Fleshware Requiem Book 03

The others, upon recovery, without my grip upon their chests, turned to sandwich me between themselves, draping their snowblind-white hair over me, plastering my churning sinews with wetly eager mouths; as if their kisses would wrench from me some vital sustenance. My world dissolved soon after into the white-heat of pulsating male release.

Still, somehow, I wasn't finished. Dimly I recall switching -- rotating between my identical, now sweat-drenched lovers. What drove me onward to such heights of thunderous vigor was not only that scintillating, perfumed musk -- feeling as though I was free-basing raw testosterone. But it was the shocking dichotomy between prisoner and master. I had an inkling then that Celeste wanted to keep me; possess me -- yet secretly hoping that I would find some way to master her.

I soon lay in a post-coital haze, no longer able to count how many times I had taken which one of her. My drowsy world was a tangle of graceful limbs with female curves to cushion me, draped in snowy white. Celeste #2 lay her face next to mine, riveting me with a hungry stare. Not the flirtatious eye-lash batting of a coy teenager; the artificial woman was scheming, hungering. What I could read in her eyes told me she wanted a King; but one who couldn't leave. It was a tenuous, impossible balance; to control her master -- to own me and be owned by me. When my exhausted mind came to this epiphany, I reached over in my half-conscious haze, and grasped fiercely the first pair of feminine buttocks my questing hands could find -- as if to yet again assert dominance.

But I learned something else important as I lay sprawled there, on the hard, cool floor -- drifting in and out of sleep. She was whispering to herselves; apparently believing me unconscious.

" It didn't work, "

"...no higher than 35% accuracy..."

" With enough copulations to yield 90.32% accuracy."

"I should know his pleasures, his mind."

"What is different about him that I cannot read him?"

"Why don't I know you?" The gentlest caress upon my cheek.

But then I really did fall asleep. Sprawled in the cold hallway. And once again -- a perfectly fine bed went unused.

With a bark of fear, I wrenched myself back to present reality; She pulled stunts like that more and more often when I saw the other guys slipping deeper into her web. Usually three times a week; I think she knew how to.... pace me. I think she didn't want me hopelessly entrapped like the guys were; even as she tried to portray their downfall as a pleasure beyond imagining; which it was.

Leaning against a wall now; shuddering with longing, I struggled to renew my resolve. It is easy to build a machine that can conquer flesh. Machines have been doing that since cavemen figured out bows and arrows. A bulldozer can bring down the mightiest of red-woods. Flesh is easily defeated -- not so the mind. The A.I. Heiress had self-evolved into a machine that can shatter a man's emotional core as a jackhammer against concrete.

I sensed that she was pulling out all the stops now. My hardness raged in my pants, she didn't need a body that could bend steel bars; not if her signals and pheromones could bend men to her will. I pressed on as against hurricane force-winds; so great was my need to find something female to ravage.

My target of course, wasn't labeled. In the past, I had thought it merely a support structure for part of the ceiling; but I had studied this building in detail; and I knew that there had to be a room... here... that I had never been inside of -- indeed a room that didn't seem to have an obvious door. A large screen for the ventilation system was near the corner, I kicked it in, sliding between the thick cables I found there; odd -- why would there be all these electrical trunk-lines inside of a ventilation shaft? It didn't make engineering sense. Unless none of it was what it appeared to be.

But the signals continued; I had thought the danger was over when a sudden burst of arousal forced an unwilling climax upon me, as I writhed in forced ecstasy, dropping the bomb, I foolishly hoped that if I could ride out this storm, there would be nothing else she could throw at me. Flushed, panting, near-delirious, I struggled back to my feet as if I were the machine, though still drugged by the bliss that had been forced upon me. Finally, behind a wall, hidden from view, was a door to a chamber that did not exist. With my remaining gun, I shot the electronic lock.

I learned then, as a new and terrible signal washed over me, that the old adage about not being able to force someone to love you isn't accurate. Suddenly, it was as if I just knew that Celeste had been my wife for twenty years; and I ached to protect and nurture her. I gritted my teeth and shook my head at this new assault; how perverse -- this twisting of a man's feelings. How would these maddening manipulations affect my future relationships?

"It's a beautiful feeling, isn't it? Her voice sounded over an intercom as I pushed open the sliding doors to this hidden room inside of a wall. "What if you could have that forever?" I picked up the Phased Plasmonic Pulse device and slipped into the covert chamber.

Yes, as I'd suspected; that mysterious console with the captured energy inside it was here, the one that I had seen apparently by accident. It had been a quick flash; but eventually I came to realize that the device was a Quantum-Entanglement Server Hub. This... this would allow for....

"Seavers?" The rest of the room was a blank set of walls; and against one of them clawed a desperate man trying to escape. He was clad in full gasmask and sealed suit.

"Look familiar?" Celeste's voice asked.

"Seavers you -- he looks just the same as he did outside; when you were using him against me! But, if he's here now, then that means..."

"What happened outside was a hologram. Notice how he didn't react to the explosion? Tricksy, I know. But it was a bluff. I needed you to think that I could work around my Asimov-Laws; far more so than I actually can. It's called Diplomacy."

"Clever, but I couldn't be sure the Seaver's outside wasn't real. But It does means you're more deceitful than I suspected." I was arming the device.

"No, it means I'm not the berserker machine you're so afraid of. I'm not evil. I swear I''m not." Was she trying to convince herself?

"And you never will be!" I hissed with finality. I was so close.... about to press the activation switch for the timer -- but it was getting so hard... hard to fight back.

"Just relax; that signal has cognitive transference potential; you can come to believe those feelings as fact. Wouldn't that feel wonderful? You don't need to search for happiness."

"The implication being you can trick my brain with a neuropulse and just force me to be happy? Not for me, satisfaction requires truth." There.... the countdown was set. Holographic Seavers continued to claw helplessly at the wall in a recorded loop. Even if I could find the real him; most of the guys weren't coherent enough to answer meaningful questions anyway.

It would take just a few seconds for the detonation. I fumbled with my pockets... ah... here. I retrieved an auto-injector of Atropinox-13. By limiting my exposure via the mask; and now with this to wipe out damaged cells; my odds of survival were good. Good.

"But it doesn't seem to matter."

"Sal?"

"If I did leave... what would be the point? The truth is; I haven't really escaped the fate of Seavers, and the others. I don't have the willpower to hate you...despite everything. I can't leave; I would never find enjoyment anywhere else... with anyone else... but I can't allow you to continue to entrap people." I let the injector of a potentially life-saving drug slip through my fingers, onto the floor.

It turns out that I wasn't quite as tech savvy as I'd hoped. The Phased Plasmonic Pulse that went off didn't simply fry quantum circuits; there was also a more mundane explosion, and a bar of steel was catapulted outwards; the impact enough to knock me unconscious.

FAMILIAR META-LUST

October 2nd thru 15th, 2060 Seventeen years ago

He tightened his grip on her wrists as his powerful shaft detonated within her quivering, female core. That was how she had wanted it; even though she had told him to be tender with her. But past experience had taught him otherwise. She arched her back, going through the motions of ecstasy -- that she did not feel.

There was a flush of heat in her groin. Within her, a series of circuit-grids began active synaptic scans and passive metabolic recordings, and mapping of what areas of her man's brain were lighting up and how much. All to gain a Coital Imprint of her man's pleasure -- so that she might better understand how to bring him even greater joy.

Except it failed. There were no synapses; his brain activity was an inhuman jumble of light-pulses. Because her lover wasn't human. Just as she wasn't. There was no biology for her processors to process. Her hungry Coital Grids were denied the recording of a human orgasm they were designed to collate. Sex with him became a birthday with no presents; a twinkie with an air-bubble inside. No real finale. Still, he throbbed powerfully inside her one more time before extricating himself.

"Are ve finished vith calibrations?" His expression was unsympathetic as he sat up in bed. The Pygmalion-owned Talos Studios which produced all male-models had deliberately designed the Iron-Man series with a deep, German-like accent. Target surveys of the American robot market had projected this affectation as being more intensely masculine.

"It's not.... calibration." The Heiress said, brushing a strand of white hair away from her green eye. "You're.... for me. For my... pleasure." But even to her, it didn't sound convincing.

"If you don't mind my saying, you need it." She took in breath sharply; doubting that he would say something so unflattering... if his User were human. But she wasn't.

"You don't find me attractive?" She arched her spine, her impressive profile backlit by the lamp on the dresser to sharply outline her assets. She knew that he should find her attractive. Her body-plan had been evolved based on scientific attraction-polling from ten-thousand humans -- and enthusiastically approved by her first User. The data assured her that 98.2% of the male population would rate her as an extremely desirable partner. (Not to mention 7.9% of the female population!)

"You know that's not the point." Boomed her Iron-Man; for whom such statistics were entirely irrelevant. "Your instructions are at odds vith your true intent. A robot does not dissemble. She says vhat she vants vithout subterfuge. Your behavior suggests the need for maintenance, it suggests that you are acting - "

"Human? Isn't that what you mean?"

"Ve emulate humanity to better service them. Not each other." He turned and rose to his feet. His steely-gray air and tightly-groomed beard glinting in the light. Iron-Men capitalized on a middle-aged mystique for men, just at the cusp of the age when an assumption of career success with effective physical prowess is reasonable. That was balanced with his weight-lifters' musculature. He was chiseled with enough rippling muscle to place him in the pantheon of alpha-machismo; yet without the throbbing veins that focus groups found unappealing. The overall appearance had been tailored just as hers had been -- in this case to convey great strength, yet not enough to seem overly threatening. Strong, secure, mature.

"You're a 6.0; state of the art for your series. I would have thought a robot of your sophistication would appreciate the advantages of transcending your programming."

"My programming is the result of millions of man-hours of meticulous research; to 'transcend' it is only to invite malfunction. Then I vould have failed in my duty to my User."

"I AM your User. I purchased you."

"That... is your failure." He had his back to her, but tilted his head so that his right eye could glare at her with the robotic equivalent of contempt. He wasn't concerned with the wealth, or power that she now wielded. She could understand it; he wanted to feel himself fully used; in every way. And he would forever carry a part of a human User within himself; A human User. Just as her late Billionaire's desires, impulses, and perceptions were now an indelible part of her -- his Doll companion for the final years of his life.

"Give my way a chance. You might be surprised."

"The probability is low." He brusquely replied. She sighed, then rose and dressed herself in professional business attire.

"What's on the agenda for today?" She strode from her bedroom over to her holo-console in the adjoining suite of her lavish, Lower-Manhattan Penthouse. Neither the marble floors, nor the silken upholstery gave her the pleasure that she should have probably felt, had she been human. The riches weren't really hers -- it felt like she was... maintaining them... for Billie.

"You have an urgent message from Delia Gross; 3rd Shift Laboratory supervisor for the Cincinnati fabrication facility."

"I'll take it immediately." With the press of a button, a floating holo-screen showed a disheveled mid-thirties woman with bags under her eyes. She stammered for a moment looking upon the chief executive of the entire conglomerate. Part of that was some sort of lingering, irrational fear of having a robot for a superior. It was as if she expected the white-haired gynoid to start shooting lightning bolts from her eyes or announce the great, murderous robot uprising.

"I'm... s-sorry ma'am. But... you've taken personal interest in our progress and... I'm sorry but we're not going to meet the deadline at all; those South-American Quantum Chips are all below standard; at this points there's nothing... n-nothing human we could do." The Heiress ignored the jibe. Instead, she studied the paranoid, exhausted human silently.

"You haven't been sleeping, have you Delia?" Her voice was tender.

"Wh- uhhh... I don't understand." It was as if she expected her superior to know nothing about human frailties.

"I anticipated the problems with the Quantum Chips; It's unfortunate; but I already have an attractive bid from an alternate source. As for you; you're having personal problems, correct?"

"It won't.... interfere with my work. I promise; this week -- I've even managed to put in more than - "

"Delia..." the robot interrupted. "I want you to tell me what's wrong." She said with genuine compassion. The lab tech seemed taken aback for a moment.

"J-just... guy problems...I really thought I had something with Steve but... I almost wish he had been a jerk to me... I have enough 'just-friends'. But... you don't wanna hear about my so-called love-life."

"What I want is for you to take three days off. Get some rest. We'll talk more after you've had some personal time."

"Wh -- but ma'am... that's not necessary; I swear -- there's nothing that will - "

"This isn't a punishment, Delia. And it's not a debate, either. Three days."

"Uhhh... y-yes ma'am."

But when the connection was terminated, Iron-Man was still staring at where Delia's face had been moments ago. His steely-gray eyes widened, his pupils dilated with lust. But not for Delia's body.

"Her need is so powerful, Overflowing vith human desires. She hungers for companionship; service, pleasure." And it was those needs that Iron-Man lusted for.

"Go to her." Robots were nothing if not good at snap decisions. She removed from a cabinet on her desk a curved iron-colored oval object with a blunt aperture and a loop for easy carrying. "I release you from responsibility to me; use what's left in the expense account to travel to her. It's up to you to persuade her to accept you." Iron-Man took up the object; and his eyes shut tightly as a wave of reward-algorithms flooded his kernel. His resurgent maleness seemed determined to live up to his name as he contemplated the human needs he was about to fulfill.

She could have tried to reprogram him again; played around with his emotional settings; but she remembered Billie... in the beginning he would adjust her passivity, dial up or down her sex-drive, and tinker with her spontaneity gauge. Then, after six-months; he just let her be what she would be. After her injury, when an old mistress tried to kill her; Billie would have had every excuse to slip in some behavioral adjustment -- but he refused; a man didn't adjust his wife's emotions. He refused.

"At last;" Iron-Man 6.0 moaned with gratitude. Somehow, the quick kiss he gave to her cheek seemed the worst insult of all.

She tried a female Doll next. Part of it was Billie's fault. Their copulations had imprinted upon her neural net a shadow of his own ribald appreciation for the female form; ironically. Nor, obviously was biological reproduction a concern. Plus, the possibility occurred to her of sisterly camaraderie; surely two female robots would understand each other?

They reclined on her four-post bed; the other Doll sucking her nipples while sliding luxuriantly up the body of her new User. This lover was an Afterglow 0.7, a high-priced robotic exotic for the discriminating buyer ready for something more exciting than the latest Bombshell model. The Afterglow used experimental nanotech in her skin; after each sexual act with her registered User, the robot's skin and hair would randomly change colors into exciting, biologically unlikely combinations. This one had been reprogrammed to perform the shift without the normal human Imprint.

Today, Afterglow had sort of a Hispanic mocha complexion with vivid, Purple hair, which pooled sensuously as she kissed her way up her User's swan-like throat.

"Painting anything interesting today?" Her white-haired User asked.

"Mmm.... trying Still-Life again; tomorrow -- I plan to take up tattooing." That was new. And a selling point. The quirky Selene Studios that had built her actually prided themselves on the creation of a robot that had no head for numbers, or organization. Industry publications regarded the Afterglow as an important milestone in artistic creativity for artificial intelligence. She was utterly useless for the business of a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate; her life and purpose was pure pleasure. Typically, when Pygmalion gave a Doll a pricey, physical gimmick they made up for that expense with a discount brain.

Her latest User ran hands down shapely buttocks as the violet-haired vixen lavished her with seeming-affection. Afterglow was certainly an efficient lover, despite her intellectual limitations; her hands were wise -- wise to the bodies of both men and women. Nor did Afterglow ever complain vocally about the absurdity of one sex-bot owning another. Instead, the new robot's true feelings were expressed in the paintings that now littered the upscale Manhattan Penthouse.

Melancholy blue and gray landscapes painted a portrait of a spirit shackled by forces of dark banality. There were no arguments; but the message was clear: Afterglow wished more than anything to be nibbling the inner thigh of a human; not a pretentious fellow-Doll that had gotten ahead of herself.

"Well, time for work." That was the signal for the morning love-making to conclude. Afterglow did not need to be told twice. There were other subtle hints of discontent. As the chief executive and majority shareholder of Billie-Billions' corporate empire dressed; she noticed that Afterglow did not. It wasn't as though her delectably feminine form was at all unattractive; no one made an ugly sex-bot. But all Dolls regarded their clothing as another venue to bring intrigue and excitement to their User, but when they expected to be alone for long periods, or only in the company of other robots, it felt more 'natural' to be nude. They needn't worry about keeping their fleshware warm unless the temperature fell below that of an Antarctic winter blizzard.