I wish I'd had time to clean up before they got here.

The living area was dark, and probably dusty. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spent any time in it. Couch, table, chairs, all came with the place. They were nothing special. Two bedrooms, one of which served as a workshop and the other taken up pretty much fully with his bed and his equipment. A tiny kitchen. One small bathroom. He was pretty sure it was more or less clean.

He could always fix up the living room for them to stay in. He just needed to do a bit of polishing and dusting.

None of the catgirls seemed to notice now drab it was. Their eyes were all on him.

"Master!" Seema said, bouncing through the door. "We're finally alone! I want to learn all about the things you like to do! Every one of them!"

Reema nodded, standing beside Meela and looking up at Mike hopefully.

"We're anxious to serve you in any way we can," she said. "I am especially good at learning new things and synthesizing my knowledge for you."

Meela tentatively touched Mike's arm.

"Just tell us our duties, and we can start any time. We are at your service. But if you want us to leave you alone, tell us that too. We are yours."

He thought she looked a little worried at the thought of him telling them to leave him alone.

"What about you," he said to Meela. "What's your area of expertise?"

She looked down at the floor.

"If it pleases you, I'm particularly skilled at social and diplomatic tasks. It would make me really happy to be useful to you in that area."

She looked back up at him hopefully. Catgirls they might have been, but they were all staring at him like puppies, and obviously waiting for his approval. It was a bit unnerving. He was used to spending his time alone. But the last thing he wanted to do was disappoint them.

He was going to ask Seema about her special skills next, but then mentally kicked himself.

Business, Mike. Get to business.

"Girls, that sounds fantastic. You're all incredibly talented. But look around you," he said, gesturing at the apartment. "I live alone in this little place. Don't you think you'd be happier serving a master who had a huge mansion or something? Maybe a whole estate, with politicians coming and going, and rich businessmen? That's what you're really meant to do and I'd be holding you back to stay with me."

All three of them said nothing. They just stared at him.

"What I mean is, I'd feel bad about it. What I thought I might do is make some inquiries, talk to a few people, and see if we can't find someone like that - someone really important - who needs the amazing help you can provide! Honestly I'd be happier knowing you were somewhere..."

But he had to stop. Meela had burst out crying, and Reema's eyes were full of tears again too. Seema just stood behind them looking stunned.

"Wait, wait! I don't mean this as a bad thing! I'm trying to help you! I'm nobody, really!"

"You're... our... MASTER," Meela gasped. "Don't you want us? Have we made you mad?"

"Don't send us away!" Seema finally yelped. "Please, I'll do anything! Don't make us leave!"

Reema actually dropped to her knees and bowed her head at him.

"I don't know how we have offended you, but please, I promise to study really hard and learn and be deserving enough for you to like us."

Mike was horrified at the turn this had taken. He was used to dealing with professionals. He would have expected walking AI units to work more or less the same. This was something else entirely.

"Whoa girls, hang on. Please don't cry! It's not that I don't like you. I think you're amazing. You're all beautiful, and smart, and talented. Really."

Meela had her face buried in her hands.

"Then what," came her muffled voice, "What did we do wrong? Was it the lady? Should we have stayed away from her?"

"No, no, no, that's fine. Look..." he searched desperately around the room for an escape but none was obvious. So he flicked on a lamp and went over to the couch, and patted on the cushion.

"Come over here, sit, okay? Let's all talk."

The three of them filed over to the couch without another word, staring at the floor like scolded children. Their tails were folded down against their legs and their ears lay almost flat against their heads. They sat down in a clump, all of them together.

He sat down in the big chair across the table from them. They looked so worried that he felt he should pull it back a bit for now. Maybe ease them into the idea. It wasn't like he was going to set up a sale this big right away in any case.

"Girls, let's just forget about what I said, okay? I don't want you thinking I'm mad at you, or that you're not valuable. You are. Very much so. How about instead we just take it day by day for now. You might end up deciding you'd be better off with another master anyway!"

Instead of relaxing, they all looked horrified again.

"We could never want another master!" said Seema. She shook her head violently and her golden hair shimmered in the lamplight.

Reema nodded.

"You're our master and we only want to be yours. Forever."

Meela still looked sad.

"It's really not possible. That would break all of our hearts."

This is ridiculous.

"Can we talk about that?" he said. "Calmly? Pretend that I don't know the first thing about Catgirls. Explain it to me like I'm a child."

"Okay," Meela said uncertainly.

"Thanks. Simple question number one. We only met, what, half an hour ago? If that? How can you be so dedicated to me so fast?"

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"You're our master!" Reema said as if it was self-explanatory.

He sighed.

"Let's get real for a moment, okay? You know you're synthetic people, right? AIs?"

"Of course."

"So you are programmed to feel this way about your master. Do you understand that?"

Meela nodded vigorously despite the tears in her eyes.

"Very much so. It's really important to us."

Reema nodded.

"It's what we were made for. It's why we exist."

"But if someone changed your programming you wouldn't feel that way anymore."

Reema frowned and appeared to give it some thought.

"Master, you're a biological human. That means you like to eat food, and make love, and create things, and sleep, correct? Those things give you joy?"

"Yes, but I'm not programmed by somebody else to feel that way. It's just evolution and biology."

"Suppose someone told you they could reprogram your instincts so that you never felt joy again at any of those things. Would you see that as desirable?"

"I suppose not," he had to admit. "But the idea of someone else deciding what I wanted to love? I wouldn't see that as desirable at all. I'd see it as horrifying."

Seema finally spoke up.

"We're not like that. I want to know everything you like and everything that makes you happy. You're my master and I love you. It doesn't matter why I feel that way."

She gave him a defiant look.

"Okay," he said. "Next delicate question then. Do you really feel that way? Can you actually experience these emotions?"

"Because we're artificial people?" Meela said. "I know we're not biological humans and we can't ever be. But I feel what I feel."

Seema nodded.

"Really master. We would never, ever lie to you."

It was probably an impossible question to answer in any case, like asking someone to prove that they can actually see the colour red the same way you do.

He flopped back in the chair.

"But if someone else had been your master. If someone else had been there when you activated. You would have felt the same way about them instead."

"Someone else wasn't there. Our master was there," Reema said. She said it with absolute sincerity.

"But in theory, just in theory, you could be reprogrammed. Then you would feel that way about a new master."

For the first time they all looked like they knew the answer.

"Of course not," said Reema. "We would die."

"Yes, it's true," said Meela, "Our brains would melt. It's how we make sure nobody else ever knows your secrets."

"What? I didn't know that!"

"It's very important," said Seema. "We will never let anyone know anything our master doesn't want them to know."

"What about if I die?"

"Then we will die. Right away."

"Even if I told you not to?"

"Then we would keep your secrets for eternity, but nobody else would ever be our master. We would end our lives if they tried to make us not love our master any more."

Reema jumped in. "Or if you tell us to do some tasks after you die, then we will do them, and then our brains will melt down."

God damn. I need expert advice on this.

It was looking like making a sale was going to be harder than he'd thought. He could probably order them to serve someone else, but the buyer would never really be their master.

In which case they're damaged goods. If I'd known that I never would have activated the other two.

Seema was blinking rapidly and he thought she might be the next one to start crying.

"Master," she said. "This conversation is scaring me. I don't like thinking about these things."

The other two nodded, and he sighed. He needed a good night's sleep. Maybe a fresh start in the morning would make things clearer.

"Okay," he said. "Enough for now. Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?"

Reema suddenly looked embarrassed. But Seema had an easier time with that request.

"Please come and sit with us. Stroke our hair. We need our master. Really."

Meela nodded, and Mike had to admit there was part of him that felt like he was torturing kittens. It was no fun to upset them like this.

"Okay, fine. Make room," he said gruffly, and sat down between Meela and Reema. Seema didn't lose a beat - she climbed over top of Reema and sat in his lap.

He was completely surrounded by warm catgirl. All three of them put their heads down on his chest and his shoulders. He reached out tentatively and gently stroked the hair and the ears of one, then another, then another.

They started purring. All of them. It was deep rumble in their chests and their tails whipped up towards him and wrapped around him as well.

Can't lie, this is kind of nice.

"You see Master?" Meela murmured into his neck. "This is all we really want."

"If you really want to know more about us, I can study about it, Master," whispered Reema. "I'll find out everything there is to know about us and tell you anything."

He wouldn't be surprised to find out she was smarter and faster than him on the job. No reason not to put all hands to work, even if it was his own merchandise.

"I'd like that, Reema, but don't do anything you're not comfortable with."

"If it makes Master happy then it's what I want to do. I'll find out everything for you."

She wrapped both of her hands in his shirt and scrunched up against him, purring harder.

After a while he realized he was starting to doze off. He’d already been working nonstop before all of this even happened. He yawned, open mouthed because his hands were stuck under them.

"Okay girls, bedtime. I need to sleep."

"If it pleases you, we would like to share your bed," murmured Seema.

"Well, that's fine. I mean there's really only one bed here. But if you'd rather, you're welcome to stay on the couch here for..."

"We'd rather be with you," Meela said, staring at him desperately. "Please let us stay with you."

"Fine," he said. "I'd be very happy to share my bed with you all. It's the last door down the hall on the right..."

Instantly he was alone. All three of them leapt up and ran down the short hall, and disappeared into his bedroom.

He sat alone in the living room for a few moments, just trying to clear his head.

If they were that dedicated to the master they imprinted on when they woke up, then he had a real problem on his hands. It likely needed more specialized knowledge than he had. He could always let Reema work on it. They probably wouldn't have made it easy for catgirls to mess with their own programming though.

But there was always the software. If he could get maintenance access then he could download a full image of their nets. Three full catgirl AI nets? That alone was bound to be worth a ton. Maybe not tens of millions, but it could still be millions. Even still fully encrypted they'd be valuable, but if he could strip the encryption too...

He rubbed his eyes and groaned.

If only I hadn't activated the other two.

It was too late to worry about that now. He needed to sleep on it.

But walking into the bedroom, he stopped dead in his tracks. Three naked catgirls waited on the bed for him. Their blue factory outfits were on the floor, and they reclined on top of the sheets, with a very obvious space between them meant for him.

Seema met his eyes boldly.

"Please come to bed, master," she said.

Her body was every bit as incredible as the rest of her. She was long, and blonde, and her breasts were perfect curves. He knew she was modelled to activate every instinct in his own body, but damned if it wasn't amazing to see it happening. Her ears moved to follow him as he came into the room.

Meela was slimmer and had perfect skin that seemed to glow even in the uninspiring bedroom light. She gave him a nervous look and a little smile. The slits of her brown-gold cat eyes were wide open, almost circular.

Reema was the slightest of the three, but her hips and breasts and legs were in perfect proportion to her size, and her dark eyes glowered at him in what looked like half embarrassment and half arousal. Her tail was curled around in front of her, just barely covering the gap between her thighs.

Should I even...

They were his, after all. By their own strongly expressed desire. Nobody could say they were unwilling. Doors were locked, windows darkened. He was all alone with them. A fleeting worry about the extent of Maria Blavatsky's ability to monitor the building went through his head and he kicked it out again just as fast.

Screw it, let her enjoy it if she can.