R3DD - Infidelity Protocol

The rhythmic rattling of an in-wall air conditioner was about the only sound inside the small room. The somewhat limited amount of space was occupied by a two person bed, adorned with cheap but clean sheets and blankets. An equally cheap bedside table and lamp nestled themselves on either side of the bed. The carpet, flat and hard from years of foot traffic, the color of day old porridge covered the floor. A small, almost useless, round table and two chairs was pushed against one corner. As if anyone would consider sitting there and drinking coffee or eating breakfast.

Just beyond the bedroom was a small, and equally unused, bathroom. The lights had been off in both the main room and the attached bathroom for upwards of a week now. The room had been still and silent, save for the fan inside the air conditioner. Despite the lack of activity in the little roadside motel room, it wasn’t unoccupied.

An upright rolling suitcase was pushed against some of the very scant available wallspace. It looked far too big for the one occupant of the room.

Laying on the bed, unmoving as it had been for almost a week now, was the vague shape of a woman. She was laying on her back, perfectly still. The blanket had been thrown over the top of her and from the way it landed and gently contoured her it looked as if someone had placed her there, then threw the blanket high up over her and then let it gently settle against her body. Small peaks formed where her feet jut upward, perfect and rigid. The vague outline of a torso, arms and legs made for a very convincing image that someone might just be sleeping there.

Her head was the only part of her that wasn’t rigidly set and facing the ceiling. It had, in fact, been purposefully turned away from the window next to the door. Anyone who managed to peep even a little bit of the room would just see her, on the bed, head turned away, and nothing else.

If they had though…

The woman, currently, had no face. Not that there was a blank mask of skin with no features, far from it. In fact there was no flesh there at all. Instead there was a deep ridge that marked where her face might attach, and below that, nothing but robotic mechanisms and circuitry. Complicated and reflecting what little light streamed into the room from the blinds that covered the window. Camera-like lenses focused on nothing at all and a raw opening where a mouth might be remained open, but covered by some kind of plastic cap.

The android that lay there, inactive but not offline, had remained that way for six days, thirteen hours, forty four minutes and fifty nine seconds. Then, time was up.

An internal alarm went off, heard by no one. All it did was bring system after system to life. Components quietly grumbled to life and then quieted down into silence. Heat began to radiate through the synthetic skin on her body and warm the bed she lay in. Not with any extreme amount of temperature, just something more than the cold, inert body that had been there for a week. Soon a subtle light began to glow behind her eyes, not nearly enough to cast a beam into the room, it was barely enough to be noticed by anyone who glanced at her. But it was there nonetheless.

Hands moved and the comforter was swiftly moved off of her body. She was nude in the darkness, but nudity and the associated need to cover herself were simply not present, not yet at least. She had work to do first. She had programming to follow. So she slipped out of bed, her lithe and feminine curves moving through the darkness. There was no sensual sway in her hips, her steps were measured and perfect and smooth. Even the small motion to snap her arm out and hook her fingers around the handle on her rolling suitcase was a precise movement. There was no wasted power or processing in accomplishing the motion.

The case was tipped down and laid flat just inside the bathroom doorway. Just out of sight of the door and window in the main room. The robotic woman flicked on the lights in the bathroom and squatted down to open the case. Inside contained only a single set of clothes, those were picked up and set on the closed lid of the toilet, they weren’t needed just yet. She needed what they had covered.

Tools, mechanisms, spare parts, electronics, and all manner of clearly mechanical components were just under the clothes. First she pulled out a compact, bundle of tools. Long implements with molded plastic handles and strange tips to each metal piece. Other smaller implements were inside as well. Tweezers and precision pliers, specialized keys for adjusting small screws with proprietary heads.

The camera lenses where a human’s eyes would be clicked in their sockets, watching her hands place the bundle on the counter top before moving back to the back and drawing out a small, unassuming case. It was closed and held in place by small magnets, just enough to clamp it closed but ones that posed only a little resistance to being opened. It joined the tools on the counter top, before she reached back into the bag for the last piece of hardware for now. A simple grey plastic bag, lined with anti-static mesh and sealed with a simple piece of orange tape over a folded opening.

Her head reoriented itself and looked into the mirror. The complicated array of visual systems took in her whole body. Well crafted and feminine hips gave way to a slender waistline and belly. Breasts attached to her chest that seemed just a little proportionally small for her build, but they fit her nicely regardless. The smooth light skin across her whole body almost glowed in the fluorescent light of the motel bathroom as it tapered up to a slim neck and cut hard against the metallic and mechanical internals inside of her head. All of it framed by shoulder length hair that seemed so perfectly silky. It practically shimmered under the light.

With deft and precise fingers, she plucked a tool from the case she had laid out and moved it to her exposed facial systems. The diagnostics she had run returned a report of her underlying mechanisms' response time, and while they were well within the acceptable ranges for human expression, they weren’t perfect. She wanted perfection.

Long minutes were spent tightening a number of mechanisms inside of her opened head. Tightening here, loosening there. Once done, she would rerun the test scripts and her optrics would watch as the complicated array of servo motors and actuators would move and twitch inside of her head. Had her face plate been attached they might have resulted in a smile, a frown, a look of concern, anger, or a dozen others. For now, they were little more than softly whining motor systems moving through a series of commands. Some of the adjustments required her to insert a longer tool deep into her head, far past the outer structure and deep into the core of her cranium. It was all worth it and her programming demanded it. She had no choice in the matter, it would be done.

The tools were put back in their little bundle for now, the robot reached up and pulled the plastic plug from the tube where her mouth would be, and the anti-static bag pulled open. Until then she was just a robot, a literal faceless machine. She could have been anyone, but now she was about to become Weslyn Kazumi.

The face plate inside of the bag looked vaguely asian in most ways. The eyes were closed, but still had a telltale almond shape to them. The eyeballs were affixed to the face just under the eyelids and would connect to the freshly tuned motor systems in her head. A cute little nose and pink lips that verged on being ruby red without being overtly red rounded out the face. It was equal parts cute and professional. The kind of face that looked kind while commanding. The perfect face for an onsite liaison between the New Arcadian Government and a well known weapons manufacturer.

With the kind of precision only a machine could have, Weslyn tossed her head left and right, moving her hair out of the way in the process and then her face was brought up and pressed into place. At first it was the silent grip of magnets that helped align and hold the new component in place, then more mechanical locks slipped into place. A moment later Weslyn exhaled hard as the vacuum sealing pulled the skin pieces against one another, leaving only the faintest of seams where the robot's face met the equally robotic head. A smattering of makeup would be more than enough to cover it.

She turned her head left and right, her artificial eyes tracking the movement and sweeping over the facial features. As she moved her optics fed data to her operating system for analysis and adjustment. Her face moved slightly, her mouth opening and closing in a number of different expressions. A smile, a pout, a lustful moan. Her eyes and brow matched each new expression perfectly. With that, she stood fully upright.

A new line of considerations rolled from her operating system and into her processors. Her mission wasn’t going to be simple, and while she didn’t anticipate any trouble, there was little harm in being prepared. Her eyes shifted to the small magnetically closed case next to her tools. The people who had built her, programmed her, and ultimately left her here in this motel had also given her the gift of expansions. Not every mission required the same skills, they left that up to a highly analytical computer systems to determine. So she did.

She opened the case to reveal a long row of small chips, barely larger than a fingernail. Each was seated in a small slot to keep them upright and ready. Her eyes scanned the small labels on each one before finding what she needed. She pulled another tool from the case, a long, thin metal rod attached to a simple plastic handle. It could have easily been mistaken for a long screwdriver, though it had no distinct head shape. Instead, it was simply tapered down to a soft, rounded point. Weslyn brought it to her ear and pushed it deep inside with no hesitation. Deeper and deeper into her skull until it bumped into a small push button buried deep inside. Once pressed, there was a barely audible ping as something unlatched itself. She extracted the tool, set aside and looked back at herself in the mirror.

Her ear had popped free, perhaps a centimeter or two, nothing more. Her expression hadn’t changed a bit, remaining completely neutral as she reached up and gripped her earlobe, pulling outward as her ear glided along a set of mounting rails. Attached to her ear was a tray studded with a few of those same microchips from the case she had opened. There were precious few open slots available, but she only needed one additional programming set anyway. Something to help her out in case her extraction got a little more thrilling than she wanted.

She plucked the chip from its slot and aligned it with an open space in her ear tray. She pushed in and locked it in place. Her hands fell back to her side, and for a moment she seemed frozen. Her eyes locked onto herself as she looked in the mirror, her ear remained out and a small green light flickered next to the slot that had just received the new card. Seconds passed, and then she was ready. Her hands returned to her head, one of them ensuring that her hair was out of the way and the other pushed her ear tray back into place. The simple metallic ping was barely heard as it locked into place.

With new programming in place there were only a few more things that she needed to do before she could leave. Her eyes drifted back to her suitcase, then to the clothes. Time was running out, but she would be ready.

It was still early in the day, just barely before sunrise. No one in their right minds would be awake this early, and the chances of being spotted were unlikely. That suited Weslyn just fine. She left her motel room, now dressed in a very smart looking skirt and blazer. She tugged the suitcase along behind her, punctuated by the clicking of her heels on the pavement. She was moving quickly around the back of the motel to a small fenced off enclosure. There wasn’t even a padlock on it, which made her job easier.

Inside was a single large, and very dirty looking, trash compactor. The rain and weather had not been kind to the old unit, but as long as it still worked that was fine. She opened the heavy steel door and effortlessly tossed the suitcase into it. Whatever was left inside would be utterly destroyed. That was fine, she had little need for tools, programming chips, and empty plastic bags now. Moreover, she needed to make sure no one could track her presence here and link it to where she was headed. She slammed the door shut and mashed her hand into the red button on the giant machine. She was halfway back around the side of the motel when it crushed her bag and the small amount of garbage that was already inside the compactor.

She left the motel without any word or fanfare, she was just another woman in the world now. Or so she seemed at least. A not insignificant amount of work had gone into arranging a job for her with the Narayan Engineering Concern, from there she would be on her own to get close to the upper level of management and take the information they required. If discovered, there would be nothing to link her existence back to her manufacturers, but there would be no second chance at this. She was their best hope and was built to succeed at any cost.

From the unassuming motel, little more than a two story building studded with doors to a room that saw little use, Weslyn had a short walk to a waiting car that took her to a shuttle port. From there it was only a matter of boarding a transport aircraft that would take her to the drop off site. The shuttle was contracted to a trusted temp employee corporation, new recruits, or in very special cases, a liaison from some governing body. Weslyn’s name had been put in all the right places in a number of databases. It was all a forgery of course. Weslyn was no dignitary nor was she a government official. She wasn’t even human…

The aircraft soared along, passing over the city below. Soon those high rising buildings gave way to smaller buildings and sprawling suburban neighborhoods. The further south they flew the more and more the signs of civilization faded. Suburban homes gave way to farmsteads on the edges of civilization, and then all at once, everything was gone. Replaced with the light tan of sands and scraggly clusters of bushes and hearty trees. A hostile desert environment that drained the water from everything around it to support the plants and wildlife that were tough enough to spring up there.

Weslyn had let her head dip forward and her eyes slipped closed while she slipped into a low power mode. That was fine with the two man crew at the helm of the small ship. Weslyn was uncanny and beautiful to them, and they knew her purpose, but interaction with something like her was unnerving. Of course, that was only because they knew what she was. The average person would have thought her charming and quite sociable with a cute face to boot. The kind of girl who was naturally fun to be around and that most people thought might be subtly flirting with you.

It was all programming, of course. The words she said were purposefully engineered to be the optimal choice to get her to where she wanted. Her processors were constantly generating and regenerating conversation trees with possible outcomes and more choices for her to choose from. She would always be ready with a quip or some comment that would ultimately drive her forward.

So it was no surprise that when she arrived at the airstrip of Narayan Engineering Concern's Black Site 09 that she put on a vague smile, a look of wonder in her eyes as she walked along the tarmac towards the main facility. The arid desert air was far too dry and even her robotic eyes as she walked along the tarmac towards the headquarters. The arid desert air was far too dry and even her robotic systems complained about the heat. It was no surprise that an open and empty desert was the perfect place for a weapons contractor to construct and test an experimental weapon system, and that was exactly what Weslyn was here to secure.

As she walked through the atrium, and up to the front desk, Weslyn’s systems began taking in and tagging data. Once there she came face to face with a woman with a stern look on her face. She looked almost more dangerous than the two meat headed guards behind her, each sporting a deadly looking sub-machine gun on their hips. Security here was a serious matter, of course, but the presence of actual weaponry at the front entry came as a small surprise to Weslyn. No matter though, for now, it was just another data point.

As she approached the desk, Weslyn could see the eyes on the woman there travelling up and down her body, over the curves, and taking her entire look in. Not in any kind of sexualized way, more that she was being studied and mentally cataloged.

“Can I help you miss…” The woman’s voice trailed off in its icy cold tones.

“Weslyn Kazumi.”

That seemed to shake something loose inside of the woman’s mind. Somewhere between recognition and, was that disgust..no…hatred…

“So good to meet you Ms. Kazumi.” The woman lied. “We didn’t quite expect you this early.”

The woman stood from behind the desk and held out a hand which Weslyn then shook. It was courteous and nothing else. There was no actual exchange of pleasantries here. Weslyn was being allowed in because it was her job, and this other woman, Cybil Brandt, if her security badge was correct, was the one who had to let her in.

Obviously the secrecy of weapons development and research warranted some level of scrutiny and secrecy. Not that it was any kind of covert operation what they were doing here, the specifics might be, but it was assumed that a reputable company that manufactured weapons had a deep desire to keep the specifics of what they were doing under wraps for a while. It was also in the interests of other organizations to find out exactly what it was that was being developed, either to try and keep up with the competition or to begin plans on how to thwart those weapons as soon as they were made available.

There was good money and power to be gained in both scenarios.

With a sweeping gesture Cybil waved Weslyn to follow her. As the new arrival walked along Cybil handed her a security badge. It was blank, showing only her name on it, not a headshot or company branding like Cybil’s. It was a temporary badge, a reminder that she was only here for a short time.

“We are preparing a dorm in one of our housing modules for you at the moment, I’ll have to check and make sure it’s ready for you.”

Weslyn smiled in return and dipped her head before muttering a thank you. It was a keen reminder to her operating system and the functionality within that she was on a time table now and the clock was ticking. Even as she followed Cybil into the facility proper, taking in all the information Cybil was spouting. All the time was spent in calculation. Every new floor they visited was a new data set with a myriad of variables for her to take in and begin slotting into her equation. Cybil explained where the records department was, research and development labs, staffing lounges, all while Weslyn’s sophisticated mind crunched numbers and schemes into plans with mechanical efficiency.

This was what Weslyn was designed for. To appear very human. To smile and nod and toss in small comments here and there, just enough to trick the casual observer into thinking she might be a real flesh and blood woman. Her smile was disarming and friendly, and everyone she passed smiled in return. Behind her eyes though there was no heart, no jokes or quips. There was only a computer putting things together, making plans, laying out a map of the facility and calculating the fastest escape route every time she saw something new. She needed to know how to get in, how to get out and how to get what she needed.

In turn every person she met had their face scanned and stored. Cybil’s rare introductions were logged and associated metadata tagged onto the people and profiles Weslyn met. Her growing list of assets. This building, these people, the layout of the floors and locations of the technology. All of it was little more than a variable in her calculus.

“And that brings us here.” Cybil was saying. “To director Ravindra Bhandari.”

The way Cybil said the name, it was more than familiarity. She was familiar with the staff, but the Director, she was something more. The way her voice softened, just a little, just enough, sparked an idea in Weslyn’s mind. She would be working closely with the director, after all her whole cover story revolved around being here as a liaison with the government to inspect the weapons system he was overseeing. Who else would she work with? And who better to provide her with the information she needed.

She didn’t bother knocking on the door, and there was no scanner on it, a fact that Weslyn’s artificial mind cataloged as a useful bit of information. Inside they found the Director behind a desk that seemed too wide for the man sitting at it, but too small for the office space it was in. Highly polished and made of deep dark wood. Behind him were windows, currently shaded against the desert sun and heat, but in the evening they would look out over the facility.

To one side of the all too large desk was a computer monitor. The glow bursting from its screen was far too white, but only for a moment. As the Director looked up, Weslyn could see the small reflection of the information reflected in his deep dark eyes. The brilliant white of a spreadsheet or document was reduced, leaving something else there, something that didn’t need to be seen. It only took a moment for Weslyn to glance at that corner of the desk and take it all in. The measurements, distance from the desk to the window, likely shatterproof windows, that wouldn’t stop her. Distance from the door measured in steps, both quick and casual. How many ports there were on the back of the monitor. Where the keyboard was.

The Director’s face moved from surprise, to a soft smile, then to something more hard as they fell on Weslyn. She was a guest here, but she represented the people who funded this project. She was not someone to be feared, but rather someone to impress. He sat up more straight upon seeing her, and stood up. The charcoal colored suit coat gave way to a simple button up white shirt that did a poor job of hiding his physique. Not that his chest was pushed against the shirt with effort, but more than it was well tailored to him.

As he stepped around the desk, his hair bobbed just a little around his shoulders where it had begun the process of curling around and upwards. It was rich and full, almost as dark as his eyes, though there were a few strands of silvering hair beginning to form just above his forehead.

He walked just past Cybil to shake Weslyn’s hand and smile, warm and inviting and bellowed a hearty welcome to her. That was an act, and everyone in the room knew it. Weslyn wasn’t exactly a welcome sight here. Inspections meant that there needed to be progress to be shown, not just progress, but more importantly a significant collection of facts that could easily be translated into dollars. Rarely did someone invest in a project for fun, it was always for money. The New Arcadian Government had been generous to Narayan, though Weslyn wasn’t privy to that information. But she knew enough to play the part.

To that effect her operating system queued up facts and figures, ready to discuss them, though some of her social programming fed a new series of executables to her face. Her eyes flicked to the side, taking in Cybil. Weslyn was close now, but Cybil’s presence here would make things a challenge. She was authorized to dispose of human staff as needed, but it was preferable to leave with only the information and as peacefully as possible. If the company didn’t suspect what had happened, then there would be no need to deviate from their current plans.

“Thank you for bringing Ms. Kazumi here, honey.” Director Bhandari said as he turned to Cybil.

A new datapoint for Weslyn.

“I’ll see you at home tonight. I think we’ll get some preliminary conversations out of the way first” He said to Cybil then turned to Weslyn. “-and then tomorrow Ms Kazumi and I can get deep down into the weeds about things.”

“Please.” Weslyn replied, pasting that same disarming smile on her lips. The one perfectly pre-configured for this. “You can just call me Weslyn.”

Director Bhandari smirked at that and bowed his head in confirmation before turning back to Cybil and gesturing towards the door. He was already stepping past her to hold it open and let her out. As she left though, she gave a last look over her shoulder, her gaze fell to Ravindra, but there was no doubt that her eyes fell across Weslyn as part of it. She smiled and closed the door behind her.

Weslyn stood still until the Director took his seat again behind his desk and gestured for her to take a seat. She smoothly let herself fall into her own chair on the other side of the desk, smoothing her skirt under her legs as she did so. Hands folded into her lap. A smile on her face. She was built for this, programmed for it. Everything inside of her operating system, every file and directory and bit and byte inside of her was coded to be social and charming and sweet and disarming. She was ready for this.

“So then, she’s a spitfire isn’t she.”

Weslyn tilted her head and looked confused.

“Cybil. She’s a good woman, but a little wary of anyone.” He chuckled. “Actually everyone. She’s not one to trust quickly. Don’t worry, by the end of the week I am very sure you and her will be the best of friends.”

“I have no doubt.” Weslyn replied, returning his smile. “Until then though, shall we?”

“Of course. So, allow me to bring up some of the initial figures we’ve been looking at.”

Weslyn would spend another two hours in the office. Her and the Director. In that time he was spouting off expense sheet numbers, and giving what felt like half of a sale pitch for their project. Speaking about how it will revolutionize the industry and that they hope to have a Maelstrom system on every military aircraft in only a few years. Weslyn nodded along, allowing her audio receptors to take it all in and categorize it, tag it, log it all away for later analysis. It was low level CPU work for her, and it allowed her plenty of time to devise how to get to the computer in front of her without Director Bhandari knowing.

There were plenty of solutions. She could likely force her way into the building then to the office and brute force her way past any security on the computer itself. Drastic though it might be, if she was good about it there would be little evidence it was her. She would need to first find out what security cameras were in the area and then disable them. The lock would provide little trouble. There was no security badge scanner or other biometric lock on the door, just a simple turnkey latch. That could be picked easily enough.

The computer itself was the issue. Getting past the password authorization would be a challenge, and Director Bhandari didn’t seem like the kind of person to leave their password on a sticky note attached to the bottom of a keyboard. She also wasn’t sure she would have time to charm it out of him, and even if she did, he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would give up that kind of information.

There was surely an IT presence here in the facility. Perhaps she could hijack one of their computers and use it to either reset or gain access to Director Bhandari’s computer. Though the more Weslyn dwelt on the thought the more holes she poked in it. Acquiring the hardware would be problem enough, but as soon as it was marked as missing it would surely be remotely tracked and wiped clean. That was far too risky.

Her eyes fell on Director Bhandari’s. They met his for a moment and there was a small sparkle there. Something deeper than just enthusiasm for his pet project. Weslyn got the impression that had she been any other old man from the government here to check up on things, that there would be significantly less lingering on her thighs where they crept from under her skirt. Eyes wouldn’t linger on her chest when he thought she wasn’t looking and much less vaguely flirtatious joking.

Weslyn’s synthetic mind formulated a new solution. She had what she needed to render him unconscious and with a bit of subtlety she could even do it without a mess. In fact she might even be able to access his computer without needing the password, or hacking, or theft of company property. All she would need to do was have Director Bhandari unlock it, and then she would-

The door opened and Cybil strode into the space. Weslyn had long ago pulled her chair around to sit next to Director Bhandari. Nothing had happened, not yet, but the unimpressed look on Cybil’s face as she looked at the Director was registered, then a calculation began. Plotting and mapping out the gentle shape of her expression and matching it to her own internal database of emotional configurations. Cybil was angry, she didn’t like Weslyn being that close to something she felt she owned. The Director was hers, and she wanted to make sure that Weslyn knew it, without saying it out loud. Her eyes never fell to Weslyn, they instead remained on the Director. He knew he would likely not hear the end of her questions until late into the night.

“I’m headed home, darling, will you be joining me or do you still have more work to do tonight?” Cybil asked with all the understanding love of an agitated viper.

“I think I’ve had about enough for one night actually.” Weslyn commented before pushing back from the desk, making sure to use both of her hands. Showing Cybil they were never even close to the Director.

“We have had a bit of a day, haven’t we?” He replied and stood. “Well then, tomorrow we should cover the investor reports, and I can show you a bit more of what we are working on here.”

Weslyn smiled and nodded at that. She stepped past Cybil, doing her best to ignore the frigid cloud of daggers around her.

“Ah, which way is it to the tram to the dorms?”

As it turned out, the Director and Cybil were taking the same tram, at least for a short while. The Director, likely out of nervous habit, rambled about the facility as they rolled along. The executive suites were the first stop, meaning there were only a few minutes of awkward conversation before Director Bhadari and Cybil collected themselves and left. Cybil, in her normal clipped tone, informed Weslyn that she would want to stay on the tram for three more stops and gave her the dorm number assigned to her before leaving her alone on the train.

The silence and solitude of the train was a welcome change. Weslyn was alone, save for one other employee at the far end of the train and he was face down in his phone with earbuds pumping something heavy and loud into his ears. It allowed Weslyn time to quiet her own CPU. She had a plan, and even a large amount of the actual scheme in place to make it work complete. Really, all that remained was the execution of it all. She let her face fall into a simple, neutral expression. A vague smile, allowing the train to rock her body back and forth.

Her dorm was easy enough to find as well, though she made no assumption that it wasn’t being watched. Certainly the hallway was. It was unclear if the interior was, but there was no point in compromising herself now. Her badge unlocked the door, and she stepped inside. Once the door was closed she slumped back against the door, letting out a hefty sigh and closing her eyes. When she opened them she was bedding down and pulling her high heels off and using the motion to casually glance around the dark room.

Hidden cameras had to put off a small amount of light. It was required for it to record something. Light bouncing off of a surface was the only way to record anything. Moreover, it didn’t take a lot of light, so modern cameras had a built-in light sensor with them. If there was enough light, there was no need for them to put anything out, but when the room went dark, that tiny fragment of illumination was needed. It was so subtle, though, that the human eye was unable to detect it.

Weslyn wasn’t human though, and her eyes scanned the room and easily picked up on not one, but two hidden cameras in the room. Tucked away in opposing corners so that they could watch the whole of the single central room. There were two chairs, a small table, and a kitchenette, little more than the roadside motel had provided to Weslyn, but because of the cameras, her human emulation remained running. She sighed and winced as she put weight on her feet. She moved into the space and flicked on the light before tossing her shoes on the ground.

The bedroom, with its attached bathroom, was through the only door in the room. It was dark inside here too, though the light streaming in from the room beyond would surely have been enough to not need a built-in light source. So Weslyn closed the door, huffing slightly as she did so.

No cameras in here. Nor the bathroom.

She was alone and private in the bedroom, and because of that, her human emulation could stop gobbling up her processing power. Her face fell, not simply to a neutral position that most people held their face in when they weren't expressing something, it was more than that. It was nothing ness, no life, no expression, just a series of micro-motors and silicone flesh. In here, Weslyn was just a machine. She stepped efficiently to the bed and lay down flat and unmoving. She let her eyes close as she slipped into a low power mode. Her ears were still listening for anything and everything, her skin still aware of touch, but most of the other parts of her body were powered down.

She had no need to recharge, her internal reactor would keep her running for upwards of two weeks, but there was no use in wasting power. For now, she would preserve it, she had a big day tomorrow afterall.

Weslyn’s eyes snapped open. She lay still in the bed for a few more moments, just letting her system check in and make themselves ready. Once she stepped out the door into the living room she needed to be human, through and through. She was still wearing her suit from the night before and needed to sell the idea that she was a real person.

She slipped efficiently off of the bed and proceeded to undo her skirt and step out of it, followed by her pantyhose and shirt. Her hair was too well put together too, she didn’t look like she had slept on it, so her hands moved and mussed it. There was a part of her operating system that disliked this routine, as it was only for show and within the next half an hour she would be in the bathroom brushing it out and restyling it. But the image it sold to the other staff was what was important.

Up until she turned the door handle out into the living space, Weslyn remained stoic and unfeeling. Her face was a completely neutral mask of indifference. As soon as it turned though her eyes became half lidded, her mouth drooped a little and she hunched forward. As the door opened and she stepped into the space, clad only in her underwear, knowing that someone was watching her, all she could do was yawn and stretch as she took a few steps forward. Rummaging in the kitchenette provided some coffee and little else, not that she needed the food, but now that she had searched and found nothing some behavioral notes were added.

She could, of course, take in the coffee. There was a small but sturdy foreign substance tank inside of her torso. It would be emptied later in an automated process. For now though she returned to her room, closing the door and letting her processors return to a lazy pace as her human emulation suspended itself again. She went to the closet to find that someone had arranged for some clothes to be stored there. With mechanical efficiency, and more than a little planning ahead, Weslyn slipped into a knee length skirt, a little looser than the pencil skirt she had worn the day before, and a business casual blouse. Her heels would have to do for today as well.

The tram picked her up and she was on her way back to the facility. Back to Director Bhandari. Back on task.

Once there she found her security badge would let her into the building unescorted, and as she stepped into the atrium again she found that the front desk, previously occupied by Cybil, was now occupied by someone else. He looked like a guard, and a bored one at that. Lax security seemed to be a recurring theme here. He looked up at her, and then at her. More specifically her curves and the gentle sway of her hips as they swished her skirt back and forth.

“Weslyn Kazumi.” She said plainly as she held up her badge for the man, her smile already on display.

He pointed to the badge reader at the front of the counter and she tapped the card on it. A moment later it beeped lightly and a green light winked to life. She smiled a little more broadly and thanked the man before walking past him to the elevator lobby. Four floors up, into the administrative lobby and then towards the Director’s office.

She could hear Cybil before she saw her. The incredibly sensitive and finely tuned audio receptors lodged deep inside of her ears picked up on the shrill, angry tones even through the door to the director’s office. Her operating system slowed her pace, allowing more time to listen in on a conversation that surely Cybil thought was hushed. Looking around Weslyn could also see that the cubicles on this floor were unoccupied. She was early afterall, most staff wouldn’t be here for another quarter hour at least.

Plenty of time for Cybil to discreetly berate Ravindra. He had assigned her a project that would take her across the campus to oversee the production of some critical parts. She retorted by telling him that she didn’t have a problem with that, she just didn’t want him to be left alone with her.

Weslyn was no fool, she knew who Cybil was referring to. That was fine with the android, this was fuel for the fire she was planning to stoke today. She wouldn’t be getting into the computer until tomorrow. Today was all about planting seeds and watching them grow. Cybil was only tilling that particular soil. Weslyn’s programming was top notch, and manipulative to boot. She was designed for infiltration and espionage, and part of that was knowing how to continue driving wedges between people. Afterall, people separated made poor choices.

She also knew that being seen looming outside of the office was a poor choice. She made her way towards the kitchen at the far side of the floor, which put her out of earshot, even for her mechanical ears. That was fine though, she had gotten plenty of information to work with. She just needed to be out of the way when Cybil stormed out of the office and towards the elevator. While she may not have heard her leave the room, she certainly picked up on the angry click of Cybil’s heels as they stomped to the elevator, the gentle ding of the car arriving was a stark contrast to Cybil’s heavy sigh.

Then the woman was gone. Time for Weslyn to arrive.

She gently knocked on the Director’s door before gingerly pushing it open and poking her head in.

“I’m a little early, but I brought you some coffee from the kitchen in case you needed it.” Weslyn said from the doorway. She hadn’t yet entered the room and remained respectfully at the door, waiting to be invited in.

Ravindra waved her in and put on a pained smile. Perfect. Weslyn slipped in and gently tapped the door closed with her foot before setting a steaming mug of coffee down in front of the Director. She held her own mug up and tipped it towards him. He took the cue, looped his fingers through the handle on his own mug and tapped it against Weslyn’s.

“Cheers” she said before taking a sip. “Rough morning so far?”

That caught Ravindra a little by surprise. He looked like a kid who had just been caught cleaning up the mess from a lamp he had broken. Sheepish and more than a little guilty, but it was quickly covered by a knowing smile.

“That obvious huh?” He replied.

“I heard her leave for the elevator. She didn’t sound too happy.”

Ravindra’s face fell at that. He had very much wanted to keep the spat with Cybil secret, most of all from the person here to inspect progress in their ranks. He let his lungs fill up and then let that same breath seep out.

“It’s okay. We’ve all been there.” Weslyn commented as she took another sip of her coffee. “But you know, if there are staffing issues and all that, I’d be happy to help any way I can. I have a little clout but if you two need some time away from one another-”

“Thanks for that. We’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time Cybil has been a little over the top about a pretty girl in my office.”

That raised Weslyn’s eyebrow and drew a smirk. Data stored.

The Director seemed to gloss right over it, but Weslyn knew better. She could see his cheeks flush and the way his eyes seemed to linger on her hips and then on her chest as his eyes rose up from where they were looking just a moment before. The information was tracked and stored. More data for analytics later. For now, they had a tour of the facility to begin.

Ravindra was a cordial tour guide at first. He strode easily along the research and development wing, casually pointing out anything of interest or relevance to Project Maelstrom. There was no real information that Weslyn cared about, though everything he said was recorded verbatim. She was a machine, and it wasn’t up to her to decide what was and was not useful. When her assignment was done she would be taken apart and the stored media meticulously picked apart, all she could do was gather it.

Likewise the camera’s behind her eyes captured video and enhanced images. Again, storing it for someone back at headquarters to extract from her storage media and pour over. Every video clip and captured image was going to be scrutinized, likely while she lay in pieces in some lab. She didn’t care, she wasn’t programmed to care. She was programmed to gather and steal and leave. Nothing else.

As the day progressed Weslyn made sure she moved closer and closer to Director Bhandari. The pair nudged shoulders from time to time, and once he became a little more comfortable he joked from time to time to keep the mood light, and when he did Weslyn was sure to place a polite hand on his arm or make some kind of physical contact.

Lunch was spent in the corporate cafeteria. The Director was a rare sight there, but not an unwelcome one either. Cybil found and joined them at lunch and at least attempted to be subtle about glaring at Weslyn. Just enough that she reminded the Director that she was watching them, but not overtly so. She might have disliked Weslyn, even going so far as to suspect her of attempting to start something physical with Ravindra, but all the same, Weslyn was a liaison for a government body. She couldn’t threaten her directly or they would risk losing funding. So she remained curt, but all of her questions and conversation pieces were directed only at Ravindra.

That was all fine with Weslyn. According to the information she had on human relationships this could only strengthen her chances of initiating something with the Director. What was that phrase, something she had heard once. Let her hang herself with her own rope. The more angry she got at the Director the more she was pushing him away from her in an attempt to control him. A push that would land him right in Weslyn’s lap. If she had anything to do with it that is.

Lunch ended and the tour resumed with Cybil reluctantly returning to her duties on the assembly line at the far end of the facility. She made sure to make a show of kissing the Director a little more passionately than he was expecting. His professionalism took over and he gently pushed Cybil away from him, glancing over at Weslyn as he did so. It wasn’t appropriate work place behavior and she knew it, but seemingly didn’t care. That was fine with Weslyn as well.

“I apologize for that.” Director Bhandari said as they continued onward.

“It’s fine.” Weslyn replied. “She just likes to show off that she thinks she owns you…I probably would too.”

It was Ravindra’s turn to raise an eyebrow and smirk at Weslyn, though he thought he was being sly about it. She certainly didn’t turn to face him.

“Would you now?”

“Of course. A good looking gentleman like you. She’s lucky to have you.”

The compliment seemed to land perfectly. Director Bhandari was quiet for a moment, even as they strode along. Weslyn knew her comment had been effective. He was blushing and his already slow pace seemed to drop, practically to a crawl. More than that, the tour they were on, the one that was supposed to be showing off the facility and progress on the project had all but stopped.

“She’s really not so bad. Just..just protective.” He offered at last.

“I know.” Weslyn returned with confidence, and more than a little sympathy in her voice. “Maybe this is just over stepping my place. But you, of all people, deserve a little more..I don’t know..respect? Something.”

He nodded at that. His mind began spinning. He really did deserve more respect than Cybil had ever given him. She was always breathing down his neck about things, unless it was just the two of them. Weslyn, on the other hand, had been such a breath of fresh air. A delight to be around. She laughed at his jokes and made him feel good. Not just about his work but about himself. He had never said that to anyone, least of all her, she was here temporarily. Once this inspection was done she would return to her office and they would likely never see each other again.

And maybe that was just the right way to do things.

His eyes darted to her. Not to her face or her person as a whole. No, they started at her shoulders and trickled down over her chest. He imagined her breasts, in his hands. Her hips against his own. He swallowed hard, these were dangerous thoughts. But there was something to them as well. Cybil had been so cold and honestly a little bitchy to him recently and Weslyn seemed to be hinting at..something. Was he just being stupid?

They continued on in silence. Weslyn continued looking around, recording everything she saw and heard. She just let Director Bhandari stew in his own thoughts as they moved along. Eventually the tour continued on, but Director Bhandari seemed distracted and distant. That was perfectly fine with Weslyn. She had a good idea of what was on his mind. All she needed to do was remain close to him, keep up those gentle touches and signs of affection.

At the end they were returning to the Director’s office. Cybil was leaning against the wall outside the office. Weslyn could see her from a distance as they entered the administration floor. She was looking at her phone and simply waiting. No doubt scowling at the time. The pair had slowed the tour a bit and were returning some fifteen minutes later than expected. Surely Cybil would handle that with grace and poise.

Or she would notice the pair walking side by side and glare icy death at Weslyn. Surely that wouldn’t result in Cybil shoving Ravindra away tonight.

The pair caught her look and knew what it meant. Weslyn took the last opportunity of the day to mutter to Ravindra.

“Just remember that I won't treat you like her. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, she gave a small wave to him, and another for Cybil, and split off from him. She allowed him to approach Cybil on his own. Weslyn made her way to the tram station and back to her little dorm. She smiled to no one in particular. Things were moving along nicely.

Weslyn reactivated the following morning with little fanfare. She slipped into a pants suit and slipped a few things in her pockets that she felt she might need for the day. With any luck she wouldn’t be returning to this dorm.

As planned, she arrived at the administration floor a little earlier than she was supposed to be there. Unlike the day before, there was no Cybil in sight, and Weslyn certainly didn’t hear her in the Director’s office. So she felt no danger in applying a fresh coat of lipstick from her pocket and walking directly to the office door and knocking gently on it and then slipping inside. She gingerly closed the door behind her, looking ready to get to work for the day.

The Director was in there already, behind his far too large desk. He was still wearing the same suit, tie, and shirt as the day before. They looked a little more wrinkled and worn than Weslyn recalled. More than that, the Director himself looked a little worse for wear.

“Long night, or early morning?” Weslyn asked.

“Both?” was the reply.

“Stayed here overnight? I take it?” Weslyn asked.

He nodded in confirmation and sighed. He opened his mouth to try and explain or maybe come up with some excuse as to why. There was no need, Weslyn shook her head and silenced him. Her face melded into one of compassion and understanding. It was understood that while Ravindra controlled this facility and the work that went on here, Cybil was clearly in control of the home.

Just a little more pushing.

Weslyn subtly moved her hand back to the lock on the door knob and clicked it into place. If the Director heard it, he made no indication that he had. Weslyn strode across the office, her operating system causing her hips to sway just a little more than they would have any other day. It threw off her balance protocols a little, but not enough to cause any issues. It was, however, more than enough to draw Ravindra’s gaze.

Her saunter brought her to the front of his desk where she bent forward. The first two buttons on her blouse had, somehow, come undone in her travels from the door to the desk. He hadn’t noticed. Now though, he had the perfect view down her blouse. The smaller but marvelously rounded breasts were strategically braless, and hung free. He could just barely make out the already firm peaks of her nipples.

He managed to drag his eyes away from her chest and met Weslyn’s smile. Her lips shining with fresh lipstick and her eyes sparking in the fluorescent light. She looked so inviting, her mouth was right there, just beyond his reach. Even as he found himself leaning forward towards them. The desk was the only barrier now.

Weslyn’s operating system had already fully engaged her sexual systems at this point. Her tongue was moistened and ready, her programming already queuing up execution scripts and caching them. Every system and subroutine was ready, begging, to be used. She wished, only briefly, for a skirt today, it would have allowed for so much more flexibility. Not that it would matter. With one hand on the desk, the other slipped down her body, the touch of it already drawing a whisper of a moan from her throat. Her hot breath, fresh from her processors and laced with lustful intent, washed over Ravindra.

Deft mechanical fingers undid the button her pants then worked the zipper. By the time her knee was lifted to the surface of the desk her bottoms were already sliding off of her legs and crumpling to the floor around her heels. She was ready for that, and with a preprogrammed grace, her legs slipped easily through the legs of the pants, leaving the heels behind.

As she crawled across Ravindra’s desk, she made sure to gently nudge the computer mouse out of the way, ensuring the computer remained logged in and awake.

Their lips met. Gently at first. Little more than a flirtatious peck against one another. The next one was dripping with passion. His mouth fully on hers and their tongues together in a wild, passionate dance. She whimpered slightly as his arms rose to envelope her at the waist and drag her forward. She let him take her, moving forward and landing on his lap. Her lack of panties was never even considered. She was grinding against him now, and she found that he was already wildly aroused.

She allowed her head to loll to one side as her back arched. In response Ravindra worked furiously at the buttons on her shirt, deciding that they didn’t all need to be removed. Enough of them were undone to allow his hands, his fingers, his lips, to find their way to her chest. Kissing, licking, lapping, sucking, squeezing, teasing and toying. Her body was his to explore, and he was doing exactly that. He barely noticed the feeling of slender hands taunting his manhood through his slacks, nor the feeling of those same hands working to free it.

“Is Director Bhandari in already?”

Cybil’s voice rang clearly across the atrium from the tram station.

“I uh, I haven’t seen him in yet.”

Her eyes narrowed at that. It was enough to stop her. She knew she had been harsh on him last night. A little trust went a long way, she knew. There was guilt there, but she still felt like he needed to be put in his place from time to time. She was, after all, just looking out for him and there was no way she trusted a random government audit. Particularly one they hadn’t asked for. She hated surprises, and Weslyn was a surprise in more than one way. She knew that you didn’t look that pretty and rise to the top of governmental process without doing one of two things. She either fucked her way to the top, or lied.

Neither sat well with Cybil.

She turned to walk past the guard post when she stopped one step into her movement, then backed up.

“Is Weslyn Kazumi in?”

“Who?” the guard replied with a bit of confusion.

“That auditor lady. Asian, short hair.”

“Oh, yeah yeah. She’s here. She got in maybe half an hour ago.” The guard replied.

It was unprofessional to sprint through the lobby in front of other employees. Cybil didn’t run, but she might as well have.

Weslyn was moaning, low and lewd. Her voice was more breath than sound and she needed to keep it that way. She was bending backwards again, her hand resting on the desk to brace herself as her hips rolled in sync with Ravindra. He too was expressing his lust, louder than Weslyn, but that was fine, he didn’t have too much longer. She adjusted her body again as she rode him, in doing so she moved her hand again and nudged the mouse, waking the computer back up and resetting the timer before it would automatically lock again.

He thought it was perfectly normal to feel a bit woozy. This was strenuous work after all and Weslyn was working him hard. Bouncing and rolling and leaning in every few moments to kiss him deeply again, smearing more of that lipstick on his mouth. He took it in, gleefully, delighting in the vaguely sweet flavor of it. Then another rolling wave of euphoria swept across him. He found it so hard to hold his head up, so he just let it rest against his chair. Weslyn bucked again, moving up and down his shaft, keeping it erect and hard and moving.

Keeping the blood flowing. The more blood that flowed through his body the more of the toxin in her lipstick would suffuse his body. He didn’t have long now.

She began rolling her hips against him once again, a hand on the desk, the mouse nudged again. Ravindra’s eyes were fluttering now, his mouth open and wheezing. His mind was filling with sweet, delicious fog. It was a shame he wouldn’t get to feel the release before he passed completely out.

Weslyn knew when he was out. There was no tension in his muscles and his head was firmly resting against the chair. Two fingers pressed into his throat for a moment verified that he was still alive, just heavily sedated.

Having confirmed that, Weslyn stood fully giving no consideration for the wet dick that popped out of her. Her face remained unphased, uncaring. She was no longer Weslyn Kazumi, she was a serial number and a bundle of electronics. She turned to the computer and lifted her left arm, rotating it so the underside was exposed. As she did so a small panel slipped open. She didn’t look at it, she didn’t need to, she simply knew it was opening because her operating system reported it to her. With cold and efficient fingers she pulled a cable from inside of her wrist and yanked out just enough spare cable to allow her to plug into the computer.

There was a brief software handshake as she registered as a new device on Ravindra’s computer. It quickly popped open an authorization prompt, but it was a simple yes or no, no password needed. She validated her system and began scraping the hard drive. Taking it all in and storing it on her systems.

“Rav. It’s- It’s me. Are you in here?”

There was a soft knock on the door. There was nothing the robotic woman could do to speed up the data transfer, but given that she was still naked and Ravindra still had her lipstick on him, it was looking more and more like the combat programming was about to become more useful. There was a soft knock again and her eyes remained glued to the door. It was locked, meaning there was some kind of deterrent to Cybil getting in, but it also meant that her escape was going to be tricky.

The handle rattled.

“Why is your door locked?”

Cybil’s voice had lost any tenderness that was there before, replaced now by raw suspicion and accusations. The door rattled again.

“Ravindra, I know you’re in there, I can see the lights on. Open the door. We just need to talk.”

She didn’t sound like she wanted to talk. She sounded like she wanted blood. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Cybil suspected that she had been scorned pretty badly by Weslyn. One more try on the door, then silence. Maybe she had left.

The door rattled hard in its frame. The reverberations seemed to make their way around the room. Weslyn’s face still hadn’t changed. Cybil entering the room would change very little, if anything it meant that the door had been opened and she could escape that much easier. The door bucked again, though this time there was a stream of plaster and dust falling from the metal hinges on one side of the door. Plaster from the wall was being shaken loose.

Weslyn took her combat programming out of cache and engaged it fully. It slowed the data transfer a little, but it was still trickling in.

The third time something hit the door it burst fully inward, swinging fast until it hit the wall and then weakly attempted to swing back into place. Cybil caught it with her hand and surveyed the scene. Her nostrils flared and a look of unadulterated hatred was on her face. Eyes burning with some kind of fury and her teeth gritted.

Clothes littered the floor. Womens clothes. Slacks, and panties in front of the desk. Heels as well. Illuminated by a glowing monitor was the object of Cybils' anger. Weslyn, a cable pulled from an opening in her wrist. Then it all made sense. She was an android and was only here to steal data. For a moment, Cybil and the android met eyes, and then everything changed.

Cybil’s face took on the same properties as Weslyn’s. It wasn’t neutral, it just wasn’t doing anything. Her expression remained unchanged because that would take up processing power that Cybil would need to dismantle Weslyn. She reached out and threw the door closed, no one was supposed to know she was a robot enforcer, she was just supposed to be Ravindra’s scary girlfriend.

She crouched low and dumped all the power available to herself into a single leap across the office and desk, aimed directly at Weslyn.

Inside of her wrist the opposite end of the datacable detached, and dangled there. A small processing unit and storage drive continued to work while Weslyn defended herself. She saw the leap and had the available processing power to watch and calculate the trajectory. Cybil’s hands were outstretched as if she meant to pounce on Weslyn. Those same outstretched arms were caught and the momentum used to spin Cybil slightly and toss her hard against the shatter proof glass on the opposite wall.

Cybil slammed into the glass and true to form, did not shatter it, but left a crater in the inch thick glass that created a spider web around it. She didn’t so much as wince or even blink at the counterattack. Her eyes needed to remain open and capturing data to better formulate a new plan of attack. She had precious little time for that though.

Weslyn was on her now, a single long stride taking her directly in front of the rival android. A flurry of devastating punches were launched at her and Cybil, to her credit, managed to ward off most of them. An occasional fist would change courts slightly from the block and land against the body. Cybil’s operating system registered two broken rib structures and a number of small and somewhat unimportant additional components. Nothing she couldn’t fix later. They were logged and she moved on.

Cybil managed to catch both of Weslyn’s wrists and toss the smaller android to the side. She stumbled for a step or two before regaining her balance. That was more than enough time for Cybil to push off of the shattered glass that had just cradled her body and launch into a new attack against Weslyn.

A haymaker that she knew would be deflected allowed her an opportunity to throw a left handed uppercut which, while not slamming into the chin like she had hoped, glanced off the jaw and sent Weslyn’s head snapping to one side. It wasn’t enough to fully dislodge the head module and ruin the robot’s future performance, but it was enough to disorient her while her optics recalibrated.

Weslyn’s arm shot out to try and stabilize her and in that moment Cybil snatched the limb by the wrist and elbow and leveraged it to throw Weslyn across the space and onto the desk. Cybil rounded on her and marched forward with cold mechanical determination. She shoved Ravindra’s rolling chair hard and watched for only a moment as he scooted across the floor and out of the way. There was one less obstacle in her field of vision.

Weslyn recovered quickly and pushed up from the desk before swinging her legs and hips around to snap a quick kick against Cybil’s face, but it wasn’t going to be enough to stop her. Her head snapped but her stride never broke and within a second she was looming over Weslyn. Her hands jabbed forward and Weslyn managed to catch both of them before they could reach her throat, presumably to tear out whatever electronics she could from the robot's neck. The pair struggled for a moment, dumping all the power they could muster into over powering the other one.

Eventually it was Weslyn who recalculated enough to throw her arms wide and bring Cybil’s face close enough to ram her own forehead into her opponent. It was a stupid move for any human to do something like that, but neither Cybil nor Weslyn were human. Additionally, it was never meant to do any damage, rather it was meant to disorient and confuse, a task which it had accomplished.

Cybil stumbled backwards and Weslyn rolled off of the desk. She devoted only the most minimal amount of spare CPU cycles to allow her eyes to click in their sockets and look at the wire dangling from the computer. It was still rapidly blinking amber, which meant it was still working. She needed more time.

She lunged at Cybil one hand forward as a way to possibly grab or deflect anything that Cybil would throw at her, while her other arm was pulled back into a fist, wound up and ready to slam forward. Cybil caught the first hand and anticipated the second. She, like Weslyn earlier, used the gynoid momentum and weight to spin and throw the robot. In doing so Weslyn found her belly shoved hard against the desk. It dislodged something inside of her, nothing that would stop her onslaught though. However, Cybil had wasted no time and was on Weslyn.

A fist clenched into Weslyn’s shoulder length hair and pulled her head back. Weslyn automatically poured effort into resisting the movement, she knew that if her head was drawn far enough back that Cybil could slit the synthetic flesh on her throat easily and likely catch some amount of wiring with it. Worse still she could fully twist her head off of her neck joint. In the struggle to hold her head forward and Cybil pulled it back, there was a sudden change.

Weslyn’s head was no longer being pulled back but rather slammed forward. Her face, still expressionless and unemotional, impacted the desk hard enough to rattle everything on the surface. It was enough to tear open a slice of her cheek and expose a bit of wiring inside as her face caught on the edge of the desk. Then she was being pulled back again, likely Cybil planned to simply beat her head into a sparking, malfunctioning mess.

Weslyn allowed her head to be pulled back, had her human emulation been running at all there might have been a knowing smirk there. Instead, there was nothing. Just unfeeling, uncaring, robotic calculation. At the very peak of the maneuver, Weslyn twisted at the waist tearing her hair free and sending a spinning backward elbow towards Cybil. The elbow connected, and sent the other android spinning away from her, but only for a second as Cybil recovered quickly.

That was fine with Weslyn. This fight was over now.

She continued her spin, leading with another fist. Her movements looked heavy. If the punch landed it would be devastating and Cybil knew it. It would send her flying across the room, luckily Weslyn was off balance, her punch was aimed well, but there was no room for error and Cybil could see it coming. She easily shifted her weight to one side, allowing the punch to fly past her head.

She had no time to see Weslyn’s forearm split open and a razor sharp blade spring out. Curved perfectly and sharpened to a wicked point. It sliced easily through the artificial skin on Cybil’s throat, the wiring and tubing and electronics just below the surface, and through the mechanical spinal column. Her head topped off of her body as part of the dodge she had executed and a second later a shower of sparks erupted from the clean cut across her neck.

Cybil’s body stumbled weirdly forward for a few steps and then toppled to the ground. Her arms twitched and spasmed as the last remnants of both power and data surged through the limbs. Her hands remained clenched in a tight fist and flopped heavily against the floor for a few moments before they ran out of power and then slowly sank to the ground. Likewise her legs chugged and churned, running at an opponent that had already won. The movement caused her torso to wriggle and sway. Time was short, and Weslyn knew it. She needed to end this, now. In order to facilitate a more expedient end she knelt down over the still powered torso of her rival and pulled her arm back, forming her fingers into a knife edge. Then in an all too swift motion rammed her hand into the back of Cybil’s torso. She felt wires, cables, tubing and components. She rooted around for a moment until she felt the warmth of what could only be a power supply. She took hold of it, and whatever else she could grip and yanked it out.

Like her arms, the remnants of power ran out and then she sank to the ground.

Her head had rolled under Ravindra’s desk. Like her body, it sprayed a momentary jolt of electricity out of the remnants of her neck as circuits and wires never meant to touch one another were suddenly shorted out. There was a single pop as something inside of her head burst and put an end to her existence. All while her face remained unchanged. Stoic and unfazed to the end.

Weslyn touched her fingers to the exposed wiring in her own face. It was only a surface layer abrasion and no actual internal structure had been compromised. She was still functional and could still complete her mission. She looked at Cybil’s body and managed to drag her head out from under the desk, gripping it by the messy blond bun that she always wore. She tossed the ruined cranium onto the body and left it there while she reconnected to her data thief.

For the next ten minutes and eighteen seconds, Weslyn did not move. Her motor systems remained locked as every last bit of her CPU power went into collecting and stealing data. It was all here, everything she needed. Soon enough, she had what she came for. There was still clean up though.

Cybil wouldn’t be a problem. An asset like her was disposable. Ravindra on the other hand would wake up in an hour, perhaps less, given the dose he had been administered. He would be groggy for certain, and his memory questionable. Weslyn scribbled a small note on his desk and left it for him. She explained that she came to his office and Cybil was there. The two of them got into an argument and Weslyn decided it was best to leave and wait for another government inspection. Cybil would never answer any of the calls he would make to her, Weslyn would make sure of that.

Weslyn redressed herself and popped her head out into the administration floor. It was still empty. So she had no trouble finding a number of large black garbage bags and a simple rolling cart. Once she had what she needed all that was left was to disassemble Cybil.

Weslyn programmed for efficiency, and that meant making sure the minimal amount of force was applied to get the job done. So when she laid Cybil’s head down on the ground and stomped into it, she made sure she applied enough force to crush the skull casing in a single blow. Whatever electronics remained inside of Cybil’s caved in skull were surely not working any more.

Likewise, she had no idea how to properly detach the arms and legs, so it was a much simpler process to simply place a foot between the shoulder blades and pull backwards until the joint casing shattered and the arm came loose of its joints. The artificial skin holding the arms in place posed no problems at all as Weslyn pulled hard and in rapid succession stretched the skin to its limits and then tore it.

Head and arms were tossed into a black garbage bag, then it was tied off and unceremoniously placed on the lower level of the cart. Cybil’s torso was rolled over and Weslyn planted her foot against Cybil’s crotch before pulling hard on her legs. There was more to pull here, the joints were strong, but with a little rotation and brute strength Weslyn was able to tear them free. They were placed into a bag, then onto the cart.

Cynbil’s torso was all that remained. Flesh shredded and frayed in places, backed by shattered electronics and wiring. All of it was useless to Weslyn. It was just something to dispose of.

The torso was shoved into a bag before a second back was placed over it to fully hide the shape. But not before Weslyn pilfered the security badge on her chest. All that remained was disposal. Cybil’s badge got her into the basement, as expected there was little in the way of staffing. The basement was a dingy cement floor with exposed cement walls. Weslyn pushed the cart along as one of the casters wobbled and made far too much noise. The waste disposal room was easy enough to find though.

Massive balers and trash compactors lined one wall. All manner of signs were posted on them. No cardboard, no toxins, no aerosols. Weslyn didn’t pay them any mind.

She lifted the gate and tossed in Cybil’s arms, legs, head, torso. All separate and in their own bags. She didn’t seal them so that any compression would easily escape and not pop the bag to reveal what was inside. She tapped Cybil’s security badge against the reader and pressed the red button that had at one point been labeled “compress.” Only a few letters remained now.

Weslyn didn’t stand by and watch, or revel in the defeat of her rival and opponent. That was a human trait. She wasn’t a human, she was every bit as much a machine as Cybil was. Or that trash compactor for that matter. She was made to do one thing, and do it well.

With the trash compactor whining as it finally encountered some resistance behind her, Weslyn found her way down to the service tunnels. A network of connected tunnels that were used only for maintenance on the lowest levels of the complex. As she sealed the hatch downward, the space filled with a sickening crunch. Plastic and metal support structures were breaking. Silicon circuit board bent and snapped, sending pieces of shrapnel spinning and slicing through wires. Cybil’s face remained unchanged, even as the flesh warped with her skull casing being flattened. She was broken pieces now. A completely ruined machine and nothing else.

It took her a bit of time before she managed to find a hatch that would lead out of the facility. An old maintenance hatch whined in protest as Weslyn shoved it open. Beyond was nothing but arid desert, hard packed and dry dirt that was cracked and unforgiving. It would suck the moisture out of anything living in no time at all. Weslyn had no such concerns. She hopped down and began jogging.

Soon enough she found her way onto a main road, likely the one that was used for shipping in heavy building materials or supplies that wouldn’t be conducive to an air drop. At some point the air began to cool as the sun sank lower and lower. Night hadn’t yet fallen when Weslyn found her way to a small, run down, roadside motel. It seemed like the building itself was held up by spite against the desert heat.

The small bathroom offered her the first look at her face since she had left Narayan. She stripped out of her shirt and tossed it aside as part of her preparation for pick up by her manufacturers. She tucked a bit of her hair behind her ear and tilted her head to one side. Finger tips gliding gently over the exposed electronics. She felt nothing about them, the exposure and her examining it was merely a datapoint for whoever picked her up and analyzed her configuration.

A flash of code scrolled into her vision. It was the brief field report that was encrypted and sent off. It spelled out a small summary of what had happened, her success and her location. Once sent, there was little else for her to do. She stood up in the bathroom and finished stripping down, leaving the clothes neatly folded on the bed next to her. She lay down, still, unmoving and powered down.