Exquisite Possession: A Dark Scifi Romance (The Machinery of Desire Book 4) Read online

  So far. Come on, she reminded herself, determined not to be an idiot.

  This could be the beginning of a horror movie, where the lover turns out to own the gates to Hell. No horns though. No tail. She’d even shot him and all he’d done was chain her to the wall and make her come. The graze on his side proved she’d not dreamed the blood.

  JI released her. “Get dressed. Show M what you want done.”

  He meant to make her sign some odd agreement, one he’d made up. This sounded permanent. Her heart was thudding, and she was no longer sure why. Fear? Excitement? Lust? He made her feel all of that and she’d only just met him.

  Fucking a mech is not normal. Remember this.

  Fern pulled on her clothes over damp skin then showed Aunt M to her inner sanctum. The bird asked to be fed, squawking once it spotted her.

  Feeling terrible for ignoring it, she approached the cage. The red-and-white fledging was chewing on the thick bars and flapping its wings. Like the other cages, this one was tall enough to take a horse, to be a stable. The bird could flap without hurting itself.

  Those teeth gnawing on the metal bar were making crunching sounds however. All the food was gone. Even the meaty bones. The knee-high baby bird had teeth that could rip through her skin. She’d tamed it. She thought.

  “This looks dangerous to you,” Aunt M observed, hovering two of his limbs above the cage as if using them to see, or did he intend to spear the creature?

  “Shhh. Don’t scare it.” Fern gestured and the mech rolled back. “It seems well enough to release. When I found it there was a worm parasite leeching off it.”

  She had no veterinary text on what infected what here but removing the leech had made the bird recover. Now it seemed strong enough to fly.

  Towing the wheeled cage outside was difficult or even impossible. The room was strewn with obstructions – old crates, defunct and rusted equipment. The last bird had made its way to freedom without much encouragement. She opened the cage door and hopped back.

  “Shoo!”

  After a few grumbles the bird trotted out, eyed both her and Aunt M, then launched itself toward the sunlight slanting in through the entrance door of the foyer.

  A dark silhouette pirouetted against the pale sky, then it swooped upward and was gone.

  Not a lot of thanks in that, but helping anything here made her feel good. She needed the positive act to counter-balance the other shit.

  So. She screwed her mouth sideways. Her only companions were JI and his Aunt M mech.

  Releasing the bird seemed to close one chapter of her life and open another. The judge, the landship, the torture – perhaps she could lock it away and bury it underground. Weigh it down and never see it again.

  Yes.

  Pairing up with a mech cross humanoid could be deadly, yet the alternative was being a lone female in a world of immorality and daily carnage. Her heart hurt to contemplate that. To keep going how she had been. Bravery only got her so far. It was a tenuous existence. She’d stared at herself in a mirror many days and seen a person with little hope or joy in life. Staying alone equaled a miserable future.

  It was she who had to decide, even if JI insisted it was a compulsory deal. If she said no, she said no. Blood contracts did not work if forced.

  If she said no…what would he do?

  The mechlings, though. She eyed Aunt M. A solution to their problems beckoned.

  Several of the mech’s limbs ended in sharp points or multi-clawed gadgety things. She had no word for what Aunt M was really. A mess of metal bits that seemed garnered from many sources. Different colors of metal, a mostly circular central body. Tiny rivets, shiny parts and rust.

  “Did the mekkers create you?” she asked, hesitantly.

  Reddish eyes lighted in the body, then a few blue ones blipped on, as if the Aunt needed to inspect Fern as closely as she had it…her…him.

  “I am of mekker parts but self-aware. Similar to JI was but different. I have an old brain. Old program. But I remember so much. You might call me a teacher, a mentor, and worse. I had a traumatic birth. I consumed my father, I think.” A warbling noise almost sounded like a laugh.

  As she suspected, Aunt M was not a decoration or safe.

  “Are you…boy or girl, or neither?”

  “JI likes to call me he.”

  That was it? It had been a silly question.

  “Okay. He it is. You can get the mechlings open?”

  “I believe so. I have the programming and schematics of every model of mech and mechling stored within me. Each is designed to be able to change its own power cells, automatically, without being…aware. If aware is the correct term? Their own limbs will deliver the encryption to do this. I will merely instruct them to do so, using the right path.”

  “I see.” This was too simple. How had they missed this? Did the mekkers prefer not to allow the mechlings to understand their own innards? It must be that.

  Whistling in her mind and the short explanation she sent forth, had several mechlings scampering in from the foyer, within minutes. These knew they had to choose.

  For one to live, another must surrender its power cells.

  The first to die was a friend of hers. Tedd, as it called itself. He crawled onto the nearest cleared table and lay upside down. Aunt M plugged a claw into a socket in Ted’s side.

  Whirs and clicks promised something was about to happen.

  A flap slid aside. Ted reached in with one of his limbs.

  Other mechlings climbed the legs of the table and surrounded the operation, like a gathering of funeral goers. At last count there were eighteen mechlings in residence around her tower. And so, nine was the maximum that could be brought to full health.

  This was going to work.

  “Fuck,” she whispered, screwing up her brow. *Forgive me* she sent. *I cannot stay.*

  She couldn’t watch this. This was a day of celebration and grief for her. The mechlings had become people to her, and watching any of them die was nauseating.

  She’d feel it happen though.

  For several minutes, she stood in the doorway between foyer and sanctum, listening to the work being done behind her, feeling the drop in her stomach when one died, as well as the health pouring into others.

  JI sat cross-legged on the floor with a faded blue bag beside him. He wrote carefully in a book, as if each letter must be perfect.

  That was her future he scribed. If she accepted it. JI patted the floor without looking up.

  “Come. You should read this.” He raised his head and stared across the dusty room, past the puddles of water they’d left from washing. “Before you sign it.”

  But would she? His assumption was annoying

  She’d donned her sandals again, and they made scuffling noises on the floor as she walked to him. “Would you sign if you were me?”

  “Absolutely.” Once again, he had no expression she could detect. She’d thought it snakelike when she first saw him, yesterday. It wasn’t. He was man-mech of much thought. Was it caution that stopped him showing his moods?

  She couldn’t tell if that was so, but she was certain he had emotions.

  Fern sat, folding her legs and nestling next to him, letting her knee touch his. Electrical. Touching him was electric. Not a zap, just a pleasant hum. Why? Sexual merely? Perhaps. There was so much here that she did not understand. That was her constant problem on Aerthe. Half of everything was crazy.

  He was a mech. Not human. Not mekker or grounder or even purely scav – not that any of those attracted her.

  What the fuck was she doing?

  Except…she sensed this was right.

  He handed her the journal and she looked at the soft brown cover, thinking, as she smoothed her palm over the book. The word on it translated to Diary, or similar. The mekker language had less exactitude when converted to written words.

  Then she opened it and read, trying not to react when his big, warm hand arrived on her neck and folded itself over he
r nape.

  When he shifted closer, and his breath brushed her skin, she hissed a warning. “If you kiss my ear, I won’t sign.”

  The silence made her wonder, then she heard him chuckle and he leaned away.

  JI could laugh. It made her smile after a second. It made reading this easier, even though she could see she would be signing away part of her freedom.

  A pet? Or was this making her like a slave? He’d said it did not. Did it matter anymore?

  It did if something was wrong. Horror story, remember? The spiders would start tapping on the windows at night. She’d wake with something probing her eyeballs. The judge had broken her fingers.

  Fern stared upward watching dust settle in the flares of light – bright white at the doorway, bluish where it entered the deepest parts of the room.

  Had to be something wrong.

  She stared at the book pages again, at where he’d scrawled JI in blood at the bottom. A knife on the floor, on his other side, would be what he’d used. One of his fingertips showed a smear of blood.

  It still felt right.

  “One thing extra, only. Then I’ll sign.”

  “What would that be, Fern.”

  He’d used her name, touched her thigh. She shivered but held to her course. “You promise to grant me one wish. Any time. Anything.”

  He thought a while and she waited. Then JI picked up his pen and wrote it in. “Done. Except you can’t use it to make this null and void. The only way to cancel this blood contract is if we both agree.”

  He handed her the knife.

  She took a breath, held it, and pushed the point into her finger tip, watched a bleb of blood well from her skin.

  A little voice was saying stop, stop, stop.

  Chapter 10

  Fern leaned over and signed.

  JI took the book from her before she could leap up and throw it into a fire. He blew on the smeared red signature. Not that burning it would negate it. Blood contracts were a fearsome part of Aerthe’s general laws of physics. Renege on one, and dire things happened to the person who backed out.

  Emery had thought of this as magic but to those of Aerthe, it was merely a manifestation of the world. You did not displease Aerthe and get away with it. She was a cruel, possessive bitch. It was why, most reasoned, she’d tried to destroy mekkers ever since they invaded. You were a part of her or you were not.

  If a mekker stopped for long enough while on the land of Aerthe, she would gather up the storms and the earth beneath their feet, the winds, the rains, the floods, and then she obliterated. She made their atoms become one with her soil.

  Ryke had overcome this but only recently. He’d done so by gaining the blessing of Aerthe, which he then passed on to fellow mekkers.

  JI had never felt the wrath of the world while a mech. No machinery seemed to. Now that he was alive and organic, he would’ve lost such immunity. This blood contract bound him as much as it did Fern.

  Her quick agreement had surprised him and…it had not. The echo of feelings was affecting her more intensely than him. Which sparked an insight – he should make sure there were always mechlings around lest he find her looking at him with different, clearer, vision.

  Now that Aunt M was fixing them that shouldn’t be a problem.

  As from the words on the page:

  He’d promised to care for her.

  To protect her.

  To hold her as the equal of others but not himself.

  She had promised to obey him in all things. That covered a lot of territory. Despite her fevered reading, he didn’t think she’d noticed how it wasn’t limited to some fluffy pet description. Anything was possible. He’d left it vague.

  That single wish shouldn’t be a problem. It wouldn’t limit him.

  Once, he’d been the servant of people. A slave of sorts. No longer. Now he was able to fuck and had found Fern. Reversing the situation, mastering her, making her his was the perfect reply.

  He could travel, experience new things, and learn.

  Learning to fuck was learning. At the back of his mind, waiting for him, were all kinds of things he could do to her.

  Let the experiment begin.

  JI stood and stretched. “Tomorrow I will investigate how to bring running water to this tower.”

  “You won’t find that easy. And today?” She peered up at him.

  “Today…” He offered her his hand, and she took it, let him pull her to her feet. “Today we will fuck, and I will find a collar and leash, and…” He inhaled, seeing her astonishment. “I will slow down. Today you can show me where to find water and the best places to hunt and forage.”

  “The sea is the nearest water. Fresh water is harder to get to but there is a creek and a place where rainwater gathers on one of the buildings.”

  “Good. Walk.” He propelled her ahead, leaving Fern no choice. Her transient scowl was…cute.

  His first instruction and it was so he could watch her ass. From that beautiful exaggerated sway, she knew he admired it. His ass now.

  He had two to provide for. Feeding her was important, as was washing her and fucking her. Clothing and shelter he recalled were also good for pets.

  Slave or pet, slave or pet, he mused as he led her to the door. Not slave but what was the difference? They both collected their weapons and he grabbed a bag. Slaves didn’t get weapons. Did pets?

  “Aunt M! We are going to look for water.”

  “Very well!” He appeared at the inner door with a gaggle of mechlings at his feet. One green-and-black variety was sitting atop his head, its suckers holding it to his bumpy metal – assuming the top of his roundness was a head area. “I will explore also. Now that you have informed the human of her brother’s history, we must think of going onward and searching for the judge.”

  “Ahhh.” JI paused. He turned back to Aunt M. “That is not a high priority for me.”

  “I see this. I see this and do not agree. Fucking should not take precedence over making the world safer.”

  Was that admonishment in Aunt’s tone? What did the mech know of fucking? Nothing.

  “Do your exploring. I will return before darkness.” Making the world safer. Pffft. The world had never dealt him much that he did not take. The world had lied to JI. It had betrayed.

  He was still finding his bearings, but he was sure most people did not make it their aim to make the world safer. Perhaps that was a remnant of the Aunt’s programming?

  Being organic had led to people treating him differently.

  He liked this. Sacrificing himself for the greater good was no longer him.

  “The judge?” Fern’s small voice brought her into focus.

  He gripped his long gun, let it tilt back and forth while he looked down at her. “Yes. Judge Ormrad. We have some information regarding a JI mech being dug up.”

  “If you go after him –” Without seeming to know what she did, Fern flexed her hand – the one with the poorly angled fingers. Those had been broken somehow.

  “We aren’t.” Not yet anyway, if ever. “My interest in being a hero for the people of Aerthe is far less than what it was.” He could both see and feel Fern’s fear. “The judge did that? To your hand?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed, looked to her hand. “Yes.”

  “Then I won’t take you near him. This is decided. Aunt M is strong enough to search by herself if she wants to.” He strode for the door, ushering her ahead.

  Anger, why did he feel anger? Hormones and weird organic neural reactions. Yes.

  The sea was indeed close by. They reached it within ten minutes of walking.

  Looking down from the mildly tilted balcony of a building once many stories higher, with clear blue waves rushing back and forth below, was exhilarating.

  A short beach sloped from the base of the building they’d climbed into. To either side were more sunken buildings, eaten and lashed by waves over the decades since this city of Owler had fallen. Chunks of their structures lay buried. Whi
te-and-brown foam surged over their lower edifices then was sucked back as each wave receded. Further out, deeper, huge frameworks of rusting metal vaulted skyward like rotted, lace-like exhibits.

  The sea breathed life into him, injected power.

  Spray hit his face with droplets of salt-tanged water. He wiped it away, licked it off the back of his hand. They could wash in this.

  He leaned over. A story below, the ocean had covered the floor at its peak – judging by the drying sea vegetation and puddles left.

  Fern laughed. “I’d not noticed before, but your sea is less salty than ours.”

  “Ours?”

  “Than Earth’s. My home.”

  He nodded, thinking she needed to get used to this being home. Going to Earth was impossible.

  The shorts she wore had ridden up so her butt cheek was partially revealed. Her shirt had parted, as if she’d not bothered to close it properly. Those sandals were unlikely normal wear when trekking across the open lands. Here, they were a make-do.

  Scratches on her ankles told of near misses with debris. JI frowned.

  She should have boots.

  Much of her intrigued him.

  “Why had you not noticed this saltiness?” While he waited for a reply, he went behind her and stroked her hair into a single pony tail, gathering it in his hand.

  “I’ve not dared to get this close to the sea. You know, I feel as if I should’ve asked you a million questions before this. It’s like we skipped all the right steps. Yet, when I try to think of those questions, I get a blank.”

  The wall behind them was smooth with a single doorway.

  He’d barely practiced using his cock. It needed more.

  “Come.” Using his hold on her hair, JI drew a mildly protesting Fern into the old room. The floor was clean if salt-encrusted. Storms had reached this high. No ceiling graced this room. Everything loose or fragile had been washed away or been removed by people.

  The morning sky was their only observer.

  He shifted his grip to her wrist and threw down the bag he carried, then paused to consider her attitude, to feel her emotions. It was good.

  Fern might be screwing her hand within his as if attempting escape, but she liked this, and also that he did not release her.