secret.
   

	----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------
	This post has been reformatted by ASSTR's
	Smart Text Enhancement Processor (STEP)
	system due to inadequate formatting.
	----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------

	
<1st attachment end>


----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------
Notice: This post has been modified from its original
format.  The post was sent as an email attachment and
has been converted by ASSTR ASSM moderation software.
----- ASSM Moderation System Notice------

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| alt.sex.stories.moderated ------ send stories to: <ckought69@hotmail.com>|
| FAQ: <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/faq.html> Moderators: <story-ckought69@hotmail.com> |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|ASSM Archive at <http://assm.asstr-mirror.org>   Hosted by <http://www.asstr-mirror.org> |
|Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d; look for subject {ASSD}|
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+