The Last Fembot

by KT McColl

  A Lozen guard, one with striking green eyes, was one of the last to approach. Lozen didn't ordinarily join in this part of an atonement, though I wasn't sure that it was forbidden to do so. She was tall even for a Lozen, and her utility belt, bearing a prod and a number of instruments of pain and restraint, cinched a narrow waist. I watched closely as she neared the bound form of Rabbit. Instead of disrobing and taking from him what he was powerless to deny, she placed a hand gently on his chest, leaned into him, and appeared to whisper something in his ear.

  Instead of returning to her cohort of gray-clad enforcers, she stood next to me. "I told him what to expect," she said quietly.

  "Why?" I asked, surprised that a Lozen would even speak to me. I didn't know whether she'd warned him out of compassion or cruelty.

  "It's best that he's prepared."

  The stage lights dimmed and a Lozen guard wheeled the St. Andrew's cross from the stage. The music rose in volume and the party carried on beyond the screen.

  This was a part of the evening that the patrons never got to see.

  The Lozen surrounded the cross and it took a minute for Rabbit to register their presence.

  Sister Aisha approached Rabbit. "How much pleasure did you derive?" she asked.

  "I... Uh..."

  "Did you receive ultimate pleasure?"

  I groaned inwardly. There was no right answer, no way out. Claim too little pleasure and you insulted the Mother and were punished for your unworthiness. Claim ultimate pleasure and it would be negated with ultimate pain.

  No one left here greater than they entered. All left diminished.

  I watched as Rabbit considered his answer, fidgeting on the cross. "Yes, ultimate pleasure."

  "Very well."

  A pair of Lozen unfastened Rabbit and repositioned him so that he now faced the cross.

  "What's happening? Jude?"

  "Be strong." It was all I could say.

  A Lozen stepped out of the shadows, wielding a bull whip. Rabbit didn't see her but by his indignant yelp, he soon felt her.

  It was impossible to look away. I was here to bear witness and I would.

  I felt a presence next to me. It was the Lozen with the green eyes. She flinched as the first lash struck Rabbit's back. I felt her hand grasp mine and I froze. What was this? Lozen never touched the likes of me unless pain was their intent.

  I cleared my throat. She let go and straightened.

  Ten minutes later, Rabbit was freed from the cross and collapsed to the floor.

  Sister Aisha approached me. "Be sure to take care of him," she said. "He's suffered a great deal."

  "I will."

  "Good."

  She took a few steps toward Rabbit and studied the lacerations that bled and seeped on his back, pink against brown. She shook her head and sighed. "It would have been so much easier had there been mutual respect."

  I nodded. She was probably right. Although Rabbit had been more sinned against than sinning at this point, the fact was that he'd sinned.

  She took another step towards him. Carefully, she placed a dainty boot on his outstretched fingers. She shifted her weight and I heard a sickening crunch followed immediately by a howl of pain.

  "Try playing the artist now."

  As we were bundled out of the side door of The Sisters for the waiting transport, I looked for the Lozen with the green eyes. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 3

  Attendance was mandatory. As the bell tolled for mass, I got into the queue of men outside the village church. It was a wooden, whitewashed affair with a squat steeple. I nodded to some of the members of my crew and I looked to my right to see if Abigail had made it. I didn't see her.

  After Rabbit's atonement, I'd brought him to Abigail's, knowing that she could tend to him better than I could. A minor thoughtcrime perhaps, thinking a woman more adept at healing and nurturing than a man. So be it.

  I hadn't slept well. All night, scenes of Rabbit's atonement played in my mind, interspersed with memories of my own. Both sets of memories chafed. It wasn't merely that he had suffered, though that was bad enough. No, what really bothered me was that I hadn't done anything about it. More than that, though... I hadn't wanted to. It disturbed me that I'd been so cowed. I'd allowed a bad thing to happen to my friend -- not that I could have done anything to change that -- but I'd also allowed myself to be defeated. Hell, I was defeated even before I stepped into The Sisters. I've been defeated for a long time.

  I stifled a yawn and braced myself for the service to come. On the one side would be men, on the other women. One side sinners, the other the sinned against. The setup might have encouraged the one side to look on the other with some sort of silent accusation. It never happened though. One side sinned and the other was sinned against, but all sides suffered for the sins of the fathers.

  As the last peal echoed over the weedy expanse that had once been the church's parking lot, a pair of Lozen opened the doors from the inside. We shuffled in, the men of Lowville on the left and women on the right, and filled the pews in an orderly fashion.

  The inside of the church was a spartan affair. Whitewashed walls, hard wooden pews, and a simple lectern on a dais. There might have been a crucifix once with a statue of a suffering bloody Jesus, but it and He were gone. Behind the lectern hung a banner displaying the commandments that had been drilled into the hearts and minds of everyone since as long as I could remember.

  You will honor the Mother above all others

  You will not represent or objectify the Mother

  You will respect the name of the Mother

  You will remember the Enlightenment and keep it holy

  You will submit to the will of the Mother

  You will not murder

  You will not commit crimes of thought or of body

  You will not steal

  You will not bear false witness

  You will not covet

  A low note from the organ that I felt in my chest stilled the rustling around me. One second, two seconds, and then...

  Our Mother who art amongst us,

  Hallowed be thy name...

  I mouthed the words that I had learned as a child. It was a muted recital by those around me, more a murmur than anything else. I was afraid that there would be a lesson coming, an attempt to instill heartfelt enthusiasm at the end of a prod. It happened every month or so. The Mother's wrath could be as intense as her love.

  ...and lead us not into temptation,

  but deliver us from evil...

  I didn't know anyone who believed, but then, no one ever discussed such matters. Outside the walls, we were too busy keeping body and soul together. What happened to the latter after the former turned to dust was of little concern. This church, it seemed to me, was created by the city for the city. For those living in Lowville and scattered settlements on the outskirts of the city, the church seemed remote and impersonal.

  Two rows of six Lozen emerged from a door at the side of the dais and marched solemnly, dividing into two groups that bracketed the lectern. A Mother, wearing a red bonnet, white dress and the golden chain of her office, approached the podium and surveyed the assembly with an inscrutable expression. She might have been pretty in her day but now she just looked hard. She had remarkable, striking blue eyes that invited and repulsed at the same time. It was uncanny.

  "Mother weeps," she said.

  I stared straight ahead. I'd heard this sermon or a variation of it before.

  "The Mother weeps." She gestured to the commandments behind her. "These are not mere words. These are the law." She paused, allowing the moment to stretch. The congregation fidgeted, uncomfortable in the silence. "There have been instances, a growing number of instances, of an intolerance of the law, of a flaunting of the rules by which we live, through which we enjoy order and stability. And then there is resentment when the Mother exercises her just and natural right to ensure order."

  The Mother took a deep breath. "Nothing is as coa
rse and unsympathetic as an intolerant man, a man who ultimately reveals himself as an ignorant, uncaring one. For there is a difference between this man and the perceived intolerance of the Mother. The intolerance of the man is the expression of impure and base impulses. The Mother's intolerance, on the other hand, is of one who truly understands. She knows the why and wherefore of her responsibilities to the greater good. She knows the depth of the Ultimate Sin which She has come to combat. She strives to deliver her children from the grip of destructive forces and base impulses. She knows the grieved suffering of the sadly-wronged. Knowing all this, She would be less than just were She not intolerant of all that arrays itself against Her purpose of recovery and deliverance.

  "Her intolerance is not only the expression of Her knowledge but of Her love. Hers is an intolerance of immorality. Just as the Lozen are intolerant of disorder, the farmer intolerant of blight, the physician intolerant of disease, the Mother is intolerant of anything that threatens or imperils order, anything that diminishes the glory of She who gives life and in this, we applaud the rare self-sacrificing service of the Mother to ensure the continued harmony of our civil society."

  There were a few scattered Amens. The Mother pursed her lips and looked down to her notes. "Let us pray."

  I emerged from the dimness of the church into blazing, hot afternoon.

  In the shade of an oak tree on the edge of the church property, I saw her. Abigail. From a distance and through the tree-filtered light, she looked just as she had years ago. The years hadn't added anything to her gentle, feminine curves and in that, she still appeared as the girl I knew almost twenty years ago.

  Our hands touched briefly, index fingers connecting and then letting go.

  It was all we would allow ourselves. We'd lost control once and had lost so much more beyond that. We couldn't afford to do that again.

  She'd been beautiful. It wasn't her breasts or shapely hips or thin waist that attracted me at the time, nor was it the delicate, balanced geometry of her face. It was her complexion. It was lovely, unblemished. In a world where people wore hardship on their faces like a roadmap of suffering, hers was a revelation. Clear and glowing, almost divine in its purity.

  She'd been a Sister at the time and had exuded a breathtaking beauty beneath her white bonnet. At the time, she was quick to smile, even to someone like me. We were of an age when consequences happened to others, whispered and distant stories that evoked a sympathetic tsk and a shake of the head. Nothing could happen to us because we'd convinced ourselves that what we had was pure.

  We were stupid, of course. Deluded. Young and ignorant and for a while we reveled in that sweet bliss.

  That was the nostalgic, sepia version, the kind I could almost latch onto. Of course, the reality had been nothing like that, at least not toward the end. The beginning was what I preferred to think about, the innocent flirting and the less innocent exploration. I'd made a terrible hash of it and it was nothing I could forgive myself for even if Abigail had. It was too trite to think that I had let my baser instincts take control. She had as well, but that did little to mitigate my part in it or assuage my guilt. Nature observes its own imperatives but society has its laws.

  Had I not been such a sinner, I might have spared that smile and not extinguished its glow.

  I hadn't seen her for six months after she admitted to me where our passion had gotten us... had gotten her. Shortly after that admission, Mother Superior had summoned her. While I was awarded the obligatory number of lashes and the gift of atonement, she never spoke of what she'd lost. I had my suspicions but never asked.

  She was exiled to Lowville. The complexion that had once been a blank canvas upon which I could paint my kisses was now marred. Her forehead had been branded with the numerals VII so that she would never be too distant from that commandment. I could still see her beauty though it was doubtful anyone else did.

  Others would see weakness and opportunity.

  Nothing was quite the same after that, nor could have been. A wistful touching of fingers would be the extent of it.

  "How's Rabbit?" I asked as I let go.

  "The bonesetter took care of his hand, though she doubts that he'll regain its full use. Time will tell. As for his lashes, they'll heal. I'm not sure about his spirit."

  It was pretty much as I'd expected. "Thank you."

  She shrugged in response. "Are you going out there today?"

  "Yeah. Is there anything that you want me to look out for?"

  "Pencils," said Abigail. "And good paper. Rabbit asked for it. Hope and stupidity spring eternal."

  "Okay. And for you?"

  "Whatever you find."

  I nodded. "I'll stop by tonight."

  I was glad to be alone.

  These days, there were few who scavenged beyond the outskirts. Stories circulated about bandits who roamed the abandoned towns, waiting to waylay the unsuspecting, but in all the years I'd been doing this, I'd yet to see one. Some in Lowville suggested that the stories were circulated by the Sorority to keep the more adventurous of us close to home. All the better control us, they said. It was possible, of course, but I didn't see it, nor did I care. I had no time for stories such as these, and even less patience for conspiracy theories. They were, to my mind, fictions uttered by the feeble-minded for the gullible. I liked answers and certainties, and conspiracy theorists traded in none, preferring the kind of questions that left the dimwitted paralyzed in a sea of remote, implausible possibility.

  At any rate, the Sorority had no need for stories of bandits. Close to the city at least, very little of value remained. A scavenger had to go farther afield, and that took time and effort. Ultimately, it was ennui rather than rumors that kept people home.

  The first part of my journey was done on foot. Along the way, I stopped by an abandoned outbuilding to retrieve my gear. As far as equipment went, it wasn't much, but it was more than I wanted to keep in Lowville. A knife, a pack that contained some tools and rope, and a bicycle. I'd had plenty of opportunity in the past to add firearms to my kit but never did. Getting caught with a gun would have landed me in prison and besides, in all of the years I'd been roaming the outskirts, I'd never had cause to shoot anything.

  I wheeled the bicycle out to the road. There were times that I wished I had a motorcycle or a car but I didn't want to worry endlessly about fuel and repairs. Besides, I liked the independence of getting to where I was going under my own steam.

  Bicycle it was.

  About an hour into my ride, I heard a vehicle above the steady hum of the cicadas. I left the road and concealed myself in the bulrushes that lined the ditch. Force of habit, I supposed. A game of cat and mouse for the sake of appearance. I had no doubt that my excursion was known. Lowville had its spies, after all, and the Lozen had patrols and drones. It wasn't that scavenging was forbidden, but it wasn't exactly encouraged either. Scavenging hinted at some small measure of independence, of initiative. It was tolerated, if only because it kept those of us who did it out of more immediate mischief.

  The Jeep rolled past. The Lozen within stared straight ahead, not indicating that they knew where I was hiding. I waited for a minute for the sound of it to bleed into the surroundings before mounting my bike again.

  Half an hour later, I reached my objective. I'd set a quick pace and my thighs were burning. I felt almost happy, the pain of exertion reminding me that I was alive.

  There was a sign at the edge of the road that announced the name of the town and all of the clubs that people used to belong to. I never realized before visiting this town that there was something called the Optimist Club. I'd been stunned the first time I saw the sign and stared at the logo without much in the way of comprehension. I didn't know what the Optimist Club did, or used to do, but it gave me hope that somewhere, there was still a bunch of like-minded people that got together from time to time to share their optimism.

  I rode past a dilapidated strip mall that displayed faded For Lease signs in most of the
units. There was a dry cleaner and a pet store. On the end of the strip was a variety store that might have been the last to be abandoned. There was no sign and I figured that when the end came, the owner probably recognized the futility of it. The windows had been smashed and the shelves emptied. I'd explored it on a previous trip and ignored it now.

  While the stores hadn't escaped the upheaval of the enlightenment, family homes had for the most part. I rode on until I found myself in a tree-lined neighborhood that featured some pretty Victorian affairs made of stone with broad stairways leading to wide front doors. All of these had been boarded up, and though they were gradually succumbing to nature, there was still something grand about them. If I ignored the signs of neglect and decay, the overgrown lawns and the weeds that grew from cracks in the street. I could almost imagine the street as it might have been, with shiny cars berthed in their driveways, children running around, someone mowing a lawn.

  By now, I knew the town well and had a sense of how things had ended. The poor had simply decamped while the wealthy had hung on, reluctant to abandon the trappings of the good life, not believing for a moment that the world as they knew it had come to an end. Of course, staying meant nothing if you were nowhere and so the houses had been boarded up. By some miracle, they had remained largely untouched. Even among thieves and scavengers, there must have been some respect for what these homes represented, some hope that the past might be reclaimed.

  I wondered how many of these people had belonged to the Optimist club.

  I'd resisted entering these buildings on past excursions. It felt wrong somehow. Breaking in seemed like the final capitulation that this was as good as it got and that it was unlikely to get better.

  If the dream was finally over, then this had to be reality.

  There was one building I'd always liked. Not the largest on the street by any means, but solid in a suburban fortress kind of way. It had stone walls, a veranda that ran the length of the front, and a squat turret of no discernible architectural merit or defensive purpose. A thick blanket of ivy covered the left side of the building and seedlings grew out of the rain gutters on the roof. I found the overreach funny and perhaps a little sad, but still I admired the little trees and how they were making a go of it however precarious their station.