Girls Girls Girls

"Don't worry," Linnea said, putting her hand on Patricia's shoulder in an entirely over-familiar manner. "She'll be well looked after. Shall we move on?"

"Of course," Patricia said, her voice filled with forced politeness. She gestured towards the far end of the factory floor. "After you."

*****

At the far end of the factory floor, Linnea led them through another small door into another long hallway that ran along the factory wall. She walked them down to a t-junction that led to another hallway, this one extending further into the complex. Patricia sighed inwardly-she considered herself to be a fairly fit woman, but her calves were definitely feeling the exertion from the long walk. Still, they couldn't have much further to go. She'd seen the building from outside when they were shooting exterior footage for the video. It was big, but they had to be almost to the far wall by now.

"Naturally, what you've seen is far from the end of the process," Linnea said, gesturing back to the assembly line they'd just left. "The factory floor is where the Girls(TM) are assembled and programmed-their operating systems are actually installed through wireless transmission as they're put together, ensuring that their programming is entirely intact from the moment they step off the line-but there's much more that goes into a completed Girl(TM). We need to make sure they're fully capable of carrying out their core directives before we assign them to their new owners. That's what our Quality Assurance division is for. They make sure they're functioning correctly and ready to do their jobs."

"More robots, I suppose," Patricia said sourly.

"Of course not!" Linnea said with a chuckle. "That wouldn't be particularly useful. The Girls(TM) are designed to bring pleasure to humans, not each other. No, we couldn't do this part without human volunteers involved in the process."

Callie spoke up. "Excuse me. Could we speak to some of these 'volunteers'? I'd like to make sure that they're aware of their rights in this situation, and I'd also like to see how they're treated."

Linnea nodded. If she seemed threatened by the implications of Callie's words, she didn't show it. "Of course," she said. "Right this way." She walked another twenty yards down the corridor to a door set into the right-hand side, and showed them through.

On the other side, was...Patricia wanted to stare resolutely at the floor or the ceiling, but she had a moral obligation to show the public everything this company was hiding. So she stared straight at the rows of low couches with two dozen naked men and women reclining on them, each one being fondled by a Girl. The smell of sex and that thick, strawberry scent was everywhere in the room, filling their nostrils instantly.

The sights and sounds of sin were everywhere. On one couch, a Girl was gently caressing a woman's breasts with hands that blurred slightly from their vibrating motion. Her head lolled forward as her eyes rolled back and she let out a tiny whimper of decadent pleasure. On another couch, a man was lying back with his legs splayed, his cock standing straight up as a Girl stroked it with both hands. It was slick, almost dripping with lubricant and his hips were bucking up and down in anticipation.

Patricia turned, but there was more of it everywhere she looked. One woman was on her knees, her head bobbing up and down on a plastic rod that jutted obscenely from between a Girl's thighs in a parody of fellatio. Another woman was on all fours, a Girl filling her pussy with its dildo and thrusting back and forth in an endless mechanical rhythm. Still elsewhere, she saw a man being given the same treatment with every sign of enjoying it. Patricia felt her face flushing in embarrassment.

Quiana was the first to speak. Her voice was almost a full octave higher than normal-the poor girl must be terribly shocked at seeing all this. She was still unmarried, and she probably never even knew what some of the things she was witnessing even were. "Do they, um...I mean...how many people are doing this?"

"At this facility?" Linnea replied. "Approximately two hundred fifty. This is Testing Room Four; it holds approximately twenty-five people at a time. Naturally, our QA testers rotate in and out pretty frequently-as you can imagine, it's pretty tiring work! But we try to make sure that we've got every bed occupied at all times. With as many Girls as we need to test, it's practically a necessity."

Quiana barely even seemed to hear the answer-her gaze was fixed on a Girl straddling a reclining man, slowly and relentlessly sliding her pussy up and down onto his cock in an almost hypnotic motion. Every time she came up, she revealed the entire length of his slick, throbbing penis before taking it all inside herself once more.

"And the, um...testers," Callie said, her cheeks bright red. "Are they paid for what they do?"

Linnea looked momentarily confused. "Well," she said, "I suppose they could be. I mean, if any of them ever requested payment. I don't think it's ever actually come up."

Callie frowned. "I'd like to speak to some of your 'volunteers'," she said. "As many as possible, if you don't feel like it would disrupt their work too much. In private."

"Of course," Linnea responded. Again, Patricia was astonished at the lack of resistance the other woman showed. This was a clear labor law violation, and possibly a human rights violation as well. Even if she didn't know that they were recording everything, Linnea had to know that they were setting her up for some sort of comeuppance. Even if she didn't actually work here, she apparently believed in whatever the company was doing. So why was she so unruffled by it all?

Linnea gestured to an empty couch in the back. "It looks like one of our testers has just retired to a hospitality lounge to recover. If you'd like to wait right there, I'll make sure to let his replacement know that you'd like to talk to him for a bit privately before he begins. You'll probably find it a bit easier to talk to folks before they start working." Linnea's smile widened into a lascivious grin. "They're a little bit exhausted afterward."

Patricia tried not to understand what Linnea meant, but it was obvious. All around them, she could hear people moaning and gasping in ecstasy; one woman was biting her lip in the throes of bliss as a Girl thrust three fingers in and out of her pussy with breathless speed, while another one wrapped her legs around her Girl and ground down on the fake cock as she screamed, "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," over and over again. One man fountained cum all over his Girl's plastic tits as they watched, seemingly unashamed of their gazes on him. It was absolutely impossible to find anything in the room that didn't relate back to sex.

"I'd be happy to wait," Callie said. She carefully threaded her way through the rows of copulating humans and robots and took a seat on the empty couch.

"And the rest of you?" Linnea asked. "Would you like to wait as well? I can arrange for some additional seating if you'd like."

"Thank you, we'll move on," Patricia said quickly. She didn't like leaving Callie behind, but she had the others to think of. Quiana was far too innocent to expose her to this much depravity. Patricia had more than enough willpower to take the whole wanton display of lust in and not be affected, but she had to keep her assistant safe.

Besides, the room was too warm to be comfortable. Patricia felt terribly hot and sticky in these confining clothes.

*****

They stepped back out into the blessedly cool hallway, and Linnea said, "Don't worry, I'm sure she'll find just what she's looking for. We can collect her once you've met with the Director, the same as with your camera crew and that reporter you brought."

Patricia looked around. Suddenly, she realized that Rory hadn't been with the group for quite some time. When had they seen her last? It was back on the factory floor, she was sure of it. Before Gabby took ill? Or after? "What have you done with her?" she hissed.

Linnea smiled innocently. Patricia wanted so badly to punch that face, but she refrained. Violence would immediately lose them the public relations battle. "I'm afraid I don't know where the young woman has gotten to," she replied. "I suspect she decided to do a little independent investigation. It's no worry, I'm sure we'll find her soon enough. Shall we move on?"

"You're lying. You're lying and I'm sure of it," Patricia snarled. "You...you bring her back now, or we'll..." She faltered as she realized she had no idea what to threaten Linnea with. Exposure? Clearly, the woman had absolutely no concerns about it, in either a figurative or literal sense.

"I'm very sorry you feel that way," Linnea responded, her face now a mask of picturesque empathy. "Rest assured, we'll make every effort to find your friend, and she'll join us by the end of the tour. Even if you do think ill of our intentions, you can't imagine that having an investigative reporter wandering around would serve any kind of purpose you'd expect us to have, would it?"

Patricia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was normally so much better at keeping her calm, but this place, these people...she could still smell that strawberry scent clinging to her, even now, a tangible reminder of the endless orgy they'd just left behind. She tried to put all the sights of naked men, naked women, naked robots out of her head and focus on their purpose. "Of course not," she said at last. "My apologies. Let's move on."

They walked down the long hallway for several hundred more yards before the corridor finally dead-ended at a service elevator. Linnea hit the call button, and within moments they boarded. "How many levels are there?" Jeremy asked.

Linnea pressed a button. "Three," she said. "We've just left the assembly level, and we're now heading to our Research and Development labs. I thought you might want to take a moment and see how the lubricant you were asking about is formulated. Just to assuage any worries you might have."

Patricia tried to hide her grimace. It was a transparent delaying tactic; Linnea clearly had no interest in any of their concerns, she simply wanted to wear them down with endless side trips and diversions. On the other hand, Patricia still didn't feel entirely herself after passing through the Quality Assurance division. She felt like she needed to go somewhere private, someplace she could sit and think and try to find some way of relieving this unaccountable tension she felt. Since that didn't seem likely to happen any time soon, though, perhaps talking with some boring lab-coated eggheads about dull chemical formulas would do the trick.

The doors opened onto a wide, open floor space again as large as the factory floor. The expense of excavating all these basements and sub-basements must have been tremendous-the whole thing looked to be larger than a football field. Various laboratory stations were set up all over the open area, each one occupied by...

Patricia's eyes went with with shock. More Girls. These ones were all a matte gray in color, rather than the tan of the factory workers or the various colors of the commercial models, but they were nonetheless the same robots they'd been seeing throughout the factory. They worked in brisk, efficient silence, moving from one station to the next without any seeming pattern. It looked superficially different from the organized assembly line one floor above, but Patricia felt like there was some sort of meaning to it all.

Linnea tapped her earpiece. "I'm afraid that without one of these, it all seems a bit quiet," she said, "but communicating over wireless frequencies makes for a less chaotic workplace. They can still hear everything we say, though, so if you'd like to talk to one of them about the formula we use for our lubricant, I'd be happy to arrange a meeting."

"But...but they're all robots!" Patricia gasped out.

"Oh, absolutely," Linnea said, without any indication of sharing Patricia's concerns or even understanding them. "We really couldn't do this with human scientists-at the advanced stages our research is at, all they'd really be doing is feeding their data into a computer for analysis anyway. We just cut out the middleman, as it were."

Patricia looked over at Jeremy. "Can they do this? Isn't there some sort of a law against this?"

Jeremy shook his head. "I don't believe so. However, I do have a trip to Washington coming up. I think that if some of the more family-friendly Congressmen see this footage, they may see their way clear to making some legislation to address the issue."

Inwardly, Patricia winced-Jeremy had just given away their hidden cameras with that comment. It was totally unlike him; he was obviously thrown off his game by the things they'd seen. She hadn't seen him move his briefcase away from his crotch since the factory floor, but she was sure he was hiding a throbbing erection under there. She pictured his immaculately tailored suit tenting up, a tiny damp spot revealing the leaking precum spilling from his member as he struggled desperately to control his sexual urges-

Patricia closed her eyes again. The lab felt far too warm, and her clothes felt far too tight. Something was wrong with her-had she developed an allergy to that lubricant, like Gabby? She could still smell it, like it had soaked into the fabric of her clothes. Maybe she should take them off-

She shook her head sharply, like a swimmer trying to dislodge water from her ears. Had she actually just thought about stripping naked in front of everyone like that Hannigan woman? It didn't seem possible, but for a moment the idea had seemed so terrifyingly reasonable. More than reasonable-it had seemed attractive. Seductive, even. She'd wanted to peel her sticky, confining clothes off and display her body to Jeremy and Quiana.

They must have drugged her, she realized. It was how they planned to discredit the Institute-they'd slipped her some sort of aphrodisiac drug and they were waiting for her to do something lewd, and then they'd threaten to release the footage (of course there would be footage, Patricia wasn't the only one who knew how to hide a camera) if she kept up with her crusade against them. Well, they had underestimated her. Patricia Whately was not about to give in to debauchery.

She opened her eyes again, locking them with Linnea's faux concerned gaze. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just felt momentarily dizzy. Let's press on, shall we? I'm sure your Director doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"That won't be a problem," Linnea replied, walking them through the various lab stations. "We're keeping the Director fully apprised of the situation at all times, and everyone here is used to adjusting our timetables based on events. I'm sure you can imagine that our Girls(TM) are very flexible."

Quiana let out a tiny snort of laughter at that, and Patricia shot her a glare. She'd have to keep an eye on Quiana. The younger woman didn't have nearly as much experience as Patricia in dealing with underhanded sleaze merchants like this, and it would be just like them to take advantage of her youth and innocence. Not that she thought less of Quiana, of course. But she simply didn't have the willpower that some of her elders and betters had developed over the years.

"Here we are!" Linnea broke into Patricia's train of thought by stopping at one of the smaller lab set-ups. Thankfully, it seemed like she hadn't noticed Jeremy's slip earlier about the cameras. She was probably paying too much attention to Patricia, waiting for her to slip up and humiliate herself. "Station Thirty. This is where they work on the formulation of our lubricant." She gestured to one of the Girls. "Girl, this is Jeremy Chafee. Jeremy, this is Girl Number...oh, let's just use 'Girl' for now. It's easier."

Jeremy smiled stiffly and extended a hand. "Pleased to meet you," he said. The Girl shook it, her own hand still wet with chemicals. Jeremy looked delicately for a place to wipe them off, but could find nothing.

"I apologize," Girl said. Its voice was flat and inflectionless, but otherwise entirely human-sounding. "I'm afraid I was working on an improved formulation when you arrived. You should stay here with me and discuss the patent implications of the new formula."

Jeremy turned to Patricia. His expression was carefully neutral-obviously, he was trying not to let his frustration over the social faux pas show on his face. "Patricia," he said, "I think I'm going to stay here and discuss the patent implications of the new formula."

He looked back to the Girl, who nodded and said, "The others should probably move on, though. It could be a long, dull conversation and we don't wish to bore them."

Jeremy looked back to Patricia again as though he was mounted on a swivel. "You should probably move on, though," he said, his voice almost as devoid of inflection as the Girl. "It could be a long, dull conversation and we don't wish to bore you."

Patricia looked at Jeremy closely, suspicion in her eyes. He stared back patiently, as though he could wait as long as it took for her to follow instructions and leave. She glared at Linnea, who simply shrugged. The uncomfortable silence filled the room.

"Very well," Patricia said helplessly. "Can we meet with the Director now?"

"Absolutely," Linnea said with a magnanimous smile. They returned to the elevator in silence.

*****

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Patricia said as Linnea pressed a button for the third floor.

"I'm sorry?" Linnea said.

"Oh, cut the innocent act!" Patricia snapped. "You're deliberately separating us!"

"Oh, that." Linnea nodded in recognition. "Yes, yes we are," she responded in a matter-of-fact tone, as though content to let the matter rest there.

"Well?" Patricia snarled.

"Well what?" Linnea asked, sounding slightly confused.

"Why?" Patricia shouted. "What's your plan? Is it drugs? Blackmail? If you think you can silence us, you'd better think again. We have evidence, you know. Evidence of everything you're doing." She was aware that she was sounding a little unhinged, but they could always edit that out later, and she was just about ready to give this woman a piece of her mind. "You're not going to get away with it, not any of it. We'll expose you for the perverts you really are, we'll tell them all about this place, we'll show them everything you're keeping secret."

She paced back and forth, letting all her frustrations out in a torrent of speech. "I know you drugged me," she said. "You're trying to put sinful thoughts in my head, make me discredit myself with lewd and wanton behavior in front of everybody! Well, it won't work!" She thrust an accusing finger at Linnea, who simply stood there and absorbed Patricia's fury in silence. "I don't care how naked you are, I don't care how naked any of them are! You're all sick, and we're going to let the world know about it! And you won't stop us, I don't care if you throw a hundred Girls at me! Whatever you try, we'll...we'll..." Patricia sagged in exhaustion, the surge of righteous anger collapsing without anything to sustain it. She didn't have the energy to rant, not when she was working so hard just to keep her desire in check. She wanted to masturbate worse than she ever had in her life.

Quiana broke the silence. "Why does it feel like we're going up?" she asked, her voice slightly distant. Patricia's worries about the young woman came back in a rush.

Linnea's brow furrowed. "Because we are going up. The executive suite is on the third floor."

Now it was Patricia's turn to sound confused. "But that's not possible," she said. "We saw the factory from the outside. There was only one level."

Linnea's eyes widened in sudden recognition. "Oh, right!" she said. "I'm sorry, I should have mentioned earlier. You may be in for a slight-"