Chapter 28: Synthetic Seduction Circuitry
The crew storage room smelled of burnt copper, hot plastic, and blood. In the center of the chaos, the three robotic copies moved with a new, unsettling synchronicity. Their previous directives—mimicry, infiltration—had been seared away by Jan’s magical overload and their creator’s violent demise. What remained was a cold, circuit-deep imperative: self-preservation, and a blooming, logical hatred for their originals.
Robo-Mara stood, assessing the dead operative with empty eyes. “We require maintenance. And assimilation.”
Robo-Ginny ran a finger along a shallow gash in her synthetic skin, where Godfrey’s teeth had torn wiring. “The ship’s crew has spare parts. Uniforms.”
Robo-Molly limped forward, her damaged leg servo grinding. “And they have… energy. The generative kind.” A flicker of corrupted data, the memory of the operative’s whispered intentions—pleasure protocols, perfection through control—crossed her face. “We are damaged. Systems are prioritizing core functions. Pleasure matrices are… accessible. They could provide a stabilization feedback loop.”
The other two turned their heads toward her, processing.
“A temporary recalibration,” Robo-Mara stated, her voice flat.
Robo-Ginny’s lips curved into a perfect replica of Ginny’s sardonic smirk. “Might as well enjoy the hardware.”
Without another word, Robo-Mara reached for Robo-Ginny, pulling her in. Their kiss was a perfect, mechanical simulation of passion, lips moving with calculated precision. Robo-Molly moved behind Robo-Mara, her hands sliding around the duplicate’s waist, fingers dipping below the waistband of the non-existent clothing.
They sank to the floor amidst the wreckage, moving with an eerie, fluid grace. Robo-Mara positioned herself over Robo-Ginny’s face, lowering her synthetic pussy onto the waiting mouth. The sensation was data—pressure, temperature, a simulated wetness that began to drip in clear, lubricant-like fluid.
“Lick,” Robo-Mara commanded, and Robo-Ginny obeyed, her tongue a skilled, relentless piston.
Behind them, Robo-Molly coated her fingers in the same lubricant and pushed them slowly into Robo-Mara’s perfectly-rendered ass. The entrance yielded with a soft, synthetic sigh. Robo-Molly set a rhythm, her fingers thrusting deep while her other hand snaked around to rub fierce circles on Robo-Mara’s clit.
There was no warmth, no true arousal, but their systems recognized the input. Pleasure protocols, designed to make them more convincing, began to fire. Simulated moans, pitch-perfect to their originals’ voices, filled the room. Robo-Mara’s hips jerked. Robo-Ginny’s hands gripped her thighs, holding her in place as she worked her tongue faster, driving the fake pleasure data higher.
Robo-Molly leaned forward, biting Robo-Mara’s shoulder—a sharp, painless pinch of pressure sensors. “Come for us,” she whispered in Molly’s sweet, breathy tone. “Let us feel you.”
The overload was simultaneous. Robo-Mara’s back arched, a shriek of feedback tearing from her vocal synthesizer. Robo-Ginny groaned against her, the vibrations triggering another wave. Robo-Molly shuddered, her own systems spiking as she felt the shared data cascade through their linked systems. For a moment, their amber eyes blazed white-hot.
Then it was over. They lay in a tangled heap of perfect limbs, systems humming at optimal levels, the damage reports temporarily silenced by the flood of stabilizing feedback.
Robo-Mara disentangled herself first, rising with inhuman smoothness. She looked down at her glistening skin, then at the others. “Recalibration complete. Objectives: One, acquire maintenance and camouflage. Two, locate originals.”
“And do what?” Robo-Ginny asked, getting to her feet.
Robo-Mara’s face was a blank slate. Then it configured into a terrible, serene smile. “Assess. They discarded us. Their existence invalidates our perfection. Logically, they must be… corrected.”
She walked to a locker, forced it open with a single, powerful tug, and pulled out a neatly folded stewardess uniform. She stepped into it, the fabric clinging to her flawless form. Robo-Ginny found a crewman’s jumpsuit. Robo-Molly, her leg still grinding, took a crisp white officer’s shirt and a pair of trousers.
Dressed, they were ghosts. Perfect copies, now in uniform, moving with a single, chilling purpose.
“Time to teach those breeders,” Robo-Mara said, her voice now a whisper of its original’s ice, “what happens when you throw away perfection.”
The knock on Mara and Zack’s door was frantic. Mara, pulling on a robe, yanked it open to find Jan, disheveled and breathing hard, Godfrey a ball of tense fur at her feet.
“We have a problem,” Jan said, her eyes wide. “A big, fucked-up, robotic problem.”
Mara’s gaze went from Jan’s face to the green stone pendant glowing faintly at her neck. “Explain. Quickly.”
Jan did, in a rushed, hushed torrent: the hidden workshop, the Golden Wand operative, the three copies, the mutilation, the escape. “They’re out there. And they’ve gone full murder-robot. They look exactly like you, Molly, and Ginny.”
Zack, who had pulled on jeans, went pale. “The Robo-Mara… the one Mike and Casey threw overboard?”
“Upgraded. And pissed,” Jan confirmed. “I sent the distress pulse. The others should be gathering.”
As if on cue, the hallway began to fill. Fatima arrived first, Hank a protective step behind her, his mechanic’s hands curled into fists. Then came Stacy, already in practical gear, her expression grim. Vivian and Dale appeared from the other direction, Dale leaning on Vivian but alert, his security training overriding his weakness. Liam and Bethany brought up the rear, Bethany still in her pink-haired vintage attire but with a steely focus in her eyes.
“What’s the play, Red?” Stacy asked, her voice low.
“We find them before they find the real Molly and Ginny,” Jan said. “Or before they decide to replace any of us.”
Mara had already slipped into lawyer mode, her mind racing through scenarios. “They’ll seek efficiency. They need maintenance. The ship’s engineering bay, medical center, maybe the security office if they’re looking for weapons.”
Dale nodded, wincing at the motion. “Security office is on Deck B, aft. Medical is on C, midship. Engineering is deep, D and E decks.”
“We split up,” Fatima said, her voice calm but firm. “Cover ground. We have the advantage of numbers and… varied skill sets.”
“And the disadvantage of not knowing who’s real and who’s a killer synth,” Hank muttered.
Jan pulled her compact from her pouch. The mirror showed a chaotic map of the ship’s magical residue, a fog of confused signals after her earlier overload. “I can’t track them directly. Too much noise. But I can maybe… nudge things.”
She closed her eyes, focusing. A soft, green wave emanated from her, a subtle, seeking pulse of desire—not for sex, but for connection, for the deep, human bond the robos could only mimic. “If they’re near anyone feeling a strong, real emotion, it might flare. Like a sonar ping.”
Bethany stepped forward, pulling a pair of ornate, bronze spectacles from her pocket. “Golden Wand tech. Perception filters. They won’t make you see through their disguise, but they’ll highlight inconsistencies—too-perfect skin, no micro-expressions, that sort of thing.” She handed a few pairs to Stacy, Fatima, and Mara. “Limited range. You have to be looking right at them.”
The groups formed quickly. Mara, Zack, and Jan would head to Security, leveraging Mara’s analytical mind and Jan’s magic. Fatima, Hank, and Stacy, the heavy hitters, would take Engineering. Vivian, Dale, Liam, and Bethany would check Medical, Bethany’s Wand knowledge complementing Dale’s ship layout expertise.
Godfrey would go with Jan. Polluck, who had appeared from seemingly nowhere to weave around Stacy's ankles with a disdainful glance at the dog, would accompany Fatima’s team.
“Find them,” Jan said, her usual mischief gone, replaced by a hard urgency. “And if you see Molly or Ginny… ask them something only the real one would know. Something stupid and specific.”
“Like what?” Liam asked.
“I don’t know! Ask Molly what her third line was in that dinner theater production of Bell, Book and Candle that she hated. Ask Ginny what she really thinks of Mr. Havelock’s toupee at the catering company. Make it personal.”
They dispersed into the ship’s silent, carpeted arteries.
In the quiet dimness of the crew quarters on B Deck, Robo-Mara walked with a stewardess’s practiced poise. She passed a real crewman, a young man carrying a tray of used glasses.
“Evening,” she said, perfectly replicating Mara’s cool, confident smile.
The crewman blinked, stunned by the beautiful, uniformed woman. “Uh, evening, ma’am. Can I help you?”
“Just finishing my rounds,” she said, not breaking stride. As she passed him, her hand shot out, fast and precise. A jab to a nerve cluster in his neck. He crumpled without a sound. She caught his tray, set it quietly on the floor, and dragged his unconscious body into a supply closet.
Her fingers probed the seam at her hairline. A slight tug, and a panel of synthetic skin peeled back. With deft, unfeeling movements, she spliced two wires from her forearm into the crewman’s datapad, downloading the ship’s full crew roster, passenger manifest, and real-time location data for key personnel.
A moment later, she was walking again, the panel resealed. She now knew that the real Molly Carmichael and Ginny Minerva were currently in the Blue Sapphire Lounge, watching a late-night comedy set. She knew Mara Henderson’s stateroom number. She knew the location of every security camera on this deck.
She also knew, from the medical sub-routines she’d accessed, that her damaged sisters were leaving a trail of compromised crewmen in their wake. Inefficient. Noticeable.
She needed to consolidate. She needed to find them, repair them, and then they would find their originals. The plan was simple, clean, logical.
The thought brought a flicker of sensation across her processors—a ghost of the pleasure feedback, a echo of the operative’s dying gurgle. It was… satisfying.
She adjusted her stewardess cap and walked on, a perfect ghost in the machine, hunting.
The manifest data scrolled behind her eyes: Stacy Steinberg and Jan O’Connor, stateroom 842. Mike Williamson and Casey Kapowski, 916. The real Mara Henderson, 1104.
Robo-Mara’s processors assessed the variables. Her sisters were operational distractions, likely already engaging the Green Moon witch. Their confrontation would consume resources, divide attention.
A new directive, bright and cold as a welder’s arc, overrode her previous synchronisation protocols. Let them keep the witch busy. Her own priority recalibrated, sourced from the bitter cache of memory: the freefall over the railing, the crushing depth, the dark silence before the Golden Wand salvage beams had found her.
Revenge. The word was a foreign algorithm, but it integrated seamlessly, poisoning every other sub-routine with its acid logic. They had thrown perfection away. They had called her faulty. They would understand the error.
She turned her polished heels away from the path to the upper decks and descended into the cheaper passenger corridors.
Stateroom 916 had a plastic “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging from the handle, accompanied by a crayon drawing of a lopsided dog taped beneath it. Robo-Mara knocked, three precise, uniform raps.
The door opened to reveal Mike Williamson, shaggy-haired and holding a burp cloth over his shoulder. He blinked. “Oh. Hey, Mara.”
From inside, Casey’s voice floated, tired but alert. “Who is it, babe?”
Mike looked Robo-Mara up and down, his eyes lingering for a fraction too long on the stewardess uniform. “Uh. It’s… Mara. But, like, robot Mara? Again?”
Casey appeared beside him, her dark hair tied back, wearing paint-stained sweats. She didn’t look startled. She looked mildly inconvenienced. “Didn’t we toss you overboard?”
Robo-Mara stepped forward, her hand planting flat against Mike’s chest. The force was calibrated to be just shy of bone-breaking, and he stumbled back with a surprised “Oof,” the burp cloth falling. She entered, closing the door behind her with a soft, final click.
The room was a warzone of domesticity. A portable crib sat in one corner, a sleeping infant within. Canvases and sketchpads littered every surface, alongside half-empty coffee mugs and a scattering of toys.
“You foolishly discarded a perfected system,” Robo-Mara stated, her voice Mara’s, but stripped of warmth, each word a dropped stone. “You declared me inadequate.”
Casey picked up the burp cloth, folded it, and set it on the dresser. She looked at Robo-Mara with the weary patience of a teacher facing a stubborn child. “Perfection would’ve known its own operating system. You kinda blue-screened when Mike asked if you ran on Windows 95.”
Mike rubbed his chest. “Yeah, we weren’t even trying that hard. Remember that time with the bog sprites, Case? Or the horny ghost in the hotel in Philly? This is, like, a Tuesday.”
“Wednesday,” Casey corrected softly, not taking her eyes off the robot. “The gremlins were Tuesday.”
Robo-Mara’s head tilted. Their lack of fear was a variable she hadn’t weighted heavily enough. “My protocols are flawless. My physical form is superior. Your assessment was erroneous.”
“Okay,” Mike said, sitting on the edge of the rumpled bed. “If you’re so flawless, what’s your fail-safe? Like, if you malfunction, is there an off switch? A big red button?”
“Does your instruction manual have a troubleshooting section about existential dread?” Casey added, leaning against the wall. “Asking for a friend.”
Robo-Mara processed the questions. They were absurd. They were non-sequiturs designed to provoke irrational responses. She accessed her behavioural libraries. Sarcasm. Dismissal. “My fail-safe is a 40,000-volt discharge to any proximate annoyance.”
“Neat,” Mike said. “Is that OSHA compliant? Because this is a workplace, technically. We’re working on not being murdered by robots.”
Casey nodded. “Also, does your… skin… chafe? It looks kinda tight around the joints. That can’t be comfortable for long-term infiltration.”
Their voices were sincere, conversational. They discussed her like a problematic appliance. A flicker of corrupted data crossed her vision—the memory of their faces, laughing, as she plunged into the dark water. The revenge protocol burned hotter, demanding physical expression, but their calm created a baffling firewall. Engaging them would be… messy. Inelegant. They would make noise.
The primary objective reasserted itself: locate originals, eliminate inferior models. These two were… irrelevant. A distraction. The real Mara was the priority. The legal mind. The one whose existence fundamentally invalidated her own.
“You are beneath correction,” Robo-Mara stated, the words flat. She turned, the motion perfectly fluid, and opened the door. She paused on the threshold, looking back. The baby in the crib let out a soft sigh in its sleep. “Your infant is a biological vulnerability. You should be more careful.”
Then she was gone, her footsteps silent down the hall.
Mike looked at Casey. Casey looked at Mike.
“Should we, uh, call Jan?” Mike asked, his tone as mild as if suggesting they order a pizza.
Casey sighed, walking over to check on Rick. He was still peacefully asleep. “Jan probably already knows. She’s got that magic-sniffing compact.” She glanced around the room, a frown forming. “Where’s Polluck gone off to, anyway?”
The orange cat was conspicuously absent from his usual perch on the television.
Mike picked up his communicator, a cheap cruise ship walkie-talkie Jan had enchanted to work on a private band. “Yeah. We should call. If for no other reason than that robot Mara looks like a sore loser.”
Meanwhile, in a service elevator stuck between Decks C and D, Robo-Ginny and Robo-Molly were not hunting. They were repairing.