The Utterly Amazing Nancy 9: Investigates the Lost Females

By S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

New Android (with) Nuclear Capacity. In other words 100,00 pretty androids who can mix with any society who are actually nuclear bombs. Doctor Good, the inventor of the NANCs, oversaw the building of them but when he retires to the jungle, he builds one, just for himself. NANCY 9, the most beautiful and advanced of all the androids; Doctor Good's personal mate. When he becomes ill, Nancy 9 cares for him, and when he dies, she destroys everything he left behind before escaping into the caves of the world where she lives for 5 years. Once she arrives on the surface of the world again, she immediately searches for another mate, instead discovering a group of disgruntled former employees of Doctor Good, who aid her in her challenge against authority. When they discover hundreds of females have been kidnapped, the group, led by Nancy 9, begins to investigate. When they find out who has the females, they go to war. Many will die, many will be saved. A wonderful sci-fi adventure

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.D. Gripton
• Release date: Mar 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215586983

S.D. Gripton

S.D. Gripton novels and real crime books are written by Dennis Snape, who is married to Sally who originate from North Wales and Manchester respectively and who met 18 years ago. I work very hard to make a reading experience a good one, with good plots and earthy language. I enjoy writing and hope readers enjoy what I have written. I thank everyone who has ever looked at at one of my books.

Book preview

The Utterly Amazing

Nancy 9

Investigates The Lost Females

A Futuristic Science Fiction Adventure Story

By

S.D. Gripton & Sally Dillon-Snape

© Dennis Snape & Sally Dillon-Snape (2024)

The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with The Copyright Act 1988

All characters and events in this publication other than those of fact and historical significance available in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living and dead is purely coincidental

All rights reserved. No part of this

publication may be reproduced,

stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means

without the written permission of the publisher

cover by Snape

Chapter 1

It was 02:18 a.m. on a warm summer night in the Federated region of Albion.

In a rural part of the 3rd Sector territory of which Albion was part, all was quiet and peaceful. The 200 residential Students and Educationalists of The Girls Learnery at Greeseham; in the southern part of the Sector; slept contentedly in their beds; nothing moved within the building except the security drones that floated silently along corridors, laser-scanning 360 degrees as they moved. The drones were equipped with small defensive weapons for use against male humans breaking in for thieving purposes or for other, more nefarious, reasons. The nine drones, three to each floor of the building, felt comfortable in their duties; floating endlessly along corridors as they constantly communicated one with the other and with Higher Authorities who were based 40 clicks away.

All was peaceful and quiet.

No lights glowed from within the huge building, the only illumination being from the red laser-beams of the drones.

It was a most serene place.

In a Growing Field; filled with plants and vegetables; not two hundred steps from The Learnery; as dew lay heavy upon the ground and thick, low clouds shielded the radiance of the moon and of the stars; a large, long gray unmarked nuclear-powered aeroplane decloaked only moments before it landed. It made little noise in its landing and the moment it touched down doors hissed open and ramps front and rear were silently lowered. Heavily armed troops raced down the ramps onto the damp fertile earth, helmets covering their heads, visors hiding their faces, no identification insignia upon their uniforms. They rushed in double file across the Growing Field, no words said between them; each soldier knowing his duty and each carrying a large angular weapon that laser-searched the land for targets. In the field the weapons found no threats and the soldiers; not only heavily armed but flexibly armoured in their attire, a necessary human defense against other weapons that may be fired at them; spread out in military fashion as they neared the Learnery; over 100 soldiers in an arrow formation moving with little sound over lush green turf. They swept up 8 wide faux-concrete steps that led to the front entrance of the Learnery where they ceased all forward motion when they reached a position exactly 48 incs from the school building. They spread out along the length of the intricately balustraded promenade that ran the whole length of the magnificent façade; the building being an exact historical replica of a Girls’ Learnery of millennia earlier.

The leader of the soldiers; the only male in a blue helmet rather than the pale gray of the rest of them; a tall wide muscular figure among many such muscled males; lifted his right arm into the air and all eyes were set on him. The man counted down quietly to himself; five; four; three; two; one. He dropped his arm and the soldiers rushed into the building.

Alarms were activated instantly; when something or someone was less than 48 incs from the building they blared noisily; the security drones were alerted, as was Higher Authority who were barely 40 clicks away, but the noise and the alerts were too late to help the females inside the building. The soldiers blasted away the outer doors and the large, long windows using hand-held explosives and the weapons they toted in their hands and they piled through the gashed openings like rampaging ants. Inside, drones were blasted into oblivion as soldiers raced along corridors and up stairways. They knew escape tunnels and hiding places were built into the Learnery structure; places within and without where females could run and hide, so the soldiers had to move very quickly. And they did; moving expertly and swiftly throughout the building.

Within 2 pulses and 56 secs of entry the soldiers began departing the Learnery; herding all 200 Students and Educationalists; aged from 10 to 36 years; down the steps and across the damp grass in any state of dress in which they were found. Some of the older females were naked and shivering with shock at what was happening to them as they were forced across the turf in the cool of the early morning air; the younger females were mostly attired in regulation Learnery nightwear of a dark red material though none wore footwear. At speed the group were kept moving forwards as they were shouted and screamed at; weapons were pointed and threats were made as the terrified females were swept along and up the ramps into the aeroplane which still stood on the Growing Field.

In a timeframe of less than 3 pulses and 48 secs from first decloaking to the loading of all 200 females aboard the aeroplane, the 100 soldiers were inside, the ramps lifted and the doors closed. The exercise had been well-drilled into the military personnel and it had been carried out perfectly. The aeroplane lifted 36 incs from the ground and cloaked again; disappearing and lifting, unseen, into the air; turning away at speed from The Learnery as rescue copters, missile-drones and aeroplanes began to arrive from Higher Authorities.

The female Students and Educationalists of Greeseham Learnery were gone, every single female in the Learnery being abducted. It was the third such unreported abduction in Federation territory over the past 12 weeks.

680 girls and females had disappeared in total.

No crimes had been detailed.

None of the females had ever been found.

***

I am known as Nancy Nine, though that is not my true moniker, nor is it a true name.

If I was referred to correctly, I should be NANC-Y-9.

That would make me a New Android (with) Nuclear Capability; Production Y; Stamp Number 9.

That is what I should be except I was not that, either.

NANC’s were developed to be the ultimate weapon; the definitive threat; the last real weapon humankind ever developed.

They were developed by Doctor Jonathan Good; a brilliantly futuristic scientist who died approximately 5 yrs ago (actually, not approximately, he died 5 yrs; 4 mnths; 14 hurs; 18 pulses and 46 secs ago – I apologise for being imprecise in my initial statement – Doctor Good built and programmed me to be as human as possible and humans are always approximating).

He developed the NANCs to appear as much like everyday innocent femalefolk as possible; they moved like females; talked like females and socialized like females; they fitted into any society without detection, they learned languages and local mores within moments of their arrival and integrated into all societies over all Sectors of the Federation; except their sole purpose was to bring peace out of chaos; it was all they were designed to do.

When Doctor Good began to create them over 50 years ago, there were many revolutions in the world, many humans were dying, being killed, being massacred, human males, females and their offspring. Certain individual territories were very much against giving up their independence; not wanting to be Federated, being very much against the idea. And wars between states continued. Until the NANCs arrived.

Imagine the fear caused by Doctor Good’s inventions; the NANCs.

Pretty Android females that could infiltrate territory unnoticed, who could fit into any community and aid that population in all of its toils but who, in fact, were fully primed nuclear bombs. A nuclear bomb of limited capacity to be sure, by being detonated, NANCs could only kill between 250,000-400,000 humans at one time; dependent upon population concentration; enough to be considered a threat and act as a warning to any rebel territory. Over the years it was only felt necessary to detonate two NANCs and the two that were exploded were early models; NANC A-1s; but the point was made. It was, obviously, a point made twice, and in the aftermath the territories listened and eventually became Federated and the world began to live in peace. No territory had ever rebelled again; no one wanted to fight with anyone else because; and whisper it quietly; the NANCs were out there; ready; primed; ready to explode and just one could annihilate an entire army.

That was their inviolable purpose.

Of the 100,000 NANCs produced by Doctor Good’s company, 99,998 remained at large in Federation territories; the threat of them still implicit; pretty, sociable, hard-working, intelligent female Androids with death and destruction buried in their innards.

Once Doctor Good’s company moved to employ worker-drones to create the NANCs, instead of humans who required regular breaks for food, rest and sleep, they were improved upon almost weekly. The Androids were virtually perfect by the time NANC-8s were created; there was no human weapon that could harm or destroy them and if such weapons were developed, they would only cause the NANCs to detonate.

By the end the Androids, including the updates, were built of a revolutionary new flexible metal and covered with a more flesh-like outer surface that could not be identified as anything but human skin. This was not to say that the earlier models could be more easily identified; they could not; it was just that the later models were as close to perfection as an Android could be created. They would never age of course; they continually moved around communities so as not to be detected; they would not rot over time; they would never rust or suffer metal fatigue or weakness; they were indestructible; a never-ending threat to any human or group of humans with rebelliousness in his or her or their heart.

Once Doctor Good had created 100,000 NANCs he ceased production of them, retiring from his factories and from his company and sitting back to enjoy the enormous wealth the NANCs had created for him. He moved, secretly, to a huge home that was half-buried in the massive jungles and swamps of the southern part of the 6th Sector; a large home he had constructed many years earlier, before his retirement; before he fled to his lone existence.

He thought he would love living in the jungle alone following his years of intense work with the military and the relatively new, historically speaking, Federal Government; he thought he would be happy with his own thoughts, with his books, his 20th century music and with the jungle and the lakes that surrounded him. After he departed his factories, he did not feel it necessary ever again to make contact with another human, male or female or colleague, and he spent many hurs walking through the jungle, staring at the stars during darkness hurs and throwing hooks into water which were attached by cord to a long rod which he held in his hands.

Inevitably, being so intelligent and so productive; his mind not being affected by his retirement; Doctor Good very quickly became bored with his solitary existence; he did not necessarily want to return to his previous life; he did not want to be involved and have conversations with many, many other humans; and he could not return to his factories or his production facilities because The Federation had officially closed and destroyed them, turning all his factories to dust; but he desperately needed another project. He needed, for his own sanity, to create something; someone to converse with.

So he created one more NANC; one more 25-year-old female.

Me.

NANC-Y; the only Y he ever created; the only one ever created by anyone.

In the small laboratory he had constructed beneath his huge jungle home; while the world thought him retired or possibly deceased; he secretly built me; it took him many months; and he programmed me with all the perfections with which he programmed his later NANC models but added reasoned understanding and argument to my programs; he gave me the gift of true speech and thought. The programs he used on me were so advanced that the rest of the world would not catch up with his genius for another 100 yrs and that would be many years after his death.

Doctor Good wasn’t only a great scientist, he was also a visionary; he’d created almost universal peace with his NANCs; now he wanted just one for himself; he wanted me; Nancy Nine. He added the Y and the Nine simply because he thought they sounded cool because I never had a production number, he said it made me seem as if I had a name all to myself.

He never constructed me to be a nuclear bomb.

I was nuclear powered, of course, but could not be detonated; I was not a bomb; he decided there were already enough bombs to destroy almost everything; enough to destroy the whole of male and female kind; enough to destroy every offspring and every plant and every animal that lived or roamed.

He built me simply for his personal pleasure.

He was happy his NANCs had brought peace.

He was extremely proud of them.

He told me so.

Just as he related to me his whole life’s history.

And mine.

As with all the previous NANCs, he developed me as a 25-year-old female; a shapely female at that; shapelier that all his earlier models; I became his fantasy; he told me that, too.

Nancy Nine.

That was the name he gave me.

Doctor Good never married though he informed me that he’d enjoyed many trysts; many with other male humans’ wives; many with older as well as younger females. He told me that he had spent many of his years being sexually voracious but by the time he built me this animal-like ferociousness was in decline; he was old for a human by that time. That did not stop him from teaching me about sex; even during his declining years he was very good at it; and he taught me a great deal; he taught me enjoyment, too, he taught me how to enjoy sex with another being; he was amazing.

(And if that spooks you; an Android enjoying sex; be prepared for more shocks.)

He also explained love to me as best he could and I came to truly believe that I loved him; I felt great joy at seeing him every day when he woke from his slumber (following sex I would climb from his bed if he did not ask me to remain, for I needed no slumber) during which I simply switched down my power and stood in a corner of his sleeping room, watching over him as he took his rest.

We walked together, talked together, read books together, swam together, hunted for insects in the jungle, hunted for the larger animals that roamed within the greenness and dampness and darkness of the deep jungle and the swamps. He built ten small jets into the base of my feet and gave me the gift of flight using my nuclear power; I carried him in my arms and we flew together, looking down at the many animals that lived in the high trees; though he cautioned me against flying out of the tree cover for I was sure to be detected by a satellite or a drone or some such, so we flew between the trees but never over them.

He absolutely loved it.

I sat many hurs with him while he dangled his hooks in water and pulled various underwater animals from it. For some reason, once caught, he threw them back; he never ate them.

And our yrs of happiness passed.

The true happiness began that one night, as he lay abed and I stood watching over him when he said he loved me a very great deal; I was his joy, he said, his pleasure and his pride for I had never failed him and I had learned everything he had ever taught me.

I told him I loved him, too, very much; and he called me to his bed and we slept together that night and many, many happy nights thereafter.

(An Android experiencing happiness; humans should be scared of that, for if I could experience happiness, I could experience hate and rage, too, and no one wanted an angry and ranting Android; especially not one like me who was indestructible, who could fly and who was extremely strong and nimble. No one, quite frankly, wanted an Android like that).

Except Doctor Jonathan Good.

It was to be much later in our time together, as I stood powered-down in his sleeping room, that I detected something wrong with the way Jonathan was breathing; the air he inhaled sounded as if it had become trapped inside him; he emitted small coughs that did not wake him; he wheezed and rolled in his bed, though again without waking.

Mentioning the symptoms to him the following morning as he breakfasted, we stepped down into his laboratory and he ran diagnostic checks on himself; I ran the same diagnostics through my own programs and we confirmed, together, the readings.

He had a Stage 4 cancer disease of his lungs that was terminal; it could not be cured either with treatment or by transplant for the cancer had infiltrated his entire body. I could have followed his instructions and completely rebuilt him but he did not want that; the thought was abhorrent to him.

He explained to me that it would soon be his time to depart this great planet; he told me he was happy to go (I did not understand this happiness – how could a human be happy at departing the planet on a permanent basis – I did not present the question to him); his great work was complete, he said; he had created me, the great love his life; his greatest creation; the most beautiful and intelligent NANC in the entire world.

And non-lethal, too.

Except to any enemies I may make, he added.

He informed me that he would be departing this mortal coil within the next number of mnths. He requested I remain with him until that time, though there was no necessity for that request, I would never have left him; he asked me to nurse him and to see him gently into his demise.

I promised that I would and asked him not to die; I would be alone, I said.

You will be fine, Nancy Nine, he confirmed as he smiled weakly at me.

In the quietness of his jungle home, as he weakened and shrivelled, I stayed with him daily; bathing him; dressing and undressing him; shaving and cleaning him. I prepared his food and fed him; carrying him out to see the sunlight and to smell the trees and espy the fauna and flora that grew in the jungle; flying him around in my arms.

He refused me permission to communicate with his old colleagues or anyone else he had known; he said he could not allow it because they would take him and me away and we would be separated; he would be hospitalized and he knew not what would happen to me; I would probably be handed over to the military and I was his proudest achievement, he said; he could not bear it if he lost me, especially to the military whom he detested; he loved me more and more, he said; I was beautiful, he insisted; the most beautiful Android he had every created. When he was gone in body, he said, he wanted me to go forth into the world and behave as a female; he told me to be happy and to never give up on my learning; I must never give up on my learning, he insisted.

And please, he asked, try not to forget me.

I informed him that I would never, ever forget him; that he would always be the most wonderful human male in the whole world.

I loved him undyingly.

He smiled widely and said I must always work for the goodness of humankind; that I must attempt to be kind to all.

Following what seemed to be only a small number of yrs after creating me; though they had been long; I held his hand as he lay on a bed beside his swimming pool and I quoted poetry to him; he liked poetry written by a man who had lived many generations ago named Wordsworth; it was gentle poetry and it made him smile as he lay on his bed with weakening eyes. He asked me to carry him into the water and let him see the sky one final time so I picked him up in my arms; he weighed nothing at all for a grown human male; and I took him into the clear water and kneeled down so that he floated on the surface in my arms. He smiled at me, told me he loved me one more time; Nancy Nine, he said, I love you; and I kissed him gently on the lips; he smiled yet again and gazed up at the sky above as his eyes glazed over; he ceased breathing and I felt his inner self fly away into his future.

He was deceased.

I made gentle attempts to revive him; I did not want to damage him in anyway; but I met with no success. Tears fell from both my eyes; an act I had no knowledge that I could do. At first, following his deceasement, I knew not what to do. I laid his shrivelled frame in a refrigerator in the basement for I did not want it to rot in the heat of the jungle. Other than that single action I prevaricated; I hesitated a great deal. I had never before been on my own and I was suffering from feelings of great sadness; I had no idea what to do; Jonathan was no longer there to advise me. I took a seat in the basement and stared forlornly at a bare wall.

On the fourth day following his deceasement I made decisions; I rose from my seat in Jonathan’s laboratory and wiped all his programs from the quantum computers and removed any, and all, references he made to me or my creation. I removed all his equipment and flew it many clicks away and buried it deeply; I swept the empty room clean and locked its doors. I cleared out his office, destroyed the many holograms he had of me and of him and me and I swept that room clean, locking the door behind me. I tidied the house, he adored tidiness and I had inherited that desire; I threw away all the food, drained the pool, switched off all the power, except to the basement and the refrigerator, and when it was all done, I mimicked Doctor Jonathan Good’s own voice to call an emergency number.

I am Doctor Jonathan Good, I said; you will be able to track me from this voice transmission. I am at my jungle retreat and I am about to die; please come and take me away for disposal.

I ended the call, looked around for only 6 secs, feeling enormous sadness within my inner self (once again, take notice, an Android that could feel enormous sadness), and I stepped outside, closing the door to the only home I had ever known, Jonathan Good’s home; and I raced away into the deep jungle. I knew I would not be detected by incoming copters and aeroplanes or other forms of air transport because Jonathan, in one of his last acts, had built a cloaking device into my system except it lasted only 11 pulses; I had to wait another 30 pulses before I could cloak again and disappear. Jonathan often said he would work on it further, saying he would make it as perfect as I was myself, but he never got around to it. I would have to work on it myself.

I watched and heard as aeroplanes and drones and copters flew over the treetops towards the house we had shared, but before very long I detected many feet double-marching upon the earth; powering through the jungle. Once I detected the noise of them, I found a small, brush covered hollow in that same earth and I burrowed deep into the ground, pushing earth backwards to cover my escape and eventually I discovered a large cave in which to hide. I remained beneath the ground for approximately 5 yrs (I do not wish to be boring but I have developed more human traits than I thought; 5 yrs; 2 mnths; 1 dy; 11 hurs; 6 pulses and 18 secs to be precise).

I practised my reasoning for all that time; I practised conversations, using male and female voices to argue with myself; I carried out calculations with which I was familiar and some that seemed to simply rise up in my programs; I swam in huge underground lakes and avoided daylight when I came across it; I also avoided the hot flowing magma as much as I could. I practised with my three sights; normal human sight; x-ray sight and night-sight that detected heat and movement and it detected many small insect and animal movements in the many caves I passed through. The cave systems went on for many, many clicks with interconnecting passageways linking them as I weaved my way through; sometimes going deeper into the earth, sometimes moving cautiously closer to the surface, sometimes experiencing, huge, open caves, around which I could practice my flying; sometimes experiencing extremely narrow hidden passages, often flooded and impassable by humans. I felt safe beneath the surface and discovered a great many species of insect and mollusc and small animal not yet recognised or known to humankind; according to my programs; many of which were poisonous except that didn’t bother me.

For the vast majority of my time below the surface I felt a great sadness within myself and could only put this down to the loss by death of the tall, bearded, grey-haired, blue-eyed Doctor Good; my beloved Jonathan; but, slowly, following my yrs of sadness, the mood I was in began to lift because I remembered Jonathan saying that I should go out into the world and enjoy myself as a female. I was very beautiful, he told me, though I had no clear idea of what beauty was; I had only ever seen the reflected images of myself in the holograms he produced and in the still waters of the lakes beneath the surface of the world; Jonathan said I would