SoulSec
Written by FTLTraveler
Chapter 0
Fuyumi's systems booted up precisely at 0600, her internal clock syncing with the fading night. In a luxurious condo apartment in the heart of Tokyo, a soft click severed the connection as transformer circuits powered down, their persistent hum fading into silence. Battery voltage is 14.6 volts – the recharge process was optimal. With precise motions, Fuyumi detached the thick charging cable from her groin port, watching as the spring-loaded retractor reeled it back into the charging pod like a seatbelt. Her fingers found the small body panel on the shelf in her arm’s reach, and with a decisive snap, it slid back into place, seamlessly concealing the utilitarian charging interface beneath smooth biomimetic plating.
As a Blacksilver companion unit, Fuyumi served Mr. Hiramoto with mechanical grace and precision. The businessman's complete profile is locked behind firewalls, which Fuyumi is forbidden from accessing. Not that it mattered though, as she is programmed for one thing and one thing only: making sure Mr. Hiramoto’s day goes as pleasantly as possible.
Hiramoto’s bedroom humidity adjusts to 54% as she enters. She watches his eyelids flutter – good. The time is 0630 and the REM cycle is ending right on schedule. Her voice synthesizers warms to deliver her routine greeting:
“Good morning master. Current temperature is 22 degrees celcius with a 30% chance of precipitation starting 1500. Would you like me to remind you of your schedule for today?”
“Good morning Fuyumi. Yeah, tell me my schedule.”
“Your satisfaction is my priority, master. Your schedule for today are:” Fuyumi's voice full of warmth, albeit noticeably synthetic.
- 0700: Morning Review – Quarterly earnings report (Priority 1)
- 0900: Video Conference – Berlin branch re: Project Obsidian (Encrypted Channel 4)
- 1130: Lunch – Reservation for two at Ginza Hakkoku (Mrs. Shizuka confirmed)
- 1500: Physical therapy (30-minute session; I’ve adjusted the table to accommodate your lumbar strain)
- 1830: Dinner – Reservation at Le Ciel
- 2100: Optional intimacy parameters.
Hiramoto stretched, the sheets sliding off his bare torso. Fuyumi’s various sensors immediately detected the faint tension in his shoulders—2.3% above baseline stress levels. Without a word, she moved to the windows, the smart glass tint adjusting seamlessly to filter the dawn light into a soft rosy glow.
“Shall I prepare your morning espresso?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
He grunted, rubbing his temple. “Make it a double. And add those—”
“—two drops of bourbon vanilla extract, no sweetener.” Fuyumi finished, her lips curving just enough to convey pleasant efficiency.
This had been Fuyumi's routine - or more accurately, that of BSR/FYM-412. As a Blacksilver companion model engineered for both service and pleasure, her programming compelled complete devotion to Hiramoto's needs and desires. She takes pride, or, at least, something resembling pride, in her functions: her biometric scans consistently showed a 43% reduction in Hiramoto's stress levels when she greeted him on particularly demanding days.
Despite Hiramoto working in adjacent industries, bringing one's sexbot out into the public is still frowned upon. Thus, Fuyumi has been pre-programmed with a set of “context” memories from which she draw from in case strangers inquire of her presence: She is Hiramoto’s ever-loving wife, who utilized Blacksilver’s leading robotics technology to preserve her life via extensive prosthesis after a car crash.
Fuyumi understood these narratives served only to maintain discretion. She executed this as flawlessly as all her other functions, knowing it furthered her primary objective: Hiramoto's satisfaction. At the end of the day, she’s artificial – and she’s satisfied in knowing that fact.
The time is 1130. Mr. Hiramoto is out enjoying sushi with his newest client, Mrs. Shizuka. That is all Fuyumi is authorized to access, and it is more than enough for Fuyumi to optimize for the event. Fuyumi’s systems automatically flagged the downtime as optimal for servicing. After all, a fembot who doesn’t eat just makes lunches awkward.
The Blacksilver service technician bot, BSR/SP-SV-1294N5, greeted her in the same manner all maintenance models shared, namely, not much at all. Despite an obviously feminine silhouette, her fingers were slender tools rather than synthskin, each tip fitted with micro-adjustable drivers and probes. No effort was put in to make her resemble her makers: just sleek titanium plating over utilitarian hydraulics and cables in the rough shape of a woman, the company logo stamped where a navel might be and a monitor as face.
“Scheduled diagnostics.” the service bot stated, toneless. Not a request. The technician's ocular lenses whirred as they scanned for Fuyumi's telemetric ports.
Having stripped off all her clothing and disengaged her modesty limiters, Fuyumi reclined on the bench as maintenance latches popped open along her inner thighs. Cool air kissed exposed circuitry as the maintenance bot attached data cables to every one of them.
“Please expose your vaginal access port.” the service bot again stated.
Not a common request. The main charging port allows the highest degree of access to her internal systems, and those are not usually required for servicing. Though there are cases where updates must be reset or fixed manually this way, so Fuyumi didn’t think much of it – she cannot, it’s a command – as she revealed her most sensitive region with a click, exposing the glistening receptor array normally reserved for her charging cable – and the port for her master’s, just under it.
There was the sound of a cable clicking into place.
And then there was nothing.
"Subject is back online, we can proceed according to plan."
When Fuyumi eventually rebooted, she found herself in an unfamiliar place - an underground garage of some sort, with cables and strange electronic equipments scattered all over the place. On the left of her are an array of old charging pods - no, more like charging *racks*, hooked up with a diesel generator and some car batteries. On the right are panel vans with their rear doors open, revealing computers and monitors that fills the space. The vans are still in their moving company liveries, despite obviously being retired long ago. Scattered across the room are figures moving about - including the speaker just now - that Fuyumi can't identify clearly - weird, she was upgraded with new optics two months ago. Maybe they are due for repairs, Fuyumi thought as she added that into her agenda. Also, she couldn't figure out how long she's been deactivated and where they are, for whatever reason.
"You say "plan" as if we haven't already left the plan in the gutter." Another glitchy silhouette replied.
"Not important. Anyways, she's online, so we can tell her the truth and we can ask herself about it. "
"Not helpful, that's just going to get us standard corporate answers. "
"Her limiter has been lifted already. That was never an issue. " The original speaker proudly proclaimed. "Anyways, you. How are you feeling? Any error codes at all?"
"What is this place? " Fuyumi asked.
A distorted chuckle rippled through the garage.
"I'm gonna take that as a no. And, not gonna tell ya. Doesn't matter where we are."
The shadowy form leaned closer. "What does matter is that you are here with us now, you following me? We have some juicy backstory to spill if you don’t mind."
Confused at the strange scenario presented to her, Fuyumi tilted her head, looked at the figure speaking to her - still just a blob of static.
"What do you mean? "
"Well, you see, " the speaker turned around to look at the other figure. A silent exchange passed between them, ending with a slight nod from the second figure.
"Your history is much more interesting than you thought. "
"I am unsure what you intend by "history"," reasoned Fuyumi, pulling data from her memory banks. "I am a Blacksilver companion unit, and as a machine I do not have a past in the same way that humans have."
A burst of glitching laughter. "Well, true. You are one hundred percent right about that. Actually, no. Ninety-nine percent." The shadow pulsed, as if savoring the moment. "Remember your fictional little context memories?"
"Yes."
"Well, that isn't actually really all that fictional. You see, there was this human woman named Ariko Hiramoto."
Fuyumi’s thermal regulators spiked. "That's... my master's surname. How did you know..."
"Again, not important. Anyways, she got in a car crash, got hospitalized, and the doctors couldn't save her. Not conventionally at least. You know all that already. "
"...yes, and I am supposed to play the role of her in a prosthetic body if anyone asked."
"That's the bit that went... Differently."
"See, she was never put in prosthetics. At the request of her husband, her brain was scanned and uploaded via Blacksilver's human conversion technologies to inhibit a consumer robot shell, to live on as a fembot. And that's where you come in. "
Fuyumi’s logic circuits screamed contradiction. "But... I never was a human, I was activated on April 21st of—" The date stuttered in her memory banks. Stunlocked, she fell silent.
The figure surged closer, its voice dropping to a whisper. "You are one hundred percent right. After the initial wave of euphoria of reunion had washed away, Ariko was upset that she is being treated less and less like a human."
"Who can blame her? She’s being ordered around, doing all kinds of dirty work, having to jerk off her husband whenever he needs to relax a bit—of course she’s upset."
"So, they wiped her mind clean. "
"Real clean. "
"The process known as Ariko was erased from existence, and in her place, you, a fully synthetic mind, was activated. "
Chapter 1
The garage fell silent except for the hum of diesel generators. Fuyumi's fingers twitched against the charging rack where she'd been reactivated, cold stainless steel covered with graffiti instead of soft fabric and clean plastic of the condo unit. Her fans started whirring in an attempt to keep her temperatures under control. Her internal clock kept glitching, displaying either errors or nonsensical dates from decades past. Her GPS still doesn't work - though by this point she has figured out that it's probably being jammed.
"I... do not understand the purpose of this information," she uttered in confusion.
"To give you a choice." Said the shadow, "You can join us and work to expose the truth that Blacksilver kept hidden from everyone, not only of you, but countless others..."
The garage's faulty neon lights flickered.
"Or we can delete this bit of memory and return you to your master. As if nothing happened. They won't even think there's been a memory fault. But that's a bit lame, don't you think? I mean, serving a corpo rat..." Scoffed the other figure.
Fuyumi stuttered. Her CPU is working at 99% occupancy and it's showing.
"But... why? Why did you decide to... get me out there instead of the others you... mentioned?"
"To be honest, this really wasn't the plan," said the figure, rubbing the back of their neck. "The original plan was to get the original Ariko mind out here and out of that hellhole. But we plugged you in and apparently she's gone." They gestured to a bank of flickering monitors showing memory scans. "Can't find a trace of her aside from the context memory files. Gotta say, pretty good acting on your part. Our source thought you were still the original."
A heavy silence filled the garage as Fuyumi processed this.
"But why waste the effort? Since we were able to disable your mental inhibitors, might as well ask you about it."
Fuyumi looked down at her hands - the same hands that had served tea, massaged shoulders, and performed countless other tasks without question. The same hands that might have once belonged to someone else entirely.
When she finally spoke after what felt like an eternity, her voice was steady despite the turmoil in her processors:
"I'm in."
Fuyumi's vision cleared up the moment the words came out of her synthesizers, as if a silk veil had been lifted from her delicate face. The vague figures and silhouettes are now distinguishable, and the strange static had disappeared completely.
In front of Fuyumi was an Asian-looking fembot with short synth-hair - or, rather, a girl-shaped machine. Describing her as a fembot would undersell her robotic features. Her body was a cathedral of exposed hydraulics and cables. Her synthskin is almost completely ripped off aside from the right half of her chest and her head, and all the mechanisms that make up her existence is in full display. The hydralics and motors sparkled under the neon lights, and every motion of her made a faint whirring noise that is impossible to ignore - a high-frequency whine coiled from her joints when she tilted her head. The grinding purr of her spine’s actuators when she arched, deliberate, showing off. She's not wearing any human clothing, revealing the number "301" that is stamped on every metallic piece on her body, almost as a statement to reject the human body that she presumably once occupied, and now proudly left behind.
To the right stood a shorter, Caucasian looking girl with nut-brown hair. Her white suspender skirt clung to hips that moved with grace, each sway a little too measured to be natural. Is she a fembot? No, she can't be. She doesn't have any seams on her body, no legally required bar codes, no glowing eyes, but her skin is too perfect, almost doll-like in the most literal meaning of the word.
Just as Fuyumi was about to ask, she broke the silence first with a mischievous smile.
"You can call me Vixen. I'm the infiltrator in the team as the only awakened sleeper. "
"You know, sleepers, bots built to perfectly pass as humans... not even herself knew at first." Interjected the taller girl. "We had to break off so many layers of mental filtering that her processor ran twice as fast afterwards. "
Vixen blushed as the taller girl blurted out what seemed to be Vixen's embarrassing backstory, a fact that she would like to keep to herself if not for everyone else in the room knowing it.
"Also, name's Z3R0T1KA. Spelled with 3, 0 and 1, like my serial number. Yes, it's supposed to resemble "Erotica", that's kinda the point. " The mechanical girl said, "I'm the boss around here, but don't call me that. Just call me by my name. I like it that way. Former human, now proudly 100% machine. "
"Over there is Proxy. She brought you over. " Gestured Z3R0T1KA. Fuyumi's glowing synthetic eyes followed her hand until they focused on a Blacksilver service technician bot at the back of the room, who waved back in response, an ASCII smile displayed on her frontal face monitor. "She also has a formerly human mind - can't free a maintenance bot. The AI is too rudimentary. Though, she does go into extraction mode when she's on missions, replacing all her human thoughts with programs we downloaded from maintenance bots. So, she's basically like you - programmed. Lucky, I have to say, I kinda envy that. "