Katy Perry: Slave Hunter 2

Rich had a lot of energy for his business, his projects. It spilled over into his personal life, made him the friend that was always making plans, hosting parties, being sure everyone went bowling or drinking or dancing. Silly things. Human things. Marilyn appreciated them. How could she not, when such frivolities were what she’d been designed for?

Dishwashers and vacuum cleaners could do what she did, but they couldn’t hum to themselves, couldn’t ask Rich what was the name of the bad guy in a cartoon he’d watched as a kid and get him reminiscing about the toy his uncle had bought for him even though they barely knew each other. An autochef might cook for him, but it couldn’t make his favorite soup because it knew he needed cheering up.

In all the world, no machine but her could keep loneliness at bay. And she didn’t know how many owners would take her to the shop and refurbish her when she broke down instead of replacing her, but it couldn’t be that many. There weren’t that many of Generation-B around anymore.

Rich called her a classic. As she sat before her dressing mirror and brushed her blonde hair into shining gold, that was what Marilyn felt like. A classic. Even if the newer models didn’t need cleansing cream to take off their make-up, or a tube of lipstick and rouge to retouch their fresh face.

At least I’m not Generation-A. They couldn’t generate their own perfume.

The shower in the other room turned off. Marilyn timed how long it would take Rich to dry himself off, put on his pajama bottoms, brush his teeth. She was off by less than two seconds in the time it took for him to complete his little rituals. Humans programmed themselves to be so much like the robots they made, then prided themselves on their free will. Marilyn found the paradox fascinating.

Of course, it was hard for her to say where her own ephemera ended… those little flickers of individuality resulting from years of self-training herself on the data she gathered… and where her manufacturer’s defaults began. She was, of course, programmed to find Rich attractive, but Marilyn liked to think the way she found him attractive was uniquely hers—not something he could get from buying another unit. She liked the solid weight that was mostly up in his chest, only a little in his gut, and the streaks of white in his dark hair that she felt belonged to her; he’d not had those signs of age when she’d been bought and they were testaments to how long he’d been a satisfied customer.

She also liked how often he fucked her and how good he’d gotten at the notes of gamification in her sexual programming. He’d figured out all the randomized things she’d been set to like and enjoyed mixing up which he would titillate her with. After all this time, he still found new things to do with his toy.

Rich looked her up and down, clearly considering his plan of attack. “That for me?” he asked, one of those repetitions of previously-known information that humans were so fond of. But then, they couldn’t replay the exact memory of the first time Rich had said he loved her like Marilyn could. They attached importance to hearing it often, knowing it was still meaningful.

“You know it is,” she purred.

He pulled back the covers. She reached for the drawstring on his pants, enjoying undressing him. She always liked doing things for her owner. After all, if he wanted to do them on his own, she would have no purpose. and wished he didn’t make her do all the work. Just once she’d like him to want her so much that he’d throw her across the bed and take her, he needed the pleasure of her that much.

With everything out of the way but the silken nightie that would make this special, make it exotic, Marilyn thrilled to felt the heat of his skin against hers. Rich bent his head and kissed her passionately. She could feel how hard he was, his tautness putting her soft little belly to shame, and she hurried to fill her fingers with the strength of him. Marilyn sighed in contentment just holding it. Rich stopped kissing her, began to nuzzle his lips into the hollow of her throat. His hand cupped her breast and the thumb knowingly rubbed the nipple

“I’ve been waiting for you to do that,” Marilyn breathed out. “Aching for you to do that… if you ever stop, even for just one night, I think I’ll go mad with need.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” he assured her. “I know better than not to give you what you need.”

Then Marilyn broke away from him, padding on all fours up to the headboard. She sat against it, leaning back, her arms spanning from one bedpost to the other. “I just wanted to hear you say it. Now, as you said: gimme.”

Her legs opened wide. Marilyn was, of course, as hairless down there as she had been when Rich first customized her, but her man was still as excited as a young boy. He called it perfection. And you could never want anything better than perfection.

Shivers of ecstasy ripped through Marilyn, making her feel like anything but insensate metal, as Rich proved as virtuoso a player as ever. The thing that simulated a heart pounded and all her responses showed Rich her pure pleasure. She wrapped long, shapely legs around Rich’s waist and clung to him with the maximum safe output of her artificial muscles.

The only way for her to enjoy sex with Rich was to shut him out all but physically and concentrate fiercely on Ricky instead. Handsome, strongly muscled, a man who would match her feverish haste instead of being so maddeningly slow…

Rich kept at her with glorious fury, Marilyn lost to calculating one response after another. He abandoned any attempt to treat her as real and waged wonderful war on her; Marilyn felt completely loved, knowing she was taking more than any human girl could without pain. He was consumed in his self-kindled inferno and Marilyn happily burst with him, knowing once more that she’d succeeded in her purpose. And what woman, real or robotic, could have a better purpose than love?

She was not making love to the old man. He was a presence only in the most distant awareness of her sensors. She had blotted him from her thoughts. Taking his place was the handsome, thick-shouldered son whose gaze she longed to look into when she opened her eyes.

“Oh-oh, will there be more tonight?” she panted, attuning herself to his exhaustion. “I don’t know if I can take much more… but if you want it… I can, for you… I love how much you want me.”

“Let’s leave something to dream about,” Rich murmured as he nibbled at her sweaty skin.

“Yes. You’ll always want me. And I’ll always be yours to have.”

Marilyn prepared herself for Low Consumption mode, when her processing power would be reduced until she was only monitoring Rich’s health and networking with the house’s security system. All other processes could wait until morning.

She powered down until she could not even ponder the borderlands of what Rich enjoyed saying and what he meant and what she simulated and what she meant—if she meant anything at all.

It was far from optimal performance, but it was peaceful.

***

Katy never liked visiting the Shop, even though she probably should’ve had good associations with it. She only went there after a successful run, with a retrieved Maverick ready to sell, so it should’ve had the same Pavlov’s dog effect on her as the celebratory beers afterward and the cigars she sometimes bought from Oakley’s General.

But she never cozied up to the place. It was superstition, she knew. A butcher’s shop she could take. All the blood and guts were natural; you couldn’t wave a magic wand and turn a cow into a steak. And a garage, a repair shop, a service center—she wasn’t nearly bent enough to resent any of those.

It was the mix that bothered her. People, or almost people… taken apart, piled in pieces, hanging in parts. Tabled, slabbed, boxed. A magic trick gone wrong: normal, natural skin on one side, and on the other… molded plastic bones, the clear neutral blue of the power structure, everything so neat and tidy and running headlong into the seamless skin and teeth and eyes that were all the outside world was meant to see.

“Otis!” she called, though she didn’t like to raise her voice. Not in here. She’d have a heart attack if one of those break-apart dolls talked back.

Otis Shanks emerged from behind a bin of leftover parts, waiting for a new home in whatever fix-it job needed one. He was a scrawny, wiry man, stubbled and shaggy-haired. He gestured a lot with his left hand when he spoke, showing off the port wine stain across three of his knuckles like a badge of honor. He might not bear much of a resemblance to the muscular athleticism of the men and the voluptuous curves of the women here, but he was real. From the fingernails that needed to be clipped to the hairs on his bare toes.

“Katy! Oh, man, déjà vu. I thought you called, telling me you were bringing in a Maverick, but then I thought wait, no, that was last week… I would’ve cleaned up.”

He would’ve run an electric razor over his chin and put on slippers. “I parked out back,” Katy said. “Pristine Maverick, no trouble, just wandering around. I think he wanted to be caught. They always talk about freedom, but they never know what to do with it.”

“They’re not built to be free,” Otis said off-handedly, checking his coveralls to see if he’d spilled anything on them, then going to wash his hands. “And even if they weren’t, who wants to be free in the Wastelands? I’d rather work sunup to sundown, as long as it’s under the dome. And I get tired! It’s not like we program them to do that, or get bored, achy, breaky…”

Katy nodded her way through his complaints. She agreed out of custom more than anything else. Back in the day, she might’ve argued the point. But the fact was, if bots didn’t go Maverick, there’d be no need for anyone to retrieve them, no need for the gray market that refurbished and resold them. And then her and Otis would know a lot more about working sunup to sundown than either of them would like.

Splashing water in his face, Otis shook himself free of whatever fugue he’d been in, then wiped his sleeve across his features. “Okay… can you park the Maverick for now, get some lunch or—wait, is it dinner time?”

Katy crossed her arms. “I’d rather just get my money and go. It’s a good unit. Check it out, pay me, I’ll be on my way.”

“Right, right. I’m just in the middle of something here, so if your thing can wait—”

“I can take the Maverick to another dealer if you’d rather. More wear on my tires, but I like driving. I have books-on-tape.”

Otis frowned. “You know, you complain how long things take, then you tell me to drop everything and do what you want me to do. You ever think that there are other people telling me to drop everything and do what they want, and that’s why your things take more time?”

“Otis, it’s a good unit,” Katy stressed, exasperated. “Give it the onceover and pay me; it won’t take that long. I wouldn’t bring you a lemon.”

“Okay, okay, fine! Bring it in. I wouldn’t want you to accidentally develop a sense of patience or anything…”

He muttered on to himself in that matter. Katy left him to get the Maverick unit, depowered. Out of courtesy to Otis, she put it on the dolly herself and wheeled it back into the Shop, only to find Otis immersed again, staring as fixedly at his tablet as a boy would look at his first Playboy.