2050

BY DING

Dalfor Speem was anxious. His implants were tingling, a sure sign
of nerves. He got up to check the spyscreen by the door, for the
tenth time in as many minutes: the corridor outside was empty,
just the house robot picking up litter, whistling to itself
through its charging hole – funny, they all did that, no one knew
why. Speem paced restlessly over to one of the apartment's three
inner doors and stood close to it, listening. With a whisper on
the edge of hearing, right under his nose, the smart-metal
coating was redecorating itself, with lemon-yellow teddy bears on
a background of pale lavender. It looked horrible.

'Sandy?'

'Yeth?'

'Nothing. Just making sure you were OK.'

'I'm OK, Dalfy,' came back through the door in a distant
sing-song voice. She was dressing her dolls. She always put on
her 'grown-up' don't-care voice when she was playing mother.

The door-buzzer sounded, then a voice, 'Mr Speem?' He was glad
the spyscreen did not work both ways, he had jumped a mile. God,
he was nervous. Speem touched a bump, one of several in a line
under the skin of his left forearm, and subtle relaxants and
mood-smoothers were released into his system. He waited a moment
for the psydrops to take effect, then stood straight, took a deep
breath and willed the main door of his apartment to open. It did
so, after a slight hesitation: his devices implant was acting up
again. Sandy had told him not to buy cheap US stuff, but most
Chinese products were nowadays way beyond what ordinary Americans
like him could afford, and since the Great Trade War of the
Two-Twenties, European goods were almost impossible to find, let
alone buy.

A middle-sized, quietly-dressed man, about forty perhaps but
fresh-faced and bright of eye, stood framed in the doorway. In
either hand he held a large soft bag, grey, banded with darker
grey reinforcers. He put one bag down to offer his hand, which
was long-fingered and cool, with a firm grip.

'Good morning, Mr Speem. I am Renfrew Ableman, from the Pedophile
Agency.'

'Hi, good morning,' said Speem, the words coming hoarsely from
his dry throat. 'And this is my robot,' said Ableman, stepping
aside and gesturing downwards. Speem's eyes followed the gesture
down.

Common robots tended to be crudely utilitarian, with no trace of
human physiology. Most of them looked like waste-bins or
oversized coffee-grinders on tracks or primitive legs. True, you
sometimes glimpsed superior machines, graceful, smart,
human-shaped, human-sized and fast, but they were military or the
companions of the very, very wealthy – Japs, Chinese, Germans had
some, maybe a few in the US.

Ableman's robot did not fit into either category. It was not
graceful but it was – roughly - humanoid, about two-thirds man
height, with a cylindrical head, longer than it was wide, on one
circular face of which eyes and mouth were set at the vertices of
an equilateral triangle, a wide body like a flattened barrel,
bulbous limbs articulated at elbow and knee, big capable hands
(only three fingers and an opposable thumb), the head, body and
limbs all covered with an unmarked tough- looking skin of some
black chitinous stuff which shone like a beetle's carapace.

The eyes were red. It stared at Speem in silence while its
downturned mouth seemed to sneer. Something whirred quietly
within the shiny black robot, like a clock mechanism just about
to strike. 'Mr Speem,' said the robot, in a voice nearly but not
quite human.

'Er, hi,' said Speem, unconsciously wiping his sweaty palms down
his trousers. 'Mr Speem is not used to robots,' said the robot.
'Tell him my name, Ableman.'

'Oh, sure,' said Ableman, 'sorry, Mr Speem, I guess I forgot this
might be kinda new for you. This robot's name is Hector...'

The robot said something, very quietly.

'I'm sorry Hector 3, did you want to add something?' said
Ableman, the smile on his bland pink face looking ever so
slightly fixed.

The robot turned its head, quite sharply, looking not at Ableman
but at Speem: 'Hector 3 is a stupid name. Why do they give robots
stupid names? Would you call your DOG Hector 3? I don't think
so.'

Ableman's smile grew even larger and more toothily false as he
turned it full on Speem. 'You musn't mind Hector, it's just his
way of expressing himself,' he said out loud, then, whispering
out of the corner of his mouth out of sight of the robot, 'He's
OK, really, Pedo Agency designed and commissioned it, but the
interface chip is third-party, unbranded. You know how it is.'

'I'm sure it's fine,' said Speem, unobtrusively touching a bump
on his arm. 'Won't you come in?'

The apartment seemed a lot smaller when Ableman, bags and robot
were inside.

'And where is the little lady?' said Ableman brightly. The robot
mooched about the perimeter of the room, contemptuously
inspecting Speem's few holograms and ornaments.

'That's Sandy,' said Speem. 'She's in the bedroom, playing. Er,
shall I...?' 'No, no,' said Ableman, showing the thinning top of
his head as he rummaged in one of his big grey bags. 'We'll just
sort out some paperwork first.' He came up with a slim tablet,
also grey, and a stylus. 'Now, you're paying by...?'

'DNA-ID,' said Speem.

'Good, good,' murmured Ableman, scribbling on his electronic pad.
'Makes things ... a lot ... easier,' he said, finishing with a
crisp tap of the stylus.

'Now, Dalfor,' he said, 'may we sit a moment?'

'Oh, sure,' said Speem, 'help yourself, I shoulda...'

'Not to worry,' said Ableman, perching rather carefully on the
edge of one of Speem's beaten-up armchairs, which emitted a low
grinding noise, made a pathetic attempt to contour itself, then
gave up.

'Dalfor,' said Ableman, 'we at the Pedophile Agency were most
concerned to hear about your case. As you know, the law regarding
pedophilia has become a lot tighter over the last decade or so.'

'Er, yeah, I'm aware of that,' said Speem, trying to keep track
of the robot, which was somewhere behind him now. If only it
didn't start whistling.

'You seem to have left it rather late in the day,' said Ableman,
scrutinizing the grey tablet's display. 'You have had the problem
for ... six months?'

'About that, I guess,' said Speem.

'Well now, you know, Dalfor, Mr Speem, the state takes a dim view
these days of citizens who don't act on their rights.'

'I know, I know, I'm sorry,' said Speem, while inside a little
knot of guilt formed itself and stayed, just under his heart.

'We didn't spend all that time and money thirty years ago to
build pedophilia and child-sex rights into the laws of this land
to have them ignored, now did we?' Ableman's vocal and facial
expression of kindly disapproval seemed well-used and Speem
realized that this was a homily which the Pedo Agency man had
probably delivered to many of his clients.

'I'm sorry,' he said again.

'Well, now,' said Ableman briskly, 'never mind that. Your problem
– it's not emotional in nature?'

'Oh no,' said Speem, 'not emotional. We love each other. She's
chosen to be my partner, left her own family, all the usual stuff
– no ceremony though, she didn't want it, though her parents did,
they're old-fashioned, you know...'

'So is she...not interested? Physically?'

'No,' said Speem, his ears beginning to heat up, the knot in his
midriff growing, 'it's nothing like that. She's got a normal
interest in sex, owns the usual vaginal toys – she actually
brought her own cunt-stretcher from home, said it was her
sister's.' 'One of the "Love Tunnel" series, I guess?' said
Ableman, his face for the first time taking on an expression of
professional interest, which transformed his bland features: they
looked sharper, harder, and Speem found himself wondering what
kind of man ended up working for the Pedo Agency. You heard
stories.

'Er, don't think it was a "Love Tunnel", said Speem. 'Some
foreign make, I think.'

'So,' said Ableman, 'your partner is prepared to copulate and is
interested in doing so. There is another man, perhaps? You know
we can't interfere if that is the case.'

Speem's ears now felt red-hot and the knot of guilt in his belly
was making it hard to swallow. 'There's nobody else,' he said,
'she loves me, tells me all the time. We have a wonderful life,
playing, showering, going out, cuddling – it's all a man could
ask for. No, the problem – is me.'

'Ah,' said Ableman. Speem realized that he had not seen or heard
the robot for the last few minutes. Just behind his right ear he
heard a noise like a clock about to strike. 'Erectile
dysfunction,' said Hector 3, with all the charm of a door grating
on gravel, 'knew it the moment I set eyes on him.'

'Sorry,' said Speem, 'but could your robot...?'

'Hector, come stand over here, please,' said Ableman, making a
wry face for Speem's benefit.

'Look,' said Speem, feeling faint, his own pulse loud in his
ears, 'everything is perfect except, I can't make love to her.'

'Erectile dysf...,' began the robot, who had clumped slowly
around to join his master and was now staring fixedly at Speem.
'No,' said Speem, rather more loudly than he had intended, 'I
don't have a problem that way, not ... normally. It's just... I'm
just – say – on top of her – between her legs – she's happy and
relaxed, giggling the way they do at that age...'

'And she is?' said Ableman, trying to find an entry on his
tablet.

'Five years old,' said Speem, 'six in April. So like I say, I'm
on top of her, loving her smooth skin, her little legs, her
shining hair, feeling great, wanting to – you know – stick it in,
when suddenly, I see her as a little girl, a child, not a sexual
partner, not an equal, just a child – and I start feeling real
bad ... guilty... ashamed. And I can't do it.'

There was silence for a few moments in Speem's living room.
Ableman was quietly entering some data into the grey pad and the
robot just stared with its round red eyes just past Speem's right
shoulder. With a cold shock, Speem suddenly realized that the
robot was looking at the bedroom door behind which Sandy was
playing Mommy with her dolls.

'Now Mr Speem,' said Ableman when he had finished his data-entry,
'you know this is a very serious charge.'

'Hardly a charge,' said Speem, feeling himself go red in the
face, 'she's done nothing. It's me.'

'On the contrary,' said Ableman, raising a pale forefinger in the
manner of a canon lawyer opining on the secret nature of angels,
'It is not you – and the fault, since the legislation of 2027, is
certainly hers. Or in her behaviour. Let me explain.

'Pedophilia – child-loving – more or less vanished as a legal
concept about thirty years ago. Oh, we keep the word as part of
the agency name, but that's merely an accident of etymology. The
law was changed, recognizing all sexualities as valid, which is,
of course, ultimately, the only rational position. You may say
that childhood also came to an end at the same moment. Once it
was acknowledged that the very young experience the full range of
sexual emotions and responses, and as soon as their right to
sexual expression was enshrined in law, then there was no going
back. They could not, as it were, have it both ways.'

'Your partner, Mr Speem, er... Sandy ... is probably exhibiting
the kind of recidivist, self-indulgently childish behaviour not
uncommon in the early days of the new legislation but rarer now,
I'm pleased to say. Tell me, does she prattle?'

'Prattle?' repeated Speem stupidly.

'Does she talk aimlessly and continually, in a high-pitched voice
and self- consciously naive manner?'

'I guess so.'

Ableman entered something in the little grey pad.

'Is she warmly affectionate and fond of physical intimacy yet
apparently ignorant regarding the sexual response which her body
and movements induce in you?'

Speem had to think a bit, then agreed that that this was so.

Another note went into the little grey plastic tablet.

'Does she prefer short dresses which reveal her legs right up to
the buttocks, does she cry, sulk, like being tickled except for
"down there", does she play with dolls and when she does, does
she play Mother and give them tea parties?'

'Why, yes,' said Ableman, 'in fact, she's in there right now,
doing just that.'

The robot made an incoherent metallic sound, like a ratchet
slipping, and moved towards the bedroom door. 'Wait,' said
Ableman sharply, 'I need to set you to record.' His voice
changed, became more formal, precise: 'Case recording commence,
authorization RA3243. Date as robot/Net interface, case of Dalfor
and Sandra Speem. Advanced case of recidivism, treatable but
requiring physically-enhanced NLP. Renfrew Ableman and robot
Hector 3 attending.'

'Procedure,' said Ableman, 'in case of complaint. There won't
be,' he said, on seeing Speem's expression, 'not in a clear-cut
denial-of-womanhood case like this.'

'Denial of womanhood?' said Speem, feeling both anxiety and
excitement. 'Yep,' said Ableman, standing up and taking hold of
the two grey bags, one in each hand as before. 'You get a few.
Move in with a man, then selfishly revert to unsexualized
childlike patterns of behaviour. The man feels guilty, finds he
can't touch her.'

'That's just how I feel,' said Speem with relief. 'I can't see
her as a sexual being, a partner, she seems so ... childlike.'

'Well now, Hector and I are here to help you in that respect,'
said Ableman, with a return of that hard expression which Speem
had caught on his face earlier. 'Your little Sandy is a revert or
"fuck-shy" as some people call it. She needs to be reminded of
her sexual responsibilities. You need to be taught to see her as
a the sexually available female animal which she is. Stand aside,
please, Mr Speem. Hector 3, you may proceed!'

The black robot instantly strode to the bedroom door,
servo-motors whining, artificial carbon-fibre muscles bunching
and stretching at the joints in knee and elbow. From its manner,
Speem half-expected it to charge the door down but it used the
house kinetic field, as Speem would have done, and the door slid
quietly aside.

Sandy was sitting demurely on the edge of their big double bed,
the one he had bought in honour of her moving in, as if waiting
for them: did she know? She was wearing her favourite dress, pink
and frilly, the low-cut top embroidered with a bunny rabbit, no
sleeves, wide shoulder straps, and a plain white cotton blouse
underneath. She had taken her shoes off to play on the bed and
just had on the white ankle socks Speem had given her just that
week. Her shoulder-length blonde curls framed her heart-shaped
face, which at the moment bore an expression of docile anxiety.
Never had she looked so pretty to him. 'Darfy?' she said, in her
unbearably cute little-girl voice, 'what is it? What's hap'ning?
Is anyfing wong?'

'Sandy,' he began, 'I'm sorry, but ...'

'Mr Speem,' said Ableman, blocking his path, 'you may wish to
leave the room for a moment.' And Speem found himself firmly
propelled out of the bedroom and the door shut. He put his ear
against it.

For a few moments all inside seemed strangely quiet, but then,
what was he expecting? What kind of persuasion could this man and
his irascible robot possibly have planned for an innocent five
year old girl? What had Ableman called her? A revert. He had been
living with a revert. Against his will, a hot, dark excitement
flooded through his belly and groin, which had nothing to do with
the chemical implants in his arm. His impotence wasn't his fault,
it was, somehow, hers. At that thought, the old doubts came
rushing back. A picture filled his mind, of his five year old
partner tossing back her mane of golden curls, of clutching a rag
doll to her flat chest and lisping some childish rhyme. It wasn't
meant to be, it was not possible to penetrate a being so
undeveloped, so unaware of the animal passions driving the
purpled head of an adult phallus like a fleshy spear up between
her plump thighs. There was an old word for someone who could do
that, who could ignore the flatly unde niable message from the
seat of conscience, that mounting and entering a child was wrong,
wrong, wrong ... and that word was 'pervert'. Revert, pervert,
revert, pervert, the words circled stickily in his brain,
throbbing in time to his pulse. Feeling sick and giddy, Speem
clung to the bedroom door like a shipwrecked sailor to some piece
of life-saving flotsam and pressed his ear close to hear.

After a moment he realized that he was listening to the sounds of
a quiet but determined struggle, little grunts and squeaks and,
once, the sound of tearing cloth. He could hear the occasional
staccato whine of the robot's servo-motors and he also sensed
Ableman's quick neat hands at work, though what they were doing
was unclear. Speem thought he heard the Agency man curse at one
point and immediately afterwards there was the heavy slap of a
hand on bare flesh, followed by the loudly uninhibited wail of a
child in pain: 'Darfy! Dey're hurtin me, Darfy, pweeze!'

He couldn't stand it. That was a child in there. How could he
have allowed this to happen? It took several seconds before he
could concentrate enough to send the 'open' command from his
brain implant to the apartment's kinetic control centre and the
door slid open.

He could not see Sandy at first, just Ableman, redder in the face
and far less amiable, stooping over something on the floor, with
the robot in close attendance. Hector 3 looked different, some
change in outline which Speem could not quite identify. Then he
noticed a small bare leg and foot weakly waving around on either
side of Ableman's body. Little mewings and other sounds of
distress were coming from underneath him. 'Yes?' said Ableman,
looking back over his shoulder at Speem but keeping his weight on
the girl. 'Mr Speem, you ought to remain in your...'

'I heard...' said Speem, 'that is, it doesn't seem ... I mean, I
was worried.'

The robot chirred and spoke. 'Ableman, perhaps Speem should
watch. He might enjoy it.'

'Please ignore the robot, Mr Speem,' said Ableman, with an
attempt at his former manner. 'But either come in or stay out.
This is a crucial phase in dealing with reversion.'

Speem, aware of the robot's blood-red gaze following his every
step, meekly went and sat on the bed, well out of the way.

He could see more now. He could see, for example, why Ableman had
spoken to him over his shoulder: the Agency man's outstretched
hand was clamped right over Sandy's face, the long clawed fingers
gripping her forehead, the heel of the hand thrust hard up into
the five year old's mouth and nostrils, the palm covering her
eyes. Her head was being crushed against the carpet by the force
and weight applied by the adult male and all the girl could do
was utter muffled squeaks of pain and protest. Her cotton dress
had been removed and her white blouse lay open, minus a lot of
its pearly buttons, exposing her chest and belly. Her white
cotton pants had been partially rolled down and were bunched
around the tops of her thighs, revealing her plump vulva. The
robot had lowered itself, somehow shortening its legs, and was
holding the girl's stretched arms straight above her head.

His face set in an expression of calm, rather remote
concentration, Ableman shifted his weight backwards, relieving
the pressure on the five year old's face and, as she opened her
mouth to let out the cry of pain and resentment which had been
building under the stifling hand, brought the same hand into hard
contact with the five year old's crotch, smacking her vagina with
the full force of his stiffened arm behind the blow, shocking the
girl into frightened silence.

'Careful,' cried out Speem, jumping to his feet. 'You'll hurt
her!'

The robot's head slowly came up and the two glowing red eyes were
fixed on Speem's anxious face.

'Oh yes, Speem' said the robot, 'we shall certainly do that.' And
it tightened its metal grip on the five year old's wrists then
rotated its forearms in opposite directions, twisting the girl's
wrists until she screamed, and then it twisted them some more and
the screams became the desperate squeals of an animal caught in a
trap, until Ableman stopped it with a word; and all the time the
red eyes were fixed on Speem's. Who subsided, shaking.

After a while he became aware that Ableman was talking quietly to
the robot. 'Prominent vulva, you notice, it's often this type who
turn difficult.' The agency man parted the girl's labia with the
thumb and forefinger of his free hand. 'Nice little clitoris –
think you can do anything with that?'

The robot's long cylindrical head dipped forward a little, then,
'I can do a lot with that,' it said.

Ableman ran the flat of his hand up Sandy's thighs, over her
pubis and then up over her quivering belly and breasts, stopping
at each point to press and squeeze in an exploratory fashion and
ending with a little tug at each nipple, teasing each teat out
from the surrounding areola and then stretching it, not enough to
hurt, although the little girl's whimpers and wriggles became
more noticeable when he did so.

'What do you reckon, Hector? Got all the visuals you need?'

'I want a closer look at its vagina and anus,' said the robot.

'OK,' said Ableman, grabbed the girl's ankles and unceremoniously
dragged them back over her body, doubling her legs on themselves
and shoved her knees under her chin. Sandy's genitals were
exposed, in a way and to an extent strange to Speem, who lived
with them, as it were, but had never properly seen them – or more
exactly had never really looked at them. He looked now, standing
up for a better view, as Ableman and the robot's heads were bent
over the girl and partly obscuring her.

Sandy's hips, thighs and buttocks, which he always thought of as
slender, even thin, now presented a wide, wide expanse of creamy
flesh, surrounding the welcoming split cushion of her sex.
Somehow, without the distraction of Sandy's personality, with her
lower parts literally given prominence like this, her body was
saying different things to him. Speem felt a stirring down below
as blood pumped strongly into his stiffening penis.

'Looks different like this, doesn't she, Mr Speem?' said Ableman,
glancing up from his inspection. 'Just think, this will be yours
to do as you please with every night, once we're finished.'

'Uh, that's great,' said Speem. 'Shall I pay now?'

'Oh, no,' said Ableman, 'dear me, no - not yet. We haven't
treated her yet. We've hardly begun. Do sit down – make yourself
some coffee, whatever – it will take some time.'

Speem did not want coffee. There was the tangy scent of sex in
the air, tinged with darker accents emanating from the robot's
midnight black casing and something shadowed in the agency man's
dark eyes: it was not coffee that Dalfor Speem wanted. He sat
down again on the bed, penis straining against the brown denim of
his pants, his breathing quick and heavy as if he had just run
upstairs, and watched as they worked on his five year old
partner.

Ableman was holding the girl's vaginal lips wide apart. The inner
surfaces looked startling pink, like a fresh fig cut open. At the
centre of the glistening pinkness was a small dark hole. 'That's
never been stretched,' muttered the agency man, then louder, 'I
said, Mrs Speem, someone's not been entirely truthful, eh?'

Sandy's lower lip quivered. 'Entirewy twoothful? Don't know what
you mean. Where's Dalfy?'

'Here I am honey,' said Speem automatically, earning himself a
frown from Ableman and a steady glare from the robot.

'You can cut out that baby talk,' said Ableman curtly, 'it won't
do you any good, Mrs Speem. Hector, she needs invaginating, take
care of it, will you?' Ableman stood up abruptly with a sour
expression and for a heart-stopping moment Speem thought he was
going to kick the girl but he just went and leaned against the
bedroom wall, arms folded, every inch the professional following
procedure and pissed off as hell with the endless duplicities of
the public.

There was a buzzing hiss as the robot lengthened its legs,
keeping its hands locked on the girl's wrists so that she was
dragged upright as it grew taller, and taller, until it had
extended itself to more than man-height and the helpless little
female was dangling two feet off the ground, with her back to the
red-eyed machine. Her panties slipped down her leg and fell to
the floor, leaving her lower body naked. As Speem's gaze
travelled up and down the five year old's pale midriff and legs,
he tried to recapture that vision of her wide ripe rump when
Ableman had held her doubled up. He was dragged from this reverie
as his eyes focused on what it was which had changed in the
robot, a projection at the top of its legs, on what you would
have to call its crotch – a stubby cylinder, extruded from the
unguessable interior of oiled pistons and humming motors.
Something was coming out of the centre of this cylinder, a thin
metallic rod. It extended about four inches and stopped. A h
igh-pitched whirring sounded and a pale viscous liquid spurted
from the rod, some of it landing on Sandy's wriggling buttocks.
There then came an explosive hissing, suddenly cut off, and the
little girl's open blouse was briefly whipped around her ears by
what was obviously a blast of air or some other gas. 'Just
testing, Speems. I'm ready now, Ableman,' said the robot, its
cylindrical head turning very slightly in the direction of the
agency man, giving the impression that it was reluctant to take
its eyes off the girl. 'Just get on, will you?' said Ableman
irritably.

Speem always found it hard to describe what came next, it all
happened so quickly: the sudden rotation of the terrified girl to
face the robot, the metal hands with a giant's grip transferred
to the tops of her spread thighs, then the unerring mating of the
rod at the mechanical man's crotch with that tiny hole between
the five year old's legs; but he would always remember what he
heard: his Sandy complaining, 'What oo doing? Pweeze let me go,'
in that high-pitched little-girl voice, then, as the rod slid
inside her with the perfect precision of two hundred years of
industrial development, and the hissing began: 'WHAT THE FUCK IS
THAT? STOP IT, YOU BASTARDS, GET IT OUT OF ME!'

Ableman grinned at the astounded Speem. 'Well, well, well, what
do you know?' he said. 'Seems our Sandy's got another side to her
after all, eh, Mr Speem?' Speem looked at the little girl in
amazement. He had never heard her use language like that before.
He regarded her as if for the first time. Did he really know her
at all? She knew and cared nothing about his scrutiny and
obviously had other things on her mind, purple in the face with
the effort of trying to lift her genitals, an impossible task,
from off whatever the robot was doing to them. A louder and more
prolonged hiss brought an indescribable sound from Sandy's vocal
cords and she redoubled her frantic efforts to relieve the
pressure on her vagina.

'Come take a closer look,' said Ableman, 'you might be
interested.' The agency man encouraged Speem with a friendly pat
on the shoulder and the two men stooped to inspect what was
happening between the child's legs. The rod had gone right in to
its full length and the cylinder which had extruded it was also
being pushed very firmly into the fleshy pad of the girl's vulva,
making what was obviously an air-tight seal. Another hissing of
high-pressure gas sounded, coming slightly muffled from inside
Sandy's vagina. With her eyes tightly closed, in obvious agony,
she leaned back, arching away from the robot's barrel chest,
pawing uselessly at her own crotch, screaming, 'FOR FUCK'S SAKE,
NO, NO MORE, STOP IT YOU BASTARDS!'

'Tell her to shut up, Mr Speem,' said Ableman casually.

'What?' said Speem.

'Tell her to shut up,' repeated the man from the Pedophile
Agency. 'You should, you know, she ought not to be allowed to
make such an annoying fuss about a simple invagination. Tell her
to shut up.'

Speem felt that he too was under pressure, of a kind. 'Sandy – do
please be quiet,' he ventured.

'Speem, Speem,' said Ableman in tones of kindly disappointment.
Still shaking his head in a comic exaggeration of a mentor's
disapproval, the Pedo agency man seized the flimsy white material
of the girl's blouse at the shoulders and roughly stripped the
garment from the child's smooth tapering back, balled it up and,
just as she opened her mouth to scream again, shoved the handful
of white cotton violently into the oral cavity, cutting her off
in mid-syllable to an inarticulate gurgle. 'There we are,' said
Ableman, pinching one of the now-naked little girl's tiny pink
nipples between finger and thumb-nail then twisting it nearly 180
degrees, 'see? She has to shut up now, don't you, Sandy!' The
girl's eyes nearly popped out of her head as her nipple was
pinched and twisted, but not a sound could she make except a
futile whining way back in her throat. 'Go on,' said Ableman,
'have a go yourself.'

Hardly daring to believe what Ableman was suggesting, Speem
reached out a trembling hand towards his little partner, then
drew it back as if he had been stung when she turned her head his
way with a mute plea in her eyes; he could almost hear her voice
in his head saying, 'Dalfie, what are you doing?', or 'Not there,
I'm only little' or, her favourite: 'Let's play a different
game.' Ableman, seeing his indecision, let out a snort of
amusement or contempt, it was hard to say, and went quickly
around behind the five year old, caught her arms and neck in a
wrestler's grip, wrenching her head back so that all she could
look at was the ceiling. 'Go on,' said Ableman, nodding down to
the smooth expanse of the little girl's front, exposed from her
white throat to where her reddening crotch was clamped in
mechanical copulation with the robot's strange penis. 'She wants
to shout,' said Ableman, 'give her something to shout about.'

'Won't it...you know,' said Speem, 'the robot ...?'

'No, no,' said Ableman cheerfully, 'won't affect the robot. Once
old Hector's got a good airtight seal on a young cunt, he'll pump
away through an earthquake. He'll be just fine. Come on, chop her
in the belly, jab her in the tits – she's not going to look at
you or say a word, are you, darling?' And the agency man
emphasized his words with a vicious upward jerk under the little
girl's chin.

Ableman gazed at his little partner's arched-back body. She had
been sweating more and more since the robot had penetrated her
vagina and now her whole torso gleamed. He put out a hand and
stroked the smooth slippery skin on the side of her chest, where
it ran into the hollow under her arm. Delicately, he touched her
nipple, watching it stir and rise at the slight friction of his
forefinger. Liar. Cheat. Prick-teaser. For her, he had put up
with a year of guilt and frustration. Flirty, dirty revert. A
year of fear and shame. Speem's fist seemed to clench of its own
accord and without properly looking what he was doing, he smashed
a crude over-arm haymaker of a punch straight down into the five
year old's taut quivering white belly, just under the ribs.

It was an amateur's blow, or it might have killed her. As it was
there was a loud harsh noise like a grown man vomiting as every
cubic centimeter of air was driven in an instant from the girl's
lungs. Ableman moved quickly and professionally, hooking the
panties out from her bulging throat as the five year old drew in
great panicky breaths, and then freeing her arms, which were
immediately wrapped around her own middle as she doubled up,
sobbing. The agency man dispassionately supported the weeping
girl and gazed with amused admiration at the red-faced and
trembling Dalfor Speem, who was looking wonderingly at his own
hand, still knotted in a fist: 'Hoo-wee!' said Ableman, 'There
was some anger behind that punch. Feel better, now its out?'

'Better? Feel better?' mumbled Speem. 'I guess – yeah, matter of
fact, I do. But I've hurt her. Here, let me help you support
her.'

'Support? Help?' Ableman seemed disgusted. 'I just want her
conscious, with all her internal organs in place, for what we're
going to do to her in the next few hours – which, Mr Ableman,
will make that little tap in the guts seem like child's play.
Eh?' he said, shoving his face right into the weeping girl's and
gripping her cheeks so her lips stuck out, round and red and
ridiculous, 'like CHILD'S PLAY, Sandy, and we know what that
means, don't we?'

The girl just stared dumbly back at him, a lock of blonde hair,
darkened by sweat, falling over and hiding one eye; it was not
hiding the flicker of resentment in the other eye, which Speem
wondered if only he could see.

The robot emitted a noise which sounded incongruously like a
human sigh. A faint drone could be heard within the shiny black
body, as of a motor running down, and a noise like a system
depressurizing when a valve is popped. Sandy moaned and wriggled
with discomfort but, Speem noticed, did not now seem to want to
open her mouth in complaint.

'Cycle complete,' the robot announced through the down-turned,
perpetually sneering grille that was its mouth.

'Er...' said Speem, and the robot whipped its cylindrical head
round to face him. Speem's curious,' said the robot. 'Wants to
know about invagination, don't you, Speem.'

'Well, actually...'

The robot's hands unclamped from the girl's thighs, leaving two
deep red welts, and thumped closed under her arms. There were
small gas escapes and wet sounds of suction and release from
between her legs and then she was lifted bodily, with no obvious
effort at all, off the robot's groin and left to dangle in the
air, chin on breast and weeping quietly, ignored by men and
robot.

Ableman beckoned Speem closer, and pointed to part of the robot's
groin equipment with the stylus from his data pad. 'See here,
this is the invagination tube. This slides in the female and,
after the robot, in this case our Hector here, makes her vagina
airtight, this tough carbon-plastic sleeve inflates – like this.'
Speem heard the same hissing, but louder, as it was outside
Sandra's body now, and saw the rod inflate for most of its length
like a small grey balloon, about two inches in diameter.

'Saves you a lot of trouble and opens up a high-road to
happiness. Try squeezing it,' said Ableman.

Reluctantly, flinching from the contact, Speem put finger and
thumb either side of the tight tube. He was surprised to find it
warm, slightly resilient but apparently firm and solid. 'Inert
gas at very high pressure,' said Ableman. 'You could lift a train
with that.'

Speem imagined a force that could lift a train at work inside his
five year old partner's vagina, and felt his penis stiffening.

Ableman pointed at the inch or so of fine tube which projected
beyond the end of the inflated section of the invagination
device. 'Every so often, the girl gets a squirt of MD23 – it's a
cocktail of enzymes, synthetics and GM transporters – basically,
it does a landscaping job on the bio-chemistry of the vaginal
walls. OK, Hector,' said Ableman,' slapping the dangling girl
familiarly on the rump, 'finish her now.'

'You mean, that isn't it?' said Speem, eyeing the thick
carbon-plastic sausage with mingled anxiety and excitement.

'Oh dear me no,' said Ableman, winking at Speem and nodding
amusedly at the girl, who was also gazing, in horrified
fascination, at the inflated grey tube sticking jauntily out from
the robot's crotch. 'A healthy five year having normal sex with
an adult would hardly notice an object of that size inserted into
her vagina. No, that was just the preliminary cycle – the main
pumping cycle begins now, with a LOT more pressure – it's the
only way to enlarge this kiddy's cunt quickly, to what it should
be after six months of fucking with her man.' And Ableman caught
the girl by the chin and said the last few words directly into
her face, then forced her to look back at the tube.

'No, Mr Speem, this time the invagination tube will expand to
three times that size, after it's inside her of course. Hector,
please demonstrate.'

There was a brief silence, broken only by a very faint ticking, a
relay closed, and there came the familiar hiss as pressurized gas
was pumped into the invaginating device at the robot's groin.
Both Speem and his girl-partner, the latter uttering little
whimpers of terror, stared at the carbon-plastic tube as it
became fatter and longer, growing steadily until it was as big
round as a man's arm and only the tip of the fluid squirt could
be seen protruding from the end.

Sandy made a little noise and tried to bury her head in Speem's
shoulder. The adult man unthinkingly stepped back, avoiding
contact, and said, 'My god!' a big smile spreading over his face.

'Speem's cheered up,' said the robot. 'He's going to be really
happy later on.' 'Never mind about that,' said Ableman sharply,
'just carry on and cunt this child up to size, or we won't be
doing anything later on.'

The robot deflated the invaginating tube and began to lower the
struggling child onto the slim cylinder at its core. Her futile
jerks and twistings, strengthened by panic and terror, grew all
the greater as she felt her thighs touch the robot's casing and
the tip of the invaginator tickled the cleft between her labia.
Then, the tube and its base speared up and into the target hole,
the girl squealed with shock and fear, there was an explosive
hiss, much, much louder and more prolonged that before and –

'Behold,' said Ableman, with a grand gesture, 'Little Sandy
becomes a woman!'

Actually, Speem thought, the wet twitching thing spraddled across
the robot's pumping groin looked more a scarlet-faced frog in it
death-agonies. Ableman was enjoying himself, bending down to the
girl's head-height, close to her big open mouth of agony as
hoarse grunts and sub-human gurgles came welling up from the deep
dark pit of her tortured sex. 'What was that, baby Sandy?' he
said, in silly mincing tones, 'did oo want a cuddle?' Then, as
the bestial noises uttered by the five year old settled to a
regular NNNGGH! NNNGGH! NNNGGH!' Ableman called Speem's attention
to what was going on in her lower belly. Both men watched,
fascinated at the sight of the girl's chubby belly and pubis
alternately growing and shrinking, pulsing in time to the
repeated inflation of the gas-powered invaginator.

'Have a feel,' said Ableman, watching Speem's face carefully.

Speem put a hand on the girl's stomach, then shifted it down to
the top of her bulging vulva. He had to stand close to the robot
to do this and felt a thrill of power, sensing the flow of
high-pressure gas and mechanical energy into the tiny body of the
five year old.

The robot startled him when it suddenly spoke: 'Mrs Speem?' It
was speaking to Sandy yet it hardly seemed possible that she...

'Yes?' she said, through gritted teeth, 'yes?' and tried to focus
bloodshot eyes on the robot's face, supporting her body with her
two small hands either side of its chest casing.

'Try to relax, Mrs Speem,' said the robot. Pulse, pulse, pulse
went the thing inside her.

'I'm ... trying ...,' said Sandy, forcing the words out in the
intervals between the invaginator's expansions, ' can't take ...
much ...uugh ... more .. of ...'

'You are wrong there,' said the robot. It turned its head towards
Speem and one of its eyes went blank for a second: it had winked
at him. 'You can take a lot more in there, Mrs Speem, a LOT
more.'

The little girl's eyes narrowed for an instant and then came the
squealing – 'No, please, no, NO, NO – OOOO!'

Speem's eyes, and Ableman's too, for he had wandered over for a
look at what was going on, were riveted on the rounded pink base
of the girl's belly, where it met the shiny black shell of the
robot. The top of the pubis, just above the cylindrical plug
which filled her outer vaginal opening, was visibly expanding,
like a balloon. Sandy looked down at herself and screamed louder
than seemed possible for a five year old: the skin of her belly
was taut and shiny and bulging ever further out as the robot
calmly increased the size of the gas-filled penis thrusting and
pumping inside her tiny loins.

'Next cycle,' said the robot laconically, and Ableman nodded.

There was a new sound, an intermittent muted buzzing, as of tiny
servo-motors performing some delicate operation and the robot
seemed to have to concentrate, all external movement ceasing, its
head still too, as if all its senses were directed inward, as if
it were feeling its way towards something, something hidden,
something small, sensitive, elusive .....

'AAAAAAAA GGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNN GGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!'

'Bingo!' said Ableman, grinning and planting a big kiss on the
five year-old's tear- stained cheek; but her sightless eyes were
fixed on something no one there could see and her face had gone
dead white.

'What's happening? What's it done now? Is she... is she ...?'
said Speem.

'She's not a happy bunny,' said Ableman, 'but there'll be no
permanent damage. Hector's found and penetrated the entrance to
her cervix. Now the fun REALLY starts.'

Speem watched, uncertain whether to be worried or not, as the
robot changed its shape again, adopting what in a human would
have been a sitting position while keeping the girl firmly
impaled on the invaginating equipment at its groin. The little
girl was then lowered so that she was lying on her back along the
bulbous segmented legs, her own lower limbs spread limply either
side of the mechanical man's waist, her splayed buttocks jammed
sweatily against its hard black front.

Sandy's obscenely bulging genitals and lower belly were more
prominent in her new position. Ableman stooped over her and
callously jabbed a forefinger into the distended flesh of the
little girl's pubic mound – which was rapidly turning into a
pubic hill.

'Hmm,' he said, then did it again, several times, until he was
rewarded with a deep despairing groan from the weakly bucking
child. 'Just about there,' he said to the robot. 'Give her a
squirt of womb trank then start inflating it.'

A small clear voice suddenly filled the room and drew all their
attentions, even the robot's. 'Dalfor, you cannot let them mess
around with my womb. All right, I accept the other stuff ... I've
been ... bad ... unkind to you, but you can't, they can't...'

'Can't?' said Ableman, before Speem could think of a reply. The
agency man went quickly to one of the bags he had brought in and
took from it a square black box, which he opened. 'There's very
little we can't do these days, Mrs Speem, as you will find out.
Hold her arms, would you, Mr Speem?'

Speem want automatically to the lower end of the robot and took
hold of the girl's small round wrists, as unmarked and pale as a
doll's. 'No need to tug, just keep her highness from interfering
for a second,' said Ableman, poring over the silver instruments
nestling in the dark velvety interior of the box he had opened.
After a few moments, the agency man selected two or three items
and turned his attention to the nude pink and white form of the
helpless five year-old.

'Wonderful things, implants,' he said. 'Don't know what anyone
did without them. Opening doors, turning the heating on and off,
even making netcalls – what a brave new world, eh? What's she got
in her head,' he said to Speem, 'a standard US systems device?'

'No...er...no...' said Speem, 'I bought her a Lucky Skies
multi-channel. She...er...really likes Chinese stuff.'

'I bet she does,' said Ableman, 'considering it's three times the
price. You spoil her, Mr Speem, you really do. However,' he went
on, before Speem could reply, 'it makes what I'm about to do real
easy. Lucky Skies – multi-channel, you say. OK...,' and he made
an adjustment on a small silver device, like a thick medallion,
which was attached to a length of narrow black ribbon. 'There we
go,' he said, 'should do the trick. Now, hold still...'

He encircled the recumbent little girl's neck with the ribbon,
cinching it up to a tight fit before pressing its velcro tabs
together; the chunky silver disk pressed against the child's
throat, right in the hollow between her delicate collarbones.

'Looks kinda cute,' said Ableman, admiring his own handiwork.
'Kitten collar, you know? What d'ya think,' he said to the girl,
looking down on her like an uncle with his favourite niece at
bed-time, 'not too tight I hope?'

The little pre-teen, apprehensive and pale-faced, licked her lips
nervously. Her tiny fingers, now released by her partner at
Ableman's injunction, crept like the fronds of a pink sea-anemone
to feel the object hanging at her neck.

'Oops!' said Ableman, 'almost forgot,' and with a deft movement
pressed the last item he had taken out of the box into the girl's
hand. It was a small pair of needle- nosed pliers. The five
year-old looked them in puzzlement, frowning: 'Dalfy,' she began,
'I'm...'

A tiny chime, like the ringing of an elfin bell, sounded from the
silvery medallion at her throat, and a minute but very bright red
light winked on at its centre. The child- woman frowned, tilted
her head down so that she could see her own chest, carefully
positioned the pliers, jaws open, then closed them firmly on her
own nipple, the left one.

Tears jetted from her eyes, she was gagging with the pain, but
she kept the child- sized tool clamped on her own nipple with the
fierce concentration of a five year- old writing her own name;
her tongue was slightly sticking out. Ableman hooted with
laughter, doubling up and slapping his thigh. 'Have you ever,' he
gasped, 'seen anything so funny?'

Speem, for all his divided sympathies, had to agree. The naked
child was going practically cross-eyed with the effort of
focusing on her own nipple. Her soft little hand could not bring
any great pressure to bear on the plier-handles but the wickedly
sharp steel jaws did not require much effort to dig deep into the
puckered coral teat, which they were visibly doing.

'Why...but why...?' said Speem, bemused.

'Implant feedback,' said Ableman, recovering. 'Developed by the
military, licensed to semi-governmental agencies like the prison
service – and the Pedophile Agency. Damn useful for recalcitrant
types, the mouthy ones who always know better.'

'But she's torturing herself!' said Speem, who had noticed a tiny
bead of crimson welling slowly from the five year old's nipple.

'Yeah – great, isn't it?' said Ableman. 'The throat device picks
up sub-vocals before she can speak them and sends commands to her
nervous system and musculature via her implant. In other words,
if she feels the impulse to mouth off, she immediately finds
herself adjusting the tension on her own tits, or some other nice
sensitive spot – like I say, wonderful!'

'I guess so,' said Speem slowly. Sandy had laid the pliers aside
with a quivering hand and lay back, arms flung wide, apparently
exhausted. A stab of warm affection for her went through him. She
looked so small, so fragile, and she had been having such a hard
time...'

'Not yet, my friend,' said Ableman softly into his ear. 'There'll
be a time to go misty-eyed about your little lover, but she
doesn't deserve that yet.' He squatted down beside the little
girl. 'Now then, Sandy,' he said, in the slow firm tones of a
teacher dealing with a slow pupil, 'you have committed a very
serious offence: denial of womanhood. Little girls who pretend
they are not sexed up and ready for a good shafting from a nice
stiff prick every night of the year need to learn different. Your
vagina, or cunt as I'd like you to call it, is now more the
proper size for a girl who is living with an adult man. I think
you know that, don't you? No need to speak, just nod.'

The five year old slowly inclined her head and the sweat-darkened
curls swung forward and back.

'Now,' said Ableman, 'we're going to teach you a lesson using
your internal reproductive organs, the parts that make you a
woman, the parts you've been pretending don't exist.'

The panicky little girl tried to speak and, helpless under the
command of the Agency's implant controller, was forced to grab
the pliers again and stab them into her own navel before she gave
up and sank back in apathetic despair.

'You're learning,' said Ableman grimly. 'Now then, Hector has
penetrated you about as thoroughly as a woman can be penetrated,
so you're probably cunt- aware. Now you're going to find out
about the fertile little honey-pot to which your cunt is just the
front door. And while you find out on the inside, your partner,
Dalfor, is going to watch. And you will both learn a lesson you
will not forget.

'Inflate the womb?' said the robot. Ableman gave a curt nod. The
robot leaned forward, its red stare fixed on the tiny girl's
face; she for her part lay partly propped up on her elbows and
gazed back at the soulless mechanism with the big blank eyes of
an exhausted herbivore in a trap. Her little thighs and buttocks
were quivering with terror, her mouth opened and closed but no
sound came out; slowly, blindly her hand reached out, found
Speem's and held it tightly.

For a few seconds nothing seemed to be happening. The big bulge
at the top of her vagina just seemed to quiver slightly while
deep inside the child's body could be heard tiny sounds, whirs
and hisses. Ableman quietly handed Speem a card with several
lines of printed text. 'When it starts,' said the agency man,
'you're to read this to her, say exactly what's on the card.'

Speem read a few words and cast him a startled look,

'Trust me, it's all part of the treatment,' said Ableman.

Suddenly the little girl drew in her breath in a great shocked
gasp. Something was obviously happening now. Her tummy button,
reddened by the brief assault from the pliers, was slowly but
surely rising up, on the back of a bigger and bigger, a more and
more rounded swelling. Inch by inch, in the space of a few
minutes, the five year old abdomen was growing to the size and
shape of full-term pregnancy.

Sandy began to scream, rhythmically, powerfully, great tearing
screams, each one with a grinding component of mindless agony.
Ableman nodded at Speem. 'Now. Go on!'

Speem squatted by the pain-racked girl and read from the card.

'This is what happens,' he intoned, rather lifelessly, 'to
ungrateful little cows who don't deliver on what they promise.'

Sandy didn't seem to be listening. The naked five year-old's
bulging belly creaked with the strain as it grew, blown up by
massive forces within, and she had gone past the point of
screaming, producing peculiar noises from her throat, gurgles and
grunts, while her eyes were either tight shut or threatening to
leave their orbits completely.

'I'd call you a whore,' read Speem, right into one of Sandy's
perfect little pink ears, 'only that's too good for you. Even a
whore would be ashamed to behave as you have done, you filthy
debased deceitful treacherous bag of poisonous scum.'

'Womb's holding nicely,' announced the robot. 'Want me to do her
nipples?'

'Why not,' said Ableman, 'go ahead, it'll save time.'

Twin red laser beams lanced out of the robot's eyes and played
with cruel accuracy on the naked child's little pink nipples.
Smoke spurted out at the base of each teat which, within a
microsecond, was surrounded by weeping carbonized flesh.

'Wow,' said Ableman admiringly, 'I've got to hand it to your
wife, Speem, she hardly turned a hair. I've seen 'em practically
tear their own tits off when that happened. Mind you, she is
having her womb inflated by a particularly pissed robot – go
easy, Hector, we don't want to rip her apart – not this time
anyway, ha ha, just joking Speems. Well read by the way.'

'Should I do the last bit?' said Speem.

'No, there's something else,' said Ableman, 'hold on ...' The
agency man went to the robot and spoke to it quietly. Speem could
only catch the occasional word: '...she's big enough...yes, but
what...how appropriate ... brilliant, just the job...Speem can
deliver it...'

Ableman returned to where Speem squatted by Sandy's thrashing
head. 'Got a job for you,' he said. 'I'd do it myself normally
but I think you'll like this, and it frees me to prepare
something else.'

Prepare what?' said Speem rudely. He was beginning to feel tired.
What the hell must Sandy be feeling like. All at once, he found
himself wishing the Pedo agency's visit were over.

'Never you mind,' said Ableman. 'This is the last stage, OK?
Let's get it right, and you can be fucking this little tease six
times a night from here to doomsday, if you got it in ya! Now
listen, I want you to grab her arms, brace your feet against the
robot's and pull like you're in a boat race. We gotta stretch the
bitch – I mean Sandy – give her insides a bit of room for what's
coming, tone her up – you'll see.'

Wearily, Speem sat down as instructed and took each of his
child-lover's soft wrists. She turned her head up to look at him
but, obviously mindful of the agency's device at her throat, did
not dare utter a word. In any case she was soon overtaken by
another spasm of agony as the delicately trembling little sack
within her soft belly was pumped up bigger and tighter still by
the copulating robot's questing metal proboscis. Speem leant
back, snapping the girl's arms straight, and he heard her joints
crack. Because of her stark nakedness, he could follow the bunch
and stretch of her protesting muscles, the bending of her fragile
bones, as he put his full adult strength into racking her slim
little body. He saw the robot tighten its mechanical hold on her
slender thighs in two convulsive movements as it compensated for
his efforts, and heaved harder on the five year old's arms. As he
saw her ribs expand and rise, her charred nipples stick out, saw
her shoulder- joints rotate and f ollow her stretched upper-arms
until they threatened to pop right out of their sockets, Speem
felt his penis hardening and, script or no script, words came to
his lips: 'How do you like this?' he snarled at the top of the
five year-old's curly head as he wrenched at her arms, 'Want to
complain? Play another game? Well, TOO BAD!' he shouted, and
jerked so savagely at the little girl's wrists that her upper
body left the floor completely and it could be seen from the
position of her tiny shoulder blades that several major joints
were at the point of complete dislocation. The child said
nothing, her head flopping back and forth with his movements, her
breathing rough and irregular.

'Well done,' said Ableman, coming back from whatever he had been
doing. He was holding something, an irregular mass, roughly the
size and shape of a pineapple wrapped, so it seemed, in clear
plastic film which glistened as if coated with grease. 'But just
keep a steady pressure for a moment,' he said to Speem, 'while
Hector and I sort out some internal matters.'

'Now missy,' said Ableman, addressing the little girl as if she
were not agonized and nearly unconscious, 'a woman's destiny is
in her cunt, tits and womb. Your cunt and tits will now never be
the same again, and I hope – I know - you'll remember your lesson
whenever your husband slides his penis into your new woman-sized
vagina or you see the word 'Revert' which has been laser-branded
onto the base of each of your nipples.

'There is one last part to your lesson, however – playing mommy,
Sandy, remember? Your womb, the very centre of your womanhood,
that womanhood you have tried to keep back from your poor loving
partner, has now been expanded to a size, in proportion to your
own, appropriate to giving birth. All it lacks is a baby. Hector
is now going to put that right.'

The little girl seemed to snap back into full consciousness at
this last sentence, her eyes opening wide on the word 'baby'.
Ableman meanwhile took the glistening package and introduced it
into a hatch in the robot's back – but not before he had held it
up briefly for Speem's benefit and winked: at first Speem thought
it was one of Sandy's dolls, the ones she had been playing
'mother' with on the Pedo Agency's arrival; but Sandy's dolls
were not black and shiny all over, they did not have cylindrical
heads, nor did they have red glowing eyes and – and this was a
clincher – they did not have the segmented arms, legs and fingers
which could be half-seen stirring with insectoid vitality under
the glistening plastic caul.

For what Ableman was holding was nothing other than a miniature
version of Hector 3, wrapped in a filmy tegument like a greasy
mockery of a placenta. The hatch in the robot's lower back
received the film-wrapped horror into a kind of
cartridge-chamber, with an efficient hiss and 'pock' of a valve
closing and then there was movement at its groin and a
simultaneous low wailing groan from the helpless little female
whose crotch was held there by the inexorable grip of the shiny
black three-fingered hands. The vacuum plug was opening up,
reforming and growing in circumference. Metal slid on metal in a
spiralling motion and the five year-old's labia were stretched
and stretched again as a massive aperture opened up, a gaping
black hole into the child's interior. The great-bellied girl
found new energy to twitch her hips in protest but in truth could
do very little with her husband tugging remorselessly on her
outstretched arms and the robot so completely the master of her
loins.

'Always impressive when he does this,' said Ableman companionably
to the wondering Speem. 'Even when you know how it's done. For
the last few seconds he'll have been pumping a special MGA gel
into the end of her vagina, building up the pressure to equal
that inside the womb. At the critical moment, he'll stimulate the
mouth of the cervix to open and literally shoot that robot-baby
into the kid's guts, along with the gel, which immediately
absorbs the gas that's kept the womb inflated.'

Even as he said the words, there was an explosive hiss from the
junction between robot and girl, a distinct 'thud!' from inside
her, the taut white belly twitched and shuddered and the child
roared, bellowing her pain and fear red-faced up into Speem's
smiling and finally-gratified countenance. 'You can let go her
arms,' said Ableman. 'Feels good, don't it?'

The robot noisily decoupled from the girl, tendrils of various
fluids natural and man-made trailing from the complicated
equipment as it slid smoothly back into his groin. Sandy's
vaginal opening had shrunk back to something like normal size as
soon as the expansion ring had been withdrawn, but above it the
great mound of her loaded belly stood out as big as ever.

'Upsy daisy,' said Ableman, taking hold of the girl under one arm
and signalling Speem to lift her under the other. They got her to
her feet but she immediately collapsed and it was not until the
third attempt that she managed to stand, on wobbly legs, her
pregnant belly, with its load of gel and robot-baby, hanging
enormous in front of her.

"There now,' said Ableman, not unkindly, 'back on your feet in no
time.'

'Of course,' he went on, undoing his pants and motioning to Speem
to do the same, 'part of being a woman is not using pregnancy as
an excuse for denying your hardworking husband his nightly fuck.
On the bed, woman!'

Sandy's lower lip quivered and she seemed about to say something
but thought better of it and closed her mouth. Resignedly she
trudged towards the big bed and pathetically tried, and failed,
to clamber up onto it. Her bulging abdomen was just too much in
the way. Ableman, who had followed her unsteady steps over to the
bed, drew back his foot and kicked her hard on her small white
buttocks, just at the base where the cleft broadened out into the
perineum and met the vaginal pouch. The five year-old emitted a
startled grunt and flew the rest of the way onto the bed where
she sprawled flat on her face.

'They're all the same,' said Ableman with a grin at Speem, 'lazy
little cows, unless you teach them better. Now then ...' and the
Pedo agency man, long erect penis waving from his opened pants,
threw himself on the child, pulled her up by the hips onto all
fours and buggered her with cruel efficiency, entering her in one
merciless thrust and achieving his orgasm after about twenty deep
slow stabs into the pre- teen's bottom, each push ending with a
strong upward lift which actually made the girl's knees leave the
bed for a second.

'Whew, what a hot bitch, I swear she was humping me back, there
at the end,' said Ableman as he pulled with vicious lack of care
out of the five year-old's puckered anus, nearly bringing her
tight rectum out along with the still engorged head of his penis.
'Your turn, man,' he said. 'Let's hear her scream. Fifty dollars
says she comes this time.'

His heart pumping quick and hard, Speem got up on the bed and
turned the little girl over on her back. She gazed at him over
her enormous belly, expressionless, then slowly, mechanically,
drew her legs up and opened them as far as they would go, even
pulling at her own thighs with her small hands to ensure her sex
was as open as physically possible. His penis had never felt so
big and hard. He stared down, fixated on the pink gash between
her legs, open and weeping fluids, animal and welcoming as never
before – it was the split ripe rump of a female in season, ready
to be subdued by a confident male - him. Speem's blood roared in
his head as he mounted what was presented to him so completely,
inner thigh, pubic mound, vulva and the sweet scented target at
the centre, yielding, moist, his hairy belly pressed against the
pulsing furnace of the five year-old's full womb. The head of his
penis butted through the elastic resistance of the little girl's
vaginal entrance and slid sm oothly in to the lubricated paradise
beyond. One – two – three – four, in harsh, jerking thrusts, he
copulated with the tiny girl under him with bestial urgency. He
worked his way so far up her body that her head was lost to view
somewhere under his belly. Resentful, he reached down blindly,
found her soft smooth breasts and clawed them in time with his
rutting, then grabbed the child's tiny buttocks and attacked her
sex with full adult ferocity, driving her up the length of the
bed until her neck was pressed against the headboard.

'Don't break her neck,' said Ableman softly, 'though god knows
she probably deserves it. There's more fun to come.'

It is doubtful whether Speem heard these words, for just at that
moment he was emptying six months worth of semen into the warm
wet folds of his little lover's brand new vagina. Ungh, ungh,
ungh ... longer and longer went on the spasms and spurts, and all
the while the girl mutely held herself open to his seed,
impassive. Ungh, ungh, ungh... would it never end? Then,
underneath him, a miracle: first, a little quiver in the tiny
loins, then a tentative upward push, then another, stronger
bucking movement of the hips; a breathy moan came out of the open
pink lips, then a deeper sound, a groan. 'She's coming!' shouted
Ableman delightedly, stooping close to have a good look, 'what
did I tell ya, you've brought the little bitch off! And see,
she's hating it!' And it was true; and knowing it was true, Speem
triumphed, gloating over the big-bellied little animal underneath
him.

Sandy's spectacular orgasm went on for longer than Speem would
have thought possible, peaking even as the last potent spurts of
his hot seed spent themselves against her tightly closed cervix.
Afterwards, grinning like an idiot, Speem dismounted from the
warm wet little body underneath him and wiped his penis on the
bed cover.

'I guess you won't be having any trouble in that department in
future, Mr Speem,' said Ableman with a smile. 'Now it's the
robot's turn.'

'The robot?' said Speem, looking confusedly from the tiny figure
of the girl, curled up now on the embroidered cover, to the
menacing black machine where it waited in silence at the foot of
the double bed.

'Sure,' said Ableman, 'you'll see, you'll enjoy this.' The agency
man got onto the big bed and walked over it to the naked little
girl where she lay, curled up around her great pregnant belly. He
stirred her with his foot. 'Wake up you ungrateful little cow,'
he said. 'Women don't sleep after sex, men do.' He reached down,
grabbed the little girl by her heels and hauled her bodily down
to the foot of the bed and the waiting robot. 'You disgusting
little whore,' he shouted into the girl's face. 'You enjoyed me
sodomizing you, fucking you in the ass, me, a stranger, you loved
it, didn't you?'

'And as for you coming, slut, having your filthy orgasm,
pleasuring yourself when your hardworking, long-suffering man is
getting the first bit of sexual satisfaction you've deigned to
offer him in six months...well, I think you've still got
something to learn about being a woman, a good woman, one who
deserves a man like Dalfor here.'

The girl looked up at the agency man drowsily, her enormous blue
eyes half- closed; she seemed about to say something, but again
thought better of ait and kept her mouth shut, her little hand
straying unconsciously towards the thick silvery medallion tied
around her neck. Instead, she lay back on the bed, put her arms
straight out behind her head and, with a tiny sigh, opened her
legs and shut her eyes.

Ableman quietly got off the bed. 'Hey!'he whispered to Speem,
'look, remember this moment – that's how we want her, OK?'

'OK,' whispered Speem, feeling his penis hardening and rising
again, 'OK.'

'Sandra Rose Speem,' intoned Ableman out loud, standing over the
passive pink and white form of the naked five year-old, 'you are
almost at the end of the treatment for your denial of womanhood.
Your vagina has been upgraded to the condition it would have been
left in by six months of sexual intercourse with a full- grown
male. Your nipples have been burnt, scarred and branded, to
remind you of your shame, and that a woman's sensitive parts make
it futile for her to challenge a male. The implant-controller at
your neck may be removed by your husband if he sees fit –
personally I would make you wear it for a while. Your womb which,
along with your ovaries, is at the centre of your femininity, now
carries an artificial baby as big in proportion to your present
size as a full-term infant is to a thirty-five year old. This
artificial pregnancy is to bring home to you, once and for all,
your nature and responsibility as a woman. You, Sandy, as a
woman, are no more than a sack of eg gs and a wet slit between
two useless legs, topped by a pair of milk- teats. The only time
the oozing bag slung between those big wide hips makes any sense
is when you manage to get your man's stiff cock interested in
dumping a load of seed in it. The cock does not want to know what
you think, it does not need to know how you're feeling, for the
erect penis and seed-filled testicles which together represent
your only reason for being, your personality is just an
inconvenient by-product which it would be better for everyone to
erase completely – a point which I think we can make with...'

and here Ableman bent down and rummaged in one of the bags by his
feet, '...a point which we can make with this,' he said, and he
up holding a dull black sphere, about the size of a bowling ball,
with a hole some four inches across in one face. 'Tip her
forward, will you?' he said to Speem and, as Sandy's husband,
nursing a three-quarters inflated penis and wanting to fuck his
wife again, lifted the unresisting little girl's upper body off
the bed-cover, Ableman popped the sphere open along a toothed
seam and then closed it over the pre-teen's head.

'There you go,' said Ableman. 'Nothing, from the neck up. C'mon,
get her on her feet.'

The naked girl, her grossly overcharged belly wagging and
bouncing in front of her, was slid off the bed and made to stand
up, blindly feeling around her and occasionally staggering as she
lost her balance.

Ableman beamed down with professional pride at the strange figure
of the tiny nude body with the big black ball for a head. 'There
ya go,' he said again. 'All the important bits, minus the
know-it-all bitch on top.

'Can she breathe?' said Speem, 'I mean...'

'She'll be fine,'said Ableman absently, searching on one of the
big grey bags again and eventually producing a pair of small red
and shiny high-heeled shoes. He gave the girl a cursory push in
the chest and she sat down hard on the carpet with an 'oof'
barely audible through the black ball which completely encased
her head. The agency man deftly fastened the little feet into the
sling-backs and then hauled the girl upright, giving her a push
so that she staggered a few feet across the floor, turned her
ankle on the awkward high heel, hit the wall, bounced off and
tottered blindly straight into the robot's open arms, which
closed upon her.

Ableman was beside himself with laughter and Speem too was
smiling broadly – the five year-old really did look stupid,
blundering about on those high heels, trying to support that big
sagging belly in front and just that anonymous, featureless,
characterless bowling-ball for a head.

'Go on,' said Ableman, unwrapping a stick of chewing gum and
flinging himself relaxedly into a chair, 'give her another one.
Hector won't mind waiting for his turn – he'll even hold her open
for you, won't you Hector?'

'Yes,' said the robot, 'I'll hold her open, if Speem can avoid
ejaculating before he gets his penis inside her.'

And it was true that Speem's sexual excitement was threatening to
spend itself on the bedroom carpet. He willed himself to put off
the inevitable climax and his throbbing purple organ subsided
somewhat.

The robot lifted the girl with her back to his gleaming black
front, supporting her with its segmented arms under the hips and
thighs, its powerful hands clenched shut around her legs,
grasping them in the crook of each knee. With a smooth, powerful
motion it opened the five year-old's legs so wide that the big
ligaments at the inside tops of her thighs looked ready to burst
through the skin. A very faint keening sound could be heard
through the featureless black sphere which enclosed the little
girl's head but the odd thing was, Speem found, that you just
didn't care. Robbed of a face, that soft white body became a
thing without intelligence, the hungry pink petals of its sex
opening greedily between feeble white haunches which said nothing
except take, crush, pierce and penetrate – anything, you may do
anything, short of quenching the boiling cauldron of new life at
the centre.

Speem stepped inside the broad pale vee of the girl's splayed
legs, guided his massive erection into the gaping vagina, rammed
it home and found himself face to face with the robot. 'Well done
Speem,' said the robot. 'A few more like that and I'll be out of
a job.'

'Wha...? Ungh! Ungh! What?' gasped Speem, too locked-in to the
accelerating cadence of his rasping thrusts into the starfish of
five year-old flesh to give any serious thought to the robot's
sarcasm. He looked down at the featureless black sphere encasing
the girl's head and at the startlingly white flesh of the flat
chest below it, the full belly and the stick-thin arms flopping
uselessly down from the narrow shoulders and felt an intoxicating
sense of power: 'Bitch! You little cow! Whore! Take it, take it
all the way, I'm gonna split you open!' he shouted, not at the
anonymous bowling-ball of a head but down between the girl's
legs, down at the sloppy soaking pink folds of her sex which
hungrily sucked him back in at each withdrawal until, for the
second time, a niagara of sperm filled the child's quim, this
time flooding back out again, actually spurting back under
pressure through the tight seal between vaginal opening and
slippery penis. He pulled the still-engorged knob of his shaft
out with some difficulty and stepped back, gazing fondly at the
mess that had been made of the little girl's once neat vulva and
trim tucked-in crack. Her whole pubic mound, under the larger
mass of her grotesquely distended belly, was suffused with an
angry red, the vulva puffed up and weeping great strings of
mucous and other secretions from a ragged split, framed by fat
bruised labia which could do nothing to conceal or retain the
multiple wrinkles and folds of the inner lips and the red-raw
opening to the vaginal tunnel which sagged open and flared like a
trumpet mouth, all its secrets exposed.

Something was being put into his hand. It was the wooden handle
of a tapering, three-foot whip, metal-cored rubber, Speem
thought, judging by the weight and stiffness. 'Hit it,' Ableman
whispered, 'beat it, pulp it, it's been laughing at you for six
months and now it's at your mercy – finish it!'

The robot pushed the girl's pelvis and belly up to meet Speem's
first downward stroke so that the impact was actually greater
even than he had been trying for – THWACK! right between the
labia, cutting vertically across the vaginal opening and deep
into the soft wet flesh he had so recently been humping like a
madman. THOCK! a wet, more hollow impact as he changed the angle,
looking to get the thin tip of the whip further inside that
rudely gaping mouth, then THUD! SMACK! WHACK! belly, breast and
thighs; now the robot held the forked meat completely upside
down, exposing the big wound between the fleshy globes of the
buttocks to the full downward force of the whip and blood and
other fluids really began to fly. Ableman joined him, laughing
and laying on with an evil bundle of wires like the cat 'o nine
tails from some fetishist Bounty, and shoulder to shoulder they
flayed the inverted cup of fair flesh offered up to them by the
mechanical servant until it overflowed with brig ht red blood.

Eventually sheer exhaustion forced Speem to lower his arm and
Ableman soon followed suit. Wonderingly, Speem tried to recognize
his child partner's anatomy in the bloody ruin which now met his
eyes, the fair skin of the thighs and buttocks criss-crossed with
so many angry welts and pocky abrasions that they looked like the
surface of some meteor-scarred moon, the separate parts of the
genitals, which had received the full force of their combined
rage, hardly distinguishable any more: the thing between the five
year-old's legs now looked like the wet pile of horrors which
slithers from the abdomen of a big gutted fish.

Breathing hard, Ableman shook Speem's hand. 'Excellent cunting,'
he said, 'haven't seen one done so thoroughly for years. You
know, you might like to think about working for the agency – they
recruit from time to time. We'll talk later – right now, I think
the little whore's body has got the message at last – look, the
contractions have started, she's aborting. Let her go, Hector.'

The robot released its hold on the slender heels of the naked
inverted body and it fell straight down on the absurd
bowling-ball head, bounced then crumpled and lay on its side, the
thighs clamped shut, pelvis rocking a little back and forth,
little pink hands balled into fists and held up rigid, level with
the head; a faint moaning could be heard from the featureless
round black ball. The fat belly was alive with movement, tensing
and relaxing every few seconds, with more and more urgency
seeking to expel the red-eyed thing with which it had been
implanted.

'Last part of the lesson,' Ableman bellowed at the faceless black
head-ball. 'Giving birth! You wanted to play Mommy, you lying
treacherous recidivist little revert – well, now you can – and
you are fucking going to watch as well.' So saying, the agency
man pressed the top of the black sphere and it split apart and
fell away, revealing a hollow-eyed ashen-faced woman whom Speem,
for a moment, did not in the least recognize.

'Sandy?' he said, 'Sandy?'

The little woman did not respond; her blank eyes did not change
in expression, she just lay on her side, cradling her crawling
belly now in cupped hands and whimpering quietly to herself,
waiting.

'Come on Speem,' said Ableman, 'let's get this whore to a mirror
so she can see what being a woman really means.'

The two men grabbed the small shapely legs by an ankle each and
roughly dragged the bloody rump and bulging drum-tight torso
across the carpet, leaving a bloody smear all the way. Speem
suggested the full length mirror in the en-suite shower- room and
Ableman shoved a low bedside table against it then flung the
big-bellied female flat on her back on the table, her feet, in
the shiny red high-heeled 'fuck- me' shoes, pressed up against
the reflective glass. And all the time the child- woman gazed at
nothing, said nothing, was nothing, her flayed thighs flopping
obediently apart to Ableman's peremptory slaps; but when he
dragged her head up off the table, by the hair, it just dropped
back down with a sharp crack.

'Damn – we've gotta get the cow's head up enough for her to watch
her own abortion,' said Ableman. 'How strong's that rail, Speem,
d'ya think?' Within seconds, Ableman had fetched a length of
thick blue nylon rope from his bag. It had a loop at one end,
fastened upon itself with a metal sleeve. It was the work of a
moment to throw the loop – or noose, in fact – over the
shower-curtain rail and slip it around the unresisting girl's
slim neck and pull it tight under her chin. 'Keep this for a
while,' said the agency man, throwing the implant controller to
Speem, who pocketed the device.

'Nice and easy does it,' said Ableman cheerfuly and threw all his
weight on the free end of the thick blue nylon rope, making the
five year-old up sit up with the alacrity of a zombie coming back
to life. Retching sounds came from the preteen's throat, until
she discovered how to brace herself and take some of the load off
her wind-pipe.

'Hector!' cried the agency man and the robot clumped morosely in
to join them in the small shower-room. 'Now is it my turn?' said
the robot. 'I've been waiting, you know. ' 'She's all yours,
Hector 3,' said Ableman.

'Hector 3b,' said the robot. 'Can you hear me?'

Speem looked in puzzlement around the crowded shower-room to see
whom the mechanical man was talking to, and then looked even
harder when he heard a tinny little voice responding to the
robot's question, indistinct yet near at hand.

':::: ... ::::: ... :::::::'

The response, Speem suddenly realized, was coming from the five
year-old girl's overloaded abdomen. Mini-Hector was answering his
father.

'One moment, Hector 3b,' said the robot, leaned over and thrust
its fat black metal fingers into the five year-old girl's vagina,
spreading them, so that the pink- ribbed vaginal tunnel opened up
like the gullet of a big snake. 'Say again Hector 3b,' the robot
boomed up the dark shaft of the supine child's sex-hole.

'I said, yeah, I can hear you Dad,' Sandy's open-mouthed vagina
seemed to reply.

Ableman grinned at Speem's amazed expression. 'Don't see this
every day, eh?' he said. 'Well, you just wait: you ain't seen
nothing yet!'

'Now listen carefully, Hector 3b,' said the larger robot, craning
its cylindrical head to look straight into the five year-old's
vaginal cavity. 'You are in the birth-sac of a young human female
and it is trying to expel you. We want this to happen, but not
just yet. Do you understand?'

'Yes Dad.'

'You will find in your memory a 3D plan of the creature's
internal organs. Have you got that?'

'Yes Dad,' replied the small muffled voice inside the girl's
belly.

'Well done, Hector 3b,' said the robot, straightening up and
pressing lightly on the girl's lower belly. 'Now, I want you to
find the female's bladder, coloured green on your chart, and kick
it as hard as you can.'

A split second later, WHAM! The tight skin under the big black
robot's fingers bulged frighteningly and the outline of a small
square foot showed briefly through. Simultaneously the girl
groaned and ejected a stream of urine.

'Excellent,' said the larger robot. 'You have orientated yourself
correctly.'

'Dad! Dad!' came the tinny little voice from inside the five year
old, 'she's trying to push us out Dad!'

'Hold on, son,' said Hector 3. 'Fight it, brace your arms and
legs.'

At once, four sharp little bumps appeared in the transluscent
skin of the girl's swollen abdomen. She howled and bucked, her
humped belly rippling and heaving as it tried to spew its
unwanted load out through the oozing birth canal between the
limply spread thighs. The paroxysm gradually died down, the urge
to contract the womb and drive out its contents temporarily
defeated. The girl panted, her face sweaty, matted blonde hair
sticking to her shiny forehead.

'Go to her,' said Ableman, still keeping tension on the rope
which held her head and shoulders up, 'you're the surrogate
father after all.' Speem uncertainly went and knelt down by the
low table, taking one of Sandy's small hands in his. She did not
seem to notice, just stared straight forward at her own
reflection, taking quick shallow breaths.

'Now, Hector 3b,' said the robot, 'between your legs you will
find a multi- purpose coupling device – you may have wondered
what this is for.'

'Cor, yes dad,' replied the muffled voice of the miniature robot
from within the girl's pain-racked body. 'What does this do
then?'

The larger robot bent down again to direct ats words more
intimately up the girl's vagina: 'When a Pedo Agency robot meets
a girl ....' it began slowly, then, straightening up, 'I'll tell
you all about it later. For now, I want you to find the ends of
her Fallopian tubes. There are two, at the top of the womb, like
a couple of flared nozzles.'

The girl's belly seethed for a moment as the robot inside moved
around. 'Got it Dad,' came the smaller robot's excited voice.
'What do I do now?'

'We've done our job on the girl's vagina, cervix and womb,' said
Hector 3. 'Now you're going to have the honour of finishing the
little cow off. Insert a Fine-Bore Electrode in each of the
Fallopian tubes and keep pushing them along until they reach the
ovaries, coloured blue on your chart.'

Sandy's fingers closed convulsively on Speem's and her whole body
leaped, her buttocks actually leaving the table-top despite the
weight of her overloaded belly.

'It's squeezing me down again,' called out Hector 3b. 'I'm going
to grab onto something, here goes...'

Sandy's grip nearly broke one of Speem's fingers as she STOOD UP,
propelled by a mighty spasm of her buttocks and thighs, at the
same time emitting a tortured scream which, amplified in the
enclosed tiled space, hurt their eardrums. Ableman was for a
moment caught off guard and the taut blue nylon rope around the
girl's neck went slack; then he delightedly hauled it tight
again, her neck straightened and the little blonde head was
caught and held where it was. She scrabbled for a footing, her
high-heeled shoes clacking and scraping on the table, which was
shiny and slippery with her own sweat. Then she was standing,
straight and still, head up, kept there by the terror aroused by
the feeling of the rope on her windpipe, the thing in her belly
temporarily forgotten.

'Well done, Hector 3b,' said the robot to its miniature self,
'she felt that, whatever it was. Is your probe touching the ovary
yet?'

'Think so,' came the reply. 'Feels sort of – springy. Kind of
nice. In fact – cor, Dad, me coupling device is charging up all
by itself!'

'Don't worry, it's normal. In a second or two you'll want to
discharge yourself - you just go right ahead, give her one from
me as well. Good luck, son.' They all waited, Speem, Ableman, the
little girl, the last with head tilted up and with trembling
legs. Then a tinny little voice from the pregnant belly, 'Cor,
FUCKING HELL!', followed by fizzling sounds, like continuous
electrical short-circuits, low down on and either side of the
five year-old's abdomen.

'Now,' shouted Ableman to Speem, 'the cue-card I gave you - read
the last bit now.'

Speem took the card from his pocket and read the instructions and
script. He looked at Ableman, who nodded encouragingly at the
now-standing little girl. Speem spead the fingers of his right
hand and grabbed the child just above the pouting lips of her
vulva. Finger and thumb sank in exactly where the sizzling noises
were coming from. 'How do you like your eggs,' he shouted into
her white, drawn face, 'boiled or fried?'

Then, as Ableman, laughing, threw his weight on the rope and
hauled the little preteen blonde off her stiletto-clad feet and
watched her jerking as she strangled, the little legs parted, the
wet gash gaped and a black-bodied red-eyed robot kicked and
elbowed its way out, talking excitedly: 'Blimey, Dad, those tube
things were steaming. It felt great, just great. Can I do it
again?'

Later, when Speem said a final goodbye to Ableman and the robot,
the incidents of the day were already taking on the strange
glamour of a story heard in childhood.

'She'll sleep for a long time,' said Ableman, 'but there'll be no
lasting physical damage – I won't say, ha ha, no lasting physical
effects, of course. Well, goodbye, Mr Speem – and don't leave it
so long next time.'

'Oh, there won't be a ...,' began Speem, but they were already
walking away, the robot whistling through its charging hole.

Just as the ill-assorted pair disappeared into one of the
elevators that served Speem's floor, the doors of the other
elevator next to it opened. Speem stayed at his front door,
lazily tired after the strenuous day and idly curious to see who
was arriving. It was a fussy little man in a dark suit, who
surprised and disconcerted Speem by marching straight up to him.
'You would be Mr Speem, I guess,' said the little man, with a
very severe expression.

'My name is Renfrew Jeffers,' he said. 'I'm from the Pedo Agency.
You called us, remember?'

'Then who...,' said Speem.