Chapter 15Forge
The servitor was walking through a random dark tunnel, holding Subject Wah in one hand and pulling her crate of nutrient powder behind her with the other. She wasn't travelling anywhere in particular, just randomly wandering around in her lobotomised stupidity.
Subject Pi had given the servitor a metal bucket full of filtered fresh water several hours ago to quench her thirst, the servitor drinking until her stomach was full. Subject Pi was frequently doing little helpful things like this whenever the servitor encountered her. Subject Pi had also used some of the water to bathe Subject Wah, removing much of the brown substance from Subject Wah's digestive system terminus in addition to washing off a considerable amount of dust.
Subject Wah looked cleaner, the mindless infant currently awake but contentedly silent, just blinking slightly in the filthy polluted smoggy air that permeated the entire Forge World. Subject Wah opened her tiny mouth in a great big adorable yawn.
The red light of the servitor's bionic medium power status lights washed over the tunnel ahead dimly, all was calm and normal.
Then the servitor noticed a white light dancing around the corner faintly, the light growing as its source came closer. The servitor calmly watched as the light source came around the corner, it was a portable electric lumen lamp of the sort that projected light evenly in all directions, held in the flesh hand of a very unusual human adult figure.
The servitor was completely and utterly naked as always. The new figure was clothed but yet was somehow little better covered than the naked servitor, the clothing leaving approximately 95 percent of the figure's torso completely bare. It was very strange.
The figure was an adult female with all flesh limbs, with long blonde hair and a bare face with air filtration plugs inserted in her nostrils. She wore strange black shoes all the way to her knees, but the rest of her clothing covered much less of her. On her chest mounds were a pair of shiny black triangular pieces of fabric, held on by thin strings of synthetic fabric around her chest and over her shoulders. Her pelvis was covered by little more than a clothing item constructed of little more than synthetic string, with some sort of synthetic paper money notes tucked under the string at her waist.
The woman carried a shiny black synthetic material bag over her shoulder on a shoulder strap, the contents of the bag hidden from view. She carried an electric lumen lamp as mentioned, and also an electronic communication device of some sort.
Her bare skin was semi-clean from obvious regular washing with water, but her skin was marred and damaged from chronic pollution poisoning, with red rashes and welts randomly spread across her skin in random places. Her face was painted with some kind of pigments or paints, especially heavily on her lips and eyelids.
The unknown human woman noticed the servitor and paused, her eyes noted the crate with a greedy smile.
"What is in that crate servitor?" The woman asked with a predatory smile.
(Subject crate) (contents nutrient paste) (subset dehydrated powder)
"Too easy, don't mind if I do just help myself." The woman said cruelly, pulling out a pistol firearm from her shoulder bag and pointing it at the servitor.
The servitor continued to stupidly walk towards the woman, her greedy smile growing bigger.
Subject Wah then sneezed loudly…
The woman's eyes dropped to Subject Wah and terrible recognition filled her eyes. Her predatory smile collapsed and she stared at Subject Wah in terrible silence.
"Is that… It can't be…" The woman said grimly.
The woman moved closer and looked at Subject Wah with a terrible grave look on her face, aghast at what she was seeing.
"What are you holding servitor?" The woman asked with terrible gravity.
(Subject this servitor) (subset female) (action holding) (Subject crate)
"I don't mean the fucking CRATE you imbecile!"
(Subject unknown human) (subset female) (interrogative clarify request)
"You are holding a BABY, where did you get that baby?!"
(Origin of object) (location urinary system of) (subject this servitor)
"You gave birth to it… The servitor gave birth to a cog damn baby… Omnissiah preserve us all, why is this world so completely horrible!"
(Syntax error)
Subject Wah moved her hands slightly and made a small gurgling baby noise. The strange woman got a deeply pained look on her face.
"I would have robbed you without a thought, but with that baby, I can't do it, it's too pitiful." The woman said in a haunted voice.
(Syntax error)
"That baby is nat born, natural born, just like me. Here in your arms, but for the grace of cog, is me. It could have been me. I was just fortunate that my own mother was a Menial not a servitor. It could have been so much worse for me. How could I possibly hurt you little one." The woman said thoughtfully, half to herself and half to Subject Wah.
(Syntax error)
"What in cog's name am I supposed to do with you, I cannot care for a baby so little, my tits have no milk. But can your retard servitor mother even care for you?"
The servitor was confused, she didn't understand.
"FUCK!! I don't know what to do! What the fuck do I do!"
The servitor just kept walking past the unknown woman.
"I can't, I can't just do nothing. I'm not a monster. I must do something." The woman rebuked herself.
The woman followed the servitor and walked beside her, inspecting Subject Wah.
"Does your baby have a name?" The woman asked gently.
(Subject Wah)…
"For fucks sake! You named your baby Wah?! You fucking retard!"
(Syntax error)
The woman composed herself with obvious effort, looking at Subject Wah with a look of pain on her face.
"Follow me servitor, I have some medical supplies back at my safe house, I can check your baby and make sure it's healthy." The woman commanded sympathetically.
(Subject this servitor) (subset female) (action following) (subject unknown) (subset human) (subset female)
"My name is Zeta Function, or just Zeta for short. Zeta the peddlitute." The woman introduced herself.
(Subject Zeta) (subset female) (subset peddlitute). (Action define) (term peddlitute)
"It is my job, a peddlitute is an occupation."
(Subject Zeta) (subset female) (role peddlitute)
"Yes that is correct, though I'm a bit rusty on my binary grammar. I had to learn to understand all your buzzing binary noises the hard way, I never got a cerebral wire stabbed into my brain to teach me fluent binary like those spoilt ass Menial bitches." Zeta said with a chuckle.
(Syntax error)
"Never mind." Zeta sighed.
The servitor followed Zeta deep into the tunnels, going up many ramps to a higher level, her ears made soft popping noises from the gentle change in air pressure in this higher level.
They entered a large cavern full of crude metal shanty buildings and supply crates and fuel drums, with many parked vehicles of the truck variety. Blank faced servitors stood around the cavern doing nothing, awaiting commands. Dominating half of the huge cavern was a gigantic pile of medium grade iron ore, with wheeled mechanical shovel servitors parked around it awaiting orders. To one side of the cavern was a hijacked power box with cables plugged into it, the cables spreading across the shanty settlement distributing stolen power.
"Welcome to my humble home, I call it Zeta Mansion. I don't get a lot of guests so excuse the mess." Zeta welcomed the servitor.
Zeta led the servitor into a huge metal shanty building of welded together scrap metal, filled with homemade or stolen metal furniture covered in firearms and drug canisters and other illegal criminal items. The building was well lit with lumen bulbs running on stolen power, and mono tasked cleaning servitors constantly swept and dusted the ever present dust, keeping the building interior surprisingly clean.
The building was open aired but had some rudimentary dust scrubbing air filtration systems Jerry rigged to clean the polluted air somewhat, it was an improvement on the air outside the building.
In the middle of the largest cleanest room was a huge bed with soft synthetic fabric sheets and stolen pillows, it was surrounded by metal storage shelves containing strange chains and whips and straps, as well as artificial phallic shaped plastic objects, amongst the various other objects present.
"Sometimes a client will pay extra for kinky stuff in my bed here, I used to get regular clients visiting me for bookings before the iron ore quotas increased and they lost all their free time. A lot of men can't cope with sex just once a month, they get horny and lonely and they pay me a visit." Zeta explained proudly.
(Syntax error)
"It's probably for the best that you don't understand." Zeta replied.
Zeta led the servitor past the bed and into a back room, opening a cabinet full of medical tools and medications. Zeta took out a handheld electronic medical scanner and turned it on, she then gently touched Subject Wah with the end of the device, fiddling with buttons and dials on the device.
The machine beeped and booped, little lights flashing, Zeta looked closely at a data screen on one face of the device.
"I don't know how, but Wah is healthy, no signs of infection. According to the reading she is due for a bunch of vaccines that I don't have. I will have to steal them or go through the black market to get them, when I get hold of them I will give them to Wah free of charge, us nat borns have to look after our own kind." Zeta said seriously.
"In the meantime I will inject Wah with a kidney flush injection to detoxify her system of pollution, I will also treat her skin with ointment, actually I better do the ointments first, the needle will make her cry."
The servitor did not let go of Subject Wah, but did allow Zeta to gently touch Subject Wah without the servitor attacking Zeta. Zeta rubbed some oily ointment all over Subject Wah, then she got a syringe.
Zeta stabbed Subject Wah gently with the syringe, Subject Wah went "wah" and the servitor fussed over her baby, unsure why she was making the wah noise.
"All done. Over the next few hours she will pee out a huge amount to flush her system of toxins. Let her suckle heaps, she will get thirsty."
(Syntax error)
"Just stay here with me." Zeta said with a sigh.
(Subject this servitor) (action stay with) (Subject Zeta).
"Yes. It's not how I wanted to spend my day but it's safer for that baby if I keep watch of you, otherwise you might do something stupid and hurt her. You are welcome to visit my home at any time, someone needs to be a non-retarded role model for that poor child." Zeta sighed.
The servitor stayed as requested.
Zeta went to a crude welded together set up of pipes and water drums and filtration systems, using a water faucet to fill up a large metal cup with water, giving the water cup to the servitor.
The servitor drank the cup.
Subject Wah then excreted a lot of hot yellow urine all over the servitor's lower abdomen.
"The kidney flush is starting to take effect. You had better suckle that baby."
The servitor got confused and Zeta put Subject Wah's mouth on the servitor's chest mound impatiently.
Zeta lay down on her huge bed with her legs spread wide, taking off her boots and running her hands over her body provocatively, as though she was practicing some performance technique. She bent her body into all sorts of inappropriate poses and positions with impressive flexibility.
"I'm just practicing my moves, don't mind me. My day is wasted so I might as well get some practice in." Zeta explained what she was doing, her ankles currently resting to either side of her head.
The servitor was confused but gathered that these actions were some sort of job practice training exercises, perhaps related to Zeta's profession of being a "peddlitute".
"It's not like I had a choice being a peddlitute, the Menial bitches all think I choose to be a whore and a swindler but I don't. Us nat born females don't have a lot of other options."
"The male nat borns have more options, cause they have all that male muscle and strength and aggression, they can apply to join the Skitarii and become legal persons if they can prove themselves worthy. The ones that don't do that can still form gangs or brave the deepest catacombs to hunt for priceless archeotech. Some of them enslave female nat borns and become pimps, I always keep a pistol handy lest one of them thinks to pimp me out."
"But us women are fucked, literally fucked, our vaginas are our most valuable assets, it's the only thing we have that the male nat borns don't have. Sex work is not pretty but it pays well. Peddling iron ore is harder, because you need to organise a lot of things and have the people skills to haggle and handle uppity bitches. I prefer sex work just because it's easier, but I have to do both to survive in these dark times."
The servitor blinked stupidly and just watched as Zeta did the splits, Zeta still talking.
"I fear for the future of poor little Wah, I just hope she can find some other path in life. I have never gotten pregnant, I'm scared to, I'm scared of what sort of future I'd be damning my children to. I don't want my daughters to become prostitutes and my sons to become fucking criminals, there is no future in that direction. I don't want that." Zeta said sadly.
"I'm not a bad person. The Menial bitches might think I'm nothing but human cancer but I'm not evil, I'm just stuck in a position I never asked to be stuck in. My menial mother always thinks the best of me, but I'm so ashamed to let her see me like this, in peddlitute clothes, turning tricks and doing scams. It's shameful, I feel like such a shitty person, I don't want her to be ashamed of me."
"I visit her every week, but not dressed like this. I dress all modestly and try to make her proud of me, I tell her that I'm an archeotech hunter, she knows I'm lying and I know she knows I'm lying, but she lets me keep telling the lie because otherwise I would be so ashamed to even look at her. It's a thing we have built up, she's so sweet about it."
Zeta had clear fluid running down her face from her eyes now. She stopped speaking and just sat hugging her knees in silence for a while.
"I *hate* my life…" Zeta whispered, more fluid running down her face.
The servitor wasn't really sure how to respond to this situation so she simply remained silent.
Zeta then simply remained silent for a really long time…
…