She shook her head. “Maybe. Why bother with me, when you have alternatives available.”
Jago folded his arms across his chest. Her tone of voice must be annoying him, too. “Alternatives?”
She marched across the floor, detouring around them, and pressed a spot on the wall. A spot that Kriss hadn’t touched in ages.
The panel slid open to reveal the sexdroid. Her eyes sprang open and she smiled a greeting.
“This,” Shayla jabbed her finger at the droid, “has been here the whole time. Every time we fuck, she’s here, entombed in this wall.”
Jago lowered his arms. “She can’t hear or see when she’s deactivated.”
Shayla stamped her foot. “I don’t care. She shouldn’t be in the house. It’s like there is a... a... ghost lurking. It gives me the creeps—”
“A ghost?” Kriss didn’t recognize the human word in the middle of the sentence.
She poked the droid’s arm. “She’s all fleshy, and warm... and she talks. She asked me what I wanted!”
Kriss hid a smile. Now he understood. Jealousy was rare between nestor brothers, but between nestor clans, it was not unknown for men to complain that their droid was not as fulfilling as another’s. So, it seemed Shayla felt the same.
“She’s not as good as you,” he said.
“I should bloody well hope not.”
The droid stepped out of her compartment. “How may I serve you, Masters?”
Jago took the droid’s arm and nudged her backwards. “No service is required. You may retire.”
“Yes, Master.” The droid slotted herself back into the molded wall structure.
“No,” Shayla said, her eyes blazing with a fire that Kriss hadn’t seen before now. “She’s not staying in there. You’ll have to find a new home for Tina.”
“Tina?” Jago activated the panel and it hid the droid again.
“It’s her name. You didn’t even give her a name, so I did.”
“She’s just a droid,” Kriss said with a shrug. Why was Shayla upset? It wasn’t as if they’d touched the sexdroid since she’d arrived. “I don’t understand. What’s the problem with it?”
“It!” Shayla screeched.
Kriss expelled a frustrated sigh. “You’re going over my lap. That’s a certainty.”
“Why? For pointing out that my predecessor lurks in the wall, waiting to serve? You forgot her, didn’t you?”
Jago held up his calming hand, and stepped between Kriss and Shayla. “W
hy do you care, Shayla? She’s not real. You are.”
“She’s more than a thing, though.” Tears welled in her eyes.
Kriss let go of his frown. Seeing her upset unnerved him. “A thing?”
“You don’t fuck a thing. It’s... unnatural.”
“But you did on Earth. You said so yourself, they used machines to train you. We were your first time, weren’t we?”
She nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “They didn’t look like people. She looks real enough. I had just... objects.”
“Yes, that was the way you described it.” Kriss glanced at Jago and shrugged. What was the real problem; it wasn’t the droid, surely?