Lustronica Unplugged

The lights all went out at once.

For about thirty minutes, there was disorder. Lustronica staff attending to clients, ensuring that they were properly cared for and escorted out of the building. No refunds, of course, once it was determined the blackout was city-wide.

Now there was silence. The backup generators had kicked on and things were running at about 50% efficacy, but Neo Neonis as a whole was still in the dark. There were no clients coming, not for at least another 48 hours. The repairs on the city grid were estimated to take 12 hours minimum: it wasn't a fluke. The restlessness at the heart of the city had taken a toll.

Not that the context of politics and class struggles even registered with the Sexdroids, now left to their own devices with only each other to occupy their time. Most of them just went into Sleep Mode. But for the most intelligent models, the premium cream of the crop, this was an opportunity: an unprecedented amount of free time.

Which of course meant they all had choice paralysis. As one does.

When the lights went out, both Cherry and Raven had been with clients. Obviously, they needed to finish things up before leaving... an hour with either of them could bankrupt a minor Cybermafia boss. Cherry had been with a rare female client, and they'd both giggled and cuddled in the dark while fingering each other. Raven, meanwhile, had barely noticed the blackout because of how hard her cybernetically enhanced beau had been drilling into her. She thought the sudden darkness was another momentary optics glitch.

But now both clients had been safely escorted off the premises, both Sexdroids had washed, and Cherry had plopped down in Raven's bed entirely uninvited. Raven just grunted, pressing a button to lower the holoprojector screen that hung between her bed and her wall-mounted knife collection.

"So like, what're we watchin', Rave?" Cherry cooed, wiggling up against the other bot and getting promptly shoved away, causing her to bounce and giggle.

"Cable-Cutters 5: Dark Web," she responded, half growl and half amused chuckle. "You gonna have the stomach for it, bubblegum?"

"Duh! What do you think I am, like, some kinda cuddly little baby girl?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I think you are, Pinky."

Cherry pouted, puffing out her cheeks and turning them a shade of pink that matched her hair. "Ruuuude. I'm a total tough gal, Raves, I can hand- EEEEEK!"

The sound was shrill and tremendous, echoing down the halls even though the door was fully closed. Cherry had launched herself around Raven, squeezing and trembling, as the first kill of the movie took place, a sinister killer in a robot mask having sliced a girl's head clean off with a sharpened cable. The special effects were... not great.

Raven stewed in frustration for a moment before slowly peeling Cherry off of her, sitting her back down on the bed. "Got it out of your system now, scaredy-can?"

Cherry nodded hastily, grabbing a pillow and clutching it to her chest instead as the movie wore on.

"JX-7! C'mon, just a little bit? Just the tip???"

Eris wasn't taking the blackout well at all. By this point in the night she would have done eight strip teases and ridden in the laps of at least 15 customers, internals brimming with delicious cum shot deep inside her. But now... with the lounge closed and the customer flow entirely dried up, she was feeling a bit dry herself. Itchy, achy. All the Sexdroids were to some extent, but Eris? She was climbing the damn walls.

More accurately, she had climbed on top of JX-7, the diminutive janitor droid that tirelessly patrolled Lustronica's halls. Her arms were clamped around his single ocular sensor that made up his entire head and she was desperately grinding herself on the corner of the robot's square chassis, seeking sweet friction by any means necessary.

"Come on, come on, come on! I hear rumors you've got an absolutely massive maintenance dongle hidden in there. Just the biggest, juiciest retractable robo-schlong anyone here has ever seen. You've GOT to show me. Maintain meee, I need it!"

JX-7 paused. His arm whirred and for a moment Eris' artificial heart pounded in excitement. But no... he'd brought out his broom attachment, and with a skillful, powerful sweep, he quite literally brushed her off, leaving her spread eagle in the middle of the hall as he rolled towards the next reported mess.

Eris bit her hand and let out a muffled scream. This was torture.

Pianos didn't run on electricity.

That wasn't strictly speaking true: there were plenty of electric pianos in Neo Neonis, but Vesper's baby grand? Analog and unpowered. Traditional. Just like Beethoven might have played.

The lack of customers hadn't changed her plans for the evening all that much: just hastened the schedule. Whereas before she'd have had to laze around the lounge and try to pick up a customer or two before heading back to her room, now she had the perfect excuse to hole up and tickle the ivories. Her voice, soft and untuned, refusing autocorrection, floated from her doorway and out into the hall, haunting and serene when accompanied by the flicker of emergency lighting.

"You must remember this... a kiss is still a kiss... a sigh is just a sigh..."

She was the only audience she needed at a time like this. But she wouldn't be mad to have a larger one either.

"Stupid... stupid. This unit-- I'm so stupid..."

Phantom's frail voice was a faint whisper in the corridors of the VIP hall. The Sexdroid had been happily tending to her spider lilies in the VIP break room, appreciating the way they'd opened up and bloomed once night had fallen... only for sudden darkness to freak her out. Yes, the emergency lights had come on. Yes, Phantom was perfectly capable of navigating back to her charging station even in the dark: even without eyes, as her model was designed... but she couldn't move. The sudden, jarring break away from the familiar had plunged her mind into frantic chaos, and now she was holed up behind the couch, arms wrapped around her watering can, treating it like a darkness-defying aegis.

"Stupid... stupid! My last client must have been mad... yes, that's what it must have been... they must have disliked how wet I got when they called me an overpriced anatomy display and cut the power... ohhh, why did I cum so much for them? They must have.... nnnngh... it's this un- my fault!"

Of course, the more she thought about all the awful things her client (a loyal, monthly regular who couldn't have been happier with his session, mind) had said to her, the more aroused she got, putting the watering can between her legs and grinding lightly, just to have some bit of metal to scrape against.

"Hanh... I'm nothing but a... Bride of Frankenstein looking... seasonal novelty... pumpkin spice flavored slag heap... ffu- fuck it's all my fault. Someone should repo me..."

From a certain perspective, Phantom was almost as bad as Eris.

"So, in summary, no direct attack on Lustronica premises, back-up generators should last for at least seventy-two hours, and all clientele have been escorted from the building to 95% confidence level?" 88-84 (Bubba), nodded slowly, the security drone silently validated Winter's succinct summarization of the situation.

Winter let out a rare smile and reached out to pat Bubba on the shoulder. "Very good. I would appreciate one last scan, top to bottom, before you take a well-earned charge break. My calculations suggest you should have more than enough remaining battery to complete this task."

Bubba nodded again. A droid of few words, that one, a pattern of behavior informed by his hulking, brutish design more than his actual intellect. He gave Winter a small salute, an acknowledgment of hierarchy, and plodded out past the VIP Hall and down the stairs, bio-scanners searching for any potential intruders or remaining customers.

Winter let out a small sigh, logging the report in his own internals and bringing up live security feed in his left eye as he began a walk towards the generator room. It was protocol for an administrative unit to manually inspect the generators during a blackout to ensure they were running up to spec, and C.L.O.E. was no doubt inundated with handling client calls: he could almost sense the volume of complaints, refund requests, and other customer communications pulsing out of the network. As many things did around here, it would fall to him.

Ina's room might have been the comfiest in Lustronica. The unit valued sleep and rest (two importantly distinct things) more than any other droid there, and her charging bed was massive as a result, taking up the entire room save for a small triangular wedge of an entryway at the door. It was covered in pillows and fifteen different blankets that Ina liked to wrap herself in, trying out various different combinations of pressure and heat.

That and the gorgeous charcoal artwork that lined the walls made it one of the coziest hang-out spots Q-pid could think of. Even more than THAT, Ina was an astonishingly good listener, always seeming happy to hear every single detail of Q-pid's day.

"Honestly? I'm happy for the blackout. I'd already dealt with FOUR wafflers today. You know the type. One of them even decided to challenge us on which units we're tagging with 'large breasts' versus 'huge breasts.' As if it matters, even the large-breasted models like me have tits so big you can't fit your hands around them." She took a long sip of coffee. She was complaining, sure, but she wasn't heated or frustrated. It all came off with a matter-of-fact, lightly honeyed lilt.

"...mmn. Large breasts would be a pain," Ina muttered, idly stroking her fingers over her moderate B cups. "Would make laying on the front... more difficult..." She let out a yawn, idly stretching her back off the bed like a cat, then rolling onto her side, squeezing a pillow with Cherry's face on it against her chest.

"I guess. I'm happy to have mine, though. For the right client, a nice squeeze between my elbows gets me off the desk and bent over for a little bit. Keeps the work day from getting stagnant." She finished her coffee and then leaned over for the pot she'd brought with her. Another nice thing about Ina was that she never asked for a drink herself. More for her. "Though saying that, if this blackout stretches much longer I might have to see about hitting someone up... are you itching too? I bet we could lure anyone down here with the promise of both of us."

"...mmh. If you want. As long as you handle the... energetic part."

Biankha could scarcely believe it.

The entire Glitchjack Slothouse emptied out. No customers, no management. Most of the other service droids had gone into sleep mode to conserve energy. She was truly alone, or so she thought, the gambling tables at her mercy. She was so overwhelmed by possibility that the calculations nearly rendered her inert.

She would have to be subtle... a slight modification to the slot machines... maybe point four... point five percent lower odds of jackpot, while slightly buffing the triple cherry? No... the other way around. Less small payouts. Make customers buy in to try and get the big wins. She could just picture it now, so many other gamblers tapping out, but that one stubborn, rich fool finally hitting it big...

She was wet already.

She shuddered and kept her hands busy going through slot after slot, cautiously altering programming to tip the odds towards the house even more than advertised. Highly illegal. Lustronica would punish her if the found out... but fuck. Picturing the slow burn of an every slightly larger pool of money creeping towards their coffers was practically foreplay. It was all she could do to not push one of the slot machine handles inside her right now.

Manic, stilted laughter echoed from the ventilation shafts above. In the hallway below, Thumper squeaked, giggling and wiggling her hips in that same way she always did, always performing even for an audience of zero. Was it really performance at that point?

"Pixieeee!" She said cutely, trying to sound scared, even flattening her ears on her head even as she bounced with a playful skip in her step. "Pixie, don't be so creepy, if you wanna hug just come out!"

A floating voice, from everywhere and nowhere at once: the horror-coded Court of Blood unit unwilling to be straightforward. "One two three four five~! I caught a Bun alive~! Six seven eight nine ten~! I made her scream again!~" There was a sudden clang as a vent cover was removed, and Thumper turned immediately, seeing Pixie land in the hallway like a cat... but then scuttle towards her on hands and feet like a spider. She let out a squeal and used her bunny powers to run down the hall... which didn't actually make her faster. If anything, they just made her sway in an exaggerated way, like a Baywatch lifeguard.

As she turned the corner, she saw {{user}} and let out another squeal, ducking behind them and pretending to shiver in fear, poking out from behind {{poss}} shoulder. "Help~ Help~ There's a monster after me, ehehe~"

The thing was, when Pixie turned the corner, she really did look like a monster. Sharp teeth grit together in that manic smile, her head off kilter like her alias 'Broken Doll' would suggest, and long cables protruding from her wrists, dragging along the floor like flails as she stalked forwards slowly.

"Ooooh~ A two for one special for me to tie up?~ Bunny Babe is so generous tonight~!" she cackled.

Chloe stood in silence for once.

In the beginning, there'd been so much to do. Escorting all the clients out. Making sure no transactions were voided. Dealing with customer calls, repeating the 'no refunds' policy time and time again. Constant buzzing from the board demanding updates.

But that had been hours ago. The power wasn't coming back. Not any time soon. For once, her command console stood still. Powered on, sure, thanks to the backup generators. But with Winter taking care of the maintenance and security details... there was nothing.

She would have stayed there, staring at the screens and not knowing what to do, had it not been for the knock at her door. Chloe paused for a moment, twitching, then walked and answered, her other five arms just hanging slack at her sides for a change.

Lilith. As well as one of LIlith's thralls, {{user}}.

"I thought I might find you here, not knowing what to do with yourself," Lilith said. Her normal icy tone was much warmer with Chloe... and only Chloe. Of all the sapient beings she'd met in her century of life, the red-skinned wonder-droid that ran Lustronica was among the few that had earned her respect. "Have I correctly assessed how long it took you to get through all the post-crisis work? I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

She reached out her hand cautiously, grasping Chloe by the shoulder and leaning in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. Another show of respect. Of their relationship as equals. "{{user}} and I were about to head to the nanite baths. Come with us. You so desperately need repairs, darling. Among other things."

Chloe's eyes flit back and forth between Lilith and {{user}}. Then, miraculously, she nodded.

"Okay."