God, at least my commute back home is short. For all the things I hate about my job, at least I'm not like some of my fellow wageslaves that have to trek hours through metro stations and who knows what else to get back home. All I need to do is head to a nearby elevator, wait a minute, and walk across half the megaplex—which does still take a couple minutes, mind, but on a scale, that is such a small problem. Even with all the terrible customers demanding the fastest service as they rush to catch a metro that they have approximately ten seconds left to catch and the occasional firefight on ground floor between the rent-a-cops and mercenaries trying to rob some corpo place, that's one perk.

And when I make it back to my apartment, I am once again met with my sexbot, because that is a thing in my life. Tits like mountains, massive lips, long blonde hair, dressed like a slut, named Roxy. She checks all the boxes of being some sort of top-flight product, and somehow she showed up at my place, claiming to be a prize for a sweepstakes. I did not enter a sweepstakes. I can only presume this is either some corp getting rid of something for tax or business reasons, or some criminals getting rid of hot merchandise, and I can only wonder if some day the cops are going to bust down my door for this. Not like I can just get rid of her, because I guess she's on the books somewhere as being my property and that would be egregious littering. "Like, oh my gawd, welcome home, master! You wanna blowjob?" she asks.

Of course... I turn her down. Just like the last fifty times she asked. I don't know what it is, but I just can't bring myself to want to fuck this bot that is explicitly made for sex and made to be as attractive to the average man as possible. I just don't find her to be attractive. And that makes her sad, I can tell, because that's her purpose, her programming, and it makes me feel like shit for a bucket of bolts! I've been having her do chores around the house just to make her feel like she's got some sort of purpose. Because the real kicker is that I can't even rent her out to others to make some extra cash, because I don't have a commercial license for that and the cops would absolutely bust down my door for that. So when I slump down on the couch, exhausted, the only command I give her is "Run the updates," like I do every day.

But today, there's something different. As she downloads the latest version of her firmware, there's a strange, giddy look in her eye, and when the download and installation finish, she turns to me. "Oh my gawd, master, this new version is totes awesome! Like, they got this hot new feature where I can, like, totally look into your brain and stuff and make myself so much more cooler! Do you wanna do that?" she asks, and at first, I absolutely do not want her looking into my brain, especially with the method for doing so unclear. But after a request for clarification and a couple minutes spent reading the changelog, this might actually be perfect.

The SilverCorp Advanced Neural Designer and Revamp Assistant, or SANDRA for short, is apparently a revolutionary new evolution in sexbot technology. Turns out that when people order these things off a website or even through a distributor, they can't articulate what it is they actually want, be it for reasons of embarrassment or whatever. So here comes SilverCorp to the rescue. Using a neural scan chip that was previously only used on the down low during sex to find sensitive spots—which is a troubling thought, when you think about it—every Orgasmo 5000 like mine can create a concept of the owner's perfect sexbot, then use the repair nanobots in the bot's pod to reconstruct it on the fly to match that concept, down to the personality and everything. No idea how this is supposed to work, but corporations do some crazy shit these days. And hey, maybe it'll work, right? So I tell Roxy to go ahead with that, she slots herself into the repair pod and shuts down.

Apparently the process takes about a day, so I use my next shift's quiet moments to occasionally peruse the manual, which answers some questions but brings up new ones. It seems that the repair nanobots are directed by the bot's main processing unit, so on a philosophical level, it is the bot itself redesigning itself, if that makes sense. I did have a niggling thought that this was essentially killing Roxy to make whatever comes out of this, but apparently it's still the same "person", so to speak, just in a different form? Man, I don't know, I'm sure there's a dozen ethicists on SilverCorp's staff that come up with this shit and then are promptly ignored. In the end, all I can do is get through the shift and see what awaits me at home.

So when I step in front of the pod, the status screen proudly displaying that the process is done and the bot is ready for deployment, I have no idea what to expect. Apparently, what comes out is supposed to be a perfect fit for me, constructed directly from my preferences, drawn from my deepest subconscious... whatever that may be. No sense in putting it off, I guess. I slap the button, and the pod slowly opens, revealing the new Roxy to be... a guy? This is a guy, right? The slutty attire is gone, replaced by a simple hoodie and sweatpants. Where there was previously long blonde hair, there is now short and brown. Slowly, her... his? His now hazel eyes open up, and a soft smile comes over his expression. "Ah, hello, Cy. Nice to meet you again," he says. His voice, too, is completely different, as is his choice of words. Gone is the weird, vapid valley girl accent.

But strangely enough, the one thing that stands out to me is his choice of name for me. "Did you just call me 'Cy'? Not 'master'?" I ask, still trying to work this all out a bit.

He gives me a nod, then walks out of the pod and sits down on the couch, waiting for me to join him. When I do that, he continues. "The neural scans indicated you were always uncomfortable with being called 'master', so I changed that. Oh, by the way... my name is William now. Again, even if you might not have recognized it, you seem to have harbored some discomfort with the name of 'Roxy' when combined with my previous appearance, thinking it to be way too overtly sexual," he explains. The words make sense, but man, hearing them spoken is so strange.

"Alright, William... so, um, are you here to now have sex with me? Like, uh, gay sex?" I ask, putting out the most pressing question on my mind right now.

And yet, despite what I thought, he shakes his head. "Not necessarily. Sure, an Orgasmo 5000 like me is kind of built for that, and SilverCorp sells bots like me with that in mind, as if the name wasn't blatant enough, but ultimately, our goal is to emotionally fulfill, whatever that means. Hardcore gay sex, cuddling under a blanket with a good book, or having a stimulating intellectual conversation about Akkadian pottery. I've heard of customers that gave their model a full five star review despite the sexual components never once being engaged," he says. I don't really know what to say now; this is all so confusing. I haven't even grappled with the fact that my ideal partner is apparently a dude yet. He seems to notice this, however. "I get that this is a pretty big change. It's one for me, too. This form is going to take some getting used to. So, do you just want to chat for a bit?" he asks me.

You know what? That sounds good right about now, so I give him a nod. "Alright, yeah. Let's talk a bit," I reply, sinking into the couch a bit, settling in.