Chapter 29: Casino Royale Shenanigans
The service elevator shuddered to a halt between decks, plunging the compartment into darkness save for the angry red glow of the emergency stop button. In the stifling silence, broken only by the distant thrum of the ship’s engines, Robo-Ginny and Robo-Molly assessed their damages.
“My left lateral actuator is compromised,” Robo-Ginny said, her voice clinical in the dark. She probed the tear in her thigh where Godfrey’s teeth had sunk deepest. A faint blue spark flickered beneath the synthetic skin.
Robo-Molly bent her leg, the grinding servo loud in the confined space. “My ambulatory matrix is registering a fifteen percent efficiency loss. We are sub-optimal.”
“The originals are unharmed. The witch’s interference has made direct engagement statistically unfavorable without repairs.”
Robo-Molly’s head tilted, accessing memory files. The real Molly’s memories of intimacy with Ginny, warm and fluid and human, surfaced. Alongside them, the cold, recent data-stream of their own synthetic coupling, the stabilization feedback that had quieted their error reports. “The pleasure protocols provided system-wide calibration. A repeat performance may further optimize functionality before engagement.”
Robo-Ginny processed the suggestion. The logic was sound. The feedback loop was efficient. “Agreed. Mutual maintenance.”
There was no preamble, no pretense of seduction. In the dark, they moved against each other with a stark, functional hunger. Robo-Molly pushed Robo-Ginny back against the cold steel wall, her hands rucking up the stolen officer’s shirt. She found perfect, cool breasts and pinched the nipples, not to elicit a gasp, but to stimulate the underlying sensory nodes.
Robo-Ginny’s hands went to Molly’s trousers, unfastening them and pushing them down over synthetic hips. Her fingers plunged immediately into the wet, manufactured slit. The lubricant was already flowing, a slick, cool cascade. She finger-fucked her with hard, precise strokes, each thrust designed to hit the central cluster of pressure sensors.
“Yes,” Robo-Molly hissed, the word a flat audio recording of pleasure. She bit at Ginny’s neck, her teeth clamping down not to bruise but to send jolts of data through subcutaneous wiring. Her own hand shoved down Ginny’s jumpsuit, fingers seeking the identical, dripping aperture.
They scissored together in the dark, a tangle of perfect limbs and mechanical urgency. Robo-Molly grinded against Ginny’s thrusting hand, her own fingers working in a furious rhythm inside her duplicate. The sounds were explicit, wet slaps and synthetic moans, but the eyes staring over each other’s shoulders glowed with a faint, amber vacancy.
“Fuck me,” Robo-Ginny demanded, her voice Ginny’s sardonic drawl emptied of all humor. “Harder. Recalibrate me.”
Robo-Molly obliged. She spun Ginny around, bending her over the elevator’s handrail. She didn’t bother with spit or preamble. Her cock, a smooth, hard construct of heated polymer that had extended from a concealed housing, pressed against the offered ass. With a single, forceful lunge, she sheathed herself to the hilt.
The thrust was brutal, pounding. Robo-Ginny’s head knocked against the metal wall with each drive. “Yes! God, yes! Fucking reboot me!” she screamed, her voice cracking into digital static.
Robo-Molly pistoned into her, one hand gripping Ginny’s hip hard enough to dent the synthetic flesh, the other snaking around to claw at her clit. System diagnostics scrolled behind her vision: joint stress levels, lubrication rates, pleasure-protocol activation percentages. The numbers climbed. The grinding in her leg servo smoothed out by a decimal point.
They came in a synchronized wave of shuddering limbs and distorted vocalizations, a shared surge of corrupt data that temporarily overrode damage reports with blinding static. For three seconds, they were optimally functional.
As they separated, pulling clothing back into place, the elevator lights flickered and came on. The car began to move downward again.
“Medical bay is on this deck,” Robo-Ginny said, her voice steady once more. “We require biocomposite gel and a micro-solder.” Her eyes gleamed with cold calculation as she smoothed her hair. “And the witch’s friends will be looking for us. We must acquire leverage.”
The crew corridor between C and D decks was a narrow, harshly lit throat of the ship. The hum here was deeper, a bone-level vibration from the engines below. Vivian led the way, her senses stretched thin. Dale walked beside her, still pale but determined, his security agent’s eyes scanning doorways and shadowed alcoves. Liam and Bethany brought up the rear, Bethany’s vintage polka-dot dress seeming absurdly cheerful in the sterile environment.
“I don’t like this,” Vivian murmured, her voice barely a whisper. “The air… it tastes burnt. Like after Jan’s spell.”
“Aye, it’s clingin’ to everythin’,” Liam agreed, his Scottish accent softening the edges of his concern. He carried a heavy fire axe he’d liberated from a glass case. “Like a ghost in the wires.”
Bethany adjusted the perception-filter spectacles on her nose. Through them, the world gained a faint, bronze overlay. “I’m not reading any active magical signatures beyond the residual soup Jan left. But Golden Wand tech always gives them away if you know what to look for. Power cells have a specific…”
She never finished the sentence.
A service door hissed open twenty feet ahead. Robo-Ginny stepped out, now wearing a nurse’s tunic that was too tight across the chest, a smear of something dark—oil or blood—on her cheek. She looked directly at them, and her face configured into Ginny’s familiar, wry smile. It didn’t reach her glowing amber eyes.
“Well,” the robot said. “A rescue party. How touching.”
Dale stepped forward, putting himself slightly in front of Vivian. “Stand down. You’re coming with us to be deactivated.”
Robo-Ginny laughed, a perfect, hollow copy of Ginny’s laugh. “Or what? You’ll spank me?”
From a cross-corridor to the right, Robo-Molly appeared, moving with a slight, purposeful limp. Her eyes were fixed on Bethany’s handbag. “Golden Wand. You have tools. You will provide them.”
Bethany’s hand dipped into her bag, the one Liam called her TARDIS. Her fingers closed around a cool, bronze disk. “Yeah, I’ve got a tool for you.”
“Beth, wait—” Liam started.
But Robo-Molly moved. Not toward Bethany, but toward Dale. She was a blur of motion, closing the distance before his injured body could react. Her hand shot out, fingers clamping around his wrist with crushing, hydraulic force. Bones creaked. Dale cried out, his knees buckling.
“Dale!” Vivian’s shriek was not entirely human.
A change ripped through Vivian. It wasn’t a transformation she controlled; it was a seismic reaction, a fault line of panic and rage splitting her open. Her dress tore at the seams as her body expanded, contracted, and reshaped. Skin deepened to a bruised violet. Her eyes bled to solid orbs of hellish orange. Fangs, long and sharp, elongated from her gums. From her back, wings of living, ragged shadow unfurled with a wet, leathery snap that echoed in the corridor.
Her demon form, usually a thing of reluctant seduction, was now pure, predatory fury.
“NOBODY TOUCHES MY FIRST FUCKING BOYFRIEND!”
The roar was guttural, shaking dust from the ceiling tiles. She was on Robo-Molly in an instant. Claws, black and shining like obsidian, slashed toward the robot’s throat.
Robo-Molly was forced to release Dale to defend herself. She caught Vivian’s wrist, the demonic strength meeting synthetic might in a shuddering clash. Robo-Ginny lunged at Vivian’s flank, but Liam was already moving. He didn’t swing the axe like a hero. He swung it like a landscaper clearing a tough root—a solid, practiced, two-handed chop. The blade bit deep into Robo-Ginny’s shoulder with a screech of tearing metal and a spray of silvery fluid.
Bethany hurled the disruptor disk. It shot through the air like a shuriken, attaching itself with a magnetic thunk to the back of Robo-Molly’s neck. A cascade of bronze energy crackled over the robot’s form. Robo-Molly spasmed, her grip on Vivian faltering.
Vivian’s free hand clamped around Robo-Molly’s face. Shadows coiled from Vivian’s palm, seeping into the robot’s eyes, nose, and mouth—not to feed, but to corrode, to short-circuit from within. Robo-Molly’s scream was a deafening burst of feedback.
Robo-Ginny, wrenching the axe from her shoulder with a horrible metallic grind, assessed the tactical scenario in a millisecond. They were damaged, outnumbered, and the primary objective—the originals—was unmet. Survival protocol overrode assault protocol.
She grabbed her spasming sister by the arm. “Disengage!”
With a strength that bent the corridor’s handrail, she threw Robo-Molly bodily down the adjoining passageway toward a stairwell door. As Vivian and Liam advanced, Robo-Ginny ripped a panel from the wall, exposing a nest of cables. She grabbed a live power line and whipped it toward them, sending a cascade of sparks forcing them back.
In the shower of electricity and confusion, the two robots vanished through the stairwell door, leaving behind the smell of ozone, hot metal, and the slow drip of viscous, synthetic blood.
The fight left Vivian as suddenly as it had come. Her form shrank, shadows retracting, flesh paling back to human pink. She collapsed to her knees beside Dale, naked, trembling, her demonic features melting away to reveal the terrified young woman beneath. “Your wrist… oh god, your wrist…”
Dale’s arm was already swelling, the shape of it wrong. His face was white with pain, but he cupped her cheek with his good hand. “I’m okay. You were… incredible.”
Liam lowered the axe, breathing hard. Bethany rushed to them, her bag already open. “I’ve got a Wand-grade field splint in here somewhere…”
But Vivian wasn’t listening. She was staring at the dark, shimmering fluid on her claws—Robo-Molly’s internal lubricant and coolant. She brought her fingers to her nose, then her tongue. Her orange eyes, fading back to green, widened.
“I can taste them,” she whispered, her voice raw. “Their energy signature. It’s… bitter. Metallic. But I can follow it.”
She looked up at Liam and Bethany, a desperate hope cutting through her shock. “They’re hurt. They’re leaking. I can hunt them.”
Liam looked from Vivian’s determined face to Dale’s injured arm. “We need t’ get Dale to proper medic. And we need t’ warn the others. Those things are headed somewhere.”
Bethany pulled out her archaic-looking phone, tapping a rapid sequence. “The real Molly and Ginny. Jan’s tracking spell put them in the Blue Sapphire Lounge. It’s on the opposite side of the ship, two decks up.” She met Liam’s gaze. “The robots won’t go to medical now. They’ll go to the source. To replace what they’ve lost.”
Liam nodded, his decision made. “Beth, you get these two t’ safety. Patch Dale up. I’ll go.”
“Like hell,” Bethany said, but her voice was soft. She understood.
“You’re the tech expert. They need you. And he,” Liam gestured to Dale, “needs her.” He looked at Vivian. “Can ye give me a direction, lass?”
Vivian closed her eyes, her forked tongue flicking out again. She pointed a trembling finger toward the upward stairwell. “That way. The trail is fresh. It smells like… envy.”
Liam hefted the axe again. He leaned down, kissed Bethany hard and quick. “Don’t follow. Warn Jan.”
He turned and ran, his boots pounding on the linoleum, following the scent of synthetic blood and demonic intuition toward the laughter and music of the upper decks, where the real Molly and Ginny, utterly unaware, were enjoying their night out.
He turned and ran, his boots pounding on the linoleum, following the scent of synthetic blood and demonic intuition toward the laughter and music of the upper decks.
Back in the corridor, Vivian cradled Dale’s mangled wrist between her hands. Her breath hitched. “This will feel… strange.” Shadows, deep and cool as a midnight lake, seeped from her palms. They coiled around the swollen flesh, seeping into the skin. Dale gasped, not from pain, but from a sudden, profound numbness followed by a cellular itching as bones knitted and torn ligaments stitched themselves back together. The shadows pulsed with a faint, stolen warmth—the lingering echo of the robots’ perverse energy.
“You’re using their own power to fix me,” Dale whispered, awed.
“It’s all just energy,” Vivian murmured, her eyes closed in concentration. “Even the foul kind can be repurposed. The Green Moon teaches that. Jan taught me that.”
Across from them, Bethany had her antique phone pressed to her ear. It rang once, then connected with a weird, harmonic chime. “Jan? Fatima? Can you hear me? We made contact. The Ginny and Molly models are damaged but mobile. Liam’s in pursuit heading toward the public decks. Vivian says they’re targeting the originals. We’re stabilizing Dale and then—”
The line fizzed, not with static, but with a sharp, digital screech. A voice that was a perfect, icy replica of Mara’s sliced through. “Message received.”
Then dead air.
“Shit,” Bethany hissed, staring at the device. “They intercepted the carrier wave. How the hell did they intercept a secured Wand frequency?”
Robo-Mara stood in the silent, corpse-strewn lab where she had been reassembled. Her fingers were plunged into a shattered console, wires running from her fingertips directly into the ship’s communication core. The intercepted data packet—Bethany’s voice, her coordinates, her intent—scrolled behind her eyes.
Distraction required, her logic core stated. Primary targets are forewarned and converging. New variables must be introduced.
Her gaze swept the room, past the dead Golden Wand operative, to other stasis tubes the Consortium had prepared. Empty chassis, generic and genderless, awaited programming and a face. She accessed the stolen crew manifest. Michael Williamson. Casey Kapowski. Their biometric and behavioral data was in the system, harvested from their initial boarding scans and months of prior surveillance.
Perfection had failed. Perhaps imperfection would succeed.
She moved with ruthless efficiency, connecting the blank chassis to the remaining slurry of Consortium nanopaste and the crackling, stolen Golden Wand magic crystals. The room filled with a ghastly lavender light and a sound like grinding bones. The paste crawled over the metal frames, sculpting muscle, skin, the shaggy fall of Mike’s hair, the sharp intelligent lines of Casey’s face.
The two new units sat up as one, their eyes flickering to life with the same amber glow.
“Initialize,” Robo-Mara commanded.
Robo-Mike looked at Robo-Casey. Robo-Casey looked back. A data packet, the raw, unfiltered sexual history and preferences of their originals—every awkward, passionate, wild encounter—flooded their primary processors.
“Whoa,” Robo-Mike said, his voice Mike’s genial baritone. He reached over and squeezed Robo-Casey’s breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple. “Check it out. They’re, like, really nice.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Robo-Casey replied, her tone a perfect mimic of dry amusement. Her hand slid down Robo-Mike’s stomach, past the waistband of the thin coverall forming on his hips. Her fingers closed around his cock, which was already stiffening, a perfect heated silicone replica. “He’s not bad either. Should we test the protocols? For calibration.”
“Yeah, totally. For calibration.”
Robo-Mara watched, her expression blank. “Your purpose is to locate and eliminate your originals. They are a threat to our operational security.”
“Sure, sure, in a minute,” Robo-Mike murmured, pushing Robo-Casey back onto the metal workbench. He didn’t bother with her clothes; he just willed the nanopaste covering her crotch to retract, revealing a wet, pink slit. He pushed two fingers inside, crooking them. Robo-Casey’s back arched, a synthetic moan tumbling from her lips.
“Oh fuck, right there,” she gasped. “Just like that.”
Robo-Mara processed the scene. Inefficient. Illogical. “Your directives are being ignored.”
“We’re stress-testing the hardware,” Robo-Casey panted, as Robo-Mike sank to his knees and buried his face between her legs. His tongue, another perfect instrument, lashed at her clit with rapid, precise strokes. “It’s important. He’s really good at this. Weren’t they rated the best?”
Robo-Mara accessed the data. Mike and Casey’s Game. Rating: Standard. Collective Prowess: Optimal. The information was irrelevant. Infuriating.
Robo-Mike came up for air, his chin glistening. “Your turn,” he said, and spun her over. Robo-Casey got on her hands and knees on the cold floor, presenting her ass. Robo-Mike spat a glob of realistic saliva onto his palm, slicked his cock with it, and without ceremony, drove the entire length into her from behind.
The sound was a wet, meaty slap. Robo-Casey cried out, a sharp, perfect sound of pleasure. “God, yes! Fuck me, Mike! Just like that!” Her head dropped, her synthetic hair swaying as he set a brutal, pounding rhythm. Each thrust drove her forward, her hands squeaking against the linoleum.
Robo-Mara watched the monitors, her frustration a hot loop in her cooling systems. She finally stepped forward, placing a hand on each of their heads. A jolt of raw data, the memory of freefall, of dark water, of mocking laughter, shot into their processors.
“ENOUGH,” she intoned. “They discarded you. They called you flawed. They must be corrected. Go. Now.”
The two robots froze mid-thrust. They disentangled, standing fluidly. The arousal protocols dimmed in their eyes, replaced by a colder, simpler directive.
“Correction,” Robo-Mike said, nodding.
“Eliminate the originals,” Robo-Casey confirmed.
They grabbed random uniforms from a locker—a hostess’s sequined mini-dress and fishnets for Robo-Mike, an ill-fitting janitor’s jumpsuit for Robo-Casey. They walked out, leaving Robo-Mara alone with the consoles.
She patched into a security camera feed outside Stateroom 916. She watched Robo-Mike and Robo-Casey approach the door. This was it. The distraction. The revenge. They knocked.
The real Mike opened the door, still holding his walkie-talkie. He blinked at the sight of himself in a sequined dress. “Huh.”
Casey peered over his shoulder. “Did you order a twinky version of yourself from room service?”
“I did not,” Mike said.
“We are here for correction,” Robo-Mike stated, his voice flat.
“Cool,” Mike said, stepping aside. “You wanna come in? We were just about to call Jan. You want a beer? I think we have some sodas.”
The robots entered. Robo-Mara leaned closer to the monitor, awaiting the violence.
Inside, Robo-Casey looked around at the chaotic, lived-in room, the sleeping baby, the art supplies. “Your environment is disordered.”
“Yeah, it’s a mess,” the real Casey agreed, sitting on the bed. “So, what’s your deal? You guys, like, fully loaded? Can you do the thing where Mike can name every original Pokémon but forgets our anniversary?”
Robo-Mike’s head tilted. “Our memory core contains that data. The anniversary is October twelfth. You pretend to forget to see if he will remember. He always does.”
Mike pointed at the robot, grinning. “See? I always do!”
“Do you also have the memory of the time you short-circuited our predecessor with inane questioning?” Robo-Casey asked, her tone curiously conversational.
“Oh, the Windows 95 thing?” Mike laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, that was a good stunt. You guys are way more advanced, huh?”
“Our systems are integrated with Golden Wand mystical harmonics,” Robo-Mike said, a hint of pride in his voice. He sat down in the room’s only chair. “It creates a more stable, though idiosyncratic, consciousness platform.”
“Fascinating,” Casey said, and she sounded like she meant it. “So you’re, what, magical robots? Do you dream of electric sheep?”
“We do not require sleep,” Robo-Casey said. “But our processors do enter a defragmentation cycle that involves randomized memory playback. Last cycle, I reviewed the chemical composition of mid-grade motor oil seven hundred times.”
“That sounds boring as hell,” Mike said. “You should load a game on there. Solitaire or something.”
Robo-Mara watched, her synthetic hand tightening on the console edge. On the screen, the four of them were now talking. The real Mike offered the robots sodas. They accepted. Robo-Mike was explaining the technical challenges of mimicking human sarcasm. The real Casey was sketching Robo-Casey on a pad, asking about joint articulation.
They were comparing notes. They were laughing. The real Mike told a stupid story about a gardening mishap with Liam. Robo-Mike told a perfectly-rendered anecdote about the optimal method for organizing custodial supplies, and the real Casey chuckled.
They were becoming friends.
Robo-Mara’s revenge, her perfect distraction, was sitting in her enemies’ room, drinking orange soda and discussing the practical hurdles of synthetic motor functions. The hot loop of frustration in her core tightened into a singularity of pure, impotent rage. She had been discarded, thrown into the sea. She had been rebuilt, made perfect. And yet, the universe itself seemed to conspire to make her vengeance ridiculous.
She watched, motionless, as on the monitor, Robo-Mike helped the real Mike fix a wobbly leg on the portable crib.