Victoria opened the clasp, put the necklace on, and closed it at the nape of her neck.
She took a deep breath. Already, she felt as though she could think more clearly.
A plan was forming in the recesses of her mind. It was sketchy. It wasn’t very nice. But at least it was a plan. And with a great deal of luck, it might actually work.
Chapter Seven
A fatal error has occurred, and the Game has shut down. Would you like to report this error to GameControlsoft?
((Just kidding.))
* * * *
Arthur One was drinking alone. It was the only way he ever drank, so he was used to it. It wasn’t that he was mean or even that he wasn’t nice, per se. He didn’t shoo people away from him and he wasn’t seven feet tall and covered from head to toe with ink. No, he was five feet and ten inches tall, wiry, and possessed a deep-seated fear of needles.
It was just that people were… well they were… not computers. They had all of these unreliable emotions and body language and menstrual problems – shit like that. Computers, on the other hand, were as perfect as people could get. They never suffered from sugar lows or hangovers or depression. All you had to do was punch in a few lines of code, and the computer did what it was told. Nice and easy. It almost said “yes, sir.” He loved that obedience.
Loved it.
No human being in or out of the Field had ever said “yes, sir,” to Arthur. Not one.
With humans, Arthur One felt deficient. Stripped of his lines of code and his technical triggers, he was only a human and not a very impressive one at that. A computer would not have cared that he was far less attractive than, say, Victor Black or Maxwell Blood. A computer would never compare him to them. Instead, a computer would lay back and open its legs and masturbate for him if he told it to.
Computers couldn’t sense emotion or body language. They didn’t mind if you left your quarters a mess or forgot to shower.
They couldn’t smell. Not anything. They couldn’t even sense your fear.
But a human could smell it a mile away and that, probably more than anything else, was why Arthur was sitting alone in Room 55, drinking a Screwdriver. Or pretending to drink it, anyway. He’d seen one of the Gamers order the drink a few weeks ago before that Gamer had realized he was, perhaps, in the wrong room and left before downing even half of the alcoholic beverage.
Room 55 was the techie hangout. It was all white and staffed mostly by Arthur’s scantily clad creations. The seats were vinyl. The food all had cheese in it. The bar offered thirty-six flavors of soda.
Arthur didn’t normally drink alcohol. What was the point? But he was feeling strange again. Lonely. Frustrated.
Angry.
It happened like this when the magic of his creations seemed to wear off a little. It was akin to silver that tarnishes or gold-plating that rubs away. It never failed. It always happened this way. He would design the perfect program and it would deliver amazing results. So amazing, in fact, that his dick would be positively sore and his protein levels would drop for weeks after the final versions were completed.
A computer did exactly what you told it to do.
It never had a headache. It could give a blowjob for hours. If you told it to do so while it was rubbing its own nipples and mewling, it would. If you told it to bend over and pretend that it was in pain while you whipped it, it would. Without a second thought. Hell, without a thought at all.
He loved computers.
So obedient. So predictable.
He loved his cock in their mouths while he whispered profanities at them and choked their man-made holes again and again and again. The last models he’d made were capable of swallowing three entire gallons of cum. You couldn’t top that. No wet dream could come close to three straight days of throat torture on a naked, perfectly proportioned, entirely acquiescing sex goddess.
No. He’d created perfection in his sexual robots, and nothing human could compare.
But… after a while, something about the program always seemed to become inadequate. And he would get frustrated and start working on the next program.
He had no idea why this happened. Their measurements were far more proportionally exact than human measurements could ever be. That wasn’t the problem. Their features were perfectly symmetrical and as a result, more lovely than any a human female’s. The voices he gave them were soft and throaty, and a computer’s vocabulary could be programmed to recognize and acquiesce to any number of derogatory, defacing terms and instructions that never failed to make returning customers out of the male Gamers in the Field.
So, what was it that always came up lacking about these programs?
He seemed to be the only one that noticed it, whatever it was. Arthur One was head tech in the Field for a reason. He was in charge of a number of mundane operations concerning the wall, Game Control regulations, and the everyday workings of the team towers and the TGB. But it was his after-hour creations that had become the raunchy rage amongst male Gamers for more than a decade and a half, and customer satisfaction levels had never fallen. So to speak.
Game Control needed his expertise in technical matters, that much was true. But they also understood the importance of morale. What he did in his off time was as valuable as what he did during his working hours.
They needed his work. The population of Gamers on the Field was composed of far fewer females than males. No one inside the wall knew the reason for this, and Game Control wasn’t sharing.
Anyway, those females that did make it inside the wall were always very well cared for. They were protected, and it was overkill because more often than not, they were completely capable of protecting themselves. Many a male Gamer had made the obligatory first and last trip to the MRU with injuries dealt to them by female Gamers who had felt the self-preserving need to prove a point.
Male Gamers learned fast. In the Field, the line between men and women was a thin one, indeed. They were both strong. They were both fast. And the team leaders especially, all possessed immense power.
In the end, the men would go nuts without Arthur. He was priceless to Game Control. He knew that. He kept the wall unbreachable, kept the transporters running, and kept the preponderance of the male population on the Field sated.
For the majority of the one hundred and sixty-two years that he’d worked for GC, that knowledge had filled him with a sense of pride.
But lately…. Well, lately it hadn’t.
Lately, he felt as if his happiness was a mass of sand pebbles in an hourglass. It was draining away.
And that irritated him. It frankly pissed the hell out of him because if he couldn’t get what he wanted out of human females and couldn’t turn to his own creations as adequate alternatives, then what was he supposed to do with himself?
At the moment, he hoped that the orange concoction he was drinking could make some of the hopelessness he was feeling go the hell away. Perhaps it would give him some courage, make him feel taller so the princesses of the Field wouldn’t turn tail and run the other way when he swaggered toward them. Maybe they would give him the time of day, after all.
With that thought, Arthur One lifted the glass from the bar in front of him and downed several, sweet swallows of his drink, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. When he lowered his arm and his gaze once more focused on the doors across the room, it was to find Victoria Red walking through them.
He blinked. But she was still there.
He rubbed his eyes and looked again. She was not only still there, she was actually coming closer – toward him.
For half a second, he wondered if he was dreaming. But as soon as he considered the thought, he threw it away. If he was dreaming, he would be seven feet tall and covered in tattoos and Victoria Red would be wearing next to nothing. As it was, however, she was dressed in a gray downtime uniform. She looked good in it, of course. She looked unbelievable. But it wasn’t like it showed a lot of skin.
“Arthur, you got a min
ute?” she asked as she approached him.
He blinked again. Then he looked over his shoulder, just to be sure. After all, one of the other Arthurs could have been seated at the bar behind him.
When he turned back around, she was looking at him quizzically. He nodded.
“Good. I want to make a deal with you,” she said.
Arthur put down his drink and tried to sit a little taller. It may have been the first time the gorgeous, untouchable Red leader had ever walked into his hang out or addressed him of her own accord in this manner, but it wasn’t as if she’d ever been rude. She always said “hi” back when he said it first.
He didn’t have to act like he was so damned hard up, did he?
“What – ” He cleared his throat and tried again. “What kind of deal?”
“Remember when you came to me and asked me to help you repair some equipment that human hands were too big to repair?”
“Yes.” He remembered. Victoria was the most powerful telekinetic master in the Field and he’d wanted to get a jumpstart on his next program by not waiting for more new supplies from Game Control, but reusing the ones he already had that were damaged in some way. He had wondered whether her powers could be used to such a fine manipulative degree; he had to admit he was curious. So, despite the fact that it was strictly prohibited for a Gamer to use their abilities outside of the Playing Field, he’d squared his courage and asked. It was an excuse to talk to her, anyway.
She’d been nice about it, but as he’d expected her to, she’d politely refused. And she was right to do so. She had a team to lead – a powerful one – and he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to jeopardize that.
But he still hadn’t liked it. He didn’t like being refused by a woman. “I remember. What about it?”
Victoria glanced around the room, a tad nervous, and then leaned in a little and whispered, “What if I tell you, ‘Screw Game Control,’ and I agree to help you make those repairs after all?”
He stared at her for a moment. Honestly, he could stare at her all day; he loved her golden eyes…. He’d given his last creation eyes like that. But not exactly like that. He’d tried, but in the end there had been something missing.
At least right now he had a viable excuse for staring at her.
“Why the sudden change of heart?” he asked, his gaze narrowing.
“Well, I won’t lie to you. I obviously want something from you in return.”
But, that’s okay, he thought. In fact, that’s good.
“Um….” She bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder once more. Arthur’s prick hardened a little as he watched her white teeth press down on the plump, pink flesh. “Can we go somewhere private and talk?” she finally asked.
There was no pretense in her voice. He would know if there had been. He was an expert at voices and their inflections. He’d been studying them for what seemed like forever – just so he could get them to sound right when he programmed his buxom little companions. She was nervous, but she wasn’t lying. She really did want to speak to him privately, and she really did want to make a deal.
It was the alcohol, or he had simply reached some sort of pinnacle in his life, but either way, Arthur One was getting an idea. It was risky and it was out of his league, but in his opinion, it was the best idea he’d had in a long, long, time.
“Yes,” he said, rising from the stool at the bar and gesturing for her to follow. “I know just the place.” My lab, he thought. Surrounded by my machines that follow my orders, where you’ll be out of your element, princess.
A deal indeed. As they walked toward the transporters, he was most definitely becoming more and more open to the idea of a deal.
“Is this private enough or do you want to wait until we’re at my lab?” he asked as the transporter doors closed behind them. She looked at the transporter console and the walls around her.
“Do they watch us in here?”
“Nope,” he told her, knowing she referred to Game Control. “They got sick of watching people pick their noses and adjust themselves. Nothing interesting ever happened anyway. So, we took the cameras out a long time ago.” Of most of the transporters, he added mentally. But this one was honestly clean.
She considered that a moment, studied him as if trying to see whether he were trustworthy, and then breathed out. “Okay,” she said, her tone soft. “Then I’ll fill you in on the way.” She rolled her shoulders and straightened a bit like she was preparing for something. “This is the thing. I need to get past the wall. I agree to use my powers to help you fix anything you want fixed for the next ten years – I honestly don’t care. As long as you’ll give me the transporter access code that gets me beyond the wall and into the outside sectors.” She shrugged helplessly. “You’re the only non-Game Control person who knows that code.”
Arthur stood stock still in the whirling, blurring transporter and stared some more at Victoria Red. What she was asking for was over the top. It was so very illegal, so wholly and utterly against regulations, if he were to give her what she wanted, he could not only be banned from the Field, he could be subjected to Game Control punishments. The unmentionable kind.
“You what?” he finally asked. He wasn’t even entirely sure that he’d heard her correctly.
“You heard me, Arthur. I need out of the Field, and fast. Before sundown, in fact.”
So, he had heard correctly. The access code was top secret. Actually, that was putting it lightly. The code was so valuable that an inordinate number of precautionary measures had been taken to ensure that it remained a secret for everyone but Arthur One and Game Control’s higher officials.
In fact, because many dark leaders had the ability to read minds, Arthur’s memory was wiped of the information as soon as he’d entered the code into its safeguarded envelope within his lab’s most un-hackable computer.
He was the only one who could reach it, and he wasn’t certain he could do so before sundown even if he’d wanted to.
Which he didn’t.
What he did want to do before sundown was get Victoria Red stripped naked and wired down to his bed so that he could have his way with her.
He had to keep himself from smiling now as the thought blossomed to its full beauty within his mind.
He would pretend to help her, and then take her by surprise. He would knock her senseless. By the time she woke up, she would be helpless.
When he was finished with her – in a few days, maybe – he would wipe the ordeal from her memory. He’d figured out how to do that recently. There was only so long Game Control could keep a secret like that from Arthur One; he wasn’t head tech for nothing.
Right now, Red was watching him with those sultry, golden eyes that held so very many emotions. At the moment, most of them were scared. There was trepidation there, and worry. She so badly wanted him to agree.
Might as well give her what she wants!
“Okay,” he told her, throwing in a sigh for good measure. “But the deal is twenty years, not ten, and you have to understand that the code is well hidden. It might take me longer than you want for me to retrieve it. You’ll have to be patient.”
*****
Though she was really trying not to, Victoria was feeling the pressure of time and therefore frowning when the transporter doors reopened a minute later and they stepped out into the main tech lab at the center of the Technical Research Facility. This was where Arthur One – and Arthur Two, Arthur Three, and every other Arthur all the way up to Arthur 77 – worked day and night on keeping the Field and all of its equipment running smoothly.
This main lab was currently empty. Only Arthur One had the transporter code to take them there. She had never before seen this room from the inside. It was as white as Room 55 of the TGB, but it beeped and whirred and was filled with computers that looked like people, but were somehow not people.
It admittedly gave Victoria the creeps. But she suppressed her shudder, figuring it would be rude, and told herself to foc
us on the task at hand: Make the deal and get the code.
Then get out.
She didn’t like having to do this. She didn’t like the idea of going against Game Control regulations. She felt like the line between light and dark was becoming blurred for her. First, there was the practice at night without her Game band. Then the lie that she’d told to Max. And now this.
It didn’t feel right. But she had no choice.
“This way,” Arthur One spoke over his shoulder, gesturing for her to follow him back through the stacks of machinery, loose wires, and “body” parts toward a hall at the other end of the main room.
They walked down this hall and turned a corner into yet another room filled with machinery, but this one was more orderly. There were no robot pieces. Against one wall was the TRF’s mainframe computer – all forty square feet of it.
In front of the gigantic beeping, blinking panel was a single plush, white leather chair. It looked to Victoria like a Captain’s Chair in its isolated self-importance.
Against the wall on the far side and directly opposite the main frame were a couch, two love seats, and a coffee table with a marble white and black chess set atop it. The white king’s pawn had already been moved, expectantly, two spaces forward.
“Go ahead and have a seat, Red. I’ll get started. You may as well get comfortable, because it’s going to take me a while.”
“Define a while,” she said.
“Probably longer than you want to wait, and definitely longer than I want to take, but hopefully not so long that our deal will be void. Good enough?” he asked.
She wrapped her arms around her chest. She could feel time slipping like silt through a tight grip. “Fine,” she nodded. “But please hurry.” She turned and made her way to the couch.
“Just out of curiosity, why do you need to leave the Field?” Arthur asked as he sat down in his Captain’s Chair to begin pressing buttons and flicking switches.
Victoria sat down, watched him, and considered her answer. She was getting a bad taste in her mouth already, just thinking about the lie she would probably have to tell him. She couldn’t let him in on the Game between her and Black; that was a given.