Deity
name: kirkland, arthur
age: 29
rank: captain
type: human
cybernetic implants: y/n
applic.: left eye
Arthur glanced boredly at the information rallying itself into line beside his picture. Everything these days had a bloody checkpoint - even a brothel. The tiny needle came out of his wrist, a bead of blood welling on his skin. He swiped his thumb over it, smearing it in before the guard could notice. Artificials were always far too interested in things that didn't concern them. He rolled down his sleeve as the guard - a basic model rolled out in its thousands: young, male, brunet - checked through the information.
"Captain?" the guard asked. "Army?"
"Navy."
"Ship?"
"HMS Prospero." Not a lie.
The guard typed this in and searched his database.
"HMS Prospero was wrecked last year," he said shortly.
"Your database is wrong," Arthur said. "You can see it down in the harbour plate if you want." He made himself comfortable on the sedan as the guard called up the live feed for the harbour plate and began to trawl through it.
Arthur was used to this spiel by now, tedious as it was. He missed the days of humans doing these jobs - humans got to know you, remembered your face, could be bribed or threatened to let you by. He sighed. It almost wasn't worth the effort.
Almost.
The guard was eventually satisfied that the HMS Prospero did, in fact, exist and amended his database. Now they came to the heart of the matter.
"Your purpose here?"
"Pleasure." Arthur had no qualms in admitting it to such an unsophisticated piece of machinery.
"Do you have any preference or would you like a random assignment?"
"Sunstar, if you please," Arthur said briskly.
tap tap tap
"He won't be available for another twenty minutes," the guard said. "Another client is currently using him."
Using. Arthur frowned in distaste at the word but nodded.
"I'll wait," he said.
"Of course." The guard reached over to a slot in the wall and took out a slim, rectangular bar of glass. He ran it by the screen, downloading the information before handing it to Arthur.
"This will notify you when Sunstar's next slot is open," the guard explained.
Arthur nodded, slipping it into the pocket of his blue officer's coat. He knew that. He started - and not a moment too soon - past the welcome kiosk.
"Your payment?" The guard seized on his arm.
"Oh, just add it to my tab," Arthur said, shaking himself free. "I'm a regular."
He passed through the foyer and into the spacious waiting room beyond. There was a long bar at one end and a scattering of tables and booths done up in red upholstery and brass rivets. The place had a thick woody smell to it, the air laced with smoke from thin cigars in holders. The place was dark, lit by a few old-fashioned gas-lamps - pretentious, Arthur thought - and, through the skylight in the ceiling, the first stars were beginning to twinkle in the purple sky. The brothel, specialising only in Artificials and Synthetics, was called Xanadu - named for the pleasure dome in the Coleridge poem, public doman, pre-installed on every hard-drive.
He went to the bar and ordered a spiced rum and soda, retreating to a corner booth. He tossed his hat onto the table and took out the glass bar, turning it over. It was completely blank.
He hoped it wouldn't be too much longer.
He sipped at his drink and took out the remote for his ship, turning it on. The LED screens flickered and flashed over one another in bright layers, giving him all the vitals of HMS Prospero. Three holographic skins, one low on power. He would need to refuel soon, yet another hole in his pocket. Still, he never had been able to get on with the smaller solar ships, they were much too unreliable (and most of the time he needed a fast getaway).
"Are you still flying around in that old thing?"
Arthur glanced up with a scowl. Francis Bonnefoy, the proprieter of Xanadu, was leaning over him, grinning. He had a beautiful blonde Model 09-X Synthetic on his arm, her pearly skin aglow beneath a gown of sheer blue chiffon. Arthur killed the remote, moodily shoving it back in his pocket.
"None of your business," he snapped.
"Have they not figured out that it is three different ships?" Francis went on indulgently, sliding into the seat opposite. "I assume stealing holograph skins is still a Class 1 crime?"
"I won them fair and square," Arthur replied icily. "Anyway, it's none of your fucking business."
"Ah, but what is my business is your purpose here tonight." Francis grinned and at last shooed the girl away. These newer models were more realistic than ever; the sway of her hips was mesmerising. "...I suppose you are not just here to drink?" This with a meaningful glance at the slender glass block on the tabletop.
Arthur paused.
"...I was hoping to buy," he said at last, low-voiced. "Not tonight, of course, but-"
"Well, no." Francis smirked. "I doubt you have the funds - you are so keen to, ah... spend your pocket money."
Arthur glowered.
"I am close enough," he said haughtily. "The price you gave me last time-"
"Ah, yes, I meant to tell you..." Francis toyed with his hair. "The market has gone up."
"No it hasn't."
"Oh, but it has. We are talking about Sunstar, non? His model is... how you say, rare? Ex-combat, Model 704, there are not many remaining now. The damage sustained during battle often destroys their systems - they last only one or two years maximum once discharged."
"So surely he's almost obsolete," Arthur seethed. "You should be paying me to take him!"
Francis grinned.
"Their scrap value is phenomenal," he purred. "They are designed to be robust - that is what makes them good soldiers and... well, good at sexual service. They can take a beating. Their systems are packed with diamond."
Arthur let out an angry breath. He quite saw what Francis was saying.
"Last time we agreed ten million," he said stiffly.
"I cannot let him go for that," Francis said delightedly. "Non, he is worth so much more as scrap alone - and he is such a favourite with the clients, yourself included."
"Then what?" Arthur snapped, pounding his fist on the table. His drink rattled. "Twelve?"
Francis laughed.
"Fifteen, then."
"Mon cher, we are not talking about a navigator-bot here!" Francis seemed outraged. "He is worth twenty-five at least!"
Arthur almost blanched but held it under control, his nails biting into his palms.
"Th-that's obscene!"
"There will be plenty of others interested, I assure you," Francis replied carelessly.
"Eighteen."
"Non, twenty-five."
"Twenty."
"Twenty-five, I must insist."
"Francis, you're insane," Arthur growled. "Twenty-two."
"Twenty-five million if you want him."
"No-one is going to pay twenty-five million for a decade-old 704!" Arthur snapped.
Francis stood up, preening.
"You will." He swept past Arthur, brushing his shoulder. "Have a good time tonight. Perhaps another buyer will have snapped him up by the next time."
He vanished into the hazy glow of the crowd - to harrass more of his regular clientele, no doubt. Arthur pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead, taking a deep breath. His frustration might just boil over - this was the third time Francis had upped the buying price. Every time they agreed on a price, the bastard claimed to have had interest from elsewhere and demanded more.
He moodily finished his drink, already mentally running through planned heists and runs to gather the money before Francis could change his mind again. At some point the sodding frog would have to see sense and take the goddamn money...
The glass bar flickered to life, glowing a bright blue as the letters and numbers settled.
Sunstar
Model 704-1776
Status: Available
Room: 15
Arthur snatched up his hat and hurried from his booth, passing through the crowd to the heavy doors at the very back. A wave of the bar over the sensor released the lock and the carved mahogany swept back to reveal a long corridor furnished with palm trees. They had plastic leaves and no scent.
Room 15 was at the far end of the corridor. The doors were all heavy soundproof things with a high-gloss black finish, giving away nothing of what might be going on beyond. Arthur paused just outside 15, patting down his windswept hair and fixing his cravat and gold-edged lapels, his reflection in the door a grey-washed ghost. He put his hat back on, tilting it very precisely. These entrances had to be perfect.
Satisfied, he swiped the bar over the sensor; the passcode unravelling itself and the door hissed back, bidding him entrance into the chamber.
Tonight's holograph was particularly exquisite: before him a descending staircase, glass rectangulars afloat like leaves on ice, and at the bottom a large pool of deep blue water. In the centre of the still water was a platform - and atop this a splendid bed, king-sized, with red sheets and pillows trimmed in gold. The walls were of lattice-work archways and hanging Moroccan lanterns with bright panels of coloured glass, candles within to radiate a bloom of gently turning rainbow light. Candles floated on the the water, too, shining between the silken lilies.
The object of his utmost desire awaited him him on the bed. Arthur hurried down the steps, his coat fluttering after him, and the Artificial smiled, rising.
"Arthur," he said warmly, gathering him into his strong arms. They wrapped themselves about each other and embraced.
"My beautiful Alfred," Arthur whispered against his throat. "I'm sorry it's been so long."
(He couldn't bring himself to call him 'Sunstar' - not when he knew his name.)
Alfred was an outdated model, a decomissioned 704 - designed for heavy combat. For their time, 704s had been top-range, programmed to have different personalities which allowed them to form friendships between one another. They also looked different from one another, created using a randomised selection process in the factories. The intention had been to make them as "human" as possible so that they would have loyalty to each other and fight like a real unit. Their creation and maintenance had been costly, however, and the Army went back to using the cheaper drone-style Artificials - these were far more easily replaced. As for the 704s, those that remained were discharged and sold off: to rich households, service sectors and brothels. They made for particularly good prostitutes: robust, well-trained, human enough. Unfortunately the parts for them were becoming very scarce and most of them were coming to the end of their life-spans.
(Still, twenty-five million was extortionate - even the brand-new Synthetics, specially-crafted for pleasure, weren't that much!)
At any rate, Alfred was particularly debonair this evening, dressed in a black shirt - top two buttons popped, rolled to the elbows - and loose khaki slacks, a sort of old adventure about him. He looked like he'd come off the cover of one of those old pulps from the 1930s, rare as gold-dust now - not that he had ever had the freedom to roam between colonial clubs in Egypt. Why, he couldn't even remember being in battle. His memory had been wiped shortly before he had been sold. He knew only the inside of this chamber - Room 15 and whatever holographic skin he chose to furnish it with.
It made Arthur hold him all the tighter.
Business rudely intervened. Alfred pushed him back, holding him at bay.
"How long did you book me for?" he asked.
Arthur rolled his eyes.
"The whole night," he replied. "Don't I always?"
"I have to ask," Alfred said reproachfully, "in order to assess-"
"Enough shop talk," Arthur growled, taking his face. "Until dawn, you belong only to me."
Alfred seemed happy enough with this, allowing himself to be pushed to the bed. The holograph flaked a little, it wasn't quite as strong as usual, but Arthur put it out of his head. He had Alfred, what difference did the false silk sheets make...?
He undressed him. Alfred was beautifully-made, one of the last off the production line, perfect in every way. His skin was like liquid pearl, smooth, shimmering. Sometimes Arthur thought bitterly that he couldn't have ever been truly intended for combat - surely he had been created for this, to writhe under men who would pay and look so good doing it.
(But he had killed. Lots of times.)
"What do you want?" Alfred whispered. Of course he had an immense capacity for taking orders. He could do anything-
But this too was shop-talk. He asked everyone this question. Another client is currently using him.
Arthur touched his face. His skin was never warm.
"Please don't talk like that," he said. "You remind me that this is... a transaction."
"I'm sorry," Alfred said. He probably wasn't.
Arthur kissed him again - to stop him from talking, from asking asinine questions. He didn't really taste of anything, his mouth cool and dry. He kissed back, though, his mimicry perfect.
In his method he was clinical; he hadn't gotten any better over the years because he was good to begin with. Arthur thought that surely Alfred - and his kind, the Artificials populating these rooms - didn't get anything from these trusses. He moaned and squirmed and acted the part but surely he didn't actually feel anything - it was a known fact that 704s had been designed without the capacity to feel pain. Pleasure, Arthur thought, was surely no different.
His coat and hat were off, his belt unbuckled, shirt open. He lay on his back and looked up at the arc of twinkling stars overhead. Alfred was kissing his way down his chest, his silk-cool hands wandering. It felt wonderful; it made him want to ask asinine questions.
"Does it feel good for you?" he asked softly. "Alfred? Does it make you happy?"
"When you come to see me," Alfred said, "I'm happy."
Arthur reached down to touch his hair, running his fingers through the gold. It was soft, smooth, but felt a little off. Clearly synthetic.
"I want to buy you," Arthur went on. Alfred was taking his zip down with his teeth. "Would you like that?"
"That would be nice." Alfred sounded distracted; because he was. His programming only allowed him to really concentrate on one thing at a time. It made him efficient.
Arthur stopped talking and settled back. Often his attempts to treat Alfred exactly like a human yielded disappointing results.
Every man willing to pay got precisely this; not for the first time, Arthur found himself grimly fascinated by this aspect, propping himself up on his elbows to watch. Alfred didn't give terribly good blowjobs, he wasn't designed for it - Synthetics had a better repetoire - and in any case, tonight Arthur didn't particularly enjoy the sight of him doing it. If he was honest, the price on the Artificial's head had put the mood quite out of him.
"Stop," he said hoarsely, tugging on Alfred's hair. "Alfred, please stop."
Alfred came up. He looked confused.
"Am I doing it wrong?" he asked. "You don't like it?"
"N-not tonight."
"Oh." Alfred knelt up. He was bewildered. It was true that Arthur had never asked him to stop before - or admitted that he wasn't enjoying it (even though sometimes he wasn't, he just liked to be close to Alfred and had to pay either way).
"Come up here," he said. "Close to me."
Artificials were physical beings, restless, with purpose; designed for doing. Alfred obediently lay down next to him on the red sheets but he fidgeted. He was confused.
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I didn't please you-"
"You don't have to please me all the time," Arthur sighed. "Sometimes I just like to see you."
"Nobody else pays just to look at me."
"Nobody else pays for an entire night," Arthur said sharply. "Nobody else tells you about the outside world or brings you gifts."
Alfred shrugged.
"Francis takes them away," he said. "He says I have no need of them."
Arthur exhaled. He wasn't surprised by this.
"You could kill him if you wanted," he said quietly.
"I couldn't. I don't remember how." Alfred pushed up again, leaning over Arthur. "We can't just lie here, Arthur. I want to make you feel good."
"I wish I could make you feel good, Alfred," Arthur said. "...But you can't feel anything, can you?"
"I guess that doesn't matter to most people," Alfred said carelessly. "I'm just an Artificial-"
"No, you're not." Arthur sat up, taking Alfred's chin in a fierce grip. "Not to me, anyway."
Alfred pulled away, rubbing at his forehead; the lucious room around them flickered once, twice, interference in the holograph. Arthur took in a slow breath.
"Sorry," Alfred said. "You're just... making me confused..."
Arthur nodded, taking Alfred's wrist. He often got like this when Arthur was overbearing on him, overwhelmed, even sulky.
The clarity in the holograph, though. That was startling.
"Just let me please you," Alfred said. "Then you can talk."
"Alright." Arthur relented, lying back again. Artificials did not possess the whims of humans - when they began a task, they expected to be allowed to finish it. In a way Arthur realised he had insulted Alfred by interrupting him.
"I'm sorry," he said softly.
"It's alright. I just want you to be happy, Arthur."
Arthur made himself smile.
"I am happy."
He lifted his hips for Alfred to take down his breeches and underwear, watching the false night sky. He didn't need to look at Alfred, he knew exactly what he looked like attending to these tasks; and he was so brisk about it, so efficient, he didn't fumble about like humans did. Artificials and Synthetics had systems packed full of chemicals to get the job done; lubricants, stuff to make your skin tingle and your toes curl, hallucinogens, even, if that's what you were in to.
He was deep inside Alfred, the Artificial riding him, leaning over him, whispering in his ear to ask again exactly what he wanted.
Well, he didn't want to look, he didn't want to see Alfred grinding on him like a cheap doll-
"Just this is fine," he mumbled, looking at Alfred's throat. Of course Alfred didn't sweat, he didn't look exerted at all, his hips probably really did have pistons in them; all in all he looked very beautiful and put-together doing it, so false that his moans perhaps excited other men but made Arthur want to put his hands over his ears. He wanted to hear Alfred laugh.
Then the voice, perfectly-tuned, became distant, curled at the edges. He was below water, the above rippling, brilliant with light but for the dark splotches of lily pads, candles, petals. There were feet, too, idly beneath the surface, pearl-white. He kicked through the water, trailing like treacle, and pushed up to grasp at the bank. He rested, deeply breathing, the grass soft beneath his wet hands. The feet belonged to Alfred, near-naked in his open shirt, sitting languidly at the lake-side in the sun. He looked like a carved angel at the side of a fountain - all the more because of the large white wings bowed from his shoulder blades. All around was lush greenery - real, he perceived, not holographic, as was the case now. There hadn't been real greenery on this scale since the war.
He reached for Alfred but he recoiled, leaping up. He beckoned, springing lightly away over the grass. Arthur had never seen him move this way before; after all, there wasn't much room in 15, nor much need of leaping about. Arthur pulled himself from the water and followed, pushing through the foliage, following the white glint of Alfred's wings.
How ludicrous, he thought dimly, to build combat or sex robots with such cumbersome wings. Surely they couldn't be much good at either.
They came to a clearing; now there were no trees, just yellow sand and a low blue sky. In the midst of this negative space was a single run-down old bar, a gentleman's club from the heat of Egypt or India, gold lettering faded at the sun-stained windows. Arthur had never been in one, they were all long gone, although there were wan mimicries that his sort congregated in at outposts. They liked the feel of history, rough and worn beneath their fingers. It made them feel real. They were peddlers of the past: the reconnaisance.
He stepped into the club, letting the door swing shut behind him. It was cool and dark within, scattered with tables and wrinkled palm trees; and bursting with patrons, faded, faceless. They were inconsequential, yeilding to his touch as he pushed through the crowd; they collapsed under his fingers, turning to clouds of dust in lurid colours, pinks, oranges, purples, greens. He saw Alfred through the stained-glass air, his long wings blotched with collected colour. There was a door - and, with a glance back at Arthur, he pushed down the handle and was gone.
Arthur made his way through the rainbow haze of vanishing men, each a more ghastly shade than the last. He recalled, dazedly, the Poe story in the salvaged book sold for a new compass; he had wanted to keep it, books were such a rare find these days. The story was 'The Masque of the Red Death', filled with chambers bathed in coloured light and people without faces and a final, terrible moment.
Arthur pressed down on the handle, pushing into the final room. He stood at the doorway, his coat flapping in the heat. This chamber was blindingly bright, bathed in blazing white gold. The floor and the walls were cracked, bleeding light; and there was Alfred, kneeling in the centre, his wings blackened and burnt. His opal skin was cracked, too, run all over with a web of splinters bleeding gold. His face was in his hands.
"Alfred," Arthur said. His voice caught in his throat, heat and dust.
Alfred raised his head. He had gold running from his eyes and mouth. He stretched out his hands. Arthur came to him, forced to shield his face from the sheer heat; and Alfred, he was so hot that he could barely touch him.
Alfred's hands were bloody, scarlet smeared over palms and wrists, even 704s had had to kill with their hands. Arthur pushed between them, coming to the Artificial's core, wrapping his arms around him. There was a vast rumbling overhead as he clutched at him, as he felt Alfred grasp at his coat with those wet red hands. When he raised his head, squinting up through the monstrous bow of Alfred's decimated wings, he saw the white-hot arc of the sun bearing down on them, coming to devour them-
Or... No, the sun was not coming for them. It was they who were rising, coming up through the ether, the splintered walls that make up space.
It was they who wanted to be eaten: Icari, about to fall.
Arthur opened his eyes with a gasp. The room was dark at the edges, alight only by a single cheap strip-light over the bed. The holograph had stopped running, leaving them with the bare bones of the room beneath.
His mouth was dry, sour-tasting, his brain still addled, his body buzzing. Hallucinogens, he realised grumblingly, even though he hadn't asked for them. He didn't remember a thing of the sex at all, not even coming - although he had, he was still damp.
"Alfred, I didn't ask for a bleeding acid trip," he complained, sitting up. He'd never enjoyed hallucinogenic intercourse, the pictures were always so vivid, disturbing, and you didn't feel the sex. You could buy drugs that did much the same if you wanted so it seemed like a waste of money to him. "Alfred!"
No answer. Arthur glanced about, squinting through the dark. He located Alfred sprawled at the end of the dingy bed, quite still, and his body rushed chill. He crawled over to him.
"Alfred?" He shook the Artificial. No response; Alfred's false blue eyes were wide open, unseeing, his lips moving ever so slightly. Lights on, nobody home. There was a crazed grinding sound - like an exhausted computer, the old sort that used to sit on a desk or a lap - coming from deep within his body.
"Alfred!" Arthur shook him again, growing desperate. Nothing. With a heart like a stone, he realised that Alfred was malfunctioning. 704s were prone to crashing if their systems were overloaded or compromised - one of the many reasons their production had been stopped. They were just too unreliable.
Arthur reached for the wire installed at the nape of his neck, plugging it into the tiny gold port just under his left eye. Cyber-eyes were the new eyepatch - and twice as useful. He covered it as it initialised, watching Alfred with the remaining one. He was completely out of it and Arthur didn't know if he'd be able to do anything for him. Perhaps a part had broken, a fuse or wire blown. Arthur was no engineer; he could fix his ship but a 704 was a different story.
His eye booted and he lowered his hand, casting it over Alfred.
name: jones, alfred
model: 704 MkV
serial no.: 776
status: army/decommissioned
age: 9.3
core: ERROR
Arthur huffed. If it was a core error then a simple reboot should set him right - although it would mean opening him up.
Still, he didn't feel that he had much choice. If he called Francis...
No. He couldn't. Francis had already all but said Alfred was as good as scrap. If he saw him malfunctioning, that would be the end of it.
Arthur took the 704 under his arms and rolled him over. He was very heavy, mostly metal, and it took some effort to get him flat on his stomach. The gentle arc of his spine glimmered under the harsh light, the line between the panels barely visible. Arthur reached up the back of Alfred's neck, hooking his finger under the release toggle and snapping it back. With a sound like a sharp breath of steam, the two plates of the Artificial's back lifted and sighed away, revealing the complex web of gleaming machinery beneath.
Much of the value of the 704s came from the spine: a flexible, jointed steel cable with vertebrae of solid, glittering diamond. This gave them their immense strength; the first of them off the production line had been touted as able to lift ten times their own body weight.
Alfred was stirring a little, aware, no doubt, that he was wide open. Arthur straddled the backs of his legs to hold him still.
"It's alright," he soothed. "I'm just resetting you."
No answer. He wasn't surprised. He leaned close, easing his hand beneath the tight hard cage of the 704's spine to get at his glowing blue heart. It was quite a wrangle - he supposed the military had had machinery to do this job - but he was able to pinch the wire he needed between his thumb and forefinger and yank it out.
All of the lights within Alfred's cool sparkling system went out. All noise ceased, all movement stopped.
Now the fear: did Alfred have enough about him to survive the boot - or was this his last, would he putter out completely when he was reconnected? Arthur held his life, literally, between his fingers. Perhaps this was the end of it.
He wouldn't get in trouble for it, at any rate. You couldn't murder a robot.
He wriggled the wire back in, biting his bottom lip. For a long moment there was nothing, a terrible void in the black room; and then Alfred shuddered and his lights came back on, blinking one by one like stars. Beneath him Arthur could feel the monstrous strength gathering, coiling, and he pushed the panels over Alfred's spine shut and slid off him. He retreated to the other end of the bed, only now thinking to tuck himself in, zip himself up; Adam, naked, giving life before knowing decency.
Not that humans remembered much about God or gods these days.
Alfred pushed himself up on his hands and knees. His face was blank, his blue eyes wide and bright, his entire system recalibrating. Arthur knew better than to go anywhere near him.
The room flickered like a pulse, snatches of pictures rising over the walls before vanishing, each different, familiar; Alfred's wallpapers, his conjured worlds, here the deep blue of an undersea bower, now the lush greens of a forest grotto, the cool white of marble and sleek purple glass, pebbles, sand, a river. Alfred didn't remember any of these things, they were too perfect, they were installed in his brain for the pleasure and comfort of his clients. All Alfred knew was the inside of this chamber - 15, his. That was why he loved Arthur's tales of the outside world (or what was left of it). They were the only furnishings put into his head for his own pleasure.
The dust settled. Arthur looked around, his stomach sinking. The war zone. Alfred wasn't supposed to remember this - the clouds of yellow-green dust, the jagged teeth of buildings. Not much blood, too much obliteration.
Alfred at last raised himself, looking at him. Arthur's blood ran cold.
"Alfred," he said hoarsely. He hesitated, then crawled towards him. Alfred recoiled, looking around - realising the magnitude.
"What did you do to me?" he whispered. He looked again at Arthur; and this was not horror, not wonder, something stranger.
"I rebooted you," Arthur said quietly. "It... it was the only thing I could think of-"
"I remember this place. Union Square, 47 casualties, Stephenson Campaign." Alfred put a hand to his forehead. "They had to scrub us all down afterwards - so much dust." He looked at Arthur. "Where were you?"
He had never asked this before. Arthur let out a cold breath.
"POW camp," he said. He put his arms around Alfred. "I didn't last long. I was too reckless."
"Please don't tell Francis," Alfred begged. "He'll scrap me."
"I know he will." Arthur kissed his forehead. "...Those hallucinogens-"
""What hallucinogens?"
Arthur paused. So it hadn't been deliberate.
"What do you remember?" he asked.
Alfred shrugged.
"I rode you, you went all weird and rigid, you know? Your eyes rolled back in your head but I thought... you know, you were just climaxing-"
"I was hallucinating, idiot!"
"Well, I don't remember much else. I guess I blacked out." Alfred didn't add anything more. Instead he clutched at Arthur's arm like a child.
Of course Arthur realised, by no small means, just how serious this was. Alfred had malfunctioned catastrophically, right in the middle of the one task he absolutely had to perform correctly.
"I didn't mean to release hallucinogens," Alfred said. "I'm sorry."
"It's alright." Arthur stroked at his hair.
"Do you want to go again?" Alfred asked. "To get your money's worth?"
"I think it would be best not to, all things considered." This was rather dry on Arthur's part - with a glance around at the mutilated holograph. "You should probably rest. Your system is likely overloaded."
Wear and tear, really, was his thought. 704s were old, even MkVs like Alfred. There was no getting away from it. Now that he had started to malfunction...
"Will you tell me about the solar fields again?" Alfred asked. He lay down on the bed, his head on Arthur's lap. He seemed exhausted; not surprising, since Francis certainly seemed to get his money's worth out of him. "And the coloured lights in the north? Tell me about your ship, too, Arthur."
"I will," Arthur said. "Of course I will - but get your rest first, my dear." He rubbed at the Artificial's forehead. "We have all night."
They said you should never fall in love with an Artificial - heaven forbid a Synthetic - and here was why.
Who knew how much life Alfred had left in him; and robots were much like computers. Often there was no real warning - one day they just stopped working.
All the more reason for Arthur to act now, if ever he did. Alfred's next client wouldn't keep quiet; if he malfunctioned, there would be a complaint, Francis would hear of it and Alfred would be scrapped. There was no more time: Arthur knew, on his next visit, Alfred wouldn't be here anymore. The 704 was asleep - or what passed for it, flat out on his back, eyes closed, recharging. In his sedated state, the holograph in the room had righted itself to his original splendid display, albeit a little transparent.
Fully-dressed, Arthur sat on the edge of the bed and shook him awake. Alfred smiled sleepily at him, sitting up.
"Are you leaving?" he asked.
"Not quite yet." Arthur held up the glass bar; it still said ENGAGED, counting down the minutes until Arthur's slot ended. It was near dawn.
"Twenty minutes," Alfred observed.
"Indeed." Arthur nodded. "Plenty of time."
"Oh." Alfred nodded, beginning to unbutton his shirt. "Of course-"
"No." Arthur caught his hand, stopping him. Alfred met his gaze. "That's not what I want."
"Then what?"
"I want you to come with me," Arthur said. "Now."
Alfre shook his head.
"You know I can't do that," he said. "Not unless you buy me. Didn't you say you were going to?"
Arthur snorted.
"I wanted to," he said. "Talked it over with Francis, even - but he wasn't playing fair so neither am I." He shrugged. "After all, I am a bloody pirate."
"But-"
"Of course, it'll be a pain having to smuggle you past checkpoints - I wanted to buy you so I'd have the paperwork and have one less illegal thing on my ship to worry about but there we are. It didn't work out."
Again Alfred shook his head.
"You can't," he said. "We won't get out. They'll stop us and you'll be arrested-"
"I wasn't thinking of leaving through the front door." Arthur looked at him. "Alfred, I'm not leaving you here. If you malfunction again... well, what do you think will happen to you?"
Alfred looked away.
"I don't want to be a burden to you. You could get caught-"
"I'm not exactly on the right side of the law to begin with," Arthur said cheerily, taking out the remote for HMS Prospero. "Anyway, I have plenty of places I can hide you."
He turned on the remote, bringing up the vitals screen for his ship. This was risky - stupid, even - which was why he'd given it precisely no previous forebear. Now it was his only option.
"Besides," he said carefully, looking at Alfred. "...Now you won't have to be content with just my stories."
He sat on the edge of the bed, tapping in their coordinates. Alfred leaned over his shoulder, watching him.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Well, we need a door, don't we?" Arthur handed him the glass bar that had accompanied the room. "When I tell you, I want you to break this."
"Break it?" Alfred seemed confused, turning it this way and that.
"Yes - clean in half. It'll put the room offline." Arthur checked the time. "It's almost 6am - business will be finishing up for the night. This is the best window. I expect most of the staff have retired."
By "staff" he meant Francis, who usually slinked off his to own chambers between three and four in the morning.
"We're doing this." Alfred clutched the bar. He sounded like he couldn't quite believe it. "We're... we're actually doing this-"
"I'm afraid I can't see any other way around it," Arthur said briskly. He rose, taking Alfred's arm and pulling him back away from the bed. "I suggest we stand back."
They stepped through the holographic water towards the far wall, Arthur watching his remote all the while. The correlating coordinates were gathering speed, luminous numbers racing.
"Got the pass?" he muttered.
Alfred held up the bar.
"Good." Arthur held up his fingers. "When I say... three, two, one-!"
Alfred broke the bar neatly in half and the holograph vanished; all the lights went out and they were plummeted into darkness for all of five seconds. At the next instant there was an almighty rumbling and then the pink-orange of dawn burst through the wall, haloing the bow of the HMS Prospero.
Alfred was speechless, dropping the two halves of the pass with a clink. Arthur seized his arm, pulling him across the plain room to the front of his ship. The holograph - quite a splendid one in the shape of an eighteenth-century sloop - was flickering a little at the prow and beneath the actual aluminium was a bit dented but she seemed otherw ise unscathed. Arthur patted her side fondly as he started up the ladder to the deck, pulling Alfred with him.
"Come on," he urged. "We haven't got much time before someone notices I ploughed a ship into the side of a classy brothel."
Alfred scrambled to follow him to the top deck of the ship; here the bridge, this crowned with a glass dome of brilliant colour, and within, bathed in melded light, the control panel. Arthur threw open the door, pulling Alfred with him.
"This is your ship?" Alfred asked, looking around. "She's beautiful."
"This is one of three holograph skins," Arthur said distractedly. He came to the control panel - a slender semi-circle of chrome - and slipped his remote into the slot in the centre. At once the screens sprang to life, clear LED displays appearing before him. They were touch-operated and he moved his hands through them as though conducting an orchestra, pulling all of Prospero's vitals into position. Her engines roared beneath as she fired up, easing back from the ruined wall. She rose gently above the city like a feather on the breeze; Alfred went first to the side of the dome, then slipped back through the open doorway and onto the deck. Arthur glanced quickly over his shoulder at him, watching him pad away in his bare feet towards the stern.
He finished his preparations, setting the course, and slipped out to join him. HMS Prospero gathered speed as his boots clicked over the mosaic tiles of the deck; Alfred, standing at the stern, heard his approach, glancing quickly at him.
"Are you alright?" Arthur asked quietly. It had, after all, all been quite sudden. He didn't know if Artificials could be shocked but he thought it best to ask.
Alfred nodded, looking over the edge again. The peacock-blue roof of Xanadu, Alfred's prison since for all those years being decommissioned, was vanishing into the distance as they barreled over the city.
"Yeah," Alfred replied calmly. "I'm good."
"Are you happy?"
"Yes."
Arthur stepped up to join him at the rail, looking down. The city of Eden was beautiful in the first light of the morning, the gilt and gold domes atop the government buildings glittering in a sea of bright marketplaces and lush public space. A lot of it was mere holograph, of course, to cover the damage - but it was still a sight for sore eyes. Alfred was taking it all in greedily, barely knowing which way to look.
"What do you think of it?" Arthur went on, nudging him. "As good as my stories?"
"Better!" Alfred enthused; he pointed to the shoals of brilliant tropical fish gleaming past them. "You never said there were fish in the sky!"
"They're not real, obviously." Arthur put out his hand and the fish swam straight through it. "Just holographs."
"Even so..." Alfred stretched out his hand, too; but the fish were out of his reach, his silvery fingers clutching at nothing. He seemed disappointed.
"Alfred, you can conjure your own fish." Arthur shook his head. "Anyway, that reminds me - I ought to go down and change the holograph on the ship."
He started away; Alfred immediately began to follow him, so he stopped.
"You don't have to come with me," he said, looking at the Artificial.
Alfred tilted his head.
"...Don't I?"
"Of course not." Arthur took his shoulders. "I'm not... your owner, you know. Even if I had bought you... that's not how I wanted this to work. You're free, do you understand that? You're not a service Artificial any more. You don't have to do what anyone says."
Alfred looked at his hands. He did not take this news with the joy that Arthur had been expecting - a human expression. He seemed perplexed.
"Oh," he said at last. "Alright."
"What's the matter?" Arthur couldn't help but be a bit impatient. "Don't you want to be-"
"No, it isn't that!" Alfred took Arthur's arm. "Please don't be upset, Arthur. I... I am very grateful, it's just..." He looked out over the distant city again; a long pause. "...I guess I just don't understand."
Arthur reached up to stroke his cheek; cool, bloodless, shimmering in the daylight.
"Well," he replied gently, "you have plenty of time to learn."
This will be a two-parter; next installment to come soon. It was meant to be one, of course, but it ran away with me as usual. XD
The idea of the holographic rooms/public spaces/etc was inspired by the anime series Psycho-Pass, which is a really fantastic show. I highly recommend it!
Lastly, this is Haku's birthday fic. It is very late. I hope she likes it anyway! :3
