Page 7 of The Genius
“Great.” Storm clapped his hands together. “Just give them my name and if the robots have facial recognition and call you out for not being me, tell them it’s their fault for not sending you a VIP invitation. Remind them that you helped start the testing program up here.”
I moved when the automatic vacuum cleaner came toward me. “That’s right. I deserve to test that model.”
When I passed Storm, he patted me on my shoulder. “Have fun, my friend. Test that bot to the limits.”
“Will do,” I said and opened the front door. The last thing I heard Storm say before I closed the door was “At least sex-bots aren’t prudes.”
CHAPTER 3
Awkward
Shelly
The red alert indicated that the Nman currently in session had asked for help. As protocol described, the alert automatically dispatched a service bot.
Researchers like myself only visited this facility on occasion and it was rare for us to interact with the test people.
I switched over to see images from the cameras in the test room and saw a man standing bent over Mindy, who wasn’t moving.
The same service-bot who acted as the hostess, and who would have welcomed the man when he arrived, entered the room. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a polite smile and moved toward Mindy.
“You tell me.” The man raised himself up to his full height. From the way he stood with his back to me, I couldn’t see his face but his brown curls and deep voice reminded me of someone from my past, and that alone made my pulse speed up.
It can’t be him.
“We didn’t even get started before she shut down. Guess you can call that a flaw in the design.” He crossed his arms and leaned back on his heels. Like Mindy, the man was naked. He looked fit and strong like most Nmen, with defined muscles and broad shoulders.
It can’t be Marco. I specifically made sure he wasn’t included in the test group.
“If you give me a second, I’ll run a quick reboot of Mindy.” The service-bot didn’t move while it attempted to reboot the sex-bot. On my control panel I could see the system that was linked to all robots in this facility run a reboot on Mindy, but nothing happened.
“Let me try one more time,” the service-bot said in a friendly tone.
Again, nothing happened and I sighed. This was the third time this week that Mindy had suffered a breakdown. I wasn’t impressed with the engineers who had designed her, and I already had a long list of improvements I wanted to make before Mindy went into production.
After three attempts at rebooting Mindy, the service-bot apologized to the Nman. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid we’ll have to reschedule your visit for some other time. Mindy is currently unresponsive and will need to have service done.”
“Don’t you have a spare that I can test?”
“Not at this time. I’m very sorry.”
“Can I at least play with one of the older prototypes – you have some of those here, don’t you?”
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes.That voice.
“For you to play with a different prototype would serve no purpose. The testing of older robots has no relevance since they are already in production.”
“I know, but now that I’m here, it’s kinda disappointing to leave without…” He trailed off.
“Without what?” the service-bot asked and picked up Mindy from the floor like she weighed nothing.
“It would be disappointing to leave here without a release.” The man sat down on the bed and I gasped when I saw his face.
It had been ten years but there was no doubt that itwasMarco.
Taking a step back I stared at him. He looked even more handsome than I remembered, with his long curly brown hair and those eyes that had been full of mischief and challenge when we used to banter ten years ago. The Marco I remembered had been twenty years old and had brought out strange desires in me. This Marco was thirty and had me sweating from the sight of his naked body. With the way he sat leaned forward, I couldn’t see his most private parts, but it still felt wrong watching him like this.
Don’t be silly. What is visible you’ve already seen when the school visited that beach in the Motherlands. Marco was only wearing shorts then.
