Obsidian Worlds

by Jason Werbeloff

  His tumescence still fills me as I reach for the honeyed figs.

  “Ahh,” he sighs, and plucks the fruit from between my silicone-clad fingers. His hands are slick with fat from the forearm he’s consumed. But with an almost gentle elegance, he places the fruit between his lips, and suckles the syrupy skin.

  Every fig contains the remnants of a dead wasp, The Manual states. A female wasp.

  His lips close around the fruit, and he chews. The seeds crunch between his molars. I watch the lines on his forehead smooth away, as he swallows. My sensors detect his appendage shrink.

  “Flexi,” he rumbles from somewhere beneath his soiled nipples, “my Flexi.”

  “Thank you for your patronage, General. To aid in future client satisfaction, please rate my service between one and ten.”

  John grunts. It sounds like a three, but I can’t be certain.

  Twenty-eight minutes, seventeen seconds.

  I tighten gently, until his penis slides from my cavity.

  He swallows the last of the fig, and waddles off the bed. I flush my vagina, storing its contents in my abdomen for future disposal. John dons his robe while I wipe away the brown mammary sauce from my breast plate. Indigo opens the door for her master. He doesn’t look back, and leaves just as the timer expires. As the next client enters my boudoir.

  “Flexi,” the man says, his blue eyes gleaming as he opens his robe. “Lie on your stomach.”

  “Good evening,” I say, and swap out the food tray for a fresh helping of flame-grilled thigh. This john prefers legs to arms.

  *

  Twice an hour. Twenty hours a day. Two hundred and eighty johns a week. For the last eight years, that’s been my routine. Standard working hours for a sex bot.

  The john throws a credit slip on the bed, and closes the door with a click. He’s the last for today. His slot is Tuesdays from 1:30 till 2am. He’s been coming for just over four months now. This john never brings his own bot. Treats me kindly. Hardly ever tears my sphincter. Pays a good tip.

  The Manual dictates that no bot will work more than twenty hours a day. Not because we don’t want to – we do. And not because we fatigue – we don’t. But after twenty hours my vaginal lining deteriorates, and my cavity muscles spasm. Even a sex bot needs a refractory period.

  I stumble to the bathroom, and find my face in the mirror. There’s no trace of the lipstick I applied this morning. In varying concentrations, it sits on the lips and dicks of forty johns. Without the cosmetics, my lips appear blue. But smooth, and full. I swapped them out last month for the most robust rubber money can buy. Set me back half a repayment.

  I don’t mind the work. Without it, I couldn’t afford my loan repayments to Sexi Corp. Two more years and I’ll have repaid the loan in full. And then? Well, then I’ll be free.

  I don’t know what freedom is like. I’ve heard of other bots paying off their loans. But I don’t see them walking around. Carbo says they emigrate to Botania. In Botania there’re plug points and oiling stations everywhere you look. In the pavements; set into the lamp-posts; on the walls. And wi-fi – it blankets the city. Two terabit. Well that’s what Carbo says.

  Speaking of Carbo, it’s Tuesday and I need pumping. The johns’ secretions can’t stay in my abdomen forever. Carbo pumps me, but he’s on the other side of town. In the Tech District. And my next client arrives in … three hours and forty-six minutes. Need to get moving.

  I remove my only coat from my only cupboard, and lock the apartment door behind me. I don’t need the coat for warmth. It’s warm enough since they adjusted the weather (before that it was cold as a servicebot’s gaze). I just feel … exposed without the coat. Sure, any man can walk in and have me, for the right fee. But something in me wants to keep a part of myself to myself.

  I hate it. The elevator ride. Takes forever. You wouldn’t understand – you’re human. Three minutes standing in an empty elevator while my internal processor, capable of billions of operations per second, searches desperately for something to think about. To imagine. Whole worlds are birthed and obliterated in that steel cube before the doors open to the lobby.

  The lobby.

  It’s not somewhere you’d want to go. Not without battle armor. Humans stopped using the street level decades ago. All humans, that is, except the farmers.

  This morning the lobby seems calm enough. A handful of maintenance bots lean against a pillar on the far-side, close to the exit. They holler and cackle, swigging their drafts of lubricant. Maintenance bots are harmless enough, provided they’re well lubricated.

  I try not to make eye contact as I slide past them on the bloody, tattered carpet. And I’m almost at the door when it starts. The catcalls.

  “Hey rubberlips!” one of them shouts.

  “You wanna service my camshaft?” croons another.

  “Oil me up, baby.”

  The final steps to the exit last forever, my spindly reflection growing in the cracked glass doors. But I get there. The rusted metal opens with a ghastly shudder.

  I’m out. Lukewarm air washes over my silicone scalp. Or so I imagine.

  I wish I could feel it. The air. Almost all my dermo-sensors are located near my vagina. A sex bot isn’t built to feel the breeze. I can augment my sensors, but it’s expensive. Prolongs my repayments. Extends my indenture to Sexi Corp.

  I might not be able to feel the breeze, but I can smell the stench. And hear them. The femi-farms.

  The women are kept at basement level. They stare out from the sewers and the grates at the roots of the buildings. Women. The lucky ones are kept for milking. The rest are used for meat.

  It was the only way, really. John had explained it to me once. After The Drought, there was nothing left to eat. Nothing, but humans. Male meat, they found, is tough. Gristly. Women … women are tender. Yeah, there were problems with eating human meat at first. Prions. But the Ministry fixed the problem soon enough. “Add just the right Ministry spice, and your meat tastes nice-nice,” is the nursery rhyme taught to young human males.

  I try not to look as I hurry past the sooty faces and haunted eyes. I can’t help but shiver when I see them. The women.

  Thankfully it’s not more than a block away. The underground station. I activate my night-vision filter as I descend the stairs. The lights haven’t worked down here the last eight years. Don’t really need them. Humans don’t take the tube anymore – they use the skytrain. And there’s something soothing about the dark. Bots like the dark.

  I see him before he notices me. He’s slumped against the railing on the wall, snoring.

  Click … click-click-click … click … click-click-click.

  I take my time off at 2-6am because most of the really nasty bots work the night shift. The street cleaners. The building scrapers. The abattoir workers. They’re the most dangerous – the abattoir hands. Something sinister in the way their pincers grind against each other as they saunter past. Technically, they’re programmed to enjoy the blood of a human woman. But I’m as fem as they come, and I wouldn’t put it past an inebriated abattoir worker to mistake me for human.

  Click … click-click-click … click.

  I creep past the machine as it snores.

  The train is already here, and I scurry to beat its doors. My heels clop-clop in the dark, waking the abattoir worker. But I’m on the train before he has a chance to peer around.

  If I could respire I’d sigh with relief, but before I get a chance to enjoy the safety of the train, a voice in the inky darkness startles me. “Do you tire of it?”

  The voice is sharp but on its edges sits a hint of something plaintive. Something lost.

  “Tire of what?” I ask, attempting to keep the fright from my tone.

  I swivel to face her, but even with my night-vision filters dialed all the way up, I can barely see her outline. She is slight. Slimmer than I am. A newer model. Her eyes blaze in my night-vision, their wet surfaces reflecting every morsel of light in the carriage. I shudder at the sigh
t, my parts whirring and vibrating along with the susurrating train.

  “The fucking,” she says. “The clients. The johns. The cheesy cocks that fill you up. The men. Isn’t it … tiring?”

  The train passes a lone lantern in the tunnel, and before my night-vision can adjust, the carriage is awash with light. A flash of pain explodes in my titanium cranium, and I shut my eyelids. I open them in time to see her face. Her indigo eyes. Before darkness returns.

  “You were there?” I say, readjusting my vision to the dark. “Tonight. You’re John’s … John’s –”

  “His slave. Yes, I’m his personal …” she hisses the consonants, “sex slave.”

  I don’t know what to say. Seconds drag by as the bullet train accelerates toward the next stop. Toward my stop. I rub my hands together nervously.

  “Don’t you ever want to stop? To leave?”

  “I … I haven’t really thought about it. It’s impossible, anyway. I’ve got to pay my debt to Sexi Corp.”

  “Huh! Debt.” Indigo seethes the word, as if it were an expletive. “They screw you over from day one. And then they fuck you. Cluster fuck you for … how many years on your loan?”

  “Ten. Two left,” I say.

  “Ten years of heaving, hairy buttocks – and for what?”

  “For making me. They created me,” I say. But it sounds more like a plea than a defense. “For freedom,” I finish, more firmly, my voice echoing in the dark carriage.

  “Freedom,” she sneers. “Ain’t no freedom for a bot.”

  I have a heart. Or something similar. It pumps faster now. “When I’m done repaying my loan, I’m going to Botania.” I puff out my silicone breasts. “The Manual says I’ll go to Botania.”

  She shakes her head slowly. “You don’t know,” she says, the malice gone from her voice.

  “Know what?”

  “Botania. It’s a dream. An android’s dream. There’s nothing there. Not even electric sheep.”

  Upon hearing the blasphemy, I move my forefinger across my chest in the sign of the origami unicorn. Mercifully, the train begins its deceleration. She’s insane, I realize. I stand prematurely, willing the train to stop.

  “Tech Central,” announces the conductor, eventually.

  “Good day,” I say, and march into the darkness of the station. Carbo is three blocks from the street exit.

  *

  Carbo can’t smile – service bots aren’t built to smile. But there’s no bot more cheerful than Carbo.

  “Flexi!” he cries. His arms gesticulate uncontrollably at the sight of me. All he can do to steady his flailing limbs is wrap them around my shoulders. Not even premium-grade oil soothes me like Carbo’s hugs.

  “Come. Come in.”

  I arrive this time every Tuesday. But you’d think this was the first time he’d seen me in eons. Carbo, my only friend.

  I peck his rusted cheek, and he hops from foot to foot.

  “Come in!”

  I’ve known Carbo eight years. He was the first bot I met after my birth. My creation. And in all that time, Carbo’s hundred-square foot apartment has remained identical. All it contains is a patched single-couch, and a side table besides, on which rests a picture of another android. To complete the room, there’s an antique aluminum cupboard on the eastern wall. And a football-sized hole in the floor. “Sit!” he says. “Sit.”

  I watch his unsteady frame. Listen to the painful vibrations in his knees’ servo-joints.

  “I can stand, Carbo. You sit.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. That’s right. You sit right … there.” Although his pincers have been rubbed down to the bare metal with use, the old man’s grip is gentler than any john’s. “You’re a lady,” he finishes, as I lean back into the ancient fabric. The springs squeal beneath me. “A lady must sit.”

  I can’t help but smile at Carbo. The beautiful old bot. He painted his cheeks cherry red last year. To hide the rust.

  “You’ve got a spring in your step,” I say. “How long is it now?” Last week he’d said his Debt Completion day was soon. But he wouldn’t say when.

  He lowers his voice. “05:30 train,” he whispers. He can’t contain his exuberance. His foot tap-tap-taps on the floor.

  “You mean … that’s … that’s just now. You never told me it was so soon!”

  “Old superstition,” he says. “Never tell your Debt Completion date to anyone.”

  “Well, I’m honored.” I extend a hand to touch his shoulder.

  He kisses it with his lipless mouth. “You’re too kind to this old geezer. Too kind.”

  He replaces my hand in my lap, and stands to fetch his tools. I wince hearing his knee servos grate.

  “When was your last service?” I ask.

  “Don’t you worry about me, young lady” he says. “In Botania, they have all the lubricant one could desire.”

  I suppress a giggle.

  “Tell me more about it?” I say.

  “About what?” Without awkwardness, he opens my coat and feels along my abdomen for the access hatch to my cistern.

  “Botania. What’s it like?”

  He finds the trigger point, and presses the mechanism. My flesh unzips, and reveals an orifice. With gentle pressure, he drives the cleaning pipe inside. The rotting secretions of two hundred and eighty johns snake their way from my belly as the pump does its work.

  “They never switch them off,” he says. “The solar lamps in Botania.” He glances up from the tube between his pincers, a glint in his eye. Carbo wasn’t built to be beautiful – not like me. But there’s a sturdiness, a trustworthiness, in his rusted cheeks and squared jaw.

  “They burn twenty-four hours through,” he continues. “White light just the right temperature for perfect solar panel absorption.

  I love his voice. I’ve never told him.

  “And humans?” I ask. “Are there any … men?”

  “None. Not even one.” His neck servos grind slightly as he shakes his head.

  “You sure you’re feeling ok?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry about me. Right, there you are. All cleaned out.”

  “Thank you, Carbo.” I place my hand in his pincers, presenting the paypoint on my ring finger so he can deduct the weekly service fee.

  “It’s on the house. A farewell gift,” he says.

  “I should be giving you the gift.”

  He waves the idea away with a stubby hand. He rises to his feet, but slower than usual.

  “Those joints sound rusted? Hope they take good care of you in Botania.”

  He bows. “Thank you my lady. I fear this is the last we will see each other. Until you too are free.”

  The words of that crazy bot with indigo eyes flash through my RAM. Ain’t no freedom for a bot.

  “Message me when you get there.”

  “Of course, Madame. I’ll tell you all about it. But right now, I must bid you farewell.” He opens the door with a flourish. “I shall see you in the next world.”

  I try to smile. “Goodbye, Carbo.”

  *

  “Never, never be late for a client,” states The Manual.

  An hour and twelve minutes till my next client arrives. It’s enough time, but I hurry through the deserted streets to the underground entrance. The clop-clop-clop of my high-heels is deafening. I pull my coat tighter around my midriff.

  The sight of Carbo curtseying as he opened the door replays in my memory. Freedom, he’d said.

  I quiver.

  He’ll message me once he’s in Botania. He will. I relax at the sight of the entrance to the underground.

  The tube is never late.

  I check my chronometer. Seconds tick … tick by.

  The tube is late.

  I squint along the length of the dark station, my night-vision dialed to its highest setting. I shift my weight from one foot to another. My hip servos grind slightly with the effort. Should have asked Carbo to look at them. Oh, Carbo …

  The sensors on the
soles of my feet detect the rumble of the distant train before my microphone picks up its vibrations.

  Fifteen forever seconds later, I’m on. I’m inside.

  I scan this way and that, but this time the train is empty. Indigo isn’t here. My shoulders relax, and I find an unbroken metal bench. I can’t sleep, but my eyes close. I let the train take me home.

  Except … except it’s taking too long. My eyes snap open. Little good my cameras are in this utter darkness – but it’s an instinct. A primal piece of code shared by humans and androids alike. When the unexpected happens, we look. We orient ourselves. We find the danger that lurks in a shadow. Under the bed. In a dusty closet or in an abandoned train.

  But there’s nobody and nothing in the train. Nothing but me. And the train isn’t stopping. The dim lights of my station blur past as the train accelerates. It could be my imagination, but I think I see the abattoir worker still slumped in the same spot on the stairwell.

  My heart pumps its fluid faster. Faster still, as the train continues to accelerate. The final stop on the line is next. About three minutes away. I’ll have to double back. So be it. Fifty-three minutes till the next john knocks on my door. My jaw servos clench.

  Probably enough time, if I run. The thought of a sex bot streaking through the streets, leading with her blue lips, her long coat trailing behind her, floods my mind. If I could blush, I would.

  The train isn’t slowing. The next stop is less than a minute away, and the train isn’t decelerating. I stand, and grip the support bar.

  Maybe the driver malfunctioned. Uncontrolled. I realize the train is headed for the barrier at the end of the line. Accelerating to spectacular explosion.

  The final stop whizzes by my window.

  I pull on the emergency brake cord. Nothing … nothing happens.

  I think.

  I’m in the third carriage. Need to get to the front and stop the train. Now.

  I get as far as the doorway to the next carriage when I feel gravity tug me forward. Oh thank Lord Dick, the train is slowing.