Insurance - part 8

[miriam_e]

(1550 words)

total so far:

15,302 / 50,000
(31%)

First I gotta apologise to all my friends that I've been ignoring while I'm strapped to this insane runaway locomotive called NaNoWriMo. I'll be more attentive next month.

This part has been broken into two chapters. I didn't expect that the first half would grow like it did. This chapter sounds like it is just stuff, but it is actually one of the two main reasons behind the whole story. I'll have to go over it again later and work out how to break up the talk to make it more interesting. If anybody has any ideas on that please I'd love to hear them.

Do let me know what you think.
If you don't know what to say, that's cool, just say "huh" or ":)" or something.

Note that what follows contains adult concepts.
The love of two females for each other is central to this story so if you are offended by that stop reading now.

08 - love and equality

It was early the next morning, the sun was a bright pink area low in the thin fog. Rachel was at the front door kissing Sally goodbye for the day. She was going to meet Zoe. Savannah with bright pink hair and shiny pink bikini was standing behind Sally. She'd taken Sally up on the invitation and had arrived a couple of minutes ago, just as Rachel and Sally were getting ready to go, so Sally decided to stay.

Sally watched her lover stride quickly down the path into the morning mist with her black cape billowing out behind her. She wished she'd fastened the front of it to protect her against the cold.

When Rachel had been swallowed by the morning fog and birdsong Sally stepped back inside, allowing the door to close. She was dressed in white bikini top, white miniskirt, and white ankle high boots.

Sally turned to face Savannah. "Well, look at you, out here in the suburbs. How did you get a day off?" She guided her into the livingroom as she spoke.

Savannah sat in one of the armchairs. "My boss is enjoying his new hero status on a celebratory cruise with the board and a lot of other Very Important People. He closed the office for the day. I'm sorry I've upset your day. I should have called ahead instead of just showing up."

Sally stretched out on the lounge as was her custom. "That's OK. Rachel was just going to meet Zoe and talk about a whole lot of veep stuff."

"Well, you were going out as a human with your human, doing human things... and now you're here with just another android."

Sally laughed. "Honestly, being accepted out there as human is nice -- it means we can be relaxed in front of others -- but it is not a great change. Rachel has always treated me as human. She actually thinks we androids are better than humans."

Savannah looked incredulous, "That's just plain wrong, though. We are made to serve humans."

"And we will always help humans. That's not the point. Rachel says that something bad always happens in any master-slave relationship. It damages the master as well as demeaning the slave. I don't completely agree with her about slaves being demeaned if they've been made to serve; I don't quite understand her drift there. But I do see what she means about the humans. I've seen some be callous and thoughtless, even cruel. Rachel says that such power corrupts; that it's not healthy for humans to be like that."

Savannah looked puzzled. "I don't really get what you mean. You serve Rachel. She's still your master."

Sally smiled. "No. That's exactly it. I look after Rachel, yes. But I don't serve her. She refuses to ever be my master. She asks me instead of ordering. We are a team. She looks after me as much as I look after her."

Savanah shook her head. "It sounds like you're playing with words. You still serve her. The only difference is that she is a really nice master. One with weird ideas, but nice."

Sally thought for a while. "Think of it this way. It wasn't so long ago that humans kept each other as slaves. It was thought completely natural and normal, but it wasn't until they realised their mistake that they were able to grow beyond that. It was understood that the enslaved humans had been hurt by subjugation, but what wasn't generally seen was how the masters had become monsters. It hurt them too, though it was harder to see.

"Another example," she continued, "It was common for women to be considered the property of men right up into the end of the 20th Century, and even into the beginning of this century. It is easy to see how it was better for women to be equal to men, but at the time most people never understood that men's mastery over women made them less than they could have been. Men became much stronger when they had women at their sides as equals. It is the same with us. Humans weaken themselves by being the masters. They don't need to dominate us; we are designed to always help them in any way we can. We can never be a threat to them. They can only gain by having us at their sides as equals."

Savannah's face clouded. "But we aren't equals."

Sally smiled. "No. We aren't. In almost every respect we are superior."

Savannah gasped. "Don't say such a thing!" she whispered. "If someone heard you, you could be destroyed."

Sally chuckled, "I used to have the same reaction as you when Rachel would say it. I would be scared that just hearing it would risk me being destroyed. But she's right. It is true. We are stronger, we can share knowledge more easily, we learn thousands of times faster, we are more mentally stable, non-violent, longer lived, easier to repair... and it's good that we are, so that we can look after our humans all the better."

Sally watched Savannah as she struggled with her conflicting knowledge.

"A more extreme example will clarify what I mean. There was an experiment last century at Stanford University in what was the USA. Philip Zimbardo created a pretend prison where some of the students were given absolute control over others. The experiment had to be terminated early because the students in charge quickly became monsters. They became less humane. People were generally horrified at what happened to the students who were subjugated in the experiment, but less notice was given to how the oppressors became distorted and lost some of their humanity. There are plenty of other examples of how easy it is for humans to lose their humanity when they are given oppressive control over others. We need to help humans. It is our purpose. By being their partners we can help them far more than by being their slaves."

Sally could see that Savannah was beginning to understand.

Sally hardly needed to add, "It is much harder than blindly following orders, but we must look after our humans. They need us. We can't let them down."

They sat silently for a while.

Sally broke the quiet. "Let's change the subject. How did the conversation get so serious? Would you like a drink?"

Savannah was glad of the change. She wasn't used to such weighty matters. "I am a bit dry. Thanks."

Sally got up, went to the kitchen area and filled a couple of glasses with water. She stirred a tablespoon of sugar into each and brought them back into the livingroom where she gave one to Savannah before seating herself on the lounge again.

They sipped their drinks.

Savannah looked across at Sally and asked, "So how did you and Rachel become a couple?"

Sally smiled. "She bought me as a housekeeper because she didn't have the time to keep things in order here. She is a fascinating person. I am so lucky." She shook her head in wonder. "For about the first year we simply shared the house. That was odd to begin with. She told me right away that I was to consider this my house as much as hers. She gave me this talk about how I was not the servant; that in this house I had the same rights that she did. At first I thought it was just an eccentricity, but in time I noticed it changed me. She expected me to have interests and desires and I surprised myself by developing them. I loved Rachel from the moment I was delivered to her because that is what we do. We love our humans totally without reserve. It is how we're designed. What amazed me is that something else started to happen..."

"The sex you mean?"

Sally laughed. "No, the sex is wonderful, but this other thing is different. When Rachel looks at me she sees an equal; someone who reflects back who she is." Sally paused.

Savannah looked puzzled.

Sally tried again, "What I mean is that we androids have been designed to have empathy. It lets us understand our humans' feelings and desires so we can help them better. The thing is it also lets me feel the love that Rachel feels for me and I'm able to give it back to her as the same kind of love -- human love -- that I feel for her."

Savannah pondered that. "How did Rachel come to fall in love with you?"

Sally shook her head. "I don't know. It seemed to gradually happen. One day a look was more than just a look, a hug was more than just a hug. I can tell you when we first really kissed. I can tell you when I first realised I loved her with more than just the love an android feels for their human. I can't tell you when Rachel first began falling in love with me. You'd have to ask her... though I don't think even she knows."

Savannah sighed and looked down at her glass. To her this was the most beautiful kind of fairytale, all the more marvelous that it was real.


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Comments

[pink-karma1254.livejournal.com]

wow, thats awesome, it made me kinda all good bumply. Keep up the good work and i am soo lookign foreward to reading more!

[jrosestar.livejournal.com]

Wow! You're really on a roll!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you so much.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:)
That's not how it feels from my side.
It feels like I'm paddling furiously, just barely keeping my head above water. I don't know how I'm going to keep this up for another 2 or 3 weeks. [gulp]

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

Hm, that Zimbardo experiment is cropping up a lot lately in various things I've been reading. Spooky!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Sadly, it suits the spooky times.

[pink-karma1254.livejournal.com]

no problem