Ticket to Cal-Dex 9

Nodding Ellen put her IDten transit card on the counter and said, “That will be fine, one please.”

The synthbot gave her a smile that creeped her out, “You do understand the dangers of-”

Ellen cut her off. The last thing she wanted right now was a sermon from a repurposed, and only partially reprogramed, low end sexbot. “I waive the required warning protocol.” It didn’t matter what kind of clothing you draped over a one of these things, as soon as it spoke you could pick them off by the way their speech algorithms sounded.

The bot picked up her card and scanned it and then handed it back through the ticket booths opening. “Would you like to purchase a meal kit prior to departing?”

Ellen knew the bot was programed to upsell but the way it sounded, like she the bot was going to lick each and every item of the kit, just made her stomach turn all the more. “No thank you.”

“I understand, would you like to purchase a media bundle which features-“

Ellen cut the bot off again, “No thank you. The standard complementary stations are sufficient.”

Ellen took a quick glance around the lobby and that was when the bot said, “Are you looking for the facilities?” in a tone that suggested she was a very dirty girl. Ellen found herself shivering both internally and externally. The bot pointed and said, “They are located over behind the lockers.” Ellen started to feel another shiver coming on and stepped back and away.

She almost bumped right into a Versk had it not reached out to catch her in the back. Swirling around, she said apologetically, “I’m so sorry-“

In typical cold Versk fashion it, you could never tell what gender these bugs were as they all looked the same, didn’t seem to care and just stared at her with its black bulbous eyes as its antenna twitched about. A part of Ellen realized she missed the warmth of the sexbot as she made her way towards the locker area.

Ellen tried to put that incident behind her and reflect on the fact that she was going home. It wasn’t how she had envisioned she would be returning home but right now that didn’t matter so much as that she did. With the war finally coming to an end and the planets finally starting to allow commerce and trade again she had to take what she could get.

A sudden voice broke her out of her reflections as it said, “Excuse me did you drop this?”