Chapter Text
You walked quickly, with practiced steps, over the cobblestones. It was raining in a soft drizzle that seemed like nothing until your hair and clothes were soaked. The early morning light made everything seem hazy, sodden, and far away.
King's Row wasn't an area you came to often. Usually you were in the banking district, in the tech district, in the office blocks that towered above this comparative relic. The client had requested the hotel, the Meridian, as the initial introduction and drop point for the meeting. As if on cue, your colleague sniffled and stifled a sneeze away from you. His eyes slid over the gold logo of the hotel logo as the two of you ducked into an alcove to speak before you got to the reception.
"Heard he's an omnic. Why would one of those rust-buckets need a human doing tech work for them? Seems a bit like selling sand in the desert, innit." His slightly bloodshot eyes, narrowed against the rain, slid over to you expectantly.
"The contact is paying handsomely, so I don't suppose it matters... And keep your voice down, we're near the omnic district. They don't keep the same hours as us." It seemed like you were alone for now; except the doorman you could see inside the steps, but in London you could never be sure.
"The underworld; call it what it is. It's not so much a district as a pit... not that that stops the boltlickers crawling in." When you hefted your briefcase instead of answering, he shrugged,"You okay to take the initial pitch?"
Boltlickers being one of the names for humans that... fraternised with omnics. It had been happening more frequently - especially in places where omnics and humans lived next to each other, like King's Row. You heard there was even a thriving black market in certain adult videos that catered to that market. Not that you had seen more than snippets of them online; hard to avoid completely. There were all kinds of religious leaders that were wringing their hands over it, there were huge social media campaigns about it, tabloid headlines splattered everywhere...
Your mind had drifted. It was way too early for this meeting, but as you said - omnics didn't keep human hours. You were not even sure they slept at all, though you suppose they must charge or do some kind of low power activities.
"I'll take the pitch. The boss has softened them up; they're expecting us." Without dwelling on it further, you both headed into the light and warmth of the hotel.
---
The contact was a slender, dark omnic called Maximilien. He came with a startling and unnerving number of human guards; allegedly human colleagues, but you had never known businessmen to be only casually concealing weapons and constantly looking around with slick, watchful eyes.
He wanted a number of servers spun up in strategic locations worldwide for latency purposes to action trades in local financial markets: London, New York, Singapore, Delhi, Cairo, various others. You were to start here, in London, and if he was happy with the work and if the idea worked well in practice - he would sign off on further deployments. You heard your colleague shuffling impatiently beside you as the meeting wrapped up and you knew he was already portioning out which cities he wanted and which ones he would send junior staff out to.
You knew which ones you wanted; you wanted Paris and Cairo and you were going to get them - once you had London out of the way.
Your colleague headed on his way to get breakfast after the meeting - you declined his offer, wanting to head home and sleep for an hour or two before the actual workday started and you could get some work done remotely. You ducked into an alley between the hotel and the church next to it for a moment. The rain had eased slightly. Ever wary - you peered down to double check no one was loitering in there and stood just on the edge of the golden circle of hotel lights.
You flicked through a few messages on your phone; checking if the tube or a taxi would be faster.
"You chose this of all places! Where he died at the hands of a filthy, cowardly, human sniper?" A hissing, metallic voice cut through your reverie. The hairs on your arm stood up against your suit sleeves.
"I am not sentimental. This was the closest appropriate place open at this hour... It doesn't change Mondatta's fate. Remove your hand from my suit." Maximilien's voice, you could not mistake - having just listened to it for an hour. The other voice - all you knew was it wasn't human.
"And not only do you choose here, but were those humans I saw leaving just before you? You surround yourself with them and work with them when we have contacts more than able to achieve what you need."
"Don't be so indiscrete as to discuss business out in the open. You may come in the car if you want to talk further... Otherwise, we will meet at the next arranged place." You knew a dismissal when you heard it, and clutched your phone as your heart rate continued to beat faster. You hoped they would leave and you could slink away.
You were around omnics often enough; you didn't know why you felt cold with fear.
The scrape of metal on stone rasped at the edge of your consciousness, at the edge of awareness. You could hear how close they both were. A car pulled up in front of the hotel and you could see just at the edge of your line of vision as one of the bulky alleged clients/henchmen held open the door for Maximilien. You waited, listening, unable to quite see who was entering or exiting before you let out a breath, slowly, as the car drove off. Your breath curled in front of you, a light fog in the frigid morning. As fear started to ebb, you realised how chilled you were.
You were about to hurry off when a shadow slid across the gold hotel light.
"Hoping for some extra intel?" The metallic burr was attached to an intimidatingly tall omnic with a white, sepulchral face plate. Unlike most other omnic models, you couldn't see his eyes - only slender, upturned slits that hinted at menace. He was bigger than Maximilien, bigger than most common types you encountered - down to the strange, clawed metal feet that clinked off the pavement as he approached you. His fingers flexed in a startlingly human, and startlingly threatening gesture.
"Hoping for a taxi. It's raining." You smiled thinly. Your voice was cool and even but you were surprised your shirt didn't flutter from how fast your heart was beating.
Ignoring your attempt at levity, his head tilted to the side in a smooth gesture. The rain slid off his sharp shoulders. "Do you know what happened here?"
You honestly hadn't thought of it until you heard them reference it. Mondatta's assassination. You had been out of the city during it, and the riots that followed, but it had been on the 24 hour rolling news. They still didn't know who had done it, but it was assumed to be a human. Some of the more right wing, hard line types said it could have been an omnic - infighting. You sensed that wasn't something to discuss now.
"An assassination." You settled on, without elaborating.
"An execution." His voice rumbled. "Another one of my kind struck down by humans and their disregard and their violence. The only language you seem to understand."
You did not like where this was going. You puffed out your chest and started to walk forward briskly with your head set straight. He didn't move, but seemed to grow larger somehow - you would need to sidle past. You counted on the doorman hearing a scuffle and didn't want to retreat back towards the dead end behind you.
"What did Maximilien ask you for?" If he had teeth to grit, you were sure he would be grinding them now.
"That is confidential." You swallowed, mouth dry. You sidestepped him - half-expecting an hand to clamp around your wrist.
"Look at you, skittering around me like an insect - don't pretend to be brave." His voice changed pitch, lower and almost coaxing. But the way someone would coax an animal. "I won't tell."
He turned as you moved past him. Slowly. Head moving smoothly and unblinking and intent on you. You hated that you couldn't see his eyes.
"If I tell you, Maximilien could easily break contract - he would be well within his rights." You reasoned. Your phone buzzed as your taxi approached.
"So, your only scruple is the potential hit to your wallet, not breaking your word. Noted." Your stomach burned at his pointed response. It had only been a few minutes and he twisted every word you spoke.
"I don't know you. I don't have to note anything you say. Particularly since you are the one who tried to get me to break my word - not the other way around." The taxi pulled up and you darted over before he could respond.
You got your first good look at him as the car pulled away. His chassis was skeletal, but still broad and sharp and intimidating. He didn't look anything like the smooth edged, smooth spoken city omnics. His face turned as the car slid away and you knew he was watching you as intently as you watched him.
Your next thought was about boltlickers. Sudden. Incongruous. You crossed your legs and stared out at the road, studiously blank.
---
You had time on the plane to Cairo to work, and time to think. You found yourself flicking through wiki pages of various omnic models until you found the one you had seen in the alley. An obscure one. Limited production. Produced by the Anubis omnium for leading their soldiers into war.
This one was modified compared to the standard variety, at least from what you remembered. It was fairly common these days for omnics to modify themselves and wear human clothes for fashion, though you had never understood what drove the impulse. From a lot of discussions, you would think they would want to keep apart - separate.
Your eyes drifted over the technical details; infra-red heat sensors.... R-7000, Class Designation: Ravager.
You swallowed. Ravager conjured up something quite different in your mind from murder and war. Ravaging made you think of something quite different indeed, and you closed the laptop with a snap - thinking of how alone you had been in that alley. The articles swam in front of your eyes - 'squad killers', 'merciless', 'human hunters'. He must have known you were there the whole time from the infrared. He must have seen how your heart started to pound even as your voice stayed steady.
The descent towards Cairo shook out some of those thoughts. The city stretched sprawling gold and brown. There were patches of green and glinting glass skyscrapers but even from the air, the city still showed the aftermath of the Anubis attacks. This was the first time in years that the city was considered safe enough for business and you jumped at the opportunity.
You were busy for days, slowly forgetting the unnerving encounter and settling into work and sightseeing when you could snatch a chance. The sun was still high and bright one evening as you headed through the streetsback to your hotel. The route said it was only via main streets but you found that the maps app sometimes got confused by the older parts of the city. The buildings started to lean in towards each other, but you felt okay because it was still light and there were lots of people around. You were dressed in a loose linen suit with wide trousers and a headscarf shielding your hair - covered from the hot sun. You got less attention when you covered up. You blended in better.
You noticed signs popping up that indicated robot repair. They were crude and usually just showed bolts and gears. You ignored them and continued on.
Until more of them popped up and the people around you became less people... and more robot, more omnic. You didn't want to take out your phone and look like a tourist - not when you were alone.
You turned confidently down a street that you thought lead back to a main square, but it was a narrow, winding corridor. You were about to turn back when you saw several omnics behind you, closing in with intent. You told yourself nothing was wrong - it was still bright and sunny, and what would they want to do with you anyway?
Then hands grabbed your shoulders and shoved you through a beaded curtained doorway, wooden beads slapping against your face as you were manoeuvred up steep steps - metal fingers the only thing that stopped you from tripping.
The room was dimly lit and stifling. "I have money." You said, confidently, despite yourself. "My employer is tracking me, they'll know -" The words died on your lips when you saw the imposing figure sitting at the table.
The omnic from London. Arms folded. Watching you. Any thought that this was a random mugging evaporated.
Your bag was tipped over - your purse, laptop, keys skittering over the table. Your USBs were confiscated along with your laptop, phone, cables, and battery pack. Your protests fell on deaf ears. They seemed to be communicating among themselves because all at once, they stood and filed out until only you and Ramattra remained.
He didn't keep you waiting. "If you would be so kind as to take off your clothes."
Ravager. Your mind taunted you. Your throat closed up. "No."
"No?" He stood, uncoiling to full height. The table between you felt like nothing. "If you won't be so kind, then neither will I in turn."
"Are you treating my colleagues this way?" You were not the only one working in the city. You could feel a thin trickle of sweat down your spine. Omnics didn't need air conditioning - it was stifling in here.
"You were the only one wandering around, easy to catch. Silly little girl." If a man, a human man, was speaking to you this way then you would really be frightened. But omnics had no need for pleasures of the flesh, surely. Surely he didn't even know, or care, what was under your clothes.
You unwound the headscarf and deposited it on the table. Your shirt next, then trousers. The air was warm, but you still stood shivering in your underwear; covered in goosebumps.
"Shoes." He flicked his finger at you, contemptuously.
The floor was slightly grainy beneath your bare feet. "R-7000..." You started, as politely as someone stripped of everything but their bra and panties could before he cut you off.
"You've been doing your research, or you were more involved in the war than you cared to mention." He was in front of you in a second, fingers gripping your chin and forcing you to look up. "Should I be flattered, or concerned?"
When you didn't answer, his fingers slid back and started combing through your hair. You winced, closing your eyes in anticipation of your hair being roughly pulled, or snagged by his metal joints - after a second it became apparent he was feeling for concealed items. Grabbing a fistful, he tugged you around to face the wall. He held the hair close to the scalp - insistent, but not hurting you. Much.
"Arms up, and keep them up. Humans are so presumptuous. Imagine I started a conversation by addressing you as your nationality, or your gender - how do you think that would fare?"
You lifted up your arms, flinching when he ran his cool fingers under the straps of your bra, feeling down around the underwire several times - as though puzzled. You didn't understand why his hands were so cold when the surroundings were so hot. His fingers ghosted over your nipples and for a second you thought he would tug down the cups and expose you. "The wire..." You licked your lips. "The wire is for support."
"Support?"
Your face was flaming hot now, blush blooming. "To... it's supposed to be attractive."
He huffed. You were facing the wall, and that face was unreadable anyway. You couldn't tell if it was amusement, disgust, indifference. "Is it because you are fertile that you are wearing something so lewd?"
You choked on your own spit. "Fertile? I don't know what they teach omnics about humans and their reproductive systems and common decency, but - that's not appropriate to -"
"You are ovulating. Your core temperature indicates you are. According to human reproduction, that means you should be seeking attention."
You jerked against the hand in your hair, arms flying down to cover your stomach, twisting. The hand in your hair tightened mercilessly and your bare thighs bumped up against hard metal as he effortlessly held you in place. Your fingernails glanced off his hands, arms, ineffectually. Kicking him would only hurt you.
"I tire of these games." The threat rippled through you and you stilled.
"I didn't think omnics cared about the pleasures of the flesh, about human..." You fumbled for a word and came up lacking. You didn't want to say copulation. You wanted to shock him away from you. "...Humans fucking."
"I do not. You are tiresome. Archaic, obsolete. You rely on - " Completely out of line with his words, his fingers traced the line between your ass and your thigh, before cupping each cheek in turn. "- on animal instinct to survive and multiply."
There was a pause, you could almost hear cogs turning.
"I have heard tell of humans concealing things inside themselves. I don't suppose..." His finger hooked into the side of your underwear, pulling the elastic back from your skin.
"No." You squealed, arching your hips away. "You - that's... no! I'm not. You don't need to do that, there's nothing. Besides - wouldn't that be unappealing to you?" You realised your voice was thin, reedy, bargaining. Weak. You also realised he seemed to respond poorly to weakness.
He tugged your underwear down in a swift movement, and dragged you over to the table by your hair - pushing you down and holding you there by your ponytail. You were hobbled by the underwear around your thighs, twisting and puffing in his grasp. Bargaining didn't work - maybe changing tack to something more aggressive would.
"For someone who claims to be disgusted by humans, you are treating me like every human letch, every lout off of the streets." You spat.
"Hm. No. I have no biological imperative for this, this means nothing to me. I have no human seed to spill inside of you to stop you presenting like a cat in heat." You hadn't realised you were tilting your hips up towards him and the shame bit like teeth.
After a few beats, the qualifier 'human' sank in. No human seed? Surely just.... no seed. You were afraid to ask. In your silence, Ramattra released your hair - leaving your scalp tingling and sensitive - and put his hands on your ass without any preamble, spreading you and looking at your exposed pussy. You heard the wet sound when he spread you open and felt like you might just die on the spot. You knew he could see everything, but he might not know it wasn't normal to be so wet.
A few beats of silence. His thumbs kept you spread open and vulnerable.
"See... There's nothing." Your face shifted, cheek squished against the smooth wood - you tried to look back but couldn't see much with him looming over you.
A thumb brushed over the small of your back then trailed down both your holes. Then a fingertip pressed into you the slightest amount, just the tip, before retreating. The metal and silicone warmed to your skin, but was unyielding. Again. A little firmer this time, but still only the shallowest penetration.
"Is this why they call you ravagers?" You blurted.
Silence. Then the finger pressing into you more - in and out until up to the first knuckle, then the second. You were so wet, it glided in easily; a light stretch. A second big finger lined up beside the second and that stretch burned a bit. Ramattra had to force that one - pressing and rubbing until the rim of your pussy let him force his finger in.
"No." You thought he had forgotten your question. "You have clearly been watching too much omnic pornography. Were you watching the ones where the helpless girls get set upon by multiple omnics, or the ones where they beg to suck whatever they are given? Fingers... members."
You had never seen them, but clearly he had. The hypocrisy burned as much as the shame. The same as the accusations in the alley.
"You're very tight so clearly you haven't been allowing anyone to toy with you like this. Therefore, you must have been watching it." He pulled out both fingers, before forcing them in deeper - scissoring. The second one was still only in to the first knuckle. You hissed when he pulled them out.
"So small." He sounded contemplative, before pushing his wet fingers insistently against your lips; other hand holding down your hair. "Open up."
You closed your mouth and twisted away, but he pinched your nose then - and slid his fingers against your tongue when you gasped a breath. He didn't force them far like you expected, instead rubbing over your tongue, teeth, and the roof of your mouth until you were drooling. "Must I instruct you in everything? Suck them."
After a moment, you complied. You laved your tongue between his fingers, sucking on them before casting a glance up to the face you could finally see. Blank, expressionless; the red dots on his forehead glowing lightly. Ramattra withdrew his hand and separated his fingers; showing you the strings of saliva in a way you assumed was meant to shame you.
Mouth finally free, you muttered. "You don't have a cock." You refused to use the word 'member'.
"No?" He tilted his head. "You knew I was an R-7000, knew I am a ravager... are you sure? Remember my kind was designed and built by Anubis - by machine, for machine."
"Exactly! So why would you need... You wouldn't." When you tried to rise, a hand on your head forced you back to your bent over position. You felt drool on the table against your face.
"Need is... Subjective. Anubis made us stylised and humanoid - even though it could have made us entirely alien to humanity." His wet fingers slid up, to your other hole. Like before, one fingertip probed lightly at your ass - sliding in the tiniest amount. "As you pointed out we were made to ravage. I think Anubis took more inspiration from human myths and stylings than it wanted to let on. Even the name - no R-7000, O-900, name for Anubis; it chose the name of a God....There isn't a conflict on record where the victors don't take the spoils."
You were covered in a light sheen of sweat from the hot room but the last sentence made you flicker cold. Ramattra continued pressing against your ass until he slid to the first knuckle. You were openly panting now. He slid the finger in and out slowly, stretching you out patiently. "The humans seemed to particularly like this when they were being punished."
Being fucked up the ass by a psychotic robot without any lube apart from your spit wasn't something you had planned on today and your mind raced as you thought of how to get out of this.
"Am I being punished?" You kept you quivering voice as mild as if you were enquiring about the weather.
"No. I am searching you, like we discussed. You filthy little thing." Suddenly, he slapped your ass with an open hand - cheek jiggling and burning with the sting of the impact. Just as suddenly, he pulled a finger out of you. Some actions were strangely human. Like a facsimile, an image passed through a hundred filters. Omnics were switched on knowing their purpose and how to walk and talk. The same machine learning models that taught them those things, could teach them how to lust, how to despise - you supposed, in a fractured way so different from humanity it might as well be alien.
"Clearly you are not carrying anything else." For a moment you thought of how thoroughly he felt inside your mouth. "You can put your clothes on and one of my number will take you to the holding space until Maximilien arrives to negotiate."
Your pussy was throbbing with your heartbeat. You lifted yourself up cautiously; legs wobbling. "What... I thought that - "
"That what?" His face was unchanged but his voice was laced with amusement. "You thought I was going to ravage you? Amusing."
Your eyes flicked down to the plate between his legs, it slid up under your gaze to reveal a thick, heavy length of silicone with wires lighting it from the inside. It was shaped like a human cock, just coloured different and pointed up, erect. He flexed his fingers around it and squeezed. Not for the first time you wondered what he could feel. You had seen videos of omnics during fights and they seemed to experience something akin to pain. Your eyes moved back to that indifferent mask.
"You lit up when I cornered you in London. It was amusing to see how you wanted to debase yourself. I should have forced you then, but... Perhaps you would like to take the opportunity now?"
You should leave, but.... no one would know. You hesitated a beat too long.