A Sinister Game (12 page)

Room 55 was the techie hangout. It was all white and staffed mostly by Arthur’s
scantily clad
creations. The seats were vinyl.
The food all had cheese in it. T
he bar offered thirty-six flavors of soda.

Arthur didn’t normally drink a
lcohol. What was the point? But
he was feeling strange again. Lonely. Frustrated.

Angry.

It happened like this when the magic of his creations seemed to wear off a little. It was akin to silver that tarnishes or gold
-
plating that rubs away. It never failed. It always happened this way. He would design the perfect program and it would deliver amazing results. So amazing, in fact, that his dick would be positively sore and his protein levels would drop for weeks after the final versions were completed.

A computer did exactly what you told it to do.

It never had a headache.
It could give a
blowjob
for hours. If y
ou told it to do so while it was rubbing
its own nipples and mewling, it would. If y
ou told it to bend over and pretend that it was in pain while yo
u whipped it, it would
. Without a second thought. Hell, without a thought at all.

He loved computers.

So obedient. So predictable.

He loved his cock in their mouths while he whispered profanities at them and choked their man-made holes again and again and
again
. The last models he’d made were capable of swallowing three entire gallons of cum. You couldn’t top that. No wet dream could come close to three straight days of throat torture on a naked, perfectly proportioned, entirely acquiescing sex goddess.

No. He’d created perfection
in his sexual robots,
and nothing human could compare.

But… a
fter a while, something about the program always seemed to become inadequat
e. And he would get frustrated
and start working on the
next
program.

He had no idea why this happened. Their me
asurements were far more proportionally exact
than human measurements could ever be. That wasn’t the problem. Their features were perfectly sy
mmetrical and as a result,
mor
e lovely than any a human female’s
. The voices he gave them were soft and throaty
,
and a computer’s vocabulary could be programmed to recognize and acquiesce to any number of derogatory, defacing terms and instructions that never failed to make returning customers out of the male Gamers in the Field.

So, what was it that always came up lacking about these programs?

He seemed to be the only one that noticed
it, whatever it was
. Arthur One was head tech in the Field for a reason. He was in charge of a number of mundane operations concerning the wall, Game Control regulations, and the everyday workings of the team towers and the TGB. But it was his after-hour creations that had become the raunchy rage amongst male Gamers for more than a decade and a half, and customer satisfaction levels had never fallen. So to speak.

Game Control needed his expertise in technical matters, that much was true. But they also understood the importance of morale. What he did in his
off time
was as valuable as what he did during his working hours.

They needed his work. The population of Gamers on the Field was composed of far fewer females than males. No one inside the wall knew the reason for this, and Game Control wasn’t sharing.

Anyway, those females that did make it inside the wall we
re always very well cared for. They were protected, a
nd
it was overkill because
more often than not,
they were
completely
capable of protecting themselves. Many a male Gamer had made the obligatory first and last trip to the MRU with injuries dealt to them by female Gamers who had felt the self-preserving need to prove a point.

Male Gamers learned fast. In the Field, the line between men and women was a thin one, indeed. They were both strong. They were both fast. And the team leaders especially, all possessed immense power.

I
n the end, the men would go nuts
without Arthur.
He was priceless to Game Control. He knew that.
He kept the wall unbreachable, kept the transporters running, and kept the preponderance of the male population on the Field
sated
.

For the majority of the one
hundred and sixty-two years that he’d worked for GC, that knowledge had filled him with a sense of pride.

But lately…
.
Well, lately it
hadn’t
.

Lately,
h
e felt as if his happiness was a mass of
sand pebbles in an
hourglass
. It was d
raining
away
.

And that irritated him. It frankly pissed the
h
ell out of hi
m b
ecause if he couldn’t get what
he wanted out of human females and
couldn’t turn to his own creat
ions as adequate alternatives, then what
was he supposed to do with himself?

At the moment, he hoped that the orange concoction he was drinking could make some of the hopelessness he was feeling go the hell away. Perhaps i
t would give him some courage, make him feel taller so the
princesses
of the Field wouldn’t turn tail and run the other way when he swaggered toward them. Maybe they would give him the time of day, after all.

With that thought, Arthur One lifted the glass from the bar in
front of him and downed
several, sweet swallows of his drink, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. When he lowered his arm and his gaze once more focused on the doors across the room, it was to find Victoria Red walking through them.

He blinked. But she was still there.

He rubbed his eyes and
looked again. She was not only still there,
she was actually coming closer –
t
oward
him.

For half a secon
d, he wondered if he was
dreaming. But as soon as he considered the thought, he threw it away. If he was dreaming, he would be
seven feet
tall and covered in tattoos and Victoria Red would be wearing next to nothing. As it was, however, she was dressed in a gray downtime uniform. She looked good in it, of course. She looked unbelievable. But it wasn’t like it showed a lot of skin.

“Arthur,
you got a minute?” she asked as she approached him.

He blinked again. Then he looked over his shoulder, just to be sure. After all, one of the other Arthurs could have been seated at the bar behind him.

When he turned back around, she was looking at him quizzically. He nodded.

“Good.
I want to make a deal with you
,
”
s
he said
.

Arthur
put down his drink and tried to sit a little taller. It may
have
be
en
the first time the gorgeous, untouchable Red leader had ever
walked into his hang out or
addressed him of her own accord
in this manner
, but
it wasn’t as if she’d ever been rude. She always said “hi” back when he said it first.

H
e didn’t have to act like he wa
s so damned hard up, did he?

“What – ” He cleared his throat and tried again. “What
kind of deal?
”

“Remember when you came to me and asked me to help you repair some equipment that human hands were too big to repair?”

“Yes.” He remembered.
Victoria
was the most powerful telekinetic master in the Field and he’d wanted to get a jumpstart on his next program by not waiting for more new supplies from Game Control, but reusing the ones he already had that were damaged in some way. He had wondered whether her powers could be used to such a fine manipulative degree
; he
had to admit he was curious.
So, despite the fact that it was strictly prohibited for a Gamer to use their abilities outside of the Playing Field, he’d squared his courage and asked. It was an excuse to talk to her, anyway.

She’d been nice about it, but as he’d expected her to, she’d politely refused
. And she was right
to do so
.
She had a team to lead – a powerful one – and he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to jeopardize that
.

But he still hadn’t liked it.
He didn’t like being refused by a woman.
“I remember. What about it?”

Victoria glanced around the room, a tad nervous, and then leaned in a little and whispered, “
W
hat if I tell you
,
‘
S
crew Game Control
,’
a
nd
I
agree to help you make those repairs after all?”

He stared at her for a moment. Honestly, he could stare at her all day; he loved her gold
en
eyes…. He
’d given his last creation
eyes like that. But not
exactly
like that. He’d tried, but in the end there had been something missing.

At least right now he had a viable
excuse
for staring at her.

“Why the sudden change of heart?” he asked, his gaze narrowing.

“Well, I won’t lie to you. I
obviously
want something from you in return.”

B
ut
, that’s okay,
he thought
. In fact, that’s good.

“Um…
.
”
S
he bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder once more.
Arthur’s
prick hardened a little as he watched her white teeth press down on the plump, pink flesh. “Can we go somewhere private and talk?”
she finally asked.

There was no pretense in her voice. He would know if there had been. He was an expert at voices and their inflections. He’d been studying them for what seemed like forever – just so he could get them to sound right when he programmed his buxom little companions.
She was nervous, but she wasn’t lying. She really did
want to speak to him privately,
and she really did want to make a deal.

It
was the alcohol
,
or he had simply reached some sort of pinnacle in his life, but either way, Arthur One was getting an idea. It was risky and it was out of his league, but in his opinion, it was the
best idea he’d had in a long,
long
,
time.

“Yes,” he said, rising from the stool at the bar and gesturing for her to follow. “I know just the place.”
My lab
, he thought.
Surrounded by my machines
that
follow my orders, where you’ll be out of your element, princess
.

A deal indeed. As they walked toward the transporters, he was most definitely becoming more and more open to the idea of a deal.

“Is this private enough or do you want to wait until we’re at my lab?”
h
e asked
as the transporter doors closed behind them. She looked at the transporter console and the walls around her.

“
Do they watch us in here?”

“Nope,” he told her, knowing she referred to Game Control. “They g
ot sick of watching people pick their noses and adjust themselves. Nothing interesting ever happened anyway. So, we took the cameras out a long time ago.”
Of
most
of the transporters
, he added mentally. But this one was honestly clean.

She considered that a moment, studied him as if trying to see whether he were trustworthy, and then breathed out. “Okay,” she said, her tone soft. “T
hen I’ll fill you in on the way.” She
rolled her shoulders and straightened a bit like she was preparing for something
. “This is the thing. I need to get past the wall. I agree to use my powers to help you fix anything you want fixed for the next ten years – I honestly don’t care. As long as you’ll give me the transporter access code that gets me beyond the wall and into the outside sectors.” She shrugged helplessly. “You’re the only non-
Game Control person who knows that code
.”

Arthur stood stock still in the whirling, blurring transporter and stared some more at Victoria Red. What she was asking for was over the top. It was so very illegal, so wholly and
utterly against regulations,
if he were to give her what she wanted, he could not
only be banned from the Field,
he could be subjected to Game Control punishments. The unmentionable kind.