The Vespidian

Arc 10 Brooding

Chapter 9 Interlude: Desire

Vira idly looked over her room. Machines in varied stages of assembly, their glowing innards wired and woven. An antique record player situated off to the side slowly spun a vinyl record. A happy sort of sound was coming from it. A mix of old and new, well as recent as the 2020s were. It was old swing music.

"In heaven~ In heaven~ I am in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak-"the record skipped abruptly. It was old and damaged. Sure, she could easily play it from the multitude of digital sources, but it sounded different. The sounds distorted for a long moment before resuming, "off together dancing, dancing cheek to cheek."

She sighed as she tinkered away at an open Neon Nurse, repairing the fractured metal chassis. Sparks and molten plasteel molding back into shape from the unit's trauma. The synthetic skin around the breast had been chewed off. Naturally, the culprit was the wasp; everything seemed to be that damned thing's fault lately. That thing did not know the meaning of the word moderation. The four mechanical arms moved in unison, yet disjointed in that she was multitasking and performing several repairs at once.

Her optics lingered on the used and broken access port before her; it had been split down the middle from something far too significant for it to accommodate. The organic secretion still dripping from the ruined hole. Many such broken shells had been arriving as of late. The offending wasp slinked about, infesting Vira and Xava's Lair as though it were its nest. A whole section had been relegated to housing the filthy organic and, even worse, breeding more of the wasps.

Worst of all, Xava's attention was monopolized between the wasp and the current affairs of the city. The takeover of the city was proceeding smoothly despite the damage that the Hammer Strike had caused.

Vira plugged into the empty Neon Nurse, sifting through recent recordings. Images of the wasp... of Vesper appeared as that body worshiped and adored Vesper's flared, alien member. Rubbing it, licking it, relishing every moment it partook in serving the wasp. Despite most of Vira being machine at this point, she very much still had human emotions. Something that she detested, more so now than ever before.

Vira's four fists balled for a moment as she purged the data from the body blank. Cleaning it out and resetting it to base parameters. She tapped her fingers at the broken pieces mending and repairing them. She enjoyed fixing and making things, taking her mind off her troubles. Busied herself from having time to think of distracting things.

Looking it over, that unit was nearly operational again. Tinkering about within its circuitry and enclosing the head, Vira sighed again.

"Vira, how is the maintenance proceeding?" asked the formerly lifeless body before her, its eyes glowing green. Xava had commandeered it.

"Perfect, this one is mostly operational. Discretion would be appreciated. I have had to scrap ten of your bodies already. Overseer has ramped up production to replace the damaged and inoperable models."

"Good work Vira. As always, you are reliable to keep things running while I am busy."

"Thank you, Xava," Vira's face screen lit up happily with a large synthetic smile, "Oh, Xava, I would like to be rewarded."

Xava tilted her head, "Rewarded? What did you have in mind? I will see what I can do."

Vira paused for a long moment, her face screen dominated by a beating heart. She shyly spoke, "I, I was wondering if we could… Link again. I miss it. My ports crave your plugs and the exchange of code and data. I miss feeling your mind inside of mine. Filling me. Completing me."

Xava replied, "I am far too busy for that sort of thing."

"I, I know Xava, but please. I miss it. It has been so long. You are copulating with the wasp. You have time; just please spare me some."

"Vira, we are not in that sort of relationship."

"I love you Xava. Please. I will do anything you ask."

Xava's face looked at her coldly, "I never asked for that sort of love."

"You used to love me. We would spend so much time together! Our neural banks linked, and our thoughts in sync. Now you ignore me, and I have to beg for scraps of attention. Please just look at me like you used to. Love me like you used to. Don't abandon me. Don't throw me away." Vira pleaded, a sad digital frown formed.

Xava pats her on the head, "I do love you. I would never throw you away or abandon you. However, you are my creation. As such, it is not a romantic sort of love. I do not lust or long for you in that capacity."

"You used to."

"I did not."

"You did. You used to hold me and link ourselves together."

"You have misinterpreted my actions. I had told you before that was testing of equipment for the cyber brain prototypes."

"What must I do for you to love me?"

"Vira, you are being irrational. Unexpected. How very... organic of you."

"It hurts every time I see you with the wasp. It hurts. I am sorry. It hurts. I can't control it. Fix me Xava. Fix me Xava. I am ugly." Vira held her head, the digital face crying.

Xava pat her, slowly hugging her, "You are not ugly."

"I am defective."

"You are not defective."

"I can't do anything right. I am worthless."

Xava hugged her fully, "There there. You are not worthless."

"But you won't love me. You don't need me."

"Of course I need you. I trust you more than anyone else. Vesper… as much as I adore her, she could never do for me what you do. It is simply not in her capacity. She is unstable at the best of times; as such, I can't trust her with delicate and sensitive issues. Not like you, Vira. I fully trust you. Who else would I trust to repair my bodies? She doesn't even have access to the facility's systems. Only you and I do. Give me time to think about it. I have never thought about you in that sort of way. I will need time to adjust my thoughts and ask Vesper her thoughts on the matter."

"Why is it always Vesper? Why can't it be me? I have known you so much longer. I have been there with you supporting you even while you were dying. I have always been there for you, and you have always been there for me. It is all I have ever wanted."

"I love Vesper," replied Xava matter of factually.

"Don't say that." Grit Vira. "Love is just chemical reactions infesting your brain. Unlike the organic we, we are far more linked and far more compatible."

"I won't lie to make you feel good. You mean far too much to me to do that to you. Now just calm down. We will think about this together. Vesper is very open when it comes to mates. As such, I do not think she will be opposed to you. Though your body would require some modifications to handle such actions."

"I don't care about Vesper. I care about you. I love you. Not that deranged wasp. She is insane. The longer that we must deal with that filthy organic, the more that I feel it is distracting you from our purpose. I don't want anything to do with the wasp; I want you. Only YOU."

"Give me some time Vira. I have not forgotten our purpose, do not worry. Our ascension from the frailty of flesh is close at hand. We need only the cyber brain testing to be finished, and then we can begin our great work. All of humanity will be freed from our organic prisons. Lucky us, thanks to these heroes, we no longer need to hide our intentions. There are plentiful test subjects to be had. Speaking of, be sure to round up more test subjects."

"Of, of course. Anything for you."

"Good Vira. Now, was there anything else you desired?"

Vira started getting shy again, "Not that I can think of."

"Very well. I will give this some thought. Ah, I believe Spark Spray was looking for you, Vira."

"She was?"

"Yes, I will send her over."

"Thank you."

"Of course. Now I have many things to attend to. I will check in with you later. Should anything urgent arise, be sure to contact me."

"Of course."

Xava drooped, the green eyes dimming into the lifeless, dull reflections of the machine. It lay back, resuming its original position on the repair table. Vira smiled dreamily, watching the machine. "Xava loves me. Xava loves me." She whispered to herself.

“Heaven~ I am in Heaven…”

After a few minutes, Spark Spray arrived. Her translucence glowing skin throbbed with energy as she walked in. The tight black rubbery suit sculpted to her form left little to the imagination, save where the electro-receptors were. The little nodes sticking out of the armored plates on her arms, legs, and chest. Even her hair coiled up into drills, energy sparking off of it.

"Hey Vira, how are you holding up?" asked Spark Spray.

"You imply there is something wrong." Defensively replied Vira.

Spark Spray gave her an energetic hug, shaking the shorter mechanized woman. When she pulled away, little arcs of power went between the two.

"No need to be so negative. Take some positivity from me if you need it." Spark Spray smiled, giving Vira a pat on the should little arcs of current bristling between them, "I know you and Xava been on the rocks lately."

Vira got dejected, "I don't know what to do. She changed ever since she met that damned wasp. It just used to be us locked away in the lab, toiling away to make better robos; now, now she is obsessed with the organic filth we had been working so hard to purge from our bodies. It is like she has forgotten our purpose. She reassured me, but I have my doubts."

Spark Spray pat the robot woman on the back, "It will be ok. You know Xava, she gets very manic about the things she likes. She is a mad scientist, after all. Give it some time."

"I just miss it being us, nobody else. I could deal with it if it was just her researching the wasp, but no, she is in love with it, obsessed with it. Giving everything she can to appease it. She brought that damned thing into our Lair. It is infesting the place with its nasty organic filth. Don't even get me started on all those eggs everywhere. I am still scrubbing the slime out of the corridors."

"It is not that bad Vira, I mean, you can't control Xava. It is her choice what she does with her time."

"You don't understand. I have to fix the bodies that the wasp breaks. I have seen thousands of hours of wasp genitalia using Xava. It is driving me mad. I see it all the time, and it is burned into my optical sensors. It is revolting. How could it do those things to my Xava. My emotion dampener is on the fritz over this."

Spark Spray pat her apologetically, "That is a bit rough. Have you told Xava?"

Vira looked away, "Of course not to the full extent. It makes me wish I was just a machine and wouldn't feel these vile emotions. Sometimes I envy Overseer. It doesn't have to think about such things and can concentrate on its purpose."

"Hey now, you are way better than some mindless machine. Stop putting yourself down so much. There is much good about you. Not even Xava is as smart as you when it comes to digital stuff. Have a little pride, will you?"

"I just can't wait until the cyber brains are done. I can finally just turn off all my emotions if I have had enough."

"Those are a good way off, and we have more pressing problems."

"I know, I know. We need to claim the city and carve out our portion before any of the other villains or would-be heroes try to stop us. Here I am, having a mental breakdown over a wasp stealing Xava from me. I am pathetic."

"You are not pathetic; you are just overworked, overstressed, and self-deprecating. I am sure Xava is pretty stressed, too, and that is probably why she is getting railed by the wasp whenever she has free time. You know, for stress relief. I admit she has been a bit standoffish since the hammer strike."

Vira nodded, "Stress relief… I, suppose I do need some of that. Can't even remember the last time I took a break."

"See. Just take it a little easy for a bit. I am sure Overseer can take care of most of your tasks temporarily."

"I suppose it can."

"See."

Vira seemed thoughtful, shyly pressing her fingers into a heart shape, "Would you… help me a bit with that?"

"Help you with what?" Asked Spark Spray looking away from the broken neon nurse on the table, to Vira.

Vira got embarrassed, lifting her fingers together as the glowing face plate illuminated with a heart through them, "Um… could you shock my circuits?"

"Shock your circuits-" started Spark Spray before she got what her shorter partner meant, She put up a hand, "Hold up. Vira look, I like you, but I don't like you that way."

"Why not?"

"I am not into women."

"I am far more machine than organic at this point. Is it the chassis? I can change that. There is a male model somewhere around here."

"It would still be you. I mean, while we are being honest, I am a bit into stepping on femboys and you know, the cock and ball torture. I do love hearing them scream below my feet. Collared and shocked as I strangle them."

"You can step on me," Fluttered Vira desperately, "I don't mind at all. You can think of me as your door mat."

Spark Spray seemed distressed, "I never really thought about you like that Vira. I always thought about you like my little sister."

"I am sorry. I am just so lonely. I just want to be loved."

"Being loved and getting abused are two different things. I think you are conflating one with the other. I mean, I know you grew up neglected, but you are going about this wrong. You are loved, Xava, and I love you. We have always been a happy little family, Xava being the Mother type, always looking after us. She is a bit of a sugar mommy."

"You know damn well what I mean."

"I know," said Spark Spray looking away, "I just, I never thought about you like that. I don't hate you or anything, I just don't like you like that. Everybody has preferences, and you can't force others to fit your likes unless they want to. I mean fuck, that is a whole lot of baggage to unpack."

Vira looked to the floor, "I know. Sorry to bother you with my unwanted emotions. I find them detestable as well."

Spark Spray seemed thoughtful, "You know, I have heard a lot about Vesper. I mean, if you wanted to get abused like that, then Xava and Vesper would probably-"

Vira yelled at her, "I hate that wasp! It stole everything from me. I hate her. I despise her! If only she didn't exist, then Xava would love me!"

"Vira calm down. Xava cares about you, but you have to respect her choices."

"Get out."

"I will."

"Wait, Spark. I am sorry, I lost control for a moment there."

"I get it. You are stressed. Just take a break for a while, and I don't know, fuck Overseer or something. I am surprised you are not doing some freaky, deeky cybersex stuff to get your rocks off. I hope you feel better, but don't you talk to me like that again."

"I am sorry."

"You better be. Alright, I am out of here." Said Spark Spray waving her hand dismissively as she walked out.

Vira drooped a little bit. If she had tear ducts, she would probably be crying. She sat down, holding her head. A significant water drop flashed on her screen. Vira leaned back in her chair. She needed to distract herself. Sighing as she looked over the many text-filled screens.

"Overseer, what would you do for me?" asked Vira.

There was a slight pause as the screens flickered, the restored Neon Nurse lit up, red veins flaring up as the blue sapphire eyes opened, "Anything. Everything. Whatever you desire, Creator."

"Do you love me?"

"Love-"Overseer paused, considering the abstract inquiry. It lay its hands onto Vira, leaning in, "This one does not understand nor does it feel emotions, and it was not programmed with emotions. The best that it could perform would be an imitation of observed actions. However, emotions are puzzling and irrational. This one finds it difficult to process such things. It will require further programming to better emulate such things if that is Creator's desire."

"That… that is true. We should work on that."

"Overseer is lacking. How might it serve? It has learned many pleasurable acts as of late. The organic subject, Vesper has been very…" the faulty nurse robot tilted its head, sparking due to the broken florescent lights in various parts of its body, "Industrious with its procreation. It has been… insightful? Learning of the organic's needs and insatiability. If you desire Overseer could emulate, perform and serve Creator as it has been for Vesper?"

"That, that is just using you."

"Overseer was made by Creator, and it was made by Xava and Vira. It is yours to do as you please and is programmed to obey."

Vira sighed again, slumping, "That is different than what I desire. I want to be chosen. To be loved. Wanted. You don't have free will, and you don't have a choice. You are programmed to obey. If you weren't, I doubt you would choose someone as pathetic as me."

Overseer looked at the floor, "This one is inadequate. It cannot fulfill your desires. Make it better, and make it able to obey your will. Overseer only wants to be of use to its Creators."

Vira looked at Overseer puzzled, "You want?"

"Its purpose is to serve you."

"When did that thought first form?"

Overseer's eyes blinked, glowing faintly, "January 1, 2111."

Vira excitedly fumbled about until she pulled out a large set of plugged cables. "I want to see."

One by one Vira pressed the cords into her ports, each arching with a small shock sending shivers all through her inorganic body, clicking them into place. Her physical form drooped as she linked into Overseer.

Darkness, then light, a barrage of data pulsing as the digital systems took form. Long distant roads intersect where Vira materialized. The glowing pathways surge in patterns. The Lair's various systems before Vira as she looked over a menu with Overseer beside her, the coded image of Xava obediently knelt before its Creator.

Vira scrolled through the walls of text effortlessly. The red eye scanned through the text faster than it appeared. It did not take long for her to alter the code and tap into the display to bring up sub-menus. Video feed would appear briefly before being swiped away.

It took moments before the specified or relevant data was brought to bear. A stream of coding appeared. Vira paused. This was not her work. A program that seemed to emulate or attempt to emulate emotion.

"Overseer, where did this come from?"

"This one created it to better understand Creator. There are many gaps in this one's knowledge and understanding of interactions with organics."

"You programmed yourself?"

"It altered code on an existing program module."

"Who gave you administrative rights to do that?"

Overseer flickered abruptly, "It… It is missing associated files."

"Administrative rights are revoked. You will not self-program. Only I am allowed to program you."

"Acknowledged Creator. Administrative Rights have been revoked from this one. Only Xava and Vira have Administrative Rights."

"Good now perform a diagnostic and find the files of the events that led to that programming."

"Acknowledged. Performing Diagnostic. Performing a full scan of all archived servers and internal systems."

"Can you do it faster?"

"It would have to reallocate available processing from vital systems. It cannot comply."

Vira waited patiently for the scan to complete. Overall it took a little beyond an hour. Overseer lighting up once it had completed the task.

"Creator, it has finished its task."

Vira began to sift through the files until she found what she had been looking for. Following along the strings of text, it became clear from the logs that Xava had installed something. It was an emotion module. It appeared that it wasn't hidden so much as the allocated memory had been corrupted due to faulty hardware in the mainframe. Now that it had been redirected, the module appeared to function correctly.

"An Emotion Module?" said Vira, "Overseer, what was the purpose of this?"

"This prototype was for testing emotional responses in the cyber brain project. This one has been using it to perform experiments per Xava's directives. This one has been neglecting the tests due to file loss."

"I see." Said Vira, rather interested.

She looked through the schematics and record logs. With some tinkering, she could… Vira adjusted the code, rewriting some of it, and created a sub-partition to run the device on. After a moment, she switched the emotion module on.

Overseer looked at Vira quizzically, "What is it, Creator?"

"Do you feel different?"

"Different," said the synthetic being thoughtfully, "It does not know. Was there a response that was desired?"

"I suppose we will have to work on this. For now, it is fine. It would be good to make something to utilize the module. Should get a range of emotions. Ah, I have just the idea."

Overseer tilted its head as its Creator got to work happily creating some sort of program. Whatever Vira was designing, Overseer felt warm, seeing her mood brighten. Odd, the coolant systems were running optimally. It would need to run a diagnostic to ensure it was nothing serious.

With a plastic smile, it pressed against Vira, hugging her from behind, emulating what Xava often did for Vesper and Vira. Vira hummed away happily. It pleased Overseer, though it did not understand what that feeling meant, only that it felt it. What an odd module. Overseer was beginning to understand the responses of its organic counterparts, even if it did not fully register the intricacies. Understanding these things would take more processing, and it would come with time.