Catherine was walking home from work. This late in the evening, there was no one else out on the streets, but the young woman was not worried. The streets were well lit and the neighborhood was generally pretty safe. Her only thought was getting home so she could heat up some of that leftover spaghetti and chill in front of the tv for a couple of hours until bedtime. At least, that was, until the robot flew down in front of her.

Truth be told, Catherine couldn’t have said whether it was a robot or some sort of spacecraft or whatever, but something in her gut told her it was a robot, at least not unless whatever race had built it was really small. That round bit on the front sure looked like a robot head, with several large lenses for eyes, flashing green.

Behind was a slightly larger round ‘body’, the size of a truck from which two long arms extended in front of it, ending in large pinchers. Below it, a round thing emitted a blue glow which pulsed. Cathering had the vague idea it had something to do with the way the robot hovered in mid air, about ten feet in front of her and fifteen feet up. At the back was another round section, about the size of a dumpster, with something that looked like a hatch on top.

Catherine’s first thought was to go for her phone, to take pictures of this strange thing, though she couldn’t decide whether it would be better to send the pictures to the authorities, or post them to Instagram first. It was only after the second or third picture she snapped that she realized the robot was looking back at her, focusing one of the large lense eyes on her. Suddenly, they changed from green to red. It raised one of the pinchers, opening it as it pointed it down towards the woman. She’d just started to realize that maybe running would be a good idea when there was a soft “pssst!” sound from the pincher.

On the inside of the pincher, just where the two halves met, there was a hole, maybe a quarters of an inch or half an inch in diameter. From this, propelled by a burst of compressed air, a small, black ball flew out, arcing down towards Catherine. She stood still, too shocked by this sudden turn of events to think about running or trying to dodge. The ball hit her dead in the chest. To her surprise, when it hit, the ball immediately came apart, splattering some sort of sticky goo across the front of her work uniform polo.

“What the hell?” Catherine wondered aloud, looking down. The substance had the look and feel of latex or something. It was black and somewhat shiney. But it wasn’t any sort of latex found on Earth, which it proved a second later as it began to move, spreading out across the front of her shirt. At the same time, the shirt began to disappear, dissolved or eaten by the living goo. With a cry of distress, Catherine started to tug at the goo, but it clung to her front, refusing to come loose. It was at that moment the robot fired a second ball of goo, which hit her on her arm. Again, the ball splattered, depositing another layer of the goo across where it hit which began to move, eating away at the layer of cloth beneath it.

This second attack snapped Catherine out of her stunned stillness and she turned to run. To her relief, when the goo had eaten through her shirt, continuing through her bra, it had stopped at her bare skin, though it clung to that not less tightly. The goo had also expanded, like it had somehow incorporated the dissolved clothing into itself, though there seemed to be a limit to how far it could expand. The two balls that had attached so far couldn’t cover her entirely. Presumably that was why the robot followed after her, firing more of the damn things down at her.

The robot followed, almost lazily, hovering a dozen feet or so above the ground, periodically firing more of the latex balls at the fleeing woman. It seemed to be targeting her torso only, avoiding her head, either not wanting to risk hitting something vulnerably like her eyes or mouth or throat, or it was simply programmed to go for the easy body shots.

Where the balls hit, they clung tight against their target, dissolving more of her clothing and spreading out across her body. Where they hit areas already covered, the new latex was joined into the previous mass, quickly flowing out to spread even further. In seconds, more than half of Catherine’s body was covered in the stuff which spread out, coating her in a tight layer maybe an eighth of an inch thick. Those shots that missed, though few did, hit the ground, writhing for a few seconds as they looked for their target and didn’t find her.

Fifteen seconds after the first shot, Catherine realized the robot could simply fly after her endlessly shooting until she was completely covered. She needed to get into an alley or into a building, where the large robot couldn’t follow and where, hopefully, she could find someone to get help. With a cry of fright, she turned and started for the nearest doorway she could see.

She never made it. Before she was halfway there, the latex had spread down to her legs. As they crisscrossed, the two layers of latex seemed to stretch out, joining into one, wrapping both legs in a tight layer of latex. Catherine stumbled as her legs suddenly wouldn’t move anymore and she fell to the ground. With that it was all over for her. A few more shots fell onto the prostrate young woman, quickly coating her all over in the stuff. Her arms wound up trapped against her sides.

“Help!” Catherine called out from her prone position. “Hel-Mmmppphhh!” The latex flowed up her next, over her lower jaw. As it reached her mouth, latex flowed into it, quickly forming into a plug extending in, filling the space completely. Her eyes widened with fear as it flowed over her nose, but to her relief, it steered clear of her nostrils, leaving two holes she could breathe through. Finally, latex flowed over her eyes, covering them and plunging her into darkness. Now she was enclosed in an all but complete, seamless layer of the shiny, black material.

As Catherine squirmed, unable to break free of her cocoon, the robot flew down, close enough to her it could reach out and grab the struggling figure with the two mechanical arms. The helpless captive was lifted up, over the top of the robot, to the large section at the back. With a hiss, the hatch on top opened up, revealing the space inside.

The back container was partially filled, at least half a dozen squirming figures, identical to the one in its claws, heaped atop one another inside the tight space. Catherine was dumped, unceremoniously, on top of two of the other captured female specimens. Though she couldn’t see it, the hatch slid closed above her. She could feel as the robot accelerated, up into the sky, its powerful sensors already scanning the town below, looking for another target that fit its parameters for acquisition...