Rick Summer, Ace Detective

"Oh, yeah, sorry 'bout that!" Rick quickly moved on to the next girl, afraid that he may have aroused the man's suspicions sufficiently for him to report him!

-oOo-

Rick had noticed what he assumed to be a large central heating duct, running along, behind the wall, on his side of the room (he continued to think of the room as more of a hospital ward), with large vents, set in it, at regular intervals, about two and a half meters off the ground. With a bit of luck, this same heating system, supplied all the other areas in the facility, and the vents looked just about big enough for someone to crawl through them? It looked an ideal method of getting about the plant, without being observed.

At lunchtime, Rick excused himself, saying he needed to visit the john, and hurried out. He quickly located the Men's Toilets, that he'd previously used, and slipped inside. "Good!" he muttered. There was a similar vent in the wall, conveniently positioned above one of the toilet cubicles that lined that wall. "This is my lucky day!" he said, chuckling to himself.

Entering the cubicle, he slipped a small screwdriver out of the hollowed out heel of his shoe, and standing on the toilet seat, began to unscrew the wire-mesh cover. Removing the last screw, he slipped the cover inside the large metal duct, and, with a grunt of effort, managed to haul himself up into the opening, with some difficulty, and not a little noise. Luckily, the Men's Room was otherwise deserted.

Once inside, he managed to wedge the mesh cover back into position. "Unless someone looks closely, no-one should notice the missing screws!" he told himself, hopefully.

-oOo-

An eagle-eyed security guard, had been the first to spot that something was amiss, when he noticed Rick exiting the Men's Room, on one of the numerous security monitors. The clothes were the same, but the guy who'd entered the toilets, now had a completely different face. This guy looked much younger, maybe no more than twenty-five, with one of those Mexican bandit type moustaches, and several days growth of beard. The guard hadn't noticed anything strange going on in the Men's Room, but then the lone Vid-camera in there, only covered part of the room!

"Hey, Hans," he called out to his Chief, who was also in the control room, "take a look at this guy!"

Hans Smuts, head of BioRobotics Inc. security, sauntered over. "Well, what about him?" he asked, frowning, as he peered at Rick's image.

"He just changed faces in the washroom, Chief!"

"What? Hey, now you come to mention it, he is acting kinda shifty, as if he doesn't know his way around the joint. Track him, and see where he goes! I'll go contact the boss, and alert the other guards!"

The guard watched Rick enter 'Final Inspection' and made notes of his conversations with Bill Meyer. By the time that the suspect knocked off for lunch, Miles Canterbury had arrived at the facility, and hurried to the control booth.

"What have you got for me, Hans?" he asked, grimly.

"We may have an illegal intruder on the premises, Boss," Hans replied pointing to a Vid-monitor, showing Rick sauntering down a corridor, "but how the hell the guy got into the place, heaven only knows?"

-oOo-

The fat-jowled, slightly-balding, portly, middle-aged man, watched the small image of the private eye clambering into the central heating duct, on the monitor screen, one of dozens, lined up above his head, then turned back to his head of security. "Have we got any security cameras in there, Hans?" he growled.

Hans Smuts, blinked twice, before replying. "Er, no Boss, we, er, we didn't think it was necessary, not with all the Mini-Vid cameras we've got installed in the various sectors!"

"Well, I don't think there's much doubt that we've got ourselves an industrial spy here, gentlemen?" Miles Canterbury growled. "And I don't think there's much doubt about what he's after, either! The question is, what are we going to do about him?"

-oOo-

Rick had already seen departments where the various limbs and the torso were grown in organic nutriment tanks, and the painstaking assembly and insertion of the neural networks, when he paused, as he was passing what looked like a hospital operating theatre? He'd already been surprised at the amount of labor-intensive activities that seemed to be involved in the production of these new 'droids. There was certainly no equivalent of the standard, robotically-controlled, production line yet?

He was just about to move on, when the theatre doors banged open, and two operating tables were wheeled in, surrounded by what looked like masked doctors and nursing staff. A sheet was pulled back from a human body on the first table, and from the hoar-frost covering it, Rick figured it must have come straight out of deep freeze?

It was the body of a fairly young, obese female, he realized. She was rather plain-looking, with short, auburn hair. There was something strangely familiar about her face, and with a gasp, the penny finally dropped. It was Donna Powers, the missing girl he'd seen on the Vid news!

A 'nurse' cut away the hair from her forehead, and with a loud 'thrump' a powerful laser scalpel hummed into life. The 'surgeon' swiftly cut into the scalp, and removed the whole top of the girl's skull.

The nurse's gloved hands eased the brain out of the cranium and all attachments to the rest of the body, were swiftly severed by the surgeon, and the blood vessels cauterized. Meanwhile, another 'nurse' had pulled back the covers from the second operating table, revealing an SD model 'droid, with the top of its head already removed, revealing a near empty, cranial cavity.

Rick suddenly felt physically sick! He'd just discovered why the BioRobotic's androids seemed so much more intelligent than there rivals. Somehow, they'd managed to successfully transfer a human brain into a robot, producing a hybrid biological and electronic brain, to control the thoughts and actions of their sex 'droids!

"I gotta get outta here, right away!" he gasped, starting to back up to the intersection that he'd recently passed, where he could at least turn around. He scurried along the dusty, grimy duct, ignoring the pain from his hands and knees. His priorities had changed, now he'd discovered the gruesome truth! He had to get out of there, fast!

He gasped with relief, when he finally reached the loose panel leading into the john. He just hoped the Men's Room was empty. "It's dark out there?" he realized, as he eased the panel loose, and moved it inside. "Some dumb jerk must've switched off the lights when they left? So much the better!"

He turned around and eased himself out of the hole, carefully lowering himself down, until his trainers touched the toilet seat. As he placed all his weight on it, and turned around, the lights suddenly came on, temporarily blinding him.

"Welcome back, Mr. Andretti," murmured Miles Canterbury, with a superior smile on his bloated face, "or should I say, Rick Summer, P.I.?" He could afford to smile; he was accompanied by a half-dozen security guards, all pointing lethal-looking automatic pistols at Rick's belly.

With a sick smile, Rick raised his hands above his head. "I guess the jig's up, huh?" he said, with a sickly smile.

-oOo-

Rick sat facing the head of BioRobotics, who was lounging back in an executive chair, behind a large desk, in some sort of office. Rick's arms and legs were firmly tied to the polycarbonate chair, with lengths of supronylon cord, leaving him helpless.

"Who are you working for, Mr. Summer?" the fat man asked, quietly. "Please answer truthfully, or it will prove most painful for you!"

Rick quickly weighed up his situation. It didn't look too good. "Hey man, I never could stand pain!" Rick blurted out, deciding that torture wasn't his scene. "I'm working for 'Droids 'R' Us'! I was personally recruited for this job, by old man Scrooge himself!"

An oily smirk spread over the fat man's face. "Very good, Mr. Summer! I believe you are telling me the truth!"

"I am, I am, believe me, I am!" Rick gasped, nervously. "Tell me, Mr. Canterbury... how... how do you manage to subdue the personality of your, ah, victim, when you transfer their brain into one of your love dolls?"

Miles Canterbury chuckled. "I like a man with a keen sense of curiosity! Quite simple, really, Mr. Summer! We give them the ultimate brainwash, using a little known invention called a 'Cerebrum Scrubber', before we transfer the brain to its new host, and link everything up! We then re-educate the blank mind, with a concentrated input of data, hard-wired straight into the cerebral cortex! This gives the brain a complete set of moral and intellectual beliefs, anything we care to make them! The final product will have been completely molded to our own image! We then add an overriding computer program that negates her personal desires or compulsions, under specific sets of conditions, forcing her to follow its edicts to the letter. Oh, then there is the heightened sense of pain and pleasure, and the erogenous zone triggers!" he added, grinning, evilly.

"W-Why always girls of twenty to twenty-five?" Rick asked, still curious in spite of his desperate circumstances.

"The donor brain should be approximately the same age, as the pre-programmed age of the 'droid, for best compatibility, and of course it should be that of a female! We do not know what sort of trauma might result from attempting to transfer a man's brain into one of our female 'droids. Until now, that is!"

A cold thrill of naked fear ran down Rick's spine. "Wha... what do you mean by that?" he gasped, going a deathly pale.

"Well Mr. Summer, we can't let you live, to tell your tale, now can we? But we thought we might as well make use of your brain! It is the right age, after all?"

Chapter 7: Divine Intervention

Jake swerved the hovermobile across the sixteen-lane highway, screeching with delight, and narrowly missing a collision with several other vehicles (or more accurately, the automatic computerized drives of these oncoming vehicles managed to take swift evasive action, in time to prevent a collision. Jake was high as a kite on narcothene, a highly addictive, and highly illegal, syntho-drug, as he recklessly drove the stolen vehicle along the urban super-highway.

"Shit, Jake, you almost got us all killed back there!" Candy giggled, equally high on the drug, as she sprawled, buck-naked, in the back seat, while her companion, Snake tried to get his massive cock back into her asshole. "Give the damned control back to the computer, you asshole," she urged. "Your little cupcake wants ta suck your dick!"

"Shut your mouth, and get your fuckin' ass back onto this, bitch!" Snake snarled, too far gone to find her asshole again, without some help from the girl.

"I ain't gonna hand over control to no damn pile o' microchips!" Jake snarled, turning around to stare at her upraised, naked ass, his pupils dilated to twice their normal size.

The car swerved to the left, narrowly avoiding the electrified boundary fence of the National Power sub-station, and hitting the sub-band power transmitter aerial, full on, at over 300 kph. There was a mighty earth-shuddering boom, as both hovermobile and power transmitter disappeared in a huge incandescent ball of flame, and all power went off within a three kilometer radius.

-oOo-

Rick's eyes flew open, and he found himself staring up at white ceiling tiles. He felt strangely disoriented, as he tried to remember what he was doing there? He knew he wasn't in his own apartment, or in his downtown office!

Something was hanging down in front of his vision, annoying him, and he realized that some sort of device was clamped over the top of his head, and that a stray blonde curl hung down over his eyes. Blonde? His hair was black, and certainly not long enough to obscure his vision?

The room was only dimly illuminated, by emergency glow-globes, set in the ceiling. He peered around, realizing that he was in some sort of private hospital room, lying on a hard, uncomfortable bed, his body covered by a single, thin white sheet. His tactile senses told him that he was naked beneath the sheet.

He tried to lift a hand, to brush away the blonde lock of hair, that couldn't possibly belong to him, and discovered that he was strapped down, at both wrist and ankle, by some sort of restraining straps. "What the hell's going on?" he snarled. He was startled by the sound of his voice. It was his, all right, but it sounded higher-pitched, and more melodic, somehow?

Memory came flooding back, and he started to hyper-ventilate. "Oh Jesus, no, nooo! Please, please let it all be just a bad dream?" He noticed, for the first time, how the sheet was raised up above his chest, impossibly high, just as if...

"Noooo!" he gasped, his hands tugging at his bonds. "This cannot be happening!" With a start, he realized his hands were now much smaller and delicate than they used to be. If he squeezed his hand up tight, and really pulled...?

"Aaaagghhh!" The pain was excruciating, but his left hand was slowly slipping through the loop of the leather strap. "Aaaaaaaahhh!" With a gasp of relief, his left hand came free, and with a single motion, he tugged the sheet off his body.

"Oh Jesus!" he exclaimed. He'd already suspected he was naked beneath the sheet, and this was confirmed, along with the fact that he now had a pair of majestic, heaving breasts, and a pussy, where his cock and balls used to reside! "The bastards have only gone and done it!" he sobbed, swiftly unbuckling the other wrist strap, and sitting up. "Shit!"

He had to pull off the headpiece, with its numerous coiled wire connectors, before bending forward and unbuckling the straps from about his slim ankles. A mass of blonde curls, cascaded down about his shoulders, and over his eyes, as he did so. His shapely boobs bounced a little, their weight feeling strangely erotic, as he swung his legs off the narrow bed, and sat upright, peering around, cautiously. "What the fuck do I do now?"

There was a nameplate on the device that had been fitted over his head. It read; 'Cerebrum Scrubber', but the device seemed to have malfunctioned, and the console that it was attached to, seemed totally dead! With a start, Rick realized that there must've been some sort of power failure, a rarity in this day and age, just after they strapped him to the infernal machine, and before it had had a chance to erase his mind. "Thank God!" he gasped.

On the opposite wall, a digital calendar/clock displayed the date October 21, 2037. The time was 2:09 pm. Assuming that it was more-or-less up-to-date, he'd been unconscious for the best part of four whole days!

"I've got to get the hell outta here, before they come back!" he told himself, with certainty, looking around, desperately, for some clothing. The only item of clothing he could find, was a white hospital gown, hanging from a hook on the back of the door. "Shit! It will have to do!" he muttered, hurrying over to it.

He pulled it on. It was one of those things you slipped your arms into, and then fastened with ties at the back. "Not exactly the height of haute couture, but it will have to do!" he muttered, brushing his long hair back through his fingers, and tossing his head. He frowned. "What a strange thought!"

The corridor door was unlocked, thank goodness! He peeked out, to check that the coast was clear, then tiptoed out into the corridor, which was also barely lit by the faint glow of the overhead emergency lights. As he padded down the corridor, peering at the signs, he was acutely aware of the gown rubbing up against his prominent nipples, and a distinct draft about his nether regions. He also felt amazingly light, and there was an unaccustomed weight resting against his ribcage, as his boobs swayed, gently.

-oOo-

"What the hell happened?" snarled Miles Canterbury, as Helmut Smutt, his Project Manager, walked into his dimly lit office.

"S-Sorry about this, Mr. Canterbury," Smutt apologized, "but the problem appears to be external, and beyond our control! There's been a power cut, and the emergency generators have had to cut in, to maintain a minimal level of lighting, and keep all critical equipment functioning!"

"Good, we wouldn't want Summer's rebirth to be disturbed, would we?" the heavy-jowled man declared, nodding.

"Z-Zummer?" Smutt gasped, his German accent becoming more pronounced, whenever he was under stress.

"Yeah, Rick Summer, soon to become my own personal sex-droid, Summer Childe!" Miles suddenly noticed the look of panic that had crossed his underling's swarthy face. "The Cerebrum Scrubber IS wired to switch over to the emergency supply, isn't it, Smutt?" he snarled.

"Vell, we only 'ave a limited emergency c-capacity, Mr. Canterbury, and ze Scrubber vasn't deemed of sufficient importance, to be placed on zer emergency circuit. If zer iz an interruption to the power, during ze brain scrub, it iz normally no great problem, ve need only re-set zer controls, and repeat zer operation, vunce ze power iz restored, to complete ze erasure process!"

"Hmm! Has anyone checked out Summer, yet?"

"Er, n-no, Mr. Canterbury, it vas not thought necessary! She iz unter heavy sedation, and securely strapped down to 'er cot!"

"Get someone over there, right away! This is one 'droid I don't want fucked up!"

R-Right a-avay, Mr. Canterbury, zir!" Helmut Smutt stuttered, turning and hurrying out the room, eager to escape the wrath of his sadistic boss.

-oOo-

He hurried down to Central Security, where a perplexed Hans Smuts was scratching his head, and peering up at the rows of dead 'eyes' hung from the ceiling. Despite their similar surnames, and shared Teutonic ancestry, neither man was even remotely related.

"How the hell am I supposed to police this joint, with all my eyes and ears out?" Smuts protested, to his immediate superior, as the door burst in, and the harassed looking Smutt appeared.

"Tell your men to get their fat asses off their seats, and get out there, patrolling the corridors, and doing a bit of good old-fashioned legwork!" snarled Helmut. "And, while you are at it, get someone to check out that new 'droid, SD-0451, Summer Childe, I think the boss has decided to call it? It should be down in the brain-scrub section, having that nosy private investigator's thoughts all carefully erased, but this power cut may have screwed things up?"

Hans didn't like the look of panic in the Project Manager's eyes. "Yes, Sir, Mr. Smutt! Right away, Sir! Jones, Vargas, come with me?" Two of his minions leapt to their feet, and followed their Chief, as he headed for the door.

-oOo-

Rick was just making his way along a dimly-lit corridor, when a door flew open, some fifty meters ahead, and three uniformed figures came rushing out. With a girlish gasp, he flattened himself back into a shallow, shadowy alcove, alongside, trying to ignore the cold metallic nozzle of a fire hose that was forced between his exposed buttocks, in the process, pressing, uncomfortably against his anus.

He held his breath and prayed that he wouldn't be seen, as the three figures rushed past in the gloom. "The 'droid is down in Brain Scrub," exclaimed the leader of the trio. "It should be strapped down, but if it's managed to escape, I want her recaptured, as quickly as possible, unharmed, if possible!"

With a thrill of fear, Rick realized they were talking about him. As they disappeared around the bend, he slowly released his pent-up breath, and eased his ass away from the icy-cold nozzle. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to fuck a fire hose, and then he shook his head of blonde hair, and went to step out into the corridor again.

He suddenly froze, as he heard approaching footsteps, and flatten himself back up against the hose reel, complete with icy-cold nozzle. His big blue eyes went wide, with instant recognition, as the unmistakable figure of Miles Canterbury strode past, muttering to himself, hands clutched behind his back.