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Twenty-Four Hours

I hope you have all taken a moment to acquaint yourselves with the laws where you live. I want you all to stay out of jail and safe. Please enjoy the story. All characters are fictitious and while I may have thought of a friend or lover from the past while writing they are not meant to represent anyone in particular.

By the end of the afternoon we had three working communicators and a semblance of the tower Noel had designed to carry signals from one end of the village to the other. Nino had learned what it was going to take to wire any more of the communicators that were found and was working on molding more golden wire. I knew there were at least three more in the village but hoped there would be enough for at least half of the adults. Moving from the primitive stage of using runners to actually being able to communicate wirelessly would make life simpler if only a hair more safe.

Walking from the end of the village that held the workshop to the other end to test out the communicators I had started to have severe abdominal pains. Only walking back to give the third device to Rhoda did I understand the feeling was one of the girls having turned and searching her way out of the placental sac. The first use of the communicators was for Rhoda to call for the assistants she had arranged for the surgery. Less than two hours after having fucked Nino and taken Noel's freezing cock I was once again holding newborns. Junior had refused to come into the operating room but upon hearing the girls wail for the first time forced himself through the plastic sheeting to look upon his daughters.

I thought he would go to the girls first but he came to me and gently held my head as he kissed me passionately. "Chitotek, I love you more every day. You have made me so proud today, giving me two beautiful daughters to carry on the tribe.

"My father must have died just as they were taking their first breaths." Although pleased to now be a father he was mourning the loss of his father.

He picked up the girl I had chosen to call Mia. Rhoda had thought they would be identical twins but they weren't, Mia had darker hair and my blue eyes. Junior had to look at her twice and then at me to realize that she had eyes like mine not his family. She didn't like being in his arms and started wailing in moments. Tiffan helped him lay her back at my side with her head propped on my shoulder.

When he picked up Carli our other daughter's reaction was the opposite. She looked up at him, I don't know what she saw or if she was even focusing but she raised her chubby arm and hand up to touch him. Her hair was nearly white as if her sister had taken all the color and left her none. Carli had brown eyes and her father's straight long nose. I hoped she would grow into her nose because as a newborn it made her odd looking.

Junior was murmuring to her and walking around the hastily built operating room began to sing the same song he had used to get Shiloh to sleep. By the time Rhoda had her tools placed on the stainless tray she would use to transport them to her sink and sanitizing oven both girls were sound asleep. I hoped Junior was able to do that with our girls for the next couple years, I would get more sleep than I had with Shiloh. Without Tiffan and Jesus to care for the twins I knew I would have many more sleepless nights even if AC/DC was able to wake with the cries of a newborn.

Unlike Shiloh the girls were born without any physical deformities. I was glad for them although I had wished while pregnant that perhaps one of them would be born with six fingers like their older brother just to make him feel less isolated. The vibrations from the Wound Vac soon had me asleep with my girls, it kept me sleeping on my back, being attached to the equipment there was no worry I would roll over on my daughters so Rhoda left the girls sleeping beside me rather than in a crib.

When I woke sometime later Joey and Tiffan were holding my sons up over the bed so they could see their sisters. The men were doing a good job of keeping the boys quiet until they saw me open my eyes and then their squealing and shouting woke the girls. Tiffan had to sternly quiet them, "Boys, quiet."

I was glad to see Karen standing in a corner with two bottles in her hands. I motioned to her to come forward. The girls didn't know what to do at first but it only took them a minute to start sucking on the nipples. Damn, am I glad I don't lactate. Two hungry little mouths pulling at my nipples would be more than I could stand, Junior would never have had his daughters, I would have demanded a complete vacating of the ovaries. That made me stop to think about the hope that Rhoda had finished the job she was supposed to have done when Shiloh was born, we hadn't done much discussing but she knew I was not pleased to be pregnant a fourth time.

"Daddy, can we play with them?" Jude didn't seem to remember that he hadn't been able to play with Shiloh for quite a while after his brother had been born.

"They'll need to grow some before they'll be able to play." Ton and Dana had been staring at their sisters closely moving from one to the other a couple times.

"This one is mine." Ton had sat to my left and was trying to touch Carli through her blanket.

There was no dispute as Dana claimed Mia. The older twins held the bottles for their sisters asking me questions so rapid fire that I can't say I remember any of them other than why they were girls not boys. They knew about burping from the times I had allowed them to burp their younger brothers, with the girls they didn't wait until being told or being warned how to hold the infants. How had I raised my children to be so caring? Honestly, they were taking after Tiffan and Jesus much more than me.

"Boys, go with Junior. They are having a ceremony for his father. He just died." Only Jude went to the ceremony with Junior. That may have been because he had more time with Henry or it may have been he was tired of his sisters or didn't have one of his own. I don't know but I was glad that at least one of the boys accompanied him to the ceremony the family was holding before having him cremated. There had been an oven for that purpose included in the garage. Hopefully using it wouldn't attract the wolves again. I wished I could have been there for my husband to be but Rhoda wouldn't allow me to get out of bed or for the bed to be wheeled that far.

Junior had taken my communicator in case Rhoda had to call him back to the med center. She wasn't too pleased with the way I had woken after the operation, she said my vitals were all weak. I thought I was doing fine but I could tell I wasn't as alert as I had been after Shiloh was born. He and Jude had barely left when I fell back to sleep. Joey and Tiffan stuck around to help with the girls although Rhoda had told them it wasn't necessary.

"Rhoda, RHODA, send anyone that can fire a weapon to the garage with any weapon they can find." I wanted to rise and follow the others but knew that I need to keep the boys there or they would end up in trouble.

"Dad, what's going on?" Ton put the girl down beside me again,

"I don't know. We are going to have to wait until someone tells us something more." I was still tired from the anesthetic Rhoda had used in place of the pain killer Poloma had tried to convince her would be enough. I tried to get the boys settled as soon as the girls sank into another sleep. Ton and Dana lay down on a narrow strip of the bed to the side of the girl they had claimed. Dana had set Shiloh on the bed before he lay down, the youngest of my boys crawled between my legs and with his head resting on my balls went to sleep, too. I wasn't comfortable with Shiloh's head on my balls and hand on my cock but decided it was an innocent need for comfort and let him be.

I don't know how long we had been sleeping when I heard Rhoda yelling orders and other villagers shouting. Unable to see what was happening I tried listening closely. I under-stood that there had been a gun battle in the hydroponics garden. Everyone was still alive and there were still men and women trying to repair the roof before more wolves were able to crash through.

Over all the other shouting I heard Chuck yelling that Noel had been leading a third group that had turned the wolves back towards the guns. No one else had seen Noel or the spirits Chuck claimed had attacked the wolves with their weird assortment of weapons. If I had been able to call Noel I would have tried to learn what happened but the fact he no longer could communicate with me other than by miming what he wanted from me was maddening. Still I was glad to hear that he was still helping the village even if no one other than his father and I knew about it.

There must have been at least four of the villagers injured, each time another person was brought to the med center I could hear Rhoda shouting that she needed room if she was going to save anyone. Against her orders I had Junior and Joey move me to the house I had used while rehabilitating after my other stays in the med center. Joey rushed back to let her know that there was another bed open. One of the women had been shot by another villager, no one knew who had misfired so badly. Another one had been knocked to the ground by a wolf in its dying throes and split her head but had not wounded her. Two men were bitten and suffering the pain of the wolf venom.

Other than AC/DC bringing me dinner and three more bottles (two for the girls and one for Shiloh) I had no more contact with anyone the rest of the day. The self-adjusting lights hadn't even come on when Junior and Nino came to the room where I was sleeping. I was pleased to see that neither of them were the ones wounded. Up until then I had only seen AC/DC and Joey, now I knew that the four people that were most important to me other than my children had gotten through the wolf attack unharmed. Joey barely thinking about Junior being my husband to be lowered himself to drink my morning piss, I waved him away: what still remained of the anesthetic in my system would be flowing through me and he didn't need to ingest that. I would have preferred to give it to him but knew it wasn't a good idea, the next time I saw him I would make up for passing.

"Chitotek, "

"Junior, please call me Roger or something other than that name." Having just given him two daughters I suppose it was fair to be called feminine but I wanted out of bed and to take my place beside him as his husband.

"Lover, husband to be, village leader? What should I call you?"

Just Love will be fine." I had managed to get hold of one of his hands and was pulling him towards me the best I could.

"Roger, you have figured out there was a wolf attack yesterday, right?" Joey was not patient with us as we bantered back and forth.

"From what I heard while still in the aisle, yes. But no one would tell me anything about it." I glared at him.

"The wolves found a weak place along the side of the dome covering the hydroponic garden. Chuck was harvesting some spices that he had told me he missed having added to our food. He heard the roof crack and then snarling beasts landing at the other end of the garden. Tomasina and her mother were helping Chuck to bring the spices to the kitchen, he yelled at them to get help and stood his ground with that 30/30 you picked up along your journey here.

"It took ten minutes for our people to start arriving to help him. By the time we arrived the wolves had dispersed themselves to different paths between rows of the garden. He had managed to shoot at least three or four. The rest of us managed to turn them around and as they ran for the other end of the garden something happened that no one other than Chuck seems to have seen." Joey didn't seem willing to say anything else.

Junior took over. " We are here because of what happened in the cavern. You seem to have been able to do something that nobody else could have done. You claimed it was Noel that helped you get to the bottom of the cavern and then later lead you to the gold.

"Were you serious about seeing his spirit? Could he have turned the wolves back towards the guns by himself?"

"Junior, Joey, you both know that I don't lie. Yes, Noel helped me while we were in the cavern not only the two ways you just said but also by giving Junior and I food and water.

"Could he have turned the wolves back on his own? I don't think so and I really don't think he would have needed to do it own his own."

"What do you mean?"

"When we were tearing down the wall on the third level and I pulled you out of the vacant space abruptly it was because not only had I seen Noel but a group of spirits with an odd set of tools they were wielding like weapons, marching. Noel had waved me back so they didn't see us. If he has managed to infiltrate that group and been accepted he could have taken them to the garden to help him protect his father."

"As weird as that sounds it matches up with what Chuck has been shouting in his dreams. This morning a few of us went to see about the dead wolves and remove them. What we found didn't match with the weapons we had used. There were a dozen or so of the beasts that had been wounded and then killed with something other than bullets

"But if Noel warned you away from the spirits below and the builders had sealed them down there how and why would they end up helping us?"

"Junior, you are now asking more than I can possibly know. It may have been that Noel wanted to help his father? Or the spirits didn't want another competing entity occupying the village? I don't know and don't think any ideas I have will help us know anything we don't already know."

"Love, Poloma has been complaining about negative spirits in the village since the first day we arrived. Do you have any idea who the spirits on the third level are or were?"

"I really don't. They didn't look like anyone I would know, I mean they had the appearance of people from at least a hundred or more years ago, one of them wore a coonskin hat and a few had what looked like relics from before Texas was a state. I thought we could find out if we had the books from the library but I wasn't able to find anything that referenced Ector or this part of Northern Texas. When Thomas was teaching me the history of the Choctaw including the Trail of Tears he mentioned that once they were settled in Oklahoma there were still young braves that would raid into Texas, primarily for cattle and horses not to kill, although there were battles."

"This is really BS. Roger how is anyone expected to believe you?"

"Joey, you can believe me if you want or not. You could ask Nino about plans flying across the work room, plans for what we were trying to figure out how to do at that very moment. Or you could ask Junior about the frozen cock he felt in the cavern." I didn't worry about him not believing me, I knew what I had experienced and if Noel had taken the other spirits from below to help defend the village I was happy to have his help.

AC/DC spent the rest of the day bringing the boys to see me, one at a time according to Rhoda's orders. That was nice, I spent time with each of them talking and playing on the bed. I was given a semi-solid mid-day meal and when I had no trouble with it the same meal the others were having for dinner.

Most of the day Joey and Junior were either helping to repair the roof in the hydroponics garden or by Tiffan's side in the med center. He and Chuck had received the worst of the injuries. Chuck had been bitten trying to fend off a wolf, his arm was full of venom that Rhoda and Poloma were battling. Tiffan had been the worst of the injured, he had lost the lower half of his left leg and had a bite on the opposite shoulder. He was not hallucinating like Chuck, he was in the coma state that I had been in and barely responding to any of Rhoda's tests or treatments.

A few hours after dinner Junior came to join me. He was exhausted from the battle and work repairing the ceiling but still enthusiastic about having two little girls to hold and admire. I don't think he was quite as enthusiastic as AC/DC taught him how to change a diaper on one of his daughters and handed him the other telling him she too needed changing. Later as we fed the girls a last bottle before putting them to sleep for the night we talked about what a help AC/DC had been to me and in the battle. With the girls sleeping Junior brought him back to my bedroom and offered him both of our cocks to suck. I knew I wasn't ready to be fucking but I wished that my cock was sliding into Junior's ass as we sat there kissing and having our cocks sucked.

"Without Henry to say anything about how we treat this boy do you have a preference? Should we take him as a slave or a third mate?"

"Slave, please."

"I think we should do as he wishes and take him as a slave. AC/DC what do you think we will do to you as a slave that we wouldn't as another spouse?"

"I don't want to go through the adoption process your husband had to suffer through. Thomas does not like me and would make it even more difficult."

"Neither does Poloma." I had to let him know how his family felt.

"You've heard her say that?" Junior seemed surprised.

"I heard her say that your father was wrong to want him adopted. I'm not sure that means she doesn't like him. But I am sure it means that she doesn't respect him." She had done somethings and said others that let me know she really didn't like the boy.

Since asking to be made our slave AC/DC had knelt at the end of the bed with his head bowed. Looking at the boy I wondered just what I might be able to train him to do. He already was one of the better ass eaters with that long tongue and was getting better every time he tried sucking our cocks. It would be at least a month before I was capable of fucking him again but that was okay Junior would need an asshole since I wouldn't be able to fuck or be fucked.

It had been a wonder filled day. It had started with me fucking Nino shortly after our mid-day meal, had Noel help me find the designs I needed, finished working on communicators that would help the village become closer, gone through as operation that gave my to be husband and I a set of girls, listened while the village battled the wolves again, told my friends and lovers the truth about the spirits living beneath us and agreed to own AC/DC as our sex-slave as well as household help.

In little over twenty-four hours life in the village had become better and more dangerous. We had only hypothesized about another wolf attack, now that there had been one we were going to have to establish a guard for the village. Without Tiffan and Chuck available it meant that nearly every man was going to be put to work guarding the village. Supposedly resting in bed I worked on a plan to guard against another attack from the wolves. I gave them credit with being intelligent, would they attack another spot along that dome or would they move to another spot to find a different weakness?

"Roger have you learned anything from the papers you found along with the Homo-Robos that would tell you how to reprogram them so I could have help in the med center?" Rhoda had come into my bedroom and thrown herself into the only chair not filled with clothes or kids. She looked tired enough to fall asleep where she was if given five minutes of peace and quiet.

"There is a nursing program that can be activated on any of the fully formed female Homo-Robos. I have yet to find anything about doctoring." Their creator must have been a bit sexist.

"Even that would be so much help . I might get some sleep once I gave them instructions on the care of the patients. Karen and Poloma are both beyond exhausted and of no use. How soon do you think you could get me help?"

"Have Jeff and Hieronymus take Chick and Nino with them to bring two of the bots here. The two foreigners may have more experience with bots than any of us. AC/DC, you know that stack of papers I've told you not to touch, bring it down here."

"Do you know how long it is going to take you to get them functioning?"

"I think they are supposed to charge about four hours before I can even attempt any programming changes. How long it takes to change will depend on exactly what they were programmed to do before storage. If they are a blank slate, programming will take at least twelve hours. If they have been given the basic programming I think there is a code that will switch on what you need, that should take less than an hour after they are charged. If you want us to give them faces I have no idea how long it will take."

"A face?"

"They are all faceless at this moment and while I think that may be done while they are charging it will depend on how much power the batteries suck up. Will Karen and Poloma be able to help you until we have two of the Homo-Robos ready for nursing duties?"

"They've had about two hours sleep. I'll let them rest another hour and then try to nap myself. " She tried to get out of the chair only to sink back, I felt sorry for her having the responsibility of the four lives in her hands but there was not much I could do bed-ridden as I was by her orders.

Nino and Chick were still excited when they pushed the bots into my bedroom, they were talking so fast in Italian that I had no way to understand them. They chased Jeff and Hieronymus out of the room as soon as the batteries had been lifted into place in the bots' necks. If I had been building them I would have found some place other than five feet off the ground to put the batteries but what was, was. I was getting a better look at the bots than I had in the house were they had been stored. Without a face I had thought of them as extremely unattractive but as I gazed at their bodies I began to understand the other's feelings toward them.

"Those male bots are magnificent. Are you planning on having them programmed for the original intention?" Nino's cock was bouncing in his balloon pants as he asked me about the future. I wasn't sure what to answer him but when he told me that the males could be programmed to be the best fuckers an ass ever had and would last as long as the receiver could ever want I was more inclined to think about the sex bots in that way. Up until then I had thought the best thing we could do with them was to program them to help around the village and forget about the sex.

Chick had experience with bots from the time he had spent working for a fashion designer in Genoa. Once he started putting facial features to the bots he explained that not only were the models we had with us programmable for different jobs but the programmer could change more than just their facial features. When I asked what he meant, he showed me how the bot went from its present form to taller, thinner or fatter at will. I explained that we would be having these two working in the med center and that it might be best if they had more of the look of a matron than a sex pot. In moments both bots took on the look of a woman in her early fifties instead of the look of a twenty year old girl.

It took him longer to create the features, partially because none of us could agree on what they should look like. By the time the batteries were charged pleasant but not too beautiful faces topped the two bots. We were all pleased with the finished bots. By the time the batteries were charged we had also discovered the two commands it took switch on the nursing programs that would allow Dr. Rhoda to tell them their exact roles in the Med Center when she slept.

Jeff and Hieronymus were in my bedroom the following morning before anyone was awake, complaining that I had not followed the agreement I had with them about determining what would happen with the bots they had found. I agreed we would have the meeting I had promised as soon as Rhoda gave me the okay to get out of the bed for more than five minutes. I really didn't think the village was ready for an invasion of bots but we would know a little about the village's reaction to the first two bots by the time we sat down to determine what should happen with the rest of the bots. That knowledge should help us to make a determination about the others.

"That black man needs a bot cock shoved down his throat and fucked for an hour." Nino had come in about a half an hour into the discussion. I had asked Chick, Nino and Maria to come by to discuss the bots. Since they had much more experience dealing with them I wanted them to give the five of us a quick presentation on what they found to be the pluses and minuses in their interactions with the Homo-Robos. Whether or not that would be helpful was to be seen.

That afternoon I was finally allowed to go visit Tiffan and Chuck as long as I promised not to stay out of bed more than fifteen minutes. Both of the wounded woman had been sent home. Chuck had started to react positively to the anti-venom that Rhoda had developed after I was bitten. He was still hallucinating some of the time but for most of the time I was in the med center he was calm and sleeping. Once when he woke he asked me if I had seen Noel since his death, I didn't want to incite him to more ranting but I had to tell him I had seen him a couple of times.

Tiffan was in much worse shape. Where a wolf had ripped off his lower leg the thigh was swollen to twice its normal size and weeping pus through the dressing. Still in a coma every half hour or so he would attempt kicking his leg as if it was completely intact. Where he had been bitten on his shoulder was an ugly wound that even having the poison drained and the wounds washed out was almost black as if turning gangrenous, Rhoda said it was necrotic skin from the venom that would be removed later that night fortunately the smell wasn't too bad. Unlike me where the wounds had almost healed over she said these would more than likely leave deep holes in the muscle.

The nursing bots had taken over all the chores that Karen had been doing and many of the routine jobs the doctor needed done. Rhoda looked much more rested and was angry that we hadn't given her the bots previously. I couldn't blame her but the attack came on the day we were supposed to meet and make a decision on whether to bring the bots to life or leave them in storage so there hadn't been the chance.

Junior and AC/DC moved into the house with the girls and I. We stayed there while I started the rehabilitation that Rhoda had prescribed when Shiloh had been born. I think it was the day after I went to visit Tiffan the first time that Shiloh and Jude showed up on their own. How a eleven month old had been able to travel from the other house to the second level was baffling, but I knew if Shiloh was with Jude there wasn't much that would be impossible. Jude was so precocious I had no idea what I was going to do with him, he was bound to get in trouble. At a few months short of three he was reading and doing simple math. He had learned how to travel anywhere in the village he wanted and usually was able to get there twice as fast as anyone else.

"Don't you want one of the male bots to take with you for the presentation?" Nino had been in the storage house twice to check on the condition of the bots and had reported that unless the batteries were used soon they would start to lose their ability to be charged. I had never heard of such a thing but Chick agreed the batteries used in Homo-Robo's were of a peculiar type that would go non-functional after a certain period of time uncharged, although he didn't know the expiration period. The peculiarity was built into them so that humans could put the bots into a siege state and ultimately destroy them. When I curiously asked if the bots could turn on humans unlike those that were developed to follow Asimov's laws they both said that "YES" the Homo Robo's could turn on humans if their learning capacity was fully activated.

"As long as the bots are only activated to do one particular class of work they are harmless. If they are meant to farm that is all they ever will do, they would never pick up a hoe against a human. If they are sex bots they would not do the house work or any farming or do anything that might harm their partners. The bots are voice controlled and unless put to different classes of work, sex and nursing, say; they have no need to expand their learning capabilities. If they were required to learn beyond their programming which is possible due to some glitch in the programming that occurs when there are two simultaneous programs running they became unpredictable."

Owners had been known to be hurt beyond the ability of doctors to save. Chick, Maria and Nino all spoke highly of the Homo-Robos when programmed to be sex bots. They were okay at other matters, the best being in the medical bays where the Italian Navy had created the programming for the founder. Submarine commanders had learned that they could not allow the surgeon on board to use the bots as runners or they began having them interfere with the operation of the submarines. Farmers that bought the bots to farm learned they couldn't stretch their abilities beyond either animal or vegetable, if they had the vegetative bots care for their animals they started to find dead animals everywhere. The deaths weren't due to the bots not being able to do the job or knowing what they were to do but out of an unexplainable resentment at being forced out of their original programming.

Well warned I went into the presentation with Karen, Rhoda, Jeff and Hieronymus prepared to recommend we only release bots for specific duties, medical, fetching and hauling, two of each sex for sex and two to help in the hydroponics garden. That would be nine out of the houseful. I could see no use for any of the teenagers or children, we had our own and did not need companion children. Nino and Chick let me know that although they would appear to be children or teens they would have the same capabilities as the other bots.

Before we even approved the proposal Nino went to work on building docks for the bots. Opposed to the simple charging stations I thought he was planning he created a station that required a voice activation to allow the bot to begin work. He didn't think we would want them running loose in the village. While the bots required charging every twenty-four hours of operation to work at full capacity they could last thirty six hours if neither over worked or fucked. Nino had worked diligently on the first male bot retrieved from storage, we hadn't been involved in giving him guidance, he had found an old magazine and had picked a face from an advertisement for what was at the time new, hands free communicators.

I had asked Rhoda to take one of the nurse bots with her to the meeting so everyone would have a fair idea of what could be accomplished with the bots. I knew that Jeff and Hieronymus would have preferred a sex-bot but if we were to accept bots into our midst they needed to know that not only were the bots to be used for sex but also as productive members of our village. I was completely at a loss about how we could have bots that were only to be used for sex that couldn't take care of themselves since that would be a second program, would a bot take care of them or would there have to be a human to look after them? It seemed to me that the population would need to be educated about the bots before we could have them loose among us.

There was such a difference in appearance between the nursing bot and sex bot it was difficult to believe they had been almost identical a few days earlier when Nino and I had started to program them for their particular jobs. I gave the attendees a short talk on the shortcomings of the bots and what could be done with the houseful before presenting the two programmed bots. Karen and Rhoda went into the secluded spot I had arranged for them to learn how the bot would function at their commands. They both returned with nothing but the highest praise for the bot, Nino had programmed him to have an extendable penis and ready to give a woman as much foreplay as she wanted.

Discussing the use of the bots went on for hours. It was over the mid-day meal that an agreement to have a house assigned to the sex bots with a fifth bot to take care of the house, cleaning, etc. While it might be unneeded for months or a year we decided that there would be one bot stationed outside of the Med Center that would be a maintenance bot, Nino would be charged with making her answerable only to other bots so she would not be accidentally triggered to do more than one job. With the addition of the last three villagers from Europe and the last set of births the Hydroponics garden would need to be further planted. We all understood that Chuck might be the last villager to accept the bots but having the bots in the garden would free other humans to be part of the defensive detail.

Other than our children who were we to protect? The bots?

We had almost decided on only nine of the bots when Hieronymus suggested that we provide one for the kitchen workers that would be charged with cleaning. Nino had a lot to say about that, kitchens had been notorious for having bots that had a second program activated. A cleaning bot would be asked to bring raw food to the cook or to move a hot pan and within a short period there was trouble. The bot program was not very good in creating cooks since taste was not part of their basic programs. We discussed ways to make the bot responsive to only one cook that knew what they were allowed to do but we were unable to come up with the answer.

"What if the bot was to be locked into the kitchen after the food is put away and the cooks are ready to leave the kitchen?"

"If they were put under the control of someone other than the cooks that could work. But who would want to be in charge of that bot everyday after every meal?"

"Nino, could we fashion a lock for the kitchen door that would activate the bot's closet door and the cleaning protocol?"

"That wouldn't take much. The only problem I see is that no one would be able to get back into the kitchen until the bot 'thought' it was finished."

"Nino, are wash and put away the dishes two different programs?"

"I would need to read through the program but it wouldn't seem likely. However, I do know that a kitchen cleaning program does not allow the bot to gather dishes from the tables."

The limitations we were to discover in the next few months were often funny and other times seemed foolish. Adjusting programs for the bots took more time than any of the other programs I had ever dealt with. I thought Noel would have been fascinated with the programs and the bots. Joey and the other cooks refused the assistance of any bots so the whole discussion we had before offering them was a waste of our time.

There were days that I accepted the use of a personal childcare bot so that AC/DC was free to do other things. With six children of my own and at least Jack, Ginger, Catherine, Susan and one to four more infants in the house there was seldom a time when it was completely clean. That generally didn't bother me but the smell of diapers over all other scents was at times overwhelming and forced me from my own house. Everyone would be sent home and I would take my children to the play field so that AC/DC and Junior could wash the house from the top level to the front door.

"Roger, would you like me to make the second male bot that will be in the sex hut one that you design?" He knew about the limitations Junior and I had put to marriage but had offered to fuck me every few days.

I had settled down sexually. Sure I was having sex with Junior and AC/DC daily and fucking Joey, Nino and Franco a few times a week but I wasn't looking for extra sex like I had for most of my life. I was surprised how easily I was following the agreement that Junior and I had made. Junior had suggested that if I needed more than he could give we could go to the sex hut together and have the bot fuck us both. The first male bot Nino had designed was more attractive to the females for some reason. Nino and Joey had both told me that he was worth the time but that even they didn't seem to go there too often.

"Do you think we could design the next bot to look like a man that died here not too many years again?" I was thinking about Jesus and how nice it would be to have his legs around me or his mouth sucking down piss.

"We can design them to look any way we want. I warn you that designing a bot to look like a person you know can be confusing. You may have had one type of relationship with the man but others had a different relationship. Take AC/DC, he may be your slave but the boys don't think of him that way. No one else in the village is allowed to treat him like a slave. What if you were to have the bot designed like him, there would be multiple programs triggered by the time he met three or four people."

"Will any of the sex bots be allowed to leave the house where they are expected to be when women or men feel the need?" The two we had there at that point had been restricted from ever moving outside the building.

"The restriction that keeps them in the sex hut was easy enough to put into the programming but what if a villager is bed ridden and would like the bot or bots to come to them?"

"I'm not that familiar with the programming but could an over-ride be written into the program that would allow for that? It seems simple enough."

"Simple, but it would have the bot edging into a second program by having them travel to un-programed locations. We might be able to shut a bot off and have it moved, but would anyone want the rest of the village to know that they needed sex so badly that they are having a bot brought to them?"

"Many of us wouldn't care, but I guess there are enough that would care that that isn't the answer. If the bot was to present itself at every house offering its proper function everyday? Written into the program as part of the bot's function would it still be a cross over into a second program?"

"Would you want a bot to show up at the door and offer itself to Ton or Dana?

"Has there been anyone expressing an interest in being in charge of the sex hut?" Nino had taken charge although he did not find them compelling and wanted relieved. He wanted to move on and only work at the programming that was necessary as more of the bots were brought out of storage, I was more than willing to allow him to take on any of the programming I had felt was shunted off on me.

"There have been two. How a decision should be made between them is beyond me. Now that much of the labor is being done by bots, Franco has had less to do and feels like the position would fit him. Isabella, although she has two children, has not bonded fully with them and wants to do something that will get her away from children completely.

"They may both be thinking they can make themselves available to anyone going to the sex hut. I suppose the day could be split between them but how to do it fairly? Or just let them figure it out since they were together from the beginning?"

"Roger, you take too many of these problems on your own shoulders. Get some of the others that agreed to having the bots brought out of storage make some of the decisions. Jeff and Hieronymus wanted the sex hut let them decide who should run it. Or even better let one of the women and one of the guys decide."

It was good talking to Nino. After a few weeks I knew that he and Noel would have been the closest of friends, possibly Noel would have learned to love him.

The introduction of the bots created an excitement that we hadn't had since the introduction of the last two groups of strangers. I had a calm year after the bot, Issi, was brought to the village and introduced as the childcare specialist. HE, was immediately loved by all the children in the village most mornings you could find all the children under ten on the play field with Issi. After dinner he could be reserved to care for children by the hour. Often my house was selected because I usually allowed as many other children to join mine as parents wished, so with two or three or more families there HE might stay for that many hours, giving Junior and I time to ourselves or time to train AC/DC.

Tiffan would take Issi to the building he had chosen as a school after the Mid-day meal, the bot was not involved directly in their education but could help Tiffan keep the children in line or act as an encyclopedia as needed. Tiffan was fortunate that the childcare program allowed that. I didn't question why that wasn't a cross over into a second program but it was entirely acceptable according to Nino. Rhoda had given Nino and I the exact requirements for a false leg for Tiffan, while we didn't have the light materials necessary we were able to make a leg that he could use most of the time.

I loved that year. Junior didn't want me pregnant, there were no wolf attacks and the villagers were at peace. There were two more contract 'marriages'. Three of the women were pregnant again and while we were still measuring the radiation outside of the village there hadn't seemed to be an increase in the level.

They weren't two but we were celebrating the second children's party when the bot that had been installed in the security room informed us that a message had been received from the NASA satellite that had been silent for four years. None of us expected much new but I followed along with Jeff and Hieronymus because I didn't have anything else to do and hoped to play with the children on my way back.

The message included a sped up view of Earth, showing not the half dozen traveling packs of wolves we had been shown on the first few messages but hundreds of the packs spread out over most of the world. That was bad, but that there were two packs of nearly a hundred wolves moving in our directions was alarming. A minute after the video stopped we heard the disembodied voice tell us that a different satellite that had been circling Earth in an orbit parallel to the NASA satellite but looking out into the universe had sighted what at first had been determined to be a comet was an artificial ship huge enough to swallow the moon on a crash course with Earth.

We were trying to digest that information when a voice started up again. This time it had no semblance of the mechanical. A message from the moon that had been transmitting repeatedly had been picked up by the satellite. "Moon to Earth, Moon to Earth, have you forgotten us? Two hundred of the original settlers are still alive and waiting to be resupplied. Moon to Earth. We need your help. Do you understand us, we need your help. Moon out."

"Hieronymus and Jeff, you were able to communicate with the satellite, why can't you send a message to the moon? They need to know that there is no hope to be given them from Earth."

"Roger, after six and a half years without hearing from Earth do you really think they have any hope that we will contact them?"

"Probably not, but if we could let them know how matters stand on Earth they could at least try to move forward."

It was one of the first times I had heard one of the bots offer a solution without being asked. "I can tag on the message and send a reply."

We discussed what to tell the moon. Should we tell them the Earth had been invaded and was being overrun with five hundred pound wolves that seemed intent on wiping out the final humans? Should we tell them about the ship headed to Earth? What would be of any use to the settlers on the moon? I thought they needed to know that Earth would not be going for them. The lack of precious metals made it a certainty that even if we weren't the only humans left there was not going to be a computer strong enough to guide a ship to the moon built in the next few hundred years.

Did we have the responsibility to answer them? Was it possible there were other humans living a more advanced life that should tell them what was happening? The discussion lasted long into the evening, closing in on the time limit the bot had given us for tagging the message and having it return to the moon.

"Can they rescue us?"

"What do you mean?"

"Living here with only wolves does not seem like too prosperous of a future. There is supposed to be one of the ships that ferried the construction crew parked at a Space Station. Any people there have probably died from lack of supplies but if the settlers could get the ship to return to Earth it should be large enough to take all of us to the moon to join them."

"Don't you think they would have returned if they were able to get that ship to respond to them?"

"Hieronymus, you worked on that project didn't you?"

"Having the ship parked at the Space Station? I did some work on it but I don't know enough about it to fly the ship back to Earth."

"Do you know if it could land at the Midland Space port?"

"As long as the transponder at the port is sending out a beam it could. But how do we get from here to there?"

"We need to know who wants to leave. Try to get everyone to the community center. We don't have long to decide what to do." Traveling to the moon had never been one of my fantasies, I had enough to do on Earth. But then, living underground had never been a fantasy of mine either. Given the opportunity to get away from the wolves I might leave Earth. What would I do if only part of the village was willing to leave? Junior? Tiffan and AC/DC? Well at least the last one I could order to do what I decided to do.

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