Glory

The Adjutant hurried quickly through the halls of the towering steel and glass edifice. Arriving at the end of the hall he showed his ID badge to a pair of hulking security drones. The 6 foot, humanoids clad in black beetle-like armor’s laser-scanning eyes passed over the badge and with a nod they opened the thick metal doors to reveal the chamber beyond. Seated within on a hand woven mat, was a middle aged man of Eurasian descent, his body still lean and toned from a disciplined regimen of martial arts exercises and proper diet. Clad only in an elaborate robe, he was flanked by two beautiful girls, each of whom were crouched or seated on either side of him. The girls smiled and giggled a little as they pressed their soft, partially naked flesh against him, whilst feeding him pieces of sushi from the completely naked form of another woman laying in front of them like a table.

The girl table was a perfect specimen of feminine beauty, who stared vacantly at the ceiling, blinking now and again as she’d been programmed to. She remained perfectly motionless, to act as a living table for her diner. The rise and fall of her chest was surreal as one gazed at her naked body. Large panels of her skin were removed from her torso and chest, revealing complex neurofiber cabling, hydraulic motors, powered wires and electronics to make it all operate. The sushi the man ate, was arranged artfully inside the opened panels of the girl’s body, the lights from the electronics inside of her illuminating the thin slices of fugu and other delights casting strange shadows across the surface of the man and his entourage. The adjutant smiled and bowed as he entered, “Sir, we are pleased to tell you that the cybernetic linkages have connected perfectly and the subject appears to be conscious. She is awaiting you in the lab.” One of the girls scoffed and looked annoyed at the intrusion, the other merely gave the adjutant a curly lipped smile and continued to offer the seated man a slice of fish in a pair of elegant wooden chopsticks.

The seated man smiled as he chewed his bit of fugu, feeling the residual poison in its skin begin to numb his lips and tongue. “Splendid! Let us go see the new product.” He looked at his companion who frowned at the adjutant, “You disapprove of Kurto’s presence my dear?” The girl smoothed her brown hair a bit and hmphed softly, “I thought we were going to go have some fun tonight! Not go down to that cold, lab!” The seated man laughed and smiled as his other companion, a blonde with an exquisite complexion handed him a cup of heated sake. He took the cup of freshly poured sake and sipped a little then callously dumped the rest into the laying android’s exposed body cavity.

The android girl’s eyes widened in shock and horror as the liquid sparked and smoked at first as it came into contact with her electrically charged systems. The alchohol caught fire and her systems spun wildly out of control as they overheated and burned. She lay on the floor twitching and sputtering error messages, her silvery white hair standing up as it charged with the residual static charge.

The blonde and brunette looked at each other in with some distaste, the blonde speaking up, “Randall! You didn’t have to do that to her! You know how much she’s going to cost to fix?” The man rose to his feet, heedless of the android’s suffering as he stepped around her. He pulled his robe closed, still flanked by the beauties who paced with him, indifferent to their protests. The android girl twitched and spasmed, a string of error messages and smoke pouring from her mouth and opened body. A final hissing of sparks erupted from within her torso as the light faded from her eyes and she became utterly still.

The four of them stood in the elegant silvery elevator as it descended to the lab level. The adjutant who had brought him the news earlier was there with Randall and his two girls. He looked at the robed man and asked, “Mr. Liponza, may I ask why you have invested so much into this project? You have perfect mechanical creations who are programmed to do whatever you desire as obediently as you desire.”

The robed man smiled and gestured to one of his girls,”Beth, what would you say to that question?” The brunette shrugged a little, “I don’t know honey. I think it’s a waste. Why would you even want to be with a robot when you have me and Sarah here.”

Randall nodded, “And what do you think Sarah?“ The blonde seemed happy to be paid attention to and responded, “ Well baby, you know your consumer wants your products to be more realistic. And since you’re the name in sexual companion marketing, you want the best for your customers.”

Randall Liponza nodded and looked back at Kurto, “It’s true, our creations are well programmed, But…” he reached for the chin of Beth and she smiled, then her face blanked as he pulled it from her head, holding the mask-like appliance in his hands. The girl, now de-masked stood, hips shifting a little as she regained her balance. The inside of the skull was coated in sensitive electronics, and wired with all manner of power trains, sensory devices and connection points for the face, as well as rubber and plastic tubing that descended deep into its throat. Inhuman, camera like optical units glimmered within its cluttered head. “Honey what’s the matter? You didn’t finish your sentence!” responded the now faceless girl.

Mr. Liponza continued, “But ultimately it’s just a façade. It’s a cleverly programmed imitation of a woman.” He juggled the heavy, electronics laden face back and forth in his hands as he spoke,”And though the programmers have done a wonderful job, and we have spent millions in refining each gesture, stance and nuance, it’s still only a series of programs running. The A.I. is limited and restrained to its programming. It can never evolve past a certain point.” He reached into the girl’s mass of electronics, just as she began to speak, “Randall honey I-“ and removed a thick, diamond-like storage cube with a loud click. As he did so, all motion within the girl ceased and she stood vacantly, brainless while the lights inside her head flickered uselessly.

“This is the heart and soul of the machine,” Liponza stated, “This little box that can be replicated an infinite number of times to create an infinite number of Beths. Tell me Kurto, what is it that makes us unique?” The adjutant shifted a little and responded, “Our individuality I suppose? The circumstances of our life that makes us who we are?” Sarah nodded agreeably and poked the motionless Beth, causing her to teeter a little before the gynoid’s gyroscopic stabilizer counterbalanced her motion to keep from falling.

Liponza nodded clicking Beth’s CPU back into her skull, immediately causing her to reanimate, “ –wish you would stop paying so much attention to him and pay more attention to meee!” she whined as though she’d not been stopped, shifting her stance and fidgeting slightly even without her face. Randall smiled at Kurto, “We need a human component to take our product to the next level. A bit of that creativity and random chaos that makes us who we are to achieve the more human android.”

Kurto nodded and observed as Mr.Liponza replaced the girl’s facial panel. She blinked and smiled as control to it was re-established and he planted a kiss on her lips. Kurto looked at his tablet and said,“The donor materials for this subject came from a girl who’d been brain dead after a near fatal overdose from her pimp left her comatose. I’m not sure how intelligent she’ll be, but if she brings any of her street skills, it should make her quite a sexy machine.”

Mr.Liponza nodded, “Repurposing human leftovers. Trash thrown out and left to die. Perhaps she will thank me, if she’s capable of it.” He planted a kiss on Sarah’s plump lips to which she responded by moaning, then continued, “As for her intelligence, most of that will be facilitated by the processors situated within her chassis.”

Randall rolled his neck a little and said quietly, “ The real trick is we use so little of the human as to keep it outside of the realm of legality. Only 5% of the brain is used. Too little to qualify for true cyborg status, too little to be declared free and independent by the current laws. Yet just enough of the proper parts to provide this new creation with a degree of randomness.”

Adjutant Kurto nodded and said, “She will still need to ingest nutrition in order to keep her only organic component alive, but she’s designed to process food in any event, so it was just a matter of routing the functions.” Randall nodded as he groped the girls with him, they moaned and squirmed in his hands, “Ah here we are.”

The elevator doors opened to a massive lab complex, divided into modular sections that could be moved to make larger and smaller rooms as needed. Fresh oxygen was pumped down here and the filtration systems hummed softly to keep the lab areas free of contaminants. The group walked past several labs where androids were being deconstructed and worked on, parts spread across tables while they hung, twitching from cables mounted to the ceiling. Other labs held fully assembled android girls going through various tests and trials. In one lab an identical pair of Sarahs lay on a bed, wrapped around each other, licking and kissing furiously while equipment monitored their programming, heat levels and lubrication levels. Sarah moaned audibly watching them.

They arrived at a lab where the glass was blackened for privacy. The technicians within nodded at them, “Sir her systems are online and ready for testing. We’ve kept the neuroprocessor offline from the main cpu until you are ready to have it activated.” Kurto chuckled, “Neuroprocessor? It’s a chunk of temporal lobe from a dead hooker.” The chief technician frowned, “The human brain is an amazingly complex cpu! Did you realize that depending on the individual, a person can lose an entire lobe of his brain, yet still relearn the functions required by it with the remaining half.” Kurto shrugged, “Mr. Liponza didn’t come here to listen to you brag about your work. Turn the ‘neuroprocessor’ on so he can see what you’ve been working on!”

The chief technician nodded and turned to one of the others, “Activate her neuroprocessor.” The scientist keyed a few commands into his wireless terminal and nodded, “She’s active. Proceed through the door when you’re ready Mr. Liponza.” Randall nodded and looked at the others, “Wait here, I want to experience her alone.” The girls pouted and held each other as their master walked through the door, and into the holding chamber.

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