Fire Hazard

Eric gave the abandoned strip club an appraising glance, deciding on the equipment he might need for this investigation. On the surface, it wasn’t obvious that a fire had been what shut the place down, but they were clearly not open for business. He was alone in the dark, silent parking lot, the club’s neon signs only illuminated by Eric’s headlights. He cocked a smile when he noticed one proudly proclaiming, “All Human!”

“If that were true,” he muttered to himself, dragging out a heavy portable generator from his trunk, “I wouldn’t be here.”

Lugging his gear to the door, he was immediately challenged by a pair of cordons, each looking like oversized blue traffic cones, spaced on either side of the front door. “Halt,” they chimed in unison, “You are approaching the scene of an active investigation. Unauthorized entry-“

Eric flashed his screen at one of the cordon’s scanners, and the voice was instantly more agreeable. “Welcome, Mr. Black.”

“Has the fire inspector been through here?” he asked, shifting the heavy generator to his other hand.

“No, Mr. Black,” a cordon replied. “You are the first to arrive since the departure of the emergency responders.”

“Probably hoping I’ll do his job for him,” Eric muttered, stepping into the club.

Inside, what little light was admitted through the open door didn’t show much beyond a dust-choked room that reeked of fire-suppression foam. Setting down the generator with a resonant thud, he flipped the on switch. Its shrill whine was soon eclipsed by some pop ballad thumping through what remained of the club’s sound system as power was restored. Lights bathed the club in a dim twilight of purples and blues, illuminating chairs and tables surrounding a central stage that was piled high with broken fembots.

Eric let out an exasperated sigh, wondering if whoever had done this ‘cleanup’ knew how much more difficult this made things for him. Most of them were missing their synth-skin covering, exposing grey plastic where their endo-frame shell was rigid, or white where more pliable gel-packs formed their pliable curves. Wires, tubing, and armatures protruded from damaged limbs and blown panels, and the whole stage was dripping with the various fluids that would have provided a working bot with hydraulic pressure, lubricant, and cooling. Some limbs twitched as they received wireless power from his generator, coupled with a few indecorous moans, but he doubted there was a single functioning cpu in that mess. Just as he was getting ready to begin sifting and scanning through the pile, he heard a sound to his side.

“Woah, what happened?” a voice grunted, and he turned his head to see a bot standing up from behind the bar, clutching her head. She was fully human in appearance, untouched by the heat that had melted the synth-skin off the others. She was designed with a punk look to her, her short dark hair in a frayed, red-tipped razor-bob, a handful of piercings along her brows that were set above a field of liberally applied black eye shadow. The arm that held her head was covered in a tattooed sleeve of roses, a stack of glinting bangles at her wrist. She was dressed in a tight-fitting tank top, its low neckline showcasing pale cleavage that hungrily swallowed the pendants and charms hanging from the various necklaces she wore. “Christ, I need a drink… How long was I out?”

Eric hadn’t counted on getting many straight answers from this investigation, especially since the club’s owner had disappeared, and so finding a fully functioning bot was very welcome sign. “When does your internal clock say you powered down?”

“…What do you mean, ‘powered down’?” her voice a rasp that occasionally broke into a girly lilt. “What are you, a robot or something?” she asked, pouring herself a shot and downing it with a slight cough.

“You don’t need to pretend with me, I’m not a customer,” Eric said. “I’m here to find out if any malfunctioning bots or AI systems were at fault for the fire.” He didn’t need to have this conversation – he could just reset the bot and bypass her personality software, and she’d answer his questions directly. But even if these bots weren’t sentient, he enjoyed interacting with them all the same, if for no other reason than to appraise the simulation aspects of their software.

“We don’t have any bots here,” she said, pouring a second shot, nudging it his way. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

“Your programming requires you to directly answer a licensed R.I.,” Eric said flatly, showing her a screen displaying the credentials that would earn the compliance of any civilian A.I.

“Actually, what my ‘programming’ is telling me to do,” she sneered, recalling the proffered drink, “is to tell you to go fuck yourself.” She shot it herself, wiped her mouth, and fixed him with a smirk. Although Eric was amused by this unexpected defiance, her routine was clearly corrupted.

Either: A: She was running some piece of after-market garbage that was mucking with her compliance (bad) B: She had been programmed to deliberately ignore official dictates (very bad) or C: Heat, smoke, extinguishing foam, or something else related to the fire had damaged her CPU.

And if it wasn’t ‘C’, that would be, at minimum, a hefty fine for the owner - he made a note of her noncompliance on his screen, knowing he would need something more substantial than that small devices meager CPU to reset the defiant gynoid.

Eric spun a chair near the stage to face the bar and its still-smirking robot bartender and took a seat, retiring his screen in favor of his far more capable laptop – but before he could initiate the process that would attach itself to her systems and override her processes, the sound of footsteps behind him drew his attention.

Stepping free from the heap of her broken compatriots was the bare slate-gray-and-off-white chassis of a fembot devoid of synth-skin. She strutted confidently along the stage toward him, hips swinging to the bass line of the synth-pop ballad pulsing from the club speakers, her gel-filled curves jiggling with every step. The delicate animatronics in her head drew the white and hairless (but otherwise human) sub-mask of her face into a sultry smile. “Small crowd,” she remarked, distorted static and reverb corrupting an otherwise dainty southern drawl, “Looks like you’re getting a private show…”

“’No bots, eh?’” Eric asked the bartender, who seemed annoyed by the fembot’s presence.

After a few involuntary shudders and false starts, the bartender finally jabbed a finger at the grey-and-white fembot and managed, “Yeah, well… that piece of plastic garbage doesn’t work here!”

“Sure I do, Trix,” the gynoid responded, stepping down from the stage and walking just past Eric, a shift in her hips delivering a playful quiver to the smooth and soft hemispheres of here white backside. “It’s me, Sadie.”

“S-S-Sadie is human!” stammered Trix with a growl.

“Why, of course I’m human,” Sadie whispered, thighs parting as she stood astride Eric’s lap, hips dipping in a soft, smooth arc, her pert, eggshell cheeks barely brushing the sudden bulge in his jeans. She glanced over her shoulder, the smooth, white mask of her face wearing a teasing smile.

“I’m not here to-“ Eric managed before another arc of her hips brought another kiss from her gel-packed derriere to his almost painful erection, her hands gliding across plastic curves as the music throbbed and pulsed behind pouty, suggestive vocals.

“Hey, Sadie,” Trix said with sarcastic enthusiasm. “How about a wet t-shirt contest?”

She froze in confusion, bent forward, back arched. “What in God’s name are you talking about, Trix? Do I even look like I’m wearin’-”

Trix held out a soda gun and sprayed Sadie’s chest panel with a stream of clear water. Sadie tried unsuccessfully to block the stream with outstretched hands, sputtering a startled, “Wh-what the hell, Trix?!”

The bartender removed her thumb and held the dripping gun coyly at her shoulder.

“What was that all about?” Sadie demanded, water cascading from her smooth, featureless breasts and grey paneling.

Trix remained silent, though a cruel smile crept across her dark lips.

“Listen you smug littlllllllll-“ there was an electrical pop from inside Sadie, and she jerked to one side. “You liiiitllllllll-“ another snap and she spilled backwards on to Eric’s lap with an unintelligible electronic growl. Despite the rather pleasant sensation of her cushioned backside pressing firmly against his crotch, the rising smoke and a burning electrical smell from her trembling chassis suppressed several of Eric’s immediate impulses in favor of taking more pragmatic action. He took her hips and lifted her off of him, but her plastic heels slid in the water pooling around his chair and she was once more in his lap, now with his arms slipping past her waist.

“You l-l-lllike me w-w-wet, do ya’?” As she attempted a sensuous repose he could see lights flaring from the gaps in her panels, and she suddenly slammed backward into him, disrupting his second attempt to remove her. “S-s-so hot…” she moaned, roughly massaging her gel-pack breasts as her thighs spread wide. A moment later, the paneling on her abdomen split open as fans inside her whirred louder, the components within the darkened cavity briefly lit by the sparks of shorting electrical systems.

“Say, you wouldn’t be able to g-g-get the managerrrr, would ya?” she asked her hand curiously probing the rim of the opening in her chassis as sparks continued to spill out.

“My advice would be to shut down,” Eric suggested.

“And how would I d-d-do that?”

“Remove your wireless power transceiver.”

“Human’s don’t h-h-aaaaave those!” She convulsed with another fountain of sparks, feet kicking out as her hips gave an aimless thrust, then resettling with her distressingly warm ass grinding against Eric’s pants.

“Well, try sticking your hand into the gaping hole in your stomach…” he began.

“Uh huhhh…” she said absently, calmly putting her hand inside herself.

“Reach up behind here,” he poked the panel at her sternum

“Yeah…?” she moaned, one hand venturing deeper as the other pushed and squeezed the swells of her now smoking chest.

“You should feel a cylinder – just pull it from its housing.”

She jerked something loose, pulling it free from inside of her and then staring at the blinking power transceiver emptily as her head shuddered. “Now whaaaaaaaat…” her voice deepened in register as she slumped to one side, falling on to the floor with a heavy thud.

“My turn,” said the bartender ‘Trix’, and turned the soda gun on herself, leaning forward on the bar. Squeezing the trigger, she drenched her pale breasts, alabaster synth-skin showing through her now-transparent top, her darker nipples stiffening against the soaking white fabric. “Wow, no smoke, no sparks…” she threw the soda gun on the bar and leaned dramatically forward, her breasts compressing against her folded arms. “Just wet tits.”

As fun as this was, Eric knew he still had a job to do, and she wasn’t helping. He took out his laptop and, flipping it on, said, “Trix, I think what you need is a good…”

“Yeah?” she asked, leaning further forward, water pooling beneath her glistening cleavage.

Running his diagnostic software, he quickly identified Trix’s signal and established a connection. “…hard…”

“…yeah…?” she licked her dark lips.

Eric brought up the list of admin commands, and confirmed his selection. “…reset.”

“…what?” the robot looked at him in confusion and suddenly jerked back, a pulsing light illuminating her brown eyes from within. “B-b-but I’m nnnnot a b-b-bott-t-t error conflicting protoc-c-coll override humannn-“ She mechanically grabbed a bottle and shot glass, spilling half of its contents with a sloppy poor. “I-I-I nneeeed a d-d-error conflict directivvve-“ she dropped the bottle which shattered on the floor and then stood rigidly upright, head twitching stiffly left-then-right, her intermittently glowing eyes still fixed forward.

Eric was surprised by this display and hammered the key that would re-transmit the reset command, uncertain why this happening.

The bartender-bot’s shuddering managed a strange smile as she said, “Nnnnooo s-s-sparkssss, j-j-just wet t-t-tiiiiibzzzt!…” she gave a sharp jerk and then slumped forward, arms dangling at her side.

He waited for the reboot that would bring her back online, but she simply stood there. Very strange - there was nothing obviously wrong according to his diagnostic software – it looked like he’d have to bring her back to the shop.

Eric gave a quick scan for additional AI-core activity, but couldn’t find any other functioning bots on the premises. Closing his laptop, Eric sighed – his hopes for a quick and easy investigation were fading fast.

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