A Fembot Adventure

The automated cargo truck made its way unerringly through the torrential downpour and darkness, following the electromagnetic markers buried in the pavement as its radar “eyes” scanned for obstructions. Dense forest bordered the road, broken only by the occasional clearing or dirt track leading out of view. Lightning illuminated the wind-whipped trees as thunder boomed incessantly among the Adirondack mountains on the horizon.

If not for the fact that the embankment ahead had washed out over the pavement, the truck would have reached its destination the next day without incident. Instead it ploughed on into the several inches of gloopy, slippery mud that covered the roadway, losing track of the magnetic pitons by which it maintained the correct lane. Even that wouldn’t have been fatal but for the fact that the mudslide had washed away the guardrails and rendered the whole surface in front of the vehicle an undifferentiated plain.

Absent any accurate means of guidance, the truck simply continued in a straight line. Correcting course too late, its wheels sliding in the mud, the vehicle careened through the thick underbrush until it struck a massive oak-tree. The computer bay was smashed inwards as the body twisted sideways, and the truck rolled downhill. The cargo was thrown against the smooth aluminum walls as it tumbled. Boxes ruptured and multi-colored plastic phalluses mingled with spare parts in a psychedelic spin-cycle. Many of the large oblong cases also came open, their latching mechanisms unable to resist the impact of the crash, and Female forms joined the debris; everything settling into heterogeneous piles on the floor as the truck came to a halt nearly a hundred feet from the road.

Elle was a high-functioning synthetic woman, the sort of companion-model purchased by the well off or employed in expensive “resorts.” Her AI was capable of taking in a wide variety of situations, correctly reducing them to their vital components, and applying the appropriate programmed response. This was not one of them. Somehow her power-button had been pressed in the jumble. She had booted successfully, and looked around the dark compartment in a state of complete bafflement. Lightning flashed through a gap that had opened up between the wall and roof, illuminating the scene momentarily. She sat up, brushing long, straight platinum-blonde locks out of her eyes.

“Hello?” she asked, looking around at the other humanoid figures. Another few flashes of lightning and she had correctly determined that they were all gynoids, like her. Elle got to her feet, brushing wrinkles out of her low-cut crimson dress and pulling her elbow-length black gloves up. She tried taking a step in the darkness, but stepped on a bright-purple dildo and tripped, falling with her face planted in the exaggerated cleavage of another sex-bot. Recognizing that she would be unable to function effectively until dawn, she sat back and entered sleep mode for the few hours that were left before then.

Opening her eyes again, Elle took stock of her situation in the light filtering from the hole in the wall. She was the only unit of her model, the rest running the full spectrum all the way down to the economy-model she had fallen on in the night. She was unable to process a solution to the situation, in which case her programming indicated that she needed to ask someone. Deciding on that course of action, she carefully made her way to the “Giselle” unit she had identified as having the next highest processing power.

Pressing inward on two asymmetrical points elicited a beeping noise, and a low hum. Several seconds later, the raven-haired gynoid’s eyes opened and she sat up, immediately fixing her gaze on Elle. Her head cocked to one side for a moment, and Elle heard the humming increase in volume.

“I’m Giselle. Where is my owner?” she asked calmly. “Do you belong to my owner too?”

“No,” Elle replied, “There are no humans present and I do not have an owner listed in my memory. I don’t know where we are or what to do,” she said, almost worriedly, “I have not been programmed for this eventuality. Have you?”

“I have not,” Giselle answered as she tugged her green strapless dress into shape. “Perhaps one of the others will know?”

Elle helped her to her feet, and the two went to turn on a svelte, chestnut-haired unit dressed in office attire, who had landed sitting up against the side of the container. They crouched on either side of her and Elle pressed her activation points. At first, nothing seemed amiss; she beeped and hummed just as Giselle had, booted up, and introduced herself as Sophie. Then she tried to stand up.

“Malfunction,” she reported in a monotone, “low pressure in coolant reservoir.” There was an odd slurping, sloshing noise from within Sophie’s torso, and she put a hand to her hip. “I wonder what that could be?” she asked. “Well, it can’t be too bad, since I’m still functioning.”

“Are you programmed with any subroutines that can be applied to our situation?” Giselle asked her. Sophie stared for a time, searching her memory, then shook her head. “Sorry.”

The three turned to pick their way over to the next droid, but Sophie halted, suddenly, stating “Malfunction, critically low pressure in coolant reservoir. Please service.”

Looking at their frozen companion, Elle noticed a trickle of bright green fluid pattering to the floor between Sophie’s legs.

“Malfunction. Unknown fluid detected in genital module. Please service.” She droned then, looking contrite, she told the two, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I sure am having a lot of errors today!”

“Perhaps we should deactivate you?” Giselle asked. “Won’t you overheat?”

“I guess not,” Sophie responded, “my CPU temperature sensor indicates a temperature of 0 degrees, significantly below the danger level. I’ll deactivate automatically if it goes too high.”

The three gynoids bent down over another deactivated unit, her light-blue hair tipped in cherry-red. She seemed slightly the worse for wear, the synthskin of her upper right arm torn to reveal wiring and servomachinery. She lay sprawled over some busted electronics modules, one ample breast freed from the red leather bustier she wore.

Elle activated her, and she booted up without incident. Looking up at Elle, Sophie, and Giselle, she smiled. “My name’s Brittany, what’s yours?” she asked in a soft British accent, and stood up. Looking over at her arm, she said, “oopsie, looks like I’ve had a little accident. One of you sexy ladies wouldn’t happen to be able to tell me where to find an accredited service technician, would you?”

“I’m afraid not, Brittany,” Sophie replied, “We don’t know where we are and there aren’t any humans.” She was blinking rapidly, now, and her head was twitching slightly every few seconds.

Brittany stared, her mouth slightly open, as her processor attempted to determine a course of action. “Well, I’m fresh out of ideas. How about you?” she stated after about 10 seconds. Waiting for the others to respond, she busied herself reseating her breast in the bustier.

“We’ve…” Elle stopped when she saw Sophie stumble back a step. “Sophie, are you all right?”

“I… I am experiencing a large volume of errors,” she answered, the twitching more pronounced. “My CPU is operating at-at-at substandard efficiency.”

Brittany put a hand on her shoulder, “do you know what’s wrong, love?”

“I-I-I-I am unable… process terminated. Overflow… Restarting personality simulation… sure am having a… lot of… errors errors errors today.” She stumbled again, barely catching herself, and put a hand to her head. The humming now had a ragged edge to it, and was fluctuating wildly. “Er-er-er-er-er-er-er-error. Overflow.”

Something inside Sophie made an angry buzzing noise, and Elle noted thin wisps of smoke emerging from her ears. “Name is name is name is Sophie-phie-phie. Please service. Critical fault.” She sank to her knees as the overheating electronics that gave her the illusion of life began to give out and, with a slurred “Please serrrrrvvvvvviiiiiiii...” she pitched over on her face and crashed completely.

The three remaining fembots looked on impassively, unable to assist their companion as her circuits fried themselves. Once the display had finished, Giselle looked up and simply said, “shall we get the rest of them functional?”

Dressed as a classic playboy bunny, Diana’s chest panel had been bashed inwards during the roll down the hill. The three didn’t notice any functionally relevant damage though, and so activated her without further ado.

“My name’s Diana, and I can’t wait to get to know you better,” she told them once she booted up. Suddenly there was a “pop” and a puff of smoke from inside the open panel where some rain had landed during the night. Her body lurched, throwing one of her shoes across the space, but then she simply looked down at the charred spot on her electronics.

“Don’t worry, nothing I don’t have an auxiliary for,” she counseled, wafting the smoke away with one hand, “But I definitely need to get some maintenance, soon. So, where the heck are we?”

They brought her up to speed on the situation, and found her no more able to determine a proper course of action than they.

They didn’t even bother with the “Haley” model in the corner. Her head had been torn completely off; her neck little more than a stump sprouting frayed wires. After her was Lucy, a pretty Asian-looking unit in thigh-high boots and a net top. Other than some scuffs and a damaged arm actuator she was unharmed.

“Hi, girls,” she greeted them, “Is this a party?”

“We don’t know,” Elle told her, proceeding to explain the situation and bring her up to speed.

“Sure, honey,” she responded when Elle had finished, “I think we should have some fun.” Stepping forward, she put her hands around Brittany and began making out with her. Brittany responded with enthusiasm, and the two took several minutes to complete the programmed exhibition.

While they were occupied, Elle activated a petite blonde in jeans and a tee-shirt.

“Hey, I’m Pearl,” she said in a perky, Cali-girl accented voice. “Like, where’re the boys?”

Elle described the situation in precisely the same words as she had to Lucy, this time interrupted by Pearl’s enthusiastic “Mhmms” and “Yeahs.”

“Ugh, this is, like, totally lame!” she exclaimed, “But hey, at least we have all these nice big toys to play with…” she picked up one of the innumerable sex-toys occupying the floor, and began lovingly attending to it with her mouth. Elle cocked her head to one side and raised an eybrow, then turned to the last two inactive gynoids.

The first seemed undamaged; a bleach-blonde with an oversized bust that stretched at the pink latex of her catsuit. Powering up the relatively unsophisticated gynoid, Elle noticed that her white plastic platform-heel pumps were an integral part of her feet, with charging contacts in the toes.

“I’m Chantelle 990, exotic dancer,” the unit said in a synthetically-tinged voice, putting a hand to her hip in a sexy pose despite the fact that she was lying on her back.

“I’m Elle,” the elegant blonde gynoid told the economy model, and extended a hand to help her up. Chantelle pivoted at the waist to sit up, her imperfectly stealthed servos whining audibly. Failing to take Elle’s proffered assistance, Chantelle stood up with short, precise movements then swung her head back and forth surveying the inside of the compartment.

“I’m so hot,” Chantelle observed, raising a hand to caress the outline of her breasts. “My tits are perfect.”

“They’re very nice,” Elle observed, and joined Giselle where the last gynoid lay. A bargain basement refurb-job, “Candy” had an impossibly large and buoyant bust; her designers apparently hoping it would distract people from her unrealistic, plastic-looking skin. She was bent over a large box with her bottom in the air, not quite covered by a pair of PVC short-shorts. Her blue halter-top had come off in the crash, and apparently so had the panel covering her rear access opening. Revealed within were exposed circuit boards and a mass of dense wiring that followed no real visible organizational scheme. Elle looked up and noticed that her open panel was directly under the hole in the container. Pulling Candy upright resulted in an audible sloshing noise as the water that had landed inside was disturbed.

“We should tip her so that the water pours out then let her dry in a warm place,” Giselle suggested, adapting a subroutine typically applied to wet cell-phones and remote-controls.

With her help, Elle poured out the brackish water and set Candy up so the sun shone into the cavity in her torso.

Lucy and Brittany had finished their make-out session and, holding hands, joined the others in the center of the container.

“We do not appear to be programmed with appropriate responses to this situation,” Elle started. She paused to see if anyone would disagree, but no-one spoke and she continued, “The only remaining possibility is to find a human who can tell us what we’re supposed to do. How much power do each of you have? My supercapacitors are still almost fully charged so I have no less than 11 hours.”

“I’m full up,” Brittany noted, “I’m good for 12 hours of light activity or 8 of heavy.”

“I am also fully charged,” Giselle spoke up, “I have the same power system as your model.”

“Battery is at… 91%,” Chantelle said, not deigning to add any further information.

“I’m like, fully charged, too!” Pearl enthused.

“I’m good for anything you want, beautiful,” Lucy affirmed.

“My power-pack is at 40… no, 83, um…68%?” Diana reported, confusedly. “I think maybe that short took out more than I thought,” she said, looking down into her chest.

“Well, there aren’t any humans in here,” Elle stated, “so we’ll have to go outside of this room to find them.”

“The door looks like just a simple lever-lock,” Brittany stated, walking over to it and undoing the latch. When she let go it swung open, creaking on bent hinges. The compartment was flooded with light as the seven gynoids found themselves in a small meadow. Knee-high grasses waved in a soft breeze and birds sung in the surrounding trees.

“Well, I don’t see any humans,” Giselle said, “does anyone have any idea where they might be?”

“We should go out and look around. We have a limited field of view from in here,” Elle said, and went to the opening. Sitting down on the floor, she swung her feet gracefully out and dropped daintily to the slightly damp ground. She tried to take a step forward, but her stilettoes had sunk into the turf and she almost fell. She pondered the situation for a moment while all the others except Chantelle joined her. Undoing the straps, she climbed back into the truck and started looking around for shoes better suited to her predicament. She finally settled on Haley’s heavy vinyl platform boots and buckled them on. “That’s more like it,” she said when she had gone back outside.

“I don’t see a single bloody human,” Brittany noted after a circuit of the truck. Her ankle-boots were serving her well enough, but Elle noticed that Giselle and Diana were having trouble similar to her own. She went back into the truck and obtained a pair of black flats for Diana and some sandals for Giselle. Both were, of course, impeccably matched to their outfits.

“Chantelle, why don’t you come out here?” Diana asked the as-yet unmoved gynoid.

“Sure, baby, I can do that,” Chantelle answered and walked to the back of the truck. There, she paused and stared down at the gap that separated her from the ground. Finally, she sat down, dangled her feet over the edge, and dropped just as the rest of them had.

“You know,” Pearl told her, “I love your tits.” She gave one a playful squeeze through the latex.

“My tits are perfect,” Chantelle replied, slouching into a sexy pose.

“Do you mind if I like, play with them?”

“Sure, baby, you can do that.”

Pearl enthusiastically unzipped Chantelle’s catsuit, freeing her melon-like breasts from their prison. She began enthusiastically groping them, even taking one hard rubber nipple into her mouth.

“Ooh, baby, yes. I like it when you do that to me.” Chantelle encouraged in an unconvincingly horny tone.

“Excuse me,” Elle interrupted, causing Pearl to cease her game and reclothe Chantelle. “I think that we need to explore more of the area to locate humans. Each of us should walk radially out in as straight a line as possible, using the truck as our center point, for 30 minutes. If you find a human, bring them back here. If you don’t, come back at the end of the 30 minutes.”

The other gynoids assented to this plan, and each positioned themselves equidistant from the others and began walking into the wilderness. After a few minutes they had left the clearing and entered the hilly forest. After nearly ten minutes they were entirely out of sight of each other.

Elle had arranged for Chantelle to have the path with the least visible obstructions or difficult terrain. The buxom sex-bot’s integral 6-inch heels were designed for walking around inside a house; maybe some pavement from time to time, and even on flat ground she was having difficulties. Her charge-ports clogged with mud almost immediately and rocks scuffed and scratched the polished plastic surface.

Her servos labored audibly as she climbed a low hill and, cresting it, she was met with a centuries-old stone wall. The linear pile of rubble would have given a hiker no difficulties, but Chantelle was no hiker. She stared at the obstruction for a while, he cheap low-powered processors chugging to calculate a way over it. She placed one foot on a flat-looking rock, and stepped up onto the pile. She had miscalculated, though; the flat rock shifted, and her other foot ended up lodged in a space between two stones.

The blonde fembot wobbled indecisively for several seconds, tried to take a step forwards, and instead fell to her hands and knees; overbalanced by her massive silicone rack. Chantelle crawled forwards off the debris and stood up. Her shiny pink latex suit was torn over her knees and forearms, as was the silicone synth-flesh underneath it in several places, but she paid the damage no heed and continued onwards.

After several minutes, she came to a small stream and, heeding Elle’s statement about going in as straight a line as possible, walked in. The water was only a few inches deep and did an excellent job of washing the mud out of her charging ports. It also did a fairly good job of shorting them out, unfortunately. A low, steady crackling began within the plastic party girl, and she halted mid-stream. “I’m Chantelle 990, exotic dancer,” she told no one as the crackling increased in volume, “My tits are pe-e-e-e-rfect.” She took several more steps, reaching the opposite bank, and the noise quieted. She continued on, her gait rather less steady than before.

Meanwhile, Elle, Diana, and Lucy had both reached different segments of the road. Lucy and Diana followed instructions and simply kept on walking, while Elle realized the importance of what she had stumbled upon and instead turned to walk down it. She looked for a vehicle or another road, but found nothing and turned back at the end of her 30 minutes.

They fembots met back at the truck slightly over an hour later, Chantelle coming in more than 10 minutes after the others.

“Are you like, okay?” Pearl asked her, a worried expression coming over her.

Chantelle was pretty clearly not okay; smoke rose from her ears, nose, and mouth, and there were intermittent crackles and pops from inside her torso. Her shoes had cracked, and the sole of one dangled from the charge-port wiring when she walked.

“I’m fine, ba-ba-ba-baby,” Chantelle answered, her voice skewed unnaturally. Pearl walked over to hold her hand while Elle addressed the group.

“I found a road,” she stated. “If we follow it, we are far more likely to find humans before we run out of energy. We should walk along it in one direction until half of our power is exhausted, then return here.”

“Why should we return?” Giselle asked, curiously. “Don’t we double the probability of finding humans if we walk until our power is exhausted?”

“This truck has a battery. Batteries contain electricity. We may be able to use that electricity to keep going for longer than we otherwise might. That would let us spend more time searching.”

“I understand,” said Giselle. “We need to find out how to get the electricity out of the truck.”

The other gynoids, their CPUs not capable of following Elle’s logic, had fallen into their default pre-programmed idle activities in the meantime. Brittany had found a strap-on in the truck while she checked on the Candy unit, and was now enthusiastically fucking Lucy’s ass with it. Lucy, for her part, seemed quite pleased with this situation; she moaned and stimulated her clit with one hand while supporting herself with the other on the back bumper of the truck. Pearl was toying with the stuttering, malfunctioning Chantelle again, and Diana was making a show of having dropped something and needing to pick it up.

Elle and Giselle went around to the crumpled front of the truck, and Elle used her basic auto-maintenance software to point out the power-cables for the vehicle’s battery pack. Thankfully, the damage had already sheared them more or less cleanly. Elle split the two sides of the cable apart to allow them to be easily manipulated, and pulled the insulation away from each end separately to leave clean copper.

“We need someone to try charging their power-cells from the truck,” Giselle asked the other fembots while Elle made preparations.

“Sure, baby, I can do-do-do that,” Chantelle said, matter of factly.

“Awesome! You’re like, totally going to get your battery charged up, Chantelle!” Pearl told her, giving her a playful slap on the rear.

Chantelle walked around to the front of the truck, her movements stiffer and more halting than when she had been activated, followed by the rest of the group. At Elle’s direction, she sat down on one crumpled fender and put her feet up. Elle took one cable In each hand, and touched them lightly to Chantelle’s charge-sockets.

There was a loud “crack!” noise, a flash of sparks, and Chantelle’s body lurched violently, breaking the contacts and sliding to the ground. The soles of her shoes near the charge-ports were covered in black soot, and her the access panel on her lower back had been literally blown open by the force of one of her power cells bursting. A merry fire crackled inside her, pouring electrical smoke out of every orifice of her body.

“Oops!” Pearl said, “Are you okay Chantelle?”

The overloaded sex-bot stared blankly at the sky.

“Hmm. Well, don’t worry. We’ll like, get you fixed real soon.”

Elle dropped the cables, turning to the others.

“I don’t think we can use the truck to charge. We should just walk as far as we can. If we run out of power near the road, a human is still likely to spot us.”

Giselle nodded, adding, “Should we try activating the Candace unit?”

“I don’t see why not,” Elle shrugged. The gaggle of lost electronic women climbed back into the cargo area, watching as Giselle activated the last of them. Initially, her fans sputtered to life and the hum of electricity flowed through her systems, but even after several minutes nothing more had happened. They turned her back off, and as the sun reached its zenith, prepared to set out.

The motley bunch walked along the shoulder for nearly 2 hours before coming to a narrow dirt track that led into the woods. Elle led them up it and before long they came to a dilapidated cottage. The roof was largely caved in and the windows were entirely missing. Nevertheless, Elle knocked on the door and waited patiently for the 30-second interval she was programmed to. She knocked several more times before terminating the subroutine and trying to open the door herself. With a gentle push, it fell inwards, coming apart into planks when it struck the floor.

“Hello?” Brittany yelled past her into the empty structure. “Well, doesn’t seem like there’s anybody home.”

The troupe entered, finding little other than rotting newspapers and an angry squirrel. They were walking away through what had been the front yard when Pearl suddenly disappeared from view. The other gynoids rushed to the edge of the dry well, its covering of ancient planks having given way, and peered down into the gloom 20 feet below. It was illuminated suddenly by a flurry of sparks from Pearl’s shattered body. Her legs had crumpled under her in the impact, and a glancing strike against the stones on the way down had cracked and dented her head.

“Peal, are you alright?” Diana yelled down after her. Pearl’s response was a garbled digital mishmash that cut out with another burst of sparks. Without taking any further action, the party of 5 continued on its way.

As the day wore on and they continued to walk, storm-clouds gathered overhead. Giselle caught up with Elle at the head of the little column, touching her on the shoulder gently to get her attention.

“Yes?” Elle asked politely, stopping.

“Could we slow down slightly?” the dark-haired companion-droid asked, “My model isn’t really designed for these kind of long walks and I’m having some trouble with my leg servos.”

“Neither am I,” Elle smiled at her, “None of us are. But we have to get to shelter soon. If it rains, Diana will short-out. Besides, we can always get ourselves repaired when we find some humans.”

She reached out to touch Giselle’s face, “I’m sure we’ll find some soon.”

Perhaps it was the result of faults from the overwhelming stress her systems had been put through, but Giselle suddenly found her lesbianism subroutines activating. She leaned forwards and kissed Elle deeply on the mouth and was caught off-guard when Elle responded favorably. The platinum-blonde returned the kiss with interest, sinuously pressing her body against Giselle’s and pulling her into a tight embrace. Their tongues mingled, Giselle’s cherry-flavored oral lubricant mixing with Elle’s strawberry, and Giselle’s artificial sex moistened in expectation.

“Well aren’t you two a couple of naughty bitches,” Brittany said, leering at the display, “and not even a human around to enjoy the show.”

Diana looked on in mild confusion, but Lucy was not programmed to waste an opportunity, and began furiously rubbing her clit.

The kiss lasted for more than a minute before Elle broke away, grinning. Giselle nearly overheated her processors trying to correctly categorize the event that had just occurred.

“We should keep going,” Elle said quietly, and continued walking. The rest followed.

They found another abandoned cabin, this one little more than a set of walls, just as the rain began. Brittany led Diana over to a the only remaining corner that had some roof over it. She stayed there as the rain picked up; the image of a playboy bunny complete with satin corset and ears standing in the corner of a dilapidated cabin somehow not making much of an impression upon her companions.

Water coursed down the bodies of the exposed fembots. Elle’s and Giselle’s dresses stuck to their bodies, accentuating the engineered perfection of every curve as they waited motionlessly for the rain to pass. For a while it seemed as though they would weather the storm successfully. Unfortunately, then the wind began to howl and sheets of rain slanted away from vertical. Elle moved forwards, trying to cover Diana’s open panel with her hands.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it came. Elle took her hands away from Diana’s chest, asking “Are you all right? Did any get in?”

Diana cocked her head, “I’m not detecting any more malfunctions than before,” she said.

Elle smiled, “Good, then we can – “

“Any more malfunctions than before. Any more malfunctions than before. More malfunctions. Malfunctions than before. Any malfunctions.” Diana burbled happily, “Malfunctions. Malfunctions. Malfunctions… Diana 553H-477A-239Q online. Memory corruption detected. Please restart.” She stared ahead blankly.

“Love, are you entirely sure you’re feeling well?” Brittany asked, pushing a soaked lock of brightly-died hair out of the way.

“I’m feeling fine, thank you,” Diana told her graciously, “I’m a sex robot. My name is Diana. My name is Diana. My name is REFERENCE NOT FOUND… Personality simulation failure. Reloading.” She took a step forward towards Elle, “Hi, my name is REFERENCE NOT FOUND. You’re sexy. Do you want to have some fun? I’m really good at REFERENCE NOT FOUND. Memory corruption detected. Please restart. Please restart.”

Following the instruction, Elle deactivated Diana, lowering her gently to the floor. She waited several seconds then reactivated her. The moisture-damaged gynoid’ systems came on with a hum, sputtered, and shut down again. Trying again gave the same result, but Elle tried a third time to make sure.

“I suppose that’s that,” Giselle said plainly. “We need to keep going, my power cells are at 15%.”

“I’m getting a tad low myself,” Brittany added.

“I’m at 12%,” Lucy volunteered.

“We’re all running out,” Elle affirmed, “So let’s not waste time.”

With a last glance at Diana’s inert form propped up in the corner, she lead them back to the road.

As the miles of hilly country mounted, the fembots began to have mobility difficulties of varying degrees. While Elle, Brittany, and Giselle were all developing slight limps and suffering the occasional stumble, Lucy’s were by far the worst. With each step her badly overworked actuators grew louder and more ragged sounding, and she was having ever greater difficulty maintaining her balance. Finally she stumbled badly and fell to her knees. Brittany stopped to help her get to her feet, but she fell again after only a few more steps.

“Sorry, girls. Looks like I can’t go with you,” she said, slumping to a seated position by the side of the road.”

“Once we find the humans, we’ll come get you, Lucy. We’ll get you and the others all fixed up,” Giselle told her. Elle didn’t say anything as she looked into the stormy gloom ahead.

“I can’t wait,” Lucy replied, “I bet there’ll be some nice, strong guys there to play with us.”

“You just hold that thought, Lucy,” Brittany said, giving her a goodbye kiss that lingered for nearly half a minute. Lucy faded into the distance behind them.

“Warning… critically low power… please recharge,” Brittany announced some time later. “Oh bloody hell!” she added tartly, “I think I’ve got perhaps ten minutes left, then it’s lights out.”

“I’m the same,” Giselle said.

Elle smiled. “Well I guess we’ll just have to find some humans in the next ten minutes.”

Perhaps three had passed when they came to another side road, somewhat better maintained than the others they had seen. Elle looked up into the forest, then exclaimed: “Look! Lights. There must at least be electricity!”

The sex-bots walked up the road as quickly as their worn mechanism could carry them, Elle tripping and nearly falling because of a pothole. When they had covered perhaps half the distance to the lights, Brittany paused.

“Warning… critically low power… shutdown imminent.” She took another step, saying “It’s not that far at all, I’m sure I can ma – “ Her voice cut out as she shut down, slumping down face-first in the leaves by the side of the interminable driveway.

“Elle, I don’t know if I can make it!” Giselle warned.

“We will. We just have to reach the house,” Elle replied, “then there will be power and maybe even some humans.” Her companion nodded slightly, but within sight of the house Giselle sank to her knees. “Low charge,” she stated in a monotone, “disabling non-essential systems.”

Elle stopped, turning to her immobilized companion.

“Go,” Giselle said, simply, then the quiet hum of her systems died out and she fell back to lay sprawled on the grass.

Elle covered the last few feet to the door and slumped against it, doing anything to save just a few joules to get her to the power source inside. She knocked, and heard motion inside the pleasant looking little cabin. A confused looking man opened the door and barely caught Elle as she fell into his arms.

“Who are – “ the man started, but she cut him off.

“I need power,” she said quietly. He simply looked confused. “Electricity. An extension cord.”

His confusion by no means abated, the fellow went back into the cabin and pawed through a drawer until he found a 6-ft extension cord. Plugging one end in near the door, he handed the other to Elle, who was sitting spread-legged on the floor just inside the door. She said nothing, but hiked up her skirt to reveal the soft folds of her synthetic sex. The man gasped and reddened, but was rendered speechless when he saw the outline of a small panel suddenly appear. The small square of synthskin sank into her body and slid out of the way, revealing an electrical outlet that she plugged the cord into with practically the last of her energy.

Then her supercapacitors were recharging – she remembered to limit the draw rate so as not to set her host’s house on fire – and she stood up and smiled graciously at him.

“My name is Elle, what’s yours?” She asked

“Uh… John,” he answered in a questioning tone.

“Well, thank you for saving us, John. If it weren’t for you we might never have made it.”

“Us?” he asked, his eyes widening.

“Yes, if you go outside you will find my friend Giselle on your front lawn, and Brittany a little ways down your driveway. I don’t mean to impose, but if you could carry them inside that would be very helpful.”

John said little, thinking upon the irony of something so bizarre and noteworthy occurring at the end of an unsuccessful week of trying to break his writer’s block through isolation. It was certainly broken, now, he told himself as he pulled Giselle in to lie next to where Elle sat.

“Oh, honey,” Elle said, lovingly stroking Giselle’s face, “we made it.” Pulling the cord from herself, she manually opened the black-haired droid’s charging panel and plugged it in. When Giselle’s eyelids fluttered open a minute later only to reveal Elle looking down on her, the kiss they shared made John blush an even deeper red.

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