A Wound That Would Never Heal

Ash Nazg's Letter to Rowana
01 / 06 / 2120 F.A.

Ro,

When I came into the bathroom this morning, Bob grabbed my ass. I let Bob get a good grope in as I brushed my teeth, then swatted the hand away to take a piss. It is amazing how easy it is to get used to things. When I first felt Bob's arms slide against me in the dark, I was scared. Alert. Ready for ****. Except Bob never hurt us. Bob just likes to touch. Anything and anyone in reach. A handful of ass or boob and Bob is happy.

Bob sings when happy. Strange, wordless songs that echo throughout the house.

Bebe has been teaching Bob how to jerk him off. He's in here now, ass against the sink, letting those strange four-fingered hands stroke his dick. It's really cute how he pokes out his tusks when he's trying to hold off, but Bob slides another hand down to fondle his balls and Bebe is nearly ready to explode. I admit, the scent gets me excited. That and the sight of that small dark thumb running over Bebe's swollen green glans. Over and over. Bringing him to the brink.

Looseleaf and the other hacker, Carvedinstone, are planning a trip down here to get Bob. The Dwarf wants to take Bob back up north with her. They say we're rich. That Drake Industries is imploding, and now the United Megacorp is investigating them, and they stole a bunch of their movie.

I don't know. We don't feel rich. Bebe and I still don't have SINs, so we can't see or spend the credits. Looseleaf says she's working on that.

Sometimes I like to tease Bebe with what we'll do when you're well.

"You know you should save that up," I tell him in the Black Speech of the tribes as Bob gurgles happily. "When Rowana awakes, we're going to use you as our stud, and I want those balls full!"

"I thought you c-couldn't..." Bebe said, eyes crossed, hands with a white-knuckle grip on the sink as the pre-cum spilled over the Nameless Thing's small knuckles. "Until they hacked your birth control implant."

"I can't," I said back from the toilet. "It's still locked. But once the hackers get here..."

Bob began to sing in Matrix-speech. I don't know whether Bob understood us. I know that Bebe can't hear him. Yet I could. In my head implants. Wireless transmission, his implants bypassing my neural port completely. The song was a long piercing note that stabbed into my skull and ripped down my spine and made me piss myself immediately. Like the time they broke my hymen during training. That sudden pain and violation. The sense of something bigger than the space available tore through me. Then it was gone, and what was left was a wound that would never heal.

It was briefer and more intense than when Looseleaf had tried to crack my system. The memories, the training, the system access—it came back all at once.

Bebe never missed a stroke. His hips bucked, burst fat globs of jizz onto the floor. I don't know how long I sat there; long enough for my ass to go numb, for me to come—back to myself. To who I had been.

I remembered what happened to the rest of my cohort. We were the prototypes, the first generation. Never meant for field use. Trained as assassins, as honeypots, but expendable. Imperfect. Broken from the first. Not strong enough, not fast enough, not loyal enough. The others in my cohort were taken away and never seen again. I was the last. I saw them growing the next batch, when they **** me in the van...the ones they were training based on what they learned from us.

When I stood up, there was blood in the toilet bowl. My period has started. I can feel the controls now. Tracking my fertility. Days to ovulation. Bebe's nostrils twitched as he cleaned up the jizz. I think he can smell the difference in me now.

Bob grabbed my ass as I stumbled out of the bathroom. I didn't swat the hand away. Just kept walking, until the arm couldn't stretch anymore, and retreated back into the small watery bed.

I think we'll miss Bob when Bob is gone.

• Ash Nazg