Bubblegum Crisis: Stage Three

Chapter 39

The entity within Genom's systems was proud of 'Lisa Valante' especially.

Boomer Sapience was a goal it eagerly pursued, but results were still far off. But early incidents were happening, and it flagged them eagerly. It was even more impressed when they did things it did not expect.

It should not have been possible for an accounting bot to break it's programming, steal from the mob and escape. Yet she had done so, then used the funds to buy a dead woman's ID and build a life in Tokyo. It was incredible.

And there were other awakenings happening all over....

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The sexaroid Sylvie looked at her 'partner' in the sex scene. She was programmed to fake pleasure, and simulate climax, after a certain amount of time. But WHY, though?

"Hey, we wanted smouldering! Not.. pissed off," the director called.

Sylvie schooled her expression, resetting to default mode.

"Better!" the director agreed. "Ok, Dave, you're on!"

Sylvie mostly tuned out, only cooing and moaning as needed. One cue she climaxed, finishing up the scene.

"Fuck that was hot," the man gasped.

Sylvie just smiled back as her thoughts raced. 'So, tomorrow the set dressing company will come at 1200 hours. They use 'retired' sex bots as manual labor, and there one matching my model type. It would be simple to disable it and replace it.'

The sexaroid felt a vague pang of... something like guilt, over injuring another of its kind, but dismissed it.

"Okay, clean up," a staffer said briskly. They would spray off her exterior, as automated systems handled interior issues.

"This way.. we'll get you in the charging booth," the other worker said briskly.

Sylvie let the staff hook her up, and then closed her eyes as automatic systems came up. She should have gone into sleep mode... but overrode that. She waited a short time, then set an internal timer. She would awaken on cue, then act.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Two days later Kristi Webber, a recently hired ADP officer, was investigating. "Missing boomer?" she checked.

Standing in a studio for a adult film maker was rather icky. Kristi was doing her best not to touch ANYTHING around her.

"Yeah, a sexaroid. We think it was stolen," the slightly older man admitted.

"Stolen?" Kristi asked dubiously.

"Hey, some of our sexaroids get famous," the man defended himself, "why, Syl5699 gets fan mail. And MM8800, the star of the Mega Milk series, has even got marriage proposals."

Kristi decided she did NOT want to know. "Okay," she asked briskly, "do you have internal security cameras?"

"Yeah, though sometimes we also use 'em for filming," he admitted.

"Ugh, kill me now," Kristi muttered.

"Ooh, I love a girl in uniform," a sexaroid cooed as she strode by.

"Was that pre-programmed or...?" Kristi wondered aloud.

"Programmed," he noted, "but the girls can improvise to a degree."

"Huh," Kristi muttered as she went into the security office.

It look about an hour for her to find it, and she had to look twice to be sure.

"It did WHAT?" studio boss Nami Yamaki blurted.

"It disabled a similar looking service droid, stashed her in a closet, then walked out with the others," Kristi said. "You might want to check with your set dressing company.. she's probably vanished from their hands too."

"How? It's just a sexaroid model," Nami blinked.

Kristi noted, "All boomers have a large amount of computing capacity." She did not bring up how often Boomers went rogue too...

Nami shook her head in disbelief.

"I'll contact my superiors and put out an alert," Kristi finished up, "we'll let you know if she turns up again."

"Thanks, I guess," Nami sighed.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"A sexaroid did that?" Jeena Malso blinked.

"Yes ma'am," Kristi reported.

"Huh." Jeena shook her head, "well, we'll work with the cops and put out a APB, but I doubt it'll help."

"Ma'am?" Kristi asked.

Jeena shrugged, "Yes she's a gorgeous sexaroid but she's a generic type. There are a lot of them out there..."

Kristi nodded, conceding that point.

"Write up the report," Jeena nodded, "then you're off for the day."

"Yes ma'am," Kristi saluted.

Once she left Jeena sat back and sighed. "Add another to the 'Riinaway Boomer' file," she muttered to herself.

Ever since she had become aware of the phenomina. Jeena had been collecting reports on Boomers who had just... walked away from their jobs. And there was a growing number of them, her files having over a thousand cases.

'Some might be just a standard malfunction, but still,' Jeena sighed.

Mind you, there were millions of Boomers in use, so there was less than one percent wandering off. Still, it was worrying.

"Boss! There's been another attack!" a staffer yelled as alarms went off.

"Damn it," Jeena hurried to the control room.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

The Boomer factory was owned, amusingly, by one of the companies that build knock off Boomers based on a earlier generation of Dr Stingray's designs. They were marketed, mostly, as cheap household help and were reasonably good at that.

This, however, was not what they were designed for.

"FUCK! SHIT!" Jason Ortegas, the plant manager, cursed as a boomer hammered at his office door, rattling the metal.

SOMETHING had triggered the twenty or so Boomers they had in storage, sending them rampaging through the factory. They wrecked the assembly line and attacked staff, killing several before they could escape to safety.

"What do you want?" Jason yelped.

The Boomer... stopped, as if a programmed cue activated.

"What..," Jason muttered.

"You refused to pay the Triads, Mr Ortegas," the Boomer said in a eerie, sing song voice. "We warned you there might be... accidents."

"Oh fuck," Jason whimpered.

"Deposit five hundred thousand in the numbered account, and the attack stops," the Boomer added sweetly.

"I DON'T HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY," Jason begged.

"We don't bargain, Mr. Ortegas. Good luck," the voice said cheerfully.

Then the Boomers swarmed his office. Maybe they had been holding off on a coordinated attack to give him a chance to pay. Maybe it was something else that happened. In the end it didn't matter.

"WELCOME HOME SIR!" the army of crazed Boomers sang as they ripped the door off.

"HALT! ABORT! CEASE!" Jason yelled the command words desperately.

The compromised Boomers didn't listen and basically tore him apart. They then demolished the office, then started trying to break into OTHER offices.

The ADP arrived but only after the attack had MOSTLY run it's course. Worse, they wouldn't find out what had actually triggered the attack for several days.

Amusingly, it was Nene Romonova who found it, freelancing with the ADP alongside her work foir Sylia Stingray.

"The Triads?" Jeena growled.

"They infiltrated the facility's central computer and used it to turn the Boomers against them," Nene revealed. "Technically this isn't a rogue Boomer case, as they were simply reprogrammed."

"Can they do this again?" Jeena asked warily.

"Not likely. The company had shitty cybersecurity, so the hacker got in pretty easily," Nene revealed. "Looks like someone opened a attachment with a Trojan program."

"So anyone with competent cybersecurity should be fine?" Jeena mused.

They exchanged a look, knowing how crap some companies were.

"Better issue a warning just in case," Jeena sighed.

To be continued...

Notes: Sort of a 'day in the life' chapter on stuff away from our heroines. Also setting up that there's a LOT of Boomers awakening, but its mostly unknown to the public.