The Nannybot1000A Part 3

[FembotsInCharge]

Finally, I thought to myself! Thank Heaven it's finally over!

A week before, when INGA had informed me that I was grounded, along with my husband, I had not taken it all that seriously. True, I had been upset by the fact that we had to cancel out anniversary dinner, and a couple of other things, but I figured that being stuck at home for a week (except for work) wouldn't be that big a deal.

I had been wrong.

What I had not figured on was just how boring it would be. INGA had taken away the TV, the radio, the Internet, she had locked the library to us, and put Ted in the guest room so even that distraction was gone! Basically I had had nothing to do for a week except go to work, come home from work (straight home, at that!) and chores at home. By the third day of it I was going nuts, by the fifth day I was ready to scream. It had been a far more effective punishment than I had expected.

But now I was free. It was Saturday again, and I had risen (on time!), and had breakfast and now it was time to get dressed for my day's shopping excursion. I was taking Stephanie and Staci to buy some new outfits, and we were also planning to buy a new TV set to replace the one with the burned out power unit.

As I slipped off my silk pajamas, I paused to take in my image in the mirror. For a 42 year old mother of four, I didn't think I looked have bad. My blonde hair (which is mostly natural blonde, my grandmother was from Sweden) and green eyes were good features, and if I was a little heavier than I once was, my figure was still good enough to suit me. I wished my boobs were a little perkier, but that's life.

I turned to the closet holding my clothes, and reached for a pair of jeans and a blouse. As I did I thought longingly of the clothes hanging in the locked storage room, the short skirts and tight cutoff jeans and other items INGA considered inappropriate for me. OK, so I'm 42 years old, but I've kept in shape and frankly I think I've got the body for those clothes, but INGA was adamant about it, I was not allowed to wear skirts above the knee, tops that showed cleavage, or cutoffs as tight and short as the ones I once wore, period.

When I finished dressing and slipped on my nice sandals, I looked myself over in the mirror again, brushing my shoulder-length hair as I did. When I thought I looked presentable, I picked up my purse and headed downstairs, where my 12 and 16 year old daughters were waiting. I would have liked to have Maria with us too, but my 19-year old was with her boyfriend that day.

"Hi, Mom, about time!" Stephanie piped up. "We've been waiting forever!"

I rolled my eyes. Stephanie's impatience was a running family joke, her drawled out 'forever' probably meant about five minutes.

The girls, dressed like me in jeans and blouse-tops, looked adorable, and we matched fairly well, since all my kids inherited my blonde hair. Stephie wears hers short, but since she turned 16 Staci was letting hers grow down her back.

We were dressed and ready to go, which left only one more matter: allowances. Saturday was Allowance Day, and shopping was kind of pointless without some money, after all.

"Well," I said, "let's see about the allowances for the week, and we'll be off!"

I led the girls to the room where INGA kept her 'office', the room were the robot kept the records and other information, and where she also performed necessary self-maintenance. We found INGA there, putting together the weekly menu plan.

"Hello, Janet, Staci, Stephanie," the flowing-silver vision of femininity said, with her more than humanly sweet and perfect voice, "I take it you are here for your allowances?"

"Yes, Ma'am," I said, before Stephanie could say something teenagerish.

"Very well," INGA said. "Janet, I have authorized $2500.00 into your personal credit account for the new television, the clothing for the girls, and the repair work on the car's air conditioning system. For your personal allowances..."

INGA opened a small safe, and removed some cash, and gave Stephanie $50.00, Staci $50.00, and handed me $100.00.

"Be careful of spending that, girls. I will expect to see a list of what it was spent on at the end of the week, with receipts!"

"We understand," I said quickly. I knew Stephanie resented having to keep track of every penny she spent for INGA's approval, but I also knew that if she mouthed off just then, we might find our shopping trip replaced with a day of chores, which was not how I planned to spend this first free Saturday!

A few minutes later, as we drove down the road, the autopilot in the car keeping us perfectly in place in the thick traffic, the mild autumn sun shining down in what was likely to be one of the last really perfect days of the warm season, I settled back in the car seat, reflecting on the irony of having a net worth of over seventy million dollars, and going shopping on an allowance at the age of 42.

Ted and I had made our fortunes in the robotics business. The two of us were, quite frankly, among the best in the business at both the hardware and software aspects of it. We had met in college, when we were both part of a student team setting up one of the first self-organizing neural network models, and we had been married upon graduation. We had worked at several of the major robotics corporations before joining with several other specialists and some daring venture capital to form our own firm, Consolidated Robotics.

Out work was almost legendary, and I knew I was not just blowing my own horn to recognize that. But no question about it, INGA was in a class by herself. She was beyond question the most successful AI-robot Ted and I had ever designed and built.

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TBC