The End

“So, that’s it then?” Richard said. His body ached too. The session had pushed them all to their limits. “That’s done? We’re just going to let her go after this? Say she’s learned her lesson?”

“Well, not exactly,” Kara admitted. “We’ll need to observe her for a while and see if the programming takes. But from the way she was acting, I’m already pretty sure it did. We’ll give her a week or two. If she doesn't give us any reason to doubt, we can say it’s a success.”

“Then we just dump her in some town? Give her what, some money and hope she can make a living for herself?”

“She’s a machinist,” Kara reminded him. “We’re always in demand. She’ll find some small shop or workplace that needs a new hand and work her way up through the ranks. Trust me, she’s good at what she does. Not quite as good as me, but close. What other choice do we have? You want to keep her forever?”

Before this, he’d have said no for sure. But during their session, he’d started to enjoy himself in a way that he never had with Kara. He cared about Kara, loved her. He didn’t want to really hurt her. Everything he said and did was carefully calculated. It was all part of the game and the game had hard boundaries.

With Isabel, he didn’t care about that. He could go full out. Do whatever he wanted and if it hurt, well, so what? She deserved it. She’d inflicted a lot more pain on a lot more people than he could ever do to her even if he tried.

He could very easily see himself coming to enjoy having her as a helpless, willing pain-slut.

But that wasn’t the sort of man he wanted to be. He could play games of control and dominance with Kara all day and love it. The dame had woken something in him he didn’t even know he had! But he wouldn’t be the sort of man who kept a real sex ****. And he wasn’t going to feed his sadistic side with willing prey.

“We’ll send her off,” he said. “ We’ve played our games, we’ve had our fun and we’ve taught her a lesson. Now it’s time for it to end or we’re no better than she was.”

“I suppose that's fair,” Kara said. There was something in her voice that made Richard give her a second look.

“You don’t think that’s a good idea?”

“Oh, it’s not that,” she replied. “I think you’re right. As soon as we’re sure, we should send her out into the world. It’s just… I’m not sure she’ll stay away.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just call it it a hunch.”

“A hunch, eh? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Not exactly,” she said slo0wly.

It’s not that I am not telling you, master, Kara added to herself. It’s just that I don’t know how to. I knew Isabel before she got all twisted, and with the programming digging out her old personality, I probably have a better handle on her than you do. I don’t think she wants to go anywhere. I think that she’ll find her way back to us. I think part of her wants to be punished and not just because of what she did.

I think she likes it.

And part of Kara - a small, dark part that she would admit the existence of only to herself - would be more than happy when she came crawling back. And it suspected that Richard would too.

The two of them could keep Isabel under control, and together the three of them would be able to play and have fun, and she would have her master and her best friend back all in one.

She just had to wait.

“Now once we drop her off, what’re we doing?” Richard asked, unaware of her thoughts. “ I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty tired of this place. Love the aesthetic, but there’s only so much you can do with ‘’abandoned ruin on rainy hill.’’ There’s gotta be more than this.”

“Actually, there is,” Kara shot him a tight little smile. “I got a message the other day. From an old friend.”

“Old friend? You didn’t tell me you let anyone know we were here.”

“I didn’t. That’s part of what makes it so interesting. Ever hear of Kal-Mona?”

Richard blinked.

“Kal-Mona? City of gold and sand? During the war, they broke the ninth army and for the last five years, they’ve been trying to put together an alliance of city-states and it’s got the empire sweating?”

“You’re well informed, master.” Kara’s eyes sparkled with humour at her teasing tone.

“Of course I am,” Richard grinned, the two of them were by now moving back towards the living area. “I know mercenaries don’t get much respect but you gotta know who’s gonna hire you. I’ve worked for Kal-Mona before. They pay well and don’t treat you like dirt.”

“Well, well, master, I’m impressed. Well, the prince of Kal-Mona is an old contact of mine, and it seems they have a problem. A very specific sort of problem that they don’t want to get out.”

“The kind that needs to be solved as fast and as quietly as possible?”

“Exactly so.”

“All right, I’m game. What’s the problem? Spies? Politics? Courtroom drama and backstabbing for the throne?”

“Automatons.”

“Oh,” Richard made a face, “joy. And here I thought after Pump, we’d get a break from those.”

“Well, we’re not fighting them. Not exactly. They’ve just…stopped.”

“They’ve stopped?”

“Every automaton in the city has just stopped. They’re standing exactly where they were. They’re still active. As far as the city can tell, they’re not broken and are still aware. They’re just choosing not to respond to anyone or anything. Even direct orders.”

“Now, I’m not a scientist,” Richard said, “and I damn well don’t think I’m some genius. But that sounds to me like something which shouldn’t be possible. Didn’t you tell me obedience was hard-coded?”

“It is. Pump was the exception. Isabel broke him free on purpose, and frankly, it took someone of her skill to even have the chance to do that. The same thing happening to a whole city at once? No way, that’s just not possible.”

“Then what are we looking at?”

“That’s the fun part. We don’t know yet. Until we arrive and get a chance to look at them, I couldn’t even start to guess. But you know the empire and Kal-Mona are still technically at war, right? Automatons make up a big portion of their standing army. If the empire figures it out, well, how long do you think it will be before they try their luck?”

Richard made a face.

“This is not what I expected to be dealing with right away. But you’re loving this, aren’t you, girl? I can see it in your face!”

“Of course!” Kara laughed. “It’s a mystery! It’s something that shouldn’t be possible! It’s a dangerous job on a tight schedule, with the clock running towards a bloody, stupid outcome if we can’t get to the bottom of it. Fix the automatons, figure out why it happened or risk a war?”

She turned to him, her body crackling with energy and life. Her green eyes sang and her smile was at once mischievous and full.

“Richard, this is what I live for!”

The sort of thing she was describing would have sounded like a nightmare to him only a month ago. Who would want to be caught between a city and an empire, feeling the burden of a coming war? Knowing that your actions would make or break the future for everyone around you?

But with Kara there, he just didn’t feel like they could fail.

He realised he was smiling too.

“Well,” he said, “When do we leave?”