Rick Summer, Ace Detective

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PI gets mixed up in world of sexy androids.
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Warning! This story contains material of an adult nature and is intended for mature readers and for personal use only. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1: A New Case At Last

Rick Summer sat with his feet propped up on his battered desktop, hands behind his neck, as he leant back in his comfortable old Vinyl-covered armchair, and stared at the Vid-screen, that took up most of the opposite wall of his small, dilapidated office, in the rundown Madison Building, in downtown Frisco. The digital, solar-powered desk clock/calendar read, October 15, 2037. The time was 2:33 pm.

He was currently reading the front page story from the 'Frisco Daily News', courtesy of the Word Wide Web, and a hefty subscription:

Another Young Girl Disappears From the Greater Frisco Conurbation!

Police today confirmed the disappearance of Ms. Donna Powers, aged twenty-four, sometime between 3:00 pm and 5:00 pm, yesterday afternoon, while she was out shopping in the Carnegie Drive area of the city. This was despite the fact that every citizen under the age of thirty-five, should have had an electronic ID chip surgically implanted at birth, and so it should be physically impossible for anyone to just disappear off the map, without the National Police Monitoring Agency, instantly knowing about it?

Ms. Powers is Caucasian, a natural-born female, 1.67 Meters tall, with short, auburn hair, and a fuller figure, weighing in at approximately 76 Kilograms. She was last seen wearing a loose fitting, bright pink shellsuit and Nike trainers, and was carrying two carrier bags full of groceries, at the time of her mysterious, inexplicable disappearance!

Anyone knowing anything about the possible whereabouts of Ms. Powers, or who may have seen her leaving the Carnegie Drive Shopping Mall with anyone, should e-mail or voice-fax their local Constabulary Outpost, as a matter of utmost urgency!

Rick picked up the infrared remote control handset, pointed it at the Vid-screen and clicked the laser cursor on the highlighted words 'Donna Powers'. Immediately a window containing a colored digitized photograph of the missing female, complete with a detailed description and mini-biography, zoomed out, to almost fill the Vid-screen.

"God, she sure is an ugly bitch!" Rick muttered, peering at the digipic. "She certainly ain't been abducted for her good looks!" Ms. Powers certainly was a particularly plain looking girl, rather on the obese side. Rick pointed the cursor at the photo, and clicked again, and the window shrank back into nothingness! He continued reading the main article:

Assistant Police Commissioner Rodriguez has asked the populous to remain calm, even though this is the forty-seventh female, aged between twenty and twenty-five, to have disappeared from the Bay area, during the past four months. Apart from their age and gender, the only thing to connect all of these disappearances, is the fact that their I.D. transmission signals have terminated, in all cases! No corpses have yet surfaced and, so far, our boys in blue do not seem to have a clue as to the whereabouts of any of these missing citizens!

Distraught parents and relatives have been besieging the City Hall, Web pages and e-mail addresses, demanding urgent action to locate their missing loved ones!

Rick settled his battered old Fedora hat over his perspiring brow, and popped another Cashew nut into his mouth. He was the same age as the Powers dame, but of course, he wasn't female, and he had no intention of having a sex-change operation, despite it being the current vogue! It was far too expensive, for a start, and, anyway, he was quite happy being a guy!

Rick was 1.75 Meters tall (approximately five-feet nine-inches), black-haired, and weighed just over 70 Kilos, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He face was covered with the currently fashionable designer stubble, and a droopy black moustache clung to his upper lip. He was not what you would call totally unattractive to members of the opposite sex! He scratched his chin, and stifled a long yawn.

The rest of the article was mainly comprised of an interview with the girl's aged parents, and some more background information on Donna.

He was a little annoyed that none of the relatives had, so far, asked for his help, in locating their missing girls! Still, he mainly specialized in industrial espionage cases these days, so they may have gone to another private dick? He belched, and took another swig from his half-empty can of Coca-Cola. It was getting warm and tepid, and the damned air-conditioning unit had broken down again. "I haven't had a single new case in over two weeks now," he muttered, aloud, "and the rent on this flea-pit is long overdue!"

He was just contemplating switching to the sports pages, to find out how the 'Dodgers' were doing, when an annoying beeping sound commenced, and a small Vid-phone icon appeared, and started blinking, in the lower right corner of the Vid-screen.

"Shit, the Batphone!" he exclaimed, sitting bolt upright, and clicking the laser cursor on the phone icon, with practiced ease.

Immediately, a picture of a gray-haired, distinguished looking old guy appeared, sitting behind a large mahogany desk, in what looked like some sort of private study. Rick was suitably impressed. Anyone who could afford a real wooden desk these days, and a mahogany one at that, by the look of it, had to be worth a bunch of credits!

The man looked into his own Vid-screen, seeing Rick's image peering back from it, questioningly, and his eyes lit up. "Ah, Summer, glad I caught you in your office!" he boomed. "I've got an urgent piece of industrial detective work for you, and I can make it well worth your while!`'

Rick sat up straighter, tilted his Fedora further back on his brow, and tried to keep the avaricious gleam out of his eye. "I'm, ah, pretty busy at the moment, Mr... What did you say your name was?"

The man smiled. "Arnold Scrooge!" he replied. "And I just happen to know that you have very little in your casebook, at this present time, Mr. Summer! Business isn't exactly booming, is it?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that, automatic reaction!" Rick blustered, trying to look suitably contrite. "So, what's this investigation you want me to undertake, Mr. Scrooge? Rick Summer don't come cheap!"

"I'm afraid the project is far to delicate a matter for me to discuss over an open phone connection, Mr. Summer. Please come over to my place, as soon as is convenient! I only live just outside the city boundaries."

"How will I find you, Sir?"

"You will find a map, and full instructions on how to get to my mansion, appended to the end of this transmission, Mr. Summer! I would like you to come over this evening, say about seven o'clock, if that is at all possible?"

"Yeah, okay Mr. Scrooge, I'll be there! Just as long as you ain't jerkin' me around? I wouldn't want you to live up to your namesake, the guy that Charles Dickens wrote about?"

Scrooge chuckled, then reached over and switched off the phone link.

Rick stared at the screen, blinking away the after-image. "Is this guy for real?" he wondered. He shrugged his shoulders. "Still, what have I got to loose?"

He called the map up, on screen, along with the directions on how to get to Scrooge's place. The guy had a secluded villa, up on Canyon drive. Only the very wealthy lived in that particular neighborhood.

"Arnold Scrooge?" he mused, with a frown. "That name seems to ring a bell?"

He immediately initiated a computer search, using the name 'Arnold Scrooge'.

"Arnold Scrooge," a computerized, female voice intoned, as the data simultaneously appeared on the Vid-screen, "President and founder member of the board of 'Droids 'R' Us', currently one of the three most quoted companies on the U.S. stock exchange, along with...."

"Enough, enough!" muttered Rick, ending the transmission with a flick of the cursor. "So, he's THE Arnie Scrooge?" he murmured. "Probably one of the ten richest people in the world today?" This information cheered him up no end. "This could be your lucky day, Summer?" he chortled, rubbing his hands together, avariciously.

How erroneous subsequent events would prove him to be!

Chapter 2: Into The Frying Pan

Rick's old, battered Ford Galactica hovermobile, settled down on the close-cropped, superbly groomed lawn, with a variety of groans, squeaks and rattles, the linear-magnetic motor, whining its protest. He sighed, and switched off the engine. "I will definitely have to get me some new 'wheels'," he thought. "This heap of old junk, is just about ready to fall apart!" He'd even had to drive over on manual, because the auto-pilot had finally given up the ghost, some three-months before, almost dumping him in the Bay, before he'd wrested control back from it!

As he stepped down from the cockpit, he found himself surrounded by a half-dozen hulking Robo-guards, each armed with a lightweight machine pistol, and electric cattle prod. He was more than a little surprised. This was a job normally carried out by human personnel, at a fraction of the cost of their electro-mechanical counterparts?

"Hands above your head, buster!" snapped the head honcho, in a menacing voice, stepping forward. His optical sensors glittered, with that dull, lifeless look, characteristic of all androids. Otherwise he looked a reasonable facsimile of a gorilla, wearing a business suit. Apart from the serial number on the breast pocket of his jacket, he looked identical to his five muscular companions.

Rick didn't argue. These guys looked like they all had itchy trigger fingers, and a bad case of indigestion, and he was on their turf, after all. "Easy boys!" he murmured, slowly placing his hands on top of his head. "The name's Rick Summer, and I have an urgent appointment with your boss!"

RD10000457, stepped forward and quickly frisked him, removing his Walther PPK9, from his shoulder holster, before removing his billfold, and checking out his I.D. He then nodded to one of his fellows Robo-guards, who stepped forward with a computer-interfaced ophthalmoscope, and shone it into Rick's eyes.

"Retina patterns both match those in the data banks, Chief!" the 'droid murmured, before stepping back into line again.

His boss nodded. "Okay, Summer, the boss is expecting you!" he growled, prodding him with the gun barrel. "Walk ahead of me, up to the main entrance, and don't try any funny business? The boss don't like to be kept waiting!" The lines could have come straight out of an ancient gangster movie.

"It could've been worse," Rick mused, "he could've used his cattle prod! I wonder why they didn't just scan my I.D. chip though?"

-oOo-

By the year 2037, the science of Robotics had advanced in leaps and bounds, and great strides had been made in other associated fields of research, such as Bio-Mechanics and Computerized Control Systems, so that many of the more mundane, routine, or more dangerous tasks, formally carried out by the human race, where now performed by Robots, or Androids, the latter being almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts!

Although their bodies were now grown in huge vats of nutriment, to accurately duplicate their human counterparts, the basic skeletal, muscular and nervous systems, were still electro-mechanical in nature, controlled by miniaturized super-computers, conveniently located in the cranium, and powered by rechargeable batteries, with an approximately thirty-six hour life, before needing recharging.

By far the largest manufacturer of these intricate devices, was 'Droids 'R' Us', formally 'U. S. Robotics', and with the average price of a new android being somewhere around 100,000 U.S. credits, they were also one of the wealthiest.

Because of the high cost of these sophisticated mechanical beings, they tended to be mainly used in highly dangerous or contaminated environments, where it was virtually impossible to use human alternatives. Also, they were extensively employed in jobs involving extensive, or out-of-normal-hours working; or repetitive production line work, requiring high-speed dexterity. As a consequence, it was rare to see an android in a domestic situation, and despite their growing numbers, the vast majority of the populace had yet to lay their eyes on one, in the 'flesh', so to speak.

While they looked very life-like, there was only a very limited number of 'droid models available, so they often tended to look like identical twin brothers, or sisters, and they were usually built to appear to have a chronological age of about twenty to twenty-five years.

Androids were also really quite stupid, despite their super-computer central processing units! They were limited to fairly basic decision-making, although reprogramming was fairly easy, just involving the replacement of one program disk with another! They were ideal for long, boring, repetitive tasks, where their human equivalent might tend to loose concentration, and let his or her mind wander, or grow physically exhausted.

Chapter 3: Me Rick, You Jayne

RD10000457, they had such pretty names, pressed the ornate, antique doorbell, then stepped back a couple of paces, keeping an ever watchful optic lens on the shabbily dressed detective.

The door swung open, and Rick was treated to the sight of one of the loveliest creatures, he'd ever laid eyes on.

The girl's big, blue eyes slightly crinkled at the corners, as she smiled at him, her lovely face surrounded by a halo of long, blonde curls, that cascaded down onto her slightly freckled, bare shoulders.

"Ah, you must be Mr. Summer, the Private Investigator?" she exclaimed, in a tinkling, almost musical voice. "Please won't you come in, Sir? The Master is expecting you!"

She glanced over at the Robo-guard, still hovering in the background. "That will be all, 457!" she added, her face suddenly cold and expressionless.

"Please follow me, Sir!" she murmured, after she'd closed the solid oak door behind them. "The Master is in the Study!"

As the girl walked ahead of him, down the hallway, her hips swaying, sexily, Rick couldn't help run an appreciative gaze over her firm young body. The girl was wearing an old-fashioned but revealing, black French Maid's outfit, consisting of a heavily-wired, low-cut bodice, that left her shoulders and the tops of her breasts bare, and a short, flared skirt, complete with crinoline lining, that reached down to about mid-thigh. Her long shapely legs, were encased in sheer black stockings, and on her dainty feet, she wore a pair of stiletto-heeled sandals, with heels that must have been all of thirteen-centimeters in height?

He was amazed that she could walk so sure-footedly on such spiky heels, without even a break in the sexy sway of her firm, sweet ass. The tight bodice appeared to give her a wasp waist, but even so, Rick, who'd always had an eye for a pretty girl, figuring her vital statistics to be somewhere in the region of 35c-23-35 (in inches of course. It was one of the few imperial measurements that seemed to have survived, since the States had gone fully decimalized in 2006.).

Rick had never before met anyone who had a real, honest-to-God live housemaid in their employ, he realized, and he wondered why such a beautiful young girl (she couldn't have been much more than twenty), was willing to do such a menial job?

"With a face and figure like hers, she could earn a fortune on one of the subscription Porn channels, on the Vid?" he decided. He started to go hard, as a picture of the blonde, bent over, and stark naked, with some guy fucking into her from behind, flashed through his fevered imagination. He quickly dismissed it, and regained his normal cool, professional, composure. He could only assume that Scrooge was again failing to live up to his namesake's reputation, and was paying the girl a small fortune in salary?

The girl paused, before an heavy, oak-paneled door, opening it inward, as she stepped aside to allow him through first. "This way, Sir!" she said, smiling warmly.

"Thank you!" Rick replied, captivated by her big, blue, innocent looking eyes. He could easily have fallen into them, and happily drowned!

"Huh?" He gave a start, as he realized she was still waiting for him to enter. "Oh yes, sorry!" he muttered, embarrassedly. She smiled at him, as he entered the room ahead of her, feeling his ears starting to burn.

The walls of the room were lined with bookcases, crammed with genuine, antique hard-covered books, many bound in soft Moroccan leather, or a damned good facsimile. Rick blinked. He'd never seen so many books in one place before. They'd become a bit of an anachronism, in the mid twenty-first century, when people used the Vid, for all there reading and educational needs.

Two leather-bound armchairs were positioned in front of a huge, old-fashioned open fireplace, containing a roaring log fire, or a damned good simulation of one. "It can't be genuine!" Rick told himself, shaking his head. "The wood alone must cost a small fortune!"

In front of the fireplace, the highly-polished, imitation parquet flooring (it couldn't be genuine, could it?) was covered by a tiger-skin rug. It was a damned fine reproduction, Rick had to admit. It had almost fooled him, at first glance.

The old man, sitting in one of the chairs, placed his open book on a small coffee table, with a pattern of inlaid marquetry, that was standing alongside, then rose to his feet. He was wearing a smoking jacket, with carpet slippers on his feet. "Mr. Summer, so glad you could make it on time!" he enthused. "I like a man who's punctual! Please, take a seat?" He indicated the facing armchair, on the opposite side of the rug to his own.

"Thank you, Sir!" Rick replied, seating himself, as soon as he had finished shaking the old man's hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the girl had remained standing by the door, after she'd quietly closed it.

"Right! Let's get straight down to business!" Scrooge began. "I have asked you to come here, Mr. Summer, to investigate one of the direct competitors of Droids 'R' Us... BioRobotics! We would like you to infiltrate their organization, and to steal their secrets!"

Rick frowned. "Excuse my ignorance, Mr. Scrooge, but I've never heard of BioRobotics?"

The white-haired man smiled, sadly. "Very few people have, my boy! They are currently one of the small fry in the field of robotic manufacture, but they are soon going to become the only manufacturer of domestic androids, if we cannot discover the secret of their success!"

"Hmm! What do they manufacture exactly?"

"At the moment, only one product! Sex 'droids!"

"What?" Rick's eyes opened wide. "Did you say, sex 'droids, sir?"

"Well, maybe that's an over simplification! The reality is, that they are producing a female android, that is indistinguishable from the human equivalent, who is pre-programmed to be her owner's adoring sex slave!"

"Indistinguishable from the real thing, you say?" Rick felt an icy chill run along his spine, as he realized some of the possible consequences of such a product, if it were ever mass-produced.

"Actually, it's better than the real thing!" the older man replied, in all seriousness. "Jayne, would you come over here, please?"

Rick gave a start. He had completely forgotten that the maid was still in the room with them.

The girl hurried over, and stood on the carpet, between the two men.

"I don't think you two have been introduced? This is Jayne Morgan, my maid, and general factotum!"

"Nice to meet you, Jayne!" Rick said, with a slightly puzzled frown.

"Likewise, Sir!" She crossed her shapely pins, and performed a dainty little curtsy, at the same time fluttering her long eyelashes at him, shamelessly.

"God, she's an absolute stunner!" Rick decided, wondering whether he had finally fallen in love?