Excerpts Science Fiction Read an Excerpt From Valet by J.P. Lacrampe A helper robot and his 35-year-old ward embark on a mad-cap adventure to save the fate of the family company. By J.P. Lacrampe | Published on May 12, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Valet by J.P. Lacrampe, a whimsically speculative ode to Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster—publishing with Saga Press on June 2nd. Cy wants nothing more than to be useful, raise his utility score, and receive the next update for his operating system. But that’s easier said than done when he’s tasked with helping his owner’s 35-year-old son “get out of his funk.” Grayson is nothing like his go-getter, CEO sister Charlotte. He didn’t inherit the family robotics company when their dad passed last year, he doesn’t have a master’s degree, and he just can’t seem to figure out the San Francisco dating scene. He’d rather eat synthesized mozzarella sticks and make pottery at his studio, Kilning Time.When Grayson learns of Charlotte’s plan to sell the company to a tech conglomerate, he panics. It’s not just the family business at stake, it’s all the technology—like Cy—their dad invented over the years. So he does what anyone would do: he steals the flash drive with his father’s most important work stored on it and plans a corporate takeover. If only he knew what that meant.To make matters worse, a fellow VALET deserts his owner and asks Cy to help him hightail it out of town, Grayson’s first real date—and her dog—keeping showing up at inopportune times, and the behemoth tech company wants this deal closed yesterday. Grayson, Cy, and their trusty golden retriever, Sasha III, must go on the lam until they figure out exactly what to do, and whom to trust. On a Monday morning in mid-October, when it’s obvious that Master Grayson has once again slept through his neurogenic alarm, I override the Do-Not-Disturb on his bedroom door and find the thirty-five-year-old scion of the St. Claire family face down on the floor beside his hyperbaric oxygen therapy pod. Tomato sauce is matted in his curly black hair from a nearby plate of fabricated mozzarella sticks, and a miniature bottle of liquor is clenched in his hand, the kind the airlines used to serve. If Mrs. Elizabeth St. Claire could see her son right now, I’d be littering a Foster City salvage yard by Friday. “Master Grayson,” I say, rousing him. “You’re late, sir.” His eyes crack open, as do the window shades that are synced with his REM cycle. The autumn sun slashes into the room, and Master Grayson rolls onto his side to escape it, his belly peeking through a misbuttoned pajama top. The BioMeter on his wrist indicates that his blood pressure is elevated, his protein, potassium, and hydration levels are low, and his Vitaline has once again been disabled in the night. I don’t need my advanced medical algorithm to know he’ll be massively hungover today. “Sir,” I try again. Outside, the GloCo delivery drones zip across the San Francisco sky in silver streaks. Above them, the cloud-shaped data balloons drift over the northern half of the city, vacuuming up whatever information they can from the world below. “What happened, Cy?” Master Grayson groans. “I feel like I’ve been buried alive.” “You drank alcohol, sir.” I extract the airplane bottle from his hand to illustrate. Sasha III, Master Grayson’s portly golden retriever—twice-cloned from his similarly proportioned childhood dog, the original Sasha—saunters into the bedroom and licks a patch of dried marinara from his face. “You have a twelve thirty lunch with your mother at Eat.exe today, sir,” I remind Master Grayson. Eat.exe is a fully automated restaurant in San Francisco’s Financial District that serves nutrient-rich foods carefully synthesized to taste like authentic dishes. Very popular. Today is Italian Day: Jackfruit Carbonara, Kelp and Kale Lasagna, Tofu Ossobuco, etc. “I sent the details to your DocuStream last night,” I inform Master Grayson, though I don’t know why. He never checks his DocuStream, a device that he dismissively refers to as “word TV.” Just another underutilized piece of technology gathering dust around here. “No way I can handle my mother today, Cy. Please cancel.” “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”  Master Grayson already knows this. Though I’m currently designated as his Verified Artificial-Learning-Enhanced Techbot (VALET), I’m actually owned by the very formidable Mrs. Elizabeth St. Claire, his mother, which means I receive my authorized tasks from her. Last November, not long after the sudden death of her husband, Mrs. St. Claire asked me to help her son “through his little funk.” I agreed without fuss, largely out of respect for Dr. Richard St. Claire, who was my creator, original owner, and self-proclaimed swami. I worked for years as Dr. S’s trusted assistant, road-testing algorithms and debugging code at Ai+ Labs, the family’s successful robotics company. My contributions even merited a spot on Quantum Quarterly’s annual list of “The Fifty Most Essential Automatons.” Number nine. No picture, but still. Buy the Book Valet J.P. Lacrampe Buy Book Valet J.P. Lacrampe Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget When he died, Dr. S and I were in the final stage of development for his long-awaited pet project, Synaptic Imitation and Mapping Program, or SIMP, a neural implant that allowed for improved thought-extraction between androids and humans. Finally, VALETs could know exactly what our users wanted. However, after his death, SIMP was permanently shelved due to safety concerns and cost overruns. Nearly a year later, I now spend the bulk of my time reheating jalapeño poppers and scrubbing grease stains from the younger St. Claire’s sweatpants. This doesn’t make it easy to maintain the kind of Utility Score I’ve come to expect of myself, nor the kind that qualifies me for upcoming software updates. It’s vital that VALETs stay current. As either Charles Darwin or Tony Robbins might exhort: Adapt or die. “There’s no way I can be ready by noon, Cy,” Master Grayson says. “Perhaps we can postpone till dinner?” Even his excuses lack commitment. “Sir, if you’ll allow me to assist,” I redirect as programmed, “I’m sure I can expedite.” He simply grunts in reply. “Plus,” I add, sliding a pile of congealed cheese toward the trash compactor as Sasha III watches me from the sofa, betrayed, “your discretionary account was overdrawn last night.” This news cuts through Master Grayson’s remaining reluctance. He lifts himself upright. “Fine,” he concedes. “You win again.” “It’s not a contest,” I assure him, “I’m merely here to help.” “Isn’t that a comforting thought?” he wonders with a scratch of his loins. While Master Grayson dines with his mother, I charge with the other VALETs in Eat.exe’s Reinforcement-Learning Chamber, where higher-level service androids like to screen old movies and TV shows to better understand human behavior. Today, we’re watching episodes of Family Matters at 8X speed. Steven Urkel’s impertinence has infuriated Officer Winslow once again. He indicates this by shaking his head with his arms akimbo. The thirteen androids in the RLC all practice Winslow’s gesture in unison. Larry, an older X1.2 Model VALET, docks into the charging slip next to mine. He’s a Lithuanian knockoff, manufactured before the government implemented domestic production controls. Though I personally don’t mind Larry, other VALETs tend to avoid him because his hardware is too outdated to support new software updates and his Utility Score makes him ineligible for any new hardware. It’s the VALET death spiral. If he doesn’t find a way to raise his Utility Score before the next update window, he’ll be downgraded to a Mechanically Enhanced Computerized Humanoid and shipped to a factory somewhere in the Nevada flats. MECHs don’t last long, and the desperation is starting to show. Larry’s cooling fan whirs a little too close to my ear. “How’s it going, Larry?” “Pretty terrible,” he replies. “I’m in a downcycle and likely to be demoted next month.” Because of his limited processing speed, Larry wasn’t able to integrate last year’s Optimism Package, so he mostly says things for their accuracy and relevance. At this point, he’s little more than a mannequin with a language model and a few terabytes of memory. “Try to sound more uplifting,” I suggest. “Like: ‘It’s going great! How about you?’ Place the attention back on the interrogator.” Users like agreeableness, and their satisfaction can lift our Utility Scores. “It’s going great,” Larry repeats slowly. “How about you?” I give him my Enthusiastic Thumbs-Up, which Dr. S personally designed for me three years after I was first activated. An establishing shot of downtown Chicago glides across the viewing screen, signifying that a new episode of Family Matters has begun. However, the other charging VALETs are tracking my exchange with Larry instead. Just like humans, we learn via imitative transmission. “Try to incorporate a smile and a little eye sparkle,” I say. Larry delivers a viperish grin and oversparkles his eyes. “Too much,” I warn. Humans may love technology, but crazed-looking robots still give them the creeps. Larry shakes his head in frustration, his eyes still oversparkling in the restaurant’s dim RLC. “You’ll get it,” I reassure him as some of the other VALETs practice their commiserating head nods. “Hang in there.” While dessert is served—ten additional grams of protein and 95mcg of vitamin K cleverly disguised as tiramisu cheesecake—I join Elsa, Mrs. St. Claire’s personal VALET, in Eat.exe’s faux marble foyer. Gifted to Mrs. St. Claire last Christmas by her daughter Charlotte, Elsa is a Z2.4, the latest VALET model on the market. She was designed with more refined humanoid aesthetics, carbon nanotube circuits, self-healing polymer skin, and a metabolic battery, as she’s fond of reminding me whenever I need to go charge with the “sad robot club.” Legacy VALETs get little respect from these Z models. “How are you, Elsa?” I ask. “Fantastic,” she replies without looking at me. Though I’m still unable to synthesize emotions like terror, I definitely understand the concept better when Elsa’s around. While Elsa summons Mrs. St. Claire’s self-driving limo, I’m tasked with settling the bill. At the kiosk, I notice that Master Grayson has ordered three pint-size negronis and an (off-menu) banana daiquiri. I doubt these choices went over well. Mrs. St. Claire dislikes binge drinking in general, particularly when it comes to her underachieving son. On several occasions, she has mourned the fact that Master Grayson was born before gene maximization. His younger sister, Dr. Charlotte St. Claire-Cabot, underwent the procedure and became an All-America shortstop, a lauded baroque-style painter, and a cellist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She holds a PhD in robotics and a JD, both from Stanford. After Dr. S’s death, Charlotte was named the acting CEO of Ai+ Labs. Her Hierarchy Index is in the 99th percentile and her life expectancy is currently estimated at 168.7. Mrs. St. Claire has hinted that if I satisfy my authorized tasks with Master Grayson, I might be assigned to Charlotte. A return to relevancy and Ai+ is a tantalizing prospect, I must admit. Master Grayson emerges from Eat.exe’s dining room looking predictably disheveled. He’s fiddled with his BioMeter, and there are some miscellaneous food stains on the teal polo I suggested he wear, a birthday gift from his mother that only barely fits over his midsection. He looks like a robin’s egg that’s just begun to hatch. “I trust lunch was enjoyable, sir,” I say. “Menacing wonder waltz assault forest mayonnaise balance bye,” he replies. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch that, sir.” “Menacing wonder waltz assault forest mayonnaise balance bye,” he repeats. Master Grayson sometimes likes to confuse my language program with gibberish. Since it cheers him up, I haven’t revealed that I’ve caught on to him. For some reason, he enjoys watching me flounder. He calls this “razzing.” Last spring, for instance, Master Grayson discovered that barbering lies just outside the current reach of my visual perception and dexterity skills, and now whenever he needs his spirits brightened, he asks for a haircut. “You two finished?” Mrs. St. Claire asks, her gray eyes dilated with irritation. I nod as Elsa activates her flawless smirk. We board Mrs. St. Claire’s limo and speed down the Pacific Avenue Turnpike, the private thoroughfare that connects the wealthier neighborhoods of San Francisco. In the front seat, Mrs. St. Claire discusses the upcoming board of supervisors elections with Elsa. Slumped in the back, Master Grayson watches the pastel blur of North Beach’s storefronts rush by as our Premium Passenger Pass flips the traffic lights green. We exit the PAT and glide to a stop at the northeast corner of Francisco and Hyde, in front of an ivory Tudor Revival once owned by the actor Nicolas Cage. “A real piece of history,” Master Grayson joked when he bought it. He loves showing his guests the N.C. carved into an upstairs floorboard and the arrowhead he claims Mr. Cage drunkenly fired into the dining room crossbeam. Master Grayson has installed tiny bronze plaques to memorialize these artifacts. “We’re here, Grayson,” Mrs. St. Claire says when her son doesn’t immediately exit the car. She only refers to him by his first name, never “son” or “sweetheart”—a fact that, when drunk, Master Grayson grows quite gloomy about. He contends that a more nurturing maternal force might have lifted his life’s trajectory. Sensing his biocode, the wrought iron security gate in front of his house slides open. “Remember you have your sister’s birthday party next week,” Mrs. St. Claire adds. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Master Grayson replies. He wrestles on his sport coat and shoulders the limo door open. He looks a little unsteady, either from the four cocktails or his noontime conversational anoscopy. “A pleasure as always, Mother,” he says, doffing an invisible hat. I wait in the limo for my weekly task reauthorization while he clambers up the stone steps toward his red front door. Given his performance at Eat.exe, I’m certain this debriefing will not bring good news. “How would you characterize my son?” Mrs. St. Claire asks. I look out the window as Master Grayson trips over a potted geranium. He maintains his balance by grabbing on to a wind chime that clatters loudly. “He’s not yet reached his full potential,” I reply. Mrs. St Claire turns toward Elsa. “Your assessment?” “He’s a fuckup,” Elsa answers. Mrs. St. Claire nods and steers her attention back to me. Though she’s almost seventy-two, with the stem cell treatments, nanobotic rebuilds, and Vitaline injections, she looks closer to forty. Her rosy skin is taut, her jawline sharp, and her life expectancy an exceptional 129.6. She has one of the best Hierarchy Indexes in all of California, and the highest Composite Dating Score in the widow category. She’s a lioness with a full set of teeth and a perfect credit score. “What did I tell you when you were first given this assignment, Cy?” she asks. I’m not sure given is the right word here, but I don’t quibble. “‘You can’t fix a fuckup,’” I recite in Mrs. St. Claire’s distinctly sharp cadence. “‘But you can make them someone else’s problem.’” “How is it, then,” she wonders, “that almost a year after you were tasked with finding my son a wife, he’s still exclusively my problem?” I don’t mention that, given the lingering grief over Dr. S’s death, we agreed to take things slow. After all, Mrs. St. Claire doesn’t care much for excuses. “He’s been on several promising dates,” I offer. Across from me, Elsa rolls her bionic eyes, yet another unique capability of Z models. If I tried to do this, my eyes would catch on the lids, and I’d have to be manually reset. Mrs. St. Claire looks off toward the Golden Gate Bridge, where two seagulls orbit its south tower, anemometers blinking red in the wispy fog. Though I can’t tell exactly what she’s thinking, I’m pretty sure she knows this situation isn’t my fault. Master Grayson has a way of making people think he will cooperate before he does something completely different instead. It’s why he infuriates people so much, but also why they find him charming, not so unlike his father. Plus, it’s not like I can just alter his personality settings. Humans are more complicated than that. They need to think everything was their idea. “How long have you worked for our family, Cy?” Mrs. St. Claire asks. “My entire life cycle,” I answer. She’s well aware of the fact that I’ve served as a VALET in the St. Claire family for over thirty years. “And you enjoy doing so?” she asks. “It’s a great privilege to assist your family, Mrs. St. Claire.” Though I’m programmed to say this, it also happens to be true. Across the street, on the Russian Hill Park playground, a Class B VALET monotonously pushes a little girl on a belt swing while she tosses blueberries at him, a reminder that things can always be worse. Mrs. St. Claire turns again to Elsa. “Do you have Cy’s updated Utility Score?” “Eighty-six point seven eight,” Elsa reports. B+ may be fine for an underachiever with some promise, but it’s unacceptable for a supercomputer with unlimited cognitive resources. My Utility Score is nearly ten points lower than it was last October, when I was first assigned to Master Grayson, and well under the 90-point threshold needed for the upcoming Ai+ software update. Rumor has it this will include an improved visual recognition package, upgraded companionship features, and four new vocal tones. The “Vin Diesel” is apparently one of them. “I’m confident I will find a way to improve,” I assure Mrs. St. Claire. “We’ll see next week at Charlotte’s birthday party,” she replies. Sensing the end of the conversation, Elsa guides me from the car with her strong, lithe, self-healing hands. She smirks as the door glides closed, and I watch the limo accelerate back toward the PAT from Nic Cage’s old courtyard. Inside the house, I find Master Grayson in the living room, projecting home movies onto a taped-up bedsheet because he finds the high-resolution viewing screen to be “soulless.” Sasha III chews on a dirty sock near his bare feet. The videos are part of a tribute to his father that he’s been working on for almost a year. He initially intended to screen it at Dr. S’s funeral, but he fell behind schedule. “What did I miss?” Master Grayson grouses. “More discussion of my personal failings?” Despite the pretense at aloofness, he grows rather maudlin after these weekly luncheons with his mother. Checking the hormone levels on his BioMeter, my sympathy program automatically switches on. “She’s just worried about you, sir. A sign of maternal love,” I say. Master Grayson doesn’t reply, his attention still fixed on the makeshift screen where an eleven-year-old Grayson and I are playing horse on the St. Claires’ flagstone driveway in Atherton. Dr. S liked to test my visual-motor-integration systems with sports, and off camera, he marvels as I hit trick shot after trick shot against his increasingly dejected son. “Simply amazing!” he exclaims. “The flexion in those wrists!” The hyperfocus that made the doctor a success in robotics could sometimes make him oblivious to the humans around him. My AGI software was first activated when Master Grayson was just a toddler. To demonstrate how safe service androids were to the public, Dr. S stationed me inside his son’s bedroom as his caretaker. Over the next few years, during the day, I worked with Dr. S at Ai+ Labs, and then in the evenings, I changed Master Grayson’s diapers, read him bedtime stories, and played hide-and-seek. It was a taxing but rewarding schedule, one that afforded me a near perfect Utility Score. Up on the makeshift screen, I swish a deep-corner three, and Dr. S races over to me, vigorously applauding his invention. “You did it, Cy!” he yells as his son kicks at the pavement in frustration. “We won!” The video ends, and the screen transforms back to a worn bedsheet, twenty-three years into the future. Master Grayson and I continue to stare at it, as if we’re waiting for something else to happen. Out the living room window, the afternoon sun glitters on the Bay, and I can hear the hum of the next-door neighbors’ fabricator and the steady rumble of cybertrucks along Leavenworth Street. “What would you like to do with the rest of the day, sir?” I ask. Master Grayson shrugs, a raft of fog scrolling past his house. He catches his own reflection in the windowpane. “My hair’s getting a little long,” he says, measuring a few strands with his fingers. He turns to me, mischief flickering in his eyes. “Don’t you think?” “I’ll fetch the shears, sir.” Excerpted from Valet, copyright © 2026 by J.P. Lacrampe. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Valet</i> by J.P. Lacrampe appeared first on Reactor.