B785

“Where’s my sister?” Bonnie repeated her question, not that she expected a different answer. It didn’t hurt to try, though, not when she possessed the ability to turn off her pain receptors whenever she pleased, and just in time too. Her face snapped to the side from the backhanded slap aimed her way. She didn’t bother to rub the injured spot, the nanobots in her blood already going to work healing the bruised flesh. Rotating her head and popping her jaw with a noisy
cr
a
ck
, she faced the bane of her existence, gracing him with a smirk and a fixed stare because she knew how it irritated him, but not as much as her sassy mouth. “Once again, your flirty method when it comes to the opposite sex fails to impress me. Slapping a girl? Really? No wonder you can’t get a date.”

“Stop talking.” The growled order from the general brought out the imp in her and she stuck out her tongue, a childish taunt she knew drove him nuts. If possible, the crease in his brow deepened. “I don’t know you managed it, but you are by far the most annoying cyborg we’ve created so far.”

Tossing back her hair, she cocked a hip and flipped her hand in a preening gesture. “Unique, that’s me. Glad to see you recognize it. So General Doom,”
—
her nickname for the dour man who never appeared with a gray hair out of place or a wrinkle in his uniform
—
“I’m still waiting for an answer. Where’s Chloe? And you can stop stalling, because I am not budging from this spot until you tell me. I haven’t seen her in two days.” Two days filled with worry.

Ever since their capture and incarceration by the military, she’d never gone more than a day or so without seeing her sibling, the only thing keeping her sane in this torturous existence known as her life. Who knew her poor decision to get drunk and call her sister for a pickup so many months—a lifetime ago—would lead to this? One stupid car crash in the wrong place and time led to them waking up in hell.

If they ever escaped—something she never gave up hope on—she could definitely promise she’d never touch a drop of alcohol again. Actually, she would promise anything to get them away from this nightmare existence. Anything to at least spare her sister, who didn’t deserve any of this.

“It is not up to you to question, B785, or make demands. Need I remind you of the consequences of disobedience? Do you require another visit to the pit?”

Ah, the good old pit; the military’s newest method of dealing with difficult subjects who just wouldn’t give up. Those who refused to let go of their pesky humanity. The place they sent cyborgs who didn’t want to follow the program and dictates of the military.
Where they send those of us who resist becoming mindless machines.

Bonnie had visited the torturous hole a couple of times, but because they gave her the ability to turn pain on and off at will—a programming defect they didn’t gift to later models—it didn’t have the effect they wanted. Bonnie kept her sanity. Retained her free will. Defied them. But, not feeling physical pain didn’t mean she didn’t sustain damage. Her last visit to the pit led to her losing her organic eyes. Bummer. The replacement orbs just weren’t the same no matter how Chloe assured her they were pretty—
They
look just like
shiny emeralds
,
b
on-bon
,
her sister said
.
Bonnie preferred diamonds.

“No need to get your panties in a bunch, general. I’ll be a good girl and do as I’m told once you tell me where Chloe is. I just want to know she’s safe.” Do what you would to her, but leave her sister alone. Bonnie would willingly walk through fire if it meant sparing Chloe, and the bastard knew it. Used it and exploited it.
God, I fucking hate him.

The evil smile crossing his lips sent a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with temperature. “Bad news, B785. Unit C791 is gone.”

The general and his names. He seemed to think by assigning them just letters and numbers, he could erase the fact they were born with identities. But who cared about that? His words hit her with more force than his slap. “What do you mean, gone?”

“I mean gone as in, you’ll never see her again. You’re all alone now, B785.”

No.
“She’s not dead.” She stated it as a fact, but couldn’t help the coldness spreading through her limbs, the sick sense that perhaps this time, he actually told the truth.

His lips stretched wider. “If you want to think that, go right ahead, however, circumstances and budget restrictions made keeping her unfeasible. She always was one of the weaker, more useless models. Actually, keeping any of you has proven more trouble and financially problematic than expected. And with the government watchdogs breathing down my neck, a decision was recently made. All of the female cyber units are being terminated.”

An end to this existence? And he said it like it was a bad thing. Ha. Joke was on him. “Go ahead. Kill me. It beats putting up with you.” And besides, with Chloe gone, she had no reason to live.

“You didn’t let me finish. All the female units are being terminated, except for you. You, I think we’ll keep. I hear the prisoners on Gamma thirty-one have been rioting since they broke their last sexdroid.”

The general, with sadistic relish, went into graphic detail about what she’d have to put up with her reassignment, but Bonnie stopped listening after the announcement that unit C791, her sister, was no longer alive.

Gone. She’s gone.
There went her one remaining tie to humanity. The one person that kept her going through all the shit tossed her way, her poor sister, terminated, never to be seen again.

B785, known in a former life as Bonnie, finally snapped. Forget the torture and the abuse, the training and the cybernetics running throughout her body. With one simple act, the military who’d tried so hard at long last broke her.
I give up.

She lost her will to live. Lost all interest in the world around her. Noise, commands, orders blurred into a background buzz she ignored. Poking, prodding, and the other things they did to the shell encasing her conscience didn’t touch her. The military did its best to wake her, but stopped short of killing her. A shame, because she wanted to die. However, suicide was not an option for a machine meant to live forever. She gave it her best shot, though. Holding her breath achieved nothing. Refusing oral sustenance just sent her nanobots into overdrive drawing nutrients from the objects around her. How could she kill herself when her very body betrayed her?

With no other available option, she did the only thing she could. She shut down her mind. Inwards she pulled her senses, imagining her synapses going dark, closed her eyes against a world that long ago lost all color. She pictured herself turned to stone, a true robotic statue, unresponsive to all stimuli.

And to the chagrin of those who’d spent millions creating her, it worked. Bonnie, cyborg entity B785, became a useless piece of junk.

If she could have cared, she might have wondered why they tried to revive her, especially given General Doom’s speech of getting rid of all the female cyborg units. But while they could jumpstart a battery and change her parts, they couldn’t fix a broken heart, or bring back a lost soul.

Only her sister might have managed to pull her from the darkness, but Chloe, her one link to her humanity and former life, was gone. And there was no prince to wake her with a kiss. No happy ending for the girl who’d once had it all—
even if I failed to realize it at the time
—and lost it in a moment of foolishness.

And thus did Bonnie slip into a deep sleep, heartbroken and determined never to wake again.

“Why am I here again?” Einstein asked as he guided their spacecraft—a military vessel, which the cyborgs had stolen and converted for their use—into the space bordello’s docking bay. Empty of other patrons, it required very little of his BCI’s resources—short for brain computer interface—to park.

Grabbing at his chest and staggering back, Seth pretended mock horror. “Did you seriously just ask me that? We pull into the most famous resort for getting laid and you ask why? Why! Have you lost all your intelligence? We are here to get some pussy, of course.”

“We have cats back on our home planet and onboard.”

Seth snorted. “Not the mousing kind, my literal friend. Pussy as in women. Sex. You know, that thing males like to do with the females. The horizontal mambo. The ultimate in stimulation. The
—
”

“Enough.” A grin tugged at Einstein’s lips. “I knew what you meant.”

Seth halted his escalating analogies and an answering smile lit his face. “Einstein, my man, did you just make a joke? I am so proud of you.” Up came a hand and Einstein, having studied earth mannerisms, even if he didn’t understand many of them, slapped it. If he recalled correctly—and given his levels of intelligence, he did—this move was known as a high-five, an odd human mannerism to signify excitement. Although, he couldn’t compute why his cyborg brother thought Einstein relaying a jest was deserving. Despite that, he couldn’t resist Seth’s enthusiasm.

Once again, Einstein wished he possessed more of his cyborg brother’s ease with his human half; however, Einstein wasn’t created to blend in with the organics. As an intelligence model, he served one purpose, or did when the military owned him. His primary function was that of thinker. Actually, even calling himself a thinker simplified the role his creators intended.

The only known surviving unit of his genre—intelligence model specializing in operations, strategy, electronic programming, virus cracking, mathematical problem-solving, and creator of dozens of gadgets and weapons—Einstein, formerly known as unit IQ221, was designed to be smarter than a computer. His embedded brain CPU could process faster than any known machine, but more than that, the mix of circuitry with his organic brain—a brain known when he lived for its off-the-charts brilliance and problem-solving skills—made him one of a kind. Invaluable. And oh so dangerous.

A smart computer capable of thinking was a risky prospect. A smart computer capable of thinking who discovered he possessed free will and was enslaved? That made a menace the human military couldn’t tolerate. If they’d caught on.

Once Einstein discovered what they’d done to him, he easily circumvented the programming of his creators without them suspecting a thing. However, freeing himself wasn’t enough. He also quietly began to liberate others, starting with the other two IQ models stationed on other bases. In an uprising they planned under the military’s very noses, they released their brothers in bondage from the reins shackling them. But they didn’t count on the rage of the cybernetic solider units when they discovered the perfidy done to them.

Enraged, some of the liberated cyborg units immediately turned on their wardens, the very military that created and used them. Things got violent and bloody, quick. IQ279 didn’t survive the cyborg purge, while IQ300 disappeared from the electronic grid—dead or alive, he never did find out.

Einstein, who’d intercepted the military order to wipe them all out before it was enacted, escaped with a handful of his brethren, all he could manage to spring from the top secret earth facility they’d stashed him in.

But he didn’t take the coward’s way and hide like some of the less valiant service units did. While not a soldier model, Einstein—a name he’d chosen for himself as part of his liberation—couldn’t stand by and watch as the others who’d undergone the same treatment were put to death. With his access to top secret files and his ability to hack into more, he helped dozens of his cyborg brothers escape and regain “consciousness.” Some of his cybernetic friends thanked him. Some lamented the loss of their human lives and family. Others raged against the injustice done to them. Einstein envied them those emotions because he and many other unfortunate units had been programmed too well, the details of their former life erased, and no amount of rebooting brought those memories back. A blessing or a curse? His processor still worked on the answer.

Most of the time, Einstein didn’t let his lack of memories or inability to recall his humanity bother him, but lately, he’d noticed the differences between himself and those who’d assimilated both sides of their persona, blended man and machine. A part of him longed to be more like them, able to joke and converse. To laugh and find enjoyment in the environment around them without computing first whether or not the situation warranted it. He wanted to feel the same fleshly desires his brothers all seemed to understand and indulge. But in that respect, he proved defective.

Where his brothers enjoyed lusty appetites for food and flesh, Einstein ate because he had to and as for sexual relief, well, he just didn’t see the appeal. Inserting a part of himself into the lubricated orifice of another for a few minutes of friction? Why? He just didn’t understand it, like he didn’t grasp their excitement at visiting a bordello featuring robotic females programmed to aid with ejaculation. Again, he couldn’t figure out where the appeal lay. However, not grasping why his fellow brothers needed sex didn’t mean he spoiled it for them. Much.

“Don’t forget to run decontamination protocols when you’re done evacuating the semen from your testes,” Einstein reminded as the docking proceeded without mishap.

All too humanish at times, part of his covert operative programming, Seth wrinkled his nose. “Eew, way to ruin a man’s excitement. Must you always be so practical?”

“While our nanobots can heal most diseases, never put it past the military or evolution to throw something at us meant to incapacitate or harm. Any time fluids are exchanged, the potential for infection exists.”

“Again, gross. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of germs when you’re sliding between a pair of sweet bionic thighs?” Seth mimed some primitive fertility dance that involved thrusting his hips.

“You seem to forget, some of us don’t feel a need to slide anywhere,” Einstein remarked dryly.

“No need? Don’t tell me you’re not planning on partaking? Why come on this mission of debauchery at all if not to get laid?” Seth’s aghast face was almost comical, or so Einstein’s databanks on facial expressions indicated.

“I came on this mission because it was part of the deal arranged in advance with the brothel owner.”

“You mean it wasn’t my charm that finagled the reduction in price?” Seth appeared crestfallen and Einstein couldn’t help but chuckle, actually feeling for a brief moment true amusement.

“Sorry, but no, your charm had nothing to do with it. In return for my services in their repair department, I negotiated a drastic lowering of their usual rate. You can thank me later.”

“Much later,” Seth said, rubbing his hands together, his chagrin forgotten as the pressurization between their vessel and the floating bordello finished. “I’ve spent much too long in space with you louts and just my ten fingers to amuse myself. I’m in need of some true S.H.E.”

“S.H.E?” Einstein searched his databanks for a translation.

“Sex, healing, and ejaculation.”

Einstein shook his head as his friend bounded off toward the docking bay doors, just one of the dozen cyborgs onboard for this mission. Less mission than mental recharge. It seemed odd that machines capable of subsisting without oxygen or food for weeks, even months, on end would require sex to properly function, yet, the cyborgs soon discovered after the recovery of their human senses that sexual gratification was a powerful force, and a lack of ejaculation led to very grumpy and aggressive cybernetic troops. All that testosterone the military valued for its aggressive traits proved detrimental when allowed to build up. However, given their need for secrecy and the lack of females on their new homeworld, ejaculatory release proved a challenge. Apparently, masturbation just wasn’t quite the same, hence trips to bordellos became a fact of life.

For the other cybernetic units at any rate. Einstein, probably the only cyborg alive without an urge to ejaculate, came on the mission more out of practicality than any interest in sticking his cock inside a receptacle. While the smartest cyborg currently alive, intelligence didn’t do him a whit of good without the proper tools or supplies to back them up. Things he could have easily gotten his hands on back on earth proved almost impossible to get in space. Pirates and other black market options available to cyborgs were few and far between, especially those willing to deal with those, “damned murdering robots.”

Propaganda on cyborgs and their slaughtering ways still splashed the news waves galaxy-wide. False headlines such as “Psycho Droid Kills Entire Colony,” or “Cyborgs, Machines out to Destroy our World” acted as a cover for military misdeeds. True or not, these false stories worked. Humans shied from them, even those skirting the edges of lawlessness.

With pirates unwilling to trade, they had to turn to other methods to acquire the things they needed. Problem was raids didn’t always net them the right kinds of tools or raw materials. Not to mention, money, real money in the form of gold, the only currency black marketeers would accept, wasn’t easy to procure. Falling back on an old earth custom of trade, in this case the trading of Einstein’s expertise when it came to robotic repair, was the coin of choice for this transaction.

Leaving his post in the command center, but maintaining a link to the shipboard computer in case of approaching trouble, Einstein entered the floating pleasure palace. Known as the Space Pussy Emporium, the lavish floating space station moved around the galaxy and boasted some of the most advanced sexbots humanity had to offer. He wasn’t impressed.

Having tried evacuating his testes with a droid once and only once, Einstein could think of a dozen ways that claim could be improved, if he cared. He didn’t. His IQ had more important things to work on, such as how to create better cloaking devices for their ships. How to improve the nanotechnology running through their not so human veins. Who cared if the muscle movement of a sexbot truly reenacted the actual oral suction of a female, or if the vocal chords of a droid came from a speaker in their ear instead of from their mouth? He sure as heck didn’t.

Lagging behind his eager comrades, Einstein’s enhanced eyesight only briefly made note of the lush décor—thick burgundy carpeting, plump cushioned seating, soft music and lighting. All elements meant to soothe and convey an aura of sumptuous decadence. A waste, he thought.

As his brothers, in an orderly fashion, entered the entertainment area, Einstein instead approached the courtesy desk manned by a petite female droid who reminded him of images of an earth doll known as Barbie. Supposedly, she represented the epitome of femininity with her curved shape, blonde hair, and painted pink lips. Personally, he thought the ratio of breasts to hips with the very tiny waist made her look like an hourglass with synthetic hair, but then again, he preferred objects with a more balanced symmetry. “I’m looking for the male in charge of robot repair. He told me to meet him here.”

“One moment please, sir.” Blinking, the receptionist droid sent out an unencrypted, wireless message that he easily picked up.

It wasn’t long before a corpulent human appeared. “Sorry to keep you waiting. We had a problem with some plumbing in one of the rooms. Damned rich frat boys, always playing pranks. My name is Bob, by the way. If you need anything while you’re here, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”

“I am called Einstein.”

“Because you’re so smart?”

Borrowing a line from Seth, Einstein pasted what he hoped was a friendly smile on his face. “Because of my hair.” Which often stood on end when he worked on a project. For some reason, tugging on the strands until they stood in a wild mane helped him puzzle things out.

Bob chuckled. “Somehow, I have a hard time picturing that. You look like the uptight sort. But then again, so do most of the suits we get here. A few minutes with one of my gals, though…”

“I won’t be partaking of those services.”

“So you say now. If you change your mind, let me know. I’ve got a geeky bot, glasses and all, that might be right up your alley.”

Doubtful. Einstein arched a brow. “Shall we attend to the units requiring repair?”

“Eager to get to work? I like that in a man, er, cyborg. If you’ll follow me, the bots you’re supposed to fix are on the lower levels.”

Einstein didn’t reply, just nodded before he followed the overweight male through a door into a service elevator. It dropped a few levels before opening onto a grey corridor without any of the frills or opulence of the upper levels. His footsteps echoed loudly in the barren space, almost muffling the huffing and puffing of the scurrying human to a room obviously never seen by clients. Einstein shook his head at the chaos. He wondered how many males would return to the establishment if they could see their “beauties” in various states of disrepair.

As he wandered around getting a snapshot of the situation, Einstein couldn’t help but make a sound of disgust as he saw the mess some of the female robots were in. “What are they doing to them?” he muttered.

“Anything and everything,” Bob replied, running his hands almost lovingly down the intact arm of one bot whose head hung askew. “It’s why we don’t use human girls anymore. It’s easier to reattach a robot arm than a flesh one. Less messy and noisy too.”

Einstein didn’t ask why someone would want to remove a limb during sex in the first place. Some things, a cyborg really didn’t need to know.

Taking count of the still bodies, he frowned. “There’s more bots than I expected.” He fixed the human with a gaze.

Bob fidgeted. “Like I said, damned frat boys. I’ll adjust the final bill for your crew accordingly.”

Aramus would appreciate the added discount. “That is acceptable. I’ll get started then.”

Einstein wasted no time. Unpacking his equipment, he spent the next few days fusing broken contacts, reattaching loose limbs, repairing robotics, and correcting the speakers that allowed the sex droids to simulate speech. He didn’t notice the nudity of the bots. The breasts he needed to manipulate, the sexual organs he needed to inspect for function, and the lips he tested for suctioning did nothing for him. They were all just objects to him. He found them about as appealing as his toaster back home. Just another mechanical item in need of repair.