Chapter 9 #3
“We’ll do nothing until the Fematrix has been secured,” I order.
I don’t want a shuttle going up and being swatted away, killing whoever is inside.
My little human mate has the protection of a mechanical goddess with her own sentience, and while I may not understand how the hell that happened, I do know that the creature is protective of her in the extreme. There is danger in all directions here.
I do allow the juniors to assemble scaffolding, which goes up relatively quickly and gets me somewhat closer to Evie, within shouting distance.
“I’m not coming down,” Evie yells to me as I get up the equivalent of several stories. “I like it up here. I’ll get hungry eventually, but right now I am not, and you were being mean to me!”
She is on her hands and knees at the edge of the Fematrix’s hand. I want to tell her to go back, but I also want to keep eyes on her. One flex of that giant’s fingers and she could be crushed in an instant.
“I was not being mean to you. I was disciplining you.”
“How dare you discipline me? I can do what I want!”
I take a moment to digest that clearly inaccurate statement that runs contrary to literally everything I have ever taught her about being with me.
“You don’t want to do what you want. You get soaked with need whenever I so much as raise a brow at you and promise you the lightest correction. You’re acting out because you didn’t like being told you had to stay in bed. You’re being a spoiled, petulant…”
“Is it fun yelling at a girl who has a killer robot for a best friend?” She shouts the provocation down at me, thoroughly enjoying the fact that I can’t get hold of her.
First I lost control of Drak, and now Evie has followed.
The ratio of people who want to behave to those who want to act out is too damn high.
I’m not sure if I haven’t been harsh enough with them, or if I’m supposed to have been more lenient.
I am not feeling lenient in the slightest in this moment.
“Come down, or I am going to spank you so hard you cry the entire time I fuck you afterward.”
There’s a long pause while she considers the darkness of that threat. I’m considering making good on it. She can’t stay with the machine forever. She has to come down. She has to eat. She has to go to the toilet.
“If I have to wait you out, then you will regret it, my little mate.”
“I don’t even know how to come down!” she shouts back down to me. “God, you don’t let me do anything fun. I’m not allowed to get out of bed. I’m not allowed to have my head pulled off and stuck in a space robot. You’re kind of controlling!”
She’s being silly. I can see the smirk on her face. She thinks this is amusing, because of course she does. She’s in danger, and all that occurs to her is how this might get a reaction from me.
“If I come down, you have to promise not to punish me again!”
“I promise no such thing. You are pregnant. Come down from there.”
“Being pregnant doesn’t mean I can’t be at elevation,” she calls back down.
She knows she is making this worse, but she doesn’t care, because she never cares about consequences until they happen to her, and then she is shocked by them.
“This isn’t funny and it isn’t cute,” I growl back. “You can come down with a ladder. We’re working on getting one up there now.”
“Then why have you been yelling at me to come down this whole time? Did you want me to jump?”
“I wanted you to ask the machine to put you down, but there’s no way you’re going to ask that. You’re enjoying it far too much.”
“Are you going to punish her for rescuing me?”
“How would I even start to do that?”
“I don’t know! You’re inventive!”
“I am not going to punish the Fematrix,” I promise her. “Yours is the only ass I intend to spank red and yours is the only…”
Drak chooses that moment to appear through the hole in the wall. He stands there looking very self-satisfied as he decides to speak up.
“Would you please refrain from shouting erotic profanity in front of the entire workforce?” Drak drawls. “I know your little punishment kink is the pretty much the only personality trait you have, but…”
I flex my hands into fists. “I have time to fight you before she gets down, if that’s what you want,” I say. “I need to discharge some of this before she gets down.”
“Relax. The Fematrix has been calmed,” he says. “She’s in a stasis mode right now. I’ve ensured that your mate is safe.”
“She’s not safe, she’s still hundreds of feet in the air. Why didn’t you get the robot to put her down?”
“Because the potential for something to get crushed if the Fematrix lowers its hand toward a solid surface like that of the asteroid is too damn high,” he growls.
“I’m looking after your blasted mate, who, by the way, would be perfectly safe if we’d left her brain in the machine.
Instead, nooo, we have to put her consciousness in the squishy biological suit that will degrade with surprising swiftness. ”
He is helping, and I suppose I could be grateful for that, but he is also an interstellar asshole and he can really go fuck himself.
“Do you know what you need?” Drak says.
“What?”
“You need to get back to war. You were never a businessman, and you were certainly never a boss. You mentor the juniors like a warrior, and you handle the girl like a conqueror. You should be back in a fighter vessel and you know it.”
“Maybe, but that’s not going to change how I want to handle you or her.”
“It would take the edge off. All this tension because our creation punched a hole in the wall and made off with your mate? It’s not that big a deal.
In fact, it indicates we’ve managed to fabricate an independent intellect that can connect with another brain outside itself and maintain that connection without physical, uh, connection.
The point is, either the Fematrix has consciousness, or your mate has control of it. ”
“You think that’s a good thing? We were having enough trouble with one independent intellect,” I sigh.
I am starting to calm down now. She is not going anywhere. The Fematrix has been holding her steady since she took her. I was concerned that we’d have to recall the creature from across the universe again, but the machine is under control. The only thing that is not in control is Evie.
* * *
Evie
In the end, I have to come down. Arkon is getting increasingly annoyed, and on top of that I am starting to get hungry and need to pee.
I listen to him and Drak arguing. I can’t hear all the words. I can’t actually hear most of them, but I get the gist anyway. I was never supposed to have real control of the Fematrix. Which is strange, because they spent a lot of time ensuring I had total control of the Fematrix.
I can see the others down on the ground below, looking a little like ants from up here.
The way they move about with six limbs is actually quite cute when seen from this angle.
They’re trying to work out how to attach ladders together to get to me.
Seems to me they’re going to have to try from the hole in the building I was taken out of, but they seem to prefer working on it from the ground. Engineers do be engineering.
“Evie!” Arkon shouts out to me.
“Uh-huh?”
“We’re going to have a ladder up to you soon. Don’t climb down it. Let me come up to you, okay?”
“I can climb down a ladder, Arkon.”
“I didn’t ask if you could, I told you not to!”
I really don’t know why I am provoking him. Maybe some part of me wants to see what happens when he reaches the limits of his patience and just straight up ravages me.
I look down at him, smirking. I’m lying on my stomach now, actually quite comfortable. I trust the Fematrix not to hurt me the same way I trust my own foot to suddenly not kick me. We are parts of one another.
“You can’t control me now,” I say. “I have the world’s biggest robot friend. You’re nothing compared to her.”
A ladder is extended up to me, and, to my surprise, the Fematrix lowers her massive hand enough that getting onto the ladder isn’t as bad as it could be. She wants to keep me safe. I think she has realized that Arkon is not a threat. He’s just a stern pain in the ass.
“Stay there!” Arkon calls. “I’m coming up to you.”
But I already started climbing down, so I just keep doing that. I know I’m testing him, and I really don’t know why, because I also know he really means what he is saying. He is going to absolutely whip my ass for not behaving, and it’s almost like I want it.
He comes up the ladder fast, grabs me with his two topmost arms and pulls me securely against his body. I snuggle up to him in spite of my rebellious words. It feels good to be held.
“Why is nothing simple with you, hmm?” He murmurs the question in my ear as we reach the ground. “Why can’t you listen to one single instruction?” He gives my ass a spank with a spare hand, making me yelp.
“That is nothing compared to what you are about to get,” he promises me in deep tones.
Quite a crowd has gathered, because the Fematrix is fascinating and not usually anywhere near this available. She is still looming over the whole compound, looking incredibly beautiful and astonishing.
She withdraws slowly when she is assured I am safe, retreating back into space with all the gentle demeanor of a setting moon sliding below the horizon of the asteroid.
I’m on my own again. Until the next time I need her.
“I am taking you home,” he says. “And you are going to be good for me, aren’t you?”
“Probably not,” I say, full of sass I can’t seem to contain.
“Oh, you will be,” he says. “I intend to make you.”
He looks around at the others. “Back to work, please. We’ll need to repair that hole.”
* * *