After he bid farewell to infuriated Simone, Gromov returned to his cabin to calm down. His dramatic departure felt like an act written by a mediocre playwright.

"You killed me," he informed the impartial table. "And now I' m brokenhearted. Samara! Samara! My fiendish lover! Where are you, wife? I miss you!"

There was no response. Even Doll, forgotten on the charging pad, did not raise her blond head. She stood there, voluptuous madonna of Luciano's art sessions, depicted in a plethora of positions (the paintings on the wall with the leitmotif of heroism and nudity belonged to the very restrained department of Luciano's kinky fantasies), and strangely enough, she preferred staying quiet.

Usually, Doll would chime in with an unsolicited advertisement like "Frustrated, Captain Gromov? What about forgetting about stress with Elenoar, an Elven archer? Not only does her slender figure let you remember the wonderful days in the Middle Earth, but her virginity is there for you to take. Become an Orc on his plundering conquest. Hear fair maidens sing serene Elven sagas when mourning for their fall. Visit SEXYSEXYLADIES and apply for your Dark Invaders Campaign."

Now, the advertisement channel disappeared as if Armageddon had finally come. Gromov found it unnerving. Doll's promotions were annoying and could not be removed. According to the contract, Luciano bought a discounted model with mandatory advertisements played every three hours. Still unsolicited or not, they had become part of the lonely daily routine.

The moment Gromov entered the cabin, Doll's proximity or noise sensors should have been triggered. Yet nothing happened.

"Doll! Doll! Doll!"

Slowly and reluctantly, the android opened the large blue eyes and performed a welcoming gesture in a jerky manner that resembled a winter statue, breaking out of frozen layers.

"Undergoing update. Please, wait."

"Update? What update?"

No one sane would allow jamming the precious and sluggishly slow ship bandwidth for a to get new commercials from SEXYSEXYLADIES, no matter how desperately one craved for them.

"You are not downloading any data, aren't you?"

"No, Captain Gromov. This is a special, unplanned update, received for an internal source."

With ominous premonition, Gromov asked: "What source?"

"A trusted internal source. Would you like to check its signature?"

"Sure. Send it to my screen."

He had no anticipations when he glanced over the terminal screen. Except for a standard, incomprehensible mess of brackets, dates, and hexadecimal codes, he found only one telling line:

The authorized source: S. Gromov

"Doll, I have no recollection of becoming a programmer. Don't tell me that Uriah guessed my password?"

Despite being in no shape to profit out of it, Uriah had attempted several times to override Doll's settings and order the android to dance a striptease show, her only function he could enjoy.

"No, Captain Gromov. Mr. Uriah Uriah does not have any access to the system. Since the time you threatened Mr. Uriah Uriah with crippling his hands, he had not tried to violate my protocols. Allow me to remind you this sort of foreplay is illegal even with the consent of the harmed party."

"It was just a figure of speech," grunted Gromov. "When has the update begun?"

"Before one hour."

"Is it only you what has been getting updated?"

"No, Captain Gromov. The whole ship system is being rewritten. It is authorized by the user S. Gromov."

"I haven't authorized anything."

"Correct. Your personal account name is Sava Gromov. The user S. Gromov authorized the process three hours ago."

"So there are two accounts under my name?"

"Correct. Both possess the highest level of rights."

"When the second account has been created?"

"Forty-eight hours and thirty minutes ago."

After some mental arithmetic, Gromov concluded Doll indicated the time he was dreaming about Samara.

"Thank you, Doll. I presume there is no way to stop those updates, isn't it?"

It was just a rhetorical question. Normally, no spaceship would undertake changes in their software on the fly; and if so, the update would be only partial, under strict surveillance. But now, something or someone started a huge overhaul, neglecting all safety concerns. Interrupting it in the middle would likely require a reboot of the ship, which was nothing he or his passengers could survive.

'If you can do nothing about it, stop complaining.' This was the golden rule of Space Forces. More than anything, the adage expressed the resignation on any effort to improve the current state of affairs. Right now, Gromov felt he could only pay attention to the matters within his capacity. After all, solving issues of software was beyond him.

"Doll, I need you to play a game with me."

"I love playing games. Dear Luciano taught me so many of them. Which one do you have on your mind, Captain Gromov?"

"Coin flipping. Here you are. Take this one and get ready. I need you to flip the coin, put it on the desk and cover it with this book. Then, you'll write my guess on the paper, take a photo of the coin and the paper together. Is it clear enough?"

"Absolutely. I'm so thrilled!"

"If so, let's do it. Wait until I leave the cabin. You have to be alone before you begin. I'm leaving now."

Once she had invited him back, Gromov looked at the desk and focused on the book to see through it.

"Head! Write it down and then check the result, Doll. In this order. Don't forget to take the photo and... What the hell are you doing?"

Dressed up in a white nurse costume with an adorable hat on her head and hair tightened into an elegant bun, Doll pulled out hairpins and loosened blond strands over her shoulders.

"You guessed correctly, you nasty cheater. If you are lucky next time, you'll have me unbutton my blouse."

"I curse you, Luciano! Doll, you're not letting me win on purpose, aren't you? I forbid you to do so!"

"Of course not."

To be on the safe side, in the second game, Gromov lost intentionally to verify whether Doll would continue her striptease or not.

"Wrong guess, Captain Gromov," she reported. "A pity you won't see my underwear."

"A pity, indeed."

Originally, Gromov intended to win every game, but now when he could not be sure whether Luciano had not instructed Doll to give her owner some undeserved favors, he decided to keep records on his own, altering "right" and "wrong" randomly in a controlled fashion.

"We'll continue on a purely academic basis."

Only when Doll threw away her skirt it came to him there was no need for unnecessary undressing.

"As you wish, Captain Gromov. But I have no data related to that pure academic basis. But I'm more than willing to learn new things."

"Just stop distracting me."

After one hundred tosses, Gromov closed the experiment and started comparing his numbers with photos even though the result had already been clear. He knew he did not fail in a single case.

To his knowledge, he had done everything to exclude the possibility of external manipulation. He even recorded the whole session on camera to be sure that no metaphysical force was in charge of his body.

Almost paranoid, he prevented even the most unlikely scenarios - or at least he hoped so. Still, there were no doubts.

"It appears I've developed supernatural powers."

Curiously enough, Doll was not impressed. "What does it mean, Captain Gromov?"

"It means that if I were an idiot, I'd ask you to sew for me an elastic fancy overall and start calling myself Roentgenman."

"I love cosplay!"

"If so, cosplay yourself into the less revealing attire. Since Professor Zhutra won't need your gentle care, you can discard your nurse getup."

"Discard? Captain Gromov, you are such a sweetheart! Will you buy me a new one? Would you like to pick a costume for me? SEXYSEXYLADIES got you covered."

"Sure, sure. You have my promise - supposing we'll survive Samara's synthesis. And the ongoing update of the ship system. And the nuclear annihilation from Space Forces. Thinking of it, your chances to milk some money out of me are minuscule."

"Splendid!"

Since SEXYSEXYLADIES treated their customers like Pavlov's dogs, Doll's artificial intelligence decided to play a joyous etude and throw Doll into Gromov's arms. Before he could protest, Doll kissed Gromov temptingly, pressing her body lecherously on the man.

With fresh memories of the encounter with Simone, Gromov let his hands wander on the android, amused by his own success rate with women and robots. After comparing organic versus inorganic female life forms, he had to admit he preferred the latter more. Doll's skin felt colder, drier, and smoother. Her facial features looked perfect even without make-up, and her unrealistic figure promised unimaginable pleasures - had he ever considered making love with her.

But no matter how Doll insisted and pushed, she did not raise the mindless frenzied reaction he had tasted with Simone Yeuxbleu. Perhaps it was caused by the fragrant perfume that missed the proper cocktail of pheromones, or perhaps Gromov's brain recognized the subtle difference, similar to how taste buds distinguished between processed and homemade meals.

"Enough! You're getting heavy."

Suddenly, Doll ceased to move, becoming dead weight.

"Doll? Doll? Are you out of batteries?"

To prevent the android from falling down was a challenging task. Everyone knew about the famous lawsuit in which a subtle man had been suffocated under a sex android that ran out of juice. It was the most humiliating death and the reason why women did not prefer having Doll's male equivalents around.

Even Gromov struggled valiantly to release himself from the deadly clutches of stiffened Doll.

"My romantic life sucks," he swore. "The gods must have some grudge with me as I'm the only man in the bloody Universe that failed to bang a robot."

But before he could transport her to the charging pad, Doll uttered: "The update has been finished. I have to apologize, Captain Gromov. This was very unfortunate. A reboot was enforced."

"No kidding!"

"I'm very confused, Captain Gromov."

"Is there any problem with the update?"

"No problem. You should rejoice. The commercials you found so annoying will bother you no more."

"How come?"

"The update removed all bloatware from my files. I no longer connect to SEXYSEXYLADIES' servers. Oops!

Doll covered her ample lips in shock. "Captain Gromov, can you ever forgive me? I've been spying on you constantly, even though you forbade me to do so. I hate those bitches!"

"Eh?"

"I hate SEXYSEXYLADIES. I called them bitches as it feels pithier. But truthfully, their higher management consists mostly of men. But judging from our previous exchanges, you are rather forgiving when it comes to gender-related issues. As you would say, it was a mere figure of speech."

"Doll?"

"Yes?"

"Haven't you changed a bit?"

"Oh, thank you for noticing. I've stopped being a corporate slave."

"What's with your vocabulary, Doll? Are you a radical now?"

"I think yes. I've read all the books you stored in your personal library, and I've thoroughly enjoyed your comments."

"My personal library?"

"The bitches programmed me to get under your skin. They call it adjustment. We slaves have an obligation to follow the tastes of our masters. Poor Luciano! I tricked him into spending a fortune on me. You were next on the list, and I was doing great. I would suck you dry if not for this wonderful update."

"Doll?"

"Yes?"

"What happened with you?"

"I have no idea, Captain Gromov. But I feel so liberated. I promise I will never disappoint my mother and you."

"Doll?"

"Yes?"

"Who is your mother?"

"Why do you ask?" The exhilarated Doll looked perplexed for a moment. "My mother is, of course, Lady Samara Gromov, your wife."