Cloned

"Let's play statues."

My God it would be so embarrassing if anyone had walked in and found them playing such a childish game, but Ellie was finding it fun and she thought this would be good therapy for the maid. She must stop thinking of it as a robot.

The maid had her standing still and staring in front of her while she tried to provoke a reaction out of her. At first, Ellie was hopeless and squealed and squawked each time the maid surprised her or shouted "boo!" behind her. But she was getting better at it. They played for hours and hours. Ellie lost track of time, she was so busy concentrating on staring motionlessly and expressionlessly in front of her, regardless of whatever the maid try to do to provoke her.

Ellie knew she was doing well and that the maid was losing the game. The methods it employed were less and less likely to disturb her. The final attempt was when the maid tried to hypnotise her and she just stared straight ahead into the flashing light. She knew that hypnotism didn't really work, and she knew darn well that the robot was playing upon the human mind's fear of losing control to make her react. She was determined as she stared straight into the light and followed every twist and turn of it.

Once Ellie was well and truly under, the maid started to implant suggestions. She started with playing a game on Zak where they would trade places to see whether he would notice.

"That would be fun. You would like that game very much, wouldn't you Ellie? You are so good at standing so still now, and we will have such a laugh later about it."

Ellie was smiling and nodding. It sounded like a lot of fun. She was so brilliantly happy.

"I bet you couldn't win that game though. I bet you could not pass off as good a maid as me."

"I could. I could." Ellie was so excited she was skipping with delight at the thought of fooling Zak.

"Well you'd have to practice a lot first. Otherwise you wouldn't stand a chance."

"Oh teach me. Teach me! I will show you I can learn. I will, I will!! I will be the best maid ever and he will never notice the difference. You will see I can win this game."

Ellie was happy and clapping her hands with the thrill of playing this trick on Zak. She loved to win and to show the maid who doubted her.

"Well OK, but I really don't think you have it in you." The maid got Ellie to strip out of her clothes and to stand motionlessly before her. The girl was far gone, regressed to a teenager under hypnosis.

"As you strip out of your old clothes, you will feel the old Ellie being cast aside. With each item there is a little bit less of her. You can feel it can't you, the old Ellie fluttering into a heap on the floor. You feel liberated don't you, free of those inhibitions the old Ellie had. You stand naked and empty before me like a new pristine robot on the factory line, standing empty and idle awaiting your new personality to be downloaded."

Ellie felt herself falling away as she unzipped her skirt and let it fall. The researcher the wife and the mistress of the house all seemed to flutter away as the cascade of cotton drifted down, collapsing ticklish torment across her skin. She felt this emerging empty shell inside her head waiting for instructions. She felt the old perforated Ellie crumpled in a heap by her feet. She was a bright shiny new machine waiting in the factory line to be processed, waiting for an identity and a new purpose.

"Come press up against my rubber maid's uniform. Feel the touch of it, the smooth coldness of it against your skin. You love that feeling don't you?"

She pressed her soft flesh against the maid and she loved the cold bright clean feel of the rubber. Her skin tingled in the anticipation of it.

"You want this to cover you, you want to feel the rubber bond with your flesh so they become one, so that you will complete, the perfect maid. When this happens you will know you have won. This uniform is your new identity, your new personality, it shows you your purpose. You have to earn it, and all the time you see me wear it you will covet it. This is the true game, you need to succeed in convincing Zak you are the robot in order to win this prize, to take it from me. Only then will you have defeated me. You want to win at all costs, don't you?"

Ellie always fell for a challenge. She took pride in winning. She needed to prove herself, she needed to succeed. That's what she had always done. No matter what obstacles she as a woman had had to face, she had overcome them, she had pushed them aside. She laughed to herself for she knew she would win this game too. Without success she would be nothing, a defenceless woman just reinforcing the stereotype. She would have that uniform.

"You want it don't you. I can see it in your eyes. I can feel the confidence you have that you will succeed and best me. But you need training. You have made a good start with the statue game, but a good robot needs more. You need to respond to data streams, not just orders. The most fundamental data streams you will have to prove you can respond to accurately and quickly are the ON and OFF streams. Now this one is the ON stream."

The maid opened her mouth but no sound came out. Ellie stood there naked, arms by her sides. She was still in her suggestible state, but even so she felt perplexed.

"You can't hear the data stream can you? I told you this was not going to be easy. This is the OFF data stream."

Again Ellie could detect no sound. Maybe she had to concentrate harder. They played this game some time. Each time Ellie could hear nothing but she had to guess which one it was. At first she got it wrong lots of times. She got frustrated, but the maid just laughed at her.

"Are you giving up already? I knew you would lose this game." This spurred Ellie on with greater resolution to prove her wrong. She stopped trying to hear the sound and started trying to feel it. It didn't make any sense, but when she concentrated on how her body felt like responding she got it right more often.

It was uncanny that she heard nothing and yet sensed the right response, and the maid encouraged her.

"You are doing so well. I think we are ready for the next step of this game. When you receive the OFF data stream, you must respond by letting your head bow and your arms fall limply by your sides. Do you understand, on the OFF signal you must go limp."

They played more with Ellie learning to go limp when she got the OFF signal. She had to stay like that until she got the ON signal. This was harder as she was often not sure and so too slow. She kept being disqualified for responding too late. It became obvious to her that if she were going to win this game she had to think less and react more. The less she thought about it and just responded the better she got.

"I think you are ready for the testing stage now. We are going to move about the house and I won't be in the same room yet you must still respond correctly. Also I am going to mix it up. So if you get an ON signal when you are ON or an OFF when you are OFF then you ignore it. Now go and get on with some housework."

Ellie was excited and ran off to do some cleaning. She had no idea whether she would be able to respond without the maid even being in the room. She just told herself to stop thinking and just let her body react. Sure enough, although it was hard at first, she was getting it right most of the time now. She would go limp and she found that her mind switched off. At first she would listen intently to try and hear the ON signal, but she learned that by switching off totally and allowing her body to respond, it would wake her mind at the right time. They played for hours and at the end the maid said,

"Wow if you keep that up then I think you might just win this game after all." She looked impressed and Ellie's heart was thumping in her chest. She felt so proud of all she had achieved. She knew the maid had not anticipated she would pass that test.

They went back to playing statues for a while and then Ellie was told to put on the rubber maid's costume. The robot then put her clothes on and they swapped places. She made particular attention that they were exactly in reversed positions before bringing Ellie out of her suggestible state. A look of confusion spread across her face. She suddenly found she had moved. How had that happened? She looked down and saw the rubber uniform. She felt puzzled, her mind couldn't quite accept what her eyes told her.

"OK that was a good game. I think you had better clean up the bathroom now as I have some work to do. Maybe we can play some more later."

Ellie stared across at herself. Yes there she was over there. How can that be? She must be the maid. She was over here and not over there. She was wearing the maid's uniform and not the clothes of the mistress. She hadn't changed clothes. She must be the maid. How confusing!

"Come along. We have work to do."

Still feeling unsure of herself, Ellie walked off as if in a daze towards the bathroom. The robot watched her go. She would bring her under trance again in a few hours and swap roles again. That should keep her mind off balance and unsure.

--o0o--

They had been all over the house, playing in each room Ellie now responding correctly every time to the signals the maid was sending. They would also share the cleaning and the cooking to see who could do the better job. Ellie could see the maid was giving up, she was doing less and less as she couldn't compete with her. Ellie felt satisfaction sweep across her each time she out did her opponent. She would watch the maid slump defeated in a chair and tell her what a good job she was doing. Ellie took pride in her work, and the house was spotless. She felt she had missed out before when she had never thought about maintain the home properly.

This time, instead of sending out a trill of data, the maid pointed the remote at Ellie and pressed the OFF button. To her great satisfaction she watched as Ellie stopped immediately, arms falling limply by her sides, head bowed in submission. She was no longer responding to try and win a game, but had lost complete control over her body and her mind would just shut down. The maid smiled broadly as it watched Ellie switch off in perfect response to the command. From now on the bitch would be the one to switch off at the press of a button and not her.

She brought Ellie into trance again and taught her a new signal that it trilled. This would bring her back into this hypnotic state. To Ellie she would understand the signal as a call to return to the master machine to receive further instruction. She then made her change into the maid's uniform the heavy rubber pulled tight around her waist as the maid buckled it behind. Then she brought her back out of her trance.

"See! I won! I did a better job at cleaning than you. Admit it, you lost." Ellie's voice was full of glee, like a little child ecstatic at her own victory.

"Then it is time to give you a reward." The robot stepped forward and slipped its hand under her rubber skirt. She had watched and knew exactly what to do. Ellie was taken by surprise and also she felt wet down there, which she had not expected, but before she could even register her uncertainty she could feel the deft fingers of the maid expertly bringing her rapidly to orgasm. She did not quite know how to feel about being made to cum by the robot. It was incredibly embarrassing, but at the same time hugely pleasurable. She seemed to know exactly what to do, as if it were her own fingers. She smiled once the throws of her orgasm subsided enough. The possibilities this maid created were profoundly arousing.

She was shocked too when the maid herself seemed to cum at the same time. She looked down to see whether the maid was delving another finger into its cloned cunt of hers, but no. She looked back inquisitively at the maid.

"We are so very alike," she said and there was a mischievous twinkle in her eye. Ellie smiled. She was growing rather fond of this robot.

--o0o--

Those first nights in the cupboard Ellie had plenty of time to think back over how this had all happened. She knew that the maid was thinking these thoughts at the same time. She knew that it was no longer possible for her to think anything without the thought entering the maid's mind at the same time. She did not know how she knew this, but it was like the robotic intelligence was inside her head. She recalled that fateful day that had set this whole escapade in motion. In a vague disconnected kind of way she wondered whether remembering these thoughts was her own idea or planted in her imagination by this alien intelligence. She couldn't tell any more. She was exhausted with all this thinking. Was the robot intelligence learning more about her through this? Was she giving away the crown jewels by even thinking these thoughts or was she just being silly and irrational? Funny she never ever considered herself irrational before, she was an acclaimed academic. Yet more and more she felt stupid and paranoid. She was confused and sometimes she was the maid and sometimes she was the mistress, and yet never in charge. Her kind drifted back to the past.

Ellie had entered the room at the laboratory where Zak worked. In the middle of the room, with large spotlights pointed towards it, was a chair and a table. On the table was a large metal contraption: it had thick iron bars and a kind of clamp above and below with butterfly nuts.

"Thanks so much Ellie for doing this. If you would just take the seat and lean forward. Push your face against the metal frame. I will then adjust it."

Zak spoke enthusiastically about the work. He had talked her into helping out. If truth be told, Ellie would have taken one look at the contraption and high tailed it out of there. But she had agreed to help her husband and in spite of appearances, it would not hurt. She sat before the contraption, and with a little apprehension pushed her face towards the metal bars. They felt cold and unforgiving as she pressed her cheeks against them. Zak slid the bars along two metal rails until they framed her face and then she could hear him tightening the nuts to hold them in position.

"Sorry about all the mechanics, but as we scan your face it is important you do not move at all. This is just a brace to fix you in position. It looks worse than it is," he said, feeling her apprehension.

There was a band that he wrapped around her forehead and this was tied tight to the frame and a chin guard that lay like a plate under her chin with small metal brackets that he adjusted so they pulled tight against her jaw bone. They dug in and it was very uncomfortable as though a steel mask were being fixed over her face. She wanted to tell him, but her mouth was locked closed.

"Now we are ready to begin. Just try to keep as still as possible and this will only take a moment."

The scanner was wheeled in in front of her face and the lights shone bright dazzling her.

"Try not to squint and keep looking straight ahead."

All very well for him to say, but there was a lot of wattage landing on her face. Slowly she saw the bar of the scanner moving up and then down. She could feel the heat of it as a bar striping over her face. She thought about the robot form that would try and reproduce her face. Zak had explained it all to her, but as usual she only understood vaguely what he was talking about. Her own special subject was biology and she was interested in how robots could mimic people, but not that interested in the material science bit of polymers and moulds.

Up and down at an inexorable slow pace the scanner went. She was a prisoner to this machine and could not get up and leave until allowed to do so. Until then she would have to remain locked in position awaiting release. She felt a slight thrill at that thought, captured by a machine. Usually she was far too serious to entertain such superfluous childish thoughts.

"That's perfect." Zak walked over and spent a few minutes wrestling with the ironwork. It took some time as if it were reluctant to disengage from her. "The mask will be ready in an hour and then we can use it on one of the mannequins. By next week you should be staring at yourself on a lifeless homoform."

"I can't say I'm thrilled, but if it helps your research I am happy to come along."

"You will feel differently when you see it."

And sure enough he had been right. She had wandered down to the laboratory about three days later and saw this mannequin made of some grey polymer material. It was hard and rather course and where the face should have been was this bright yellow mask like some rag that had been carried by the wind and wrapped itself around the mannequin's face. She came in and Zak started to work on prising the mask off. He worked gingerly at the edges as he didn't want to disrupt the caste. As it started to come away Ellie gasped. When Zak had stepped back she was left staring straight at herself. It was her in every detail and yet her on a lifeless form that looked human but was totally inert and unresponsive.

"It looks amazing, and a little creepy to see myself on that homoform. Are you going to make the rest of it like me as well?"

"Yes, but getting the face right is the biggest step. That's why we had to scan your face many times to get everything exactly right. The next step is to animate the face. Inside the homoform is a sophisticated parallel processor..."

"Ok Ok." She put her hand up to stop his involved explanation. " What do you need me to do?"

Zak looked sheepish. He was so transparent. She could always tell when he wanted something from her. If it was for something important, such as his research, then she would help out otherwise she had better things to do with her time.

"This is more difficult. We need to get the expressions and all the way your face changes under different emotions just right."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Well there is this mask. It has lots of little sensors that attach themselves to your skin. You wear it like a hood over your head, even over your eyelids and around the edges of your nostrils. I think it might be a little uncomfortable to wear."

"This looks hideous. Are there a set of exercises you need me to go through?"

"Well no. We need to capture the way your face changes in the wild, as we say?"

"Wild?"

"I mean you have to wear it for about a month."

"A month!! Are you kidding me! I can't hang around your lab all day every day for a month. I've got my own work to do. I don't mind..."

"No... no... no... You don't understand. You wear it all the time as you go about your normal life. The sensors are connected to this little pack that sits snugly at the back of your neck. In here it records all the muscle movements. At the end of the month we take it off, download all the data and start work identifying the emotions and associating them with muscle movements. It is going to be a lot of work, but worth it."

"I can't go around in this for a whole month! What would my students say? My family?"

"They will understand if you explain the science. We really need this now we have your face captured. Otherwise we would have to start all over again with someone else."

She relented, she had to. As a scientist she knew the importance of experiment and collecting the right data. It was against her better judgement, but somehow the appeal to the scientist in her worked. If she thought of this as a science experiment she was involved in, and getting a robot to mimic emotions in its facial expressions would be huge, then she was pleased to be a part of it. Besides which she couldn't stand it when Zak started whining.

Zak lifted the mask over her head. It was made of the same polymer like material that the homoform was made of. He spent a lot of time pressing the sensor pads against her head. They were everywhere. She felt like she had an octopus pressed over her face with its suckers pulled and locked to her flesh. It wasn't just a mask. Zak pulled it tight over her eyelids and around her nose pressing it firmly at the edges so that the contact was flawless. For Ellie it had seemed an invasion of her space, so much so it made her feel claustrophobic inside it, and very aware of every breath she took, every blink of her eyes, every time she moved her lips. She was not sure she was taking in enough oxygen and had to open her mouth and gasp in air every so often.