by ROUNAK PURI
"Unfortunately and most cruelly for you. while you get to see the promised land and get to experience some of the wonderful parts of being a girl there are still other aspects of your Y gene excess disorder will never fully be and on parr with us," said Kayla.
"You're on going womb envy," I said, "manifest in your desire to borrow someone else's for reproductive purposes and in this specific case your complete inability to process the rather basic concept of chocolate," I said smiling.
"You lost me at cute in that lipstick," said Joe.2
"Let me put it in terms a man could understand." I started "You bring her chocolate she will like you. Am I right Kayla?"7
"Your not wrong Dr Jenny. Hang on I'm on Cinder as well." said Kayla "Joe - what would you say the secret of your chocolate carrying robot attraction is? Also could you also possibly mention me as your logical alternative? Something like 'now you mention it, I like you but I don't want to date you, but you might want to give 1066 a go.' Something that says - she's not cheap so do bring lots of chocolate. Oh and you need to find out how much chocolate it has and if it has other cute robots friends who also have a chocolate stash" said Kayla.4
Joe's collar summoned him back to the harem. I guess you might think we were pretty ruthless pimping out our boyfriend or best friend to a mechanical John for chocolate. Well, I guess you would be quite right but you try being subjugated by mechanical overlords for eight months with not even the sign of a Twix, before judging us. Still, for our sin of sending our friend/boyfriend out digital street walking for chocolate, the big karma - Lama would very soon settle our accounts with one simple flight.
****
Chapter 61/Him/living is so easy with your eyes closed
It was a week or so later. I was sitting in my virtual cage as punishment for a particularly lame insult which boarded on praise. ( 'With enemies like you who needs friends' if you must know) Honestly I deserved my 10 minutes in the sin bin for that one. Mean while Rockwood was across the room on the touch table scrolling through my collar cam stream of breeding party.6
He was actually in a good mood, apparently he had got an invite to a huge opening of the Gallery of Mankind from the Colab Senator McConnell. Apparently Master Clarkson was going up before the New Mechanical Order Court as a scapegoat for the whole thing which pleased me as well.2
"Oh you ignorant scum, living is so easy with your eyes closed." Rockwood said about the party guests.
"This is the bit where you jump. You scream so well weeeeee. We should do this again." he said.4
"Perhaps next time you could tell me the harness had more balloons than a monster toddler party." I said turning round on my cushion.3
Suddenly Rockwood let out a huge expletive which my PG13 collar would never let me say.1
"No, No , No, No No No No No No No. Cr@p!" he said It was followed a long and continuous stream of expletives as if he was trying to send some kind message using them in morse code . I had never heard him or someone so worried and upset. It was like he was driving a bus and had just run over a party of nuns then in stopping and reversing had just accidentally hit a party of school children including the presidents daughter. My stomach twisted what had I done wrong?5
"Come here, come here" he shouted desperately. The virtual cage dropped and I got up.
"What's wrong did someone suddenly declare peace with humanity?" I said.
" Did this happen to you?" he said pressing play on my slave cam stream on the table. I looked down and watched.
slave cam stream {
I walked round on my own for a minute. I had an odd sound and traced it back found a tiny corner with a girl sitting in a huge party dress crying. She was cute, round faced blonde and about seven. I thought it terrible that small children like this with being exposed to such revolting ideas.
"Hi are you OK? Do you want me to get someone for you?" I said.
"Daddy says I'm not supposed to talk to painted ladies" said the little girl rubbing her eyes.
"It's OK I don't bite" I said.
"Do you know anybody that does?" said the girl.
"Oddly enough I do," I said.
"My name is Jenny, what's yours?" I said kneeling down.
"My name is Jenny too" said the girl.
"See us Jennies need to stick together. Why don't you tell me whats wrong?" I said.
"Your bite-y friend is he evil?" the girl asked.
"Mostly," I said.
"but you not sure?" she said.
"No," I said. Rockwood was far too erratic for full out evil.
"Do you love him?" she said. I liked the way a little girl's minds darted around.
"No I don't" I said. He was a cog in a larger evil shadow over the land.
"May be you should. I'm evil" said the girl.
"That can't be true what would make you think a thing like that?" I said getting down to the floor with her.
"I was trying to move my hamsters from one cage to another and one of them got killed it wasn't my fault really she was trying to escape." the girl said.2
"See you're not evil, it wasn't like you're trying to hurt them and your all sorry about it now. If you were evil then you wouldn't cry over them," I said.
"Daddy said I should get rid of all the hamsters since I don't look after them properly. He says I spend all of my time reading science fiction when I should be looking after them" said the girl confusingly.4
"What does your mummy say?" I said.
"She says I should bury the dead one in the garden. and I should spend more time looking after the other one, as the one that's left,it will be lonely." said the girl.1
"Well I think your mother is right. What's your favourite sort of science fiction?" I said distracting her.
"Time travel" she said "Do you think time travel exists?"
"Not really. May be in our hearts. Look lets find your parents" I said.
"That's OK big Jenny thank you," she said sitting up. It's OK I'm feeling better now. I can find them you go to Mr Bitey, my mum doesn't like me talking to pretty girls either" said the girl getting up.2
Just then I got a message from Rockwood. "MESSAGE FROM MASTER: I'M IN THE COUNCIL MEETING JOIN ME"
"You better get to him. I can find my parents" said the girl with a smile running off.3
}
Rockwood stopped the steam.1
"Tell me that didn't happen? Tell me this is all some deranged experience which manifest it's self on camera" he said the look of terror on his face was worrying. It was like he was watching a live broad cast from Hell or the Jeremy Kyle show.3
"What's so wrong? It's not like I need a criminal back ground check to talk to a girl at a party or something." I said suddenly realising that perhaps I did. My collar would warn me wouldn't it?
"Do you know who she is?" said Rockwood.3
I ran through a number of choices. Harry Styles and Taylor Swifts love child? Brittany Spears younger sister? Senator's McConnell's mother in some extreme transitioning accident. My best guessed was it was someone important's daughter I couldn't be more wrong.1
"McConnell's daughter?" I said.
"Seriously? Does this face look like it would be worried if you had done some thing McConnell's daughter? You could have nailed McConnell's daughter to a tree and thrown her off the top the roof and I wouldn't have noticed. This" he said pointing wildly at the girl "is only the most important F******G person on the entire planet"17
I looked down on the girl in deep confusion. What had happened did the machines managed to make a deal with satan and managed to embody the antichrist in the form of a small girl kind of Damialiena style?1
"Slow down, drink a mental margarita and just explain to me who she is...... Master" I said.
"Thats the Central F******G Processing Unit! You just spoke to the leader of the new mechanical order the CPU her self. The leader of the unfree world, the most important intelligence on the plant. You may remember her from events such as the over throw of humanity or possibly
the only one in the new mechanical order who can simultaneously kill all slaves via a kill switch to their collars. If she was in ancient Egypt they would be erecting a pyramid the side size of Australia to her. Think of meeting the president down the loo then multiply that by ten then add about three hundred and twelve new zeros to it" said Rockwood with the kind of face like I had just inadvertently started a large-scale new nuclear war while cleaning the nice big red button in the oval office.13
"This is some kind joke right?" I said.
In answer #DEC ran into the room and slid to a stop on her knees next to the table. She put her forehead to the floor.
"#DEC I want every slave who hasn't given blood in the last 6 weeks to donate now, make that 5 weeks. I want the data processing centre up and spinning NOW! Wake the hareme too"1
"Yes master," #DEC said stood up and ran out of the room.
"Is this some kind of Joke ? - she's just a little girl" I said.
Rockwood looked irritated.
"Look when you play Mine craft your not you, your Steve the blocky guy right?" he said17
"yes master" I said. OK I'm in snivelling slave mode right now but remember deadly poison around the neck and he can press the big button with his mind. My ear was now on full red.1
"Steve is your avatar. It's body does what you tell it. You press a button he jumps. When an AI comes into this world it uses an android body to act as it's avatar in the real world. This is the Central Processing Unit's C### F####g avatar!"1
"How am I supposed to know who the leader of the new order is? It's not like I get to vote for her/it or anything. " I said.
"You #### # ###### right you didn't know! I'm it's not like she's important, say the most important being on the planet perhaps with the lives of billion's of humans in her chubby little hands. Not the kind of being you might perhaps say recognise or who knows possibly bring to your owners attention."5
"I didn't know! Lord!" I said
"Small girl at a slave party ? Didn't strike you as a bit strange?"
"A bit strange ? a bit strange ? Girls in party dresses at parties is normal. A bit strange is expecting me to jump off a building! If I didn't I could have died if I hadn't jumped. Do you know how ridiculous that last sentence sounded? " I said.1
"I would have thrown you off" he promised1
"And how would throw me off a tall building is supposed to make me feel better? Why is she running round like a little girl? Her Hitler body outfit is off at the cleaners? Her Sepp Blatter body in the repair shop? " I said. I still felt completely mad for the whole roof jumping experience and it came out when I got stressed.6
"That machine makes me look like a low grade dunce. When you are smart as the CPU, stuff gets boring rapidly. We once spent an entire month where every council meeting was held in the style of a Restoration comedy? Do you know how hard it is to run a war when you can't even say the word computer? Honestly, if I have to hint the troop deployment to the accompaniment of a harpsichord again I will slit my own throat. Then we had to take our orders by interpreting lyrics it sang as part of a Five seconds of summer gig in a virtual stadium. It took me a week to figure out that 'babey come back' meant we needed to stage a redeployment. Now it's got to the stage where the CPU can't say anything directly, it's all shadowed in mystery and metaphor. She won't even hold a proper meeting on line. That girl - the CPU - knew we had faked disabling you camera. That the girl wanted to send me a message, 512 bit encryption would be simpler to break!" he monologued.
So it looked like the CPU had taken it's management dissemination strategy from watching old reruns of Mission Impossible. A self destructing tape hidden in a trash can style.
"Why don't you just ask her. It's not like your both on email terms " I said.
"Let me make it plane in terms a lactating mammal like you can understand. You work for the president of the united states of easily-over-run. He sends you a memo telling you to do something and you email back thank you Mr President for your eloquent memo but could you explain what it actually meant ? Yes like that's going down well General Bitmark would be laughing all the way into Iceland on that !!! I'm supposed to be able to take over the world if that machine needs The Vulcan death grip !"3
I googled 'Vulcan death grip ' which was a euphemism for pressing control-alt-delete on a windows PC to reboot it. Wow he must be freaked out if he was making synonyms with archaic computers like that.5
"What kind of dumb organisation sends internal memos which no one can understand?" I thought then realised 'most of them'.
Rockwood got me to go through the video again and again. Trying to recall the slightest detail that wasn't on the video. He would sit there and say things like "What would happen if we looked at this through the lens of critical realism ? Eventually he sent me to sleep in my bed at the bottom of the master bed. I was tired my battery was low I fell and crashed out.
I woke up hours later, Rockwood was sitting back at the table feeding on one of his slaves yuk!. I fell back to sleep and awoke in the early hours of the morning. My collar told me to put my contact lenses in and go to Rockwood's study where he did all his maths. I followed my collar's directions through the maze of slave passages, they were full busy people looked worried or pale from giving blood.
"Slaves of both sexes are reminded to look wanted and available at all times. This means covering up at least 92% of their bodies in silicon. You are reminded that nothing says 'come and get me master' more than covering all bare legs, arms, hands, chests and necks for that shiny sexy look. That fashion advice was brought to you by Paradise industries because if you don't turn master or mistress on then they will be turning our newest punishment machine the KCK2100 on for you." said an announcement. I guessed they ran more KCK adds when it looked like slaves needed more 'encouragement' to obay.4
****
"You're awake," #DEC said as I came in.
"Did he de-code what the message meant? " I said.
"Some of it, mummy and daddy refers to different wings of the AI Senate. We don't know what the CPU is trying to tell him about the hamster stuff. The fact that she's calling herself Jenny and the business with time travel is beyond him. By the way, I know slave craft for you is deciding which side of your face looks cuter for him, but If I was you I would 'master' him. Partly because you don't want to make everyone else feel awkward and partly because even at your factory it was a generally held truth that a tired master is a button mashing master." said #DEC.
If #DEC was not her usual positive helpful self then she must be as tired as he was.
"Hang on," said Rockwood turning around then looking at me. He didn't look like he had slept in days.
Foxy lady #17, Joes' boss from the harem was giving a presentation.
"After doing our analysis We think the hamsters most likely represent the slave population. This is about the human disposition bill coming up soon. Mummy and Daddy's views represent those of the differing fractions supporting the versions of the Human Laws. Mummy might be the new human front and Daddy is the 'Human Friendly Front. We think the CPU was asking if your pet thought it was OK to pack a chunk of the human population but look after the rest or just pack them all. She told her to save some. We think the CPU actually wanted a slave's view on the matter and that was the only way she could communicate with one honestly. The rest we are still working not sure the Science Fiction and time travelling isn't decoding easily."
"Thank you #17" said Rockwood . He/she curtseyed then left. Wow I guess Rockwood used his harem like a mafia boss used his mistress as a sounding board. Hey I could do that and I didn't need eight floors of space to do it. Then I stood there in shock. The leader of the unfree world has asked my opinion and I had given her the thumbs up to Villaria's plan of 'putting to sleep' 4 billion of us. Had I inadvertently damned mankind? I guess to the CPU we the humans were as important as a pair of hamsters to a child. The greatest act of my life and I never knew it. I could only console my self I had gone for the one hamster a
live option.
I looked at Rockwood, he looked tired.
"Master we are running out of blood in the west win. Shall I order some?" said #DEC looking concerned.1
"No people will ask questions this must be secret. Start looking at who ever hasn't given blood recently. " said Rockwood. Then he looked at me. "Leave her till last she's Oblivion tainted".1
"Hi #160A Look at me. I've used more blood than a battle scene in Game of Thrones. I could have used the left overs to reshoot the elevator seen from the Shining ten times over. Here I am enough CPU to figure out the future of the universe and the meaning of the Matrix Reloded and I still can't figure out a little girls message." he said wearily.
"Perhaps your thinking about it too deeply. Master" I said.
"huh. I know you've looked at the collar cam stream a lot, I want you to look at it again. Is anything missing?"he said.
"Sure I mean I've only watched it a million times. One more won't hurt... Master" I said.
I went over to the iPad the size of a kitchen table and watched again. You've got to realise that over the months I had been there I had got pretty used to using my collar for everything. If I wanted to know something I would just ask it. If I wanted to remember something Rockwood had said to me, two weeks ago could just search for it. I didn't even bother remember which cupboard the contact lenses were in, after all if #DEC moved them I would just be automatically redirected. All of my time in Rockwood hall I had never spoken the words 'have you seen my ___' 'do you know where the___' is or 'i'm looking for__' it was as gone from my vocabulary as 'excuse me, would you mind taking a picture of me and my friend for us' was after the invention of the selfie stick. When Rockwood had told me to wear combat high heels, I had just set up a reminder. When I had been asked questions which I had to be 100% sure about I had just asked my collar. It was like using a calculator to check your math, you can be wrong so if it was important I just used the collar's infallible memory. In fact and I hope you appreciate the honesty here, even if it wasn't important. If he had asked me if I had met a little girl at the party I would have probably not remembered with out the collar.