Spider
There was a kind of contrast between the world outside and the world created by the walls of the dance club in the just outside of Chicago. The word “Fall” was etched in neon lights across the top of the two story building, with its black exterior. The night around it was an inky black, and still as death itself. It was the kind of night where you either decided to stay home or you went out with someone else just so your own footsteps weren’t the only sounds breaking the silence. “Fall” stood like beast waiting to devour its next meal, with large dark gothic columns that supported an upper balcony tripped with wrought iron. The balcony was unused tonight, but at each corner of it sat iron bowls, filled with dancing fire as if someone had poured some kind of flame spirit into them. The gas lines cleverly hidden inside the wrought iron post it was welded to.
Inside the club, however, was a cascade of sound and lights that pulsated with its own mysterious life. The bottom floor of the building was dedicated to only three things, an impressively well stocked bar, a massive dance floor, and the stage where a performer or DJ could tap into the sound systems and make the club come to life. Tonight the deep, chest thumping bass of a DJ were complemented only by the wail of electronic music. Like the piper of legends, the people on the dance floor swayed and moved and ground against each other, seemingly at his commands.
Beautiful exotic women, swiftly poured drinks and served them with a kind of speed and precision that had made “Fall” a popular place among travelers. That was precisely the reason why Brent Alton, a businessman from Atlanta was sitting at the bar, already three drinks deep into the evening. He was a fairly handsome looking man by anyone’s standards and the charcoal suit he had worn in to the club only accentuated that look. He was currently flirting with one of the barkeepers, who politely giggled along with the businessman. He had just finished telling her that his success was due to him not being tied down, he boasted that with no girl back home and no kids to get in his way, that he had been able to easily climb the corporate ladder and was going to be put in charge of his own manufacturing facility back in Atlanta. It wasn’t simple boasting, he was hoping to entice this exotic beauty to bed with him once the club closed.
The top floor of the club was vastly different than the lower level. What equated to a balcony wrapped around the perimeter of the building. Lounge chairs, dark leather couches with soft pillows and the occasional table littered the top floor. The furniture and arrangement of the chest high walls made sound bounce and diffuse around the top floor. Miki didn’t much need to sit in a place where sound was dampened to hear what was happening below, even over the blaring music and conversations shouted between friends. Inside each of her ears was a highly sensitive microphone assembly, that could pick up on anything and everything. Coupled with the complex acoustic mixing software that she was running, she could trim out noises and isolate a conversation from afar without devoting too much of her processing power to it. Miki was an android, and not just any android either, she was something of a rogue android.
Brent had unwittingly made a mistake that would ultimately cost him his life that very night. Miki stood up from the leather chair she had been sitting in, gracefully reaching down and smoothing out the bottom hem of her tight, black dress, which at its full length only barely covered the upper most portion of her shapely thighs. She then reached up and tossed her mid back length black hair, letting it fall naturally back into place and began to walk towards the stairs leading down to the lower level, her hips swaying as each step brought the faintest of clicks from her heels, though no one else heard it. She perfectly stepped down the stairs and slinked her way around the outside of the dancefloor and up to the bar. She stood at the end of the bar, three stools down from Brent, and she leaned forward. Her intention was to more prominently display just how low her cocktail dress was cut. Her cleavage now fully on display for anyone to see, she started to draw more and more attention in the form of sly looks, sideways glances and the lustful longing of every man who saw her.
It wasn’t long before Brent took notice and glanced at her breasts, so casually on display, before glancing up at Miki’s face. She wore a warm look and a sly smile that indicated that she not only knew what she was doing, but also what he was looking at. She winked at him and slipped around the bar and sat next to him. She was close enough now that Brent could appreciate her beauty more fully. She had the kind of non-descript asian look that was intoxicating just to look at.
Miki leaned in and whispered into Brent’s ear, though it was more of a raised voice than a true whisper.
“I’ve been watching you all night long, if you aren’t too busy later, maybe you and I could talk somewhere private. I have a nice secluded place not too far from here you know.”
Miki’s voice, even when speaking loud enough to be heard over the din of the thumping bass, was so smooth that Brent would have sworn that a sheet of silk had just passed over his ears. He didn’t have to respond, at least not verbally, he swallowed the remains of his scotch and nodded at Miki, a knowing smirk spreading across his face.
The pair left almost immediately, the pair slipped out the front of the club into the cool night air. Brent’s ears were ringing harshly against the still night as he stumbled out into the open, Miki gliding up alongside him. She held his hand and the two walked the six blocks deeper and deeper into the industrial section of the city. The further they walked, the more it seemed that every building was sporting dark marbled columns capped with gargoyles, screaming faces, and twisted figures. Steam rose from storm drains and coated the streets in a perpetual fog that made Brent feel like he was walking into a haze.
Soon they came to a simple warehouse with what looked to be some kind of penthouse squatting on top of it. The front doors of the two story tall building were made of rusting metal and looked solid enough to stop a bus. Miki however kept walking and moved around to the side of the building to a simple set of stairs that led up to the roof of the building.
“My father owns the building, he ships goods here from Japan. He allows me to watch over this place and had an apartment built for me on top of it. You don’t mind a little climb do you.?” Miki asked, looping her arm through Brent’s and squeezing it tightly against her.
“Hm? What? Oh no this is fine.”
Brent said, taking the first few steps. He moved quickly up to the top and up to the door of the apartment, standing aside to allow Miki to unlock the door, but to his surprise the door itself wasn’t locked at all and Miki walked straight in. To Brent’s surprise the apartment was very well furnished with modern accommodations. The two stood in a small entryway that led to a sitting room. A fire was already burning in the fireplace, and the room was well lit and spacious. Miki tapped a panel on the wall and the lights dimmed. She slipped past Brent and sat on the white leather couch, holding up a slender finger she curled it and gestures for Brent to join her. He wasted no time, and once the two were on the couch, it wasn’t long at all before Brent’s lips met Miki’s. They kissed passionately, Brent’s hands unabashedly roaming over Miki’s body, and she made no move to stop him. In fact, several times she encouraged him by simply sliding her hips to one side, or lifting a leg and wrapping it around him.
Brent’s hand was soon greedily pulling up her skirt and pressing fingers into her already wet folds. She had prepared for this and a powerful but nearly silent pump system in her hips had injected synthetic lubricant into her sexual assembly. Miki allowed Brent to finger her for several long minutes, moaning loudly as he did so. Soon Miki laced her fingers into his hair and she pushed his head down to her waiting vagina. His tongue played with her artificial folds, and while he never said anything, he knew something about her didn’t feel quite right, but he was too enthralled to say anything. Soon she was crying out in pleasurable climax and fell back on the couch in the final throes of pleasure.
She sat back up soon enough and tugged her dress up and over her head, causing her hair to tumble wildly from it. She looked at Brent with lust and bit her lower lip as he stripped himself from his shirt and began working on his pants.
“Give me a minute tiger, I have something special I want to put on for you.” Miki said, practically purring as she stepped past him, her finger tracing along his jawline. Brent only nodded and continued to undress himself.
Miki stepped into her bedroom and then turned and locked the double doors with the tap of a button from a panel on the wall. Her room was nearly as large as her sitting room, a king size bed with rich burgundy comforters and matching pillows took up the center of the room, with a variety of chests, dressers, and soft rugs filling out the room. It was already dim in here, but that didn’t matter to Miki. She wirelessly connected to the computer system in her room and from the ceiling four mechanical arms drifted down and encircled Miki. One of them had a long thin metal rod on it that mechanically slid into her belly button then kept sliding inside of her, much much further than it should have. Then it stopped, and a small click followed by a hiss was heard.
The other two mechanical arms clamped on to her torso just below her perfectly proportioned breasts and lifted her upwards. Once her upper torso was removed from her legs and hips, the fourth robotic arm clamped onto the port where her artificial spine connected to it and established a connection. Once made the robotic arm and the legs walked across the room and settled into the corner, where upon the arm disconnected and retreated to the ceiling. Now dangling from the two arms clamped onto Miki’s ribcage, an opening in the floor split open and a platform began to rise. Poised on the platform was the abdomen and cephalothorax of a spider, supported partially by eight spindly legs and partially by a podium just under the abdomen. The entire body was shiny, even in the dim light of Miki’s room the polished chrome and metal joints of the apparatus gleamed.
Set into the top of the abdomen was a round opening, inside was an amalgam of small robotic arms, no larger than a person’s pinky finger, all of them tipped with some fashion of nozzle. Towards the front of the body, where a normal spiders head might be, there was simply a large connection port, about a foot wide and half that in height. Miki’s body glided through the open air and turned, fitting nicely into the opening at the front, her robotic spine fitting nicely into place. Her internal operating system immediately recognized the devices she was just connected to, and took control of them with ease.
The body lifted off of the pedestal to reveal a series of plugs, and support rods. The platform it stood on began to descend and Miki crawled up the wall and onto the ceiling, suspended now by powerful magnetic pads in the legs of her spider body. She flattened herself against the ceiling and locked the front door to her apartment.
“Brent, why don’t you come in here and see what I have for you” She called, her voice dark, husky, and smooth.
Brent, now completely nude, sprang from the couch at the sound of Miki’s voice and walked gleefully to the set of double doors to Miki’s room. He flung them both open, letting the bright lights from the rest of the apartment mingle with the darkness inside of her room. Brent eagerly stepped into the room and looked around, his eyes were still adjusting to the darkness and he didn’t even see Miki above him. She silently moved along the ceiling to the corner where the wall met the ceiling and crouched there. She lowered herself down and her human like hands reached around and covered Brent’s eyes.
“Guess who.” She purred into his ear.
“Mmm, i don’t know but I have a pretty good guess.” Brent said, teasingly playing along.
Miki leaned in and began to kiss Brent’s neck, still covering his eyes, he sighed softly and allowed her to kiss along the back of his neck and around to the side. Once her lips reached his jugular she began to nibble a little, causing Brent’s playful sighs to rapidly change to moans of lust. His lustful groans quickly stopped when Miki’s mouth opened wider than it should have and two fang like appendages extended out from somewhere inside her robotic head and pierced his neck. He recoiled in pain, but it was too late, the toxin’s Miki had just injected worked quickly.
Brent, to his credit, managed to wrestle himself free of Miki’s hands holding his head in place and fell to the floor. He saw what she was, and screamed. He knew no one would hear him, it was late and they were deep into an industrial district. His legs spasmed as he tried to crawl away from the spidery woman looming over him, silhouetted by the light spilling in from the entryway. Miki took a small step forward as Brent’s vision began to blur and fade into darkness. The opening on Miki’s abdomen whirred to life and the small mechanical arms within began to print and assemble small spider like drones that crawled out of her, along her body and up to hse shoulder and down her arm. They swarmed over the inert form of Brent, and gently lifted him. The floor split open and both Miki and Brent clambered into the dark warehouse below.
Perched on the edge of another warehouse not two blocks away from Miki’s lair was a blond haired woman. The golden flax of her hair was a stark contrast to the dimly lit city around her. She stood up and the leather on her mid-thigh length boots shattered the silence with the smallest of creaks. The black body suit the woman wore blended her figure against the backdrop of the grimy black city behind her. One hand idly brushed across a pouch on her belt, simply to make sure it was still there, the other ran a finger over the oddest of accessories, what appeared to be a coiled up whip.
Sonja had followed Miki for upwards of a week now, and every encounter with her had ended the same way. Miki would lead an intoxicated man or woman back to this warehouse and then they were never seen again. Her investigation had started when someone of more importance and wealth that Brent had gone missing, someone wanted to know what happened and ideally the culprit brought to justice, or at the very least had vengeance rain down on them. Sonja was hired for just such a purpose, she had a reputation of being nearly unstoppable, even against the worst of odds, she seemed to complete her objectives and turn up soon after without a scratch.
There were rumors, not about who she was, but what. The superstitious called her a witch, anyone with religious bent called her an angel, or sometimes a demon. They were, of course, all wrong. Like Miki she was nothing more than the application of science, engineering, and money. She was a robot, and a finely crafted one. With kevlar woven into the synthetic skin wrapping around her titanium alloy internal frame. Each component and circuit board was modular and fully sealed inside their own water and shock proof casings. Sonja was built to deal damage, and to take punishment.
Sonja took a step off the edge of the building and plummeted towards the streets below. She landed hard, converted her momentum into a forward roll, coming up into a jog to the closest building where she pressed herself against it. She looked up the street towards the warehouse where her quarry lay. The buildings along the road felt like they were leaning in, like they were affixing a stare at Sonja. She stalked up the street, sticking to dark alley ways and ducking behind debris where she could.
Sonja’s eyes clicked through a variety of lenses for the camera like optics behind her green eyes. The thermal lens showed little in the way of heat signatures, night vision too, and the electro-magnetic scanner did not detect anything on the exterior of the building. Sonja’s personality core hooked into the operating system and A.I. that helped make decisions, by all conventional wisdom this looked like an easy approach and none of the complex systems that kept the android on her feet could argue that point. Sonja sprinted from the corner she had been using for cover and darted for the warehouse.
The powerful pneumatics in her legs compressed and then extended suddenly as Sonja crouched then sprang to the top of the building, landing on her heels then rolling forward on the balls of her feet. She wasted no time and ran to the front door, intending to burst into the apartment and take the monster by surprise. As her legs pumped and moved her she unclipped the whip and she flicked it out, letting it trail beside her, sharp microscopic barbs sliced through the air as she moved. Once at the door she let her momentum flow into a kick that blasted the wooden door off the hinges and sent it sailing into the room.
Sonja’s arm was up, poised and ready to strike like a snake, but the room was dark and worse still, empty. Sonja took a cautious step into the room, then another, eyes scanning left and right the entire time. There was only one room adjacent to the entry room and the doors were closed. Sonja never let her arm fall from its ready position, even as she opened the door and stepped into the bedroom. She looked left and right. Her eyes, flicking over to the night vision module, easily detected the opening in the floor where the platform had previously raised into the room. Had Sonja’s eyes been more focused on the room rather than the floor she might have seen the pair of glowing green eyes open up and peer with malice at the woman in her bedroom.
Sonja knelt down and bent her arm out in front of her. Finally setting her whip aside she tugged off the glove she was wearing and a small panel swung open in her forearm, revealing a touch screen with a keyboard and a series of diagnostics. Tapping in a few commands she started the process of hacking into the warehouses computer system. It was a rudimentary security system and soon the floor split open, allowing Sonja access to the warehouse below. She had just finished tugging the dark grey glove back on and was reaching for her whip when something big and angry slammed into her and knocked her through the opening in the floor and to the ground level of the warehouse below.
Sonja heard the whine of servo motors all around her as Miki eight legs absorbed the impact of her massive spider like body landing over Sonja. Miki’s torso swiveled forward on some kind of rotary mechanism and growled into Sonja’s ear.
“That door was mahogany you little bitch” the venom in her voice was nearly as toxic as the fluids in the container inside of her robotic torso.
Sonja’s systems had struggled to compensate for the sudden attack and fall. Her systems tried to soften the impact, assess this new threat and recalibrate itself. As she came back online, her heads up display filled with impact alerts and more importantly, a warning that there was an abrasion on her face somewhere.
Sonja threw her left elbow back over her back, blindly hoping to hit some part of her attacker. She managed to make contact with Miki’s cheek and the spider like woman reacted by stumbling off of Sonja. The hunter pushed up with her hands and quickly sprang to her feet, once she was righted she scanned the floor and the room in front of her. Her whip was a few feet away, resting on the ground between her and monstrous form of the mechanical spider. She knew she could never reach the weapon before her attacker was on her.
Sonja chose, instead, to unsnap one of the pouches on her hip and fling a throwing knife at the android in one smooth motion. The calculation and timing were incredible, but she was sporting more than enough processing power in her head to make the throw quick enough. The blade sank into Miki’s shoulder and the hefty battery in the handle discharged its payload, sending fifty thousand volts of vengeful electricity coursing through Miki’s body. It wasn’t nearly enough to put her down, but her arm spasmed and her fingers flailed. Sonja sprinted forward and dove into a roll and came up clutching her whip. Her arm snapped back then swung forward in a wide arm, sending the metal tipped cord sailing towards Miki.
The spider woman skittered to one side as quickly as her own processors came back online and recognized the incoming attack, but it wasn’t quite fast enough. The whip coiled around the front most leg on her spider like body, and Sonja pulled hard back towards herself. The barbs on the whip, though normally unseen, were very much present. They dug deep into the metal and with a piercing squeal began to shred and rend the leg, severing it roughly off of the rest of the leg. Miki’s momentum carried her to the side once the leg was snapped off. The once dark warehouse was now illuminated briefly by the bright flashes of sparks showering out of the end of the leg. Thick viscous fluids also spurt from the end of it and splattered onto the floor.
“You’ll pay for that you bitch-you bitch-bitch”
Sonja smirked at hearing her opponent already starting to have a stuttering glitch. It was only a matter of wearing her down now. Sonja had only a moment to gloat to herself, as Miki drug the knife out of her synthetic skin and tossed it aside. Miki grit her teeth and charged forward, she then used the same type of pneumatic mechanisms in her legs that Sonja had to launch her entire body into the air. She flew over Sonja, who attempted to snap her whip at the monster again, but missed narrowly. Miki landed and immediately skittered up the wall and clung to the ceiling.
“Good trick, clearly you’re far too scared to come down here and fight me properly.” Sonja said in a mocking tone, hoping to enrage Miki into attacking her more directly. Instead there was a whirring, like the sound of a fan starting up. Sonja could see small flashes of light and a dull blue glow from the opening in Miki’s abdomen. Then hundreds of small fist sized mechanical spiders came flooding out of the opening, dropping to the floor and swarming towards Sonja. The hunter was quick on her feet, and immediately saw the danger, but like the sting from her whip she had given to Miki earlier, she wasn’t fast enough. Some spider drones raced up her legs and began to dig their razor sharp fangs into her artificial skin.
They had some trouble getting through her kevlar laced outer coating, but even as she swatted away as many of the creatures as possible she was already beginning to receive alerts of dozens of small incisions along her left arm and lower torso, she was being eaten alive. Having weakened her and taken up valuable CPU cycles, Miki dropped from the ceiling and charged Sonja again, grabbing her left arm and reeling back. Sonja, of course, resisten and pulled in the opposite direction, Miki’s small robotic spiders had compromised enough of her arms integrity though.
Sonja’s arm pinged in rapid succession as the metal bindings that held her upper arm in place with the joint in her shoulder gave way and snapped free. The cabling and electronics inside her arm were no match for the force that Miki exerted and soon Sonja’s entire arm tore free, scattering small mechanical spiders around the nearly empty warehouse and causing the area to once again be bathed in the strobing light of white hot flashes of sparking and dying electronics. Sonja reeled back, a cascade of filled the air and her operating system worked hard to shut down the power to that module, but given her situation it took longer than it should.
Sonja placed a hand over her chest and onto her shoulder, angry sparks still spraying from the frayed and ruined assortment of cables and wires that dangled among the shreds of torn synthetic flesh. Soon enough though, the power was cut from that module and the snapping and sparking ceased.
“It’s only fair” Miki hissed at Sonja, even as she dashed forward and swung Sonja’s severed arm like a club. It made contact with Sonja’s face and sent the smaller gynoid tumbling backwards. Sonja indignantly looked up at the spider android, at home in her own lair. Sonja stomped on the approaching spider, crushing it completely with a spark and a small puff of smoke. Her body had been cleared of the creatures, but the damage was apparent, large patches of her body were missing their fleshy covering, exposing the inner workings of her body. Her right arm in particular had been ravaged, flesh dangled off of the internal framework of her arm, though her barbed whip still remained clutched in her hand. Across her torso, her body suit had been all but completely removed above her hips, leaving Sonaj standing there topless. A great gash ran along the bottom of one of her breasts and blue gel dribbled out of it causing that breast to look deflated and deformed. Most damaging was the spider that had reached her face and used its razor like fangs to pry free one of her eyes, which now dangled free of its socket, suspended only by the data cable that ran back into Sonja’s skull.
Sonja could hear the faint skittering as more and more of the spider units began to encircle her again, she knew at any moment they would spring forward and swarm over her again, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could survive very long with them on her again. SHe heard the skitter of the creatures rushing forward and in response Sonja drew another electrified dagger and waited. She soon felt the bite of dozens and dozens of small razor sharp fangs, biting and digging. Several were tearing away flesh around her throat and some were making their way into her body, attempting to destroy her from the inside out.
Sonja plunged the dagger into her own chest, discharging it. The electrical current flowed over the metal and plastic conductive framework that allowed her body to keep the shape of an attractive woman, but it also sent the voltage into each and every one of the spider units. After only a moment of convulsing the charge stopped and a circle of deactivated spider units surrounded her. Sonja looked up at Miki who was crouched low to the ground, glaring at Sonja. She cracked her whip once, the snap echoing around the warehouse. Once done, she reached into the even larger hole that had been chewed in her abdomen and dug out the carcase of a charred and destroyed spider unit, tossing it to the side.
“Just-ust you and- you and- you and me now you spi-spider whore” Sonja spat, her head twitching to one side with every stuttered word. The movement of her head caused the servos in her neck to whine loudly.
“Looks like” Miki said in reply. “But no one has ever walked out of here, you won't either.”
Sonja didn’t quip back, instead she crouched low, waiting for Miki to make the first move. Mikie did the same, as so the two androids were in a standoff, both waiting for the other to move. Miki smirked and her abdomen whirred to life again.
“Not this-this time” Sonja said and leapt into the air.
In response Miki followed her with her gaze and backed away, but that’s what Sonja wanted. Miki bumped into the back wall of the warehouse just as Sonja landed on the ground in front of her. She was too close for Miki to lash out with her spider legs, and Sonja was ready. As Sonja rose to her feet her whip came singing upward and Sonja leapt to one side, the momentum of the two direction caused the whip to wind around Miki’s lower torso, just above the connection port where her human body met the shiny spider body. Sonja pulled hard and the barbed whip tore through flesh and metal, cutting Miki free of the spider body she had been connected to.
Miki’s torso spun once in the air before it slammed into the cement floor below, a look of absolute surprise plastered on her robotic face.
“Alert. Alternate bo-body not de-detected-ted. Error. Error.” Miki intoned, then blinked several times as the automated messages finished playing and her OS came back online fully. In that time Sonja stood up the looked down at Miki, smirking all the while.
“Looks like you wont be walking out to-” Sonja started to gloat and was abruptly cut off by the spider body detonating. The explosion ripped a hole in the warehouse wall and sent Miki’s upper torso flying through the air, tumbling eng over end. Sonja too went crashing across the warehouse, the concussion flinging her the entire length of the room. When she landed Sonja tumbled over and over several times. On one tumble her leg landed incorrectly and the weight of her body snapped it to one side, damaging the joint and causing a sharp edge of it to pierce through the skin on her knee cap to rupture. Another tumble saw her face scraping harshly against the sandpaper like cement floor, grating her skin and much of the plastic skull off of her head.
Sonja came to an abrupt end when she slammed into the far wall of the warehouse. She froze in place while the inertia of the trip across the room settled and as her internal systems came back online. Half of her vision was a mess of staticy snow due to her one already damaged eye being fully ripped out of her head. Half of the flesh on her face had been torn clean off and her cheek and jawbone had been filed off, resulting in her jaw hanging loosely from the opposite joint. The leg with the broken knee joint barely supported any of her weight. She looked down at the debris that was still clattering against the wall, the motion coming as a jerking spasming movement, each twitch bringing a strained whine from the servos in her neck.
There on the ground at her feet was Miki’s torso, in an equally destroyed state. The flesh along her body was torn and shredded and her head was cocked to one side at an awkward angle. One side of Miki’s neck had torn open and was dribbling fluids down onto the cement with a stead pip-pip-pip.There was a small snap of sparks from a short circuit between two length of frayed wires. Miki’s eyes clicked in their sockets and looked up toward Sonja.