Having been an avid reader of robotification stories since the early to mid 1990’s, I’ve usually got a nice idea of the sort of thing I go in for. I’m very much in Barbara’s place when I’m reading this one. Vicariously imagining and half experiencing what she is. So many stories gloss over bits of the robotification process. Leaving out answers to practical questions that inevitably occur and distract from the story for me. That most everything seemed to be accounted for was a major plus with a few exceptions. (IE: What happens when a ‘core’ ages out but has had their brains effectively blown out by the shell?) Barbara got conned really. There was consent. But she wasn’t informed of all the things that would be happening until it was far too late to object. Sir was monitoring her to make sure she didn’t object. I’m guessing there was a kind of goose-egg brain monitoring system there. But once the pleasure drugs and hypnotics started going in with the operant pleasure conditioning, that kind of data would be corrupt anyway. The one turnoff here was the use of the word ‘Core’ as what the flesh and blood part of the gynoid thought of itself as. The ‘core’ collective being one of the groups out there in the real world that went way too far and gave people some pretty negative experiences was what the unit’s inner mantra-like monologue reminded it of. But that’s really just a personal beef. Not a reflection on this very very excellent story. I’d love to see more in this vein. And OH would I enjoy being the subject of it. The idea of someone basically hacking my life, finding someone perfectly suited for robotification and offering it to me with the means to back that up? Is there a signup sheet for this? My compliments, and well done. This one goes in my loose membership of all time favorites.