A/N bumper chapter here part of our 50,000 reads celebration -
Picture: Just in case you wonder what Jenny's makeup printer malfunction looks like. Video:Just in case you thought all this notion of food printers is science fiction.
I had been especially let out to go to the slave feeding area which was a nice treat. To get there my collar navigated me through the narrow slave corridors mostly hidden in the walls. This way the corridors weren't clogged up with slaves littering the place. Also in the corridors, you got announcements and screens of information.
"Will all slaves with serial numbers ending in 9 star star please make their way to the appropriate blood extraction areas. Remember failure to do so may lead to your execution, plus loss of video privileges. Thank you<DING>" went a voice above me.
The corridors were so narrow that you have to turn sideways to pass somebody rubbing against them. They were full of mirrors to let you check your appearance before appearing in front of an overlord. Occasionally above your head you would see a hammock strung up, so a slave would sleep close by in case someone wanted something 24/7 ( which was now 10/10 under the new New mechanical order clock ).
There was another announcement "Tired, irritable, unable to cope? Are you in need of slave counselling? Tell your collar to electrocute your sorry ass and buck up flesh scum. That was a kind message from the New Mechanical Order. All hail the new mechanical order. Thank you<DING>" it said
The other thing I noticed was that the slave costumes were brightly colored. Black for maids and personal servants. Bright green for gardeners ( yes the hall had plants tastefully put around and a large greenhouse and formal garden). Red catsuits for those whose job it was to look after the server rooms where Rockwood's brain sat. Or possibly their role was to get shot in case any alien turned up to make it look serious. There were other colors yellow, orange, blue I passed someone in a violet color I guess they all had different work they would do but wasn't sure what.
"This is to remind you that the make up this week is a new formulation by L'Oréal with is 15% more radiation proof than other brands. L'Oréal because as a second class slave under the new mechanical order your not worth it. In fact you never were, that was just a marketing slogan we were amazed anyone fell for. Thank you<DING>" said the speaker system. Clearly, the robots had taken over L'Oréal's marketing, or possibly Quakers or Vulcans.
I finally got down to what was known as the slave feeding zone but was as far as I could tell just a cafeteria.
I was hungry and went over to some of the food printers. I liked the fact here the machines just printed food for you directly. In the factory we all had the same food. I copied some of the other slaves and presented my wrist which identified me to the machine. I looked onas the machine prepared lunch for me in seconds before my eyes. I didn't have any say in what I was going to eat but got given this nice, if meatless dish. Looked like today I was getting asparagus risotto with a carrot salad with some kind of chilli dressing.
With my tray, I turned around and saw Kayla waving from a booth.
"So what explains the new look," said Kayla over lunch as I sat down. We both had to wait until after collars gave us permission to start eating.
"Printer malfunction. How's work?" I said.
"No, tell me about the printer malfunction first," said Kayla.
"If you must. I said to Rockwood it seemed a waste of a good printer that could print any clothing of any type and a perfect fit that we all wore the same outfit each and every day. If we had these pre-fall I'm sure everyone would have enjoyed wearing absolutely anything. All you had to do was imagine it and you could wear it. I'm sure many people would have enjoyed that. OK, the fashion 'industry' would have gone into cardiac arrest but for the fashionistas it would have been a god send. So it seemed to be like having a fast car and only driving it to the shops once week. So he retaliated by as far as I can see getting me in random clothes every day. I never know what I am going to look like until I step out of the printer. He has also set the makeup printer on gaudy but random. It's like playing Russian roulette with my face. I'm always quite amazed at how radically different the machine can make me look. The room slaves frequently come in and look carefully at my collar to read my ID number to make sure I am the same pet-girl. Even then they would treat me differently sometimes.."
"You're calling him Rockwood, not he who I am not worthy of speaking his name now. I see you've picked up his tendency to go into monologue mode" said Kayla giving me a hint of a smile.
"You really do know how to put a girl down, don't you? Now you've worried me. Look we are nothing a like - He's an evil cyborg overlord, I'm a human slave" I said.
"Together you fight crime, " said Kayla. "Sorry, that just came out. Writing is a nasty habit even the end of the world doesn't' cure you of. Don't worry I'm just pulling your leg about the Monologue business"
"Thanks. I've told you before I don't like him. He keeps me there on the principle that I tell him how parc he is. As soon as I tolerate him or worse I'm toast" I said.
"No, at the end of the day all a machine like him wants from you or me is just one thing, Blood." Said Kayla. I saw she had the red marks on her arm were she had been forced to donate a pint of blood a few days ago. Kayla didn't mind, you could stay in bed the next day to recover, but there was the excessive supply of spinach to deal with.
"Everything else is just stuff to stop us from going mad. Like I clean ducts today and I know as soon as we leave, a bunch of drones come in to do it off properly. So how is petting?" said Kayla.
Before my mid morning nap, I had actually wasted most of the morning playing 123 on my collar. In this game, you were faced with e-slave dilemmas and had to bid on how well you thought the answer was correct and if you were wrong you got a slight collar shock. It was quite strategic but the pace speeded up. By the end of the morning, I had a high score of 120,000. I had tried a few games at the Factory. They were all like guitar hero, you do exactly what the computer tells you to do and when to do it. You got points for following the machine's orders exactly and when they told you. It seemed so patently transparent that the game was there to groom humans to follow machine orders instantly and unquestioningly, I had been surprised anyone had bothered playing them.
123 was much more interesting, and it helped me improve my slave-craft for Rockwood so it was educational. I might be having fun, but I was being productive. It had helped me cope with my fragrance withdrawal symptoms. Sometimes I could imagine I could smell it on me or on him. I'd been resisting the temptation to get my collar to put me through parade ground obedience marching. I want a teeshirt with 'protect me from what I want' on it. That was pernicious stuff. Not that I was going to tell Kayla, she had proper problems.
"I'll tell you how boring my day is. I play for him in the morning. Then I'm on my own. Every day Mid morning a floor cleaning robot I called Pixel, comes out starts cleaning. Like #DEC, It doesn't say much."
"That's Adherents for you, always meditating," said Kayla.
"I discovered it could spin clockwise or anti-clockwise as a kind of yes or no. Sometimes I play floor cleaning games with it. Generally, it is as annoyed with me trying to help as the e-slaves are when I get something for master or help clean up. Then I noticed if I followed the complex cleaning patterns it does, it did then it doesn't mind"
"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 monologue like a certain cyborg owner we both share. ." said Kayla with a twinkle in her eye.
"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.
"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.
"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 I'm guessing. African Region 1 didn't sound right.
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.
"#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.
Kayla munched on some food "She's busy, said she would be here later."
"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.
"What's Cinder?" I asked.
"Slave dating app. If you're single you're 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.
"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.
Kayla looked at Joe and smiled the way only a woman truly in love can smile. I so wanted that smile.
"We need to do something about your Proclaimers collection first," she said.
"That's where you're wrong I was referring to Shriek," said Joe turning to me.
"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.
"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.
"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.
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.
"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.
"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 an entire life of switching machines on then off again how demeaning," I said.
"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. 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 tol me" 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 drai nall your mental energy you might die."
"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."
"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.
"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.
"Are there sexy cheerleaders and stuff?" asked 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.
"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 an odd way.
"I think you should see a Doctor. I'm surprised your collar hasn't forced you to go yet" said Joe.
"The term doctor has been depreciated. You need to go to technical support<zing>" said my collar.
"Come one we'll take you," said Kayla. Finishing her lunch and pinching Joe's ass.
****
What has happened to Jenny? Will she be all right? What has she been infected with? Join us on Tuesday to find out
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