Inga

Danny Garcia was angry and humiliated. He wanted to kill the big Croatian, but for now, that was a fight better left for another day. The girl, though, that was another story. The boys had calmed him down, and then one of them had produced a bottle of tequila.

“Something to make you feel better, Danny!”

With the courage of two shots warming his blood, Ivan’s warning only made the idea of messing with the sexy bitch in the Red Room more appealing. The big bastard obviously had a thing for her, but he wasn’t the one to be concerned about, Molenski was where the buck stopped.

After the third shot of the Mexican liquor, he managed to convince himself Molenski wouldn’t mind – after all, no one that entered the Red room left in one piece. Surely the boss wouldn’t begrudge him a few minutes of fun.

He decided he would pay the pretty little chica a visit. One she wouldn’t forget in a hurry.

When the bottle was finished, the others stood up to head back into the air-conditioned guard’s room to watch TV and loaf around until the next shift started.

“I’ll just have another smoke,” Garcia said, lighting up and waiting until they had closed the door.

He took a last deep drag and stubbed it out. Time for some fun.

Garcia went to the red door and opened it slowly. She was standing in the corner looking at him as if she had been waiting. Creepy, but whatever. He closed the door and turned the latch. Best not to have anyone stumble in while he was busy.

“Hey, Chica! I thought you might be getting lonely in here.”

The girl didn’t respond. Didn’t move in fact, just stared ahead, her eyes not even following him as he approached and leaned over her, propping himself against the wall with one arm.

“Aww, don’t be shy chica, Danny’s gonna make it all right,” he whispered, into her ear.

She started straight through him.

“The fuck? Are you meditating or are you a fucking retard?”

Nothing.

Hell, maybe she was drugged. Garcia reached out and touched her bruised jaw.

“I guess you like it rough chica…” he whispered, before allowing his eyes to crawl over her body. He felt himself stir. This bitch was hot. Like, supermodel hot. He wondered briefly what she had done to get in the boss’s bad books, then shrugged it off.

Her misfortune was his good fortune.

He dropped his hand to the hem of her dress, his fingertips brushing the soft, warm skin of her thigh as he grasped the material and slowly pulled it up, watching greedily as it slipped up over her smooth skin to reveal her white panties. Still, she stared straight ahead like she was in a trance.

He began to breathe a bit harder as he placed his second hand on her other side, running it down the warm curve of her hip and down to her thigh. He pulled the dress even higher and his right hand made its way between her legs, where his finger touched the white triangle of her panties and the promise beneath. It was then he glanced up and found her blue eyes wide open and looking at him curiously.

His hand froze in place.

“Chica! You’re awake.”

Garcia felt his face redden. It made him angry. Why the fuck should he be embarrassed?

“Who are you?”

“Aww, that don’t matter, bitch.”

He pulled his hands away and straightened before reaching into his belt and pulling out a small knife. He tapped it against his cheek thoughtfully.

“What matters is you keeping your mouth shut and enjoying what I’m going to do for you, okay?”

“Is Dimi coming soon?”

“What?” he asked, annoyed. “What are you, slow? Don’t worry about Dimi; it’s me you need to worry about.”

“Where is Myfriend?”

“What the fuck, bitch!?”

Garcia swung an open hand at her face. It never landed. Never even got close. Impossibly fast, the girl’s hand snatched his wrist mid-flight and held it in a vice like grip.

“No one is to touch me without the express permission of my owner, Dimitri Molenski.”

Garcia tried to shake her off, but her grip was vicelike. Enraged, he swung a punch with his other hand, and Inga also caught that hand

Not the sharpest tool in the shed, it was then, caught like Brer Rabbit in the tar baby, Danny Garcia finally realized that the girl was a robot.

He struggled a little longer, angry not only at the fact she had bested him but also that he had not recognized her – it – for what it was.

“Okay – okay,” he said, eventually realizing that resistance was futile. “Let me go; I’ll keep my hands off.”

Inga released him, and Garcia rubbed his wrists, looking warily at her as he began to slowly back away.

Unlike Ivan and his boss, Garcia, now aware of what she was, had no problem seeing Inga as only a machine, and she terrified him. As a child, he’d been terrified of a doll that his sister owned. It was one of those big dolls that had eyes that opened when you stood it up. Add in a couple of science fiction and horror movies at a too impressionable age, and his phobia of mechanical humans had been deeply entrenched.

Now he knew the truth about Inga; he couldn’t wait to get out. When he thought he had put a safe distance between them, he turned and hurried to the door.

If not for bad timing, he might have left the room alive.