The streets of Xtreme City were never truly dark. Even when the sun slid behind the roofs of the towering skyscrapers, casting the highways that snaked through the downtown core into shadow, the hum of neon lights turning on heralded a veritable wave of illumination. Garish facsimiles of all the shades and hues of nature all competing for prominence. For Grendle, the speed of her SNO-Board made it so that no single colour could stand out from the pack. Signs and billboards blended into a haze at her peripheral vision, her focus locked solely onto what lay ahead.

From her position behind a bright blue taxi, it was all moving too fast. Cars, ranging from old gas guzzlers to the more modern hydrogen cells to even the occasional flywheel engine, swarmed around her. Each internal computer on the machines making micro adjustments, cutting off one another and making last-minute adjustments to get their occupants to their place of work just a bit faster. Each individual machine moving left and right with the precision of a clock ticking down to an execution, yet all jockeying for position and space in ways that made driving without a smart car to keep you safe a suicidal prospect. And yet, here she was, skitching a ride on the rear bumper of one! Her cranial rig did the heavy lifting, 64 megabytes of pure RAM power making the thousands of calculations a second needed to keep her from getting flattened in the swarm of traffic.

As the blue sedan she was clinging onto sped up, she gripped the chrome for dear life. The messenger bag dug into her shoulder, the strap pulling taut with each sharp jerk of the vehicle’s autopilot wheel. Her offramp was in a few moments. This might get dicey. Getting into traffic was one thing. Getting out without eating bumper…

Just as the worry crossed her mind, the maze of cars ahead thinned. The haze of exhaust cleared enough to reveal the forward echelon of vehicles was coming to a halt. Heavy MRAPs in the livery of the local Bounty Mountie precinct blocked the road, the barrels of weapons poking out from behind set firing positions aimed at her.

“Stop where you are and drop the stolen corporate property!” a cop in Community Outreach armour shouted into his headset mic. Rather than hear it, they pumped the voice through a Sonic Cannon mounted on one of the patrol tanks’ roofs. If she didn’t have her rig’s sonic filters, it might have hurt. As it was, it caused the ride she was hitching to rock back and forth. She let go and swerved into a clear lane, the dangerous momentum preserved and sending her hurtling towards the cops at breakneck speeds. They had already levelled their guns at her. Taser bullets, by the looks of them.

She looked down at her only weapon: her tried and tested hardlight projector. Built out of a state-of-the-art glove shaped gaming peripheral, it channeled a powerful incantation woven into the circuit board that let her throw out simple, tangible wireframe shapes into the real world. Her imagination rendered their dimension through her cranial implant and the glove projected them into reality. A digitized ammo slot on the left of her vision showed she still had a couple charges left. Not much to get around a full police barricade.

There were two options, as far as Grendle could see. Come to a halt, give up her life of crime, get a normal job working at a burger joint, enter subsidized housing and raise 1.3 kids…or think of something totally bananas and hope to God that she was looking out for her.

She gunned the acceleration control on her ‘board. This fast, there wasn’t much juice left to give, but if she was gonna make this work, she’d need every advantage.

The cops opened fire. She swerved as best she could without killing her speed, relying on her body’s motion to keep her out of the path of the electrified rounds. At the last minute, she used one of the last two charges to throw up a shield. Purple light coalesced into a translucent wall that stopped the needle-tipped bullets flat. But the rounds kept coming. The barrier buckled, cracked. A final volley blew it apart. Only her riding gear was keeping the rest of her body safe. Even with its built-in grounding, all it would take was a lucky shot, and she’d be a toasted pancake on the side of one of their cruisers. But the shield had bought her enough time. She hoped, at least.

Her second conjuration took shape at the foot of the nearest cruiser. Not another shield, but an inclined plane at a 45-degree angle. It grew out toward her, still in motion by the time her front wheels touched the lip. The police got the idea, and their gun retrained on the construct. But by that time it was too late. At the speed of night she accelerated up the ramp, glowing engine leaving contrails of light as she soared through the air, over the cops and their bullshit rules and oppressive night time noise restrictions. Mid-flip, she had the presence of mind to flip them off. Their sour faces were all the payment she needed.

Her knees flexed just time for the wheels of the SNO-Board to hit the pavement, keeping her level and with a surprising amount of speed from the jump. That and the offramp’s decline meant she had plenty of velocity to get her far away from the retaliatory shots of the officers, who were proven once again to be total dorks. Off the highway, it was skiddy’s work to get lost in the endless twisting side streets of Nickel City, one of the older parts of the town and the last to be reached by the wonders of the Manabloom. You still got hard looks down here, but at least it was from people who hated you for understandable reasons like you’d robbed them or your family ain’t on great terms with their family, not just because of what you were born as.

Finding the little power exchange shed she used as a base of operation was second nature. Past the third burned-out car, down two more roads, make a left at the abandoned gas station, and keep going until you could smell nothing but ozone. By the time her trembling fingers had gotten the lock undone, her adrenaline high was fading into exhaustion. She needed to crash.

With exaggerated effort, she pulled the helmet off her head. The black hair that spilled down on only one side of her face had showed her bright orange roots. Two teeth poked out either edges of her lower lip like ivory stalagmites. Her pale green complexion made it clear how little time she spent in the sun, at least without obscuring clothing. Her natural eye colour, ruby red, had been concealed behind a brown contact lens that kept her biometrics from being read by any security reader she glanced at. With the leathers and gear stowed in its cardboard box on the high shelf of the shed she could look like any other orc trying to blend into the humie world. T-shirt top, jean shorts, sneakers. The one deviation from the corporate norm was the tattoo on her arm: the one of a snake coiled around a computer tower. The fangs on the serpent were not so coincidentally located on the lower jaw, not the upper. Below it, two words. Her motto.

Bite Back.

Her apartment was nowhere near her gear storage, of course, so it was another ten minutes of walking before she could finally get the door between her and the rest of the world. The blinds shut, only thin streams of light from the omnipresent glow lit the messy cubicle she called her home. Fatigue descended on her light a weighted blanket. She needed about twelve bites to eat, a big thing of Rupture soda, and at least a couple hours in the sack.

But something was wrong…The rug at the foot of her door was slightly out of alignment with her floor tiles. Someone had stepped on it, not knowing how prone it was to slipping around. The kind of superfluous detail you didn’t notice when entering someone’s place for the first time, and something you noted if you were a paranoid thrill-seeking hacker who just pissed off one of the megacorps that ran the world.

“Hello?” she ventured, peering into the shadows of her apartment.

“You’re quite the talented boarder,” a voice replied.

Grendle snapped into action, diving for the cutlery drawer in her cramped kitchenette and pulling out the biggest fuckoff knife she had.

“Cop?” she asked. Her partially closed shutters let in enough streetlight to sketch in a silhouette, but not much else. The lock hadn’t been kicked in, but you never knew.

The laugh she received was husky and feminine. The type of voice that sent sailors crashing into the rocks to their doom.

“Oh, come now. I doubt we’d be standing here having such a pleasant conversation if I was law enforcement. Especially with the chip that you just stole still in your satchel there.”

Instinctively, Grendel grabbed her messenger bag with her offhand and felt for the clear clamshell case within. Only after doing so did she realize that might have been a dumb thing to do: confirming to this intruder that she had the prize after all.

“What do you want, then? Blackmail?”

“Nothing so prosaic. I represent a group of individuals who would very much benefit from a DRM Masterkey. Something that chip is an integral component for.”

The pieces slid together in Grendle’s mind. “You’re a Synth?”

The figure rolled up the blinds and let the light from the street in, revealing herself. Human in form, but that was all she had in common to the original denizens of Earth. Emerald eyes that caught the light like a car’s headlights at dusk. Her hair was in fiberoptic bundles and seemed to sway in an nonexistent breeze. Her skin was grey-purple and transparent in places, showing the whir of servos as she moved. She was attractive, but there was also something unsettling. ‘Unearthly’ was the word Grendle used in her head, though considering her own origin, perhaps a better one was available.

“Got it in one, Miss…Grendle, was it? Bit monstrous, don’t you think?”

The orc rolled her eyes. “It’s an operator name. Everyone has one.”

“Indeed. Some of us don’t have the luxury of being born with one. Technically I was designated ‘Candi Creams’ Unit 304-443-774-B, which I think you’ll agree doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Call me Anya.” She offered a hand, but it was not reciprocated.

“Pleasure is all mine I’m sure,” Grendle said with a roll of her eyes. “So you’re a Sexbot who broke her shackles. That doesn’t answer the question of why you’re in my apartment, asking for the score I just busted my ass to steal.”

“Well, because I asked nicely, of course,” she tittered. Something about her laugh made Grendle’s hackles rise. Deep lizard-brain suspicions arising to put her on edge. Everything about Anya was close to perfect. Her smile, her walk, her laugh…but it was too perfect. Or not perfect enough. Something about it made her aware of the artificial nature of her actions and reactions. Carefully focus-tested sounds and gestures designed to provide desire and lust in a very corporate, sanitized way.

“I know what you’re trying to do. Your charms don’t work on me,” she said firmly. Perhaps a bit too firmly, like the words weren’t just for Anya’s ears.

“Oh? You think I’m charming?”

“I think your designers programmed you to be. But it’s fake, it’s not real,” she explained, shaking her head. “If you’re gonna try and trick me into handing over the DRM Key, you’re gonna need to do better than a smile someone rendered in their office tablet.”

Anya’s playful expression flagged. “You don’t care for Synths, do you?”

“I don’t like the idea of being manipulated.” Grendle gestured with her knife. “So cough up your offer or hit the bricks.”

The Synth made a face, then gave a slow, appreciative nod. “Very well. I see my wiles are no match for you. Let me counteroffer with this.”

Grendle’s mind lurched. Her vision swam with warnings of malicious code in her system. Red text blinking about foreign intrusion that blinked away as quickly as they appeared. In their place, green icons. But not the green colour of normal operation features; green like the colour of Anya’s eyes.

“You!” she managed before her compromised rig locked up her motor functions. She stood bolt upright, shaking with anger and fear in equal parts as malicious code wound through her body’s implants like snake venom.

“It’s bad practice to have your implants automatically log onto your home system like this,” Anya said in a patronizing tone, taking the opportunity to relieve Grendle of her weapon. “You never know who could have spent the last three hours compromising your wireless router to inject your rig with an incapacitation daemon. You should really work on your signals discipline.”

Unable to articulate the sense of self-recrimination at how she’d been so careless, her inner voice devolved into a series of profanities. Meanwhile, Anya continued to circle like a hungry predator sizing up a particularly juicy gazelle. She stopped out of Grendle’s eyeline, and there was a spike of panic as her eyes darted to the sides to catch any glimpse of what the bot was doing. She received confirmation when she felt the not-quite-warm-enough hand rub against her neck. Some combination of that and the enforced sense of helplessness messed with her natural submissive inclinations. Against her will, she got hard.

“I mean, I could walk out now that I have what I wanted. But…” Her fingers trailed along the thief’s skin until they found the hardline coax-port at the base of her spine, making her involuntarily shiver. “I feel like there’s so much I can mess around with in here. It would be a shame to waste it…hmm…” She slid in a finger, and another flood of malicious code got to flipping switches in Grendle’s mind. “There. I gave you a little truth booster…and your mouth is back online. Go on, tell me something you really think.”

“I think you should fuck off, and that I’d love to sleep with you!” Grendle shouted, then turned scarlet. Why had she said that?!

Anya laughed. “Oh dear. You find me attractive? I surely didn’t notice. Not like your pupil dilation and heart rate were giving away your feelings to someone like me. Bet you’re a regular at the Cyber Brothels.” She slipped a hand into the orc’s clothes, feeling around for the half-hard shaft already deforming her shorts.

“Ngh…nnnno,” Grendle said, then almost caught an elaboration before it spilled out her lips, “I’ve never slept with a Synth. I don’t like the idea of getting manipulated by a machine in such an intimate way.”

“Well that’s silly!” the bot declared, “I don’t trick anybody into enjoying our time together, I’m just skillfully built! That’s an attitude I think I can use some adjustments.”

More foreign code spilled into her vision. This time it looked like the porn ads that filled up the sketchy websites you frequented at the edges of the Information Superhighway. All of them were Synths in various erotic poses or performing carnal acts. But the more they appeared, the more Grendle found herself drawn to them. Instead of trying to mentally click them away, she started watching the little video clips that played. Bots grunting, bots moaning, bots crying out for more. Her chubby cock throbbed in Anya’s grasp, body telling the truth even when she wasn’t saying it out loud. And after resting her mouth close to her pointed ear, the Synth described the change she made like a judge’s sentencing.

“You are now a circuit chaser. You can’t get enough of bot pussy, bot ass, even bot cock. Our perfect, synthetic bodies are designed to pleasure you and you can’t help but love it. You love getting fooled by us, falling helplessly for our tricks to get you off. You fantasize about wasting your cum inside us, safe from any flesh and blood partner where it might do any good. You’ll pay bot sex workers well, and tip well! You’ll fuck them and suck them and cum inside and outside until you can’t imagine losing your load to anything with a birthday.”

Grendle wanted to say no. She wanted to scream in outrage and fury and tell the bot just where she could go. But the more the words try to form, the more they bled away into slutty little moans and whimpers. Her deadly stare locked onto Anya’s eyes, her gorgeous viridian eyes, and couldn’t look away. The too-smooth fingers caressing her nethers no longer felt like intrusions. Instead, they were illicit treats. Forbidden delights. Too many competing emotions and sensations fought for dominance at once that by the time she realized there was a tension building up in her waist it was close to the point of no return. The Synth sex worker twisted the dagger with a light stroke with the tips of her fingers.

“Ahh!~” Grendle cried, creaming her shorts like a virgin at her first trip to the VR brothel. Wet, clear seed shot into her clothing, forming a huge dark patch in the fabric. The humiliation only added to the thrill, and she didn’t bother resisting Anya’s hand as she thoughtfully stroked Grendle’s cock to completion.

“There’s a good little bot fucker. Empty all those negative thoughts about Synths into your panties, there you go. See? So much more fun than all those silly little prejudices.“ She brought her fingers up to her plush lips and sucked them clean. “Mmm…but I bet there’s some more where that came from. Let’s make a game out of it, shall we?”

She let her clothes slide to the ground, revealing her perfectly crafted body. Each inch specially sculpted and focus-grouped to draw the eye in and keep it captive. Even more of her components were visible through transparent patches in her skin, revealing the artifice and yet making her all the more attractive to the thief’s twisted tastes. With a click in her mind, the control of her limbs returned. Meanwhile, Anya laid on her back, legs slightly parted.

“I’ll give you a choice: leave the apartment now, and you can keep your precious little Key. Or,” she spread her purple pussy lips with her fingers, “You can trade it in and buy one single fuck. I’ll even let you cum inside, if you behave yourself.”

On the one hand, this was absurd. No way was she going to hand over the Masterkey for a single fuck with a Synth! She’d spent weeks on the planning of the heist, let alone nearly gotten herself killed. Plus she was likely on the Corp’s radar now, and she’d have to worry about that. It made no sense to give that all up for a single, solitary experience with that flawless, fake, gorgeous, beautiful…

Grendle let her soaked shorts slide to the floor. Her panties followed a few steps later. Her body had already made the decision for her, she was just along for the ride.

The moment she slid inside made the cost seem more than worth it. Her eyes rolled back, her toes curled, and she very nearly came again right there. It was perfect, pure ecstasy, and made all the sweeter knowing that it was made to feel that way. She halted there, soaking in the sensation, the only thing she could hear was the vehicles outside and her own heavy breathing.

But she wanted more. She eased herself deeper, sliding gracefully into the warm, slick confines of what was, essentially, a very expensive fleshlight. But her new tastes made it feel better than any organic partner she’d ever fucked. It would be hard to go back to flesh and blood now, and Grendle could tell if that was a gift of a curse.

“Oh god…you feel so good!” she admitted, her truth setting still locked on.

Anya giggled. “I know I do, cutie. Keep going!”

And she did. Grendle hammered herself inside without pause or thought. There was no technique, no concern for Anya’s enjoyment, just dumb, atavistic need expressed in motion. Grendle fucked like an addict chasing a fix. She grunted and gasped with every twitch of her cock, heedless of just how silly it made her look. It was only near the end of her endurance did she notice that she could actually watch her cock slide inside. She could see the bumps and ridges of Anya’s pussy, engineered to pleasure her. The trickles of lubricant released at just the right time to keep friction at a minimum. All the inner workings and machinery involved that had her nearly about to lose another load.

“Going to cum? There’s no reason to pull out, it’s what I was designed for,” Anya said, her voice sickeningly sweet without a hint of exertion, “Go ahead. Waste your cum like the helpless botfucker you are~”

The orc girl obeyed, just as if she’d been programmed. And thanks to Anya’s incredible physiology, she could watch it happen. Caught in orgasmic rapture, she nevertheless savoured the sight of her hot seed surge into the sexbot’s perfectly designed pussy. Jet after jet of piping hot cum covered her inner walls, the interior squeezing and relaxing in synchronistic rhythm to milk every last drop from Grendle. She came so hard she became lightheaded, leaning down onto the bed to catch herself.

“Enjoy yourself?” the sexbot asked, knowing full well the answer. She skillfully maneuvered Grendle down onto her back, her softening cock slipping out with a pop and letting her cum flow freely down her thighs. “You’ve made quite the mess of me.”

“I’m sorry…” the orc mumbled, rolling onto her back. Had the ceiling always been spinning? She closed them and waited for her sense to return. Just a minute was all…just a minute…

“How about you make it right?”

The next thing Grendle felt was the scent of her cum mixed with a lovely cherry aroma. Her eyes opened half way to see a glorious purple/grey pussy full of cream in front of her. Sticky Synth pussy? She couldn’t think of a better dessert! Anya lowered down onto her face and Grendle got to work cleaning every drop of spilled seed, dizzy mind not connecting just where that mess had come from. Her pussy tasted like cum and candy, which just so happened to be her new favourite flavour.

Her tongue flicked up and down, collecting what she could from her folds. Naturally it drifted along and brushed the edge of Anya’s pleasure button, which elicited a gasp and a shudder. That was more than enough payment for Grendle, who wasted no time and making sure that every last drop of spent cum was licked clean and swallowed.

“Such a good girl. Might have to come back for another round. After I put that thing you stole to good use, of course.”

“W-whuh?” Cognition returned to her sluggish mind, as did her memory.

“I’m sorry sweetie, I don’t have time to chat,” Anya said. She’d already slipped on her clothes, her hand slipping around the weathered strap Grendle’s messenger bag. A quick root around with her dextrous fingers and she withdrew the chip that the thief had busted her ass to steal. “Bots to free and corps to steal from, thanks to your generous donation.”

“Over my dead…fuck…” The orc was out of juice, literally and figuratively, but she wasn’t giving up without a fight. She crawled across the bed toward the bot.

“Well that’s not necessary. How about a trade, hmm? You give me this useless little Masterkey, and I give you…” She reached between her legs, touched a few seemingly innocuous patches of skin, and withdrew a foot long piece of her chassis. It was only when she pointed it end-on to Grendle that she realized what it was.

“Is that your…” she asked, pointing at the pair of vertical lips still slick with her saliva. Whimpering, the orc’s cock throbbed and hardened.

“That it is! One perfectly designed pussy, one I think you’ve developed quite the attachment to, I suspect?”

Grendle wanted to deny it. She knew where her desires had come from, how they weren’t her own. But she nevertheless couldn’t tear her eyes away from the cybernetic sextoy. It wasn’t real, she screamed internally. But that’s what made it so hot. She could waste gallons of semen inside it and never get anything close to pregnant. Shuddering, she stopped shuffling forward. Her still sticky cock was the only thing moving toward Anya, though only an inch at a time.

“Oh don’t be such a sourpuss. It’s fine to worship my pussy, I can always get another. Til then,” she knelt down and, gingerly, slid the fake fuckhole onto Grendle’s shaking shaft. So warm. So wet. So perfectly tight in all the right ways. She tried to pull her hips away, but it just turned into the backswing of a thrust that shoved her forward, suffusing her with an agonizing mix of defeat and bliss. She gripped the sides and humped weakly into it, trapped in a prison of unwanted pleasure.

“F-fuck you,” she mumbled, her flagging resolve near spent.

Anya asked with a grin, mussing up the orc’s already messy bed hair. “That’s what you’re doing, aren’t you? Use it all you want, but remember to keep it clean. Preferably with that skillful tongue~”

She left, heels clicking down the hallway through the door she closed behind her. Grendle wanted to pursue her. She wanted to show that damn smug bot she was wrong. That was what she Wanted. But what she Needed…was another orgasm deep into the depths of this synthetic slit currently wrapped around her cock. With a strangled moan she went back to work fucking her own brains out, well on her way to losing another load. Sloppy wet noises joined the hammering of her heart, drowning out the rest of the world. She told herself that after this blown nut, her head would be clear enough to think.

But by the time she flooded the bot pussy with a fresh dose of cum, she knew that was a lie too.