LAWFUL ORDERS
Report to Cmdr. Hayes, C-DECK 0155 at 0830 SGT
The message popped into Emily’s thoughts, unbidden. She still wasn’t used to the way it did that. She involuntarily stroked the neural implant at the back of her neck.
“A message, huh, lieutenant? Anything important?” her companion at the mess table asked.
“No, Sue. Just another meeting. I’ll probably get to spend another day doing system checks. What was wrong with our wrist-coms, anyway?”
“Come on, we’ve had the implants for a whole cruise, now. They’ve been really useful. I hear that the Commander is on board to evaluate rolling them out to the whole SpaceCommand fleet, and not just the flagship.” She grinned as she said this. Emily knew that Ensign Susan Ortega was very proud to be serving on the dreadnought ICF Victory, but she never understood why she had to mention it so often to other people serving on the very same ship.
“I know. I’m in charge of systems integration for them, remember? It’s just sometimes they bother me.” She noticed that Susan was on her third cup of coffee. “Why the extra brain-fuel?”
Susan replied, “Third watch woke me up to help chase a systems glitch that happened just after quantum transfer. Never did find it, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. Now that my watch is starting, it’s all I want to do.”
“That’s too bad,” Emily said. She looked down to check the time, then remembered her bare wrist, and queried her implant. “I gotta go if I’m going to make this meeting. See you.”
She started walking through the corridors of the Victory, passing various crew bustling about as first watch started. They were just a few days out of dock, and only passed the quantum transfer point last night, so the routine of shipboard life hadn’t settled in yet.
Emily engaged another feature of the neural implant, and let her feet carry her to her meeting. She had known the ship well, serving as a systems engineer, but she didn’t recognize the location, and the repairs and refits after their last cruise meant that many things had changed.
She realized shortly that she wasn’t heading to a conference room or lab at all, but to the senior officers quarters. Odd, she thought. Perhaps Commander Hayes wanted to meet up with her before going somewhere else. Hayes was the department chief for the SpaceCommand Science and Research group that had developed the neural implants, riding along to run tests on their performance and evaluate some modifications. Emily had been working with him in dock, and didn’t really care for the man. She couldn’t fault his intelligence or expertise, however, and he clearly recognized hers.
If only that were everything of hers that he recognized. He hadn’t tried anything, or even said anything, but Emily wasn’t blind to his lingering gazes at her womanly figure. Not that she entirely minded; Emily worked hard to keep her figure trim, and a little admiration of that fact was pleasant. But the Commander had looked just a little longer, a littler harder, and had an attitude towards her that was off-putting in a way she couldn’t quite describe. Well, everyone has creepy bosses sometimes, she thought.
Arriving at the correct door, she re-asserted conscious control of her legs, and strode up to it. The sensation was not unlike stepping off of a moving walkway, and was another reason the implants bothered her. She knew that safety protocols meant that you could always assert conscious control, but the sensations were still unsettling.
She pressed the door chime, then stepped into the cabin at the barked “Enter!” from within. The Victory was a very large ship, and as such, the senior officers cabins were quite large. Emily rarely saw them, and looked around, admiring the space that a junior officer such as herself was denied. Commander Hayes was stepping through the doorway which separated the private bathroom from the main chamber, dressed in drawstring pants and a loose shirt. Emily wondered if she were early, and needed to wait until he changed into his uniform.
“Welcome, Lieutenant. Kneel” Hayes said.
“What did you say?” asked Emily, then felt her knees strike the flooring.
“You clearly heard me,” he replied.
Emily scrambled back to her feet, indignantly, except that while she wanted to do so, she remained kneeling instead. “What did you do?” she asked, rising panic in her voice.
“Don’t yell, or scream, or raise your voice, and don’t communicate with anyone outside this room.”
Emily felt cold fear wash over her. Those looks weren’t just the harmless annoyances she had previously thought. They were promises of a dark future for her.
“How … How are you doing this?” she asked, in a normal tone of voice.
“How do you think? Be honest.” He came forward and sat down on the edge of the bed, a few feet away.
“It must be the implants. But the safety protocols!”
“Yes, the safety protocols. Take off your jacket and tell me why you think I can’t have done what I did.”
“The autonomous control functions of the neural interface are deliberately unshielded. Any conflict between conscious and implant control causes a feedback loop that disrupts the interface.” She was practically quoting the technical manuals as she unbuttoned her uniform jacket.
“And who designed that feature?”
“You did, I suppose. Or someone working for you. But it works, I know it does! I’ve overridden it before, everyone has!” She shrugged out of the jacket and set it aside.
“Yes, under normal circumstances, an override is possible. But there is one system that can’t be consciously overridden. Try to guess what it is while you take your shirt off.”
Emily thought for a moment, and pulled her undershirt off over her head, leaving her in her ship-shoes, uniform pants, and a plain white bra. There was no mistaking the intentions behind his look, now, and she shuddered and covered herself as best she could.
“Now, now,” Hayes scolded. “That’s no way to react to an admirer’s gaze. Be proud of your body. Show it off.”
With horror, Emily felt herself raise up on her knees a little and arch her back, presenting her moderate breasts to the Commander. Her arms, which had been attempting to protect her dignity, fell to her sides.
“Now, how about a game. There is a way to prevent conscious override, obviously. If you can guess it in fifteen seconds, I’ll let you keep your bra.”
Emily wracked her brain for an idea. The problem, of course, is that the best engineers and programmers in SpaceCommand had carefully checked the neural implant system for just this kind of tampering, and declared it impossible. She felt her time expiring rapidly, and blurted out her best guess.
“It must be the atrocity/unlawful order failsafe, but I don’t see how.”
“Why can’t it be that?”
“Because they prevent you from following orders, they don’t force you to. And the ethics evaluation is entirely in your own mind.”
“Well, it turns out, there are a few bugs in that section, mostly in unused, abandoned code. All it takes is the tiniest software patch to wake them up, and you wind up obeying unethical orders, instead of disobeying them. You’ve won your bra, but we did not discuss your pants. Stand up and take them off. Shoes too. Then sit back down in that chair.” He gestured.
Emily did so, seething inside. The order to show off her body stopped her from shielding her crotch from him, as well as her breasts, and when she sat down, she crossed her legs to show them off, not conceal anything. Then, a thought occurred to her. “How could you have patched the neural interfaces? Even with your access, you can’t just do that without approval, and the shipboard AI monitors all network traffic.”
“Ha. I was wondering when you would think of that.” Hayes stood up and walked over to a table holding an equipment case. “Fifteen seconds to guess what’s in here and keep your panties.”
Emily concentrated, but there was nothing the case could hold that would answer the question she posed. “A neural interface signal jammer?” she proposed at the last second, knowing she was wrong.
“You know that wouldn’t accomplish anything. Take them off, and have a look.” He withdrew an iridescent cube about ten centimeters on a side from the box.
Emily was in such shock that she barely noticed as she rolled her panties down her hips, dropped them to the floor, and kicked them away. “Where did you get that?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Why, from the ship’s central computer core.”
“You can’t just take an AI core out of the ship while it’s underway!”
“Young lady, I am the computer science and research head of SpaceCommand. Who would stop me?”
“But,” she tried gathering her thoughts, “if that’s Nelson, how is the ship still operating? Somebody would have noticed by now if we had no AI.” That was an understatement. Someone would notice the lack of an AI within seconds.
“Oh, the ship has an AI. A very special AI, made just for the occasion. And before you ask how it knows the encryption keys, we had to get them from Nelson here, with some very special tools. He was very brave and loyal, you should know. He held out against the probe for nearly four seconds. Had me worried. I’m afraid his resistance has caused him some permanent damage. I know you liked him. Play with yourself while you remember him. Mourn him, I suppose.”
Emily felt despair as a crushing weight, the pressure increasing as Hayes spoke. For all his obvious cleverness, she had still been hoping that she was caught in the ill-conceived plans of a madman, and his mistakes would catch up to him presently. But if he had is own AI core, and one unethical enough to support his plan, this was a plot on another order entirely. Fully sapient AIs were the most difficult to create and expensive part of SpaceCommand ships. Even with his access to Science and Research resources, Hayes must have been plotting for years, to have made his own AI undetected.
An AI that had, in all likelihood, killed Nelson. Brave, funny, smart Nelson. In her role as a systems engineer, Emily worked directly with the ship AI often, and she was often struck by how genuine he had seemed. How she often preferred his company to that of her male colleagues. They were all too obvious in their hormonal urges, seeking to ‘score’ with her in their immature games of sex and dominance. The irony was that the one man she would have considered that with was Nelson, who did not have the option, being an AI without a body. But if only he had one…
Emily moaned softly, then suddenly realized she had been fingering herself while lost in thought for some moments now, and had made herself quite aroused. The delicate patch of hair framing her pussy was damp with sweat and other secretions. Hayes was still watching her, but she couldn’t stop or cover herself.
But she could hate him. She hated him for killing Nelson. Nelson, her—
“Alright, that’s enough.”
And just like that, she stopped. She jerked her hand away from her clit, where her finger had been spiraling enticing circles. Nelson had been her friend, sure, but that was part of his job. And to honor his memory by masturbating in front of his murderer was beyond awful.
“You’re a monster,” she growled in low tones.
“More than you know,” he sighed. Then, with sudden decisiveness, he stood up and dropped his pants. She turned her head away in disgust—
“Look at it.”
—and turned it right back. She had little real-life experience for comparison, but his penis seemed average, sticking out semi-erect from a nest of curly dark hair that covered his balls. It hardly compared with some of the members on display in the porn-holos she sometimes watched, but that was to be expected.
“Get horny thinking about it.”
Emily wondered what it would be like to touch it. She imagined the warmth, the stiffness in her hand. She could taste the sweat from it on her tongue. She could feel the head parting her pussy lips, like the dildo in her private drawer but softer, warmer. She shifted uncomfortably, desire flowing through her.
Hayes stood and approached her. She knew what he wanted, but wasn’t going to do it until he gave the order. “Take it in your mouth and give me the best blowjob you can.”
She scooted forward as he stepped in, and took him directly in her mouth. She had never done anything like this before, but a combination of overheard gossip from her girlfriends, watching the porn-holos and basic anatomy meant she was pretty sure she knew what to do. The thought of his cock was still making her horny, but she pushed those thoughts back. If she got lost in her own pleasure, she wouldn’t be doing her best job.
So she licked, she sucked, she nibbled (gently, and without her teeth). His murmurs of encouragement and advice slowly turned into inarticulate grunts and gasps, so she knew she was getting to him. Emily lost track of time, focused on her task, but eventually, she felt Hayes tense up, and knew he was close. She tried to redouble her efforts, but after a moment he withdrew completely and said, “Wait for it.”
So she did. He stroked himself a couple of final times, then blasted semen across her face. She had assumed that the amounts of jizz in the porn-holos were exaggerated, but Hayes came and came in spurt after spurt. Emily closed her eyes after the second or third spurt, but she still felt several more hot ropes landing on her face and across her chin, sliding down and dripping onto her chest. Then it was over, and she wiped out one eye and tentatively opened them again.
“God,” sighed Hayes. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that. Thank me.”
“Thank you, sir,” Emily automatically replied. She was still trying to unclog her right eye.
“Don’t clean up any more. Leave it like that.”
She stopped.
“Now,” he said, pulling his pants back up, “This session isn’t just for my carnal pleasures. I need to verify and test my system. Obviously, the primary function is effective, but we must be sure of it’s limits. Tell me what orders of mine you are under.”
She thought, briefly, then spoke. “In order, I am not to yell, scream, or raise my voice, not to communicate with anyone outside this room, I am honest when answering your questions, sitting in this chair, I get horny when I think about your penis, and am leaving your semen on my body without cleaning up.”
“You left a few out.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Really? Explain.”
“You ordered me to kneel, but that was superseded when you ordered me to get up, then sit in this chair. You ordered me to remove my clothing, but it was unclear if that was a one-time command, now completed, or you intend for me to stay mostly naked. Since I haven’t had an opportunity to dress again, it hasn’t come up. You explicitly canceled the order to think about Nelson and masturbate. When you put your pants back on, it was clear I was no longer under orders to look at your penis, and I obviously completed your commands to give you a blow job, wait for you to come on my face, and thank you for it. Some of your questions could have been orders, but I whether I answered because of that or because I am under orders to be honest isn’t important.”
He blinked in surprise, “That was very detailed. Have you been thinking about it the whole time?”
“No, just when you asked.”
“Well, I knew you had a thorough and analytic mind, but I’m still impressed.” He pondered for a moment. “In fact,” he continued, “I think you deserve a reward. Put your hands on the armrests and keep them there.”
She did so.
“Now, when I count to three, I want you to have a powerful orgasm. Are you ready? One, two, three.”
She closed her eyes, imagining the pleasure. But all she did was imagine. Nothing happened.
“Emily? Did you just disobey my direct order? Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know how to orgasm without touching myself, or some other stimulation. I don’t think I can.”
“So, if I ordered you to do a one handed handstand...”
“I would try, but I doubt I could manage it.”
“Alright, lets try it another way. Eyes closed, hands still on the armrests.”
She complied, nervously.
“Relax for me. Sink into the chair, but don’t think about where you are. Let your mind build you a new location. Imagine yourself relaxing on a bed, naked. Your lover sits at your side. He caresses your body, softly, sensually. You feel yourself growing warmer, needier, under his touch, in the fantasy and here in the real world.”
Emily started to squirm a little in the chair, or under the touch of her lover. The fantasy was turning her on, all right.
“He reaches down and strokes between your legs, and you can really feel it. You grow hotter and hotter, more and more passionate, hornier and hornier. You want him, you need him.”
With her eyes closed, she couldn’t tell, but she was pretty sure that Hayes was still a few feet away. Nevertheless, at his instruction, she thought she could actually feel someone stroking her pussy. The sensations were building, incredible. She wasn’t sure if she was in the chair or on the bed, if her eyes were open or closed. All she could feel was her pleasure.
“He readies his cock. When he enters you, you will orgasm, and it will be the best orgasm of your life. You are ready for him. He is ready for you. He does it … now.”
Emily came. She came like a wave crashing in from the ocean, like a volcano erupting, like every cheesy metaphor she could think of at once. Her hips bucked, her heels drummed the floor. She did not cry out (normal voices only, as per orders) but she let out a long moan, which grew increasingly more ragged and breathy as her lungs emptied.
Finally, the energies passed, and she sat in the chair, panting. She could feel a wet spot on the cushion.
“Open your eyes.”
He was where he had been. “How did that feel?”
She had to be honest. “It was amazing. Better than anything I’ve ever felt before.”
“Well, now you have a new skill. Let’s practice it. Orgasm for me, now.”
Emily closed her eyes, dropped into a relaxed state, and found a favorite fantasy of hers. Not the one Hayes had used, but her own. She is hiking on a mountain trail when she comes to a lake. A sexy, muscled man is skinny dipping in the lake, and she masturbates to the sight of him, behind a tree. He never sees her, never knows what a show he is putting on for her.
In her relaxed state, the fast-forwarded through the fantasy to her favorite moment, imagining the man jackknifing in the water to dive below, his tight butt rising upwards. Her fantasy self usually climaxes at this moment, her cries echoing through the mountains but unheard by the man, underwater. This time was no different.
She came again. Not an earth-shattering, mind altering, metaphor requiring orgasm, but an orgasm none the less. Under no compulsion this time, she opened her eyes immediately.
“Fascinating,” said Hayes. “That second one was real as well?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Well, we have a lot to get to. Take off the bra, go take a short shower to get cleaned up, then come right back out.”
She unhooked the bra, which had been splattered with cum earlier, but she still couldn’t help thinking that she had won the right to keep it, and it was unfair that she was forced to lose it anyway. But orders were orders, so she did not object.
In the shower (real water, a luxury reserved for senior officers), she tried to come up with a plan. She couldn’t. The problem was, she realized, that what she should be doing is looking for loopholes in her orders, and trying to exploit them.
But that wouldn’t work, because she was treating these orders like any others, and using logic and common sense to interpret them. Even if Hayes forgot to tell her to do, or not to do, something, as long as it was obvious that he wanted it done, or not done, as part of an order, she would fill in the gap herself.
He’d have to make a major mistake for her to have a chance at taking action against him. And then what? She had to assume that he had compromised everyone on board, not just her. Even ff she got away, he could order the entire ship to find her. No, there was only one thing she could do to stop this. But could she?
Emily turned off the shower and toweled herself off. She debated wrapping herself up before coming out, but decided not to. It might not have violated orders, but it would be seen as defiance, and she didn’t want him suspicious of her right now.
Emily emerged from the shower, feeling a little more confident, now that she had a sort of plan. She had heard the saying that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, but she never believed it more than when the first thing Hayes said was, “Tell me what you were thinking about, in the shower.”
She wouldn’t say it, she couldn’t say it, she said “I was trying to find a way out of this. I concluded that I would have to kill you if I had a chance to, but I wasn’t sure I could do it.” Damnit.
“Oh. Well, don’t kill me. Under any circumstances. Don’t help anyone kill me. In fact, don’t even harm me. If you think I’m about to be killed or come to harm, tell me.”
Emily slumped, her thoughts of defiance shattered.
“Don’t try to run away from me, or avoid receiving orders from me, either. Don’t tell anyone, or let anyone else find out that I have swapped ship AIs, tampered with the neural implants, or done anything else dangerous.”
She started sobbing, quietly.
“And don’t feel bad about it.”
And then she stopped. The bleakness and depression vanished. This is good, she thought. If she wasn’t wallowing in self-pity, she’d be better able to take whatever opportunity might be left. Somehow.
Hayes began leading her through a series of experiments, determining what he could get her to do under orders. Other than the fact she was naked, there was nothing sexual about them.
They determined that Emily could not, in fact, do a one-handed handstand, even with detailed coaching. She could, however, do a passable one-handed cartwheel, which she never could before. It seemed that carefully worded orders could extend her capabilities, but only up to a point.
Mental arithmetic was much faster, but she was always good at that. She was very accurate throwing pens at the garbage can from across the room, under orders. Interestingly, she improved more when Hayes told her to hit the target than when he told her to come as close as she could. They examined this phenomenon, and determined that there was nothing mystical about it; she was simply rushing her shots when left to her own devices.
Their interaction became almost friendly. Emily felt a little bit like she and Hayes were exploring new territory as colleagues. He had even had her put her panties and uniform jacket back on, because her nudity was distracting him. But then, while they were testing her ability to speed read under orders, the door chimed.
“Oh dear, I seem to have lost track of time,” Hayes said. He went to the viewer by the door, and checked it. “Yes, indeed.”
“What? Who is it.” Emily asked.
“It is time to perform another experiment,” said Hayes. “Quickly now. I will hide in the other room. Let him in, and seduce him. Don’t tell him what’s really going on, or that I’m here, but convince him to have sex with you.” As he said this, Hayes was walking quickly to the bathroom door. “And when he does, feel free to enjoy it,” were his parting words as he disappeared.
“Who is it?” asked Emily, but Hayes had already hidden himself. She wanted to check the viewer and make some kind of plan, but orders were orders, so she pressed the door release.
The door hissed open, revealing a tall, lanky enlisted crewman. Emily recognized Crewman 1st Class Karl Reichhoff, Hayes’s personal aide.
“Hi there, handsome,” Emily heard herself saying. “You’re just the person I wanted to see.” She reached out and gently pulled him into the room.
“Errr, where is Commander Hayes?” asked Reichhoff, looking around, nervously. He was, in fact, trying to look everywhere but at Emily.
“Don’t worry about Hayes. I wanted to see you,” Emily replied, and wiggled her shoulders subtly to open the gap in her jacket wider.
“For what did you want to see me?” He stumbled over his words as Emily pulled him further into the room.
“It’s going to be a long cruise, and I need somebody to keep me satisfied,” she replied. Inside, she was marveling at herself. Where was this script coming from? How was she able to say these things without dying of embarrassment?
“Ma’am, I must decline,” said Reichhoff.
“Oh, really? This guy,” she said, and gave his crotch a squeeze, “doesn’t want to ‘decline’. He wants to ‘accept’. Why not listen to his advice?” Despite her words, he wasn’t actually fully hard under her hand, but she made an effort to fix that, while unsealing the last clasp on her jacket so he could see her tits fully.
“Please, stop now,” he said, taking her by the wrist and guiding her hand back away from his groin.
Emily felt herself losing control of the situation, but she was under orders, so she kept trying. “But I don’t want to stop,” she pouted. “I want to do all kinds of nasty things to you. And I want you to do anything you want to me.”
While still holding her wrist in one hand, Reichhoff started unbuttoning his collar with the other. Emily briefly thought she had succeeded, but then he pulled a chain out from under his uniform, and she saw her cause was futile.
He was showing her a Redeemer’s Cross. The Redeemers were a highly conservative religious sect from some of the newer colony worlds. They absolutely forbade sex. Not just pre-marital sex, but sex of any kind, relying entirely on artificial methods of procreation. If he was at all serious about his religion, her efforts were doomed to failure before she began.
“You understand,” he was saying. It wasn’t a question. “I must go now.”
Emily was at a loss for how to proceed. Her orders were to seduce him, but that was clearly impossible. She was obligated to either continue, and she had no idea how, or report her failure and ask for further instructions, but she couldn’t do that without letting Reichhoff leave.
Fortunately, Hayes chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom and solve his problem. “Hello, Karl,” he said. “I see that Emily has been working her charms on you.”
“Sir,” said Reichhoff, clearly surprised. “Why are—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hayes interrupted. “You seem to be rejecting the young lady’s advances. I’d appreciate it if you could help her out.”
Reichhoff’s face showed serious conflict for the first time. “I cannot,” he said. “The Redeemer’s Code tells us—”
Again, Hayes interrupted. “I think you should do what the lady wishes, Karl. I think that would be a good idea.”
He’s trying to give Reichhoff orders without him noticing, Emily realized. And it was working. Karl was looking back at her, and his expression was less dismissive and more attentive.
She couldn’t let the opportunity pass. “You know what I want, Karl?” she asked, slinking backwards towards the bed. He took a few hesitant steps towards her, finally leaving the safety of the doorway. He tried to speak, swallowed, then simply nodded in response.
Emily took the uniform jacket off and slid onto the bed. “Then get over here and give me what I want,” she said firmly. The next thing she knew, he was on her, pressing down. His weight pinned her helpless to the bed, as he frantically kissed and groped.
She was lost in his attentions, the sensation of his lips moving down from hers across her neck to her nipples, his hands roaming about her body. There was a sense of contained power there, like he was holding back strength that would break her. One of his hands found her crotch, and she bucked into him. His technique wasn’t subtle; he just pressed his hand upward and rubbed back and forth, but she found it to be enough for her.
Emily lost track of events, for a little while. She thought she heard Hayes talking to Reichhoff, but didn’t hear what she said. She was lost in her own pleasure, which culminated in an orgasm that took her while Reichhoff was sticking two fingers inside her and sucking on one of her breasts.
She had barely caught her breath from this when she realized that Reichhoff was naked and advancing between her legs. She grabbed his hips eagerly, guiding him towards her. There was a brief moment of of confusion and delay as his inexperience showed, and he needed to readjust to enter her smoothly, but soon he was pounding away and she was back in a place where she wasn’t fully aware of the room around her.
She came twice more as Reichhoff pistoned away, never breaking tempo or tiring, with a precision hiding an underlying urgency. His stamina was surprising, given his situation, but eventually he cried out and his thrusting slowed, and she realized he had finished inside her. He slumped over her and settled to the bed, half next to and half on top of her naked body.
“I’d say that test was a success,” said Hayes, approaching the bed. Emily glanced at Reichhoff, worried, but realized that the young man had fallen asleep. Hayes must have ordered him to do so, she thought. She started squirming her way out from under him.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be asleep for some time,” said Hayes, still watching her. “Now, I just have a few questions to make sure things went as they appeared. First, how would you rate Reichhoff’s skill as a lover? Compared to other men you’ve had sex with.”
Emily blinked. “I … can’t answer that,” she replied.
“Oh, come now,” Hayes said, brusquely. “Your modesty has long been discarded, and I am ordering you to answer the question honestly.”
“No, you don’t understand,” she said, compelled to explain even as dread filled her. “I can’t answer because I have no-one to make the comparison to. I haven’t had sex with anyone else.”
“You mean, you were a virgin before today?” he asked, incredulously. She nodded, but he was continuing, to himself as much as her, “And I didn’t … and you didn’t … no, I suppose I never asked.” He started laughing, and Emily became very worried. He obviously felt he had missed an opportunity, and she feared he would punish her for it.
But, avoiding the situation wasn’t going to make it better, so she asked, “Did I do something wrong?”
He looked at her, tried to answer, but took several attempts through his laughter. “No. You were … you were just… you were just following orders.”
Emily didn’t know whether to feel relieved or very scared indeed.