Super-Doll by Leo August - Chapter 01

Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Robot Lady Spies

CLAD ONLY IN A SKIMPY CLOAK AND DAGGER

S.H.E.I.L.A. – Simulated-Human, Electronically Implemented Lady Agent—stepped forth one memorable day from the scientific laboratories of I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S. She was created to fight for justice in a world too long threatened by evil.

Two of her prime targets: The chopper-riding, leather-jacketed agents of M.O.T.H.E.R. and the insidious, obscene warriors of F.A.T.H.E.R. who had infiltrated the government and now enjoyed its protection.

To any other female agent, the obstacles would have been overwhelming. But Sheila was equipped to battle the most dastardly foe. Her razor-sharp mind was matched only by her razor-sharp fingertips; the penetrating gaze of her eyes was rivaled only by the paralyzing rays of her navel.

Sheila was invincible, until she clashed with Number One—who had earned his rank by trying even harder! And who almost stripped Sheila of (among other things!) her hard-won title of SUPERDOLL!

Chapter 01

Listen to the audio version of Chapter 01

Once upon a time there was a girl. A lovely, beautiful, sensational knockout of a nice girl. And kind of unique. You see, this girl was a robot. A scientific masterpiece, if you will. She felt and smelled and walked and talked and looked absolutely and positively just like a real, live girl. Take my word for it-you couldn't tell her from the regular kind. Not even up close. Way up close. The only difference between her and her flesh-and-blood counter parts was in her thinking process-she was more rational. There were one or two other aspects that set her apart from the garden variety of delicious young ladies. But more about her unique background later. 

Her name was Sheila. But more about her name later, too. 

Sheila had a very tough job. More about her very tough job right now. Have you ever heard of a secret organization called I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S.? Of course you haven't. 

If you had, it wouldn't be much of a secret organization, would it? 

Now, when I say secret organization, I don't mean like the Loyal Order of Mongoose or anything like that. I mean secret-secret-like in spy-secret. I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S. stands for the INTERNATIONAL NEUTRAL INTELLIGENCE TEAM INSURING AGAINST LAWLESS SECTORS. The name I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S. was chosen be cause, by the time the group was formed, all the other let ters in the alphabet were being used by other organizations. 

The members of I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S. are representatives of many different countries, and their work is to ferret out nefarious plots against world peace and other kinds of wholesome, wholesale happiness. 

I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S. is affectionately referred to by its intimates as "The Big I”—which should make for a folksier public image-if indeed a secret organization should want a public image—which it shouldn't, but does. 

But back to the heroine of our story. Sheila worked for the Big I. In fact, you could say she was made for the job. But obviously she was far from being your average, run-of-the-mill, 9-to-5 spy. A vivid example of her activities comes to mind ... 

There was the time when she was assigned to pose as an expatriate American seamstress working in Hong Kong. Her objective was to gain the confidence of some members of the dangerous Char Shu Ding Society. Ostensibly, the Dings were nothing more than a group of Oriental gourmets who had taken on the name of their favorite Cantonese dish. But the Big I knew better. The Dings had a hidden political purpose: they wanted to create an ideological split between Chiang Kai-shek and his dedicated Madame. Sheila's job: to obtain information which would prevent the deadly Dings from destroying the aging couple's marital and Nationalistic bliss. 

It wasn't easy for Sheila to make the initial contact. The Dings always congregated at a little Oriental restaurant called Lum's Rathskeller (Lum's grandfather had been a mess cook in the Prussian Army). Because Sheila had some difficulty digesting Chinese food-it raised havoc with her vocal circuitry-she had to find some pretense other than dining to frequent the establishment. 

Sheila's "front” was a little mending shop which the Big I had set up for her directly across the alley from Lum's. Day after day she sat at her sewing machine, watching the devilish Dings go in and out as she pondered her own problem of entree. Then the idea came to her. Why not take her business to the customers? Surely there were Dings whose clothes needed repair. They would probably welcome the opportunity to have the work done while they ate and drank and hatched their evil plots. In that way, Sheila could make their acquaintance, gain their confidence, gather information, and earn a few shillings, too, since her monthly expense money had been late in arriving. She would be there for business, so she wouldn't have to eat anything. After all, if the flower vendor worked door-to-door, why not the seamstress? 

Sheila put together a little kit of sewing necessities, and headed for Lum's. Happily enough, she had no trouble obtaining permission to ply her trade in the restaurant. A girl with Sheila's appealing face and contours was an asset to any establishment. Especially in the off-the-shoulder mini-dress she had chosen to wear for the occasion. 

There was just enough of one well-rounded breast showing to gain the important favorable reaction from leering Lum. In fact, he immediately sanctioned her enterprise, and even volunteered to become Sheila's first customer. 

“Button fall off Lum's fly," said the aging little restauranteur, as he reached down and stuck a finger through the opening in his trousers. "You fix, please.” 

"I fix,” replied Sheila. Then, trying to avoid being placed in an unstrategic position, she suggested, "You step behind bamboo curtain and hand me trousers. I fix.” 

But Lum humbly apologized. "Must keep pants on. Maybe Lum go to kitchen for emergency or something. You fix like so.” 

Sheila knew that her hands were tied. If she reneged on her first job, she might not gain the right to move freely in the den of the Dings. But she didn't relish the idea of getting down on her knees since it wasn't a very good vantage point from which to take in the proceedings. Besides, if anyone should suddenly suspect her motives, she would be quite vulnerable to a sneak attack from the rear. Especially since her hind-vision apparatus had been giving her trouble of late. But she had to chance 

Lum placed a soft cushion on the floor at his feet and politely gestured for Sheila to utilize it. She sank to her smooth, pink knees and went to work. Her fingers danced nimbly. After a moment, she became aware that her skills had drawn a small crowd of onlookers. She and Lum were surrounded by a dozen or so Dings, who babbled sly, amused comments about Sheila's handiwork. She knew that she would have to do a solid, professional job in order to convince any Chinese tailors who might be in the group. 

During the work on Lum's fly, she became aware of something else. A slight bulge began to manifest itself beneath her customer's garment. It finally reached a point where it definitely hindered the performance of her duties. But Sheila gallantly did her best to work around it, being very careful not to misguide her nimble needle. For a few moments, it was touch-and-go, for although Lum was getting on in years, it was obvious that his memories were easily and abundantly stirred. 

However, Sheila handled the matter admirably. And when at last she leaned over to bite off the thread, the crowd cheered her as if she were a matador who had vanquished a bull. 

Although it was Sheila who had done the work, Lum seemed spent as he fumbled in his pocket for some change. He tipped her handsomely and, within minutes, Sheila had lined up enough business to keep her in the restaurant for the remainder of the afternoon. Oddly enough, most of the work involved a rash of missing fly buttons. 

As Sheila wended and mended her way through Lum's clientele, she was the perfect picture of single-minded seam-stressing. Little did the Dings know that she had activated her data-intake mechanism, and was therefore automatically recording every sound in the room. She had neatly accomplished this as she walked in the door by pretending to fluff her hair while actually pressing the impulse sensor behind her left ear. Consequently, a living document of international mischief was being transcribed while Sheila seemed to be doing nothing more than fixing flies. 

And what information she gathered! Once her presence had been accepted, the Dings thought nothing of discussing their tricky little plots in front of her. At first their lack of secrecy surprised Sheila. But then she realized that they must have assumed she could not speak Chinese. However, Sheila's multi-lingual translator was filtering everything into numerical impulses. So they could have been speaking anything short of sign language and it wouldn't have made a difference. Even the Berlitz School would have turned green if they could have seen inside Sheila's head at that moment. 

It also became apparent to her that she must have been the only outsider, since everyone else in the room seemed to be in conversational cahoots. And, of course, she was the only female in the place, a fact which meant that someone's grinning eyes were on her at all times. This prevented her from collecting any physical bits of evidence scattered about the floor and tables-items such as crumbled notes scribbled on pieces of torn laundry tickets. But her data-intake was going full tilt and her translator had come up with a few tasty bits of intelligence. However, nothing she heard actually manifested a direct personal threat to Chiang. Until... 

One burly Chinaman, who seemed to be in a position of importance, uttered the word “Formosa," which immediately sent Sheila sewing in his direction. He was drawing some kind of rough diagram on a paper napkin. The accompanying conversation revealed it to be the pro posed infiltration route to Nationalist Formosa through which some smutty literature about Chiang and his wife was to be smuggled. Sheila knew instantly that she must have that diagram. It would be the ultimate fruit of her afternoon's sojourn in the nasty little restaurant. 

When he had finished his brief infiltration lecture, the man doing the drawing crumpled up his diagram and tossed it into a corner. Then he and his colleagues turned their minds to other wicked matters. But Sheila could not take her eyes from the discarded paper. At first, she thought she might be able to photograph the document with her retinal zoomar lens. But the diagram was too crushed to allow a clear shot. Besides, she was afraid that if she shuttered one of her eyes for even the required split second, an alert and interested Ding might misinterpret it to be a come hither wink and start getting romantic. No, she had to gamble and pick up the napkin at the first opportunity. 

Sheila waited until the burly one had his men deeply involved in another scheme. They crowded around one particular table, with their backs to her. At this time, Sheila was sewing a tiny, plastic water lily to the lapel of one of the Dings' jackets. She had been clever enough to get this man to slip out of his jacket, in order to avoid being exposed to the man's garlic-ridden breath. Not that the odor bothered her—it merely registered its presence and intensity on her nasal-intake calculator. But she was concerned about the fumes clouding her vision at a time when she needed to activate her cranial vents. 

As the boys babbled away, Sheila inched gradually to ward the resting place of the telling sketch. When she felt she was close enough, she "accidentally" dropped the garment on which she was working. It gave her a likely reason to bend down and gather in her objective. She kept one eye on the meeting and the other on the crumpled paper (a feat which was more mechanical than miraculous for a girl of her unusual abilities). At what seemed like the right moment, she quickly reached for the drawing and closed it into her palm. Then she gathered up the decoy jacket, stood up, and began to sew again. After an other moment, she feigned a cough, and slipped the now-even-more-tightly-squeezed napkin into a tiny secret compartment located in the gentle valley between her ample charms. But, alas, that was her undoing. 

At the instant she performed that act, the burly one had tossed his glance her way. Perhaps he was merely trying to rest his eyes from the ugly little men around him. Or perhaps he had suspected her all along. Sheila could only be certain of one thing—she had best take her leave. She felt certain that the man had seen her stash the drawing, probably assuming that she had hidden it inside her clothing. Suspicion was working its way into the corners of the Chinaman's eyes, and Sheila knew she had sewn her last fly button. 

Naturally, fear was not her motivation for fleeing. She knew nothing of fear. Only to get the job done. And that job involved placing the drawing into the hands of her superiors. 

Quickly yet unobtrusively Sheila gathered together her sewing kit and began to work her way toward the door. She was about to thank Lum for his patronage when the burly one stepped between her and the exit. His smile was, of course, inscrutable, even though it lacked two front teeth. Sheila smiled back with all the cold detachment purposely built into her for use on just such an occasion. 

“Yes?” she asked. “Does someone have a complaint about my work?” 

"On contrary,” replied the burly one. "We like your work, very good first-class. Matter fact, we like see what else lady can do." With that, he motioned for Lum to close the door and lock it, which the then-worried proprietor quickly accomplished. He also pulled down the blinds for good measure. 

"I don't think you understand,” Sheila said. “I'm a seamstress. It's how I earn my living. I can't do anything else.” But the burly one obviously had a specific goal in mind. 

"We never have no good show-fun in Lum's ever. You do dance for us, yes?” And Sheila knew that the "yes" was not really a question. But she was not quite ready to go along with the idea. Besides, she still didn't know what the idea was. 

"I hate to admit it, but I'm really a terrible dancer. I can't even do ballroom dancing. Back at the USO in New York, none of the fellows ever wanted to dance with me. You know, two left feet.” 

“We like see two left feet, two everything lady got. You dance take-off-clothes dance. We like see.” The burly one gestured toward the center of the room, where some of the others had pushed several tables together as a makeshift stage. Sheila understood what the idea was then. 

The burly one assumed that, if she took off all her clothes, she would obviously reveal the fact that she had taken the drawing. She would be undone, literally and figuratively. Or so he thought, not being aware of Sheila's inner secrets-or inner secret places. 

Sheila knew that she had nothing to hide. It was already well-hidden. And as for disrobing, she was, after all, programmed for anything. Even an impromptu strip tease—with absolutely none of the compunctions other girls might have. For a girl like Sheila, "taking it off" in front of a roomful of ogling Orientals was just another occupational function. And, as with everything else, she did it well ... 

The burly one led her to the crude platform and even offered to help her up. But Sheila managed the move her self with the aid of a nearby chair. The Dings pressed close to the stage for a better view. They shuffled back and forth in delighted anticipation. All except the burly one who just glared at Sheila. Finally he gestured for her to begin. 

Without hesitation, Sheila slowly unbuttoned her skirt. As it slithered from her gently rolling hips, the sound of piano music belched forth from the corner. She turned and saw Lum seated at a rickety old player-piano, pumping away like mad. The old man obviously had a sense of showmanship, even though the tune he had placed on the rollers was “When Your Hair Has Turned To Silver." 

Sheila worked deliberately, and, before long, she was down to bra, panties, and high heels. As she reached back to undo her upper garment, the burly one's eyes narrowed on the center of her chest. And his weren't the only eyes aimed in that direction. But his seemed to be the only ones that weren't bulging in their sockets. One of the Dings lost control and reached up to grab Sheila's leg. But the burly one, without a change of expression, flicked the eager offender across the room with a mere swipe of his hand. Sheila stared right down the throat of her grim antagonist, knowing full well that he expected the crumpled paper to pop out of her bra as soon as she unhooked it. 

But all that popped out was what the rest of the group had feverishly been expecting. Two lovely, rose-tipped breasts, nothing more, nothing less. For the burly one, who had even cupped his hands in order to catch the expected paper missile, the revelation obviously spelled bitter disappointment. Even shock. The other Dings started to throw coins, which Sheila, not wishing to seem ungrateful, quickly retrieved in a series of energetic, but graceful, bends. This only brought even more coins. 

Then she turned to the burly one, who was seething under the good-natured teasing of his friends. "May I get dressed now?” she asked. As he stalked out the door, he grunted some reply, which Sheila's translating apparatus could only decipher as an ancient Oriental obscenity. Sheila quickly gathered up her clothes and headed for the bamboo curtain, where she could have some privacy while dressing and planning a casual departure. But the Dings insisted that she put her clothes on in front of them. Rather than cause any trouble, she agreed, but on one condition. “Please don't throw any more money. You've already been more than generous." 

One of the Dings translated for the others, or so he thought. Their answer came in another shower of coins for Sheila, as she slipped back into her outfit. Then she blew them all a big kiss. “See you all next week! And don't forget to save your sewing for Sheila!” With that, she was gone. 

As Sheila hurried through the back alleys of Hong Kong, she had only one thing on her mind. She had to transmit the diagram to Big I headquarters, so that proper action could be taken. She could easily have fed the material into the wire-photo device concealed in her upper left arm, thereby enabling headquarters to receive the transmission within sixty seconds. But she chose to wait until she was safely out of that hostile district of the city. 

Almost as soon as she had rounded the corner from Lum's, she sensed the presence of someone on her trail. She automatically clicked on her hind-vision scanner, hoping that it might work adequately enough to give her some indication of who was following. The scanner's impulses were hazy but they did provide her with the general proportions of the figure. There was no doubt in Sheila's mind that it was the burly one. 

She quickened her steps and darted around a corner. Then she stopped short and leaned back against a wall. A moment later, the burly one made the same turn, and was brought up short by the sight of Sheila, who seemed to be waiting for him. His gaze narrowed, this time focusing on her creamy-white neck. Sheila could see the hate, the resentment, the rage in his eyes, and she knew that her power of reason would have to give way to her other abilities. 

As the stout, stubby fingers reached out for her delicate throat, Sheila extended the tip of her tongue back to a tiny button located just at the rear of her mouth. Her tongue made contact with the button at the precise moment that the burly one's fingers locked together around her neck. 

As the swift, deadly volts of electricity shot from Sheila's neck into his clenched fingers and raced throughout his rigid body, the burly one's eyes widened for the first time since they had met. They widened far more than the eyes of any of his colleagues during Sheila's dance in the restaurant. They widened more than the gap between life and death-a gap through which the burly one was, at that very moment, passing. 

Four seconds later, when Sheila pressed the button again with her tongue and shut off the current, the burly one's fingers relaxed and he slid to the ground. A dead man with no apparent marks of violence, but charred to a crisp inside his hulking frame. 

Although Sheila was programmed to perform such acts without the emotional involvement humans might experience, her electronic memory bank did register one semi mortal response as a result of the killing: As she disappeared into the Hong Kong night, it flashed through her message center that justice may have been done, particularly in view of the fact that the burly one was the only Ding who had not thrown a single coin. 

And now, the making of Sheila—or, what's a nice girl like you doing in a repair shop like this? Read on for the story of Sheila's first caper.