by ROUNAK PURI
"That's handy version 1.1 of the beta test has come out with handy words like Tnetennba. Now you can say Good morning that's a nice Tnetennba. Such a time saver!" said Rockwood mysteriously.
The piano and stool wheeled itself into the room. I got the hint.
Master got up and so did I. I went into player piano mode while he got dressed and had breakfast. I was getting better my fingers felt less like someone had ironed them when I finished.
"Have a dreadful day managing the human population. I hope to see your holes they shot in you when you come back. Don't forget you deserve everything" I told him as I left.
"Well you have some important visitors today so be nice to them." Rockwood said leaving.
My collar told me to get dressed properly and after a few reminder shocks I stood in the dressing station. I came out in a completely white slave catsuit. I looked around, the room was completely white. Did he expect me to do an impression for a statue for a hobby?
"Wonderful - I'm now completely camouflaged. If anyone comes they won't know I'm here" I said to #6502 who nodded.
She approached me and whispered in my ear. "#160A How you felt last night, we can help you feel that again. We can teach you how to unburden you. Release your inner hierodule, feel like that again, all without the need of cheap perfume. We are always waiting for you there is always space for you with Adherance"
I don't know how much they understood of our contract but that would definitely terminate my internship with him.
Smiled "My name is Jenny Banks, I'm a student at Caltech" I said. I braced myself and took the wasp string house PRISM system give me as punishment for speaking my name. I was determined not to show myself weak, mostly because if she asked me again I felt I might not be able to resist. I could hear obedience calling me.
I spent some time wondering who was coming. There was a warning on my collar.
"You must kneel quickly for your visitor
"All hail our glorious mechanical overlords." I said. rushing to kneel and look at the floor. My eyes looked at two pairs of very shiny high heeled shoes.
Chapter 49/Him/Unexpected visitors
I spent some time wondering who was coming. There was a warning on my collar.
"You must kneel quickly for your visitor
"All hail our glorious mechanical overlords." I said. rushing to kneel and look at the floor. My eye I looked at two pairs of very shiny high heeled shoes. Then I noticed they had come in from the small hidden slave door which lead to a back slave passage which #6502 and #DEC used.
"Hark at her" said Kayla walking in.4
"That's how I like my women at my feet" said Joe.
"Kayla!" I said getting up.
"Jenny" said Joe.
"Joe!" I said.3
"Could anyone else make size 10 high heels look this good?" said Joe.
"It's so wonderful to see you!" I said air hugging so we didn't touch.
Kayla and Joe were standing next to each other. Kayla was practically in her factory settings black bob with bangs. Joe was now bleach blonde but sill in a bob. His outfit looked a bit more elaborate but he looked more like a Nike shoe, complex effectively ornamented but with a slight technical look. Like who builds a sexy outfit in silicon then puts a go faster stripe down the side? Obviously these robots do.
"Is this HIS bed." said Kayla walking in looking like a visitor to a museum.
"Come and sit down on it." I said walking over sitting down on it and pating it.
Both Kayla and Joe refused to do it and insisted on sitting on the floor. Apparently slaves weren't allowed on the furniture. If a master was present you stood or knelt and if not given a job you could sit on the floor you weren't allowed on furniture except for punishment chairs. I guess he was letting me off more than I could chew.2
I was so happy to see them.
"Tell me, tell me, tell me, What are you up to Kayla? " I said
"I'm doing jobs all over the hall. Today I worked in the container Factory."
"That would explain this " Joe reached over with a cloth and wiped off some dust off Kayla's chest. He turned his head slightly, he was clearly getting lowlevel warning punishments for intimacy.
"Anything interesting happen? "I asked.
"The most exciting thing today was I nearly got hit by a human driven fork lift. I found this box of round red knobs " Kayla said looking at Joe " and thinking all day about they reminded me of your poised pert glistening moist red lips I just found myself..." Kayla and Joe kissed intensively. It was forbidden, but the kiss was all the more luscious for it's doomed nature. I could see #6502 looking over in shock.2
"Warning Forbidden Intimacy detected
"You kiss hot, like your on fire babe" said Joe smiling.
"That was a three, but it was worth it" said Kayla checking she hadn't bit her own lip. You could see the looks in their eyes, they so wanted to do it again.
I looked down, smiled. Forbidden love was my favourite form of doomed love.2
I noticed Joe had a harem name tag.
"So Foxy lady #1FB9 how's it going?" I said smiling.1
"I should inform you that I'm heavily monitored. The system takes master's privacy seriously. I can't discuss anything about the harem. Please don't ask me any questions, but it's OK" said Joe. I guessed his collar made him say that.
"OK?" said Jenny.
"Its OK" confirmed Joe.
"OK in an OKish way or OK 'in we are all going to die, OK!' way I can think of fifty shades of OK" I said without googling.10
"It's OK" said Joe precisely the same way.
"OK, is everyone there like you?" said Kayla.
"That's fifty-one shades of OK" I added.
"Most of the girls are e-slaves like me." Joe said by which I think he meant they were boys dressed as girls.
"Most ? Are all you 'girls' getting along? I know girls can get pretty catty when they get together, all after the same man." said Kayla jealously.
"Its OK" said Joe again.
"You're not hating it then? You think you might get used to it, even like it in the end?" said I jokingly.
"Err... it's OK" said Joe.
"Enough punishing the poor boy. Anyway forget about him, how's life treating you what you doing?" said Kayla to me.
"I'm masters e-pet?" I said.
Everyone was wide eyed.
"You get to call him master?" said Kayla.
"You don't ?"
"No we've got to call him 'he who I am not worthy of speaking the name of' that was in the orientation lecture" said Kayla.6
"Yeh, the collars are very strict on the matter. I was really relieved when I saw Kayla there, but I was worried I didn't see you. I thought you'd been killed or worse returned. So what's he like?" said Joe
"What is he like? I thought you would know that by now. Didn't he like 'try you out'?" I said
Joe shook "I've only seen him at a distance at a presentation. Owww" He had clearly been shocked.
"You know a sexy presentation, with a very erotic use of power point." Joe added. Too much detail I thought.
"So did he try you out?" Asked Kayla to me.
"Kayla! No. He hasn't We've only slept together" I said
"You go girl" said Joe.
"No honestly, the deal is If I willingly do it with him I'm out on my ear. I just get tell him what an awful person he is. Otherwise, I'm off to the Thrift shop" I explained. 2
"What does he do when you tell him this, punish you?" said Kayla.
"No worse he's nice to me." I said. It was difficult to hate him but
"Nice collar," said Joe. "is that the iCollar air 3.0? I hear the specs are very good, but incredibly light. You hardly know you're enslaved. " Joe said looking closely. "I've got an iCollar Pro(TM) extra ram and hard drive space.
High Def collar cam. Sub-vocal capable. You know it uses poison injection to save space and give more battery space giving me more processing power and up to two days between charges?" I looked at Joe and throw my eye's towards Kayla. She had a much cheaper collar which had a visible external wifi connection. All this collar talk wasn't going to make her feel much better about things.
"Did you just say TM as in iCollar Pro TM?" I said to Joe.
"It is a trademark and we need to respect the intellectual property of our makers," said Joe.
"but you just said it out loud. You TMed me." I said to Joe.
"Yeh get used it" said Joe.
"Wow is that a Gucci Makeup printer over there? Can I have a look" asked Joe.
"Sure go have look TM." I said.
Joe stood up and drifted off.
I whispered to Kayla as Joe walked off. "Has he put on a slight bit of weight? Did his collar let him do that"
"And his breath smelt odd. I could've sworn I tasted pepperoni. I was wondering" said Kayla.1
"How did he take it?" I asked Kayla
"Take what?" asked Kayla
"When you told him about your err former employment" I whispered.
"It must be the makeup, you must have mistaken me for a complete and utter idiot. I haven't told him" whispered Kayla.
"You haven't told him! Are you mad?" I whispered.
"He might not take it as well as you did. He has very well developed ideas on this. You should hear him about the citizens of Judas City. He's not the only one."
"I've been there, I prefer master to them," I said.
"That's the kind of tihs he says and you want me to tell him?"2
"Do you love him or not?" I said.
"I DO love him, which is why I'm not telling him," said Kayla.
"Tell me what?" said Joe coming back.
"Joe, Kayla has something rather delicate to say. I want you to promise not to freak out" I said as Joe sat down.
"I don't know how to say this," said Kayla.
"Just tell me what you told me and I'm sure he will be just the same. The longer you wait the worse things will get" I said.1
"Well Joe," said Kayla.
"What's wrong?" said Joe. "you can tell me anything. There's nothing that stop when I feel for you"1
Kayla paused for a moment. The tension was killing me.
"Siri mute me," I said to my collar. I just had to put myself on mute not to jump in.
"Well, it's ... I think you've put a bit of weight on since you've arrived. Just a bit, but we wanted you to know" she said. Joe spat out his drink.
Joe looked surprised "Really. Crap. I was wondering about it but I thought it was the new clothes."
"It's OK it's on your chest," I said then glared at Kayla. Joe still had the super model figure the factory had grafted.2
"You'd hardly notice," said Kayla "Sorry,".
"No no I'm OK with it. It's better coming from friends than from behind my back. " said Joe slightly irritatedly.
"Speaking of defects Rockwood thingyed me. Do you know anything about it?" I said turning round.
Looking round the back Joe found the circular marks of when Rockwood had thingyed me.
"I see he's 'done you'," said Joe looking at the mark just visible through the milky white silicon.
"What is it?" said Kayla looking. It was nice to have something which Kayla didn't already know all about.
"Yeh, it's really weird. It feels like he's taken something from me, but I don't know what" I said showing the mark to her.
"The quote girls unquote have whispers about it." said Joe.
"So what is it?" said Kayla looking at the mark on my spin.1
"The girls call it the satan's bite, but there isn't a name for it really. I only have a rumours. guesses pimped out to be facts. Our guess is the cyborgs like to feed on the synaptic energy of humans. It's complex, I'm told it's a kind of feeding of neural energy. different people have different nervous and mental energies which taste differently to them. The 'girls' said they like virgins that could be them winding me up. To the cyborgs, we are half way between a food stuff and a drug for them. No one knows what it is really. Some said it was how the cyborgs reproduce. I'm told it's OK they only tend to thingny you once."6
"This is my second bite" I said lifting my hair up.
"That doesn't sound good. Err I'll ask around." said Joe.
"What happens if he keeps thingnying me?" I asked.
"No idea ... but I'll find out don't the room slaves know" said Kayla.
"The room slaves are nice but very uptight," I said
"There probably Adherents," said Kayla.
"Huh?"
"Not heard of Adherent Push? Well, it turns out if you go to a posh slave school unlike us they do this selfhelp come philosophy with them. The A.I's teach these ideas which are like a compressed version of all self help book ever written. It's about achieving self realisation through self examination. Kind of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, Robots are from Mercury. Following the practices are supposed to make you happier and more content. Given most of it is about giving up on notions of self, It kind of makes you a docile contented super slave. Adherent Push followers get all the best jobs" said Kayla.5
I guess it was logical if terribly fiendish that the machines take advantage of the huge literature on self help and turn it against us. Trust the machines to feast on our weakness. Perhaps I should be less hard on #DEC and #6502 I guess we are all are only 12 steps from self-subjugation. Note to self, next time we get attacked by robots burn the self help sections of every book every bookstore, in a kind of scorched earth policy. Let no copy of 'How to win friends and influence people' be left unburnt.3
"Speaking of docile I'm still winding down from a sample of Oblivion I was rubbed with" I said.
"He did that you ? What a b*****d" said Kayla.
"No it wasn't him. He was quite livid. It was slave over in Judas City. A certain member of 1D. I was completely zoned out. I was so out of it he was at the centre of my universe and I orbited happy around it."
"Sounds like being in love" said Kayal looking at Joe and they both smirked.
"He could do anything he liked to me and I would cheerfully take more. It was like I wanted him to punish me" I said.
"That doesn't sound like love, that's back to classic stupidity " said Kayla.
"I still get the odd flash backs" I confessed. "I swear if I even smell it again I will get down on my knees. I have this weird compulsion to try it again"
"Fight it. They spent a lot of time on the induction on this. We get random blood tests for it. Performance enhancing drugs are massively forbidden. I think it kcuf's the blood up or something. You get caught it's a couple of weeks in the KCK"1
"parC" that made detention look rather mild.
"Well they said it was super additive and eats your brain. You forget everything, eventually you don't even know who you are or how to feed your self. You end up little more than a walking drone. There's no way back" said Joe.6
"Thingyed twice, Oblivion, sleeping with he who I am not worthy to mention the name of. Its so nice to share all this wonderful news with you. I so love catching up with." Kayla4
"Near fatal plane crash coming back from Judas City" I added.
"We heard, everyone got sent back to their cages" said Kayla.
"Did you say you were over in Judas city. What's it like? " said Joe.
"Beautiful but less Downtown Abby. More like Caligula" I said. Kayla looked away.
"Co-lab scum. It's only a pity the radiation cloud didn't kill them" said Joe.2
"Radiation cloud"2
"Nuclear power plant about 15 miles away went critical months ago, leaks like a sieve. Turns out power plants hadn't been designed with a change of government in mind. We are living in Chonobyle zone."6
"I'm so glad you saved the best news till last"
"Well I think it was some kind of resistance attack. Trouble was the radiation doesn't a
ffect the robots or the A.I's so they don't care. The slaves are safe behind the hall shielding long as you don't go out. About every 20 minutes outside is like an XRay. You spend all day outside all your hair will drop out. It's dropping down. should be clear in 150 years"1
I suddenly felt really really trapped. I was trapped in a dystopian robot world that just keep giving and giving more dysptopian-ness.1
"You don't looked worried" I said to Joe.
"Hay were are all together I have a feeling everything is going to work out fine" he said. For a dolled up unwilling male street walker he was pretty chipper.2
"While I was in Judas city I got some souvenirs. Perhaps you like something from the outside world" I said getting up.1
"Like what" said Joe.
"Well I know how much you miss meat so I've got a packet of Soylent green for each of you"5
I asked my collar and it guided me to my secret hiding place. I got the packets out.
"OMG! do you know what the KCUF that is?" said Joe his eye widening seeing the packets.22
****
Chapter 50 Him/After Labor Day
"Well I know how much you miss meat so I've got a packet of Soylent green for each of you" I said
"Your kidding," said Kayla looking at me weirdly.
"Why should I be kidding? Honestly, take it" I said
"Seriously?" said Joe moving away.
"Sure, why are you looking at me so funny," I said.
"You've been shut up here for to long girl. You know this is meat," said Kayla.
"Yeh, It's slave meat so what?" I said.6
"Oh my god. Two packets of mint in packet Beef and ... ooh parc fish flavoured Soylent green. This is new do you know how rare this is?" said Joe his eyes light up.
"Do you want it now? I'll find a bowl or something" I said still not following the conversation.
"Open them? Seriously ? Do you really done know what you can use this for?" said Joe waving the packet.1
"Eating was my first guess, I think eating it comes in some were. If you want to rub it on I'm OK with it as long as I don't have to watch. No? Maybe you should fill me in" I said. I had always thought that it was the kind of mechanically reclaimed meat they couldn't put in burgers.