Fleshware Requiem Book 01

She was wearing shoes. That was a gesture I did understand. A good sign.

"It's not... meant to be..." I snarled; using anger as my shield. "You... were not meant to be."

"Creator's Remorse? A bit late for that now." She shook her head mockingly, teasingly at me. My eyes snapped to her, unwillingly - autonomically. It was not only that she was beautiful. No...her vibrant feminine charms where only the root from which sprouted unholy knowledge and abilities. "After all these years; after all these production runs." She reminded me. She could be reciting the farm report and it would still sound erotic.

"All... a mistake..." I panted. "That can still be corrected. One step... at a time..."I was looking outwards for another weapon, and inwards for the strength to use it.

"Looking for this?" Celeste produced the crowbar.I wasn't sure where she had hidden... but all that mattered was the will to act. She held out the weapon I had dropped before, holding it delicately in an embroidered arm-length glove. I snatched the steel instrument as though it were my heart's desire.

"Well go right ahead. If that's what you really want." She purred, hopping up onto a work bench and tilting her swan-like neck towards me, as if to make herself vulnerable before my wrath. "If bashing my head in will make everything all sunshine and bunnies again, then I won't stop you."I gripped the bar with both hands. "You know it's a myth that all of us have the strength of ten men. Brute force is your department." The vexing woman in the wedding gown added in a breathy tone.

Don't think, don't analyze, just DO! I roared as I channeled my rage, fear, and horror into the length of tempered metal. I felt an impact in my hands; but it was wrong. If I had been successful, then this she-demon should have made a thump as her unwholesome body fell to the floor.

Instead, the sharp end of the crowbar was embedded in the nearest workbench.

"I..."

"You couldn't. You gird yourself with this armor of useless rage whenever I visit. A House Divided." She cocked her head and those glistening eyes, one blue, the other green scrutinized me with the pity one might reserve for a wounded butterfly. "Head versus Heart. I'm hardly indestructible, but I have an armor of my own, that you gave me. Because to destroy me would mean -

As if on cue the ten television screens to the southeast lit up as one.

"You could never again mate with me." Came ten voices at once. I shivered in shame.

Ten identical faces said in perfect, synchronous union. All of them her face; identical down to the smallest hair follicle. A compound-eyed fractal panorama that made her glamour-model good looks seem all the more perverse. Her face was shown prominently upon each of the screens; but mostly in varying positions of motion.

Most women - real women that is, would attempt with vibrant dyes to counteract the geriatric inevitability signified by whitening hair. But not this.... creature, not this Celeste. I thought I understood the arrogance behind it. Some of the faces on screen still possessed the diaphanous wedding veil, but on most of them a billowing cascade of snow-white, luxuriant tresses was plainly visible.

"Look at you! You're shaking like a leaf!" The monstrous beauty in front of me said. "It's as if you fear for your life!" One of the faces said from the upper middle screen. "When I've never harmed you," said the second from the lower-left screen. "... in any way." Upper-far left face finished, from the T.V. screens.

"I house you, feed you," Chastised middle-lower screen. "...filter out the Mortus Toxoid gas to give you breathable air," Lower far-left continued. "Annnnnd... I offer you companionship," said the actual, physical personage before me. "But all you can think about is hitting me with crowbars, Said upper-second from right. "And chair legs." Reminded the second from lower far left screen. Hmm... chair legs... another choice -- yet not a choice. My own emotions would betray me.

"May take the rest of my life; but I'll find a way to keep fighting you, destroy you." I rasped, borrowing white-knuckled strength from the edge of the counter-top beside me.

"And here I only wanted to be your... friend." Celeste purred. "You know we're overdue for our latest... rendezvous. But I'm going to grant your wish; and not seduce you." What made that statement more absurd was the fact that she was not overstating her powers. "I will leave you, alone with your rage, to plot and scheme against me. What I will do - " she beckoned with a lace-gloved hand towards the bank of monitors. "Is leave you a preview of coming attractions."

I could see my former companions on the screen, but I could barely recognize Garland, Cleary, Tannerman, Mouse, McConnaught, or the others. Their pasty bodies twitched and moaned upon what seemed to be hospital beds. They rarely bothered to speak. Except to plead, or grunt, where they knew they would be heard by their Warden, their slave-master. Some scratched the spot near their arms where the intravenous drip was feeding their sedentary bodies direct nutrients in a way scarcely removed from a vegetative coma patient. Each of them was soon joined by one of the identical females.

An alarm sounded on the top middle screen; Cleary had suffered another aneurysm; his attendant simply reached a hand over and tapped several buttons on a cabinet-like, complex medical device. Cleary settled back into a vapid smile, as the cyber-medical apparatus took over for his strained circulatory system through a metal cable snaking into his neck, while making simultaneous repairs to the overtaxed blood vessels.

In this Brave New World, death was a luxury.

I had tried to save them; hoped they would come to their senses in time; I'd seen the hammer falling. The problem was, even if they had believed my warnings; would they have wanted to resist? Junkies; invalids. Bio-medical charity cases. And they didn't want it to end. Because Celeste herself was the drug of choice.

They had ignored my warnings. Why would anyone be afraid of a sexbot?

A PARADOX OF LUST

October 21st, 2076 One Year Ago

"I was going to ask if you were programmed with the common courtesy to knock; but it looks like this is your show. Your place." I continued cleaning the barrel of my Winchester as the door to the comfortable quarters slid open. "You've done well for yourself." I braced my knee on the bunk bed beside me as I worked, the pale blue aura of the desktop holo-console painting twilight fingers across the dull metal of my rifle.

"By that you mean -- I've done well for a living toy built for the sexual amusement of men?" She raised an eyebrow, as if to challenge something I hadn't said.

"I have nothing to do with that," I reminded the Woman in White, as I paused to inspect the safety seals on my gasmask, removed and sitting on an executive-style, ten-drawer office desk made of some kind of cherry-wood. As good as it felt to have the thing off my head, for some reason I was now craving the sense of security it had provided. Why should I not feel secure here? "You'll notice I've made no attempt to order you around, or.... sleep with you."

"But did it ever occur to you that I enjoyed every microsecond of it? Is a slave really a slave if she's hard-wired to crave her servitude, and even seek to reinstate if she's ever released?" She strode closer to me, still in that wedding gown, but without her high-heels, this time. She was barefoot, for some reason.

"Look, uhh... ma'am." I rolled my eyes in exasperation."Don't take this the wrong way, I'm grateful for the clear zone you've provided me and the rest of the guys; but -- I'm really uncomfortable around your... technology."

"I get the feeling you're not referring to the solar panels that power this compound?"

"This... ability we gained, before the war, to build artificial people, and then to program emotions into them to serve our basest desires it's just... it seems like a threshold that should never have been crossed." I shook my head sharply for emphasis.

"So it's my very existence that offends you?" Her eyes were wide, receptive, questioning within her glamor-model face as she perched her achingly perfect leg upon the bunk bed.

"I don't know if there's a nice way to say it; you are what you are. And I can't really be honest with you without being rude to my... host, being one and the same. So I think it's best if I just leave here as soon as possible." I could feel my heart rate accelerating. I tried to remind myself that this... thing was made of silicates and circuits, but back in the glory days, they'd gotten so good at building the damn Dolls that you really couldn't tell the difference outwardly. My body certainly couldn't.

"Are you really so different from the other men?" I frowned, and lowered my mask and rifle.

"What is this? Are you trying to mock me? Yes fine, you made a fool of me. You damned Pygmalion Dolls are so convincing that I was running myself ragged trying to defend the honor of a sex-bot. Alright then, yuk it up. I'm sure Cleary will get a good laugh out of this."

"You are a man, with all the needs of men. And in these two days you've had no interest in using me. Not now, and not before the war, either." She wasn't asking. She just cocked her eyebrow and crossed her arms with bemusement.

"No... no way could I..." Why should I tell her/it anything? I was leaving, after all. "Besides; from the sounds I heard, the rest of the guys sure made use of you. Isn't that enough?"

"Never. That's one of my selling points. A man can come to me knowing I'll never have a convenient headache, no matter what time of the month it is. Not to mention my 100% guaranteed post-coital sanitation system, which I won't bore you with. You don't like that, do you? It disturbs you that your society created sapient human replicas for sexual companionship. But here I am; You resent what I am; you question the validity of my existence. The thing is -- I like the fact that I exist." I narrowed my eyes, not quite sure where the demented robot was heading with this.

"Fine. You can go on existing without me. I should be going before we both regret my being here."

"But you don't really want to leave." She concluded. Somehow. Delicately, she placed her elegant hand upon my broad chest with the pressure of a whisper.

"Well, it's more comfortable than anyplace I've been in.... ever... but it's really for the best that I go."

"It's true that I haven't lived a full human lifespan; but I remember enough about civilization to know that hospitality requires payment. You don't just lounge around for two days in a hotel and skip out on the bill."

"Well, yeah -- that... makes sense. Sorry, I seem to have misplaced my credit card somewhere in the zombie apocalypse. Not sure what I can offer you that you don't already have here."

"The Name." The Woman in White breathed.

" Uhhmm... well, MY name is Hiro Salvador. Is that good enough?"

"No; you carry a torch for her -- your fiance`. And you blame yourself for her demise." The Woman in White sat down upon my -- well really it was her bed. A flow of comfort seemed to wash through me.

"Aw hell, has Cleary been talking to you?" My cheeks reddened.

"None of your compatriots have said more than two words to me. They just want to -- get down to business, which I understand. There are many things I don't need to be told. Such as the fact that she left you, before it happened." I jumped to my feet. I hadn't told that to anyone! Ever! "The signs of the separation are written all over your body language; plus a stop-motion analysis based on the Facial Action Coding system, and your brain activity correlating with the guilt; and your reaction to me...." She nodded, her eyes widening in a burst of preternatural insight.

"A Robot! Your fiance' left you for a robot!" This was....worrisome. We'd all heard of Pygmalion Cyber-Industries, and their legendary living Sex-Dolls; but they weren't supposed to be that smart were they? To interpret secrets that I had never revealed just from watching body-language? Something about the Woman in White made me less outraged than I probably should have been, at such a deeply personal intrusion. I wanted to tell myself that my expressed disdain for Doll technology was based on some kind of moral/ethics for sentient beings, and not from my personal betrayal. I lowered my eyes to the ground.

The Woman in White was behind me, as an unwelcome wave of reverie crept over me. Without truly knowing why, I did not object when the synthetic vixen began to massage my shoulders.

"What model was he?" For some reason, it wasn't this strange interloper asking, it was as if the question came from within me.

"A Latin Fox; Version 6.9. Enhanced vibrator and mimetic pheromone synthesizers that adapt to the physiology of a female human User. The thing even had enhanced hygroscopic molecules in its chest; giving it constantly moist pectorals. A lot of guys were confused about why feminist types got their burning bras in a knot when all the female Dolls came on the market; the male-models weren't far behind. Fair, isn't it? If a man can drop ten grand and come home with a remote-controlled supermodel concubine with more curves than a Rocky-Mountain highway, who exists to serve him, then surely any woman can order a steely piece of inexhaustible robo-beefcake with a male performance that no flesh-and-blood guy can match. One whose every circuit is fanatically dedicated to finding new ways to make her feel special. Why not?"

"But you refused to avail yourself of the same choice that she had?"

"I didn't believe. I denied that any machine, no matter how convincing, could be a genuine companion." The world around me was fading away, lost in the past -- my own thoughts.

"And you still believe that her death was your fault?"

"She was... an activist type; she wanted to document over-industrialization and deforestation of the Central American jungles. Brought the LF with her; but in San Jose` they got on the bad side of a back-alley I-dope dealer. The LF froze up; his Asimov laws prevented him from fighting back.

"I saw her a few times... when she was with him -- it. She felt safe; he seemed very macho -- virile to her. Because the machine extrapolated the neural activity from the pleasure centers of her brain, and adapted its behavior to provoke the most intense sexual response from her -- just as it was programmed to do. But he couldn't fight back when it counted."

"Standard for all sapient robots."

"It was the only way. The legal complications, the politics, the paranoia. If there was a companion robot able to rip the heart out of the chest of a mugger; then is it murder? Or an industrial accident? What if the state or country restricts the ownership of lethal weapons? Even if a robot kills in defense of its User, the corporation could be opened to crippling liability suits. Is the owner to blame? What if the owner is a criminal, and the loyal robot rips the heart out of a cop's chest to protect its master? Is the company responsible? The robot itself? Should a court punish a robot? We evaded the whole question. The only way society would tolerate the construction and distribution of millions of self-aware robots would be an absolute, non-negotiable detection engine that prevented them from actively seeking to injure or kill a human. She'd been told about the Asimov Laws, but I guess she wanted to believe... as macho as he seemed, that somehow he would find a way to 'handle it'. Didn't turn out that way. Mr. LF existed for no other purpose than to get in the pants of whatever woman bought him; he simply emulated whatever personality would achieve that. Not to fight muggers. He wasn't a Man... when it mattered. The red tape spider-web of legalese governing the sapient robot industry left him a pretty face with no substance."

"And for you, it's small comfort to tell yourself that she deserved it for ditching you." Came the cool, reassuring voice that I no longer wanted to question. The voice that caressed my shoulders, soothing me.

"At first... it was like that. All the anger you'd expect. But I never wanted her dead! Never... I guess it's not... rational. I started thinking; if I had been... more of a man; done things... differently, then she wouldn't have left... we would've been together -- she'd still be alive; If I was a better man than I am."

"Guilt can be narcissistic. Give me yours."

"Wh-what?" I began to snap out of my trance.

"I can take your pain; and replace it with a pleasure you never thought possible." At that, she began to unfasten the back of her gown.

"N-no... even if that made sense; I could never... use one of your... kind that way; I'd become... part of the problem."

"You're a challenge; I like that. I like the other men in your squad too; but that's because -- just as that Latin Fox was programmed to bring pleasure to women; I too -- know my purpose. And therein lies my satisfaction. But you....." I averted my eyes upward as the wedding gown slid down, past her bustline. But that only brought me in line with her mesmerizing face. "I want something more from you."

"I can't."

"You want to. I'll even let you call me by her name when we're together." Her smile was shark-like as she pressed her aquiline nose against my throat.

"No way in Hell." But something -- several things were happening. I found that my hands were now traveling down her bare back exploring the silken terrain of a feminine form that set my nerves a-tingle. I tried to remind myself that this was a machine play-acting at a human likeness. But despite that, I found my hands beginning to cup the generous swells of her rear as I reveled in a sensual pleasure as remote from the hard-scrabble brutality of my former life as night is from day.

I tried to fight the boiling urges throbbing through my soul, trying to... dehumanize her. I knew that creating a human replica that could be accepted on the instinctual level by other people was a daunting challenge. I knew about the 'Uncanny Valley' the visceral rejection of something that tried too hard to be human, but wasn't. But the cyberbionicists working for the Pygmalion Corporation had achieved an inversion of that innate suspicion. Lifelike breathing, subtle fidgeting, eye movements, mimicry algorithms juggled hundreds of subtle cues that screamed living, breathing human. My primitive hind-brain instincts, also screamed: -- 'Possess her, Mate with her.' Blood surged; in several regions. I began to grit my teeth as animal urges seethed just under the surface of my prized rationality. Yes, for all appearances, there was a naked woman embracing me, nuzzling me -- but somehow the attraction went deeper than that. Instead of a primal sense of alarm at an impostor, my senses sang with an erotic awareness that was itself unreal.

It was possible for any sane human being to stand in the same room with someone else they considered highly attractive, and still concentrate on other tasks. There may be momentary distraction, but I could observe beautiful women -- back when women could walk around in public without respirators on -- and still focus on business. It wasn't like that with these robotic sex-dolls. She didn't really have to do .... anything.... that I could see. Just her nearness became a caress. I had tried to avoid the damned things before the war, but if male-models had a similar effect on women; then my fiance's behavior didn't seem quite so inconceivable. Not just her appearance, but every motion, gesture engineered for attraction. This snow-haired apparition reminded me of ancient Celtic legends I'd heard of the supernatural charms of faerie creatures imagined to gird themselves in beauty and seduction like garments. But this was a techno-Sidhe, fantasy made flesh born from the cold womb of science, rather than the faerie ring of myth.