Meanwhile...

Dr. Whitney St. Claire was still wearing her lingerie from the Aphrodyne panel when she marched into the security office with two Robcorp operatives. The office was swarming with them as well, the corporation having taken control of the convention center's security contract for the remainder of the investigation. One of their employees had been killed, so heads would roll somewhere, quite possibly literally. Very likely the owners of the convention center would hear from Robcorp's legal department who would take control of their contract permanently. Right now, they were keeping the situation under wraps, because SEXPO was nearly over and a panic now would be catastrophic for Robcorp and Aphrodyne's public image after their big marketing win.

"Doctor St. Claire, you don't have authorization to be in here," someone said to her.

"Fuck you!" she said, "Absalom!" The very tall man in the back in the back of the room rolled his eyes with his entire body when he realized she was there. He stepped into the light giving her an excellent view of his cyber-scarred face.

"Sir, this was discovered in the hotel," one of her security detail said and handed the man a duct-tape bound device, "The person who found it thought it was a bomb. It's the transponder from one of our gynoids. This was a professional heist."

"Where is my robot, Absalom?" Whitney demanded.

"Doctor, finding your stolen sexbot is only my secondary concern," he said. He spun around and almost whipped her with his long pony-tail.

"Need I remind you that robot is a five-million-dollar asset," she said, "Estimated to be worth twenty-million when-"

"When it's higher functions finally come online," Absalom finished for her, "Doctor St. Claire, I am fully aware of the Venus line's capabilities, but until those experimental features come online, they are little more than glorified sex toys. I am only here because one of our employees was murdered."

"We can rebuild him," Whitney said, "We have the technology, but someone knows how to override our robots' anti-theft features. This time it was only a sexbot, what if next time it's a military drone?" She despised every time she was **** to work with Absalom Crane. His security division was pouring over footage right now from three locations in particular, the hallway leading to the toolroom, the front door where the glass had been broken, and now the brothel floor in the hotel. However there were gaps in the time-stamps, right around the time each of the events at those locations occurred. If there were any common threads, then hackers had erased them to cover their tracks.

There was nothing more Whitney could accomplish in the security office, so she went next door into the break room where off-duty Robcorp personnel had taken to watching some SEXPO videos. One was called "This Year's top Five SEXPO Amateurs." There were daring exhibitionists, elaborate body-paint, and one fellow had built a home-made sexbot on par with Orgamsa Inc's. Whitney chuckled that someone had accomplished in their garage what had taken their rivals three years and millions of dollars to develop. Buzz on the internet was all applauding Aphrodyne's panel and it seemed the dolphin meme was finally dead and buried. Whitney had no small part in that, so she would have to find a way to reward herself later.

The last entry in the video grabbed her attention and held it. Two dancing strippers invited a woman on stage who had been keeping up with them beat for beat. She seemed **** at first, then gave in with a huge smile and started gyrating against the two dancers' naked bodies. Finally, the female dancer spun the other woman around and she slid on her knees across the dance floor into the arms of the man, whose huge cock was waiting for her.

"Pause! Pause the video!" Whitney shouted to the men watching the scene, "Rewind it and play it back slowly." He nodded and started the scene from the beginning. Whitney paid close attention to the subtly unnatural way the woman's shoulders and legs twisted, and then paused the video again when the woman was kneeling in front of the male stripper. Her eyes were in shadow in that shot, so Whitney could clearly make out their faint, blue backglow.

"She's one of ours," Whitney said, "That's our missing robot, no doubt. Wait, zoom in on the lower corner, right there." Her jaw dropped when she saw the man who had just come into the frame, his eyes filled with panic, and a little smear of blood on his chin.

"Give me your tablet!" she said, "Give me your tablet, right now!" The man handed it over and she hurried back into the security office then thrust the device into Absalom's hands.

"First, that woman is our missing sexbot," she said, "See the backglow? Their eyes glow blue when their aroused. Secondly, look who it is." She pointed to the bottom corner of the screen.

"Ben Stenneck," Absalom snarled, "I thought we'd finished him."

"My ex-brother-in-law is a professional," Whitney said, "If he finds out the robot's true nature, I don't want to think about what he might do next."

"Call corporate," Absalom ordered, "Tell them to allocate all available resources to finding them. _All _resources."

Whitney stepped in front of him and asked, "How's it feel knowing you're going to need my help?"

"What makes you think I do?" Mr. Crane said.

"Because that gynoid can theoretically be any woman on the planet, and you don't know how to look for her. I do. Secondly, I know my ex brother-in-law. He's a creature of habit."

"Yes and I know the man well enough too," Mr. Crane said, "The day I need your help, woman, I'll ask for it. But this is not that day."

"Mm-hm," Whitney sneered, "What if I talked to corporate? I'm sure they'd love to hear from me, especially about where your fancy new car came from? What is it a Corvette?"

"Ha, you don't have anything on me," Absalom said, "And what makes you think corporate even wants to hear from you." Whitney glared at him and her cybernetic eyes glowed red with fury.

"At the end of the day, you're just a hooker with a PHD," he whispered, "Corporate thinks so too."

"Sir, it's back, and it's trying to infect our systems," one operative said.

"Quarantine the servers and check our firewalls," Absalom ordered. Whitney clenched her fist as he walked away and imagined there was a gun in it. Then she blinked and her vision returned to its regular color and she stormed off.

If corporate wanted Ben so badly, they were sure to promote her when she was the one to find him, and chances were if she found him, she would find their missing droid too. Absalom may have had all of Robcorp's resources at his back, but she had some connections of her own.

She sat back down in the waiting area and handed the man back his tablet. Then she dialed her cyberphone and got a woman's voice.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mom!" Whitney said feigning cheerfullness because she hated talking with her mother, "I was wondering if you've heard from Ben lately?"