Aftermarket Lover (SDS Robots) (3 page)

That evening
Ash came in tired and dirty. Lin was in the kitchen again, as if he’d never left. “Hello, Ash. How was your day?” he said. “I prepared stew for dinner. Please sit down, I will bring it to you.”

Ash
didn’t answer or look at him, but sat down. Lin brought his bowl of stew along with bread and butter.

He ate. The stew was tasty and satisfying, but he couldn’t bring himself to thank
Lin for making it. He knew he was being childish but couldn’t stop himself.

Ash
turned and saw Tiny sitting on the kitchen floor a few feet from Lin. “Tiny,” he said, smiling. At least he could count on someone. “Tiny, come here.”

Tiny
remained where he was.

Ash
frowned. “Hey. Come here.” He snapped his fingers.

The dog
lay down on his stomach. He lowered his head to the floor, staring at Ash with a sad expression.

Ash
looked from Tiny to Lin and back again. His own dog was taking the robot’s side!

He got up, exasperated, grabbing his jacket as he headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

He strode down a well-worn path behind the station, up a brief rise and then a small hill until he reached the top of the ridge.

The
ridge path ended in a small plateau at the highest point. The binary suns had set already and fading strains of sunlight lit the ridge just enough to see. From here Ash could see the flatlands for miles, and the deepening violet skies over the purple mountains in the distance.

Ash
sat down on a large flat rock. It was his favorite place to escape to, a place where he could sit and look out over the view and think about things. Or not think about things.

His stomach clenched, remembering the feel of the smooth skin where
Lin’s genitals should have been. No cock. No balls. Just an expanse of skin all the way to the asshole.

A perfect robot to use for sex. All
Lin could do was service, not be serviced.

Or loved.

Ash stared at the flatlands. He’d never heard of an SDS robot with no genitalia. What would be the point of it? He thought they were equipped with, well—everything—so the experience of sex with a partner, one who could feel everything you could feel, would be more satisfying.

He wasn’t sure how robots felt things. Maybe they had sensors that mimicked human senses like touch and smell and taste
?

And
their emotions? He knew even less. Did they even have real emotions?

Ash
turned his head to see Lin standing on the path, his blue eyes staring at him.

The
evening winds blew across the plateau.

Ash
looked at the robot. He didn’t know what to say, but didn’t feel like carrying on a fight anymore. He sighed. “You can sit here, if you want,” he said, indicating the area next to him on the rock.

He couldn’t see
Lin’s expression in the twilight, but the robot slowly walked over and sat down several feet from him.

The
y sat in silence for a time, the wind providing the only sound as it whistled between the rocks.

Ash
knew he would have to break the ice. It wasn’t the robot’s place to do it. “Sorry,” he began. “I guess you can’t help being… like that.”

“It’s all right.”

More silence. Ash stared at the flatlands below. Why did something always go wrong when he tried to get together with someone? Even a freaking robot couldn’t be a match for him.

“I hope that I have provided good service to you in my short time here.”

Ash turned his head. Lin was gazing at him with a gentle expression, the wind rippling through his hair. His silver hair reflected the light of the two moons rising in the sky, and his smooth synthetic skin looked like pale-colored paint. “I am sorry that I can’t stay. I would have liked to have stayed with you.”

Ash
started. “What?”

The robot blinked. “
I thought—” His face froze for a moment as he processed Ash’s reaction. “Are you not returning me to Jake?”

Ash
hadn’t thought about what came next. Did he want to get rid of Lin? Give him back to Jake like a defective good?

It wasn’t
like Lin had done anything wrong. The station was sparkling clean, his cooking was wonderful and the blow jobs made Ash feel like a teenager again. The robot wasn’t the greatest conversationalist but then neither was he.

Taking
Lin on wouldn’t mean more responsibility. If anything, Lin’s work relieved him of maintaining the station and preparing meals, which meant Ash could spend more time out looking for gold. He might be able to leave this barren rock sooner.

He
looked at Lin. “I want you to stay. If you want to.”

Lin
stared at him, his mouth hanging open. Then he recovered himself. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”
Ash held out his arm and beckoned Lin closer, and Lin scooted over until Ash could put his arm around him.

A bounding ball of fur landed in
Ash’s lap. Tiny barked, tail wagging as he looked up at Ash.

Well,
Ash thought, that’s settled.

****

The next few days were calm and pleasant. Lin cleaned the station and cooked meals while Ash went out to work.

Ash
messaged Jake and told him he would keep Lin. At the end of the week, Jake showed up for his usual delivery.

The two men stood outside
Jake’s ship and hunched over their U-tabs as Ash transferred the money. He’d been shocked at the price, which was the equivalent of just three weeks of his salary.

After the transfer was confirmed,
Ash looked at Jake. “Okay, now you can tell me everything. What bugs has he got?”

“What do you mean?”
Jake demurred.

“For one thing,
it’s a ridiculously small amount of money for purchasing a robot. For another thing he’s missing a few… parts.”

“Yeah,”
Jake said. “I kind of thought you’d notice that eventually.”

He drew
Ash closer to the ship, out of earshot of Lin who was inside the station. “He’s an SDS Hybrid model.”

“You mean—”

“The experimental ones with real flesh mixed in with synthetic flesh,” Jake said.

“The ones who killed their owners,”
Ash said, recalling the stories on the U-net. “Thanks. Can I look forward to getting killed in my sleep now if I get on his wrong side?”

“Those were the early ones,”
Jake said patiently. “V-Lin is a late model. The late models had that glitch programmed out of them. No, the ones they built toward the end have a different issue.”

“No genitals.”

“Actually no, that’s just a custom option at the owner’s request. The late models were designed with human emotions but their human side began to take over. Most of them had to be destroyed because they became too unpredictable—like humans.”

Ash
stared at Jake. “That still doesn’t answer my question. What’s Lin’s story?”

Jake
drew even closer and lowered his voice. “He’s only had one owner—the one who ordered him without the, well, essential parts. The guy was a real bastard. He finally got bored with V-Lin and got another SDS Hybrid, and sold V-Lin to a used robot dealer. He was sold from dealer to dealer and I got him from a U-net auction.”

“But that doesn’t explain—”

“Look, he’s got emotions, right? Like a normal human. So it’s not like dealing with a
robot
robot if you get my meaning. The hybrids have a war going on inside them: the machine side versus the human side. Some of them stay robots but others morph into something that isn’t one thing or the other. And some…” Jake hesitated, then continued, “Some start leaving the machine behind altogether.”

Ash
stared. “What do you mean?”

“I mean their computer brain inside them, the circuitry or hardware—however you put it—dissolves due to the increasing humanity of the hybrid.”

“What’s the end game? Do any of these hybrids turn completely human?”

“Don’t know.
There’s an experimental treatment that accelerates the process supposedly. The hybrid’s individual will is a big factor.” Jake paused. “Of course, if he doesn’t have the parts though—he can’t grow them. He’s doomed to be sexually unfulfilled forever.” He checked his tab. “I gotta go. Thanks for the sale. Oh, and here’s the key.”

He handed
Ash a device that resembled the one Ash used for his entertainment center. “What’s this?”

“The key. You
’re supposed to control the robot with this. Just turn it on and read the screen, it’s self-explanatory,” Jake said over his shoulder as he headed up the ramp. “Good luck!”

Ash
backed up as the ship’s engine fired. He glared at the delivery pilot’s smiling face and cheerful wave through the cockpit window as the ship took off. It was just like Jake to half-explain things at the last minute, always keeping him off-balance.

He walked i
nto the station holding the key, still stewing. Turning the key on, Ash waited for the screen to show something.

A master menu came up.
Ash scrolled down the commands.

He frowned.

Pain. Pleasure.

Fear.

What kind of robot commands were these?

Ash
was staring at the key when Lin entered. He looked up and saw the expression on Lin’s face. Before he could react, the robot snatched the key out of his hands and ran out of the station.

“Wha—Hey!”
Ash yelled.

He took off after
Lin. The robot ran behind the station and up the small rise, and Ash knew where he was headed.

The robot was already on the ridge line
by the time Ash started up the rise. He cursed under his breath, and kept running. Damn, but he was fast. “Lin, wait!”

Ash
heard Tiny barking behind him. This was getting ridiculous.

He speeded up and reached the plateau at the
top of the hill just as Lin stopped at the edge and turned to face him.

Tiny
barked and barked. “Tiny, stop,” Ash said. The little dog ran back and forth between the two as if trying to bring them together.

“I won’t let you have this.”
Lin gripped the key like his life depended on not giving it up.

“Okay. I won’t take it from you.
Just tell me what is the deal with that thing anyway?”

He began walking toward the robot.
“Stay away,” Lin said, looking as close to frantic as a robot could. He scrolled down the screen as Ash said, “Hey, wait—”

Lin
held up the key for Ash to read. It said
Terminate Robot
. “I’ll push this,” Lin said, his eyes wild. “I will. Don’t come any closer.”

Ash
stopped. “Fine. Can I ask just one question?”

“What?”

“I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know what that key thing is for, all right? But do you trust me?” Ash extended his hand toward Lin. “I just paid Jake for you. You can stay with me if you like. But you have to trust me, and I have to be able to trust you. Okay?” Ash looked at him earnestly. “Give me the key.”

“No!”

“Please. I promise I won’t use it to hurt you.”

Ash
waited with his hand out for what felt like an eternity. Finally, Lin slowly reached out and dropped the key into Ash’s hand with shaking fingers.

Ash
scrolled down the list of commands one last time, his mouth tightening in disgust. What kind of sick fuck did these things to someone? And then he drew back his arm and hurled the key off the cliff.

Lin
gasped. His eyes trailed the arc of the key as it sailed through the air. They heard it break as it hit the rocks below.

“I don’t want to control you,”
Ash said. “I don’t like being controlled, so I won’t do that to you. If you stay here with me, we’re equals. I don’t care if you’re a robot or part-robot or whatever you are.”

Lin
stared at him, his eyes huge. His mouth moved silently as if he couldn’t find the words, and then he said in a trembling voice, “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”

And suddenly he was in
Ash’s arms, hugging him, and Ash was hugging him back. “I feel like crying,” Lin said into his shoulder, “but I don’t know how to do that.”

Ash
laid his cheek against the silver hair, his own eyes a little moist. He didn’t know if it was pity for Lin or something more selfish, but all he knew was that he felt happy. “Hey,” he said. “I hope we didn’t need that key for anything. You’re not going to grind to a halt or anything without it, are you?”