Veronica slipped through the door of her apartment and leaned her back against it as it closed, almost like she was trying to stop something following her from coming in after her. She let her bag slip out of her grip and fall to the floor and sighed in relief.

“Finely, freedom. That was like the worst week I’ve had since I got that job. Thank the universe for weekends.”

Leaving her bag where it dropped she walked down the hall towards her bedroom. Stepping out of her shoes and dropping her jacket on the way, leaving them where they fell. Once she got to her bed, she fell onto it with a contented sigh.

“Hey Vee, I heard you come in. How was work?” a voice sounded from the hall.

The voice, that to Veronica’s ears was way too cheerful, belonged to her flatmate, Helen, who was standing in the doorway to her room.

The meaning of Veronica's answer was lost as it tried, and failed, to pass through the mattress before being heard as a muffled scream.

“That bad, huh? So the chances that you’d want to be helpful, pick up after yourself and help with the kitchen chores are pretty slim to none then?”

Another muffled comment emanated from Veronica's buried face. Helen could not distinguish any words but it did not sound very positive.

“So the fact that the package from NanoAuto came today would not change your mind?”

Veronica’s head shot up from her bed shortly followed by the rest of her.

“It came? Why didn’t you just say so!”

Helen grinned at her miffed friend.

“Now where would be the fun in that.”

Helen led Veronica to their living room where the open package was sitting on the coffee table.

Looking down at the contents Veronica asked.“That’s it? Are you sure this’ll do what the webpage promised?

“Sure will. Or our money back, no questions asked.”

Veronica bit her lower lip before saying “So, are we going to do this?”  Helen laughed gently as she answered. “I was about to ask you that. It’s you that’s taking all the risk if it goes wrong. I just get the benefits.”

Veronica blushed as she said. “You’re not the only one who benefits. Ok, let’s do this.”

Helen picked up a small booklet with ‘Quick start guide’ printed on it, turned to the first page and began to read it out loud.

“Congratulations on your purchase of the NanoAuto home automation drone kit. Step one, acquire a volunteer. Oh and then there is like half a page on what counts as a volunteer and possible ramifications if you force anyone to do it. I think you get off easier for murder in comparison. Yikes!”

“Lucky for you that you have one then,” Veronica said with a smirk. “You wouldn’t last a day in prison. You’re too pretty.”

“Aaaw, thank you! But for real, are you really sure you want to do this? I know we have played around with roleplay and stuff before but this is for real. If you do this you literally won’t be human anymore.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you for asking though.”

Helen looked slightly flustered, then cleared her throat and continued reading.

“Step 2. Have the Volunteer drink the included nanite suspension.”  Veronica reached down into the box and picked up a small bottle with an opaque blue-greyish coloured liquid in it and with ‘NanoAuto nanite suspension, ingest at own risk’ printed on it.

“Heh, warning labels am I right.” She then broke the seal of the bottle, unscrewed the top, brought it up to her nose and sniffed it.

“Does it smell good?” Helen asked while giving her a quizzical look.

Veronica shook her head “No, bottoms up.” She poured the liquid down her throat then grimaced and gave herself a full-body shake.

“Ugh, that sure didn’t taste pleasant. Tasted almost metallic. What is the next step?”

Helen turned back to the instructions.

“Step three. Turn on the Control Unit, and follow the on-screen instructions. I guess we should have plugged that in first.”

They freed the device from the box. It looked kind of like a chunky old laptop, but the screen looked as if it was a detachable tablet. When they plugged it in, the screen lit up almost immediately. After showing a splash screen with the NanoAuto logo spinning for a few seconds it changed to a menu with only 2 options on it. ‘Connect to Drone’ and ‘Initiate new Drone’.

“Well, that's straightforward enough.” Helen said and poked the ‘Initiate’ option.

As she did Veronica stood up straighter and let out a surprised “Oh” putting her hands on her stomach.

“What was that?.” Helen immediately asked.

“Nothing. I just felt something move in there.”

The Control Unit beeped and they both turned to look at it. The screen read “Nanite activation and migration successful. Begin mental adaptation of the subject?” Beneath it was a set of cancel and continue buttons.

“Well this is it,” Helen said.

“Yup,” Veronica said staring at the screen.

“You’re going to have to push it. This has to be your choice so I’m not going to do it,” Helen said and just to emphasize her words put her hands behind her back.

Veronica stared at the screen in silence for a moment. This had been a wet dream for her for so long. To be reduced to just a thing under someone else's control. So hesitating for only a few seconds she reached out and pushed the button. Almost immediately after she did it appeared to her that in her brain was an old fashion radio that someone had turned to an unused frequency. All her thoughts turned to static and for a few seconds she just stared blankly ahead.

When she could think again she felt...focused. More so than she had ever felt before. All the noise in the back of her mind was silent. Thoughts passed through her mind, but they did not linger. She was still Veronica, but truly existing right here and right now, with no distractions. She had read descriptions of this. This was the mind of a drone.

“Vee, are you there?”

“Yes, I am still here. But I feel different.”

The control unit beeped again. Veronica did not react but Helen saw the screen now held a whole lot of text. After trying to read it she reached out and pulled the tablet screen off in her hands to bring it closer and then started reading to herself.

“I see.” She said after a few minutes. ”According to this your brain has been converted into a positronic matrix, and your mind has been converted and adapted into a basic drone configuration.”

“Really? I feel a little bit different but I do not feel, well you know, mindless like a drone or controlled.” Veronica said, sounding a little disappointed.

“That is because you are in au… autonomous mode. That is one hard word to say. So anyway, that means that you are basically still yourself. But what makes up Veronica is now more like a simulation running on a computer rather than your mind being the operating system if that makes any sense. And speaking of being controlled, next up is setting your Owners admin privileges. So you should notice some control soon.”

“Excellent!,” Veronica said grinning

Helen tapped a finger on the button on the touch screen and said. “I am Helen and I take possession of this drone.”

“Change of Status accepted, this NanoAuto drone is hereby the legal property of Helen,” Veronica said in a monotone voice while her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That was not me, I mean I did not say that.”

“No you didn’t. That was the new operating system. And you did say you wanted to be controlled, right?”

“Yes, I am not complaining. I was just a little surprised,” Veronica said. And then she realised what the voice had said. “Wait, I belong to you now?”

“Yes, you do. You are just my drone now. Unless I put you in autonomous mode. Then you are still the old you. In the eyes of the law anyway...”

“It is hard to believe. I still feel like me.”

“Well, let’s fix that shall we.”

Helen turned her focus to the tablet looking through all the menus she now had access to. In the meantime Veronica remained standing, waiting quietly with apparent infinite patience. Something the original Veronica never would have managed. Mostly because normally she was one of those people whose mind often ran wild trying to make sense of things when not focused. But now that was suppressed by the nature of her new drone mind. So instead it just sort of went idle.

“There,” Helen finally says several minutes later. “Who are you?”

“Well that is a silly question, I am Drone.” And that is when she realised that she didn’t have a name anymore. She used to, she knew that, but now she didn’t have the faintest idea what it used to be. In fact when she had tried to say it she had just blanked and something had filled in the word ‘Drone’ for her. Her eyes grew wide in surprise. But before she could say anything Helen spoke again.

“Drone, remove your clothes.”

Without hesitation, the now nameless drone followed its owner’s command. Again she knew she wouldn’t have just a few minutes ago. But she had been something else then and now it felt right to do as she was told. And in no time she stood naked in front of her owner.

“So how about now, feel controlled yet?”

The nameless drone smiled at her. “Oh yes I am. Still mostly me, whoever that is, or was. And I am loving it.”

“So ready to go all the way and remake that human body of yours to match your mind?”

“Mmm Hmm. Yes please.”

Helen swiped around a few screens and tapped a few times on the tablet before looking up again.

“Alright then, here goes,” she said and taped one more time on the screen.

The nameless drone felt her body suddenly grow warm. Not in an unpleasant way, but as if she had been exercising hard. But she was not sweating like she would have if doing that. And then she started to feel the tingles. They were all over her body, but the most concentrated in her face, nipples and in between her legs.

She looked down and right before her eyes she saw her areolas start to fade away. The darker coloring of her nipples lightened to match the rest of her skin. In fascination she brought her hands up to feel them just in time to feel the nipples themselves melt away into the rest of her breast leaving them soft smooth featureless orbs on her chest. It was over so fast but it felt really good.

She felt a similar sensation between her thighs and slipped one hand in between them to confirm that her sex was melting away as well. She could feel it close up as it smoothed away under her fingers and it felt absolutely fantastic, making her moan with the sheer pleasure of it. It was so intense she almost fell to her knees. Soon though all she could feel was smooth unbroken skin. But rubbing that patch still felt pretty good though.

She smiled to herself. She and Helen had talked about what her ideal drone would look like many times, so what happened next came as no surprise to her. She looked up into the mirror on the wall and could see that her face already looked less defined, almost like a cheap doll. And as she watched she saw her face, the last thing that would identify her as who she had been, smoothed away. Her hair was absorbed by her body at the same time, being pulled in strand by strand.

Then once she was perfectly smooth and faceless her skin started to lighten and took on an almost latex like shine. The last bit of her transformation was a minor redistribution of mass as she was sculpted into an ideal fit woman's shape. Or at least one of NanoAuto programmer’s notion notion of one tweaked by Helen’s wishes.

And just like that, the woman named Veronica was no more, apart from a bit of software running on Helen's new sleek looking female model home automation drone from NanoAuto.

She saw Helen get up and walk around her new drone. By the look on her face she still had a hard time believing she had let her do this to her. Helen had let slip her secret kink of transforming a person into a drone about two years ago. It had been a couple of months after they had become flat mates. They had been watching I, Robot and had been several glasses of wine deep at the time. Helen had said afterwards that it had just slipped out and that she had been sure she would think she was a freak.

But her reaction had actually been “Really? Well you can have me then. Just tell me first alright,” then had promptly fallen asleep and drooled on Helen's shoulder.

She had not remembered that. But she did remember her bringing it up the next day while they were sitting on the same sofa with hangovers, feeling sorry for themselves and watching reruns of some sitcom on the tv. Helen had told her about it again and then she had admitted to her that even if she had been drunk she had been serious. For as long as she could remember she had been fantasizing about being reduced to a simple thing and controlled. Small world.

“So what do you think? Is this model to your liking?” the still nameless drone said striking a pose for her owner.

Her voice had not come from her blank face. It had come from the tablet Helen was still holding and that seemed to yank her thoughts back into the moment and stop staring slack jawed at her new drone. She’d stepped closer and let her hand feel her now smooth synthetic skin. Her hand moved up to one of her breasts and gave it a squeeze. It felt almost natural, but not quite. Helen walked around her new drone, caressing its smooth curves. The drone just stood there letting her Owner inspect her new thing. And that is when it hit her.

“I am really just a thing now. My mind is just programmable software, I mean I do not even know who I was made from and my body is completely reconfigurable. I just look like a woman because that is what you like. I am not a she, I am just an it.”

Helen got a worried look on her face as she said. “I could restore you right n…”

The drone turned its blank face to Helen.

“Do not dare turning me back! I am loving this. I guess turning me back Sunday night might be an option so I can go to work on Monday. But for now I am yours to play with. In fact do whatever you want to this,” She said motioning to herself.

“If you’re sure?” Helen said.

“Yes I a…”

Helen tapped the screen and the drone cut off mid sentence and said in the same monotone voice from earlier.

“Modified ‘Veronica’ personality deactivated. Awaiting instruction.”

“Initiate stock NanoAuto drone personality.”

“Hi!” the drone suddenly says and then continues in a bubbly voice, “I am Drone1924, how can I be of service.”

Helen smiles wide.

“This is going to be a weekend to remember indeed.”