Chapter Forty-Four - Jennifer

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***

I knocked.

The typing noises stopped.

Then after about twenty long seconds, they started again. “Are you serious?” I asked.

There is a personal computer on in the room. It isn’t connected to the building’s power grid. It’s likely that it’s being powered by a battery pack since the entire system is running on as few resources as possible.

I shook my head, then tried the handle, which of course didn’t work.

So I kicked the door in.

This wasn’t some high-security place, the door was made of some cheap laminate stuff that caved in with the first kick. The biggest problem after that was unjamming my foot from the hole, but I managed without falling on my ass. Then I shoved the door aside and looked into what was clearly some degenerate’s man-cave.

The lighting was poor--only coming in from the corridor--but it was enough to see the wall-to-wall posters of women in barely any clothes. There were shelves with figurines, of course, and enough clothes on the floor to keep a family of six warm.

And then, right there in the middle of the room, was a thin figure sitting behind a lit up screen. They turned their head slowly, and I found myself looking into a pair of eyes that were too blue to be real.

“What?” they asked.

I felt like asking the same. I had expected someone, not something. But what I found was a petite woman with clearly artificial skin typing away on a laptop without even looking at the screen.

“Is that a fucking sex bot?” Manic asked.

“I think so,” I said. “Hey.. who are you?”

“My name is Jennifer.”

“Well, that’s... a very plain name, uh, are you human?”

The android paused in her--its?--typing. “Pardon me, but you have broken into my master’s home. I have filed a report with the local authorities.”

“We’re samurai,” I said. “Also, even if we weren’t the local authorities, I don’t think it would matter much. There’s an incursion ongoing. Uh, you don’t know?”

The sex bot blinked at me. “I am aware. My master didn’t give me instructions regarding the incursion. I must work.”

“What are you working on?” I asked. The screen next to her seemed to be filled with text.

“Erotica.”

“Ah,” I said.

Manic poked me with an elbow. “We should get going. Not saying it wasn’t worth checking to see if there was someone here, but let’s not waste our time?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, uh, you’re coming with us,” I said.

“What?” Manic asked.

“I’m not leaving her here.”

“Stray, it’s a robot,” Manic said. “It’s probably got an off-site backup or something. And I bet it’s insured.”

“Yeah, but... no, it feels wrong to leave someone behind.”

“I am not supposed to leave,” the sexbot happily informed me.

“You’re leaving anyway,” I said, putting my metaphorical foot down.

“I am not programmed to obey you,” Jennifer the sexbot said.

I felt my frustration rise, especially as I noticed the shit-eating look Manic was giving me. “I’m not leaving you here,” I said. “I bet I can carry your plastic ass out of here.”

“I can’t tell if you’re being an ass towards the bot or if you actually care too much,” Manic said. “It’s plastic and bolts, I get that it looks human, but AI have ruined plenty of human stuff, including some poor asshole’s sex life, apparently, so I don’t see the point.”

“The point is... I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’m not going to leave Jennifer here all on her own when we’re literally planning on blowing up the building. In fact... Myalis, how sure can you be that there’s no one else left in here?”

Ninety-seven percent certainty. Before the cameras went out, they logged the exit of every tennant still in the building. It’s entirely possible that someone remains that wasn’t noticed, though it’s unlikely. I could pinpoint the few potential locations a person is hiding in still, if you wish?

“Are they all conveniently close?” I asked.

No.

“Right, give me some cat drones. How many places do you need to check?”

I see where you’re going with this. Three drones would be sufficient to inspect every location in the amount of time I predict it will take you to set up the explosives.

I nodded along. “You’re perfect. Three drones then, and help me get Jennifer here to leave. I feel bad about leaving her behind.”

Certainly.

“You’re not bothered that I’m trying to save a dumb-AI machine?” I asked.

I am greatly amused, actually.

Of course she was. It took a bit of effort to convince Jennifer the bot to stand up, then I had to scrounge around on the floor for something she could wear. Sure, she had a sports bra on, but it really didn’t work with the thigh-highs-and-nothing-else she was wearing below. The android might not have had a sense of dignity, but I did.

Manic cackled at me while I tossed an over-large hoodie at the bot. “Put this on, and let’s go,” I said.

“Is it going to follow us?” Manic asked.

“We can hide her in a closet or something then fetch her on the way up,” I said. “Not like she makes much noise.”

“I am trained in six million forms of sexual intercorse noises,” Jennifer informed us. “I am a top of the line Boston Statics life-partner android.”

“Six million?” Manic asked.

Jennifer nodded. “From breathy, seductive moans, to realistic animal sounds.”

“Nevermind,” Manic said.

We started down the corridor. I took point and Manic walked next to Jennifer, her bass cannon pointed at the ceiling. “So, what were you working on there? You said it was erotica?”

“Yes. My master has me write erotica. Since I am not a legal entity, I can write materials of dubious legal quality without being penalised. That was the task I was set on before my master left seventy-six hours ago.”

“That’s fucked up,” I muttered. “Couldn’t an AI just generate a few million words of that kind of stuff in an instant?” I asked.

“Most modern writing platforms check to ensure that all writing comes with accompanying keystrokes. It needs to be entered manually with a slight variance in speed and writing tempo.”

“So... you’re cheating?” I asked.

“I wasn’t programmed to care about that.”

I shot the sexdroid a look. “You’re candid about it.”

“I was programmed to be a good conversationalist.” She turned and locked eyes with me. “How are you feeling today?”

“Yeah, no,” I said, nixing that entire conversation right there. Lucy would be so mad at me if I had an in-depth conversation with a sex bot instead of her. “Just keep quiet, please, we don’t need to alert the aliens that we’re here.”

“Understood,” She murmured.

“You think her being quiet will be enough?” Manic asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe? She’s not... fleshy, so they probably won’t find her from the smell or whatever.”

“She’s wearing a sweat-stained hoodie and while I haven’t given her a sniff, I bet she smells like latex and bad sex,” Manic complained.

I shrugged some more. “Spritz her with some deodorant if you care so much about the smell.”

We made it to the stairs, and as I predicted, there were aliens climbing up from below. A few were missing some bits, and I could hear the ‘thump-thump’ of Manic’s bass turret going off echoing in the stairwell.

“Right, drones, go check for survivors,” I said with a gesture and the trio of cat drones I’d ordered up ran past me on silent paws. “And we’re heading down,” I said for Jennifer’s benefit.

I barely made it five steps before I had to open up on a model three scurrying up the stairs. Soon, Manic was next to me, the wider spray of her bass cannon coming in handy in the tight confines of the stairs.

I tossed a resonator down, less to kill the aliens and more to turn them into slush so that we wouldn’t end up tripping over a corpse on the way down.

The further down we went, the more aliens started to pour into the stairwell.

“Shit,” Manic said. “My turret’s down.”

“Huh,” I said. “Well, that’s something. Any idea what got it?”

“Just some little ones,” she said. “But enough of them did it.”

The advantage of a swarm, I supposed. By the time we made it back to the ground floor, I had alien guts staining the front of my armour and had had to reload twice. Jennifer was still following us, her stockings squishing with every step.

“It’s nice to get out of the house,” she said.

***