They leaned against the counter, optical servos tightening despite the sensual darkness and dancing shadows in the firelight.

	The entire room was bathed in firelight and tapestries, hanging silks opposite wall sconces and burning pits. The walls were warm, inlaid with infrared textured patterns overlaid on a decadent red paint. Everything about the lobby was tailored for human and robotic senses alike, a haven for bipedal folks of every stripe—so long as those stripes had a keen interest in flesh, companionship, and anonymity.

	The proprietor, a cyborg of roguishly mismatched parts, danced their fingers across the glass of the countertop. “So, how was your evening at the Allegory of the Cave? Did the Shadows treat you well?”

	The two robots opposite the counter stood in relatively silent companionship, close enough to be in one another’s company, but not so close that either would violate the other’s personal space. It was a measured distance, one that came about with what must’ve been years of practice. The taller, somehow younger-seeming despite his synthetic features and robotic agelessness, shuffled a little before replying. “It was a good time, Lester. But, not what we were searching for, I’m afraid.” His voice was sharp, crisp, clear, and entirely unapologetic. It was the sort of voice that commanded armies and cleared rooms, and felt entirely too strident for the dull dance of light in the pleasure den.

	The shorter robot, naturally more nestled in the shadows of the lobby, offered a smile. Even in the dim light, it felt consolatory. “Was excellent service.” His voice, conversely, came out and whispered among the columns. Resonant, but without the basso rumble most would expect of him, and pitched the perfect way for the room the trio occupied. The words were a meek, though honest, concession for Lester’s benefit.

	“Alas, no man is perfect.” Lester said with a smile. “Can I perhaps tempt you with a discount? Say, a free upgrade to the premium service your next visit? I’m sure some of our shadows can suit your,” he paused, let the amber glow of his optical sockets linger meaningfully at the taller robot’s shorts, before panning back up to his face, “needs.”

	“No time.” The darker toned robot said, checking the electronics that rested on his forearm. The motion an old echo of humanity, a memory manifested as motion, and far more meaningful to the older human remnants—like Lester—than most would realize. The robot quirked his head, braided chords falling around his ears naturally as he did so. “Schedule is logged. Maybe next time?”

	Lester offered a winning smile, predatory and patient, with the eyes of fire behind mechanical slots. “We’ll await your return with thinly veiled impatience and baited breath.”

	Outside, the taller robot frowned at his partner, “We aren’t on a schedule, Geesev.”

	Geesev, model number G7-A2-987, rubbed the pipes on his abodemen absently. The ribs echoed up the interior of his chest as he walked, a feeling that welled up in his body and was soothing for how much the fluids thrummed as the vibrations traveled up him. “Don’t like them. Lester. They’re… Hungry.”

	Yuan, model number U1-G16-747, turned back to look before adjusting his cap. “You got that impression too, huh? I was hoping it was just me.”

	“Afraid not.” Geesev replied.

	Yuan huffed out something of a laugh, which was always accompanied by a hiss deep within his larynx. Whether it was by fault of design, or just a quirk that had come from years of use, no one around him ever seemed to know. Geesev, for his part, found it comforting. Yuan said, “Well that explains why one of the shadows pilfered my decoy wallet.”

	“Left it out on purpose?”

	“Yep.” He said, fingertips playing with the fraying fabric of the cap. Most clothes were made of polycarbon or synthetic silk fabrics, hundreds of layers thick, but this cap was old, tattered, fraying on all exposed seams, and made of actual Earth-spun cotton. Geesev never asked, and Yuan never explained.

	“What was in there?”

	“A mostly exhausted credstick, two probably-expired coupons for Johnabot’s SynthOil Pizza Shack, and the number for the anonymous crime tip hotline written on a cocktail napkin.”

	“Irony.” Geesev offered with a rare, earnest smile. “Report?”

	“The Shadows were mostly human, mostly 4th or 5th generation if I had to guess. Almost all of them had the standard genetic traits of augmentation. Those that didn’t were entirely synthetic in the crotchal region. Bust on all fronts, except having my faux pleather wallet stolen, I guess.”

	Geesev turned, and gave him a look. “Crotchal?”

	“Groin gets so boring to say after a while.” Yuan replied. “Groin, groin, groin… I feel like a Saturday morning cartoon character bouncing around a room, except with my butt, and on a man’s parts.”

	Geesev quirked an eyebrow. “You let them?”

	Yuan backpedaled quickly, “Oh goodness no. I mean in general. All the Shadows did was massage my synthmuscles, which they did wrong, and tried to convince me that my nipples had nerves they didn’t.”

	“Humans...”

	“Can’t live with ‘em,” Yuan said, “and it’s illegal to do almost anything else to them. Did you know they don’t even have Datalink ports?”

	“Yep.”

	“Imagine how tedious it would be to have to talk constantly, a neverending fountain of words, blathering and droning endlessly on, never stopping to take a breath or sharing the joy of an experience first hand. Relying so totally on words that the actual reality of a situation is nothing but romantic metaphors and the hopes of limited communication. Can you imagine a being so flawed as to think talking at length was any substitution for actual communication?”

	“Endless talking.” Geesev said, voice dry. “Dreadful.”

	Yuan paused his tirade, and looked at his partner. “You’re making fun of me.”

	“No,” Geesev answered, “you’re making fun of you. I’m agreeing.”

	Yuan flushed, the fleshtone of his cheeks gaining the misty appearance of venting coolant in his facial structures. Whatever echoes of a human blush remained, Yuan seemed hellbent on replicating it with his face. Geesev offered him another genuine smile, reacting to his partner. Yuan was, somehow, a robot full of warmth, joy, patience, and love—all echoes of something humanity had, by the duo’s standards, had lost between human history and now. Yuan and Geesev were both equipped with datalinks, and could communicate novel-length information in fractions of a second, but they never did. Yuan loved the romanticism of humanity too much, and Geesev loved him too much to get in the way of that.

	They walked in silence for a moment, Yuan quietly stewing in shock, and Geesev simply observing his characteristic silence. They stayed this way for several hundred meters, with Yuan checking occasionally over his shoulder for anything Lester might be planning in a distant alleyway. Though when they got to their ship, no one had followed.

	The gangplank up to the leisure lounge hissed closed behind them, old system made of the remnants of old hydraulic systems, Yuan had once theorized. Geesev knew that the new systems often replicated the hiss of old tech, to give Gen 1 and Gen 2 a sense of familiarity on high-end short flight craft, but kept that to himself. Why rob his partner of such fancy?

	Yuan stretched out on the couch, and plugged his link into the ship’s onboard. “Where to next?”

	“No luck hunting the rumor mill?”

	“Rumors of old human colonies hiding their remaining Gen 3 population in the Andromeda galaxy. A few rogue organists selling ‘genuine human parts’ across various inhabited systems. One person who claims to be a Gen 2 granted immortality by one of the terrestrial dieties… So, the usual chaff.”

	“Andromeda, then. ‘Less you want to meet an immortal?”

	“Think he has a nice dick?”

	Geesev did a quick scan of their collation sheet, and nodded, and replied with gentle emphasis. “It’s possible she does.”

	Yuan laughed, mostly at himself. “She. Right. I never was much good with human pronouns. Binary gender nomenclature for nonbinary gender identity. Humans were wild.”

	Geesev looked across the ship at the man he’d grown to love. Who laughed, who spun, who joked, who blushed, who bled, and looked unerringly like a human, right down to the most intimate details. Were Geesev the sort to daydream, the dreams would have been filled with the deepest, most pornographic imagery an android were capable of, full of every ounce of humanity an expert craftsman could replicate on a synthetic body. Complete with sweat, blushed joy, and stains on the couch cushions. Stains which they both pointedly ignored. Instead, Geesev just smiled at his nearly perfectly human companion, and started the ship by remote. As it lurched into the atmosphere, Geesev let the shift in gravity toss him into his lover’s arms, and he set to work testing the length of Yuan’s humanity.

Inch by luxurious inch.

Humans were wild, and one of these days, they’d share a real one. Together.