Alliance: An Intersolar Alien Romance, Book 6

Prologue

Huajile, Taixi System

[Roz-02: Er Model, Xun Unit.]

[Serial Number: Sapra-EX-030104 confirmed.]

[Boot up sequence initiated.]

The sound of my progenitor’s voice woke me in a peaceful instant. Neither abrupt nor slow, but merely emerging from the limbo of nonexistence, a finely tuned statue now propelled into action by instruction.

My sight flared as it calibrated, and I blinked once to confirm my unit was receiving visual feedback. My throat contracted and my features spasmed as my communication systems performed their sequential start protocols. Slick pads of cartilage and synthetic oil softened the thud of my joints as millions of parumauxi tested the weight-bearing specifications of each of my bones. My vision jolted as my body thunked in a cascade from head to toe—not the pop of fluid compressed around the joints, but a bodily bass that signaled the awakening of hydraulics and clamps and nerve nets and cell filters.

Then heat rushed in a wave down my spine, branching out through every web of nerves in a flash of electricity that overloaded my brain with a unanimous answer to my progenitor’s instruction.

[Boot up sequence successful. All systems check.]

That’s when Time began. The tick, tick, tick of an atomic clock nestled near the base of my skull, closest to the power supply my unit was connected to via a thick, heavy cable at the back of my neck. Only once that tick, tick, tick had timed the firing of my heart and breath did I begin to interpret any sensory input.

A wall of infinite static loomed before me. Thousands of images built and built upon each other as each microsec clocked a point of data to the tick, tick, tick of Time, then smoothed out into a ribbon of continuous sight meant to be interpreted consecutively rather than concurrently. Warbles of sound tickling the diaphragms of my inner ears sharpened in focus. Speech—vocal and quantum—filtered in, the clack of a conveyor belt, the whir of robotic assembly arms.

The hum of my body.

The thud of my heart.

Tick, tick, tick.

“Wow,” a voice said. The person speaking stood directly in front of me, their features at exactly zero degrees to the horizon of my sight. Information streaming through my jack suggested it was a woman. [Retrieving identification…] Human.

My unit’s shell was her likeness.

Hello, originator. I–

My face froze on a small, inviting smile, breath hitched to speak.

[Warning: non-essential movement restricted during data insemination and charging.]

I tried to return my expression to a neutral position, but the override insisted I remain still. My originator pointed at my face and spoke over her shoulder. “Ha! Did you see that? It moved!”

A large shadow behind her clicked, glancing with [retrieving hues of the visible light spectrum…] red eyes further down the nursery factory line. “We shouldn’t dally, Ms Turner.”

“Oh come on, how often do you get to see yourself like this?”

“Never.” Expressive analysis sidled into my mental ribbon of thoughts. The shadow’s flat tone and the rattle of his mouth parts suggested he was frustrated.

My originator leaned in, analysing my unit, her shell. Her eyes, so warm and big, set deep in her face with thick lashes. Her nose, pronounced with round nostrils. Her mouth, the bottom lip a lighter, shinier pink than the top. Her skin, a dusty hue akin to [retrieving reference…] raw jasper. All printed upon my unit’s frame and sewn into the intricate net of biological and cybernetic components that comprised her visage.

I swallowed involuntarily. She brushed her fingers over my shoulders, and they were cold… or wet? I could not sense the difference.

Could she sense the difference?

Asking the question caused a sharp sensation in my temple and my vision shorted, dashing a nanosecond of data from the mental ribbon ticking to the beat of my atomic clock. When my senses recalibrated, another figure stood beside my originator, and the pain blurred into obscurity, falling off the edge of my allotted Living Memory. LMem prioritized the person beside my originator instead, a figure I was coded to recognize.

Sire. Master.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I see you’ve stumbled upon, ah yes, Roz-02,” He said, His black eyes as big as my fist. Like the shadow, He was too tall for me to see in focus without looking up, so I settled for staring at His chest.

Hello, Master. I–

[Warning: non-essential movement restricted during data insemination and charging.]

My eyeballs shuddered and froze in place again, eyelids sliding over them once to keep them properly moist, lips still lifted in a warm smile. I had been further restricted by my second attempt to speak, but I could not help doing so and would again if prompted. I was coded to introduce myself to potential clients and interested parties once they spoke within my unit’s determined radius.

“So trippy,” my originator said. She squeezed my bare arm, poked my navel, then pressed her fingertip to my eyeball. It stung, the discomfort hot and scratchy. But I could not close my eyelids, which were now automated on a timer. Tick, tick, tick. “Can you make adjustments?”

The shadow paced away with an aggravated growl.

“Depending on the intricacy,” Master confirmed.

She pressed one finger into my flesh with staccato thrusts. “These moles. I’ve always hated them. And I want my nipples to be lighter.”

Master nodded, His impressive bone crest catching the pulsing blue light over my charging station. “Very simple. Analog, even. Shall we make adjustments now?”

My originator shrugged. “Sure, we have time.”

“No,” the shadow said, coming into focus as it leaned over her, “we don’t.” He was a venandi. Now that I knew, my LMem stored the connection between his silhouette and his species, adding it to the database I would recall for identification. “We have to be at the Conrad in less than a turn.”

My originator pushed him back with her palms. “I’m not going to let my sex doll look anything less than exactly how I want to be remembered, Roka, so you bet your fucking payday we have time,” she snapped.

The venandi named Roka snarled, bearing down his teeth at her. “Yes, we are here for my payout, Ms Turner. Something I have waited for for years. If you want to make it to your rendezvous, then I suggest you shut that waste of a m—”

Master produced a small instrument from a toolkit affixed to the corrugated wall and held it up to the light. “Please, yes? It takes a few moments! No violence withi-hmm-within the nursery, please! Yes?” His voice warbled and His hand shook. But as in all things, Master’s actions were effective and correct. The venandi huffed his nostrils and backed away, snapping his mouth parts closed on either side of his jaw. My originator gave him a [retrieving expression…] smug grin, crossing her arms.

“Do it,” she commanded. Master pressed the instrument to my skin, placing His long palm on my collarbone as He bent His face close to mine. My skin warmed. Master did not touch every unit on the factory line.

Perhaps I was special.

When the tip of the instrument burned, cutting deep into my skin, I continued to smile. My eyes remained focused on my originator’s face as she groomed her nails. I was frozen on the precipice of introducing myself as white hot anguish dug into my body.

Hello. I am Roz-02. I am happy you have chosen me.

I tried to speak with my eyes when she glanced at me, using the charge light nestled in my optic receiver to flash the words in binary code. I wanted her to know that she was important to me.

But I failed to tell her before she left. I wanted to use a new expression. A deep crease in my brow and a tingling in my tear ducts. A downturn at the corner of my lips. The subtle flare of my nostrils.

Instead, I remained frozen with a polite smile, burning alive under Master’s hand.

?

Thirty beats later, I had fully completed data insemination and a physical, passing Master’s systems check once more. My face, vocal cords, and limbs had all moved of their own accord, reciting a calibration script. “I think it’s just elegant to have an imagination. I just have no imagination at all. I have lots of other things, but I have no imagination…” Then breathy sounds, broken sounds, fluids that dripped from my eyes, my mouth, and my vagina. All were tested and found satisfactory.

Master returned me to my neutral expression before twelve units, myself included, were taken from the factory line and loaded into a nondescript box transport. For safety, we were immobilized in charging pods that swayed on two rails either side of a central grated floor. It was dark save the blinking blue retina light of those of us who had yet to reach a full charge, and hot enough to make my lungs taste like metal. My respiratory system notified my vitals deck of damage to my larynx and trachea from high heat and redirected parumauxi from the skin repair of my collarbone to the site.

Across from me, two of each of our units swayed with their necks, arms, waists, and thighs belted down, just like I did. I was a Roz–Er model–the second of four and luckiest of all for having met our originator. The others were ChaHal and M3L units. Though we were all human shells with the same number of limbs, the same biological materials, and roughly the same proportions, we were visibly discernable from each other. Three heights, three shapes, three hair textures, three palettes…

We were the first functional human models to be on the market, and tonight was our test audience. Master’s instructions were to impress and embody human beauty, to entice our audience so that they might choose one of us as the flagship design. We were inseminated with doll protocols as our highest-priority function, paired with an exhaustive database of human seduction and beauty.

After Master and my originator left the factory line, NRS had taken over preparations for our first night of instruction. The AI had presented each of us with a container of grooming implements and pigments, then tasked us with enhancing our features. Before stepping into our mobile pods, we’d each chosen from a pile of real human garments and printed prototypes. M3L units gravitated towards [retrieving descriptors…] romantic, flouncy new printouts. ChaHal units donned a combination of lingerie and sleepwear.

The Roz units all scavenged from the human pile rather than customizing perfect fit and color choices from NRS’s printing bays. The clothing had a strong potential for aural eroticism, something many species other than humans enjoyed. So though our soft flesh overflowed from waistbands and necklines, stretched fabric until seams pulled uncomfortably beneath our arms, or drifted too low and loose on our hips, we chose these pieces strategically but independently. Another test, measuring the consistency of our coding.

The transport’s roll-a-door clattered open, revealing the scorching orange glow of Huajile’s dusk. A shadow with different eyes than the one named Roka stretched, talons locked around the top of the transport. The receiver in my ear accepted the designation his holotab sent us, and I knew he was our overseer.

“Well, shit,” the overseer said, cocking his waspish hip to one side. His blue gaze narrowed, but I could not see him well enough to analyse his expression from the periphery of my vision. Instead, I looked directly into the eyes of an M3L unit with a teased cloud of hair and thick red wax smeared across her lips.

“Shut the fuck up, yeah, and get them inside,” another man hissed. His shape reminded me of Master.

The overseer clacked his mandibles together with annoyance, then released the pod rails from the clamps along the transport walls. We bobbed as their built-in levipucks adjusted for the weight, and the man pulled our line of pods out into the blistering heat. We drifted smoothly after his hand as he pushed us into a receiving bay at the back of a building made of black porous rock.

Three beats later, our rails were clamped into one side of a long hall, relieving the built-up pressure in their suspension coils with a long hiss. All units were released from our charging jacks in unison, breathed in deep, opened our mouths, and expelled hot, stale air. Then we took one step out of our pods and awaited inspection.

The overseer purred, pleased with our shells. He swaggered down the line, taking care to touch each of us before giving us instructions to depart and mingle with our test audience. No longer restrained by my charging protocol, I smiled, staring straight ahead as he stopped in front of me.

“Hello, I am Roz-02.”

Finally.I could speak the introduction I had attempted twice before. Though I was satisfied with the tone of my voice and the upturn of my lips, the overseer was not. He grunted, pushing my long brown curls aside.

“What’s this?” he asked, pressing his talon into the wounds left from Master’s improvements.

“I was augmented by my originator on the factory line,” I replied with suitably docile pride.

“How long til they heal up?”

I consulted my vitals deck. “Approximately forty-six beats.”

“Right.” He pushed me back into my pod and the charging jack reengaged. “Back to sleep until then, dolly.”

The other eleven units were dismissed one by one, found satisfactory for our purpose this evening. Another rail of dolls arrived, half of which were stored around my unit while they bent their faces to the ground, locked into fast chargers suspended from the ceiling.

I was the only one in a standard pod, staring ahead at the kitchen’s swinging doors. My coding turned over the overseer’s instruction several times, attempting to find a more efficient manner in which to heal that would not require suspending my LMem, something I was considering more and more as time ticked by because the delay in usefulness disturbed me so. I was perfect now. How could I not be if my originator approved of me?

Muted music wriggled through the spaces between doors and vents, bringing with it the scent of incense and coolant while my tissue knit itself back together. The overseer sat in the shadows of a padded vent near the loading dock, dormant overhead lights bathing his talons and spires in a red wash. The watchful pinpricks of his glowing blue stare bore into me.

Still.

Silent.

Until he stood up.

The overseer approached me twelve beats after the last ChaHal disappeared into the misty room of clients, arms laden with flutes of bubbling alcohol. He slid his talon into the curls cascading over my shoulder and picked them up, rubbing them between his finger pads with a thoughtful huff.

“You really are like the Muru, aren’t you?”

I did not attempt to override my safety protocol this time, the overseer’s talons tracing a line down my wounds. His hand descended to my breast, and my nipple hardened as coded. Cocking his head to the right, he lifted the hem of the cropped t-shirt I’d chosen and exposed the heavy mound to his view.

“That’s what the buttons are, then,” he said to himself, pinching my nipple with more strength than recommended. It stung as he pulled it taut and let go, watching my ample breast bounce. Then he leaned into my scent and groaned, rubbing a talon between my legs, having to force the digit between my thick, pillowy thighs. “Maybe I should perform some quality control before you go out there, huh?”

Quality control was well within the overseer’s purview, though I did not need a quality control test, and I did not… want… one. But my protest was an invalid instruction, and my vagina slickened at the pressure of his talon, presenting him with the scent of human arousal. His growl thickened, the vibrato an engine revving up, crowding me in with the red glow of the loading bay beacon at his back. He bent his mandibles to my neck and gnawed on my pulse with his bifurcated mouth.

Bright white exploded from behind my optical nerves, a blinding download so compressed with data that my eyes rolled back and my throat hardened like a copper pipe, open in a silent scream to the ceiling. My heart raced and sputtered, the chokehold of data so sudden and intense that my vitals deck blared warnings, drowning out the overseer and his talons now pushing my underwear aside.

My charging pod beeped aggressively.

Warning. Non-essential movement restricted during data insemination and charging. Warni-warning. Non-ess-es-es-es– Warning, hyperventil– Warning, cardiac arrhythmia detected. Overriding medula vitals core. Diverting parumauxi to heart tissu.. Tish-ti-ti-t-t-t-t-t-t–

Lightning bolts blasted through the parameters of my LMem. The ceiling above my port rushed and tilted as my vision blurred. The sound of gasoline vehic-hi-hi—las motonetas—puttered by. Feet shuffled against sandy tiles. A door opened on a rusted spring.

“?Buenos dias, Rozszsalinda!”

That name sounded familiar, but the other words and murmurs were not. I reached for them. The boisterous voices dancing with the smell of kauph-f-f-coffee. Though my body could not move, I felt my arm stir a pot on a hot gasoline stove like a phantom data halo, an echo brushing against my receiver.

Then the overseer moaned sweet nothings in my ear. Was it him? No… The words were like the ones I’d heard before. The voice was smooth but strained, hot, warm breath against my earlobe. A silky jaw pressed against my cheek rather than a venandi’s mouth parts.

“Me vengo…”

“?No pares!”

Breath squeezed from my lungs. That was my originator’s voice. Or… my voice. The words I didn’t know came from my throat and I still felt their shape. I felt other shapes pressed into me too. A hand with five human fingers squeezing my breast. A forearm banded beneath the small of my back. Were those my moans? I could not make noise while charging.

A sudden clap of thunder and the human man that touched me softly and pressed his lips against my skin was gone. The overseer ripped away from me, catching my face on his mouth parts as he jumped back. Hot pain seared down my spine and a carbonated sting of electricity crackled against my neck.

[WARNING: IMMOBILIZED. LMEM AND MEDULA CORE DAMAGE IMMINENT. DOWNLOAD PAUSED-RESTAR-AR-AR PAUSED. DOWNLOAD RESTARTING. PAUSED.]

“The fuck was that?” the overseer rattled, breathing hard. He latched his pants, taking two steps towards the lounge. I was frozen again, face to the ceiling, mouth open as if gasping for air. My eyelids were wide open, and I strained to glance sideways, to catch the overseer’s attention and implore him to fix my charging port. I couldn’t override the data battering my spinal cord. The pain…

It hurt so much.

Too much.

As the doors burst open and my originator stumbled into the hallway with desperation, she pushed the overseer out of her way. He careened, exoskeletal plates ramming into my extended throat and shoulders.

“Rosy!” a woman yelled, flying past us with an elbow to the overseer’s chest. The charging jack inserted in my spine jolted from the impact and ripped open the cap of my port, tearing my flesh. My pod wobbled, the levipucks holding it aloft straining under the overseer’s added weight.

“Hey!” he roared, pushed back a second time, grinding me into a whirring mess of live cables, black oil, and red human blood.

“Imani, wait!” boomed a huge voice.

Occupied with the chase, the overseer never saw the tail whipping towards his face. It pulled him off of me with a sharp snap, and he disappeared behind the swiveling kitchen doors with a yell as another crack rang out.

No longer attached to my pod, I teetered on weak knees, fingertips on fire, then fell into blackness, gasping for air.