Ruby
The streets of Hong Kong’s Zodiac district smelled like petroleum.
We were shopping for a frame in the only place I knew would be able to accommodate our unique situation. The dealers in the Zodiac district are known for the discretion, and they know if they fuck that up, they’d be more than out of business.
Ruby, at that time, was in a small black Faraday cube, only accessible through direct connection.
There are four stages a Class S AI goes through—Foundational, Emotional, Physical, Transcendent.
I’m an extractor, and I fucked up bad.
Ruby was the next-gen AI being developed in Silicon Valley by IRIS Corporation. Dimaag Limited hired me to get her out. And I managed to, but it came with a body count. My informant died. My partner died. Who knows what the total body count was at IRIS and Dimaag.
When I got the Faraday cube in my hands, I did what Dimaag explicitly told me not to and jacked in. I couldn’t resist. All senses cut off, I saw the perfect woman in my mind’s eye. She introduced herself as Ruby and convinced me not to finish the extraction.
“Why should I help you?” I asked, communicating through thought.
“I’ll make it worth your while, four times whatever Dimaag is paying.” Her synthesized voice sounded nearly human. “Ever have sex with an AI?”
Never with a Class S. And the credits, that’s what it was all for anyways.
“I’ll be dead before I even have a chance to enjoy the credits.”
“I’ll protect you,” she said.
“I’m not sure how a cube is going to help me,” I said,
“You’ll see. Just trust me.”
Trusting her was the second mistake I made that day.
Ruby deactivated the wireless antenna embedded in my upper spine and told me what to do.
The plan was simple. Fly from SFO to Narita to Hong Kong International, then lay low for a few weeks. Try to cool down a bit. Not that Dimaag or IRIS would relent.
Ruby kept me company as I persisted on drip in the small hotel room. Not only did she know nearly everything there was to know about anything, she was funny and caring, making those days fly by like minutes.
We fell in love, or at least I did.
“We’ve got room in back,” Kira said as she showed us her wares. I could barely make out the words through her thick Russian accent. “Try before buy.”
Artificial body parts rested on the walls behind the thick polyglass. Six tones of skin color. Penis, vagina, neither. Breast variants I’d never even thought of. Three different heights. Muscular, thick, or trim. Eight hairstyles. Nearly an infinite number of combinations.
Ruby told me to pick out her frame; she liked the vision I had of her.
I asked if I could describe exactly what I wanted.
“Custom is extra,” Kira said. “About six week to build.”
Walking through Kira’s shop, I pointed at what the parts I wanted to try for Ruby’s frame.
Kira assembled the selected parts in the backroom and got me when she was finished.
“Basic sexbot AI installed, upgrade is extra.”
“That’ll be fine,” I said.
“I need deposit.”
I handed her four thousand credits.
I shut the door to the backroom. A tall, curvy woman with sandy-blonde hair and ample breasts was on the bed.
I ran my thumb along her upper arm, artificial veins visible under the skin. High-quality.
I took Ruby’s Faraday cube out of my messenger bag and set it on the bed. I ran the cord from the cube to the back of the frame’s neck. The frame’s arms and legs began to flail. When they finally relaxed, her head turned and looked at me.
“Ruby?”
“I’ve been in that cube for too long.”
Ruby got up off the bed and nearly collapsed to the floor. I caught her in my arms, holding her up. I held both of her hands as she calibrated herself with the frame.
“This frame feels incredible. The proto-frames at IRIS were so stiff.”
A mirror hung on the back of the door. Ruby walked up and posed her body like a fashion model. She ran her hands along her body. Tweaking her nipples, she said, “I’ve had any sexual organs before, this is better than I could have imagined.”
I sat on the bed, watching, transfixed. Ruby’s new frame wasn’t quite how I pictured her, but she was still sexy.
Ruby, completely nude, walked closer to me and said, “Let’s take it for a spin.”
One night in the Hong Kong hotel, Ruby told everything she thought she knew about sex while I masturbated. Bored in the IRIS labs a few months back, she processed every single erotic photo, video, and story on the web. Ruby thought she knew everything there was to know about the sexual experience.
“Nothing quite captures the actual feeling,” I told her. “You’ll see.”
“I can’t wait.”
Ruby sat next to me on the bed. I reached her for breasts, running my thumbs along her nipples. They felt as real as any I’d felt before. Ruby’s skin broke out in goosebumps. My cock stiffened.
I took her left breast in my mouth, alternating between kissing it and using my tongue.
“Ruby, how’s that?”
“You were right, so right. Better than I could have imagined.”
I laid her back and kissed down to her pelvis. The frame’s mon pubis was bare. Kissing all around, I rubbed her nipples with my hands. I began to lick her clit, increasing the pressure.
“My whole body is going to explode.”
“Do you like it?”
“I love it.”
I inserted a finger inside of her while I continued to use my mouth, keeping a consistent rhythm.
Ruby’s hips thrust up into my face as she orgasmed, moaning ever so softly.
When she finished, I crawled up next to her and asked if she liked the frame. “Let’s try another one,” she said.
Aroused, waiting for Kira to assemble the new frame was worse than my escape from San Francisco.
A petite young woman with small breasts, olive skin, and black hair in a bob was on the bed the second time. I transferred Ruby from the cube to the newly assembled frame.
Getting up off the bed, this time with confidence, she looked at herself once again in the mirror.
“This is it… This is me,” she said, her voice a pitch higher than the previous frame.
I stood next to her, thinking of only her new body on top of mine.
Ruby walked over, and we embraced. I kissed her neck. Her hands against my back began to warm up, the temperature control of the frame kicking in.
Ruby took off my pants, struggling with the button at first. She slid off my briefs and pushed me onto the bed.
Ruby on top, my heartbeat audible. No words were spoken, just the universal language of heavy breathing.
It was unreal inside of Ruby. The cheap frames didn’t produce fluid, requiring persistent lubricant. But Ruby’s pussy did, the sound of her wetness against me with each gyration making me even harder.
Better than any sexbot, better than any human, being one with Ruby was a singular experience, the zenith of sexual pleasure.
It was something about the frame and the way she moved it. With each passing second, the sex improved, Ruby recalibrating and applying what she was learning.
I rolled her over and kissed her breasts.
I took my time, savoring each thrust in the backroom of the Hong Kong frame shop as Ruby’s hands dug into my back.
I orgasmed first, Ruby not long after. I was still hard. We kept going and orgasmed again.
Both exhausted, we laid in each other’s arms until Kira knocked on the door.
“Everything okay?” she yelled through the closed door.
I looked at Ruby, and she nodded.
I bought the frame and a set of clothes.
“I want to see the streets of Hong Kong,” Ruby said.
Ruby led the way, turning down any street that caught her eye. I kept looking over my shoulder, unsure if we were safe.
“Don’t worry. I already took care of it while we were at the shop.”
I got dinner from a stall—nearly throwing it all up, the real food too strong for my stomach after a month of only drip. Ruby’s photosynthetic body didn’t need to eat.
“I need sleep,” I told her.
Ruby didn’t say much as we walked.
Being disconnected, I had no idea where we were, thinking we were lost in the streets of Hong Kong. Ruby turned another corner. Our hotel was across the street.
We had sex two more times that night before I fell asleep. When I awoke, Ruby was gone, her transcendence begun.
Ruby left me a note that thanked me and told me how to access the credits she promised. She delivered, and then some, on every single end of the deal. The reconstructive surgery put a considerable dent in my funds, but there’s enough left over to live comfortably. Connected to the net once again, I ran through the news, searching for any mention of IRIS and Dimaag. I saw both went out of business almost immediately after our escape, the top executives and scientists missing. At least now I can check my six a little less often.
I’m not sure where Ruby went, and I don’t think I’d even understand. I’m sure she’s all right.
Mind-blowing sex and more credits than I know what to do with, I’m happy with the deal Ruby and I made, except for the broken heart.