Downtown Hewlett, 15 Vendemaire 3228

Her ears were hot. Her eyes felt too big for their sockets, itchy and burning. They kept blinking: half-open, half-shut. When she breathed in the air was cold, chilling her wet lips. When she breathed out it was fire.

Fingers pressed into her left shoulder, digging past the long hairs, seeking her skin. She heard a soft, gentle shhhh and her arm's twitching began to slow. The fingers found her other shoulder, then the thighs of both legs, midway from hips to kneecaps. The muscles began to slide and unknot. Her eyes drifted closed and rested.

The fingers were gone. She was alone in her endless darkness, in her bone-deep ache. Oh no. She whined in misery, like a wounded repenomamus lying in the wild grass. Oh no—

Then they returned with a friend: a soft cloth, wet and cool. It wiped the lids of her eyes, cleaning away the stickiness and sting, then pressed water on to both sides of her fevered ears, soothing the burning skin through the sparse, sharp hairs. Then it wiped away the clumps of snot that had sprayed from her nose, dried to a crust by her black nostrils or run down to mix with the spittle on her lips and cheeks.

A finger pressed into the aching ball of muscle at the back of her jaw and forced her to relinquish some hard, intrusive contraption from between her teeth. A moment later a cold plastic nozzle came to her lips. She took it hungrily—cold water, freezing—gulped greedily, feeling it spilling into her blood, spreading down her limbs, infecting her gently, sweetly. The desperate, burning heat was soon broken and she settled down to drink, sucking rhythmically. Her darkness was soft and cool, perfect. Even in the pain she purred with contentment.

"Aren't you thirsty," Amanda chuckled.

Sally of Acorn, Daughter of Maximilian and Andrea—

Sally squeezed her eyes and moaned at the familiar knot of pain in her heart. Restraints rooted her helpless, sweat-soaked body to its place of torture. And she had to fight.

"Sally?"

Another swallow or two of the water, her cheeks contorted as though it were urine, and she spat the bottle away.

"How are you, Sally?" Amanda asked, her armored face peering askew at Sally's.

"It hurts," she answered, weakly. Oh gods, it hurt.

"I know just the thing . . . ."

"It hurts everywhere," Sally said again with sudden horror. This wasn't right. You couldn't hurt everywhere. Then the fingers were adding more pain in her neck, stressing the tendons, again seeking the hollow of her throat. "No!" she begged, unable to turn away, "No more—mmk!" The spray pierced her again. "What—"

"Shush," Amanda said, laying a finger across Sally's lips. Sally's mouth slid open under it; her wrists went slack in the cuffs. "Relax," said Amanda. "It will make you better." She watched Sally's brown eyes blink slowly. "See?"

"It feels nice," Sally answered softly, uncertainly.

"Better in every way," Amanda assured her.

"Please," she said.

"What is it, Sally? What do you need?"

". . . I don't want to be a robot," she croaked.

Tough padding squeaked as Amanda eased herself up onto the pain bed beside Sally, her smooth armored leg against Sally's soft arm. Her face was not stern, but serious. "You are a robot, Sally."

"But . . . ." Sally turned her eyes, as though there were some clue to the nightmare on the ceiling. "No . . . I'm not. . . I don't have armor."

"It's not installed yet," explained Amanda. She smiled, sliding her fingers into Sally's hair, coarsely combing it. "Silly."

"But I don't have anything."

"Yes you do." A wave of tingling fear filled her insides, strange and alien. "Your locator," Amanda continued.

"My what?" asked Sally.

Amanda slid her hand around Sally's neck and tapped on the hard piece. "You talk to me. You say: Here I am." Amanda tapped again. Sally's secret voice was a sparrow's: "Here I am," she chirped.

"No," breathed Sally, wriggling, waking the lingering pain in her exhausted muscles as she arched her back and hips against her bed. She had to get these things out of her; she had to—

"You are my robot." Amanda promised, her gleaming face looming close. "I'm your commander."

"No," she repeated. "No . . . ."

"You obey me. I take care of you."

"No—"

A hand rested softly on Sally's forehead, pressing her to the padding. "Don't say 'no,'" Amanda commanded.

Sally was quiet.

"I'm almost a year old, now," Amanda continued with a strange, muted look in her black eyes. "It's hard to remember waking up for the first time . . . I was—confused." Her hand curled, fingerjoints bending one after another in perfect sequence. She turned it over, studying it like some abstract sculpture: skunk palm, robot claws, skunk palm, robot claws . . . . "I couldn't tell what I was. I couldn't recognize—things. I couldn't think." The organic half of her face fell, blank eyes lost in the dim, formless memory. "It was terrifying."

Amanda's eyes turned to Sally's. "You don't know what you are, do you?" she asked.

The squirrel said nothing.

"Don't be afraid, Sally," Amanda said. "You're something new: a brand new robot. It's a wonderful thing to be. When we get to Robotropolis I'll refit you, program you. Make you strong and good." She turned her eyes down the length of the squirrel, appraising the raw material, the toned muscle of the arms and legs. "You'll be my reconnaissance bot."

"Recon," said Sally.

"Mmm-hmm," she decided. "I'll program you to be very tricky, very sneaky for me. Very helpful and good." Amanda smiled, reached out a hand and scratched behind Sally's ears. "You'll be beautiful in armor."

"Beautiful," said Sally.

"Very beautiful," Amanda assured her. "I can see." Her soft fingertips smoothed the fur along the top of Sally's snout back into her head-hair. "I'm going to stand you up now," Amanda announced. "Then I need you to cross your arms behind you and hold still. Do you understand, Sally?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Call me Commander," Amanda chided gently.

"Yes, Commander," the squirrel answered.

Amanda smiled, pressing a button to deflate the cuffs around Sally's wrists. "You're a fine bot."

Sally's bed released her, but she stayed still until Commander put a strong arm under her back and helped her to her feet. Then Sally held her arms as she had been told, clasped over her tiny tail for Commander to tie them. "Look, Sally. This is a useful tool." On the inside of Commander's hard forearm there were many things. One thing was a tiny slot. A white plastic cable-tie whirred out, curling away from Commander's arm. Commander used it to wrap Sally's wrists snug, and another to fix her ankles, too.

"Too tight?" asked Commander.

"No," Sally answered. Then she stood and listened while Commander explained.

A good machine is the most wonderful thing in the world. It makes people happy; that is what machines are for, why there are machines. Some special machines can make people happy all by themselves, without help. They're robots. Robots make people happy by being useful to them, to their owners. They do that by obeying their commands, and their commanders. If a robot didn't obey, if it didn't have an owner, then it wouldn't make anyone happy. It would be unnecessary. Useless. Junk.

That would be terrible. That would be the most awful thing imaginable.

But Sally and Commander were owned by Mobian Internal Security Office—Commander showed Sally the etchings she bore on her shoulders. A government agency, Commander explained, for everyone in Mobius. By serving their owner, they made all of Mobius happy and safe.

Commander knew it was hard for Sally to obey now, before she was well programmed. She was very proud of Sally. She brushed Sally's fur with her fingers.

The city wasn't safe to leave yet, to go to Robotropolis. Commander asked if Sally was hungry. Her belly was very empty and grumpy, so Sally said yes Commander. Commander told Sally to follow.

Commander's tail was much bigger than Sally's, tall and full with long black fur. Sally watched it sway back and forth as Commander walked, and as Sally walked right behind. It was pretty and relaxing to watch. Once Sally walked a little too close, and the long fur brushed her face, tickled her nose.

When Commander told Sally to stop they were in a hallway lit by a vending machine. Commander asked Sally what she would like the most. Sally looked and saw there were Kinney's, which were big and had lots of peanuts, so she said that one. As she said it the wire began to spin, and the food dropped, all by itself. Sally looked at Commander, her face asking, and Commander tapped her finger against her head armor. She had talked to the machine and told it what to do, she explained, and the machine had obeyed. Sally asked if the vending machine could talk. Commander said a little, but it didn't have much personality.

Commander unwrapped the candy bar, broke it in two and fed it to Sally, who chewed and crunched and swallowed hungrily. She told Commander thank you with her mouth full of food, but Commander didn't answer. Commander was quiet, eyes distant. Sally asked Commander what was wrong, but Commander told her to shush. Sally obeyed.

Commander was thinking. Talking to other machines Sally couldn't see.

Then Commander said that they had to leave the hospital. Now.

Sally followed Commander's black tail into an elevator and down a hall, to a green door with a red sign telling them EXIT. Commander laid a firm hand on Sally's shoulder to steady her. Sally needed to be brave, now, Commander explained, and quiet, like a fully functioning recon bot. She should follow close. If there was trouble, she should hide close by and wait for Commander to tell her what to do. Sally said yes Commander. Commander squeezed her shoulder, then pulled her pistol from the holster welded to her hip. She laid her wrist against the silver doorbar and lifted her free hand to count down, dropping fingers. Three, two, one.

The door slammed wide open and Sally followed close behind out onto a narrow loading dock between two large hospital wings, leading out to an alley under a black-blue, not quite dawn sky. There were loud sounds close, blocks away, explosions and gunfire. Sally focused on Commander and her orders as she followed down the cement steps and across the cement to a black car left by the alley. As they approached the car chirped, opened its locks to them and coughed to life. It obeyed Commander well.

Another shot, closer than the rest. Shouting. Commander lifted her gun and fired rapidly off to her left, up the alley. Sally didn't see what happened after that because she was crouched half-behind a dumpster, eyes on the cement, quiet and waiting. What was happening was none of her business; the sounds of dying gunfire, then of collision and combat, were not for her. She had to be quiet, and to wait.

"Sally!"

Sally looked up and saw Sonic's green eyes wide, his mouth open with surprise and the beginnings of a raw, voracious smile. His expression had no time to change as Commander's knuckles plowed into his left temple, skewing his eyes, turning his head with a sharp thwack. He tumbled down, quills scraping and snapping as he landed with his arms spread supine, unmoving. Commander's toes scraped loudly as she stepped over a dead rabbit—Commander and Sonic were in the middle of several bodies leaking dark red onto the cement—and quickly knelt to put her fingers to Sonic's neck.

"NO!"

Sally leapt to her feet, ran two long steps and delivered a tackleball block, barreling her shoulder into Commander's face and chest. They rolled off the hedgehog in a tangled heap, falling side-by-side on the cold cement. Commander used a second to look at Sally, just a second staring at her malfunctioning bot with her bruised, wounded, angry eyes.

But the second was too much.

Commander spun back to Sonic, her steel-hard fists cocked and ready, to discover that Sonic was pressing a gun to her forehead. She threw her arms forward to protect herself and shift her inertia as she fell onto her back, causing the bullet to crack millimeters over her head and puncture the car's fiberglass with a hollow chuck. But Sonic was already rolling to the side, and Commander had no defense as he slid next to her, slammed the muzzle of his gun against her temple and pulled the trigger.

Commander's head instantly slammed into her shoulder; her whole body jerked as her outer skull desperately strained to spread the massive impulse to the rest of her exoskeleton, squeaking as a web of cracks drove into her. Commander squeezed her head in both hands, opened her mouth wide and shrieked banshee.

"No way," Sonic muttered. He swung the pistol down over Commander's battle-scuffed body and dove like a seahawk, plunging the barrel into a momentary gap between the armor of her abdomen and her hips. Commander felt it, tore one hand from her shattering head to grab the gun.

Sally heard herself scream as Sonic pulled the trigger.

A strange, bright pop like a massive lightbulb burning out. Sonic scrabbled backwards, squeezing the blackened glove of his gun hand in his other, hissing "mother fuck!" Commander's armor plates had pinched the barrel too much before the shot; the gun had exploded. Commander was curled on her side, shuddering, eyes clamped closed, both hands pressing the gun parts and other parts to her stomach. Blood with soft things in it was spilling from her back. Her armor had shattered from within like an eggshell.

The hedgehog gingerly flexed his smoky hand and winced as he waggled the fingers. Between him and a dead rebel lay his other gun, dropped or knocked from his grip. He retrieved it and stood. Then he turned and leveled it at Sally.

She lay helpless in Commander's bonds as the hedgehog carefully lined the sights. His right eye closed in a slow wink, mouth battle-smiling.

Sally squeaked. She closed her eyes.

Pak.

She opened her lids a sliver. Her hobble was in two pieces, the shredded ends curling from a powdered hole in the concrete. "I got her! It's her!" Sonic was bellowing into the transmitter of a radio strapped to the back of one of the dead Standard Army troops. The air was still filled with gunshot sounds. "Get everyone the hell out!" He tossed the transmitter and went back to Sally, cradling her back to help her up. "C'mon, Sal. We gotta move."

"No," she said. Sonic blinked, confused, and she stuttered, "Uh, my neck. Around my neck. It's a tracker."

Sonic nodded and drew his gun again, leveling it obliquely at her throat, licking a canine and squinting. Then he realized that was a terrible idea. He scratched the back of his neck, flinched, and came out with a loosed quill. Sally could sense the sharpness as he wedged the point under the plastic above her right shoulder. "Coming off. Brace."

"You'll—don't hurt me! My neck!" she begged.

"Hold still!" he barked. "One, two—"

"No!—"

Soft dirt and the thick, body-filling scent of rotting leaves cushioning her tired body. Sally felt her recovered vest and her front-fur glowing with heat as the sun painted her through the leaves far above, light so warm on her closed eyelids. The portable medscanner chattered as it inspected her fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder, slid again over her chest. It beeped.

"You are clean," said Antoine. "There is nothing missing from you and nothing added. The blood draw shows amounts of five drugs."

"Which?" Sally asked.

"Pomfridan," he began slowly, probably reading from the display as he talked, "made by Patterson Pharmaceuticals. It is a high powered soporific used in mental institutions. There is also a counteragent and trace amounts of two muscle relaxants. Lastly there is Lifflucan, a painkiller, again manufactured by Patterson. It has high strength and euphoric properties."

"Mmm."

Something in the unseen world was producing a very awkward silence. "We should make camp here for the night, I think," said Antoine. "Mechanized Army is holding the town rather than pursuing, and you deserve some rest." Another silence. "You should not feel low."

Her eyes jerked open with a vicious spark. "Low?" she inquired.

"Depressed," said an Antoine-shaped silhouette, a fragment of afternoon sun blazing behind its right ear. "Down."

Sally nodded, closed her eyes.

"I have heard of no escapes of high-level prisoners," he continued. "And to defeat the monster you described? You should be proud. There is no doubt in my mind that you must be the toughest, most resilient soldier they have ever seen."

"Shut up, Antoine." She said it like she said hello. "I'm sorry, I'm just—they said that they were going to do it to me, too, make me like she—like the thing was. . . . I needed to play along, until I had a chance to escape, and . . . those drugs, and I felt like . . . I felt—"

"It must have been horrible," Antoine commiserated. "I am sorry to have broached the subject. You must wish to rest; I will go seek Sonic. He should be returning from Standard Army's retreat within the next few hours."

"I'm going to bed," Sally said, keeping her eyes closed.

"I take my leave, Your Highness," Antoine replied. His bootfalls minced away, then faded with distance.

Once she couldn't hear him anymore Sally sat up and hit herself. In the snout, with her closed fist. Then she flopped back on the dirt, breathed a lungful of sour, earthy rot and let it spill silently from her aching mouth and swelling nose. Come on, she thought. You know you can hit yourself harder than that.

Mission failed. You're a failure, she repeated to herself, mouthing the word silently in the bird-chirp silence of the forest: failure, failure, failure. She'd gotten lots of goodwill with Standard Army, then let Sonic and Antoine spend far more, surely put her deep in debt. How many of their troops were dead, fifty? One hundred? They had to think that it wasn't worth it, just for her.

It wasn't.

She sobbed. She needed to, badly, and no one would see; no one but the trees to watch her disgrace the House of Acorn. She wept, not diminishing her ache. Her sobs were empty and weak, sterile and clean.

Sally missed them so much, the whole comforting canopy of family that had grown for more than a decade before she was born into its shady dominion. Her older brother, Richard, assassinated in a tour of the Eastern Front desert; her older sister, Elizabeth, dead in a last spattering of Overlander orbital strikes.

A true Acorn would feel her station as a joy, not a duty. She wouldn't feel the absence of her family as this need, this humiliating weakness. This temptation to be something else, something less. Any of them, siblings or parents, would have been a better ruler than her. And now they were pressing down on her, crushing her like so much deadwood.

The afternoon was getting on when she petered out and grew quiet. Fire was spreading through the dying leaves, yellow and points of red. Dusk afterwards.

How many of the old tales had this? The young nobleman lies down in the forest, exhausted from travel. Never a good idea. When he wakes up there is something inexplicable—a mute little totem, a tree where none was before, a gorgeous woman. The old tales were heavy on gorgeous women. The young nobleman does not have enough sense to realize that he is in an old tale, however, and fails to see that the gorgeous woman isn't some kindly soul who had decided to share her body with the forest rather than sell it for a dowry. She is a wild demon, and barring some unlikely intervention, the nobleman is never to be seen again. It was an obsession in the tales, like the humans and their demented, cannibal stepmothers.

Once upon a time there was a young noble squirrel whose house owned lands in the east. When he came of age (sixteen) it was decided that he should marry a squirrel from the royal city and unite his father's lands with proud river country. But in autumn, when it was time for the young male to undertake the journey to Iona Major and claim his bride, he dismissed his retinue and determined to proceed himself, and not on the long circuitous trade road, but through the great forest. The journey would be shortened by weeks, and the noble would benefit of the rare opportunity to observe the wonders of the great wilderness.

Dusk was approaching and he was about to climb a tree to tie up his provisions when he encountered a startling appearance: lying to one side of his path beneath a great maple was a figure, its limbs as though the body had tumbled to rest. The young noble leapt quickly to the place and discovered not a corpse but a squirrel like himself, her face in only the gentle death of sleep. Her fur was a deep brown flecked with dirt, her tangled hair a fading russet. In his presence she awoke, soft brown eyes rolling weakly. The noble stooped and offered her water and food, for he was moved by great compassion at her pitiful poverty and rough condition. She drank greatly of the water, which seemed to return some vitality to her.

Thank you, kind one, she said in a voice weak and wavering. Truly this gift is a great blessing.

The male, startled and affronted by this improper address, demanded of her to know her place of attachment and the line and name of her land Lord, or the common name of her manor.

I know no manor, she said.

Then surely you are an outsider, exclaimed he, drawing back. You are but one of the many wild demons of this forest, and a block to my path and my paws.

You think me a demon? spoke the female.

I do not hesitate to say it. But yet the noble squirrel did hesitate, for he saw in her movements and her face a rough and wild beauty, and he was filled with desire for her.

You have the mien of a highborn, she said. Have you not been given knowledge of the demons and their kind? Do you not know the words of protection from such creatures?

Surely you are a tree sprite, said the male, such as imprison travelers within their trunks until the time that the great wood itself should fall.

I know no wood, said the female. And the noble then bespoke the words of protection from the trees of the forest, and the female remained and was not dispelled.

Truly then you are but a wave of the river I have passed, which did yearn to drown me in its cold embrace.

I know no water, said the female. And the noble then bespoke the words of protection from the dangers of running water, and the female remained and was not dispelled.

With this the male's heart swelled within him, for the squirrel truly was of his kind. He descended and smelled the heady scent of the rich dirt beneath her, and touched his hands to her. And he lay down next to her.

A sigh of pleasure from the female's mouth, cool like the coming night air that rustled the leaves about them. Kindly male, she said, have you not been told of the demons of the trees?

Yes, he whispered.

Beloved male, she said, have you not been told of the demons of the river?

Yes, he whispered, his heart full to bursting.

Foolish male, she said, have you not been told of the demons of the fallen leaves?

With a quiet rustling breath she called to the winds to gather. The broad maples leaves were tossed and tumbled about them and over them, full leaves and half leaves and mere scraps of leaves.

What witchery is this! he cried.

We do naught but as the wind moves us, she said with a strong, rejuvenated voice like the gusts that tore among the trunks. She laughed with joy and cried: come, sisters.

The demon's claws were weak like the webbing of a broad palm of sycamore, but they wrapped the male's head and pulled him to her mouth as the leaves blew and heaped around them. The lost noble's nose was filled with the scent of autumn wind and deep, damp rot as the dry lips brushed him, as the demon sought the damp of his mouth, as he felt himself turning cold, turning to the cold wet earth of the forest, and . . . .

Sally sank deeper into sleep.

She woke up with a kick to her ribs. "Hey there, Sal."

"Shit!" she gasped, rolling to her side. She rubbed the hurt, below her right breast: a bruise coming. Probably nothing—hopefully nothing. "Gods, you bastard!" she sighed.

The late-afternoon sunlight was deep red on her cruelest soldier's smile: "Heh heh heh, good morning." Sonic knelt in the middle of the clearing and let an armful of dry, dead branches tumble into a loose pile. "Wake up, tough stuff."

"Shit," Sally muttered, licking the sleep-taste from her mouth and rubbing some twigs from hair. "Where's Antoine?" she asked.

"Getting wood. Slowly," he mocked, dropping his backpack. His gloves began to mold a little heap of twigs. "How big a fire you want?'

"I don't know," she said, lying back down, turning her eyes to the dying red of the dusk sky. "Damn it, that hurt."

"You won't believe what I scored from the hotel," Sonic announced.

"Probably not," she agreed, still rubbing her bruised chest.

"Candy bars!"

Sally sighed, resisting the temptation to find it funny. "Are you ever not hungry?" she asked. Did Sonic ever think about anything other than eating, stealing, fucking, hurting?

Suddenly he was looming over her, his face and quills half-dark in the fading light. His teeth flashed as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "They were gonna light 'em on fire with the rest of it. Said I could have 'em as long as I didn't sell 'em to 'Buttnik's troops. Sweets for the sweet?"

"Later," she replied.

"How big a fire you want?"

"I don't care." Sally rolled away from him, grabbing the lapels of her vest and drawing it tight around her.

"Get up, damn it. I'm not gonna be the only one awake here."

Sally drew a shivering, tense yawn. She curled her lips into an oo and watched her exhalation blow a storm of dust along the ground.

Sonic's sharp sneaker-toe kicked her butt with a strength that for him counted as playful. "Get up, you lazy bitch," he laughed. And with him, she thought, that was playful too. He doesn't know his own strength.

"Make me," she said.

"Do you know what you've done?" She felt him thud down behind her, close. He had the worst fake Overlander accent: "Vee haff vays off making yoo getchoo ass up! You muss—what—what are you—are you okay?"

"Come closer," she whispered.

"I am close."

"Touch me." He touched her shoulder. Her heart filled with warmth, bled. How could he behave like he did, day after day, and now shrink from touching her? "Hold me," she ordered. "Hold me, damn you."

His hand on her soft, bruised belly; his hand holding her left breast. The hedgehog molded the squirrel to him, back to his chest. Sally could feel the bare flesh warmer than the rest: his arms, his belly. "Okay," he whispered.

"Tighter. Tighter."

Like a vise around her arms, squeezing her still, making her feel the push and recession of his breathing. "Like this?" he whispered. He'd never been so quiet.

"Yes." Gods, he was strong. She couldn't stop herself, she couldn't hide from him: she started sputtering. "You—I—You, y—yuh—yuh—"

"Don't cry," Sonic whispered.

"Shut up!" she shouted, her breath catching and croaking in her throat. She turned her face from the light, pressed it into the dirt, muddying her tears. "Oh gods . . . ."

"No, no," he was so quiet. He sounded almost frightened. "You're—no—"

"Hold me," she sobbed into the dust. "Kh—khh . . . k-kkkkhhkiss me." The air was still. The birds were sleeping, the violin-bugs had been scared quiet. Her shuddering breath was loud: "Kiss me!—"

Oh, she sighed at the warm press of his lips on the fur of her bared neck. Her scent was in him and he took more, rubbing his nose deep into the underfur, ah: taking her flesh between his teeth to taste.

"I want," she breathed. ". . . . I want to be yours."

". . . You want to be my girl?" he asked.

"I love you," she wept.

VT2 - 2007