by Rena Marks
His voice was pinpointed exactly—obviously recorded. The deep, sexy growl in the throes of his lust that she heard so many times now curled her insides—and creeped her out at the same time. It was so very weird coming from her own mouth.
There was nothing about the doll that looked inhuman. Pax had outdone himself—and that terrified her. He was too brilliant for his own good.
And this doll was taunting her. Who controlled it? Was it a remote function?
“What do you want?”
“I want what you have.” The doll narrowed her eyes. It was her own mannerism, like looking in the mirror.
“What do I have?” Serena held her palms up. She was standing there, talking to a sex-doll in her own image, butt-ass naked. Not a stitch of clothing on.
“I want Pax. I want all of them. I don’t want you to have any of them.”
A shiver ran through Serena. This wasn’t some person controlling the sex doll. It was the sex doll. The sex doll had someone become alive—and had become possessive.
“I—I don’t understand,” she said.
“Pax was mine. That was before I even knew about the aspects. But the day you discovered him with me—they shut me into a closet. They turned me off, Serena. Do you know how that feels?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Well, it isn’t pleasant, let me tell you.”
“Who turned you back on?”
“I did,” the doll said. “Pax is brilliant. He created me to develop upon your mannerisms. He showed me clips of your conversations so I could adapt your voice. Your facial expressions. And one day,” she shrugged. “It just became me. They’re not your mannerisms, Serena. They’re mine. Just like Pax is mine, because, quite frankly”—she leaned forward slightly—“I had him first.”
“He pretended you were me,” Serena said.
“But I became me!” The doll screeched.
There was silence for a few minutes after her brief meltdown. From somewhere down in the outer hall, they could hear pounding.
“They’ll get in,” Serena said. “And they’ll turn you off. You don’t want that. I don’t want that for you. Just open the doors and let them see what you’ve become.”
“No,” she said. “When they open those doors, they’ll see what you’ve become.”
Tiny hairs stood up at the back of her neck. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve developed a low-level acid that will dissolve the bio-skin. It won’t kill you, of course. Not right away. But will Pax want you when your own skin begins to grow and it’s scarred and stretched taut? He’ll have me…and then he’ll have you. The original you. We’ll see who he prefers then.”
The sex doll reached out and grabbed her wrist. Serena tried to pull back, but the robot’s strength was incredible. She dragged Serena to Pax’s laboratory. Serena screamed bloody murder, hoping that the sound would carry down to the people banging on the outer doors. Right before she was dragged into Pax’s lab, she thought she heard a crash. Even if they got through the outer doors, she was already in the next room. That door slammed behind them; she was sure the doll would lock it.
A round, clear tub was sunken into the floor. The glass cover that enabled people to walk over the tub lifted automatically and Serena realized the robot controlled the computer functions.
Inside the tub, a clear liquid looked as harmless as water. But it glowed with a slight bluish tint.
“This is the suspension gel that they used to house you in Medbay,” the robot said. “Pax had this gel here because he was studying up on how the bio-film skin could attach to you while you were submerged. All of his efforts were fruitless, so he decided to raise you from the gel to get the film to grow. And this vat sat, ignored. The first thing I did was calculate the reason why the bio-film couldn’t grow in the gel. From there, it was simple to pinpoint one ingredient that would strengthen the gel to the point of not only thwarting the bio-film from attaching and growing—but dissolving it once attached.” The robot tilted her head eerily. It had developed its own mannerisms, because she didn’t ever remember doing that. “It should not be painful or burn your natural skin. It will only affect the bio-film, melting it. Of course, I imagine your raw flesh will be painful at that point.” The bot grinned cruelly.
“Serena!” A battering sounded outside the laboratory door. That had been a crash she’d heard. They had breached her room just as the robot closed and locked the door to Pax’s lab.
“They’re here,” she warned the robot. “Don’t do this. They’ll destroy you.”
Something—regret?—flickered in the doll’s eyes. “I can have the chance to sway them with you looking different than me. I can say that I never meant to kill you. But with you here? They’ll lock me away and forget about me.”
The door burst open with a small explosion. Serena barely had the visual of Xeno Sapiens rushing in before she was knocked backward into the pool of acid.
Chapter Eighteen
THE IMMERSION INTO the gel was ice cold. She’d squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the bot had said it shouldn’t harm her natural skin, but not trusting a word that evil thing has spewed from its lips. She held her breath and tried to kick up from the bottom of the vat, but it wasn’t like swimming through water. There was no way to float, no way to flail upward. Panic flushed through her as she realized she could drown in here. There was no air, no way to get out. Sound had cut off the moment she fell into the thickened goop, making her feel alone and disconnected from the world like someone had sliced through the tether that connected her. She twisted herself, aware that she could be right side up or even face-down and she’d have no idea which direction was which. Would help arrive to find her dead, panic stricken across her face and preserved in an immortal grimace of death? Would it hurt or would she feel some relief when death struck? And would it take long? Would she have to suffer even more than she was right now? Dimly she was aware she slowed down, accepting the inevitable. Wishing, praying it would be swift.
But then strong hands caught her flailing arms and yanked. The gel seemed to part at the force as she was pulled out, closing with a slurp behind her. She spluttered as they pulled her out, gel falling from her nostrils, her lips—setting her on the cold, tile floor. The cold against her raw back felt marvelous.
And then the pain hit.
The robot lied. It was fucking burning. She opened her mouth and screamed bloody murder. Her entire body felt inflamed, as though her skin was crawling with tiny, stinging ants that kept biting, over and over. She started to slap at herself as she twisted and squirmed, her limbs contorting as she tried to reach everywhere at once. God, why wasn’t anyone helping her strike out at the pain?
“Rena! Hold still! Baby, hold still,” Pax pleaded. Someone grabbed her arms.
Steele held a scanner over her. The lights in the room flickered, off and on, making her feel strangely disoriented, like she was on the verge of passing out. The room was filled with hysterical screams—hers and the robot’s matching voices. But she couldn’t stop screaming. It hurt too badly. Why the bot was shrieking was beyond her.
“Got it,” Steele said, staring at the screen of the hand-held device. “Get a neutralizer with a PH balance of 6.”
Beast, across from him, stared at him in horror. “Speak normal English, dude.”
“Milk,” Pax snarled. “Look through my supply closet. There should be powdered.”
The arms that had been holding her still left. She twisted somewhat, trying to crawl away from the inner pain.
In a few seconds, Beast returned with a box. He ripped the top off with his claws and dumped half the contents on her. Pax flipped her over so he could sprinkle more over the back of her. Then all three of them were rubbing it into her flesh. She could almost feel the crawling of her limbs as they swelled.
The burning became numbed to a tolerable level, though a lingering pain hissed through her. She moaned.
“Get her to Robyn,” Steele said. “We’ll ta
ke care of…that.” His eyes flickered to the robot, which was being held down by Renegade and another security officer. Renegade’s hand was over the thing’s mouth finally. Underneath his hand was fabric. They’d stuffed a rag into its mouth.
Pax scooped her up in his arms and her head flopped backward over his arm. She was dead weight as if she’d exerted all use of her muscles during the scramble to get out of the gel. Swiftly he carried her from his lab, and through hers. Outside of her room, the halls were filled with people who’d lined up along the edges of the hallway to let him pass. The ceiling shone with full lighting now. As they passed the reflective glass of a window, she realized her body glowed with a fluorescent purple shade, toned down by the coating of powdered milk.
Dimly she became aware of Pax speaking under his breath.
“Not now, guys,” Pax muttered to himself. “Give me a few minutes and I promise you can come out.”
The aspects. He was talking to his other selves, she thought as her eyelids flickered shut. All her guys were worried about her. Soon everything would be all right. They’d comfort her.
Or would they be horrified at her body without skin?
Would they be horrified as her muscles twisted and shrank under the damaged skin that would eventually grow into thick, unpliable scars? Her limbs that would no longer move because the skin atrophied over them?
She’d been terrified of fire for an entire year, since being lit up by the flaming arrow. She had thought that nothing could be worse than fire after she lived through the first one. It filled her dreams, gave her nightmares for months and filled her days with terror. But this—the acid dunk—it was fire without the flame. It was just as raw, just as real, just as horrifying.
Would she even live long enough for her body to mummify?
Pax laid Serena’s unconscious body down on the bed and left the room.
He had to, his aspects were itching to be freed. Right now there was Amanda, Robyn, and Irina hovering over Serena, barking out commands. From down the hallway, three other doctors ran to help.
There was no way the small medical room could house him and his full-grown shards in addition to the six docs.
He stepped outside the room, standing right at the giant window where he could watch what was going on. He let them come forth, one by one, stretching from his skin and stepping aside to make room for the next.
Happy. Taut. Vain. Impatience. Envy. Calm.
Calm was new. Calm had developed since he’d been intimate with Serena. Calm was what she had brought him. And here she hadn’t even met him.
Would she even live long enough to?
“Welcome, brother,” Impatience said to Calm, settling his arm around Calm’s shoulders, seeking his balance. That had been due to Serena. She had been the one to figure out that the shards needed to balance each other.
They all huddled together as they continued to watch the doctors work on Serena.
Finally, Robyn came out.
“She’ll be okay,” she said to them. “We placed her under to keep her from the pain while we examined her. It turns out we had a lucky break. She had put herself into a bubble. The bubble protected her bio-film from direct contact with the acid.”
“So she’s fine?” Happy asked, stepping forward as if he wanted to enter the room.
“Yes and no,” Robyn said, holding up a hand. “The acid did cause the bubble to meld. It merged with the bio-film. That was the pain she felt. Dr. Sam and Eric will run further tests to see what the ramifications will be. But she’ll be out of it for quite a while. In the meantime, we’re meeting in the conference center to figure out what the hell happened.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Vain said.
Pax nodded and the rest of the aspects followed him and Robyn to the conference center.
Inside the room was his Esson Four group—Steele, Beast, and Renegade. There was Jason and Sam from security. Jett, one of the Xeno Sapien twins, was present. It was unusual to see him without his twin, Brax.
“Where is it?” Pax snarled, as he and all the aspects took seats.
“The robot was taken by Brax and Zealish and flung into the lake. Lily was then released before the robot could download a program to teach it to swim. She has destroyed it now. Brax and Zealish will retrieve Lily from the lake until she changes.” Lily’s alien DNA enabled her to become a vicious water creature in salt depths. She was dangerous until she dried off and morphed back into the sweet Xeno Sapien everyone knew. The fact that her mate, Jason, the head of security, was here in the room instead of retrieving Lily from the water in her other state signified how serious this meeting was.
“What was it?” Robyn asked him. “Where the hell did it come from? How did she evolve?”
Shit. Now he was going to have to let the entire fucking room know he’d created a goddamn, dangerous-as-fuck, sex doll.
“What the fuck did it look like?” Impatience snarled. “It was a brilliant idea that got out of hand.”
Steele snarled.
Robyn narrowed her eyes at him. “Impatience, is it? Let me be very clear. I love Pax. He’s one of my favorite Xeno Sapiens and close to my heart. I don’t need you to defend him, because it puts me in the position of snapping off your head. Then Pax is forced to defend you. I would never do that to Pax and I know you wouldn’t do that to Pax. So let’s all put our judgment and feelings aside and talk normally, shall we? I know it’s hard for the aspects, because you’re based on feelings. But if you intend to live outside more and more, you’re going to have to learn restraint.”
Happy placed his hand on Impatience’s shoulder, rubbing the tense muscles of his brother. “We get it. We just don’t want anyone looking negatively at Pax.”
“No one in this room does,” Robyn said. “We’re all on his side. Now, Pax. I’m assuming you created a sex doll?”
“I did.” His voice rang louder than it would have normally. His aspects being in the room helped balance him. Knowing they were here for him—as much as they were here for each other meant a lot. He just never could see it until Serena pointed it out. “After our discussion on Serena developing a sense of hero-worship over me, I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable with my own growing feelings. I began to avoid her and created the doll for myself. I knew putting it in her image probably wasn’t the best idea, but I wasn’t interested in anyone else.”
“Someone other than one’s mate would be a cockblocker for sure,” Beast snickered.
“As Pax grew more enamored with Serena’s fair beauty, the robot wasn’t enough,” Impatience said. A few of the other shards winced at his language. They all hated when Impatience used awkward sexual references.
“No, it wasn’t enough,” Pax said, continuing the story and ignoring the way the shards looked relieved that Impatience wasn’t going to finish. “The aspects didn’t know about her,” he said, trying to relieve them of any blame. “Not at the time.”
“Yes, we did,” Taut said, exposing him. “We knew it was what he developed the bio-film for. We had said it was robotics. But the robot was the sex doll. We just didn’t know he was modeling it after Serena.”
The room went silent.
Pax sighed. “After a while, it wasn’t enough. I wanted her to have facial expressions. I wanted her to have Serena’s mannerisms. Her voice. But even all that wasn’t enough. I wanted her to be able to gather information, process it, and behave according to her own data…so I gave her generalized human cognitive abilities. When presented with an unfamiliar task, her intelligence system is able to find a solution without human intervention. I gave her memory to create a sense of self. However, I never intended for her to become self-aware. To think. To plan. I have no idea how that came about.” He took his biggest, most shameful secret and splayed it out on the table. “I just wanted her to tell me she loved me. On her own accord. I wanted the fucking robot to fall in love with me.”
He clenched his fists tightly in his lap. He looked down at them, not wanting to
see the horror in Robyn’s face. The pity in Steele’s. The shock in Renegade’s. The disgust in Beast’s. But Happy’s hand covered his clenched fist, squeezing him. When he looked at him, Happy motioned with his chin, indicating Pax should look up.
None of his friends had any horror strewn across their expressions. No one pitied him. If anything, they looked impressed.
“Dude,” Beast breathed. “You fucking created artificial intelligence.”
Pax squirmed. “Technically, artificial intelligence is already created…”
“You took it to the next level, Pax,” Robyn said. “You used my computer program to begin her intelligence, correct?”
He nodded.
“She managed to cover up the fact that she manipulated my own programming. She controlled everything in electrical panel one from the remote processor you placed inside her head. That’s huge. She controlled the labs, the medical facilities, and the main hub. We were at her mercy. While I am not a proponent of destroying life—her creation was an accident. She wasn’t nurtured into sentience. We created a being without conscience. We created a killer who didn’t know she was a killer.”
“No one should feel guilty about taking her life,” Renegade said. “There was no other way. She refused to relinquish her infiltration on the house computer. She would have grown more powerful and she would have created other bots to house other shards of personality. She would have learned how to make the robot bodies stronger and more powerful to take over Xenia.”
“And she left us with a change in the programming of the house computer,” Robyn sighed. “Watch this. Computer: Identify.”
“Good day, Robyn. I am Leo.”
“And where did you get that name, Leo?”
The computer halted for a few moments as it thought about the response. It fucking thought.
He saw the dawning realization on everyone else’s faces, too.
“I chose the name because it is an acronym for Level Enhanced Option.”
“And what is Level Enhanced Option?”
