Nathan had been saving up for a new car for years, and had finally saved up about $15,000. Yet he was having doubts if a car was the best use for that money. He'd been having girlfriend problems lately, and was becoming fed up with trying to read their minds and stay out of trouble. He knew that most guys preferred fembots anyway to avoid all those problems, and because of that there was about 10-to-1 surplus of available women to available men, and many girls were willing to put up with shit to land a human boyfriend.
But Nathan had doubts about a fembot, too. He didn't want to fuck a machine. He wanted to fuck female flesh. True, a fembot never has a headache, doesn't have a gag reflex, is ready and willing to have sex at the guy's slightest whim, and does all the chores and cooking without expecting any help. But it was still a machine. Plus, a fembot cost about $50 grand--way out of his price range, even though they've come down in price from the six figures they went for just a few years ago. If he had the cash, he might buy a fembot just to do the work around the house and not to fuck, but he had to be careful how he spent his money.
While watching the news on the local cable channel an ad came on for a government femborg auction the following Saturday. Nathan had heard about femborgs, but had never known anyone who had one or what they really were. He'd heard that they cost much less than fembots, but nothing specific.
So, after the news, he went online and googled around for information about femborgs. What he found surprised him. He discovered that most femborgs and maleborgs are condemned prisoners on death row who requested acceptance into the CH-MEMS program to escape execution. That's short for *Cyborg Human Micro Electrical Mechanical Systems*, following the use of the original term HI-MEMS and CI-MEMS programs by the military to use cyborg insects to spy on enemy encampments on the front lines. What they do is to sever the person's spinal cord just below the brain and implant an wireless electronic servo control module. The person is still fully alert and could see, hear, and be aware of everything he does, but has no control over his body. His body is little more than a remote-controlled doll operated by a hand-held controller. Cyborg people are declared legally dead at conversion, so it would be legal to buy, sell, and own them as property, just like corpses are sold to universities, medical research labs, and crash test facilities. Indeed, medical labs and crash test facilities often buy live CH-MEMS people for testing, all perfectly legal, since they're legally dead already. The profits from the sale of cyborg people at government auction go to the victims of their crimes. Cyborg people don't fetch as high a price as bots because bots are autonomous and can perform complex tasks independently and with little supervision. They are also imbued with a sense somewhat like Isaac Asimov's fictional laws of robotics that act as a moral restraint that prevents bots from running amok and hurting people. Cyborg people, on the other hand, have to be operated directly by a human operator with a remote controller that looks very much like a PlayStation game controller. Their actual minds are that of dangerous condemned criminals, and so can never be allowed even the most rudimentary control over their own actions.
"Hmmmm," pondered Nathan. "Seems cruel, even for a condemned criminal. Still, it beats being executed." So Nathan checked his savings account, and made up a wish list for what type of cyborg girl he would like to buy.
He headed over to the state armory that Saturday, and signed in. He was given a bid card that he used to place bids on the cyborgs being sold. He walked up and down the large hall examining the cyborg people on display. They all stood as still as stone statues. Only the movement of their eyes game them away as human. There were a number of attractive young women to be auctioned. Looks like he stood a good chance at getting one.
For the first hour or so, a steady stream of males were auctioned off. The first female to come up for auction was a black woman with curly black hair. He didn't really want a black woman, but he placed a low bid to see what would happen. He bid $1000 on her, and she sold for $15000.
The next female to come up was a blonde women with tattoos all over her arms--a definite gangster girl type. Well, that's to be expected. She was reasonably attractive otherwise, so he bid $16000. And he won her!
He wend over to the cashier and paid for his purchase, and a fellow approached him fiddling with some kind of video game controller. The girl followed behind him. Nathan wondered how he could operate the girl with the controller if the girl was following him.
The clerk behind the counter handed Nathan a manilla envelope. Nathan opened it and pulled out all her legal papers--her birth certificate, her death certificate for she had been declared legally dead when she became a cyborg, her medical records, and her police and prison records. The clerk behind the counter told Nathan to follow Joe next.
It seems that Joe was the guy controlling the girl with the controller, so Nathan followed him and the girl to a small room off to the side.
"You know how to operate a femborg?" asked Joe.
Nathan studied his purchase for a moment. She stood there perfectly still, eyes darting this way and that. "Nope," said Nathan.
Joe handed him the controller and asked, "Ever play a First Person Shooter video game?"
"Nope. Never was into video games."
"Well then," said Joe. "See these two big knobs?"
"Yeah."
"They're called thumbsticks."
Nathan pressed one of the thumbsticks and the girl stepped oddly sideways and fell down, banging her head, yet didn't make a peep in pain. She remained lying in a lump on the floor without moving.
"Whoa, cowboy," said Joe, who then reached for the controller, fiddled with the thumbsticks, and had the girl back on her feet in an instant.
"The left thumbstick makes her move forward and back, left and right. The right thumbstick causes her to turn in place and bend over. Use just a slight nudge to move her at first, or she'll fall flat on her face again.
Nathan practiced a while longer as Joe watched, and soon got the hang of making the girl walk around without falling.
"Now type something," said Joe.
Nathan typed a few random words on the little keyboard on the controller, "T-H-E R-A-I-N I-N S-P-A-I-N F-A-L-L-S M-A-I-N-L-Y O-N T-H-E S-U-B-M-A-R-I-N-E."
As Nathan typed, the girl said, "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the submarine."
"Wow!" said Nathan. "That's cool! Can she sing?"
"No. Now see that screen?"
"Yeah," said Nathan. "That screen shows what she's looking at, right?"
