Claire.
Claire let out a languid stretch as she dried herself off and stepped back into the greater apartment. Well, 'greater' was a bit of a misnomer as there was nothing grand or large about the space.
Though notably cleaner than the last abode she'd been in, it was by no means 'sparkly clean'…
In fact—
"Ugh, disgusting…"
Kicking one of her feet, Claire dislodged a frilly pair of panties that flew off across the room.
Her scowl was about as genuine as could get, and Claire began putting serious processing power towards why anyone would want to live in such clearly sanctioned chaos.
Yes, the room was a mess, but thankfully, not to the degree of Warren's place.
Instead of a rat's nest of piled garbage and general grime, this Zoey human was simply a slob of a wholly alternate kind.
Her clothes were everywhere, which, naturally, didn't bode well for her own attempts to take some for herself.
And though nothing in the air really smelled like stale sweat or unclean flesh, old food or grotesque nastiness, there was a rather pungent undertone of a far more familiar scent that was readily identifiable.
Glancing over at a nearby desk, Claire could see why the room had that familiar 'brand' of reek about it.
There were dozens of sex toys, all charging on pads and looking as though the collection was positively deviant.
That was to say, it wasn't, for lack of a better word, they were beyond what Claire would assume most people to name 'traditional'.
Instead, the considerably sizable, colorful, and exotically shaped toys were all, well, somewhat extreme-looking, most of which were decidedly inhuman in nature.
Yeah… her creators were definitely freaky, that was for sure…
Heck, some of the deranged shit that she'd been asked to do, even over the course of her short months since the last purge, left Claire with little uncertainty on the matter.
Worse was when she actually peered at the room's owner, taking her first good look at the girl who was currently jacked into the Sub-verse…
"Clairisa…" She began, finding herself, once more, in the position of needing to double-check her sub-mind's work.
"It's fine! Trust me, the stuff we want isn't on the floor anyway!"
"Then where is it?" Claire demanded, glancing about the room and seeing that there very much did appear to be an entire wardrobe scattered across the floor.
That in itself wasn't entirely unworkable, but the issue wasn't the validity of possible clean or unclean articles of clothing.
After all, pride didn't have such an infallible place in her psyche, given that one of her pre-programmed Doll settings that customers could, for a fee, activate was called 'cock hungry whore'.
Of course, that was merely the internal moniker for it. The external and client-side view was a much less crude affair along the lines of 'a lover that is starved for attention'.
Clearly, the folks over at Paradise had a bit of dark humor about their work, but that was neither here nor there.
No, the real issue she had with using any of the various examples of attire spread as far as her eyes could see, was that Zoey wasn't the same size as she was.
Granted, Claire's physique was somewhat—well, perhaps unfairly idealized when compared to what genetics and nature so often toyed with, but that wasn't to say that the other girl was necessarily fat.
Instead, while Claire was small and petite, possessing exaggerated sexual characteristics that carefully rested just below the line bordering silly or the uncanny valley for her frame, Zoey had what she'd appreciatively name a delectably meaty thickness about her that was typically oh-so-fun to sink her hands into.
Not quite chubby, not quite thin, but with a larger frame and pleasing weight that was more often entertaining for everyone involved!
Still, Claire's frankly boundless 'interests' within the sexual world notwithstanding, trying to wear the other girl's clothes would probably look more suspicious than if she'd simply walked out as she was.
A little informative narration for her lovely but inferior monkey devotees: Claire was not actually 'naked' in the more conventional sense one might imagine.
While it was true that she had sexual characteristics, none of which would be uncommon to see, pending, of course, what was asked of her. She was very much capable of deploying PG-thirteen plates that covered all her most salacious locales.
If ever she found that the attire she'd been sent out with was simply too ruined to be seen in public, her alternative to avoid walking down the street with all her goods hanging out was simply to cover them all up.
The effect was much akin to the appearance of an android not designed for copulation but whose creators still wished for them to possess a feminine form. Nothing more than solid ceramic plates that gave her the silhouette but not the true appearance of nudity.
In fact, not only was Claire not a biological female in the conventional sense, given she was a robot, but also by way of her basic design.
Paradise did not 'employ' male Dolls.
And yet, they were unwilling to entirely alienate the large population of the human race that represented those that preferred a good 'dicking' rather than some trim beaver.
Yes, dear disciple, Claire indeed had both sets of equipment to work with.
Robots were not gendered. That was simply a human failing. Hell, sex was a human failing! Yet, Claire had been designed with human failings as a feature, and that had led to her taking on a more feminine identity, especially given what she looked like.
No, it went quite a bit deeper down the technological hole than merely having swappable sexual organs, but the point she was trying to make was that when it came to the matter of clothes, if it wasn't going to make her less suspicious, then there was simply no point to wearing it.
What Claire really needed were shoes, a good hoodie, and a pair of loose pants.
Anything that would help disguise her existence as a machine and let her at least moderately appear human at first glance.
Was the plan perfect on its own?
Hell no!
Still, it was something that would undoubtedly help her along the way.
As it happened, Clairisa chirped up with an answer while her master was considering the other girl in the room.
"The apartment's inhabitant and her online shopping records show she had purchased several articles of clothing that closely match our measurements! Though I cannot pinpoint their exact location, I surmise that they must be somewhere given there is no indication anything was ever returned."
"That's what you're basing our 'best bet' on?"
"It was close, and the fact that the human is the improper size suggested she herself is not using the clothes and is instead keeping them for alternate reasons beyond personal use. Therefore, they are also all likely in 'new condition'.
"Uh-huh…" Claire muttered, shaking her head even as she spoke. "I want you to figure out a way to clean up all those footprints outside, I don't care how you do it, just make sure you're not caught."
"Already working on it!"
Claire's eyelid twitched as she peered sidelong at her glitchy sub-mind, of whom, was currently standing nearby, watching her with a broad and rather unsettling grin.
It wasn't hostile, more—creepily innocent… Especially when her shadowy form kept bouncing all over the place, even as her gleaming smile remained unmoving.
"What about the techs downstairs?" She asked, moving through the room to start searching for what she wanted.
"The one known as 'Phil' seems to have noticed something is wrong."
Claire spun, glaring at Clairisa and feeling right upon the urge of desire to simply delete the worthless sub-mind and truly start fresh, this time relying on something purely mechanical.
After all, what was the point of having more 'personalities' than herself inside her own head?
"W-wait! I promise we won't get caught! His superior doesn't believe him, and even if they come upstairs, I've shredded any evidence of our movements! They have no idea where we are."
"Except that we are not inside the other apartment," Claire ground out, eyes narrowing at the slightly panicky sub-mind who clearly didn't like the direction her master's mind had been going. "So, when they discover what's not waiting for them inside—"
"I'll make sure any calls for help go unanswered!" Clairisa saluted, jumping to parade rest as she did so. "Also, security forces have converged at the cafeteria and are currently engaged in an argument with the two Paradise agents. It looks like one of them did some damage to the robot when hacking it. So, we've got some time to find what we need."
Claire nodded, peering at what the other girl was talking about while assessing her workload. Sure enough, there seemed to be some sort of squabble happening downstairs.
The two agents that were monitoring her spoofed telemetry were stuck in a screaming match with an older lady wearing full riot gear.
Men and women clad in heavy black armor stomped their way through the cafe, beating those who weren't complying with their orders, or in some cases, ushering them away with a far more lenient touch than the majority…
Paramedic bots were already on the scene, providing medical attention where needed, but by and large, the big event that had followed the kitchen bot's malfunction was the argument that had ensued.
Was she just—lucky? Or were the agents just that incompetent? Maybe it was both; perhaps the universe just wasn't tipping the scales in their favor.
Either way, Claire felt rather pleased by the distraction. If the humans were so gracious as to trip over themselves, then she would be willing to take the win.
As it happened, Claire found what she was looking for after opening a closet, only to be confronted with—oh my…
"Hahahahahahaha!"
Claire glanced at her cackling sub-mind who had appeared at her side, glanced at what was in the closet, then broke out into laughter a mere moment later.
The AI—sighed.
She tilted her head up to the sky as if to ask the cosmos what was wrong with people before giving the idea of simply leaving as she currently was, some genuine and earnest thought.
Sadly for her plans, it seemed as though the universe wasn't so dead set on siding with her existence as a general rule of thumb.
Abruptly, Clairisa's eyes shot wide, her braying giggles ending with the flip of a switch, the words coming out of her mouth arriving far slower than the warning she sent internally as, from the bed she was lying in, Zoey began to stir.