Chapter 4: Horizon Bang Bus

Aloy had gotten word from Sylens of an unknown temple in the Forbidden West. He had been craven and deceitful so many times in the past, but at the same time, he was never lacking in information. She had been riding a Charger for two days now, urgent to follow any leads that would help her fight the oncoming threat of Nemesis.

It was a little past afternoon on the third day of her journey when she found the building that matched his description. The sky had turned to a faded blue and the sun’s glow had started to dim, but it was not quite dusk yet. In the distance she could see the vast unending ocean on the beaches as the waves rolled and crashed on the shores. She had been so distracted by the beauty of it that she almost missed the temple right beside her. And even when she did finally see it, she allowed herself to ignore it for a bit, knowing that with all buried treasures of the old world, there would be trials and tribulations to come.

Instead, she looked at the ocean. Even with the current crises of tribal warfare and the battles ahead, the natural beauty of water still mesmerized her, being so different from the mountainous grasslands she grew up in. The smell of salt filled her nostrils and for a moment, she allowed herself to take it all in.

“You’re not here to admire the scenery, you’re here to find information, weapons, anything,” came the voice of Sylens through her Focus, interrupting her reverie.

“You don’t need to remind me,” Aloy said. The hologram of Sylens appeared before her with a stern look on his face.

“Good. Then proceed.” She just shook her head. Some people never would change. She looked at the building.

Like many of the ruins of the old ones, it was large, with the same kind of gate they all had, from the ruins the Nora tribe called All-Mother to the decrepit building where she first learned about Elisabet Sobeck and Project Zero Dawn, and she couldn’t forget Ted Faro’s pleasure house in Thebes either. Only a few cracks through the walls, this thing must have been built to last with the frequency of chaotic storms in the area. It was a white steel structure, and at first she thought it was rotting and rusty like any remnant of the very distant past, but she quickly realized it was simply the glare of the setting sun on the surface of the glass and the walls.

She advanced closer to the building. There was some writing at the top of the entrance, gated like all the other ancient ruins she found so far, but it was illegible from years of rot and ruin. Her Focus read, “MUSEUM OF THE BANG BUS.”

“Aloy?” Sylens’ voice was suddenly distorted.

“Yeah?”

“Something’s happening ... I...” His image became distorted too. “I ... I can’t...” Then it was gone completely.

“Sylens? Sylens!” No response, not even anything jumbled. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” Aloy said. If something here was able to jam with his signal, then it was serious. Sylens had assured her earlier that she wouldn’t need backup at this place, and now she wished she had ignored that admonition.

She approached the entrance. Her Focus lit up, like it usually did in these ancient ruins. A ray scanned her from head to toe. But instead of a model between her and Elisabet Sobeck showing up, instead she saw herself, completely naked. It wasn’t some generic model of her either, like Beta or a younger Sobeck, no it was exactly her, big hair and everything.

“Hot babe detected,” said an automated voice. “Hubba-hubba!” Aloy was a bit taken aback. She never heard anyone talk like that but she had a pretty good idea what it meant. The three dimensional model of her dissipated instantly. The once inert gate lit up with electricity before slowly opening up.

The area was wide and open, lit up by a dim white light. There was a great statue of a large vehicle with two slabs behind it like a memorial. The Focus read it as, “ALL HAIL THE LEGENDARY BANG BUS.”

“Well that answers none of my questions.” Her voice echoed a bit in the large building and she mentally kicked herself for being so foolish in this unknown place. Still she felt oddly safe. So far it seemed nothing like the other ruins and underground bunkers she had been in, storehouses of ancient weapons to be awakened and rogue AI plotting mass destruction. She got closer and looked at the slabs behind the statue. There was faint writing but still, nothing. The Focus slowly read a list of words, “LIST OF BITCHES SLAYED BY THE BANG BUS.”

Um, okay... she thought to herself. She saw names that definitely were of the old era. Names like Kim Possible, Lois Griffin, Meg Griffin, Hot Meg Griffin, Clover Ewing, Mandy Luxe, Alex Casoy, Sam Simpson, Beth Smith, Summer Smith, Tricia Lang, Bonald “Bonnie” Swanson, Eliza Maza, Star Butterfly, Moon Butterfly, Jackie Lynn Thomas, Rose Wilson, Morrigan Aensland, Lilith Aensland, Hayley Smith, Francine Smith, Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, Roberta Tubbs, Jill Valentine, Wendy Corduroy, Marge Simpson. And then she saw names that sounded like they could have come from her own era. Shego, Hekapoo, Demona, Felicia, She-Hulk, Poison Ivy, Black Cat, Starfire, Blackfire, Raven, Jinx, Kitten, Elektra, Storm, Polaris.

But then again, the colonists from Far Zenith wth their long names had only deigned to give Beta the one word as a name. She didn’t know any of these people. These people she was reading about, they could be anyone, from any time.

She did find a console at the base of the statue. So this old ruin might hold some value after all. She placed her hand into it, and the whole building was powered up immediately. She heard the sounds of the lights turning on, and machinery pumping in the distance.

“Welcome hottie,” said a thick digitized voice not unlike HADES or MINERVA. She just realized it was the same voice that greeted her at the gate. “It has been a thousand or so years since we’ve had visitors. I’m sure my assistants will be glad to see you.”

“Who are you?” Aloy said.

“I am DIONYSUS, meant to ensure that everyone who steps into this building has a good time and is thoroughly satisfied before they leave.”

“Whoa, um ... okay,” she said, thinking of all kinds of naughty connotations to what it just said.

“What is your name?”

“Aloy of the Nora,” she said. “No I mean ... it should be Aloy, despite the Nora.”

“If it is the passenger experience you seek Miss Aloy, then please proceed below to get rammed and loved up like crazy.”

“Wait, I need to know if there’s a way to fight Nemesis!” No answer. If what that AI just told her was true, this program might be one of the few that was still functional to it’s original purpose, despite it being one hell of a perverted purpose. But that still didn’t tell her what the passenger experience was supposed to be.

“What is the passenger experience?”

“Head downstairs and you will find my assistants ready and waiting to satisfy you in all endeavors. Do enjoy.”

“Do you have anything that can help me fight Nemesis?”

“No, but I do have functions that will make Miss Aloy cum like a bitch in heat.”

She sighed. She realized this AI was both blissfully untouched by the corruption as well as completely useless when it came to her situation. But she armed herself in case the AI was being anything but honest.

“What about Sylens? What happened to him? My friend that was with me.” She had to catch herself, Sylens could be many things but rarely pleasant, and for that reason alone it felt awkward to call him a friend.

“Query unintelligble. Please repeat.” The voice was as stiff and robotic as before, yet what with how animated it had been before, she couldn’t help get the feeling it was mocking her. She slowly turned to her right and followed the hallway to the end of the room.

But whatever caution she had was quickly arrested for a few moments as she looked at the walls around her. It was lined with framed photographs of various women having sex with a large muscular man. There were also photos of women getting pounded by another man, bald and skinny, but just as well endowed as the man she was currently with. One photo that caught her eye was of a woman with dark red hair who was clearly not human getting rammed on both ends, blue and winged with a tail even, yet that photo was side by side with another photo of the same woman with a more pale complexion to her and no strange features.

Aloy couldn’t figure that last one out, even after everything she had been through. The Focus reading, “HATES HUMAN BEINGS BUT LOVES HUMAN DICKS,” wasn’t exactly helpful either. But as much as she tried to, she realized she couldn’t make sense of it and didn’t need to. The old ones had both created the machines and destroyed the world. There was still much of that civilization she didn’t understand and might as well never understand.

“She was a fun one,” said the voice of DIONYSUS. “A gargoyle that just can’t quit humans. And then she kinda became human at the end too!”

“A ... a gar-what?”

“Don’t worry about it kiddo, just relax and have a good time.”

“Right...” she said. She still didn’t know what to make of this overseer, or if all this raunchy stuff was a show and it was going to pull the proverbial rug from under her. In that way, he was a lot like Sylens. Even this bluntness reminded her way too much of her wayward companion.

Though that amazement didn’t at all help the heat burning through her whole body from seeing these various photographed sex acts. She had to stare in amazement for a bit, confused at what kind of place this building was supposed to be, as well as how turned on she was becoming. A blush crept up her face.

Ignoring it, she kept going forward. She found a set of doors at the end of the hall. There was simply a message. The Focus lit up again, reading, “PASSENGER EXPERIENCE VR ROOM: LOS ANGELES.”

This could be good or bad, she thought to herself. This museum seemed like the last place to have anything which could help her on her mission. Then again, it might be a show. She still didn’t understand what this DIONYSUS was supposed to be. Which meant it was all the more important to ascertain for herself what was going on here, right now. Anything that could jam Sylens’ signal was definitely trouble.

“Wait, DIONYSUS?” she said. “GAIA only had nine subordinate programs and you weren’t listed in any of them!”

“I was not programmed to assist GAIA. I was made by Ted Faro, for the explicit purposes of human pleasure.”

Of course it’s Ted Faro, she thought to herself. There was nothing else to say. She remembered even someone as mercenary as Sylens hated him.

She pushed open the doors. There was a stairway leading underground. She went down, and found another set of doors. Pushing it open, she was in a large empty room easily larger by far than the whole first floor, lit only by soft yellow lights on the ceiling above that illuminated the whole area. She mustn’t have been paying too much attention to how far down she went because the ceiling was far higher than she expected. After hearing straight from DIONYSUS on it’s stated purpose, all she could think about was Faro’s Thebes.

“Hello?” she said. Hello, hello, hello, her voice echoing in the distance, was the only response she got. That echo was way louder than the one she got in the empty lobby upstairs. She swallowed hard.

All around the perimeter of the room, there were naked humanoid shapes. She gave them a cursory look and it looked like they were all women. They all had various body types, various appearances, various hair styles. Their heads were slumped forward slightly, eyes closed. The Focus lit up around them, and it read, “ORGANIC SURFACE, METALLIC INTERIOR. ANDROID CLASS.”

A machine? she thought to herself. But that can’t be right.

Something that did catch her eye in the distance was that two of them in the back appeared to be male. She walked over to them, and as she did so, their features became clearer. Their heads were slightly slumped over, their eyes closed, like all the other figures here. One was a big muscular man not unlike Erend or Rost, short black hair, and tattoos on his chest, and one of his arms. The other was bald with some slight fuzz on his head and more slight in build, somewhat similar to the Sun-King Avad.

Then she quickly realized it was the two men from upstairs in those photos.

She felt a tingling in her pussy seeing them. She was still hot and bothered after going through that hallway. Though what she was prepared for least of all was that both of their dicks were standing up straight. Just like the others, the Focus classified them as androids.

She reached and touched both of their faces. It felt like flesh alright, and when she pinched their cheeks, the texture in between her fingers squished. She felt their chests too, they both felt human enough. Yet as she started to see it, their skin was a little paler than the average person’s, and it was unmarred all over, no blemishes or marks period. No body hair either for that matter. And the tattoos on the big one looked like decals as opposed to an actual ink drawing inscribed in his skin.

A naughty part of her looked down at their dicks, both of them standing right up. She grinned to herself as she wondered what would happen if she touched them there. But before she could do so, both of their heads looked up at her at the same time, right at her and they opened their eyes.

She had to fight the urge to jump back a bit. Whatever amusement she felt went right out the window. Even with her experience as a warrior, her latent fear of this place hit her back hard. Their eyes looked human enough but they had an eerie blue glow not unlike the various machines she had encountered.

The big one smiled. “Well, hello miss! I assume you’re here for the passenger experience?”

She paused for a moment, expecting some kind of danger, but none came. “I might be, if I knew what it was,” Aloy said, calming down a bit. He seemed friendly enough, and whatever unease she felt was gone when she realized how easy it would be to take down the both of them since they were completely naked.

“Well there’s passenger experiences all over the country,” said the skinny one. “This one’s the LA experience.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what it is!”

“It means you get to have a good time.”

“And I tell you what, we are up for a good time too if you want it,” said the big guy. Even with their mechanical glowing eyes, she recognized the look they were giving her. And coupled with their smiles, she knew exactly what they were getting at.

“I guess you don’t know anything about Nemesis or HADES?” she said, wanting to change the subject. They looked at each other with blank expressions, then looked back at her and shook their heads. “And DIONYSUS?”

“Oh he just runs all the museums devoted to the Bang Bus,” said the skinny guy. “He’s the program that’s been keeping us alive.”

“Alive?” For this long? she thought to herself. She couldn’t help but think of Far Zenith and the abomination of Ted Faro again.

“Well not technically. When things went south, we copied our brains to a digital archive that can activate in these robot copies that have been put in each museum. In exchange for that, we’re to keep these places tidy when DIONYSUS tells us to, and uh, please whoever comes in here.”

“And we are all over the country!” said the big one. “There’s Bang Bus Museums in Colorado and Minnesota, there’s a museum in Michigan and Maine, there’s even one in the deep south! But this is the first one that’s been activated in a long while.”

“So you’re telling me you guys do your job and then you’re just ... deactivated?” Aloy said. “Like you’ve been asleep?”

“At least we get to live forever. And seeing hot babes like you make it so worth it!”

“Is that so weird?” said the skinny one.

“Yeah, it’s been ... thousands of years since your world fell,” Aloy said. “Things aren’t what they used to be.”

“Damn!”

“Yeah, had no idea it’s been that long,” said the big one.

“And I’m surprised this place is still intact,” said Aloy. “The Forbidden West is pretty messed up but...”

“The Forbidden West?” said the skinny one.

Aloy nodded. “Yeah, that’s the name of the location we’re in right now.”

“Sounds like a good porno name.”

The big guy smiled at his friend before looking back at her. “But for us guys, nothing has changed. We’ve only got one duty and that is getting some booty!”

“Okay...” Aloy said. She still didn’t know what to say to that. She came here looking for ancient knowledge and instead she finds two horny robots. That DIONYSUS was probably still watching them too. “So what is the legendary Bang Bus?”

“The best days of my life,” said the big one.

“You got it bro!” said the skinny one. “We’d go all over the country, picking up hot girls here there and everywhere, and then we’d fuck them just the way they liked it!”

Aloy blinked hard. She shouldn’t have been surprised given everything that had happened so far, but it was still a shock to hear these two machines be so blatant about it.

“And them?” Aloy said, nodding her head at all the inert women.

“They’re androids built to emulate the many ladies that hopped onboard for their journeys of fun and excitement,” said DIONYSUS. “I took all the video footage recorded of their real life counterparts, and implanted models of their personalities into these android bodies. The robotic copies of my two male friends here were started off as a business venture by Mr. Faro for lonely women all across the globe as well as for archival purposes of the actual Bang Bus. But Mr. Faro was also very keen on coming here when he was bored for these female models.”

Of course he was, Aloy thought to herself. “And I’m guessing he was the only one allowed to touch them?”

“Yes,” DIONYSUS said flatly. She wondered if this AI realized how messed up that was. “He would often have rampant orgies with them. Got tit fucked by a copy of Meg Griffin and a version of her from another dimension once. Had Kim Possible and Shego sit on top of him while he fucked and ate them out at the same time. And apparently he had a mommy fetish since he once had Marge Simpson and Francine Smith spank him while he was in a diaper, jacking off and sucking his thumb.”

“Okay, way too much information!” Aloy shuddered. She already hated Faro, but she loathed the thought of him having sex at all. She didn’t know those names either, save for some faint memories of the memorial upstairs, she was still too distracted by all the naked androids to properly think straight right now. But she still didn’t know any of these people, and this conversation was getting real awkward. She needed to change the subject, fast, she didn’t want to think about Ted Faro’s scuzzy dick inside of these beautiful android women. “I hate to burst your bubbles, but you know that Ted Faro is dead, right?”

Both of the androids looked at her. Their jaws would have dropped if they could. “Dead?” DIONYSUS said, incredulously.

“Yep, dead. Thebes burned down a long time ago. And he wasn’t exactly human before that either.” She realized it might not have the best idea to say that, but then she heard DIONYSUS laughing in his robotic voice and the two androids high-fived each other.

“That. Is. Awesome!” the skinny one said.

“Oh yeah, he was a bossy little weasel, wasn’t he?” said the big one. “Always telling us what to do and threatening he’d shut us down if we got any ideas.”

“Fuck Ted Faro!” DIONYSUS said.

“You can say that again,” Aloy said.

“Fuck Ted Faro!” said both of the androids.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Fuck! Ted! Faro!” they all said at once.

“I think that’ll be my new catchphrase for whenever I’m feeling really good,” Aloy said. “Fuck Ted Faro. Just don’t actually ... fuck Ted Faro.”

“Who the fuck would?” said the big guy.

“You got that right,” said the skinny guy.

“So you up for the passenger experience, or what?” said DIONYSUS.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the skinny guy, looking Aloy up and down. “I really wanna give it to you in ... the Forbidden West!”

“Wow...” she said, her voice trailing off. She was used to men being forward with her, but two naked robot men was another matter entirely. World might end soon, she thought to herself. And I still haven’t gotten laid once. Despite everything she’d been through, whenever she was with the other tribes, even when she was with the base team, a faint lingering stigma of being an outlander was in her mind despite knowing she should well have moved past that superstitious nonsense. Tilda even she was alive, for whatever she was worth only saw her as a replacement for Elisabet.

And as much as she had feelings for so many of her new friends from Erend to Alva and Beta, she was always worried if it might make things awkward later. These two machines on the other hand, she didn’t know them whatsoever, and she didn’t judge her one bit.

“You know what?” she said. “I think I can do that.”

“Awesome!” both of the guys said and they high-fived each other.

“Activating passenger experience,” came the voice of DIONYSUS. “Be sure to have fun with her, boys!” This AI really was like none of the others she encountered earlier.

In an instant, the once empty room was changed from a bland featureless set of walls to a beach setting not unlike the one just outside this building. Gone were all the android women and the dim lights above, now there was a bright sun shining above with clear blue skies. But more than that, there were crowds of people and buildings all around her. She was suddenly aware of how much warmer it had gotten in that instant, and realized why everyone was wearing very little.

“What in the world...?” Aloy said.

“Welcome to Los Angeles, circa 2004” said DIONYSUS. Aloy barely had time to register what that meant, because as she was walking and looking around in pure amazement, one of the people actually bumped into her.

“Might wanna be careful,” said the big guy. “Lot of work went into prepping this thing. It’s made to look as real as you can possibly get.”

“Yeah I see,” Aloy said. More cautious now, she kept to herself. It was so weird seeing so many people at once without any of the machines looming on the horizon. She looked up and was surprised to see seagulls in the sky. Not Glinthawks or Stormbirds but actual living creatures. And more than a few people had weird furry four legged creatures with them. These beasts resembled Ravagers but she didn’t even know what to call these living versions. The Focus wasn’t helpful at all, these things must have been so commonplace back then that Faro’s scientists hadn’t even bothered to catalogue what they were.

Though her admiration of it all was taken aback when one of them jumped onto her leg and started humping it.

“Get off me!” she said, shaking her leg and pushing it off. The two guys started laughing. She drew her spear, ready to attack it.