I shrugged when Gokiburi turned to give me a penetrating look. Her eyes shone gold. She was really beautiful, though bald. I imagined her head must have come with a gorgeous wig when it was originally produced.A pleasure bot.
“We take care to keep our databases clean of doomsday-inciting materials,” she said. “But you’re right to be concerned, of course. We can be dangerous. On the other hand, I hear there are human neighborhoods that are little more than breeding grounds for criminals. Killers, terrorists, junkies, rapists…”
“I get it,” I said forcefully. “Yes, there are plenty of bad humans around, and we make other humans, too. Can we move on? We should get started on our project.”
“We will not give you any of our custom bots for your mission,” Gokiburi said smoothly, leading us out through a door on the other side of the building. “They are multipart models that will immediately raise suspicions. If you want our help, you need to hide our involvement. You must build a robot that’s indistinguishable from a factory one. Dean has all the necessary information. Good luck.”
She walked back inside, leaving us alone. It was hot out here after the cool of the factory. I looked around, finding neat, small piles of limbs, heads, and cores in protective boxes. Further down were strange little shacks made from metal. Some were rectangular, others hexagonal, and they gleamed in the sun. Dean took my hand and pulled me toward an enormous water tank made of white plastic.
“This is safe to drink,” he said, grabbing a clean glass from a stack of five, then pointed to the right at a one-story building made of metal. “Toilets and showers are there. Gokiburi let us stay in the biggest shed, the rectangular one. It has a place to sleep and a charging station. She makes them for a hobby.”
I glanced at the sheds, nodding. More art, wasn’t it? This time, it was architecture made from recycled scrap metal. I wondered what she tried to say through her work.
It seemed like every sentient robot I knew of had some kind of vocation.
“What would you like to do?” I asked Dean. “If you could be anyone, do anything, what would it be?”
He shrugged, looking away. “I’m enjoying myself now. Hiding, negotiating with landfill guardians, and planning how to take down a corporation with a few pieces of scrap metal. It’s fun.”
I drank the water, then rinsed out the glass and ran it through a UV cleaner that stood next to the tank. Dean took my hand and pulled me toward one of the robot arm piles. He rummaged through them, explaining we had to find all the parts for the same Zenkyoza model. The parts had to be functional and undamaged, which turned this into quite a challenge.
“Gokiburi said they make custom fits because it’s easier to find working parts from various brands and get them to fit together than to assemble all-original models. Here, hold this. She said they have a perfect core for this model.”
I took a robot arm and almost stumbled from the weight. It had to be over fifty pounds. Dean shot me a smirk.
“You’re due for a workout after lying around all day yesterday. Do some squats. And let me see.”
I snorted. “Really? You want to watch me do squats? What for?”
“What do you think?”
He winked and went to look for a torso. I shrugged, putting the arm away on the ground, and warmed up. Maybe I still had a chance.
Chapter 19
Dean
Sera did a circuit of a few exercises, using the robot arm as a barbell. I stopped my search for parts to record her from a low angle, putting that workout in my spank bank.Bro Signalsaid I needed to have one, preferably filled with nudes from as many women as I could get. I preferred to fill mine with Sera. Dressed or naked, she was the hottest piece of ass I’d ever seen.
After this was over, my spank bank was the only thing I’d have left of her.
She went off to shower after her workout, grabbing a change of clothes from my backpack. I fought with myself for a moment, then followed to make sure she was absolutely safe. I hadn’t been away from her side since I awakened, and I had no idea how I was supposed to let her go one day.
I’d have to increase my tolerance for being apart, I supposed.
We spent the rest of the day searching through the piles in the back of the factory, finding three more arms, all left ones, a torsoin mint condition, two right legs, and nothing else. Sera wiped sweat off her forehead, squinting at the orange-colored sky. The sun began to set.
“Okay. We need a head, a right arm, and a left leg.”
Gokiburi joined us, assessing the pile of parts at our feet, and sent me a map of the landfill with likely locations for the missing ones marked in blue.
“Look for smaller parts, too,” she said out loud for Sera’s benefit. “A foot, a forearm, a finger.”
Sera groaned, sitting on an upturned bucket. “It will take days. Remind me who came up with this stupid plan?”
“You.” I reached in the backpack for a packet of savory rice snacks. “Here. I forgot to feed you today. You’re hangry.”
She shot me a baleful look but didn’t argue, snatching the packet from my hand.
