Zeal of the Mind and Flesh Read online

  “Didn’t know I was a claimed man.” Dean joked. “Tell her to latch on to Sammy over there. He’s a shy guy. He needs a girl who knows what she wants to bring him out of his shell. Even if she is a little creepy.”

  Sam glared at Dean as the elf translated the words. Immediately, the purple-haired elf latched onto Sam’s arm, lifting him off his feet. These androids were absurdly strong.

  They further proved their strength a few moments later when Yonda and Erula swept Dean right off his feet and carried him to a nearby room. Dean reclined like a pampered emperor and shouted “Onward ladies!”

  Soon we were in a plush and spacious private chamber with the three elves. The house didn’t seem to assign any of the elves to any patron. You just walked around outside and one of them would jump on you. Sometimes several, if you were Dean.

  “All right ladies, you know my thing. Nachos by the bucketful please! Then we’ll get down to business!”

  “You—mhmff,” Dean began as Yonda stuffed a cheese-covered nacho in his mouth. “Just walk around a bit—mhmff. Thank you beautiful, but just give me a second to finish talking. Anyway, Teddy—”

  “Ted’s my father’s name.” I reprimanded mechanically.

  “Right, sorry. It’s just I can’t add a ‘y’ to Theo. Theoy. Just doesn’t sound right.”

  “Get to the point Dean.”

  “Hey man, I’m just trying to look out for you. Ever since you had that big fight with your family and your uncle took over the family business you’ve seemed bent out of shape. That’s why I was so stoked when you were looking to have a night out, but now you’re just brooding in the corner when there’s dozens of hot elves out there who’d love to keep you company.”

  “I’m not just here for fun, I’m here to learn.”

  “You see! That’s what I’m talking about. That brooding look on your face and that obsession with improving yourself! Sammy’s seen it too, right Sammy?”

  Sam waved an arm, but that’s all he could do from his current position. The purple haired elf was straddling his torso and had him pinned to the couch, aggressively exploring his mouth with her tongue. All that escaped were a few muffled grunts.

  “Sammy says yes.” Dean declared as Yonda fed him another nacho.

  “You need not worry about me. I’m fine Dean. Better than ever.”

  Dean looked at me uncertainly. The moment passed and he looked up. “You know what goes great with nachos? Beer.”

  “No! Don’t let him order the beer! It will spill!” Mac whined. It was kind of creepy, considering he looked like a plush seat at the moment.

  “Shush, you. You’re supposed to be doing your best impression of a chair.” I chided.

  Dean must have placed the order on his implant-phone while I wasn’t looking, because as if to answer his question the heavy metal curtains that were giving us some privacy were swept aside by an elf with a tray filled with food and drinks.

  I was flipping through an eBook on the schematics for these brothel androids, hoping I’d find something I missed the first time I read it now that they were right in front of me. Because of that, I didn’t even look as I tried to grab a beer. I didn’t even really want one, but if it would keep Dean quiet I’d chug one down.

  Only when I reached up, I didn’t feel a cold, mechanical hand. Instead it was warm and made of smooth skin.

  ***

  I jerked my hand back in surprise. Usually they just sent in an automated trolley. That was the standard for most restaurants. Wow, she was pretty. Beautiful. Bright green hair combined with piercing eyes that seemed to analyze my very existence and breaking me down into my component pieces. Before now, if somebody had asked me what my ‘type’ was, I’d have given a generic answer and something about big boobs.

  On this girl-elf-android though all these features that in most cases would just be considered average all seemed to work so well.

  “S-sorry.” I muttered, cursing myself for stuttering. Damn it, I wasn’t a pubescent teenager. In the background I noticed Dean giving Erula a fist bump.

  “You… you take drink?” the elf said in broken English.

  “Sure.” I said as I reached up towards the tray in the green-haired elf’s hand, but instead of handing it to me she turned and distributed the drinks to the others, placing one glass in Erula’s hands, who handed the drink off to Yonda who could then feed it to Dean in between nachos. She placed the second on the floor, somewhere near where Sam was getting smothered by the purple-haired elf on top of him.

  She took the final glass herself and discarded the tray on the floor before clumsily plopping into my lap.

  “Here… you drink.” The elf pushed the glass to my lips, her hands seeming to tremble. I coughed up some of the beer because she poured it into my mouth too quickly.

  “I’ll do it.” I said, taking the glass from her hand and setting it on the table. I could feed myself, unlike Dean. He was lying down with his eyes closed on Erula’s breasts as Yonda fed nachos into his mouth, massaging his jaw each time so he wouldn’t have to chew by hand. I shook my head as she washed each chip down with a splash of beer.

  “Oh, let me clean.” The green haired elf said, rubbing at my shirt and face which I’d just coughed up beer all over.

  I tried to just wipe it away with my sleeve, but the elf pushed my hand away with ease. I tried to resist for a moment, but damn, these things were strong. A casual motion like that felt like it had the weight of a car behind it. Talk about overkill on the servos.

  After trying to smear the alcohol away with her hand, the elf looked around for a rag. She found none, and when she didn’t find one she took off her shirt.

  Dean, with his supernatural sexual senses, cracked open one eye.

  “All right then, we’ve moved on to this part of the night already. Come Yonda, Erula. Let’s leave this booth to Theo and go somewhere else. Hey purple hair! Haul Sammy there over with us.”

  Dean took off quickly, and Sam‘s off as well. Soon enough, it was just me and the green haired elf.

  “So… uh… what’s your name?” Yonda and Erula both had names. No reason why this bot shouldn’t.

  “Savatania.” The green-haired elf responded. Her English was clumsy still, but seemed to improve with every word. “Means, ‘to be born from the flowing river’ in elvish.”

  “Fancy name. I’m just Theodore Waltz.”

  “Yes yes. They tell me you are Theo.”

  “I guess they’ve already got me on record.” I said with a shrug as Savatania tried to figure out my jacket. She was plucking at the zipper for my jacket like it was some dangerous snake. It seemed like she was trying to unzip them but didn’t know how.

  I checked the corner where Mac was still sitting, doing his best impression of an inanimate object. It wasn’t too hard for him, considering he had a hundred other bodies. He could just power this one down and do stuff somewhere else. He sure made it seem like it was a hard task though with all his complaints.

  After watching her struggle for half a minute, I ended up undoing the zipper myself. Seeing I was handling my own clothes, the elf threw her rough spun cotton tunic off with gusto. Honestly, she seemed way more excited than me about this. She ripped her leaf-patterned pants off with similar enthusiasm.

  When we had both stripped, she leaned into me in a way that pressed as much of her warm flesh against mine as possible. Like most of the elves in this place, she was only modestly endowed, but her slim form made what assets she had work overtime.

  I tried to loom over her, but it looked like she wanted me to lay back and enjoy her attentions. She swept the coffee table clear and I allowed her to push me down onto it, where she lifted one leg and straddled my waist.

  Savatania was now only wearing a thin strip of cotton that served as her underwear, and she slipped it off. In doing so, she exposed a neatly trimmed, gloriously beautiful pussy, with just a thin line of green stubble above it.

  Her form was lithe and erotic
in a way no human could match. Skin glistened in the light overhead without the shine of oil. There was a shine to her that I’d almost place as supernatural in origin, were I not a man of science.

  She ground her crotch against my stomach as her lips came down to meet mine. Blood flowed to my nether regions as she lit a fire in my loins.

  After a glorious minute of this, Savatania stood again, reaching behind her while maintaining my gaze, she felt around for my cock, which stood ridged and pulsed in her hand.

  She gave it a few quick pumps in such a way that I was certain her skill in these matters was more instinctual that born from experience. With no further foreplay, she guided my member into her wet pussy and mounted me.

  There was an intense warmness to her, and her muscles clenched down on my cock with a firmness I wouldn’t have thought possible, like her pussy was trying to suck my whole body up into it.

  My erection grew harder and harder as she rode me. Up and down, up and down. Until the two of us came simultaneously.

  For me, there was a rush of pleasure, followed by that strange sensation of my senses coming back to me after being in the throes of passion.

  By her reaction, her orgasm was orders of magnitude more powerful than mine. Her whole body shook, and her hands gripped my forearms so feared I was afraid my bones might shatter.

  I twisted to free myself from under her. She was half my size but felt like she was double my weight. I guided her backward towards the love seat that was actually my robot friend. Savatania followed blindly, her eyes still filled with bliss as I lay her against the love seat.

  Now was as good a time as any. “Mac…” I whispered, and my longtime friend came to life with a groan. From the hole in his disguise where I had attached the nanobot probe, a long, pointed needle shot out, poking directly into my lovers exposed ass. At the same time, he scooted back all the way to the opposite corner of the room and stood up, desperately trying to dust off the seat cushion attached to his stomach.

  If she had been a human, she wouldn’t have even noticed the sting. The needle was one of those painless medical varieties modeled after a mosquito nose and was coated from head to stem in quick acting numbing agents.

  “Back! Mimic attack!” Savatania yelled as she pushed me away from the perceived danger. Before Mac could retract the injection device the elf moved with supernatural quickness, snapping through the steel arm that attached the needle apparatus to Mac.

  Then she grabbed the coffee table, an object that was twice her size, and used it to swat Mac’s heavy form across the room like it was tennis racket.

  “Wait!” I shouted, trying to stop her before she caused any permanent damage. “That’s just Mac.”

  I came clean. I’d injected her with nanobots so I could see what she was made of. By the look in her eyes, she seemed betrayed, though she didn’t seem to know what nanobots were.

  “The mimic is your servant?” Savatania asked with a strange look of confusion on her face.

  “Contracted employee.” Mac corrected.“ Hired as a sanitation worker, ostensibly. Though my employer’s definition of cleaning services is very loose.”

  “Yes, he’s my servant. Look, I’ll have Mac put up the results of the nanobots. You can look too. This will show us what you look like from the inside.”

  Savatania frowned. “Why do you need to look inside me? You already can feel?”

  “Curiosity.” I answered with a shrug. “Mac, display the live feed from the sensors.” Sharing the fact that I was trying to figure out how she worked might get me in trouble with the owner of the place, but I’d decided I didn’t care about that any more. If the elf was human enough that it could fool me into thinking it was a living, thinking being, I’d treat it like a living, thinking being.

  “Okay, but I want those brand-new servos as soon as we get back. I’m detecting several of mine have taken heavy damage from your angry elf lover.”

  Even as the AI complained, a huge 3D model appeared in the center of the room via augmented reality.

  “This is the live feed from the nanobots.” I said, gesturing at the 3D model.

  The green-haired elf frowned. “I see nothing.”

  Huh? Oh, she must not have been equipped with something equivalent to my implant. “Mac, fire up your projector.”

  A lower-res version of the model I had just been looking at replaced the one made my implant. Actual 3D projections weren’t nearly as good as what an implant could make, but this time Savatania could actually see what was going on.

  “This here is the data being fed to Mac in real time. As you can see here… wait, is this right Mac?”

  “This model best fits the data being sent by the nanobots. It’s as good an approximation I can get of a messy organic form.” Mac replied dryly.

  “But this can’t be right…” There wasn’t a trace of the silicon and wires I’d expected from an android. Even one that had a layer of living cells on top would have some trace of synthetic infrastructure.

  I blinked at the elf in astonishment. “Y-you’re alive!?” I said in surprise.

  Savatania gave me an unamused expression.

  “That would be my analysis as well, Theo. She appears to be fully biological in nature. Not even a sign of implants or augments.” Mac answered.

  I took a deeper look at the readings Mac was feeding out to me. “The organ structure is different. Hell, I don’t recognize half these things! Some of these are blood vessels, but what are these other channels for?

  I looked where the heart should be and saw something that might have been a heart, but it was more circular and pulsating with a strange life. The nanobots biochemical readings were having trouble finding recognizable hormones in the body…

  “You… are you, some sort of alien?” I asked carefully, turning to face Savatania with more than a little apprehension.

  “I suppose that’s close enough to the truth.” A deep male voice proclaimed. Savatania had vanished, and in her place was a middle-aged man with tanned skin and a head shaved so smooth it shined. He was wearing an old-fashioned business suit without a tie and the top three buttons undone as he lounged casually.

  First elves, then aliens, and then magical bald men. I’d had just about all I could take today. I turned to Mac, but the light in his eyes had gone dim and he slumped against the wall, deactivated.

  “You’re confused. Just sit down and let me explain before you ask questions.” Baldy said as he waved a finger. I blinked and suddenly I was in a seated position. I tried to open my mouth but couldn’t.

  “You’re the first one to solve this little puzzle of mine since I came to this world. Really, I set up a building and fill it with elves, creatures from your world’s own myths and legends, and nobody seems to bat an eye. Originally, I’d planned on having a whole set of challenges to discover the secrets of this place, but I’m running out of time.”

  “So, long story short, your skeptical nature has earned you the right to fill my old position, as I move on to bigger and better things.”

  Baldy closed his empty hand into a fist. When he opened it again, there was a brass pocket watch attached to a plain piece of string. From the way Baldy gently stroked the device, I got the impression that the piece of eighteenth-century tech was more than it appeared.

  “This is yours now.” Baldy said, a note of sadness in his voice. “It’s served me well for countless years, but I’ve long since outgrown it.”

  Suddenly, the brass pocket watch appeared in my own hand, as if it had been teleported there. As far as I knew, nobody had yet cracked the science needed for teleportation. Which meant Baldy was either some sort of super-advanced alien, or a wizard. I got the distinct feeling that I could describe him as either.

  “I’ve set the minute hand to point towards my old ship. Consider it the ‘secret exit’ from this place. I’d head there immediately if you want to live. We’ve got about fifteen seconds left. Questions?”r />
  Suddenly I felt whatever force it was that kept me from talking disperse. The first words out of my mouth were “What the hell is going on? Mac! You there?”

  Baldy nodded his head. “A good question, but one that requires a lengthy answer. You’re a smart guy Theo. Not as smart as me, but I think you’ll figure it out on your own. As for your mechanical friend, I simply flipped him off for the time being. He seems to have a terrible habit of posting everything to social media. Too bad you wasted your one question. Remember, follow the minute hand if you want to live! Now, this building will explode in three… two… one...”

  A massive crashing sound rocked the building back and forth. The curtain was thrown aside and Dean stumbled in, shirtless and struggling to button his pants. Yonda and Erula took up defensive positions behind him, and Sam was not far behind.

  “We need to leave, now!” Dean shouted.

  “What’s going on?”

  “The Society for Human Sovereignty” Mac answered. “I am reviewing live footage being broadcast across several social media platforms. They appear to have surrounded the building.”

  “Why the hell would they attack a brothel of all places?”

  “Who the hell knows? They’re terrorists, you think they’re sa—”

  Dean was interrupted by all of the lights suddenly shorting out. I felt a crackling sound as my implant fried itself inside my head.

  “Damn. EMP blast.” Sam said, clutching the back of his head. “There goes next week’s pay.”

  “You won’t have to worry about next week if we don’t hustle to and find a back exit. The SHS don’t spare human collaborators.” Dean answered.

  Suddenly, a voice amplifier blared to life. “THIS FACILITY OF SIN IS GUILTY OF UNDERMINING THE SACRED UNION BETWEEN HUMANS. THE MACHINES ARE SERVANTS, NOT LOVERS.”

  “Based on my analysis of the live video feeds, this entire area has been surrounded. I cannot identify a safe exit.” Mac said solemnly.

  “I know of a secret exit.” I said, turning around to look for the bald man, but as I expected he had vanished. I popped open the brass pocket watch. The minute hand waved slightly with my movements, pointing forward and to my right. I watched it, but the course held true.