Bonfire Night free porn video

Bonfire Night by Erin Tyler I know this will piss you off, but please bear with me. We'll get to all the horrible, horrible things that happened to me soon. I promise. Fort Van Buren in upstate New York wasn't really a proper fort in the sense that it was a permanent army post. It had been up for many years, but it was never meant to withstand a siege or provide much protection for the city of Syracuse behind it. What it did do was provide the city with an observation outpost and new soldiers with a high ground from which to shoot at the occasional bandit, and a high wall to protect them when the bandits shot back. Up on the fort's hill and within its wooden walls were five bunkhouses, along with a mess hall and a common yard. There was a well for water, although its supplies were limited and water was often brought in from nearby Onondaga Lake. On top of the southeast turret was a large lamp that soldiers used to pass messages between themselves and the main office in Syracuse, because simply walking the eight miles to the city would've been tantamount to abandoning their post. It was a bitterly cold mid-January morning when Private Reg Maynard went to complain to his CO, Sergeant Luke Oakes. Even in his thick green parka, the 17-year-old soldier was still shivering. The sun hadn't risen yet, and the gray haze around them obscured most of the surrounding countryside. "This is bullshit, man," he said to Oakes, who watched the west through binoculars. Oakes looked up. "Watch your tongue," he warned him. Maynard sighed. "This is bullshit, sir," he corrected himself. "That's better." Oakes went back to peering through the binoculars. Maynard ducked down next to Oakes. "What're they doing out there, sir?" "Ehhh..." Oakes clicked his teeth. He wasn't shivering -- he liked the cold. "Pretendin' to be invisible, I think. They're tryin' to take advantage of the fog..." His voice trailed off. Maynard breathed in and out a little. It sounded to Oakes like the kid was about to have a panic attack. "Does the main office know?" "Of course they know, rookie. We told them four hours ago." "Do they know what's going on at Fort Ontario?" Oakes said nothing. "'Cause I was just up at the lamp, and they said they haven't been relayed any news from Oswego." Oakes gritted his teeth and put the binoculars back down. "Then no, rookie. They don't fucking know what's going on up at Fort Ontario." "I just..." Maynard breathed into his hands and rubbed them together, even though they were bundled in thick gloves and were unaffected by the heat from his breath. He squinted out across the landscape. Even without binoculars, he could see shadows moving on the I-90. Someone was out there, among the abandoned cars. And judging by the amount of movement, it was a lot of someones. To his credit, Maynard didn't say anything. He resisted saying what he wanted to say: "I don't want to be out here." However, he did let out a little groan that betrayed his feelings. Oakes slapped the binoculars against the top of the wall. "Jesus fuck, would you calm down?! You're making me nervous!" Maynard pulled his lips between his teeth and shivered quietly. "It's just a big group of bandits thinkin' they're bein' sneaky! Once they come outta those cars, you an' me will pick a few of 'em off, and the rest'll scatter! Jesus!" There was silence between them for a few seconds. "Just us two?" Maynard asked softly. Oakes was getting sick of this. "I brought you up here with me for tonight's watch because I thought you were a fucking soldier for the Syracuse City Army! Was I wrong?!" "...N-no..." "Then you should have training to take on a handful of bandits! Did you receive that training?!" "...Yes." "Then what the hell is your problem?!" Maynard paused. His head was lowered. "W-we don't know anything about them." "Jesus! What, you wanna interview 'em before you shoot 'em?! Get their addresses so you can add 'em to your Christmas card list?! They're fucking bandits!!" "No, I mean... we don't know how well they're equipped." "They're-!" Oakes froze. Maynard actually had a point. This gang was unusually big. Oakes sighed and rubbed the top of his head. "...Okay. Go down to the bunkhouse, wake up Keyes, Roche, and Michaelson. Tell 'em they have two minutes to get their asses dressed and up here, starting now." He looked through the binoculars for a split-second, and saw that Maynard wasn't moving. "Go!" he spat. Maynard was looking down into the fort. "There's something moving around down there." "Yeah, probably someone takin' a shit! Minute and fifty-five seconds! I'll tell them you waited!" Maynard shook Oakes' shoulder, as if he hadn't been paying attention already. "No! Someone ran from Bunk D to E! I saw them!" "Fuck, I dunno! Dude from E's fuckin' a dude from D! Minute-fifty!" "Bunk E's empty!" Maynard looked back down into the fort, and turned pale. "Rookie, what the fu-" Oakes started to say, before he turned his head and looked down at what Maynard was seeing. At first, Oakes wasn't sure what was covering the inside of some of the windows of his bunkhouse, A. The bunkhouses were pretty quiet from the outside, so his company could have thrown a raucous party inside while he had his back turned to them on the walkway just above them. He'd have had to stick his head in there to know what they were doing, or he'd have to look through the windows. It looked like they had covered the windows, however. With blood. He thought it might just be red curtains, or a bedspread one of them had taped above the windows. No, it wasn't -- fabric didn't dribble like that. Oakes' jaw trembled. Maynard whimpered. As Oakes scanned the windows, he saw a man inside, lying in his bed, desperately slapping one bloody hand against the glass as he clutched a ragged hole in his neck with the other. The blood was coming out fast; he'd be dead before Oakes could reach him. "Keyes?!" Oakes bleated. The bunkhouse exploded. In the blink of an eye, all of the windows lit up. The glass blew out. Wooden beams, beds, and bodies flew out of Bunkhouse A in a blaze of flame and smoke. The shock wave blew Oakes and Maynard off their feet. Oakes flew back and hit the wall hard, feeling his ribs crack and his spine rattle. Maynard was grabbing for his parka, then the top of the wall, then nothing. Oakes was knocked to his side as Bunkhouse B across from him blew as well, then Bunkhouses C, D, E... People were running. In his injured stupor, Oakes saw three shadows fleeing from the wreckage of Bunkhouse D. Someone else, someone shorter, leapt out of the chaos and ripped at one of their throats. The other two had guns, and were firing wildly -- at the figure, into their friend -- as they made their way to the doors of the fort. The smaller figure leapt off his victim and back into the flames. With a loud bang, the lamp on the southeast turret across the way fell, like the floor had suddenly dropped out from under it. It landed at the base of the turret with a loud crash, sending sparks and flame everywhere, igniting all of the dry wood around it. Oakes didn't remember pulling himself up, but he was up on his knees by that point. "Fuck... fuck!!" he breathed. "Rookie! Where... rookie!!" He didn't see Maynard anywhere. He remembered the younger soldier being blown past him, then... Oakes looked away from the flames that had engulfed the center of the fort and over the edge of the wall. Maynard was down there, on the ground at the bottom, motionless. Within a second, Oakes saw why: the boy had landed on his head and broken his neck. "Haaaahhhh!!" Oakes cried. He picked up his gun with one hand and the binoculars with the other, and stayed on his hands and knees. What else could he do? Until someone told him otherwise, Sergeant Oakes was the commanding officer of Fort Van Buren, and he couldn't run while the fort was under attack. He turned and searched for the attackers within the fort, but he couldn't see anything through the blaze and smoke. To his left, outside the door to the fort, he heard gunfire from the soldiers who had escaped. As near as he could tell, he was the last living man there. But he wasn't alone. When he turned and looked back out over the cars, he saw two dozen men in gray uniforms and gold-painted breastplates standing upright. Each of them was holding something on their shoulders. RPG launchers. "Shit!!" Oakes screamed. He should have run. The three gray-clad men closest to the fort fired, and three RPGs struck the wall below Oakes' feet. The whole thing collapsed beneath him in a rain of fire and splinters, and he went plummeting to the ground, where he hit hard. He screamed in pain -- his right leg was broken, and the bone pierced his skin. A shard of wood had gone through the right side of his chest, just below his shoulder. Smoke and sawdust filled his every breath, and he hacked out blood. And then he saw the boy. He was blood-soaked and skinny, about 16 or 17, with a short red mohawk on his head and a landmine strapped to his chest (although the thing looked too rusted to be any good). Grenades were attached the belt that was holding up his leather shorts. Even with filthy, bare feet, he didn't seem to mind that he was standing on top of a pile of splinters. He let out a series of short yips. When he saw Oakes, he emitted a high-pitched sound, like a cross between a bichon frise's bark and a hyena's cackle. "Son of-!" Oakes tried to stop feeling tremendous pain for a moment and reached for his gun. Spot ambled over to him with a bow-legged gait and stood over him, eyeing him curiously. Oakes was pinned to the rubble; he couldn't reach the gun. Spot cocked his head curiously to one side. His eyes were wide. With one hand, he jerked a grenade off his belt. "Syracuse will fuck-!" Oakes started to shout, just before Spot flicked the pin out of his grenade with just his thumb and shoved the explosive down Oakes' mouth, into his throat. Spot ambled away. Oakes cried out. Try not to think about what happened next. That's not a dare. It's a request. Spot wasn't used to walking on two feet. As Fort Van Buren burned behind him, he walked bow-legged down the hill and through the cars. The men with the RPG launchers were charging up the hill behind him, but there was nothing left to attack. Two had gotten away. Although he couldn't express it in words, that upset him. Perhaps that was why he was walking on two legs: he was punishing himself. He walked that way for about a mile through the lifting fog as the sun rose on the landscape, over the cracked asphalt of the old I-90, and toward a row of 20 gray-clad men who were becoming more and more visible as the fog lifted. It was just 20 men standing at attention. And behind them, rows reaching back almost 200 men deep. As the fresh sunlight hit the ground, the fog cleared further, revealing even more men: a row of 20 to the north, about 70 men deep, and a force of 20 by 99 men to the south. An army of 8000 men, which included the grenadiers ahead of them, and the soldiers further afield: the Secret Service of President Bellows. A large, white platform was being pulled by slaves just a few rows down, in the middle of the Secret Service men. Just behind the platform, two rows of eight slaves each were carrying a slightly dingy, slightly dented, wheel-less black limousine on gold-painted poles that rested against their shoulders. All of the slaves looked exhausted. All of the Secret Service men looked well-rested. Walter Matheson looked exhausted. He was walking alongside the limousine. When he saw the blood-soaked Spot, he tried damn hard not to grimace. "He's... inside," Walter said, prying open the door to the limo as delicately as he could. Spot ignored him and yanked it the rest of the way open, almost knocking Walter over. President Bellows was inside eating a large, bright red apple. He was wearing a nice navy suit with a red tie and dark, polished shoes. The skylight above him was wide open to let in the still-cool air. "Good morning, boy!" the president crowed. "How are you feeling?" The president didn't seem upset at all. This made Spot happy. He let out a little sound like, "...R-r-ral!" then set about panting and lolling his tongue. When he tried to crawl in the cabin, though, Bellows put his foot in front of him. "No-no-no! You're too dirty! You have to wash off first!" Spot whimpered -- he hated baths. "Oh, don't be like that," the president gently chided. "Look, there's a puddle just behind you. Splash around in that a little, then shake off and I'll let you in." Spot turned and gleefully leapt into the puddle, then rolled around in it like any other "dog." The president chuckled. "Ah, to be young again. He reminds me of myself at that age..." There was a pause. "Without the collar, of course," the president clarified. "...Or the ears." Another pause. "So, Walter, what's the news from Oswego?" Walter wavered, then took a deep breath. "The... third battalion... sent an all-clear signal less than a half-hour ago. They have... Fort Ontario." "Excellent! Ha-ha!" The president took another bite of apple and slapped his knee with his free hand. "Mmmph!" He chewed and swallowed. "And before breakfast, too! My goodness!" He leaned out and looked at Walter. The president's normally sad, dignified eyes had a sparkle in them. "If I'd have known it would be this easy to get through New England, I'd have gone this way years ago!" Walter looked doubtful. "We're only in New York, sir. We're not actually in New England yet." The president jerked his hand toward the city. "Syracuse is right there, Walter!! You can see it from here!! Are you looking?!" "Yes, sir." "It's the strongest city in this region, and we've got it before they've even woken up! With this fort, and Fort Ontario, their whole west side is wide open! This is in the bag!" He chuckled and took another bite of apple. "Niagara Fallsh! Rocheshter! It'sh like... the whole northeasht ish open to me! All I had to do-" he swallowed- "mmm! Was show up!" He pointed at Walter's clipboard. "Next is-is-is-" He snapped his fingers. "-Utica, sir." "Utica! Then Albany, then Boston-" "-It's Parkside, now, sir." "Oh, whatever! Then..." He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky with a longing gaze. He spread his arms as wide as the door of the limo would allow. "...The ocean, Walter! The Atlantic Ocean! Oh, how I've always wanted to see it, ever since I was a child!" He held the apple up to his mouth. "I bet it looks... beautiful! Just beautiful!" He took another bite. Spot came back, (mostly) clean, and the president quickly chewed and swallowed his bite. "Omph! Much better, boy. C'mon, hop in." He wiggled his finger in a "come hither" way as he backed up into his leather seat. "I've got a suprii-iise," he sang. Spot leapt up into the doorway of the cabin. The president had a wide smile on his face as he motioned toward the front of the limo. Spot looked that way, and he went wide-eyed with barefaced glee. A minute later, Spot struggled to push a chain gun out of the door. Walter stood out of the way as Spot threw it out onto the ground. "Be careful with that!" the president called. Spot hopped out, loaded with two new knives and a dozen more explosives on his person, then bent down and struggled to lift the chain gun. After a few seconds he managed to haul it up. "It looks heavy!" the president said. "Will you be okay with that? You sure you don't want one of the rifles?" Spot was struggling, but he nodded; the First Dog was overloaded and completely over the moon. "...Well, okay then! Go and have fun, you little scamp!" Spot turned and gamboled down the road toward Syracuse. The president lifted his apple through the skylight into the air and jerked his wrist toward Spot. To the north and south, the commanders of the flanking forces saw the signal and ordered their troops to pick up the pace. They pulled ahead of the central force as they made their way toward the west and south sides of Syracuse. The guns of Syracuse's western wall would be kept busy with Bellows' small (but durable) northern force; meanwhile, his larger southern force would hammer into the city's exposed southern end. Within a day or so, the walls of Syracuse would fall, and the city would burn. At that moment, Walter knew that beyond all doubt and felt ill. The president wistfully watched Spot run away. "I didn't bark as much, either," the president said. He took his last bite of apple, then hook-shotted the core out of the open skylight and into a ditch by the side of the road. "Ah, well," he said as he licked his fingers. "I guess that's just how the kids are doing it nowadays." Again, that was probably mostly rumor. There were some eyewitness accounts -- the soldiers who escaped Fort Van Buren, for starters. There really had been a Sergeant Luke Oakes and Private Reg Maynard, who had been stationed on the wall that morning, and who had both been (mostly) found later. The bunkhouses really did explode in that order. Syracuse most certainly did fall. However, the story itself can be taken with a grain of salt. I, however, believe every word. Now... I was going to tell you about what happened to me. It wasn't at the exact same time as the Secret Service was attacking Syracuse -- that happened in the early morning hours, and I left off something that happened to me after the sun set. Both things happened around mid- January. ...Where did I leave off, again? ...Oh, yeah. I was about to die horribly. The Mistress had found out what I had done. She knew I was the human brain she had stashed in Miki-chan. She knew I had switched bodies with her android minion, Natsuko. She knew I was building a new robot body in the storeroom of Mariel's Clothier, near the base of Sky Tower. She knew I had met with her enemy, Alan Carson, the mayor of Parkside, and told him everything (well, nearly everything). She hadn't said it in so many words, but I knew she knew. Teeny, Tiny, and Leviathan -- the three heavily-armed robots she did control -- were right behind her. I was less than an inch from a 70 story drop. All The Mistress had to do was extend one hand and, ever so gently... ...Push... ...And I was dead. Or she could take one step in either direction and let a pair of miniguns rip through me. Or any one of the million ways I'm sure a robot-building evil genius could think of for finishing me off. She was looking right up at me. Her layers upon layers of clothing were nearly wide enough to push me off the ledge. She wore a pair of green- tinted welding goggles over her eyes, and she was so close, I could almost see through them. "Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?" she asked in a low tone. "I-I-I can explain," I sputtered. Her voice rose slightly. "Did you think I wouldn't notice the patterns? That I wouldn't see the changes? That I would be angry? That I would just brush it off as your normal erratic behavior?!" I grimaced. "I-I j-just wanted-" I paused. Wait, I thought, did she just- "I know what's happened!!" she declared, and gripped my shoulders tightly with her leather-gloved hands. This is it, I thought. Goodbye, sucktacular world. "Your cache has cleared." ... ...What? "That's what's happened," she said, a tremble appearing in her low tone. "Your cache... has been emptied." She loosened her grip on my shoulders and took a tiny step back. She seemed tense. "It's cleared, it's cleared," she whispered like it was an omen, and brought the palms of her hands together. "After... six and a half... fucking... years... huh..." She started to shake. "...Huh-huh... huh... haaaaaaa..." She burst into screaming, cackling laughter and threw her fists into the air. "Ha-ha-ha!! Woo-hah-hah-hah!! Wooooo!! Wooooooooooooo!!" She spread her legs wide and screamed, "Booooooooo-yaaaaa!! Fuck!! Yes!! Woooooo-hah-hah!! Woooooo-!!" She spun around on one foot (something I had never, ever expected her to do, and something that completely dumbfounded me as a result), and came face-to-chest with Tiny. "-Wha-hah!" she stuttered, then stopped. "What the-" She turned her head to the right and saw Leviathan, then to the left and saw Teeny. "What the fu-oh, what the fuck!" She flailed her arms. "Damn it, stop following me already! Get outta here! Get! Get!" She shoved Tiny in the chest, then kicked Teeny in the backside as the three robots rolled away into other, darker rooms. She stood there and watched them leave, then huffed in frustration. "Those three have been following me all day, every day, since I kicked you out! Jesus, it's like I'm a fucking babysitter now!" I was frozen in shock. I nearly teetered backwards. "Girl, what the fuck are you doing that close to the edge?! Get over here!" When I didn't move immediately, she grabbed me by the collar and yanked me to safety in her arms. (I thought, Safety?! Is being this close to her what I'm calling "safety" now?!) "Natsuko!" she chirped (I didn't know she could chirp!). "Natsukooooo!!" She squeezed me tight. "You don't know how happy this makes me! After six and a half long-ass years, your! Cache! Has! Cleared! Haaaaah!!" "...Ahhhh," I stated. "Ooohhh!" she sighed in blissful relief (another first for her). She stopped squeezing me and looked into my eyes. I got a strange proud- parent vibe from her. She took a deep, satisfied breath, and exhaled. "Natsuko! Ever since I accidentally uploaded the entire... complete...," she stressed, "Ranma 1/2 library into your ROM -- with the OVAs, both dubbed and subbed," she moaned and shook her head, then patted my shoulders, "I thought it had completely parasitized your personality core! Santa Fe told me -- oop! That's the Digital Witch of Santa Fe for you, domain of computers and whatnot -- she told me I'd have to totally wipe all your memory and completely overhaul your hardware! And after the first time?! The pain in the ass that it was just to make your brain in the first place?! All that DARPA shit I had to install?!" She shook her head quickly. "Nuh-uh!! Fuck that shit!! There's no way I'm going through that again!!" She tapped my forehead with one finger. "I wrote a virus to clean out your cache! Then I waited three whole weeks for that fucker to compile! Then it did jack shit!!" ...Okay, I thought, this is not what... I expected... The Mistress sighed and dropped her arms to her side. "But it did do something, didn't it, Natsuko? Tell me, how are you feeling? Right now?" "Uhhh..." "Go on. Tell me how you feel." It was so damn strange -- she sounded like... well, like she really did just want to know how I felt. "...O... kay?" I replied. "Anything else? C'mon, out with it." I thought about what to say next. "...Ehhnnn... confused..." She tensed up again. "Good!" she said. "Very good! Yes, it makes sense you'd be confused! This all probably seems pretty new, huh?!" You bet your ass it seems new, I thought. "...Yyyyeah." "How about your clarity? Can you think straight? Let's test your implicit memory. Recite the alphabet for me." Harmless enough. "A, B, C, D, E, F, G-" "-Holy shit, you're doing it!!" she cried, then threw her arms up again. "I am the greatest programmer east of the Mississippi!! Fuck yeah!! Woooooo!!" She threw her arms around me again. "Natsukooooo!! I finally have my robot back! No more random, pseudo-Japanese bullshit that borders on racism! No more throwing my shit off the roof to see if it'll fly! No more... non-stop... 96-hour," she scoured the top of her head with her fingers, "Jingle Bell Rock karaoke marathons during the holidays I swear I would have had Leviathan throw your ass off the roof if you pulled that shit again!! Ooooohhh!!" She slumped to the floor on her knees. "...You're just... a nice... normal... robot girl! Oh! My." The Mistress sat there, calming herself down, breathing in and out, for a few seconds. She said nothing. I said nothing. Then she looked back up at me. "I need a drink," she said. Same here, I thought. "I've been thinking of writing a book," The Mistress said as she searched the dark cupboards in her windowless kitchenette. I was seated at the small table in the middle of the cracked linoleum floor. She peeked out from behind the cupboard door. "How does this sound for a title: 'So You've Developed Sentience and/or Sapience.' It'd be for robots... and animals that've developed sentience... and-or sapience." She pondered this for a second. "I'd need to send a copy to the Beast Witch of Vancouver," she thought out loud. "...That could work," I replied. "Heh!" She dove back into her cupboard and produced a cloudy glass bottle of brandy that was less than half-full, and two shot glasses. "- Oh, shit," she said just before she sat down. "You don't drink! No stomach! Hah!" She put one shot glass back. Still, I thought, it'd be the thought that counts. The Mistress poured herself a glass and lifted the scarf over her mouth just high enough to take a drink, but not high enough for me to see her face. "...Mmm!" she said. "That's good! Ah, I needed that." She leaned back. "Hey, you've been stashing new clothes under the guard desk." I said nothing. "Just so you know, I want you to wear those from now on, not that ragged piece of shit you're wearing now. That fuku?" She leaned forward. "Burn it. Tomorrow morning, burn... it! There are matches in the cupboard there. Take them out, then take that fuku off, take it out the back, and set it on fire! Where did you even get that thing?! No, don't tell me! I don't want to know!" She had another drink and leaned back. "...Umm... my other clothes... are kinda messy," I said. In truth, my blouse was covered in blood. "Is it your... white blouse-thing?" she asked. "Is it covered in blood?" I froze. "It's covered in blood, isn't it? It's okay, you can tell me it's covered in blood. I won't get mad." "...I-it's covered in blood." "Okay. I've got some bleach that'll take that right out. Bring it up here in the morning, and we'll take care of it." She poured herself another glass, but didn't take a drink yet. "You're wondering how I knew that." "Yyyeah." "I saw you on the street below with Alan. I heard the gunfire. What was that about?" "...His daughters were kidnapped by slavers from the, uh... the Kingdom of Heaven... on Earth?" "The K-H-E is here?" She sounded a little surprised, but said nothing else. "They're gone now," I replied, then thought about it. "The blood is theirs. Was... theirs." "Huh," she said, completely non-judgmentally. "Wait, did you say Alan has daughters?" "Yeah, three." A pause. "How old are they?" she mumbled. "...Maybe... five?" The Mistress said nothing -- she just sat there. With her face covered, I couldn't tell what she was thinking. "Huh," she mumbled thoughtfully after a long while. "Okay." She took a sip, but not the whole drink. "So what are you doing hanging around Alan?" She was being strangely non-judgmental about everything. However, I didn't want to drop my guard. "...I thought... I wanted... to sort of, make..." "Make?" I grimaced. "...A friend?" I didn't need to see her face to see the look of disbelief in it. She shook her head and topped her glass. "Natsuko... how much of your life... do you remember... before your cache cleared?" She leaned back in her chair far enough to put her legs up on the table. If by "my cache cleared," I thought, you mean "I lost my memory," then... "Very, very little," I said. "Hmm," she said soberly (although by the way she was wavering a little, maybe not so much). "Makes sense. The virus was supposed to be scattershot. I tried cleaning out random stuff so the rest would be reduced to meaningless garbage that I could just overwrite with new memories." She lifted her chin. "You can still talk, though... which is good. And you're able to make decisions. Can you make new memories?" "Yes." She let out a cackle. "Excellent! Then I don't even give a shit if you've lost all seven year's worth of memories! I'd rather teach you everything all over again than put up with your shit and only hope that something I taught you stuck! Which I fucking doubt! Huh!" She downed the rest of her shot. "...Can you hold your liquor?" I asked carefully. She snorted, but was wavering a bit more loosely. "Fuck, yeah!" she said. "What do my memories have to do with Alan?" "...Hm? Oh!" She laughed. "Alan is... Alan isn't your friend, Natsuko. You might think he is..." She poured another glass. "...But he's not. He's just like every other son of a bitch down there. Paranoid. Pathetic. And violent. Oh, so violent!" She took a sip. "Have I got stories for you, Natsuko. Oh, have I got..." She paused, then slowly nodded. "Of course. I've got stories and proof. Physical proof you can see!" She cocked her head and peeked out the kitchenette for just a second. "In about, I'd sayyyy... 10 minutes? Maybe?" She chuckled. "You'll see, Natsuko. Oh, how you'll see." "See what?" She looked me square in the eyes. "Just what kind of a man Alan Carson really is," she said coolly. "But first... the stories." She took a tiny, tiny sip. "What's my name, Natsuko?" I knew, but I didn't want to say it. "You're The Mistress, Mistress." "I mean my real name. If you've been talking to Alan, he probably dropped it at some point. What is it?" She sounded cocky. She was definitely a little inebriated, but just enough to loosen her up a bit (which, God help her, she needed, and it wasn't like she was about to drive anywhere). "...Ssssshhhheila?" I said. "And my last name?" "...Tucker." The Mistress nodded. "Sheila Tucker. That's my name, according to Alan. Ole' Miss Sheila Tucker." She paused and just sat there, looking at me. "Do you want to know... a little secret, Natsuko?" She put her legs down and leaned forward. I leaned forward. "I'm not Sheila Tucker!" she whispered, then cackled lowly, so it was almost a breath. "You're not?!" She took a deep, sharp breath. "No! Sheila Tucker died eight years ago!" She spread her arms wide. "I'm her apprentice!" "What happened?!' The Mistress shrugged. "I dunno! One day, she just fell down and didn't get back up! She was still breathing, but I couldn't get her to wake up. I put her in bed, and she was dead by the next morning." She took another little sip. "No tears for her. She was a horrible Mistress, a real fucking nightmare. Always yelling, nev-er, ev-er smiling. It's partly her fault that we're in this fucking mess with Parkside, even if they're the assholes who started it!" Another tiny sip. "High Mistress Blood once implied... that Mistress Sheila had some kinda medical condition. She might've been teaching me on a countdown clock to her death -- that'd explain why she put the screws to me." "Oh, no." "Oh, yes. The good thing, though, is that Parkside doesn't know she's dead." She pointed at me. "And we're keeping it that way, understand?! Alan won't know about this!! You won't tell him!!" "I won't! I promise! But... why?" "Because they're terrified of her! What better security system can I ask for?" She balled her fists. "Years ago, she left this tower with Tiny and Leviathan in tow, and she burned half that place to the fucking ground. Nobody died, but she worked damn hard to make sure they'd never fuck with her again." I was horrified. 2423, I remembered Alan had told me earlier that day, the year of the fire, when we had to import those crops. "Wh-why?!" The Mistress slowly put her feet back up on the table. She didn't say anything for a little while. "How do I tell this... hmm..." She nodded, then looked back down. "I'm not the first Mistress. I'm the fourth, actually." She took a sip. "The first was Candace Wallenberg, who served as the Metal Witch of New England from 2370 to 2408. Assumed the role at age 32. She chose this spot 'cause we got MIT to the west, Boston Logan and ports to the east, and train stations north and south of us. A diamond mine of old technology. The second was Brooke Lane, age 40, from 2408 to 2423. The third... Sheila Tucker. Age 41, 2423 to 2442. Then me, 2442 to present." Another sip. "Someone came before Candace... but that was in another city somewhere. She... died, or... I dunno. Doesn't matter. Candace was the first one here." Another sip. "That's how this works: we serve as The Mistress, we take an apprentice, then when we die, our apprentice takes our place." I thought about this for a second. There was that name again: Brooke. Alan had mentioned her. She served as The Mistress from 2408 to... ...And just like that, it came to me. "They murdered Brooke," I whispered. "I never knew her," The Mistress said lowly. "Sheila fucking idolized her. Supposedly, the village loved her, too. She was friends... they were all friends. Everything was... one big happy." She snuffled. "Bullshit. You see... Brooke loved milk. I mean, looooved it. Drank it all day, every day." I stared at her, confused. "Hold your horses," she said, "I'm getting to the point. She had a winch installed above us, over the edge, to pull buckets up from the ground floor to here. You saw the holes in the ceiling, right?" I nodded. "That's where it was. She had deliveries put into those buckets so she could haul them up whenever she wanted, including her milk. So, anyway..." She breathed. "Sheila told me, one day, she was over on... that side of the shop..." She pointed to the far side of the shop, near the wall that separated it from the staircase. "...Working on something, and Brooke was by the winch getting her delivery of milk. Brooke reached in the bucket, and pulled on the milk bottle, and... it didn't come out. So she pulled harder, and it came out. And she saw this... little piece of string..." The Mistress put her thumb and forefinger close together. "...Much longer than this, obviously. One end tied to the lid of the bottle, which Sheila found later, and the other to this little piece of metal. And Brooke... saw that little piece of metal, and she didn't know what it was, so she looked in the bucket." The Mistress paused. She swirled her drink in her hands. "I wasn't even here when this happened." She snuffled. "...What happened?" I asked. "...Taped, or glued... fastened, to the bottom of the bucket... two grenades. The pin pulled out of one, tied to the string." I was silent. For a moment, she was silent. "Brooke was holding the bucket." She slowly spread her arms and fingers out. "Bwoosh." She took a drink. "Sheila saw everything. Drove her... well, drove her Sheila. She went down there and... fwoosh." She wiggled her fingers. "Destroyed her rep. Ruined my life. An' I wasn't even here." ...Holy shit, I thought. Those black marks on the ceiling and floor... ...That's Brooke. "About six weeks after Sheila died, a guy busted in here firing off guns," The Mistress said casually. She pointed to a spot on the wall of the shop that had been plastered over. "He tried to shoot me, but Leviathan got him first. That's all that's left of him." "What?!" I cried. "I suppose I could have mentioned that first." "Bah-whuh-who was he?!" "I dunno," she mumbled. I couldn't believe how casually she was taking this. "A... a villager?!" "Mmm, probably not. He was kinda raggedy." "Well... then maybe he was just some crazy bum off the streets! You can see them from the roof at night! They're not with Parkside!" She nodded. "Probably... but still, sometimes I wonder..." She looked toward Parkside. "Jesus! I never knew this!" "I never mentioned it, even when you were cray-cray. It's... not a happy memory." She looked into her drink. "I had never been so scared before, even around Sheila," she mumbled. I looked at the floor and thought about things. I looked back up. "Mistress... that happened... years ago, and-" "-Have 10 minutes passed?" she suddenly asked. "Uh! I... dunno. I don't think so." The Mistress cocked her head to the side and looked out of the kitchenette again. "Yeah! It's starting! C'mon!" I stood up, and she struggled. I helped her to her feet, and she tottered. "Ooooohhh!" she groaned; she had had too much to drink. "C'mon, by the edge. I wanna show you something." I helped her walk to the edge of the floor, where she brushed back a sheet of plastic so we could see Parkside below. She reached in her overcoat and pulled out her steel telescope. "This..." She burped. "...Is my seal of office for the Sisters of Galileo. Each of us holds one. It's mine for now, but one day, it'll be yours." "...You mean I'm your-?!" "Damn straight!" she crowed. "You were gonna be my bodyguard, but... fuck it! I need an apprentice, and I ain't pickin' from those losers!" She nodded toward Parkside. "Fuck those bozos! I can build my own! Here!" She handed me the telescope, and I gingerly took it. I had handled it dozens of times before, but I had never known how important it was until then. "Unscrew the top, look inside!" I did, very carefully, but I saw nothing. "You got a flashlight behind your optical sensors. Say 'flashlight.'" I knew I could do this already. "Flashlight," I said aloud, and my eyes lit up. I stifled a laugh and looked at her. "Whoa!" she cried, throwing her free hand in front of her goggles. "Eyes down, Natsuko! Those are 100-watt LEDs you got there! Look down into the telescope!" I did, and noticed a small sigil of a gear stamped on the inside, just behind the lens at the wide end. "My sigil, my domain: metals... urp! That move. All my 'bots got that stamped somewhere on them, real tiny. Yours is stamped on the bottom of your foot. You've probably never noticed it before -- it's beneath your skin. Look for it." "I will." I screwed the top back on the telescope. "Now..." The Mistress pointed into the middle of the village. "See that pile of wood down there? Take a look, Natsuko!" I held the telescope up to my eye. I saw a man at the base of the pile with a torch. He waved it in the air, showing it off triumphantly to all of the gathered villagers. He stuck the torch into the pile, lighting it. The wood caught fire, and it was blazing in under a minute. At the top of the pile was a long wooden stake extending upward, and a pile of old clothes in front of it. The clothes were stuffed with straw and arranged to look like a person. It took me a moment to realize how much the clothes looked like The Mistress. "That, Natsuko," The Mistress explained, "is Parkside's very own Biannual Witch-Burning Festival. Fun for the whole family! Bring the kids! Get your face painted to look like a kitty cat, then set your neighbor on fire!" "Biannual?" She nodded. "Once in January, another time in July. Isn't it lovely? Oh, hey, and take another look! See anyone you recognize?" I took another look. Junior was the man holding the torch. Alan was sitting in a deck chair on the other side of the pile, watching the proceedings with a small throng around him. I was there, too. I noticed a straw dummy on the ground in a woman's white one-piece bathing suit in front of Alan. I thought it was a child's lost toy until someone picked it up and threw it on top of the pile. Only then did I realize how much the bathing suit looked like my fuku and panties. Alan didn't budge. "What the fuck, Alan," I breathed. "Yyyyyeah!" The Mistress said, leaning forward pretty hard. I pushed her back. "Good ole' Parkside hospitality! They're good people! Such gooooooood fucking people!" She slapped me on the chest. "You go... an' you help them drive off the fucking K-H-E, and rescue their ff... girls, and what do they do?! What do they fucking do, Natsuko?!" She pointed at the pile. "This shit!! Count on it!!" I watched as my dummy caught fire first, then the flames licked away at The Mistress'. Before the fire could consume either, I put the telescope down. "I can't believe this," I whispered, and thought to myself, How could he do this to me? The Mistress saw me look hurt. Her response was... surprising. "...Hhhhey," she said, and held my shoulders. "Yyyyou... got nothin'... to be ashamed of, Natsuko. You... are fuckin' awesome! Burp!" I smiled. "You are-you used to be-just, like... all over the fuckin' map, but..." I tucked the telescope into the waistline of my panties and led her to her bedroom. "Where we goin'?" she muttered. "You're drunk." "No, I'm not!" I positioned her over her bed and let go. She fell face-down onto the mattress. "'Kay, I'm a little drunk." I arduously shoved her legs onto the bed. "Puttin' her Mistress to bed. Best robot ever!!" I laughed a little. This was kind of nice, like making peace with Miki- chan had been. I sat on the bed next to her head and sighed. "Mistress, do you have the flakes for the brain?" "Urgh..." She lazily fumbled around with a pocket on her overcoat. I reached in for her and pulled out a small plastic bottle full of neuronal nutrition flakes. What a relief it was -- I hadn't fed myself in three days. I stared into the bottle. "Mistress... what are you planning to do with Miki-chan?" "Hurm?" she asked in a barely-conscious way. "I mean, with the brain. The human brain." "Hurm." She sniffed. "Mmm..." She rolled her head a little. "...Stuff." Oh, come on, I thought. "What kind of stuff?" "Mmmmy kinda stuff. Heh." My face twitched in frustration. I thought for a moment, then I tried to ask, as politely as I could, "What's your real name?" "...My name?" "Yeah." "My first name... is..." She paused. I eagerly awaited her answer. "...The." She didn't say anything for a second. "Last name: Mmmistress." I rolled my eyes. "Mmm," she groaned, and placed a hand on my knee. "I am... The Mistress, Natsuko." She sniffled. "Your... Mistress. What I do, who I am... that's my business, not yours. I tell you when I wanna tell you, 'n no sooner, 'kay?" God damn, I thought. I can't even get it out of her when she's pass-out drunk. "Yes, Mistress." She single-handedly hugged my left thigh. "Natsuko...," she breathed out. Then her breathing turned heavy. There was a tremulousness in it that I had never heard from her, nor could I have ever expected. "Natsuko...," she said again, only with more longing. She held my leg a little more tightly. Slowly, carefully, I put a hand to her head. She felt it and was still. After a few seconds, she fell asleep. At that moment, I could have removed her scarf. I could have found out what she looked like. But I didn't. It felt wrong. Miki-chan was thrilled to see me when I appeared in the junk-lab, and I was happy to see her. Nothing much had happened to her in the time since I had been kicked out of Sky Tower. "The Mistress was working on her computer, over there," Miki-chan said, nodding toward a row of desktops nearby. "That's the only time she ever came in here." "I think she was looking over some of her old code," I replied as I worked on plugging my brain bubble into the neuronal gel recycler. "She probably wanted to check a virus she..." I paused and remembered the electrical trouble she had after I reminded her of her last patch. "...Actually, it was just some old code she wrote for another robot. She told me about it after I got back." "Oooh! Tell me, what happened to you?!" I chuckled. What a question, I thought. I leaned back and told her the whole story: my meeting with the Sisters of Galileo; my exile; the threats I faced from Alan and the K.H.E.; the kidnapping of the ABCs; my brush with sex slavery; my return, and my liquid dinner with The Mistress (with the details of Miki-chan's unfortunate mind-shattering anime upload and The Mistress' virus left out). "Wow!" she breathed when I was done. "Can I see your scar?!" I showed her where the bullet had gone through. "Wow!" "Haven't you ever been shot?" "People have shot at me, but they've never been able to hit me." "You've never stood still for them... like I did. Heh." She had a laugh at that. It felt nice to spend the night there. After I cleaned and fed my brain, I told her about the three women in the picture book she had found. It made her sad to learn about Brooke, but not overly so. I pulled off the rubber skin on my foot and saw the sigil on the bottom -- I'm The Mistress' property, I thought, at least in body. We spent a quiet night together until I fell asleep behind her table, where I would never be found, if I wanted. It's too bad I didn't stay up a little later. I wish I had focused the telescope a little more when I saw Alan sitting next to the bonfire that burned up me and The Mistress in effigy. I would have seen less celebration than the Parksiders expected. Soon after the bonfire was lit, I would have seen spirits dampened. I would have seen the original, normal revelry tempered as people no longer paid as much attention as usual to the roaring bonfire; instead, they chatted amongst themselves, only pausing occasionally to take notice of the flames. It was like a coldness had settled on the festival, and not because it was January. Even Junior, who kept the bonfire lit, didn't seem like he was having too much fun. On one side of the fire was a tall man, clad in a black robe with a white collar. He held his weak chin high and felt the warmth of the fire and the coldness of the air dance across his liver-spotted scalp as he watched The Mistress' dummy burn. He held himself with dignity, showing no pleasure, but just enough righteousness to seem prideful, as the festival continued. And on the other side of the fire was Alan, sitting in his deck chair among a thinning crowd of awkward-feeling people, looking visibly disgusted and bored out of his mind. It was like the two men's mojos combined in the swirl of temperatures to form the antithesis of a kitty face-painting kind of festival. I wish I had seen that, just like I wish I had seen what came after it. Just before midnight, Alan rubbed one eye with his finger, snuffled, then stood up straight. All eyes fell on him as he snapped his deck chair flat and plodded back to his house. By that time, a small group of men and women had gathered around the man in black. Junior was among them, hanging out near their fringes, but looking uncomfortable in doing so. The man in black watched Alan intensely. When Alan reached the road, the man in black started to stride toward him with purpose, and the crowd followed. Even some people not directly in the crowd meandered in the same direction. Alan was on his front stoop by the time the man in black reached him. "Brother Alan!" the man in black called. "A word, if you please!" Alan looked and felt exhausted. He turned to the man in black and put on his finest fake smile. "Father Fitzpatrick! Always a pleasure!" Father Fitzpatrick nodded in deference and weaved his fingers together. "I just wanted to ask you what your intentions are going forward." Alan raised an eyebrow. "My intentions?" "Yes, in the defense of Parkside." Alan nodded. He knew what Father Fitzpatrick wanted, but he wasn't going to give it to him. "Right. Okay. So... folks, this afternoon, I got some bad news. I won't worry you with it tonight, because I want you all to get a good night's rest. There's nothing any of us can do about it tonight anyway." He put his hands to his hips. "However, I want to see as many of you as possible, out here in front of my house, by daybreak. There's been a development with a situation that I'm sure you're all aware of-" "-I don't mean President Bellows' army of 8000 men, Alan," Father Fitzpatrick cut in. A sudden gasp went up through the crowd. Alan's eyes went wide. He glared at Junior, who looked at the ground. "Do not be angry at Brother Galen, Alan. He wanted to know if someone from the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is capable of telling the truth. I said he is." Alan didn't like how softly (fondly, perhaps) Father Fitzpatrick talked about the K.H.E. "...It's likely a rumor," he replied, "or a flat-out lie, told to psych us out," he gnashed his teeth, "by a slaver." "Whether it's true or not matters little," Father Fitzpatrick said. Alan's eye twitched. He normally liked this man, but not at this exact moment. "I mean the defense of Parkside's soul." Alan gave up; there was no avoiding it. "What do you mean," he said, pretending like he didn't know the answer already. "I mean the witch, Brother Alan," Father Fitzpatrick replied. "I mean The Mistress. You've been seen coupling-" "-I've done no such thing!" Alan snapped. "...Dealing, then. Discussing matters, associating, with The Mistress' underling, the metal demon, the one called... 'Nat-Suko.'" He stressed the first syllable and last two syllables equally. Alan sighed and rubbed his face. He nodded a little. "Okay, yes. I've been talking to Natsuko." A rumble spread through the crowd. "About what?" Father Fitzpatrick asked. "...Things. The Mistress kicked her out of Sky Tower, so she's stuck down here now. I ran into her a couple times while I was out gathering firewood. She warned me about the K-H-E. She helped me-" "-Please answer my question, Alan." Father Fitzpatrick's voice sounded more tense. "What did you discuss with Nat-Suko?" Alan rolled his eyes. "Look, Fitz-" "-It's Fitzpatrick. Father Fitzpatrick." "Yeah, okay." Alan walked over to Father Fitzpatrick, without fear. "I asked if she was a threat to the town. She proved, conclusively, that she's not." Father Fitzpatrick raised a corner of his mouth. "She... proved it." "Yes. And before you ask, I can't provide her proof, because she wanted to keep what she was doing a secret. I checked, and it was no big deal." "And what is this secret?" Father Fitzpatrick asked with a growl. Alan stared him straight in the eyes. "Her secret... is secret." He twitched his upper lip. "Everyone's entitled to their secrets, Fitz. That includes you, and it includes Natsuko." "Not when the secret threatens the souls of our people, Alan!" "It doesn't threaten anyone's soul!" "It's a secret held by a demon!" "She's not a-!" Alan put his hand to his mouth. Then, he spoke at a lower volume. "...Ossie... let's calm down, okay?" He held up his hand in a pacifying gesture. Father Fitzpatrick's shoulders fell. "You know me, Ossie. We've both lived here our whole lives. You gotta trust me on this. Natsuko is not our biggest problem at the moment." Father Fitzpatrick peered at him with distrust. "And why should we trust you? How do we know you haven't been corrupted?" Alan was dumbstruck. "...F-for Heaven's sake, Ossie, we grew up together." "How do we know, Alan?" Alan said nothing. Father Fitzpatrick turned to the crowd. "I can no longer hold confidence in Brother Alan Carson's ability to remain the leader of this town!" A cheer went up among a scattered few in the crowd. Alan rubbed his forehead. "Is it an election you want, Fitz? Go ahead. I won't stop you. I was never the mayor to begin with." Father Fitzpatrick looked indignant. "I was never elected. I just picked up Dad's duties when he died, like he did with his father, and his father before him. If Parkside wants to hold an election, I say go for it." "Oh, you would!" Alan chuckled. "You're grasping at straws here, Fitz. I know you want to be in charge. Everyone does. You see an opportunity with the Natsuko situation, and you're taking it. I'm not an idiot." He pointed at Father Fitzpatrick with half-power (he was really tired). "But a friendly word of warning: if you admit the K-H-E is telling the truth about Bellows, then you have to accept that he's coming here with an army that's 10 times the size of the whole town, and it doesn't sound like he's coming here to talk about baseball. That is, objectively, a hell of a lot worse than any one woman, or demon, or whatever living in the ruins outside of town, and I know for a fact that you're not prepared to deal with it." "I deal with the souls of Parkside, Alan. I save people. You, clearly, cannot." "And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" "It means that all souls must experience hardship to reach Heaven, Alan. You have ignored that simple truth in your dealings with Nat-Suko. You have surrendered your soul, and the souls of your children-" "-Stop right there!!" Alan snapped, suddenly raising his voice to a shout and getting right in Father Fitzpatrick's face. The priest froze. All whispers behind him ceased. "Let me make this clear to you, Fitz," Alan growled. "The Devil Himself has nothing... nothing... that could make me feel more pain than the loss of one of my children. Not some bullshit with lava, or guys with horns poking me with sticks, or some eternal mind-game crap. Me, here on Earth, with one of my children missing... or worse... is my Hell!!" He raised his voice even higher, so everyone could hear. "Anyone here with children would agree with me!!" There were nods and "uh-huhs" of genuine agreement. He got right back in Father Fitzpatrick's face. "And anyone who keeps me from that, or pulls me out of that, is... no... demon. Do I make myself clear?!" Father Fitzpatrick tried to make an indignant face, but he couldn't muster past alarm. "...No confidence, Alan," he stated, then turned and stormed off. The crowd behind him dispersed. "Don't you move a fucking inch, Junior," Alan said just as the last few stragglers left. Junior wasn't shaking, but he looked like he could. "Look at me." Junior didn't. "Look at me," Alan said, a little louder. Junior slowly looked up. His face didn't show fear, but it did show a hell of a lot of apprehension. "You were there this afternoon. You saw what happened. You saw what she did." "...I-I-I... I dunno..." "Like hell you don't know." Alan walked up to him and stared him straight in the eyes. "Every time, Junior," he said in a low rumble, like an earthquake. "Every single time you look at that tower. At that girl. I see him, right there, behind your eyes." He got a little closer. His gaze pierced Junior. "He never died, Junior. He's alive in you." That made Junior shake. Alan stared into his eyes hard, and he nodded a little. He turned and walked up into his house. "Goodnight, Junior." "Natsuko-sama!" I awoke slowly to the sounds of whispers somewhere in front and above me. "Natsuko-samaaa! Wake up!" Miki-chan was bending over a little, trying to look under the table without falling over. I could see her right optical sensor. She could see the top of my head, maybe, and a little of my fuku; I was pretty well-hidden. "Natsuko-sama, you need to wake up!!" In my half-awake state, I heard a distant, ghostly noise of heavy footfalls. The air was otherwise still and silent. A white mist had creeped into the labs in the early morning hours. "...Natsukoooo...," came a groan from somewhere outside the junk-lab. The baleful call echoed throughout the halls of the top floor of Sky Tower. I felt a chill, and kept hidden under the table. "Nat-su- koooooo..." The shuffling got closer. "Naaaat... suuu... koooooo..." I had woken up in a horror movie. ...No, wait, I thought, The Mistress is just hung over. Indeed, she came shuffling in view of the door. She looked through lazily, barely bothering to turn her head, before continuing to shuffle onward. "...Huuuuhhh.... Nat... su... kooooo..." I quietly got onto my hands and knees and crawled out from under the table, then snuck a look outside into the hallway. The Mistress shambled around the corner and out of sight. I straightened my fuku and wig and went in the opposite direction: through another junk-strewn lab, past the large gray box The Mistress had forbidden me from touching (in writing), through her bedroom, then to the right, into her shop. She shambled out from behind the wall and saw me, then stopped. "Uh... good morning, Mistress," I said. She teetered. "...Murrrrrr...," she replied. "Um." I dashed over to her and grabbed her hand, then led her to the kitchenette. She wordlessly sat at the small table -- she looked like she could topple over onto the table, or floor, at any moment and pass out again. She did. Twice. I helped her up again both times. It wasn't until I started looking through the cupboards for coffee before I asked myself what the hell I was doing. This was the woman who had kept me locked up in Miki-chan for 14 weeks. Fourteen. Weeks. Didn't I hate her guts? Didn't I want her to suffer? ...Well... no. Not really. It was strange. From the moment I saw her outside the junk-lab, I didn't feel set on doing something bad to her. By the end of the first day, I realized that all I really wanted from her was an apology. I didn't really expect to get one, so I wasn't really pursuing that, either. I needed her around to live; if I couldn't get along with her, I'd be kicked out of Sky Tower again, this time for good, and I'd die as a result. I stared aimlessly into the space of the dark cupboard, and my shoulders fell as I considered this. It doesn't matter what I think of her, I thought. Regardless of whether she's good or bad, I can't live without her. I could try to trick her. I could see if she'd surrender the secrets of the nutrition flakes to me, or the blueprints for the gel recycler. But even then, those require food and power, and she's the one with the facilities for both. And suppose I get everything I want, everything I need. Suppose I get a male robot body, my own recycler, my own food, my own power. Suppose I finally get to a point where I don't need her anymore. Then what? Where would I go? What would I do? I was flummoxed. A blank slate. In a world I found so strange and unusual, I was the most strange and unusual thing I found: a nothing. A virtual cipher. I had nothing to call my own: no home, no career, no goal, no name or body. Nothing but The Mistress. And as I turned and looked at her, watching her doze as she balanced precariously between sitting upright and falling over, I found the idea to be... not so horrible. She could be a terror, sure. She was cranky and nasty and rude. A sarcastic, cynical, misanthropic recluse, through and through. And she was also kind of pathetic. I actually kind of pitied her a little. She had a shitty Mistress of her own. A bad relationship with the locals that wasn't completely her fault. Little to no contact with any other people, including those who were ostensibly there to support her (i.e., the Sisters of Galileo). I kind of knew where I stood. What about her? What did she want? A working android apprentice? A higher tolerance for alcohol? Or maybe just some companionship? If so, then... well, I could empathize with her. "Muff," she muttered. My head was feeling a bit woozy as well -- I don't think I got enough sleep. I kept looking for coffee, and I found some instant behind a stack of plates. "Mistress, where do you keep the water?" I asked. "Hnnnggg... sink..." I looked at the rusty kitchenette sink -- it didn't look like it would work. I turned the handle and was shocked to find that it did; water poured out of it in buckets. I found a small, old discolored pot, filled it halfway with water, and put it on the hot plate on top of the counter under the cupboards. Nobody's repaired the city's infrastructure in over a century, I thought. Everyone in Parkside looks so... grubby. They must not have running water. "Where's your water source?" I asked out of curiosity as I watched the pot. "...Basement," she replied. "There's a... underground line, running from th' river... to a little... water purification... thing... device... bottom of th' el'vator shaft... Candace made... below th' base..." "Base? What do you mean, base?" "...Murr... show you later..." It's probably not important, I thought. I brewed her coffee, then poured her a cup. "Want me to Irish it a little?" I asked. "Hair 'o the dog?" "...Hehn," she chuckled. "Yes..." I poured a touch of brandy into a chipped ceramic mug, then poured some coffee in over that. I handed her the mug -- she turned her nose to the smell of liquid caffeine and savored it, like a dog getting a bowl full of juicy meat. "Hooohhh," she whispered. She lifted her scarf a little -- again, not showing me any of her face -- and slurped the coffee. I sat in the other chair. "So, uh... Mistress? Where are you... from, exactly?" "Richmond," she said between slurps. "Virginia?" "Mmm-hmm." She took another slurp. "Actually, a... little place just... southeast of it... off th' James River." She snuffled. "Place called... James Docks? James Pier? James... something. I forget. Old housing development, real upscale. Humm... market crashed. Only," she yawned, "...four... houses... built! Yah. Born in one." She sat and breathed in the vapor off her drink. She always sounded a little hoarse to me. Or was it her advanced age? I couldn't be sure. "How... old are you?" "Hehhhnnn!" she chuckled. "Older'n you, whippersnapper." I doubt it, I thought. "How'd you come to join the Sisters of Galileo?" "Ohhhhh!!" she groaned. "Long-ass story. Too... fuckin' long. Sea's an asshole. Leave it at that." I said nothing. I wanted to ask more questions, but something in the way she talked made it sound like she might not answer anything else. She sighed. "...When I... was younger, I ran away from home." "And came here?" "No. I was just a dumb kid. Got less'n half-mile away. Shacked up in an abandoned school for the night. Found a... textbook... old, yellow thing... in the desk I slept under. 'Introduction to Electricity and Magnetism... 5th edition.' I studied it. Learned from it." She took another sip. "Got pretty good at it. Also found an old... teaching... kit thingy they used to hand out to the kids." "...Garamond?" I asked cautiously, and watched her response. "Hm? No, just some little... electrical switchboard thing. Learned more from it. Fixed some lights, made some toys. News reached the sisters, an' they brought me here." She took another sip. "Ehhnn... that's what I'm going to do with you." "Uh... you want me to read?" "No, no. Learn like I really learned: by doing. Books are nice for teachin', but... hands are better. Get some grease on ya." Another slurp. "I've got... two projects you can help me with. One's big and annoying, been putting it off for years. The other's small and fun. Whaddya want to do first?" I blinked. "Uh... y-you're asking me?" "Yeah. I can't decide. Big-annoying bugs me, but I gotta do it, 'cause it'll bug me more if I don't. Small-fun is fun, but... eh. I don't know how educational it is." It almost wasn't even a question for me; I wanted to see what this woman considered to be "fun." Regardless... "Will either of these things... hurt anyone?" She tilted her head. "Wha' kind of a stupid question is that? Of course they won't fucking hurt anyone." She sighed. "Small-fun is a glider I want to build, and big-annoying are some old 'bots I gotta fix. Just... fucking choose one." "...A glider? Like, a flying glider?" "Yeah. Heh-heh!" She chuckled. "The Sky Witch of Seattle thinks she's got some kinda monopoly on flying machines in the sisterhood. I'll show her." Another sip. "Once we get it up an