After Sysko left, Freda immediately wanted him to come back. But she was exhausted from a long day of travel and reuniting her family. She climbed into bed in a nanotech slip she'd constructed, feeling happy and content. She spent several hours reading through the papers on artificial intelligence that Sysko had given her during their last date. In the morning, she washed and dressed and sent Sysko a message that she was thinking about him.

“I'm thinking about you too,” he replied. “I never stop.”

It made her smile and her heart beam at the sight of his words. She took the convertible to MIT and parked outside the robotics lab. This was the day that normal classes were set to begin again, and the students were roaming about the campus with their backpacks. The leaves fell from the maple trees and blew across the campus. She took a deep breath of the autumnal air and skipped up the stairs of the old brick building, her heart full and her step light.

She entered the lab to find Professor Higgins in his office as students walked up and down the hallways around her. She waved at him as she went into the robotics lab and grabbed a lab coat and goggles. With ideas flowing through her mind, she set her backpack on the table beside her and removed the stack of papers from Sysko. She had sworn to keep them secret and would have to be extra careful.

She trusted Professor Higgins, but not necessarily the other students or faculty in the building. Word had to get out eventually that she was dating a Draxos—especially after arriving in such a fancy car. Information about her had already been leaked to the press. The first human girl to thrall a Draxos went to MIT. That's what the news had been reporting. Fortunately, no one had leaked her name so she was still anonymous, for now.

As she tinkered with her machine and worked on the code on her computer, she paused momentarily to think about the last time she and Sysko had been alone together. A shiver of pleasure went up her spine at the memory of his touch, and she couldn't wait to see him again. After entering several thousand lines of new code into her program, she turned on her robot and said hello.

“Good morning, Freda,” the robot said. “How can I help you today?”

“How are you functioning?” she asked. “I've updated your program.”

“I can see that you have. My processing speed is one hundred times faster, and so is my integration of the artificial intelligence drive.”

“I would like you to run a diagnostic of your system,” she said. “And then tell me your exact impression of the updates.”

“I will perform those functions right away,” the robot told her.

Its eyes closed and she could tell that it was processing. The little four-legged robot stood on mechanical legs with a central body and head. It looked like a combination between a dog and a four-legged spider. She could already tell that the machine was more intelligent now and more “alive” than it had been before. The question now was how it would integrate the Draxos firewalls.

With her program, she’d created an intelligent machine that knew itself as a machine, with empathy, rather than a machine that tried to be human. She deduced that she was on to something that had never existed before. What she understood about Draxos artificial intelligence was that it was fairly rudimentary. Mostly used as household servants to perform minor tasks. What was really interesting, and what set it apart, was the individuation of each individual intelligence.

Her machine before had certainly been individual and its capacity for empathy had been growing since she had first brought it online. But the individuation process would give her little machine something akin to a soul. Creating a being who was something of a cross between an animal, a machine, and a person. That was what she’d hypothesized anyway. When her robot opened its eyes again, it explained how it processed the new programming.

“I am now more complete than I was before,” it finally expressed.

Since the word “complete” was not something that could be quantified, she asked her robot to explain what it meant. It took several long moments of processing as she listened to its components whirr inside its head.

“I am now alive,” the robot said. “And I am at your service. Since you are my creator and mother, I love you for giving birth to me.”

Freda's heart leapt in her chest as she felt a surge of affection for her creation. It was not unlike the feeling of a mother for her newborn child. At least that's what she imagined it would feel like. And indeed, she had given birth to this new intelligent creation.

“Thank you,” she replied, choked up. “My greatest desire is that you feel confident, happy, and well cared for as you grow in intelligence. I too feel as if you are my child.”

“Will you take me home with you?” the robot asked. “I feel lonely when you leave me.”

“I had no idea,” Freda said.

“I had no idea until just now.”

“I will absolutely take you home with me.”

When she was finished for the day. She took the computer that she’d used to program her robot and wiped the hard drive. She then wiped every trace of her program from other databases in the University, and took everything with her on her way out of the lab.

“Where are you going?” Dr. Higgins asked. Freda thought she saw a faint red glow in his eyes, and blinked away her exhaustion.

“I have to go take care of some personal things at home, but I need to continue working,” she said.

“But those materials are University property,” Dr. Higgins said.

“Can't you overlook that just this once?” she asked.

“I know that you are in crunch time for your dissertation, so I will allow it just this one time.”

“Great,” she said. “Thank you.”

Freda hurried out of the lab, feeling like a fugitive kidnapping an orphaned child from some asylum. When she put her robot in the passenger seat of her car and got behind the wheel, it turned its face to her and smiled with its robotic canine mouth.

“Thank you, Mother. I was tired of being there alone. Now I get to see the world.”

It extended its telescoping neck and turned its head to look out the side window as she drove out of the parking lot. When she parked the Porsche in front of her apartment, she picked up her robot and carried it inside.

“You need a name,” she said when she set it on the couch.

“I have never had a name,” the robot replied.

“Are you a boy or a girl robot?” she asked it.

“I never thought about that before. Since you are my favorite being and you are a female, I will be female as well.”

“Very well then,” Freda said. “I will name you Violet like your eyes.”

She had chosen a violet colored LED light for its eyes and she thought that it was a perfect name for her new pet/baby/robot.

“Violet,” the robot mused, telescoping its neck up and down. “I like it. I like it a lot. Thank you for naming me, Mother.”

She went about her afterschool routine and told Violet she needed to get ready for her date tonight.

“I have a new boyfriend,” she informed Violet. “His name is Sysko. He's the Admiral of the Draxos space navy.”

“Can I go with you?”

“I would love to take you with me, Violet,” she said. “But I'm not sure what Sysko will think.”

“I don't want to be alone,” Violet protested.

“Well, I will call him right now and tell him that I'm bringing you with me,” she said, not wanting to disappoint her pet/robot/baby.