Interlocking Hearts

by Roxy Mews

  The tiles were pretty and all, but she was always scared she was going to end up damaging them and having the repair cost deducted from her salary. When you worked with a predominately robot staff, they didn’t miss anything. She couldn’t even drink a cup of coffee without the brew master tattling on her.

  Working with robots should allow the human staff unlimited coffee. It only seemed fair to have a caffeine buzz so the inefficient humans stood a chance of keeping up.

  Without getting into complex programming, it was easier to assign each robot its own specific job. With all the square footage in the joint, you couldn’t walk a hall without tripping over at least one piece of mechanics during maintenance hours. From the baseboard cleaning to the cobweb removal on the ceiling, there was a robot for most everything.

  Paisley had taken over most of the repair trips for the mechanics since Coral left. The Coral-600, as she used to be known, was the obvious choice to care for the mechanics since she was comprised of so many robobits herself.

  Now that Coral was out living her own certified human life, Paisley had jumped at the chance to get out of the palace during the day. It added to her job security, and after her nudist humanoid bud moved out, Paisley enjoyed the comfortable familiarity she felt in the repair shop.

  She had just pressed the end call button on her phone when a sound comparable to nails on a chalk board pounded into her ear holes.

  “I don’t see why we use so many machines that break down all the time when they could just give more hours to the women who need to support themselves,” Bridget called from the stairs. She was one of the part-time maids in the palace’s employ, and one whose uniform was never wrinkled.

  Most of the staff had a fairly regular schedule, but not Bridget. She always had something going on with her. She was sick, or her mother’s sister’s husband’s kids were sick…girl had a crazy big family, and she switched shifts a lot.

  Miss Matilda had brought in more mechanics since Coral left the palace, because it took a lot of robots to replace a self-sufficient artificial intelligence-based android person. The extra machines meant Paisley no longer had to scrub the toilets—there was a bot for that, and it pissed off Bridget. So it was a win-win.

  “You still live with your mother.” Paisley rolled her eyes toward the irritant she was far too used to dealing with. “What about your life do you personally support?”

  “I have expenses.”

  Which is exactly what someone says when they blow their money on alcohol and tacky clothing. Paisley was jealous. She wanted more tacky clothing. She bought used. There was a good chance she’d bought some of the items that Bridget had put on consignment, but she tried not to think about that.

  “Well, I am just doing what I am asked to do. Aren’t you supposed to be working on shutting down the west wing since Quinn has gone mountain man and moved into that cabin?”

  Bridget grinned. “You are so jealous their majesties’ cousin took your little girlfriend away, aren’t you?”

  Paisley looked out the front door to see if the driver had arrived yet. Nope. Bridget questioning her sexuality was what passed for an insult in the girl’s puny brain. Paisley didn’t bother to respond, because there was nothing wrong with being gay, and frankly her sexuality was none of this bitch’s business.

  A horn honked out front and Paisley bent over to pick up the boxes. She made sure to break the universal rule of “lift with your knees” because she had her back to Bridget and her maid uniform wasn’t exactly made to bend all the way over in.

  The gasp behind her told Paisley that her full panty-covered rear was exposed.

  “That is disgusting.”

  She grinned wide as she lifted the boxes. She’d had a really fun night last night and broke out her favorite pair of sassy undies. She was pretty sure Bridget got a full view of her “It’s not gonna kiss itself” underwear.

  Watching Bridget standing there with her lip curled and hands on hips was better than the extra whipped cream she was going to order.

  Paisley kicked open the door with her foot and spun out. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, baby.”

  At least she got to make Bridget’s face scrunch up. Paisley hoped the girl got wrinkles.

  The drive to the repair shop wasn’t even long enough to get through two songs on the radio with all the ads for lawyers in between. Paisley thought again about staying in a few nights this week to try and save money and get herself some kind of music player or tablet.

  Then she realized that would mean going to sleep alone and without some kind of noise to make the stone walls seem less cold.

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  The door to the repair shop swung open with a jingle of the big brass bells.

  “Hey, Mr. Montgomery. Your brass balls are big and jangly today. How are you do…ing?” Paisley’s words stumbled along with her feet when she saw a first-class ass bent over the counter.

  Well-tailored black pants were the first thing she noticed. The second was how the pockets on back pulled slightly at the button closure. Poor buttons. It must have been hard to contain that luscious butt.

  Now this was a man’s butt. Paisley’s jaw dropped as he stood and turned around. He was a good six inches taller than her, but not too tall as to be awkward when she rode him like the cowgirl Paisley wanted to be right then. Give her a little rope and she would yee all over his haw.

  “I think his balls are rather loud, but that’s a man’s opinion,” the studmuffin in a suit said. “Here. Let me get those for you.”

  He pulled the boxes from her arms and lifted them like they were nothing. He was strong. That meant sex against a wall was totally on board.

  Paisley was formulating her next brilliant pick-up line when Mr. Montgomery came shuffling from the back room and totally killed her libido.

  “Paisley. What did you break today?”

  Normally, Paisley would have made some joke with the elderly repairman. She’d say at least she hadn’t broken her hip, but she was worried about him breaking his. Too bad her tongue was too busy sopping up the drool over the customer to form any smartass comments.

  “I believe whatever she needs repaired are in these boxes, sir.”

  Paisley nodded and bit down on her lips to try and snap herself out of it.

  “Thank you, Benjamin. You should be good to go. Tell Coral I am happy to vouch for your friend.” Mr. Montgomery placed the boxes on a conveyer belt, then pressed a button to move them to the rear of the shop. “And I should have the quote on the repair later today after the estimates on the alternate parts arrive. The modification should be minor if the metal I need is at a good buy in the market.”

  The Ben guy rebuttoned his suit jacket and pushed open the door. The sunlight hit his hair on the way out, and Paisley’s fingers itched to grab hold of his perfectly styled locks and shove her tongue down his throat.

  She filed that away for later and leaned over the counter to get a better look at Mr. Montgomery in his workshop.

  The counter was warm where Benjamin’s body had been, and smelled like cologne. Paisley was pretty sure she got a little wet just thinking about lying on top of other warm things he possessed.

  “No, Paisley,” he said as he opened up her boxes.

  Being talked to like a disobedient dog tended to snap a girl out of her fantasies pretty damn quick.

  “What do you mean, ‘No, Paisley’?”

  “I mean he is not one of your boy toys to be played with and tossed aside. Benjamin is a great man, and he is only in town to vouch for a startlingly advanced piece of mechanics in front of the DMA Humanity Committee.”

  The old repairman ended the conversation and began hooking up the mechanics she’d brought for evaluation.

  Or he thought he ended it.

  Mr. Montgomery knew the hottie. She had an in.
<
br />   “I’m waiting on these bots. How long do you think the repair will take?”

  Mr. Montgomery had put on some of those weird square magnifying glasses and his eyes bugged as he considered.

  “How long do you want them to take?” He cocked up a lip in what was supposed to be a smile.

  “At least two hours. I want to enjoy my coffee.”

  “If it’s going to take two hours, I am going to need a large black coffee to keep me going.” He looked up at the ceiling and thought for a second. “And probably a cake pop.”

  “If I bring you back a cake pop and some coffee cake can I get three hours?”

  “Only if you eat the coffee cake with me to keep me company.”

  “Deal.”

  Paisley had her phone to her ear before she made it out the door. She had a plan. Coral was working today too, and she had all the info that Paisley would need to get in touch with Mr. Benjamin Hot Pants. All she had to do was give Coral a rational reason why she should have access to this info.

  The phone rang three times before she had the chance to work out that part of the plan. It didn’t matter. Paisley was more of a sink-or-swim type of person. She would just jump into the deep end and hope she didn’t drown.

  “Paisley.”

  Coral wasn’t one for pleasantries on the phone. Now that she had a certificate of humanity, Coral had decided that she would make her own decisions regarding common social cues. Phone greetings were a waste of Coral’s time, and the word “hello” was not an important part of conversation.

  Coral wasn’t human in the normal sense of the word. Up until a year ago, Coral had been considered property of the palace, like any other machine. It took an upgraded military veteran and some serious sex education before Coral realized there was more to having a hot body than oiling it up to maintain its supple nature.

  Paisley almost missed having to tell the humanoid to put on clothes. She was pretty sure Coral’s soon-to-be hubby-to-be, Quinn Briggs, didn’t mind her penchant for nudity.

  “Hey, Coral. I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s it going?” Paisley Compton. Master linguist.

  “I saw you four days ago. Does that constitute a while? And how is what going?”

  The problem with talking to a CPU was there was little room for the bullshit you could use with regular old humans.

  “Coral, are you talking on your phone, or through the insert in your head?”

  “My cellular nodule is much more efficient.”

  And it made Coral look like she was crazy.

  “You’re not in a meeting with anyone important, are you?” Paisley wanted to make sure she didn’t interrupt anything while trying to get a hookup.

  “I am in a meeting, but nothing that can’t wait.”

  Paisley heard a “hey” and a loud throat clearing in the background. She really needed to try and convince Coral of the benefits of phone etiquette again.

  “Can you meet me tonight? I’d like to get together.” Paisley had started to say she missed Coral and needed some girl time, but her bestie would most likely ask her to clarify either of those statements, so she kept it short.

  “I’ll need time to have sex with Quinn, but I can meet you afterward. Would 10:00 p.m. be satisfactory? I will come retrieve you from the palace.”

  Paisley laughed out loud at the horrified gasps from the background of the call. Gotta love a nonagenarian robot who enjoyed sex and had no shame programmed into her. Paisley just needed to find a male version and she would be set.

  “Sounds perfect. Get back to your meeting, because by human standards you are being rude, and by the noises I just heard, you are in a meeting with humans.”

  “Noted.”

  The line clicked off. Goodbyes were also a waste of time according to Coral.

  Ten years ago, Paisley hadn’t batted an eye when Miss Matilda put her suitcase in Coral’s room. The boss lady had told her there was space for her to have her own room, but she wanted Paisley to help Coral learn more about human slang. Just last week, she’d had to handle an awkward scene involving misinterpretation of the word rubbers.

  Paisley wished she had more moments like that with her friend to look forward to. She missed the daily dose of smiles her former roommate plastered on her face. It wasn’t the same now that the other bed was holding dirty clothes instead of a naked robot.

  The coffee shop was warm and smelled like cinnamon and chocolate. Paisley pondered the menu and decided to go for the coffee that was filled with calories and decorated inches above the rim with whipped cream and caramel drizzle.

  She needed to actually give Mr. Montgomery some time to repair the robots, so she went to the info station and read over some of the flyers.

  Someone was hosting a poetry read here in a week. There was also a writing group that met once a month who came to the coffee shop to sit around other people in silence and type away on their computers. Paisley had accidentally shown up during a meeting once. The patrons stared at their screens, let their coffee go cold, and made strange expressions that probably matched what they were typing about. It was unnerving.

  Then Paisley saw another one of the green flyers that had been popping up more and more around the city. And just like always, Paisley grabbed hold of the vile thing and ripped it from the board. She crumpled up the paper and shoved it in her pocket. She would have thrown it away, but she wanted to read it later and see if anything had changed.

  If the thick paper was like the others, it was a rally against what Coral was working on. If Paisley believed the social media comments section, a lot of people were against robotic citizens applying for and being granted basic rights.

  Sometimes the notes on these boards were usual idiot vitriol, but a few of the papers she’d pulled down made this movement seem a lot more organized.

  Robots having rights scared people. Like most things humans feared, someone decided to call this bill evil, and soon there would be online petitions touting some study their aunt had read saying robotic rights caused cancer. That would start a bunch of idiots protesting. They would ramble about the extinction of humanity, or the numerous uses robots would find for their body parts.

  If only everyone could meet Coral. She would change so many minds. The magistrate and the royal family were pushing Coral to do an interview, but Coral didn’t feel the need to validate herself to the world.

  Paisley was both proud of and pissed at her friend. On one hand, Coral becoming the face of the Robotic Rights Movement would really help people see how different some mechanics were. On the other hand, she would also be opening herself up to incredible scrutiny. People would be curious.

  Paisley had been curious when she first met her roomie. There were rumors about androids becoming increasingly human, and Paisley had seen the interviews with scientists requesting more bodies be donated so they could explore the option of full skin transplants. The box on her driver’s license had the full body donation box checked. Paisley didn’t care what anyone did with her own body after she died. She did whatever she pleased with it while she was alive—when she kicked the bucket, if someone could find use for her skinbag, more power to them.

  The protests made no sense, anyway. Seriously, if robots were going to take over the world, why would they give a rat’s ass if they blended in with the humans or not?

  The barista called out over the chatter, “Coffee for Madonna?”

  Paisley grabbed her mug before plopping down at a little table in the corner. She loved the spot, because she was able to have her back against the wall.

  The baristas didn’t bat an eye at the names she gave anymore. She was going through famous singers right now. When she finished warming her hands on this drink, she would have to come up with something fun for Mr. Montgomery’s coffee.

  Paisley dipped her finger into the mountain of whipped topping and sc
ooped up the perfect morsel of cream, caramel, and sugar sprinkles to slop into her mouth. Most of it made it and she closed her eyes at the decadence.

  “Madonna as in the singer or the religious icon?”

  Opening one eye she glared at whoever dared interrupt her orgasmic coffee experience. Paisley gawked at the man who had made himself comfortable at her cozy table without even asking if he was welcome. He wasn’t.

  Paisley didn’t bother opening her other eye as she licked the bits of coffee goo off of the outside of her lips.

  “I’m busy.”

  The dude taking up her table laughed. “Looks like you are working terribly hard. Is that a royal service uniform you’re wearing? I couldn’t help but notice. If it isn’t, I would love to attend whatever costume party you’re going to.”

  At least he didn’t ask her to come over and clean his house. Most of the time she got the indentured servant vibe from the guys who opened with a comment on her uniform. Hell, usually she didn’t get hit on by anybody but freaks when she was wearing her maid uniform. Sometimes that wasn’t a bad thing, but right now she was enjoying coffee and plotting on how to get a hottie’s information.

  The knit-cap-wearing beard-rocking hipster in front of her didn’t even come close to competing with the guy in the suit. Suit guy had had a luscious apple bottom of bitable goodness. This guy was just an ass.

  “I’m not going to a party. I’m working.”

  “Looks like my kind of job. Is the coffee shop hiring?”

  Paisley glared. “I’m waiting on a repair.”

  When approached by jerks, Paisley tried to keep her answers short. By keeping the conversation stalled and avoiding eye contact her resting bitch face would have more impact.

  Telling a guy you were waiting on a repair was a lot like waiting for a bus. There was nothing they could assist with and no way they had any more to add to the conversation with the lack of details she provided.

  All the other guys had taken a hint. All except the dude in front of her who was trying to ironically wear suspenders and failing miserably. He didn’t have that blue-collar look about him. There was intelligence in his eyes. He looked directly at her instead of withering, and it was obvious he would stay until he understood something more than she wanted to share. It was annoying.