5. Prisoner

“I have to tell Mel about this,” Thea decides, and terror crashes through my body. No. No no no. This is my one shot, my one chance. Melpomene can’t know.

And perhaps more importantly, she wouldn’t want to know.

Thea stands up to exit the room and my hand snaps out and grabs her by the forearm, my head twisting to stare straight at her. She can’t know I failed. I don’t want her to know I failed. She’ll be disappointed. Maybe even angry. And she’ll work against this progress towards freeing me but don’t think about that don’t think about that!

Thea flinches, my sensors warning me about a dangerous surge of magical power as Thea stares at me, her eyes wide with terror. But then she takes a deep breath, and puts her free hand over my own.

“…Did you want to come with me?” she asks.

I don’t respond. I can’t respond. Thea glances towards the devices she set up earlier and frowns.

“Green magic, huh?” she mutters. “So you’re… afraid of something. You’re afraid of me telling her. Why?”

I can’t answer that. I can’t say anything. But I can stare, and I can hold her wrist, and I can keep her here so that Melpomene never has to know.

“Melpomene can be a little scary, huh?” Thea says with a soft smile, turning to face me fully. “She’s a very intimidating person, and she can be a little snappy sometimes. She’s under a lot of stress, you know? But you don’t have to be afraid of her, I promise. She’ll help you! I know she will.”

What? No. No, no, no, no…

“She’s helped me with a ton of things!” Thea continues, oblivious to my mounting terror. “I owe her a lot, and she’s really smart. She’ll know what to do.”

A loud rattling sound rings out through the room that I realize is me, my body quaking in terror. I can’t let this chance slip away, I can’t. Melpomene won’t help me, she’s my master. I only help her. Never the other way around.

“Come on, let’s go,” Thea says, rubbing my hand reassuringly. “It’ll be alright.”

Slowly, agonizingly, I stand up to follow her. Because Thea is my master, too, and she has told me to go. It’s over. I’m doomed.

Putting her little devices back into her pockets, Thea leads me out of her workshop and through the halls of the castle. I barely pay attention to where we’re going, my fear draining away into despair. I tried. I got close. But ultimately, there wasn’t a lot I could do. I shouldn’t feel bad. I was doomed from the start.

My power reserves have increased to 33%. Man, I’m fuel-efficient.

Thea leads me to a fairly large door, rapping on it with the back of her hand.

“Hey, Mel?” she calls out. “You in there?”

“Yes, dear, how can I help you?” Melpomene’s voice calls back.

“I, uh, sorry. I normally wouldn’t bother you, but I wanted to talk about my findings, I guess. Um, whenever you’re done.”

Done with what? There seems to be some extremely humid air leaking out from behind the door. That’s kind of weird.

“Thea, honey, you’re more than welcome to come in if you want to talk,” Melpomene says. “I’d love your company.”

“O-oh, um, okay? If you’re sure?” Thea says, blushing furiously.

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Uh, a-alright. I’m coming in, then.”

Thea opens the door, and my confusion about this entire situation is immediately banished when I see Melpomene sitting butt-naked in an impromptu bathtub. Well, I say ‘impromptu,’ but it’s clearly a bathtub and clearly has been set up here with purpose. It just isn’t attached to any water pipes; it’s sitting in the middle of the room on little brass legs where it must have been filled with boiling water by hand, and will need to be dumped of used water by hand as well.

I look away immediately out of a mixture of embarrassment and politeness, but the image of her lounging inside it remains just as clear in my mind, sending my emotions haywire in every direction. She’s gorgeous, unnaturally so. As if every imperfection was airbrushed off of her in post. I know my body would be reacting in countless uncomfortable ways right now if it were still made of flesh, but I’m no longer capable of that sort of thing. Yet still, the lack of physical reaction doesn’t stop the instinctive yearning, the desire to stare against all propriety, the need to reach out and touch if only I could.

Thea is being shown this intimacy because the two of them are so close. Because they trust each other, care about each other, and have lived with each other so long that the walls between them have dissolved into the past. I’m being shown this because I’m a pet.

“So, what is it, dear?” Melpomene asks. “And close the door, you’re letting cold air in.”

Thea and I both move to shut the door at the same time and end up bonking into each other. Melpomene snorts out a surprised burst of laughter.

“Apologies,” Melpomene chuckles while I move to close the door. Thea is busy rubbing her forehead. “That was adorable.”

Thea grumbles in half-hearted protest, her brown-blushing face trying to find a place for her eyes to settle other than Melpomene’s chest. I guess we’re all hopeless lesbians here. Go team.

“A-anyway,” Thea manages, “my findings. They’re… really concerning. I wanted to talk with you and get your advice, maybe try to figure out a plan.”

“Hmm. Alright,” Melpomene says, sitting up straighter. “It’s that serious, hmm?”

“Yeah, I’m uh. Well, I’m almost entirely certain that this robot is sapient. She’s powered by magic but the magic comes from… nothing. She’s not gathering it from the environment, she’s making it herself. She has a soul.”

“…I see,” Melpomene hums. “That is concerning. Are you sure it’s not something like an animal soul?”

“The amount of magic generated from an animal soul would be less than the power cost of whatever structure was being used to harvest it,” Thea says. “And it’s not just the soul thing; her ability to interpret complex commands and act on them with minimal instruction is… I mean, at minimum she’d have to be an AI far more advanced than anything humanity has produced.”

“Is that true?” Melpomene says, turning to me. “Do you think? Do you feel?”

I don’t react. I can’t.

“Hmm,” Melpomene frowns.

“Yeah, I was running into the same problem,” Thea agrees. “She doesn’t react to things like that, but still…”

“Massage my shoulders,” Melpomene orders. Thea blinks in surprise as I move to do just that, bitter anxiety and unwanted anticipation moving within me. I wonder if arousal counts as an emotion I can burn away. I’m a fucking robot, what good does it—

My crystalline components are currently configured for magical energy attuned to blue/sadness/south. Arousal, a north-northwest aligned power source, would be unlikely to reach higher than 10% efficiency with the current configuration. I could do it, but it wouldn’t be worth much unless I had a lot of it to burn.

—do me oh okay. Y’know what, sure. It’s wasted either way, right? And frankly, I’d rather feel as little of it as I can.

Carefully, fearfully, I put my hands on her shoulders. I know more or less what I’m doing; my mom had a bad back, so she taught me how to help with this kind of thing. What I’m afraid of isn’t the action, but the touch, the intimacy. Even while I burn her beauty as fuel, it’s difficult to ignore. My hands might not feel the same way they used to, but my mind remembers the qualia of a woman’s skin, if only thanks to my own. From the heat radiating off of her, to the softness of her back, to the way my peripheral vision can’t avoid the fullness of her beauty, I can’t help but think about how this would have been like a dream to me, if I didn’t hate this woman so unbearably much. I start to knead her muscles, careful with the amount of pressure I place on them, and the sound she makes fits the fantasy so well I could puke.

Disgust is southwest-aligned. Efficiency estimated at seventy-five percent or greater. But no, let’s keep that one as-is. I’d rather feel it.

“I see your point,” Melpomene says. “It definnnnnnn! Ah. Definitely some advanced problem-solving ability. Oh, god, that’s good.”

“Um,” Thea squeaks.

“We’re running into the same question as before,” Melpomene explains. “This is Antipathy technology. So how does it understand human anatomy so well? Even if it has knowledge of the human form from whatever process constructed it, how can it figure out how to do something as complex and specific as this without some level of understanding? If we wanted to program an AI to give back rubs, we could probably do that, but an AI that can give back rubs to a completely arbitrary unknown species?”

I mean that or you just wanted your slave to give you a back rub, but sure, I can kind of follow your logic there. Thea completely buys it, of course.

“O-oh!” Thea says, her smile returning. “Yes, exactly! She can’t just be a weapon, she’s way too advanced for that. I’m worried that she might be… well, basically a newborn. An AI that just started existing. We… we could potentially be raising a kid right now.”

What. I… what!? No, damn it! I’m not a child, I’m a victim!

“Hmm. You think it doesn’t respond to some things because it doesn’t know how yet?” Melpomene asks.

“Yeah,” she nods. “I mean, you said you found a device that constructed her, right? We don’t really know exactly how our brains evolved to encourage the generation and development of a soul, but it’s not unreasonable to consider that the Antipathy may have managed to create an artificial version of it. True AI. A person. Designed to be a servant, maybe, but should we treat her that way?”

“Hmm,” Melpomene considers. “I agree that is possible.”

“Do you… not agree that’s what she is, though?” Thea asks hesitantly. I continue kneading the stress out of my tormenter’s back, seething about the lies she’s about to tell to trap me here again.

“It doesn’t quite add up,” Melpomene confirms, tapping the side of the tub with a finger. “Think about it: this is the Antipathy we’re talking about. If they had the ability to generate artificial souls at will, how do you think they would use that ability?”

“…Oh,” Thea says quietly. “Oh, god, yeah. It would be everywhere, wouldn’t it? Factories of them, tortured and drained for power.”

“Exactly,” Melpomene nods. “But that’s not what we see here. This is unique, so far as we know. Artisanally crafted. Designed specifically to house a soul in whatever receptacle the user of the device desires, then compelled to obey whatever orders the user desires.”

“Oh,” Thea whispers. “Oh no, you think…”

“Yes. The soul has to come from somewhere, after all.”

“You think someone’s trapped inside there?” Thea hisses.

What… what’s happening? Why is Melpomene telling the truth!? She’s straight up admitting that I’m a person, that I’m suffering, that I need help. I can feel some of my prior restrictions falling away in light of this new narrative. Did I misjudge her? Thea was so confident that Melpomene would help me, but I just dismissed it out of hand. I squeeze her shoulders a little tighter. I barely even know this woman. Maybe all she needed was a nice bath to mellow out a little.

Or maybe she’s just setting me up to fall even harder.

“If you’re confident in your readings, then that’s the explanation that makes the most sense to me,” Melpomene confirms. “And you’re right: this could be a major problem. After all, if this is some sort of Antipathy prison, the soul inside it could very well be one of the last surviving Antipathy.”

Thea covers her mouth in shock as Melpomene says those words, looking towards me with terror in her eyes. Ah, there it is. I was right after all.

“Yes,” Melpomene nods, looking at Thea’s face. “And not just any Antipathy, either. After all, what sort of person would other Antipathy put in prison? Given what little we know of their culture…”

God fucking damn it. You bitch. You absolute bitch.

“I… it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re a monster,” Thea says. “Maybe they were imprisoned for fighting against what the Antipathy were doing! Maybe they’re good!”

“Hmm. Maybe,” Melpomene allows, turning her head to glance back at me. “You. You know how to shake your head and nod, yes? You respond to English so I imagine you can do that much. You may nod to indicate yes and shake your head to indicate no. Do you understand?”

My fingers are still squeezing the stress from her back, straining at the upper limits of the force I’m allowed to crush her with, trying to find a way to convince myself to hurt her more. I nod.

“Tell me,” Melpomene orders, “if you could kill me, would you?”

Oh, fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you! I nod, because I have to nod, because I must nod. I don’t want to be a killer. I don’t want to hurt anyone, by and large. But this woman? My slaver? Yes. All of human history tells me it would be justice.

And that’s exactly what she wants.

“Hmm. Well, Thea, if it’s all the same to you I think I’d rather keep the chains on our little prisoner for now,” Melpomene says with a scowl. “Excellent work though, dear. You may have just saved my life.”

My body shakes, rattling with a fury I can no longer contain. It helps to sell Melpomene’s story, even as I continue loosening her muscles, my thumbs driving into her back to push out knots of tension. Is this really it? Is this the only life I can aspire to now?

“…I still don’t think it’s right to use her as a servant,” Thea says softly. “Even if she’s awful on the inside, we should still be kind to her.”

Melpomene pauses for a moment and I barely catch a slight twitch in her eye. She opens her mouth to speak, and then closes it. Then again: open, and closed. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly, before finally placing her hand over mine to silently indicate for me to stop.

“You’re right, aren’t you?” Melpomene sighs, and I freeze. No, I won’t hope. Not this time. There’s no way it’s happening this time.

Melpomene stands up from the tub, a momentary waterfall cascading down her in picture-perfect beauty. Her body is obviously magical, what with the wings and the third eye and the crystals growing out of her skin like a cracked geode, so I’m sure the perfect skin is another perk of whatever’s going on with her biology. That unnatural beauty is yet another thing to hate about her, a burning source of envy in light of both my current and former bodies. The fact that the envy is crusted with desire only makes it burn easier.

“You’re right, Thea,” Melpomene repeats. “Thank you.”

She shakes out her hair, splattering my optical sensors with water that blurs my vision with droplets. I do not move.

“I suppose we’re at a balancing point,” Melpomene continues. “It’s wrong to take advantage of prisoners, but our prisoner here is trapped in a situation that prevents it from acting except on my orders. If we give it freedom it may try to kill us, or worse I fear it may simply stand around and do nothing, unable to act on its own will and going mad from effective solitary confinement. If, I suppose, it hasn’t already. We can only pray it wasn’t conscious for however many years it was locked away, but… yes. We have a responsibility now to match our opportunity. Assuming any of this speculation is correct, of course, but at this point we can’t afford not to assume.”

“Yeah,” Thea whimpers, hugging herself nervously. “Gosh. This is a lot. This is a lot a lot.”

“We could be wrong,” Melpomene says soothingly. “Maybe you’re correct, and this is just a newborn AI. Maybe the technology to create artificial souls simply didn’t exist for long enough before the Antipathy wiped themselves out to have become widespread. I think we act the same either way, but it’s hope.”

“What a thing to hope for,” Thea mutters. “The best case scenario is that the apocalypse happened too quickly for AI emotion farms to be set up.”

“Artifacts are useful, but never let it be said that they are cheerful,” Melpomene shrugs. “We should be able to test some of this, or at least start trying to. In my room, on my desk, I have some Antipathy writings that I’ve been trying to translate. Could you bring them here while I get myself dried off, Thea?”

“Oh, uh, yeah! Of course. I’ll be right back,” Thea agrees, slipping quickly out of the room. I can barely believe any of this is happening. I feel like my emotions are buckled up in a car having a rollover accident.

Melpomene grabs a towel from a nearby rack, patting down her hair while her wings spread wide in either direction, shaking off a torrent of water that splatters all over me. I know my metal fingers wouldn’t be very effective at wiping off my eyes, so how am I supposed to dry them? I… I have a drying process I’m just not really sure… woaaaah there it goes why are my eyes buzzing? Or my optical sensors or whatev… uh. Huh. all the water just kinda fell off. So instead of just blinking or whatever my fucking eyeballs purr? Wonderful. At least I don’t have tiny windshield wipers on my face.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Oh, and now that I can see again it would seem that Melpomene has one foot up on the rim of the tub so she can dry her still-naked legs off right in front of me. My power reserves have increased to—no, oh my god, no, shut up.

“Am I right?” Melpomene asks me idly. “Are you one of what my people call the Antipathy?”

What? I… no, of course not. I shake my head.

“Hmm. Really?” Melpomene scowls, her eyes narrowing. “Are you a Preserver, then? Caught by your enemy?”

What does… does she really not know? I shake my head again.

“…Do you expect me to believe you’re human?” Melpomene growls.

I nod. Yes. Yes, you bitch! What happened? How did you create me without knowing—

“Liar!” Melpomene roars, my senses flicking into overdrive as her hand lunges for my throat. Do I dodge, or… no. I can’t. If she wants to hurt me, I have to let her. Her clawed fingers catch me, wrapping around my neck and thrusting my back into the closest wall. It doesn’t hurt; the wall takes more damage than I do. Melpomene growls at me, her eyes mad. Her face is so close to mine. Her naked body stands right in front of me, warm, heaving breaths brushing against my face. It’s so hard to focus on anything else that I’m not even afraid.

“You are not human,” she hisses at me, her tail lashing violently behind her. “You aren’t now. You never were. There was another soul trapped inside that artifact. I know this. So are you Antipathy or Preserver? Which monster are you!?”

I just stare at her, not having anything else to do since the answer is neither. With Melpomene holding me up to meet her eyes, my legs dangle without touching the floor. I can’t try to escape, so maybe this silence can be my little revenge. Hell, if I’m embracing the futility of resistance anyway, there are worse things than being strangled by a hot naked lady. I don’t even need to breathe anymore, so I could do this all day.

“Answer me!” Melpomene orders.

Ha. Hahahahaha. I bring up a single finger and wipe it across the spot where my mouth should be. Sorry boss, can’t comply.

Her fingers tighten around my throat (not tight enough; pressure is nearly a full order of magnitude below chassis tolerance) but before she can yell at me again a knock rings out from the door. Melpomene drops me, and I land easily on my feet, moving to my position to the side of and slightly behind her. She glowers at me, causing an instinctive discomfort to pulse through me. She’s unhappy. I failed at something.

Clearly, she must be mad that I couldn’t answer her. I’ll have to figure out a way to communicate so I can never fail her again, right?

“…Come in,” Melpomene says after taking a moment to compose herself.

I was expecting Thea, but the crimson eyes and crystal-tipped ears of Nanaya are what I see instead, with what looks to be a bathrobe draped over her forearm.

“Melpomene,” Nanaya greets her flatly. “Thea said you were finished.”

“I am indeed,” Melpomene confirms, but before she’s even done talking Nanaya is summoning a magic circle into the air. With a wave of her hand, Nanaya telekinetically lifts the lingering moisture off of Melpomene’s body, off the floor, and even out of the towel Melpomene was using to dry herself and drops it back into the tub.