Taylor and Dick retired to the lounge area where a small crowd had gathered. Along with the familiar faces of Susan, Grace and Edward there was a rather stupid-looking older man named Humphrey. Taylor explained without any sense of irony that he worked in intelligence. It was his role to co-ordinate all the information the Resistance collated and try and make sense of it, in particular anything relating to the rumoured secret weapon which was being developed. Warmed by the fire and by brandy in his belly Dick told the group about everything that had happened to him since he had moved into his apartments and started at the Ministry. He told them about William, Mary, Vera, Benjamin, his other work colleagues and his recent report on prostitution. Humphrey nodded and made copious notes. Taylor nodded too, but this was the sort of nod that implied, ‘Yes, yes, I’ve heard all this before. Get on with it and tell me something I don’t know’.
He demonstrated far more interest when Dick told them all about Project Gladstone, the secretive project Vera had entrusted him with. Project Gladstone was basically an exercise in entrapment. The Party had wanted to eliminate prostitution, both the ‘fallen women’ and their clients, but the problem had been identifying any of them. Most of the prostitutes plied their trade in the City, a relatively small but bustling commercial area in London’s East End. It was here that they’d find wealthy clientele in the banking, legal and insurance businesses while the busy, labyrinthine streets made the area extremely difficult to police. Yes, the Party was aware of certain haunts frequented by the prostitutes but it took a disproportionate and unacceptable level of police manpower on surveillance missions to arrest anyone caught soliciting.
What was needed was a far more sophisticated method — which is how and why Project Gladstone came about. In Dick’s era this would have been known as a honey trap; using an attractive-looking woman posing as a prostitute as bait for unwary men whose minds were ruled not by their hearts, but by their groins. The Party had considered using some of its female members in this way but their time was deemed too precious to be used to round up a few sexual malcontents. Apart from the practical manpower issues Dick believed this plan had a fundamental flaw that had never been acknowledged; most female Party members were so unsexy and unglamorous it was doubtful whether they’d attract any men at all, no matter how sex-starved or desperate they were. So, given the shortage of women able or willing to pose as prostitutes, the Party approached the problem laterally. They made them.
‘Made what?’, asked Grace.
‘A number of super-realistic robots’, explained Dick.
‘What?’, enquired Humphrey, frowning. Dick guessed he’d never heard of ‘robots’ before. Of course, it could have been any of the words in his last sentence like ‘super-realistic’, ‘number’, or even ‘of’ — but Dick was almost certain it was the word ‘robots’.
‘You know, mechanical people’, explained Dick. ‘In this case, mechanical women that looked, walked, talked and for all I know, fucked like real women’. Dick looked around at a room of stunned faces. Even Alice who Dick had noticed was not the most expressive of people looked slightly shocked.
‘That’s incredible!’ exclaimed Taylor.
‘It’s hard to believe that they were so authentic that anyone would be fooled’, said Edward. ‘Nothing could ever be that realistic!’.
‘I’ve seen detailed pictures of the robots’, explained Dick. ‘And you’d really think they were actual fresh and blood. From all the information I’ve seen their skin was soft, their bodies were warm, their movements were fluid and they were all, how can I put it… anatomically correct’.
Cue another frown from Humphrey.
‘He means they had holes in the places they should have holes’, Susan explained to her naïve colleague.
‘Exactly. I’m not sure whether anyone actually had sex with one of them, or what it might have been like, but I believe that technically it was possible’.
‘So on the surface’, said Taylor, ‘There was absolutely nothing to indicate that these women were actually non-human?’
‘Well actually, on the surface’, replied Dick, ‘There was something. There was a small code embossed on the right inner thigh of each of the girls. It’s a sort of serial number’.
Taylor raised his eyebrows.
‘I know’, Dick responded. ‘It could have been placed anywhere. I think the engineers were in a state of permanent arousal working on this project and printing the serial number here would have been far more exciting than inscribing it somewhere more discrete, like on the soles of the girls’ feet or behind their knee caps’.
Humphrey’s expression indicated that he doubted the whole story. ‘So there were mechanical harlots walking around trying to tempt sexually repressed men. That’s all well and good but how on earth did the Party catch any of them “in the act?”’
‘It was quite simple’, explained Dick. ‘The robots were programmed to send out a signal when they made contact with a customer. The security services would pick this up, trace their location — then pounce. The women would grasp and hold their clients until the police arrived. Despite their feminine looks they were very strong and could easily hold and subdue a man until he was arrested’.
With his audience listening intently, Dick continued. ‘Fifteen mechanical prostitutes were produced and introduced about two years ago and in that time, nearly seventy men were arrested’.
‘That doesn’t seem like a lot’, Grace commented.
‘It isn’t’, said Taylor. ‘But it’s seventy men who, by seeking the prostitutes, demonstrated that they challenged the Party’s edict about sex and rebelled against it. These men might have joined the Resistance. It’s seventy extra supporters that we don’t now have.’
‘What happened to them?’, Susan asked.
‘I know this’, Dick said smugly. ‘It was in my report. They were given much higher monthly doses of sexual repressants in their injections to make them what the Party termed, ‘normal’…
‘Or they were killed’, added Taylor.
‘Killed? No way’, said Dick, shocked.
‘It won’t say that in your report, Dick, but it’s true. We know of a number of men that we’ve had under surveillance as potential members who’ve met with so-called “accidents”, or just disappeared’.
Alice wasn’t as shocked as Dick was, but still looked perturbed on hearing this news.
Taylor clenched his fists. ‘Remember that beneath its benign surface the Party is ruthless. Truly ruthless. That’s how it’s stayed in power so long and that’s how it intends to maintain this status quo’.
‘Which is why we have to crush and totally destroy this odious, evil regime’, Alice said.
These words seemed incongruous coming out the mouth of someone who looked so innocent. Dick thought her delicate lips were better suited wrapped around his manhood rather than spouting anti-Party rhetoric. Alice was a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a hot body with great breasts, yet she didn’t give off any hint of sexuality in a way that Susan or even Grace did. You could tell these were women who were absolutely gagging for it. And if Dick hadn’t seen Alice’s obvious affection towards Taylor he’d be convinced that she wasn’t interested in men. But Dick’s instinct had never been wrong. There was definitely a sexual volcano ready to erupt under her serene exterior. He wanted to feel the tectonic plates move when they made love and experience the burning lava of her love juice. Dick thought that was quite a good metaphor, but then he would.