by KT McColl
The Last Fembot
KT McColl
Published by The Blue Shelf
Copyright 2017 KT McColl
First edition
ISBN 978-0-9951693-4-0
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Note
This novel contains graphic depictions of sex and is not intended for readers under 18 years of age.
Other Titles by KT McColl:
Demonsong Series:
Incubus
The Succubus and the Seminarian
The Devil's Own
The Demon's Apprentice
Swallowtail
Outsourced
Bedtime Reading for Libertines
Chapter 1
A horn blasted over the fields where we were working, startling the blackbirds and crows that kept us company. They took wing, squawking off into the distance. I watched them go with a twinge of envy.
Dirty men rose from the loam, heads peeking up over the tops of the plants. Brows furrowed. It was too early for lunch.
Our Lozen guards, some of whom were on horseback, herded us to the old, ramshackle farmhouse that was our base when we worked this field. If we cared, if the building belonged to us, we might have done something to fix it. It had once been a family home, after all, and probably deserved some care. If we'd respected what had been, we might have done something. We didn't. It saddened me a little. Once a family had lived here. Mother, father... some kids too judging by the faded lines and dates scratched into a doorway.
I never really wondered what happened to them.
Some of the men grumbled as they shuffled out of the field. They didn't want a break, knowing that this time of idleness would be tacked on to the end of the day.
The static hum of a prod sounded behind me. One of the guards, this one on foot, had snuck up on me. I was losing my edge. I walked faster.
I'd long ago stopped trying to identify the Lozen. There was no reason for it; it wasn't as though I'd ever want to socialize with them or chat them up. They wore long gray robes that obscured the contours of their bodies and sometimes hid weapons. All wore face coverings, similar to the niqabs I'd seen pictures of in old newspapers. When you saw actual eyes, you saw accusation and hardness. Whatever their color -- brown, green, or blue, made up with mascara and eyeliner or not -- the look was the same. Most Lozen wore mirrored sunglasses against the bright sunlight though. That was hard too, seeing your reflection, so tiny and pathetic in the eyes of those for whom you were little more than an insect.
The sweaty men assembled in two long, uneven rows in front of the house and waited. The wind blew a phantom of dust across the dirt driveway and cicadas hummed in overlapping waves. We needed rain. We always needed rain these days. I heard that they called it global warming back in the day and that people argued about it. We didn't have a special name for it anymore and there was no point in debate.
Rabbit, so named for the harelip that was indifferently corrected when he was a kid, whispered to me out of the corner of his mouth. "What's going on?"
I glanced at him and shrugged. How the hell would I know? What did anyone know?
Sweat trickled down my back. A rivulet found my ass crack.
"Fuck it's hot."
"Shut up," I whispered.
A Lozen guard turned to me and gave me that look. I stared straight ahead and heeded my own advice.
A streamer of dust in the distance announced the reason for the assembly.
An old Jeep, bracketed by a pair of motorcycles in front and behind, turned into the lane. The motorcycles were driven by another set of Lozen. The Jeep too, probably, but the tinted windows made it impossible to know for sure. Not that it mattered.
The engines were turned off and the only sounds were those of insects and the rustling grasses. At length, cooling engines started to tick. We waited and sweated. I appreciated the theatricality of it. Those in the Jeep were probably appreciating a few more minutes of air conditioning.
Eventually, one of the motorcycle riders dismounted, her dusty robe rippling in the breeze. She marched to the Jeep and opened the rear passenger door.
I recognized who it was and grimaced.
Unlike the Lozen, Sister Aisha and those of her position had no qualms about showing their forms to advantage. She had a fine, curvy body. I suspected that the effort she took to display it was ultimately cynical, a crass effort to remind us of what we'd lost and would never have again.
Sister Aisha wore a white bonnet, indicating her station, and a white blouse. Beneath it, she sported a crimson waist cincher. Gray breeches and calf-high leather boots with modest heels completed the ensemble. I knew from discussions I'd overheard how badly some of the men in the crew wanted to stuff those orifices of hers, as though they had a snowball's chance. It was stupid talk. Talk like that showed just how defeated you were. Talk like that got you re-educated or worse. Simple as that.
And even if they did have a chance, I doubted any of them would have paid the price of admission. As tough as life was in the camp, I had little doubt that being a freeman was tougher and even more thankless than the lives we lived. Still, that didn't keep a lot of the men from talking.
Sister Aisha approached us slowly as though she were walking a runway. I'd seen some contraband video somewhere, so I knew what it looked like. Slow and sashaying, as though walking an invisible line. She made for Rabbit and me. I stifled a groan. The corners of her mouth quirked up when she noted my dismay. This couldn't be good.
She stopped in front of Rabbit and studied him, ignoring me. Rabbit fidgeted under her unblinking, blue-eyed stare. He was large, muscular, and towered over the Sister, but seemed smaller somehow. It was odd seeing them this way, a study in the difference between strength and power. At length she withdrew a piece of paper from the pocket of her blouse. Unfolding it, she held it out. "You are the artist."
It wasn't a question.
Rabbit looked at the paper, his dreadlocks falling into his sweaty ebony face, and then dropped his gaze even further. "Ma'am."
I caught a glimpse of it. It was a rendering of a nude woman. It was good pencil work, expertly shaded, rendered in bold chiaroscuro. Nudity aside, there was nothing even vaguely sexual about it. It reminded me of some ancient artwork that I'd seen as a child -- reclining odalisque or something like that. While it was far from any man's masturbatory fantasy, it was bad enough.
"You will not represent or objectify the Mother."
The second commandment. I kept my expression carefully neutral and stared straight ahead. Damn it, Rabbit, how could you have been so careless? The Mothers knew. You could be as clever as possible and they still knew.
"It's not the Mother..." Rabbit hesitated, realizing too late that it was a distinction without difference. "Forgive me."
Sister Aisha scowled. "It is not I from whom you should be begging forgiveness."
I saw the edge of Aisha's bonnet turn as she faced me. A white bonnet, signifying purity and chastity. She was young, barely eighteen. There might come a time when she would be granted a red headdress. I didn't doubt for a minute it would happen. She had ambition and had risen unexpectedly high in her meager handful of years. I didn't meet her gaze.
Aisha sparked a lighter and held it to the drawing. The corner caught and curled, blackening, and the rest of the paper quickly flared. Seconds later, the charred page f
ell to the ground and disintegrated, black flecks dancing off on the wind.
This is what happened to beauty now. Had I not gotten so used to the transience of anything good, I might have felt something.
"Do you have a second?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"A representative."
"Jude, ma'am," said Rabbit, his voice quiet and shaky when he realized what was happening.
"Good. You and Jude will be collected tonight at the well. Be ready."
Second, I thought. What a joke. Witness was more like it. Witness first and disseminate next. That's how things worked, how they kept control.
I clapped Rabbit on the shoulder in sympathy once Sister Aisha and her entourage had left. No words were needed.
The Sorority ran a small school in Lowville. Until the age of thirteen, children were expected to attend. At any time during their schooling, they could be streamed into one of the city's schools where they would learn alongside their urban counterparts. There, the girls would be trained to become Sisters or servants. The boys would become craftsmen, breed stock, or minor functionaries, depending on aptitude. The balance of the children -- those of low aptitude or subversive inclinations -- were kept in Lowville or the other towns that surrounded the city to work in the fields. Few of the chosen ever came back to visit.
I couldn't blame them.
It wasn't an arrangement that promoted population growth in our little town. Most couples remained childless despite the promise of a stipend should the child land among the chosen. The actual chances of being selected were small and the likelihood of having another mouth to feed with nothing to show for it was simply too great. Still, there were some children about by virtue of vice or accident.
Rabbit and I waited by the well as instructed. Two school-aged boys who didn't know any better stood and watched, unabashed and inscrutable. They must have heard about the morning's events.
At a different time, those two boys could have been Rabbit and me.
I'd known Rabbit for some fifteen years now, ever since he joined the crew as a young teen. Back then, he hadn't known his ass from his elbow, but he was big and strong even then. I hadn't spoken to him much at the beginning. Not because I didn't like him, but because I didn't speak to anyone really, except Sol who ran the crew back then. Besides, I was licking my own wounds at the time. Instead, I watched him, this gentle giant who silently bore the work and the merciless taunts of the men because they taunted all newbies. Even so, they were especially hard on Rabbit. His disfigurement made him different and even though we were all the lowest of the low, some couldn't resist pushing others lower still. Human nature, I guess. It was dumb and senseless and depressed me, but it wasn't my battle.
And so I watched, curious to see how long it would take Rabbit to break. He'd lasted far longer than I had when I first joined the crew. I didn't know whether that made me respect or pity him.
One day, on Sol's request, I took him aside and told him that he'd have to deal with it or clear out. Baiting him had become a sport and it was distracting the crew. And it was making me angry.
Rabbit listened and then shrugged.
It was the shrug that did it. His passivity, his mute acceptance of injustice, made me see red. It didn't dawn on me until much later that he ultimately had a better read on things than I did, but at the time I hadn't come around to his way of thinking. I put my hands on his chest and pushed him. Hard. I was being as cruel as the others, but I didn't care. I was angry. I knew my way around a fight enough to know that Rabbit could probably be a handful if he set his mind to it. Maybe that's what I wanted.
"You never bother me," he said. "Why?"
"What would be the point?"
He nodded and I pushed him again. He stumbled back but didn't fall. I was glad to see that his fists were clenched, eyes narrowed. I saw anger in his eyes. Why for me? I wondered. For this? Worse had been done to him and he'd never shown any sign of anger.
Maybe it was because I was the last person he expected it from.
"You can't keep taking it," I said, pushing him again and this time managing to trip him up. "Get up."
He dusted himself off. Now he looked bewildered and hurt.
"You have to make it hard for them. Make it so the price they have to pay is too high. Then it'll stop."
He shook his head.
I couldn't believe this guy. Here I was, giving him a life lesson as I understood it then, and he greeted it with indifference. Maybe there was no hope for him. Maybe he was content to be ground down to nothing by lesser men. That, more than anything, infuriated me. He was one of the good ones. And because of that, I took a swing that he side-stepped easily. Before I realized it, I was on my back, looking at a fist that was cocked and ready to fly.
"Just like that," I said, grinning despite my surprise.
He unclenched his fist and let his hand drop to help me up. "Just because I don't, doesn't mean I can't," he said.
It wasn't long before he did. The object of Rabbit's wrath was lost to the crew for several weeks while he nursed various breaks and bruises, but harmony was restored. And I'd made a friend.
And now my friend and I were waiting for his atonement to begin.
"This is the shit," he said.
"It is."
Unfortunately, there was no fighting one's way out of this one.
Chapter 2
No one from Lowville saw us off except for the two boys. It was either a small piece of resistance -- wanting to deprive the Sorority of their object lesson -- or an unwillingness to witness Rabbit's shame. I liked to think that it was either of those but had to concede a third possibility -- indifference.
Sadly, that was probably it. It wasn't an indifference borne out of insensitivity or disregard for Rabbit. No, it was that we'd all seen too many instances of petty humiliation that even the gross humiliations scarcely registered anymore. Most would pity Rabbit and would concede, in private at least, that the punishment far outweighed the crime, but that would be the end of it. I didn't hold it against them and I doubted that Rabbit would either. We were all in the same boat after all, and people only had so much capacity for empathy.
Of course, if more of them knew the details of the atonement in store for Rabbit, perhaps it might have been different. Perhaps the Sorority might have earned more of the disdain it deserved. As it was, most who went through it didn't talk about it. Their seconds didn't either. I certainly hadn't and I knew Sol as my second had kept the details to himself. I was grateful that no one really knew.
Those of us who had atoned were a silent fraternity. We recognized each other by the scars we bore. Rabbit had seen mine and in spite of it, he now asked, "What's going to happen?"
Rabbit and I were in the back of a transport, heading toward the distant lights of the city. The drive had taken us from Lowville through fields that had lain fallow for several years. We were currently driving through the dark outskirts. Suburbia, I'd heard it called. I looked out of the window at the decrepit houses and overgrown yards. It was obvious that no one lived here now. I certainly wouldn't want to. It was too close to the city. Too much of a reminder. I preferred the distance. Nowadays, there were those who lived in the city and those who lived in the towns and camps like Lowville. There was very little in between. Suburbia as a place and a concept had been abandoned.
It was better that Rabbit remained ignorant for now, but I could understand why he'd asked. "Just go with it. There's nothing you can do about it anyway."
Rabbit lapsed into silence. I looked over and imagined that his face looked ashen. It was probably just a trick of the light.
We stopped at a gate manned by a troop of Lozen. Our driver passed some paperwork to the guard who peered into the transport. I looked past her and saw more guards clustered around a checkpoint.
I wondered what they were guarding against. No one I knew wanted to go to the city, and I couldn't imagine that many who lived there would want to escape to the outskirts. Maybe it
was just to promote the illusion that the city was something that needed protecting.
There was a short delay as a guard spoke into her communication device, no doubt confirming our entry. At length, she returned the papers to the driver. "Have fun," she said.
As we drove through the city, Rabbit's eyes widened. There were brightly lit shops and restaurants. Sisters and Mothers strolled the tree-lined promenades. Occasionally, a freeman could be seen walking the requisite number of steps behind his matron.
I remembered that Rabbit had never been here before. I could have played the tour guide based on my last time here but didn't feel like it.
Soon we had traversed the city center and were again nearing the outskirts. Glittering, glass-faced apartment buildings reflected the lights but showed nothing of what lay within. These eventually gave way to dimmer tenements and then to brooding warehouses, some of which were still in use though the majority seemed to have been abandoned. The decay seemed more pronounced than the last time I'd been here, but then I knew how fickle memory could be.
We slowed as we neared our destination. There was nothing about The Sisters that announced its presence. For most of us in Lowville, The Sisters was little more than a rumor. Those of us who had actually seen it added nothing to the rumors. Those who hadn't whispered stories that were more fantasy than truth.
I never thought that I'd be back. Though I wasn't the main attraction this time, a sense of dread pooled in my gut. And here I thought that enough time had passed.
As we neared, we saw that there were no neon signs announcing its existence, but there were lights flashing through the grimy upper windows of the former warehouse. A low thump of music seeped out onto the street. And outside, furtive shadows arrived in ones or twos.
We drove into an alley to a side door and eased to a stop.
The Sisters was a bacchanalian feast that served sin and casual cruelty in equal measure. I'd wondered about it after my first time here, astounded that it could exist. Eventually, I came around to thinking that it was simply the shadowed face of the Sorority, the side you never got to see unless you were singularly unlucky. I now knew that a good many of the patrons of The Sisters were themselves members of the highest orders. The Sorority would have understood that the club, or one very much like it, was necessary to let off steam. Maybe it was just a useful symbol, for them and for us.