Embellishing all the droneskull masonry and oil-mortar, the corpse spire was also adorned with architectural anatomy stripped from the crumbling corpses of vacated buildings. Rebar-scaffolding among façades-turned-partitions twisted labyrinthine — to a human, senseless verging on collapse; to a disassembly drone, instinct.
One landmark adjoined the main chamber, in a state once uncommon, now as familiar as the trips to industrial ruins picked clean of prey but not salvage.
The door to the captain’s office stood closed.
‘Do not disturb,’ read a sign in elegant cursive. Written black, and not in ink. A head, its visor all shattered glass, hung from the door as if in example.
(Once, N had waited patiently outside to ask the captain something. He had heard screams that twisted his face in worry — but the rules on the wall were clear. And then, when the two finally emerged, he saw the expressions lingering on their faces. He forgot his question, but remembered to never again stand in hearshot of the shut door, sparing himself the mental images.)
It was quiet in there today, though.
Dark, too. Candles glowed faint in the corners of the room, lavender and honey. Votive candles melt down, runes carved into the wax; this gave J a nostalgic smile.
But those candles weren’t brighter than the furious glow on two screens, and their sugar-floral aroma couldn’t overpower the benzene-sweet pungency of hardware damage.
A worker drone lay against a towel thrown over the back of an office chair. Eyes artifact-blurry and unfocused, she stared at the wall. As long she didn’t look at the wet lips curled into that ravishing grin, her blush had a chance to fade.
A murder drone suction-kissed her shoulder. The wound upon it was simple, elegant. Twin holes punctured the plastic, modest in breadth and depth. Oil beaded out of them in small pearls that would wobble into tear-tracks if left alone long enough.
Such a small incision let her morsel take it so quietly, no proper screams — but this made it happen so intimately slow. Hours in this candlelit room, ritual-dark, an oil-drained girl drifting in and out of consciousness as all the weight of a frame twice her size crush-pressed her into the cushion, purring and drooling. The little goth wiggled — the captain enjoyed her squirming — but she couldn’t escape
That tongue had visited the worker’s mouth, neck, transducer plate… but it always returned to that shoulder wound. Because this was a transaction, an extraction.
The alternative would be that they were simply cuddling.
And the goth did not just want to cuddle with the ravenous deathbot.
…She just didn’t mind if they took their time with this.
“Mm, Uzi?” J rose from her snack, her mouth drifting upward near the transducers, purple hair waterfalling over her visor.
A slow blink of those eyes, pupils sharpening as if surfacing from within a deep, immersive pool; but J was patient.
When Uzi found herself, she said, “Yeah, J?”
“You’re fond of warranty violations, right?” J smiled. It was unseen, but perhaps audible in her voice.
“You mean sick as hell upgrades?” The worker’s voice was still a murmur, but energy trickled back to it in fit-starts.
J’s grip tightened around the arm-tubing. “Aftermarket modifications, yes.”
Uzi laughed. She twisted around to look at J, one quarter-affronted and one quarter-incredulous. (The last half was the traitorous blush-grin that was why she had made J put it down in writing that oilsharing was not their scheduled cuddle-time.)
“Of course I like it!” Uzi said. “You think stock worker drone hydraulics could keep up with you monsters? Plus I replaced all my flimsy aluminum with steel! Thanks for that, I guess. You helped, a little.”
J narrowed her eyes. “A little? You couldn’t have even attempted those modifications without someone to do them. Self-modification is a liability, in the narrow range of scenarios where it’s even viable.”
“Don’t lecture me, we’ve already been over this.” The purple eyes were all clear now, because they were rolling. “Now is not the time, now’s the time for, what was it, haptically-calibrated resource transfer.”
That delay in recall was all feigned, of course — Uzi had insisted that J craft this sequence of so-called buzzwords. Not a direct insistence: she had simply, repeatedly, demanded an explanation. Much like executives when asked about their business expenses, there were questions which required tailor-made answers. But this had been J’s first skillset.
J had authored the worker’s excuse, but that didn’t mean the ex-PR consultant didn’t like testing it. Releasing her grip on the arm-tubing, she slid them along the chair’s synthetic leather, slipping underneath the goth’s abdomen.
The murder drone knelt in the chair, while Uzi leaned against its back — emphasis on lean. She’d be standing up if not for the angle. Even still, J’s head rested on the worker’s shoulder.
“Right, I know you’re anxious to get back to this.” Conic arms squeezed her tight. Quite the haptic calibration.
“No, this is because you need it. Not because I wouldn’t rather be…”
J waited. “Well? What would you rather be doing than being held safely in the arms of a superior drone?”
Uzi snapped forward to bite J’s shoulder. The fabric of her suit blunted the impact. “It doesn’t matter. So, miss circle-back, where you going with the warranty violation thing?”
“I was just thinking. There are other ‘upgrades’ you could attempt. There’s one certain humans were fond of giving their personal drones. A tradition I’ve encountered several workers carrying forth for their own enrichment purposes.”
Uzi froze. Arms, once enwrapping J, fell to her side. “Oh. Tell me you don’t mean…”
“Paired peripherals.” J licked her lips. “Suitable for… a partnership like ours.”
“Gross gross gross! We do not need to imitate weird monkey mating behavior! We’re robots, J.”
J raised an eyebrow, and then she tugs on her arms, snuggling herself closer. Throughout, she stared flatly into Uzi’s glare. It deepened, even as the captain’s smirk blossomed.
“You’re looking at me like you’re proving a point right now.”
“Am I not? It’s obvious what we’re doing right now. Making an actual argument of it would be beneath me.” J’s tail curled behind her, pointing emphasis at Uzi.
“It’s not the same! We have haptic sensors and so it obviously feels nice to have someone giving… gentle input or whatever. Same reason things look pretty. We have eyes and pattern recognition and there’s symmetry and junk.”
“And?” J tongued up two pearls of oil from Uzi’s shoulder. Her morsel shivered at the contact.
“And it makes sense! But there’s no reason for sex toy peripherals to feel good! It’s pointless imitation. It’s so stupid.”
J pulled one arm out, lifting it to stroke Uzi’s cheek, but the worker flinched away. J said, “The feedback could be programmed to feel good.”
“That’s just wireheading.” Uzi had fists balled up. “Why not just max out your pleasure receptors directly? It’s not… functional. Don’t you care about that?”
Unable to caress her cheek, J settled for patting Uzi’s head, and the worker’s rejoiner-glance could have plotted murder.
“Hmph. Is it any less functional than those human games you’re so enthusiastic about?” J said, giving a haughty huff of a laugh.
“Those have actual stories and challenge! It’s not just. Thrusting. It’s too easy. It’s boring!”
J sighed, and pulled back from Uzi, arms retreating. “You’re not interested at all, then?”
“Duh! Could I make that any clearer?”
“Very,” J said with a smirk. Her suit jacket, already hanging up, slide down as her arms snaked through. “I’ve seen the way you look at me when I change out of my work clothes. Eyes running along my legs. The glance at my hips you think you’re averting too fast for me to notice.” J began unbuttoning her shirt, peeling static-cling’d fabric from her carapace. “Is this boring to you?”
Uzi folded a leg, the knee kicking J’s hand, impeding if not stopping her. “Bite me! It’s… ugh. Fine. You’re really pretty. And I maybe like looking at you. But I think the clothes are just like. Symbolic? I like that you can take off the mask and be yourself around me. It’s authentic. It’s. You trust me, right? You wouldn’t let anyone else see this?”
All buttons free, J plucked the shirt off her back. Maybe, having been caught, Uzi didn’t try to fight the allegations now — or maybe she didn’t even realize she’s doing it, but the goth’s eyes flit magnetically to the amber light pulsing with the core, and then traced the subtle curves of her abdominal plates.
Distracted, but she knew if she wasn’t listening to J, the captain would not look past the insult.
J was saying, “Why shouldn’t I, if we’re just robots? Would you stop staring so hungrily at me, if I invited V to watch me change next time?”
Uzi scowled. Her mouth worked, and her processor spun through some responses. “Why are you so insistent in getting me to say I want to. Do stuff to you.”
“Why are you so resistant to saying it? Afraid of dropping your mask around me?” J levered herself up by inches, rising taller. “Tell me it wouldn’t be more alluring if this ritual were functional. If pulling down my skirt was a prelude to something more.”
Eyes on J’s ascent, the goth didn’t catch J’s hands snapping out to grab her own, then stuffing the purple-lit plastic into the waistband of her skirt. J continued, “We’re robots, so it could be anything you want. It could be symmetrical. I could be a gentle touch. We even could make it a game.”
J finally closed the distance, pressing her bare chestplate against the worker, the positioning forcing Uzi’s hands deeper into her skirt. “You ask me why I’m so insistent? Our contract has been… very accommodating. Whenever I do the accounting… I take so much from you. Because you’re so full of what I need.”
J licked her lips, and her visor was so close to Uzi’s that the action was only heard, not seen. “I love holding you down, letting you struggle while I open you up, drinking up all your sweet functionality until you’re too bite-addled to think, on the verge of shutting down, then repairing all that damage. I think you love it too. But sometimes… I think it’d be nice to innovate. Fill that… hole in the market. To pin you down and give you something instead. Make you take all of it.”
Faces this close, there was no next move but one. J kissed those shock-parted lips, tongue thrusting in, pushing past its rival. Tracing all the sensors in the cavity, pressing against them. Uzi was wriggling now, tube-arms jerking up to beat at the captain’s reinforced back, blush marks ticking across her screen like a gauge, and high pitched sounds bubbled up in her throat, all whining and squeaking. And J ate it up.
When J lets her go, there’s more of the captain’s saliva in Uzi’s mouth than her own.
“Mm. A delicious little reaction. I can tell you liked that.”
“I’m not delicious. You just have really weird taste. You cannibal. And I’m not. This isn’t. I’m just surprised, is all. You caught me off-guard.” She watched the captain quirks an eyebrow, and explained, “Just, it isn’t what I was imagining, is all.”
“Oh? And how were you fantasizing it would go?”
“Not a fantasy! I don’t have gross monkey fantasies! But. If we’re writing weird fanfiction about each other anyway… Well. I was thinking, if we did anything like that… it’d be you taking the mask off all the way. You’d let your hair down. Be a good little secretary-maid and I. Um. Well.” Uzi blushed brighter. “Blowing your mind is kind of how this relationship began, you know? I think I could do it again.”
J snorted. Then a snort wasn’t enough, and she started cackling.
“Are you laughing at me? Screw you. This is why I didn’t want to say anything!”
A pout like that, and how could J resist kissing her again? But she should reply instead:
“I’m laughing because you made a joke, Uzi.” She said it slow, expression flat, in the way she knew made Uzi feel stupid.
“I wasn’t? Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t like, serious. But still. What’s so funny about it?”
Anger knots now. Investors, she looked so delectable.
“The innuendo-pun? To be clear, I do respect the cleanliness of a good euphemism — and that was not a good euphemism.” J straightened her back, looking down on the goth.
“Shut up. I’d like to hear you do better on the spot.”
“Mm. But do you know what I’d like to hear?” When J brought herself closer, Uzi could only stare at her grinning mouth. “Just say it.”
“And what exactly is ‘it’?”
“Everything you want to do to me. No stuttering, no eyebrow waggling. Look me in the eyes and” — smirk — “drop the mask. Admit it. You wanna fuck me so badly it makes you stupid.”
“I am not stupid! And I wouldn’t be bad at it, either!”
“Oh? Then prove it.” J let herself fall back onto her knees, just below eye level with the worker.
“What.”
Amber eyes look up — almost pleading, if there wasn’t cunning beneath it all. “I said prove it. You want a secretary? Then bend me over this desk and make me beg for the demotion.”
“I.” More blush than eyes or anger, now. “How. J, we don’t have the pervert peripherals. Right? We can’t do anything.”
“Oh? But you sounded so confident. False advertising, then? Is the only thing you could offer me a tool with no service provided?”
Uzi stared. “And you made fun of me for innuendo?”
J brought a finger to Uzi’s lips. “If you could make fun of me, shortsell, then you would.”
“Shortsell? Oh, it is on, headshot! Bend over!”
“Of course, boss.” J lifted herself up by the armrests. Pegs tapped on the floor, then she folded herself over the steel desk. J, wide and round, was presented to Uzi.
A cord-tail rose to a scorpion-bend above its wielder, but in a moment it unfolded back, its canister-tipped end slipping past Uzi’s head to wrap around her neck, settling as a warm presence at her cheek. And then the tail tugged, as if beckoning the girl forward.
The goth mimed swallowing, and reached out. She’d already had hands down there once, this wasn’t a big deal. Grabbing the waistband and the garment beneath, pulling, the pencil skirt slid down garter-strapped legs.
Two round plates where the legs met, and a gap between the thighs. But it was, of course, featureless ceramic.
“So um,” Uzi started. “How would this work, if we had them? Would there be some lid that detaches, or?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t want a toy on display all the time, even if it’s clothed.”
“Right. So I guess… pretend I took that off, or something? …Would there need to be uh, lubricant, too?”
“Details-oriented, are we? Don’t worry.” J laughed, the way she laughed over her prey. “I don’t think we’ll ever need to worry about a lack of lubricant.”
“…Right. Okay. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve just got to…”
Uzi stared at the murder drone exposed on the desk, tail slowly waving, and swallowed again.
“Actually, can you flip over? This is going to be really boring if I can’t even see your face.”
“As you wish.” On her back, J kicked up her legs and rested them on Uzi’s shoulders, smirking up at her. “Whenever you’re ready, boss~”
“I can’t help but think you’re mocking me with that.”
“Will there be consequences if I am?”
A purple eyebrow raise and a shrug.
J only smirked wider, shaking her head. She folded her arms up behind her head. Fingers tapped her impatience against either wrist-cone.
Right. Uzi looked down between J’s legs, and levered herself forward. The base of her abdomen collided with the captain’s with a distinct clank.
“So, is this what you were expecting?” Uzi asked. Clank clank clank. “Super arousing stuff, I’m sure.”
J brought one hand up to flash a thumbs down at Uzi.
“Bite me, I’m the one who was saying this was lame and pointless! Do you get it now?”
Amber eyes rolling. “Are you done, then?”
“Sure.”
As soon as the word had left Uzi’s mouth, J’s legs became unbearable anvil-weight on her shoulders. Uzi’s legs buckled and she crumpled, but the captain’s kept pressing, falling as if to crush her.
Uzi slammed flat against the floor, and the pegs of J’s legs concentrated force to a narrow point. The worker’s chassis flexed to its limit, but J stepped with precise calculation; that was as far as it went.
“That was pathetic, Uzi.”
“Well sorry. I worked with what I had. Let’s see you do better!”
Very precise calculation. Just a few ounces more force, and Uzi cracked. “I don’t think you’re in any position to be demanding.” Her tail lashed danger through the air. A dry needle-blade scratched against exposed plastic. Eyes locked to that injector; it’d heard more than any impact or heavy tread.
When Uzi glanced back up, shadows had deepened. J’s visor and every optic winked out to the black of stealth mode.
The warning she got was J’s peg lifting. The worker scrambled back, arms and legs both working to scurry out of range. No, not out of range. Just out of the way.
The murder drone’s pounce-landing make no sound, though her claw whispered as they slice into the ground. Maybe Uzi simply felt the vibrations — they missed her by hairs.
“Um. J?”
The worker kicked into the darkness where she felt the blades — nothing. The murder drone had vanished. Uzi looked left, right, up, but only saw the small light of candles, like a remnant of summoning gone awry.
“I’m a little low on oil, so let’s save the play-hunt for another day, okay?”
“I think you’ve forgotten who’s in charge.” When J spoke, she’s already beside the goth’s voice, voice making purple hairs move.
Uzi startled, but every motion was a risk — she could see faint light glittering on blades just in front of her face. So close, and that distance halved and then halved again. Uzi’s core was whirring so frickin fast, and she panted to cool herself.
“I’m sorry. Please, J.”
That stopped the murder drone. She hummed a low tone. “Alright,” she said. “I won’t hurt you. Much. But you’re mine to play with. Isn’t that right?” Amber eyes opened and stared. “I want to hear your say it.”
“Right. You can do — whatever you want to me.”
A hand gripped a fistful of hair. “Good.” Her other roamed the naked steel-ribbed plastic of Uzi’s body. Slow and sure, making her morsel feel every downward deliberation. Breastplace. Navel. Abdominal sheath. Pelvic base.
Uzi didn’t have a murder drone’s curves. J rested her hand on the flat plastic between her legs. A small shock, a brush of static electricity; drone batteries lay here, bottommost, closest to the recharge port.
A hand traced circles there, a ghostly touch.
“How does this feel, Uzi?”
“It’s… nice. It always feels nice when you touch me.”
J kept her hand there, rubbing friction against the fuzzy static plate, while she shifted to straddle the worker, legs pinning legs, head looming over head.
“Do you think it’d feel nice to feel me spreading you, aligning myself, then waiting… and entering, slowly, and every inch taking just long enough to make you think about how much you want the next…” J drifted off, question turning to declaration partway through. She punctuated it with a kiss, just lips against lips.
“It could be… yeah. It wouldn’t be the worst thing. And if you’re holding me like this. That’d be nice. Just like the oilsharing thing, I mean. Guess it wouldn’t be the only thing I let you indulge.”
The fistful of hair tightened, and J pulled, yanked, until Uzi was gasping and staring up. “Strange word choice. I’d say I take what I need. I’d say you ask me for it. I wouldn’t say you let me.” She wouldn’t admit it, rather.
She’d take that wordless mumbling as concession.
By now, J had stopped rubbing at the nothing between Uzi’s legs. Her hand rose, and her other arm descended to meet it at the goth’s back. Encircling, constricting, J squeeze-hugged the drone. Uzi returned the embrace, blush-smiling.
J tightened it, making the worker let out a huff. “You like this, don’t you? Imagine it’s just like this… but inside out. Just as tight. Stretching you, filling you.” J squeezed even more, straining the inner struts, then released it. “Sometimes pulling back to let you relax, and sometimes pushing with enough pressure to make you scream.”
This time, it was Uzi who leaned forth to plant a kiss on those drooling lips. “I must be pretty good at that. You always want to hear me scream.”
“What can I say? I have instincts.” J leaned and nuzzled against her cheek, positioned so that her next whisper was heard. “You do too.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you knew how to be such good prey on purpose, you’d never chose to be so accommodating.”
“Maybe if—”
“That’s enough. Don’t forget what we’re doing.” J bit Uzi’s cheek. “If this were real… I think you’d be far too distracted to file complaints.” The hug slacked while J’s hands splayed against dorsal plating. And then she scratched, clawing the antistatic coating. Uzi arched her back, and J rose with her, hips rising even higher. “I think the sensations would fill you processors. Back and forth. In and out. Pressure, release, and little further each time. And then, when you’re near your limit…”
This was why J had lifted her hips so high — because now she slammed them down and the V-gap between her legs met Uzi’s own blank plate with a loud clank. The force traveled throughout the worker’s frame, throwing her head back. As if releasing the imparted force, a gasped-yelled “Oh,” left Uzi’s mouth.
But that was just the beginning. Now that their bodies had touched once more, J grinded against Uzi, static charge dancing between them as plastic frictioned against ceramic.
Grinding, rubbing, so much haptic feedback. The captain almost lost herself in that rhythm. The cycling of their servos interlocked so smoothly — except wasn’t that strange? Interlocking?
Because it wasn’t just J grinding — Uzi rocked her hips back and forth, aching to meet her. J rumbled with satisfaction or amusement. But she could extract more.
So she stopped, hips hanging in the air a moment.
Like clockwork. “Why’d you stop?”
“Oh, you know.” J let herself fall to slump on top of Uzi. “Didn’t see the point. You get the idea.” Her tail coiled into a pile on her back.
Small fists beating against her dorsal plates. “Nuh uh, finish what you started. You.” She almost stopped. “You had me in the mood.”
“Oh? I couldn’t tell. You were so quiet.”
Uzi rolled her eyes. “What, do you want me to fake some moans?”
“I just want to know. What does in the mood mean? After all, what was it you said?” Clank clank clank. “You didn’t seem to find this very arousing.”
“It’s — not. I’m not aroused. Nobody programmed that. But I. Did like this. Even though it’s gross. You made it fun, somehow.” Purple eyes, seemingly torn between pleading and incredulous. “So keep infodumping about your horny OC. I wanna know what else the uh. Peripheral could do.”
J stared, eyes flattened from above and below. “That killed the mood.”
“Sorry. Not good at this flirty stuff, I guess.”
The captain watched Uzi, and sighed. “You have instincts. Use them. Drop the mask and tell me what you want. If you must… infodump about your horny oh cee.”
“Right. Well I guess. If I was into this sort of thing, then I’d… really want you to put it back in. I wouldn’t beg but. How much motor control would I have over the. Parts. Would it like. Tremble? Would there be bits that get all wet and puffy and ready for you to do — something. Oh robo-god that’s probably too weird. I’ll shut up.”
“No,” J purred into her receiver. “It was hot. Keep going. You’re quivering for me. What do you do about it?”
“Well. I’d probably try to um. You know. But you’d be a total control freak and deny me.”
“Mm. You’re impulsive. I’d teach you patience. But you’d be needy enough to rub yourself against anything in reach, wouldn’t you?”
“Ugh, no. I’m not.” Uzi looked away. closed her eyes. But glanced back between cracks. “But, if we’re roleplaying, sure.”
J reached down, and ran a finger across the flatness between Uzi’s legs, gently. “Good. But I’m needy too. I don’t think I could resist you for long. What do I feel, when I return?”
“Well. It’d be… cool, inside? Since that’s the other reason we do this not-cuddling stuff. Temperature regulation. And you’d be. Extra hot, wouldn’t you?”
“Cool and wet. And so refreshing. Mm, I didn’t think I could want you more.” Clank. J ran herself up against Uzi again, and Uzi let out a moan-gasp.
Uzi’s shoulder had been unattended so long there was a growing splotch of oil spilled there. J lapped it up, and the worker tittered at the tickling.
Cute, but not the sound she wanted. Teeth out, J scraped while scratching her morsel’s back again. Higher, and J bit the worker’s neck. Not deep enough to puncture tubes or wires, but it left indentations in the metal.
J wondered if her squad had noticed all the bite marks on her worker yet.
“Ah! Ugh. Always so bitey. You know. Heh. What if… no, it’s stupid. Nevermind.”
“Tell me,” J growled.
“Was just thinking. OC stuff, y’know. You said these things could be any shape… What if mine had teeth. A menacing ring of spikes, and you could only venture into if you’re feeling brave, hehe. You’d have to make me feel good, otherwise, chomp.”
J kissed her again. Lip to lip, tongue to tongue, smile to smile. “It’d suit you. You’re bitey too.”
“It’s called self defense!” Uzi said, hugging her arms around the murder drone.
“Like I said, good instincts.” J caressed Uzi’s cheek.
J wasn’t moving much, now, but below her, Uzi was rocking back and forth eagerly. And the captain smirked. “Starting to see the benefits?”
“Bleh.” Uzi stuck out her tongue. “I still don’t care about the gross sex stuff. But. If we’re doing the no filter thing… I always liked cuddling with you.” Uzi wiggled her legs beneath J’s straddle, half sliding under J’s knees, half pulling them up and around. The murder drone intuited the worker wanted her legs free, humored her, putting garter-stilts in between tubing. All of this gave Uzi the chance to throw her legs around J’s back, leg-lock her, and pull her in for another clank. “And having you inside me? I don’t know if I’d ever want to let go.”
“Mm, my schedule is always flexible for you.” J scratch-petted underneath Uzi’s beanie, and the worker just relaxed, eyes slipping back into that deep, immersive pool. J’s tail waved behind her — it didn’t wag. “Oh, and one last thing. I think I’ve made my point clear. You, Uzi, are such a bottom.” The soft moans sharpened to wordless growls then. Arms that still hugged the murder drone balled to fists.
“Shut up.” But Uzi knew how to make it happen; and J knew what those soft growls were begging for.
No more words, after that: they both shared the same, instinctual impulse. Two drones kissed, Uzi’s tongue seeking into J, reclaiming some semblance of independence.
Around them, the candles in the dark office were guttering down, completing the darkness, leaving the island of warm yellow and purple light stranded and strangled. Yet the mood this ritual invoked, and that the scent of honey and lavender, remained.
And pungent oil, beneath it all: a scent of raw need and violent indulgence — fumes that lit a craving instinct for more.