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  Tandem Unit

  Evangeline Anderson

  (c) 2004ISBN 1-59578-037-8

  Tandem Unit

  Evangeline Anderson

  Published 2004

  ISBN 1-59578-037-8

  Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2004, Evangeline Anderson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Liquid Silver Books http://lsbooks.com

  Email: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Laura Givens

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Dedication

  Dedicated to my husband for understanding why I needed the time to write it and to my Writing Group for their unflagging support and invaluable constructive criticism.

  Chapter 1

  “We'll take that one.”

  Sadie knew she was in trouble when the dark, curly-haired man pointed straight at her, despite her attempt to hide behind the cybernetic prostie-borg in front of her. Pasting a blank look on her face, she tried to remain calm and look like all the other girls in the line-up.

  There were prosties with small breasts, some with large and some sported racks any porn-vid queen would be proud of. Some were so short they were practically dwarf size and some so tall they could have played for any Zero-G team in the league. Their measurements ranged from anorexically slender to downright Junoesque. They sported skin tones from ebony to golden tan to peaches and cream pale and hair ran the gamut from blond to red-headed to brunette and every shade in between. Every face was plastically perfect and completely blank. 'A Girl For Every Taste—Cybernetic Sex Made Delightfully Easy' was the motto of the Prostie Palace. Every possible combination of attractive female features and attributes was represented in the silent ranks of the assembled prosties and this joker had to pick her, Sadie thought balefully.

  Hidden inside her outrageous scarlet wig she could feel the bargain Overlook-Me chip flicker for the last time, fizzle and die. The non-interference field she'd been wearing like a protective halo for the past two weeks faded into nonexistence. Damn it, she'd known it was a bad idea to buy her main protection from Big Bob's Bargain Basement Chips but what was a girl on a budget supposed to do? It was hard enough financing the ticket from Io to Titan in the first place and in the end she'd had to ride on an ore transport which was far from luxurious. Insinuating herself into the Pleasure Dome Prostie Palace had required several bribes to the right people both to get inside in the first place and to add herself to the database of resident prostie-borgs. Add that to the cost of her outfit, make-up and wig and she barely had any credit left at all.

  My whole life savings spent paying for this trip and now I'm screwed. Literally and figuratively, she thought blankly, as the man pointed her out to the mechanical madam who was nodding in her direction. It was the same panicky feeling she had experienced when she first walked into the Prostie Palace and saw the kind of outrageous sexual practices that went on here. Having been raised on the morally uptight colony of Goshen on Io, the scene at the prostie brothel was an education to Sadie in more than one way.

  She had financed the trip on her own for the ultimate pay-off, a juicy scoop on the nitty-gritty, hard-boiled life of a prostie-borg in the Outer Rings. Prostie-borgs were cybernetic organisms grown in flesh tanks on Mars. They were a variation on the more common flesh-bots that were used for manual labor all over the solar system but instead of being fitted for heavy lifting and tasks no human laborer could do, prostie-borgs were crafted specifically for sex. Despite a simple synthetic brain that put them on the mental level of a ten year old child, they were very popular, especially with the sex-starved men that mined the outer rings of Saturn. Intellectual stimulation wasn't high on the must-have list of female attributes for most Ring miners and real women were few and far between at this cold, dark end of the solar system.

  Sadie was tired of covering joining ceremonies, baby showers, golden anniversaries and all the other human interest crap that a junior reporter got saddled with at the Io Moon Times. Problem was her senior editor, a grouchy, chauvinistic man by the name of

  B. F. Fields, thought that was all she was good for. Sadie had set out to prove him wrong.

  Taking all of her yearly vacation in one big lump, she had hopped an ore transport to the most notorious prostie-brothel in the System, located on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, to spend her free time gathering facts for a blistering tell-all exposé that would blow the top off the barely legal prostie-borg industry. She even had a title for her article all picked out: “Pain and Suffering in the Pleasure Dome: A Prostie-borg's Daily Life in the Outer Rings.” When she got back to Io, Fields would have to recognize her reporting prowess and promote her out of the human interest section once and for all. Hell, she might even go freelance and sell her story to one of the intergalactic news vids.

  Her plan had been working like a charm too, until the bargain Overlook-Me chip began to die. When the other prosties began noticing her, Sadie knew she was in trouble but she kept hoping the chip would last just one more week until her transport for Io left. But the chip was good and dead and she didn't even have a repair kit to try and get it working again. Now she was going to find out first hand exactly what the prosties went through and was afraid it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience.

  At least he looks cleaner than most of the clientele you see around here. Sadie eyed the dark man carefully. He had very tan skin and his hair was the color of bitter chocolate, curly and thick, cut short but not too close to his scalp. Any woman she knew would kill for that kind of natural curl, she thought absently, taking in the indigo eyes fringed thickly with black lashes and the narrow but sensual mouth of the man pointing her out. Broad shoulders covered in a black leather jacket tapered to a narrow waist and powerful legs. There was a heavy bulge outlined by his tight black pants that made Sadie bite her bottom lip nervously as she felt those deep blue eyes sweep over her body.

  “That one,” he said again and Sadie had no choice but to step forward and face the music. Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe it'll add realism to the story, she thought desperately, trying to nerve herself up for the act. She felt horribly exposed in the tiny gold mesh dress that showed her breasts and sex plainly but after all, she'd been wearing it and outfits like it for two weeks. While the Overlook-Me chip had remained functional, no one had really seen her in them. And from the look in the dark man's eyes, he liked what he saw. Sadie was suddenly aware that her nipples were erect with fright against the scratchy gold mesh fabric. She squeezed her thighs tightly together, trying to keep her knees from shaking.

  “Which one for the other gentleman?” The silver-skinned, mechanical madam asked, giving a jerky nod to the man's right. Standing beside him, hidden partially by the dark man's broad shoulders was another client. He stepped out from behind his friend with a nod to the madam and Sadie could see he was almost the exact opposite of the other man.

  Tall and muscular with a runner's build, he had hair the color of beaten metal and the clearest sapphire eyes she had ever seen. The dark man wasn't short but the blond was at least two inches taller with a full mouth that seemed naturally red against his pale golden skin. He was dressed in the same style as his colleague in tight black pants and a white shirt with the ubiquitous mining company symbol stitch