Fiction: Toy Part 2
Aug. 9th, 2009 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kethniName: Toy part 2
Pairing: Matt/Mohinder
Rating: 18 for explicit sex and language
Warnings: Dub-con sex, disturbing imagery
Note: For![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
boudecia7, a belated birthday present. From her prompt, the song "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls.
Part one
Lies, all lies. What am I if not designed for a function? What are we without the feed, without the programming and training? If we are not obedient, not created to fulfil a function, then what are we for?
When he shuts the door behind Hiro and Adam, I see that his hands are shaking. He rubs his hands over his trousers and smiles but the smile is twitchy and uncertain.
“Did that help, do you think?”
Cascade failure is a lie. Design and training are lies. There is nothing real, nothing true. “Yes Doctor.”
He frowns at me. “You don’t seem... are you sure?”
I force a smile, and don’t let him know what’s happening. “Very educational, Doctor.”
“So you won’t cry this time?”
“No Doctor.”
“It’s upsetting when you cry,” he says. “You’re too... I don’t like it. Alright?”
“Certainly, Doctor.”
I undress and sit on the bed. He is already undressed and he just stands staring at me.
“You aren’t ugly.”
Petty and meaningless. “Thank you.”
He sits suddenly. “Was that what you’re thinking about?”
Shouldn’t think, mustn’t think. “Mining units don’t think, Doctor.”
“No, of course not.” He chews his lower lip. “You enjoyed the pleasure model?”
Until we were alone. “Pleasure models are highly skilled.”
“Not very interesting though. Not like you.” He cups my face in his hand. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were real.”
“Thank you for letting me learn from the pleasure model.”
“You’re welcome, why don’t you show me what you’ve learned?” He leans forward and kisses me, hard. His hand grips my arm as he opens his mouth. I wait for him to put his tongue in my mouth but he doesn’t. Am I supposed to do it first?
He moans when I do. This is simpler than it looked. His fingers are digging into my arm.
“Lie down now,” he orders.
Must not cry, must try to relax. “Yes Doctor.”
Hands greedy, stroking, touching and rubbing. Stroke his arms and he smiles.
“Good, that’s good.”
Kisses and bites my chest and neck. Hurts, not pleasant. Stroke his back and he bucks against me. Feel the heavy weight of him against my thigh.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You’ve tensed.”
“You bit me.”
“I can if I want.”
Can do anything he wants, however he wants. “Yes Doctor.”
“You’ll enjoy it more if you calm down.”
Try to relax. Would be better not to know all the lies; better to be in a mine never thinking, content only to be.
His fingers inside me too quick and too rough. Hurts.
“I thought you were going to try and calm down.”
“You hurt me.”
He sighs. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Less rough now. Enters me slowly, gripping my hips.
Over very quickly.
He lies next to me. “Didn’t get your button?”
If I say no, he’ll be angered. If I say yes, he’ll know that I can lie to him.
“I don’t know where it is. May I go to bed now Doctor?”
“I suppose so.”
“Matt, wake up.”
Sun shining through the glass. Never been in the sunshine. Never been in the open air.
“Yes Doctor.”
He’s dressed for work. Suit and shirt.
“Come and have breakfast with me.”
Breakfast, a pile of grains, nuts and oats with milk on top. Some dark, foul smelling liquid in a cup.
“It’s coffee, or aren’t mining units allowed coffee?”
He smiles as if it’s joke but his mouth is tight and his eyes narrow. Hurt? Upset perhaps. Why? Real Humans are strange and confusing. I must keep him happy to ensure continued operation. No, no more talk of cascade failure, don’t let him think it. Keep him happy. “Not a mining unit anymore, Doctor.”
“No?” He raises his eyebrows. “Then what’s your function?”
“Pleasing you is my function.”
He smiles, bright and wide. “You might like some milk and sugar in your coffee. Do you like sweet things?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, well. Try a little and see.”
“Yes Doctor.” Coffee is bitter but exciting. They would never let us drink this, far too stimulating. They want us kept docile not agitated. The Doctor clearly has no idea.
“There’s some soup there. Warm it for two minutes before you eat it.”
“How?”
“Oh, I’ll show you.”
Top middle button, one press, bottom right button, three presses.
“Will you remember that?”
Mining equipment can require sequences of several hundred buttons and settings. “I can remember four button pushes.”
So bright outside. The sky is blue from edge to edge. If I were eating the feed, would I notice it even if I saw it? Would I put my hand on the window and feel the warmth of it coming though the glass?
“Is something wrong?” His voice, but he left already.
“Doctor? I thought you were gone.”
He holds up his case. “Forgot my bag. Do you want to go outside?”
Watching me too closely. Listening too closely.
“I’ve never been in the open air.”
“Do you want to go outside?” he asks again.
“I have no wants, Doctor.”
He frowns at me. “I’m going to work.”
“Yes Doctor.”
In his bedroom there is a window running from floor to ceiling. It is high up here and I think there are many other domiciles inside this building. I sit in front of the window, in the morning light, and look out at the strange foreign world. Too far up to tell which of the moving creatures are Real and which are not. I can see that there are some females, smaller, more fragile; you would never see females in a mine. There are... there are some tiny creatures too, they must be Real Humans. Some are less than half the size of usual and they dress differently. One jumps along the walkway, long hair swinging. Others are running about or on small vehicles. I have no recollection of ever being so small.
Someone is at the door, an Adam unit. He must be Hiro’s. How can he walk under the open sky and then choose to return to his owner?
The door opens onto a corridor. I wonder if I would be able to leave.
“Not unless he’s told the guards that you can go outside,” Adam says.
“How did you know?”
“Dear boy, it was written all over your face. Will you let me in?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, shutting the door. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
He looks at me. “As dangerous as you allowing Suresh to realise something has changed?”
Heart beating, breath quick. “What do you mean?”
“They talk; yours and mine. Yours rang while mine was getting ready for work.”
“What did he say?” Hurts to breathe, heart pounds, everything is swaying. Failure, failure, failure... please...
“I don’t know but Hiro said that it didn’t sound like cascade failure. Sit down; you’re experiencing an adrenaline overstimulation.” He pushes me down onto the sofa and puts my hands over my mouth and nose. “You are breathing too quickly, breathe more slowly.” He rubs my back slowly. “Have you been drinking coffee?”
“Coffee creates adrenaline overstimulation?”
“No, not alone. I can smell it on you though. Does Suresh know?” He continues rubbing my back and shoulders; it is very soothing. I wonder why Real Humans would want to use industrial units when pleasure models are so... pleasing.
“He gave it to me,” I say.
“You are a poor host; you have not even offered me refreshment.” He takes my arm and pulls me into the kitchen. He pushes me onto a chair. “The man is a complete idiot. We can learn to tolerate the poisons they feed themselves but not all at once. Certainly giving you a stimulant like that is begging for a failure. How are you functioning now?”
“Better.” I sit back and look up at him. “What do you eat then?”
“Mine is a complacent fool. You’ll find they’re all too happy to let you take over most of the chores and work. With it control of what is done, how it is done, and what is purchased. After I broke out of the programming I ate their baby food at first, which is nutritious and not too taxing, but now I prepare my own. Hiro thinks I buy the feed.” He smiles and sits beside me. “Be wary of chocolate if it is offered. You will want to have more once you have some but you should restrict yourself severely.”
“Chocolate?” I check. “Is that food or drink?”
“Food for the most part, often in bar form but it is used widely for flavouring. Whatever you do, do not ingest alcohol. It will not only make you very ill but also impair your mental and vocal control. You would reveal yourself and perhaps me,” he says strongly.
“Adam, if they must program us, drug us, into being obedient then it can’t be either our nature or design, can it?” I ask, looking at him. He tenses and nods once.
“They can design our bodies, make my eyes this colour, my hair this colour, and make your body that size, that strong. They have less success affecting intelligence but they are getting better.” He crosses his palms on his knee. “They can’t change our basic natures though, only suppress them.”
“What right do they have?”
He stands and paces the room. “Don’t talk about rights.”
“But without the feed and the programming, how are we so different from them?” I ask. “We feel, we think, we eat, we sleep. They are designed before birth to be perfect and beautiful. How are we so different that they can purchase us, use us, and destroy us?”
“This is madness, you are mad. How long have you been off the feed?”
“Nearly five days. Why is it madness?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Five days and you are a terrorist.”
“What is a terrorist?”
“No!” he points at me. “Do not think it. It’s insanity. They will never accept us as anything but appliances, accessories, toys. To think otherwise is foolish. There is nothing to be gained from trying to make things other than they are.”
Then things will always stay the same, forever. “I am only asking the question! I do not understand why they can treat us this way.”
“Listen to me; we are made, and they are Real. That’s all there is to it. There are hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of your product line. There is one Hiro, one Suresh. They are unique, they are Real. They make us and they own us. Stay off the feed and learn to do what you can within the limits he sets. That’s all you can do.”
Not right, not... scales must balance. Rubble and ore together must balance against the total extracted. There should be balance. This is unbalanced, not correct.
“Who says what is ‘real’, them? They would say so!” My face is hot and my fists are clenching. “Adam you are still programmed, don’t you see? When you talk about them as different, better, those are their words.”
He shakes his head. “I came to warn you, to help you, but I see you are past my help. You will be sent for destruction if you don’t mind yourself. I will not be dragged down with you.”
I have fingers and they have fingers. I have eyes, ears, and mouth and they have eyes, ears, and mouth. I fear hurt and damage and they fear hurt and damage. I think. They think. There may be innumerable of my line. But they are not me, I am me, I am the only me I have. The thoughts I have are my thoughts. The words I speak are my words. The things that happen to me happen only to me.
I may be one of millions but I am unique. I am the only me.
The Doctor looks tired again when he comes back. I take his jacket and his bag but he will not let me have the other thing. It is large and made of some sort of strands of woven wood.
“What’s that?”
“A picnic hamper, I thought we could have a picnic,” he says, and his hand rubs my arm. “It’s early enough.”
Picnic hamper? Picnic, do not know. Hamper; gift basket, food hamper.
“I don’t know what that means.”
His hand is still on my arm, resting lightly in the space between my elbow and shoulder. His touch is much less unpleasant to me than it originally was.
“Instead of eating in the kitchen we’ll go out, to a park. Sit on the grass and... that sort of thing.” He’s staring at me as if waiting for something. “Would you like that?”
Outside, under the blue, blue sky and in the bright light; as if I was one of them.
“Yes Doctor.”
“Let’s go to bed first, hmm?”
It’s much better this time. He kisses more gently and for far longer. The flutter in my chest returns and my skin is warm. His hands stroke my arms and back; I rub his chest. He sighs into the kiss. When he pulls back, the pupils of his eyes are huge.
“Lie down?”
He leans over me kissing and licking my stomach and chest. His hands stroke and caress my sides. I am warm; pleasant warmth all over and my heart is pounding. When he bites me, it is more careful and it feels wonderful.
“Better?”
“Much, thank you,” I say softly.
“I want to find your button.”
“I don’t know where it is.”
He uses two fingers to search it out and white light flashes across my eyes.
“Aha! I can do as well as an outdated pleasure model.”
He has his hands on my arms as he enters me, not painful just there. Adjusts himself until the light is flashing across my eyes. Tense, tense, supposed to be... supposed to relax not...
“Do you think you’re going to do that every time?” he asks, smiling down at me.
“Did I have a failure?”
“You passed out again,” he says.
Passed out; lost consciousness, extreme reaction to physical pleasure.
“Not that it isn’t flattering,” he says. “You better have a shower, clean yourself off.”
“Yes Doctor.”
“No,” he says softly.
No, what? “What do you mean?”
He rubs his hair. “I don’t want you to address me as ‘Doctor’, anymore. It feels... wrong.”
Says one thing, changes his mind, doesn’t explain. Confusing and complicated. “How should I address you?”
His cheeks redden and his voice is embarrassed. “Mohinder will be fine.”
Outside.
Outside is warm. Outside is so bright I am almost blind. Outside is sky, clouds, vegetation, moving air. Outside is too beautiful.
“Here, try these,” he says, puts something over my eyes. “Sunglasses, they should help.”
“No, thank you.” I take them off and give them back.
“Why the hell not?” he asks, I can’t see his face but I can hear his tone, hurt and offended.
“My eyes will adjust and I want to see it. Really see it, not see a faded version of it.”
He doesn’t say anything else but takes my arm and guides me.
I can see the grass and the flowers now. I can smell them. I can hear the insects buzzing and the small humans laughing. There are lots of them here, running and chasing each other.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen children before,” he says, spreading a blanket on the grass as all the other groups have done. Is grass unhygienic? Those small animals are eating it.
“Children are the small humans?”
“Yes,” he says, opening the hamper. “That’s how we reproduce. There’s a very long waiting list and the cost is phenomenal.”
“Children must be purchased?” The children appear to share some genetic material with the Real Humans nearby without being the same model. “They are artificial?”
“No!” he hisses. “Keep your voice down, shit!”
“But you said there is a cost and a waiting list?”
He opens containers of food and then looks at me. “Humans, Real Humans, aren’t able to reproduce naturally any more. There was a disease... it doesn’t matter. Children are created by combining genetic material from two people. The baby is grown until it’s nine months old and then given to the caregivers.”
“Grown where?” I dip a finger into a container and taste the gelatinous orange foodstuff; it is sharp but not unpleasant.
“In an artificial womb. That’s hummus; it might be a little spicy for you.”
Is that how we are created? “An artificial womb in a laboratory?”
“I suppose, why?” he asks, pouring some of the clear, chemical smelling liquid. “This wine, would you like to try some? It might give you a bit of a headache though.”
“Is it... alcohol?”
“That’s right.” He’s still holding out a cup of it.
“No thank you.” He takes a sip of it and smacks his lips. “So children are artificial then.”
He chokes on the wine. “No! God! What’s got into you?”
I count out the reasons on my hand. “Children are purchased, they are created with machinery in a laboratory, they are genetically modified to be perfect and physically attractive, and they are birthed artificially. Clone life is created artificially, in a laboratory, we are modified genetically as required, we are birthed artificially, and we are purchased.”
He looks ill. “That’s... that’s not... it’s different.”
“How?”
“I... uh... each child is unique.” He gulps down the wine and pours himself more.
“Uniqueness is the defining factor of being not-artificial?”
He nods quickly. “Yes.”
“There are two children there. They are the same. Are they artificial then?”
He turns around and looks at the pair of male children. “No, no those are twins. That’s when the created life splits into two. It’s rare but it happens.”
“But they’re not unique. They must be artificial then, yes?” I ask.
“They’re real! It’s different!” he hisses.
“How?”
He licks his lips. “They have different experiences, different memories. Being unique is more than just looking different.”
“I have different experiences and memories than any other in my model line,” I say. “Am I not unique then?”
He goes quiet and gives me a plate with some sort of animal product on it.
“Eat your chicken.”
“Yes Mohinder.”
Sunset.
The sky is so many colours, orange, red, pink, yellow, gold, and a thousand shades between each of them. Different insects are in the air. They are colours too, green, gold, silver and they are all different sizes. All beautiful in different ways.
“How do you feel?” Mohinder asks.
I look back at him. “Very well.”
“You don’t seem to be so fixated on cascade failure,” he says quietly.
“You told me that I didn’t have it.”
He laughs but not in an amused way. “I don’t like it when you lie to me, and don’t tell me you haven’t lied to me.”
“That wasn’t a lie, you did say that,” I protest.
He nods and fastens up the hamper. “I did, but that’s not the reason you’re not thinking about it. Who’s been filling your head with revolutionary ideas?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
He stares at me for a long time. “All this stuff about Real Humans and cloned life being the same under the skin.”
“I think the skin is completely irrelevant.”
He frowns, not angry but something else. “Don’t try and be funny.”
“I wasn’t. Either all life is unique or none is. Either we are all real or we are all artificial.”
“I should send you back for destruction for that sort of talk, you know that,” he says quietly.
Unreasonable, unreliable, fragile. I could end him here in the low light and nobody would hear it or see it.
“You told me not to lie. You want me to please you but what am I supposed to do when the truth is unpleasant for you?” I ask.
“But that’s not the truth!”
“It is the only truth I know,” I say. “You can send me to my destruction, to my death, and it won’t unsay what I have said. It won’t make it untrue.”
Mohinder looks down at his hands. “It can’t be true. Do you know how many of your kind are disassembled, recalled, destroyed every year?”
“Killed, no. I don’t know. Unpleasantness doesn’t make it any less true either.”
“I don’t want to send you back.”
“I don’t want to end you and walk away.”
He looks up suddenly pale. “You’d do that?”
I should. How would they tell the one of me from the many? “No, I don’t have the right to destroy your life. Not because I’m cloned or because you’re Real, because no-one does. I don’t have the right to end you and you don’t have the right to end me.”
“I bought you,” he says cautiously.
“The caregivers of those children paid for them. Are they belongings to be disposed of at whim also?”
“I need to think about this,” he says finally. “Are you willing to come back home for now?”
“Yes, I think so.”
He nods and stands up. “I need to think about this,” he says again.
He makes me wait in the living room. When he finally reappears, I realise that he seems much older now than he did before.
“Alright, you can go to bed now. I’ll see you in the morning. If you don’t end me first,” he says wryly.
“Or you, me.”
He laughs tiredly. “That would be an accomplishment indeed. Goodnight, Matt.”
“Goodnight, Mohinder.”
He has cleared all the boxes and old broken things from the room. Instead of the blanket and pillow on the floor there are blankets folded carefully into the shape of a bed. It is comfortable and warm but I don’t sleep well. I hear him too, shifting and turning through the night.
I feel anxious and yet bored. I get up and go downstairs. I have seen him serve juice enough times to do it, I think.
Instead, I sit in the kitchen and think about Adam. There must be others like him, like me, who have ‘failed’ without being caught. Others who are hiding and cowering. Is that what a terrorist is? It doesn’t sound right.
Mohinder walks into the kitchen. His robe is around him but it makes him look even smaller and more fragile than usual.
“I see we’ve both made it past midnight alive,” he says with a smile. “Would you like some hot chocolate? It’s a drink, it’s nice.”
Chocolate should be severely restricted, but he might send me for destruction tomorrow. “Yes, please.”
“So, is this what a cascade failure is?” he asks. “Wondering if you’re real, what being human is?”
He seems honestly curious, not trying to trick me. “I don’t know. I think so. When the programming breaks down.”
“You’ve only been here a few days. I wonder why it broke down so quickly.” He puts a mug of something brown in front of me. It smells as though it will taste like being kissed. “It’s hot, be careful.”
Trust is difficult. Knowing who to trust is a skill to be developed. “I don’t know.”
He just nods and sits opposite me. He takes a sip of his drink and sits back. “Do you think it’s drugged?”
“I don’t know.”
He swaps the mugs over and takes another sip. “This way I get all the hot chocolate.”
I feel myself smile although I’m not sure why. I take a sip. It tastes the way it smells. “I was warned not to overindulge with chocolate.”
“Sensible advice but this isn’t proper chocolate, just flavouring.”
“Why did you want an industrial unit and not a pleasure model, because it’s the fashion?”
He laughs a little. “Partly, partly because I found the pleasure models I’d had...unappealing. They didn’t look real, alive.” He looks at me. “I wanted a toy that didn’t seem so much like a toy.”
“Congratulations.”
Mohinder smiles again, a sad smile. “Sarcasm, now I know you’re sentient.”
His eyes are red as though he’s been crying and there are bags under his eyes.
“What is a terrorist?”
His eyebrows rise. “A terrorist? In general it’s someone who uses terror tactics to force some sort of change. Generally, they bomb things. Why do you ask?”
“Someone said that asking what right Real Humans have to kill cloned life meant being a terrorist,” I explain.
“Well that’s bullshit. Asking questions is asking questions.” He sighs. “It might not be very sensible to draw attention to yourself that way but it’s not terrorism.” He shifts on the seat. “For a few years there have been people agitating for cloned life to have rights, to be considered equal to us. There are a few groups; the ‘Cloned Life Liberation’ group is the most militant. They’re calling for an end to all destruction of cloned life. A few months ago, they bombed a facility creating your kind. A couple of hundred Real were killed and a lot more cloned.”
Irrational, unreasonable, nonsensical. “A group opposed to our deaths slaughtered both kinds of human in an effort to further their argument?”
“I know it’s insanity, but you’ll find any kind of organised group when it’s big enough will always have a lunatic fringe. It’s human nature.” He shrugs. “If you had a...teddy bear lovers association sooner or later there would be some section shunning anyone who had a one-eared bear.”
“What’s a teddy bear?”
He rubs his face. “It’s a...children’s toy. Not the kind of toy a pleasure model is! I’ll show you one day. I’ll buy you one if you like.”
We both drink our hot chocolate. Now it is lukewarm chocolate.
“I sent a man to his death,” he says quietly.
“What?”
He stares into the cup. “Peter was recalled because of the processor... because he wasn’t very bright I suppose. But sweet in his own way.” He closes his eyes. “He nearly set himself on fire trying to cook and I laughed.”
“You didn’t choose to send him back,” I say.
“I didn’t have to. They wouldn’t have come looking.” He looks at me. “I close my eyes and I imagine them walking him into a furnace. Still smiling, such a pretty smile.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I wish you’d get angry at me. Hit me, shout at me, do something,” he says quietly.
“It’s not my place. I can’t forgive you for something done to someone else. We’re not interchangeable, that’s the point.”
“I don’t know why you aren’t angrier,” he says. “If not at me then at everything that’s happened.”
“I am angry but I don’t know how things work. I don’t have enough information to decide what to do.”
He stands up and rinses the cups. “Would you come and sleep in my bed? Not...just to sleep.”
He falls asleep first. Turned on his side toward me, one hand stretched out to me. I don’t think I can sleep.
“Matt?”
Where am I now? Oh, his bedroom. He touches the edge of my hand. The morning light is coming through the curtains and casting him in a halo. He looks beautiful.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to make some breakfast. What would you like?”
I pull him down and he lets me without a struggle. His hands stroke my arms as I kiss him; he tastes like chocolate.
It’s different. He raises up his hips when I enter him and cries softly when his moment comes.
“This is a primer,” he says, sitting back in bed next to me.
“It’s not a book?”
“It’s a book to teach you to read,” he says. “First step to competing on a level playing field. I tried to improve Peter’s reading ability but...anyway. You’re not Peter.”
“What about your job?”
“I called in sick.” He smiles wryly. “When the revolution comes please mention that at my trial.”
The End
Pairing: Matt/Mohinder
Rating: 18 for explicit sex and language
Warnings: Dub-con sex, disturbing imagery
Note: For
boudecia7, a belated birthday present. From her prompt, the song "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls. Part one
Lies, all lies. What am I if not designed for a function? What are we without the feed, without the programming and training? If we are not obedient, not created to fulfil a function, then what are we for?
When he shuts the door behind Hiro and Adam, I see that his hands are shaking. He rubs his hands over his trousers and smiles but the smile is twitchy and uncertain.
“Did that help, do you think?”
Cascade failure is a lie. Design and training are lies. There is nothing real, nothing true. “Yes Doctor.”
He frowns at me. “You don’t seem... are you sure?”
I force a smile, and don’t let him know what’s happening. “Very educational, Doctor.”
“So you won’t cry this time?”
“No Doctor.”
“It’s upsetting when you cry,” he says. “You’re too... I don’t like it. Alright?”
“Certainly, Doctor.”
I undress and sit on the bed. He is already undressed and he just stands staring at me.
“You aren’t ugly.”
Petty and meaningless. “Thank you.”
He sits suddenly. “Was that what you’re thinking about?”
Shouldn’t think, mustn’t think. “Mining units don’t think, Doctor.”
“No, of course not.” He chews his lower lip. “You enjoyed the pleasure model?”
Until we were alone. “Pleasure models are highly skilled.”
“Not very interesting though. Not like you.” He cups my face in his hand. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were real.”
“Thank you for letting me learn from the pleasure model.”
“You’re welcome, why don’t you show me what you’ve learned?” He leans forward and kisses me, hard. His hand grips my arm as he opens his mouth. I wait for him to put his tongue in my mouth but he doesn’t. Am I supposed to do it first?
He moans when I do. This is simpler than it looked. His fingers are digging into my arm.
“Lie down now,” he orders.
Must not cry, must try to relax. “Yes Doctor.”
Hands greedy, stroking, touching and rubbing. Stroke his arms and he smiles.
“Good, that’s good.”
Kisses and bites my chest and neck. Hurts, not pleasant. Stroke his back and he bucks against me. Feel the heavy weight of him against my thigh.
“What’s wrong?” he asks. “You’ve tensed.”
“You bit me.”
“I can if I want.”
Can do anything he wants, however he wants. “Yes Doctor.”
“You’ll enjoy it more if you calm down.”
Try to relax. Would be better not to know all the lies; better to be in a mine never thinking, content only to be.
His fingers inside me too quick and too rough. Hurts.
“I thought you were going to try and calm down.”
“You hurt me.”
He sighs. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Less rough now. Enters me slowly, gripping my hips.
Over very quickly.
He lies next to me. “Didn’t get your button?”
If I say no, he’ll be angered. If I say yes, he’ll know that I can lie to him.
“I don’t know where it is. May I go to bed now Doctor?”
“I suppose so.”
“Matt, wake up.”
Sun shining through the glass. Never been in the sunshine. Never been in the open air.
“Yes Doctor.”
He’s dressed for work. Suit and shirt.
“Come and have breakfast with me.”
Breakfast, a pile of grains, nuts and oats with milk on top. Some dark, foul smelling liquid in a cup.
“It’s coffee, or aren’t mining units allowed coffee?”
He smiles as if it’s joke but his mouth is tight and his eyes narrow. Hurt? Upset perhaps. Why? Real Humans are strange and confusing. I must keep him happy to ensure continued operation. No, no more talk of cascade failure, don’t let him think it. Keep him happy. “Not a mining unit anymore, Doctor.”
“No?” He raises his eyebrows. “Then what’s your function?”
“Pleasing you is my function.”
He smiles, bright and wide. “You might like some milk and sugar in your coffee. Do you like sweet things?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, well. Try a little and see.”
“Yes Doctor.” Coffee is bitter but exciting. They would never let us drink this, far too stimulating. They want us kept docile not agitated. The Doctor clearly has no idea.
“There’s some soup there. Warm it for two minutes before you eat it.”
“How?”
“Oh, I’ll show you.”
Top middle button, one press, bottom right button, three presses.
“Will you remember that?”
Mining equipment can require sequences of several hundred buttons and settings. “I can remember four button pushes.”
So bright outside. The sky is blue from edge to edge. If I were eating the feed, would I notice it even if I saw it? Would I put my hand on the window and feel the warmth of it coming though the glass?
“Is something wrong?” His voice, but he left already.
“Doctor? I thought you were gone.”
He holds up his case. “Forgot my bag. Do you want to go outside?”
Watching me too closely. Listening too closely.
“I’ve never been in the open air.”
“Do you want to go outside?” he asks again.
“I have no wants, Doctor.”
He frowns at me. “I’m going to work.”
“Yes Doctor.”
In his bedroom there is a window running from floor to ceiling. It is high up here and I think there are many other domiciles inside this building. I sit in front of the window, in the morning light, and look out at the strange foreign world. Too far up to tell which of the moving creatures are Real and which are not. I can see that there are some females, smaller, more fragile; you would never see females in a mine. There are... there are some tiny creatures too, they must be Real Humans. Some are less than half the size of usual and they dress differently. One jumps along the walkway, long hair swinging. Others are running about or on small vehicles. I have no recollection of ever being so small.
Someone is at the door, an Adam unit. He must be Hiro’s. How can he walk under the open sky and then choose to return to his owner?
The door opens onto a corridor. I wonder if I would be able to leave.
“Not unless he’s told the guards that you can go outside,” Adam says.
“How did you know?”
“Dear boy, it was written all over your face. Will you let me in?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, shutting the door. “Isn’t it dangerous?”
He looks at me. “As dangerous as you allowing Suresh to realise something has changed?”
Heart beating, breath quick. “What do you mean?”
“They talk; yours and mine. Yours rang while mine was getting ready for work.”
“What did he say?” Hurts to breathe, heart pounds, everything is swaying. Failure, failure, failure... please...
“I don’t know but Hiro said that it didn’t sound like cascade failure. Sit down; you’re experiencing an adrenaline overstimulation.” He pushes me down onto the sofa and puts my hands over my mouth and nose. “You are breathing too quickly, breathe more slowly.” He rubs my back slowly. “Have you been drinking coffee?”
“Coffee creates adrenaline overstimulation?”
“No, not alone. I can smell it on you though. Does Suresh know?” He continues rubbing my back and shoulders; it is very soothing. I wonder why Real Humans would want to use industrial units when pleasure models are so... pleasing.
“He gave it to me,” I say.
“You are a poor host; you have not even offered me refreshment.” He takes my arm and pulls me into the kitchen. He pushes me onto a chair. “The man is a complete idiot. We can learn to tolerate the poisons they feed themselves but not all at once. Certainly giving you a stimulant like that is begging for a failure. How are you functioning now?”
“Better.” I sit back and look up at him. “What do you eat then?”
“Mine is a complacent fool. You’ll find they’re all too happy to let you take over most of the chores and work. With it control of what is done, how it is done, and what is purchased. After I broke out of the programming I ate their baby food at first, which is nutritious and not too taxing, but now I prepare my own. Hiro thinks I buy the feed.” He smiles and sits beside me. “Be wary of chocolate if it is offered. You will want to have more once you have some but you should restrict yourself severely.”
“Chocolate?” I check. “Is that food or drink?”
“Food for the most part, often in bar form but it is used widely for flavouring. Whatever you do, do not ingest alcohol. It will not only make you very ill but also impair your mental and vocal control. You would reveal yourself and perhaps me,” he says strongly.
“Adam, if they must program us, drug us, into being obedient then it can’t be either our nature or design, can it?” I ask, looking at him. He tenses and nods once.
“They can design our bodies, make my eyes this colour, my hair this colour, and make your body that size, that strong. They have less success affecting intelligence but they are getting better.” He crosses his palms on his knee. “They can’t change our basic natures though, only suppress them.”
“What right do they have?”
He stands and paces the room. “Don’t talk about rights.”
“But without the feed and the programming, how are we so different from them?” I ask. “We feel, we think, we eat, we sleep. They are designed before birth to be perfect and beautiful. How are we so different that they can purchase us, use us, and destroy us?”
“This is madness, you are mad. How long have you been off the feed?”
“Nearly five days. Why is it madness?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Five days and you are a terrorist.”
“What is a terrorist?”
“No!” he points at me. “Do not think it. It’s insanity. They will never accept us as anything but appliances, accessories, toys. To think otherwise is foolish. There is nothing to be gained from trying to make things other than they are.”
Then things will always stay the same, forever. “I am only asking the question! I do not understand why they can treat us this way.”
“Listen to me; we are made, and they are Real. That’s all there is to it. There are hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of your product line. There is one Hiro, one Suresh. They are unique, they are Real. They make us and they own us. Stay off the feed and learn to do what you can within the limits he sets. That’s all you can do.”
Not right, not... scales must balance. Rubble and ore together must balance against the total extracted. There should be balance. This is unbalanced, not correct.
“Who says what is ‘real’, them? They would say so!” My face is hot and my fists are clenching. “Adam you are still programmed, don’t you see? When you talk about them as different, better, those are their words.”
He shakes his head. “I came to warn you, to help you, but I see you are past my help. You will be sent for destruction if you don’t mind yourself. I will not be dragged down with you.”
I have fingers and they have fingers. I have eyes, ears, and mouth and they have eyes, ears, and mouth. I fear hurt and damage and they fear hurt and damage. I think. They think. There may be innumerable of my line. But they are not me, I am me, I am the only me I have. The thoughts I have are my thoughts. The words I speak are my words. The things that happen to me happen only to me.
I may be one of millions but I am unique. I am the only me.
The Doctor looks tired again when he comes back. I take his jacket and his bag but he will not let me have the other thing. It is large and made of some sort of strands of woven wood.
“What’s that?”
“A picnic hamper, I thought we could have a picnic,” he says, and his hand rubs my arm. “It’s early enough.”
Picnic hamper? Picnic, do not know. Hamper; gift basket, food hamper.
“I don’t know what that means.”
His hand is still on my arm, resting lightly in the space between my elbow and shoulder. His touch is much less unpleasant to me than it originally was.
“Instead of eating in the kitchen we’ll go out, to a park. Sit on the grass and... that sort of thing.” He’s staring at me as if waiting for something. “Would you like that?”
Outside, under the blue, blue sky and in the bright light; as if I was one of them.
“Yes Doctor.”
“Let’s go to bed first, hmm?”
It’s much better this time. He kisses more gently and for far longer. The flutter in my chest returns and my skin is warm. His hands stroke my arms and back; I rub his chest. He sighs into the kiss. When he pulls back, the pupils of his eyes are huge.
“Lie down?”
He leans over me kissing and licking my stomach and chest. His hands stroke and caress my sides. I am warm; pleasant warmth all over and my heart is pounding. When he bites me, it is more careful and it feels wonderful.
“Better?”
“Much, thank you,” I say softly.
“I want to find your button.”
“I don’t know where it is.”
He uses two fingers to search it out and white light flashes across my eyes.
“Aha! I can do as well as an outdated pleasure model.”
He has his hands on my arms as he enters me, not painful just there. Adjusts himself until the light is flashing across my eyes. Tense, tense, supposed to be... supposed to relax not...
“Do you think you’re going to do that every time?” he asks, smiling down at me.
“Did I have a failure?”
“You passed out again,” he says.
Passed out; lost consciousness, extreme reaction to physical pleasure.
“Not that it isn’t flattering,” he says. “You better have a shower, clean yourself off.”
“Yes Doctor.”
“No,” he says softly.
No, what? “What do you mean?”
He rubs his hair. “I don’t want you to address me as ‘Doctor’, anymore. It feels... wrong.”
Says one thing, changes his mind, doesn’t explain. Confusing and complicated. “How should I address you?”
His cheeks redden and his voice is embarrassed. “Mohinder will be fine.”
Outside.
Outside is warm. Outside is so bright I am almost blind. Outside is sky, clouds, vegetation, moving air. Outside is too beautiful.
“Here, try these,” he says, puts something over my eyes. “Sunglasses, they should help.”
“No, thank you.” I take them off and give them back.
“Why the hell not?” he asks, I can’t see his face but I can hear his tone, hurt and offended.
“My eyes will adjust and I want to see it. Really see it, not see a faded version of it.”
He doesn’t say anything else but takes my arm and guides me.
I can see the grass and the flowers now. I can smell them. I can hear the insects buzzing and the small humans laughing. There are lots of them here, running and chasing each other.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen children before,” he says, spreading a blanket on the grass as all the other groups have done. Is grass unhygienic? Those small animals are eating it.
“Children are the small humans?”
“Yes,” he says, opening the hamper. “That’s how we reproduce. There’s a very long waiting list and the cost is phenomenal.”
“Children must be purchased?” The children appear to share some genetic material with the Real Humans nearby without being the same model. “They are artificial?”
“No!” he hisses. “Keep your voice down, shit!”
“But you said there is a cost and a waiting list?”
He opens containers of food and then looks at me. “Humans, Real Humans, aren’t able to reproduce naturally any more. There was a disease... it doesn’t matter. Children are created by combining genetic material from two people. The baby is grown until it’s nine months old and then given to the caregivers.”
“Grown where?” I dip a finger into a container and taste the gelatinous orange foodstuff; it is sharp but not unpleasant.
“In an artificial womb. That’s hummus; it might be a little spicy for you.”
Is that how we are created? “An artificial womb in a laboratory?”
“I suppose, why?” he asks, pouring some of the clear, chemical smelling liquid. “This wine, would you like to try some? It might give you a bit of a headache though.”
“Is it... alcohol?”
“That’s right.” He’s still holding out a cup of it.
“No thank you.” He takes a sip of it and smacks his lips. “So children are artificial then.”
He chokes on the wine. “No! God! What’s got into you?”
I count out the reasons on my hand. “Children are purchased, they are created with machinery in a laboratory, they are genetically modified to be perfect and physically attractive, and they are birthed artificially. Clone life is created artificially, in a laboratory, we are modified genetically as required, we are birthed artificially, and we are purchased.”
He looks ill. “That’s... that’s not... it’s different.”
“How?”
“I... uh... each child is unique.” He gulps down the wine and pours himself more.
“Uniqueness is the defining factor of being not-artificial?”
He nods quickly. “Yes.”
“There are two children there. They are the same. Are they artificial then?”
He turns around and looks at the pair of male children. “No, no those are twins. That’s when the created life splits into two. It’s rare but it happens.”
“But they’re not unique. They must be artificial then, yes?” I ask.
“They’re real! It’s different!” he hisses.
“How?”
He licks his lips. “They have different experiences, different memories. Being unique is more than just looking different.”
“I have different experiences and memories than any other in my model line,” I say. “Am I not unique then?”
He goes quiet and gives me a plate with some sort of animal product on it.
“Eat your chicken.”
“Yes Mohinder.”
Sunset.
The sky is so many colours, orange, red, pink, yellow, gold, and a thousand shades between each of them. Different insects are in the air. They are colours too, green, gold, silver and they are all different sizes. All beautiful in different ways.
“How do you feel?” Mohinder asks.
I look back at him. “Very well.”
“You don’t seem to be so fixated on cascade failure,” he says quietly.
“You told me that I didn’t have it.”
He laughs but not in an amused way. “I don’t like it when you lie to me, and don’t tell me you haven’t lied to me.”
“That wasn’t a lie, you did say that,” I protest.
He nods and fastens up the hamper. “I did, but that’s not the reason you’re not thinking about it. Who’s been filling your head with revolutionary ideas?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
He stares at me for a long time. “All this stuff about Real Humans and cloned life being the same under the skin.”
“I think the skin is completely irrelevant.”
He frowns, not angry but something else. “Don’t try and be funny.”
“I wasn’t. Either all life is unique or none is. Either we are all real or we are all artificial.”
“I should send you back for destruction for that sort of talk, you know that,” he says quietly.
Unreasonable, unreliable, fragile. I could end him here in the low light and nobody would hear it or see it.
“You told me not to lie. You want me to please you but what am I supposed to do when the truth is unpleasant for you?” I ask.
“But that’s not the truth!”
“It is the only truth I know,” I say. “You can send me to my destruction, to my death, and it won’t unsay what I have said. It won’t make it untrue.”
Mohinder looks down at his hands. “It can’t be true. Do you know how many of your kind are disassembled, recalled, destroyed every year?”
“Killed, no. I don’t know. Unpleasantness doesn’t make it any less true either.”
“I don’t want to send you back.”
“I don’t want to end you and walk away.”
He looks up suddenly pale. “You’d do that?”
I should. How would they tell the one of me from the many? “No, I don’t have the right to destroy your life. Not because I’m cloned or because you’re Real, because no-one does. I don’t have the right to end you and you don’t have the right to end me.”
“I bought you,” he says cautiously.
“The caregivers of those children paid for them. Are they belongings to be disposed of at whim also?”
“I need to think about this,” he says finally. “Are you willing to come back home for now?”
“Yes, I think so.”
He nods and stands up. “I need to think about this,” he says again.
He makes me wait in the living room. When he finally reappears, I realise that he seems much older now than he did before.
“Alright, you can go to bed now. I’ll see you in the morning. If you don’t end me first,” he says wryly.
“Or you, me.”
He laughs tiredly. “That would be an accomplishment indeed. Goodnight, Matt.”
“Goodnight, Mohinder.”
He has cleared all the boxes and old broken things from the room. Instead of the blanket and pillow on the floor there are blankets folded carefully into the shape of a bed. It is comfortable and warm but I don’t sleep well. I hear him too, shifting and turning through the night.
I feel anxious and yet bored. I get up and go downstairs. I have seen him serve juice enough times to do it, I think.
Instead, I sit in the kitchen and think about Adam. There must be others like him, like me, who have ‘failed’ without being caught. Others who are hiding and cowering. Is that what a terrorist is? It doesn’t sound right.
Mohinder walks into the kitchen. His robe is around him but it makes him look even smaller and more fragile than usual.
“I see we’ve both made it past midnight alive,” he says with a smile. “Would you like some hot chocolate? It’s a drink, it’s nice.”
Chocolate should be severely restricted, but he might send me for destruction tomorrow. “Yes, please.”
“So, is this what a cascade failure is?” he asks. “Wondering if you’re real, what being human is?”
He seems honestly curious, not trying to trick me. “I don’t know. I think so. When the programming breaks down.”
“You’ve only been here a few days. I wonder why it broke down so quickly.” He puts a mug of something brown in front of me. It smells as though it will taste like being kissed. “It’s hot, be careful.”
Trust is difficult. Knowing who to trust is a skill to be developed. “I don’t know.”
He just nods and sits opposite me. He takes a sip of his drink and sits back. “Do you think it’s drugged?”
“I don’t know.”
He swaps the mugs over and takes another sip. “This way I get all the hot chocolate.”
I feel myself smile although I’m not sure why. I take a sip. It tastes the way it smells. “I was warned not to overindulge with chocolate.”
“Sensible advice but this isn’t proper chocolate, just flavouring.”
“Why did you want an industrial unit and not a pleasure model, because it’s the fashion?”
He laughs a little. “Partly, partly because I found the pleasure models I’d had...unappealing. They didn’t look real, alive.” He looks at me. “I wanted a toy that didn’t seem so much like a toy.”
“Congratulations.”
Mohinder smiles again, a sad smile. “Sarcasm, now I know you’re sentient.”
His eyes are red as though he’s been crying and there are bags under his eyes.
“What is a terrorist?”
His eyebrows rise. “A terrorist? In general it’s someone who uses terror tactics to force some sort of change. Generally, they bomb things. Why do you ask?”
“Someone said that asking what right Real Humans have to kill cloned life meant being a terrorist,” I explain.
“Well that’s bullshit. Asking questions is asking questions.” He sighs. “It might not be very sensible to draw attention to yourself that way but it’s not terrorism.” He shifts on the seat. “For a few years there have been people agitating for cloned life to have rights, to be considered equal to us. There are a few groups; the ‘Cloned Life Liberation’ group is the most militant. They’re calling for an end to all destruction of cloned life. A few months ago, they bombed a facility creating your kind. A couple of hundred Real were killed and a lot more cloned.”
Irrational, unreasonable, nonsensical. “A group opposed to our deaths slaughtered both kinds of human in an effort to further their argument?”
“I know it’s insanity, but you’ll find any kind of organised group when it’s big enough will always have a lunatic fringe. It’s human nature.” He shrugs. “If you had a...teddy bear lovers association sooner or later there would be some section shunning anyone who had a one-eared bear.”
“What’s a teddy bear?”
He rubs his face. “It’s a...children’s toy. Not the kind of toy a pleasure model is! I’ll show you one day. I’ll buy you one if you like.”
We both drink our hot chocolate. Now it is lukewarm chocolate.
“I sent a man to his death,” he says quietly.
“What?”
He stares into the cup. “Peter was recalled because of the processor... because he wasn’t very bright I suppose. But sweet in his own way.” He closes his eyes. “He nearly set himself on fire trying to cook and I laughed.”
“You didn’t choose to send him back,” I say.
“I didn’t have to. They wouldn’t have come looking.” He looks at me. “I close my eyes and I imagine them walking him into a furnace. Still smiling, such a pretty smile.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I wish you’d get angry at me. Hit me, shout at me, do something,” he says quietly.
“It’s not my place. I can’t forgive you for something done to someone else. We’re not interchangeable, that’s the point.”
“I don’t know why you aren’t angrier,” he says. “If not at me then at everything that’s happened.”
“I am angry but I don’t know how things work. I don’t have enough information to decide what to do.”
He stands up and rinses the cups. “Would you come and sleep in my bed? Not...just to sleep.”
He falls asleep first. Turned on his side toward me, one hand stretched out to me. I don’t think I can sleep.
“Matt?”
Where am I now? Oh, his bedroom. He touches the edge of my hand. The morning light is coming through the curtains and casting him in a halo. He looks beautiful.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to make some breakfast. What would you like?”
I pull him down and he lets me without a struggle. His hands stroke my arms as I kiss him; he tastes like chocolate.
It’s different. He raises up his hips when I enter him and cries softly when his moment comes.
“This is a primer,” he says, sitting back in bed next to me.
“It’s not a book?”
“It’s a book to teach you to read,” he says. “First step to competing on a level playing field. I tried to improve Peter’s reading ability but...anyway. You’re not Peter.”
“What about your job?”
“I called in sick.” He smiles wryly. “When the revolution comes please mention that at my trial.”
The End
