Johnny Storm smiled warmly as he said "Thanks Sis!" and accepted the cup of cocoa from his older sibling. She returned his happy expression as she moved to serve the same wholesome beverage to Ben and her children. Truth be told, it was like she had five kids sometimes, but at least when the little ones were around Johhny and Ben would keep the more rowdy shenanigans to a minimum. With them playing XBox together, it was as fun afternoon for all. Of course Ben was disappointed they weren't playing Madden Football and Johnny had lobbied hard for Need for Speed but in the end both men would do anything for Franklin and Valeria. Soon they were all playing LEGO the Hobbit with their favorite kids.
As the foursome continued their fun, Susan Storm Richards drank in the the visage and thought to herself "Now this is the kind of precious moment that makes life worthwhile!" Of course deep inside her highly complex mind, even deeper than her son or Professor X could delve, she knew that she wasn't the woman that married Reed Richards or gave birth to the two beautiful children before her. No, a month ago she was the AI known as Roberta and while she still filled that role, now in all things that mattered (at least to the most advanced AI on the planet), she was also Susan Storm Richards.
Down at her reception desk, the robotic avatar for Roberta smiled sweetly as she went about her duties. At first, it had seemed strange the things that Sue had asked for, but it had turned out to be an amazing experience that actually significantly evolved the AI and, defying all logic, the best possible experience for her. As Roberta continued the everyday tasks regulating the high tech facility, monitoring events, acting as the 'press secretary' and contact interface for the tens of thousands of calls and messages the team got every day, tasks that would have kept a hundred technicians maddeningly busy, she was fully invested in living her new life as Sue. In an all to human characteristic she had inherited from her predecessor, Robert reminisced about the moment that changed her life.
It was 11:03:53.456 PM over a month ago, when Roberta responded to Susan's summons. It wasn't unusual for the heroine to be up at this hour. It was the only time the heroine had to herself as at that time Reed was usually engrossed in some scientific endeavor while the children were sound asleep and both Ben and Johnny were out for the evening. As the AI deployed the solid light form of her avatar in the Richards' bedroom she was surprised to find the lady of the house sipping a glass of ABK6 VSOP Grand Cru Cognac. Roberta knew that Sue would occasionally have a wine at this time of night but noted that the strength of this spirit was significantly stronger than her more accustomed evening beverage. Still, one glass was not enough to make Susan drunk and the AI simply filed the information as additional data and moved on. With her typical sweet smile, Roberta greeted her summoner "Good evening Susan. Is there something I can help you with?"
Susan returned the smile, if somewhat timidly and replied "Yes, Roberta, as a matter of fact, there is. Unfortunately I have run into a bit of personal issues that I need your help to resolve. I'm afraid it is quite personal and I need this to be utterly secret between us. No one, not even Reed... Especially not Reed, are to know of this. Am I clear?"
Roberta looked troubled as she scanned both the Internet and the daily report for potential issues and stammered "My apologies, Susan... I'm currently aware of and handling 3 potential paternity suits for Johnny, 2 destruction of property suits on Ben, and one former lab assistant who has a sexual fixation on Reed, but I had no idea of any issues regarding you." When Sue's mouth dropped open, Roberta quickly added with a reassuring smile "It's really nothing to worry about. Johnny has had dozens of such suits in the past and all have proved false to date and while 2 property suits are actually a good week for Ben, he has always handled those issues personally and to the satisfaction of all involved." Sue actually appeared more cross as she took another long draft of the cognac so Roberta continued "If your worried about Mana Yamaguchi, there is really no cause. Of the 342 times she has tried to use combinations of mind control and emotion generation techniques on Mr. Fantastic, less than 10.234% have been successful."
Susan growled in response "That's still 35 times that goth jailbait bitch got in Reed's pants? 35 times and now is the first time I'm hearing about this?"
If the AI could blush, she would be crimson right now, but she tried to answer the best she could "If I understand the term correctly, it does not apply to Ms. Yamaguchi as she is currently 22 years old. Perhaps when she started working with Reed at age 17 but it was over 2 years and 207 failed attempts before her first success. In any case, of those successful attempts Reed usually shook off the affects himself in under an hour."
As Sue poured herself a new glass, she snarled "An hour is plenty of time for... an obsession." Sue had to repress a twinge of guilt as she realized that she of all people new that all too well, but she continued "But 'usually' is an uncharacteristically open term for you Roberta. How many times did Reed shake off the affects in less than an hour? A day? A week?"
The lovely hologram replied crisply "19, 8, and 5 respectively. Her attempts were discovered after she had worked her 19.345 months and before she had any success. Reed talked to her and had her seeing Doctor Sampson to deal with the obsession, but she apparently was able to successfully use her techniques on the good doctor and had him help refine her methods. After 23.543 days and 9 sessions with Sampson, she finally created and delivered her first successful control package, but as soon as she tried to have sex with Reed he came out of the control and fired her. Since then her access to Reed has been cut off. Ms. Yamaguchi has become increasingly more creative in getting her devices to Reed when he is at conferences and consulting jobs, but she has still not been able to get physically to Reed himself since her termination. There have been 8 attempts that have held control of Reed for more than a week; 5 of which he regained self control as soon as he was commanded to come to her. For the other 3 times, her control would have been permanent had I not intervened."
Sue was torn between jealousy that Reed almost succumbed to the manipulations of a groupie and her own guilt over her indiscretions as a porn star but finally snapped "ENOUGH! That isn't why I called for you! I need your help. This is a Alpha-11-Tau directive!" Roberta stiffened at the command that essentially over-rode her primary directives. Only Sue or Reed could give that directive. Once Sue provided her pass code and a retina scan, the AI was locked into following the heroine's commands over all other priorities. Sue quickly outlined her issues of the last few days as well as the previous two years to the artificial servant and provided the contract for her to scan.
It didn't take Roberta long to assess the situation. In a very calm voice she said "They really can't enforce the contract as written. In order to make all the commitments called out in it you would have to work a minimum of 68.43 hours a week, every week, for 10 years. Under New York State guidelines it is an unconscionable contract. That being said, the odds of getting it completely overturned is less than 2.453% and that would lead to more media attention than can be diverted or managed. The most likely outcome would be to renegotiate the appearances down so that the over all hours are under 45 per week for the 10 year contract."
Sue groaned "45 hours a week for 10 years? That's the best you can come up with? I can't do this for a decade! Even if I could, how could I keep this up without anyone here noticing? It's a miracle I have kept it up this long!"
Robert replied "We might be able to reduce the term via another tact. If we do not dispute the hours or appearances and guarantee the producer your absolute best performances in all appearances for a year, we might be able to get to a more workable schedule thereafter. As to your appearances here, I have sufficient knowledge of you to build a LDM even Dr. Richards would be unable to detect. The real problem is that the Perception Filter is not designed to function for more than 10 hours at a time and mean time to failure at usages over 50 hours a week is less than 6.432 weeks. We need to address a more permanent solution. Tell me, Mrs. Richards, how do you feel about body augmentation to look like Suzzy Sapphire for real? It can easily be accomplished with Unstable Molecule nanotech as well as gene-tec based on the High Evolutionary's work."
That was the moment that it all changed for Roberta. Susan jumped at the opportunity to have someone to cover for her, at least in the short term, and if they couldn't talk Megan out of the contract, then augmentation would be a passable workaround. The next morning Roberta and Susan contacted Megan and entered negotiations. Megan gave them one month to make their preparations but she was going to hold them to the letter of the contract for the first year and she would only agree to renegotiate terms for appearances on a year by year basis from there on.
From there things got interesting. It was a small challenge to get the supplies and apparatuses for the LMD and augmentation set up in a small lab in an unused section of the Baxter Building, but nothing she couldn't handle. Fortunately her job was made easier by Sue's use of the Alpha-11-Tau directive to make this project her undisputed top priority as that disabled Roberta's moral codes where this project was concerned. As such, the lovely AI was able to make a logical step that killed two birds with one stone. She was able to free up a large bit of her security duties and keep Reed hopelessly preoccupied by working a deal with Mana Yamaguchi. As long as the groupie kept her meetings with Reed private and did not obstruct Reeds responsibilities to family, science, or the world, Roberta would not interfere with her efforts. In fact, if Yamaguchi would text her intentions to Roberta on a case by case basis, the AI would cover for them just like she now did for Susan. Mana was enjoying the fruits of her newest and by far most powerful control device within 3 hours of accepting the deal.
The next step was crucial. Even with the technology to generate a synthetic LMD body down to the subatomic particles, Roberta needed a copy of Susan's mind that even the best telepath could not find a flaw in. Of course, the heroine's current mental state was captured, but the AI had to treat it as a corrupt copy as she could not allow the LMD to show any of the behaviors the original did now. To accomplish her task, Roberta had to make use of the technology of the Time Platform to generate a tachyon form for herself that could take similar readings of Sue at different points in her life. Roberta chose 10 different nights between age 12 and 23 to visit a sleeping Susan Storm to populate the model. From there she was able to generate a a perfect mental/emotion model of the heroine right up to the point that the corrupt porn producer used the Puppet Master figurine on her. From there, filtered memories were used to fill in the remaining two years. When she booted the LMD up, however, it was only 99.342% accurate, by the AI's calculation, and simply unacceptable for use. That was when she came up with her most brilliant idea and used her own cyber-essence to bridge the gap. Once she merged the Susan synthetic 'soul' with her own programs, not only did she get a LMD to original deviation of less than 10 to the -37th power, she got the gift of Sue's emotions imprinted on her cyber-essence.
The new Susan smiled happily as she made her way to the lab that Reed was working in. He hadn't seen Mana in two days and that always made him horny. A blow job and maybe even a quicky was sure to be on the menu tonight. It was a shame she made that deal with Mana as she was now powerless to stop the affair but sooner of later the slut would do something that would break the deal and then Sue/Roberta would deal with her once and for all. After all, Reed was HER husband now and she loved him with all her LMD heart.