The V.I.C.I. Diaries: MGV (Metal Gear Vicki) Part 2

[DukeNukem 2417]

Vicki and the other gynoids---Summer, Meredith, Rae, Rumiko, the girl in the pajamas and the woman in the pinstriped attire---waited in the den as Dale Coba, Anton Malvineous, General Hardcastle and the swarthy gentleman from earlier conversed with Oberon. “It must be serious if he’s out here,” the girl in PJs mused. “I heard he only attends meetings if things are really out of hand.”

Before she could reply, Vicki felt a tap on her shoulder; Claudia was handing out PDAs to the gynoids. “These are pretty much essential if you intend to follow along with the meeting,” she informed them. “Just plug in and let the handhelds do the rest.” Vicki nodded, accepting the device and giving it a once-over. “It looks….old,” she mused, frowning. “How are we supposed to keep up with the meeting on these?” “Don’t judge an eBook by the casing,” Rae advised her. “I’d use the ‘books and covers’ line, but it’s a bit outdated…that, and I’m trying to create a new sort of axiom, so…..”

“I get it,” Vicki replied, adjusting her shirt so that her back panel could open without her pulling it up all the way.

On the couch next to her, the other gynoids were opening panels and interface links of their own. The girl in the pajama set tapped her left earlobe; Vicki heard a distinct click as a USB link opened, allowing the gynoid to plug in the cable directly behind her ear. Sunny---now clad in a t-shirt and jean shorts---pulled at what looked like a belly-button piercing; the “flesh” beneath popped out cleanly, revealing a data port for her to insert a cable hooked up to the PDA. Rae adjusted the fabric of her blouse in the back to remove a square of flesh, guiding the USB cable into the now-available port with little effort. Rumiko (who had decided not to change into something other than her swimsuit) pressed inward on her abdomen, opening a rectangular panel to reveal a metallic cavity just big enough for the PDA to rest comfortably inside; with a few adjustments, the Japanese gynoid pressed the device in with a c-click noise before sitting back and waiting for it to “do the rest”. Merideth---attired in a smart business suit with a fitted blouse underneath---tugged at the edges of her clothing as a small oval of flesh unsealed between her neckline and her bosom, allowing her to plug in the cable without having to disrobe. The woman in the pinstriped blouse and pants, meanwhile, guided the cable of her PDA to a port in the back of her neck, her eyes changing color briefly before returning to normal.

Vicki sighed; “As the old saying goes, ‘When in Rome’….” She found the necessary port in her back panel area and plugged in the cable, gasping as her HUD suddenly filled with new information. Square outlines appeared out of nowhere, settling around the figures of prominent ALPA members---the swarthy man General Hardcastle had been conversing with earlier was identified as Alejandro Collela, the CEO of a prominent Italian robotics firm with a name the brunette gynoid found rather difficult to pronounce. The 5’6” blonde standing next to him was ID’d as Calista Swanson, head of Public Relations for Hreftech. More info boxes appeared, giving details about the heart rates, blood pressure and other factors of the guests---Vicki was somewhat surprised to notice that Calista had an artificial heart, but was in otherwise perfect health.

Before she could even think to ask “I wonder why she’s got an artificial heart”, an info box popped up with an explanation: Despite her healthy lifestyle, Calista Swanson was plagued by a congenital heart defect for many years. Her condition worsened steadily throughout the previous decade, culminating in a near-fatal heart attack during a presentation in 2006. Rather than undergo a conventional bypass, she insisted upon receiving an artificial heart, claiming that she would rather be living freely with a plastic heart than condemned to life inside an iron lung.

“D’you think they’ll let us keep these after the meeting?” she wondered out loud.

“Probably not,” the pajama-clad gynoid replied, “though they are pretty cool.”

“Right,” Oberon called out, “if I could have everyone’s attention, we’ll be conducting this year’s meeting in Mr. Tell’s basement.” Vicki was a bit surprised to hear Oberon use Mr. Tell’s nickname; guess he listed it as his official name on the ALPA Registration, she assumed. “Mr. Tell,” Oberon continued, “lead on.” Tell nodded, unlocking the door marked “Off-Limits” and pushing it open. “Before we get down there,” he informed the guests, “I’d like to ask all of you to please not touch anything….unless you get permission from me first.”

“I can’t tell if he’s joking or not,” Rumiko sulked. “Neither can I,” Vicki replied, arching an eyebrow.

The descent into the basement wasn’t exactly a cheerful affair; the reinforced steel and titanium designed to keep the underground stairwell from caving in around them looked almost as if it had been intended for use in prisons, rather than basement staircases. Thankfully, the stairwell was wide enough for more than two people to make their way down at once.

Eventually, the staircase led to a security door which, upon being unlocked and opened, led to a surprisingly high-ceilinged chamber that looked like something straight out of the Batcave---minus the staligmites, stalagtites and bats, of course. A decidedly unnatural-looking speaker system occupied the corners of the room, with a massive plasma TV monitor on the far wall. The infoboxes provided by the PDA hooked up to Vicki’s systems gave her a multitude of information regarding the chamber, including the fact that it was only one of several.

“Is there–“ she began, before a text crawl appeared in her field of vision: The underground chamber you are currently standing in is part of an ALPA-sponsored complex beneath the property of Mr. Tell. Further requests for information on this topic is currently classified.

“This thing is incredible,” she whispered.

“I know,” Rae replied, “but it starts getting weird as soon as you get pinged with info about peoples’ bra sizes and stuff…though that’s probably on account of me being so bloody bored that I can’t help but think about the most ludicrous things.”

Vicki couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound insanely dirty, so she remained silent.

“If everyone could please find a place to sit and, well, be seated,” Oberon called out, “we can begin.” Everyone found a chair, and Vicki ended up sitting between the girl in pajamas and Calista Swanson as the lights went down. “Right, those of you who were given PDAs earlier---pay attention to both the screen here---“ He tapped the plasma TV--- “and the information in your HUDs. Otherwise, you’ll miss something and I’ll have to start over from the beginning, which will probably be more hassle than it should---“

The man in grey cleared his throat, but otherwise didn’t move from where he stood.

“Okay, then,” Oberon declared, grinning. “On with the show.”

As Vicki and the other gynoids watched, the screen flickered to life with images of robotics plants, scenes of assembly lines working to piece together a metal skeleton playing out in HD. “Over the past few years,” Oberon narrated, “the world robotics industry has been doing rather well---barring a few exceptions, companies like Daikoku Zaibatsu, Lawson Robotics, Hreftech and RoboDyne International have all been earning a rather healthy profit margin. Even start-up firms like Joden Robotics are making great progress….”

The images on the screen changed to show a quality control lab bearing a sign proclaiming it to be “A United Robotronics Affiliate”, drawing a shocked gasp from the gynoids in the audience.

“…but alas, not all is well.”

Before she could ask why the others were so shocked, Vicki heard the sound of a shotgun firing as if it were right in her ear---it took her a few seconds to realize that the sound was in synch with the scene playing out on the TV monitor, which showed a half-built gynoid being shot in the kneecaps while two technicians argued in the background. “This footage was retrieved by an undercover operative a few months ago,” Oberon informed the audience, “and while United Robotronics claims that this was meant as a test of the gynoid’s artificial muscle strength, we have reason to believe that this gynoid was among many that UR is sending to the scrap heap….they’ve made no attempts to hide their ineptitude when it comes to android repair.” Vicki almost cried as the scene shifted to a massive pit, littered with the bodies of broken androids and gynoids.

“Their idea of ‘customer satisfaction’,” Oberon muttered. “The customer breaks it, and they bury it.”

Alejandro Collela stood up, his fists trembling; “We should bring them before the tribunal…or ban them!” he shouted. “They must be held accountable!” “Banning them isn’t going to work,” Oberon replied. “They’ve got connections---rumor has it that someone within the highest of their ranks has access to the Maestro.”

A collective gasp ran through the crowd, though Vicki was a bit confused.

“Ah, I’m guessing this Maestro guy is important,” she mused, “but….what’s he got to do with this?”

Oberon sighed. “The Maestro,” he informed the brunette gynoid, “is one of the most dangerous men to ever walk the face of the planet. Currently incarcerated for a laundry list of crimes, including murders, extortions, corporate espionage, kidnappings, counterfeiting, racketeering, publication and distribution of radical and/or subversive literature in politically unstable countries, public intoxication, urinating into a postbox, inciting mayhem, suspicion of treason against multiple governments, incidents of sabotage and blackmail, as well as his well-documented hacking career…long in a short, he’s not getting out any time soon.”

“That still doesn’t answer---“

“He is also,” Oberon continued, “a prime suspect in the recent hacking case that’s been keeping Encom’s best security people up at night. He has a storied history of collaborations with one Zebediah Blunderwitz, and he’s believed to have a connection to the bane of the ALPA’s existence---the Stylo Virus.”

Vicki felt her jaw go slack.

“United Robotronics has provided ample ‘proof’ to keep themselves as far away from the Maestro as possible,” Oberon informed the group, “but they haven’t exactly been subtle about paying the man.” He gestured to the screen behind him, calling up a myriad of scanned documents showing payment transfers to a Swiss bank account. “Ignore the name,” Oberon instructed, “it’s just one of his many aliases. The fact is, this was virtually given to us---UR did almost nothing to hide it.” He nodded towards the assembled group; “Meredith.”

The gynoid stood at attention. “Sir!”

Oberon smiled; “No need to be formal at the moment; this is just the meeting.” Meredith relaxed; “Sorry…it’s just…I haven’t seen that much action since---“ “I know,” Oberon replied. “Something tells me this will be all the action you need for the remainder of the year….” The gynoid’s eyes flicked up and down rapidly as she read the text transmitted to her through the PDA. “Understood and accepted,” she declared after a few seconds.

“Well, that’s one out of the way,” Oberon mused. “Next up is….a strange one, to be honest. How many of you know of Silicon Dynamics LLC Manufacture and Suply?”

Every hand in the room went up.

“I should’ve expected that,” Oberon remarked drily. “Anyways, Silicon Dynamics has been touting their fully automated manufacturing systems as one of the best in the modern world---efficient enough to justify the cost of their products, and requiring only a minimum of seventy actual staff members on hand at any one time to keep the factory running smoothly.” He nodded to Claudia, who rose from her seat and joined him by the screen. “As of December 1,” she informed the audience, “Silicon Dynamics entered talks with multiple companies and individuals, including M-G Cybernetics and myself, as part of a joint venture to test the versatility of their product range. Professor Malvineous has been working on inhibitor programs that could be used to tone down the default settings of the Silicon Dynamics pleasure droids, allowing them to work in settings such as offices, hospitals and schools without….” She cleared her throat. “…losing focus. The company has also entered talks with DreamLand to test some of their newest models at our San Jose facility, and up until five days ago, we were in the final stages of agreeing on a deal.”

“So what happened?” Sunny asked.

Claudia stared at her, unsmiling. “The calls just stopped coming. DreamLand hasn’t heard from them since December 12, and M-G Cybernetics’ last few e-mails have gone unanswered…..” Vicki noticed that Claudia had an almost scared expression, as if she suspected something had gone terribly wrong at Silicon Dynamics.

“Thank you, Claudia,” Oberon murmured, “I think I can take it from here…”

The blonde gynoid nodded, looking noticably shaken as she returned to her seat; when she was once again sitting down, Oberon picked up where she’d left off. “For the past three weeks, no-one has heard anything from the West Coast Silicon Dynamics plant. ALPA operatives confirm the Midwestern and East Coast facilities are still up and running, so this is most definitely an isolated issue….which doesn’t make it less significant. In fact, this situation is even more worrying than if all three plants had shut down, because they are all supposed to shut down in this sort of scenario. Neither the Midewst nor the East Coast factories have been able to send or receive any communications to/from the West Coast facility, and it’s becoming apparent that we may have to send someone in to determine the severity of the problem.” He nodded to Calista, who stood up and made her way to the front of the screening room.

“As strange as the situation with their West Coast facility is,” she informed the crowd, “this isn’t the first troubling sign we’ve had from Silicon Dynamics this year. Apparently, those inhibitor programs Claudia mentioned earlier haven’t exactly been working---“

“That’s impossible!” Anton protested. “I designed them myself!”

“Believe me, Anton,” Calista assured him, “it’s not a software failure…at least, not on your part.” She waited until the professor returned to his seat before continuing; “Over the past few months, several reports have been filed to the ALPA regarding Silicon Dynamics droids with the inhibitors installed abandoning their posts, be it walking off a job and not coming back or just ‘going out for a while’….and never actually returning. At first, it was believed that these departures were actually intentional---the ALPA assumed that Silicon Dynamics had used its recall signal after determining the inhibitors were faulty, and calling their robots back to sort out the problem in-house…..except that Silicon Dynamics hasn’t activated the recall signal at all during this year.”

“Would one of the robots who ‘disappeared’ happen to have been attending San Jose State University?” Vicki asked suddenly.

Several of the guests turned to look at her, intrigued.

“I…was just remembering,” she explained. “See, a few months ago, someone told me that a girl in my hallway just sort of turned in her books and left campus….apparently, she was ‘tired of the way things were’. I never really thought about it that much…until I saw the Silicon Dynamics catalog….” She quickly made her way down the aisle, joining Calista on the front of the stage. “This is probably going to sound really embarassing,” she murmured, “but does Silicon Dynamics still produce…” She whispered the name of one of the pleasure robots from the latest catalog.

Calista summoned Oberon up to the stage. “One of the disappearances was from SJSU,” she informed him, “and Vicki thinks she knows which product it was.” Oberon nodded silently, scrolling through a list on his iPhone. “She was right,” he muttered quietly, before turning his attention to the crowd. “According to what Vicki Lawson has just told us, one of the pleasure androids who pulled a Houdini was, in fact, registered as a student at San Jose State University.” With an imperious gesture, he pulled up an image on the plasma TV---a trim, athletic girl with a toned figure clad in jogging shorts, sneakers and an SJSU t-shirt, with a scrunchie in her curly blonde hair. “’Co-Ed Kelly’,” he intoned. “One of their more recent models, I believe. Apparently, Silicon Dynamics wanted to see if she could function in her ‘natural habitat’.”

“I think I may have seen her once or twice during this semester,” Vicki added, “and a couple of times during last semester, too…I think the only time I ever thought anything might be out of the ordinary was when I found her duffel bag in the Student Union building, and the tag had ‘Property of Co-Ed Kelly’ on the inside instead of a full name….”

“Were the campus authorities informed?” Dale Coba called out from his seat.

“Ah, no,” Vicki admitted. “When she left campus, I heard a few people tried to talk her into staying, but she didn’t listen. A few of them said it she was almost in some sort of trance…she kept saying ‘I have to go back’ or something.”

Dale nodded thoughtfully. “Did any of them…attempt to take advantage of her?”

Vicki stared up at the ceiling; “Well….there was this one weekend where she managed to sneak a few guys from the football team back into her dorm room….and they weren’t exactly quiet---“ “I think they can probably guess the rest of this story,” Oberon quietly informed her. “It appears that your statement lends support to a new possibility---the robots knew their inhibitor programs were failing, and tried to return to Silicon Dynamics’ West Coast facility under their own power. As far as we know, they all did….”

“What about that busload of investigators sent by the Inspektor?” Alejandro Collela asked. “They were sent in to find out more info on the matter, and they have not been seen in over three weeks!”

“Robo Depot is trying their best to look into the matter,” Oberon assured him, “but given the current state of things, it’s doubtful they’ll find anything we don’t already know….but, as I said earlier, it’s becoming apparent that the only way any of us are going to figure out anything more regarding Silicon Dynamics is to get someone into their facility---“

“The Depot did send someone,” Alejandro reiterated, “and they still have not come back---“

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Oberon admitted, “there’s no evidence that suggests the investigative team even made it to their destination. We recovered the remains of their vehicle from a ditch…the only casualty was the driver, and it didn’t take a forensic specialist to figure out that he hadn’t died of a heart attack before he crashed---”

A knock at the front door of Tell’s house interrupted the speech.

Oberon---and most of those gathered for the meeting---stared upwards at the ceiling. “It could just be a late arrival,” Vicki mused. “No,” Tell replied. “Everyone who’s supposed to be here is here. Whoever’s knocking on the door---“

The plasma monitor flickered to life again, showing two figures---both female---standing at the door.

Both were remarkably beautiful---almost too beautiful. The one who was actually knocking at the door was a fair-skinned woman with dark crimson hair done up in a bun and a body straight out of a Bowflex commercial; not even the skirt, blouse and business-suit jacket she wore could hide her figure---in all actuallity, they seemed to have been cut to accentuate her form in all the right places. Behind her was a slightly shorter girl, slender but still fit; her tawny hair was done up in a layered cut, framing her somewhat pale face. Like the redhead, she wore a skirt, blouse, high-heels and black stockings; the only thing missing from her outfit was a jacket. Every few seconds, she glanced from the door to the clipboard she held in her left hand.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Tell muttered. “They’re---“

“Not what they appear to be,” V.I.C.I. warned him. “You answer the door…I’ll watch your back in case they try anything stupid.” Oberon nodded his approval. “I only hope you don’t do anything too extreme in response,” he told the brunette gynoid. “Otherwise they might try to force their way in.” General Hardcastle handed her what appeared to be a pistol-grip Tazer; “They might be shielded against a contact-transmitted shock, so Detaining Grip probably won’t work,” he explained. “If they are, use this---just aim and pull the trigger. No prongs or risk of accidentally frying your own hard drive.

“Thanks,” V.I.C.I. replied. “I’d rather have it and not need it….but it’s better than the alternative.”
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Three minutes after the knocking started, Tell’s front door opened to reveal….Tell, still wearing his tye-dyed sweatshirt, faded jeans and Chuck Taylors. “Well, hello,” he intoned dramatically. “Anything I can do for you lovely ladies?”

From her hiding spot across the room, V.I.C.I. barely stifled a groan. Cut the cornball act and get to the point!

The redhead at the door smiled sweetly. “We’re conducting a door-to-door survey on behalf of several local-area electronics stores,” she informed Tell, “and we’d like to ask you a few questions…” “No problem,” Tell replied. “Which stores, exactly, are taking part in this survey….”

With the ALPA mechanic keeping the pollsters distracted, V.I.C.I. crossed the room in seconds, quietly opening the glass door that led to the swimming pool. Once outside, she scaled the fence and hid behind a white Prius; license plates are legit, she mused, but it won’t hurt to check the rest of the car… She held the tip of her index finger up to the keyhole of the Prius’ trunk, the fiber-optic link lighting up the fignernail as it uplinked with her central visual processors. Time to see what’s in the trunk…

The interior of the vehicle’s trunk was sparse, containing only a few clipboards with questionaire forms---none of which had any actual questions written on them. Strike one against our mystery guests, the gynoid noted, carefully moving around the vehicle and using the fiber-optic link in her finger to peer in through the windows of the car. This time, she actually found something interesting---discarded articles of clothing. Infoboxes popped up in her field of vision (I almost forgot I had the PDA connected to my bubble-memory processor, she realized), informing her that none of the clothes held any traces of human DNA and, in fact, were quite clean. That still doesn’t explain why a car used by a few door-to-door “survey takers” would have a skintight latex firefighter’s outfit and a spandex getup with a cape---

A thought suddenly occurred to her. Time to see if the zoom function still works…

Her index finger, still pressed up against the window of the Prius, went ramrod-stiff; a second or so later, the picture-in-picture display provided by her fingertip zoomed in on the outfits, allowing her to read the tags. Let’s see….”property of Firefighter Fiona”…and “Sierra the Superbabe”…..copyright 2010, Silicon Dynamics?!

Over at the front door, the redhead was getting a little too up-close and personal with Tell, unbuttoning the top two buttons of her blouse and licking her lips as she stared at him. The tawny-haired girl with the clipboard kept stealing glances at the Prius, as if she wanted to get the hell away from Tell’s house ASAP and not look back. She was just looking back towards the door when V.I.C.I. realized her fingertip was still alight---she lowered her hand a fraction of a second too slow to avoid being spotted by the tawny-haired girl. Great…I try to be stealthy in this outfit, and it’s my finger that gets me caught…

The girl was now a few feet away from the car, slowly circling the vehicle to try and catch the owner of the light-up finger. It’s now or never… V.I.C.I. dropped to a crouch just as the girl entered her line of sight, aiming for her midsection with the Tazer-like device she’d obtained from General Hardcastle. Time to see what this thing can do. She pulled the trigger…

…and the tawny-haired girl dropped to her knees without a sound.

The redhead at the front door lazily turned to glance in the direction of her partner; after literally one second, she shrugged and resumed her flirtations with Tell.

Right, the brunette gynoid realized, I’m going to need something a bit more up-close and personal…

Instantly, lines of text detailing the mechanics of close-quarters combat (CQC) appeared in her HUD, showing her the best way to approach the redhead and neutralize her without causing too much damage. Okay, I take back what I said about this PDA looking old….it’s awesome!

She stealthily moved around the car, motioning for Tell to ignore her approach.

I really hope this works, otherwise I’m going to have to leg it back to that car and hop in….assuming, of course, that it doesn’t self-destruct when I try to start it…

The redhead was still chatting up Tell, except her shirt was now halfway unbuttoned and she looked as if she were ready to pounce on him then and there. The inhibitor is probably wearing off, V.I.C.I. realized. In that case, I defintiely need to get her away from Tell…assuming, of course, that he actually doesn’t want her to start crawling all over him….

With no other viable option, the brunette gynoid sprang from her crouch and wrapped her arms around the redhead’s neck, applying a devastating standing choke. “Time to take you down and shut you off,” she monotoned, noticing a rectangle of red light glowing in the small of the redhead’s back. “A little help here?” she asked Tell, switching back to her human voice. “Keep the hold locked in on her,” he instructed, “but let me take a look at this….I might just learn something.” V.I.C.I. nodded, maneuvering herself in such a way that her chokehold on the crimson-haired gynoid was still locked in, but with enough space for Tell to look at her control panel.

“I haven’t really had any chances to study Silicon Dynamics robots before,” he mused. “They have this whole on-site refabrication facility….saves them the trouble of having to repair their gynoids.” “How does that work, exactly?” V.I.C.I. asked. “Any time a gynoid breaks, its personality gets stored in a mainframe…so I’ve heard,” Tell explained. “Their name gets added to a queue, and when it’s their turn, the factory churns out another copy of their body and they get uploaded. That, or they build multiple bodies in advance….”

“Neither of those theories is going to do us any good unless we can---stop squirming,” V.I.C.I. ordered, cinching in her hold on the redhead. “As I was saying, those theories won’t do us any good---STOP IT!”

Tell examined the control panel, easily deciphering the vibrant red text and pictographs. “You were right about her being a Silicon Dynamics product,” he informed the brunette gynoid. “From what I understand, this is the setup they use on all of their dolls…” He smirked at the text reading “Firefighter Fiona/Pleasure Droid v104.4.6” near the top of the screen. “And she’s in the blue section of the catalog,” he muttered. “Lord knows what would’ve happened if they’d sent one of the babes from the red pages…or even the ‘hazard pages’…”

“Will you stop muttering and shut her down already?” V.I.C.I. asked. “I think she’s about to bite my fingers off…”

“Not a problem, V,” Tell replied. “Just---“

The redhead’s right arm shot backwards, clocking Tell across the head and sending him flying---along with the gynoid’s shirt.

“TELL!” V.I.C.I. screamed, her monotnone barely drowning out the emotion in her voice. “Hang on, I’m---“ A brutal kick to the shin dropped her to the pavement; the redheaded gynoid stood over her, looking rather odd in high heels, black stockings, a pinstriped skirt…and a flame-patterned bra. “Game on,” she intoned, raising her foot to stomp the brunette gynoid’s head into oblivion…

V.I.C.I. aimed Hardcastle’s Tazer pistol upwards, her eyes squeezed shut as she pulled the trigger----

“Uuunnnggh!” Fiona froze in place, her face contorted in an expression that mixed complete surprise and ecstasy. Her left eye didn’t seem to know whether to blink or stay open, and a bit of drool was leaking from her mouth. “How did I do that?” V.I.C.I. asked. “I thought I shot her in the---oh…..oh, no….” She groaned; something beneath the gynoid’s skirt was now glowing red. “I shot her in the crotch!” Indeed, her blind-fire Tazer shot had gone directly between Fiona’s legs into her least-defended orifice, redlining her systems faster than V.I.C.I. could blink. Thinking fast, the brunette gynoid dragged Tell out of harm’s way---something tells me she’s about to go up like the Death Star…

Ten seconds later, Firefighter Fiona exploded into a shower of plastic and circuitry.

“*cough* What the HELL….” Tell waved the smoke away, staring at the spot on his porch where Fiona had stood mere seconds ago. “What did you do?!”

“I….ah, shot her….between the legs,” V.I.C.I. admitted, guilt tinging her robotic monotone.

“YOU WHAT?!”

“I had my eyes closed,” she countered, “I thought I was aiming at her chest---I didn’t mean to shoot her in the groin!” She looked past Tell, noticing that Fiona’s legs (minus a pelvic region) were still standing. “It’s not like I slid directly underneath her and fired straight up….it was a blind-fire shot, and I---“

“No need to justify your actions, Vicki…I’ll just write ‘self-defense’ on the form.”

Oberon had somehow made it to the front door without a sound. “’I’ll have to send them a check, of course,” he remarked, “but---“ The sound of the Prius starting its engines caught his attention. “Did you take the other one out as well?” he asked. “I shot her once with the Tazer,” V.I.C.I. replied, “but---“

“SHE’S GETTING AWAY!” Tell screamed.

V.I.C.I.’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Not for long.” Before Tell or Oberon could stop her, she broke into a run, easily keeping pace with the Prius.

“I’ll admit,” Oberon remarked with a grin, “she is tenacious.”

“You have no idea how right you are,” Tell replied.

“Actually,” Oberon admitted, “I think I do.”
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It had taken a few minutes for Sierra to shake off the effects of the Tazer, but after seeing Fiona get taken out by a well-place shot to the crotch, she decided to abandon her original objective and just get the hell out of Dodge while the getting was good. Madame would want to know what had happened, and any delay in giving her the full report would only---

“Pull over.”

Sierra glanced out of her window and nearly screamed---the brunette girl who had blown up Fiona was keeping pace with the Prius----on foot.

“Who…..what are you?!” she gasped.

“I’m the girl who’s telling you to pull over, NOW.”

I don’t think so…

Sierra floored the gas pedal, knowing that there was no way the girl could keep up with her forever. As long as she avoided any major traffic snarls, stuck to the main roadways and stayed away from any local police, she could make it back to the facility in no time flat---

A sickening crunch broke through her mental “to-do” list as the backseat of the Prius virtually exploded.

“When someone tells you to pull over,” the brunette girl growled in a flat, robotic monotone, “YOU PULL OVER.” She glared at Sierra, her eyes projecting an air of finality---whoever this girl was, she wasn’t in the mood to argue. “I’m not going to ask you again---“

Sierra shuddered violently as her processors fried themselves; within seconds, she was still.
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“Ah, what just happened here?”

Vicki poked the tawny-haired gynoid’s unmoving form, frowning. “She redlined her own processor to keep me from taking her out, but the car’s still driving itself…..what the hell---“

“Vicki! Are you okay?”

The sound of Anton Malvineous’ voice in her ear caught the brunette gynoid’s attention. “I’m fine, but there’s been….well, see, the driver of the Prius---“

“She overloaded her CPU to avoid capture. Her memories, personality and core programming are already on the backup servers at Silicon Dynamics.” Oberon didn’t sound too surprised at the development; indeed, he almost seemed to have anticipated it. “What matters is that, whether you like it or not, you’ve just been drafted to get into the Silicon Dynamics factory and figure out what the bloody hell is going on.”

“Wait, what?! I don’t have the training for this! I---“

“Miss Lawson,” Dale Coba’s voice reminded her, “over the past four months, you have dealt with matters that most ALPA field agents could never have anticipated. One could almost say you’re overqualified.”

“But….that was….” Even as she tried to protest, she knew it was no use. “What do you need me to do?”

“Before we get to that,” Ted cut in, “we need to establish codenames---I don’t want my name being thrown out all over the Silicon Dynamics PA system. I’ll be Sandtrap---“ “That name will hold up as long as they don’t know about your fanatical devotion to golf,” Anton chuckled. “I guess I’ll be Strange Animal, then.” “Just call me Morpheus,” Claudia added, “seeing as how I run DreamLand…and they probably won’t equate that name with a girl…” “I’ll take Ground Control,” Oberon declared, “though it would’ve been more appropriate if it was the Major being sent in.” “If you need to call me, use the handle ‘Goldeneye’,” Hardcastle instructed.

“And what about Tell?” Vicki asked.

“Just call me Diamond Dave, baby!” he shouted, doing his best David Lee Roth impression.

“Right,” the brunette gynoid drawled. “Codenames, secret infiltration missions and high-tech toys…I’m starting to feel like Solid Snake….”

“That reminds me,” Anton mused, “we need to give you a codename…how about ‘Wonder Girl’?”

“Someone already has a copyright on that, I think. Any other ideas?”

“I say you use the codename ‘Sunshine’,” Ted suggested, “seeing as how it fits your personality perfectly.”

Vicki grinned, despite the goofiness of the idea. “Great idea, Sandtrap. Sunshine it is.” With the codenames now confirmed, she began to have serious thoughts about what she was getting herself into. “Seeing as how this isn’t exactly how I thought today was going to go…..what’s about to happen, exactly?”

“For starters,” Anton informed her, “you should focus on finding the missing investigative team. Since the bus driver was the only casualty found at the site of the crash, the rest of the team either made it to the facility on their own or somehow hitched a ride….the road their bus wrecked on was used frequently by Silicon Dynamics to transport products to and from their West Coast facility, and that Prius you ran after and jumped into is equipped with an auto-recall function of its own, much like the gynoids themselves.”

“So…infiltrate the building and rescue the investigative team. Got it.”

“Indeed,” Oberon agreed. “Unfortunately, that’s just Phase 1.”

Vicki didn’t bother trying not to groan. “There’s more than one phase?!”

“Once you’ve rescued the investigators,” Oberon continued, “you’ll need to reboot the communications uplink that will allow the West Coast facility to reconnect with the Midwest and East Coast factories, as well as the rest of the world at large. Also….” The sound of papers being shuffled filled Vicki’s ears for a moment. “If you can spare a few minutes once the investigators are safe and the uplink is restored, try to gather information on some of Silicon Dynamics’ upcoming projects---and before you ask, Claudia was going to have access to those documents during a visit planned for next week, so yes, it’ll be legal.”

“Glad to see you’ve got all the bases covered,” Vicki muttered. “Anything else I should worry about?”

“There is one more thing you’ll need to check out,” Hardcastle informed her. “Locate the source of whatever put that facility into lockdown, and do whatever it takes to deal with it.”

“That sounds an awful like ‘use whatever force is necessary’, Goldeneye,” Vicki mused. “What if it was just a drill, and they forgot to unlock the place afterwards? I mean, it could be something completely harmless; fire alarms sometimes go off in the middle of the day when there aren’t any fires. What if this was just a glitch in the system, or someone forgot to reset the alarms after the last drill?”

“Silicon Dynamics doesn’t have security lockdown drills,” Hardcastle replied. “The entire facility is automated, with only a bare minimum of human employees showing up every few months to perform routine maintenance, check the security logs and change out the gynoids in the Showroom. Either the security system has completely crashed, in which case you’ll need to debug it, or---“ “Or nothing,” Anton cut in. “Their security system’s panic switch just tripped---unless there’s some kind of major malfunction in the works, they’ve just activated an intruder alert!”

For the second time in ten minutes, Vicki groaned. “Please tell me this is just hypothetical….”

“Sorry, Sunshine,” Anton replied apologetically, “but there’s nothing hypothetical about it. The only thing that could’ve tripped the panic switch was a genuine intruder alert, which means that rescuing the investigative team sent in by Robo Depot is your first order of business.” “I’m guessing I still have to reboot the communications link once I’m done with that,” the brunette gynoid mused. “Indeed,” Anton confirmed, “and if you’re up for it, you can also go for that upcoming project information….but once you’ve found the investigators and rebooted the communications uplink, your primary objective will be to find and contain whatever tripped the panic switch. Is that absolutely clear?”

“Clear as crystal, Strange Animal,” Vicki replied. “Anyone else feel like imparting some advice?”

“Most definitely,” Alicia’s voice cut in. “And, while I’m here, my codename is Burning Torch. Anyways, try not to get too trigger-happy once you’re inside; Silicon Dynamics makes pleasure droids, not assassins…though a few of them are rumored to carry props that might pose a problem.” “Like what?” Vicki asked. “Well, I’ve heard that they’ve revamped the policewoman droids so that they carry nightsticks AND functioning handcuffs, so try not to antagonize them if you can help it.”

“Good idea,” the brunette gynoid admitted, “but do any of them actually carry guns?”

“Supposedly, their cowgirls are packing revolvers,” Alicia replied. “They’re supposed to have taken out the ammo, but I wouldn’t try and mess with them either way. Oh, and a few of their gynoids have swords…you’ll know ‘em when you see ‘em. Other than that, nothing too problematic---cheerleaders, maids, schoolgirls, stuff like that. Just keep your trigger-finger under control, and you should be fine. Just don’t run in like the daughter of Rambo and start tazing every single one of them, ‘kay?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Vicki replied with a grin. “Guess I’ll just let the Prius keep doing its thing…” She relaxed in the passenger’s seat, mentally preparing herself for whatever lay ahead as the self-driving Prius drove on towards the Silicon Dynamics plant.
--------------------------------------

[Brytestar]

Yay Alicia!

[Baron]

I'm Inspektor 12, Founder and CEO of Robo-Depot - and I endorse this saga!!!

[Brytestar]

Hey Duke can you PM me about the details of the gynoids you mentioned? I think I'm seeing some potential here.

[DukeNukem 2417]

Hey Duke can you PM me about the details of the gynoids you mentioned? I think I'm seeing some potential here.

I will.

UPDATE: PM Sent; hopefully, it's all the information you need. If not, I can always send more.

[DollSpace]

Great installment; I hope to see another really soon!