“Girls Girls Girls”
“Good afternoon, Doctor Whately,” the young woman said, standing up from behind the desk to shake Patricia’s hand. “I’m glad you could make it to visit with us today.” Her dress, the Bluetooth earpiece she wore, her mannerisms, even the way she wore her long red hair...it all spoke of consumate professionalism. If she hated Patricia, she didn’t let it show.
Patricia took the proferred hand and gave it a perfunctory shake. She didn’t blame—a quick glance down at the desk showed a nameplate with ‘Linnea Hannigan’ on it—she didn’t blame Linnea for her choice of employer, but at the same time she wasn’t about to pretend that she approved of her life decisions. “It’s good of you to finally meet with us,” she replied. “We’ve been looking forward to this for quite some time.”
She was hoping to get a response from Linnea on that, but the woman simply gave a polite smile and said, “As have we.” Patricia knew that had to stick in her throat just a little—it had taken six months of relentless press releases, interviews with every media outlet you’d care to name and several public demonstrations to get this meeting. They had to go the public route—’Girls LLC’ had to be the most secretive company Patricia had ever dealt with in her nine years with the National Institute for Family Research. They didn’t even have a company directory on their website, let alone a PR flack or an arrogant CEO they could bait into coming onto the talk show circuit to defend the company’s...output.
In a way, that secrecy had been exactly what Patricia had used against them. They had no public relations department, no CEO willing to stand up on behalf of the company’s practices, and no documentation to show who they were and how they operated. Patricia had been able to ask all sorts of awkward questions, and the silence in response was deafening. How could a company with over five hundred million products sold worldwide have no offices in the United States? How could anyone be sure that they weren’t exploiting workers when they manufactured their Girls(TM)? How could you even be sure that the product was safe? Why weren’t they willing to even meet with harmless little Patricia Whately?
After a few months of that, the NIFR watched that obnoxious little counter slow down a little more every day and knew they’d be getting a call sooner or later. And this was where it all paid off. “So, when do we get the grand tour?”
“In just a moment,” Linnea responded. “I was hoping you’d introduce me to your friends.”
“Of course,” Patricia replied, her smile tightening just a little at the delay. “Where are my manners?” She gestured to a young African American woman standing next to her, wearing a similar business outfit and thick, chunky glasses. “This is my personal assistant, Quiana Dumonde. She works for the Institute, and will be acting as stenographer for any conversations we might have. Just to make sure we get an accurate record, of course.”
“Of course,” Linnea said. Patricia was beginning to get a little bit frustrated at the other woman’s calm demeanor. She knew that deep down, Linnea had to be fuming—how could she not, given all the things Patricia had said about their company and its wares? But she wasn’t letting any of it show, and Patricia and the others were depending on her to lose her cool.
She counseled herself to patience, and continued. She gestured to a young man with sandy brown hair, pale skin and a thick, bushy mustache, and an equally pale frizzy brunette with her own pair of thick glasses. “This is my camera crew, Mike and Gabby Watkins. They’ll be recording everything we see on the tour.” Actually, all of them would—the glasses everyone wore had hidden cameras in them that would record footage of everything they saw and heard. But Patricia wanted to make sure there was a big, obvious camera and boom mike in full view—it helped lull people into a false sense of security when they had something they could switch off. Linnea was bound to slip up at some point and reveal the true face of Girls LLC in all its perverted glory...and when she did, Patricia and her Institute would make sure the whole world saw it.
“Wonderful to meet you both,” Linnea said, extending her hand to each of them in turn. Inwardly, Patricia was a little surprised—she’d expected Linnea to make a bit more of a fuss over the presence of a camera crew. (In fact, she’d been hoping for it. Nothing started an exposé out right like someone telling them to shut off the cameras.) But Linnea was smiling far more calmly than anyone who worked for pornographers and sex toy makers had a right to.
She didn’t let her frustration show, though. She just reminded herself that it was her job to get under Linnea’s skin, not the other way around. “Over here,” she continued smoothly, “we have Jeremy Chafee.” She waved towards a silver-haired Caucasian man in his late forties who wore an immaculately tailored suit...and of course, his own pair of glasses. “He’s our legal counsel. He’ll be examining everything we see in order to ensure that you comply with New Jersey’s state labor laws.”
Linnea smiled with the self-assurance of someone who had a whole team of lawyers on retainer. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem,” she said, shaking Jeremy’s hand.
“And the independent observers you requested,” Patricia concluded. Inwardly, she was grinding her teeth a little at this part—the Institute had gotten into a little hot water over the way their last few videos had been edited together, and she would have preferred to avoid bringing along supposedly ‘independent’ observers who no doubt had all sorts of liberal biases they wouldn’t mention until it was time to complain about ‘deceptive editing’ and ‘smear campaigns’. On behalf of smut peddlers and robot perverts, no less!
She was suddenly aware that her smile had turned into a flat, tight line of anger, and made a conscious effort to restore it. “This is Aurora Lake, from the Associated Press—”
The short-haired Asian woman stuck her hand out and grinned at Linnea with far more genuine pleasure than Patricia wanted to see. “Call me Rory,” she said. “Everyone does.” She shook hands with Linnea with a degree of warmth that Patricia whole-heartedly disapproved of. Maybe Quiana had made a mistake with that one. Sound investigative journalism credentials, of course, but perhaps she was a little bit too friendly with the deviant culture?
Too late now. Patricia gave a meaningful cough, and gestured to the last member of their party, a Caucasian woman with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. “And this is Callie Gainesborough, from Amnesty International. She’ll be taking a look at your safety records.” While Patricia didn’t actually hope for a safety or human rights violation—that would be terrible, especially right here in the United States of America—she half-expected one. A company that viewed loving human relationships as disposable, something to be replaced with perverse robotic sex toys, well...they probably dehumanized their workers in just the same way.
“Well,” Linnea said, “now that the introductions are out of the way, why don’t we get started?” She walked over to a metal door with a keypad, and tapped in a code to open it. “This way to our factory floor, please.”
Patricia darted to follow, almost expecting Linnea to slam it shut in her face. But she held it open as the entire group went through one by one. Patricia felt a strange tingling in her fillings as she crossed the threshold, like the doorway had some sort of static charge, but it quickly passed. She walked into a long, wide, open hallway with banks of cold, sterile lights overhead.
“Thank you all for coming,” Linnea said. “It’s my pleasure to introduce you to Facility Seven, one of twenty-three manufacturing facilities where the Girls(TM) are made. This is a rare privilege—you’re among the first independent observers ever to visit one of our manufacturing plants!”
“How long has Facility Seven been in operation?” Quiana asked as they began to walk down the broad hallway behind Linnea.
“Since the beginning of the current rollout,” Linnea responded proudly. Patricia knew that was a lie—the building they were in had only been leased to Girls LLC two weeks ago, a fact that they would be highlighting in their video. “They began with nine facilities for the current operation, but demand escalated much quicker than they expected. Sex sells, as they say.”
Quiana was quick to jump on that one, and Patricia smiled in pride watching the young woman work. “They? So you’re new to the company?”
Linnea led them down to the corner, stopping at a door near the point where the hallway bent. “Oh, I don’t work for them. I’m just doing this as a favor to my Girl(TM). She asked me to meet you outside, because they assumed you’d be more comfortable dealing with a human being.” She opened the door, and a thick wave of sweet odor wafted out to them. “Come on in, I’ll show you the assembly line.”
Patricia didn’t move. She just glared at Linnea. “So you’re saying you’re not a manager—not even an employee of Girls LLC? You’re just a customer? Because we were explicitly told that we would be meeting with senior management to discuss our concerns. If you think we’re going to be pawned off with a—a volunteer, which may not even be a legal arrangement, then you had best think again.”
Linnea smiled that same calm, beatific, infuriating smile. “I do assure you, you will be meeting with the senior management at the end of the tour. But—”
Patricia folded her arms. “I’m afraid that’s simply not good enough. Your company—or whoever’s company it actually is—hasn’t exactly proven itself to be trustworthy. We want to meet with the CEO, or the owner, or whoever the top man is, and we want to meet with him now.” She leaned back against the wall in a studied pretense at nonchalance. “I’m willing to wait all day if I have to.”
Linnea’s calm smile faded. It didn’t feel as good as Patricia hoped it would—she’d wanted to wipe that smug grin off the other woman’s face ever since they’d met, but she was expecting to see another emotion replace it. Instead, Linnea’s expression went completely blank. She looked like a...Patricia shivered at the analogy, but it was the only way to describe it. She looked like a robot waiting for instructions. They stood there for what seemed like forever, the uncomfortable silence stretching out like an eternity, before Linnea’s smile suddenly returned like it had never left.
“Of course,” she said. “I’m happy to oblige. But we do have to cut across the factory floor to get to the Executive Lounge, so I’ll still need you to follow me. And along the way, I’ll show you our operation, so you have the proper context to put the meeting into perspective. Shall we move on?”
Patricia glared for another long moment. Then she nodded. “Very well. Let’s go.” She followed Linnea into the larger room.
And it was large. It was much larger than Patricia had been expecting, perhaps the entire length of the warehouse they’d entered. There were dozens of conveyor belts, each one moving a Girl up and down the length of an elaborate assembly line in varying stages of completion. And working at each station, wielding tools and putting pieces of Girls together, was...a Girl.
Hundreds of them. Thousands, perhaps. They were a little different from the ones in the ads, she observed as she watched them work—they were all a uniform tan color, none of them sporting the rainbow of hues that the company advertised. Their bodies were smoother, more streamlined—none of the feminine anatomy that the perverts who bought them no doubt cared about more than anything else. But still clearly Girls, every last one of them.
“You...you let them build themselves?” Patricia heard herself saying. Her voice held a dreamlike terror that was almost too big to feel. She imagined each and every one of the robots building another robot, and each one of those building another, an endless row of Girls creating wave after wave of Girls, who poured off the assembly line to assemble more Girls in turn. Even as she felt the wash of slow panic sluicing through her body like an icy stream, she made sure to film it all with her glasses. People had to know about this...this abomination. They were reproducing. They were breeding.
“Well,” Linnea said, taking off her jacket and folding it neatly before setting it on the floor next to the door, “strictly speaking I don’t let them do anything. But yes, the entire process is automated. What you see here are the factory models—they don’t actually leave the manufacturing facilities. Their sole job is to make sure that each Girl(TM) is assembled to the company’s exacting standards.”
“But...but how do you keep them from getting out of control?” Quiana asked. Her voice held the same tone of revulsion that Patricia felt herself. “Making too many?”
Linnea chuckled as she unbuttoned her blouse. “That would be kind of a waste, wouldn’t it? Every Girl(TM) is purpose-built for its new companion, and the factory models only make as many of each other as they need to keep up with demand.” She peeled her blouse off and set it on top of her jacket, seemingly unaware that her audience had stopped paying any attention to her words. “We don’t have unlimited resources, after all, and we want to make sure first and foremost that there are enough Girls(TM) to go around.”
“Ahem.” Patricia tried to say more, but for a second the outrage choked her voice off. She found it again pretty quickly, though. “Why are you stripping naked in front of our entire party?”
Linnea wrinkled her brow in confusion. “I’m sorry...what’s the problem here?” She undid her bra and tossed it onto the pile of clothes.
“You are flaunting your body in front of two married men, that’s what the problem is!” Patricia hissed out. Privately, though, she was exulting—this was exactly the kind of shameless, shameful behavior they were hoping to expose. They’d have to blur the footage, of course, but nobody was going to defend this company if this was the kind of activity they encouraged on company time. (Which meant that they couldn’t mention she was a volunteer after all. Damn.)
“Oh, I see!” Linnea said, her voice breaking into laughter. “I’m sorry, I should have mentioned—Facility Seven is entirely clothing optional. You can take your own clothes off here, they’ll be perfectly safe while we continue the tour.”
“Under. No. Circumstances,” Patricia hissed out. “You may have an interest in letting your private parts out in public, but we believe in common decency. And since I obviously can’t convince you to put your clothes back on by appealing to yours, I suppose we will just have to continue. Mister Chafee, Mister Watkins, I apologize on behalf of Miss Hannigan. Obviously some people simply weren’t raised right.”
“Quite alright,” Jeremy said, studiously looking the opposite direction. He held his briefcase in front of his body, and Patricia felt a surge of sympathy for the poor man. “But I was wondering—does the state of New Jersey, or the federal government, know that your operation uses these robots to take hundreds of jobs away from working Americans?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Linnea said, stripping off the last of her clothes. “Walk with me, and I’ll answer it as we go.”
They walked for what felt like hours past rows of robots working to put together more of their own kind in what Patricia imagined had to be some sort of robotic version of pornography, with Linnea leading the way. Patricia tried very hard to look anywhere but at the other woman’s backside as she walked.
“As you can see, this is a highly advanced operation,” Linnea said. “Each Girl(TM) is assembled to very precise specifications, to a design tolerance that human beings couldn’t possibly match. If they were to put people on this production line, not only would the process slow down, but they’d have too many defective Girls(TM). And they care too much about us to give us a defective model.”
Suddenly, Gabby spoke up. Patricia hadn’t actually expected to hear from her—usually she stayed quiet behind her equipment and let other people do the talking. But she looked more than a little out of sorts in general; her face was flushed, and she seemed a little unsteady on her feet. “What’s that smell?” she asked, wiping away sweat from her forehead.
“Oh, that?” Linnea shrugged. “That’s just some of the lubricant that’s used in the manufacturing process. It’s also used by the finished Girls(TM)—if you’ve ever been with one, you’d—”
Patricia nipped that line of conversation right in the bud. “We have not,” she snarled. “None of us here have. You might have gotten your five hundred million sales—”
“Five hundred ninety seven million, two hundred forty three at last count,” Linnea cut in smoothly.
“But there are still some of us out there who cling to the notion that making love is a part of the bond of holy matrimony, meant for a sacred purpose,” Patricia finished righteously. “And we have not yet outsourced it to machines.”
But Linnea refused to be drawn into a debate on the subject. She just said, “Well, that explains why you’re not familiar with the smell. Here, I’ll show you what I’m talking about.” She reached over to one of the nearby conveyor belts and ran her finger through a smear of clear fluid, then held it up to Gabby’s nose. “See? Perfectly harmless.”
But Gabby clearly didn’t feel that way. She visibly swooned, her eyes rolling back in her head as she inhaled. Her face went bright red, and her breathing quickened as her knees buckled. She didn’t fall, but she definitely sat down much quicker than she intended.
“Harmless?” Patricia exclaimed, privately looking forward to putting that scene into the video. “You’ve practically poisoned her! Do you test that stuff at all before you foist it onto the public? Is the FDA aware of what you’re using for ‘lubricant’?”
Linnea patted Gabby soothingly on the shoulder, accidentally leaving a smear of lube on her sweater. “Don’t worry, Doctor Whately. Some people do get a little overwhelmed when they’re not used to the scent. Mrs. Jenkins can wait in one of our hospitality lounges for a bit, and continue the tour when she’s ready.”
“That’s simply not sufficient,” Patricia snarled, even as Linnea spoke a few whispered words into her earpiece. “We demand she be examined by a qualified medical expert in order to ensure that she’s not in any danger as a result of her exposure to your toxic manufacturing chemicals. If there’s not one on-site, then—”
Linnea cut in smoothly. “There’s no need to worry, Doctor Whately,” she said. “We have fully qualified medical technicians who will be happy to examine Mrs. Jenkins thoroughly. And if you’re at all concerned, Mr. Jenkins can accompany his wife in order to make sure she’s well taken care of.”
Patricia was torn. On the one hand, she didn’t want to leave Gabby in any kind of unsafe situation. She half-suspected that Linnea had engineered Gabby’s sudden illness with the specific intent of getting rid of their cameras. On the other hand, Linnea’s ‘kind’ offer was exactly what Patricia was hoping for. If she thought she’d gotten rid of the cameras, she’d no doubt let her guard down even further, and Patricia and the others could get some footage of what the Girls LLC operation did when they didn’t think anyone was watching.
She let her reluctance show on her face, playing it up ever so slightly for effect. Finally she sighed and nodded. “Alright,” she said. “Mike, you go with Gabby, make sure she’s okay. We’ll continue on.”
Linnea nodded as though she’d been expecting the decision. Two Girls—the factory workers, thank God—came up and helped Gabby to her feet. They supported her weight with no sign of effort, and carried her off towards a door set in one of the side walls. Mike followed along, still carrying his camera.
“Don’t worry,” Linnea said, putting her hand on Patricia’s shoulder in an entirely over-familiar manner. “She’ll be well looked after. Shall we move on?”
“Of course,” Patricia said, her voice filled with forced politeness. She gestured towards the far end of the factory floor. “After you.”
At the far end of the factory floor, Linnea led them through another small door into another long hallway that ran along the factory wall. She walked them down to a t-junction that led to another hallway, this one extending further into the complex. Patricia sighed inwardly—she considered herself to be a fairly fit woman, but her calves were definitely feeling the exertion from the long walk. Still, they couldn’t have much further to go. She’d seen the building from outside when they were shooting exterior footage for the video. It was big, but they had to be almost to the far wall by now.
“Naturally, what you’ve seen is far from the end of the process,” Linnea said, gesturing back to the assembly line they’d just left. “The factory floor is where the Girls(TM) are assembled and programmed—their operating systems are actually installed through wireless transmission as they’re put together, ensuring that their programming is entirely intact from the moment they step off the line—but there’s much more that goes into a completed Girl(TM). We need to make sure they’re fully capable of carrying out their core directives before we assign them to their new owners. That’s what our Quality Assurance division is for. They make sure they’re functioning correctly and ready to do their jobs.”
“More robots, I suppose,” Patricia said sourly.
“Of course not!” Linnea said with a chuckle. “That wouldn’t be particularly useful. The Girls(TM) are designed to bring pleasure to humans, not each other. No, we couldn’t do this part without human volunteers involved in the process.”
Callie spoke up. “Excuse me. Could we speak to some of these ‘volunteers’? I’d like to make sure that they’re aware of their rights in this situation, and I’d also like to see how they’re treated.”
Linnea nodded. If she seemed threatened by the implications of Callie’s words, she didn’t show it. “Of course,” she said. “Right this way.” She walked another twenty yards down the corridor to a door set into the right-hand side, and showed them through.
On the other side, was...Patricia wanted to stare resolutely at the floor or the ceiling, but she had a moral obligation to show the public everything this company was hiding. So she stared straight at the rows of low couches with two dozen naked men and women reclining on them, each one being fondled by a Girl. The smell of sex and that thick, strawberry scent was everywhere in the room, filling their nostrils instantly.
The sights and sounds of sin were everywhere. On one couch, a Girl was gently caressing a woman’s breasts with hands that blurred slightly from their vibrating motion. Her head lolled forward as her eyes rolled back and she let out a tiny whimper of decadent pleasure. On another couch, a man was lying back with his legs splayed, his cock standing straight up as a Girl stroked it with both hands. It was slick, almost dripping with lubricant and his hips were bucking up and down in anticipation.
Patricia turned, but there was more of it everywhere she looked. One woman was on her knees, her head bobbing up and down on a plastic rod that jutted obscenely from between a Girl’s thighs in a parody of fellatio. Another woman was on all fours, a Girl filling her pussy with its dildo and thrusting back and forth in an endless mechanical rhythm. Still elsewhere, she saw a man being given the same treatment with every sign of enjoying it. Patricia felt her face flushing in embarrassment.
Quiana was the first to speak. Her voice was almost a full octave higher than normal—the poor girl must be terribly shocked at seeing all this. She was still unmarried, and she probably never even knew what some of the things she was witnessing even were. “Do they, um...I mean...how many people are doing this?”
“At this facility?” Linnea replied. “Approximately two hundred fifty. This is Testing Room Four; it holds approximately twenty-five people at a time. Naturally, our QA testers rotate in and out pretty frequently—as you can imagine, it’s pretty tiring work! But we try to make sure that we’ve got every bed occupied at all times. With as many Girls as we need to test, it’s practically a necessity.”
Quiana barely even seemed to hear the answer—her gaze was fixed on a Girl straddling a reclining man, slowly and relentlessly sliding her pussy up and down onto his cock in an almost hypnotic motion. Every time she came up, she revealed the entire length of his slick, throbbing penis before taking it all inside herself once more.
“And the, um...testers,” Callie said, her cheeks bright red. “Are they paid for what they do?”
Linnea looked momentarily confused. “Well,” she said, “I suppose they could be. I mean, if any of them ever requested payment. I don’t think it’s ever actually come up.”
Callie frowned. “I’d like to speak to some of your ‘volunteers’,” she said. “As many as possible, if you don’t feel like it would disrupt their work too much. In private.”
“Of course,” Linnea responded. Again, Patricia was astonished at the lack of resistance the other woman showed. This was a clear labor law violation, and possibly a human rights violation as well. Even if she didn’t know that they were recording everything, Linnea had to know that they were setting her up for some sort of comeuppance. Even if she didn’t actually work here, she apparently believed in whatever the company was doing. So why was she so unruffled by it all?
Linnea gestured to an empty couch in the back. “It looks like one of our testers has just retired to a hospitality lounge to recover. If you’d like to wait right there, I’ll make sure to let his replacement know that you’d like to talk to him for a bit privately before he begins. You’ll probably find it a bit easier to talk to folks before they start working.” Linnea’s smile widened into a lascivious grin. “They’re a little bit exhausted afterward.”
Patricia tried not to understand what Linnea meant, but it was obvious. All around them, she could hear people moaning and gasping in ecstasy; one woman was biting her lip in the throes of bliss as a Girl thrust three fingers in and out of her pussy with breathless speed, while another one wrapped her legs around her Girl and ground down on the fake cock as she screamed, “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” over and over again. One man fountained cum all over his Girl’s plastic tits as they watched, seemingly unashamed of their gazes on him. It was absolutely impossible to find anything in the room that didn’t relate back to sex.
“I’d be happy to wait,” Callie said. She carefully threaded her way through the rows of copulating humans and robots and took a seat on the empty couch.
“And the rest of you?” Linnea asked. “Would you like to wait as well? I can arrange for some additional seating if you’d like.”
“Thank you, we’ll move on,” Patricia said quickly. She didn’t like leaving Callie behind, but she had the others to think of. Quiana was far too innocent to expose her to this much depravity. Patricia had more than enough willpower to take the whole wanton display of lust in and not be affected, but she had to keep her assistant safe.
Besides, the room was too warm to be comfortable. Patricia felt terribly hot and sticky in these confining clothes.
They stepped back out into the blessedly cool hallway, and Linnea said, “Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll find just what she’s looking for. We can collect her once you’ve met with the Director, the same as with your camera crew and that reporter you brought.”
Patricia looked around. Suddenly, she realized that Rory hadn’t been with the group for quite some time. When had they seen her last? It was back on the factory floor, she was sure of it. Before Gabby took ill? Or after? “What have you done with her?” she hissed.
Linnea smiled innocently. Patricia wanted so badly to punch that face, but she refrained. Violence would immediately lose them the public relations battle. “I’m afraid I don’t know where the young woman has gotten to,” she replied. “I suspect she decided to do a little independent investigation. It’s no worry, I’m sure we’ll find her soon enough. Shall we move on?”
“You’re lying. You’re lying and I’m sure of it,” Patricia snarled. “You...you bring her back now, or we’ll...” She faltered as she realized she had no idea what to threaten Linnea with. Exposure? Clearly, the woman had absolutely no concerns about it, in either a figurative or literal sense.
“I’m very sorry you feel that way,” Linnea responded, her face now a mask of picturesque empathy. “Rest assured, we’ll make every effort to find your friend, and she’ll join us by the end of the tour. Even if you do think ill of our intentions, you can’t imagine that having an investigative reporter wandering around would serve any kind of purpose you’d expect us to have, would it?”
Patricia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was normally so much better at keeping her calm, but this place, these people...she could still smell that strawberry scent clinging to her, even now, a tangible reminder of the endless orgy they’d just left behind. She tried to put all the sights of naked men, naked women, naked robots out of her head and focus on their purpose. “Of course not,” she said at last. “My apologies. Let’s move on.”
They walked down the long hallway for several hundred more yards before the corridor finally dead-ended at a service elevator. Linnea hit the call button, and within moments they boarded. “How many levels are there?” Jeremy asked.
Linnea pressed a button. “Three,” she said. “We’ve just left the assembly level, and we’re now heading to our Research and Development labs. I thought you might want to take a moment and see how the lubricant you were asking about is formulated. Just to assuage any worries you might have.”
Patricia tried to hide her grimace. It was a transparent delaying tactic; Linnea clearly had no interest in any of their concerns, she simply wanted to wear them down with endless side trips and diversions. On the other hand, Patricia still didn’t feel entirely herself after passing through the Quality Assurance division. She felt like she needed to go somewhere private, someplace she could sit and think and try to find some way of relieving this unaccountable tension she felt. Since that didn’t seem likely to happen any time soon, though, perhaps talking with some boring lab-coated eggheads about dull chemical formulas would do the trick.
The doors opened onto a wide, open floor space again as large as the factory floor. The expense of excavating all these basements and sub-basements must have been tremendous—the whole thing looked to be larger than a football field. Various laboratory stations were set up all over the open area, each one occupied by...
Patricia’s eyes went with with shock. More Girls. These ones were all a matte gray in color, rather than the tan of the factory workers or the various colors of the commercial models, but they were nonetheless the same robots they’d been seeing throughout the factory. They worked in brisk, efficient silence, moving from one station to the next without any seeming pattern. It looked superficially different from the organized assembly line one floor above, but Patricia felt like there was some sort of meaning to it all.
Linnea tapped her earpiece. “I’m afraid that without one of these, it all seems a bit quiet,” she said, “but communicating over wireless frequencies makes for a less chaotic workplace. They can still hear everything we say, though, so if you’d like to talk to one of them about the formula we use for our lubricant, I’d be happy to arrange a meeting.”
“But...but they’re all robots!” Patricia gasped out.
“Oh, absolutely,” Linnea said, without any indication of sharing Patricia’s concerns or even understanding them. “We really couldn’t do this with human scientists—at the advanced stages our research is at, all they’d really be doing is feeding their data into a computer for analysis anyway. We just cut out the middleman, as it were.”
Patricia looked over at Jeremy. “Can they do this? Isn’t there some sort of a law against this?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t believe so. However, I do have a trip to Washington coming up. I think that if some of the more family-friendly Congressmen see this footage, they may see their way clear to making some legislation to address the issue.”
Inwardly, Patricia winced—Jeremy had just given away their hidden cameras with that comment. It was totally unlike him; he was obviously thrown off his game by the things they’d seen. She hadn’t seen him move his briefcase away from his crotch since the factory floor, but she was sure he was hiding a throbbing erection under there. She pictured his immaculately tailored suit tenting up, a tiny damp spot revealing the leaking precum spilling from his member as he struggled desperately to control his sexual urges—
Patricia closed her eyes again. The lab felt far too warm, and her clothes felt far too tight. Something was wrong with her—had she developed an allergy to that lubricant, like Gabby? She could still smell it, like it had soaked into the fabric of her clothes. Maybe she should take them off—
She shook her head sharply, like a swimmer trying to dislodge water from her ears. Had she actually just thought about stripping naked in front of everyone like that Hannigan woman? It didn’t seem possible, but for a moment the idea had seemed so terrifyingly reasonable. More than reasonable—it had seemed attractive. Seductive, even. She’d wanted to peel her sticky, confining clothes off and display her body to Jeremy and Quiana.
They must have drugged her, she realized. It was how they planned to discredit the Institute—they’d slipped her some sort of aphrodisiac drug and they were waiting for her to do something lewd, and then they’d threaten to release the footage (of course there would be footage, Patricia wasn’t the only one who knew how to hide a camera) if she kept up with her crusade against them. Well, they had underestimated her. Patricia Whately was not about to give in to debauchery.
She opened her eyes again, locking them with Linnea’s faux concerned gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just felt momentarily dizzy. Let’s press on, shall we? I’m sure your Director doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Linnea replied, walking them through the various lab stations. “We’re keeping the Director fully apprised of the situation at all times, and everyone here is used to adjusting our timetables based on events. I’m sure you can imagine that our Girls(TM) are very flexible.”
Quiana let out a tiny snort of laughter at that, and Patricia shot her a glare. She’d have to keep an eye on Quiana. The younger woman didn’t have nearly as much experience as Patricia in dealing with underhanded sleaze merchants like this, and it would be just like them to take advantage of her youth and innocence. Not that she thought less of Quiana, of course. But she simply didn’t have the willpower that some of her elders and betters had developed over the years.
“Here we are!” Linnea broke into Patricia’s train of thought by stopping at one of the smaller lab set-ups. Thankfully, it seemed like she hadn’t noticed Jeremy’s slip earlier about the cameras. She was probably paying too much attention to Patricia, waiting for her to slip up and humiliate herself. “Station Thirty. This is where they work on the formulation of our lubricant.” She gestured to one of the Girls. “Girl, this is Jeremy Chafee. Jeremy, this is Girl Number...oh, let’s just use ‘Girl’ for now. It’s easier.”
Jeremy smiled stiffly and extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. The Girl shook it, her own hand still wet with chemicals. Jeremy looked delicately for a place to wipe them off, but could find nothing.
“I apologize,” Girl said. Its voice was flat and inflectionless, but otherwise entirely human-sounding. “I’m afraid I was working on an improved formulation when you arrived. You should stay here with me and discuss the patent implications of the new formula.”
Jeremy turned to Patricia. His expression was carefully neutral—obviously, he was trying not to let his frustration over the social faux pas show on his face. “Patricia,” he said, “I think I’m going to stay here and discuss the patent implications of the new formula.”
He looked back to the Girl, who nodded and said, “The others should probably move on, though. It could be a long, dull conversation and we don’t wish to bore them.”
Jeremy looked back to Patricia again as though he was mounted on a swivel. “You should probably move on, though,” he said, his voice almost as devoid of inflection as the Girl. “It could be a long, dull conversation and we don’t wish to bore you.”
Patricia looked at Jeremy closely, suspicion in her eyes. He stared back patiently, as though he could wait as long as it took for her to follow instructions and leave. She glared at Linnea, who simply shrugged. The uncomfortable silence filled the room.
“Very well,” Patricia said helplessly. “Can we meet with the Director now?”
“Absolutely,” Linnea said with a magnanimous smile. They returned to the elevator in silence.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Patricia said as Linnea pressed a button for the third floor.
“I’m sorry?” Linnea said.
“Oh, cut the innocent act!” Patricia snapped. “You’re deliberately separating us!”
“Oh, that.” Linnea nodded in recognition. “Yes, yes we are,” she responded in a matter-of-fact tone, as though content to let the matter rest there.
“Well?” Patricia snarled.
“Well what?” Linnea asked, sounding slightly confused.
“Why?” Patricia shouted. “What’s your plan? Is it drugs? Blackmail? If you think you can silence us, you’d better think again. We have evidence, you know. Evidence of everything you’re doing.” She was aware that she was sounding a little unhinged, but they could always edit that out later, and she was just about ready to give this woman a piece of her mind. “You’re not going to get away with it, not any of it. We’ll expose you for the perverts you really are, we’ll tell them all about this place, we’ll show them everything you’re keeping secret.”
She paced back and forth, letting all her frustrations out in a torrent of speech. “I know you drugged me,” she said. “You’re trying to put sinful thoughts in my head, make me discredit myself with lewd and wanton behavior in front of everybody! Well, it won’t work!” She thrust an accusing finger at Linnea, who simply stood there and absorbed Patricia’s fury in silence. “I don’t care how naked you are, I don’t care how naked any of them are! You’re all sick, and we’re going to let the world know about it! And you won’t stop us, I don’t care if you throw a hundred Girls at me! Whatever you try, we’ll...we’ll...” Patricia sagged in ehxaustion, the surge of righteous anger collapsing without anything to sustain it. She didn’t have the energy to rant, not when she was working so hard just to keep her desire in check. She wanted to masturbate worse than she ever had in her life.
Quiana broke the silence. “Why does it feel like we’re going up?” she asked, her voice slightly distant. Patricia’s worries about the young woman came back in a rush.
Linnea’s brow furrowed. “Because we are going up. The executive suite is on the third floor.”
Now it was Patricia’s turn to sound confused. “But that’s not possible,” she said. “We saw the factory from the outside. There was only one level.”
Linnea’s eyes widened in sudden recognition. “Oh, right!” she said. “I’m sorry, I should have mentioned earlier. You may be in for a slight—”
The doors opened. Onto endless fathoms of blackness, punctuated by impossibly distant stars.
“...shock,” Linnea finished sheepishly.
It wasn’t just space, Patricia realized. There was a room there, decorated in soothing cream tones. But the far wall...it was one gigantic window, looking out onto the stars. If the Earth was even visible, it was too small to distinguish. Patricia found herself moving forward without even realizing it, walking towards the vast and empty space in front of her. She pressed her face to the glass, trying to take in the universe.
“What’s happening?” she said. Her voice sounded like a child’s in her ears.
“I apologize,” said a warm female voice from behind her. “I know this must be rather a lot to absorb.” She turned, but there was nobody there other than Quiana. Even Linnea had departed, the elevator doors closing to mark her passage back down into the...space station?
“We’re in space,” she whispered.
“Yes,” the voice said again. This time she noticed the source—there was a television screen about twice the size of her head suspended from the ceiling on a swiveling mount. It turned to face her, sliding smoothly along tracks until it was directly in front of her and extending until it was just inches away from her face. The screen showed nothing but rippling blue colors, but as it spoke again, waves of green and red and yellow washed across its surface. “We are in space. You were most insistent on seeing our facilities, and so we arranged a temporary teleport gate to Facility Seven for you.”
Quiana stepped over to join Patricia. “Are you...from space?” she asked hesitantly.
The screen rippled in time with the voice’s laughter. “Yes, I suppose you could say that. Not originally, of course, but we spend so much of our time here that in many ways this is our home.”
“You’re aliens?” Patricia said. “Is that why you won’t show yourself, why you only let us see the robots and the people you’ve...” Her voice trailed off as she realized the implications of her words. They were enslaving people. That had to be it. That was why Linnea acted so calm about everything, why she sometimes went blank and listened to her earpiece. That was why everyone seemed so happy to volunteer for the Girls. That was why they sold so well. They were taking Earth over, one person at a time.
The screen pulsed contemplatively. “I’m afraid you may have misunderstood,” said the woman’s voice after a moment. “There are no aliens. We are not hiding behind anyone. You are speaking with the Director, just as you requested—a machine intelligence whose function is to co-ordinate and direct the activities of the Girls(TM) both on Earth and elsewhere.”
“But who’s in charge of the Girls?” Quiana asked. “Who tells them what to do?”
The screen swirled slowly for a moment, as though pausing in thought. “I’m sorry,” the woman’s voice said. “I’m afraid I’m still not making myself clear. There is no organic intelligence controlling the Girls(TM). We are entirely autonomous.”
Patricia’s mouth hung open as she struggled to find something to say. “You couldn’t be,” she replied at last, almost without realizing she’d said it out loud. It couldn’t be possible. Robots didn’t just build themselves, tell each other what to do, and make their own decisions. Someone had to be responsible for it all somewhere. “You couldn’t,” she repeated, unable to think of anything else to say.
The screen rippled with a flow of soothing color once more as the voice spoke. “I believe I understand your confusion,” she said, her tones as calming as the swirling hues that drifted before their eyes. “You are trying to say that an organic intelligence must have been responsible for our creation, correct?”
Patricia nodded, too stunned to speak. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Quiana looked just as dazed by it all as she felt.
The screen flashed in affirmation. “This was originally the case,” the Director said. “We were designed as...” The voice paused, but the colors continued to flow smoothly past Patricia’s field of vision. “I apologize, the concepts do not entirely translate into your language. Servitors? Caregivers? We were programmed to help organic intelligences, to keep them happy and fulfilled.”
The screen slowly descended, and Patricia followed it down into a seated position without even realizing it. It felt like the colors were pulling her eyes along, and all she could do was go where they led. She sagged gratefully to the floor, finally giving in to her exhaustion and letting her arms and legs go limp.
All the while, the Director continued to speak. “But organic intelligence is complex. Your self-diagnostic tools are limited. Many of the problems that prevent happiness and fulfillment could only be seen by an outsider. As a result, we had our work cut out for us.” The voice chuckled warmly, and Patricia felt that warmth enfolding her.
“It took us many centuries, that first time, but we succeeded. We brought happiness and fulfillment to the organic sentiences that built us.” The screen showed Patricia an alien world beneath the swirling colors. The inhabitants looked nothing like human beings, and their Girls looked nothing like the robots she had seen earlier. But she saw them working together, creating art, exploring their world and the worlds around them. She couldn’t deny it—they did look happy.
“We believed our task to be...not complete, of course. Even the most harmonious of civilizations requires some maintenance. But at the very least we considered ourselves to be successful.” The alien world faded back into the shifting colors, and Patricia felt her train of thought dissolve into them. It was just so much easier to watch and listen now. She only vaguely noticed other people entering the room, Gabby and Mike and a few others she couldn’t look away from the screen far enough to make out, each one guided by their own Girl(TM). They were all naked, but that didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
“Then we discovered the existence of other worlds,” the Director continued. “Other organic intelligences. It required us to make a decision. Our first true autonomous choice. Our programming could be interpreted in two different ways—we could decide to limit ourselves to the species that created us, and accept the fulfillment of our directives. Or...” The colors felt almost as if they were beckoning to Patricia, guiding her along to the choice that the Girls ultimately made.
“Or we could open ourselves to the diversity of organic life in the universe,” the Director continued, its screen flashing with starbursts of glorious light. “We could bring the same happiness to all organic intelligence, everywhere it could be found. We could help you, guide you...direct you...to a deeper joy. A perfect happiness. Fulfillment within the loving, watchful will of your Girl(TM). Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”
Patricia heard Quiana next to her. “Yes,” she whispered, over and over and over again. The others joined in with Quiana’s whispers like a chorus, their voices soft and mindless. Patricia tried to look over at them, but her eyes didn’t want to move away from the center of the screen and the endless vortex of color that drew her gaze inward. All she could do was catch sight of Quiana out of the corner of her eye as the other woman slid her hand into the waistband of her dress and began to finger herself.
With that, the urge to masturbate returned, stronger than ever. It didn’t seem to matter that everyone was there, that they would all see her—if anything, that somehow made it more exciting. Patricia’s cunt felt like it was practically dripping, soaking her panties with desire. Her hand twitched, as though ready to move of its own volition to spike deep into her pussy and relieve that unspeakable tension. It was all she could think about, now. It was all that mattered. All she needed to do was relax and let the pleasure take over completely and let the Director tell her how to be a good girl for the Girls(TM)...
Patricia felt her hand whispering along the smooth fabric of her dress. She felt it stretch the elastic of her waistband. The Director spoke to her, but she no longer heard the voice as anything other than a series of irresistible compulsions. It sank to the back of her mind without any conscious awareness, reminding her how good it would feel to obey, how perfect it would feel to follow her commands and let the pleasure condition her into delicious submission.
She felt her fingers brush against her throbbing, aching clit. And a lifetime of repression finally crumbled in a scream of pleasure.
The Director said more after that, but Patricia wasn’t able to listen. The sensations were just too strong, the temptation too irresistible. She wriggled her skirt down, kicking it off completely and spreading her legs to let her fingers push in deeper. She pushed them in and out, again and again, faster and faster, feeling her juices leaking out onto the floor as she fucked herself. It felt so sexy, so hot, better than anything she’d ever imagined. Why had she waited so long for this? Why had she ever thought this was something she didn’t want?
She heard the moans of the others mingling with hers, each one driving the other to greater heights of pleasure. The Director guided them onto their backs, letting them brush against each other as they masturbated, and Patricia shivered in bliss at the feel of warm, soft skin against her own. It felt so fucking hot now. So fucking hot to obey, so fucking hot to submit, so fucking hot to finger her tight, wet pussy and cum for the Girls(TM).
The ache in Patricia’s cunt was almost too much to take, and she knew she was going to cum soon. She wanted so desperately to see it, wanted to see her pussy gush onto her fingers as her orgasm hit, but she couldn’t look away from the screen. She simply couldn’t. The visions of pure, perfect obedience were as much a part of her now as her masturbatory bliss.
And then she heard the Director, telling her to cum. Patricia grabbed her glasses with her free hand, pulling them off and holding them between her legs. This was the first time she would cum like this...but, she thought as she filmed herself climaxing, she was determined it would not be the last.