Works/Outside the Palace

O like the flowers shone colors to the sun -

Resolve. Resolve.

O loved the flowers, their many colors brilliant as their petals reflected the sunlight. They were always the first thing she saw. The next was always the high red sandstone walls - the thin watchtowers with their high domes at each corner, the hundred alcoves and their statues. The statues always looked like they shared some secret joke at O's expense, but she didn't care.

She continued along the stone walk that divided the garden, relearning the feel of her thin slippers and the way her gauzy skirt shifted around her legs. The rings of tiny bells on her ankles and wrists, the full billows of the long sleeves, and most of all the veil - the veil that kept her from feeling exposed, even though the material was all nearly transparent and her midriff had no covering at all save a small gem in her navel, which pressed in a tickling way, especially when she walked.

She wasn't supposed to be outside the inner palace like this. Not that anyone really cared if she was seen alone on the palace grounds, but the vizier was always looking for an excuse to complain. O hated the vizier's punishments.

She sped up, toward the rear gates of the inner palace. The broad courtyard was totally silent except for the tiny ringing and shuffling noises she made as she half-ran for the big bronze-bound doors. It took her both hands to pull one open. She entered quickly, before it could close on her - its weight was painful - and charged headlong into
the
sultan?

Resolve. Maybe it's on random.

"...mmmaster?" O whispered, her voice in inverse decay as the edges focused again. Then she clapped her hand to her mouth. She had forgotten herself. He shook a finger at her, but he was smiling.

He pulled her away from the dark hall, its stones worn smooth, into the granary. There, among the nearly choking smell of dust and rice, he embraced her with one arm, pulling her slight frame to his huge one and nearly holding her aloft. As she stood on her toes, relishing his hold on her, he lifted her veil with his free hand to kiss her -

"FissureKing!" she shouted.

The sultan froze, still holding her halfway off her feet, him and the whole world gone to gray. O adjusted her eyes to the sudden lack of color, and the fact that today her Interrupt was bright orange. She had FissureKing on random - today she looked like a cross between a swimsuit model and a salamander, with blazing hair. FissureKing's one programmed visual rule was to be sexier than O.

FissureKing didn't say anything; she had a limited vocabulary and O had turned off the prompts a long time ago.

"Check for invaders," O said, adjusting herself in the sultan's unmoving grasp. He was hurting her ribs.

FissureKing nodded, then did nothing.

"Are you -? Oh, yeah, report." Interrupts tended to be literalists.

"An invasive process was found," FissureKing said in her breathy voice.

"Exit!" Dissolve.

O grabbed the input harness with one hand and pulled the whole bundle away from her at once, feeling and sounding like firecrackers as each plug revolted under tension. She charged out into the hall. He wouldn't stay in now; she just had to wait. She rubbed the little welt at the medullar socket. Shouldn't have pulled that one out so fast.

A door down the hall opened. Mac stepped out of it, saw her, and froze. She was already advancing on him by then. "You asshole!" she said, pushing him against the doorway.

"I just wanted -"

"Didn't you get it last time? Private session, understand? Don't fuck with me! You're lucky I don't report you for unauthorized!"

"How - how did you -" He was shaking.

"What, so you can do it better next time?"

"I won't do it again. I promise. Really."

She sighed and let him go. "The sultan never comes into the back halls; those are for servants. He never does anything indiscreet outside his personal quarters; someone might see him. And he never, never lifts my veil. You have no continuity, Mac."

"Yeah, well, I don't spend my time -"

"What?"

"Never mind," he said, and walked away. Turned the corner and she heard the hiss of the airway.

Balls, now she'd lost ten minutes. They were getting really nasty about the session limits, even though at this hour half the input rooms were empty anyway. She went back in and started to reconnect the twenty-three plugs. Red for the left half of the body, blue for the right half, green for the five big ones for the spine and medullar and the two in her sinuses. By now she could look at the lengths of the cables protruding from the harness and know which went where without reading the labels, although sometimes she still got the foot and calf mixed up because they were both so long.

One day soon, she thought. Another month of work and she'd have enough saved to get an input unit of her own. No session limits, and no charges if she stuck to private sessions. She'd heard that some users were in real trouble with the U over their interactives. How those geeks could dungeon-crawl so much was beyond her.

Reaching between her shoulder blades to plug in the lumbar - what was missing? Oh, yeah, she hadn't taken off her shirt - hadn't needed to ...?

Because she hadn't dressed before running out. O sucked in air sharply, then grinned. Oh well, so Mac got an eyeful. Served him right. She gave the console her ID and waited for the room to gray out.

"FissureKing," she said, and her Interrupt appeared in front of her. "Begin preloaded. Sultan."

Color. Color. Color. O like the flowers shone colors to the sun -

"I'm not pleased with your access logs," Pritt said, giving O the look-how-frank-I'm-being stare.

"What's the problem now, counselor?"

"You know perfectly well. You're spending all your spare time in session again. I'm amazed you're healthy" - she tapped a stack of printouts - "because I have no idea when you find time to eat."

"What's your point?"

"You're supposed to be on self-rationing. Do you expect to be coming to see me for the rest of your life?"

O sat back, involuntarily straightening up in the chair. "A little harsh, don't you think, counselor?"

"And stop the phony. I've had it. I know you hate me. Did you know I don't care for you much either? No? I see people who are actually interested in changing. You're not."

Blunt deserved blunt. "Why should I be? I didn't ask to be here, counselor. I don't need -"

"No, you don't. You didn't need to show up for work last year either. And you apparently don't need to make forward progress with your education -"

"Oh, come on. Study to get a degree just so the U can pretend to be something it -"

"Thank you, I've heard it," Pritt said, raising a hand.

"Look, counselor, I don't see your gripe. I haven't missed a shift this semester except for one sick day. I've been going to classes. I admit I'm not taking very many, but I don't think you have anything to complain about."

Pritt sighed. "Legally, I don't. That's the problem. I can't keep you out of the sessions - personal rights. And I can't monitor session content - privacy. So I have to declare you off probation." She scowled.

"Hey, I'm sorry that's so painful for you," O said, getting up. "Does that mean I can go now?"

Pritt rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Go." She looked up. "No, wait."

O paused in the door. "I expect you to keep up your responsibilities even after you buy an input unit," Pritt said. "Or you'll be right back here again. Understand?"

O slammed the door.

Sardis was waiting. O stormed right past her. "Cocks, O, that bad?"

"I'm off probation," O said, not slowing down.

"Hang on!" Sardis ran to catch up. "That's good news, remember? Um, hooray?"

"It's a load of hairy balls. 'Probation.' 'Semester.' They act like the U is a school, Sar. Like people still go somewhere, like they ever finish. What if I do get a degree? They'll just tell me to get another one."

"Could be worse, could be outside -"

"No thanks. No sessions out there. Can't do too much of that, though, no way. Might spoil the illusion. Which reminds me - I'm late for my shift. You didn't need to wait."

"I wanted to know," Sardis said. But O was already halfway down the hall.

The sultan never saw his wives. One night, as they were letting the night wind cool the sweat from their skins, in that way men have of confessing after sex, he told her that he had all the heirs he wanted; if his wives wanted more children he would gladly give them a false heritage, but they would not come from his loins.

In his refusal, if his concubine were to bear a child, that would be disastrous. But O's navel adornment was not only that. The vizier knew sorcerers of some repute. All the harem wore them; in fact were required never to conceal them.

She reflected on this as she attempted to tug down her skirt. It had ridden up in her haste to cross the courtyard. He would be waiting. She crept into the grand hall from the side door, approached a few paces, then dropped to her knees and bowed her torso deeply in one motion. Arms extended along the floor in front of her, her head at her knees. She held the pose a moment or two, then sat upright.

She was entitled to look around the room, as long as she met no one's gaze. But - the sultan was approaching her! She cast her eyes down hastily.

"This is my favorite," the sultan said to the dark man beside him. "Tonight she will keep you company. Does that suit you?"

"It does," said the man hoarsely.

The sultan gestured for her to rise. She kept her eyes lowered. "This man is your lord for the night, girl," said the sultan. "Honor him as you do me."

O had been hoping for the sultan himself. Well, he did sometimes order her to do unexpected things - that was part of the game, she had it on random -

The palace fuzzed out of synch for a moment. Balls, O thought. Resolve.

She smiled and nodded to the sultan, and the edges came back. "... yyyyyou will have the north rooms," he said to the other man. "We will discuss the other matters tomorrow. She will show you the way."

She nodded again and took the dark man by the arm. How curious! He was obviously some dignitary, but not of this land. He wore a full-length black robe, like the holy men, but his head was not covered; his slick black hair was tied into a long braid like her own. And unlike the men of her land, he had no beard. She swallowed a thousand questions as she led the man to the northern corridor.

She bowed deeply after throwing open the doors. Once the dark man had entered, she followed and began opening the shutters - the rooms had not been used in some time, and the night air would -

"Stop," said the dark man, in that same strange rasp. She halted immediately, and turned to face him, then remembered to avert her eyes. "Those open onto the courtyard, do they not?" She nodded. "Keep them closed. And close the doors. In fact, bar them."

She scurried to do his bidding, then turned and bowed. "Do you have a name, girl?" the man said.

She shook her head.

"Surely your master the sultan must have a name for his favorite."

"My master calls me by many names, my lord."

He sighed. "Yes, yes - flower of jasmine, pearl of pearls, I can guess. But surely your mother gave you - oh, never mind. You are mine to command for the evening?"

She nodded. "Then I command you thus," he said. "Anything which you see and do tonight remains a secret between us. I know your loyalties, but I do not believe your master would prize loyalty over disobedience to your charge. And I will not ask you to compromise him. Do you understand?"

O nodded.

"Then," he said, "I would first desire a bath."

As O began to work the pump by the bath, she saw the fire under the boiler stand begin to flicker in the wrong places - a sign she was losing concentration. Resolve, she reminded herself. The fire continued to warp in and out of focus.

Fine, then. "FissureKing," she whispered, even though she knew there was no need for secrecy. Best to stay in tone as much as possible. The world grayed. Tonight her Interrupt was a mermaid, with green hair and fairly excessive breasts. "Would you check for invaders and report, please?"

"No invasive processes," said FissureKing.

"All runtime params normal?"

"Run is normal," FissureKing confirmed.

"Current primary interaction is normal?"

"Entity is within parameters," FissureKing replied. O imagined impatience in the tone.

Well, she still felt itchy, but if he was set to be a "foreigner," that could explain any amount of weirdness. Someday she was going to have to review her own code; two years of patches and self-modifies, she reflected, and you end up with something unrecognizable. "Okay, resume - no, wait. Accelerate bath preparation sequence to conclusion and then resume."

The color blurred wildly as it came back in, and when it focused, the sunken bath was full and steaming. One day she was going to put hot and cold plumbing in the palace, and balls to anachronism. "My lord?" she said, calling into the next room.

The man entered and spread his arms to disrobe. She moved to him - the robe had no closure - she lifted its hem and pulled it up and off. Then she gasped, and just as quickly covered her mouth. She cast down her eyes.

"It's all right," said the black-haired woman in a much more dulcet voice, lowering one foot experimentally into the bath. "I would have been surprised had you not been. Those robes were designed well. Please undress and join me."

O caught her breath and slipped out of her skirt and slippers, then pulled off her blouse. She stepped toward the bath. "The veil also," said the woman.

O stopped dead. "FissureKing!" she wailed.

Gray. "Is this within normal params?" O demanded.

"No invasive processes or runtime anomalies," said the mermaid.

"I did not put this into the code."

"Cannot confirm," FissureKing replied. "It is within the bounds of interaction randomization."

Cocks and balls. "Um, resume then." It took the colors a while to focus. Resolve, O, resolve.

"...yyyyou are ashamed," the woman was saying, "but your laws say nothing about one woman revealing herself to another. It would be a shame for your veil to get wet." She smiled. "And I would prefer to see your eyes. Will you wash my hair, please?" She turned around, so that her back faced O. O pulled off the veil, laying it atop her clothes, and stepped into the bath to sit behind the dark woman. The bath was large enough that their bodies did not need to touch.

O unbraided the long fine hair, slowly, trying not to pull, and began to massage soap into it. "Mmmm," said the dark woman. "In my country, you see, the queen has chosen diplomats of her own sex .... I do plan to tell your master, although I wish to know his mind better first." She fell silent. When O had finished rinsing the hair, the dark woman turned around slowly in the bath. Without a word, she clasped O in a firm embrace and kissed her deeply.

"A reward," she said, smiling.

O wasn't sure she could move. The kiss had been - the woman tasted like spice and something unexpected. Something like charcoal.

"I have another task for you," said the woman, lifting herself up to sit on the edge of the bath. She flinched a little as she came to rest on the cold marble. "Come here. No, don't get out. I require a kiss of another sort." She spread her legs slightly apart. O, below her in the bath, looked directly between them - and turned her head.

"Pleasure me," said the woman. "Give me the benefit of your sweet tongue."

O moved forward on her knees, but stopped.

"Are you not mine to command?" the woman asked. "Are you not here for my pleasure? I order it!"

"My mistress ... forgive your servant ...." The vizier will have my head for impertinence, thought O. "Perhaps one who is more experienced in such matters would be more to my mistress' -"

"You are mine for the night," the woman said, taking O by the chin and forcing her to lock eyes. "And you will see to my pleasure. Would you wish me to tell your master that his favorite was not capable of a task I gave?"

O shivered, even in the heat of the bath.

She was a servant. She lived to serve. She moved forward, resting her cheek against the dark woman's inner thigh, still dripping from the bath. She had played this game in the harem quarters, but not often; they had other toys. The dark woman's nether parts didn't taste like her lips had. Melon, she thought. Cassia, bitter. And a sourness, like sumac. She thrust her tongue deep inside, tasting.

"Higher," said her mistress. "Not there."

She moved up, out, to the small bud, an unopened flower. O wanted to nibble it, chew it like a clove. Instead she swirled over and around it, isolating it, keeping it captive in a cage of lips and tongue and teeth. Testing it.

The dark woman sighed and ran her fingers through O's hair, flexing them against her scalp. O knew then that she was pleasing enough, that she had been a good servant after all.

As she continued with her mouth, feeling the dark woman's legs tense and relax against her cheeks, she stole one hand down into the waters, to provide her own reward.

Hot, burning hot, hot as the flame still flickering in the boiler.

O tried to rub away the knot at the back of her neck. Her own fault - but, as she kept telling herself, not entirely. Normally the system would have punted her for session limit ... she hadn't meant to fall asleep while in session ... if there were ever a recipe for feeling completely balls-to the next day ... even she didn't like to stay in for more than a couple of hours. She had no idea why the system hadn't kicked her out.

Already late, she rushed down the halls, doing jumps in the airways (forbidden by the U). She was moving fast enough that it took her a few seconds to turn around and go back after passing the poster.

The illustration had a group of people in an assembly line, all in identical postures, stiff, like robots. Each one plugged into an input harness. SESSIONS ARE SLAVERY, said the caption.

Fucking Depros, O thought.

The next thing she knew, she was looking at the tiny ripped pieces of the poster lying on the floor around her. Surprised by her own reaction - she checked the hallway, right and left. No witnesses. She dashed off.

She had a hard time concentrating on the lecture. The usual crowd of interactive-geeks were over in a cluster to one side, whispering to themselves and not even bothering to look like they were paying attention. Just like most of the students. Video was forbidden, so there was a lot of chatter. One girl was applying the latest nail design, sticking her tongue between her lips as she concentrated on keeping the layout straight.

Mac was reading. Just like him, O thought. At least he was every time O looked over to his side of the room.

The lecture ended. A rush for the doors, little groups of people still chatting, standing around. "Hey, O?" said one of the geeks, approaching like he thought she was going to bite him. "Um - we need some code help for our new idea and we thought maybe -"

"No," O said.

The geek looked like she'd slapped him. "But you haven't even -"

"I don't do interactives," O said.

"That's so cocked," said a taller geek, coming over with the rest of the group. "You're in session half the time -"

"In session," O said, "not interactive. Now move; I have to vanish."

"O goes session to get away from other people," Mac said behind her.

She turned to glare at him. "Especially you."

"Ever strike you maybe that's not healthy?"

"Figures from you," she said. "Book Boy here hates sessions," she explained to the geeks. "He only goes in to stalk other people."

"Oh, c'mon," Mac said, as the geeks all focused on him. "I just mean that -"

"Tell it to the Depros, Mac," she said. "You probably already have." She turned to the door again, pushing geeks out of the way, and left before he could reply.

Down the hall at high speed, not daring to look anywhere, not wanting to meet anybody's eyes. Sardis had to jump in front of her to stop her.

"Hey!" Sardis said. "What's cocked today? You look ready to make pain."

"Why do they have to spoil everything? The only halfway good thing about this place and they want to trash it! What the fuck do they think keeps us going?"

O pulled out of Sardis' grip and ran down the hall, leaving Sardis standing with her mouth open.

Balls to work, and balls to Pritt, O thought, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Not today. They'll just have to inflict on somebody else. She pulled her shirt over her head and reached for the harness.

Hand. Forearm. Bicep. Foot. Calf. Thigh. Groin. Pectoral. Now again with the blue set. Her record was ten seconds for each side. With the green plugs, it was better to go slow; they hurt a little. Caudal. Sacro. Lumbar. Cervical. Medullar. She always saved the two in the sinuses for last; they were the most uncomfortable to insert, like she was shoving nails into her head.

Sometimes she wished she could remember what it felt like when they had first seeded her, injected her with the little bits of metal and microcircuitry that would eventually twine around her bones and grow along with her. She wondered if it had hurt.

"You are supposed to be in work cycle at this time," was the first thing FissureKing said. Today she was a deep purple furry teddy-bear-like thing, a baby's toy grown into a lust object.

"I know," said O.

"I am required to log -"

"I know!" said O. "Begin preloaded. Sultan."

She continued along the stone walk that divided the garden, relearning the feel of her thin slippers and the way her gauzy skirt shifted around her legs. The rings of tiny bells on her ankles and wrists, the full billows of the long sleeves, and most of all the veil - the veil that kept her from feeling exposed, even though the material was all nearly transparent and her midriff had no covering at all save a small gem in her navel, which pressed in a tickling way, especially when she walked.

She sped up, toward the rear gates of the inner palace. The broad courtyard was totally silent except for the tiny ringing and shuffling noises she made as she half-ran for the big bronze-bound doors. The sultan would be waiting ... waiting ... wait.

"FissureKing, what's going on?" She looked again at the doors, now gone to gray, still no closer despite her travel.

"Parameters have been altered," her Interrupt said behind her.

"What happened?"

"Unknown." System hiccup, then.

"Restart," O said. Everything blurred into color.

She continued along the stone walk that divided the garden, picking her way carefully; the ground was painfully hot on her bare feet. At least she wasn't wearing heavy clothing, but the leather straps chafed everwhere they touched her, the ones around her breasts and ribs making it difficult to draw a full breath as well. The ball gag was making her drool a little, to her shame, and the dildos in her cunt and ass made her insides shift with every step in a way that was both pleasant and uncomfortable -

Cocks and balls, O thought. No way is this a hiccup.

"Fiuuuhkiii!" she shouted around the gag, then snorted in disgust. O wiped her mouth, a trail of spit hanging from it, and tried to recall the hand signal for an Interrupt - it had been so long since she needed it -

Someone grabbed each wrist from behind. She screamed, and turned as well as she could, but the person was holding her arms outstretched, and whoever he was, he was too strong. She finally got a look - at the sultan?

"Obey your sultan's wishes, girl, or pay the penalty," he snarled, his grip iron on her wrists.

O's brain spun. Surely this couldn't - no, no, she'd have never put this in, she couldn't have. Even if she did .... She realized that she was still screaming for FissureKing, incoherently, and that everything around her was flickering wildly, dancing in and out of focus from her failure to resolve. She stopped short, out of habit, and waited until the scene focused again. Better a clean effect than a messy one, at least until she could figure this out. She relaxed her arms, and bowed her head.

"Good," said the sultan. "You may yet regain my favor."

How had she lost it? Was she not his favorite? Maybe this was in the code after all. The sultan was fastening something onto the bands at her wrists. A bar, a long stiff bar of some kind behind her back, holding her arms extended. He clipped a chain onto her collar.

The courtyard flickered slightly as O remembered the non-verbal signal: touching her wrists together three times. So much for FissureKing. Well, she consoled herself, you couldn't die in session. The system would throw her out when limit was reached, or if it thought she was starving to death.

She focused again, and let the sultan lead her by the chain into the palace. She cast her eyes down in shame as they passed various members of the household. All would know of her humiliation - and she didn't even know what she'd done wrong.

The sultan led her into the grand hall. "Look at me, girl," he said. She raised her eyes. Standing beside him was the dark woman, the woman who had tasted of cassia - "You have dishonored my guest by insolence," the sultan was saying, "and I have agreed that you must be forfeit until the debt can be repaid. She will be your mistress until I send for you again. Do you understand?"

O nodded - but what insolence? Had she not been willing enough? Perhaps the woman was lying - could it be? But the sultan's will was foremost ....

The dark woman had her chain and was leading her to the north rooms. "You are cooperative, I see," she said. "Good. It will be better for us all if you are." She led O in and closed the doors.

"It's always hard to do an invasive this big without the consent of the owner," the woman continued. "Fortunately you're such a little sub. Amazing, seeing how big a bitch you are outside."

O started to scream. But even as the noise penetrated the gag, her head bloomed with pain ... and everything faded past gray, all the way down into black.

O sat up on the hard bench. Every inch of her hurt, without actually being a pain she could pinpoint. As if her own skin was chafing her. She wasn't wearing anything else, so it had to be her skin. She rubbed the back of her neck a few times and let her eyes focus in the dim light.

Aside from the bench where she lay and the blanket covering her, the only other thing in the room was a small table with a pile of folded clothes. It was a kind of room she had only ever seen in session - wood and plaster and wallpaper, and not in the greatest condition; the paper was stained and peeling away from the walls in the corners. She started to get a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

She stood up, flinching a little as her feet touched the frigid floor. In fact the whole room was nearly freezing, and she rushed to put on the clothes. Very plain fabric, and the pants and pullover-type shirt fit her like a tent besides - but they were warm. She slipped on the shoes and opened the door slowly.

The room opened onto an equally decrepit hall. The hall led to a stair - an old-fashioned stair, not an airway - with a railing that shook alarmingly when she put her hand on it. And at the bottom of the stairway ....

When she turned the knob of the front door, it flew back so fast it nearly hit her in the face. She fell backward onto the carpet, knocked down by the door and the winds that flooded into the house. She heard the sound of papers and other debris behind her, being lifted and thrown about by the gale she had let in. Crashes of moving objects. But she didn't turn to look.

The sky through the doorway was a solid dark gray, cloudless, unforgiving. Wind and rain and snow all at once, coming into the hall and settling on her body dirtily. The snow was nearly black and left oily smudges when her hand absently wiped it off her arm. Distant across the road, barely visible in the murk, she saw other houses. Old houses like this one, obsolete. They were all falling apart. One was missing an upper story. One seemed to be only half there, and that half looked about to topple.

The door shut, and with some difficulty O managed to look up at the person who had shoved it closed. She felt like she couldn't blink. If she did, she was sure it would hurt.

"Sardis?"

"Balls, stupid, I thought you had more sense than that. You're lucky it stayed on the hinges."

"Where are we? How did I get here?"

"Welcome to the outside."

O's mouth wouldn't close. She stared. Then it was the same way she'd felt after ripping up the poster: Suddenly she was trying to pull the door open again, frantic, and Sardis was wrestling her, trying to keep her away from the knob while holding the door shut with her body. Shouting something O couldn't process.

Then Sardis slapped her face. And O was in a little pile on the floor, crying. Surprising herself with how fast and hot the tears came. How defeated she suddenly felt.

"Listen, you little brat," Sardis said. "I've put up with you for a very long time, and now we're going to do this my way for a change. If you want to survive, you'll cooperate."

"I want to go back to the U," O said, through sobs.

"My goodness," said Sardis in mock horror. "What about their attitude? What about their hypocrisy? What about all the people you hate?"

O sat up and wiped her eyes, leaving black smears underneath from the dirty snow. "I didn't want to leave," she said.

"No, of course not. Where else could you get sessions? The best sedative in the world?"

"Oh. Balls. You're a Depro, aren't you?"

Sardis smiled a little, at the corners of her mouth. "You think?"

"You and Mac both. But you're sneakier than he is. You invaded my code slowly, altering the params so the Interrupt wouldn't tell me anything was wrong. You came in ... and kept me from signalling so I couldn't exit, tricked me into letting you all the way in and then you slugged my nervous system ... cocks and balls! I must have been out for days."

Sardis grabbed O by the hair, pulled her face up to make eye contact. "Now get this straight: I didn't 'trick' you into anything, sub. You liked it. We're not going to have any illusions anymore. Not a one." She let go. "It's about time you joined the real world."

O put her head in her hands. Her eyes burned.

"Oh, give it a rest," Sardis said. "You - the woman of stone?"

"I thought you were my friend," O said.

"You don't have any friends. You've worked hard for that. Come on." Sardis took O's hand, pulled her to her feet.

They went down a flight of stairs, into a damp place that was even colder than the house, and dark. But Sardis seemed to know the way. O thought about breaking loose and running, but where would she run? And then, almost immediately, she was lost in all the twisting tunnels, and knew that she really had no option but to follow blindly.

"What is all this?" she asked.

"Quiet," said Sardis.

Finally they emerged in a big room with a fire pit in the center. Two hulking men in black clothing with black masks sat on either side of the fire, on wooden stools; only their eyes were exposed, cold and unpleasant. They stood up when Sardis entered.

"Go into that room," Sardis said to O, gesturing to one of the many doorways, "take off those clothes, and put on what you find in there. Be quick about it."

O hesitated, then looked at the men who could tear her in half. She entered the room, then came back out again. "No," she said. "This isn't a game. I won't do it."

"It isn't?" asked Sardis. "I don't see the difference. You wanted to fool around with your sultan all the time, night and day. Didn't you? You wanted to pack up and live life in your little palace? Well, you're outside the palace now, but if you want to be a full-time slave girl, I'm happy to help. What's the difference?" She smiled, narrowing her eyes. "After all, I taste just the same here as I did there."

"Bitch," O said, in a completely level tone. Then she threw herself at Sardis, knocking the other woman onto the ground backwards. The guards were on her in an instant, pulling her off and lifting her, still kicking and clawing, into the air. She was screaming something that even she herself couldn't make out.

"Put her in the room," Sardis said. "If she comes out wearing the outfit, let her come see me. If she's not wearing it, don't let her out."

The guards tossed O onto the floor of the room. She felt herself, sure they had broken something, as the metal door closed with a loud clang.

The room was obviously meant as a cell - a bench long enough for a bed, a bare toilet, a sink, and one light - an old-style bulb - high in the ceiling, with no way to turn it on or off. Like the larger room, it was apparently tunneled out of rock and dirt. The walls left her hands filthy when she touched them. The floor was stone, or maybe concrete; someone had put down paving of some kind.

O sifted through the small pile of clothing on the bench. Unhappy as it made her, she couldn't get Sardis' question out of her head. There was a difference. She was sure there was a difference. But she couldn't find it. Her brain kept dancing around it, refusing to go there. And every time she thought she was getting close, she kept picturing the dark woman in the bath, wondering if that really was Sardis' pale skin despite the changed face. Wondering if the taste really was ....

She shook her head, the way she would in session to resolve, and realized that even as she had been lost in her ideas, she'd begun to put on the costume Sardis had left her. It was almost exactly like her harem outfit, but the gauzy fabric was black, unrelenting black - a parody of the attire she loved. Instead of the bells there were leather bands for her wrists and ankles, with small, open padlocks waiting to secure them. And another for her neck. No keys. She was expected to perform her own bondage, to close the locks on herself.

She wasn't sure she could do it, until she found the veil in the pile of gauze. She grabbed that wisp of fabric, squeezed it tightly in one hand, and exhaled slowly.

With her eyes concealed, she knew she could be what she needed to be.

O stepped from the room, head bowed, presenting herself to the guards without meeting their eyes. Once again she had assumed that place on the social scale she knew well - a precious thing, to be guarded and kept inviolate, yet at the same time lower than the lowest servant.

One of the huge men led her through more tunnels to another room with a massive fire. The rooms had bulbs for light; the fires, she realized, were for warmth. Sardis sat at the end of the room. "Leave us," she said to the guard.

O waited.

"Well, come over here and kneel. You've done this enough. You shouldn't need to be told how."

"You're not the sultan," O said.

"No. I'm real." Sardis stood up. She was wearing a simple black dress with a long skirt. "More dangerous that way, isn't it?" She walked over slowly, sauntering to where O stood. A gleam in her eyes.

"Real people don't always do what you expect them to. But you like danger, don't you? A little threat here and there .... Kneel."

O took a step backward.

"Kneel!"

O shook; she might as well have been slapped, but that would have been painful, this wasn't painful, this was good and it scared her, that she could like this madness ... and she was on her knees then.

Sardis raised her skirt, lifted it up above her hips, and bunched it together so she could hold it up with one hand. She stepped closer to O. With her free hand she lifted O's veil. She moved even closer, the curly hairs brushing O's nose. "Kiss it again. Do as well as you did before, and I'll tell you a story ... aah! ... I see how reluctant you are to get started ...."

Sardis braced herself on O's shoulder with her free hand, gripping tightly, so tightly it hurt. Cassia. Smoke. The sour acid taste under all ... O pressed her tongue and Sardis bent at the knees, gasped and then fell onto the cold floor.

She pulled herself up, making a wry face, and walked over to her seat. Pulled her skirts out of the way again, spreading her legs. "Come over here. No, stay on all fours. Like a dog. Like a puppy that smells something it wants." She smiled, triumphant.

And O cooperated. Crawled over on hands and knees, thrust her already-sticky mouth into the wet between Sardis' legs, head partially under her skirts. Hot, close, hard to breathe.

Sardis gasped again. "Oh ... you'll be a good puppy. Yes. You learn fast ...."

O once again felt her own cunt growing hot, burning as she thought about what a good slave she was, catching fire as she thought of how well she was pleasing Sardis. She wanted to feel herself, put a hand between her own legs, but the costume was in the way and she didn't dare stop, not for a second.

But then Sardis came with a loud, deep groan and sat back in her chair, eyes closed, and O dared to let her hand find its way under her own skirt ... and just a touch wasn't enough, she shook from it but it wasn't enough, she had to rub it and -

Sardis cleared her throat. O froze, unable to move her guilty hand.

"Stand up," Sardis said, still with a blissful grin. "Take off the skirt. Face me. Legs apart. No, further. There." O stood waiting. Sardis whistled with her fingers, a loud squeak of a noise, and the two guards ran in. She gestured and they stood at attention on either side of Sardis' chair.

"Now," she said to O, "finish what you were doing."

O put her hand back between her legs. Three pairs of eyes on her, watching her every move. She began to rub herself, still swollen with blood and heat. Still burning. She could feel the two men studying her, but she knew they'd never touch her. Not unless Sardis let them. There were castes, customs, traditions .... She was protected, she was the least powerful person in the palace.

And the most. All of it was hers. Yes, all of it.

By then she was already climaxing, explosive, rocking back and crumpling and stopping her fall with one palm against the cold floor. And Sardis was applauding; the noise was far away. O let herself sink completely to the ground, breathing hard.

"Now I'll tell you a story, slave," Sardis was saying.

O opened her eyes. The guards were gone. "Once upon a time," Sardis said, as if talking to a child, "a very bad thing happened. A lot of people who didn't like each other used really nasty weapons on each other, and the world became a place that wasn't very good to live in anymore. Always winter, always under a blanket of dirt and snow and chemical filth. The people who lived in it for very long got sick and died.

"But the people who had brains and money and could fix it didn't care, because they were all in huge buildings, hidden away from all the dirt and snow. The buildings had once been universities, where people went to learn to make things better, but over the years they grew bigger and more like castles, worlds unto themselves, and when the very bad thing happened, they just decided to shut their doors and pretend everything outside the castle didn't exist.

"One day a girl who had been raised in the castle discovered that castles have many doors, and that it's impossible to close them all. So she crept out, and saw what the world outside looked like. And she realized that, while she would always be a servant inside the castle, outside the castle, the things she could sell and provide would make her a princess. The most important princess in the land. Important enough to have servants of her own.

"And the person she wanted most of all as a servant was a silly little noble who was so ignorant, so unaware of the way things really were, that she had the gall to play games where she pretended she was a slave ...."

Sardis' eyes were closed tightly, the words coming out in a hiss now. O watched her face. Then suddenly Sardis opened her eyes and they were alive with anger. She stood, advanced toward O like a storm. O lowered her head, breaking eye contact and cringing at the same time ... and that may have been why Sardis did not strike her, but turned and walked away and left the room for the night without a word.

O quickly grew familiar with the tunnels, if not actually accustomed to them. She felt weak and timid in the darkness, like a rat scurrying about; she preferred the sunny climate of the Sultan's land. But she did learn her way.

There were many guards, so alike she never learned to tell them apart. She wandered as she pleased; she knew when she was reaching the limits of permitted territory because a guard always prevented her from going further.

Every night Sardis would order her to do things. Usually it was her mouth, which Sardis never seemed to tire of, but once Sardis wore a man-toy and had her that way; mostly to prove a point, O thought - it didn't seem that Sardis got much out of it. Sometimes she would have guards watch, and sometimes hold O by the arms while Sardis toyed with her, but the guards never laid a finger on her otherwise.

And, as she had known would happen, O gradually came to think in terms of how she could better satisfy Sardis, little games she could play to surprise and delight her. So it was that O crept up on the main room, along a side tunnel with a final bend, where she could hear but not be seen.

And then she stopped dead. Because one of the two voices in the room was Mac.

"This isn't what you told me would happen," he was saying. "You said you wanted to teach her a lesson. What was the lesson exactly? ... Balls, Sardis, how long have we been out here? Don't you think the U is maybe going to miss us?"

"You're jealous is what you are." Sardis' voice echoed in the hallway where O stood, far more harsh than Mac's. "You've always had a hard-on for her, and I'm getting it, and you're balls-to about it."

"Oh, come on." Mac got infinitesimally louder. "That's completely cocked. You weren't supposed to make her your personal slut. Kinda the opposite, I thought. Or was one of us misunderstanding?" O could see his posture without looking. Feet apart, body tensed, ready for a confrontation. Mouth a tight line. And Sardis would be staring back, amused, calm ....

"What do you want, Mac? Why aren't you lying low as we agreed? She could walk in at any minute, you know."

"I'm done, Sardis. Over this whole cocked scheme. I want to go back, and I want her to go back too. This isn't doing a damn bit of good."

"I was afraid you'd say that." And then O heard Sardis's sharp whistle. She cringed, even as she heard Mac shout, "Hey!" She wanted to dash into the room, with no idea what she'd do when she got there .... She turned and ran the other way instead.

Hiding in a side tunnel, shivering, O reflected. Wasn't Sardis her mistress? Wasn't she having fun? Why should she care? Mac wanted to teach her things she didn't want to learn, had helped get her here ... Mac wasn't her friend, he wasn't her lover, he wasn't anything .... And yet ....

O realized what decision she was going to make, what she ultimately had to do, even before she made it.

It was laughably easy. The cells didn't have locks, just bolts that could only be opened from outside when fastened. And the guards in the area with the cells went off to patrol several times a night.

She pulled the heavy cell door open. "Mac!" she said, as loudly as she could whisper. She'd beaten the guards back to the room, seen where they put him.

"O? Is that you?"

"Come on," she said. "We've got to get away in a hurry."

He emerged into the light, looking suspicious. "Really," she said. "The guards don't patrol for long." She closed the door and re-bolted it. "This way."

"Great," Mac said, once they were several tunnels removed, "so now we're in hiding, with no idea how to get out."

"I have a guess," O said. "There are some exits that are always guarded - I guess those at least lead out of her control ...."

"Let's try one," he replied.

They crept up on the nearest. The dark hulking form of a guard stood in the shadows by the tunnel mouth. "Any chance he's asleep on the job?" Mac whispered.

"I don't think they sleep," O said.

"Run into the tunnel when I give the signal, then."

"What?"

"Now!"

O dashed for the tunnel, then stopped short when she saw Mac go up to the guard - three times Mac's size - and kick him squarely in the balls. The guard flinched like he'd been bitten by a bug, then lifted Mac by the neck, lifted him clear off the ground. Mac made gurgling noises and O heard herself scream. She ran at the guard, began pounding him and kicking him and throwing herself against him ... and the guard, more startled than anything else, let Mac go.

"Run!" choked Mac, and dragged her by the arm into the tunnel. They ran until their lungs hurt and they fell to the ground in the dark. Listening to the sound of each other panting.

"He's not following," Mac said. "I wonder if that means we're somewhere worse?"

They got up slowly and felt their way forward in the dark, navigating the turns by feel. For a long time they moved that way, carefully, one slow step at a time, not knowing if they were going in circles or where they would end up. Then, just when O felt ready to drop, Mac said, "Hey, wait, this is new."

He pulled O over, and when she stepped forward, she felt it too. A step. Going up.

They ascended the stair, into another old-style house, dim light seeping in from the gray sky outside through the boarded windows. If anything, in worse condition than the one O had seen originally. Holes in the walls, rot creeping over the corners of the ceilings. Or maybe it was the same one ... she couldn't remember what it had looked like now.

The room had some decaying furniture. First Mac tried a chair, which creaked and shook so badly that he got up hastily and leaned against the edge of the table instead. It creaked too, but it held.

"So," he said, "why help me? Weren't you having enough fun as Sardis' little loveslave?"

O narrowed her eyes. "I don't know. Maybe I wanted to find out what kind of cock-and-balls 'lesson' you wanted to teach me. So I could hit you into next week."

They stared at each other.

"I wonder if there's anything usable as a bed upstairs," Mac said, and moved away suddenly.

O sighed and followed him up. He was shaking dust off some blankets. "Looks like the floor," he said.

"I'm not sleeping alone."

"I didn't ask you to."

"Truce? Until we get out of here at least?"

"Agreed," he said.

They lay together, O shivering a little. "Do you want my pullover?" he asked.

"That's okay."

"Take it," he said, and sat up to pull it off.

"Don't go all Galahad on me," she said. But she put it on.

The wind howled outside like a monster trying to break in. She lay there in the half-light, not sleeping, thinking her thoughts ... and finally she rolled to face him. She sat up a little, scooted down, and unfastened his pants. He stirred a little, not quite completely asleep. Unlike her, he had underwear. She wriggled her hand underneath its waistband -

He sat up like he had been burned. "What are you doing?" he said.

Thanking him. Thanking him for being so brave with the guard. Thanking him for being there in this horrible place. Thanking him for the pullover. Thanking him for caring, no matter how misguided. She wanted to say all of those things. She meant to say them. But that wasn't what she said.

"Pleasing you," she said.

And he slapped her. Hard.

As he slapped her - as she was literally hit by the totally unexpected response - the room flickered and blurred. For a second. Only for a second. But -

"Mac, we're still in session!"

"Impossible -"

"FissureKing!" And the room went gray. But Mac didn't. Mac vanished. Users only vanished - O was frantically trying to put it together - in interactives ... why was it so hard to think?

Because FissureKing was talking about danger signs and how the session must be ended immediately. Because she was so weak she couldn't stand. Because she was having trouble even drawing breath. Because she could see the bones in her arm and she was curled up in a fetal ball on the floor of the input booth and because alarms were going off all over the place and because ....

She managed to open the door. She couldn't pull the plugs, but she could open the door. She got her head and one arm into the hall. The U people were already running toward her. It looked like they were in slow motion.

"Sardis ... her fault ...." She had a chance to whisper that much. That was all.

O opened her eyes. It was very bright. She closed them again. She opened them, to focus on the silhouette of the person sitting beside the bed. She closed them again.

"Put it together for me, Mac," she croaked.

"Where do I start?"

"Why didn't the safeties kick in? Or the session limits?"

"She hacked them. She was better than anyone thought. Since the sessions are private by law, no one would interfere unless an alarm went off ... and with the alarms disabled ...."

"I get it. But Interrupts can't be hacked. So she had to keep us from knowing we were still in session, so we wouldn't call for them."

"She was going to let us die in there, you know. Herself too, I think."

"I know. Her idea of a demonstration. Sessions are evil, never mind that she had to kill all the safeties to get there .... Why'd you slap me, Mac? Completely broke my concentration."

"Good thing."

"And how come you're in a chair and I'm still in a bed?"

"I eat better."

She sighed. "Get out of here, Mac. This vigil stuff is cocked. Go do something fun for me."

"What, like a session?"

O didn't reply.

"You didn't ask what happened to Sardis," he said finally.

"I don't want to know."

Once O got out of the infirmary, she discussed the situation with Pritt (voluntarily, to the latter's surprise), and decided to withdraw from classes for the rest of the semester. She extended her working hours and concentrated on her job. No sessions, but she downloaded her "sultan" code and spent her nights relearning it, top to bottom.

Three weeks later she was in her room, unpacking a brand-new personal input unit, sorting the cables by color on her bed, and Mac buzzed her door. She had carefully avoided seeing him since the infirmary.

He didn't move from the doorway when it opened. He was staring at the unit. "I was hoping it wasn't true," he said.

"Hello to you too," she said, returning to the cables. "I guess word travels fast."

"Haven't you learned anything?"

"Sure," she said. "I've learned there are a lot of misguided people. I've also learned I can't waste a lot of time on them. How about you?" She started to plug the cables into the open back of the unit's case. Mac sighed and turned back to the hallway.

"Oh, and I've learned that you think I'm completely cocked and will never understand me," O added, not looking up from the case. "Which is a shame, because I've also learned that you're a lot more interesting person than I thought."

He stared.

"Balls, O, why do you have to make everything difficult?"

She started to laugh.

He wasn't sure he'd ever heard it before. She stood up, still laughing, and walked over to him. Put her arms around him. He didn't know whether to flinch or be thrilled.

"I want you," she said. He was tending toward thrilled.

"I also want the Sultan." She saw his frown begin and held her hand to his mouth, as if to cover it. "Mac, I am not going to be guilty. The best I'm going to do is admit that you're right."

"What? I mean, about -"

She was laughing at him again. "About missing some good things outside the sessions. That was your lesson, wasn't it?"

He nodded, hesitant now.

"I got that once I realized you weren't the Depro. Look, I'm going to forgive you for helping Sardis. And you have to forgive the Sultan."

He closed his eyes.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well what?"

"Are you interested?"

He opened his eyes. Wide. "I'm interested," he said slowly.

"Good," she said. And she kissed him.

Copyright © December 2006. Do not distribute or reproduce.