Where had Mako gone? At least he knew what he was doing. These others... The mechlings...
“On. Lie down.”
They pushed her forward until she climbed onto the table. Nik and Weln strapped her down efficiently then went to check the others. None of them were restrained. Perhaps they weren’t smart or stupid enough to resist.
The mechling at her table removed the collar, and she felt the whispering touch in her thoughts of its presence. All of them had this effect if close enough. Though at first their thoughts had frightened her, she’d become used to hearing them as a background noise. On Earth she’d have been looking for a therapist, or a wooden stake and garlic, maybe a ghost exorcist. Here...it was nothing. The one curious thing was that Mekkers couldn’t seem to hear them.
Mechlings never seemed cruel or menacing, and she relaxed a little. Not malevolent. This was not some evil means of sucking out all her blood.
“This will be your first,” the mechling intoned, gently stroking her neck and wetting it with something that soothed then numbed. “We will place a port in your neck and a tube that stays inside your blood vessel. You must not try to remove it. It will be connected to your collar. Removing it will result in excessive blood loss, though death is unlikely.”
Fuck oh fuck. A small litany of elaborate curses train-wrecked inside her head, piling up as the mechling pricked her neck with what must be a large needle, injecting something that swelled into her skin, stinging.
“Be calm. Shhhh. This takes away the pain and makes you happy.”
Her eyes had trouble staying open, but she made them do so. Every step she catalogued. Maybe she could get it out if she knew how it went in? Her stomach flip-flopped at that thought.
Though pain was absent, she felt something cold pressing at her and worming inside her neck.
Happy. I’m happy. She gulped quietly, not wanting to make whatever the mechling inserted go somewhere it shouldn’t. Her fingers clenched at the padding. Her imagination provided her with images of a snake slithering into her chest and biting at her heart.
The room swirled, settled into warmth.
Above, a clear tube was screwed into the metal-scaled one and red blood surged upward against gravity. Her blood. She shut her eyes.
Eventually, her collar was reapplied. Clicks and whirs told her this was more than a mere rebuckling. By then her entire neck was numb. Five dull, small punches went all the way around where the collar lay.
“There,” the mechling announced. “It is fastened. The rivets are in place. These will release a cleansing chemical that will stop infection. You will be fine. Have a nice day, Miss Emery.”
Miss Emery. Her name. If that didn’t threaten to unleash tears...
The straps were removed and she was free, but she lay there, listening to her breathing and the movements of everyone else in the room, the mechanical noises. When she glimpsed Nik coming toward her, she gingerly levered herself upright until she was seated on the table’s edge. A nudge of her ass made her slip to the floor, and she stood.
A thing was inside her.
Her first need was to examine the collar. Her fingers made their way around, feeling each bump. The collar no longer slipped. She counted where each isolated tightness held it in place. Her eyes were surely wide. Her head spun at the thought of something inserted in her, halfway to her heart. Five rivets, where the metal studs had been on the collar. One of them, she guessed, must unscrew or open, and let them take blood at will. She was sure people on Earth had something like this, for medication and other treatments.
It wasn’t so revolutionary. If only her knees didn’t want to collapse.
Nik and someone else helped escort her to the door, their hands under her elbows, where another queue of slaves waited.
Vampires 101? What else could this be? They stole blood. She just needed a supply of wooden stakes to defeat them.
If only it was so.
By the time, Morami – an older female slave – showed her how to herd the mechlings to the roof, she was fully herself again. The numbness had faded, and she only remembered the collar and its deviant purpose every half an hour or so, jolting to a stop, taken back, back to having that tube fed into her vein, artery, whichever.
You’ll forget soon. It will be nothing. So the other slaves had assured her.
As if.
As. If!
They were going to do this to her until she died. She would not let this happen. The last Slave Twelve had died from a heart attack, after years of being used as a mobile blood bank. Her stomach crawled at the vision of marching into that room every week from now until for-fucking-ever.
The stars would fall before she allowed this.
A hatchway folded open at the top of these broad, dark stairs. Sky was revealed in a segment that expanded from slit to a pale blue rectangle. The thin, frothy clouds were pink but oh they reminded her of home. She took the last few steps at a run, with mechlings scampering at her heels and bouncing out onto the rooftop like a tide of domesticated metal rats.
Their little buzzing thoughts were an undercurrent that lifted her.
The last step clanged underfoot.
Blueness filled her vision.
Rise. This is beautiful.
Seeing the sky lent her life a presence and a power. There was more to Aerthe than this ship – no matter how monstrously huge a vessel this was.
Much more.
She stood at her full height and turned on the spot, grinning, breathing air untainted by the stench of too many people, of too many Mekkers.
The Scav woman, Morami, came up beside her. “I can see you like it up here. It’s not bad.”
“I do.”
Morami was a small, stooped woman with gray hair in a bun and eyes as yellow as a...what animal had yellow eyes? It seemed a common color among the Scavs.
“Just don’t get ideas, will you?”
Ideas? For the first time, she looked around and saw what she stood on. High, they were so high the trees were ants. Ahead was a cloud of rising dust, and she guessed the vehicles, or landships as some called them, were eating the ground. Mining had been mentioned. The Mekkers mined as they went, ripping up the land. When she turned to face where they had been, the evidence was clear. A miles-wide track gouged many yards deep, and as orange as the far mountains but more vivid, raw. Nothing remained of the trees, the shrubs, the grass. To the sides travelled more ships, moving in a voracious tide. Each ship had its own shape but this one she stood on seemed the largest and tallest. Smaller vessels spun off and skimmed the ground at the perimeters or circled wider, or sped outward like arrows spurting dust trails.
The backs of the landships shone and...crawled. Mechlings moved in small swarms, settling in place, shrouding the hulls. Where they settled, blue violence surged and disturbed the air in spiral threads that cut off and fell.
The ones near her feet did the same, lowered themselves to suck onto the metal. Blue erupted, spun, trickled down like spent fireworks.
“What are they doing?” she whispered.
“They do what they do.” Morami shrugged. “They recharge themselves and feed power to the ship at the same time.
“Sun energy?”
“Nope.” Again she shrugged. “You crazy? It’s blue. What putra sun is blue?”
“Uh-huh.” What were the ideas she’d referred to? If she had to guess...and her gaze traversed the ship’s skin, moved over the slopes, followed a path to the edges. If she had to guess... There were ways you could go to reach the edges. Did people commit suicide? Or try to escape across the tops? The distance to the ground daunted and dizzied her.
“Do people run? From here?”
“Some try. Don’t. Even if you could get over the safety wall, which you can’t, you’d fall, get eaten by the ship’s scoops, turned into minerals and blood. Messy.”
A safety wall? If she squinted she could see something but it seemed short. Perspective must be confusing her.
“I’m not aiming
to try.”
“Lest I forget to say...here I go. Your job is to watch the mechlings don’t wander off. Some get a little dizzy with the recharge. You’ll hear a warning if they do. Pay heed. They won’t get over the wall, but it will take a lot of time to gather them up. The ship stretches a long way fore and aft.”
And a football field in width. Which made this whole Swathe immense. A city on the move.
She twisted her mouth. “Mechling herder. Got it. Won’t I get sunburnt?”
It was close to midday.
“You could. Here. Not with this.” Morami handed her the stick she carried.
Though it unfurled in the opposite way to umbrellas, the stick was an umbrella – a bright red one that opened and covered a full yard.
“Don’t matter if you shade the mechlings.” She swept her hand across the little herd. “They get the blue power from the air, far as I can tell. Be good, missy. I’ll come back later.”
“Okay.” She twirled the umbrella, fascinated by how the struts reminded her of walking down a street in the rain.
“That’s not a toy!” Morami pursed lips, held hands on hips. “Take care, and last, ’cause I figure you need this advice...”
What was this? “Yes?”
“Be careful. Mako is not a placid man. He’s slaughtered an eternity of Scavs.”
Placid? An odd adjective, as if Morami was skirting the truth. The warning about Mako was a little late. An eternity sounded bad.
“I see.” She ran through her replies. “What if...I...slaughter him?” It was just silly boasting, except she wanted to see what it triggered.
Morami’s eyes widened. “Shush! Don’t you know? The mechlings hear all. Eyes, ears. Everything you say up here.”
Oh crap. Spies? These were spies?
“They listen?”
“They send, automatically. The House Master gets the feed.”
But no one else, maybe? What help was that though? Even if she ran from here, which she didn’t mean to, they would see. Run across the roof and fall over the side? Emery shuddered. She raised the umbrella, watched the pink light that filtered through change the hue of the mechlings she shaded.
Cockroach sorts, little dog things, purple etched bugs, the assortment was as varied as a pack of... She lost it – couldn’t think of anything to compare these creatures to. M&M’s was all she recalled in the moment. Would a day come when she forgot her old life, her existence on earth?
“I will remember what you said.”
“Good.” Morami did a small bow of her head. “You are an expensive slave with a good owner. He is fair. He likes men. No one will fuck you. Maybe that is good?” Then she turned and left Emery, walking back down the steps.
Good? It was good until she thought of the man she might’ve found who might’ve loved her. Not here, but there, on Earth. A hypothetical man.
Freedom.
Dream on.
How did she beat these people when the very things they had her minding were watching her?
She sighed.
The ever-present buzz of the mechlings thoughts would not let her be too negative. She heard them, and no Mekker seemed to. Unusual yet good. Another potential weakness.
Keep thinking.
Tuck it away. Keep thinking.
She found a small alcove where she could rest her back against a buttress that rose and dwindled to become a black pole far above. The thigh bruises made her wince, but the pain grew less once she found out how to sit the right way. She didn’t know what the pole above her did, what any of this did. Her wrist tired. The umbrella dipped and let her shield her eyes from what lay out there.
Maybe that was for the best. Today had exhausted her. Pretend nothing was out there but a summer’s day at the beach.
Sand. Sun. Fish. Swimming in the warm sea.
The rock and hum of the ship sent her into a syrupy oblivion.
She woke with her ear numb from resting against metal. And her mind ringing.
Something was talking to her. Words tumbled.
Help...me.
Panicking, she shot upright, sitting, and looking about. What had that been?
The screech of an alarm sounded. A mechling was tottering away, toward the perimeter. If it kept going it’d reach the steeper side, slide down, and be difficult to recover.
Climbing to her feet, umbrella rolling, she dashed over and scooped it up. The metal was strangely soft in her fingers. Furry. Her heart jumbled through the motions, pitter-scattering.
“What the fuck!” She slapped her hand to her chest. “Where were you going?”
Asking it was stupid. Being this panicked over a robot was even stupider. Except, this handful of foot-high horsey thing, with its purple fur and the elephant proboscis, it was as cute as a child’s toy.
Which...she studied it...maybe it was one?
It was. Once.
That inner foreign voice jolted her and she gasped.
Don’t show your reaction. Don’t. Please. It’s dangerous.
What was this? What was talking to her?
The horsey-elephant mechling climbed her arm using its trunk and snuggled into her chest, wrapped its trunk about her arm and purred, as she turned in a slow, puzzling circle.
This mechling wasn’t doing the talking.
It dawned on her. That voice was however a mechling, and no one could hear it but her, because it was in her mind.
It wasn’t the furred one. Which was totally taking liberties with her arm. So what was it?
Me. I am what you stand upon. Emery.
Damn. She swallowed. What are you?
Something that needs your help. I am JI-mech 34.
Help? When she needed that more than anyone or anything?
God.
Tears dribbled down her face. She wiped them away. How could she refuse?
I am here, she thought-whispered. Tell me more.
But the voice had gone. She heard no more words in her mind.
Hello?
No answer.
Wait, wait, wait. What am I doing? That question was for her.
With the euphoria of finding an ally fading, she realized the flaw.
She knew nothing of whoever, whatever, this was. JI-mech, and she stood on it? It’d sounded intelligent.
Under her feet was metal, and she tapped her foot on it. As she examined her surroundings, she could see places where there were possible joins, yards away, but it wasn’t clear whether anywhere was different. Was this mech something big or was she seeing the wrong, faded parts of the color scheme as joins? Was it the ship itself? Was it the whole shebang, the gargantuan behemoth everyone lived inside?
That was worrying.
That assumption was likely wrong.
The thing had vanished from her head anyway. It had said it was a mech. All mechlings were small or at most human-sized. It might be an enemy or something dangerous.
She had no clue, just a few words that already seemed a dream.
“Why are you messing with me?” she asked, frowning and turning in a slow circle.
Chapter 9
Mako drummed his fingers on the timber of his desk then sat forward to stare. The video feed from the mechlings was something he generally left for the end of the day – played it as he did other more interesting stuff. Except this, of Emery on the roof, had drawn him to sit and watch, fast-forwarding some, slowing others. This part where she had tears rolling down her face fascinated him.
The tears, sure, normal in a way. Saw them regularly. He liked seeing those when he caused them – pleasure and pain, a familiar mix. But this wasn’t that. The chair protested as he leaned to the side, his elbow on the arm rest, the side of his face resting on his hand.
Should he do something? Did he need to? She’d had many shocks for one day.
As House Master he needed to keep everyone efficient and happy within reason, even the slaves.
As a valuable slave she needed to be kept mentally happy. Except when she gave
him a good excuse not to. Punishment had to be fair and just, and not too often.
He closed his eyes so as not to see her face... Shay’s face. Not too often. That was the excruciating and unique aspect with her. Hanging her upside down from a wall while he made her scream would be something he could become accustomed to doing daily. It would be great for his mental equilibrium.
He slapped the off button and stood.
Okay. Maybe he should let her see another human. The slaves in the household were barely interacting with her, apart from Slave Two, Morami. The only human one he recalled who would be safe to let her near was Drette’s slave, Gio. Perhaps not the ideal choice. She was the first human ever taken.
The saner that Emery, Slave Twelve, was, the more stable she would be. The safer she would be from his impulses.
He really should stop thinking her old name.
He tugged the chair out and slipped into it again. Time to do something boring. Signing, more signing.
For a second he unfocused.
He’d seen the flare of a string of Sniker engines light up the horizon as the sun sank and dribbled pink across the land... The distant rumble of the Swathe as it advanced and ate that same land. Smelled the earth. Felt the rough, greasy wool of a landbeest under his hand. Sank his teeth into hot, bloody meat that he’d brought down himself, skinned, then roasted for supper.
Nothing compared to that. He glanced down, sighed. Especially not paperwork.
Organizing supplies, repairs, and Basteer’s timetable for the week, those all had to be done tonight.
Since Shay had died, he’d not found even a whore to bed, slave or otherwise. It’d seemed traitorous. Maybe he should do that? Slake the thirst, and he’d find Slave Twelve less alluring.
For a while he stared at nothing, unblinking, thinking that through. He’d need one that liked being made to scream.
The bottom drawer of the desk held a shock collar he rarely used, plus a coiled whip, heavier clamps. He removed the collar, studied it. These could be his test. If a whore baulked at these, he’d move on until he found a willing one.
It might take a few days to arrange this meeting between Emery and Gio. That would give the household time to adjust to her.
Acquired Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 1) Page 5
