Rebecca.
Rebecca sighed as she finally felt her body relax, phantom limbs that had been tensing as her cybernetics rebelled against her will now calming with a sweeping relief that had her shivering as she stood.
“Fuck!”
“You swear—like, way more than normal people should...”
“Well, why don't
you
feel what it's like to have your body stolen?”
The android—or, other girl, or—fuck, whoever it was in the sex bot, simply leveled her with a flat look, staring up at Rebecca, who, after a moment, realized what she’d said.
“Oh, piss off! I stand by my statement! You didn't have your body ‘stolen,’ you're a copy! A clone! The ‘real you’ is still sitting up in her ivory tower licking caviar off some high-class hooker’s ass.”
“Ugh… and ‘you're…’ mhm… I guess just a lot less intelligent than I first thought…”
Any other time and Beckie might just take mild offense to that statement, relevant and true or otherwise; yet she was feeling pretty good right now and merely shrugged off the insult in lieu of her glorious freedom and most recent 'fuck you' to death!
Not today bitch!
Beckie
was still alive.
But, at the same time, Beckie was also 'just like that'.
Easygoing, eager for a good scrap, and not really that emotional about the ‘little things.’ She was still gonna slap the bitch up the side of her pretty head when she was finally free of the looming doom in her brain, but—whatever…
Water under the bridge at this point.
After all, it wasn't like Beckie wasn't going to tear off her limbs and sell the chick for scrap, probably at this very shop!
Turnabout's fair play as far as she was concerned.
“Hey, ugh, Doc? Do you think you could take a look at my augments free of charge, seeing as how you clearly were the one who made me go haywire and start punching heads in? Only fair, since they all feel like shit and misaligned after cracking that many skulls.”
Both Gunther and the smaller woman stared at her, each considering the larger woman who just looked right back at them, unblinking and knowing full well what she was doing.
Clearly, they were judging her, but—screw them!
Beckie
could judge right back.
“Your joints are probably out of alignment because 'somebody' went and got a black-market hack on their limiters—and, just so we’re clear, those things do exist for a reason, you know! More of an ape than a damned gorilla…”
“So, you gonna do it?” Beckie pushed, waggling her eyebrows at the much smaller girl who very much looked to be regretting her decisions.
“You know what? I’m gonna need another pot of coffee…” Gunther stated, upending his mug before getting to his feet. “You—”
“Just call me Claire; it's better than you knowing my real name.”
“Right… either way, you're going to need to stay hidden during the day when I’m open; I can't have the lads knowing there’s a stolen Paradise bot fucking about. Second to that—” he added, glancing back to Beckie—“she’s gonna be
your
responsibility, Beck. And don't give me any sob stories; you're the one who brought her here; you're the one who pays her upkeep.”
“Ugh…” Beckie began, eyeing the shorter woman. “Okay, not to sound like a dick or anything… but… hey, are you actually a girl? Or are you, like, a rando dude stuck in a call droid?”
“I’m a girl,” the woman replied, shaking her head before clicking her tongue. “But, if I’m not allowed here during the day, then—”
“Then find yourself a good disguise or work at night!” Gunther answered, his curt tone betraying his waning interest in the conversation. “Beck, like I said, you're in charge of her until I can figure out a better place and get started on unraveling this whole fiasco… Make sure she’s under a damned coat or thick clothing while mucking about. The moment someone thinks she’s not on a real job, they’ll report her for a bounty in an instant.”
Beckie nodded, not really too upset. After all, while her apartment wasn't really that big, it wasn't like one extra person would make much of a difference. “Hey, ugh, Gunny?”
“What?”
“Do I like, take her there—now, or?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake…”
“Yes,”
the bot stated, almost as if she couldn't believe she had to say it. Then, glancing at Gunther, she added, “I’ll come back tonight so we can talk more…”
“Don't bother, I won't be here. I don't ‘work’ at night. Just let yourself in and mock something up worth selling, and then, I’ll sell it if I can. We can talk about 'how' we split things after I see what you can do.”
“Just like that?”
“You got a better place to start whatever ‘arrangement’ this is gonna turn into?”
The android paused, head cocking slightly before she nodded, seeming to agree, if not being terribly happy about it. “No… but—fine, what’s the access code for the place?”
“Fucking 'hack it' if you’re so good!” the old man growled, walking away from the storefront while the two girls were left standing there.
As the old goat pushed past some greasy and tinged flaps that had, at one point, probably been something akin to transparent plastic, Beckie could only shrug before glancing back down at her new ‘roommate.’
“Sooo… about my tech?”
“Yeah, fine… You got a kit at home?”
“Ummm…” Beckie began, biting at her lower lip while looking away.
“Oh, you can't be serious…”
“These damn things cost a lot of money!” Beckie complained, not unwilling to share her woes with a new ear now that there was another person to listen! “I’ve got, like, forty months of payments left on the freaking things, and the interest 'literally' takes food from my belly some weeks. So—”
“So you sold your only maintenance kit to—what? Pay for a bowl of fucking ramen?”
“Yeah, actually… How’d you know?”
“A guess.”
“A pretty good one!”
“No, it wasn't,” the android complained, rubbing a hand down her face. “It was honestly just statistical… You being poor, ramen being cheap, and a dumbass spending her money on food with all the nutritional significance of a leather belt.”
“You always such a bitch?” Beckie asked, chuckling while moving past the prickly girl, heading right back onto the street without a care in the world.
“Do you have some kind of poncho or something to hide me?”
“Eh, I’ve got a few things at my apartment. One of my old hoodies will probably work on you. C’mon! We’ll just pretend I rented a cheap hookup with a Doll if anyone asks about you.”
Beckie didn't bother looking back, already heading home and managing a solid dozen steps before the almost silent patter of tiny feet fell in at her side.
She glanced down at the bot who was watching her in turn, the small woman’s expression both lidded and accented by an accompanying frown.
Rebecca thought she sort of got the feeling the android was staring at her in the same way Beckie might eye a particularly dubious muffin she’d found—presumably half off and sitting on the bakery counter without a lid.
Insects weren't usually a thing unless an infestation somehow broke out, typically after some ship docked in port while carrying cargo from a planet; but stale and possibly turning food was still as questionable and perhaps moldy as ever.
Still, muffins were a treat! And Beckie did not miss a hint or two of 'intrigue' to go along with all that indecision. Again, the other girl was practically radiating a sense of uncertainty as to her own opinions on Beckie.
Heh… She knew the type.
Judgmental, egotistical, arrogant, and narcissistic to the extreme. Like everyone and
everything
around her was scarcely good enough to serve as her toilet. Perfectly willing to use and manipulate anyone and everyone around her, all without seeing a single thing wrong with any of it.
In short—the small girl was a complete and total, queen-B.
“So,” Beckie chirped, clasping her hands behind her neck as she sauntered through the crowd, not at all obtuse to the many eyes that briefly glimpsed them but slid away a moment later. “What’s it like being a robot?”
There was a second—momentary as it was—where she could swear the other girl’s eye actually twitched, her slow and exasperated glance up towards Beckie’s much more impressive stature speaking all the words that really needed to be said.
“Hey, so, it’s only a suggestion, but you know, if you actually want to keep living, maybe you shouldn't talk about our situation on a busy street!”
“Ha, don't be so uptight! Half of these 'zombie-ass' fuckers are on Autopilot. Seriously, watch."
So saying, Beckie reached out and bumped an oncoming pedestrian, nearly knocking them aside!
The young guy, pretty much a kid, really, all dressed up in the same white overalls that all dock laborers wore, simply stumbled as his body swaying caught itself. The glazed expression on his face snapped into focus as he looked up to glare at Beckie, only to realize she had a solid foot on him and enough augments and muscle to crush him like a can.
The guy abruptly looked away, lips twisting with frustration, but he shoved his head right down to stare at the road as he swallowed his pride like the good little worker he was.
“See?” Beckie laughed, practically able to tell with near-perfect accuracy who was and who wasn't letting their brain implant ‘work’ for them while their minds fucked off to the sub-verse. “There’s a solid eighty percent of the people out here pulling the same lame-ass shit.”
“Okay…” the girl grumbled, eyes narrowing a fraction before she popped her lips. “Wow, okay, so it is around eighty percent of the people walking in overalls, and
they
make up another seventy percent of the people out here, so…”
“So, like I said, it’s pretty much eighty percent of everyone out here that does it!”
Again, the android looked at her, eyes narrowing, lips opening to say something before they just shut, turning away without another word while Beckie grinned.
So easy…
“Either way,” she added, flexing her augmented arms and wincing at the uncomfortable strain, “Most people in the ports don't have all that ‘fancy tech’ that you're used to seeing: long-range audio scanners, Quick-stats... heck, the only reason so many people have ‘Autopilot’ is because the Megas pretty much give those away, and we all know why they do it!”
“Cheap ‘meat labor' that moves and acts like a machine?”
“Yup.” Beckie twittered, grinning as she reached out and bumped into a different person who was just mindlessly stumbling along. "Nothing but human robots..."
Same as before, the girl momentarily snapped into focus, the reaction part of the safety protocols for the starkly 'evil' augment that had taken the city by storm.
This time, however, the woman just seemed confused, looking around with a semi-annoyed but far too sleepy expression before her eyes went glassy and she returned to her prior activities.
“Kinda sad, really…” Rebecca continued, letting out a weary sigh. “Ports just ain't as fun as they were when I was a kid. Now that more than half the damned people out here are rocking Autopilot, they barely even live in the ‘real’ anymore. Everyone’s just messing around online, living out supposedly more interesting lives in games like 'Era' or 'Brutal Fantasy'…”
“And… people just let the corporations abuse their bodies with back-breaking work?”
“I mean… yeah, pretty much…”
“Why?”
“Ha! Well, I wouldn't expect a chick like
you
to understand—” Beckie chuckled, her own gaze growing somewhat distant. “But life down here fucking sucks. You think getting stuck in a sex bot is bad? Well, at least you pretty much have a top-of-the-line android body that’s like a hundred times better than a human one.
“Seriously though, go put in a single week at any of the factories or docks down here, then come back and tell me how ‘bad’ you’ve got it. At this point, I’m pretty much just giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you’ve got no idea what you're talking about.
“But for most, if the options they’re given are to ‘zone out’ and actually enjoy a few hours of their day while dumping online dopamine straight into their brains, or instead, bust their ass at some mindless job nobody can get robots for because ‘people’ are supposed to work, then—hmph, I don't know; doesn't sound like a hard choice to make, in my opinion.”
The android didn't respond to that; she didn't even react, merely turning away to watch the flowing crowd of expressionless zombies as they all swam in a mass of bodies.
In Beckie’s opinion, the corporations were getting pretty damn close to having machines working for them, just not the kind that were made out of steel and rubber.
Basically, they were already one step away from full automation, and the only real thing holding them back was the government itself, which mandated what tasks were and were not allowed to be performed by an automaton.
It was all bullshit…
Hell, Rebecca was well aware she wasn't the smartest person around, and even she knew that!
Heh,
It was just more politics and games...
At some point, a new chairperson of the Republic would be nominated, likely serving the interests of a differing faction than the current political party. Then, there would be all kinds of new rules and new regulations, and the universe would keep on trucking for another ten years before it all got flipped right back again!
For God’s sake, when Beckie had been a kid, robots were allowed to perform half the jobs from which they’d later been outlawed, and the young woman could swear she remembered people being a whole lot happier for it.
Whoever thought they were doing a ‘good thing’ by letting people have some of the shittiest work there was in the Republic—well, honestly, they were probably just a seriously dedicated troll.
Well, whatever…
It wasn't like Beckie really cared either way. Nobody could really do much to change anything, so why bother thinking about changing it? No, best to just focus on yourself and those around you.
Better still if you could make sure you had a warm meal in your stomach every night.
The duo rounded a corner, turning down a familiar street that held a familiar apartment, which was filled with familiar faces. It wasn't the nicest place around, but it was cheap, and there weren't as many crackheads as some of the other places she'd lived in.
Beckie was practically able to feel her pay-as-you-go shower and its wonderfully lukewarm water when a person she really didn't want to talk to came striding right out the front door…
The man quietly pulled out his burner, taking a small huff before, as though preordained by God himself, he looked her way,
then smiled.