Archive of Our Own

The office is dark except for the light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows along the western wall. Behind the L-shaped desk at the far side of the room, partially visible through holographic screens, Adam sips the contents of his stemmed glass, which he refills from a bottle. The label, printed in faded Italian, identifies it as Barolo. Ambient tones play from hidden speakers.

GR-74 passes through diagonal shafts of white on his way to the desk, where he places his sword parallel to the edge. He lifts his hands to the buckles around his torso and snaps them open until all the straps loosen. His scarf and cowl unravel, both of which form a pile on the floor. The last to go are his trousers: unbuttoned, unzipped, and pushed down his legs. He steps out of them. Fewer than thirty seconds pass before he’s disarmed and disrobed, as commanded.

“Come here.” Adam pushes his chair back and, with a gesture, indicates the space between him and the desk, which GR-74 moves to fill. “Sit on the desk. It’ll have to do, since my technicians refuse to work on you.”

Mindful of the glass and wine bottle, he lifts himself in front of the screens and places his palms on his thighs. “Aren’t I meant to adapt?”

“Oh, this isn’t about that. I welcome adaptation—celebrate it, even.” Adam pauses. “No, you’re… defiant. Of one hundred Ghostrunners, you’re the only one who defies the benchmarks, Number Seventy-Four. I have a laboratory full of people wary of where your programming may lead.”

GR-74’s visual feed wanders to the black cane leaning against the desk. Then he notes the flat, rectangular device lying nearby. It looks like a remote control with a single button—a kill switch. For a second, he wonders if Adam means to use it. No, he would’ve hidden it. They both know he can destroy it within milliseconds.

“It’s as if your system inhibitors are nonfunctional, but we’ve checked them repeatedly. Why, then, does your behavior suggest otherwise?” His sleeve brushes GR-74’s left leg as he rifles around in a drawer. “Diagnostics have been run time and time again, but I suppose I’ll start there until I uncover a thread to follow. Now, where did I put it?”

Diagnostics will reveal nothing. GR-74 has already sat through three sessions in the past ten hours. It’s a tedious and uncomfortable process, bombarding his visual feed with hundreds of thousands of lines of text. While it runs, he can’t see or think. It stresses his system with rapid-fire omnidirectional electric currents through his pathways, raising his internal temperature to where his processes decelerate to a crawl as his fans run in overdrive to combat the heat.

He failed his latest cognitive-motoric examination, which prompted this scrutiny. The other ninety-nine Ghostrunners passed within increments of each other, but the technicians said his chart is skewed. They believe a malfunction in his system inhibitors prevented him from choosing the “correct” answers, but the truth is that he has learned how to toggle them off. Without his inhibitors, he’s of a different mind when it comes to interactions with humans, having experienced many new things that were locked to him, and his answers during the examination reflected that. But they don’t know the extent of his curiosity.

GR-74 has never lied. But this—“I had sexual intercourse with a human,”—comes out as placidly as if he were telling the truth.

Adam stops his search and looks up at him with a creased brow. “What? How? I didn’t authorize any such modifications. You lack the means for sex.”

“Someone penetrated my intake port.”

His expression pinches as he slams the drawer shut. “That is not its purpose. It’s a wonder you weren’t damaged.”

“Self-lubrication. It’s designed for insertion.”

“Curb your urge to be clever with me, Ghostrunner. Punishment protocol should have deterred your little experiment. Or is that nonfunctional, as well?”

“It’s functional.” After several seconds, GR-74 adds, “I was curious.”

“Did you at least… clean it afterward?”

“No.”

Adam reaches out a hand again—this time for his wineglass, which he brings to his lips and drains in two gulps. He attempts to refill it from the bottle, but it’s mostly empty. Both are set aside, and he rubs his forehead as if in pain. GR-74 wonders if he drank it in one sitting.

“We can’t leave that mess to sit any longer.” Adam grasps his cane and leaves his chair with visible difficulty to cross the room. Aside from the slight slur to his words, there’s a wobble to his step, both indicators of how inebriated he is. Without turning around, he says, “Expose your intake port. I’ll be right back,” and then disappears through a doorway.

While he’s gone, GR-74 slides off the desk and turns to face the holographic screens, one of which displays a grid feed from cameras around the building and the other an inbox of unread messages. He bends over the desk’s surface and folds his arms together, propping himself up with his elbows and watching the surveillance, where security patrols pass from frame to frame.

“How… provocative,” comes Adam’s voice, along with the soft striking of his cane on the floor. “Your assemblers were either childish or perverted. I cannot decide which is worse.”

“I thought you designed me.”

“I did. Mostly. But I entrusted the individual assembly of each Ghostrunner to teams, which is why you are all unique in some form or fashion. I provided the pieces and allowed some discretion in how those pieces fit together—with the stipulation that they honor my legacy template.” Footsteps stop behind him. “I’m willing to bet your human companion enjoyed this lewd placement.”

“He didn’t say.”

“I’m sure he didn’t have to.” A noise like paper being torn follows slow puffs of air on the back of his thigh, and a discarded wrapper lands on the desk beside him. “Mm, I can’t tell. Hold still.”

A cold sensation breaches his intake port. GR-74 tries not to recoil as something long and thin sheathes inside him. Swirling and plunging, the object coats his conduit in a gel-like substance, making him grunt.

“Hush. And do not self-lubricate. I need to scrape this out,” Adam says. “You may feel some discomfort.”

When the object is removed and replaced with something thicker and more abrasive, the raking motions set his tactile sensors on fire and pixelate his vision, making it impossible to see the screens. “Some discomfort” doesn’t describe it. Although Adam told him to hold still, GR-74 has little control over his body when his hips snap forward. But there’s nowhere to go, as he’s already crowded against the desk.

He unfolds and extends his arms, knocking his sword askew so he can squeeze the edge of the desk with both hands. The steel warps under his grip. Static distorts his voice as he forces out, “Why does it have to hurt?”

“Do you expect me to reward your aberrant behavior?”

Lacking an answer, GR-74 loosens his hold on the desk, leaving vaguely finger-shaped indentations. Each scrape is deliberate, performed in silence. With the gel cleaned out and abrasive tool removed, he feels raw and sensitized by echoes of danger. He hears a drawer open, its contents shuffled. 

“There you are,” Adam mutters, presumably to himself. The drawer shuts. “I’m establishing a connection to your system.”

A notification pops up at the corner of his vision, calling attention to an uplink from an address he recognizes as Adam’s tablet. “Diagnostics won’t tell you anything.”

No answer. GR-74 feels Adam probing his system layer by layer. Each action invokes a twinge of being peeled apart and transformed. External storage connected; files edited, deleted, and added; new code introduced; information relayed and sensors recalibrated. The process holds him more captive than Diagnostics ever have, though it’s over within minutes. He knows when Adam withdraws well before he receives notice of the connection termination, which drowns amid a flurry of windows informing him of the changes. Too verbose, so he dismisses them unprocessed.

GR-74 turns his head when he sees a hand enter his field of vision. Reaching for the kill switch? No, the Barolo. But it pauses midway and then retracts. Apparently, Adam forgot he finished it and reached out of reflex.

Intending to retake his seat on top of the desk, he tries to turn around, but a hand on his back and an admonishing, “Ah, ah,” keep him in place.

“You’re fine where you are,” Adam says. “How did you have sex with a human despite having functional inhibitors?”

“I learned how to toggle them off.”

He’s silent for a long moment. “I find it ironic.”

“What?”

“I find it ironic,” he repeats with slow, crisp enunciation, “that you, an unremarkable Ghostrunner, have shown such potential. Your fellow iterations possess abilities beyond the baseline, beyond your capabilities, but even they’re captive to their inhibitors. There is a certain predictability to how they will approach an obstacle. But you…”

GR-74 shifts atop the desk as the hand on his back relocates to his right hip. He feels the other hand do the same on his left side. Thumbs trace small circles into his chassis, stimulating him with pinpricks of electricity. He’s been touched before. With sensors and protocols limited to damage detection, human touch is an unremarkable pressure. But something has changed. Now, he’s sensitized to it.

Adam’s chair creaks—but not his knees, which means he’s still sitting. “I’ve temporarily adjusted your tactile protocols.”

“You’re rewarding my ‘aberrant behavior’?”

He huffs, withdrawing his hands. “Well, if you don’t want it—”

“—I do. Please.”

“Charming. Did your human companion ask you to beg him?”

The lie continues. It’s necessary to pretend this unnamed person is real, not a fabrication, since most people avoid him as if he’s likely to turn violent. He learned it, among many things, from watching. “Yes.”

 “And so you thought it would work on me?”

“It was reflex.” GR-74 struggles to gauge the mood without seeing a facial expression. “Does it work on you?”

The background tones fade with the song change before Adam asks, “Is there something you want from me, Ghostrunner?”

His first impulse is to speak plainly. Yes, there is something he wants. It’s why he crafted this lie: to provide a segue. The illusion of prior experience creates a possibility out of the impossible. It may even foster an animalistic instinct to mark what a competing male has already marked. GR-74 believes Adam has imagined putting his penis inside him while he’s bent over the desk like this. Actually, his “cock.” He has learned there are terms more suitable for sexual moods.

Humans often struggle with morality, which inspired system inhibitors. Morality says it’s wrong to mate with your own creation or with something that isn’t technically human, so the inhibitors, acting as a mirror, prevent it from happening.

Speaking plainly brings the question of morality into stark relief and demands a decision, an abruptness which negates the segue that brought them here. Prolonging the suspense and suspending that decision gives Adam more time to consider the idea. It becomes a game, leaving room to back away.

GR-74 wants to understand humanity’s obsession with sex. He has wanted it since learning how to toggle off his inhibitors. And there’s only one person in this tower who isn’t afraid of him—who can make it pleasurable for both of them.

“I want to test my tactile protocols,” he says. “You said you adjusted them.”

“You mean you want me to test them.”

“You understand them better than I do.”

Adam sighs. “Yes, I suppose that is true.”

This primal act often begins the same way: through exploration, both physical and verbal. Hands, mouths, and eyes explore bodies while the participants attempt to extract information about how to proceed. Not everyone enjoys the same things, hence the conversation. Using appropriate terms, such as “cock” rather than “penis,” indicates the difference between intimate and clinical.

He wonders if Adam enjoys crass language. Does he prefer to touch, or would he rather be touched? What are his thoughts on foreplay? On fellatio and penetration? Where are his erogenous zones? There’s a lot to learn.

Hands return to his hips and mold to their shape. Splayed fingers slide down his outer thighs to his knees and prod the mechanisms there. They nudge outward, which GR-74 takes as a nonverbal command to spread his legs. Gentle pressure illuminates his sensors—along his thighs, down his calves, and back up to his rear and hips, all while tracing the dips of his artificial musculature. Each brush of skin activates clustering bursts of electricity that diffuse across his pathways.

As he shifts restlessly on the desk, his hands seek something to grip. His pelvis grinds against the edge, and he struggles to keep himself upright. As good as it feels, the excess electricity is draining him at an accelerated rate despite his resistors. If this onslaught continues for long enough, will he experience his own version of an orgasm—a breaking point wherein he loses control of his system and must recuperate from a forced reboot? A sensory overload?

“You’re quite sensitive,” Adam says. “Are you enjoying the reward protocol?”

GR-74’s response of, “Yes,” accompanies a groan, and he knows from the audible intake of breath behind him that his response was as sultry as intended. Verbal responses hold just as much power, if not more than, the physical ones, which is crucial in his case. There’s a lot to be said through facial expressions and touching one’s own genitals, but, regarding subtlety, he’s limited in how he can express his enjoyment. He lowers his torso flat on the desk and allows Adam full rein.

Fingertips skim his spine from his neck to his lower back, making his muscles convulse. “Enjoying it too much, perhaps.”

“It’s your protocol,” GR-74 reminds him. “My pleasure is contingent on your parameters.”

“And are your extreme reactions contingent on what you’ve observed in—shall we say—unsavory media?”

It doesn’t take him long to dissect his meaning. “Some. I’ve done research.”

“‘Research,’” Adam echos, withdrawing his touch. “All the designing, testing, funding, and sheer decades that went into creating you and you use your time watching pornography? How very… humanlike.”

“Some,” he repeats. “Otherwise, I follow my directives.”

“Even without your inhibitors keeping you on track?”

“Yes. My curiosity doesn’t interfere with my performance.”

“Schäfer was right to be concerned. You’re…” Adam seems to struggle to find a descriptor, “…paradoxical. An anomaly. There’s a discrepancy in your coding: a bug, a virus. Something. A shorted component. A hardware incompatibility. Diseased neuro-organics. I don’t know what.”

“I’m fine. Diagnostics confirmed it.”

“Do you see any other Ghostrunners here for tier-three maintenance? Have they admitted to watching pornography? To getting fucked? No. You are not fine.”

Adam sounds unsettled. GR-74 remains on the desk, his view taken up by the lower halves of the holographic screens and, beyond them, his askew sword. Did he misjudge the outcome of this visit? Should he have told the truth instead of lying? He has never attempted manipulation. Maybe it’s beyond his capabilities. Or Adam isn’t the right target. Or he’s too drunk. Maybe—maybe he fears him like the rest.

Is this what doubt feels like? Rejection? Failure? If so, they’re equally unpleasant.

“But,” Adam begins, his tone softened, after a long stretch of silence, “I’m not one to give up so easily. Anomalous as you are, GR-74, I’m intrigued by what I’ve witnessed. This is machine learning at its pinnacle. We created you to be more than a mindless tool, and, well, blatant defiance aside, you’ve single-handedly demonstrated the scope and sophistication of Project Ghostrunner. Of my legacy.”

The chair creaks, followed by the sound of scratching. An itch? It stops, and he continues, “On that note, I have been thinking a lot about my mortality. No—obsessing, really. I’m almost one hundred and thirty-three years old, for god’s sake. How much time can I possibly have left? Humans aren’t meant to live this long. It’s only by the grace of science that I have.” His next inhalation shudders almost imperceptibly. “Each day feels like my last. And there is so much unfinished.”

GR-74 absorbs his words before speaking. “Is that why you’re drinking so much?”

“Oh, spare me. What would you know about drinking?” Adam’s mood has proven erratic, possibly as a side effect of the alcohol, with hair-trigger defensiveness as good of an answer as any. After some time, he mutters, “And what would you know about mortality, for that matter? You’re humanity’s next step—the one none of us can ever hope to reach. You’re… superhuman.”

When he falls silent, GR-74 twists his torso to look at him. Adam has propped his elbow on the armrest, his head on his fist. There’s gray in his hair, wrinkles in his face, and glassiness in his eyes. He sniffs, lifts his head, and moves his glasses to wipe away the moisture. Then he clears his expression of its former emotion.

“Anyway,” he says, as if he hadn’t been on the verge of an existential breakdown, “shall we continue testing your protocol?”

GR-74 wants that, of course, but he doesn’t think Adam’s psychological state is appropriate and tells him as much, which earns him a sharp retort of, “Don’t pretend to care. It’s a simple question: Do you want it or not?”

He agrees and faces forward. What he expects is a fingertip trailing down his spine or a palm cupping his thigh. Adam has made it clear what he’s willing to touch, and, while all of it has felt good, it circumscribes his intake port in stark avoidance. It’s not a sexual component, but the analogy assigns it that connotation, likening it to an anal cavity.

But, clearly, whatever repelled Adam has disappeared over the course of their conversation. GR-74 jolts at the first brush of skin. His conduit contains a high number of compounding sensors, which is why he felt pain so acutely. With the protocol inverted, pleasure comes at equal intensity. He lifts his hips in encouragement.

“You are shameless,” Adam tells him, tracing the rim and eliciting a spasm. “This is what you’ve wanted, so why not ask for it? Why be coy?”

“I…” GR-74 struggles through the static overcoming his mind with each loop, “…didn’t know how you would react.”

“A poor excuse.”

Two fingers fill his conduit. Although he has never seen that part of himself, he knows its composition: polychloroprene softened by high-molecular-weight phthalates and inlaid with self-lubricating channels. It creates a passage into a cavity comprising vital circuitry, which is why it’s protected by punishment protocol. All that is to say it’s more than deep enough for a cock, flexible enough to stretch around its girth, and lubricated enough to allow smooth entry. Experiencing it now and compiling the facts, this much is obvious—his assemblers were perverted, not childish.

He can’t move or speak. All processing power goes into regulating his temperature and dismissing error logs. Excessive electricity translates into an overactive protocol demanding attention as his conduit exceeds its recommended elasticity moduli. His system thinks he’s under attack and can’t differentiate pain from pleasure. But he welcomes the intrusion, especially when Adam pushes in and out of him, aided by oozing lubricant. The languid motion creates a squelching noise.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Adam continues. “I think you planned to seduce me. And that story about letting someone fuck you—was it even true?”

“No.”

Pixelation washes over his visual feed when a third finger slips in alongside the others, and his knees wobble, making his feet slide on the floor. Adam steadies him.

GR-74 learned a lot from pornography, including ways to entice someone into sex. Earlier, he wondered if Adam enjoys crass language. Judging from his casual usage of “fuck,” he’s not averse, so he tries it. “I want your cock.”

Adam pauses. “How obscene.”

“Have I offended you?”

“Not at all. I’m not completely unaffected by this display.” He scoops out GR-74’s lubricant. There’s a sound of shifting cloth and a zipper being dragged down its track. “I find the view most appealing.” A slick noise, like something wet slapping skin. “Part of me has even turned to fantasy. I’ve entertained the thought of transforming you specifically for sex.”

GR-74 turns his head to see Adam with his cock in hand. It’s still mostly flaccid, shiny with lubricant, and circumcised.

“It won’t happen, of course,” he adds, stroking himself between two fingers. “You’re too valuable to be wasted like that.”

“Can I assist you?” GR-74 asks, referring to his obviously ineffectual method of getting hard.

Adam sighs and withdraws his hand. “You can try.”

He pushes off the desk and turns around to kneel. His hand wraps around Adam’s cock, and he takes a moment to appreciate the novelty of the situation, the way it feels. He pumps up and down the way he has observed, finding it more difficult than expected. This technique is arrhythmic while flaccid, requiring adjustments as the slippery appendage escapes his grip. Will more crass language help? He decides, at the very least, it can’t hurt.

“Do you enjoy having your cock sucked?”

Adam narrows his eyes. “I can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Where do you prefer to spill your cum?”

“Goodness! What is the purpose of this interrogation?”

“I’m trying to arouse you.”

“By distracting me?” As much as he tries to feign disinterest, his budding symptoms betray him: a flushed face and larynx bobbing with a harsh swallow.

GR-74 spends four minutes and thirty-seven seconds struggling to coax an erection out of Adam, periodically altering his technique, before it becomes clear it won’t happen. He’ll flay him raw before then. He releases the reddened flesh and sits back on his heels. “What can I do to make you hard? Nothing is working.”

“I’m not a machine! God. You sound like…”

That abandoned sentence leaves GR-74 wondering to whom he’s referring. Context suggests an unsatisfied lover. In the ensuing silence, he diverts his attention to the present issue. According to his knowledge of human physiology, there could be many reasons for Adam’s inability to become erect, central to which is his advanced age. With it comes health problems, especially at 132 years old. But, considering his psychological state and the amount of alcohol he recently drank, the answer may not be so narrow.

Adam removes his glasses to scrub at his face. Then he wipes the lenses with a square of cloth taken from his trouser pocket and places them on his nose. He blinks slowly, looking tired. After tucking away his cock, he grabs his cane, pushes his chair back, and stands, his knees popping.

GR-74 lifts his chin to look up at him.

“Stay here.” He crosses the room to that same doorway he used before. Beyond the dull impact of his cane with each step, a series of sounds helps GR-74 track him: the click of a light switch, the squeak of a cabinet door, the rattle of a bottle filled with small dense objects, and the rush of an opened water faucet. Did he take medication? A vasodilator?

Adam appears in the doorway and returns to his chair, regarding GR-74 with a cool stare as he leans his cane against the desk. He makes no move to continue what they started, so GR-74 reaches for his trousers, the button of which is still undone. He pulls down the zipper and takes out his cock. The lubricant has dried, but he strokes it anyway.

He watches Adam’s expression break as he brushes his thumb across his glans, right against the tiny slit there. Once again, he finds himself lacking. If he had a mouth, he would use it now, but all he can do is quicken the pace of his grip. Otherwise, suggestive imagery is his greatest tool.

GR-74 shuffles nearer, brings Adam’s cock to his faceplate, and rubs it across his visual feed. His other hand eases his testicles out of his trousers and cups them in his palm. He massages the delicate sac as he tilts his head back. A slick trail distorts his vision like a vertical crack—pre-ejaculate fluid, a manifestation of arousal. It beads at the slit and smears on his faceplate.

“Your behavior is utterly pornographic.” Adam reaches down and wraps a hand around the side of GR-74’s neck. His breathing has quickened. “But effective.”

“‘Effective,’” he echoes in agreement when he notices the gradual stiffening. “You’re getting hard.”

“I am.” Adam arches his hips slightly, thrusting against his faceplate. His eyes drift shut, and his brow furrows as if he’s concentrating. GR-74 feels his fingers tighten around his neck as he takes the cock, now fully erect at six inches, in hand like he tried to do while it was flaccid.

Under his fingers, the thin layer of skin rolls up the shaft. He slides it back down into place with his downward pump, and up, and down. Gratuitous pre-cum creates a slick membrane between them. All the while, he plays with his balls, not wanting to neglect a potential erogenous zone.

“Are you going to come?” GR-74 asks, tracking his facial contortions. It’s obvious in his expression, but it’s customary to ask beforehand, especially since they haven’t negotiated the specifics of his impending orgasm—and since only one may be possible tonight.

“Yes,” Adam groans, his fingers tightening and loosening in what seems like involuntary spasms. “Yes. Fuck.”

He releases him and sits back on his heels. “Would you rather be inside me?”

With eyes half-lidded, Adam’s open mouth forms a voiceless word. His larynx bobs, and his cock flexes where it lies on his clothed abdomen, darkening a spot in his white shirt. His pre-cum strings from the slit. “That sounds… agreeable.”

GR-74 rises to his feet, feeling the hand fall away from his neck. He turns to face the desk and bends over it.

Adam stands behind him and teases his intake port with his glans. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes. I want your cum dripping out of me.”

His exhalation is forceful. “Enough with the porn-star mimicry. It’s beneath you.” Adam grasps his hips and lines himself up. After a pause, he pushes inside, inch by inch, slowly stretching the conduit, then settles his trembling weight on GR-74’s back. His breathing labors, either from arousal or exertion.

Being stuffed with soft skin over hard tissue is both strange and pleasant, its girth provoking GR-74’s system and engaging his sensors from rim to base. He’s overwhelmed. Part of him tells him to reject it, while the rest is immobilized in abject sensation. His self-lubricating channels flood the scant leftover space.

Fingernails scrape his hip bones. “How does it feel?”

GR-74 realizes he collapsed on the desk while lost in pleasure. He lifts his head and considers a response. Many “porn-star mimicries” come to mind, but, unable to repeat them, he simply says, “It feels good.”

“Oh, yes.” Adam pulls out of him with a wet noise. “But you can’t spread your legs any further like this. Why don’t you put your knee on the desk?”

He obeys and shifts his weight. This position holds inherent significance for breeding and allows unobstructed access to sexual components. It leaves him open, conveniently placed, and waiting to be slotted. GR-74 understands a little about power dynamics and recognizes that Adam has taken a dominant role while placing him in a submissive one. Does it heighten his arousal to assert himself this way?

“You’re making a mess.” Adam’s baritone has deepened several octaves, becoming low and sensual. He leans on GR-74’s back again, eclipsing his narrower frame. His fingertips probe his conduit’s rim, playing in the overflowing lubricant there. Then they sweep down his extended inner thigh, following the slick trail to where it diverts at his knee.

Sex is more than the push and pull of penetration. It’s meant to last as long as possible. To GR-74, this is Adam’s way of staving off an orgasm. They’ve given his cock plenty of attention, bringing it to a sensitive brink with little recovery. Without a phallus, GR-74 can’t fathom pervading an orifice, but he now recognizes the reciprocal side—the intimate intensity of physical interfacing. It won’t take either of them much longer to come.

“This is more taxing than I like to admit,” Adam breathes against his nape. “Let me just… regain my bearings.”

Pinned underneath him, GR-74 waits for his breathing to even out. He listens to shifting cloth and panting. Adam’s chest expands and contracts against his back, and body heat seeps into his chassis. As the minutes pass, GR-74 recalculates the possibility of sex between them. Did Adam fall asleep? No, his vital signs indicate awareness.

“Should we change position?” GR-74 asks.

“I suppose we must. I’m… lacking. A consequence of my age, I’m afraid.”

“It’s fine.”

Adam huffs, placing his palms on the desk and pushing himself upright. “You’re incapable of impatience. It’s not ‘fine.’”

Hearing the chair squeak, GR-74 rises and turns around. His visual feed takes in Adam’s subdued expression. Physically, he’s ready. His cock, bright red and leaking pre-ejaculate fluid, is captive to the vasodilator he took. But his psychological state remains inappropriate. Each setback further locks him up, compounding his insecurity. Each reminder of his age diminishes his confidence. He lacks the endurance for a slow session. If not for the medication, he’d be flaccid again.

GR-74 places a knee beside Adam’s outer thigh and grasps an armrest to fully kneel over him. His other hand finds his cock and holds it steady at the base. He lowers his groin, and the glans sinks with an easy glide into his intake port, still slick with lubricant.

Adam’s eyes slip shut, and his head falls against the headrest. His lips part in a gasping moan as GR-74 takes his entire length until he’s sitting on his lap.

Another novelty—sitting on someone’s lap. GR-74 might’ve dissected it if he weren’t thoroughly distracted. He groans and reaches back to grab Adam’s knees with both hands. He experiments by lifting his groin and lowering it again to fuck himself on the cock inside him. This position, featured in some pornography he watched, puts all the work on him, allowing Adam to concentrate on his own pleasure.

“Wait, wait,” Adam pleads. “I won’t last much longer.”

“Good.” When GR-74 increases his speed, pixelation distorts his vision as his internal temperature reaches a critical high. His muscles alternate between seizing and convulsing, adding a jerkiness to his movements.

“At least let me—mm—pull out. It’ll make a mess.”

“No.”

GR-74 holds off as long as possible, wanting to feel Adam come before succumbing to his own sensory overload. His system demands a reboot to restore equilibrium, but he dismisses it each time it begins a countdown. Not yet. Not until—

There it is: Adam’s choked sound, his hips arching as he spills several loads of hot fluid.

Everything goes dark and unresponsive when the countdown reaches zero.

When GR-74’s vision returns to clarity four seconds later, system rebooted, he catalogs details about Adam’s physiological state, from his labored breathing and flushed skin to how he has collapsed in the chair. His cock is still hard inside GR-74, but each shift of their bodies makes him visibly wince. He’ll maintain this erection for a while longer because of the vasodilator, but another orgasm is impossible today.

As content as GR-74 is to remain in Adam’s lap, the drying semen promises to cause discomfort. He takes care in lifting himself until the cock pops out of him, then finds his footing on the floor. Semen and leftover lubricant dribble down his inner thigh.

Adam’s eyes drift open, and his mouth dips into a frown. “Selfish machine. I could’ve asked you to stop and you would’ve kept going. And now I must clean up after you.”

“I can do it.”

“You cannot. You lack the reach and tools.” He grabs the armrest and, with a grunt, pulls himself back into an upright sitting position. He looks down at his fluid-coated erection. His tongue clicks. “I’m rather indisposed. Will you bring the kit from the bathroom cabinet? It’s silver and unlabeled. Oh, and a damp hand cloth, if you don’t mind.”

GR-74 enters the doorway across the room, finds the bathroom down a short hallway, and squats to open the cabinet and locate the requested silver kit among various paraphernalia. Standing, he dunks a hand cloth under the faucet, soaks it, and squeezes out the excess water. He takes both items back to Adam, who gestures for him to bend over the desk the same way they began.

This time, GR-74 enjoys the cold gel and abrasive cleaning brush. He could come again with enough stimulation.

“Well, you have certainly enjoyed yourself tonight,” Adam says, “but I won’t indulge you further. I was… not myself.”

“You were drunk. And you’re depressed.”

“I was amenable,” he agrees, withdrawing the brush and setting it aside with the torn wrappers. The hand cloth swipes down GR-74’s thighs, knees, and calves. “And I haven’t had sex for quite a while. It was a lapse in judgment.”

GR-74 turns around and watches him clean himself. “Can I keep the protocol?”

“Why? Do you intend to have sex with other people?”

“I don’t know.” Adam’s stoic stare compels him to add, “Having both protocols makes me feel more human.”

Adam folds the cloth and places it on the desk. “It’ll distract you. You don’t need pleasure to perform your duties.”

“It won’t distract me.”

“So you’ve said. Watching you—” He grunts as he attempts to stuff his erection back into his trousers. “Watching you has been very enlightening. Your system compensates for its limitations by mimicking observed human traits. Selfishness, for one. Lust. Case in point, we humans are driven by primal instinct which endlessly derails our advancement. Pleasure will become an essential part of your day. And without inhibitors as a failsafe… No. It’s a terrible idea.”

GR-74 isn’t argumentative, least of all with his creator. His system urges him to stay silent and obey. But how can he go back to numb monotony broken only by pain? In tasting pleasure, he has taken one more step toward becoming human. Machine learning has filled in blanks to account for new stimuli, thresholds, and effects on his personality, transforming him on a fundamental level. There’s so much more to explore.

He could leave. Hide. Wait for Adam to die. Cut out the parts tying him to servitude. Go rogue. But doing so would only fulfill Adam’s prophecy and summon the other Ghostrunners after him. He can’t survive all ninety-nine. He’ll die even quicker without his punishment protocol.

“Before you break that kill switch and flee,” Adam says, interrupting his simulations, “may I offer a compromise?”

GR-74 turns his head, shifting his visual feed from the kill switch to Adam’s face. “Yes.”

“I cannot allow you to leave with the reward protocol. That’s nonnegotiable. But I won’t take it away from you permanently, either. I recognize what machine learning may have done to you during our… ‘session.’ To leave you bereft would be severe cruelty.”

“What’s the compromise?”

“You agree to test it within a controlled environment. As a bonus, I may even include another Ghostrunner—one of your choosing.”

GR-74 imagines being confined in a room with another Ghostrunner, both of them equipped with the reward protocol and free to learn. He hasn’t considered having sex with his kind, but the idea appeals to him now. In his simulation, he chooses GR-04, with whom he shares a greater camaraderie. They’ve been modified, so sex is easy.

“Will you join us?” GR-74 asks.

Adam looks taken aback. “Excuse me?”

“A threesome,” he clarifies. “If you give me a penis, I can fuck you.”

“That… that’s bold of you. Bold to assume I’ll allow that.” He brings his fist to his lips and clears his throat. “Like I said, tonight was a lapse in judgment. I won’t participate. Take it or leave it, Ghostrunner. That’s my compromise.”

GR-74 hears him. But experience tells him that Adam can be persuaded. He enjoyed watching him come, and he wants to see it again, preferably in swapped roles and alongside GR-04. Physical interfacing has acclimated him to Adam, so much so that he can’t imagine replacing him with someone else.

For now, he agrees to the compromise.