Morning came, but the warm air and sunlight couldn't sweep away the feelings of sadness that had come over the household. Breakfast conversation was awkward for Brad and his android fiancee. The closer he got to leaving, the more he wanted to get away from the house.
She did her part like she was programmed to, and scanned and recorded his actions and reactions. The little bits of computing she tried to do on her own on this whole messy affair made her processors overheat. She had to stop trying to figure things out and just be a housewife and a mom for now.
Brad left without kissing Pam goodbye. He tried to act as casually as he could about it, but he knew she noticed the difference. There was no way he could know how detailed her recollection would be. That would be something else for the Main Computer to work on.
As her man drove away, the fembot sat at the breakfast table and sorted her files for the coming day. She loaded the appropriate bits of data to her memory as the kids got up for breakfast. She could see that they had not slept well. Jessica especially looked like she had been crying through the night.
Pam loaded certain software configurations and went to greet the kids with hugs. She made them breakfast and repeated much of what she had said the day before about Charlie's passing. The kids weren't really listening. A strange kind of quietness settled over them - the two young humans and the fake one.
Meanwhile, Brad was at the office. He was talking to Colin on the phone again. Nothing much could be said to advance the situation without more surveillance though. Colin told brad that and reassured him the best he could. He was used to dealing with anxious clients. He would be able to follow the voluptuous brunette again today, to see where she might go.
When he got off the phone, Brad threw himself into his work. He needed distraction badly, and there was plenty here to take him away from what was going on in his personal life. He even managed to brighten his mood by talking and joking with co-workers. Soon, he was his usual confident and somewhat cocky self again.
By mid-morning, Pam had gotten the kids ready for their day and loaded them into the SUV. She sat her plump plastic butt down in the driver's seat and called-up specific batches of her programming. She loaded the route to the soccer field into her chipsets and started the vehicle.
Marcus was dressed for practice and sitting behind the android. He was unusually silent now, staring out the window and not saying much on the way over. Jessica was quiet as well. She usually hummed to herself before her piano lessons, but not today. her sad head hung low as she played with the end of the seat belt strap.
Pam had by then abandoned all her attempts at making calculations to try to figure out what was going on. Only that supercomputer would be able to try and fix its blunder, and even to see that it was a blunder at all. For now, the robot operated in her normal mode, with the right mood modifications to appear less happy than usual.
When she got to the soccer field, she was one of the first parents there. She got out and said hi to the coach. He too could barely stand her. Some better and more refined programming might have helped her fit in easier with these humans, but she was already running the latest software from Fembot Command. She couldn't help it.
She left Marcus there in the company of his coach while she drove Brad's daughter to her piano teacher's house. There too, Pam was tolerated instead of liked. That people saw her as a "fake" and shallow human rather than a realistic android was actually a reflection of her highly advanced technology. At least they didn't suspect she wasn't what she appeared to be.
And with no ability to feel slighted or hurt, Pam went back to the SUV. She drove back to the soccer field to use her complex software and hardware on some more unsuspecting humans.
A handful of other mothers had gathered by now to watch their kids practice. One portly blonde saw Pam coming and said to her friend "Look who it is... it's the Stepford wife." They cackled together as Annette gave them a disapproving look from the side.
Annette was Pam's de-facto 'friend'. She seemed to be the only human who wasn't mildly or strongly repulsed by the woman-shaped machine. She was strongly attracted to Pam in a sexual way, though she tried her best to hide it. Had she chosen to show that attraction, the dark-haired beauty could have easily provided her with as much pleasure as she provided Brad.
Annette watched Pam walk over from the parking lot. She watched her large breasts bounce to her sexy steps. She felt a sudden flash of heat, and a few tiny droplets of sweat came upon her forehead. She could feel herself blush as she noticed her eyes drawn toward Pam's crotch.
She pushed imaginings of those sexy plump thighs out of her head as the android came over and sat beside her. "Hiya Pam." she said.
"Hi Annette!" Pam said as she calculated. She leaned forward and looked at the other women gathered for the practice. She gave them an unreturned hello and generated some conversational data she could use on Annette.
"So how's it going?" Annette asked.
"Oh," Pam said dramatically, "not so good. Our little Charlie died last night."
"Oh no!" Annette said. "I'm so sorry."
Pam looked at her for a while. The processors inside her chest took some time to run those words through her language and logic filters. She had a hard time coming to the obvious conclusion that the woman wasn't in fact claiming responsibility and apologising for the death of the animal
Annette looked back into Pam's eyes as the robot stared back unmoving. She saw this occasionally from Pam - those moments when she seemed to blank out for a while. This one lasted a long time though.
"That's okay." the machine eventually said. "He was pretty old already." She reached up and brushed some hair out of her face. The hand she used for that insignificant but deliberate act was the same one that had been used to inject the dog with that fatal chemical mixture.
