Revelation

The silence that followed The Supplier’s revelation was heavy, broken only by the hum of the server racks and the rhythmic whir of the 3D printer. He watched her, waiting for the break. He expected tears. He expected her to scream in denial or slump over in defeat, crushed by the weight of her violation. Instead, Rikki let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding for weeks. Her shoulders dropped. The tension in her jaw unspooled. She looked up at him, and for the first time since the "accident" in the alley, her eyes weren't cloudy with confusion or shame. They were clear and sharp.

"You..." she started, her voice raspy but steady. "You think telling me that is supposed to break me?"

The Supplier paused, his head tilting slightly. "It should. You’re a puppet, Rikki. You have no agency. You’re nothing."

"No," Rikki said, a dry, jagged laugh bubbling up from her chest. "You arrogant prick. You just set me free."

She pulled against the restraints, sitting up straighter.

"I thought I was weak," she said, her voice gaining strength. "I thought I had gone insane. I hated myself."

She looked at him, and her lips curled into a fierce, dangerous smile.

"But it wasn't me. It was you. Yes I've made mistakes but I can learn from them. I can grow.”

The self-loathing that had been drowning her evaporated, in its place, a cold, focused rage ignited.

The Supplier stepped back, unnerved by the shift in her demeanor. "Your psychology is irrelevant. I still control your physiology. I could have you on all fours sucking me off for hours if I wanted to slut.” The Supplier pulled the tablet out and began typing a command into it.

Rikki closed her eyes, blocking out the Supplier and focussing on herself. Nanobots, that's how he was doing this. She turned her senses inward. Her mother had taught her that sound wasn't just noise; it was vibration. Everything in the universe vibrated. Atoms, glass, concrete and metal.

Most people believed her sound powers only worked outward, that she could project, shatter, silence, deafen. But she could also turn them inward. She sent vibrations throughout her body, trying different frequencies until finally she found them, the nanobots and the exact pitch for them to vibrate and shatter. It wasn't a scream. It was a weapon and it was vibrating her entire body.

​​The vibrations were agonizing. It felt like she was gargling broken glass. The vibration tore through her own throat, vibrating her teeth, rattling her skull. ​But the effect was instant. Inside Rikki’s veins, she felt a burning sensation, like carbonation bubbling violently under her skin. It hurt, a searing heat as the nanobots vibrated, shattered, and dissolved into inert microscopic scrap. But it was a good pain. It was the pain of a fever breaking.

"System error," The Supplier muttered, frustration creeping into his synthesized voice. "Why aren't you responding? I'm sending the command."

Rikki snapped her eyes open. She didn't look at The Supplier; she looked through him, visualizing the millions of tiny machines swarming in his blood, identical to the ones in hers. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity. She opened her mouth and unleashed a sound that was barely audible to the human ear. It wasn't a roar but a piercing, ultra-high-frequency screech, perfectly pitched to destroy the nanobots. The effect was instantaneous.

The Supplier dropped the tablet. He clapped his hands over his ears, arching his back as a scream of his own tore through his voice modulator. He’d relied on the nanobots for his strength, his healing and his interface. Sparks erupted from his silver mask. He fell to his knees, clawing at his face, throwing the mask aside.

"Stop!" he shrieked but Rikki pushed harder. She pushed the frequency higher, louder, turning her voice into a sonic drill.

CRACK.

The glass of the 3D printer shattered. The lights overhead blew out, showering them in sparks. And finally, the restraints holding Rikki’s wrists, controlled by the same electronic network, short-circuited. The locks disengaged with a dull clunk. Rikki cut the scream abruptly.