“So, no problems with the delivery?”
“No sir, the tech was reluctant to deliver the machine without running through a demonstration, but he didn’t argue when I told him it wouldn’t be necessary. I think it might have been his first delivery; he was very nervous…”
“Come, let’s go and look at it,” he said interrupting her and picking up the tablet again.
Ivan led the way; Marina followed him and Molenski brought up the rear. The Russian was in a good mood and watched Marina’s ass appreciatively as they walked through to the dock. Molenski was a man of many appetites, and he had a feeling that that one day soon he might have to show the serious young woman a few of them.
The mainly empty dock consisted of a raised horseshoe shaped platform that delivery trucks could back into. At the rear of the dock on the raised platform stood a tall timber crate. The unmistakable circular Genitix logo marked all four sides of the crate and just in case one missed it, G E N I T I X was also stamped diagonally in large black print across the front and back.
Molenski, for once, his excitement unrestrained, stepped past Marina, handing her the control tablet as he went. He pushed by Ivan and stopped in front of the crate.
“Pass me that crowbar, Ivan.”
Once it was in his hands, he didn’t waste time. He slid the claw end into the top corner of the crate and began to jimmy it open.
“Grab this edge and pull,” he snapped at Ivan. He then moved the crowbar down a foot and jimmied it again.
Ivan slipped the fingers of both hands under the edge and peeled the lid away as effortlessly as opening a door. The nails screeched as they came free of the rough pine. Marina’s eyes widened at this display of strength, but Molenski seemed unimpressed as he threw the crowbar to the concrete. Ivan carried the panel he had just removed and propped it up against the wall at the rear of the dock. The reverse side of the panel was lined with Styrofoam insulation, like a cooler box and was heavier than the bodyguard expected.
Molenski stepped up to the crate and Marina moved in so she also had a better view.
A film of clear plastic held back gallons of Styrofoam packing beads. Molenski jabbed his fingers through the barrier and ripped it away impatiently, releasing an avalanche of beads that pooled around their feet like a drift of snow.
“Oh my,” said Marina.
Standing in the box, eyes closed and wearing nothing but white lace panties and bra, was a beautiful young woman.
For the first time in a long time, Dimitri Molenski was dumbstruck. It wasn’t just any young woman. It was Inga. His teenage sweetheart… the girl killed in front of his eyes thirty years before. The girl he should have killed in his own sweet time. The girl who robbed him of the chance.
He drank in the sight of her, scarcely able to believe this custom designed machine wasn’t actually her. She was perfect.
Ivan looked on, amazed. Clearly, it was a machine, the labeling on the crate left him in no doubt of that. But this was like no human form robot he had seen before.
The first Genitix androids in 2020 had been easy to spot with their waxy, synthetic skin and jerky movement, but robotics and other technology had advanced a lot in the last ten years. The new generation Genitix robots had lithium-ion batteries that could last for 20 years without charging or replacing, and their skin was living tissue that could bleed and heal just like the human skin it was modeled on.
Ivan was certain that if he didn’t know that the thing in the box was a machine, he wouldn’t have guessed it.
Molenski reached out and brushed beads out of the robot’s hair. She was beautiful, no – more than beautiful – flawless, and just as he remembered her. Helpless to resist, he reached out and poked the skin of her ripe breast, just above the curve of the bra cup. Her skin was warm to the touch and when he removed his finger, just like a real woman’s would, the indentation from his finger sprang back quickly leaving a white mark that slowly faded back to skin color.
Ivan and Marina watched, fascinated. Molenski again reached out, this time placing the flat of his hand against her side. He felt goosebumps break out on her skin and snatched his hand away as if he’d been shocked.
He turned on Marina, grabbing her by the shirt and pulling her close.
“Is this some trick? An actress with plastic surgery?”
“What? No, Sir… she’s not real. You saw the prototypes. They modeled her from the pictures you gave them!”
He stared into her eyes a moment longer then, seemingly satisfied, released her. Marina steadied herself and smoothed her shirt.
Fuck, I so have to get a new job… goddam psycho.
“We’ll see,” Molenski said, still not convinced.
He knew full well that plastic surgery had also come a long way in the last few years. He had even considered paying for a real girl to have it done but using a real girl would have been… problematic, given what he had planned.
Molenski pulled his gun from his pants before stepping back up to the crate and jamming the muzzle of the gun hard into the soft midriff of the girl in the box.
“Open your fucking eyes or I’ll blow your guts out…” he whispered.
There was no reaction, to either the gun, which would have winded anyone unprepared for it, or the words. Nevertheless, he slapped her hard across the cheek, before finally believing she was a machine.
He took the time to study her now. His memory of her had faded in the years since, but it was the Inga he remembered. Her pretty face with its fine features, framed by the same soft, light blonde hair. Again, he reached out, this time prodding her alluring lips. They were soft and pliable and when he pushed them open; her teeth were perfect. He turned his head to Marina, still holding the lip down.
“She will feel pain, right? That was what they promised.”
“Yes sir, you specifically requested the sensitivity feature and signed the non-disclosure. I’m not sure they would have allowed it had you not been a major shareholder though, it created quite a bit of controversy a year or so ago, as you know.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “And she will bleed?” he asked, waggling the lip up and down.
Oh my God, you sick fuck.
Not for the first time, Marina wondered who the poor girl he had modeled her on was.
“Yes, sir. Superficially of course, and it’ll also bruise and heal. The RealFlesh is only a few centimeters deep, though. It’s still a machine underne…”
“Dah!” He cut her off as if he didn’t want to be reminded. “How do we turn her on?”
“Either by the control tablet or there is a button behind her right ear,” she said, wondering if he even realized he was calling the machine ‘she’ and ‘her’.
Ivan, who had been taking everything in, was barely able to take his eyes from the vision in the crate as he took the tablet from Marina and handed it to Molenski.
She, the robot, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he completely understood his boss’s initial reluctance to believe the girl wasn’t real.
The instructions Marina had been reading earlier had disappeared, and when Molenski touched the screen, the tablet began to glow softly before displaying a menu.
Instructions
Start
Activate software
Restart
Shut down
He touched his finger to the start icon and the screen changed.