by ROUNAK PURI
"You know your posh collar has a self punishment mode. You can get it to make or break any habits you like, you know nail biting, hair pulling, even going into excessive monologs like a certain cyborg owner we both share. ." said Kayla with a twinkle in her eye.4
"Look I've been reduced to having my third best friend as a Roomba, give me a break. I making friends with cleaning implements, I feel like I was becoming some kind of weird cyber Disney princess locked up in a high tower"
"You should try singing block-buster show tunes. Disney's Cyber Princess - I could see it happen. Needs a little work tell them I'll write the script" said Kayla.Before I could say 'I would if I could but I was wearing an invisible tee shirt which said 'I was extensively and horribly operated on my a robot cosmetic surgery engine and all I got was this lousy singing voice'.
Joe turned up.1
"All hail our glorious robot overlords," Joe said arriving. He had a man with him.
"Whatsup" we both replied.
"Do you mind if 1945 sits in with us we are on a date" said Joe.13
"Sure" we both said. My WTF-ometer was going off the scale. Joe's date did look quite hunky has life in harem finally 'turned him'? 1945 was quite a nice looking African American. I wonder what polite term we use for African American now we are all slaves probably fellow slave? African Region 1 didn't sound right.2
1945 smiled sitting down he was in a red systems catsuit.
"I'm Jenny" I said offering my hand. He looked at me in surprise.
"What's your real name?" he said.1
"#160A" I said "but my friends call me Jenny, you can call me #160A if you're uncomfortable. I don't mind" I said some carrot salad coming out of my mouth.
"Where's your date?" Asked Joe sitting next to Kayla.
"She's busy" said she would be here later.3
"OMG you guys have split up?" I said nearly spitting asparagus risotto out.
Joe smiled.
"No, it's all part of my evil plan. You see using your Soylent green I was able to bribe a guy in one of the server rooms to reboot one of the machines" said Joe.
"Rebooting a master - unless they are crashed that's like a bad offence" said 1945 in shock.
"No, it turns out that the entire Cinder house dating system. Runs on an old Mac mini plugged into the server room. Occasionally the odd drop of leaking blood causes it to be rebooted. That corrupts the database. The database isn't important and it get's fixed by a certain slave. And if you know the right guy then your id can mysteriously appeare on the system even when it's not supposed to. After that I'm just following orders." said Joe.1
"What's Cinder?" I asked.11
"Slave dating app. If you're single your forced to go on dates with other single slaves in the hall like him. Kayla and I both signed up both and eventually we will date each other. Then magic happens" said Joe.1
"Genius. sounds like a lot of work" I said.
"I would date 500 girls and I would date 500 boys just to be the man who dated one thousand people to fall down at your door " said Joe to Kayla. I noticed they didn't kiss but I guess Joe had some feelings for his date.3
Kayla looked at Joe and smiled the way only a woman truly in love can smile. I so wanted that smile.2
"We need to do something about your Proclaimers collection first" she said.1
"That's where your wrong I was referring to Shriek" said Joe turning to me.1
"How did you get your name on the system?" hoping Joe hadn't offered to sleep with the guy.
"Only cost me two packets of top grade soylent green, thank you very much." said Joe.
"You paid two packets of Soylent green for her? " said 1945 pointing at me.
"Not her, her" said Joe pointing at Kayla.
"You paid two packets of soylent green for her" said 1945 pointing at Kayla.
"Unlike some girls, I'm worth two packets of soylent green. " said Kayla.
"You should have said, I would have slept with you for two packets of Soylent green." said 1945 to Joe.
"They all say that. How many times do I have to tell people I'm off the menu" said Joe.
"So where does Miss explosion-in-a-paint-factory coming to this" said 1945 nodding at me.1
"Little miss celebrate Holi early here gave me the soylent green to do it. " said Joe.
"Loaned" corrected Kalya.
1945 looked at me "I can't imagine what deviant and perverted act a hot chick like that would want you to do for two packets of Soylent green, but whatever it is I'm up for it," he said.
"Their friends I just gave it to them" I said.1
"Really because there is a mansion out on Long island I've been looking at for ages" said 1945.
I smirked, he smirked.
"Seriously where do you get soylent green like that?" said 1945.
"He took me to the city it was a free gift" I said.
"Why did he take you to the city?"
"I'm his pet. Or intern and I think I'm redefining it," I said.
"Your Pet girl? You mean your YCF girl?" said 1945 peering at me obviously trying to think of me without the makeup.3
I nodded. "Has everyone seen that stupid YouTube video but me?" I said.
"You're still alive? You realise this proves god exists cos there is no other way that's happening" said 1945 incredulously.2
"No she's dead but her ghost comes round every Christmas to good little girls and boys and a gives out packets of soylent green, but only if you believe in the soylent green fairy" said Kayla.5
"That would explain the face" said 1945.
"Don't give him ideas" said Joe.
"She's been outside, does she glow in the dark to?" said 1945 to Joe.
"Not the last time I looked" I said.
"I guess you must feel pretty proud" said Joe.
"Proud of what?" I said.
"Saving our glorious master overlord's life in the helicopter. You rebooted him." said Joe. Clearly the harem had nothing else to do but speed gossip.
"I'm sorry. Rebooting? is that wrong does that happen much?" I said.
"Often enough they have a large staff in the processor farm who's job it is to do it. " said Kayla.
"My god and entire life of switching machines on then off again how demeaning" I said.1
"Hey that's my job" said 1945.
"Sorry" I said
"I'm only messing with you, it is demeaning, I also play chess against him, from grand chess master to this" said 1945. I think his collar went off. "hey I've got to go. You harem girl, this was the worst date ever."
"Harem boy. " said Joe.
"Have you looked in the mirror recently. You YCF, girl don't go taking any more chances and if you get on cinder let me know first. You foxy girl, If anyone was willing to put up with me and hand over two packets of soylent green for me I would sit on his/her lap for the rest of my life with a grin the size of the golden gate bridge. I hope you don't mind but given I'm the only one losing out on this date, I'm going to be thinking about you two guys kissing when I'm in bed tonight."
"Too much information" said Kayla.
"Hang tuff" said 1945 walking off.
"Don't forget to say what a bad date it was on Cinder" said Joe as 1945 left. "It's a real pain. I originally thought I would have to only wade through all the lesbians in the house saying no. Unfortunately anyone can make a bid so I have to go through all the boys too. I even had a robot for some reason.. I'd so like to get my hands on that software."
"What's worse is he's got more boy's trying to date him than girls" said Kayla.
"Don't listen to her, she's annoyed I got more date requests than her" said Joe.
"Grr" said Kayla to Joe.
"Look I'm from the harem I'm exotic." said Joe.
"You exotic? That's fine talk. You flunked belly dancing at the factory" said Kayla." the last girl I dated all she wanted to know about was you Joe. I'm like call your self a lesbian and she's like well you called your self a lesbian. I ask you!"
"Stop
just stop. As I said as soon as word gets out, people will let us get together. I didn't realise so few people knew about what the harem girls were like. Speaking of which. I checked with the girls" Joe began after looking around. I loved the way he made little air quotes with his hands around the 'girls' bit.
"Nothing solid about 'thingying'. It's a kind of feeding of neural energy. If he does it often enough regularly enough it will drain your mental energy you might die."4
"How often are we talking about?" I said.
"No more eight to twelve depends upon the gap between. He's eating your life force said one girl. Others say it's how they reproduce - if he let's you drain his energy he's trying to turn you into one of them a cyborg."9
"You're not feeling evilish?" said Kayla.
"I was briefly thinking of subjugating your sorry asses" I said
Joe and Kayla looked horrified.
"I'm joking. Look how do they know all this?" I said.
"Apparently Lady Zola, Lady Villeria all have those marks on their spines"
"So from that information you could think this is how cyborgs you know. How do you say it with a PG 13 filter? Build love?" I said
"Build as in Make" said Kayla. I nodded.
"Who told you all this?" I asked.
"A guy I met on my darts team told me" said Joe.1
"You have a darts team?" said Kayla.
"No... Its more of a mini darts league" said Joe honestly.
My mind filled with a vision of groups of transvestite courtesans playing darts in high heels. I guess this would explain my Master wanted to keep this secret. There was a thin line between kinky wild sexy and complete stupidity. This had crossed the line and stamped it's passport on the way through. When the A.I's sucked up all human knowledge on the internet they sucked up a tanker load of pornography. I guess like a teenage boy with nothing else to go on, they got a pretty twisted view of humanity and it's reproductive sports. Perhaps the machine part of masters brain was filled a very weird branch of this collective subconscious. I caught my self feeling sorry for him, but reminded myself he was wiping out large numbers of humanity so could suck my chic.9
"Are there sexy cheer leaders and stuff" ask Kayla
"No it's just a board around the office. I shouldn't have said that" said Joe.
"Hagdrid! So it's all sexy secretaries?" I asked. This was getting very weird again.3
"Yes! That's it exactly sexy, secretaries. We occasionally goof off OK" said Joe relieved for some reason.
"Your voice is all weird" Joe said to me.
"I wazz wondering that. It feels like I've got a sore throat" I said in a odd way.2
"I think you should see a Doctor. I'm surprised your collar hasn't forced you to go yet" said Joe.2
"The term doctor has been depreciated. You need to go to technical support
"Come one we'll take you" said Kayla. Finishing her lunch and pinching Joe's ass.
****
Chapter 54/Him/The Omega interdiction
Kayla and Joe took me to wait for technical support. Normally your collar just forced you to go when it detected a medical abnormality, and there wasn't any waiting. We all sat together in the corridor doing nothing.
"Pity we can't go to the harem technical support. It's really fast they get machines sorted out very quickly to" said Joe while we waited. I'm sure if I had just asked him Joe would tell me that technical support in the harem was just "OK". I wasn't well enough to wonder what technology courtesans needed technical support for. Then I guessed and thought it better not to think about it. There was a buzzing in my head and I didn't feel up to taking this further. After a while Joe's collar ordered him back to 'work' whatever that meant. I watched another one of their signature electric kisses.
"This is to let you know that last months slave of the month award 1969 failed the mandatory performance drugs and perfume tests. Remember random fragrance checks will be carried out on all slaves . The award for slave of the month now goes to 1666 pending aromatic checks. Please stand by for a live streaming of 1969 being forced into in the KCK machine for two weeks this evening at 9.2.
"That's a shame I thought Lance was a pretty good winner. It was just nice to see someone who wasn't an Adherent get it" said Kayla.1
We waited.
"Do the adherent always get it?" I asked.
"Nearly, their brand of self help promotes extreme selflessness. Thinking of others always before thinking of yourself. Really helps when it comes to obedience time trials - which is what slave of the month ultimately comes down to. That means most of the early retirement positions are held by them which means of course they get more people wanting to become Adherents." Kayla explained glad of an excuse to speak.1
"Early retirement?" I asked. Normally I just asked Siri but it wasn't hearing me at the moment.
"Early retirement? You really should try and get yourself on one of the new arrivals courses. You do five years of high-performance service. Then you will get retired early to one of the human reservations. Think of it as time off for good behaviour" said Kayla.
"why would they do that?"
"Well in the presentation they said that they are trying to promote the retire from slavery at 40 thing. Except of course slaves don't believe it." I said. Machines had lied about the doughnuts why not about the reservation? You land on your new home to be and then get a stun bolt to the head.4
"It does sound a bit too Cloud Atlas doesn't it?" I said.
"That's good everyone else says 'the Island'ish, guess your not a big Ewan McGregor fan? So they need some people to show that the whole deal is genuine. So they are rewarding the best slaves with early retirement. The only catch is you need to go back and do tours telling other slaves about how you well live." said Kayla. Even if it was a trick they would still have to be good to the early slaves who made the case.
"Is it genuine?" I said.
"It worked for the Romans. Plus a certain owner I know a lot about had her slaves on the scheme. It's genuine" Kayla was referring to herself. I still found it hard to believe that someone would willingly enter all this c**p just to be with the one(s) she loved. It sounds stupid I know but I envied her. Having that element of certainty. My boyfriends were compromises. I always felt that they thought I was a compromise as well. At least I felt I was a living the life like a trade off.
"As soon as Joe and I start dating on Cinder we are going to sign up for it. By my late twenties we could be out together and have kids on some nice reservation" she said. I envied her ability to plan for a happy future shared with someone.
"Well at least you could both share the breastfeeding," I said.1
"Why miss 5642..." Kayla began.
A light opened up above a booth and Kayla and I went in. I was sitting in a small booth like a sit down phone box. I wasn't happy, I had a thing about small spaces ever since the KCK machine. I took the receiver off the wall.1
"Welcome to Paradise industries medical call pod. Calls to technical support may be recorded for security and training purposes." My heart sunk this really put me off going to the doctor again.
"Hello my name is Rajesh 4032" said the voice on the other end. Apparently, all of technical support staff were called Rajesh. Even if they were from New Jersy.
"I've got this sore throat. My nose hurts, I'm sneezing, I think I'm getting a headache, I feel dreadful" I said.
"OK but before that do you have your UUID code?" said Rajesh 4032. Seriously I had to prove I was from here? Of course, I was legitimate, how else would I be in one of their pods?
Siri wasn't working for some reason.
"My collar isn't coming back," I said.
"That happens sometimes when you're ill. It can't recognize you. The UUID code the one on the bottom of your foot"
"I can't take my shoes off, they are printed on," I said.
"OK no problem do you know your PID the one starting with EE43 ?" said Rajesh
.
"NO, I know my Model number does that help?" I said.
"Do you have any of the orginal packaging that you came in available?"
"No. I was made by slave systems inc." I hated the way I had to pretend I was 'manufactured'. I guess the machines couldn't handle the notion of untrained amateurs making the population. It was like discovering your new car was made by the guy down the street in his spare time.
"hmm OK can you put your foot on the scanner," said Rajesh.
It turns out that there is a tiny unique tread at the bottom of every shoe. It's effectively a bar code and is scanned by the floor on occasion to know you are you. It also means if you walk on any soft-ish surface you can be identified later so no short cuts through the roses.
This carried on for 10 minutes eventually a combination of my Model number and slave ID was enough to find me on the house database.
"5" I ended up after all the other digits saying slowly from memory.
"5" said Rajesh
"6"
"6"
"4"
"4"
"2"
"2"
"that's it," I said.
Kayla had left, her collar had reminded her it was time to get back to work. I thought I would be OK on my own.
"Oh, your were with Bank of America. My mother had 64 in her name, nice. I've got your UUID. So your symptoms were?" said Rajesh.
"I've got this sore throat. My nose hurts, I'm sneezing, I think I'm getting a headache, I feel dreadful. I have a buzzing in my ear" I said.
I heard typing in the background.
"Can you plug the cable in front of you into your collar. Its end is in the sterilizing jug."
I shook the cable to get rid of any fluid plugged in. It smelled of hospital.
"Good good hmm. Just hang on a moment." Rajesh put me on hold.
I heard something. steps. A door opened in my pod and a fabulous looking young Indian man reached in with a thermometer and took my temperature.
"Thank you," he said and closed the door. I heard steps again.
