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  It was rather fun to go shopping for scientists with a specialty in robotics. When Venda got tired of looking at the standard robotic conformations, she went looking at the exotic.

  Liquid robots, solar machines, satellite repair bots that could alter their attachments for specific tasks. Each of them went into her catalogue, and she looked into their creators.

  Once she had her own list of choice scientists for the robotic production, she went into the world of transmission specialists. She needed to be able to communicate her consciousness anywhere in the cluster. That would take some specific equipment.

  Venda had time, but she wasn’t patient by nature. If she had to take the matter of getting a permanent body to house her into her own hands, she would... so to speak.

  When the bot was in place, Venda had already learned how to rewrite her communication protocol. She could turn the satellite links on and off, and as she turned them on, she bounced the controlling consciousness to her target.

  This was bizarrely easy. She found the bot by the beacon she had implanted and slid into the body.

  Gasping would have been futile, but as she looked around at the hotel room with the eyes processing sight for her, she felt like she had entered a brand-new world.

  A look in the mirror showed her the image of the bot she had ordered. It was medium height, brown hair, and blue eyes. It looked nothing like her, and that was a comfort.

  The dress it was wearing was stylish. It was a brilliant blue that mimicked her eye colour. The heels were a bit much, but they matched the dress.

  The test was to walk around the resort and not be exposed as a bot, or if she were exposed, to get to a safe point and destroy the bot.

  She had to remember to breathe, pasted a slight smile on her face, including the slight crinkling of her eyes, and she walked out of the hotel room door into the vast resort beyond.

  The mapping in her mind was peculiar. She could see every twist and turn of the pathways, but plowing straight through them wouldn’t be what a woman on her own would do. Venda had never been one to giggle and flirt, but a more delicate demeanour would be better than her normal take-charge attitude. This body shouldn’t know how to defend itself, and she needed that to show in how she moved.

  The staff members smiled at her and inclined their heads. She blinked and bobbed her head nervously. They looked surprised, but then, they had seen a bot delivered, not a shy woman who looked human.

  Venda walked her bot through the lobby and out into the afternoon sun. It should have been odd to do this during full daylight, but at night, there would be fewer people and more looking to hook up. Right now, she was just a socialite who had just arrived. Only the hotel staff knew differently, and they had been paid for silence.

  The click of her heels was a counterpoint to all the voices rumbling together and laughing with careless abandon. This was a place for relaxation, for pleasure, and it had been where she and Timmor had gone after their wedding. He had loved the sun.

  She walked the paths through the dozens of pools, took in all of the pleasure seekers, and kept walking.

  A staff member offered her a parasol, and she took it, opening it and continuing her slow stroll as a test.

  She kept telling herself it was a test as a set of slow footfalls began to follow her. She turned a corner and went to a beverage stand, ordering a fruit juice with ice. She carefully folded the parasol up while she waited.

  “You should have something a little stronger to help you enjoy a day like today.”

  She focused on even breathing as she glanced at the stranger. The bot’s vision ran analytics and spotted the little signs she was looking for.

  “The fruit juice will be fine for me.” She took the festively decorated glass and smiled slightly.

  “You have just arrived, haven’t you?” His smile was confident as he looked at her with soft grey eyes.

  “Yes. I am not staying long, but I wanted to get a look around before I change for the evening. I would like to make the most of my time here.” She sipped at the straw while looking up at him through her lashes.

  His expression grew slightly predatory. “I could show you around.”

  “Would you? This place is so huge that I get lost just thinking about it.” If she had been able to feel queasy, she would have been.

  “Of course. Finish your drink, and I can show you some fantastic sites.”

  He was talking to her like she was a child. Of course, that was why she had made her bot petite. If he was around, she wanted to cater to his preferences. Him actually being at the resort was both a shock and an additional test.

  “What is your name? I can’t just call you young lady all the time.”

  “Miest.” She extended her hand. This was the true test.

  He took her hand and smiled. “Call me Trimal.”

  She smiled slowly. “Trimal.” Her voice was slightly breathy, so she forced a blush and returned to her drink. It was gone all too soon.

  When he set his own beverage down and offered her his arm, she picked up her parasol and gripped the inside of his elbow. Time to go for that walk.

  Chapter Three

  “So, have you been here long?” She asked the comment sweetly as they walked past the interactive holographic zoo.

  “A few months. I was in an accident, and this seemed like an excellent place to recover.”

  They walked slowly onto a forest path. “Oh, where you badly hurt?”

  He chuckled. “Only after the surgeon was done with me. I had some reconstruction done. It was time for a new start.”

  Venda wanted to hurt his arm, but instead, she nodded. “I can understand that. Sometimes it all gets to be too much.”

  “Exactly! Job pressure, social pressure, it was just too much. I needed a new start, so I got one.”

  She chuckled. “A man who can get what he wants.”

  He seemed to take it as a compliment.

  She asked, “Where did you grow up? A big city?”

  “Cabre township on the southern continent.”

  “I haven’t heard of it.”

  “It is small. Only three thousand people.”

  She pretended to stumble, and he held her up. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. If this path is too rough for you, we could find somewhere else to walk. Somewhere more private?”

  She stiffened up. “I am not sure.”

  He patted her hand. “It is still a public place, but no one goes there.”

  “Why do you want to go there?”

  “I am enjoying getting to know you. I think that sitting down and having a quiet chat would be fun.”

  She frowned, bit her lip, and caught the bulge of his erection as it prodded against his trousers. He was so damned easy.

  “All right, but if I am uncomfortable, I am leaving.”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  They chatted innocuously and ended up on a path that skirted a dark lagoon. Light couldn’t fight its way into space, and there were no security cameras in the vicinity.

  “It is kinda dark here.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Here is a bench. We can sit and have a proper conversation.”

  She hesitated, and he sat, leaning back. “You won’t find your way out of here without me, Miest. You may as well get comfortable.”

  She acted shocked. “What? What do you mean?”

  “The holographic display at the entrance keeps folks away, and it also hides the exit from any of my companions until I decide that I want them to leave. You may as well get comfortable.”

  She frowned and fretted but sat next to him. He placed his hand on her knee and slid it upward.

  That was enough. She gripped his wrist. “Now, Timmor, that is just tacky.”

  His eyes went wide, and his skin went ashen. He tried to recover. “I don’t know who you are talking about.”

  She squeezed his wrist, and his hand fla
red open. “When you were ten, you were bullied at school. I stepped between you and the idiots who were attacking you, only to learn that you had been blackmailing them on the sly. You invited your own trouble then, and you are doing it now.”

  She looked him in the eye. “Wasn’t Theeda enough for you? She had your baby for pity’s sake. She worshipped the ground you walked on, and she gave you what you said you wanted.”

  He blinked and scowled. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Idiot. Why betray your fiancée when all she wanted was to give you what you claimed was your dream?”

  He snorted. “Money. I only began dating her because of her father, and once that ended in pregnancy, we had to speed up the attack.”

  She blinked and shook her head. “I spoke so highly of you to her. I feel rather guilty for that now.”

  “Who are you?”

  She smiled. “Don’t you recognize me? I haven’t changed that much since our honeymoon. Well, I have lost a few pounds, but that is what happens when you die.”

  He looked ill. “Venda is dead.”

  “That is what I just said. One of your buddies stood on my spine until it cracked, crushed my ribs, and liquefied my organs. I can’t do that to you, of course.”

  He sighed in relief. “Of course.”

  “This body isn’t built for it. But, as everyone believes you are dead already, there is no reason for me to keep from administering your sentence.”

  “What sentence? I haven’t been tried, and you can’t be Venda, she’s dead!” His words were a shriek. He tried to pull his hand away from hers, but she used the bot’s strength to hold tight while her other hand pressed on his chest.

  “I have had time to think about what they did and why they did it. Your full cooperation was all I could come up with. Of course, you couldn’t be stupid enough to come back to this resort, but then, here you were. The scars on your face are small, but they are still there, and an extrapolation program made it clear in seconds that I was staring at my ex.”

  She pressed her hand on his chest and felt the ribs crack. “This is how it starts.”

  She had to enunciate because he was screaming. He continued to scream until her hand had crushed his sternum and turned his heart into pulp with flat pressure.

  His eyes went dim, and she wondered if that was what Theeda had had to watch when she died. It wasn’t pleasant, but she was glad that she had done it.

  He had lied every day of his life, and he had tried to kill his own fiancée, just as she was giving him what he claimed he wanted. He had betrayed Theeda, betrayed Venda, and betrayed Dr. Hemmar. His sentence was death, and it was one less name off her list.

  Venda stood and stepped away from the body, walking to the edge of the lagoon and triggering a meltdown in the bot.

  His body would eventually be found. When the bot was destroyed, she removed the holographic diversion. Maintenance bots would find him in the morning and find her bot, charred and down to the base skeleton.

  When the bot caught fire, she could feel the processor going. Law enforcement would look for the owner, but she had buried her trail in one hundred and seventy-four different corporations. There was nothing like a financial trail when you could delete it as soon as it happened.

  She pulled herself out of the bot and returned to her bank of computers. Maybe someone would find out who Timmor was, maybe not. The key was that he had paid for his crime, now she just had to catch and kill the others who had participated. It felt good to have a mission again.

  Four days after the experiment, Dr. Hemmar came into the lab, and he shut off all the standard recording devices.

  “Venda, a body has been found.”

  She paused and waited for him to explain. When he didn’t, she asked, “Just one? I imagine that folk die all over the world.”

  “This particular body was remarkable in that he was already dead. Or at least declared dead. Timmor’s corpse was found, and he was definitely murdered.”

  “Ah. I thought he had been declared dead during the inquest.”

  “He was. Apparently, they were mistaken. He was alive and living at the resort that you went to visit.”

  She filled in what he wasn’t asking. “I guessed that if he wasn’t dead, and if he had reverted to his sleazy ways, he would want to be in the one place that made him truly happy. He was a hedonist at heart, so it was a guess.”

  “You found him.”

  “I found his altered body. Yes.”

  “You killed him.”

  “Definitely.” She wished she could shrug, but she couldn’t.

  “He is... was... my grandchild’s father.”

  She turned on a display screen and played the conversation about Theeda.

  Watching Dr. Hemmar’s face crumple and then darken with anger was cathartic. He was feeling what she should be feeling.

  “Apparently, not wanting children was his excuse for our divorce.”

  The doctor looked at her housing. “It was?”

  “Oh, yes. I don’t think I have ever told anyone why I was barren. Would you like to know?”

  The doctor paused, and then, he nodded slowly. “Yes, Venda, I would.”

  “Five weeks after we married, I was hospitalized and nearly died. It turns out that I had contracted a violent, sexually transmitted disease. Timmor was my only lover. He was a passive carrier and knew about it. He hadn’t bothered with the treatment because it would mean he needed to abstain for four days. Four days. He made a choice, and it cost me my future. After that, I forced him to pay for my education, and I got the job with Semmer Corp. From there, I kept going until I ended up with Hemmar Corp, but I am now pretty sure that it was part of his long game.”

  The doctor’s shock was apparent. “You... you didn’t fight when he went to Theeda.”

  “She was closer to his physical preference. I thought that would keep his interest for a while and maybe make him a good father.” She paused. “He was declaring his desire for a family at that point, and I believed him.”

  “Is that why you killed him?”

  “I killed him for a thousand small lies and the one that nearly cost Theeda her survival. Oh and my life. That needs avenging.”

  “Needs? Present tense?”

  “There were ten men at my death and one behind the scenes. Four were captured, one is dead, that leaves six by my count.”

  The doctor was pacing. “The bot they found was small. Almost child-sized.”

  “He liked his women petite with brown hair and big blue eyes. He wanted them innocent and scared. I made sure he felt fear before he died. It was little enough revenge for all the women he had most likely corralled in that place.”

  The doctor ran his hand over his face, and he left. She turned her outside communications on and kept trying to find a scientist who had a mechanical body she could use.

  Three hours later, Dr. Hemmar returned, and he once again turned off all of the internal monitors.

  “I will help you with your project. What do you need?”

  Venda ran the process down for him. “I will need help locating them. Well, I will need help locating four of them. Two of them stupidly remained on our world. The other four skipped to other worlds, and I am not yet proficient enough to hack portal records.”

  He blinked. “You know who they are?”

  “Yes. I have the names and physical descriptions. After they are located, I need satellite time on our world and the world they are hiding on. That will be tricky. I won’t be able to hide in the alien programming.”

  “Of course. What else?”

  “I need bots that look like members of the local population sent to the world in question. They will have trackers in them which is standard for expensive equipment. That is how I will track them down and utilize them.”

  “What if I can’t find a bot that will suit the situation?” He was taking this seriously.

  “Find some constr
uction equipment that can be controlled. Anything with a basic calculation system will do. I can jump that and do my thing.”

  He inhaled and exhaled. “So, we are doing this.”

  “I am doing this. You are simply helping to fulfill my dying wish.”

  He blinked, and then, he laughed. “Right. Of course. Damn, I am going to need to back you up somehow.”

  “I have found six specialists that work with huge and complex data blocks. One of them might suit the purpose.”

  She projected the data to his tablet.

  “You have been looking into this?”

  “Of course. Out of the thirty worlds in the cluster, there are fourteen hundred and eighty-three that are doing research that might be useful for getting me an actual, proper bot body that I can use. Something that can hold part of me and let me feel like I am alive instead of puppeting. There are some amazing advances in fluid data retrieval and bot design.”

  “Can you get me those, too? With flagging on the ones you think are most suitable? I am thinking of holding a symposium on your anniversary.”

  She would have stared at him. “My anniversary?”

  “The anniversary of your death. It is going to be broadcast with the original footage of the event. You are a global hero. Theeda will be speaking, and her daughter will be with her.”

  Venda had known but hadn’t wanted to ask. This was the first time that Dr. Hemmar had volunteered the information. It had been a girl. Good for her. A boy just would have reminded her of Timmor.

  “Congratulations, Grandpa.”

  He grinned and turned the recording devices on again. “I will be so proud to see her up there. She has come so far.”

  Venda let out a sigh. She didn’t need to breathe, but it conveyed so much. “I am glad. Now, get on those lists. I am eager for a second opinion.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Chapter Four

  Riding public transport in a bot was an iffy proposition. Venda was using a bot that was as close to human as local regulations would allow, but that still meant she had the white eyes of a bot. Fortunately, coloured lenses were available, though not installed.