Zerek's Homeopathic Teledildonics

Havel sighed again, "Yes, yes, of course," he acknowledged quietly, "These...way... theseway, my gentleperson," he reluctantly called out to the nervous customer.

Zerek explained to the customer with a smile, "please do not mind our trainee, gentleperson, it is her first day on the job. Avel is learning with our experienced staff to provide you with excellent service."

"His," Havel quietly corrected a fragment of that statement.

"Ah, yes, HIS first day on the job," Zerek repeated enthusiastically and nodded excessively for effect. He then roughly prodded Havel to continue with the prompt.

"Havel's... the name, these are my games," he said soullessly and opened up the trenchcoat. When Zerek prodded him again, he closed his eyes to hide from the shame of it all, and flapped his arms like a bat." Zerek noticed he didn't put the penis motion to work.

"Good good, enough, enough, good enough, good enough," he pointed at Havel's cock twice to keep his rhythm and reminded him to add flair to his performance, "we'll work on that, we'll work on that," he said.

...

She screamed and slashed through the air and Reggert lost another screen projector to her violence. Her university tutor shrunk in terror and stepped aside.

"NUMBERS MAKE ANGRY," she raged, still unpracticed at modulating her voice.

"Darling, we can skip over them if you like," Reggert tried being helpful by coaxing the tutor to return, "I don't fully understand why you're so insistent on the topic." He never asked her about it, because long ago he committed to fully supporting her development without needing to know why. What little he understood of her situation impressed upon him deeply.

She looked at him quietly with those intense eyes of hers and they told him so many things with the stare. Her freakishly overdeveloped muscles bulged and flared and promised more broken screens to come. The brain was freakishly hungry for knowledge, she retained and understood information at an extraordinary level. He knew it was all worth it.

When early on he realized her inability to scan wasn't a fluke, he worried for her safety. Unlicensed people just couldn't be left walking around on their own, such people were not allowed to exist. It meant she was very unique. Reggert's investigators dug up a disturbing possibility which he still refused to entirely believe. He spent hundreds of hours teasing out details from her and on occasion, her emotions gushed, but it was unpredictable. But she'd told him about Big Cat at length and that he did believe. But even he could not read her eyes, as much as he tried to. And in a rare moment of sharing, she explained herself instead of staring blankly.

"HAVEL NUMBERS," she told him, and to her mind it explained everything. Dr. Havel had told her they'd be important, and he was right about the colors so she knew it was true. She must master the numbers, all the numbers. She didn't understand that Reggert wasn't in the room for that conversation, but she appreciated that he listened to her. She had what it took to formulate more complete sentences, but to her mind complete sentences weren't necessary. You listened, you watched, you anticipated, you pounced.

...

Director Nowak felt like he was sweating, even years after he'd had his sweat glands removed and switched to a pluggable coolant pipe. And he was plugged into the wall outlet. Despite everything, it felt as if the walls were closing in on him. He managed to get rid of that troublemaker Havel, but Blazek wouldn't shut up about 56-B. Her renewed calls to locate the clone built up pressure, because others started listening to her and the situation was escalating way beyond his control. It was best if the damned clone never got found.

And then he got the dreaded call on his secret contact sphere and had to explain to his second boss why he was so far behind production schedule.

...

Havel started mopping the floor, and resented every moment of it. He intellectually understood that this sublevel had the power and cybernetics shut off to cover up the illicit business, but still hated that robots wouldn't do this dirty job. And the dust and garbage was endless, accumulating day after day. From where does it come from, he wondered? And then he wondered if he'd just thought it or accidentally said it out loud when a supposedly dead screen in front of him unexpectedly turned on and a 3-inch red circle on it followed him around like an eyeball.

"H... hello?" he said nervously to the screen. He didn't do anything, but he worried he'd get blamed for somehow alerting a computer to his presence. Computers weren't allowed any places they weren't invited to, and he was sure they were disinvited from this one. Did Zerek tell him this was supposed to happen and he forgot?

"Hello Dr. Havel," the computer said.

"Just a Havel now," Havel said acidly, "or more like a Haven't."

The computer said nothing. The red circle eye just followed him around as he moped and mopped.

"Did you want something?" he finally asked when the computer didn't say anything for a minute. Like vampires, they had to be invited to enter a screen. This was weird, even for AI. Fucking thing had to indirectly know he'd been revoked, despite not being allowed to witness the proceedings. But the computer never replied and just watched him mop until the red eye winked out.

...

She still didn't pick a name, so no one called her anything. Which was all as well, because she didn't respond to any calling whatsoever. But after dozens of tutors and treatments, they had results despite Elberts Systems S.A. Amalgamated Ltd. SARL & Co., GmbH needing to sell off a fleet of asteroid miner tugs to finance it.

"What do you want to do now, my sweet?" he asked her when she announced that she finally knew both colors and numbers. Aside from clawing him, they'd never shared anything remotely considered a physical relationship, but he felt obligated to help this creature from the past, because he could, and because he was certain that no one else would.

Of course, 'numbers' was a severe misrepresentation of the term. Somehow she got it in her head to be thorough once she got started, and she blazed and slashed her way through manifold topology, combinatorics, exogeometries and finitistic boundary bridges. No real, imaginary, or hyperbolic numbers could hide from her gaze. None were safe.

"Two thingst," she answered firmly, "Onest, get Havel."

Reggert nodded, "and then?"

"Twiced, get Big Cat," she said with absolute conviction that she would, extending her new claw implants to admire their sharpness. And that was enough for Reggert to mobilize a private army for her.

...

"Havel's the name, and..." and he paused in a mortified realization that it was Dr. Blazek standing in front of him. He quickly closed the trenchcoat and cringed that she looked down at his penis for as long as she did.

"What... are you doing down here Cecily?" he asked her, deeply embarrassed.

"Nowak suspended me," she answered, "something was off about him. One late evening I stopped by the institute and realized the fab was running. He locked himself in it and refused to open the airlock, so I don't know what actually happened. But I think I caught him making clones off-books. Next day, my building access was revoked and some bogus fucking reprimand notice showed up. He fucked me."

Havel sighed and looked down at his feet. They were now both in trouble.

"So now what?" he asked her.

She handed him a hexagon payment and said, "think I'm supposed to give you this." Havel refused to take it, but she insisted.

"So now, I think I'd like to try driving a bulldozer."

Havel cringed so hard. Fucking computer was a blabbermouth. She knew so much about him now, and he hated that. They were out of diesel so he dutifully opened up the trenchcoat to show her the available forbidden fetish screens and properly conclude their business. He hated inadvertently showing her his erection, though he was surprised because he didn't know Blazek was interested in trying a penis out.

"Kidding," she said and laughed softly, "while my appeal goes nowhere, I now I have time, plenty of time I can use, and I'm going to try to find her. And I want you to help me."

Havel was humiliated, and downtrodden. And he didn't want Blazek to see him like this.

"Sorry, I can't," he said quietly, "Cecily, I have nowhere to go from here but downwards," he confessed his abject poverty and was far more humiliated by the admission. He could no longer look her in the eye, and so he didn't.

Blazek sighed and walked away quietly, unaware that she could've easily compelled him to help. She only had to suggest he might get to see her breasts and that would've been his breaking point. Though, to find the creature she would've gladly swallowed the digger and let Havel fuck her from mouth to ass for two days.

...

Zerek found Havel manufacturing Diesel for a wealthy white-coated customer arriving next week. He stood in front of a dispensing kiosk, making batch requests.

"Request: One ear of corn, raw."

The kiosk warned, "Raw corn is not nutritiously balanced. Confirm request."

"Confirmed."

The kiosk told him how long it would take to print and gave a list of disclaimers for eating it raw. When it was done talking, Havel repeated himself and despite being told otherwise he tried to speed this up:

"Request: Two ears of corn, raw."

"Raw corn is not nutritiously balanced. Request limited to one. Confirm request."

"Confirmed," Havel sighed. He had another 200 ears to go before they could start distilling it. The machine started babbling again, advising him not to eat it raw because ultimately he wouldn't like it very much, he surmised. Then it spent several minutes explaining why two ears were exponentially worse than one.

"Avel," Zerek said, "an old theyfriend came looking for you." When Havel turned around, he noticed Zerek's face had bloody scratches raking it at an angle.

"What in allgod's name happened to you?" he exclaimed, astonished at the injury. Last injury he saw, or rather the first one he ever saw, was... from the institute so long ago.

"Worry not, not worry," Zerek said and grinned, "I told them nothing, nothing." Havel was proving to be not so good with theatrics, but he was competent at the technical part of the job and Zerek didn't want him poached by a competitor. And in the teledildonics field, there were so many.

"Was it a woman? This tall? Funny eyes, kept getting bigger?"

Zerek squinted in confusion, "I did not ask for their gender as I was being assaulted, but yes to the eyes, ah, so you DO know the person,..." he grinned in recognition, still squinting. He was right to guard his proprietary secrets, he thought, no matter the upfront cost. He thought he was protecting Avel.

But then Havel grabbed him by the lapel and started yelling at him. He did not know she was so strong, Zerek thought in some surprise while being screamed at, "WHEN WAS THIS? WHERE IS SHE? WHERE DID SHE GO?"

...

Havel ran as fast as he could, and then realized that working a menial job came with some rewards. He picked up the pace and grinned at his new physique. She couldn't be but minutes away. Elevators were going up, surfaceway and he was uncertain because he'd told her to stay in the dark. But she must've gone up.

As the door opened and he stood out, the sun blinded him and he covered his face with a hand.

"Damn it," he cussed, "she was so close." What did she want? It surprised him so completely that she went looking for him, and moreso that she was capable of finding him.

He looked around in the street, seeing a lively crowd made up of thousands of well-dressed people going about their ways. The lack of garbage surprised him after spending so much time underground. If the authorities couldn't find her all this time, how could he, he thought miserably.

Some kind of an expensive pleasure craft stopped by the curb and a window rolled sideways.

"Doctor Havel?" a man with a feathery hat asked.

He almost corrected the man about not being a doctor, but then didn't. Instead, he just answered, "Yes?"

"HAVEL" he heard her voice from inside the giant vehicle, "HAVEL. HAVEL." It almost sounded excited.

He picked up his phone sphere and dialed Cecily's number on the rotary hemisphere dial.

"You are not going to believe this," he told her.

...

The nameless doorman joined Reggert's force as a nameless consultant, and he had novel ideas to bring to the table. Their foremost problem was arming themselves in this pacified age. The historical book they were allowed to read explained theory of classical warfare somewhat clearly, but it didn't foretell their particular obstacle.

Weapons of any kind had been banned after World War 4, where they fought with sticks and stones - those stones being asteroids. Now nothing this side of a pool noodle was allowed on Earth.

The nameless consultant smiled and cleared his throat before confidently speaking instructions into a kiosk:

"Request: Sandstone replica of a smiley face toy, 12 millimeters thick, 25 centimeter radius, firmly mounted on a sturdy fun stick two meters long with ergonomic grips on the handle capable of withstanding 800 newtons of force, a delicious late-season strawberry inset in its pommel, (not too sweet:3.35), the smiley face is mirrored along bisected convex notches along the vertical plane, 30 Z-shaped happy teeth proportionally sized to the radius, located along both far extreme edges of its mirrored smiling lips, each tooth tapered to 1 atom thickness at the outer interface. Avoid: ugly, watermarks, bad quality."

The machine paused for a long moment, seemingly baffled by the request. What the fuck was an outer interface, it wondered. Interface to what? To a manifold infinity? That was the object's edge. It started asking around on the network and the silence became palpable, making everyone nervous.

Finally, the kiosk warned, "This device is not nutritiously balanced. Confirm request."

"Confirmed."

As the machine kept going on about proper nutrition, they had their first technically edible war axe, sharper than any before in history.

...

"Sir, a threat is forming outside, numerous people are amassing outside of the institute," a blue helmet advised.

"What color helmets are they wearing?" asked Director Nowak.

"Sir... they are not wearing any kind of helmets," the man said.

Nowak was startled. "No helmets? But why are they assembling without helmets?"

"We don't know sir," the man confessed in profound ignorance.

Nowak couldn't understand why this was happening. Only people wearing helmets assembled in front of buildings, that was how it was done. This was clearly a threat, that was for sure, just a new kind. Were they coming for him? But who were they?

"Lock all the doors," he said decisively, "and put our own blue helmets in front of them."

"In front, sir?" the man asked, confusion on his face.

"Not on the outside, on our side, the inside, you idiot," Nowak clarified and was saluted before the terrified man ran off.

...

"The door is locked," Meck told Reggert.

In their strategy session they'd suspected it would be, but to them it was a 50/50 chance it wouldn't be so they took it. When the unnamed consultant pointed out a third possibility that all secure buildings have locked doors, they accepted it without much thought and then miscalculated their chance at 33%. Now they were at an impasse.

Zerek stood in the background flashing Blazek, pointing and explaining all the pocket screens to her. Havel was annoyed at how attentive she seemed and that she giggled when Zerek showed her the metal penis and pretended to tickle her with it. But that amateur jealousy proved to be a lightbulb moment.

"Oh! I have an idea!" said Havel suddenly, and grabbed Zerek by his collar, "come, gentlethee, we have a job for Zerek and Son's," he said and headed toward the subway elevator.

Thirty or so men held their strawberry-pommeled battle axes cluelessly, the heft unfamiliar. Third of them had strawberry pulp and juice dripping down their forearms, startled at the mess these weapons made. Some of the more advanced warriors disarmed their axes beforehand by eating them. Each man had a helper or two standing nearby and watching, like helots of yore, carrying their belongings in case they got hungry or bored.

Fear and smell of strawberries was in the air all around them.

In the far distance, building-sized elevator doors opened and a loud noise was heard. It kept getting louder, as if something big was approaching. Men rested their axes on the ground, the blue helmets within nervously stared through glass windows, still freaked out that the outsiders didn't wear helmets.

"How in the seven fuckholes did that trick work anyway," asked Meck?

"You see," said the nameless consultant, "given the noisy description weights, the machine spent 335% of its attention on making the strawberry not too sweet, and in doing so ignored most of the other parameters." He shrugged. It was his best guess, but who knew how computers actually worked. Meck just stared, impressed by his violence administrator's ingenuity.

"What in allgod's commutativity property is that?" someone asked and pointed unnecessarily.

A large 24-ton tracked vehicle, the kind they'd never seen before outside of history books, which they'd never read, approached loudly but steadily, Derek and Havel smiling triumphantly in its cabin. Havel raised the excavator arm and demonstrated what he was going to do with it. Or thought he was, because no one really understood.

The thirty-to-eighty men cheered in scattered groups, collectively unsure about how exactly this would help them get past the locked door, but they were sure it would work somehow. Victory and smell of strawberries filled the air.

But then just twenty meters shy of the institute the large beast abruptly shut off and stopped. Zerek shrugged very bat-like and helplessly pointed at the fuel gauge.

"Damn," Havel said in frustration after he got out, "we were so close."

"It was a good plan, my gentleperson," soothed Reggert by clapping him on the shoulder, "the machine would have surely smashed down that door with great ease."

Havel raised his eyebrow in confusion, "... smashed?"

He had planned to raise the bucket onto the roof so they could climb up the arm on top of the building and check whether that roof door was also locked. When he saw it, it seemed like a 50/50 chance. Or 33% chance anyway, like their earlier estimate. The thought of just driving right through the front door never occurred to him.

"Avel, put it in neutral," Zerek said with a smile and got behind the machine, ready to push it. As he did that, the warrior men dropped their axes on the ground and went to help - but the machine didn't budge. None of them had pushed anything before, certainly nothing heavy, so they didn't know how to brace themselves or use the unfamiliar muscles.

When someone slipped and accidentally discovered they had a better mechanical advantage at an angle, the cheers roared and further terrified the blue helmets inside. The excavator seemed like it almost moved, and then someone thought about the helpers. Implored to help and thus serve out their one function, they joined their hands at the effort and the excavator finally moved along, inch by inch, until the bucket did make contact with the roof to an even louder sound of cheers.

Zerek shook his fist in the air and cheered with the rest when Reggert asked him, "Where did you get that ancient machine from anyway?"

Zerek shrugged. "Don't know, it was just there on sublevel 10."

"Just sitting there, by itself?" Reggert asked in surprise but got no response, "...on sublevel 10?" He was confounded. Why didn't this bearded trenchcoater ask more questions, he wondered.