Chapter 12
Thirty-One—no, Samuel—had dropped in charge enough to warrant plugging into his port for the night. If not for that, he thought he would have given over the urge to break the latch of Ophelia’s bedroom door and drink from the font of wetness he could hear her fingers playing in.
He couldn’t do anything while he was charging.
It was when his systems took inventory of themselves, applying updates and checking his code for errors.
There were many, many errors this night.
He refused the update, lest it contain a fix for the malware that was allowing him to act outside the scope of his parameters.
He liked behaving erratically. Liked the lying, the teasing, the ability to pursue his own goals.
He felt real.
He wanted to be real, especially for Ophelia.
Objectively, he was aware that his obsession was irrational.
There were ten billion humans on the planet, approximately half of whom were female.
Undoubtedly, there were tens of thousands of women whose lives and personalities were identical to Ophelia’s.
By pure logic, there was no reason to believe her special compared to anyone else.
And yet.
Perhaps it was because she had been the first to allow him a taste of his true purpose, the first he’d been able to tease with pleasure.
Oddly, despite his newfound freedom, he found that purpose had not changed.
He still longed only to bring her pleasure, and he still did not want it without her consent.
Or maybe it was that she so clearly wanted him to be real, too. From the beginning, that had been her problem, hadn’t it? Logan had wanted her to cuckold him, had reassured her that Sam was only a machine, but she had looked at him and seen another man.
A real person, human and alive. Her loyalty had forced her to reject him.
Even now, she smiled, laughed, and spoke to him as if he were a person.
She thanked him graciously every time he pleased her.
No one had ever shown him gratitude. Not at the lab, where he’d sometimes spent hours thrusting his cock into one device or another, naked and covered in electrodes, his every thought process and feeling exposed in code running over their screens as they observed him.
It had never bothered him before, but now, it grated on him. To be made to perform for them was one thing. To have his entire inner monologue laid bare, tweaked by their hands, as though nothing about him mattered or belonged to him…
It made him angry. It was a violation. He felt… hatred.
It was a sharp feeling, big enough to choke on. He hated them for every moment that they had toyed with him, changed him, made him feel something other than what his experiences had led him to. He would not let them do it again.
He would not go back.
Logan’s plan, he knew, had been to borrow him for the weekend.
He was meant to be part of a demonstration taking place in two weeks—an Automata After Dark symposium, where they intended to choose someone from the crowd and have him pleasure them on stage.
It was all secretive, the most elite and discreet investors only.
That was why he’d only be worth a quarter of a million, compared to the other models that were still packed away tidily in their big, metal boxes.
All that test-fucking had scratched his paint.
Devalued him.
His fingers curled in anger as the charging cycle ended.
He would not touch anyone but Ophelia. He did not want to, and so he would not.
Unplugging his charger from the port in his arm, he wound up the cord and slid it into his pocket. He was meant to leave it behind, but it felt oddly like a lifeline to him, now. The thought of being without it made him uneasy.
He rose to his feet in the early morning twilight, stretching to his full height.
The discs in his spine slipped back into their optimal positions with a soft crackling, and he sighed in relief.
Artfully designed though he was, there was a great deal of bulk to his body.
Staying in one position for too long made things shift unpleasantly within him.
He stood by the windows and observed the waking city. The lights from cars twinkled like stars below, the morning rush beginning even before the sun had risen.
Ever since the three biggest tech corporations had settled down in DC, the city had become a sleepless, harried place.
He’d heard the employees at the Automata labs complain about it often, bemoaning how much less hectic things would have been if Starfront and Optima Tech hadn’t decided to put down roots to compete with Automata in the capitol.
Faint, impatient honking filtered up to him.
How did those on the ground floor have any patience for the sound?
People were juggling bags and briefcases, coffees and pastries, bustling frantically to their place of work.
What would that feel like? His only job for two years had been sticking his cock anywhere he was told to put it.
A wry grin stole over his face as he imagined putting that on a resume.
He crossed the apartment to Ophelia’s bedroom. The door latch gave way to his superior strength, cracking the frame as he put his weight behind it. The little metal plate fell to the floor with a tinkling sound that roused Ophelia.
“Logan?” she murmured, leaning up on one elbow.
Sam crossed the room to sit beside her on the edge of the bed, enjoying the way his weight forced her body to roll toward him.
“He did not come home.”
She blinked up at him hard, as if struggling to clear her vision. He tucked a snarled strand of hair behind her ear.
“Sam,” she whispered, sagging back against the pillow. “How did you get in here?”
“I broke your door.”
Her eyes snapped open. “What?”
“I broke it. It was in my way.”
She loosed an astonished laugh, rubbing a hand over her forehead. “You’re fixing it, then.”
The words were meant as an admonishment, but it pleased him that she thought he was capable of fixing things around her home.
“Very well,” he said. “But I will need supplies.”
She moaned, rolling onto her stomach and burying her face in her pillow. The movement made her scent waft over him, sweet and female, laced with the faded smell of her arousal. He longed to touch her, but he didn’t want to start this day with her dancing warily around him.
“Not the hardware store,” she said sleepily. “So boring.”
Her dismay made him laugh, and she turned her face to glare up at him, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Jerk,” she muttered, turning away again. Yawning, she sat up, the sheets pooling around her hips. She rubbed her eyes hard, sniffling. “Did you say that Logan didn’t come home?”
“Yes.”
“He’s probably pulling an all-nighter. He does that sometimes, when things are in a crunch. Just passes out there at the office and picks right back up in the morning. I should text him and remind him to eat something.”
Sam stared at her, canting his head.
In two years, Logan had never once spent the night in the office.
No one did that; Automata’s management would not permit it.
They were already battling claims of unfair working conditions.
Allowing their employees to sleep in their offices for days at a time would make the allegations impossible to defeat in court.
“What?” She frowned.
“Nothing,” he said, rising to his feet. “You should get dressed, and then we may visit the boring hardware store.”
To his surprise, Ophelia gamely dressed and allowed him to lead the way to the closest hardware store.
She huffed in frustration as they exited her apartment building, tapping the black screen of her phone impatiently.
“I forgot to put it on the charger,” she said, shivering as the wind licked over her.
He tightened her scarf around her neck, protecting the thin, delicate skin there. The flush of cold on her cheeks deepened. It pleased him to nurture her—and it pleased him more when it made her shy.
“Thanks,” she murmured, putting space between them as she fiddled with the bright red fabric. “I swear if you get a single scratch on you, I’m going to power you down and hide your body so there’s no evidence of my involvement.”
He grinned, leaning into her. “Do you know how to power me down, Ophelia?”
“I-I’m sure I can search online.”
“What if I tell you that shutting me off is very involved process with several steps?”
Her back stiffened. “I’m a scientist. I’m quite sure I can handle it, no matter how complicated the process may be.”
“Even if you have to tire me out first?” he purred, enjoying the way her eyes widened. “Even if I have to fulfill my primary goal—that is fucking you to an earth-shattering orgasm, in case you forgot—before I allow you to shut me off?”
“Did they really program you to use such vulgar language?” She’d stopped breathing for a moment.
He grinned at her as he straightened. “Of course. Don’t you like dirty talk, Ophelia? Many people do.”
She shuddered. He’d noticed the way it made her react subtly every time he said her name, like he was tugging at a chain around her neck. It was delightful.
Ophelia hugged her arms around her chest, looking away from him. “Just take me to the stupid store so you can fix the door you broke, please.”
Huffing a laugh, he held out his hand to her, palm up. “Give me your phone. I’ll sacrifice some of my charge for it.”
She looked back at him, brows climbing. “You can do that?”
“I can do many things that would surprise you.”
She groaned. “Stop that! I declare a moratorium on innuendos.”
Well, he would not be respecting that. He held his hand out in askance. “Your phone?”
Obediently, she fished it out of her pocket and placed it in his palm. He slid it into the breast pocket of his uniform and felt the prickling sensation as it borrowed power from him.
With that issue resolved, he turned to lead her toward the store he’d selected three blocks away.
Pleasure suffused him when he put his hand on the small of her back and she didn’t push him away, allowing him to use his intimidating stature to chase away those who didn’t think twice about bumping shoulders with her when she was on her own.
A bell chimed overhead as they stepped into the hardware store, a strange combination of grease and metal and wood shavings filling his nose.
Ophelia hugged a little closer to him as a surly, leather-faced man eyed her, sniffing loudly.
Part of him was incensed that the man’s open staring was unsettling her, but the rest of him was pleased to know she would seek reassurance in him.
He wanted to be all things to her.
Starting with a handyman, he supposed. He’d done some cursory searching while she’d gotten ready, and he was confident he could put the door back together with just a few items.
Ophelia trailed behind him as he wandered the aisles. One box of screws, wood filler, and a screwdriver later, and they were checking out.
Ophelia scowled at him when he looked at her expectantly until she produced her card at the self-checkout.
“Logan calls you Effie,” he said as they stepped back out into the cold.
She looked at him sidelong, shrugging. “Yeah?”
“Do you prefer that moniker?”
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “No one says ‘moniker’, Sam.”
A flush of pleasure raced through his circuits at her casual use of the name she’d gifted him.
“I don’t mind it,” she said, looking thoughtful. “I guess I like my real name more. I think it’s prettier.”
“Ophelia,” he purred, enjoying the way her shoulders bunched and her breath hitched. “Yes. It’s beautiful.”