Emery swallowed her whimpers. The dichotomy of him violating her and holding her, of murmuring threats, of the sting of the whip strikes, everything blurred into one. Of being tied and at his will. Arousal, not arousal, she wavered between those and was appalled at her reaction.
She craved asking him if his cock was sorry it was too puny to fuck her. To tell him only real men got to fuck her properly. She didn’t say it. She’d learned discretion and preferred to not inspire him to greater indecencies. Or not today, anyway. Her bravery had its highs and lows.
Slowly, he extracted his finger. “Now, I am finished with your punishment. You can walk to the house.”
Then he moved away to stand before her. “A bowl to wash the hand that’s been inside her and a towel, please.”
An attendant brought him both and he washed his hands, taking his time. The flushed heat on her face rose in waves. Seemed he could still embarrass her. She made herself focus on him and not the onlookers.
Bastard.
“You can walk?”
“Yes,” she said, upset at the hoarseness of her voice. “I can walk.” She straightened. “It was nothing.”
For the first time, she thought his smile held more than disdain.
“Uh. I need clothes, master.”
“Not yet.”
He wanted her to hobble back, naked. Fine. Whatever.
The walk home...to the house, was longer than she remembered but she broke up the monotony by saying bastard regularly in her mind.
When she reached the house and was set free to dress and approach the other slaves, she found Morami and asked her to check her back.
Lying on her stomach on her bunk, with her dress hitched up to her shoulders, she waited to hear the verdict.
Morami only tsked and pursed her lips. “You are fine, little delicate flower. No blood. He knows what he is doing with you.”
Did he? How she wished she could make that a lie.
“I will massage some healing cream into your skin. You rest. No one will make you work today. Wait here while I find the cream.” She patted Emery lightly on the head then left the room.
The tears she shed while on the bunk were those of frustration and anger. He hadn’t broken her.
And he wouldn’t.
She would find his weaknesses and use them. Use them thoroughly. Fuck him over, bury him, destroy him.
Asshole.
Something appeared halfway down the bed, where the white sheet dropped away at the edge – something small that probed the sheet then vanished. It’d been purple, she thought, frowning. Next purple-furred feet appeared, though the soles were metal, and Mammoth heaved himself onto the bunk. He galloped to her with that clumsy gait of his, trunk waving. When she only popped up an eyebrow, he slowed, lowered himself to his belly, and crawled closer.
His trunk poked at her elbow and she raised her arm, let him limbo underneath and snuggle into her side. The chubby little mechling was surprisingly soft. The faux purple fur must be thick. A child’s toy, for sure, programmed to comfort those in need.
A little...fake but it eased her. She smiled and laid her arm over him. His trunk curled around her wrist. When he started to snore gently, she had to suppress a giggle. She was losing it.
The ouch factor on her skin ebbed. She didn’t realize she’d fallen into a shallow sleep until Morami began massaging the cream into her back.
Chapter 13
In her budding war against Mako, she’d forgotten what her main aim should be – to get home again, and the only person who could help her do that was Gio. Talking to her might mean apologies would be asked for. After the whipping, she didn’t care.
Days later, once the stiffness had faded and some of the bruising, they let her return to herding the mechlings. Emery found the apple gone, rotted away perhaps, and only blue metal remained where the hole had been. Had someone else repaired it or had JI-mech 34 somehow done this? She couldn’t tell, and there was no one to ask that, including JI-mech.
They allowed her to go to the markets after that – making use of the reckless slave, she supposed, getting work out of her. Well, she’d not sit still and be a little wide-eyed bunny to the slaughter. She asked Nik if she could speak to Gio again.
Though he looked dubious, he also said he’d ask Mako.
Mako had been absent since the whipping. Or rather he’d steered clear of her. It was almost as if he was afraid.
That possibility beguiled her.
Whatever wheels had to turn to get that meeting teed up, it took three days before she was again travelling in a rickshaw to see her. The guards seemed the same as they waved her through. The room Gio waited in was the same – long table, chairs.
Apologies arrived on her tongue without Gio asking. She wanted to say sorry.
“Just sit, please.” Gio pointed.
Everyone wanted to give her orders yet some strangeness in Gio’s eyes picqued her curiosity, so she walked over, found a chair – one next to Gio this time – and sat.
“It’s good to see you.” Gio nodded. Her left hand was bandaged.
“Yes.” Emery frowned.
More seconds passed.
“That should be enough. There’s a mechling watching. Don’t ask. I can have it remove this part of the recording but if too much is deleted they’ll be suspicious. The last time created some problems.”
Uh-huh. Then being fast was good. “I want to apologize for my snarkiness last time.”
Gio wound her hand in the hurry up gesture. “Accepted. We can talk about that after. Anything...delicate to ask?”
Delicate. Huh. Morami had taken to calling her that.
“Fern?”
“Still don’t know. Her sentence could be carried out anytime he wants. Six moons is the limit. We’re nowhere near that.”
“Mako’s past then? Is he a war hero of some sort? Was there a friend called Shay?”
“Yes to both. He killed a lot of Scavs after they captured his patrol and killed them, tortured them. His girl Shay was among the dead. I think he recovered some important weapon the Scavs might’ve used on the Swathe?”
“I see.” So she looked like his dead girlfriend? How that might be affecting him, she’d have to think about later. It could be a powerful tool.
“I heard what happened – to you. I’m sorry.”
“What?” She whipped her head up, found Gio’s eyes locked on hers. “Thank you. I’m okay.”
“Hmm. I heard it was because you didn’t understand sun madness. I know what it is now.”
“Tell me.” Her tone was flat but this excited her. What were they hiding?
“One of the mechlings here changed and I had a chance to see it before it was removed. Their AI is changing. The sun-mad ones are the ones assimilating true intelligence. I’m almost certain that once they get past the initial phase they will be as good at thinking as any human, or Mekker.”
“Wow. The one I saw was just dazed.”
“Yes. I let the one here be alone. Pretended I hadn’t seen it. It became self-aware, like the boy I thought I first spoke to. They took him...it away too. It’s as if they’re evolving. They might have been doing this for decades though. Mechlings are old tech.”
The temptation was there to tell her about JI-mech but again she held back. Treachery was possible. Gio didn’t have to know, not yet.
She needed to go back to the roof and try to wake it. A smarter mechling could help her...somehow.
It could also be like the computer, Hal, from that scifi movie and kill her, just like the Mekkers feared, or any number of AI from every scifi horror movie ever made.
Artificial intelligences, the really smart ones, were always evil.
Hollywood might be wrong. It better be.
She put her hand over her mouth, thinking of possible avenues.
“Emery? Emery? Time’s up. No more questions like that, hey?” Gio flipped her straying hair from her shoulders. “Now. What do they get you to do?”
She switched her focus from the far wall to Gio’s hazel eyes – so clear, so honest-seeming.
JI-mech might kill her. Though so far it seemed to have no moving parts. It might not even waken. Then she’d wait and find another sun-mad mechling, only this time she’d be clever.
Cleverer.
When you’re down and out and in the gutter, the only way left is up.
“Many things,” she whispered absentmindedly, her fingers still over her mouth. “I do many things.”
“Well, since you’re being boring, here is my news.” She began to unpick the bandage on her hand. “Drette knows this. It’s not a secret. I tried something...” Gio cleared her throat. “New. When the portal formed, before anyone came through, I put my fingers in then I pulled them out. This.” She held up her hand and it trembled.
The tips of the longest fingers were gone, sheared away.
Chapter 14
Leaving via a portal was no longer possible, unless getting bits of you annihilated by doing it was a false indicator. Gio had lost part of her hand. It couldn’t be false could it? Unless maybe you had to fling your whole self through and not pull it back? There was that...and who was going to test it? How would you know if it worked, if the person came out okay on the other side? If they even found Earth again?
You couldn’t.
It would be close to suicide to try.
So what she had was this.
Emery surveyed her surroundings, the massive onward-surging horde of ships that was the Swathe. She’d come to call them ships, as the Mekkers did, and the reason was clear. They ploughed the land like ships ploughed the sea.
The dust plumed and feathered and sifted along between the ships but never did it reach as high as where she sat. The royal ship was taller than the others. The football-field sized roof rose and fell in mounds. Antenna were the hard points, the sharper places on this roof hull, but most of it flowed as smoothly as a riverbed. She’d ventured over some of it, over hill and tiny dale. There were no windows. None she’d found.
How this gargantuan thing had been manufactured, how it had survived more than a century, defied her brain.
She couldn’t think that well.
But she had JI-mech and maybe he could. Her idea to revive him was worth a try. After weeks of nothing, she’d told the mechlings to settle over JI-mech’s numbers – the three and four. The blue power didn’t just recharge the little ones, the slaves had told her, the power sifted deep and recharged the royal ship.
If so, if JI-mech lacked power, maybe this would fix that lack?
“Worth a try,” she muttered, settling against her favorite pole base.
Her other idea was more subtle and maybe sillier. Even so, it would make her happy. She was going to tell the mechlings the stories she remembered from Earth – love stories, tragedies, thrillers. Anything she wanted to.
If they were on the cusp of true intelligence, she might be able to nudge them, to seed them with ideas that would make some difference. If she picked the good stories, she couldn’t harm them? It was a small rebellion.
And if they went sun-mad, she’d decide what to do, after.
“Okay, dear mechlings. Listen up.” Emery rolled in her lip and sucked on it, thinking. She had decided already on the story, but this felt so odd, talking out loud. “Here goes. This is the story of Romeo and Juliet. Once upon a time there were two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet.”
Mammoth emerged from the herd and trotted to the front, plopping onto his haunches. He seemed to be listening, ears pricked, his brown eyes shining. Of course. Children were told bedtime stories. His programming again, but it made her grin.
“Okay, okay, okay,” she muttered, getting back on track.
It didn’t matter if she got the words wrong so long as the essence was true. She’d tell them the heart of each story.
“When they met, it was love at first sight; they adored each other, wanted to be together forever, and yet knew their love was impossible because their families wanted to kill each other.”
She kept going, telling a shortened version of their tragic love, which ended with them killing themselves by mistake, each thinking the other had already died.
The heat of the sun-warmed metal under her ass, the laziness in the air, made this somehow a familiar thing – as if she was at the hearth with a fire burning and her children waiting to hear her wisdom.
Dream on, Emery.
What would come after this? What was worth telling?
The air bore that piercing lemon scent that seemed to rise when the recharging was in progress.
Animal Farm? My god that would be a zinger of a tale for here, but what if someone heard her? It was only a story. Still, maybe some other story? Love, peace, the joy of living. She didn’t want to be punished for telling tales to mechlings.
There were always fairy tales. Red Riding Hood? Wolves eating grandmothers and all that homicidal stuff? No.
Cinderella? Oooh. Yes.
Just be sparing with the prince and princess ones. Wouldn’t do to give the mechlings weird ideas.
None of this was likely to make a difference anyway.
It might.
JI-mech’s mind voice made her jump.
Thank you for helping me. I wore out my reserves doing repairs. I might never have awakened if not for you.
Hey, I’m just happy it worked.
Watching vehicles peel away from the Swathe and head out into the countryside and she could do nothing? They were freedom but just out of her reach. Maybe this, maybe he, could do more.
She was also a little terrified at what JI-mech might do to her. Betrayal would have severe consequences.
Tell me one thing, JI-mech. Can you get me away from the Swathe? I’ll do anything to get that done.
I can. I will. I just need you to help me.
Big talker but this was it. She inhaled, let it out. May as well commit.
Done. Make me a list. Do me a manifesto. A plan. So long as I’m not a slave at the end of it.
You won’t be, Emery. I heard your story. Of Romeo and this Juliet? Keep telling them. I want to hear more. I can learn as I make more repairs.
Well now. She had a job. Storyteller.
How are we going to get off this ship, JI-mech?
How? With me.
You?
I can fly. If I’m healthy.
Healthy? Now that was an odd word to use for a robot, even a human-smart one.
But...flying, it was a long way down.
You can fly?
Okay. Optimistic. I can crawl and leap well. Once I get off this ship, we will be gone and miles away...within...
Seconds?
Half an hour?
Beggars can’t be choosers.
How big are you?
Most days, when you walk about up here, you don’t reach my limits. Big. As in, to use your human word, fucking big.
This...this could be good.
Chapter 15
Each night after she herded mechlings to the roof, Mako resolved to sit down to watch or hear the feedback. He would pour a glass of the extra-strong Rasta liquor and lounge in a soft armchair – relax into the padding and drowse as he listened. He didn’t allow himself relaxation often enough. Why not this?
She wasn’t a bad storyteller, though the stories often surprised him. Love was a rarity in the Swathe. People married because they were fated to. That humans had so many stories about love was worrying for some reason he couldn’t pin down. Her voice was good for this task. It lured him in and the more she told the better she became.
Why she was telling the mechlings, though? That was a puzzle. They wouldn’t understand.
Maybe it was for herself? Remembering her home?
He wasn’t sure and it niggled at him.
Questions rose in his mind and they clashed with his persona as the distant but just House Master. He wanted to ask her why she told stories. What was her home, Earth, like? Had she ever found love l
ike in the stories?
This latest story was about a man obsessed with a creature called a whale. He could empathize with that one. There’d been a landbeest once that’d grown large and cunning. It’d gored a patrol member one night and attacked the camp again the next night – barged through the sentry fence too. If he’d had more time, he’d have tracked it down. Though this Ishmael sounded unhinged.
He was becoming too interested in this one slave but there was no one he could confess this to. No one he trusted enough. Palming her off to Nik and Weln worked up to a point, until he worried they’d do something stupid. He didn’t want something stupid happening to her.
Why was she telling these stories? They verged on sedition at times. Gulliver’s Travels in particular. If she told them to slaves...
Which was why he decided to visit her on the roof the next day.
And here he was forgetting, until she was kneeling before him, how much he wanted to play with her. Looking down on those tits, with that teasing cleavage...he was hard in seconds.
“You’ve been telling stories up here. I saw the feed. Why?”
“My amusement, Master.”
Even the master from her lips held a thrill no other woman’s words possessed. He confirmed his own suspicions – he wanted to own her, not just be her master as part of his employment deal. It was the most agonizing realization, since it could never come true.
“Amusement? I see.” Squinting at the brightness, he surveyed the horizon. “I should come up here more often. My eyes have forgotten how to adapt to the light, and it’s beautiful.”
“Why don’t you?” Then she had the audacity to blink with those blue eyes, those lashes. The gusting wind had scoured her cheeks red, made her lips look swollen.
“Because it reminds me of my past.” True, he realized, though it hadn’t occurred to him before. A little too personal, that, to be saying to a slave.
The Swathe was heading into winter territory, and it would be cold up here. Too cold for that thin dress, though it would be all she needed deep inside the hull.
“Make sure you draw a coat, pants, and boots from the store when you need to for herding, Slave Twelve. And here is a warning. Do not tell these tales to the other slaves. You could be charged with sedition.”
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 8