Page 3 of Alliance
Three beats later, our rails were clamped into one side of a long hall, relieving the built-up pressure in their suspension coils with a long hiss. All units were released from our charging jacks in unison, breathed in deep, opened our mouths, and expelled hot, stale air. Then we took one step out of our pods and awaited inspection.
The overseer purred, pleased with our shells. He swaggered down the line, taking care to touch each of us before giving us instructions to depart and mingle with our test audience. No longer restrained by my charging protocol, I smiled, staring straight ahead as he stopped in front of me.
“Hello, I am Roz-02.”
Finally.I could speak the introduction I had attempted twice before. Though I was satisfied with the tone of my voice and the upturn of my lips, the overseer was not. He grunted, pushing my long brown curls aside.
“What’s this?” he asked, pressing his talon into the wounds left from Master’s improvements.
“I was augmented by my originator on the factory line,” I replied with suitably docile pride.
“How long til they heal up?”
I consulted my vitals deck. “Approximately forty-six beats.”
“Right.” He pushed me back into my pod and the charging jack reengaged. “Back to sleep until then, dolly.”
The other eleven units were dismissed one by one, found satisfactory for our purpose this evening. Another rail of dolls arrived, half of which were stored around my unit while they bent their faces to the ground, locked into fast chargers suspended from the ceiling.
I was the only one in a standard pod, staring ahead at the kitchen’s swinging doors. My coding turned over the overseer’s instruction several times, attempting to find a more efficient manner in which to heal that would not require suspending my LMem, something I was considering more and more as time ticked by because the delay in usefulness disturbed me so. I was perfect now. How could I not be if my originator approved of me?
Muted music wriggled through the spaces between doors and vents, bringing with it the scent of incense and coolant while my tissue knit itself back together. The overseer sat in the shadows of a padded vent near the loading dock, dormant overhead lights bathing his talons and spires in a red wash. The watchful pinpricks of his glowing blue stare bore into me.
Still.
Silent.
Until he stood up.
The overseer approached me twelve beats after the last ChaHal disappeared into the misty room of clients, arms laden with flutes of bubbling alcohol. He slid his talon into the curls cascading over my shoulder and picked them up, rubbing them between his finger pads with a thoughtful huff.
“You really are like the Muru, aren’t you?”
I did not attempt to override my safety protocol this time, the overseer’s talons tracing a line down my wounds. His hand descended to my breast, and my nipple hardened as coded. Cocking his head to the right, he lifted the hem of the cropped t-shirt I’d chosen and exposed the heavy mound to his view.
“That’s what the buttons are, then,” he said to himself, pinching my nipple with more strength than recommended. It stung as he pulled it taut and let go, watching my ample breast bounce. Then he leaned into my scent and groaned, rubbing a talon between my legs, having to force the digit between my thick, pillowy thighs. “Maybe I should perform some quality control before you go out there, huh?”
Quality control was well within the overseer’s purview, though I did not need a quality control test, and I did not…want…one. But my protest was an invalid instruction, and my vagina slickened at the pressure of his talon, presenting him with the scent of human arousal. His growl thickened, the vibrato an engine revving up, crowding me in with the red glow of the loading bay beacon at his back. He bent his mandibles to my neck and gnawed on my pulse with his bifurcated mouth.
Bright white exploded from behind my optical nerves, a blinding download so compressed with data that my eyes rolled back and my throat hardened like a copper pipe, open in a silent scream to the ceiling. My heart raced and sputtered, the chokehold of data so sudden and intense that my vitals deck blared warnings, drowning out the overseer and his talons now pushing my underwear aside.
My charging pod beeped aggressively.
Warning. Non-essential movement restricted during data insemination and charging. Warni-warning. Non-ess-es-es-es– Warning, hyperventil– Warning, cardiac arrhythmia detected. Overriding medula vitals core. Diverting parumauxi to heart tissu.. Tish-ti-ti-t-t-t-t-t-t–
Lightning bolts blasted through the parameters of my LMem. The ceiling above my port rushed and tilted as my vision blurred. The sound of gasoline vehic-hi-hi—las motonetas—puttered by. Feet shuffled against sandy tiles. A door opened on a rusted spring.
“¡Buenos dias, Rozszsalinda!”
That name sounded familiar, but the other words and murmurs were not. I reached for them. The boisterous voices dancing with the smell ofkauph-f-f-coffee. Though my body could not move, I felt my arm stir a pot on a hot gasoline stove like a phantom data halo, an echo brushing against my receiver.
Then the overseer moaned sweet nothings in my ear. Was it him? No… The words were like the ones I’d heard before. The voice was smooth but strained, hot, warm breath against my earlobe. A silky jaw pressed against my cheek rather than a venandi’s mouth parts.
“Me vengo…”
“¡No pares!”
Breath squeezed from my lungs. That was my originator’s voice. Or…myvoice. The words I didn’t know came from my throat and I still felt their shape. I felt other shapes pressed into me too. A hand with five human fingers squeezing my breast. A forearm banded beneath the small of my back. Were those my moans? I could not make noise while charging.
