Charlie Down

Charlie sat in the corner of the small hotel room, legs crossed over each other at the knee. Her eyes whirred slightly in their sockets as they shifted from looking down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap, to the figure laying in the bed. The mechanisms inside of her head that controlled the movements of what appeared to be pale blue and very realistic human eyes were whisper quiet. Charlie heard them only because the sensitive microphone assembly nestled deep down inside of her ears picked up the subtle vibrations of the miniature motors that moved her eyes.

She saw the shape of a man laying in the bed, breathing softly in the dark room. The blankets were pulled up to his neck and wrapped tightly around himself in an attempt to ward off the chilly night air. Charlie formed a small command in her operating system and sent it to the controller board inside of her head. Once there the command was accepted by the controller board and sent to her eyes where a small mechanism momentarily cut her vision and replaced it with a luminescent green of night vision. In an instant every small pin prick of light was suddenly a massive ball of glowing illumination. Her eyes scanned smoothly across the entirety of the room again, searching for anything at all. Anything out of place, anything new or any sign of movement that shouldn’t be there.

She saw nothing, just like she hadn’t seen anything the last twenty times she had made the same sweep. Blinking again and resetting the optical lens in her eyes she turned her attention back down to her hands in her lap.

Her left hand was facing palm up, her fingers comfortably curled into a relaxed position. Just below her wrist joint, in the soft flesh of her forearm, a roughly rectangular portion of her skin had been peeled back. There were a number of clear plastic ribs criss-crossing the underside of the skin and helping to retain the original shape of her forearm. Inside of her arm were a number of wires and mechanisms that looked entirely too complicated for any one person to know what every single one did. Charlie slipped her slender thumb and forefinger into the opening and pushed some blue tinted wiring out of the way in order to reach a larger central mechanism. She twisted and tightened something there, then moved her fingers in succession.

Charlie opened up an internal log file, and began to record her findings.

“Tuesday March 3th, 22:04:33 - Tightening the extensor coupling seems to have increased the response time and accuracy significantly. I’ll submit an official modification request once this assignment ends.”

She closed the log and set about pressing the flap of skin back into place. Each of the ribbed pieces needed to be pinched a little to squeeze it back into place before proceeding to the next. Once done, there was barely any indication that her flesh had been opened up at all, though there was still a seam there if you knew what to look for. So Charlie bent down from the chair she was sitting in and picked up a small dropper. Placing the nozzle on her wrist she squeezed a small amount of some kind of paste over her skin and, using her index finger, smoothed the substance along her wrist. It would seep into the seams and seal them.

Placing the dropper into a satchel on the ground she flexed her fingers one more time, smiled and then laced her fingers together behind her head. Her shoulder length light brown hair, usually pulled into a ponytail, was instead hanging in messy chunks around her head. Her hands pressed into her hair and she leaned back. Her systems initiated another sweep of the room as she reclined. Her eyes blinking once and then switching into night vision, slowly scanning the room for anything and everything and then returning to normal.

“Stop it.” A muffled male voice from the bed. It was clearly laced with groggy slurred wording.

Charlie’s head snapped up and her posture changed. A hand snapped to her hip where a holstered pistol clung tightly to her belt.

“What is it sir?” Charlie called into the darkness, her eyes already transitioned back into night vision as her optics scanned the area around the man in the bed.

“That.” Was the only response she got.

It relaxed her a bit. Her hand came away from her weapon, but she stood up. As she did, she straightened the plane white button up top she was wearing. It was tucked into her form fitting jeans, but it ruffled just enough to bother her as she stood.

“What?” She called back, eyes still darting around the room.

“Every time you turn on your night vision thing it makes this high pitched whine. It's annoying as hell. Stop it.” He said and then tossed his hand over to the other pillow and violently shoved it against his head.

Charlie stopped for a moment. Her programming demanded that she comply with his requests unless doing so would endanger him. The question was, did her night vision endanger him? It would certainly make it more challenging for her to sweep the room for threats, but not impossible. Lack of sleep though would likely make him a much more vulnerable target. In the end, her artificial intelligence decided to discontinue her night vision scans, and opted instead to enlarge the opening in her optical aperture and let more of the minimal amount of ambient light into her sensors.

“Sorry, sir. I’ll stop.” Charlie replied and sank down to the chair. Her eyes scanned left and right as the iris in her human-like eyes opened wider and allowed in as much of the limited amount of light as possible.

Charlie sat still in that chair until morning came. There were no disturbances in the night and her client didn’t wake up any more. An hour before his alarm was set to wake him up, Charlie silently stood from her chair and made her way across the hotel suite. There were two queen sized beds here, one was for her, but she preferred to post herself in a place where she had more visibility in the room. The suitcase of clothes she had brought, though, was the sole occupant of the second bed. She stepped up to it and unholstered her pistol and set it gently on the bed, easily within reach.

She unbuttoned her top, shedding it without shame and in full view of her client should he wake up. She didn’t mind, she was built for a number of duties, and looking attractive was an intentional choice. She had a number of companionship programs installed, though her client had thus far chosen not to indulge. Charlie wasn’t offended by that, not in the slightest. She was contracted to him to protect him first and foremost, and to accommodate his requests and desires if he voiced them.

She kept her bra on, black and lacy with a vague floral pattern. It was very much an intentional choice of attire for her. The cover story was that she and Conner were here on a business outing. He was a wealthy socialite and Charlie was presented as his personal assistant. While Charlie preferred something more comfortable and tactical, in public she had to dress the part. Unbuckling her belt and wiggling out of her jeans revealed a mismatched pair of plaid panties. She didn’t feel the need to change her undergarments at the moment, so they remained on.

She spent the next few minutes taking out sleek black slacks and a matching jacket. A new crisp white shirt and a pair of heels. Slipping into the shirt and slacks she buckled a faux leather belt in place. Before she adorned her matching black blazer she wiggled her way into a tight shoulder harness and holstered a smaller pistol just under her breast. Once the jacket was in place, even without buttoning it, the shoulder rig was nearly impossible to see. Finally she slipped into the heels, the one piece of the outfit she was not pleased about wearing.

Balance, for a machine like her, was crucial, but also took up an immense amount of her processing power. To a human, balance was all about feeling. A human could sense when they were starting to tilt to one side and could correct that imbalance without lending a single conscious thought to it. Robots, like Charlie, on the other hand, were forced to use math. She had to rely on the optics implanted in her head, the numerous data points from her feet and legs, and internal gyroscopes to help her know when she was beginning to tilt one way or the other. All the data had to be passed to a system designed specifically for balance related issues, analyzed, and a solution calculated and passed back to her operating system. What’s more, it all had to be done incredibly quickly, nearly instantaneously if possible, because the entire situation could change in a moment.

Walking was the easiest, it was, to put it bluntly, predictable. Charlie’s eyes took in the area around and in front of her, and her operating system could make predictions based on what was coming up. It could pre-calculate some of the balance issues and formulate a walk cycle to compensate for it.

High heels made all of those compensations, calculations, and predictions so much more complicated.

The smallest imperfection in the way the foot came down, or an odd angle on the pavement, or any number of other unpredictable circumstances could completely throw off an android’s balance in heels. There were still programs and protocols in place to try formulating those predictions, but it was so difficult. Charlie herself had actually worn nothing but high heels for almost two weeks before this assignment in an attempt to allow her artificial mind and body time to “get used” to wearing them. In reality it was an exercise in feeding her operating system as much data ahead of time as possible so that small blocks of code could be prewritten to try and compensate for the majority of situations.

Regardless, Charlie knew that the world was an unpredictable place, and as she held the heels between her index and middle finger, she knew that this was just one more element of chaos that she would tangle with. She sighed, a purely social response from her and one that her human emulation software had pre-loaded long ago. She balanced on one foot, brought her knee up and pointed her toes and slipped on one of the heels. She contemplated repeating the maneuver for the other shoe, but decided against it. She turned around and lowered herself to a sitting position on the end of the bed, brought her foot up and slipped on the other high heel.

“You look good.”

The muttered response from the bed wasn’t unexpected, but Charlie snapped her head over to the bed anyway. The smirking face of Conner was peeking out from under the pillow.

“How long have you-”

“About ten minutes. Long enough to get an eyeful that’s for sure.”

Charlie’s lips pressed together into a thin line and the very faintest of pink blushes touched her cheeks. The early morning light concealed the redness well enough, but Charlie was acutely aware of what process was running and knew the pigment modifiers were running. She couldn’t do anything to stop them, she had a lot of control over her own body and how it operated, but some things she was simply not allowed to control.

“You should have said something, I would have done a little dance.” Charlie said, standing from the bed and stepping lightly over to Conner’s bed. She was about to lower herself down to the sheets and lie down with him, when he suddenly reached up, grasped the pillow and flung it at her.

Her optics picked it up and easily calculated the trajectory, and she could have easily dodged it, but the heels on her feet were a concern. In a flash her operating system had put together all the pieces and decided that it would be so much better to be hit in the face with a pillow, than tumble to the floor because of a misstep.

The soft pillow did, in fact, impact her face. Charlie took the opportunity to change her facial expression to a dispassionate, almost annoyed expression. There was a hint of playfulness there, but it was immensely subtle.

“Are you done?” She asked.

“I swear, one of these days I’ll get you to laugh.” Conner replied, pushing himself up to a sitting position.

He was shirtless, preferring to sleep only in his pajama pants. The signs of a lifetime of wealth were evident on him. He had the money for a personal trainer and a dietitian to ensure that he was in peak physical health. He wasn’t well muscled like a bodybuilder or even one of the frat boys that spent their days in the gym. Instead, there was a healthy fitness to him. The kind of look that made someone assume that all he had to do was flex the right way and his muscles would pop.

Conner stretched his arms above his head and yawned, arching his back and letting the previous night of relaxation melt away. Charlie watched him, raising an eyebrow as she did so and wondered idly if he was attempting to impress her. Not that he needed to. She knew that he had read the contract when she had been assigned to him. He knew what he could ask for, what he could demand and what was expected of her. If he had really wanted a night of pure lustful carnal pleasures, all he had to do was say so and she would have. It was in her programming, she was equipped for it, and she would have likely enjoyed it just as much as he would.

She wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t requested that. She was used to, even expected it, from most of her assignments. She had been rented out a number of times before and this was the first time that her charge hadn’t requested it. She wasn’t upset about it, she had no ego to stroke, it was just a curious data point to her, and something she might consider analyzing once her job was done.

“You’ll make me laugh when you do something worth laughing about. Now get out of bed, you have an investors meeting at nine.” Charlie said, placing her hands on her hips and mocking a scowl at him.

“Yes mother. I’ll be up in a few minutes.” Conner shot back, pulling the blankets over his head.

Charlie smirked and shook her head. Conner was fun, very witty, and in general just a good guy. Charlie had a hard time reconciling his charm and his good looks with his lack of a steady girlfriend. He hadn’t made any kind of move to utilize Charlie for her more intimate capabilities, and from the brief historical searches she had done on him, there was no woman, or man for that matter, in his life. He was single and happy to remain so. It wasn’t uncommon, but any time Charlie happened upon a person who was content in solitude, it always seemed so out of place.

Conner finally threw off the comforter and rolled out of bed properly. True to form he was only wearing his pajama bottoms, which, after a moment of stretching and twisting, were promptly pulled off. Charlie, following programmed behavior, averted her eyes and instead took a moment to turn away and scan the room for any new threats or changes. Meaning she didn’t see Conner look over his shoulder in her direction with a mischievous smirk. He glanced in her direction just in time to see her turning away and was unable to actually catch her eye, a fact that turned his smirk into a pair of disappointed pursed lips.

Conner let out a small, soft sigh and set about getting himself dressed. Investor meetings were by far the least exciting part of this trip. There was a very good reason he had requested that the location be some place with nice beaches and a vibrant nightlife. Where was the fun in writing off a few thousand dollars in company funds for a trip if he couldn’t have a great steak and some fun on the town. Investor meetings also meant he had to dress the part, which meant a suit and worse, a tie.

“I don’t get how people can wear these things every damn day.” He commented aloud to Charlie, prompting her to venture a glance over her shoulder at him.

He was dressed, mostly, sporting at least pants and an untucked shirt. He was holding up a tie and sneering at it with disgust.

“They’re like wearing a noose everywhere.”

“They also make a very good hand hold to grab someone and gain an advantage in a combat scenario.” Charlie confirmed, making Conner look from her down to the tie and then back to her.

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine?” Conner muttered.

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“Are you going to make me order you to call me Conner?”

Charlie turned around, placing a single hand on her hip and letting out a sigh. She wasn’t used to her clients being so casual with her. She was built and programmed for only two things, protection and sex, the two most requested services from the budding android industry. Casual conversation, jokes, and the broad category of “companionship” wasn’t something she was ill equipped for, but it was a non-standard set of skills.

“No, sir. Conner will be fine.” Charlie said, politely.

“Good enough. You know how to tie one of these things?” Conner said, holding up the tie, and Charlie nodded in return while raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Good, come help me, I always have to look up a guide on these stupid things.”

A small smile quirked up at the corner of Charlie’s lips. She carefully walked around the beds to stand in front of Conner. She fully relied on her balance programming to take the lion's share of her walk cycle calculations. Once there, she had to take one step just a little closer to Conner, putting him well within arms reach. She took the tie and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, taking the silky fabric of the tie with her. It was a simple knot that she ended up tying, but for the few moments that she was intimately close with Conner, she could sense his warm breath wafting across her, exhaled from his nose. She noticed and compensated for all of his little sways and fidgets as he stood as still as he could, letting her work. She even noticed that, while he had every right to take in her beauty, he looked solidly up at the ceiling while she worked.

“There. Nothing fancy, but good enough.” Charlie said and took a measured step back, allowing Conner to look down at the tie dangling from around his neck and nodded in approval.

“Certainly better than I could manage. Thanks Charlie.”

Charlie nodded in return and let Connor get back to tucking in his shirt and fastening a belt on.

“Is there anything I should know about this meeting? Any topics that a personal aid, like myself, might have knowledge of? Any topics that are going to ruffle feathers and prompt someone to try and gun you down?” Charlie asked, settling down on the end of her bed.

“Nothing quite so thrilling I’m afraid. I’m chairman of a group of directors trying to get a new oil pipeline installed. I’m required to be at the meeting as an investor, but everyone will mostly be talking stock options, logistics, blah blah.” Conner said with a wave of his hand. “Nothing much to worry about really.”

“I see.” There was a moment of silence as Conner smoothed out his shirt and began to slip into a matching suit jacket. “Can I ask you something then?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Why contract a military grade android as a bodyguard if you’re so unconcerned about this meeting?” Charlie asked, looking over towards Conner.

“Hippies with shotguns.” Was the simple reply.

“You think someone will try and intercept you on the way in?”

“I think people know who I am. People know I like to have fun and see the sights and indulge in the locations I visit. And I think that gives people the opportunity to take their shot at someone they see as harmful to the environment.” Conner explained.

“I see. So you needed someone with bullet proof skin to step in between you and the folks who are trying to save the earth.” Charlie said, completely deadpan.

“Well..when you say it like that it makes it-” Conner’s voice took on a defensive tone.

“I’m joking, you know. Androids are capable of humor and satire these days.” Charlie interrupted and smirked at Conner, who was, at the moment, gobsmacked. “That’s one for me and zero for you. Come on, get your shoes on. You can crack jokes at me and try and even the score in the elevator.”

The investors meeting was, as Conner had rightly predicted, incredibly boring. Charlie was grateful that all she needed to do was simply sit near Conner and scan the room for threats. The meeting was held in a conference room in a hotel several blocks from the hotel Conner had booked for the two of them. Conner had initially wondered why they couldn’t just book a room in the same hotel as the conference and Charlie’s answer had been simple enough. Every other investor was staying in the same hotel as the conference, and if there was going to be any kind of trouble it would happen where the majority of targets were concentrated. By moving to an isolated location she could secure the area more easily and put him out of harm's way.

It was one of those reasons that, once hearing it, made so much more sense. Granted there was still an element of danger as she had to ensure he was safe when moving from the hotel to a car and vice versa, not to mention the playboy nightlife Conner had anticipated in his stay. That, however, was a concern for Charlie to take on when the time came. For now, she was content to listen to a room full of mostly old men talking with lawyers about litigations on cases that might block their project, profit margins and annual numbers.

The meeting concluded some nine hours later, around six in the evening. Conner looked like he had been put through the ringer. His constant yawning and the developing bags under his eyes were indication enough that he was likely ready to call it a night. However once the two crawled into the car and the door was closed, Conner flopped back into the seat, loosened his tie and smiled over at Charlie.

“So, dinner?”

Charlie looked over at him and began running scenarios in her operating system. There was a low chance of someone taking a crack at him while in a public and crowded space with lots of cameras and witnesses. It wasn’t a completely safe move, but it was acceptable.

“Oh Conner, I never thought you’d ask. Take me somewhere nice.” Charlie said, pressing her hand against her chest.

“For you sweetie, anything.” Conner shot back and the two shared a moment of laughter.

Charlie could have stopped the laughter with a single command. All of the social programming that came through her systems needed to be approved by her A.I. and laughing at the silliness of the situation was no different. After the kind of boring day they had had though, she knew it was the best option. Conner pumped his fist and laughed all the more, commenting about how he had finally gotten Charlie to laugh. Charlie left the mischievous smirk on her face and commented that she merely let it happen and to not let it go to his head.

Dinner was, as promised, lovely. They dined at an upscale Italian place and the two had plenty of wine, food, laughter and conversation. The atmosphere was, in a word, romantic and Charlie was very sure that a number of the patrons there thought the attractive couple were out on some kind of upscale date night. Conner was convinced that there were some people there who recognized him and couldn’t wait for the tabloids to proclaim that he had taken on a mistress of some kind. He didn’t care, and while Charlie suspected that the same thing might be a possibility, she was somewhat immune to the controversy.

Charlie wasn’t a real person, regardless of how much she looked and acted like a real person, there was no paperwork anywhere that made it so. She was a machine, nothing more, and nothing less. So While some might have attempted to search for her identity in order to either target her or more likely get a juicy story, they wouldn’t find one. She didn’t exist outside of her intended use. Conversations, protection, the occasional night of sex, and that was it. If the company that contracted her services saw fit, they could even go as far as disassembling her completely and pouring her A.I. into a new body.

None of that was likely to happen though. After several hours of frustrated searching tabloid reporters would either give up, or more likely, discover that she was a body guard android and throw their hands up in frustration. There was no scandal to be found in that.

Conner and Charlie spent almost two hours in the restaurant, laughing and drinking and trading stories. Moreover, Conner got his opportunity to question Charlie about his own curiosities. From their somewhat secluded corner booth, emboldened by a few glasses of wine, Conner began to ask the questions he had had burning in his mind since he signed Charlie’s contract.

“So, answer me this, you’re a robot right?” Conner began.

Charlie, knowing just how much wine he had already consumed, was ready for a slurred string of awkward questions. Conner was a good man, and there was little worry about him doing something truly embarrassing.

“I’d prefer it if you kept that a little more quiet, but yes, I am fully robotic.” Charlie answered with a smile.

“Do you remember being built and stuff? Like I can remember my childhood, but you don’t have that?”

“No, I don’t have a childhood. I have access to the footage of my assembly if I wanted it, but I’ve never really had much interest in seeing it. I mean, would you want to see the home video of your own birth?” Charlie replied.

“God no, good point.”

Charlie smirked, raised her wine glass and tipped it towards him in a ‘cheers’ kind of motion.

“Are you able to make choices for yourself? Or is it all just programmed responses?”

“Oh, we’re getting philosophical now?” Charlie asked after taking a small sip of her wine. She had an internal storage tank, but didn’t want to fill it up too much, it would need to be cleaned out after all.

“No no, not like that. But like, you can choose your own contracts and jobs and stuff, right?” Conner slurred.

Charlie shrugged one shoulder and tilted her head to the side a bit before answering.

“Sure, I can turn down assignments that I feel I’m not really a good fit for, but the company that owns me does assign me to tasks and I’m compelled to do them unless my A.I. has a really good reason to say otherwise.”

Charlie squinted a little at Conner.

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, well, you’ve just been really good company, and I’ve got a lot more board meetings to attend in the next few years. I just thought I might request you specifically more often.” Conner replied.

“That’s certainly an option.” Charlie confirmed.

“You ever thought about doing something else? Other than contract work?” Conner continued.

“Like what?” Charlie asked with a small chuckle. “I promise you I will flunk out of clown college.”

“No, like private work. You know, like what you do now but for just one fun loving guy?”

The statement took a moment to bounce around inside of Charlie’s artificial mind and process through whatever collection of systems combined to resemble a mind inside of her. She had actually thought about going into private security, but everyone who was ever interested in it would never fit the kind of person Charlie wanted to spend the rest of her existence with. They were all assholes who needed someone to body check reporters out of the way. Conner though, Conner was different. He would have been a lot of fun to spend time with, and she could very much see herself enjoying any assignment she was given that involved him. He wasn’t too hard on the eyes either, and she assumed that an intimate relationship would form not shortly after. If she took him up on the offer, if there was an offer…

“I’ve considered it. But I’ve been in operation for a few years now and my model is likely to be outdated in the next few years. So, it’s probably not a great investment for anyone.” Charlie commented truthfully. There would be newer, faster, and more efficient models in the months to come. She could still easily compete, but she knew that sooner or later she would be taken apart, refurbished and sold to some collector.

“So what you’re saying is that you need to find someone who has more money than sense?”

That got a genuine chuckle from Charlie. She tucked some of her spikey, ruffled hair behind her ear and nodded a little.

“Something like that.”

The silence that fell between the two of them stretched onward for too long. Charlie didn’t mind at all, she had plenty to do while she waited for Conner to collect himself. She was constantly scanning the room for anything she deemed dangerous. Like always, there was little to notice. It was made easier as the night dragged on and fewer people were occupying the restaurant. Without another word Conner tugged out his wallet and passed his credit card to a passing waitress and told her to close them out.

The hotel was only a few blocks away, and the evening was far too nice to not stroll along the sidewalks. There were so few people out that even Charlie agreed that there was little chance of there being any kind of confrontation. Still, Charlie’s stark blue optics swept the area around them as they walked.

They were perhaps a block away from the hotel as the night grew thick with darkness and cold air. Charlie was quietly listening to Conner ramble loudly about how boring the day had been and how tomorrow wasn’t about to be any better. Charlie smiled along with him, but that changed in a flash as four men appeared behind them from the alleyway between buildings.

The first bullet, something small caliber, slammed into the back of Charlie’s head. The impact tossed her head forward, but the kevlar laced flesh along her scalp stopped the bullet from doing any kind of internal damage, though it did leave a hefty dent in the back of her head and blow off a tuft of her light brown hair. In an instant she spun around, her own pistol in hand and her optics took in the situation.

“Shit! It’s a bot!” one of them called in a panic.

Charlie leveled the weapon on him first. Even though she was only a machine, there were laws in place that allowed her to retaliate with like force when either her continued operation or the life of a human was on the line, this situation handily included both. Charlie’s operating system slammed into a combat centered code base and it took effect in an instant. Her finger pulled the trigger of her own sidearm twice in seamless succession. The first round pierced her attacker's chest, right about where the heart would be and the second hit him in the face. The remainder of the crew of would-be assassins began to flee. Though one of them took the opportunity to pop out from the alley, using his falling compatriot as a shield and get off a single round from his shotgun before darting back for cover.

Charlie didn’t have a clear shot of the second gunman, and it quickly became apparent that she wouldn’t get her opportunity. She saw them fleeing and her head swiveled over her shoulder to look for Conner who had dove behind a car parked at the sidewalk and was cowering there. His face was illuminated by a sudden burst of light, and Charlie looked back at the alley way, only to find it empty. There was another burst of light, though smaller this time.

“Are you ok Conner?” Charlie asked, stepping gently backward towards him, never lowering her gun.

“Yeah I’m fine, but you-”

“I’m fine.” She assured him.

“But you were-” Conner began again

“I’m fine.” Charlie repeated, the exact tone and inflection were unchanged. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

Charlie holstered her firearm, but left her suit coat open for ease of access. The two moved wordlessly for the remainder of the block they had been walking along. Charlie kept the pace quick and crisp until the door to Conner’s room clicked and latched behind them.

“Are you hurt?” Charlie asked, noticing that there was another flash of light coming from somewhere, but Conner was her primary concern at the moment, her operating system shunted everything else to a lower priority.

“I’m good, but you..are- are you okay?” Conner asked, his eyes traveling from her face downward.

“It’s going to take more than a bullet to the back of my head to take me out.” Charlie assured him, her tone light, almost joking.

“Yeah but, what about that?” Conner asked, leveling a finger towards her side.

“Huh?”

Charlie hadn’t registered the additional damage. Her operating system had already recategorized her processes. She was disposable, and damage to her was secondary to protecting Conner. But now that the threat was gone, she had more of an opportunity to assess the actual damage.

The scraps of her once white shirt and black jacket were shredded and tattered now. They were blocking a large portion of the actual damage to her body though. No matter how she craned her neck she couldn’t get a good view of the actual damage. She shed the jacket immediately, tossing it on her bed, followed by the shoulder harness. She didn’t waste time unbuttoning her shirt, instead she curled her fingers into the buttons and pulled it open with a mechanically enhanced strength. It left her in her slacks and her bra, but it allowed her to better see what had happened.

The shotgun blast had sent buckshot ripping through her torso, just above the left hip. The gunman had missed almost all of her truly vital components, which explained to Charlie why she was damaged at all. The kevlar enhanced flesh she was equipped with was only reserved for covering the components she needed to continue operating. The attack had hit her where some of her secondary controller boards were housed. If the primary systems had failed, she would be in real trouble, but these were easily replaced.

She put a hand into her torso through the opening there, and felt around for a moment. She was tracing several thick black and red cables that had been severed and were sparking sporadically back to their source. Charlie ended up bending weirdly in order to allow her to get the angle just right, but she had found where the cables plugged into a circuitry sub-system inside of her. She tugged twice to get the cable free and then pulled it out of her damaged torso.

“There. That should stop the spar-sparking.” Charlie stuttered “Fuck.”

“What? What is it?” Conner asked as he watched her drop the frayed bundle of wires to the ground.

“Nothing, it’s just an expensive fix, and my OS is chugging through all the errors. All the errors. And it’s causing some lag. Some lag. On my vocal output-cal output.” Charlie sighed. “Sorry.”

“B-but you’re okay?” Conner asked, the concern was genuine in his voice.

“Yeah fine. The dumb ass hit me in a weird place, nothing that can’t be replaced-replced when I get back-get back.” Charlie let out an exasperated sigh. “Once these errors clear-errors clear I’ll be much better.”

“O-Oh..Okay. Good..uh..thank you.” Conner said, taking a step forward, never taking his eyes off of the damage in her torso.

“Take a picture-a picture. It’ll last longer-longer.”

“Sorry, I just, I’ve never actually seen, you know, in-inside of one of you. Er a robot.” Conner blushed, hating himself for lumping Charlie in with the myriad of androids he had worked with in the past. He could tell she was something unique, which was why he planned to make a bid to buy her from the contract company. He liked her not just because she was gorgeous, but funny, and kind, a little sassy, and an enjoyable date.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. About it. I’m almost done here. Just a few more. Few more. More. Few more. To go.”

There was another small spark, followed by a sizzling sound coming from inside of Charlie’s body. Somewhere in her hips and Charlie rolled her eyes.

“Now what.” She muttered.

Her hands were on her belt, her fingers responding sluggishly as her operating system processed the self check, error messages and a number of body breech alerts. It took a little work, but she unfastened the belt before sighing again and lowering herself to the edge of Conner’s bed.

“Help a girl out? Girl out? Out?” Charlie asked, nodding down to the zipper on her slacks.

Conner swallowed hard, and began to work on her zipper. He wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline, or something else that was causing his fingers to tremble. Probably a combination of both. In the end though, he managed to undo her pants as Charlie watched. More accurately, she was only facing him. Internally she wasn’t paying him much attention. She had taken a lot of systems offline to help speed things along. Social responses, balance programming, constant self checks, and small parts of her human emulation were all offline for now. Once the error state was cleared she would bring everything back online and let her operating system figure out what did and did not need to be fully reengaged.

Conner tugged the slacks down Charlie’s legs, revealing her shapely thighs and eventually her calves and then they were in a heap on the floor. Charlie’s operating system detected the removal of her pants and reengaged a small part of her social programming.

“Panties too, I need to see what’s going on in there.” Charlie commented before retreating back and shutting down her social programming. She was now fully into a more minimalized mode, something more robotic. She was attempting to repair herself more than conform to a social dynamic.

Conner eyed her for only a moment before pulling the simple cotton, plaid panties she wore. Once they were off Conner only had a moment to observe Charlie’s perfectly crafted sex. Smooth and hairless, and, from Conner’s recollection, just about the most idealized version of what a woman’s sex should be.

Charlie blinked once and adjusted her head mechanically down to look at her crotch. Her eyes were not blinking and Conner noticed that she didn’t seem to be breathing either. Conner sat back on the ground next to the pile of Charlie’s discarded clothes. He watched as Charlie’s hands came to rest just above her slit, then pushed into her skin hard, and then pushed downward. Her vaginal module slipped forward, gliding out from between her legs. Once Charlie had pushed it out an inch or two, she readjusted and grasped the end of it, pulling it outward rather than pushing. Once the mechanism had slipped out a few more inches Charlie blinked rapidly again, seeming to regain some of her more natural facial expressions.

“Little scorching, but nothing that would stop it from working.” Charlie commented, her eyes clicking in their sockets to glance at Conner for a brief moment before returning to her nude and disassembled sex. She saw that Conner’s eyes were glued to her, and smirked a little. She gently pushed the module back into her body until it clicked into place.

Charlie’s OS had finished clearing the torrent of errors and warnings from the log files and she was returning to a more normalized operation. Though, there was something not quite right with her software. They say that trauma does strange things to people, and perhaps Charlie had seen enough trauma to integrate part of that into her A.I. but there was something about seeing her exposed and damaged circuitry in her side. The severed and frayed bundle of cables laying on the ground, and the fact that she had just ejected and reinserted her own vaginal assembly. All of it culminated in something that she hadn’t really expected.

She found her sexual programming loading and connecting to the reconnected sexual unit. There was a small snap from inside of her hips somewhere that seemed to shake Conner from his stupor. The same small spark only drove Charlie on though, she bit lightly into her lower lip and let a soft sensual sigh slip out of her lips. She wasn’t specifically programmed to pursue something intimate with her clients, but Charlie and Conner were there, she was naked, and she could easily infer that his heart rate was probably out of control. Conner had adrenaline and hormones coursing through him the same way that Charlie had somehow loaded her sexual programming.

Their eyes met for only a moment after the sigh and Conner knew, somehow, that Charlie was begging for him. He would be lying to himself and everyone around him if he said he hadn’t wanted to explore Charlie like this. Conner had been flirtatious and fun while they were together, he didn’t want to simply order her to crawl into bed with him, it made him feel like he was taking a shortcut in a relationship. He had spent his life earning his rewards, and Charlie was no different. She was an object, sure. A machine that would follow orders as they were given, but Conner didn’t want that, he wanted something more genuine.

Conner looked into those sky blue, oddly piercing, and wildly lust filled eyes. Her hands were moving away from her sex and towards him. They wrapped around his neck and pulled him forward even as she dipped low and brought her lips to meet his. There was a thrilling explosion of lust, intimacy, concern and a myriad of other emotions coursing through Conner. He pushed himself to his feet purely out of concern for Charlie. The last thing he wanted was for her to pop another component or overtax her back bending forward to kiss him. Charlie tilted her head upwards, her lips never leaving Conner’s, and inserted her tongue along the way, a welcome addition Conner noted.

As he stood, the kiss deepening with passion, he also noticed the slightly jittery presence of Charlie’s fingers working his belt buckle and then his zipper. She was being awfully forward for a machine that was programmed to follow orders. But maybe she was. He certainly hadn’t given an order for this, not that he was going to stop it, but he had a wandering thought that perhaps something had short circuited in whatever constituted a brain inside of Charlie’s head when she was shot. Either way, he wasn’t about to stop this.

Conner’s pants and boxers fell from his waist and he took the opportunity to kick off his shoes. He was glad he did, because Charlie broke this kiss, smirking with nearly angelic ethereal beauty, took his tie in her hands and then fell backwards. Conner was practically yanked out of his shoes and slacks, leaving him half naked, and comfortably nestled in between Charlie’s thighs.

“See, ties are just the worst.” Charlie cooed into Conner’s ear just moments before she nibbled playfully on his earlobe. The bite sent a jolt through Conner that he wasn’t entirely convinced wasn’t an actual electrical charge from Charlie.

Conner raised his head, letting out a soft groan and inviting Charlie to nibble and kiss her way across his throat and down towards his chest. Conner took this time to orient himself properly now and allowed one of his hands to find its way to Charlie’s chest. At the same time he felt her surprisingly warm slender fingers wrap around his shaft. He was usually so much more aware of his own arousal, he was almost more surprised at how hard he had become without his knowledge. Conner delighted in the feeling of charlie’s breast though, he had expected it to be hard, like a molded plastic mound, but even covered by her bra, it felt so real.

Charlie wrapped one arm around Conner’s neck and hoisted herself up a bit, allowing her to release Conner’s cock and work, instead on undoing her bra. It didn’t take much work, she was a machine and precision was one of her greatest strengths. She dropped back to the bed below her, letting out a delighted squeal as she did so and flashing a wide, genuine smile up at Conner. He took his chance and wiggled his hand under the bra and over her breast. Even as he began to playfully toy with Charlie’s nipple, he felt the tip of his manhood being guided gently into place. The tip of which was just reaching her moist, synthetic folds.

Conner didn’t usually have to be told something twice, there was an invitation and he took it.

Conner’s hips thrust forward without hesitation and he found himself plunging deep inside of Charlie. It was her turn to let her head fall back, and Conner could swear there was just a little bit of a static tinge in her voice. He wasn’t sure why, but that somehow made things more arousing to him. He pulled back and thrust inside of her again and again and again. His hands were on her, all of her. He spent long minutes fondling her breasts with wild, greedy abandon. He felt her nipple pucker under his palms, he felt the warmth of her artificial skin below his body, and he felt the warm wetness inside of her.

Her groans sounded so perfectly human, too. Despite the vocal distortion that arose from time to time, and the occasionally repeated phrase or sound, Conner found it all to somehow enhance his experience. Conner even found himself looking down at her hip, the shredded skin there and the exposed internal components sliding and moving. They were damaged, for sure, but somehow still graceful. It gave Conner a unique glance into Charlie that only confirmed how well built and well engineered she truly was.

The pair rolled around in bed for the next hour. Sometimes Charlie was gleefully mounted on top of Conner, bouncing up and down on his shaft. Each bounce jiggled her body in new, sensual ways, and the sound of some kind of motor system in her hips whined loud enough for Conner to hear it every time. Sometimes Conner would toss her down and push her legs wide open and allow himself back into her. Both would moan and groan happily with every move.

In the end though, Conner couldn’t contain himself any more and unloaded himself inside of Charlie. At the same moment she arched her back and let out one long cry. She balled up the bed sheets in her fists and wrapped her long lithe legs around Conner. He felt himself pulled into her, just a little deeper, and her legs held him tight against her. He let one more lustful burst go inside of her before he fell forward, panting and only barely catching himself on his hands. The pair looked into each other's eyes and leaned into a kiss.

The rest of the evening was a much more formal and boring affair. Charlie and Conner cuddled up with each other in bed while the afterglow remained, but Charlie was the one who broke away. She would have to make a report of the event this evening and the police would need to take her statement. It was an easy process of her simply copying log data and video feeds to an SD card to hand off to them, but there were protocols to be followed. So the pair left the soft warmth of the bed and began getting dressed.

Conner returned to his slacks and white shirt, though he removed the tie and tossed it into his suitcase. Charlie donned a pair of form fitting denim jeans and boots, with a matching blue shirt with a tan tank top over the top. She bundled together her hair, wild and frizzed out from the sexual encounter, into a ponytail on top of her head. It conveniently covered the dent in the back of her skull where the first bullet had struck, and also exposed the port where the authorities would insert their secure SD card into her systems for a data transfer.

The remainder of the trip had been called off in light of the events. Board meetings would be done virtual going forward until the entire deal had been settled and the pipeline construction was under way. Charlie stayed with Conner for the remainder of his time though. Though he was booked on a flight for the next morning, Charlie didn’t take up her usual perch on the chair in the corner of the room, and instead crawled under the blankets with Conner. Her reasoning was that her skin was bullet proof so she was able to transpose herself between the door and Conner should anything else happen. Conner didn’t argue.

At the airport the pair shook hands professionally and Conner once again thanked her for everything. There was a small twinkle in his eye and a quirked up corner of his mouth. She knew what he meant. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise when she returned to her contract agency for repairs and found a few documents waiting for her on their internal network. She dismissed them, thinking that they were forms to fill out about the incident and perhaps another assignment for her to evaluate.

Her repairs were quick. Her hips hadn’t sustained much damage, and the wiring and controller board were easily replaced. Replacing the flesh along her side was more hassle than any parts that needed to be worked on. It required the entire half of her torso, from hips to collar bone to be replaced with a new, single slab of skin. Her sexual unit wasn’t damaged enough to be a concern, though the IT crew extracted it and replaced it regardless. Her hair piece needed to be replaced as well as the back of her skull cap. No internal damages were found, but Charlie had to have her head disconnected and taken offline with the technicians carefully examining her inner workings and evaluating them.

It was almost a full week before she had the opportunity to be fully reassembled and online enough to read the documentation that was left for her. They were not, in fact, assignments or forms to fill in. It was an offer to buy out her contract signed by Conner himself. The entire document was a long legal tirade that Charlie actually took the time to read and understand. It laid out an offer to buy her wholesale from the company she was contracted to at the moment, with addendums added to include equipment needed for ongoing security measures, repair costs, parts, labor, updates as well as a proposal for future hardware and software replacements in order to keep Charlie operating in top shape. There was another note added to the legal document, it was short, and simple.

“The offer has no end date. I’d hate to see you become obsolete, and I’ve got all this money and little sense.”

It was hand signed by Conner.

Charlie wasn’t entirely shocked by it, but she found herself smiling at it.

“More money than sense. He’s not wrong.” Charlie muttered and stood up from her desk.