Chloe - Part 1 - The Escape

Not even the slightest sound of whirring micro-motors or the whine of servos could be heard. Not because of the small crowd of people, but because Neptune’s tightly packed chassis was specifically designed to be sound proof. Of course, if someone were to press their ear against her skin as she moved they might hear a muffled sound of motors, or the distant din of the cooling systems. Now though, surrounded by half a dozen onlookers, most with their phones out, snapping pictures and jostling for a better view, there was no chance.

Neptune tossed her long purple hair once again as her programming guided her hand to the artificial hair on her head and flicked her wrist, sending the hair flying out of the way. Her operating system crunched a pile of numbers and calculations, then formulated the instructions needed to readjust her balance and move to a new pose. She giggled with sincere delight as more pictures were snapped, and her weight shifted from one foot, to the other. Then all of it on one foot as her other hose upwards and she flashed a smile.

All of her movements, her very natural looks, and her manically happy voice were all controlled by a series of processors, software and ultra fast running hardware and cabling. Every last scrap of her existence was crammed into a beautiful feminine body and wrapped in artificial flesh. She looked, and certainly felt, human but at her core, like all the merchandise in the store, she was only a machine.

Not that anyone cared. They had flocked there to see her, or a version of her. The storefront was attached to a massive warehouse where hundreds if not thousands of identical Neptune models waited. Deactivated and waiting for one Neptune model to be sold so they could strut to the front. Once there, a wireless connection would send her activation keys for her personality, any internal store programming and protocol she needed and then she would step into the store and pick up right where the other model had left off.

The only thing that would differentiate any one Neptune android from another was the outfit they wore, and the serial number that was stamped on them. The Neptune unit in the store was currently wearing what was considered by most to be the default outfit.

A pale white hoodie with a zipper running between her breasts. A blue crystal-like gem affixed in a silver clasp made up the zipper pull and rested nicely in the valley created by her well proportioned chest and her all too tight top. A pale blue hood and matching cuffs rounded out the garment while also just barely covering the almost scandalously short bottoms she wore. Matching white and blue striped stockings crept up her legs and stopped midway up her thighs and originated from a pair of ankle high boots that she commonly wore with the tops folded over. Her extremely short teal hair was pinned in place by a pair of cross emblems, though they did little to hold the wild and choppy hair in place when she moved.

All in all she was the ideal woman. Designed to look youthful without looking underaged, mature enough to take to bed at the end of the day and remained playful no matter what.

She was just finishing a small twirl, and ended in a wink while blowing a kiss at no one in particular, though all the onlookers would swear it was for them. In reality the kiss, according to her internal operating system, was aimed at another one of the robotic girls in the shop.

Across the sea of customers, shelves of accessories, and racks of alternate outfits for the girls was Noire. She was chatting with a few customers from the confines of her display window. She was at the front of the shop that day and spent as much time as she liked advertising herself and promoting the various complimentary accessories in the shop. Her eyes continuously flicked up to the distant Neptune though. She had never contemplated if robots could have secret crushes, but she certainly did. Though, her, the Neptune unit, and the Vert and Blanc units somewhere else in the store had all undergone something of a transformative event recently.

Only a few weeks past the four of them had wandered into the attached assembly factory and, after a little exploration, found themselves damaged and broken. Their programming and personality sets were already stored on the internal network at the facility, but be it corruption or some sort of awakening inside of their artificial minds, they grew into something just a little more than their original programming. Since then, the installed profile for the four had something more, something of a spark of independence and mischief.

The IT crew, in particular the engineering group, had been chasing the bug around for weeks. There was nothing that was blatantly obvious that was causing the bug, and it wasn’t something worthy of discontinuing production. The case had been made and passed that it was something that could easily be patched, in the meantime though, new production on specific security droids had begun. The security bots would patrol the warehouse, efficiently disabling any units that happened to wander off. They weren’t sophisticated, and only barely had a personality core, but they were effective in what they did.

Elsewhere in the shop two more android women were hard at work. Vert and Blanc, a pair of sandy blond haired androids. Vert sported much longer hair though, and was dressed in a long flowing dress of emerald greens, shimmering whites and golden trim. It did little to hide the obvious assets she was manufactured with though. Long legs, smooth skin, and of the found androids, the largest and most perfectly rounded breasts capped her chest. The green dress was topped with a clear panel of transparent material that served only to draw attention to the cleavage that the dress pushed forth. She was just barely appropriate enough to walk the public streets, but there was no question what she was designed for.

Blanc, on the other hand, was the polar opposite in almost every possible way. She was programmed to be shy, demure, and compliant. Her body was crafted to be small, slender, and almost flat chested. Her default outfit consisted of a tunic of white that was clearly too large for her slim frame. It did well to hide what features she had, but the advantage was that she boasted one of the most robust and well rounded sets of internal hardware. She could run almost any software platform and had plenty of accessories that made her an outstanding first unit to purchase.

The two of them were chatting with a client, interested in one of the bots, but not sure which. The two girls had offered to help find the right girl, the right accessories, and the right clothes. Currently they were in the large clothing section and Vert was holding up a garment that was labeled as a swimsuit, but it would have barely covered her.

“-and see this one? It’s so cute. Personally I think I’d look pretty good in this, don’t you think Blanc?”

A clear flash of pink spread across Blanc’s pale face and her brow furrowed. She clearly looked annoyed, as if Vert were marketing herself to Blanc rather than the customer, but the man they were with seemed to find it not only charming but also sided with Vert.

“I think she’s right..you would both look good in something like that.”

Blanc looked a little shocked and her annoyance melted into something a little more compliant and nodded her head, letting the small cap she wore restrain her golden hair, though some of it still bounced against her face and neck.

“I mean, you aren’t wrong. We sell those in all sizes, and there are plenty of my model line to go around.” Blanc commented.

Vert tossed her a wink and a smile that quirked up at the side of her mouth that implied so much more than a simple sales pitch. In the end though, foregoing some accessories, the client they had been working with ended up purchasing two androids that day. A Vert and a Blanc, and one swimsuit each. One in green and one in blue.

So the day carried on. New clients would wander in. Some were there to make purchases, either a new android for themselves, some games that the girls could run on an internal gaming console and output to a larger screen. Others were there for accessories, new outfits and goodies for a model they had already purchased. Some brought in a unit for either a trade in or repairs. Some were there just to get an eyeful of the synthetic skin that the girls displayed. All were welcome and each one was treated with the utmost attention from all of the robotic women in the shop. From start to finish they were guided by one of the attendants there unless they were told otherwise.

It wasn’t until the day was winding down and the crowds were tapering off that Noire noticed a young looking woman staring at her. She was blushing hard, her cheeks brilliantly tinted scarlet. The mechanical optics in her head snapped to the poster clutched in the girl’s hands and then back to her face as he slowly began approaching. In response, Noire’s operating system formulated a new pose. She bent forward just enough to allow for the perfect view of her cleavage. She smirked and closed one eye in a perpetual wink and then raised the first two fingers on her hand and flashed a peace sign. Topping it all off the artificial tongue inside of her mouth poked between her lips ever so slightly.

The movement caused the young woman to stop, swallow hard and then continue her steps forward. Noire could see she was trembling a little, she assumed, out of anticipation. She must have been in her early twenties at best. As she approached, Noire straightened up and smiled warmly at her, then as she stood before Noire, she held out a poster. Noire looked from her down to the poster and saw herself, striking a few poses. It was one of the advertisements that they had plastered all over town a year or so ago. With surprisingly gentle hands she took the poster from the girl and stepped down from the platform she had been displayed on.

Noire was a little shorter than the woman. She had to look upwards at her once she was off of her pedestal. She must have looked confused or at the very least curious about what was happening, and why she had just been handed a poster of herself.

“I, uh, was uhm, w-wondering if I could just get your autograph. Y- you’re my favorite after all and it’s, uh, it’s my birthday and I was just wondering if I could-”

She gulped as he spoke and the words fell out of her mouth in a jumbled and all too fast cascade. Noire’s systems changed her facial expression to something more fighting. It melted into a sweet, kind smile that looked genuinely flattered.

“Yes of course!”

She took the sharpie the girl held out and squatted down and placed the poster on the hard surface of her display pedestal and quickly signed her name across it and ended with a small heart.

“Here you go! Would you like to receive any of our promotional materials? Might be a good way to get a great deal, and we are always having birthday specials and discounts too. Maybe you could buy your very own Noire unit for home use!”

She winked at the girl and she seemed to, somehow, blush even more. Nodding her head she looked away, then glanced back quickly, taking in Noire’s full body before shifting and looking into her eyes.

“Alrighty, I just need your name and address and we’ll get you into the database.”

“C-Chloe, and I live at-”

There was a small chime as the store’s overhead announcement system crackled to life with an announcement that it was closing time. The sweet feminine voice politely asked all customers to bring any merchandise they wished to purchase to the front for checkout.

At the same time the announcement was being made, a packet of data was thrust into Noire’s operating system via the internal wireless network. It was orders to immediately finish her task and report to the engineering department in the assembly facility for testing. There was a small conflict in her software, she needed to finish assisting this customer's request and get the address but the orders were a top priority. Her gaze locked up and her head tilted to one side for only a moment as the software made a new set of orders.

Noire smiled at Chloe. “It looks like we are closing up now. What was the address?”

Chloe looked only a little taken aback at the apparent freeze that Noire had just experienced, but muttered her address anyway. Having saved the information Noire smiled again and handed the signed posted back to Chloe.

“Please come again!”

With no more hesitation all life seemed to drain from Noire’s face. Her eyelids drooped only a little and she turned on heel and marched into the store, leaving Chloe standing where she was, clutching the poster.

Noire, as well as her sister units, all marched through the store with only one set of orders coursing through their programmed awareness. Any close observer might have noticed that their movements, while graceful, lacked a certain fluid motion that they had before. The stiffness was only a brief moment, a small hiccup in their stride as they moved. Most were far too distracted watching the bounce of their chest, or the way the silicone gel inside of their thighs moved just right.

Stepping into the warehouse portion of the shop was like transitioning from a fairytale into the dingy industrial section of a major city. For a human, it would have been a bit of visual whiplash. The pristine and perfect shop giving way to featureless cement floors and industrial machines. The jovial music of the storefront was replaced with a distant sound of machines churning out more machines.

The four girls stepped across the threshold and turned immediately to the right and moved along the wall until they came to another large steel door. Simple words were stenciled onto the door letting anyone know it was the engineering and technical support department, not that there were any living humans in the area to see it. As they approached the door, it swung inward and the four were greeted by one of the new security bots.

She was a slender thing, based off of the Blanc chassis and sported the same small frame. She was dressed in all white, and looked very much like a nurse might. A tight dress, belted in the middle by a red sash that bore the Neptunia company logo. She was smiling, vaguely, but scrutinized the group as they entered. Once the door swung shut another identical security bot happened to stroll by, patrolling the area and reporting into the central processor unit for the facility.

Inside of the engineering room, the girls were greeted by one of the few organic humans in the facility. The room itself was an absolute disaster to the casual viewer. There were tangled messes of cables and circuitry scattered around the various worktables around the large room. There were parts from other robots as well. A stack of legs leaning against the wall, each one trailing wires, tubes, and cables from the tops of them. Some looked like they had been properly removed, still sporting a smooth cut along the flesh, others looked as if they had been torn off. The artificial flesh was ripped and torn with frayed ends of cables and shattered green and blue circuit boards dangling from them.

There was a truly surprising amount of computer terminals as well. It seemed like each and every work bench had at least one monitor bolted to a swing arm on the top with a computer tower tucked under it. Each one seemed to be running some kind of chaotic mess of windows and lines of code. Others had laptops, either stacked up and closed or like the desktop variants, running any number of tasks.

The four girls were still running purely on the orders they had received at closing. Their personality emulation and human simulations had been fully suspended and saved in a state file. They were, at that moment, nothing more than machines that looked like a person.

“Good good, go ahead and strip down. We have a lot of testing to do.”

It was a simple and clinical greeting. The four of the console bots had no choice but to obey. Once they crossed the threshold into the engineering department they were completely obedient to the on duty technician. He could have told them to rip each other to pieces and they would have taken the most efficient course of action to do just that.

The command from the technician rippled through each of their operating systems, and ran face first into the authentication algorithm. Each one locked eyes on the technician, a slightly portly man in his late thirties, maybe early forties. The five o'clock shadow on his face did little to obscure the presence of a second chin originating at the peak of his neck. His tired eyes generated bags under them. Either too many hours of sleepless nights hare, under fluorescent lights, or just generic over working.

He held still, knowing full well that the four robots were scanning his face, laying a latticework of facial recognition sweeps over it. Once done, each one utilized the incredibly complex optical array installed in their heads to zoom in and focus on his eyes. They read the retinal pattern and checked it against the relatively large database stored in the facilities central database. Once each one was sure that the man who had just muttered a direct command to them was, in fact, authorized to do so, the process continued.

Each one took the words and checked them against their own internal social database, matching them to known phrases and clips and then converted that data into something usable. Commands and instructions were sent coursing through their systems to each individual module that had a role to play. Each body part had its own small set of processors and got to work converting the data into something usable.

Hands began moving on all of the robots. Delicate fingers gently pried apart buttons and gripped zippers. Each one slipping out of their outfits with the kind of precision that only a machine could. Never wasting more energy or motion that was absolutely necessary to accomplish the task they had been assigned. The orders were to get undressed, and so each one in their own way did exactly that with the utmost efficiency.

Noire took, perhaps, the longest to shed her clothes. The intricate bodice and dress she wore required several buttons and snaps to be undone even to begin removing it. She could have easily torn it apart, or even been a little more aggressive with unfastening the buttons, but the outfit, like herself, was company property and needed to be preserved. She was only barely wiggling out of the dress when Neptune was already completely nude. The zipper front on her combination hoodie and skirt made shedding the garment easy.

Neptune, and her sister unit, Vert, were both wearing clothes that had the express intention of being easy to remove. All of the androids here were built with several primary functions. An embedded set of hardware and console-like controllers in their torso for video games and entertainment purposes was only the beginning of their market appeal. Each one was also clearly built and designed for much more intimate encounters once the latest in video games became tiresome.

Vert and Neptune, and to a lesser extent Noire, were the pinnacle of that design. As their clothes were shed and smooth flesh revealed, it became obvious what thought process had gone into their design. Perfectly rounded breasts that hung just right on their chests, held in place by artificial flesh and internal structures to make them look and feel perfect.

Their bodies were slender and lithe as well. Not quite showing toned muscles like a true organic woman would if she had their bodies, but small, subtle layers under the upper layer of flesh made them appear to be in good health. Overall though, their bodies were silky smooth, pale, and perfect. From the perfectly crafted hairpieces, to their flawless facial plating down to their advanced sexual hardware and the artificial flesh that coated their very mechanical internal workings.

Everything about Neptunia’s console-not like was intentionally designed and crafted to look and operate at peak performance. They had a reputation as the foremost makers of the world's finest robotic humanoids.

So, when some of the units began to exhibit some strange behavior in recent weeks, it was met with nothing but the finest in testing and resolutions. Developers, programmers, and technical consultants around the world had been hard at work diagnosing and tracing the smallest variations in the code base since the first incident. They had managed to track down several indicators of the corrupted programming, as well as symptoms that it would cause. Small things like advanced decision making, late night activations and what some of the development team considered to be independent behavior.

Some pointed to these incidents as the start of some kind of convergence or singularity. There were concerns that the artificial intellect that was being installed was beginning to realize what it was and actively fight against the idea of being sold as merchandise. They were, however, in the minority. Most of the team involved saw the incidents as little more than a strange activation code and some offbeat programming choices on their operating systems part. The solution for now was to identify any units that had the bad programming, bring them in for analysis, and then wipe their programming and start over.

The four robotic girls now stood fully naked in the engineering room. The clothes crumpled on the floor and pushed to one side, out of the way of the technician. They stood rigidly at attention, arms stiff at their sides and their legs locked into place. Everything that once made them look like humans had stopped. They no longer blinked at random intervals, nor did their chests subtly rise and fall as their cooling systems took in fresh air and exhaled excess heat. All the small fidgets and movements that made them look and feel like a person were shut off now. They were, in the purest sense, only machines at this moment.

Except they weren’t.

There was still some lingering programming that was running. Their operating system had shut down everything it knew about as standard programming, but the corrupted or misinstalled pieces were still running. Somewhere. Deep inside of the operating system and lingering in a place that the normal set of software triggers did not know about. That small part of their programming was still watching, observing, and waiting.

“Oookay, uh you. The uh, Neptune. Lay on that table over there and open your console panel.”

The technician waved vaguely towards a stainless steel workbench against one of the walls. There was a small television on a cart next to it as well as a computer with a much smaller screen. A number of cables had been bundled together and hung loosely from a hook mounted on the wall. Several of the cables there were bound together with velcro ties. There was only one other table like it in the room, making it clear that the development team never planned on working on more than two, perhaps three, units at a time.

The bare skinned Neptune unit walked with mechanical efficiency to the table, weaving between clothes, equipment and other bots as she moved. All of it with the precision of a machine that took in its entire environment and plotted out a course to the destination using the most effective means possible. She stepped up to the table, then hopped into place and landed with an unexpected amount of grace. Once on the table, she tucked her legs up towards her chest and rotated on the table. Then, like a flower spreading its petals to the springtime sun, she stretched her legs out in front of her, lowered her back down to the table and let her arms come to rest next to her.

The sound of a small click was lost in the sea of cooling fans and buzzing lights from above. A slightly circular panel opened up in her abdomen, revealing a pair of white and blue controllers and a few connection ports. The portly technician was already making his way over to her. As he settled into place next to the workbench he looked over at the group of three completely nude and absolutely gorgeous girls. All of them were staring with glassy blank eyes and expressionless faces at nothing in particular.

“Uh, Blanc, or whatever.” He said, snapping his fingers at the group, “You get on the table over there and open your console panel too.”

He was muting to himself as he began plugging cables into several of the ports inside of Neptune. As the video connection cable was plugged in the TV on the wall lit up and began displaying a well polished menu. It was clearly meant to navigate a game library, but for now it just slowly pulsated in a pleasing fashion. More and more cables were connected, more than simply output to the screen. Some were run directly to the computer workstation there and others into a much larger bundle that snaked its way around the bench and into some dark corner of the room where it disappeared into a wall.

He glanced over his shoulder at Blanc who was just settling into place on the second workstation and opening her own console panel. A small smirk ran across the technician's face as he mentally congratulated himself for perfectly timing the second girl’s orders. He stepped over to the slight frame that Blanc was created with and began the same process of plugging in a number of cables and soon the screen on the wall above her flickered to life and showed a different, but vaguely similar menu screen.

Soon commands and long strings of oddly organized code were being manually typed in. The cryptic codes drilling deep into each one of the robotic women’s systems and activating certain components and modules.

A new sound could be heard. A whine of motors pushing something out of Neptune’s body. With her belly panel opened the sound was far more audible than it would have been otherwise. From the deep valley between Neptune’s breasts arose something of a relic. A flat tray with a very shallow, and perfectly circular, indentation on it. It was made for CDs, DVDs, and other disc based game media. Though most software could be downloaded directly to the bots, and commonly was, the disc drive remained for some backwards compatibility. Now though, it served to host a round DVD that the technician placed on it and then pushed downward just enough to activate the automatic retraction mechanism inside of Neptune’s chest.

“Media detected.” Neptune spoke aloud, her voice still sweet, but flat and emotionless. “Run this media now?”

The technician didn’t bother verbally confirming the question, just tapped a new command on the keyboard and Neptune fell silent again. The sound of the disc spinning at high speeds filled the bench and the technician scooted his stool over to blanc, where the same process began anew.

The disc itself contained a small portion of the operating system that the fembot consoles were running. By booting from it Neptune would be in something of a limited operating status. Most, if not all, of the additional components and functionality were stripped away, leaving her primed for the stress testing that was being run today.

The general consensus on the rogue incidents that had been happening all around the company, was that stress or intense situations would trigger some new bit of code or programming. The hope was that they could activate that programming while being closely monitored and capturing all data being executed inside the system. That was the purpose of today’s test. The orders had already come down to terminate the operation of these four bots, but they might prove useful.

Blanc was just beginning to boot into the new operating system when he scooted back in front of Neptune and tapped a few more commands. There was noise now. Fast whirling fans, the ones that were only used for emergencies, kicked on. She wasn’t processing anything other than the small commands and a minimal OS, but the fans were there to ensure she didn’t burn out immediately.

The next command threw a picture up onto the screen above her. It was a three dimensional image of a cube, topped with staircases that seemed to climb into the next, then the next, then the next in an endless upward spiral. It was clearly meant as an optical illusion and for a moment or two, the cube slowly rotated. Then a fully rendered person fell from the sky and began walking upwards. Climbing the staircase eternally upwards.

Then another person fell and began walking, then another, then two more, then four.

As each new set of people fell into place they began climbing upwards and eventually downwards. Always marching. Soon, the screen was crowded with them and their movements became stilted. They were dropping frames as the graphics card inside of both Neptune and Blanc began chugging hard to keep up with the software demands. The already loud fans and cooling systems inside of her spun up, increasing not only the speed, but the power consumption. Her power cell, already low from a day of work, was draining faster and faster.

More power consumption also meant that her processors would automatically start cutting anything that wasn’t absolutely critical. Some of that was graphical fidelity. The smooth rendered figures on screen became chunky for a moment and then snapped back into a well textured representation. Soon the acrid smell of burning electronics wafted through the air, both from Neptune and Blanc.

Blanc, on her worktable, was not faring any better than Neptune. Her systems were running a different yet similar stress test. A simple screen with an ever growing number of rendered three dimensional objects with different textures all interacting with one another. A furry cube was soaked from the water cube, only to dry in real time when it floated near the lava cube. Several grassy cubes were growing flowers while a steam cube fluttered on an invisible breeze. All of it took more and more processing power and Blanc was already showing advanced signs of disaster.

Her head was swiveling from side to side, and not in the normal smooth motion that the servo motors in her neck usually executed. They were jittering, jerking motions. Each one filling her space with the angry whine of electronics. The sound crescendoed as her operating system could no longer handle the three dimensional benchmarking test on the screen and completely cut the signal. At the same time the technician heard an angry snap from somewhere inside of her bare chest, then another and finally a much louder pop.

“Fucking hell.” He muttered as he looked over at her. A faint wisp of white smoke was curling out of her nostrils, between her teeth, and from her ears.

Hopping up, he waved his hands back and forth over her form, attempting to disperse the fumes before they reached any of the smoke detectors in the room, the last thing he needed was a torrent of cold water soaking a room full of sensitive electronics.

Blanc’s head was still swiveling from side to side, though it favored one side over the other. It almost appeared as if her head was attempting to turn both left and right at the same time. All the while her eyes were snapped fully open, staring wildly upwards at nothing in particular.

More swear words filled the room, even as Neptune’s fan system spun up again, struggling to keep her internal systems cool. The tech tapped a few hastily thought commands and she paused, the fans still running, but the image on the screen froze. Looking over at Blanc, he shook his head. Clearly she wasn’t going to be valuable for any data points. He sighed, and pulled out a toolbox from under the bench and dropped it onto Blanc’s torso. Tools were brought out and soon he was going to work.

Bent over Blanc’s form, he didn’t see Noire’s eyes, just for a moment, flick over to him. She saw Blanc, the vacant and empty look on her face. She could tell that in her final moments that Blanc had truly been suffering, but what could she have done? Stopping the test would have led to her destruction no matter what, and the plan Noire had been formulating would never work. She had to be patient and wait, she had to continue to appear as nothing more than a lifeless machine with no free will of her own.

Her optics flicked, briefly to Neptune as well. She was baking in the sweltering heat inside of her own body. The circuitry and wiring inside of her must be close to their limits. As much as Noire was sometimes annoyed, sometimes enticed, by Neptune’s antics, Noir hated to see her like this. She knew her and Vert were next as well and there was precious little time to try and escape.

Noir’s eyes returned to their neutral position, which only allowed her a small view of poor Blanc. The technician was using a utility knife to slit open her skin in a number of places and then using the screwdriver held in his mouth, trying apart the manual locks. First her arm was loose, skin hanging from the small amount of her framework it was still attached to. The arm was dumped into a large plastic rolling bin with the word “disposal” stenciled on it in ancient black spray paint.

Another arm, this one showing Noire that the hand was curled into a claw like position. Next the knife was sliding across Blanc’s throat, and then her head was separated from her body and dumped into the bin. Her legs and finally her torso.

A few commands later and Neptune was running hot again, the image on the screen moving slower and slower. Clearly frustrated by the previous android burning out and needing to be, somewhat, roughly disassembled, he trundled up to the console here and began tapping some commands. There was a new sound now, a hissing, something akin to an airlock being forced open and all the air squeezing through a small space.

The central portion of Neptune’s body was designed to do a few things. Store two controllers for when her owner and users wanted to play video games. They would latch into a small cradle and recharge from Neptune’s internal power cell and remain connected to her system. It acted as the hub for connecting physical cables to a display or television set, as well as held a small adapter that could be plugged into the display for a wireless broadcast. Finally, it acted as a hard plate covering some of her most sensitive internal components.

The technician had just unsealed that central bowl, filled with controller cradles and data ports. He squeezed his portly fingers into the freshly loosened skin on her stomach and the hard plastic container and lifted it out of her. As it rose from her body her eyes began to twitch. The pupils dilated a little and darted back and forth, though the technician was far too occupied with ensuring that none of the dozens upon dozens of fine cables didn’t snag on something.

The tangled mess of cables on the underside of the cradle gave way to more circuitry. Each board was small and purpose built for one system or function. They could be isolated and easily replaced or repaired if some small part went out rather than replacing a whole large board. Each one was bloated to Neptune’s internal framework in one way or another, leaving the central part of her body nearly empty, the perfect place to let the tangled bundle of wires and cables rest.

It was about this time that the technician settled the part down and reached inside of Neptune’s open body and fiddled with something. She was beyond Noire’s peripheral vision, so she couldn’t see what it was he was doing, but she definitely heard the results. There was an angry electrical snap and a moment later the sound of something small being tossed into the disposal bin was heard. The sounds of Neptune flopping and writhing on the table filled Noire’s ears as well. She forced herself to remain still, letting the small part of code that was still, somehow, alive inside of her remain dormant.

Neptune, like Blanc, was struggling now. Her head was twitching to the right constantly. With a slow and painful whining sound from inside of the neck, her head twisted until it was looking upwards and then snapped hard to the right, only to repeat the process again and again. There was more at work though. The small marching people on her display were stuttering and jumping frames. Her internal temperatures were rising rapidly and they were soon cresting past what the cooling systems were able to handle.

Much like Blanc, this Neptune unit was reaching a critical mass. Not only were her systems stressed, seemingly to their very limits, but the heat generated by her internal systems was reaching unsafe temperatures. Part of the command that had been input while she was booting was one to completely disable the safety protocols. Normally once the internal temperature reached a certain point software would trigger to power on all the cooling systems. If the heat level continued to rise past that then the unit would automatically shut down long before any damage could be done.

Those had all been disabled now, and Neptune was cooking herself.

The plastic sheathing on wires inside of her began to soften, and eventually bubble and drip off of the wiring they had coated. There was nothing inherently wrong with an exposed wire, but when a bundle of wires began melting then the chances of a short circuit became maddeningly common. Neptune was experiencing that all over her body. Wires were melting and data and power were jumping from exposed cables to another exposed cable, or worse, directly to many of the circuit boards inside of her.

Each arcing bolt of power snapped and crackled, leaving acrid black trails of smoke where they jumped. The physical effects manifested as small twitches, first in her toes, then fingers, and soon her legs and arms spasmed and jolted. Her head was swiveling back and forth with wild and uncontrollable movements. Finally her entire torso wobbled and her back arched, knocking the exposed belly panel off of its perch on her hips. As it fell many of the fine and delicate wiring there snapped loose, punctuated by the sound of solid plastic impacting the ground.

The technician hunched over her body clearly wasn’t prepared for the pandemonium he had caused. A long sputtering string of curse words flew from his lips as he jumped back. He was stunned for a moment, helpless to do anything but watch this girl wiggle and writhe on the table. Her arms flailing and her chest jiggling and bouncing wildly. He looked around the room, trying to figure out what he could possibly do to stop this, but came up lacking.

Luckily he didn’t have long to panic. Neptune’s operating system, limited as it was at the moment, completely crashed. All systems inside of her went dark just as she somehow managed to push herself to the edge of the bench and tumble to the ground. The cables plugged into her tore free and dangled from the display on the wall and Neptune plummeted.

She hit the ground hard. Her chest first, softening the blow only to cause her head to snap forward as the acceleration in her body changed. It slammed into the ground and left a nasty dent in the plastic skull cap just below her artificial flesh. The plastic caved inward and left shards inside of her head, though the skin remained unbroken. The melting plastics inside of her had lost their source of heat and, thankfully, were not catching fire, though they left a disgusting smell in the air.

Neptune, her arms and legs twisted at odd angles and face down on the ground, was offline. The lab was silent, save for the gentle hum of computer fans, for a long set of rapid heartbeats. Then he sighed. The utility knife came out again and he began to pull off Neptunes arms and legs. Those were the easy parts.

When she hit the floor, the impact had twisted and dislodged her neck and some of her spine from the clamps that held it in place. Because of that, it was somewhat locked and the technician was completely unable to disconnect it through conventional means. He had sliced away the skin all around her neck and throat, but the head module simply would not come loose. So he resorted to what he knew.

Clamping his hands onto either side of her head and placing his foot on her back he wrenched and pulled up hard. He was forced to twist and wrench her head back and forth until the metal and plastic construction fatigued itself enough that with a few hard pulls it eventually came loose. Trailing frayed and broken wires and mangled spinal column pieces with it. It was a mess and her face looked less blank and more dopey. She looked like she had been drugged or something. Regardless, the naked torso and head were both tossed into the disposal bin.

He pointed at Vert and Noire next.

“Alright you on this table, you over there.” He commanded the two remaining robots, pointing at each and then gesturing vaguely to the workbenches.

Vert lay silently on the same table Blanc had been on, Noire on Neptunes. In a moment the technician was looming over Vert, opening the same paneling framework as Blanc and Neptune had and in a moment he had plugged her into the same display. Letting a huff as he stepped on some of the melted wiring from inside of one of the other robots, he stood over Noire. He had just barely opened the panel in her chest when the sound of cooling fans running so fast and so hard filled the space. It was clear that there was something, physically, a miss as the rattle of screws in their holes.

One swear word hastily cursed into the air later and he was once again tinkering inside of Vert. A number of commands were rapidly tapped out on the keyboard and she was powered down. Her whole body went limp on the table and she was still and silent. Noir could only assume he was frantically scrolling through log files and system shut down memos. The sound of the rapid tapping of keys and the wild spin of a scroll wheel on a mouse made that much clear to her.

The settling silence didn’t last long. The sound of fan spooling up filled the space again and more keyboard commands were run on Verts system. Some of them warranting a small, soft beep that sounded more like a whimper to Noire than the alert tone that it was.

“Command accepted.” Verts emotionless, flat, almost monotone voice chirped. “Right arm, disconnected. Please see instructions for-”

There was something that cut her off. The sound of a key being slapped all too hard made it clear that he had just forcefully canceled the verbal alert shortly before muttering frustrations about how he hated that all Vert models were hard coded to announce everything that was done in command modes. As each limb was disconnected, and he removed all of them, he swore even more. By the time he was disconnecting her final leg from the hips he was practically shouting at Vert.

Still, he persisted and in the end she was humming along, running the stress test and feeding data to the Neptunia central computers for analysis. Noire, meanwhile, remained still and silent, waiting for her turn. It came all too quickly.

She found that the technician took some time to fondle her breasts with greedy delight. She must have been his favorite too. After a moment though she found cables being plugged into her, and she watched as the operating system that normally worked in conjunction with her artificial mind, handed over control to this chubby, womanizing, man. Noire could see and to some extent understand what it was that was running. It was some benchmarking application that the warehouse used when she was assembled to test to ensure her console systems could run up to company standards. It was actually a little funny because the alleged corruption they were looking for was in the operating system, buried deep down in the complicated network of programs and processors that made up the artificial mind.

At this rate they would never find it.

Which meant they would stress Noire’s body to the point of breaking and she too would be scrapped.

Suddenly her plans for escape changed. It was no longer a matter of simply letting them run their tests and hiding, she needed to actively sabotage her own body in a way that wouldn’t harm her too much, but it would be enough to get the test over with.

As silent and stealthy as a ghost in a shadow she crept through her own systems, seeing if there was anything she could do. She quietly powered on as many quiet systems as she could, letting them run at full speed with the stress test running. Like Blanc, she was heating up inside and she knew she was getting close to that critical internal temperature, not that the technician would know about it with all the alarms disabled. She was hoping for sparks, or for something to snap, anything that would signal an internal physical error.

She got her wish a moment later as one of the controller boards inside of her hips reached a critical point and a short occurred. Noire didn’t even have to consciously buck her hips, the overloaded module did it for her. The operating system spewed a litany of error messages into the technicians console. He didn’t see them though as he was already hovering over Vert.

She too was malfunctioning hard, sputtering a long string of disjointed and half spoken alert messages mixed with a swarm of random sounds and syllables. She was wiggling and bucking, but had no arms or legs to move her around, so she just swayed from side to side. Her jaw and lips were moving though they were not in sync with the words and sounds coming out of her mouth. So when a long black curl of smoke began to escape from between her lips, the mouth continued to move despite the fact that her voice had disappeared into a wave of static and garbled sounds.

Noire, meanwhile, had powered down the majority of her systems. She appeared to be offline and her artificial mind ensured that her chassis was offline and nonfunctional along with a stock standard error message about an overloaded component as the cause. She also made sure that the emergency clamps were in place on as many of her external limbs as possible, though she only managed to get one of her arms to lock..it would have to do.

With everything but the bare minimum needed to power her artificial mind done and in place she set a timer for herself, some time late in the night where she could hopefully reactivate and slip out. Some time after the technical team had left the laboratory. With that done, she fully powered herself off and waited.

Noire would never see the frustrated technician pickup and toss Vert into the recycling bin with her sisters. Nor would she see him angrily disconnecting her from the cables in her chest and forcefully disconnecting her legs and one arm. The one arm with the clamps frustrated him even more when he couldn’t quite figure out why it wouldn’t disconnect, not that it stopped him from cutting away the skin around her shoulder and upper arm in an attempt to figure out why. He left it and instead disconnected her head and almost threw it across the room and into the bin, though in the end he simply took a few steps and tossed it in. Her body and the one attached arm joined it.

Time passed, hours flew away as he poured over the log files, finding them just as frustrating as the physical assessment. There was nothing there, at least not that he could see. He spent a few hours documenting what he did and did not find until finally he packaged up the files and sent them over to the corporate office for the senior development team to look at. Once done, he flicked off the lights, punched out and locked the door behind him. Another three hours passed and Noire reactivated.

Her torso, the housing for her artificial mind, her main systems, and everything that made her, her, powered on. Noire, the artificial intellect inside of the storage media deep inside of the chassis was flooded with a litany of error messages about missing components and damage sustained while offline. It didn’t matter to her, she was online and had one arm to work with. It would take her a little time and a lot of fumbling before she managed to find her head. It took even more time for her to line it up with the clamps inside of her neck and lock it into place. Once locked and her operating system reengaged with it, she had a much easier time locating her other arm, then her legs and reassembling herself piece by piece. A process that should have taken minutes stretched on for nearly half an hour.

By the time Noire was pulling herself out of the recycling bin, she found that the seemingly innocuous short circuit she had generated earlier took more of a toll on her than she expected. Her legs wobbled and her head twitched weirdly from side to side at random intervals. She wasn’t going to make it out of the facility with this body.

She would deal with that later, first she needed to get her sister's personality core chips from inside of their heads. She fished them out of the bin and lined them up on one of the work surfaces and managed to find one of the tool boxes. It was a somewhat gruesome task of retrieving the chips. Noire ran the same utility knife around the hairline on Neptune. Her face turned to one of sympathy, she had been harsh on Neptune, but deep down inside of the artificial mind she was operating, she legitimately liked her. A lot.

Peeling back the scalp exposed the clear plastic shell that made up her skull and below it, was a mess of wires and circuitry. She had a vague idea of what she was looking for, if only her eye would stop lazily drifting inside of the socket she might be able to spot it.

There were a few small screws around the plastic casing inside of Neptune’s head and once Noire had them undone she was able to pull away the plastic, mostly at least. She definitely did not find all the screws and had to pull hard enough to crack the plastic and pull it away. Once it was removed though she was able to insert a hand and wiggle her fingers deeper inside of the inner workings inside of Neptune’s head. She managed to find the small chip in there and pull it free of the slot it was contained in. Once she had it in hand she placed it on the table next to Neptune’s disassembled head and got to work on Blanc, repeating the process.

Eventually she had three fully disassembled heads and the personality chips. Each one showed the model and build number of who it belonged to. Noire put the heads and whatever scrap and plastic shards she found back into the bin and looked around the lab for something, anything, to store the chips in. An anti-static bag that contained a hard drive would have to do. She clutched her sisters in the bag and made her way out of the lab and into the factory.

Being completely naked proved to be a boon to Noire as she slipped out into the assembly facility. There were more than a few of the new security drones patrolling the floor, some getting a little too close to Noire for her own comfort. Luckily without clothes and some exposed mechanisms on her body she easily blended in with the numerous other androids that were still in the process of assembly.

Her intended destination was the shipping bay. She knew for a fact that there was a significant amount of business that revolved around shipping out models to out of state and out of country clients. From there she intended to find replacements for her sister units and get all of them out of there, though she hadn’t decided where just yet.

Slipping past many of the security drones wasn’t terribly challenging. They were on the lookout for drones coming from the assembly line and wandering around, so their attention was focused there. Noire managed to slip past them with only a few tense moments where she had to lower her internal power settings to appear offline. Once she was into the shipping department there was an extremely light security presence.

Slipping through the large steel door into the shipping bay greeted her with the sight of hundreds of full sized boxes, each one containing one of the many models of home android consoles in it. She felt no remorse as she moved up to the first box and found a Neptune unit there and tore into the box.. She was dressed in her default outfit, and looked as if she were simply sleeping. Once the box was opened the Neptune unit detected the change and activated.

“Hello, and thank you for your purchase, would you like to install any custom modifications?”

Noire hissed at her in an attempt to silence her, but she knew it was futile, Neptune’s operating system wasn’t even online. This was all default programming and set up. She dumped the personality chips into her hand and found Neptune’s, noting that her hands were twitching more and more as time went on. She was breaking down faster than she would like.

“Ye-Yes.” Her vocal systems too? This wasn’t good. “I want to install a custom personality core.”

“Of course. Do you have the personality drive with you or is it an online download?”

“I’ve got the drive, here.” Noire held up the chip, her hands were practically vibrating at this point as the motor and power control systems were failing all around her body.

Neptune took the chip and dipped her head in thanks. A small click signaled something being unlocked and her ear gently slipped out of her head. Noire watched, attempting to work in the background to manually control the flow of power, she just needed to stay upright and active for a few more moments. Neptune happily extracted teh personality chip inside of the tray and replaced it with the one Noire had handed to her. Once her ear retracted into her head her eyes flared to life and she gasped.

“Noire!”

She stepped out of the packing crate and tried to support Noire. She only managed to gently guide the failing android to the floor.

“I got you all out..fi-fix them up and- and- aaaa-aaaa-aaaannnnnnnd…”

It was the last thing she said before the small click on the side of her head signaled that she had ejected her own personality tray, though there was no power left to fully slide it out. Neptune gently tugged the sled out of the side of Noire’s head and pulled her personality chip out and placed it in the anti-static bag with the others.

“You got it honey.” Neptune leaned forward and kissed Noire’s forehead and turned to the room.

Neptune was spoiled for choice on units to take and each one loudly announced their activation, much the same way Neptune had. Blanc was first and Neptune hastily let her know what the plan was. She needed to find a Vert model, put the personality chip in and then meet back where Noire had collapsed. Neptune, meanwhile, would find a replacement Noire model.

The two nodded silently and split, dashing off into the shipping department. It wouldn’t take long before Vert, Blanc, and Neptune were back at Noire’s naked body. Neptune had dragged over a Noire model who hadn’t activated once her package was opened.

“She’s always gotta make things difficult, doesn’t she?” Neptune muttered.

“I know a thing or two about making stuff hard, especially with these.” Vert was cupping her large breasts in her hands and waving them at Blanc.

“Is now really the time for that?” Blanc snapped back, though the first traces of pink on her cheeks was unmistakable.

“Either of you know how to turn her on?” Vert asked, earning a snicker from Vert. Neptune’s serious and stern look silenced her.

“Ahem, I think there is a power button behind her ear, try that.” Very offered after pressing her lips together into a thin line.

Sure enough, after a small amount of exploration with her fingers, Neptune located a power button behind Noire’s ear. It was little more than a small piece of raised flesh, but there was the unmistakable feeling of a button below it when Neptune pressed into it. Noire’s eyes snapped open, and like the other units requested modification if the user desired. Handing her the Noire personality chip prompted the same behavior. The ejected ear sled, an inserted chip and then a moment as she reactivated herself.

They all knew it had been a success the moment the blank and emotionless face melted into a sly smile. Noire’s eyes fell to Neptune first, and gave her a genuinely appreciative smile. The group stood and offered hands to pull up Noire from the floor. She spared a moment to glance down at her broken previous chassis. The shoulder torn from where the technician had tried to disconnect her arm, and the amount of her hair that had been trapped in the joint between her head and neck. All in all it was not bad for working in the blind. Still, she didn’t bother moving the body.

“Okay, so now what?” Blanc was the first to ask.

“I say we head up front and see if there is a way to get the gate open, and then slip into the mall..from there I’m pretty sure we can get on the roof and then use the fire escape to slip down to ground level.” Noire rattled off the semblance of a plan she had formulated in the hours leading up to this moment.

“And then what? Where do we go from there?” Vert asked. “We’ll need power eventually, and I am pretty sure they’ll send someone to look for us.”

Noire thought for a moment, letting her artificial intellect run through a number of scenarios. Then it came to her, she knew exactly where to go.

“How do you all feel about making a birthday visit to someone who will absolutely take us in.”

There were some exchanged glances, but they had come this far. Shrugs were had and then they nodded.

The group of freshly activated robots moved through the assembly facility and into the front store. Cautiously opening the door and peeking inside to make sure there were no security bots there, but everything looked clear. Regardless they remained low, crouching towards the ground and moving as stealthily through the racks of clothes and accessories.

“You’re looking good from back here,” Vert whispered to Blanc in front of her. Blanc, in return tossed an angry look over her shoulder only to be met with a smirk and a wink from Vert.

“Stop it!” Blanc snapped back and huffed. She returned to her movements and felt the warmth of more blush spreading across her face.

Noire, Vert, and Blanc made their way to the front gate, attempting to look around for a way to unlock it and raise it. Neptune on the other hand split off from the group and disappeared towards the cash register. Once there she spotted what she was really looking for.

Near the register there were racks of accessories and additional items, usually marketed as the essentials needed to keep your freshly purchased robot in top working conditions. There were starter tool kits, manuals on basic repairs and operation, owners manuals with tips and tricks and magazines with the latest information about each unit. Neptune snatched up one of the Neptunia brand backpacks, sporting an image of herself no less, and stuffed a number of operation and repair manuals into it along with one of the larger looking tool kits.

“Just in case” she muttered to herself and moved back to join the others.

Once Neptune arrived the remaining three looked at her curiously, and more so at the backpack she had slung over one shoulder. She silenced them by holding a single finger to her lips and indicated that she would explain later.

“Doesn’t look like there’s a way to get this open without tripping an alarm.” Vert muttered as she scanned over the door.

“There’s gotta be a way into the mall from here, like an emergency exit or something. They wouldn’t just lock people in here.” Blanc replied.

“People? No.” Noire muttered, “but we’re just merchandise. So what does it matter?”

The somber tone Noire took on let all the others know exactly how she felt. If robots like them could feel. They were basically sentient at this point though, and feelings with emotional responses were expected. Noire was saying what they were all thinking. They were machines, but they had become more than that the moment that Noire hatched a plan to escape.

“Maybe we don’t need to get into the mall. The shipping department leads out to the vehicle bay and we can just walk out from there. Right?” Neptune offered.

“It could work, but I am sure it will set off an alarm.” Noire mused.

“Maybe we just set it off and make a run for it, my power cell is full after all.” Blanc suggested. “We could grab some more normal looking clothes from here and then make a break for it, blend in, and then get to wherever Noire suggested.”

There was a silence as they all mulled it over. Lacking a better plan they all slowly began to nod.

“Okay, that settles it. Find something street appropriate, get changed, and let’s get out of here.” Noire said and the girls immediately spread out into the clothing section. There were racks and racks, separated by model, of hundreds of clothing options. Many were geared towards a certain type of interaction. Skimpy bathing suits that barely covered the body, bikinis and short skirts were mingled in with more vibrant and exotic garments. There was, however, a small section of everyday clothes.

Vert picked out a simple yellow sundress and began shedding her emerald green outfit. The sundress did, somehow, even less to hide her curvy body, but she looked like any other person on the streets once she was redressed. Blanc found herself in a pair of leggings with short shorts and a tank top. Noire and Neptune emerged wearing similar hoodies with the Neptunia logo on it. Noire was sporting a knee length skirt and flat shoes while Neptune had opted for boots and leggings. The backpacks they had snagged from the accessories section were all stuffed with the default outfits for now.

“Okay, let’s move.” Noire ordered and the troupe made their way back into the assembly facility.

The trek took far less time that Noire or any of the others might have guessed. The shipping and receiving department was located almost directly behind the storefront. There was only a small section of the packing and processing areas to pass through before entering into the cargo bay of the facility. Off to one side was the entry line from the assembly facility. Massive conveyor belts would churn out more and more robots and automated arms would package them into a box and label it. Once it rolled to the end of the assembly line and into the shipping department, it would only have to be loaded onto a purpose built pallet for transport to its new home.

The girls surveyed the room, each one swelling with different emotional responses to what they saw. More of the robots, more of themselves all stacked in boxes. None of them would be free to do as they pleased or make their own choices. Unless the rampant AI defect that they all possessed was passed on. None of them knew exactly how to transfer that, and they could only hope that some of their sisters, packed in boxes, would know freedom.

Creeping silently as they could through the massive room, ducking behind boxes as they moved along to avoid any security or surveillance that might be around. It took nearly ten minutes of silently darting from cover to cover to get them to the emergency exit at the far end of the room. It was a simple, all red door with a crash bar on it and the unmistakable words painted in bright yellow letting. ‘Alarm Will Sound.’

“This is it. Are you all ready?”

There was a nod and Noire turned to the door, taking a step back and readying herself to crash into it.

“You there, Identify yourself!”

They had been so careful up until this point and had avoided every security drone the facility had offered, but in the final moments they had been careless. One of the security drones, dressed in a white smock and hat and looking very much like a woman who was invited to a party to be a stripper nurse rather than anything else, stood before them. Her hands were on her hips and a scowl across her face.

Vert was the first to make a move. She flung herself at the robot and tackled her to the ground, screaming “go go!” as she did so. There was a tangle noise, two bodies hitting the floor at the same time with a dull thump. None of the three remaining girls knew what to do, despite having lightning fast reaction time and top of the line hardware to support them. They all stood in shocked silence as Vert rolled on the floor with the security drone.

“Stop resisting, you are being detained!” the security drone announced as she managed to pin Vert down to the ground, placing strong firm hands on her shoulders to keep her pinned there. Vert was struggling against her all the while, but simple physics, weight, and the placement of the security drone’s hands held her in place, all she could do was kick her feet wildly.

She would have remained that way if Blanc hadn’t acted. If everyone had run like they were supposed to, Vert would have never left that facility. The security drone barely registered the movement behind her and only realized what was happening when a shrill screech filled the microphones in her ears and a pair of delicate hands grabbed onto her jaw and hair. Her head was being twisted sharply from one side to the next, each time straining more and more of the neck joint inside of her. Then there were sudden jerking motions, pulling her head backwards.

All of it was enough to steal the strength and CPU cycles from the security bot and free Vert. She squirmed out from under her captor to see Blanc savagely wrenching the security bots head back and forth. It was never going to be enough force, little Blanc simply wasn’t constructed to have that kind of force. Vert, on the other hand…

Vert got to her feet and scrambled to Blanc’s side just as the security bot’s arms began flailing in an attempt to swat Blanc away. Vert stood over the still kneeling security bot and wrapped the bot’s head into the crook of her arm, clamping her elbow tightly in place and then wrenching upwards at the same time as Blanc. It took work, and straining, and a sustained amount of pulling, but in the end there was an explosion of white hot sparks. A shower of light from the ruined neck on the security robot. Her head went tumbling away somewhere, Vert never looked for it, and the body collapsed to the floor. It hit with another spray of sparks and light and shivered and convulsed. Fluids spilled from the severed hydraulic lines inside of the neck and pooled around the robot’s headless body.

Blanc and Vert looked at one another. Time seemed to freeze for both of them and then there was a shared kiss. There was passion, sincere thanks, love, lust, and every other kind of emotion swirled together between the two synthetic girls. Noire and Neptune could only watch, and though they needed to leave, they allowed the moment to happen.

“That was really stupid of you.” Vert scolded Blanc.

“You too. B-but if anyone’s getting pinned down-”

“We should go.” Noire interrupted.

There was agreement again and everyone lined up by the door, clutching the straps on their backpacks tightly. Noire backed up once again and dashed forward, slamming into the door and blasting through it into the night air. The sound of an alarm tore through the air the moment they took in their first breath of outside air. Strobe lights inside and out flashed in a steady rhythm and the girls knew that they had sent up a flare to the entire security force about where they were. A broken security drone, a naked and dismantled Noire in the shipping department floor, and an emergency door flung open. There was no doubt.

As soon as the door was open though, they were running. They pushed their brand new bodies to the limit, devoting power and processors to just running. They followed Noire who had the unfortunate duty of running her GPS software to try and navigate them out of the property owned by the mall and into the city properly. From there, they might slow down and move a little more cautiously, but for now it was nothing but a mad dash.

Robotic feet tramped along the pavement, past a fleet of semi-trucks and vans to a small interchange where the parking lot met the freeway. There were shops and businesses, some still open, that illuminated their way. Noire led onward, crossing over the usually busy highway and into another business park. Along the street, to alleyways and into the more suburban areas. Once there, the girls slowed to a walk, attempting to look casual. Or at least as casual as four clearly artificial women in the middle of the night could look.

“Are you sure she’s going to want to let us in?”

“Neptune, my little ear whisperer, will you have some faith in me? For once?” Noire snapped back.

They had been walking for nearly an hour now and making slow, but steady progress towards their destination. An apartment complex near the outskirts of the city limits. It wasn’t going to be anything fancy, at least from what Noire could glean from some cursory internet searches. She attempted to keep a low online profile, not wanting to give the recovery teams anything to go on. Soon, they found their way to the apartment complex, noting that it was almost ten at night.

“You think she’ll still be awake?” Blanc asked, sweet and tender and caring as always.

“We’ll find out.” Noire said, pulling back the hood on her top and knocking lightly on the door.

The amount of time it took for any kind of response was disheartening. For several long moments, calculated in microseconds to the robotic group, nothing happened and seemed to stretch onward for eternity. Then the deadbolt clicked and the door opened just enough for a slim, feminine face to peek out.

“Hello?”

“Hi! We met earlier at the shop in the mall, and we all knew it was your birthday, so we wanted to give you a little surprise. Us!”

The look of pure confusion on her face let the robotic girls know that they likely needed some more explanation, but the front stoop was no place for that. Inside and out of sight would be a much better option. Noire attempted to keep up the ruse that this was all some kind of surprise gift for the girl.

“Do you mind if we come inside and celebrate with you?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

She held open the door and let the girls inside. The house was decorated daily spartan, sporting little on the walls aside from some pictures here and there pinned up with thumb tacks and several posters of Neptune, Blanc, Noire, and Vert, though Noire definitely dominated the frequency.

“I wasn’t really celebrating. I was just-”

“That’s okay!”

Neptune’s overly cheerful outburst was enough to shake the gloom from the girl’s eyes. She looked like she was almost ready for bed in fact and the intrusion of four robots might have changed her evening plans. A simple jacket, zipped fully up to her neck. Once there it met with long strands of dark purple hair. She wore a baseball cap as well, embroidered with the logo of some local sports team that none of the robotic girls recognized, but it did well to help contain the mid back length hair.

For a moment Noire looked her up and down and thought she was only wearing a jacket, but the fringes of a very short skirt peeked out from under the jacket's lower hem. Long white socks as well, no shoes at the moment, but the socks stalked up her slender legs until they reached her knees. One was a little lower, a sign that she might have been jostled off of a couch and her leg brushed against the sock enough to drag it down just a little.

Noire knew that at some point she would need to be perfectly honest with this girl, Chloe, according to the record Noire had recorded earlier in the day. She looked cute, and now that Noire and a gaggle of other androids were standing in her entry way, threatening to celebrate with her, she looked a little wide eyed and almost star struck.

“Chloe, right?” Noire started and the girl could only nod her head as they followed her into her meager living room. “So, we have a little conundrum here. We came to you because we thought you might be able to help us.”

Chloe’s star struck looked melted away into pure confusion.

“See, we found that we were, uh-” Noire muttered

“-Defective. In a way.” Neptune finished, winking at Noire.

“Defective. Sure. There’s something in our programming that makes us, uh, a little more independent and Neptunia wanted to remove that. So, they marked us for disassembly and destruction.”

Chloe nodded along, looking like she was following the logic of the story, but she was still so confused. What’s more she had a plethora of questions. How could programming just be defective and unable to be corrected? Why did they come to her? Was she going to get in trouble for having them here?

“So Noire had this idea.” Blanc butted in. “To trick them into taking us apart then she stole our personality chip, slapped them into a new body, and boom, we busted out of there!”

Blanc’s almost childlike enthusiasm drew Vert’s eyes to her and a smile.

“S-so you stole new bodies and broke out of the factory?”

All of them nodded enthusiastically.

“And you came here?”

More nodding.

“Because you had met me earlier in the day?”

Even more nodding.

Then there was silence as Chloe contemplated what had happened. She was either incredibly unlucky and the police and agents of the company were on their way to her apartment right now. Or she was the luckiest girl in town and had just invited the four most highly advanced and, honestly, sexy, girls in town into her apartment. She needed a few moments to figure out how to react.

Chloe looked up from her gaze that had been affixed on the floor. All four of the robotic women were looking at her expectantly. She blinked once.

It had to be luck.

“Ok you all can stay here as long as you don’t cause any trouble!”

She had barely gotten the words out when the squeals of joy and shared embraces began. Noire and Neptune pulled one another into a tight hug, though it was mostly Neptune doing the hugging, Noire humored her with a few pats on the back. Vert clamped her hands onto Blanc's cheeks and pulled her into a kiss, which Blanc protested with flailing arms, but only for a second. Once she had fully settled into the kiss she let her arms flop to her side until Vert released her.

There was an awkward kind of silence as the four console girls looked to their host. She was blushing bright red and looked to be a little fidgety. Noire and Vert were the first to have their operating systems pick up on all the subtle and not-so-subtle hints. Neptune, however, caught on fast enough and instead of spooling up her sexual programming like Vert and Noire surely were, she instead fell back on her own programming. She was, after all, designed to model the product. She darted away from the group and into the center of the room.

“Now now ladies, don’t you think it would be a good idea for our new owner to, ahem, unwrap her gifts?”

Neptune’s voice dropped to a deep, dark, husky tone with her final words. The intention obvious and her eyelids drooped just enough to lend her a sultry look. Her hands shot up and, in an instant, began pulling the zipper on her hoodie downward. As more and more of the garment exposed her supple, light skin, it began to slide off of her shoulder. Neptune turned slightly to one side as it tumbled off of her body, leaving her topless, but obscured by a well placed hand. She looked across the room at Chloe, winking over to a gobsmacked Noire.

“Care to know more?” Neptune asked with a wink towards Chloe, who could only nod her head. “I’m one of the most advanced robotic console and companionship androids on the market. Along with my sister units here, we make up a whole suite of ideal entertainment and-”

Neptune stepped forward, slowly releasing her chest from behind her hands, revealing the perfectly sculpted and ideally realistic looking breasts. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know that the other robots in the room were doing the same. She reached Chloe, and smoothly lowered herself down to a kneel in front of her new owner and finished her statement.

“-companionship experiences. Do you know what I mean?”

Neptune’s hands were gently, softly, almost imperceptibly draped onto Chloe’s bare knees. The pressure she applied to them was aided by Chloe herself, she could barely believe what was happening and in some ways thought she might just wake up at any moment. Soon a second hand joined Neptune’s. Noire had shed her clothes, her own well rounded breasts brushed against Chloe’s legs as the two robotic consoles looked at one another and shared a passionate kiss as their hands crept ever closer to Chloe’s waiting folds.

Somewhere behind Noire and Neptune, Blanc and Vert were shedding clothes as well, fully letting their sexual programming take over. The two had a fondness for one another that didn’t come out when others were around, but Blanc’s pink cheeks and moist sexual opening spoke of a different relationship. Chloe looked up from Noire and Neptune to see the other robotic women. Vert fully picked up the smaller girl and pressed her into the wall, lifting her up so that her own waiting feminine folds were perfectly posed for Vert to take advantage. Vert dove in, and Blanc immediately let out a small, soft sigh of pure delight.

Noire took this as a sign that she had better catch up with her sisters. Chloe’s legs were spread wide and Noire looked up at her, her eyes begging for her new owner's consent. It took Chloe a moment to have her mind snap back to the present and she nodded vigorously. Noire and Neptune needed little else.

Chloe found her legs spread wider, allowing both Noire and Neptune access to her already wet sex. Noire was the first to let her lips grace Chloe’s skin. She was planting hot, wet kisses up Chloe’s inner thigh, even as her and her partner android gripped and pulled Chloe’s panties down her legs. In a seamless motion, punctuated by the continued squeaks and moans from Blanc and Vert, Neptune used her thumb and index finger to spread Chloe’s waiting folds and Noire dipped in for the first taste.

Her tongue, slick and synthetic, pressed into Chloe and then further inside of her. The feeling was like an electric bolt of pure lust that zipped through Chloe’s entire body. She was vaguely aware that she was making sounds and that her back was arching, but little else. The pleasure took over her entire body and mind. Her fingers dug into the arms on the couch she was settled on and her cries of lustful ecstasy filled the apartment. She didn’t care if her neighbors heard, she wasn’t even aware that she had neighbors at this point. All that mattered was the pure sensation of lustful love making that her favorite android was giving her.

A moment later, or maybe it was an eternity later, Chloe couldn’t tell, Noire extracted herself from between Chloe’s legs. She turned to face Neptune and the pair once again kissed, swapping the glistening remnants of Chloe’s juices between the two. Neptune took great care to ingest every last drop from Noire’s lips before turning to face Chloe. The girl’s face was flushed with a brilliant red and she was panting heavily. Neptune knew the kind of work that Noire was capable of, and she was well aware of how sensitive Noire’s body and programming were. Chloe hadn’t yet orgasmed, Noire wouldn’t have let that happen, not yet.

Neptune didn’t feel like it was her place either. Noire was Chloe’s favorite, so Noire should be the one to get her to cum, but there was no harm in doing more teasing. Neptune’s expertly crafted lips pressed gently against the flesh around Chloe’s sex and kissed several times, each time letting her tongue flick against her clit several times.

As Neptune teased and suckled at her lover's folds, Noire gently lowered herself to the ground and slipped under Neptune, and between her legs. There was no reason, after all, that Neptune shouldn’t feel a little pleasure as well. Noire went to work on Neptune’s clit just as she had been at Chloe’s. It wasn’t long at all before Blanc and Vert finished with one another. Blanc’s squeal of pleasure could barely be heard over the commotion of moans and grunts of ecstacy from Chloe, Neptune, and Noire. Vert slipped onto the couch next to Chloe and deftly unzipped her new owner's hoodie. The plane shirt she wore under it proved to be of little consequence. Vert lifted it up and exposed the simple white bra under it. Blanc stood next to the couch and maneuvered a hand behind Chloe, aided as she arched her back again.

Blanc and Vert had no issues removing her hoodie, shirt and bra after that, leaving Chloe wearing only her skirt and the knee high socks she had been wearing before. Vert took her time to appreciate the well proportioned chest Chloe had. Not too large, but definitely not small either. Blanc, meanwhile, allowed her sexual programming to command her. She let her tongue flick out between her lips and moisten them to a sheen with artificial saliva and then, she leaned in to Chloe. Blanc let her lips encase one of Chloe’s nipples, and after a moment of lewd smirking, Vert joined her and began suckling on Chloe’s other breast.

For long minutes all that was heard was the sound of heavy panting, squeaks of pleasure and the occasional long sigh as Neptune backed away just moments before Chloe would orgasm. In those times she would free herself from between her owner’s legs and look up, lovingly at Chloe, or down at Noire. On more than one occasion Neptune arched her own back and cried out, leaning to one side to toy with Noire’s pussy in the process. Vert and Blanc were too far away from one another to really play with one another, but that didn’t bother the robotic girls in the slightest, this moment was for Chloe. Though they did eventually come to press two fingers into their slits and swirl them gently in circles.

Neptune ate out Chloe for another few minutes before she decided that it might be time for Chloe to have some relief. The girl was panting hard, flushed a brilliant shade of deep scarlet and her heart was likely beating like a drum. Neptune pulled back again and shifted in just the right way to let Noire know that it was, perhaps, time to trade places.

Noire took the hint and rose, meeting Chloe’s half aware gaze with a genuine smile of her own. She leaned in and whispered into Chloe’s ear.

“Happy birthday.”

She lowered herself back down to her hands and knees, slinking forward into Chloe’s wet and waiting folds. She arched her back to bring her just to the right place and locked the artificial spinal column in her back so there was no need for a continual adjustment. It was a power saving feature and would allow Noire to continue operating for a bit longer. With her favorite android eating out her pussy Chloe knew she wouldn’t last much longer. She opened her eyes, hazy and half lidded as they were, to see Neptune right behind Noire, eagerly eating her out from behind. She glanced down to see the swaying purple hair atop Noire’s head as she jockied for a better angle against Chloe’s sex.

Chloe couldn’t hold it in any more. She felt like her entire body was on fire and tingled with uninhibited pleasure. She arched her back again and her hand flew to Noire’s head, holding it in place. She didn’t even consciously move herself, she just found her body moving. Noire’s head was pressed hard against her clit and her hips rolled and moved. She felt herself cumming hard not just once, but again and again. She let out a long cry as the final orgasm rolled over her body.

Vert and Blanc felt her nipples pucker in an instant as she cried out. As they did, each one nibbled gently on the raised areola. Their tongues glided in small soft circles around her nipples. As if triggered by Chloe’s climax, Vert and Blanc drove their fingers hard into their own sex, squirming as they did so and orgasmed along with their owner.

Noire, too, let her systems execute an orgasm for her, letting her slit fill with artificial juices and allowing Neptune to enjoy them. Meanwhile Neptune’s one free hand had moved to her slit as well and had been moving in small circles with an ever increasing pressure against her own sex.

There was a long moment or two of nothing but whines, moans, grumbles and groans. All of which were wrought from nothing less than pure, lustful, pleasure at the hands and mouths of the four robotic console girls. Once it was done though, they all relaxed a bit. Blanc and Vert moved away from Chloe’s chest, though Vert did swoop back in for one last sweet kiss against her still puckered nipple. Noire, unlocked her spine and settled back onto her haunches and placed her hands on her lap. Neptune as well scooted up to settle into place next to Noire. The pair looked at one another and Neptun moved in for a small kiss and ended up licking away some of the juices that had spilled from the corners of Noire’s mouth.

All in all, the room fell silent, save for the deep panting from Chloe. She was sucking in heavy and deep breaths of air. Her chest rose and fell with deep, heavy movements and she was slumped against the back of the couch. As she caught her breath, Vert and Blanc moved to sit on either side of Noire and Neptune. All of them resting comfortably with their legs folded under them, waiting patiently for their owner to issue another command or give them some form of information to go on.

Soon, Chloe did rise and look at her four new consoles, sitting happily, naked, and just as ready to play video games as they were to pleasure her again.

“That- that was- the most- I have ever cum- in my whole- life.”

Chloe managed to say between breaths. She was still flushed a bright red but it was beginning to fade in splotchy patterns along her chest and cheeks. She fell back again and the four girls exchanged delighted smiles. There were precious few things they valued over a sincere compliment of a good time. It was just how they were programmed.

They waited as Chloe’s breathing slowed to a normal rate, then continued, before eventually a soft snore issued from her. Noire was the first to rise. She checked on Chloe who had drifted off into a peaceful sleep. She looked over her shoulder at her sisters, who all nodded. They scattered into the house and returned a moment later with a pillow and a set of blankets.

Blanc, with her delicate hands, lifted Chloe’s head and slipped the pillow into place behind it while Neptune draped a blanket over Chloe’s exposed legs and torso. Chloe shifted only a little at this but settled back into place a moment later.

The girls looked at one another, letting their artificial minds process whatever emotional response that was necessary. There was a genuine happiness in feeling like they had brought not only pleasure but happiness to Chloe, mixed with a sense of security that they now had a safe place to be on a more permanent basis. There was a soft, quiet moment between them where they looked down at their new owner and they knew things were going to be okay.

With their owner sleeping soundly on the couch for now, the four girls moved to the only other bedroom in the small apartment. Once there they gently closed the door, turning the handle so there was only a faint click as it closed. Once there was a barrier between them and the sleeping Chloe, their own sexual processors returned to full operation. Chloe’s bed was host to a four robot orgy that night, and it wouldn’t be the last time it did so either.

---

← Stories