Passion Model Read online

  Each booth’s door was made of slightly tinted plazglass. It was easy to see which ones were occupied. Inside each booth, padded armrests and neck supports, along with a three-pronged recharging stud made up the entire contents of each booth. The bots simply stepped inside, attached their USB ports to the outlet, got comfortable, and recharged. It was the closest thing to sleep they experienced.

  Checking each booth wouldn’t be difficult, but it would be time consuming. We decided to split up. A bot recharging in a booth isn’t able to easily escape. Eddie took the first two corridors.

  The first two booths I checked were empty but for the faint scent of ozone. The next had a blonde occupant. She smiled at me as I peered in. No sign of a quiver, thank the astros.

  The next was a brunette, also a PSSN but probably an F-07 instead of an 03. Still, her features at a casual glance could’ve passed for Relava’s, at least through the tinted plazglass. I thumbed the door release, and it slid open with click. The bot’s eyes hadn’t been closed, merely unfocused. Now she blinked. And smiled.

  “Hi.”

  I showed her my badge. “I’m looking for a PSSN-F-03, street name Relava.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you know her?”

  A shake of the head. Perfect lips pursed. “Sorry. No.”

  This close, I could see this wasn’t the bot I was looking for. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Okay.”

  The door slid closed, and I moved on down the corridor. None of the bots in my two halls were Relava. One said she might have seen her earlier today. Another had ménaged with her at a local Lovehut the night before.

  “Was she showing any sign of malfunctioning ignition?”

  The TITS-777 I was interviewing swiped a tongue along her lips. “Nothing that bothered our client.”

  “But she was malfunctioning.”

  The TITS, whose street name was Shaedo, didn’t answer for a moment. “She was an older model. Yeah, she could’ve used some upkeep, sure. Who can’t?” She gestured to her own perfect body. “Some of us take more pride than others. Some of us are just better made.”

  There’s a definite caste system among Pleasurebots, understandable only to themselves. While regular citizens might have their preferences with models and physiques, one Pleasurebot tends to be treated the same as any other. Among the bots themselves, it’s a different story. The smarter ones look down on those with less installed RAM. The ones with specialty features like anti-grav, removable limbs or additional inputs roll their eyes at more conventional bots. I guess everyone needs something to feel superior about.

  I noticed a telltale dark spot on Shaedo’s otherwise perfect inner thigh. “You do realize that I am also authorized to detain and inspect bots I suspect might be renegade for any reason—not just malfunction?”

  She probably couldn’t be scared, but my veiled threat had made her a little nervous, at least. Her fingers, tipped with nails the color of platinum, fluttered near her thigh but didn’t touch the dark spot. “I know that.”

  I looked very deliberately at the discoloration, which could’ve hidden a private ownership mark—or not. “For instance, bots who jumped the private sector before their contracts were up. If I asked you to show me your ID unit, Shaedo, what would it say?”

  She lifted her chin. “Relava nearly blew a gasket last night, okay? But the client was ready for her. He had special equipment, so when she went into clenchdown he wasn’t caught.”

  Special equipment. It could be something as simple as a latex sheath, something like the condoms men used to use, that would let the client’s cock slip free of Relava’s clenching muscles. There were other things too. It didn’t really matter.

  “He hired her knowing she was malfunctioning?”

  Shaedo shrugged. “Paid us both twice the hourly fees to keep our mouths shut.” Her fingers fluttered over the dark spot again. “Don’t ask me to tell you who he was.”

  “I’m more concerned about finding Relava. She’s going to hurt someone if she doesn’t get repaired soon.”

  Shaedo already knew the worst. “She’s too far gone for that. Unless somebody buys her for themselves, she’s going Oldcity or Offworld. And she knows it too.”

  A bot who knew her future would be even more desperate. “See you around.”

  Shaedo licked her lips and gave me a sultry stare. “I hope so.”

  I ignored her flirtation. She couldn’t help it. It was her programming. I couldn’t be flattered or offended by it.

  Eddie hadn’t had any luck with finding Relava, though he’d met up with a bot who had seen her earlier today at the Lovehut we’d detained her in. That was the closest we’d come. With twelve other kennels to search in this District alone, we needed to get on the move.

  Kennels are divided into three types: convents, monasteries and dual gender facilities. As their names implied, some housed only female bots, some only male, and some both. It was unlikely we’d find Relava in any of the monastery kennels. At least that would cut out some of the work.

  “Where to next?”

  “Whiteknee’s.” Eddie named the second biggest kennel in this District.

  Luckily for me, we could take a pedtread, not a hovertaxi. We hopped a tread and reached Whiteknee’s in about ten minutes.

  We had no better luck there. It had the same layout as Brenda Kitten’s, but all the bots we checked there hadn’t seen Relava recently. Most claimed to never have seen her at all.

  “We’re getting colder,” Eddie said, outside the kennel. His stomach rumbled. “I’m starving. Rando’s going to have our asses if we don’t find her before next shift.”

  My stomach growled too. “We’re in the right District. I can sense it. It’s out of character for a bot to go to ground too far from her registered home District.”

  “Call up the map, G.”

  “This is why you love working with me, isn’t it?” I grumbled, but pressed the spot on my temple that activated my internal downloads.

  “No, I love working with you because you can get a bot off in under three minutes,” Eddie said. “You boost my productivity ranking.”

  I had to laugh. The holomap streaming from my eye sockets jiggled for a minute. “Shut up. You’ll make me fritz the map.”

  Eddie stabbed the air in front of the map. “Here we are. There are thirteen kennels in this District. Four monks, four nuns and three orgies.”

  The map was complete and updated every four seconds. It flickered as we watched, then renewed power. We appeared as two glowing blue specks on the darker gray of a sidewalk. Whiteknee’s glowed a faint red. I blinked twice, hard, and shifted the view toward the next closest kennel.

  “K.C. Rogers’ Kinkhouse. Think she might have gone there?”

  Eddie nodded. “Most of the other bots we interviewed said they’d ménaged with her, so we know she’s available for other than just vanilla pairings.”

  I tapped my temple again and brought up the Kinkhouse specs. “It’s also registered as having a larger repair and maintenance facility.”

  “It caters to the rough trade. If she’s going to attempt a self-repair, that’s a likely spot. Let’s move on it.”

  The crowds cleared out of our way as we got closer to K.C. Rogers’, which was funny to watch since the people in that area looked a hell of a lot scarier than either Eddie or I. It’s interesting to see how our uniforms make even the baddest of black vinyl clad and piercing-riddled citizens give us wide berth. It proves the Ruling Council right on at least one count—intimidation and the threat of swift and harsh punishment is a better deterrent against crime than weapons could ever be.

  I’d rarely come to this part of Newcity before. Bots that service the rough trade are used so hard they don’t usually last long enough to become a problem. I wasn’t unfamiliar with the sorts of acts that went on in this part of town, though. SMBD is not my personal preference, and as an officer it was unlikely I’d ever have to participate in anything like that dur