Interlocking Hearts (12 page)

Someone might think he was helping protect Paisley from being interrupted. Having known him a little while now, Paisley knew he was just trying to make sure Coral stayed quiet so he could hear. He was particularly sensitive to her vocal pattern and couldn’t concentrate on much else if she was talking nearby. It was a cute little robolove quirk the scientists were still trying to analyze.

“Jon seduced you behind my back,” Ben reminded her. “He wanted to get you in a vulnerable position and exploit that to evaluate your position on mechanics.”

Paisley was getting angry too, and these yahoos were running down the same trail all men took. She revved her anger engine to high. This was an argument she’d had many times over. “I wanted to have sex with him. Why is it when a guy and a girl have sex, and there isn’t a relationship involved, the girl is the one being taken advantage of?”

Ben opened his mouth and closed it again a few times before he finally said, “What?”

Quinn was openly laughing now. The bastard. He whispered something to Coral and she went and grabbed a bowl.

“Coral, why do you have popcorn?” Paisley heard Jon ask her.

Coral smiled. “Quinn told me that he has seen you both argue like this before. He said for you it’s like foreplay. And Paisley told me that if you watch someone have sex, eating popcorn is the appropriate social response.”

Jon grabbed some popcorn and ate a few bites while Paisley waited for Ben to respond to her question.

“You heard me,” she said. “Why do you think that because I am a woman that
you
would be the one taking advantage of
me
if we did the horizontal bed dance?”

“When did I become the bad guy?” He leaned in. “And when did we start to discuss us having sex?”

Paisley pushed her chair back to try and regain the necessary personal space in her bubble. Jon’s leg stopped the chair from moving too far.

Paisley resigned herself to be around two guys who made her body respond, even if her brain wasn’t interested. And it totally wasn’t.

“I am speaking in generalities. I enjoy sex. There is nothing wrong with me enjoying sex. I get my boosters so I can have it safely, and it pisses me off when someone tries to discount me or tell me I’m being taken advantage of. So shut your pie hole when it comes to the sex thing.” Paisley grabbed a bite that she’d cut on her plate and shoved it in her mouth. It was probably bad manners to talk with her mouth full, but according to the societal norms this guy obviously adhered to, she was vulgar anyway. “Let’s talk about what you want to do about the green flyer brigade and not talk about sex for the rest of the night.”

Coral tapped Paisley on the shoulder.

“What, Coral?”

“I can still talk to you about sex, right? This was an anger-fueled response to the primitive views of sexuality expressed by our guests, correct?”

Paisley rolled her shoulders one more time just to resign herself to the fact that if she was to ever have a sexual rodeo with these two, that they would think less of her because of it. She’d almost used Jon’s former pleasure bot status to throw harsh words at him.

She bit her tongue. It would make her no better than Ben to tell Jon that he was something less because he performed sexual acts at the demands of his manufacturer.

Then she realized she could use this. She wondered how much of what she’d heard about pleasure bots was true. Paisley learned a long time ago to arm yourself with ammo against whomever you’ve become close to. Like it or not, she was living next door to two very hot men. She didn’t know much about pleasure bots, but she’d start out making some random statements and he’d probably fill in where she had the holes without being prompted.

Paisley had learned a long time that people loved being credited with being smarter than they were.

“I bet these guys with the green flyers are sexually repressed as well. Did you have any insights as to why they were having these meetings?” Paisley shoved more food into her face before pushing her plate away.

Quinn grabbed a file and everyone gathered around.

“They always seem to advertise where a younger demographic gathers.” Quinn unfolded a map.

Paisley noticed all the red dots covering the paper and before she could ask Coral about it, her bestie’s eyes were trained on the ceiling. When Paisley stared at the wooden beams above them to figure out what her friend was looking at, Quinn tapped her hand to get her attention.

“She’s not looking at the map on purpose. Her programming automatically passes map coordinates on to the DMA representatives at Bio-Dyne.” He frowned. “I’ve been working on coming up with a way to override the initial prompts, but it’s so ingrained, it’s been a bit of a road block.”

“Should she even be in this meeting if we’re bringing in the coordinates?” Ben looked at Coral. “Submitting the meeting and recruiting coordinates would give away one of the only pieces of the puzzle we’ve managed to put together so far. We are working on this behind the backs of the DMA. If her reports include our intel…”

“They won’t,” Coral said to the ceiling. “I only have basic map point programming. Visual reception of data will be transmitted. Not auditory discussion. We’re fine as long as I don’t look at the map. The programming was initially installed to map my location in case of malfunction, or system failure. I was a prototype. You know that’s common practice.”

“It’s only common in the America Republic,” Jon said. “Across the ocean, it’s more likely they would deny all ownership if their product suddenly did something wrong. They would leave their machines to be someone else’s problem.”

Paisley heard his voice change tone. It was the first time she’d seen Jon look like anything bothered him. This was something he hated knowing or hated remembering.

It must be hard to forget things if you’re a robot.

It was hard enough when you were human.

Quinn cleared his throat. “Like I was saying. The flyers are recruiting in coffee shops, college campuses and the clubs. Anywhere the demographic trends toward the twenty- to thirty-year-old crowd. That means either this is a younger group initiating the movement and their recruiting practices are for convenience, or this is an older group who is looking to add some youth and muscle to their cause.”

Jon grabbed the file and started flipping through. He moved his hand down the page slowly as he looked.

Ben shook his head. “This isn’t just about the age. This is about trying to get people who tend to be more forward thinking about robotic rights. The younger crowd grew up with more and more advanced robotics. They are the ones who wouldn’t even think about the malfunctions these people are threatening them with.”

“Youth doesn’t mean stupidity.” Paisley had to remind these people. She wasn’t a coed. Hadn’t even been a coed when she’d been that age. There was more to life than sitting in a classroom. “Many young people take care of themselves, and succeed where others wouldn’t simply because they have the guts to do things people tell them they can’t.”

“What did people tell you, you couldn’t do, Paisley?”

“They told me I couldn’t live on my own. They told me no one else would have—” She stopped before she said anything else. She had gone from her parents telling her she wouldn’t make anything of herself to a man telling her she wasn’t worth even a moment of his affection. Arranged marriages weren’t as ancient as everyone thought.

Coral stopped looking at the ceiling once she heard the map shoved back up into the folder. “Paisley doesn’t want to talk about herself right now. If they are trying to take on the robotics with force, youth in their ranks would be preferable, but this, to me, speaks more of working through the law-making process.”

“That’s one of the reasons why we brought Coral into the investigation,” Ben said quickly. “She is the only one who could tell us when something seems to be out of the ordinary at the DMA.”

Jon grabbed the file again and shook his head when he got to the flyers in the back. “I think we need to stick close to Paisley on this.”

“Why me?”

“You’re human. You’re the most easily influenced on the mechanics issue.”

“You don’t know me very well. People don’t influence me.”

“I know you better than most.” Jon raised his eyebrows to show her he meant he’d seen her naked.

This was not an impressive feat in Paisley’s eyes. “Lots of people know me in that way, and that’s not the way you really get to know someone. Riding a guy’s joystick to O-town doesn’t mean he knows anything about me aside from the feel of my hip bones.”

Jon didn’t say anything else for a second. He lowered his eyes to her hips and his tongue slid out over his lips to moisten them to a shiny pink. It should be criminal to have soft supple lips underneath all that deep brown facial hair. The hard and the soft together all on one face was really tempting.

It was a shame this guy thought she would betray her friend.

Ben tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “Regardless of how you look naked, which was lovely, by the way…”

Paisley spun her hand in a circle to tell him to get to the point. And to fan herself.

“Anyone looking to take down the robotic rights would prefer to work with a human. They would be more likely to approach you than any of us.”

“Ben, she would not be effective with undercover work. She’s too open. They’d see right through her.”

“I disagree, but it doesn’t matter.” Ben pointed to her as he and Jon talked about her like she wasn’t there. “She doesn’t have to get into the meetings, just be approached. Or find out about someone who is going.”

“I could always plant a bug on someone,” Paisley offered. “If you find someone who you think is a possibility, I could plant one of those sticky sensors Coral makes.”

Coral looked at Quinn fast. “It was for research.”

Paisley could barely contain herself. It wasn’t every day you helped teach a robot to lie.

* * * * *

It took over thirty minutes of—thankfully—talking about something other than having sex for information or how incompetent little human Paisley was before they got back down to business. Coral promised Quinn she would not put bugs in his shower anymore to listen to while she was at work. Paisley tried signaling to her bestie that letting Quinn in on the fact that Paisley had heard recordings of Quinn masturbating was not a good topic. Unfortunately, Quinn reminded her that honesty was important in a relationship and Coral was
way
too honest.

Paisley had to give props to Jon and Ben for not even batting an eye. It made her wonder how much of their own bodies they shared when they worked over a woman together. They obviously enjoyed women. Although if Jon was a pleasure bot, he might be able to control that too.

But bugs could be used to spy on people for more than just voyeuristic enjoyment, and all agreed they could find out a lot if Paisley got close to someone in the movement to drop a bug on them. Hopefully it was someone who found women attractive. Paisley knew she could work a seduction. Ben wasn’t as convinced.

He leaned forward. “And how exactly do you think you’d get that bug planted in a guy’s wallet? That takes training that you don’t have.”

“Easy.” Paisley wiped her mouth and pushed her empty plate away. “I’d fuck him.”

Ben and Quinn looked at each other uncomfortably. Jon and Coral nodded and accepted this as a completely reasonable course of action.

Jon leaned around her to Ben. “I may have misjudged her. She might work out just fine.” Then he turned his attention to Paisley. “I only wish I was on your list of people to bug.”

“She already placed a device on you. Why would she need to do it again?” Coral asked.

Screwing with the guy was fun and all, but Paisley didn’t want to outright lie. “Knock it off, Coral. Stop messing with the guy.”

“If you didn’t place the recording device on him, who did? I’ve been picking up on the signals since he walked in.”

Quinn jumped up and ran to some kind of fuse box on the wall. He opened it up and checked some of the switches.

“I’ve got the scrambler on. If he’s wired, this stopped the transmission from going out. It wouldn’t stop the signal. You must have picked up on it.” He closed the metal door and pointed to Jon. “Strip.”

Ben went to stand by Jon, who had already stood, and neither of them looked like they were at all pleased with the situation.

“This is ridiculous.” Ben held out his hand to stop a very determined-looking Quinn’s advance. “He’s not wearing a wire. He’s applying for the same rights these idiots want to take away. You’re jumping to conclusions because your girlfriend said she felt something?”

Coral opened her mouth to let her speaker get the best audio feedback. Then she replayed something she’d obviously been dying to show Paisley by the way her lips turned up into a smile as Jon’s words came from her mouth.

“Paisley’s pussy isn’t one you’d forget. I really wish you hadn’t fucked up my mission.”

“Your mission was not about getting in her pants. If that was the goal, I’d have gladly helped.”

Coral closed her mouth to turn off the recording of Ben and Jon’s voices. “I also have access to all past recordings on the device’s memory. Either this was a recent conversation, or the device has a large storage capacity. Do you recall when you were talking about Paisley’s pussy?”

Paisley grabbed some popcorn. “Yes. When did you last discuss my lady parts?”

The productivity went downhill from there.

Jon and Ben talked too quietly for Paisley to hear, but then again, she was probably the only one without mechanically enhanced senses.

Luckily Coral took pity on her. “Please increase your volume. Paisley can’t hear, and it’s rude to speak so only one person in the room can’t follow the conversation.”

“What will me taking off my clothes prove? Can’t you just sweep me?” Jon asked.

Coral leaned over and explained, “They know that Quinn has a bug sweeper as one of his alterations from the Military. They were talking about the plausibility of it being as updated as my software.”