Chapter No.84 Fulfillment
This is much more complicated than we thought.
I spent the next morning staring at the finger structure that Molly had obtained from the multiverse roamers.
"There's something weird about this," I said to the others. "If this is a living being, why wouldn't it be moving around?"
"I was wondering that myself, "Margaret said. "That portion of the structure should move about and not be static."
"That's assuming that time is the same as it is in our universe," Molly said.
We turned to her.
"Maybe time for the multiverse being is orders of magnitude slower than ours. Or maybe it's because we are tiny compared to it."
"What about universes eventually dying," I said. "How would the being deal with that?"
"Ah," Molly said, with a grin. "That's the interesting part. It appears that universes are dying and being created on a regular basis in order to maintain the being's structure."
"That would suggest that we could preserve human life for eternity," I said.
"Yes, but it will involve fully understanding how universes come into existence and how they die."
Just then, Betsy came on the command deck with her child, which was now larger and more attentive.
"Wow!" I exclaimed. "He's grown quite a bit."
"He's also learned to speak," Betsy announced.
The baby, who had been named Tad, giggled.
For some reason, Betsy decided to hand the infant to me. I took him in my hands just as I remember doing with my two human children so long ago. Like them, Tad responded with coos and giggles. The human women androids gathered around to engage in this totally human ritual, a sign that we were not losing our human feelings.
Later that evening, Alex, Ben, and I went for a swim in the main pool. Swimming was a good form of exercise and a way to relax. As expected, we attracted a female audience. After putting on a good diving show in which we each tried to outdo our comrades, we climbed down off of the diving board platform and walked over to where they were sitting. We stood in a line with our hands behind our backs so that they could inspect us.
"When are you going to make one of us pregnant, now that we know that it's possible," Molly asked.
I squinted. "I didn't realize that you wanted that."
"Molly turned to the other women before turning back to me. "I think that we should try it on either Margaret or me. We are the only human females who haven't had children. Marie has had two, Alicia and Alexa both had one."
"I think we should only do one of you first," I said. "Even though this crazy idea worked with the androids, there could be unexpected complications with human android sexual reproduction."
"Okay," Molly said, looking at Margaret. "Who wants to go first?"
"I guess it will be me," Margaret said, with a sly smirk.
I turned to Alex. "I think you should do the honors."
He smiled. "I would be delighted."
Margaret giggled.
At this point I realized that we were beginning to act more human in many ways. The fact that we could sexually reproduce was a game changer. It meant that we effectively constitute Humanity Version 2.0.
Alex, Ben and I returned to the task of entertaining the women; although, I'm not exactly sure if we were doing a sufficient job of it. However, judging by their whistles, applause and squeals, we were.
After showering and dressing, Alex, Ben and I retreated to the Black Hole bar on the agricultural/recreational deck. As soon as we sat down, two android bar maids came over to serve us beer, smiling and flaunting their physical assets in a provocative manner.
"I'm surprised that the women want to have children so soon," I said.
"I think that they are doing this in an effort to cling to their human roots," Alex said. "They desire fulfillment, and having children is one way to achieve that."
"The only problem I see with it is that it will require their time for childcare. If nothing more, they'll have to breastfeed them, at least at first."
"They certainly have more than adequate capability to do that," Alex said, grinning.
"Betsy informed me that she enjoys breastfeeding Tad," Ben said.
"I'm not sure how pleasure works with a true android," I said. "I realize that they have programming to simulate sexual pleasure, but I'm not sure about pleasures other than that."
"I would assume that breastfeeding is a quasi-sexual pleasure," Alex said.
"For human, perhaps," I replied. "But what about androids?"
"Well, they are programmed to replicate human emotions and thoughts," Alex said. "I think it's just to duplicate the emotions of humans so that we'll like them."
"That's an interesting way to put it. In essence, androids were designed to please us by acting like us. As far as I am concerned, they are just as rightful as we are to be respected and preserved."
"I agree," Alex said.
That earned us another round of beers, and during the course of enjoying them, Jessica, one of the barmaids revealed something that shocked both of us.
End of Part 8
Thanks for reading.
Part 9 will begin soon.