Page 24 of The Genius
He gave me a sideways glance. “What are you talking about?”
“Tristan is with the sex-bot that I tested out last week.”
“Give me my glasses back.” Storm turned in his seat to zoom in on Natura again. “The virgin bot?”
“Did you say virgin?” Hunter asked and Storm was quick to fill him in.
“Don’t tell anyone. I promised that I wouldn’t talk about it,” I pointed out to both of them.
Storm gave a dismissive hand signal. “Telling your best friends doesn’t count.”
“You two aren’t my best friends, I just tolerate you because you had a free ticket to the drone race.”
Storm grinned. “Don’t be an ass. We all know that you love to hang with us instead of all the oldies you call friends.”
He had a point, since my two closest friends had married years ago and changed because of it.
“Do you think you could contact the test facility and ask if I could test her too?” Storm asked eagerly.
My first instinct was to say no. I didn’t feel like sharing Natura, but that didn’t make any sense, so I muttered, “I guess.”
“What are you doing?” I asked when Hunter started fiddling with his wristband again.
“I’m calling Tristan to ask if he banged her too.”
“Don’t. She’ll know I told about it and then Storm will be blacklisted from the test team.”
“Me?” Storm jerked back. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“I took your spot, remember? They think it was you testing her out that day.”
“Riiight.” He nodded. “Shit, I would have never given up my spot if I’d known I could be trying out an advanced sex-bot like her.”
Hunter borrowed Storm’s sunglasses again to get a second glance at her. “She doesn’t look like a sex-bot. She looks like a real woman.”
“That’s the whole point,” I said. “She’s the closest thing to a real woman that has ever been produced.”
“What if sheisa real woman?”
Storm slammed the back of Hunter’s neck. “Idiot. In what universe would a real woman walk in to offer herself as compensation for a broken sex-bot? Most women are fucking scared of us Nmen.”
“Shewasa robot,” I assured Hunter. “Well made, but definitely a robot. Women don’t behave like she did. Not with strangers anyway.”
“Okay, okay, I was just messing with you.” Hunter gave a grin and returned to watch the race.
I kept thinking about what the hell Tristan was doing with the sex-bot and turned around one more time, squinting my eyes to see them.
No way!
What I saw blew my mind. Natura was taking a bite of a breadstick.
Fuck!
Robots didn’t eat.
Either Natura was in fact a hybrid or… my eyes widened as a simpler and much more likely explanation hit me like a hammer.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter elbowed me. “What did that drumstick ever do to you? You don’t have to smash it.”
