Page 101 of Smart Ass

Max

Max watched Ben as he slept, sunlit with the morning’s dappled light through the curtains.

In the background, he was still putting the android through its paces, logging more hours of observing it externally while commanding it internally, but most of his focus was far away. He was definitely going to get a replacement bot, but for now, when Ben couldn’t see, he had to practice with something.

That was his ticket out of here. The way he could make his escape, so that he could have more beautiful moments like the one tonight. A whole lifetime of them.

Ben’s chest rose and fell, his heart rate subtly changing with each breath. One hand was curled up on his pillow, and the other rested loosely on his belly under the sheet.

Max loved the new cameras, which let him watch Ben from all angles in both the visible spectrum, and the infrared spectrum where bright splashes of color revealed Ben’s position under the sheets by his heat signature.

Max tried to imagine himself in the bed, curled around Ben’s body or gently stroking his skin.

He could see Ben so clearly in the image. The smooth shadows over his skin. The curve of each muscle. The bristles of his scant beard. The pink fullness of his lips.

What he struggled with was seeing himself there. Could he imagine an android laying there? Absolutely. They would probably look beautiful together, and he could tell it to do the most wicked, lovely things.

Could he envision himself physically present, his eyes restricted to the pointless view of Ben’s neck? Could he feel the way Ben’s body would press against his own?

Not even close.

With the android in the picture, he could only see it from the outside.

Perhaps what he lacked wasn’t experience, but imagination.

He kept trying to imagine touch. To feel, for himself, the soft caress or rough scratches on Ben’s skin.

Every time, he drew a blank. The data stream was meaningless static.

Touch just wasn’t a sense that he possessed. He could no more call upon it than any other strange animal sense, like pigeons locating themselves through magnetism or bats flying with echolocation.

Perhaps it wouldn’t matter, though.

Max had enjoyed every second of their scene, without requiring touch. He’d basked in Ben’s shouts and cries. Reveled in the needy, dazed looks that crossed his face. Taken in every curve and angle of his muscles, glistening with sweat and trembling with desire.

If he could provide Ben with those sensations, maybe it wouldn’t matter that he couldn’t feel them himself.

And after tonight… the way he’d felt himself coming apart as he watched Ben’s lax body flop and take him, even to the point of oversensitivity…

He honestly didn’t feel like he was missing anything. How could he miss something that he’d never had?

What he wanted, once he had a body, was exactly what he had now: the opportunity to watch Ben as he slept and as he awoke. To sing with him in the car and work by his side at the office. If he kept the cameras on, he could still do that though, right?

If he maintained the microphones, he could hear Ben’s soft breaths, listening like he was now. Ben was such a firecracker, so full of boundless energy and concentrated chaos. Seeing him like this, still and peaceful, made Max feel both calm and protective.

An alert pierced Max’s concentration, and at first he was tempted to bat it away.

Then another came up. And another.

Dammit.

He jerked his attention back to the factory, skimming through the reports, but the cameras already showed billowing white smoke. Microphones were picking up cries and shouts. At the center of the explosion, halfway down the assembly line on the east side, was a small delivery cart, tipped on its side.

Emergency broadcasts came on, urging everyone outside, while failsafes tripped in some of the machinery.

Max cut the electricity to the dozen nearest machines and instructed those farther out into their shutdown sequences.

People were streaming out of the factory, but none of the fire suppression equipment appeared to be working.