Drone
10
In the days preceding Peter and Justine’s royal marriage, life for Alex in the playroom became nothing less than hellish. It was a combination of things. As the great day approached, Alex’s aristocratic owner indulged herself in increasingly dire depravities. At times, it seemed as if she were trying to purge herself of future temptations. At others, it was as though she were trying to outdo herself with each new act of degeneracy. Her pleasure drone, naturally, played a more than minor part in these activities. The whips, prods and chains were one thing; the use of heat, electricity, and small animals was quite another. And, of course, to top it all off, Alex still wasn’t allowed to come. But sexual torture played only a part of her misery. Alex was convinced the Drad was going to have her assassinate her beloved Master Peter! Exactly how, she hadn’t worked out as yet, the knowledge that his fiancée had her own pleasure drone being kept secret from the sovereign, but Alex was sure she would eventually receive the order.
Ovidia had Alex periodically report to her, especially when Mistress Justine enjoyed visitors, all of them, like poor Sovien, addicted in some manner or other to Solarian technology, and hence controllable.
Her owner, she found, liked to surround herself with addicts. She found them, in a contrary to logical fashion, trustworthy, considering that she absolutely controlled the various things they were addicted to. Justine would have made a good Solarian, Alex often considered. She had the same pathological need to control others. There were hints, too, sometimes, of an even deeper, darker psychology. One day, her owner was lying face up on her synsilk bed, naked, sweat and other chemicals saturating her skin, feet dangling off of the side, her faithful pleasure drone kneeling beside her, also stained, and from out of nowhere the aristocrat asked, “What is it like to be a pleasure drone?”
[I wish you could find out, bitch] Alex had processed, and winced at the inevitable pain-static. Still, her body straightened. [Attention Mode]. [Awaiting Orders]. It was the tone of Justine’s voice to which Alex’s chemiprocessor circuits had responded. It was a rhetorical question on the part of her owner, obviously—Alex couldn’t talk—yet it held a serious undertone as well, one of real speculation.
“Is it good?” she asked. Slowly, Justine had twisted about on the bed so she could take hold of Alex’s face. The drone edged forward to provide her an easier grip.
“What’s it like, my pretty doll, to be so servile and so helpless? Is it good? To have to obey everyone? To have no desires of your own, save to please your owner? Can you tell me?”
Alex shook her head. She had to. It was a direct question. Justine had laughed.
“My pretty slut,” she had said then. “I wager you were the kind of slut that would have enjoyed being a pleasure drone, had you had a choice in the matter, eh? Did you beg for it, my dear? Did you?”
Again, Alex shook her head. If her owner had really been paying attention at that moment, she might have wondered how a pleasure drone could have possibly responded to a question like that. Pleasure drones typically had no memory of an existence prior to becoming drones. But Justine didn’t. She had simply laughed and dismissed it and then had Alex creep between her thighs again.
Justine’s treatment of the pleasure drone was bad. Ovidia’s was worse. She (he? it?) had called Alex in five more times since that initial interview. Each time Alex’s memories were callously probed. Justine used Alex as a sexual tool. The Drad held no more regard for Alex than a camera. Strange but true, but given the choice, Alex preferred Justine’s attention than Ovidia’s. At least to the Betan, Alex was there. She was a toy, but she held at least a modicum of meaning to the depraved noble, if only as an object of abuse. Justine’s torture was personal. To the Drad spymaster, despite the creature’s awareness of Alex’s identity, she was nothing more than an extension of its will. She wasn’t real. Even had she still been a human being, the Drad couldn’t have cared less about her. The Drads were solipsistic, but Alex had had no idea previously to the extent. The utter indifference Alex perceived every time Ovidia probed her was frightening. Despite appearances, “it” was no more human than an insect or a reptile. In many ways, even as a drone, Alex herself retained more humanity, more soul than that disembodied, mutated brain could ever have.
Inexorably, the wedding day approached.
Justine’s hands stroked the inside of her pet’s calf. She ran her fingers over the shivering body until she came to his limp penis. Then, with a sadistic cry she took hold of him and squeezed, bringing Sovien cringing once more to his knees. His breath was coming in pants. He looked totally defeated.
Alex, standing alone on her pedestal, watched as the disgusting scene progressed before her.
Back and forth, Justine’s hands worked over Sovien’s body, torturing him. Like the pleasure drone she owned, the little administrator was equally incapable of climax, and the depraved aristocrat took full advantage of that limitation. A whimper escaped Sovien’s throat as she once more raised the whip.
Later, Sovien lay on the floor next to the bed after she was gone. After a time, Alex noticed that he was weeping, his face caught up in an infinitely sad expression that she could only perceive as utter despair. Her droned heart went out to him, as well, of course, horribly, her body’s sexual appetites.
She was so hot and wet, even his puny masculine form looked delicious.
Slowly, the little administrator crawled—he didn’t have the strength even to get to his knees—to the foot of the onantube and started weakly hitting it, his blows striking with so little force that it was pitiful to watch him. To see her old friend reduced to this abject state only magnified Alex’s own misery, so she surrendered once more to her drone programming, letting go of her own thoughts. It was easier every time she did it. No thought. No feeling. Just a blissful sexual warmth and desire encompassing all.
[Standby Mode]. [Awaiting Orders]. That’s all she was. [Standby Mode]. [Awaiting Orders].
“Can you operate this?”
[Attention Mode]. Conscious awareness came flooding back to Alex. [Query Prompt]. Several minutes must have passed in her daze. Sovien was now standing by the onantube and looking at her.
He was looking directly at her, and he was asking her a question.
“Drone. Can you operate this machine?” The Betan had a desperate, yet hopeful look in his eyes. He had never been left in the playroom on his own before. Though the onantube was just sitting there, it was useless without an operator. The thought of using the drone must have just occurred to him.
[Mode Shift: Mode 6725: Onantube Operation]. Alex’s chemiprocessor circuits held a lot of memory. The information was recorded at the cellular level. She nodded affirmative. Pleasure drones were all-around sexual conveniences; she held extensive operation files concerning the uses of a Martian onantube. [Awaiting Orders]. [Please, don’t order me to abuse you]. [Awaiting Orders].
“Come down here and operate this machine for me,” Sovien ordered, and Alex’s soul wept. [Orders Received]. [Activate Mode 6725]. She stepped down from the pedestal, moved smoothly over to the onantube, and let her blank hands caress the controls like an old lover. The machine opened like a flower, and Alex’s friend at once jumped inside, stealing this opportunity to use the accursed device without the presence of the Countess Xarusha. “Give me a full neural cycle. Level eights all the way.”
An equal mixture of addicting pleasure and pain. [Oh, Sovien] Alex processed. At the same time, another part of her acknowledged the command. [Orders Received]. [Modify Mode 6725: Level Eight]. She hardly needed to think about what she was doing at all. Her fingers did everything.
The onantube closed around Sovien. Within a minute he was writhing in agony-ecstasy.
It was nauseating for Alex to watch her friend’s face scrunch up like that, the expression pained no matter exactly what he was feeling at the moment, pain or pleasure. Either way, he knew what he was having done to himself, and Alex knew. Nobody could withstand such stimulation unchanged. Sovien rocked back and forth. He screamed, and somewhere deep inside her Alex winced. She prepared to surrender herself to her drone programming again . . . and then she took a closer look at the controls.
[Mode 6725: Archival Processing]. Everything there was to know about the operation of a Martian onantube laid itself out in Alex’s mind. How to inflict pain or pleasure to any degree. How to stimulate individual nerve endings—a finger joint here, a kidney there, and so on. How to create pleasure-pain nerve inductions that fed upon themselves, combining with each other to create stimulations over and above any single nerve provocation, so as to increase the level of addiction. And, how to restore a subject’s self-control, temporarily, by setting up a neural-induction pattern that soothed the addicting properties. The procedure was quite clear in Alex’s memory. She could restore Sovien’s willpower.
If she were so ordered . . . .
[I can’t] Alex thought/processed. [I . . can’t]. [I want to, but . . but I . . .]
To her utter astonishment, Alex’s fingers started to move on their own. If her blank and golden eyes could have widened in surprise, they would have. Her fingers were shivering, shaking with obvious effort, but they were moving on their own. Something steeled itself in Alex’s mind. [Modify Mode 6725: Neural Restoration]. She was going to do it! She was going to . . . .
<What are you doing?> the pleasure drone heard in the back of her mind.
She stiffened. Her fingers stopped moving on their own. It was Mistress Ovidia’s mental “voice.”
[I . . I am going to restore Sovien]. Exerting herself, Alex’s fingers returned to their necessary task.
<No> the Drad commanded, and again Alex stopped. <That would cause an unnecessary complication in the Assembly’s plans> <You will not restore the Betan’s mind> The cold command settled in Alex’s consciousness. She was a pleasure drone. She was programmed to obey all commands. She could not disobey a command. It was impossible that she could disobey a command.
Alex’s fingers stopped. Then, falteringly, despite the impossibility, they input the correct procedures to temporarily restore Sovien’s mind. Inside her, she could perceive the Drad’s amazement. The creature did not continue to give orders. Instead, Alex felt the spymaster’s cold intelligence probe her chemiprocessor circuits, testing, trying to determine what was wrong. Alex could discern only a little of what was happening. <Neural processing . . . stable intelligence . . . Nax’s formula setting unique conditions . . .>
Alex herself had no idea how she was doing what she was doing. Maybe it was because she could still think on her own whereas every other pleasure drone in existence was just a blank slate. Inside the onantube, Sovien’s expression changed. He stopped grunting. He stopped writhing. A look of peace came over him. Alex looked down at the controls. Somehow, she was doing it. She was acting on her own. It was hard—it was the psychic equivalent of lifting a heavy stone burden—but she was doing it.
<You are introducing a random element into my plans> Alex heard the Drad say through their rapport. <This is quite disturbing> Static-pain flashed through the drone’s circuits. Agony shot through her limbs. Every movement was an effort. Inside, Alex felt something inside her straining. It was like pressing down on a piece of old-fashioned plastic, bending it, forcing it into a shape it was not intended to be in. Alex could feel the resistance, the pressure to conform, to just obey. The plastic was bending. Little white lines were appearing in it, indications of the stress she was putting on it, on her.
She was that piece of plastic. She was bending herself. She was forcing herself not to conform.
Pain! Agony! Pressure! <You will not restore his mind, baroness>
[I will]. [I . . will!] The pressure was so great, everything else disappeared. Alex withdrew into herself. The pressure was everything. Her mind was close to the breaking point. Like a piece of plastic, she knew it was going to snap. She was going to snap, and what happened after that, she didn’t know. Maybe she would die. Maybe her intelligence would finally be destroyed. It didn’t matter.
She was going to . . she was . . going . . to . . NOT . . OBEY!!
<Then kill him, baroness> The command came from everywhere, nowhere. The pleasure drone almost obeyed it reflexively, and she would have had it been a purely sexual order. But it wasn’t.
[What?] she thought/processed/questioned. Alex felt the Drad’s invisible presence in her mind.
<Kill him, baroness> the inhuman voice coldly repeated. <It will be easy> <Just make a small adjustment to the onantube’s settings and overload his neural structure> <Ensure that his next super-orgasm is his last super-orgasm> Alex looked down at the controls. At once she saw how it could be done. Just a change to this control, then that one, raise the gain here, and then . . . death.
Sovien’s nervous system would shut down. She could kill him, instantly, in one massive orgasmic burst.
[But . . but why!?] she asked. [No!] [I won’t do it!]
<You will> the Drad’s sexless voice manifested in her drone mind. <You will because I order you to kill him> <Without him, the Assembly’s plans will fall apart> <His death will be hard to explain, especially coming as a result of Justine’s onantube with her DNA at the controls> Alex looked down again. Her blank, pink hands were sterile. Other than her own, Justine’s was the only hand that had ever operated the machine. Her DNA would be the only one on it. <Kill Sovien, if you must act on your own, and obey my command> <Kill him, NOW!>
The psychic command reverberated throughout Alex’s drone body.
[No].
<Yes> <He will never be the same> <You must know that> <I don’t know how you are doing this, baroness, but perhaps it is a good thing after all> <We of the Drad do not want the Assembly to be in charge of the Three Systems> <Kill Sovien> <Set him free> <You want to set him free>
[No]. [Not that way]. [Not that way!]
<Kill him, baroness> <Kill him, and your precious sovereign can keep his sovereignty> Alex’s head lifted sharply. [Peter!?] she processed.
<Yes, Peter> the Drad coldly said. <Kill Sovien for your Master Peter, if not for me> <Kill him, and Peter will be safe from Justine and the Assembly>
It was so tempting. Alex’s hands were moving on their own. They weren’t, really, they were obeying her subconscious somehow, doing what she wanted them to do. But in her mind’s twisted perception they were working on their own. She wanted to kill Sovien. She wanted to save Master Peter.
She wanted to . . to obey.
[NO!!!!] Alex “screamed,” and she felt the Drad withdraw finally, in pain from the feedback. [I WILL NOT OBEY!!] She input the last sequence necessary. The plastic strip in her mind snapped.
Alex fell back upon herself, exhausted mentally. She stood at the onantube’s controls, not thinking, not perceiving, not . . . anything. She remained like that for a long, long time.
A few minutes later, the onantube peeled open, and Sovien stepped out. Though he was sweating, his expression and demeanor were entirely changed. He looked down at his hands, their backs first, then rotating to stare at the palms. He took another step and stretched. All the while the expression on his face remained the same, a combination of utter surprise, unexpected delight, and renewed strength.
Alex stood by the controls, perceiving again finally. Though she was motionless on the outside, calm and detached as always, inside she was shivering with exhaustion and more than a little delight herself.
[I did it!] she cried inside, to herself, to that damnable Drad eavesdropper, to the universe in general.
[I DID IT!!]
<Yes, you did> Mistress Ovidia’s “voice” spoke inside her. <I don’t know how, but you certainly did something, baroness>
[He’s free!] [Free!!] She had only to look at Sovien to see the difference.
Gone was the desperation, the haunted look, the wasted air of defeat. The able administrator looked like the man he had once been, the man she had known back in the Resistance. Alex knew that the change was only temporary—onantube addiction was permanent, more’s the pity—and eventually the crushing need of its depredations on his nervous system would reassert themselves, reducing him once again to a shell of a man, Justine’s toy, but for now, for hours anyway, he was free of its influence on his mind and soul. And she could see that he knew it as well.
His eyes were clear. He was thinking. He was seeing himself again. And he was sickened.
“God, what have I done?” he said. He fell to his knees, not in surrender or submission but in the agony of a man who has realized for the first time the wreck of the life he has left behind him. “What have I done?” Tears filled his eyes, not of sorrow but anger. Sovien struck himself savagely on the leg.
“You fool! You fool! You’ve ruined everything!”
He got up slowly. “Justine! Justine, you bitch! You’re going to pay! By the Great Philosophers, you will pay!”
He circled round and round, alternately castigating himself and abusing Alex’s owner. Alex stood there forgotten for several long moments. Then, abruptly, Sovien stopped and looked at her, incredulity apparent on his face.
“Why?” he asked the nameless, essentially faceless pleasure drone in front of him. “Why did you help me?” He approached Alex, reached out a hand to touch her, then pulled back as if afraid.
Alex knew it wasn’t fear, though. It was modesty. The Sovien she knew would do nothing to shame another.
“Did you help me?” he asked. It was a direct question of a type she could answer. Alex nodded.
Sovien blinked.
“But . . but how? Why? Forgive me, but you’re just . . you’re just a drone? Aren’t you?”
[At last!] Alex shook her head. Yes, she was a pleasure drone, but as Citizen Nax and Commissioner Ovidia had seen fit to make her, she wasn’t just any pleasure drone. Sovien took note of the gesture.
He was a smart man. A very smart man. To have risen to where he was in the Free Centauri Army, to have assisted in the reconstruction of the Sovereignty of Outer Alpha Centauri, to have kept the secret of his onantube addiction for so long, he would have had to be.
“. . . Alex?” he whispered softly to the drone. “Alex? Is that you?”
And Alex nodded.
The strength perceptibly departed him. Sovien sat down on the floor before her. Alex tried to move on her own—her fingers had moved on their own, maybe she could do other things—but she could not. Whatever limited power of independence she had had, it was gone now. She could feel it broken inside her, shattered in her resistance to the Drad. She was once again nothing more than a pleasure drone.
Sovien looked at her. “How could this be? How could you . . ?” He stopped, thinking. “Justine,” he said, the name uttered with as much venom as he could muster. “She must have known. She must have arranged it with that damn Nax.” Alex longed to be able to tell Sovien the truth, but she was mute.
He got up. He moved to embrace her, then hesitated, knowing the effect it would have on a drone. Her arousal was constant. Despite her elation, a part of Alex still stared at her friend as a male. She wanted him to use her. She desperately wanted to be used by somebody! Sovien instead clenched his fingers quite deliberately, restraining himself. Alex’s heart went out to him, as well as her lust.
“She’ll pay, Alex, I swear it.” He stiffened. “I’m wasting time. Peter has to be told.”
[Peter!] Alex thought/processed in celebration. [My Master Peter!] They would be together again, she was sure of it. Sovien, still naked, hurriedly went over to his clothes piled near the bed. He picked up a small disc-shaped communicator. “We’ll have you unspooled, Alex, just as soon as possible.”
Unspooled! The chemiprocessors bound to every cell in her body would be drained. The living cells themselves would be regenerated. She would be a human being again! Alex’s soul veritably shivered in excitement. Sovien activated the communicator and was at once put in touch with the royal network.
“This is Sovien Lejan,” he spoke into the disc. “This is a Priority One communication. Let me speak to his Majesty at once.” The operator on the other side of the relay sounded suitably humbled by the magnitude of the task. Things were happening so quickly, Alex could barely keep up. One moment it had been the same as always. She was a pleasure drone, she would always be a pleasure drone, and any thoughts she may have still entertained of her own freedom were but mere fantasies. Now, she was on the cusp of true independence again! She would be unspooled! She would be human, and she would be with her beloved Master Peter again! It was a dream come true.
A harsh discharge of static brought reality crashing back. Sovien’s communicator buzzed with an ugly sound, hardly the voice of her beloved Peter. Then it shut down completely. Sovien tried to reactivate it, but it was dead. [It’s being scrambled] Alex processed. [Get out, Sovien!] [Get out!]
Though not a fighter in the F.C.A., the able little administrator had some military experience. He dropped the communicator and scrambled through his pile of clothes again, looking for something. The door to the playroom slid open with a bang, not the subtle hiss Alex had grown used to. Sovien lifted up a particle blaster just as a blue-uniformed Xenonic mercenary came crashing into the room. Sovien fired but missed, the particle discharge burning a hole in the wall beside the Xen’s head. The mercenary fired a brief burst from his multi-rifle, and Sovien fell back, blood bursting from his shredded shoulder.
A moment later they were joined by Mistresses Justine and Ovidia as well as by another Xen.
“What have you done!” the countess screeched at the top of her lungs. “You’ve killed him!”
“No, he is still quite alive,” the Drad said dryly, sighing. The creature looked at Alex once. The drone felt a mental probe through their rapport, brief and impersonal, then nothing. She was unimportant.
The Xen who had fired slung his multi-rifle and examined the little man on the floor. He was conscious and in pain, but he still looked infinitely better than he had while still in the clutches of the onantube.
“How?” he muttered, gritting his teeth.
Justine was in shock. Despite her pale color, though, she answered, a little dazedly. “My house chemiprocessor is keyed to intercept all non-sanctioned transmissions.” She sat down on her bed.
Amazingly, Sovien was smiling. “That was a Priority One communication you intercepted, lady,” he said, the title used with as little respect as he could muster. “What do you think will happen now? The royal operator will forget? I don’t think so. Within a few minutes you’re going to have visitors, Justine.”
He waved his undamaged arm. “Maybe you could show them around. Explain how you came into possession of an onantube. And her.” He pointed at Alex. “Peter will have you skinned alive.”
Justine got up and sneered. “He’s a weakling, just like you.” She turned to the Drad. “We can put him back in the onantube. He can explain to the sovereign.” But the spymaster was shaking its head.
“No. The operation here is finished. Lejan is right. Within ten minutes your estate will be surrounded by royal marines.” The creature looked at its wrist chronometer. “We have but minutes to act.”
Justine wrung her hands. “What . . what’ll we do?”
The Drad was silent for a moment, thinking. Alex was still cautiously optimistic. [I’m glad your plans are ruined, Mistress] she projected to the disembodied brain wearing its stolen body. [Sovien is right]. [My Master Peter is a good man, but he’ll destroy you for what you’ve done here].
The spymaster didn’t reply, either mentally or vocally. Instead, it just smiled at Alex.
Justine was starting to panic. Her eyes looked around the playroom. Perhaps she was imagining what her future husband would think when he saw it. Perhaps she was trying to think of which things she could still take with her. Alex was motionless before the onantube, but inside she was jumping in glee.
“We need a distraction,” the Drad said finally. The creature looked at Sovien on the floor. The Xen had bandaged his arm and was standing now beside him. The spy looked at the other Xen. “Pick up the blaster,” it told its servant, and the mercenary did. “Now. Shoot your brother, please.”
Neither mercenary moved for a second. Then they looked at the Drad, and though their faces were hidden and expressionless beneath their all-encompassing masks, Alex could perceive the sudden hate.
Justine just looked at them, wondering what was going on. Sovien was pale but had turned to Alex.
“I’m sorry I didn’t do better,” he said softly to the pleasure drone. “I’m sorry, Alex.”
[No] Alex processed. [No]. [It’s not fair].
“Now, please,” the Drad repeated. The Xen beside Sovien stiffened, then unslung his rifle, not to shoot but to better look the part of a stooge. Xenonic mercenaries were fanatics to their contracts. The other Xen pointed the blaster as he had been ordered and fired. A stream of super-charged particles flashed across the room and connected with the first Xen’s chest. That chest disintegrated instantly, and the remains of the Xenonic mercenary slammed up against the wall with bone-crushing force.
“Now, use your rifle, and kill the man who so obviously killed your brother.” The Drad’s voice was smug. The Xen threw the blaster away, unslung his own rifle, and aimed it directly at Sovien’s head.
[NO!] Alex shouted, and when the sound of the blast struck her ears, everything went black.