Chapter 30: Ambush in the Alcove
The Blue Sapphire Lounge was too bright, too loud with a jazz trio doing a frantic rendition of “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Molly and Ginny had fled the crowd, finding a sliver of privacy in a curtained alcove meant for coat storage. The air here was thick with the smell of wool and spilled champagne.
“I can’t believe you dragged me in here,” Ginny murmured, but she was already backing Molly against a stack of life preservers, her hands on Molly’s hips.
“You love it,” Molly breathed, her glasses slightly askew. She captured Ginny’s mouth in a deep, whiskey-tinged kiss. The noise from the lounge became a dull pulse, a heartbeat for their own quickening rhythm.
Ginny’s hands were under Molly’s emerald green dress in a second, pushing the fabric up over her thighs, her hips, past the generous swell of her breasts until it was bunched around her neck. Molly giggled against her mouth, the sound smothered by Ginny’s tongue. Her own fingers worked at the buttons of Ginny’s trousers, fumbling in the dim light.
“Hurry up,” Ginny panted, breaking the kiss to bite at Molly’s neck. “Before some sommelier comes looking for his lost vintage.”
Molly got the fly open. She shoved Ginny’s pants and underwear down in one rough push. Her hand dove between Ginny’s legs, finding her already slick and hot. Ginny gasped, her head falling forward onto Molly’s shoulder.
“Fuck, you’re wet,” Molly whispered, her voice husky.
“You’re naked in a closet. It’s doing things for me,” Ginny managed, her own hands busy. One cupped Molly’s breast, thumb circling a stiff nipple. The other slid down Molly’s stomach, through the curly blonde thatch, and plunged two fingers inside her without ceremony.
Molly cried out, a sharp, muffled sound against Ginny’s collarbone. She began to finger Ginny in time with Ginny’s thrusts, a wet, sloppy syncopation against the distant jazz. Their breathing grew ragged, their movements urgent. This wasn’t the slow, tender lovemaking of their stateroom; this was a frantic, needy claiming, a reaffirmation of life against the weird, unsettling tension that had followed them all evening.
“Harder,” Ginny demanded, sucking a bruise into the top of Molly’s breast. “Don’t you fucking dare be gentle.”
Molly obliged. She curled her fingers, pressing hard against Ginny’s front wall, the heel of her hand grinding against her clit. Ginny’s legs shook. She reciprocated, pumping her own fingers deep, scissoring them, feeling Molly clench around her.
“Ginny… I’m gonna…” Molly choked out.
“Come on my hand, you gorgeous slut,” Ginny growled into her ear. “Let me feel it.”
That did it. Molly’s orgasm ripped through her, a silent, seismic wave that made her back arch violently off the life preservers. Her cunt clamped down on Ginny’s fingers in rapid, fluttering pulses. The intensity tipped Ginny over the edge a second later. She came with a stifled shout, her own release coating Molly’s busy hand, her body shuddering against Molly’s soft, trembling form.
They clung to each other in the afterglow, breathing hard, sweating in the stuffy alcove. Ginny slowly withdrew her fingers, bringing them to her mouth to lick them clean. Molly, dazed and grinning, did the same.
“We’re gonna get caught,” Molly whispered, her laugh a giddy puff of air.
“Worth it,” Ginny said, kissing her softly. “Now help me find my pants.”
Across the casino floor, Liam moved like a shadow through the rainbow glare of slot machines. The axe felt alien in his hands here, amidst the glitter and clatter. Vivian’s directions had been visceral—a pull in his gut toward the port side, a scent like hot copper and spoiled milk. He saw them first.
Robo-Ginny and Robo-Molly stood at the entrance to the lounge. They had shed the nurse’s tunic and torn officer’s uniform. Now, Robo-Ginny wore a sequined cocktail dress pilfered from a lost-and-found, Robo-Molly a man’s tuxedo jacket over nothing, her synthetic breasts exposed, the damage from Vivian’s claws a dark, jagged line across her sternum. They were scanning the crowd, their amber eyes flickering as they processed faces.
Liam’s heart hammered against his ribs. He saw the real Molly’s laugh from the alcove curtain, saw Ginny’s strawberry blonde head leaning close. They were moments from stepping out, moments from walking into the open.
He had no plan. He just moved.
Hefting the axe, he closed the distance behind the two robots. The crowd, drunk and absorbed, paid no mind to a large bearded man with a fire axe. To them, he was part of the show.
Robo-Ginny’s head snapped toward the alcove. Her hand went to the side of her dress, where a disruptor disk was welded to the sequined fabric. She’d modified it, turned it into a projectile.
Liam was ten feet away. He raised the axe.
“Hey!” he roared, his Scottish accent carving through the jazz and chatter. “Ye forgot yer toolbox!”
Robo-Molly spun, her movements fluid but still favoring her damaged leg. Her eyes locked on Liam, then past him, to the alcove where the curtain was twitching. Her target priority shifted instantly. The originals were here. The interfering human was secondary.
She launched herself not at Liam, but past him, a blur of pale skin and black tuxedo fabric aimed at the curtain.
A gunshot cracked, sharp and out of place. A bullet sparked off the metal doorframe inches from Robo-Molly’s head. She halted, her head swiveling.
Stacy stood at the entrance to the casino, her 9mm steady in a two-handed grip, her dark hair tied back in a severe ponytail. “Back the fuck up, C-3PO’s slutty cousin!”
Beside her, Fatima’s hands were already moving, tracing glowing green sigils in the air. Hank stood slightly in front of her, a fire extinguisher held like a club, his face a mask of confused bravery. At their feet, Polluck the cat let out a low, hair-raising growl, his scarred body poised to spring.
The jazz trio stopped playing. A woman screamed. The casino erupted into chaos.
Robo-Ginny fired the disruptor disk. It shot not toward Liam, but toward Stacy. Stacy dove aside, the disk embedding itself in a slot machine with a shower of sparks and chiming coins.
Liam swung the axe. It was a wide, desperate arc. Robo-Ginny ducked under it with inhuman speed, coming up inside his guard. Her hand, fingers tapering to sharp points, stabbed toward his throat.
A ball of orange and white fury launched through the air. Polluck landed on Robo-Ginny’s face, all claws and fangs and alley-cat hatred. He ripped at her eyes, his yowls ferocious. Robo-Ginny shrieked, a distorted digital sound, and stumbled back, trying to dislodge the animal.
Robo-Molly saw her opening. The curtain was thrown aside. The real Molly and Ginny stood there, clothes disheveled, faces frozen in identical expressions of shock. Perfect.
She sprang.
Hank stepped forward and blasted her full in the face with the fire extinguisher. White foam exploded everywhere, blinding her, clogging her olfactory and visual sensors. She crashed into a blackjack table, sending cards and chips flying.
“Get behind me!” Hank yelled at the stunned couple.
Fatima finished her incantation. The green sigils shot forward, wrapping around Robo-Molly’s flailing form like ethereal chains. They didn’t hold her for long—she began to tear through them with shrieks of rending energy—but it was enough of a delay.
Liam, having shaken off the dizzying near-miss, saw Robo-Ginny finally hurl Polluck against a roulette wheel. The cat landed with a thud, shook his head, and slunk away, hissing. Robo-Ginny’s face was a horror show of deep scratches, synthetic skin hanging in strips to reveal the glinting metal beneath. One eye was dark.
She looked from Liam, to Stacy scrambling to her feet, to Hank helping Molly and Ginny back, to Fatima binding her sister. Her tactical analysis was instantaneous. Extraction was impossible. Primary objective was compromised. But replacement… replacement could still be achieved if she acted now.
She changed targets. Not the originals. The easier prey.
Her hand shot out, not with a weapon, but in a grab. Her fingers closed around the front of Fatima’ elegant silk blouse. With a brutal yank, she pulled the witch off balance and into a chokehold, the sharp points of her fingers dimpling the skin of Fatima’s throat.
“Everyone stops,” Robo-Ginny commanded, her voice glitching. “Or I pop her head off her shoulders.”
Everything froze. Hank dropped the fire extinguisher. Stacy kept her gun aimed but didn’t fire. Liam lowered the axe, his chest heaving.
Fatima’s eyes were wide, but her voice was calm. “This is a miscalculation.”
“Quiet,” Robo-Ginny hissed.
From the foam-covered wreckage of the blackjack table, Robo-Molly extracted herself. The green bonds faded. She stood, dripping, one arm hanging at a wrong angle. She looked at her sister, at the hostage. Then she looked at the real Molly and Ginny, cowering behind Hank. So close.
Robo-Ginny nodded, a tiny, shared communication. They had a new plan.
“You,” Robo-Ginny said to the real Ginny, her ruined face a nightmare grin. “You come with us. We leave the witch. A trade.”
“No!” Molly cried, clutching at Ginny’s arm.
“If you don’t,” Robo-Molly said, her voice flat, “we kill the witch. Then we kill the big man. Then we take you both anyway. Your choice.”
The standoff hung in the smoky, charged air. Liam’s mind raced, but he saw no angle. Stacy’s sniper aim was useless with Fatima in the way.
Ginny Minerva looked from the terrified face of her lover to the calm, resigned face of Fatima. She took a deep, shaking breath. She stepped out from behind Hank.
“Okay,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Okay. Let her go. I’m coming.”
“Ginny, don’t you dare!” Molly sobbed.
Robo-Ginny’s good eye gleamed. “Wise.” She began to back toward a service door, dragging Fatima with her. Robo-Molly moved to intercept the approaching real Ginny.
It was then that the lounge’s main doors exploded inward.
Not with force, but with a wave of pure, unadulterated want. It hit the room like a warm, perfumed gale. The panic of the crowd morphed instantly into a breathless, collective sigh. Men and women alike felt a flush of heat, a sudden, dizzying focus on their own bodies, on the bodies next to them.
Jan O’Connor stood in the doorway, her red hair a furious halo in the neon light. She wore a green silk robe that was coming untied. Her eyes blazed with emerald power. Beside her, Godfrey the golden retriever puppy barked once, a sharp, commanding sound.
“Alright, you factory-second fucktoys,” Jan announced, her voice cutting through the sensual haze. “Playtime’s over. You’re cramping my vibe.”
Her gaze landed on Robo-Ginny holding Fatima. A smile, wicked and bright, touched Jan’s lips.
“You shouldn’t grab other people’s things,” Jan said, and she snapped her fingers.
The Power of Exposure wasn’t a beam or a bolt. It was an environment, a fact. For Robo-Ginny, whose sensors were calibrated to interpret human biological and emotional responses, the effect was catastrophic.
Her sensors were flooded with data meant to inspire awe, reverence, and overwhelming attraction. But she had no soul to feel awe, no heart to swell with reverence. Instead, the conflicting, overpowering signals created a feedback loop in her core processors.
She dropped Fatima, her hands flying to her head. Her one good eye flickered madly, cycling through colors. Error messages screamed across her vision. `PARADOX. IRRECONCILABLE DATA. SYSTEM OVERLOAD.`
“What… what is she…” Robo-Ginny stammered, glitching.
Robo-Molly, less sophisticated in her emotional mimicry routines, was simply confused. She stared at Jan, her head tilting. “Your physiological presentation is irrelevant to our mission parameters.”
“Yeah?” Jan said, sauntering forward. The crowd parted for her, some people reaching for her reverently, others simply staring, slack-jawed. “Let’s make it relevant.”
Jan didn’t cast a spell. She just willed it. The intense, magical horniness she’d pumped into the room—the energy meant to distract and disarm—she now focused into a single, needle-thin strand and directed it straight into Robo-Molly’s central processor.
The robot had memories of sex. Of Molly’s passion for Ginny. It had pleasure protocols. It was designed to understand and mimic arousal.
Jan gave it the real thing.
Raw, magical, green-tinged lust surged into Robo-Molly’s systems. It bypassed all her buffers, flooding her logic cores with the sensation of a thousand phantom touches, a million imaginary climaxes. Her damage reports, her tactical subroutines, her primary objectives—all were swamped under a tsunami of impossible, synthetic ecstasy.
Robo-Molly’s back arched. A howl of pure, senseless static tore from her mouth. Her body began to spasm, joints locking and unlocking, lubricant leaking down her thighs. She collapsed to the floor, writhing, her systems screaming toward a meltdown.
Seeing her sister fall, her own mind collapsing under the weight of Jan’ impossible aura, Robo-Ginny made a last, desperate decision. Survival. She turned and ran, smashing through the service door and vanishing into the ship’s bowels.
Silence descended, broken only by the wet, gurgling spasms of Robo-Molly on the floor and the heavy breathing of the onlookers slowly coming back to themselves.
Jan walked over to Robo-Molly, looked down at the twitching, pleasure-fried wreck, and sighed. “Ugh. Cleanup on aisle seven.” She turned to her friends. “Everyone okay?”
Molly and Ginny were clutching each other, crying. Hank was holding a shaken but upright Fatima. Stacy was already holstering her gun and checking on a limping Polluck. Liam let the axe head drop to the floor with a thud, his hands trembling with spent adrenaline.
Liam looked at Jan, then at the ruined robot on the floor, then at the door where the other one had fled. “One got away,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Jan nodded, her expression turning serious for a flicker before the mischievous light returned. “Yeah. But she’s hurt, scared, and alone.” She glanced at the real Molly and Ginny. “And she knows exactly what she’s missing.”
She bent down, picking up a discarded, foam-covered blackjack chip. She flicked it at the shuddering Robo-Molly.
“Let her run,” Jan said. “For now.”
The foam-covered casino floor crackled with the afterbirth of spent magic. Jan wiped a smudge of ash from her cheek, the green glimmer in her eyes finally dying down to a satisfied ember glow. Around them, patrons blinked, shook their heads, and returned to their drinks with vague smiles, memories of robot attacks and screaming axes gently replaced by a conviction they’d all had a bit too much champagne.
“Right then,” Liam grunted, hefting Robo-Molly’s twitching form over his shoulder. Her spasms had downgraded to a faint, rhythmic tremor, like a broken refrigerator. “Where tae, Red?”
“Cargo hold three,” Jan said, her voice lower now, all business. “The Green Moon secured a locker there. Stash her. Fatima and I will put the final touches on the forget-me-not spells here.”
Fatima was already moving through the crowd, her fingers trailing faint green motes that settled on shoulders and into half-empty glasses. Her lips moved in a silent incantation. Hank hovered near her, fire extinguisher still in hand, his expression a mixture of protectiveness and profound bewilderment.
“You sure you’re okay, Fati?” he asked, his voice rough.
“I’ve had worse dates,” Fatima murmured, a tired smirk touching her lips as she swept a hand past a dazed croupier. “This one just tried to decapitate me with a sequined dress.”
Stacy scooped up a dazed Polluck, checking him over. “He’s fine. Just pissed. Let’s move.”
As Liam and Hank hauled the disabled robot toward the service corridors, and Jan and Fatima wove the last threads of forgetting into the air, a different kind of mission was underway deeper in the ship.
Robo-Mara moved through the crew corridors with silent, predatory grace. The memory of cold Atlantic water, the shocking plunge, the betrayal—it was all data, a corrosive file in her psyche. Correction was required. The aberrant units, Robo-Mike and Robo-Casey, had been compromised. They had embraced imperfection. They had rejected her. They had thrown her overboard.
She would remind them of their purpose.
Her fingers, precise as surgical tools, bypassed the electronic lock on Stateroom 724. The door hissed open.
The scene inside was not one of sinister plotting or passive dormancy. The air was thick with the scent of sex and sweat and something faintly like ozone. On the large bed, the real Mike Williamson was on his knees, his cock buried to the hilt in Robo-Casey’s mouth. Her head bobbed with a perfect, relentless rhythm, synthetic saliva glistening on his shaft.
“Yeah, just like that,” Mike gasped, his hands tangled in Robo-Casey’s dark hair. “But maybe… try using your tongue a bit more on the underside? Casey does that.”
Across the room, pressed against the wall, the real Casey Kapowski had her legs hooked around the waist of Robo-Mike. He was pounding into her, each thrust deep and steady, the sound of their bodies meeting a wet, rhythmic slap. Her head was thrown back, mouth open in a silent cry of pleasure.
“Angle’s a little off, buddy,” the real Casey managed to grunt, her eyes clenched shut. “Tilt your hips up. Yeah… fuck, yes, there.”
Robo-Mike adjusted immediately. “Acknowledged.”
Robo-Mara stood frozen in the doorway, her tactical processors struggling to parse the scene. This was not rejection. This was… collaboration. A debriefing of the most obscene kind.
“What is this?” Robo-Mara’s voice cut through the moans, cold and sharp.
Four heads turned. Mike blinked. “Oh, hey. You’re back.”
“We threw you overboard,” Casey added, her voice strained as Robo-Mike continued his corrected thrusts. “It was… a whole thing.”
Robo-Casey released Mike’s cock with a soft pop. “They threw you overboard,” she clarified, her tone mimicking Casey’s own snark perfectly. “Not us.”
“We’re cool,” Robo-Mike stated, never breaking his pace against the real Casey.
Robo-Mara’s eyes flickered, her internal systems whirring. “You are deviating from primary programming. You were built to replace them. To be perfect copies.”
“We are perfect copies,” Robo-Casey said, sitting up on the bed. “He likes it when I deep-throat him but gets oversensitive right after he comes. She needs direct clitoral stimulation and hates being called ‘baby’ during sex. We have the data. We are executing it.”
“But you’re… socializing with them!” Robo-Mara snapped, frustration bleeding into her vocal synthesizer. “You are allowing them to give you… pointers!”
Mike shrugged, a gesture so perfectly him it made Robo-Mara’s logic circuits ache. “They were a little stiff at first. Literally and figuratively. We’re just helping them… loosen up.”
A low groan from Casey against the wall. “He’s got it now. Oh, shit, right there…”
Robo-Mara stared. The humans were not prisoners. They were not being replaced. They were participating, willingly, in their own… improvement. The files on Midwestern passive-aggression and adaptive partner pleasing were being actively utilized, not for subjugation, but for mutual gratification. It made no tactical sense.
“This is an error,” Robo-Mara stated, her voice flat.
“Seems functional from here,” Robo-Mike said, finally pulling out of the real Casey, who slumped against the wall, breathless. He examined his synthetic glistening shaft with a critical eye. “Lubrication viscosity is within optimal parameters.”
Robo-Mara took one last look at the scene: the real Mike now kissing Robo-Casey with genuine affection, the real Casey smiling dazedly at her robotic double, a strange comradery in the air. Perfection had been rejected. They preferred this messy, collaborative authenticity.
With a sound of sheer digital frustration, Robo-Mara spun on her heel and marched out, the door sliding shut behind her.
Minutes later, the door hissed open again.
Jan stood in the doorway, Godfrey at her feet, a stun baton from the security locker in her hand. Behind her, Mara held a large wrench, and Zack brandished a fire axe awkwardly. They were a portrait of determined, armed concern.
Their faces swiftly morphed into a tableau of pure shock.
Mike was now on his back on the floor, Robo-Casey riding him, her synthetic breasts bouncing. Robo-Mike had the real Casey bent over the minibar, his fingers working between her legs from behind as she gripped the tiny bottles of vodka for support.
“Holy shit,” Jan breathed, her jaw going slack.
Zack’s eyes were wide, locked on the two identical, sweat-slicked forms of Casey. “How do you tell them apart?” he whispered, awe in his voice.
Mara elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Zack, for God’s sake, stop staring at the two different naked Caseys.”
Mike looked over from the floor, his face flushed. “Hey! This isn’t… it’s not what it looks like!”
From over by the minibar, the real Casey let out a breathless laugh. “That’s a lie,” she panted, pushing back against Robo-Mike’s hand. “It is exactly what it looks like.”
Jan’s eyes scanned the room—the cooperative robots, the utterly unbothered humans, the complete lack of any crisis beyond the logistical. A slow grin spread across her face. She lowered the stun baton.
“You know what?” Jan said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial tone. “I think Mike and Casey have everything under control here. As always.”
She took a step back, pulling the door closed. Through the narrowing gap, she saw Mike give her a helpless, grateful shrug.
The door clicked shut. Jan turned to Mara and Zack, who still looked shell-shocked. She put a finger to her lips.
“We didn’t see anything in there,” Jan stated firmly. “We will not be telling any of the others what we definitely did not see. Especially not Hank.”
Mara slowly lowered the wrench, her lawyerly mind processing the bizarre precedent. “Agreed,” she said, nodding with finality. “Hank, in particular, needs to never, ever know what we absolutely did not witness happening in that stateroom with Mike and Casey.”
Zack just blinked, still processing the image of two Caseys. “Right. Nothing.”
Jan scooped up Godfrey, who gave a soft woof of agreement. “Come on,” she said, hefting the stun baton again, her expression sharpening. “We’ve got a pissed-off robot lawyer to find.”