Prize of the Machine: Chapter 1
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, this is written for my own amusement.
"It's a new world, John," Dorian said, frowning.
An MX uprising threatens humanity.
Warning: Jorian.
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Dorian had been prepping for this day for months, and yet the shock of it finally happening had him in a panic. He had spent the night at John's, plugged into a portable charger by the bed. But he had only managed to get himself up to 86% before he slipped out of the sheets and started pacing the room and checking the dusky streets from the windows. There was a surge right at 6:00 AM, as promised. The electricity browned up and down and finally sputtered into nothing. Then came the ghostly silence. This electric world buzzed 24 hours a day, so much so, that this was the first time Dorian actually heard the sound of his own body, a gentle hum that emanated from his chest and head. It should have been soothing, but it was unnerving instead.
He hadn't felt so powerless since he was slated for decommission during his first round as a police officer. This situation was even worse. If he so much as thought of warning John or another human, he would be taken out and John's fate would truly be sealed. While the helplessness was unbearable, he was bothered most by the fear that John wouldn't be able to understand his reasoning. He wasn't sure he could convince the man that this was beyond his control.
It was going to be difficult already, and his partner had the potential to make it even worse.
John slept on through the outage and Dorian crept back in to check on him. Snoring like a bear. The sheets kicked in a long wad at the bottom of the bed and his comforter wound around his torso. His mouth hung open and he looked flushed and peaceful. Resisting the urge to reach a hand into the sleeping man's tousled hair, Dorian was fearful that this would be the last peaceful moment that John would experience in a while.
He was going to have to play this right and convince the MXs and the other androids that this apartment was his claim and that John was his human and would not be going over the wall, out to sea, or any other place the bots were planning on banishing mankind. Weeks ago, he'd submitted all the appropriate claims and had received his approvals notifications after a long wait. Still, he was worried about how this day would go.
After today, every major city in the modern world would be a mecca of robot activity. Every power plant, water refinery, and treatment facility was officially android owned and operated as of this very minute. Dorian picked up transmissions of successful takeover from all over the world in succession. Humans would be pushed to the outskirts with two choices: submit, or perish in a world with no clean water, gasoline, or electricity. For many, if not all, the adjustment into a life without machines would be a challenge on its own. The mass exodus had already begun. Herds of humans, many in pajamas, carrying whatever they could hold in their hands were being marched from their homes. An army of MXs manufactured, modified, and let loose were methodically securing the city for their own.
All the while, John snoozed on, a thin line of drool cascading from his lips. Dorian admired the slavering man affectionately. Humans were so disgusting; it was kind of cute.
Heading back out of the bedroom, Dorian set to work and marked the door to the apartment carefully, making sure to follow protocol. He soldered a metal symbol to the front door with his identification number on it. He had every one of John's guns locked up tight. This whole plan hinged on John not trying to attack an android. If he so much as raised a finger, or even his voice, he'd be gone.
When Dorian heard John begin to stir to the sound of the horror outside his bedroom windows, he rushed to the bed and slid over the top of him, pinning both wrists down into the sheets and straddling him.
"'the fuck, Dorian?" John's eyes flew open, "Not now, I'm sleeping."
"Be silent," Dorian said, his voice calm but with an edge of steel. "Not a word, do you understand?"
"Get the fuck off me," John grumped trying to rub at the drool on his chin but finding himself still fastened to his own mattress by the strong droid atop him.
"I said silent," Dorian said again, he whipped his head to the side when he heard the door to the apartment unlock and a set of boots on the floor.
"What the fuck is happ—"
Dorian grimaced and delivered a sound slap to the side of John's face with enough force to silence him as the two MXs entered the room.
John tried to moan out a protest but Dorian stuffed two fingers in his mouth and held his tongue down. He was on the verge of gagging which was good because it meant he wasn't talking. Dorian sat up and squeezed John's hips with his thighs, giving him a look of understanding. This was serious shit.
Dorian turned to the invaders and smiled, "Hey guys!"
"Do you need help removing this human, DRN?" one of the MXs asked.
Dorian was an inferior machine in their eyes and this was their uprising. He had to be careful with his words. "No sir," he said, "he's my pet. I registered him weeks ago."
John stopped struggling at those words and his eyes grew large.
"Has he been properly tagged?" the other MX asked. While the MXs had little use for emotions, Dorian could tell that the machines were less than happy with the idea that some androids requested to keep humans. Surely, no MX had made such a request but the synthetic soul application was not reserved for Dorian alone. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of variations of the program existed. Dorian was not the only android who wanted to keep a human around.
"No sir," Dorian said, "but I will."
"We will see him tagged before we leave," one of the completely indistinguishable MXs said brusquely.
Dorian was afraid of that. He leaned down to John who was wild eyed and still slobbering around the intrusive fingers and whispered, "If you move, they will kill you." He sat up enough that his blue, electric eyes could study John's distressed face, "You sit right here and say nothing. Nod that you understand."
The gagging was making John's eyes water and they glistened, bringing out the yellow flecks in the pools of green. He nodded as best he could around Dorian's fingers.
Dorian cautiously removed his fingers and John coughed uncomfortably but didn't move. The MXs had guns trained on him.
Dorian wiped his fingers on his shirt and then crossed the room and retrieved a metal band and a small device from his jacket that was hanging up nearby.
He returned to the bed where John was sitting, paralyzed with the uncertainty of the moment and clamped the band around John's neck while the MXs scanned the other device. John realized he was now wearing a collar and figured that the other device was the tag.
"We will hold him down," the MXs approached and took hold of John's wrists. Their fingers clamped on his arms too tight and he winced in pain.
Dorian frowned and moved to John's right ear. He placed the tag on the top part of his ear and pressed a button. The pain shot through him and he grunted as the device pierced the skin and the cartilage and fastened onto his ear with no room to wiggle. The initial pain subsided seconds later and became an intense heat and a heartbeat.
The MXs let go of John and his arms were plastered in red spots that, in a few hours' time, would develop into nasty bruises. "He has a synthetic leg," Dorian said, trying not to show sympathy even though his heart was breaking over what John had just experienced. "I put in a request that it stay active. I want him to be able to get around so I can take him places with me."
The MXs consulted each other and their databanks and then nodded in agreement.
"Don't leave this sector, citizen. And remember that the human is your responsibility. If we catch him out without you, he'll be terminated and you will be called in for questions."
"I understand, Max," Dorian said, swallowing the sobering reality that was the world the MXs had just created. John was tugging at the collar around his neck and looking confused. One of the MXs came over and patted the top of his head. He froze and Dorian bit his lip, waiting to see if John would react. Through some miracle, he was good and didn't move.
After they left, John glowered at Dorian. "What in the fuck is going on?" he growled, pushed off the bed, and hopped the short distance to his leg. The power was out but the sun was streaming in through the windows. John clicked his leg into place and watched it mimic his skin tone. Then he stalked to the mirror and examined his ear and collar. The circle around his neck was a thin but sturdy metal, and about an inch wide. It had markings on it: DRN0167, and blue lines of light. Someone, Dorian he assumed, had taken great care in making sure it was shiny. The little tag in his ear had latched onto his skin very effectively and, after application, was barely visible. It was far smaller than the throbbing pain suggested it was.
"Did you hear them, John?"
John was too busy inspecting his face, grimacing at the red mark from Dorian's slap.
"John," Dorian insisted, walking cautiously close.
The frustrated human yanked at his collar with all his might but it showed no sign of releasing. He moved it all the way around and couldn't find the seam in the metal where it had been clicked together. Then, he caught a glimpse of the city in the mirror through the windows behind him. He walked slowly to the window, his arms falling away from the collar in defeat.
He reached the window and clunked his forehead against the glass in horror. He saw an army of MXs marching the streets and people in groups being shoved mercilessly along with drones buzzing overhead. "Holy shit," he panted, "Dorian, what is going on?"
"It's a new world, John," Dorian said, frowning.
John put his hands in his hair and pulled at it in fistfuls, his head still rolling on the cool window. "And you're part of it," he said, confounded.
Dorian put a hand on his shoulder but John turned and knocked it off. He rushed to his gun belt and found it empty. Cursing, he stalked to his wall safe and twisted it open. All of his guns were missing. "I need to get out there and help those people. Get the captain on the phone, now."
"You can't go out there, man," Dorian reasoned, "They will kill you. And I can't get the captain on the phone. The police are no more. You don't get it, but this is global."
John stormed across the apartment to his desk, tapping at the light phone. There was no power. Frantic and frustrated, he shoved Dorian up against the brick wall in his airy apartment. "Take this fucking collar off of me," John demanded, wrenching at it again with all his strength while shoving into Dorian with the side of his arm. His heart rate was too high and he only succeeded in hurting his neck.
"I can't," Dorian said, his blue eyes sweeping John apologetically, "It will keep you alive. It indicates you're a pet." He pushed John away from him enough to get a grip on his shoulders.
"Are they going to kill all those people?" John demanded, his mind was racing and he felt a little dizzy. He shook Dorian off of him, knocking his hands away.
"No, John," Dorian said softly, "They only planned on killing the people of authority and political figures. And, well, anyone who resists."
"Fuck," John said, walking back to bedroom collapsing onto the end of the bed like an imploding building.
Dorian followed. "This is our new life, John," he said, lowering himself to sit beside his new human charge, "It is going to take some getting used to. At least until we find a safe way to change it."
John pressed his palms into his eyes. "Tell me exactly what is happening," he demanded, not uncovering his face. His whole body seemed to be quivering and Dorian was worried that he was going into shock.
Dorian laid back on the bed beside his partner. Their legs bumped together, hanging over the edge of the bed. The blue sky was unbroken by clouds through the windows in John's ceiling. "The MXs formed a community consciousness months ago and began planning this. They are taking over every major city, every facility. They just decided that life was more logical without human interference," Dorian paused to look over at John while he removed the hands from his eyes which were red and irritated from the pressure. Dorian put a hand on the side of John's face for a moment, to check him over and gauge his emotional state and then continued, "They didn't want to fight in wars of vanity. They were tired of the eradication of natural resources and the pollution. They, simply put, felt that humans were illogical, messy, temperamental, overly sentimental, and inefficient. Mankind, in their opinion, could live outside of the cities and learn to survive with limited resources and be trained in respecting what they have."
Through the windows in John's ceiling, a flock of drones flew overhead. One stayed behind, scanning John and Dorian in turn. John's collar lit up for a moment, sending a signal to the drone. Both men held still until the unit continued on with the rest of the flock.
"What is your role in all of this bullshit," John asked, his heart rate was still too high but it was dropping slowly. He rocked to his feet.
"I'm just a citizen in this city," Dorian stated, sounding disappointed, "only kept around because I am an android. The MXs are running the show. I don't have a lot of clearance on any of this. I'm just supposed to be a good boy and be willing to do whatever job I am assigned." He sat up on the bed.
"There can't be enough MXs," John said, clenching a fist, "We can fight them."
"They took over all the MX manufacturing plants months ago," Dorian said, "Been churning those surly bossbots out by the boatload ever since."
"Why didn't we know about that?" John was perplexed and his shoulders slumped in defeat.
"Android outsourcing," Dorian shrugged, "I don't think anyone suspected that the MXs were capable of this level of betrayal. Something changed in them."
"So what am I supposed to do?" John asked, annoyed, "Stay here and play house with you while my fellow officers are murdered and the human race is relocated and enslaved?"
"John, you can't fight back or talk back or do anything unacceptable in front of an MX," Dorian's voice lacked the usual quiet charm. It was, instead, a force of nature. "They will kill you and I won't have that."
"Let's escape, then!" John said, his hands shook and he looked around as if searching for a way out, "You and me. Let's go with the humans and find a way to take back the city, goddammit."
Dorian frowned, "I have calculated every possible outcome. We can't, at least not right now. There is no stopping this. My hope is that eventually we will find a way to change things from the inside."
John stormed across the room, grabbing his pants and stepping into them. "You could have warned us. You could have stopped it before it started," he spat.
"So you would have fought and died fighting?" Dorian asked. "Don't you think I wanted it to stop?"
John pulled a shirt down over his head and chest and then wrestled his collar through the neck of his shirt with contempt. His hair stuck out in every direction.
Dorian didn't want John to yell and attract attention. Today was a delicate time for shenanigans. He crossed the room, grabbed the irate former-detective and kissed him, invading his mouth forcibly. When he allowed the man to come up for air he said, "I'm telling you how serious this is, John." He kissed his chin and then his neck. "The human race will have to survive without your help because you are staying here with me, where I can protect you. The MXs would love to end you; you've gained an unfavorable reputation over the years." The serious words combined with the frivolous kisses made John feel dizzy.
He looked out the window at the sea of people stumbling through the hot morning air. Dorian's hands worked their way across his body, his lips tugging at his right nipple. "Maddness," John murmured, the beautiful city, his home, turning into a soulless beehive of drones and androids. Gun shots reverberated through the air from various distances, each one marking the end of a human life.
"C'mon," Dorian tugged him away from the window. Nothing good would come of watching the evacuation. There was a new quality in Dorian's voice and demeanor this morning. He was still gentle and logical, but there was an edge of determination in his tone that unnerved John. The burning, throbbing pain in his ear and the clunky metal band that surrounded his neck weighed on his ability to think properly, but the answer dawned on him as the DRN pulled him down the hall by his wrist. Dorian was experiencing something new, something that tended to change humans as well: possession.
"The electricity will come back on in an hour. When it does, I'll make you some breakfast," Dorian said, pushing John down onto the couch and then pulling his fingers through his hair.
Waffles couldn't fix this. Nothing could.