Man-Droid the Orgasmatron (Siren Publishing Classic) (9 page)

“They’re coming. I haven’t got time to explain, and it’s probably best that you don’t know the full story. Even Jerry doesn’t know it all. It was safer for her not to. Just stick to what you know. You signed up for the sex-android trial, and you don’t know anything else, because—”

The front door popped off the hinges, and the room filled with smoke, interrupting Brian mid-sentence. Acrid smoke filled Beth’s lungs, and her eyes streamed and swelled until she couldn’t see much past dark shapes filling her living room. She fought against the hands pulling Elliot’s lifeless body from her grasp. She kicked and screamed, but it was useless. There were too many, and they were too strong. Something hit the back of her head and the world went black.

* * * *

Beth groaned against the bright light, forcing her eyes open. She tried to swallow past the thorns stabbing her throat, and winced at the brass band which seemed to have taken up residence in her head.

“She’s waking up. Get her some water.” The deep voice seemed to boom around the room, and Beth gagged on the water seemingly being forced down her bruised throat. She had no choice but to swallow, and the ice-cold liquid did soothe the fire in her gullet.

A strong arm round her shoulders pulled her up into a sitting position, and Beth’s stomach heaved at the rolling sensation. Again her eyes were pried open, some sort of cooling salve was applied, and then that annoying bright light blinded her vision again. Some more prodding and poking followed, by the end of which Beth was ready to commit murder, but her vision had cleared and the pounding in her head receded to a more manageable level.

“How are you feeling now?” She squinted up at the owner of that voice, a short, round, balding man with glasses, who she presumed must be some kind of doctor. At least he wore the white coat and had the required stethoscope dangle from his thick neck. He cupped her chin and ran his other hand over the back of her head. Beth winced as he hit a sore spot, and he clucked his tongue.

“When will they learn to not be so heavy-handed? Would make my job a damn sight easier.” He released her and signed a form attached to a clipboard, and Beth got a chance to take in her surroundings. She seemed to be in some form of holding cell. Bright artificial light filled the small space. It contained nothing but the bed she’d been lying on, a table and chair, and a toilet and sink in one corner. Instead of bars she was surrounded by glass like some sort of damn goldfish. Beth couldn’t see out, but she was pretty damn sure whoever had her, and it had to be the mysterious
they
, Brian had been so worried about, would be able to see in.

It was enough to make her blood boil. How bloody dare they?

“Where the fuck am I, and what gives you lot the right to burst into my home and abduct me? There are laws against kidnapping.”

The man in front of her took a step back, and she could have sworn he was about to laugh, when a disembodied voice intervened over the intercom.

“Excellent, the lady seems fully recovered to me. Bring her to the interview room, Doc.”

Doc sighed and offered Beth his hand to get up. She ignored him and scrambled to her feet by herself. The stone floor felt cold under her bare feet, and she realized with a start that she was still in the little black dress she had worn to the reunion. Thoughts of the party brought Elliot to the forefront of her mind, and she swallowed the threatening tears away.

Somehow she knew she had to hide her affection for the Man-Droid, Brian’s dire warnings still ringing in her ears.

“I can manage by myself, thank you.”

Doc smiled and gestured for her to follow. The wall opened as if by magic, and the two of them were joined by two beefcakes all dressed in black. No doubt it was one of them who she had to thank for the blow to the head that had her now sport an egg of enormous proportions.

Their little group weaved through a myriad of identical corridors until Beth lost all sense of direction and felt quite dizzy. By the time they finally opened one of the identical doors they had passed and entered another sterile room, she was glad to be able to sit down.

A man and woman sat behind a table, and Beth sat opposite. Doc disappeared, and the two beefcakes took up a silent vigil on either side of her.

Beth couldn’t help it. She laughed. A slightly hysterical laugh, but what else was a girl to do. This was all bordering on the ridiculous. Perhaps she was just having some sort of surreal nightmare and would wake up back in her own bed, still dreading the upcoming reunion.

If only, but even as she thought that her heart protested that idea. She never would have met Elliot, and she could never regret their time together, brief as it had been.

“So, Bethany.” The blond man sat opposite her smiled, and his grey eyes connected with hers. “You don’t mind if I call you Bethany, do I? We are all friends here after all.”

Beth put her hands on the table and took a deep breath.

“Actually I do mind. My friends call me Beth, and last time I checked,
friends
do not break into each other’s apartments, fill it with gas, knock me out, and drag me to god only knows where. I know my rights. You can’t
do
this. I demand you let me go immediately.”

He smiled, and a chill went down her spine as he rocked back on his chair and gestured to the woman next to him.

“I think you’ll find that we can. Why don’t you explain it to Beth here, Sandra?”

The stern-faced brunette smoothed out the nonexistent creases from her business suit and focused her attention on Beth.

“As Arthur pointed out quite rightly, we certainly can.” She put her hand up to stop Beth when she was going to interrupt her. “Especially in matters of national security.”

“My attending a reunion party is a matter of national security?” Beth didn’t have to act much to feign her surprise. What on earth was Brian involved in? However, his dire warnings to her made perfect sense now. If the government was somehow involved in all of this, and of course Barnett worked for the government, then she had walked Elliot right into the lion’s den.

Oh holy shit!

Sandra puffed her chest out and raised one eyebrow.

“Really?” Beth said. “I agree Samantha Barnett’s dress was a crime to humanity, but I hardly see how that is a matter for the government. It’s so nice to know my tax money is being spent so well.”

Beth laughed, and if anything Sandra’s demeanor grew even frostier.

“This is not a laughing matter, Bethany. It would be in your best interest to cooperate with us.”

“Well, I would, if I knew what the fuck this is all about. I’m not a mind reader, so why don’t you just come right out and tell me why I’m suddenly worthy of all this attention.”

Arthur’s lips curled up into the semblance of a smile, and once again it was Sandra who spoke.

“You have recently signed up to an Android trial with Brian Jonasson, and were supplied with an Orgasmatron. This is correct?”

Beth flinched hearing her Elliot referred to in such a clinical manner. Of course the two government interrogators noticed, and she shrugged her shoulders.

“So what if I was. I needed to scratch an itch. The Orgasmatron came highly recommended, so I took him for a ride or two.” She sat on her hands to stop them from shaking. “You should try it,
Sandra.
It would be sure to loosen you up a bit.”

The woman chose to ignore that comment, and Arthur coughed into his hand.

“Did you notice anything unusual about this model?” he asked.

“Other than the size of his cock, you mean,” Beth countered. “No, should I have? I wasn’t interested in its communication skills, but I can confirm that it had a very talented tongue and hands.”

“I see.” Sandra’s curt reply raised Beth’s first genuine smile. “Do you make a habit of engaging in sexual activities with machines?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Beth said. “Mind you, judging by your sourpuss face, I bet you don’t even own a vibrator, do you, Sandra?”

The woman’s eyebrows rose all the way into her hairline, but again she ignored that comment.

“We are led to believe this particular Orgasmatron behaved unusually.”

“Nope, it gave me plenty of orgasms, which is exactly what I signed up for.”

Sandra slapped her hand on the table, and Beth jumped.

“So, why did you introduce him as your boyfriend at the party?” Arthur asked and Beth sighed.

“I could hardly say,
hey, everybody, meet my sex android,
could I? Duh!”

The questioning continued for hours until Beth was ready to scream. By the time she was finally released, having signed her life away on a nondisclosure form, and deposited into the back of a car, Beth was so exhausted she fell asleep the minute it started to move. If she slept then she didn’t have to face up to how fucked-up her life had become in the space of three days.

Four months later

Orgasmatron 3000. Pre-order your model now. Made to your specifications…

Beth groaned and shut the annoying jingle off with a flick off her finger. The fucking advert was everywhere, and her heart still lurched to a stop every time
Elliot
appeared on her TV screen. Only it wasn’t Elliot, of course.

This was just another faceless Man-Droid only good for one thing. Her Elliot had indeed died that fateful night on the very settee she was sitting on now.

Jerry had taken her in the day she had been released from her questioning, as her own apartment was too smoke damaged. It had taken a further week before Brian had reappeared, considerably more haggard looking than before, and tight lipped over what had happened.

All he would say was that his research had been funded by the government, not some elusive lottery windfall, and that Elliot’s body had been destroyed by the authorities.

The row that had followed between Jerry and her brother following that revelation had been of epic proportions.

“How could you be so fucking stupid, Brian? You’ve put us all in danger with this pathetic stunt. You’ve put Beth in danger. You got her fucking arrested for god’s sake, and for what? So you could play god and create a sentient android. What were you thinking?”

“Jerry, I’m okay, really.” Beth had tried to intervene, but Jerry had been having none of it.

“Crying yourself to sleep every night is not being okay, Beth. This moron of a brother of mine created the perfect man for you, and then got him killed due to his stupidity. He should have told you. He should have fucking told me. What do you think the government is paying him for? Not to make the women of this world happier, that’s for sure. No, my stupid brother is helping them create the perfect soldiers. The Orgasmatron was a smoke screen, and I was too stupid to see it.”

Jerry had slapped Brian round the face, and he’d simply taken it.

“All this time I stood up for you, defended you, fought to get you backers, and you’ve been in league with the fucking government the whole time. How could you be so stupid to experiment with an emotion chip whilst all this was going on?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. But Elliot was the original model and the more I worked with him, the more human he became. None of the others that came after him ever reached his potential. We couldn’t foresee what would happen. Well, Elliot would have figured it out the moment he stepped into the mansion and clocked Barnett. He obviously decided that Beth was worth the risk of discovery.”

Brian had glanced at her, and Beth had had to bite the inside of her mouth to stop herself from crying again.

“When Jerry mentioned you, Beth, Elliot did his research. I know he was eager to get to know Beth, and we decided the emotion chip would help him to do so to the best of his ability.” Brian had paused and pulled his smartphone out of his trouser pocket. “I need to show you something, Beth. It popped up on my phone this morning. He must have sent that message through his circuits before he set himself to destruct.”

Brian had held his phone out to her and Beth had barely been able to see the screen through her tears.

I love you, my sweet Beth.

Beth had left the siblings to argue after that, and had done her best to rebuild her life. The knowledge that her feelings had been reciprocated was the only thing that got her through the weeks following the incident, and she clutched that knowledge to her whenever the pain became too much to bear.

The insistent ringing of the doorbell made her groan out loud. According to Brian she was due a replacement Orgasmatron, paid for by the government to compensate her for her troubles.

It didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t want one. He had almost pleaded with her over the phone.

“Beth, you cannot refuse him. They will wonder. You can stick him into a corner and ignore him if you like, but you have to accept him.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Brian. Fine. But make sure I can turn him off and that he doesn’t look anything like…like, well you know.”

“Understood, Beth. Leave it with me.”

Beth had thought he had forgotten about it, because he never did turn up with the required Man-Droid, claiming manufacturing issues—until that morning that was.